netmau5

In other words, the consultants had their workers rebranded as unaffilated volunteers despite getting a pay day worthy of Ahab's undying devotion.

Taken another way, this campaign would have clearly been -ROI if the Piano apps themselves ran it themselves. Although a mass-market television commercial clearly isn't the best way to reach a niche audience, I think it definitely says something about the market potential and profits of most apps these days.

I like the concept although I always hesitate to use ghost writers. If you really want my business, you have to show me the money. Demonstrate the expertise in your writers, their engagement (comments), their impact/retention (uniques/views), and their ability to write deeply interesting content.

What I saw was a collection of random, poorly-formatted writing samples, disorganized testimonials, and vague pricing details. Normally I'd just keep to myself and move along, but this is a service my company would potentially use in certain areas. So I think it would be a huge improvement if the site were focused on convincing me, as the owner and someone with irrational concern for our image, how you'll make us bigger/better/faster/stronger.

The email field in your profile isn't visible.

This addresses a larger issue, but the specifics discussed hit home with me. I started my company several months ago and lost my health insurance. After paying into the system for the last 8 years, I feel like I've just been giving my money away. I had always been under the impression that I could never be denied for insurance if I had an existing policy but obviously that was misguided.

I'm overweight, I'm a smoker, and I have high blood pressure. Starting a company could literally kill me (on top of aforementioned dumb decisions). The rich used to pay 90% taxes and we still had Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Morgan.

I've been a long time customer of Envato's marketplaces and this is the first I've seen of CreativeMarket. How would you compare yourselves to them? Browsing through your collection, I'm impressed with the level of quality.

I'm not. If you ever visit, it's pretty clear where each economic group lives. Practically anyone with money who works in DC lives in VA or MD. DC has the highest ghetto per capita in the world.

I don't trust *Terms Apply and hackathon appearing together in any context. Business guys always want to capitalize on creatives' enthusiasm but end up triggering skepticism instead.

This is an awesome and very helpful group of guys. They are one of the few companies I know that invests as much in great support as their tech. If you use Mongo on a project, you owe it to yourself to try them out.

I'm incredibly curious about how the Twice investors feel about this allocation of capital.

Well the paywall thing is a huge deal-killer for me although I love the a response dashboard system they've built. For those of you conducting surveys, what are some good alternatives?

I've grown to seriously hate OAuth as a login mechanism. It's great for connecting accounts for integration, but I've been burned by it as a login.

On one of my previous projects, Twitter was the only allowed login method. After some complaints, we implemented an email-based login and reduced the bounce rate by over 50%.

Another anecdote: whenever my Asana session expires, I always struggle to remember which Google account I registered with or if I used email. The worst part of their flow is that if you're wrong, a new account is created and you login to a blank slate. It takes forever to find the log out button to try again too.

SEEKING WORK - Remote/SF/DC/ATL/BHAM

Specialities: Java, Ruby, Javascript, iOS, UI/UX

http://www.UrbanCoding.net is seeking our next web or mobile development project. We have working experience in insurance, finance, and education. Application development is the only thing we do. We do not do blogs, product pages, landing pages, etc unless integrated into a larger product project.

To learn more about us and see if we might be a good fit for your project, please see our Project and Pricing Guide at https://docs.google.com/a/urbancoding.net/document/d/1fOigUG...

As a "retired" professional poker player, I can say with certainty that this is possible, but the range is more like $20-40/hour. During that first year, the person must commit themselves to rigorous training and get themselves in a mindset of continual learning.

I've taught more than 20 people how to play Poker and you can usually tell within a couple days what their biggest weaknesses are going to be. Within two weeks, you can tell if they have the willpower to correct them. Most people do not; gambling can be pervasive in the mind.

I worry this is the step in between illegal downloads and making anonymity illegal. If they can flag you for downloading unpaid content, it won't be long before they flag you for circumstantial patterns leading to that behavior such as using TOR.

I may have been slower than others, but my weekend time at GaTech was spent on laundry, groceries, and lots of CS homework.

Just give them some money and the summer term to focus. Being clever just makes this harder.

You make it sound as if the choice is obvious.

Don't worry, even if every YC company ever chartered launched today, it would not outnumber the Twitter me-too posts.

"We hope you will find it interesting."

Why the guillotine on these guys? I think they contributed something meaningful to the discussion. You don't have to like it to be respectful.

I found this tool intriguing because the tax code is such a complex beast that a candidate could simply overlook the negative points during a campaign. I like giving individuals a direct, simple way to see what the plan would mean to them instead of deciphering rhetoric.

Now whether or not this thing is accurate is another story, but I do like huge buttons.

SEEKING WORK: Remote/Birmingham, AL

Urban Coding, http://www.urbancoding.net, is a full-stack web and mobile application development company. We work in three-week sprints for a flat $8,000 rate. Our specialities are HTML/CSS, Design, Javascript, Ruby on Rails, Java, iOS, and your database flavor of choice. We currently have one opening left for the year starting on September 17th.

For more information, check out our project and pricing guide at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fOigUGu4N1647N2uejNGxHce... .

I miss journalism. How is this a monopoly? Just because I buy a meal doesn't mean I have a monopoly over eating. Can we now construct arguments with cuss words?

I always find this sentiment funny. As a programmer, and one with 15+ years of HTML/CSS experience, I find it much easier to layout a website design in Photoshop. That being said, I usually jump to markup about 2/3rds of the way through the design. Everyone has a different comfort level, I suppose.

What's the difference?

Something tells me that the vacation time isn't getting used.

SEEKING WORK - Birmingham, AL, REMOTE

We're a small, agile, and highly experienced team with deep experience in Java and Ruby development as well as and user interface design and development. We're looking for our next challenge with openings in mid-August and October. Our favorite clients are small to medium-sized companies who wish us to tackle either part or all of a new product.

Preferred engagement length is at least three months. Rates are ~$8k per three week sprint.

Contact via email in profile or at our home, http://www.urbancoding.net .

Faster: a language change is not worth performance < an order of magnitude. Safer: unit tests; user input is only one type. Easier: prototypal inheritance is not a bug.

Next language please.

I don't really adhere to the fixed vs variable pricing schemes too strongly, they are just trade-offs. In fixed-price, we're taking much of the implementation risk onto ourselves. In exchange, we ask for a stringent requirements phase and a little flexibility on delivery dates from our client.

Our sprints are basically at 2/3rds utilization and we've reserved the right to take a couple off-weeks between sprints over the course of a 4 month project. This gives us some strategic leverage in picking up attractive small projects so we don't have to completely close up. It also gives us the opportunity to do full sprints on our own product if our MVP tests, developed during the 2/3rd sprints, look good.

That being said, flexibility does not mean half-assed. We're doing our best work whether it be for our clients or our customers.

It sounds like your curious on how to manage both a client and an internal project. I'll be happy to share our experiences doing so later. The simple explanation is to have a good understanding of your development velocity, treat each project the same in resource allocation, and set expectations for both your team and your client.

In our case, we have more time-flexibility in our current client project as it was done on a fixed-price bid. We're also at different stages of each project: one is firmly in implementation and the other is in leaving initial research and starting into business model iterations via customer development.

Well at least he isn't joking about being greedy when others are scared.