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Can someone please explain the logic of Google vs Newspapers? | mattmcknight: They've mostly been complaining about Google News (as if it were the source of all Google's revenue). They are also disappointed by the fact that Google seems to make money in the process of sending people their way.The real issue with their cash flow is that printing a paper is not an efficient way to run a website. If you stop printing the papers, the operating costs are much much lower. |
How worried do you get over bugs in your code? Is this a mental health issue? | cubicle67: Do you mean worry that there may be major bugs that you aren't aware of, or worry over bugs you know about but haven't fixed yet (for whatever reason)? |
I'd like to get a telescope for my kids. What do I need to know? | redleader: http://findascope.com/ |
Good online magazines, anyone? | Donald: http://www.nplusonemag.com/ Hipster's New Yorker. Less prolific, but makes up with more pretension.American politics: http://nplusonemag.com/dev/test/drupal-test/obamaGlobal politics: http://nplusonemag.com/dev/test/drupal-test/?q=defending-dic...Caustic film reviews: http://www.nplusonemag.com/dark-knight |
What are Wall Street programmers up to? | jhereg: By the way, I should admit that I created this alternate account (with deliberate symbolism if you catch it) just to post this--banks are notoriously image-conscious employers at times, and I've heard some nasty stories about what happens to people who don't maintain their anonymity. |
I'd like to get a telescope for my kids. What do I need to know? | tjpick: one thing I read in an annual astronomy magazine is that you're better off to start with a good pair of binoculars. I think the reason being they are cheaper and easier to control. I can look up the details if you are interested, and if I still have the mag kicking around home. |
I'd like to get a telescope for my kids. What do I need to know? | npk: Fortunately for you 2009 happens to be the international year of astronomy. Buy your daughter this:https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/She'll be able to do a variety of experiments on it, and if it turns out she actually enjoys looking through it, you can then buy her something more pricey. |
Feedback Please - TapInko.com | DTrejo: When I search something it says "Want to sell through the TapInko network? Click here."Since the words are already a blue hyperlink, you can probably leave off "Click here." |
Feedback Please - TapInko.com | DTrejo: When I click on "sign in" it does not auto-focus me to the username box. |
What are Wall Street programmers up to? | wahlee: I've spent time working at one of the "best" Wall Street banks as a student. I'm considering taking a full time job. At the time that I got started down the path I just applied to companies that had the reputations for having the smartest people.I did indeed work with some very bright people on some challenging and cool projects. The smart people and cool projects notwithstanding, there are still annoying quirks/red tape/etc anytime you work at a big Wall St. firm.
Also, there is this conveyor belt system that if you've been around Wall Street you probably notice. Many of the people I worked with follow a similar life pattern: attended a "prestigious" college, landed their first job out of school on the Street, they work hard to get significant promotion after X years, then they work their asses off and finally after 2*X years get a corner office and a major promotion.I actually asked some of the fellow interns/new hires I worked with point-blank: if you are this talented, and can work this hard for the firm... why not go off on your own and let your ability take you as far as you can go? I got laughed off, and I felt a little embarrassed for even posing the question at the time (this was before the complete sub-prime collapse).As I mentioned above, I'm still considering a full time job. I think my reasoning is based primarily on the good pay, access to smart people, and interesting projects. Do I think I could be doing better for myself? Heck yes. Why do I settle then? It's hard to get off the conveyor belt. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | joshsharp: Related (though it was on here so you might've already seen it): http://en.chinaelections.org/NewsInfo.asp?NewsID=19911 |
Obsessive Asian Parents | jayp: I went to grad school first. Now, time for a startup. ;-)Actually, my parents have been very supportive of whatever I want to do. I think yours will be too -- just speak from your heart. Try to convince them how you feel about things. Most parents only want what's good for their child. However, often this leads to making/forcing decisions on the child -- but only if they feel the child may be directionless. State your goals succinctly. Back your reasoning vigorously. You may be pleasantly surprised. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | swombat: I'm not asian, but I have a number of asian friends. In fact, my first cofounder and my current cofounder are both from Hong Kong.I think the "stable" pressure is present in Europe too. It's not just an asian thing. I'd argue that asians actually have it easier than europeans, because at least asia (well, China in any case) has a strong tradition of commerce and entrepreneurialism. In fact, I think that if it wasn't for my asian friends, I probably would have stuck with the normal, thing, to get a steady, stable career... |
Obsessive Asian Parents | ashishk: just talk to them.express to them what you want, how you plan to get it, and what you're sacrificing (both short-term and long-term) for it.you'd be shocked how supportive they might be. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | patio11: Just between you and me, stability is a myth, its a freaking jungle out there, and if you don't adapt to that reality you're tiger-food. However, that never flew with my mom, either.a) Business skills give me an excellent fall-back option to $SAFE_CHOICE if the business thing doesn't work out early in my career. (Where early is "age plus five years" and updated accordingly.)b) I considered going to graduate school but I was worried that going into debt for it wouldn't be financially prudent, so I decided to better myself by hard work and independent study. You can appreciate the value of hard work and independent study to avoid debt, right?c) Microsoft et al would scarcely consider hiring someone who didn't have experience doing this. After all, they'd be seen as someone who had insufficient drive to do the work. I'm just looking out for my future.(I'm not Asian, I'm just a Japanese salaryman.) |
Obsessive Asian Parents | dkarl: Maybe the key is convincing them that you know better? I knew one girl born in South Korea whose father (still living in Korea) was totally hands-off, with an attitude of, "Whoa, you understand the USA way better than I do; I'm out of my depth here; do what you think is best." She said it was night and day compared to how he had behaved when she first moved to the US, but she didn't say what had changed his mind. However, I know she had survived some really bad shit that her father was totally powerless to help her with, so maybe that experience of helplessness convinced him, or maybe watching her handle it gave him respect for her. Either way, not very helpful for you, I guess. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | statictype: Well, I think its mixed.I would think my parent(s) qualifies as having the traditional asian mind-set. But the general consensus I find among them is that starting your own business and being your own boss gives you more security\freedom than working at a big company. However that varies greatly depending on what type of person you are.In my family, those that did some kind of engineering or medicine are generally thought of as being smart and capable of rising in any company but not really the type to go out and start their own business. However those that tended to do more business\arts related streams are encouraged to start something on their own rather than get employed somewhere.Or maybe my family just has weird stereotypes. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | charlesju: I am an Asian American CS major from a good university. I am working full-time with 3 other Asian American engineers on our first startup straight out of college.My parents are super liberal and I am truly thankful for the opportunity that I was given growing up. They saved up enough for me to go to a private school, but I chose to go to a public one instead. I used that difference to do my first startup, and I am happy to say that we're 4 full-time employees at ramen-profitability 2 months after graduation.My advice is that doing a startup full-time is probably the hardest thing you will do in your life. But if you love what you do, and I do, you will forget about what your parents and peers are going to tell you to do and just do it. You live for yourself, and I'm sure that when you make it big your parents will accept your choices. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | coffeemug: I have Jewish parents that value stability over risk. The pressure gets tough, sometimes. Ultimately, this isn't even a question of starting a business, but a question of a much deeper choice. Painters, musicians, writers, monks, soldiers, priests, boxers, swimmers, and many other people from all walks of life are forced to make this choice. Do you want to settle into a comfortable rhythm of people that surround you (working 9-5, watching Lost DVDs, and doing whatever comfy thing your neighbors are doing), or do you want to get out of your comfort zone and try to make your dreams come true? There is nothing wrong with settling for the traditional lifestyle, lots of people choose to do that and live perfectly happy lives. But there are lots of other people that choose not to live that way. The question is, what will make you truly happy?If living in ticky-tacky houses really won't make you happy, you'll know it. It will eat at you from the inside, and thinking about it will consume a huge chunk of your conscious and subconscious life. At times, it'll drive you crazy. It's a natural process, so let it be.At some point you will see that if you choose to live a different life, to a large extent it'll always be an uphill battle. Until you succeed, there will always be people who will laugh, or give you dirty looks, or lecture you. If you ever succeed and become rich (or famous, or whatever it is you're looking to do), there will always be people who treat you like you have some sort of skin disease - they'll feel uncomfortable around you. And if you never succeed, there will always be people that will point and laugh.Let the fire burn inside you. At some point, you'll know which side of you will win. Either you'll say "the hell with all of them, let's go!", or you'll settle for a more standard walk of life, and go back to watching Lost. Either way is fine, but I doubt you can help this process with some sort of conscious effort. The fact that you're trying, though, is a good sign. Just let the fire keep burning and see what happens.For me, Buddhism (and specifically Alan Watts) helped. "How To Get Rich" by Felix Dennis helped (a great book with a terrible name - he's an artist, an entrepreneur, and a philosopher, now a snake oil salesman). Thinking about this day and night until I finally made a decision for myself helped.Whatever you do, just don't be under the illusion that your parents will change their mind any time soon (and even if they do, there will always be other people that matter to you who won't). This is the burden every creative person who was ever born on this planet has to carry. It's a perfectly natural part of the creative process and of psychological development. Carl Jung talked about it. Alan Watts talked about it. Konstantin Stanislavski talked about it. Let this process be and see where it takes you.[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEYGU_7EqU |
Obsessive Asian Parents | Shamiq: I started off as a pre-med with guaranteed admission to medical school through Northwestern University's HPME.I'm currently a Junior, majoring in Computer Science, Economics and a minor in Business. Oh, and I'm also battling uphill to rebuild my resume/GPA.I sat down with my parents and explained to them what I needed to do in order to be personally satisfied, and explained what my best options would be. I was surprised at how readily they accepted my words and allowed me to move.Just gotta try and talk. Eventually they'll realize they can't control your destiny in the long-run (beyond the habits they've given you and the influence they've had on you).Good luck. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | catch23: My parents fit this category. I am an American born Chinese, my parents came here to do their PhDs & postdoc, but attended college in China.They are also very "conservative". My mom pushed my sister to attend MIT over Princeton so that she would take the engineering route instead of something like liberal arts (even though she's fond of writing). I was pushed in that same direction as well... you could say we are a family of engineers (except for my mom who is a professor). After my sister graduated with a degree in material science, she now wants to become a writer or do something as far away from science as possible... much to the chagrin of my mom. (her marks in material science were all stellar so the decision was not academic) She's still doing her PhD at MIT but has been actively applying for non-science jobs for the past 12 months or so. She's totally an extrovert, I just couldn't see her becoming a professor anyway.The first time I had to deal with "breaking out" of the mold was when I told my parents I was leaving Atlanta to live in the Bay Area without first landing a job. They were pretty mad and the argument left with my mom in tears. Even though I was pretty frugal and saved enough from my first job to live 8-12 months without a job, they still wanted assurance of stability.I succumbed to their plea and did a little job hunting. I picked the employer that would pay for my entire move just to please my parents. I quit the job 4 months later. (they even let me keep my big signing bonus) When my parents found out I quit, they flew out to San Francisco just to yell at me, the argument ended in tears yet again (I think my mom is a little too emotional). But I was steadfast, I knew I was capable and I could always pick up random contracting jobs if necessary.This is almost my 3rd year out in the Bay Area and I've contracted directly with so many startup founders that if my startup ever fails, they would hire me on the spot. The opportunities in the Valley are really amazing -- especially if you know your stuff and can demonstrate it to other startup founders. I did some pro-bono work for one of the Linkedin cofounders and later on he practically begged me to help him out on one of his projects.My mom has learned to deal with my unstable cash flow and there are no more arguments (thank god!). So for a typical Asian raised from a very conservative family culture, it's very possible to break out of the mold as long as you stay focused on the light at the end of the tunnel :-). |
Obsessive Asian Parents | timothychung: The main thing you need to do is to show them what startup is about. Tell them why, how and what for startup. You must tell them the reason, how much you love your ideas and the potential in your ideas.It is also cool to compare startup to other choices. Remember to let them understand the difference between working with passion and without it. Most people from last generation would be happy with any job. You need to understand them and let them know the world is different for you now.I think most reasonable parents want their kids to be mature enough to make decisions. So be responsible and let your action and lifestyle speak. :-) |
Obsessive Asian Parents | dennykmiu: I wish your title were "Obsessive Parents" or "Obsessive Immigrant Parents". I am Asian. I am an immigrant. I am a parent. I am also a son with Asian parent. But I was also a Professor at UCLA for nine years so I had met quite a few students with Asian parents, Jewish parents, Iranian parents, any kind of immigrant parents or just plain parents. My observation is that your predicament is not unique. Irrespective of race and culture, every parent tries to learn from their mistakes or try to compensate for their own limitation. The world is changing too fast for all of us. Parents might act like we know the answers, putting pressure and expectation on our kids. In realty, we are scare of the future just like everyone else. This is true for any parent, especially immigrant parents. |
What are Wall Street programmers up to? | warfare_expert: I recently moved to NYC to work at a hedge fund after giving up an alternate offer at Google last year. You could say my timing wasn't the best.I would say the experience as a developer/analyst in any hedge fund or bank depends on 1. How well is it doing (PnL) ? Affects your job prospects and compensation/bonus. 2. How much alpha do you contribute to ? (back office vs mid office vs front office). You make more closer you are to the market, projects are much more exciting and you learn real world finance from the frontlines 3. People and Culture. 4. Compensation: Wall street pays base + bonus where latter takes more and more importance with time. Normally they can grow way faster than any silicon valley firm. But in these times, hard to say unless you work at a place that is still doing quite well.I love where I am right now because I love learning and I am practically overwhelmed with how much I can learn and grow in my current position + people around me are fantastic (insanely smart brains + nice people). My projects have ranged from script automaton to price modeling, and there is much more to come as I learn. That keeps me excited. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | mahmud: Look, if you can't sell your startup to your parents how can you expect to sell it to others? |
Obsessive Asian Parents | jlm382: I have an asian mom and a jewish dad, and they don't mind if I go the "alternative" route and start a company. They don't mind if I never work for a company. In fact, they encourage that I follow my entrepreneurial instincts.But only as long as I get my college degree. Having a degree would be the one thing that validates my (minimal) intelligence. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | chiffonade: > how did you break out of this (and deal with the opinions of parents / culture you were raised in) to pursue your startups?I broke out of this by not giving a flying fuck what my parents thought and dealing with the consequences of my own actions.It's really not any more complicated than that. You either man up from an early age or you remain a pussy your entire life. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | gaoshan: Good question. As a tangent to this question I'm a white parent with a Chinese (as in from China, not American) wife who has her PhD. and is as hard working and focused as you might imagine so we sort of split the middle with our kids (her being the stricter one and me being the more relaxed one). We are still pretty much in agreement on raising them, it's just that my yang balances out her yin (heh), so to speak. Seems to work pretty well in that they do extremely well in school but are also socially happy and well adjusted.More to your question, we know quite a few Chinese couples (pretty much all of the ones we know, in fact) who seem more like the parents you are describing. I think it would be a tough situation to deal with, as a kid. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | vonsydov: Most parents are wrong about their kids. Infact, they're compensating for their own failures. Do whatever the hell you want to do. Mostly, you'll need to try out different things.It also depends on your personal inclinations. Are you a creative type ? Then why would you want to be a lawyer or a doctor ... or any professional job. When parents push you to go to MIT etc. just for the sake of it they're motivated by the status it'll give them and the bragging rights. Not if you screw the most important 4-5 years or your life.When parents react, they're much more worried about how they'll be looked upon by their friends depending upon what their kids are doing. They're less worried about your well being. They also panic much faster -- especially if you have other routes. e.g. your startup would need 2-3 years to stabilize, it is entirely possible that your parents keep nagging you to leave that and go to school -- or keep reminding you how you could've become a (fuing) lawyer or a doctor. Asian parents will be extremely status conscious especially if you take a dip to do a startup and its got nothing to do with your ability to succeed.Don't listen to your MOM !!! Women in general think things very different from men and are more status conscious (remember the lipstick and the makeup). Men are driven towards risk. In any case, if you ever want to do a startup you'll need a pretty thick skin and tons of persistence.The other thing--is that when parents push you too much, it results in lack of self-acceptance. Not good. Will make you unhappy in the long run. Its much easier to survive these days than it was 50 years back.Finally, it is entirely up to you to decide what will ultimately define your life. Will it be the same shit over and over again e.g lawyer, doctor, whatever. Or it'll be something new, something that you created. What's the fun in getting something every tenth person has got already. There's no challenge in that. There is however lots of value in being a researcher at a top university. I learnt the most ever at my first semester at MIT. But go to these places cause you really want to learn from the best and surround yourself with great people, not cause you want to gain status or bragging rights from that. Actually as long as you have the right mindset, you can probably learn a lot of stuff from opencourseware. If you have genuine interest in doing research, PhD is great, by I didn't find a lot of people over at MIT who were just mad passionate about the kind of work they were doing. I think a lot of people are able to attend MIT cause they were very conformist with their studies and undergrad research and eventually got lucky.Oh, and get laid. Pls. More important than the phd. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | hs: i'm an asian and i am not in your categorymy parents were born in 1930s, due to wwii they didn't even finish high school.my father (even so my mom) was very poor, he worked for a while for relatives but later for his own. he's good in business -- none of his children amasses comparable wealth though; however, none takes (or forced to take) 'stable' route (everyone works for self)they are very hands-off on education. all but one receives bachelor degree though. i picked the school i wanted to go and majored in engineering -- never was forced.my grades were always low. each year, pincipal always called my mom to discuss it. grades were never important to our family anyway and she's happy that i passed each :Dmaybe it's just my parents. they survived one of the most tumultous era and without schooling or external help managed to do extremely wellso perhaps they expect as much for the children shrug---
from reading others in this thread, i got the impression that [highly academic] parents with stable income (linear growth, not exponential) tend to be pushymaybe because the formula worked for them. that formula would have steered my parents into slavery (and very high chance that i now am plowing a field instead of hacking lisp) |
Using Scalr | flooha: Don't waste your time. I spent weeks struggling with this software. The documentation is non-existent, the only support is through the google user group. You have to run your own name servers which is the wrong approach for this kind of software and a serious time sink if you've never set up a name server before. Then you have to maintain it.Once you actually get it running, you'll iterate through a hundred deployments before working out all the quirks and bugs. In the end, I actually got it working but, somewhat ironically, didn't end up using it because managing it was more difficult than just deploying and scaling manually. Kind of sad if you ask me.Your experience might be different if you choose to pay Scalr for their services, since they know all the quirks and probably have fantastic internal documentation. They, understandably, don't have much motivation to help you use the software yourself.They were supposed to be the "cost-effective" alternative to RightScale, but I'd pay $500/month to get out of using Scalr. All of my money is riding on Amazon's own load-balancing/auto-scaling solution that should be coming out in the next 6 months to one year.Sorry if this post is overly negative...I got my YC rejection letter this morning. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | briansmith: Has he convinced you to do all the work and accept all the liabilities while he gets to keep all the profits? If so, he is a savvy business person. Otherwise, not so much.P.S. Don't let him write the contract. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | kaiserama: I would say references are a good start. If they are respected by their peers and customers that's going to be a good sign. The other thing is obviously their track record. If they've done good things in the past like increase sales x% or launch new initiatives. But do your own research into these matters, your 'truth' means more than what a business person says.I've had similar concerns and got lucky meeting people through either acquaintances or through work. So before there was ever a business partnership relationship I got to see how the person worked with customers and other coworkers.Good luck. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | hendrixski: Start working with them. It becomes immediately apparent. I'm on my second startup, we just raised funds and brought on a VP of marketing, and we did it by telling one guy "congrats you're on the team" and a week later realized that he wasn't the right fit, so told him "goodbye" and then we told another guy "congrats you're in the team" and after a week we all agreed he is totally awesome, and he's still the guy, and we wouldn't have been looking for him if we didn't think of the other guys first week as his job interview.Also, sales & marketing != biz management |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | vaksel: well what is his plan to market your product when you finish.this reminds me of this post I read a while ago, hacker started a startup...it took off, so he decided to hire a sales guy to take it to the next level. The guy was "awesome", a genius at sales or so it seemed. Well he hired him, gave him some equity(I think), and then sat and waited for $$$ to roll in. Well it turned out the guy was just a big bullshit artist and didn't really know anything |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | trapper: It is very hard. A few warning signs I have noticed over the years:- Superficial knowledge, but claim they know the field. When you dig deeper you find knowledge lacking. Wikipedia can help uncover this sometimes, amazingly.- Do not read new business books.- Haven't heard of "classic" books in the business world,
e.g. good to great, crossing the chasm etc- Business model based on a poor understanding of technology (e.g. "User generated content but restricted access site")- No track record- 50 years old and not rich.- Afraid to execute (give them a hard task to complete which they could fail at and it won't get done).- I'm always right about stuff I know nothing about syndrome. You want a partner who is complementary; he should be able to recognise what you bring to the table and should defer to you when he doesn't know.Good luck! |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | Brushfire: The best sales/marketing/mgmt people I've met are those that take a systems-focused approach. On some levels, this is very similar to designing your db layout, or the user flow through your application.Good sales people design a repeatable process around selling. They investigate the market, build a call list, and execute through the call list. They then refactor based on results. They do not throw shit wildly at the wall and hope something happens.Good management people design business process in similar ways. Customer service is a system. Calls come in, they are processed, logs are created, and evaluations are done quarterly of the system. Apply similar methodology to hiring, to finance, to marketing, to accounting, etc.
The hardest people to find are those with good strategic vision -- so if this is your idea, you need to be that person.Some of these things are harder to assess than others. Look for people who use data to make decisions, who are 'doers', and who can describe to you the process they plan to take. Look for people who have a track record of these things in other, perhaps non-startup ways. |
Is the HN source code available? | pclark: http://arclanguage.org/ |
Obsessive Asian Parents | lacker: Just stop communicating with them. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | blender: I would test them by suggesting some shiny objects and see if they go after them. i.e."Yes, Bob, we should do what you're suggesting but we should also do X, Y and Z."If they don't say "No" or something to the effect of: "Those are good suggestions but I think we really need to focus on getting a prototype out the door, some real customer feedback, etc. Then we can revisit these great suggestions and see if they are still in alignment with the product."Cheers |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | jlees: Work with him for a trial period. Set a goal and see if he helps you achieve it or even exceed it.You could also ask him to defend his management experience to you. Has he demonstrated results in a particular area before (winning new business for a similar product, for example)? |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | apinstein: It is very hard to figure out. I am IMHO a savvy business person and even I have a hard time figuring it out. Ultimately it takes time and getting to know the person.The only advice I can give to accelerate this process is to ask lots of questions. If he has an answer for everything, that's actually a bad sign as it typically means he's BS'ing.You want someone who's humble enough to admit where he isn't sure what will happen or how things work.Absurd certainty and BS'ing is ok although not preferred for salespeople. But it's a sign of impending doom for a manager, especially for a startup. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | blurry: From my (extensive) experience, there is no way to know in advance. The only way to guard against surprises is to tie ownership to execution.Set specific performance goals for both yourself (modules released, SEO rankings, whatever's relevant) and "the suit" (capital in the bank, number of users, number of paid subscriptions, etc). Tie each goal to percentage ownership. If goals are met, you vest. If goals are not met, you find another partner or scrap the project altogether.Also make sure that the goals are on a somewhat concurrent timeline. "Suits" generally have trouble executing on a "beta" product so if you do not set concurrent goals, you will keep developing new features and never, ever have the chance to see your partner in action.What I mean is, push really hard for a bare-bone set of requirements that you both agree to be "good enough" as the first iteration of your product, and as soon as that feature set is in place, your partner needs to execute (again, whatever's relevant to you - sell some subscriptions, get some marquee clients on board, raise capital, etc).Good luck! |
Paywalls | systemtrigger: I think a paywall just hides a site's content from nonsubscribers so it's just a euphemism for a subscription site. As for micropayments, yes I think a lot of us are familiar with that technology - paypal and amazon fps developer docs ought to be enough to get you started. What specifically are you trying to accomplish? |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | FictiveCameron: Im a "business guy" out of Stanford GSB and if I was going to look for a hacker, I would expect to see a list of things that s/he had done. The more impressive that list the more likely I would be to work with that person.Seems to me you should simply take the flip side. For me, savvy isn't the right word. There is something very self-interested about it. Instead, I would look for a business person who has actually helped build something. Preferably something very interesting.Also, while im not big on references, it might be nice to talk to another hacker, whose work you respect, who had a positive experience working with that business person.Lastly, I would definitely not judge a business person by which business books he has read. Business people should help you build something of value, not regurgitate the most recent tagline of a management fad. |
How can I tell if I'm working with a savvy business person? | e40: Someone that made a lot of money once... may be savvy. Someone who has repeatedly made money on different ventures... very likely savvy.There are a lot of people that hit the tech lotto because of being in the right place at the right time (e.g., google employee #20). There are many fewer that have hit after hit.My experience (direct and indirect) says that someone that is business savvy will likely leave you feeling fucked over. To be successful in business you often have to push the boundaries of what is legal and acceptable to most people. |
Good online magazines, anyone? | PaulMorgan: Mother Jones Magazine: http://www.motherjones.com/ |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | macmac: Programming Clojure (http://www.pragprog.com/titles/shcloj/programming-clojure) - it semi-exists - presently only available as pdf beta book. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | stonemetal: Software engineering in functional languages. Pretty much every programming book I have read found about functional languages has been about learning a language with examples that are less than a page. I am curious what thought patterns and structures you use to build something larger. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | Femur: My fictional choice would be "The Oracle Optimizer: A Treatise"Database related books tend to be too high level and never dig down deep enough. |
Obsessive Asian Parents | stcredzero: All parents, not just Asian ones, are in no position to make rational decisions about their kids. The emotional bonds involved are just too strong.You can't convince your parents of anything, ever. All you can do is love them. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | jasongullickson: "How to break the iPhone app store rules and still get your app accepted (every time)". |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | jaxn: Right now I wish I knew of a Pickaxe for Python.Also, I want a MacRuby book.On a slightly related note, how does the Kindle do with programming books? I am thinking about picking one up to use primarily as a reference screen. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | halo: 'The Design and Implementation of Virtual Machines' or 'Theoretical Computer Science by Example'. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | justindz: "Indie MMOs for Small, Distributed Teams"I wouldn't even mind if it took longer than 21 days. |
Any users of SimpleCDN? | jackjohnson: I have used SimpleCDN for 6 months now and it was great. HOWEVER! they changed their services around within a 3 week period and everyone was forced to migrate.The problem is that the services are not compatible.Case in point: They used to offer HTTP mirroring with GZip and HTTP Expires headers. Now they have two separate services. One offers mirroring, the other allows HTTP Expires headers. No mention of GZip options on either.Their technical support is more of a moral support to keep using the services.ANY company doing this kind of ad-hock on-the-fly FORCED incompatible "improvements" I would stay away from and go with something more reliable.Don't know what yet, just stumbled on this forum as I was looking for one. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | plinkplonk: Some of the suggestions I liked from the reddit discussion ( direct quotes, see http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8aixn/programmi... for the full list)- Plan 9 Unleashed.Or perhaps "Distributed computing with Inferno and Limbo"- a book like Gödel, Escher, Bach: Eternal Golden Braid that explores Church/Lambda Calculus; Curry-HowardIsomorphism; and Category Theory and Monads. ... "Oleg, Toulouse-Lautrec and Rachmaninoff: On Type Reasoning".- The Complete Lisp Machine."An in-depth historical and technical guide, with classic papers, discussion, circuit schematics. Features not only the MIT/Symbolics/TI family, but the nearly-forgotten Xerox PARC systems. Chapters with deep commentary on the design decisions by the original designers.- The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages, 2nd Edition, by Simon Peyton-Jones- Retro Game Programming for the iPhone & iPod touch- series of books on specific kinds of general purpose applications and a discussion of their design and implementation techniques.For example, the first book could be about writing a graphical word processor. It would explain some data structures for representing text content, lines, paragraphs and the like with the tradeoffs between them. Then explains layout engines, using state machines to model GUI interaction, designing file formats, and other pure gold of programming :)Then it would be littered with case studies of both commercial & open source applications and a huge bibliography referring to important related books and research papers, preferably with commentary.- Programming Factor, Real World Factor and Filthy Rich Client in Factor.- Well Explained Solutions To Difficult Graph Problems Done In MapReduceNon-trivial Recommendation Engines With Practical Concerns Highlighted And Straightened Out- Core GNUstep Programming.
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- A revised, modern version of Lisp in small pieces- Programming in Octave
- Twisted Network Programming, or any decent intermediate/advanced book on Twisted.- The Complete Haskell. An encyclopedic work that spans the full range from category theory to network programming, everyday scripting, and distributed systems. Not for Java programmers; this book doesn't skimp on the theory as Real World Haskell does -- you'll learn to recognize the algebraic patterns that allow Haskell experts to distill out an Applicative, a Monad, or an Arrow from a collection of functions. Sample code (available on the Web site) includes a persistent distributed MUD server, a set of statistical logs analysis tools, an email spam filter, and a compiler for GoatC, a small imperative language. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | TweedHeads: s/Book/eBookGet with the times |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | bryanalves: "The definitive guide to dealing with Huge MySQL databases" |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | juliend2: Why's (Poignant) Guide to C. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | vonsydov: Norvig's Paradigms in AI book - http://norvig.com/paip.html |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | omnipath: Real programming in Prolog.
Eiffel system programming.
Lua system programming.I've found books for prolog, but they all start off with logic programming. It's kind of weird, or is it just me? And the other 2 I've not really seen any decent books for them. Unless I'm wrong? (A subtle cry for help.) |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | edw519: "How to Determine Exactly What Users Really Need"(All programming becomes much simpler after that.) |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | hotshothenry: i abandoned it but have started a new project |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | Hexstream: Relevance of Knowledge for Programmers.Would give a reasonably detailed, comprehensive overview of all the timeless theory and techniques (CS theory, math, design, etc), where they come from and what they're actually useful for.So many projects are made much harder because a fundamental bit of theory has to be rederived from first principles for lack of knowledge...Imagine someone who never heard of a graph:"Okay, now I know I need a structure that's a bit like a tree except each node can have multiple parents... Now, how do I find the shortest path between two nodes?..." |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | davidw: Decent Mexican food in Europe:-) (BTW, "if it were available")Edit: if I ever 'made it big', and decided to stay in Italy, I'd invest a portion of my money in a good Mexican restaurant here. It would probably lose money, but what the hell. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | ErrantX: Chatterous.comRather than rehash why I would.. I explained it not long back here: http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2009/03/dont-ignore-the-donator...How much? At the moment Chatterous is probably worth... $50 a month to me - and probably more to the company I work at.EDIT: I realise that verges on linkspam but otherwise I would end up writing an essay on why chatterous should offer "pay for" - and I already did that :P |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | vaksel: Twittering for dummies |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | jaxn: A fuel efficient car / minivan with room for a family of 6 to take a road trip. There are no hybrid minivans :( |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | pavelludiq: "How to/not to become a religious zealot of your favorite language" |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | khafra: A combination proxy/script/something that'd pop up an interstitial task tracker/to-do list overview when I go to any of a list of "time-sink" sites. I can click "snooze" and go to the time sink, with the task tracker popping back up after 5,10,30 minutes, turn it off for a day or two, or click through to the detail/edit view for any task and get to work. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | calvin: Whether you moved forward with the idea or abandoned it, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts and reasoning (rather than a plethora of yes/no responses).What have you learned? |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | carterschonwald: continuing university and doing side projects, as is my habit |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | mattjaynes: Anything on Tokyo Cabinet / Tokyo Tyrant |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | paulgb: "Thinking in MapReduce" |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | randallsquared: 18 months ago, I think. Abandoned that idea; now working at a job. I'll try a startup again with a different idea in the future. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | meow1981: Gained great traction and received funding from a top tier angel a month ago. Thanks for asking - it is an interesting thought experiment to look back and consider "alternative" futures.Because we did not get into YC, we were able to iterate freely on a big idea and get to where we are right now. But we took longer than expected in a much more painful way.My sense is that if we did get into YC, we would have a much easier time, but probably would have settled on a smaller goal.Worth pondering over. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | tsally: A device that could accurately measure caffeine intake, levels present in the body, and the strength of your bodies resistance. I know if I have another cup of coffee at 4PM, the quality of my code will be much better. What I never know is if it will wear off in time for me to get a normal nights sleep. :) |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | lucumo: "Writing a Compiler in 24 Hours" |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | Femur: I desperately wish i could find top level tropical and non-tropical fruit of many varieties here in Houston. I love fresh fruit but mangos from Mexico are not that great and the lack of variety gets old. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | ph0rque: Paused the idea I applied with for now; will revisit once I have the skills to code it up in a very short period of time (<20 man-hours) as well as figure out an intuitive UI for its functionality. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | tokenadult: An intelligent agent that would hunt up best comment threads from lots of news aggregator and other discussion sites. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | melvinram: Teleportation device. Sign me up today! |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | raquo: I wanted to apply last fall but my day job prevented me from building anything demoable in time and, being in Russia and not having any hacker reputation (I'm bachelor of Economics, worked in management consulting) I figured I had no chance to get in.My job was steadily taking about 14 hours a day and some of the weekends so in December I eventually quit in order to keep my sanity, then started learning PHP, MySQL, nginx, etc. and by now I've came close to releasing alpha (a couple of weeks, I think). |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | davi: "18. The WebOS. It probably won't be a literal translation of a client OS shifted to servers. But as applications migrate to servers, it seems possible there will be something that plays a central role like an OS does."http://ycombinator.com/ideas.htmlI'll know it when I see it, and when I see it, I'll happily pay for it.It has something to do with CMS + federated, micro social networks. One should be able to easily migrate + back up one's "OS" to another provider, or even run the OS in parallel between two providers.I know this is vague, but I feel the absence of something like it. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | ivankirigin: I want a desktop computer with a docked netbook. The files, programs, and program configuration on the netbook should auto-sinc with the desktop. Large files should be easy to stream from the desktop to the netbook. The netbook needs to have an embedded, fast cell network data connection.I might be able to build this myself with a MacPro, a router, a COTS netbook, hackintosh, dropbox, etc.I'd probably have at least 2 30 inch displays for the desktop, making the total cost in parts ~$8K. Companies would be wise to pay $10K for this kind of setup. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | taciturn: An online memorial for a dead relative. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | intheory0: I'd buy a CDMA iPhone. Forget ATT's slow and spotty GSM 3G. Bring on CDMA RevA. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | baguasquirrel: Quit job to work on it anyway. Old company has problems (with itself and with me) and I never fitted in to begin with. Have lots of stock from that stint, and good friends to bank on.Cobbling together prototype, teaching myself the NLP and plan on combining it with some techniques I learned in vision research. Figure that I can better pitch it to my risk-averse fwenz once I can wow them with something...I don't understand why everyone sees a rejection or acceptance to YCombinator or TechStars as such a big deal. It's like college admissions. They are only two shops, with fairly limited resources, and limited means of assessing candidates. If you didn't make it, and you think that your idea really has some serious long-term stock, then keep at it. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | nickfox: A robotic pleasure unit like in the movie BladeRunner... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | blender: Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins.You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today online.Cheers |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | rdouble: Regenerative disc therapy for my lower back injury. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | ALee: We were rejected (back in the day when we weren't working on JamLegend). Now we're looking for people to join us on our mission in San Francisco.Oddly enough, we're close friends with a lot of the YC companies. The honest truth that every YC company (and LaunchBox, Techstars, etc.) will tell you is that you still have 95% of the work to do, YC helps you get started, but afterwards you sink and swim with the rest of the startups out there. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | abstractbill: I would pay for a good enough telepresence application for keeping in touch with my family and friends (they're in the UK, I'm in San Francisco).Skype is better than nothing, but still not good enough. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | dexen: A computer display with at least 200DPI, and about 19...21 inches diagonal. I'd consider only 1:1 and 4:3 sized ones.Honestly, several times I've been searching for high resolution displays, and aside of old, expensive and slow T221 (or crazy-expensive medical and flight control ones), there are none.Why such DPI? For starters, it makes anti-aliasing (think, `blurry' fonts, jagged or blurred widgets and 3D objects and so on) irrelevant. Also, with the current 85...100 DPI screens, I still see individual pixels, and that's quite disturbing to me. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | cjbos: Something that allows me to search across all my old browser history (Content of the pages not the titles). So I can find all those blog posts and articles I forgot to bookmark for later reading at the time. (I guess I could start using stumbleupon or something but I want to be able to search in those pages as well.) |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | bemmu: Apartment with a pool in Tampere, Finland. Also I would be more likely to rent a place using a site that actually allowed me to search for apartments from a map.Instant helpful per-minute advice from MySQL/Linux/etc. gurus 24/7 when I need it. Similarly graphic design where I could in a few moments get sketches of things and commission them to be turned into finished works. I don't enjoy hunting for talent on forums/elance and having to wait days for responses when I need something done now while I am still in the zone to work on that particular project.Frappuccino in Finland, although I hope nobody actually does that as it would make me poor.A mouse that makes no clicking sound. It seems to exist: http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/14/thanko-silent-mouse-kills... I'll buy one when I go to Japan next time. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | ALee: Business:
- a way way better analytics system that integrates with our own logs and sql calls
- a better referral system for hiring, contacts, etc.Personally:
- a system to clean up my contacts and make sure that all my living address books (linkedin facebook) work out.
- a front end for mechanical turk, so that I know I'm getting Turk rates without doing the outsourced assistant |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | gilesgoatboy: I had a Lamborghini, my own skyscraper, and I was dating twin Playboy centerfolds. then I got rejected by YC. my Lamborghini exploded, an earthquake felled my skyscraper, my twins dumped me, and to top it all my dick fell off. now I wander the streets mumbling the lyrics to old Huey Lewis and the News songs. THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | jmtame: a way to record streaming audio on a mac and auto splitting with auto tagging. Would pay up to $100 |
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