61–70 of 91 posts
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Ruby is a programming language. Rails is a framework. I guarantee that you can, in 2013, find "Ruby on Rails programmers" who wouldn't know what to do if you took the Rails away.
I'm sure you could also find a lot of C programmers who wouldn't know what to do if you took the compiler away. Talentless amateurs.
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Think of the other side ... all the hacker movies that we watched - they could become a reality. When you launch your startup why not just try to use zero day exploit to mess with the brakes of Zuckeberg's tesla (that is PS4 on wheels) while he is near a cliff. Home made drones - with the advance of 3d printing why not? If 10 people could create a billion dollar company today just think what a rogue genius could do i…
That's all within the realm of possibility, sure. But keep in mind that the affluent could simply buy a drone(or what-have-you) with all sorts of bells, whistles, and 10 years of improvements to security. The amount of work necessary to DIY something that even begins to approach the capabilities of something built by a company that knows what they're doing would be extreme - I'd argue insurmountable in many cases - e…
If there is a revolution in the future, assuming humans are still writing the code, the masses will still be at an advantage.
Cowen bluntly predicted what he called “wage polarization.” The increasing ability of computers to perform ordinary tasks will inexorably transform America into an income oligarchy in which the top 15 percent of people—with skills “that are a complement to the computer”—will enjoy “cheery” labor-market prospects and soaring incomes, while the bottom 85 percent, that is to say, 267 million out of America’s 315 million…
I guess they are pointing the fact that as soon as West Coast got access to the power through money, they did what the East Coast did: protect themselves from the plebe and create a new nobility with barriers to entry instead of using it for greater motives than simple personal accumulation.
> Yes! Let them eat beans! Preferably in their apartments. No, seriously now. I've got a friend who 5 years ago decided that he needs "to straighten his life out", and now he has a huge house in SV and is lead engineer at Apple. That's really fine, and obviously not everyone can have such a life. And people will really have to look inside themselves, and ask themselves what it REALLY is they want. If they want status…
But how do you handle inflation in a base income economy? It seems that any extra freely allocated capital would immediately be nullified by the increase to inflation it would cause?
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That's all within the realm of possibility, sure. But keep in mind that the affluent could simply buy a drone(or what-have-you) with all sorts of bells, whistles, and 10 years of improvements to security. The amount of work necessary to DIY something that even begins to approach the capabilities of something built by a company that knows what they're doing would be extreme - I'd argue insurmountable in many cases - e…
Right now, the Americans spend billions to defend against men with $5 boxcutters from Wal-Mart. Defense is more expensive than offense by a large multiple. A little more capability to attack requires an immense amount of additional capability to defend against.
I think that depends on the type of weapon.
Part of the issue with airlines is how highly valued human life is.
If for example all we were trying to do is have an acceptable level of losses on drone aircraft we'd probably accept a much lower level of protection (and correspondingly lower costs)>
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Think of the other side ... all the hacker movies that we watched - they could become a reality. When you launch your startup why not just try to use zero day exploit to mess with the brakes of Zuckeberg's tesla (that is PS4 on wheels) while he is near a cliff. Home made drones - with the advance of 3d printing why not? If 10 people could create a billion dollar company today just think what a rogue genius could do i…
"Technology is an enabler. It also enables the nasty stuff. And the elites while more powerful than ever will also be more fragile and vulnerable." I'm trying to imagine the risk exposure with and without technology regarding the benefit for one's safety. In the past the rich people have always been exposed to robbery and other kind of crimes, and the only real solutions have been keeping a low profile or employing p…
The "story" we're told is: work hard and you will succeed. But these successful people aren't working. They're just rich. Isn't that the whole idea? Passive income?
But then I look and see, my labor is supporting their passive income. That makes me angry. Not out of some altruistic desire for equality, but out of jealousy. Why can't I be the one with the passive income?
Class structure has only a little to do with absolutes and a lot to do with relative comparisons. You could tell me that, worldwide, I'm the 1%. I have a place to sleep (heated), food to eat (cooked), and the safety of a policed city. Boom, that's more than most of the world will ever dream. But does that help? No, it doesn't. Because we always compare upwards. It's miserable. I'm miserable every day. I'm angry, I'm rageful, I'm scared. I'm a broken person.
I try to fix these things by focusing on amazingly lucky and well off I actually am in the global scheme, by focusing on how my Maslow needs actually are being met, by focusing on pride in my work and professional accomplishments, and by ignoring both the horrors below me in the world and the lavish luxury above me. But can I understand how someone could lash out, could become violent, at such perceived injustice? Absolutely I understand!
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If it's true that anyone who could say "HTML" in 2001 was called a "programmer", then that year is not a good baseline for tech job statistics.
Not all tech jobs are for "programmers". Writing HTML may not be glamorous or prestigious, but it's undeniably a tech job, as is being a sysadmin or ops or qa or technical writer.
My comment regarding "html..." was tangential.
Interesting article. I wonder how much of the income disparity would be relieved if there was more room to build affordable housing, as in the "limitless" cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas where you can buy a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath for $150K. In Phoenix, there are also rich people and poor people, but not the stark contrast of Silicon Valley. Fewer billionaires, I think and also the neighborhoods are so vast and more…
Even if there was room for affordable housing, who would build it? Home builders need to make a profit, and you do that by building $900K luxury townhomes, not by building $400K roach traps that need tax payer subsidy to break even. Do you think the tax payers lounging in their Atherton mansions give a crap about housing for poor and middle class people?
Living in the Silicon Valley after reading this article might sound awesome; but it's far from the truth. I grew up there. I feel like I was deprived of a childhood. I moved away a couple of years ago and am never going back. You have nothing but sprawled out office parks, rich internet tycoons, a police force with nothing to do, helicopter parents, and soccer moms. The thing that topped it all off was the super comp…
I have to think that it's always been this way in civilization. Some people figure out how to position themselves at the top where all the money and control is, a bunch of others can't figure out how to squeeze up there, but do figure out how to service the people at the top for scraps, and then there are the hoards who don't even know how to get into the game at all. I think of it as just mechanical positioning. It'…
I think the idea is that the valley has taken out the middle, leaving only the extraordinarily rich and the poor.
Rich == you don't have to work for a living. You might choose to, but you don't have to.
Poor == you're on government assistance of some kind, WIC, food stamps, welfare.
Can you think of anyone in SV that's in between those two extremes? A "middle class" of sorts?
There is a vast, vast middle in SV, it's just that the scale is different which never stops blowing people's minds. Instead of a $50k income being middle class, $150k is.