forloop

> I have no idea why you're attacking gov.uk for it - I repeat, they had literally nothing to do with it.

I'm answering your questions as frankly as I can. The questions involve gov.uk, and so the answers involve gov.uk.

> gov.uk is a platform developed by the GDS, not simply a namespace.

From the outside it's difficult to make the distinction. I'm talking from the perspective of a user.

> Before, we had a pile of independent websites built and maintained by each Government department with no integrated search or organisation, a lot of duplicated technical effort as everyone had to maintain their own CMS, and an extremely poor user experience.

For the scope of gov.uk, I can appreciate how that's beneficial. The dynamic I've seen is there's a bad solution to something which isn't even a problem—as there are already better job sites around. If my premise is correct, then even if gov.uk solved the UX problem for Universal Jobmatch, it's still solving a problem which doesn't really need to be solved (a clone of a job website isn't very valuable). And that government fixes problems which it creates, and then pats itself on the back. What I've said goes outside of the specific points I've been making, but that's how I see the context.

I'm not even anti-government, necessarily. I'm still making my mind up. Maybe the need for inequality is more important than efficiency and maximum wealth? Some of the things governments do are egregious; but so are some of the things individuals do. Knowing the answer wouldn't be of much benefit, anyway: the government isn't going anywhere any time soon, regardless!

So your question relates to whether it makes a difference to me if the job search app is available via gov.uk?

No it doesn't. From the outside it's all bullshit branding. As a user I want to be able to find jobs, refine searches, use categories, and other activities based around getting-the-job-done.

Edit: URLs for unique resources works fine. The gov.uk as a namespace doesn't help usability. I'm happy to be corrected with evidence.

The marginal benefit—above and beyond other options—of Universal Jobmatch is so low (and probably negative) that it doesn't matter either way. Being mandated to use a suboptimal tool results in a net loss. Taking that into consideration, my answer is 'yes! Please'.

> They have a form on gov.uk which submits to the job search application from direct.gov (the organisation that was bad enough to convince government to give gov.uk a go in the first place).

That validates my concern about quality.

The Monster.co.uk main site is better. They still aren't held accountable to the market. Being for-profit per se is the wrong distinction! Free market may be more apt.

That explains why there's so many jobs from Monster on there.

It's almost certainly a modification, if it is New Transport. After all, what makes a road sign readable is different from body copy. But that's an interesting comment!

Aside: I've probably been past the road sign on that Wikipedia page.

Not really. Defensible facts.

I was using the job search[1] on the gov.uk domain yesterday, and the UX is extremely poor!

If the job site was a for-profit, it would probably be put out of business by competitors! But, since the government can jail people for not handing over their resources, products aren't held accountable by the Market (big 'M').

I wouldn't even mind if it had an API[2], so I could make a more useful tool[3]. But instead I have to manually go through a ton of jobs each day so I can get unemployment handouts from daddy government (if there was no such thing as VAT, I probably wouldn't need these! Anyway).

Gov.uk looks a bit nice with its san serif typeface[4] and minimalist design; but it's varnish on a clunky turd.

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[1] https://www.gov.uk/jobsearch

[2] I couldn't find one yesterday. I'm going to have another look.

[3] Currently learning Python and looking for a little side project.

[4] Looking at the CSS, the particular font is 'nta'—and is presumably custom.

Paywall.

> There is no higher social benefit to life extension, at least none that I can see.

One benefit would be people thinking increasingly about the long-term; which has implications for things like global warming and wars.

> It's a uniquely individualist/selfish technology.

And wanting billions of people to die so that a myopic status quo can be perpetuated is what?

Paywall.

> Problem is, my financial situation doesn't always allow for me to get access to structured learning.

There's so much information on the web, or via books/video courses/MOOCs that there's no need to do the structured learning thing. Particularly with Python. Plus, Python is used in security to create scripts/tools.

EDIT: Example of some books, vis-a-vis Python and security (learn the basics first).

* Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers

* Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python

* Python Penetration Testing Essentials

* Gray Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Reverse Engineers

Do bug bounties.

I remember when Facebook used to put, what I presume, were PK IDs from a user table in their URL query strings. Lower numbers being earlier users. Anyway, I couldn't find Mark Z, but messaged one of the early staff. I then got a friend request off him. Pretty sure if I'd been a dev at the time, I could have convinced him to get me an interview.

Good point.

There are definitely some people who tolerate less polish[0]... I think I've made a category error!

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

> I'm concerned that, with Steve Jobs gone, Apple is going to implode and lose their market share. So there may be no iOS jobs 5 years from now.

They won't. Apple's vertical integration gives them a UI advantage. 'Normals' like easy-to-use things.

You are one generous person!

I'd rather do the work. I intend to code in my free time, so can level up regardless.

Thanks a ton for the offer, anyway!

If there wasn't a bottleneck, then senior devs wouldn't get paid as much. The bottleneck is similar to an economic moat[0]. Economic moats and durability are attractive.

[0] http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/120912/what-is-an-econo...

> $3 or pounds per hour in the UK?

USD.

> If you have enough brains to learn coding or a web technology, you have enough brains not to do that.

I'd rather do that than a non-coding job for more money. In the long run, I think I'll be better off.

> I had clients who were very picky about the hours logged.

I code 7 days a week, so even if that happens I'll still clock a decent number of hours. That would be a bit of a deal breaker, though.

> Make sure to check Freelancers' thread on HN on the 1st of the month.

Thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the input.

I was looking at jobs for Flask/Django devs yesterday. The compensation is quite impressive.

Assuming the job market is similar in a couple of years, I should be fine. And even if it doesn't, I'm interested in creating my own products.

Edit: Grammar.

If they pay by the hour, then I don't care if they want me implement odd requests.

I need some money. Not much. $3 per hour is more than enough—since I have another source of passive income.

I've done a little web design freelancing in the past, so know what to expect. The worst part about freelancing is feature creep, IMO. Which isn't an issue, if I get paid per hour.

I've thought it through. I'm in the UK and could get a minimum wage job with way higher pay. But that wouldn't be coding or making products.

Personally, I'm learning to code in Python, and once I do will probably work for $3 per hour doing remote work via a freelancing site. At the moment I'm going through Flask— which shouldn't take more than a couple of days to grok at a basic level. I made a CRUD site a few years ago, so it's not like I'm starting for zero.

Anyway, working for below minimum wage is economically rational. Once I have more experience I'll command more money, or create products for myself.

Maybe there's just less longevity researchers. The absolute funding makes little difference from an individual career perspective–even if it does have a large effect on the field as a whole.

I've linked to a page of academics from top institutions[0]. If you're at Harvard researching longevity, then you're doing OK career-wise, imho.

If you sell your company for $720 million, you're doing OK career-wise, imo.

Demonstrably, you're incorrect.

[0] http://www.elysiumhealth.com/team

Elysium has 5 Nobel Laureates on their board[0]! Their Chief Scientist is Leonard Guarente of MIT.

Novartis[1], the pharmaceutical company, who ranked number one in world-wide sales in 2013 is working on a longevity drug based on rapamycin.

Elizabeth Blackburn got a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in 2009, for her work on telomeres!

Quite frankly: lulz!

[0] http://www.elysiumhealth.com/team [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novartis

> Longevity research is currently a career dead end.

David Sinclair[0] is wealthy and well known for his work in longevity. He Sold his company to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

D Sinclair's earlier work was on resveratrol, and there's some more products coming. Well, actually one has arrived—in the US at least: http://www.elysiumhealth.com/

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sinclair_%28biologist%29

> The thing Hamming understood, but which Bostrom, et al. don't is that sometimes even if something is extremely important or significant the lack of any reasonable approach to it makes it an unattractive thing to expend effort on. At least until a solution is more tractable.

Life extension has been demonstrated in other species. And medication, such as metformin, has been shown to extend human lifespan (I believe average, not maximum). Anyway, the point is that life extension for humans is perfectly tractable.

Re metformin. From a study[0]: 'Patients with type 2 diabetes initiated with metformin monotherapy had longer survival than did matched, non-diabetic controls. Those treated with sulphonylurea had markedly reduced survival compared with both matched controls and those receiving metformin monotherapy. This supports the position of metformin as first-line therapy and implies that metformin may confer benefit in non-diabetes. Sulphonylurea remains a concern.'

[0] 'Can people with type 2 diabetes live longer than those without? A comparison of mortality in people initiated with metformin or sulphonylurea monotherapy and matched, non-diabetic controls' http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.12354/abstrac...

So they were digging holes and filling them back up!

Dignity!

Probably would have been better to give them the money, and tell them not to base their identity on their employment status. If one in a thousand invented something new, that's a net benefit for society.

Economically:

Step 1) People will be paid for their data. Information used by systems doesn't spontaneously come into existence.

Step 2) Get rid of governments. They're inefficient war-mongers. A theatre to obfuscate kleptocracy!

Step 3) See step 1. You can pay me in cryptocurrency. Thanks.

Yes. In 5000 or 50000 years there may be a problem with overpopulation—or not.

When someone expresses concern for overpopulation due to life extension, what time span are they referring to? 50000 years? Probably not. Looking at population growth for 100 years as per the model, the conclusion of the paper holds:

> Therefore, the real concerns should be placed not on the threat of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation), but rather on such potential obstacles to the success of a biomedical war on aging, such as scientific, organizational, and financial limitations.

From the paper: 'Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million).'

That stat is for Sweden—in case anyone wonders where the numbers are from.

Anyway, that's for the next 100 years. In 5000 years one would hope the human race will be multi-planetary. Looking at the time-scale, concern is still misplaced.