Should've left (and/or sold) sooner. Man's gotta know when to let go of sunk costs.

I've had my own office in almost every job (I count as exceptions the startups/under 20 person shops I worked in) since 1985. In the late '90's I needed to move into management to do it. In 2013, I had to move to my own company to do it. It was (and is) worth it.

I remember when engineers were actually treated as professionals - offices, administrative assistants, and all. Now, you're treated in the information factory like the line workers you have become. It's a shame you decided not to have a union. They'll have you at treadmill desks to power your own machines soon. And you'll suck it up because you think you have no choice. Examine your axioms.

And when the last new woman born runs our of eggs, we end up stuck with the existing population and no more humans can be born, ever. As we die due to accidents, the population dwindles to zero. Good riddance to us, I say, for being so stupid!

The old have to make way for the young. Stop desperately grasping hold of the dry, dusty moments of increasingly stretched existence. Step aside and let the next generation have their turn. Upload your consciousness into a computer, and believe the illusion that that's still you in there, if that makes you feel happier, but get your corpse underground you selfish old coot.

1. Go to Mars.
2. There is no step 2.
3. There is no step 3 either.

Indeed. Web browsers have generally not been on my list of applications that are permitted to play sound, ever since the capability to play MIDI was introduced in Netscape. Why would anyone want that? I do NOT want random websites that I look at to be able to decide what sound comes out of my speakers. I already have a media player, thanks, and the web browser is not it.

Vi Hart

More people leaving Oregon == more Oregon left for me. Take a few hipsters with you and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

... cyclists' contribution to road wear would likely be too small to collect.

Oh yeah? What if the cyclist was wearing a backpack, too? What then? Tax them all!

Anything that is in the public domain, and anything that is "basic research", is exempt.

So, if it costs too much they'll automate and you'll pay to support them anyway. Here's the thing - you can either find jobs for people and let them work (or force them to work, Kim Jong Il), you can support them (either in their homes or poorhouses or prisons), or you can let them die of starvation. You can manage the process or let it go on chaotically - that's about it. Which of these options are you going to choose?

Well, is yours? I do own a business and I sort of like the fact that my government sets minimal rules. You, of course, are free to move away from LA should you find their rules onerous, but I have a feeling you don't even live near LA.

Businesses just raise their prices to compensate. The people who really get hurt are the people who make just a few dollars an hour more than minimum wage, because they've worked hard to get raises. Guess what happens to their raises when minimum wage goes up and drives inflation? Yeah.

With that said, I'm surprised California minimum wage wasn't already more than $15/hour. In real terms, that might actually be _lower_ than minimum wage in the Midwest. I say might, because it depends somewhat on exactly what you're buying. Electronics, for instance, are generally the same price nationwide, so your minimum wage job in California could buy a lot more iPhones than an equivalent minimum wage job in Ohio. OTOH, if you are mostly buying food and housing, you'd be better off with $5 an hour in Indiana than $15 an hour in Southern California. So figuring out an exact purchasing power ratio for the general case is not really possible. But anyway, my point is, $15/hour sounds high if you live in a place with a reasonable cost of living, but it's really not high in LA. Money's just worth less out there.

Uber ... is threatening to leave ... Oregon.

Since we've lived without "pump your own" gas for this long, I figure lack of Uber "services" and reliance on old school taxis and mass transit will be fine with our retro/hipster kultur here in PDX.

Actually, it's fine with me, too. I have a car. I know how to drive.

Most gas stations in Oregon don't have canopies. If you want to stand out in the rain to pump your gas, you can always go over the state line into Washington.

So your organization uses process change as a euphemism for "firing bad developers we were too chickenshit to fire for being bad in the first place". Sounds like a well-managed company with a recipe for a happy and productive workforce. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, Catbert.