skurry

Probably not what you want to hear, but I'd avoid Google for any mission critical things, and any business model that relies on Google products for revenue (YouTube, AdMob, AdSense). Their automated "fraud detection" algorithms frequently have false positives and ban innocent users, without chance to appeal and have recourse. Terrible customer service.

"I sent out a few celebratory tweets but mainly kept the news to myself."

How does that work? Are there private tweets? Like the ones that Anthony Weiner sent out?

Your assumptions go in the right direction. I think the Bay Area is an amazing place to live, not the worst place to raise a family. But somehow I don't have much luck with the dating scene here (living in the South Bay). San Francisco might be a bit better, but it's almost impossible to find an apartment at the moment. And even here it gets a bit too cold for my taste sometimes, which is weird to say for someone who grew up in central Europe. Maybe another move will make me a more interesting, well-rounded person. Maybe an environment that's not dominated by technology might be a good place to recharge my batteries. At the very least it's an adventure and a cool story to tell.

I applied to SJSU, they have a Master's program with emphasis on mobile development. But after the budget cuts they seem to be really struggling, bureaucratically. I haven't heard anything from them other than "we received your documents, we'll process them within a week". That was two months ago. I haven't really followed up with them and asked what's going on, which I guess is a sign that I'm not really passionate about that idea...

Thanks for sharing your story. I remember reading something similar a few weeks ago here on HN.

It may be the combination of 10+ years at one company, plus a gap. It could be something else. Have you asked those friends for an update what happened after you sent your CV?

In my (limited) experience, even though people say there's a shortage of qualified software engineers and it's a great market for them now, it's always hard to find a good job. Key word being "good". Unless you're a "rock star" that has written a book and is being hired to speak at tech conferences. Companies are still being picky, even if they can't afford to be.

My lease is running out in November, so that's the time frame I've given myself to see if it gets any better. The good thing is that time doesn't run against me. Okay, maybe opportunities for indie devs in the mobile market may be shrinking, and it might be harder to find a job in your forties than in your thirties, but I can wait a few months and carefully consider all the options.

Thanks for this link! I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, but haven't seen this article. I've seen the TED talk mentioned in the article, and it was an inspiration to my idea, along with the Four Hour Work Week of course.

Quite a few people seem to be able to make a living as indie developers. But I wonder how many fail, without making their story public. People like to read about success stories, but not about failures.

I've been talking to my manager about this. The problem is, after moving to an open floor plan, paradoxically we don't have room anymore.

I'm trying to work standing up for a bit. It does help, but of course is far from ergonomic at a regular desk. It probably also looks ridiculous, me doing a semi-split to get low enough to reach the keyboard and mouse.

> You should think twice about what your motivaions are, do you want to become an entrepeneur? Or you just want to be happy with your job? Dont make the wrong choices for the wrong reasons.

This is a great question. I think my main goal would be autonomy. Being able to go hiking in the morning and then work through the night. I never understood why we're forced to spend the days pent up in office buildings.

The other thing: Since I was a kid with a Commodore 64, I've been wanting to develop games. Just small, quirky, but fun and captivating games. This might be the chance to go after that childhood dream, as silly as it may sound.

That's exactly what I'm already working on. I have a domain name secured, an app in the Android app store, and if I do make the jump, I'll change my LinkedIn to "Founder, <company name> LLC" or something like that.

I could use my C# skills to port the app to WP7/8, and I might even buy my first Apple computer and learn Objective C. Exciting prospects!

You summed up my inner dialog perfectly.

I used the retirement calculator my brokerage firm has on their website. According to their Monte Carlo simulation, I have about 10 years to financial independence (90% chance that my money doesn't run out before I die), income, savings rate and expenses remaining at the same level. That happens to be around $1 million in savings in today's dollars. It's tempting on the one hand, but on the other hand: 10 damn years!! I don't know if I can do it.

It's weird, I'm hoping that the decision is somehow made for me. My company being acquired or forced to downsize, offering severance packages... But alas, it doesn't seem to be in the cards.

I've been thinking a similar thing. It's probably not very smart, but one idea would be to move to Honolulu. Same cost as the Bay Area, but much more beautiful and no tech echo chamber.

If anyone has a suggestion about equally beautiful places in the US that are cheaper, please share! Virginia Beach? Fort Lauderdale?

I have a line of Android apps that have a few thousand downloads. So far I've made about $30 in half a year with ads. But I'm positive that it would be a different story if I could dedicate myself to that full time.

I could probably move to Ecuador or Cambodia and retire outright. Trust me, I've been considering it. But there's something about the developed world that I enjoy. When I traveled through Asia, I like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea. But Singapore seems to be even more expensive than the US?

Some more data points and thoughts:

- I have 23 days of PTO per year, which is generous for the US. I did several two week trips the past years, mostly to Asia. My job is fairly low stress, I work less than 40 hours per week. But still, as soon as I set a foot into the office, it feels like all life energy gets sapped out of me. Maybe it's the fluorescent lighting? The crappy HVAC that oscillates between freezing and muggy? The open office plan we moved to last year? The constant sitting? As soon as I'm on my bike on the way home, I feel better.

- Worst case, if I do it: I get lazy and don't do anything during my time off, and won't have anything to show for at the end. But that's entirely in my control, and I won't have anyone to blame but myself.

- I read many blogs and comments about this. A recurring theme is people saying "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to bring myself to go back to work after taking such a long time off." While I can see the point, aren't they implicitly admitting that there is something wrong with their current situation?

Very entertaining and interesting article.

One peculiar thing I noticed: Did Sophie photoshop this picture of hers? https://93fd9190-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/so...

Let's say you're Greece and you're a trillion Drachmes in debt. You can't pay the interest anymore, your deficit is too high. Greece uses INFLATION, it's super effective! Prices double, but wages double also. Tax income doubles. What stays the same is the debt, and suddenly Greece can afford to pay its lenders. National crisis averted. Only the lenders are screwed, and those who had their savings in Drachmes. That's also the reason why it's very popular to have savings accounts in "hard" currency in these countries.

That's how it has been for decades, but now with the Euro that's not possible anymore, leading to the Euro crisis.

Wouldn't the troll entity have at least control of the patents it's suing for?

Looks like an interesting game, love the artwork! But why is the demo video cutting back and forth between scenes so quickly? Quite confusing and irritating.

I found that number hard to believe, so I looked it up. In 2007 (the most recent figure I could find) the US sent $2.5 billion to Israel. The total budget was $2800 billion. So it was more like 0.09%.

Coal and nuclear power are both dangerous, just in different ways. And there are incidents that don't get much international coverage, but still have a lasting impact. For example there has been a small fire at a German nuclear plant in 1986. Officials say no radioactivity was released. But still, 20 years after the event, cases of childhood leukemia are three times more prevalent in the surrounding area than normal. How many children died because of this small accident? How many other adverse effects exist that we can't see or link to nuclear power? http://www.oh-strahlen.org/docs/ableukkome.pdf [PDF]

The limit is $7.5k in California, but you can voluntarily reduce your claim to meet this threshold.

The funny thing is, if that were true, you'd have no problems getting an O-1 visa to the US for example.

I spent the first five years of my professional life developing software for these places. I've seen lots of warehouses and even worked in them briefly to test our software. Not the most glamorous work, but I could do fun stuff like use genetic algorithms for optimization problems or create a dynamic 3D visualization of the warehouse space.

It took me a while to realize that my work is making other people obsolete and replaceable, but I guess so does a big portion of software and technology in general. But it was surprisingly refreshing to switch off your brain for a few hours and do whatever the scanner tells you to do. Though of course I didn't have any pressure to do more than 1,000 picks a day, that is insane!

This was in Germany though, so the unions and worker's council made sure that the working conditions were more humane than described in the article.

Fair enough, that part was a little hyperbolic. What I meant to say is that these people may not be aware of how much they spend overall, because it's in such small increments. I can't prove it, but I think if Zynga would offer their games for a monthly fee, even the players that regularly spend more than that amount would quit, or not subscribe in the first place. Somehow some people are much more comfortable spending $1 twenty times than $10 once.

Have you seen Rain Man? Remember that control room from which the casino executive monitors what's going on on the casino floor? That dashboard is your virtual control room. To me, the "free-to-play" social gaming industry appears to be eerily similar to the gambling industry. You even use the same terminology ("whales"). And the gambling industry has always been a little shady, trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of people who can't really afford it. Maybe that's why it appears creepy to some of us?

When I tell my friends here in the US about Hartz IV, they can't believe it. The government pays your rent, your healthcare, and on top you get an allowance of $480 per month that you can spend however you'd like (note that groceries are much cheaper in Germany, too). Why would anyone ever want to work when he can retire immediately?

Currently, every plan I've come across also covers preventive care (immunizations, cancer screenings etc.), because insurance companies realize that this saves them money in the long run. The ACA just standardizes and regulates this. This is actually in the interest of the consumer, because every plan has to have a common set of preventive care services it has to provide for free, which makes plans much easier to compare.

You forget to mention a few details: Younger privately insured patients actually generally pay less than their publicly insured counterparts (especially if they're male), since private insurance companies are allowed base premiums on risk (which grows with age). Private patients generally get better service, wait less and have access to more drugs and procedures. So yes, it's probably more expensive overall, but it's a voluntary decision and you get something in return.

In my personal experience, the hard part for a beginner is not the actual programming, but the environment. Fussing with the command line to compile and link a program, or setting up system environment variables, class paths etc. pp. can be a frustrating experience. I would argue that for a beginner a good IDE is an important tool to getting you up and running, having fun and keeping motivated.

I would therefore recommend something highly integrated like Visual Studio C# Express Edition which you can download for free. If you have Microsoftphobia, the alternative would be Java with Eclipse.

Having said that, at one point you HAVE to leave the "kiddie pool" and jump into the deep end. For that I would second the recommendation of Kernigham & Ritchie's The C Programming Language.

The order of these two steps is up for debate...