Ask HN: Freelancers/self-employeds, what are your pain points? - <AUTHOR>

I am self employed even though not a freelancer in the true sense. I work at one client at a time for a  long term contract. I still have my own company, run my own payroll, bill the vendor etc. Some of my pain points:<p>- Not receiving payment on time (common and classic problem). Usually, I am ok with 7-10 days delay max. I end up "reminding" the vendor to pay just 1 day before the payment date. usually an email does the trick. Actual email I sent today to the vendor and his response "The check has been cut. Due to the amount, I need to get two signatures and that is what I am in the process of doing". WTF. You have paid me the same amount before (in fact higher). You are late by 5 days already. Why are the signatures my problem ?<p>- Gettin paid through paper checks. I really hate this. I can of course deposit the check through my ipad banking app but why to receive it in the first place. Why not direct bank transfer ? I am in the US btw. I understand that this might be easier in europe etc ?<p>- Getting quality and not too expensive accounting/tax help as needed. I have a CPA who bills me over $160 an hour. I am not big enough to hire monthly services either. what do you do ?<p>- Networking with potential clients/vendors for future work. Even if you have a contract at hand, you want to be in touch with potential clients. How ?<p>what else ? <comment><USER4> So some have commented that finding work is painful, but my current issue is getting rid of clients. here's the link [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270791)

Problem: I would like to pass off my contract to the right person (talent wise) and no one in my network fits their needs. I also want to be paid for the lead / introduction.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know exactly what you mean. I run into the same problems. I have been lucky enough to not been let go from any contract yet and I am the one who had to leave for greener pastures usually at the end of contract even though the client wants to renew. I always wished I could get the current client someone to replace me but it is just so hard to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> \- I had a friend who did freelancing for a bit, and got caught completely unaware of the tax implications of doing so. When tax time rolled around, he had a huge bill... and then was goaded by his friends into trying to DIY his tax return using TurboTax (while the alternative he wanted was to go to a random accountant who had set up shop in a local mall).

\- Something I've never understood why it's so painful and expensive it is to pay someone electronically. A paper check/cheque costs something like 10 cents (when you amortize it over the cost of the entire checkbook) and if you use the duplicate kind you get a paper record that you paid someone else. When I use Simple Finance to pay someone, they contract out some other company to snail-mail a paper check to them! If you want to use a wire transfer, the fees range in the tens of dollars. Plus, when dealing with account numbers, it's all too easy for you or your client to transpose two digits when writing it on a form.

<comment><USER6> My uncle just paid me for some web-dev help with dwolla. Have you tried that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I freelance, and most of these are not really pain points. About half my clients pay on Net 30 terms, so 7-10 days after the invoice is fine with me. Getting a check doesn't bother me either. It's an excuse to get out of the house and walk to the bank, so I actually I sort of prefer it over ACH. Re taxes: it's not that hard to be informed and do it yourself, but in the last year I've switched to an accountant and that's pretty nice too. I think he's saving me more than I'm paying him, even before considering the hours and hours (and mental energy) freed up from doing taxes myself. Re your last point: sure, who wouldn't want the sales process to be easier? But I'm pretty swamped with work as-is.

Here are the pain points I think about:

\- How do I take a vacation? At any time I've got one (or two!) 20-hour/week projects, plus 2-3 extended relationships that require 5-20 hours/month. It's hard to spin them all down at once for 1-2 weeks. Seems like a partner would help, or even a relationship with another freelancer I could trust to be on call for emergencies while I'm away.

\- Where do I go from here? I'm not sure how much further I can raise my rate for general-purpose web development. I could start doing patio11-style business value contracts instead, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. I'd rather either (1) specialize in Postgres, Chef, Machine Learning, or whatever and double my rate that way, or (2) transition to an "agency" by seeking larger projects and partnering or subcontracting to get them done, or (3) get better at recurring revenue like support contracts.

I think ndcrandall has a nice idea. I could imagine a marketplace around helping freelancers trade clients, or even just help each other with overflow work.

<comment><USER4> I like the idea of a freelance focused market place. I have wanted to build a system for it, but before I jump into it, there are several issues that need to be validated.

How prevalent is this need? Would it need to limit locally craigslist style or is remote possible? How would you facilitate / enforce payment for leads (if not a one time payment)? How should leads be priced?

etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Payments: Run a small web firm (among other activities that I do) and I can sympathize with some of your pain points. Recently had client have a month late bill. Nearly put our company under because of the size of the contract and it took the threat of taking the website down to get the payment "expedited". Working with a large $400mil company, they do have excessive hoops to jump through.

Vacation: I can never take a vacation (or that's what it feels like). I think this is fairly typical of most startup/contractors since you don't get paid if you don't work, but I wish it were different. This is probably due to lack of experience which will change over time.

Networking: I have some legacy clients that get my team through the months but 100% of our business is repeat or legacy. This is extremely problematic and even though I do a lot of networking, it seems to all for a loss. Finding new clients is definitely the hardest part for me.

Hiring/Contracting: Finding good talent in local towns is tough. Always have to do coding review on developers to ensure correct methodology, look at past project experience, etc. The hardest thing to determine (in my opinion) is how hard someone works.

As others have stated... finding work = hardest problem. It is a bitch to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER9> Compared to the current marketplaces, I would say one that's more general purpose (odesk, elance,...) that DOESN'T encourage a raise to the bottom.

Granted, this could be a more meta problem that might not be able to be solved technologically, but it'd be great if something that allowed both sides to pay for and receive quality work would be great. Perhaps some sort of incentives? I'll admit I haven't thought too much about it. Mainly voicing my experiences with some of the different tools available.

I mainly find clients my own way because of things like this.

That being through the usual suspects, word of mouth, various forums, etc.

Other marketplaces tend to be too niche specific to be useful.

Maybe something that vets clients a bit more? Many of the other problems (payments, project management,...) have, in my opinion, been fairly solved. Or at least there's enough competing solutions in those spaces that you have options.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've owned other types of businesses and getting bookkeeping done on a regular basis seems very expensive for what needs done. I always thought it would be nice to be able to fax/email my bank statements/recipets to service which tracked my financials. but, everywhere I look they want around $200/mo. for maybe 150 transaction a month. but if I wait until the end of the year and have it all done at once its like $3-400.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hate finding work. Let me rephrase. I HATE finding work. That is, by far, my least favorite part of freelancing.

<comment><USER12> Try [http://Matchist.com](http://Matchist.com). Also, is there no service that allows you to hire a project recruiter type person?

<comment><USER11> I've been with Matchist for about a year, but have been pretty disappointed with the projects thus far: I've been contacted for about 10 ill-specified integrations with their Zapier partner, and a couple of Salesforce projects. I haven't gotten a single lead that has anything to do with my advertised skills (web development in a variety of platforms). One way to look at the projects I'm getting matched to is as a sign of the market as a whole and that I should give up my experience with Rails, Node and other modern technologies in favor of Zapier. That seems like a questionable conclusion to draw from limited evidence.

I think Matchist and other sites like it fill a real need - <USER2> developers with contracts and doing some preliminary vetting on both sides of the table. I wish them well. I've said many times on here I would gladly pay a sizeable cut for an agent to keep my pipeline full of suitable work (web development I can do on nights and weekends), but I have yet to find anything that really works.

<comment><USER12> Interesting, thanks for the insight. Zapier is still limited and therefore shouldn't be seen as a replacement for Rails and the like.

I imagine it would be hard to have an agent that can keep a steady flow of work coming in since 1) the agent would most likely want to have multiple developers (that just turns into a Matchist type service) and 2) constant communication would be needed. I have a thought of running a service that finds projects and deals with the actual clients but never really got much interest from others.

<comment><USER11> Zapier is absolutely not a replacement for Rails. It is, however, all Matchist seems to pitch. I'm sure that they get a lot of clients asking for that sort of work, and that their projects are representative of that particular market. My point is, that's a market I have little interest in entering right now. Think of the difference between e.g. Pivotal Labs and the local "computer store" that advertises web development below networking and VOIP. I want someone to help push me towards the Pivotal Labs end of the spectrum. I don't need the opportunity to compete with other developers for low-value, low-skill work. I would like to pay for the opportunity to work on challenging, career- furthering projects that aren't the coding equivalent of "wham, bam, thank you RAM." That opportunity could take the shape of an agent.

I have two counterpoints in favor of the agent idea. Let's say I sign up with Al the Agent. Al's responsibilities can be roughly described as business development for an individual - i.e. me. I'd like it if Al could talk to me periodically, find out what I do and what I'd like to do, and keep putting opportunities for appropriate contract work in front of me. That's MVP. There's lots of room for improvement and other services, but MVP is literally someone else pounding the pavement. Now, to my counterpoints.

First, I don't care if Al has multiple developers. I only care that he can keep my pipeline full when I need it. Sports, film, television, music - <USER3> these other fields use agents, and those agents represent multiple clients in controlled ways. I don't care if Al represents 10 other developers, and in a way, I hope he does - it raises his profile (and, implicitly, mine). As long as he's still able to adequately meet my needs, I'm happy. If he starts pitching low-value WordPress theming (something I have no interest in), I'll sever the agreement. Even if this agency did turn into a Matchist-type service (which it needn't), that would not be a bad thing. As long as it doesn't turn into another boss, I'm happy.

Second, constant communication isn't really necessary. I can just talk to Al on a weekly basis, tell him what's going on, what I'd like to do, when I'll need more work, when I'm going to be on vacation, etc. That's not a taxing amount of communication, especially since I'm willing to make the economics work with a large percentage cut. I have a very limited amount of time I can put towards moonlighting (roughly 20 hours a week). If someone can help me do more profitable things (e.g. coding for money) with those hours, I'm happy to share the spoils. The common wisdom on HN is that a good developer can command somewhere around $100/hr for freelance work, which doesn't seem exaggerated since SV salaries can easily push $70/hr before benefits. If Al can get me 20 hours of work a week at $100/hr, I'm happy to cut him a big slice of that pie if he's willing to do that sort of communication.

<comment><USER13> Justin,

To reiterate, I encourage you to shoot me an email (tim at matchist) to address you getting irrelevant or uninteresting work from us.

We have the type of work you're looking for (the Pivotal Labs work in your analogy) and we have the integration type work that you seem to not want a part of (which is fine). If you don't want a ton of Zapier work and you're getting a ton of Zapier work, that's not how our service is designed to work.

This sounds like a case of your preferences not being represented properly in our system.

\- Tim

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1) Finding Work and vetting them (making sure they are serious/pay/etc.) 2) Getting Paid 3) Repeat

</comment><comment><USER15> Definitely finding new clients is my main pain point.</comment>


Twitter Facts & Figures - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialbrandingblog.com/199/twitter-facts-figures-infographic/#more-199

<comment><USER2> The Pareto principle in action: 20% tweeted more than 10 times, 80% less 10 and 41% (of total) not at all. So 20% of users are the true twitter user base, which is about 20 million.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - wonder how that translates for Facebook users... 300*0.20 = 60million?</comment></comment>


My first SaaS adventure, don't be gentle - <AUTHOR> Hi there!
After 10 years freelancing, it was time for something else. I wanted to spend my precious time on building something for myself. I found a co-founder and start building my first SaaS: UptimeMate
We did a small announcement in early February, and the interest was great. We received over four hundred sign-ups. Don't know if that is much, but it felt great!
But then the covid-19 happened, and priorities shifted. My co-founder and I had to make sure that our families were safe and that we had an income during the crisis. Bills must be paid and UptimeMate is a bootstrapped project, so we had to make a difficult decision to push the launch forward.
Now things on the covid-19 front are settling down in our region, we felt that now is a suitable time to give them access to our beta.
This is a huge deal for us, and we are scared and excited at the same time. To give people access to our project where we have put all our free time in for the last 6 months.
We decided that we have the beta until September 1. Is a 2/3-month period normal for a beta? Or is this to short or to long? Our beta is free for everybody. We introduced an early supporter coupon for people who want to support us and want to upgrade for paid plan. We handout a 50% discount. Smart? Or is this way to cheap? In the coming months we are collecting feedback and building out our marketing page. We hope to launch our version 1 in September.
I'm curious what you think and would love to hear your feedback. If you want to take UptimeMate for a free spin? Try it for free -> https://www.uptimemate.com/
I'm here all day for questions, feedback etc.
Cheers and thank you! <comment><USER2> Hey Frank, first of all, congratulations and good luck with the launch. I understand that this is an announcement page, and I hope I'm allowed to share my feedback.

The landing page reads "Monitor your websites for technical issues"

I feel the headline can be modified to help a prospect understand why they should care.

Something on the lines of "Boost your website performance to deliver an excellent user experience" will help a prospect understand what they can achieve with UptimeMate. (This is just an example)

I think receiving updates on Slack and email is cool. It'd be nice if you could add that to the sub-heading. Something like "UptimeMate instantly notifies you of technical issues on your websites and ensures YOU are the FIRST to know. Receive updates on Slack or email. Use UptimeMate for FREE during our beta, no credit card required."

The screenshots look really good. The value props of the product and customer testimonials are on point. Well done. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey - just to report I received a server error on the callback when trying to login via a google account, then when trying to register via email & pwd it stalled on a white screen & console reported a 500 error. Chrome / using ublock

</comment><comment><USER4> Will compare to UptimeRobot. I monitor about 50 sites for customers. Some of them like the custom status page feature of UptimeRobot, which I didn't expect until I showed them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently we don't offer any status pages, but it's on the top of our roadmap.

If I understand correctly, you would like to have control over your status pages on site level?

We are planning the following features regarding status pages:

* Create status page for one or many sites * Set status page to private (password) or public * Control which stats you want to show * Show planned downtime (Maintenace for example) * Publish message on a status page

Did I miss anything that is on your wishlist?

<comment><USER4> UptimeRobot lets me collect multiple monitors and show just those on a custom status page. I can give that URL to a customer, or set up custom DNS for it so it appears on their domain. Not a deal breaker but some of my customers like it.

I also use the keyword matching for checking things like disk space usage on some sites. The SSL cert checking is handy too.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I switch to CS industry(Web) from college? - <AUTHOR> I am a sophomore CS undergrad. So far, we have stuck to simple 100's of lines standalone programs in C++ and python. Could you please suggest some resources that helps me understand how the actual industry level deployment (Web) works : Hosting on AWS, server-client interactions, back-end, content delivery etc. Just an overall idea is what I'm looking for. <comment><USER2> Check out the 'Start here' section of this page: [https://github.com/bmorelli25/Become-A-Full-Stack-Web- Develo...](https://github.com/bmorelli25/Become-A-Full-Stack-Web-Developer)

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Just an overall idea', as the fact you've mentioned content-delivery, client-server interactions etc., suggests that you want to go into the details.

I suggest you pace yourself and learn step by step (check out the 'roadmap' at the above link). There is little point reading about content delivery networks (CDNs) before you have experienced the problem they seek to solve.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where are you studying? I have seen many schools use AWS as part of the curriculum. Also you should have classes in distributed systems, chances for independent study, etc.

The scary thing is that the industry will change significantly in the next two years, so the CS department wants to teach you something that is as timeless as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> India. But having classes on AWS seems fishy, why stick to Amazon? Will have those classes in the future, but the syllabus is pretty outdated.

<comment><USER3> Not AWS in particular so much as a class has a certain amount of credit they could spend with AWS, Azure, etc. So they can use cloud resources to support what they do -- particularly good if you want to stack up a distributed system.

So far as syllabus I say talk to your profs. For a compilers class today it would make a lot of sense to hack on some open source compiler rather than start from scratch and there are many cool compiler-like things that center around Javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was in a similar situation as an American CS student a while back, I've just graduated for reference.

What I would worry about in school now is trying to deeply understand the concepts you're being taught, and how the programming assignments you receive reinforce that.

Later on you can try to learn some web development languages yourself (javascript is probably your best bet). We weren't taught any webdev in school, but I taught myself JS and was able to get a job working with that. CS fundamentals taught in school make it easy to pick up web concepts.

Also, you're only a sophomore. As you get further into undergrad you will probably have classes that you feel are more applicable to the real world.</comment>


Show HN: Travel destination charting and info aggregator - <AUTHOR> https://backpackerchart.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! Built this data-driven mvp to help people get all necessary travel info in one place. Would love to hear your feedback

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks good but I have yet to visit these places so hard to tell what is useful. Can you add more countries may be USA ? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> So go visit!:) This is just an mvp but sure, if people like it I plan to add all relevant travel destinations

<comment><USER2> Ok, here is some more feedback only because you asked.

All the features are highly opinion based and without context. For example in thailand ,it says this.

Costs Total 4.9/5 Accommodation: CHEAP Supermarket: CHEAP Restaurants: CHEAP Transportation: AFFORDABLE

Here what is the 4.9 ? How do you decide that ? What is cheap accommodation ? This is all very relative. Something that is cheap to you could be expensive for someone. You need actual numbers there so people can decide themselve or provide context as to how you derive cheap vs expensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks for your feedback and questions! To establish the accommodation prices I've scouted hostel prices in several cities in Thailand. Placed them in database and benchmarked versus hostel prices in other 11 countries to determine what could for example "Cheap" mean. Then I've named the price segments: for example if average hotel room in Thai costs 1-5 usd per night, then it's Cheap; 5-8 usd in Affordable and so on. Does it sound right to you?

<comment><USER2> Yes it make sense but i think if you provide rough breakdown example then user would be more likely to trust this data. For example see how yelp.com considers place is $,$$,$$$ or $$$$. They provided explanation so user would know what to expect.

<comment><AUTHOR> clear, thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> neat! would be cool to compare the countries

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you! filters and comparison tools are in the making</comment></comment>


Inside Apple, part one [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/inside-apple-part-one/ <comment><USER2> There are some interesting lessons to be learned on how Apple employees communicate. The use of hyperboles, the emphasis on positive words or how every sentence works as a one liner.

I liked the moment when the interviewer is trying to steer the conversation and Tim Cook firmly responds by mentioning the interviewer's name which promptly gave Tim Cook the upper hand in the rest of the interview.

Anyone reading some good books about this? I could surely use some of these techniques in meeting rooms or at client presentations.

</comment><comment><USER3> In you do not have Flash installed on your desktop here are direct URL's to the .MP4 files.

[http://download.cbsnews.com/media/mpx/2015/12/20/58912825989...](http://download.cbsnews.com/media/mpx/2015/12/20/589128259897/60_1220_ApplePt1_477495_740.mp4)

[http://download.cbsnews.com/media/mpx/2015/12/20/58913184361...](http://download.cbsnews.com/media/mpx/2015/12/20/589131843618/60_1220_ApplePt2_477500_740.mp4)

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that I can't watch the video on the default Apple browser.

</comment><comment><USER5> What do you guys see as the next big product for Apple?

<comment><USER6> iCar?

<comment><USER7> Why have so many people down-voted this? Lots of major news outlets openly regard the development of an Apple EV as factual. And one can see why after reviewing the evidence. Is this all wrong? What am I missing?

<comment><USER8> What's the evidence? All I've seen is speculation and rumor. But I haven't followed it very closely, so I certainly could have missed a lot.

<comment><USER7> This rumor broke a while ago so I don't remember the exact details. But essentially what I found when the rumor did break was that Apple had hired lots of engineers who specialized in the automotive industry. I looked at some of the LinkedIn pages and these engineers specialized in things that had basically nothing to do with Carplay. It was claimed that Apple hired tons of these engineers, too many for Carplay to justify, but I never looked at every single LinkedIn page to confirm. Also, most famously, several vehicles were spotted around the bay area that had license plates connected to Apple. These vehicles were outfitted with arrays of cameras an possibly LIDAR. I assumed that there was no LIDAR to be safe. In my judgement the quantity and positioning of the cameras indicated very strongly that they were a part of an autonomous vehicle system, not a street view program or anything else I could think of at the time. Then there were the anonymous sources. They claimed that Apple was working on an EV and that its development was referred to as Project Titan internally. I guess that should be taken with a grain of salt. The most convincing thing for me is the broader picture. Apple has a lot of experience and expertise in power electronics. It has manufacturing prowess even if it is through 3rd parties. And it has a huge amount of cash that is sitting around waiting to be spent on creating the next big thing. And most importantly Apple recognizes the fact that there is an EV revolution approaching. The motive, means and opportunity all line up for the Apple EV. All of this makes me give some weight to the rumors but no, nothing has really been proven with hard evidence yet.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the extensive summary. It all sounds pretty circumstantial, but it is a lot of stuff when put together. I guess the real question is, assuming it's real (and you have me reasonably well convinced), is this a major "ship in five years" product push, or a just-in-case research project?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Social Applications are Social Networks - <AUTHOR> http://20bits.com/articles/social-applications-are-social-networks/

<comment><USER2> So, I wrote this and I'm afraid of two things: (1) it's too academic and (2) I'm not sure I believe it.

Hah!

The idea the spurred it is something like, "When you're building social applications you're building social networks."

The strategies you'd use to build a new Facebook are exactly the same as you'd use to build a new application _on_ Facebook.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> I do a bit of social network R & D (still struggling to learn sociology, but, hey, I'm an engineer - their core classes were my electives) and you are right - it is an accepted fact that I take for granted that social applications are social networks. Just like cities are the projection on the ground of social relations, social apps (especially purely social apps like Facebook) are the projection onto cyberspace of underlying social networks.

Sociologists and other scientists love them because for the first time in history, people give them data for free, and subjects themselves make the efforts needed to compile and publish the data. Data is their for the taking! For exactly the same reasons, snoops too love them. NSA is doing so much research on social network analysis they could outpublish the entire academic community.</comment></comment>


Just Stop the Superspreading: 20% of Covid-19 cases accounted for 80% of spread - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/opinion/coronavirus-superspreaders.html <comment><USER2> Pareto's principle in action.</comment>


Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/travel/article/0,31542,1988422,00.html

<comment><USER2> In summary: routes served by multiple airlines will be cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few days ago I wanted a one way flight from SYD to IAD, it was $1600. For fun I decided to see how much a round trip would cost: I bought it for $1100.

It's $500 cheaper to get a round-trip ticket than to fly one way from Sydney to Washington D.C.

<comment><USER4> This is the part I've never understood. I can see why they don't want to make it half the price (though this works just fine for discount airlines), but MORE? WTF?

<comment><USER5> Interestingly in Russia it's nothing like that. Round-ticket costs only slightly less than twice the price of a one way ticket (seems logical). Not sure, if this is good or bad, because I really don't understand the underlying logic behind this pricing policy of making one-way ticket twice as expensive as a one-way ticket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember a similar situation from the news a few years ago. May have been in Indonesia, though I can't remember clearly anymore and Google isn't helping me.

Basically a flight between A and C which stopped at B (for refueling or to take on extra passengers or something) was cheaper than a flight from A to B. But for some reason the airline would only sell tickets from A to C with the condition that you could not get off at B. Some guy flew from A, tried to sneak off at B, and got caught. He claims the security guards roughed him up, and tried to sue the airline.

</comment><comment><USER7> Airlines can prevent you from boarding if you travel part of a route you booked by alternate means? I'm not generally much of a fan of government intervention in private business, but that should probably be illegal.

<comment><USER8> I was looking for a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Toronto, Canada half a year ago. Lufthansa charges around $1.8k for that.

At the same time, Lufthansa also offers a connecting flight from Delhi, India, to Frankfurt then to Toronto. This one, although much longer, costs $1.2k.

Then I stopped worrying about the world's oil supply.

<comment><USER9> Similarly, a friend was moving from Amsterdam to NYC, and needed a one-way flight. The direct flight was pretty expensive, but a flight out of Berlin was many-hundreds of euro less... with a connection in Amsterdam (of course).

As you would expect, the airline wouldn't let him just board in Amsterdam. So he packed his things and took a €75 train to Berlin early in the morning, and had his family wish him farewell later that evening back in Amsterdam, during his connection.

It was a pain in the ass, but it saved him a ton of money, at great expense to the airline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When traveling a year ago I discovered that:

In south america, many of the one-way flights costs more than return.

And it was cheaper to fly from Rio to Bogota via (get this) Miami !

</comment><comment><USER11> I've recently booked a flight from the UK to Utah, getting the return was cheaper than getting the single (by a couple of $100). Remind me why the airlines are losing money again?

</comment><comment><USER12> Recent real life example : To go from montpellier (a south of france city ) to corsa (a south a france island ) it cost less to fly by London first...</comment>


Rewriting Functions with Fold and Reduce - <AUTHOR> https://maex.me/2019/04/rewriting-functions-with-fold-and-reduce/ <comment><USER2> Your code examples use text that is too small to read on my smartphone.</comment>


Windows 10 will be free for software pirates - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8241023/windows-10-free-for-software-pirates#

<comment><USER2> Hmm. It's an interesting plan. Actually what's interesting is these ideas coming out of Microsoft now that Bill Gates is back on the clock. He's very smart, and in his age I've come to respect him as a person. This leads me to wondering: Would I use a future, open-source version of Windows? Perhaps. I suppose it depends on how many more systemd-like force-feedings we will have to endure from the power players in the Linux community. We certainly live in interesting times.</comment>


How the U.S. Air Force Deployed Kubernetes and Istio on an F-16 in 45 Days - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubernetes-and-istio-on-an-f-16-in-45-days/ <comment><USER2> [https://dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/DoD%20Enterpr...](https://dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/DoD%20Enterprise%20DevSecOps%20Reference%20Design%20v1.0_Public%20Release.pdf?ver=2019-09-26-115824-583)

[https://dccscr.dsop.io/dsop](https://dccscr.dsop.io/dsop)

[https://www.dau.edu/cop/cybersecurity/DAU%20Sponsored%20Docu...](https://www.dau.edu/cop/cybersecurity/DAU%20Sponsored%20Documents/5.%20%20Day%20of%20Cyber_DevSecOps.pdf)</comment>


Debian 6.0 Squeeze Beta Installer Announced  - <AUTHOR> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2010/20101030

<comment><USER2> A little bit nitpicking, sorry about that, but it's only the installer's beta, not squeeze's itself (testing, which is pretty much "the" beta for the next stable, has been around for a while).</comment>


Ask HN: As an Experienced Developer, What Do You Think about Bootcamps? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> They cover gaps that most universities overlook (web development), but conversely, skip a lot of CS theory that would otherwise make a more "well- rounded" engineer.

As someone who interviews a lot of candidates, I tend to find that fresh-out- of-bootcamp alumni tend to suffer from tunnel vision (i.e. they may be well- versed enough in one library or framework, but completely fall apart outside of that narrow comfort zone, e.g one abstraction level below or a different framework, never mind a different stack or language)

From conversations with people that have done bootcamps, I heard these courses are also quite expensive (some to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for 6 months), especially considering that any piece of paper you might earn out of an accelerated course is completely useless and that the web is flooded with similar resources online for autodidacts that are far more affordable and that don't necessarily require strict time commitments (e.g. you could study early in the morning or after work)

Something that I think both universities and bootcamps fail at is that neither really teaches you how to go about implementing architectures on top of building blocks in a meaningful way. Neither goes one level below the abstraction level that the industry uses, nor they explore what different approaches to framework design exist and their trade-offs. As a result, I sometimes see people ardently defending something like redux without having a clue about any of the alternatives, or a "well it works well enough for me so whatevs" attitude. This tends to be dangerous to a beginner's career because a combination of wanting results fast and lack of proper foundations can lead to becoming comfortable with the status quo, and that's the antithesis of software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think this is something needed here in Germany.

We have universities that cover researcher education, with many CS and CS- related degrees.

Then we have universities of applied science with cover engineer education, with many CS and CS-related degrees, many of them having mandatory (and often paid) practical semesters at companies.

And finally, we have paid apprenticeships. They take about 3 years, where people work at companies 3 days a week and go to a technical school 2 times a week.

So every level of education is covered rather good, from practical to academical.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would agree with others who say it depends on the school and the student. The most important thing to note about bootcamps is that their "Learn to code in N weeks" is an exaggerated sales pitch. No bootcamp alone can get you job ready in that time, in sort of the same way that doing a CS degree but doing basically no coding modules will not make you very hireable (as an engineer). The bootcamp students who do well are those who understand that the course simply fast-tracks you through the first stages of learning, and gives you strong and useful tools to learn further. These are only strong and useful if you acknowledge this and decide to use them and keep improving (maybe by filling in the CS theory which as another poster noted, is missing from bootcamp curriculum).

</comment><comment><USER5> There are many ways one can learn something or get specific skills, and each of them has its own distribution of parameters like affordability, autodidact vs mentored, on-demand vs on schedule, short-term gains, long-term gains, one on one vs classroom, general theoretical vs hands-on practical, etc. There is no single best way to learn things — it depends on circumstances and a goal, and bootcamps may serve better under one set of circumstances for a specific goal, than other ways to learn.

To be successful in the industry you have to have theoretical knowledge, all these generally dreaded algorithms, big O notation, Boolean algebra, graphs theory and so on — you may not use it on a daily basis but it shapes your mindset, gives you thinking models and makes a better engineer. The timeless stuff. Universities are pretty good at this.

However, you also need practical skills. Most of us learned the necessary amount by ourselves, reading docs, doing and extending hello-worlds, reading open source code, etc. I believe it's the best way to get practical knowledge but it's very time consuming because it rarely has a "learning program" and is mostly an improvisation what you want to learn and how.

Also, the industry is very fast changing, so to keep up with the technology you gotta follow it and try yourself.

Bootcamps can teach you a slice of the current state of the industry mainstream, so you can code a simple full-stack something without going much into details but in a very short time. And it is expensive. It's like following an expensive recipe book.

To me, the best use case for bootcamps is when you are a seasoned industry veteran with a good theoretical background, who got stuck in an enterprise environment with old tech for too long, working long hours and weekends, exhausted and burnt out and looking for an escape plan. This person most probably can afford a bootcamp, takes a vacation, quickly catches up with the current tech, and suddenly becomes a great experienced candidate, who can take an initial salary cut and negotiate a raise in six months.

To summarize, there are scenarios when a bootcamp is the best tool but way too often it is not, really depends on a situation. When I interview candidates I mostly try to understand the reason for taking a bootcamp to exclude people who can't learn anything on their own and always require a mentor.

</comment><comment><USER6> For $10k usd, you are better off just buying a textbook from amazon. You will learn the same amount.

Self taught senior programmer

<comment><USER7> $10,000 will buy you many CS textbooks

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not a big fan, I get a lot of applications from bootcamp graduates and some of them make it to the interview and none of them have passed the interview, so far. But I'm still open-minded about it. I think (and hope) the model will improve over time.

<comment><USER9> How come none have passed the interview phase? Lack of experience? Lack of knowledge?

Trying to understand from a hiring perspective, as Im debating a bootcamp route.

<comment><USER10> It may also be that many boot camp students are from non analytical backgrounds, and thus lack some skills that are hard to teach. We've hired a boot camper who outperformed all the CS grads in contribution and continued learning. Most applicants struggle with things they weren't taught, we try to work through tech they haven't used before (during the interview) to gauge how well they learn / explore.

In short, it really, really depends on the school and more so the student.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: any service that can send requests to a URL from a specified city? - <AUTHOR>

Basically I'm trying to test a feature of my website, which displays the location(city-level) you're at when visiting my site. And the testing approach I'm planning is: using a host in an arbitrary city to send requests to my site, with the city name appended to the URL, and then compare the known city name with the city name calculated by my site.
This approach needs a service that, given an arbitrary city name and a URL, it asks a host in that city to send requests to that URL.
Does such service/tool/library actually exist? Or is there a better testing approach for that feature? <comment><USER2> I just started playing around with Geocoder on a side project. I'm still a little confused as to exactly how you are trying to implement this, but if you are working in ruby, it may help you get started.

Tutorial: <http://railscasts.com/episodes/273-geocoder?view=asciicast>

Geocoder Gem: <http://www.rubygeocoder.com/>

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you need to test this in more than, say, 5 cities? If not, why not get 1 month of 5 of the cheapest vps's you can find, and proxy via them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried spoofing the http request?

<comment><USER5> That would still involve knowing an IP address that the GeoIP database would associate with a particular city.

@no4clipper: If it doesn't matter WHICH city (so long as it's a different one, and you can independently verify that that city is correct), then I'd be more than happy to click on a link or two and take some screen shots for you.</comment></comment>


Facebook not allowing status updates or creation / edit of apps - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/10/21/facebook-currently-doesnt-allow-status-updates/

<comment><USER2> Neither groups nor like nor comments. I see people. Happy faces. The world is beautiful</comment>


Ask HN: How do I learn to sell? - <AUTHOR> I amazed at some people's abilities to sell anything to anyone, is it possible for me to learn the same? If yes then how? How did you learn to sell? <comment><USER2> I work in a niche between very high tech and fitness. I have many certificates since I've been in an industry a long time that supports continuing education.

A few years ago I did the NASM's business accelerator course from NPE..[https://www.npecoaching.com/us/](https://www.npecoaching.com/us/) I have found their system useful for any "service" business....you can apply it to many things...

I also have done Earn1K and ZTL from Ramit Seth [https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/products/](https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/products/) The are wonderful learning experiences, find them valuable, however they are not for everyone...they are very intense and I sometimes feel like they are "cult-ish" but it is EXTREME OWNERSHIP...</comment>


Silk Road: Undercover agent admits stealing Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33364349 <comment><USER2> I'm amazed at how often the defence story in these cases, "He had a stellar, 15-year career with the DEA except for this one blip.", is accepted at face value. I imagine a smart, experienced, undercover DEA agent would be very difficult to catch breaking the law.

<comment><USER3> There are only two kinds of criminals. The "long history of violence and trouble" type and the "honors student with a lapse in judgement" type.

Same thing whenever somebody goes on a shooting rampage. All the neighbors either say "I always knew there was something strange with that boy" or they say "I can't believe it, he was such a sweet kid".

<comment><USER4> Either it will rain today OR it will not rain today.

<comment><USER5> Either it will monsoon, or it will be clear skies and low humidity. No chance of fog, drizzle, or showers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands He didn't just steal bitcoins either:

 _Among the crimes he confessed to, Force said he had agreed to a contract with 21st Century Fox last year to help make a film about the Silk Road investigation, without the permission of his supervisors. That deal called for him to be paid up to $240,000._

 _Force also invested in a company that brokered Bitcoin and served as its chief compliance officer while still with the DEA._

 _During his time with the company, Force used his position to seize $300,000 from a customer and transfer it to his private account, authorities said._

This guy was dirty, probably from the get go. It really makes you wonder if this will give Ulbricht more life in a new trial. I mean, this guy did stuff that was flat out against the law, and really compromises his integrity with regards to the trial. There's no telling what other sketchy stuff he did to get this conviction.

And he's not the only dirty cop who was on the case either:

[http://www.coindesk.com/secret-service-plead-guilty-silk- roa...](http://www.coindesk.com/secret-service-plead-guilty-silk-road/)

 _US Secret Service special agent Shaun Bridges will plead guilty to charges of money laundering and wire fraud stemming from the government investigation into the illicit online black market Silk Road._

This case is rife with corruption

<comment><USER6> Can you be specific about how this compromises the Ulbricht trial? Start from the indictment, make a list of the facts that the prosecution had to establish, and find the places where they relied on Force.

From what I can tell, this case was over as soon as they managed to get Ulbricht's unlocked laptop.

<comment><USER7> In sentencing, prosecutors submitted a number of comments alluding to Ulbricht's alleged but not proven in trial murder for hire plots. The assumed motive for these alleged murder plots was the actual theft of bitcoins which we now learn was perpetrated by government agents and witnesses against Ulbricht.

<comment><USER8> There were _multiple_ criminal cases filed against Ulbricht by separate jurisdictions for wholly separate crimes. Force was involved in only a single criminal case (the alleged murder-for-hires), and that case was dropped when Force and another investigator in that case were arrested.

<comment><USER6> I think this is also somewhat inaccurate, as Ulbricht was charged for the murder-for-hire scheme in the indictment that ultimately convicted him. There is a very popular misconception that he wasn't convicted for the hit-man scheme, but he was; it just wasn't a murder charge.

<comment><USER8> Nope, you're completely wrong. It's not a misconception that Ulbricht wasn't convicted for the hit-man scheme because that wasn't part of the _New York_ indictment. A person is "charged" with "counts" of specific crimes. The murder-for-hire is mentioned only as an alleged overt act in pursuance of a Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy count with which Ulbricht is charged.

Someone else has already provided the indictment in the _New York_ court case. [http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=126792875&...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=126792875&z=fdea5223) Nowhere in the _New York_ indictment is Ulbricht charged with attempted murder or murder-for-hire. The murder-for-hire charge was part of a _Maryland_ court case in which Force and the other convicted investigator participated and which was subsequently dropped because of their malfeasance. See Count 2 of the Superseding Indictment. [https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238...](https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311.4.0.pdf).

Other commenters have already pointed out your error. Don't compound it by trying to argue legal semantics you clearly don't understand.

<comment><USER6> I have no idea why you think a citation to the Maryland case involving Force is some kind of mic drop. What part of this analysis of the _New York case_ that I wrote a month ago do you disagree with? Can you be as specific as possible? You've identified yourself in the past as a criminal defense lawyer (I am not a lawyer), so you should have no trouble knocking it down.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9628102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9628102)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had wondered what would happen to the DEA agent mentioned in the big Wired stories[0][1].

As a Bitcoin novice, I was left wondering: is it a common misconception that Bitcoin is anonymous? Or rather, just how easy is it to trace someone's transactions if you know their wallet ID?

[0] [http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk- road-1/](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/) [1] [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk- road-2/)

<comment><USER10> This entire story was very weird, if you give Wired 100% credibility.

It felt to me like Feds wanted to do everything in their power to put him down for lifetime, and I wouldn't be surprise if more skeletons come to the light.

Namely, the part about him hiring a hit man was very fishy. First it was his coworker that agreed to helped Feds to play dead, but then you had some bikers performing multiple hits (supposedly all successful) on people Ross wanted dead. Uhm, so basically a motorbike gang agreed to play along with Feds, plus many "victims" agreed to disappear and play dead for months so that Ross is convinced all that money he paid the gang were for successful hits. Maybe in a Grisham book, but in real life things like that don't line up this good.

Then Feds didn't hesitate to tell judge about all this, but then they decided not to use "evidence" of Ross ordering hits, and focus only on his drug business.

So basically you have a judge that looks at a person that supposedly order multiple hits, who also created website to exchange some drugs. No wonder he got lifetime behind bars.

I don't think drug dealers go to jail for lifetime.

Another thing that struck me was allowing testimony of parents of a teen that drug himself to dead. Seriously? Sure, had not SR, he probably would have never found access to drugs somewhere else.. NOT. How about looking into the quality of their parenthood? Environment he lived in? His school and friends problems? etc etc. But no! Just exactly when was the last time you seen a family trying to shut down Ford car company and put the CEO behind bars because their two young children burnt to death in a car accident caused by a Ford vehicle??

EDIT: my point about Ford was that when did you see last time a car company CEO being found guilty and put in jail for lifetime because his company's vehicles are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, including young children.

(never)

<comment><USER6> It is simply not true that the DOJ declined to use evidence of the murder-for- hire scheme in their case. Not only did they do that, but they built a whole leg of their case on it. Ulbricht was charged with attempting a murder-for- hire scheme. That scheme was one of the explicit actions used as the basis for his conspiracy charge. It was presented to the court as something that Ulbricht's defense could (and was obligated to) refute.

This notion that the DOJ tainted the case by telling the judge about a murder- for-hire scheme without charging it is a meme that simply will not die. By repeating it, you're essentially broadcasting that you didn't even bother to read the Ulbricht indictment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a slight exaggeration but....

I've always secretly wanted the death penalty ( _insert other serve punishment_ ) for cases like these. This type of corruption & abuse of power systematically reduces our overall faith in the government and should be treated as a high crime (i.e. Treason). We commonly use deterrence as a means to justify strict punishments when convicting drug crimes, but politicians\law enforcement\etc seem to avoid these dragnets. Why can't we hold them to a higher standard? I mean... there's something 'bone chillingly' wrong about an oath-taking public servant poisoning the well.

/rant

<comment><USER7> Agree with the sentiment but I think the death penalty is increasingly problematic when it concerns government corruption (like have your political opponents executed problematic).

>Why can't we hold them to a higher standard?

Because we trust them to police themselves, their peers.

<comment><USER12> the age old question of, who watches the watchers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I will say that I'd like to see a movie about the investigation, if it's done well. I'm a sucker for all these new tech-bio-pic movies.

<comment><USER7> They could get the folks who did Zero Dark Thirty to make it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Elephant in the room question:

Is anyone really surprised by this turn of events? I thought it was common knowledge that the DOJ is irredeemably corrupt, that they don't care about the rights of their citizens (let alone human rights outside our borders) and that they cannot be trusted with anything.

I always thought everyone knew that neither the FBI/NSA with their massive domestic spying campaigns, the DEA with its fallacious war on drugs, nor local police with their rampant violence (esp. towards minorities) can or should ever be trusted.

Did people really not expect this outcome?

Civil forfeiture really should have made the case that law enforcement is nothing but crooks and scoundrels.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks)

[http://www.copblock.org/](http://www.copblock.org/)

<comment><USER15> >I thought it was common knowledge that the DOJ is irredeemably corrupt,

That is essentially the opposite of the common knowledge of the DOJ. In the legal world, they are seen as very good lawyers who only take on cases they can win. They are also civicly minded because they could make WAY more money in private practice.

Sounds like you are treating people who disagree with you on some issues as irredeemably evil.

<comment><USER3> They may have meant the various agencies under DOJ (DEA, FBI, ATF, etc.) and not the US Attorney's office, but then again HN often finds plea bargaining irredeemably evil too.

<comment><USER15> Even if you meant DEA, FBI, etc. etc, it's beyond naive to think of the average workers as cartoonish villains plotting to destroy people's lives.

You might as well say anyone who works for Google or Facebook deserves to hang for spying.

Even if you strongly disagree with their views and actions it isn't corruption.

<comment><USER16> Anyone in law enforcement is in the business of destroying lives. They don't protect people (you can't really, in a free society), they punish people after the fact in an attempt to reduce antisocial/immoral/"impure" behavior. Doing their jobs correctly and with moral forthrightness is making absolutely sure the lives they destroy are lives that deserve to be destroyed. But as it turns out they are human and want to keep their jobs so they inevitably focus on "winning" cases -- that is, not failing to destroy lives, rather than being appropriately cautious with the power they are given.

Cartoonish villians? No. It's more the opposite; they think of themselves as cartoonish superheroes and have a hard-on for "punishing the wicked", and often forget that the wicked aren't always so wicked and maybe the extreme and brutal punishment associated with even being touched by the US justice system isn't appropriate -- but why give up a case you can win and tank your career? The guy in the cubicle next door is happy to get the commendation and promotion if you won't take it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I want to remind international readers that confessions by a defendant in an American often have little to do with truth, but with calculated odds. One should not assume that just because a defendant "admits" to having done any particular act, that they actually did so. While the confession provides some evidence that the defendant is guilty of something (to the extent that this makes them more likely to be found guilty by a jury of a particular set of charges) the exact details of a confession should be trusted less than the details that result from a full trial.

The confession is a charade, usually coordinated in advance with the prosecution. Almost never is the confession made because the defendant suddenly realizes that wrongness of their actions, and simply wants to avoid burdening everyone with the effort of a lengthy trial. Instead, the defendant is threatened with a terrible punishment, and told that unless they cooperate the chances are high (regardless of their actual guilt) that this punishment will occur. They are offered (or offer on their own) a "plea bargain", where if they confess to a subset of the crimes with which they are charged, they can willingly accept a smaller (though often substantial) punishment.

The contents of the admission are a negotiation between the defendant and the prosecutor. If the prosecutor demands that you confess to being a witch, and that if you don't confess to being a witch there is a high likelihood that you will spend the rest of your life in jail being raped by unpleasant men, you don't quibble about whether or not you are actually a witch. You weigh the chances of a potentially unjust conviction with a horrible outcome against the chances that your lawyer will convince a jury that the charges are false, and if the odds are against you, you confess to being a witch in all the detail the prosecutor requests.

The harsher the punishment the defendant willingly accepts in the "plea bargain", the more likely the admission was made under the duress of an even more severe punishment. The accuracy of the details of the confession are equivalent to a confession under torture. In torture, the punishment begins and in agony you are willing to confess to anything in hope that the punishment will stop. In the plea bargaining system, you are threatened with a terrible punishment and confess to anything in hopes that the punishment will not start. In neither case should the details of the confession be treated as true.

So while I presume this agent did lots of bad things, and probably stole the bitcoins in question, realize that the details of the admission are a just a plausible story written by someone wielding great power, signed under duress by a defendant justifiably scared of this power. In the absence of outside evidence, the exact details should no more be treated as "true" than the dying confessions of a man broken on the wheel.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am not a lawyer but I wonder about the legal basis behind it. Bitcoins are not a legal currency. If you copy a software it is also not "stealing" but has to do with copyright and special laws (in the codified law systems) had to be made up for this.

I am curious if we have a lawyer here who can comment on this from a legal perspective. Again, Common Law and codified law may be very different here.

<comment><USER19> If I social engineer you to transfer money from your bank account to mine, did I do anything illegal? Only bits moved around in the bank database.

Same here.

<comment><USER18> You obviously know nothing about law, at least codified law.

<comment><USER19> In case it wasn't clear, I think that is illegal, and that it disproves the argument "bits therefore legal".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> He has been charged with money laundering. Is using a bitcoin tumbler illegal?

<comment><USER21> It's the laundering money part that's illegal. Like toothpicks aren't inherently illegal but if you use one to kill someone, then that's illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> you guys are missing the point..

Should the US prosecutor be allowed to withhold evidence of this crime when the SilkRoad founder was tried and sentenced..I say no as oges towards the idea of entrapment, etcf

<comment><USER23> Can you expand on how this would relate to entrapment? The story doesn't seem to indicate that the scam induced DPR to commit a crime he otherwise might not have engaged in.

<comment><USER24> He was enticed into a the murder for hire scheme by the agent who was stealing from the evidence, by pinning the theft on the object of the murder for hire plot. Doesn't get much dirtier than that.

<comment><USER23> Is there any evidence for that?

<comment><USER24> Yes. In the case against Mark Force.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this grounds to give Ulbricht a new trial?

<comment><USER8> No. Ulbricht was charged in multiple jurisdictions for multiple crimes. Force was not involved in the trial in which Ulbricht was convicted, and the murder- for-hire charges were not brought up during the trial.

The murder-for-hire charges were brought up during the _sentencing_ phase (after guilt was adjudicated). Normally, judges generally use the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to determine the length of a federal prison sentence, so that sentences are "normalized" across crimes and defendants. (The Guidelines are no longer mandatory, after the 2005 _Booker_ case.) Judges will also consider evidence calling for a reduced (or extended) sentence than the Guidelines would impose.

In this case, the Guidelines called for life imprisonment. The murder-for-hire charges were introduced at the sentencing hearings to counter evidence provided of Ulbricht's good character. Even if the murder-for-hire charges had not been brought up at sentencing, Ulbricht still faced life in prison. Bringing them up in sentencing merely sealed his fate.

<comment><USER7> >No. Ulbricht was charged in multiple jurisdictions for multiple crimes.

So you keep saying.

>The murder-for-hire charges were brought up during the sentencing phase (after guilt was adjudicated).

Guilt of crimes which according to you are not related.

>The murder-for-hire charges were introduced at the sentencing hearings to counter evidence provided of Ulbricht's good character.

Maybe they affected sentencing then? And since the testimony has been reduced from "let's convict Ulbricht of murder for hire" to "character witness hearsay from disgraced and corrupt federal agents who themselves provoked the alleged crimes by stealing many hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ulbricht"; can sentencing be revisited by the court, or is a new trial required?

<comment><USER8> _> No. Ulbricht was charged in multiple jurisdictions for multiple crimes.

So you keep saying._

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. You agree in other threads that Ulbricht was charged of separate crimes in New York and Maryland courts.

Guilt of crimes which according to you are not related.*

I'm not saying the crimes were unrelated at all. I'm saying that the sentencing phase of a trial is different from the guilt phase. In sentencing hearings, the normal rules of evidence are relaxed, so evidence that was excluded from trial can be considered.

 _Maybe they affected sentencing then?_

That's exactly what I'm saying, and that's the reason those allegations and underlying evidence were introduced at the sentencing hearing: to show that Ulbricht deserves to be locked up for a long time.

 _And since the testimony has been reduced from "let's convict Ulbricht of murder for hire" to "character witness hearsay from disgraced and corrupt federal agents who themselves provoked the alleged crimes by stealing many hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ulbricht"; can sentencing be revisited by the court, or is a new trial required?_

Separate case. Ulbricht was convicted of several counts, each of which by themselves would justify a 20+ year sentence or life sentence. It wasn't even necessary to bring up the murder-for-hire allegations. The prosecution only did that because Ulbricht's lawyer tried to argue that he was really just a good guy.

The sentencing can be appealed, but there's a 0% chance that he would succeed at reducing the sentence given that it's well within the established guidelines for crimes of this nature. It's also possible to appeal the underlying conviction, but there's almost 0% chance of that as well, since the murder-for-hire allegations and the acts of the corrupt Maryland federal agents were not relevant to the New York convictions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Screws Yahoo Board's Weekend; Gives Three Weeks To Decide - <AUTHOR> http://www.betadaily.com/2008/04/06/microsoft-screws-yahoo-boards-weekend-gives-three-weeks-to-decide/

<comment><USER2> Nope, Microsoft is definitely not resorting to shady tactics and intimidation, definitely not. Sigh, how typical.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best path to learn JavaScript as a beginner? - <AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News. I come from the world of Java and I never took JS seriously. I had previously used it to create websites using jQuery, etc but times have changed. JavaScript is popping up everywhere, so I decided to learn it last year. Unfortunately, I was extremely unsuccessful, since I finished learning ES5 and immediately decided to jump into frameworks such as React and Angular. Both confused the crap out of me, and then I saw VueJS (supposedly framework of the year) and that was a little easier for me.
But I still have a feeling that I'm going at learning JS the wrong way. For instance, TypeScript, Babel, and Webpack are very alien to me, even though they seem to be indispensable tools for writing safe, cross-browser apps.
What order do you recommend for learning the various aspects of JavaScript, and as an extension, front end development?
Thanks for your time. <comment><USER2> I am learning JS myself and here is the order that seems to work for me:

1\. DO not start with ANY framework. None. Forget about react, vuejs or whatever the flavor of the month is. Just don't pay attention to it.

1\. Start with plain ES5. One good resource:

[http://eloquentjavascript.net](http://eloquentjavascript.net)

2\. Once you have a good grasp of ES5, then learn ES6. Again, for ES6, don't worry about Babel or shit like that. Just learn the syntax and new things about ES6 and directly test in Chrome

3\. Learn how to compile ES6 into ES5 (Babel etc)

4\. Learn Typescript (the daddy of all). Typescript will convert to ES5 or ES6 both. So make sure your concepts of ES5/ES6/ES(n) are clear before you do typescript so that it is not all magic for you.

5\. Then, start learning about the bundlers and compilers like webpack and Babel etc. For bundlers, webpack is hot right now. Babel is good for ES6 to ES5 conversion but then again, typescript could take care of that.

6\. Finally, time for frameworks. Start with one. React is good. Vuejs is good. They are all good at something. By the time you are at this step and you did all the steps before it, you will know what you are doing.

My 2 cents. This could change depending on which month/year are we talking about :)

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate why you recommend starting with ES5 instead of going directly for ES6, which allows doing some things in a bit more sane way?

It's just as likely that OP won't ever write any ES5, if any ES5 code will be needed, then it will be generated/compiled.

<comment><USER2> Only reason is that ES5 is technically the supported version by all major browser as of today. Yes, you can write ES6 and compile to ES5 but I feel like there are lot of goodies in ES5 that you will miss if you do directly with ES6. Just a preference. I probably won't be saying this in next 2-3 years once ES6 is the norm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When learning about ES6, I found some nice videos on it. [https://youtu.be/yswb4SkDoj0](https://youtu.be/yswb4SkDoj0)

No facecam, gimmicks, or bad audio/voice. Simply just shows the code, its output, and outlines the logic.

<comment><AUTHOR> These tutorials look really helpful, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Im a huge fan of 'You Don't Know JS' by Kyle Simpson (getify)

[https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS](https://github.com/getify/You- Dont-Know-JS)

</comment><comment><USER6> In alignment to codegeek's recommendation, and depending on your conditions / preferences:

You can also pick up small gig building more (and better) websites for local businesses. There's always a dumpy restaurant wanting a new website for few hundred bucks. The time you would spend with a textbook / tutorial, you can also consider synchronously apply them to real life commercial use. Also, you know Java and probably a lot of backend / db stuffs... you can bundle the whole stack together and build business solutions too instead of just "websites". Like a simple restaurant POS UI, sends order to kitchen kind of system... again, depending on how much free time you have and willingness to code for little pay just to learn.

JS / Front End Dev is one of the best setup to pair up with small jobs like that IMO.

I can also recommend Douglas Crockford's book JavaScript: The Good Parts [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do)

Disclaimer: Never an academia kind of person, I take forever to go through any book. I found myself learn faster when I can go hands-on and fail within reasonable comforts. Now 15+ years into front end, I consider myself doing quite alright...

</comment><comment><USER7> Personally, the best resources that were invaluable to me were the Jon Duckett books called...

JavaScript and jQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development

[http://javascriptbook.com/](http://javascriptbook.com/)

and..

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites

[http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/](http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/)

The Javascript one gives a really solid foundation for learning Javascript from the ground up and front-end web development in general. Also there are practical examples of many things the beginner/average developer usually is tasked with building and doing.

There is also the companion book that he did a couple years earlier on HTML and CSS.

They are pretty much both the first things that show up on Amazon when you search for Javascript and jQuery as well as HTML and CSS, and best sellers in their respective category.

In terms of what you should start with, I'd recommend basic front-end development, but browser extensions are good too.

Hope that helps!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a very good starting point: [https://sivers.org/learn- js](https://sivers.org/learn-js). You can also check Wes Bos's courses that are well regarded (wesbos.com). Choose one path and stick to it. Once you finish and decide to learn React.js you may consider joining React in Flip Flops ([https://www.reactinflipflops.com](https://www.reactinflipflops.com)) [I am organising it]

</comment><comment><USER9> To add to what codegeek said, "Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja" by John Resig (the creator of jQuery) is also very good

[https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-JavaScript-Ninja-John- Resig/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-JavaScript-Ninja-John- Resig/dp/1617292850/ref=as_li_ss_tl?sa-no- redirect=1&linkCode=ll1&tag=adamnemecek03-20&linkId=0a0b18b990c8ab79a86e8ce1fa3008b7)

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.codecademy.com/](https://www.codecademy.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried Codecademy for Python, but their approach doesn't really teach you the concepts very well or in enough detail. For example, their AngularJS tutorial didn't explain how to set up tooling or how to structure an application. It just jumps into directives (I think?) without giving you much context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I never got as much as with this: [https://www.udemy.com/understand- javascript/](https://www.udemy.com/understand-javascript/).

It explains not only how things are,but why. This IMO is the key to understanding.</comment>


Show HN: Ear training site for Guitarists - <AUTHOR> https://www.guitaristeartrainer.com <comment><AUTHOR> I made this site to test my ability to work out music by ear. All of the code and music files are on Github. Contributions welcome.

Since this is probably the only place anyone would care about technical details... This is hosted on Netlify and pushes to the Github repo update the site automatically. All of the audio and other files are being hosted from the Github repo.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think some explanatory text somewhere, how to train would be nice. Or lets put it this way, I tried to find the notes to play along, but i didn't notice myself making any improvements doing so.

Also, the reveal could show note names.</comment>


Linkli.st - <AUTHOR> http://linkli.st/ A new way to collect, organize, and share lists with links. <comment><USER2> The color scheme is hard to look at and it doesn't seem to do anything that delicious doesn't. What makes this notable?

<comment><USER3> I agree. The color scheme is really harsh. Tone it down a bit.</comment></comment>


O'reilly book cover generator - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/rly <comment><USER3> I got one!

[http://i.imgur.com/6N5hNrR.png](http://i.imgur.com/6N5hNrR.png)

Inspired by: [https://twitter.com/daisyowl/status/841802094361235456?lang=...](https://twitter.com/daisyowl/status/841802094361235456?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is the full list of @ThePracticalDev's ORLY covers: [https://github.com/thepracticaldev/orly-full- res](https://github.com/thepracticaldev/orly-full-res)

<comment><USER5> This one is ironic. [https://github.com/thepracticaldev/orly-full- res/blob/master...](https://github.com/thepracticaldev/orly-full- res/blob/master/featurecreep.gif)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The parody is amusing, but I think a good "Guide Text" really adds the finishing touch.

For instance:

\- Developer's guide to pretending to work.

Okay, might be kind of amusing.

Now try:

\- Developer's guide to pretending to work: a definitive guide

And it is much better.

In fact, the joke could be in the guide text:

\- Developer's guide to pretending to work: [TBD]

</comment><comment><USER7> I was, um, inspired to make this one: [https://imgur.com/a/cKC4f](https://imgur.com/a/cKC4f)

</comment><comment> mh- I wouldn't mind seeing some like this circulating given their recent decisions: [https://i.imgur.com/4QZNNM3.png](https://i.imgur.com/4QZNNM3.png)

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of this title...

[https://orly- appstore.herokuapp.com/generate?title=Throwing%...](https://orly- appstore.herokuapp.com/generate?title=Throwing%20Shade&top_text=Check%20yourself%20before%20you%20wreck%20yourself.%20&author=Robert%20Paulson&image_code=20&theme=9&guide_text=The%20Definitive%20Guide&guide_text_placement=bottom_right)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They should publish this one - [http://i.imgur.com/QggKfRp.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/QggKfRp.jpg)

then there's a bunch of good ones here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/orlybooks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/orlybooks/)

</comment><comment><USER10> OK, I'll play. [https://imgur.com/a/V0dMl](https://imgur.com/a/V0dMl)

<comment><USER11> I'd buy a book written by Mike Judge. Writer/producer of Office Space & Silicon Valley.

He's said in interviews that sometimes things are way more unbelievably crazy in real life Silicon Valley than any writer could come up with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I might make T-shirts out of some of my generated book covers. Coffee mugs anyone? This is great!

</comment><comment><USER13> Awh, it doesn't do Japanese kana. I wanted to make a "Learning Japanese - <USER2> those who don't wanna", with

「ウンーリダバア!」

i.e. "unreadable" at the top.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm disappointed that I didn't specify any guide text, hoping it would default, but I think the image it picked for my image is pretty great given my Top Text.

[http://i.imgur.com/sUMD51Y.png](http://i.imgur.com/sUMD51Y.png)

</comment><comment><USER15> Wonderful, I had been making O'Reilly joke covers by hand, and it's quite tedious

</comment><comment><USER16> As with many other services, this one doesn't like non latin characters: [https://goo.gl/photos/QFE2ipg2cCgWJUFm8](https://goo.gl/photos/QFE2ipg2cCgWJUFm8)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is great. Thanks for creating it. I'm trying to think of a better way to pick the animals and colors (color picker?) to make it a bit more convenient, but that's just a small detail.

</comment><comment><USER18> Tweeting with Confidence, authored by a certain D. Trump. [http://imgur.com/a/exBrf](http://imgur.com/a/exBrf)

<comment><USER19> We need an image of a wrestler: [https://imgur.com/a/taXHI](https://imgur.com/a/taXHI)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Salary as part of angel investment - <AUTHOR>

I am planning to start work on a new startup. But I don't have funds to pull me thru for more than 6 months. If I am able to get angel funding in that time, can I ask for some reasonable salary as part of the investment? Or can salary be included only in the VC rounds. I am very new to this and just want to find out how to go about it? <comment><USER2> If you can work without a salary, why do you need angel funding?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep track of your notes at work? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
I'm trying to find a tool/a way to add notes while I'm at work(code snippets mostly). For those of you who already do this can you recommend me one?
I tried gist.github.com, but I don't really like the UI. I'm checking boostnote.io, but I'm curious if there are better ways/tools for doing that. <comment><USER2> Emacs Org mode in a git repo. Pull /push to sync. Export as needed. Lots of little files per task or document.

I've tried every other software system and this is the one I come back to. Invest in getting this the way you like, and it'll pay off better than anything else. Custom agendas, remember mode, Babel export, the benefits just keep adding up.

For meeting notes, or quick todos, sometimes paper makes sense. Treat that paper as queued input for org mode.

For when you have to sit down and really think a complex problem through, high quality pen (fountain for me) and paper that just makes it feel good to write. The tactile feeling really helps nudge more out of you. When you have it figured out, refer to that when planning in org mode.

</comment><comment><USER3> Without too much effort, I keep a NOTES file in each project directory. I keep it out of source-control. Anything that is worth preserving (backed up and checked in) goes in README. I also use a file called SCRAP for ephemeral matters, again, in each project root, not checked in. A great pattern that has served me well.

<comment><USER4> Great system. I do something similar by creating a "_misc" folder out of source control. The "_" is so that alphabetically it is listed at the top and not intermixed with actual project folders.

I use it to store code snippets, prototyping scripts, misc notes that don't fit in my main folder system for notes/todos, query output, and other random items. If the _misc/ directory becomes too cluttered , then I throw most of the items into an "archive_$DATE" sub-directory (inside _misc).

I'm still working on a broader, general organization system for notes, documents, links, todos, etc... (lots of good ideas in this thread). But this works well for more ephemeral project-specific stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a stack of paper in front of me. When a page has been sufficiently doodled with checkbox lists, I either put them in an archive stack or I toss them in the bin.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use Quiver ([http://happenapps.com](http://happenapps.com))

Latex, markdown, code cells with full syntax highlighting for dozens of languages. File format is JSON based so an entire work notebook can be thrown in version control and shared between a team.

<comment><USER7> Also a big fan of Quiver. Anything I have to google twice goes into quiver as a code snippet. Trying to get in the habit of doing bullet points about what I worked on each day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> nvALT. ([http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/))

I've tried fancier things like Bear, Evernote, and Workflowy, but keep coming back to the simplicity of nvALT. Evernote is for recipes. Bear is for avoiding rich text editors. Workflowy is for logging research notes.

nvALT is for everything else + kitchen sink.

<comment><USER9> I use regular Notational Velocity. Didn't know about this fork, will have to try it out.

<comment><USER10> FSNotes is another NV-like alternative: [https://github.com/glushchenko/fsnotes](https://github.com/glushchenko/fsnotes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am quite happy with OneNote from Microsoft. It has decent enough Android, iOS and web versions as well and is free. Sadly I believe Microsoft are retiring the Win32 version in favour of UWP :(

</comment><comment><USER12> I was using BoostNote, then Quiver, then settled on VimWiki using Markdown instead of the native format for my entries. It's been invaluable and all of my notes are much more portable/transferable.. even as opposed to the cell- based JSON structures of the aforementioned.

</comment><comment><USER13> TiddlyWiki is pretty nice.

[https://tiddlywiki.com](https://tiddlywiki.com)

I used to use it regularly, though my notes aren't generally terribly organized and nowadays I just use disposable legal pads.

</comment><comment> bobby-dreamer Only one note pad file called worknotes.txt It starts like 20 '=' symbol on one line followed by date dd/mm/yyyy and in next line myNotes. Next day if I want to note down something again 20= followed by date and then notes. Like this I have been using same file for last 8 years in my current company.

<comment><USER14> I used to do the same, it works great. Super easy to find that random snippet or bit or information in Vim. The main reason I moved on (to Zim Wiki) was because my notes on the same subject became scattered around, instead of being organized by subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bear ([http://www.bear-writer.com](http://www.bear-writer.com)) supports Markdown and has cross-device sync via iCloud. It's not the best for _writing_ code but if you're copy/pasting existing code from another editor it's good.

<comment><USER16> Bear is great for organising notes. The style of #projects/open-source/react for example makes it really easy to be as broad or direct as necessary. Makes finding notes where you're not entirely familiar with the content much easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I use Zim Wiki ( [http://zim-wiki.org](http://zim-wiki.org) ). My requirements, which it fulfills perfectly, are: open source, non-proprietary format, text file storage (which I store inside Dropbox, so that solves syncing), cross-platform, hierarchical notes, some sort of markup for section headers, highlighting etc., links to other notes. Zim Wiki has many more features, but that's enough for me.

Drawbacks: its search functionality seems to miss stuff sometimes, though I haven't figured out why yet. So I'm used to using ag (silver searcher) when I can't immediately find something.

Edit: added cross-platform requirement

</comment><comment><USER17> Emacs with org-mode.

<comment><USER18> org-mode is too good though, I always find myself getting distracted by all the great things I can do to optimise the note-taking I'm not doing

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Paper and pen for when I listen to a podcast or audiobook or read a book. The key points that I want to keep for each '"project/hobby I make a Playbook (word file).

I used to use Evernote but privacy changed my mind (can't keep IT Sec notes for clients' systems on 3rd party.

Also tried MS OneNote but it gets to complicated after the 5fth project with 10 sheets each (although the search rocks)

I am now looking into Scrivener, it's a s/w for book writers but it helps keep things structured and you can move around notes, merge etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> I carry a PocketMod [http://pocketmod.com/](http://pocketmod.com/) with me, to the amusement of my colleagues.

I used to have a TiddlyWiki and then later a Wiki-On-A-Stick [http://stickwiki.sourceforge.net/](http://stickwiki.sourceforge.net/) in my DropBox, but they became a bit awkward to work with as the (non-standard) browser features they depended on for saving got removed.

These days I use Evernote.

<comment><USER21> PocketMod looks convenient. There's a LaTeX template to create them.

[https://www.overleaf.com/latex/examples/creating- pocketmods-...](https://www.overleaf.com/latex/examples/creating-pocketmods- with-latex/nqbhpnrkskrx)

<comment><USER21> This is a small script to create a PocketMod from a pdf.

        #!/usr/bin/env bash
        INPUT="$1"
        OUTPUT="$2"
        PAPERSIZE=a4
        pdftk "$INPUT" cat 2 3 4 5 1down 6-8down output "$OUTPUT"
        pdftops -level3 "$OUTPUT" in.ps
        psnup -p"$PAPERSIZE" -d -nup 8 in.ps out.ps
        ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE="$PAPERSIZE" out.ps "$OUTPUT"
        rm in.ps out.ps

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've used Simplenote ([https://simplenote.com/](https://simplenote.com/)) for years. Can recommend.

<comment><USER23> Seconding simplenote. Works across platforms (macos and android for me) plus web. Doesn't do anything clever, other than markdown integration and basic tagging, but what it does works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I use vim in a terminal after ssh-ing into my home server. I generally use one file for each project/tool and use grep to find stuff. When I type information about a tool I'll try and put "tags" about it after/near the information and then search for those tags with grep and return line numbers for I can go look it up. I've been doing this for 4 years now and it works pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER25> I use Microsoft OneNote. It has some great features, plays well with Outlook.

<comment><USER26> Same, I use OneNote for planning, brainstorming, and storing snippets and random important info. I don't have to worry whether I saved changes, unlike when I used Notepad++ and kept losing notes. I also do a lot of pen-and-paper scribbling, especially when working on an issue for a customer.

I can access OneNote via the web too, so I'm not limited to my Windows workstation for access to my notes (I use two Linux based laptops for inventory and other "on the go" tasks). I think it's one of the best applications to ever come out of Redmond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the code snippets are useful enough to me, I tend to add them to the repository under some title like "tools" or "scripts". That way other people can benefit from them and help improve them if they are useful. Otherwise the knowledge/time dies when I move away from the project.

Documentation wise, I use Markdown (religiously keeping it to 80 characters) and Pandoc to build any kind of output. Again, I normally just add this stuff to a Wiki somewhere. I've been terrible at keeping this stuff up to date, but for the most part it acts as a good starting point and either myself or someone else in the team can update it.

On a different note, I would be careful about adding content related to work to outside resources (run this by somebody). Personally I like to stay in control and not rely on some relatively small company still being around in 10 years time.

 _Edit:_ +1 also for using paper and pen for coming up with ideas, etc. Most things start there for me and then end up being digitized.

</comment><comment><USER28> I use Gollum ([https://github.com/gollum/gollum](https://github.com/gollum/gollum)) which is the engine for Github's wikis.

It used to be harder to stand it up for personal use, but now it's quite easy.

I write my notes in Markdown, and have fenced code blocks. It provides search. You can do diffs.

</comment><comment><USER29> Work notes I have separated by subject across various text files, using ### to delineate a topic. I then use Sublime Text 3 find in all open files (has regex option) as my notes can overlap the way they're separated.

Google Keep is what I use when I need to make a fast note to look up something later with no urgency.

I'll use PushBullet to push a link or something from my phone to my desktop for when I'm back at that device (I have it setup on my phone/laptop/chromebook).

For focused writing, I'll use a vim plugin called Goyo ([https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim](https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim)).

I think I'm a bit of a mess but this is actually a refinement of systems. One day it'll be perfect!

</comment><comment><USER30> I've tried many notes application but the setup that works best for me is to collect all notes under one root directory (organized by project) and point sublime text to that root director. Powerful editing and easy to search. Sync via a remote git repository.

<comment><USER31> What do you use to search?

<comment><USER30> I search from within the text editor. I'm on a Mac so the files are searchable via Spotlight as well.

I usually have this sublime window open in a separate Desktop so it is easy to switch to it.

<comment><USER32> Yes this. Ctrl/super+shift+f is the hotkey as it is usually, which defaults to the folder the file is in. You can right click a folder in the file tree on the left to search within that folder, or modify the folder you're searching in. Another useful trick is to add a ", *.<filetype>" after the directory you're searching to limit the files.

The best part of searching in Sublime is the speed and the formatting of the results. It opens a "Find Results" tab just like another file, and it accumulates all you're searches there. Very fast and easy to browse.

I use Sublime for notes too, not because I think it's a really good way for taking notes, but more along the lines of the legal pad note takers: I just needed to jot stuff down quickly and didn't want to hassle with anything. I already edit code in sublime, so it's comfortable for me to always have it open.

I always have a window with just my notes folder open, and I make a new file for each day I take notes, named after the day. I do waste some time flipping through files, but there aren't that many to go through, and the search is there to deep dive into the entire history.

Sublime has always been quick to restore anything I haven't saved. On Windows it has a session file in AppData/Roaming or something. I did get bit by running out of hard drive space during Windows updates, and the session file ended up empty. Lost everything in it (unsaved files, open windows/files, searches).

I have found that Sublime is pretty slow with opening files on network drives. I still use notepad++, partially for that reason. I've also had a better time dealing with whitespace characters there, so I use it for random of commands and I/O I'm working with.

<comment><USER4> You can also search the "search results tab" using single file search. Sublime is such a great tool.

> I use Sublime for notes too... I always have a window with just my notes > folder open, and I make a new file for each day I take notes, named after > the day.

Nice, we've converged on the same solution. I do daily plain text note files, and organize them into weekly folders. I sometimes create multiple per day if I'm working on more than one thing, or I want to dive deeper on one aspect.

For example: "4-12.txt" (the general one for the day), "4-12 Foo Schema.txt", "4-12 Baz Feature List.txt"

Sometimes I'll use markdown files instead of plain text if I want better readability. I'll switch from Sublime Text to the Typora markdown viewer/editor for those files. Typora is a pretty impressive tool as well. The nice thing about markdown that these files are still readable in Sublime, so I can switch between the two tools easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Following a comment I saw on HN a few months ago, I started keeping a daily log for my professional work. It contains what I did that day but also include code snippets and other interesting tidbits I need remembered.

It's a simple text file so I can easily search in it. But I use the 'jrnl' python script to help me append to it or view the lasts entries.

I found the practice very helpful, it helps me track the previous days or if I had to stop in the middle of a task but also help my work/life balance.

I usually set aside the last ten minutes of works to fill it. And if I had to leave in a rush I just send myself a mail from the train so I can append it the next morning.

I don't sync it and just leave it on my computer at work.

</comment><comment><USER34> I write either plaintext or Markdown files and save them to Dropbox.

When I need to write from my phone or tablet, I use the Editorial app for iOS, which can read and write these files and sync with Dropbox as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> With nuclino([http://nuclino.com](http://nuclino.com)). It's a real time, collaborative markdown wiki.

</comment><comment><USER36> [https://tiddlywiki.com/](https://tiddlywiki.com/) !!!

</comment><comment><USER37> I wrote about how I manage my time here:

[https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my- time/](https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my-time/)

Basically, vim and notes in asciidoc on my home server stored in git.

</comment><comment><USER38> Qownnotes has been working well for me of late.

It can synchronise with Own/NextCloud (I don't use that) and/or a local folder full of markdown files (with git versioning if you like).

[http://www.qownnotes.org/](http://www.qownnotes.org/)

</comment><comment><USER39> I always think of things on the way home from work, or on the weekend, that I want to remember. So I need something that I can synchronize from my phone. I was using OneNote for a while, but it started having synchronization problems so I now use the Apple Notes app.

</comment><comment><USER40> I just started using Evernote. The only thing I don't like about it is no Markdown support.

I also have my own private visualstudio.com environment - MS Team Foundation Services hosted version. (yes it uses GIT). It has a wiki that uses Markdown.

</comment><comment> house9-2 I use a single text file per application/project. On a Mac, so I have this file open all the time in TextWrangler. Cmd+f to search for what I need.

I have tried other more complicated things but always end up back to basics.

</comment><comment><USER41> Confluence is where I put everything that isn't in source control.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've tried a lot of alternatives and haven't found anything that works better for storing scattered notes (like different kinds of code snippets) than an SQL database.

</comment><comment><USER43> I made a wiki that I render with GitBook. I edit it in Sublime Text with vim mode.

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz)

</comment><comment><USER44> Another quiver user here. I really wish it were cross platform. One of these days, I'm going to make a web app interface to it for when I have to use a pc.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://notein.com](https://notein.com) \- open source, simple and powerful

</comment><comment><USER46> I use boostnote.io ([https://boostnote.io](https://boostnote.io)).

</comment><comment><USER47> I used Evernote for sometime but the UI is kind of wonky. Now, going for ol' plain white paper.

</comment><comment><USER48> Pasteapp for Mac/iOS. All my snippets are in my clipboard history and pinned snips.

</comment><comment><USER49> Composition notebooks and pencils. Paper and pencil helps me focus better.

</comment><comment><USER50> when I dumped Evernote over their pricing years ago I switched to DS Note since I owned a Synology NAS. It's got free mobile, desktop, and web apps to accompany it if you already own the hardware

</comment><comment><USER51> Ulysses. Code snippets coming in new version (beta now)

</comment><comment><USER52> Use a mix of Asana, paper, and Google docs.

</comment><comment><USER53> I use notepad++

I have tried everything else. Believe me.

</comment><comment><USER54> Jupyter and github/bitbucket

</comment><comment><USER55> notion.so is great: wiki, version control, nice UI

</comment><comment><USER56> Google calendar

</comment><comment><USER57> dropbox paper</comment>