smcdow

Speaking from a government contracting point of view: Nobody is going to pay you to rewrite existing code that's already working. Nobody. The customer doesn't give a flying shit about the implementation. He'd be happy with a box of diodes as an implementation, as long as it worked and came in on time and on budget.

When you're writing up your proposal for a contract or a grant, the theme should always be that you're "adding capabilities" (which should be well-defined and constrained) to the existing codebase. If you get the money, then you've got carte blanche to rewrite to your heart's content - just don't tell the customer that this is what you're doing. Just make sure that those new capabilities indeed make it into the re-write and that you introduce no regressions in the new code.

Depends on how similar the domains are. Stacks are vastly different in companies working in disparate domains -- I've worked as a software engineer in C4ISR, gaming, EDA, oil & gas, HFT, remote sensing, consumer electronics, and more. The stacks couldn't be more different & foreign from each other. Like living in different universes. Six months to learn all the moving parts is about right.

(I can't imagine a career in only one domain; how boring would that be? Hopefully will be getting a new job in HPC soon.)

Gerrymandering is an issue. Please see https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/map, and zoom in on Austin.

Austin is a part of the following Congressional districts: TX-21, TX-25, TX-31, TX-17, TX-10, & TX-35. Of these districts, only one (TX-35) is Democratic.

On the other hand, Lamar Smith (TX-21) is one of the Representatives for the Bluest city in the state.

No surprise there. Does anyone think of the Bay Area as anything more than a way station in life?

Yeah, well... we all make our choices. We, as Americans, have made the choice to live in a market economy, replete with all its pros and cons.

I see no problem here.

Maybe you'd have more interest if you wrote up a proper RFC.

> That's something like $10-20k per year, at most.

You are obviously not married.

> Which means you really only need to work 2ish days a week.

And where do you find these unicorn jobs where you work only two days per week?

1. Interesting, except the part where Flexjobs wants you to pay to look at job listings. Primary indication of a scam.

2. Yes, it is super-easy to get a visa to work in the UK or EU.

> Surely the most direct way of buying time is by taking a pay cut in exchange for more time off, or even taking unpaid time off.

We don't get those choices. I tried for YEARS to engineer a long-term part-time career in the software industry, and I couldn't get it to happen. I'm perfectly happy to trade more free time for less money, but there are just no takers out there. The industry isn't interested.

As far as taking unpaid time off -- usually, that happens after you've quit your previous job and before you've started the next one.

> You will work a lot more than you would if you just did things for yourself.

Nonsense. I would work no more nor no fewer hours in a given year regardless of whether I hired a plumber or mechanic. In fact, given that I won't adjust my work hours either way, then hiring people gives me more free time.

I may (or not) have a smaller bank balance, but that appears to be beside the point you're trying to make.

I would expect his target audience doesn't spend much time on the internet.

Can't wait to read the n-gate webshit weekly entry on this one.

So, then how do you explain Red Hat's $11.5B valuation?

Freelancing is good if you want to work 40+ hours per week for a limited duration, and then perhaps take some time off before the next job.

What I wanted is 20-25 hours per week indefinitely (and with job security).

For cost of home ownership, Austin beats LA hands down.

> You can't have more money, AND fewer hours/more vacation.

Here's the thing, though. We don't even get a choice. I tried for YEARS to engineer a long-term part-time career in the software industry, and I couldn't get it to happen. I'm perfectly happy to trade more free time for less money, but there are just no takers out there. The industry isn't interested.

> turning off the GC in the JVM

very common in the HFT world

I don't have the time to learn a new language that doesn't expose POSIX/Linux APIs. I may never use them, but I want them there in case I need them. You never know.

Thanks for the reply.

1. That removes all the joy of cooking for and hosting my guests. The point is to bring them into my home; to make them feel welcome and comfortable. Not to mention that picking up the tab for that many people would be prohibitively expensive.

2. That probably would work well in locations with a nice climate. In Texas, not so much. Maybe a couple of months out of the year. The 95ºF temperatures at 8pm don't bother me all that much because I grew up here, but a lot of people who recently moved here have a problem with it. Kind of a non-starter.

I really like the idea of tiny houses, but it's looking like, given my priorities, they're not for me.

Honest question here: What do you do when you want to have eight or ten or twelve people over for dinner?

In case anybody asks: yes, this is something I do on a regular basis.

Look around in the EDA field.

What's wrong with that? Soylent is _disgusting_, that's what's wrong with it. It would be hard not to question the judgement of anyone who eats that stuff.

Or, more likely, because they're behind the eight ball.

Still waiting on a formal way to denote namespaces in bash

Love this, good work. Some suggestions (these are my own little quirks):

- (desktop) Zooming is on the cursor, rather than on the crosses at the center. Don't know if that's a maps thing or not. Kind of annoying to position location on the center, then zooming to where ever the cursor happened to be.

- would love it if it showed the duration of the day (HH:MM:SS) (in addition to the time of day for sunrise and sunset), and also the duration between {astronomical, nautical, civil} dawn and dusk.

All that being said, this is a really good app.

Getting a little off topic here, but if you're a US "person" subject to US taxes, then those pension payments can be taxable. http://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/international-tax-p...

If you google around, you can find stories of long-time ex-pats getting blindsided by the taxes associated with those pensions.

yes, write once, lag everywhere.

Brillant, simply.

Curious as to how you would set up a DMA transaction in any of those languages? If you're doing system programming, you'll need to do DMA.