1,583 karma · joined December 29, 2008
I did originally censor the title, but someone (moderator?) changed it to uncensored. There appears to be no way to censor URLs. There have been a few stories on HN that hit the front page with "foul language" in them. It would be nice to have a NSFW category/option.
Eventually I started reading some of the comments in detail, thought one was pretty good, but subconsciously still saw a "1" next to it. I didn't vote and moved on. By the third or fourth time I did this, I asked "Why isn't anything good getting votes?" After a closer look, seeing that there was no "1", it was obvious my subconscious was fooling me.
Expectedly, I'm more inclined to read a comment with a high score since it's filtered. Not surprising. But this was striking; I'm more inclined to "vote" for something if it already has a high score, regardless of its content. It's a popularity-based multiplier effect.
It would be interesting to see what happens to the "bell-curve" of vote distribution as vote count remains hidden (mean/median/mode/standard deviation). I'd predict that highly-voted comments won't be as common, and maybe lesser-voted comments might get more votes.
Has anyone else noticed or experienced this? Or maybe something else entirely?
This is very time-consuming to do, however. Writing a detailed response is costly and repetitive. Pressing "downvote" is easy. You punish the commenter, but don't tell him/her why; it's up to them to figure it out on their own, which is sometimes difficult/impossible from their perspective.
An idea:
If you downvote, you have to pick a reason why you downvoted from various options (e.g. drop-down list, checkboxes). If you pick something, your downvote is cast. If you don't do anything, the downvote isn't cast.
In the options, you can list ~10-20 reasons to downvote (too mean, off topic, etc...). Select one or more items from the list, and submit it. What was selected appears in a "voting stats" page/section for said comment. Then the user can then get the gist of why they were downvoted, perhaps with a generic message saying how they could improve in the future.
The downside is that it might required a re-direct if you downvote (might be annoying on iPad/mobile devices), and it'll also take longer to downvote. I don't think the latter will be an issue since downvoting is rare, and I'd imagine people would be willing to fill out a quick web-form if they really think something deserves negative karma.
I did it mainly to limit liability, among other reasons. However a little while after forming, I spoke to a lawyer and he said that it basically doesn't limit you from being sued personally. You "can" attempt to deflect personal lawsuits with the LCC (easiest if you keep its finances/files/bank-account separated from your personal stuff, which I did), but it's no guarantee.
He basically advised me that forming the LLC was a waist of money in my situation, and I would have been better off simply as a sole-proprietor (e.g. DBA - doing-business-as). From the IRS's perspective, I was treated as a sole-proprietor for tax purposes (they don't recognize LLC's for single individuals). Of course by then, it was too late to easily dissolve the LLC and "switch" it to a DBA, so it was money wasted.
What annoyed me the most is the same problem Hamza had in the article. You have to pay money to dissolve a business! Really? REALLY?!? Obviously the business failed, or is being abandoned, because it didn't make enough money. Charging a "death tax" on a business seems pretty harsh. I understand if there's a filing fee of $20 or $30, but anything higher than that is ridiculous. Delaware wanting $1,600 from Hamza is downright insane. Perhaps there's more work involved dissolving a C-Corp than an LLC, but still, $1,600 is ridiculous.
Charging a business death-tax reduces seed capital needed to form a new business. Second, it reflects badly on the state, reducing the likelihood of incorporating in it again. Lastly, why not ignore paying the fee altogether, declare bankruptcy, and waste the time/money of the court system dealing with it all? I'm not sure about the legal implementations of that, but it might be a valid option if the C-Corp has no assets left. AFAIK you cannot ask shareholders to pay for it since they're legally shielded from the debts of a C-Corp.
You of 10 Years Ago != You of Today
People change with time, and are not necessarily the same as they were in the past. Forming a collective of ones entire life and cherry-picking various moments simply gives you highlights, both good and bad. They don't speak to what the person is right now.
Probably your best bet to gage someone is to look at what they've been doing recently, going back maybe no more than ~5 years. Here you'll see someone whose learned from their past mistakes, likely acting differently due to life lessons, and are essentially the most authentic "version" of a person they currently are.
NYT Home Delivery: https://www.nytimesathome.com/
WSJ.com Pricing Page: https://order.wsj.com/sub/f3
Both of them suck because it's not easy to figure out how much you'll actually pay annually. They purposely bury the actual subscription cost behind "details" hover-bubbles, and only explicitly show you limited-time rates which are far cheaper than what you'll actually pay in the long run. Basically, it's a signal that they're afraid to tell customers how much they actually cost.
WSJ
Year 1 Year 2 Diff
Online $103.48 $155.48 50%
Print $119.08 $363.48 205%
Online/Print $139.88 $441.48 215%
iPad App $207.48 $207.48 0%
DUAL-PLANS REQUIRED:
Online/iPad $310.96 $362.96 17%
Print/iPad $326.56 $570.96 75%
Onl/Pri/iPad $347.36 $648.96 86%
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NYT
Year 1 Year 2 Diff
Online/Mobile $183.96 $195.00 6%
Online/Tablet $243.96 $260.00 7%
Online/All $423.96 $455.00 7%
10001 (NYC, NY):
Print (S-Sun) $289.80 $327.60 13%
Print (M-Fri) $285.20 $322.40 13%
Print (F-Sun) $349.60 $395.20 13%
Print (7 day) $538.20 $608.40 13%
90120 (LA, CA):
Print (Sun) $345.00 $390.00 13%
Print (M-Fri) $340.40 $384.80 13%
Print (F-Sun) $478.40 $540.80 13%
Print (7 day) $680.80 $769.60 13%
The NYT print subscription includes free online/smartphone/tablet access (All Digital Access). It's actually cheaper to subscribe to some Print plans to gain All Digital Access, than it is to just go digital!
Online/All $423.96 $455.00
Print (S-Sun) $289.80 $327.60 NYC
Print (M-Fri) $285.20 $322.40 NYC
Print (F-Sun) $349.60 $395.20 NYC
Print (Sun) $345.00 $390.00 LA
Print (M-Fri) $340.40 $384.80 LA
1) Give generic information away for free (e.g. Reuters stories).
2) Place any unique, WSJ-only content, behind a pay-wall.
The #2 category is where the money's at, but only if the information is worth something to those buying it. For the WSJ, you have extremely wealthy business people needing detailed info about the economy, and the WSJ is the only place that delivers it. Their pay-wall easily succeeds; high demand for a scarce piece of information, coupled with disposable income to buy it.
How does the WSJ get #2 content? Intimate relationships with corporate executives who don't have all day to talk to dozens of news outlets. Investigative reporting focused on business. Creating unique niche stories which you can't find anywhere else. For example, check out "Off Screen, Porn Sites Trick Advertisers", a pay-wall article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870489360457620...
Now search for the story on Google News. 22 hits, none of them relevant, except for the same WSJ article above! The story isn't anywhere else because the WSJ created it. If you're in the online porn business, you're probably signing up for a paid account right about now.
WSJ HACK: If you click on the link in the Google News search results, you'll get free access to the whole article! :) It's the same URL as above, but WSJ.com knows you're coming from Google, and gives you free access. They likely do this for marketing/promotional reasons, and non-tech-savy users won't usually be aware of it.
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The issue with the NYT.com is, while they do create unique content, it's not typically the type of content people want to buy. What's more important to you, a story about a competitor for your business dollars, or an article about which wine tastes best? Are you selling aspirin or vitamins? Aspirin cures pain right now, where vitamins makes you feel a little bit better about your future self.
A few years ago the NYT put their Op-Ed pieces behind a pay-wall, but eventually realized it didn't work:
The paper has tried a pay wall before. In 2005, it rolled out “Times Select” whereby it cordoned off access to op-ed columnists like Thomas Friedman and to archived stories and other features. That strategy generated around $10 million a year. But it was considered a failed experiment, and the Times dropped the wall in September 2007. - http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100120/the-new-york-times-...
Op-Ed is arguably their most unique content, but it wasn't really valuable for their readers. To charge for content, they need unique information that isn't available anywhere else, which is also valuable enough for their customers to pay for. Op-Ed pieces met the first criteria, but not the second.
Perhaps their best way to charge for stuff is to augment it. Shoot a video for every free article, placing it behind a pay-wall. Some people like to watch instead of read. Have a pay-walled "additional details" section, outlining some additional facts not covered in the free article. Subscribers could be the only ones allowed to talk to reporters directly, asking them questions and getting feedback. Stories appear 4 hours earlier for subscribers. I'm brainstorming here (lots of crap, I know).
They're in a tough situation. I think most newspapers have realized that the 40-50% margins from twenty years ago are gone for good. It may be that most of the industry, outside of a niche few, are going to get stuck with much tinier margins indefinitely.
1) Question with answer. 2) Question with no answer. 3) Question with answer, but answer was poor/incomplete/wrong/lacking. 4) Different Question than what I was searching for (irrelevant if answered).
I'd argue the issue is with search results, not always Yahoo Answers. #1 should always appear in search results. #2-3-4 never should. #2 should be easy to filter out. #3 and #4, that's the tough part. Maybe they can appear in search results, but not page one.
Every time you run into #2-3-4, you waste the users time (scarce resource). The more you do this, the greater resentment users have towards Yahoo Answers/Google. If #2-3-4 are occurring ~50% of the time, that's a lot waste. If it's in the 10-20% range, annoying, but not terrible. Less than that and you're doing a "good" job.
The responsibility falls on the shoulders of Yahoo, but also Google:
- If Yahoo reduces #3, search results will be less polluted.
- Stack Exchange does a better job with #3. Their community/insentive-system works.
- Google needs algorithms to eliminate/reduce #2-3-4.
If Google can't do that, they should measure how much time Yahoo Answer's wastes of their users. If it's large, consider de-indexing YA, but that's a nuclear step.
I think it's safe to agree that, as a collective, Stack Exchange has "better" answers than Yahoo, but users don't feel the averages when searching via Google. An answer is an answer, regardless of where it comes from. Google's job should be to present #1 and filter out #2-3-4. YA's/SE's job should be to eliminate #3, and their reward for doing so will mean more satisfied traffic from Google.
We're not sure what the litmus test is for their accounting practices. We're not even sure if Xcode falls into that category (e.g. maybe they're charging $5 for it now because they want to). It would be nice if Apple shared their accounting algorithm as that would clarify things.
Click: Click here to see a demo!
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Recently I finished a CSS book, maybe 500 pages long. About 80 or so pages were dedicated to "and to get this to work in IE6, you have to do this hack." IE7 maybe had 10 pages, and IE8/Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Opera were merely footnotes sprinkled about.
The exception to that is if you have a lot of cash, and are willing to hire someone to build something for you. That's very expensive of course, since you're competing with companies offering them $80k - $150k+ /yr. jobs plus benefits. You can find cheaper labor, but you'll get what you pay for.
Have lots of fun learning! Programming can be extremely rewarding! :)
"Django" is actually trademarked by The World Company Incorporation: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4007:a1...
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: DOWNLOADABLE OPEN SOURCE COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH INTERNET PUBLISHING AND WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT. FIRST USE: 20050719. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050719
EDIT (example): http://dave-gallagher.net/pics/hnVote.gif
1. File -> Preferences -> Show Develop menu in menu bar
2. Develop -> Disable JavaScript
This was not my experience at UMass Lowell's undergraduate College of Management program (graduated 04). One of my professors was CEO of a manufacturing company in South Korea, teaching at the same time because he loved to teach. Another one came directly from Gillette (now P&G) and shared tons of personal experiences which were extremely insightful. A third professor was a consultant to numerous companies. I can go on and on, but virtually all of my professors had strong ties to the business world, and that made them extremely good teachers. While I can't speak of their MBA program specifically, many of my professors taught those courses too.
There were some academic professors, but they were the exception rather than the rule. In fact, come to think of it, I can't name one of the top of my head. In other departments, sure, but not in their management program.
I think it's safe to say that every college is different, and you'll get a unique mix of backgrounds and experiences from Professors pending on where you go. There very well may be academic-only business schools, but that's not everywhere. Some schools are terrible, while others are great.
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One thing that I wish I had more exposure to in college was working directly with businesses. There were internship programs, but during my Junior/Senior year the economy was utter crap, and opportunities were virtually non-existant. As you pointed out this is something you see in medical and legal education, and I wish I saw more of it in business school. I agree with you that it's an area that needs improvement if it hasn't been universally implemented yet.
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(A) The prof's idea is to set up a business "from the ground" up "with a 30,000 square foot facility" and an "efficient administrative and executive structure". Uh, generally that's a lot of money spent and likely at risk before any revenue. So, it is more common in practice to start small and, if successful, then grow.
This touches on the "level of abstraction" that some business types fall into. It's basic South Park Underpants Gnomes logic: Phase 1: Collect Underpants. Phase 2: ???. Phase 3: Profit! (http://cart.mn/aYOY1h - maybe NSFW)
Basically, skip over the most difficult parts and focus on the easy ones. It's "easy" to walk out with a business degree and not understand Phase 2. Real world experience hopefully fills in that gap. Definitely another opportunity for business school improvement.
When it comes to web-startups though, I can't say this loud enough: LEARN HOW TO HACK! Otherwise you're nerfed because you can't do Phase 2.
That'll invert your screen colors, and "might" make it readable. Press the same key combo to de-invert.