Older blog entries for scottyo (starting at number 22)

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"... ;)

I woke up thinking about why eivind's arguments on ad-filtering had stirred such a response from me. Well for those interested, it probably has to do with "not accepting guilt that is heaped upon me because I didn't fulfill someone else's flawed expectations". This is really nothing against eivind personally. In fact, I enjoy arguing ethics. For the record, the only thing like ad-filtering I use is "only accept cookies originating from same server." On the other hand, I think blanket ad-filtering is a great idea!

I do think that the current banner-ad-supported revenue model for many online sites is a temporary experiment that will probably fail for most, and eventually be abandoned as a valid model. I don't have a solution, but I would suspect that in the future, once the internet's novelty has worn off, sites that must directly generate revenue to survive will survive by subscription. (One idea for implementation would be for a site to offer a full-access time-limited trial subscription.) The content on such sites will have to be of high enough quality to sustain a large enough subscriber base. There are several I would subscibe to, including this one.

Update:

Coloc ISP has fixed problems. Determined tech support, at least. That's good.

Still no job, and I guess I won't be getting that interview with Linuxcare. The IT worker tech shortage is a myth. The only shortage is of perl and java programmers. I really don't like perl. Guess I may have to dig into java.

Speaking of Linuxcare, I'm glad to see lilo back. Sorry about the job. Glad you found a silver lining...

NPR just reminded me that the planets are aligning today. The dawning of new age?.....
The reporter ended his story with: "Maybe we are spending too much time staring at screens, and too little staring up at the heavens..."

Maybe so.