nick_urban

Companies will never value employees as much as employees value themselves.

If programmers can get a promotion and a 20% raise by switching employers, and a 3% raise by staying, why would they stay?

I find it funny that startups would expect to attract "missionaries" when most of them lack missions of any substance.

Living comfortably on little money is a skill. MMM calls it the "frugality muscle". If you don't understand how to do it, it's not because it's impossible. It's just that you haven't learned how.

In parallel to the skill acquisition there is a change in mindset, replacing the ideal of comfort with the ideals of strength and self-sufficiency.

Anyone I've talked to who commutes in rush hour traffic absolutely hates it, yet most of them don't move or change jobs.

I suspect it's mostly fear and not love that keeps people commuting from the suburbs -- fear of other people's judgments, because living in an apartment is often considered a lower status indicator than owning a home.

Yup, pixl97 is correct. I travel for business to cities that are not pedestrian friendly. It's kind of ridiculous when you consider the amount it costs, but it's an expected, reimbursable business expense.

I have a somewhat different approach. I generally either prefer to get a "shit" version of something or a super-premium version. If the thing is simple and timeless and easy to transport, I opt for the timeless route. If I think I might not keep it for more than a year or two, I usually get the cheap one.

Midrange "luxury" items seem to be barely better quality than the best-cheap-options available, while most of their cost seems to go to marketing (or styling, in the case of clothes/fashion products). They also quickly depreciate.

Super premium items, however, usually retain their value and are significantly more satisfying to hold/use. The place where this has been the _least_ true, in my experience, is with electronics. All electronics depreciate quickly. There is no timeless smart phone.

Incidentally, Kia has been doing a great job lately. I rent a car almost every week, and after comparing the Kia Forte with the Jetta and the Optima with the Passat, I prefer the Kia in both cases. The VW automatic transmissions don't seem to shift very smoothly, and I actually found the trim levels to be comparable and the Kias more fun to drive.

The naturalistic fallacy is not the idea that "natural things are better". It is a criticism of deriving ethical principals from natural/physical facts.

To some extent, we always have to extrapolate from the short-term into the long term, but the point is to remember that we are doing so, and to reduce our confidence accordingly.

Still, I love XKCD's take on it:

https://xkcd.com/605/

If you want to improve your depression and clarify your thoughts, I recommend practicing awareness meditation for 15 minutes every morning and/or evening. After a few weeks, the results can be dramatic.

A transcript of the brilliant speech by Heinz von Foerster titled "Ethics and Second Order Cybernetics". When I read this I found it truly amazing, because it effortlessly connected the existential questions I was facing with the formalism of mathematics and the insight of the humanities, all tied into a beautiful circle.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html

Wow, your post became very interesting to me in the last two paragraphs. Have you considered joining organizations that do make demands on you (and hence keep you connected to society), but not for financial reasons? Social clubs would work, but I would expect more meaning would be found in community service, religious organizations, artistic projects, etc.

Notably empty category: Business ethics.

This is the most pressing and actionable information I have ever gleaned from a news site. Thank you!

My message must have been unclear, because you think you disagree with me, but I completely agree with you :)

Let me just say: math is wonderful. Science is wonderful. You're absolutely right that math provides a rich source of models and metaphors for understanding the most diverse domains. Everyone should study them!

Yet I don't feel the need to sing the praises of math and science. Why? Because nobody doubts their value. But people do question the value of the humanities. They even imply that they are worthless and should be eliminated. And that seriously concerns me, because in my opinion, they are invaluable. They represent a huge portion of our cultural inheritance, and yes, they teach things that are not found in STEM subjects.

Two important things that the humanities teach are history (knowing how we got here and why) and what I previously called "critical thinking". I realize now that that term is too ambiguous. People think I mean something like "good thinking" or "novel thinking", which are certainly present in STEM as well.

What I intended is much more specific than that. It's the ability to question our assumptions about ends. Science asks about how things are. The humanities ask about how things ought to be. It's an alltogether different domain of inquiry.

Whether it is literature, philosophy, painting, or theater, a humanistic work proposes an ideal for human life. Over time, great works in the humanities dramatically alter our collective understanding of what is good and worthwhile. They help us ponder our destiny.

Popular culture does not do that for us. It is driven by business interests and rarely makes detours into the pursuit of serious questions. The humanities do. They are our sincerest and most persistent attempt to get to the bottom of what really matters.

I'm not a scientist, so it's harder to speak to that, but as an engineer, I can definitely say that engineers are in general more interested and more skilled at asking questions of "how" rather than questions of "why".

When I studied the humanities, I read Euclid, Galileo, Darwin, etc. The history of science is an essential part of the humanities. Unfortunately, it is not part of "STEM" in the sense that politicians use that term.

Scientific revolutions are definitely a case of "natural philosophy", but that differs dramatically from "normal science" as described, for example, in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I am likewise concerned that movement towards a jobs-oriented STEM curriculum will actually retard the progress of the sciences, by producing more functionaries and fewer deep-thinking scientists capable of innovation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science

They are legion, but here are a few: - a less informed citizenry - increasing fundamentalism - increasing conformity - the loss of high culture - the triumph of materialism and external symbols over internal development - religion and politics even more dominated by strident name-calling

These things are happening already, and I attribute that partially to the fact that the humanities have already been gutted, intellectually as well as financially.

There's a lot of thinking in engineering, but not much critical thinking.

The type of thinking involved in STEM is mostly instrumental rather than critical. It's about mastering techniques and learning "how".

Critical thinking, on the other hand, is about asking questions, especially reflective questions that are more "why" than "how". It's about examining taken-for-granted assumptions and considering alternative perspectives.

In general, it's much easier to see your assumptions when you are confronted with people who have very different ones. Every age has its dogmas. Studying history, philosophy, and foreign cultures usually opens our eyes to them.

The idea that a university education is only for job training is poisonous. The humanities teach critical thinking and broaden students' perspectives in a way that STEM programs, in general, completely fail to do.

If we were to convert to a STEM-only curriculum, I would be gravely concerned for our future.

Among the HN crowd, and especially those who dislike working for others, I'm surprised there isn't more of a focus on early retirement. If you make an upper-middle class salary, it's not difficult to become financially independent in a decade, even if you don't "strike it big".

Here's a great article by a programmer-turned-blogger about how savings rate affects time-to-retirement:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

Bespoke Post is looking for a full-time junior / intermediate Ruby and JS developer

Location: New York City (no remote, no visa sponsorship)

Are you an intermediate web developer who is ready to take their skills to the next level? Do you appreciate style and craftsmanship? Bespoke Post is a nimble company with real revenue, doing things nobody else is doing in ecommerce. You'll have the chance to level up your dev skills and to exert significant influence on our technical direction.

Please be familiar with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, TDD, SQL, git, etc.

Apply here: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/33447/rails-and-javasc...

Or email me: nick [at] bespokepost.com

New York City / Full-time (flexible) or contract-to-fulltime. Local only.

Do you like the finer things? Bespoke Post is hiring a full-stack Ruby developer.

We offer mentorship, swag, a fun work environment, and a chance to make an impact in an innovative commercial space.

If you're interested, please send me an example of your work (including source code) and say a bit about what you're looking for.

Desired competencies: Rails, TDD, git, SQL, A/B testing, HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.

nick@bespokepost.com

https://www.bespokepost.com

You can get many of the benefits of SPDY today by using Cloudflare:

http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-spdy

Bespoke Post is hiring a Rails engineer, as well as marketing and design interns.

Location: New York City

Part time or full-time.

Bespoke Post is a fast-growing startup in the e-commerce / subscription space. People often say we're like a high-end Birch Box for men, except we sell things like decanters, shaving sets, charcuterie, coffee.

Have a look at some of our previous products: https://www.bespokepost.com/box?b

We're a small team in a jovial, supporting environment. Everyone has the opportunity to contribute across the board if they're so inclined.

Feel free to write me directly: nick@bespokepost.com

https://www.bespokepost.com/careers?b

I wonder if the two groups are

1. the ones who discovered the "Slow" setting in preferences, and

2. the ones who didn't.

When the transition is set to Fast, I find it very jarring. When it's set to slow, I barely notice it.

'Spend time with people who want to have the kind of life you want to have.'

This is a great motto if you actually know what you want. If not, you might choose the wrong people and end up with something that doesn't make you happy.

Also be careful that you don't cut the people out of your life who would have given you an important perspective (or would have had your back).

Being with smart people is good. Being in an echo chamber full of self-important opportunists is not.

Arts and Letters Daily collects links to a variety of interesting articles, mostly from the humanities.

http://www.aldaily.com

BMI is a misleading indicator in this case. It doesn't differentiate by body composition at all (e.g. fat vs muscle).

I doubt very much that adding muscle to an underweight person would decrease that person's life expectancy. Probably it would improve it (the health benefits of exercise are well known). Either way, it would improve his quality of life.

I just finished a year of living out of a suitcase. I was pretty careful in choosing what clothing to bring, but even still, there were lots of things I barely used.

Minimalism takes time to perfect.

And for those who are wondering: nobody commented on my wardrobe.

The most blunt approach is not always the best.

People know how to read between the lines.

The biggest take-away for me is that we are changing the way we do... pretty much everything.

Two things I noticed:

1. There is a big shift towards convenience and broader participation.

2. An increasing proportion of our activities are conducted through smart phones and tablets instead of going somewhere or using a device specifically designed for a given purpose. Many activities are becoming "just another app" and losing their traditional context.

Finally, there's a cautionary message about US debt. The disturbing chart of US entitlement and interest spending vs. revenue. At the current rate, in 2025, the government will be spending more on entitlements and interest alone (NOT taking into account government spending on defense, education, etc.) than they have revenue.

Between Socrates and Hardy lies is a long tradition of "Apologetics", the intellectual defense of beliefs or actions (especially religious ones).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics