111–120 of 162 posts
"Yet, there is no enduring formula for creativity and rebellion." This is a fine sounding statement, but it's false. We've been accumulating and refining techniques for having new ideas for centuries, at least. Leonardo da Vinci mentioned several in his writings.
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We have 16 years at current burn rates to end fossil fuels, and there is 0 political will to do anything on the scale it will take to do that. The emissions standards were great, I agree, but in the face of the challenge they're meant to address, ultimately meaningless. The emissions standards Obama proposed in the campaign were far more ambitious, and it went along with a plan to put a price on carbon that is 100% d…
For everybody wondering where '16 years' comes from, Google 'Global warming's terrifying new math' by Bill McKibben, so that you can shift from attacking my credibility to his.
Look, I am broadly sympathetic to your point of view (I think). I agree we need to take drastic measures to control CO2. I think that fracking and methane hydrate are going to be fucking disasters if we don't start actively sequestering CO2. Actually, I think the methane thing seals the deal - the reductionists have utterly lost and we now need to concentrate on harm mitigation.
None of which changes the fact that you pulled "16 years" out of your ass and what for? What did it get you? I'll tell you - it got you everyone ignoring your main point and concentrating on the (indefensible) number you made up. Well, I hope you learned your lesson.
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What does that have to do with anything? I'm just bemusedly thinking of the parallels between the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to be a star in Hollywood, and the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to make it big with his own startup in SV. "No-name software shop" was probably the wrong choice; a closer tech analogue to waiting tables to fund that acting dream would probably be working IT/helpdesk.
There is nothing in the corporate tech world that's analogous to trying to live off tips.
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I run a bootstrapped company and we hire the cheapest engineers we can find. I interview for competence in the one thing they understand, and then just how fast they learn. I cannot overstate the number of people out there that are incredibly smart, but can't describe basic information like how the HTTP protocol works. It is completely baffling. These people can be explained how the protocol works in 10 minutes, and…
i totally understand and respect your position and that's definitely a strategy that can work. The other end of the spectrum is, you could contract someone like Tony Morris[1] at $250 an hour for 20 hours a week, and he will build your product faster than a team of untrained engineers, or more likely, build a product that untrained engineers aren't capable of building, with a defect rate close to zero. Not every stra…
>Maybe the best way to meet your goal is starting a non-profit or going into politics. I'd like to know whose, or which, goals are better met going into politics. Politics, at least in America, are a machine that eats good ideas and shits murder, and anybody with half a brain and the desire to change the world should know, from even casual observation, to steer clear. For example, Elon Musk and entrepreneurs like him…
Government passed a bill that gives a sizable tax refund to those that buy electric vehicles. They also loaned Tesla 451 million dollars (that they eventually repaid, sure). Those actions have helped Tesla exist as a business.
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Except that working at a no-name software shop will pay significantly better, and then you can take your SF developer experience to middle America and get decent paying corporate job and a McMansion.
Except that all the money you earn goes to paying the rent on your $2000 studio apartment.
One thing people don't take into account when figuring out cost-of-living adjustments: while expenses like rent, taxes, and meals out are typically a percentage of income, expenses like durable consumer goods and savings are measured in absolute dollars, and are fungible between locations. So while it sucks that cost-of-living might still eat up 80% of your income, the remaining 20% is a measly $8k/year at a $40K/year middle-America programmer job, but $30K/year at a $150K/year Bay Area tech job.
And the difference gets even more stark with added income - if you make $300K/year (quite doable as a senior engineer at a major tech company in the Bay Area), your taxes go up, but every other expense category remains the same, and so you end up banking about $100K/year. It's not unreasonable for a programmer in the Bay Area to save up half a million over a 4-5 year stint at a company; ask someone in Kansas or Ohio how long they think they'll have to work to save up half a million.
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To a point that is possible. However there are key lessons that don't really sink in until after you have made certain mistakes and have seen the consequences. For instance I understood the value of forcing variable declarations, and of having multiple layers of safeguards after a typo in a variable name caused me to take down Bloomberg's ftp server about 15 years ago. Judging from ability and personality, it was cle…
While that's true, it still seems a bit orthogonal to the point, because the argument being made is essentially about efficiency, not necessarily effectiveness. If we think about all the people that have had such experience changing epiphanies, then take the subset of those who might actually be able to communicate these valuable experiences across in a programming interview, suddenly your selection pool becomes rath…
The trick is, of course, that smart people with both potential and experience tend to be easy to identify..and very expensive.
Startups have become something of a career path or lifestyle. It has developed into a scene, with its own media coverage and drama. I see a lot of clueless college students wanting to "do startups" as if it were any old job. My perspective is this: Found or join a startup if have a specific product/service you want to build at a large scale. You'll earn your wealth through the equivalent amount of pain ( http://www.p…
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Except that all the money you earn goes to paying the rent on your $2000 studio apartment.
I think you underestimate the amount of money that Bay Area developers make. $2k/month is $24K/year, which is a relatively small fraction of your after-tax income when you're making $150K/year. One thing people don't take into account when figuring out cost-of-living adjustments: while expenses like rent, taxes, and meals out are typically a percentage of income, expenses like durable consumer goods and savings are m…
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I think you underestimate the amount of money that Bay Area developers make. $2k/month is $24K/year, which is a relatively small fraction of your after-tax income when you're making $150K/year. One thing people don't take into account when figuring out cost-of-living adjustments: while expenses like rent, taxes, and meals out are typically a percentage of income, expenses like durable consumer goods and savings are m…
Since when does your average kid fresh out of college make $150k/year in the Bay?