timrosenblatt

Looks cool! I like the fresh approach.

FWIW "Billions of dollars" should be considered in the context that 1 million people * $1,000 = $1 billion. The US is ~300m people. So, this headline is something like "1/3 of 1% of the US is putting an extra $1,000 in their 401k recently" (really more like 1-2% of the _workforce_ but the point remains)

You joined HN 55 minutes ago, and posted this 2 minutes later.

This may not be the best community for you.

I use this service and I like it. Many blog posts and engineering discussions tend to treat tools in isolation -- you're learning about Redis or Rails or Ember only. Being able to meet other engineers who use the same _combination_ of tools can help you learn about higher level design patterns and the interactions between the tools.

Is "more frequent commits" really a good thing?

As one of the engineers on Ship -- woohoo!

Good point. Especially that stat, because it is so volatile. So much of the wealth is tied up in the value of companies or other complex things whose value is illiquid, and whose value can change quickly.

Still though, not like it's going to go to 50/50, 70/30, or some less-eye-popping number anytime soon.

Awesome.

Or, should I say that my self-generated perception after a compressed review of the literature has left me inclined to believe that the author is highly self-aware and wry, with their oral muscular hydrostat firmly implanted in either the left or right side of the orifice.

This is an enormously complicated question, and a good answer requires knowing a bit about your background and what you already understand about business.

As for some high level answers to your three questions:

1) They lost a lot of money, how can they function? Well, it depends on your definition of "a lot". Look at http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=amzn+Balance+Sheet&annual and you will see on the top line, at the end of 2013, Amazon had about $8.6 billion in cash. $574m is only about 6% of that.

2) Where does it get money? There are two main sources. The first is selling goods (books, etc) and services (Amazon Web Services, etc). The second is investors. Amazon owns a lot of it's own stock and if it wanted, it could sell that stock to get more cash.

3) Who invests? Lots of individuals and groups. You're not going to be able to get a list of literally every person who owns a share, but you can easily find out which groups/people own large chunks: https://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=AMZN+Major+Holders

Take my, and everyone's advice, with a grain of salt. Few people have experienced enough launches to offer a very objective view of the patterns, so you're going to have to make the decision for yourself.

As a rule of thumb, from the launches I've seen and been close to, they are not make-or-break for a company/product. You might get a bit of buzz, you might have a TC or RWW article about you, but as I think of successful startups that I didn't personally know, I can remember only a few launch days.

The important factor is in one of two categories:

1) consumer app: the app produces a TON of value, and everyone tells the people they know (viral growth)

2) business app: viral growth is a factor, but there's probably going to be a lot of sales-y activity required.

Neither of these categories are largely dependent on a launch. A launch is more important when you've already got a ton of eyeballs.

Again, this is a rule of thumb, and I'm not aware of a single person who I would say is a true expert around launches.

What do you think?

I'm sorry to hear what happened to your friend.

I have no special knowledge on the subject, but I did a quick Google search. I'm sure you might have run across some of these before, but I wanted to share them since I'm pleasantly surprised by the depth of things that are out there.

* http://www.gamespot.com/articles/modder-creates-single-hande...

* http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/1/AGS/AGS-bespoke.htm

* http://kotaku.com/he-built-a-custom-controller-to-help-disab...

* http://www.game-accessibility.com/index.php?pagefile=motoric

Akshay, it looks like you're the person who wrote this and posted it. Thank you for the contribution. It deserves to make the front page.

This is insanely important and may be the best HN link all week. Any engineer who routinely feels frustrated when working with other people should pay attention to this.

I've done engineering and sales, which are very different skillsets. More importantly, I have been mentored by other people who are world class at these respective skills, and have been very lucky to have the opportunity to learn from them.

Even though not everyone should learn to code, it is valuable to be able to put on the other person's hat.

Non-engineers need to respect that engineers deal with situations that don't happen in everyday life. An engineer is frequently presented with situations that boil down to "it does work" or "it does not work". There is no gray area, and typically the computer is not very polite in the way that it tells you that you're wrong -- errors rarely say "Hey, I hope you aren't upset about this, but something's not working right. Want to talk it through and find a solution?" Instead, we deal with messages that have the emotional sensitivity of "screw you!", or if we are lucky, "screw you! #32"

Being in this mindset all the time will condition you to thinking in a certain way, and that's what is required to program. People, on the other hand, don't work like this, and if you can see the difference and act on it, you will benefit from it.

This being HN, I'm sure curious as to how this works on an OS level. Anyone have any ideas?

Just in case you aren't using one already: https://agilebits.com/onepassword

It's ridiculously easy and worthwhile.

Cranston is the best. He is a fantastic role model for consistently showing up and putting in work, and if he's only a quarter as nice as he's been described, he'd be a fine drinking companion any day.

What are you hoping to get out of your time here? That will help people suggest activities.

Umair is a total bummer and is being misled by his own intelligence. He's Nostradamus but with better marketing.

People have been saying the world is burning for as long as there have been people, and they often have compelling arguments, yet we are still here. You'd think after 10,000 years of buying losing lottery tickets, we'd stop playing that game.

It's ok. Sometimes people just post garbage or spam, which is why new accounts are displayed in green, so we know to be cautious :)

Reddit is more of a general-audience kind of thing. It's like CNN or BuzzFeed, but the key difference is that anyone can go in and create a new group ("subreddit") to discuss whatever they want (hence the value of the community, and the potential for advertising & marketing). This ad-marketing potential is likely what's causing people to put money in.

To me, HN could be thought of as a single subreddit focused on tech-startup-business. I see political things and other non-tech-startup-business things on here sometimes, but that doesn't appear to be the priority.

Nice! This is sure to be a time savings for a lot of folks.

Why are some fields missing?

Given that you created your HN account 4 minutes ago, I'm going to give you a quick answer. If this is a real question and you post a more detailed question, I'm happy to give you more info.

Reddit is an entertainment site for me. Funny gifs, videos, etc.

HN is more about tech and the industry.

One other idea that comes to mind:

If you're talking about a company that's been around a while and has a big HR department, they're going to have a well-defined interview process, and you'll be playing by their rules.

A smaller company or a startup is more likely to be flexible, and you may be able to suggest that they give you a sample project to start. They may prefer this, as they don't have to pull an engineer off an active project to spend time interviewing you. Everyone is different, so if they don't like the suggestion, you may have to work with them.

I saw from another commenter that you are practicing your skills at working with someone. The time and energy you invest in your people skills will pay off in a lot of ways over the course of your career (and in your personal life), so it might help to think of this as an opportunity.

FWIW Here's my company's project (bottom of the page) http://cloudspace.com/hiring/

Wow, that's one big paragraph. :)

It's going to depend heavily on the companies you're applying to.

Do you have a Github account? That might help. Also if you've got a really healthy Stack Overflow account or similar, it might help change the course of your interview.

There was a thread the other day about this -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8200562 -- where the OP is trying to avoid onsite interviews, so clearly they're out there.

On another level: you should know that there's no universal consensus on how to hire developers. If you keep talking to different companies, you'll find someone that's a good fit for you in your current situation.

Keep at it, and don't get frustrated.

Nice!

BTW: I am the author of an upcoming book on technical debt. I am looking to include case studies on technical debt in the book, and am looking for situations where there technical debt had an impact of at least $1 million (either gain or loss).

I'm a regular member of the HN community, so this isn't blind spam. I would like to request that if anyone has a story like this, that you reach out to me -- tim @ my-HN-username.com . I'm happy to have a totally off-the-record discussion if that works for you.

Thanks!

First off, accept that without spending huge amounts of money to solve this problem, you're always going to have to do some cooking.

For context: I like to cook. I just generally have other demands on my time, and I need a solution for the 6 days out of the week where I just need to fuel my body.

Being a pragmatic sort of person, I understand the importance of health, so I have a few go-to meals that are delicious (so I'm never "not in the mood" for them), which meet my health needs, and are fast to prepare. The less of a picky eater you are, the better off you are. If you take this mindset far enough, you can dump a can of beans into a sauce and have a healthy-ish meal in 5 minutes.

The other thing I do is pre-cooking and storing. I seem to have a talent for making soup (it's like a really mundane superpower), and it's easy to make a ton of soup at once. I'll eat some of it for a meal on the spot, and then store the rest in the freezer. Google around for instructions on this, there are a few surprise gotchas in the process, but all easy stuff.

It depends on what exactly you're asking, and what your goals are.

Is the question: Can I earn a living wage for myself by selling my skills around setting up hardware and software for end-users?

or is the question: Can I start a company that I can grow upwards of 10+ people by providing home and small business hardware and software support?

or is the question something else?

Ultimately, the answer is "probably yes". Hardware and software is complicated. Not everyone knows everything they need. When this happens, people are typically willing to pay for qualified help.

The specific economics of this come down to the market and your costs.

Yes, you are good enough. Go apply, and never stop learning.

A more helpful answer: yes, if you've successfully done what you just said you did, you are absolutely good enough to apply for jobs. You might not get the first one, you might not get the second, but even if you don't get a job, you'll get information about what companies in your area expect (and there are very important regional differences).

Find Ruby meetups in your area. Go to them. There are many reasons why this is valuable. Trust me.

Make sure you know the libraries out there that people are using. https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/ is helpful.

Make sure you know a bunch of other programmers. Everyone gets stuck sometimes, being able to know who to turn to is important in any discipline.

Keep writing code, and keep publishing code. Practice good coding style, and ask other people for feedback.

I don't recommend the "have less scruples than the next guy" game. This is the sort of nonsense that was passed around in the 80s -- "business is war". There is an important difference between business and war: if you lose in war, you die. No second chances.

In business, if you are a tough but fair player, and you lose, you will be offered the chance to play again. If you compete in bad faith, you won't.

Your first question is "can you make a conscious effort to get better at [being resourceful]?" The answer is almost certainly yes.

Techniques for being resourceful are very specific to the individual, so what works for one person may not for another. That being said...

The first thing I would do is meditate. It is becoming trendy, but I think for a good reason. By complete coincidence, http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237313 is a news article that showed up this morning. I think if a man like Steve Jobs arranges for a book on meditation (and self-actualization) to be given to the attendees of his own funeral, that is a powerful sign.

Talk to other people about challenges you face. This sounds simple, but it is effective. Another way of saying "I need a creative solution" is "I need a solution that I wouldn't have come up with". To me, that sounds like "I need a solution someone else came up with". Every successful business leader has advisors. So should you.

There is a talk by Charlie Munger (of Berkshire Hathaway fame) about decision making. It tends to focus on mistakes, but if you know what mistakes to avoid, it can help you find the right answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqzcCfUglws

Tell me what you think about these.

spam

I take BART regularly. This is oddly haunting. :P