rday

Is Strava really being greedy here? Last year at this time, software developers were jumping ship in every company to get huge raises at other companies. Salaries went through the roof. Now many tech companies are laying folks off.

What other options are there when you staff demands huge raises or leaves for greener pastures?

Flyover also helped me connect with groups that I would see riding in other directions. Since flyover was made opt-in, I haven't gotten any use out of it.

Opt-in is probably a really good idea, even though it killed the feature. I really liked that feature. But yea, it was too easy to abuse.

Are you able to see any frequent routes using the global heat map?

I did, and it was! I was short on time. I think stretching to 5 days would be perfect. I missed a lot of really cool towns due to time constraints. But that just means I can do it again and have a totally new experience :)

I just finished a ride from outside DC to Pittsburgh over 3 days, ~365 miles(587km). So 10% of Lachlan's ride. I had saddle pain after day 1, so I stood on the pedals more. This quickly became knee pain, due to the extra exertion on my joints. So I transitioned between standing and sitting, and then my shoulders and arms started hurting :)

Mark Beaumont[0] has said something along the lines of "fix every problem early". I should have gotten chamois cream instead of standing up.

Anyway, all that to say I have no idea how Lachlan could do this without falling apart. Really incredible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Beaumont_(cyclist)

Wireless Registry - http://wirelessregistry.com/ | Washington DC / Reston VA | Full Time

We use Go, C++ and a little bit of Python to analyze and add intelligence to the IoT.

We are using Cassandra and Solr to handle millions of writes an hour (hoping to increase!).

We are looking for people interested in learning and trying new things. The only requirement is an interest in distributed computing.

If you want to talk, my email is in my profile!

> I. How do you calculate a price for what you do?

Work in the industry you want to freelance in first. This way you find out how much clients value your work. Then you know what to charge.

> II. How do you write a proposal?

Work in the industry you want to freelance in first. Learn how the proposal writers do their job and what clients expect to see. Improve on it.

> III. How do you draft a contract?

With a lawyer who has experience in the industry you want to freelance in.

I supported a family freelancing for a long time, about 6 years. It's terrible. If you are unsure of how to do something, you have to wonder what value you are really adding. Learn it first. Then execute it as a freelancer.

I'd really like to see a study specific to female happiness with children. I live in the US, and I think men and women's experience with children is entirely different.

When my wife worked, she missed our kids tremendously. Almost 75% of her take home went to day care. She was pretty miserable.

Now she stays home. She gets a lot of off-hand comments from other friends with kids about "how bored they would be if they stayed home". Or from friends without kids about "how they feel like they are doing something with their lives".

Now she feels like she isn't doing enough with her life.

Maybe she needs thicker skin, or maybe the societal pressure for women is immense.

Men working is expected by society. IME, the dads I know who stay home get more of an "awesome bro!" type response when they say they stay home.

I just feel like no matter what I do, I will feel happy with kids. No matter what my wife does, she feels like it isn't good enough.

[Edit: so many links to books! I've exhausted my audible credits for the month. Thanks for the support!]

Pushing him out wouldn't be too hard? This sounds like a peach of a work environment.

I'm in a situation like this right now actually. However, I'm the lazy developer. All situations are different though, so I doubt I could help much with specifics.

My advice would be to work your hardest to understand this other person's point of view. Maybe they don't realize something that you do. Maybe the communication is bad. Maybe you need to rage it out for 10 minutes to find out, honestly, where the communication lapse is.

Unless they are just out drinking instead of working, it is very possible they are just not in the right place (in life) to work in a startup. That is a hard thing to admit in this climate, but it is very common.

As a bitter old dev with many failed startups behind me, I find this a tad insulting. This isn't an attack response, but maybe I can provide some perspective from the other side.

I work really hard. I organize multiple meetups. I give talks. I do open source(not well, but I try). I have a full time job making way more than the "status quo" working from my basement.

"Founders" are very quick to discard all of this, and ask me to put my full efforts into their idea for this equity concept. They tend to provide no incentive other than how their idea is the one that will make it.

I'm very motivated. Especially when I see the results of my years of effort everyday. Why throw this all away to work on somebody else's vision of success?

I agree with what you're saying, and this is probably why I don't hold a management position anywhere.

This also mirrors my experience with startups. I've been lied to about money many times to get me to keep working. The only things the owners care about is how they look to investors.

I would love to see your consulting model. You speak as if keeping a full sales pipeline while making multiple clients happy is a simple thing.

I'll agree that a single person consultancy is 0 risk. I can accept a job offer tomorrow and stop accepting new clients.

But growing your consultancy is just as risky as any other business, if not more so. You don't have a wide range of low paying clients, like a SaaS model. You have a few high paying clients. Any one of them leaving (or not paying) directly affects you and your employees.

I live in Washington DC, so I see this constantly. A large government contractor loses a re-bid on a contract, and they fire the team that was working on it. Fire them!

Not speaking for anyone else, but having to fire people every time a contract goes away sounds risky to me.

I've been running my "consultancy" for over 5 years. Roughly 15% of my annual revenue is lost to non-payment. Customers pay late all the time. Literally. I've never had an invoice paid on time. Customers cancel projects right before they start, or pause projects half way through to focus on other areas.

Due to these situations, I try to always have 3 months of salary in the bank. I never do, but I try. If you are paid net 30, and invoice at the end of the January, that check will clear your bank account early March at best. This results in Just In Time mortgage payments.

If I were to hire somebody to code, and focus on sales, I'd need even more money in the bank than I have. This leaves me in a bit of a pickle.

You need a lot of capital. If 3 months of buffer salary for two employees isn't a lot of capital..... it's time to admit you are in a strong financial position and not everyone can simply be an entrepreneur.

(To answer the inevitable "charge more" question, I'm available for hire and I'll charge as much as you'd like :)

It's getting really close! I have a post detailing how you would run Flask in a rumpkernel[0]. Right now any pure Python modules will run just fine.

We get into tricky situations when you need C extensions, e.g MySQL or PostgreSQL. Since extensions must be statically linked, you have to decide upfront what you want. Either extension can be compiled in, but including both in the package by default.... So a production Python build is fairly custom right now.

Nothing insurmountable, just haven't gotten the workflow perfect.

[0] http://projects.curiousllc.com/flask-in-a-rump-kernel.html#f...

Why was it stupid to turn down something which you couldn't value, yet had to buy (in way of lower salary or more hours or whatever it was) ?

> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

So what is the lesson here? I hear this saying over and over, always with the implication of "Give them a pass". Who cares if they are being crooked, or are too dumb to do division. Either way, the employee loses.

That's how I've always understood technical debt as well[0]. Which database or programming language isn't quite it.

When a major customer needs a new feature, do you hack that feature into the codebase to save the account? Or do you risk the account in order to add the feature The Right Way?

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html

+1 :) Fortunately this comment is the least expensive way to learn that lesson.

>Employees don't cash out some of their holding at $3/share expecting a bigger IPO lift. Both angry because nobody came from the future to tell them, hey this is the best offer you are ever going to get for this stock, take it.

Quoting from the article:

>Employees had little idea that an outside appraisal firm had valued Good at $434 million and the common stock at about 88 cents a share as of June 30, according to investor documents and legal filings.

It just sounds to me like the greed on management's side trumped anything the employees may have had.

Thanks for your story. I was part of a startup which sold as well. One employee was left with a tax burden to pay off, and I broke out even ($0 from sale, no tax). The founder took home money though......

I think it's important that people hear these stories when deciding what their personal reasons are for joining a company.

What is very low and very high? I'm not sure my debt/income expectations match theirs so I'm not sure how to interpret this.

Was there data that I skipped over?

Edit: Yes I did miss the data:

> “somewhat high,” for example, then it means that a zip code’s average loan balance is between 25 and 35 percent higher than the national average of $24,271

I didn't -1, but it may be due to the article being focused on co-founder splits and not employees.

How about holding the prosecutor responsible for the 1988 murder by Mark Norwood[0]. Norwood's DNA was found at the scene. Maybe some more investigation in the Morton case(opposed to sitting on evidence) would have put Norwood in jail before he committed the 1988 crime.

But certainly, if Michael Morton was never wrongfully convicted, that DNA would have been matched to the Morton murder and this would have been solved decades ago.

[0] http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/mark-alan-norwood-found...

Uber leverages cars that are already on the road driven by licensed drivers.

Very good point. I suppose the question is a false choice in the first place. The officer should just write down both tag numbers with a "worst drug deal ever" note...

58% would follow the drugs, 30% would follow the money? Following the drugs would catch smaller fish at each step.

Also 72% of people were unfamiliar with the term.

Serious question, does being unfamiliar with the term for which the survey is named taint the significance of the answers given?

IMHO trying to beat the traffic is more dangerous than running a red. You are in a hurry... the guy who is late to work doesn't see you when he burns the "newly red" light....

I've been yelled at in similar situations. For "riding in the middle of the road" when I'm simply not riding in the right turn lane. It's never safe to put yourself in a position where you are going straight and a car is turning right.

VA also notes this in the law[0]. If the lane is a turn only, you don't have to ride near the curb of the turn only lane.

[0]http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-905 p4.

In Virginia if a bike waits for 120 seconds[0] and no cars are there, it's totally legal to run the light. Bikes tend not to trigger the light change.

(I know this reads as "if no one sees you, it's ok". But it actually is on the books)

[0] http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-833 section B

The primary issue between cyclists and motorists is that very generalization. How about "individuals in cars", and "individuals on bikes".

I always stop for red lights. It waaay too dangerous not too. Multiple times I've had pick up trucks hit their horn and blow by me traveling waaay over the speed limit, when I'm following all the rules.

Conversely, some cyclists zip in and out of traffic, hit people and scrape cars, and create unsafe situations around them. Pick up trucks routinely give me a few feet when they pass, and even yield at bike path crossings.

Just treat everyone respectfully and stop blaming every bike or car for that bad situation the other day. Everyone is different.

I was bitten by this as well, I thought the book was for an "early programmer" not a total beginner.

Hindsight and all, it seems the book would have better titled "Learn to Program the Hard Way (using Python)". Or "Learn to Program the Hard Way (using Ruby)". A total beginner is really trying to learn how to build a program, not trying to learn a particular language (whether they know that or not).

I agree :) We don't really open and close though. Some people get there near 8 and leave near 5. Others 9-6. Very flexible, but one of the downsides of flexibility is concrete scheduling I suppose.