skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Or they were planted from the beginning. Wouldn't be the first time.
I must add that the related blog posts are quite interessting.
It kills the goose, but creates the elephant that drops the golden turds. Which would you rather have?
I doubt that "Microsoft blatantly hung up" on them. MS have their issues, but rogue dickishness hasn't been one of them for a long time. (I mean among ordinary employees; their CEO is perhaps a different story.) They've turned into a large, professional, bland organization, which causes many problems, but not the type of thing the OP (whose shoulder appears to me to have a chip on it) is alleging.

I'm not saying this as any fan of MS. As far as I'm concerned, they've brought all their problems on themselves with egregious past behavior. (Reminds me of what Martin Amis said to Salman Rushdie after the fatwa: "It could have happened to a nicer guy.") But that doesn't change the fact that the anti-MS crowd behaves far more childishly than MS does.
Wouldn't development managers and developers resent having program managers around telling them what should be built?
The trick is to not use the How-Tos.

Build something you actually care about. You can refer to the tutorials to get the basic skeleton up, but fleshing out the details is where you'll learn and retain.
24k a month is near 300k a year... doing pretty damn well, if you can keep it up, but like you said, nowhere near very rich. The very rich get richer because, like Mark Cuban says, when they invest in a company, the CEO gives them a call and asks if they have any recommendations.
1. Taxes
2. Retirement savings.

Max out your IRA, Roth, etc to take advantage of your (I'm assuming) youth and the magic of compound returns.
Rather than advice, I have questions....namely, is there a list of your published apps somewhere? I'd like to understand the types of simple applications you're developing.

Thanks!
Really? With only 24k a month, and no real track record? YC works because you get Paul Graham and co, plus 5k a person... what's he going to get?
It seems a bit otiose to complain about the awkward legacy effects of line break characters on a computer when we're still using querty keyboards.
>> "So the links I put out into Twitter in the past 30 days generated almost 39,000 clicks. Nice. But only 10,000 of those clicks happened on Twitter.com. The rest happened elsewhere in the Twitter ecosystem,"

Surely most of the rest happened on other twitter clients, where the referrer won't usually be set? Since most people don't use twitter.com to tweet, is this surprising?
Favorite quote:
Nobody in IT should ever say, "You're my customer and my job is to make sure you're satisfied," or ask, "What do you want me to do?"

Instead, they should say, "My job is to help you and the company succeed," followed by "Show me how you do things now," and "Let's figure out a better way of getting this done."

Hear, hear! It's amazing what happens when people work together rather than against each other.
You are probably right. There don't seem to be too many studies on this, and I totally agree that I would like to see a study based on real brand names. I just linked to the one study that I could find.
Market yourself. Write a book & give talks about your process for making winners. Lots of people want to know how to make money in the App Store. There might be a higher-priced corporate training market for how to make popular apps for marketing purposes (think packaged food or sports apparel industry).

On reading your blog it looks like you're already going down this road?
Positive : I like the guided Tour. It's not a traditional video and it's quite interesting.

Negative: I found the color a little dark but this might just be me. Nice website keep the good work.
Yes, listen to patio11.

I do NOT want to invest in the stock market, or invest in anything long term like bonds or property. I want to somehow use the money to make more money quickly (within a 2 year time span).

Excuse me if I'm too harsh, but you should spend some of the money on a membership in Gamblers' Anonymous. Because you talk like a bad gambler. The hallmark of bad gamblers is that, if ever they get ahead, they look desperately around for a way to lose so they can get back to their comfortable status quo: Grifting, in poverty.

If you have money that you don't know what to do with, put it in some diversified investments that will make money over 30 years -- not two -- and forget about it.

The exception I'd make is the one patio11 cites: If investing a portion of your current profits in your current business will pay off, do some of that. But don't invest all your profits in this one basket: One of the most important forms of diversification is to invest in things other than your current project. You don't need another get-rich-quick scheme: You have that, and it even seems to be working. Good for you. Now hedge your bets with a get-rich-slowly-but-safely scheme.
There isn't much to learn from reading a list like this.
Skip the list. Go make a difference.
> How does one manage to publish code that is so badly botched?

It's just a blog. There's effectively no barrier to entry. :)
You'd have been SCREAMING stock market at him? It went down to... 7k? So if he had invested in an index fund he'd have made 33%... another 8k? I don't think that qualifies as GRQ, but ok

Note: not saying it's a bad idea, but he's asking for something to quickly make a LOT more money. Your advice, while likely sound, isn't going to accomplish that, unless he can pick one of those lucky stocks (like Akamai was at one point) that goes up 33x in a year.

Second note: What he is asking for is a pipe dream. If it was that easy to turn 24k into millions, there'd be a hell of a lot more people doing it. 24k isn't really that much.
What's your preferred development infrastructure stack?
"What do you think about my idea?" - Who cares what I think.
I agree with you on the unions bit though for the office-less office, I think it's something that will be increasingly common. The barriers to starting your own firm are falling - and falling dramatically, hence the existence of funders like ycombinator. Further, economies of scale have been slowly and quite quickly in some instances, erased because of technology. It should follow that we will see increasingly more (and different types of) small businesses and the ability of people to leverage off their own unique skill sets will rise.

The question then becomes whether or not this will translate into more physical incubator/workspaces or just home offices... this is a tougher call, but with the disappearance of barriers, this will mean more easily that work will happen where it's most productive/valuable - and where this is, because of technology, is changing.
I guess posting the article turns out to be valuable if it generates interesting and actually-informative comments like this one.
Well, no. If you're a developer or development manager working 70-90 hours a week developing and/or managing other developers, when do you have time to evaluate the market, keep track of every single competitor and potential competitor?

Do you run a spreadsheet loaded up with market data and demographics evaluating the potential revenue impact for all of the features you're thinking of including in the next release?

And so on and so forth. Product management is a full-time job on a substantial product. It may be that in small start-ups people wear many hats and you don't need it as a separate function. But if your team ever gets to the point that you can justify a full-time development manager, your team probably needs someone else with nearly full-time product management responsibility.

In addition to that, there are sometimes some benefits to separating product management from development management. Sometimes. Being a little divorced from the product's inner workings can provide a certain useful perspective. Hopefully, the product manager isn't wedded to the feature that a developer just spent three weeks building and can jettison it to ship on time :-)
no, we are talking about a dynamic programming language, not a dynamically typed programming language.

And grandparents wikipedia link about Dynamic Programming is talking about neither, but rather a programming technique for efficient recursive solving of a certain class of problems, often used in mathematical optimization.
Entrepreneurship is one big science experiment
I think you and I probably see this much the same. It's not like I've made any grq suggestions. I'm just one of those annoyingly chatty people who likes to talk -- and it gets me in hot water all the time. I have refrained from suggesting that this is a bad idea because a) sometimes a discussion is useful to someone, even if it doesn't accomplish the stated goal and b) long experience tells me that no one wants me to rain on their parade and say "Gee, that doesn't sound like a great thing to be asking".

In addition to your concerns, I will add that people seem to typically get rich pursuing a niche market which is a good fit for them as an individual. Which means a potential billion dollar idea is only a billion dollar idea for some people and not just anyone....um, which comes back to "execution", I think. :)

Nice chatting with you. I should probably shut up now and let people carry on with discussing what this individual might want to do with their money.
Thanks. I haven't been on HN as much recently and missed the original posts.
Translating a chunk of Lisp into a chunk of HTML for a designer to work with, then translating it back, should be a straight forward problem to solve, no?
Motivation to make a difference is a big help. Otherwise, people might believe that they're worthless simply because they don't have a piece of paper from a college.
Is a large, bendy sheet really the best way to read news? Or is it just an relic of choices made by printed newspapers to minimize costs?
At Large: Teen Bandit. Even Larger: His Legend.
Wonderful advice. Thank you.
Early Read: Seth Godin's book "Linchpin"
Incorporate to soften this blow.
I am also interested in knowing this, if you are willing to share.
I think a blog is the perfect medium for a periodic roll-up announcing new and noteworthy items. This allows you to highlight specific themes that can appeal to both current and border-line users.

I agree real-time tweets would be too spammy (unless you have a twitter account just for releases) but a community forum might be better for immediate announcements.
What makes you say that? Of course college education is important to authors and artists. Of course, I would bet that it's easier to make it in those fields without a degree than in programming.
Hi, we see it as being a simpler more stylish alternative which appeals to technical and non-technical people alike. We also distinguish between the sites you might traditionally store in your browser favourites versus the articles and blog posts you might view and store via delicious. So somewhere in between the facilities you get with a browser and an application like delicious. We also provide the facility to bookmark pages for viewing later or to tweet a link straight from a bookmarklet.
How Factor implements closures
Convert your apps into chinese. Even tiny fraction of possible market like that is huge. Conversion should be more or less trivial, translation effort is cheap :)
Angel investing without connections probably won't work, anyway. Most people are looking for more than money.
What is the software you used for the graph? Thx.
The original poster probably doesn't meet the requirements for investing in hedge funds <http://www.fool.com/investing/mutual-funds/2006/02/28/are-yo...; and they don't take $24k investments anyway.
Krugman: What Didn't Happen
No, because the Lisp template language isn't just another syntax for HTML: it contains control structures and other constructs not supported by HTML.
"What I know how to do best is the app store"

Set yourself up as an _angel investor for iPhone apps_. Like a mini-mini-mini YCombinator.

Based on your experience, you should be very good at evaluating an individual's chances of creating a successful app. Solicit pitches (HN would be a great source) and make 5 small investments of $5k each.

If you make another $25k next month, do another 5 investments. Rinse and repeat.

You probably can't produce 5 apps per month on your own. But you can use those same skills to invest in 5 apps per month. There is greater risk (you could lose all 5 investments) but also greater reward (each investment could in turn become its own $25k-mo company).

Good luck!
I build stuff quicker, and better after taking some time off to learn.
That's why we have peer review (you).
You are thinking of what's best for the company, not the developers. For some people, development is only rewarding if they determine what to build.
I use mpg123 (http://www.mpg123.de/), a command-line player. There's also mpg321, but I haven't used it much, and apparently there's an ogg123 player as well.
Twitter is no haven from bad law
If the OP is a sole proprietor in the United States, then incorporation won't alter the tax burden.

Incorporation is still a good idea, for other reasons (simplified banking, limited liability, etc).
As bioweek said, I've wanted to try this for some time. If I could get past step 1 and 2, I'd be happy to do this. Also, could you give us more detail on your ongoing analysis process? I'm very interested.
Something I'd actually seriously consider in your place is YC companies. They get around 20K which is just enough to create a prototype/beta to solicit a larger round. This is not very much and I imagine many don't raise money right away after their Demo Day. Having another 15-20K could be highly desired in these earliest days. YC has already placed their bets that these companies will become great, and I think their portfolio could have a 40% or better success rate (provided timely variables fit together). If you could add your money and app expertise to make a YC (or another) company stronger, that might be the best risk to reward ratio you can have.
Possibly related: Impostor Syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
From what he said this is his first real financial success, which means that he does not qualify as an 'accredited investor'. He needs to continue to make that kind of money for 2 years before he falls under more investment friendly SEC regulations. Until then he would be placing a large burden on a startup by trying to invest in it with additional legal work, filings and fees.
Good work. If this is solo, then I add my voice to others saying hire a few people with half and save the other half.

You say you don't want to invest, but since California is in the first stages of being hit by an epic storm system that will play out over the next 2 weeks, civil engineering businesses on the west coast are about to be handed as much work as they can handle.

Or talk to pg about putting some into ycombinator. With the relatively small investment to each selectee, you don't need massive amounts of capital. You could even stage your own little competition on HN and offer $500 or $1000 plus your (probably more valuable) management guidance to three worthy candidates whose apps impress you in exchange for a share of their revenue.
Peer review is a pretty heavy-weight solution when just compiling and running the code would tell you it's broken.
Sometimes a hack is just a hack. There is a reason that the term has negative connotations for many. This was not clever or efficient, the FBI is cutting corners in situations where people could be seriously harmed by their laziness, not to mention they outright lied about the source of the photo.
Apple Announces January 27th Media Event
Ah yes, sounds of the old Bernie Madoff LLC slogan. No risk, all reward. Bear in mind - any one of the 24 months you're investment could loose 50%.
Buy a tow-truck and become a repo-man. Business is good.
Washable RX Tablet PC for Doctors
it was just to ease my understanding, I realize it is bad form, see the text underneath that section.
Ehh, anyone who bothered to email me has gotten the stuff I know for free. I don't want to give any talks or write a book. It's easier and less stressful to just make the apps.
A Suite of Logic Programs
That's why TDB (T.D.Blogging) was invented. First you write a specification of your new post, then hire a blog reader to prepare tests for your future content and... oh wait...
But there is the fear of failure because of your insights which could stop you from succeeding. Some can't overcome the fear to face the consumers with an imperfect product/service even when it is more than perfect from the consumers' point.

Many great things never got to see the light because of this I would imagine.
scroll-bar equalizer :-)
There is an enormous body of knowledge out there that I simply don't have time to spoon-feed to someone playing the ignorant student. Find someone else to stonewall.
The end is when you die :). Money doesn't travel over that well.

But as long as you're having fun finding ways to make more money, there's really not that much wrong with playing the money game. Just don't care too much about money :).
Do people with blogs not have compilers?
Lots of people saying 'invest in yourself'. I'd take that a step further and say 'invest in your company'. If you haven't already, set a company up and hire someone to do stuff like customer support, basic marketing, etc. Do your books yourself, with a CPA's help (and with his financial planning), or have a relative do it. My wife does all our bookkeeping for our startups. Don't trust a stranger to do your books!

Get a basic plan together on how you are going to grow the business, then take it out and talk to a) companies in the same space, and b) VCs. Get feedback and adjust accordingly to what feels right. If growing the business takes outside capital, raise it. If it doesn't, then start down the path of growing the business (according to your new plan).

I think investing in other startups is bad advice. You aren't making that much net right now - maybe on the order of $14K net a month past taxes. It's a good living, but if your sales are dependent on continued development/advertising/luck/whim of Apple, I'd be REALLY careful about expanding spend to fill the income.

Out of curiosity, which apps did you do?
If you aren't doing it yet: translate and localize your apps, then sell them in other countries' App Stores.
Donate 0.01 of your money to Wikileaks, like I did. Your 0.01 will make more difference than mine did.
Actually, there is one thing I can do perfectly now: I can listen to an app idea and tell you how much money it will make. If I knew developer who needed 5k to make apps, I'd def invest in them. I don't know any however, the ones I know don't need 5k.
Then they should work somewhere they can do that. Most likely that's a small company or a startup.
Then find out why these snippets work better than you're doing.

Favor books over the web. Books generally have better exposition.
Beyond Search: Twazzup Prepares New Twitter Web Client
The result is easily the most compelling Twitter Web experience I have seen since Brizzly. It is not yet known when the service will open up to all.
So you can bend it, but can you crease it?
That question is best answered per email.
Online Speech API: Enable your web site with speech recognition
AppViz.
Yes, and those people are called hobbyists.

Even if you work for yourself, you decide which market to be in, and the market decides what you must build and when.
Just turned 29. Want to start retirement stuff at 30.
I don't get it... This guy is a lousy criminal (frequently beaten up by the very people he's try to rob with a fake gun), lousy at escaping from prison (often laughed at by the guards he's try to scare with a fake gun), and when he does escape, he's not smart enough to leave the area and gets recaptured the next day.

Why is this worth a multi-page article that has such a bizzare disconnect between reality and the author's perception? More to the point, why is this worth posting on HN?
where does Norvig mention wikipedia? When Norvig wrote that presentation, there wasn't even a Wikipedia.

Some words have more than one meaning. Norvig used the words in a different meaning and context. In his context 'dynamic programming' was not referring to what Wikipedia describes as 'dynamic programming' AND he also was also not talking about dynamic typing.
They require a lot of time I would think.
Well said -- that's a terrific summary of my post.
There must be java templating libraries. Why not just call one of them from clojure, perhaps wrapping as needed?
Ask HN: Side Project Turned Turned Obsession - Please Review My Site
Hi all,

---------------------------

tl;dr
Launching a new ecommerce site builder/print catalogue builder after 2 years of tinkering away.

http://www.wizifi.com

a HN demo store:
http://www.wizifi.com/nexus_login

un: hn

pw: hn

The site is optimized for webkit - best performance in Chrome.

---------------------------

just though i'd share a side project turned personal obsession with you.

2 Years ago my dad (a small business owner) planted a seed in my mind when he said something to the effect 'i wish there was a simpler way to update my website'. He doesn't ever remember saying that, but that comment started me down this misv path.

Later when I showed my old man the progress I had made he again made a throw-away comment along the lines of 'wouldn't it be great to be able to create brochures from this...' which again sent me off on another 8 month development tangent.

The final product is an ecommerce store builder with a print catalogue builder included. I'd really appreciate it if some of you could have a look at my project and give some of your feedback.

It was created in my spare time during nights and on week ends, since by day I'm a high school IT teacher :)

It became impossible to create a cross browser print designer so I decided to optimize for Webkit. The windows download is simply a Chromium build with flash bundled together. Not sure how having a download vs. web app will affect sales.

You can check out my site at:
http://www.wizifi.com

You can use the product without downloading the program as long as you're using a webkit based browser.

Cheers,
eli
Sure. I don't have some belief that all developers are incapable of product management. The very best, IMO, have strength in understanding what and why as well as how. But I do have a belief that in some cases, there is value for everyone in having a team with specialized roles. For all products there is a need for product management. And for some product teams, there should be a specialized product manager leading product management.

Interestingly, the push to smaller start-ups and smaller teams does create more opportunities for developers to wear multiple hats. That's a good thing too.
It's not "possibly related," it's explicitly stated in the article, including this very link to Wikipedia.