mattchew

18 ms·

121.
by mattchew 15y ago
You've got to figure out why you're not getting paid, and some way of fixing it. 50% unpaid invoices is not normal. I could not possibly stay motivated to work if I thought there was a 50% chance I was going to get cheated or seriously dela
122.
by mattchew 15y ago
Maybe you don't mean it, but I also hear a contemptuous tone when you describe CBT as "funning" your way out of depression, or when you call Bill's CBT an enjoyable hobby. (CBT is an enjoyable hobby, I still get mileage out of rereading S
123.
by mattchew 15y ago
Hear hear. Also, learning a different ORM every time you switch environments is costly. Switching from, say, Django to LINQ2Entities has nearly no knowledge transfer. Dealing with the quirks between MSSQL, postgres, MySQL is comparatively s
124.
by mattchew 15y ago
Freelancing is great! It's flexible! It's win-win! But what freelancers really, really need is more oversight, regulation, and goodies from Washington. Permit me to doubt it.
125.
by mattchew 15y ago
Sustainable and the meaning of "deal with" are indeed loaded concepts. Some people would say 1 billon or less, others at least 15 billon at first world standards of living. http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ I think demographic
126.
by mattchew 15y ago
As another poster remarked, strong nations adopting a warlike attitude to preserve their vigor is probably not going to work out well in a world full of nukes and bioweapons. If that becomes a popular approach, we're all dead. It's an inter
127.
by mattchew 16y ago
> But I wonder if I could have done things differently, Well, sure. Should you have? I doubt it. You'll be able to hack and do startups the rest of your life. Most likely you'll only have a few chances to fall in love. I recommend makin
128.
by mattchew 16y ago
> I believe that there are two ways to get good at anything, "push" and "pull". This is a great way to describe these different ways of learning. I'll be using these terms again. Thanks.
129.
by mattchew 16y ago
I'd love to get rejected by somebody in this way. :) Really, you're above average if you bother to contact the person at all once you've decided not to hire. A lot of people are pointing out liability issues with this approach, and sadly,
130.
by mattchew 16y ago
I got baited and switched. I thought I was interviewing for a network/desktop support position, but once I started I was quickly moved to maintaining an MS Access db. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't understand what a relational db
131.
by mattchew 16y ago
When I was that age, almost every piece of advice that came from adults seemed completely unworkable. Even if it was good advice, my brain couldn't process it in that way. I just heard some authority figure lecturing me again, and the thing
132.
by mattchew 16y ago
Astonished that this was voted down: > what does he bring to the table? is a very good question I didn't notice anyone else asking. You talk about the negatives, and seem to imply there aren't many positives, but are there any? Anothe
133.
by mattchew 16y ago
KIPP does well, but it is very much at odds with the way a normal school is run. KIPP schools demand a hell of a lot from the teachers who work there. You need people of high ability and dedication who are mostly motivated by the intrinsic
134.
by mattchew 16y ago
I'm skeptical of the Roth IRA. I think many people will get along on a lowered income in retirement and will be paying taxes in a lower bracket than they do as working people. This is an argument against the Roth (compared to a traditional
135.
by mattchew 16y ago
In the bad old days in the U.S., crazy people, or people deemed crazy, could be kept in a mental institution against their will for years and years. When I hear people decrying deinstitutionalization, I assume they want to return to those
136.
by mattchew 16y ago
> I want to institutionalize the mentally ill. Institutionalize is a nice, clinical sounding word, but what it means is incarcerate. Imprison. You are talking about locking up people without them committing any crime, without any tria
137.
by mattchew 16y ago
I hope this isn't over yet. Can the parents can still file a civil suit even if prosecutors don't want to make a public case over this? I'm not surprised that the powers that be are uninterested in prosecuting the school district. But I w
138.
by mattchew 16y ago
Theoretically, even the most egoistic government who's only purpose is to get more for themselves must realize that in order to preserve it's welfare it must make sure the citizens are doing fine. This is true if the government is secure
139.
by mattchew 16y ago
I've never had a cellphone of my own. My wife carries a TracFone which we use for a few minutes a month ("I'm running late" kind of calls), and once in a while I borrow it. It's not a power play. I've just never felt like I needed one. I
140.
by mattchew 16y ago
It's definitely controversial--so I feel obliged to mention that Sarno's methods also worked/work for me. I also ran the gauntlet of standard medical treatments and therapies before trying Sarno's approach. If you have seemingly untreatable
141.
by mattchew 16y ago
Last I checked, Google Apps domain registration is actually a front end for either the Namecheap or GoDaddy registrars. Namecheap offers free whois protection too. I don't know about GoDaddy. Namecheap + NearlyFreeSpeech.NET + Google Apps
142.
by mattchew 16y ago
I assume by "like this" you mean a separate db for each customer. The reason is probably a perceived improvement in security. I've worked in systems where they've done this for security reasons. I believe Joel Spolsky did it for this reas
143.
by mattchew 16y ago
When I gave notice to my steadiest client that I would be leaving them (too long doing legacy support in A Language That Will Not Be Named). I've worked for them for years, they are the main source of income for our house, and I don't have
144.
by mattchew 16y ago
> What does it mean to say it is bad? How about this: if in advance of the behavior, you intend to partake moderately, and in the event you consistently overindulge, and after the fact you regret your excess, then something about this b
145.
by mattchew 16y ago
So, is this going to be mitigated somehow, or will everyone just ignore the requirement, or will somebody launch Fresh1099s.com and make a pile of money to reduce my headaches considerably? Stay tuned . . .
146.
by mattchew 16y ago
Lots of good advice here. One thing I would emphasize: think about how you ended up in this (rotten) situation and what you can change about yourself to make sure it doesn't happen again. You seem to have an extreme case of nice guy syndro
147.
by mattchew 16y ago
No. I have a friend who discovered programming at around age 40. He is now ~45 and doing Ruby on Rails programming instead of his old blue collar job. That said, I think you probably won't succeed as a programmer unless programming seems
148.
by mattchew 16y ago
This is fantastic news--mostly because of the sandboxing. Once burned, twice shy--I'm not allowing 3rd party plugins in my main browser any more. But I'm willing to trust Google to sandbox these features correctly. (Don't let me down, gu
149.
by mattchew 16y ago
I never thought of that. I can see what you mean. I'll have to think about this some more. I'm not sure I'll like it.
150.
by mattchew 16y ago
True, and I hope they do. City states are my best hope for the future (politically). They've worked before, and I think conditions might be right for them to start working again. My intuition is that it might be more politically possible

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