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Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | anuraggoel: Great ^ Job.Some suggestions:Add 'in progress'/'started' as a project status. This would affect some other features as well, for example filtering the project list. But it would allow people to find new projects more efficiently.Also add a field for 'time to finish' once the project is done.Allow sorting or filtering projects by est. time. If I don't have more than 4 hours, I don't want to see any projects that take longer. Additionally, in the 'New Here' section: Clusterify: work on fun, small (~2hr) projects and meet other coders. '2hr projects' is not very relevant - a lot of projects listed are est. time >2 hours, and it really depends on the quality/quantity of people who join.Do you want to explicitly specify a limit on the number of people who join? Once the limit is reached the project can move to 'In Progress' status. The project submitter can approve join requests. |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | mtw: awesome. if you have a group feature, i'll be using it for a hackers meetup here in montreal. we meet monthly and need a tool to aggregate hacker projects. (or maybe use tags?) |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | villiros: This is really cool. Taking one look gave me quite a few new ideas.I'm slightly confused about its focus, though. How is it different from those sites that list webapp ideas? Nothing is stopping me from taking one of the ideas described on this site and just doing it myself... |
Feedback on our app: groupieguide.com | carlosrr: Convenient clickable links:http://seattlehackers.groupieguide.comhttp://www.groupieguide.com |
how can I generate youtube style id? | HeyLaughingBoy: What's wrong with starting with '0' for the first item and incrementing up from there? Guaranteed uniqueness. |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | niels_olson: hmmmm . . . I wish something like this could get tied into the larger network of meetups. For example . . . how would one get 2600 people to be aware of a system like this? |
Any book recommendations for Geek Humour? | RiderOfGiraffes: Terry Pratchett.http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discwor...Specifically for geeks I would start, perhaps, with "Going Postal". |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | gourneau: My description for tweeting: "Clusterify.com is to coding as pickup games are to sports." |
How necessary is a TOS? | RiderOfGiraffes: Personal opinion, based on limited experience.Essential, unless you want to endure endless complaints about there being no rules, so how can they be banned because they didn't do anything wrong, because nothing's wrong because there are no rules.Be blunt. Say that people are expected to behave well, and that if you think they aren't behaving well then they'll get one warning, then be thrown off.Make it clear that you are a benevolent dictator. |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | ashot: this should be a feature of github |
Feedback on our app: groupieguide.com | pedalpete: A nicely laid out and clean looking site.
I'd recommend doing a demo of how the site works.
People will spend a bunch of time creating a group, so showing how it works would likely help convince people to use your site over other solutions. |
Any book recommendations for Geek Humour? | russell: Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archives and others in the Laundry series. Not foolishness, but a good sense of humor. For foolishness, try Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures. |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | davi: Cool.You have Clusterify as a 'completed' project at:http://clusterify.com/projects/completed/But not as an idea at:http://clusterify.com/projects/proposed/So when a project is completed, it gets pulled off the proposed page? Or you just didn't populate the proposed page w/ the Clusterify project?Maybe projects should never 'complete', i.e. be removed from the 'proposed' page. Reason: it might be fun to be able to look at multiple implementations of the same idea.... different little groups' 1/2 hr takes on a given notion.Eventually, maybe it turns out that the most interesting ideas are the ones that the most people bother to make an implementation of, and this could be a sorting criterion when browsing for ideas. |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | gojomo: Neat idea. Get a favicon! |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | Maro: Your tagline is "To assemble ad hoc teams for short coding projects".You could come up with a semi-unique name like "codelets" ("hacklets", "hackies", "projectiles", ) for these "short coding projects". This would be a unique term specific to and identifying your site, similar to "tweets" identifying messages posted on Twitter. |
How necessary is a TOS? | releasedatez: I have the same concern too. I tried googling for some generic TOS template but nothing good so far. I've decided to let that part go for now because I figured it's more important to get the site working and functional first.I guess when the site does make some money, I can always find a legal copy writer to write one for me. |
Feedback on our app: groupieguide.com | kamme: It looks very nice, the only thing I (personaly) dislike is the large 'header'. I'm on 1280x768 and minimized the waste area as much as possible. When people visit your site and they have to scroll down, that's a shame...But you have a nice and clean layout, responsive website and a good idea, I'd say: continue the good work! The fact I only have one point of criticism is a very good thing! |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | nihilocrat: Needs more games. Of course, that's a community issue. :)The development time for games tends to be longer, so "a few hours" is more like "at least 2 days, if we are binge-coding". |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | tectonic: I'm interested in using this to meet hackers near me. I'm also interested in doing summer YC if anyone is interested. |
What do you use for tracking misc data? | joubert: How about using a spreadsheet? You could use Numbers... |
Review Clusterify.com - small coding project meetups - creators met on HN | pixelmonkey: I think this is a great idea. I have always thought hacking and open source development could be more organized :-) This looks like a great first stab. Here are some comments:On aesthetics: although I like the StackOverflow nod, I think the color scheme is a little too 'grey'. Background is grey, headers are grey, tags are grey, buttons are grey. Don't know if other HNers have the same sense.Specific improvements:- on the "Add Project" page, you could make the text fields a little bit bigger- rather than picking the # of hours you think it would take for 2-3 people, why don't you use the fibonacci-like sequence used in Story Point / Planning Poker estimation. E.g., it's a scale of complexity: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 25, 50 100. See planningpoker.com. You could also consider using a 'slider' here.- After I posted my clusterify project idea, I realized I had made a mistake in the Markdown. Can we get a preview feature? How about editing existing submissions? (I understand this is early stage :-))- The mistake I made is that I thought that links that are on their own line should be linked automatically. I guess this isn't strict Markdown, but seems like a common enough convention in most text-to-html systems.- Since this is code-focused, you could make google-code-prettify available for syntax highlighting (or something similar):http://code.google.com/p/google-code-prettify/- The "vote up" feature should be available on the front page, rather than only being available in the right side "project control" section once you click on a project- Speaking of, I think you should move "Project Controls" to the top of the project page. It's hard to find them on the right side.Some "pie in the sky" new features to consider:- Someone mentioned integration with code hosting services like Github: that could be very cool- Having the project proposal be a Wiki rather than an original proposal with comments- Google maps (or similar) integration to schedule meetingsI'm definitely going to keep visiting. It's a great idea. Keep it up. And if you're interested in working on a Python project, I've proposed one!http://clusterify.com/projects/list/pixelmonkey/11/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | fnazeeri: Brilliant! My advice is to stay in cash (or equivalent). Have patience. Wait 2-4 years and see what happens with the economy. Forget about the cash in the bank (I'm assuming you're well below normal retirement age). Set aside an amount of "play" money. Go play golf or hike Kilimanjaro or whatever works for you. Ignore "advisors" who tell you that you should invest in such-and-such. After some time, you will find things that interest you and that is what you should work on / fund. Invest in / spend time on things you love.BTW, contrats. Nice job! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | oldgregg: 1) Stay liquid (ING or loonies-in-a-shoe-box)
2) Wait until the markets bottoms
3) Buy MinnesotaA year or two from now people with cash reserves are going to clean up. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mrtrosen: You could invest in a nice consulting company, http://www.lab305.com, a couple guys trying to get things moving with some very good prospects in the works :) Then we could all be cashing out for another 2 million next year? |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | vaksel: Go take a vacation and start thinking about your next startup |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | vaksel: You should avoid telling the people you know about this, since everyone will hound you for a handout if they find out. At the minimum under value the thing,2 mil = you can afford to buy the person a car and you are an asshole for not doing it.500K = you can tell them no, since you "need" the money to buy a house. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | inerte: Here's what I would do if I got 2 millions reais (I am brazilian ;)- Pay some debt close family members have (parents, brothers)- Buy an apartment, in the same price range I've been looking for in the last couple months (150k tops). Would not buy something more expensive, "just because I can";- Put everything else in the bank. 80% in the most conservative investment the bank has. 15% on middle stuff;- Travel the world for several months, maybe a year;Then come back, and look at the money again.I think one of the most important things you should do, is simply to not spend much money in the near term. 2m is lot, but it's not enough to live like James Bond. You can't sustain a lifestyle of champagne with hookers while cruising the Mediterranean on yatches. Not for more than 6 months anyway.Going for a 600k house also looks dumb to me. Or anything else too expensive that you wouldn't buy if you didn't had the 2m. Like a Ferrari.You've gotta give time to adapt to your new richness ;) You've gotta understand that you simply aren't used to have a lot of money. Not that I am personally... but I have read stories about lottery winners going to Vegas or blowing all the money on frivolities just because they now can do it. It's the last thing I want to happen to you!And congratulations :) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | smanek: I'm a fan of the Taleb approach to investing. Put most of your money (~90%, I would say )into bulletproof stuff (Savings Account, CDs, etc), and put a little into risky things. You should be able to get at least 5% ROI on the safe stuff (in the long run, obviously considerably less than that right now), which should guarantee that you'll never fall below middle class, come what may.To counteract the current market insanity, I would strongly consider buying some inflation indexed government bonds (called TIPS bonds, in the US) with my 'safe' money. In case of inflation they could help, with no real risk (short of the collapse of the government). I know most people are worried about deflation, but I still have nagging inflation worries.As for the risky stuff, I think Detroit real estate, corporate bonds, and some dividend issuing stocks are seriously undervalued right now. I personally put a little into NRF, which is issuing ~30% dividends per year (at its current stock price). Detroit real estate isn't likely to recover soon, but I think over the next two decades or so you could potentially make a killing. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | xenophanes: buy some government fixed interest rate, fixed duration bonds (say 1-2 year duration) if they give you a better interest rate than ING.don't change your lifestyle too quickly. make sure all changes pass two tests: 1) it feels comfortable 2) you think its rational. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | len: buy gold. bullion if you can instead of futures.no currency is stable at this point. hyperinflation will wipe out a lot of wealth. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | cperciva: The $1M-$10M range is difficult -- it's more than most people know how to manage themselves, but it's not enough to allow you to hire someone to be your full-time money manager.Based on what you've said and not said, I'm presuming that you (a) have set aside money to handle any income taxes which you'll have to pay, and (b) don't have any immediate plans for how to spend your windfall; and your main concern at the moment is simply where to park the money so that you'll have it available once you figure out what to do with it.If I'm right about that, your primary concern should be to hedge risks -- that is, to eliminate as many possible ways that your money might vanish. Given that the biggest risks are (a) an asset price crash, and (b) hyperinflation, I'd suggest a diversified portfolio: Keep some money in cash or near-cash assets (bank accounts and cashable GICs), but split most of the money between bonds (or, equivalently, GICs) and stocks. That way, if the stock market collapses you'll have some losses but you'll still hold on to the money you put into bonds/GICs; and if inflation spikes you'll still have they money you put into stocks (since inflation makes fixed-income bonds worthless but proportionally increases the value of stocks).If you're feeling really paranoid, you might want to split your money between Canadian, US, and European bonds and stocks, just in case something weird happens and the Canadian economy falls apart while the US or European economies don't -- but my impression right now is that the Canadian economy is doing better than the US or EU economies, so I'm not sure that I'd bother with this myself.Of course, I'm not a real financial advisor, and it's quite likely that there are factors specific to you that I haven't considered -- so really you ought to be talking to an independent financial advisor. Do your own research first, and don't feel that you have to follow their advice -- but listen to what they recommend and the reasons they provide for their advice. Make sure that you're talking to an independent advisor, too, and not just a shill for your bank's funds -- if you need help finding one, I'm sure your lawyer can point you in the right direction (and unlike your bank, your lawyer can be trusted to provide a fair recommendation).I hope that gives you some starting points for figuring out what to do -- I'd be happy to talk more if you want to send me an email (google me for my email address, and put HN into the subject line so that I know it's someone from here). |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | micks56: I would put my money into Federally insured bank accounts until I figured out what to do.While it may be unlikely that ING will fail as a bank, there is no reason to take that risk. Divide your money among banks to stay below the maximum Federally insured limits.Once you 1) learn what you want to do with the money, 2) get some advice that you can check and challenge, and 3) feel the time is right, move the money to wherever your analysis takes you.Dividing the money into the savings accounts just buys you time.ps. Congrats! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | sak84: I am confused. Why are you asking people what to do with your money when we know nothing about you?Do you want to just hold on to this money and live off the interest?Do you want to make more money by working?Would you like to invest in the stock market?Are you risk-averse?Are you willing to move?Are you charitable?etc.Basically, I'm not sure this is the right type of place to ask this question if you are going to tell nothing about yourself and what you aspire to be in life. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | access_denied: I'd say being a land-owner is a good move for various reasons. Seriously, do you think the situation in terms of foods and water supply is going to get better in the next decade?
http://www.kottke.org/09/02/fruits-and-vegetables-getting-le...
(I don't say, put all your eggs in one basket.) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | Fuca: Any hint on how you made it?Congratulations anyway |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | kbob: Four chicks at once. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mattmaroon: Well, avoiding the deeper money management issue and addressing your savings comment, I don't know what sort of depositor's insurance you have up there, or much about Canadian banks at all (other than that BMO owes me $100) but if it's anything like the US right now, I'd spread it out. I think our FDIC limit now is $250k for individuals, it shouldn't be too hard to find 8 banks. If your banks up there have no government-backed depositor's insurance, I'd take a trip stateside (if that's legal and it extends to foreigners, which again I don't really know).Putting all of your eggs in one very shaky basket would seem to be a bad plan at this point.Also, I would float me $200k to help me jump start this Ponzi scheme I have an idea for. I'll give you back $300k in a month. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mikeyur: First off, send me some cash. If you don't know what to do with it, give it to me (I'm a fellow canadian, eh).Next thing would probably be to spread it around in some high-interest bank accounts and make sure you don't go over the insured amount. But I'm not an expert.Congrats on the sale and good luck figuring out what you're going to do with all that cash. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | maximumwage: My advice: don't listen to suggestions from random people on the internet (though I like a lot of the suggestions in this thread). Talk to other successful sellers and a diverse selection of wealthy people and find out what they did with their money. Also, Gurbaksh Chahal's book "The Dream" has a good overview of the emotions involved in becoming rich, from the perspective of someone who sold his companies for millions of dollars. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | bullseye: Congratulations!I had a loosely similar experience, and here are a few things I would recommend based on what I did, and wish I had done:Tell as few people as possible, preferably just your immediate family. Resist the urge to talk about it with friends and associates. This includes offering to buy every acquaintance drinks or dinner. Pretend nothing has changed.Designate a percentage as money you will not touch... ever. Find a financial planner, which you trust, and have them help you identify low risk investments. Then, forget about this portion.I don't know how old you are, but assuming you are not at retirement age, begin considering your next move. Consider options that don't require 2mil to get started. ;)This doesn't mean you can't take a well-deserved break, but don't talk yourself into early retirement. This may be more difficult than it seems, so seek motivation in this area wherever you can find it. The fact is, 2mil is certainly nice, but if you stop now, you'll go through it quicker than you think. Treat it as a cushion, not a windfall.Good luck! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | smanek: I would highly recommend Philip Greenspun's investing and early retirement articles, which explain how he dealt with a similar situation.http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/moneyhttp://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | gojomo: Go to AngelConf!http://angelconf.com/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | auston: Invest in startups? |
What's the best way for outsiders to get a startup team together? | bullseye: I cannot stress this enough... do not go into a partnership with someone that you barely know. You can't gauge someone's work ethic, business ethic, or personal history, based on a few forum posts. Case in point... I have an acquaintance who formed a partnership with someone they barely knew. The other party ultimately contributed very little, yet when this acquaintance tried to dissolve the partnership and move on, they ended up with some minor legal issues.Instead, network with people that are in your local area and form friendships with people that have a skill set that you are interested in. Spend time discussing topics other than business to see if you can even stand to be around them. It make take a while, but be patient. Treat it like marriage, because partnership breakups can sometimes be nastier than a divorce! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | jyothi: Buy gold. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | tigerthink: http://singinst.org/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | hedgehog: 1. Congratulations!2. Ignore financial advice from random people on the internet (feel free to include me in this category). Also beware advice on complex schemes that will eat you alive with management fees.3. Spend your time doing what makes you happy.4. If you need time to think about life and the next project, I recommend heading to Guatemala to check out Tikal and the ATM caves across the border. After that you can head out to the Cayes and drink beer in a hammock until you feel like doing something else.Misc thoughts:For everyone besides this guy, #3 doesn't actually require that much money. $20k - $30k buys you time to travel, work on your own projects, and wait for the right opportunity. I spent 2008 doing this and I'm pretty satisfied with that decision.Also: About six or eight years ago I sat next to the CEO of a successful chain of auto shops on a flight somewhere (I forget where I was going but it was Mark Carr of Christian Brothers Automotive). His advice for this situation: take some of the money and buy a house because you'll always need somewhere to live and bankruptcy laws typically protect the home you live. This helps you get the next thing started and, should it go awry, keeps you off the streets and protects some of your assets. |
What's the best way for outsiders to get a startup team together? | moxy: Have you seen this?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485813 |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | stuntgoat: If you ever want to help the most people per dollar spent, take a look at micro-nutrient need in developing countries. Several smart economists ran the numbers and found this is the most cost effective way to help the most people. Check it out:http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | pj: Do absolutely nothing for a year. Assume your life is just as it was.$2M can really mess with your mind. It's not really enough to live forever. But it is enough to live on for a long time. If you are careful, you could invest it and live on the interest. If you aren't careful, you could invest it and lose it.But remember, you don't know what is going to happen. It's cash for now. I would suggest you just sit on it for a year. Think. What do you want your future life to be like?How do you want to live the next 5 to 10 years.And be prepared to get bored. If you aren't working and learning and doing things, you get bored. Save the money for your next startup. In the meantime, live on the interest and stay liquid until you /know/ what you should do with the money. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | smanek: I like mint.com to manage all my accounts, and keep track of my spending (I do all my spending on my credit card, so it's great for budgeting since it can automatically categorize expenditures).You have a few orders of magnitude more then me, but I imagine it should scale fairly well ;-) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | pg: Here's the conventional advice. Start with it all in cash, in some form you feel is sufficiently safe from disasters. Gradually over a couple years bleed it into some combination of stocks (by default in a low-cost index fund) and bonds. The usual rule of thumb is to put your age percentage in bonds. I.e. at age 30 you should have 30% bonds. |
Starting Small | suhail: Learn Hadoop/MapReduce, write something that requires data-scale. |
Starting Small | nostrademons: Try a BitTorrent client. Transmission seems to be the main option on Linux, and I bet you could do better than that... |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | gasull: I like Eric Janzsen's advise on investing, despite his so bad-looking website http://itulip.com/ . His view:- No investment is gonna make you rich while we are in recession.
- Gold will appreciate in dollars, but just because dollars will actually depreciate.So, for the following years, if you buy gold and hold it, you won't loose purchasing power, but you won't get rich.After the recession, Janzsen recommends to buy green energy stocks: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908 |
Review my web service. iPhone app creator for blogs | moxy: Your page is tactful, clean and direct. I immediately recognized what your application did, and signup appeared easy and simple. It appears to me that you've taken the most commonly articulated criticisms of webapp pages into account and adjusted accordingly. However, I feel like I wouldn't be true to my HNness if I didn't offer some trivial criticisms.The logo is a bit cheesy. The site may appear to be too... clunky - it could use some fit and finish, but not so much that you lose the Zen feel. But you already knew that.Overall, good job. I'm sure some other perspicacious HN goers can offer some more insight. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | jonursenbach: Start over. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | jwb119: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." -Warren BuffettI dare you to find many greedy opinions out there today.. Everything I read is decidedly fearful. Full text of the article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html (I realize its slightly less applicable to Canadians) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | sammcd: It seems to me you are asking the wrong people. My father works at an investment company (http://www.hilliard.com/), and usually the people that give you investment advice at banks are the people that couldn't make it at real investment companies.You need someone whose job is to find out what kind of person you are (risky , etc) and help manage your money for you. There are many people who do this very well, and the good news is that many of the corrupt ones have been washed away in the cleansing fire that is the recent economic situation.Anyway don't take my advice I'm a college student that doesn't know crap about money. But find someone that has done it for a living. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | dylanz: 1) Buy property in a location you could see yourself growing old in.
2) Take a Permaculture Design Course.
3) Live happily and take trips to places that happily meet your vices. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | timcederman: Certainly diversify. It's still an easy amount to handle yourself which is good. My biggest mistake was not diversifying enough. Happily I did get strong advice which I half-heartedly followed, for which I am forever grateful.By the way, there are plenty of stocks out there paying very handsome dividends. I recently bought some bank stock paying ~ 11% last year, forecast to pay the same again this year. It's up to you though -- investing should be both for profit and personal satisfaction (I tend to invest in companies I'm rooting for, or are doing good in the world).If I were you, I would simply use something like mint.com (I use the bankofamerica.com aggregator) to keep track of everything, put your money away and enjoy the safety net. In the meantime, get hungry, and try to do it twice....and do make sure you treat yourself with something. If it were me, it'd be travelling for a while, but each to their own. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | sown: I'm reminded of a rotten.com articlehttp://www.rotten.com/library/culture/lottery-winners/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | kul: Firstly, congratulations! I was in similar position once I sold Auctomatic and moved to Vancouver (but with much less cash). I'm now doing property in the states. My advice would be, convert as much as possible of your money into assets that generate passive income (i.e. through rental property). You will then have financial independence for the rest of your life, and basically freedom to do what you want.If you want any help getting started on property, give me a shout. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | nazgulnarsil: a lot of people are talking about "taking time off to think" but not really being more specific than that. This is not just a vacation, this is a vitally important step. Assuming you can make 3-5% off the 2M you are set for life.
Now comes something that few people have ever been able to do: actually decide (with a huge degree of freedom) what your time on this earth means to you.
It may sound silly now, but you have just been reborn. You are no longer subject to the same rules of life that most are. You are literally a different person, though you may not know it yet. Take things slow, like a baby taking first steps.
And don't think that this all involves naval gazing. Look at the other people in your life and what their relationships means to you. They have to start all over with a new You as well. It can be rough on people.Not taking this seriously is the prime reason new wealth often loses it. Everything else is details. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | seshagiric: Talk to Randy Komisar and ask what to do. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | known: Have you considered setting up YCombinator in Canada? |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mkuhn: Invest against the trend. And don't invest everything into one thing, diversify. As a last piece of advice I would suggest to keep some liquidity. |
Starting Small | aneesh: It's a shameless plug, but come check out our site http://clusterify.com. We organize meetups for small coding projects, and you might find an interesting project, or someone interesting to work with. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | jacquesm: Take your time, don't spend what you don't have to, stay away from people giving you 'good advice' (including this one), everything comes to those who wait.The only concrete advice I'd have for you is spread your money around different banks and currencies so that if something takes a hit you don't lose it all in one go. 2M is way above the usual insured amount.Oh, and keep quiet about it! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | spassky1: blow it back into another startup |
Starting Small | patio11: 1. Make a program that solves a problem.2. Charge money for it.3. Get a headstart on learning all the stuff that takes place outside of the IDE.($1,000 is way past what is needed for this these days, if you do your own coding and fill in gaps in your skills with open source. Open source web design, etc...) |
Starting Small | triplefox: If learning game programming interests you, you may want to try coding a 2d rectangle collision system. Not just intersection tests(that is the easy part) but also a collision response that can either cleanly separate intersections or prevent them from occurring, the kind of thing you want for actor-environment collision.It's actually a really hard problem to solve in both an accurate and fast manner without making major design assumptions. How wrong have people gotten it?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgd3YcmIvYE
http://tasvideos.org/RockmanTricks.htmlMega Man's collision was above-average for its time, and holds up to normal play, yet it is full of exploitable bugs. If you can make a system that works well enough, you are most of the way to having a game, and the next most helpful thing to learn would be finite state machines and variants. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | abhishekdesai: invest in my startup http://rivals4ever.com ;) |
Review my web service. iPhone app creator for blogs | katamole: How much will one of the apps cost in the store? |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | cwb: Congratulations! Invest a little in yourself:1. Get a good doctor and dentist; commit to yearly full check-ups.2. Develop a life-long exercise habit that you can perform anywhere. No weights, minimum props. Get help from (i.e. pay) army/special-forces trainer initially.Now is probably a good time to do this, if you haven't already. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | brentr: I recommend seeing someone at a bank about setting up a trust. If you are concerned with making sure that the corpus of the trust remains intact, explicitly tell the bank that as there are investment opportunities that are completely appropriate for that. The benefits of a trust are numerous. When I worked as a trust analyst I saw many people who set up a trust solely to protect their money from themselves. It's something you might want to look into if you are concerned with blowing through the money. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | c00p3r: You can invest in development of a family hotel somewhere in Hymalayan trekking areas, like Nepal, Sikkim or West Bengal. Actually you can build two or three of them. =) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | ggruschow: There's plenty of good advice here to think about.. but just think about it for a year. (Software recommendation: none for now)There's no hurry, but there's plenty of mistakes to be made. Carry on as usual for a while and see if any of the ideas really resonates with you after your mind has settled.Definitely don't get into a contract with someone to "manage" your money - they typically want 2% annually for it, and it's highly likely they've underperformed money market accounts over the past decade. Many (most?) have lost money over the past decade, at least after expenses. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | lallysingh: Mac software: quicken's worked for me. Not fancy, not pretty, but effective.Talk to a professional about investing & protecting your assets. As you can live on the interest, perhaps the free time is more important than the money for now?Sounds like a good time to invest in yourself. First: a small vacation (a few weeks, ~$2-5k) to really relax. Next: maybe some school if there were other things that piqued your interest before, but never had a chance to study. If not school, maybe not a bad time to just pick up some books and hedonistically blowing weeks on whatever you want to study :-) If anyone asks, call it market research.Congrats! |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | UsNThem: Invest in Madoff :D |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | lazyant: since nobody mentioned it: make a last will.As for opinions I'd put maybe 5% in stock indexes (Dow,S&P) as 'risk' and the rest partitioned in bonds and cash in high interest account after talking with a tax specialist. I'd forget about money managers. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | giardini: If you don't own a home then buy one. Buy it as a home, not as an investment, so the smaller the better. If possible, buy a home in an area that has no homeowners' association and associated fees. If you don't, you will eventually regret it. You could buy a "fee simple townhome", which means it's small (condo-size) and has no association fees.The reason I say buy not as an investment is because the real estate market hasn't nearly hit bottom yet and won't for another two years. Until then investing significantly in real estate would be a mistake. So buy something modest that you like in an area that you like.Cash is king right now. Being in Canadian currency is good. Read Nassim Taleb, who presciently suggested years ago that we avoid investing heavily in the stock markets; they're too risky. Instead put ~90% into absolutely safe investments and then bet the remaining 5-10% in long-shot positive "black swans" (e.g, high technology and biotech ventures with long odds but incredible payoffs). Most often you'll lose but, when you win you'll win huge, more than enough to cover your losses. To understand his suggestions, you'd best read his excellent book, "The Black Swan".And I assume you've split your money into various accounts so that you are insured against any losses should your bank go out of business. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | cellis: Trip around the world. |
Please review our startup - timzon.com | RiderOfGiraffes: The link for direct clicking: http://timzon.com |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mistermann: 1. Get a good accountant
2. Be very careful in the stock market right now. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | raquo: Instead of differentiating by font size you could differentiate by color intensity (e. g. like in http://www.artlebedev.ru/everything/clouds/linear/ ) |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | Dauntless: Buy shares in companies from which you use and plan to buy products in future and that have good ROE. Be an angel investor. Travel around to every continent on earth once. Start a new company, where you can invest the money again. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | gjm11: What are the items? Are they best represented by single words or short phrases? (If not, I don't see how you could use a tag cloud anyway.) What does "importance" actually mean? What other characteristics of the items might the users care about? Are there any that you can usefully use to arrange the items in whatever sort of display you choose, putting "similar" or "related" ones near to one another?Some options:Big list, starting with most important. Paginate the list if it's too big, or something. Very, very old-school, but worth considering briefly. Will be less unbearable if you can offer ways to filter the list; the same probably applies to all the other options too.Tag cloud (words with size proportional to importance). Can also manipulate the ordering of tags in the cloud -- alphabetical is standard, but you may have other ideas.Image cloud (images with size proportional to importance). Can also manipulate the arrangement of the images, draw lines between "related" items, etc.Random selection of items (selecting few enough not to be intimidating, but maybe give a way to show more), more important items selected with higher probability, plus a button or something to make a new selection.Find a way to categorize the items. Order categories by total importance in each category. Allow the user to drill down into categories (which may be nested, if appropriate).Diagram showing a box or something for each item, no text or images or anything so all you see on looking at the diagram is the sizes; show information about the box currently under the mouse pointer. Will work better if you can arrange the items meaningfully, but probably won't work well whatever you do.Arrange in two dimensions by some characteristics other than importance. Show items in some subset of this 2-dimensional space, choosing the subset by importance and its size so as not to have too many overlapping items. Allow zooming, panning and maybe adjusting of the permitted density. (Think of it as a map with items for cities/towns/etc.)Have a text box with autocompletion, with suggestions filtered by importance and a fixed target number of suggestions.Filtering mechanisms:By importance. By name. By characteristics of the actual items (can't suggest what since you've said nothing about what they are). By when the items were added/changed. (You could have a slider thingy so users can watch how the world has changed over time.) By similarity/relatedness to a particular item or set of items that the user has selected already somehow. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | gjm11: Note: anything with a lot of information visibly present in it is "not very approachable for non-techies", so filtering is probably at least as important a problem as presentation of the filtered data. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | drsnyder: Pay off any debts you have and set aside some for taxes. Consider some diversification, but keep as much of it as you can (or stomach) as liquid as possible (high interest savings accounts, CDs, or treasuries). There may be some great opportunities in another year or so for those who are still solvent and have a lot of cash-- housing will probably be a lot lower, and so will stocks. Wait until then and you may pickup some of the deals of the century. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | nihilocrat: As everyone else says, save the lion's share of the money, and act like nothing happened. Ensure that you will never have to work at a job if you don't like it. |
Review my web service. iPhone app creator for blogs | weaksauce: Are you planning on monetizing this site at all? If so how? |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | nickfox: I haven't made that much at once before but I have made a considerable amount and I have this one bit of advice. Make sure you don't lose your work ethic. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | ieatpaste: Here's a discussion on metafilter:
http://ask.metafilter.com/56228/Alternatives-to-a-tag-cloudYou can find more experimental UI elements at infographics sites and various visualization lab sites:
http://infosthetics.com/
http://labs.digg.com/
http://sandbox.yahoo.com/Experiments (it used to be much better before they cut a bunch of projects)
http://www.etsy.com/buy.phpI understand that you're probably looking for an established alternative; however, most solutions need to be appropriate to the situation. Feel free to email me and maybe I can help you brainstorm. |
Please review our startup - timzon.com | bbuffone: Site looks cool. Don't like the iframe, makes it difficult to bookmark and post links. Also the inside scrollbar is a bad idea. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | Maro: Consider using hand-picked instead of generated aggregates.For example, on a picture sharing site, showing me a mix of other users' latest pics is just noise. But if an editor creates a album of "Old Mexicans Smoking Cigars", that sounds interesting. |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | alexandermimran: You should read some good books and make your own decision. Worst thing that could happen is you are hurt by inflation which can't happen nearly as fast as a stock crash... |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | goat: Staggered CDs and Dollar cost averaging.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_deposithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averagingEventually you want to be diversified, but right now, you don't know if you want to put all your money in the market.So divide your money into 8ths (or whatever, by 8ths right now the US government will insure each $250k in your CDs)put 1/8 into the market now.1/8 into a 1 month CD1/8 into a 2 month CD1/8 into a 3 month CD1/8 into a 6 month CD
....When each CD matures buy more of the market. That way if we haven't hit bottom, yet, you will still be buying on the way down and up.Unless you are going to spend time studying industries put it all in index funds/etfs.
Your market allocations depend on when you need the money, but I have something like45% Russell 100020% EAFE12% Russell 200010% Morgan Stanley bond index5% REIT index5% Nat Resources/Commodities3% emerging marketsThis should be translatable into Canadian assets, just not by me. |
Alternative to the tag cloud? | riklomas: I'd recommend this Edward Tufte book for visual data design, it's very good:http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Informatio...Also, FlowingData is a great site for data visualization: http://flowingdata.com/ |
Just cashed out for 2M. What now? | mrtron: Being Canadian...I recommend PC Financial. Their high interest savings is great, and no fees!With 2 mil, I would personally:-Buy a place to live in the 400k range. Housing is probably overpriced right now, but generally speaking the Canadian housing market is not too badly bubbled. I really don't see a Canadian crash coming, but there may be a slight price reduction.-Put 200k into a high interest account. Easy to access, guaranteed return, etc.-Put 200k into a new business. But that is because it is what I enjoy doing, if you want to learn to paint, go to school, etc throw the money there.-Put 200k in the stock market. Canadian financial institutions are amazingly underpriced currently, and so are several commodity based companies.The remaining million I would use for stability/hedging. Hedge against the Canadian dollar, inflation, etc. I would probably get some professional help from investment banking friends, but this would probably be a combination of US bonds, CDN bonds, gold, etc.The Canadian economy is currently almost untouched by the current recession. There will be a bad 2-3 years at a minimum coming up so plan for that. I would plan on shifting into the stock market cautiously over a period of time and not throw it all in at once, we could easily see another 50% decline over a few months.Lastly, I would take a month and travel around before doing anything at all. |
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