mtbcoder

Context is everything. If this were featured in a US publication, the innuendo would certainly be strong.

I do quite a bit of running, some lifting and I've never personally experienced this with either. However, I also do a lot of mountain biking and experience this during and after each ride. As best I can describe it, it really becomes of a sense of "flow" and you feel connected to what you are doing while a wave of good feelings hits you. The only similar expression of this that I've been able to come across is how surfers often describe their feelings after catching a good wave.

You are still dependent on XML-RPC, which has its own overhead issues, and PHP/Wordpress though.

I don't think this is what the OP is advocating since a major caveat with the Wordpress API plugin is that you are still tightly coupled to PHP and Wordpress. This is simply due to the poorly designed database schema and how Wordpress "renders" posts. I can't simply use Wordpress as a generic CMS, as post data is still dependent on Wordpress to render.

Interesting that the author cites crowdfunding, philanthropy and subsidization as a means to fund news organizations, but fails to mention the great work done by NPR, PBS Newshour, Frontline, Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose, et al. Instead, the author chooses to highlight several outlets that are "doing it right" but who deploy the very same advertising schemes which the author derides earlier on in the article.

Perhaps the threat of having their license pulled, thereby nullifying potential future employment might have caused them to think twice about wilfully cheating emissions controls?

> With PHP we just FTP from our local repository to the live server and it's up and running with almost no setup.

Technically you can do that with Python as well depending on your setup. Although you may need an extra step such as "touching" your wsgi.py file. If you aren't caching your templates[1] (which you should in production though), you can upload template files and see instant changes.

[1] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/templates/api/#dja...

Also, I find deploying with mod_wsgi or uwsgi not any more difficult or time consuming than getting PHP-FPM set up and running.

Possibly, but that doesn't seem like it would produce very reliable data though.

Just out of curiosity, how would turning on a web cam determine if a visitor saw an ad or not? I'm missing the logic.

I don't think the criticism is against the concept of MOOCs but rather the over-exaggerated claims being made regarding proficiency achieved from the cursory information provided in a given program and career opportunities available after completing said program.

In other words, "offshore all jobs except the ones that we need to keep our lucrative government contracts."

> Can someone who works on web development for a major publisher please try and explain why such sites take so long to load?

Well, the same problems that beset big enterprise are also found in "big publishing" which is even more severely amplified by the need to have everything live yesterday.

> Given the wide array of compression tools, caching (including service workers on >40% of browsers, appcache on >90% and pretty much everyone having HTTP caching) and the sheer amount of information on improving website performance that's out there, making news websites load fast really should be a solved problem that doesn't need Google to solve it.

Correct, but you are assuming that most developers are a) interested in learning these things b) possess even the fundamental of CS knowledge and skills. By reading HN, I would assume that both a and b apply to the majority here, however, in my own cynical outlook, most "developers" are really just out there winging it and cannot be bothered to learn more than what's provided on w3schools.com.

This sounds like a big enterprise company taking the next evolutionary step. Soon the tactics will be labelled as "best practices", talks and conferences will be given, the mentality accepted and the rest of the herd will continue to froth at the mouth to be more enterprise-y than the next. As the article states:

> "Amazon may be singular but perhaps not quite as peculiar as it claims. It has just been quicker in responding to changes that the rest of the work world is now experiencing: data that allows individual performance to be measured continuously, come-and-go relationships between employers and employees, and global competition in which empires rise and fall overnight. Amazon is in the vanguard of where technology wants to take the modern office: more nimble and more productive, but harsher and less forgiving.

“Organizations are turning up the dial, pushing their teams to do more for less money, either to keep up with the competition or just stay ahead of the executioner’s blade,” said Clay Parker Jones, a consultant who helps old-line businesses become more responsive to change."

> The only part of the presentation layer that WordPress needs to concern itself with is the admin interface.

If only this were the case. WP's underlying processes and database structure are so unbelievably stunted and entirely coupled to the core WP application, that to do something as simple as pull rendered posts from the database generally involves performing a series of SQL gymnastics just to retrieve the relevant data. Not to mention all of the convoluted WP functions that are needed to render the final content snippet.

Wouldn't they then just simply split off the technology arm into it's own entity, incorporate it, re-brand it and continue on as usual?

> Software, of course, has no such professional body, and exists in a twilight world of chancers and incompetents. Why should the software industry get away with knowingly producing crap and charging a fortune for it?

This is not really correct. If you are hiring a development firm or an independent contractor, you stipulate in your contract that the company or developer must carry some form of errors and omissions insurance. I've never seen a contract that did not have this line item. Any reputable company or independent contractor will already carry this regardless. If they do not, avoid hiring them.

> We are at a time in history where unprecedented amounts of money are sloshing around at the top and it isn't 'trickling down' much via ordinary routes like wages.

Not sure I would say 'unprecedented' as this has happened before [1]. Perhaps it's time for another New Deal-style intervention.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...

> Also, recognize that while the pay may be higher, if you're in the US you also are on the hook for 8% payroll tax that your employer would normally pay on your behalf.

You are on the hook for more than just that. Federal, state and often county taxes (gross receipts, business licenses) will need to be paid. Plus you will need to acquire health insurance, fund your retirement, pay for needed business expenses, etc. Not to mention, most contracts you sign, will require that you also carry some form of business insurance (errors and omissions for example). All these things will slice and dice your hourly rate down severely.

> Isn't there people with experience on working on short-term contracts and still living well-off?

This is just my opinion and I can only speak from a US perspective, but yes and no. The ones who are able to do this have already gotten a 10+ year head start and have built up a deep network from which to source work from. The ones who are starting out today are more than likely having a very tough go at it. Competition for contracts is much more intense compared to 10, 15 years ago and you really need to bring more to the table than just "javascript developer" or "wordpress consultant".

I know there exists this love-affair on HN with running off to become independent contractor, live on a beach writing code and making your own hours. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the reality though is that in the end you are building a business (even if it's just you). All the energy, time, risk and money that it takes to run a regular businesses will be just the same with running your own consultancy. The downtime you think you will have to yourself in-between contracts will be eaten up by having to find the next contract. If you happen to unfortunately live in or near a city with a high cost of living, the pressure will be even more intense.

"Americans overestimate social class mobility" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115...

Doesn't really seem that elaborate if this is correct: https://twitter.com/stackshareio/status/578629809242312704

By extension, would Lumen (Laravel's micro framework sibling) also now have LTS releases?

Regarding Python, Django does LTS releases.

> tests/samples

Technical tests are a double-edged sword. For candidates with little to no prior work experience (fresh out of uni for example), it makes sense. Unless serious question marks arose during the prior interviews, I find it disrespectful to play the "stump the candidate" game with candidates who come in with 10, 20+ years of experience. I'm not aware of any other industry that deploys a barrage of obscure technical tests on their candidates the way some companies do in IT.

Two suggestions I would have:

1) Expand your services offerings beyond "Wordpress consulting", even if it means putting your company on the back-burner for a bit to acquire more lucrative skill sets. "Wordpress consultants" are a dime-a-dozen and there's simply too much noise in this arena for it to be sustainable.

2) I'm not sure what city you are located in, but try to tap into the local market first before aiming for national or international clients. Small/medium sized businesses generally like to have people that they can interact with face to face. Also, participate in and join your local chamber of commerce. From my past experiences, they love to do business with other members.

> The problem is that consulting will take a lot more time out of your life than even a regular job.

I think this is a key bullet point people often forget when they idealize the whole notion of becoming a freelancer/consultant. Essentially you are taking on several jobs at once, which are generally staffed by full time people in other companies, while also burdening yourself with all of the risk that comes with running a company. Once you become a consultant, you are the company, and there's quite a bit more to it than just filling out the paperwork for the LLC application.

> It's not the kind of place where people feel forced into working in a silly way.

After reading your post, I'm having a hard time seeing how this is the case. Perhaps people are not directly forced into doing weekend "hackathons", but I'd imagine there is quite a bit of indirect pressure to show up for these things for fear of not being seen as a team player. Although, maybe my own personal experiences have just made me too cynical.

Based on the data points used, doesn't this just simply favor startups that are more adept at SEO/SEM and social media?

> With Facebook, the intrusion of privacy happens completely out in the open and you can work with that.

I'm not following. Once I hand over my data I have no real control over how they end up using it behind the scenes. Furthermore, even if I never sign up with Facebook or at some point delete my account thinking my data has been flushed, a "shadow profile" still exists that I have no control over. [1]

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/facebooks-shadow-profile-bu...

> The bicameral mind sounds a lot like an early type of consciousness. I think Jaynes' timelines are off, but it is possible that our consciousness worked differently back in the day.

I agree, I see no reason that consciousness wouldn't follow evolutionary processes over time.