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Do you program in black or white? | pietro: I use Visual Studio with the Vibrant Ink color scheme from TextMate, and I've had the same experience. I find it surprisingly pleasant. |
insomnia? | hbien: Hack. Or read Hacker News. |
insomnia? | ErrantX: Read & exercise.It's the best thign for it (esp if your really not going ot get any sleep).Steven Fry is an insomniac and he knows a lot of crap simply from reading books when he couldn't sleep. I try to go the same way :D |
Email Marketing | pclark: where are you intending on getting your list of users to email from? |
Email Marketing | satyajit: I almost never give in to direct email marketing (and these emails almost always get marked as spam, so lot of prospective candidates also do not recv it) - but I do trust my friends tell me to join a site, and I do. May be it works differently for diff people, but I think spreading thru a social networking platform may work better. My 2¢ |
insomnia? | sam_in_nyc: Find out what's causing it... there's something wrong. Usually it is stress or anxiety. Is something worrying you?The easiest way to solve it: exercise and/or eat more. This reduces stress and anxiety. It's easier said than done... I find insomnia (and most things in life) to be a feedback loop. Less sleep means I'm more exhausted and not hungry. More quality sleep gives me more energy to exercise and I eat right. So you've gotta do something that changes in which direction you're regressing.It should be noted there's a difference between insomnia and sleep phase disorders. One is actually whether or not you sleep soundly for enough hours a night, and the other is at which hours you tend to sleep.But take my advice with a grain of salt.. it's 6:15 here and I'm still awake :) |
insomnia? | matthewking: Watch TV for half an hour, then try to sleep again. Usually its because something is on my mind, so I need to put my mind somewhere else (hence, the TV).However, I find that I sleep much better if I get off the computer early, say 9PM. That gives me plenty of time to wind down and get sleepy before a reasonable time to go to bed.Otherwise I'll find myself still on the computer until 3AM, then I have no means of winding down, so I struggle to get to sleep all night, get up late the next day, and so the cycle continues! |
Email Marketing | matthewking: The sort of emails I clarify as spam are selling viagra, fake watches and all sorts of pills. They're sent in mass, multiple copies per day, every day to the same email and are in no way targeted.A targeted one off email, to a business that you honestly think will benefit from your product or services is OK, surely? If it is spam, its not quite in the same camp as the above. |
Email Marketing | tomsaffell: When you say, "My question is - How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer :-)"Do you mean:a) How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer by the people who are receiving the emails?ORb) How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer by the anti-spam filters on mail server?Most responses so far are to (a), but I'm guessing you might mean (b)..? |
Email Marketing | whatusername: To me as a consumer - If I haven't given you my email address - then it's spam.
(Even if I've left a box ticked saying that "partners can email through special offers', then I still see it as spam).However - I'm likely not your target audience. |
Do you program in black or white? | Goladus: I don't like white or black backgrounds, though I prefer white to black in a typical windowed environment. If my editor has the full screen it doesn't matter, but I don't like menus and other windows being a lot brighter than the editor. It's either distracting, or it's a jarring readjustment every time I have to change windows.If it weren't for syntax highlighting, I'd prefer slight color variations, with not much preference towards dark-on-light or light-on-dark. If I have a lighter background I usually prefer the text to be black. If I have a darker background I usually prefer the text to be slightly colored. In web terms, an example would be "99DD99" text on "303030" background, or "99DD99" background with black text. |
how good my idea is? | snitko: I want to implement a sort of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) web-based application, that is targeted for small businesses (small clinics, fitness centers, motels, restaurants etc). The feature list is simple:1. Adding/Removing customers and info on them.
2. Creating events for customers and employees and tracking these events.
3. Sending reminders for these events via SMS or email.
4. An easy web-interface for customers, which allows them to reschedule or cancel the event.The subscription would be free for managing ~20 clients and, I guess, starting from $10 when you want to track more than 20.Now I know about 37signals' 'Highrise' but it seemed to me more contact-oriented and much less client-oriented: good for business where you speak a lot to your clients and remember them better, but not good enough for mass-clients world.So, what do you think about it? Is it worth working on? Do you think people will pay for it? Would also be nice to listen to someone from Russia, if there's anyone here. |
What's the state of the web in your (non-English) language? | rodrigo: Im mexican living in Mexico City;
Theres a lot of noise in the web in spanish, you find a lot of wannabes and a lot of people discovering the internet and thinking theyre going to magically get rich. I've read blogs about dev/hacker gettogethers here in Mexico, but havent found anything cool yet.
If theres someone interested in doing something in Mexico, drop a line. |
What's the state of the web in your (non-English) language? | rodrigo: Also, I do almost all of my surfing in english, I buy online a lot, lots of people here in Mexico have credit cards (at least in Mexico City) so theres definitively a big opportunity here.
The web here feels like The Web in the US circa 1994, so you pretty much know where are thing going. Thats a great advantage. |
Historical Market Data for use in webapp? | prakash: http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=2870 |
Historical Market Data for use in webapp? | lpgauth: Haven't used their service, but this seems to be what you need: http://www.opentick.com/. |
Estimating Ad Revenue | rrhyne: I have no idea whether my system will prove to be accurate, but it's a start:Number of users * avg page views a day = total page views/1000 = inventory. Then do a % of your inventory of sold as CPM * a CPM rate. Next do a % of your inventory sold as CPC * a CPM rate. Then can ad affiliate marketing % and so on.Build all that as a spreadsheet and you can play with all the numbers with all the numbers as you do research in your space as mentioned on previous comments. |
Speaking of 2009, anyone remember Abuse (the game)? | eru: Sure, I remember it. You can also find it in the standard ubuntu repositories.The tricks, that the game plays on you to frighten you, get rather predictable after a few levels.Some year back I even hacked in the lisp parts of source. |
insomnia? | hapless: I follow my doctors' advice. Every doctor I've ever had has given me the same advice on insomnia. It's not rocket science.1. Go to bed at the same time every night.2. Get up at the same time every morning.3. Don't do anything in bed other than bed-related activities. No TV, no reading, no radio. (If you must read, just don't do it in bed. Get up. Sit in a chair.)4. Exercise more.5. Cut caffeine consumption.This is common-sense advice. Your situation may be peculiar in some way. See a doctor. |
How do you measure the success of your startup? | diN0bot: we measure the success of our startup by the amount of social and environmental good we are generating.the time to pull the plug is a good question. we are nearing our second year, though only in the past 4 months have we both been working full time. as the product and community matures we will either transition from savings to sustainability, or else move to more sustainable work while still pushing the startup forward on the side (not so many new features, but often the social and entrepreneurial advances are more a matter of timing and connections. constant strategic effort, not full time effort). we'll see though. |
list of domains for university emails | fgimenez: Why don't you just check if the email ends with .edu? Edu domain names are restricted to accredited post-secondary institution, handled by educase. http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/ |
list of domains for university emails | pclark: type in the specific schools in google and grab the first result?you could automate this quite easily, too. |
list of domains for university emails | philjr: If you can't get a definitive list, try a whitelist approach with a moderated queue for any domains not matching the whitelist.Once you see a domain that's an educational institute it gets whitelisted and further registrations from that domain get ok'd.No matter what text you include there, you're gonna get the odd student registering with a hotmail/gmail/yahoo account (I've tried something similar in the past). Try and get a list of free email accounts to give feedback on those straight away.I think any domain using the .edu TLD is safe straight-away, but I'm not from the US, so it may be worth clarifying that. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | Edinburger: Thanks everyone for the excellent replies. I'll evaluate software in the next few days. |
list of domains for university emails | run4yourlives: One would assume that you only want US institutions? Because nobody else really uses .edu to any great degree of consistency. |
playin' the stocks game | frisco: Avoid individual stocks. Without insider knowledge, an individual is basically gambling when they invest in individual companies. Try finding a fund that provides good returns, and let a professional who has hundreds of millions of dollars in leverage and much better insider knowledge make the specific decisions.The other key is to look abroad, especially in emerging markets right now. That, and Chinese infrastructure (i.e., airports). |
playin' the stocks game | jwilliams: This is advice that people rarely take, and I'd probably ignore... but I'd recommend investing with a fake portfolio to start (there are "fantasy" investment sites that make this easy).Making money is important - but I'd also recommend that you invest in things you believe in. |
playin' the stocks game | jwb119: I would absolutely recommend reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel. Its a great introduction to the theory of efficient markets. |
playin' the stocks game | seregine: For me, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's investment advice resonates the most. You could start here:http://ycombinator.com/munger.htmlAlso, before buying mutual funds, read this:http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-youll... |
playin' the stocks game | tialys: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248469Some good stuff here. |
playin' the stocks game | mixmax: The market isn't irrational - people are. Learn about psychology, sociology ad behavioral economics and you'll have an edge.Here's a nobel prize lecture on behavioral economics to get you started: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2002/And another really important tip: Make sure you can afford to lose all the money you put in. |
playin' the stocks game | ctkrohn: Expect to lose your $2000. I'm not trying to dissuade you -- investing is a skill, and if it only costs $2000 to learn it, you've done great. If you're not afraid to lose your capital, you'll be much better positioned to take calculated risks.Be aware of commissions. If you have only $2000, you will have to engage in fewer, more profitable trades -- otherwise commissions will completely erode your profits. Let's say it costs $10 to make a round-trip buy/sell trade. That's already 0.5% of your capital right there. If you do 10 trades a year, you're starting off with an annual return of -5%.Traditional stock picking really isn't my thing. It's nearly impossible to have an informational advantage. The professionals can barely beat their benchmark on a regular basis. It just doesn't make sense to play the stock picking game unless you have a credible reason to believe that you have an edge over the competition.A great place to hang out is www.nuclearphynance.com. It's the best message board for quant finance. Lurk there for a while and learn about the computational and quantitative side of finance. Traditional stock picking isn't really related to hacking, but there are sides of finance that are. |
playin' the stocks game | arebop: Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor is a classic you should probably read. Burton Malkiel's Random Walk Down Wall Street was also interesting. I hear that Hull's Options Futures and Other Derivatives is a good intro to the more mathematically sophisticated instruments, but I haven't read it myself. |
playin' the stocks game | ojbyrne: http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Self-defense-Manual-Intell...Summary - buy index funds, keep your costs low, invest for the long term. |
playin' the stocks game | fizx: The best advice I've heard about trading is poker advice."There's a sucker at every table. If you can't spot him, it's you."Cycles like the one we're going through really illustrate this. Look at all the suckers who bought 2nd homes in Stockton as an "investment." If you realized this, you bet against that trend, and made money. |
playin' the stocks game | teuobk: Index funds. As a broad generalization, index funds are superior to managed funds due to higher long-term returns and far lower fees.As another broad generalization, you can have higher returns than index funds (aka the market) only at the cost of increased risk. |
playin' the stocks game | Rod: As someone who once worked for a hedge fund, please allow me to give you some words of advice:- what advantage do you think you will have over others? Unless you have friends in high places and plan to do insider trading (which is very illegal), you will be one more amateur playing against the professionals in the banks and hedge funds. The pros work at least 12 hours a day and have years of experience. They are also better connected than you. So... what advantage do you think you have? If you can't answer this simple question, I advise you to choose a game where you have an advantage.- if you think I am being too pessimistic and defeatist, do read Prof. Larry Harris' paper The Winners and Losers of the Zero-Sum Game: The Origins of Trading Profits, Price Efficiency and Market Liquidity at http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~lharris/ABSTRACT/Zerosum.htm- be ready to lose your $2000 (like someone else mentioned before) and accept it as a "price" to pay to learn something about investing.- brokers are crooks. All of them. They will "rape" you whenever they have a chance.- don't invest in stocks, invest in yourself. If you are on HN, I assume you like to write code. Investing $2000 in an idea you might have will likely yield better dividends in the long term.I am not trying to be pedantic or anything. I am only trying to put things in perspective. Everybody would like to make money in the stock market, but few manage to do it... and the ones who do manage to make money consistently over the years (and within the law) most likely have years and years of experience and hard work under their belts. |
playin' the stocks game | Prrometheus: Save your money and spend it on something useful instead.Or buy a newspaper stock section blown up to wall-size, a monkey, and some darts.But seriously, Google "survivorship bias".The ones selling advice are doing so because they were the ones lucky enough to survive and smart enough to realize that selling advice is more predictably profitable than playing the market. |
playin' the stocks game | vlad: Do not "play the stocks game" if you think it's a game. The point of investing is to make money. Don't invest in any company unless you have valid reasons to believe the company will go up in value in whatever time frame you're looking for results. And this should be true every week, or you should sell when you don't feel comfortable with the stock any longer. Because the way you feel, so will other investors, and if for whatever reason they don't feel comfortable, they will pull their money, so you might as well react on that feeling first. If the stock continues its devaluation, then it was a good call by you, if the stock actually gets more valuable, then you still might feel good about leaving it since it might now be even more likely to drop now at its higher price. Don't invest in stock simply because you don't know what else to do with the money. And don't invest money you might need in the next six months; the point is to keep money but make logical bets from time to time on companies when you feel you have a much larger informational advantage than most everybody else, using money you won't need in the near future. The point is not to lose money, though if you do lose a bit, it won't be tomorrow's mortgage payment.The most important thing to realize is that the best thing you could with the money is to put it in a savings account and try to release lots of software or web apps for feedback and practice in running a business. Your salary and job opportunities will increase, as well as give you a chance to make money on the side, as well, pay for retirement, and a small runway for you to go full time if you want to take your ideas further. Because with stocks, you're buying companies, not pieces of paper, and finding a company that returns 2x or 3x the investment will be hard to do at the scale of companies listed on NASDAQ, and a micro-cap company where you have enough knowledge or control would be hard to find either. But if you invest your time towards creating things, you'll raise the worth of your skills (or at least, remain competitive and diversified), get "free" business lessons from your experience, and may be able to make thousands of dollars on the side per year or month, on top of that, as a bonus. This is almost a guaranteed investment. And if you could use some of the money you saved up to start a company and figure out the accounting behind it, so the only thing you have to worry about is creating stuff, then you'll be basically set for life. Why?Because as someone trying to run a business, as well as someone who follows the latest in technology, you'll be in a better position than almost any other investor regarding knowing when to invest in tech companies. On top of that, I can imagine that at some point you could even be a seed investor in companies that are not even on the stock exchange. You will also be the go-to guy at your company. Finally, your company might even become profitable enough for you to go full-time or worth enough to somebody that they'll pay you five, six, or maybe even seven figures for it.Investing is not gambling. And you're paying $7-14 a trade, so it's probably better to stick with 5 companies or so, which helps to diversify, and if you have to sell your whole position to buy a better one, you can sell all of it for just that fee, instead of trying to sell a bunch of different ones for $7-14 each.Don't invest in companies you wouldn't buy from. Invest in companies that seem well run and on the upward trend, that at the same time, you feel that other people, once they find out how good it is in the next few months, will invest in as well, and therefore you would make your money back and then some, based on lots of new people learning about the company and buying their product and increasing their earnings, as well as the influx of buyers of their stock, sending the price of it up by way of more means than one.Finally, the trends of the last 40 years are irrelevant to what will happen in the next 40. This is 100% true. Investing is not a tax, and you should not treat it as such (i.e. it leaves your bank account, and if it comes back to help you in any way, then that's great! No, it's not how this works.) |
list of domains for university emails | bwh2: I suggest using the Department of Education college data. Most of the ~7,000 US schools listed have homepage URL listed, which you could grab the domain from with relative ease. Aside from that, you're probably looking at parsing Wikipedia pages or grabbing data from Petersons, which is not free. The DOE dataset is a good starting point, but you'll run into a fair (~300? I don't remember exactly) schools without domains listed, but they're schools like Joe's Barber School, not major universities. Any reasonably sized school has a domain in the DOE dataset. Peterson's is good, but they have restrictions on use which can be annoying to deal with if you care about legality.Also, on the note of .edu domains being restricted to post -secondary institutions; that's not entirely true. That wasn't the original rule, so some non-university level schools are grandfathered in and own .edu domains. For instance, my high school has a .edu domain. |
playin' the stocks game | bokonist: My favorite posts and sites:Mark Cuban's post on stocks:
http://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/08/talking-stocks-and-money/A blog of a hedge fund trader in Japan:
http://nihoncassandra.blogspot.comA blog of a hedge fund trader in London:
http://macro-man.blogspot.com/Reminices of a stock operator - written in the 1920's, everything he says still applies today.If you really want to understand both the economy and stocks, try doing this search in google:
site:blogs.cfr.org/setser/ mencius moldbug
and read every comment by Mencius.Finally, I recommend a short comment I made about stocks and investing here: http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=2587I was a huge fan of the book "A Random Walk Down Wall St" when I first read it. But now I believe that it is seriously misguided. The stock market is a far different beast than it was in 1970. |
playin' the stocks game | apinstein: Today there are so many ways you can "practice" trading I'd recommend using a stock market game before jumping in. You will make many mistakes in trading; might as well make them on a simulator.http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/Homepage.aspxThe people saying "be prepared to lose it all" are crazy. You only need to be prepared to loose it all if you're undertaking a really risky strategy.Of course this depends on your goals. If you're just picking individual stocks based on thin information with little industry knowledge and hopes to make a quick buck, then, yeah be prepared to lose it all.If you are trying to enter the market for the first time with a long-term portfolio strategy, you're doing it wrong if you must also prepare to lose it all. |
playin' the stocks game | pj: First of all, ignore Jim Cramer!! Stay as far away from him as possible. The little bits of truth he speaks are not worth wading through the coin tosses, just stay away.Next, when you're trying to figure out which stocks to buy, forget about the stocks. Don't look to PE's, and all the other ratios to figure out where the market is going.Look at the world around you. Look at where the /world/ is going. Which things are going to be hot 20 years from now? Those are the things that are going to be your biggest wins. You only need one or two or three really big winners to set you for life and you have many years to find them.Don't look at the latest headlines to decide where to put your money. You may make money trading stocks, buying at $22 and selling at $26, it is possible and that is very likely to happen.But that is not the goal. Four dollars is not the goal. Four million dollars is the goal and that takes years and years.So, take your time. Don't invest any real dollars for a year. Take the dollars you would invest and put them into books and education and paper trading. I know it sounds lame and where's the fun in that, but if fun is what you are looking for, go to vegas. Poker is more exciting and easier to figure out how to win and you can make a lot of money with a $2,000 bank roll if you play your cards right.If you are just absolutely itching to put that money into the market, look in to index funds. Index funds are easily managed funds that don't cost a lot of money to keep running but are still diversified.Put your money into one of those, like buy the QQQQ or something -- IT MAY CRASH right after you buy it, the point isn't to make money, the point is to pay attention. Pay attention to the short term swings in the market, but don't buy or sell based on them.Look at the fundamentals of the entire market to decide when to make big moves. Make little moves on little time frames, big moves on big time frames.For example, you could have looked at the markets a couple years back and known that the future didn't look so hot. You probably didn't know when everything was going to collapse, but you knew the fundamentals weren't looking very good. Okay, so then you might want to tend toward market underweight.Anyway, lots of useless advice summed up in a couple words: Don't get trigger happy. Use your head. Practice makes perfect. Stocks are not a get rich quick scheme. |
playin' the stocks game | brk: $2000 really isn't enough to "play the market". As the other comments have suggested there is too much stacked against you.If you really want to try your hand, I'd pick 1 moderately risky stock with a shot at long-term (5-7 years) surprise growth. There is a high probably your $2000 will become $200, but that probability exists almost universally.Personally, if I was going to bet a $2000 chunk, I would throw it at Ford stock today (F). This is based on the fact that I used to work there (FSIC), still know several people in the company, and have a belief that they have a solid long-term strategy. There is a high probability that they'll run out of money before they can fully enact that strategy, but if they do, that $2.50 stock will easily be $25 in 7 years. Or $0. That's the fun of trying to make money on individual stock trades :)In 5 years, you'll either have a decent chunk of money, or nothing. Neither outcome is life-changing anyway. |
playin' the stocks game | apsurd: I've never invested a penny in stocks, but my friend has and has his ups and downs..but is currently down..about $13,000 (he is your age). I highly recommend you do as others have mentioned and INVEST IN YOURSELF, not someone elses business. But if you insist.. I recommend you NOT be like every other "average investor" and have a read at what tim sykes has to say about it all ... http://timothysykes.com/ |
playin' the stocks game | xenophanes: Buy AAPL long. |
playin' the stocks game | jhp: Here are some things to keep in mind:- I think that it is best to invest directly in securities (only resorting to index funds if you really must outsource your thinking). You'll learn the most if you make the big decisions.- Learn how to analyze the public information available. Cash flows. Balance sheets. Income statements. Get an accounting book! Learn about the types of securities and alternatives to equity investing (especially the various kinds of bonds).- Market prices are based on combination of innumerable emotional and rational reactions to the real value of the companies behind the shares. Only over the long term will the price reflect the real value of these businesses. At any point, the price can be completely outside of reason, so beware of and be ready to take advantage of the stupidity of crowds.- Invest in types of businesses that you can understand, or plan on spending lots of time researching "in the field". Really focus on a few. When I was buying shares of Nabisco, I was spending late nights in the cookie aisle at Vons. When I started buying Apple, I spent serious time at their first toe-hold at CompUSA and later at their stores. I recently spent time at the Crocs stand at the mall to evaluate this company.- Learn the different investment mental models and build one for yourself. Graham. Buffett. Munger. Lynch. Fisher.- Learn about related fields. Psychology. Macroeconomics. Patent law. Whatever is important to industries that you are going to focus on.- Keep investing. When you are 40 or 50 years old you might be half-good at it. |
playin' the stocks game | steveplace: I run a stock options website (investingwithoptions.com) and am known as one of the better options guys out there.2k won't get you far in terms of trading. You should probably look into passive investing. You will get much larger returns investing in yourself than trying to speculate on the market.If you do want to speculate, you might want to look into index verticals. They limit your risk (50-150 loss max ) and have less comission vs trading stock ($3 vs $10). You'll at least lose money more slowly. And your delta risk initially isn't a lot so you can unwind a position with much less loss early than if you were to get into futures/stock.Me personally I trade options using technical and sentimental analysis, which is heresy around these "effecient market" places.Oh, and don't listen to Cramer or CNBC. They're asshats.I've got a pretty decent blogroll built up on my site with bloggers that risk their own money for a living, so that's a good place to start. |
playin' the stocks game | nas: Read "The Intelligent Investor". It was written many years ago and is still relevant today (it's actually scary how history seems to repeat itself). Regarding fees, note that commissions are not the only costs to transactions. Remember the bid/ask spread and that as a small investor you will be taken advantage of.Long term is the way to go, IMHO. It is nearly impossible to predict short term price movements. Also, forget the efficient market hypotheses; if the SP500 can go up 5% one day and down 5% the next it's obviously bogus. You can count on the average stock owner to be either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic (and not just a little bit). Do you homework first and keep your head.Find companies with business models you can understand: how are they making revenue, what are their costs, what are their risks? Use discounted cash flows (i.e. NPV) to find a fair market price (P/E is good rough estimate). Be very conservative when doing this, especially with regards to expected EPS and growth. Double digit growth cannot be maintained and generally high growth companies are overvalued. Most libraries have S&P reports that you can study for free (good for EPS data although take it with a grain of salt). Some discount brokers also offer stock reports. Note that analysis recommendations are usually bogus but it doesn't hurt to take note.Index funds are a good way to diversity but watch out for fees (I like Vanguard, especially their ETFs) and too much portfolio turnover (some are just badly designed). However, it's my opinion that you can do better than the indexes with a little common sense (see above) and if you can stomach the extra risk. Stick to large cap stocks because they are more liquid and less susceptible to insider information. It doesn't hurt to look at insider activity (although note the effects of stock options).$2000 is not much money, probably not enough to start messing with individual stocks. I would stick it low fee, value ETF and forget about it. $10,000 is probably a more reasonable starting amount, say 25% in high-grade bonds, 25% in a index fund, and 50% in individual stocks of your choosing (say 2 or 3). |
playin' the stocks game | tocomment: I'm reading so many negative comments. If he's smart and interested in stocks, perhaps he can make money. What if Warren Buffet had posted an ask-HN before starting his career? |
playin' the stocks game | axiom: To all the naysayers: remember that holding cash is holding a depreciating asset. That 2k is not going to be worth 2k in a year's time. So really by not investing you're taking a guaranteed loss of 3%-15% a year (depending on how pessimistic you are about future inflation) instead of some other possible loss that depends on how risky your make your portfolio.For what it's worth my suggestion is to put your money in gold (GLD or DGP) or oil (USO, DXO or their variants.)Edit: oh and of course go with an online discount broker instead of a major bank. You'd have to be insane to do otherwise. I'm in Canada so I use Questrade, and they are phenomenal. |
playin' the stocks game | comatose_kid: Lots of good advice in this thread.In addition, understand risk management. You don't have enough cash to diversify across stocks (and time, buying in stages) to really be effective. An index fund is probably your best bet.That said, if you want to take a lot of risk, look into options trading. Deep in the money calls are a relatively low risk way to succeed. But the learning curve for options is steep. |
How do I find out if I'm infringing copyrights? | cschneid: Lawyer?Also, if the music clips are newer than "ancient" you're probably infringing. |
playin' the stocks game | tom_rath: With $2,000, the best investment you can make is purchasing quality, non-perishable dry goods in bulk as you spot them on sale.That's not sarcasm. You'll be eating and wearing out your stuff one way or another and buying a year's worth of rice, grass seed, socks, underwear, cat litter, detergent, toothpaste, etc. when you spot it on sale could shave 20%+ off your living expenses.So, a greater than 20% return. No risk, no taxes, and no commission paid. You really can't do better than that to put an extra $500 in your pocket two years from now. |
playin' the stocks game | diN0bot: why all the pessimistic comments? invest that $2000 in a 401 or roth low-risk fund and you will likely get good returns in 50 years. |
playin' the stocks game | oakmac: step 1) please forget anything you read from Jim Cramerstep 2) read The Black Swan by Talebstep 3) make an account at caps.fool.comstep 4) get your score above 80step 5) never invest more than 2% of your capital in any investmentstep 6) figure out how to profit from your capital given rule #5step 7) if you've figured out rule #6 you're set for life |
playin' the stocks game | drawkbox: It will be a great education for you into how markets work. I know it opened my eyes widely when I started playing around the same age. It will completely change you.Couple of quick things. Don't listen to a word Cramer has to say. It is all in volume, earnings per share, FUTURE earnings per share, and ratio. Also, markets can be irrational. And no matter how smart you are there is enough FUD to cloud your decision.Expect to lose a good portion of that to start but it will be one of the best classes you ever paid for.With such low money and bad margins the odds are stacked against you but it is worth it for the awareness that you will gain with market insights.See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jwEwlZnSFYIn the end if you want a good chunk to be completely low fee and almost guaranteed just invest in index funds, now is a perfect time. Wait 5 years and they will be up quite a bit with usually a less than 1% fee. |
playin' the stocks game | raamdev: You might want to try using the free Stock Market Game UpDown for a few weeks/months to practice investing:http://www.updown.com/?_refer=36311They give you $1 million in play money to invest, but you actually make real money based on your performance (no minimum transfer amount -- I've made a whooping $0.82 so far, but I can withdraw it if I want). |
How do I find out if I'm infringing copyrights? | answerly: Here is the RIAA's position:"Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy can now also include certain uses of "streaming" technologies from the Internet. Because of the nature of the theft, the damage is not always easy to calculate but not hard to envision."Source:
http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira... |
playin' the stocks game | charlesju: The only way to win in stocks is to invest in value and hold long. I would suggest just going in on a leveraged index ETF and just forget about for 5 years. I bet you'll get around a 20% return. |
How do I find out if I'm infringing copyrights? | quoderat: The way the system works now, is if some large business interest says you're infringing, you won't have the power or money to fight them.Great system we got going here. |
playin' the stocks game | dc2k08: Seems to be a lot of people here who have a sound and rational knowledge of this game as the OP imagined there would be. I have a question and would be very grateful if someone could answer.I have a good reason to believe that a relatively small Chinese company will be bought over by a massive US company this year. being a total newb, would it be feasible for me to buy shares in this company easily so that I can profit from them when it is bought? someone suggested sharebuilder.com. Anyone ever use them? |
Best way to create and send snail mail via an API? | idophir: PostalMethods have great SOAP XML (and HTTP POST) Web Services which would make enable you to quickly complete the integration development and focus on your website.The development is free including professional support and code samples.Good luck.
PostalMethods (http://www.postalmethods.com/) |
playin' the stocks game | tlrobinson: I just started reading Andrew Tobias's book, "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need", and so far it looks like it will be good.End of the first chapter:"There are, in fact, very few ways to get rich quick. Fewer sill that are legal. Here's one: Take $5000 (borrow it if you have to), place it on 22 at the nearest roulette table, and win $175,000. Don't laugh. Many complicated schemes, if they were stripped of their trappings and somehow reduced to their underlying odds, would not be much less risky. It's the trappings - the story, the pitch - that obscure the odds and persuade people to ante up the $5000 they'd never dream of betting at roulette."He talks about how the book is about seeing the forest through the trees. You can learn all you want about a certain type of investment, but what you really need to know is whether you should be involved in that investment in the first place."For example: It is a fact that 90% or more of the people who play the commodities game get burned. I submit that you have now read all you need ever read about commodities." |
playin' the stocks game | lallysingh: Here, save yourself some money, use it as others have mentioned to invest in yourself.If you're doing it to learn, there's no reason to do it under fire.I'll +1 to the other advice here: go fantasy to learn. They're real numbers, so the educational value is the same. You can think rationally without getting as emotionally attached to the money, so you'll learn better. (Hopefully you won't go with real money until you've learned to keep a clear head)Most importantly, you'll know when you're actually good enough to do well in the market -- when you're doing better than your competition over a long period of time. That will tell you when it's skill instead of luck. |
playin' the stocks game | sethg: The nickel version of A Random Walk Down Wall Street (which many folks here have recommended) is on Philip Greenspun's site:http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/moneyI'd like to call out one small part of that essay:"In every office there is at least one sorry loser checking the market every ten minutes, going home at night to read financial reports, running charts, and buying software to manage his complex portfolio. If he were a managing a $10 billion mutual fund, perhaps this effort would be worth it. But to try to beat the index by 2% with a portfolio of $50,000? That's $1,000 extra/year. Even assuming that he can get that extra 2%, he would have earned far more per hour working the night shift at the local 7-Eleven. Your time is valuable. If you must be greedy, then be greedy and smart and take a consulting job. Or enjoy the extra time with your friends and family. Don't waste it trying to beat the market." |
How do I find out if I'm infringing copyrights? | anamax: Talk with a lawyer. Some things are under copyright, some aren't, and in some cases it isn't clear, for various definitions of "not clear".Gather your content appropriately.Also, find out what your obligations are if someone brings a complaint.Design your processes appropriately. |
playin' the stocks game | snorkel: Play on paper first. Pick a stock, pretend you bought N shares at X dollars today. Then see what happens. When you "sell" be sure to subtract transaction fees and short term capital gains tax from the profit. So play on paper for a month or two and see if you really are a market clairvoyant.Anyone can profit in a rising market and claim they have a "system" for doing it. If 500 people go over Niagra Falls in barrells, about 200 survive. Then those 200 go over again, and 80 survive. Then those 80 go over again, then the last 30 survivors write books about how to survive going over Niagra Falls in a barrell. Take their advice with a grain of salt. |
Demo tips | brk: For new products, there are two general approaches to developing a demo script.1: This is an entirely new app/concept that your audience didn't know they needed. Your job is to convince them that they can't live without this thing that they've managed to live without up until now.2: This is an enhancement or optimization to something they're already doing.Many times products fall a little bit into both categories, but usually fall predominantly into one or the other. An example of this would be Tivo. It was mostly #1 (A whole new way to manage your TV viewing), but had some of #2 (it was in essence a glorified VCR).Your App looks like (in my 4 minutes of review) it's mostly #1. iPhone developers have not had this ability to do integrated simple user feedback in their apps, and they've mostly managed to do OK so far. You need to convince them they can no longer live without using your product.Don't be overly dramatic, cheesy, or inaccurate in your presentation. It's okay to be really excited about your product, in fact you should be, but don't act like you just discovered the cure for cancer either.I tend to start a lot of my demos from the back, and work forwards. Lead in with showing developers some of the OUTCOME of using your product. Which, I assume is some sort of charts or correlated feedback or something. This way, when you then explain what it costs or what it takes to implement it, the audience knows that the outcome is valuable enough for them to pay attention. If you spend 15 or 20 minutes describing how to add the module into the app and twiddle all the features you risk losing the interest of the people who don't yet realize they should be paying attention.Be prepared for something to go horribly wrong with your demo. Something won't load or display or work as expected. DON'T apologize when this happens, and don't get thrown off track by it. I can't count the number of demos I've done by speaking to a frozen (or empty) screen or image or whatever. Just kind of move through it with an attitude like it's Murhpy's law in action. It's happened to everyone.Leave time for questions, learn to spot people who like to play "stump the chump". Haters are everywhere. If you get someone in the audience that is just being a dick (vs. pointing out legitimate things), thank them for their input and move on to someone else.Practice your presentation, and speak slowly. Remember that your audience probably has never seen or thought of your product, so things that by now are second nature to you are going to be very new (and possibly seem overly complex) to them.Be sure to point out any high-level negatives up front (this also helps eliminate some of the haters as well). If your product adds 500K to the code base, or chews up some amount of resources, then work that in with a slight spin. (By adding just 500K to your application size, you can get immediate feedback and results, saving you valuable research and coding time in the future).If you want, you can hit me up via email (profile) and I'd be willing to listen to your pitch/presentation via Webex or something and I'll give you my feedback. |
playin' the stocks game | cturner: Being a complete beginner, what resources would you
recommend to help lay the basic foundation?
I tried this about four years ago. I started by playing the ASX simulated game to get a feel for it and confirmed that I was rubbish at picking day by day. Then I picked some long-term patterns I was confident with, mentally wrote off my starting money, and started playing with that. Sometimes I feel pulled towards stress by developments but then remind myself that I acknowledged it was gambling to start with and wrote off the money. Despite the downwards trend of the markets, I've only done somewhat badly and if I liquidated now would have still three quarters of the amount I started with. Experience aside, I would have been far better off keeping the money in cash and investing the time in my career. (On the other hand, the significant part of my position is anticipation of the world seeing significant uncertainty in paper currency and this has acted as a hedge against a career with a finance focus.)The major thing I've learnt is the value of cash in terms of its flexibility. I now think about cash as being analogous to having a flexible option, whereas if you're locked into a self-imposed rule where you only sell on certain sorts of gain (e.g. purchase price plus 20%) then you lose flexibility that is valuable. Definitely on the bright side - at the time my family and accountant were advising me to buy a house and a get a huge mortgage. I'm in a far strong position than I would have been if I'd done that. I think that it is a poor decision for young, unattached people to buy houses to live in on mortgage because it limits their options to follow career opportunities and locks them into significant debt. |
Demo tips | hboon: # Have a backup machine.# Have a video version for backup.# Run from localhost if you can.# Identify goal of demo.# Script the demo accordingly.# Follow the script.# Be ready to run an adhoc demo without the script (ie. be familiar enough with the product).# Go slow.# Don't move your mouse unless you need to.# Consider using something like OmniDazzle.# It helps if the features you show have obvious visual impact (this may sound obvious, but I'm sure everyone has seen demos of someone clicking a button, waiting for 10 seconds and then say it has finished processing).# It may help for 1 person to talk to the audience and looking at the audience while another runs the demo. May be useful if the latter is a techie who also happens to be not able to do the talking as well. Still having the latter on stage allows him/her to help answer questions.# Practise with different groups of people.# Don't use overly high resolution for demo. The projector (or whatever display) you will get may not support it.# Test run the demo through a few different screen resolutions.# Bring your cables, charger, adapters, and whatnot.# Sleep the night before, if you can't, practise more.# If people fall asleep during the demo, ignore them.PS: need Markdown or something similar |
What is your favorite TED talk? | abossy: I'm particularly fond of Steven Levitt after reading Freakonomics. I enjoyed his talk on the pointlessness of mandating car seats for children and what should really be done to improve their safety:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_levitt_on_child_ca...I also like the SeaDragon/Photosynth demo (along with various other talks that have come from Microsoft Research)http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_dem... |
What is your favorite TED talk? | yan: Ramachandaran's talk had a profound effect on me (neuroscience/brain). Mark Bittman's talk was great, but I like everything that man writes (food). Clinton's talk made me feel like I knew him better after watching it. It felt very personal. Dave Eggers' talk was beautiful (learning). Ze Frank's talk was good if you follow his stuff. Murray Gell-Mann gave a beautiful talk (physics). I bought Dan Gilbert's book after watching his. Alan Kay was, obviously, very good. Sir Ken Robinson's talk was absolutely great also (learning.)This is just a small sample of the ones that I have seen and liked. I haven't seen most yet. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | garyrichardson: I like Joshua Klein's talk about Crows: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intel...I, for one, welcome our new crow overlords. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | matthall28: There was a really good one by the guy from Archive.org |
What is your favorite TED talk? | catone: I think it's probably this one: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_buil..."When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book."Though the actual interview is a bit awkward at times, I found his story to be very inspiring. |
What Would you want in a government API? | Shamiq: I'm all for accountability, but I also think added bureaucracy is a waste of money. Someone has to pay for these new jobs, and I can't tell whether this will return more than it costs to set up. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | rsayers: Clifford Stoll, guy was all over the place, but I found his talk rather amusing and even a bit enlightening. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | damada2: Kurzweil ftw,
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_techn... |
What Would you want in a government API? | jonursenbach: I vote for the API equivalent of "svn blame". |
What is your favorite TED talk? | steveplace: The second Hans Rosling talk where he swallows a sword at the end. |
What Would you want in a government API? | jcarbaugh: This isn't quite getEveryDollarSpent, but check out http://usaspending.gov/. The site tracks all federal contracting dollars spent. It has an API and a fairly detailed set of data.Rather than one giant government API, we will probably see each agency slowly create more meaningful ways to get at their data. I expect there to be some exciting open data initiatives from the Obama administration. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | aikiai: Jill Bolte's talk about her stroke.Her talk illustrates the different processing styles of our right and left hemispheres. This is a fascinating subject, that often gets trivialized because of all the New Age BS revolving around it.Her experience is remarkable, and very powerfully delivered. Don't be fooled by her "spiritual" overtones, the science she references is very real and convincing, and the way she ties it to her own experience is fascinating.http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_power... |
What Would you want in a government API? | gaius: shutdown() |
What Would you want in a government API? | diN0bot: i'd be glad to have an API at all. right now, if you want to get donation reports on attempted congressional members you have to go to d.c. in person and individual print each report on their printer and pay for it. it is effectively impossible for any one to accomplish without thousands of dollars plus hundreds of hours. oh yeah, and the reports are images, so then you have to translate them into data.the more APIs the better. definitely tracking money is vital, since we've all come to assume the government is in evil corp's pocket. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | tweaqslug: I found Dave Eggers Ted Prize speech to be funny and inspiring. http://www.tedprize.org/video-talk-dave-eggers/ |
What is your favorite TED talk? | jbrun: Below is a list of Ted Talks, my top five which blew me away, followed by some other favorites. Enjoy!Top 5:Zander on music, Hans Rosling on World Development, Bolte on Strokes, Lessing on Creative Commons, and the DNA Folding oneSome other favourites (full list here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/profiles/favorites/id/564):Putting photos together - magically (Photosynth)Design of the UniverseJohnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii RemoteJohn Francis - Planet WalkerTheory of everythingEvilLiberal vs Conservative BrainsHow Kids Learn |
What is your favorite TED talk? | DaniFong: John Doerr seeks salvation and profit in greentech.http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/john_doerr_sees_salvation... |
What Would you want in a government API? | jhancock: Full Text Search |
What is your favorite TED talk? | thesubjective: Mycologist Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe. Seriously....Amazing. A must for everyone.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mu... |
What is your favorite TED talk? | ntoll: An oldie but a goldie: Sir Ken Robinson's talk on education and creativity delivered with such panache: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools... |
What is your favorite TED talk? | SBev: Bill Strickland's talk inspired me to think about what can be done by one person. Also he has a great casual speaking style.http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_strickland_makes_cha... |
What is your favorite TED talk? | xenophanes: the David Deutsch one. |
What Would you want in a government API? | altrux: voting records, and USGS information would be nice too |
What is your favorite TED talk? | briancooley: It's little off the beaten path, but I guess I really like food. Dan Barber's parable of foie gras was really interesting and moving to me.http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_barber_s_surprising_f... |
What Would you want in a government API? | lacker: How about letting me give the government my email, and then they could email me instead of snail mail, or let me see government correspondence with me online.A friend of mine got a traffic ticket that he paid incorrectly, and had a wrong address on file. A year later he got arrested during a random broken-taillight stop with a ridiculous amount of late fees. He asked if he had any other tickets outstanding, and they said they couldn't tell him - there was no system for lookups like that. He could only make sure he had the right address on file and wait for further mail. That's a pretty ridiculous system. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | sidsavara: Malcom Gladwell on Spaghetti Saucehttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spagh...Replace spaghetti sauce with software development and Facebook versus Twitter Versus Hacker News Versus Reddit etcIt's all about users =) |
What is your favorite TED talk? | naish: Another good one not yet mentioned is Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_... |
Need help finding a post | pclark: you're probably aware of this, but : searchyc.com |
What is your favorite TED talk? | nirmal: Matthieu Ricard: Habits of happinessWhat is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_ha... |
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