> Part of your reward is that traffic cone will stay in people's minds for decades or maybe centuries longer than the products of most of us here.

> VLC is like a part of culture at this point.

Pretty much, as soon as he said he worked on VLC I saw the cone in my head, and then remembered how many times I installed into people's machines so they would stop having codec issues using default software.

Thanks for working a fuckton, OP!

> Part of your reward is that traffic cone

It's our secret goal: the cone religion! :)

I tried to pay part of the rent with something like that and it never worked. What am I doing wrong?

You’re assuming that all rewards must be legal tender.

How do you think that remark sounds to people who actually work with maintaining open source, and who have a rent to pay?

Like the truth?

This is the year 2020.

That's also true, but does that sentence sound like the truth? Is truth and/or accuracy the most important trait of the sentence, or even a significant trait?

In a way you can pay the rent with it...

As soon as you're famous enough in a particular field, companies will hire you just for your name. Doesn't matter if you don't do much useful or only work one day a month - they'll still pay you decently to have your name associated with their brand and products.

That is utterly terrible advice if you actually believe it. Yes, a Google might hire some (very) well-known figures primarily to be public spokespeople. But you can't seriously think that companies are lining up to hire mini-celebs in various tech circles to come on board just to hang around the office now and then.