pumblechook

Am I the only one who is as tired of the 'kids can't use computers' meme as the 'digital natives' meme?

The vast majority of people have never been able to 'use' a computer like the author describes because the vast majority of people don't understand computing. And that's ok - I would consider it a triumph that we've been able to create such effective illusions in the form of UI that people who have no interest in computing can share in the incredible power that it enables.

But at the same time, it is a mistake to assume that mastery of the illusion equals mastery of the thing is abstracts. This is why the digital native meme is so misguided - kids don't know any more about computers than their parents did, they just know the walled gardens that sprang up around them.

Not just students - I experience this in the workplace too, and it just boggles my mind. We hired a recent grad, and after about 10 days of watching him type a password into a terminal ~20 times a day I casually mention how he can use ssh keys. His response? No, I'm not interested in that.

I've found journaling on paper to be one of the best morning rituals for calming anxiety. It really is amazing how just writing a few sentences creates a sense of awareness of what's going on in your head.

I also tried bullet journaling as my 'system', but quickly abandoned it. It is great if you're not a compulsive to-do list maker, but if you follow a GTD-like system where you frequently capture, it becomes onerous to answer the question 'what do I do next?' You either have to constantly flip through pages to review your full list, or regularly copy your to-dos to a master list, which becomes quite tedious, especially if you have a long list.

What works for me is using org mode as my to-do system, with paper for the brainstorming and planning. I always start with paper, then once I have clarity on what to do, I move it to org.

Appalled is probably a better word. I'm not sure how the process is now (I got Global Entry, which pretty much short cuts the entire horrible experience), but I remember coming back into the country as an American citizen and being appalled at not only how difficult the process was as a citizen, but how unfriendly it was to non-citizens.

Not only was a lot of the signage and printed instructions only in English, the customs officers were down right berating people in English (many of whom obviously didn't speak English) for things they had no way of knowing, like standing in the proper line, because they couldn't read or speak English. In many cases the customs officer would simply lead people (who had no idea where they were going) into a line, then leave. The wait for translators was hours in some cases. And if you were lucky enough to get through customs, you were rushed through another security line and required to put your bags on one of five conveyer belts to the bowels of the airport to be screened AGAIN (even if you weren't taking a connecting flight). Only you had no idea which belt you were supposed to choose because there was no signage, only a scant few attendants yelling out which belt you were supposed to put your bags on (in English, of course) while streams of people rushed by.

We obviously won't know until all the data is in, but looking at the county by county results seems to suggest that rural voters (who are predominantly working class whites) in swing states turned out for Trump in much greater numbers than anyone anticipated. Combine that with the fact that Clinton often underperformed or outright lost some number of counties in these states that Obama carried in 2012, and a picture starts to emerge. This was especially prevalent in Michigan and Wisconsin where she won in the cities and democratic strongholds but lost spectacularly outside of them.

Personal reason: in many ways, the old versions are much purer expressions of the timeless concepts of software usability. It is becoming much more difficult now to separate platform convention from actual user tested, researched UX. In the old Apple machines they used to be one in the same, so I find it very useful to often compare old design to new (where applicable) in order to suss out any differences and investigate them. Many times we've simply gotten used to less usable interfaces because we upgraded and didn't think twice, and the old machines can be a useful sanity check.

Edit: when I mean separating platform convention from user-tested UX, I mean that there are some pretty obvious times when platform UX conventions haven't been user tested (or were implemented despite negative user testing results). The most obvious one to me is iOS's flat buttons. I write iOS apps and try to do as much user testing on them as possible, and I've found this to be by far the most frequent struggle for users - discerning which things are pressable and which aren't.

As someone who's lived in the southeast US my entire life, this is spot on. The Bible Belt gets a lot of flack, most of it deserved, but it is hard to overstate the importance of the church community here. I suspect this, not the religious part, is why churches have continued to thrive here.

The problem for me (as well as many others I know), is that the tradeoff isn't worth it. There is an entire generation of people who are receptive to religion and the church community, but who are completely at odds with the traditional interpretations of religion that preach intolerance and other backward moral positions. The so-called 'contemporary' churches that have been sprouting like weeds have addressed this somewhat, but scant few are actually progressive thinkers, rather than just traditional churches that play religious rock music. I would love to be a part of a church community, but not if it means I'm constantly inundated with a message that runs counter to everything I believe in.

I faced this same question on a recent small project. For anyone dipping their toes into React, it's a huge leap of complexity. I thought I could jump into Flux just like React: get familiar with the concepts, do a tutorial or two, and start building. Nope.

I looked into Redux, but quickly realized it was overkill for my simple project. I eventually settled on Reflux, and I would highly recommend it for those who are just getting started with Flux.

Yes! It needn't be a lot of detail either. Example: I interviewed with a leading UX consulting firm, and they were very up front about the process. It was essentially 1 short take home assignment (30 mins), 1 phone screen (30 mins), 1 longer take home assignment (4-8 hours), and 1 full day of on site interviews where you have to give an hour long presentation. I didn't get the job, but it was by far the best and most transparent interview process I've been through.

Edit: on a side note, I really wish more companies would provide honest feedback to the candidate during the interview process. Especially when you've invested significant time into an interview process and are ultimately rejected, it is beyond frustrating to ask for feedback and just hear crickets, or a generic "other candidates are a better fit", etc...

Man, if this would've been around a year or so ago! The whole 1099 process was by far the biggest pain point for me of being a contractor/sole proprietor.

What led you to address this problem from the banking, rather than accounting, side? For me, the banking part wasn't a big source of friction. It was keeping up with income and expenses, trying to determine what I could safely deduct, and coming up with a reasonable estimated quarterly tax bill (especially for my state taxes, which I could only send in yearly). After that was done, moving the money around was relatively trivial. Even if your product removes all that friction, I would still think that requiring users to open up another bank account and essentially give you control over all their revenue would be a huge hurdle to overcome.

Also, were I still a contractor, not being able to track expenses as well would be a deal breaker for me, especially in months where cash flow was tight. Yes, doing my taxes is a hassle, but compared with the hundreds or thousands I might save on a quarterly tax bill with expenses accounted for, it is a minor annoyance.

Exactly. The lower bound I'm prepared to give is always a raise from my current salary. I may be prepared to accept less if the opportunity is right, but my only purpose in offering this information in the first place is to get to the next stage of the process. It is a tricky thing to keep as much negotiating leverage as possible while still signaling that you can come to an agreement, which is why I only offer the number if I feel like I won't progress to the next stage without it.

A little bit of both (I've been doing iOS for less than a year), but mostly the latter. I don't live near a tech hub or major city, and the cost of living is pretty low. So good data was hard to come by. I essentially just found the range for the closest major city and went from there, taking into account what I wanted with how the current market was going (salaries here are generally 20-30% lower than the major city, while the cost of living is much less).

One technique I've tried that seems to get a particularly stubborn hiring manager or recruiter past the salary question is giving a generic number range. Before talking to anyone I usually do some basic research to get some idea of what a generally reasonable range is for the position, and adjust that based on my situation at the time. If pressed (I still don't give it up right away) I give that range.

Example: today I was talking with a recruiter about an iOS developer position. The salary question came up (in the form of: how much do you make right now?), and I gave the standard deflection about wanting to make sure the position was a right fit, etc... When pressed, I said that based on my research, the base for this position is $75k - $95k, and that a number in that range would be acceptable as a starting point for negotiation, but contingent on the details of the position.

This kind of response seems to give you some wiggle room without giving up all your leverage, while giving everyone a general idea if you're in the ballpark. I only use this as a last resort if I'm getting the feeling that there is little chance I'll be able to proceed with the opportunity if I don't answer. True, by not establishing salary up front you may be wasting each others' time due to different expectations, but that is a very small risk to take compared with the potential upside of a big raise.

I've been meaning to do an agenda view for weekly reviews for awhile, but my master view works well enough. What I'd really like is an agenda view that approximates a burn down chart and gives me a suggested velocity for next week (or some arbitrary period of time) based on the difference between my effort estimates and actual clocked-in time. A task aging view would also be nice to remind me about tasks on my list that have been idle for awhile so I can update them.

But alas, this is the beauty and curse of org mode. I could do this, but will the time investment really make me that much more productive? Maybe, but maybe not.