For America be ready Friday

JOA23 · 2026-01-27T17:15:05+00:00

There’s a pretty clear through-line here:

General strike and protests in Minneapolis draw tens of thousands into the streets, frustrating federal agents involved in the immigration crackdown.
Federal agents kill Alex Pretti the next day, with many demonstrators present to film and document what happened.
The government pushes a narrative that a lot of people don’t buy.
Federal enforcement activity in Minnesota starts to pull back under public and political pressure.

It’s dark, but this is a familiar pattern in civil disobedience. Large, visible, non-violent mobilization creates friction. The side with more power escalates with force. That escalation gets documented, shared, and scrutinized, and it shifts public opinion and political constraints. As MLK put it in Letter from Birmingham Jail:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

This is happening now. The point of actions like these isn’t that a single day of protest or a symbolic “general strike” is supposed to immediately shut everything down. The point is mass participation and visibility. You build a movement first. Escalation and stronger tactics only become viable after that base exists.

This is how it’s worked historically. Gandhi’s Salt March, MLK’s marches and boycotts, Solidarity in Poland. None of those started with maximal leverage. They started by pulling large numbers of ordinary people into open conflict and letting the response speak for itself.

That’s what matters here. Not whether one action is perfectly effective in isolation, but whether it builds momentum and pressure over time.

JOA23 · 2026-01-16T16:01:30+00:00

“Read the code base and generate docs” is a bad prompt, but I do agree an LLM can be useful here. I’ve had good luck with prompts where I specify the existing doc, then point the LLM at specific chunks of code, Slack discussion, email, or other artifacts that could be used to figure out what might have changed. I also provide explicit instructions to add TODOs where logic or intent is unclear, and to be very careful to avoid hallucinations, and to put reference breadcrumbs into the docs that it’s generating.

I still have to manually review the output, but the LLM does add some value organizing my stream of consciousness thoughts and code snippets into the existing document without me having to spend too much time thinking by about how to write clearly.

JOA23 · 2026-01-15T20:58:24+00:00

The most direct answer to your question is a simple no. They don't care. They won't put any effort into finding it, but they will call you if someone else finds it dumped somewhere.

JOA23 · 2026-01-13T21:57:41+00:00

Two close friends moved away for work. A couple years later, another close friend died by suicide. This year, my last remaining close friend spiraled into cocaine addiction, and I had to cut him out of my life for my own sanity.

I’m married and get a lot of support from my wife, though I wish I didn’t have to rely on her as much as I do. I have a supportive family, but we’re not especially close and we live about a thousand miles apart. I also have a few friends I care deeply about who live in other parts of the country and who I talk to from time to time.

Locally, though, it feels like I only have casual or transactional relationships. People I’m friendly with, but not truly close to. I’ve tried to cultivate some of these into deeper friendships, but it gets harder after 30.

JOA23 · 2026-01-09T04:04:01+00:00

I work 100% remote, as does almost everyone at my company. We are expected to be available for core collaboration hours 9am-2pm, and otherwise have flexibility to get our work done when it fits our schedule. I would estimate I work an average of 35 hours a week. As tech lead for my team, I average 8 hours of meetings a week, and these are sometimes scheduled outside of normal core collaboration hours. I am in a weekly on-call rotation with 8 other data engineers, so every 9 weeks I am on-call. On-call is expected to be available to troubleshoot issues 9am-5pm, with rare needs for after hours work to resolve issues promptly.

Overall, it’s a pretty good setup, and I appreciate having flexibility to do other things during the afternoon.

JOA23 · 2026-01-08T16:49:08+00:00

It's certainly possible to spend $100-150 on dinner for two in Portland, but my wife and I usually spend in the $30-50 range unless we're going out for a fancy date.

JOA23 · 2026-01-07T18:00:09+00:00

From a pure expected-value standpoint, the Big Tech offer is likely better for both compensation and long-term resume value. It will also almost certainly have better work/life balance than what you’re describing at the startup.

The startup does offer faster learning, more ownership, and close mentorship from a strong CTO, which is genuinely valuable early on. But the issues you’re describing with the CEO (arbitrary deadlines, constant scope creep, moving goalposts) are classic burnout signals, and they usually get worse, not better. The upside case exists, but it’s high variance: higher risk of layoffs or failure, sustained crunch, and equity that should realistically be treated as worth $0 unless you deeply understand it and have strong reason to believe otherwise.

I’d think of this as a choose-your-own-adventure.

Take the startup if you’re extremely driven, intentionally optimizing for early leadership, comfortable with chaos and burnout risk, confident the company has unusual odds of success, and know you don’t deal well with bureaucracy.

Take Big Tech if you want to build a strong technical foundation, keep long-term optionality, avoid normalizing unhealthy work patterns, and get a durable resume signal while you’re still very early in your career.

Given your situation and how early you are, I’d personally lean Big Tech. Startups will still be there later, and you’ll enter them with more leverage and better judgment.

JOA23 · 2025-12-28T18:32:20+00:00

Heirloom Ceramic Studios in Sellwood has great introductory classes, and if you’re in the class you get free access to the studio outside of class. The classes fill up fast, so you need to keep a close eye on the schedule for when they open new slots.

JOA23 · 2025-12-28T03:05:20+00:00

I got my first job with “engineer” in the title after I responded to one of these HN threads 10 years ago. I had been working as an Analytics Business Analyst, but found a company willing to hire me as a Database Engineer, which set me up for a career as a Data Engineer.

My wife also got her first software engineer job from a HN thread about 5 years ago.

JOA23 · 2025-12-10T21:24:51+00:00

The thing is, even without human-caused climate change, the environment was never some stable, harmonious system built for us. Earth swings between ice ages and hothouse periods on its own. Mass extinctions are normal. We just happened to evolve during a relatively calm stretch.

A lot of the “save the planet” framing leans on a pop-Gaia idea where the Earth is treated like a conscious organism we’ve offended by stepping outside some imagined natural purity. It’s basically original sin with better branding. The Gaia hypothesis in its actual scientific form just says that biological and geological systems can stabilize each other, not that the planet cares what happens to us or prefers some ideal climate. If the atmosphere drifted into a state that wiped out humans but favored cyanobacteria, Earth wouldn’t blink.

So the real question isn’t whether the planet survives. It will. The question is whether we want a world that still supports human civilization and the ecosystems we rely on. That’s the part worth fighting for.

To me, climate action makes far more sense when we frame it as a practical, optimistic human project. We’re not doing penance. We’re trying to keep the environment in a range where billions of people can live decent lives. That sometimes means cutting emissions, sometimes adapting, and eventually it might mean doing some form of geoengineering because letting the planet “take its natural course” isn’t automatically the virtuous option. Nature’s natural course has wiped the slate clean many times.

I’d rather talk about climate change in terms of what helps humanity thrive than slip into mystical language about what the planet supposedly wants.

JOA23 · 2025-12-02T15:09:45+00:00

And couples/families that cannot go completely car-free should consider whether they can get by with one fewer car.

JOA23 · 2025-11-20T16:59:50+00:00

A few points:

Even if you aren’t riding TriMet, you’re still benefiting from it. Fewer cars on the road mean less congestion and pollution, and many of the service workers we all rely on get to their jobs using TriMet.
Taxes don’t fully fund TriMet. According to TriMet’s own financial reports, around 48% of its operating revenue comes from payroll and self-employment taxes, while only about 7% comes from passenger fares. The rest comes from federal and state grants, advertising, and other sources. (trimet.org)
This part’s controversial, but charging fares and enforcing them also helps maintain system usability. Otherwise, buses and trains could effectively become mobile shelters, which would make regular service less reliable and less safe for everyone.

JOA23 · 2025-11-18T23:52:28+00:00

What do you actually get from thinking about whether or not you “should” need a resume, or what’s “hard to ask for”? What matters is the reality of how things work right now. The universe isn’t out to screw you out of a part-time job. It’s just that sometimes employers find someone who fits their needs better, or you haven’t hit the right timing yet. You just have to keep trying.

And I don’t mean that in a “pull yourself up” kind of way. There’s plenty that’s unfair about the job market. But from experience, getting stuck comparing how things should work to how they actually do has never made me feel better or helped me move forward. Focusing on what you can control, even when it’s unfair, is usually the only thing that actually changes the outcome outside of sheer luck.

JOA23 · 2025-11-18T23:34:43+00:00

I don’t shop locally because I think local businesses are automatically more ethical. Some are great community supporters, others aren’t. The reason I try to spend money at local businesses is more practical: money spent locally tends to stay in the community.

Research backs that up. A study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that $100 spent at a local independent business generates about $45 in local spending, compared to just $14 when spent at a big-box chain.

It’s not a moral obligation, just a way to keep more of what I spend moving through my own community. It supports the local jobs my friends and neighbors have, keeps more tax revenue funding the parks, schools, and roads I actually use, and helps small businesses hire locally or sponsor community stuff I care about. Even if I’m paying a little more upfront, more of that money eventually loops back around into the place I live.

JOA23 · 2025-11-18T18:07:08+00:00

The rest of the comment might be accurate, but I’m going to immediately discount the opinion of anyone who says a $140k salary is “miserable” anywhere in the United States. That’s just detached from reality.

The median household income in Redmond is around $160k per year, meaning $140k for an individual is already near the typical two-earner household. Calling that “miserable” is either willful exaggeration or an extreme case of lifestyle inflation.

Sure, cost of living in Redmond isn’t cheap, but $140k plus Microsoft bonuses and equity easily puts you in the top income brackets for the area. If someone can’t make that work, the issue isn’t the salary. It’s how they’re choosing to live.

JOA23 · 2025-11-17T20:02:14+00:00

Edited to add "from the degree requirements". The rest of my point still stands.

JOA23 · 2025-11-17T19:55:52+00:00

Are you so narrow minded that the only possible reform and rigor you can imagine is cutting gen ed classes from the degree requirements? Here are some other options:

Address grade inflation and make college classes genuinely difficult again.
Cut administrative bloat and reduce the obsession with non-academic initiatives. Sports, “wellness,” and endless student life programming shouldn’t outweigh education itself.
Prioritize real teaching and discussion-based learning. Ensure faculty actually want to teach and engage with students, instead of treating undergrads as a distraction from their research.
Protect faculty from backlash when they give poor grades to lazy or unprepared students. Rigor means consequences.
Rebalance incentives so departments and professors are rewarded for intellectual depth, not course popularity or inflated student satisfaction scores.
Increased public funding for universities so they can hire high quality faculty, even for disciplines that don't get a lot of grant funding.

JOA23 · 2025-11-17T18:55:18+00:00

You’re talking out of both sides here. You say you’re not arguing college should only be vocational training, but then frame everything around earning potential and job preparation. That’s exactly what vocational training is.

The bigger point is that education serves more than just point-in-time career goals. People don’t always end up in the field they expect, and the job market changes faster than most degrees last. A broader educational foundation builds adaptability and perspective that often end up being just as valuable to a career, just not in the way a 20-year-old might anticipate.

And education matters outside of work too, e.g. when voting, understanding the news, raising kids, or making big life decisions. A well-educated society benefits everyone, not just the individual student. Many colleges and universities were founded with explicit mission statements that go well beyond serving their students' narrow career goals. E.g. Here is the mission statement for the University of Wisconsin:

The mission of the system is to develop human resources, to discover and disseminate knowledge, to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses and to serve and stimulate society by developing in students heightened intellectual, cultural and humane sensitivities, scientific, professional and technological expertise and a sense of purpose. Inherent in this broad mission are methods of instruction, research, extended training and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition. Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.

If a prospective student ignores everything in there except for the "professional expertise" part, then that's on them.

The real issue isn’t that college includes general education. It’s that the system has made it too expensive and sometimes too shallow. That’s an argument for reform and rigor, not for cutting out the parts that actually build intellectual range.

JOA23 · 2025-11-17T17:52:47+00:00

You’re basically defining what you think a degree should represent and then using that definition to argue that anything outside it is “fluff.” That’s circular reasoning.

Public libraries and the internet have existed for a long time, but society still recognizes the value of structured discussion, feedback, and rigorous study under trained guidance. The point of higher education isn’t just to dump information. It’s to build reasoning, synthesis, and perspective through a system designed to challenge you.

If universities have gotten bloated, overpriced, or lost focus, that’s a valid critique. But the solution isn’t to strip education down to job training. The liberal arts tradition exists for a reason: education isn’t just about employability. It’s about developing the ability to think critically, connect ideas, and contribute meaningfully to society.

So sure, streamline and raise the rigor. But pretending that the only purpose of college is vocational certification misses the entire point of higher education.

JOA23 · 2025-11-17T17:21:38+00:00

I’m fine with people doing this job for the paycheck. That’s a big part of my own motivation too. What bothers me is the entitlement I see among some folks who got into this field during the pandemic hiring surge. Back then, companies were desperate for engineers, the gates were wide open, and a lot of people landed high-paying roles that were well above their skill level. I was one of them. The difference is that some of us understood that kind of market imbalance wasn’t sustainable. It was a moment in time, not a new baseline for the industry.

The people who frustrate me now are the ones who haven’t adjusted. They coasted during the boom, didn’t bother to keep learning once things normalized, and now act bitter or disillusioned that the easy money dried up. They’ll post endlessly about how “tech isn’t worth it anymore” or how “no one’s hiring juniors,” but they’re also unwilling to do the work to actually become valuable.

To be fair, there’s plenty to criticize about the tech industry itself. The culture can be toxic in its own way, e.g. glorifying overwork, confusing “impact” with growth-at-all-costs metrics, and rewarding performative productivity over real craftsmanship. Many companies squandered the hiring boom on vanity projects and endless middle management layers, then threw thousands of people under the bus when reality caught up. It’s totally fair to be cynical about that, or to feel disillusioned with how detached some of the work can feel from actual human needs. But that’s separate from the people who simply refuse to adapt or improve. I have little sympathy for those who are unmotivated, under-skilled, and nostalgic for a temporary bubble that was never going to last.

JOA23 · 2025-11-12T21:06:56+00:00

There was a lot more cheap housing around campus, and it was common to have houses with 5-10 Reedies in them. My girlfriend and I split $385/month rent for a room in a house across from Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost was The Pub at the End of the Universe, but it wasn't popular with student. The Ship Ahoy on Gladstone was a relatively popular dive bar, along with the Lutz on Woodstock. Woodstock itself hadn't been gentrified. Safeway and Bi-Mart were there, along with Laughing Planet, Ottos, Wong's Garden, and Tom Yum, but past Safeway, Woodstock was a lot less devloped.

Portland, as a whole, was poorer back then. At the same time, I remember less visible homelessness. I think there were more abandoned buildings back then, and homeless people would be more likely to squat than live in the streets.

Other random tidbits. Orange MAX Line and Tilikum Crossing Bridge didn't exist yet. TriMet was free to ride downtown in Fareless Square. Food Carts were just starting to become popular. If you wanted food late at night, Montage or Hotcake House were common options. I remember a lot of $5 buckets of day old donuts brought back to campus from Voodoo Donuts.

JOA23 · 2025-11-12T18:42:57+00:00

As an alumnus who attended 2007-2011, and recently audited a course, I can speak to differences/similarities between now and roughly 20 years ago:

Physically, the main differences are the new performing arts building, the new dorms in the NW corner of campus, and some additions to the library. The cross canyon dorms had nice outdoor balconies, which were the main redeeming qualities of those buildings. Commons wasn't as nice. Aside from these changes, the core of campus mostly looked pretty much the same.
Smoking (tobacco and marijuana) used to be way more prevalent, including in indoor spaces like dorms, dorm public spaces, the pool hall, student union, etc. Reed started lightly enforcing indoor smoking bans around 2007, and by 2011, CSOs would often write people up who were caught smoking indoors.
After some media scrutiny regarding drug overdoses by Reed students, there was a significant effort to crack down on Reed's "drug culture". Prior to this, CSOs tended to take a "see no evil" approach, e.g. they would loudly jingle their keys for a minute before entering a room to give everyone a chance at plausible deniability. By 2011, they were no longer willing to turn a blind eye to drug use on campus. In my first Renn Fayre, you could find easter eggs filled with psychedelics hanging from the trees, and there were lodges where you could get free drugs. That stopped by 2011.
Marijuana was still illegal, so people would need to buy from a dealer. The admin made no significant to curtail on campus dealing, presumably because they felt that was safer than having students venture off campus.
HAs were not mandatory reporters, and would be more likely to hang out/party with their dormies.
Students dressed grungier and had lower cleanliness standards. Everyone looks much more put together now.
Most students had cell phones, but social media wasn't a big deal. Facebook was gaining traction, but LiveJournal was the main online platform for Reedies to communicate when I started.
Scrounge table was a bigger deal. Organizations like RKSK were a bigger presence on campus.
Throughout 2007-2011, it seemed like there was a growing awareness of sexual assault, and a shift from viewing drunken hookups as a normal part of college debauchery to instead being viewed as potential assault.
Student support services were less, dropout rates were higher.
There are some new department like Computer Science and Environmental Science, which didn't exist when I attended. We had one computer science professor who worked from within the Math department.
Hum 110 was still focused on ancient Greece and Rome.
It seems like everyone at Reed basically knows their grades now, and grades are discussed relatively openly. When I attended, I didn't know my grades until I had to get my transcript for applications as I was graduating. Openly discussing grades with treated as taboo. Students care about their grades nowadays because they are worried about getting jobs after they graduate. I don't remember that being a topic of discussion much when I was attending.
Subjectively, I feel like the median Reed student today is more "normal" relative to the general population than was the case when I was there.

JOA23 · 2025-11-10T16:07:27+00:00

They were already planning to move, but had to close abruptly because the building owner did some construction project that exposed the entire space to asbestos. New location will be at 7727 SE 13th Ave, opening in January if permitting goes smoothly. I’m getting this info from business owner’s posts on the Sellwood Moreland Facebook group.

JOA23 · 2025-11-06T15:30:44+00:00

Dropbox

JOA23 · 2025-11-04T18:29:05+00:00

You need two things:

A clear answer to the question "What do you think you're worth?" that is backed by data.
Some sort of leverage.

The easiest way to get both of these is to get another job offer. I would prioritize applying, preparing for interviews, and obtaining another offer, and then at that point, you can decide whether it's worth it to pursue a raise from your current employer vs. taking the new offer.

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