skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yes, but how do you value a bonus, if you don't know how much it is, or whether you'll get it?

A salary of 50K is a salary of 50K, you get 50K over a year.

How does that compare to a salary of 45K + bonus? Is it more, less, or the same?
"I read HN every day,I read the comments, and I understand the culture here.
I was thinking I could give something back to the community by answering some questions."

why don't aswer to questions on HN instead of use e-mail? isn't "community" to share with all SEO tips?

"SEO must find the correct keywords for a site not the client"

part of SEO job is to find the correct keywords for a site and optimize for those, no? but you say "I need: The URL of the website; some keywords"

In conclusion i'm work every day with SEO/SEM and in this sector the word "free" is used often for ulterior motives, hence my doubts...why a pro SEO should work for free?(work is time and time is money)...all here.

Have a nice day ;)
>If we're ignoring a practice that guarantees an improvement in the quality of our code and the speed of our delivery without a very good reason, then we are being unprofessional.

Very good reason? Yes, it's very costly and only catches a certain sort of error.

Would clients prefer 25% more features or the set you have with a full suite of unit tests? Many would prefer the 25% more features.

Additionally, with that same amount of money you could spend doing TDD, you can do any number of OTHER practices which ALSO increase code quality, including, formal design reviews, informal design reviews, informal code reviews, formal code reviews, desk checking of code, automated analyzers, running through profilers, running through memory leak detectors, modeling, prototyping, component testing, integration testing, regression testing, system testing, beta testing and many more techniques.

All of these take TIME and MONEY. TDD is just one of the many things you can do if your client/employer cares about code quality, and not necessarily the best thing. I mean formal inspections (according to code complete 2, pg 470) and formal design reviews are always much more efficacious at finding bugs than unit testing (which is what TDD revolves around). According to that, we shouldn't be spending the quality improvement time doing TDD based procedures then, but instead pouring over the code in review sessions.

Secondly, many other techniques CAN yield better results than TDD, and in less time (but don't always). These include protoyping, personal desk checking, system tests, and beta tests with more than 1000 users.

So many adherents of methodology X don't accurately scope in the tradeoffs of their costs, etc, when advocating their system. Morning scrumm meetings sacrifice people who want to have long (and therefore, more unpredictable commutes). People who like automated function comment headers don't count how much time people spend filling in those header boxes. People who like variable naming conventions don't spend enough time understanding what that does to the people who have to constantly change the way they name them. People who like full waterfall don't understand the morale crushing cost of huge changes after large design/documentation pushes like that. I could go on and on.

TDD has costs. Those costs aren't necessarily worth it. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. The people who say "it saves you time" are full of crap. It may, sometimes, save some people, some time. All the tests, if they're at all worthwhile, both take time to write and maintain. I've been on projects which use it and don't, and while there was a lower defect rate on certain types of bugs, those weren't always very important, nor was the time cost of writing the tests worth it, as those projects had several high value features which couldn't be completed due to time.
Conrad, this was awesome! Excellent work! Ordering...
I have learnt a lot on HN over the last years. But after a point I have realized that following the actual good advices and trends will not help me, because everybody will follow those advices/trends so that I will always be competing in an oversaturated market: most likely I will fail.

I've realized that I can bravely bet against at least some of the trends. Based on my built things and their failures I started to find out the things which are overrated. In my opinion webapps are overrated, internet consumer market is overrated (or at least too risky for small startups), mobile apps are overrated (kind of a 'trash market' a bit), Javascript is overrated, importance of graphical design is overrated, simplicity and usability is overrated (I mean if you are talented, you can get it right quite easily, but you will never be able to create a business just because of simplicity, usability, etc...)

What things are not overrated?

- 'Build what people pay a lot for'

- At least partially solve really-really painful, fustrating, important problems of not only natural persons but also (mostly) companies.

- The enterprise market is very very important. Big companies are not sexy, but they pay a lot for software if they need software.

- Jack of all trade-ness is overrated. I try to gain experience in at least one or two really hard topics, which few people know.

I will see how it turns out. I never say never though. I try to be flexible; and act upon opportunities. Felxibility is not overrated.
Friends without children were likely marked close on exec.

Hopefully dependent on who the friend is. One of my best friends had a daughter a year ago, and I've seen him about as much as I did before he was a father. (Which is less than I like, but I no longer live near my family and oldest set of friends.) But that works because I'm fine with going over to their house and sitting around talking while watching their little girl try to figure out how to sit up.
I think your points really get at the heart of the matter, thanks :)

I think the flick-and-stop gesture is truly brilliant HCI, and Apple went through a lot of testing before figuring out exactly how fast things should scroll for each piece of hardware they make. Once people are used to it, it truly becomes second nature, and doubly so because it's consistent across devices (with the exception that on the MB line, you "scroll the camera", while on the iPhone you "scroll the page").

Again, I'm conscious of my solipsism, I wouldn't want to create apps for users that don't know how to scroll on a trackpad or use the 'enter' key for the same reason I imagine making bikes targeted at professional athletes is a lot more fun than for recreational consumers.
There are so many great comments here; I don't think it's possible to describe to someone who hasn't been there. It's not an intelligence barrier; the simple experience of parenthood is impossible to convey. That said, I'll give it a shot:

It's wonderful and terrifying and deeply satisfying and the most frustrating thing you'll ever do. Days and weeks will whip past with appalling speed; things that once seemed life-shatteringly important now appear quaint, humorous, and mildly embarrassing. You'll become a better person than you ever thought possible, and will become acutely aware of your every character flaw.

You'll never know if you're going to regret it, but you won't care.
anecdotally, you can pull this off if you have worked somewhere for a while on location and then go remote, but going for the full salary from a remote location from the get go, not sure.
Cute girl toàn tập
Try to snap only to a few items? I'd suggest the outermost items and the closest items.
Personally I don't count bonuses as compensation. They're nice pot-sweeteners but salary is constant whereas bonuses can fluctuate.
You're doing a great job. I can't wait to see what you come up with next. I hope to see you at a future Captial Area Clojure UG (http://www.meetup.com/Cap-Clug/). Do you think you would be up for discussing the Clojure-bits (well, all and any bits are just as good too) of your book one day?
I've always thought there are lots of people smart-enough to do well at Harvard, but not too many that are smart-enough to drop out for good reasons and go on to be successful.
i've been using blekko for about a month now, i think it is awesome
1. Ah! With that link, it's because the attribute isn't in quotes. I'll fix that right away!

2. There is a submit button. The "isn't Short" image is a button. I'll fix that soon. Also, I'll add a progress bar. Is that something that's really detracting from people using the site, though?

3. How would you restructure the blog post about it?
I have now replied to about 50 emails, and I've got about 30 more in my inbox.

I will answer them later this evening.
I think rule #10 is actually warning against scaling too quickly - don't go to the top of the supply chain, or overspend on inventory when you're still small and don't yet have the customer base.
I know of a case where a baby died of asphyxiation while sleeping on the parent's bed. It may be isolated incident or whatever but I wouldn't dismiss this risk.
I'm guessing it varies but how much of a domain name's value is in it's name vs it's history (how much traffic it's getting)?

What advice do you have for someone who is not a domain seller but has collected a couple domains that they no longer want but would like to sell them rather than just release them for someone else to profit from?

What is the most expensive domain name you sold? Back in the original .com bubble someone offered me (and I accepted) $10k for nonames.com. Would that domain go for that today?
That doesn't make it more complex, it just means that it has a very specific requirement for the knowledge of the participants.

From a software perspective it's really no harder to gather and store 1000 words on a detailed C++ problem than it is to gather and store "Mmm mmm mmm, Justin Bieber, he's soooo dreamy".
quite often, in such company sales as well as in stocks/real estate and many other forms of investments, the sale price is a function of future earning potential. Of course, the future earning potential is not often the sole factor, but probably the single most dominant factor in the equation.

Even current profits/revenues are seen as an indicator of future health (along with being an indicator of current health) of the company.

$3 bil might not be much in the not too distant future. New markets that were not practically existent before or are far from being mature, are coming up online - read, india, china, brazil, south east asia and what not. Their online advertising industries have hardly developed, not that those in US or Europe have really matured. There's lot more to come.....

New models like twitter have shown quite a good capability in penetrating not only the developed markets, but also the developing markets. Of course, it still has a long way to go.
White iPhone 4 Theories
But the problem exists since years doesnt it?
Java Web Start (jnlp) simple example
Indonesia has only been politically free since the late 90's, but is still very corrupt. India and Pakistan are also "free" politically but corruption is pervasive.
Been waiting for this book for a long time, glad to finally see it out. Already bought my copy, will be downloading it tonight to start working through it.

Congratulations on finally getting it out! :)
But again, I think the anonymous poster was well within their rights. Everyone has a right to complain, and I welcome criticism of any sort. But it does make me re-think where I invest my time.
Seriously? Best cartoon drawing on the web? I doubt that :)

I used to do all the artwork in ink and then scan it. Now I do it all on my iPad with SketchBook Pro (took me a while to figure out how to get decent quality this way- At first, I didn't think decent drawing on an iPad was possible)

The animation was all done by importing bitmap artwork into Toon Boom animation. It's a cheesy Windows program (i.e. save your work every 30 minutes, or else...) but is feature rich.
New site for this at
http://strikedisplay.blogspot.com
I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office.

Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. People like the Web. And right now, you can't have a modern Web experience using only Microsoft products: no HTML5, slow JavaScript and a terrible, terrible browser experience.

If Microsoft wants to become relevant again, they must give their users the best experience on the Web they can.

Also, note that Windows Phone 7 ships with a modified IE7: what garbage is this? The phone will fail because it will suck at the Web.
Hah, well... Stallman often heads in the other direction from what you've described. It has worked for him, in some sense, but it can come across as abrasive.

It also might be a historical accident. The freedoms are something he cooked up a long time ago before there was such a thing as non-technical computer users. Might have been more appropriate then than now.
But it's not something they need to go out of their way to use, is it? It's just something you set once and forget about. My API doesn't even require any authentication. :)
I recently left a job that paid lower salaries and tried to focus on total compensation through bonus + benefits. The thing is, salary is steady and something I can budget my family off of. We can make decisions such as mortgage's, car payments, savings goals, investment goals, etc off of a salary. I can't do the same with a bonus. In fact, 08/09 made a lot of employees realize that the bonus can't be relied on in any way.

Is it possible to make more through total compensation of lower salary + bonus than high salary + little to no bonus? Sure. But I'm happier with the salary, and my hunch is that many other employees would feel the same.
Probably somewhere between the lottery tickets and 5%. Both the individual performance and "hitting the numbers" scenarios are extremely subjective, and allow the company to justify cuts pretty much whenever they want. Bonuses make the offer sound better, and it's much easier for the company to say they are "cutting bonuses" rather than "cutting pay," which really amounts to the same thing. I would try to get as much in salary as possible, even if that means the total package is less.
Americans Support an Internet 'Kill Switch' According to Survey
the history part is interesting, that can be one component of value. It's more SEO guys that look at that stuff - domain age, links, etc. Valuable names will get type in traffic (if we define value as type in traffic - and many people doing this do exactly that). That type in traffic is there because the name is good and doesn't disappear/change because of history. It can only be increased from that level because of history. In terms of valuation though, we all have our ways of thinking about it. There is a simple traffic value estimation, SEOs value certain factors, and many more ways to valuate domains.

as for selling, if you just want to dump there are 2 markets. reseller and end user. Resellers are domain investors, webmasters, people here at HN probably fit. People involved with web who will pay a small price. End users, pay a lot more and are generally companies. You can contact them offering it for sale, otherwise you just wait until they come to (this is what I do).

A lot of the deals I do are private, so I won't reveal the most expensive one. NoNames.com... beats me. No Name is a big brand though now right? Not sure if the domain predates the brand, but I would think they might be interested among other potential buyers. You would be in the clear had you registered it prior to their company.
> I even deployed a localized copy of cnprog as a forum on women's issues

Stackoverflow is designed for tech-savvy people.

You can't just make assumptions about what your users want/need/know. You actually have to listen to feedback. If your response to feedback is "WTF", well that explains why you don't have many users.

It also means you didn't really build 'it'; you built the wrong thing and you don't want to fix it.

btw, usability > visual appeal.
Thanks for the recommendation. I guess the intro to the blog post was a bit fluffy. I'll clean it up a bit later today, I think.
Dutch Social Network Becomes Mobile Network; Free calls
I'd be interested in hearing the other 8 commandments of customer acquisition in the Internet age, if you care to take a stab at them.
And most intranet software's competition is a Excel sheet.
Yeah, I was there last month- Will try to come again tomorrow.

Happy to talk about Lisp/Clojure anytime. (with a little notice)
jordan (at) jordanmessina.com

Thanks so much, I've been pumped about this and talking it up to the other local startups who use django too.

Edit: moved this to reply to your comment instead of mine, your comment didn't have a reply link earlier for some reason.
Or the people who are doing code reviews, or many other ways shown to be more efficacious than unit tests at catching defects.
On the other side, NYC companies will look for remote workers in the midwest to save money. Consulting companies can charge NYC rates with an Indiana overhead. Midwest is the new offshore.
All in One SEO Music
Gradual Engagement – Hitting The Signup Wall
Judge Tells LimeWire to Disable Its Software
Is zero weight a feature?
problem with onscreen keys is not only "you can not feel" issue, but simply with blocking part of the screen with your finger. For most of application it is not critical, but for gaming it is.
Chicago and Cornell (and iRobot) are collaborators on this project. That's why there was "something similar" from Chicago recently ;)
This is actually the type of system (especially if it's very rough code quality wise in many places) I think regression tests are very useful (tests to make sure the system doesn't change function).

A book called "Working effectively with legacy code" by Feathers is great for instrumenting and regression testing old code bases then changing them without breaking them.

Non-aff link
http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Fea...
IMO it would depend on what you do. If well-rounded libraries and a good IDE would make you far more productive than a free or less expensive product, then it is probably worth the admission price.

We use a proprietary Prolog interpreter (SICStus), but it comes with very good support and it has some advantages over open source interpreters that matter to us. Plus they provide continuing support/maintenance for their previous major version.
I'm a designer/front end developer with no idea where to start learning Ruby/Rails. Would you be able to give any insight on that?
Thanks- I think I accidentally used an old bitmap- That typo is fixed in the book.

I'm not sure the book can really take someone from zero programming experience and teach them Lisp- It assumes at least some programming background. It would be fine for junior high kids if they already know a bit of programming, but I suspect they may not.
I'm more inclined to think the phone will fail for the same reasons the Zune did, too little too late. But then the media player market was much broader and more saturated in 2006 than the smartphone market is now so maybe it won't play out in the same way...
Lessons Learned - My First Week in VC
I'm a high school drop out and had a very similar reaction to yours for the first couple of years. Thing is this: industry teaches you process and refinement; not (or rarely) theory. You must obtain some sort of abstract theoretical foundation to be a "fantastic" programmer - whether you do that through self-education or a formal education doesn't matter.

I've personally taken the former route - rigorous self directed learning with a dash of discipline and love for the knowledge will turn you into something far greater than what could be elicited from you by "just going through the motions" at a college.

Granted. I'll probably be going to college soon anyways because I want to pursue Aerospace - but that's, again, self inspired (rather than "ZOMG I NEED TO GOTO SCHOOL OR MY PARENTS WON'T KEEP PAYING MY RENT" - not saying all people are like that, I know more likely than not most people are self-sufficient; I said that more in line with how parents tend to enforce college on their kids instead of letting them be inspired to the action).
Thanks for all the comments to ErrantX and Kozen. Will try to make relevant changes soon.
> "Having a baby entirely eliminates your life and replaces it with a different one."

A good illustration of that:

People you've called "mom" and "dad" your whole life now become "grandma" and "grandpa". Your spouse becomes "mama" or "dada". Having a kid changes the way you relate to everybody else in your life. It shifts your focus from how someone relates to you to how they relate to your kid.

Similarly, every decision you make is now evaluated in terms of the effects it'll have on your kid, often before you even bother to evaluate how it affects you.
That's not us in most cases. Our parked domains generally aren't listed in Google. MFA stuff is mostly SEO types doing that. We get our traffic from type ins (and old links) which is more profitable to send directly to ads without any BS content.
I think paper-based is the best, which I find slightly odd given my heavy reliance on technology day to day. But it just works.

I create an updated list once a week or so, then I use a highlighter to highlight my next most important tasks (2 or 3), then work through them and cross them off the list. Combined with setting my one or two most critical goals for the day, this has worked out quite well.
Seems the question remained on my mind for a while. I think the problem is "Convincing" the mind. You don't have to, I don't. I just "say" : "We have 10 mins. and then we have more interesting things to achieve, lets get this over with". Does it make sense ?

The book in the blog talks a lot about how we talk to ourselves. At times, just barking commands to the brain works, we just don't try it 8-)
StackOverflow:

* Posting a question: I go to the site, click on "Ask," and post my question.

* Searching for answers: I go to the site, type in my search, and search.

Facebook:

* Posting a photo: I go to the site and look for a camera icon. I can't find one, so I start clicking on stuff like "Account", "Home" and "Profile". Still nothing. I start clicking on everything that isn't a friend's wall post. Eventually I hit "More" on my list of apps (the fully-expanded list still doesn't take up the entire height of my screen), and see "Photos". I look for an upload button and see nothing. In the upper right corner, in 10pt font, I eventually find "My Albums." I click there and search for an upload button. Nothing. I click "Create album," and finally get to an upload prompt.

* Changing a privacy setting: I see a post on Hacker News about some new Facebook feature, and of course, the default is "Everyone in the world can see everything that this feature involves, even if it's something you locked down for every other feature." No one has posted a reply explaining how to lock it down yet, but it's Facebook, right? How hard could it be? I go to Facebook and click "Privacy Settings." Honestly, they change the layout every few months, so I have no idea what it looks like now, and I don't remember what it looked like last time, but every single time, I have to re-learn the entire model and it takes forever and half the time I don't even find what I'm looking for.

* Take a quiz: See a quiz on a friend's wall. Click on the app name. Click on "Take Quiz." Get a popup saying "Let this app access your profile: [Click Here]." Close tab.
Just a light or dark text-shadow of a pixel. A Google of "CSS embossed text" for details should work.