Wow, this comment has a lot of anger towards someone just doing a post-mortem of the lessons they learned.
It illustrates something that I don't understand. Why do you care so much that you significantly affect the tone on this HN discussion? You bring up some excellent points, but your tone completely changes how your comment is perceived, and detracts from your contributions.
I am now going to take my own advice -- when you perceive someone else's words as so obnoxious that you cannot help but respond -- and ditch my HN account and re-add it to my blocklist.
Thank you for providing me with the impetus to regain hours of my day.
Would be really interesting to see some serious productivity studies done on this. Not to pick on you -- I appreciate you insight -- but humans don't do multi-tasking well.
I wonder (and have no idea, just throwing the idea out there), if people would be more productive in that single tasking environment.
For me its not just about multitasking. Its about distraction. With one window per app on a big screen (eg Windows 8), its just too distracting to switch. I have to go to application switcher, choose appropriate window, and everything looks different now. However, if I've typical two windows side by side of even overlapping, the switch very less distracting...and of course quicker.
That said, I do use a tiling window manager on my 13" laptop for work. I mostly use full-screen mode, but it works well for me, because switching is very fast.
Human ‘tasks’ and computer ‘tasks’ are not the same thing. A productive ‘task’ for me, at work or at home, typically involves concurrently using one or more editors (text, graphic, schematic, …), one or more documentation readers (web browser, PDF viewer, …), and one or more communications tools (email, IRC, hangouts, …).
"The BLS reports the median annual salary for high school teachers was $55,360 in 2013. The best-paid 10 percent in the field made approximately $86,720, while the bottom 10 percent made $37,230. Compensation is typically based on years of experience and educational level." [0]
This ($57k) is right around the median household income in the US. Note that is per household, which may include multiple earners.
Tough to look at teacher salaries, which are above the median, and say that's garbage.
Yes, they have a tough job, balancing between students, administrators, and (especially) parents. But lots of people do want to do the job, and get paid an OK salary, and get lots of time off during the year.
Teachers aren't randomly selected from the population; they more or less all have bachelors' degrees, and generally they have further qualifications in teaching. So the appropriate point of comparison would be something more like holders of masters' degrees.
According to http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm the median salary for an individual with a master's degree in the US in 2014 was $1326/week or about $69k/year.
High school teachers are only a small sliver of the actual segment of teachers in the segment. What more they are not accurately documented because of unions, and vary greatly state to state. Here in my native state of Texas they barely get enough to cut it.
Question for the people who perceive ad blocking as unethical: what is your opinion on reading HN comments without giving an ad impression (clicking on the link)?
Without the content, the discussions about the topics wouldn't be available.
I generally don't read the articles that are linked, just the HN content, as it has higher value to me. (This means I have to try to avoid criticizing the source article based on comments, but I'm generally more of a lurker anyhow.)
adding one data point, yes I do. I actually think I'd be better off if I only read that which I subscribed to, i.e. less HN linked articles. It'd be a good way to curate content and save time -- if I am not willing to pay out of pocket for something, I shouldn't waste my time reading it.
One baseball analyst, in particular, Joe Sheehan, has been doing some really open stuff about his newsletter, including financials, etc. It's $35 / year. I usually try to buy a couple of gift subscriptions to friends. I also donate an extra $50 because his content is just that damn good, and it would really hurt me to not have his newsletter to enjoy.
(Interestingly, he only does email newsletters, no web content. Seems to be somewhat to mildly successful at it, although I have no doubt his hourly wage is around minimum.)
I agree in theory, but the reality is that these companies made large investments under one set of legislation.
If a society flips and completely changes the economic/legislative landscape under which companies operate, it creates a very unstable business environment and discourages capex especially.
This would not be good for the long term economic health.
They made large investments under laws they lobbied for and made by politicians that were paid for. I have no qualms reversing a horrific abuse of lobbying and actions of unethical state congress members. They got to benefit from this farce for decades, it's time to shut it down.
It's not like they would repeal the law and all private dealerships would be shut down the next day. They would continue as usual, probably for several years, and most would eventually get phased out. It's not letting it burn, it's just letting it die the death it should have died decades ago.
Laws change. Invested money by big corporations is not a valid reason to keep them. In fact it's pretty sad that this would even be a point of consideration.
That's like saying that Comcast and Verizon accepted public money to roll out infrastructure and invested their money in it. Therefore, we probably shouldn't address their artificial monopoly, because they invested money in their monopoly.
Laws can and are written with long-term timelines in mind. If you're dismantling X, Y and Z, you could specify that X kicks in two years from now, Y starts five years from now, and Z won't kick in until seven years has passed.
Removing protectionist laws that allow certain businesses to flourish by restricting competition should only create uncertainty in other areas where there are similar laws. I don't believe there are many such areas. The only other industry I can think of where there are mandated middlemen is alcohol, and it would be great to fix that too.
And so when a military patrol is moving down a crowded street are they surrounding themselves by civilians as well?
To imply that because some "target" that is a member of a community is intentionally surrounding themselves with civilians for some sort of protection is a little disingenuous in my opinion.
You may want to grow thicker skin. People joke about all kinds of inappropriate things in private. It's often a bonding experience. If I were to tell you something that I don't necessarily mean, but would harm my reputation if it were to get out, it's a form of a secret. If you reciprocate, often we would feel closer.
There are a lot of reasons to get upset in this world, and a lot of things to get upset at. If this is something sensitive to you for personal reasons, I get it. Otherwise, you should probably just accept that people aren't going to always conform to your view of perfection.
I joke all the time with my family and friends that I'll kill them if they ever repeat something I say in confidence. It's tongue in cheek, an obvious over-exaggeration, and often used for humor.
IME, bullies actually say "stop hitting yourself". School administrators and parents of bullies (authority figures who could step in to stop bullying) are the ones who say to grow a thicker skin.
There's certainly nothing wrong with trying to be kind. however, this is an interesting issue because I see the desire to force other people to conform to your beliefs a form of bullying.
I suppose it depends on where you place the responsibility of offense. Should everyone be (socially) required to consider the feelings of everyone around them before they say anything? Or should people learn to accept that others won't have their same experiences and values, and in that sense, "grow a thicker skin"?
Put more succinctly, is offense given, or is it taken?
One theory would be that humans have a biological sense of other. In-group, out-group, etc. People fight for the same resources, preferentially for their genetically similar groups.
If there are 10 people at a table about to starve to death, and only 5 of them are related, it helps their genetic lineage to prefer to feed relatives.
Racism, as an outgrowth of us-versus-them, most likely helped with keeping a lineage alive.
Perhaps. But "pretty sure you're making this up" is not an appropriate tone or argument to question validity. Especially when the basis for your argument is your singular person experience. Your never having heard the argument in no way counters the original assertion that their instructor had students make that statement, unless you attended every single course and class the original commenter refers to.
Next time, perhaps phrase your argument around your experience. "While I don't know where you're from, I never experienced this. Where I grew up in XYZ, people were quickly corrected regarding their misconceptions."
It illustrates something that I don't understand. Why do you care so much that you significantly affect the tone on this HN discussion? You bring up some excellent points, but your tone completely changes how your comment is perceived, and detracts from your contributions.
I am now going to take my own advice -- when you perceive someone else's words as so obnoxious that you cannot help but respond -- and ditch my HN account and re-add it to my blocklist.
Thank you for providing me with the impetus to regain hours of my day.