skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In my opinion there are really two types of indie games, the dime a dozen shovel-ware games sold cheaply in portals and the art-like, experimental and edgy ones. I think the key is for the latter to avoid competing with the former.

This type of distinction is made all the time in different areas of life. Gourmet food targets a different market segment than take away food, they do not compete directly against each other and as such they are priced independently.

If indie developers make a game that is trying to take a new direction and has some depth then they should be bold and market/price the game accordingly. What is great about our current environment is that the barriers for developers releasing and marketing their own games are much lower. There seems to be a real shortage of original games and thus good independent games tend to stand out. Braid is of course the pinnacle example of this but there have been others recently.

As with all kinds of development you really need to find and target the right market. If you do that then you don't have to compete on price with the 'casual' games where it is very hit and miss. If your game is a delicacy, a fine wine, then I think you should not hesitate to price it as such. Of course the upper limit to pricing is the price of AAA titles.

Jeff has really succeeded in finding the right under-serviced niche and focusing his efforts on it. I really enjoy his blog posts and he has actually been part of the motivation behind my decision to quit my job and start an independent game development studio instead (I do have games industry experience before you think that I am completely crazy!).

I really hope that the indie scenes continues to grow, strengthen and keeps taking those risks that the big guys are too scared of taking, especially in the current economic climate. In order for this to happen though, they really have to make sure that they don't price themselves out of existence.
It looks like you're right, and that it's the classic case of two people arguing about the same thing. Here's a quote from the book linked to above

" ... In The Plan-as-You-Go Business Plan, Tim Berry makes these points much more eloquently than I ever could. Tim argues that the planning process (along with regular reviews) is so important that business owners just need to get started somewhere, anywhere, and continue to build your plan as your needs change. This is 180 degrees different from the classical "big bang" approach to business planning where we work for months at a time developing a huge document before we ever get started working on the business."
Really? How did you get it to work? When I tried, I got a popup "contact your carrier".

The SMH is reporting that it'll be $10/m from 22nd June (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/optus-iphone-teth...), and the Optus FAQ says it will announce the price on that date (http://personal.optus.com.au/web/ocaportal.portal?_nfpb=true...).
Opera Unite Cuts Out the Middleman
Finland, Norway issue speeding tickets based on a percentage of income, see e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3477285.stm where a €170,000 was issued in 2004. I don't know of any studies of the effects of that. But there's certainly a nice Schadenfreude effect when you invariably read about slightly rich guy in Finland getting a giant fine in just about every news publication in the world.

(If they made that the law in e.g. US I wonder if some sheriff's department would get the idea to have policemen exclusively to follow around wealthy drivers -- in the style of drug property seizures and overtuned red-light cameras)
There'll be a significant drop in price when a strong competitor emerges...
The actual game flOw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(video_game)) came out of this research. The use of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theories of flow have been part of game design for a long time, and most of the stuff in the thesis is basically common sense with a few interesting thinking points.

Some other great literature on games that also discuss flow can be found in Jesse Schell's book (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694...) or in Steve Swink's book (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Feel-Designers-Sensation-Kaufmann...).

(edit: no coffee yet)
it definitely seems like identifying problems first and providing a solutions is what most innovative entrepreneurs do.

i think whats less talked about is the less innovative business people who are creating successful businesses being the middle man, buying and selling import exporting, etc.

im wondering where ppl get experience in those fields too. im guessing you can always start by getting employed in entry level positions such as sales, etc in the respective industries. from that point on, thats where you're 'studying' begins
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The "Selfish Gene" seemed well-written to me, though I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I would appreciate it if you could note down a couple of things he oversimplified or complicated, please.
Most of those books are from the Jibber Jabber industry with a couple exceptions, perhaps "Don't Make Me Think." I agree with another commenter that the title is about books for those who love learning not books that would be applicable to many situations if you what you need are vacuous anecdotes. Vacuous anecdotes don't build bridges, solve concurrency problems, enrich anyone's philosophical depth or anything like that.
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For me, it's a little like feeding coral, or having a rich environment for enzymes to operate on: if my thinking is ready for particular new insight, it's great if that idea comes along. It then becomes a part of my thinking. Similarly, if I'm working on a problem, I often get insight from other activities, including reading.

Reading well-written books and essays influences the way I express myself, unconsciously.

I also think it keeps the mind supple, to be able to absorb new perspectives. Perhaps even more important, is to be reminded that they are things I don't know, and didn't even suspect (the particular things aren't so important, just feeling of not knowing as much as I thought.)
No, revealing a cover-up of such a thing is much more embarrasing than the original problem.
With who?

I must've been using Travelocity and Expedia for 10 years now (and easySABRE while it still existed) and I have to say this industry was notable for being ahead of the curve for high-value transactions on the Internet.
There used to be EasySABRE (unrelated to cowboys easyJet) which gave you nearly direct access to SABRE data, but it's long since defunct - I think Expedia bought it.
Whats pedantry to some is quite an interesting aside for others. Thank you, and keep it up :-)
Uh, due to exponential discounting, $15 a month over infinite time adds up to a finite and not especially large amount of money. Think as much money as you'd need to have in the bank to receive $15 a month in interest.
I sort of agree that he is grasping here. However, I don't think it is very unusual to find many things to disagree with 37signals about.
Nicely deconstructed. They're definitely using SEO on a deeper level.
I think you passed the point a few miles back. It seems like the issue is that this is really a ridiculous a verdict and the I think that the idea that the RIAA is happy about this really shows how little they understand about PR. Considering that their primary targeted demographics, I wonder if the RIAA should sue their lawyers and PR firms for malpractice!
You're confused. We're talking about monetary compensation to another party (damages) in a civil court, not a criminal murder case.

This may save some embarrassment in the future: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/60793/civil_crimina...
The per capita murder rate is quite low for a large city. New York City's population is so much higher than any other city in the country that it tends to skew your perception.
I used Kayak & Opodo. The problems I experienced were mostly due to how they connect/redirect to each airline's booking system. I was pining for the days when I could call my travel agent and have an actual human take care of my travel arrangements. Something like justbookmeabloodyflight.com: you give them your CC info & a specific travel request. They then book it for you and ONLY contact you if there is a problem.
Thanks.

US$ 60 for the display doesn't look that expensive. At US$ 190 total cost of manufacture for the 2, I would risk the wireless free forever subsidy seems to be a substantial part of the unit cost. Would it be a safe bet to estimate the display of the DX to be around US$ 120?

So, again, I would be happy with a DX that used wi-fi or my own GSM/3G instead of the US-only cellular network. And the bright side is that it could probably be sold for less than the current versions.
So if they're doing it for 56 years then why don't they already have a modular
offering where they can just mix & match the modules as required, akin to SAP?

I know the answer(s) ofcourse, but couldn't resist asking...
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ignoring the fine (it is excesive) the person I was replying to was inferring the RIAA should have chased her because she isn't well off. Which sounds like a poor argument to me :)

She did need a lesson - not one quite so extreme but still.
That's a good point. It shouldn't be hard for them to do that.
Ask HN: consultancy, how to?
Hey guys looking for some insights.

Im working full time for a company who dont mind me consulting on the side so long as it is not in business time (win). An ex-university friend has approached me with a proposition to do some websites - he works for an IT consultancy that doesnt do web design but has said it is willing to hand off customers who want sites to him (in the region of 2 or 3 a month). It's a good gig and looking over the specs for the first job he has it looks like a reasonable amount of work.

He wants to split 50/50 - he brings the clients and does the design work pluss some admin etc. I do the site building and technical consults. Again it seems a fair deal because he can bring the serious clients.

Anyone spot a catch? More importantly any advice on how to get set up?

Obviously I will want an actual agreement - would a simple partnership (im in the UK_) suffice do you think?

Also as I am working remotely (though will be paid a day's travelling per job so I can meet clients face to face initially - I feel this is important :)) does anyone have recommendations for tools to collaborate on these specific projects (I will probably use bitbucket for SCM and ticketing etc. so more in terms of communication & work hour tracking).

And finally if your already doing similar work what kind of rate would you expect to be paid for this work (initially we are looking at £25/hr to get initial traction going up to £70/hr as things progress / we get a reputation)? + any other advice :)

Cheers peeps :)
The consequences for car theft are the same for everyone. If you go to prison, you lose x months of your life time. If Bill Gates goes to prison, he loses the same amount of time. Expressed in money, he's paying a few million dollars in lost productivity whilst you may only lose the equivalent of a few thousand dollars. I think that's fair.
They still exist - if I want to speak to a human travel agent I call Amex.
> therefor suggesting that Wikipedia is dysfunctional compared to a normal encyclopedia.

How? The logic makes little sense - in a physical form yes it does fail. But in digital form it is an excellent resource (if used with sense).

Im not sure I get his argument?
Having grown up in the NYC media market, it's a lot better now than it was in the late 80's/early 90's when there were a few murders per day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City

In 1990 there were 2245 homicides, 4x more than last year. That's scary.
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Distributed Denial of Justice?
I like that law. To avoid the kind of "social profiling" you describe you'd have to make sure that police don't have any incentive to make as much money as possible. Also, I suspect that rich people might sue and thus deter police from doing things like that.
I'm certain they like the side-effect of getting links from both sides of whatever fence they put up this week, but it could just be a nice side-effect, rather than the goal.

I'm similar in the way that when I make an argument for something, I don't like to soften it up with various "but it depends on", "your mileage may vary", listing various other methods that might work better in other situations, and so on.

I also think it's refreshing to have people actually take a stand for something — whether I agree with it or not. I'm tired of bland semi-advice that's watered down to go over well with everybody.
That's really just being pedantic about a humorous Penny Arcarde comic, though. Perhaps there are more important points to debate in this article?
I think many such small scale middleman situations start with someone offering people a way out of thinking for themselves. Sometimes problems are not difficult to solve, but you'd have to start to think about it and make a few simple decisions and that would distract you from more important things.

So if you're the boss of a small TV station and you need some kind of IT system and your seemingly computer savy acquaintance from your cousin's birthday party comes up and says "hey man, I know how to do these things, don't waste your prescious time on it, I'm gonna do it for you!" you're hooked :-) There's trust, after all your cousin knows the guy, and even looking for someone else would be a chore. So why not? That's how it starts. (This example is not complete fantasy by the way)
> If you're logged in to Digg, every target link you click from Digg is a shortened URL of their own creation.

Reddit's toolbar does the same thing. I don't like it because it means I have to get the URL by right-clicking and click "View Frame Info" in Firefox.
A lot of the big price comparision sites just use screenscraping to avoid the contractual obligations data feeds have.

A non-america centric farecast would be good too
I wonder if people who paid for Netshare when it was available in the App Store will get billed for tethering if AT&T goes after unauthorized tetherers.
So, you're saying, you prefer to be able to input using the currency that you set? Or, just for display?

Example, you can input "Books from Amazon UK for £10.95"?
Or, simply just for display?

Thanks
Hey, finally the recording industry has cracked the new business model they need. To compensate for the declining sales, all they need to do is win a lawsuit once a month or so and they'll be fine!

Woohoo!
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Thanks for a lot of your suggestions. That jott service is definitely very interesting. I'll let you know again when we have new releases.
That's a really interesting approach to reading and remembering books. Thanks for sharing it.
The agreement you have should reflect how well you know the person, how well you trust them, and what the worst case scenario is. I'd suggest you almost certainly want lawyers involved in this part as they can give you a fairly boilerplate agreement that's tailored around the 4 or 5 key questions that you'll need to think really hard about.

Bear in mind that in a partnership, rather than a limited company, you have full personal responsibility for all debts (and not just in the normal course of business: you also need to consider someone suing you, such as disgruntled client). A simple partnership, without an explicit agreement to the contrary, will also include joint and several liability. In other words if one partner were to do something incredibly stupid, all the partners would be liable for up to the full amount owed.

There's no reason why that sort of set-up _can't_ work: there are numerous businesses that run like that quite happily, but you should be sure that you're comfortable with the risks.
its like wikipedia for the whole internet
You might do some searching, as this topic has come up before...
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Keep in mind that you can set up a Limited Liability Partnership, which would seem to make a lot of sense in this situation. Liability is limited in the same was as in a Ltd. company, but it differs in how profit sharing is handled. Check with an accountant for details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability_partnership#U...
He's right. It sounds to me like enterprise ruby needs more business analysis integration features for data mining and warehousing.
Don't you just have your other hand on the keyboard all the time anyway? Set FF to open everything in tabs, so that's solved, and then use cmd+: w to close windows, q to quit, c to copy, v to paste, etc etc... they're all right there under your non-trackpad fingers.

I didn't even use middle-click back before wheel mice (when they literally had 3 buttons).
The easiest way to handle this when you don't have any investments, no professional liability or other complications, is simply that you set each your own individual sole proprietorship. Your friend, as he handles the administration, bills the client, and you bill him. Your agreement should likely be that you get paid when he does.

This way, if things turns sour, you only stand to lose what your friend owe you - there's no legal entity that you share and might need legal help to dissolve. If you don't trust your friend to make such a setup (even if this particular setup isn't the right one), you shouldn't go into business with him.

Regarding the rate, don't undersell yourself. There's an expectation as to what a professional developer costs (probably way closer to £70/hr than £25/hr), and if you don't meet that expectation (in either direction) you'll experience some friction. You can give a one-off discount, e.g. as a voucher handed out as marketing. Underbidding is for punks with ASP.net for dummies and "Hello world" under their belt, bidding at the actual price is what professionals do. State your rate at what you think you're worth, and be prepared to give a discount if you feel it's the right thing to do. That way the client also feels like he got something.
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I think the term you're looking for is 'trolling'.
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If you need lawyers at this state, you're doing it wrong (specifically starting up with the wrong person)
"My list of books will still be relevant in 1000 years, while the OP's reading list will be worthless in less than a 100 years. Deep knowledge does not get stale. Don't you see the common thread among the books I have listed? Here it is: they are all "bibles" in their respective fields."

I guess to me the worth-readingness of a book comes from the quality of the questions it asks rather than from the finishedness of the answers. If you actually spent a lifetime reading those books I don't think you'd really get any closer to understanding the core of the human experience.
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Their marketing is brilliant. Do the same thing many successful others have been doing for years, brand it, and spin the hell out of it. Imagine how successful they'd be with a good name.
It didn't look very smooth either, the pictures jumped around a lot and... wait did you say Vista desktop!? Nevermind :)
the perfect platform for trolls!
I think you'd also need a way to express that xml xml using xml as well.
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in metalworking, decreasing surface area by increasing thickness is called shrinking.

the opposite, smooshing something out, is called stretching.

the terms make sense when you think in terms of the surface area shrinking or stretching.
OK, so I'm wondering how fast would the quarter have to travel to actually shrink to the size of a dime, based on special relativity?
Of course it's possible! Haven't you ever seen Hackers? The same thing happened to the guy in the movie. duck

It's most likely a condition of his bail. After he serves his sentence it will likely be a condition of his probation. I don't think this is uncommon for large scale computer crimes.
Besides what SwellJoe said, another issue to keep in mind that most people who want to be new independent developers (at least in newer markets like the App Store) don't have the life experiences to have "problems" that they think they can solve with their programming skills. And even if they can think of one, thinking of a solution workable in scope for an individual or small team can be daunting, especially if there's any risk of legal fallout from attempting the solution. (I've been in both the private and public sectors for the last decade, and heading into experimental development on my own this summer. Even I'm having difficulty thinking of a first product meant to solve "real world" problems without having a company above me to provide a client base or agenda. Hence my first project after being out of self-development for a decade would mostly likely be some kind of game or toy.)
"a colour-changing lamp that shows the weather."

Nice, but not that useful. I'd like to learn more electronics and probably will have to go through the "blinking LEDs" stage, too. Coming up with more useful stuff to create (on amateur level) doesn't seem so easy, though. Even Adafruit seems to mostly sell gimmicks or modules for other gimmicks, which worries me a bit.

Even musical instruments don't excite me much: couldn't everything they do be done in software instead?

Maybe it is time to start thinking in some completely new directions? For example I have been wondering if it would be at all feasible to create one's own e-ink display?
"Watt was ignorant of the use to which his best friend would put the custom packet sniffer..."

Yea, right.

"Honestly officer, I was just keeping the engine warm while my friends were trick or treating in the 7-11."
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First time entrepreneurs usually confuse equity with control, there can be dozens of mechanisms, by which VC's can gain control of a company they invested in.

A few examples:

* Controlling all C-level positions, firing you at will (which will affect your vesting schedule)
* Controlling spending which will force you to raise further rounds, further dilluting you
* Board seats
* Veto power for exits

Get a lawyer and read everything a dozen times...
While Re. Hoekstra may not have said the right thing, it doesn't mean that he is "twitter-clueless." He personalizes his tweets, speaks to his constituents and keeps everyone informed. He isn't using twitter as a conversation yet - but that doesn't mean he is clueless either.

Did he say the wrong thing? Absolutely. But, Biden has said some stupid things too - doesn't mean he doesn't understand oratory.
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You are correct.

OO is too complex for the enterprise, because the requirements are simple and the deadlines are short. If you use complex OO hierarchies, you are going to over-engineer the solution, because it really does not require all that OO flexibility. You will also make things impossible to debug or maintain, and blow your deadlines. You need just enough OO to implement common patterns, but if I see more than that, I assume the programmer is new to real-world enterprise software development. Most enterprise software is just glue, and it is not spelled 'glOO'.
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Why not just offer persistent threads?
the same reason google used to invest in baidu
Complaints greet Intel's chip renaming strategy
SSH tunneling could avoid a lot of that, right?
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So does that equate to roughly $1,114.91 of revenue for those 800,000 visits that were by the big six browsers you list?
Well either really - certainly display :) Input would be nice but I suppose not essential.