scheff

Hi there, can you explain to us why you chose to invest so heavily in Bitcoin and Ethereum? What gave you the certainty that they would go so well?

forget it. you guys are negative.

I generate a passive income through options trading. It takes a small amount of my time each week.

I have built up a wealth of knowledge through years of study. I have experimented with most forms of passive income over 20 years and found that most of them don't meet the requirements of "passive income".

When I was 25 I moved to London to work in another country, meet new people, have adventures ... live life. Prior to that, I was in a similar position to yourself. This was the best time of my life, and I'm glad I did it at that age. Most people wait until their midlife crisis to do those things, where it damages, or destroys, the commitments they have made.

Travelling is one of the most educational, rewarding experiences you can possibly have.

I would stash my earnings away into an investment, travel the world freelancing with my expertise, discovering new and amazing realities with which to live life.

P.S that's what I'm doing now, 20 odd years later. again.

I see money as a measure of value.

The exchange of butter for chickens, and determining what exchange rate would be satisfactory for both parties, quite often does not take into account the effort, or cost, of producing the goods. Say it costs the butter producer 5 years of raising a cow, including the cost of grain and water, and also the processing costs, in the total cost of producing butter. Say it costs 6 months of very little grain and water to raise a chicken. Should the exchange rate reflect the "costs incurred" for production?

A market determines the value of these goods, as defined by the demand. That market value is explicitly defined by monetary value. In this view, money is simply a digital representation of the value of goods and services, allowing consumers and producers to more easily draw comparisons.

In many societies, a job in social services is valued much lower than say a job in IT. The effort involved might be identical, but the market determines the value of the occupation.

Give it an appropriate prioritization in your life. e.g. "This is more important than X". And have in your mind the REASON why it is more important than X. The secret, that I have read, to success at difficult things is knowing your "why" - Why is this thing more important than X? What does success look like, and how does that compare to X?

Your "why" is what makes you get out of bed in the morning, makes you confront that issue you can't resolve, and to resolve it. If your "why" isn't strong enough, you will likely fail.

I read a quote a very long time ago that simply said "Imagine if man learned how to use all of that energy, that determination, all his resources that he uses for chasing women ... for something else more important?"

A starting point. HN'd today.

http://firstround.com/article/Fight-Like-Youre-Right-Listen-...

I was hoping he would post references as well. I think there are no literal "management design patterns", he just means there are "design patterns for management" in the form of "management best practices". So you would need to dig into each relevant area of management and read the materials on best practices; dealing with staff, customers, partners, boards, ...

My small amount of research discovered that you can live in a serviced hotel room for between 15,000 and 30,000 THB per month, which is $500 - $1000 USD. This was in Chiang Mai. I explored a couple of different hotels.

You can get serious discounts for booking a room for 3, 6 months. Combine that with eating out for every meal (instead of grocery shopping and cooking for yourself) and it's an incredibly cheap option. Meals are as cheap as $1 each.

I've spoken with a few of westerner businessmen in Thailand now, and they re-iterate much the same sentiments.

My view has become "go there as a tourist who happens to spend several months on business" as opposed to "go there with a view to doing business with the locals".

Likewise I have met some lovely Thai people. They are very caring and welcoming.

Any suggestions on how to avoid the 'tourist tax'?

Are there westerners set up over there to help other westerners find cheap rentals, etc?

care to elaborate?

Great write up! I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing. A couple of questions -

Why the limitation to being able to only do 6 months? Do they stop renewing your visa after that?

Have you looked at other neighbouring countries like Laos, Burma and Cambodia for a similar arrangement?

I'm currently creating a touchscreen voting application in HTML for low vision and blind users. AMA.

Why are we still writing in mark down? Fair enough, as a techie, it's just assumed you will learn another "language" and be productive. But a creative writer shouldn't have to think "how many #'s do I need to press? what's the shortcode for italics?" They just want to be free to create. But they also want to see their masterpiece coming to life in all it's glory.

We've mastered the "Word editor" and it gives immediate feedback without reaching for a reference manual, why would we (inclusive: all writers) take a step backwards?

I found your post insightful and beneficial. Experienced much of it myself. Also, I've had similar arguments with other wannabe entrepreneurs at the start of their path. Hopefully the HN community can benefit from your experiences.

I would be willing to consider the International Space Station an equivalent of the Moon colonies, as it serves much the same purpose; research and training, but is more convenient.

This is what I have been asking for - the Elon Musk biography.

However, the one thing that I'm after, and the only thing I would be willing to buy it for, is answer to the question - "How did surmount his challenges?" He must have faced a thousand naysayers, both at the business level and at the technical level. People who he had to convince to make his successes happen. What is it that he has that enables him to overcome these challenges and succeed? It's probably not any one thing, but whatever it is, he has it in spades.

I would like to know if/how this book addresses that. Thanks.

There are some good answers and advice in the comments here. One thing that appears to have been missed is - there is an underlying issue that you may or may not have identified yet which will have a major impact on your psyche. Being rejected by a parent is one of the most soul-crushing things that can happen to a person. Our sense of self worth and our relationships with others is largely defined by our relationship with our parents ... the one people who are supposed to love us unconditionally.

I have seen its impact on friends and family, and it remains as a major influencer all throughout life if not addressed. I recommend speaking to a specialist about this.

One of the key differences between Apple and Android - for me - is that people who buy Apple generally buy into the hype created around Apple. And the reverse - people who buy Android don't buy into the hype. I can't say I have seen a single Android advertisement like I have seen iPod/iPhone/iPad ones. So there is no need for an Android John Gruber; all of the hype of "The Smartphone" has already been done. People know what's on offer, and base their decisions now on utility and price.

Perhaps look at having an Advisory Board. The kudos could be sufficient payment. Especially if you become a big success.

Alternatively, look at offering them stock options. If they believe in what you're doing, and want continued involvement, then it's worth asking them to have "skin in the game". Their advice will be more tailored to your success if you do.

Ask other businessmen what the cost of offering equity to outsiders is. It's usually more than the cost of giving away something intangible.

As a long time programmer, I've learnt the mantra "somebody has already solved this, let's go find their solution." That applies to pretty much any technical or non-technical issue that you need to solve. So much of what we need to know is written up somewhere on the internet, leaving us to focus on the 1% of the problem that we alone can solve, and differentiates our value proposition from all the other alternatives.

My short answer would be "know enough to be dangerous, and surround yourself with smarter people".

Recommended reading - http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr10.htm

Start from 'Henry Ford was called "an ignorant pacifist."'

I also received a bonus while working in London (I always thought it was called "London Waiting" [1], which seems like a more accurate a reflection of their train system).

I think it was £3000, which was a large amount back then.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_weighting

Javascript.

I started in Microsoft development and saw code that made me cry. I switched to Java because developers with self respect wrote elegant code in Java. But Java frustrated me because of the effort to result ratio; for the amount of time I would spend coding and configuring, I had very little to show for it. I like to build things quickly and see people interact with them heavily. Javascript gives me both of these.

And it's becoming more adopted as the lingua franca of app development; I can write server side code, rich client web interfaces, and native mobile apps using nothing but Javascript as the coding language.

There are ways of getting around it. Travel to S.E Asia and meet some expats who have retired there. For some countries this is easier to get around than others. Mostly, people just do border runs when their 90 days are up.

Suggest Appcelerator or Phonegap due to your web skills and the speed with which you can pump out an app. I had a full working app in 3 months that ran on both Android and iPhone. One code base.

I would have thought that the obvious advantage of this over scooter-kid is the time saving over someone in traffic. It would take potentially half the time to deliver to some areas by air. With the major side benefit that your pizza is less soggy when it arrives, which means a noticeable improvement in product quality.

I love how much the same scene has been re-use since Blade Runner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk

I remember reading that Richard Branson does much the same. When a team gets above 20 people, he splits the team up. Similar reasons - so that the culture kept within a team was better because everyone knew each other well.

For anybody who is interested in the concept of verifiable voting protocols, and a real life election applying them, I am currently working on the front end of such an application, with the election to be held in November 2014 for our state election.

We are working with academics in Surrey, UK, and elsewhere on the cryptography and verifiability of the election. So I can't answer any of the hard questions, but can point you at some of the documentation that Surrey has developed, shown below.

Using Pret a Voter in Victorian State elections http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/726039/1/EVT.pdf

Software Design for VEC vVote System http://www.computing.surrey.ac.uk/personal/st/S.Schneider/pa...