skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My point is that there are usually quite specific conditions and money flows leading to very good compensation for certain jobs, rather than a 'force' like 'Technology' which seems a bit magical to me. An example is when Ford starting offering higher wages to change the labour market dynamics [1]. Although yes, this was brought about by the industrial revolution, saying that doesn't really provide the crucial insight into why it happened and the effect it had.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-stor...
Strange, I've had Photoshop CC2019 running fine with no issues and I've been on Catalina since the very first dev release. CC2020 is also now working fine. Truly software is the most fickle of beasts.
Thanks for this. I couldn’t really read it on my iPhone otherwise
Design offers an easy path to a profitable career. A specialization in UX design would easily earn your child a lucrative position in any tech company.

Even writing - something I pursued - offers a path to a stable career if you move towards copywriting and content. A few years in an agency as a copywriter and all sorts of options open up, some highly lucrative ones (creative director/strategist).
No one is doing quantum leaf removal. I think you mean dispersion.
I think the word "good" was doing a lot of work in the phrase "a good software engineer".

So then the questions is "does a good software engineer make a lot more than a decent software engineer". From anecdotes and such[1], as well as personal experience, evidence seems to point to "yes", although most of the salary surveys and such point to a relatively narrow gap (i.e. less than 2x between 10th percentile and 90th) between minimum and maximum compensation for devs.

[1] https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/
It has its uses, but you aren't going to speed read poetry, literature, etc and get much out of it. The same thing with memory maps and other tricks. They have their limited uses, but aren't a panacea for learning and knowledge.
In the next 20 years, maybe.
In the longer term, probably.
First of all, recruiting is a numbers game. If you’re “starting all over again” every time one single candidate does not make it all the way through your pipeline to a signed offer, you’re placing WAY too much faith in each prospect. That’s just silly, for lots of reasons.

I would never defend straight up unprofessional behavior like showing up late. But if you want to complain about people never replying or following up... yeah, let’s not pretend like tons of employers don’t do that. I can understand the frustration, but this is one of those situations where you’re not sitting in traffic, you are the traffic.

There is also a weird tone of entitlement here. The fact is that good talent, right now, has lots of demand. So you as an employer need to do the selling. You need to sell the company to the candidate, you’re not gonna just have good candidates come around hat in hand, knowing everything about your company and hoping for an offer. That attitude is just delusional. They don’t know anything about your company because they’re trying to decide between all the options they have.

Would you hire a candidate who fails to distinguish themselves from the rest of the field? No, right? So how are you distinguishing your company from everyone else who’s hiring?

It’s a sellers market. You can either face that fact or you can write blog posts.
Really interesting architecture. The way they tried to make the processor units flexibly become SIMD or MIMD is thought provoking. Thanks for sharing this.
That you can select people that don't care about looks, which is generally a signal for someone who is more experienced, socially sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than average, and more likely to give you a pleasant experience.

Also, in case the system is selective, then you know that the other person likes you for something other than looks, which is also a good indicator for a better experience, both in a short-term and a long-term relationship.
That was the comment I replied to.

You've also been posting unsubstantive and flamebaity comments though; please don't.
How many doctors are making 300k/year for their bedside manner? Knowledge work is a huge part of what makes it such a valuable trade.
I think the ability to be hired is orthogonal to how good of an engineer you are.
Actually I do a hybrid of this--I archive all the messages I don't plan to read without bothering to mark as read. The only point in doing so is to gauge my incoming spam rate which I manage with unsubscribes, mark as spam, and rules.
> I'd be interested in how many direct offspring she likely has

According to the article, she laid her 36th egg in 2014, after 53 years; so (probably meaninglessly naïve) linear extrapolation gives around 40 total after another 5 years, which agrees reasonably well with the article's mention that albatrosses (usually?) lay one egg per year.
First of all, the fact that any SWE you don't employ can start their own business, is just a boosting factor to SWE wage.

The key reason companies can and do pay SWEs relatively well is that these SWEs generate large profits for them.

That's the "opportunity cost" GP mentioned: yes, you'd have to pay the SWE $400k, but the cost of not employing them is several times that in lost profit.

Moreover, I'm not really seeing how the barrier of entry is going to increase substantially. In fact, it will probably decrease.

As software eats the world, there will be more and more "pure software" work, which means your only toolset is your knowledge. SWEs with large amounts of specialized knowledge and skills will increasingly be able to compete in these areas (security is a pretty good example). It doesn't have to be your typical company with a logo, brand, and office space - we're talking about consultancies and virtual businesses.
Amazing. I'm not sure "contrarian thinking" is the right expression but you both definitely proved that value is often where no one is looking.

Your intuition was certainly good but her move was probably even smarter: she found an efficient way to attract the smart ones.
Oh dear thank you!
This is always the first reaction when someone brings up toxicity of alcohol in a pub, including the Paracelsus quotation. But it misses the point: alcohol is very toxic in the small amounts consumed while drinking "in moderation", water isn't. There is a good reason why we usually avoid some substances.

https://www.fatherly.com/news/global-study-finds-that-no-amo...
I was trying to find an "HDMI condom" (equivalent to the usb ones [1]) but came up dry. Does such a thing exist yet, or is there just no market?

Is it possible to use something such as an HDMI splitter to accomplish the same thing, or can those pass Ethernet as well, and how would you be able to tell?

[1] https://int3.cc/products/usbcondoms
Another post:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/12/27/why-we-sle...

Now that looks quite bad.
Will Samsung take screenshots even when it runs as a dumb monitor on HDMI or Display Port?
They select on looks because that's all they have on dating sites.

People (especially women in mainstream society) mostly ignore looks when they have already had a real-life pleasant interaction; however, it is very challenging to replicate that online, since it's very hard to give incentives to be genuine.
There really is a cost, in the form of having to rerun code a dozen more times to catch unresolved type errors. But AFAIK, that's it. Can I ask what I'm missing? What cost of this (optional) static typing are folks talking about?

IMO this is worth it, since the goal is less about eliminating runtime errors or other errors, and more about encouraging documentation in code rather than in comments/docstrings. This makes reading code simpler, not less so.
Well the question is: why don't they replace the $370k/yr american employees by the $60k/yr indian ones? Why do they pay the premium for US employees? Except for defense projects, it doesn't matter where the code is made, US or India. The German software industry outsources heavily and tech wages don't reach the US levels. Why doesn't Google?
I bought a medium-sized (42" I think) TV a while ago. My parents had a smart TV, so did friends of mine. I saw no utility but lots of problems (edit: in Germany, none of them even do the most atrocious shit people here complain about like ads or force-connecting to wifi). When I checked dumb-TV roundups there was one model from HISENSE which had pretty decent quality, mediocre sound and no network features at all. I am still happy with it, it has 2 HDMI ports and 2 USB ports and my computer plays sound :)
None of those things are banned, which was my point. OP was suggesting banning smoking entirely.
Saga of the swamp thing
That makes good sense. Tagging consistency was a nightmare to get right and even though we did an ok job at it I was never 100% satisfied. If you want I can probably still dig up our database somewhere as a mysql dump and get it over to you. There might be something useful in there.
Just be cautious, while correctly working Air Ionisers are safe, poorly working or designed ones can produce Ozone which is unsafe (particularly over prolonged periods or high exposures). This article has more information (in particular citation 10 used in Adverse health effects):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser#Adverse_health_eff...

Personally I don't see the benefit over a HEPA filter on a standard electrical fan, or a commercial unit with a similar design. Yes, replacing filters is annoying/has a cost, but there's no health downsides to the design and it is effective at removing air particulate. Building one requires an off the shelf HEPA filter, an off the shelf fan, and a couple of rubber bands. It isn't "sexy" or technically sophisticated, but it works. Want it improve effectiveness? Increase the surface area/make it bigger/increase the airflow.

Let's also consider what both devices (when working correctly) do. An Ioniser gives particulate a charge causing it to be attracted to and stick on surfaces. A HEPA traps particulate within a filter membrane. Or to phase that differently an Ioniser causes the particulate to dust onto every surface within range, causing dirt buildup/stains, dust blooms when disturbs, and people may still contact the air contaminants (since they still exist, now on surface rather than in the air). HEPA allows you to simply remove the particulate from the environment, Ionisers just move it from one location (air) to another (surface).
As someone who held out on smart phones until 2 months ago, nah, not having a smart phone isn't an option any more. Many jobs, even if not explicitly, require you to have a smart phone. Otherwise you can't read or see what your boss sends, you can't use their dumbass apps, you can't take and send pictures of customer complaints or problems, and ive even found places that requires you to have a smart phone just to sign up for their job application submission software.

Not having a smartphone is turning into luddite territory and you are looked down upon as less valuable in much of the modern world if you don't have one.
My dealer pulls up within half an hour of texting them, with a full ounce they grew themselves. They know everything about the plant, and breed it for high THC. No delivery fee. Friendly. Great weed. No packaging. No bullshit. And great deals. Most dealer you buy from you won't be paying $280 ($10/h per O). Why would I ever go the "legal" route?
> essentially, in the end, most of his positions just seem like a way to shill for centralized government control over everything,

No one ever asks who is funding him, Signal development and their running costs.
One of the best things about the Archimedes (and the BBC micro) to me was that you just switched it on and went to work. No minutes of waiting for it to load stuff, just power up and go.
Indeed, it's only 1/38 bad.
Look at the statistics: the vast majority of homeless people are homeless because of simple economic problems like the loss of income or lack of affordable housing, and a minority have mental illnesses or addictions.
It's probably time quit classifying YouTube as a "carrier" given that it monetizes content and strip YouTube of immunity.

If YouTube wants to be a carrier, great! Then it can't run ads or track people. Anything it monetizes should incur liability.
You have heard of witnesses supposedly seeing the same event but having profoundly different interpretations haven't you? They believe them fully but what they see changes based on genetics, culture, history of the person. There are as many realities as there are people.
So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it's good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in stone.

However, I feel that maybe he isn't considering the downsides of being able to change quickly. Sure WhatsApp was able to add end-to-end encryption with a single update, but they can just as easily remove encryption with another update. Additionally, while I will admit that it sucks that email is not encrypted, knowing how many people and businesses rely on email every day, it should be incredibly difficult to make changes to it. I don't want a single person or company to be able too suddenly decide to change how email works.

One area where I am sympathetic towards Moxie and Signal is requiring phone numbers (mentioned at the end in the Q&A). Personally, I don't see it as being all that big of a deal and it does bring several advantages with it:

* Users get to store/control their own social network in their phones address book

* Users can switch easily between WhatsApp/Signal/etc.

Although I agree that requiring phone numbers does reduce the privacy of Signal users, I think it is a worthwhile trade off for making the app usable by the public.

Also, it seems like usernames might be supported in the future: https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/
Your initial comment talked about "tech companies that became very profitable very quickly" as if that's some sort of accident. I'm reminding you that it is not, but a direct result of their technological focus.

Technology is a force that makes employees more profitable. Work that used to require dozens of employees now requires just one engineer writing code for multiple computing devices. Nothing "magical" about it, it's the very nature and purpose of technology.
Do you know who ended up with the rights to BBC Basic?
For a second there I thought it was FreeBSD.
Beautiful women face substantial barriers to establishing a real relationship. Much of the world is inclined to treat them as nothing but an object.

It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.
Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint.

That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio.

You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.
You can find a lot of similar data across a pretty wide array of headphones on the market on rtings.com as well. For instance, here's your HP50 headphones: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/nad/viso-hp50

I really like some of the non-sound related measurements they perform -- the clamping force and breathability are pretty important for comfort. For instance, as someone with glasses there's a good chance those HP50s would not be remotely comfortable as the high clamping force on the glasses arms tends to get pretty irritating after a while.

Their more thorough sound tests are really invaluable as well -- for instance, apparently the bass response goes down considerably with the HP50s when the cups can't form a good seal (e.g., if you're wearing glasses).
Plenty of talented candidates would work for that price, and some would emigrate for 3x the salary and a visa. It’s a complicated and moving system I don’t think we are modeling properly in this discussion.
I think the surface area of "problems that are possible to solve with a handful of programmers" is so that enormous that even if the capabilities of a handful of programmers stagnated, it would take decades or more to run out of profitable problems. Additionally, the capabilities of "a handful of programmers" increases over time as the best tooling available gets more capable, so the surface area of what is possible expands* over time as well.

* I'd argue that as tools improve, the number of solvable problems of a given value increases exponentially e.g. if you have a capability A and you introduce capability B, you can now do things that require only B or A and B, and if you then introduce capability C, that opens up (C), (A, C), (B, C), and (A, B, C) as new problems that are possible to solve.

Edit: For a concrete example, with tools like Stripe you can do payments-related stuff without being an expert in handling credit cards, and with tools like EasyPost likewise for physical mail, and with the combination of the two a single developer can now do any of the things that require either of those individually plus things like taking online payments and managing shipping on the best-cost carrier without any in-house staff and only a couple months of dev work.
There are Taycans driving around in LA right now...
> because decentralization doesn't _automatically and inherently_ solve hard problems _merely due to the technology being decentralized_, we should not waste time working on decentralized systems and instead work on and support centralized ones (one would imagine, particularly his)

That is an extraordinary mischaracterization of his talk. What he actually says is that decentralization makes many desirable characteristics -- enumerated at some length in this video -- more difficult. The implicit argument, then, is since we're struggling to achieve certain desirable characteristics even in centralized systems, we should focus our efforts there first.
I didn't mean to say it was an accident, but at the same time surely you aren't claiming it was an inevitability?
not sure what you’re arguing for with respect to yelling “I pay your salary!” at govt employees
An Online Lead Generation Strategy for Software Companies and Mormons
They can keep selling their "smart" trash to the average consumer. I'll pay extra for a purposely dumb skew.

All I want from a TV is a good panel, at least one modern video input (latest HDMI or DisplayPort), and a nice-enough housing to hold it all together. Speakers are nice but not necessary since I'll probably just use something external. I'll even get a separate box to handle all the inputs.

No apps. No internet. No voice commands. No virtual assistant. No cameras. No ads. Just a freaking display, please. I will pay extra and I doubt I'm the only one.
> The German software industry outsources heavily and tech wages don't reach the US levels.

German SWE work doesn't pay well domestically. It's also struggling to attract talent. Probably a reason why Germany isn't known for its many profitable software companies.

> Well the question is: why don't they replace the $370k/yr american employees by the $60k/yr indian ones?

In the case of an engineer making $400k in the US, I suggest this is a fairly exceptional individual, with a level of skills and abilities that are rare in _any_ country.

Since that individual produces large profits for their employers, employers struggle to hire them at any price that is lower than their productive yield.

Strong SWEs can make companies like Google and Facebook millions of dollars per year. So these companies will gladly pay any six figure salary for these individuals.

Of course, if they can get away with only paying them $60k in India, they will. It's not their goal to pay well; it's a necessity.
A lot of things would probably be safer if legalized and regulated, seeing as a black market will fill the need otherwise
> Money is not the path the happiness, and I don't ever want to fall into that

Oof, that is a very uncomfortable statement for me to ponder upon. For the last couple of years, I have been focused on saving, saving, saving. Your comment makes me think about whether that's wise. Thanks for sharing that bit of wisdom.
Global sales of the Model S are 250,000 to date, so Tesla definitely wasn't making 1000 of them back in 2013, when it was their only model.

It took them 2.5 years to go from making 2 dozen cars per week to 1000 per week.
I used to see a heavy dose of my subscribed channels in my recommendations, now only a fraction of them are represented. We're talking channels where I watch nearly every video they post but they won't show up in my recommendations. There's clearly stuff Youtube "likes" and even a naive recommendation engine would perform better.
Why terrible? Your own wifi would still work inside the cage, would it not? As would your Internet uplink over cable/fiber/DSL/whatever. The only downside would seem to be cell phone service, but you could just use VoIP and Wifi for that while inside the house.

The real downside of course would be the cost. Shit, maybe I'll need to get a real job again after all...
Code: The Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Interesting. Are you controlling properly by measuring blood pressure during the eating window?
A while back Brian Acton (WhatsApp guy) gave about $50m to the Signal Foundation, so I assume they a running off of that and smaller donations from individuals.
I think it's good practice to copy variable names in order to avoid typos, at least in plain text editors.
Harder than you think. It means you need consistent 6% returns (2% inflation, 4% return).

There's nothing out there that I know that gives you a consistent 6% return and the stock market is a fickle mistress. 2007 to 2009, VTI dropped over 50%. That 1% reduction in drawdown isn't going to be of much help much when your $1M turned into $500K, you'll need a job.

But you stopped working for a while, so now your resume makes you less desirable than the competition and exactly when you need more income (at the bottom of the recession) the job market is at its worst. Likely it took you a few years to get that $1M and age discrimination is rampant in IT, further decreasing your odds of finding that job.

I think realistically, you need a significantly lower drawdown, more likely in the order of 2% or less to weather economic downturns. Without subsidized healthcare, that's going to be very hard to do with $1M, but I think it's doable with $2M.
It is inevitability. Increasing productivity is the goal of technology. Look at technology from the dawn of time, all it did was increase the productivity of labor, both individually and as a group.

Without getting into a huge topic - it also encourages a "winner takes all" set of conditions, in which companies with the right technology and the best employees control a disproportionate amount of the profits in their field.
Probably not using clojure and using another lisp with a good startup time.
Agree. I donated few years ago and gained access to newer bits but they're for older firmwares with no further updates. And it's usually just a "download this VM and do these things for a semi working TV root". Not an organized effort at all, probably for legitimate legal reasons.
Ah yeah, that's nothing like what I thought you meant. That said, if I wanted to do something like that in Gimp, I'd just cut-paste - this creates a temporary layer with the content positioned exactly where it was before, where you can use the standard layer manipulation tools to transform it. You can then use either the "new layer" button to promote it fully, or "anchor" to paste it back onto the original.