Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#651

Post by gpvos » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #497

chii wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fostering the web tracking industry because consumers don't want to pay for anything. It's easier to extract private data, and sell that to a corporation for a lot of money, than to extract a small premium from each user (which is like squeezing blood from stone).

Yep. This battle was lost way, way back in the 90s when we collectively decided that everything on the Internet should be free. I think it's one of the great lost opportunities in human history. I don't know what the "correct" course of action would have been, instead of making everything ad-supported and mostly terrible. Some kind of very very seamless micropayments? Maybe there was no "correct choice." Maybe "free,…

Micropayments were tried, or at least planned, almost right from the beginning of the web, but no one found a way to make them catch on.

See error code 402 in the HTTP spec: https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec1...

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#652

Post by badpun » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #471

brulard wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this is the case. In central Europe (Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary) you can have EDIT: (using the most tax-effective form of employment, which most of the time is working as a contractor. Being a full-time employee comes with so much higher taxes in EU)

> Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary The salaries that are considered "acceptable" in those countries would result in a _negative_ effective tax rate in the US. Tax rate alone is not everything. It's a combination of pretax pay and the effective tax rate that you need to be considering.

For washing dishes, yes. But senior developers make around $60k in major cities. Throw 19% all-inclusive tax rate on top of that.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#653

Post by smashentry » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

"I'm considering companies with a higher hiring bar than Google."

I'm genuinely intrigued and curious about this one. Care to elaborate please? :) What are the other companies with a higher hiring bar than Google?

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#654

Post by kqr » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:00 AM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #560

kqr wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those you list as doing something meaningful can multiply their efforts if only there's a good software developer upstream from them. Software developers invent the tools and environments that enable other people to do more efficient work. Sometimes it enables entire classes of meaning work that weren't possible before. How can that not be meaningful? For better or worse, everything is driven by software these…

Many jobs in our society enable others to do efficient work. From the bus drivers that get Google employees to work to the teachers that work 60 hour days educating future doctors and lawyers--it's hard to say that engineers are particularly special in this regard.

Sorry for coming across as implying we're special! I have to learn to watch my hyperbole. While I do value teaching highly on the meaningfulness scale[1], I don't think driving compares just as well with the mathematical argument that the effort expanded/effort saved is constant given the number of passengers you take (which in turn is practically bounded to small-ish n), whereas for software engineering that measure scales entirely differently.

[1]: If anything, I think teaching is more meaningful, using the same argument: do software engineering and you can do one human's job of software engineering. Teach 10 software engineers and you are by extension doing software engineering as 10 humans.

On a side note: if anyone here hasn't tried tutoring/teaching natural sciences/programming in a one-on-one setting or very small group, I seriously recommend it. It's surprisingly similar to software engineering; in many ways, it's wetware engineering! You get to debug the logic in people's brains as they work through problems.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#655

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #512

glangdale wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how a guy earning a fairly unremarkable-when-we-adjust-for-cost-of-living salary with a bunch of fairly unimpressive table-stakes credentials: "clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful" (whaddaya want? a cookie?) is meant to be a Amazing Pussy Magnet. One of the major factors - aside from the gender ratio - behind tech guys not finding partners is this weird expectation that if they shave, clip their f…

Totally agree. Being interesting as a human and working on yourself is so much better than trying to get credit for being "respectful". That's like saying: "look I shower every day!" Be interesting.

> Be interesting

To expand on this: Develop yourself outside of your work. You are not your career.

People don't really care much about what exact job you have, as long as it provides stability - both financial and mental. You're no good for anyone if your job takes up all of your time, energy and attention. Your significant other should not need to carry your work-related burdens.

Have interests outside of what you do for a living. I got weird looks when I admitted at my previous job that I don't do much coding in my spare time, but honestly the guy I talked to did coding for work and most of his spare time, all the time. I mean good for him if he's enjoying himself but it's just not for me.

Use your intelligence to expand your horizons. Know what's going on in the news and politics. Read books outside of your niche (outside of fantasy/sci-fi, biographies of people that aren't called Steve or Bill, history of countries on the other side of the world). Find people and social communities outside of your industry. Get out of your comfort zone.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#656

Post by watwut » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:02 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #580

jsinai wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ironically, all these complaints about "guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement" just go to show how picky she is, and can afford to be, in San Francisco It’s not a matter of being picky. It’s a matter of self respect.

One person's "self-respect" is another's "disgusting sense of entitlement". That's just the way it is.

I am woman, living in area with equal amount of males and females. Being clean and able to be respectful in basic causual communication is pretty standard here. So is not being narcisstic egomaniac.

And my observation of relationships with those high ego men is that being alone is better. Regardless of how much money they earn, they look more like trap then win.

I think that one parallel issue is the low opinion men have of other males. They assume everyone else is dirty and instantly rude and it just is not so.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#657

Post by mkohlmyr » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:02 AM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #621

clomond wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving the dating problem was not the question. > "How does one become more interesting" Sure, you can change your environment to be more *relatively interesting. But that was also not the core of the question as I understand it. Rather, providing a method or tips to be more OBJECTIVELY interesting today than your yesterdays self is something useful in any kind of 'dating market'.

How to become more interesting (as a guy in the bay area): - Make (significantly) more money (than most other guys in the bay area) - Be more attractive (than most other guys in the bay area) Making $120k in the bay area obviously isn't impressive. Neither is being fit without being on gear. It's all about the other guys around you. Both quality and quantity. These things would make you interesting in other parts of…

Your definition of interesting might be the most interesting thing in this comment.

I would not say that any of that makes you particularly interesting. Some of it might make you attractive to certain people, but I think that's quite different from what was originally intended by "interesting" in this thread.

"Say it's your hobby"... I suggest actually finding a hobby. Because it will make you happier, not because it will make you "look interesting".

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#658

Post by badpun » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:03 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #307

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…

I worked as a software developer for companies all over the world: Brisbane, Sydney, San Francisco (working remotely from Moscow), The Hague (Netherlands), London then Berlin. The markets are very different in each country. Moscow is the worst for developers but at least cost of living is low. I feel that Australia is similar to the US in terms of income but it's a less liquid market; low supply, low demand. But the…

Regarding London, the 600+ GBP per day contracts are definitely not only for insiders. You probably didn't have the right experience in their eyes. Regarding finance specifically, the industry has its quirks so they like to get people who worked in finance before - otherwise, it can be a bit of a culture shock.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#659

Post by watwut » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:03 AM UTC

80386 wrote: post #487

quartus wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population) Just curious, why wouldn't there be an equivalently large lesbian female population?

Major gay cities aren't necessarily major lesbian cities. The Castro happened because the military discharged gay men from the Pacific theater and a lot of them ended up there - was there a comparable dynamic for lesbians? I don't know of one. And I don't think Atlanta is very significant to gay men.

That does not mean lesbians don't exists. It means they were there all along - just not so visible.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#660

Post by olalonde » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:05 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #644

olalonde wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a native speaker, didn't mean to be offensive. I just meant that there's a lot of couples where the male half seems to score quite a bit higher on attractiveness, career, appeal, etc. I should note that this observation was also shared by my wife. Changed the wording.

Maybe in addition to be good looking and earning money, that dude also was not looking for trophy wife and had different preferences. Dude sounds like catch.

I'm not talking about a specific man and physical attractiveness is just one of many aspects. In aggregate, it seems reasonable to believe that the gender imbalance causes men to lower their standards.

> Dude sounds like catch.

That's sort of the point.