Hacker News Reader

steverbon Why restaurants in the United States just can’t get the staff

So you're saying that 20 years ago you were making what is equivalent to $94,000 today (adjusted for inflation) working in a diner.

According to this US News and World Reports site ( https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/waiter-and-waitre... ) the best paid 25% of waiters made $30,000.

I think you might be misremembering how much you made, or perhaps you weren't working in a run of the mill diner, because making 60K per year as a waiter 20 years ago puts you far on the right of that bell curve even without adjusting for inflation.

steverbon Designing for a right to repair

Thank you for this. As an amateur I knew the difference existed, but I was never sure how to tell them apart. And if I had ever actually thought about it I would have googled, but it's one of those things that never occurred to me until I was knee deep into a repair.

steverbon Music is a negative superstimulus for speech (2020)

And why so many Christian preachers use a very sing song tone (and even sing in some traditions).

steverbon Is Crypto Bullshit?

To summarize what I understood from the (too long IMO) article...

There might be something useful in the blockchain, specifically in how it seems to make a certain class of transaction easier/more reliable and there might be a good use case for NFTs in that space.

I really hate that the term crypto has come to mean 'crypto-currency' instead of cryptography in general.

steverbon Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

I mean, it probably was a "luxury" car when it was new. They do not hold their value though.

steverbon The trouble with regret minimization

Rather than regret minimization, I prefer to focus on try maximization. IE try as many new things as you can.

Obviously there are some things that you should never try. Things that you find morally objectionable. Things that have too high a risk of death or permanent disability. Things that will keep you from fulfilling your responsibilities (wife and kids will slow you down). You have to do your own maths on those, but beyond that you should try as many new things as you can manage.

You will fail. You will fail a lot. That's part of the fun.

As a 50 year old man, with four grown kids, in the middle of a divorce after 25 years of marriage, sitting at home with a leg I broke skateboarding last month I can honestly say that I have very few regrets so far. I travelled through a lot of Europe and most of the US before marriage, I've had interesting work, and I've learned how to do a lot of things just by being willing to try.

Remember, failure is always an option and is the expected outcome at least 50% of the time. If you're not failing, then you're probably not trying anything new.

steverbon The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

> But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on

This assumes the company will be around in 10 years and that I am still working there.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Vaccination requirements were also litigated at USSC, over a century ago: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/08/vaccine-ma...

I am an independent software developer and like most business owners I contribute because it's required by law and failure to do so carries harsh penalties.

Are you telling me that you do not pay federal and or state income taxes? That you do not contribute to FICA? Are you under the impression that because you are not a federal employee that you are not required to pay federal income taxes?

If so, the IRS has plenty to say about it: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/the-truth-about-frivo...

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Driver's Licenses and the need to show ID and submit to a search certainly do apply.

I and a lot of people do have to save a write a check (I pre-pay estimated actually). You do not want to get on the wrong side of the IRS.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

The evidence suggest the exact opposite of you are saying.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Sorry it took so long. Had a work fire to put out.

Here you go: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

You're correct that link doesn't. Sorry. Let me go find the other one. I'll be back.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

At this point, anyone who cares to know the facts already know them. The only arguments that will convince the hold outs are pathos.

It's your grandmother. You can choose how to treat her.

Also, the immunization provides more robust immunity than having had Covid.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

If my kids walk around knowingly infecting people with a deadly communicable disease for which there is a free and safe vaccine for... then yes.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

And as other others have pointed it out, you're much less likely to pass it along, get sick, be hospitalized if you have had the vaccination.

And you're comparing a very small risk for the youth (getting a vaccine) versus a very large risk for the elderly.

They're your grandparents though, so I guess that's your decision.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

I would be totally okay with treating it like a driving accident. You're free not to get the shot, but in the case that you contract Covid you then open yourself up to civil liability to everyone you came in contact with.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

That is evil and brilliant and I love it.

We should go into business together. :-)

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Actually having had to wear a gas mask in the military for hours... I would LOVE to see this. If you think an N-95 grade mask is hard to breathe though, try wearing an NBC mask for 8 hours a day. :-)

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

To trot out an old saw: "Your rights end and the tip of my nose." You do not have a Deity-given right to infect other people with disease.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

I mean you're correct, in that since > 80% of Americans got all their required vaccines in childhood there was no need to mandate it for adults, but it's a very oblique sort of correctness.

And yes, if everyone who was unvaccinated went out today and got the vaccine, the COVID infection rate would drop precipitously.

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Not sure why you think that's a problem. The vaccines offer better protection against variants than having had COVID and recovering.

Edit: Apparently this is new information to people: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

And yet they can have enough of a viral load to pass it along to any non-healthy people they come in contact with. Which is why this NOT a personal health issue, it's a public health issue.

As I have explained to several of my children's young friends "you are correct, COVID will probably not make you sick, but how will you feel when you find out you killed your grandmother by giving it to her".

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

You're forgetting about driver's licenses, pilots licenses, cosmetology licenses, ID requirements and searches to fly on a plane, having to be over 21 to buy alcohol and tobacco, selective service, income taxes, property taxes, traffic laws, building codes...

steverbon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

I predict that by December of 2021 enough people will have gotten the vaccine or have had COVID that the hospitalization numbers will drop precipitously and then we can all go back to a normal life.

The OSHA requirement will hang around, but people won't be freaking out about it because it will be normal. Within two years there will be a childhood COVID vaccine that is safe and effective and it will be required for school attendance like all the other shots.

All the people freaking out about the vaccine/mask requirements will have matured out of it or will find something else to be outraged about.

If I'm wrong, I will come back and say I was wrong. :-) I may lose an internet point or two.

steverbon Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable (2005)

Am I misunderstanding the article, or is it basically just describing sprint planning?

I was set to be annoyed by the article, since it seems to me that a lot of PM practices put way more emphasis on planning to do things, versus actually doing them, but after reading it it just seemed like a slightly modified version of what most teams I have worked on do for sprint planning.

Which makes me feel like I missed something in the article. Perhaps it is geared towards PMs who don't have any experience or appreciation for "agile" methods?

steverbon Software estimation is hard – do it anyway

Here's my beef with estimates.

I can give you a really really accurate estimate, but in order to do so we're going to have to spend a lot of time going through the request, building and verifying actual requirements, designing the solution and then validating it.

The process will require dev resources, business resources and probably people from the support team and will take a lot of time.

I'm happy to do it. It's actually my favorite part of the job. But the business invariably doesn't want to spend the time and money to do that.

They'd generally much rather start with a fairly vague description of what they need and let the devs keep throwing stuff against the wall and see what sticks.

Good and accurate estimation is not just a dev function. It requires buy in and input from the entire business stack.

steverbon All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people (2019)

Yes, I've found that a useful way around this is to go back to the non-technical user and ask them why. Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to do this in this manner?

That usually either gives the implementor enough information to wholeheartedly agree with the proposed solution, or to suggest something more appropriate.

steverbon The Hostile Takeover of a Microsoft Flight Simulator Server

I had to open it incognito to see the story.

steverbon Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

Your labor and skills are not owed because they got lucky, they are owed because that is what you are exchanging with the owner for money.

They may tolerate (and even enjoy) your personal quirks and causes, but they are paying you to get things done that they don't have the time or skill to do themselves.

[Edit: Accidentally left ou a letter]