alanstorm

10 ms·

31.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Don't forget that some of the original Hacker News user base is getting older and deciding to try out new things. Working for a large technology company, even if you ultimately want to strike out on your own, is a good experience and can t
32.
by alanstorm 16y ago
They're usually considered bad for the web because, if the shortening service goes away any hyperlink that used the shortener instantly breaks. Dead links are a fact of life on the web, but it's the idea that one domain-name going away woul
33.
by alanstorm 16y ago
You can tell a lot about the culture of an organization by comparing the official and unofficial duties of the CTO vs. the COO. One of the better things I've seen written about what a CTO is came from this Rands quote "There are two classes
34.
by alanstorm 16y ago
There's a (roughly) 15% tax on income that covers social security and medicare. As an employee, 7.5% of this comes out of your paycheck, and your employer has to match the other 7.5%. When you're self-employed, you need to pay both ends o
35.
by alanstorm 16y ago
It's about a New York City that's 25 years long gone, but this question, and thread, reminded of Ted Rall's recollections of driving a Cab in NYC during the early 80s http://www.rall.com/longarticle_003.htm
36.
The Great Pirates: Origins of Specialization(worldtrans.org)
2 points by alanstorm 16y ago|0 comments
37.
by alanstorm 16y ago
A day to figure out how to automate it, a few weeks of babysitting to work out the edge cases, and then however long it takes to get off Apple's blacklist for the unusual traffic pattern.
38.
by alanstorm 16y ago
People would have been miffed, and left with a iPhone that still worked (just like owners of the first generation iPhone).
39.
by alanstorm 16y ago
The Freek Geek thrift store is worth a trip, if only to view The NEXT cube they have on display.
40.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Yeah, I'm that Alan Storm. NOT the WCW scrub wrestler.
41.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Pay off your debts, if only because they're one less thing to distract from whatever you're working on at the time, and because reducing your monthly living costs will be a huge win when you start your company and/or consulting. Don't quit
42.
by alanstorm 16y ago
A+++ Would Ride Again!
43.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Also, remember that some programs don't respect the system's proxy settings and instead use their own. Firefox is one of those, you can find its proxy settings in "Advanced -> Network -> Settings"
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by alanstorm 16y ago
If this ends up becoming an industry trend it has some interesting repercussions for the music distribution industry. The combination of a compact disc's unencrypted contents plus an optical CD drive in almost every computer really helped
45.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Aren't we past the idea that "ability to instruct a computer and/or runtime via a programming language" comes with a preconceived set of personality traits? Chester describes a certain kind of programmer well, but the idea all programmers c
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by alanstorm 16y ago
This is well worth the money. A good CPA will sit down with you at tax time and walk you through everything they're doing. Even if you don't go back next year it does a lot to demystify the process, allowing you to procede more confidently
47.
In Defense of Big (37 Signals on Six Apart -- 5 years ago)(37signals.com)
2 points by alanstorm 16y ago|0 comments
48.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Smart of them to respond quickly and swiftly, but the core issue of this specific case wasn't addressed. A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business, and by all accounts wasn't aware o
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by alanstorm 16y ago
It doesn't seem like Posie's is "blaming" groupon, the owner owns up to their mistakes From http://posiescafe.com/wp/?p=316# "the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner" "we cannot afford to lose any more money on this
50.
by alanstorm 16y ago
There's an old rule of thumb I read somewhere (can't remember where) that says the maximum amount of money you could charge for "consumerish" software sold in the enterprise was the per-purchase limit on the average manager's corporate cred
51.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Good points for anyone if they're weighing the fulltime gig vs. contracting vs. consulting. However 1. The "Self Employment Tax" (in other words, FICA and Medicare) is closer to 7.5% extra for the self-employed. When you're an employee yo
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by alanstorm 16y ago
A philosophy degree?
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by alanstorm 16y ago
The unstated question Yegge is answering in that essay ( http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/lisp-is-not-acceptab... ) is "Should Industry™ choose lisp", and his answer is no. The unstated question Tim Daly is answering is "Can you, as
54.
by alanstorm 16y ago
Cribbing from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reid_(computer_scientist) ), he's five years away from the traditional US retirement age of 65, and he was a director level executive at DEC. I imagine he played the money game
55.
by alanstorm 16y ago
This reminds me of a lot of the "discussion" surrounding the Mozilla project back in the pre 1.0 days. Non Project Member makes a decent point about performance, but does so in an incredibly presumptuous, entitled, non-helpful way. Project
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by alanstorm 16y ago
Weird, it comes up fine for me http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_att_fail/all/1 stupidbrokeninternet
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by alanstorm 16y ago
Not that I don't ♥ The Gruber™, but the link should probably be pointing at the original article, as all John is doing here is quoting from the Wired piece.
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by alanstorm 16y ago
When has Negative PR kept a dominant technology company from remaining dominant?
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by alanstorm 16y ago
For a profession that's all about analyzing the impact and trade-offs involved for any particular solution, there's a massive amount of lazy and bullying writing about the various methods of software distribution that exist in 2010.
60.
by alanstorm 16y ago
I live in Portland, so I'm questioning your premise off the bat. :) I'd say freedom of movement and the ability to reasonably exercise that freedom is the right, which governments legally support by creating/maintaining/policing the roads.

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