Cool that the author keeps his eyes on Hacker News, but hard work is basically a pre-requisite to doing anything worthwhile. I mentioned in the referenced article that the guy has a higher calling in life. He needs to feel some purpose, and I think he gets easily tired of contract work (much like I do).<p>Nothing will change. Hard-working hackers will always get it right, and the slackers will always be weeded out of the system. What we're experiencing now is a massive weed out of people who chose to sit on salaries instead of innovation. Every year is the year of the hacker. We start companies on the dime and innovate faster than anyone else with almost no experience. We bring jobs and solutions at a pace that would make any Fortune 500 CEO's blood pressure rise to unsafe levels. We just don't get much news coverage. It's nice to see it when we do though.
PG wrote an article a while back called "The Power of the Marginal" <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html</a> the effect of the current crisis will create a multitude of people with marginal time whether because they'll be between jobs or because the jobs they have will be changed to part-time jobs to save costs, and the things we do with free time are nothing short of spectacular.