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yefon Ask HN: Working one month in NY (and its problems)

I'm based out of NYC and rent out my spare bedroom to Airbnb'ers and work from home, myself. Which month are you thinking about? Feel free to contact me directly.

Don't have a good answer for you on internet access but coworking and short term office space is easy to come by. Neighbor wifi is also pretty good. :)

yefon A simple guideline for blogging

Great minds talk about remarkable people, actually. Or more accurately, great minds talk about people important to them, whether they be a role model, family member, etc.

yefon How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today

I don't buy it, unless Facebook builds a search engine that incorporates social data AND the result is dramatically better than traditional search.

yefon AdoptAHacker invites you to visit NYC

Fine, I'll say it. Also why NYC rocks: tons of amazing women.

yefon Ask HN: Am I the only one who's not in love with Google Instant?

The rationale is that it makes searches faster, but turn it off if you don't like it.

http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en and search for "Google Instant".

I haven't quite made up my mind yet. I don't mind it, but then again most of my searches come from the Chrome address bar.

yefon Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

I wonder why the author didn't try to draw an analogy to cheap, high-quality Japanese imports. Oh, probably because there isn't one. Due to cultural differences, disruptions in higher education will most likely be homegrown and hopefully create downward price pressure on traditional higher education.

yefon Matt Cutts gives you a free startup idea

How much money does procmail make?

yefon Guide to the LA Startup Community

Overture is the best example of a successful startup from LA. Acquired for $1.63 billion by Yahoo, and they invented the business model that Google improved upon and made Google what they are today.

yefon What if Hacker News Has Badges? Who'd Get What?

Well, it already has a leaderboard and some other sorts of rankings, http://news.ycombinator.com/lists which I find very useful. Not sure why the link to it is buried at the bottom of the page.

yefon My loss

Yup. Presumably the non-earner is contributing something else to the marriage and to the household (like child-rearing). And you'd think that if that person was a total slacker and bad spouse, the court would divide the stuff in favor of the earner.

But who knows. I'd want to talk to a divorce lawyer or judge.

I just wanted to clarify the common misconception that you can "marry someone and take half of their [existing] stuff".

yefon My loss

My understanding is that half of everything you earned and bought while married is on the table. Stuff you owned or earned before the marriage is not on the table unless you want it to be. Non-marital property vs. marital property.

I'm not a lawyer.

yefon What Really Motivates People to Start a Company?

Build something you personally want and need...I guess that fits under passion, but there's something especially rewarding about building something that actually makes your own life better, after it's built.

yefon U.S. Obesity Trends (Maps/Infographics)

The county level maps look suspect, as if some normalization or bias at the state level were happening. Do people really get more obese when you cross the state line from Illinois to Missouri?

yefon The Fake Freeway Sign that Became a Real Public Service

How very LA.

Boston needs about a thousand artists like that guy.

yefon A cool way of finding a good web developer

no easter egg in the source of the last page? oh well.

yefon HN Help: I'm lost

I'm sort of the same way, though it does have its costs in terms of friendships and other things related to stability.

I think the root value here, however, is that of intentionally pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. This can be done every 5 years, or every day, or somewhere in between. It's something I swear by because it keeps my mind fresh and stimulated. Taking a class unrelated to anything I've ever done is a nice example of something that can be done every few months or so.

Or, since Wear Sunscreen was mentioned here....Do something every day that scares you.

yefon HN Help: I'm lost

Thanks for posting this. I don't have the perspective to offer any meaningful advice, but I learned something by reading about your situation and reading the thoughtful responses here.

That said, I agree that you should tell your wife and try to work out a work-from-home situation.

I also think "totally lost" and "utterly unhappy" are exaggerations once you count your numerous blessings. :)

yefon Scott Adams: I credit MBA program for my success with Dilbert

That is fair; I suppose I'm trying to draw a line separating general complaining, vs. criticism with an appreciation for the challenges. One is annoying and a waste of time, another has the potential for constructive change.

yefon Scott Adams: I credit MBA program for my success with Dilbert

A marketing professor was picking on stupid products, like Heinz gravy, when a student in the back offered, "I was the product manager for gravy at Heinz. It made us $60 million last quarter. If you'd like to use it for a case study some day, I'd be glad to help you with it."

This particular story is a great synopsis of business school. You are encountering people who may not know what they're talking about, opening yourself up to new data and new thinking, and being polite and constructive about it. Note who is playing each role in this case, too.

And for the cynics in this thread: you only get to complain about MBA's if you can do their job better than they can. I'm not saying you can't, I'm just trying to be fair.

yefon Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

Health is much more than "routines to stay in shape". Consider what you eat, your exercise, how you sleep, and how you manage stress. Personally, I go for lots of plants, 30-45 minutes a day, 6-7 hours solid a day, and re: stress, a variety of "getting things done" type techniques to stay on top of my work, which is my main stressor.

yefon Procrastinate Until You're Ready

From personal experience, procrastination does nothing to improve my readiness. Diligence, working at my craft, developing a process for working through setbacks and obstacles, etc...these are all things that improve my readiness AND my overall level of inspiration and creativity. My outside reading on creativity confirms my personal opinion.

Frankly, I think procrastination is the single worst drain on an information-based economy, and I have a hard time seeing any arguments in defense of procastination. Just being honest about my bias.

yefon Procrastinate Until You're Ready

Wrong, possibly evil advice. Just my opinion.

yefon Developing a Process for Visualizing the Insanity

Um, OK, but that first timeline doesn't tell me where they started from. A map would be nice, too. Maybe some charts indicating how much time is spent on the ground vs. in the air.

yefon Ask HN: How do you wake up?

Sleep in a room with a window facing east, get up when the alarm goes off, drink a cold glass of water, take some deep breaths, hop on the computer and drink a cup of coffee, then go for a run. By the time I'm back from my run, I'm "very awake".

yefon Why You Should Quit Your Job and Travel around the World

Travel is stressful, no doubt. But the stress of travel can be minimized with some planning. For example, use a checklist to make sure you pack your toiletries. Print out all your travel related information and keep it in a folder. Dress in such a way that streamlines your way through security.

As for the wife and dog, I'm of no help. :) It sounds as though your travel is work-related, though, so maybe there's some added stress by association.

yefon What Kate saw in Silicon Valley

Good observations, but the last two paragraphs fail to convince me. "Normal people" span the gamut of solitary, advice-seeking, etc. I also wouldn't describe the past as "slow and harmonious".

yefon Inside the Cafe at Facebook Headquarters

They compete with Google for talent. End of story.

yefon Apple's five worst products ever

Sure, here goes: the mouse moves the way I expect it to in Linux and Windows. On Mac, it feels like I'm dragging it through sand. I can't find combination of settings to fix it. The OS also has so many cute animations that if feels sluggish. For example, when I log in, I type the first letter of my name, and a password box animates into place over the course of about a second. I can't find a way to turn the frills off. I get the feeling that Apple products are designed to make users feel good, while Linux is focused on letting people work. I think Apple is doing the right thing, I just wish they paid more attention to the power user rather than forcing arbitrary UI decisions on them.

yefon Apple's five worst products ever

60k or so, enough to actually need a music manager :)

yefon Apple's five worst products ever

Apple is a great company with many great products, but fanboyism irks me to no end. The article isn't about market failures, it's about bad products from a user standpoint. For the ones that I've used, I agree wholeheartedly:

Hockey Puck Mouse: I could never feel how it was oriented. I know I'm not the only person who had this problem.

Earbuds: They fall out of my ears if I'm not completely still. I know I'm not the only person who has this problem.

iTunes: Great in 2001. Now it's bloated, slow, doesn't handle large libraries well, has terrible error messages (or none at all), movie rentals don't work, sync'ing works weird, the list goes on and on and on. I know I'm not the only person, again.

I would add OS X to the list in terms of usability as well. Take, for example, the 7-year long thread on Jeremy Zawodny's blog about focus-follows-mouse. Why couldn't they put an option in the mouse settings to allow focus-follows-mouse?