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Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

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Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#131

Post by nacin »

ryanSrich wrote: post #43
Jemaclus wrote: post #31

I applied and interviewed with the USDS, but the biggest thing was that they wanted me to move to DC for 6+ months. I'm quite happy here on the west coast, engaged to be married, and attempting to buy a house. Moving cross-country is pretty much a deal-breaker for me. That said, I really, really want to get involved in something that matters. My dream, for lack of a better phrase, no matter how cheesy it may sound, i…

If they truly wanted to embrace technology and working on important problems in the year 2015 they'd support remote work...

We're embedded directly in project teams at agencies. I spent five years working remotely and running a major open source project before joining the U.S. Digital Service in January. I love remote work and enjoy extolling its virtues, but very simply, we could not do this job remotely, at least not for the time being.

Our friends at 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov) have a lot of people working remotely, as well as offices in SF, Chicago, and New York. The nature of their work is simply different (and just as awesome).

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#132

Post by serve_yay »

sliverstorm wrote: post #53
Jemaclus wrote: post #31

I applied and interviewed with the USDS, but the biggest thing was that they wanted me to move to DC for 6+ months. I'm quite happy here on the west coast, engaged to be married, and attempting to buy a house. Moving cross-country is pretty much a deal-breaker for me. That said, I really, really want to get involved in something that matters. My dream, for lack of a better phrase, no matter how cheesy it may sound, i…

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think if you want to solve Epic Problems like malaria and slavery, you are going to have to be ready to put things like buying a house and living where you like in the back seat.

"I want to change the world and all, but I just got really comfy in this chair..."

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#133

Post by nostrademons »

timr wrote: post #108
angersock wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penicillin was discovered by complete accident, actually. Also, the jury is still rather out on the long-term impact of medications...it sure made a bunch of rich folks richer, though! EDIT: Also, most of those solutions came through private industry working on .gov contracts. A better example you might want to use is the innovations out of Bell Labs, all done basically to further solidify the telephone monopoly. Tha…

Fleming discovered Penicillin accidentally, but he was a bacteriologist, and he was doing research into antiseptics. It was a discovery that was entirely related to his work.

And he was researching antiseptics because he had served in the Royal Army and had watched numerous colleagues die from infections following their wounds.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#134

Post by peteretep »

mikeyouse wrote: post #128
peteretep wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the obvious axioms that anyone with 1st world single-payer insurance behind them, or, say, the Gates foundation, isn't poor, could you give some examples?

The Perlstein Lab is a Public Benefit Corporation in the Bay Area looking for lysosomal deficiency drug candidates. A ton of research scientists are working on obscure diseases at university. Basically the whole Orphan Drug market; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug

From the article you linked:

    > Moreover, we suggest that orphan drugs have greater
    > profitability when considered in the full context of
    > developmental drivers including government financial
    > incentives, smaller clinical trial sizes, shorter
    > clinical trial times and higher rates of regulatory
    > success

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#135

Post by nostrademons »

rifung wrote: post #87
nostrademons wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates is the most prominent public example. I also know a number of folks at Google who are very charitably active despite working big-corp jobs. Usually they compartmentalize very drastically, though, so I never heard about their charitable activities at work and only learned about them second-hand, through chance encounters with mutual acquaintances.

Is Bill Gates really an example of what the person described? Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think his motivation for working or making money was to donate it. It seems like he decided after accumulating his wealth that he should use it for good. It seems important to note the difference because I don't find it hard to imagine how a person whose motivation is to help the public good might not be passionate about…

It's hard to speak of motivation unless you're the person in question. Most people do things for a number of different motivations. Hence the adage "We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior."

I suspect that as far as Bill Gates is concerned, he considers it all a game and just wants to win. For the first half of his life, the game was maximizing the money he makes. For the second half of his life, the game was maximizing the money he donates. This is all just suspicion, though.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#136

Post by seanp2k2 »

nostrademons wrote: post #66
wpietri wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explicit inspiration for Uber's founding was as a "limo timeshare service": http://newsroom.uber.com/2010/12/ubers-founding/ I"m glad that some people are also getting easier taxi service. But having worked in in SF since the last bubble, there is definitely an intense focus here on solving rich-people problems; when they serve others (e.g., struggling felons and young military personnel) it is often, at best, a…

That's often how technological progress works: it's developed to solve either a pressing-but-not-so-noble problem and then someone adapts it so the average person can benefit, or it's developed to solve a trivial and useless problem and someone improves it so it's useful to the average person. We built radar so we could detect German bombers; we got microwave ovens from it. We built GPS so we could guide missiles and…

http://www.herecomestheairplane.co

On a more serious note, you have services which will e.g. Wheel in your bins for you, or manage your grocery delivery and housekeeping services so you never have to see the people doing the work.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#137

Post by ryanSrich »

nacin wrote: post #131
ryanSrich wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they truly wanted to embrace technology and working on important problems in the year 2015 they'd support remote work...

We're embedded directly in project teams at agencies. I spent five years working remotely and running a major open source project before joining the U.S. Digital Service in January. I love remote work and enjoy extolling its virtues, but very simply, we could not do this job remotely, at least not for the time being. Our friends at 18F ( https://18f.gsa.gov ) have a lot of people working remotely, as well as offices…

I really appreciate the reply.

I'd be interested in learning about the restrictions at USDS that prevent it from going remote. Perhaps taking the conversation off thread is best. I imagine it's a combination of being embedded at agencies and perhaps a clearance issue?

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#138

Post by nacin »

_nqbv wrote: post #10
gkoberger wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do "tours of duty", since I think they found people had a hard time moving to DC permanently. Using this, they've managed to get a lot of people to take sabbaticals from their Google/FB/etc jobs. "Quit your high paying job and indefinitely work for the government" is a hard sell; "come do something awesome for 6 months then go back" is much easier.

So I was aware of their tours of duty, but I thought that was not a carrot for outsiders to come in, but rather a way to circumvent the traditional hiring process. Probably doesn't hurt that the commitment is temporary. From what I understood, rather than go through the job listing process with position writeups, giving veteran and disability preferences, dealing with HR on the certification process, getting various…

I'd argue it's mostly a carrot. The hiring authority is either one year or two, with option to renew. Most taking a leave of absence commit to six months at the onset.

The goal is to get to 500 by the end of next year. [1]

[1] http://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#139

Post by tomjen3 »

beatpanda wrote: post #126

I would love it if anyone repeating the tired talking point, that solutions for rich people's problems will magically transmogrify into solutions for real problems with actual impact on human potential and quality of life, could name even one example of this that's come out of U.S. technology startups in the last ten years. I would also love it if anyone could explain why so many people don't feel compelled to do any…

So getting laid isn't a problem with real human impact? I guess I'm not a real human being then. Maybe I should just go slit my wrist and stop taking up space that could be used by people who haven't committed the crime of doing something with their lives.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#140

Post by tomjen3 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #89
davmre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem obvious. There are people working on banking, advertising, business software development, etc. in pretty much every major city. Why shouldn't the same be true of Epic Problems? You can direct your work efforts towards goals that are important/meaningful to you without necessarily sacrificing everything else in your life. Conversely you can give up a good deal of your life to work on unimportant prob…

I'm not saying you can't have any of those things and pursue your dreams, but life is not known for putting your dreams comfortably within reach. Banking is pretty universal (in every city); malaria research isn't. Odds are at some point you will be forced to make choices; how many people are so lucky that their dream job is walking distance from their dream house in their dream city?

One less if the Op doesn't take advantage of his position.
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