suboptimal's comments

I do. Put the million in a savings account, move to an affordable area and rent, or purchase a living space and bank the rest, then live (modestly) off the interest. Or if you can tolerate greater risk, pursue investments with higher returns, and/or expatriate yourself.

The question is, could you stop working and retain your sanity? I wonder about people who achieve success too early in life--they have many years ahead of them and much to learn, and wealth in some ways may be a hindrance.

I'm assuming deals already get done here on an informal basis, and that's probably a good way to go. Why not search previous posts (on one of the search sites), contact anybody who seems interesting or relevant, and in general just network with the coderati? Anyone interested probably has an e-mail address posted in his profile.

My heroes.

I propose a form of "Instant Karma." Then we can all shine on.

But beware the posters with many accounts, for these "Karma Chameleons" just come and go.

Does this mean I can start developing for IE7 soon? [A guy can dream, can't he?]

BTW, here are some links for anybody developing for IE6 (I feel your pain, brothers and sisters):

Valid fix for PNG transparency on a single image http://www.bioneural.net/2006/08/09/valid-fix-for-png-transp...

How to apply tr border to tables in Internet Explorer 6 http://www.csarven.ca/tr-border-trick-for-ie

IE6 Peekaboo Bug http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html

I'd go with 1) what works for you, 2) at that time, 3) with an eye toward future expansion. What #3 means is if you go with a simple solution per #1, make sure you can migrate your data.

For example, I've seen many companies grow from using Excel to Access to SQL Server. This path seems quite natural, and despite the issues associated with Access databases designed by non-DBAs (ahem), the process generally works (with the assistance of those of us who get paid to help).

Company B's problem is they don't realize they've outgrown their system, and need to evolve to the next step. However, I think their solution (spreadsheets) should work perfectly fine for your two-man shop.

I duplicate this lifecycle in my own personal projects. I might start off tracking fitness in vim, and decide I want sums so I migrate to Calc, etc. I recommend using simple tools, well.

Do you think if you try to adopt a larger package before you're ready you might end up spending most of your time playing with the system instead of working (like a writer who procrastinates writing)?

vim on my MBP (formerly on my Dell laptop running Ubuntu).

I enjoy vim because it rewards me for learning new commands (referencing the "What software makes you happy?" thread).

Darren, you a CodeIgniter guy? If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting started with the new ASP.NET MVC framework--it almost makes working with .NET in the day job tolerable (yes, "almost").

Well, in their defense the article was written in 2002. ;)

I couldn't find the words "fitness" or "exercise" anywhere in the article. In my opinion any discussion of sleep habits should include exercise (if I was a doctor that's the first thing I'd ask my patients about). The writer does mention coffee and caffeine, which is another good indicator of potential sleep issues.

I used to work vampire hours years ago while an independent. It was fun in some ways, but waking up at lunchtime made me feel like I missed most of the day. Now I'm up before the sunrise and accomplish more (it's also somewhat necessary in my commuting environment).

Find what works for you, but mind your health (says grandma)!

I guess D&D falls into the "do your own thing" category of entrepreneurship. It may have been inspired by an existing product (war games), but ultimately became a new type of game and had no guarantee of an eventual payoff.

BTW is anyone else a bit surprised by the light tone of the articles about Gygax's death? All the headlines I see seem to be jokes, and I wonder if that's because he was a geek and not, for example, an athlete or musician with "devastated" fans. [Just a somewhat cynical observation.]

Brilliant beast! Wonder if my local liberry has the book (a library card is highly recommended to you frugal, bootstrapping types as the cheapest entertainment).

Regarding Wikipedia, I agree. I'm disappointed by the behind-the-scenes manipulation and gamesmanship, but believe the sort of topics I tend to be interested in are less likely to be manipulated.

Good post from wheels of the "been there, done that" variety (actually I hate that expression).

Chris: Let's go with green tonight! Phil: Chris, we've been over this before. Chris (mopey): But I like green. C'mon, if the fans really love us, they'll be okay with that. Phil (exasperated): Chris, we're Blue Man Group--we wear f'ing blue. Does Beyonce wake up one morning and say "I think I'll wear a nice, tasteful navy blue dress today with flowers"? No, she puts on the sl'ttiest thing she's got, goes out there and shakes that a'', because she's Beyonce and that's what she does. And that's why we're not gonna go out there and be some kind of Green Man Group.

One thing I've always been curious about is why the same people (not referring specifically to you, illicium) who decry the use of tables for layout use unordered lists (ul) and definition lists (dl) for their forms. If a table should only be used for data, then so should an unordered or definition list.

It's as if they still need a tag for layout, but just can't bring themselves to use the table tag and resort to other markup to accomplish essentially the same thing.

It seems like it's a matter of fashion over function (and reminds me somewhat of the "cool kids" dynamic in music, clothing, gadgets, etc.).

Disclaimer: Yeah, so I'm using divs for mostly everything now, too.

Thanks for posting this; I enjoyed reading about his lifestyle:

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/simpleLife.ht...

People who are determined can Find a Way.

vim has my vote. It's my "killer app" for notes, fitness log, recipes, etc. It's also my favorite IDE, together with Firefox/bug.

12/100 running IE 6.0

Picasso comes to mind . . .