j_baker

I think their expansion was actually quite brilliant. The store ended up selling just the high-margin items (cords, accessories, etc) that stores like Best Buy and Circuit City would upsell to offset the cost of low-margin, big-ticket items.

Research has shown that engineers really tend to dislike being interrupted by outsiders (managers, salespeople, etc), but really tolerate a lot of interruptions from other engineers[1]. I feel like there has to be a happy medium. Ok, so we're not going to end up getting (and maybe shouldn't end up getting) private offices or dedicated workspaces. Those may inhibit our ability to collaborate with other engineers. But open bullpen layouts leave the worker with no privacy and allow unlimited interruptions by outsiders.

[1] Source: http://books.google.pl/books?id=QZPpdB_yfqgC&printsec=frontc...

> this will not be a zero-sum game

Is there some kind of rule at YC that mandates that blog posts must insist that nothing is a zero-sum game?

> Reforming immigration only seems good at lowering employer costs. Are there any studies that show it would help growth?

I don't have a source handy, but I believe studies have shown that immigration does indeed help economic growth with the vast majority of that growth benefiting the immigrants themselves.

I'm kind of reminded of the discovery of the first exoplanet. Once we found it, we started finding more and more of them across the sky. How do we know that binary black holes aren't all that common? For instance, how do we know that there isn't a binary supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way that we can't see?

For stars, binary systems are very common. How do we know that black holes aren't the same?

> Most people are very lazy. They don't want to take the time to think through new ideas or look at them in a new light. Once they've made up their minds about something, they don't change them. That's generally why most people don't come up with ideas for new or great things.

See "Theory X": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

> I think part of the reason that people ask this question as a way of putting founders down is that they assume that startups are zero sum.

This sentiment has just gotten so trite. The idea that economics is not a zero-sum game is one of the first principles of capitalism.

Not to mention that even if the DOJ doesn't freeze your assets, defending yourself against the DOJ is an incredibly expensive proposition. It can deplete the life savings of even affluent people.

That's basically what ES6 will do: http://www.2ality.com/2014/09/es6-modules-final.html

I don't understand his argument. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that burnout is a form of depression and thus burnout exists in the mind. I think the issue is that burnout is a form of depression that is caused by overwork. Overwork is not just about the number of hours worked. The causes of burnout vary drastically.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/adult-health/in-dep...

This is just a bad example. I would use a closure here for the simple fact that it's simpler. No need to create an extra class with __call__ magic when you can just return a closure.

Now, if you're doing something more complex, a class complete with self parameters is simply unavoidable.

I disagree. Research has shown that becoming good at something is more about practice than anything else.

Like similar abstractions, participation is an empty goal unless it is gauged in relation to the job to be done. It is a means, not an end, and when treated as an end, it can become more repressive than the unadorned authoritarianism it is supposed to replace… No one wants to see the old authoritarian return, but at least it could be said of him what he wanted primarily from you was your sweat. The new man wants your soul.”

– William Whyte, The Organization Man, 1956

I have a ton of issues with this post.

For starters, the idea that some people are just inherently exceptional programmers and others can only be competent is elitist. Is it any wonder that every programmer in Silicon Valley thinks they're God's gift to the programming world? We've been taught that to be hirable we have to be "10x" engineers who spend all of our free time hacking.

But ok, maybe you don't agree with me on this point. You feel as though there truly is some kind of "master race" of programmers who are inherently gifted in ways that nobody else can learn to be gifted. That still doesn't mean that you should agree with PG.

Why do we need to import all of these engineers into Silicon Valley? One of the great benefits of Software Engineering is that it can be done from anywhere in the world. Why can't people choose to stay where they live? My suspicion is that it has more to do with entrepreneurial arrogance than anything else. Company executives simply want to build big empires with lots of programmers all under their thumb under one roof.

So what happens? If you want to be an engineer, you have to come to Silicon Valley and displace someone who already lives in the Bay Area. It's displacement that breeds displacement.

Ok, maybe you still don't believe me. You think that we need exceptional engineers and they have to be in the Bay Area. The immigration policies that tech companies are pushing for aren't based on merit. The STEM visas only apply to people who are schooled in the US. In other words, the people who will be coming to the US on these new visas aren't coming here because they are one of the exceptional engineers tech companies fawn after. They're here because they have parents who can afford to send them of to the US to fancy schools. We're not getting the "poor and huddled masses" that made this nation great anymore.

Is it any wonder people in the Bay Area hate us? We're elitist, we displace people, and we're importing people from affluent backgrounds.

This article is built on a fundamentally invalid premise:

> 30-60% of CS college majors have failed their Introduction to Computer Science course because they simply could not learn to program.

This "You either have it or you don't" mindset is strikingly elitist. I simply don't buy the idea that there are people out there who absolutely cannot learn to program. I mean, put someone on a desert island and tell them they can't leave until they can write a program that uses a linked list, and I'm pretty sure most people would be able to get off the island eventually.

Of course, that doesn't mean that some people can learn to code more easily than others. But I'd be willing to posit that the vast majority of people could learn to code given enough time and the proper instruction.

I sure hope you wrote this message on a device that was naturally made and not assembled from materials (metal, glass, plastic) that were extracted from their natural ecosystem. We humans manipulate "natural" ecosystems all the time, and have from the dawn of time. We risk extinction as a result of these manipulations.

But many of the things we take for granted nowadays are the result of ecological manipulations. Ever rode a horse in the Americas? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation. Ever eaten corn grown in Europe? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation. Ever used electricity that comes from a dam? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation.

My point is this: man has manipulated ecosystems on a massive scale previously. I'm not going to say that what this guy is proposing is a good idea, but I'm also not going to dismiss it simply from the perspective that "Human intervention in the natural ecosystem is always inherently bad" either.

This is where science comes into play. I'd like to know more about what it says on this subject.

There absolutely is a negative feedback mechanism. The question is whether that mechanism involves the destruction of humanity.

My first question: is this intentional or is it a bug? This wouldn't be the first time a website has mistakenly prompted a user to upgrade their browser.

> Sure, our phones are great, but that’s not the same as being able to fly across the Atlantic in eight hours or eliminating smallpox.

I don't understand why the author is so down on phones. You know, on the original Star Trek (which aired during the "Golden Quarter"), people found it outlandish that someone could make a communicator that could fit in the palm of your hand. Then cell phones started coming out, which is why they switched to having communicators in badges in The Next Generation. Nowadays, I guess we just take the idea for granted.

Beyond that, I have a computer in my pocket right now that is more powerful than a giant supercomputer 20 years ago.I can take photos using my phone that are higher quality than anything you could have found in a fancy camera 20 years ago and I can send it to the other side of the world in minutes if not seconds.

Environment variables are useful in their own situations. For instance, OpenShift signals the open IP and Port number as environment variables. Which is useful when you have a program with an unknown set of command-line parameters. Either that or when you only need a subset of the available command-line parameters.

Python also keeps refcounts for other objects that shouldn't be garbage collected such as None, True, and False. The reason being to prevent having certain objects that need to be refcounted and certain objects that don't. Otherwise, C code would be littered with if statements like the below:

    if (number < -5 || number > 256) {
      decrement_refcount(number);
    }

When the GP talks about "small integers", I'm assuming he's talking about numbers between -5 and 256, which are cached ahead of time. They're never going to be garbage collected, so refcounting is largely unnecessary.

Recruiters aren't here to offer anyone opportunity or employment. They're here to make a big commission off of hiring a high-salary techie, and can be very pushy in achieving that goal.

"Hey, I realize you're not probably looking for a job, but I'd really love to connect with you to talk about finding a new job! We are an early-stage startup that's funded by <name dropping goes here>."

"You still haven't responded to my email. Just wanted to make sure you saw it! We have a super-great culture and are working on big problems using fancy technologies and you should feel privileged just to be hearing from us. You know, if you aren't looking for a job, you can also give me contact information for your friends so I can hassle them as well."

"Ok, you still haven't responded to me. I hope you don't think I'm spamming you because I'm not. I understand that you're probably happy at <current employer>, but could you please just give us a chance? We really need you."

I should add that it's not just recruiters doing this stuff. In fact, startup executives do much the same thing, but also add an "I'm the CEO and I chose you personally! Don't you feel lucky?"

I don't know. Our generation certainly had our fair share of military madness. What about the Gay Bomb? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb

Egoism is also a form of madness, is it not? Narcissism is actually well-known to be one of the more creative personality types, and there's research to back that up.

http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/narcissism-breeds-belie...

Ahem... the last vacuum tube product?

http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/

Who are the majority of people who work for tech companies? Twenty-something people who live a Brooklyn lifestyle. Guess who the products are made for?

Serious question: what's wrong with the word "journey"?

I'd like to point out that the Google quote is not from Google's webpage and is in fact likely a banned interview question. The facebook quote on the other hand is from their webpage on a tool that is used for recruiting.

> How to resolve this? A police “back door” for all smartphones is undesirable — a back door can and will be exploited by bad guys, too. However, with all their wizardry, perhaps Apple and Google could invent a kind of secure golden key they would retain and use only when a court has approved a search warrant.

I don't get it. What's the difference between a "backdoor" and a "golden key" other than that one sounds less threatening than the other? It's seriously clear that WaPo simply has no idea what they're even talking about. Did they not have a Software Engineer on hand they could run this past?

This really sounds more like a simple personality clash to me.

The funny thing is that had the CEO really just kept his mouth shut like he originally intended, the thing would probably have blown over. The employee wasn't really making any claims that could seriously harm an organization[1]. Instead, it's just a petty squabble over an issue the employee probably wouldn't have gotten much support from opposing anyway.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes...