It would have been nice to list the source of these lectures where they are freely available rather than a pirated Youtube link:

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/science_lives_video/profess...

Published sequel here: http://www.ams.org/notices/201106/rtx110600804p.pdf

It's not freely available if they are not free to copy... and I really wonder who could possibly be harmed by copying these videos around. I can't imagine that Milnor would object to having his work widely disseminated. Do you think if we copy something he made 50 years ago (which really should be in the public domain by now), he'll be less motivated to generate new lectures at his 84 years of age?

Your usage of the term "pirated" seems to indicate more indignation than is in order.

Yes, it is called "free as in beer".

It's not even free beer. If I go to an event and get a free beer, I'm not forbidden from giving my free beer to anyone else. It is ridiculous that we are forbidden from sharing a video that was created 50 years ago just because Disney wants to make sure Mickey Mouse never falls out of copyright.

So how do you pirate a Youtube link?

Unauthorized by whom? You should contact the copyright owner and alert them of the infringement then!

> Additionally, if you had any source of statistical data showing that arbitration was an unfair process, that would be admissible to get the arbitration thrown out.

False. The Federal Arbitration Act applies in most cases where a party has "agreed" to arbitration, and pre-empts state law. A party can't just show "any" source of statistical data showing arbitration is unfair. If they run to court, in most cases, all the other party has to do to succeed in a motion to compel arbitration is establish that an arbitration agreement exists, applies, and meets the minimum procedural requirements for arbitration under the FAA. The court will not entertain an inquiry into the fairness of arbitration in the large or examine statistical evidence. It will basically rely on the text of the arbitration agreement standing alone.

I'm quite aware of what the arbitration act requires/allows.

Here's, let's take a look at what you claim won't be admissible:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/10

(a) In any of the following cases the United States court in and for the district wherein the award was made may make an order vacating the award upon the application of any party to the arbitration—

...

(2) where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or either of them;

..

So, i guess you don't think this means what it says?

> People run diesels due to durability. They run at lower RPM than similarly designed gas engines, and last longer between rebuilds.

This makes plenty of sense for heavy machinery and trucks. This makes no sense for passenger cars, and little sense for most consumer SUVs and light-duty trucks. On any decent modern car a gasoline engine with proper maintenance is the about the last thing to go. How often does a typical car owner rebuild their engine? By the time you get to 200K, a car is typically a money hole for reasons having little to do with the engine. This goes double in northern climates with real winters. By the time the engine needs a rebuild you have a rust-bucket clunker that should be replaced with a more contemporary model.

> and much harder on car engines, even ones designed for it (unsourced, but so my gearhead friends have told me)

Bollocks. The energy content is slightly lower, but there is zero harm to automobile engines. Your unsourced "gearhead" friends share a common misconception and prejudice against ethanol. There is absolutely no issue with E10 fuel in cars with model years as far back as the '90s, or even earlier. Very old classic cars may have issues with some fuel line components, but even there E10 will not wreck the engine. As a fuel E10 is extensively tested on gasoline autos. Two-stroke engines are another matter.

And 2001 and newer autos can run E15.

How are you going to find buyers and get the best price in most markets without listing and offering commission split to the buyer's broker?

The second someone unlicensed starts to regularly interface with other agents, they will get ratted out and stomped on. If you don't interface with other agents, then you are excluding most of the market.

Mostly I was trying to highlight how Uber and Airbnb take a monetary-intermediary approach, while the entire RE industry sits out of the actual transaction itself.

This is probably why I trust the average Airbnb host/Uber driver more than the average RE.

As a buyer, I was never "found". Without representation, I would seek the listing agents directly and have them give the tour. I figure the listing agent would be very eager to earn a bonus/double commission from their selling client, perhaps to my benefit even though I have no exclusive with them.

Dude, you got shit on, but your entire post screams unprofessional. If you want to be a professional, and be treated like a professional, you need to act professional. Harsh perhaps but that's the truth.

If this is a serious job solicitation and not just catharsis you are doing it all wrong. Starting with how desperate you are, how proud you made your mom, and how shitty you've been doing and been treated does not make the hirers of desirable jobs want to hire you. If nothing else, go google "just-world hypothesis."

I'm not in a hiring position right now (although I know plenty of hiring managers itching for referrals) but if I were I wouldn't touch you with a 10-foot pole even if on some level you make your plight sympathetic. Why? Because your post radiates "danger, high risk, unprofessional, possibly unstable individual who does not know how to behave in a business setting."

Scrub this and start over.

I don't think he was wrong to post this at all. Stories of bad actors in the CEO space ought to be exposed, and it sounds like he was treated very shabbily indeed.

But I'll quickly qualify that by adding that it can really only be a one-time catharsis. He can't afford to make a habit out of this kind of post. In that sense, I agree with you. Professionalism is important in terms of him getting out of the hole he's in and getting a proper gig, but if he had been professional with this post I'd never have seen it or read it.

Brokedev: My advice would be to follow the recommendations given by "ecliptik" above. Work on your professional development: your resume, LinkedIn, GitHub, etc. Then market yourself like crazy with a good personal blog (showing what you're doing, learning, and experimenting with) and Twitter. Follow programmers you admire, and use Lists on Twitter to create a custom list of RoR developers so you can check out what they're working on and filter out noise. That won't be hard to do. Then keep at it. Make sure you're programming every day. Get involved in an open source project, and get your code on GitHub.

I felt this way at first, but not after reading the entire post. Yes, it was emotionally driven and certainly goes against a lot of rules for job solicitation.

But I actually think he's shown himself to have good character here. He isn't attempting to sabotage the company even though he could. This happened very recently so you'd expect some of the emotions to be raw. I don't think this person is "high risk" if firing them after abusing them means that they're still loyal enough to you to not reveal your identity publicly. It sounds like this person was a trooper right up to the very end and is in fact pretty much the opposite of high risk.

I shall never utter the dreaded F word to my boss. I will to my boss be true and faithful and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns.

Also please explain where he 'blackmailed' his boss?

That's ridiculous.

Good managers let their employees vent, when necessary, and don't take it personally.

Insecure ones get all uppity about things like that.

Since the world is full of pretty poor managers "don't swear at your boss" is pragmatic advice. It'd be nice if all managers had the skill to recognise that a bit of venting is probably healthy.

"Don't work for managers you can't swear at," would be my advice to the world :D

That's good advice for people who are in a position to chose who they work for. Is OP in that position?

Yeah, but there's a lot of insecure managers out there, and if you're desperate for a job, you need to take that into account.

He used the f* word in a specific context. And can you answer when did he blackmail his boss?

Where is the part where he blackmailed anyone?

It sounds like you've had a bad experience with a former employee, but this is not blackmail. That's just standing up for himself. The OP was working there contingent on his boss's promise of a raise, and both parties knew this, including the boss. In fact, the OP was remarkably generous towards his boss by doing something very foolish: knowingly taking an unlivable wage out of trust that the boss would live up to his word.

Regarding your Wikipedia quote, leaving a job in which you are abused and underpaid is not at all unjustified.

Blackmail is a crime in many jurisdictions whose legal systems derive from England. The precise definition varies, but a classic example would be if I knew you had committed a crime, and threatened to report it to the authorities unless you paid me. See for example 18 US Code 873 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/873

No one would ever be found guilty of blackmail for simply saying "Give me a pay rise or else I'll resign". (But, "Give me a pay rise or else I'll report your illegal activities to the authorities" would be blackmail.) The essence of blackmail is demanding money for an illegitimate reason - money which you are not legitimately due - and there is nothing inherently illegitimate about demanding a pay rise. It simply means that you put a different value on your own labour than your employer currently does, and if you and they cannot reach agreement on that value, you'll look for someone else with whom you agree more.

Have you never negotiated anything? This isn't blackmail. He's leveraging an asset (his talents) for compensation. If Netflix is negotiating licensing rights to a movie and the owner of the rights says "We want more money or we won't license this to you." that's not blackmail. It's negotiating a deal. In this case the guy is saying "I want more money or I won't work for you any more."

It is absolutely the correct call. He was being taken advantage of. He used his only point of leverage to get a fairer deal.

First, blackmail is about information, so if anything it would be extortion.

And it's not extortion because the "threat" was not wrongful; the boss is not his owner nor is he entitled to his work.

The word you're looking for is haggling, and it's a common part of negotiations.

But "give me more money or I'll leave" is a bad way to go about haggling, and is likely to lead to the employee leaving. "I'm worth more than you're paying" is better, even though the employer and employee both know that "and if yu don't pay me more I'll leave" is an unspoken part of that sentence.

HN regularly mentions the book "how to win friends and influence people" or talks about hacking various interpersonal processes.

This is just an interpersonal hack. Saying "give me more money or I'll leave" causes many - but admittedly not all - managers to respond with "go ahead and leave then", even when the manager knows that replacing the leavig employee will require a higher wage than the employee is currently getting and some expenditure on the recruitment process.

People are not rational and they do mot make rational decisions. We know that management, and recruitment, is very broken.

Oh, for sure, it's not a good negotiation tactic, no argument there.

"Give me more money or I leave" is not blackmail. That is called an "ultimatum".

Blackmail is defined as a demand for money in exchange for not revealing compromising or injurious information.

"Give me more money or I will publish these naked photos of you" is blackmail.

One of those is illegal. The other one isn't.

Think of it like that Jaba the Hutt/thermal detonator scene in Star Wars episode 6:

"This bounty hunter is my kind of scum, Fearless and Inventive"

When dealing with sociopaths,, to negotiate from a position of strength; you need to have an offer in hand from another employer, because it is very likely that you could be fired on the spot when you confront this type of individual. The sociopath doesn't care, and will just find someone else to exploit.

You have absolutely no idea what the word blackmail means.

What he did was give his boss an entirely reasonable ultimatum.

It's called negotiation.

I can see how it might seem threatening to someone who feels threatened by the thought of an employee standing up for himself.

"Give me more money or I leave" is negotiation (specifically, an ultimatum), and is a perfectly legitimate tactic. Standing up and leaving is throwing a tantrum (or a last resort if the ultimatum fails) - doing so without first telling the other party your problem and giving them a chance to fix it is completely unprofessional.

WRT your definition of blackmail, I'm getting "the action, treated as a criminal offense, of demanding money from a person in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information about that person." It's a VERY specific term having to do with hidden information.

What you cited seems closer to the definition of extortion ("the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats"), but frankly, as long as what you're threatening to do is legal, that's business.

Your relationship with your employer is first and foremost a business relationship - they are not your best friend, your family, or your surrogate father. You have no obligation to play nice with their feelings.

I understand your impulse to not give in to an employee that demands like this, but you need to drop the moralizing BS - what you're saying is "they know what they're worth and I can't afford to pay that, so I'll only hire employees who don't know what they're worth". Sound accurate?

> threatening to leave is the blackmail part.

That is bs, leaving is the only leverage you have as an employee. If you do't use it, you might have a problem, because you lack the ability to negotiate. The age of feudalism is over you know...

To be fair, this could have been wrapped up in some better language, like "I don't think my salary is reflecting my talents", but in the end it all boils down to leaving for a better opportunity

No, it's not blackmail. It's a salary negotiation.

How is that blackmailing? It's negotiating salary. If you can't pay me a livable wage- or a wage that I am worth- I'll look for a job somewhere else.

After being strung along (he was lied to) for months he made a totally justified ultimatum to be paid what he's worth or he'd go somewhere that would.

A manager who knows someone is worth it but would still rather let me go than pay market price for their labor (because he doesn't like negotiating when he's not in a position of absolute power) is probably doing so because he can't man up and negotiate with someone his own size figuratively speaking. The stereotypical "I'm not letting a woman tell me what to do." sort of insecurity/attitude.

Employees have been "on the bottom" in the traditional work relationship for so long, it can seem "unfair" to employers to have to deal with employees on a more level playing field.

If I was offered that much I would say the same thing. Although, I might try to have something else lined up first.

Paying an employee for work and services is not "a loss". It's an exchange.

I'll go further and say it's an investment.

Um...

that's exactly how salary negotiations work. If I don't do a good enough job, you demote or fire me. If I do a good enough job AND the market says I should make X, then X - Y isn't fucking good enough, and you should be warned that I'm happy to find an employer that WILL pay me what I ask for.

I'm sure a large part of his emotionally charged reaction has to do with the fact that he has a family.

Sounds like he gave the job his all, but given his situation in life, I don't know how else he could have reacted to this. Added to that he doesn't really have the support of his wife since she doesn't yet know.

My point is that a lot of factors are at play, so labelling him as unprofessional is a bit unfair to him at the moment. He's in panic mode.

I would just like to point out that OP didn't put his name, and he didn't mention the name of the CEO or the company. I think he acted very professionally, maybe until the point where he was fired (in a very unprofessional way). I think we all have a point where we stop acting unprofessionally if we are being treated badly.

The important thing is that he's just venting, and trying to use his bad experience to his advantage. Let's say you get a resume from a web developer with some factory experience, some design experience and an internship. If you check his references you might hear that he was fired and that he acted unprofessionally. Maybe that he had "unrealistic salary expectations", or that "his personal life got in the way of work". (Because the CEO clearly was an ahole).

He had some bad luck, tried to do a good job and now he's in a tough spot. I think that's easy to sympathize with.

Well, that's a pretty terrible and vastly incorrect thing to say.

As someone who actually hires people, allow me to assure the poster that nothing about his story says anything of the sort.

It screams "person of good faith who got taken advantage of by an asshole."

I hear where you're coming from, but if he had scrubbed all of that from this post and gone with "professional" -- "I am a self-taught web dev looking for work, I am familiar with Ruby and have recently been doing API work, I want to work remotely and can start immediately" -- would it have gotten anywhere near the front page of HN?

In my corner of the industry, all attention is not good attention.

All attention is monetizable. Maybe you become the finance guy who may have laundered money for the narcolumbians, or maybe you become the lawyer that kept the mob boss out of jail. But that's perception, not necessarily reality. In any case, you're the guy that gets to charge more because you have more clients.

I'm kind of curious, if you're willing to give a general corner of industry. I can't think of anything that doesn't have "bad boy" characters. Seems like any federal agent kind of person would attract attention from the CIA. A doctor maybe? Still seems like someone willing to write off-topic prescriptions would command more salary.

It's actually kind of tough to think of a profession that needs to be perfectly ethical, and also appear to be perfectly ethical. Aerospace designers kill test pilots. SEC agents that appear to be on the take probably get bribed more often than the squeaky clean.

Maybe there's some corner of insurance that having a reputation would endanger your employer somehow. Everything i can think of right now implies higher salary.

I mean, I take his point that some kinds of attention are really bad. I knew mchurch at Google and that whole debacle was a pretty up-close look at just how bad they can be.

I just don't think this case is analogous. mchurch became instantly infamous with all Googlers, which made him radioactive in a big swath of the upper tier of the software industry, not just in NYC but also CA and other tech hubs. In contrast, this guy posted one thread to Hacker News that (from what I can tell) is fairly anonymized. Maybe folks close to him will recognize that this is his story, and maybe in his local dev community word will get around that he wrote it. But he's looking for remote work, and I think it extremely unlikely that he'll go to apply for a remote job a year from now and they will somehow connect him to this post.

I'm not sure that he intends this to be the cover letter he sends out with his application. It's important to have a venue to vent too.

Wow, a lot of replies.

Just want to clarify my meaning here. The intent is really a more frank and critical version of mmaunder's advice above.

When I say he is unprofessional, I'm not talking about per se what he did at work, how he left (involuntarily), or his reaction. That was more amateurish, which isn't exactly "professional," but not unprofessional. He should have set expectations and negotiated better and harder earlier. He should have done a job search on the DL so he had something lined up before giving an ultimatum; the writing was on the wall anyway. Woulda shoulda coulda. Well, coding and negotiating skills are not correlated. Join the club. Hopefully he will learn and do better next time.

What is unprofessional is posting a pseudonymous rant to Hacker News with your email address and "begging for work."

Posting a pseudonymous "My shitty employer shafted me" story to HN would be spot on. But turning that into a job solicitation is a huge, unprofessional blunder. Yeah, he touched a nerve and got bumped up the page. Yeah, he's probably going to be inundated with offers. Charity offers for weak positions of the kind he left. Maybe he won't be screwed over hard, but he won't be treated like a professional and get the terms he could if he were working from a position of strength, competence, confidence and success. He'll get an offer consistent with desperation. Do you want to work at a company that seeks out desperate candidates as your colleagues?

The fact is, if you want $75K, you have to find someone who thinks you are worth $75K. If you don't have a degree or a distinguished resume, you've got a lot to prove even in a tight job market for engineers. The way you do that is show that you kick ass on the front end and can lay down code with the next guy, and communicate your worth and expectations with confidence.

But yeah, those of you who think a self-pitying rant about starving in a trailer and getting fired from his first glorified internship in a winning career strategy, you do what works for you.

This is harsh advice, but it's also some of the best advice in this thread (along with mmaunder's comment). OP should definitely take heed.

> Scrub this and start over.

What does that mean?! Erase the tumblr post?

Of course. What else would it mean?

And start over, not with another tumblr post, but with a legitimate career hunt.

Your entire post screams "employer I wouldn't want to work for."

Based on your comments I don't think you've ever been a hiring manager. Or if you have, your organisations must really be hurting. Your comments read like a power fantasy.

Did you even read the article before typing out your smug post? The professor is not advocating ignorance. She is advocating an honest recognition of the bounds of knowledge and ignorance versus false certainty.

When did I make that claim? I said that I think what she's promoting is based more off of relativism, and that epistemology is already an established field; hell, it's quite literally the study of knowledge. So smug!

Lawyers who bill by the hour generally bill out their paralegals and administrative staff as well, at proportionally lower rates. So it's not just lawyers who are billing much of their time.

Lawyers who bill their time by the hour also bill their Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw fees back to their client.

You are misunderstanding. The $500 limit is specifically for "goods". Not services, for instance.