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Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | mtkd: You absolutely need to do this.If cost is an issue - you can file a single application in a couple of classes in your local country, then broaden it out when funds allow until you cover the main countries you plan to operate.At the company I work for at the moment, we filed globally from very early on (probably c... |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | DocSavage: I filed our name myself for the bare minimum filing fee ($275 now). I think it's useful to put your stake in the ground and it increases the liability for those who violate your trademark. I went the cheap route because I felt if I could get it approved by the USPTO myself, it's a done deal. In the case o... |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | nfriedly: I liked the cliche explanation. I don't do all that much writing, but I might run some of my homework through this before turning it in. |
Why are you proud of your species? | jackzombie: I think that we should try to eliminate the distinction between artistic works and technological/scientific works. They should both go hand in hand. The word technology comes from the Greek word techne which roughly translates to art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne |
Why are you proud of your species? | cmars232: We have laughter, fire, art, lovemaking and the best tools around. |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | prawn: If you're a sole developer or small team of friends, don't bother until money is rolling in. First priority (over lawyers, accountants and whatever else) is just getting something up and running. Invest too hard early and if you abandon the project, you've wasted more than necessary. |
Why are you proud of your species? | gills: Humanity has survived long enough to produce me. Yeehaw. |
Managing Two Contracts | nfriedly: Here's an idea that I don't think anybody else has suggested: find another developer to help with the first contract. You can't be the only Actionscript 2 expert out there.I'm not sure this is the best solution, but I think it's better than leaving them hanging. |
Why are you proud of your species? | ErrantX: I find pur ability to achieve and improve the most amazing.I could single out a list of things ot be hugely proud of as a species: but that belittles (not deliberately) all of the other achievments (especially the ones in the past we have forgotten or ignore).The capacity of humanity always amazes me (and, con... |
Why are you proud of your species? | c1sc0: Boiling water to make tea (East); brewing and fermentation of wheat to make beer (West); the realization that human health begins with clean water. In more recent times: the LifeStraw. |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | ggruschow: I pasted in a few pages of my writing from one of my sites into your http://polishmywriting.com and clicked "Polish."It didn't appear to do anything.Apparently it didn't find anything wrong with any page except one that contained the word "infuriating", which it felt was spelled incorrectly. I think that's i... |
Managing Two Contracts | Vandy_Travis: I've been there. It's a good place to be. If you have other (trusted) coders that you know, see if any of them are willing to take the work from job 1 at the going rate ($19/ hr). Ethically, I believe you can send the work to them (and they might be grateful, given the economy...) Additionally, be sur... |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | aston: Pedantic (but so's your product): The caret that indicates an insertion goes underneath the baseline of the text, not above it.http://www.colorado.edu/Publications/styleguide/symbols.html |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | jbrun: Hi,Looks really good. I have recommended www.polishmywriting.com to my team before. We would probably be interested in integrating this in our ROR app, as we do a lot of writing. I just put it up on my blog and it does the trick. It did freeze up when I clicked on explain a passive voice (Safari 4).20$ a month f... |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | quizbiz: What's in a name? |
Any users of SimpleCDN? | bseker: I've tried using SimpleCDN. They are cheap and probably for a reason. I was going to use about 10-15Mbps, for tiny files, so it seemed like a cheap solution to my bandwidth problem.
- First problem, they didn't let me use the whole $15, even though it was enough for me for more than a day. They locked my accoun... |
What motivates you to keep working despite government bailouts/theft | wehriam: John Galt is a fictional character. He lives in an oversimplified world where the virtue of selfishness outweighs the rest of humanity's concerns.You (and anyone you know who you might move to Colorado or whatever) don't have the capacity to stop the motor of the world. And if you live in the United States tod... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | mixmax: I learned to program :-)I've always been curious and somewhat technically inclined, but also the guy that would put on a tie (I can actually do three different tieknots and a bowtie...) and go out and swing my arms madly around until someone pitied me enough to invest in or buy whatever I happened to be selling... |
What motivates you to keep working despite government bailouts/theft | noonespecial: We each have as much power to stop the motor as we have to fix it. When it comes right down to it, politicians have surprisingly little say in how things turn out.They can make up dollars till the cows come home to revalue the wealth they think they have, but they can't make any more of it. We can.Given t... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | matthewer: I learned I was part of a community of people like myself, and that the only thing that matters here is what you can create and how dedicated you are to doing it. |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | zitterbewegung: A great deal of information about running a startup. Also the latest things on the web. |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | sofal: I've learned a lot about the nature of opinions. There are as many ways to approach a subject as there are people. I've read several comment threads where people were countering each other and yet I couldn't help but upmod both sides because of the excellent points that each side made. It's refreshing to see the... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | Shamiq: I've learned how incredibly efficient I can be at wasting time and wiling away hours when I don't want to work.It's been a real eye-opener for me. |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | TomOfTTB: I’ve learned that I need community more than I thought I did.I have a blog, I get comments and e-mails on that blog. But what I’ve started to realize is that there’s a "blogger penalty" to the conversations I can have there. No matter how hard I try to make people comfortable in saying anything to me the fa... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | paulgb: I've learned about the Arduino, and bought one for myself. Just last night, I learned that an LED can be used as a photodiode. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=447770I'm also participating in "HN Reads SICP", a SICP book group that started on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=428248I've also attended t... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | jacoblyles: I don't know yet. Certainly, it has given me a broader view of the world of computer science, which is edifying and has allowed me to speak intelligently with recruiters. It is also motivating me to do risky things (left a good job in finance to go back to grad school for CS, applying to Y Combinator this s... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | lionhearted: Gained a base ability to discuss some interesting subjects I had no familiarity with before. Picked up a number of various tips, tricks, and best practices. Some really intelligent commentators that consistently offered interesting thinking points - pg, unalone, and patio11 are 3 of my favorites.But if I'm... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | jonnycoder: I've learned there are a lot of people out there that think the same way I do. For example, I agree with most of the comments on this thread. I've also learned to get off my ass and start making frequent posts to my own blog and not being afraid of sharing it with the community. |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | lionhearted: In the USA, you can use (TM) without any filing as long as no one else has a claim to your mark. You need to pay and do the filing process for a Registered Trademark, which carries a bit extra weight and allows you to use (R). (TM) is probably fine, and in my opinion - more recognizable. The (R) is good if... |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | hbien: Here's a library for it in Python: http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/odict.html |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | gills: I usually want that when what I really need is ordering but for some reason I want key-based/random access to the values.I think Ruby added this recently. I'm not using it yet. A crappy hack can just dump the next/prev key into the value, plus a pointer to the first, and drop them all in a hash. It's not real... |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | cake: I learned there is a place where I can find smart and insightful articles mostly about computer science but also humanity in general, whereas most of the Internet is about silly stuff (yes digg I'm talking to you !) |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | prateekdayal: I have learnt that there are a lot of bootstrappers and its not that hard to make a profitable business :) |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | Tichy: Java has TreeMap for that purpose. |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | oscardelben: I've learned who hackers are and what they do/like. There is often a misconception about what great programmers do and this site helps a lot to know and eventually join the hackers community (if it can be called like this). |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | dhotson: Ruby 1.9 makes Hash ordered by default.The major reason I care about it is that when loading data from yaml files the key order doesn't get messed up. In ruby 1.8 the order got messed up.So yeah.. use ruby 1.9 :) |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | mkuhn: I don't have an actual blog to test it, but I truly like the idea.One question though, are you planing to support hosted blogging platforms like Blogger? I think that could drastically expand the circle of your potential customers. |
What have you learned from Hacker News? | tristian: Through HN I have learnt that sophisticated discussion with a large number of participants is achievable. Which, up until this point, is something that I didn't really consider to be possible. Certainly not over a long term.Moreover the site doesn't require an oppressive method of control to keep the conversa... |
easy resources for learning Python? | mkuhn: I can recommend "Think Python: How to think like a Computer Scientist". It's free but can also be purchased (at least soon). It really starts with the basics but if you already know those you can skip them. http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.htmlAlso I can recommend Dive Into Python: http://www... |
easy resources for learning Python? | vladimir: I think Python documentation is a great resource for learning it. |
easy resources for learning Python? | whatusername: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=378424
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439822
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121779Also what mkuhn said - ThinkPython and Dive into Python are both great books. |
easy resources for learning Python? | known: http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html is a good source |
easy resources for learning Python? | manvsmachine: I addition to books, I recommend getting an account with Google App Engine, which uses Python as its de facto language IIRC. You might not ever use the platform itself again, but it would provide a sandbox to play around in (assuming you don't already have a server of your own). |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | lacker: Often, an algorithm that requires iteration in a certain order is a sign that you are keeping information implicitly in the ordering instead of explicitly in a more appropriate data structure. You also may be trying to pack lots of unrelated functionality into a single object when multiple objects would serve b... |
easy resources for learning Python? | quantumhobbit: Pick a project and just start coding. The Python documentation is good enough that you should be able to teach yourself as you go. A coding contest site like Project Euler is a good source of quick problems to hone your skills on. Whenever you run into a tricky situation run a google search on it and ... |
What motivates you to keep working despite government bailout/theft | jupiter: While I can perfectly understand you I'd suppose that the older generation also spent some of the money for your health, education, security and relatively carefree childhood. Many of them were in an undoubtedly more desperate situation during and after WWII than we are today. They pulled up their sleeves and ... |
What motivates you to keep working despite government bailout/theft | david927: Well, one reason I keep going is that I'm not you and I don't have 15 years of living expenses. I have a wife and three-year-old girl who depend on me. I still have value in my house, even at deflated prices; it makes no sense for me to walk away from it. With my education and skill set, I can probably weat... |
What motivates you to keep working despite government bailout/theft | RobGR: It may be impossible to preserve much savings through the current and coming crisis.A couple of years ago I went on a binge and read every book about the South Sea Bubble and other aspects of financial disasters that I could find. A story that stuck in my head was of a British magistrate who fought mightly agai... |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | makecheck: As for whether or not the data structure exists, it does. :) The std::map in C++ is a sorted dictionary, for instance.But it can be uncommon to require this, usually for two reasons. One, the data set may be huge. And two, much of your code may not even "care" if the data is sorted. In either of those ca... |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | phillian: I work as an IP paralegal by day (when not fiendishly working on my own coding projects at night).My one recommendation is that if you are cost conscious, send your IP projects (copyright, patent, trademark) to a boutique or, as we call them, a 'mill'. Having worked in both boutique and large conglomerate fir... |
how do you sync your software's data? | hbien: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Sy... is pretty helpful |
Site for recent CS grads (jobs)? | keefe: I'm a few years out of being a recent CS grad and I'm assuming you have checked the normal ones like dice.com . I'm posting to encourage you to apply to any job that you find interesting, even ones for senior developers and particularly those at startups. You probably won't get the job/pay in those senior listin... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | apgwoz: I think your site's layout is not really great for ad placement, which is why that failed. It's very much a brochure like layout that you'd see for businesses. Contrast this with http://net.tutsplus.com/ where it's "blog" like, but still a great format for presenting tutorials. If you're getting 1.3 million pag... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | yequalsx: I have thought about doing something similar but with mathematics. My suggestion would be to package up various tutorials into a course. Instead of static pages I would add videos using Camtasia or Captivate. There are lots of colleges and universities that sell courses on this stuff and you could sell suc... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | earl: I'd bet that if you changed your site a bit you could get decent ecpms -- maybe even in the $6-$8 range. Also, links to amazon / whoever sells the software. If you want to talk more, hit me up over email. |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | aristus: Your tutorials are one screenshot per page.... so I'd guess that your pv per visit is high but it's fluff traffic. No one is going to abandon the "slideshow" to click on ads. Your best points to put ads are at the end or near the begining of the process of viewing a tutorial. Consider taking the pv hit and put... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | tstegart: What about something that combines making money with instruction? For example, you could add anothger page after each big section where you put a list of links to other helpful tutorials/blogs/official websites, helpful books, etc.I really think your opportunity lies in putting something at the end of your tu... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | josefresco: I would sell other e-learning products. Like the 'video professor'. Also, you could run ads in between slides, which might get you a higher CTR than alongside.Or start running AdSense, and get some sort of baseline for private ad deals. |
Why do I always want to use an ordered dictionary? | joe_the_user: Seems totally reasonable. The rise of Ruby shows that modern languages should optimize for programmer efficiency first and speed second.Modern scripting languages have several data structures: mostly arrays, hashes and strings. But it is a hassle move data between them.The next language should only have o... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | JeremyChase: Chris,A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very gene... |
What advice do you have for a first time blogger? | teej: On having an engaging blog:1. Be topical. The best blogs in my feed reader stick to broad-ish topics I'm interested in. i.e. Rails, Package Design, App Reviews.2. Be consistent (frequency). This is simple to understand, difficult to execute. Find a schedule and stick to it.3. Be consistent (structure). Once... |
Site for recent CS grads (jobs)? | mpfefferle: This is the only method that's worked for me:
1. Comb the job boards for interesting looking positions. Don't worry about being qualified yet.
2. Find the name and location of the hiring manager.
3. Write a personalized cover letter to that manager and tell them that you're interested. If you're not quali... |
What advice do you have for a first time blogger? | ycomb: Put a picture on every blog post. Then at least it can be visually stimulating. That's my 2 cents. |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | pbhj: What about additional phone based tutoring, eg "struggling? phone XXXX-XXX-XXX to speak to a tutor now".Either a premium rate phone line or possible a prepaid call in 10 minute units. |
Advice on working at a large company or startup? | mg1313: You will hit beaureaucracy at big companies, that's for sure. To get done simple things you have to get tons of signatures. A, don't forget those pesky meetings...At a startups probably you will work more...but ask for options too, not just salary.In the end it depends on your personality...boring or fun? |
Advice on working at a large company or startup? | blackguardx: In the end it comes down to gut feel, unless you think you like both jobs the same.In my experience working at a large engineering company, having smart people around doesn't really help you learn much more after the first six months or so. After that, you kind of just fill a role for them and it is hard t... |
Advice on working at a large company or startup? | russell: Large Companies:-- In a labs or research group you get to follow your own interests. I had a lot of fun in my year at HP Labs.-- Software product development often has smart people and you can have flexibility in what you do. The key is whether you are working with a dozen or two of people or a cast of thous... |
How to monetize 1.3 million page views? | patio11: Right now, I'm using it to pimp consulting services, but I don't expect that will generate much revenue: most of the site's visitors are individuals learning on their own, not people using it at work.Package up similar content in a way that is easy to deliver to employers for them to give to employees for trai... |
Advice on working at a large company or startup? | minalecs: I think it depends on your goals. If your hungry, and can really manage I would start with the startup. If your goal really is to possibly move towards entrepreneurial things then .. its good to see, and start your career off with the right understanding of how you should train in the arts of being a softwa... |
Does anyone know a good way of reviewing code on the iphone? | cpr: Pretty small screen.I've done a little bit of Trac source browsing on the phone with Safari, but even with small fonts, you have to do a lot of horizontal scrolling.It's possible to read, but I can't imagine editing. Keyboarding is so danged painful... |
easy resources for learning Python? | peterlai: Whenever I start with a new language, I read an O'Reilly book from cover to cover. For Python, this is the one I chose: "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz. |
How do you use multiple AWS Accounts from the command line? | david927: http://stackoverflow.com |
hacker culture and ramen | pg: Yes, the latter. |
hacker culture and ramen | TrevorJ: Yes, they come dried with these little powder sauce packets. Dump them into a dish with water, microwave and eat. You can have a meal for about 20 cents. |
hacker culture and ramen | gaius: Top Ramen is roughly equivalent to Pot Noodle. |
hacker culture and ramen | billroberts: Thanks for the explanations! All is now clear. Yep, having to eat that would certainly make you work hard on your startup :-) |
hacker culture and ramen | nostrademons: I don't think they're all that bad. Terribly unhealthy though. One packet is like 170% of your RDA for sodium.I usually get the Chinese brands though (Nissin, Mama), which I think are a lot tastier than Ramen itself. |
hacker culture and ramen | keven: it's known as Instant Noodle for most asians |
hacker culture and ramen | indiejade: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v651/indiejade/?action=vie... |
hacker culture and ramen | patio11: You can get ramen at all price ranges and levels of quality, even in the grocery store. The cheapest stuff in America goes for about 25 cents per person per meal, so it is well-known among college students and the like as an inexpensive way to stave off hunger.My limited experience with it in Japan is that I ... |
hacker culture and ramen | paulgb: In Canada we call them Mr. Noodles.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Noodles |
Vesting Schedule on Founders Shares? | Mistone: based on feedback I read in Founders at Work - I believe Jessica and many others suggest setting it at 2 years. thats what we use at our startup. |
How would you teach Python? | physcab: I'm a newbie to Python, but I think the answer will depend on the specific interests and implementations for the group.Are they looking to implement mathematical techniques? Then perhaps NumPy and SciPy deserve a mention. Are they interested in visualization? Check out Matplotlib.If I were teaching the cours... |
Vesting Schedule on Founders Shares? | thorax: 4 years vest with 1 year cliff for 25%, quarterly or monthly vesting after that first year. Be careful, though, when you grant these. If you don't structure things right (assuming I understand correctly), there could be tax consequences when they vest. |
How would you teach Python? | yan: The way I handled a very similar situation is as follows: I went to the official Python tutorial and took a note of every major feature with a few examples from my old code and code I found in open source projects. I then went to a conference room with a lot of people, and hooked up my laptop to the projector with... |
hacker culture and ramen | lionhearted: There's actually some quite healthy, cheap foods if you don't mind just a tiny, little bit of cooking. The three easiest ones that are healthy, cheap, and delicious (once acclimated!) are oatmeal, cottage cheese, and eggs. You can get all of them dirt cheap, whip it together for a meal in 5 minutes or less... |
How would you teach Python? | stonemetal: the intro class would more or less cover the python tutorial. Inter would cover how to mix and match language features (classes and generators, C interop) to build more sophisticated projects. Advanced would be loosely defined personal projects external libs, alternate implementations etc. |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | aristus: Everything and More, by David Foster Wallace (history of inifinity)Lord of Light, by Zelazny (fiction, but transcendent)The Trial of Socrates, by I.F. Stone (makes the case that Socrates was a genuine threat to his society)Any book by Ryszard KapuscinskiThe Histories, by HerodotusTo Engineer is Human, by Petro... |
Vesting Schedule on Founders Shares? | BenS: Thanks for the feedback. I also pinged another entrepreneur who had offered this opinion:Often 1/4 to 1/2 is vested immediately. Typically you will have accelerated vesting in the event of an acquisition. This can come in the form of a single or double trigger (first trigger is when the acquisition happens and ... |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | tokenadult: Some favorites about mathematics:Concepts of Modern Mathematics by Ian Stewarthttp://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Modern-Mathematics-Ian-Stewar...Numbers and Geometry by John Stillwell.http://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Geometry-John-Stillwell/dp/038...The Pleasures of Counting by T. W. Körnerhttp://www.amazon.com/Pl... |
How to get bloggers to write about your product? | albertsun: A few bits of advice from a journalist who has covered technology before.First, read as many blogs and publications that cover the field your app is in as possible and start paying attention to the bylines and names of the writers you have written about related products. Few things irritate a journalist more... |
Rate my Russian Roulette iPhone App | mikeyur: Looks good. One suggestion is to maybe add a couple different types of guns.Clickable link to video: http://vimeo.com/3391683 |
How to get bloggers to write about your product? | paul_houle: (1) have a really cool product that makes them say wow, for instance: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fusioinio-iodrive-flash,...(2) pay 'em |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | paulgb: How the Mind Works by Steven PinkerThe Selfish Gene by Richard DawkinsOn Intelligence by Jeff HawkinsThe Undercover Economist by Tim Hartford |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | rms: Three Worlds Collide: (~100 pages, freely available online under copyright.) http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/three-worlds-collide.h...PG has a list on his personal website: http://www.bugbear.com/bestbooks.html |
computing in 2014 : your predictions? | cperciva: How many cores will a typical personal computer have?Either 8 or 16, assuming you're counting general-purpose cores. Don't be surprised if CPUs come with separate vector computing cores (basically like GPUs have now).Will Clojure or Scala replace Java (if so, which)?No.Will the most popular languages feel li... |
How to get bloggers to write about your product? | raffi: This is a repost of one of my old comments:I highly recommend reading: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198Peldi's advice and the links he give are dead on. I pitched bloggers before reading this and got a zero response rate.Then I adjusted tactics. I added a phone number to my website and a mediakit. Some of the... |
computing in 2014 : your predictions? | Tangurena: Will the most popular languages feel like CUDA or Haskell or C#/LINQ?No. I think the most popular languages will be the cobols of the future: java and visual basic. |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | Tangurena: Beyond Fear - SchneierSources of Power - Klein. This guy did research on how experts made decisions under stressful situations.Normal Accidents - PerrowEmergence - Johnson |
Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity? | lionhearted: Most people haven't read John Eliot's "Overachievement", which is a tragedy for anyone who strives to get a hell of a lot out of themselves. The book is loaded with counterintuitive thoughts on performance that go against mainstream ideas right now:http://www.amazon.com/Overachievement-Science-Working-Less... |
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