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"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, and then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Inspiring words. The full quote is actually by W.H. Murray, inspired by a couplet of Goethe's (roughly the last two sentences).


The above (wonderful) quote is preceded by:

'But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence.

http://www.goethesociety.org/pages/quotescom.html


I find the italic really annoying to read


Italic is more annoying/difficult/straining to read. Seriously. You know how they say hackers don't think about user experience?


Maybe I'm missing something. I thought you could do aggregations in Google Spreadsheets without using Fusion Tables?


Netbeans is my favorite Ruby editor, much to my own surprise. One thing I don't like, though, is how much extraneous autocomplete information it provides. If I'm in a controller and type the name of a model object and then type period, it shows a dizzying dropdown list of thousands of methods, including several hundred different versions of the "new" method. Maybe it's just me.


Recruiters are often the first victims in a downturn. So I would say the effect would be even more pronounced. Besides consolidation among smaller firms and layoffs of in-house recruiters, many independent recruiters have moved away from recruiting temporarily and may or may not return when the climate changes. This happened in the early 2000s also. The net effect is a dramatic drop in duplicated job postings on the major job boards which, to an outsider or a Techcrunch writer, is interpreted as a dramatic slump in tech hiring. As usual, statistics are easy to misinterpret depending on how willing you are to look beneath the surface.


Good point. There's been an increasing awareness of the ineffectiveness of the bigger job boards, of which Dice is certainly one, over the past year or so thanks to people like Nick Crocodilo. This may be as much or more a reflection of a long-term downward trend in postings on Dice and Monster, versus on smaller, more targeted job boards or more local ones like Craigslist. In their shortsighted attempt to feed on the fear and insecurity of their target audience regarding the economy and the job market, I would not be surprised if Techcruch has missed the opportunity to write about the more interesting but less obvious story behind the headline. Nor should I be surprised given the editorial style and attention-hungry focus of Techcrunch. Such a mindset tends not to produce a lot of thoughtful analysis for fear of losing the mass audience.


If they work in IT they have a much better chance of finding a job than anyone else does right now - because of the long-term trend of labor shortages in IT.


"The latest unemployment numbers for 2008 for computer software engineers is 1.6%...That's beyond full employment":

http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=...


"The latest unemployment numbers for 2008 for computer software engineers is 1.6%...That's beyond full employment," says Josh James, Director of Research and Industry Analysis with TechAmerica. "Computer programmers' unemployment rate has gone up from 2.5% in 2007 to 3.7% in 2008. That's a sign that programming skills are easier to do from anywhere in the world. But the high-growth jobs include skills that are hard to send abroad such as systems integration and IT managers."


What's a good place to start learning about this, if you wanted to try it out? The site you linked to?

I have a suspicion I would suck at this or would not be willing to stick it through long enough to be successful - sounds like a lot of busywork - but I'm definitely curious to know more.


hm...if it's "busywork" you'd think it would be computationally tractable.

That, would be interesting.


I was just going to make up the rules as I go along. I expect my users to exercise normal standards of good behavior or else incur my inevitable wrath :)

Besides, how am I supposed to figure out all the rules at the beginning. I don't know what direction the site is going to take even a month from now?

I understand your point but I'm afraid it requires me to make decisions about things before the paint is dry.


Not at all - I'm saying not to make up rules at all. Watch the behavior, and if you think something is inappropriate, say so. Then if it continues, say so again, and take action.

The TOS should be something like:

    It's impossible to say clearly exactly what is and
    is not appropriate behavior.  Be nice, play nice,
    and don't be evil.  If I think you're behaving
    badly I'll tell you.  If you keep doing so you'll
    be barred.

    I intend to be fair and just.
    My decision is final.


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