instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
|---|---|
How to avoid sore wrists | wglb: I had a friend who was an actor and playwright. He used a laptop sitting in his lap to churn out lots of plays, but he ended up with carpal tunnel and wrist braces. Be sure that the laptop is at the correct height. This is when the tops of your hands are level with the tops of your arms. And there are many other good suggestions in the threads here.I also would get an external keyboard, as very few laptops have good enough keyboards for high-throughput, long hours work. |
Feature-level feedback on my Android Apps Search Engine | ig1: Not really feature-level, but first impression is it looks like an auto-generated spam site. Also it's not really self-explanatory where the links go. |
How to avoid sore wrists | njl: Don't screw around. Carpal tunnel surgery seriously sucks. I got both of my wrists fixed a couple of days before my 21st birthday.Things that have helped me... Make yourself aware of your posture and wrist location. Don't type with your wrist bent at funny angles. Run something like workrave or xwrits and force yourself to take breaks. Exercise. I switched from emacs to vim because I couldn't train myself to use opposite hands for the ctrl key and the letter key. Stretch. Try out different keyboards. Try out different keyboard heights. |
How to avoid sore wrists | izak30: I had the same problem. I bought a wrist brace ($17 @ target), and I have a larger desk that my arms can rest on. Once I fixed my wrist issues with the wrist brace, my shoulder started hurting from keeping my arm/wrist in the same spot hovered over my keyboard all the time. The two together have largely gotten rid of any pain. |
Feature-level feedback on my Android Apps Search Engine | skip: The content (search results) mimic too closely the ad results.Using whitespace to separate them (or a thin blue line, like the google sidebar ads) may help. Icons would brighten the design too.It's difficult to scan the list and look at prices because they are not aligned.I would suggest and icon in a column on the left, with the stars (rating) and price below it, then the name, description, and links on the right. |
Why youtube explicitly doesn't allow downloading videos? | thafman: YouTube does have a download option for specific channels (e.g The White House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P21yLeBFKHY). My guess is that we will also see paid-downloads through Amazon (or equivalent) for things like music videos. But I can't see YouTube offering the download option for dog-on-a-skateboard vids. |
How to avoid sore wrists | UrLicht: I owe my lack of wrist problems to playing piano. I learned to keep my wrists straight and NOT rest on the desk or the keyboard. And I second the comments about getting an external keyboard for that reason - laptop keyboards pretty much force you to bend your wrist downward to rest on the laptop. I also have my chair set to a height where I can rest my forearms on the desk but keep my wrists floating. I've never had a problem with pain. |
Why youtube explicitly doesn't allow downloading videos? | ZeroGravitas: The adverts aren't in the video, they're on Youtube. |
Feature-level feedback on my Android Apps Search Engine | drtse4: The function you want to provide is quite simple, implementing an "app for x" search engine, so i guess you should focus on that and try to provide something really user friendly.
I suggest a few things:-Improve graphics a lot: Nice theme, Icons, highlighted prices and why not a small preview screenshot directly in the search results so that i don't need to open all the app singularly?-Reduce results. If i'm searching an app and you simply return all the google market results why shouldn't i use the market directly?You should calculate your own results based on vote/downloads/manual_pick and maybe highlight new apps(that may be worthwhile but have still not enough votes/downloads).- Make it easy to download, QR-Code easily accessible. |
How to avoid sore wrists | mutex: Guys... www.softflex.com is a life saver. No fancy keyboards just pads that you wear like gloves to cushion your wrist. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | robfitz: Hey guys, we've been working with London's agencies for the last few months to develop Habit Stream, which help find the nice things people are saying about your business and then re-broadcast the best bits (customer tweets, press coverage, Amazon reviews, etc) through more scalable channels (like widgets & ads).We've been getting a strong response from the agency side, but we're just starting to learn how we can best help startups, blogs, and small businesses. Basically, we think everyone should be able to benefit from the unsolicited testimonials that are popping up all over the web.So, we would really love to hear your thoughts. It's all self-serve and there's a free trial. Thanks!PS. You may have previously seen us as Minivid and/or Fuzzwich. Stream is a totally different approach to solving the same problem of making social advertising easier & more effective. |
Feature-level feedback on my Android Apps Search Engine | jsz0: What's the relationship between this site and androlib.com? It's just weird to click on a link and be sent to a different but very similar site. Makes it feel like a bit spammy. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | SlyShy: It's weird to me that you aren't using your own product on your website. Or if you are, I looked around for it for a long time and didn't find it.You don't think it would be a natural fit for your own start-up? ;-) You could display all the positive comments you are getting on your website, and updated in real time! |
How to avoid sore wrists | jeffvroom: Fifteen years ago I had numbness in my fingers from lots of hacking. I ended up talking to the dr who invented the "pilosplint": http://www.painreliever.com/IMAK_IMAKPilo.html who suggested the problem may be in how my wrists are positioned when I sleep. You need 6 hours a day in a neutral "at rest" position for swelling to subside. I was often sleeping with my hands curled up. Eventually, I retrained myself to sleep with my hands in a more relaxed position and all symptoms have gone away. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | wheels: Design nitpick:Don't use fixed size containers and variable sized fonts:http://skitch.com/scotchi/ns2be/habit-stream-curate-broadcas... |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | revorad: Hey that looks neat. How did you make that video? |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | jasonlbaptiste: this is really really smart and a potentially big market. any smart site (ecommerce or whatever) has testimonials. the problem is, they're fairly static and people see them as possibly unsubstantiated. if i tweet "I <3 my iPhone" and its linked on your site, you cant ignore that. throw in the other sources too. |
Review my startup, Tweetc.com | Roridge: Am I missing something? Surely almost all the blogging sites offer this already? |
How do you configure your Linode Disk Images? | dangrossman: I only use Linode nodes for front end web servers, and the websites already sit on Subversion repositories, so I have no need to backup any data on the Linodes.What I do is start a fresh Linode from one of their base images, usually CentOS 5. I strip away all the services I don't need, lock down those that I do, and install the few non-standard packages the sites need to run. After all the configuration is set and the website is up and running, I give the whole thing a reboot just to make sure all the services start up in the right state. When it's all configured correctly, I copy the disk image and it's ready for cloning to new nodes. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | thinkbohemian: Widgets, ad units, and stream API: should be clickable links IMHO, they look like buttons, and are what i was interested in immediately |
How to avoid sore wrists | gte910h: Wear wrist splints for awhile, learn to move your arm instead of bending your wrist. I got used to it by doing an ergo keyboard.Additionally, be careful how you support your weight during sex and pushups, it also is a potentially damaging instance. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | mwsherman: Right now, we can only add profiles for US locations, sorry about that. International is a top request and is coming soon! |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | Slashed: it's based on books means one lists book titles to describe his/her character? Interesting to see how some people would abuse this to become popular. |
How to predict startup viability? | RiderOfGiraffes: It took several read-throughs to work out what you are saying, but I think you're asking this:I want to purchase services from a small company - a start-up - but in doing so I run the risk that they won't prove to be viable in the long-run. Choosing them is a risk. How can I assess that risk so I can make a sensible choice?Is that right?If so, I don't have any answers, and it depends greatly on the services you are purchasing, the amount of lock-in, the promises made, and whether the founders/owners will be able to behave honorably in the case of a failure. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | javery: How quickly will Moby Dick be the most read book on this site.... |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | mwsherman: One more caveat, there only a small number of profiles on there right now, so search results will probably not be very interesting just yet.We are most interested in feedback about usability, technical issues, and whether we are generally on the right track. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | iamwil: The first thing I wanted to do was SEE who else was on there. Dating sites need to have people to attract others. You don't make it very apparent how to see or search who else is on there.I didn't even read the popup because it GOT IN MY WAY of seeing who else was on there. And then the 'find people' form was off to the side, and I didn't notice it because I looked at the featured profile...a dude...then up top Find people should be first, not getting started.If people find other people they like on there, they'll find their way to the signup screen. First show them your goods, then they'll sign up when they see what they like. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | javery: [bug] - search for books with nothing in search field. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | jrmurad: I thought this was a good idea. One of my own particular favorite authors is usually mentioned on social sites but in the form of "I hate people who like <This Author>."Alpha testing: I searched for "Thomas Paine" and got one result. The one profile result didn't seem to match the query at all.I tried searching with the quotation marks and got an error. Exact matching doesn't seem to be supported in that manner? |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | snowbird122: This is an awesome idea. I wish I had thought of it. Best of luck to you. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | jolie: Coming soon? |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | axod: Seems like a really small niche. Wouldn't movies be a better thing to match on, or music? |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | henrikschroder: Are you really going to market this as a dating site? Because you will be steamrolled by actual dating sites that provide substantially more.. flesh.. Dating sites make money because people are willing to pay money to get laid.Doing dating through book taste doesn't exactly signal hookups, so why even label it as a dating site? Make it a social site around book taste and let dating happen in the community by itself? |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | aw3c2: http://alpha.alikewise.com/Profile/danalotus was the featured profile for me and it scared me. The eyes have eerie glowing spots in them from sharpening. I would recommend either asking that girl for another photo or not featuring her. :( |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | avand: Piggy Back was built to solve the problem of constantly owing or being owed by friends and family. It simply keeps a running balance of the debts between people.The plans are to make it easier and easier to create these debts by leveraging email and Twitter.Let me know what you think! |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | Mc_Big_G: hmmmmmmmm My wife is definitely not into the same genre of books as I am and frankly I'm happy with that. Is there some real correlation between compatibility and the books you read or are you just assuming that? |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | javery: The site looks nice and I get the idea, I think the only problem is that I would see this as way to formal with my friends and family. If I pick up dinner with friends, or if I pay his part of the cab fare.. he just buys me dinner or a beer later. This seems too cold and formal for most uses.Now for something like parents lending to their kids it would make more sense, or formal loans between friends (which is usually a bad idea) |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | ambiate: "q=Nietzsche, q=Sartre, q=Camus
Hmm, none yet. Try adjusting your search criteria."where are all the a1=18&a2=23 philosophy chicks?edit: q=Paul+Graham, success. We can be hopeless and poor together. |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | genieyclo: I'm wondering why you have a Twitter login instead of a Facebook connect button, since most friends and family are probably going to be on Facebook, not Twitter. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | jasonkester: Cool, but I suspect we're not your audience.It would be hard to imagine your API being simultaneously simple enough to be less work using Twitter's API manually, and customizable enough to dump out exactly what I want easier than massaging the data and presenting it myself.But then if I was a guy in a band setting up our website, I could see this being really useful. |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | ryanhuff: Here are a few ideas. The debit/credit terminology is too formal. Use something like "I owe" and "I am owed".I can see myself using this if it was more closely focused on helping me track who I owe money. The confirmation system you have is too formal.How about this. I can record who I owe money, or record who owes me money. If I owe John money, I can optionally choose to send him a note (email) as a friendly reminder. Maybe integrate with Facebook so he can choose from a list of his friends. No need to remember an email address. I can also have it send me reminders to my facebook account or email. |
Showing off customer feedback useful to you? (new from YC 07) | jeff18: I gave this an honest try because the video looked awesome, but sadly it is not useful to me.I basically just got a list of thousands of retweets for blog posts and a bunch of Disqus comments. Despite combing through many pages, I seriously could not find a single appropriate testimonial.Maybe you could add Google Checkout support? For example: https://checkout.google.com/reviews/merchant/endUserReviews?... I have a really low volume of Google Checkout orders, but even that is a gold mine for testimonials.Send me a message if you'd like some more info on my experience: jeff@wolfire.com |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | mishmax: Have you seen billmonk.com? This is what I use currently to keep track of tabs with roommates. BillMonk was bought by OgoPay in 2007 though and since then they haven't changed a thing on the site. |
How do you configure your Linode Disk Images? | buro9: I use rsync.net for backup and just use the Linode for web servers. The web servers all get their docroot from subversion. |
How to avoid sore wrists | nemoniac: Don't use arrow keys or pgup/pgdown. They're totally unthematic with the emacs way. Anything that requires you to stretch your hands from the standard rest position is bad.Unfortunately some emacs modes, most notably orgmode, use keychords such as shifted or ctrled arrows. This is very unemacs and needs to be corrected. |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | ashishbharthi: Back in my roommates days we used shared google spreadsheet with few formulas setup. It worked perfectly for us. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | lsemel: I tried it out and thought it was a fun site. It will be even more so when there are more people on it. |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | mattwdelong: There is an even simpler remedy to this: Don't give or lend money if you can't afford to lose it. Similarly, don't borrow money if you can't pay it back.I just buy friends/family a beer, or food/items with the likely event that it will be reciprocated down the road. Even if it doesn't balance, they're not my client and I don't ever intend to bill my friends. At least, that's not how I roll.Edit: I think maybe I need to clarify. I think this is a serious problem they may need to address with their app. I don't think I am a one off person, I am sure people have similar principles as me. What I am saying is that I can't see myself using this app to add a friend only to say "Hey, you owe me $8.95, please pay up"; the landing page does not convince me otherwise. |
Anyone from Iowa? | markbnine: if you build it, they will come. . . |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | lsemel: You need to put in some hooks to help spread the word about the site. How come you're not encouraging people tweet or post to Facebook right when they sign up? |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | philh: If I do a search and then click back, the button still says 'searching...' and I can't do another search. If I then click refresh it goes back to 'find people' but doesn't work. I need to click in the title bar and press enter to do another search. Firefox 3.6 linux. |
help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) | cabalamat: Quite a few of my friends are bi. Why can people on your site only be seeking men or women, but not both? |
What is your favorite event management software? | seven: You might want to take a look at:http://www.pentabarf.org/I am not a user, but visited several events managed by with help of this software.http://www.pentabarf.org/Conferences_planned_with_Pentabarf |
How to predict startup viability? | aamar: If the startup is VC- or angel-funded, figure out what their runway is. You may just want to ask them what they think it is, the revenue assumptions they've used to understand that, and what kind access to funding they have beyond what's in the bank (don't count on this too much, however).With this information in hand, estimate the Probability that they'll last as long as you'll need them, the Cost of switching to a different product down the line, and the Value you derive from going with a startup vs. the "safe" option. Pick the startup that maximizes (and has a positive) V - (1-P)*C. (Feel free to substitute your own more elaborate ROI calculation.)You may be able to reduce your risk by adding a contract term to the effect of the following: if the startup goes out of business or discontinues the service, they'll agree to sell you at a specified price the relevant code, systems, license, etc. so you can continue operating the service in-house. Of course, this may not be relevant, depending on what exactly the startup's services are, and depending on your corporation's ability to support the service, and a lot of other legal issues worth examining with a lawyer. |
What should I do? I work at a tech company who sucks at tech. | brk: You clearly don't have any respect for the organization.(Which may or may not be warranted. It's not that I doubt your assessment, but it IS only 1 person's one-sided opinion. No offense)If the organization is as large as your post implies, and you are working at the individual contributor level, then it's unrealistic to expect that you can effect any measurable change.So, you should move on to something that better suits your talents and interests.Also, it's good to get the random advice of the Intarwebs, but you probably also need to develop a gut feel for when the time is right to start packing as you progress through your career. Best to be able to see the signs of smoke before the fire is visible...Good luck. |
What should I do? I work at a tech company who sucks at tech. | noonespecial: That all sounds pretty par for the course when it comes to large companies, technical or otherwise. The sharp edge of the blade (the technical stuff done for customers) may be far from the daily operations in your department. The rest is just an ordinary BigCo.You've discovered why many people don't like working at big companies. Sometimes, scheduling by hand is just easier that trying to find a system, then test and deploy it to an organization so large etc.I can tell you what will happen in the next few years. They'll bumble along as they always have, getting no better, and maybe a little worse. If you stay you'll adapt by learing to manage disappointment. The hardest thing I ever learned at BigCo was "Yes, there's a better way to do this; No we are not going to do it."Decide if you are prepared to work in this culture for the long haul. I personally decided that I could not, no matter what the risk I faced by choosing not to. Just don't stick it out hoping it will somehow get better. It won't. |
I've been collecting Webform-spam for a year - what could I use it for? | yannis: Machine learning students can use it to train anti-spam filter designs. However, you will need to add more details for example how did you collect them did you use a filter? If you did perhaps more valuable would have been the spam that got away! |
Can I surf your couch? (Seattle YC meetup) | callmeed: I might be driving up from Oregon Thursday. I would invite you to crash my hotel but I prefer Rails and I'm not big on personal hygiene :)Ok, seriously ... is your contact info in your profile? I'll get in touch if I'm going. |
What should I do? I work at a tech company who sucks at tech. | pedalpete: I think it depends on how you feel about the company. Why did you take the job originally? was it because the company was a global multi-billion dollar brand? or was it because you thought you could make a difference.Clearly there is opportunity for improvement. If you are capable of making those improvements, and leading a change, this could be hugely beneficial to you in the future. Either with the current company, or when moving to a new company.
Taking initiative (from my experience) has regularly paid back in spades, and where it hasn't it has been an amazing learning experience.Taking on each of the issues you mention
1) This is not entirely a surprise. Excel is surprisingly easy to use for scheduling, and you'd be surprised how many people don't know that there are alternatives. Maybe something as simple as setting up a group calendar and teaching people how to use it would help. (I'm currently building a calendaring app which targets this whole excel thing specifically, so I've got some experience with why people use excel).2) your web sites share storage with your e-mail server? is this a SAN? This just sounds REALLY strange, and I agree it makes it seem like your CTO (or whoever) doesn't have a grasp on things. I'd attack this one directly (though politely) and figure out why this is, maybe explain the dangers, and figure out a migration plan to move e-mails to an appropriate location.3)Why is the database so slow? as you say it is a client database, so I can't imagine it is slow due to the number of records. Is the client database important? By the sounds of things, it isn't. Not everything needs to always be updated.4) I believe this issue is very common at many companies. I think it comes down to communication tools, and protocols for releasing code.As I look at what you're up against, I think you may benefit from writing a one pager about how and why you think fixing these issues is important.
Also, I'd try to get macro, and look at not only how to solve each issue like a task list, but try to find what the common thread is as to why the company has these issues, and what framework/culture/other would not only resolve these issues and others but also prime the company for continued growth.If you can get some people within your company to listen to your plan and get some momentum, you may find yourself helping the company. If you think people in your department aren't interested, you might consider going to HR. It is there job to retain top talent (like yourself), and if you'r e thinking of leaving the company because of these issues, it is possible you aren't the only one. HR may be able to help. |
What should I do? I work at a tech company who sucks at tech. | michaelneale: Q: does the company make its income via billable time of staff? if so, it is a services company (or a tech services company), not a tech company. The difference is subtle to some but makes all the difference in how things work. |
Should I hire a company or build a team from scratch? | CyberFonic: You may wish to think about the ownership of intellectual property and managing of technical team. If you hire a firm, you will need to negotiate the IP and you will probably pay more than if you hire. But of course, you could be up and running faster if you choose the "right firm". If you are thinking of off-shoring, then you need to verify how you will have effective technical management in place and how you will structure the contract, e.g. milestones, deliverables, penalty clauses.There might be a half-way option. Hire someone who has done it all before (verify their claims) and then jointly hire the right firm. |
Is Lockerz.com legit? | mdolon: Lockerz is what made a lot of users on my site (pikagame.com) fanatics about free stuff. They do send out prizes however the process is somewhat shady, as they have a limited quantity and the prizes are only available at a certain time/day (kind of like Woot).It might get you something but honestly it's probably not worth the time. |
Anyone from Iowa? | startupcomment: Check out Silicon Prairie. Maybe there are some pertinent meet up groups in your general vicinity. Given that you are in Iowa City, you should explore the CS Department, Engineering School, and Business School of the University of Iowa. They may have various formal or informal outreach initiatives relevant to the local IT community. With some further digging around, you should be able to make some local / regional connections. |
Make makes nginx so fast ? | davidw: It's an "event based" server written in C, meaning that it uses select or poll or some other 'event based' mechanism to do its work.Erlang might be an interesting choice for your network service, as it allows you to write this sort of code very naturally. It depends on what you're doing, though... Python has some frameworks that work this way, although none so smoothly as what Erlang gives you. Tcl has also had this capability in its core for years, although, like Python, you have to be careful about writing 'blocking' code, something that you don't have to worry about so much in Erlang. |
Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back | erikb85: very nice idea and good looking page. but I don't like to register somewhere for that feature. Make it a facebook app and I will use it! |
Make makes nginx so fast ? | zepolen: Yes, being event based helps a lot, but the reason nginx is faster than other event based webservers is that it tries very very hard to add as little overhead as possible; For example not copying memory around unless absolutely neccessary. |
jQuery sites down? | gexla: They were for me yesterday, but seem to be fine now. |
Books about running a software development contracting / consulting biz? | rguzman: We've been doing that in parallel to our startup for the last year or so. I don't know of any books on the subject, though. Any particular topic you'd like to discuss? |
Whoa - why did Google bork us? | cpg: Well, we found the issue!I started to look at the WMT crawl info and there were a bunch of network unreachable errors.Here is what happened: our site being PR6/7, we started getting a lot of scans for exploits. Some of them over and over. A few months ago I wrote a rule-based procedure to automatically block these IPs at the firewall level.Well, someone had tricked Googlebot into searching our site by using a "break in" URL, so Googlebot fell trap to that and got blocked.Interestingly, most of the access to our site from Google were from one IP and it was blocked for a little while.In the end, since the "admin" site was a copy of the main site, it effectively acted as the backup!We've taken steps in the rules to not block Googlebot :) |
A watch that doesn't suck when typing? | rogermugs: sad i missed these comments until just now.
excellent advice (one of you) |
Is Lockerz.com legit? | thinkbohemian: Why not sign up using a disposable email such as http://whyspam.me (disclosure:developer) and get a P.O. box and try it out. Then you can let us know.WhySpam also tracks spammers and not-legit sites, so you can check to see if someone reported on it already. |
Books about running a software development contracting / consulting biz? | sganesh: Secrets of Consulting & More Secrets of Consulting - Gerald Weinberg.Getting Started in Consulting - Alan WeissYour Marketing Sucks - Mark StevensListen First, Sell Later - Bob PooleE-Myth Revisited - Mark Gerber |
Decent ads for a technical audience? | JayNeely: The problem is "technical audience" is still too broad to guarantee relevance.Relevance is the most important thing when placing ads.If you're really set on using an ad network (rather than managing advertisement yourself) use something that will let you approve and reject specific ads for your site, like http://www.adbrite.com/Props for putting some thought into this, though. |
Decent ads for a technical audience? | kloncks: check www.buysellads.coma lot of the top blogs use that to sell their own ads |
Decent ads for a technical audience? | lsc: I think I can speak to this, as evidenced to the amount of time my 'out of space' sign has been up.First, technical people really don't like feeling like you are manipulating them on an emotional level, so make sure there is some compelling and objective reason your product is better that you can highlight. (for me, that reason is price, but I'm sure you can come up with other things)writing technical articles (or getting others to do so) is pretty good. I didn't ask for it, but Uggedal pretty much launched me last year[1] (that article hit both hn and reddit front pages) - i mean, revenue pretty much went straight from around a grand a month to around six grand a month within 30 days, and it kept going up after that (though not quite at that ridiculous pace.)Getting on the reddit/slashdot/hn front page is incredible.I don't know if I would recommend my next advertising method, as it was goddamn expensive, but I wrote a book[2]that took a while. It was really expensive. But, it did give my company and myself quite a bit of credibility.As far as bannner ads go, I think they are largely useless when compared to reddit. I have had fun playing about with project wonderful on webcomics I like, but that is nothing compared to reddit.[1]http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-...[2]http://nostarch.com/xen.htm |
text editor based on Chrome | shaunxcode: Have you seen bespin? Obviously not directly for chrome but I think that is the direction of the next generation code/text editor. |
How should I pursue my passion? | maxklein: Well, if you're interested in programming 2d running games like Mario or Canabalt with cocos2d, I'd be interested in a partnership. I have a powerful cross-promotion network to push any game. Also have some funds for purchasing graphics, and have hands for manual labour.I think the side-scroller market is a good area to be in in games. |
How should I pursue my passion? | nzmsv: There might also be the option of going to graduate school and working on graphics. A language for geometry/scene graphs sounds like a plausible research project. |
How should I pursue my passion? | tjic: IMO, your passion is far too broad. You like graphics, programming language design, research, and three other things.To be brutal, it sounds like what you're in love with is noodling around, with no particular deliverable.As Jobs said "real artists ship".My two pieces of advice:1) keep honing your ideas until you've got something that is:
* bounded
* achievable
* of interest to someone else
...then try to develop and productize that2) in the mean time, keep the lights on and Ramen cooking by doing some contract work. It's a challenge to keep booked up 40 hrs/week, even if you're trying, so you shouldn't have trouble keeping it down to 20 hrs/week, and working on your passion in the other 20-40. |
How should I pursue my passion? | diiq: As an artist, I can offer a third option: don't try to make money doing what you love.I laid out a budget that would keep me alive --- food, shelter, etc. Essentially, what it would take to be personally ramen-profitable.Then I made a budget of what it would take, minimally, to keep me doing what I think is important.I added them together, then looked for a job that wouldn't exhaust me, and would leave me with that much money. For me, that amount is below the poverty line --- so it's not that hard to find a fast-food job that will keep me above my personal happiness line without wasting too much of my energy. And when I sell some of my art, that money is bonus.I think that if you've discovered the contribution you want to make to society, and if society isn't willing to pay you for it, then don't, for the love of god, cave in! Just give society something that it wants (burgers flipped) and leave your mind and body available for what you know is important.And if something better comes along, you have no reason to regret leaving your job. You can always get another just like it.[edit] If tjic is right, and he might be, then I am wrong. If you're going to do what I just said, be sure that the product of your passion will be worth removing your talents from the market. |
How should I pursue my passion? | csomar: Having passion is not enough, you should work something.I love philosophy and wants to do some free mind thinking, but I couldn't do it all the time. I just take few hours each month, I like playing with Dog, it takes few other hours also.So do whatever thing you like, there's no problem with it. If you don't want to get a 9-5 job, that's Okay, work as a freelance.You can make a lot building apps for iphone, software for windows and services for the web. This will make you busy and you'll work on things you love since it's you who decide which thing to build/code and you are taking %100 profit from it (and it's yours!! yay)In your free time (will depend on your earnings), you can either build the next big thing (startup) if your dream is to become a millionaire, or just spend time studying gravity and other things you may love. |
Good (computer) networking books? | rmk: Computer Networking, A systems approach.A great book. Highly recommended.http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networks-Third-Approach-Netwo...Of course, one of the classics is this one:Internetworking with TCP/IP vol. 1.http://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-Vol-1-Principles-A...Edit:
If you are considering Linux, then the implementation is discussed here. I would not suggest this, unless you are actually hacking. In that case, this is okay:http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Network-Internals-Christ... |
How should I pursue my passion? | jeromec: I'm a big believer that passion can translate into making money on the Internet. Passionately working on something is inherently valuable - that is, it's at least valuable to the designer and others possibly as well. The trick is merging passion with something either highly valuable, or having value to many people. For example, being passionate about how bacteria forms on pennies may not yield much future by itself, but tweaking that passion to possibly an area of study for solutions to handling germ ridden objects like money could be quite profitable. You already have one of the best things I can suggest: a blog. This enables your potential value to be found. (one note: try having at least one picture for every entry) Next, think of how you might fit your passion in with existing lucrative areas. Last, continue to network/reach out to others, including those that might back your passion financially. It may take months, or years to cash in, but chances are you'd work on your passion anyway, and I believe that's a great precursor to success. |
Review my dispoable email & spam tracking app | thinkbohemian: WhySpam.Me is my latest entry in to the disposable email field. For free we provide many common features that other competitors charge for. Our goal is to be the authority on website legitimacy. We hope by providing an outlet to vent about corporations treatment of their customers email inbox, we can raise awareness and eventually hold accountable those same corporations. |
How should I pursue my passion? | prospero: It sounds like we have similar interests; I've been working on a library for Clojure which wraps OpenGL and allows for shader programming in an idiomatic DSL. It's been a lot of fun to develop, and I agree that graphics programming has a tremendous amount of incidental complexity. Trimming away the fat is a deeply satisfying experience.I don't really have the same commercial ambitions as you, but a few things to consider w.r.t. your first option (developing a graphics engine):* Lots of people have a vague ambition to create a game. The number of those who will spend money towards that end is much, much smaller.* Any graphics engine worth purchasing will need to implement a lot of "boring" stuff. You can probably punt on AI, but fonts, audio, and menu systems are non-negotiable.* It will be pretty hard to sell a graphics engine if there's not a prominent success story to go along with it. That means you'll have to create a popular-ish game, or convince someone else to.If you can support yourself on part-time consulting, go for it. But make sure any work you do on your own time is worthwhile in and of itself, rather than with respect to some future payoff that may never happen. |
How should I pursue my passion? | andrewcooke: random probably impractical suggestion, but if you like scheme, maybe you'd like smalltalk (they're both "purist" languages). and, if so, maybe research at wherever alan kay is these days. at one point that's what he was doing (interactive 3d worlds etc).[edit: ps, also, if you don't have kids and are experienced you can actually do pretty well at a day job plus your own projects. i do it, and as far as i know the people i work for are happy. my day job is contracting, but on long projects and it's typically a mix of "the usual" and stuff that requires fairly serious thought (typically numerical). at the same time i have worked on side projects pretty much constantly - on the python parser "lepl" for over a year, most recently. obviously if you have a partner they have to be understanding (and/or equally obsessed with their own thing). i think one helps the other - when work is tedious, side projects stop me from going crazy; when work requires effort side projects get work on web design... i enjoy both. i may be the very lucky expception, of course.] |
Does "Think And Grow Rich" really apply to the Software industry? | thinkbohemian: I certainly hope so. Though Napoleon's recommendations are a very high level theory of what happens in reality. It is therefore necessary to have low level knowledge about both your own software, and the market you are trying to enter.As most of HN will agree, there is no substitute for experience. |
Review my dispoable email & spam tracking app | thinkbohemian: Any comments, or thoughts? From UI, to usability, to economics. I'm interested in what you have to say... |
Review my dispoable email & spam tracking app | lambdom: It sounds interesting and I like the idea. However, in your videos, you talk a lot about spam, but with gmail, I really don't have that much.I could use the app when a site ask for my personnal email and I don't want to give it, but then, I already have "trashes" email serving that purpose.As I said, I like the idea but I think it misses the killer feature which would really force me to use it. |
How should I pursue my passion? | vital101: I was lucky enough to find a job doing something that I love. Have you given much thought to finding a full-time job where you could do 2D/3D real time graphics? At the very least, you could be satisfied with the work you're doing AND have money to live on. You could even go to grad school part-time and get started on that research you are so passionate about. In any case, best of luck. |
How should I pursue my passion? | messel: I'd keep shaving at the one thing that draws your interest the most with every spare moment until it's super sharp. Whether it's redesigning a graphics engine with Scheme or otherwise.In the meantime, work with a friendly startup and start building up your skills/network, or consult to pay the bills. I'd avoid a big company job unless the culture is super. |
Access to PG? | JayNeely: I'd suggest 3 methods that might get you a good result:1) E-mail pg@ycombinator.com, taking note of his advice from http://paulgraham.com/info.htmlSince you're in Boston, ask if he'll be here anytime in the next couple of months, and if you could buy him a coffee before / after whatever he's doing. Or, since pg's super-focused on the valley, you could plan a trip to San Francisco, try to pack it full of meetings with other people to maximize value, and ask pg if there's a time during one of your trip days when you could swing by for a chat.2) If you're more patient, setup Google Alerts / Twitter search RSS feed for "Paul Graham Boston", "Paul Graham speaking at", "Paul Graham scheduled", "Paul Graham presenting at", "site:eventbrite.com Paul Graham", etc. to try and stay aware of what events he's going to, and see if you can attend.3) Network with some YC founders, and see if they'll introduce you. Surely with as many startups as YC has funded, there are people working on things that you could provide value to, and would be interested in what you're working on.Good luck! |
Access to PG? | bhousel: There are a ton of startup incubator programs and investor lists and VC blogs and tech meetups out there that could connect you with mentors and advisors.If you think a 5 minute conversation with PG is going to dramatically affect the success or failure of your venture, I think you might want to broaden your search - there are plenty of other resources out there for new entrepreneurs. You should probably be looking to talk to anyone out there who will listen to you about your idea -- PG is just one guy. |
When did the Internet get so slimey? | olefoo: Weird, I remember 1994-1999 as being full of people selling sketchy get-rich-quick schemes that used the "information superhighway". The spam wars, the invention of domain squatting, and the rise of online porn as a mega-industry happened during that time too.The internet is a tool of great power, but it magnifies our flaws just as much as our virtues. |
When did the Internet get so slimey? | bilbo0s: Let me preface this by saying that I do agree with your assertion that a large number of 'internet' or 'web 2.0' companies today get a large amount of their money via less than honorable business models.Having mentioned that, I am now going to engage in some 'what aboutery' even though I know that it is frowned on here at HN.You see, the ENTIRE dot-com time period was a gigantic scam. The dot-com guys were far worse than the Zynga-types because Zynga is only scamming their customers, whereas these dot-coms were scamming the public markets via crappy IPOs that the dot-com guys knew were crappy. When the music stopped guys like Naveen Jain, (InfoSpace), were left without a chair while guys like pmarca did the smart thing and got out early. The fact that companies today have to scam their customers is a direct consequence of the fact that they can no longer go public and scam some little old lady via her pension fund manager. But really...which is worse?It is human nature to be fond when remembering the past, and still, the past was rarely as fond as we remember it.Again, this is not to excuse what goes on today. I have recommended several times that people take a pass on investments because if the business models are already dodgy, they can only get worse. But let's be honest when comparing the now with the then, this brutal honesty is really what teaches us lessons. |
When did the Internet get so slimey? | DanielBMarkham: I recently placed a Jeep on Craigslist for sale.Within hours my inbox had an email from another "CL'er""Hey man, you still got that for sale?""yes"Within seconds, the reply came: "You're asking too little for that. Check out this website XXX to see what I mean"This was cute the first time, but after a dozen times (with varying and more sophisticated social pitches) it wasn't so much fun any more.Here's the kicker: I probably know some of the guys doing this. You probably know some of them too. I know for a fact some of them are HN'ers. These are guys who started out wanting to change the world for the better, and now they're writing bots to skim a few cents at a time off tens of thousands of people.I'm not going to say "get off my lawn, kids!" but I honestly don't know if the benefits of the net are going to outweigh the drawbacks. Do we transform into lots of super-intelligent man-machines? Or one big collective lump of fat sitting in our easy chairs, unable and unwilling to move and engage the real world? |
Should I choose a managed or unmanaged VPS? | xist: IMHO, if you need to ask, then managed is the way to go ;)In all seriousness, I would agree that your time might be better spent elsewhere. There's only so many hours in a day and if you're using it to generate income, your time is better spent elsewhere than playing around with things.Security aspects are the most timeconsuming part of managing even a test server. Installing software and configuring it is a walk in the park compared to doing the dance with all the script kiddiez out there.
Good Luck! |
Access to PG? | gane5h: I mostly wanted to meet the YC folks in person to see what it's all about.So, I applied to Startup School last year and got in. I went to the YC offices afterwards to hang out. I had read almost all of his essays and also Founders@Work, so I didn't have to bore them with the same old questions. My questions were mostly about Canadian startups, and the statistics on how many applied and how many moved back. I was also at a different stage than you are, so my questions were also around how to figure out what people want, etc. |
Review my new e-commerce model: self-serve group discounts | compumike: 2-minute video demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4vVhaUj8r0Our live website:
http://www.nerdkits.com/buckits/Plus this morning's press release with more details:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/02/prweb3632034.htm |
Review my new e-commerce model: self-serve group discounts | yuanthelottery: Yeah, I get it. Personally, I am an avid skier, and I'd love to use this product to get together with fellow skiers/snowboarders and take advantage of existing steep discounts in group lift tickets. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.