2,404 karma · joined November 19, 2013
Previously a Research Software Engineer at University of Michigan. Mechanical Engineer by schooling.
chris@stockbridges.org
If I have $50k I am willing to spend with this goal, what should I do? Should I replace my Subaru with an electric car, buy solar panels, buy another 5 acres and plant trees, replace home appliances, ...?
The reason an entire car hide in front of the bumper, out of the driver's view is that it makes the truck look cooler. The window sills are also at a silly height, to make the truck feel bigger, but at least that doesn't create the same safety issues (for everyone outside the truck) with no real value.
Introducing: Server Trouble As A Service. The most efficient way to stop a run on your bank.
I currently use and love a Kinesis Freestyle Pro, and would consider this for my next keyboard. My favorite feature of the Kinesis board is that it is programmable and has a split spacebar. The split/ergo shape is okay, but I don't think I will ever get another keyboard that doesn't at least have a split spacebar and a way to program it.
With half of my spacebar acting as fn and then arrows, backspace, delete and escape on the fn layer move my hands around MUCH less than on a normal keyboard.
I can no longer do calculus because I got a TI-89. Granted I don't have to do much calculus day to day, but if someone walked up to me and demanded I tell them the derivative of 2xe^2x I would have no idea what to do.
My wife is still using my old TI-89 about 20 years later, but if that ever dies I will probably pick up something like this for general use. I would also much rather my 6-year-old learn python instead of spending her time making goofy games in TI-BASIC like I did.
Seriously though. The goal isn't to make every soldier an expert. At the most this will be discussed for a few hours in Basic Training, and units that are in the training phase of their cycle can spend a little time on it.
Basic training is the Hello World of military training. When Soldiers aren't deployed the spend about half of their work hours on training that is planned and executed at the company (~120 person) level. The Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant will most likely incorporate this into other activities. Other specialized training programs (SAPPER, Ranger, SF, ...) will use this document extensively as part of their training.
This is obviously scary at first because someone is going to watch me code! It turns out that it is perfectly normal to use google/stackoverflow to write programs, and I actually found the experience reassuring once I got past the shock of having someone look over my shoulder.
My team does not do pair programming, but I understand why Menlo does it, it it works great for them. Some benefits I saw were:
1) It is great for junior developers. It's like turning mentoring up to 11. This means that it is much easier to hire people because you can fill seats and actually train people.
2) They have a special kind of family friendly culture where people have their infants in the office. One half of a pair can be holding their 3 month old and still contribute as half of the pair. I think they get slightly less keyboard time, but it still works.
3) Developers changed projects a lot. Splitting the day between two projects seemed normal, and 3-4 different projects in a week was standard. The pairs provide some continuity during these transitions.
Major down sides include the fact that you can't visit HN during work time. That means that the opinions here are likely to be skewed.
There are places and situations where pair programming isn't a good fit, but after seeing it in practice, I think there are also places where it is a good fit.
I try to keep 2-3 going at once. This is mostly because I get bored quickly, and having another project to fall back on is much better than finding something else to goof off on.
Most people's goal isn't (and shouldn't be) $1B. If your goal is a more reasonable $5M then joining an existing company is still your best bet. I am going to plan my own like around the MEDIAN result which makes startup stock $0, and the salary wins.
Of course a blind woman was refused rides. Their goal is to be a taxi service minus that ignores the regulations that were added to taxi services for a reason.
As a large healthy white male I know I could probably use Uber safely, but I refuse to support a business that makes rides much worse and more dangerous for those that are more vulnerable. Taxis seem bad enough with the oversight in place.
I don't often run it for a long time, but when I get the chance I don't want to have to cut my work time short or spend an extra $300 to cut down trees and not have to worry about the running time.
There is also a company that offers a stand on mower comparable to what I use at home, but it would be about $18k to replace my $4k mower with an electric option.
I am interested in the responsible, environmentally friendly, option, but it is hard to swallow.
It should be easy enough to setup a business that sends cancellation letters for you with the proof you need if there are any issues. $10 to cancel your internet. $20 to cancel your NYT subscription!
The main reason I moved my hands around before was to use the arrow keys, and now they are mapped to [right spacebar] + [IJKL]. I have also expanded a little to use U and O as backspace and delete on that same layer. I don't think I could ever memorize 3+ layers, but this small use of a second layer that is very easy to access has been great for me.
Where do old programmers go? Are these numbers related to companies that are constantly growing? I expect to be working for another 20 years, so I don't understand how 70% could be at less than 5 years.
The EShop Specialist is an electronics technician within the Chemistry Department. The person in this position is responsible for both fixing old instruments (many of which are no longer manufactured), and building new ones. You will see a wide variety of project, and get to run a nice shop fully stocked with electronics parts, and some machining equipment including a Bridgeport mill. This position primarily works for the Chemistry department, but takes work from across the college enabling cutting edge research.
This is a posting for a sister-shop to my office in the college of Literature, Sciences and The Arts (LSA) at University of Michigan. I am a programmer in the college, and we previously worked closely with the person in this shop when they reached their limit programming microcontrollers like Teensy, Arudino or similar products to control equipment. I am not directly associated with hiring for this, but I desperately want it filled, and would be happy to answer any questions you have about my work with the previous person here.
Don't tell them I told you, but this position is vacant, needed, and you are not likely to have much competition to fill it, so they may be flexible on the requirements.
Apply directly at: https://careers.umich.edu/job_detail/193083/eshop_specialist
The idea of zero tolerance is a little crazy. Have you ever violated a software license, or streamed something with someone else's account? Those should technically be honor violations, but they aren't prosecuting those. It isn't 100% clear to me where to draw the line.
I get a solid, uninterrupted hour of programming for 6-7am, and then I am at work for another 8 hours, but I don't think I could claim more than 4 billable hours most days.
When I was in the office the ratio was a little better, but shorter days probably resulted in similar output.