kphild

From my experience, people in the corporate world tend to be all that and also low on IQ.

I see no reason to commit before you get to know your supervisor/boss well.

I am finishing my BSc at the UK-based Open University. It is 100% online, legitimate, reasonably rigorous and quite well respected, at least in the UK. You can transfer up to 2/3 of the degree from previous studies. Many courses are not available outside of Europe though.

Two alternatives are Canadian Athabasca University and University of London International Programmes.

Aging.

It is so extremely sad that society is so evil that this makes a big news.

Programming is hell as it is. Why make it even worse with your smarty pants "advice"? As long as the boss does not mind, their code is good enough.

However deep in shit they are, people can find "beauty" in it. It is a defence mechanism. But why not see things as they really are?

Airbnb. It still amazes me how playing huge video clips in the background adds to the experience without being distracting.

Such a retarded question. Do you trust food delivered in Ford?

For up to date coverage, check out the subreddit dedicated to this event: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fappening/

Transferwise! For payments from the US to my country (EU) there is a fixed 1% fee. In addition, their exchange rate is 3% better than in my local bank. Clients send the money with ACH or wire transfer. I have it in my bank after two days. Overall, much faster and cheaper than Paypal or international transfers.

It is called "subsistence coding".

$65k / year, working four days a week. I do not think my employer is aware of or interested in where I live.

Yes! Excellent. In their face.

I was selling a significant amount of Bitcoins in January. I wanted to use Mt Gox because of higher rate. I did not think there was a real possibility of the whole exchange going down. However, I did not pass identity verification because of some minor problem. So I sold the Bitcoins on Bitstamp and had money in the bank a day later. I was really really lucky.

I have used Elance for a few years as my primary source of income.

Positive:

- meritocratic

- satisfactory rates. I get as much work as I want at $50 (sometimes more) doing upper four or lower five figure projects

- flexibility - I can dump a client, change workload, take a year break, anytime - and come back to where I was. A safety net.

- no need to do anything else than talking to clients and building software. No marketing besides the profile, no Linkedin profile, no Twitter, no conferences, no interacting with HR etc useless people

- no phone or IM. As a rule, I only communicate through email, which I check once a day, tops

Negatives:

- huge fees (close to 10% per transaction)

- have to actually work to earn, but that's how it is with freelancing Elance or not

- overall low prestige, though some clients are top-notch

As others pointed, some clients try change the scope. I just send them back quotes for any changes I don't feel like doing for free. Problem solved.

Most projects are boring CRUDs, but I also got to do some interesting pieces of software.

I appreciate the freedom that Elance gives. Still, I treat it as a convenient alternative to flipping burgers, and I would not recommend it for someone who wants to make a career as a developer.

BTW the screen making software is abomination and no one should ever agree to use it.

Try changing your perspective. See each 50 bucks as an opportunity to do something of benefit to you, rather than focusing on wasted time of life.

They don't even work in Chrome with Silverlight installed. Microsoft is a silly, mediocre company.

And there is zero effort put into figuring out a better system, since those in position of wealth and power don't have an incentive to change what feeds them.

With less than 5% people employed in agriculture [1], it must be possible to allocate resources in a way that does not require most people to waste their lives in jobs. The universal basic income, for instance, would achieve that without abolishing capitalism.

The only problem are people who glorify employment.

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?order=wba... (I speak of developed countries only)

I would have gone to New York, grown a long hair and lived low profile. I would create a fake profile on Elance if I had to earn money.