Could we have a 3rd option: "Quit whining" I mean, really. Although, you make a good point that it will drive unwanted people here...but there's nothing we can do about that unfortunately.

The CEO has decided that you have technical ability but not management ability. He doesn't want to lose your nagios-installation skills but he thinks that an imaginary person whom he has not yet met or hired will be better than you at leading the tech team. He's happy to let you keep the fancy CTO title and perks so you don't lose face, or because he doesn't want a confrontation.

I would guess based on your comments and the fact that you're asking this question that politics are not your strong suit. "Politics", b.t.w., is just the natural state of people working together... it can be dysfunctional or functional, but as soon as you have 3 people, you have some kind of politics.

Since politics are a major component of management, you may actually be happier not doing management.

In situations like this the CEO is probably overestimating his ability to find a Magical VP Technology that will magically solve all his problems (unless he has someone in mind, a buddy from a previous company, for example). Likely he will spend 6-9 months trying to find someone, finally hire someone imperfect in despair, and spend the next year or two discovering that person is incompetent, too. But now I'm really just projecting.

If you don't like the CEO it may be time to move on. Life is to short to work with people you don't enjoy spending time with.

poll flawed. i need a "no don't ban it, but i'm tired of seeing codinghorror stories on news.yc"

perhaps a better solution overall would be to implement some sort of restriction on submissions. if you submit from a single domain more than X number of times in the last Y submissions, you're disallowed from submitting from that domain for another Z submissions.

I have very negative feelings about the whole AMBER alert idea. Maybe I'm a callous bastard, but what is so special about child abductions that they require an entire separate national infrastructure to "alert" the citizens in the (incredibly unlikely) event they occur?

According to wikipedia the AMBER alert system has helped in the the recovery of 27 children; even this is disputed. Sounds impressive until you remember that thousands of children drown in backyard swimming pools every year. It's absolutely nothing, not even a blip. Sorry, I know it sounds heartless, but facts are facts.

There's a sinister aspect too - by making such a big deal about this essentially dead crime, which isn't even a rounding error on child death statistics, I get a nasty feeling that "the powers that be" are trying to unite the public - united with the govt, of course - against this "pedophile child kidnapper" bogeyman. Again, the numbers suggest this creature is almost, if not completely, non-existent. "But they must be everywhere, right? That's why we had to have AMBER alerts!" Encouraging paranoia, manipulating groups to unite against faceless and unlikely enemies .. I don't like it one bit.

Saved 27 children since inception. All this righteous fuss. Meanwhile, in Africa, 8 children die every minute from preventable diseases. Where's their alert? Where's their iPhone application?

Selective caring. Couldn't give a shit about the thousands of swimming pool deaths. Couldn't care less about childhood obesity or dropping educational standards or manufactured food or childhood deaths in Africa from trivially preventable diseases or child labour in Vietnam which you buy off the shelf at wal-mart but OMG PEDOPHILES APPROVE MY IPHONE APP NOW OR YOU ARE KILLING CHILDREN!

I don't really know how to express my loathing for such people but basically I think they're hypocritical, self-righteous douchebags. I hope and expect Apple to ignore this nonsense.

(updated to reflect the fact that I couldn't cite a good reference for the 55,000 annual swimming pool deaths I originally wrote - replaced with "thousands", which should definitely be safe.)

I created this account for privacy reasons, and I'm one of the more active/karmic people in this community. Yes, this is an oppressive culture (in the US).

I'm a somewhat heavy bud smoker and a full-time developer. #define HEAVY? That's subjective, but I can comfortably go through a quarter ounce in a week, and my ideal consumption is probably 1.5 grams per day. I've known people who think a bowl a day is heavy and that an ounce a week is normal, so like I said, subjective.

I oscillate between stretches of daily smoking and stretches of sobriety. Clearly, there are advantages to being sober, and I wouldn't appreciate the benefits that ganja brings if it became too regular a habit.

I'm full of it, right? It's a pitiful escape, and an intoxicant couldn't possibly have any benefits, right? So allow me to enumerate them:

1. Ganja truly opens your mind. Now, we all have open minds, but there's a further degree of relaxation and openness that it helps one to achieve. This allows me to grasp very abstract concepts quickly because there are fewer preconceptions and other obstacles to learning. It would've taken me far longer to grasp functional programming, I believe, without this benefit.

2. Morale: After a night of boozin', you will feel like crap the next day. After a night of smoking, I feel like a million bucks in the morning. Granted, I've been an insomniac all my life, and ganja is prescribed in many places for this malady. I come in to work the next day refreshed and ready to dive into my work, and I'm undoubtedly more productive when this well-rested.

3. Energy/endurance: I don't always have the patience or energy for prolonged hackage, especially when it comes to things that once frustrated me, like setting up a dedicated server. When high, I can easily wade through the tasks at hand, and next thing I know, they're done. I often come home from work feeling drained, fire up a little bowl, and am re-energized. What just a minute ago seemed unthinkable (fatigued, firing up my computer to hack on something) becomes irresistable because it's one of my true passions.

So, ganja is very good for me. It may be terrible for others, so I don't offer any advice here. I have yet to encounter any ill effects thus far concerning my health, and it does _not_ at all affect my stamina in physical activity as would tobacco.

I never show up at work blazed, and only partake in my free time. And if you think that stoners are lazy, on top of this full-time job I run a web development business with three employees.

- 21 year-old

Nope. For that, you'd have to go to her personal blog..and even there, you don't get much.

Blame Penelope Trunk. She creates these monsters.

I think she crossed the line from 'I'm so impressed by your company I'll make a big fuss to get hired' to 'I'm mildly unhinged'.

Sounds to me like he's trying to push you aside.

Not me. I'm of the opinion that lighting things on fire and sticking them near your head to breathe just sounds like a bad idea all the way around.

I'm for legalization though. The idea of outlawing a weed that does less harm than alcohol is ludicrous.

I experimented a bit as a teenager. As I recall, it didn't help my analytical skills at all -- unless by analytical skills you mean finding doughnuts at 3am or being able to smile stupidly while listening to Led Zeppelin tunes.

I think intoxication is a natural state of mankind, so if you like toking or drinking or running until endorphins seep out of your ears I can understand that. I just don't think any of that, no matter how good it feels, actually makes you a better coder. If anything, I think good coders learn the natural rhythms of their bodies and minds, then maximize their performance based on that.

Now can it make you think you're a better coder? Sure thing, boss.

Looks like the site is dog slow and overloaded by a little traffic. Mirrors the target company well.

for comparison: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libc/string/st...