deleted_account

That just sounds like journalism to me, so: "Yes, it's ok."

Are people surprised that real-time image analysis has been commodified or that local governments are already applying this technology ahead of policy discussions?

Clarifying edit: I'm not being disingenuous. I may be too close to the technology to grok why this thread is a down-vote minefield. Running OpenCV on an Arduino board is years-old proof-of-concept stuff and now I have an AWS DeepLens sitting on my desk that can name which of my neighbors walked their dog past my house.

I see a parallel between this and digital rights management. Eliminating probabilistic fingerprinting for browsers is always going to be a technical arms race.

This paper discusses the details:

http://yinzhicao.org/TrackingFree/crossbrowsertracking_NDSS1...

You can also visit their site to see it in action: http://uniquemachine.org/

The classic conundrum of: "Do you want my _first_ answer or my _best_ answer?"

I completely agree it is a dysfunctional work environment where the engineer's only recourse to having a sane schedule is taking their "manager to a dark alley."

That said, framing the problem as: "those skills are not skills we teach anyone" is the problem.

Once you can recognize a skill gap, you can fix it. You can be the teacher.

"The Most Common Problem In Software Development And How To Fix It"

https://youtu.be/i08A2uTDoa8

I think the author's premise is that interruption aversion is symptomatic of how many programmers work and that there are habits one can develop to minimize the impact of external distractions. The presentation from Tom Stuart goes into much more detail.

My personal experiences have led to a waning sympathy for coworkers complaining about too many meetings or interruptions. It's a reactive complaint. The most productive engineers on my teams also tend to be the most disciplined in managing their tasks, guarding their calendars, and employing every Do Not Disturb option available.

To be honest, I think for a lot of developers the premise is already pretty flattering. I'd love to see a presentation titled: "You Were Not That Productive To Begin With, or Why That Fortnite Stream on Your Second Monitor Might Not Be Helping Things."

Eh, maybe.

I'm wary of romanticizing the situation. There's an island, once privately owned but bought back by the Italian government for several million €, which is part of a national park set up to preserve the ecosystem.

And by serendipity, we have Morandi, shipwrecked some thirty years ago and with no background in botany or biology, who's set up as steward-for-life on a place any grad student would give their left arm to caretake.

The guy lives in a literal (and littoral, ha!) paradise in a situation so bizarrely irreproducible one can only think, "Yeah, must be a nice life..."

Would we have the same warm fuzzy — "That guy's got it aaallll figured out" — feeling if NatGeo wrote the article about the once-owner, Michael Harte, bivouacking on his private island?

The article definitely appeals to anyone with a Robinson Crusoe fantasy. Framed less generously, you could be reading about a squatter on public land supported by bi-weekly food shipments.

Somewhat related, the homesteading culture is pretty vibrant and full of tech savvy folks like Jaimie Mantzel. His island fortress series is fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1p7jFXjL7Q0qMii08oAeAQ

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic — it's very clearly a general backup system: "Amazon Drive offers secure cloud storage for your photos, files, videos, music, and more. Back up your files to the cloud and know that all of your documents are safe."

"Also can you look into getting a helicopter from new haven to jfk"

Concierge service for rich people.

Does anyone else consider these massive corporate arcologies short sighted? I mean, they're literally walling themselves off from the community under gigantic glass domes, an absurd design given the peninsula's mild Mediterranean climate.

Couldn't they consider something more, I don't know, _permeable_?

Though I have to admit the cyberpunk in me relishes the day we have smooth, windowless Googlecars shuttling 'plexmonks through automated checkpoints guarded by robotic Brinhounds.

Context: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/10/another-woman-in-gaming-fle...

Therein lies the beauty of these types of posts. They allow the reader to fill in the gaps with their own conclusions without the author risking actual opinion.

You can't expect actual content in these blog posts. It's vaguely self deprecating promotional post with a high-value name drop in the title crafted to get the link to the front page.

"I’m writing this because there’s a lot of widely read blogs from people who have had amazing success, but very few from people like myself, who are starting from the bottom."

$200K a year? That's the new definition of "starting from the bottom?"

This is like asking my employer to pay me in GBP instead of USD because their notes are prettier.

Prediction for 2014: a meta crypto-currency valued on the number of crypto-currencies in circulation.

This is amazing. This page should just be the top link on any Bitcoin discussion: "Guys, guys, guys, I'm feeling really bullish on Sexcoin. Does anyone have the Winklevoss' phone number?"

Ok, so we now have Bitcoin, Litecoin, and...Dogecoin, "an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide"

Can we officially declare that crypto-currencies have jumped the shark?

I would be interested in a blog post detailing the day-to-day mechanics of this.

HN has no sense of humor.

"could try to offer serious counterarguments about capitalism and value and wealth and compensation"

Nope. Not going to bother. I honestly see nothing exploitative in that job description. Exploitative is a 3 month C# developer position in Minnesota with no benefits. Exploitative is contracting at a _contractor_ for a tech giant. Exploitative is a bullpen of Java developers in Shenzhen working the fourth weekend in a row because some 26 year old Software Architect changed the spec. Again.

Time to trade videos. Go watch PA TV's interview process: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/new-hire-part-1

It's grueling, but I'd be damned if I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into after all that.

edit: I'm curious - and this shit's probably controversial - go read this: http://ycombinator.com/apply.html and tell me if you have the same visceral reaction with respect to exploiting software developers.

I somehow manage to watch that video once a year or so, but I am missing something. How does a presentation on how to collect payments as a freelancer apply to this?

Listen, I get the "charge more than you think you're worth," but I suspect there is a huge contingent of developers who would attach a significant dollar value to many of the intangible perks that PennyArcade has to offer.

Be sure to add in "Bed-wetters need not apply" or else you'll be sifting through a mountain of resumes.

This thread is full of 9-5 crybabies. I've interviewed at so many places where all these requirements are implied, but never spelled out. At least PA isn't coy about who they want to hire.

Outsourcing. Rows upon rows of software developers are sitting in Shenzhen right now working on virtual desktops based in the US.

Programmers live in this weird state of superimposition where things are both, "lol, i could build that in a weekend" and "Your budget is $10K!? You have no idea what's involved in building a website."

weaksauce