The NYT allows you to view up to 20 (I think - not sure of number, could be 10) stories per month for free. So you don't have to scam the paywall. And, I don't think if this is still the case, but. . .when the paywall was first erected, if you were directed to the NYT from another site, the story you accessed did not count against your free monthly quota.
The sites that I skip are those that require that I register before even reading an article.
It's not as bad as you think. The submitting member only gets the submission upvotes. The comment upvotes go the individual commenters. So d1egoaz only got 791 points.
a slight tangent, but. . .a few years ago I interviewed (internally) for a dev/mgr position for the group I was currently working in (not team lead - I was already a team lead). I would still be coding at least 50% of the time. I was already reporting to the hiring manager and was physically located in close proximity to him, so he saw me frequently throughout the day.
For the interview, I dressed as I always did - and we were not a suit type of place. At the start of the interview, he told me he was disappointed that I had not dressed up. I was stunned but did not respond and the interview proceeded.
I got the job and after a couple of weeks, I asked him why he wanted me to dress up for the interview. I asked if it was simply because he wanted to know if I could dress appropriately for the customer. He replied that was'nt it; he just though it would show appropriate respect for him and the position.
I though "this is reason # 102 why I really didn't want to move up the chain closer to you".
Interesting perspective that I had never thought of. . .I totally get it. . .but I still enjoy the show, only now I may feel guilty about it. Maybe I was so nerdy/naive I never perceived that the audience could be laughing more at them than with them. And honestly, I've been wishing we could see less of Penny. I get why Leonard is supposed to pine after Penny, but I keep thinking "get over her and move on to someone better". . .And I'm speaking as a female nerd.
I've had a couple of engagements that went well. And I've been invited to bid on some team engagements that appeared to be well defined, well managed, and well structured. But the customer "required" 40 hr/week and paid "okay", but not well enough to suck up 40 hours of my week. I would have considered it if it had been deliverable-based rather than time-based.
But, as the other commenters have stated, most of the jobs pay too little, require immediate turnaround and/or have initial scopes which turn out to be poorly though-out.
Not sure what you mean by "coded" tests, but I agree that most bugs can be found during development - unfortunately, my experience is that that's rarely the case. But if your development team finds most bugs during development, my hat's off to you.
I would manually test every aspect of it, and make sure there are no known defects. So any defect found by a customer would likely be some obscure edge case.
I've worked with African developers and an currently working with a couple. The ones that I know started out with an agency and then eventually gained green card status and were able to get hired independently of the agency. The potential problem with going the agency route, as I informally understand it, is that no matter how disatisfied you may be become with your agency, you are stuck with them until you are able to apply for a green card - and that could be a pretty long time.
I agree with all that you said except the lesson from the military about never complaining down - depending on how how you define "complain". For example, if you've been "given" a very agressive development schedule, my experience has been that it's fair - even appreciated by your team - that you state, succinctly and matter-of-factly, that you believe that the schedule is more agressive than is optimal and that you either 1) argued unsuccessfully against it or 2) argued with partial sucess against the original, more agressive schedule, so there is a partial win. And then comes the positivity. . ."we need to work together to figure out how to meet this schedule with minimal risk". This is what I did as a manager, when applicable, and what I appreciated as a team member listening to my manager.
And I worked for the military for a while - as a civilian - and I observed various leadership styles among the officers and various levels of receptiveness among those they were leading. They knew that they needed to salute and carry on with the job, whether they agreed with the plan or not, but they still appreciated the acknowledgement that the plan they were about to carry out was not perfect but was the best that it could be, given the constraints.
good point. that's not grousing, like i was originally thinking, but is a valid point. it expresses sympathies with your team, and in doing that you can make sure you set them up to succeed: clearing obstacles, gathering materials, resetting expectations, etc. "welcome to the suck."
I don't know your age, but what works for you now may not work for you as you get older. And many people exercise not because of how it makes them look but because of how it makes them feel; in fact, for many people who exercise, their appearance changes very little, if at all. And some people find that exercise helps mitigate chronic illnesses such as MS, hypertension, depression, asthma. . .or at least the symptoms thereof.
The sites that I skip are those that require that I register before even reading an article.