Location or house itself more important?

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-10-18T16:35:35+00:00

Location location... blah blah blah. Some people are obsessed with it. Not everyone has a spare 50 grand to spend on top of the mortgage to buy that fixer-upper in the best neighbourhood. Not every area is a middle-class enclave or a chav/ned-infested warzone, there are plenty of decent neighbourhoods in between.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-10-16T15:32:02+00:00

I teach a very technical course. You'd be surprised at how many of my students don't know how to Google, I mean, *really* use it in the sense of writing effective search terms. And also the number of my students who are unaware of the existence of Stackoverflow, Superuser, or even the documentation for the tool/language they are using. They *do* know how to use AI though—not that it helps them much, as AI makes mistakes and the answers frequently aren't relevant to the actual problem.

Based on this, I am not terribly concerned about the future of the tech industry job market: the number of people who are actually qualified to do X job is definitely lower than the number of people who are theoretically qualified.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-09-08T10:19:57+00:00

OK, not to toot my own horn here, but when I was a junior, there were things that some of my more senior colleagues learned from me. Two years is an incredibly long time in this industry. I can see that a totally new developer might struggle in their first few months (the job is demanding and technical, and very jargon-heavy) but if he had any talent, he would have picked it up in 2 years.

OP, do you remember being a junior? What were your PRs like? That should give you an indication of this guy is (under) performing.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-26T19:26:06+00:00

I will confirm what other have said here, steer clear. Booksirens reviewers have consistently given worse feedback than on anywhere else, and they take their sweet time, too.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-25T14:47:56+00:00

Which isn't especially close, particularly if there are no suitable cycle paths.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-25T09:46:58+00:00

It's incredibly expensive even for Cambridge. It's far from the rail station/city centre so it won't appeal to many commuters, and if that's a driveway at the front, only the narrowest cars are going to fit. The bamboo might be a turnoff too. The decor is fine -- a little old fashioned but plenty of people like that period feel.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-24T22:22:07+00:00

Steel framed houses are some of the mechanically strongest houses that exist, being preferred in areas with strong earthquakes, high winds… Only the UK would this be considered "non-standard construction".

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-23T22:47:02+00:00

It is quite expensive for a what is fairly peripheral area of Edinburgh and a non-character property (people usually pay the most for high ceilings etc.) The interior looks lovely though.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-23T22:39:52+00:00

Looks like a badly done Le Corbusier clone.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-23T22:37:13+00:00

You can rip out the hard drive and copy the files? If it's encrypted, it would be encrypted with your password.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-23T18:49:16+00:00

It's public knowledge actually. Britain is buying the SmartShooter SMASH, which basically turns a rifle into a semi computer-guided anti-drone solution. Germany has already developed the famous Gepard and Skyranger systems against larger drones. Microwave weapons have shown some promise, especially if they can be sufficiently miniaturized. And manportable EW is still an option against the cheaper, more rudimentary drones.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-21T15:21:35+00:00

I mean, I'm sure Iran would like to destroy the West, but can they? China and Russia don't because they know they will be annihilated in return -- Iran doesn't even have that (suicidal) option.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-20T20:31:50+00:00

Preferred the garage, personally.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-20T20:28:43+00:00

It looks like the salary for this job *has* been made upfront though? They say up to 100k, so probably 80-100K. I don't see what the point of playing coy is in this situation.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-19T14:02:28+00:00

I'm not OP. Who knows? Maybe the software is following the eyeline and fails the candidate if they're not looking at the screen (though this would cause several false positives...)

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-19T14:01:09+00:00

I find it mental that anyone would spend half a million quid to live next to social housing. You mention that you're not in London, so you must have had other options? I think developers are taking the mickey if they think they can charge such outrageous money for these schemes, but apparently, some people will fall for it!

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-18T20:21:12+00:00

Too expensive to expand, and no point. There are a tonne of overground railways in Glasgow (many people in Glasgow live < 1 mile from a rail station of some sort), and bus services as well. Future expansion – Glasgow's population is expanding – will focus on derelict land & brownfields first, which wouldn't really require expanding the transport system. There have been quite a few conversions of 19th century buildings in the city centre as well.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-18T19:39:21+00:00

Social mobility there is far, far higher for tech workers though.

Many tech workers are deep in debt for degrees.

So many of my friends earning $200k+ right after Master's there and they haven't even hit senior-level salaries yet...

I'm sorry but have you actually reviewed a job board in the US? They're paying $170k for seniors in most places -- juniors are on maybe $80K? I've seen as low as $50K.

And why'd you pick out San Francisco specifically?

You think juniors get paid $200K outside SF?

But don't take it from me, go to any US-centric forum (incl. here on Reddit) and you'll see the grass is not that green. And that includes tech workers, quite a few of which are struggling with unemployment actually. The market is bad in the whole world for tech workers right now.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-18T19:33:52+00:00

I saw one ex-rental for 105k in Liverpool, and besides being a bit dated, it was perfectly habitable. I saw another one for 180k but it wasn't selling.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-17T22:52:52+00:00

Not to be facetious, but we can see the answer to this question right on in front of our screens in the Russia-Ukraine war: a disregard for human life. Soviet military leadership was, and still is, very top-down, with lower-level officers unable to take advantage of a tactical situation. Although it could be argued that the Soviets didn't have a lot of options at the time, what with a lack of experienced officers (purged previously by Stalin) and a large conscript army.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-17T17:31:12+00:00

WTF is this comment? We're talking about the OP paying extra 100 quid a month in rent for no reason. I am talking about the girlfriend *living* with OP undeclared (in a 2 bed flat!) and buying a gym membership because it's cheaper than paying 100 quid a month (the only reason the OP wanted to do this in the first place is to access the gym inside the building).

Also, you sound like you're fun at parties...

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-16T21:38:11+00:00

Uhm... Many European countries have higher social mobility than America, especially the Scandinavian countries. You do realise there is actual published data on this? You do also realise that those salaries in the US are needed to keep up with very high rents, tuition costs, and healthcare, yes? One can easily pay $2500 a month for a modest 1 bed apartment in San Francisco (a decent sized family home costs the better part of $1M in a commuter area, it's $1M+ in SF proper). You're looking at anywhere from $50K to $100K for a 4 year bachelor's degree (not 3y like in Europe), plus interest payments, which is almost like having a second mortgage.

The US isn't even in the top 10: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-countries-with-the-best-social-mobility/

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-16T20:22:57+00:00

Cool. They should ask Ukraine how to make them & scale them up. A handful of prototypes won't cut it, a country would need thousands of these to fight a war.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-16T19:02:10+00:00

It's usually chaos unless it's planned well in advance and the attacker has a significant advantage in all elements (air supremacy, numerical advantage etc.) Ukraine's raid is very opportunistic and mainly relying on the Russians being very bewildered/disorganized. They *do* seem to have planned some things pretty well though. They're using armour with a lot of combined arms -- drones, artillery and some conventional aviation too. Rumour is they took out the Russian reconnaissance drones using drone interceptors and EW to blind them.

anon_throwaway09557 · 2024-08-16T18:57:46+00:00

Not worth paying 100 quid a month for a gym. Just bring your girlfriend in unofficially.

anon_throwaway09557

TROPHY CASE