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yefon The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

Cool. So, class consciousness is a lot of work. What, exactly, is the benefit?

yefon The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

I dunno. Something doesn't quite add up to me. There are certain topics that all people like to talk about, regardless of how they think. Knowing those topics reveals certain tricks to talking to different people. "Ask the expert", where you compliment someone on their skill or knowledge (plumbing, say) and then ask them for more details, showing genuine interest as they talk. People who have kids or pets are also pretty easy to talk to, because they're proud and love to talk about them. Humor, sports, and local news also tend to break the ice.

So I'm truly curious what's at work behind this inability or unwillingness to talk to "the masses", as it were.

yefon The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class.

I didn't go to an ivy league school, but is this generally accepted as true? Is this other people's experience, or is the author's opinion more of an outlier?

yefon Done, and Gets Things Smart

Long is fine if that's what it takes to make the point. I learned to keep things as concise as possible to avoid losing the reader. The side benefit is that it forces the writer to clarify and distill his thoughts. Most of the work is done in rewriting.

Steve's stuff strikes me as a stream-of-consciousness, spellcheck and then post, type of style. Do the 3rd and 4th paragraphs about jocks really contribute anything to his point?

yefon Ask YC: Things to do in Cambridge, MA

I've had perfect strangers yell and threaten me in Boston. That's never happened to me anywhere else, not even close. Trying to summarize that experience will sound classist, so I won't, but I'll just say that I've noticed some patterns, and certain groups here don't hide the chip on their shoulder and can be very punchy.

The tech and intellectual social circles here are great, though. Nice people and good conversation.

yefon How to Hire a Programmer

Nope :) I tend to read very quickly, and since this is a topic I'm truly interested, I guess I hoped that the author was serious. Thanks for the callout.

yefon How to Hire a Programmer

VB Tech Journal? I don't know, man, this sounds like a personal friend test of the author or something.

Have them program something in the interview. Watch them use their chosen text editor as they work through your problem. Have them run their program and watch them iterate through a few code/test/debug cycles. Once it's working, ask them for a minor but logical improvement, and watch their reaction. Dread at having to go back to the code, or gusto in making it better? How fast can they go back and edit their own code?

For whatever job you're hiring for, have them do the job as part of the interview process.

yefon It's iPhone, not Iphone or IPhone

Thumb should stay out of ass, not up it...

yefon Cities and Ambition

Obama is not the most powerful man in the world. If he is elected, he may be, but he won't be able to turn that power into money, thank god.

Ex-presidents make a boatload of money, though. Books, speaking engagements, etc. That's a direct result of their power.

yefon Cities and Ambition

Their existence is a precondition for effecting positive change, but there still must be an "industrial base" to implement them. It turns out that ideas are cheaper than talent, but since the Bay Area has a greater concentration of talent, they dominate in the implementation of ideas.

If the Boston area wants to get ahead in startups, it's going to need to attract more talent than SF. Sadly, I've seen plenty of MIT grads head to Google and Facebook...and some of those kids are going to be starting the next wave of companies...

yefon Cities and Ambition

Money and power are interchangeable, and that's what most ambitious people want. Of course, there are other benefits, like the joy of seeing something work, and the satisfaction of making a difference in the world. So most polite people will play up those benefits over the money/power angle.

Fame, hipness, insider knowledge? All either means to an end or cultural by-products. LA is run on power and money - studio execs are the most powerful, and basically run the entertainment biz, but they generally stay out of the limelight. DC runs on political power, plain and simple. Hipness is a by-product of having a very large concentration of young, single people in one place. You'll find brands of hip in every major city.

Ideas as Cambridge's main "industry" is also somewhat of a dubious distinction. Ideas are cheap. Talented people (i.e., the execution of ideas) is the bottleneck.

yefon David Brooks: And the geek shall inherit the earth

Please bring Krugman back...

yefon Ask YC: How do you avoid wasting too much time online?

I like to use a timer particularly when I haven't gotten my day started yet. I set it for, say, 15 minutes, and that's my web time. Then I set it for 5 minutes, pick a small task, and try and get it done within that time without losing focus. Repeat that until I'm in the zone.

yefon Why Apple is more expensive than Amazon

It's not that I disagree with the Apple fanboys. I own stock, and many of their products, and in general their products are very good. And I love that the fanboys are selling, nonstop, with all their heart.

It's that the Apple fanboys are boring. It's like hearing the same song, over and over. And it's not a good song, it's like hearing "Who Let the Dogs Out" or something.

If the fanboys could admit that Apple stuff isn't totally perfect, and there actually are better alternatives depending on people's needs, that would lend a lot of credibility to their argument.

I was one of the first people to get an iPod and hop onto the ITMS bandwagon. Now I'm happily jumping off to Amazon's store, simply, because they have a better store.