Hacker News Reader

Cl4rityon The Cost of College - James Surowiecki

That article was written in the future!

I'm a pretty high-ranking editor at a large publishing company and I did not go to college, so I am very lucky. However, I feel for those who are in serious debt because of school. I believe that next year, 40% of all student loans will default. That's terrible.

Cl4rityon Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

Why is everyone complaining that this isn't a lifestyle to idolize or emulate when the resounding sentiment here is that it isn't a lifestyle to IDOLIZE OR EMULATE?

We get it. I get it. You get it. Everyone gets it. I think plenty of the commenters here do a damn fine job of trivializing other readers' intelligence.

I'm also certain that Jack Dorsey doesn't work 16-hour days for the attention. We didn't know this up until now, and Twitter and Square have been running just fine. That's what matters, and if Dorsey feels like putting in that much time is necessary, so be it. If he burns out, he'll burn out; if he doesn't, good for him.

Cl4rityon I Hate My Smartphone

A few nights ago I was walking around Manhattan and decided to find a nearby restaurant, so I pulled out my MacBook Air and it was amazing. Right out of my pocket. When I finally found the restaurant, I used Google Maps in my Chrome browser for walking directions. I held my laptop in one hand, and my date in the other hand. Afterwards, we headed to a bar and I used a payphone to see if any of my friends were nearby and wanted to join us. One person answered! Except he couldn't make it. On the way home, I saw some really cool street performers playing with fire, so I opened up my MacBook Air, fired up Photo Booth, and used the built-in iSight camera to snap a few candid photos.

In the end, everything else was far more useful than a smartphone.

Cl4rityon How I live on $7,000 per year

I was going to complain about how this was extreme, but that would be redundant given his URL. The point isn't that we all can/should live off of ~$7,000/year, it's that we can cut down on the crap we don't need, or things that will be gone or obsolete in a year or less.

However, the great thing about this article is that it reminds me to find some kind of balance. The impression I got was that the author spends nearly half his time budgeting and penny pinching, with little room to enjoy life. Or, if I could be a little more presumptuous, convinces himself that he enjoys this life so that he doesn't have to go out and earn far more money.