syntern

Maybe that is something RSS is for.

In addition to that, I've found Google+ to follow some of the people that write about topics I am interested in.

It seems that one can write even a master's degree on this topic:

The “Google shuttle effect:” Gentrification and San Francisco’s dot com boom 2.0

http://svenworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Goldman_PRFi...

Might be related to the topic:

One aspect of the Dilbert-universe the pointy-haired boss who has no expertise, yet he imposes immediate consequences upon the overseen. In contrast, if we are calling for management that does (understand) code, we are calling for management that have expertise.

This begs the question: who would be able to oversee the agencies with expertise, ever?

Robert Gates put it eloquently: the US is in its own wars of choice, and not in any war that is forced upon it. So, what do you think about the secrets that would conceal the real reasons of the war that requests to be secret?

My best managers were the ones that could and did code occasionally. Not just a side project of their dreams, but the same product we were working on, to feel the same pain, to understand the reasons of our decisions.

I have had good politician-managers who were excellent in corporate politics, but that is not the same as having an eng-manager.

> It's actually pretty amazing that I didn't fall harder or sooner, living in NYC on about $3k per month.

A takeaway might be that if you are bootstrapped (or doing any kind of startup), you might want to do it at a cheaper location. I know, this doesn't apply for every company/team, but in general, a good thing to keep in mind.

Riak CS may be a simple answer for that. It even has S3-compatible API.

VCs are probably skipping this small-scale opportunities because there are $100M / $B numbers too, and why go small, if they can go for the big show?

We need to give these lifestyle business more spotlight, so that people who are aiming for such won't get embarrassed that they are not aiming for $B.

> You do not need a bank account to pay for utilities in the US. I'm not saying not having one will be very pleasant though.

I came to the conclusion that in the US, if you have everything that people usually have (SSN, bank account, credit card, residential address, phone number, car, drivers license), you will be treated well. Miss just one on list, and people will assume that something is wrong with you, and it probably triggers a few warning signs (e.g. in fraud detection systems).

It may be coming from the fact that homeless and criminal elements usually miss a few on the list, so it was considered an easy signal for such pre-filtering, however, moving from a different country has the same signals, triggering multiple false alarms.

As a non-US person who moved to the Bay area ~2 years ago, I have found found several difficulties with either method you have mentioned:

First, if you have just move there, and don't have a bank account, you don't have checkbook either (there are countries who has no checks at all) - no check by mail.

No utilities accepted credit or debit card, they always wanted to have a proper bank account number from me. Later on they have improved their system and now they offer online bill pay, with an extra "convenience fee" for credit cards. Hurray! (Although I am not sure if the bank account is still a requirement for opening.)

Btw. similar story applies for wireless service: I was required to provide my full employment contract to receive a simple phone number (at that point I had bank account, active employment...). How weird is that?

This theme keeps repeating, and there is no evidence to support it. Just for the start, how can I buy your or any other person's browsing history?

Not surprisingly, the same argument can be applied to:

    - investment decisions,
    - hiring/contract decisions,
    - travel agencies,
    - and probably countless other services too.

We only need some service provider that automates all these functions...

+1. Or at least factor the high-level industry into it (engineering vs marketing vs retail...).

Agreed. HN and other news sites tend to write only about success or semi-success stories, and we are missing the huge number of non-success ones. Non-success is not a failure, it is a data point, but typically don't get through the news.

that's great, thanks!