Re: Fired from my job
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > going to get better any time soon.
> From: "QN" <gofi...@bogus.net>
> If they actually throw the $4 trillion at it, I think things
> would bounce back.
I have 20+ years experience writing computer software, most
recently Web-server applications (CGI and PHP).
<tinyurl.com/uh3t>
(Click on first link to see my r{e'}sum{e'} in 2 formats.)
Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
Stratum
"Getting hired" or finding business? They're not the
same thing. The market in the Bay Area is very
depressed. While the Bush administration did
its goddamndest to destroy the world economy, I
don't think a job is going to spring for you
unless there's a nice new world war... which
never is impossible. Would you accept
something like the CCC and the
21st century equivalent of 15c / hour
that college graduates made
in the early years of FDR's
administration? They received
shared rooms and board in exchange, and
enough pocket change to buy coffee,
ciggies, an occasional Saturday movie
or book, but not both necessarily all of
the above.
Have you looked at the .Net world to
see what you're missing?
Finally, do you think much outside the box?
For instance, who cares what your resume
objective is? An objective of the successful
candidate ought to read something like,
"My objective is to take over my
new employer's company and
clean house."
But that isn't going to impress
many people, is it? I personally
think the career objective should be
scrapped from the scientist / engineer's
resume. It is so much Boy Scout cant.
Tell them what you want to do in a cover
letter. And while you're at it, use the cover
letter to summarize a long resume.
In short, if you do what everybody
else does, then you won't fare any
better; and if you don't do what
everybody must do, you won't
fare at all. Life's full of dilemmas.
Stan de SD
Take your skill set and apply it in an area where you can use is as a
foundation for learning something new, preferably one that all the
other people with similar backgrounds aren't even aware of. I can't
guarantee what will work for you but I will tell you what worked for
me: I did a fair amount of C/C++ programming at one time and realized
that I would just be beating my head against a wall if I did like
everyone else. Several years ago, I moved away from PC-based
applications, and started working with PLC's (programmable logic
controllers) and HMI's (Human Machine Interfaces, i.e. touch screen
systems) for machine and manufacturing applications. I also had an
equipment and process engineering background in a couple of different
high-tech industries (semiconductors and memory disk substrates), so I
started working with people who were taking used equipment and
remanufacturing it for other industries, and developed new control
system applications. The particular language used for PLC's - ladder
logic, which emulates electrical control circuits - wasn't especially
difficult to learn, and some of the newer systems use C-like scripts
that are easy enough to pick up.
Even though PLC programming is hardly rocket science, I found that my
experience with higher-level languages (and C IS a high-level language
compared to ladder logic) gave me an advantage in that I has a solid
understanding of the applicability of functions and data structures
that was lost on most PLC coders.
With the increased emphasis in integrated systems and remote
monitoring equipment, there is a lot more emphasis on not only serial
communication but Internet/Ethernet/USB connectivity as well. Not that
I'm an expert in these areas - I pick up a lot on my own by reading,
calling the manufacturer's tech support, and practice - but compared
to my peers who have just a machine tool background and no formal
education in this area, I look like a guru in comparison.
I personally like working with equipment and control systems, and it
has provided me with a special niche in that I have designed control
system retrofit to upgrade 15-20 year old systems, either older PC/PLC
or electromechanical relay system. Not only do we rebuild equipment in
our own facility, but we can do retrofits at the customer's facility
as well, so I do a fair amount of traveling all over the US, a few
annual trips to Asia (primarily Japan) and occasional trips to the UK,
EU, and Israel. Personally, I'm single, no family to worry about, so I
don't mind being away from home, and enjoy working "with my hands" at
the customer's sites - I know this isn't everyones idea of an ideal
jobs, but it works for me. But I just offer it as a thought....
f you have experience in a particular field, but employment prospects
in that area are looking dim, think of looking into areas where you
can take your basic knowledge and experience, build from there, and go
where your skills will set you apart from the rest of the crowd. That
has always been my approach when looking for employment opportunities,
and so far it's worked for me... :Oo
Stan de SD
>
> "Getting hired" or finding business? They're not the
> same thing. The market in the Bay Area is very
> depressed. While the Bush administration did
> its goddamndest to destroy the world economy,
Really? The economy hasn't been that bad in the last few years,
although there have been ups and downs. I went from an $80K+ dot-com
engineering job (which disappeared from a lack of economic
sustainability, not anything Bush did or did not do) to a number of
temp tech jobs, then started up a consulting and a used machine sales
operation which landed nearly $1 million in sales the first 18 months.
Unlike most of the whiners, I roughed it out for a while, learned new
skills, and didn't limit myself to the San Francisco Bay Area. The
funny part of it was that I has technically "homeless" for about 5 of
those 8 years, as I figured that as a single guy traveling all the
time, why would I need to buy a house or rent an apartment? In all
fairness, my living standard was a bit better than average for being
homeless, as having a mobile phone, laptop with wireless, and a
selection of multi-voltage inverters and power adapters kept me in
touch. How many homeless do you know ever closed a $100K machine tool
deal while camped out of a truck in the Arizona desert, or went "war-
driving" for open wireless nodes in Wien or Bratislava? I'm sure
eating maguro sashimi and yakitori under the JR tracks near Yurakucho
station in Tokyo station was another common experience for all those
laid-off homeless high-tech workers during the evil Bush regime.
Wassamatta bunky, you weren't able to find a job? :O|
Stratum
> How many homeless do you know ever closed a $100K machine tool
> deal while camped out of a truck in the Arizona desert, or went "war-
> driving" for open wireless nodes in Wien or Bratislava?
That's nothing. One time I drove onto a pedestrian mall
in Munich while people around me made emphatic horizontal
circular motions with their fingers, meaning, "Turn
back!" I thought they were calling me crazy. I was
distracted by a warning sign in Turkish with a
drawing of a car surrounded by pedestrians and lots
of exclamation points. If they'd stuck with German
for the sign, I'd never have done such a crazy thing.
Wait, I've actually *seen* the Vienna catacombs. It
was in "The Third Man". Somebody down there
under the streets plays zither music all the
time. Very strange.
Stratum
> Several years ago, I moved away from PC-based
> applications, and started working with PLC's (programmable logic
> controllers) and HMI's (Human Machine Interfaces, i.e. touch screen
> systems) for machine and manufacturing applications.
PLCs! That's where it's at. And all this time, I thought you
were wasting your time making deals from a truck
in the Arizona desert.
In Arizona, I avoid eye contact with the natives. Somebody
there is usually trying to convince me he and his
woman were recently kidnapped from their trailer to a
distant galaxy. (Do I have some loose change that
I could spare so that he could make a documentary?)
One time as I drove across Arizona, there had been flooding
on Phoenix streets after a flash thundestorm. I stopped for
a cuppa joe in a town west of there and this old timer
with a raspy voice came up and asked if I'm
"a-headed fer Phoenix." Why, yes, I am.
He advised, "Don't go into Phoenix, sonny, or you'll
be s-o-r-r-y!" I advise him, "Well, I'm a-headed
fer Phoenix, like it or not." and he sees that I've
picked up on the local language. The last I saw
of him, he was in my rearview mirror jumping
up and down waving his arms excitedly yelling,
"Don't go into Phoenix. You'll be s-o-r-r-y!" I thought
the whole pathos had movie potential. A film
called "Don't Go into Phoenix!" and desert
dwellers who had been abducted by space
aliens and call KGO at night.
Stan de SD
Newbies in PHX call "Coast to Coast" to report "sightings" of flares
dispensed from AC-130s during training exercises over the Goldwater
range south of I-8. It's actually pretty cool to pull the highway
between Mohawk and Gila Bend to watch as the magnesium flares get
ejected and float to the ground on parachutes. If you go far enough
off the highway when there are no clouds or no moon, you can sometimes
see flashes from bombs and artillery shells. Just don't go TOO far off
the highway or you will never... come... back.
Stan de SD
> > [Stan eats from the finest dumpsters...]
You have me mistaken with the infamous Kent Paul Dolan. My eating
places of choice in the PHX area were Filbertos if I was paying the
bill, Sakana (Japanese restaurant in Tempe) if someone else was
buying....
Stratum
I already hinted at something in a previous answer to your question.
I asked if you had checked out .Net which as far as I'm concerned
has replaced Dot.Com 1 technologies like the early 1990s CGI
interface.
C# has replaced PHP.
C# is a general purpose programming
language with a syntax similar to Java. It's used to
program both server-side apps like ASP.Net pages and
client-side apps like Windows or Microsoft's so-called
Console application or Service-Oriented Application(s)
(SOAs) like Web services, .Net Remoting and WCF.
.Net is an immense set of technologies.
Here, let me provide a short taxonomy for applications
arranged by the location of the application. All of these
are implemented primarily in C# with additional
constucts like XAML, a declarative markup language
contrasted with a procedural language like C# or
C/C++.
Server-Side
========
ASP.Net
Web services
Client Side
========
Windows
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
Windows services
Console
Excecutes on client from server download
==============================
AJAX extensions
Silverlight (Microsoft's RIA version of Adobe Flex, not widespread
yet)
Client-Server
==========
.Net Remoting
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
You might find yourself some job opportunities
here!
I have seen RFPs from half-pint businesses
with comments like, "We throw any proposal
that mentions .Net into the trash." Well,
the first thing I want to see on an RFP is
a statement of the customer's financial health.
Bozo
If I want to test your interest in a dense server-side broadcast-
related app, do I just post it here or to your comcast.net address?
-BdN-
Bozo
>
> - Show quoted text -
Actually, let me rephrase that, who here is seriously interested in
fielding technical .com proposals? ... from a clown mind you.
-BdN-
Stratum
Go to www.cross-comp.com and click on my picture.
Your e-mail will find me.
Bozo
> Your e-mail will find me.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thanks, but before I do, who is Robert Maas in this mix?
-BdN-
David Kaye
http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
> I have 20+ years experience writing computer software, most
> recently Web-server applications (CGI and PHP).
This is mistake #1. If you have 20+ years of experience you're an old
dog who can't learn any new tricks. I spent 7 years in software
development and my last job, which I held just shy of 5 years I
wouldn't have gotten except that the CEO of the company was old enough
to be my father. The 27 year-old who did the hiring initially passed
on me even though I was easily the most qualified.
> Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
> that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
To quote the philosopher Jerry Garcia, "Don't be the best at what you
do, be the ONLY person who does what you do." In other words,
specialize in something few people do and market yourself like
crazy.
I know a commercial plumber who specializes in excavations such as
digging up sewer lines under restaurants and gyms while they're open.
He has more work than he can handle, even in this recession/
depression. General plumbers are suffering from the deferred
maintenance of their customers. Not Kenny. He's doing just fine.
Software. Everybody does software. Half the people I play games with
on Friday night do software. Most of the people I party with do
software if they're not musicians. Lots have been laid off.
As Marty Nemko would say, look at your strengths, think about what you
want to do, especially something unique that nobody else is doing, and
then go for it.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> > I have 20+ years experience writing computer software, most
> > recently Web-server applications (CGI and PHP).
> > <tinyurl.com/uh3t>
> > (Click on first link to see my r{e'}sum{e'} in 2 formats.)
> > Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
> > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> "Getting hired" or finding business? They're not the same thing.
Well Obama was specifically talking about "creating jobs", which I
understood to mean finding ways to hire people who are currently
unemployed, such as myself, rather than whatever you mean by
"finding business". (Please define the latter term so that we
aren't talking past each other. What specifically would it mean for
me personally to "find business".)
> The market in the Bay Area is very depressed. While the Bush
> administration did its ****** to destroy the world economy, I
> don't think a job is going to spring for you unless there's a nice
> new world war... which never is impossible.
If there *were* a world war, i.e. a full thermonuclear exchange,
the infrastructure would be so ruined that virtually all jobs would
disappear, especially any that required electronic devices that
were burned out by EMP. So I think you're talking nonsense when you
seem to imply that a world war would create jobs.
> Would you accept something like the CCC and the 21st century
> equivalent of 15c / hour that college graduates made in the early
> years of FDR's administration?
In terms of "real" (inflation-adjusted) dollars, I think I would do
quite well with such a wage. I did a search but couldn't find
clearly written information, but from one table it seems that money
in early 1933 was worth about 17 times as much as the same number
of dollars would be worth today. So 15 cents per hour then would be
equivalent to $2.55 per hour today. Is that correct? That's well
below minimum legal wage, but a lot more money than I'm currently
getting paid for my labor, so it'd be a step forward for me if
anyone would pay me and if the Federal government would allow it.
Maybe if I bill my time as fixed-price contracts instead of hourly
wage it'd be legal??
> They received shared rooms and board in exchange, and enough
> pocket change to buy coffee, ciggies, an occasional Saturday movie
> or book, but not both necessarily all of the above.
If the room&board is on top of the 15 cents per hour, then that's a
lot more than 15 cents per hour when everything is counted, hence a
lot more than $2.55 per hour today. If I could get room and board
plus also $2.55 per hour, that could easily equal the $8/hr legal
minimum wage in California.
> Have you looked at the .Net world to see what you're missing?
What do you mean by "look at" it?? I already read a book called
"Visual Basic .NET HOW TO PROGRAM" (by Deitel) which gave me a
basic understanding of the concepts, but I've never had access to
any computer where VB.NET is available so that I could get "hands
on" experience with the technology. Do you have a Unix or Linux or
other shell machine with TELNET or SSH access that has VB.NET
available on it for me to play with remotely via VT100 emulator?
Otherwise, what are you proposing I do about it??
> Finally, do you think much outside the box?
Yes, very very much.
I was the first person (in early 1978) to solve the problem of
compressing data to less than one bit per compression unit, by
means of virtual partial bits implemented as Shannon narrowing of
the unit interval (conceived by me in 1969-70 but not practical
until my 1978 invention). I wasn't able to get a patent, even with
the help of Stanford's "technology licensing" division, because the
USPO didn't grant software-algorithm patents at that time. Later
somebody else solved the same problem in a grossly inferior way and
got a patent on it. AFAIK nobody except myself has discovered the
better algorithm that I invented in 1978.
I was one of two first people (in 1970-71) to invent the idea of
frames of information with links connecting them, a computerized
version of the old "programmed textbook", for purpose of arbitrary
organization of information into mostly-hierarchial manner. The
other co-inventor was Richard Stallman with his EMACS-INFO mode.
Later Apple invented HyperCard which was a GUI version of the same
idea, and then much later W3C invented the World Wide Web which was
a networked version of the same idea.
I invented quite a number of other novel algorithms and systems,
including "generalized computer dating" (around 1972-73), and most
recently my NewEco which I'm currently working on implementing.
> For instance, who cares what your resume objective is?
Unfortunately most recruiters and hiring managers will discard a
resume which doesn't have that item at the top of it.
> I personally think the career objective should be scrapped from
> the scientist / engineer's resume.
I feel the same, but it's a required nowadays.
> In short, if you do what everybody else does, then you won't fare
> any better; and if you don't do what everybody must do, you won't
> fare at all.
Well if I could fare exactly as well as somebody who is employed
half the time in recent years, that would be a very great
improvement in my situation. Are you capable of guiding me towards
obtaining appreciation for my abilities/skills so that I can get
some earned income sometime before I die of old age?
But back to my original topic: When will **Obama's** recovery plan
directly cause **me** to have a situation in which I get some
earnings?
David Kaye
http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
> Well Obama was specifically talking about "creating jobs", which I
> understood to mean finding ways to hire people who are currently
> unemployed, such as myself,
Well, that stimulus money is already coming around. As Marty Nemko
says, the place to go right now is government jobs. Take a look at
the U.S. government website and look around for jobs. Literally.
http://www.usajobs.gov/
Jim
http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
> > > Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
> > > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> > > I have 20+ years experience writing computer software, most
> > > recently Web-server applications (CGI and PHP).
> > > <tinyurl.com/uh3t>
> > > (Click on first link to see my r{e'}sum{e'} in 2 formats.)
> > > Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
> > > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> > From: Stratum <stratum...@comcast.net>
> > "Getting hired" or finding business? They're not the same thing.
>
> Well Obama was specifically talking about "creating jobs", which I
> understood to mean finding ways to hire people who are currently
> unemployed, such as myself, rather than whatever you mean by
> "finding business". (Please define the latter term so that we
> aren't talking past each other. What specifically would it mean for
> me personally to "find business".)
You go knocking on doors, which is the same thing that
any enterprise that hires you will have done.
> > The market in the Bay Area is very depressed. While the Bush
> > administration did its ****** to destroy the world economy, I
> > don't think a job is going to spring for you unless there's a nice
> > new world war... which never is impossible.
>
> If there *were* a world war, i.e. a full thermonuclear exchange,
> the infrastructure would be so ruined that virtually all jobs would
> disappear, especially any that required electronic devices that
> were burned out by EMP. So I think you're talking nonsense when you
> seem to imply that a world war would create jobs.
No kidding.
> > Would you accept something like the CCC and the 21st century
> > equivalent of 15c / hour that college graduates made in the early
> > years of FDR's administration?
>
> In terms of "real" (inflation-adjusted) dollars, I think I would do
> quite well with such a wage. I did a search but couldn't find
> clearly written information, but from one table it seems that money
> in early 1933 was worth about 17 times as much as the same number
> of dollars would be worth today. So 15 cents per hour then would be
> equivalent to $2.55 per hour today. Is that correct? That's well
> below minimum legal wage, but a lot more money than I'm currently
> getting paid for my labor, so it'd be a step forward for me if
> anyone would pay me and if the Federal government would allow it.
> Maybe if I bill my time as fixed-price contracts instead of hourly
> wage it'd be legal??
>
> > They received shared rooms and board in exchange, and enough
> > pocket change to buy coffee, ciggies, an occasional Saturday movie
> > or book, but not both necessarily all of the above.
>
> If the room&board is on top of the 15 cents per hour, then that's a
> lot more than 15 cents per hour when everything is counted, hence a
> lot more than $2.55 per hour today. If I could get room and board
> plus also $2.55 per hour, that could easily equal the $8/hr legal
> minimum wage in California.
I don't know how CCC perks were charged. Young men
lived in dormitories and travelled dangerously by
hitching rides on the rails or less dangerously in those
times with their thumbs.
> > Have you looked at the .Net world to see what you're missing?
>
> What do you mean by "look at" it?? I already read a book called
> "Visual Basic .NET HOW TO PROGRAM" (by Deitel) which gave me a
> basic understanding of the concepts, but I've never had access to
> any computer where VB.NET is available so that I could get "hands
> on" experience with the technology. Do you have a Unix or Linux or
> other shell machine with TELNET or SSH access that has VB.NET
> available on it for me to play with remotely via VT100 emulator?
> Otherwise, what are you proposing I do about it??
These are artifacts of the 1990s. The current .Net
development platform is a PC with XP Pro or Vista and
VS2008. You can download a 90-day trial version
of VS2008. The installation will install .Net 3.0
on your computer if it isn't already present.
The implementation of the trial requires that you
make a DVD. At the end of the evaluation period, you
can remove and reinstall from the DVD.
Mono, an open-source project, implements .Net on -ux
platforms, but the demand for .Net applications there is low.
An astute programmer might find a niche market.
Although VB.Net is popular, a survey of .Net
literature in any bookstore or on Amazon will
demonstrate that C# is the language of choice.
VC++ is still present but now only as a legacy.
None of this is new. The .Net framework was
introduced in 2002.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> The economy hasn't been that bad in the last few years,
> although there have been ups and downs.
Feelings about that matter vary from person to person. Of course if
you had a job the whole time, it might have seemed like good times.
But for people like myself who, despite 20+ years experience
writing computer software, have been unable to find any employment
the entire time, it has most definitely seemed like really crappy
times.
> I went from an $80K+ dot-com engineering job (which disappeared
> from a lack of economic sustainability, not anything Bush did or
> did not do)
I.e. you drove your company to bankruptcy?
> to a number of temp tech jobs,
What agency was able to get you those jobs? None of the agencies I
tried were able to find me even one job in all the years since 1991
when I got laid off due to lack of funding for any new contracts
for my employer for the fifteen years leading to then.
> then started up a consulting and a used machine sales operation
> which landed nearly $1 million in sales the first 18 months.
Consulting what exactly?
> Unlike most of the whiners, I roughed it out for a while,
I've roughed it out for the past 17 years.
> learned new skills,
I've learned a whole bunch of new skills since 1991.
> and didn't limit myself to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Well, you must have had the luxury of having some money set aside
at the the time you needed it then. I had $10k saved up when I got
married in 1989, but then Kaiser-Permanente refused to put my wife
on my health plan until *after* we had our first child, and that
was a C-section, which I had to pay out of my pocket, wiping out my
$10k savings. But I still had a fine job when we conceived our
second child, now covered by K-P now, but when my wife was 5 months
pregnant I got laid off, and when my wife got her Green Card
finalized a month later she started beating me up on a regular
basis because she didn't need to pretend to want me any longer.
Anyway, with that recession running strong, I couldn't find a new
job (except just under $1500 total income from a software
engineering job from a cash-strapped start-up company in 1992), so
I couldn't afford to even pay the rent for my two young children
and myself except by borrowing from a relative. Finally in early
1994 the police took my wife away on a psychiatric hold, instead of
charging her with more than 40 counts of felony spousal battery and
10+ counts of felony child abuse like they should have, and about
the same time I finally learned from somebody on the net that I
could get a domestic violence restraining order and custody of my
children to protect them from their violently abusive mother, so I
became a single parent, still borrowing from a relative to make
ends meet. I didn't have the option of carting my two young
children around the USA looking for a job in another state with no
income to qualify for an apartment and no money to buy a mobile
home. I had to stay here to stay in the apartment we already had
that we would no longer qualify for if we had to get into it again.
Then (1995.April) we got on a special section-8 housing program, so
finally we could actually afford the rent, and pay back half of the
money we had borrowed from a relative. Since the special program
was *only* for Santa Clara County, we had no option to move
anywhere. Then after three years, our apartment was sold to a new
owner who remodled all the apartments and eliminated Section 8 in
order to charge higher rent, and no other place was available for
us to rent, so we spent one month living in motel rooms, borrowing
on credit cards to pay the motel bill because the relative who had
loaned the money several years previously and who had been
half-repayed already was no longer willing to loan us money again,
because he thought I should have joined a scam where you pay lots
of money to take a class to learn day trading *on*10*percent*margin
where you are **guaranteed** to make lots of money, but failed to
mention to my father (who paid to take that course, where you do
play trading using data that is faked to make it seem like you are
winning all the time) that unless and until you have $100k cash to
pay to a brokerage house to set up a margin account you aren't
allowed to day-trade on 10% margin. Then Social Services took my
children away because I'm not a practicing Christian, and because
one of his teachers abused my son causing him to act "weird" but he
didn't tell anyone about the abuse so Social Services mistakenly
thought *I* had somehow abused him even though there was no direct
evidence of that because in fact I had never abused him, and I had
no money to pay a lawyer to defend my right to keep my children,
and the lawyer appointed by the court sabotaged my case so that I
couldn't get due process (no witness *ever* was required to testify
under oath against me, the Judge just went ahead with keeping my
children away without ever allowing the case to go to trial), and I
had to spend the rest of my years in Santa Clara County to visit my
children, and and during a visit with a therapist my son finally
revealed, a year after he was taken away, about his teacher's
abuse, but the court-appointed lawyer refused to file the
appropriate motion to dismiss the case and return the children to
me, and again I had no money for a decent lawyer to help me, then
even visitation was taken away in violation of the judge's order,
and again I had no money to hire a decent lawyer to get the judge's
order obeyed, so all I could do for the rest of the years until
2008 was to show up at each court hearing and beg for visitation to
be restored, which never occurred, so I never saw either of my
children after 1999. But with no money, and court hearings every
six months in San Jose, I didn't have any practical way to commute
back and forth between some other state and here to look for an
out-of-state job and still attend hearings for my children.
> (you) went "war- driving" for open wireless nodes in Wien or
> Bratislava?
So you're a criminal who steals InterNet access? You may have more
money than I have, but I'm a better person than you are.
By the way, recently I've become experienced enough at PHP/MySQL that
I've finally started implementation of <http://tinyurl.com/NewEco>.
If anybody likes the idea and wants to join my effort, helping me
firm up some of the design issues, and testing the Web application,
maybe even helping write some of the software under my direction,
and eventually being an active member of the "cooperative"
(performing labor for my Web application in return for equal amount
of services obtained), feel free to contact me via the
Turing-test-protected MAILTO link from that NewEco WebPage.
See <http://tinyurl.com/FilJob> for the first major application of
NewEco, a system to filter "job" (help-wanted) ads to make
job-hunting more efficient.
See <http://twitter.com/CalRobert> for my lastest activities, if
you're curious. I've come up with ideas for several new inventions,
which I've mentionned on Twitter when I first conceive the
invention, or think of an improvement on an old invention, so maybe
somebody with connections to a mechanical engineering company could
work with me to develop one of my inventions? For example, I have a
new invention-idea for desalinating sea water and pumping it up a
pipe over a mountain range, with virtually no moving parts and
almost all low-tech, to an inland desert to provide irrigation
water to convert the desert into a new Imperial Valley. I'd like
the first test of the system to pump water from the Santa Cruz cost
over the ridge to provide extra groundwater for Santa Clara Valley
as well as firefighting and drought-control water for the coast
side to prevent another terrible wildfire like we had several last
year.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
foundation for learning something new, preferably one that all the
other people with similar backgrounds aren't even aware of.
If you're talking about learning something that is already known by
others, I don't see how I can be sure that others with similar
background haven't already discovered it. What I've been doing
instead is learning standard tools such as HTML and CGI and Java
and PHP and applying them to brand new inventions I create myself
which nobody else even conceived before. For example:
- In 1991, I complied various indexes that had been posted to
bitnet.pacs-l and created my "toplevel meta-index to the
InterNet" (MaasInfo.TopIndex), as well as my InterNet document
index (MaasInfo.DocIndex).
- Around 1994-95 I converted MaasInfo to HTML, where it was the best
such index on the net until Yahoo used its resources to keep up
with new topics better than I could with my one-person effort.
- In 1995 I implemented my flashcard-drill optimal-scheduling
algorithm, plus my SEGMAT-based short-answer-coach, to my
Macintosh.
- In 2002 I ported the flashcard-drill application to CGI, where
it's still available today if you want to play with it: Go to
tinyurl.com/uh3t, log in as guest1 with password free, click on
all-but-one flashcard program, import cards from whichever
master deck you would like to try, then select radio button
delay+hurdles+new and click on show-one-card-and-try-to-answer;
if you want to quit gracefully before learning all the cards in
your deck (the shared guest1 deck actually), select radio button
finish-one-card-then-quit, then finish ansering whatever card
you are on; If you want to seriously use the program, with your
own private deck nobody else is using, ask me by e-mail to set
up a private account for you.
- In more recent years I've been working on a tutorial for how to
write CGI applications in several languages (PHP, Perl,
CommonLisp, C, C++, Java), starting with CGI-hello-world,
progressing through full URL-encoded-form decoding, a cookbook
of common data-processing functions available in the various
langauges, and finally a cookbook of some commonly useful tasks
for CGI applications such as validating data and handling
cookies.
- Starting last Summer I've been developing Web sites specifically
tailored for cell-phones, including jpeg images sized optimally
for one-inch screens, including images of women I found on
HotOrNot, and images for ESL instruction:
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/WAP/capESL.html>
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/WAP/lowESL.html>
which I plan to eventually incorporate into my flashcard-drill
application after I convert it to PHP/MySQL.
- Starting late 2008 with the economic crisis, I've been conceiving
and designing a new kind of InterNet-based barter economy
<http://tinyurl.com/NewEco> to mostly replace "capitalism",
starting with a new kind of "job" (help-wanted) ad filtering
service to help job-seekers as the first useful service under
that umbrella, and a couple months ago I started setting Turing
tests using PHP as entry points to my upcoming system (to
prevent botnets from flooding it with disruptive service
requests, such as creating thousands of new accounts per
minute), including <http://tinyurl.com/FilJob> for inquiring
about the job-ad-filtering service, and finally starting a
couple weeks ago I've been experimenting with various PHP/MySQL
hosting sites to find any that actually work reliably, and
finally within the past week I've starting actually coding my
PHP/MySQL portal <http://tinyurl.com/Portl1> for creating a new
user account and logging in to such an account and keeping track
of the user's account balance as the user performs labor to
accumulate credits and then spends those credits to obtain
services such as job-ad filtering.
> I can't guarantee what will work for you but I will tell you what
> worked for me: I did a fair amount of C/C++ programming at one time
> and realized that I would just be beating my head against a wall if
> I did like everyone else. Several years ago, I moved away from
> PC-based applications,
I made that move in early 2001 with my first CGI demo-application
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/cgi-bin/topscript.cgi>, then continued
in 2002 with the flashcard-drill application mentionned above.
Except for some personal utilities, and new-algorithm development,
that I've been writing as needed on my Macintosh and on Unix shell,
all my software-programming has been targeted for CGI since that
first demo in early 2001. Why CGI? Because anything I accomplish
can be immediately demonstrated to anyone anywhere in the world who
has a Web browser, without revealing my source code nor even my
executables.
> and started working with PLC's (programmable logic controllers)
It must take some cash to pay for one of those things to play with,
right? (And it must take some living space to house the equipment
too, which I don't have available here, currently a tiny room
smaller than a typical motel room that doesn't have a bathtub or
oven or stove, only a stall shower and microwave, and my own
toaster-oven I brought in, crammed with everything of mine that
would fit, no room for even a desk to put my keyboard on when I'm
using my Macintosh so I have to sit it on my lap while typing and
move it to the side whenever I get up, all my personal papers etc.
etc. several miles from here in a rental storage locker).
It's not like you can get a free account on a Web-hosting service
and immediately start playing with somebody else's PLC, right?
Ah the luxury of being able to afford a decent sized apartment or
house and lots of electronic equipment to put in it.
> and HMI's (Human Machine Interfaces, i.e. touch screen systems)
> for machine and manufacturing applications.
Those must cost some money too, and even theoretically you couldn't
play with somebody else's touch-screen remotely over the InterNet
using a Web-hosting service.
> I also had an equipment and process engineering background in a
> couple of different high-tech industries (semiconductors and memory
> disk substrates),
Yeah, your background is very different from mine. When I was a
teen and young adult I had a lot of old electronics and amateur
radio equipment, until I became homeless in 1969 and had to put it
all in a rental storage locker, and the warehouse burned down in
late 1972 destroying all my equipment except my reel-to-reel tape
recorder that had been in my car at the time. Living in studio
apartments since then (until 2005 when I moved into this tiny room
only one third the size of a studio apartment), and working all in
software, I never got back into electronics, never replaced the
bulk of my burned equipment, although I did eventualy buy a
television set to replace the Sony 5-inch-portable that was lost in
the fire, and a 6-band portable radio to replace the short-wave
communications receiver that was lost in the fire, and a
camera-cell-phone with wireless-InterNet just over a year ago
(although I didn't activate the InterNet on it until last July).
> The particular language used for PLC's - ladder logic, which
> emulates electrical control circuits - wasn't especially
> difficult to learn,
I could probably teach myself that from an online tutorial, if you
could find me a PLC emulator to practice on remotely over the net,
and then if you would make your own PLC device available for me to
try any final programs from the emulator. I'd save the PLC program
in a Web page and tell you where to find it, the you could download
my Web page to your PLC device and tell me if it actually works as
it did during emulation.
Are any of these tutorials worthwhile?
<http://www.plcs.net/contents.shtml>
<http://www.tri-plc.com/TLeval/Help/laddertutorial.htm>
<http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/~jackh/books/plcs/>
But would an immediate job be available for me in this area
(Sunnyvale, California) after I spent that time working with you to
learn that technology?
> and some of the newer systems use C-like scripts that are easy
> enough to pick up.
AutoCAD used an underlying Lisp, which would be much easier than C.
(I actually got interviewed for an AutoCAD job back in 1991-2,
writing custom scripts for one-of tooling jobs for manifolds to
use for attaching multiple access ports to an experimental
chamber, but the stupid hiring manager who was interviewing me
somehow got the stupid idea I'd be bored with the job because of
my 14 years Lisp experience doing all sorts of interesting R&D in
various fields, ignoring my pleas that I'm fucking (word *not*
used during the interview) desperate for a job to feed my two
little children (son 1.8 years old and daughter newborn) and would
*not* be too bored to do the job, in fact it'd be relaxing so I
could spend my mental energy dealing with an abusive wife and the
much more rewarding demands of toddler and infant, and he kept
making demeaning remarks all through the interview, and nothing I
said could change his stupid attitude, and never did call me back
for any follow-up of any kind.)
Do you know of any online PLC emulator that uses Lisp as the
scripting language?
> I personally like working with equipment and control systems,
I personally hate doing anything with hardware. If a good gardner
is described as having a "green thumb", my awkward lack of muscle
control and consequent damage to anything I try to work on would
deserve a title of "black thumb". I'll stick to software, unless
somebody is dumb enough to pay me to break their hardware. The only
thing that protected discrete transistors when I did electronics
work as a teen was that I used heat sinks liberally and there was
plenty of room between the barrier stript terminal being heated
(with my solder gun, to melt solder, a really nice solder gun that
burned up in the warehouse fire in 1972) any anything else that was
heat sensitive, so it was rare that the heat from the solder gun
could get close enough to burn anything. Of course I didn't do so
well trying to solder components into printed circuit boards,
because charring the resin of the circuit board itself had a
detrimental effect on circuit function. Fortunately the several
Heath and EICO kits that I assembled used discrete components
connected by barrier strips rather than PC boards.
> If you have experience in a particular field, but employment
> prospects in that area are looking dim, think of looking into areas
> where you can take your basic knowledge and experience, build from
> there, and go where your skills will set you apart from the rest of
> the crowd. That has always been my approach when looking for
> employment opportunities, and so far it's worked for me... :Oo
My only significant professional experience is writing computer
software. In March of last year I started a major project of
developing my ProxHash idea to practical algorithms for
automatically building a nearest-neighbor graph between a large set
of data points in abstract information space (typically using
trigram statistics to characterize data-records by mapping them to
an unbounded-dimension vector space), using five lists of
transferrable or soft skills as my test data during development,
but the project turned out to be more difficult than I originally
expected, so I finally got the major algorithms working after a
couple months, but got distracted by other more-urgent duties, so I
never completely finished the project. I posted some progress
reports on a newsgroup back then. I had planned to cluster the
descriptions of soft/transferrable skills to reduce the duplication
present in the original merged list from five unrelated sources,
and then work my way though those clusters to diagnose which skills
I had and which I didn't have, and thereby create a dossier on my
soft/transferrable skills which I could then hand to an employment
specialist at Project Hired. But as the months dragged on, and they
never did assign me a specialist to work with me, the purpose of
the project seemed more and more moot, and I started other projects
that were more interesting, such as using InterNet service on my
new cell-phone to view ESL images to eventually incorporate in my
flashcard-drill application, so after last June or July I never did
get back to serious work on the ProxHash soft/transferrable skills
project. Then with the financial and economic crisis, with just
about *everyone* laying off workers, no new jobs in sight for me,
it became pointless to burn myself out to finish the skills
project, especially since I've been proposing fixes for the
economy, and working on a whole new economic system to replace
capitalism, which at this point I feel more urgent than anything
else I could possibly be working on.
So I would show you my list of soft/transferrable skills and ask
you what new areas might be appropriate for me to try, except as
you read above I don't yet have that list to present to you, and
won't in the foreseeable future. So I have to ask you the more
general question, what areas should I get into, if anything, in
addition to or instead of my new economic system, that would get me
immediate cash to pay off $60k credit card debt?
Maybe you would join my effort for <tinyurl.com/NewEco> including
my work-so-far on the portal <tinyurl.com/Portl1> ? You're better
at advertising your skills to potential funding sources than I am,
but my NewEco is probably the most important and wonderful new idea
you've ever seen, so together we could be a team?
See <Twitter.com/CalRobert> for my latest activities and inventions
and comments on news reports.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> I already hinted at something in a previous answer to your question.
> I asked if you had checked out .Net which as far as I'm concerned
> has replaced Dot.Com 1 technologies like the early 1990s CGI
> interface.
I'm not aware that Obama's job-creation fantasy involves .NET in
any way shape or form. Can you cite any Obama speech or press
release or anything on his Web site or anywhere else where he's
written that he plans to provide jobs using .NET?
> C# has replaced PHP.
Please tell me the following:
- URL of Web site that lists several free C#/MySQL hosting sites
which I could eventually use instead of the several PHP/MySQL sites
I already know about.
- URL of a good C# tutorial, so that I can try to learn about it.
- FreeBSD Unix filename for the C# interpretor, so that I can use
'man' command to learn how to use it on my shell account.
> C# is a general purpose programming language with a syntax
> similar to Java. It's used to program both server-side apps like
> ASP.Net pages and client-side apps like Windows or Microsoft's
> so-called Console application or Service-Oriented Application(s)
> (SOAs) like Web services, .Net Remoting and WCF.
For the moment I'm interested only in server-side applications, so
that all software I write can remain confidential, so that access
to my MySQL database is secure against trespass attempts.
> Server-Side
> ASP.Net
> Web services
Please provide me with URL of free hosting sites for these, comparable
to the free PHP/MySQL hosting site I'm currently using <tinyurl.com/Portl1>
> Excecutes on client from server download
I.e. trojans. No thanks!!
> You might find yourself some job opportunities here!
Only if I can find the program name on FreeBSD Unix, and also a
good tutorial to tell me what to teach myself, and also a free
MySQL hosting site for .NET whatever.
> I have seen RFPs from half-pint businesses
> with comments like, "We throw any proposal
> that mentions .Net into the trash."
I assume RFP means Request for Proposal, i.e. request for
preliminary proposal to eventual bid on contract?
My proposed <tinyurl.com/NewEco> will be based on three barter mechanisms:
- User performs work for system, earns labor credits per advertised
fixed-price of task, such as five seconds to answer a Turing question
such as missing text in context, or two minutes to write one
line of PHP code that I need to build new features of the system.
- User spends labor credits to receive services directly from the system,
such as overhead of posting RFB or bid (see next below) or CPU time
to scan job (help wanted) ads per the user's profile <tinyurl.com/FilJob>
- One user posts a RFB (Request for Bid), and other users post
their bids, and lowest bid gets the contract, first user puts
funds in escroll to pay for contract, low-bidder puts 10% of the
bid from his own funds into escroll as penalty for frivilous bid
if he fails to perform contract, then he tries to perform
contract, and if performed adequately within the time limit (per
the bid) low-bidder gets paid from that escroll account,
otherwise low-bidder gets paid nothing (and forfeits his frivolous-bid
penalty), and the contract is put back up for bids from other
people if the first user is still interested in getting the work
done and can still afford to tie up funds in escroll for a longer
time than originally expected.
I suppose my proposed system could include request for bid on
merely specifying how a regular contract might be done, i.e. one
contract on the detailed design and later a separate contrate on
the actual work. Thus my preliminary design-only contract would be
analagous to your RFP, and then my actual-work contract would be
the usual type of contract (except the trading currency is labor
time rather than US$, thereby simplying contracts because instead
of specifying money payment and deadline separately, and hassling
over late-delivery penalties or early-completion bonuses, the
labor-time specified provides the deadline automatically, a single
parameter which provides total ordering on the bids).
> Well, the first thing I want to see on an RFP is a statement of
> the customer's financial health.
So that you can be sure the RFP poster has enough funds to pay for
the completed contract rather than default after the work has
already been done, and declare bankruptcy to avoid a lawsuit to
enforce payment per contract? Note that under NewEco, all funds
earmarked for a given contract are put into escroll *before* the
contract is started, so the contractee doesn't need to worry about
payment (assuming the NewEco system *itself* stays in operation so
that the escroll funds don't evaporate). Even if the contractor
drops out of sight, the escroll money will still be there to pay
for the completed contract, and there will be a dispute-resoution
mechanism in case the contractor claims the contractee didn't
complete the contract per specification in the RFB.
Note that under NewEco, nobody ever hires somebody based on money
the employer *expects* to eventually have available. Instead, first
the employer earns credits sufficient to pay for work, then the
employer posts RFB and puts that money into escroll for that
contract, so the money is sitting there in escroll the whole time
the work is beine done. Nobody can offer to hire more work at any
one time than that employer already has as pseudo-cash (labor
credits) in his account.
By the way, how do you feel about my 10% penalty for failure to
complete a contract, to deter frivolous bids whose intention is to
waste the time of the employer? Would 5% be suffucient penalty, or
is 10% about right? The 10% rule would allow a new contractee to
bootstrap into larger and larger contracts with nearly a factor of
ten larger contract each iteration, as follows:
- Answer a Turing question, to earn 5 seconds of labor credit.
- Make a bid on a 50-second contract, using the 5 seconds in
escroll as failiure-to-complete penalty. (Such a short-time
contract might be something as simple as answering a trivia
question that the asker really wants to know answer of, such as
what movie had a time machine which near the end of the movie
was bumped by accident causing the whole movie to repeat at
hyper-speed, or a single line of code in a programming language
the employee know so well that he can just key in the exact line
of code correctly without needing to test it, or a Google search
that the employee has already done so he knows exactly what
keywords to use and which of the search results to immediately
spot and copy+paste.)
- Make a bid on a 500-second (8.3 minute) contract, using the 50
seocnds in escroll as failiure-to-complete penalty. (Such a
medium-short contract could be something relatively simple, such
as looking up something in a software manual and writing+testing
a single line of code, or doing a new Google search which hasn't
been done before but where the *kind* of search is familiar.)
- Make a bid on a 5000-second (1 hr 23 min) contract, using the 500
seocnds in escroll as failure-to-complete penalty. (Such a
medium time contract might be implementing a single new "use
case", given full specification, or re-formatting some
computer-generated information to be a nicely-formatted Web
page, or proofreading a ten-page document that has only about
ten mistakes per page, or studying a new idea for an invention
and performing a preliminary assessment as to whether it would
actually work and roughly how much it would cost to produce.)
With only a 5% penalty instead, the same algorithm would allow
increasing the contract by a factor of 20 with each iteration. I
feel that a factor of 10 is good enough, and in fact a novice user
of my NewEco really shouldn't expand contract-size by even that
much per iteration, so 10% penalty is just fine, not interfering
with bootstrapping new users into fully productive work for
reasonable-size contracts where the actual work time instead of the
overhead of bidding dominates. You agree or disagree with 10%
penalty for failure of lowest bidder to perform a contract?
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > recently Web-server applications (CGI and PHP).
> This is mistake #1. If you have 20+ years of experience you're
> an old dog who can't learn any new tricks.
Af refutation for your ignorant claim, witness <tinyurl.com/NewEco>
If that isn't a "new trick", I don't know what is!!
By the way, because employers/recruiters might suffer from the same
misconception that you apparently do, I put only 10+ years
experience on my resume.
> > Does anybody have any suggestions how I might increase the chance
> > that Obama's "recovery" package will result in my getting hired again?
> To quote the philosopher Jerry Garcia, "Don't be the best at what
> you do, be the ONLY person who does what you do."
In 1970, I was the only person in the world thinking of seriously
doing data-compression directly from histograms (which could be
dynamically updated as the Markovian model was learned during
compression passing once through the file) by directly applying
Shannon's theory, thereby generating output nearly exactly the
entropy rather than rounded to whole bits as Huffman's code did.
Then in 1978 I finally figured out how to do it efficiently and
reversibly, and so I was the only person in the world with such an
algorithm, and my algorithm was **better** as well as cleaner than
"Arithmetic Coding", based on the same exact Shannon theory, which
somebody else developed much later. Unfortuately the USPO didn't
award software-algorithm patents at that time, and the one company
that offered to let me develop an ASIC implementation of my
algorithm that *could" be patented, went belly-up before we could
start work on the hardware, and I never found anyone who was
willing to invest in my algorithm if it couldn't be patented, so
your advice was tried and found to be useless.
In 1975 I invented the idea of frames of information linked to
produce a tree of information, essentially what HyperCard did in
1984, and HTML did in 1994, and coincidentally what Richard
Stallman did in EMACS INFO mode back about the same time I did, so
I was one of only two in the world, with RMS being the other. But
there was no market for that, so RMS went into GNU licensing, while
I found employment in other areas (first effective method for
diagnosing from NMR relaxation data whether a molecular side-chain
was freely rotating or merely oscillating between bounds, first
application of Floyd-Steinberg error-diffusion to U2 and P3/Orion
and LandSat images, and first computerized educational software to
fully teach a course in college-level differential-calculus to
advanced high-school students who couldn't afford to commute to SCU
or SJSU, including full derivations using rules of logic and rules
of differentiation as well as symbolic algebra manipulation).
Unfortuately all those R&D projects at Stanford were
non-commercial, hence as soon as we had solved the problem and set
up a demo that could be published, the task was done, no way to
convert our new algorithms and software into a commercial
enterprise.
For the past several months I've been brainstorming (all by myself;
I'd really like to find a partner!!!) a new "cooperative" economic
system to replace capitalism, and since February I've been setting
up PHP portals and writing online documentation for various aspects
of the NewEco including specific services I plan to offer through
the system, and starting a few weeks ago I've been testing various
free PHP/MySQL hosting to see which are stable enough to support my
system, and a few days ago I started the primary portal to creating
a new account and logging into my system <tinyurl.com/Portl1> --
This is so novel that I haven't found even one other person who
appreciates my idea enough to work with me or even to use the
system after I get it working all by myself. Perhaps you would like
to start from those TinyURLs and read about it and ask me
questions? (I have a lot of rough notes to myself on my personal
Macintosh, not yet formatted for others to read, and not yet
uploaded, but I could show you anything you specifically ask
about.) I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the entire world who
is thinking along the lines that I am, although several famous
economists have uttered words like "re-invent the economic system"
in talk shows like Charlie Rose (see twitter.com/CalRobert for
recent notes on such, and see tinyurl.com/LinkII for list and
photos of such people I'd most like to meet to discuss such ideas),
but I don't believe any of those people have the foggiest idea
**what** re-invention of our economic system might actualy entail,
but **I** **do**!!!!!!!!!!!!
> In other words, specialize in something few people do
Better: Specialize in something **NOBODY** else in the world has
even conceived much less worked out how to accomplish it, such as
my NewEco.
> and market yourself like crazy.
I've posted numerous articles to newsgroups since September, and
I've been creating custom TinyURLs to portals to various aspects of
my system and posting all my new ideas and comments and progress
(with URLs) to twitter.com/CalRobert since February, yet still not
one person has followed the links to any of my portals and sent me
e-mail inquiring about any of it. Maybe you will be the first?
Maybe you'll e-mail me with suggestions how to market my idea and
thereby find others to work with me to help build the new economic
cooperative system to almost totally replace capitalism?
> I know a commercial plumber who specializes in excavations such
> as digging up sewer lines under restaurants and gyms while
> they're open.
Is he the guy who dug under the casinos in the movie Paint Your
Wagon, to excavate the gold dust that had fallen through the cracks
between the floorboards, collapsing the entire town into the ditch?
<http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0064782/>
Or is he the guy who dug under the Archives Building in Cologne,
Germany and thereby caused the museum to collapse on 2009.Mar.03?
<http://www.hmml.org/happenings06/happenings.htm>
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/06/heinrich-boll-archive-cologne>
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,613209,00.html>
<http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/03/cologne-archive-collapse-disaster-for-historians.html>
> Software. Everybody does software. Half the people I play games
> with on Friday night do software. Most of the people I party
> with do software if they're not musicians.
Are any of them designing and building a totally new *kind* of
economic system, as I'm trying to do? Would any of them like to
join my effort? Remember, it's a *cooperative*, so however much you
give, you get back.
> As Marty Nemko would say, look at your strengths, think about
> what you want to do, especially something unique that nobody else
> is doing, and then go for it.
I want to meet all the people listed in the want-to-meet section of
<http://rem.intarweb.org/FirCon/robLink.html>. I want at least two
of those outside-box-thinking economists, preferably Bethany McLean
and Kathryn Lavelle, to like my NewEco idea enough to come work on
it with me. Can you please help me meet those people?
See twitter.com/CalRobert for my latest ideas/doings/newsComments.
Jim
http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
>
> Please provide me with URL of free hosting sites for these, comparable
> to the free PHP/MySQL hosting site I'm currently using <tinyurl.com/Portl1>
It isn't my intent to provide you with anything other than
honoring a reasaonable number of requests for the time
of day.
Most Web hosts that don't embed their own
advertising onto your Web pages charge
for their services starting at about $100 / year.
This will typically get you a database server
like MySQL or SQL Server.
>
> > Excecutes on client from server download
>
> I.e. trojans. No thanks!!
ASP.Net is a *server* side technology and
C# which can be used for Windows clients or
server programming is a far more advanced
language than PHP. In the Microsoft
world, it replaces Java but has at its
disposal the *immense* .Net library
which eclipses Java.
I alluded to JavaScript code, for instance
for textbox validation, that the standard
IDE for ASP.Net, Visual Studio.Net, can
add to your form with minimal effort on
your part, rather than you cooking
up your own client-side JavaScrip code.
The risks from JavaScript while minimal
are the same on any client and aren't
related to whether you used PHP
or ASP.Net.
PHP has many security issues,
and they are far worse than ASP.Net.
The problem with global vars for
instance.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > Well Obama was specifically talking about "creating jobs", which I
> > understood to mean finding ways to hire people who are currently
> > unemployed, such as myself,
> Well, that stimulus money is already coming around. As Marty Nemko
> says, the place to go right now is government jobs. Take a look at
> the U.S. government website and look around for jobs. Literally.
> http://www.usajobs.gov/
Trying it right now:
Link that you currently have selected
Linkname: New to USAJOBS?
URL: http://www.usajobs.gov/firsttimers.asp
1. Create an Account
* Build and store up to five distinct resumes
* Save and automate job searches
* Save job descriptions for future reference
Link that you currently have selected
Linkname: Create an Account
URL: https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Account.aspx
Link that you currently have selected
Linkname: Submit
URL: javascript:WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new
WebForm_PostBackOptions("MasterPage1:BodyContent:Buttons:btnSub
mit", "", true, "", "", false, true))
That discriminates against low-income disabled people such as
myself who can't afford a brand-new computer with direct InterNet
(PPP or DSL) access and JavaScript, and thus is in violation of
several laws.
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/NewPub/mySituation.html>
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/NewPub/BadWebSites/DiscrimBad.html>
Would you please tell your dear buddy Obama to stop requiring
JavaScript, so that I might someday get an account on the Web site,
and so that he might be in compliance with the laws he's sworn to
uphold and protect?
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > understood to mean finding ways to hire people who are currently
> > unemployed, such as myself, rather than whatever you mean by
> > "finding business". (Please define the latter term so that we
> > aren't talking past each other. What specifically would it mean for
> > me personally to "find business".)
> You go knocking on doors, which is the same thing that
> any enterprise that hires you will have done.
Around this neighborhood, knocking on random doors will result in
repeated calls to the police followed by my being put in jail if I
don't cease.
> > > Have you looked at the .Net world to see what you're missing?
> > What do you mean by "look at" it?? I already read a book called
> > "Visual Basic .NET =A0 HOW TO PROGRAM" (by Deitel) which gave me a
> > basic understanding of the concepts, but I've never had access to
> > any computer where VB.NET is available so that I could get "hands
> > on" experience with the technology. Do you have a Unix or Linux or
> > other shell machine with TELNET or SSH access that has VB.NET
> > available on it for me to play with remotely via VT100 emulator?
> > Otherwise, what are you proposing I do about it??
> These are artifacts of the 1990s. The current .Net
> development platform is a PC with XP Pro or Vista and
> VS2008. You can download a 90-day trial version
> of VS2008.
No I can't. None of the public computer labs around here will allow
me to download software to install on their computers.
I'm stuck with whatever software they have already installed.
> The implementation of the trial requires that you
> make a DVD. At the end of the evaluation period, you
> can remove and reinstall from the DVD.
I'm pretty sure none of the public computer labs provide any way to
"burn" DVDs.
> ... C# is the language of choice.
What is the Unix filename, so that I can do 'man whatever' to learn
the detailed information how to run it on my FreeBSD Unix shell
account.
> VC++ is still present but now only as a legacy.
But SOAP and XML and SQL and ADO.NET and ASP.NET are all pretty
much the same regardless of which scripting language (VB or C#) is
used, right?
> None of this is new. The .Net framework was introduced in 2002.
As of 2003.Summer when I took a VB class, and 2005.Spring when I
took a distributed Java class, at De Anza College, .NET wasn't yet
available for either class I was taking. At the very end, VB.NET
was available, but only for the beginning VB class I'd already
taken, and since I got an "A" in the VB-non-.NET class I wasn't
allowed to take the class to try to improve my grade, and school
policy disallowed taking it again even after .NET had been added to
the course making it an essentially different course despite
keeping the old course catalog number.
And by the way, the course instructor for the distributed Java
class forgot to tell the computer lab during the previous semester
that the class would need J2EE, so J2EE wasn't installed for the
semester of the class, so the distributed Java class was seriously
deficient not allowing us to have any hands-on experience with
J2EE.
So to put it short, nobody has ever allowed me access to any
computer that had .NET of any sort installed on it where I could
get hands-on experience. All I've had so-far is reading that book
by Deitel, and taking the essentially worthless online SOAP class
through Manpower and Project Hired. (I also took the almost as
worthless online JavaScript class through Manpower and Project
Hired.)
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> > to the free PHP/MySQL hosting site I'm currently using <tinyurl.com/Portl1>
> It isn't my intent to provide you with anything other than
> honoring a reasaonable number of requests for the time of day.
Well aren't you some fucking bastard there. You make a big deal
about how I should be using some Web site you mention, but when I
ask about it you refuse to tell me, using a snitty cliche to rub in
how you hold all the cards and feel the right to treat me like
shit.
> Most Web hosts that don't embed their own
> advertising onto your Web pages charge
> for their services starting at about $100 / year.
> This will typically get you a database server
> like MySQL or SQL Server.
That's what I already have (access to), with PHP as the scripting language.
Didn't you even look at <tinyurl.com/xspamx> or <tinyurl.com/Portl1>
before posting your worthless and snitty non-response?
> ASP.Net is a *server* side technology and
> C# which can be used for Windows clients or
> server programming
I already know all of that.
> is a far more advanced language than PHP.
Except it's not available. There's not a single Web site providing
such services for free (with advertising) or any other reasonable
deal for low-income negative-assets people like myself.
> In the Microsoft world, it replaces Java but has at its disposal
> the *immense* .Net library which eclipses Java.
Until and unless I find a place it's available, pie in sky is of no
value to me.
> PHP has many security issues,
> and they are far worse than ASP.Net.
> The problem with global vars for
> instance.
Are you talking about ordinary globals, or the mis-feature that
some PHP sites have enabled of mapping all HTML-FORM field names to
global variables thereby creating a security leak any time the PHP
script fails to initialize a global before using its value? AFAIK,
all the PHP/MySQL sites I use have that feature disabled, although
I suppose I should set up a script to test that and cease using any
sites where that mis-feature is enabled.
Of course the HTML-FORM field contents must be checked for unusual
characters before passing them to SQL, but that's standard coding
practice (but indeed beginners might overlook it). Here's the code
I currently use to validate a new user-ID requested via the HTML-FORM:
// Verify that the desired new user-ID is present and good syntax:
$keyid = 'id';
$boolid = array_key_exists($keyid,$_REQUEST);
if (!($boolid === true)) { timeDie("Desired ID missing"); }
$desid = $_REQUEST[$keyid];
if (40 < strlen($desid)) { timeDie("Desired ID too long"); }
$badix = checkUserString($desid);
if (-1 < $badix) {
timeDie("Desired ID has bad character at ix=" . $badix); }
Does that look safe, or did I make a (subtle) mistake?
(checkUserString is a function I wrote myself that returns the
index of the first character that isn't alphanum-or-underscore, or
-1 if the given string is *all* alphanum-or-underscore.
timeDie is a function I wrote myself that prints out final
timestamp and elapsed time since start of script, then calls die.
Elapsed time is typically 3 milliseconds on the PHP/MySQL sites I'm using.)
Or is there some *other* security issue with PHP that I don't yet know of?
Michael Fesser
>> PHP has many security issues,
>> and they are far worse than ASP.Net.
>> The problem with global vars for
>> instance.
>
>Are you talking about ordinary globals, or the mis-feature that
>some PHP sites have enabled of mapping all HTML-FORM field names to
>global variables thereby creating a security leak any time the PHP
>script fails to initialize a global before using its value?
register_globals is dead and removed from PHP 6. On properly configured
servers it's off anyway, so there's no reason to worry about it anymore.
But besides that the statement from the previous poster doesn't make
much sense. PHP has as many security issues as every other language. You
can write secure code and you can write insecure code in all of them.
Bugs and security problems in an application are always caused by the
developer, not by the used language or interpreter.
But maybe the previous poster could elaborate a bit on what security
issues he's referring to and why he considers them far worse than
ASP.Net.
Micha
Stratum101
> .oO(Robert Maas,http://tinyurl.com/uh3t)
Although I have volumes to contribute to this, I don't feel like
diverting to go there. I refer the poster to a short piece like
which mentions security in passing.
Michael Fesser
>On May 9, 11:53 am, Michael Fesser <neti...@gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> Bugs and security problems in an application are always caused by the
>> developer, not by the used language or interpreter.
>>
>> But maybe the previous poster could elaborate a bit on what security
>> issues he's referring to and why he considers them far worse than
>> ASP.Net.
>>
>
>Although I have volumes to contribute to this, I don't feel like
>diverting to go there. I refer the poster to a short piece like
>
>http://fvrit.com/archive/2008/09/03/php-versus-microsoft-asp.net-ndash-a-straightforward-comparison.aspx
>
>which mentions security in passing.
It says "[...] however security is only as good as the programmer’s
skill that writes the application". Sounds familiar.
And for the numbers - maybe the authors should learn how to properly use
a search engine and how to interpret the results. 4965 vulnerabilities
in PHP (all versions) and 400 in Apache (all versions)? Of course if you
count every single bug in an entire Debian distribution for example,
then it's easy to say that Linux is much more insecure than Windows,
because it has ten thousands of bugs.
So, my question is still unanswered.
Micha
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Although I have volumes to contribute to this, I don't feel like
> diverting to go there. I refer the poster to a short piece like
> http://fvrit.com/archive/2008/09/03/php-versus-microsoft-asp.net-ndash-a-straightforward-comparison.aspx
> which mentions security in passing.
I clicked on that link, and got this:
403 Forbidden
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access
http://fvrit.com/archive/2008/09/03/php-versus-microsoft-asp.net-ndash
-a-straightforward-comparison.aspx on this server.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Take a look at the U.S. government website and look around for
> jobs. Literally. http://www.usajobs.gov/
Because that Web site requires JavaScript to function at all, I
went to a public computer lab where JavaScript was available, and
spent my entire hour-and-a-half there getting more and more
frustrated:
- http://www.usajobs.gov/
http://www.usajobs.gov/firsttimers.asp
https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Account.aspx
CalRobert
Your Password must contain:
# A minimum of 8 and a maximum of 20 characters
# At least one number
# At least one upper case and one lower case letter
# At least one symbol (! @ # $ % ^ & *)
OK, I made up a password with all those complications.
As soon as I created the account, it said:
Welcome back, Robert Maas!
I hadn't even logged in yet, and I surely had never been there
before (except from home without JavaScript where I couldn't get
into the Web site at all), so it makes no sense that it would
welcome me back already.
It required me to build a whole new resume just for it, so I did:
Modified a commercial program that converts bitmap graphs into
x,y data sets, to include a new module that can handle
non-functional data or more than one superimposed graph. It traces
contours around black portions of image, locates narrow black strips
by matching anti-parallel portions of the contours, parameterizes
the segments of mathematical graphs represented by those black
strips, splices together pieces at endpoints that are nearby and
have similar but opposite azimuths, and generates a sequence of
x,y pairs for each resultant long line. Object-oriented
programming using Think C.
Starting on PDP-10 running Tenex, then moving to IBM mainframe
running VM/CMS. Programming in PSL (Portable Standard Lisp), plus
low-level IBM 360 assembly code. Part of team of appx. ten developing
computer-assisted instruction program for Calculus, and occasionally
upgrading PSL system, and porting both from a Tenex system near the start
of this project. Writing code modules and interfacing to rest of system.
Testing curriculum and reporting bugs in curriculum and software.
Debugging software including PSL kernel. (At the beginning of this time,
before we got NSF funding) we were funded by IBM to port PSL itself to
VM/CMS. Includes writing these major utilities as part of the overall CAI
system or in support of project:
- EQD: Conceived and wrote prototype and first real version and continued
development on EQuational-Derivation module for student-directed tasks
such as differentiating using various primitive rules (sum, product,
chain rule), solving equations, substituting values and equations.
- Mathprinter: Conceived (as successor to text layout on XGP, see below)
and wrote utility that takes an s-expression that is the internal form of
a mathematical expression and lays it out in two dimensions to look more
natural. (It is similar to the way MacSyma displays its output, except it
works from a different internal representation. This is different from
the well-known 'Tex' by Donald Knuth which prints mathematics nicely but
requires the user to translate math expressions into a mark-up language
that directly represents the 2-dimensional layout, thereby begging the
question of how to lay out mathematical forms in 2 dimensions.) During
stage two of this task, we planned to produce optimal (pretty) output on
UGS (Unified Graphics System, on VM/CMS) and in Xwindows (on Unix), and I
did much work on a new version, but due to difficulty getting
documentation for fonts in Xwindows and severe problems mixing text and
graphics in UGS as well as a need to have curriculum look the same under
both VM/CMS and Unix, my boss abandoned stage two and reverted to the
fixed-pitch plain-ASCII mode of output from stage one that was easy to
mix with normal fixed-pitch text on both systems.
- PSL syntax-checker: I worked with another employee to develop an early
version, then conceived a new version based on a common co-routine
utility that would support multiple user-level utilities related to
perusing syntax and name-usage in PSL source files. Using this co-routine
utility I developed user-level utilities to: (1) make a simple index of
functions defined in files; (2) Check the syntax of an individual file
and report all errors detectable from syntax such as wrong number of
arguments to functions or variable used but not declared nor bound, or
variable declared or bound but not used; (3) Collect all the master lists
of global variables declared in various files and functions defined in
various files into a master database, report functions defined in more
than one file, especially if with different number of arguments, and
automatically update the master database of numbers of arguments to
functions that is used by the syntax-checker for detecting errors within
a single file (due to conflict with other files; (4) Quickly search the
database for a particular function or global variable (in lieu of
searching the raw text of all the files on all the disks which takes a
long time and turns up many false matches).
I finished filling out the multiple forms to create a resume,
and then I created a job-search agent. It didn't provide any
way to *filter*out* skills I don't have. Then I actually ran
my search agent. The first job that came up was:
Librarian/Administrative Librarian/Library Director
SALARY RANGE: 40,093.00 - 133,985.00 USD per year OPEN PERIOD: Saturday, January 17, 2009
to Tuesday, June 30, 2009
SERIES & GRADE: YA-1410-02/03 POSITION INFORMATION: Multiple Schedules Multiple Appointment Types
DUTY LOCATIONS: vacancy(s) in one of the following locations: multiple duty locations - click here for more info
WHO MAY BE CONSIDERED: US Citizens and Status Candidates
JOB SUMMARY:
The mission of the United States Air Force is to fly, fight and win!Kin air, space and cyberspace.
To achieve that mission, the Air Force has a vision of Global Vigilance, Reach and Power. That vision orbits around three core competencies: Developing Airmen, Technology-to-Warfighting and Integrating Operations. Core competencies and distinctive capabilities are based on a shared commitment to three core values -- integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.
This Announcement will be used to fill like vacancies through 30 Jun 2009. On 01 JUL 2009 a new Announcement will be posted with a new Vacancy Identification Number (VIN). If you are still interested in being considered you will need to reapply (self nominate) for the new VIN.
************IMPORTANT INFORMATION CONCERNING STANDING REGISTERS************
THIS IS A STANDING REGISTER AND WILL BE USED TO FILL ANTICIPATED VACANCIES (PERMANENT, TERM AND TEMPORARY) AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS AS OPENINGS OCCUR.
Your application will only be reviewed and a notice sent when an actual fill request is received. Salary may vary depending on your experience, education, etc. Your resume will remain on file 90 days after the closing date for consideration.
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS FOR EXTERNAL NONCOMPETITIVE APPLICANTS. YOU MUST HAVE AN EXTERNAL ELIGIBILITY IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED AS A NON-COMPETITIVE APPLICANT. A LIST OF NON-COMPETITIVE ELIGIBILIES MAY BE LOCATED UNDER THE !'QUALIFICATION!( TAB.
This announcement will also be used to fill Non-AFMC vacancies for tenant units located on AFMC bases.
KEY REQUIREMENTS:
* U.S. Citizenship Required
* Travel and relocation expenses may/may not paid
Notice that the job summary says *nothing* whatsoever about the
actual duties of the job, and the requirements section says
*nothing* whatsoever about skills or experience required.
So shall I assume this is an *entry*level* job which pays $40k+
per year, and hence I can apply and get hired and earn big bucks?
So I applied, and was taken to this warning:
Welcome to USA Staffing(R) Application Manager!
If you have already created an Application Manager account, please
log in on the next page.
If this is the first time USAJOBS has sent you to Application
Manager, to continue the job application process, you will need to
create an account.
Application Manager, https://ApplicationManager.gov, is a
completely separate system that some agencies use to collect
applications online; it is not a part of http://www.USAJOBS.gov.
This means you need a separate account with Application Manager to
continue the online application process. In Application Manager
you will answer detailed job-specific questions that go beyond
what you have done in USAJOBS, and you can attach documents to
your application package, including your USAJOBS r{e'}sum{e'}.
See the
Application Manager Quick Start Guide for an overview.
CalRobert
(even more strict rules for password. The password I used above
wasn't acceptable because it used exclamation point which isn't
allowed here)
(secretWord).3.CalRobert@SpamGourmet.Com
In the section on eligibility, it says I need to:
If not already selected, please indicate your lowest acceptable pay
plan, grade level, or pay band:
Choices are O2 and O3. How the fuck am I supposed to know what
those jargon mean?? The HELP documentation for that form shows
a screen-image of the form and gives these instructions:
Instructions for the Eligibility Information Questionnaire
1. Provide answers to the questions as needed, and verify that
they are accurate.
2. Click Next to move to the next step along the path, or click
Save before taking any other action. Your work is saved when
you click Next or Previous.
So how the fuck am I supposed to guess which O2 or O3 I should
select?
Stratum101
I got my C#, which closely resembles Java, which is inspired
by C++ by reading a software manual. For crissakes. A
$40 investment, enough drive on my part to
digest the thing inside of a week, and immediate
application requirements.
It is obvious why you're unemployed.
I am reminded of a difficult take-home exam
I completed in 1971 for a UCLA grad-level course.
There were four or six problems, and I did all but
two of them rapidly. The other two were real
ponderers. So I pondered day and night when
I had nothing else to do, and was working
on the second of the two problems up
to a few hours before the deadline.
We handed in our papers and spent nearly
two hours reviewing the problems.
We were up to all but the last, and I already
knew I'd gotten every one correct so far. So
we took a 10-minute break, as was the custom,
and my professor overheard us discussing the
last problem in the hallway and -- he tells me
later -- realized that I had the correct solution
which he didn't expect anyone to get. We
resume class and by now he's looking at
my paper and invites me to present the
solution to the last problem on the
blackboard or greenboard or whatever
it was in 1971.
Afterwards, some sorehead is muttering
that he couldn't do half the problems
because he couldn't find a table of integrals.
I dunno. I could, and he couldn't. Some people
are more resourceful than others. I think my
motivation there was that I wanted a Hughes
Fellowship (I was already working at HAC), and
I wasn't going to get it without a high GPA.
> And by the way, the course instructor for the distributed Java
> class forgot to tell the computer lab during the previous semester
> that the class would need J2EE, so J2EE wasn't installed for the
> semester of the class, so the distributed Java class was seriously
> deficient not allowing us to have any hands-on experience with
> J2EE.
By then, just about every high school kid in North
America had a laptop computer and access
to the Java source Web site. Life is tough.
>
> So to put it short, nobody has ever allowed me access to any
> computer that had .NET of any sort installed on it where I could
> get hands-on experience.
If it were up to me, I wouldn't allow you access past the
front lobby, and then only long enough to wipe your
bum in the restroom.
As they say in Spanish, no Maas.