Re: can anyone offer Lisp job?

> From: Tim X <timx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > I have great confidence in my skills, as proven by the many
> > successful applications and utilties/tools I've wrotten.
> Interesting you just had a go at someone in this newsgroup for their
> english not being "up to par." and then you've 'wrotten' the above!

That was a simple keyboard typo. We all do that. Thanks for noting it.
If it were a Web page that I had control over, I'd edit it to fix the
typo. But there's no way to edit articles posted to newsgroups, so it's
stuck there forever, but your note about it alerts any reader who is
following the thread.

> Everyone knows that the Internet is filled with bad grammar and
> spelling - its the nature of the beast - most don't proof read before
> posting and tend to post following a style more akin to a stream of
> consciousness rather than the well written text found in books etc.

I agree, and I write mostly in stream of consciousness myself, often
running from one throught to another as I think of new ideas in the
midst of typing what I had already planned to say. I generally notice
when I make a mistake, and usually take a glance back from time to time
to see if there are any typos I missed, but occasionally with just me
to proofread my own writing I let a typo slip through. (And occasionally
there's a word I really am misspelling. For example, several years ago
when I started using the words "mitosis" and "meiosis" on a regular
basis, I didn't know how to spell the latter, and sometimes got it
rearranged, and other times had to look it up. But finally I got the
correct spelling memorized, thanks to a heuristic based on comparison
with the former. A couple other words I still have trouble spelling,
although at the moment I can't remember what they are.)

What bothers me is when people show blatant disregard for correct
spelling, or when they show they have no idea which spelling to use
among common word groups such as to/too/two as/is when/where
their/there/they're here/hear etc. I wrote a computer program to teach
correct spelling of the most common words (the and of but to ...) and
used it to teach my children how to spell those words correctly, i.e.
appropriately in context, for sample sentences without the actual
program see:
http://shell.rawbw.com/~rem/cgi-bin/topscript.cgi
Select the radio button for "Most common words" then click the submit
button which is titled "Start the demo of SegMat per above selections".
Try deliberately getting some of the words wrong so it'll show you
alternate sentences with same missing word.

For the actual effective-teaching program you need an individual
account so that the program can keep track of your progress.
After we arrange an account for you, log in here:
http://shell.rawbw.com/~rem/cgi-bin/LogForm.cgi
http://shell.rawbw.com/~rem/cgi-bin/LogForm.cgi?f=WAP
the latter if you're on a cellphone or other tiny-screen device.
Meanwhile, if you promise that only one of ypu will use it at a time,
you can try the guest aco*** (username=guest1 password=free) in the
login form.
If two of you try to use it at about the same time, your state changes
will interleave causing horrible confusion and possibly crashing the
program due to invalid program state.
If two of you use it at very different times, each of you will pick up
where the other left off, causing mild confusion but at least you'll
get an idea of how the program works and be eager to get your own
account if you have trouble spelling any of those nine hundred
most-common words.

Anyway, with technology such as mine available, there's really no
excuse not to be able to choose the appropriate word and spell it
correctly, among the most common English words, even if your native
language isn't English and you need to spend a few days with my program
brushing up on your spelling before posting (after all when you first
get on the net you're supposed to read for a few weeks before posting
the first time, which gives plenty of time to use my program, right?).

> your website is doing more harm than good

I don't really have a WebSite per se, more like a lot of different
groupings of WebPages in different places. Perhaps you should comment
with specific suggestions about any particular WebPage that bothers
you. For example, did you try that quick run-through of the hundred
most common words? If so, what do you think of the interaction for when
you get a word incorrect and it helps you toward the correct spelling
until it's achieved?

> the employer cannot see any benefit to employing you over someone
> else who is cheaper

Since I'm willing to work at the minimum legal wage to get started, and
in fact I'm willing to do some work totally without pay in return for
evaluation of my work, how exactly is the employer going to do what you
suggested there without violating the law or actually taking money from
an employee for the priviledge of working for free?

> programming is a skilled job which requires education ...

Nonsense. I can teach almost anyone how to program. Last Monday I
started lessons on two severely disabled people at a drop-in-center for
disabled people, and made progress with each.

> While a programmer in India may not earn quite as much as a
> programmer in the US, they still earn more than the US minimum wage
> equivelent.

Then it makes no business sense for companies to hire outside the USA,
given that I'm available right here in California.

> > So let's go back to square one: I have 22 years experience programming
> > computers, 15 of which were using Lisp. If you had the money to hire
> > me, how much per hour would you offer me?
> The first thing I would want is some evidence of this experience.

What kind of evidence do you require? Since all work in the past has
already happened, there's no way I can take you back in time to sit
next to me as I was working in the past to directly observe me working
back then. Besides, the important thing is what I can do now, not how
long I worked in the past to develop such skills, or do you disagree??
So other than show you software I've developed during the past several
years, or take a "trial work" test whereby you assign me some
programming task that takes only a day to accomplish (no, I'm not
willing to spend a full year working without pay on some huge project
to your benefit), what else would constitute evidence of my recent
capabilies?

> Where is your employment history?

Are you blind or something?

> What about a description of the "major" projects you have worked on

Are you blind or something?

> If you have 22 years programming experience, then you should be able
> to write about some of the more interesting and challenging projects
> you worked on and some of the innovative solutions you found ...

I already did that. Apparently you didn't bother to read what I wrote.
Do any of these interest you:
- Computer assisted instruction (math, reading, spelling).
- Analysis of incoming spam and automatic firing of instant complaints
to the complaint desk of offending ISP.
- Synthetic generation of proved large primes.
- Number recognizer by finding approximate linear relationships.
- Computerized typography (pre-TeX).
- Magnetic resonance relaxation models for organic molecules.
- Data compression.
- Perfect play with first move in game of Go on small boards via
combined heuristics and mistake-correction.
- Linked frames of information i.e. computerized "programmed text"
(long before HyperCard or HTML, about the same time as EMACS-INFO).
- Maintenance of large database of directories of diskettes and
compilation of inverted index and automatic detection of
too-many-versions of any given file and aid in purging extra old
copies.

I suppose you're too blind to have seen any mention of those in my
various detailed resumes? Or you consider them all trivlal?

> I would also point out that its not uncommon for prospective
> employers to google for info on applicants to see if they have a net
> history, so be aware that anything you put in these newsgroups could
> be seen by them.

And if some prospective employer happened to notice that I was active
in brainstorming about how life might have gotten started 3.8 or more
billion years ago (abiogenesis) or precise definition of "living thing"
suitable for ET searches, or my helping people to clarify their math
and computer understanding and whacking down the trolls who post utter
garbage by pointing exactly where their language makes no sense
whatsoever, or by fighting spam for more than ten years, or my interest
in rec.games.go (which I don't spend much time at) including better
formalizations of the rules of the game to support correct computer
refereeing of games, or my advocacy of space/Lunar exploration and
development of resources and brainstorming ideas about how to
accomplish such, or my volunteeer activities teaching reading and
spelling to non-English-speaking people, and teaching computer
programming to disabled people, how would such information affect my
prospects for employment, in your opinion?

> You have a poor employment record - no *PAID* work for 13 (?) years?
> Why not?

Ask the people who didn't hire me all these years.
I have no idea why they didn't hire me.
The excuse I got from 1991 to 1994, and again from 2001 to now, was
that there's a recession on so nobody's hiring.
The excuse I got from 1994 onward was that I've been unemployed more
than two years so I'll never be able to get another job until the day I
die because nobody wants anybody who has been unemployed more than two
years.
As you see, in recent years I've gotten both excuses.
But they are just excuses, not valid reasons.

> If I/we invested in you, would you stay around long enough to warrant
> the investment?

Of course I would. I'm not a job-hopper. At my previous long-term job I
stayed on when nearly everyone else had quit to go find more lucrative
jobs. I stayed to the very end when our institute (IMSSS) lost all
available funding and couldn't start a follow-on to the project we were
just completing. I got two weeks notice from learning of new contract
not available to end of contract we'd been in until then.

If I had been a job-hopper, maybe I would have skipped out in 1989 or
1990 and have a new job in 1991 instead of being hit by the recession.

> Do you really have the skills you claim?

Of course I do! Are you calling me a liar? On what basis?
What specific skills do I claim which you dispute?

> Can you apply your skills/knowledge in a way which will be beneficial
> to us?

That depends on what your needs are. Tell me your needs and I might be
able to answer. ("your" means the hypothetical employer you're emulating)

> Will you do what is required or will you argue all the time?

I will not eagerly violate criminal law just to keep the job.
(I turned down one job like that long ago.)
But within the limits of the law and common decency etc., I do whatever
my boss wants and expresses to me.

> Do you need close management or can you work independently?

I generally work independently, but whenever I finish building a major
tool I need somebody to try it and see if it does what they expected it
to do, so that I know whether to incorporate that tool into higher
levels that I build next or whether that tool needs modification before
I try to use it for anything else.

> More often than not, outsourcing programming is about cheaper
> 'management" and flexibility in business options.

I don't understand how it'd be easier to manage long-distance between
USA and India than to manage locally. Please explain your rationale for
your statement above. I've never joined a union, and I'm not aware of
any that exist for the kind of work I do, so your remarks about unions
interfering with business practice is moot.
.

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