A friend of mine works for Child Protective Services and gets exposed to some very volatile and unstable people. He gets threats from cases he's assigned, but thankfully nothing too serious or pervasive. Now that he's got a kid on the way, he's a bit more concerned. The only thought I had was to create an alias, but I'm really not sure how someone would go about doing that.
That book might be a great start for him, but if anyone has recommendations, I'm ears.
> I really wonder how much sleep people lose worrying about their sleep habits.
I've been having an increasing issue with sleep (not being able to fall asleep, then waking up early and not being able to fall back asleep). I've tried to combat it by being more aware of my habits and patterns, but that's resulting in sleep anxiety. Compounded with the effects of sleep deprivation and I'm easily losing sleep worrying about my sleep habits.
AFAIK, worry is the main reason for poor sleep. And encountering posts like this at HN and in newspapers all the time may add to the problem.
For example, I had almost gotten back my sleep a couple of months back. And then, every newspaper (and HN) was full of this new research saying that lack of sleep alters genes. I didn't even have to read the articles, the headlines were enough: "Too little sleep is bad for you, it alters genes! My, oh my!". Thanks! Welcome back, sleep problems.
But on what grounds can they conclude that altered genes is bad for your health? The research sure says that things is happening in your body, and that some processes related to e.g. the immune system has been altered. But how bad is it really? Will you die earlier?
There are many things altering your genes. If I look at a picture of a cute kitten, I am pretty sure you can see that in my genes. Also, meditation dramatically alters you genes. (There are stories about monks who hardly need to sleep at all, because they get the rest they need through meditation.)
So, are there big problems with sleeping too little, are there really reasons to worry? I don't know. But like in in many other fields (e.g. nutrition), results of early studies have been stated as "facts", while later studies show that things are a bit more complicated. Antioxidants comes to mind.
There are research suggesting that too little sleep causes heart disease. (Note the word "suggests".) But, if there is a link, is the reason lack of sleep? Or does other factors add to it or cause it, e.g. eating more junk food, that you get more easily annoyed (increasing blood pressure), etc.?
I am not suggesting that you should sleep less, and I believe sleep is important. But I am unsure about how much you should worry if you sleep poorly.
In general, I believe more and more in eating balanced, exercising moderately (walking is good!), and most importantly, taking a break when my body tells me it's time to rest (listening to your body is underrated, and we learn from early childhood to suppress what it tells us). And, very important, stop reading health news. Because adding to almost any problem, is how media (and others) report findings to sell more of their products. They skew reality, and you probably end up worrying more than you should.
Maybe you do not feel sleepy at the right times? Do you ever feel sleepy during the day? If this is so and the rest of your life permits, you should just let yourself drift into sleep.
I always feel sleepy between 2:30 and 3:00pm each day. Unfortunately my job (and my coworker's desire to flood my calendar) don't allow for midday naps.
> It could also be an attempt to get Google juice for anyone else looking for info on these jokers.
It's not that. Schoenbaum (who is General Counsel) has been largely focused on this for Rackspace in DC for a while, and vocal on it over the last year.
Yes, you probably are underpaid, but not by the delta you'd assume based on the original post.
Both of the sources cited are talent agencies. Talent agencies make their fee based on the signing salary of their candidates. It's in their interest to drive the market value higher, even if with speculation.
On the other end, I'm on the hiring side, so it's obviously in my interest to try and keep those numbers down. I also know I can't hire if I can't pay a competitive salary (among other things), so I need to accept the data when it's there.
Both of these surveys [1][2] fail to provide any meaningful data to support their results and I'm struggling to rationalize how these can be accurate averages. I've been hired and hired others in Portland, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Chicago. From what we've hired at, what people have been hired away from us for, what friends are making, what friends at other companies are hiring at, I just don't buy it.
I get it. I'm making an argument that they don't provide data and I'm waging my argument on anecdotal evidence. I think these reports are useful for demonstrating where demand is, but I'd caution people from walking into their manager's office (or an interview) and citing this as supporting evidence.
...namely because these two reports are featured on a blog that "is teaching freelancers and consultants how to build a sustainable and high income business." Freelancers are taxed differently, pay their own benefits, and have a completely different set of expenses.
Portland, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and Chicago are all relatively low-wage cities for software developers. The averages are bumped upwards by all the folks working in Silicon Valley, NYC, and Boston.
There's lots of anecdotal evidence here in this thread that developers can command a high salary.
From the hiring side, of course I wouldn't want developers to know about this. If I've been given a certain hiring budget I have to convince devs that they aren't being underpaid.
I had high hopes of seeing data and research (no offense, TechCrunch) to support this claim. I'm in the camp of not liking social authentication, especially when it's the only option, but I'm also a sample set of 1.
I agree with a lot of your sentiment, especially considering some 3rd party that doesn't hold a ton of credibility is acting as the mouth piece.
Out of curiosity, are you a parent? I'm not, but as an uncle that loves the shit out of his niece and nephew, I'd have a hard time telling their parents to chill out when their kid is not sticking to the plan, and UA's response (3 hours) seems minimize the importance (to the parents). To be fair, I'm not sure my sister or brother-in-law would allow a 10 year old to travel on their own, either.
I'd be very leery of running any unofficial two factor authentication. Heck, even 1Password urged their users to wait out the initial Dropbox TFA rollout.
It seems gimmicky, which could work, but then throw in the QR code and incorrect usage of "its" and it just seems unprofessional. If you're investing in the person and not the idea, this seems like a very bad first impression to make.
A friend of mine works for Child Protective Services and gets exposed to some very volatile and unstable people. He gets threats from cases he's assigned, but thankfully nothing too serious or pervasive. Now that he's got a kid on the way, he's a bit more concerned. The only thought I had was to create an alias, but I'm really not sure how someone would go about doing that.
That book might be a great start for him, but if anyone has recommendations, I'm ears.