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jwarzech

280 karma · joined December 15, 2009

Software Developer, technology enthusiast, and HN lurker.

http://github.com/jwarzech http://twitter.com/jwarzech

Co-Founder of backstitch http://backstit.ch

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jwarzech··on Mozilla launches new brand identity
Wow - this is actually sort of cringey. Reminds me a lot of what aol tried to do several years ago; manufactured coolness. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/aol_gene...
jwarzech··on Show HN: Automatic tool to summarize any text, document, or URL
I'm always on the lookout for better summarization tools but this one seems to give similar results to some of the popular ones out there (like smmry).

We've recently started working with the Stride.ai API (http://stride.ai/) and the results definitely stand out from some of the classic algorithms.

jwarzech··on Skully has crashed and burned
In the U.S. lane splitting is only legal in certain states.
jwarzech··on Animagraffs
These are really cool! However I wish some of them animated a little slower or let me select a section to animate at a time.
jwarzech··on Font Awesome Black Tie
Appreciate all your've done with Font Awesome...just not sure about black tie (while I get that it loads fast cutting points such as the star example IMHO makes the icons look odd like an images missing anti-aliasing).
jwarzech··on Font Awesome Black Tie
I love Font Awesome and use it all the time....but this campaign is to help fund development of a "somewhat faster" commercial licensable version of existing icons?

I would be a lot more apt to donate if this was just to help fund Dave to make more icons freely available.

jwarzech··on Elasticsearch Raises $70 Million
We have actually been using elasticsearch as our main data storage at backstitch for almost a year now. How I usually explain its awesome power is (1) take the schemaless nature of MongoDB, (2) add the indexing power of Lucene, (3) and give it the flexible scaling of Riak.

The documentation is also fantastic and the plugin availability pretty good.

jwarzech··on Should you do a startup with your spouse?
The best thing we found is making sure to try take an hour a day, usually before going to sleep to do something by ourselves in a separate room - we call it our sanity check.

Might be as simple as she will go watch an episode of something on Netflix and I'll go play a couple rounds of a videogame. During crunch times its not always feasible but its something we feel strongly about and try to make the effort to do.

We recently doubled our team size and are trying to make "having a sanity check" and part of our developing company culture - it works wonders not only for working together but for helping prevent burnout in general.

jwarzech··on Should you do a startup with your spouse?
Great way to visualize skillset match for co-founders, I however feel that this isn't isolated to doing a startup with a spouse but with any co-founder choice; making sure you have the right skill balance.

Since starting backstitch (http://backstit.ch) with my wife we constantly get this question: "How do you work so well together?" We really don't see it different than if we were just two best friends from college that decided to start a startup.

We were used to working together on projects in school and post graduation weekend hacks. Our careers led us to work on different things and pick up different expertise (font-end design vs operations vs data analysis, ect.) Yes you need to consider thing such as establishing a work vs personal relationship but the same is true when going into business with a close friend as many people do.

jwarzech··on iGoogle switched off
Full disclosure I'm the founder of this product (hey its hacker news) but a lot of people have been using http://backstit.ch as an alternative rather than a direct replacement for iGoogle (and google reader).

Rather than just show snippets from different sites we analyze the content so you can easily filter or even create automatically curated pages around your favorite topics.

You can check out a topic page without signing up here: http://backstit.ch/topics/117/TrackingFukushimaDisaster

jwarzech··on Introducing Rubinius X
This. I think of any of the comments so far you express what I'm seeing as well (I know 'use case of 1'). Distributed & modularized apps where each component uses the language/framework best suited for the job.
jwarzech··on DDoS attacks against Zerigo DNS services
We got bit by the DNSimple outage so we switched to Zerigo. Glad I left DNSimple running as a backup!
jwarzech··on DNSimple target of DDoS attack
Our site (and others) seem to still be working through the 'www' domain. We have had nothing but great experiences with DNSimple up to this point and will probably stay customers, just sort of frustrating as we wait for our domain to resolve to another dns provider as a quick fix...
jwarzech··on Detroit's Decaying Old Train Station Has 5 New Windows and No One Knows Why
"...former train station"

It hasn't been operational since the late-80s

jwarzech··on Detroit's Decaying Old Train Station Has 5 New Windows and No One Knows Why
Will be interesting to see if anything starts moving with this. I drive by it everyday (our office is downtown Detroit) and it never ceases to amaze me how you can practically 'see-through' the building with all the windows missing.
jwarzech··on 2x Dynos enter General Availability
HireFire is fantastic (can't recommend it enough for people using Heroku). We use it at backstitch (http://backstit.ch) and it has saved us a ton of cash early-on.
jwarzech··on Google Reader shutting down
Sorry to hear about that. If you get a chance please shoot an email to team@backstit.ch and we can take a look at fixing the issues you are experiencing or help you with your account further.
jwarzech··on Google Reader shutting down
Definitely interesting the trend that Google is following, first with iGoogle and now Reader.

With backstitch (http://backstit.ch) we get questioned a lot why Google is no longer supporting these types of services (and if this means there is no opportunity there since they aren't worried about it anymore). We honestly feel like there is a lot of surface left uncovered when it comes to personalized/streamlined content and it just doesn't seem to be part of Google's refocusing (this has been seen with the shutting down of a lot of their lab projects as well).

jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
If anyone is still interested in invites, backstitch (http://backstit.ch) still has a bunch to hand out.
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
Sent!
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
No problem! I am excited to see more people talking on App.net
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
Sent you an invite!
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
Sent you one courtesy of backstitch!
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
We are sending them out as quick as we can! :)
jwarzech··on As of today, App.net is a freemium service
For those wanting to jump onto App.net backstitch (http://backstit.ch) has over 100 invites to give out.
jwarzech··on Ask HN: Tools of the trade, 2013 edition
Awesome to hear that your using backstitch! (I'm one of the Co-Founders). If you get a chance I would love to talk with you about how your using it and what you would like to see from the service. Please feel free to ping me at jordan [AT] backstit.ch
jwarzech··on Why You Should Work From A Coffee Shop, Even When You Have An Office
For about a year I worked from home and due to impending cabin fever I decided to give coffee shops a try. It was super loud and I always felt like I had to keep moving and buy something. It was just distracting.

I then rediscovered my local library and was amazed. Fast Wifi, Keurig machine, and private study rooms that I could take for the entire day. I was even more amazed at how many people use it as a 'co-working space', one guy would even come in everyday and even set up his VOIP office phone.

jwarzech··on Ask HN: Is app.net worth it?
I've actually noticed that the low amount of noise (as well as the higher character limit) has caused me to have better conversations than I've ever had on Twitter.
jwarzech··on Microsoft opens its own social network
They definitely need a better way to determine what content gets featured on the front page of their site.....the first image was a nsfw collection...
jwarzech··on Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser
I've only really seen screenshots of metro but this app looks like a bad recreation. Are the colors usually that bright and are the fonts that padded?
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