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Getting a job with few references? | malbiniak: I'm going into this knowing that it's probably below the level you're applying for, but it's been OK to state "references available upon request" in your cover letter or resume. In my experience, references are generally checked after the first round of interviews, and that gives you the opportunity to tactfully tell your story.Then again, I've got a great track record of working for poorly managed companies, so maybe the good ones ask for them up front ;)Last resort, references are as much about your integrity as they are your technical abilities. There's nobody you've looked at as a mentor, advisor, or trusted peer over the past few years? |
Getting a job with few references? | patio11: I would start thinking in terms of how I could make a blog, OSS project, or publicly visible code which would make a case for "Why You Should Hire Me" so strongly that you wouldn't bother contacting my references.We're in an industry which needs to administer FizzBuzz in interviews. How hard do you think it will be to make something that will conclusively demonstrate you are better than the next ten people who they'll have to ask to FizzBuzz? |
Getting a job with few references? | jeffmould: I am curious as to why you think you can't ask for a reference simply because the company is small? References are not about the size of the company, but instead ensuring that who you say you are is really true. When I first started in the industry my only references were from high school jobs at fast food places and small restaurants. Nothing related to IT or the job I was applying for. These references though all concurred that I was a hard-working, reliable employee, who would take on extra responsibilities, always willing to work, never called in sick, etc... That is what a reference is truly about. Finally, companies will typically only ask for 3-4 references, and even then most of the time they do not have to all be work related. |
Getting a job with few references? | dustingetz: if your work stands for itself, and you can provide a character/hard worker reference, i doubt it's much of an issue. |
Would you buy datasets of Web authoring methods & the Web's structure? | olalonde: What would be interesting would be to let users hook their own custom functions to your web crawler. In other words, whenever you crawl a link, you feed the link to the developer's script which does whatever it wants with it. I've had plenty of ideas that would involve a web crawler, but I just don't have the time to customize an open source crawler. There are too many complications like not falling into infinite loops (such as a calendar type pages). |
Getting a job with few references? | ax0n: In these situations: Getting published or landing a talk at a well-known conference helps. So do certifications and degrees, as much as I hate to say it.A lot of the questions asked of your references are less about what you know and how good you are at a given technical skill, and more about work ethic, how you think, disposition, and how well you work on a team, under pressure, and what you do during downtime at work. These are the kinds of thing that any previous supervisors, mentors or co-workers could answer. |
Best payment gateway for storing credit cards? | Travis: I use the authorize CIM for this purpose. It works well. It's just an additional monthly fee on top of the other stuff you pay, so it's not any more expensive to charge cards you have stored. |
Getting a job with few references? | tom_b: Or just put your resume out there to jobs that seem like good fits. I recently had a very odd interview experience where despite offering multiple times to provide references (and code samples) I was never asked for either.And got a pretty big offer anyway. The whole deal was atypical in my experience and I'm not sure I'd recommend taking a job where the reference question isn't even asked.Also, go ahead and use your old references. Interviewers should be able to ferret out your tech skills and the references just prove you weren't an ax murderer at your old jobs. |
Would you buy datasets of Web authoring methods & the Web's structure? | il: Send me an email to ilya [at] unviral.com about this, I would be very interested in talking about applying this for tracking ad campaigns and correlating with some of the data I have been collecting.There's definitely a lucrative market for this if your crawling and data can be targeted enough. |
How do I accept all major credit cards when not based in the US? | marcamillion: By the way...just to update this thread. So I have both a Wachovia and Bank of America account.Apparently Bank of America allows you to order wire transfers online - through their 'transfer' feature. These orders can also be standing orders. I think this will suffice for what I need in the near-term.BOA's website has this to say about SafePass and transfers:With SafePass, your daily limit will increase from $1,000 to $10,000.Your weekly limit will increase from $2,500 to $20,000. Note: U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management or Premier clients may have higher transfer limits. Please contact your Relationship or Client Manager for more information on your limits.Thanks for all the feedback and tips. |
How do I accept all major credit cards when not based in the US? | marcamillion: Here is a link to some FAQ's for BOA.https://www.bankofamerica.com/www/en_US/eas-docs/cfc-help/he...Although I can't find the part about the limit of $10K. Maybe it is just for my type of account - free student checking. Will have to upgrade the account some time soon, I imagine. |
Do you understand your operating system? | kbob: There are some things I understand. I've written parts of Unix/Linux virtual memory, network stacks, process management, threads, interrupt handlers, synchronization primitives, TTY line disciplines, various kinds of device drivers. I've debugged parts of block I/O systems, file systems, NFS client and server, CPU schedulers. I feel like I understand those.There are things I don't understand. I don't know the I/O architecture of a PC nor how the OS integrates with the BIOS. I don't know how the subdirectories of linux/drivers/ are organized, even at the first level. I've never designed a filesystem, and suspect there are subtleties I don't appreciate.I never bought Bill Gates' testimony during US vs Microsoft that an operating system includes its web browser. In my arrogant opinion, an OS starts and ends with the kernel. So the next question is, how much do I understand about the rest of the platform? It varies.I do know how the X11 protocol works, how the classic X server worked, how Xt intrinsics work. Do understand the classic Unix utilities and libc and their modern GNU reimplementations.Don't know how an RDBMS works inside. Haven't kept up to date with compiler optimizations. Don't know how debug info is stored in object file and executables or even exactly what it is. Don't have any idea how that huge pile of libraries in GNOME (or KDE) is organized. Have only a vague idea of how the current X server is organized.Even though the last (and first) time I implemented a page fault handler was 1986, I feel like I understand what they have to do, why, and what data structures they need. I'm sure the specifics are very different in any of today's OSes than they were in 4.3BSD, but I don't think that matters. OTOH, I think most of my graphics knowledge is obsolete.So, in sum, I partly understand my OS. (-: |
Discovering new music? | Roridge: Not quite what you are looking for perhaps, but I use http://blip.fmI have found that very useful for finding new music by following (like Twitter) users who post songs I like, then then daily I get to hear new songs I haven't heard. I have got into lots of new bands that way. http://blip.fm/MCFlurry |
Would you buy datasets of Web authoring methods & the Web's structure? | coderdude: Update: I created a landing page for the time being: http://webscaled.com/ |
Discovering new music? | zen53: http://hypem.com/#/popular |
Discovering new music? | navjotpawera: + Spotify gives me a lot of flexibility and choice (when I know what I want to listen to, or if I can spend sometime to go through the "related/alike" artists and dig some) It's replaced Itunes almost completely for me.+ Last.fm is not built too well IMO to discover new music+ Been trying to go back to radio. AOL stopped streaming outside the US. Yahoo still works.+ Been trying to follow a few Music magazine/ Music label blogs which has proved to be the best way to "discover" new music. Completely automated services are too, well automated. Such as: http://www.sixdegreesrecords.com/ , http://www.juice.com.sg/music/ |
Discovering new music? | amrtn: what about http://www.thesixtyone.com? |
Discovering new music? | aw3c2: http://www.jamendo.comJust be open minded and try a couple of albums each day. You will surely find something that appeals your ears/mind and you won't have to pay a dime. |
Review my Homemade Gift Ideas site | tome: Clickable link: http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/ |
Discovering new music? | dnsworks: I go to a lot of shows, at least 4-6 per month. 1/2 of them have at least one band I've seen before, the other 1/2 I choose based on logistics and the club. I ask at each merch booth if they have anything available on itunes, if not then I'll buy a CD .. I found an incredible band this way last week, the InCiters. |
Discovering new music? | recurser: I don't mean to promote piracy or derail the discussion, but if you're a what.cd member you can usually find interesting new stuff by watching the daily and weekly top 10 lists. Also, searching by tag for your favourite genres and sorting by seeders often reveals stuff you may have missed in the past. |
Discovering new music? | ZeroGravitas: You ask for "new music" but in the longer question you seem to be asking for music that is new to you, two very different things.I'm more interested in finding good music, than new (produced in the last X years) music, in fact I probably have a distinct preference for older music so with that in mind here's some techniques I use.Last.fm has "similar to artist X" radio but I think it's actually "people who listen to Artist X also listen to" radio which I find gives good results as long as you don't choose highly popular artists (or those that are listened to by boring people) as that seems to average things out to the point that I've already heard the music and nothing surprises me. For my tastes I found "music that is listened to by people who listen to Eels" was interesting. It also worked with "Sly and the Family Stone". What I peronally like about this is that it's a mix of stuff I know and like with new and interesting music so the new stuff gets a chance to creep up on me.BBC Radio 6 Music is basically a bunch of musos playing good tunes. So good in fact that they're alledgedly going to kill it soon in some big reshuffle, enjoy it while it lasts.http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/Since they log every track they play on last.fm you can also listen to BBC Radio 6 style music on Last.fm here:http://www.last.fm/listen/user/bbc6music/personalMy own personal fave tactic is to research my favourite bands and listen to the music they liked (including who they cover, namecheck, sample, work with etc.). This rarely lets me down. It also helps to have a circle of friends doing likewise as it can be time intensive. |
Collection of UI Examples? | kilian: Here are a couple of good sites on design patterns for various components, with nice examples:http://www.welie.com/patterns/http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/ (obviously)http://ui-patterns.com/ |
Collection of UI Examples? | toni: Check out Chris Messina's extensive collections on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/collections/ |
Discovering new music? | jrnkntl: I like to listen to 22tracks. These are lists in different kinds of genres with selected songs by a number of DJs in Amsterdam. I discover new music this way everyday in genres I'd normally never listen to. http://www.22tracks.com |
Discovering new music? | 1331: South by Southwest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_by_Southwest) is an Austin, Texas music festival which showcases bands that play a wide range of music. Artist bios and MP3s are put on the website (http://sxsw.com/music), and there are also unofficial torrents (http://sites.google.com/site/sxswtorrent/2010) for convenience. With gigabytes of publicly-available music, there is a lot to discover! |
Discovering new music? | danparsonson: I can recommend SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com/tracks) |
Discovering new music? | rosejn: Tryout http://kgnu.org if you want to expand your horizons. They have a live stream and a back catalog from the last two weeks of shows. It's a non-profit station in Boulder, Co, and they get hundreds of new CDs a month representing every kind of international music and out-there genre you could imagine. Jazz and beyond, musica mundi, jam sandwich, reggae blood-lines, old-grass/new-grass, and african roots are some of my favorites. The morning and afternoon sound alternatives vary a lot, but once you find DJs you like you can track them. You won't find any top 40 or pop, but you wouldn't have asked this question if that's what you wanted. |
Collection of UI Examples? | pdebruic: http://patterntap.com/
http://designinformer.com/how-to-drastically-improve-your-de... |
Discovering new music? | meurkens: I'd suggest Twones (http://twones.com). But maybe that's because I work for them. ;-) |
Discovering new music? | MikeW: http://hypem.com is probably my favourite simply because I've learned of so much music I've bought because of that site. I especially love the remixes and mashups.https://old.thesixtyone.com is also a pretty good site for finding interesting music. |
Discovering new music? | WorkerBee: Spotify allows you to make and share playlists. I think last.fm does too. Get playlists from friends (it's like a mix tape, only hi-tech), if you like a track, click through and listen to some more of the band's output.Listen to the radio. (I mean on the internet). My favourite for this is radio paradise. http://www.radioparadise.com/ |
Discovering new music? | ndc: It's odd that nobody has mentioned Pandora yet:
http://www.pandora.com/Put one song in, and it will give a set of songs that are similar to your song, with explanation why it thinks they are similar.Too bad it is available only if you are browsing from US IP address. |
Discovering new music? | diN0bot: listen to good radio stations. i recommend local, college ones. |
Discovering new music? | DanielStraight: I like http://www.cdbaby.com and sister site http://www.payplay.fm. |
Discovering new music? | gyardley: I recommend reading some good review blogs over anything algorithmic.I also really like Blalock's Indie Rock Playlist (http://blalocksirp.com/) - a hand-curated torrent with over a hundred songs a month. I go through it while working or exercising, flag anything that I like, and then check those bands out later. But that only works for the indie genre. |
Discovering new music? | rdtsc: Try listening to internet radio. If you hear a song you like, look up the artist and buy the album.My favorite station is: http://somafm.com.If you like electronic music also try http://www.philosomatika.com.Check out archive.org's live music archive: http://www.archive.org/details/etree.For classical music: http://theclassicalstation.org |
Discovering new music? | pstinnett: A couple of weeks ago I launched Pitchforked, which creates a random playlist of tracks from Pitchfork.com's Best New Music section. http://www.pitchforked.com. |
Discovering new music? | matrix: One approach that works for me: search for play lists on grooveshark.com that have songs that you like. Sometimes people put together play lists with other interesting songs on them (and sometimes they're rubbish, but such is the nature of exploration). |
Discovering new music? | larrywright: I discover a lot of new music from people I follow on Twitter, many of whom link to Youtube videos or Last.fm tracks. VC Fred Wilson (familiar to most here, I would imagine) is a good example of someone who tweets about what he's listening to regularly. I've discovered a number of new artists and sub-genres that way.As far as discovering new artists in genres that I really like, you can't beat Pandora. |
Designing a Database | fragmede: Make sure you've read Wikipedia's article on normalizing databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | gchucky: At http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1085721 it looks like some people wrote a Greasemonkey script to remove iPad stories. Maybe you could adapt that JS to your liking? |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | michael_dorfman: Is it really necesary to hide posts? Is it such a distraction to just skip over the stories that are not interesting to you?I ask because on a good day, I'm interested in maybe half of the stories on the front page, and it's always been that way for me. I thought it was the same for everyone... |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | raganwald: p.s. Sorry about the whining. I haven't finished my first coffee of the day :-( |
Discovering new music? | jriddycuz: Read about the development and individuals involved with the history of different types of music. I suggest this because you probably won't instantly like styles of music that are significantly different from what you already listen to. For example, if you're not familiar with jazz, listening to an acclaimed classic like Miles Davis' Kind of Blue might strike you as boring, or as just cool mood music, but when you have developed an ear for it, it's mind blowing.Unfortunately, it seems like there is a sore lack of good criticism--critical studies of music that attempt to understand the music more than rate it--and this is especially true of popular music (pop, rock, rap, country, electronica, etc.). I can think of one place that's really good for rock history: Only Solitaire (http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm). That guy's opinions are certainly not the last word on that music, but he does do a good job of putting artists and albums in context. For other kinds of music, maybe start with a Wikipedia article and go from there and see what you find. |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | pook: A naive bookmarklet isn't what you really want.What you ideally want is a personal karma filter. A way to track your interests client-side in addition to the HN sieve. "Clickety on the Ignore button and goodbye human interest stories involving douche*"How to make one securely, though, can be a bit of a problem. |
Discovering new music? | abyssknight: Pandora.com and thesixtyone are pretty much it for me. I have the Pandora One subscription, and I have that running almost 40 hours a week. If I hear something I like, I create a station for it.Last.fm had a sweet obscurity filter that would give you crazy indie band music, which was a nice feature. |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | bgraves: We just need 24 hours of pure <insert obscure, fringe technology here> stories.I think we've used Erlang in the past (no offense to the Erlangers, obviously) |
Designing a Database | tom_b: Do you need your system to be transaction-oriented (think ATMs and banking) or analytic (for doing slice and dice reporting of data)? You'll do well to check out normalization for the first and understand star schemas for the second.It's awesome you are thinking about db design upfront, just think about what your data will be, how it will be used, and how you will want to move it around for your app. Don't discount not using a db at all (and I'm a db guy for work) - for one of my current projects, I'm simply dumping small data objects into individual JSON files. Easy to fetch with Ruby/Sinatra and easy for the GUI part of the app to play with (Javascript eats up JSON on that side). Not to discount Rails at all, but going with a minimal toolset like Ruby/Sinatra/Sequel might be just the ticket for you roll simple web apps really quickly.Heck, this forum uses flat files for storing submissions, comments, and user data. |
Getting a job with few references? | abyssknight: Honestly, you shouldn't have a problem. For your references, usually personal relationships and contacts are fine for early in your career. If they ask if they can call your current employer say no, and explain that they don't know you are looking. Most employers will understand that, and will be fine with it.The best thing you can do is prepare a short portfolio of links, and publicly facing projects. Because your reference list is short, you need to be able to demonstrate your work instead. Your personality will show up during the phone and face to face interviews.That said, my last position's interview was so simple it confused me. They just asked if I worked with the technology they used, and if I was interested in learning some new stuff. A few questions to gauge my experience, and I was in. Once you're in the door, at your desk, is when the real interview begins. Here in Florida you can be let go without a reason, and most companies do a contract-to-hire these days for that reason. |
Do you sneak workouts in at work? | wushupork: Just to start something, I try to sneak in stuff in the elevator, sometimes I stretch. I figure if people can take smoking breaks, I should be able to get up and walk around or stretch out a bit. |
Discovering new music? | Roridge: Someone just posted this on HN
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161919
http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/It might help you find some new music branching off bands you already like... it's pretty cool. |
Do you sneak workouts in at work? | roedog: I schedule a "meeting" in my calendar in the middle of the day. Then I use that time to leave the office and exercise at the gym. This also tends to prevent someone from inviting me to a meeting at that time. I find it really perks me up in the middle of the afternoon when I tend to drag.At the large company where I work it is not unusual to be elsewhere on site for a meeting. So, I have not asked for permission. However, I do know my boss does the same thing. |
Are there any Chrome extensions to hide HN stories? | dhrasmus: You could try using Yahoo Pipes with some keywords to filter out stories you won't be interested in. That'll create another RSS (or ATOM?) feed that you can share with others of similar taste. |
Do you sneak workouts in at work? | lhorie: This is not technically "at" work, but I recently started walking to work instead of taking the subway |
Please Review my Web App: DealFan.com | pedalpete: decently clean, and super easy to understand.
I think it would be REALLY nice to have categories, as browsing all deals can get a bit much.Really nice start Kris.I assume you'll be adding a way for people to sign-up/sign-in and vote up the deals? I don't see that on the site right now.This may be a good place to implement facebook connect, as you'll get a nice viral push as well. |
Now that Joel and Yegge have quit blogging, who are you reading? | spooneybarger: some stuff i always did as i never really read either one of them. i'm not interested in the opinions of celebrities in the non-tech world and i'm not interested in the tech world.from time to time i've read a joel or yegge or pg post but i don't religiously seek them out. |
Assassination Robots | Semiapies: I think your premise is wrong - constant surveillance did jack-all to prevent this assassination and will continue to be little deterrent. Surveillance doesn't often detect crimes/attacks before or even during their commission. It's primarily good for piecing events together after-the-fact.Until behavior-analysis and/or facial recognition become ready for primetime so that a hotel security's gets an alert saying, "possible organized covert activity by these people", such operations will only continue. |
Possible for Non-hacker to learn iPhone dev? | mbrubeck: It's as good a place as any to start. All real programming is complex, and at least the iPhone has good development tools and documentation. Having a goal in mind is the most important part, and you've got that. |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | johns: Working on a Chrome extension? |
Please Review my Web App: DealFan.com | kadder: nice n simple UI. But i cant post a deal i found somewhere ? or create my own deal |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | marksbren: This looks useful for hardcore fantasy sports fans. However, I have always felt like Fantasy Sports need a lower barrier to entry for fans, not tools to make hardcore fantasy players better. As a casual sports fan I can definitely see the appeal of Fantasy Sports, but whenever I enter a league with friends I still get dominated, which is no fun. I think there could be a huge market for simpler, social Fantasy Sports games. |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | ironblunt: i see that you take our credentials for yahoo and you take us to the url to add a player. Can you actually, post the transaction for us as well? Or are you giving the users the chance to review the change before submitting? |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | jpalmer: I like this a lot. I built a much less polished version of this for my use last year which only supported ESPN fantasy mashed up with footballguys.com ranking data. I didn't immediately see but are you planning on charging for this? |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | imp: Congrats on the launch. I saw the presentation for this at the FSTA conference and thought it was a great demo. I'm glad to see that the add-on is as good as it looked on stage. |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | baran: Really like the idea. Will be a great additional to cheat sheet sites like http://www.fftoolbox.com (I know the owners, which is why I use this particular link).I cant tell you how many hours I've spend going through Waiver Wire lists to check and see if they are available in my leagues. Will definitely be using this when fantasy football starts back up again! |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | andrewcooke: maybe the one place where you really shouldn't follow a strict grid is when you are using overlays. the darker box that contains the video is seen as being "on top" of the main title area. but the top of the video is aligned with the end of the title area. that makes the lower edge of the title area "carry across" into the overlay, which is confusing.if you move the video down slightly then it will look more convincing / natural / real. you might also try moving the dark area right a little, so that the title area "sticks" out to the right. moving the entire dark area down slightly would also give the descenders in the title text a little more room (there's the same problem on the left below "better picks today" - are you trying to squeeze too much in "above the fold"?). you could gain some space by moving to a white background and losing the middle (white) layer / frame (yeah, like everyone else - but perhaps that's why...)to me it looks very much like you / your designer has been following "grids" without thinking about when they make sense (although otherwise it does look pretty good / clean - just the small details that look odd).also, why the huge footer (ff)? |
Do you sneak workouts in at work? | Poiesis: I bike to work. I highly recommend it. It takes me about 10 minutes longer in the morning, 5 in the afternoon. The difference is a bit more with low traffic, less (or even favoring the bicycle) with high traffic. For those 15 extra minutes daily, I get 2x25 minutes of high-intensity, low impact aerobic workout. I don't pay for gas. I have a dirt cheap car because I don't care about its gas mileage, etc. I can focus much better after the morning workout. I don't have to "sneak" anything. :)And: I can't get out of the afternoon workout. Gotta get home! |
Worth the risk to accept volunteer contributions to for profit business? | dryicerx: Have the volunteer release his work/part under MIT license, then you can use it for whatever you want (open source or within closed source proprietary stuff). Another option is simply paying him a small sum, just so it would have been compensated work. |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | jsm386: Love the idea. A mobile version would be killer.Some SEO suggestions. Turn your primary text into text. What are you: 'The ultimate fantasy sports assistant.' That should be your H1 text. All your subheaders should be H2s - or whatever, but not multiple H1 tags.If you can, all that text up there should be text if possible. It will go a long way. As a recently addicted fantasy football player, I can tell you people are searching for words that you've turned into graphics. On a small marketing budget nothing beats free traffic. SEO shouldn't be a focus, but it is worth the small time investment to do the basic things - the terms NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL or words baseball, football, basketball, hockey never appear on your index! |
Now that Joel and Yegge have quit blogging, who are you reading? | mbrubeck: See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1159352 |
Please review my startup (fantasy sports mashup) | jolie: Facebook Connect, anyone?It'd eliminate the account creation hurdle and allow you to get more users involved right off the bat through discriminating sharing of data on users' Walls/Profiles. |
Possible for Non-hacker to learn iPhone dev? | khelloworld: I suggest you start here:http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-2-0-Stephen-Ko...Perhaps you can move to the book you have after you are reasonably comfortable with objective-c (and a little bit of cocoa).Good luck. |
Now that Joel and Yegge have quit blogging, who are you reading? | joeycfan: Oh boy, a chance to upgrade my ass-sucking skills!Why, I'm reading Hacker News on ycombinator, of course! And boy, is it ever great!I shall go far in this world.... |
Do you sneak workouts in at work? | Maven911: we have a gym at work, so I just go to the gym at work during lunch. Its a really nice perk to have. |
Reliable International SMS gateway with API (other than Clickatell)? | dkersten: The company I work for ocasionally does SMS campaigns (eg text-in competitions) and they recently switched from Clickatell to TynTec[1].[1] http://www.tyntec.com/ |
Can a very skilled quitter make good money? | BobbyH: pg and others have repeatedly said that persistence is a vital trait for a successful founder to have: http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html.My own experience is that persistence is extremely important. If I were to give you (I mean, your friend) advice, I would say that he needs to work his way up to being persistent for a lot longer than three weeks. Three years seems like a bare minimum.Having said that, maybe your friend can hack his own motivation system. For instance, he could sign a contract with somebody that says if he flakes out on a project, he has to pay some kind of penalty payment. |
Can a very skilled quitter make good money? | gizmo: As you know this is a very common problem, so there's nothing really new or insightful we can offer as advice.As the saying goes: "Thought leads to action, action leads to habit, and habits lead to character". So whenever you want to make any kind of change (however insubstantial ) you have to change your habits.A few assorted thoughts (google for more info):1. don't break the chain2. team up with a natural finisher3. be aware that most people can't do anything without external pressure4. put yourself in a situation where failing doesn't become an option5. make a list of what you want to do. Yes, even if you already know exactly what you have to do. Complete some item on the list every hour.6. watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P785j15TzkBy now Your Friend should be busy on the project that's going to change the world. |
I created a landing page to find potential customers. Any tips? | pedalpete: I'm actually at the same stage, so I can't offer too much advice, a few quick things.1) I like your design, company name, branding, etc. well done2) I'd re-write 'marketplace for datasets of the Web's structure, like the entire link graph (in chunks, of course)'. You didn't describe it that way in this post, you just said 'datasets from ongoing web crawls'. That is WAY easier to understand. I'd use that as a starting point. Just tell people what it is that the site does, or more important, what it can do for them.3) along with the previous remark, your keywords can use some work. use the google adwords tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. you've got 'datasets' when in fact, 'dataset' has 10x as many searches. I'm sure you can get better descriptors as well.Keep up the good work! |
Can a very skilled quitter make good money? | MaysonL: IPhone apps, iPad apps, Android apps. |
Question about startup salary | kqr2: Read this recent thread/article and reexamine your equity position:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1151743Also, read this:http://www.tonywright.com/2008/a-newbies-guide-to-startup-co...What is your % stake in the company? If you aren't getting a good piece of equity then I would push for a market rate salary based on your position and years of experience. |
Question about startup salary | starkfist: No, that is not a reasonable offer. It is a typical offer, though. |
Chrome Can't Make Attachments in GMail? | sorbus: Chromium 4.0.249.78 (36714), Arch linux, installed a week or two ago (so pretty much the latest)Works perfectly; it's just you.Have you tried sending just a plain text file of maybe a KB max to yourself? Perhaps google is blocking whatever you're trying to send; have you done the same in firefox? Or on a different operating system?... wait, this is HN, not a Chrome support site/helpdesk. Perhaps you should ask them? Submit a bug, try to reproduce the issue on another system, etc. |
Question about startup salary | ismarc: Something else to remember is that when they get acquired, depending on where you moved to as they grew, you're left with a crappy payout and either get eliminated by the buying company or you're stuck with a well below market rate salary stuck at the company's "max annual increase" which usually tops out at 10%. Essentially, get salary reevaluation at set intervals locked into a contract with the salary adjustments only allowed upwards and based on your past and company performance. |
I created a landing page to find potential customers. Any tips? | il: If I hadn't read your previous HN post, I would have no idea what your site does. It needs more descriptive content to clarify the immediate benefits of your app.If you're running it on Adwords, unless you want your campaign slapped in a few days, you need:
1. More text on page
2. Privacy policy/ contact us on bottom
3. Basic SEO- top keywords in h1 tags or at least in text |
Question about startup salary | csspixel: 75k is not bad, considering "abt 4 years of experience". I would say make sure to enjoy working there before anything else. |
Worth the risk to accept volunteer contributions to for profit business? | xasper8: I worked at a for profit company as an unpaid intern in college, just for experience. The experience/letter of recommendation was my compensation - legally or morally would there be a difference in your case? |
Looking for interns / entry level? | rads: I'm a freshman majoring in CS at Wisconsin-Madison looking for an internship this summer. I'm experienced in Ruby/Rails and PHP, and I have some experience in Clojure and Java. Location isn't too important. My email is rjsmith9@wisc.edu |
Is it legal/easy for a foreigner to open a bank account in the US? | foldr: You certainly don't need to be a US citizen to have a US bank account, but they would want you to show ID and give a US address if you want to open an account in the normal way. Not sure what other options there are. |
Is it legal/easy for a foreigner to open a bank account in the US? | sliverstorm: From what I've read, you need to present a SSN, or present yourself face-to-face to open an account. As I presume you can do neither of these...Perhaps, if you have a very trusted operative living in the US they could take responsibility for the transfers? Although, sadly your email might read much like a Nigerian scam! :) Minus the poor grammar and spelling errors. And the claims of royal blood. |
Is it legal/easy for a foreigner to open a bank account in the US? | patio11: Legal and easy.http://www.kalzumeus.com/2007/08/15/banking-for-the-uisv/ |
Is it legal/easy for a foreigner to open a bank account in the US? | petercooper: In many countries you can get accounts that are denominated in other currencies. For example, Citibank does an account in the UK that's denominated in US Dollars - http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eur... - this would resolve the rate conversion issue.However I lose a lot of money transferring money internationally due to taxes and rate conversions, and I'm wondering if I could keep the money in the US without being a US citizen, without having to physically go to a US bank.I don't know where you are, but in many jurisdictions, doing what you're suggesting to evade local taxation could be illegal (that is, locally in terms of tax evasion. Opening a bank account overseas is not an illegal act in and of itself).For example, let's say you're a British citizen (just because I'm familiar with the British rules, but they're likely to be "similar" across much of Europe).. if you are domiciled in the UK and earn money in the US from a Web site you maintain from the UK, you owe the UK tax authorities tax on the full income from that site BEFORE any deductions.So let's say you make $2000 a month and spend $500 on hosting. If you set up an account in the US and then eventually only remit $1500 to the UK, you would be breaking the law if you did not declare the full $2000 to the tax man. In which case, having the remote account has no benefit except for the rates.. and you can get that locally anyway, as I demonstrated above. |
Please review my new site | guiseppecalzone: The moderate and diet sliding scales aren't totally clear to me. But, I really, really like the "I ate something" / "I did something" buttons.I'd also make it more clear that you can edit the weight, goal weight, and age.The question marks with text are helpful. But, ideally, no text explanation would be necessary.Anyway, interesting app! |
What is the best FTP client for OS X? | eapen: Transmit! Or you can try free Filezilla |
Top HN articles a day via SMS/Twitter | eapen: Or it would be nice to set a threshold that I want to see articles with more than X upvotes or Y comments.I used to be a fan of Digg when it first started but once the content got overloaded, I stopped visiting except for my friend's Diggs. |
simple affiliate tracking software? | laktek: We were also planning to introduce an affiliate program for CurdBee, which also had very similar flow to your context (with delayed tracking). Existing apps were no match for this need and we decided this is something worth to be addressed from the scratch.Initially we'll try integrating it with CurdBee. Then, we hope to release this to public use. We'll publish more details on the release in our blog. |
YC S10 applications almost due. How excited are you? | patio11: I'm tempted to write "Best of luck to all of you who are applying" but I've never really believed in luck so, while it sounds more awkward, "May your applications speak accurately and positively about the extent of your ability to create a successful business."One wee little suggestion: mentioning your age is a lot like an exclamation point. If you're writing a novel, you get one exclamation point. Maybe two. You don't have to use them if you don't want to, but under absolutely no circumstances do you put three exclamation points in five paragraphs. That just makes the publisher's assistant write you off as unserious.If you feel the need to bring your age up, have a quick mental conference along the lines of "I wonder if it would be more impressive to delete mention of my age and instead mention something which would suggest that I am likely to create a successful business." My guess is 99 times out of 100 the answer is "Hmm, yep." |
Top HN articles a day via SMS/Twitter | niyazpk: Check this out: http://hnsort.com/ |
Anybody else using "noprocrast"? | nostrademons: I used to, but I turned it off and then found I didn't really need it. It seems much more effective to have a job that you enjoy more than Hacker News, than to just block HN. Otherwise, you'll quickly find other distractions. |
What to do with two unused domains? | coryl: Do they get traffic? If so, monetize it by parking with a service or whip up a little site and stick some Adsense on. If they don't get traffic, then either get rid of it or develop it.You can try selling them, but I'm not sure they're worth much. |
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