rick888

Most people won't think anything you are doing is "real work" until you are making a substantial income.

I think every developer that wants to go out on their own has the idea to start a consulting company (I did too). I will never do it again because of the reasons listed.

I also had problems getting customers to pay me on time (and some at all). Some realized we weren't a big company and figured we wouldn't have the money to go after them in court.

Customers also loved to completely change the spec halfway through the project and then get angry when we tried to charge them more money.

Why does it not surprise me that Germany is helping with new toilet technology.

This just validates your idea. There are always better ways to market a product and make it unique enough to win over your competition. It sounds like they still have a small team, so if you want your own company, just keep working on your own project.

It just means there is more work ahead of you.

What do you expect to get if you join their team? They already have a product in place with a pretty big community, the only thing you can really expect at this point is to be an employee. Your "piece of the pie" will be your monthly salary. This will also destroy your chances of starting your own company (mostly because they will have an NDA/Non-compete)

As I get older, I've realized that my time is much more valuable than money to me. I've had a few jobs where I needed to work 12 or 14 hour days..but I won't do that anymore...unless it's for my own company.

This is the problem with working on a startup while you are working a full-time job...you are essentially working all the time.

I can't imagine having a wife+kid to deal with too.

This is why I quit my main job to pursue my startup (with a year of savings). I now have time for my friends and personal life and can work on my own company.

I know it may not be possible in your position, but this is what you eventually need to do.

yeah, well pirating software, music, and movies isn't free speech either.

so..where are all the free speech advocates when someone willfully violates the GPL?

I gave up on getting freelance clients through craigslist a long time ago. Most are bottom-of-the barrel clients that want a ton of work for very little money. Either that or they don't want to pay you after you've finished (and want a ton of features for the same price).

There needs to be a site that not only has a rating system for freelancers, but one for the companies paying them.

I wonder how long it will be before China decides to take away their right to protest and the freedom of the press...

It is an exchange, but hackers are having a field day. People are realizing what the world realized many years ago: we need banks. I feel like bitcoin is going through all of the growing pains and making the same exact mistakes we already learned about currency.

It seems they like to use this term, so bitcoin can claim it's still decentralized.

Since it's obvious we do need banks for bitcoin (or a safe way to store our currency) and it's not very anonymous, what's the point of using it again?

I would rather just use credit cards or cash.

technically, you are when you are looking for a job. You need to market and sell yourself to the highest bidder.

One more reason why you shouldn't base your entire business on Twitter or Facebook. They have the power to shut you down in a second.

IF you want to see a documentary without the pumped up drama, check out "chasing ghosts". Not as good as King of Kong, but still interesting.

but you can still get people to your site through any means (not just Google). If you build a Facebook or Twitter app, and either of those companies compete with you, change their apis, ban you, your company is pretty much finished.

This is why I don't waste any time writing those kind of apps.

Haven't these guys gotten enough?

If they really had talent, they would have moved on years ago and started a successful company.

the news?

"The passive aggressive thing has been much, much more prevalent amongst nerds, in my experience, compounding the problem"

For me, it's been nerds and women.

I love meetup, but they never got any feedback on the new design change they made a few months back. Many people weren't happy with this (including me).

I think they probably spent too much money on it and there were infrastructure changes that made it impossible to turn-back.

I don't think so. There has definitely been an increase in breakins in the past few months.

good, I'm glad. I hope when articles pop up about piracy, more people agree that it isn't just bits being transferred.

I second Taipei. You also won't have to worry about the government filtering your Internet access.

"People were misconstruing our acceptance of Bitcoins as an endorsement of Bitcoin"

They may not think so, but buy accepting it, they are endorsing it.

Bitcoins are just bits on a computer and aren't physically taken away like a car or a quarter...so I don't think you can call it "stealing"

The problems here with Bitcoin come across as the same problems with piracy:

Bitcoin are just bits on a computer.

Just like piracy, when we copy bits from one place to another, is it really "stealing"?

Anyone that says "yes", better double-check their stance on software piracy as well.

How much do you have in savings?

I did this as well, but I had about 8 months to a year in savings.

1Password has saved me so much time. It has a nice search feature that allows you to just start typing the domain (or name) of the password you saved and then click it, and it will auto-fill and login.

I am a freelancer and I maintain about 50+ sites (most of those are cpanel logins). I don't know what I would do without a password manager.

I used keepass for awhile too, but it's too buggy and just doesn't work as well.

further making my point..thanks :-)

afraid? silence the opposition

...you mean the ridiculous amount of people that misread my comments? I never said ALL and I never equated it to piracy.

To me, because everyone is so jumpy about it..it means I'm probably correct....just sayin