skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't know about going to europe, but going to Canada is not impossible. It isn't an open door - you need skills and/or a job offer, or you need to be in school. However, once you are there, you can apply for your health care card immediately. Some provinces have premiums - around $50 a month IIRC, which are waived if you are a student or make under a certain amount.

Note that the "free health care" only covers doctor and hospital visits/procedures. It does not cover dental, optical, or any medications. Like in the US, any Canadian employer will offer a benefits plan to cover these things, or you can purchase insurance for them on your own.

This is a trade-off though. There is not much of a startup scene in Canada. The few "major" tech centers are really weak compared to most US cities. There is not much innovation. How many tech startups can you think of that came out of Canada? They do exist, but the deck is clearly stacked against them. On the other hand, there is less competition for funding, so maybe you can use that as an advantage. I am sure you have read the PG article about why your city matters.

I've lived in both countries, and people in both get a "grass is greener" viewpoint (aside from the too-proud patriots on either side). It is easier to see the things you don't have and want, rather than the things that you do have and would miss.

My personal opinion is that the US is more extreme in all directions. Higher highs and lower lows. Crazier crazies. Except weather. Canada is cold :) But it depends what you want to do, and what will best cater to your needs.
For information, here in Germany, from where I run my startup which itself is a UK Limited, I provide my employees with full health insurance (teeth, sick days, everything), pension, unemployment insurance, etc. for basically €700/month for an after tax salary of about €2500/month.

As soon as you start to factor in all the costs of insurance, etc., doing business in the old Europe is pretty cheap. Even in Denmark, where I lived and worked for a while, you get everything included from the state and as a startup founder, this is really great.

I believe in free market for a lot of things, but not for health insurance.
My worst was uninstalling libc on a linux machine. I had been going round and round trying to get the right packages and versions on the machine and ended up getting it in a bad state and for some reason got it into my head that it'd be a good idea to uninstall libc and install a newer version. Note that when you do so (at least on debian) you will not just be given a y/n prompt, you have to type in some sentence such as "Yes, I know this is a very bad idea." at the prompt before proceeding. When I'd reached that point I figured why the hell not, it'll be curious to see what the result is. The machine became pretty much unusable after that and I ended up just reinstalling from scratch, IIRC.
My team (XNA Game Studio) had App Week once or twice each year. By far my favorite time spent at Microsoft.

The XNA team is full of ex-game developers because working on platforms at Microsoft has much better "work life balance" than game studios. The stuff that I, and the other team members, created were always cool/fun/hilarious/weird/etc. It was like a week long game jam ending with a Friday afternoon "Think and Drink" where everyone showed off their creations and talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our own technology through their App Week experiences.
which begs the question, if your company is so small that you can't offer health insurance, 401(k), etc then what is the point of having your employees salaried.

You might as well have them as contractors so they can enjoy the maximum tax write offs (health insurance, %age of their home as office, all hardware and software, %age of electricity, internet, etc).
Sounds like you need to look for additional options, if you don't like your current job and this new opportunity doesn't sound like an ideal fit. If you are doing software work and want to move to SF instead of LA, plus work on "creating neat, useful tools that help people" there are lots of companies hiring in the Bay Area. Just keep looking until you find the right opportunity, or are ready to start your own thing. Moving to a city you don't want to be in for a job you're not excited about is a bad idea.
My 0.02 :-)

Option 1: As you said, continue your current job (rationalising it as a part of 'startup pain') while bootstraping your startup.

Option 2: Join the LA company; it would at least bring you closer to SF, and keep looking for openings/opportunities in your areas of choice. (You could continue to bootstrap even in this case.)

Given what you've described above, I'd say option 2 (if it comes through) would be a better choice.

HTH and all the best.
I've never worked in a private office, so it was hard for me to judge; I thought those two options were quite close.

Could you please list some differences between a home and a private office?
I would throw in a 37Signals quote in here and advise "sell your byproducts." There is money to be had from residual assets used in the process of building your main product.

Did you create some nifty icons, or write a custom graphing engine for your mobile app that looks really nice? Cool. Put up a Paypal-based checkout site. Sell licenses.
I feel like I might enjoy a shared or open office, but my only experience with it involved trying to concentrate on coding while listening to the CEO reduce the new hire to tears on a more-than-weekly basis.
Frankly, I'm surprised you are still on there. I too was an original VC and I left years ago due to the support failings.

Look, we were investors in the truest sense. TextDrive was this revolutionary new shared hosting platform with a lot of promise (flexibility, no overselling, etc). Problem was that shared hosting is a commodity with no profit margins. Since TextDrive was started by people who want to build cool shit, rather than people who knew anything about operations in a customer service industry, the result is a massive series of pivots that left us out in the cold.

I'm not making excuses for anyone here, personally I think Jason Hoffman spent way too much time in the forum sucking up the love, and not enough time figuring out how to run a support operation. So he burnt his bridge with me as a customer. I won't touch Joyent with a ten foot pole no matter how good it is.

But here's the thing: that was their bridge to burn.

It doesn't matter what 200 early customers think, because those 200 one-time payments were not going to build a successful company. The bottom line is that the market for a "premium" shared hosting service got squeezed by commodity hosting on one side, and VPSes on the other. Even if they had managed reasonable uptime (which they didn't because they totally underestimated the technical cost of giving people the freedom they did), it still would have been a doomed market, because VPSes got so cheap anyway. We can complain about what a bad deal we got, but it doesn't change the fact that the last salary we paid was in 2005, and the hosting world has moved on. They did what they had to.
In the office I work out of only managers have private offices. There are also a few small offices with 2-4 people, but most work in groups of 6-10.
I moved from the UK to SF because of startup culture.

I hate the health care system here, would love to be under the UK National Health Care system instead, but overall would rather be living in SF than UK.

I suck up the $200/month health insurance (I'm a healthy 29 year old). If I had kids it would be a different story, mind you.
pair programming in open space
I'm startled to see actual use of Visual Studio. When I was there a few years ago, literally every dev I met shunned it in favor of vim (or rarely emacs) and build.exe and windbg, despite pleas from DevDiv for any feedback.
Private offices still have the potential for in-person interruptions. Working from home usually requires electronic communication to get ahold of somebody, which is much easier to defer if you're in the middle of working.
An office of about five employees seems optimal to me, normal office desks - no cubicles for people to hide in. Ringing phones need to be kept to a minimum for development though, as they are too distracting.
The above quote is direct from the blog post. Not my words.
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It's a matter of isolation. Working from home takes away the ability for you to walk over to someone's desk/office and have a quick chat or go over a problem that may be difficult to cover via email or IM. And no matter how accessible you try to make yourself, when you're working from home, the distance barrier means that your coworkers won't consider you as someone to contact easily. It also means people are more likely to forget to pass on information because when they don't see you, they don't think about you as much.
Phone call?

It's not a real substitute to face-to-face discussion, but still is an option to reach someone in urgent cases.
This is nothing special. Lion says it would include a server version of Mac OS X, and this is just a very basic function for any server OS. Although I haven't played with OS X server before, I'm quite sure this feature has been there for some time.
Not too sure here, but I think they have a strong 'anti tobacco' policy - perhaps, that's the root cause of the troubles you faced.
I have no idea what that buying social media traffic @ $5 a day is, and he won't tell me.
RIM Blackberry Playbook Tablet to Support Android
Treating performance as a minimum bar that has to be met rather than a goal in and of itself sounds exactly like the kind of development process that would produce Windows -- which always feels sluggish if you're using anything other than the latest hardware.

I don't think Microsoft realizes how enormously performance contributes to user dissatisfaction with their OS.

As a web developer, I know that adding just a second to a page load massively diminishes perceived usefulness of a system; Google spends enormous amounts shaving tens of milliseconds off their page displays.

At the level of an operating system, that kind of user sensitivity to performance must be at least the same if not magnified. It seems like performance, especially on older hardware, should be far more of a priority for Microsoft than it apparently is.
I have a very difficult time working in a shared place, and it isn't because I can't code with distractions. I'm actually very sensitive to certain noises, whether it is somebody chewing an apple or potato chip (drives me CRAZY) or tapping their fingers, any obnoxious, repetitive noise sets me off.

On the other hand, I can happily work with a dozen people engaged in conversations around me, even if they are pulling me in on occasion.
Obviously the one clear course of action is to leave your current company. You hate it there, and it isn't taking you where you want to go.

If you're talented, you won't have any trouble finding work in SF. You could take a small amount of your savings and 'move' to SF for a couple weeks. Make sure you like it, and work the networks to find a job.

If you're going to go on your own, definitely apply to YC.
Not sure how much the site would get re-auctioning it today,
even if rankings for "ebook design" went from #5 to #1-2 I feel like I can't mention fake revenues like he probably did so the price of the site would probably be < $500
I was surprised by that one, too, even though it actually does apply to me: I work at home about 75% of the time and am in a private office the other 25%. I completely agree that they are apples and oranges.
Is it just me or he needed to use some Spell. Check? Oh he was on Windows, as buggy as it gets (code or writing).
I'm also a massive Linode fan, but here's my monthly HE-Fremont Data Center rant... don't run anything out of there (regardless of whether it is through Linode or a 3rd party).

The overal quality of their (Hurricane Electric, not Linode) operation is poor, historically they have been lax on shady people colo'ing rack space in Fremont (google hurricane electric mccolo), HE-1 is full and so little room for expansion and its on a fault line.

I've NEVER had any of these problems in Newark (which is Linode's geographically local DC as they are in NJ) or London.
The fact that there is a culture; not cabins,
I'm attending a public school, with a CS department consisting of 6-or-so people. They taught me well :-) Definitely not what I could have taught myself.
Going Homeless and Living in the Computer Science Building
I've worked in this industry. Congratulations, you have what a lot of people dream off--content that can easily be categorized, tagged, and used to make targetted ads.

I'd suggest you get a system to figure out what content a post is related to, then use CPA ads on it.

You'll have to essentially roll your own ad network for this because the major players have really poor support for targeted ads.

If CPA doesn't work out for you, it means your users aren't motivated to doing anything. However, CPA usually works.

By the way, Adsense doesn't allow NSFW traffic so you may get booted from the system if the NSFW community takes over your site and gears it in that direction.
Well they we're in private beta...
This story incites anger and hatred in me. I feel powerless against the authorities that did this to you. I don't have an answer to what we can do about this, other than offer my sympathy. I am sorry.
But banning it would be anti-producer.
Some governments are good at running some things. The US government seems to screw up everything. I don't know why this is, but if public health care ever becomes reality, and it is anything like the DMV, or any government services in California for that matter, or VA hospitals...may [deity] help us all.

I am in no way a fan of the perverse incentives created by a for-profit private health care system, but I am worried that the alternative might be even worse.
As an employer, I'd be willing to pay (at least something) for this.
I've had a very bad experience with Joyent. Abysmal performance, tech support in denial in spite of obvious tests. Just leave, your life will be better.
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You seem to have taken as a given the idea that companies, like parents to children, or medieval lords to their vassals, should bear responsibility for their employees' health costs. Otherwise, the company is 'freeloading'.

Yet the point of this study seems to be that employer-centric health-arrangements prevent new business formation.

Let's assume new business formation is something we want to maximize. (New businesses are how our culture rapidly searches for new productive arrangements, and countries with lower rates of business-formation tend to stagnate on lots of other things too.)

Then we have to get away from the cultural expectation that the employer is the direct payer/purchaser of health costs.

Whether the responsibility moves to the national government ('single-payer'), or other governmental bodies, or individuals/families, or other civic/voluntary/religious associations is a separate issue. It has to get away from companies, or else we're losing out on business-formation (and job-mobility) that we need.
Amazing that this is the only comment so far that points out this wasn't even Not-Invented-Here Syndrome, because their own OS already had this feature (Display PostScript remoting) twenty years ago. At least until some architect marking their territory was allowed to wilfully break it and replace it with ... nothing.
I couldn't really vote for any of the existing options.

When I have something really hard I prefer to work from home since I have (almost) no distraction and it's quiet.

But for a normal day's work, I prefer a nonsmoking coffee shop with decent WiFi that's not too overcrowded and has lounge/easy going music.
Maybe its just me and because (I like to think that) I'm pretty decent at writing good software, but I find that I best learn a programming language by writing code, not by doing any of the above.

As for what I use to get to the point where I can write code? Code written by others, in snippet form, as an example, or part of a full app.
I doubt the prior art requirements would change. Today, you can't (in theory) get a patent if prior art exists. If Inventor A open sources the invention, prior art is pretty easy to prove.

The bigger issue is that, unless the patent office happens to notice Inventor A's work while process the patent, which, of course, is no different than it is today.
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Honestly if I attempt to run my own mail server, chances are that I am going to be in bigger trouble than if I just used Gmail.

But you won't see it on hacker news...
Hansy, very well said and all points well taken.

You said "only you know how to immediately implement it", but my problem is I am not aware of web technologies and how to market it. I come from a different programming world of C/C++. Thats why I am looking for hackers as partners who can implement my ideas.

will be cautious and wont give away the punchline too early.
This is cool!

But missing secret_facebook_stuff.

Do you think you can use http digest rather than facebook for auth?
Facebook's Growing Role in Social Journalism
60 Inconvenient Personal Development Truths
Learn by book: get the information you need organized in a sensible fashion by someone who's an expert on the subject.

That's true if the book is any good--I've read far too many tech books with little semblance of editing or organization.
I've tried several of the wireframing tools you list, and I prefer Mockflow (http://mockflow.com) to them all.
In the office I work out of, everyone has at least one laptop and a desktop. --Most people have at least 2 desktops, and of course there are plenty of servers as well (2 server rooms, in fact, one off-site).

I work in support, but I spend a lot of time looking at code and speaking with developers. My laptop is my primary machine, but I also have two desktops - quad core systems with 16GB RAM that I use to run VMs in Hyper-V (I have to use both Windows and Linux VMs). --Typically I'll have around 3 VMs running on each desktop, plus up to 3 more that I can switch on when needed. I also have access to a set of 3 servers (48GB RAM and about 9TB disk space) that I share with a team of 10 people for when we need to configure a larger cluster for problem reproduction and resolution. Developers tend to have similar setups here.
Posting my Idea is no problem. I can provide the abstract of my idea. But I would like to hear from other hackers about their approach. I second your point on Idea execution.

I am true believer of “Ideas are just a multiplier of execution”. - Derek Sivers
I think you'll find it a bit difficult if you don't explain where the growth is going to come from. It's easy to make a trickle of money, but will it grow enough to make an investor his money back and more?
This is why the "pile of small investors" style of financing is tough -- fail to get awesome traction and you are toast.

Expect to see a bunch of needless failures due to out-of-cash issues in 2011.
It seems like the choice is not only personal, but can change day to day or even hour to hour. Sometimes you need to lock down your privacy, other times you want to be approachable and make sure you're passively consuming information flow.

In that light almost no offices are getting it close to right - they all force a certain paradigm on workers. Working from home from time to time offers a little flexibility but that's it.

I'm not sure what my perfect office would look like, but it would definitely be one where I could pick different work contexts.

More practically speaking, a private office with a big glass door is probably close. When shut, people can see I'm there, but can also see I'm busy. When open, the large frame of the door makes me feel connect to the rest of the office.
Why not leave the current company, join the new one (or look for one if such option is available), and moonlight your project?
[Edit] Adding something about me: I am not aware of web technologies, its implementation and how to market it. I come from a different programming world of C/C++. Thats why I am looking for hackers as partners who can partner and implement my ideas.
I have interned at Microsoft. No intern has a private office. In fact, many interns do not work in offices at all.
You choose were you want to work. Lots of places do this, my last few places in small firms bought me brand new computers when I started, and let 2 let me choose exactly what I wanted. It depends how important the company sees IT/how good a manager you have.
Can't tell if trolling or not...
This is the dark side of startups that require no capital expenditure. Easy come, easy go.
Guessing most of the non-private-office voters are manager types.

Private office for me, but not working from home. I like the social environment, but there are times when I like to close the door. This could be because I don't want to hear you, because I don't want you to hear me, or because I don't want things that I have left out getting touched/stolen.

Also, if you end up being perceived as some kind of subject matter expert, people will bug you non-stop. I like to help, but I only have so much time for that. I found that having an office raises the bar just enough that some of the more casual questions seem to go away.

Ask any experienced coder who does not have a private office if they have done the "headphones with no music on" trick.

My old manager once walked into another site's office and discovered their "open concept." He was raving about how great it was that he could ask anybody anything at any time, and everyone could have all kinds of collaboration. shudder
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I doubt a paid email service will be anymore reliable than Gmail. Your best bet is probably to look into a good backup strategy. For example, you could use Outlook or Mail to retrieve all of your Gmail locally while still keeping the original email on Gmail.
As much as this comment nosedived at the end, I have to agree that his typos and misspellings detracted from the article for me. A basic proofread would have prevented this from feeling like it wasn't too well thought out...
Mathgladiator, I salute you. Seriously, though, that was an amazing read and must have been a fantastic life experience.
My manager is pretty good. The issue seems to be we are treated like a proper "development" shop, but not provided some of the basic tools due to strange funding decisions. Its not all bad, but there is enough smell there to take away a lot of the joy I usually get from code.
Most of my direct managers and indeed everyone else not in IT seems to have a new machine. The majority are running XP.
This may be useful: http://martinml.com/en/how-to-download-and-backup-your-gtalk...
Color is important when it comes to newspapers and magazines, but most books that adults read don't have pictures--much less color pictures.
$() is standard, not a bashism. Every code example in the article was tested on multiple shells. Use $() and be happy, and I recommend never touching the backquotes again. They're a disaster as soon as you need to nest them.

${CC:=gcc} is a special case of syntax, but one of the points in the article is: as with any programming language, you should actually learn it so you can write better code. If people start using this one, it won't be any lesser known than any other weird sh syntax. The other variants (=, -, :-, etc) the article recommends against anyway.

As for your comments on #3, both of your examples are untrue; they work fine in a POSIX shell. Try it. (They fail in zsh, when zsh isn't in "sh compatibility" mode, so perhaps you're using that. Try switching it to sh compatibility mode.) Either way, those examples aren't actually related to point #3 in the article.