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ryanelkinson Paul Graham : uses this.

I think that would be true for testing, but not for actual development. When I'm working I want to marginalize anything that might slow me down. You did mention the build machine should be fast - but don't most people build locally first before pushing out?

I guess it also depends on what you're building. I mostly work on stuff that isn't used by a consumer. It's going to run as a service on a machine or network of machines far more powerful than my PC. I imagine most people developing for consumers though are building websites or mobile apps. Mobile apps should be tested on a variety of devices, and it would take a pretty intense website to start bogging down most people's machines I imagine.

ryanelkinson Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

It looks like it's having a tough time with a lot of misfires (probably due to sarcasm according to the article), at least from a cursory glance at the bot's twitter feed (http://twitter.com/AI_AGW) that currently has a lot of apologies.

It's a neat idea though.

ryanelkinson The time I hacked my high school

Why would you do something so trivially traceable to you?

Mostly because I didn't think it was a big deal. I mean, I changed the default homepage, I wasn't trying to format the drive or actually do anything that could be considered harmful. I didn't feel like I had to hide what I was doing.

It's not like when I took "keyboarding" (it's like typing! but on computers!) and had to type some long paragraph 20 times. Typing it once and then copy-pasting 19 times was more "wrong" in my book.

ryanelkinson The time I hacked my high school

I remember the time I "hacked" my school library's computers. I changed the homepage on the browsers to my Geocities blog (this was almost 15 years ago). Later that day I was pulled from class by a security guard. In the library was most of campus security and most of the administrative staff. They were sure that I had put my blog on their servers and destroyed their website. They even had some teacher from the computer lab who couldn't seem to figure it out. Once I showed them how to change the homepage back (there was a tense moment when their server took forever to respond) they stopped threatening to have me arrested and made me sit quietly at a table until the period was over.

ryanelkinson How HN Helped Manpacks Take Off

This is called meal prep. There are companies like Dream Dinners and Super Suppers that do this. Usually you go and prepare the meals yourself (pick what you want and how many servings from their menu) in a few hours (to make a months worth of meals). Most places will prepare it for you too if you'd like - then you just pick it up. The meals themselves are usually ready to eat in 15-20 minutes. You usually put it in the oven or cook it on the stove top. I've done Dream Dinners before - it was OK, but the portions were a bit small for me and ultimately with my wife staying home it was easier and cheaper for her to just make meals herself.

ryanelkinson Hacking an ATM: How to Make an ATM Spew out Money

Sure, usually people that sell things like vending machines will sell the types of ATMs you see at convenience stores. They aren't quite the same as the ones the banks use, but they still hold cash.

ryanelkinson How Do You Stop Sea Captains From Killing Their Passengers?

Actually being that they are contractors, they supply that stuff themselves. My uncle had a few of those trucks that he owned and was paying drivers to operate for a while.

ryanelkinson Can you have a baby and a startup? (not easily)

I think those of us saying it's possible mean that it isn't impacting what we do in such a negative way that we feel it is altering our chances. I don't think my journey would be drastically different without kids.

If you want a concrete example though, I know both the founders of Omniture had kids on the way to their IPO and eventual $1.6 billion acquisition.

ryanelkinson Can you have a baby and a startup? (not easily)

As the co-founder mentioned above, I'll just add that it's important to have the support of your spouse. It works for us because my wife understands that I'm only going to see the baby for an hour or two if at all during the week (I help more on the weekends). My wife doesn't work and she feels lucky to be able to spend all day with our son. I think it might be harder as a baby turns into a child and wants a little more attention from both parents.

With the proper support - definitely possible. I think doing a startup as a single parent with a baby would be near impossible.

ryanelkinson Icon search engine

I'd consider paying for the ability to use some icons for commercial purposes. Perhaps you could get some sort of affiliate program going? Then you could add another rights type - 'Allowed for commercial use (purchase)' or something like that. Then you could start allowing designers to offer their icons directly. A centralized place for purchased icons would be much nicer than what you have to do now - search all over the web and trudge through lots of designer's websites to try and find what you're looking for.

ryanelkinson Reddit Founder: “I Wish I Still Owned Reddit Now”

I wonder what percentage of Reddit users run Adblock - I imagine it's much higher than your typical site.

ryanelkinson Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman

This is simply arbitrage. The book sellers don't take the time to do the research to price their books accordingly or offer them for sale online which creates a profit margin from the price difference between the two markets. He's not marking them up to some unreasonable level and controlling the book supply - he's correcting the sale price to reflect market value.

The book sellers are obviously missing potential revenue here. Eventually they might wise up and start doing this themselves, or maybe a startup will come along to help them with this, cutting guys like this out.

ryanelkinson 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature Awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa

With the English version being Paul and St.Paul.

ryanelkinson $250,000-a-day Minecraft strikes indie game gold

Here is a fanmade trailer that I think really does a good job of selling some of the appeal to this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMTedT6P0I

ryanelkinson Bike ride, accident, and ambulance trip tracked on Runkeeper

Maybe it's not so much bicycle unfriendly as pedestrian friendly, although other people in this thread have noted that sidewalks are more dangerous than roads for cyclists. It is hard for cyclists - treading that line between pedestrians and automobiles without a truly dedicated place to operate usually.

ryanelkinson Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

I want to give Scribd the benefit of the doubt. I don't really see this as malicious as much as a business decisions that was misinterpreted.

It was probably something like this: People upload a lot of stuff to their service. Once content goes "stale" no one is viewing it anymore, but they are still storing it. They decided they could either remove the material to make room for new stuff or monetize the old material in a way that justified keeping it around.

The cost of storage is pretty low so maybe I'm reaching a bit here on their behalf. I have no idea what sort of scale they are at. Perhaps I just like to believe that people aren't trying to be evil.

ryanelkinson Ask HN: First in the second league or second in the first league

I've always felt that you grow and perform best when faced with stiff competition. If no one around you is challenging you it's probably time to move on for your own sake. Otherwise you become complacent and stagnate. Even if you push yourself, you probably won't be able to push yourself harder than others would.

So, while last place in the majors might not be as much fun as first place in the minors, it does provide the best opportunity for growth. Ultimately it probably depends on your own goals.

ryanelkinson Ask HN: Review their startup - icount.com

I think the idea is interesting, I just want to see the UX developed. It's all really rough right now. The y definitely didn't wait to release before it was fully polished ;)

The big thing I see is that it's really hard to figure out what you're supposed to do on the site - or what they even expect you to do.

ryanelkinson Damning Zuckerberg IMs confirmed

Heh. Sorry for all the downvotes, I thought it was funny...

ryanelkinson Best User Interface Design Pattern Libraries

Sounds like you're looking for something a little more specific than just desktop patterns. Really, most of these patterns aren't web specific and could easily apply to desktop use as well (although the implementation would be a little different). Here is a collection of data visualization patterns, although I don't think it's based on real time data : http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/infodesignpatterns/patterns.p...

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

One nice thing about this idea is it lets people jump in and participate when they have time and not be beholden to a schedule or have to rely on a team. It's sort of like an FPS where if you have 15 minutes to kill, you can log in, get some headshots, and log out. It's a team thing but the players can come and go without too much of a structure around it.

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

"That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially."

Sure, people should be willing to do things of their own accord without needing any motivation at all, but we live in a world filled with motivation to do all sorts of things - why not try to use some of that influence for good?

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

The nice thing is that you can build around all of these with the same system and people can take what they want from them. There is no reason why any of these elements would need to be mutually exclusive.

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

While I agree that it does seem to be the business model I think a hungry competitor would be willing to give it a go if they thought it would give them an edge. If they got traction the others might be compelled to follow. Most advances in technology or processes put the old guard out of business or at least severely cut down their market size if they don't adapt.

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

I actually feel that leaderboards are mostly bad only when there are too many people participating. With a small enough number of participants they can be motivating (although they might be better yet if they were opt-in). There are a subset of people that like to rank themselves and "see how they stack up" against others. As you mentioned, it can also degrade motivation for others which is why an opt-in method might work best for something like this.

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

Yeah I like the idea of a group working towards a common goal that everyone is contributing to more than trying to beat someone else. Competition works really well sometimes but perhaps not in this case.

ryanelkinson Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

It's interesting to see how this idea is being received. My startup (IActionable.com) actually provides a way to make this happen to a degree. We're mostly focusing on game mechanics for websites at the moment but I really like the idea of moving in to other types of areas as well (we have a few other ideas already). Our informal motto is "If you can record it we can reward it".

I wonder if this co-op mode would be better suited to teams within the same gym. Maybe it would work better without any teams at all? Individual competition through leaderboards could be interesting. The motivational factor, especially for new people could really be useful as well. I know a lot of people are saying that it is not in the best interest of the gym - but which gym would you rather sign up for? As soon as one big gym does it the others would have to follow just to keep up if it does well.

The co-op mode is still pretty interesting too though. It could lead to better camaraderie and feeling of belonging amongst gym goers. Any time you can get a group working towards a common goal I think you can accomplish some interesting things. I really like this idea and hope to be able to be a part of it someday.

ryanelkinson Poll: Sequel or S-Q-L?

Well the question is which you use, not which is "right". I guess an option for "I use both" would be appropriate.

ryanelkinson Sean Murphy on the first dozen enterprise customers

I found this to be a really worthwhile read. This is about the stage we are at right now and I've really been thinking about many of the points that were brought up here which clarified my thoughts. It's long, but definitely worth it.

ryanelkinson Launch of the cofounder network - matching cofounders around the world

I like the idea - not so sure about the execution.

We are a global community of hand-selected entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers. The network acts as a breeding ground for creating disruptive ventures by connecting selected cofounders. To join the network we prefer you get recommended by one of our partners or members. We also consider direct applications with strong references.

It just seems slightly elitist. I'm not saying that's what they are going for, but that's the feeling I get looking over the site. Even by applying you have to wait 1-2 weeks for approval. I imagine that most people that really need a cofounder are not that well connected to begin with.

I would have liked to have seen this be a bit more open and inclusive in order to provide more value to people. It just feels like there should be better ways of sifting through potential cofounders rather than preselection.