pjdemers

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91.
by pjdemers 6y ago
>> Server side JavaScript? That’ll never catch. Server side javascript didn't catch on the first time around because you couldn't create threads. Because in the early 2000's, all technical interviews asked about Java st
92.
by pjdemers 6y ago
One thing about California law. If you are terminated involuntarily (1), then you can do whatever you need to do to make a living. Build a competing product, hire your former co-workers, sell to your former customers, whatever. Your previou
93.
by pjdemers 6y ago
There is allot more to building software than writing code. Those other parts are harder to outsource. At my company, the jobs that are 100% coding are 90% offshore. But the jobs that are 0%-50% coding are 90% in the US.
94.
by pjdemers 6y ago
As a hiring manager, I don't do that because it really does vary based on the applicant. I have a set of people in mind for a role, with a range of skills and experience. I may expand a junior role to mid level, or shrink a mid level t
95.
by pjdemers 6y ago
My local high school district went to online classes. The district said 10% of the students "disappeared". They haven't shown up for a single class or turned in any work, nor even answered a single email.
96.
by pjdemers 6y ago
Lockdowns are like rounds of layoffs. Better to have one too big than several too small.
97.
by pjdemers 6y ago
21st century IBM is effectively a labor arbitrage firm. They buy labor in low cost countries and sell it in high cost countries. They are not the platform tech company they were in the 60s to the 80s. Labor arbitrage can be a good business,
98.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Stocks that never pay dividends are technically worthless. Because a stock's value is the net present value of all future dividends.
99.
by pjdemers 7y ago
>> Health insurance has always been available for purchase by individuals Not true. Before Obamacare, anyone with a pre-existing condition was excluded. "Pre-existing condition" means you ever saw a doctor more than once for
100.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Companies borrow money to buy back their shares because they can borrow for long terms at interest rates below the long term of inflation.
101.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Why I think Pascal is gone for commercial use. Back in the mid-80's I was working on a new project on PCs under DOS. Our first choice language was Pascal. However, sometimes we needed to write at low levels for performance, or to acces
102.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Letting people past a certain age just die only works if people at that age co-operate. No matter how much the authorities try to spin it, there are more than a few "runners" who don't want to die (yet). https://w
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by pjdemers 7y ago
What surprises me is that somewhere there is a police department that can afford the time to investigate a $2,000 loss.
104.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Comparing to 90s to today isn't fair to today. The 90s were a golden era (well, at least 92-99). Compare the 70s to today. Some thing are better, some things are worse, it probably balances out.
105.
by pjdemers 7y ago
The problem with startups building hard tech is it takes a long time to fail. Failures that take decades doesn't work in the startup model. Image working on a fusion reactor. It might take 25 years to fail. The failure may not be that
106.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Right. Coding tests are designed to find people who are happy in a job where their only responsibility is: "Here's your coding assignment. Go do it." Technology companies are overfull of engineers who want more responsibilit
107.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Change is slowing down, at least in developed countries. A person from the US of 2020 would fit in right in 1970, and be able to adapt to 1920, but be lost in 1870. A person from 1970 would adapt a little quicker to 1920, but be almost as
108.
by pjdemers 7y ago
I don't remember the source, but a few years ago I saw the results of a poll about self driving cars. The question was: "How much more would you pay for a car that could drive itself?" In the US, 50% of the responses said $0
109.
by pjdemers 7y ago
There are street cleaners in Japan. I used to visit Tokyo often and I would go running just before dawn. I saw plenty of people (usually elderly) collecting trash and sweeping up.
110.
by pjdemers 7y ago
This afternoon I was driving up Alma in Palo Alto, near the Embarcadero underpass. There was a Waymo test van behind me, and another two cars in front of me. My thought was: "look at me, actually driving my car, like a sucker".
111.
by pjdemers 7y ago
For what home routers cost, they could probably ship a new one to everyone who complains about the bug for less than it costs to patch all of them. Especially since the set of people who will actually apply a patch is only slightly larger t
112.
by pjdemers 7y ago
LLC's only need one owner. The liability protection is still there. The drawback to LLCs is their income is the owner's income. He must pay taxes on the profit every year, at his personal marginal rate. What's left after taxe
113.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Years ago, I worked at a big aerospace company (that no longer exists). I was hiring a small team of software engineers. I was flat out told not to hire anyone who was, or wanted to be, pregnant. Why? Health care cost. We were self-insured
114.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Stanford Hospital used to turn you over to collections if you didn't pay. And I use the word collections loosely here. The guys who showed up at my house were basically bikers with a license to carry. Scary dudes. I had to call the cop
115.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Back in the day I worked on a system built on NeWS. Hand coding PostScript was an adventure. At the time NeWS certainly looked like the future. Oh, and the server side application (written in C) had ad-hoc version of about 3/4 of Commo
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by pjdemers 7y ago
I don't know how the choose, but they bump you to another hotel.
117.
by pjdemers 7y ago
The fraud is the $129 room was gone hours, maybe days ago. It didn't just sell, the web site simply quoted a price they though was low enough to keep you from looking elsewhere, within reason. Once you looked serious about booking, the
118.
by pjdemers 7y ago
I thought 0-day exploits could be sold for a significant amount if money. I wonder if the hackers bought one, or, found one and thought they could make more on their own than by selling it? And, if they did buy one, what was the return on t
119.
by pjdemers 7y ago
for a while I was on the board of a day care. We were not -for-profit, but charged only a little less than for-profit day care. Some things about cost: Running the building cost more than I thought, and we got free rent. Heat, insurance, re
120.
by pjdemers 7y ago
Economists are obsessed with job creation because the leading ones started their careers in the late 70s and early 80s when the number of jobs was shrinking, but the number of people who wanted a job was growing faster than ever.

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