instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
|---|---|
Should I Keep Going? | sgk284: I've had wonderful success with 99designs.com. Great work that is crowd-sourced for amazing prices. If you use them my one recommendation is to guarantee the action (you'll see what that means when you create it). You'll get a lot more submissions that way. |
Should I Keep Going? | ryuio: Do this.1. Read the countless photoshop tutorials on the net and learn it. (if you can't the startup aint going nowhere anyways).2. Read the book 'Dont make me think.'.3. Read it once again.4. Do the ui/graphic design yourself.5. Get a good designer to critique your site and spend about an hour on it. (shouldnt cost much)6. Redo your site based on feedback. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. |
Voting down ability gone? | hardik: its back again! |
Voting down ability gone? | tokenadult: There were some bugs on HN yesterday. Today behavior seems to be back to normal. |
online sales taxes? | cperciva: Does that count as an export?Yes. If you provide a service to people outside of Canada, this counts as an export and is zero-rated (i.e., 0% tax).Do I have to register my business in the jurisdiction of wherever I sell (that sounds silly, but I need to know for clarity!)?No. Unless you have a presence in a jurisdiction (approximately defined as "have an office", but the exact rules vary -- simply renting a server somewhere doesn't count, though) you don't have to deal with that jurisdiction's sales taxes.As an Ontario company, you'll need to deal with Ontario's RST (for Ontario customers only) and GST (for Canadian customers only). You don't need to worry about US sales taxes, you don't need to worry about European VATs, and you don't need to worry about other provincial sales taxes (unless you set up an office in another province).Provincial and federal sales taxes are enough to worry about, though -- because depending on how your service is categorized you might have to charge a different sales tax rate or none at all. I ran into enough ambiguities in the rules that for tarsnap I'm taking the simple approach of not accepting Canadian customers for now -- because the only thing I could be absolutely sure about was that I didn't have to charge any tax to non-Canadians. |
Multi-head disc drive | cperciva: This has been attempted; my understanding is that IBM had a hard drive where each platter had independently controlled heads about 20 years ago.It turned out to not work very well. Disk heads have to seek very accurately, and stay unmoving very accurately once they fine the right location; having other disk heads moving around made this incredibly difficult. |
Multi-head disc drive | russell: There have been multi-headed drives is the past when seek times were in the hundreds of miliseconds. It's not done now because it greatly increases cost and the complexity of the software, and doesn't work very well. A dual-headed drive would probably cost more than two single headed drives. |
Should I Keep Going? | pclark: Hi, I'm a UI designer -- and my girlfriend is a graphic designer.Drop me an email [in my profile] and we'll sort this out. |
Why did Google release their mapReduce algorithm/cluster setup? | bayareaguy: In this particular case the ideas weren't particularly new - when I first heard about Map-Reduce I thought people were talking about MPI's AllReduce function http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/mpi-11-html/node82.html from the 1995 MPI spec and even then it was nothing new. Teradata and others shipped systems operating on the same principles a decade earlier.But to answer your question: all large companies need to publish the central technical ideas in one way or another to ensure their own current and future technical staff understand how their systems work (e.g. IBM Systems Journal). |
Online Resources for Beginner Hackers? | raquo: I have nothing to add to the list, just make sure he is not bored by all the theory - let him build some very very simple apps // hmm I'm probably saying obvious stuff |
Online Resources for Beginner Hackers? | chanux: This one is the first document any hacker newbie should read.http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html |
Online Resources for Beginner Hackers? | stonemetal: How about poignantguide.net and http://learnyouahaskell.com/
and mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/Though it looks like you will have to turn to the printed word for anything beyond language tutorials. I would suggest intro to algorithms and head first design patterns.As far as hardware goes introduce him to an arduino or a pic and some parts and let him explore. |
Online Resources for Beginner Hackers? | travers: I would advise against so many languages/technologies at once. This was the mistake I made in the beginning and I haven't really recovered. I can dig in to many things and make them work, but I think I would have been better off if I tried to master one or two things.Find out what your friend is interested in and make your recommendations based on that. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | Hates_: It sounds like your question is more "How do I not let my desire for sex get in the way of getting stuff done." and has nothing to really do with relationships. A relationship with the right person would only increase your own creativity and productivity.I guess I'm extremely fortunate to have a relationship with someone who encourages me when I feel worn out and wants to give up and who understand when I have to put in time to get stuff done. I'm a big believer that the right person for you inspires you to do better and makes you feel like you can achieve anything. I double my efforts because I want to create something of value so that we can both share and enjoy the things we want to do with our lives. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | craigbellot: My last relationship would sometimes significantly reduce my desire to create anything.The good times were great and of course programming was the last thing on my mind. The bad times were simply draining and I'd lose the drive to make progress on my goals. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | shdon: The initial phase of being in love or going through a breakup, I can't concentrate and my work suffers. When a relationship is working, it has a positive influence on my well-being and that in turn positively affects my creativity and productivity. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | jwilliams: A roundabout way of looking at it: Do a survey of all the people you admire for their productivity (by your own definition).You'll probably find there are womanizers, monogamists, recluses, etc, etc. i.e. All types.It's a leap of a conclusion - But I'd say either it's not correlated, or it's totally unique for every individual. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | BSousa: I'm going to assume by relationship you mean a normal loving relationship, with its up and downs, the normal fights but not abusive or lacking or with a cheating partner.If that is the case, I can say that it improves my programming, both at work and at home. Yes you have fights, but when you know that you have someone you care about and s/he cares about you it drives you harder to do it. Sure it takes some time from your programming time, but well defined boundaries can be easily set. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | jlees: One comment that I've seen made is that running a startup is a lot like being in love. So a related question is whether, if you're not in love with someone, you're more likely to totally obsess over your startup (and whether that changes your chances of success)...But as to the original question, it varies so much on who you're in a relationship with, what you're working on, and how the two fit together. From a startup PoV, is he always demanding you 'stop work' to pay him attention? Is he intrusive rather than supportive? Is he able to deal with you having a spontaneous, flexible schedule that might change at a minute's notice? Is he OK with the fact you don't earn any money? Is he going to scream if you decide you have to move to a different city to succeed? Does he yell at you for getting up in the middle of the night and furiously typing? I could go on all day, and mostly from experience. ;-) |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | chanux: I dunno about about sex but sometimes I find it very disturbing when my girl friend (& some other girls ;) ) call me & making looong conversations.And if I feel like going to a pr0n site, then I know I'm really bored of tech stuff & etc. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | sokoloff: In a stable and good relationship, my work is dramatically better in quality, even if the quantity of hours spent on work is slightly lower than when I'm single and not bothering to "chase".During past bad relationships, or phases when I was "racking up a number", my work was definitely impaired.How did I prevent it? I suppose I didn't, but I mostly just worried about being a decent human being to people I know, and not sweating whether casual sweating was immoral.Side note: once you get to about 30, I don't think anyone talks in terms of your number, and your ability to find a "quality woman" (itself an error-prone reduction of many dimensions to one) will not be changed by even a few score of scores. I sense that your philosophy may lean towards the Christian from your finding consensual casual sex immoral, so your fitness function for quality woman might be way different from mine, and the women who rate highly over that function might actually care about your "number". IMO, if you're still single at 30, no one ought to shocked that your number is well into double digits. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | neuromanta: Forming a good relationship is also hacking - it needs creativity, thinking out of the box (with the head of the opposite sex), and it's challenging. It also needs some transcendent, higher thinking, just like every hacking. And it's extremely rewarding. If you can find yourself a real partner, who is not just your sex partner (like I could), it improves your creativity greatly. It makes you feel more balanced, more focused. If you have the right partner for it, who can live together with your habits - and of course, if you take your time to look after the relationship. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | randomwalker: I've been in a friends-with-benefits situation for the better part of a year. I wasn't the one who suggested it, and I was initially reluctant, but it's been pretty awesome. This is very different from unattached casual sex, mind you. We're very good friends, we care about each other and so forth. But we've been able to keep this up long term with no romantic attachment at all. Technically we're both free to see other people, but since we're both busy and pretty satisfied with the arrangement that hasn't happened I guess.I agree with another commenter that a relationship would increase your productivity, but it's a little more subtle than that. When you start dating someone, initially it's going to be a huge time sink, but once you get over that hump and you're in a stable relationship it's probably going to leave you better off than being single. But you have to accept that a significant initial effort is needed into building the relationship and also accept the risk of breaking up and having to deal with getting over them, and so on. Nevertheless, I'd rather be in a committed relationship; but if work productivity is the only criterion, my current situation works great.So here's my "solution": find someone who's as busy with work as you are, and find a way to be in a low-key, long-term relationship. Long-term is important; trying to find someone to sleep with every once in a while is probably the most time-wasting strategy of all. (Never tried it.) |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | patrickg-zill: Welcome to the messy, illogical thing called life. No one has exactly the "right" answer.I would point out that a good relationship should enhance your life rather than diminish it. Maybe you are dating the wrong kind or pursuing the wrong kind? |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | ALee: Relationships and productivity/creativity are not directly correlated. The amount of time spent in the relationship (much like the time spent with a family) is important because ti decreases the amount of time available to the startup.Relationships are like startups when they first start out. You need to give it time initially and then spend time to maintain them. It depends on the person, but some people can do fine with a romantic relationship during a startup (many YC companies have that), while others require more high-touch relationships.My personal opinion is you need to prioritize and find out what matters, and make something work with that in mind. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | mechanical_fish: I don't think this subject can be generalized about. Every person is different, every one of that person's partners are different, and you're a different person today then you were six months ago. That is a lot of variation. Some people's relationships are literally torture. Others can carry on two or three happy relationships at the same time and still get things done.All you can do is follow your nose. Local optimization is your friend. If you think to yourself "gosh, my plan to live like a celibate monk is making me cranky and depressed", perhaps you need to change something in your life. (Get out of the office!) It doesn't matter whether or not (e.g.) other people are happier and more productive as celibate monks, or whether there is some Grand Unified Theory of Productivity that prescribes monkhood. Those people are not you, and that theory may not apply to you. Even the best theories of human behavior can only describe averages, and it's unlikely that you are average in every respect. Just because the average human walks on two legs doesn't mean that one-legged humans can't walk. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | cia_plant: "quality women are pretty much universally opposed to casual sex and would look down upon it if I racked up a number when young, so that sort of behavior would limit my options in the long term."Where do you live, Utah? I don't know any women who are opposed to casual sex. Maybe you need to meet more people, and broaden your worldview. It's also self-destructive to limit what you're doing now for the sake of what you assume you'll want to have done in the future. |
Social Networks and Business? | jaxn: I think Dell is more complex than just advertising sales. There are people with a specific product category focus that watch and respond to customer feedback. Another good example is Griffin.The value of social media is as a two-way communication channel. With search.twitter.com it is easier than ever to hear what customers are saying and interact with them when they are struggling with your product/services.If you provide a great customer experience you keep customers as long as your provide a great experience. If you screw up and fix it beyond their expectations you have a customer for life. (or something like that) |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | Satyriasis: happy relationships certainly do improve productivity/creativity for sure... however unhappy do not, it's just so simple |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | grinich: Love is all you need. |
Social Networks and Business? | vaksel: just go to one of "social media" experts video blogs and watch a bunch of their videos:i.e. someone like http://garyvaynerchuk.com/ |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | juliend2: Simply a common sense thought : listen to your heart.Love does not have to be "For your productivity" or something like that. I think it has to be good for your life in general. The relation that i have with my girlfriend has a positive effect on my life. And a by-product of this is a greater productivity. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | ahoyhere: time_management has a history of posting misogynistic, and generally sexist (for both sexes) comments. One needs to take this into account when responding.Just read his comments here about 85% of women in the US being too low-quality, etc., etc. before you upvote. |
Social Networks and Business? | garply: I almost ended up using Comcast's "Comcast Cares" Twitter account the other day due to a billing mistake.http://twitter.com/comcastcares?sess=7fd22e18b74852a62dc6659...As annoyed as I am with my frequent service outages and the billing error, I really like the notion that I can complain publicly and have their response (or lack thereof) also be made public. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | cos: I'm more productive the more active, engaged, and social I am. This can come from a variety of sources: Anything that gets my mind engaged, gets me to do more things, gets me out and about more, gets me to meet people, gives me things to plan and things to do.So, for example, I'm more productive when employed than unemployed, even on projects unrelated to work, even you'd think I'd have more time for those when unemployed. Part time work, or multiple contracts and gigs of very different sorts (such as a political campaign and a sysadmin contract) is even more effective than a single every-day job.Relationships generally have these kinds of effects on me: I plan outings, trips, and dates. I meet her friends, and go to things she likes. Interaction with her is mentally engaging. So, Relationships make me more productive.I'm not sure what you mean by "unattached casual sex" - if you mean it literally, then I don't have very much experience with it. However, I do have plenty of non-relationship sex, with friends. "Quality women" are definitely not universally opposed to this, and it does improve the richness of a bond with someone even without a committed relationship. It also does some of the things I described above (for example, greater motivation to travel to see someone, as well as a greater variety of people-connections) so that also probably increases my mental engagement and productivity. |
Social Networks and Business? | jlees: There was an example on last week's TwiT of some American cold-remedy company scanning Twitter for people saying they had a cold, and @-ing them with a discount voucher.http://twitter.com/ZicamThere's also the sub-group of 'enterprise social networks', helping people within an organisation connect better. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | endtime: in my observation, quality women are pretty much universally opposed to casual sexI'm not advocating anything here, but have you really found that to be true? I've known plenty of people of both genders who aren't exactly chaste, and I wouldn't consider them low quality people. |
Social Networks and Business? | cos: Some of the most interesting new ground in this field is happening in politics and music, so I recommend looking at those. |
Social Networks and Business? | chiffonade: > me to stop by his shiny new office and give him a run down of how businesses are leveraging social networks for their own purposes. He was particularly interested in how Twitter was used.Make sure you bill him for your time. |
review my text-to-speech project (not endorsed by Obama, however) | sr3d: this is a first iteration, or rather a proof of concept. I use it as a learning project to get more efficient with Apple (I'm a PC guy), so what's more fun and challenging than making Obama talk, south-park style? |
Social Networks and Business? | c00p3r: Broadcast something useful and interesting under your brand or product name.These social networks is just a kind of media (with very limited format in Twitter's case) so the content is what matters. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | tokenadult: Newmogulhttp://newmogul.com/for business. It has exactly the same user interface as Hacker News. |
review my text-to-speech project (not endorsed by Obama, however) | 3pt14159: I typed "zach is awesome" unfortunately it pronounced my name with a "ch" sound instead of a "ck" sound.Would there be anyway for you to write a script that would grab phonetic symbols for common names from a baby names website, or what have you? |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | jyothi: A good working relationship - be it with family, friends or spouse will keep you happy from the start of the hour to making you feel good at the end of the day no matter what.Now the involuntary chain is - Relationships (good ones) -> Happiness -> Better productivity.Now there is a bit of back and forth dependencies with all 3, which needs to be maintained voluntarily. Essentially you ensure you are not wasting time so that u can be happy and satisfied abt your results, you ensure your spouse/parents/friends are feeling great too so that they in return the same spirit back to you, which will make you happy and so on.In conclusion, its all how you drive. Involuntary chain does help. |
review my text-to-speech project (not endorsed by Obama, however) | parterburn: Sounds like he's saying "I'm a bomber." |
Social Networks and Business? | tonystubblebine: My SO has done a bunch of good work on the topic of Twitter for business. My bias aside, I've been on Twitter since day one, use it for marketing and support of my business, and have it integrated into my products and I still found a lot of useful things in the materials below:Free: Twitter for Business Webcast.http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/1162Pay: Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution O'Reilly Radar Reporthttp://radar.oreilly.com/research/twitter-report.html |
Social Networks and Business? | iamelgringo: I find that a lot of us are using Twitter as a replacement for email. It carries several advantages to traditional email:Conversations are made public, and therefore are searchable, and they're shorter, eliminating the overhead of sending an actual email.I actually think that there's a huge business case for setting up internal twitter systems in businesses. Being able to publicly broadcast small updates on a project via twitteresque system would be very useful.If he's interested in setting up such a system internally, we would be happy to provide that for a small fee. :) |
What are your HNs for other domains? | tonystubblebine: I use Fluther for Q&A. It has a respectful and smart community, just like this one.http://www.fluther.com |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | anon87: It really depends what your goals in life are. If you're like me, and at some point want to have sex with many very beautiful women (before maybe getting married at some later point) then being single pushes me to work extra hard. I know that in order to have relationships, encounters and just a great time with high-quality, intelligent and good looking women, you need to be on the top of your game. And I believe the more successful you are in your business, the more witty you'll become, the more confident etc. In fact I think these things are correlated; You'll be more successful business-wise if you are more confident and have better social skills.So I think you need to figure out what you really want in life. (Wealth, Abundance of hot women, Fame, spiritual fulfillment, intellectual fulfillment, friends etc). Then do the things that in the LONG TERM will bring you those things.A working relationship can be one the best things that ever happened to you; maybe that's worth being financially successful one or two years later. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | mattknox: The correlation of relationships and achievement probably varies from profession to profession. As I understand it, physicists nearly always do their best work before marriage, while businessmen often do theirs after. There are a bunch of related effects that would have to be teased out to make the correlation clean (eg., physicists tend to do their most interesting work very young, and tend not to get married young), but it seems solvable.One thing I wouldn't rely on in trying to answer this question is asking people whether having a relationship makes them happier/more creative/more productive. Anything related to reproduction is probably viewed in an unrealistically positive light, and probably has a bunch of taboo protection. ( for example, see http://www.newsweek.com/id/143792 for people's reactions to a sociologist who wrote that having children doesn't make people happier. ) It's in our genes' best interests for us to think that having kids is a tremendous joy, whether it is or not, and the same is probably true for relationships.I'd imagine the research has already been done for whatever field you're in, so you can just look it up. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | nsrivast: As I commented previously, we should consider the formation of sub-HNs:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506181 |
Social Networks and Business? | billroberts: Some non-twitter thoughts:If you haven't already read the Cluetrain Manifesto, then you should. (www.cluetrain.com). 10 years old now but lots of good stuff about why a business should be interested in social networks.Also LinkedIn groups: lots of people are using those as a way of getting involved in conversations relevant to their businesses - representing their companies, not just as individuals. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | vaksel: i just use HN for everything. Its a lot more relevant.There isn't really a HN for "business, management" yet(I don't count the few forums with a few hundred users). I also don't really count newmogul, since a) they too have only a few hundred users and b) most of them are on HN anyways.And if some time in a future a site will emerge like that, for business owners to post and discuss, most of the content won't really be relevant anyways, since most users will be the brick & mortar/services types(grocery store owners, dentists etc), which face quiet a different set of problems from the web startup world. |
review my text-to-speech project (not endorsed by Obama, however) | bdfh42: DecTalk (yes I go back to the original DEC box you could hang off a telephone line) but without any consideration of punctuation. Interesting though. |
Anyone used Lua Kepler? | bayareaguy: Probably not what you want to hear, but on a previous project (before I knew about LuaRocks) to save some time I used kepler-1.1beta2 as part of my base OSX and linux Lua stack because the Kepler folks went to the trouble of creating an autotools bundle with several extensions I wanted. I didn't actually use Kepler itself but their build logic worked well. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | brandnewlow: Journalism/News Industryhttp://www.jstartup.com |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | brooksbp: If you're just looking for ass n' tits, hit up the strip club, get wasted at a frat party and score some bitches, hell - order a hooker.Otherwise, most of the time, viewing a relationship as a hinderance on your productivity is viewing the relationship as an excuse. There really is no concrete solution to your problem because the problem is all in your head. Chances are, you just haven't found the right person to be in a relationship with. And yeah, the good ones are scarce...I have been a single college hacker for quite a while. I've had my ass n' tits stage. I'm currently in an amazing relationship, see my girl almost every day, and still have plenty of time on my hands. She boosts my mental health in most ways I can think of: creativity, happiness, open-mindedness, etc... About to see how working full-time in the "real world" (vs student) will affect us.Trust yourself and your judgement, and find yourself someone who compliments you. Otherwise, you're stuck with a mess in your head and seeking advice on HN... which will probably still leave you with a mess in your head ;) |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | echair: I find it can either harm or help. One tends to be happier in a relationship, which makes one do better work. But it also takes time away from work. So the best case (for work) is a relationship that makes you happy but doesn't take up too much time. |
Social Networks and Business? | markessien: Start off by taking a look at the 'Coke' group on facebook. They have more that 3 million facebook users who have joined the group. Each of those users invites other users to join the group. Now Coke can 'push' a message to everyone of those 3 million users without any cost at all. It's advertisement, but there is no budget at all!But it's more than that, Coke can actually look at what its biggest fans want. They have a 3 million strong userbase against which they can run surveys, see what the feeling about marketing campaigns is, etc.Also, everybody who searches for a particular persons name on google will likely see his facebook page appearing. The public search listing for the person includes the message 'Coke'. This is akin to a personal recommendation from one person to another, that coke is good. This is a dream scenario for a brand.Twitter is useful when the brand is a personality. People want to interact with brands who are personalities, and twitter offers a direct way to do so, and create personal nuance in the brand. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | nx: Academic Hacker News: it's like reddit.com/r/compscihttp://www.cs.toronto.edu/~ad/news/ |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | marcusbooster: After a number of relationships with women all over the creative spectrum, ie. a working artist to someone who could care less about any creative endeavor; I can say that the deciding factor in my productivity has always been me. This is despite my best efforts to abdicate the responsibility many times when things aren't going right (productivity or personal). Creativity needs inspiration, if you can't get it one place then get it from another.As for being productive, a relationship is like any other engagement that takes up time. It works best if you can block off time for it, then actually do something in that time for the relationship. Just sitting around and watching tv with your honey-doo is neither productive for your work nor the relationship - go out and take a walk together or something. Just my 2 cents, not that I would dare claim I know enough about women to make a definitive answer on the subject. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | mahmud: When I was single I hacked for hacking's sake. Really hard sexy problems. Didn't care for the world. That also meant keeping a dull, soul sucking job for the sake of bills, and rushing home in the afternoons to do what I love.Now that I'm in a loving, supportive relationship; we decided to pool our resources and each of us pursues our dreams. I am working on my start up, she is a singer, we have money coming in and we're saving allot. Sometimes I freelance on the side, other times she does a corporate gig. It's good to have someone coming home to you to ask you "honey how was your day". |
What are your HNs for other domains? | ekpyrotic: I have often wanted to set up a HN for the humanities. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | bouncingsoul: I started (what I hope will be) an HN for design a few days ago: http://reddit.com/r/designthought/Existing design link sites are very low level and amateur. I'm trying to create a place for design links with substance. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | petercooper: In my experience, relationships seem to be a net negative to productivity.Then you aren't doing it right. My productivity has shot through the roof since settling down in to a stable relationship. As you get older, relationships can provide true meaning and inspiration. Good relationships are symbiotic.Of course, you might be under 25 or so, in which case just partake in casual sex until it feels right to pursue a mutually beneficial long term relationship. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | danielzarick: I am taking a Consumer Happiness class right now, and we spent an hour talking about creativity and sexual release. Expressing yourself creatively (programming, playing music, creating art, designing, etc) is a sexual release and, if done passionately and wholly, can be an alternative to sex. I am a full believer that sex is very healthy for us to have on a regular basis, but I also believe that the next time you are up late and have a huge sexual desire you should direct that towards a creative outlet. Distract yourself and go to bed exhausted, yet relieved. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | petercooper: RubyFlow ( http://www.rubyflow.com/ ) is vaguely similar in spirit in the Ruby sphere (no voting though). |
Best way to be able to touch type | Hates_: Practice, practice and more practice...There are plenty of apps that will teach you the techniques and give specific drills for improving your speed and preciseness. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | tsally: It depends. I have heard from the graduate students at my school that the ones with wives work much harder and usually always finish on time. I imagine this is because they probably aren't allowed to spend more than 40 hours a week at school, else their wives would kill them. Near limitless time (which most graduate students think they have) can be a huge burden. I have no idea how this would translate for a startup, but a marriage can be a huge net gain fora PhD student. |
Best way to be able to touch type | frisco: Look at the screen and don't look down. It'll feel awkward at first, but it's supervised learning: you'll make mistakes at first, which your eyes will detect, and the keep trying keys until you get it right. Touch typing requires proprioception (knowing where your body is without looking), and vision completely overwhelms that if you're looking at your hands.Give it a week, and don't get discouraged if you don't seem to make any progress inside typing sessions: most improvement happens in the off time after you've practiced for a while (sleep is especially good here). |
What are your HNs for other domains? | sgrove: A bit of Ask HN/stackoverflow for startups: http://www.chuwe.comThis is my startup of course, just for full disclosure. |
Best way to be able to touch type | lucumo: I learned it by switching to Dvorak. I put little stickers on my keyboard indicating the letters. So I started typing with hunt-and-peck. After some time, some stickers came loose. The keys I used the most, lost their adhesion the first. These were also the characters I remembered the first. The reminders let go in perfect order and never too soon. The rest was just a matter of putting your fingers in the right spot. Everything else came naturally.Probably not the answer you're looking for though, but I like telling the story :) |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | metachris: in my experience, relationships improve creativity and reduce productivity :-) |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | hotshothenry: define "not too expensive" |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | time_management: 6 hours later...Wow, I didn't expect this thing to fly so far off-topic. That was not my intention. |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | noodle: yes. yourself.honestly, its not terribly difficult to come up with something simple yet elegant. or, find a template from a service.once you're ready for the big time, then you can invest in a good designer. |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | ejs: I guess it depends on what you mean by "not too expensive" and what you require... Are you talking PSD of artwork for you to slice up, or complete HTML + CSS? |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | jpirkola: Define not to expensive, how should I define it? I want something as good as the unity3d site, in fact I based the information I created on the information they give about their software (Because the framework is really excellent)
if I want a good webdesigner what would be realistic for a site in that direction? 1k, 2k, 3k? 5k?
in that direction of quality (www.unity3d.com) |
Best way to be able to touch type | noodle: get a cardboard box or something, and use it to cover up your keyboard. make sure to cut a hole or area for your hands to go in. put an image of a keyboard next to your monitor, so that if you need to look at something, you look at that instead of the keyboard itself.type away. |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | prakash: If there are companies you feel you have to reach out and don't know anyone that can introduce you, call or email.Keep it short, reference why your product would be useful, ask who you should get in touch with for a call/meeting. |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | pclark: Do you know what users struggle with your UI?Do you log which turkers can and can't use your app (eg, are they old ladies or comp sci nerds?)Turk is ok for small traction. It's better if you simply post a link here and we'll review it. Quality testers are hard to come by. |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | SwellJoe: I haven't been doing cold email...but it's pretty close. I have Google alerts setup for the names of our Open Source products. When a hosting provider is using Webmin, and advertises that fact, I send them an email offering to set them up as a Virtualmin reseller, and listing a few of the benefits they'd get from offering Virtualmin GPL, with the option to upgrade at any time to Virtualmin Professional. I've only done this four times, so far (still refining the reseller experience, so moving slowly), but it's been very effective. At least a 50% success rate (and I wouldn't rule out the other two signing on later, as neither was negative on the idea...just hesitant to change or commit to anything). |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | p47: I worked once in company (adv agency) for which it was common tactic. But market was ready for such practice (low availability of service, and large audience of potential clients).It depends on Your product. If it's innovative give them chance to know You.
I agree with prakash be short, and show them in short why it may become useful. I would add that You will hear "no" plenty of time. Don't discourage. Customer don't pay attention, they have enough their problems.best |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | Major_Grooves: Not a start-up, but still a B2B database (then later internet) company. We were an "early adopter" of email marketing when we started. It used to be fantastic - there wasn't much spam in them early days so people were quite receptive to the emails and we would make lots of money from them. Hey - they were free to send and they make you lots of money - what can go wrong with that?Well, unfortunately that formula is a bit addictive and it gets to the point where if sales are low, the top management start demanding to know how many thousands of emails we have sent that week. What they don't realise is that the days of just email marketing your way to success is over - email marketing is now spamming and people hate it.Nevertheless, send 10,000 emails and we might make one sale which is still worth a few thousand so how can we resist?!What isn't appreciated is that this strategy is overall damaging the company. People now associate us with "those people that send spam". It was only relatively recently that we moved to a proper email marketing service with an opt-out option and as a result I managed to get us removed from a significant email filter black list (which, ironically, we subscribe to).Anyway, do I have any useful advice? Check the legality re: data retention etc. I'm not actually 100% on the rules but I do think they differ between the US and Europe for example, which I think might depend on where you are based, rather than where you are sending to.Email marketing /should/ be opt-in, not opt-out. However, I guess giving your business card must be considered opting in as I always seem to start getting more marketing emails after a conference. It's ok though as they all do it properly and have an opt-out link in the email...Just sending marketing is a bit of a fail imho. Nobody thinks to themselves "ooh I can sign up here to receive marketing material!" Have an interesting newsletter talking about your industry, or publish white papers and thought leadership articles. Be subtle and demonstrate your expertise. That is much more powerful than some email saying "buy this!"Good example: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspxIf you do just want to talk to someone about a specific product, do as the poster below says, keep it short and specific. In that sense make it personal too.HTH. |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | tokenadult: Who will use the new feature? Why not directly observe a few users?http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.htmlhttp://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030120.html |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | mixmax: I ran a company some years ago where development of our product was delayed, so our investor got anxious. My co-founder knew a guy that ran a one-person telemarketing shop and suggested we give it a try.His task seemed insurmountable: Cold-call people in the advertising industry, where people constantly call with new products, and get them to buy ads on a non-existing new network with an unproven hardware technology that he couldn't show to the potential customers because it hadn't been produced yet. All he had was a few powerpoint slides.Within a month he had contracts for a few months paychecks, and our investor was reassured.So the morale of the story is "Yes, coldcaling definitely works, but it's a pretty difficult artform". Me or my co-founder would never have been able to pull it off. It's about trust and building a personal relationship. |
What are your HNs for other domains? | dc2k08: http://socialpreneur.slinkset.com/
is worth a look |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | Major_Grooves: I recommend these guys: http://www.sumac.uk.com/I used them for a recent project and their design was spot-on, their HTML/css was good, and their pricing was competitive.If you want something really cheap, then put a request on some kind of freelancer site and get someone in a cheaper market to make it for you. I wouldn't - too risky - but your choice. |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | Anon84: Humm... I always wondered about the biases introduced by using Mechanical Turk for feature testing. I've seen it used a lot in several different contexts (like almost every other talk at WSCD'09 and WSDM'09). Isn't there a risk that we are training "professional beta testers" that can considerably skew the results?It seems like a clear case of where the different parts have very different incentives. The hackers want to have the best possible sample of users, while the Turks want to get their respective tasks done as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next paying one. I would think this would lead to Turks specializing in very specific (and relatively common and repetitive) tasks do they could maximize their through put.In your case, I would prefer to "watch" users out in the wild, instead of "professional" turks to truly assess the quality of a feature implementation. |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | markessien: The smaller your niche, the more receptive your potential customers are going to be to your emails. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | DanielBMarkham: time_management:Find somebody that is your best friend and turns you on both physically and emotionally. This person should also enhance your creativity and productivity. The relationship should make you feel freer, not like a prisoner.After that, then you can start learning about relationships. It'll be hard work in which you put the other person's interests first and spend the time working to love them. (Yes, sometimes loving somebody requires effort. It's not like in the movies) Getting to a good understanding should take about -- 50 years or so.Let us know when you've reached some conclusions.I'm of the opinion that men and women are wired differently and that the struggle to nurture a relationship between these two different worldviews is what causes both sexes to mature as they grow older. |
Best way to be able to touch type | pcestrada: Spray paint your keyboard black. |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | systemtrigger: > Would you not release an update until your UI passed the 10 out of 10 test?No. You cannot expect 100% of unqualified users to grok any UI.> Should I worry about the 3 in which our UI failed them?You should want to know why these 3 didn't pass your test.To say much beyond this in the way of advice I think we need to know about your UI, the test and the worker incentives. What exactly did your HIT Description say? |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | ryanspahn: thanks for all the comments and helpful resources!I wish HN had a section devoted to testing new features & UI! That would be great, as Im not asking feedback on my app(graciously received that), just like to know if the simple UI defines our new feature.Feel free to take the Turk - 9 assignments remain:
http://tinyurl.com/cx5czv |
Mechanical Turk & user testing data? | frisco: Has anyone ever posted a survey HIT which asks the Turk workers about their backgrounds (and posted the results)? I'd be interested to see what the workers' qualifications and backgrounds are, and where they are, native languages, etc. |
Do relationships improve or reduce your creativity/productivity? | ahoyhere: Facts and reason are all well and good, folks, but it pays to remember where they're coming from, and what agenda a person has.Fact content enough does not counter the agenda of a person who is deliberately setting up a discussion for subversive means.You cannot consider only what a person says for truthfulness, you must also consider why they are saying it, for intent.I rest my case. |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | Fenn: I recommend http://99designs.com/ as a great starting point.You can run a design contest for a small amount of money, and you'll get a FAR broader range of options than with just one small designer.You have the option to only pay if you're actually satisfied with one of the entries, so the risk is essentially nothing (ie: just the $39 entry cost).Be wary that the quality of entries is somewhat in line with how much you're offering and the quality of your feedback. That said, you should be able to get something really decent for <$1000.Another option would be to trawl the site and find designers who's work you really like, then offer them something inline with what they'd get in the competition environment (but with guaranteed payment).Cheers! |
What are your HNs for other domains? | blhack: Are you asking what HN's users have created as far as news aggregators go?http://www.gibsonandlily.com is mine.Its moderated, but I feel like it has a pretty good, pretty tight-knit community :) |
Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales? | donniefitz2: I tried it on a small scale and it totally failed for me. Actual cold calls, if targeted correctly, can work and did drum up some good leads, but it's tedious. |
Can you recommend good and not too expensive web designers? | dmpayton: I always recommend http://www.artificestudios.com but like many other comments, I'm going to have to ask you to define "not too expensive".http://www.artificestudios.com/blog/business/walmart-prices-...(Disclaimer: Antonio is a good friend and godfather of my little girl) |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.