Your implication that they were "agents provocateurs to smear the rest of the peaceful protestors" is lacking evidence, where there is plenty of evidence, both in testimony and captured communications from various groups of protestors intent on committing violence and mayhem, to the contrary.
At best, those "peaceful" protestors (who somehow in their naive purity managed not to be able to read the vibe of a crowd that erected a noose and gallows outside the White House, or notice the rioting, broken doors and tear gas) are still at least guilty of trespassing, and some of vandalism.
Trespassing charges would be thrown out immediately if they were ever presented to a jury. The police exercised apparent authority when they ushered the crowd in, giving them permission and the right to enter.
Vandalism would only apply to those who stole or defaced something, certainly not the majority.
And neither of these charges justifies holding a political prisoner for 6+ months without trial, as the US government has done.
>Trespassing charges would be thrown out immediately if they were ever presented to a jury. The police exercised apparent authority when they ushered the crowd in, giving them permission and the right to enter.
I'll let the Justice Department know they can drop all charges because slumdev from the internet has rendered their verdict.
>Vandalism would only apply to those who stole or defaced something, certainly not the majority.
The majority didn't enter the Capitol, and the majority haven't been charged with anything. If your assertion is that people are being arrested and charged with simply being there the actual criminal charges levied prove otherwise[0,1]. People who have been accused of committing actual crimes are being charged for those crimes.
>And neither of these charges justifies holding a political prisoner for 6+ months without trial, as the US government has done.
They aren't political prisoners. They aren't being persecuted for their political beliefs. Most people charged are out on bail, and the ones who aren't are the ones charged with serious crimes.
Compuserve and a number of other credible alternatives to AOL existed during that time. Usenet and BBSes also existed. Myspace and Facebook (initially) were only for teenagers, college students, and people who never grew out of those phases. You might as well put Livejournal in this list, because none of those platforms (at those times) were as effective at corralling and suppressing wrongthink as Twitter and Facebook have been today.
Apart from their obligations under the law, AOL did not police content. In one example, AOL banned explicit discussions of homosexual activity but did not ban anti-homosexual hate speech. They policed the first type of speech because the CDA required them to prevent the transmission of explicit material to minors, but they did not police the second type of speech because it was not illegal.
Facebook and Twitter are actively policing speech that is not illegal.
“Because I think I might know better I will act in a disrespectful way, and make someone else’s job harder instead of working with them to solve the problem”
You’re not the one who’s phone is going to ring at 3am on Saturday when that Tor node gets compromised. You’re not the one who has to manage the security incident. You’re not the one who has to explain why your security controls and policy did not prevent this from happening. Nor are you the one who has to clean up the damage if something goes badly.
I also think you’re vastly overestimating the average developers awareness of security issues. Perhaps you are very well versed in this topic, but many developers are utterly clueless, even when it comes to basic application security practices.
It bypasses all proxies and interception, and hides all of the traffic contained in the tunnel. This means no traffic logging of the tunneled traffic, no IPS/IDS in front of the SSH service, and no visibility into the SSH traffic itself. If the box with the SSH service isn’t in a DMZ it also compromises network segmentation.
The problem isn’t SSH over TOR being insecure. It is sidestepping all of the security controls in place at your org and not talking to the netsec folks first.
Honestly I would be amazed if any competent netsec folks would even allow TOR outbound by default. I certainly wouldn’t allow it by default in an enterprise environment.
The idea of allowing any kind of inbound connection into a secured network (other than to/via its DMZs) is anathema.
I don't even disagree with the logic, but the BigCorp Infosec Team heavy-handed approach to working with developers invites the developers to produce creative circumventions.
There are no mobile PFAS chemicals in nonstick cookware. Nonstick coatings are made from PTFE, which is a completely inert polymer that cannot be broken down into mobile components unless it's overheated. The fluorinated chemicals used in the manufacture of the coatings (largely surfactants) are completely removed when the coating is baked on, and they have to be or else the coating would fail.
PTFE is used in medical implants. You can eat it. In no case that I'm aware of have these things resulted in detectable fluorinated compounds in someone's blood stream.
People "overheat" their cookware all the time. Do you know anyone who measures the temp of the surface of their cookware?
Teflon and nonstick coatings kill birds (house pets) when overheated. A nonstick pan in the oven to catch the drippings from your chicken baking at 400 or 425 can kill your parrot quickly. A nonstick wok left unattended for a few minutes during a high-heat stir fry easily reaches 400, enough to kill your cockatiel.
And as another poster has noted, those coatings always start flaking off.
Why buy something that produces fumes enough to kill your house pets and also has planned obsolescence built in when you can get a cast iron pan that's indestructible and will increase your iron intake a bit? It's not hard to develop a great seasoning on it that's essentially non-stick. I use cast iron for almost everything, and enamel for a few remaining applications.
I was maybe (mis)remembering studies that showed the pans had to be heated to a high-temperature relatively fast (in the order of under a second) for the off-gassing to occur, but I couldn't find that yet. I did find some interesting information about the dangers at different temperatures [1] and common cooking temperatures[2]. Without finding that study about quickly heating being necessary, they seem to corroborate your point.
Notice that the reports in your first link of PTFE coatings breaking down at less than 260 deg C are anecdotal. The lowest temperature at which PTFE coatings have been verified to give off breakdown products is 240 deg C. Even then, the only detected product was PTFE sublimate (small particles of PTFE flying off), which can lead to what we call "fume fever" if it's inhaled in large quantities, but reports of this happening in real life are rare, even in factory workers who are exposed at higher levels.
PTFE is chemically stable well past 300 deg C (540 deg F) and many nonstick cookware lines are marketed for these temperatures. For example, I have Calphalon pans labelled for use up to 550 deg F, which are advertised for searing steak. I get them pretty hot, and they show no signs of degradation.
At around 360 deg F (650 deg F), PTFE starts to give off detectable pyrolysis products, which are theoretically able to cause health problems, but even then reports of actual harm are few and far between. This is remarkable given that billions of pieces of nonstick cookware have been in use every day around the world for the past seventy years. Between the end users and the factory workers who make stuff, and all of the accidents and episodes of overheating that occur all the time, if there were going to be significant health effects I think they'd show up by now.
The real problem is the PFAS chemicals that are sprayed on our clothes, upholstery, carpeting and other home furnishings, that the military and civilian airports have dumped in our water supplies. This is a shaping up to be a true environmental catastrophe, and the manufacturers of nonstick coatings have no doubt contributed to this pollution. But the teflon cookware itself is not the slightest threat.
Cast iron pans are wonderful. I inherited one that was purchased originally in 1929. It's used every day or two to cook eggs for breakfast, and as I've found over the years butter is fantastic for keeping the seasoning in great shape. It's more non-stick than teflon, just a little shake is enough to send my eggs sliding to the other side of the pan. All it takes is discipline.
Best part is, this same pan will probably live well beyond 100 years. Possibly 150 or more. How many household items last that long? This is what we've lost with our culture's planned obsolescence, products that last for generations. It my have been expensive back then, but that was the last person in my family to buy this type of cookware. Safe, long lasting products isn't an innovation, it's a very welcomed regression.
I agree, I love vintage cookware. My favorite pans are a bunch of All-Clad LTD's I assembled from Ebay over the years. I use them for omelettes and french toast. Super thick aluminum clad with a stainless cooking surface, made sometime in the 1980s. They're as tough as cast iron, but they heat way more evenly, they're much lighter, and you don't have to worry about hurting the seasoning.
With cast iron, you can easily destroy the seasoning by overheating the pan, or if your mother who doesn't know how to care for cast iron puts it in the dishwasher. I put my All-Clads in the sink and scrub them with a steel tuffy. They're probably the most indestructable tools I own.
i'd have to buy a new stove if i had a cast iron pan
i have a glass top stove.
cast iron has several problems. Learning how to "season" it (which i never figured out how to do when i had a different oven), the fact it's usually expensive and there's no "one size fits all scenarios" type of pan to use and re-use, thus resulting in you have to buy several.
Then there's stainless steel pans but good luck with that - everything sticks to that.
I just want to cook some eggs without having to use some chemical solvent to actually clean the egg remnants off the pan.
I might go with “because they are lazy” for many of the shortcuts we take. We have one well-seasoned cast-iron pan and several not-so-well-seasoned which I’ve been too lazy to properly treat, so for now I spend the extra time scrubbing. I even use soap (!), though only after the dog gets the big stuff off. Teflon pans required too much care, so we never repaced them.
I agree that rice sticks easily to iron pans, so I usually cook rice in inox/stainless saucepans or in ceramic in the pressure cooker.
Eggs we cook in the seasoned iron pan.
We can change our habits so that we don’t do so much harm to life on earth.
I think that you are correct in most cases, people choose nonstick for the easy cleanup afterwards. But that's not what I'm referring to. I have not found a pan, other than PTFE coated, which can fry rice to crispy without using excessive tons of oil. All of the best crispy rice will get stuck to the pan and become inedible.
When you tried the carbon steel pan, was it properly seasoned? They stick like hell before they are well seasoned, but seasoning them gives the carbon steel its non-stick properties. Woks are the ultimate tool for this, as they are carbon steel (so non-stick when seasoned) and their shape minimizes the amount of oil necessary to fry the rice. It is ubiquitous for fried rice across almost all of Asia.
Yeah but they use a lot of oil in those woks, and they get them really hot. Any Chinese street vendor with an open fire and cheap steel wok can do shit I can't dream of doing in my fancy ass American kitchen.
J Kenji Lopez-Alt has a lot of great wok content for American kitchens. In [0], he uses a butane torch to get the smoky wok flavor (wok hei) in a standard kitchen. He also reviews outdoor wok setups for those who want something close to Chinese street vendor-type vibe.
I cook with my carbon steel somewhat often, and it seems to have built up a nice thin black layer that keeps most things from sticking. Cleaning is a breeze, some dish soap and a couple scrubs. None of the black layer comes off.
Rice does not stick at first, but as it gets hot it does, unless I put around 3x the oil I would prefer. I have a gas range with a large burner so it gets very hot.
This is my experience as well. I also use a lot of slowly sauteed garlic, like pretty much every day, and I'm completely reliant on a small nonstick pot to do it without sticking and burning.
Scrambled eggs too, especially the soft-scrambled kind ala Gordon Ramsay's famous short video. They simply wipe out of nonstick pan, and I've never seen this work with any other kind of cookware.
> Do you know anyone who measures the temp of the surface of their cookware?
Yes, I do. I have a cheap IR thermometer with my kitchen utensils, and I use it all the time. I use it every time I roast seeds and spices, because I'm picky that way. I've also used it when I've accidentally left a pan on the burner too long. I'm careful but I screw up now and then. I accidentally heated a stainless pan to nearly 500 deg F once, but 've never gotten a nonstick pan over about 400 deg F.
> Teflon and nonstick coatings kill birds (house pets) when overheated. A nonstick pan in the oven to catch the drippings from your chicken baking at 400 or 425 can kill your parrot quickly. A nonstick wok left unattended for a few minutes during a high-heat stir fry easily reaches 400, enough to kill your cockatiel.
Stories of such low temperatures killing birds are anecdotal. The lowest temperature that has lead to bird deaths in a controlled laboratory setting is 280 deg C, which is about 580 deg F. [1]
Keep in mind that birds are easily killed by common cooking smoke and fumes, as well as natural gas. The problem with these anecdotes is that it's likely there were other fumes involved, and there's no way to know what actually kills a bird oustide a controlled lab setting.
> And as another poster has noted, those coatings always start flaking off.
As I noted in another comment, it's not hard to keep a nonstick pan indefinitely. I have a lot of ten and fifteen year old nonstick pans that are as good as the day I bought them. My daily drivers are about five years old now, good as new. I'm careful not to overheat them and I never use metal utensils in them. Following those two rules, even my kids were able to use them without damaging them.
> Why buy something that produces fumes enough to kill your house pets and also has planned obsolescence built in when you can get a cast iron pan that's indestructible and will increase your iron intake a bit?
If you overheat that cast iron pan, or if you burn food in it, it will kill birds just as easily as a nonstick pan. Also note, there is vastly more evidence of harm from excess iron consumption than there is of harm from overheated PTFE coatings.
That said, I like steel and iron pans. I regularly use enameled steel pans for toasting spices, and I cook crepes and pancakes on steel pans. I don't use cast iron for much because it's heavy as shit and its heat distribution sucks.
I've actually had good luck with seasoned bare aluminum pans. This is more common in some restaurant kitchens, but not so much in home kitchens. Aluminum seasons just as well as iron, and the heat distribution is way way better. But for some reason "cast aluminum" doesn't have quite the same old-timey panache as does cast iron.
+1 for measuring temp. I recommend everyone to buy $10 IR thermometer from AliExpress, despite it's not absolutely accurate, it's very helpful to measure and see changing temperature.
There aren't any long term studies comparing people who cook with non-stick vs stainless or cast iron, so we can only guess about long term and population level effects based on limited information.
I personally would not take the risk given the benefit is just a pan that things stick to less. Medical uses are more justifiable.
No, we have lots of long term information about nonstick cookware. People forget we've been using teflon cookware since the 1950's. There have been billions of pieces of nonstick cookware in use every day around the world for decades.
The problem is that because there are so many free PFAS chemicals around us from other sources, studying the possible effects of cookware is a bit like studying whether it contains evil spirits. You won't be able to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis, because our PFC exposure via other routes is so high.
Another reason long term studies aren't viable is that there is no plausible mechanism of action of toxicity from nonstick cookware under the sort of use that it almost always gets. Unless it's badly overheated, PTFE is completely stable in inert.
Think about this logically: if you handle a water resistant jacket and then eat a sandwich, you'll ingest measureable quanities of PFAS. Every time kids or babies play on a stain-resistant carpetting and furniture, then ingest far greater quantities from their hands and toys.
In contrast, any PFAS that remains in nonstick cookware would be on the edge of detectability. PFAS surfactants are used in the manufacture of the coatings, but it boils off when the coating is baked on, and as far as I know, no detectable PFAS has ever been verified in finished cookware. Even when agressively overheated, nonstick cookware doesn't emit PFAS. It sublimates micro-size PTFA particles, which can lead to what we call "fume fever" but reports of this actually happening are rare, even in factory workers who are exposed at much higher levels than a home cook is.
So put these two things together: you are likely ingesting millions of times more PFAS from your clothes, carpets, and furniture than you ever could from nonstick cookware.
Worrying about nonstick cookware is sort of like a lifeguard who works in the sun all day, but obsessively blacks out the windows in his home because he's worried about UV radiation getting in his house. It makes no sense.
> No, we have lots of long term information about nonstick cookware. People forget we've been using nonstick cookware since the 1950's.
That’s not a study.
> You won't be able to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis, because our PFC exposure via other routes is so high.
We’re so poisoned by these chemicals it’s impossible to run a study to figure out if one possible source of them specifically is measurably poisoning us. Maybe we should consider banning them, or just avoiding them in general.
> PFAS surfactants are used in the manufacture of the coatings, but it boils off when the coating is baked
See sibling comments.
> if you handle a water resistant jacket and then eat a sandwich, you'll ingest measureable quanities of PFAS
I try to avoid synthetic fabrics when I can, so in my case it’s not like your lifeguard scenario.
I also think the government should step in to limit the use of plastics generally.
> We’re so poisoned by these chemicals it’s impossible to run a study to figure out if one possible source of them specifically is measurably poisoning us.
Sort of. My point is that teflon cookware is not a plausible source of PFAS, because there is no detectable PFAS in finished cookware. Further, because there have been billions of pieces of nonstick cookware in use around the world for decades, if there were negative health effects we would probably notice them by now. But there aren't.
Contrast this to the lead that has been widely used in glass and ceramic cookware and dishes over the same period of time. Manufacturers claimed that lead bearing glazes were perfectly safe. This is false, but we don't need any "studies" to tell us that. Rather we've plainly seen tangible health effects from the use of these items in many medical reports over the years, and we can easily test and verify the presence of lead that is leached into foods that are cooked and served in them.
This is not the case with teflon cookware. There is no detectable PFAS in nonstick cookware, nor are there verifiable reports of health effects from its use, in spite of the millions or billions of such uses happening every day over decades.
> See sibling comments.
Which ones? The ones where I addressed the poorly substantiated risks of overheating?
> I try to avoid synthetic fabrics when I can, so in my case it’s not like your lifeguard scenario.
I guarantee you're not able to avoid PFAS-treated upholstery, carpeting, and other home furnishings. And depending on where you live, chances are good that you ingest significant amounts of PFAS in your drinking water. If you've ever eaten fast food, the wrapper it came in was probably coated in PFAS. Due to these and other sources, I guarantee you have measurable levels of PFAS in your blood and tissues.
So by all means, avoid nonstick cookware if you want. It won't hurt, and it may have value just because it makes you feel better. That's legit. But in terms of actual harm reduction it is very much like the theoretical lifeguard blacking out his windows.
> Further, because there have been billions of pieces of nonstick cookware in use around the world for decades, if there were negative health effects we would probably notice them by now.
Dropping testosterone levels and sperm counts, increasing levels of obesity. I think we're seeing the health effects, although as mentioned it is hard to pick apart exactly what is having what impact. Our lives are flooded with plastic, I suppose non-stick cookware is kind of like a drop in the bucket.
> This is not the case with teflon cookware. There is no detectable PFAS in nonstick cookware, nor are there verifiable reports of health effects from its use, in spite of the millions or billions of such uses happening every day over decades.
I would need a lot of evidence to be convinced there's not a risk. I think we'll look back on plastics a similar way to how we look back on our naivety about things like cigarettes, lead, asbestos, etc.
> I guarantee you're not able to avoid PFAS-treated upholstery, carpeting, and other home furnishings. And depending on where you live, chances are good that you ingest significant amounts of PFAS in your drinking water. If you've ever eaten fast food, the wrapper it came in was probably coated in PFAS. Due to these and other sources, I guarantee you have measurable levels of PFAS in your blood and tissues.
I don't dispute this. I just try to avoid plastics when it's practical. As mentioned I would like to have regulations passed to reduce sources. I would not like to give up and say "well alright I'm being so poisoned already, might as well risk having a bit more by using non-stick pans".
I also don't want to support the manufacturing of these chemicals generally. Putting aside the end consumer, the manufacturing seems very likely to have been harmful to people, and chemicals from the manufacturing could also end up spreading in the environment.
Non-stick pans may not be the absolute worst thing to come out of the plastics industry, but getting rid of them still seems like a step in the right direction.
With every non-stick pan I've ever owned, the coating eventually starts flaking off. Usually after less than 1 year of use. I'm pretty sure I must have ingested plenty of these coatings over the years...
I have many pieces of well-used nonstick cookware well over a decade old, which are in pretty much the same condition as when I bought them. This includes cheap IKEA pans that my kids used. Some of them get used literally every day. We don't overheat them, and don't use metal utensils in them, and there's no reason they can't last forever.
Regardless, you can eat the entire coating off of your pan, and there will be no detectable fluorinated compounds in your blood. PTFE is completely inert and indigestible. It is widely used in medical implants inside people's bodies, with no detectable leaching of any chemicals.
Hmm, sounds like you've got lucky with your pans - everyone I've ever mentioned this too has had the same problem with non-stick pans! Lifetime of 6-12 months tops :/
I never did use metal utensils with them; it might be I overheated some, but certainly not all, and a pan isn't much use if you can't get it hot!
I don't think I'm lucky, but there is definitely a cost. The cost is that I'm a fucking asshole about my nonstick pots and pans. I keep my stash separate from the rest of the family, I get grumpy if I catch anyone using it, and god forbid anyone scratches my shit.
I buy separate stuff for my kids, and my wife has her own favorite pan.
Of course there's no need to be an asshole like me. But I think it's eminently doable for everyone. I do believe keeping the temperature down is key to longevity, especially for cheaper cookware with simpler two-layer nonstick coating systems. I have a lot of these too, and I just avoid going over 300 deg F or so. No problems so far.
PTFE burns at high but commonly achieved cooking temperatures, the result is a fine particulate in the air. You have to be careful (and many aren’t) to only use nonstick for low to medium temperature cooking.
The idea that PTFE doesn't break down except at very high temperatures is not true.
Breakdown begins to occur at either 200 or 260 degrees Celsius (depending on what data you're looking at). These temperatures are well within the realm of temperatures that even a home chef might encounter.
> Breakdown begins to occur at either 200 or 260 degrees Celsius (depending on what data you're looking at).
This isn't good data. The stories of PTFE coatings breaking down at less than 260 deg C are anecdotal. The most well known one comes from someone who swears their chickens were killed by coated light bulbs in a coop.
The lowest temperature that has lead to bird deaths in a controlled laboratory setting is 280 deg C, which is about 580 deg F. [1] This is way freaking hot, and likely only to be reached by accident.
Even in the case of accidental overheating of non-stick cookware, there have been only a few verifiable cases of injury, and certainly no fatalities. Most cases of polymer fume fever have been gleened from among workers in factories, which is remarkable considering that billions of pieces of nonstick cookware have been in use every day around the world for the past seventy years.
Also note that cooking fumes from food are themselves toxic, and kill birds and lead to long term respiratory issues in humans much more easily than PTFE coatings.
> The lowest temperature that has lead to bird deaths in a controlled laboratory setting is 280 deg C
"Did any birds die?" is an approach to this problem that I would expect from an undeveloped nation a hundred years ago. It is both excruciatingly short-term in focus and so imprecise that the results are useless for anyone who is not himself a rat or a canary.
Your data answers the question, "To what temperature must we heat PTFE in order to kill small animals?"
It does not answer the question, "What are the long-term effects on humans of short excursions outside of normal cooking temperatures?"
> "Did any birds die?" is an approach to this problem that I would expect from an undeveloped nation a hundred years ago. It is both excruciatingly short-term in focus and so imprecise that the results are useless for anyone who is not himself a rat or a canary.
I sort of agree, but birds do make a convenient study subject because they are exquisitely sensitive, much more so than humans.
The lowest temperature at which PTFE coatings have been seen to evolve breakdown products (that I know of) is 240 deg C. Even then, the only detected product was micro-size PTFE sublimate, which can lead to what we call "fume fever", but reports of this actually happening are rare, even in factory workers who are exposed at much higher levels.
The temperatures at which PTFE pyrolysis really starts to give off nasty shit are way higher [1], but even then, evidence of physiological harm is sketchy. Anecdotally, I know a few people, including my father, who have left a nonstick pan on the stove, got distracted, and burned the coating right the fuck off. Aside from the smell, no ill effects were observed. This isn't scientific at all, but if burning PTFE is that toxic, one might have expected some effects.
> It does not answer the question, "What are the long-term effects on humans of short excursions outside of normal cooking temperatures?"
This is true, but undertaking such a study would be both impossible and pointless, because we are exposed to millions or billions of times more fluorinated compounds from clothing, furniture, and carepeting, than we could evey hope to get from nonstick cookware, even if you overheat it regularly.
Keep in mind that billions of pieces of nonstick cookware have been in use every day around the world for the past seventy years. And all time, factory workers have been exposed to the manufacturing process. That's plenty of time for problems to have been observed on some level, but they just haven't. The problems we're seeing come from the billion-fold higher levels of PFC we get from other sources.
To repeat an analogy from an earlier comment, worrying about nonstick cookware is sort of like a lifeguard who works in the sun all day, but obsessively blacks out the windows in his home because he's worried about UV radiation getting in his house. It makes no sense.
1 - https://sci-hub.st/10.1289/ehp.7511197 - Waritz, R. S. (1975). An industrial approach to evaluation of pyrolysis and combustion hazards. Environmental Health Perspectives
The last time I needed an x-ray for a broken bone, I asked the x-ray tech for a lead vest to protect my torso and groin area.
He told me that it was pointless because I would be exposed to more background radiation throughout the course of my normal life. He did not understand that ionizing radiation damage is cumulative and that there is no safe limit for exposure. Annoyed with my request, he gave me the vest anyway.
Is there a safe limit for exposure to PFAs? I would readily concede that the risk to an individual is probably negligible, but like in the case of x-rays, population-level risks probably do exist for even the smallest exposure.
That said, I would also support eliminating all sources of PFAs, just like we tried to do with CFCs and asbestos.
You were right to ask for a shield. I would do the same thing, and I'd be a little pissed that I had to ask.
However there's a big difference, in that the x-ray you got actually delivers a substantial amount of ionizing radiation-- up to one full percent of the average annual background dose. There is no evidence that even a lot of normal x-ray scans have any effect on health, but at least it's a physical possibility.
In contrast, the level of chemical hazard from nonstick cookware is a billionth or trillionth (or even smaller) than what's in the carpets we all grew up playing on, or the clothes we wear and furniture we sit on every day.
To use another analogy, worrying about nonstick cookware is like worrying about the ionizing radiation coming from a banana that's sitting uneaten across the room from you.
I agree about absestos, and I fee the same about lead as well. Those are nasty poisons that, contrary to popular lore, cannot be used and applied safely such that they won't eventually get loose and become a health hazard. I've been thinking about asbestos this week because I've been replacing ceiling light fixtures in my house, and it's impossible to do without causing the asbstos-filled popcorn texture to rain down like snow. It's fucking unbelievable what previous generations afflicted us with.
EDIT:
I feel compelled to repeat that common cooking fumes and smoke are known toxins and carcinogens. It makes no sense to be more concerned about tiny amounts of aerosolized PTFE than the far greater amounts of cooking smoke and fumes that will inevitably be emitted by your food at the same temperatures.
Contrary responses aside, these three actions seem healthy. I’ll add that I’d like to see regulation towards cleaner air, water, and land, so that avoidance/mitigation is less necessary.
I’d be happy if some organizations started accepting a credential in lue of a coding interview, and just did a design/architecture and cultural interview.
People here are suggesting credentialing as if it will remove interview requirements rather than simply add a new hoop to jump through. I do not believe required credentialing solves the interviewing problem at all. You see it today with the certifications that already exist in the market. They aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Anyone can trivially study and pass the certification tests and still never have implemented a system, nor even have basic programming ability.
A real credential with teeth would likely eliminate plenty of the "Does this person know anything at all" element of current tech interviews. I've interviewed people who didn't even know what a for loop was or the difference between the stack and the heap. If there was a piece of paper which said that the candidate knows at least the bare minimum about software development, you could at least start the interview at a more advanced (or domain-specific) level.
I doubt hospitals interviewing senior doctors need to ask them basic anatomy questions, or law firms needing to ask candidates the difference between tort and criminal law. Tech could benefit from this minimal minimal bar.
Just turn the Leetcode-style data structures/algorithms segment into the basis of this credential, so it at least doesn't have to be repeated ad nauseam each time an applicant interviews with a different company, despite having the least relevance.
Triplebyte was trying to do this a while ago, weren't they? My last observations from a year and change ago suggested they were running into what might have been signaling equilibrium issues / risk aversion, but I'd be curious if there's other perspectives around.
That's what Triplebyte is attempting to do, yep. But it does seem like a considerable challenge and they're still figuring out their product. Also feels like for an industry-scale problem like this, it would require a consortium of the major employers (not just FAANG but large companies from Microsoft to Intel to Oracle and beyond) to hash out some sort of standard, not to mention a body representing the engineers (if not a SWE union, at least something like the IEEE/ACM) and the academic institutions that provide the education.
One wonders what the history of how the credentials in medicine or law were forged.
Adding a new hoop is the desired effect, and it does solve at least one problem. If you're at a tech company or some other org that interviews well, you might not have seen it yet.
Many devs are not good at their jobs. They mean well, but they can't solve basic problems without looking at stack overflow. And by "basic", I don't mean leetcode, I mean iterating over a collection.
> Anyone can trivially study and pass
Yes! At that point, I would know that the guy sitting next to me did at least some amount of studying of the fundamentals.
> I’d be happy if some organizations started accepting a credential in lue of a coding interview
Sure, but what credential exists that both is reliable enough to support that use and would remain reliable enough once it became used that way, even in a specific narrow subfield of development?
I can't speak for architects, but there is a very high bar for licensing for them. For lawyers, I had a friend at a top tier firm that interviewed with another and had to do a full doc review- essentially doing several hours of actual work. They were moving to a small boutique firm outside of "big law" so this may have been somewhat outside the norm.
Yep. It existed for a while. It was canceled (as noted in the article) because not enough people were taking it.
I looked at it briefly but realized that I would need to study a significant amount of engineering aspects (how much water can flow through this pipe type engineering) to be able to pass the first exam.
For people who are developers, while the ethics, principals, rigor and similar type aspects of the PE exam process are useful, that it is still focused on being a PE first and a PE with an Software specialization second means that most people who are software developers would not be able to pass it or find use in the additional engineering principals that it provides (you wouldn't want me to sign off of a building design... well, maybe if I studied enough to pass the FE exam first...)
Instinctively, they know it. The old cult of management-as-a-profession believes that by skillfully directing the activities of replaceable cogs, a company's managers can achieve outsized results.
But they can't admit it because they're afraid that knowledge would demotivate the replaceable cogs.
It's not hard, you say? Give us some pointers then? I'd appreciate a legacy code janitor job for a few years while still collecting $10k a month. I need the break from stress.
You have to move there. Even if you put it up front in your resume (they usually only read it 30 mins before they interview you). None of these companies want to hire from another state. As you can not 'start tomorrow'. Even though they will have these positions open for a year or more.
Be up front you about what you are doing. They are going to think 'he is going to jump at any time'.
Be willing to stay there awhile. But be warned some of these places there may be one to two 'big companies' that hire there (and if they do not hire you are SOL). There may be some small startups here and there. So plan on that. There may not be much to choose from there for you. It is why many move away from those areas. So if you are 'lucky' enough to get into one of the companies do not plan on jumping around a lot. You will burn bridges and the community of devs is small there, and they talk.
Be willing to dig into some seriously legacy code. "oh we still use sourcesafe and vb5". The Joel test is a good indicator of how strong they are. "oh we buy the best for our devs" and the computer on existing devs desks is some beige box from the late 2000s with a CRT.
Set your pay expectations much lower than what you are used to. Had one I was looking at, I was one of 3 people who applied. He passed me over because 'I was not in the same state'. I had 5 years 'full stack' exp on the exact type of system he was working on. After a bit of back and forth they wanted to pay nearly half of what I was looking for. Which was not terribly out of line for that area. Another dude thought he could snag me for 1/4th what I wanted. These guys can be cheap. They have a product someone tinkered together years ago. But they do not have enough income to really justify any sort of real work. So they do what they can and usually just farm it out to some consultant group.
> You will burn bridges and the community of devs is small there, and they talk.
You've hit the nail on the head here and this is my main worry. I've been much more selfish lately (last 3-ish years) and I know I definitely did burn some bridges but I can't make myself care very much -- I am 41 y/o and at one point participating in a one-sided "exchange" of trying to appease while mostly humiliating yourself becomes impossible to swallow (but then again, I recognize I've had both shitty luck and self-selected bad employers due to personal drawbacks that I am still actively fighting with).
> Be willing to dig into some seriously legacy code. "oh we still use sourcesafe and vb5".
One of my strongest selling points as a senior dev is that (a) I don't mind dirty and heavy work at all, and (b) I have an excellent eye for detail, very rarely miss something and (c) I try to leave the code with better readability after I finish my current task on it.
That being said, many companies are too impatient. I've hit the brick wall of "we want somebody who can hit the ground running and we won't provide any training" personally at least 5 times in the last 3 years. And I seriously don't know what to do about that; I certainly can't know all tech stacks and domain expertises on the planet!
And it's flabbergasting how much in denial many companies are about the risk management aspect. I mean they know; they absolutely know what's going on but they concluded that training new hires is a huge business risk (due to most people never staying more than 2 years on a job) so people like myself -- even if senior and very experienced -- have literally 1% chance of getting hired in many such places.
They do have a point and they are mostly acting rationally in this situation; but they could still spare some minimal training so they stand to gain a bit more from the employee that's going to move on maximum 24 months after being hired. One or two months of training isn't that expensive for them I'd think.
> These guys can be cheap. They have a product someone tinkered together years ago. But they do not have enough income to really justify any sort of real work. So they do what they can and usually just farm it out to some consultant group.
I am realistic about that aspect and I accept it. If they wanted to pay top dollar they'd just court somebody who is 45-50 or more for several months and then do their very best to promise them retirement in the company and all the good stuff that a long stay can benefit the person.
I know they want to pay less but I'd aim for having 3-4 such customers, independently, and collect a 120% - 200% of my normal payment combined through such venues. Not always sustainable in terms of mental strain and energy but I've pulled it off successfully even as shortly as 9-10 months ago without being hugely taxed in terms of health.
RE: the consultant group trope, I suppose this is where I fail in terms of marketing. Many companies just can't take a single random person seriously even if he's John Carmack in disguise. I suspect I need to make a fancy consulting website with some fake testimonials and pretty graphics, have a photo in a rented suit and then I'll suddenly be taken seriously. People can be very shallow and easy to manipulate, huh?
I am a bit flippant here but I likely should indeed work on marketing. But how does one strong and senior single programmer advertise themselves as a consultant or, generally, a guy you go to to solve a business problem, and who is not a wage lemming? Got any pointers on that?
The consultant thing is usually a matter of budget. Hiring someone is the personal budget that has had an increase of just enough so everyone does not flee and zero real room for a new head. Yet a consulting budget is from a 'different bucket' and can usually scale up and down quickly. Those are taxed at different rates and depending on their accountants how it will work out.
For your last Q I would say a lot of the same points still matter. They are going to want someone 'local'. Someone who can come in on a moments notice when they are in the thick of it. Also keep in mind a business is not programming. I would suspect what you are really asking is 'how do I sell things'. That is a much different topic. But targeted advertising, cold calling, trade shows, emails to former and clients and colleagues. It may be worth looking into hiring an advertisement firm for some small ideas. Do what you want your customer to do and hire an expert. If you do not have the cash for that you are going to have to do it yourself. Your personal network is probably your best bet for starting to grow your business network. My dad a former insurance salesman spent a lot of time in bars selling and meeting people. They had hundreds of hours of training they took to be any good at it. It may even be worth getting a short part time job as a salesman to get the idea of what to do. Think of it as just as there are jr devs you are jr salesman. But keep in mind, there are several types of sales. Those that sell themselves (they were already going to buy it, it is just from who that matters). Those where you need to work the sale. This is the harder type. You have to basically sell yourself to them. This is either showing them they have an existing need that is not being fed, or faking it by 'creating' a need they did not know they had. Another way is to associate yourself to one of the consultant groups out there. They take a cut but can help with lead generation.
Getting the first few years of experience is going to be the hardest--hardest relative to the rest of your career; it's not that hard by any absolute measure. Apply broadly, and take whatever comes. If a company is looking for a junior or mid-level SE and wants "1-3 years" of experience (which is common), your degree is that experience. If you have a CS degree and are in a low- or medium-cost of living area, you should expect $60-80k to start. If have a CS degree and are in a high-cost area, you should expect $100k.
If you don't have a degree or experience, it's going to be harder. But why should a shortcut be easy? Is there a secret backdoor career path for people who want to become physicians without going to medical school? No. Do the work, and earn the reward. There are plenty of online and nighttime options for earning a CS degree.
If you apply somewhere and don't get a call back, don't sweat it, and don't take it personally. It just doesn't matter. Hiring is a noisy process, and the cost of a bad hire is tremendous. Most companies will try harder to reduce the number of false positives than to reduce the number of false negatives. Again, apply broadly and treat it like a numbers game. There are limits, though. If you've applied for 10 jobs and not gotten a single interview, pay a professional to rewrite your resume for you.
If you're getting interviews and bombing the technical questions, then study. If you're bombing the cultural/behavioral questions, read some self-help books and join Toastmasters. If you think you're acing the interviews and not getting any jobs, then you're probably bombing something but are too clueless to realize it. Hire an interview coach.
If you're at the point where you have a degree or 5ish years of experience (or ideally both), you are ready to be a $100k code janitor. Learn a common stack well enough to do smart things with it. For instance, if you learn .NET, you should be able to manipulate collections in interesting ways with a single expressive LINQ statement. Pick one from each category (but don't combine Java with SQL Server - I don't think you'll see it as much in the wild):
1. Java or .NET
2. Angular or React
3. SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or PostgreSQL
I'm going to offend a ton of niche fanboys now: Don't pick Vue, Go, Erlang, Haskell, or Rust. I'm sure each of them is amazing in its own way, but getting a job is your goal, so you don't pick a technology used by only 1% of employers.
Now I'll offend the embedded and systems programmers: Don't pick C or C++. They're just not widely used in business applications. I know both (at only an intermediate level), but I've never seen either used in a business application. You should know both on some level, but you're not going to get a Fortune 1000 code janitor job with either of them.
Congrats, you are now qualified for the majority of SE job postings at non-tech companies.
19.5 years of programming, but mostly web programming for the last ~12. I want to move away from that, I am sick of it already. There's always something more to learn and even though I don't mind at all -- it keeps my mind sharp which is something I want to keep all the way to my death! -- the churn of knowledge in there is exhausting.
> If you have a CS degree...
I am not from USA and have no degree. I am 41 y/o and I'm a self-taught programmer ever since 12 y/o. Not sure how well that flies on interviews; I feel the US companies put a lot of value on degrees?
> If you apply somewhere and don't get a call back, don't sweat it, and don't take it personally. It just doesn't matter. Hiring is a noisy process...
Completely agreed. I've been in a rough mental and physical health patch for ~3 years now and I've changed more employers/customers than I wanted. Tech hiring is completely broken indeed. You're quite right.
> I'm going to offend a ton of niche fanboys now: Don't pick Vue, Go, Erlang, Haskell, or Rust.
I am not a fanboy at all. I've used 8 languages over my career -- Elixir (stepping on Erlang) and Rust included and I've picked them based on their true, proven and testimonialized merits.
I don't take offense with your statement at all. I presume you meant "aim for something huge and somewhat commoditized that has a ton of legacy code to maintain"? If so, I'll agree with you immediately; there was a period during which I've been barraged by offers from German and Swiss companies almost every day, for months -- all for Java and C# huge legacy beasts.
But sadly that's not where my heart is. :(
Furthermore, I am willing to bet my neck most of those are NOT a code janitor job at all. They'll require a ton of time and attention every day. If I'll do that I'll just find an Elixir or Rust job but at least be happy with the tech stack (if not the area -- the webdev -- which I hate with a passion nowadays).
> Now I'll offend the embedded and systems programmers: Don't pick C or C++. They're just not widely used in business applications.
I haven't been an active C/C++ programmer for like 12-13 years now but IMO you're not on the mark here: there are a lot of business apps but they usually belong in huge old mastodons that are too stubborn to move on (I personally know the VPs of engineering in two such companies!).
But overall you are right -- they are niche but not the good kind of niche; you need a metric ton of battle scars to even qualify there.
> Congrats, you are now qualified for the majority of SE job postings at non-tech companies.
I'd agree but I've neglected networking -- both physical and virtual -- for most of my career and now at 41 y/o I started to feel the negative effects of that. :|
> 19.5 years of programming, but mostly web programming for the last ~12. I want to move away from that, I am sick of it already. There's always something more to learn and even though I don't mind at all -- it keeps my mind sharp which is something I want to keep all the way to my death! -- the churn of knowledge in there is exhausting.
The churn of knowledge can be limited by choosing technologies that don't require constant adaptation. (Time to offend the .NET fanboys): If you pick .NET, there isn't that much difference between .NET Framework 4.5 (from 2012) and the latest version of core. The job still gets done, just with a different set of packages. If you don't have a use for async/await or the TPL, you can go as far back as 3.5 (from 2007).
> I am not from USA and have no degree. I am 41 y/o and I'm a self-taught programmer ever since 12 y/o. Not sure how well that flies on interviews; I feel the US companies put a lot of value on degrees?
Some do, but with 19.5 years of experience, this wouldn't be much of an impediment for you in the United States. All of my opinions apply only to the United States. I haven't worked in other countries and can't comment on them.
> They'll require a ton of time and attention every day.
IMO, a "code janitor" doesn't just sit around all day reading HN. When I use those words, I mean the type of job where you're expected to fix bugs and implement features and not much else. Even if there is talk of higher expectations, there are never any consequences for just going with the flow. You'll rarely/never be asked to work overtime or learn on your own time. You'll only pay lip service to clean code, clean architecture, and long-term thinking. You'll still be expected to show up by 9, hang around until 4, and not screw off the whole time. The job is still a job; it just doesn't strain your brain.
> I'd agree but I've neglected networking -- both physical and virtual -- for most of my career and now at 41 y/o I started to feel the negative effects of that. :|
Headhunters are the antidote to this. When a recruiter wants to connect on LinkedIn and have a short phone conversation about an exciting new position, you always say yes. And if they're not sending connection requests to you, then you send the request to them.
> IMO, a "code janitor" doesn't just sit around all day reading HN. When I use those words, I mean the type of job where you're expected to fix bugs and implement features and not much else.
Yes. We are on the same page, just using different words.
I definitely didn't mean "slacking off". I meant exactly what you said: have 3.5 to 4.5 hours of good solid programming work per day (because realistically that's what most programmers cover in terms of actual focused productive time in the standard 8h work day) where you have already ticked the boxes (or nobody cares about them as you said) so you just pull stuff from a backlog and move at a steady pace with not much supervision.
The company I am very soon starting with has people I like very much, plus I love what they do. But if that turns sour then I'd likely be looking for 2-3 "code janitor" jobs in parallel in order to protect my mental health for a while.
> When a recruiter wants to connect on LinkedIn and have a short phone conversation about an exciting new position, you always say yes.
Maybe you are right. To me outright insisting on a phone call is very disruptive and out of place. I've tried it several times and maybe I drew the short end of the stick every time but they all were young and fairly clueless HRs who just wanted to parrot their speech that was supposed to motivate me and then immediately pressure me for an answer. Don't know, didn't find that a good expenditure of my time.
Maybe I am doing something wrong, I am open to that, but I really am not sure that I want to expose myself to such toxic time wasters. Any advice?
> But if that turns sour then I'd likely be looking for 2-3 "code janitor" jobs in parallel in order to protect my mental health for a while.
Oh, I wouldn't try to juggle multiple code janitor jobs. It only takes one good one to pay my bills. And it would defeat the benefits that I perceive in the code janitor job. If someone wants to put that level of effort into his career, he's better off aiming higher.
> Maybe I am doing something wrong, I am open to that, but I really am not sure that I want to expose myself to such toxic time wasters. Any advice?
Ask for the client and salary range immediately. If they don't give you a straight answer, politely end the conversation.
It depends on the type of recruiter. If you're working with an external recruiter (like an agency recruiter), they're not going to do that. They'll just give you the client's expected salary range. I've never had an external recruiter play this game with me.
If it's an internal recruiter, you might get that question. In that case, have a good idea of what you're looking for, and throw out a number at the top end of the range. If you're talking about a senior software engineer job, and you know that, in your area, they generally pay $120-150k, then say $160k. If you want, condition it based on total comp and benefits. Most Fortune 1000 code janitor jobs will offer a nominal bonus, anywhere between 5-20% of salary. Nothing like the huge FAANG bonus structures. But saying "depending on TC and benefits" gives you some leeway to ask for something even higher later on. And it tells them that, if they can pay you $150k plus a 20% bonus, then you could be happy with that. It leaves the conversation open.
If that makes them walk away, then you didn't want to work there. And don't feel bad negotiating like this even if you're going for a code janitor job. Compensation correlates with negotiating skill more than software engineering skill. It's just the way things are.
Hm. Mostly what I expected then. With one exception: I am in the EU so here $120K a year does not exist. Not even $100K is easily achievable although I've commanded the equivalent of ~$90K a year and will soon work for the same figure.
So I started wondering if I can pivot to the US market -- which was never a goal.
I appreciate your advice. Insecurity and the impostor syndrome can hit even super capable people (I've seen it). Your words help me reassert my self-confidence, and that's sometimes shaky. :)
Retirement, healthcare, and taxes eat up a significant portion of a US earner's pay.
The amount of money that actually gets delivered to a worker's bank account could be a little as 2/3 of their stated salary.
And many things cost more here.
It'd be a good idea to work the numbers and figure out what your take-home pay would be and how your expenses would change. There are some expat websites devoted to this.
I see many, many more developers lamenting the "requirement" of a CS degree to get a software development job than I see lawyers lamenting the "requirement" of a law degree for a law job or doctors lamenting the "requirement" of a medical degree for a doctor job. If it opens doors, and you want that door open... get the degree!
Because developers want it both ways... they want the benefits of a job that makes money while also not wanting the requirements that those jobs usually require.
CS Degrees from local universities can be had for far less cost than a 250k law degree and less time than a 13 year MD.
The explicit numbering is so that you can reorder them to be more "readable" later. I didn't have the heart to do that here, but in the real world, anything goes!
Negative - if these are going to be treated like keys where the integer value needs to retain the same meaning between builds, then an enum is the wrong abstraction to use.
> They're literally changing nothing except the mRNA sequence.
This is like comparing my house to the Willis Tower and saying, "they're literally changing nothing except the blueprints."
mRNA codes for proteins. Coding for a different protein will produce different effects in the body. Most will probably be harmless. If a vaccine codes for a protein too similar to proteins that already exist, that vaccine will produce autoimmune disease.
