jdelsman

I think there is little to no correlation between a programmer being "employable" and their level of education. I have no (finished) degrees from any universities, however, I've been employed time and time again, and I continue to innovate and have a drive for learning. That being said, some fields simply require a degree. I would feel a little uneasy (scratch that: a lot uneasy) about seeing a doctor or a lawyer who was self-taught.

This is all pointless if you can't afford school in the first place. I know too many people who fork out $40,000-160,000 for a four-year college degree, and for what? Most of them are "unemployable" as soon as they exit with their shiny, expensive piece of paper. This is why I chose to stop going to school and focus on making myself "employable" by learning new languages, new techniques, marketing myself, getting better and better at what I already know how to do, and focusing on gaining experience in the work force.

This sounds like what you need to do.

This is utterly amazing. I have never been so excited for reddit posts...

This will allow us to provide more real-time data to users without having to worry about going over our limit. Thanks, Linode!

Agreed, and there are many cases where a robot will remember to do such things for me before I will even think about it (artificial intelligence) whereas I may forget to book my ticket, or I may look in my refrigerator at dinner time just to see it is empty.

This is a pretty good post, but I think a lot of these things can be said of any start up, not just of a startup going through YC. Interesting read, though. Can't wait to try myself.

For me, I have come to this realization after making a move to a large company (Motorola Mobility) from a small one. I have been working for them for two months, and I am already hating it. Being placed in China puts a whole additional layer on top of the typical bureaucracy you see in these large companies. Tons of red tape everywhere!

Needless to say, my experience is very much the same. I see lots of unnecessary office politics, the inability to get anything done at breakneck speed as you would at a startup, and for the most part total lack of innovation. It is really disheartening, and as the OP put it, makes you go home at the end of the day very disheartened.

So happy! Thanks guys! Upgrading now ;)

I wonder if one could get these to work for other browsers as well, or what is the browser degradation method for SSEs?

Yeah, but are there any performance improvements? I'll be waiting to see the blog posts about it that are undoubtedly forthcoming.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's perfect for a feature I'm working on. Hmm...

Don't store passwords. Use OpenID/OAuth/XAuth, etc.

Yeah, you may as well just run an EC2 node with memcached on it...

Indeed, I wonder what the inactive percentage is for a site like Facebook.

First line:

"Modified ecstasy could one day have a role to play in fighting some blood cancers, according to scientists."

Role. Haha.

Thanks, Twitter!

Probably not, but I would have to say, THIS is the kind of stuff we should be awarding US patents to...

Best thing I've seen all week. Yet another nail in the coffin for image assets on the web. Thanks, CSS3!

I completely agree with the last line here. All too often I hear about people saying "I will miss my friends/coworkers/boss/family [if I leave my job]". Life is too short, and they'll move on. Just do it.

I think developers should be conscious of the underlying performance issues/workarounds of their platforms and technologies and implement those early. There is nothing worse than wasting capital early just because you have to throw servers at something once you hit exponential growth.

Yeah, I did that a long time ago. Along with iMessage, I can communicate with almost anyone in the world for free. AT&T? Bah, who needs 'em.

This is awesome. I was going to put my blog onto GitHub (you know, being a hacker it just makes sense since I already pay for it anyway), but it is intriguing to be able to put it on S3, especially with CloudFront.

I really wish countries wouldn't fuel China's fire(wall). Statements like this by idiotic prime ministers and presidents, etc. just make it seem like the fight toward freedom of information is one not really worth fighting for when its not in a particular politician's best interest.

That is exactly what is happening in China...

Also, the culture here is much different. In fact, two different people on two separate occasions on the three monotonous conference calls we've had on the acquisition have asked how it could "possibly work." We don't have slides or teeter-totters or 20% time or any of that nonsense. Everyone here is about a massive amount of procedural discipline, huge timeframes for projects, and that's all they know.

This is true, as well. In my short time (< 2 months) at Motorola in Beijing, I can tell you that very few of the "engineers" here would be hired at Google.

This is true. The CEO of Motorola Mobility came on a conference call with us (here at Motorola in Beijing) and told us that they didn't really know much more than we did, and to stay tuned. They have told us to "refrain from gossip or speculation", as the deal is still very fresh and far from closed.

I love this concept. Smart guys offering up advice to fledgling companies and entrepreneurs looking to do something great. $10 for 10 minutes is a steal for such an opportunity, especially because you could prepare a few questions well in advance.

Server sent events and WebSockets are the +1 for me!

It more likely reveals that "Doug" and "Jules" are the same 14-year-old in his mom's basement.

"Barring any show stopping bugs, Rails 3.1.0 will be released on August 30th."

Thank goodness. Bring on the 3.1.0 love, tenderlove ;)