I recently read a misleading and misinformed Time article about the space elevator that got me a little steamed.
One thing in particular was the dismissive tone. It was never really considered from an engineering standpoint of an engineer. Certainly it sounds like a pie-in-the-sky idea at first, but when someone does some research they find it’s not as far-fetched as they originally thought. The idea that is costs “kazillion zillions” is entirely fictitious. At least do some research and use real numbers.
The real pricetag is between $8 billion and $20 billion, or .2-.5% of the 2012 US federal expenditure, which you can compare to NASA’s 2012 budget of $19 billion.
Now, things can certainly go overbudget, it happens all the time, but even if it still costs ten times as much, the benefits outweigh the problems significantly.
In a nutshell, any writer should be far more educated on the topic and do some actual fact-checking before writing a terribly misinformed article.
And I fully understand if I sound like a space elevator fanboy, I love the idea and have read a lot of the literature on it, it’s something I get really excited abuot – I’m not quite sure how one wouldn’t. 
I recently wrote about the recruiting and hiring practices at technology companies and how many people just don’t understand the deep inner-workings of a technology career.
I should note that one of the reasons I feel like I’ve been thinking about this is my new position as a Software Engineer at VEVO starts today.
I’m very excited to work in this fast-paced, exciting environment where the developers are solving problems that very few people in the world have to solve, let alone even consider. It’s music, it’s fun and it’s high-performance software where bandwidth is near the highest it can be and performance cannot be taken lightly. I’m looking forward to the new challenges, a change of pace and the new people I am going to work with and learn from.
I loved my time at Bootstrap Software – I learned a lot, had a lot of fun and made some great friends. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means and I will certainly miss them.
Here’s to looking forward to the next step in my career!
I recently read an article about the hiring practices of technology companies that got me a little fired up because of how utterly wrong I felt that it was. Notably there was a section near the end of the second page that read: “Companies tend to hire people with IT engineering degrees, use those skills for five years, and then they want a new crop, says Cappelli.”
I don’t think he could be more wrong. Technology isn’t obsolete in 5 years – it’s obsolete in 1-2. It’s very fad-intensive, with quick iterations. People don’t drop out because they’re not trained in the new things coming out – it’s because they’ve burnt out trying to work while learning new things, couldn’t keep up with learning these new things or they plod along without learning new things and fall to the wayside. “Training” doesn’t happen – learning by getting thrown into the deep end does.
Also, I love how the first comment lauds Cappelli’s comment, yet is one of the things I couldn’t disagree with more in the article. The reason that there are young developers, and why companies want young, smart, driven developers is because they drive them into the ground in 5-10 years or the developers become so disillusioned by what they often feel is the stupidity or inefficiencies around them that they want to get out. Sometimes hearing, “it’s a business rule,” isn’t the most calming experience.
While personally, I do like learning new skills, techniques and adding to my knowledge base, what really excites me is being able to do something quickly, to accomplish something faster than I would have been able to before. That’s what a lot of the newer technologies that come out do for you – something that would take 10 hours now takes 1, etc. That’s why people will pay so much for developers at the cutting edge. If you can do things 10 times as efficiently, it’s a deal to pay you twice, three times or eight times as much as the guy sitting next to you.
This thinking reminds me of a recent video where Matt Damon discusses teachers, their compensation and the fiery issues that are currently surrounding that sector. The comment by that professor is coming from an MBA-type analysis which loses a lot of truths by measuring only concrete facts. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but people need to acknowledge that it loses a lot of the emotional and immeasurable part of the picture in the meantime.
