Programmer

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

As martyrs go, Aaron Swartz was an extraordinary example of the breed. A computer programming genius, he had helped develop the social networking site Reddit and became known as a leading advocate for easy and free information sharing on the Web. When Swartz committed suicide in January, while awaiting trial on federal computer hacking charges that could have landed him in prison for 35 years and cost him fines of $1 million, his death was seen...

In Masood Farivar's life, the absurdly improbable has often come to look like the preordained. Once a teenage jihadi who went to the caves of Tora Bora to fight the Soviets, he also attracted the attention of a mentor, who paved the Afghan youth's way to Harvard. Farivar lost his "big Osama bin Laden beard," frolicked in Harvard's social clubs, studied medieval European history and found his way to a news wire service, where he wrote about the oil business and, later, the United Nations.

David Murray isn't skin deep - - even if he at least initially seemed that way on television. The 29-year-old engineer created a real buzz after confessing to numerous plastic surgeries including a hair transplant and a nose job in the first episode of the new Bravo reality series "Start-ups: Silicon Valley. " (The second episode airs Monday night). But he also packs some serious high-tech punch. Murray has a triple degree from Carnegie Mellon and a master's degree in computer science from Stanford and he started out his career as an associate product manager at Google.

The sky was clear, the sand was warm and the surf was up. Just another day in paradise for the grateful blond from Minnesota. It was the summer of 1964 and, between waves, the 21-year-old math major was looking for work. So on her way home from the beach, she stopped by the Douglas Aircraft Co. to pick up an application.

Sundance exec: Trevor Groth has been promoted from senior programmer to director of programming for the Sundance Film Festival.

Considering his decision to move "Twin Peaks" to Saturday night, I assume ABC's prime-time programmer is the same person responsible for "new Coke" and the Lotto 6-53 game. Jerrold Kazdoy, Studio City

As a transgendered person, I urge the passage of AB 196 banning discrimination in housing and employment ("Assembly Passes Bill to Protect Transsexuals," April 22). My transgendered friends include an unemployed lawyer, computer programmer and camera operator. Diversity and tolerance in the workplace are good for California's economy. Robert Y. Nakagawa Los Angeles

There are a couple of references in your Aug. 18 Around the Dial column that leave an inaccurate impression. Steve Hochman wrote of "such failed experiments as trying to mix such country-influenced classic-rock acts as Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles into the programming." Then later, he referred to "R.J. Curtis, who oversaw the station's peak time circa 1994. . . ." As operations manager-programmer during the "failed experiment" time from 1996 to '98, I must protest the above categorizations.

Regarding "Festival Romances the Dark Side" by Susan King (March 28) about the festival of film noir, I read the article with interest and was thinking how great it will be to see all these classics at the Egyptian. I've seen many of these movies, but only on television because most of them were made before I was born. But, it seems, not long enough before I was born. Festival programmer Eddie Muller "programs the festival to attract young audiences," an "entirely new generation." In his bold marketing strategy, Mr. Muller follows that of the entertainment industry and ignores the fact that there are many more people my age than there are 20- and 30-year-olds!

In the last week or so, an intense kerfuffle broke out over the poll-prognosticator Nate Silver and his blog at the New York Times, FiveThirtyEight . Silver, a statistician, has been predicting a decisive Obama victory for a very long time, based on his very complicated statistical model, which very, very few of his fans or detractors understand. On any given day, Silver might announce that - given the new polling data - "the model" now finds that the president has an 86.3% chance of winning.

Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, is sending women to Hacker School this summer. Marc Hedlund, Etsy's vice president of engineering, said that in his career he has hired hundreds of men but only dozens of women. “Other managers I know have reported similar experiences,” Hedlund wrote in a blog post . So Etsy is hosting the summer 2012 session of Hacker School at its New York City headquarters, and it's offering 10 $5,000 grants to women who want to join but need financial assistance.

The Raspberry Pi, a $35 computer about the size of a credit card, made headlines last week when all the 10,000 units available for pre-order were snatched up just minutes after they went on sale. Even after the units had sold out, international interest in the computer was so rabid that the websites of the two retailers authorized to sell it — Premier Farnell and RS Components Ltd. — crashed under the weight of the traffic. "We weren't surprised by the enthusiastic reaction," said Eben Upton, executive director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation in Britain.

Under ordinary circumstances, "Celebrating Classic Cinema: Curator and Audience Favorites," the exceptional new repertory program starting Friday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, would be a cause for unreserved happiness and joy. But these are not ordinary times at LACMA. The series comprises some of the greatest films ever made, prime examples of classic cinema that include some of my own favorites — films like Max Ophüls' breathtaking "The Earrings of Madame de...," Ernst Lubitsch's daringly funny "To Be or Not to Be," and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's sweepingly romantic "I Know Where I'm Going.

On Mother's Day, my daughter and her friend Jenny sat on our sofa rocking their baby dolls. It would have been an ordinary, sweet scene of children playing house, if Aviva and Jenny weren't teenagers. Our affluent school district has a thing for gadgets. In some classes, students have instant-answer transmitters, paid for by the schools' fundraising foundation, that enable the teacher to find out instantly whether students understand the lesson. Less successful — and I'm being generous here — was the software that supposedly taught good writing.

Time Warner Cable's plans to offer live television through Apple's iPad have hit a major roadblock. The cable giant, which has almost 15 million subscribers, dropped a dozen popular channels — including MTV and Comedy Central — from its recently launched iPad application after complaints from programmers, which argued that their content was being put on the iPad illegally. At issue is whether the deals that Time Warner Cable has to carry programming extend beyond the set-top box on the television to new platforms such as the iPad.

James Flanigan's column repeats two widely accepted "facts." The first: "The U.S. economy created more than 2 million jobs a year in the 1980s." But most of these jobs were in the minimum-wage category, with laid-off Ph.Ds and middle managers working at fast-food franchises. The second: ". . . a lot of that growth appears to be for computer systems analysts and programmers." But the growth is seen as a result of the perceived shortage of qualified people, regardless of the supply of capable people.

I am writing in response to "Hospitals Seek Cures for Nurses Shortage," April 21. The answer is simple. Pay us what we are worth. I have been a nurse for 20 years. I have seen many changes over the years, and most are not for the better. Even with the years of experience that I have, I make less money than an entry-level computer programmer. I have been spit on, bled on, vomited and urinated on. I have been called every name in the book by my "beloved patients." My husband is a newer nurse, with only three years of experience.

A computer programmer accused of stealing software from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. faces up to 15 years in prison after being convicted on two federal criminal counts. A U.S. District Court jury in Manhattan found Sergei Aleynikov, 40, guilty Friday on one count of economic espionage and one count of transporting stolen goods across state lines. He is set to be sentenced in March. Aleynikov, who worked on Goldman's high-frequency-trading desk, was arrested a month after he quit the investment bank last year to work for a Chicago start-up, Teza Technologies, which was trying to build its own trading operation.

My childhood, adolescence and part of my adult life were plagued by a debilitating stutter. Can you imagine being terrified to say your own name, order food in a restaurant, ask a question in school or even answer the telephone? That was my life. When I was 5 years old in Ireland and my mother was in the hospital, our neighbor picked my siblings and me up for school and asked who was looking after the baby. I tried to say "Daddy," but the best I could muster sounded something like "Paddy," which happened to be the name of our pet cow. This prompted other kids to make fun of the cow looking after the baby.