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How do you deal with mental illness? | kylec: I have an intense compulsion to write. I'm good at it. I can pound out 2000 words of coherent English prose in half an hour.I wish I could do that. I always found writing for my English classes was incredibly difficult, especially as the length requirements grew. |
Domain management? | ObieJazz: http://www.google.com/search?q=registrar+site%3Aycombinator....Based on that, I chose to use NameCheap. I've been happy with it so far. |
Domain management? | blurry: I didn't like GoDaddy... switched to 1and1.com. Get a lot less spam now :) |
How do you deal with mental illness? | tstegart: Why code as opposed to novels? And what are you looking for? Some suggestions on how to get into coding, or ways to improve your coding? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | StrawberryFrog: It makes some sense that serious trolls are mentally ill. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | noodle: try writing a novel. i know people working on books that push very hard to get 2000 words a day. |
Are you working on a desktop software? | jamesbritt: My company, Happy Camper Studios, has just released JotBot: http://www.getjotbot.comIt a cross-platform desktop-based time-tracking application.We used JRuby + Swing plus Monkeybars. It needs a license key to run; we have a Web service handling that to generate 30-day trial keys or fully-registered non-expiring keys. That's handled by Ramaze on Glassfish.Sales are done through Shopify and Google Checkout. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | astine: I'm good at it. I can pound out 2000 words of coherent English prose in half an hour.Damn, that's a problem I've always wished I had. I write too, but not much. I find that writing and coding to be very different activities, at least for me, so I'm not sure you could channel that energy into coding. From the sound of it, your writing compulsion sounds like it is more a matter of putting down your thoughts rather than creating something, that is, its not very cerebral. Coding, requires a filter between you and the keyboard, so this sounds like it would be a major stopper.It does sound like you could make a nice political columnist/author: something like Limbaugh or Franken. |
Domain management? | compay: I use Godaddy. There are usually lots of coupons for domain registration on retailmenot.com which makes them the cheapest option I'm aware of.I'm not 100% happy with them either - they are definitely clunky as all hell. Lately I've just been setting my default nameservers to Slicehost and using their domain management tools for setting up zones and records, which at least lets me avoid some of the annoyances of Godaddy. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | KevBurnsJr: "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success." |
How do you deal with mental illness? | petercooper: Don't just try to turn your hypergraphia into hypercodeia ;-) A lot of people find that by writing about things they learn about them. For example, if you write a tutorial about a certain algorithm, a certain programming language, or whatever, you're forced to learn the topic well.Perhaps you could write content about things you want to learn with how you went about it, what you did, what you learned, and relay all that to other people.Get a blog, don't do any personal blogging, but just blog about your programming adventures. I love to read such stuff because I get to enjoy the results of other people's experimentation! |
How do you deal with mental illness? | zitterbewegung: I used to have panic attacks but they stopped after taking zoloft and eventually I grew out of them. I have cyclothymia and I deal with that pretty easily. When I get manic I obsess over thinking of new ideas and new approaches to problems that I have. I use all of my will to stay logical during this time. When I start getting off of that mania I start actually implementing the solution. Also, I think that taking martial arts and my logic class have helped me weed out the idiotic thoughts to and to get more structured thoughts. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | pragmatic: Have you been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (AS)? Many of these problems sound like symptoms of AS. Many, many programmers have AS (it seems computers were made by and for people with AS (see the book below)). I've worked with several whom I suspected but weren't formally diagnosed. They were miserable because the couldn't understand how to deal with people on a functional level.The key is to understand the root of the problem. Some of the coworkers would be diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and the like while AS was the painfully obvious condition (though anxiety, etc are very common in those with AS).Read this book ASAP:
The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood
http://www.jkp.com/catalogue/book.php/isbn/9781843104957 |
How do you deal with mental illness? | Allocator2008: A friend of mine who I won't name here is an accomplished sci-fi writer/critic of no little repute whose "day job" is technical writing/documentation, which is how I know him, since we worked for the same company at one point. I wonder if you have ever considered technical writing? If one is really good at/enjoys writing but also knows how to program, this seems like it would be a good fit. A strong technical knowledge combined with strong writing skills makes for a good technical writer I think. The downside is that during layoffs, the documentation department is the first to go it seems like, but the upside is that advanced writers can really make a lot of money, especially if you develop skills in the tools of that field, such as RoboHelp. Just a thought. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | okeumeni: time_management, I admire your courage and understand your need to post this subject here on HN. Though your motive is to create a real debate around the subject of mental problem, some of us go through every day, I don’t think HN is the right platform to do this; here is why.Mental illness in general is a very complex topic, unlike headache, flu or any other disease; it is not something the regular person (the healthy person) understands. Those who have never suffer from any form of mental problem tend to think that it is a philosophical problem; they think that by thinking too hard they can somehow come up with an explanation of a solution.I also have to agree that Hackers community seems to be one with a high ratio of people with some sort of mental disorder. I have suffered from depression myself and all through my career many of people I met had some sort of mental problem. |
review my app | SingAlong: Add a contact page or detail (other than twitter). How would people contact you if they want to?P.S: I was looking to contact you for a collaboration (like possible exchange of data). I didn't find any details on your profile too. |
review my app | modoc: A) The search appears to be jQuery driven and just does a text search of the records that already appear on the page. This won't scaleB) I can't do a useful search: "Ruby developers with an hourly rate under $150 with over 2 years of experience"C) You need standardization of the rate format to make it useful/searchable. Dollar per hour or something similar.D) The technologies list is weird and kind of useless. I'm an expert in "friendster"? You either need a really comprehensive list of programming languages, technologies, APIs/Frameworks, etc... or you need an auto-suggesting free-input field basically like tags.E) As other people have mentioned you can register with an e-mail of "a" and no password. Basic input validation is usually a given...I'm not trying to knock your effort, but basically you're shoving all your DB records on a page, and using a jQuery plugin to search them. This might be a nice way to demo how jQuery works, but there's not much there, and you'll have usability and scaling issues very very soon.You're also missing basic stuff like input validation, informative information, useful search, etc...If you're just learning some web site design and development, then this is a great first site. However, it's not really a startup/web-app worth reviewing here at HN (imho). There's no business model, the functionality that exists is sparse and not really polished, there's nothing here that couldn't be replicated in an hour or two by someone else. The "find a coder" space is already served by a large number of sites that have a much more mature feature set and large existing user base. What is the new thing you're doing to compete? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | sabat: I'm mildly depressive. Mental issues are very common among smarter people. Meaning: you're quite normal. :-)* see a psychiatrist and possibly get on a drug. Can be very helpful.* see a therapist* start a regular exercise program and stick with it. Huge benefit there.* limit carb intake, especially simple carbs. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | sethg: I know nothing about hypergraphia, but I question the assumption that your desire to write could be "channeled" into coding. I don't think it's necessarily true that two superficially similar activities are really scratching the same psychological itch.When I had a blog, I'd inevitably find myself posting inappropriate personal confessions on it... hence the reason I do not have a blog. I've ruined relationships with brutally honest emails.This makes me suspect that your itch is not writing per se but self-revelation. Have you tried taking up painting or sculpture or some other art form as a hobby, so that you can express your feelings in a way that gives you more plausible deniability, so to speak?Or learn a conlang and make your inappropriate personal confessions in a language that only ten or twenty other people in the world can read fluently. :-/ |
How do you deal with mental illness? | ChaitanyaSai: How did you get into meditation? What kind of meditation do you practice? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | ChaitanyaSai: I am speculating; Inevitably posting confessions and trolling seem to involve a need for attention perhaps? This may be a result of your earnest interest in fitting into your peer group at an earlier age? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | puzzle-out: Socialise with like-minded people - I play darts a lot with friends, its a mildly obsessive game, but also a social one. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | singleserving: I have had a pretty serious depression that lasted for around two years, and am still trying to get out of it. I've noticed that depression, and probably other mental states, is something you don't see in other people unless you have had similar experiences yourself. Now I can see that friends of mine have gone through a depression by the cues they have left, but I would never have noticed this before - if you haven't been there yourself you won't see it.I'm pretty sure that mental problems of one sort or another are much more common than you would expect, but it's one of those things that it is still a taboo, so you never know how widespread it is. So you should know that you aren't alone at all. Almost everyone has to go through one or more major crises in their life.As to how to move on I think you're on the right track - accept your mental state and whatever baggage you have and start working with it. Once you accept that you are what you are and that this is OK you are halfway there. Next make sure you have friends or family you can talk to. They'll tell you that they love you no matter what, and that if you were different you wouldn't be you.Accepting who you are is much harder for you than it is for the people around you. Judging by your post it looks like you're well on the way to acceptance of yourself. I'm sure you'll be OK.I'm posting this under a single serving account made for this purpose because I'm a regular cotributor here and don't need to have my personal life and problems all out in the open, but if you want to contact me let me know in the comments and I'll reply by mail. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | ratsbane: You've already won more than half the battle. You seem to have made a very studied and pragmatic analysis of yourself and you've shared that with your peers. That is a lot more than most people will ever do and it's certainly a big part of learning to control the the personal quirks which bother you. But you seem to have done that already to a large degree and that's commendable. It's almost the new year and I'm starting to think of my own goals for 2009 - your post makes me start to think of some things of my own which I'd like to change. Thank you for writing this post. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | tricky: Don't suppress your intense compulsion to write just because it got you into trouble a few times... It is a gift. Manage it.1. Always send your stuff to a few friends before you hit the publish button.2. Don't write inappropriate personal confessions. Invent a character, have them live the inappropriateness and call it fiction.Edit: 3. Revise the shiz out of your work until it is good enough that others can enjoy reading it. |
What are you doing differently due to the "economic crisis"? | noodle: i took a relocation package that i would have probably not taken otherwise.i'm also working on developing my resume/portfolio and finding some smaller freelance type jobs on the side to help pad my emergency fund.edit: i suppose i should include some 'good' things i've done --i made some very smart investment choices and haven't lost much in the stock market.6 months ago i downsized everything, moved back in with my parents on a temporary basis, and started saving up a lot more money to try and brace for impact.consequently, i'm about to buy a very nice place in a very cool area for a very low price. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | perdurabo: No offense, but the lot of you commenters just need to get out more.I wasted a lot of my youth and early adult years psychoanalyzing myself in order to learn and master myself, when going out into the world and participating and exploring it, having relationships with people, is the true path to self-actualization.Extrospection is the path to enlightenment |
Domain management? | ConradHex: I've been switching my domains to namecheap, but this is for personal stuff, not business. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | juliend2: I have to say that Hatha Yoga can be quite helpful. (But be careful because some people tend to see it as a religion). It's more of a physical and mental concentration exercice (Probably like your meditation).Although It helped me a lot, i don't practice it anymore. But it's worth a try.Good luck! |
How do you deal with mental illness? | jawngee: I too have panic disorder, OCD, PTSD and mild depression. I also used to be hypervigilant and a hypochondriac. Being hypervigilant means that you are constantly monitoring your body for signs that something massive is wrong. I used to get a mild chest pain and would turn that into angina. Or I'd get a headache and convince myself it was a tumor. Fucking miserable.I've been battling the panic disorder for the last 7 years or so. PTSD for the last 15 and everything else since day 1.I have one recommendation for you and it's cognitive behavioral therapy, aka CBT. It's less talking about all the stupid shit your parents did, and more about changing how you think about these particular issues.I did my fair share of medications (nothing too major, ad's like effexor and zoloft and benzo's like ativan, klonopin and xanax) but I don't do any of them anymore thanks to CBT therapy and the growing understanding that everything is temporary. When you're facing down a vicious panic attack, considering a call to 911, I've found I can stop the entire process in it's tracks by simply acknowledging that this is all temporary and transient. Sounds so simple, but it's so very hard to do. Takes a lot of practice.I've beaten the mild depression by forcing myself out amongst humans and participating with people socially. Really, anything that puts you out of your head.My two secret weapons, beyond CBT therapy, have been marijuana and poker. Poker has definitely hardened me quite a bit, but more importantly it's helped me grow my own power base. Any activity that satiates ego is good for people like us.Marijuana, counter intuitive since it typically promotes anxiety in people, has really kept me out of my head for the most part and definitely greases the wheels in terms of accepting my lot in life and the issues that I deal with day in and day out. It really is my Adderall. I can't wait for it to be decriminalized.Finally, the biggest thing I did to change it all around was quitting smoking tobacco. That one single thing probably caused the biggest change out of all the things I've tried.Anyways, hope that helps. |
Rate my webapp | tdoggette: So, it's an online bookmark manager that solves the problem of a long to-read list by... deleting the list? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | strlen: Is your mental illness diagnosed (other than a self-diagnosis). I am not implying at all that you are, but am merely posting this for the community's sake: mental illness is serious (much like any other illness) so if you do seriously suspect mental (or other) illness seek professional diagnosis.(It could also reveal that the symptoms are that of a physical illness, at times with an easy cure: I've a friend who experienced anxiety/OCD issues but the doctor recommended that he instead take up exercise and get fresh air which essentially wiped these issues away). |
How do you deal with mental illness? | Jasber: Sometimes I have a problem with anxiety and OCD. Generally I can control the OCD but sometimes the anxiety is overwhelming when I'm stressed.When this happens I've found exercise to be a good release. I'm able to clear my head and work out all the nervous energy.Perhaps you could have a journal instead of a public blog? This way you can still write without the side-effects of telling everyone your secrets. |
A good online broker without Windows | epall: I use Scottrade.com. $7 trades and works fine on Mac OS X. |
Rate my webapp | pedalpete: "problem is I don't have time to finish my reading at a stretch..." unfortunatly, this is where I stopped reading ;)Go for images or video rather than a paragraph of text.
You didn't really grab my interest with so much text on the page, and nothing else. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | ekpyrotic: I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I just wait and persevere.I've had to wait through dark times: hoping the suicidal thoughts will go; hoping the crying will stop; hoping I won't take the final step.And, then, hoping the good will never leave; hoping my thoughts will continue to accelerate; hoping the pen won't stop; hoping the music in my head won't slow; hoping to dance, and wanting to run forever.I don't deal with it, I just live with it. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | anonymousdude: My girlfriend is bipolar. I met her when she was going through a medication change, which was not fun, and she recently had to take a year off from school to deal with her condition, which was hard. She seems to be doing much better and things have calmed down with her.I've heard some people say that it's not worth it, since those kinds of things "never go away", but she means a lot to me. I feel that mental illness is only one aspect of such a person, with pluses and minuses (one such plus being that it makes her a stronger person).A huge number of people at my school have Asburger's, and many are on meds for it. I've seen a lot of them become much more stable and balanced people, mostly because of increased exposure to people like them as well as normal people.Personally, I've found I've developed a very high tolerance to people with personality quirks. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | bprater: If you live in a state where medical marijuana is legal, you might talk to a doctor about seeing if this can help you.I've had a friend with a similar problem with anxiety and panic problems, and this really seems to help her. (She tends to do it in the evenings when she can't shake that panicky feeling, but not while working.) |
Rate my webapp | villageidiot: I liked the clean design but I didn't understand why, after I logged in, I had a random link to a Forth programming website already stored in my links page. A little strange. The idea of only having 4 links per user is a good solution to the quotas imposed by Google App Engine, on which you are hosting this project but, from the user's perspective, this does not make the site very useful. It's your first Django project, so congrats on getting it up and running. Now, maybe you can add a Firefox toolbar or any number of other features that existing bookmarking services offer. Also, consider allowing users to have public and private bookmarks with tagging so that there is some interaction among the users on the site. Take a look at StumbleUpon as probably the most effective implementation of this type of service. You can learn a lot from their feature set. Then you need to think about how you can set yourself apart. Nice start, though. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | zandorg: Do tech jobs discriminate against mental illness? By saying they couldn't possibly be competent? I think some jobs discriminate by default, by looking at someone's CV, which could be tainted by periods in hospital. Myself, I have a mental illness and haven't been able to find work. It's up to me to sell my own software to make a decent living. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | fiaz: I would imagine the following would be of help:1) think positively2) set some goals for yourself3) direct your energy towards those goalsThe first step is the key. Without the right attitude the rest of it would be difficult. If you can bang out 2000 words in 30 minutes, then you have a talent that can be used to help others and yourself.Thanks for sharing - I wish you the best! |
SaaS vs. distributed app | answerly: It will likely depend on the nature of the app, the targeted end user and the type of data that would be stored within the app.Many businesses of all sizes are very comfortable with SaaS thanks to apps like Saleforce.com. Also, it sounds like you would prefer developing for the web anyway. So, that may be your answer right there. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | paul9290: For almost a decade 18 to 28ish (early 30s now) I dealt with obsessive thoughts and in turn anxiety that stifled me being myself around others/enjoying myself. 18 to 24 before I went out of state to finish my studies I had a ton of friends. We did stuff day in and day out, but i could never enjoy those times as I was filled with anxiety and could never be myself.Fortunately I talked about my problems a lot. My mom went thru the same thing and said that I would grow out of it, which I did after many years.I tried various anti-depressants and stuff, but for me they never helped me ... time did though, as well as talking about it(this made me realize Im not crazy/not the only one)! |
Why no search bar? | yan: google for "site:news.ycombinator.com [query]" or http://www.searchyc.com/ |
Why no search bar? | brianlash: I'm pretty sure this came up before and PG's short answer was that while he isn't opposed to a search bar, it's a feature and features take time. And that time's a resource he didn't have between managing a new YC funding cycle and getting hitched. |
What are you doing differently due to the "economic crisis"? | owkaye: We developed a business specifically to take advantage of the fact that we're in a depression. It's not that hard to do when you think about it for a while, and re-adjust your 'thinking cap'. Unfortunately it seems that many people don't have this ability. Maybe they are so used to thinking about how to make money in a growing economy that it is totally foreign to them to think about how to do it in a depression. Our model may not last for more than a few years but it has the potential to generate so much income in those few short years that it's crazy not to do it.Our concept uses the internet as a marketing tool but it is in no way an exclusive internet business model, nor it is yet another lame non-business hobby like most of the 'social networking' site a lot of naive and inexperienced kids are putting online these days.I'm 52 years old and have decades of experience with a variety of different startups, internet and non-internet, and all of them my own concepts and ideas. My partners in this new venture are equally experienced in the 'real world' as well as in the virtual world. This kind of experience is invaluable, and it is also something that appears to be sorely lacking in the internet startup world today, at least in terms of the ridiculous new startups I hear about in this forum.Our new business solves a real world problem, it's not out there trying to sponge off facebook or twitter or any of the other throw-away efforts of the "Web 2.0 generation" by re-factoring info others provide. I cannot imagine the whining we're going to hear from all the 'me too' kids out there who have no better ideas than to latch onto the shirttails of companies that have no revenue model and are therefore destined for oblivion in the next few years!If you're thinking of a startup here's my advice: Instead of trying to find and solve problems in people's virtual lives, just pay attention to the problems they are having in the REAL WORLD -- in their actual day-to-day lives aside from the internet -- and you may come up with a genuine business model that will make you a millionaire or better.And if you want to keep your current job or get a better one, start now by re-dedicating yourself to performing faster, smarter and better on the job you already have. Then maybe your current employer will have a reason to keep you around after he lays off everyone else. And your next employer will see something unique and valuable in you compared with all the clowns who make almost no effort to improve their on-the-job performance, and instead do as little as possible for the money their employers are willing to pay them.Set yourself apart from everyone else, not only on the job but in your off-work time as well. Show yourself and the rest of the world that you're willing to try harder, improve more, and become truly valuable to this world. Don't be a leech or a sponge because they suck the lives out of others. Instead become energizing, overflowing and powerful.Do everything the best you possibly can, or don't do it at all, that's the bottom line. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | light3: have you tried eating differently, or moving to the country side, does that help at all? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | peter411: I have been dealing with dyslexia all my life. I tend to make a lot of spelling errors and editing my own work is particularity difficult, because I read what I think I see so "My god's namme is Rex" reads "My dog's name is Rex". The best tools at my disposal are:
- a text to speech reader
- spell check
- a thesaurus (The spell check suggestions are hard to tell apart ) |
What's up with the color at HN? | paraschopra: Sorry for the submission, I realized it has to do with Christmas. :)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=408253 |
Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? | jfarmer: I'll go first. I'm most proud of Adonomics, which I founded in 2007: http://adonomics.com/I won't lie, it's mostly because it's the most successful thing I've built. I also learned a lot of hard lessons from it, so it was valuable if painful.What about you? |
How do you deal with mental illness? | notmyrealname: Currently facing a massive challenge, and I have no idea of how to deal with it; to put it simply (but still very accurately), if you put me in jail for a few years with a computer and full internet access, it'd be pretty much the same as it is for me now.The only reason I'm still sane is the internet, but that can't help xmas being very, very lonely. I dream of the day I get my life back. :) |
Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? | physcab: Recently... I'd have to say its passing my PhD qualifying exam :) |
Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? | dbrush: Going from bailing hay during the summers in a town called Hope to New York City and starting a startup, all the while having learned on my own not to hate people.Hope has a volunteer fire department, a church, and a post office... only... and is more than 97 percent caucasian.New York City is, well, a melting pot of epic proportions.Perhaps I shouldn't be proud. At the very least I'm humbled and encouraged that just because you're surrounded by something doesn't mean you are necessarily that something. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | bisi: SORRY FOR SHOUTING BUT YOU NEED B12 . Sublingal tablets or shots . You can get the Sublingal Tablets at any pharmacy store without prescription . You have to put them under your tongue .. I cured my panic attacks with B12 and I have added B Complex too.. Start with 1000 Mcg of B12It helps with your energy level and your immune system too . TRY B12 and let us know what you think . It changed my like .I was begining to forget things and now even my memory has improved because of the daily B 12 and B Complexhttp://www.veganhealth.org/b12/sympt |
How do I know if its time to change the host? | tower10: If your site's going down, it's probably already time. VPS's are pretty cheap. Alternatively, there may be some optimisations you can make to your code to reduce your concurrent MySQL connections.You can use tools like siege or Apache ab to probe the limits of your capacity, although I wouldn't run them against your shared host out of respect for the others on the machine. You know what your capcacity is there anyway - you've already reached it. |
How do you deal with mental illness? | jesus_sav3s: I don't think you view your mental illnesses as something you want to change. i.e.
"... so I regard it as a blessing, though a mixed one."
"My most beautiful but also damaging..."
The post gives the impression you want to be seen as a damaged butterfly. I know someone very like you. He has the same hyper-sensitivities, trolling, avoidance of drugs, obsessive writing and hacking. I class both of you as classic INFPs with a strong need for self-expression.My friend made a couple breakthroughs with his life a few years back. He got into drama/acting and films. These things made him far happier and he began to express himself in a more positive manner. Maybe you should try out this area. It is a good way to get some decent friends. |
Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? | pasbesoin: Selflessly (this can be more difficult that it sounds) helping someone else, and then learning that what goes around comes around.Corny, I know. Mod me down. But it's moments of genuine connection with another person that make me most proud, thrilled to be a human. I think we have to learn to empathize and to cooperate, if we are to survive as a species. And it makes me proud when I find a speck of that ability, in myself.When it's a stranger I'll never see again, I have some confirmation that I don't expect something in return, at least not in the immediate sense.When someone does the same for me, I feel I've seen the other side of the equation. |
What are the most in-need charities? | gtani: admin overhead ratios are controversial, not really measure of effectiveness/efficiency in providing serviceshttp://blogs.asaecenter.org/Acronym/2008/12/impact_versus_ov...http://www.charitynavigator.org/http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/0112/036_print.htmlhttp://blog.givewell.net/?p=15 |
What are the most in-need charities? | undertoad: You could try:http://www.networkforgood.org/Default.aspxThere's a "Crisis Relief" link off the home page. |
What are the most in-need charities? | IsaacSchlueter: I don't know how it compares with its need for us, but we certainly all need it, so I give to FFRF. http://www.ffrf.org/ |
would you (founders) use this service? | chris_l: Also: how do you currently solve this problem, if you do. And if you don't, how do you feel about staying within your own country? |
would you (founders) use this service? | davidw: Interesting idea, and something I've considered doing myself, for Italy. The "downside" to it is that it's a linear-growth consulting business, rather than a product business. Still, it seems like something that US companies ought to think about so as to avoid having their lunch eated in other countries by clones. I'd be interested in talking more if you want to look me up through my profile. |
would you (founders) use this service? | puzzle-out: I think a product's sensitivity to serving a number of different locales often has to be sacrificed during the start-up phase, as otherwise the product development could end up, well, unfocussed.
I think your service would be most beneficial during the expansion stage - but then of course, with internet start-ups the lag-time between start-up and expansion can be very short, so your service could really be onto something. |
would you (founders) use this service? | tonystubblebine: Yes, I would love an affordable version of this service. I think of XHTMLized as a potential model for you. I think there are some parallel types of services popping up in testing.I think it's more important for you to be convenient then it is to be perfect. We have foreign-language users who struggle with our english version. Any translation would be a huge upgrade for them. And the users would be our test bed. |
would you (founders) use this service? | brianr: Here's something related that I definitely would pay for: a subscription-based service that provides reliable proxy servers in a wide variety of countries. There was a thread recently about this sort of thing-- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=405946.Basically, I want to be able to browse the web, reliably, as if I were physically located in anywhere. |
would you (founders) use this service? | aupajo: http://99translations.com/ |
What are the most in-need charities? | ideas101: Charities database and navigator:http://www.charitynavigator.org |
What are the most in-need charities? | popat: Choose your own by simple search:http://www.charitynavigator.org |
would you (founders) use this service? | DenisM: While there is more to localization than just translation, I colleted these resrouces for transaltion of small chunks:http://www.cucumis.org/translation_1_w/ - free (peer-to-peer)http://www.onehourtranslation.com/en/ - $4/100 words |
would you (founders) use this service? | mdasen: It depends on price and what's involved.Don't do it for free. As much as free and freemium has become all the rage, I'd want to pay for this. I wouldn't want excessive fees, but consulting like this can't be free. It involves human work and not cursory work if it's going to be good.Do more than simply translations. First, I don't think many people in the UK would care so much about spelling, but also I think translation is easier to come by than a lot of stuff. Geo/mail stuff is a pain when you don't know the country. What services are you thinking of offering. |
would you (founders) use this service? | sammcd: Currently I only localize things, if I have a friend that I trust very well that knows the language. Basically no matter what service I use, I am going to want to check it myself.If you establish trust I will be very interested in this type of service. |
How often do you look at stats? | agentbleu: GF is addicted and she has hardly any visitors, i stopped looking after the traffic went v high and it was all just boring then. |
How often do you look at stats? | aaroneous: Everyone in our (tiny) co watches them throughout the day. If the info is valuable enough it can give you very useful insight into the "life" of your startup organism.If it's wasting your time there's something wrong with your system or way your presenting the data -- it takes me about 5 secs to pull up and understand a solid snapshot of all our stats. |
Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? | dkd: becoming better at dealing with people.1. patience2. patience3. patienceohh.. i guess i forgot to mention "Patience" :D |
what to do if you have only cash? | noodle: put it into a high yield FDIC online savings account (i use HSBC direct). your money won't disappear if the bank is FDIC insured (unless you have more than $100k in a single account, in which case, spread it out across banks until its less than $100k)save until you have 4-6 months of living expenses tucked away. you don't want to be caught with your pants down in this economic environment.after that, you can worry about investing money. i'd suggest starting a retirement account, either 401k or roth (probably roth from the sounds of your situation).regularly and unwaiveringly put money into it every month (even if its just a little -- the important part is that you're doing it and growing it). invest your retirement savings into a solid, diverse handful of index funds.index funds are key, because the cost is minimal. invest and forget it. retirement is long-term. even after this bad downturn, the market will go back up. i haven't touched anything in my retirement account. you don't want to be the idiot who sold on the bottom and later has to buy again when the price is back up.after that is all taken care of, then you can buy some gold, or stock up on roombas and iphones if you have cash to spare. the important thing is to take care of what needs to be taken care of. save for an emergency, and prepare at least a bit for retirement.edit: just noticed you're from germany, not the US. my bad. i'm not sure how FDIC would apply to you or if there are any similar institutions in european banks. might want to check into that. |
what to do if you have only cash? | mechanical_fish: I recommend this book:William Bernstein, The Four Pillars of Investing.(I also read Andrew Tobias' book, which is decent enough, although he's more of a light read.)The super-short version: Index funds.The Impatient Person's version: First, pay off all consumer debt (credit cards and car loans) and amass a pile of emergency cash equal to three to six months' living expenses. Anything extra after that goes: one third in a whole-market domestic stock index fund, from Vanguard or Fidelity if you're in the USA (an S&P500 fund is a bearable approximation), one third in an international stock index fund with low fees; one third in bonds. If you can figure out how to buy bonds denominated in another currency, that might be nice, but watch out for the fees.Better, however, to just read the book, which discusses the principle of diversification and drills you on basic skills (distrust most financial industry pros; don't pretend that you or anybody else can reliably pick individual stocks; don't panic in every bear market because the darned things happen on a regular basis; etc.)Don't put undue faith in gold. And don't feel that you have to go crazy buying consumer goods before the prices go up: At the moment, we're as likely to have a period of severe price deflation as anything else. Just look at what the sag in the economy has done to the price of gas, and everything connected to it. |
what to do if you have only cash? | nostrademons: Are you in Germany or the U.S? I don't know much about Germany's legal protections or the stability of their currency. I'd imagine that given their past experience with hyperinflation, they're pretty careful.In the U.S, I think cash is about the safest thing you can hold, in an FDIC insured account under the insured limit (currently $250k). Don't believe any of the stuff you read on Reddit about hyperinflation; Redditors are largely idiots and don't know a damn about economics.If hyperinflation does hit, you will have bigger problems than the security of your savings, notably how to get food and how to avoid being killed in a riot. Your best bet here is the same as if there is no crisis: friends, skills, and a reputation for being a decent human being.The depression-era advice of "neither a borrower nor lender to be" is also appropriate. In a crisis, the fewer financial ties you have to other organizations, the fewer potential credit risks. Pay off your credit cards, pay off your car loans, pay off your mortgage if you can, and avoid holding bonds or other debt on risky organizations. |
How often do you look at stats? | gsmaverick: I think you should probably look at them once a week. Don't get too obsessed with pure traffic stats as they can be misleading! |
what to do if you have only cash? | xayide: Gold worries me these days. It's gone up so much lately that I think it's overvalued. Of course, I discouraged my husband from buying up gold when it was much cheaper a year ago for this same reason and he still hasn't forgiven me. For a civilization collapsing catastrophe, I still think we're better off with the bags of rice and bottles of bourbon we hoarded instead.I'm not a fan of index funds. At the risk of going against popular wisdom, I think it's better to put your money in a fund that is actually managed by a financial professional. Index funds follow the general market hell or high water, and even though their fees are generally lower since it doesn't take any brains to manage one, you'll never maximize your returns (or these days minimize your losses) with one. The key phrase to look for is 'no load mutual fund'. These funds will generally minimize fees at the time of your deposit and withdrawl. I've been happy with the Muhlenkamp Fund overall, of course they're in the gutter like everyone else at the moment.The thing to remember is that the price of both gold and funds will fluctuate, and in either case you wouldn't be able to get at your money right away. I keep an HSBC high interest rate savings account for emergencies. There's enough money in there to pay my insurance deductibles if I crash my car into my house and both burn down. I contribute monthly to pay my semi-annual insurance premiums plus a little extra to give me that deductible buffer. It's probably around 2 months living expenses, which is within my risk tolerance, but you might want to sock away at least 3 months worth before investing the rest. |
what to do if you have only cash? | daniel-cussen: I'd go for the gold. 30,000 years of history deserve more respect than 100 years of a weird economy with major problems and a dearth of good explanations. So, physical gold, some silver, some mining company stocks, and maybe diversify by buying some stock in an farm company in US. Have some cash stashed away, and maybe buy some index funds.My ideal portfolio:25% bullion (Mostly gold, some 14k gold rings, some silver, along with a digital balance and a jeweller's touchstone kit for determining purity).15% cash in a sock.16% mining company stock.12% index fund.7% ag company (basic foodstuff, like wheat or other cereals).15% in a savings account.1 pistol, 1 body armor and 3 years of ammo. Consider investing in self-defense and food.I know, it's very reddit of me, but this way, if the shit hits the fan, you'll only lose a small amount of your portfolio, and the rest will go way up. If things are fine, you're fine. Not as fine as your peers, but fine nonetheless. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | shutter: Google shines when you must deal with a problem that occurs due to third-party code (particularly proprietary code). When things _should_ be working in your code, Google can help sort out an obscure issue much more quickly than trying to search through the source for a third-party library.Your brain works best to debug your own code, but isn't as efficient to discover flaws quickly in unfamiliar source. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | gtani: There's a macro question of how to use all resources at your dispoal to address coding questions: maybe look at pragmatics' wetware book.the micro skill you have to develop: scour delicious, IRC, stackoverflow, Yahoo search, forums for your language/framework. Also krugle, koders.com, gotapi.com, (can't tell if anybody's maintain codase.com for java/C++)Google custom search engines are great, too, carefully choose 20-40 domains to include. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | noodle: both. brain, google, brain, in that order. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | mechanical_fish: Yes. ;)This is what programmers are paid for. To decide on a case-by-case, moment-by-moment basis whether to use Google (and, more importantly, which phrases to Google and which results you should try to use) or whether to work through something on your own, or phone a friend, or surrender and just do something else.There is no general rule.I expect that within another generation nobody will distinguish between "thinking" and "using Google", just as I don't distinguish between "solving a problem on my own" and "solving a problem on my own by remembering something I read a month ago". |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | hs: google shines when there's a lot of data point (say ubuntu)man pages shine when the info is very specific (say openbsd)first time it's better to use google (to see whether it's an issue -- where people encountered the same problem ... or non-issue -- only ME? having this problem? it could be something else)but after facing it multiple times, man pages (and brain) are my friends |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | known: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Isaac NewtonShoulder = Google |
Any users of SimpleCDN? | MonsterMash545: No problems with simplecdn for about a month, but i have just a small blog site, doing a few hundred gigs a month in shareware downloads too, but so far everything good, saving about 3x what I was paying for S3. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | oscardelben: I first try to understand the problem. If the problem is going to take more than a few minutes to solve, I try to google about it, and if I found nothing, I put my brain into it. I do this because 98% of the times is a problem about libraries or programs maintained by someone else. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | gaius: There are those of us who remember the Internet before Google... |
website for viewing hackernews on weekly mode | xtimesninety: just an update: I created something that does this: http://hnweekly.watdahel.com |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | brk: Google is a tool, to be used like any other tool.I'm very good at solving most problems that come up in whatever I'm working on, but Google can also be a massive "accelerator".Often times I've thrown at error message at Google just to get an idea about where the general problem may lie (is it me, is it the system, is it even fixable?), etc.Before Google you'd have to weed through manuals (if you owned all the right ones) or ask a question on something like FidoNET. Getting answers took much longer, sometimes that allowed you to solve the problem on your own by giving you lots of time to think about it. Other times it just delayed your progress. |
what to do if you have only cash? | puzzle-out: I'm in a similar situation, I looked at stocks, but really to make much money out of the stock market in bearish conditions, you need a hefty amount to invest in the first place, unless you go down the spreadbetting path, but that's dangerous territory if your not in full control of your passions.
I'm going to invest the money instead travelling in the spring, to check out eastern europe - 90% pleasure, but I'm arranging to meet up with some startups over there and who knows, I might take a punt on one of them. |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | thomasmallen: Random concern: I think spending too much time in a hammock is a bad thing because it hyperextends your knees. |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | ojbyrne: Not really prepared to do that right now, but I'm curious about the logistics - work visas, tax concerns, etc. |
Do you use your brain or Google to solve your problems? | abl: Personally, I use lifelines. First I eliminate 50% of the wrong answers... If that doesn't work, I ask the audience. When all else fails, I call Bill Gates. :) |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | aibon: i recently had that plan with a friend too, unfortunately she had an accident. i have a little project to finish und would join in. planed to leave alone for thailand in the beginning of january. i'll send you an emailwhy the hell would yo need a workvisa? |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | Mystalic: Sounds nifty. I actually own a place on the beach in Thailand (technically, I'm a dual citizen of the U.S. and Thailand!); maybe I should stay there for two months and build new business ideas. Maybe I will see you! |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | superkarn: I'm Thai and have been back there a few times the past few years.One time, I stayed at a resort on Koh Chang (Elephant Island, a few hours east of Bangkok). It was pretty nice, and relatively cheap. And it had wifi. Make sure the room you stay in (or wherever your hammock is going to be) gets good signal. I couldn't get good stable signal in my room. I had to sit out in the porch if I wanted to go online. (Bring bug spray!)You can stay/vacation in Thailand for relatively cheap. I would recommend you stay on a beach if you can. They have one of the best beaches in the world (not mainland beaches, but island beaches). And definitely take a few days to go sight seeing. Worth it =)I'm interested in how this turns out for you. Good luck.ps If you don't get paid locally for your "work", I don't think you need a work visa. And I use TripAdvisor.com for hotel reviews. |
Interested in coworking in Thailand? | Heff: Sounds cool. I'm not seeing any info in your profile. Is it just me? |
Is making clones bad? | vaksel: he IS offering something better. Does the original site exist in French/Spanish? No. So he is doing something the original site isn't.Frankly I don't mind clones at all. Its all about execution...if someone can clone you and take any marketshare...then you might want to look for another job |
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