mtbcoder

We can't since the OP would like us to first solve the "ageing problem" before anything else. But I suppose war wouldn't easily nullify your potential of advanced age if you close your eyes hard enough? Perhaps those living on $2/day will be comforted by the fact that they can continue to do so for another 150 years.

There's still the matter of war and poverty to be solved.

GWU is located in Washington, DC, which as far as I know, doesn't have "right to work" laws as neighbouring Virginia does.

Why the mistrust? The author did an entire career change after suffering her burnout. That's not a decision to take lightly and surely isn't emblematic of someone who is faking it. Furthermore, she indicated she was putting in 11 hours or so a day in her banking job. That's not a schedule which is lightly endured by anyone, no matter how spirited or strong-willed the individual may appear.

> Ideally a workplace should provide a way to develop people, a stable income and clear goals.

This can only happen when you have a working, stable government that is investing in its citizenry, infrastructure, education, etc. What worries me tremendously these days, at least from my US perspective, is that the very definition of "stable income" is constantly changing as income inequality expands and we put in place policies which really only benefit the wealthiest corporations and individuals.

Expanding on your analogy, the issue is when you need to start using your free car to safely haul lots of freight across the country in a timely manner, over multiple routes all while providing sound, reliable fleet maintenance with a team of mechanics. Some auto shops will tell you that duct-taping your freight to the roof of your car is just fine, others will tell you that you cannot run a reliable network with this system.

Rates will vary depending on the technical abilities needed for the project, the client's budget as well as the contractor's experience, location, etc. In SF, going rates will be higher than the rates of someone in Iowa, however, I certainly wouldn't set a rate lower than $75 anywhere in the US, no matter how trivial the job is.

> Within the post, in fact, I wrote that these tips apply to other CMSs and other development-related jobs you outsource.

Exactly, your article isn't about working with Wordpress "experts" and does not really touch on this topic. If it were, I would expect to read about specific issues you have come across when dealing with external Wordpress developers or even freelance PHP developers and how you've mitigated them.

My argument is that the headline contextually has little to do with the generic tips you are giving. It just seems like you are generating content for the sake of content and the search engines. Which is fine, but not really productive for a site like this.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Wordpress or Wordpress developers specifically. It seems a more apt title would be "some really broad tips on outsourcing development tasks." I'm assuming this is content for the sake of the search engines and the targeted keyword phrase is "Wordpress Experts".

"We end up staying at home instead of going out to do stuff because we're afraid others will think they're a loser."

Perhaps a bigger contributing factor may be that many US citizens simply have less disposable income these days. If you are living alone in a high cost of living city (such as DC where the WP is HQ'd), you most likely have much less money to spend on bars, restaurants and movie theaters.

Fortunately, DC has many free museums, parks, trails, etc where you often find folks doing things in groups, pairs and alone without any stigmas or high costs.

> I'd rather spend my time reading content on an interface that I don't have to fight against (e.g. full screen overlay ads with a tiny x to close)

RSS readers solved this problem a long time ago.

I'm not quite sure most Americans find it 'funny' but rather do these things more so out of fear. Fear of job loss, fear of missed advancements, fear of missing out, etc. This also seems to explain why Americans as a whole take so little vacation time even when they are entitled to take time off [1].

[1] http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workpla...

>> We don't need unions. In tech, labor does hold the power.

This maxim may have been true 20, 30 years ago, but with an ever-increasing pool of STEM applicants, advances in automation and the juggernaut that is globalization, the pendulum is swinging.

>> We always have the option for taking our ball and going home (start our own company).

No, we don't. Such a simplistic decision like this has never existed in tech other than in grossly inaccurate Hollywood film plots. Starting a tech company comes with an enormous amount of risk and challenges. These risks aren't easily absorbed by most individuals. A person's company may succeed in the end after hard-fought battles, but in all likelihood, most will fail.

In the Midwest, suburbs are designed and developed around the car and the "local shops" are generally located in a series of strip malls off the major roads. On the coasts and in denser populated areas, there seems to be a renewed push for more walk-able areas, public transit and such though.

>> I think you need to be passionate about the code you write.

Passion does go a long way as does working on fulfilling projects, but even the most passionate person will get burned out putting in long hours week after week. Everyone needs balance and thorough time away from the desk/cube/screen.

> "Startups don't fail because they run out of money, startups fail because their founders give up."

I'm not really seeing any insight here. The physical economic limitations that the average start up faces is entirely unrelated to the zeal of its founders.

> This is mostly because the consumer culture emphasizes people's imperfections in order to sell them products and services. You walk down the magazine isle of a bookstore and are bombarded with messages: you're out of shape, you need to be better at sex, you need to learn how to talk to people better, you totally need to check out the latest and hottest JavaScript framework bro!

I would file this under the 'extreme consumerism' department that America is quite famous for though.

Decreasing perhaps, but it's being offset by natural gas, which is yet another hydrocarbon and comes with its own slew of hazards and problems.

Education seems to be just one cog in the overall scheme of a functioning, productive society. Without well managed public and private sectors in place to take advantage of an educated, skilled workforce and economic policies which truly benefit the developing country, the likely outcome will be large scale brain-drain.

1) Spend more time with your family before it's too late. Call your mother, father and siblings more often.

2) Save, save and save more. Spend your money on things that matter (such as visiting your family more). I worry about the future of labor in the US.

I agree. Personally, my concerns with GMOs lie more with environmental factors (contamination of surrounding areas for example) and concerns about gene/seed patenting by "big agro".

STEM fields are not immune to globalization, crowded market places, etc either. According to The Atlantic:

"Far from offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all, science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow-growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad."

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myt...

You don't have to use Django's class-based generic views either. Nothing wrong with just inheriting from the base View if you really want.

Location is a big issue for people who rely on public transportation to get to their places of employment. It's not always feasible to live far away from where the jobs are and not everyone can simply telecommute or otherwise work from home.

> Choosing your own hours, working only on things you want to, setting your own salary based on how much you want to t work.

I've said this a few times before, but to pull this off takes a tremendous amount of work, effort and luck. Finding work and marketing yourself is another job in its own right that you have to do on top of existing client work. Furthermore, all of the risks that were once handled by the employer are now on the contractors shoulders. For most people, all this simply isn't realistic or sustainable.

I'm not too surprised by this since car ownership is quite expensive over the life of the car. Combine that with the rapidly increasing costs of living, high rents, stagnate wages, etc and things start to give. Not to mention the overwhelming feelings of depression, rage and frustration that comes with sitting in traffic congestion common to East Coast cities for hours on end everyday. I just wish a good, reliable rail network between cities also existed in the US.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, since a freelancer does not receive paid vacation time, they suffer 100% of the opportunity costs of missing out on billable hours as well as lost funding for things like retirement, paying for healthcare or the rising costs of housing. These are all exceedingly high costs that they must burden just to take time off. The situation gets even worse when there are large gaps between contracts. If a freelancer is young, he/she can absorb this for a while, but eventually it will become unsustainable and then they are right back to where they started from of working 40/50/60+ hours a week without vacations.

From my point of view, being a consultant/freelancer/contractor, whatever you want to call it, isn't a solution to the "Overkill Cult". If anything, it exacerbates the problem in the long run. What we need (in the US) are cultural shifts and at minimum basic policy changes such as mandatory maternity/paternity leave and increased annual leave that matches other western countries.

The problem with freelancing is that you are essentially becoming your own company and shifting the burden of finding continuous work, as well as absorbing all the inherent risk of running a business, on to your shoulders. Given that there are practically zero social safety nets in the US, this is a large undertaking not to be taken lightly. Simply put, it will add to the amount of hours you are working per day, not reduce them.

Has anyone been able to successfully monetize check-ins? It seems that if it were that straight forward to monetize as you suggest, someone would have done this by now. Even Facebook's check-in system seems to have faded in popularity as far as I can tell.

> More options: - Go solo.

As someone who has been 'solo' for a very long time, I have to heavily disagree with this opinion. Going solo isn't as simple or easy as what the OP seems to be implying. Going solo means you are essentially working two jobs at once as it takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication to network, find good projects and keep them rolling in to pay your bills. To further exacerbate things, each year the amount of competition that you face ramps up drastically as more and more workers enter the consulting world who are unable to price themselves correctly and are willing to work for less and less.

Furthermore, by going solo, you are now assuming 100% of the risk as to whether or not your new consulting business sinks or swims. Chances are, just like any start up, you will sink. Additionally, you will have added burdens such as insurance requirements, self-employment taxes, various state/county-level taxes (such as gross receipts taxes) and a laundry list of day-to-day operations that you will need to perform that aren't related to software development.

Going solo really isn't for most people and I wish we'd all stop perpetuating this myth that it is somehow easily attainable. Remember, a solo consulting business is the easiest business you can start, maintaining one is the most difficult business you can run.