coastflow's comments

>"I would quit the 70 to 90 hrs grind. It's not worth the long term damage to your mental health. If you haven't, you will soon burnout. Money is not everything. The only reason I would work those hours is if I was doing it to advance my interests not someone else's."

Absolutely. To reinforce this: any money secured by working longer hours will very likely be spent on treatments for the physical and psychological health problems that result from working such long hours. The advice is especially important because the original poster is getting paid on a 40 hour salary, not even getting paid for overtime.

This is good advice, though I would recommend the original poster to consider taking time off before signing up for courses (70-90 hours a week with 24/7 on-call needs treatment for burnout, which comprises time off).

>"Second, be disciplined when managing your time. Put in the hours you need to put in at work, but don't rob yourself of your free time by working excessively long days."

To add additional clarity for any readers who skimmed: OP should be disciplined with creating time for their personal life by creating boundaries with the company, and should stop being as disciplined with sacrificing personal interests on behalf of the company.

Overall, the poster's primary interest at this point should be to improve the stability of their own life as much as possible, regardless of how people at the company will feel about it.

Leave your manager and company for a job at a different company as soon as you reasonably can.

>"I've put in countless hours of work every day (70-90 hrs), being on-call almost 24/7, sometimes for straight 7 days for months despite only getting paid on a salary basis on 40 hr work weeks"

Your team clearly does not care enough to intervene to make sure you are not destroying your health due to your work, and they are not even proactively paying you a fair amount. To be clear: they are not treating you with any respect as a human or person. They have already set the conditions to cause physical health problems, and have already caused psychological problems ("riddled with brain fog").

You do not owe them any loyalty whatsoever, and you should not buy into any arguments (internal or external) that you should stay for any reason; if they cared, you would not be compensated as you have described, nor writing to HN for advice about this.

Cut your hours to make time for interview preparations (if you wouldn't ideally be able to take time off), and start applying to new companies. Changing organizations should be your top priority if you want to change the conditions that are causing your current psychological problems (brain fog, lack of self-confidence, and lack of self-esteem as described in the submitted post).

This is great advice, recommended by a clinical psychologist in the book "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter." From the book:

"One thing this has taught me is that a good story goes further in the twentysomething years than perhaps at any other time in life. College is done and résumés are fledgling, so the personal narrative is one of the few things currently under our control. As a twentysomething, life is still more about potential than proof. Those who can tell a good story about who they are and what they want leap over those who can’t.

"[...] But what is a good story? If the first step in establishing a professional identity is claiming our interests and talents, then the next step is claiming a story about our interests and talents, a narrative we can take with us to interviews and coffee dates. Whether you are a therapist or an interviewer, a story that balances complexity and cohesion is, frankly, diagnostic. Stories that sound too simple seem inexperienced and lacking. But stories that sound too complicated imply a sort of internal disorganization that employers simply don’t want."

The author includes other good advice, such as practical advice on why you shouldn't be afraid to lean on your network if you have the opportunity. In essence, the original poster can frame past experience with the startup as evidence as evidence that they would be a great fit for a position at another company.

>"If you can't write about a subject directly, use creative license and make the situation up. Nobody knows / is going to find it different and it will help get your point across."

Making up a situation—without disclosing that it is fiction—is risky in a practical sense and also morally questionable.

Readers typically don't like to be deceived when reading non-fiction. If a specific detail is fabricated and a reader notices, a reader can assume that the writer is sloppy/deceptive, and become far more skeptical with the rest of the author's works. Undisclosed fabrication can also lead to unsound conclusions (for example, an article could rely on the existence of a counter-example to disprove a rule, but a fabricated counter-example would make the argument fail to be valid).

Furthermore, suppose a reader cites an article with a fabricated story, relying on that story to make a point. If the story is false, the reader would take a reputational hit as well. In a moral sense, it's better for the reader to avoid fabricating situations.

It is typically good practice to make an article introduction easy-to-understand with minimal jargon, but creative license should always be disclosed when writing about a hypothetical situation. It leads to higher-quality reasoning (by avoiding arguments that rely on false anecdotal evidence) and is simple to disclose (e.g. "Consider a hypothetical: ...").

Targeting Apple users is effectively part of what they are doing with their launch. From the images in the submitted link, the keys also have labels for the Apple modifier keys in their default positions (that is, with Cmd next to the space bar).

Assume everyone in a population governed by direct democracy is not "dumb." Then, there is still a need for checks against what political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville called the "tyranny of the majority."

From the United States National Endowment of the Humanities [0]: "In America, [Tocqueville] saw and praised a people who enjoyed an unprecedented equality of conditions and political and civil liberty without endangering order or prosperity. But he also saw and criticized the way white majorities supported the institution of slavery and the unjust treatment of free blacks and Native Americans. In fact, the greatest danger Americans faced was inherent in their treatment of unpopular minorities."

"The power of the democratic majority arises from the fact that every individual is assumed to be competent to guide his own life and is politically the equal of every other individual. In this situation, the greatest legitimate power will always be with the majority."

A lack of "intermediary institutions, [makes a country have] “no lasting obstacles” in the way of the opinions, prejudices, interests, and momentary passions of the majority and tends towards an unthinking despotism over unpopular minorities."

[0] https://edsitement.neh.gov/closer-readings/alexis-de-tocquev...

The Apple keyboard layout (with Cmd and Opt keys) is a feature that other commenters on this thread haven't yet discussed.

The major producers of keyboards with the Apple layout include "Keychron" and "Royal Kludge," but the brands aren't well-known to most consumers in contrast to Logitech. Each brand also has some reports of minor problems with build quality from forum discussions on Reddit, though it remains to be seen if the Logitech keyboard will be much better.

You could use a Windows-first mechanical keyboard for MacOS, but the layout is slightly different (the Windows key as Cmd and the Alt key as Option are in different positions than on a Mac-first keyboard). Fixes to remap the keys (example solution: https://superuser.com/questions/158561/how-can-i-remap-windo...) can cause problems for users who work with virtual Windows machines after swapping the keys.

The definition of freethinking that was used leans more towards “the ability to resist social pressures” than a consideration of the philosophical debate on free will, even if it is plausible that life is deterministic from a philosophical perspective [0].

For practical purposes, it’s best not to worry about determinism so much, and adopt the belief of compatibilism [1], which many institutions in society—such as the courts and legislature in Western countries—effective assume (if not free will).

The existence of original thought also matters less than the ability to effectively execute a plan to create a useful good or service, for the purpose of career development.

[0] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

Poker may have good life lessons, but I would hesitate to wholeheartedly recommend poker to children because the worst-case scenario for the player is much worse than for a player of chess. From a research review paper [0]: "In the majority of situations, gambling in adolescence does not appear to have obvious serious negative consequences; however, in a number of cases it does. There are several risk factors for adolescent problem gambling, including parents with gambling problems, an earlier age of first gambling activity, and greater impulsivity. Children of problem gamblers tend to gamble earlier than their peers."

A worst-case scenario for a player can arise due to "tilt" in poker, aka a losing streak magnified by negative emotions. From another review paper [1]: "Tilting is defined as “a strong negative emotional state elicited by elements of the poker game (e.g., “bad beats” or a prolonged “losing streak”) that is characterised by losing control, and due to which the quality of decision-making in poker has decreased” [...] After a significant loss, tilt occurs in three phases: (1) a dissociative phase (disbelief, “unreality,” unwillingness to “accept” the events), (2) a phase of indignation and negative emotions (feelings of injustice and unfairness), (3) and the chasing phase."

Since real money can be at stake, especially if a young person starts to play poker online, the consequences can be far worse than for a person who develops an unhealthy relationship with chess. Though a research review paper suggests that these worst-case scenarios do not happen to the majority of young poker players, it can still happen to a significant number of them.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945873/

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5387767/

Good candidates for relevant terms may include "stream of consciousness" as a narrative style [0], with a writing tone that is "highly informal" and "colloquial" with "vulgarity" (from the inclusion of "fuck" and other profane words) throughout [1].

The author additionally uses the writing technique of "enallage", defined as a "slight deliberate grammatical mistake that makes a sentence stand out," [2] from the article excerpt: "in other words, we need to use termios. the ugly side of termios."

In other words: the author writes in a highly informal, colloquial tone with a stream of consciousness narrative style. The article is notable for its vulgarity and usage of enallage to achieve its exceptionally high degree of informality. The author is reminiscent of James Joyce as an experienced C programmer.

[0] https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-stream-consciou...

[1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/29720/whats-the-...

[2] https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-enallage-1690647

Thanks for the responsiveness, and linking to sources for your remaining facts that are the main arguments of your article.

The article (which as published today) has a factual error. The author wrote: “New York passed a law decriminalizing marijuana but never got around to issuing licenses or a legal framework to retailers.”

But New York State legalized cannabis in 2021, instead of just decriminalizing it. From The New York Times, published in March 2021 [0]: “After years of stalled attempts, New York State has legalized the use of recreational marijuana, enacting a robust program that will reinvest millions of dollars of tax revenues from cannabis in minority communities ravaged by the decades-long war on drugs.

“Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the cannabis legislation on Wednesday, a day after the State Legislature passed the bill following hours of debate among lawmakers in Albany.”

This may seem like a minor nitpick, but the factual error invites scrutiny over the accuracy of the rest of the article. The author does link sources to the other claims in the article, but I’m now by default skeptical to believe the other assertions in the article until I can evaluate whether their linked sources are legitimate.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/nyregion/marijuana-seller...

Mexico is part of North America, and Mexico was included as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) when it was active (reference: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nafta.asp).

>” Even Americans get kind of brainwashed that their local culture is inferior and everything is better in New York (and California) because that's where so much of our popular media originates and is set.”

For additional evidence, the setting of most of “Breaking Bad” (now continuing as “Better Call Saul”) in Albuquerque, New Mexico led to meaningful economic benefits for people living there, such as increased tourism (from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-xpm-2013-a...).

Note that the article focuses on the ability to find work in the creative and media industry, versus the technology industry.

In addition, though it captures a feeling that many Canadians have, I wish it were backed by statistics and data to support the assertion in the headline.

I also thought that the following passage was not strongly supported:

>”WHEN I GOT BACK to Toronto, I understood in a new, tactile way that I might one day leave it. Toronto’s energy flows endlessly toward the impulse to win, to never stop working until you hit your head on the visible ceiling. Then you work some more. New York has that vibe too, maybe even more so, but I feel like everyone’s more self-aware about it. And, more importantly, there’s no ceiling. You can try to dominate the world and touch the clouds, as foolish as it would be.”

I believe the “impulse to win” is more of a function of who you associate with and your own attitudes, versus the city you happen to be located in.

There is a grain of truth (people who move to New York City are often self-selected to be ambitious), but it wasn’t convincing to assert that the people of Toronto are chasing promotions as part of a corporate ladder until they hit a ceiling.

Counter-examples are abound in Toronto. Some people start their own companies, others find enjoyment outside of work (e.g. family and friends), and others are comfortable with their position in life (e.g. small business owner of a bakery).

People in Toronto also come from vastly different cultural backgrounds as the city is one of the most culturally diverse (over half as part of an ethnic minority as of 2016) in the world [0], so it is a leap to assert that everyone shares similar beliefs about work just because they live in the city.

The author’s assertion is an example of the “false-consensus effect,” where people mistakenly believe that others in a particular context must share their beliefs [1]. This is why studies with statistical analyses are important.

>”But, in practice, that inevitability now felt freeing. I guess I got tired of repressing my sense of possibility.”

You don’t need to move to New York City to feel a sense of possibility and work toward your goals.

[0] (PDF): https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/99b4-TOHea...

[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/false-consensus/

The iPad mini might be Apple's response to mostly fill the gap. The device can run phone apps without having the features of calling/texting.

The tablet also has more educational value as it supports handwriting and drawing, though it comes at the cost of not being pocket-size (adding inconvenience for users who just want to listen to music).

>to make a screen display some text and pictures. But it's fancy text. It requires codes.

This rhetoric vastly understates why businesses hire developers: there is far more than displaying text and pictures. Consider Hacker News. The system involves user account creation, security, and the ability to reset passwords. There is a voting system and an input system to record comments.

You need to run backups and set up auto-moderation features. There is spam detection. There is the need for performance and fast loading speeds. The software needs to be maintained over time. The website must be responsive, and adapt to different display sizes (e.g. laptop display versus smartphone). The website should run across different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) and on various devices. The website should follow accessibility standards.

There are strong reasons to believe that there are other causes than "mass psychosis" for competently-led organizations to want to hire web developers.

Food trucks can plausibly provide healthier options for food than in convenience stores, which often only sell junk food, according to a research paper that is a literature review [0]. This is especially true for low-income areas where there are fewer supermarkets (which sell fruits and vegetables) as due to the "risk of crime and theft, and [lack of] land for parking." However, the author writes that this hypothesis is not yet conclusive due to a lack of published studies.

Anecdotally, on university campuses, food trucks were the main option for food due to a lack of supermarkets and restaurants nearby. An app specialized for food trucks could also fix the problem where the availability and opening hours of food trucks are less known, especially for certain trucks that occasionally switch locations, are absent on certain days, or change their hours (making them hard to track via an entry on Google Maps).

In short, food trucks could plausibly be seen as a step up for finding fresh food instead of defaulting to a convenience store that may typically just serve junk food, in areas where there are no restaurants or supermarkets.

[0] Journal of Public Health Policy, 2021: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7874560/

There are additional steps. You need to take a spoon (extra tool), scoop out the loose leaf tea from the container, make sure not to spill it, and then pour it into the strainer.

After steeping, you need to dump the used leaves (assuming you aren't planning to re-steep) with more potential for spillage than when disposing a tea bag, then take the strainer to the sink, add a tiny drop of dish soap, rinse the strainer, and find a place to dry it (e.g. over an empty jar).

It's not difficult, and the extra steps are personally worth it as loose leaf tea generally tastes better. However, for people who aren't concerned about the taste difference, it's nice to have one less task (where spillage is a concern) to pay attention to.