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I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

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Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#311
post #309

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

Would you please stop posting snark and flamebait to HN? You've been doing it for a long time, unfortunately. It breaks the site guidelines and destroys the intended spirit of this place, which is curious conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for policing rude hn comments, friend. (seems like that's all you're doing)

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#312
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming we have defined "success" and the person A will multiply their chance of success by 2 after each try. That leaves almost zero chances of success. Success, however we choose to define it, is in large part a result of luck. Skill, to a much lesser degree.

I honestly don't know how people who attribute everything to luck even manage to exist in the world. Do you just sit at home staring at the wall waiting for luck to happen to you? What is the point of doing anything if all results only come from blind luck?

You engage with luck. Improve your skills and cultivate luck.

Anecdotal : every job I've had came from relations, 1st to 3rd degree.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. 30k/year is REALLY high for tuition. Most state flagships -- which are some of the best universities in the entire world -- aren't that expensive. UIUC, definitely one of the best CS departments in the world, has tuition that's about half that per year [1]. And that's a top-tier state flagship research university; a bit of an overkill for any but the most ambitious (phd or md or jd or elite co.)-bound students. Th…

> 1. 30k/year is REALLY high for tuition. Most state flagships -- which are some of the best universities in the entire world -- aren't that expensive. So what? Prestigious schools are notoriously egalitarian toward the students. If you get accepted to Cal Tech, you are guaranteed to be subsidized. Nobody "can't afford" to go to Cal Tech, but there are people who don't test well enough. > 2. Most private universities…

> So what?

So, people are choosing to go to expensive universities that don't subsidize their tuition. It's a choice, and there are much cheaper options for most of the country.

If you're paying $30K in tuition and planning on a "normal" career path, then you're paying way too much.

> This whole post seems a little holier than thou

Well, if sound financial advice is perceived as a personal attack, then we're never going to solve this problem.

People whose parents can support them by allowing them to live at home for free during college can graduate with almost no debt by attending a cheap institution, working while going to school, and getting a head start in high school or community college. And most people whose parents cannot allow them to live at home will qualify for state and federal grants.

This country does have affordable college options for most people. The problem is that most people who go to college choose the more expensive options (state flagships and non-elite private universities) even though their local state university branch campuses are capable of providing a perfectly adequate education at a third of the price.

More importantly, the only way we'll reduce the debt burden on undergraduates is by providing more subsidy to state branch campuses. That will only work, however, if people choose to go to those state branch campuses. There's just no world where the taxpayer subsidizes a big chunk of room&board&tuition at research institutions for the majority of college students. For the top ~5% of students by merit, sure. But that model just doesn't make any sense when there are far cheaper options.

> eg Grey's Anatomy

Medical debt is an entirely separate issue. Intertwining it with the undergraduate debt issue confuses things -- the solution to med school debt will be different from the solution to undergrad debt.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#314
post #181
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tourism and travel will resurge in 2021, when people who missed this year's vacation (i.e. everyone) will book for the next summer.

> "missed this year's vacation (i.e. everyone)" How many people in the US do you think take vacations every year? 10 million filed for unemployment benefits in the last 2 weeks. They wont' be champing at the bit to spend money on luxuries anytime soon.

Tourism industry is sized for population that does take vacations, and they were denied it this year. And out of 10 million on unemployment, how many you think were taking regular vacations in the first place? The poorest were hit the hardest.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#315
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pushing 40, graduated high school in 2000. I heard a lot of the same "wisdom." For some reason I just really wanted to be a software developer so I stuck with it even though the dot com bubble was in full catastrophe mode. I'm glad I did, but I can't claim magic wisdom. I don't know how kids are supposed to get good life/career advice. I surely didn't. Perhaps the only thing I can reasonably suggest is that peopl…

> I don't know how kids are supposed to get good life/career advice. They need a good support structure at home, at school, and they need successful people in their lives. I think most kids are lucky to have 2 of those, let alone all three. Hell, even kids with all three end up majoring in something useless, or dropping out of school, or worse.

Slightly tangential, but why is the major so important in the US for hiring? If I want to join some generic grad scheme (e.g. Proctor and Gamble, an accountancy firm) do I need to have done a business or economics major?

In the UK the requirement for a graduate role is usually just any degree unless you’re applying for something specific. Possibly this is because UK degrees are more specialised. I also suspect that for most graduate business jobs your academic knowledge isn’t very important.

It just strikes me as a better way of allowing people to study what they want rather than requiring an endless stream of drones.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#316
post #42

I was part of the dotcom crash. I went to community college which made things more difficult than university grads. Many people left the field in my year. Not really sure how many programmers are left in the group today either. After living in java throughout school I managed to get a minimum wage 6 month contract in php and never looked back transforming that into 6 more months and fighting out a 2500 month wage for…

Wow, giving you hate for a decision they made. A couple founder team is a red flag for me.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#317
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's enough social distancing going on in NYC right now to prevent the majority of people from ever getting it. It doesn't seem likely that the social distancing will be let up enough (and subsequently not clamped back down) to the point of allowing most people to get it.

On the surface that seems to be true. NYC has ~8.4 million people minus those who left the city. ~1% of the population has already tested positive (81,803), and compared to yesterday (81,803 - 76,876) = 4,727 people are testing positive per day which would take years before everyone gets it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_N... More pessimistically, NYC’s CFR is almost 5% while in a growth…

The test rate is next to useless.

Death counts are a less unreliable indicator. Current death counts in NYC- over 7,000 using both the health department counts before Apr 5 plus the FDNY counts, tho even that still has to be an undercount- indicate that at minimum around the time of lockdown (Mar 22) at least 300,000 were "infected"- at a 2% CFR and MTTD of 15 days- but more likely closer to 700,000 or 800,000. That's 3 weeks ago.

With known new death counts currently in the mid to high hundreds, that adds tens of thousands of infections 2-3 weeks ago.

My take is- we are already today at over 1M infections in NYC. And we have a grim fork ahead- either we see a steep drop in death counts, or we see a steady or gradual decline.

A steep drop from lockdown means lockdown works, but also means we still have another few million in susceptible population as things start to open up.

If we only see a gradual or steady decline, COVID more quickly becomes the largest cause of death in NYC for 2020, and we know that lockdown doesnt work well enough to keep from progressing through the population, but we also know we have much less of a susceptible population remaining.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#318

Programming for the web is my primary career. I first got into it late 1997. I am astonished at how incompetent it is. The fact the OP made a career out of it and made some money is hardly amazing. For the level of talent required contrasted against the average compensation I am surprised not everybody is trying it. You too could be earning 6 figures in a low cost of living economy after completing a boot camp and 2…

I'm not highly experienced in this realm but I sometimes wonder if the liability in our industry is misaligned which may cause many of these symptoms. When a company faces a huge security breach due to negligence, who pays the cost? I've known many engineers rightfully pointing out necessary work to prevent security issues that have to negotiate with product owners and business stakeholders to find time to perform su…

An easier way to fix that across all industries is to make the proprietor or CEO personally responsible, criminally.

We need to do the same thing with parents of minors.

A lot of things would be resolved with a little bit of personal responsibility and finally CEO risk would match the pay.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#319
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting snark and flamebait to HN? You've been doing it for a long time, unfortunately. It breaks the site guidelines and destroys the intended spirit of this place, which is curious conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for policing rude hn comments, friend. (seems like that's all you're doing)

I'm afraid it's my job (I'm a moderator here). Unfortunately the system doesn't regulate itself without moderation feedback, so such comments are a necessary evil. In case it helps at all, they're more tedious to write than they are to read.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#320
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for policing rude hn comments, friend. (seems like that's all you're doing)

I'm afraid it's my job (I'm a moderator here). Unfortunately the system doesn't regulate itself without moderation feedback, so such comments are a necessary evil. In case it helps at all, they're more tedious to write than they are to read. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Do you sometimes think that instead of moderating bad behaviour, you're burying critisisms under the guise of rudeness, perpetuating the atmosphere in hn that seeps into (and from) the rest of the ecosystem?
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