farout

It does not matter that the person who did this was a woman.

Use of stolen SIM lands person in jail.

MSSQL is easier to optimize at last for me than say Sybase and Oracle, which I also supported.

People can bash MS as much as they want but their products are dirt simple to use and for the most part efficient. MSSQL comes with some query plan analysis so you can look at hit and miss ratios. From this info you can make some decisions as to add additional clustered or non-clustered indexes or use stored procedure which are saved (preprocessed) for faster execution. I forgot which of the several books I used to do this. But I was pleasantly surprised at the performance increase with my occasional tweaking.

Performance was not a priority for us that is why it was done occasionally. Not my call. My main job was make sure replications happened effectively, maintain good restores and security, and create stored procedures and triggers.

I hated the ORM in Rails. I do not want magic when I know how to do it more efficiently. For example there are certain times it is better to use DISTINCT versus GROUP BY for unique values.

I miss MSSQL. I use MySQL and it is ok but not like my sweetie and, thank you, not like the ugly gorilla Oracle.

In smaller apps I use sqlite or flat files.

People wonder why "women" find certain fields distasteful. came to HN: Number one topic for comments - about a "Woman".

Why say she is a woman? Depressing. Is it required? No it is just to stress the fact that women are stupid and perhaps deceitful than men. Yet my empirical suggests otherwise. So sad HN.

Edit: Downvote all you want.

I know, I know what swag I would like cool transformer toys.

The norm is to appeal to 8-10 year old boys. I ain't. But I am a geek at heart. Also those stupid mental rings and stuff like that.

I was thinking useful stuff - but skip that - give something that makes me smile.

Wow - Why is this not the number one article in HN?

WHY!!!????

Losing respect for HN.

I used to worship institutions such as Bell Labs. But I guess when you learn how the sausage is made, it takes the luster off of things.

The book, My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, talks about why he left Bell Labs to be a quant on wall street.

I remember after graduating college. I was unsure what to do next. My profs wanted me to do PhD. My fiancee, a PhD candidate, was against it. The company I worked at was willing to pay for my masters in electrical engineering but again my fiancee made the argument since I was repulsed by large organizations that I would resent it. I would most likely end up working for those companies. He was right. This is what happened to my friends.

5 years ago, I was reconsidering a PhD, I thought comp sci or stats. So I dipped my toe and got a masters in stats - it was fun. Do a PhD? No. What for. Economically it would not make sense for me.

I would only do it if I found a fun topic such as modeling detection of prostate cancer (my masters project) but so far the idea of working for the immoral pharma industry including the unis and rest of them makes me ill.

I wish I learnt Marie Curie's secret on how to focus on the work and forget the rest. But I haven't.

My husband works as a computer science researcher (AI) - I KNOW I never want to do this. Pittance for ground breaking work done at excruciating slow pace with so many failures. The shit he puts up so he can work on the stuff that interests him - boggles the mind. I almost want to scream - get a bloody commercial job (effectively 2x salary) and use your own money to run your own tests. But he has seen what the prospects and the environment through the eyes of friends smarter than him and knows the true cost of politics. Smart man.

I would never advise anyone to do a PhD unless you are in love with the topic.

There is a company that kinda does this already - say you are going be in SF next week. And your friends also marked on their calendars they are visiting SF - you can actually see them on a "future radar" so you schedule a meetup with them. Kinda cool?

The company is Coloci http://www.coloci.com/

coloci helps friends share their future and current trips, activities, travel plans and meetup face to face when they are in the same location or vicinity

You are right. My bad. Memory going. Should have confirmed.

Read PG's article. Ok.

The smoking issue was interesting. In the book, Lady Drinking Tea, which explores how modern statistics came to be (BTW excellent read - fun), RA Fisher, the father of modern statistics, argued that lung cancer and smoking were correlated and you can NOT determine causation based on that.

For 60 years this smoker attacked everyone who disagreed. He was brilliant but still an asshole. He died from lung cancer, apropos. Soon after smoking was targeted again as a cause for lung cancer and many lives were saved since Fisher was no longer there attacking them.

evernote can be addictive; however it mangles code bits

I use a text editor along side with the IDE so I can add notes as I code;the same way as physical notebook but I can paste code bits in there

Very interesting.

Here is a nice synopsis of a case studied in the Influencer book about the Carter Center helping to rid Guinea worm infections in several African countries: http://www.joshhunt.com/mail215.htm

I have problem accepting your conclusion from your blog:To make the long-term consequences of failing at your goal immediate, you need a bright and painful line.

I think it more complex than that, which you alluded to earlier. I am constantly trying to be a better me. Losing money would not be an incentive to me if milestones were not met as you recommended.

The book, "Change or Die", talks about Dick Cheney needing a yearly heart bypass and then finally getting $6M/invested in chefs/fitness trainers/doctors/retrofitted planes to change himself (basically to exercise 1 hour a day). This is even before his recent massive weight loss.

It also talks about, people with fatal diseases that refuse to take their daily meds as required. Why? I mean it is fatal. They will die.

Taking the pill every day made them realize they were dying. Forgetting to do so, made them have a happier less depressing day. I guess quality versus quantity. In this case if the pill was somehow better integrated, so they would not notice it much and reflect so much, they might consistently take it.

I also liked this synopsis of take aways from this MS project manager about the Influencer. the Power to Change Anything: http://sourcesofinsight.com/2009/06/09/influencer-the-power-...

Also, you may have already seen this, Sendhil Mullainathan's, "THE IRONY OF POVERTY" http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge263.html in which he talks one such problem diarrhea causing infant deaths and how to successfully change the mental model of the parents to save infant lives.

I have not yet read PG's essay.The Wikipedia article was a nice read. Thanks!

PS There are some interesting books on how train and change behaviors in animals since I think in end we more like animals than we care to admit.

I go up and down a step - 50 times twice every hour. Unlikely stairs - you get little help from momentum and so burn more calories. Plus I raise my arms up and down at the same time. Looks silly but - it works.

easy to remember, easy to do, quick burst of energy; but don't get sweaty

Also - do wall pushups (25 at a shot) for 300 a day. As well as squat: hold for 1 min, every hour. Can do in bathroom or stairwell for privacy.

I can not recall that exact title of the book something about ants and elephants (looked on amazon - did not recognize those books) but these are my takeaways from it:

1. state your goals

2. write down your milestones - must be actual measurable metrics

3. write reasons why you will not reach them - expect the unexpected; yes you can not expect all the unexpected but this is preparing you so that when there are issues, which are guaranteed to happen, this is how you need to respond without your emotions totally taking over.

4. Write down what you will do when you encounter these problems. Again be specific. Think of this a as a recipe book/play book.

5. write down the rewards you will give to yourself for each milestone achieved. You need to put a positive feedback loop as incentive. Worked in kindergarten with goldstars.

6. and from the another book: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything answer the 2 Qs:

Do I think I can do it? (meaning skills and resources)

Is it worth it to me to do it?

Wow, a lot of work? Sure is. Worth it. Yes.

I like the feel of it.

I tried putting "gold" and it kept going back to spa.

I would remove the e.g. or eg; just put the item that you think your ideal customer would look for.

You might create an array with several and randomly populate the value field so each time they come they see a new suggestion of items to search.

Also why not start with the main page that already has a item searched, then the person can change it. This way I can see what you have to offer. It also gets me thinking of what I might want to search for: http://www.dealites.com/search/delhi-ncr/?phrase=jewelry

I love the counter.

Your design has a good feel to it; I love the name. Good job! Do you have a marketing strategy?

Thanks for confirming that you went to wrong site.

CaDealerQuotes.org is now filled with filler pages. The general feedback was that domain name did not match content.

The new site domain so that there is less a mismatch is:

BuyNewCarGetNewLife.com

It will show guys if they buy a certain car what the life (mainly women they will attract). I have lots of work to do.

I disagree with you; Fox also agrees with me on this point:

If the company can overuse its employees, it will regardless of what they are paying for salary.

If you are going for money (which if you have no other choice) than maximize! You will be abused so at least get the moola for. There is a reason why they call work work and have to pay people for it.

In the above scenario, where the job is just a job go for the money and kiss up to the boss. Less work and you are well insulated in crisis as others have mentioned.

There are plenty of people at work who do nothing more than be friends with the execs. They add little value in a company. This oddly considered acceptable. It is almost as if work is daycare for your not so bright but very happy friends. It reminds me of the cliques in high school.

Sadly this true in even in startups. So-so went to high school with the founder. Great but the nice guy is incompetent. Basically you soon realize that the startup is an adult daycare center as well.

well said.

Time != money

Money can be made. Time is much hard to make if at all.

There are number of biographies of women CEOs that mention that this is a huge problem issue for women. They consistently forget to negotiate for their salaries since they consider it poor form and confrontational.

However the simplest come back after a salary offer: please let me consider it.

Then a day later or after some thought, reiterate the value you will be bringing to meet and exceed with their expectations/plans, then say: Is that the best you can do?

Then shut up and wait.

I tried this once. It was easier than I thought.

Money is temporary. The experience, the people, the company culture, their mission, and growth are more important to be than money, in general. They are priceless facets.

However for most people a job is a job. As someone said the skill that they value the most and are at expert level at is apathy.

Also Jeffrey Fox says always go for salary - it is what everyone uses to measure your value and that is what they value so....to each their own.

Are you after a job or are you trying to creating a future for yourself?

I remember a recruiter told me to take the job that was not able to outbid for me in a bidding war. I thought that was odd. As she said, these people loved you and they are a established profitable company. The others are startups, that are just looking for just in time body and never mentioned why they valued me. I went with the money, actually I went with the technology because it was sweet - stupid mistake. I wished I listened to her.

Money has marginal utility for me. After a certain amount I do not care. Isn't that ultimately made me the geek I am, spending time on things that others saw very little social value?

Ha - that was exactly what I was trying to mimic - Maxim. The ideal customer profile says that is the magazine the user reads - so I was so happy when you said this. My other websites with more like consumer reports. You think this would be easier for me after doing 30 iphone apps and several commercial websites, but I always had other people to bounce ideas off so... I never realized how much easier that was.

You are nth person to say that the site is too busy - I will doing another one - thank you since I am never sure if it is too little or too much. Of course judging other people's work I am always sure. :-)

The ideal customer profile is for a man in midlife crisis purchasing sports cars in the $30-$59k range. There are fewer buyers in a more affluent market and they require more finessing (at I thin they do). I am trying to go for the easiest market to access and convert.

I will adding 100+ sport cars by the end of next week. I will be only focusing on the personality of the car owner as it related to a specific model.

Thank you for your suggestions and encouragement. Selling enterprise sw is cakewalk compared with this. I do not mind criticism; it is all those endless long arguments that I have with myself on which way to go. I am going just have to choose a way - right or wrong and then fix as I go along.

I want truth - I do not might failing as long I am learning. I appreciate you taking time to help me.

-this is a lead generation site for the car dealership industry; the phone is optional, but this is how this business will make so if you want to save some easy money 1 minute could save you several grand. Internet surely are always discounted than floor prices.

I thought I was helpful with the divorce stuff - but several people have told me and you are confirming it - to keep it more on the positive note. I am not a middle age guy - I read a lot of books about them and am married to one so I am trying - was going for the wild look - perhaps I have overdone it.

M3 - cut paste errors; will correct;

The browsers I have testing on are IE8, Safrai, and Firefox. I will take a look at Chrome.

Hmm - I do not understand what you are saying - why do you think these leads are not serious inquires with purchase intent. My competition websites are one page with very little info except the same signup form. In less than 2 years they are bringing $5M/year And they are spending $55K/week on adword campaign.

I can not afford so I am trying to do this organically initially. Albeit a klutz attempt.

-learnt photoshop; created them from scratch; finally 6 months of learning paid off; I am proud of them; I did some shrinking and cutting when I was porting from them the older versions of the website - I will take a look at the scrollbar issue.

-the ideal customer profile is 35-50 year old men going through midlife crisis therefore focused on women and cars.

-will look at the links

-"I deserve" Hmm. Interesting. I was trying imagine the thoughts in the users head. They are not giving me info for nothing - it is to get a car for less with little to no work. They benefit that 1 minute may convert into $1k or more in savings since Internet quotes are less than floor prices.

-I agree - this is my fourth mockup so ... I am iterating. I am going try a number of suggestions that I recently got.

I appreciate your feedback. It helps me understand where I am not making this easy for the user: a person who wants to buy sports car asap and wants to save a little money without much work.

is it the jquery will not work or the app using UISlider will not work on the iPad?

ever go to a "book club" meeting - mostly women, rarely a guy to be seen.

My bet is the newspaper is mainly for the sports section.

Side note: One of my coworkers had no money for food, but he still had money for his cigs and soda. At first I wanted to give him food, then I thought he needs to figure this out himself. He made more than me. And I saw buying the stuff every day.

my 2 cents:

When I was doing recommender for a pet supplies company, I used log likelihood test.

Given they product A, what are the chances they would buy B.

Also since we had thousands of products I sometimes looked at correlations charts or even simple histogram to easily pinpoint what products and quantities were purchased after the initial purchase of A. It made crunching millions of transactions easier.

here is an idea for all those people who only write across the chest of t-shirt which make some women uncomfortable wearing.

Why don't you write the company name on the bottom center of the short - and then everyone can stare at your crotch - this at least will make both sexes uncomfortable. And if you are guy and did not understand the above, perhaps you do now. Before anyone gets upset - I am trying to be funny.

excellent idea however this too has a way of failing.

T-shirts are listed not by inches or cms, which would tell you exactly what you getting.

hence the recent posts of different definitions for different sizes by different mfg. If they listed the actually sizes like they do with most suits. Then you have a reasonable chance of a good fit.

I mention it because I thought many of the ideas in there can be also used in website design. I particular liked how they consider brand and incorporating that in. I loved all the examples - so many. Not just talk. But prototype and evolutions.

I would also include "The Advertising Concept Book". To me a website is an ad. This book actually shows what worked what didn't - ads from the last 40 years for the masters. I love sketches to actually ads run. A lot of analysis on Apple ads. It was just an awesome, eye-opening book. So many case studies.

Side note; I think of account about typography in one of the books about FLICKR. Where if you were not careful what type you choose you would very much offend many people since the capital L and I might merge to be U.

think etsy.

To me etsy was a nichified idea of ebay:

-remove the auctions since these people want just want to sell whenever the item gets sold

-make it super easy for crafts to sell their stuff; make it easier than ebay.

-make the fees more reasonable

-make the first time use - dead easy; unlike the ebay experience - so many options and too confusing. People scared of making a mistake.

What were these crafts people using before etsy: ebay.

This is shit. I read in some article that 99% of the women electrical engineers quit engineering after 5 years.

As an EE, I can tell you, the work environment sucks!!!!

Yeah bitch is ok term to to refer to women. You are just too sensitive. Stop complaining about crap work - be a teamplayer. You dont' like coming out to drink with us - therefore you are not one of us. We are uncomfortable telling dirty jokes in front of you - I wish they did not hire you. You have 3.8GPA but you were hired just as a quota. You took a guy's job that needs to support with family. You complain you must be PMSing. There is essentially no seat at the table for you.

Math is a freaking language. The women I tutored in college all were told they were bad in math because they were female - and they believed the shit.

Do you know that most statisticians are 50-50 women and men? That is why I love stats. Not only was the math as easy as in engineering but there were real role models for me.

Edit: Further empirical evidence that women are not bad at math. Go to graduate programs at top rated schools, in engineering and math departments you will find a good fraction are women - I talking about 30%. Yes not 50% but much higher than undergraduate levels which are more 5-10% range.

I would add Logo Design Love to your excellent reading list!

Thank you for putting this together. I am going to use your checklist this weekend to fine-tune my latest creation, cardealerquotes.org. Maawaaahhaha :)