Free speech does not mean speech without responsibility.
Freedom of speech refers to the right to speak without fear of government reprisal or punishment. It has nothing at all to do with how private entities conduct themselves in regards to the speech of other private entities. People replying to your comment don't understand this, and seem to think freedom of expression equally applies to speech on a privately owned website. It doesn't.
You should always be going after gigs that are just above your current skill level. This is how you get better and how you can constantly progress. The most important skill you can have is the ability to quickly learn on-the-fly, to solve new problems.
If you only attempt projects that are well below your skill level you'll just stagnate and get bored. Eventually your skills will deteriorate as a result.
Go for bigger fish, even if you're not sure you can reel them in.
Of course. Any press (good, bad or otherwise) is good press. Even if Zuckerberg and FB "officially" denounce this movie, I guarantee that they're dancing with glee behind closed doors, thankful for all of the extra media attention.
"Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subconsciously. We have little power over people’s desire to succeed. We can only provide the tools to do so. So teach people, don’t criticize them."
It most definitely isn't just something you have to accept and deal with. Staying sharp takes effort, but it's worth it. And you don't need to upset your work/life balance or carve out massive portions of your week to do this. You do, however, need to make some time for yourself and your brain even if it's just an hour in the morning while you have your coffee.
The most important thing I could tell you is to read your ass off. Get a good list of RSS feeds for blogs and magazines in your field and read through them all regularly. Routinely look for newly published books in your field of interest and read them. Get involved in discussion boards for the same so that you can have conversations, and even debates, on the issues you want to stay on top of so that you're not in a mental vacuum - and so that you are challenged by others in your field. Keep talking about it, thinking about it, writing about it (I forget who said "you don't know what you know until you write" but it's true)...
Please consider adding item excerpts/descriptions to your Hacker News feed. I love the feed and am subscribed to it, but without excerpts or descriptions for items it is not as easy to skim.
Freedom of speech refers to the right to speak without fear of government reprisal or punishment. It has nothing at all to do with how private entities conduct themselves in regards to the speech of other private entities. People replying to your comment don't understand this, and seem to think freedom of expression equally applies to speech on a privately owned website. It doesn't.