The NYT allows you to view up to 20 (I think - not sure of number, could be 10) stories per month for free. So you don't have to scam the paywall. And, I don't think if this is still the case, but. . .when the paywall was first erected, if you were directed to the NYT from another site, the story you accessed did not count against your free monthly quota.
The sites that I skip are those that require that I register before even reading an article.
It's not as bad as you think. The submitting member only gets the submission upvotes. The comment upvotes go the individual commenters. So d1egoaz only got 791 points.
a slight tangent, but. . .a few years ago I interviewed (internally) for a dev/mgr position for the group I was currently working in (not team lead - I was already a team lead). I would still be coding at least 50% of the time. I was already reporting to the hiring manager and was physically located in close proximity to him, so he saw me frequently throughout the day.
For the interview, I dressed as I always did - and we were not a suit type of place. At the start of the interview, he told me he was disappointed that I had not dressed up. I was stunned but did not respond and the interview proceeded.
I got the job and after a couple of weeks, I asked him why he wanted me to dress up for the interview. I asked if it was simply because he wanted to know if I could dress appropriately for the customer. He replied that was'nt it; he just though it would show appropriate respect for him and the position.
I though "this is reason # 102 why I really didn't want to move up the chain closer to you".
Interesting perspective that I had never thought of. . .I totally get it. . .but I still enjoy the show, only now I may feel guilty about it. Maybe I was so nerdy/naive I never perceived that the audience could be laughing more at them than with them. And honestly, I've been wishing we could see less of Penny. I get why Leonard is supposed to pine after Penny, but I keep thinking "get over her and move on to someone better". . .And I'm speaking as a female nerd.
I've had a couple of engagements that went well. And I've been invited to bid on some team engagements that appeared to be well defined, well managed, and well structured. But the customer "required" 40 hr/week and paid "okay", but not well enough to suck up 40 hours of my week. I would have considered it if it had been deliverable-based rather than time-based.
But, as the other commenters have stated, most of the jobs pay too little, require immediate turnaround and/or have initial scopes which turn out to be poorly though-out.
Not sure what you mean by "coded" tests, but I agree that most bugs can be found during development - unfortunately, my experience is that that's rarely the case. But if your development team finds most bugs during development, my hat's off to you.
I've worked with African developers and an currently working with a couple. The ones that I know started out with an agency and then eventually gained green card status and were able to get hired independently of the agency. The potential problem with going the agency route, as I informally understand it, is that no matter how disatisfied you may be become with your agency, you are stuck with them until you are able to apply for a green card - and that could be a pretty long time.
I agree with all that you said except the lesson from the military about never complaining down - depending on how how you define "complain". For example, if you've been "given" a very agressive development schedule, my experience has been that it's fair - even appreciated by your team - that you state, succinctly and matter-of-factly, that you believe that the schedule is more agressive than is optimal and that you either 1) argued unsuccessfully against it or 2) argued with partial sucess against the original, more agressive schedule, so there is a partial win. And then comes the positivity. . ."we need to work together to figure out how to meet this schedule with minimal risk". This is what I did as a manager, when applicable, and what I appreciated as a team member listening to my manager.
And I worked for the military for a while - as a civilian - and I observed various leadership styles among the officers and various levels of receptiveness among those they were leading. They knew that they needed to salute and carry on with the job, whether they agreed with the plan or not, but they still appreciated the acknowledgement that the plan they were about to carry out was not perfect but was the best that it could be, given the constraints.
I don't know your age, but what works for you now may not work for you as you get older. And many people exercise not because of how it makes them look but because of how it makes them feel; in fact, for many people who exercise, their appearance changes very little, if at all. And some people find that exercise helps mitigate chronic illnesses such as MS, hypertension, depression, asthma. . .or at least the symptoms thereof.
I think one of the first things the college boys are taught now - or should be - is that one of the first things they should do is talk to the low-level folks on the floor. Even if they don't have the solution, they often have information/experience that can inform the solution or even better, what the real problem is. And this applies not only to factory floors, but to any "system" made up of people and processes (equipment optional).
As an engineering major, I did a few co-op assignments in a factory. I was assigned the task of figuring out how to optimize a particular line in the factory - we had new equipment coming in and were considering retrofitting some of the other equipment. The folks working on the floor told me how much they appreciated that I spoke with them and got their input rather than simply coming down with my "stopwatch and measuring tape."
Now I'm on the other side of the line <sigh>. And I'm sick of management and/or experts trying figure out how to improve morale and processes without consulting those of us in the trenches.
I confess. . .I'm one of those parents - almost. No, I'm not nearly as old as your parents and my kids are much younger than you all, but. . .my kids don't understand how I could have worked - literally - as a rocket scientist (well, engineer). . .but still struggle sometimes with consumer devices. I have no problem with web apps. . .coding and testing. . .but consumer devices are not my forte.
The user interfaces and interfaces between the devices do not seem at all intuitive to me. And learning those particular tech intricacies does not pique my curiosity; I just want to use the tools. So I just hand the devices off to my young kids, nieces and nephews and say "show me how to do blah-blah".
Interesting.. .I had never considered the parallels between (technical) writing and coding, but this is often what happens when I write. And I guess this could be extended to include outlining vs. specs or pseudocode. . .for those who write code and/or prose in a more structured process.
And I guess some steps could/would apply to some "non-technical" writing, as well. And it's what good (in my opinion) good English teachers do, too. Thinking back to one of my favorite high school teachers (who happened to teach English) and my (college) freshman English composition instructor.
I agree except that since it's apparently been going on for a while, there's no time now to allow him to "repeatedly" fail. Ideally, this improvement plan would have already been attempted and the results of that (assuming there were repeated failures) could be included in the info provided to the Board.
At this point, he should just go directly to the Board and include his proposed improvement plan in his presentation. The co-founder has already indicated an unwillingness to change or leave; the Board should be able to force it.
I used to believe that at least the consumer market economy would start to correct itself once we reached the point where there were no longer enough gainfully employed people to buy the goods and services being offered. And that would push corporations to start to re-hire the unemployed and not slash to the bone in pursuit of astronomical quarterly gains.
But that was a very myopic, "developed" nation view. I hadn't considered the use of cheap global labor and the rise of the middle and upper classes in developing nations that would provide the necessary demand for goods and services, making the "workers" in developed nations mere surplus to be discarded/ignored. (I'm watching "A Christmas Carol" right now.)
I agree, up to a point. People with disposable income can 1) spend what's required - in time and money - to be informed and 2) be willing to spend more money, if they deem it necessary, to support those distant implications - or not. But how many people are in a position to do that? In the U.S., that number seems to be dwindling, as the middle-class shrinks. Of course, the middle-class is growing in some other countries, but. . .
My experience with some so-called "gender equality" programs is that the company will try to value my contributions equally, even though I have a vagina.
I've worked on a number of teams that were all male - other than me, of course. In some cases, I had no issues related to the fact that I'm female. In other cases, I encountered males who assumed that I was incapable of performing the job, simply because I was female - and told me so. And even when I proved myself as capable as them - or more - I was constantly challenged/tested verbally on my technical capabilities in ways that the males were not. A few people continually told me that I was hired/retained/promoted simply because I was female. . .even after I had proven myself to be as capable - or more - than they.
That's quite a mental/emotion drain that males on all/predominantly male teams don't face - at least regarding their gender. And since all/predominantly female teams are rare in tech, it's a situation that male techies will rarely, if ever face, or even need to contemplate - at least regarding their gender.
So, I would be curious because I would wonder if I might encounter sexism on the team - sexism at a level that would drain/distract me. Well, I never let it distract me, but it was certainly draining.
I'm a woman and I totally understand why another woman would want to know that. And when I've been part of an interview panel, the panel was asked that. I responded that we have a mix of genders and ethnicities.
On the flip side, I've never asked that when interviewing for a position myself, though I've always been curious; I just assumed that asking would blow my chances of getting the job. I've always assumed that the team would probably be all male. And that it could be OK for me either way, depending on the personalities and attitudes of the team.
Maybe the company that issued the card provided the email address, assuming you provided your email address whoever issued your card (Visa/MC/Amex via your bank/credit union/etc.)
The sites that I skip are those that require that I register before even reading an article.