LarryDarrell

I have my own anecdotes, but maybe some one here knows more...

Is the tech stack in Silicon Valley that's used by the most recession vulnerable companies wildly different from what "boring" companies are using?

I see C#/Java and SQL used a lot at companies that are not trying to change the world. Is there going to be a great big skills mismatch?

B2C idea that might be robust: Subscription based flu mask delivery service.

Everyone on HN is a Top Performer who is consonantly held back by the mediocrity that surrounds them.

Also, the hiring process is broken. Also, older workers have a hard time finding work. Also, I have work 60 hour weeks. Also, I have to be on call all the time even though they said it would only be one weekend a month. Also, it turns out the options I was given were worthless. Also, open floor plans are detrimental to my health.

Techworkers have absolutely 0 issues that could be solved by any organizing!

Assuming this is true, now is the time to form a union. Not when they are no longer in high demand.

There's a lot of hubris in the tech field that high salaries and a plethora of available jobs is the norm and will forever be that way.

I anticipate a lot of "Why Tech Needs A Union" posts on HN during the next recession or when the current crop of 25-35 year olds reach their late 40's and all of a sudden have trouble finding stable work.

It takes time, but you'll find that most of the ambitious and motivated people you'll meet are also mediocre. The successful ones tend to also have had luck on their side.

Suddenly I feel like a wimp with my TR 1950X.

For the most part, most of our rules and traditions are there to make sure the poor and people of color stay disenfranchised.

I don't think Anand Giridharadas will be invited back at Google Talks.

https://youtu.be/d_zt3kGW1NM?t=2900

My city of roughly a half million was mostly developed post-WW2. Even the denser areas are not really walkable. They tried painting bike lanes on existing roads, but that has just increased the number of bike fatalities.

Maybe expanding bus service 500-1000% and having it run 24/7 would work. Anything less means low-wagers will still need a car.

Passing a Fair Scheduling Act and giving low wage workers a daily $10 to $20 dollar Uber/Lyft credit would do more to dramatically improve lives than mass transit spending. But that is less fun to think about.

Like the sudden urgency to throw 700,000 off food stamps with work requirements.

That's way too much nuance and understanding of the local setiment for Tom Clancy Strategists (or real generals, judging from the WaPo article today) to grasp.

It seems like hubris is an inescapable trait that most countries/empires exhibit before their collapse.

A trillion dollars is not an insignificant amount of money. The wealth squandered and potential unrealized will be a sad epilogue in the books ultimately written about the American Empire.

So we'll just have the Post Office run a national ISP then.

I would think the Postal Clause in the Constitution would provide enough authority to the Post Office to create and run an ISP.

The Constitution literally has a Postal Clause for the expressed purpose of creating interstate communication through "Postal Roads". Despite their small-government bona-fides, a reliable communication network was something so important they thought fit to put it right in there from the very beginning.

Jim Hackett badly needs a win more than he needs to preserve the reputation of a loved brand. Since they've run just about every other brand name into the ground, Mustang is the last one left that will attract eyeballs. If they called it the E-Taurus no one would care after the initial announcement.

I personally think they should have started with electrifying Lincoln. They already don't sell a lot them, so it gives them room to create something new and revitalize a brand rather than dilute the meaning of Mustang.

I feel like a system that discourages young, healthy and educated citizens to not have children until they are much older... is screwed up. Especially since many of those with student loans are not finding jobs that would pay them off before the end of their child bearing years.

Same here with a 1950X. I use a Noctua NH-U12S and it usually operates around 45-50C with a few VMs and a IDE running. Mine is crammed into an old SUN Ultra 24 case with a few mm's to spare.

Quitting. Especially effective in the Midwest U.S. where jobs are more scarce and employers tend to take you for granted.

There is lite.cnn.io as well.

I wish there were more.

My only question with corporations is: what checks and balances will be in place this time around to prevent corporations from:

-Rampant corruption: (i.e. funding anti-global warming, pro-tobacco propaganda science, etc. Bribing governments. Trashing the environment.)

-Racketeering (i.e. Missouri & Kansas suing opioid manufactures under RICO, rent-seeking behavior/aspirations exhibited by nearly every major industry today)

-Protecting bad/lazy CEOs, Officers & Board Members (i.e. golden parachutes, do-nothing Board Seats filled by nepotism)

-Blocking strategic decisions in the name of providing value to shareholders (i.e. Stock buybacks over R&D, laying off experienced engineers in favor of cheap juniors, etc.)

...

So what if you have to wait a bit to have some one hook up your A/V equipment? Corporations generate their own byzantine bureaucracy without any help from unions (try getting a upfront quote for a medical procedure sometime). What undesirable activity would industry-wide unions do? Prevent IT outsourcing? Force considerations in international trade relations? Claw back some profits for workers instead of shareholders? Slow down the frantic rush to turn every industry into a duopoly? Put a check on C-Suite compensation? Hold a general strike the next time there is a push to get us into a war?

I look at the shenanigans going on at WeWork and others, and I start to think maybe capital shouldn't be trusted to the Capitalists. Re-Unionization is really the only way I see to reign things in before the next generations turn to full-fledged-capital-S Socialism.

Same! Mine's a 30 year old Volvo wagon and a 32 year old sedan. Besides oil changes, I've spent about $2000 in the last 5 years of ownership. I was only left stranded once, but that was because the NAPA in the middle of Nebraska didn't have the part I needed to get back on the road. I would doubt that the same NAPA has many Tesla parts in stock as well.

If Tesla is to ever have the same reputation, it will be because they made issues trivial to diagnose, dead simple to replace and allowed other manufactures to make replacement parts.

However, this whole argument is moot, because the era of the 15-30 year daily driver is over anyway. When my ignition computer failed, it was $35 to swap one out from a junkyard. You just have to unplug the old one, and plug in the new one and off you go. What's the procedure for replacing a computer on a 2018 Tesla in the year 2038?

Furthermore, any new car has little maintenance to really worry about within the first 100k miles. If you are upper middle class in a bougie area, you're probably buying a new car before maintenance is really an issue anyway. (cue everyone chiming in that their Subaru's turbo blew up 100 miles outside of warranty)

I can only speak about the Midtown Detroit where I lived from 2002 to 2008. It was a group of students, artists, musicians and old-timer bohemians that made that area great and interesting. The only common denominator was that nobody had much money.

Once the suburban kids from more wealthy suburban families started to move in it was all but over. I visited recently and the rough edges and patina and unpredictability has been worn away by the safe suburban values and esthetics of the new residents.

I know it gets tiresome to hear, "You don't know what it was like, man." in regards to gentrification. But I can get over-stylized brew pubs, twee boutiques, foodie small plates and corporate sponsored street fairs anywhere. Those things where not there when it was deemed "Cool". My rent was $400 that I split, the same (rather shitty) apartment now goes for $1600. When the cost of living goes up like that, you've shut our a lot of interesting people looking for a chance to do something interesting.

People with money are chasing "Cool" and it's the one thing you cannot truly buy.

Play XBill and write manifestos with LaTeX?

>"The shift to lower wage jobs for entire groups of workers is similarly problematic. Working full time while earning much less than in the past has profound ramifications. Entire industries have been disrupted, and often employees find taking a new job in a different sectors leads to near-entry-level pay -- equivalent to a 30, 40, even 50% salary cut. These folks may be working full time but they clearly are underemployed relative to their experience, skills and past work. This is not captured in economic data."

The US is uniquely unable to cope with this outcome. Health Insurance is tied to employment. Education is costly. Our new mythology of Bootstraps instead of Social Guarantees. I don't see a new robust and dynamic economy coming to the rescue. For those of us currently doing well, this ought to be worrying.

My worry is that without premature organization, the next recession is going to make the "tech worker shortage" a permanent thing of the past. We'll never have as much negotiating power as we do now.

If say there was a Tech Workers Union/Guild/Association, we might have been able to protect the older workers at IBM, or the outsourced workers at Disney. Maybe there could be a push back against open offices and poorly implemented Agile. As it is, we're just better compensated workers floating from job to better job.

How confident are you that this climate will continue for the rest of your working life? How confident are you that this climate will extend past your working life?

I used to be all around anti-union. Now that I'm older I regret that position. There are bad unions and there are good unions. Sometimes they can be corrupt, but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with. It's an imperfect solution, but it's the only one that seems to work. The idea that we are all lone super stars that need to negotiate for ourselves is not only selfish, but more than likely wrong. Even if I considered myself a super-coder, should I be willing to sacrifice the well-being of everyone else in my field?

Tech workers feel pretty good here in the US because they are compensated better than most. The time to organize is now, not after worker supply has increased or during a recession when workers are more desperate. We have real issues (Ageism, Working Conditions, etc) that we'll never be able to address individually.

Housing has been captured by people seeking a return on capital. There needs to be a recognition that housing prices rising faster than inflation and wages is overall bad thing.

That owning a home is sometimes the only way for middle and lower classes to build wealth (and even then, only in a handful of markets) is an indictment of a economy that's not robust and not working for the majority of people.

However, there are too many people making too much money off of housing that I would expect things to change soon.

That's the truth, except, I can't tell clients that "I'll know how long it will take when I'm halfway done." The best I can do is look at prior work and multiply by the LarryDarrell Constant of 1.5.