I live in Nashville as well. All of this is true. Another point - If you have kids, most of the schools suck. Private school is very popular here for "traditionally southern" reasons.
The religion comment is very accurate, and very annoying. Even if you are religious, you may find the culture here a bit cloying.
I've been planning my escape for over a year now. :)
Something similar happened to me, but I was never provided with the "programming test".
My interview for a freelance gig was wrapping up, and the COO asked if I would be willing to "fix a few bugs in the system" to see if I were a "good fit" for the project. I asked point blank if they were asking me to do work for free. He responded that no, he was not, and that the task would take no more than 30 minutes to an hour. I said that I would be happy to take a programming test, or provide some other proof of competency, but that it's pretty non-standard to ask me to fix bugs in a system for free, especially for a limited hour freelance gig.
Up until that point, we were discussing project time lines, handing over of logins, and my number of hours of availability. I got an email the next day saying that they were going to go another direction. Likely, trying to fund some other suckers to fix their bugs for free.
Interests/Experience: Data analytics, building full stack solutions from top to bottom for could deployment, functional programming, statistics, natural language processing
Interests/Other: Music - Production, tracking, music theory, computational composition
History: Programming since the 90s (teenager), computer science degree in the 2000s, 2 years of a PhD before "dropping out", and working as a software developer the whole time.
GeekDesk provides the dimensions of the desks, the large may not be able to accommodate your existing track, as the desk hardware mounts across the underside of the desk near the back. My 'small' frame takes up about 10" from the back of the desk, so I just got a 14" humanscale track. (My desk is only 25" wide)
This is slightly imperfect, as my tray can not fully retract under the desk, but the benefit of freeing the work surface and enabling more adjustment outweighs this concern.
I just got my GeekDesk after a long and varied string of various sit/stand combinations. I opted for the small, frame only, and bought my own "butchers block" solid mape top - 48" x 25" x 1.5".
This coupled with an ergotron LX monitor mount and a humanscale keyboard tray is beyond fantastic. I can adjust everything, and I love it.
I'm not sure how this is content free. It's offering up a gateway to a discussion/criticism of a lot of crufty-methodologies. Opinionated and vulgar maybe, but it is still about software, hacking, and maybe even business.
Try to think about exiting programs that intrigue or excite you. Clone these.
Think about whether you want to write "web" applications, mobile applications, scientific applications, etc. Basically, with a background like yours, coding will be easy to "step up", you just need to commit the time and discipline to doing so. Pick something, do it, and stick with it until you're good at it.
First part of this you can do with the Zeo - They have programming API's that allow you to use a port on the Zeo for real-time data access. The rest of your requirements are up to you to provide!
Gitolite has very easy to follow instructions to get it up and running. (Hosted at Github!) Also interesting is that VPS account + Gitolite is cheaper (perhaps more practical for smallish businesses - if you're only interested in hosting git repos) than a Github account.
awesome! I was putting off ordering this while I finished reading Joy of Clojure, but the coupon code forced my hand. Thanks - Looking forward to the print copy arrival.
I've had the Zeo for about 5 days, so I can only provide feedback relative to that amount of time. It certainly SEEMS accurate with it's recording of my deep/rem/light sleep cycles. There's no way for me to really know though since I'm asleep.
I'm a data fiend, so having the data is worth more to me than the smart-wake feature. I cant speak for the WakeMate, but the Zeo will wake you up to 30 minutes before your target time if it is more optimal than your target time. I've not experienced any benefit from this so far, but like I said, only 5 days use.
The religion comment is very accurate, and very annoying. Even if you are religious, you may find the culture here a bit cloying.
I've been planning my escape for over a year now. :)