This cartoon pretty much sums it up for me. I live to create and would do that happily without monetary compensation. I create and my primary medium is the web. In other words I code to live, not the other way round. This is one of the reasons why 90% of my tools are open source.
If I had admin access to all the servers in the world, I’d spend my time improving the web and fixing code. Writing code is my passion. Of course the reality of being a geek for hire means that I have to also manage expectations.
Continue reading ‘What I do for a living’
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Freelancing in the New Economy is a lot like freelancing in the old one. Except this time if you’re wack, you starve. Great slides and presentation by Cory Collier.
(0)“The California State Supreme Court has ruled that non-compete clauses in employment contracts are not enforceable in California.” Booyah!
(0)David Heinemeier Hansson, inventor of Ruby on Rails (something you might of heard of) in response to Paul Graham:
Getting your company to the point where you can pay yourself a decent salary is a great milestone. You created something sustainable that doesn’t rely on spending other people’s money. You deserve to pop a bottle and celebrate!
You certainly shouldn’t curb your ambitions because of that, though. The real economic pay-off for taking the risk of starting a business is what comes after this.
More on: You don’t have to sell your company to have financial security and the freedom to do what you want…
…As we all know, when banks compete I win. And within a few days, without having to actually meet with or even speak to another human, I found myself offered a $336,000 mortgage.
It was SO easy. Fill out a few online forms, make some choices, and there I was, about to close that loan. But then I did an odd thing. I carefully read the papers I was about to sign (I’m one of THOSE people). And in that residential loan application, right on line something or other, was a number that didn’t make any sense to me at all. It was labeled “total household income” and was almost twice the pitiful amount I actually earn.
From where did that number come? It certainly never came from me. Since my signature would be at the bottom of this application I wanted to make sure everything was correct, so I called the mortgage broker. For the first time we spoke. She was a very nice lady, too, and explained that number was the variable required for all the ratios to be correct so I could qualify for the loan.
“But it isn’t true,” I said.
“Do you want the loan or not?” she asked.
I, Cringley on how the reduction in friction caused by the internet can be used to stuff TO us, instead of FOR us.
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