instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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What do you drink? | iterationx: try iced coffee, also called coldpress in some places |
Can anyone recommend a designer? | bgnm2000: I'm a designer, and would love to give it a shot.http://www.venturemedias.com (portfolio) |
Is learning algorithms and datastructures really important? | jonjacky: In their book The Practice of Programming, Kernighan and Pike explain the really important stuff in about 30 pages, chapter 2 in the book. They cover four data structures: array, list, tree and hash table, and two kinds of algorithms: sorting and searching. They say that just these are enough for most comm... |
Best free Rails message board software? | callmeed: Check out altered beast
http://github.com/courtenay/altered_beast/tree/masterOf course, you could always roll your own pretty easily with rails. |
What do you drink? | chaosprophet: I always have a bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy Orange near my computer. And I also drink about 5 cups of authentic Madras Filter Coffee [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee] a day. |
Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? | jacquesm: My first guess on how to proceed would be to find some other parties that have already signed on to this program and to ask them what these tersm mean in practice.regarding the first term:That one seems to be the most serious, why they would want a seat at the table in negotiations is hard for me to understan... |
What countries allow foreigners to work immediately upon arrival? | mallipeddi: Based on my research if you're an Indian citizen (which I'm), there's hardly any country where you can just get off the plane, look for a job, get a bunch of job offers, and start working no matter how awesome a hacker you're.USA is the worst in this regard - their H1B quota is so small every year it effect... |
Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? | jlees: I signed something a little less intrusive than #2 - in practice it just meant updating them whenever something major changed with your company so they could put out a press release and get more incubatees. Nobody who'd ever been through the process had ever submitted accounts, a balance sheet, etc. Though I was... |
Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? | andreyf: As should be automatically mentioned whenever someone asks for legal advice - don't trust self-selecting smartasses on the internet, go talk to a lawyer. |
Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? | entrepid: With regard to negotiating this, i'd suggest to delete item (1) in a first turnaround of the draft agreement and, if they don't accept the deletion, to change it to some sort of right to information or observer's role at meetings.With regard to item (2), water it down to non sensitive information. This should... |
What do you drink? | neuromanta: I drink water, cuz it's healthy (everyona should drink 1,5-2l water a day), and black tea, to help me focus. |
What do you drink? | d_c: water, green darjeeling, coffee, black tea
(in order of approaching deadlines ;) ) |
Protect computers against malware? | DanielStraight: Tech savvy people should already know how to prevent viruses. Use Firefox. Don't download random crap. |
Protect computers against malware? | khafra: How much control do you have over the computers? Just the power to suggest whatever best practices they can understand?If you can, get them to stop using internet explorer, and stop logging in as root. Using a separate drive or partition for data, and making a practice of reinstalling the OS from the CD whene... |
Please critique vldtr | jeroen: For a quick look at results: http://vldtr.com/?key=HN |
Please critique vldtr | Edinburger: Nice piece of work. A few observations:
(1) It would be good to be able to link from the site name itself in the results rather than having to hit the W3C/HTML/Trash icons. Also, I would show the icons by default rather than only on hover since otherwise the user might not discover them.
(2) The randomly ch... |
Cash-flow muses | igrekel: Unrelated to the question, I apologize but am I the only one who is annoyed by the usage of the word "muse" in this context?For me a muse has such a noble connotation about deep tought, meaning and inspiration that I feel it is cheapened by being associated with selling pills online and other near-scams. Not t... |
What do you drink? | EvanK: Orange juice with breakfast. Water, all day long. Usually a soda with lunch or dinner. I used to drink sodas all day, but I'm getting a bit more health conscious (only a bit though). |
Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? | dctoedt: Suggestions:A) Be sure the agreement includes a suitable confidentiality clause obligating the other side -- see http://www.ontechnologycontracts.com/clauses-for-contracts/c... for some sample clauses and commentary.B) Consider adding a reasonableness qualifier -- e.g., in 1): "The Incubatee shall, permit the... |
What would be your perfect work environment? | TallGuyShort: Fair pay and interesting work, but that's no surprise. One thing that makes or breaks a job for me is if my manager communicates well. It makes a huge difference when you know exactly what is expected of you, what you can expect from the company, and where you stand. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | ErrantX: I think my job is perfect for me (right at this moment in my life). So I'll list that (hopefully not coming across as bragging or anything :) - and also ripping off your initial list for ideas).- Free Lunch (I swear this is the best thing, it's so easy)- Single Boss (so important to get things done)
- Relative... |
Replacing hard drive platters | tdoggette: Clean, careful, and slow. Good luck. |
Replacing hard drive platters | vaksel: Do you mean something like this?http://www.deadharddrive.com/ |
Replacing hard drive platters | stonemetal: http://www.wikihow.com/Swap-Hard-Disk-Drive-PlattersIs pretty much all the advice I would give. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | edw519: Interesting and meaningful work.Everything else is just a detail.I have sat in the worst conditions (too hot, too cold, too loud, hungry, tired, sore, lonely, etc.) working on something cool and meaningful and got into it so much that I completely lost track of time for hours.OTOH, I have had employers or vendo... |
Replacing hard drive platters | blasdel: Swapping the just the platters has zero chance of success.If the drive isn't working and it's not making grinding noises, it's possible that the controller board on the underside is zapped. I've had a 50/50 success rate recovering data by swapping boards -- you have to find identical drives, and be lucky too. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | asciilifeform: A sinecure. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | slater: No distractions would be lovely. Currently, I'm "enjoying" the following in our open-plan offices:- Cellphones w/annoying ringtones going off every 10 mins (I don't care if you're the company's sales guy/gal who needs to be reachable every second of the day)- Impromptu meetings in the hallways- Obligatory fogho... |
What would be your perfect work environment? | BrentRitterbeck: The top thing I want is a boss that lets me do my job. That means limit the team meetings to absolutely what is necessary. That means give me the tools that let me do my job most efficiently. For anyone that has ever worked in a bank, I'm sure you know what I am talking about. |
Replacing hard drive platters | devicenull: If the data is important, there are services that will do this for you, and likely have the equipment/knowledge to do this successfully. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | David: I'd rather work a 6 day week working when I want to (say, starting at 10pm) than a 4 day week 9-5.
Oh, and a do not disturb sign is probably mandatory. I'll let you know when I've got some processing power to deal with your problems. Otherwise, I'm dealing with mine. |
What would be your perfect work environment? | pclark: interesting work.not terribly slow computers.great chairs. |
Please critique vldtr | ken: Not a bad idea, but it doesn't seem to work with XHTML which is served according to spec. I've got a site that's valid XHTML, which is served up as application/xhtml+xml, which works fine in Firefox/Safari/Chrome/Opera (and not at all in IE but I don't care), and it validates fine by validator.w3.org.vldtr says "... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | yannis: Been there before. Best get out as soon as possible. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | jm4: You should have started sending out your resume when they missed payroll back in May. Not only does this place have some serious financial problems, but management doesn't even have the decency to let people know ahead of time. That's pretty sleazy in my book. Even if you could rationalize giving the place a free ... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | TallGuyShort: I worked for a small startup and had that problem several times. It was never a long enough amount of time that I really questioned whether or not I would get paid, but it did annoy me and the way the owner handled it made a very 'awkward' work environment. He generally gave an explanation as to why it wa... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | edw519: "What to do when your company misses payroll?"1. Invent a time machine.2. Go back 30 days.3. Run, don't walk, the other way as fast as you can. This won't end pretty.Steps 1 & 2 are desirable, but optional. Step 3 is required.(I'm not using the time machine to be cute or funny, but to make a point. This p... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | tjic: There's a lot of good advice here telling the employee how to act. I concur with most of it.Let me add something from another perspective:Speaking as a startup owner who has had money problems from time to time:a) crap happensb) your hourly people, who have no equity, deserve every single cent. Whether answerin... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | rokhayakebe: If you are going to work a few weeks for free, you may as well think of a good small business application and build it. At least you will make money from it or you can add that to your resume. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | icey: I have been in your situation. My advice is to get out before the company goes under and forces you to compete with everyone else you work with for jobs.Even though your company has not been very stand-up with you, don't burn any bridges. You never know when that kind of stuff will come back to bite you in the as... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | cjbos: I recently left a startup that was in a similar situation, though I think they were alot more open about finding more investment (It was however always just around the corner).I'd advise you to leave now, especially if the founders/management have decided not to take anymore pay themselves, thats usually the sig... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | miracle: It depends on where you live. In european countries (I'm pretty sure that it's the case in Switzerland) you will always get your salary for the last 3 months! If the company goes bankrupt, an insurance will pay. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | frankus: Definitely shop your resume ASAP, simply because there's no downside: you don't have to quit unless/until you get a better offer, and if the money does come in you're set.The company I worked for went through this a few years ago, but pulled out of it and was doing well for a while.Nonetheless I got a zero-day... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | uptown: Aside from payroll, your company is likely facing massive amounts of debt to their creditors.While you may have an emotional connection to the company, bill collectors acting on behalf those with outstanding invoices with your company will have no such connection. There's likely a backlog of unpaid invoices th... |
Please critique my product, ThoughtMuse - an online mindmap tool | estherschindler: The demo was very good at giving me an immediate experience. Except I never could figure out how to move items around.I wonder if you might want to include some "below the fold" stuff in the demo, or maybe as its wrapup, that gives me a hint of what else I could do, even if it's not in the demo. I.e. "... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | quellhorst: Offer to accept hardware in lieu of payment, get as much as you have to sell to get repaid. Find another job right away. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | brk: The problem is that this situation creates a death spiral for the company. If they are missing payroll they are literally out of money. Any investor willing to put money in is going to do their due diligence. This means the investor is going to be aware of just how badly the company needs this investment, which... |
Community Validated User Profiles | notaddicted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust#Web_of_trust_probl... |
Exists Open Source FPGA Tool Chain? | amirh: There's some useful code for reading and modifying Xilinx bitstream files up here: http://www.ulogic.org/tracif you want to learn more bout the Xilinx chip internals you can learn the XDL format: with the command line ISE tools you can use the flag -ncd2xdl to convert a compiled NCD design to XDL. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | olefoo: One thing that you should do is network with your soon to be former coworkers. Set up a mailing list, start talking about what is happening and help each other find jobs. I've had to do this once or twice, though never at a place that outright missed payroll. But be prepared for the fact that most of your cowor... |
Community Validated User Profiles | shorbaji: Well, this would rule out anonymous contribution to "community-related activities". Not sure how, but this may be an issue. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | alekseyt: I have been in this situation. The employees were told the expected round of financing hadn't come through yet and we had enough money to pay rent, or pay the employees.Some (few) people left straight away. Most stayed on and tried to make a go of it (this was a start-up). I had to drop out after a few wee... |
Can next SF Hacker News Meetup be about helping find cofounders? | Mankhool: I'm working on a startup from Vancouver Canada. My SF Bay area VC suggested I look for co-founders down there. I put an ad on Craigslist and had several really high quality replies, which was great since I'm doing this part-time and was open to part-time co-founders. I've just about chosen a lead developer / ... |
Community Validated User Profiles | bdmac97: Are you sure you're not going overboard with that? Is spam that much of a problem for your site that this is necessary?I've never been a big fan of throwing up too many roadblocks to real people to keep out the minority of spammers. If you already have captchas and honeypots and JS updated "type this [value]... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | johnnyg: A business exists to make money. If it can't pay you, it isn't making money and either should not exist now or will not exist in the near future. There are rare exceptions, but the odds are so bad that I would not take the chance or extend the trust.There aren't enough specifics in your write up to know for su... |
How do you handle internationalization in your app? | bdmac97: I cry and hope it magically happens while I'm not looking.But seriously I have not really addressed i18n in my apps yet. I would say how you go about it is going to depend at least a bit on your framework/programming language. I'm using Ruby on Rails for my apps so I would probably just follow the generally ... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | abecedarius: A friend of mine has been through something like that, not happily; here's another employee of the same startup telling the story: http://www.sixdemonbag.org/yomu.html(Summary: founder trying to keep stringing everyone along gets convicted of securities fraud.) |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | RiderOfGiraffes: Note added for clarity: this was not a startup, it was a long established company with around 30 employees. It is in an industry where raising funding would be a disaster and guarantee no orders ever again.I was working for a company some years ago, and pay started to get late. No word from managemen... |
Community Validated User Profiles | TallGuyShort: I think you might be solving the wrong problem here. Someone could very easily set up an account and have it vouch for a bunch of spam accounts before you figured anything out. To solve that problem you'd have to limit "vouching" privileges to a few trusted accounts, and then you're not getting much of a ... |
What should I do with my domain(hack-android.com)? | jlgosse: I think it would be cool to use it as a hub for something similar to http://startupweekend.com/Basically, hold an Android hack-a-thon in various cities across the globe. People would get together, make app(s), and then release them if they want.Each hack festival could be themed, or it could be a free-for-all.... |
Please critique vldtr | rwolf: With NoScript, I had to allow kruisit.nl before http://vldtr.com/?key=HN would do anything besides list the urls.
It's not a big problem (just makes me a little nervous), but since you seem to control both servers you might want to move whatever is getting called from kruisit.nl over to vldtr.com. |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | synnik: I've been in 2 startups that didn't have cash for payroll.Startup #1: The CEO took payroll out of his own personal credit cards and paid us all anyway. That startup went public and grew to be very successful.Startup #2: The CEO was already a millionaire, but wouldn't put in a cent of his own money. That startup... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | jellicle: Get out of there fast. Also note that very probably the company isn't sending the money it's supposed to be withholding from your paychecks to the government, so you will have tax problems this year, that are the company's fault but you will end up having to resolve.I.E., your paystubs say the company withhe... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | RiderOfGiraffes: Some comments about resumes ...If you apply for a job with me, I want to know why I should employ you. I want to know how you will add value to my company. I want to know that you will bring skills and abilities.Do you know what I want? You should. You shouldn't just read the ad for the job - you s... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | ja27: My company came very close to missing payroll several times in the dark days but we always pulled it off. In the same period I saw a close partner company reach the point where they were paying partial paychecks (barely above minimum wage) before they finally folded. I also have a friend who went from almost $5m ... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | Dobbs: So I was working for a company that stated withholding paychecks. My boss was very charismatic and we had a client or two that owed us a very large amount of money. Due to these facts I and many many others stuck around long after we should have. In the end I was owed several thousand dollars, about 6 paychecks.... |
Finding sales people? | alain94040: Ideally, you'd want to hire a salesperson who has experience selling into exactly those accounts. Given the current job market, it's easier than it has been in a long time.However, be careful of con artists (also known as sales people). It's very difficult to properly interview sales people (read http://blo... |
Finding sales people? | brk: Where are you physically located?I may know of some people in your area.One option is to start with a sales person/sales consultant type, like this guy: http://www.creatingconfidence.com/ (I have worked with Randy in the past, but have no vested interest in promoting him).Another option is to use an appointment se... |
What to do when a company shuts out its shareholders? | alain94040: Which state is this company incorporated in? That's the key question.As a shareholder, you have fewer rights than you'd think. On the other hand, you can be a major nuisance to the owner if you want to.I dont quite see a win-win here. What are you trying to achieve? |
What to do when a company shuts out its shareholders? | brk: Disclaimer: IANALSince it is still a private company, you're not entitled to much, really.They are supposed to be holding some sort of board or corporate meetings, if for no other reason than to maintain themselves as a corporation for the legal benefits. You are supposed to get, or have access to, copies of the ... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | bkovitz: Here's my experience with this. Maybe it will shed some light on your situation, maybe it won't.At one particularly insane start-up, I went two months without a paycheck. It was such a bizarre place to work, and so interesting, I didn't care. The company officially went under. The State of California has r... |
What to do when a company shuts out its shareholders? | jacquesm: Get a copy of the corporate bylaws and go to a lawyer, this is much too complicated without further background to be answered here.I take it that you can prove that those shares were transferred to you.You can offer the shares to a 3rd party but the bylaws probably state explicitly that you have to offer the ... |
What would be your perfect work environment? | CyberFonic: Minimal meetings, distractions = office with door.Fast computers, multiple hi-rez screens, comfy chair.Flexible working hours.Result oriented instead of time-sheet driven.And most importantly ... manager who runs interference for us. Being shielded from executives from other areas. Realistic project plans.... |
What to do when your company misses payroll? | grellas: I have been doing startup work in Silicon Valley since 1984 and have seen all the variations on this.It all depends on the facts.
When a startup struggles and misses payrolls, it is legitimate for the executive team to ask employees to stay and help the company through the struggle. Each employee then must dec... |
Replacing hard drive platters | CyberFonic: You'd need a clean room and specialist equipment to do it. If the data is that important use a professional service. The best ones only charge for successful data retrieval, but that can cost from a couple of hundred $ to thousands. |
What to do when a company shuts out its shareholders? | grellas: As a minority shareholder in a closely held corporation, your rights will be defined by the governing corporate law (in your case, that of Illinois) and by any charter documents or agreements that may create contractual rights of some kind.Above all, see a lawyer in your local jurisdiction to get advice on thi... |
are any of you intersted in trying my beta iPhone app? | Zev: I've got an iPod Touch, so I don't really think I'm in your target audience here, but here's some random thoughts that popped into my head, based on your Flickr screenshots: For all views:
* Are you sure you don't want default statusbar instead of black one? Either the blue for the nav bar or the status bar feel... |
Technical problems with Google Voice | sidburgess: The Google Voice support team is pretty active on Twitter. I have seen them respond to several inquiries. http://twitter.com/googlevoice Best of luck! |
What do you drink? | brandon272: Coffee and water. I generally try not to have more than 2 cups of coffee a day if possible. |
Is a home server good enough ? | mikecurry: Home setup is never good enough unfortunately. Though, I am not saying DON'T try, as it could work out for you. One thing you should consider, is, most internet service providers have fast downloading speed, but the upload speeds are very slow... meaning you won't serve a lot, if any, without long waits fo... |
Is a home server good enough ? | brk: Hardware-wise, you're probably fine.The issue is going to be that you're violating the terms of your consumer Internet connection, and will likely be subjected to all kinds of random filtering and outages. Murphy's Law dictates this will happen as soon as you start to get some attention, as soon as you try to go ... |
Is a home server good enough ? | noonespecial: In my experience, dydns will be an enormous hassle that never really does work quite right. It will work from some places and not from others in a very haphazard fashion that leaves you never quite sure if you're up or not.I'd spot you a slice too, but its specifically forbidden to have any windows machin... |
Is a home server good enough ? | jakewolf: I'm pretty sure most ISPs prohibit using their service to host a site.There are plenty of ways to get $100 in your pocket which can get you going for a while. |
Is a home server good enough ? | Xichekolas: Latency and slow upload speed are usually what makes a home server unfit for this kind of duty. Not to mention you'll be violating your TOS most likely.On the other hand, no need to buy hosting until you have something to put on it, so you might as well go with this setup while you test/develop your service... |
Community Validated User Profiles | alanthonyc: Hi everyone,Thanks for all your feedback. Your comments are well appreciated. I had come up with many of the same objections as well, but didn't have anyone to bounce the basic idea off. (I guess this is where having that co-founder comes in handy, as pg suggests.)@notaddicted - that was a good read, tha... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | ryanwaggoner: My current favorite from poetry: It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | rms: "...there are other kinds of globalization, the globalization of cooperation and sharing knowledge" -rms (the real one)----------"Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism." -Hunter S. Thompson----------Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?Teen1: I don't even k... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | pg: The sons of Hermes love to play
And only do their best when they
Are told they oughtn't.
Apollo's children never shrink
From boring jobs but have to think
Their work important.
The rest is good too. |
Is a home server good enough ? | ars: Port it to linux, and you'll be able to get hosting MUCH cheaper. If it's already php, and you use .NET just for image manipulation, it should not be hard to do.First see if the built in php image functions http://php.net/manual/en/refs.utilspec.image.php are good enough (you have a choice of three libraries to pi... |
Is a home server good enough ? | patio11: >>
Is this set-up good enough ?
>>No. No project should be run out of your home. The idea has absolutely nothing to recommend it. It isn't adequate for a Wordpress blog, to say nothing of a web application your customers will be relying on.Get yourself a VPS. They're absurdly cheap -- 3 months on Slicehost... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | justlearning: * Just keep walking! *
my latest inspiring quote. (I wish I could make it bold)this quote is not from a book, not a website, not from a blog, but from a post right here on HN. (and quoted by the OP in another post):
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625644I find quotes with a background/anecdote... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | davidblair: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.-- Mark TwainA good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.-- George Patton |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | ananthrk: "Truth is a pathless land" - JK |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | jacquesm: "I don't look to jump over 7 foot bars, I look around for 1 foot bars that I can step over."Attributed to Warren Buffet. |
Is a home server good enough ? | RobGR: The hardware is fine. The bandwidth is passable, if you write a clean and minimal site. Can you pay a small amount extra and get a fixed IP ? Dyndns will suffice to get you started, though.The main thing is not to let the problem of lacking hosting stop you from getting your project to the point where you hav... |
Is a home server good enough ? | jws: Gandi is running 30 day free trials of their VPS hosting. You could use that to see if you can make a VPS solution work for you without having to splash out any cash.I haven't used Gandi's hosting, but have used other VPS providers. You will need to be vigilant. VPS providers can degrade your experience as time go... |
Favorite inspiring quotes or verses? | RiderOfGiraffes: Not all inspirational in my entrepreneurial ventures, but here is a selection from my TftD file that I'm compiling. Some are designed to make me smile when I think about some of my customers, others are to make me focus on more important things in life. "Never argue with idiots. They drag you down
... |
Is a home server good enough ? | alaskamiller: I say go for it. You might find that you might not even need to upgrade for a dedicated or even a VPS for maybe half a year. I mean, who really knows how many users you're going to support? Necessity is the mother of invention.searchyc.com runs off of a home server. |
What sites, e.g. experts-exchange.com, would you remove from Google? | udfalkso: I actually wrote myself a greasemonkey script to hide results from w3schools once upon a time. I'll try to dig it up.Their docs are almost always missing the one piece of information I actually want (usually a function definition) and they nearly always rank very highly for such queries. |
Cash-flow muses | wlievens: I'm somewhat facing the same dilemma. I will be having a good amount of free time in a couple of months' time (4 weeks, at least, possibly more), so I really want to do one of these, even if it only ends up providing me with a couple hundred euro per month.I have one micro-b2b idea, but I'm not really convinc... |
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