(Virtual) Employment Open Thread

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What scares you about it? Are you just unsure yet that it isn't sketchy, or something more specific?

Basically, a software development process think tank funded by companies who have a vested interest in ensuring that the research and education on said processes (Agile, specifically) is of better quality in the future than it has been so far. In practice this means that as of this month I get paid to write, attend conferences, organize seminars, network with people to try to match up cients and contractors when a bid is going around.

Those were things I did "pro bono" when I was a consultant; at one point I decided the consuting gigs were interfering with the volunteer stuff, and I had to choose one or the other. I picked the one that was more fun, the trick was to figure out the money angle, then convince businesses to go along with it.

To be frank I have only reached half of my financing goals so far, so this is still a work in progress with failure a possiblity.

A good job for not even that: in high school I worked summers as night-watch at a local suburban pool. 40 hours a week, $9.20/hr, or ~$4000 a summer. There was zero demand on my time during it since I worked overnight. I got a lot of reading done.

The only downside was that it was seasonal (so you couldn't just do that job), and you could be profoundly mentally screwed by the sleep schedule.

I think I could do better now than I did before with melatonin, modafinil, blackout curtains, etc.

Is it possible to put in enough hours at WalMart to get enough pay to rent an apartment with internet access and have a healthy diet? Also, can you specialize in just cart-pushing and not something annoying like customer relations?

Story: Eastern European accountant dude moved to the US, took a 4 hour accounting job and a 4 hour stacking heavy boxes at DHL warehouse kind of job, he said getting paid for practically going to a gym was the best idea ever and 4 hours of bookkeeping is really enough a day.

Thx. But it wasn't all that recent. Coming up on the 3-year anniversary. Scared the sh.t out of me, though, and convinced me to finally quit smoking and start exercising.

"Make sure to calculate how much quantum measure you're losing before going that route."

When you say it this way, Will, you needlessly exclude readers not yet familiar with the scientific content of this site, and you give the superficial impression of subscribing to Deepak Chopra or other New Age woo-woo.

Becoming an amateur computer programmer takes quite a bit of work, but at least it's not boring work.

What exactly goes into web programming?

It really depends on what someone needs you to do. There are a few different approaches to web programming, which include different workflows and different ways of breaking up who does what. Generally, most things on the web can be broken up into "front end" and "back end", which change meaning based on context. "Front end" can usually be divided into "design" and "implementation [or] programming". "Back end" can usually be divided into server administration, the database, and programming.

I work at a small firm (in person) and so do both front-end and back-end programming, but usually someone will specialize in one or the other or some aspect of it. For folks condemned to work in the world of Microsoft, there is usually a lot of complicated technical work to interface various proprietary Microsoft technologies using abstract frameworks on the back end.

The traditional back-end setup in the Unix world is what used to be called LAMP (back when people felt the need to call it something) - a machine with a Linux OS running the Apache web server and MySQL database engine, with Perl (/PHP/etc) serving up dynamic pages.

On the front end, you basically have a web page crafted using HTML (usually served via some complicated method from the back end) as well as whatever the user-agent is going to let you get away with. In practice, depending on the application, you will use HTML for the page's semantic structure, CSS for style and layout of the HTML, and Javascript for dynamic content on the front end, often employing a library like JQuery to abstract away browser quirks or JQuery-ui to add user-interface functionality. Plugins like Flash might also be used to create dynamic content with a more consistent user experience.

It's really impossible to prepare ahead of time for whatever web development job someone might need done, and there are gurus who are experts at any particular one of the technologies above, so it's a little tricky to set out trying to find a niche to fit yourself into. I can do anything we randomly decide to get involved in at my job, but I still don't fit the bill for a lot of the job postings out there because I have no reason to study the technologies used on Microsoft servers, and I hardly ever use Flash since Javascript is actually almost as useful these days, and we've never seen a reason to work seriously with Ruby or Python since they do so miserably in benchmarks against our old standby Perl (or C if we really need performance) and we're not popping out unique web apps on a daily basis that would need a complicated framework (like Ruby on Rails) to abstract away a lot of the work at the expense of performance.

The real trick is staying good at web development. Aside from graphics and games, the web is the main computing frontier where things are constantly changing and improving so constant study and practice is needed to stay ahead of the curve.

puts "<html>Hello World</html>"

You are 18. You evidently have some degree of ambition. (Even 'wanting to do little net work to live comfortably' is an ambition that some wouldn't even consider.) You will need to learn things. Especially if you don't go down the mainstream route of drifting through school getting some piece of paper that says you are qualified and then doing things that will keep a boss from firing you. Making your own way takes effort and rather a lot of independent motivation.

Two pieces of advice which work for me; your mileage may vary.

1) Let the projects drive the education, not vice versa. Learn languages and language features when you have a way to apply them immediately; you'll remember them better.

2) Make sure you can run the code before you write the code. ;)

So, I have a forgotten year of C++ under my belt and I can work with HTML and CSS. What exactly goes into web programming? I was imagining it'd be a few months studying CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Python, MySQL, PHP, Django, that Google Apps language, et cetera, and it just sounded like a lot of work.

Yeah, this kind of stuff. You will mainly need a web programming language and probably a framework. HTML is pretty simple, and CSS isn't a big deal, though it's quirky. You don't really need to know much about MySQL or Javascript to get going. (Learning database concepts will be useful later, but the skill also gives you a good payoff because it will teach you some ways of statistical thinking.) You will also eventually need some Linux.

But you only need a bit of knowledge in some of these areas to start making stuff and start having fun. HTML + CSS that you already know + programming language and maybe framework + follow very basic instructions to set up a MySQL database.

Also, I've had 2 occasions where I spent a few hours looking for resources to help with a problem and I just had to give up, which is hella frustrating.

Yes, this will happen in programming. Sometimes a session of programming will be like banging your head against a brick wall until it breaks, then moving over a few inches and banging your head against another spot in the wall.

Documentation + Google is your friend. Most problems I run into that I can't immediately solve myself can be solved within a few minutes of Googling. Of course, it helps when it's typical web programming problems that already have like a million people on the internet asking the same question as you. Just try something, Google the error message, try what it says, then Google the next error message until there are no more errors and things are working. I can do things I've never done before very fast that way.

Many problems will take several hours to solve. Some will take days to solve. When you spend all that time stuck on exactly the same thing, then it's frustrating, especially if when you solve it, it turns out to be something stupid like a typo or a badly documented quirk of a function or something. For me, that's the exception, not the rule. Even when working on a tough problem that takes a long time to solve, I'm typically making progress along the way. When the problem turns out to not be something stupid or obvious that I missed, then it's a really nice feeling of accomplishment when you solve it. Variable reinforcement schedule, and all that. It's a great feeling to finally solve a challenging problem that took you days, when you were never even sure if you could solve it.

The result is that how you feel about programming depends a lot on where you are in your current problem-solving cycle.

I dunno, it feels like there's this big unknown gap between me and being a below-average web programmer, and I don't like being below-average at anything, let alone having to work hard to become below-average.

I think it's possible that you've been a bit too hard on yourself, and not given yourself enough time to see what programming is like and assess your aptitude and enjoyment for it.

I've had 2 occasions where I spent a few hours looking for resources to help with a problem and I just had to give up

This is standard when you're attempting to teach yourself programming and you're still an apprentice. There's no shame in it. Get over yourself and post on IRC and forums for help when you're having a problem that Google hasn't been able to help you with after 10 minutes. Or I'd be happy to tutor you. Especially if you'll let me work on whatever I want to work on and just explain everything I'm doing to you and make you do some bits so you'll learn stuff. I really want to try this (I suspect my psychology is such that I would experience very strong motivation from this.)

Oh yeah, so far I've given like 3-5 people programming lessons and all of them were hesitant at first but afterwards said they had a great time and learned faster than just about anything they'd learned in their life (kind of like this). So my reviews are good. Seriously, I am bouncing my foot with excitement just thinking about this. If anyone in Berkeley, CA wants to learn programming they should pm me.

Learning to be OK with feeling stupid is good anyway because if you shy away from it then you'll be less likely to venture in to intellectual domains you're unfamiliar with, and you'll hesitate more to realize you're wrong. Seriously, I think being comfortable with being wrong might be the core rationality skill. (See my post that touches on this for more.)

We've already talked a little about economics but it seems you haven't really got the hang of it yet. If you plan to sell your labour, the 'value' of your labour is not your problem, negotiate the best rate you can for what you can do. If you take a more entrepreneurial route you can try to sell a product. Again, your effort is not the point, you just negotiate for what the results are worth.

Aaah! I knew your username was familiar but couldn't figure out how - I read it in the xkcd blag!

If your resume lists sufficient credentials (high SAT scores or gpa, attending or graduated from a good college, or previous tutoring experience) it's easy to get a job at a tutoring agency. They take a 50-70% cut of earnings, leaving you with $11-35/hr. There are many such agencies both for in-office and in-home, mostly 1-on-1. Agencies exist that focus on test-prep (preparing for the SAT, mostly), that focus on supplementing an existing class, or both. If you don't have the credentials, it's still worth a shot to apply.

Alternatively, you can advertise on WyzAnt, University Tutor, Craigslist, or put up fliers in the library and high school student centers. I never had the courage to put up fliers but I saw many, and the more experienced tutors I knew did this.

Well, I work at Google full time now, so my experience might be out of date. But when I was looking for work, I always had many opportunities, because many of my relatives and friends work in software and have a high opinion about my skills. If you're not in that position, my step-by-step guide won't help you...

Unless you are deceiving her in some way, my suggestion is to try and find a way to not feel guilty about this. That doesn't mean do it, since it might still not be worth it, but you have nothing to feel guilty about.

I have been in a situation. I have liked a girl a lot more than she liked me, known this and asked her to move in with me (rent free) anyway. I had the ability to do so, and I valued our time together and the chance to try for something more. It didn't work out, but I don't resent her or regret it. Given another chance I'd do it again.

What's the next step? Move in together and not pay any of the rent?

Yeah, basically. In my case:

• In-laws provided us with a rent-free place to live (their basement).
• In-laws paid all tuition fees for my wife.
• In-laws paid for a relatively lavish wedding.
• In-laws generously helped with the down-payment on our current place.
• In-laws frequently give us stuff.

While I don't mind, and in fact prefer, being bossed around by my wife - even I sometimes resent the degree of influence my in-laws have on our life. I can imagine that for someone less docile or more proud this would be a source of conflict.

I am passionately in love with my wife and have been since she first kissed me. I did not have to face the situation where an affluent girl has a crush on me and I'm not that into her - I wouldn't want to make any particular recommendations for that situation :)

get by on self-sufficient power generation via solar panels

That's too first-order hipster. Too "hippie environmentalist cult" (that's, like, so relatively mainstream, man). Much more fun to signal "technophile libertarian sci-fi cult". Can we could build a miniature liquid fluoride thorium reactor instead?

Super Awesome Co-Op for Rationality, Organic Farming, Programming, Meditation, and Other Cool Stuff!

Complete with a lone trail leading to an isolated yurt for those staging an all-out crisis of faith.

I'm pretty sure there are ways to turn a bit of seed capital (~10 million) and ~150 people into money in Northern California. If you can nucleate a community, and especially if you can put some software start ups in it, you can probably triple the value of some farm land.

I am all for a co-op, but a physical space requires many many things to go right.

We should look for the simplest plan that could work.

This sounds sooooo awesomely amazing.

But I think the cultishness factor means it would be damaging to the rationality and Singularity memes, even if we never overtly discussed the Singularity.

A study of social dynamics might suggest ways to get around this. Lets at least keep it in the back of our minds.

[Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_aircraft_(United_States\))

[text]((link\))

We should look closely at the ethical and existential risk implications of what we're doing.

Making money? It would have to a significantly evil money making scheme for you to increase existential risk by doing it. (In particular I am observing that the market will do similar things anyway and you are just making it incrementally more efficient.)

So far it's been only about people helping each other find paid employment, but helping each other find grants is also a good idea, thanks.

Sure.

Off the top of my head:

• He won a high level kick boxing tournament by exploiting a rule about ring-outs - legal but unsportsmanlike and feels like cheating.
• His first major business success was selling supplements online (a 'neural accelerator') with unspecified (in the book) health benefits. You get the impression from reading the book that this business was only a couple of steps above those herbal viagra emails.
• He advocates being persistent to the point of pushy / obnoxious in certain respects.
• He talks about testing out business ideas by advertising products which don't exist and if someone completes an order telling them the product is on back order. If you get enough orders you make the product.

There are other elements which might trigger ethical qualms for others but which didn't bother me like the idea of personal outsourcing.

http://thepiratebay.org/search/4%20hour%20work%20week/0/99/0

If anyone asks, this link was broken when I posted it: http://rapidshare.com/files/72981174/Timothy_Ferriss_-The_4-Hour_Workweek.rar

User:Kevin

Isn't he just "Kevin" to those of us who subscribe to roughly human distributions of terminal values?

and switching to a profitable-career path is much harder than switching away from it.

Don't underestimate the strength of golden handcuffs.

My grampa's friend did that and now literally has more many than he knows what to do with

This is evidence that your friend's grandpa screwed up. Indeed, after 20 years on a decent salary and retirement at half pay thereafter, I would imagine that income has long since reached the point of diminishing marginal returns, specially for someone so unconcerned with status as to live on a trailer and with no intention of giving to charity. To spend the next 20 years continuing to earn even more paychecks and a second retirement pension rather than living an eudamonic life with the little youth one has left seems like a horrible case of work for work’s sake.

I don't know, but I think the odds of getting into a top-tier grad school from a third-tier undergrad are low. I haven't yet found hard data on this.

I hear that everywhere too. It's a selection effect: most of the population aren't smart and rational enough to be long-term winning players and it's these people you hear complaining, while the good players go on quietly winning.

It's definitely true that the games are getting tougher every year, because the community is learning to play better, so the threshold of ability you need to be a winning player is constantly increasing. But it's not that high yet.

Now let's talk about your two bugbears, bots and collusion.

1. Bots

You never ever have to worry about bots. The goal in poker is to seek out and play against bad players, while tolerating the presence of good players. It's completely irrelevant whether these players are controlled by humans, machines, or some combination. (In practice, except possibly for heads-up limit hold'em, good players are still better than the best bots published in the academic literature anyway.)

2. Collusion

This is something you have to worry about, but in practice it's not that big a deal, especially if you play at low limits, where it's not going to be worth the bother for competent players to collude. There have been only a handful of times when I've suspected collusion online, in which case, the obvious response was to stop playing against those players. Sometimes collusion can be detected statistically, but if some collusion does go undetected, as long as you're winning, what does it matter?

There is some truth to the fact that online poker is getting tougher, but it is definitely exaggerated. I can assure you that it is still beatable and very profitable by competent players.

Also, don't forget the option of playing live poker. With a little training and practice, I would bet that most readers of this blog (who aren't prone to emotional instability, aka "tilt") would easily dominate at least the low-stakes games.

Gambling online for money is illegal anyway in the US. Lying about your age isn't such a stretch.

I think most online sites are 18+.

Most people use databases and heads-up displays, but to calculate and present statistics about your own and your opponents' play, not to calculate odds (calculating odds is easy). I like Poker Tracker.

Read some of the books published by Two Plus Two for solid beginner information that's mostly a little out of date; then sign up at a video training site (I like Deuces Cracked) for up-to-date information; finally go, e.g., here and accept one of the offers where they give you free money to play with and then use their money to practice at 1 cent/2 cent games.

Also, maybe ask this question at the Two Plus Two forums for a better response.

I am interested in this. Was it ever written?

are you making enough from it to make a difference to your quality of life?

No--well, sort of. I don't often sell any online, but I make bike designs for the Berkeley Bikestation, and I've done other batch orders from time to time. If I had a job, it wouldn't be a noticeable amount, but since I don't, it doesn't take much to be noticeable.

how much can be done with a couple of dozen images

I do most of my sales in custom designs. My main goal is to have a really low barrier to entry for single buttons--as the site puts it,

to reduce as far as possible the obstacles that lie between "Hey, I'd like that on a button" and "Check out my cool button!"

I focus on this because it's a service I want to exist and enjoy being able to provide, more than because it's an especially profitable model. So I do scattered customs in quantities of 1-10, and occasionally a random internet sale of a planet set.

and an ugh field about doing much with it

Know what you mean. There are three things on this site I'm disliking dealing with right now:

• Upgrading the website to provide an interface for custom button design. (I currently arrange custom designs by email with the client, which is a totally unnecessary trivial obstacle and doesn't need to take up my time.)

• Pricing. For some reason I find pricing (not the stuff posted on the site, but estimates for bulk orders) unreasonably difficult. Part of the reason for this is that my pricing cannot be competitive with mass-produced-in-a-factory buttons and still be profitable for me, and I feel lame when someone chooses to buy from me because I'm a small local shop and ends up paying a lot more because of it.

• Uploading images of a new button set. The set's done, the page is ready, all I need to do is take pictures and upload them ... but taking good pictures of small round shiny things is really hard, and I keep forgetting to buttonhole the photographer friend who offered to help with it.

And, I suppose, a little bit of malaise. There's a sense of "almost nobody sees or buys these, why am I bothering."

My programmer-mind wonders whether any of the work which (I assume) scales with the number of buttons could be automated. (Of course, if that's so it still requires someone to do the work of automating it...)

Heh, don't hate to make the suggestion when I just told you I can't be bothered to do it! I hadn't looked into that, and will; thank you. I'm a little reluctant to use Wordpress for non-bloggy things, probably because it's one of the reasons my college's website is so bad, but that's not enough reason to reject it without more exploration.

his own web-design

My knowledge of the general LW population indicate 'his', but in this case, I'd bet on 'her'. Relsqui?

Thanks. I'm not really satisfied with the navigation, and I'd love to do something complex where you can set up custom orders online instead of emailing me, but it helps to hear that other people see something other than the weak points. :)

ETA: Upon testing, I agree about the boxes, and switched them.

Alternatively, peddling things like nootropics or lockpicks that are technically legal but will arouse suspicion if sold with the wrong labels or intent. Care should be taken and laws should be checked if one goes this route.

Unofficial but not illegal work.

|No. Although a "LessWork" resume database would be cool.

It might be.

|Understanding all experience is beyond anyone's ability. That said, there's more to human experience than just traditional western employment (although that's fine as well).

I don't think that understanding all experience is beyond ability, we are the product of evolution, experience defines us....