skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Freelance stuff comes my way through a few different channels:

- I do some agency consulting; basically helping them define scope and capability during the contract phase. They're strong on general dev know-how, but don't do enough Magento work to have consistent deep knowledge. These are basically just agency contacts I've built over time and they know to call me.

- I have a number of clients come to me looking to "fix" existing Magento installs that were started by a dev who mostly had WordPress brochure site experience. Lots of people get in over their heads with Magento. This stuff mostly comes to me by word of mouth anymore.

- When I get real bored I'll sometimes do a blanket post to Criagslist saying that I'm excepting new work. You have to put a high hourly rate though because Craigslist is such a bottom-feeder breeding ground that you want to scare off idiots.

It also helps (in some ways) that I have a full time job as a Magento dev for a decent size network of sites. It pretty much keeps me sharp on a daily basis, which gives me an advantage over general dev shops who might only do a handful of Magento projects per year.

EDIT: Contacts at a hosting company are another good source. LOTS of people need their Magento sites upgraded and due to heavy customization and general compatibility issues, lot's of these managed hosting solutions don't really want to do it from their end, so they can send clients who need upgrades your way.
They're not determining the pool of speakers based on diversity, they're making an extra effort to broaden the pool of potential speakers. They're not excluding white people or in any way causing white people a disadvantage. Unless, that is, you think that white people deserve not to have to compete with non-whites.

I'd call that a clear case of discrimination.
I'm currently short on Nokia and have been for a while. If you believe your post, put your money where your mouth is and do the same.
Great blog. Exactly how I feel. My question is how do I get traffic? I feel quite lost - we got covered by Mashable and other places and like you didn't get an amazing number of signups - a good number but nothing major. Now I am at a bit of a loss as to how to get people to the site - probably a stupid admission but it feels like the million dollar question to me at the moment.
Hollywood whodunit: What's eating emails in iCloud?
>The mass budget for the track/ribbon system per meter is as follows: Temporary erection sheath 700 g/m [...]

Ah, yes, interesting. via http://launchloop.com/LaunchLoop?action=AttachFile&do=ge...
This is OT, but just in case there's a good solution, what were your problems with storyboards?
We're getting there - implied volatility and greeks will be in the next post.

Thanks for the suggestions!
This post gives terrible advice for those in the Ongoing Medical Conditions category. For most pre-existing conditions there's very little chance of getting approved for any of the plans they recommend. A bit surprising coming from a company that should apparently know what they're talking about.

As an independent software developer with Type 1 Diabetes, COBRA from my previous employer is my only option. Fortunately, California extends the national 18 month maximum duration to 36 months. Unfortunately, my COBRA will run out 4 months before 2014, so I'll need to figure something out before then.
HSA != FSA. The former is a savings/investment account that lets you keep your money year over year, to be used for medical expenses. FSA's are use-it-or-lose it. HSA's are typically paired with a particular type of high-deductible insurance, while FSA's tend to go along with any type of plan.
He could also comment about the last disguise he used after he has moved on to a new one. This would allow him to throw the police off and be honest at the same time.
Not all projects are that way. Minix, after all, is several decades old and does not fit the "is thrown away afterwards" category.

More specifically, in its early days it was designed as an educational tool. The source code and accompanying text book taught operating systems theory and practice to a lot of people in the 1990s. That sort of code must be stable.

Another example is LLVM. The center of development is at the University of Illinois. Here's the home page for one of the research programmers at UIUC who works on LLVM development: http://www.bigw.org/~jcriswel/resume.html .
How to access an ecommerce startup
When you adjust for demographics, American education is as good as any system in western Europe, and by and large middle of the spectrum families can be assured that their local public school will at least not be a complete disaster.

The same isn't true for healthcare. This bizarre system of tying your healthcare to your job means even middle and high income families don't have any peace of mind when it comes to healthcare. Heck, my wife and I are a high income couple and have expensive health insurance, and we are still completely paranoid about all the ways the insurers could find to screw us over, especially now that we're about to have a baby. Every time my wife goes to a pre-natal visit, she ends up fighting with the insurer about how something was coded, etc.
Assuming you mean my comment about the last line of the disguise post: He outlines how he's "tricked" the authorities by constantly being there dressed up in elaborate disguises and then says "oh btw, pretty please don't think you can find me by rounding up everyone there"? I don't see how that is anything other than taunting the police, if he didn't want people to be rounded up he wouldn't make them a target by saying he's pretending to be one of them!
I can appreciate why this would seem like the morning after a rave, but if you stop and consider what really just happened — a whole bunch of other startup founders just drove by slowly on the way to the next post — then you have nothing to feel sad about.

Those 8000+ visitors are presumably not your target demographic, and it's unlikely that you're solving a problem that they have.

I really recommend that you read the 1st CopyHackers book on identifying the motivations of the people most likely to be your paying customers. Many startups fail because they try to shoot for a general market. In reality, you will convert very well if you correctly anticipate the motivations of the top 20% vs trying to be all things to all people.

The reason is that no matter how great your landing page is, you cannot manufacture motivation in your visitors — even a brilliant product will fail if you market it to the wrong people. Everything in your public messaging should reinforce exactly one message:

We solve X problem for Y.

Resist the urge to add more X, and don't be so hard on yourself if you are ignored by Z, because your product is for Y.
Advice like this is exactly why I posted this here. I've updated the wording and I'll take a closer look at all of it.

Thank you very much for your feedback, I really appreciate it.
> killing countless people daily

2.09% of deaths, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

Question: what would an Elon Musk of those even more common causes of death build?
I tend to think, that Intel will be able to leverage their process advantage also against ARM. For one thing, Atom based cell phones are at the moment rather unremarkable.[1] This means, that Intel can fully leverage the advantages of the 22 nm fin FET process. (Since the cell phones are unremarkable, one will get a good phone by just putting a better processor into the phone, as opposed to the risk of developing a viable platform for general use.) On slightly higher powered devices, Intel has a huge ecosystem and the marketing advantage of building stripped down versions of higher powered processors. For even higher performance, Desktops and Servers, Intel is already close to a monopoly and there is no one to change this. And in addition Knights Corner/ Xeon Phi seems to be a rather good competition for GPUs in HPC applications. ( They just don't have a good competition for IBMs Power processors.)

So in conclusion I think that Intel is in a good position to beat ARM in their home field (cellphones, tablets). Can easily shield the low power desktop/ netbook market from ARM and has of course the dominant position for high powered processors. So I simply do not see a bright future for ARM based (consumer) computing. ( That is not to say, that there are not niches for ARM, but Intel has the stronger position in everything the average consumer thinks of as computers.)

[1]http://www.anandtech.com/show/5770/lava-xolo-x900-review-the...
How about adding Houston? Also, there is a spelling error in the Motorcycles quick link on the left side. (Motorycycles)
McAfee is going to end up getting shot, and the rest of us are going to be arguing for 20 years over whether he was sane or whether he actually just became more and more unstable and ended up bringing this on himself.

I complain about too much drama on HN, but this McAfee story is way over the top.
You mean LLC vs Corp? I'd go with an LLC. Corps have more formalities like required meetings, minutes, etc. And they're set up to be invested in. LLC should protect your assets without having to jump through too many hoops. The taxes differ, consult a tax pro. You can always convert an LLC to a corp down the road.

That being said, I consult on the side and am trying to grow my business and haven't set up any company yet. It's a little risky but then again I'm not doing the kind of work where I'm likely to get sued, and I don't have many assets.
The Chinese writing system is an exhaustive set of pictograms each depicting a single well-defined language element and having just one unambiguous official reading. They have been developed and simplified (made into icons) over thousands of years, including a recent reform that made them even easier to read and write.

So if you're right, nobody would ever need to learn how to read them or what their meaning is.
Parse is no longer 100% mobile focused: https://www.parse.com/osx

Parse is moving onto Heroku's turf as well as Heroku is moving onto Parse's.
18 is possibly the high end, but probably 6-8 per day, plus sleeptime, and it's never 'loud'. I've wondered about hearing loss, but I've done it for a few years now and have not noticed any loss (what did you say?) ;)
Why is Belarus the only country where Opera is the most popular browser?
In sysadmin work it's easier to make large consulting fees. The problem you have is that no one spends the money for good sysadmin architecture/infrastructure. So you can't sell "good practices". Instead just focus your work in loss aversion, not value creation. People will spend more for a emergency room doctor/hospital than a gym membership.

The keys are two simple things:

1. Be able to quickly fix expensive problems.

2. Make sure people with expensive problems know about you.

I've routinely seen multi-million dollar projects held up for months over things a skilled sysadmin can solve in a day. You just have to be at the receiving end of that 911 call, and not afraid to quote a big flat fee for problem resolution.
This may be the article you were looking for: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-w...
- Written by MG Siegler.

Spoilers: he tosses his Surface into a trash can at the end. Now that's what I call quality journalism.
I've had some issues with it being a little slow to display..but usually no more than a few seconds. My bigger gripe with the store is that it shows N updates on the live tile but N-M (with M<N) actual updates available.

Otherwise, I've had zero problems with finding apps in the store...on the desktop and the Surface
"The key to strategy... is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory." — Cavilo, The Vor Game

Reading your post just reminded me of that line. It's quite a brilliant line, and it seems that Google have found their forte and are exploiting it to the fullest. Also, if you're not keen enough, one could say that Google is excellent at misdirecting their strength/core-competency (w.r.t. revenue generation).
For cardiovascular disease, how about a way to stop people stuffing their faces with greasy and fattening food?
Yeah, that was the slogan.
How Nintendo DRM trapped $400 of downloaded games on my failing Wii
Has anyone had success with ecommerce consulting?
"Your idea sucks" - Matteo Manferdini
Interesting to read how this pivot affected customers who no longer fit their business model...

http://www.virishi.net/from-happy-hacking-screw-you-story-me...

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Meraki-Annoys-Partners-Cu...
> I'd put forward that it's based on middle-class white peoples collective guilt for pre 21st century racism.

God, you're so spot on. When someone comes along that's supposedly from the same group of people that whites are trying to coddle and foster and tells them to fuck off (kindly), they don't know what to do.
Can you say which brand/model left you positively shocked? I'm still skeptical of those and would love to be proved wrong.
What about prior art?
I am skeptical about the article's claims that $15 an hour is a typical rate for a qualified app developer:

"Developers like TapFame because it means the difference between taking an outside job for $15 an hour vs. a TapFame-found job for $100 an hour."

The author does not cite any reference for why he believes $15 is how much their consultants would be paid outside their system. Particularly given that they suggest their consultants in the top 15% of developers, as they say they reject 85% of all applicants. Given that applicants have to have a proven history of app development to even be considered, it is likely the ones they choose are in an even smaller group than top 15% of all developers since most developers in the general market have not independently developed and deployed mobile apps. Perhaps it is the top 5%. Are the top 5%, those with a proven history of successful mobile app creation and deployment, really only being typically paid $15 an hour on the open market? It seems unlikely this is true.
I don't know anything about this writer but, it is his take on the Surface. I'm not really expecting journalism. It's not consumer reports. It's TechCrunch.
Sharding a Large Rails App
The OP suggests (jokingly?) that driverless cars and Musk's Hyperloop are somehow in competition. I don't see that. Cars today are about transportation and cabin conveniences. Why can't the two be separated over time? Your "car" takes your cabin to the train that takes your cabin to the high-speed rail (Hyperloop?) that takes you from Atlanta to Kansas City. Perhaps you switch cabins based on price to transport... maybe you rented a bigger one for local travel, but don't want to pay a higher price for long range travel... lots of ifs, but to me, this and/or scenario seems more likely than driverless cars vs. Hyperloops.
If this really is the concept that Musk is working on, it would likely launch a vehicle into space to reach their earthly destination. This matches his idea that it would be "immune to weather" and also not a tube.

So if it works, it would be great both for space tourism AND high-speed travel around the world. Really ties together his transportation and space ventures :)
Photo Sharing App MArket
Looking to promote new for of caller ID/photo forum. Need ideas on how to get word out on the app. If you want to check it out here it is:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.callogram.android&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5jYWxsb2dyYW0uYW5kcm9pZCJd
Mind-blowing Idea: Free Transportation for Life
Under current California law, when your COBRA runs out, you are entitled to a HIPAA guaranteed issue plan. Insurers can't turn you down for this plan as long as you've had insurance for 18 months and have exhausted your COBRA options.

For example, when you apply for a Blue Shield individual plan, you have three options:

1) Answer all the medical questions and apply for underwritten coverage.

2) Skip all the medical questions and apply for a guaranteed issue plan only (if you meet the 18 month and COBRA requirements).

3) Apply for both simultaneously: answer the medical questions and hope to get underwritten coverage, but also request automatic guaranteed issue if they decline the underwritten plan. This is the option I'd recommend of course. (Even with a pre-existing condition, it's possible that they may still offer an underwritten plan in a higher rate tier, which would still be less than the guaranteed issue plan.)

More information from the California Department of Managed Health Care:

http://www.hmohelp.ca.gov/dmhc_consumer/hp/hp_cobra.aspx

http://www.hmohelp.ca.gov/dmhc_consumer/hp/hp_hipaacp.aspx
Dang, I wish I had the results, but a friend of mine wrote some code to pull in data from several different sources on all of the cities in the world. He's a remote worker, single, and can live anywhere in the world. He compared all kinds of things including cost of living, weather, crime rate, internet speed, and a bunch of other variables.

He moved to Panama City, Panama.
Pulse Insights: Election 2012 Retrospective
> Also, savvy competitors would team up and contribute to destroying this nasty agency as well, because it hurts their peaceful business.

You realize that's what a government is, right?
While it might be a little overstated for dramatic effect, his overall statement is true. Access to the store is not a given; apps might not download; and restarts are in your future.

I've run into availability issues with the Apple App Store, and they're much less severe. Then again, the Apple App Store is more mature; the Windows 8 app store is new.

I'd like to chalk all of this up to teething pains, but by gum Microsoft has run the Xbox thing fairly well overall, and the lessons should have transferred.
This is a great idea. How do you plan to generate revenue?
I once came across a final paper written by a student at an Indian university as part of his bachelor's degree. It was basically a selection of Plan 9 papers, and some simple how-to documentation I had written up, poorly copy-pasted together to reach 50 pages. Three professors had signed off on it. I tried to reach the one with a listed email, to point out that he had passed an obviously plagiarized document, but his inbox was full. Not sure if he'd have cared anyway, cheating and plagiarism is extremely widespread there (one of my girlfriend's relatives is paying someone else to earn her teaching degree... and thus the cycle continues)
The mission we're talking about does not require political support. All of your arguments stem from big government waste, taxpayer indecision, etc. And you'd be right, if we were talking about NASA. But we're not. Why are you comparing daring space missions to rail or airplanes?! How about comparing to other space missions? Take the Apollo program. The entire program, with six moon landings, cost about $100 billion in 2010 dollars, and it was done half a century ago.

We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore.
it's impossible to prevent.

Precisely. Which is why I think this will have a tough time succeeding. Even casual gamers will eventually get frustrated. This is also the sort of thing that is difficult to repair once the damage is done.
Seigler's articles usually enrage me, but this one isn't so bad. He makes a mix of valid points and (IMO) less valid ones. If the Store crashes as much as he says it does, that's a huge failure. On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash.

I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.
Patrick,
while being such a web marketing guru, how come you named your page title (and article path) "consulting" instead of using the title? I realized this after bookmarking you in pinboard and later realizing there is a mystery "Consulting" entry in my links feed.
I'm pretty sure most "Software Engineer" positions are non-exempt, unless paid above the threshold. I'm not a lawyer, though, so here's the list of exemptions in the law itself (CA Labor Code s. 515.5(b))

(b) The exemption provided in subdivision (a) does not apply to an
employee if any of the following apply:
(1) The employee is a trainee or employee in an entry-level
position who is learning to become proficient in the theoretical and
practical application of highly specialized information to computer
systems analysis, programming, and software engineering.
(2) The employee is in a computer-related occupation but has not
attained the level of skill and expertise necessary to work
independently and without close supervision.
(3) The employee is engaged in the operation of computers or in
the manufacture, repair, or maintenance of computer hardware and
related equipment.
(4) The employee is an engineer, drafter, machinist, or other
professional whose work is highly dependent upon or facilitated by
the use of computers and computer software programs and who is
skilled in computer-aided design software, including CAD/CAM, but who
is not engaged in computer systems analysis, programming, or any
other similarly skilled computer-related occupation.
(5) The employee is a writer engaged in writing material,
including box labels, product descriptions, documentation,
promotional material, setup and installation instructions, and other
similar written information, either for print or for onscreen media
or who writes or provides content material intended to be read by
customers, subscribers, or visitors to computer-related media such as
the World Wide Web or CD-ROMs.
(6) The employee is engaged in any of the activities set forth in
subdivision (a) for the purpose of creating imagery for effects used
in the motion picture, television, or theatrical industry.
Wireshark mineria de datos
Yea its not true or its authors connection. I have been using Windows 8 for months all day with not one problem with app store. He also says other false statements in article the but its really not worth the effort posting them.
He wrote that his girlfriend, Sam, was 17 in April and later wrote she is 20 years old now. Did anyone else catch that?
tooltips and hover... Most apps have both, localized tooltips in the user's language. people don't look up icons, they look at the tooltip/hover text and learn to associate the visual reference with the action. Just like they do the bathroom signs.
Do you/they have to submit a 510(k) or is there a different mechanism?
IPod Designer Invents Easy Interactive Building Blocks for Kids
It's pretty cool. Don't have a Kinekt, but if I did I'd consider this worth about $20. I couldn't tell whether the lighting was baked into the model or extracted from the scene.

The video is not great. you need to move around more, approach and recede from the camera, show the full range of gesture available, and have a mode for high-quality offline rendering of the tracked motion as well as realtime for a pro edition that you can sell for more. Also, how many people can you handle in the frame at once?
> However, running from the law and how he's been acting is not in accordance with someone who's innocent - no?

What law? You mean the corrupt "legal" system there? Wouldn't most innocent people who are afraid of corrupt police act in the same way? (i guess that implies his innocence then!)
I use Parse for several high-usage apps, both iOS and web apps, and have never had a problem. I log every single connection error to analytics, and see very few problems.