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jdwhit2

159 karma · joined November 12, 2011

Hi I'm Jervis. I co-founded a small but successful electrical power systems consultancy in Australia.

I write about the electrical power system and global electricity markets at http://www.whit.com.au/blog/

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jdwhit2··on What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
I read some of the comments on that video, many look similar in style talking about a 'scam', or have a negative tone. Is it possible those are planted from a competitor, or do video ads often have feedback like that?
jdwhit2··on Steal this idea: A simple affiliate system for Stripe-powered saas apps
This is what I originally thought referly was offering. How many others thought this?
jdwhit2··on Simple Helper to Extract Values from a String
This examples looks like it covers a large number of cases:

      extractValues('John Doe <john@example.com> (http://example.com)', '{name} <{email}> ({url})')
    >> {'name': 'John Doe', 'email': 'john@example.com', 'url': 'http://example.com' }
What kinds of problems would you run into vs using regex? My thoughts were that you lose some control of your matches.
jdwhit2··on Energy companies 'overcharge customers by £600m'

  The Government believes companies have been “profiting
  unfairly at the expense of [the] consumer” by overloading 
  the national grid with electricity.
Does anyone know any more about this? It seems the companies were exploiting compensation payments made for having to reduce the output of their wind farms near Scotland.
jdwhit2··on Google Keeps Paying Deceased Employees' Families for a Decade
The report says that people require life insurance, because the financial burden on their family after death is too high for them to afford.

It also says that purchasing life insurance is a cheaper alternative than building the required savings to cover the family's financial burden after losing the main breadwinner.

The report was written by Swiss Re.

jdwhit2··on A calculator that only shows the answer after you give a suitable estimate

  The tolerance - how far out one may be for the estimate to be accepted and the answer shown - must at all times appear reasonable ... The student should never feel that an estimate was unreasonably rejected, and on the other hand should not find an odd guess being accepted
The inventor had considered this question for 14 years while developing this calculator.
jdwhit2··on A primer on Python decorators
Great primer, reading it gives a good sense for why the decorator syntax was made and the potential uses. Is this part of a wider series you are running?
jdwhit2··on Ask HN: How do you find development positions in other countries.
Our niche is in electrical power systems. We're moving to Germany for a few months this European Summer to build some relationships and learn more about how things are run (compared to Australia). This is the procedure we've been following to make contacts before we leave:

- Find local (Australian) companies with a presence or relationship in Germany - Take their senior engineers or managers out for coffee (a phone call or email invitation normally does the trick) - Talk to them about their experiences with Germany and ask who they'd recommend we contact there. - Send an email to their contact, explain that we'll be in their town on X dates would they like to meet?

In your situation. You've found a job fair participant; what do you do next?

jdwhit2··on Work hard and play hard, but never do both at the same time
Sounds great, checked out your trackme app. Who is your targeted niche? Would I use this to track my daily jogs?
jdwhit2··on The Dumbing Down of Silicon Valley
Maybe hackers all across America will see the show, be inspired, and come flocking to Silicon Valley - solving your skills shortage problem?
jdwhit2··on Encourage two of your Linkedin connections to join for a lunch
I know two friends that should join me for lunch. How does youguysshouldlunch work? Normally I'd give them a call or email and say "lunch is on me" or "I saw a new restaurant on X street, want to have lunch?".
jdwhit2··on My wife used Dressrush's pitchdeck project to build her landing page
Also used Wufoo for the contact form. They were really great to work with.
jdwhit2··on Networking Tips From The Ultimate Networker
The best networking tip is to be a good mate and continue to catch up with your old colleagues. That's what Reid Hoffman suggests.
jdwhit2··on Show HN: Every footy team's scores ... except yours
We built this for a mate who loves English premier league (soccer) and tapes all of the Arsenal games. He wanted to know the scores of the other teams without spoiling his match.

We extended it the other day to grab Australian Football scores for another mate.

Are there any other leagues that people want to see represented?

This was built using Twitter bootstrap and the bottle.py web framework.

jdwhit2··on Thoughts About Datomic
How does the transactor represent a single point of failure? Would it be possible to have two transactors?
jdwhit2··on [Infographic] How to Write the Best Call to Action Emails
Who knew that your readers would be more likely to click on your messages if a button included an arrow icon?

This was referring to a study done by Digital Evolution Group for Heltzberg Diamonds. They found a similar campaign with a personalised gif in emails was effective. http://view.em.helzberg.com/?j=fe5c1677736d037e7414&m=fe...

jdwhit2··on Sharing made easy - No account required content sharing site
Where do you plan to take this?
jdwhit2··on Open source efforts of february
Are you saying that in the whole month you spend 2.5 hours on open-source. Which was really installing and looking up the docs for Wordpress?
jdwhit2··on Beginner Flask/Python Video Tutorials
This suits me as someone that already knows another Python web framework. I am struck by how similar the class based views are to the new Django ones.

Have you shown your videos to people that have never seen a web framework or Python before? What kind of feedback to they give?

jdwhit2··on Why is nobody using SSL Client Certificates?
Would this be able to handle multiple accounts for the same website? Or would you use a separate browser for each account?
jdwhit2··on Passengers pay more to jump taxi queue
The taxi industry is heavily regulated throughout Australia. The article points out how the powerful lobby group controlled by a few big players makes competition difficult for new entrants.
jdwhit2··on The Github profile as a resume mentality
I really like it when someone takes the time to package up their experience into a form that is easy to understand. A github profile as a resume could feel like that person hasn't taken the time to show why we need them. When there is only one job vacant the best pitch wins.
jdwhit2··on Ask HN: How to report hours as a contractor?
Be diligent in describing how the time you have spent has resulted in a benefit for your client.

I found that our clients are interested in quarter of day granularity. E.g

  Thursday 2nd Feb 2012, 4 hours, Installing and configuring Operations' Team new Wiki website.
  Thursday 2nd Feb 2012, 3.5 hours, Fixed problem where the CEO's iPhone wouldn't sign in to the reporting website.
To see what works for you, send your client your best effort on a time sheet for the first two days or so, and get their feedback. Its better than waiting an entire month to find out your reporting process isn't up to scratch.
jdwhit2··on Amazon mirrors wikipedia as a "Shopping enabled wiki"
Do you know if this is an experiment or a real product Amazon has developed. I can't tell which, because I couldn't find an 'about' page or similar.

As developed now, I find it difficult to navigate around the site as easily as the original wikipedia because the search and navigation headers have been removed.

jdwhit2··on Why I Switched to Octopress
This answers my question, thanks. I wanted to know if you had set up your own customised flow for publishing.
jdwhit2··on Why I Switched to Octopress
What is your process for publishing new blog posts or editing an old one?
jdwhit2··on Long range WiFi antenna from Illy coffee can
This is like the modern equivalent of the baked bean can telephones we made as kids. Would this improve the reception where line of site is obstructed by a tree or a wall?
jdwhit2··on Use Facebook and LinkedIn to find an airline seatmate goes live: KLM Meet & Seat
Is this from the same people behind the social airport concept that was pitched during the office hours at Techcrunch's conference?
jdwhit2··on How to develop disruptive ideas
figure out the assumptions that everyone in the industry makes ... Start overturning those assumptions

The example given, of red bull disrupting soda is well placed. The author writes that the inventors inverted the norm and created an expensive poor tasting drink. Instead, I would have said that the goal of red bull was to create a drink with a huge energy boost and in the process created its own energy boost drink market.

At the time, the mainstream soda market valued the established flavours, and perhaps trending toward lesser levels of sugar. This red bull type drink in no way satisfied the mainstream. It is only later, once the market size had grown that coke enters with their own product, but by then it is too late. The startup red bull already has taken the lions share of the now larger market.

jdwhit2··on German hackers plan DIY space program
Can anyone attempt to send a rocket into space? Or are there designated launch pads and clearance times?
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