06 October 2009

The Fifties are Strange

I didn't think that my life would be so hard at 54, or that I'd be out of work, or that I'd feel like I was trying to find myself. There are a few things that I know about myself
  • I'm a Catholic boy, that's important to me
  • I'm smart, and I'd rather work on something hard with a lot of learning involved than on something easy
  • injustice and poverty get my dander up, and although I don't think I much make a difference by doing it, I go and stand with signs talking about what I'd like to stop and I'd like to start
  • In particular I'd like to see enough work visas issued for all the latin american workers we have slaving away in America. That would solve most of the illegal immigration problem. Why do we only want them working here if they're undocumented?
  • Why does the United States have the highest incarceration rate in the world? China's second.
  • Why is California incarcerating people at a rate of 1 out of every 113 people (in 2008 according to the US department of justice)?
  • Are we so much worse than the rest of the world? I don't think so--we're just meaner.
Looks like I'm either going to have to get out of programming, or add to my skillset. Just being a kick-ass crazy good C++ programmer isn't enough to keep me employed. I hate not having a job. I love being a generalist able to jump in and quickly be productive in new problem domains, but it's getting harder and harder to get people to hire me. Maybe I should specialize in something. Any suggestions?
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1 comment:

  1. David TähtOctober 7, 2009 at 6:21 PM

    * In particular I'd like to see enough work visas issued for all the latin american workers we have slaving away in America. That would solve most of the illegal immigration problem. Why do we only want them working here if they're undocumented?

    Because, it keep illegals impoverished, out of the vote, and working cheap or under the table with very few human rights. It seems human nature to need to oppress someone.

    * Why does the United States have the highest incarceration rate in the world? China's second.

    Because a scared populace is easier to manage. Everybody does something illegal. All are afraid of jail. No one is free, anymore, if they ever were.

    Why is California incarcerating people at a rate of 1 out of every 113 people (in 2008 according to the US department of justice)?

    California is the lead symptom in a ever more pervasive disease.

    Are we so much worse than the rest of the world? I don't think so--we're just meaner.

    Depends on what you mean by "we", kemosabe.

    On the C++ side, keep your skills sharp by finding an open source project you like and contributing to it, or invent your own. For example, I've been trying to find someone to fix my remaining bugs in ardour (ardour.org) for some time now... I would like to move on to other, less complex things, and C++ gives me the heebie jeebies.

    I've actually got a great deal of interesting work via my association with ardour, I'm just not up to coping with the codebase anymore.

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