Role Update

I met with my old college friend to chat about the department I am evaluating for a transfer. It was a very eye opening experience. From the conversation it sounds like the work/tasks are right up my alley. What gives me pause are some of the people issues on the team and a probable pay cut if I do transfer.

All food for thought. I have not brought it up with my manager yet. I am waiting till my upcoming review in a few months before making a decision and talking to them about it. I've got plenty of time to ponder and ponder I shall...

Net Censorship at its Worse

There are a few things that get me very riled up in the scheme of things. Excessive Internet censorship is one of them. The latest net censorship comes from the NY attorney general. In his mission to combat child porn, he is convincing Internet Service Providers to block access to large parts of Usenet.

For those who do not know what Usenet is, it is a group of a large number of discussion groups. They have been around before the web became popular.

The groups are unregulated and at times people do post materials of a questionable, and sometimes illegal nature. The logical thing to me would be that when one of the illegal pieces is found, take down that piece. The NY AG's approach goes way beyond monitor and enforce. His preferred method is the blanket censoring of massive chunks of the Usenet. Instead of doing their job, access is cut to thousands of news groups so they don't have to monitor the groups. Now news groups that help people with legitimate, non-controversial topics are gone at certain ISPs all in the name of "Protecting the Children" and allowing law enforcement to be lazy.

To get a feel on how wide spread the censoring is, it would be like banning all of the *.net websites because a very small amount of them contain child porn. By blanket banning parts of the Usenet, it does nothing for reducing the amount of child porn. You are not stopping the flow, you are just moving the material to a different place the producers have access to. Don't censor the Usenet, do your job and prosecute the few who are ruining it for all.

News Source:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-ny-attorney-general-gets-more-isps-to-block-alt-newsgroups.html

Best Code Comment

While toiling away this morning, I stumbled upon the best, groan inducing comment I have ever seen.

k cat ; Ha - was it curiosity?

Role Change?

Pondering what to do at work. Doing development is tolerable and something I don't mind doing for now, but it is something I do not want to do long term.

I've been doing system administration stuff as a hobby for some time running my own servers. After being able to do that as a job the year I worked at the University, I find that it is what I would do long term. So what I am doing right now is keeping my impulse to strait up switch roles in check and try to logically compare the two. I wouldn't want to just switch and then regret it later. Some things I am pondering as pros and cons are:

Cons:

• Depending on when the switch takes place, it could be viewed as job hopping
• Starting over again with training
• Probable pay cut

Pros:

• Learn skills that are in wider demand if in the longer term me and company part ways
• Have more experience in the field than development
• More interesting technologies
• Able to get up and move. Having some physical component to help fight office atrophy
  
• Much easier self education. Easier to find documentation/help on the technologies used

Still pondering pros and cons so the lists my evolve over time. Any thoughts/input out there?