DavidAdams

I hire a lot of people, so I see a lot of resumes. My opinion on interests and hobbies is that you're making a statement by including it, so you need to be smart about it. If they're mundane and not salient to the job, then you're padding a thin resume, or just being dense by including them.

On the other hand, they have the ability to make you stand out or advance your "story" then they can make a big difference. For example, if I'm hiring an engineer, and they mention that they've been working on an interesting open source project, or they co-founded a local hackerspace, then that's a mark in their favor. I hired an intern, who I later hired on full-time, largely because he described a scrappy and interesting local entertainment directory website he had been working on launching. He'd been basically living as a ski bum for three years and working as a waiter, but his ambitious hobby made up for that.

This wasn't on his resume, but a another guy I hired recently let me know in the interview that he plays hockey seriously, and that was good to know, because honestly some engineers need to get out of the house more.

I have a bachelor's degree, and I haven't included an education section on my resume for at least a decade. (I'm 40 years old) I've been at VP or C-level for a long time. That's largely because my degree is largely irrelevant to my career path, or at least I believe that putting it there wouldn't really advance the story I'm trying to put forward succinctly on a CV. I have an English degree, which has actually been incalculably key to my career as a software company founder and executive, since I studied writing and basically write for a living. But I founded my first company when I was still in college, and it's pretty much what happened from there that's part of my story. As it happens, I went ahead and finished my degree, but it wouldn't have mattered one whit if I hadn't.

You're correct, but only if the tree's entire carbon store is released to the atmosphere, such as by being burned. Not all of the tree is able to decay and release its carbon. The portion of the organic matter that fell to the forest floor, was covered by other organic matter, stayed there for a long time and eventually becomes coal or oil. In other words, you can end up storing a lot of carbon in the soil.

I suppose one good way to sequester carbon is to plant trees then cut them down at maturity and build durable buildings out of them.

I cancelled Netflix outright, after being a member for 11 years.

I think of it this way: the majority of iPad users probably spend less than $10 on apps, ever, and the same for media. And a big proportion of them spend $0, only using the iPad for Web, email, Facebook, etc. So on this group, Apple makes a couple bucks on apps and media, tops. Compared to the ~$100 they make selling the iPad.

I agree that it's short on hard data. But I'm not sure I'm getting "racist." Classist, maybe? But I guess you can't talk about class issues at all without someone getting their panties in a wad.

It seems like there are some objective claims here that would be pretty easy to refute. Is it true that Blackberry handsets and plans have become inexpensive and are a good way for people without a lot of money to talk and message without the kind of big monthly bill that plagues more well-heeled people? Is it true that while richer people are not buying Blackberries anymore, poorer people are?

Is it some kind of value judgement to point this out, as something that's interesting to people who are interested in the mobile computing market?

Call me when I can get to the airport, park, get through security, get seated, fly to my destination, get off the plane, wait for my luggage, and be out at the curb in 12 minutes.

I think that very few people are aware that this Community Design thing even existed. It would be great if shining a light on it could generate some scandal.

And it's important to mention that "high end" CFLs now cost about $1 each. You can get bulbs at Home Depot for $4 for a pack of four that turn on immediately, don't flicker, and are available in three color profiles including a warm one that looks very much like an incandescent.

I thought the same thing, but if you wait around, you'll see that the ad is a pre-roll to a TV news story about the Afghanistan story. So it's not really an auto-playing ad, it's an auto-playing news video with an ad in the front. Still annoying.

Not to mention the fact that once you've acknowledged that you've read the contract, likely you'd be able to strike the M&M provision.

Yes, and Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana are the greatest performing artists ever known.

I own both of those games, and after play Agricola, I've decided that it's just too aggravating (too many tough tradeoff decisions) but Power Grid is a favorite, and in a lot of ways, if you are interested in playing Monopoly, you'll find Power Grid to be 100x more fun.

And your point is that Facebook isn't a product "of unambiguous value to society" I suppose? And that Zuckerberg's supposed lack of "innovation" is the cause of this deficiency?

Facebook may not be your thing, but I'd have to say the fact that tens of millions of people enjoy the benefits that Facebook brings to their lives, enough to visit the site multiple times a day pretty much proves its value to society.

And I believe pretty strongly that taking ideas that were innovated by other people and improving upon them counts as innovation in its own right. Facebook may not have done anything earth-shatteringly new, but what it did do, it did better.

The issue here is that old-fashioned declared war is essentially illegal under the current regime of international law. Because you have to get a security council resolution or be clearly in self-defense these days to engage in armed conflict and not become an international outlaw, all of the "wars" we've engaged in since the 1940s have been "police actions" or "interventions" or somesuch.

The article does dance around that concept a little bit, in an aside about the difference between Barcelona and other football clubs. But he never gets around to drawing an exact parallel to primadonna coders.

And that's a strong argument to make. I might rather have five exceptional developers than 1000 average ones, taking into account communication latency and overhead, but if they're five surly, haughty, egotistical asshats who are engaged in a never-ending pissing contest, then no thanks.

Here's something I read today in this month's Atlantic:

"Many of today’s super-rich started out in the middle and make most of their money through work, not inheritance. Ninety-five years ago, the richest 1 percent of Americans received only 20 percent of their income from paid work; in 2004, that income proportion had tripled, to 60 percent. "

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-14-b...

This is much more common in finance and legal firms, where much of the upside accrues to partners in the firm, and the junior people work long hours for much more modest compensation. But they're loaned money in order to get a jump start on the lifestyle that their more senior colleagues enjoy, putting them in hock to the firm. If they were to leave to join a startup, for example, they'd have to pay it back in a lump sum.

The Atlantic is, IMO, an excellent and approachable publication today, however, as a regular reader, I must note that they still let the pompous and pedantic flag fly in the book reviews that appear in the final pages of each issue.

I'm a fan of The Economist, but their big flaw is similar to Consumer Reports' problem: when they focus on their core competency (Economist: geopolitics and finance; CR: rating home appliances) they're the gold standard. But when they venture outside, such as this case of trying to give a quick overview of what makes a technology company successful over the long term, it's obvious that they're out of their depth. Similarly, when CR rates something like bicycles or even high tech gadgets, it can be a little embarrassing, because a lot of time they focus on the wrong attributes out of unfamiliarity.

On the other hand, I think we could put together a pretty august panel of experts on the topic of tech company success out of HR readers, and end up with no suitable conclusion, and ultimately do no better than this Economist article.

I'm also a US-native, and didn't take it as an attempt to offend. I used to live in South America, where people tend to get a little prickly about the US having laid claim to the term "American." They always call people from the US "Estadounidense," literally, UnitedStatsian.

It's really our own fault: we have a country that has an extremely awkward name. We're the United States of America, so "America" is, grammatically speaking, the name of our country, but we're also part of a set of continents that's also called "America." We could actually use a better term like Unitedstatsians or USAians.

I'm a serial startup founder, and I've been in the position that your CTO and CEO are in right now. It's hard and expensive to get a company off the ground and if you can find someone who will work for you, who's good, and they'll do it for less than they're worth, then awesome. My feeling is that if I'm paying someone 25% less than they're worth, then that makes it easier for me to give them a nice raise once we're "on our feet" financially. But that's a moving target, and it's always tempting to just let things ride. And if someone doesn't ask for equity, maybe I'll just let that ride too, because who wants to give up equity if they don't have to.

I think these guys are making a mistake, though, because they're not just letting you get by making a little less that what you could make on the open market, and they're not just giving you a small amount of equity when you could perhaps demand more. They're playing with fire, because there's a good chance you could go out and find a good job, and by the time they find out you're dissatisfied, it's too late.

But here's what I'm certain of: If, as other commenters have recommended, you have a meetup with them, and you let them know that you feel you're not being adequately compensated, and you've been thinking of starting a job hunt, but that your sense of loyalty dictates that you let them know now, before to get fed up and before you find another job, they'll give you a sweeter deal.

They may not be able to afford to pay you more cash, but they can definitely afford to give you a decent equity stake. I can't say how much would be okay, but 0% is definitely not okay. In this case, you need to turn the tables. Once you've agreed to work for equity in lieu of a full-market salary, you become an investor, and they need to pitch you on the company's future. As for deciding what's appropriate, I'd recommend not thinking in terms of a percent, but have them make the case for the company being worth X amount. If they've raised money from other investors, then that may already be determined. Then you can agree on an amount of equity that's equal to a certain amount of the company's value. If you think you've missed out on $50,000 of compensation so far, then you should ask for that much equity, plus whatever extra you think you should get for the work you'll do in the near future.

Then as the company's fortunes rise, then so will yours. Of course, if you're going to take equity at all, you need to have them make the case, and you need to believe it. Otherwise, keep working at this job long enough to get a new one, and let the chips fall where they may.

Apple doesn't have to go below cost to outprice its competitors, just as Wal-Mart doesn't have to. Apple has huge profit margins and huge economies of scale that would enable it to, in some cases, sell products for less than another vendor could build a comparable substitute for.

Do a little bit of research into stock options vs restricted stock. And in the early days, while you're an LLC, your new colleagues might be willing to just have a promise of a certain amount of equity to be granted to them included in an employment contract, which will save you a bunch of legal fees up front, and will prevent you from having to include them as partners in your LLC, with all the extra hassle that would entail.

But make sure you put some restrictions or a vesting schedule on what you give out. It's customary for someone to have to work at least a year before they get any of their equity. You want to avoid having ex-employees/ex-partners owning equity in an early stage startup.

Why don't you split the difference? I'm working on a new startup and it's got all the excitement of a software startup, but it's in a niche market that's very ripe and grateful, and there's the opportunity to travel to interesting places to meet with customers (I'm going to Singapore next month), but we're headquartered in Park City, UT, and the quality of life is very high here, assuming you like skiing and mountain biking and outdoorsy stuff.

Maybe I could be working on a startup that's more high profile and more likely to make me famous on HN and Techcrunch, but I prefer the more relaxed lifestyle.

You don't have to make the choice between living for your work or just being a mindless corporate drone. Work on something exciting and dynamic, and also have a life. It's possible.

Why don't you come work here? We need engineers.

Re: “There are no wires in the human mind. So it can’t be ‘rewired’ Get a grip.”

Agreed. Totally idiotic thing to say. Ever heard of a metaphor, Einstein?

I agree with cheald on this. Fragmentation is only a problem if it actually leads to additional difficulty of development for those platforms. And the irony of the current situation is that the "fragmentation" we're seeing now is likely responsible for the fact that web development is "easier by the day."

The worst situation, which we had back in the late 90s, was increasing domination by one player intent on subverting standards to push its own platform. Then innovative platforms get pushed aside for expediency's sake. Wrenching the web back from Microsoft resulted in many years of difficulty, but now we're in a situation where everyone, even Microsoft, must adhere to standards or be left behind. The very best outcome for web users will be for the market to stay as "fragmented" as possible, so everyone will be forced to stick with standards, and nobody ever gains a large share that can be used as a lever to distort the market.

I watched the excellent documentary "The Cove" a few weeks ago, and I highly recommend watching it. Though the film did fill me with dread and outrage (as intended), ironically, the portrayal of the brutal slaughter of dolphins by Japanese fishermen convinced me that dolphins are not nearly as smart as many people would like to convince us of.

Here's why: Imagine there were one particular mountain valley tucked away in some corner of the world, and while human beings could range all over the vastness of this earth unharmed, if they ventured into that valley they would be killed. In that valley there was a race of essentially invincible beings that would herd any wayward human beings into a side canyon and spear them to death.

How would the human race react to that? Let's assume that mounting a military attack and killing the invincible beings weren't possible. Well, first of all, we'd put up signs and fences and maybe even sentries to warn people not to go into that valley. We'd tell our children about the danger, and pass the knowledge of the invincible murderous monsters on, generation to generation. If people did go in there and got killed we'd cover the event in detail on TV, as a warning to others (like Shark Week). Even really stupid people would know not to go into the "valley of the stabby monsters."

Well, if Dolphins are so smart, and they have such good communication and advanced social structure, then why haven't the many dolphins that have personally witnessed the slaughter at "The Cove" and escaped (the movie shows dolphins escaping) managed to warn other dolphins not to go there?

Honestly, if dolphins were anywhere near as smart as humans and were anywhere near as ruthless, they not only would have prevented the slaughter, but would have mounted a commando raid wherein expert jumping dolphins would have trained to jump out of the water, knock the fishermen out of their little boats, then beaten and dragged them down into the cove until they were drowned. And I'm being serious about this. Human beings wouldn't put up with that shit.

Other observed dolphin behavior, such as dolphins killing each other and attacking sharks to defend swimming humans does prove that they have the wherewithal to act in both self-preservation, and in the defense of others, even to violence. But they still get speared in the cove. That tells me they're not that smart.

Problem is, "Django" is coming from hits from all the other things Google is going to find for the word "Django" like Django Reinhardt the guitar player. So I'm thinking the results are going to be skewed.

What this guy doesn't realize is that all the extra speed he's enjoying is probably mostly a function of his new computer having a brand new Windows 7 install on it, that hasn't been crufted up by all the various crap that eventually gets installed on it and slows everything down. If he had just reformatted and installed a fresh Windows install on his old machine, he'd be enjoying virtually the same "speed boost."