johnny99

Depends tremendously on experience level, whether or not the designer can implement in code (ie, works in HTML/CSS rather than Photoshop), and other important factors.

Having recently hired both designers and engineers, I can say with confidence that the pay differential is a hell of a lot more than 7%. Double is absolutely plausible.

The cuecat has had an interesting second life as a book scanner. Niche market, yes, but works great for the purpose.

Given the insane war for talent in SV, the idea of a neglected pool of highly competent engineers should cause a stampede to unearth them. It certainly planted a seed in my mind.

I wonder if ageism is driven in part by social media. Us olds seem to be less present on Github/Stack/Twitter/etc (HN, oddly, seems a bit of an exception--I love the posts about historical computing). Maybe reduced visibility equates to reduced opportunity.

This is unfortunate, and hardly unique to entrepreneurship.

In 'Blink' Malcolm Gladwell describes how orchestras hold blind auditions, with the performers behind screens, to avoid this kind of bias.

Perhaps VC pitches should follow suit.

It was rewritten by the same people who wrote the first version--very different from the Vim/Neovim case, and from Netscape 6.0.

And who knows--37Signals might well have reused some of the innards.

I'm not 13, technically, but I initially read that as "peeing agreement." And was confused.

That's on a per-vehicle basis. On a per-mile basis they're dramatically more dangerous: per mile travelled, motorcyclists are 37 times more likely to die in a crash than passenger car occupants:

http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/jul12/clinical1.asp

I gave up my brief motorcycle career after having kids, which I'm rather glad of now, reading that.

That story is anecdote. Not surprising or a problem from a general news source. But as a few commenters have pointed out, it ignores the fact of high risk/low probability events, and our general inability to properly assess those.

I'm surprised this crowd isn't more data-driven in its assessment. Surely studies of child safety trends exist, and could be correlated to levels of regulation?

The closest thing a quick Google turned up is a study of mandatory cycle helmet legislation and its effect on injury rates. Those rates declined 45% after the introduction of helmet laws. Perhaps not a perfect analogy, but chalk one up for regulation. http://cyclehelmets.org/1106.html

HN should automatically dispense karma for all WS quotes.

If someone is hosting an actually infringing image elsewhere, but using your site to display it, it seems to me that you're at least complicit, and at worst a sort of fence.

If someone sends a polite, specific, with-links-and-supporting-documentation email, don't you think it might be fair to remove the link, if not the post?

Right--that's the assertion made is this well-done and damning post:

https://medium.com/hackers-and-hacking/b839268fb82d

You're not the opposite of everyone here. I've driven a company into the ground and was an early employee at another where I watched someone else drive us into the ground--not sure which was worse. Have two little kids and after one of the experiences above had to get a 'real' job for a while, in cubicleland. Felt like, and was really, a total failure, at least professionally. Probably doesn't help a ton right now, but you're not alone. Three years after that low point the situation has improved amazingly. It may be a slog, but you can dig out.

If you're in the Bay Area and an engineer or know SaaS sales, my company's hiring. It's a good place to work. Email john@entelo.com if that might help.

The Robbie Robertson album came out in 1994, this in 1992--Robertson credits the creator of the cricket record. A number of Amazon commenters mention it, for whatever that's worth: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Chorus-Crickets-Jim-Wilson/produc...

For some reason the color gradients changed the intonation with which I read it--so the whole thing sounded, in my mind's ear, like an eighties valley girl, replete with uptalk, aka the "moronic interrogative."*

"BeeLine Reader is an exciting new technology? That helps people read faster? On computers?"

Maybe I'd get used to it. But if not, a 100x speed increase wouldn't be worth having that in my head. Like, all day?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal

It wouldn't be unprecedented. Symphonies regularly use "blind auditions," with the performer behind a screen, to prevent bias (typically against women). Blind auditions significantly improved women's chances of being selected, as related by Malcolm Gladwell in 'Blink'. Here's the original study he references:

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~hf14/teaching/povertydisc/readi...

Not true for newspapers and never has been. Even in the days when print was predominant stories would get edited between printings as new material came to light.

As earlier commenters have noted the original story was pushed out quickly, and later refined. This is totally normal in all newsrooms, and if you diff boring, non-controversial stories, you'll see the same thing--though perhaps to a lesser degree due to the fact that there's less of a rush to get out, say, a travel piece, compared to one with national import.

Full disclosure: I worked at the NYTimes for two years as a developer in the newsroom. NYT editors and reporters are, almost universally, smart, careful, well-intentioned people.

That link claims that global temperatures have declined since 2002, which is untrue. Will hunt for more authoritative sources, but a quick search turns up this story from Forbes, refuting that non-fact: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-wa...

In my experience a MSc often pays more, but a PhD sometimes pays less--some people equate a PhD with someone who prefers theory to shipping code.

Personally I value work experience, solid demonstrable code (ie, what you've posted on Github), and a good attitude above degrees.

So your the smart aleck whose been inserting the word 'balls' into all my ebooks. Damn you, drostie!

Interesting piece, though they focus only on what they call "rock star" professions, like music, publishing, and the movies. Professions which have always used their supposed status to prey on the young.

One solution: become an account or plumber, or software developer, and laugh all the way to the bank.

This violates the five-year rule, so if I was ever in a position to consider something like it, I wouldn't.

Whenever anyone, in any field, posits anything on a greater than five-year timeline, it is more than likely bunk. An engineering feat, economic projections, anything. It's not necessarily the thing being projected that's bunk, but the projection itself--past five years it's pure speculation, and you probably have no idea. Six-years? You might as well say twenty years, or two weeks. My assumption isn't that you're in it for the long haul, it's that you can't do projections. Which is troublesome in the case of options, the point of which is to have an upside. If a company isn't targeting some kind of material upside within five years, I don't know why they're issuing options at all--just pay people better, and/or let the mission be its own reward.

I know there are instances where the five year rule doesn't apply, but it serves well as basic test for what to take seriously.

Perhaps having public housing adjacent makes them less desirable to developers?

I may be an asshole, but I'm not callous or indifferent. Like I said, I think rising rents and other boom dislocations hurt people and are problems to be addressed. But attacking the Asian kid who worked hard, got a job at Google, and takes the bus to work doesn't really do that.

Forced myself to read to the end so that I would be justified in saying what I had the impulse to howl from the third sentence: Rebecca Solnit, FUCK YOU.

It's actually quite well-written, but christ, what a pretentious, clueless, holier-than-thou, pseudo-pious pile of crap. Blamey dirges like this are why people hate liberals. It makes me hate them, and I am one. It's hard to know where to start, so I'll just dig in:

Why do you demean and dehumanize tech workers, while glorifying Latinos, homeless people, coal miners, and anyone who's lived in San Francisco since... 2006? 1996? 1976? How long do you have to live in SF to be fully human and deserving of empathy?

What do you have against German tourists and "Asian male nerds?" You are a bigot.

Why should people "drive themselves?" That's not noble-prole, it's stupid and wasteful. Fewer people should drive, period. Private or public, mass transit is mass transit. It's a Good Thing.

Why is capitalism "Janus-headed?" I think you don't understand capitalism. It has one face, with dollar-sign eyes. Which is ok. It's capitalism, not poetry. It's about capital.

Are rents being driven up, does growth create problems? Yes of course. Let's deal with those problems. Whining about them is just annoying, and paints you as a bitter person.

There's a solution, though. I say this as an erstwhile journalist, now software developer: Rebecca, you should learn Python. Then maybe you can get on the bus too.

Kudos, I adore this idea.

You should see if YC will fund η-Reduce during the next cycle. I can imagine them getting a kick out of funding their own disruption.

I've been programming for about 30 hours straight now, I'd say.

Well, there are similarities, but I think the dissimilarities are kind of the point.

This distribution model worked in one instance for a big name. The Dooley's are leveraging the similarities--super easy distribution, no DRM, very low bars for the audience--and seeing if they work for a different kind of artist.

Content distribution models are broken, experiments are good, and I think this is a great one. I'm listening right now and will certainly throw in a few bucks--it's nice music, and Nick's got chops.

Yes, but when will he put people on Uranus?

Here's to GitHub being around in a decade :-)

I'm using an early version of this for a project, and it works a charm. If you work within its (sensible) constraints, it accomplishes much the same thing as Chef, with less effort and less overhead.