sjperez

So long as there is transparency about how pay changes based on location, it is possible to do this fairly. The US Government civilian pay scale is a good example. If you are a GS-12 step 1, your base pay is $66,167, but that goes up with locality pay. A GS-12/1 in New York earns $88,651 but a GS-12/1 in Tucson earns $77,541. It seems like a big difference, but based on cost of living, the GS-12/1 in Tucson probably has a bigger house and fewer expenses. You could argue whether those numbers are right, but at least it's fully transparent. Companies that are moving towards this model should make transparency a priority. Perhaps you can negotiate for base pay and know that it will be adjusted by a certain percentage based on where you decide to live.

Stanza seems like a pretty neat NLP library. I think it may become by one of my go-to tools for text analysis projects. This post is from an afternoon I spent playing around with basic Stanza functionality.

Has anyone ever found a guide of similar format and quality for data science? I would love to find a similar collection of resources for learning data science fundamentals (math, statistics, programming, etc.)

Is anyone aware of any actual research on this issue? If so, what does it say? Do remote workers actually work less? Do intrusive monitoring apps improve productivity or decrease productivity?

I've always had the sense that people who work remote are perfectly capable of being productive without monitoring. In some ways, depending on your personal situation, being at home can be less distracting than being at the office. On any given day, I would bet that most people in an office only put in 3-4 hours of good work (or less). Much of the rest of the time is spent being distracted by office gossip, meetings, coffee breaks, etc. Why should we expect people working from home to put in 8 solid hours of good focused work when we don't demand the same of people in the office?

It would be nice to see some actual data on this problem. I have an instinct that this is a major overreaction by managers and that it will ultimately drive productivity and retention down. However, I'm open to being proved wrong if this is an issue that has been studied in a rigorous fashion.

The fact that you're asking about how to improve your writing is a fantastic first step. I think writing is the most undervalued skill in most professions. No matter what your job is, writing is part of it. That very much includes technical and scientific jobs. So kudos to you for even thinking about this skill--it's one that many people ignore.

The best book on writing that I have read is On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. It's short and very accessible. Zinsser does a great job of laying out why writing is so hard and how to tackle everything from fiction writing to non-fiction technical writing. You can finish the book in a weekend of leisurely reading and come back to it as often as you like.

Zinsser's main point, which I agree with wholeheartedly, is that great writing is really about great re-writing. Edit mercilessly, remove unnecessary words and phrases, and focus on getting your point across in a clear manner. Remove jargon wherever possible. If you take the time to re-read and re-write your work several times over, you can't help but create something better than you started with.

Are you concerned that the airlines might end up declaring bankruptcy? Or do you think the government will bail them out? As of right now, it's my understanding that they're operating at unsustainable losses, absent some kind of intervention.

Thanks! I've officially added it to my reading list, along with Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Richest Man in Babylon. I wish I had done more to become financially literate earlier on--I don't think anyone ever talked to me in school about financial literacy and now I'm in catch up mode.

Thanks for your comments--I'm curious about real estate funds and have been looking into REITs, but your point about what happens when things open up is a good one. I've been looking at Fundrise and similar services but I have such a knowledge gap about real estate that I'm not sure I could make smart decisions on individual funds. I'm willing to tolerate some risk, but need to get smart on the involved issues first.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what "professionalism" means in software development. I recently read Clean Coders (Martin, R.), which talks extensively about this issue, and Pragmatic Programmer (Hunt, A.; Thomas, D.), which touches on it as well, and it is clear that this is an issue that evokes strong feelings among many developers. It got me thinking, to what extent are the lessons in these books (and others) actually practiced in the industry? What do today's software professionals have to say about "professionalism"? With the goal of answering that question, I put together a short survey, the results of which I plan to share in a future article. If you're interested, I'd love to get input from fellow HN readers. Thanks very much for your input!