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What ever happened to exploring computing through just building small, cool, things? Maybe I'm old now, but this trope has been parroted here and elsewhere as a panacea. Need a job? Contribute to open source for the CV experience. Need something to do? Contribute to open source.

I could see this as maybe something for a small software engineering course to do. maybe. I think in those cases it might even be better to split the class into teams and have them develop a product idea, elect people to various roles, and execute the plan as a semester long project. Midterms, quizzes, etc become sprint reviews and plannings. It would be great if you could get some of the b-school kids to roll over for a combined class where they takeover PMing.

Admittedly I am cynical. But the way I got into programming was many, many years before I started my CS degree. I just built cool things I needed. I got into reverse engineering because being a lazy high schooler I wanted to build trainers for video games so I could get a high level without actually working on it. Call it pathetic - sure. But playing video games is so boring. It's much more fun to get them to play for you :).

What ever happened to just being interested? I hesitate to suggest this but could it because a lot of people are getting into computer science strictly for the job? So that they reach the terminal points in the program and are completely without direction?

I dunno, just rambling I guess. This just strikes me as so odd.

but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online

I've been on the internet for almost 30 years. This is something that we've lost in the last decade of people dying to tie their real identity to everything. The wild west internet was actively hostile and you had to be smart about not only what you said, but who you were associating with.

This form of "internet bullying" has existed since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't make it any more correct and it's only gotten more vicious with age. Especially because finding exploitable weaknesses is extremely easy when people leave themselves exposed on social media, twitter, discord, etc. We haven't solved it because I don't believe there is an actual solution. You get rid of KF and 4chan, another 10 communities pop up and the most popular one survives. You hit the registars, and they find another. Eventually they'll end up on one of the many registrars located outside the US that could not care any less what is hosted there.

The best thing you can do is compartmentalize. The problem is people, for better or worse, tie their entire identity to whatever they do on the internet. This is fraught with danger because it makes you easy to attack. But being easy to attack isn't enough, you have to also have to have shown some weakness they can use as leverage. Near is an unfortunate example of this. KF bullied them mercilessly because they possessed enough exploitable traits to make it profitable. This isn't victim blaming, but unfortunately something we must learn from. Privacy, compartmentalization, and good operational security are the only things that can protect you.

Maybe we can return to the internet of psuedonyms and lies that I remember. It was safer then, because no one trusted anyone implicitly and no one was willing to expose weaknesses that could be exploited.

Regardless of your feelings you're missing the point. The middle class is the bellwether of the economy. Though, I don't think you're truly interested in the economy at large.

When middle class wages go up, small businesses open, they employ more people, creating more middle class people, and the cycle continues ad infinitum. The middle class pays the bulk of the taxes since they lack the finances to avoid them, and additionally is responsible for creating the bulk of the jobs in small business. The middle class also leads consumption. See the previous point for why this is important.

If the middle class fails everything below them fails. The only people that win in all scenarios are the ultra wealthy. If the middle class cannot retire, effectively no one can retire. Since their suffering is magnified in the lower economic strata.

Medium does get tiring to read...

Archive link: https://archive.is/6JuaJ

Using: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

I looked over the article and never saw a single justification for $15/hr. outside of "people need it". The Jacobin study included productivity which I don't know if you can even properly quantify into dollars. Certainly, minimum wage is not addressing the needs of the lowest earners in the country. But there must be a metric to go by:

If we use base minimum wage adjusted for inflation the numbers look even worse than they are today. $0.25 in 1938 is $4.74 in today's money. So that's not good. It would appear using these numbers minimum wage has beat average inflation using the BLS' own CPI calculator.

If we loosen the requirements to the last "stopping point", 2009, $7.25 becomes $7.49 according to the same calculator. Not keeping up with inflation, but I don't think even the poorest people are going to write home about coming up 24 cents short.

But this ignoring local minimum wages. Using the following data:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/238997/minimum-wage-by-u...

We arrive at an average minimum wage of $9.78 and a median of $9.45. So, neither of these really indicate a lacking in inflationary tracking even at the state level. So what's the cause?

Well, I'm not an economist but I think the issue is local and not federal. The federal government can set the minimum wage to $15, but that doesn't change the fact the wage curve is heavily skewed by ultra low CoL states and ultra high CoL states. Not being an economist I am willing to ascribe to this something I'm going to call "state-local inflation" where places like California and New York probably demand a minimum wage closer to $25/hr. whereas somewhere like Georgia might do just fine sitting at $10.

As a result I think this medium article is more of a tirade than anything and does not elucidate anything related to the problem other than the tautology that it is a problem (which I do agree with). The solution however, seems far more complicated than the "just raise the wage" protests would make it out to be.

If you want to be even more disgusted look into how nursing home works. A family member got moved into one (against our recommendation) and they've borderline taken everything from her. Social security checks are signed over and she has no autonomy.

There is no glory in getting old. The elderly are robbed blind at every turn.

I don't know about any other countries but this is extremely common in the US. Dating is a line item in most men's budgets. In my experience, and I'm sure others, it's never pick a bar or something where it can be affordable. With modern dating and apps you are simply a number. I'm sure someone will chime in that they met their lover/soul-mate/girlfriend/whatever on dating apps but the data has time and time again shown this to be the exception and not the rule.

I generally will end a date if the bill isn't split at least for the first few dates. As a result, I had nothing but trouble to the point of swearing off dating until a chance encounter in the real world introduced me to my current girlfriend.

Why? Landlords were forced by edict to keep non-paying tenants while simultaneously footing the bill. This is completely unfair to landlords and makes the "speculative investment" argument into a government decree.

The risk could not legally be mitigated. Otherwise, landlords would have evicted en masse everyone who couldn't pay after some period of time. I am friends with a few people who own houses. They were happy to help as long as their tenants could provide at least some payment. It's better in the long run to keep good tenants than to evict them even if it costs money in the short term. This isn't true in general however, and several places have toxic tenants who have refused to pay and are taking advantage of the moratorium.

This is the literal definition of theft by decree. Making landlords whole should be top priority if their intention is to save the housing market. Imagine if they didn't - what would happen? Landlords would require stellar credit, several months payment up front, and regular financial checks. This all assuming they just don't pack up and sell their property (which has gone up significantly in value) thereby reducing the available places to rent.

Year 1:

Getting a job anywhere is a challenge. Cast a wide net with an open mind. In all likelihood you will leave this job on or before year 5. Accept a lower salary in exchange for experience but don't compromise so much you're below average. Don't fall into the silicon valley trap unless you're already there and/or are willing to destroy yourself for a job. You're getting this job to get your feet wet and start to develop yourself. Grinding leetcode is a waste of time. Do enough to get the job but don't do it to diminishing returns. There's no amount of leetcode that will land you a higher position anywhere. At the end of the day to advance past junior you need more than programming skill. You need the ability to show project management, self direction, and leadership. Leetcode teaches you none of this.

Keep humble and learn from everyone. Ask a lot of questions and keep in the back of your mind eventually you're going to have to find a stack you're good at. For all the pitches about "generalists" I've never met a high level engineer good at everything. I have been a backend engineer for 10 years. I have 2 languages I'm good at and a billion I'm familiar with but would not consider myself senior level. If you asked me to write a frontend I would not be able to do it.

Importantly start saving now. This cannot be emphasized enough. You're going to be making more money than you've ever made in your life even on the low end. Live frugally and within your means. Save diligently and max out your 401k and IRA. Take advantage of any savings vehicle you can find. To put the numbers into reality, if you can save $100,000 and you fell into a coma at 7% interest you'd be worth over $700,000 dollars. You need to take advantage of compound interest as soon as possible.

Year 5:

You're likely low-level senior at this point. Jobs are far easier to get, and you're likely settled into a stack you like. Move jobs frequently until you find a place where you can grow properly.

Stay humble, you don't know everything. At this point it's critical you don't let your title get to your head. You will come across people who are junior to you that teach you a thing or two. You are not senior because of your programming talent. Remember that. You are senior because your experience allows you to deliver _despite_ your shortcomings.

Begin setting your eyes on a staff/management position. Pay attention to how they act and emulate it. Always remember to take care of your juniors.

Keep saving money. Never stop.

Despite the calls for "full-stack" understand that "full-stack" engineers are often mediocre at everything instead of good at one or two things. This is great for job hunts but bad for advancement. A good parallel, because you will wonder if you should go "full-stack" is Walmart. You don't go to Walmart for high quality engineered furniture. You go there because it gets the job done. At the 5 year mark you should be starting to become an artisan and you will see the shortcomings of engineers who stayed broad for too long.

Year 10:

You are likely coming up or already have a management or staff level IC position. All advice from Year 5 applies. At this point though, leaving jobs becomes less beneficial. The only way up is through "works of God" - meaning most of your promotions above this level will be political in nature. There are diminishing returns to moving companies as you will often been embedded in a company's culture to reach a staff position. Leaving the job becomes hard because you can't leetcode your way into a staff position somewhere else. You need enough experience to be able to convince another company you can contribute at this level there. I would aim to stay at a job for as long as possible at this point.

Know how to take advantage of people's abilities. As a "super senior" you will be expected to know a lot of things you won't know. Respect your coworkers and identify things. An example of this for me is I am not very good with social things. I've recognized this and I also have almost no interest in diverting time to develop higher EQ. Instead, I lean on people on my team who are already good at these things. For example, there are people on my team who are okay engineers but superstar people-persons. I can easily compensate for their engineer and they can compensate for my underdeveloped EQ. Work symbiotically with your team and put people, and yourself, in places where you can most effectively complete the mission.

The industry is highly ageist and it's not uncommon to "age out". You should be planning for this. What I mean by this is you should be exploring lateral moves in your field. You are likely extremely, extremely good at one or two things. Ask yourself where you will go if your stack dries up. Are you willing to start back at junior in a new stack? Probably not. So, consider what it would take to possibly laterally move into management if you're capable. By year 20 the probability of your stack disappearing (see: Ruby) is pretty high. Have a plan.

Again, save save save. The power of compound interest is incredible. Do not squander it.

You missed the OPs point in all your heavily laden snark.

There are (sad, imo) people whose entire lives revolve around work. Their friends are there, and they enjoy social outings with their work colleagues.

To me, social outings are just an unnecessary risk. I do not talk to my coworkers like I talk to my friends, I do not want my coworkers knowing too much about my personal life, and especially when booze is involved it's too easy to find yourself on the receiving end of something awkward, or witness to something awkward.

Meetings are simple: if it's important enough to take an hour of my day it's important enough to count as seat time. When my productivity drops and my manager asks why I tell them that meetings are taking up too much time. It's their job to make sure I have what I need to do my best work. If they tell me to work later I start looking for other jobs. It's so easy to get a senior developer job now, and there's really no long term benefit staying anywhere, that I'm not exactly sorry for leaving in this case.

I have literally zero interest in "culture". I wouldn't even work for a company if I didnt need the money to live. I don't understand how you've derived the dichotomy that you can either have mindless time sink "culture" bullshit OR an amazon warehouse slaveshop.

Call me a pessimist. I think people obsessed with "work culture" are sad. You shouldn't hate the 8 hours of work you do, but you also shouldn't center your entire life on it. Afterall, it could be taken away from you with a penstroke the next time the CEO needs to make room in the budget for their salary.

At least in the states most places require you to "make up" your lunch. So normally you'd show up at 8 and work until 5 to make up for an hour lunch. This is true for both hourly and salary.

Ignoring the ford conspiracies how exactly should jaywalking be treated then? It's both a danger to the drivers and the people.

We can't get rid of cars and streets. That cat is over a hundred years outside of the bag. It's moved on, had it's own family, and died.

Jaywalking as a punishable offense makes sense to me at least. The level of punishment is often excessive certainly. $250 fine for stepping onto the street is far too much for a first offense (but perhaps for a habitual jaywalker it makes sense). Hell, I'm guilty of doing it a lot in my exurb area. However, when I do it it's because there's 2 miles between posted crosswalks and I make sure I can cross safely before trying. There aren't enough crosswalks - certainly.

Jaywalking laws create important predictability. I can assume that the average civilian is deterred by jaywalking law enough to not randomly step out onto the street at will. This means I can anticipate them only at crosswalks and intersections. You're already busy dodging drivers distracted with doing anything but driving (makeup, listening to podcasts, eating, reading a book, etc). If we didn't have these laws the risk to driving would be much higher. Many people think humans stand no chance against cars, but one errant jaywalker going through a car window can kill everyone in the vehicle given sufficient enough velocity. It's important to remember a 45 mph impact on a ~125-200 pound human carries with it tremendous momentum. Assuming they don't go through the car window, that same flying body can do lethal damage to law abiding people walking on the sidewalks.

The UK doesn't have jaywalking laws. I understand that. But the UK is far more "walkable". The US is by-and-large not. Especially as you get into "normal" towns and not major metros like LA and NYC. I would be willing to agree jaywalking laws need to be done away with if the US was more walkable.

This is really just a tirade. She's angry because rational philosophy, essentially, is not "intersectional" enough. We've seen the damage this has done to social science (just look at how well it has solved pre-college education).

The thesis of her tirade, the desert island and taking the "more capable" person, really left a lot of details out. It appears poised to support her argument rather than pose an interesting question. She claims she can find counter-examples, which she never mentions, and then continues on her tirade. This seems like an underhanded way to guilt anyone who might question her.

Here's an example where it becomes more interesting. Suppose you're on a desert island and you have 3 people. You, a disabled person, and an able-bodied person. Which do you choose to take?

Her implication is that you should take the disabled person. But in reality the _rational_ argument can go either way. I'm shocked that she missed this but also unsurprised. That is, rational philosophy is perfectly capable of addressing her argument without the need to inject several new variables that provide no value.

If you need someone to lift heavy things, and the disabled person does not have arms (or use of their arms), do they provide positive utility that enhances your survival? No. I think any rational actor can see this. In this case, it makes sense to take the able-bodied person. Ethically and morally questionable but certainly rational.

If you need someone to distill water, and the disabled person is a scientist, it would make sense to take the disabled person. You can make up for their shortcomings and the net utility is positive for your survival. Again, ethically and morally questionable but certainly rational.

I browsed the author's Google scholar page and am left unimpressed at the quality and depth of her papers. The URL of the website tells me all I need to know. I am unsure what the author is chasing but we can be certain it's not philosophy.

HN is not anything like the old internet forums or BBSes.

Content would get moderated but you could still read messages. Even the ones that went against the dogma.

Not at HN, anti-dogma posts get downvoted into oblivion or flagged if they are bad enough. I recently posted a counter-opinion on burnout and was downvoted pretty badly. I didn't flame, and tried to articulate my point well.

HN is composed of the exact microcosm of people who have ruined the internet. It's just an echo chamber where counter-points are nuked. No different than facebook, or anything else. At least /. made you think about using your modpoints to downvote. Now it's free - and for many very pathetic people downvoting is a source of dopamine. It's far easier to drive-by-downvote without having to even articulate a reply as to why. Comparing this to the old BBSes and forums, you at least got a moderator note (or a VERY disparaging note from a user) in your PMs about why you're being moderated. It is wildly frustrating to type something well thought out and be downvoted into oblivion because your stance isn't en-vogue.

This is highly sector dependent. I've worked at startups for almost my entire career and a big peak of leaving engineers at 2-3 years wouldn't even cause me any concern. In the 10 years in industry I've worked I'd argue the average engineer leaves around the 5 year mark. This typically coincides with a failed seed round or reaching a terminal title (senior, staff, etc) and not being able to go further.

The fresh grads case is a good point. The one company I left fairly quickly was almost entirely powered by intern/junior labor. Seniors left quickly due to a combination of bad management, low advancement opportunities, and constantly having to re-train people. This, I think, is worth looking out for.

Cancel culture doesn't have to be used for everything (and IMO should not be used for _anything_). Mob justice won't fix the company, and if the company is big enough (perhaps some SV companies who shall not be named), it won't have any real effect. Burnout is often an acceptable "work hazard" for the CV reputation gained. A good parallel to this is finance where burnout is practically built into the program. Medicine also crosses my mind when thinking of fields where burning yourself out could, counter-intuitively, be considered highly beneficial as a long term play.

Outlets for this already exist in the form of Glassdoor but much like every other review service once it reaches scales the usefulness of the reviews falls precipitously.

You also open yourself up to libel claims. Assuming your canceling actually works I would not be surprised if the company spent significant effort to take you to court and financially ruin you. Even more so if the accusations aren't entirely true (perhaps it's just one division and not the entire company).

Instead, it's probably more useful to _train_ people to notice these things and ascertain the risks. Burnout can often be worth it if the net-gain-after-burnout improves your prospects to advance in your field, confers a pedigree, or any other number of small things. Returning to the finance example this is certainly why people risk it. At the end of the day, in the US at least, a little over half of the states in the union are right-to-work. This is the safety valve for companies who deliberately churn employees - just leave. Ideally after you've already lined up a new gig in your field.

As a prelude to what i'll type below I hate these things. They are not useful and I believe they are detrimental to employee productivity through the "panopticon" idea of management.

There's no need in my eyes for regulating this or getting in quarrel over workers rights. You, the employee, sign a contract with the employer to perform some work for some compensation. If the employer wishes to run this type of strategy on their own hardware I do not see a problem with this. You can, and should, find a job that respects you as a worker. What we are seeing here is the MBA-style spreadsheet management turned into software.

This "panopticon" management increases turnover rate and decreases productivity. I have personally seen it. I worked IT in a company that had this software (I was a low level sysadmin and had no control). People would spend an inordinate amount of time finding ways to hide their activity instead of just quickly doing what they had to do and moving on. The solution isn't to complain, or call for regulation, but rather just leave your job. If the software isn't being installed on your computer then the company is completely okay to do this, no matter how damaging it is to their bottom line through subsequent lost activity.

I actually like this viewpoint because I have done both and generally I disagree with you. But here's my take.

I use VSCode often because its "just easier". The extensions are at best (in my opinion) ok approximations to what I can get with emacs. Especially for a language I'm inexperienced with in emacs VSCode is a nice integration layer while I adjust my configuration.

Emacs (and to that point vim) is vastly superior to any offering VSCode has. The problem is you have to be productive. Many nights I labored over my emacs configuration to tailor to my job. I've done this for the last 10 years. It takes effort. To that, you have a point. VSCode is effortless. On that, VScode doesnt feel like anything to me except a bridge layer. Emacs and vim offer a vastly better experience (without the git politics!) if you're willing to spend the time customizing it. But that is the difference - are you willing to spend the time? Many developers are not and that's fine. But for a marginal additional investment you can have something better.

Something to think about at least. I can install my Emacs configuration in 30 seconds from my github.

A service used by literally billions of people is a propaganda machine for those that control it. It is not a private platform anymore. Youtube can influence public opinion in one way or another by simply manipulating their ranking algorithm. I know it's probably hard to choke down, but YouTube can swing elections and change policy with a click of a button. There are significant regulations on television. We can apply these same regulations to YouTube.

It would be extremely naive to not believe that YouTube not only knows they have this level of control, but are actively seeking to exploit it. Assuming they are a rational actor this is precisely what they would be doing.

EDIT:

What I am saying is simply this: if their aim is to remove controversial characters then remove all of them. If they selectively ban controversial characters that identify with only one side of the horseshoe, then they are manipulating public opinion.

I don't think anyone is arguing about the damage of propaganda here. The discussion here is more-or-less Youtube choosing which propaganda it wishes people to see.

To use your idea here - the cognitive biases being exploited are being exploited by youtube itself. In this example, Icke is a relatively divisive character even on the right wing. So it becomes important to ask - of the controversial figures that remain (on both sides) what cognitive biases is Google/Youtube aiming to exploit by allowing them to continue?

Whether or not you agree with him is one thing. Youtube, Facebook, and other companies are treading a very thin line around Provider vs Publisher. Sure, most people might think that Icke doesn't make much sense, but how long until something _you_ like is censored off the platform?

If you truly do believe in a table for rational discussion all ideas should be considered regardless of how far-out they may seen. By banning various controversial figures from one side, but allowing other controversial figures from the other side to continue, is diametrically opposed to the idea of "open discussion" you claim to be supporting in your argument.

You may not care. But then you are not a proponent of free speech on a platform. When the platform becomes a global nerve center for content the argument "they are a private company and can do what they want" must be looked at with significantly more scrutiny. It would be extremely naive to not believe that YouTube not only knows they have this level of control, but are actively seeking to exploit it.

There is nothing in this comment that strikes me as real. Not only was it completely unnecessarily to condescendingly talk about how allegedly smart you are, the points you gave sound like they came straight out of a wantrepreneur youtuber's vlog.