tenpoundhammer

We have homeschooled our kids for the past 7 years and have tried a lot of different things here's what works for us.

Math U See https://mathusee.com/

Comes with DVD's or Online video where a teacher teaches the lessons in front of real students. It's a great curriculum my kids are learning math much faster and easier than any other curriculum we've tried. Also, the videos take the pressure off as we don't have to learn everything our kids are learning. Although we do sometimes go and watch the videos with our kids if they get stuck.

Explode the Code https://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/phonics-wo...

Very similar to the previous recommendation but no video lessons. It breaks down the process of learning to read in easy to follow chunks and doesn't overwhelm the kids. It makes teaching kids reading easy and fairly fast.

A few minor tips:

1. Children are human beings some days they won't be prepared to learn, take advantage of home school, and do something else. Nature walks, read a book, educational movie, etc.

2. Parents are human beings see above

3. Learning to read involves a lot of time spent reading. When our kids have the basics we incentivize them by allowing them to stay up late but only for reading. At first, they just stare at the pictures or pretend to read but after a while, they get bored enough to force themselves to learn the words.

4. Kids like other people, take them to see other people often. We are part of a co-op and the kids love it. My kids aren't even interested in going to a public school as their public school friends spend way more time at school and doing homework and get similar results.

let me know if you have any other questions

Based on your reply I feel like we have fundamentally different world views that can't be resolved in HN comments, but I feel like I understand your view better than I did before. Best of luck to you, thanks for a thoughtful reply.

A few things: Addressing point 1, the commenter never said anything like that.

Addressing point 2, right now the US economy imperfectly applies wages to an individual worker based on the demand for their skills. If their skills become more scarce or they develop better skills their wages should increase. If we say pay them more without changing the demand or the skills they have who will pay them more? Where will the money come from?

The simple answer might be to pay the CEO less but their value is also set on Market rates for their skills and demand, so if a chain paid the CEO less they would leave and go somewhere were they got paid more. Then that chain would have to higher someone else for more than the reduced rate of the previous CEO.

I also like the idea of paying people at the bottom of the economy more, but the government shouldn't just mandate some people make more and other people make less. We must find a way to either change the skill level or demand for those employees.

Artificially changing demand for low skilled employees is a bit scary because it incentivizes investments in automation. I would be helpful if a demand increase plan lead to a technological innovation the reduced the need for any of those workers. In my opinion investing in the skills of low wage employees is the best way to solve income inequality.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

I agree with this one hundred percent. However, I would add that in my interpretation the users was likely talking about trending towards having narcissistic traits, and they weren't necessarily referring to NPD.

For a little context, my mother is the most narcissistic person I've ever met and she constantly told the people around her, "I like myself just the way I am I have nothing to change". She was emotionally and psychologically abusive and ruined every relationship she ever had, if there was ever a person that needed to change it was her. So anyone that thinks to themselves that they may be too narcissistic is way further ahead than a lot of people on the more extreme end of narcissistic personality traits.

I think other hallmarks of being narcissistic, which these are things she also did, accusing others of being narcissistic, creating and believing elaborate scenarios where other people are ruining your life or goals, consistently villainizing groups of people, the inability to maintain personal relationships, and most of all deflecting all responsibility for negative circumstances.

I think you could do any or all of this stuff and still not have NPD but a life long pattern of these things are a good indicator. I'm not a licensed psychologist or therapist just trying to share a bit of my experience.

I was referring to the whole range. Skills are much easier to teach than personality improvements, but it's still very resource intensive to train some one with very few skills. Often times we make a conscience decision to hire a junior engineer but expect negative productivity for 3 - 6 months and then very little productivity for the first year or so.

For personality traits if someone is setting off red flags that they would cause a lot of conflict and issues it's an easy pass. It's extremely difficult and unreliable to attempt to coach someone into changing their personality. It's also just really emotionally draining for the person that has to do the work.

If you would like to get in touch I would be happy to provide some Job hunting coaching free of cost.

Send an email to my temp email account i5kjl5+8ydjdw8gaoikw@sharklasers.com

I've been wanting to coach folks looking to find a job for a long time. I would love to help you out with this at no cost of course. :)

i5htij+7j7md3ohoms1c@sharklasers.com temp email address

Why the down vote?

TLDR; The cost of a bad hire is extremely high and not worth the risk.

I'm a team lead and do a fair number of interviews. It's amazing how many people can talk about their experience and make a ton of really impressive statements that makes it appear as though they are knowledgeable and then that person can't perform a simple coding exercise. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how a person can do an excellent job coding but not be able to get through basic day to day human interactions with their peers.

If a candidate falls into either of these camps, they are an easy no hire. If a hiring manager ends up hiring a candidate that is difficult to work with either because they can't code or because they have poor social skills, it can be very costly. It often takes several months to find out that you made a bad hire. By the time you figure it out it's often taken a large toll on the team and can lead to productive team members leaving.

When you finally find out that you've got a problem most companies have a huge process to go through for firing that person and that process is super intensive and takes months. Not to mention how emotionally difficult it is to tell someone they are so bad they have to be fired.

All that to say, the cost benefit analysis is clear only hire people that will over time be a net gain. Don’t take any risks ever.

If I were a recently graduated software engineer, I would be hedging against these risks in every way. I would produce a lot of code in the area I’m seeking to be hired. I would work a lot on being friendly and carefully choosing my words, so I don’t sound like a know it all or a person who enjoys conflict. I would prepare statements about my goals of how I fully intend to spend at least 3 years at this job if conditions allow, and I would practice being humble.

No one actually expects you to spend the next 3 years at a job if it’s not going well, you just need a way to express that if it’s a good fit you intend to stay put and do a great work. 3 years is just an arbitrary number.

As a religious person I disagree that all religion is foolish. But I agree that religions should be attacked. As a christian I've seen many ideas that were presented as "Christian" be attacked severely and then the entire christian culture is forced to re-evaluate the idea in the context of the scripture and determine that the idea is in fact not present or contrary to proper biblical teaching. Attacking ideas is good attacking people is bad.

An academic paper published by experts from the US Naval War College and Tel Aviv University in October last year blamed China Telecom for "hijacking the vital internet backbone of western countries."

The report argued that the Chinese government was using local ISPs for intelligence gathering by systematically hijacking BGP routes to reroute western traffic through its country, where it can log it for later analysis.

While some experts have criticized the paper, Madory is one of the people who stood by its technical accuracy -- albeit not by its politically-charged accusations-- confirming that China Telecom has rerouted western traffic through its network for years many times before.

However, Madory couldn't say if this was intentional, or a technical or human error.

I would much rather have new properties as well. It's unfortunate that economic incentives don't align to make that more common. Although kick starter has helped a bit. Maybe new properties could be like startups and have lottery style exit strategies... I don't just thinking out loud. Great comment.

> The layoffs, which will mostly be in non-game-development areas like publishing, will impact Activision, Blizzard, and King. In one case, an entire studio of 78 people was shut down—Seattle-based mobile game studio Z2Live.

> The implication is that the positive results reported came thanks to a fairly narrow bench of franchises, with many of the company's efforts outside those franchises not meeting expectations.

Sounds like the good properties did great and the second tier properties did worse than expected. I'm not sure why a company would chase bad money with good, sounds like a reasonable choice to reduce properties and downsize in favor of bolstering properties that are working and growing.

The second company in this anecdote folded my entire division after I had been working there a year. I had no idea I could get another 30% increase, it was a happy accident. And maybe before this job I couldn’t have got that pay increase.

I had the exact same situation. When I left they said how much do we have to pay to get you to stay. I literally told them that there is no amount I don't want to work for a company that won't pay me what they think I'm worth. The next job I took I got a 25% pay increase, and the job after that I got another 30% pay increase. At my current company I've gotten a bigger raise every year than I ever would have asked for and occasional bonuses.

What makes ad based tech companies hyper-cyclical?

I've been working for a startup that recently exited it seems to be common knowledge in the startup community( and everywhere else? ) that a recession is just around the corner. I'm definitely not an expert in economics but these are just the pieces I've put together.

From what I've heard/read the recession will primarily affect stock pricing and available investment assets. Many startups feel that if they don't exit now they will never have the opportunity or will have to exit with much lower numbers. This seems like a strong driver of exits.

> Lessig lays out the historic case for the Framers' understanding of corruption as a systemic phenomenon, in which the structure of institutions demand that even the best, most moral people sacrifice their principles to thrive (or just survive)

One of the most annoying aspects of social discourse right now is that everyone is redefining words and very few people have a common meaning for important words. Lessig's definition of corruption is different than my definition and different than the legal definition. I see this happening all over the place "hate speech" is also a good example every time I have a conversation or read an article about "hate speech" the definition has changed.

How are we supposed to have civil discourse when the meanings of words are constantly shifting?

Thanks for the affirmation, the software community can be an isolating place for people living outside the main stream.

Reading the comments on this an post and many others about compensation and payouts makes me feel like I'm losing my mind.

I grew up in a lower-middle-class house where both my parents worked for the postal service. Both parents worked strange and/or long hours and they performed very physically demanding work. I can remember several cases of them being out of work because of injuries. We were never poor but we never had extra. Meaning we always had food and cable television but rarely went out to eat or went on vacations.

I took a major liking to computer programming and pursued that as a career since high school. I find it unbelievable that I make a good living off of doing a job that I find really enjoyable and plus I make great money doing it.

My first job out of college I started working for a major manufacturer of PC's and printers and I started off with a higher salary than what my dad was making at the time, $65,000. I thought I was rich and set for life.

Working in the software industry makes me feel like I'm on another planet, I'm just excited to keep getting a paycheck every two weeks and then I read discussions about people chasing lotteries or trying to pull in 250k with bonuses.

I don't think it's bad to maximize your earning potential but the figures and mentality around feel so foreign to me. All that to say it's just a weird experience going from rural Oregon to the software industry and see the massive difference in lifestyle and the relationship people have with work.

> 3. Will this candidate get along with coworkers?

I think this 'getting along' is often misinterpreted as become best friends. I think a better way to state this question is

'Will this candidate be able to have successful working relationships?'

There is no reason you can't have a wide variety of people -- that would never choose to hang out with another-- working successfully together.

I think this particular example is a great example of what's difficult about the world right now.

Technology has opened many new opportunities for corporations and for everyday people.

However, the pace of new opportunities is way faster than the ability that governments have to regulate the new opportunities. It would seem that companies, entrepreneurs, and silicon valley have realized this and are using it as a business strategy. If I had to sum up the business strategy, I would say "Find a regularity system that can be exploited by rapid innovation".

While it's always been a business strategy to exploit legal loopholes, I think the difference is that companies exploit an entire regulatory system which is harder to update and takes longer. Airbnb, Uber, Mechanical Turk, are all examples of exploiting a regulatory system by creating a product and then quickly scaling it up to mass adoption before the practices introduced can be outlawed.

Once something has been massively adopted it's difficult to stop completely.

While the word exploit seems inherently negative I'm not trying to make judgment value, I think it's the correct description. I don't have a strong opinion about any of these companies or exploiting regulatory systems.

However, I do think that democracy needs to find a way to keep up with the forces taking advantage of its inherent systematic boundaries, such as being slow to react. I'm not sure what needs to change but I think when you have many US citizens participating in completely unregulated labor markets there is a problem that needs to be solved.

Thanks, it can take a little while for the fruit of this approach to show up. And it doesn’t work in all organizations but I think it’s a great idea for a lot of software engineers.

I know many people that take the %120 approach, but I take the 80/20 approach. I have a lot of kids and volunteer a lot outside of work so I don't want to make time for 120.

This is a great point, except when I was meeting expectations. I talked to my manager a lot about I how could exceed expectations and followed that advice then I was still told I meet expectations.

I think it's often difficult for managers to describe how to exceed their expectations, it may be a natural human limitation.

Adding to projects without authorization, is extremely popular all around, if the commit/pr is useful. My boss sees it as taking initiative, helping others, and broadening my skill set. Other teams see it as getting free work.

Even when my contributions suck people think of it as a positive and often teach me the right to do the code or explain why the change is not necessary.

As far as books go I don't have anything to recommend. For me improving fundamentals was really about figuring out what I didn't understand and diving in to learn it. I prefer online materials over books but one book I have read that I thought was great is 'the pragmattic programmer'. https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Maste...

haha ya, my comment isn't full fleshed out. I think I got too excited. I should have added that I spend about 10% of my time working rogue which is much different than what I wrote.

This is an excellent general framework for upping your game in software development within the context of a decent sized software engineering organization. I've stumbled my way into much of this advice over the past 2-3 years.

One caveat is that much of the advice is predicated on having a supportive environment.

For Example, > Application development is a team sport. Period. Full stop.

What if you work in an environment where people primarily work on their own? I have done a lot of that in the past.

> For many, the best way to learn is to teach.

What if there aren't feasible opportunities to teach or your management pushes a pace that makes it not plausible?

> Create side projects

There are managers that support the idea of doing side project but not the execution.

I'm sure you can find more examples of suggestions that aren't plausible in your environment.

Here is my answer to these examples, I wasn't just complaining. If you don't have opportunities to fulfill sections of this framework that you feel you are lacking in, do it anyway. If your manager tells you not to spend time learning and improving ignore them. Do it anyway.

You might say, "that's fine for you Mr. internet commenter, but I'm the one that has to take the risk". Well, that's true but I've already done it. Here were my results.

Did exactly what my management asked me to do for two straight years. All reviews for two years were "Meets expectations" with a long list of things I should improve.

One year ago, I read a book with an abhorrent title but good information "stealing the corner office"

I stopped listening to what my manager told me to do and instead I picked up random side projects with little to no perceived business value for my team, spent 10x more time reading code and made commits in projects I shouldn't be working on, and started spending a lot more time understanding basic fundamentals of software engineering.

Have had "exceeds expectations" on every review since and glowing praise.

It's counter-intuitive but, don't give the people what they ask for, give them what they want!

Note: I got a bit carried away on this comment, I should have mentioned that in reality I spend 10 - 20 % of my time working rogue, and the rest of my time doing what my boss tells me.

I agree, I use https://duckduckgo.com for the majority of my searches now and it just keeps getting better. Plus ddg has much better privacy policies.

> The lawsuit cites another post from another hiring manager that said, “If you express a dunderheaded opinion about religion, about politics, or about ‘social justice’, it turns out I am allowed to think you’re a halfwit… I’m perfectly within my rights to mentally categorize you in my [d*ckhead] box… Yes, I maintain (mentally, and not (yet) publicly).”

It's definitely illegal to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. I'm thinking the discovery process is going to find a lot of legitimate issues, if the the lawyer bringing the suit has already found stuff like this. Maybe the lawyer was using this blacklist stuff as a way to get more information and find bigger problems.

>And still, this wouldn’t be so bad, if the crap wasn’t starting to seep into things that actually matter.

>A leading indicator of what’s to come is the state of computer security. We’re seeing an alarming rise in big security breaches, each more epic than the next, to the point where they’re hardly news any more. Target has 70 million customers’ credit card and identity information stolen. Oh no! Security clearance and personal data for 21.5 million federal employees is taken from the Office of Personnel Management. ...

I’m not a fan of this type of article, the article where we find a group of bad things and then go find something to blame for it. It’s easy to say all this stuff was caused because “we just don’t make stuff like we used to”, but I think it’s wrong-headed.

Or more probably it’s used in the wrong sense. It’s true that we don’t make things like we used to. We have made giant leaps past anything we’ve ever done before. We have hundreds of thousands of companies online and millions of devices online, a level of interconnectedness that the planet has never seen before. We also have more accessible software development tools and many more people writing software than ever before.

Increasing numbers of security breaches are a sign of our progress not a sign of our failures. It’s just a sign that there is a lot more stuff attached to the internet and that unfortunately includes people with the intention to commit crimes.

Should we tolerate security breaches? No. Should we celebrate them? Of course not.

But let’s see them for what they are and search for a solution instead of something to vilify.