.....and that my friend, is why I'm terrified of the Future.

I read. I read a lot. And while the contextual quality of my choices might not be on par with War and Peace, it doesn't change the fact that I spend a good portion of my day soaking up information. If one was to follow the vast majority of my web-surfing, my technophilia would be apparent to even the most casual observer. I care about all things computer related, be it solid state hard drives, new graphics cards, or alternate OSs, and I honestly feel as a generation (ours and the ones following us), technology is so infused into every aspect of our lives, that it has become an external appendage to our natural bodies.

We use technology in such a natural way, we don't really stop to consider the ramifications of our usage in the eyes of the casual observer, the uninformed, and especially the technophobe. I'm speaking of the proverbial "The Man" here, as he has evolved in my mind over the last decade, from the upper class suit who kept the working man down (or so I've been told), to the law author and politician, who's goal is to control the use and activities of the every growing technology.

The Man terrifies me, but not because I think "he's evil, and that in general, government should stay out of my buisiness, but rather because I feel that when it comes to the cognition of technologies, and how they should be used, the current establishment falls short.

People are making laws regulating topics that they have absolutely no understanding of. I'll go ahead and dredge up Sen. Ted Stevens "The internet is a series of tubes..." analogy, made excruciatingly painful by the simple fact that he was, at the time, the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Today I found an article that scares me almost as much. Apparently there is a British judge that admitted to not understanding what exactly a "Web Site" was, among other things, and then relied on the prosecution to provide a viable definition. I don't know, if I were the one being prosecuted, if i would be overjoyed, or incredulous to find out that my judge did not even possess the base knowledge to make a good decision upon.

Basically what it's boiling down to is that the current governmental body is creating laws and policies that are directly effecting me and my interests for the first time ever. What's worse is they're making uninformed decisions based on misleading information, and in many cases, just plain incorrect and in many cases inaccurate information.

Good night, and Good Luck.

~M.

The subtle collapse of my tiny Universe.

All too often, whilst perusing the vast info-byways of the internet, I find myself reading some article or another (be it a blog or otherwise), and think to myself "I should put this in my blog to share with anyone who accidentally finds themselves at the mercy of my musings." And then I go on about my business, never giving it even a second thought.

Much less often do I read something and become so enthralled that I am shocked into motion and actually post it here. THIS is one of those articles. First off, it's an article about The Pirates Bay, which, as any good BitTorrent-er knows is the housing structure of one of the more renown and respected BitTorrent sites. But then comes the shock. Its a well written, informative, enthralling article......published by Vanity Fair. My amazement was so complete that here I am, sharing with you.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did,
~M.

This was so NOT in my job description.

It came to my attention today that I have not posted in an entire week. WTF? I mean, I can see missing a day or two, but an entire week? In my defense, I did have to run to the Main Office, which not only adds an hour to my commute, but they tend to be a little more strict on work web access there than in my remote office here. Meh, what do you do?

To the best of my experience, with any given job, there is a certain level of "bend over and take it"-ness, and that it really is impractical and unwarranted for me to complain at all about what I am going to be forced to label as one of the better jobs that I have ever had. And I suppose that people are continuing to use VB6 much for the same reason that there are companies out there that are continuing to manage COBOL systems. They're in place, and they work. Kind of.

So the other day I was voicing an opinion of VB6, when a co-worker of mine, Speed Racer, gave me one of those quizzical looks that imply "what're you talking about man? You on drugs again?" "VB's not so bad" he says, "It's only a marginal pain in the butt, I was a Java developer before I came here, and sure there's some differences, but it's not that bad!" To which I replay "As a Java programmer, you don't have a soul to crush, so it doesn't surprise me VB doesn't hurt you."

I bet you can now guess what my next project is in. Damn.

~M.

Where has my job market gone?

When I went to college, Computer Science was toted as THE major, with graduates able to command $80K salaries for working 35 hours a week. And the Universities and Tech schools began churning out programmers by the hundreds. Fast forward about 5 years or so. I have been out of college for 4.5 years now, and we have 3 Universities / Tech Schools offering computer programming degrees of some sorts, and we have a market absolutely saturated with average to less than average programmers.

Approximately 4 months ago I began the search for, as my father puts it, a "Real Job", implying one that was continuous, had an actual office, and provided Health Insurance. I'm sure there's other criteria for a job to be classified as "Real", including but not limited to: Dress Codes, Regular Working Hours, and Having A Real Phone System, but we'll leave those details to speculation.

The very first thing that became apparent was that the job market, at least in the technology sector, has become absolutely SATURATED with programmers. What once was a rare and valuable resource had become as common as quartz! No longer was I a part of an elite society of techno-addicts, but rather my colleagues became any person with the cash and urge to take a few night classes, and recent college grads who wouldn't know a pointer from a div.

It's almost gotten to the point that programmers are as numerous as Mexican workers in Austin or Dallas. Anymore, all the corporations / companies have to do is drive up to the corner and say "I need 2 dotNet programmers to do XYZ for $.50 an hour." and it's a bloody fight as programmers scramble to be the first on the back of the pickup truck.

Now that being said, there is also another trend that is becoming apparent. As the quantity of programmers rises, the quality falls. One of the biggest complaints I heard as I was going through the interviews was that there were absolutely no good programmers out there anymore.

Never before has there been a truer statement. And this is because Microsoft and Google have already snatched up all the good programmers! Well that's only partially true, all the good programmers already have jobs, and are getting paid on a level coordinating with their abilities.

But this is not the only reason there are no good programmers around, the root of the problem lies within the hiring companies themselves. Just because there's a desperately high level of programmers in the "programmer pool", the only ones that you are going to get to bite a 20K-30K level jobs are 20K-30K and lower level programmers. As with any desired skill, you get what you pay for. That's just the long and short of it!

Jesus loves....well me at least....
~M.