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Extraordinary people who have inspired you | wheels: Gary Simmons: Local sys-op and owner of used car lot. Helped me set up my BBS when I was a teenager.Mr. Edwards: 6th grade science teacher, leader of the Sour Lake Elementary Model Rocket Club.Uncle Todd: Showed me my first computer (Apple II), fed me with electronics, bought me my first decent soldering iron.Professer Hahn: Had the patience to walk me through physics that was way over my head, because he believed I could do it and was so excited about it. We eventually co-published a paper.Steve Koster: Web early-bird, ex-boss. Taught me stuff about design. Gave me the freedom to hack on cool stuff and get paid for it.All of those people have done infinitely more to inspire me than anyone on your list. The difference? They're people that believed in me and acted on that.Could I propose a new rule? No more fawning over Paul on this site. It's just kind of yucky. |
Extraordinary people who have inspired you | bayareaguy: Mohandas K. Gandhi, Howard Zinn, Noam ChomskyJust to add a little to the ideas vs execution debate: stories of people whose ideas were not recognized in their time (e.g. Hermann Grassmann) generally interest me more, especially when the reasons for their failures provide lessons from which to learn. |
Extraordinary people who have inspired you | jobeyonekenobi: Honestly? Ray Kurzweil. |
Extraordinary people who have inspired you | jgrahamc: Three people:1. My daughter. She's not yet 5. She's inspirational because watching a small child come to grips with the world and discover it makes you look again at things you take for granted and see them as new again.For example, I showed her the pendulum of a clock and how it swings back and forth based on its length (not the size of the weight or the angle it starts at). The length of a pendulum counting seconds is where we get the length one metre from. So time and space come together in such a simple thing. Also you can use a pendulum to show the rotation of the earth.So many simple and beautiful things to discover. Also, the original measurement of the metre was done by Mersenne of primes fame. BTW, did you ever notice how children count things by pointing at them one by one and saying the number? That sort of counting let's you can go straight to Cantor's pairing function that the number of rationals is the same as the number of naturals. It's child's play.(OK, better stop of I'm going to turn into James Burke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series))2. My A level Advanced Maths teacher who told me that there was "a Group, Ring or Field lurking in every corner". He showed me the beauty of logic and studying systems specified by a few axioms.3. When I was about 6 years old my parents took me to Cambridge for a couple of days organized by the National Association for Gifted Children (http://www.nagcbritain.org.uk/) where I remember clearly a man (no doubt a Cambridge don) explaining to me the theoretical operation of a computer. It was only years later that I realized that he had explained the operation of a Turing Machine. I was utterly fascinated. |
Extraordinary people who have inspired you | FleursDuMal: Ben Franklin,
Richard Feynman,
William Blake,
Dylan Thomas,
Marcus Aurelius |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | nostrademons: Start with Django unless you have a very good reason to use one of the other ones. Very good reasons include1.) Previous skills with Mako, SQLAlchemy, Paste, or any of the other libraries that Pylons or Turbogears is based upon.2.) Previous code in one of the above libraries3.) Functionality needs that Django cannot satisfy in at least a couple of the following areas: authentication, user models, multiple database support, template extensibility, deployment. I say "at least a couple" because if you just need one, you can import it like you would in any other framework. The price is that many existing Django add-ons won't be aware of your choice.Bad reasons include:1.) "Django's only for CMSes." Not true; it works just as well for anything that involves web apps, including AJAX apps.2.) "It's not scalable enough." The Washington Post runs on Django; I doubt you're going to get more pageviews than them.3.) "My data doesn't easily fit in the relational paradigm." That's what the import statement is for; you can hook any data source you want up to a Django view.4.) "Django's templating language is too restrictive." That's what template tags are for.5.) "I'm really doing a full-fledged AJAX app, not a website." You can output JSON or XML data from a Django view as easily as HTML, and you're not limited to any particular JavaScript library. (I actually think Django views are more convenient for this than Pylons controllers; there's less boilerplate.) |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | menloparkbum: I've used pylons and cherrypy, and did some massive rails things way back when rails was still cool (2007). I prefer the cherrypy way of doing things vs. pylons, but they are mostly aesthetic choices. Django is probably your best bet unless you want something lightweight. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | inklesspen: I prefer Pylons for many reasons. One of them is that SQLAlchemy is the single most powerful SQL library I've ever used, and Pylons makes it easy to use SQLAlchemy, while Django doesn't. This is just one example of Django's reluctance to use superior outside solutions. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | big-j: One thing you might try is to start by writing some small CGI webapps/scripts. Later on, it will give you an appreciation of what the frameworks are actually doing for you.Also, if you're not married to Python, and are looking for something really simple and easy to learn, you might try Perl's CGI::Application (along with some plug-ins). |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | gordianknot: Study the source of existing sites you like. Then start writing your own Python framework upward to recreate (and fast transcend) them. Extensively study the existing frameworks, especially when you hit a conceptual or implementational roadblock. Understand everything you have to work with at each step. Keep building up. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | iamelgringo: If you're serious about learning web programming, here's a few thoughts before you pick up the Django book and start wading through it:Take a look at the HTTP protocol, and learn what it does before you start diving in to web frameworks. You'll understand what's going on inside the framework before you get started.After looking at HTTP, try some basic CGI programming. Just google: Python CGI Tutorial. CGI is a bit archaic, but it helps to understand why frameworks developed, and what they're making easier.Pick up MySQL or PostGress and learn some SQL and databases first. Web frameworks are essentially an "easy" way to develop a GUI for a database. If you don't know what the database is, or what it's doing, you'll be chasing your tail learning a framework first.It's worth mucking around with some *nix and apache. You don't really have to do this first, but you're not going to be able to do too much with your web app, because I don't know of too many companies that serve Django apps off of Windows. It's all Linux or BSD hosting for Django pretty much. That means knowing at least the basics of shell scripting and apache config files. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | tebeka: For me CherryPy hits the spot between "too much magic" and "too low level".
I've used many templating systems with it, found Make and Cheetah to fit my mind the best. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | jkush: web.py is a good one for learning more about Python. |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | gcheong: As you seem to be just starting out, I would suggest a ground up approach to learning how to build web apps, choice of language being rather secondary here. Have a look at:http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/ |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | pchivers: Some additional opinions...Ask Hacker News: What Python web framework should I use?http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=129121 |
Metrics for startups? | noodle: it kind of depends. in general, its best from a planning or PM perspective (and probably important to people funding you) to know the big four: timeline, size, cost, quality.exactly what you use to measure each one is flexible. they might not be important for a startup to track thoroughly, but its good to know the general neighborhood you're in on each point. funding won't last forever. |
Metrics for startups? | mattculbreth: Not sure I understand your question here. Who is the intended user or audience of the metrics? |
Choosing a Python framework for web development? | jjguy: django's templating language is great for small projects, but their object model is a disaster. I'd roll your own data access layer. |
being accused of running sockpuppets, what would you do? | Alex3917: I would discuss it with PG via email, not in public. |
it is acceptable to pitch to bloggers about your site? | SamReidHughes: Should you bound your actions by what is acceptable, or should you bound your actions by what is practical and moral? The question I would ask, to phrase your worries more explicitly, is to ask whether that behavior will make things better or worse for you (because if you ask me, there's nothing morally wrong about telling people about your site). If the blogger were to say negative things about your site on his/her blog, in reaction to a politely worded message, people would react as if the blogger were whining, and your site would get free publicity. If the blogger were to say positive things about your site, well that's certainly good. If the blogger were to inform the cabal that you messaged them then they might organize an ignorance campaign. So, do you believe in the blogger cabal? :-) |
it is acceptable to pitch to bloggers about your site? | aaroneous: Bloggers need things to write about, you need people to write about you - if your offering is compelling it can be a great match. I recommend you read this article: http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/08/22/how-to-pitch-bloggers |
it is acceptable to pitch to bloggers about your site? | rms: Sure. Just make sure to make relevant pitches, and truly personalize each one. Bloggers can tell when they are being PR-spammed. |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | motoko: web 2.0, web 3.0 |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | aneesh: "the next facebook" |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | iamelgringo: It's the glassy eyed, far off, hungry look. When you're trying to geek out with someone about web stuff, and it seems like they're just looking through you and throwing out buzz words... it's time to exit stage left. |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | LPTS: I just read an article with the word "freemium" and my bullshit filter blew a fuse. |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | yan: - when something is touted as an anything"-killer";
- the standard issue 'web 2.0' look of a webapp that has a shallow reason to exist;
- Blog posts that have a list of N (1 <= N <= 10) things of interesting factoids that makes it easy for people to vote up on social news sites |
it is acceptable to pitch to bloggers about your site? | fourlittlebees: As a blogger, sure, it's totally acceptable. My best advice would be not to blanket every single blog with a form letter. Take the good with the bad in any review and don't whine in comments if they don't like it, just accept it as suggestions for improvement from someone who sees a LOT of sites; probably the same, if not more, as a VC. |
when does your bullshit filter turn on? | edw519: paradigm shiftbest of breedcore competencyready, fire, aim<x> is the new <y>any noun used as a verb, such as: to leverage or to architect |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | ubudesign: I use analog. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | uruzseven: Use Awk or Perl. They are available on every Linux system already so it's highly portable and very powerful. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | ivank: Stone Steps Webalizer: http://www.stonesteps.ca/projects/webalizer/along with cronolog and a bunch of custom Python scripts to autogenerate webalizer configs. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | hoyhoy: AWStats with GeoIPFree is pretty good, but a major hassle to configure. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | tom_rath: A Windows solution, but WebLog Expert works great for us: http://www.weblogexpert.com/ |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | pk: Started with Webalizer, switched to Google Analytics.Webalizer's ok, but it's missing a bunch of features like sane user agent string parsing (to give an overview of the browsers accessing your site). It also displays most of the stats by page hits (such as country and user agent) rather than "visits" or unique IPs, which I think is a better way to group.I've been pretty happy with Google Analytics so far - it has a ton of options for sorting and grouping data (like viewing users' paths through the links on the site) and good IP geolocation. Plus, the JavaScript tracker gives you stats on visitors' screen resolution, which can be handy. On the downside, all our data is belong to Google. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | sam: apachelog is a nice python module for parsing log lines from apache. it works as a great base for doing your own analysis.
http://code.google.com/p/apachelog/It's based on this perl module:
http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/~peterhi/Apache-LogRegexTo manage log files, use cronologedit:
I use cronolog to break up the logfiles daily and then I run a python script (which uses apachelog to handle the nasty parsing) to create a summary dictionary of parameters from that day. For example:{num_unique_ips:140, num_pageviews:532, ...}I pickle that dictionary and save it as a file. So every day has a raw log file and a "summary dictionary" file. To make plots I go through the summary files and unpickle them to extract the quantities of interest. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | PStamatiou: #!/bin/bashsudo awk '{print $11}' access_log | grep -v 'yourowndomain.com' | grep -v 'bloglines.com' | grep -v '"-"' | grep -v 'feedburner.com' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20 |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | dangrossman: I'm using W3Counter (http://www.w3counter.com). It's like Google Analytics minus the 1-24 hour delay, and all the goodness that comes from realtime reporting. But I keep GA installed as well for some of the more detailed back-reporting it doesn't have. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | SwellJoe: We use Google Analytics, Webalizer, and AWStats, plus some custom Perl bits. Clicky looks pretty swish, but I haven't taken the time to try it. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | davidw: I use 'visitors' ( http://www.hping.org/visitors/ ), which was written by my friend, YC.news visitor antirez.I tried Google Analytics too, but found it kind of annoying in that it's sort of a pain to get the information I want. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | mleonhard: http://code.google.com/p/recordstream/ |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | agentbleu: I like bbclone a lot, it's not like the usual stats but gives me very uniquely useful information and much better than many of the others as its so direct, |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | slurpme: I use http://polliwog.sourceforge.net open source, runs on Java. Not suitable for large websites since it provides a LOT of information about your site. |
what software do you use for analyzing apache logs? | dpapathanasiou: Webtrax (http://www.multicians.org/thvv/webtrax-help.html) is a good open-source tool. |
How long will it take, while Micro$oft starts to work on Unix based OS? | inklesspen: Impossible to say. Is there any evidence that Microsoft is working on a Unix-based OS? Why would they do that, when they still have a stranglehold on the market with Windows? |
How long will it take, while Micro$oft starts to work on Unix based OS? | noodle: 28:06:42:12/too obscure?but seriously, who knows? who knows how long they might have already been working on it? who knows when they'll start, or how many resources they'll throw into it? we'll only know when someone tells us. |
How long will it take, while Micro$oft starts to work on Unix based OS? | wallflower: For some reason, I'm reminded of a story that a Windows 95 product manager went to the local Electronics Boutique software store and said "we'll take everything". To test backward compatibility of DOS/Windows 3.x applications. How do you do that? Install, run, debug. Repeat.Windows' ball-and-chain is support of legacy applications and the giant-ball-of-rubberbands called the Win32 API. I'm sure some of the alpha geeks at MSFT would love to build a *nix OS - but they have the legacy of Windows. |
What was an idea or concept that made sense to you only after a small epiphany? | davidw: Comparative advantage makes more intuitive sense when someone gives you the example of the young strong guy and the old slow guy trapped on an island. |
What was an idea or concept that made sense to you only after a small epiphany? | craig-faber: This one's actually a discovery. I was psychology major in college and had been reading about research on gender differences in language. People seemd to intuit that there was something behind the stereotypes about women talking more, and a difference did show up in brain imaging - men process language in areas one hemisphere, usually the left, women did some secondary processing in corresponding areas of the non-dominant hemisphere. Feminists had written about this too. But over and over word counts, comprehension tests, vocabulary tests had found nothing.One day, I was at a small party that had started to break up. The remaining guys were in one room, and the two girls had drifted to the kitchen and were chatting excitedly about something. I had gotten bored with what the guys were talking about, and wondered what the girls were so excited about. But I couldn't understand them because they were talking on top of each other. Then it hit me: They can understand each other! Women can talk and understand simultaneously, we can't. They can use the secondary areas in the non-dominant hemisphere as back-up language comprehension areas. Men just use areas in one hemisphere so we have to switch back and forth between speaking and listening, we can't do both at the same time. It's blatantly obvious if you stop to think about it, but in all the research i'd been reading, nobody had stopped to think about it.The feminist take on language and gender made sense too. If you assume that men could listen and talk at the same time if they wanted to, comments that guys make, like "Hey, shut up a minuit would you, I want to say something" and "Hey wait a minuit, I'm still talking" do seem domineering. |
What was an idea or concept that made sense to you only after a small epiphany? | thorax: AP Calculus. The epiphany was "I have a very bad teacher and this is really easy stuff. The rest of the class will fail because they didn't realize this earlier. :( :( "Linear Algebra. The epiphany is difficult to explain and remember. It involved the elegance and coolness of eigenvectors.How damned important and awesome physics is to life. The epiphany came after actually predicting precisely how a projectile would fall and where it would hit when launched. My only thought was "Oh my god, why didn't they tell me I could predict the future long before I got sucked into CompSci? I would be a physics major had they shown me this stuff earlier. Why isn't teaching better? How many other people never discover this and abandon interest?"Why people tried hard at all in school. Epiphany: "Because people really do reward you for excellence after school. Even if doing well in school feels like you're being penalized and singled-out, all those other people will be slacking off after school while you're naturally being successful." |
Good online link checker? | inovica: Sorry, this one isn't online but I use it as a Windows app (in parallels). Its free and very good:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html |
Lead generation? (consulting) | admoin: I can't imagine a better way to promote your services than through word of mouth. Might be worth it to offer discounts/rebates if your customers recommend new leads. |
Lead generation? (consulting) | melvinram: * Blog* Speak* Ask for referrals* Pay Per Click Ads on Google* Read "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi* Host a dinner party at your place, invite a few well connected friends and ask them to bring a friend or two.* Write thank you notes to people who make a difference in your life (such as refer to you.)* Get business cards that help you communicate what you bring to the table* Understand they don't care about hiring a consultant. There's always a reason behind the reason.* If your prospect is a growing company, look at your local business magazines. They are probably featuring companies doing well in your area. Call them.* Put together Worksheets that your clients can forward to their friends (i.e. your future clients)Here are a few sources for good sales & marketing info:* http://www.volcanicmarketing.com/blog* http://www.ducttapemarketing.com* http://www.marketingsherpa.com |
Lead generation? (consulting) | randomhack: aah for a second there i thought you were talking about consulting in lead generation in pharma. |
Lead generation? (consulting) | subwindow: By far the best source I've had is to build real-life applications.Two applications that I built in about a weekend each have netted me around 5 gigs around release time, plus about one per month.People are much more likely to want to hire you based on seeing your work in action than anything else. |
Lead generation? (consulting) | shimon: Get involved in organizing some geek events (dinners, hackathons, BarCamps, small conferences on specific technologies or industries) in your city. Figure out who you'd like to work with and make events that will interest them. Develop the ability to learn about someone's project and offer a constructive suggestion within 5 minutes, and you'll quickly earn a reputation as someone who can listen and respond constructively. People hire consultants who make them feel awesome, and you should be able to do this at a personal as well as an organizational level.Find some other consultants in related areas and meet them for lunch so you can learn from them. Established consultants have a lot of extra leads and will often be happy to help you get started.Finally, if you're the kind of person who doesn't already have a great answer for how to do lead generation, you probably won't do a great job of reselling consulting hours. A good referring consultant has one or more of (1) an incredibly network for lead generation and (2) enough of a bureaucracy to eliminate some of the paperwork hassle of dealing directly with clients. If you don't have either of these, the sort of consultants who will cost you <10h/week to manage will probably prefer to work on their own rather than cut you a percentage. |
Lead generation? (consulting) | bayareaguy: My current employer has been on a pretty tight budget so I haven't done this in a bit but back in 2006 at my previous venture-funded company I made a point of going to local interest group meetings that had something to do with the technologies our company used. Whenever I found someone presenting something that could be helpful to my company I would ask for their info and pass it along to my boss.So I would say get out there, let people know what you're doing and have plenty of business cards on hand. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | ionfish: Do you mean the internet, or the web? |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | tomjen: Strong Crypto from the ground up. Binary standards instead of HTML, so if anything is broken even the least it cannot be displayed.JS goes out the window and is replaced by a scheme like language that can process HBML as if it was native list.But those are minor points when you compare it to the first. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | mark_ellul: reverse domain name resolution... eg. org.reprap |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | asenchi: I agree with mark_ellul, reverse domain name resolution.com.google.maps etc...I'd also like to see more crypto. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | bsaunder: I think IP and TCP/UDP work pretty well... seems like they messed up a bit on the size of the address space. That's what I would call the "internet" (along with some general services, e.g. DNS). Sounds like you are talking more about HTTP/HTML.True anonymity seems a bit hard (when you make a request, the reply has to go somewhere).With regards to the "standard runtime environment"... I'd add true bidirectional communication, and a built in local storage mechanism (though Google gearbox and the flash hack seem to have mitigated this).UPDATE: (fixed some cases). |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | beng: an extra level of indirection in all protocols for redundancy. the MX records in dns for mail are a good example. it's currently rather tricky to get good redundancy (fault tolerance) in software. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | brentr: (1) No ads(2) If your markup is not syntactically correct, the browser won't display your site. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | mattjung: Usage, technology, resources, bottlenecks - all have been changing all along the time and further will change. The ideal solution of today will not be a good solution for tomorrow. What you call mess, is the result of an evolutionary development that will be replaced by something appropriate when the time has come. Although your question is surely mind-challenging, it assumes that a bright from-scratch design would beat the outcome of the competition of different technologies. I don't believe in that. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | TunaFish: Kill, maim and murder the insanity of "be liberal on what you accept and conservative on what you emit.". Instead, have a standard dtd, and if any site deviates even a bit from it, render flashing red text on the site that says "The developer of this site is an incompetent moron. You really shouldn't trust him or do business with him." Make implementing this feature required part of every web browser. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | newtoncorp: How can you have innovation if you get a standard runtime environment ?If I would do something I wouldn't display the pages if the markup isn't correct. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | izak30: I would change almost nothing on the web side of things. Having no ads would seriously change the business of the internet today. Who would foot the bill for everything that we use now? End-users?HTML is a leveler for a lot of people, and it helps designers and developers actually work together, instead of being limited (VS.NET), it also allows for quick (albeit not always concurrent) innovation, and competition. TCP/IP Is so well generalized that you can do anything with it. Redundancy is not well executed, but it doesn't have to be if the pipes get bigger.Doing things like calling new developers "incompetent morons" stifles innovation. I certainly would have quit a long time ago, if when I started there was no room for mistakes.HTML and Javascript were the 'gateway language' for me for all sorts of things. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | axod: Why do some people want anonymity? Bad idea IMHOPrivacy? Yes of course.
Anonymity? Definitely not - just means people can do what they want without any come back. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | kashif: No concept of bandwidth |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | ropiku: IPv6 instead of IPv4.
No NAT and enough IP's for all your network devices (pda, laptop, printer, etc.) |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | brlewis: S-expression syntax for markup, Scheme in place of JavaScript, and I'd like HTTP to have a header that sets modification times or other cache information for resources other than the one being sent in the current response. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | maw: 1) A better mail transfer protocol. I don't view spam as inherently inevitable, but with SMTP it seems to be.2) Internationalization from the ground up. Domain names are still effectively limited to 7 bit ASCII (even though "dots" are represented by '\0's in the DNS, which doesn't rule out UTF-8, in practice it doesn't work well). I also still get mail I can't read, even when it's in a language I can, because of encoding issues (increasingly rare, but it still happens). |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | attack: Kill NAT! |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | aneesh: Build in semantics from the ground up. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | volida: if you think something is wrong with the Internet, then build a startup around the problem. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | b3n: I would remove extensions from domains, e.g., "news.ycombinator.com" would just be "news.ycombinator", and "google.com" would just be "google". |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | yariv: Persistent connections to the server from Javascript. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | LogicHoleFlaw: Man, a lot of people here are violently opposed to allowing invalid markup. I think that the lenience web browsers afford site creators is a boon. It is one of the key factors in the democratization of the web. Low barriers to entry have been a critical factor in the success and organic growth of the web. Requiring perfect syntax and markup as a method of keeping out the plebes is the kind of self-righteous cult-of-the-machine which drives out the very people who provide content and value to the web.Now, if you do have correct markup and the browser developers still screw it up... off with their heads! Shame on you, you should know better. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | sah: Standard runtime environment to target instead of the 'mess' of ((DOM + CSS + JS) x browsers) we have now?This is what I've always wanted. When the web first took off, I was constantly whining about how remote application UIs were going to get shoehorned into the model of document layout, of all things. It seemed short-sighted and dumb.In retrospect, I'm not sure the web could have become what it is with something more like java applets, flash, or AJAX in the forefront. Document layout isn't what we're really doing, but it's a simple starting point that everyone can get behind. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | vegai: Luckily, people smarter than any of us thought about this a lot already. Unfortunately, with that sort of brain power comes craziness.Check out the articles and books by Ted Nelson, Douglas Engelbart and Vannevar Bush. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | Kaizyn: If we were to rebuild the Internet today, we should remake it using a fully decentralized model instead of a distributed one. By turning it into a mesh network, it would make it a lot more robust. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | juansequeda: Would of created the Semantic Web initially.. would of solved data integration problems on the way too! |
American web working abroad | imasr: It'll depend on your expectations.
You can come to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
You're money will worth at least three or four times more than in the US.
We're specially friendly with foreigners.
Best food you'll ever get.
Plenty of night life.
And last but not least, incredibly gorgeous women.
Cons? There always are, but you can always go back to the US. |
American web working abroad | tomjen: You want to double check the tax code. Otherwise you might get charged twice. |
If you had a chance to rebuild the internet, what would you change? | bayareaguy: DNS.I don't know exactly what I'd change, but I'd look for a way to make it impractical for the whole domain/certificate "industry" to get where it is today. ICANN, Verisign, Network Solutions and the like are all just scams. |
American web working abroad | astrec: Are you going to be paid in the US? Or the other country?If the other country, you'll need a visa with work entitlements, and you'll want to fill in a U.S. Form 1040 when you file your taxes. Generally you won't be taxed twice.On the other hand, if you go somewhere on a tourist visa - say for 3 months - and get paid in the US, it's business as usual. |
American web working abroad | mmcelhinney: I have been doing this for the past year and a half (Canadian Citizen, working in Finland). It has been great, but there are some things that you need to watch out for.- Ensure the countries have a double taxation treaty in place, so that income you claim abroad does not have to be claimed at home (or rather you have to claim it, but not pay tax on it again)
- Residence permits for self-employed persons can take a long time in some countries. For example, Finland has two national languages, and I decided to apply in the minority language (Swedish) because I was studying it. It took nearly 5 months to get the residence permit, partially because of the extra bureaucracy involved with doing things in the minority language.
- Cost of living is a huge issue. Choose a country where you will benefit from the currency exchange (harder with the US dollar lately). I am earning Canadian Dollars, living in Euros, and it hurts.I do not think that citizenship should be an issue, though, unless you obtained your citizenship recently. If you are a natural born citizen, living in another country under a residence permit should not affect things.I hope some of what I said helps. |
American web working abroad | menloparkbum: I'm not sure this is the best advice, but a number of my good friends do this, and they set up companies in the US (LLC) and do their work abroad while on tourist visas. |
American web working abroad | sanswork: I'm doing this starting in September. I'm a Canadian and will be moving to Australia with my girlfriend. I'll be doing all my work through my Canadian corporation. Going to be traveling for the first 6 months or so on a tourist visa but then switching to a spousal visa once my girlfriend gets her migrant worker visa. |
American web working abroad | JFred: People do this from all over. I have a friend here in Jerusalem who is a translator between Japanese and English. Having made many contacts when in Japan, all the work is now done over the web in an apartment in Jerusalem.I do web development, but I find that meeting people over the web to do this is not easy. Anybody could be anywhere and trust is a problem. Some people have a talent for self promotion, and some don't. The web is loaded with self promoters and spammers. Standing out on the web is hard. Business tends to be about personal relationships and personal trust.I observe that the people who make contacts on the web are very talented bloggers. Joel Spolsky and 37signals come to mind, also Raganwald. Oh, and of course P. Graham and ycombinator... |
Legality of RSS Feed Usage in Web Apps? | goofygrin: I've got a similar question.Whenever a client tells me that they want an RSS feed I make sure that they understand the ramifications. An RSS feed typically drives up bandwith and drives down traffic. An RSS that includes full content is even worse since it gives a nice easily scraped content source for content theft. |
Legality of RSS Feed Usage in Web Apps? | dpapathanasiou: I'm not a lawyer, but I had the same questions with my project and discovered that you can aggregate feeds under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the DMCA (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html) as long as:(1) You stick to publicly-available feeds(2) You don't edit the feed content(3) You provide the feed owner a way to opt-out if he doesn't want you to access his feed anymore |
How to choose a name for a web app? | epi0Bauqu: First, some meta-advice: start the process early and let it go for a long time. Keep thinking about it and talking to people about it. I find that good name ideas come over time and come in spurts.There have been some good name posts on news.yc, so search for those. What I strive for:--As short as possible.
--Memorable (often through rhyming, alliteration, repetition, etc.)
--Something people can spell.
--Something related in some way to the app (this is just my preference).
--Easy to pronounce (e.g. people know where the accent goes).
--Good connotations (or at least not bad).There is also some psychology involved in certain sounds, but I forget the specifics of at the moment--search for it.Finally, I find instantdomainsearch.com, a rhyming dictionary, webster, and a thesaurus useful tools in the process. |
How to choose a name for a web app? | vlad: I just got a sweet idea. |
How to choose a name for a web app? | kyro: What I do is create a list of words that you can use to describe what your site is, does, promotes, enhances, etc. Start combining some of the words together, keeping it as simple as possible. Alter some words, like changing f to ph, and play on their meaning. Use a thesaurus and a dictionary.Don't get too stressed over it. Often, the name will jump off the page at the most random of times. |
How to choose a name for a web app? | joshwa: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=91005http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=114920http://searchyc.com/ |
How to choose a name for a web app? | alex_c: Two sites that have been posted here before that might be useful:http://www.nameboy.com/http://www.makewords.com/ |
One page site/app + advertising revenue? | kyro: You'd get better and more straight forward answers if you gave a little info about your site. I think it'd vary on the type of page you were running. |
How to choose a name for a web app? | mstefff: Well its a finance / wall street focused site so if anyone wants to lend a creative hand, I'm more than open to suggestions. Thanks.. |