Poll: How old are you? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: How old are you?

264 pointsTimothyBurgess148 comments

For some reason I was wondering about this in the shower this morning. There may already be polls like this one but by now I'd assume they're outdated.

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Interesting comparison from 1998:

http://slashdot.org/poll/421/My-Age-is

In 1998, 22% of respondents were ages 16-20, 53% were in their 20s, 15% in their 30s and 5% over 40.

As of this writing (and assuming that I did my arithmetic correctly), ~7% of respondents on this poll are ages 16-20, ~60% are in their 20s, ~25% in their 30s, and ~7% are over 40.

Obviously there are a lot of caveats here, but the slight increase in the overall age of techies between these two polls is nothing like you'd expect if everyone who started in their 20s in 1998 stuck around until today.

*edit: fixed arithmetic error. D'oh!

As I commented previously when we had a poll on the ages of HNers, the data can't be relied on to make such an inference. That's because the date are not from a random sample of the relevant population. One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does not imply causation." Other statistics teachers are gradually picking up this phrase.

-----Original Message----- From: Paul Velleman [SMTPfv2@cornell.edu] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 5:10 PM To: apstat-l@etc.bc.ca; Kim Robinson Cc: mmbalach@mtu.edu Subject: Re: qualtiative study

Sorry Kim, but it just aint so. Voluntary response data are worthless. One excellent example is the books by Shere Hite. She collected many responses from biased lists with voluntary response and drew conclusions that are roundly contradicted by all responsible studies. She claimed to be doing only qualitative work, but what she got was just plain garbage. Another famous example is the Literary Digest "poll". All you learn from voluntary response is what is said by those who choose to respond. Unless the respondents are a substantially large fraction of the population, they are very likely to be a biased -- possibly a very biased -- subset. Anecdotes tell you nothing at all about the state of the world. They can't be "used only as a description" because they describe nothing but themselves.

http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tsta...

For more on the distinction between statistics and mathematics, see

http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF

and

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz

I think Professor Velleman promotes "Voluntary response data are worthless" as a slogan for the same reason an earlier generation of statisticians taught their students the slogan "correlation does not imply causation." That's because common human cognitive errors run strongly in one direction on each issue, so the slogan has take the cognitive error head-on. Of course, a distinct pattern in voluntary responses tells us SOMETHING (maybe about what kind of people come forward to respond), just as a correlation tells us SOMETHING (maybe about a lurking variable correlated with both things we observe), but it doesn't tell us enough to warrant a firm conclusion about facts of the world. The Literary Digest poll

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/

http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/data/LiteraryDigest.pdf

is a spectacular historical example of a voluntary response poll that didn't give a correct picture of reality at all.

"voluntary response data are worthless"

There are ways of correcting for non-responders though. For example, there is the Monitoring The Future study that asks high school kids about their history of drug use. Almost everyone who is in school that day answers the questions, but that still leaves everyone who was absent that day. So what they do is they ask the kids the number of days of school they have missed so far this year, and then they correlate the number of missed days with drug usage. Using this information they can correct for every kid who was absent, because they know how many absentees there were and can figure out the distribution of how many of those kids have skipped one day of school so far, two days of school so far, etc. And then they can assign drug usage rates accordingly.

Well, they can assign reported history of drug use correctly. Do they do anything similar to correct for lying, or just label their data as "self-reports of drug use"?

"Do they do anything similar to correct for lying"

There is an entire literature on the validity of self-reported drug use that they take into account. For example, there is a phenomenon called recanting, where someone will admit to using a drug one year and then deny it in future years. They correct for this by ignoring when someone recants if they have already admitted to using the drug on at least two previous surveys. (Which would be administered at least two years apart.)

What they found was that the people most likely to recant were the ones who got jobs where they would now be fired for admitting drug use. For example, cops recanted drug use after previously admitting to it at twice the rate of the general public. So that's how they made the decision to discount recanting for people who had already admitted to drug use twice or more times.

As for people who try to lie and claim they are taking drugs that they haven't been, this is corrected for by asking about the same drug multiple times in different ways. I think they may also salt the questions by asking about drugs that don't exist.

You can obviously read all about the methodology of Monitoring the Future by downloading it, and here is an enormous PDF with tons of studies on the validity of self-reported drug use in general:

http://archives.drugabuse.gov/pdf/monographs/monograph167/do...

All in all the methods they are using seem fairly accurate. It would definitely be a little higher if they corrected for more stuff, so for example when they say that 82% of Americans have used marijuana, it's actually probably closer to 85 or 86% when you correct for additional things that they haven't.

I really don't think you can adjust away the teenage propensity to lie on these sorts of things. If there's one thing students in the US are taught effectively, it's how to game multiple choice tests. Throwing in trick questions isn't going to do much, especially for your AP-track students.

"I really don't think you can adjust away the teenage propensity to lie on these sorts of things."

The research seems to show that the self-reported responses are pretty accurate. For example, the number of people who reported using LSD basically went to zero right after the Pickard bust in 2003, when pretty much the entire US production got shut down. This means that if there are people lying about taking drugs they haven't been taking, it can't really be much than a couple tenths of a percent.

Their ability to correct for the missing kids, is presumably because they can assume that the kids missing are missing at random (proportional to their attendance rate.)

This is very different, because while there is some data missing, it is missing at random (albeit weighted), and can thus be corrected for.

If it was the case that kids avoided coming into school that day, because they knew the survey would be held, it would be a very different problem.

Well, as I said before -- there are lots of caveats. But I hope that professor loses his bid to introduce another sound-bite into the statistics world, because it's not correct to blindly say that the data are "worthless" simply because they're voluntary responses. We make useful inferences from voluntary response data all the time (c.f. every political poll ever conducted, where people can choose not to respond). The correct question is: does the voluntary response process result in a systematic bias that will affect the conclusion in question? But that's neither short, nor catchy.

In this case, there's a strong argument to be made that the samples could skew young (if for no other reason than because younger people frequent sites like HN more than older people). It's also quite possible that the demographics for HN and for slashdot are different in a way that would make the HN audience skew younger. But the voluntary response process itself? I think it's a stretch to claim that it'll cause a measurable bias in age distributions, across two different surveys, spaced a decade apart. You'd have to argue that younger people in 2011 are more likely to answer a poll than younger people in 1998 were to answer a poll. Possible? Sure. The most likely source of error here? Nah.

In other words, if you're going to pick (and you should!), pick on the BIG, OBVIOUS differences between the data sets...not the little ones.

Do you have reason to doubt the validity of this particular survey?

I personally can't see significant problems of this over any survey technique.

There are problems with questionnaires and self-responses, sure, but to say they are worthless is to exclude an entire category of data based on a selective opinion. Horses for courses, if you like.

Many statistical methods are available, some of which are more appropriate than others in particular situations. There is little wrong with convenience sampling if what is of primary importance is convenience, e.g.

(That being said, I'd be careful with taking the results of this poll and applying it to any technology site and therefore the interwebs etc. Inferring from this data that we don't have an ageing population problem would be dangerous).

It was same group of people responding. They have grown old :-O

[..] is nothing like you'd expect if everyone who started in their 20s in 1998 stuck around until today.

I have an interesting observation around this. I got started in this industry "for real" in the late 90s and worked for some "new media" companies (as they were known at the time!). I also read a lot of the magazines that featured things like "The 50 Most Important People Online" and similar crud.

And.. recently I tried tracking down people whose names I could remember back then. Few were still involved with tech or Internet-specific work. And of those "important" people, few were names I recognized.

To me, at least, it seems like the group of people working online has changed a great deal in the last 13 years. And I'm surprised by that.

56-60 Senior Software Engineer, still enjoying coding, hacking and figuring things out. Don't spend much energy on the good ole days, whatever they were. Still prefer C over everything else. Question: What is the best programming language? Answer: Whatever the client was sold on at the trade show. Wrote a really nice bash shell web scraper yesterday. Amazing to still get so much mileage out of sed,awk,grep, and others. All I did was setup a windows share and mounted the filesystem in ubuntu. I like the idea that there are so any platforms around and no one way to do anything. Tonight Labview and robot vision to do line following.

All I know is that this post just made me feel a lot older. Good God, I'm a 'seasoned vet' at 40.

22 and 4-5 years into my career.

I can only hazard a guess at what I'll be doing in 20 years.

If you're happy doing what you're doing now, then my guess is the same thing. Like me. For over 20 years.

>If you're happy doing what you're doing now

Immeasurably.

>Like me. For over 20 years.

Fair chance I'd be retired by then unless I had a nasty divorce or something. But who knows?

ah the idealism of youth...

Possibly. The odds are pretty bad for retirement at 40 though. Seems to be those who are successful / lucky enough to exit (making an assumption about your retirement plan), are also the kind of people that tend to just start another company or be an involved smart-money investor.

I used to think I would retire. I have enough mostly-passive income to live on, but here I am doing another startup.

YMMV

Not really idealism. When you get an engineer's salary and sock away ~60-70% of it, your options are pretty rosy.

The entrepreneurial bug and divorce are the only things I foresee really jeopardizing that. That or being seriously fertile.

Hard tellin'. I'll be happy either way, and regardless of whether or not I'm getting paid, I'll code 'til I die.

I am not saying you won't be financially able to retire. The money is almost the easy part.

I think family or a startup would be the most likely factors to keep me out of retirement.

In reality, retirement would just mean being much choosier about my projects and spending more time on open source.

I grok ya.

22 and a career? Wow.

Programming was still a hobby for me at that point. Still is. Sometimes wish I didn't spoil it by making it a career. ;)

I feel old now. I started a record label at 22 and wanted to do nothing but music and party. Didn't get a "career" until a couple of years later when my record label burnt out and the parties stopped...

Just remember to live a little. ;)

We seem to have a bit in common!

I'm 23 now, and up until last July I was a professional touring musician (drummer!)...

During college my band signed to Victory Records. We all decided to finish up college and began touring immediately after we graduated. (Computer Engineer here...) I had quite a few people tell me I was making a big mistake continuing with the band and not pursuing a career with my degree... but I honestly believe I learned more on the road (about the world in general) than I would have during that same amount of time in an office.

I had a lot of fun doing it too... it was an opportunity I'm very glad I didn't give up. I left the band for personal reasons/differences and have been working on my startup day-in, day-out ever since.

My startup is actually centered around touring bands and their management/labels/booking. You can check it out at http://www.rela.cc if you want. It's actually days away from officially launching... I just need to add the ~30-second ads for bands and management, and make a few changes to the video tutorial.

So yeah... have fun while you can people and don't pass up once in a lifetime opportunities no matter your age! Maybe if my startup sustains me I'll be able to play music on the road again.

What band?

A Hero A Fake

I was in it for the music (looove to drum!) and possibly being a positive influence... let's just say the rest of the guys had other motives. :|

Well done! I love my career in IT but if I could've done the same I'd have jumped at it. Sadly my instrument skills aren't ideally suited (I play the trumpet) and I knew I wasn't up to playing with a pro orchestra, but I still miss the rush of the audience. Well done to have gone for it, best wishes for getting back there in the future if you want it.

Holy crap, I was just checking out your CD earlier today on Amazon. Had no idea a member was a fellow hacker newser.

I was also in a hard rock band for 7 years, though we never signed anywhere.

Pretty awesome, had a listen on youtube, music is pretty good, guy doing vocals is pretty good, not sure about the screaming he may not be to bad, just don't know if the music is heavy enough in parts to make him seem in place. Still great though, seems you like guys had a bit of success.

Its a great idea ! http://www.rela.cc I am a novice but it looks like those rounded corner blocks are patches pasted on top of a background, which I expect kinda to reveal itself. Maybe its because of the contrast color choice, I don't know. But Mainly, the descriptions are too verbose and some of them needed me to read them twice (I am in a band myself). The video tutorial part is too unnoticeable.

What do you mean by "expect to reveal itself"? Those rounded corners are indeed images... I did that for non-webkit browsers (i.e., IE lol). And what gives it away that they're images? It looks fine (blends in) on all 5 browsers I've tested.

I've actually shortened the descriptions 4 times to as short as I can make them while still explaining the full idea. If you can come up with shorter descriptions please help me out. :)

I've been programming since 8 or 11, depending on how strictly you measure it. (GW-Basic, then C)

I've not really found work to spoil programming any more than any other bad job would.

>Just remember to live a little ;)

Just got back from a 3 week trip to SE Asia.

I'm taking time for myself as I go.

I was raised by the stereotypical protestant parents, so I've always been rather work minded. I'm intensely frugal as well, asia trip notwithstanding.

My childhood was code and hacker/unix lore. I grew up reading stories about ken, rms, Pike, etc. I don't really know what else I could do for a living and be happy with, except for maybe some other engineering discipline.

I'm not as provincial as my background would imply.

That's great. And impressive. :)

It was unnecessarily intense and left me a very precocious child who was always lonely.

I would never subject my (potential) children to my childhood.

It gave me a boost in my career and programming, but that's nothing that can't be overcome with a marginal gap in work ethic.

That said, I was very fortunate to be able to crawl out of the lower classes.

I'm 19, and I feel the pain too. Listening to classmates talk about their childhood makes me feel somewhat sad for mine.

I wouldn't trade mine in for thiers though - I love where I am :)

Glad to hear I'm not the only one to do it as a hobby in their twenties. I'm 21 now, about to graduate from college with a Creative Writing degree of all things, and only started programming about a month ago. I just had an idea for a project, and started teaching myself how to do it. I'm surprised by how much fun it is, despite the challenges, and how many hours I've wound up programming every day since I started. (I also feel really lucky to have tools like Stack Overflow to help me out as a beginner.)

You're the man. I'm also 22 and 1 year away from a BS.

Thanks, but dropping out of school and going into poverty in extremis before getting my career together wasn't my first plan.

Many many months of ramen and green tea.

Many...many months.

23 here and about 6 years in. I often wonder what I'll be doing too when I look back on it. Likely, I won't be hacking more.

Tell me about it. I'm just glad to see there are at least a few votes for the higher age ranges!

About to turn 50. Still having tons of fun (in the computer gaming industry, of all places).

My first impulse upon seeing the distribution was to say "Get off my lawn!"*

(I'm 45.)

* And that is before seeing the age group that is showing as 'dead'.

Funny pattern in responses. People on the younger side (<25) tend to be eager to prove themselves by listing their accomplishments, and people on the older side (>30) seem to be humble and self-deprecating, but still with that unmistakable hacker spirit.

I'm 28 myself, seems like 25-30 are the 'inbetweeners'.

I'm 22 and I read HN purely to learn from the "older" ones. I've got brains, but they've got brains+experience. That's what I find so fascinating about HN, it's like one collective hacker who's seen it all.

You're just kissing up to us 39-year olds so that we'll upvote your comment.

Well done.

Upvote.

;-)

Haha. I think the smartest thing I've learned so far in my "career" is to know I'm capable of learning just about anything, so long as I actually pay attention enough to those who already know.

It's working well.

I'm 36, but in internet years, you're two generations ahead of me, so go back to your retirement home, grandpa, and leave this technology stuff to us young'uns.

That meme deserves an XKCD

I feel the same way. I'm 25, and if I thought I knew it all, I wouldn't be here. I consider all of you my peers, and feel like I'm missing out on the HN experience by not engaging you all. I plan to rectify this in 2011.

I feel like I learn a lot from the experiences of the 'older' crowd, as they seem to have enough stabilityto take more risks with their ideas, but I also learn a lot from the younger crowd who jump in regardless.

Although I don't think there were any surprises in the poll, I wouldn write it off as a useless post, because like eveything else that hits the stream, it kicks off some great conversation. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

Wow, I really expected the demographics to tilt towards my age group (early 30's). Looks like I was wrong.

Or they're actually being productive this afternoon.

11-20 seems like a pretty uninformative range, assuming you want to draw conclusions (maybe you don't!) from the results, as it is in this range that you experience the most noticeable increase in both maturity and knowledge.

11-15 and 16-20 would have been significantly more telling. (As an aside, this is especially strange considering ranges such as 41-45.)

Yeah I was just thinking the same thing. I'll change that. Thanks!

Message to the future: there were ~30 people who had voted 11-20 by the time the switch was made to break it up into two sections.

To figure out the actual distribution of people, you'll have to subtract 30 from the 16-20 range and then compare that with the 11-15 range, and then add back in the 30 votes distributed correctly.

I had looked at the poll just seconds after the switch had been made; There were only 11 people who had been transferred to the 16-20 range. (So the distribution isn't going to vary as significantly.)

Alright. I had checked ten minutes later and it was ~30, and I wasn't sure if anyone else had taken a count right after the change was made.

If we discount 30 votes from 16–20, at the current distribution (roughly 14 older teens to each younger one) that gives maybe two extra 11–15s.

Shout out to those > 66, may your passion for "teh codez" never grow old.

45 and still love to code. I still feel like I'm 25. I attribute this to exercise, a sense of humor and beer. (not necessarily in that order)

I'm 23 and it seems to me that this poll is missing 21-25 group. Or I'm indeed blind, that's also possible.

It's there, but it's hidden for some weird reason. It's marked as [dead].

Edit: Go to your profile and enable "showdead", and you will be able to see and vote on it.

I was wondering where my group was. Thanks for the hint!

I'd expect this group to be the highest ranked... why would this be hidden/dead?

Maybe one of the admins are 26-30 and didn't want any competition!! I kid. :)

I am 22 and still absorbing lisp, currently running through "ANSI Common Lisp" and learning how I can apply this language to potentially my own startup. Only been visiting ycombinator for a week now and I already love it! So much information that is useful. Finally registered today.

Darn, that was supposed to be an upvote :-|

HN really needs a way to correct votes. The arrows are hideously small on an iPhone.

Fixed.

There, made it up for you ;)

30, nearly starting to come down the other side of this curve

I'm going to guess that come twenty years time the curve will just have shifted with you.

So, really, you're just at the cutting edge :)

I find it hard to imagine sites like hn and reddit when the bulk of the tech savvy users are 40+.

I can make is scarier; most of the 20-somethings will be on the next great thing - and we will all be "old dudds using yesterdays tech" :)

I'm 21 and will graduate with a degree in CS at the end of the year. I'm fairly new to the HN community (127 days to be exact!) and just wish I had found this a little earlier on in my college career.

Get off my lawn!

Although I'm 57 I might as well be 27 for the amount of time I've spend developing and building start-ups. I played saxophone professionally until I was 40, then gave it up as just too much work. I must be a glutton for punishment.

I dunno. After spending a few years sitting at a keyboard with letters on it, workin' 'til two where they close the joint with the old "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," seems kind of attractive. Or would, if there weren't those little wetware alarm clocks always working their particular magic... (And I could still stay up that late on a consistent basis..)

That (saxing the sax) sounds awesome. Do you have any stories?

Is this the one time we old fogeys are allowed to complain that HN is getting more like Reddit every day? ;-)

51-55 Better than dead. Much.

It's funny how when you get here (I'm 47) you realize what a bunch of BS all the age complaints are. You appreciate life so much more, and -- speaking for myself -- are as full of energy and ideas as ever.

Based on what I have seen of old people, people tend to become more of what they are so if you are generally a happy person, you should be more so as you get older.

Which means I will be terrible in my old age...

Or you can change. Now. It's not only possible, it's not really that hard.

Are there seriously 0-10 year old HN readers?

More likely there are n number HN readers, where n<26, who have a snarky sense of humor, and (26-n) HN readers below the age of 10.

Why not n<=26? :D

Will be this 39 in March this year and started a company. Planning to be a micropreneur and hopefully generate income from the company by 40. Self-sustaining by 41.

I'm 22, almost 23, and as such I am one of the young guys here. I've already done a lot at 22 years of age, but reading the posts here and seeing what some of the older people have accomplished is just simply amazing. It is always fantastic to read someone else's take on various different ideas especially those who are older than me.

I currently work at a small startup with people who have been in the game for a long time (I along with 1 other programmer are in our 20's the rest of the team is 40's or more) and it is an absolute blast learning new things at an extremely rapid pace.

It was after only 3 months at this small startup, in the middle of things (I'd done my own startup but this was when the ah ha moment happened) I realised that my passion was to be a part of a small team that changed the world, and not be stuck in a big corporation somewhere chugging away with no real way to differentiate myself from everyone else there.

That is why I am really happy to be a part of the HN community where I can learn more information, and hopefully someday soon in the near future I too will have a successful small business with millions of dollars in revenue.

Glad to see I'm in the majority. Sometimes I feel on the old side of the industry at 26.

I'm 20. I acquired a 4-year degree using black magic and work somewhere in Palo Alto.

And all this time I've been studying.

I'll be 29 in a couple of months. Started programming in high school but didn't get really serious about it till college. Have been working professionally for 6 years. Overall I'm proud of what I've accomplished but after scouring this site for even my limited amount of time, I wonder if I've been slacking too much as I don't consider myself a senior developer. Some days I wonder if I'll feel like I'll ever reach that point, given just how much there is to know out there.

For background: I'm 23, starting my PhD. Have had about a year of industry work (including a game company - actual interesting work). I have a few startup ideas (trying hard to execute), and I'm interviewing with Google (although I failed last year, and I might just wanna do my PhD). I wasn't passionate about programming until last year actually, after I started reading more.

People say that the smartest people are uncertain of their own abilities, because they see the bigger picture. They are the ones that can see just how deep this rabbit hole goes. Infinity can be a daunting thing. I guess it can either make you give up, or push harder.

I'd hazard a guess to say you are on track (although who am I to say) :) never become a senior developer, just move along the spectrum of a curious, 'young' programmer mind.

Happy birthday in a couple of months :)

I think a second dimension on this discussion would be fascinating. "How old are you AND how old do you feel?" Although I'm not sure how to word that just right.

For instance, capturing situations like: Are you a 65 year old grandfather that feels younger through the interaction with the core crowd here? Are you a 12 year old aspiring hacker that seeks the maturity of the seemingly 20-something base contrary to the peers of their own age?

Why were you wondering about this in the SHOWER?!

The shower is a great place to think about all sorts of things. The constant din of the water falling down, the warm water, and the fact that you are forced to stop for a few minutes give your subconscious mind a bit of time to organize itself and reveal what it's been pondering.

I'd rather like to see pg answer what age demographics comprise YC's start-ups. That data would be awesome (and probably daunting).

In one of the 2005 classes, everyone was 23 or younger:

http://www.paulgraham.com/sfp.html

Not specific to YC, he has this to say about older startup founders:

The other cutoff, 38, has a lot more play in it. One reason I put it there is that I don't think many people have the physical stamina much past that age. I used to work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every night, seven days a week. I don't know if I could do that now.

Also, startups are a big risk financially. If you try something that blows up and leaves you broke at 26, big deal; a lot of 26 year olds are broke. By 38 you can't take so many risks-- especially if you have kids.

From: http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

FWIW:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126923

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=342635

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039

21-25's death is poisoning results :)

I'm 15, seemingly a small minority.

19 years old. Currently working towards a bachelor's degree (I graduate in spring 2012 yay!). I'll be applying to PhD programs next semester and hopefully working at the boundaries of human knowledge will help me solve some cool problems :)

Several close friends of mine are just about to finish or have just finished their PhDs. Before you go that route, you should track down postdocs in your field and then have an honest conversation with them about their job prospects and quality of life. In some fields, there are so many more postdocs in the workforce than available professorships and industry research jobs that new PhDs are barely making a living. Needless to say, they are also having trouble getting any research done.

I'd have thought that more appropriate ranges might have been:

  8-15
  16-31
  32-63

Which are a bit broad, but why not:

Or something like that :-)

I haven't tried, because I don't want to throw off the results, but it looks like you can vote more than once (only the arrow for your selection disappears). If that is the case, consider this a bug report.

It would be interesting to see how this curve developers over time. Is the audience getting older or are young people filling the ranks of older members that left the site?

Great to see some young folk lurking here. These whipper snappers will have a head-start over us 30/40/50 somethings.

TL/DR: "There was nothing like Hacker News in my day"

Waited until this morning to respond so I could answer 26-30. Wouldn't want to be counted with all those "early 20-somethings"

Hey Timothy, Emrah here. How did you set up this poll? I'd like to do one. (I answered both and found useful) Thank you:)

http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

Don't abuse it!

It's worth noting that there's a karma minimum one must have to be able to create polls, so emrahyalaz won't be able to create one.

Thank you! Thank you! You are an honorable person of good taste:)

I shall NOT abuse it. I respect this place too much, and PG is a hero of mine. I've been reading every word he wrote since the Dilbert Cube days. every. single. word:)

Bar chart of the results:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58785/2175588.PNG

Amazing to see there are 500+ ppl in the 20-30 range.

Curios If i could link a poll of how many are married in the respective agr groups ?

Except there isn't a 20-30 range, though I expected 20-24 and 25-29. The poll maker didn't use typical 0-based ranges and thus ended with the awkward 66+ option.

Interesting that there are 10 year olds.

18 years old and been working professionally for almost 3 years (since I was 16) :)

Turned 26 yesterday! Started work last week. In a whole new category now!

It just hit me that from last month I am in 26-30. And its scary.

Woohoo, another ten years, and then I'll be in about the center!

You can't be 20-26?

Would be great if someone made diagram out of this.

25 and not allowed to vote! DISCRIMINATION!

Interesting to see some young people here!

Where is 21-25?

Looks like we lost the 21-25 category.

I suddenly feel so old at 36

:-O

Seriously, anyone in the 0-10 range?

I'll be 17 in a couple of weeks.

It should look this perhaps:

0 - 8

8 - 16

16 - 32

32 - 64

64 - 128

Where is 21-25??? I'm 22.

What happened to 21-25?

Where is 21-25?

21-25 please?

22-25

I'm old :(

26-30

1977!!

37, here.

Very nice!

I'm also curious about the ratio of genders as well: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603

Someone pointed out (in the gender poll) that HN allows more than 1 vote on a poll at a time so sorry for splitting it up! I had no idea.

there must be a poll 'where are you from', i'd like to know how much people here are from Russia like i am. couldn't google it.. ?

I can't wait til I turn 66 knowing that by my next birthday I'll become 11 again. ;)

Almost 16 :)

im 20

Missing option: "I am eternal."

Choose the 66+ option

I'm 25 and I just upvoted everyone who had negative scores because they listed their age. :-)

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