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developer income report #16
| i love seeing these posts every month. they're great inspiration for developers who might be thinking about going off on their own, and a reminder that rome wasn't built in a day.congratulations kreci on reaching your income goal! | i'm curious what kind of boost you see just from posting these developer income reports. is this a schrodinger's income report kind of thing where posting about the experiment affects the outcome of the experiment? |
developer income report #16
| i'm curious what kind of boost you see just from posting these developer income reports. is this a schrodinger's income report kind of thing where posting about the experiment affects the outcome of the experiment? | this may be off-topic, but where do you draw inspiration for your apps? i am a fairly decent programmer, would love to write some android apps, but i'm sort of at a loss when it comes to what kind of apps i would want to write. it seems to be something you just have to draw out of thin air or get via spontaneous inspiration. usually i think about what kinds of problems i want to solve, but there's almost always an app for that already! |
developer income report #16
| this may be off-topic, but where do you draw inspiration for your apps? i am a fairly decent programmer, would love to write some android apps, but i'm sort of at a loss when it comes to what kind of apps i would want to write. it seems to be something you just have to draw out of thin air or get via spontaneous inspiration. usually i think about what kinds of problems i want to solve, but there's almost always an app for that already! | congratulations on achieving your target.is there any chance of you getting apps into the amazon store or are they only allowing u.s. developers? i know techie bloggers aren't loving the kindle fire, but i know a ton of normal people buying them. that's a lot of android tablets, none of which will ever see the main android store. |
developer income report #16
| congratulations on achieving your target.is there any chance of you getting apps into the amazon store or are they only allowing u.s. developers? i know techie bloggers aren't loving the kindle fire, but i know a ton of normal people buying them. that's a lot of android tablets, none of which will ever see the main android store. | i understand why the author is not willing to share much specifics (such as which free apps get him 4k+ a month in ad revenue) but he still at least could get a number of installs published.i am skeptical because i know for a fact that some people don't tell the truth. we can only speculate about the reasons..maybe it's to generate more traffic or interest towards the non-free products they offer. i know a fellow (who used to publish a competing product to mine) who boasted online in an article about making quarter million dollars a year after just being a year in business. the same fellow just was trying to sell me his "quarter-million a year business" domain name for 1k a few months before:) in this case, numbers are much more moderate and believable, but still i am not taking this just at the face value, unless there are some facts i can verify, or compare against. the number of active users, for example, and in which countries (mostly) are generating 4k+ /month in ads? |
the web never forgets: persistent tracking mechanisms in the wild
| does anyone else wish all these smarts people bake into per-browser plugins... could instead be part of a localhost proxy?then the browser-plugin component could be entirely optional, just a more-convenient way to command the proxy (via some http call that it recognizes and intercepts) to block a given url or pattern. | httpswitchboard [1] seems to a decent job of blocking most (not all) of these methods. i currently have it configured to only allow scripts from the domain i'm visiting and quite a few of the methods mentioned rely on scripts/cookies hosted by third party websites. granted, switchboard is far from foolproof but it's a step in the right direction.[1] <link> |
the web never forgets: persistent tracking mechanisms in the wild
| httpswitchboard [1] seems to a decent job of blocking most (not all) of these methods. i currently have it configured to only allow scripts from the domain i'm visiting and quite a few of the methods mentioned rely on scripts/cookies hosted by third party websites. granted, switchboard is far from foolproof but it's a step in the right direction.[1] <link> | we're in a state right now where if you are doing anything that suggests you're willing to spend money on a specific set of things, you have to do it in a private browsing window or put up with retargeting for weeks. kind of sad. |
the web never forgets: persistent tracking mechanisms in the wild
| we're in a state right now where if you are doing anything that suggests you're willing to spend money on a specific set of things, you have to do it in a private browsing window or put up with retargeting for weeks. kind of sad. | research like this makes me question why i use a cookie manager. staying ahead of these intrusions takes more time than i have available (job, life, etc.) and a cookie manager is no longer the bare minimum.in fact, i'm not sure what the bare minimum is anymore, nor do i know whether or not a cookie manager even makes a dent in privacy intrusions. |
the web never forgets: persistent tracking mechanisms in the wild
| research like this makes me question why i use a cookie manager. staying ahead of these intrusions takes more time than i have available (job, life, etc.) and a cookie manager is no longer the bare minimum.in fact, i'm not sure what the bare minimum is anymore, nor do i know whether or not a cookie manager even makes a dent in privacy intrusions. | in firefox, install self destructing cookies, betterprivacy and ghostery. ghostery will blacklist most of these tracker sites, the other two plugins should do their best at removing all traces of those that get through. |
calculate your github hacker score
| how is the score computed? | wow did backtype read our minds ? xd just after deploying our devscore i read hn and find this :)we have released today our devscore at masterbranch.com based on your github repositories and other forges and also with private code at github with our webhook.how do backtype calculate the score? we look at files, commits, projects and period of activity. our total devscore gives smaller numbers than backtype's. |
calculate your github hacker score
| wow did backtype read our minds ? xd just after deploying our devscore i read hn and find this :)we have released today our devscore at masterbranch.com based on your github repositories and other forges and also with private code at github with our webhook.how do backtype calculate the score? we look at files, commits, projects and period of activity. our total devscore gives smaller numbers than backtype's. | it won't pull my data (dustin). perhaps too much. i've had that with other tools. i've even got my work spread across several github repos (memcached, couchbase, some others). |
calculate your github hacker score
| it won't pull my data (dustin). perhaps too much. i've had that with other tools. i've even got my work spread across several github repos (memcached, couchbase, some others). | seems like it's not working at the moment, perhaps overloaded. |
calculate your github hacker score
| seems like it's not working at the moment, perhaps overloaded. | it says my github username is invalid. it's the same as my hn name. are numbers a problem? |
the dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip)
see the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; <link> | i don't know either of these people, but nick clearly has no concept of how copyright actually works. the "result" of code is inherently a process, which isn't copyrightable. only his verbatim source code is copyrightable.the entire concept of reverse engineering rests on this distinction. | wow, that's incredibly lame on nick's part. if the api is the same, but the underlying code is completely different then that it not a 'port', or a derivative, that is a different product.that's like saying a macbook and a viao both have a screen, keyboard and usb ports and so they're the same thing for licensing purposes... unlikely. |
the dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip)
see the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; <link> | wow, that's incredibly lame on nick's part. if the api is the same, but the underlying code is completely different then that it not a 'port', or a derivative, that is a different product.that's like saying a macbook and a viao both have a screen, keyboard and usb ports and so they're the same thing for licensing purposes... unlikely. | oh wow. if you mention simpletip in the contact form on nick's site you get redirected to here:
<link> stuff.(nick's site: <link> i can't seem to get it to happen again.edit2: it was his site. <link> |
the dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip)
see the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; <link> | oh wow. if you mention simpletip in the contact form on nick's site you get redirected to here:
<link> stuff.(nick's site: <link> i can't seem to get it to happen again.edit2: it was his site. <link> | nick's acting like a dick.craig, please continue to distribute simpletip. i see that you seem to know more about the licensing issues than nick. |
the dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip)
see the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; <link> | nick's acting like a dick.craig, please continue to distribute simpletip. i see that you seem to know more about the licensing issues than nick. | just realized simpletip was put back online...<link> wonder why the sandbox page was left up. |
gov shutdown? national weather service issues coded message ‘please pay us’
| the biggest problem with the shutdown is exceptions.there should be zero exceptions, no police, no weather, nothing, absolutely nobody allowed to keep working.no piecemeal pick-and-choose whom to re-enable, fund all or none.then this would be solved a tiny bit quicker.plus we should do what australia does and dissolve congress entirely and have new elections. but i guess that part is a fantasy. | reminds me of this stunt by gov. schwarzenegger:<link> |
gov shutdown? national weather service issues coded message ‘please pay us’
| reminds me of this stunt by gov. schwarzenegger:<link> | the financial people have taken the money through artificially cheap interest rate created by the worlds central banks which is more debt than can be paid back.the creature from jekyll island
<link>;calling for an end to the private creation of money by banks"
<link> |
gov shutdown? national weather service issues coded message ‘please pay us’
| the financial people have taken the money through artificially cheap interest rate created by the worlds central banks which is more debt than can be paid back.the creature from jekyll island
<link>;calling for an end to the private creation of money by banks"
<link> | i feel bad for whoever slipped this in. they will probably catch all heck from their boss.i'd hate working for a company that can't meet its payroll. this really is awful, shouldn't the authorization to hire be the authorization to pay a person? |
gov shutdown? national weather service issues coded message ‘please pay us’
| i feel bad for whoever slipped this in. they will probably catch all heck from their boss.i'd hate working for a company that can't meet its payroll. this really is awful, shouldn't the authorization to hire be the authorization to pay a person? | what's awful is that someone is going to get in big trouble over this message... even though it is a bunch of politicians who created this giant mess. |
dear doj: you need to sue apple again
| anti-competitive behavior doesn't become a violation of us law until it involves the abuse of a monopoly position, involves market collusion, or breaks some other law. while anti-competitive, apple doesn't currently exercise a meaningful monopoly in mobile device operating systems: either one looks at handsets where they are actually not even the market leader or one looks at tablets which is hardly a developed market.apple's actions with regard to the agency model aren't prosecutable because of any apple monopoly but because it involves market collusion. now, if google and apple colluded to prevent ebooks from being sold on mobile os marketplaces without a 30% cut, that would be prosecutable. | this is like arguing that walmart shouldn't get a cut of book sales. it's apple's store. apple still allows ios users to purchase and use books from other stores on their devices.what's the point of operating a store if you don't get a cut of the sales?but if you just get rid of the agency model, which the doj is trying to do, this naturally goes away. with a wholesale model, apple, amazon and the publishing companies can all make money on an ebook sale. the agency model doesn't leave room for two middlemen. |
dear doj: you need to sue apple again
| this is like arguing that walmart shouldn't get a cut of book sales. it's apple's store. apple still allows ios users to purchase and use books from other stores on their devices.what's the point of operating a store if you don't get a cut of the sales?but if you just get rid of the agency model, which the doj is trying to do, this naturally goes away. with a wholesale model, apple, amazon and the publishing companies can all make money on an ebook sale. the agency model doesn't leave room for two middlemen. | apple is quickly enjoying a dominant position in mobile devices that microsoft once enjoyed with desktop computers.this can't be true while android is the dominant mobile os, and amazon is the dominant ebook reader. |
dear doj: you need to sue apple again
| apple is quickly enjoying a dominant position in mobile devices that microsoft once enjoyed with desktop computers.this can't be true while android is the dominant mobile os, and amazon is the dominant ebook reader. | this is the real issue with the agency model and apple, it may or may not have prevented an amazon monopoly on ebooks, but it did guarentee that nobody but apple could make money selling ebooks via iphone apps. |
dear doj: you need to sue apple again
| this is the real issue with the agency model and apple, it may or may not have prevented an amazon monopoly on ebooks, but it did guarentee that nobody but apple could make money selling ebooks via iphone apps. | the real question is, has apple sold enough tablets to be considered a monopoly in the marketplace. even if it is a monopoly, it definitely isn't in phone (even smart-phone) marketplace, so it is unclear what exactly the doj could do to influence the iphone's in-app purchase fees. |
former google engineer builds turntable clone
| ah, the "german copy/paste" move taken to perfection (<link> imho, there is not shame in being inspired by other services or products and to copy features, but blatantly copying someone straight up feels dishonest. | interesting html comments from the source after you log in with facebook: 0!--25 people. 3 google, 2 columbia, 2 nyu, 10 new yorkers ; tribe designation...? --2
0!-- concept of the crowd : what the crowd looks like: 'oh a bunch of old people in this restaurant... fuck that'. oh mostly college-age kids who go to nyu --2 |
former google engineer builds turntable clone
| interesting html comments from the source after you log in with facebook: 0!--25 people. 3 google, 2 columbia, 2 nyu, 10 new yorkers ; tribe designation...? --2
0!-- concept of the crowd : what the crowd looks like: 'oh a bunch of old people in this restaurant... fuck that'. oh mostly college-age kids who go to nyu --2 | truly bizarre. a straight up clone of the entire service, no detail too small to be copied. id hoped to find that the developers had tried something new with the format. i'd love to see a similar service where everyone in the room somehow collaborates on the playlist rather than requiring 5 people to take turns picking one song. |
former google engineer builds turntable clone
| truly bizarre. a straight up clone of the entire service, no detail too small to be copied. id hoped to find that the developers had tried something new with the format. i'd love to see a similar service where everyone in the room somehow collaborates on the playlist rather than requiring 5 people to take turns picking one song. | why build a clone instead of creating something original?
oh, it's a “social media advertising startup” ... $$$now the grupon hype is over, people start copying other things. i think it's time for some more original concepts than just clones, copies and meetoos. |
former google engineer builds turntable clone
| why build a clone instead of creating something original?
oh, it's a “social media advertising startup” ... $$$now the grupon hype is over, people start copying other things. i think it's time for some more original concepts than just clones, copies and meetoos. | the next step is to open-source it. |
the network is reliable
| the network is not reliable, but usually the cost of manually fixing problems arising from infrequent types of instability is less than the cost of pre-emptively addressing the issue.as a practical example, our preferred ha solution for mysql replication has effectively no network partition safety - if a network becomes partitioned, we'll end up with split brain. however, we have not once had to deal with this specific problem in our years of operation on hundreds of servers.that said, do make the assumption that your aws instances will be unable to reach each other for 10+ seconds on a frequent basis. your life will be happier if you've already planned for that. | great article. a lot of engineers don't have personal experience with these kinds of network failures, so sharing stories of their consequences means more engineers can make informed (and conscious) decisions of how much risk can be tolerated for their applications.one thing that you could gleam for this article-and i think that this is incorrect-is that the application or operations engineer is responsible for understanding the nuances of distributed systems. in my experience the number of people who are relying on distributed systems is much larger than the number of people who understand these issues.so what we really need are systems we can build on whose developers understand how to build (and test!) the nuances of data convergence, consensus algorithms, split-blain avoidance, etc. we need systems to gracefully-and automatically-deal with and recover from network failures.full disclosure: i'm an engineer at foundationdb |
the network is reliable
| great article. a lot of engineers don't have personal experience with these kinds of network failures, so sharing stories of their consequences means more engineers can make informed (and conscious) decisions of how much risk can be tolerated for their applications.one thing that you could gleam for this article-and i think that this is incorrect-is that the application or operations engineer is responsible for understanding the nuances of distributed systems. in my experience the number of people who are relying on distributed systems is much larger than the number of people who understand these issues.so what we really need are systems we can build on whose developers understand how to build (and test!) the nuances of data convergence, consensus algorithms, split-blain avoidance, etc. we need systems to gracefully-and automatically-deal with and recover from network failures.full disclosure: i'm an engineer at foundationdb | i feel like the authors (or someone else) can do a lot more justice to their overall objective (i.e. tease out patterns) by applying some kind of a qualitative content analysis of case studies [0].[0] <link> |
the network is reliable
| i feel like the authors (or someone else) can do a lot more justice to their overall objective (i.e. tease out patterns) by applying some kind of a qualitative content analysis of case studies [0].[0] <link> | there was some discussion on a preliminary version of this article/blog-post[0] last year: <link>[0] <link> |
the network is reliable
| there was some discussion on a preliminary version of this article/blog-post[0] last year: <link>[0] <link> | related reading on data structures that make availability easier to maintain under network partition: <link> |
rustboot: a 32 bit kernel written in rust
| i saw zero.rs and said, "hey, i know! i'm going to make a kernel!" then after showering... came back and saw this.well, in any case, great work! (perhaps i'll use yours as a starting point.)edit: one question. when i try to compile it, rustc gives me these errors: error: no item found for `modulo`
error: no item found for `durable`
error: aborting due to 2 previous errors
if i had to guess, it would be due to the fact that i'm trying to compile it on os x but have i386-intel-linux set as the target, but your screenshot shows (at least it being emulated) on os x. did you have to build a special cross compiler version of rustc? | if anybody is looking for something to do with this, consider writing a kvm-like virtual machine host which is barebones enough to boot from coreboot.i've dreamed of a checkpointed vm which could be used to press a key and fork the running system, or instantly reboot to a usable state when a fault occured, but was small enough to fit in a flash rom and boot in milliseconds.the last attempt was linux+qemu and was to large for most boards supported by coreboot. |
rustboot: a 32 bit kernel written in rust
| if anybody is looking for something to do with this, consider writing a kvm-like virtual machine host which is barebones enough to boot from coreboot.i've dreamed of a checkpointed vm which could be used to press a key and fork the running system, or instantly reboot to a usable state when a fault occured, but was small enough to fit in a flash rom and boot in milliseconds.the last attempt was linux+qemu and was to large for most boards supported by coreboot. | this is great, but i'm confused. not that long ago, i remember reading that it was explicitly not a goal of rust to be able to write an os kernel in it. is this done in spite of rust not being designed/suited for it? |
rustboot: a 32 bit kernel written in rust
| this is great, but i'm confused. not that long ago, i remember reading that it was explicitly not a goal of rust to be able to write an os kernel in it. is this done in spite of rust not being designed/suited for it? | great to see new rust news every day.at first i was most interested in go: but now it seems that rust is much more close to the metal than go is, which i find more interesting. |
rustboot: a 32 bit kernel written in rust
| great to see new rust news every day.at first i was most interested in go: but now it seems that rust is much more close to the metal than go is, which i find more interesting. | 2it paints the screen bright red and then hangs.well, it's a start, i guess. :) (the project is literally only half an hour old.) |
t * sin (t) ≈ christmas tree
| someone also reimplemented it in mathematica<link> | this reminds me of when i first started programming in turbo pascal. i made a christmas tree using graphic mode and trig functions. i also only used if-then statements so i ended up with about a thousand lines :)
looking at this more elegant tree reminds me of why i went into this career. |
t * sin (t) ≈ christmas tree
| this reminds me of when i first started programming in turbo pascal. i made a christmas tree using graphic mode and trig functions. i also only used if-then statements so i ended up with about a thousand lines :)
looking at this more elegant tree reminds me of why i went into this career. | quick reimplementation in the desmos graphing calculator: <link> play next to t_0 to animate. |
t * sin (t) ≈ christmas tree
| quick reimplementation in the desmos graphing calculator: <link> play next to t_0 to animate. | original reddit post: <link> |
t * sin (t) ≈ christmas tree
| original reddit post: <link> | it seems awfully appropriate 'starring' this repository. |
final draft of r7rs – small scheme standard
| i'm new to lisp (only a little over a year) but i already feel the same way about r*rs as i do about ansi sql: you'd be crazy to target it instead of making the most of the runtime you've chosen.has anyone here ever deployed to multiple runtimes? why did you do it? i'm curious. | you may also want to see john cowan's presentation on r7rs-small last year to lispnyc: <link> |
final draft of r7rs – small scheme standard
| you may also want to see john cowan's presentation on r7rs-small last year to lispnyc: <link> | does anyone have any idea what the overall plan for scheme is?from what i understand r7rs small is aimed at being closer to r5rs while avoiding the controversial things introduced by r6rs.but what about r7rs large? what are the overall aims of that? has that been decided yet? |
final draft of r7rs – small scheme standard
| does anyone have any idea what the overall plan for scheme is?from what i understand r7rs small is aimed at being closer to r5rs while avoiding the controversial things introduced by r6rs.but what about r7rs large? what are the overall aims of that? has that been decided yet? | is anyone here planning an implementation ? |
final draft of r7rs – small scheme standard
| is anyone here planning an implementation ? | can someone familiar with the process explain where this lies in the standardization process?does "final draft" mean this is the official r7rs-small standard, does it mean this is the final text being sent to the steering committee for endorsement, or does it mean something else entirely? |
apple closes the revenue, income gap with microsoft to just $1 billion
| what no one seems to talk about is how many billion dollar companies tie into the microsoft stack, i can't think of any on the apple side of things. | i just had a realization. apple's actually becoming the next microsoft.and they're beginning to act the part. |
apple closes the revenue, income gap with microsoft to just $1 billion
| i just had a realization. apple's actually becoming the next microsoft.and they're beginning to act the part. | ...and apple closed the income gap with exxon mobil to ~ $3 billion.not that these comparisons are of any value. |
apple closes the revenue, income gap with microsoft to just $1 billion
| ...and apple closed the income gap with exxon mobil to ~ $3 billion.not that these comparisons are of any value. | and if revenues were the most important number, that would matter somewhat.to this day i still don't understand why it seems profit is about the last thing people look at. maybe that explains a lot actually. |
apple closes the revenue, income gap with microsoft to just $1 billion
| and if revenues were the most important number, that would matter somewhat.to this day i still don't understand why it seems profit is about the last thing people look at. maybe that explains a lot actually. | peanuts |
fios customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77 tb a month
| 77tb is quite a bit, but part of being able to charge little old ladies $80/month who only do 20mb of email is running into the occasional fellow who does the opposite.unlimited. hu keep hu-sing tha word. i do-na think it mean wha you think it mean.edit: i'm not sure why this is getting down-voted repeatedly but let me just add: if a company is going to use the term "unlimited" it has to be prepared for 2 eventualities. 1) some one pays the monthly fee and transfers 0 bytes. big win for company. 2) someone pays the monthly fee and transfers at full speed 100% of the time. potential big lose for company. if a company is not prepared for both of these outcomes, don't use that word. it sucks to grab the first and then try to outlaw the second with tos weasel-ry. | as i read the article and do the math, he purchased a 300mbps line and saturated it. (300e6/8)x24x60x60x30 == 97 tb/mo. that 77 isn't a contractual limit, it's just a 20% pipe efficiencey factor (or just measurement slop) on top of the fundamental limit of the line.if that's the "limit" i can expect verizon to enforce, then bravo verizon! how about this for a headline: "verizon allows you to saturate 80% of your line 24/7 without complaining!"but as the article (and not the linkbait headline) explains, his contract was canceled for bleedingly obvious tos violations. |
fios customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77 tb a month
| as i read the article and do the math, he purchased a 300mbps line and saturated it. (300e6/8)x24x60x60x30 == 97 tb/mo. that 77 isn't a contractual limit, it's just a 20% pipe efficiencey factor (or just measurement slop) on top of the fundamental limit of the line.if that's the "limit" i can expect verizon to enforce, then bravo verizon! how about this for a headline: "verizon allows you to saturate 80% of your line 24/7 without complaining!"but as the article (and not the linkbait headline) explains, his contract was canceled for bleedingly obvious tos violations. | if you read the article, his data usage wasn't the reason he was cut off. he was caught because of it, but the reason he's being forced to business class is that he's running a server (multiple actually.) residential has it in their tos, no hosting servers on that connection. if anything verizon should be applauded compared to companies like comcast... they didn't even throttle him before they called to find out what was going on. he willingly gave himself away. |
fios customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77 tb a month
| if you read the article, his data usage wasn't the reason he was cut off. he was caught because of it, but the reason he's being forced to business class is that he's running a server (multiple actually.) residential has it in their tos, no hosting servers on that connection. if anything verizon should be applauded compared to companies like comcast... they didn't even throttle him before they called to find out what was going on. he willingly gave himself away. | i really would like to see a class action suit initiated against companies who dishonestly use the word "unlimited" like this.unlimited means "without limits", not even absurdly high ones. |
fios customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77 tb a month
| i really would like to see a class action suit initiated against companies who dishonestly use the word "unlimited" like this.unlimited means "without limits", not even absurdly high ones. | however, traffic most months is in the 30tb range. that sort of bandwidth would cost thousands of dollars per month in most colocation facilitieshuh? that's about a maxed out 100mbps line. i'm not super familiar with different dc pricing for this tier of speed but from what i've seen this seems to be very misleading. for 100mbps managed with ips/ids, i've seen $3000/mo. but usually the offer is for unmanaged and with that the price can be in the hundreds or less. any dc experts care to comment? |
best startup landing page service?
what's a good site that provides a simple landing page (that you don't have to host yourself) to gather pre-launch email signups for a site?<p>something i could point the name servers of my domain to relatively easy. launchrock is invite only it seems. is there anything public out there?<p>edit: to clarify, i'm thinking more of a "beta, pre-launch" landing page. something that briefly teases what's coming and says "sign up to be notified first." | we have been experimenting with launchrock and will launch our beta invite site in about two weeks using launchrock. actually, we're trying to get some feedback on the background image so i'll submit a separate post asking for feedback on that from the hn audience :-) | if you want a priority invite to launchrock, just email me at jameson at launchrock dot com. we're going to open it up as soon as we can, but we're focused on scaling right now and a few other things before we're 100% comfortable letting the masses in. |
best startup landing page service?
what's a good site that provides a simple landing page (that you don't have to host yourself) to gather pre-launch email signups for a site?<p>something i could point the name servers of my domain to relatively easy. launchrock is invite only it seems. is there anything public out there?<p>edit: to clarify, i'm thinking more of a "beta, pre-launch" landing page. something that briefly teases what's coming and says "sign up to be notified first." | if you want a priority invite to launchrock, just email me at jameson at launchrock dot com. we're going to open it up as soon as we can, but we're focused on scaling right now and a few other things before we're 100% comfortable letting the masses in. | i don't know why launchrock is invite only. i built the same thing for one of my websites in an hour. if you want the code, send me a message and i'll be happy to share it. for reference, my landing page is @recipebot.com |
best startup landing page service?
what's a good site that provides a simple landing page (that you don't have to host yourself) to gather pre-launch email signups for a site?<p>something i could point the name servers of my domain to relatively easy. launchrock is invite only it seems. is there anything public out there?<p>edit: to clarify, i'm thinking more of a "beta, pre-launch" landing page. something that briefly teases what's coming and says "sign up to be notified first." | i don't know why launchrock is invite only. i built the same thing for one of my websites in an hour. if you want the code, send me a message and i'll be happy to share it. for reference, my landing page is @recipebot.com | i'll build one for you, for a fee of course.example:<link> |
best startup landing page service?
what's a good site that provides a simple landing page (that you don't have to host yourself) to gather pre-launch email signups for a site?<p>something i could point the name servers of my domain to relatively easy. launchrock is invite only it seems. is there anything public out there?<p>edit: to clarify, i'm thinking more of a "beta, pre-launch" landing page. something that briefly teases what's coming and says "sign up to be notified first." | i'll build one for you, for a fee of course.example:<link> | use <link> with wufoo forms. |
ask hn: best web hosts (2012 edition)
hi guys,<p>i'm looking to move one of my sites from a shared host to something a little more professional.<p>what's a service i can start with and stay with for a while. without having to worry about moving again?<p>i appreciate any help.<p>cheers,<p>tapha. | really depends on what kind of site you want to host, if it's just static you could use amazon s3 8 cloudfront, there's even a free usage tier: <link> | the only experience i have to offer is at the bottom rung, the smallest possible servers. the one's you use for sandboxes or low-traffic personal sites. i made my decision a week ago, and landed on rackspace. their cheapest option is about $12 a month, compared to linode's $20. also, if you're new to web administration you'll be helped tremendously by all of the accurate and thorough tutorials they host. however, the two or three people that i know that administer larger sites suggested linode, so as always your choice should probably depend on your individual needs. |
ask hn: best web hosts (2012 edition)
hi guys,<p>i'm looking to move one of my sites from a shared host to something a little more professional.<p>what's a service i can start with and stay with for a while. without having to worry about moving again?<p>i appreciate any help.<p>cheers,<p>tapha. | the only experience i have to offer is at the bottom rung, the smallest possible servers. the one's you use for sandboxes or low-traffic personal sites. i made my decision a week ago, and landed on rackspace. their cheapest option is about $12 a month, compared to linode's $20. also, if you're new to web administration you'll be helped tremendously by all of the accurate and thorough tutorials they host. however, the two or three people that i know that administer larger sites suggested linode, so as always your choice should probably depend on your individual needs. | i use hetzner, they are based in germany. the customer service is stellar and servers are priced very competitively. you can check them out at www.hetzner.de |
ask hn: best web hosts (2012 edition)
hi guys,<p>i'm looking to move one of my sites from a shared host to something a little more professional.<p>what's a service i can start with and stay with for a while. without having to worry about moving again?<p>i appreciate any help.<p>cheers,<p>tapha. | i use hetzner, they are based in germany. the customer service is stellar and servers are priced very competitively. you can check them out at www.hetzner.de | am very happy with my vps from prgmr.com which i've had for just over a year now.i also have vpss with linode, slicehost and amazon ... but honestly prgmr is just excellent value. |
ask hn: best web hosts (2012 edition)
hi guys,<p>i'm looking to move one of my sites from a shared host to something a little more professional.<p>what's a service i can start with and stay with for a while. without having to worry about moving again?<p>i appreciate any help.<p>cheers,<p>tapha. | am very happy with my vps from prgmr.com which i've had for just over a year now.i also have vpss with linode, slicehost and amazon ... but honestly prgmr is just excellent value. | since you manage to survive using shared host, your proberly dont need a "best" host as most of the host ( vps ) will be good enough for you.check out linode or dediserve. |
ios devs put out a call to unite against lodsys, other patent trolls
| i guess i wasn't following the lodsys thing but i had not heard that they bought the patent in question from intellectual ventures? i guess intellectual ventures is using 3rd parties to troll. | i don't know who renowned ios developer mike lee is, but i think this is fantastic. the only way small timers can effect this legal change is to band together like a union. and we've seen how powerful a union can be.trolls are going down, man. |
ios devs put out a call to unite against lodsys, other patent trolls
| i don't know who renowned ios developer mike lee is, but i think this is fantastic. the only way small timers can effect this legal change is to band together like a union. and we've seen how powerful a union can be.trolls are going down, man. | "imagine a law that allows small software companies to opt out of the patent system."that's a very interesting idea - startups opting out of the patent system, and then they won't be sued by other companies claiming patent infringement, but it will also mean they don't get to sue others for patent infringement either, even when they get to become a big company. it seems like a fair idea. |
ios devs put out a call to unite against lodsys, other patent trolls
| "imagine a law that allows small software companies to opt out of the patent system."that's a very interesting idea - startups opting out of the patent system, and then they won't be sued by other companies claiming patent infringement, but it will also mean they don't get to sue others for patent infringement either, even when they get to become a big company. it seems like a fair idea. | just make patents non transferrable, but licensable. is that not what they were intended to be, with the oversight that let them be transferrable the root of all the dysfunction? |
ios devs put out a call to unite against lodsys, other patent trolls
| just make patents non transferrable, but licensable. is that not what they were intended to be, with the oversight that let them be transferrable the root of all the dysfunction? | not to sound too cynical, but if companies like ms, apple, ibm, google, etc. have spent the last 20 years amassing billion-dollar patent war-chests and are still giving in to patent trolls, and they haven't managed to get the system changed yet--what chance do a handful of game developers have? |
we're done working with clients
| who exactly is buying all these t shirts? i never see shirts like these when i'm walking down the street. | and here i was thinking they were tired of dealing with clients. |
we're done working with clients
| and here i was thinking they were tired of dealing with clients. | i am amazed there is real money in printed t-shirts, but there clearly is. |
we're done working with clients
| i am amazed there is real money in printed t-shirts, but there clearly is. | "we’ve re-built that thing from the ground up almost half-a-dozen times over the past few years."surely that's not a good thing. surely. |
we're done working with clients
| "we’ve re-built that thing from the ground up almost half-a-dozen times over the past few years."surely that's not a good thing. surely. | i they can ensure consistency over time in t-shirt quality and size i might become a customer for life. |
the next mission
| this is very sad and unfortunate. brendan was basically forced out of his own job because of a political view he supported. no matter whether you agree or disagree with someone's views, a discussion should be reasonable and fair, not a lynching in the court of popular opinion. we should respect others views, and their freedom to support any political position, if we wish those same freedoms for ourselves. | this is so upsetting, it's infuriating. here we had a wonderful chance for someone brilliant like eich to lead one of the most important organizations in defending us against looming omnipresent state surveillance, and a bunch of social justice warriors went and ruined it. pat yourselves on the back guys, you won! |
the next mission
| this is so upsetting, it's infuriating. here we had a wonderful chance for someone brilliant like eich to lead one of the most important organizations in defending us against looming omnipresent state surveillance, and a bunch of social justice warriors went and ruined it. pat yourselves on the back guys, you won! | another perspective that i'm surprised hasn't been voiced:brendan had the privilege to climb to the rank of ceo, if only for a few days. but it is because of views like his that many don't get a chance at all to climb to anywhere near those heights. i know many qualified, talented, awesome people who, if they were straight and able to marry the loves of their lives, could become american citizens and pursue meaningful opportunities here (arguments about whether moving here is such a good idea these days not withstanding.) and marriage is just one of many ways in which we as a society diminish, limit or actively dehumanize those not a member of the majority.i tolerate your views right up to the point where they make someone's dying moments hell because their husband or wife can't visit, or bar someone from working for someone else because of their gender or skin color. at that point, yeah, i'll gladly be a biggot against biggots.perhaps the reason we don't see more minorities in positions of power is that so many of us exercise our influence, be it via rhetoric or $1000 donations, to keep them out of those positions. i can't bring myself to feel bad when someone who does that is brought down. |
the next mission
| another perspective that i'm surprised hasn't been voiced:brendan had the privilege to climb to the rank of ceo, if only for a few days. but it is because of views like his that many don't get a chance at all to climb to anywhere near those heights. i know many qualified, talented, awesome people who, if they were straight and able to marry the loves of their lives, could become american citizens and pursue meaningful opportunities here (arguments about whether moving here is such a good idea these days not withstanding.) and marriage is just one of many ways in which we as a society diminish, limit or actively dehumanize those not a member of the majority.i tolerate your views right up to the point where they make someone's dying moments hell because their husband or wife can't visit, or bar someone from working for someone else because of their gender or skin color. at that point, yeah, i'll gladly be a biggot against biggots.perhaps the reason we don't see more minorities in positions of power is that so many of us exercise our influence, be it via rhetoric or $1000 donations, to keep them out of those positions. i can't bring myself to feel bad when someone who does that is brought down. | well, it's not going to be a popular opinion but i think it's a shame he's been forced out. simply having the wrong views shouldn't make him ineligible for a job. |
the next mission
| well, it's not going to be a popular opinion but i think it's a shame he's been forced out. simply having the wrong views shouldn't make him ineligible for a job. | people who think this is unjust, think about this. if eich had instead donated to a neo-nazi party, a group that supports re-legalizing slavery, or an organization taking away women's right to vote, would your opinion be any different? for those who say 'no, my opinion would be the same. free speech is free speech and political affiliation is political affiliation' would you be comfortable working at mozilla? i think this is the much more important practical concern. eich's ability to continue as ceo was _compromised_ - could he hire and retain talent? would mozilla have seen a mass quit? could they continue to get volunteers to work on the code?the social justice warrior lynch mob can be an ugly, fickle beast, and its actions can be a double-edged sword, there's no question about it. in this case, they may have saved mozilla (and eich) from themselves.edit: being the public face of a company is different in kind than being another kind of worker. its "distance" from cto may not be large, but the "king is the king" as it were.edit 2: a couple of bigger questions here that will/should be asked. should ceos remain apolitical, or at least take great pains to hide their affiliations - particularly in industries with many much more liberal-minded workers? will they after this?interesting stat: latest pew has 61% of republicans under 30 supporting gay marriage. take that as you may, but i'd go with 'excellent bellwether for society at large'. |
ask hn: apart from hacker news, what else you read?
| essential:
<link>
<link> <link> <link>
<link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link>
<link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link>
<link> <link> <link>
<link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link> <link>
<link> <link> <link> | currently reading:
much fall of blood: mercedes lackey, eric flint
recently read:
wise man's fear: patrick rothfuss
cryoburn: lois mcmaster bujold
miles in love: lois mcmaster bujold
rss, highlights
comics
a softer world | <link> | <link>
chart porn | <link> | <link>
dr. mcninja | <link> | <link>
dresden codak | <link> | <link>
erfworld | <link> | <link>
errant story | <link> | <link>
foxtrot | <link> | <link>
girl genius | <link> | <link>
goats | <link> | <link>
gunnerkrigg court | <link> | <link>
indexed | <link> | <link>
order of the stick | <link> | <link>
penny arcade | <link> | <link>
ps238 | <link> | <link>
pvponline | <link> | <link>
ratfist | <link> | <link>
sluggy freelance | <link> | <link>
wapsi square | <link> | <link>
xkcd | <link> | <link>
development
paul graham essays | <link> | <link>
woodgears.ca | <link> | <link>
misc
ask metafilter, recent best answers | <link> | <link>
last psychiatrist | <link> | <link>
lesswrong | <link> | <link>
lifehacker: top | <link> | <link>
mostly maths | <link> | <link>
oktrends | <link> | <link>
poetic home | <link> | <link>
steampunk home | <link> | <link>
steampunk workshop | <link> | <link>
money + business
a smart bear: startups and marketing for geeks | <link> | <link>
i will teach you to be rich | <link> | <link>
len penzo dot com | <link> | <link>
microisv on a shoestring | <link> | <link>
millionaire mommy next door | <link> | <link>
simple dollar | <link> | <link>
steve blank | <link> | <link>
unicornfree | <link> | <link>
opinion
cool tools | <link> | <link>
joel on software | <link> | <link>
pawprint.net | <link> | <link>
schneier on security | <link> | <link>
slight paranoia (chris soghoian) | <link> | <link>
parenting:
game theorist | <link> | <link>
parent hacks | <link> | <link>
thingamababy | <link> | <link>
people
annathered's bento factory | <link> | <link>
derek sivers | <link> | <link>
dive into mark | <link> | <link>
jonathan coulton | <link> | <link>
patrick rothfuss - blog | <link> | <link>
telstar logistics | <link> | <link>
this tiny house | <link> | <link>
wil wheaton dot net: in exile | <link> | <link>
xkcd | <link> | <link>
personal development
ask the headhunter | <link> | <link>
cooking for engineers | <link> | <link>
lazy way to success | <link> | <link>
study hacks | <link> | <link>
unclutterer | <link> | <link>
zen habits | <link> | <link>
video, music
armin van buuren's youtube feed | <link>8arg=arminvanbuuren | <link>
ronald jenkees' youtube feed | <link> | <link>
sungha jung's youtube feed | <link>8arg=jwcfree | <link>
tiesto's youtube feed | <link>8arg=officialtiesto | <link>
weird al's youtube feed | <link> | <link>
video, spoken
eric stromer's diy | <link> | <link>
google developers | <link>8arg=googledevelopers | <link>
google tech talks | <link>8arg=googletechtalks | <link>
happy tree friends | <link> | <link>
rsa | <link>8alt=rss8v=28client=ytapi-youtube-rss-redirect | <link>
ted talks on youtube | <link>8arg=tedtalksdirector | <link> |
ask hn: apart from hacker news, what else you read?
| currently reading:
much fall of blood: mercedes lackey, eric flint
recently read:
wise man's fear: patrick rothfuss
cryoburn: lois mcmaster bujold
miles in love: lois mcmaster bujold
rss, highlights
comics
a softer world | <link> | <link>
chart porn | <link> | <link>
dr. mcninja | <link> | <link>
dresden codak | <link> | <link>
erfworld | <link> | <link>
errant story | <link> | <link>
foxtrot | <link> | <link>
girl genius | <link> | <link>
goats | <link> | <link>
gunnerkrigg court | <link> | <link>
indexed | <link> | <link>
order of the stick | <link> | <link>
penny arcade | <link> | <link>
ps238 | <link> | <link>
pvponline | <link> | <link>
ratfist | <link> | <link>
sluggy freelance | <link> | <link>
wapsi square | <link> | <link>
xkcd | <link> | <link>
development
paul graham essays | <link> | <link>
woodgears.ca | <link> | <link>
misc
ask metafilter, recent best answers | <link> | <link>
last psychiatrist | <link> | <link>
lesswrong | <link> | <link>
lifehacker: top | <link> | <link>
mostly maths | <link> | <link>
oktrends | <link> | <link>
poetic home | <link> | <link>
steampunk home | <link> | <link>
steampunk workshop | <link> | <link>
money + business
a smart bear: startups and marketing for geeks | <link> | <link>
i will teach you to be rich | <link> | <link>
len penzo dot com | <link> | <link>
microisv on a shoestring | <link> | <link>
millionaire mommy next door | <link> | <link>
simple dollar | <link> | <link>
steve blank | <link> | <link>
unicornfree | <link> | <link>
opinion
cool tools | <link> | <link>
joel on software | <link> | <link>
pawprint.net | <link> | <link>
schneier on security | <link> | <link>
slight paranoia (chris soghoian) | <link> | <link>
parenting:
game theorist | <link> | <link>
parent hacks | <link> | <link>
thingamababy | <link> | <link>
people
annathered's bento factory | <link> | <link>
derek sivers | <link> | <link>
dive into mark | <link> | <link>
jonathan coulton | <link> | <link>
patrick rothfuss - blog | <link> | <link>
telstar logistics | <link> | <link>
this tiny house | <link> | <link>
wil wheaton dot net: in exile | <link> | <link>
xkcd | <link> | <link>
personal development
ask the headhunter | <link> | <link>
cooking for engineers | <link> | <link>
lazy way to success | <link> | <link>
study hacks | <link> | <link>
unclutterer | <link> | <link>
zen habits | <link> | <link>
video, music
armin van buuren's youtube feed | <link>8arg=arminvanbuuren | <link>
ronald jenkees' youtube feed | <link> | <link>
sungha jung's youtube feed | <link>8arg=jwcfree | <link>
tiesto's youtube feed | <link>8arg=officialtiesto | <link>
weird al's youtube feed | <link> | <link>
video, spoken
eric stromer's diy | <link> | <link>
google developers | <link>8arg=googledevelopers | <link>
google tech talks | <link>8arg=googletechtalks | <link>
happy tree friends | <link> | <link>
rsa | <link>8alt=rss8v=28client=ytapi-youtube-rss-redirect | <link>
ted talks on youtube | <link>8arg=tedtalksdirector | <link> | books.books have a relevance that's hard to match with blog posts, newspapers and magazines.books from 200 to 2000 years ago still have a lot of relevance. (human nature hasn't changed much).so instead of reading about the latest privacy invasion from facebook or the latest startup that no one will know about in 2 years, try a book.i'm trying this myself. spending less time on hacker news, and more time with good books. so far, much more satisfying. you feel like you accomplished something after finishing a good book. versus feeling like you wasted a morning/night reading through "timely news". |
ask hn: apart from hacker news, what else you read?
| books.books have a relevance that's hard to match with blog posts, newspapers and magazines.books from 200 to 2000 years ago still have a lot of relevance. (human nature hasn't changed much).so instead of reading about the latest privacy invasion from facebook or the latest startup that no one will know about in 2 years, try a book.i'm trying this myself. spending less time on hacker news, and more time with good books. so far, much more satisfying. you feel like you accomplished something after finishing a good book. versus feeling like you wasted a morning/night reading through "timely news". | i subscribe (i.e. physically) to the economist and gq.i'm subscribed to 243 feeds in google reader, of which maybe 50-67% are still updated. reader tells me i 'read' 7,189 items in the past 30 days. usually i skim headlines and look for interesting things.my favorite feeds right now are my city's alt weekly newspaper's blog, my neighborhood's unofficial blog (<link>, james altucher, ben horowitz, and cliff mass (a meteorologist at the university of washington, and a fascinating writer).i'll skim twitter a couple times a day when i'm waiting in line, brushing my teeth, etc. i do so more now than i used to because a website of mine gets a huge amount of traffic from tweets, and i like to stay ahead of the curve on that.i'll skim techmeme late at night when i've exhausted everything else.i'll troll through the nyt and longform.org a couple times a week to add interesting things to instapaper, too. |
ask hn: apart from hacker news, what else you read?
| i subscribe (i.e. physically) to the economist and gq.i'm subscribed to 243 feeds in google reader, of which maybe 50-67% are still updated. reader tells me i 'read' 7,189 items in the past 30 days. usually i skim headlines and look for interesting things.my favorite feeds right now are my city's alt weekly newspaper's blog, my neighborhood's unofficial blog (<link>, james altucher, ben horowitz, and cliff mass (a meteorologist at the university of washington, and a fascinating writer).i'll skim twitter a couple times a day when i'm waiting in line, brushing my teeth, etc. i do so more now than i used to because a website of mine gets a huge amount of traffic from tweets, and i like to stay ahead of the curve on that.i'll skim techmeme late at night when i've exhausted everything else.i'll troll through the nyt and longform.org a couple times a week to add interesting things to instapaper, too. | trying to pick things not yet mentioned.cooking blogs (i read a bunch more, but these are the best):<link> blog ostensibly about learning japanese but really about learning anything:<link> / business:<link> little of everything:<link> |
are uber and lyft responsible for reducing duis?
| i doubt it has anything to do with uber/lyft specifically and everything to do with the availability of cabs. so, another way of framing this: how many dui deaths have been caused by artificial limitations on the number of cab licences over the years?in seattle when i was in my early 20s, it was nearly impossible to call or catch a cab when the bars closed, so often we just walked home. and on new year's eve? forget about it...incidentally, walking in a city while drunk is also dangerous. for about a third of u.s. pedestrian deaths, the pedestrian was drunk, according to one study. <link> | i particularly like that i don't have to deal with cash while tipsy and in the dark of night.i've never used lyft, but i have used uber and usually find them them be quick and very service oriented. from what i've heard lyft is given them competition in both ways, so i look forward to trying them as well.far better than any cab i've ever taken. |
are uber and lyft responsible for reducing duis?
| i particularly like that i don't have to deal with cash while tipsy and in the dark of night.i've never used lyft, but i have used uber and usually find them them be quick and very service oriented. from what i've heard lyft is given them competition in both ways, so i look forward to trying them as well.far better than any cab i've ever taken. | it seems very difficult to conclude that uber and lyft are responsible for reducing duis from that graph.* there's already a downward trend well before uber and lyft come into play.* even if the downward trend is stronger more recently, waze also came into existence a few years ago. maybe people were, e.g., downloading waze and using it to find police cars beforehand.* the graph measures arrests, not incidents. so it could be that, for instance, police are getting laxer about dui enforcement, rather than that people are driving drunk less.in short, there's too many confounding factors here to conclude that lyft and uber should get credit. |
are uber and lyft responsible for reducing duis?
| it seems very difficult to conclude that uber and lyft are responsible for reducing duis from that graph.* there's already a downward trend well before uber and lyft come into play.* even if the downward trend is stronger more recently, waze also came into existence a few years ago. maybe people were, e.g., downloading waze and using it to find police cars beforehand.* the graph measures arrests, not incidents. so it could be that, for instance, police are getting laxer about dui enforcement, rather than that people are driving drunk less.in short, there's too many confounding factors here to conclude that lyft and uber should get credit. | while i hope this would be true, all the graphs tells me is that we're going back down to 2003-2005 levels of duis. there can be several causes for this, maybe education on not to dui caused it, maybe less people can afford cars (just read an articles that teens/ people in their 20s have aren't buying cars as much as previous generations), or want to drive in cities like sf where a day's parking can cost more than $30, you have to circle around several blocks to find a free space.i do like the idea of not driving, and think the dui rate will rapidly decrease once things like self driving cars better enable us to give up personal vehicles. |
are uber and lyft responsible for reducing duis?
| while i hope this would be true, all the graphs tells me is that we're going back down to 2003-2005 levels of duis. there can be several causes for this, maybe education on not to dui caused it, maybe less people can afford cars (just read an articles that teens/ people in their 20s have aren't buying cars as much as previous generations), or want to drive in cities like sf where a day's parking can cost more than $30, you have to circle around several blocks to find a free space.i do like the idea of not driving, and think the dui rate will rapidly decrease once things like self driving cars better enable us to give up personal vehicles. | the interesting observation is how the economy correlates to dui arrests. either through people maintaining their lifestyle but not being able to afford a cab or police departments reacting to cuts in funding.crediting uber is a startup echo-chamber delusion. |
ask yc: any successful start-ups which outsourced their product development?
my personal experience tells me that product development is the last thing that a start-up should outsource. you don't outsource your core competency, and the core competency of a start-up is product development.<p>in fact, i've seen some start-ups fail quite badly after outsourcing their development (and, in my opinion, that was because they did so). by contrast, every start-up that succeeded spectacularly seems to have had some serious engineering talent involved right from the start.<p>however, to keep an open mind, i'd be interested to know whether anyone knows of successful start-ups (i.e.: made a good profit, and are reasonably well-known in their niche) which did successfully outsource their product development. it'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like china or india, and still succeeded.<p>thanks for any information on that matter! | we originally outsourced development of one of our products to some russian guys who had been doing work for us for a year or so. they did a great job and the software started selling - and still does now. what i did though was after paying them and after seeing what a good niche business i had... i made them (2 guys) partners - and they were over-joyed by it. they were brought into the core team and have supported and improved the product over the years. in terms of income, its not fantastic (around $100,000 per year) but its nearly all profit. hope this helps | since this board is populated in large part by entrepreneurial software developers, you're bound to get a biased, emotional answer to the question of whether offshored developers are cost-effective. |
ask yc: any successful start-ups which outsourced their product development?
my personal experience tells me that product development is the last thing that a start-up should outsource. you don't outsource your core competency, and the core competency of a start-up is product development.<p>in fact, i've seen some start-ups fail quite badly after outsourcing their development (and, in my opinion, that was because they did so). by contrast, every start-up that succeeded spectacularly seems to have had some serious engineering talent involved right from the start.<p>however, to keep an open mind, i'd be interested to know whether anyone knows of successful start-ups (i.e.: made a good profit, and are reasonably well-known in their niche) which did successfully outsource their product development. it'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like china or india, and still succeeded.<p>thanks for any information on that matter! | since this board is populated in large part by entrepreneurial software developers, you're bound to get a biased, emotional answer to the question of whether offshored developers are cost-effective. | myspace was mostly written by contract developers, in the early days, though i guess they have staff developers now. |
ask yc: any successful start-ups which outsourced their product development?
my personal experience tells me that product development is the last thing that a start-up should outsource. you don't outsource your core competency, and the core competency of a start-up is product development.<p>in fact, i've seen some start-ups fail quite badly after outsourcing their development (and, in my opinion, that was because they did so). by contrast, every start-up that succeeded spectacularly seems to have had some serious engineering talent involved right from the start.<p>however, to keep an open mind, i'd be interested to know whether anyone knows of successful start-ups (i.e.: made a good profit, and are reasonably well-known in their niche) which did successfully outsource their product development. it'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like china or india, and still succeeded.<p>thanks for any information on that matter! | myspace was mostly written by contract developers, in the early days, though i guess they have staff developers now. | all of our development for <link> was done in house, but we outsourced graphic design to an awesome shop in china, <link> run by ex-ad agency folks from nyc.it was great since they're 12 hours shifted from us to be able to give them a spec at 5pm and have something to look at in the morning. and their work is top notch. |
ask yc: any successful start-ups which outsourced their product development?
my personal experience tells me that product development is the last thing that a start-up should outsource. you don't outsource your core competency, and the core competency of a start-up is product development.<p>in fact, i've seen some start-ups fail quite badly after outsourcing their development (and, in my opinion, that was because they did so). by contrast, every start-up that succeeded spectacularly seems to have had some serious engineering talent involved right from the start.<p>however, to keep an open mind, i'd be interested to know whether anyone knows of successful start-ups (i.e.: made a good profit, and are reasonably well-known in their niche) which did successfully outsource their product development. it'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like china or india, and still succeeded.<p>thanks for any information on that matter! | all of our development for <link> was done in house, but we outsourced graphic design to an awesome shop in china, <link> run by ex-ad agency folks from nyc.it was great since they're 12 hours shifted from us to be able to give them a spec at 5pm and have something to look at in the morning. and their work is top notch. | at the end of the day you have to find resources at a rate you can afford. i simply could not find local resources. or put another way, i could not afford the going rate of the local scarce resources. so i went offshore and have not looked back. the people i am working with a good guys and i consider them to be friends.and the good ones are not dummies. they know they going rate for development work and charge a healthy sum for their services. so it is not always about the lowest cost provider.long way of saying that if you have to, don't be afraid to offshore/outsource. |
ask hn: should you fire average devs and have only talented devs in a team?
let's say you have a team with 10 developers. some of them are great, but a year later you discover that 3 of them are average (they have no talent). they want to change something and learn new things, but still they are slow, make bad decisions and other dev. outperform them.0p2would you fire them? would you give them a chance to improve? other ideas? | at least be humane about it.you don't simply "fire" people for performing below expectations. do the extra legwork, and find a way to get them properly "laid off", ie, "eliminate their positions" -- which shouldn't be too difficult here, as after all you say you'd rather hire more senior people -- so they can (1) get unemployment benefits, (2) roll their insurance off into corba if at all possible (or the equivalent of you're not in the u.s.), and (3) have at least a theoretical possibility of rehabilitating themselves and getting another job."firing" per se is just plain vindictive, and seriously endangers their ability to look out for their physical welfare on the short run, and to right their course (in terms of finding a career that's better suited to them) in the longer runi know that you aren't particularly concerned with their welfare (you sound like you're basically fed up with these people, and couldn't care less). but the bottom line is that you still have to recognize that the company shares at least some responsibility for the situation. (after all, who hired them, anyway? was it, umm... you, by chance?)and also, treating people humanely just happens to pay (considerable) dividends. as in, the morale of the rest of the team, your company's reputation (and your own reputation).i've seen the (lingering) after-effects of letting go of people gracefully and magnanimously, and of doing the opposite, many, many times. it's well worth the money to do these things properly (and humanely). | if they're average, not terrible, i'd agree with 37signals - there is no such thing as rockstar people, just rockstar environments.if you're not sure you've built an inspiring, learning environment where everybody feels driven to do their best, are you sure a) it's them, not you? b) anyone you'll hire will do any better?the way you've worded it though, it sounds like they are a bit rubbish. maybe it's the kindest thing, it's painful all round if they're trying and failing. |
ask hn: should you fire average devs and have only talented devs in a team?
let's say you have a team with 10 developers. some of them are great, but a year later you discover that 3 of them are average (they have no talent). they want to change something and learn new things, but still they are slow, make bad decisions and other dev. outperform them.0p2would you fire them? would you give them a chance to improve? other ideas? | if they're average, not terrible, i'd agree with 37signals - there is no such thing as rockstar people, just rockstar environments.if you're not sure you've built an inspiring, learning environment where everybody feels driven to do their best, are you sure a) it's them, not you? b) anyone you'll hire will do any better?the way you've worded it though, it sounds like they are a bit rubbish. maybe it's the kindest thing, it's painful all round if they're trying and failing. | "no talent" is "average"? that sounds a bit... well, wrong. granted, really talented people are orders of magnitude more productive, but "average" means someone that's worse than half of people, but also better than half; more or less. |
ask hn: should you fire average devs and have only talented devs in a team?
let's say you have a team with 10 developers. some of them are great, but a year later you discover that 3 of them are average (they have no talent). they want to change something and learn new things, but still they are slow, make bad decisions and other dev. outperform them.0p2would you fire them? would you give them a chance to improve? other ideas? | "no talent" is "average"? that sounds a bit... well, wrong. granted, really talented people are orders of magnitude more productive, but "average" means someone that's worse than half of people, but also better than half; more or less. | it really depends. for example, you could have an average developer who has a huge amount of domain knowledge. their coding skills may be sub-par but that doesn't mean they are not valuable. they may also have strengths in ui, sysadmin,
etc.on the other hand a developer could be average due to lack of experience, which is something that can be remedied by time and training - code reviews can help, as well as a reading list etc. we all have to start somewhere. give those that show promise - but lack experience - some guidance.it also depends a lot on where you are in the development cycle. are you mainly doing maintenance work, bug fixes, minor feature additions ? an average team should do fine.where you don't want mediocre developers is in the early stages of a big project - bad design decisions and poor programming practices can make later development a nightmare.i'm working on such a project right now and it's highly demoralizing - every day i find a new wtf and i just don't have the time to refactor everything - my recommendation at this point is to scrap the lot and start over, but that's not likely to happen. that's the result of mediocre developers in over their heads without a clue, and it can have a huge negative impact on your company's productivity and bottom line. |
ask hn: should you fire average devs and have only talented devs in a team?
let's say you have a team with 10 developers. some of them are great, but a year later you discover that 3 of them are average (they have no talent). they want to change something and learn new things, but still they are slow, make bad decisions and other dev. outperform them.0p2would you fire them? would you give them a chance to improve? other ideas? | it really depends. for example, you could have an average developer who has a huge amount of domain knowledge. their coding skills may be sub-par but that doesn't mean they are not valuable. they may also have strengths in ui, sysadmin,
etc.on the other hand a developer could be average due to lack of experience, which is something that can be remedied by time and training - code reviews can help, as well as a reading list etc. we all have to start somewhere. give those that show promise - but lack experience - some guidance.it also depends a lot on where you are in the development cycle. are you mainly doing maintenance work, bug fixes, minor feature additions ? an average team should do fine.where you don't want mediocre developers is in the early stages of a big project - bad design decisions and poor programming practices can make later development a nightmare.i'm working on such a project right now and it's highly demoralizing - every day i find a new wtf and i just don't have the time to refactor everything - my recommendation at this point is to scrap the lot and start over, but that's not likely to happen. that's the result of mediocre developers in over their heads without a clue, and it can have a huge negative impact on your company's productivity and bottom line. | if you're in a 1st world country you can't just fire people for being average without opening yourself up to a lawsuit. that's why good tech companies develop harrowing interview gauntlets. |
the tsa are operating in the uk 'for the olympics'
| and what's the first thing i read on the guardian's site today? a tongue-in-cheek olympics etiquette guide that starts with:welcome, and before we begin – please accept our apologies. your four-hour nightmare wait at passport control should not be taken as a symptom of britain's contempt for foreigners. it is merely a symptom of a woeful lack of spending on a key aspect of travel infrastructure in the run-up to a hugely important event. in other words, it's the government that hates you. don't worry, they hate us too.<link> | interesting as i thought the tsa was to stop bad people getting onto planes, not getting off them.as somebody who lives in london in the uk i can say that like most people who have had to pay a extra tax to pay for this without no extra chance to get to see it, that i will be glad when it's all over. i think the olympics has lost the spirit of which it was started and that if the sponsors and finances were held to the same standard that those competing have to maintain of no drugs, fairness etc then things would be alot more inline with the spirit of the event.still tsa or g4s (uk's lamentable try at haliburton or however there called); who would you pick, so fair enough. |
the tsa are operating in the uk 'for the olympics'
| interesting as i thought the tsa was to stop bad people getting onto planes, not getting off them.as somebody who lives in london in the uk i can say that like most people who have had to pay a extra tax to pay for this without no extra chance to get to see it, that i will be glad when it's all over. i think the olympics has lost the spirit of which it was started and that if the sponsors and finances were held to the same standard that those competing have to maintain of no drugs, fairness etc then things would be alot more inline with the spirit of the event.still tsa or g4s (uk's lamentable try at haliburton or however there called); who would you pick, so fair enough. | a useful single link to give to people to illustrate why the tsa are a bad thing: <link> |
the tsa are operating in the uk 'for the olympics'
| a useful single link to give to people to illustrate why the tsa are a bad thing: <link> | i guess they finally brought in the outsourcing experts. |
the tsa are operating in the uk 'for the olympics'
| i guess they finally brought in the outsourcing experts. | this sounds like they have a masterplan to "get all global citizens" used to this sort of searching, until it becomes common sense for everyone. what's next? tsa agents in all nato countries to check for "terrorists" because they are oh-so expert at it? |
as interest fades in the humanities, colleges worry
| reading this article is surreal, like living in an alternate world: "...and because there’s so much federal funding for science".reminds me of the joke:rabbi altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in berlin in 1935. "herr altmann," said his secretary, "i notice you're reading der stürmer! i can't understand why. a nazi libel sheet! are you some kind of masochist, or, god forbid, a self-hating jew?""on the contrary, frau epstein. when i used to read the jewish papers, all i learned about were pogroms, riots in palestine, and assimilation in america. but now that i read der stürmer, i see so much more: that the jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we're on the verge of taking over the entire world. you know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!" | one way to make the humanities more attractive might be to dissolve the link between learning to express oneself in words and studying literature. to quote pg, "students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in dickens." [1]while in high school i gutted it out in english so i could make it to my next math class, as i grow older i've found myself increasingly drawn to reading and writing. the power and precision of the right word at the right moment can be intoxicating.perhaps if college and high school students were given the chance to peek into the whole world of opportunity in written expression, the humanities would see a resurgence.1 - <link> "moneyball" is one of my favorites and i've read an awful lot of thoughtful food-focused essays in the last few years, but does anyone have a good one on the role of color in fashion? the cerulean rant in "devil wears prada?" |
as interest fades in the humanities, colleges worry
| one way to make the humanities more attractive might be to dissolve the link between learning to express oneself in words and studying literature. to quote pg, "students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in dickens." [1]while in high school i gutted it out in english so i could make it to my next math class, as i grow older i've found myself increasingly drawn to reading and writing. the power and precision of the right word at the right moment can be intoxicating.perhaps if college and high school students were given the chance to peek into the whole world of opportunity in written expression, the humanities would see a resurgence.1 - <link> "moneyball" is one of my favorites and i've read an awful lot of thoughtful food-focused essays in the last few years, but does anyone have a good one on the role of color in fashion? the cerulean rant in "devil wears prada?" | well, duhhard to justify the price tag.i'm not against humanities per se, but at what's being charged by the top universities, well..."i'm going to get another loan for a masters in english" jeez
the younger me would have answered that with "but you already speak english" (yes, there are several sub-branches, and things to be researched, etc)but get this, people are probably not going to be less interested in humanities, but they're not going for a formal education in it. you can study languages, literature, history, without needing to pay an arm and a leg for it.and guess what, computer science started that trend. |
as interest fades in the humanities, colleges worry
| well, duhhard to justify the price tag.i'm not against humanities per se, but at what's being charged by the top universities, well..."i'm going to get another loan for a masters in english" jeez
the younger me would have answered that with "but you already speak english" (yes, there are several sub-branches, and things to be researched, etc)but get this, people are probably not going to be less interested in humanities, but they're not going for a formal education in it. you can study languages, literature, history, without needing to pay an arm and a leg for it.and guess what, computer science started that trend. | interest in humanities is fading because humanities have failed the world. instead of understanding the society and bringing about some positive change, they have become a tool for cultural domination. some even say that the role of humanities, and history teaching, has always been about cultural domination.but the idea of cultural domination is anathema to most of the 'new generation' which relies, rather, depends on cultural assimilation and tolerance in this global economy for their bread and butter. and this change hasn't come due to humanities... it has come due to technological revolution. so, of course, the interest in humanities is fading. |
as interest fades in the humanities, colleges worry
| interest in humanities is fading because humanities have failed the world. instead of understanding the society and bringing about some positive change, they have become a tool for cultural domination. some even say that the role of humanities, and history teaching, has always been about cultural domination.but the idea of cultural domination is anathema to most of the 'new generation' which relies, rather, depends on cultural assimilation and tolerance in this global economy for their bread and butter. and this change hasn't come due to humanities... it has come due to technological revolution. so, of course, the interest in humanities is fading. | perhaps the diminishing interest in humanities is linked to the poor job market for humanities degrees?from the article:>but with the recession having helped turn college, in the popular view, into largely a tool for job preparation, administrators are concerned.and i am concerned for the administrators. who has the money to go to stanford to get a degree that offers very limited career opportunities at pay levels that will never recoup your college costs? only the most foolhardy or the richest will do this. i am concerned that the administrators apparently do not realize this.just for fun, here's a link to the tuition and fees page of stanford:<link>, who wants to pay upwards of 20k a semester after housing, books, tuition and expenses to get a degree in "renaissance french literature and the philosophy of language", "german", "philosophy", or "world languages and culture"? how long will it take to pay back your student loans? 40+ years on a philosopher's salary. will your crippling debt hinder any other aspects of your life, like getting married or buying a house? hopefully, not.college tuition is so high, that the decision to pursue a degree that does not virtually guarantee a decent paying job is financially and almost morally untenable, unless you already have substantial liquidity.but the academics, as smart as they are, just don't seem to make the connection:>“both inside the humanities and outside, people feel that the intellectual firepower in the universities is in the sciences, that the important issues that people of all sorts care about, like inequality and climate change, are being addressed not in the english departments,” said andrew delbanco, a columbia university professor who writes about higher education.only a very small subset of people go to college to 'change the world' or 'tackle pressing issues', most go to make a better life for themselves somewhere down the line. it's really hard to correlate study in renaissance french literature and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt with a better life.this article really paints the picture that people who handle administration for colleges, and professors who study college trends, really don't see the cost benefit analysis aspect of it at all. or maybe they just value degrees far more than they are actually worth.---sorry, that was too long and i think i've got to cut myself off there. |
what interview questions would you ask a prospective rails developer?
what kind of questions would you ask to test if the person has a nuanced understanding of the framework? | i generally find that asking specific questions about a technology or technique is not really valuable. my preferred method of interviewing is to sit down and talk with the candidate about "stuff", which should include said technologies/techniques. after a fashion you will get a good understanding of what they know about the subject; where they are strong and where they are just blowing smoke. you'll also know more about how they would integrate into your team.so just relax and talk to the candidate and don't worry about asking the magic questions that will answer all your prayers. :) | i tend to ask, not how you use the framework, but rather how the framework works. how does routing actually work? how do named scopes work? how would you implement the {before|after} filters on models... etc.it's actually somewhat more difficult to tell whether someone knows how to use rails well. my only suggestion is to sit down in front of an editor with them and work through actually building something small but meaningful. |
what interview questions would you ask a prospective rails developer?
what kind of questions would you ask to test if the person has a nuanced understanding of the framework? | i tend to ask, not how you use the framework, but rather how the framework works. how does routing actually work? how do named scopes work? how would you implement the {before|after} filters on models... etc.it's actually somewhat more difficult to tell whether someone knows how to use rails well. my only suggestion is to sit down in front of an editor with them and work through actually building something small but meaningful. | i might ask the interviewee about stuff from the future of rails. if answered correctly, it shows how someone can be in a continuous learning mode and eager to go the extra mile. |
what interview questions would you ask a prospective rails developer?
what kind of questions would you ask to test if the person has a nuanced understanding of the framework? | i might ask the interviewee about stuff from the future of rails. if answered correctly, it shows how someone can be in a continuous learning mode and eager to go the extra mile. | i'd ask the candidate to pair program with a developer for a week. you'll know immediately if the candidate can integrate with the team. plus it'll reveal his knowledge during the session. |
what interview questions would you ask a prospective rails developer?
what kind of questions would you ask to test if the person has a nuanced understanding of the framework? | i'd ask the candidate to pair program with a developer for a week. you'll know immediately if the candidate can integrate with the team. plus it'll reveal his knowledge during the session. | ask them to develop something that involves caching the paginated search results of a double-nested resource with file attachments in as little time as possible. hehe |
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