Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#171

Post by code_duck » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

penagwin wrote: post #104

code_duck wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there are more brief and superfluous comments than there are used to be, but just as many or more lengthy and substantial comments.

Your comment gave me an interesting idea. What would happen if we imposed a minimum char-limit for say, hacker news comments? On one hand I'd expect more descriptive responses, fewer comments that are a short "Your wrong but I won't tell you why", etc. Comments just spamming letters would be fairly easy to detect. On the other hand what would this minimum char/word length be? Even your comment is fairly short, but it…

I believe there is a minimum character length under which comments are printed in a smaller font. I’m sure the mods have some insight into this.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#172

Post by virgilp » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #168

ryandrake wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called salary-porn because like actual porn, its attention-grabbing, often tantalizingly exaggerated and phony. Everyone on HN knows someone who knows someone who makes $500K at Facebook, and therefore that’s a totally normal salary that anyone can achieve. Last week it was $450K. I guess next week, $3K a day is going to be the standard rate for developers here. To a developer who makes, say, $120K (which at lea…

Your comment really saddens me. There’s so much more you could have. There’s no reason why what I make has to be an outlier. I’m so so so not special. Many people have come on HN to say exactly what I’ve said and have achieved outsized results. Jesus, is patio11 really that incredible of a guy? I mean, he’s really nice and pretty smart but dude he made his start with a bingo card creator . Our mindset is our greatest…

You are right in lots of stuff but you are probably underselling your skill combo. You are probably good (even if not great/amazing) at more than one thing - not just managing projects, but also sales, and maybe marketing too. You are probably right to say that there are other people better than you at any one of those things, but for the full combo, the story changes. It's easy to say "learn sales", and indeed it does not necessarily require very high IQ... but it may require that you change who you are. And that's extremely hard, if possible at all.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#173

Post by siruncledrew » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

AWebOfBrown wrote: post #21

A quote about salary, that I bookmarked as I could see myself making the same mistake: "Salaries never stay secrets forever. Hiding them only delays the inevitable. Last year we were having a discussion at lunch. Coworker was building a new house, and when it came to the numbers it was let loose that it was going to cost about $700K. This didn't seem like much, except to a young guy that joined the previous year and…

Not to say this isn't true... it sounds like there is more to the story with this guy's salary history. If $125k is the ballpark median for a programmer in Boston, then how did the guy not notice he was getting Some people aren't good at negotiating; that's understandable. But not knowing he was settling for such a pay-cut is almost appalling. That company must have enjoyed him being there knowing they pulled a fast one on him. Maybe there is some shady backstory here or something else influencing the situation..?

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#174

Post by ido » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 7:26 AM UTC

siruncledrew wrote: post #173

AWebOfBrown wrote: post #21

A quote about salary, that I bookmarked as I could see myself making the same mistake: "Salaries never stay secrets forever. Hiding them only delays the inevitable. Last year we were having a discussion at lunch. Coworker was building a new house, and when it came to the numbers it was let loose that it was going to cost about $700K. This didn't seem like much, except to a young guy that joined the previous year and…

Not to say this isn't true... it sounds like there is more to the story with this guy's salary history. If $125k is the ballpark median for a programmer in Boston, then how did the guy not notice he was getting Some people aren't good at negotiating; that's understandable. But not knowing he was settling for such a pay-cut is almost appalling. That company must have enjoyed him being there knowing they pulled a fast…

I've worked in multiple companies (including current one) where there was a very wide distribution of salaries. This is not at all uncommon and a lot of people are clueless (partially because talking about wages is taboo).

I'm not surprised at all by stories like the OP's.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#175

Post by ido » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 7:29 AM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #164

johnchristopher wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you and your extended peer group earn ? My initial reaction is that if you earning well above average and your peers as well then it's way easier than sharing that info with people earning way less. Or if you earn above the minimum wage but not by much you won't share with that SV hotshot.

Anything from 2k€ - 20k€/month, so pretty varied. This is from very varied backgrounds in different industries (software engineering over caregiver to business consulting), different education levels, and also got to know them in very different ways (high school; job; friend of a friend). All in Germany, which I think is about as secretive about salaries as the US traditionally, but also spread out across all parts o…

I live in Germany as well & haven't noticed people being that eager to share their salaries (although it's also not that hard to find out).

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#176

Post by HenryBemis » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 7:37 AM UTC

tmaly wrote: post #139

HenryBemis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't downvote, I want your opinion to be visible so other people can read this. I am one of those 'suckers' that left a job/career (call it what you will) in the Big4 to go solo. Apart from boosting my annual income x4, I am no longer involved in backstabing, politics, shitstorms, and other permanent employment 'pleasantries'. The C-levels who sign my invoices keep me out and away from all that. I have gained thei…

> I found it that once I start monitoring the contracting market, getting weekly alerts, see the trends, etc. it is possible to build on your existing skillset to make sure you remain relevant What data sources and techniques do you use to monitor trends?

I have registered to services like Reed, or JobServe. I have some wide-enough searches that send automated reports, and some very narrow (e.g. "GDPR", "SOx"). It looks like spam, but it gives me a good idea of how many contracts are available, for which areas/domains, and at what rates. This way I can see when the market increases or drops for the narrow searches. The wider terms searches help me identify new and upcoming trends.

It looks tedious and time consuming, but after the first month, just scrolling through 3-4 emails gives me a pretty good idea of where the market is going.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#177

Post by ksec » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 11:15 AM UTC

AWebOfBrown wrote: post #21

A quote about salary, that I bookmarked as I could see myself making the same mistake: "Salaries never stay secrets forever. Hiding them only delays the inevitable. Last year we were having a discussion at lunch. Coworker was building a new house, and when it came to the numbers it was let loose that it was going to cost about $700K. This didn't seem like much, except to a young guy that joined the previous year and…

Being a nice guy to today's society often meant being that person in your story.

I am also one of them. And after all these years is still no good at salary negotiation. And unless you are exceptionally good and could afford to do consultation, ( which isn't really a thing in my country ) you still have to suck it up.

I know I am late. But I am starting to think may be claiming the ladder is a different set of skills.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#178

Post by Kifot » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 11:42 AM UTC

dundercoder wrote: post #130

acheron wrote: post #92

"Javascript Delenda Est", by zeveb, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447851 : > Can we please try to stop talking about this specific language ecosystem as an awful deplorable hell hole or whatever? Back in the second century BC, Cato the Elder ended his speeches with the phrase 'Carthago delenda est,' which is to say, 'Carthage must be destroyed.' It didn't matter what the ostensible topic of the speech was: a…

I feel nearly the same about the English language. It's my first language, and after learning French and Spanish, it's so clear that there's a better way.

out of curiosity, which features of English language do you find so annoying? My first guess would be inconsistence in pronunciation, but otherwise it seems quite logical and easy to learn

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#179

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #174

siruncledrew wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to say this isn't true... it sounds like there is more to the story with this guy's salary history. If $125k is the ballpark median for a programmer in Boston, then how did the guy not notice he was getting Some people aren't good at negotiating; that's understandable. But not knowing he was settling for such a pay-cut is almost appalling. That company must have enjoyed him being there knowing they pulled a fast…

I've worked in multiple companies (including current one) where there was a very wide distribution of salaries. This is not at all uncommon and a lot of people are clueless (partially because talking about wages is taboo). I'm not surprised at all by stories like the OP's.

No one has to tell you what they make. There are plenty of websites like salary.com, paysa.com that will tell you average salariesfor your market. If you just have a halfway decent profile on LinkedIn recruiters will be calling you all of the time.

You can occasionally see job postings with salary ranges.

Re: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

#180

Post by dajohnson89 » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

hencq wrote: post #137

Austin_Conlon wrote: post #129

This impersonation of The Economist writing style is hilarious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11050299 >Mocks Populi There is a an apocryphal story in which your anonymous correspondent was on a small business jet somewhere between Davos and Dubai, when he asked a former Thatcher minister what shade of pink the Financial Times newspaper was. "Parlour," the minister replied. It is in the spirit of this self-ref…

Haha this is incredible. I love the Economist and have had a subscription for years, but this is spot on.

this toothless centrist smarminess is what led me to cancel.