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Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

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Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#321

Post by fjsolwmv »

toasterlovin wrote: post #293
crdoconnor wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher education seems like more of a "class marker" to me.

Or maybe the causal factor for both class and higher education is intelligence. The Bell Curve makes a compelling case that the transition away from agriculture toward knowledge work over the last 100 years has created a society in which intelligence is funneled into higher education and from there into high paying professions.

The Bell Curve is a famous case of quasi-science. You are putting statistical speculation up against centuries of well-documented explicit discrimination policies.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#322

Post by darioush »

dwaltrip wrote: post #47

This should be titled "Condensed snippets of accumulated wisdom, focusing mostly on software and business, that I am fairly confident of and feel compelled to share with you". Many of these nuggets are not "obvious", for any conventional understanding of that word. That said, I enjoyed the post, and liked the concise format.

The format is really good. Tired of paying ~$5 for a 300 page self-help book, when a 2 page summary like this can do just as well.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#323

Post by fjsolwmv »

yesenadam wrote: post #298
drewrv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering if people who treat colleges and universities as though their job is worker training are confused, or if I'm naive in believing colleges and universities exist to expand human knowledge through research and education. I suspect the answer is that our culture is confused, we want people who are smart and well rounded to also be useful. And the ugly side of it is, we wa…

Fascinating point. Is "training vs education" a useful pair of terms? Universities used to be for education, now often its assumed they are for training only. (Bachelor of Science in Hotel Management I come across nowadays - in what?! ) I often hear people talk as if education was something that happened to them, then it finished. (Like learning is something you just do in an institution.) I guess training is more li…

How is learning how to run a hotel not an education? Are all the Agriculture and Mechanical universities not education?

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#324

Post by super-serial »

jpm_sd wrote: post #292
blurbleblurble wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be straightforward to find/get a programming job that'd more than take care of my material needs. There are a buttload of entry/intermediate level jobs out there that'd provide more money than I even know what to do with. If I wanted a job really bad, I could study up for it, put the technologies they're looking for on my resume and apply. The hard part is giving in to a job . I think my hesitancy in this area s…

You think you're too good for a job, hence, you are unemployed.

I went through my entire 20s thinking this, and I have strong opinions about it so sorry for this long post...

Back when I quit my 9-5 job in 2006 my favorite quote was by the creator of Winamp... "For me, coding is a form of self-expression. The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have. This is unacceptable to me as an individual, therefore I must leave."

No company deserved me because I was a creative innovator, and even though working retail for $10/hr wasn't using my CS degree, I'd rather do that than make $70k getting someone else rich. I thought I deserved $250k since I was obviously going to get them rich - so taking the $10/hr job doing mindless work was less of a sell-out.

The next 8 years I tried a lot of things, and went $20k in debt. When I reached my 30s, I realized a few things:

1. You can be a mercenary and get the skills you need for your own business while working for someone else. You learn and get faster while doing tasks for your employer, so even though the code you wrote is owned by them... the code you write for your own business will be better and done faster.

2. If you're worried about getting them rich... just do what they say instead of innovating. Most companies don't innovate, they just maintain the status-quo and have you build systems that meet existing needs and save a little bit of money. You aren't making the next Snapchat at a 9-5... and if you are, you should have equity.

3. Freedom is not just about having the time to do things.... I had all the time in the world in my twenties but no money. Being broke basically put me in a prison. I couldn't go on trips with friends, couldn't take girls out, couldn't do what I wanted because I'd have no money for it. Now that I have a full-time job and work on side projects, I have the opposite problem where I have money but no time.

Overall I think having a 9-5 job works better for my lifestyle. Maybe I just needed more discipline and I could have succeeded as an Indie developer making games, marketing software, apps... and whatever other shiny thing caught my eye... but now I do that stuff on the side. I still hope I succeed as an entrepreneur and reach a point where I have complete freedom (time & money)... but now that I'm older I realize that was always a long-shot.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#326

Post by solipsism »

namibj wrote: post #268
pm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also gulf a between what companies think they need, and what they actually need. Almost everyone hires on technologies and not the abstract skillsets required to learn said technologies.

Any Idea how to find a company that hires on that abstract skillset, potentially by throwing one into cold water to test for it? ~Someone with little resume-driven experience but good grogging skills

Big companies understand this and that's reflected in their hiring practices. They don't care what skills you have, just that you're smart.

The way they throw you into cold water is using whiteboard interviews. So if you don't like those... sorry.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#327

Post by mcphage »

vecter wrote: post #318
dsp1234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did those proofs have to be novel, or were the proofs of already known concepts?

I'm sure those proofs at the time were novel to the student but obviously not the professor who assigned the problem. That's how the student learns.

Novel to the student up to a point—math students are taught a variety of proof techniques in each of their subjects, theorems that students are required to prove generally fall to very similar techniques.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#328

Post by mcphage »

md224 wrote: post #104

> Charge more. Charge more still. Go on. This might sound stupid, and maybe it's my inner hippie talking, but did this make anyone else slightly uncomfortable? I get that it's "good business", but something feels kinda gross about saying "extract as much money from other people as you possibly can." Like... shouldn't you just charge whatever you think something (a product, your time) is worth? I realize that "what so…

> shouldn't you just charge whatever you think something (a product, your time) is worth?

If you’re paying yourself, then sure, go ahead. But if you want someone else to pay you, then it should be based on what they think it’s worth. Why should they care what you think it’s worth?

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#330

Post by rayalez »

super-serial wrote: post #324
jpm_sd wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think you're too good for a job, hence, you are unemployed.

I went through my entire 20s thinking this, and I have strong opinions about it so sorry for this long post... Back when I quit my 9-5 job in 2006 my favorite quote was by the creator of Winamp... "For me, coding is a form of self-expression. The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have. This is unacceptable to me as an individual, therefore I must leave." No company deserved me because I w…

There's nothing wrong with making people rich in exchange for money they give you. That's how jobs work. Making someone else rich is something to be proud of and aspire to. Not as cool as making yourself rich, but still good.
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