skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Not all employees are the same. Even in "unskilled labor" there is a difference. Some employees are stronger, some are forgetful, some show good judgment and personal initiative, some are late, some need a week of training, some have done it for years and know a lot of little tricks.

The economic mechanism that makes companies pay more is competition with other companies for the better workers.

The evidence I have that better working conditions mean lower wages, and vice versa, is what I already posted: they both cost money, and there's a limited amount of money. Spending more on one leaves less for the other. Of course if you're doing well you can have a good amount of both, it's only when there isn't a lot of wealth that it gets to be a real tough choice.
"Depends on the field" isn't really a good argument, because the counterargument is that the same thing applies for people without college degrees. Some make minimum wage, some make more than the average given in the article. Just as an example corresponding to yours, laborers on oil rigs make really good money straight out of high school. In particular, here in Canada during the oil boom (now not so much) it was quite common for a laborer straight out of high school to make $50 - $80 US an hour in northern Alberta. Admittedly dangerous, dirty, unpleasant work.
So what has really happened, or Rackspace does not go as far as explaining customers what was the reason and what measures are taken so it won't happen again? I'd be surprised if that is the case.

My current hoster costs less and does much more (you're informed and kept updated in case anything remotely serious happens, especially if it affects the whole DC - though happened only once during 6 years, customers had live progress on the failure resolution).
And after no education, what is your 22-year-old self qualified to do?
My first job was picking rocks out of the wheat field when I was 11 on our wheat farm. At 12, I was pretty much doing all the work for the dryland part of the farm. But being the family farm, that didn't directly pay.

After senior year of high school I worked on a wheat farm owned by a friend of my Dad and was paid $1.25/hr.

Lots of long days, hours wise. Carried that into computer profession.

However, at the end of the summer, farming was done. In this business, it is never done and there is no natural downtime.
Top domains on HN by average score (warning: check comments first)
Nokia N97 Wallpaper : Audi-R8 : Nokia N97 Themes
Sorted by average is probably more interesting, here's the top 20:

Domain Points Count Avg
-----------------------------------------------
paulgraham.com 7726 138 55.99
sivers.org 1236 24 51.5
steve-yegge.blogspot.com 1857 42 44.21
zedshaw.com 2227 57 39.07
ycombinator.com 4957 139 35.66
paulbuchheit.blogspot.com 1940 59 32.88
mattmaroon.com 2675 95 28.16
catonmat.net 1801 75 24.01
joelonsoftware.com 3559 159 22.38
python.org 1212 55 22.04
daringfireball.net 1958 97 20.19
github.com 4685 235 19.94
aaronsw.com 1199 68 17.63
theatlantic.com 2066 124 16.66
inc.com 2737 175 15.64
posterous.com 1666 107 15.57
aws.typepad.com 1086 70 15.51
codinghorror.com 4832 316 15.29
37signals.com 7259 489 14.84

The rest are here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680104

I wonder if placing such a list on the "leaders" page will encourage popular authors to write more?
make it public?

edit: cool, it got made public.
Actually, they aren't doing anything particularly amazing - my servers are just Dell 2950IIIs.

Still, for one guy managing things, it's way easier than co-lo.
The newsstand price of a paper has very little to do with revenue and/or profit for a newspaper. The bulk of the revenue is in the advertising : that's why there has always been free papers around : especially in community papers.

The largest dent in newspaper revenue is the gradual loss of revenue from classified ads, and the falling revenues from print-based advertising, caused by pricing competition from online sites.
Who said anything about no education? Also, I'd have started working at age 16, and I didn't even add any of that income into the mix. Even assuming I was making minimum wage for the first five years I'd easily have enough money to retire by age thirty.
I doubt people are using URL shorteners because they're bumping up against twitter's 140 character limit. It has become the trendy thing to do, and most non-technical users probably use it only because everyone else is. Anyone know where to find a large corpus of tweets? It would be pretty straightforward to do the analysis.

Additionally, why doesn't anyone talk about doing URL shortening on the CMS side? Sure the host portion of the URL might be a little longer than say 'bit.ly', but the remaining portion could be compressed. You could have a blog, news article, or whatever with an unobtrusive "twitter link" on the side. That way content owners still have some view into who is linking to their content.
Paperboy.
To be honest, I thought it was a joke to start with - look at what he compares it to!

For 10bucks, I can get four iced espressos at Starbucks, eight bags of Swedish Fish, 9 soft serves from McDonald’s, or nine 99cent iPhone apps, etc., etc.

Ignoring the crappy maths towards the end there, I can't think of one time where I've been faced with a piece of software that could potentially enrich or ease my life on a day to day basis and thought "Hmm... maybe I'll just pig out on ice cream instead."

I had no idea that the software engineer had become so devalued. Seeing how greatly that point overshadows the rest of the (probably quite useful) piece, I can't help but think techies aren't really the intended audience.
> Trying to eat less sugar/carbs, so I swapped out the boxed cereal (even the healthy one I used to eat) for oatmeal.

As far as I know, oat is a cereal.

> I stopped eating meat

What's with this anti-meat movement? I'm not saying that we should eat a lot of meat, but still a steak (barbecue) tastes very good. I don't eat a lot of meat compared to other persons, I tend to eat the vegetables, but I sure like some steak once in a while, especially when it's pork. In case someone wonders, I'm thin.
Yeah, I think they're designed for different niches.

I use Posterous as my platform for publishing content that's text-based - I really like using my email client as a UI, and it makes it easy to post from anywhere. It's also dead simple (once it's set up) for non-technical users to run a blog using that interface, and would be of great use (I imagine) in a situation where bandwidth is at a premium, like in remote environments where all you've got is an expensive satellite uplink.

Tumblr, on the other hand, is very much more of a social/media blog platform. It's got that feature where you can re-blog something and it automatically links back to others who have done that, among other neat features. I'm also a big fan of its bookmarklet for sharing links and media, and while it's fine at doing text, it's in no way exceptional.

In short, I consider Posterous to be a very well-executed text-centered longer-form blogging system, whereas Tumblr is more optimzed for media/content sharing and short-form text - although both would work for either niche.
17, I worked for a local family owned ice cream shop of course! $6.75/hr.
1. You make an impulse purchase. It’s ...
c) your fifth beer on a Monday night.

Umm, what if I bought it deliberately a couple days ago?

Anyway, there's nothing new about this. At the age of 25, men and women should both be in the process of child-rearing. Deviate from that and nature will send you signals that something is wrong. But the money and luxury of the modern world allow this unnatural state.

http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/wolfe_me.pdf

The new alchemical dream
is: changing one's personality—remaking, remodeling, elevating, and polishing one's very self...
and observing, studying, and doting on it. (Me!) This had always been an aristocratic luxury,
confined throughout most of history to the life of the courts, since only the very wealthiest classes
had the free time and the surplus income to dwell upon this sweetest and vainest of pastimes
I think you're actually proving rather than disproving the argument. According to Google, starting salary is like $47k, and it goes up from there. Way, way more work than engineering, but far, far more interesting places. I suspect many trades are similar - good car mechanics, airconditioner repairmen, ... can make good bucks with good luck.

I think we're all in agreement - figure out what you'd like to do, what it takes to do it and get started. Assuming one's realistic, as no amount of work on my part would make me 10" taller and so able to be a basketball center.
It seems that they still intend to open source it sometime in the future: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/35/will-stackoverflo...
Fuck you all!

Please kill my karma as much as you can, I wanna be small!
What small cap index over 22 years returned 10 percent annually?
I found the Ruby on Rails guides (http://guides.rubyonrails.org/) combined with the Rails API (http://api.rubyonrails.org/) to be really helpful.

I started with the Agile Web Development Book with Rails (http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-...), but eventually just switched to the guides, api, and google.
That's not quite true -- Adam Dunkels' protothreads make very good use of Duff's Device. They enable you to write event-driven code in a more or less thread-style way. That said, Mr Duff is kind of hidden inside the protothread macros -- one never actually has to make eye contact with him.

Original link: http://www.sics.se/~adam/pt/

Protothreads in C++: http://blog.brush.co.nz/2008/07/protothreads/

Also, a lot of the "hidden" Python are fine, and to be used. Though I didn't know about ... (Ellipsis)
Unsoldering resistors, capacitors, etc from old VCR mainboards. 1 cent per part; 1.5 cents if I sorted them by spec. My family had an electronics repair shop. I think I was eight or nine. (Back then components were about the size of a large ant, not stuffed in by the billion)

I've been thinking about this lately -- giving kids work gives them skills and I think people would be surprised what they can handle.
> 2. Eat nothing that is delicious ever again.

Eh? You’ve never had delicious veggies? Or fruits?

Sorry, but I eat delicious & healthy food regularly. All you need to do is learn to cook.

( I also eat horribly on a regular basis, when I’m too lazy to cook. )
What's the time frame on this?
What do you guys make of this list? Love to hear your analysis.
I live in Australia too and don't deny that there are some racist people here, like other countries. But it's one thing to hold those views and another to attack someone because of their race.

In the three incidents mentioned in the article, there is no evidence the perpetrators were racially motivated. The first incident was robbery, for the other two there is no mention of who the assailants were and what their motive was.

There are many more East Asians (Chinese, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Indonesians etc) in Australia than Indians, it would be interesting to know why they are not being affected by this alleged racism, or if they are why they are being silent about it.

Arrest the assailants and interrogate them.
Pfeh. The guy lost me with "For years, the world has been witnessing a quiet but monumental shift of power from men to women". When I see an ERA amendment pass & when any woman running for office is not met with a sexist circus (like it was with Hillary Clinton or "omg she may have pms" Sotomayor), call me.
Got the data from here: http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_points

So I think the entire history of the site is included.
Sulumits Retsambew - Statistics of Top 10
If Bill can get 8% returns on his money every year, he might wanna start a hedge fund. Or at least borrow as much money at 5% as he can and invest it all.
135 lbs. at 6'0"? Wow. I’m 6', and when my weight got down to 140lbs, it was obviously unhealthy. Didn’t have enough in me to keep me going, really. Currently at 165, and ok there. Trying to get to ~180.
It's a bit of an unfair comparison that you're making - you're picking essentially the worst, most high-calorie nutrient-free vegetable products.

Flipping it around, I could just as well say that fresh vegetables (kale, spinach, cabbage) are far healthier than animal products (bacon, beef tallow, chicken fat).

So much of the equation is in the specific foods you pick - a vegan could eat the foods you listed and be deeply unhealthy, while an omnivore could eat large portions of fresh vegetables with a bit of free-range meat and be quite healthy.
18, selling knives for CUTCO, commission only. And I freakin loved it.
I was being conservative, historically it's been 12%.
The Pirate Bay hatches new streaming video site (sort of)
Irrational markets: people reject free money out of anger
Naruto Hentai
Some pretty fun and interesting adult games.
Helped write mapping software for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Yeah, I guess I've never had a real job.
yep, that's a good point. I guess there's just no saving it then...
My first real job was cleaning electronic and pipe components, typically of the sort which were used underwater for delivering oil. This was a somewhat under-the-table employment, probably because the owner of the company didn't want to deal with OSHA. As I recall I was 16 and the pay was an impressive $6.75 an hour.

After a summer of drama he became incensed that one of my pipes, which I had been cleaning of oil residue by means of scrubbing with a solvent and a toothbrush (it is exactly as fun as it sounds), was insufficiently clean. He attempted to demonstrate his displeasure by throwing the ~20 pound pipe at me. It passed close enough to my ear that I felt the breeze.

Thus ended my involvement in the informal labor market.
As I’ve seen advice urging you to keep your insulin level constant throughout the day, and this is the first time I’ve seen anyone trying to contradict that, do you mind citing something?
Financing Your Startup: Your Options + Their Pros & Cons
How would you gain that education? Keep in mind that without public money, most of our educational infrastructure wouldn't exist - including universities.
Of course, it's to go along with the classic Web 2.0 BS Generator http://emptybottle.org/bullshit/

There's also web 2.0 logo, name & tagline (all together) generatorL
http://www.blastone.com/games/generator/index.php
YouTube To Broadly Release Call-To-Action Overlays, Allows Linking Off-Site
Anecdote: I've been running 40-50 miles a week, tried various diets, but I still was chunky. Last two months I run 5-10 miles a week, eat sugars and crap but I record everything and eat around 1200-1500 calories a day. I've lost a crapload of weight.

Yeah, I'm also a 6'3'' and I was 220 in March so I'm probably grossly undereating but after a week of hunger and headrushes you get used to burning fat (I also drink coffee) for energy and feel great while losing weight.
The dictionary definition of climate was in terms of weather. My own definition of climate which followed was explicitly written to get rid of the mention of weather. I then defined weather myself, in terms of climate.

I didn’t enter the argument of change vs. crisis in my post, though I do think crisis makes more sense.
100F isn't cooking, it's barely even keeping it warm.
13; personal tutor for another student at $20/hour.
Guide (they called us 'explainers') at the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. I was paid minimum wage - then about $5.50 an hour, I think.
Data entry. Ten hour shifts. At night.
Judging from this person's comments I would guess their account has been compromised. Upvoted. :)
I'm sorry but that is nothing but a bunch of ignorant hand-waving. Whenever something like the quarterlife crisis is brought up, there is a strong current of thinking that goes something like "These people should just get over themselves"

Fact is, there are a number of huge factors working against young people these days. Consider the following:

- You can't get a decent job without a decent education. It used to be that a highschool graduate could get a job that paid enough to support a family, a concept that is completely absurd these days. Kids these days are finishing school much later than their parents, and they don't have a choice.

- the cost of school is sky-rocketting, as it debt.

- A rapid climb in income inequality over the last generation (check the historical gini index for reference) means that there aren't very many quality, well paying jobs available to young people.

- young people will be stuck with the bill to clean up the fucking mess we're going through right now AND pay for the retirement and medical care of the people that have brought about this shit-storm.

The end result is, society has raised it's children with the wrong set of values, with policies that screw them over and now tries to wash it's hands clean by essentially saying that the stupid kids should have seen it all coming when they were pre-pubescent teens and manouvered around it.
I thought you said something about no education: "Let's say that instead of investing 11k in each student every year, my town just put 143k in an account for me...we are doing this for each student instead of spending that money on schools."
Its very bad comparison. A couple of problems: the comp is purely of retirement savings, however the college kid is spending more on consumption per year all through his life (not considered), also the assumption of 8% returns is unlikely.

Stay in college kids!
Well, the thought just popped into my head because of the sites subtitle "meat is murder" (clearly someone who is vegan by reason #4) and the fact that the article deals with establishments in L.A. which people generally tend to associate with a less conservative political view.
I'm watching the video. I have a lot of problems with his reasoning, but I just got to the point at 33:00, where he seems to take a huge U-turn from the implications that calories in/calories out is wrong, and brings up with this quote:

"To explain obesity by overeating is as illuminating a statement as an 'explanation' of alcoholism by chronic overdrinking."

Then he attacks the idea that behavior is unrelated to physiology -- where did he get that straw man? As far as I know, everyone who blames obesity on overeating also believes that the amount we eat is affected by many factors, including physiology. So please tell me, before I watch the rest of the video, does he really disagree with the idea that obesity is caused by overeating, or does he merely believe that saying so doesn't do justice to the fact that overeating has complex causes of its own?
Because it's better linkbait that way.
Cook at Hardee's - it wasn't that bad, lots of free food. Definitely didn't do anything to contribute to my current career (Sr. Developer).
16 and I worked for at an ice cream shop too! Corporate chain type though. $5.25/hr (1998 dollars).

edit: birthday paradox in action?
Bagger at Albertsons ("courtesy clerk") at $5.15/hr, during high school. I've never had so much financial freedom in my life.
New IE 8 spotlights disgusting porn, projectile vomiting.
Durkheim wrote about this more than a hundred years ago. It's called Anomie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie
15 y.o., life guard at a pool. Minimum wage @ $5.00/hr. Ouch!
All these facts, myths, and rules of thumb depend on the operating definition of "fat" as well as what group of "fat people" are being analyzed. People who are medically "overweight" or "obese," meaning having a BMI over 25, eat more on average than those with a BMI under 25. I would consider exercising and eating to be of tantamount importance in correcting this, but certainly genes and upbringing can instill a predisposition to obesity or even hinder sincere efforts to lose weight.

However, I think what the article is talking about is skinniness as opposed to being "chubby" or "soft," not flat out obese. If you're somewhere in the region between "skinny" and "chubby," but not near being under- or overweight, then what you eat and how you exercise is important; even subtle changes to your routine can have noticeable effects.
If you would rather not have your Google account revealed to all of HN, log out of Google before following the link.
Not with a name like that.
What about the rest of the stuff about family? What's your take on that?
I agree with the other commenter. So your examples are ones without much of a ladder in terms of pay scales and incur serious risk of death. That's wonderful.

Also, the fact that you say "some make more than the average given in the article" really makes me want to say something flippant, but I won't. Politely, I will say: Notice the word average.
16, doing Telephone surveys. Lasted for 2.5 years through high-school. Minimum wage, but I was pretty good so I could get the volume bonuses a lot of time. Hated the work. Loved the schedule.
A summertime gig doing FoxPro database programming for $17.50/hour.
Don't give up, keep exploring possibilities. Would holding a cute person in your arms make physical activity fun? Try dancing. Does nature or landscape photography excite you? Go hiking. Like shooting things? Play paintball. Want some self defense skills? Take up martial arts. Like flowers? Take up gardening. Use your imagination to combine interests and activities.
It has nothing to do with this article but I suggested the name "Quarterlife Crisis" for my company's kickball team, and it stuck. Perhaps appropriately, they did not win.
Taking weight loss advice from someone who admits to always being slim seems a bit silly to me. This guy seems to have a long standing exercise routine and enjoys his flaxseeds and cottage cheese just fine. Very few people are going to just wake up one day and start exercising religiously, give up meat, and buy some tubs of protein powder. It may work for him but it's not going to work for most people who aren't used to it. So what's the net value of this article? Someone masturbating about their lifestyle choices after proclaiming that was not their intent? Lame.

Ultimately I think the biggest problem with obesity in the US is how out of proportion calories are to the amount of food ingested. It's probably something that the brain has trouble dealing with. Visually it's hard to imagine this little candy bar being more calories than a gigantic salad. And as Americans have proven time and time again they are found of not accepting logic and reality in favor of house wife superstitions and slack jawed common sense. Of course on the other extreme I've met (grossly) overweight nurses and doctors who obviously know better but cannot deal with it. That's also hard to explain given. If it were so simple I would think these smart people with first hand experience (everyday) of the health risks of obesity would be among the most capable group to deal with the problem. To me this suggests there is a very real mental or chemical cause for obesity that isn't as simple as "eat less, lose weight"
But you're not taking into account advertising revenue. I'm not sure a Kindle-based newspaper could attract as much ad revenue as a print newspaper, because the medium just isn't as attractive to advertisers; ads on ebooks or the Web feel much more intrusive to readers than ads in newspapers or magazines.
Around 9 years old, I was weighing people for money (~5 cents converted to USD in that time) on local markets.