Such a refreshing article! Nice to know there are awesome people out there!
The boss who put everyone on 70K
221–230 of 381 posts
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture. It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity. I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are risi…
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
The artist scene is constantly moving taking advantage of unsafe areas making them safe so they can be pushed out once word gets out this is an artist area.
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture. It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity. I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are risi…
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
so... where are the places that are experiencing the other trend?
Where are the artists going to?
Where are the places that used to be rich, but are becoming "poor but sexy"?
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture. It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity. I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are risi…
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
Hong Kong and Tokyo somehow manage to stay creative and interesting despite being more expensive per square foot than the new Toronto.
The difference, in my uneducated opinion: commercial and retail space in those cities goes up. It is not strictly at street level, as in Toronto. Look up and you will see signs for bunny cafes, stationery, restaurants, all kinds of small/odd fashion stores...
All the condo districts in Toronto look the same: a small sliver of retail on the ground floor, invariably Rexall, Rabba's, or Aromas. And that's pretty much it.
Would love to hear from someone more familiar with urban planning on this topic.
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
so... where are the places that are experiencing the other trend? Where are the artists going to ? Where are the places that used to be rich, but are becoming "poor but sexy"?
Sometimes they don't just move. Sometimes the arts scene and communities are just dissolved and they "suck it up" and get a "real job" like... [from personal experience] get a real estate license so they can pay the bills and end up settling down.
The savvy ones scrounged up enough to buy property and either hold out their with less of a community, or they sell and move and just do their own thing.
In Ontario, there isn't a cheaper place for quite an expanse. Hamilton or other smaller cities are a bit of the last holdouts. But because of some of the exodus from Toronto (and like cities) they are being bought up and redeveloped as well.
Some escape to small towns, but those usually stay small and grow sleepy even though they're interesting places.
I've always worked a day job, even at my most active, so I've kind of had one foot in both worlds.
Cities were attractive because people were close together—there was variety, word could get around. They were vivacious. It would be terrible to see that completely snuffed out.
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
so... where are the places that are experiencing the other trend? Where are the artists going to ? Where are the places that used to be rich, but are becoming "poor but sexy"?
Leipzig
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
That probably costs more, though. Software engineering is mainly knowledge work. This means the majority of work consists not of building stuff, but acquiring and organising knowledge. I've read somewhere that about 50% of the job is gathering information. When a person leaves after having spent two years at a company, it might look like you get to keep everything they've been working on, but this is far from true. I…
This is exactly what I am talking about. You are overestimating how important it is. The code is there and (presumably) in source control. It really isn't that difficult for someone to get the source, compile it and fire up the debugger and carry on where the previous person left off.
And I'm saying that if you have only, or mainly, worked at projects where all information (including about failed historical approaches and why they failed) is encoded in the source code, you have been very lucky to the point where I have a hard time imagining that to be true.
There is so much implicit knowledge that goes into the finals source artifact that is not spelled out.
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly what I am talking about. You are overestimating how important it is. The code is there and (presumably) in source control. It really isn't that difficult for someone to get the source, compile it and fire up the debugger and carry on where the previous person left off.
I’ve seen very few projects of more than moderate complexity where “check out code and compile it” is the complex part. Who’s consuming the code? Who are the stakeholders? How does this component integrate into the full picture of the application? How do I need to talk to that person that I really need to change something?
I think you are missing the overall point that you are overestimating how important knowing that is.
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
Hong Kong and Tokyo somehow manage to stay creative and interesting despite being more expensive per square foot than the new Toronto. The difference, in my uneducated opinion: commercial and retail space in those cities goes up . It is not strictly at street level, as in Toronto. Look up and you will see signs for bunny cafes, stationery, restaurants, all kinds of small/odd fashion stores... All the condo districts…
Didn't Tokyo actively encourage building?
Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure where you’re going with the can’t buy crappy stuff anymore argument, from another perspective, most things built today are crappy Chinese junk compared to things built 70 years ago, if they existed 70 years ago. Mending and the art of repair has been forgotten by most - if your TV has an issue, you’re more likely to buy a new one than fix it, even if it’s possibly repairable for less than a couple hundred bu…
When you can buy a 50" LED 4K TV for under $300, why would you attempt a repair of any older tech TV that is "probably repairable" for a couple hundred bucks? Take it off the wall; find a repair place; make an appointment; schlep it over there; wait for the results; pick it up; put it back on the wall vs drive to BestBuy and buy a newer, better TV and put the old one on the curb and be done with certainty tomorrow. A…
It makes sense if you can repair it with a few $0.15 capacitors and an hour of your time. I repair my electronics when they fail, and it saves me a lot of money. Somehow, it's become cool just to throw perfectly serviceable stuff in a landfill rather than watch a YouTube video and learn a little soldering.