moocow01

Consider that at least some of that should probably be reserved as the beginning of a retirement fund... perhaps 150k if you and your spouse are currently 30? Id look for some sort of reasonably safe financial vehicle to place that as retirement.

The rest of it depends...

If you like where you live I'd probably get rid of the mortgage and keep the remaining as an emergency fund. Minimizing living costs gives you a lot of financial freedom to do many other things and knowing you'll always have a roof over your head can increase your ability and appetite for trying the riskier sorts of things (starting a business, investing, etc).

Google even suggesting ads on Nest is pretty disgusting to me. When I pay for a device from a company that is where they should be getting their profit - don't bait and switch and then serve ads to me.

No, he would have seen it coming

Play Framework 1.X has worked great for us and 2.X is getting there but Id only recommend to the more adventurous

Your right thats its a fuzzy calculation but I usually just consider that half of income goes to taxes one way or another...

~35% goes out to your standard/official taxes

then you pay ~8% of whatever you spend to cover sales tax

then you pay ~2% of whatever your home is worth for property taxes (renters don't see this as tax but its built into the monthly payment)

and then there are lots of other smaller things like the car registration fees, bridge tolls (that may be a more of a bay area thing).

Anyhow its not exact but the way I budget is that 50% of my income is for actual spending/saving and have found that that ends up being about right

at 150k approximately half your income is going to go out to taxes through federal/state/sales/etc/etc.

so now with 75k you've got to pay for living expenses (taxes already removed) and lets be very generous and only take out 25k for that stuff. (~1k for rent, ~1k for food and everything else)

So even with saving 50k its going to take you 10 years to get to 500k and perhaps only 7 if you invest wisely.

Anyways sorry to be picky but 500k is not easily saved up on such a large salary.

So you are correct that purely programmatically its a bit wonky to construct an XML document using a bunch of strings and then pass that to the client and pray that that your XML (HTML) is well formed enough.

I think the reason for why HTML construction is done the current way that it is is that it goes back to when most web companies had "software engineers" handling the system and "web developers/designers" who spruced up the data coming out of the system with HTML. The designers didn't know much deep programming per say but they knew HTML and would create HTML templates in plain text with placeholders to expose anything dynamic. Those templates would then be handed off to engineering whose sole concern was getting the system right and didn't really want to care about HTML. This workflow is also what gained PHP a lot of traction originally.

So ultimately I think stitching together HTML with strings makes the system a lot more accessible to semi-technical folks and its honestly probably a lot faster to do development by typing out HTML rather than building XML objects.

I'd say the simplest way is...

1. Identify organizations that you think very clearly help people.

2. Apply for a technical role with them. (Id say the majority of companies in any industry have tech roles to fill)

In the above scenario, each line of code may not be saving a life but you'll be contributing to the organization in doing what they do better. Additionally, you'll have more opportunities within the organization to capitalize on doing things that align with your ethics.

1) Yes as long as you sign the papers

2) Yes - you are effectively being strong armed into becoming an investor.

Would you invest $[your salary / year] into a company that is running out of money and not paying employees? I sure wouldn't.

Without knowing the situation, the likely truth is that the VC's passed, the angel investors passed, so now you and your coworkers are being turned into the unwilling bottom-of-the-barrel investors.

"Would you rather have your children engineering the financial system creating more problems for us, or having a chance of saving the world?"

Yep the financial system has a whole host of problems that everyone knows but "saving the world" is just meaningless marketing mumbo jumbo for SV - lets be clear that Google is not saving the world nor is any other SV company. We by and large push ads in exchange for information - its a valuable business model but lets get over ourselves.

For an initial stage startup for a mid-level person it actually doesnt sound incredibly off when leaving out equity although it is perhaps on the lower side.

The UI is honestly hard on my eyes. Its nothing horrible but I can feel myself strain more - it does matter to me though because, as most of us do, I look at screens a lot.

I think if they could tone down the colors a bit I would feel differently. Overall, for my tastes I think it looks worse but will likely stick with iOS.

Yes. Ive had them previously many times and went to the ER the first time - I had a collection of terrifying symptoms that made me think I was having a stroke.

You'll likely need to genuinely stop fearing the symptoms of having a panic attack to get rid of them. When you feel anything like that coming on work on knowing you really are ok and its simply your adrenaline / panic response out of control - do not try to stop it, you will just cause yourself more panic. Nothing bad will happen to you despite how awful and unbelievable they feel - go with the flow but yes they feel like death. Try to learn to enjoy them as crazy as that sounds - focus on how amazing it is that your body can do all that stuff just from an adrenaline response. I know that sounds odd but its a perverse backwards way of getting them to stop. Its the only path out that I know of.

(Also as a side note from talking to docs - despite absolutely feeling like you will pass out panic attacks do not actually cause one to pass out or lose their mind. I know it feels like that but let those concerns go when you have an attack.)

"I do the Right Thing for Google and the world"

I think it pertains to technical or ethical or anything else. The risk is that what you think is the right thing may be the right thing for one person but the wrong thing for another - in fact Id say most decisions fall under this umbrella.

As could be posted at the top of just about every HN article this is highly situational.

If you are in a prototyping, web advertising, etc etc business - sure, your probably just feeding your employer new business strategies to make everyone money. The business is typically fine with experimenting with new ideas hoping to uncover a new money machine - obviously Google's business model is a great fit for this and they seemingly encourage it.

If your doing what Ill call "real engineering" (to ruffle some feathers) on large intricate system this could be a very bad idea. Perhaps you even think your doing the right thing but if you're working within a highly technical environment with many participants you are just going to look immature.

In other words, imagine if everyone at Boeing adopted this strategy as individuals - I think we'd all be opting for taking the Greyhound bus.

Id imagine that Google Glass will fall under the same laws banning cell phones and electronics while driving so Im not so sure how much potential this has besides putting the ability to unlock your car on Glass.

Dance, Monkeys Dance! ... No thanks.

No legitimate investor would find this exercise to be worthwhile nor would any legitimate entrepreneur find this to be worthwhile.

- Lots of legislative initiatives would be started, get half way finished and then be subsequently abandoned when the next exciting legislative initiative came along

- All states would be renamed to end in .io or .ly

- Political parties would be formed around programming languages and the mud slinging across parties would be way more dirty

- When the hunger and poverty rates climbed, we'd create an app for that ... problem solved

- Speeches would include swear words to provide emphasis to talking points

- We'd probably think it would be a great idea to collect analytics on uers so we can better understand them and subsequently "improve their user experience"

... Sorry were a smart group of folks but I genuinely think we'd be positively awful at it

Ill try to field this one being that Ive kind of moved around to a handful of different categories of companies and am constantly scratching my head over this. This is the best of the more realistic options from what I can tell...

1) You move to management (engineering, project, product, etc). This one is perhaps quite popular but I think few truly enjoy this move and usually get jammed into middle management. It seems prestigious, pays more, less hours but it can be mind numbing to someone who went into software for the creative and exciting aspects of tech. I think probably many find this is a good way to the midlife crisis. Sorry to be so pessimistic.

2) You become a consultant. Lots of folks do this and will do it as long as they are successful. You usually have to work in more enterprise environments but many realize that is where some of the really tough interesting problems are. Pretty good option for Java/Systems/Network engineers. If your a specialist in Rails or social gaming you may find this one tougher.

3) You get into big corp as a full-time engineer and walk up the Principal Engineer / Architect technical latter. Usually pretty good stability, pretty good pay - relatively comfortable for those who like it.

4) You get tired of things and move out of the field. Where to?.. anyone's guess. Could be tech related, could be totally unrelated. Perhaps we don't like to admit it but there is usually a lot of BS in many software development companies (yes even startups) and at 30, 40, or 50 you realize life is too short to be standing up in a SCRUM everyday (sorry I hate SCRUM - my personal bias).

5) You get really lucky and become really rich somehow (stock options, whatever) and retire early. Everyone thinks this will be them - in reality highly unlikely. Many in software do well but plan on always needing an income.

6) You start a non-startup software business. Perhaps an ISV with a side of consulting or open source or something like that. This one can be pretty fun for those who really truly enjoy software.

Wow the comment on the actual article with the screenshot of the ad banners gave me a good laugh

A lot of it is just actually due to legacy.

It may be hard to understand here but tech in education takes a back seat in most standard schools. There are not a lot of (if any) resources in most schools available for tech support, upgrades, hardware, etc.

So what happened was that 10-20+ years back schools slowly integrated tech and computers - Windows was really the only sensible choice for most institutions in that it allowed for everyone (non-techies) to run software that met the needs of students, teachers, admins, etc. PCs and Windows was the sensible and natural choice back then and everyone jumped on.

The problem now is that the cost to migrate hardware, software, licenses, systems, and knowledge to better platforms is significant, daunting and costly even if the new stuff is free. Its analogous to building a city around one center point for years and then realizing that you want to move the whole city 5 miles down the road with everything basically continuing to function (oh yeah and on a shoestring budget).

On the bright side the education system is filled with many who are tech savvy. They know the tech sucks... its pretty obvious when you have to use IE6 for some online lesson plan and then you go home and watch Netflix on your iPhone. So there is pressure there and things are moving but it will be slow and painful and likely whenever you send your kids to school you will gasp in horror at the tech museum they call the computer lab.

(On a side note if you are entrepreneur in edtech - the most important thing you can understand is what the tech landscape looks like to students and teachers and administrators. Very different for all 3 groups and very detached from the tech saturated environment of Silicon Valley)

I have to wonder though if in aggregate if a predominantly rent based society will lead to even more wealth disparity. While the housing bubble was not exactly the epitome of economic health, we've seen what has happened in the bay area recently. For most bay area tech workers there has been a substantial rise in employability and wages but on the other hand a significant portion on average of the individual economic gains typically have been funneled to increased rent that seems to go up 10-15% every year out here. Heck we even see this in North Dakota with the new oil jobs - the rent for a place in the middle of nowhere has skyrocketed. I guess the point being that Im unsure that low unemployment and mobility strongly correspond to more accumulated wealth for employees.

13. Provide everyone from marketing to sales to engineering with the same "standard" machine. And no, allowing the dev team to put in an extra stick of RAM doesn't cut it.

There are other forms of excess than monetary.

Building an environmentally damaging shrine in a protected wildlife zone for a one time event qualifies as excess.

Many actually - they just don't realize they are in most ways conservatives.

Building technology actually has advanced at a really good pace and most construction has been significantly automated. Most homes and buildings go up amazingly fast due to a lot of prefab and modular designs as well as a lot of process mechanization. The guys you see on the construction site today are usually doing more assembling rather than "building."

The conceptual 3d printed type homes are interesting but they are limited in scope in that seismic and load issues require materials and configurations that are not per say printable. (In other words you would likely not want to live in a 3d printed home in SF).

It sounds like a major source of tension is breast feeding. Have you looked into hiring a breast feeding coach?

Another note is that babies in my experience are oddly perceptive to the parents being stressed out or tense (not in any sort of damaging way). Try to do anything you guys possibly can to relax... massage, walks, whatever, etc etc and you may find she feeds better and is generally easier on you guys.

Lastly your situation is more common than unique. At the worst you'll muddle through it and look back and say thank god thats over. It feels like torture now but you guys will be fine - every couple Ive known in your situation goes through some form of this with a new child.

It means nothing. An employers perception of good will be different than your version of good.

The usage is essentially an employer trying to set an early anchor for bargaining that is blessed as "good" by both parties.

Well a bit tricky to answer generically... everyone is different, lots of conditionals and unknowns to give a truly good answer.

The good news is that it sounds like your parents are not stupid and neither are you. That being said while you may have lots of good energy and exuberance towards your startup, it will (extremely likely) fail. To be a realist first attempts at startups are usually the first step in a long learning curve (although there are very rare exceptions). So instead of thinking about this specific company you should rather think of it as embarking on the path of being an entrepreneur - most people who take this path fail a lot, have a handful of wins, embrace volatility, and never grace the pages to Techcrunch. In short it is the high risk/reward path - almost like playing basketball with hopes of making the NBA (although typically with better outcomes for those who never make the big leagues).

The college path, assuming you are smart about it, dont take out crippling debt, and major in something half way useful, has benefits as well. Its typically an interesting experience intellectually, socially, and culturally. Despite what you may hear education is still very strongly correlated to earnings so in that regard it can typically open up opportunities to good paying jobs. It is also can allow for future educational opportunities (MBA, MS, etc) as well as more seamless industry changes if the bottom falls out of tech. In that regard it is the lower risk option that can give a jump start to ones career if done correctly.

The good thing is that neither option precludes the other. Start a startup, then go to college... Go to college, start a startup while your there... etc. Either option sounds interesting - my personal vote would be college in that Im more risk averse and it has been well studied that education correlates with entrepreneurial success.

"SimSensei can work out whether you’re exhibiting signs that indicate depression"

Im not sure I totally buy it - Im sure it can pick up the signs with 90% accuracy but how often do the signs actually correspond to a clinically depressed person. Just because your in a down mood at one moment does not mean you are depressed - depression is just a lot more complex than that. Im not sure that this would be of much use in accurate diagnosis although it seems like pretty interesting tech.