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fweespeech

1,915 karma · joined March 16, 2015

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fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
> You might consider Silly Valley salaries to be market rate but they're not.

I don't work in the Bay Area, NYC, or a similar location. I'm comparing my current location to Atlanta.

This is now the third time I've repeated this ITT, including the OP.

fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
Yes, but I don't live or work in the Bay Area.

The difference in rent/real estate is like $10k/year. I've been to Atlanta regularly for quite some time and I can assure you I know the exact difference in COLA as a result. ;)

fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
> If most companies are paying a certain salary, doesn't that imply that salary IS market rate?

In my particular case, the "market rate" at Location A is ~$40k higher (after COLA) than the "market rate" in Atlanta.

So, when I mean "market rate" I mean "My options at Location A + the options in Atlanta."

> I don't think you can directly compare salaries across cities even after factoring in cost of living since it ignores the fact some places are more desirable to live in than others and thus should command "premiums".

To be perfectly honest, I consider Atlanta vs. where I am now a wash in most respects and a $40k premium is simply too steep for the difference. It isn't like I live in the Bay Area where rent is $40k.

fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
Yeah, I'm sure they exist but everyone noped out at my current salary equivalent. So maybe its just my skillset isn't popular Atlanta or something about my personality turns people off in the Southeast vs. where I'm at now.
fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
Yeah, and I've had multiple internal recruiters for these companies nope out at my equivalent salary in Atlanta. Maybe its just something wrong with me in the view of companies in Atlanta vs. where I live now then.
fweespeech··on Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs
I'd be very cautious about Atlanta. Outside of Google, many of the companies there are wanting to pay salaries I'd consider substantially below market (even including COLA) compared to the other hubs.

That includes those fortune 500 companies (a couple of whom had internal recruiters bail when I mentioned my current salary + the COLA number). Cutting your real estate costs by $12-15k goes a long way but it doesn't magically cover $40k+ paycuts. It is good for employers (for instance, one guy was willing to disclose "I got two guys with Master degrees for $20k less than what you wanted.") but not so good for employees on the upper end of the pay scale. (i.e. above 6 figures outside of SF/NYC)

It is anecdotal, just my experience after looking to move there.

fweespeech··on I’ve Had a Cyberstalker Since I Was 12 (2016)
Yeah. It's not just you that has these problems but unfortunately not many people say much.

I just don't post images and dumped social media except for some random accounts unrelated to RL. (i.e. HN)

fweespeech··on Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined? Housing costs
> One thing this calculator also cannot take into account is risk: if you lose your job, or get hit by an economic crisis like the one on 2008, you have an added catastrophe. But even discarding that, there are always situations where its better to buy.

Of course. But if you invest your money you take the same risks also. There is a limit to how much risk you can really avoid long term.

fweespeech··on Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined? Housing costs
1) Read the web page I linked to.

2) It includes maintenance in that calculation as well as investment returns and a number of other items.

3) Please stop wasting other people's time because you are lazy. Its quite rude.

fweespeech··on Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined? Housing costs
> Most people would find a way for that surplus to turn into lattes, vacations, new cars, and large TVs rather than into shares of VTSAX, so for them, homeownership is a good idea, not because it's a better investment than equities, but because it's a better savings vehicle than nothing.

This is often not true.

I know its a popular belief with alot of millennial but anyone who has looked at a rent buy calculator quickly realizes for many areas (not the bay area / inflated housing markets beyond what the fundamentals support) buying still makes more sense than renting.

For instance, I'm considering a $325k purchase in an area where the equivalent rent is $1700/month.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...

Even with correcting the variables, the break even point is ~$1400/month if I sell in 5 years.

That is ~$3600/year in savings over 5 years or about the cost of replacing my car in the next 5 years.

fweespeech··on Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined? Housing costs
It isn't just the tech industry. Pretty much any massively wealthy family uses these effects to exploit their affect on the landscape for investment income.

Companies like the Irvine Company did this masterfully.

fweespeech··on A vulnerability rating of your IP address
Please just set up some sort of robots.txt related thing.

E-mailing every single company that does this is ridiculous.

fweespeech··on A vulnerability rating of your IP address
> What would you recommend, a fine, perhaps a stern talking to by the authorities?

I already stated a fine is more than sufficient. Or do you think you should be jailed for speeding on the freeway too?

Proportionality in relation to the offense is a thing.

fweespeech··on A vulnerability rating of your IP address
Thats an extreme overreaction to jail these people.

Sure, a fine if they don't follow robots.txt might be appropriate but jail? That is absurd.

fweespeech··on Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise
Because people would rather rely on gossip than facts. Its easier and requires no real effort.
fweespeech··on Largest Bitcoin mixer, Bitmixer.io, closes down
> What is the proper way to validate credit cards? A) If you are asking that question, you really should use something like https://stripe.com/radar

But assuming you don't want to:

1) Validate against the standard checksum formulas (this catches legit typos)

1b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm

1c) Regardless of what happens next, send an order confirmation and play dead.

1d) If it fails any of the following steps, send a politely worded "issue with the order" e-mail and to contact you (after 24 hours). Use a reason that sounds generic rather than credit card specific.

2) Check GeoIP and compare against potentially geographic space. (this catches VPNs, etc. For instance, shipping to a US freight forwarder from a Russian IP is likely highly probably fraud. The customer can call/e-mail you if they get caught in this.)

2b) Services like https://www.maxmind.com/en/minfraud-services qualify for this.

3) Check address locations against known US freight forwarders / PO boxes / UPS Stores / etc. Force additional customer verification, like for IP addresses.

4) To validate repeat card usage, fingerprint cards that were successfully charged and you didn't receive a chargeback after the window closes:

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/63248/hashing-a...

You can use Stripe/Braintree tokens or your own implementation.

5) If it fails step 4:

5a) Run whatever business heuristics/signals that might be true for your customer base. Too specific to get into really.

5b) Actually charge the card and see what happens. If its declined by the credit card company, send the generic contact e-mail.

fweespeech··on Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
https://agency.reuters.com/en/products-services/products/new...

Yeah they sell the wire service and its not really publicly available.

The closest free equivalent is:

https://www.reuters.com/theWire

fweespeech··on Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
You've seen editorialized headlines from Reuter's wire service? Or Reuter's "news" page?

Those are separate things.

fweespeech··on Can we get to 350 ppm? Yes we can
Realistically, extreme negative emissions are a practical impossibility. Zero emissions are as well.

We still have an opportunity to reduce the extent of the damage. Major climate change is likely inevitable at this point as, realistically, the modest measures taken to date are insufficiently binding to be effective.

I don't think we've past the point of no return, yet, but we will certainly do so at some point given the real cost of taking action appears to grow faster than the political will to take action.

fweespeech··on U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycotting Israel
Nations and individuals are not equivalent by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.

Or do you genuinely think all rectangles are squares as well? Simply because one is a subset of the other does not make the equivalent things that should be treated identically in all circumstances.

Permitting individuals to make their choices (i.e. On the basis of religion or any other philosophical belief) without fear of discrimination in a Democracy is critical to the proper function of a Democracy. Otherwise, oppression of minority positions is too easily used to destroy that minority's ability to exercise their franchise.

Preventing the boycotting of nation states is not equivalently necessary to the proper function of civilized society. Nations are the outcomes of decisions made by very, very large numbers of people in aggregate combined with centuries of history. Opposing those outcomes are sometimes politically necessary.

fweespeech··on AlphaBay, the Largest Online 'Dark Market,' Shut Down
Yeah, there might already be one or two of those in existence already. :\

At the end of the day, the "outlaw" nation states are the ones that are going to be operating these things and then use the money to fund their black budgets.

It doesn't matter if they can be identified as long as they can change the bitcoin to cash in an allied country.

fweespeech··on How the Web Became Unreadable (2016)
Nah, the core problem on is the misuse of opacity, too many shades of one color (such as the light gray in the article) instead of relying on weight variation, dividers, italics, etc.

Take this block of text in the article:

"I thought my eyesight was beginning to go. It turns out, I’m suffering from design."

Instead of leaving it a legible black and have the divider + italics convey the separation from the article...

They went with rgba(0,0,0,0.5) on a font that is hard to read on a white background with that shade of a gray. Try removing those sort of CSS rules from the Wired Article and you'll find it much more legible.

They repeat this sin whenever they quote someone such as:

A color is a color isn’t a color… …not to computers…and not to the human eye.

They also put a ton of whitespace around the quote which is already enough to separate it. The absurdly annoying light gray is annoying and not required.

fweespeech··on The Man Who Got Americans to Eat Pollock
Yes.

http://www.tridentseafoods.com/Products/Detail?pid=25546ab0-...

http://www.ljsilvers.com/news-events/item/117-introducing-ha...

If its some kind of white fish and its not named, its frequently something like pollock.

fweespeech··on Stop writing PHP like it's 2009
As someone whose parent company is a Java shop....Plz no.

The amount of boilerplate in "good" Java code is substantial (like 20-30% more lines) compared to "good" PHP in practice. At least imho/experience.

fweespeech··on California’s Housing Crisis Reaches a ‘Breaking Point’
> It seems though that most people want to live where rents are already the highest (which is why rents are high!).

Personally, I believe that is an artifact of zoning laws + commute distance.

Most people I know rationally choose housing based on commute distance for an individual/couple + price.

fweespeech··on Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less
> Two year tenures isn't job hopping. It's a reflection of how this industry works. Very few companies offer sufficient breadth and depth of product complexity, career advancement, or other similar things to make it worthwhile. I'd say the sweet spot is 2-4 years, except at very large companies (e.g. Google) (EDIT:) or companies which are developing complicated products with physical engineering or regulatory factors complicating development. Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. "tech lead on product X" for more than a year or two), is an indication to me of someone who either isn't capable of stretching himself or doesn't want to. Anything less, especially if more than one project per job exists, indicates an inability to see a project through to maintenance or someone who is easily bored.

I don't work for a large company, my job title hasn't changed, and my salary has doubled from the starting salary over 5 years.

Sometimes stasis exists because valuable people are paid extremely well not to leave. So well they can't actually find a job that will compensate them comparably despite repeated attempts to find one.

Why exactly should people like me leave when even places like <insert large company> want to pay me 10% less than I make now?

fweespeech··on Getting Started with Event Sourcing in Postgres
I'm not sure but the term is pretty old.

https://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/EventSourcing.html

This is an article I have from 10+ years ago and its still roughly the same way I do it now. I've never needed to scale it beyond something like Postgres or Redis.

fweespeech··on ZFS Is the Best Filesystem For Now
> Who has enough money to get a mutli-TB SSD for SOHO?!

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-State/dp...

I was contemplating a build with 2 of these in a RAID 1 configuration for my next homelab server.

Personally I run a gaming (windows) desktop at home and an always-on UPS-backed homelab server that handles minor ops tasks (mostly backing up side projects and some ETL) + provides dev VMs.

My home office "budget" is ~$2k/year. My gaming/work desktop is ~4 years old, represents ~$2.5k of that budget. Monitors/peripherials/desk/chair generally eats another $2k and are of a similar age. I generally spend ~$2.5k on the dev server. I then usually toss ~$1k into a laptop.

I could easily see someone who purely works from home (rather than 1-2 days a week) operating with a larger budget and genuinely needing a ZFS setup of 2TB SSDs.

Realistically, $2-3k/year is 2-5% of the sort of salaries we see on HN given we make a living at this sort of thing...it isn't surprising people would spend that kind of money to me.

https://hurdlr.com/blog/software-web-developer-tax-deduction...

Keep in mind "business equipment" certainly qualifies for such a dev server so you won't be paying taxes on it if you itemize as well.

fweespeech··on House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps
China is ~2%.

US is ~4% once off budget spending is accounted for. The actual is ~3%.

fweespeech··on California solar power output sometimes exceeds predictions
If 65 days of the year you charge and 300 days you don't, it likely isn't cost effective.

Peak time is also during the daytime which means baseload power sources like Gas/Hydro/Nuclear/etc. are likely fulfilling demand at night just fine.

Most likely you are charging during winter and discharging during heat waves in the summer which may not be a viable business model despite the large delta in energy prices.

At least that is my understanding, I'm not an expert. xD

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