biggitybones

It'd be great if there was a permalink where I could go back to for the color palette (I'm in Linux, so no Photoshop for me). It would also probably reduce load as I wouldn't need to get the palette again.

Probably far too strong choice of language. It's not something I plan on doing and I'm going to edit the terms to reflect.

Sort of a line to encourage social responsibility :)

My thoughts on the potential "bubbles" aside, I find it funny how it's become a thing to try to call out bubbles that may be occurring, given the recent monumental financial collapse.

So called bubbles always exist - they're hot sectors - and then there's a self correction of varying severity.

NYC (no remote) - Factor Tree (http://thefactortree.com)

We're a young startup creating an online education platform designed to build a solid foundation in math for kids from preK to 6th grade. We're working on some cool ways to provide every student with a tailored curriculum that adapts as the student progresses.

We're looking for someone who's comfortable in Java (or very similar language) and has a good foundation in web development. You'd be working closely with the lead (only) developer to iterate as fast as humanly possible to put our product in front of kids and parents.

If you're passionate about helping kids learn, send over a few links to things you've worked on (more important) and your resume (less important) to recruiting@thefactortree.com.

My initial reaction was indifference - but it's amazing how many remote places Google has street view for. After 4-5 turns I saw remote country roads in Europe, Georgia, a path in Antarctica, etc.

It's a fun little mash-up.

NYC - Factor Tree (http://thefactortree.com)

We're a young startup creating an online education platform designed to build a solid foundation in math for kids from preK to 6th grade. We're working on some cool ways to provide every student with a tailored curriculum that adapts as the student progresses.

We're looking for someone who's comfortable in Java (or very similar language) and has a good foundation in web development. You'd be working closely with the lead (only) developer to iterate as fast as humanly possible to put our product in front of kids and parents.

If you're passionate about helping kids learn, send over a few links to things you've worked on (more important) and your resume (less important) to recruiting@thefactortree.com.

Usually when you submit something that's already been submitted semi-recently, it'll send you to that submission and up vote it automatically. It matches the URL

I'm not sure if theres a timeframe for this - I've seen it on something as long as a few months.

I stopped reading after the author cited "salary costs alone" in developing the product as a cost paid by the customer of Chargify. They're disillusioned if they feel like Chargify is somehow responsible for these costs when providing a free product.

I've been in consulting for 2 years, and switching projects is like leaving a job and starting a new one. I've gone through exactly what was described, and by 9 months it was outright defeat.

I just quit that gig for a startup and couldn't be more happier with the move. This felt like reading what's deep within my subconscious.

I think it depends a lot on the role and company size. If it's someone who's joining as a first employee and you're going to be spending 10+ hours a day in the same small office, I think it's very prudent to learn as much as possible about them and determine if you'll be able to work well with them.

If it's a larger company (read: not an earlier stage startup) then I don't think it's as necessary, but I'd still probably do it to vet them a bit.

This was posted a few weeks ago: http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html

Lot's of good stuff in there.

I agree - although I view it a bit different. I always feel a disconnect with black and white photos, as if it's something that happened centuries ago or not at all. These photos somehow make it feel more "real".

I always have trouble wording it in a way that doesn't convey that logic.. I just mean there's much more resistance to go through to vet your idea, for better or for worse. The NY tech community has a lot of the same personality as the HN community - just because you are a part of it doesn't make you less likely to succeed without it but it's great at providing guidance and critique.

I hope that clarifies, I still haven't found a great way to articulate it appropriately.

Seconded. I rarely interact with those types, and I work for a major consulting company in the city. There are multiple ways to avoid that crowd, starting with staying out of Murray Hill.

The thing I love about New York is the inherent challenge. You're among some of the most competitive people in the world who love nothing more than to squash your idea. And if you manage to convince those people or rise from their negativity, you know you're onto something.

I view it in many ways as its own little market economy with (close to) perfect competition among commodities. If something facing fierce competition (like restaurants, for example) can hold its own, you know there's some quality behind it.

Whenever I read these articles debating the value of a college degree (which I think this article isn't about, but that seems to be the way everyone is interpreting it), the argument is always treated as a black and white issue and it's not.

There are a few types of people that go through college in different ways. You have intelligent people that have learned how to "excel" well, who fit the bill of the subject of the NY Times article. They get through with a decent GPA, party hard, and get a corporate job. You have intelligent people that thrive in the learning environment that college affords, and they gain a lot out of it. Their work ethic takes them places, and some develop that work ethic in college. I'm one of the latter, so call me biased towards it. Then there are the hard working, intelligent people who feel caged from the curriculum. These are the people who question the value.

The problem with the people that already have the strong work ethic and intelligence is that they assume that everyone is like those peers in the first group that simply go through the motions, and its not a question of whether they should have went to school but how they approached it. These are the loudest voices against the higher ed system.

It's undoubtedly a broken system, but inherent value exists for some. I think we'll see a revolution in higher education, hopefully sooner than later and ideally these issues are rectified.

Absolutely. Its always a balance.. I'm speaking more towards avoiding the lavish lifestyle of club bottle service, expensive cars and other luxuries. Its the expensive car payment and mortgage or rent that gets you in trouble.

Can't emphasize this enough. I've talked to countless people unhappy in their career that can't get out of it because of a family and an addiction to their current lifestyle. They continued to expand their spending as their income incremented, leaving them in a risk averse position.

The lesson I take from every conversation I have with these people is live simply and lean even as your income grows, and when you have that great idea or urge to try something radically different, you can.

The font doesn't anti-alias in WinXP (Firefox) - hard to read especially at smaller sizes.

Spot on. If TwitPic is satisfying its users, they won't export to Posterous and stay put. This just looks bad on the part of TwitPic, as they're using legal threats to prevent users from making this choice.

I understand the anger/outrage towards him for what on the surface seems irresponsible. But is it necessary to completely rip him apart repeatedly on Twitter, write a long, harsh blog post, and post insulting comments to hacker news?

He seemed to have screwed up. Big Time. I get it. But come on, be a little professional or at the very least, wait for the full story.

I think a lot of us can empathize with this theory. Motivation increases as a tangible milestone is in the near term and if nothing is within a reachable distance it becomes increasingly difficult to start down the path. It's similar in concept to all of the problems people have completing a project because the end goal is no where in sight.

The interesting part is how you use this theory to help the impoverished. Can you just throw specific vouchers at the situation to alleviate some of the problems, as the end of the article suggests? I don't think this is feasible - it moderately resembles the Gulf coast debacle right now. Sure you can stop some of the problems, but rarely does it solve everything.

The book sounds interesting, but all the reviews state that the author lacks data to back up his intuitive claims. I'd love it if he could provide some hard evidence to the theory, though I bet the most intuitive social claims often are hard to prove scientifically.

I just watched this one a few days ago... probably one of the best TED talks I've seen. It's amazing the way she could remember and understand what she was going through and explain it as she does in this talk.

I think his argument comes off as too utopian for me to accept. Like everyone else has said, of course people will want to exploit an easy loophole on someone who has a bit of exposure.

I think Posterous hasn't grown to a point where they have to worry about it yet, but look at the exploits on Wordpress. They're much more advanced and hackers continually attempt to break in for fun or for abusive reasons. It's naive to assume that you can simply keep this convenience as a security trade off as the product gains the attention of the world.

I saw this at the New York Tech Meetup and thought it looked awesome. I think he said the waiting list is something on the order of 10,000 people (but he's letting in a bunch every day).

He couldn't have explained it better - it's a place where developers can feel comfortable posting code and tech advice among their techy friends. Great idea, and awesome design as well.

Great idea, for both these companies and consumers.

Kind of odd though to have 4 products that last an entire year, 1 for 6 months, and 1 for 2 months.

This article is infuriating. They're effectively trying to social engineer these kids to prevent a few side effects that are crucial in their development.

Why is it that we think that kids are somehow meaner now than they were at any other point?

This is a great real world example of why you shouldn't pay attention to what your competitors are doing, but develop your own product the way you envision it.

Regardless of their intent, the truth of the matter is it looks like they're leaving behind the simplicity that made them successful because a competitor is gaining market share.

This is one of the best (and easiest to read) articles on pricing I've ever come across. No formulas, no complexities explaining A/B tests and other scientific research, just a story of a guy who made some software and heavily underpriced it.

I also found the link to indie theatre incredibly interesting as well.

This seems like it's trying to build public services based off of the data in the cities' systems. On top of that, I think it's more of a non-profit so I'm assuming (and perhaps incorrectly) that they'd be more welcome as a partner.

My thought is this is to spread some of the openness that cities like SF and NYC (albeit at a much smaller level) have started.

What's interesting to me is whether our values will change as this content essentially becomes widely available and free.

Currently, we have a perceived value of something based on its cost (see any web app pricing article). Will this evaporate as almost all content becomes free? Will our perceived value based on cost be replaced by some ranking system that Adams alludes to as "better search"?

This is the second variable that I think many people miss when they talk about the inevitable shift to free content as a negative thing for consumers.