lscore720

I would hope so, given its COL is one of the highest in the US. I'm even a little concerned about that 60%.

Michael Crichton gets a bit overzealous with Japan paranaoia in his 1992 novel, Rising Sun

Fellow BP1-er here - this is great, thank you for taking the time to share.

I'll guess it avarages out to roughly 3-4 hours on weekdays and 10-20 over a weekend. I also love longform journalism, which can eat up a few hours per week.

I do little in general haha :/ My own reclusiveness combined with a relatively severe mental illness have kept me inside my apartment around 23/7 for years. I'm self-employed and try to hit 10-20 hours/week of work. Aside from that, my free time is endless and basically consists of reading, Netflix, and browsing the web with my two cats!

I have no life outside of reading and consume nearly 200 books/year, so I'd love to offer up a few 2018 favorites!

Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire (by Marc Bowden).

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator (Ryan Holiday).

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Sam Quinones).

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic (John Temple).

Rosemary's Baby (Ira Levin).

The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922 (Edmond Taylor).

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst (Jeffrey Toobin).

The Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive, Book 1 (Brandon Sanderson). This year was my fourth read. Don't get me started :/

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - a creative and compelling deviation from typical true crime storytelling.

The author and the narrator do a brilliant job at really transporting you into Savannah, Georgia (I'm not even a fan of the city, but I nevertheless was totally consumed by the fascinating characters, society, and atmosphere).

This is pretty unrelated, but your post reminded me of the frustration I experienced during the housing crash.

I bought my condo in 2006, essentially at the peak of the market - then was out of work for long time during the recession and had to go through foreclosure.

During that time, I watched as the government sprung into action with those sweet incentives to stimulate people to buy real estate (e.g. the $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit!).

I understand it, but it just rankled me to be on the losing end of time!

Just replied above to OP with today's news report on SoCal home prices - thought you might find interesting!

New report released today "Southern California home sales crash, a warning sign to the nation": https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/24/southern-california-home-sal...

Interestingly enough, the higher priced homes are the only ones somewhat holding up. "Sales below $500,000 dropped 21 percent on a year-over-year basis, while deals of $500,000 or more fell about 3 percent, marking the first annual decline for that price category in nearly two years,” said LePage. “Home sales of $1 million or more last month rose just a tad – less than 1 percent – from a year earlier following annual gains of between 5 percent and 21 percent over the prior year.”

Wow. I've never read a first-hand experience of someone in the thick of it. Incredible, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing your experience and articulating this so well.

I have been on the same dose of Ambien for nearly 2 years. I'm fortunate that it does its job with zero side effects. The negative experiences and feedback in this thread are overwhelming - if I were unfamiliar with it, I would be freaked out!

It's generally accepted that Ambien's benefits outweigh the costs. I don't mean to downplay the negative experiences, but it's not as bad as this article/thread infer. Ultimately, it's something to discuss with a GP or Psychiatrist.

Some companies effectivdely use whiteboarding, others don't.

This is a true snapshot of the absurd sense of entitlement among some tech workers these days. When the bubble eventually pops, people will look back at this website promotion with awe.

It's like challenging the generally accepted standard that interviewees dress up a bit more formally than a typical day at the office (i.e. button down versus old T-shirt).

I discuss the compensation range before the interview process begins (i.e. their resume preparation) only with candidates responding with interest to my initial contact. I make a leap in faith by sharing the company/job details in the first contact, and having been screwed over by doing this, I feel it's fair to hold off at presenting compensation details to literally every person I contact. After all of my hard work, all they need to do is take one second and respond with "looks interesting, but could they match or exceed $XYZ range?"

If they're interested and have not brought up numbers, I'll ask them to provide their expectations first and I appreciate when they do. If they don't, I'm happy to give them a broad range to see if they're at least in the same ballpark.

As an agency recruiter, I serve the employer. If I tell everyone that a job will pay $150K - $200K, far too many people will respond with "yeah, my expectation is around $200K." It's not fair to the CTO/VP Engineering.

I don't believe there's a right answer, but I'm trying to find that middle ground that serves everyone best.

I would be curious to hear what HN users think.

Yep, it sure is fascinating!

Much of the world prefers riding the bubble to FOMO. The frothier it gets, the less need for and meaning held by useful indicators. It's human nature :/

I agree, but will go further to claim that the entire interview was horrible. So little information was conveyed in soo many words. He either had nothing to say, couldn't articulate what he had to say, or both.

I loved this, thanks for sharing! I died at "niche numbers."

Be careful, the neck position may catch up to you eventually! I spent about 75% of the workday in bed with my laptop over the past 5 years. Earlier this year, I experienced my first pinched nerve - chronic pain is horrible; the doctor, medication, and especially the physical therapy are no fun :)

I recently started using a lap desk laptop stand with multiple adjustable angles and comfortable bolster cushion (in case you're curious, the brand I purchased is Halter - $19.99). I now sit on my couch with the laptop screen directly in line with my eyes, to prevent the typical downward neck tilt common with desk use.

This is really helpful, thanks for explaining!

That's a great start. I would suggest learning about big data, data science, machine learning. Depending on your city, you can find reputable and reasonably priced bootcamps. Otherwise, Coursera courses in any of these subjects would give you a competitive edge too.

This is not to say you should become a Data Scientist. These skills will just prepare you to most effectively collaborate with engineers and data scientists in the tech domain. In interviews, you'll be able to speak to how your data analysis skills apply to software as opposed to so many data analysts coming from unrelated industries.

If you step back and take a look at the history of wealth distribution & revolutions, maybe your outlook will be more optimistic. Today's inequality is troubling, but doesn't nearly compare to situations in the past. Revolution will enter the discussion once the masses are struggling for food.

The idea of this question being taken seriously is worrisome. These were the exact types of questions I saw made by entry level finance folks 10 years ago before the bubble popped. The level of immaturity, entitlement, and arrogance made me think it was a troll post, but the serious responses make me question the HN mindset sometimes.

I laughed, I'm pretty sure it's satire. Right?

Jungle (Upton Sinclair). I never tire of reading about the immigrant experience in America, especially as a Chicagoan in this case.

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (Doris Kearns Goodwin). Similar time period, but focusing on a vastly different world in America.

I just posted a general explanation of its prevalence in only Japan. But here's another perspective from a Japanese psychologist who's been working with Hikikomori patients for 15 years+:

According to my clinical experiences, hikikomori has a history of attachment trauma with their mother (all biological mothers due to the absence of divorce in the families). When rejected emotionally by a mother, a young child hides his original self for protection, and creates a false self to adapt to the dysfunctional mother. The child grows to an adult who neither trusts nor shows his true identity to people. When the conflicts between pretending and hiding the true identify become unbearable, he would retreat into extreme degrees of isolation and confinement.

This phenomenon is observed commonly across my hikikomori clients. Hikikomori begins from dysfunctional mother-child relationships, which are influenced by the society that values group harmony and compliance over individual freedom. The syndrome began surfacing when Japan achieved economic success while the mothers with traditional values were unprepared to satisfy the children’s needs for love, individual freedom, and self-actualization. Hence, many hikikomoris find no place in Japan, feeling captive in the affluent but culturally oppressive society.

This is often depression from failure to meet early career expectations. The Japanese, like many Asian cultures, are a highly driven society where career goals are set very early in life by the parents. In such a competitive society, failure to secure a highly sought after starting job with a good company, after attending some of the best colleges & universities, is a social stigma, and causes withdrawal from friends and family members. Prolonged withdrawal often turns into a real clinical depression. The protective nature of the Asian family allows this withdrawal from society to continue longer than initially planned, and soon their motivation to move forward in life is lost. Prolonged lack of work becomes hard to explain in resumes and job interviews, which further perpetuates this unfortunate phenomena.

This societal situation combined with Japans's extreme economic shift (from miracle economy to great stagnation)to create this perfect storm that is Hikikomori.

Sorry, meant for "vast majority" to refer to the companies too. So not particular company.

You make interesting points, but I want to correct some false assumptions that may discourage younger, less experienced people browsing this thread for advice.

A large part of my job is understanding the culture of companies and the software engineers best suited to join them; in doing that, one metric is the age of the individuals, because it does play a role in the hiring decision. It's unfair, but age does become a factor at a certain point, just around the 50-55 point as a software engineer at a decent amount (but definitely not all) companies. But your statement "nobody will hire you after 40" is false - software engineers in their 40's will be welcomed at 90%+ companies. Perhaps you're in San Francisco and experiencing more ageist attitudes inside the latest young bro-filled startup bubble, but this represents a small minority.

Second, literally every for-profit job involves making money for your bosses; this is how capitalism works. If you want to make more money tired to your own contributions, then you either climb the ladder - through merit - to become a boss or run a successful business. These are the facts of life that one should know by the age of 40.

If you comb through HN threads related to recruiters, I promise you'll find less biased comments than mine, but I want to clear up your misconception.

I'll grant you that most sales professions have a low barrier to entry, as they're commission-based (no harm in throwing as many rookies at the wall as possible and seeing who sticks). Therefore, everyone on the receiving end has been disappointed, frustrated, or angered by a salesperson at some point.

On the flipside, this profession is the most pure form of Survival of the Fittest. The commission-based compensation structure actually forces people to either perform or starve (as opposed to other careers, where mediocrity is generally rewarded with salary and raises). Ultimately, the vast majority of salespeople rarely last more than a couple of years.

That leaves you with higher performers, who clearly have essential skills to achieve success; it might not entail a technical understanding of data structures and design patterns, but they are skills that are essential to keeping the machine of our economy running.

Not to toot my own horn, but just an example: I earned a degree in Accounting/Finance from a top 10 university and decided to drop out of an Ivy League MBA to pursue commission-based sales. To me, it's the most exhilerating, unpredictable, and (financially and emotionally) rewarding career. There's nothing more enjoyable than listening to my software engineering candidates from the very first contact to the acceptance of an offer. A career is an essential part of an individual's livelihood and it's incredibly satisfying to be a catalyst for positive change in one's life.

All it takes is one positive experience, then hopefully you'll have a change of heart!

Recruiting is probably not an appropriate career to leverage this skill - identifying talent is mainly the job of the hiring manager/team to determine.

A recruiter's primary job is to find the talent and convince he/she to consider the opportunity. Sure, your ability to screen upfront is helpful in saving your employer time, but the job is far more sales-based.

to play the numbers game & bounce back every morning in the face of constant rejection and indifference. That, above all, will ensure your success as a recruiter.

To learn recruiting, like any new job, it's smartest to make a full-time committment. Once you've mastered it, you can definitely work any schedule you'd like!

I'm just an agency recruiter, so I'm at the whim of the employer. My experience trying to represent remote jobs has consistently been the opposite: the supply of qualified candidates is excellent versus the relatively few remote positions. (So, strong enough that these employers rarely need to a hire a contingency recruiting agency).