I think they meant "fount" of wisdom
'Font' and 'fount' are synonyms, although they tend to be used in different contexts nowadays. Even in the sense of a font for setting text, there are older works that discuss 'founts of type'.
Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
101–110 of 155 posts
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#102Copy/pasta of the entire post: My father, who died in 1981, was an inexhaustible font of wisdom and wit. I don’t know when he told me this particular three-part rule, but I’ve never forgotten it. I tweeted it three years ago, but people keep asking for it in one place, so here it is. There are three ways to make a living: 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. 2) Tell the truth to those who wan…
I like the Hebrew syntax of the golden rule! I've never seen it before.
I've always like the idea of taking it a step further and trying to do unto others as they would like done unto them. However, the current state of the world has made me realize that lying to people that want to be lied to creates a flywheel of negative outcomes.
I guess the better way to improve the golden rule is to use empathy to internalize and understand the things other people are looking for, that way you can keep the golden rule simple, while not assuming that others want the same as you.
...we find that we may misjudge a man's attitude, his background knowledge, his aims, his standards ; and we may learn from our mistakes and take care even beyond the golden rule. (Karl Popper)
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#103The "read the rest" button seems broken in Firefox on Windows... so that makes for a very short post.
He is obviously lying to us and becoming rich in SEO from our clicks to his page.
Took me a second. The reference "replace with found url" is a lie if the URL is not found.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#104Watching our (newly hired) CTO lie to the entire company regarding the capabilities of a new feature I was hired to build was a brutal education in money-politics.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#105In this thread: dang, I wish I was evil too!
I had often thought about how far I could get in life if I had no scruples or morals. And I think I could get really, really far.... But alas I don't like to lie, cheat or any of that jazz. I actually do care. Honestly it feels like a form of brainwashing. As a kid you are taught all of these things that cripples your growth in adulthood while the other guy uses that as an opportunity to enrich himself.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would have been 2019. Even then, I feel like anyone who had been in the industry long enough should have developed some level of cynicism.
They don't have to be as cynical as the internets are these days. It's perfectly normal to take pride that half the phones in the world run software you wrote or that you've solved whatever problem for people.
That's completely fine. I have no issue with people working hard on a product they are proud of at a big for-profit company. It's good to like your job, it's good to like your coworkers, it's good to be happy that your software is being used by lots of people, or if you built something that you think is really cool. I've certainly take pride in such things and I certainly do not mean to diminish that by saying "we all do this for the money".
I just think it's important to be honest with yourself, and realize that a job is transactional. When I work for BigCo, I am selling my time and/or expertise for money and/or benefits (e.g. health insurance). If the company doesn't feel like they're getting their money's worth out of me they might fire me. If I feel like I'm getting a reasonable enough compensation then I might go to another company.
Such is the way with capitalism; I don't love it, but until we change to a different system that's just how it is. I absolutely hate when companies say "we're a family here", because that's simply not true. I don't get cut from being my parents' son because I'm not meeting some bottom line this quarter.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#107When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"
The downside is all the stress from unrealistic objectives
That's what I experienced early in my career, and then I independently discovered Rule 3: "Tell the truth to people who want to be lied to, and you'll go broke."
The key to surviving in such an environment is to let go of your ideas of the truth. The customer doesn't want to hear it, and doesn't want to know it. Deliver the lies that will make them happy and only those lies. The lies themselves are usually reasonably realistic; it's only when you combine them with your common-sense notions of truth that they become stressfully unrealistic. So give up your common sense and just deliver the lies the customer is asking for.
A less cynical way of putting this is to adopt the customer's frame of mind. The stress comes from the tension of your internal beliefs vs. the customer's internal beliefs; because they are coming from two different people, they are frequently incompatible. When you are working for a customer, you are working for a customer.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#108When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"
They did this to me when I was a technical director of a mid-sized engineering consultancy (aka, a sweat shop). I learned it on the fly when they had me go to a client meeting. They showed the slide deck of all of our credentials, and I was astonished that the sales engineer took the slide I sent them and increased all my years of experience by 25%. I asked them about it later, and they said don't worry about it, everybody does it.
It's unethical and it's wrong and I won't participate in it. I stopped working there.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside is all the stress from unrealistic objectives
That's what I experienced early in my career, and then I independently discovered Rule 3: "Tell the truth to people who want to be lied to, and you'll go broke." The key to surviving in such an environment is to let go of your ideas of the truth . The customer doesn't want to hear it, and doesn't want to know it. Deliver the lies that will make them happy and only those lies. The lies themselves are usually reasonabl…
Yup, my breakdown was that I couldn't understand that the client doesn't actually care, they actually prefer to be lied to. Personally, I decided not to live in any system where either side is acting like this. Knowing the rules probably wouldn't have helped me, because I would've found the whole thing (and still do) disgusting and idiotic.
Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)
#110[deleted]