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So facts are offensive? I don't see any rebuttal to the facts presented in the article unfortunately.

Anyone knows facts that disprove his?


I'm just speculating, but network effects are extremely important in science and I see it as very possible that women might have a harder time networking (presenting their papers, talking to peers, given benefit of the doubt by peers, etc.) in a field that is dominated by men. My SO did her bachelors on AA in big corps and found a lot of studies that supported the hypothesis that males bosses statistically tend to promote and acknowledge the work of other males more than of their peers. (Though I have to concede that it was just a bachelors degree and could also have been badly/unbalanced researched and that I am too lazy to find citations, as I have no clue of where she got them.)


Do you also have facts?


how are the numerous studies not facts?


http://katz.fastmail.us/scientist.html

>American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jobs for them. When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the price drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. Permanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obtaining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago) most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new postdoctoral position and move every two years. For many more details consult the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly.

It's gotten worse since then.


What does that have to donwith women?


Measurements of metric are objective only from the people who establish them, who are biased. Even if the professor is right, challenging meritocracies is always valuable and necessary.

This doesn't mean you should throw away all systems for selecting people to do a job; it means examining we must examine the consequences of using those systems and examining whether they are a net positive not only for the work you're doing but for society as a whole.


No, but using them to ignore injustice is wrong.


Humans work in cycles.

So, you already had the right hunch.

You don't really have a good direction on a random day and can't really get into the zone? Fix some small bugs for 2h and then call it quits, go to the gym, drink beer with your friends.

You got that one feature that you know exactly how you build it and you're on fire for it? Knock yourself out in a coding session of 2 x 20h and take 3 days off afterwards. Much bette than forcing yourself to quit at 6pm even though you're burning to do it.

Productivity means taking advantage of the human cycle, which is comprised of your mood, hormones, the characteristic of your problem and many more factors that you can't really control.


> We still fund a lot of young early stage founders

Examples from this batch?


Yes Bitcoin is slow.

We already have blockchains that are near infinitely scalable and decentralized with Elastos, IOTA (at scale) and Holochain with its agent-centric architecture instead of data-centric architecture as most blockchains have it, which is launching in a couple of months.

Nano is also very, very good and decentralized, has even instant transactions through its block-lattice architecture, but it isn't near infinitely scalable to billions of TPS yet or at least not yet.


These videos are bullshit.

I watched the boring compny video and all he says is that his concept have been known before him.

Yes, duh. But he was the first to make them usable as commercial products by making them 10x cheaper.

Anyone can make a costly prototype of something, but the challenge is making it actually profitable and commercial.


Usable as commercial products? What product does the boring company have? They've asserted things will be cheaper, but haven't sold a ticket.

So far the boring company is a money pit. It remains to be seen if they can accomplish anything you suggest they have. For now they're still just a marketing engine.


It only started last year.

The ventures that he takes on take normal companies a decade(s) to become commercially viable.

If he doesn't instantly have full products out, he has failed? Why the heck would you expect that??


Wow, what?

I'm not saying he's failed. I'm saying he hasn't succeeded yet.


One of the main reasons they say they'll build tunnels cheaper and faster is because they plan to make their tunnels half the diameter of other tunnels. It's like someone saying they can make cheeseburgers faster and cheaper than anyone else, but when you order one they bring you a slider instead of a normal full size burger.


If I can get a smaller burger that is just as satisfying for considerably less money, I'll take it.


You have 2 options.

1. You rewrite the code. You said you would hate that, so not an option 2. You develop on top of the spaghetti code. You said you would hate that.

So, no matter how, you would hate working at this job.

That's why the only option left for you is really telling your boss how things are and that you can't see yourself working on this project.

You'll probably receive an offer with a 50% salary increase, so you can take that, but you should have a new job lined up already at another companyy.


He kind of has a point.

There are mutations in microbes all the time that allow plastic digestion, probably millions every day.

Only needs one that really punches through.


And then spreads to eat all the plastic food containers in my kitchen.


And we'll create plastics that are plastic-eater resistant...


Like metal, or various wood fiber based products.


The problem is, criminalization of pot does far more harm to society than decriminalization.

So, while there might be downsides of decriminalization, the downsides of criminalization far outweight the former.


Confiks isn’t arguing it should be criminal, though. Just saying it should be “tolerated”, but not the same way a lot of other products are - they mention disallowing advertisements, and restricting who can sell it.

This is actually pretty similar to how cigarettes are treated in Canada (and many countries). Restricted sales, legal ages to purchase, product covered in discouraging warnings, lots of restrictions around advertisements, tonnes of places you aren’t allowed to smoke (not just inside, but anywhere remotely close to doorways), etc. Basically sends the message “we think smoking is negative, but it’s better to tolerate it in a highly regulated way than to make it illegal.”


Is it really that competitive these days after uni when you have "no experience" and are a junior dev?

I assume you have a top 10% GPA?

I always hear in the bay area you get $150,000 straight out of uni, at least when you're from Stanford etc. Is this not the case anymore?

Edit: Ok, I see you're in France. Then 33k€ is rather reasonable.

There don't really exist exciting software companies in France or Germany, except maybe blockchain companies.


> There don't really exist exciting software companies in France or Germany, except maybe blockchain companies.

That's pretty pedantic and narrow-minded. People are excited by wildly different things (and a for a lot of them, not particularly by blockchain), and France/Germany have a lot of things going on tech-wise,


> I assume you have a top 10% GPA?

Why would you assume something that is, by definition, not true for 90% of the population?


I was indeed in the top 10% of my school. Even a smaller percentile I guess since I was on the top 2 or 3 people in my class.

But unless the job is in Paris (which is extremely expensive) I havent found anything starting close to 40k€


You might want to look at remote work, if that's something you're comfortable with. You can get paid well (think "Paris-salary") and live in more economical areas. Happy to talk more if you're interested.


In the UK my experience has been that graduate developer salaries aren't that great, but can double for someone woth as little as 1-2 years experience post university.


French who moved to London here.

Yes, that's what happens in London however that's not what happens in France. Expect zero increase for the next many years, even if changing company.


What school did you go to, if you're comfortable sharing?


Not really comfortable giving a name but its one of the top 10 engineering schools in the country (France).


In Europe not really. US is a different league I believe, one I can't comment on.


French here.

33k is fairly decent in Paris, with no degree and no experience.

Outside of Paris, it's really good. It's above the average for a top degree in a top school.


I really can't see how someone would live with 33k in Paris (before taxes).

According to you what is a good salaries grid ?


Do you mean an average gross income in general or for senior devs particularly?


For new graduates or little experience.

One thing to note, education is free in France and the norm is to get a master. You won't get an interview anywhere without a master.


In the US a lot of companies just don’t have the bandwidth to hire someone straight out of university. A degree is great but 10 out of 10 times I would rather have someone with four years of experience doing the work we are doing than someone with a four year degree and no work experience. It’s sad but it’s the truth. We aren’t a big enough team to spare the time and effort it takes to teach a recent graduate everything they are gonna have to learn in their first couple years. A lot of which is just about what being a developer is day to day.


It depends on where you hire from. Guys from top universities usually have enough experience to get started instantly, straight out of university.


Blockchain, though no one on hn really understands it. :D


It's an unfortunate characteristic of many in the cryptocurrency community, that they think anyone who doesn't support crypto simply doesn't understand it. And by extension, as soon as they do understand it they will become supporters.

No. There are those who do understand blockchain and still don't support it. A great example is professor Jorge Stolfi. He is one of the more prominent detractors, and yet he routinely displays a very thorough understanding of the technology.


The thing is, 99% of readers here think bitcoin is shit, because of the go to arfuments, that bitcoin is too slow and only used by criminal and by extension, they don't like the blockchain either even though the weaknesses of Bitcoin have already been solved by many blockchains.

But they don't know that, so they keep bashing the blockchain without having any knowledge of other good platforms.


I tried looking up the arguments of Jorge Stolfi, however my Spanish is insufficient.

I don't claim to contradict that he is against the concept of cryptocurrencies or blockchain in general, but I fail to find evidence that he is against the technology in general.

I do find evidence he is opposed to Bitcoin in specific, or at least warns against it.

Could you point me to English writings where he argues against blockchain/cryptocurrency in general?


Perhaps the reason why your Spanish was insufficient for his writings is that his writings are in Portuguese ;)

Here's his primary English writing on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general (not necessarily blockchain), sent to the SEC: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-batsbzx-2016-30/batsbzx20163...


Thanks for pointing out it's Portugese!

This critique of Bitcoin is quite short, and seems directed at Bitcoin in particular, in no way do I conclude that he is against the concepts of blockchain (say non-currency), or perhaps even cryptocurrencies that do not take on some of the Ponzi aspects.

After reading this I can perfectly imagine (but do not claim so) that he might support certain other forms of blockchains and/or cryptocurrency...


This is his reddit account:

https://www.reddit.com/user/jstolfi

He primarily posts in buttcoin, a sub that exists to mock bitcoiners. It's pretty fair to say he thinks all coins are crap, not just bitcoin.

Also, please include me in the "Understands cryptocurrencies and yet doesn't support it" bucket please :)


It's an unfortunate characteristic of many that conflate cryptocurrency and blockchain as one and the same inseparable idea. Cryptocurrency is only one application of one type of blockchain.


Why do you think so? The math behind blockchain is pretty easy and well explained.


Math is a very small part in what is so good about the blockchain. people don't understand the significance of decentralization.


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