> So, what matter's today? Knowledge on a particular technology or re-usable engineering skills ?

Well- knowledge of what's relevant today AND the ability to pick up new tech / tools fast for what's relevant tomorrow. Most of the tools all follow the same patterns at the end of the day:

e.g.
- Piping output / chaining commands (streams in js are hot right now- gulp.js for instance)
- Not repeating your self (polymorphism / extensibility) as a broad pattern


So if anything, the most important thing is the ability to teach yourself and keep up with what's changing. And sometimes that doesn't mean using it- for example, understanding why React JS and a virtual DOM may or may not be a better solution to what's going on with Angular / Ember / Backbone etc.

Here's a photo of it. In the middle, kinda hard to make out http://f.cl.ly/items/1S2W2w3X0z13450i440Z/black.jpg

I'M A PEOPLE PERSON

Been there done that... My problem was writing a function to generate phone number letter permutations. At least permutations are useful in "real life" and coincidentally working through them brought me to modulus as well. I couldn't answer the question and didn't get the job, but to be fair they gave me 10-15 minutes (or so it felt like).

I'm alive

Friday September 16, 2011

Just fucking barely. I'm at the air races in Reno with a bunch of friends and a horrific accident just happened. One of the very high end racers, going about 500 mph, lost control and nose dived straight into the audience. The news is currently saying that the plane missed the grandstand, but that's only technically true: in front of the grandstand there are several rows of box seats. It impacted right in the middle of them. I was in a box seat with my friends only 50 feet from the impact. I was watching the plane as it lost control, so I saw the whole thing. The impact happened so fast, there was hardly any sound: just one huge shock wave. No fireball. The plane, and many people, disintegrated instantly, right in front of me. There were bodies everywhere. No crash you've ever seen in a movie is even remotely authentic.

Update: it's already on YouTube. I was in the middle of the dust cloud you see around the impact. They're saying "30 serious injuries" but I know that's a long way from the truth. At least that many died instantly in the impact. I suspect that there were not a huge number of serious injuries. It was not a small airplane. You either died or you didn't. I didn't. My brother and I are still shaking.

Another Update: They're now officially calling it a "mass casualty situation". The plane was Galloping Ghost, piloted by Jimmy Leeward. It was a very cool, highly modified, P51 mustang with a very unusual approach to engine cooling. I doubt that this was at all connected to the accident - it looked like a control system failure.

How long until someone makes an app for that? Shouldn't be hard to work up an antenna for i* 30 pin port...

Let me speed up the linkage...

His name is Kevin Lacy and his email is jklacy@ncdot.gov and his phone number is 919-773-2800. And now they will send someone after me for plagiarism.

Here is where you can send a comment directly: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapps.dot.state.nc.us%2Fcontactus%2FPostComment.aspx%3FUnit%3DPIO

Now we need a list of all the instructions on how to build all of those... Or be really dedicated and reverse engineer it from still frames from the movies like this fella http://www.gizmag.com/home-built-dark-knight-batmobile/16736/

For what could be very stale subject matter Monty has done an excellent job of giving effective examples that engage and entertain.

I think it's worth specifying that the wind screen becoming opaque wasn't from ash sticking to it, but was from the ash sand-blasting it. It had the same effect on the landing lights and with this incident happening at night, added yet another level of difficulty to the situation.