Questions such as pseudocode a "(sorting, binary search, etc)" algorithm on the whiteboard are BS questions used to haze interviewees and make the interviewer feel like the big man on campus. Almost no working programmer ever implements any of this BS unless they are doing very specialized work.

I've interviewed 100s of programmers for several very well known tech company and specifically tried to get tech interviewers to tone that down. Doing so allowed us to hire some great non-CS JR programmers who are now team leads and even CTOs at other companies.

I completely agree

A friend of mine runs a 1 person business. Well, technically, he does have an assistant who does his office admin and books.

My friend has steady gross revenues of $6M a year. When I first met him about 8 years ago he was 26 and living at home with his parents. He once remarked on how much he appreciated his mother still doing his laundry and cooking for him and his father.

I forgot to mention, he has extremely high gross margins and EBITDA. He does all the work himself other then that admin I mentioned already.

What is his business, you are probably wondering?

He owns internet domains. He flips them like real estate. He looks at Google trends, buys undervalued properties, develops their traffic via SEO, generates affiliate sales revenue, and if given the opportunity, then sells them at a much inflated value. He owns 1000s of domains and has built highly automated systems to efficiently manage them.

Money is money but this kind of business really feels dirty.

It's kind of like parking cars in every $1 spot you can find and then charging people $500 to take that spot.

Also, developing traffic via SEO for 1000s of (parked?) domains most likely involves even dirtier techniques.

Kudos to him, he's achieved more than I ever will but if that was me I couldn't look people in the eye when telling them how I made my millions.

Most forms of landlording doesn't add value to the society. This is especially bad in the case of domain names. What is the point of one person owning 1000s of domain names, with the single goal of selling them at an inflated price? The internet would be a much better place without people like these.

What sort of content is supplied by such web sites?

My understanding is he looks for phrases people are increasingly searching for such as "BHP Free Sippy Cup" and then buys a domain such as bhp-free-sippy-cups.com. On the site, he just displays affiliate links to various vendor product pages for that product, e.g. Amazon, etc.

The trick is understanding the trends and having the SEO skills to efficiently build the traffic. He can't put too much individual time into any one property because it will on average only generate a few hundred dollars a month in revenue.

If the trend becomes popular enough someone comes in and buys the domain for their real sippy cup business.

Joplin just released support for Vim keybindings. But, it also has a button you can press to edit a note in your favorite editor, such as Vim.

Here is how I read and annotate scientific articles and books: http://www.founderscholar.com/how-to-read-doctoral-student/

Racket is a great language that needs more recognition. Thanks for posting your experiences.

This is a good interpretation of the event as I understand it.

Culturally, it would be a good move to grant all employees before x date a token number of units so they felt validated. $1k worth of units to a few dozen employees is a rounding errors worth of dilution but would pay many intangible dividends to the culture.

I do think, ultimately, the bulk of incentive equity should go to those most likely to make significant contributions.

Maybe read the Twitter thread and then comment.

This is a 19th century view of the workplace. Don't work for employers who ascribe to this workforce philosophy.

Assuming people will create great works while living off a sustenance-level basic income is a bit of a stretch. And, it seems to ignore the extreme level of work, commitment, and persistence it takes to write books, publish science, etc.

The issue is not whether people should be able to profit off their own work but whether a rent-seeking gatekeeper should be able to hijack others' work and profit off it.

A system designed to artificially limit supply impoverishes the world and most of the profit inevitably sticks with the middle men whose existence is only necessitated by the artificial scarcity.

I specifically stated the sustenance level basic income plus patronage as I expect people must have enough to survive but ought to be incentivized to earn enough to live better.

I've heard others, not you, express the nonsensical idea that if people had enough to barely survive they would all quite providing value to society until the whole pyramid balanced precariously on the backs of the few remaining working people collapsed. This is a basic mis-analysis of human nature. People would strive to produce both for reasons of self worth and desire for a better than basic life.

I expect many to most writers with no readers and no earnings would eventually tire of the affair and move on to others.

Others would find a way to live a better than subsidence level life via patronage or doing other work to finance their hobby.

Do you really believe in a world without copyright that Stephen king wouldn't find any supporters?

This is very true.

I've traveled the ICW from Moorehead City, NC to Dinner Key, Miami. Derelict boats bring a very bad reputation to the cruising community and have real repercussions. Also, this boat is very unlikely to pass a coast guard inspection, making it an illegal vessel, putting other boaters and rescuers at risk, as they are legally obligated to render aid if he needs it.

This is why I am concerned for his mental health. Nothing wrong with living in a boat, as I've done with children. But one must be responsible and respect the danger of the water.