treenyc

One thing isn't inherently harder than the other. To put things in linear dualistic terms like

hard vs easy good vs bad moral vs immoral

can sometimes be over simplifying due to the normative nature of these concepts.

For someone who knows Vietnamese to learn Chinese is easy, but for someone who only knows English learning Chinese can be harder.

Each discipline has its' own linguistic domain. The difference between a software programmer and a rocket scientist is the rocket scientist knows a set of specific terms/vocabulary that distinguishes different parts of rocket, fuel, working process of aerospace and other stuff I don't know anything about. Not only does the rocket scientist knows all the terms, he/she also understands the relationship between each terms. It is mastery of this Linguistic Domain that make it possible for rocket scientists.

Programmer has mastery of a different Linguistic Domain and for some rocket scientists it may seem hard.

I do some what agree with you on the 'insecurity thing'. Although I think that is only a case in below stage 4 working culture (see Dave Logan, Tribal Leadership for reference on organizational culture stages http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership.ht...).

Effective exercise of leadership is more like a dance than doing steps. Rather than doing one step correctly, try to dance to music.

There is no ONE correct solution for every situation. Sometime peaceful non-violence is required, sometimes using high tech solution is appropriate to make things more productive, and sometime military force is required to defend one self.

Rather than standing behind one principle, try addressing the concerns of relevant parties.

Leadership is granted by those people who lead you and those whom you lead.

Indeed. It is also very interesting to see how I get offend by how people think this is a scam, where for me it is just what just happened.

I am going to fine with or without anyone's help. It is also interesting to see what kind of community it is here.

maybe, but the police really can't do much in this case.

hey, I'll try that, but I got the feeling since my HD is encrypted. I can only do it by restoring. I may try to get a 2.5 1TB HD here in denmark. Anyone know a cheap place where I can get that? I know everything is expensive here.

thanks 300 bps, I am pretty sure I will do something similar to that in the future, but right now this is really not useful for me at all.

hey thanks lauremerlin, I have a place to stay right now thanks for my good danish friends. They even got me a 600 DKK laptop running linux, but it burn out yesterday.

Hey alexhawdon or anyone else who is wondering,

here is the quick run down of my work history and my skill sets:

I have being a Mac user since System 6.

I started my development career in 4D (was a Mac only database ) and File Maker Pro around 1997.

I wrote the report card system for a whole school district of a city in Texas. The system should still be operational right now. I majored in Psychology and minored in computer science at college. My CS grades were excellent, but I already know a lot about program when I started school. I find the data structure class to be the most valuable class through school, everything else I learned in the real world.

For web stuff, I started on Perl CGI.pm , did some java applet programming and pretty soon started working on PHP Sybase. That was my prefer choice for web development till 2006, which I dived deeply into Gmail, Aajax and wrote something that rendered web template based on json like Backbone. That is in 2006.

Then I discovered Helma (SSJS) http://helma.org and found javascript to be very nice. I even wrote Douglas Crockford telling him about helma. He was very excited about it too.

Helma has being my prefer choice of web development framework. I like that in JS function is a first class citizen, has closure, and if you want to do client side fancy stuff you have to use it.

I have also done a couple of project for a financial education company in Django one with Python and some stuff had to later be converted to Jython, because I need to use a java lib.

One project in Ruby on Rails to scrap Groupon like sites.

I have jazz music player that plays different node of a song on different browser client in NodeJS, but I prefer RingoJS (that is Helma 2.0) see comparison here: http://hns.github.io/2010/09/21/benchmark.html

I prefer PostgreSQL over MYSQL, and prefer H2 over PostgreSQL, but can use whatever you want.

Data query is probably the strong suite, because I started on 4D programming.

My startup experiences: I have built a SaaS for the legal industry around 2007 and lived off it's recurring income for a couple of years till the they changed the law.

I was also managed a team of developer in another startup for job reviews, but the funding got pull during the financial crisis.

I can basically do anything web and database related. I am best at solving business problems with technology.

So I am available for any paid work at market rate. Reference available upon request. Feel free to contact me

lostlaptopdenmark@aim.com

Sorry I can't post my real email or else it will gave away my identity.

I also have a good friend who is the founder of a ycombinator team. I can ask him to vouch for me here. I actually meet the whole team of ycombinator around april when I was visiting the west coast. If you guys are here on the board, I was Asian guy from Denmark, the one that got sick at the deep dish pizza place and had to leave early.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask me here or contact me in private. I can do a Skype call with you if you like. I can also give you my temporary Danish number if you like over email. Thanks guys. I will check computer again later.

yeah, I got lazy for a moment and didn't bother to do it. My time machine may have a more recent backup but not sure til I restore it.

I wasn't aware of the free accounts. And there contain some sensitive data which I didn't want to put in dropbox.

Sorry, my roommate need his computer back. I'll type what I can do once I get to a computer. on my phone now.

I am also perfectly ok with pay you back the money once I get paid from the company. And I really DONÄT know when that will be.

Hey thanks a lot Pyalot. We do have a contract, and the owner really knows about it. The cash just have to pay for some urgent expenses at the moment.

Yeah, it was my fault for not git push origin after the backup server was restored.

But the shutdown introduced a few problem in the work flow, and I just got lazy and didnät do the system admin stuff and just kept on programming. A lesson well learned.

Hey guys,

I wonät be able to tell you the name of the company till I reach some kind of agreement with the CEO.

If you want to donat I just created a bitcoin accountÖ

1GUDbTJv7PuwDJDR4y2pHiY8ggyGnXbEx2

I really appricated it!

I also have a Danish bank account and an American Account, but not sure if I want to post that here.

I can try to open a paypal account, but not sure if I can.

I am happy to give you guys the police report number if you PM me (can you do that on hacker news?)

yeah, I think that is a honest mistake, we both emailed the service provider, they are still invistigaging why she didnät get an email alert

Hey thanks, I also just want to say that in some way it really sucks and I was in the middle of looking for other paid work.

However, the reason I went into the company is because the company owner agree to try out way to get the company to stage 4 culture as seen on Dave Loganäs tribal leadership

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership.ht...

Yesterday, I emailed her that I will only be able to do paid work for her and told her that I have failed in nudging the company to stage 4, and I am still comitted, at this point I need more resources, and I have not figure out how I can do that.

It was quite a poninat moment.

Sorry for all the spelling on my roommateäs sweedish keyboard. No english spell check.

Hey guys, this really happened. I am trying to keep it private because I donät want to tell the name of the company, because I donät think the owner would like others to know.

Donation is appricated, but I would have to setup a bitcoin account. I also have a strip account.

But the most imporant thing is if you are in Aarhus or Denmark have a mac book pro 15 inch, and donät mind me restore my time machine backup on it to get some of my files back that will be great!!

I can come to you with my hard drive and you can watch me as I do my work.

I know!! My friends are wonderful here. I have also learn how to dumpster dive. So no food problem at the moment.

sorry on my roommateäs sweedish keyboard, canät figure out the keyes

yeah it is really rare to have that happen in denmark. Trust me. I had to go to the police station 2 times to file a report, because they donät get this kind of break in much here much

I dont have paypal, because they closed my account. I am one of those people that is part of class action law suit against them. A long story. Maybe a bit coin account. I was more thinking along the line if anyone in aarhus can lend me a lap top to restore my time machine backup.

Aarhus is great btw, the BEST CITY i have lived in out of all the places in China, USA and Germany.

but that project is not paid. It is just for art!

no I am american. I was here on a few other adventures as well as to work with a danish designer on web design. That is NOT my strong suite. I am also working on another project with the art acadmey.

savings purely saving. see my comments above about backup.

you are right, I should have backed it up, but the owner forgot to pay the bill on the backup server. So the only backup is on my time machine. Which means I need a laptop with similar configuration to restore. And right now no one is willing let me erase their mac book pro to restore backup.

I did not intended to be a advertisement, but I thought if you are in Aarhus then why not. It would nice to meet some local programeer. I donät read reddit, facebook or twitter.

I found this to be inspirational!

I have being a Mac user since System 6 on a little Apple II. I started my development career on 4D a mac only database back in 90's. And I have being a Web/Database Developer ever since and I am really grateful for what apple has provided me so far.

I always found Apple and Steve Job to be inspirational and have always supported Mac even when no one around me used them, because I do find that company to be true to their words

"Think Different"

That inspiration has now gone to Mozilla! Apple still makes great products, but it has already lost it's soul and it hasn't found a new one yet! (Revisit, Steve Job, Stanford Speech please!)

This is not apple's fault. This usually happen with company that had a super charismatic and powerful leader and when that leader leaves or die that leaves a big gap in the company.

“We need leaders who can lead in any situation,

       with or without positional authority,

           with or without formally allocated decision rights,

             with or without designated followers,

               with or without an approved set of traits

               and characteristics,

                 and often in conditions in which there is no
                   agreement as to what the right answer is.”

                                                 (Granger, 2009)

Granger is a female captain in the us military that lead her group out danger and was awarded many metals. Her words really resonated with me now more than ever!

What we need now is for everyone in the company willing to take leadership. Like this intern at Mozilla.

So thanks Mihnea.

Just have a label in Firefox that says:

CLOSED SOURCE

icon

on top so that we know we are about to visit a site where we can't see the source of the javascript that is being run on our computer.

The idea is to develop a culture for people to prefer OPEN SOURCED site vs a CLOSED SOURCED one.

Where can you get the $50 version of the phone that he mentioned?

Hi nakedrobot2 , I was wondering if there is any way for us to use the technology that you used to make this photograph. Let me know how we can contact you.

Thank you ALex for bring up these issues. I just would like to point out that ethics and morality are both normative propositions (in the sense that they are different cross culture and society). Basically what is consider desirable vs. undesirable behavior. As we all must have found out by now, what is consider desirable and undesirable that very different from place to place.

It would perhaps to be more constructive to consider a positive model of integrity (Positive as in positive theory in economics). In many ways we have confused morality and ethics with integrity. Integrity when distinguished in the positive model it can be apply consistently across culture, societies, groups or organization (kind like the law of gravity).

For those who are interested, you download the short paper by Dr. Mike Jensen on social science research network related to positive model of integrity:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274