Recent blog entries for scottyo

It's been over six years since I visited. Glad to see the place is still up and running. I'm still teaching at the small college mentioned in my previous post. I'm also building an airplane in my garage (and basement). I've been working on it for about 3 years now. Should finish it up during 2007. Still doing Linux stuff too.

Wow!

I am finally employed.

It was really nice to really want a job for a change...
and even nicer to actually get the job I really wanted!!

Upstate NY, here we come!!

(For those of you following along, it is a teaching position at
a 4 year private Liberal Arts College. I must be there by 8-24,
and there is so much to do...but I just had to say something.)

btw,

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slow period here on advogato. Have you noticed? Whenever you are tempted to say "Is it just me or is everyone..." that it's usually everyone. Do we really ebb and flow like that? Probably not.

No job yet.

Off to cook supper. Toodle.

Geck!! I had use that word 4 times in my post. Somebody gimme some soap. blechhh.....

A thought on the current discussion on the economics of free software:
In answering the "why people write free software," some are comparing it to art, some to science. It occured to me that maybe one reason it's hard to peg is because nothing that came before can compare. It's its own new creature. In the future perhaps someone will try to come up with a reason for a new endeavor and say "it's like writing free software."

No energy to flesh this out for a post. If you read it feel free to expand...

Two job interviews last week. Both went well - I think. No offers yet. Sure hope I'm not suffering a real disconnect with reality here...

Tip of the month:
Don't help raise circus tents, period.

Job Search:
I've got an interview. A real, in-person, make-a-presentation interview. Yay!

Other:
Checking out OpenSRS. But who cares?

I've got an interview!

Job Search:
Well, it's back to college circuit. I hope I have better luck there...

Toilet Economics:
We buy a generic toilet paper (Always Save). When we picked it up at the store last week, the yellow wrapper had a little stripe on it that said "New and Improved!" I mentioned to my partner that we needed to check the old packages to see by just how much they "improved it". Well, they shrank each roll by 20% (350 sheets down to 280). What that means is now we have to buy 5 packages to get the same amount of TP as 4 packages provided before. The price of a package is the same, so that amounts to a 25% cost increase!!! And they had the gall to stamp "New and Improved" on the package. That is just pure evil. The "economists" don't factor in shit like that when they calculate rates of inflation. Unfortunately, the shit will eventually hit the fan, and nobody will notice in time, that there isn't enough toilet paper....

Job Search:
I reiterate: There is no fucking IT worker shortage. If there were, I would have a job by now. The true shortage is in intelligent Human Resource personnel....

Python:
Python is really cool. I am reimplementing my numttt data structures to use dictionaries a little more. I may never get this done, but it at least helps pass the time....

Here's a fun python "gotcha":

>>> spam = "spam"
>>> L = ['s', 'p', 'a', 'm']
>>> for letter in L:
. . .        if letter in spam:
. . .                  L.remove(letter)
. . .
>>> print L
['p', 'm']

(It might more appropriately be called a python "well, DUH"... ;)