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IP, employment contracts and side projects | ig1: By and large it doesn't matter what the contract says, if they don't like what you're doing they may just sue you anyway. What the contract says will affect the outcome of the court case, but that doesn't matter, in the large scheme of things once you're into the realm of your employer suing you you've lost already. |
Feasible to access google maps DB | jacquesm: Essentially you're asking if it is possible to scrape google maps.I'd start with analyzing the javascript code that creates the map view, it has to have some way of retrieving the info layer given a map coordinate.After that you can try to see if you can access that information without going through the browser.There are commercial vendors of such information too. |
cofounders as couples ? | jacquesm: It can work well or it can be that one day you wake up next to your business partner instead of your wife.The chances of that happening are larger as you get more successful.I've tried this in one of my '9 lives', I will not try it again. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | soyelmango: Have you tried Google Notebook? It's no longer in development, but it does the job for me - it's fast, clean, shareable.
[However, I suspect that if you haven't used it before, Google doesn't let you start using it... I might be wrong]Good luck in your search, and let us know what you choose in the end! |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | santry: Notational Velocity http://notational.net/From the description on the site:The same area is used both for creating notes and searching. I.e., in the process of entering the title for a new note, related notes appear below, letting users file information there if they choose. Likewise, if a search reveals nothing, one need simply press return to create a note with the appropriate title.If a note's title starts with the search term(s), that title will be "auto-completed". This selects the note and consequently displays it. Correspondingly, selecting a note places its title in the search area (De-selecting the note restores the search terms).To create a new note, just type its title and press return. Edit the note as needed in the bottom pane.To view or edit an existing note, type one or more words contained in its body or title. Reveal a note's content by using the up/down arrow keys to select it.
To make good use of NV, try to maintain one detail/fact/item per note. Notational Velocity's strength, note-filtering, is diminished when only a few notes contain most of the content in the database. |
Books on human nature that changed your interactions | julius_geezer: Plato's "The Sophist".Saint-Simon's memoirs.Neither really for theories as such, the latter for reflections on the the behavior observed.Since wturner mentions "Blood Rite" let me throw in Vico's "New Science" |
Books on human nature that changed your interactions | hga: A friend of mine found this to be true for Sun Tzu's The Art of War.I found something akin, not so much "interactions" as in understanding the "why" about many human things, in reading Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene. |
Tax implications of selling a website? | michael_dorfman: Obviously, you should talk to your accountant.But: it seems to me that if the website was an asset of the LLC, then the sale of that asset would be viewed as income of the LLC on the corporate tax return, but since corporate taxes are on profits, that income may be offset (in whole or part) by various expenses. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | jaxn: OmniOutliner on the Mac is awesome for note taking.Being able to take notes in an outline format allows me to order the information as it comes in. People often jump around and come back to a point or say they will speak more about something later, with an outliner I am able to keep topics organized better. |
Ideas for monetizing a website I am developing? | MykalMorton: I had to find your article, make it free to post to other users, but have two type of in-box, one for premium users and another for everybody else,how to make money, if you subscribe monthly you can post to anybody in box and they will receive it, along with 1000's of others, if you want to be notice you will be put in the premium box (premium box); charge to add features to your site like, color, multiple colors and the use of WYSIWYG editor, have everybody else use a simple editor no frills. If you want to discuss it email me: mykalmorton at gmail dot com |
Ideas for monetizing a website I am developing? | MykalMorton: also like recommendations on linkedin, have people comment on a person, (like i dated her and she was a real * ), a feature,but don't charge people on sending info,for example i will not pay $1 to say hi, and if i do, i would just give my email address out to that person, and you only made $1; thus subscription $.99 month for instant is reasonable, will not hesitate in sign-in up, 1000 ppl a month = approx $1000 |
Ideas for monetizing a website I am developing? | MykalMorton: add a feature to sell things, a user, for instant a person wants to sell a watch a person can, need to make a hybrid of something else, cause dating is already done. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | Roridge: Nope, because I just ordered a Nexus One instead :) |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | rlpb: I use Tomboy. It has some sort of sync function, but I don't use it. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | protomyth: Ordered one for work and will order the 3G version myself (need a couple of weeks to build back up the personal budget). Looking at it, I will probably add the Dock and a wireless keyboard. I am not too keen on their case and will probably just by a third part sleeve to protect it in my bag.The big question for me is what to do about my "actual" computer. I am no longer sure I am going to buy a portable. I might actually buy and iMac or Power Mac. I am really looking at my traveling habits and if I can get by with the iPad. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | jmarinez: At 8:48 AM I placed my order. I want to be able to tell others in the future, that I was one of the first to partake on the shift from laptops to tablets. There's no doubt that this or some other device like it, will replace laptops in the same way that the former replaced desktops.The vision for computing that originated over 40 years ago may finally have a chance to come to fruition with these types of devices. The iPad will initiate this movement. Only time will tell. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | ScottWhigham: No, have an iPhone and no need/want of an ebook/reader/netbook thing |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | dillon: There are plenty of reasons why people should or shouldn't grab an iPad. If you have come to rely on MobileMe, which means you probably have a MacBook, iMac, and iPhone. Then an iPad would be great. I for one am more of a Google fanboy. I own a Droid Eris, I don't use Microsoft Office or iWork, I use Google Docs. I use Google Calendar, Reader and everything else Google. Therefore, there isn't any reason to buy an iPad. An Archos internet tablet is probably more suitable for me. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | bazbamduck: I almost ordered one, and still really want one, but got cold feet when I failed to find evidence of a way to get my own (read: not through Apple's eBook store) eBooks on and off the thing without iTunes - I'm a Linux user.Unless someone on HN happens to know whether it's possible to use the iPad's WiFi to move data or eBooks in particular?I thought the iPad's web browser might work, but if Apple decides to restrict its download mechanism or not have the downloaded books show up in the eBook reader, that might be a problem.I'm probably worrying too much, but I'd hate to end up with a ~$800 device (3G) I can't really use much for the primary purpose for which I wanted it in the first place. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | alanthonyc: I bought two - a fully loaded 3g one for myself and a wifi one "for my mom," which coincidentally, will not leave my possession until the 3g one arrives.In the meantime, I'll be working on an app for it. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | alanthonyc: I just picked out some wiki software (I use DokuWiki) and start logging everything on there. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | jamesbritt: No. Have better uses for my money. Don't see what value it offers me. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | johng: I ordered one. For those of you who are interested in participating in an iPad Community, I have one here:http://www.ipadforums.net |
Tax implications of selling a website? | johng: Should be long term capital gains since you had it for more then a year. |
IP, employment contracts and side projects | zeusTheTrueGod: Just make it anonymous or use a fake person. May be you can register everything(domain name,trademark) on your wife or you cat. Also you can join an open source project.It's your life, by the way. It cann't belong to your company |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | coryl: My electronics priorities are:1) new laptop2) smartphone3) iPad? The desire to own an iPad is a bit more of a luxury than a necessity at this moment. |
Please review ebay mashup | jonpaul: Wow! Very nice, I like it a lot! I think it's important for you to keep it simple. I think this could really take off if you do. |
Please review ebay mashup | adg: I sat on the homepage for a minute trying to think of something I wanted to buy. You should offer some suggestions.You're making me choose a category before I see the results? And also confusing me with text about getting spammed? I think some UI to allow people to narrow their search like "Show more items like these" would be better.Other than that, it's pretty good. I loved seeing pictures of the items when I hovered over them. I'm usually not concerned about where an item is located when I shop on eBay (since I usually just get it shipped), but this provides a sort of craigslist-style take on it. |
Please review ebay mashup | BlueZeniX: Nice, but why do you only allow US zipcodes? |
Please review ebay mashup | andrewljohnson: Call me old-fashioned, but is pedo-bear a reasonable image for this site? You may regard it is a cool joke, but I regard it as a distraction. |
Rate my site | nfnaaron: Nicely done, plain and simple.You have what looks like the back-tick character sitting below your google ad box on every page.I would change your screen name to something else, like SiteAdministrator. Creator is a little too Old Testament. :) |
Rate my site | python123: Another one of these. And this one seems to be used by older people.The only one of these that's really good is mylifeisaverage |
Rate my site | epochwolf: First is impression is the share links overwhelm the design. If share was just a simple link I don't think I'd been as bothered. The issue is they stand out too much.(I personally don't care for share links so take my impressions on them lightly) |
Please review ebay mashup | nfnaaron: The item pics, pointing to map locations is cool. Sometimes the pic obscures the map location though. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | Zev: To me, its showing off how well you know a specific tool (or how quickly you could learn it), rather then a specific market.Nothing wrong with a bit of ego or wanting to show off something that you made. |
Rate my site | pedalpete: Just from the url, i was excited to check it out. Great name.
But then I get to the site and I'm like... peach or salmon color or whatever that is??? Really??The last thing that jumps out on the page is the content. The share links and ads are overwhelming.Your design doesn't fit your mood. You don't have to come up with a design all yourself, just steal the features you like from other sites.I think something like the bing.com design could work REALLY well for your site. Some bright and inspiring fotogs, then maybe a translucent block to hold the content.Don't be afraid to make the content for people to read in a big font. The length of each individual peace of content is so small that it doesn't matter if it stretches onto a few lines.If you look at the page right now, the ads are the most prominent thing, and clearly, I didn't go to your site to look at ads. So make sure your content does the talking, and they are the first thing the user looks at. |
Rate my site | andrewljohnson: I suggest you remove email verification and add it later once you have traction.You shouldn't fight spam until spam fights you... until then, you are just discouraging users. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | epochwolf: I don't understand this either. I'm currently doing "I made ___ in ___ months/years."This is because1. This idea has been done before and usually done poorly. (No, I'm not letting on with what I'm doing.)2. It's a side project. I have a reading list I want to make a dent in and I have school to finish.3. My audience isn't going anywhere. I have strong incentive to launch with an excellent website because there are plenty of other people in other communities.4. It's not going to make money until it's large if it ever gets there. I'm in no hurry to support a monster community by myself. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | martingordon: Originally ordered a 16GB 3G one but I pre-ordered a 16GB WiFi version in case I don't want to wait another couple of weeks for my first order to ship and I finally convince myself that I'll likely only use the 3G less than a handful of times over the year I have the iPad before I upgrade to the next one. |
Rate my site | adora: make the font of the content bigger :)also, a much smaller point: consider putting in ads later when traffic makes it legitimate to put an ad in. for now the zoosk ad that I see does not match in the spirit of the type of content you probably are trying to bring in. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | lotharbot: A) Inspirational value. If somebody else on HN can make a useful tool to solve their problem in 3 hours, I might be inspired to take a crack at solving a problem I've been putting off dealing with.B) Technical interest. HN isn't just about getting in to YC or proving you're a great entrepreneur; much of what we discuss is simply "interesting". Being assembled quickly is one attribute that can make something interesting.C) It helps us remember that not every problem is of the same scale, and not every solution has to be a multi-year startup-spawning VC-requiring system. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | jeromec: I don't think it's about gloating at all. I think it's more about showing something but with a warning of how much went into it so those that judge can have some context. I also think there certainly is a bit of pride involved, but it's completely understandable. This is a site by and for hackers for the most part. If it were a site about bicycling enthusiasts then a post about a new bike purchase might be accompanied with how many seconds were shaved off some normal riding route, because others might relate and appreciate it. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | blackswan: I think one of the causes for the endless stream of "I built a reddit/twitter/[x] clone in [y] hours" stories that pop up regularly is that many people often incorrectly attribute the success of businesses to that which is immediately apparent. They see reddit list stories in a certain way and assume that this is the reason it is so popular.95% of discussion I have with non-entrepreneurs about my startup relates to things that they can see or grasp intuitively - for instance our design choices. Few understand that the code I write is just one of a myriad factors that will determine eventual success. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | Raphael: a few options:notepad.exe with DropBoxGoogle DocsEtherpad |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | emilam: Shipping a product is a hard thing to do. It takes a lot less work to make a copy of x in 23 hours. The actual "work" of a product often comes right before you release the product. The last 10% of the project is 90% of the work most of the time.It seems they are doing it because they don't have the willpower to put the finishing touches on and have a shipped product. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | charliepark: Agreed. If someone's launching an MVP, I can completely understand their desire to put it out there and get feedback. Those types of posts (inviting critique) are fine in my book.The ones that grate are the ones that say "we built this startup in a weekend."By adding the "in a weekend" / "in 24 hours" bit, you're automatically discounting the product you've built, as an easy way to deflect criticism. If it's shaky enough that you need to preemptively deflect criticism, don't post about it. If your app is quality, then it doesn't matter if you built it in a weekend or over three years. Let it stand on its own.To reiterate the OP, build stuff. Share it. Get feedback and criticism, and iterate it to make it better. But claiming that you made "a startup" in a weekend is both ignorant and arrogant, unless your app has scaled so quickly that we've already heard about it by the time you post it to HN. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | avner: I really don't see why someone shouldn't showcase something they hacked together, regardless of the time it took to materialize. Granted that the "in X hours" part may reflect the hacker having some other agenda (as highlighted in your post); at the end of the day however, like you said, if whatever it is that they are showing off holds any commendable merit it will be recognized by the community. Anything else will die down after a couple of upvotes anyway. |
Please review ebay mashup | thefool: Also, the site has a bug where if you don't type in a location nothing happens. Seeing as it wasn't immediately clear to me what the site was, that kinda a problem. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | Aron: Sometimes I think Apple's product sales numbers are being maintained by the people that bought AAPL stock in the last few years. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | thwarted: I find it annoying too, but I think it is somewhat of a response to "you say it could be done in a weekend, but you're wrong" positions that there have been an increase of.I also think it's a little bit of people trying to prove to themselves that they can do it, that some of the excuses they had before are just that, excuses, and they aren't insurmountable.It puts a lower limit on the amount of time it takes to do, and it's useful to see that. If you were working something similar, but only had three hours a day to do it, but someone says they did it 40 hours straight over a weekend, it helps other people judge complexity (obviously, individual skill and experience comes into play, but at least one variable gets removed).It also provides support for the position that it's not the technology that is necessarily the hard or time consuming part. If someone can implement Yammer in a week (I pick on Yammer here, rather than twitter, because the business model of Yammer doesn't need to be as scalable as twitter, technology wise, so the first version will most likely get more use before the implementation needs to be revisited), then the impetus is on the "business guy" to start selling it. I've actually been this situation a few times, having had the first beta, production-ready version ready in what seems like an extremely short time, and been waiting for the other half of the team to do their side of the work. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | araneae: They say that so when you tell them it's dumb, they can claim it's because they didn't spend any time on it.It's like how kids always brag how little they studied for a test, even before they take it. It's an excuse for failure. |
Please review ebay mashup | chime: 1. Get rid of the image on home page that others have complained about.2. Make the 'search radius' logarithmic.3. On the map, why are multi-item pins orange vs. green? It's unclear and confusing.4. Remember my location, search radius using cookies/session.5. When I click on a pin, highlight the corresponding item in the list pane on the left.6. Why not show me both (the eBay link + item pic) when I click on a pin or when I hover on the list pane on the left?7. Can I have a feature to see 'buy it now' items only?Overall, great work. Keep it up :) |
Rate my site | endlessvoid94: Welp.I submitted this several hours ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1189162I like your site, how have you been attracting users? |
Rate my site | pigbucket: I like the concept and the name--and second pulling the registration, the ads, and the Share rollover. The rollover is especially annoying at the bottom of the page (i.e., in the last item) because it can interfere with Next button, about which there is very little cursor-friendly space. You could move page numbers to center, like Google, or box them, like Digg (I think). Good luck. |
Could HN be a dating bureau for entrepreneurs? | jacquesm: Sure, why not ? Just write up a nice description of what you are looking for in a co-founder and post it, I'm sure you'll either get some real respondents or you'll learn about what's wrong in the way you approach it.have a look here:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1052950and do a google search forsite:news.ycombinator.com co-founder wantedandsite:news.ycombinator.com looking for a co-founderbest of luck! |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | SkipHeadJr: I made slightly more than 42 quadrillion dollars* in less than a nanosecond. Doing nothing at all. Suddenly all those 'overnight millionaires' look like punks. Wait, they are punks.*Zimbabwe dollars (approximate value in U.S. dollars: 0.00001 |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | jacquesm: I think some of the posts are clearly in jest, to propagate the meme but with a wink saying 'you don't really believe this do you'.Then there are those that want to promote a platform or a technology showing how rapid they could develop a toy website, basically a functioning prototype. Most of those would fall apart under the first serious load (and some do right after posting here), but still, you have to hand it to the people that can push themselves like that just to have something to show off their favourite piece of kit.Then there are those that really believe this is the way to do it, to whip out some site in 24 hours and to call it a 'start-up' instead of a one night project.Usually the latter two fail as fast as they come, but every now and then one of them shows staying power.pingwire.com comes to mind, after several iterations it now looks a lot better than the first announcement, and there are plenty of others. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | DenisM: Maybe it's just the pure creative joy? I know that as a maker I get kicks when stuff I built works. |
Feasible to access google maps DB | vannevar: Google gets much of their data from Tele Atlas (now TomTom): www.teleatlas.com. The other big player in geo data is NavTeq: www.navteq.com. I think there are some crowd-sourced public geo databases as well. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | jacquesm: Not yet, maybe not ever. Until I come across a really compelling use case for one I probably won't buy one.I also think that with stuff like this it is much better to let other people find out that first releases of pieces of hardware can have all kinds of issues.If at all, then by the time the hype has worn off and I have had a chance to play with one for a bit, and after I've seen what the use is of a device like that.I've never owned a PDA because I thought I didn't need one, use my cell phone to make voice calls with and as a camera, very rarely to browse the web.I love technology but I can't get excited because of hype alone, I need to see it, play with it, think of stuff I can do with it that I can't do in another way.I have a little 3G netbook that gives me as much or more functionality than what I can imagine I could do with an ipad. |
Would you pre-order GridSpy power monitoring? | jacquesm: relatively high ? $950 ?? That's not relatively high, that's simply overpriced.and a recurring ???I would not pre-order that until the price came down to what consumer electronics with this much functionality should cost, probably around the $40 mark or so. And that recurring billing bit for a feature that you could easily throw in for free is simply grafted on to make a spreadsheet look good somewhere.Why on earth did you decide to complicate matters so much ? Your average consumer is not going to order these in quantities large enough to make it happen. A scaled down version that would cost $40 to $50 and that would simply monitor your electricity usage and report to a website (for free) so you can do your sampling using the simplest of pic chips would do wonders for energy savings and would be earned back in a foreseeable time.Rule 1: keep it simple.Don't break rule one.Multiple hundreds of dollars are a completely different decision point than < 50, and as your volume goes up your costs go down further so your profits will rise. People visiting the site to see their stats and to compare their stats with other people in their neighbourhood (who gets to have the lowest electricity bill) would be a great way to create a community of energy conscious people.There must be a better way to monetize that than to charge them for the privilege of supplying you with valuable data...So, not 'more features' to sway people, less features at a much better price and a smarter plan to monetize your users in the longer term. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | j_baker: I'll be honest. I stopped listening at "ADD society". It really took me from "listen to this guy give advice" mode into "grandpa's ranting again" mode. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | keefe: I debated it, but instead I'm going to use the same money to buy a sony ereader and get an iphone when my contract runs up in a little bit here. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | nathanh: I like to see how long it takes people to build things. (I do think everything the OP said is legitimate though) |
Rate my site | badave: I did a live version of this kind of site. Very simplistic and anonymous. Haven't done much with it because I've moved on to other projects. http://lovingthat.com and http://complainaboutthat.com |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | petercooper: It's a headline technique. As well as including a solid number (always a good headline "trick"), it has the psychological effect of making people think.. "ooh, I gotta read this, because if he/she can do X in Y hours/days, maybe I could too!"I'm quite into studying headlines as a hobby (yeah, I know) and http://delicious.com/popular is a great source of headlines that clicked with a large number of people. Today the number of "X ways to do Y" or "Z things about A" headlines is reasonably low, but I've seen it go over 50% of the links there many a time.. (HN's editors seem to have a policy of editing out the numbers at the start of headlines, FWIW.. but they don't tend to do with the headlines you're referring to.) |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | jdietrich: In 1977 the punk band The Desperate Bicycles released their debut single Smokescreen. The song featured the refrain "It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it!". The back cover broke down the costs of recording and manufacture, explaining that it cost them in total £153 to release 500 copies. The medium was the message.The spirit of the "__ in __ hours" posts is exactly the same. Developing the barebones of a product is infinitely quicker and simpler than most people believe. Many great businesses are trapped in people's daydreams because they just haven't overcome inertia and procrastination.I would expect that most of us here follow the logic of agile, MVPs, iterative development and so on, so why do so few of us actually make a go of it? Look at Patrick of Bingo Card Creator - he's built a small and simple product in his spare time that has grown into something that he can quit his day job for. Any one of us could have built a working prototype of Bingo Card Creator in a couple of days, but Patrick did and we didn't. Too many of us understand intellectually that we just need to launch a piece of crap and start iterating, but not nearly enough of us have the guts to follow it through. It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | dtran: Releasing something rough and unpolished can be scary, so everyone feels a need to qualify it with a statement like this. I find myself guilty of this as well... check out what I made... and immediately "I haven't had much time to polish it... I'm going to make it better soon!... it was something I hacked together this weekend". As makers, we all want to get out our final finished product which realizes our vision, but we need to learn how to build the minimum viable product that can show off the vision even if the edges are a bit rough. So really everyone should be making ____ in x hours/days. |
Rate my site | dtran: I like the generally idea of a positive FML-type site and I love the domain, but really, ads already? Sacrificing user experience for an extra $0.20 this early gives your users serious doubts about your intent in building a great destination site/community site. |
Rate my site | jacoblyles: Seems kind of like a trivial me-too site. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | indrax: Sprinting is a decent tactic to overcome procrastination.
Combine that with "Release early, release often." And it makes a fair bit of sense to spend a minimal amount of time creating a minimal product to show people. |
Best way to Market to Customer Leads | jacquesm: Whichever of those you choose to use it's going to be spam in some form or other if you don't have a prior existing relationship.How did you get this data in the first place ?Did you buy it ? Did they sign up with you for something else ?If the first then you're out of luck, you will have to use something borderline or even illegal if you wish to use that data, depending on where you live. Especially email is fraught with danger. If you really insist in that case on doing it I would take it very slowly, and approach a couple of them (say 5 or 10) on a personal level, email from your real publicly visible email address, asking them that exact same question, and then use the feedback to formulate a strategy.If they are already in an existing relationship for another product then you might consider sending out an email about the other service, where you can legitimately email them, and add a line or two about your new offering at the bottom.It's a tricky thing you are trying to do here. The best method of all would be to try to figure out where these people hang out as a group and market to that channel. That will cost you but it doesn't have a 'bad taste' associated with it.Good luck, let us know how it worked out!, It's a problem that more people are trying to deal with here. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | dnsworks: I find them just as annoying as the "How I Did Some Simple Task" posts that finally seem to have died down. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | barmstrong: I think they are just saying: I'm testing lots of ideas and it's cool how quickly it can be done now.That's all. You make a valid point though that these comments can rub some people the wrong way or be misinterpreted. |
Why doesn't "Uvote" Startup exist yet? | jacquesm: Because you didn't build it :)Go do it, it sounds like a good idea. There are poll sites that allow you to make polls on all kinds of subjects (a la HN polls but targeted towards a larger audience), but I think your idea would be a lot more useful. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | teeja: I'll wait to see if it turns out to be nothing more than a locked-down appliance, |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | thinker: We've been working on a productivity app for researchers (currently only have a web dashboard). We're finding it great to organize notes/links/files within our own startup as well. Would be awesome if you guys could give it a try and give us some feedback!Check it out here: http://thinkpanda.com |
Why doesn't "Uvote" Startup exist yet? | bpick: Call it swingvote and allow people to create profiles that then show you (rough) demographic information.It would be similar to those espn fangraphs(just more awesome). |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | loupgarou21: haven't ordered one myself, but my boss stated that he ordered three of them. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that I'll be getting one of the ones he ordered so I can evaluate it for our clients. |
Anyone good with business plans? I could use some help. | mschaecher: line dropped |
Ideas to monetize my site? | webaddict: Hi there,I lurk here, but got an account just to reply :) I will be speaking
here wholly in the context of online flash games, as I can't and won't
comment on picture sharing, community websites or any of that
new-fangled social or "SpaceBook" aspect :)What you've got here, (and you probably know it already), is a game
portal. You are also what's known as a publisher. Portals host,
filter, select and promote games and take a cut of the in-game ad
revenues. In return, they provide traffic (eyeballs!).I haven't heard of HeyZap before, so thanks for bringing them to my
attention. I had a browse through their site, and saw some attractive
offers, so if I can find more info on their system, I might be
interested to use them some day... What caught my eyes was their very
attractive developer share of a whopping 70% of the ad revenue! From
what I can gather, publishers get 15% of the ad revenue. Is this
correct? Perhaps you could also comment on the eCPM of their offerings
-- how much are you receiving from the in-game ads compared to the
traffic? I assume your traffic stats are daily numbers?I am not sure why you were not keen on Google Ads, they've been quite
popular among the portals that I have heard of. Google can now index
Flash assets, so in-game text, tutorials, etc should get picked
up. For more games, have you heard of: mochiads or CPMStar, or other
portals like Kongregate, armorgames?mochi: Developers get 50%, publishers 10%Don't know about CPMStar (anyone?)Kongregate: Developers get 25-50% (depending on features). No
publisher affiliate system that I know of, they are after all a portal
too.When you say you haven't done anything recently, does that mean you
don't update those games on your page? There are portal software out
there (www.flashgamedistribution.com has a "portal in a box",
download, click, and you're away [disclaimer: I haven't used it]) that
automate the delivery and distribution of games from source. All you
gotta do is play a suggested game, and approve/reject them from your
front page. Sounds like a dream job for game crazy teenagers! (I'm not
saying you're a teenager here of course.)I am sharing this as a game developer who's been pondering the pros
and cons of having my own portal. If you subscribe to the Long Tail
hypothesis, then portals benefit from the long tail. However, I feel
that the competition is intense, though I have no experience
here. Most portals are starting to move into proprietary
micro-transaction systems, but the revenue from this area is still
relatively small. It is definitely a growth industry, and the key is
always more traffic, though I wonder if it's possible to do better? I
would appreciate any experience you may share from your end (if you do
go further with this). :)Here's something that might interest other readers. Remember that this
guy develops games and runs a portal, so the portal section of his
analysis is really only about 8% of the total.http://mochiland.com/articles/developer-recap-badim-shares-t...I should also mention flashgamelicense.com -- you might see Badim
mentioning licensing deals in his blog. Lots of portal owners (I'm
assuming you need to be a certain size first) sponsor games in order
to be able provide their own branding and ads. Could be interesting to
check out once you reach a certain size I guess...I would appreciate any useful stats other readers may know about this
new and exciting (for me) area! |
How do you fight procrastination? | jazzychad: I am my own boss, so there is no-one lording over me to make sure I am finishing things on-time, nor do I have "office hours"... I just work during the day until I feel that enough stuff got done. Sometimes that means I work for 6 hours, sometimes that means I work for 12 or more.I often fall victim to the distractions of the inernetz; email, twitter, HN, etc...That being said, I have found that the best way to stop procrastinating is to set goals with hard and fast deadlines. Nobody is going to accomplish those goals on-time except for me. If they are missed, I only have myself to blame. For me this is a great motivator to get things done during my waking hours.I have an extremely huge and looming deadline approaching in the next couple of weeks, and like patio11 said in a comment earlier today, I am efficient because I have to be [1].[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1189284[edit] found link to patio11's comment[edit2] I also use a "Legal Pad Computer" to manage my TODO list. Making sure the list doesn't overflow to more than one page is another good motivator. I wrote a more extensive post about the concept here: http://bootstrapd.me/?p=62 |
How do you fight procrastination? | Rust: I keep a short list of programming problems handy - small use cases that interest me. When I feel like I'm slipping away into FB or Twitter or whatever, I break out one of the problems and solve it.The secret, though, is to solve it from scratch each time. If you're really having trouble concentrating, do it in a new language (COBOL - seriously, this will keep you up at night).Some examples of my problem list: recursive function to show classified ads; FSM for reading old-style INI files; simplest possible chat protocol, either client or serverI'm no psychologist, but I suspect that, once you get used to doing this kind of thing, it works a bit like self-hypnosis. Just create problems that you would find interesting. |
How do you fight procrastination? | nearestneighbor: I tried many different things, too many to remember, including GTD type of things, "don't break the chain", and many others. I think what's working best for me (and what may work for you depends on your personality type and what you do) is setting (preferably) one goal for a day in the morning, writing it down, and then working to accomplish it. |
How do you fight procrastination? | froo: In the past I procrastinated a lot. The problem I found was that the sheer number of tasks to be done was immense and I would often be paralysed by the thought of it.So what I did was get a simple task management tool (I use RTM) and started off by just setting 2 tasks per day.It's only 2 tasks, anyone can accomplish 2 tasks in a day.Soon after I got accustomed to it, and I simply ramped it up, first 3 tasks, then 4... very easy.After I got used to the idea of accomplishing things often, then I worried about efficiency, but the secret is to just get started. |
What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts | bhiggins: I think "in X hours" is silly too, because that just means it's gunna be easy to copy. Not a good business plan. |
How do you fight procrastination? | timwiseman: I fail far too often, hence why I am posting here.Seriously, when I really need to concentrate, I try to place myself in environments where the temptations are minimized. Turn off the wifi if I don't actually need it and put on headphones with mild background music and focus on the work at hand. It is no cure, but it helps me. |
How do you fight procrastination? | raghus: I'll tell you later |
How do you fight procrastination? | patio11: I believe in my bones that most large tasks are just arbitrarily long collections of small tasks which are measurable, and since I know I can keep going for years as long as I get frequent small packets of success, I structure things to look like that.This is the WoWification of life for me: the thing about dragonslaying is that you're not spending 720 hours to be able to slay the dragon. You spent 30 minutes rescuing this one village and then 2 hours pillaging this one dungeon and then 5 minutes finding this one slipper and... whoa, you just killed a dragon. And then it turns out that killing the dragon was, itself, just one more small goal.Your business, or your other arbitrary goal with real meaning to it, is a lot like WoW. It has projects rather than raids, milestones rather than achievements, and A/B tests rather than quests, but you can break it down into arbitrarily fine units and conquer them one at a time.I don't completely WoWify my business just because I think it would be frighteningly successful at manipulating my monkey brain, to the exclusion of other things of importance to me.Other things that help me: having routines, social support via HN & etc (here we go with WoW again: sure, you could quit, but what would your guildmates say?), structuring my business such that almost all deadlines are flexible (I know that shouldn't work, but it does for me), and having a life away from the computer. |
How do you fight procrastination? | RevRal: For me, it is all about tricking myself into getting the work done. Into creating systems to follow for various tasks.For example, the dishes. I hate doing them. And I don't mind a few days of accumulation of dirty dished. So, I don't beat myself up trying to wash them every day. It takes time to wash dishes. Time I could better spend doing something else.My solution. Wait until there are enough dishes to take a couple of hours to wash them, then I listen to an audio book while washing the dishes. I call this consolidating the work-load, which allots me time to listen to audio books. Saves water, too.I have a lot of systems for various things. It's kind of fun, refining these tricks. |
How do you fight procrastination? | adityakothadiya: This is what I follow -1. I create "Today's list". This is little different than "To-do" list. Today's list contains tasks that I want to finish today - with each task assigned some deadline. Tasks are quite detail tasks - which takes 1-2 hrs. Like breakdown to features, bugs, reading chapter, etc.2. I don't sit for long in front of computer in one stretch. I drink lot of water, so generally have to take breaks quite often. During that break (from computer) I talk to myself 2 things - "1. You're doing good - push more. 2. Now the next thing I want to do is _______."3. Keep the browser/chat window closed if it's not required.4. Even if I start reading HN/Twitter - I don't read everything. I know my time limits, I know things I want to build, so I know I cannot spend lot of time in consuming information. So just browse headlines, don't click every link. If headline is compelling, or source is trusted, then click it.5. Keep deadlines - have pressure, and tell your deadlines to someone - friend, wife, colleague. Be answerable to someone. This trick worked quite often for me. |
How do you fight procrastination? | FreeRadical: I read somewhere the hardest part is starting tasks, so a combo of breaking tasks into bit size pieces and starting each piece is probably the best approach. |
How do you fight procrastination? | aaronbrethorst: I don't spend my spare time posting 'Ask HN' questions.No, seriously: I have more important things to do, like figuring out how to pay my rent (and hopefully make 6-7 figures) without having to take a soul-crushing job at a gigantic company, again.Maybe you need a better job. Maybe you need a better reason to do the important things. Maybe the 'important things' really aren't, in which case you need to come up with a list of genuinely important things to do.Maybe you should see a therapist. I dunno; at least those people are theoretically well-qualified to talk about this stuff. Ask me about about beer, F/stops, Objective C or Ruby on Rails, and I'm your guy. The rest of it is a big mystery to me.Good luck, though. |
How do you fight procrastination? | Mongoose: I find the best method is to just jump in. Once you make a solid effort to dive into something, your drive to complete the task at hand will snowball as you get more work done.YMMV, especially with really difficult or irritating tasks. It's all about overcoming the barrier of entry, be it due to a lack of experience, interest, or value. |
Did you order an iPad? Why or why not? | naner: No. I don't need one and I'm not going to develop for the platform.Same reason I didn't get an iPhone or Droid.I am pretty low-tech for a geek/programmer. Still, I'm nowhere near as low-tech as this dude: http://jason.rohrer.usesthis.com/
It is pretty impressive what he is able to accomplish. |
How do you fight procrastination? | kowen: I've found that pair programming for a bit can help me get past that initial resistance. It doesn't have to be anything special or official - just a shared screen with a friend over skype can be enough to get going. |
How do you fight procrastination? | thesnark: I think I got this idea from HN somewhere but I cannot remember: when you are running good, and the ideas are coming easily, stop before you get stuck. That way when you come back to something you know exactly what to do next and its easier to find the thread.Also, learning how to suffer through really painful exercise has improved my ability to focus at work. |
How do you fight procrastination? | bemmu: Only thing that works for me is to do stuff I actually want to be doing. Right now staring at my declining Google Analytics stats is enough to inspire me to hack the code to reverse the trend. |
How do you fight procrastination? | Eliezer: Recent related thread on LW, with reviews and aggregate scores for suggestions:http://lesswrong.com/lw/1sm/akrasia_tactics_review/ |
How do you fight procrastination? | stuntgoat: org-mode for emacs is great.Prioritize your list of things to do. That way you only have 1 thing to do next. It may seem daunting to have a pile, but if you line everything up in a neat row, you can only see 1 thing to do until it is finished.A good way to eliminate things from your immediate workload is to only do things that will make your life more efficient. Some projects are fun but will not make it easier to get more things done later.If you have a unifying reason for completing a series of projects, that can help inspire you- especially, if it is a great reason. I think I read somewhere that Stravinsky said you have to force yourself to be inspired. . . |
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