Hack day project: "Sprint – the card game" - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.talis.com/articles/sprint-the-card-game/

<comment><USER2> Neat game, really an abstract card game with the chrome of designing apps. I can imagine it working very well. The special cards might need handling carefully as they might be too powerful! Play testing is the best way to spot those problems.</comment>


A Multibillion-Dollar U.S. Spy Agency Few Know Exists - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-multibillion-dollar-u-s-spy-agency-you-havent-heard-of-trump/ <comment><USER2> Why is this a political hit piece instead of an article? Thanks for the two facts about the agency, but were half dozen or so attacks on the POTUS really necessary? If anything, the previous POTUS, a constitutional scholar that campaigned on ending domestic surveillance, has recently relaxed the rules on espionage by allowing non-intelligence agencies to access surveillance data. Furthermore, I don't think it's fair to turn an article about a little-known government agency into bullshit click bait propaganda. Either title the post "look at what Trump can do with the nation's aerial and spatial espionage agency" or make it substantially about that. This is pure click bait garbage, and it is disguised as being of interest to this community to spread propaganda. I would be fine with an opinion or two thrown in there, but making the first two paragraphs about the agency and the rest of it an opinion and hit piece is just a waste of everyone's time. Thanks for the garbage post.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, but I did think the article was still good. You can ignore the talking points in it and it stands on its own. It's possible that this was revised number of times, and the author was either more or less heavy handed on the political side. FP Magazine hates Trump, if you've read their publication, so this is no surprise. The biggest eye roll moment for me was Trump targeting "Black Lives Matter" like he would foreign terrorists.

<comment><USER4> Well over half of the article is nothing but speculation designed for fearmongering among their audience (who are undoubtedly extremely liberal, judging from the other Trump articles on their site).

<comment><USER5> It depends on the author and subject, FP has some decent writing and some excellent geopolitical analysis.

Although I haven't been reading it as much since the election - maybe the editors are pushing the anti-Trump angle hard like NYTimes has been shamelessly doing recently. It's writers are very 'internationalist' and focused on geopolitical diplomacy so a lot of them are falling under the 'I'm appalled at Trump and must bring it up at every moment to show that America is still okay'.

It's tough being a news junkie and not being a typical foaming at the mouth US mainstream liberal these days (which to the surprise of many in that category does not make one a right wing Trump supporter, nor American for that matter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not for lack of effort that NGA is not more widely known. In fact NGA has a pretty great portal for NGA specific consumer applications which leverage unclassified GEOINT capabilities:

[https://apps.nga.mil/Home](https://apps.nga.mil/Home)

Not all are great, but some of the apps are really useful and valuable.

It's a huge and hugely valuable organization that has started to become the analysis backbone for current intelligence - largely because decision makers want photos.

The AF and NRO run the satellite system, but pretty much everything valuable that is in Low Earth Orbit that takes "pictures" is processed and analyzed through the NGA - then fused and productized with all source data from CIA/DIA/NSA.

Truly invaluable organization - if bloated (like everything in the USG).

<comment><USER7> yeah, the headline sounds sinister but more likely mundane truth is NGA finally got a marketing/PR budget, and landed a story in FP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The NGA is up there with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in lack of public exposure. The NRO launches a lot of the satellites the NGA also uses for GEOINT and spying in general. NRO launches are part of the public record, but their missions are almost never revealed, and all clandestine in nature. The launch craft and missions are frequently given ... frankly villainous names and logos ... I wish I was jesting, but take a look for yourself: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches) . I don't know how else to describe a mission with a motto like "Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach" with a Cthulu-entity as the figurehead - for a government agency mission no less.

People are always sort of disbelieving when I show them this sort of thing, in plain day. I can't figure out how the media has managed to never capitalize on this.

<comment><USER9> Missile squadrons also have creepy patches. Like this: [http://m.ebay.com/itm/221802923522?_mwBanner=1](http://m.ebay.com/itm/221802923522?_mwBanner=1)

<comment><USER10> I think the mission patches are quite clever...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually it's very well known in terms of MASIN and GEOINT. I once even interviewed with them back in the day, and they don't do a lot to hide their presence. I think they're not in the news a lot because what NGIA does and what Google and a lot of private satellite imagery companies do, is really the same.

<comment><USER6> As a point of reference, NGA is the National Intelligence Manager (NIM) for GEOINT, while DIA is the NIM for MASINT.

[1][https://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/faq?start=2](https://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/faq?start=2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >With the capability to watch an area of 10 or even 15 square miles at a time, it would take just two drones hovering over Manhattan to continuously observe and follow all outdoor human activity, night and day.

This is not correct. Manhattan has tall buildings which are a great defense against arial surveillance. They also do not do active monitoring. So if you travel more than 10 - 15 miles, you would end up entering or exiting their surveillance radius, which means they couldn't link your entire set of actions together.

Further, the resolution is not very good. They can currently trace back cars and humans walking, but the features are not great. So if you were to board a bus and exit the bus, and you weren't wearing some very distinct color (or you took off your jacket), you would be lost to them.

The company that provides this service is called PSS. I do not like them very much. [1]

1\. [https://www.pss-1.com/](https://www.pss-1.com/)

<comment><USER13> They can track your location by looking at the current cell id of you phone connection (also a much better way of identification) so what's the point of these drones?

Also there are lots of CCTV cameras at every corner for tracking people without a cell phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Page 60 of _Coup d 'État_ by Edward Luttwak describes a large number of US intelligence agencies, the nominal hierarchy, and (I think) the actual hierarchy.

The NGA is in there, interestingly, along with a bunch of others I never thought existed.

<comment><USER15> Care to list it here?

<comment><USER16> It lists 21 distinct agencies:

* Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)

* Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

* National Security Agency (NSA)

* Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI)

* Border and Customs Service Intelligence Unit [Homeland]

* US Coast Guard Intelligence [Homeland]

* Office of Homeland investigations [Homeland]

* Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) [State]

* Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence [Treasury]

* Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) [Defense]

* National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

* National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

* US Cyber Command

* US Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (ISR)

* National Air and Space Reconnaissance Center (NASIC)

* US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)

* National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) [Army]

* US Marine Core Intelligence Activity (MCIA)

* US Navy Department's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

* FBI National Security Branch [Justice]

* Office of National Security Intelligence of Drug Enforcement Administration (ONSI DEA) [Justice]

Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, Revised Edition (2016) by Edward N. Luttwak. Pages 60-62

[http://amzn.to/2nlZrDC](http://amzn.to/2nlZrDC)

The first edition (1968) is timeless, but the revised edition (2016) is amazingly on-point and is updated to reflect the structural changes which have occurred in the half century since it's first printing. It's only 300-odd pages, highly recommended.

<comment><USER17> _US Marine Core Intelligence Activity (MCIA)_

Is that a... bureaucratic pun?

<comment><USER18> A misspelling, as Google will quickly confirm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure I did a ton of work for these folks. In about 1994 or 1995 was the boss a woman? If so, yeah, I know these people and have some stories that I can share because in spite of their desire to get me to get clearance, I didn't. Which was a good choice on my part but wasn't that clear at the time.

If these are the same people, in 1994 they could read 3 inch headlines from a satellite. That was the stuff I worked on.

Edit: in reading through the thread I wonder if the people I knew were the NRO.

</comment><comment><USER20> Are journalists just going to do this with every agency in the IC now? FEW KNOW THAT THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT TRACKS MONEY LAUNDERING, COULD TRUMP COME AFTER YOUR WELLS FARGO ACCOUNT?

<comment><USER21> Actually it's the Secret Service that tracks money laundering. Contrary to popular belief, that is actually their main job -- protecting the currency of the United States. Protecting the President is just their side job.

You're partly right though -- up until 2003 they were part of the Treasury department, but they were re-orged into DHS when it was created.

But your point is still valid.

<comment><USER22> You're partly right: Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is one of the lead agencies that combat money laundering. There's a huge amount of overlap though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This agency is not secret; in fact, Google Earth (aka Keyhole) was a startup they backed:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole,_Inc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole,_Inc)

</comment><comment><USER24> All that copy and they don't even mention the NRO, who design and operate satellite sources the NGA depends upon.

<comment><USER25> > In 1961, the CIA and the Air Force jointly formed a centralized > administrative office to run the spy satellite program. This was the > National Reconnaissance Office, an organisation so secret that even today > [1982] its very name is considered classified information. (p.243)

> \-- James Bamford: THE PUZZLE PALACE, 1982.

[http://n3krozoft.com/_xxbcf67373.TMP/NSA/nro.html](http://n3krozoft.com/_xxbcf67373.TMP/NSA/nro.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm no fan of trump or his propensity to bend the rules. But this article is prophecizing doomsday scenarios with far too much gusto to be taken seriously.

Yes, I learned of a stealthily intelligence agency, but also learned that today's news outlets don't really have editorial integrity

</comment><comment><USER27> Side note: the 'persistent stare' tech mentioned in the article used to go under the evocative aegis: 'gorgon stare'.

</comment><comment><USER28> >The NGA is to pictures what the NSA is to voices. Its principal function is to analyze the billions of images and miles of video captured by drones in the Middle East and spy satellites circling the globe.

Eh, what? What does the National Reconnaissance Office do, then? I thought that was their job.

<comment><USER17> It seems like the NRO build and operate the platforms, and the NGA has the analysts that task them and look at the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here's the video referenced in the intro where Obama doesn't know what the NGA is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC7tG48iTj4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC7tG48iTj4)

<comment><USER30> I misread the "Five Guys" as "Five Eyes" in the video title.

Five Eyes Burgers & Fries would actually be a great name for some joint operation/meeting/etc.

<comment><USER31> Murders and Spies, I think is the parody

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Googling "NGA" gets me the following, in order:

1\. A Chinese gaming forum

2\. The spy agency's official Twitter mouth piece

3\. The spy agency's own website

4\. National Governors Association

5\. Spy agency's Wikipedia article

That's some fine reverse-SEO work right there.

<comment><USER33> If you didn't know the agency exists, how would anyone know what to Google for?

<comment><USER34> Maybe by noticing their official Twitter account.

I mean, if you were trying to hide, that seems like an obvious thing to cut out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "The NGA is to pictures what the NSA is to voices. Its principal function is to analyze the billions of images and miles of video captured by drones in the Middle East and spy satellites circling the globe. But because it has largely kept its ultra-high-resolution cameras pointed away from the United States, according to a variety of studies, the agency has never been involved in domestic spy scandals like its two far more famous siblings, the CIA and the NSA."

The rest is political fluff.

</comment><comment><USER36> (editing comment since it is inaccurate)

For those interested, the original Youtube interaction is in the link posted in the child comment.

[2]: [http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2009/05/in-which- the...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2009/05/in-which-the- president-discovers-an-american-intelligence-agency-at-five-guys-018755)

<comment><USER32> I think you're just watching the wrong part of the video. This part[0] matches the transcript word by word.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1TxMKaYHYA#t=5m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1TxMKaYHYA#t=5m55s)

<comment><USER36> Thank you! I will edit my comment accordingly. I listened to the video and it was driving me mad that I couldn't find that part.

That was the timestamp in the Politico post, but I missed the conversation.

I guess that Five Guys is popular with the NGA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Few know exist" but publicly recruit at most Universities in the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER38> "one million terabytes per day" from two drones. The private sector should get their hands on This RF technology.

Edit: this was a joke. I imagine that is getting close to the Shannon limit with available RF spectrum.

<comment><USER39> Even if it is possible to generate so much data, where would you store it? You would need to install 333 units of VNX5800 per day (each one stores 3PB): [https://store.emc.com/en-us/Solve-For/STORAGE- PRODUCTS/VNX58...](https://store.emc.com/en-us/Solve-For/STORAGE- PRODUCTS/VNX5800/p/VNX-VNX5800-storage-platform)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Note that the UK had had CCTV for years now, which is a lower tech version of the same thing. It's not all that hypothetical, and we can at least look to it for consequences.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this philosophically any different than London converting nearly every square meter with cameras? The technology is better but essentially it's an air camera system.

</comment><comment><USER41> If the US didn't hold this position, someone else would. Who would you rather be in control.

<comment><USER42> Someone else, definitely.

<comment><USER43> and then that someone else would be just as bad. No right answer.

<comment><USER42> I'd rather have the power spread out, than have it all in one country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Read the article and it made me think about just how long the US hegemony will last, it's array of tools deployed against the rest of humanity is vast:

\- It blackmails the rest of the globe with the biggest nuclear deterrence across land, sea, air and probably space.

\- It ensures trading routes remain open by muscling American naval and air superiority. Not to benefit others or play fair, it's there to benefit American interests.

\- It actively undermines and spies under 3 letter acronyms, including it's own citizens and allies to benefit American corporarchy [1]

\- It consistently outspends the rest of the world combined on it's military upkeep which guarantees it's #1 postion.

Just how long on earth will such superficially-democratic superpower maintain it's hegemony? It's like holding everyone hostage and telling them to trade with each other by selling their own clothing or body with the US taking a cut on every transaction.

This is fucked.

[1]: [http://amslang.enacademic.com/2064/corporarchy](http://amslang.enacademic.com/2064/corporarchy)

<comment><USER45> Your invective borders on hysterical and does not encourage anyone to believe that engaging with you on this topic will be productive.

If you don't like downvotes, feel free to post this to a web forum that doesn't implement them.

<comment><USER44> The value I got from reading your comment was nil. If you have nothing to add to the discussion, why do you contradict yourself by replying?

<comment><USER46> Except they aren't facts, certainly not as presented.

Consider, you state: _" blackmails the rest of the globe with nuclear deterrence"_

Blackmail is the threat to expose something the victim doesn't want to see exposed, in exchange for some price or service. Nuclear deterrence, is just that, deterrence. Meaning to mitigate (or deter) an adversary from attacking.

 _" it ensures trading routes remain open"_ \-- all nations with navies protect legitimate trade from pirates, there are ships from at least a half dozen navies protecting cargo from Somali pirates for example.

 _The US uses its intelligence agencies to undermine the constitution in the service of corporate interests_ [paraphrased, if you don't agree feel free to correct my interpreatation] -- The US certainly doesn't do this as a matter of policy, if you know of a different policy it would help your case to actually include it as a citation.

 _" it outspends the rest of the world on defense"_ \-- In terms of real dollars or in terms of percentage of GDP? The last time I checked as a percentage of GDP, Israel outspent everyone else but I haven't looked in a while. There is also an economic size effect here, the US spends more (in real dollars) than any other country on social programs as well (for example). You probably want to stick to per capita numbers though if you're doing nation- state comparisons.

There are lots of things you can say about the US that are both facts, and make the country look bad, but the choices you made aren't facts so they have a hard time persuading the reader of your 'hegemony' thesis.

<comment><USER44> So who bombed Hiroshima?

which oil rich part of the world do you think they were raining bombs from aircraft carriers?

Who spies on US allies and their corporations to benefit American ones?

Who spends more than the US on the military?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5? - <AUTHOR> Title says it all.
How did you escape your 9 to 5 job to start your own business?
I am curious about how you effectively spent your time while having a full time job and a side business and at what time did you decide to take the full plunge. <comment><USER2> My story. I worked my ass off for 10+ years, saved a little bit of extra cash after paying off most loans and then bought an online business that I was interested in.

I tried doing both for 2 months in parallel. One day I woke up and said "F*k this. I am done. Gotta quit". I then went to my boss and gave him the notice. I did calculate my risks as the business was just bringing in enough to keep me floating (with 2 kids and a wife). However on Day 1, my income was down by almost 75% (ouch, wifey was not quite happy but she supported)

Been 2 years since then and never been happier. It is tough, income is still less than I what I made in my cushy job but I will not give it up for that 9-5 bullshit. No more traffic to deal with (I hardly drive during rush hours now), no more commute (I work from where ever i want, mostly home office), I can take time off if I want or I could work on weekends if I want. The business runs 24-7 but I Don't have to.

Of course, not everyone is in a similar situation but we all have a path if you really want to do it. Bottomline is that you have to really really want this. It is almost like an addiction to do your own thing and not work in a shitty (Even if highly paid) 9-5 job. My job was so easy barring the shit commute. I could go in, talk to users all day, run projects, write some code and at the end of the day, I will get a big fat paycheck. People loved me at my job. I loved them back. Easy as hell. But I didn't want that anymore. I was not up to it anymore. I wanted to quit my "cushy" job.

<comment><USER3> "... and then bought an online business ..."

Where do you find businesses to buy? Is there a site for this or is it just a word of mouth thing? I'm curious.

<comment><USER4> Feinternational.com has been recommended here often.

<comment><USER5> Also flippa.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It was just brute force.

I worked every evening, every weekend, on the tube on the way to and from the office. During my lunch hours. My coworkers knew not to interrupt me during lunch, because I always took a sandwich to the same desk, put my headphones on, and worked.

Have you seen that comic "You must burn", that's exactly it. It's painful, there's moments of crippling self doubt, there's moments when you'd rather be doing literally anything else, but you must burn through them. [https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you- must-...](https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you-must- burn_1024x1024.jpg)

I had several failures. I launched an iPad app that failed. I launched several webapps that failed. In total, 4 "product launches" that failed and crashed and burnt, and countless more mini-projects that never finished or caught traction.

It took me years to get my first B2B client, but once I got it, I didn't have to work ever again, now I have 5 clients, and am concentrating on launching new products and growing and partnering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this the article you are referencing?

[http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on- fire.html](http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on-fire.html)

Cause that picture is now my new wallpaper...

Also it sounds like you have a similar path to mine. Launch stuff, fail, launch again stop mid way when no traction, launch, fail.

Mind if I ask what you are doing that having 5 clients is all you need to be self-sufficient?

<comment><USER6> Yes that's the article! I love that picture too.

I am doing media monitoring, I collect vast amounts of data on social networks, p2p, rss, webscraping ... then built reporting tools on top of it - high level trend reporting, customer segmentation for acquisition and brand targeting, planogram computing based on collaborative filtering, an entire media and brand intelligence platform.

I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)

<comment><USER7> > I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k > a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and > have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)

Please teach me how to do this. I will pay you for your time.

<comment><USER6> I'm developing a Deep Learning platform that helps with rapid data ingestion and model creation and training, all with a web GUI. It's intended to be an "accelerator" to take all of the boring engineering out and allows you to focus on the data science.

I'm about 1-2 weeks away from launching into beta, if you're interested I can provide you with a machine, a license for the platform, and consulting on how to search for profitable strategies.

My contact details are in my profile :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Put simply: Being in control of my own time, day rate, and outgoings.

I grew up in a very entrepreneurial environment, so after university I took a full-time job for 12 months (as a junior dev) then went freelance. I started cheap and upped my rate by £50 for every new project I took.

During the 10 years I've been freelancing I also came up with my quality of life ratio, which is: How long does it take me to earn a month's rent? This balances both increasing my day rate with reducing my outgoings. It currently takes me 4 hours to earn a month's rent.

I currently work for around 3 months per year, which gives me cash to spare. I also live in a communal warehouse. I had to build my own bedroom (which now looks awesome), but rent + communal food + bills comes out at about 1/2 - 1/3 what most would pay.

I've also spent a few years running my own startups during this time. None were what I would call successful, but neither did any afford me the quality of life that freelancing does.

I loose around 50% - 75% of prospective work because I'm too expensive, but that is fine and something I account for. I also have a number of more junior developer friends I can field this work off to.

With my free time (and funds) I'm currently working on setting up a community in rural Portugal.

<comment><USER9> Since you're only working 3 months per year & assuming those are consecutive, how much time/effort do you need to queue up another 3 months of work after being out of the game for 9 months? Having to keep your profile/reputation fresh and letting existing/new clients know seems nearly impossible.

<comment><USER8> I tend to take on one significant project per year, i.e. on that looks good on the CV. Generally work comes along through word of mouth, but if I'm getting itchy for work I'll start mentioning it to old clients/colleagues etc.

I generally also spend some time off working on my own open source projects too. Reading HN helps me stay up-to-date too :-)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you have a very solid reputation and network. Nice job!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> After college I spent six years working at a good tech company. In addition to a lot of great learning, it allowed me to build a big financial cushion. I continued living on a graduate-student-like budget with a software engineer salary, so I saved about half my after-tax income.

This generates one year of runway for every year worked. But my savings also grew thanks to some solid investments, so after six years I had ten years of runway.

Over the subsequent four years I spent down about 30% of my savings while working on startups of my own (I made some revenue, I took some small angel investment). Relationships and expertise that I built in the process allowed me to pivot into running a lucrative consultancy.

Before somebody says "you can only do that if you're young and unattached", I will add that I got married before I finished school, and our first child was born the same year I quit my tech industry job.

<comment><USER11> That is highly impressive. I would like to be able to save 50% of my net income, but I have found that I have very little control over spending and end up saving only around 20%.

<comment><USER12> That means that for each five months working, you build up reserves enough to last you one month without working. It's not a lot, but it's something. Now make some effort to push it to a 33% savings rate, and for each three months worked, you'll have one month of expenses saved. And so on. At some point, it becomes a game of cutting expenses and raising income.

If you get to live on 20/25% of your income and invest the rest, in 5 to 6 years you should have enough invested to pay your expenses for the rest of your life, assuming an yearly average return of 4% over inflation. This formula was made popular by Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme blog/book/forum/wiki: [http://earlyretirementextreme.com](http://earlyretirementextreme.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was employed by a big US tech company in France (8+ years). I left a few months ago to grow my own startup.

I've been working on the side project for 3 years before that. It's a SaaS web + mobile app. I worked on this project in my spare time (nights and sometimes during weekends). It was solving a problem that I was dealing with personally and I bet I was not the only one. The great thing with a side project is that you have no pressure and you can code features fast at the beginning. It was still a lot of work though but you don't feel it when it's your baby.

When it started to get traction (feedback from users is critical at this point) and some healthy revenue, I decided to take the plunge. France give you the opportunity to continue to earn something like 70% of your previous revenue (estimation, there are calculations rules) for 2 years in the case you create a new business.

I believe I found the motivation because my daily job was project manager but my side project was more of a developer job. Coding your own product without all the pain that a PM needs to resolve was a breath of fresh air. Combining the two competencies was also an advantage for learning to be an entrepreneur (even though I was more of a newbie as a developer compared to the devs I was working with in my previous company).

Now I'm enjoying it, I hired a few interns and joined an incubator in Paris.

<comment><USER14> Whoa whoa whoa, tell me more about the thing with France and collecting a percentage of your previous salary. How does all of that work? Who pays for it?

<comment><USER13> It's paid by the state while you look for another job (national employment agency). If your plan is to create a new company instead of looking for a new job you can get the aid as well. They'll usually leave you (almost) alone as long as you prove that you created a company and that you're not getting any salary of course.

It's great and something that doesn't make the news so much. It could be viewed as a state funding program. The state will get back much more in taxes and employment when and if the startup takes off.

<comment><USER14> Wow, that's neat. I'm assuming there are regulations around it, like being a French national or something along those lines?

Either way, thanks for pointing this out. That's an incredible benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Personlly, I have a family, mortgage, and full time job as a developer. I did an hour a day of 'car coding' with my laptop tethered to my cell phone, an hour here or there in the evenings and weekends. Took about 6 months to build an MVP and launch. Still working 9-5 though, and tweaking the product and message. I wrote up some details below.

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com/zero-to-mvp-thirty-minutes- at-a...](https://email@example.com/zero-to-mvp-thirty-minutes-at-a- time-d4661446e081)

</comment><comment><USER16> Almost all of these replies involve growing a side project at home while remaining employed. I was under the impression most employers (at least in tech) do not allow this. Aren't you worried that your former employer will come knocking when your successful, asserting ownership over what you built? Where do you find companies that are cool with this? I've asked about tolerance of side-projects during interviews and have always got very clear, unambiguous "Work on only our company's stuff or GTFO" responses.

Also curious about how many of the "saved <double digit> percent of my salary for years" stories happened in the Bay Area with its impossible cost of living. And if so, did you do this with a family? How? I consider my lifestyle extremely frugal, yet I couldn't imagine saving enough capital to start a business in 10 or even 20 years.

<comment><USER17> I've refused to sign employment contracts which push all "IP" into the employers ownership saying things like "You don't get to own my graphic-novel or my band's songs or whatever just coz you pay me to write some web-app"

I've never had them refuse to amend that clause in the face of that. Maybe it's different outside the UK.

If they did refuse to amend, I'd continue the job hunt basically. I probably don't wanna work for a company that inflexible anyway.

Also, contracting works well for owning your own IP. Contractor clients appreciate you have other clients too and don't usually even try to demand exclusive ownership of the product of your mind.

<comment><USER18> I once had an employer try to get me to agree to let them use my name, voice, and likeness for any purpose whatever (including _specifically_ for marketing purposes). I told them I refuse to let them use those things for _any_ purpose outside the company and I got an amended contract that same day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I essentially used the 4 hour workweek script and am somewhere in the middle of that timeline, setting up my business now. 1. Figured out how to get all of my work done super fast 2. Started taking days off and working remotely using my above efficiency skills to put more and more time into my side project while still meeting all of my deadlines and obligations 3. Negotiated a remote and part time contract that only has me in the office 3 days a week. 4. Grind.

I'm still in the setup phase of my business (a hydroponics farm/green wall installations) but being able to devote entire days to getting going has been immensely helpful.

I started working the new contract about a month and a half ago. It was hard staying focused at first and I was a little too happy - go - lucky with my newfound freedom (Overwatch). So, while I was getting everything done for my 9-5, I've been moving slowly on the farm. Things have been better these past two weeks and I'm excited to get cranking in a serious way.

I should note that before I had even considered building a business or taking this step, I'd been doing research for the past 4 or so years that started my last semester in undergrad. I'd also done many small scale, non commercial projects for different clients in the evenings/weekends before I made the jump. Like another poster, to me, this is the equivalent to grad school. I could spend a bunch of money on an MBA and learn some things, or I could start this business, learn hands on, and potentially walk away with profit instead of debt.

<comment><USER20> >> 1\. Figured out how to get all of my work done super fast

I always assumed that, as developers, we couldn't afford to automate writing code (as Tim's proposition is originally to automate the income), and so you do your work faster. Can you comment how you do that, how did you buy your remote time from that, etc.?

<comment><USER19> I'm not a developer, I'm a researcher. However, a big take away from the book for me that I'd imagine would apply to developers as well was not answering emails or going to meetings. He get's into how to do this politely and gradually, and it's definitely saved me time.

The gist of it is, generally, no matter how huffy the person at the other end is, what they're sending you is probably not an emergency. That being said, you can afford to batch your emails so you are only going through and responding to them once or twice a day as opposed to constantly losing your train of thought to reply to them or read them. This might not exactly apply to you, but reading 4hww got me to consciously think what sorts of things I might be able to cut. Actually taking the time to notice what those things are could help anybody I'd guess.

I got my remote time from that because I've been working at the same org for 2 years and have kept track of my wins/successes. I've gotten a lot of those because I've learned to be more efficient using ideas like the ones above. Over those two years, I've also noticed that our org has a problem retaining mid level employees and so I was able to leverage that when talking about remote time as well.

So I'm not automating my income, but I am saving time by cutting unnecessary tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A viral video ([https://youtu.be/rNu8XDBSn10](https://youtu.be/rNu8XDBSn10)) that turned into a whole career.

<comment><USER11> Are you really CGP Grey? If you are, it is amazing that I run into you on HN.

<comment><USER21> Yup it's me. Not a frequent poster on HN, mostly a lurker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I left my cushy job two months ago. For years I tried to build various products (SaaS) on the side to facilitate the move. I was never able to get enough traction mostly because I wasn't able to devote enough time. I realized that I'd be never really be free unless I took a leap.

I'm launching my first official product in Sept. and have been consulting to pay the bills. The consulting has been good...perhaps a little too good as I feel myself getting pulled away from the product as I'm still busy after raising my rates a few times already.

<comment><USER23> Wow that sounds familiar. I'm consulting and trying to launch a product in October, while realizing I've kind of stumbled in to my own little software consultancy. I just had to hire a guy to keep up with the consulting load, and I've raised my rates a few times.

<comment><USER24> How's that (the hiring) going? Are you subcontracting?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I did remote contract front-end development for about 3 years. Working contracts gave me a TON of flexibility to work on my own projects on the side. I also tried to take high-paying contracts and save as much money as I could. When my last contract ended, I had enough money in the bank to survive for ~18 months without another paycheck, even while paying rent in SF. Currently, I'm about 9 months into that.

I've worked on several projects since then, one of which (TaskforceApp.com) is making $500-$1500/mo. The other I just launched on HN about 3 weeks ago: [http://www.IndieHackers.com](http://www.IndieHackers.com). It's gotten almost 300k pageviews since launch, and I've lined up some awesome sponsors who combined are contributing about $1000/mo. My plan is to keep growing the site by adding interviews, writing more blog posts, and adding forums/AMAs.

If you're interested in hearing lots of other stories similar to this (most of which are more impressive), I recommend checking out Indie Hackers. I publish average monthly revenue stats in addition to interviews with the founders behind all these companies.

<comment><USER2> I have been watching indiehackers since you shared on HN. It looks really good and high quality stuff. Another bookmark for me as I obsess with the various products being shared and their stories. The revenue transparency is an icing on the cake :)

<comment><USER25> Sweet, I'd love to hear your feedback/ideas sometime! @csallen

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I didn't escape my 9-to-5 job to start my own business (hoping to, eventually) but I did become full time work-from-home which is about 75% as good.

I pretty much set my own hours, start work between 8am and 9am and end between 5pm and 6pm.

Some days I really get nothing done -- right now we're in the midst of buying a house, and I must confess I'm spending lots of time communicating with the lender and broker, packing, etc.

Other days, I work until midnight to get stuff done. It feels a bit like being self-employed, but of course you still take orders. But you also have the backing and resources of a larger organization. Kind of a transition to self- employment, you might say.

I do have a side business of playing music for weddings and other occasions, but that's pocket change and will never turn into full time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can also work from home pretty much every day. I avoid it because I have 4 kids at home, and it's kind of a zoo.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, we have kind of a strict rule here that during business hours I'm not to be disturbed. Luckily, my daughter's in school 8am-3pm now, and then she often is ferried around to after-school activities, so the house is pretty quiet during the school year. So you have something to look forward to, hopefully :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm just opting in the 9-5 :) Not everybody has what it takes to run a business.

I'll do two things:

\- Build and MVP and try to find paying customers. Once the money is flowing in, I might take a venture again into the startup world.

\- Use a few hours / day to build the thing and start to look for a business co-founder.

<comment><USER28> Agreed - I actually _like_ 9-5. It's nice to have a break now and again, but I like daily routine of going to an office, seeing colleagues, etc.

<comment><USER29> Exactly. And I read earlier on here that for lots of companies, for each year you've been at a company you can do a remote day a week. Sounds perfect to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm on my way out. I had a break in a few years back and lost everything. So I sold what I had left, took my savings and went backpacking for a year:

[http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/](http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/)

I had dreams of getting into grad school, but that didn't work out and I ran out of money ($20k NZD) so now I'm back in America working software. It's soul draining.

I'm not an entrepreneur. I have no desire to start my own business. Right now I'm saving until my lease expires. Then I plan on selling everything and doing something crazy again.

I might look for writing residencies. I have a film I'm self-funding a demo for in order to crowdfund the rest. I'm looking at fellowships. I'd like to get the film started while still employed and quit work once it's funded and I'm over 50% done with its development.

If all else fails, I'll buy a car and live of my savings, driving around America for a year or so while perusing some of these things mentioned. The 2nd major option I'm thinking of is getting another Australian work visa and taking another dev job or finding a writing residency there.

The thing is: I have no kids, family or debt. My parents came from poverty and my father spent ever dime on making sure his kids had a debt free college education. I feel like these things artificially limit others, but they shouldn't.

If you're religious (I'm not), missionary work is something you can do with your family. I also have a close friend teaching English in Germany and just allows her college debt to grow (we'll have forgiveness eventually. Either that or she'll eventually get her German citizenship and renounce the American one).

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the key is to have a Safety Net. If you're lucky, you get one for free at birth. If not, you need to build it yourself during the first several years of 9-5ing.

Once you know for a fact that you can coast along for an entire year if things go south, life gets a lot better. You can start consulting and not have to sweat the occasional dry spell. You can build income generating products after work or during those blessed dry spells. You can do all that stuff remotely while dialing up your leisure time activity of choice to whatever level feels the most comfortable.

Better still, with a bit o' Safety Net, you'll be able to demonstrate to yourself that you can quickly pick up contract and full-time gigs when you need them. And you can emit artifacts that demonstrate to prospective employers that they should grab on with both hands if you happen to signal availability at any point. That helps a lot towards being able to bootstrap a product business on the side.

Eventually, after much trial and error you'll find something that sticks. I think for me it was something like Job Quittin' Side Project #6 that finally started bringing in enough profit to replace the day job.

Finally, make sure you're having fun along the way. It's not supposed to be a grueling heads down slog for however long it takes before you finally "win". It's life. And it's most enjoyable if you actually take the time to enjoy it while it's happening.

All the best! Let us know how it turns out.

</comment><comment><USER32> Curious why people here hate 9 - 5 so much. I can understand starting a business if you have an idea you're passionate about and you're confident you can make you more money than you can make working for someone else. But most software development jobs actually allow you to have a lot of autonomy (flexible hours, work remotely, etc), a place to socialize with people who are likely going to have a lot in common with you and good pay with a nice safety net. Venturing out on your own and starting your own business has none of these things.. at least in the beginning, you are likely going to work more, for less money, by yourself. I understand why the small subset of business owners start their business for the reason I mentioned above, but I get the impression a lot of people working 9 - 5 are just assuming the grass is greener on the other side...

<comment><USER33> Well here's why......

The benefits you listed, "flexible hours, work remotely, etc"

Are, indeed, nice, but they are actually _far_ more rare than you'd expect. Many places still require 100% "facetime" _despite_ being able to commit & deploy code and take calls remotely, and some that don't require "100%" still will _hem and haw_ over days that you are not in the office.

Not everyone is sitting in an (over)funded startup with foosball tables, a fridge full of beers, young & eclectic coworkers, and happy hours with the coworkers every other day - where as long as you complete your projects by/around deadline, you're happily well-employed.

And most are not in an area that complains over a "dearth of tech talent" and have the liberty to hop from job to job without actively searching, taking the time to interview several rounds, and locking in the second job before leaving the first.

Labor Supply and Labor Demand have upmost influence on these factors, and with thousands of _intelligent_ people finishing coding bootcamps every day, Supply is far outpacing Demand.

The other key (and probably the biggest) benefit you're missing is legitimately _coding for yourself_ with your own. You want to develop a "Slither.IO" type game by yourself with PhoenixOnElixir as an un(der)employed coder? Go for it. Because most of us aren't getting jobs at Blizzard or Riot. You want to build a fitness app in a city with only financial/legal/logistic coding jobs? Go for it! It's an unparalleled learning experience.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for your response. I guess I've been coding long enough now that I just view it as work and not fun (although I do enjoy other aspects of my job). I do remember when I enjoyed coding just for fun so I can see the appeal of your argument there.

I'm surprised to hear that supply is outpacing demand where you are. Where I am (in Toronto), we always have a hard time hiring good people and it seems to be getting more difficult.

<comment><USER33> Thank you too. I agree that as I get more jaded, I consider it more "work" than fun in C#, but at home when I get my webscraping/scripting jobs in Python or even my front end styling working, I still get the thrill of achieving. From what I've heard, even more jaded devs than myself enjoy it when the work they produce is going to their own/their future employee's own benefit than when they are working for someone else, underpaid.

Question for you: Is hiring good people refer to hiring good people, or hiring people who pass your exams and interviews?

I'm still recently out of college, but when I first joined a company, our interview questions were more along the lines of Palindrome/FizzBuzz and being able to write good, simple SQL queries. We found out relatively quickly if you were competent for the job, and if not, you were gone.

Now, even MVC/CRUD Apps are asking interviewees to complete Google coding interview questions such as "Implement a Binary Search Tree" \- which most of us even just a few years out, have not done for quite a while.

<comment><USER32> Yeah I would never ask anything crazy like "implement a binary search tree" in an interview. Our hiring is more like, look at someones resume, and if their skills generally fit what we're hiring for and they actually know the things on their resume and they don't seem extremely lazy/arrogant/(whatever personality flaw that is hard to work with), then hire. A lot of the time we bring them in to the interview and they don't actually know the things they say they did on their resume. For example, if you claim to be experienced in object oriented programming but have no clue what i'm talking about when I say words like inheritance or polymorphism, you do not actually know object oriented programming. You should also know how to do it in one of the languages you say you know on your resume (I don't care if it is the language we're hiring for, syntax can be learned quickly enough).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was very interested in consulting after reading about it from Patrick McKenzie and others. I especially loved the idea of having a choice of when, how, on what, and with whom I work.

When my 9-to-5 job became unbearable (long hours, bad management, high stress, etc), I finally decided to resign and give consulting a try. I didn't have a specific plan, and I spent the next 3 months figuring things out while living off my savings.

My backup plan was to return to 9-to-5 if I ever depleted all my savings without getting any traction. Fortunately it never came to that (although it got very close). Three years later I'm earning a very comfortable living consulting and I get to work on super interesting projects with super interesting companies.

I've written more about the experience here: [http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i- learned-to-get-consulting-le...](http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to- get-consulting-leads/)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm in the process of getting ready to make the plunge.

Right now doing 9-5 on top of part-time software consulting, mostly WordPress sites with trendy front-end stuff, but with occasional custom-backend and mobile app projects. I've partnered with a local design firm that outsources development and they provide me a steady stream of projects generate a majority of my side income). So far no marketing except for word-of-mouth advertising from happy clients.

I'm on track to do over $50k this year, but I don't think I can scale this any further without quitting my day job. My plan is to score another $XX,XXX project in the near future, stock up on cash and health insurance for my family, and finally take the leap.

My biggest concern is that we're dreaming of building a house in the next 3-5 years and how that'll affect my ability to secure a loan. We're planning on having the land paid off before we begin construction, but I still need to learn more.

Anyone have experience here?

</comment><comment> the-dude I was already doing some side-project while employed and my contract was not renewed.

I took a 30% cut on my unemployment benefits so I had no obligation to find work for 6 months. After unemployment benefits ended, I tried to find a bit of investment and also did a KS. Both failed, so I started to eat a retirement plan I still had.

Then I applied for another 3.5 months employment benefits ( was my right ), and I simulated trying to find work.

Then it got really ugly and did some parttime barista work. Sold some belongings.

Then the product got traction: [https://mecoffee.nl](https://mecoffee.nl)

</comment><comment><USER36> With the consent of my employer (another startup) I started in the mornings, evenings and weekends with a very supportive partner.

The aforementioned employer then began to fail, and so I was extremely lucky to be able to devote more and more time to my business as the aforementioned startup started to ask people to work fewer hours.

Once I hit a revenue target agreed with my wife, I jumped ship: [http://www.elstensoftware.com/blog/2011/01/21/going- fulltime...](http://www.elstensoftware.com/blog/2011/01/21/going-fulltime/)

To lower the target required, I cut pretty much everything apart from the mortgage and taxes.

In some ways I miss the constraint of working fewer hours - I think I had better focus then; these days I do make a few mistakes with where I spend my time.

</comment><comment><USER37> Left my last full-time job in early 2014, jumping into freelancing with both my old employer and past colleagues-turned-founders as my first clients.

The first year was insanely though - trying to find clients that would pay what I desired - and I went through severe bouts of depression when Canadian Winter hit. My close friends who knew about the situation told me to go back to employment, I wasn't cut out for this.

But I went through that trough of sorrow and hit many breaks in 2015 with clients that valued me enough to more than make up the losses I had the previous year. Fast-forward to today and I earn enough from consulting that I spend more time on personal growth and working on my own projects than I need to work with clients to sustain my living.

</comment><comment><USER38> I work full-time on my website since 6 months, after two years of development and growth when I was an employee. At first, it was only a little side-project so I haven't done anything to prepare my exit to entrepreneurship. I've quit my job when my partner and I we have felt a real potential for our website. I guess it's less stressful in France than in other countries, because we have in France the possibility to terminate the employment like a resignation, and then receive comfortable unemployment benefits during two years. There is no need to save money, and no pressure at the beginning of the startup.

Everyone has its own way to work on a side project. Personaly, I worked every mornings, before work. Why ? Because my brain was fresher, my spirit less crowded by external thoughts. I could go to work without frustration, with the satisfaction of having worked on my own website. And at evening, I could hang out with my girlfriend or friends without feeling guilty.

</comment><comment><USER39> I haven't fully done it yet, but am on my way. About 2.5 years ago I left my 9-5 career (about 8 years into it) to become a contractor/consultant, basically continuing to do the same type of work, but for multiple clients, with an hourly rate. This was at the same time that our first child was born.

It's probably the best decision I ever made. I'll make about 1.5x what I did as a 9-5er this year while I probably worked less hours overall. I work from home 80% of the time. No commute, so much less stress, I'm lucky to have great long-term clients (who I wouldn't have been able to acquire without my previous 9-5 time).

Eventually I want to bootstrap a startup - that's phase 2. I've built up enough of a cushion, even though child #2 arrives in a month. I've got a side- project going on that will hopefully turn into a business. I'm still figuring out how to best transition, because right now the $ is good and difficult to voluntarily turn down.

</comment><comment><USER40> I woke up one day and realized that if I had to spend another day commuting for nearly 2 hours a day to sit in an office that I hated, I would lose my mind. So I quit and found a remote job. There are lots of remote companies out there, find one

<comment><USER41> Do you know if many remote companies offer part-time work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I escaped my nine to five years ago... I'm now at a startup and I'm 6am to 10pm ;)

Mostly a joke.

<comment><USER43> I had much the same comment, but less joke :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Not quite answering your question, but I quit my great tech job and decided to burn my savings and go into debt by going to law school. At least consider that maybe it's not the 9-5 that's the problem, but the line of work itself. Being good at something doesn't mean you're passionate or motivated for it. Depending on the kind of person you are, lack of passion/motivation can be an insurmountable obstacle to being the best you can be, to being fulfilled by your work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually agree.

I have come to realize that 9 to 5 is not horrible, the key is self- fulfillment and happiness. For most people they will be unhappy regardless of the state of finances or work they do.

I realize that even if I have my own business it does not mean I won't have to deal with things I don't like. What attracts me though is the financial independence, having control of my future instead of someone else having control of it.

<comment><USER45> For me, it's control. I cannot stand idiot managers making decisions that have such a significant impact on my life. Everything from major, broad issues down to where my desk is located and the temperature of the office and when I have to be in. You will still have to work everyday full-time, probably more, and have different stresses, but I cannot fork over my autonomy to others in exchange for a paycheck.

<comment><USER46> I am very similar. I recently started a cushy dev job at a big company, and the micro-management, bureaucracy, and office politics drove me into a pretty deep depression, to the point where I began to utterly dread coming into work. I quit after two months and now I'm taking two months off to work on personal projects...

I haven't truly escaped 9-5, but I'm finally excited to wake up in the morning again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Diligent savings over many years combined with low-risk investments. The stable income it generates now covers all living expenses for my family. I'm still part of the 9-5 crowd by choice while I search for my next calling in life. However, the main job is now more of a training ground and networking center than a primary source of income.

<comment><USER48> Can you share what sort of investments drive the majority of your income?

<comment><USER47> Mostly fixed income securities and fixed income-like assets (like real estate, asset-backed loans, etc.). $10,000 invested at 4% brings in a little more than $1/day.

Yes, the market value of the securities and assets may fluctuate day-to-day, but the income doesn't. As long as the borrower is of sufficiently high quality, then there really isn't any concern about the principal getting paid back.

<comment><USER48> Thanks for sharing. Mind if I ask what your cost of living looks like? Seems like it would take a large amount of capital to get a livable income off conservative incoming-paying investments at 4%.

<comment><USER47> My cost of living is about the same as the typical family with kids attending good public schools along the SF Bay Area peninsula, but the approach should be repeatable in most places. My expenses over the years has stabilized at less than 50% of take-home salary (not including bonuses, equity grants, etc.) for my main job, in line with a previous post of 30% of income. So the absolute worst case scenario for a 4% return is 25 years.

In my particular case, I had saved all my bonuses (both cash and equity) and most of the income from the aforementioned portfolio. I was also fortunate to have held a consistent side job for most of my career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> My 9-5 job got a bit boring after 5 years so I decided to work on an idea I already had in mind for a few years. With the help of my co-founder (which I met in the meantime) the business got serious and I noticed that I'm way to busy with the 9-5 job. So I got the opportunity to work 24h/week at a local startup which also shares our technology stack. I usually split the week in 3 days on the paid job and 3 days (w/ one day of every weekend) for our own startup. Now we're one year later, still having 2 jobs as the income is not sufficient enough to pay for life.

</comment><comment><USER50> I started my own software consultancy: we mostly focus on web applications, and we've had awesome experiences helping many startups in the NYC area!

Lots of times startups have a good codebase, but they are having hard problems with just a few parts of the product: they don't always have a lot of funding, but it's fun to make connections and help them succeed.

Though, it isn't so much "escape from the 9 to 5" as it is "now you work all the time."

Not that I always work more (some weeks are slow, others very busy) but I do find myself having to be available more.

<comment><USER51> > Though, it isn't so much "escape from the 9 to 5" as it is "now you work all > the time."

Hah, so true. Although I find working for my startup more rewarding than trading hours for money.

My path is similar to yours, I quit my 9 to 5 job in 2007, started a software consultancy than moved to building my own SaaS in 2009. Since than, that's the only revenue for my family (2 daughters, wife, doing home school).

The stress and lower money at time for sure, but like others said, would not trade this to return in enterprise job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I just decided I wasn't happy at my 9 to 5 job. What followed was a deduction that unhappiness means there's an opportunity I'm missing. So I started observing and found what I wanted at the moment--I started working part-time at a small software organization doing systems integration. The transition was flawless--I didn't need to stay at my corporate job.

Of course, such undertakings are a bit risky. After a few months I found my money starting to melt as I wasn't receiving stable income from the new place I enjoyed working in. Doing a bachelor's degree while teaching and working quite prevented me from seeing how this money meltdown would shortly lead to some uncanny situation of mine. So, with about 3 months delay I understood that I'm in another unhappy situation and I should start observing for the new opportunity I was missing.

Here comes a time for some background. For about 3 years I was living with a close friend of mine who is involved with an organization called Camplight--a digital cooperative working in the web outsourcing business. Things were quite great in this company and it was a bunch of sustainable, playful and hard- working people. I wanted to join them since I heard about it, but the lack of experience prevented me from doing so. However, during the years I worked a 9-5 job and switched to doing systems integration, I got quite experienced. Also, I loved to talk with my flatmate about Camplight and the challenges around being a part of a cooperative. And it started to click that this was the opportunity I was looking for.

And that's how I escaped a 9-5 job in about a year and am really happy about it. I'm doing quality software, communicating with valuable people and helping the cooperative grow.

</comment><comment><USER53> Ask HN: How did you try, but fail to escape 9 to 5?

(to fight the survivors bias)

</comment><comment><USER54> I was working 9-5 for five years as web app developer which allowed me to create financial buffer to live for several years without work if needed. I live in a cheap country.

At the end I actually took one year off, and during that time I learned to code mobile apps and then successfully joined Toptal and work as freelancer. And since I am in Toptal I receive also many freelance job offers from other sides, just because I mention I am their member in my linkedin profile. I was surprised that they have such a good reputation.

Anyway, I credit my success at joining Toptal mostly to the amount of free time I had during the hiring process (which took cca 1 month), so that I was able to fully focus on it.

</comment><comment><USER55> Rather than artificially avoid 9 to 5, I am now in a job where 9 to 5 makes a lot of sense (for worldwide 24/7 coverage) I clock out at 5ish and I don't worry about work until next day or after the weekend. No such thing with a business.

</comment><comment><USER56> For the first six years of my professional career I worked for a combination of small design firms, web dev firms, startups. Averaging a year at each. All, essentially, were client service companies. From that, I learned how to pursue, land, deliver, and re-land projects across a bunch of different industries. Then, I moved to a new city and found working out of my home office more enjoyable than being hired. Once I realized I could land projects & get paid w/o being an employee - I stopped interviewing for jobs and started pursuing project I found personally interesting.

</comment><comment><USER57> I worked for about a year and a half after college and then quit to do my own thing (autodidacting -> startup). At each job I was frugal and saved over half the money I earned. I also accumulated money by working small jobs in high school and college, and some from my grandparents. It I'm frugal, the money I saved should last at least 5 years or so.

While working my full time jobs I spent as much time as possible improving myself, rather than succumbing to Sucker Culture. The same applies to high school and college.

<comment><USER58> What is Sucker Culture?

<comment><USER57> Sorry I was on my phone and couldn't link - [http://www.daedtech.com/the- beggar-ceo-and-sucker-culture/](http://www.daedtech.com/the-beggar-ceo-and- sucker-culture/).

In short it refers to letting others take advantage of you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I did something like this early on in my working life. I got to the point where my side business had repeat customers and enough of a portfolio where I felt confident that I could bring on more customers. It wasn't a full jump, but the side business became the focus and I took on different side gigs to supplement income. I went back to a 9-5 after a few years, but during that time I did see consistent growth in the business.

</comment><comment><USER60> Lived in parents house while working for a few years to save on rent. Kept expenses vey low.

Saved enough for business school tuition. Hated business school and dropped out. Was left with a wad of cash. Started business since I'd learn more from starting a business than staying in school.

Best decision of my career by far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is your business profitable? If not how much longer can you sustain yourself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Started working remote.

Now people only look what I accomplished, not how long it took.

</comment><comment><USER62> Well, I started my own business. Now it's 24/7.

<comment><USER63> Biologically impossible

<comment><USER64> You must be fun with to hang around.

<comment><USER63> I put the fun in endofunctor

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Who works 9-5 anymore? The factory jobs are all gone.

<comment><USER66> I actually just quit a factory job to start software dev. The conditions and pay were terrible at my factory gig so I started learning to code in my spare time. Probably few people on this forum would be connected with people who recently have worked in factories. But those jobs do exist, and man do they SUCK!

Especially when the people in software aren't developing products for you because they have never met you, i.e. don't believe you exist. There are good things and bad things about the homogeneity of SV culture, and outside perspectives, especially from the working class, don't often make it past a seed round.

<comment><USER67> It's always interesting to hear another person talk about this. I've seen an article or two talking about how under served the working class is in regards to software.

Makes me wonder how much of it is economic, and how much of it is social.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> You mean 9 to 6

<comment><USER69> I'm in France, and doing 9-7

<comment><USER70> italy, IT sector, 9-13;14-18 minimum

<comment><USER71> what?

<comment><USER53> 9 to 6, unpaid 1h break. Been there just after school (but mainly to be able to say I did stuff for BMW).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> by working from 10 to 6....</comment>


Gizoogle'd Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizoogle.net/index.php?search=news.ycombinator.com&se=Gizoogle+Dis+Shiznit

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone out there needs a job! If only there power could be used for good :-)</comment>


Linux Has Not Won, Microsoft is as Dangerous as Ever, Fie on Secure Boot - <AUTHOR> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/177429/

<comment><USER2> If you want to "win" then you must think about your achievements. Focusing on where you're being screwed keeps you being screwed.

In the last 20 years, Linux has taken over many domains. First servers. The big win that made Linux impossible to ignore. Ten years later a major shift to the userland was mobile: there are half a billion Android devices sold. Not to mention embedded systems. Meanwhile, Linux has also become _the way to build supercomputers_ : the world's fastest supercomputers these days mean assembling huge Tesla GPU racks to run Linux.

While I do realize that secure boot can make Linux's life harder, I also realize that Linux per se isn't going anywhere or isn't attacked by Microsoft but general purpose computers are suffering from exhausted momentum. There are more and more devices that come with a preinstalled system, such as Android and iOS and the traditional desktop/laptop paradigm of buying hardware and installing whatever you want to run on it will continue to move into the marginal.

I predict that eventually it's the programmers who will be the only ones who exercise tasks of so varying nature that they need a more complex interface, something like what I'm using now. Most of the rest of people can manage with mostly touching a screen to use applications that offer a set of predefined capabilities, occasionally hooking up a keyboard.

The era of immutable operating systems with applications installable from a prefiltered app store is probably what actually works for most people. It's us programmers who long for the days when hardware was to be bought and software was to be written because we know that the lowest layer must always be there. For us, it was the very definition of a computer: programming hardware was all there ever was to computers. But most people don't need that.

Most people are perfectly _happy with an appliance_. They don't want to install updates or _manage their system_ , they just click the power button and immediately continue from where they left the last time. They want an application and they tap it and it gets installed without clicking through a dozen pages of a helper wizard or aptitude install commands. And appliances such as tablets and phones and touchscreen laptops deliver a much better experience for non-programmers.

What we as programmers see as a bad thing is that programming will be removed farther from the end users. We all know how we started with playing games and ended up writing our own games because our computers allowed, and to an extent, suggested that. We would want to preserve that heritage to the future whizkids and future programmers. But that's still got a perspective bias: most people so far still haven't "found it" even if their computer would have allowed it. It's just us for which "finding it" was the revelation, and we know we would've "found it" anyway, somehow.

Maybe they'll be selling a limited stock of programmer's computers in ten years that are fully programmable. There's definitely a market for those because you can't write the nice appliances without a real programmers' computer. Maybe my grandkids will receive one of my old programmer's workstations from my work place, and use that deprecated hardware to teach themselves programming and find it a thousand times more interesting than playing games on their phones, much like my predecessors managed to hook themselves up with cheap nighttime computing time in a mainframe at their father's workplace and abused those cycles to write games to entertain themselves.

<comment><USER3> What a trash comment. No, the closed garden application computer is not the right way to go for non-programmers. It gives tremendous monopolistic power to corporations - fuck that.

We need to get rid of all the kinks out of linux, make plug and play work seamlessly, and improve usability. Part of that means getting rid of the dependency to use the terminal (who uses that piece of shit anyway?) and the need to config text files to fix driver issues. Linux still has the ability to reach #1 in non-programmer desktop usage.

<comment><USER4> _What a trash comment._

Actually, it's not. You just disagree with it. Sometimes when you disagree with someone's conclusions, it's hard to see the merit of their reasoning.

 _We need to..._

There are two complications to this. One is that the "we" of Linux development has never and will never have the kind of coherence that it takes to appeal to an extremely large audience. (Even calling it "Linux" isn't always agreed- upon). There are a great many people working on Linux or making things from Linux, but they are not all going in the same direction. This is both a strength and a weakness.

The second is not so much a different reason as it is an example of a major weakness of this style of development: It's a demonstrably inefficient way of addressing the needs of certain kinds of users. The list of things you say need to be fixed with the Linux desktop, which is quite typical and also quite incomplete, has also _remained constant_ for more than a decade as year after year "of the Linux Desktop" passed by. Although the situation has improved, "We" have not moved on to a better class of problems because most people working on them _want_ to use the terminal, or at least _don't mind_ editing text files for configuration, and correspondingly are not very good at addressing the needs of people very much unlike them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is anybody seriously running linux on their desktop anymore outside of hobbyism?

Okay, I joke, I know several people who run linux on their desktop.

It seems like something that you grow out of, though. I use a mac, and most of the people I know who /really/ know [1]linux do too. In fact, the person I know who "knows linux" the most inside and out runs an ancient PPC macbook. I think he said he installed Ubuntu on his machine at work, though.

The reason for this is that we all run linux* on our servers. My primary machine is a VPS from linode which runs gentoo linux, and has for a very long time. The aforementioned PPC macbook guy doesn't really have a primary machine anymore. He is getting into power electronics, and is more likely to be sitting at an oscilloscope than a laptop.

Lately, my hobby box has been a raspberry pi which I'm looking to make it into a telepresence robot for our lab. Interestingly, live streaming video from a linux machine doesn't _quite_ seem like a "solved" problem yet. It's lots of twiddling ffmpeg to make things work; things still aren't "plug and play".

This is cool, by the way, it feels like the first time I stayed up all night installing gentoo.

\--

I guess that for my peer group, linux was something that felt really revolutionary and new and important 10 years ago. We were battling against the big bad microsoft, THIS was going to be the year of the linux desktop! (No, MOM! You have to install Suse! It's totally easy let me show you!).

Then...we won.

Linux is just a tool for me. Like a hammer. When I want to use it, I pick it up and use it. It doesn't feel revolutionary and important anymore because it just feels /obvious/.

[1]: It's a bit silly to say "linux". I'm generally not specifically using any of the features of the linux kernel. Most of what I'm doing could easily be replicated on a *BSD system. Although this whole "gnu plus linux" debate thing is a bit silly. When I say "linux" people know what I mean. Sorry, Stallman :(

<comment><USER6> Uh, yeah. My whole family runs linux on the desktop almost exclusively. I'm the only one who ever boots into Windows and it's only because that's the only way I can get into my company's system when working from home.

<comment><USER7> If you aren't already, you should definitely try running Windows inside Virtualbox. The only reason I boot into Windows these days is for games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everything about Windows 8 seems designed to benefit Microsoft by herding consumers into their new walled garden. Steve Jobs would be so proud of MS if he were around to see this (aside from the fact that the UI is a disaster). That's the main reason I'm now shopping for a computer with Linux pre- installed, and I really hope more people are doing the same.

I have almost zero familiarity with Linux and dread the prospect of having to learn a new OS on my everyday computer, but Windows 8 is just THAT repulsive.

<comment><USER9> Depending on what you need you could buy a Chromebook for $200-250. I was considering getting one, and then installing linux on an SD card (assuming this works on the Samsung Chromebook, have only vaguely looked into it).

If you are into games and are looking to run Steam, I suppose you want more horsepower. I usually buy stuff off of Newegg and build my own if it's not a laptop.

<comment><USER8> True, I hadn't considered a Chromebook. It could probably do everything I need with EC2 or Linode, but I'm afraid that might up the learning curve a little too much since I'd be completely new to all of those environments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Every purchase of a Windows license is an attack on Linux. Linux has not won, and Microsoft is as dangerous as ever."

This just seems silly. How is this an "attack", does the Linux foundation somehow lose funding proportional to the number of Windows licenses sold?

<comment><USER11> The attack is not windows licenses being sold, it's the new 'secure boot' thing.

<comment><USER10> The article literally said what I quoted above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What an awful rant.

Who said Linux has won the _desktop_?

So now it's got a bit harder to remove the Windows 8 license you just voluntarily paid for. Oh dear.

If you are going to whine about Secure Boot please write an article based on its technical merits.

<comment><USER13> For me it had won. Linux had reached the point where I could go up to any computer I wished, fire up Linux, and have it not even occur to me that something wouldn't work. Not _"have it work most of the time"_ , but have it work _"enough of the time that I no longer pondered the possibility that it wouldn't."_ My last two laptop purchases in the last 3 years were done with no research into Linux compatibility; neither time did I regret the purchase.

Now I have a concern again, and that doesn't feel nice.

<comment><USER14> > For me it had won.

You are not the desktop market, just a single user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Every purchase of a Windows license is an attack on Linux.

Oh, Linux community, shine on, you crazy diamond!

</comment><comment><USER16> I stopped reading Carla Schroder's articles a few years ago. Her ideas about Linux border on religious fanaticism.

</comment><comment><USER17> "I think UEFI Secure Boot is a shuck and a bald-faced Microsoft anti- competitive tool." <\- DAMN RIGHT!

<comment><USER18> This I agree with 100%. If only thr rhetoric were dialled down more elsewhere. I'd take Linux users more seriously then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm surprised Microsoft's actions regarding boot loading are legal. They're clearly economically inefficient by forcing an association of platform and preventing multihoming.

<comment><USER20> Does MSFT's approach make it harder to write rootkits? Doesn't that have value to their users? Is there a plausible alternative that protects their users to the same degree? If not, then even if it makes it harder for users to install Linux as a side effect (or primary effect, if you're feeling cynical), I don't understand why this behavior would be illegal.

<comment><USER21> Yes, yes, and yes respectively. Secure booting isn't necessarily a bad thing, but users must be in full control over their keys. Only the user can decide who the user trusts. If the default shipping state is that only the keys used by the currently-installed OS are valid, well, that's just the only sane default. But that's not how this is being done.

<comment><USER20> Is that really an issue with Microsoft/UEFI/secure boot, or is the problem that OEMs aren't building firmware that does what you want?

<comment><USER22> Well, for ARM devices, Microsoft doesn't allow OEMs to provide a way to change the keys.

For what it's worth, I think Microsoft _are_ doing this for the security reasons they give. But I think they were well aware of the hurdle it would present to Linux distributions when they chose to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Linux hasn't won the desktop -- but it will one day when everybody just use an Android tablet.

And nobody will have noticed.

<comment><USER24> > but it will one day when everybody just use an Android tablet.

I doubt an Android tablet will __ever__ be able to process my post-production renders in a reasonable amount of time.

This is the #1 thing I do with my desktop computer at home.

<comment><USER25> What if instead of your desktop, you had a low-end server that was fairly cheap (~$1000) that _could_ process it, quicker, cheaper, and more efficiently than your desktop? And better yet, the server is stored in a closet, never to see the light of day because it "just works" on your network? You're in complete control over it, giving it varying heavy tasks from whatever lightweight appliance you're using. Be it rendering video, playing a game, streaming media, storing data, etc...

<comment><USER26> You mean the Windows 2008 R2 server that I have at home? Or the Ubuntu server that I have at home? Can't be the DG/UX server, that's sitting in the garage awaiting the metal scrappers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It couldn't be dangerous because it doesn't produce any quality software, instead, it is just annoying, trying to make things more complicated for people, because it cannot produce any good software, but still can collect fees.)

</comment><comment><USER28> There are "user interface appliances" and then there are the general purpose computers that actually do the hard work of the internet. That Microsoft moved some "beige box" computers from one category to the other by adding secure boot is not really news.

</comment><comment><USER29> What about the Shim to get around secure boot?

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4868856>

</comment><comment><USER30> I get the feeling the author doesn't like Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER31> >The biggest flaw in Secure Boot is the spec requires a single Platform Key. You can add more keys, but they must be signed by the Platform Key

I think this that is just wrong, can someone please verify? I thought the user could add their own master keys to boot their own OSes apart from being able to disable secure boot as mandated by Microsoft for Windows certification (as much as it can force OEMs without the anti-trust rulings stopping it from mandating requirements to OEMs).

There is so much FUD and misinformation spread by folks who you would think be otherwise smart and knowledgeable that it's hard to find to what to believe and what not to.

<comment><USER32> You are correct. On x86 you can put UEFI in "Custom Mode," which allows you to add keys which were not signed by the platform key.</comment></comment>


What are the ways by which I can track the space and research? - <AUTHOR>

Softwares, websites <comment><USER2> You need to compose clearer, more informative sentences.

<comment><USER3> That question is pretty hard to parse correctly, but if it means: "how do I keep up with all the interesting research out there in my field?" (and if your field == Information Security) then you should look into a subscription to ThinkstScapes (<http://thinkst.com/thinkstscapes/>)

<comment><USER2> Flagged as spam.</comment></comment></comment>


Oxford English Dictionary Online: absolutely stunning. - <AUTHOR> http://oed.com/

<comment><USER2> There is nothing at all stunning about that site. Boring corporate design, the link to "try" it blocks you with a login popup, the whole idea of bothering to register or "subscribe" or a dictionary. What is the opposite of stunning?</comment>


The Lilium Flying Car - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/business/dealbook/lilium-flying-car.html?_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> An electric aircraft that takes off vertically and has a range of 300 Km (186 miles)[1]. It is an appealing idea. Lilium just received $90 million in investments to further its development.

I wonder how much difference such technology would make in the real world, though. A city with millions of motorists is hardly going to be affected by a few hundred, or even a few thousand, of these aircraft. For the immediate future, it will probably serve a niche role as a sexy, convenient alternative to ground transport for celebrities and executives.

There may also be a significant role for air cars in medical emergencies. But for day to day commuting, autonomous taxis, and recreational use... we're probably looking at a system that is 20-30 years away.

1\. [https://www.wired.com/2017/04/lilium-jet-first-flight- test-f...](https://www.wired.com/2017/04/lilium-jet-first-flight-test-flying- cars/)</comment>


I Split a Dictionary into 3000 Files and It's Kind of Cool - <AUTHOR> http://akumpf.github.io/wordist/?live

<comment><AUTHOR> And here's a game example (way too hard, though).

[http://akumpf.github.io/wordist/game/](http://akumpf.github.io/wordist/game/)</comment>


Why Entrepreneurs Start Companies Rather Than Join Them, by Steve Blank - <AUTHOR> https://thinkgrowth.org/why-entrepreneurs-start-companies-rather-than-join-them-100192ed6112 <comment><USER2> IIRC there's a whole chapter on this in The Founder's Dilemmas... good book if you want an overview of the various trade offs in starting a company.</comment>


Ask YC:  Would it make sense to have an "ad captcha" to force people to look at ads carefully?  - <AUTHOR>

For example, you can have a video ad that contains the captcha elements throughout.  You would need to watch the entire ad carefully to pick up the captcha elements. <comment><USER2> If your objective is to set a world record in pissing off your users, then yes -- this makes perfect sense. Otherwise, not so much.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that many people have learned to tune out advertisement.

Also, you might want to build an ad exchange site where if you look at k ads carefully, then your ad will be looked at by k people carefully. So how would you enforce this?

<comment><USER2> _The problem is that many people have learned to tune out advertisement._

I'd take that as a pretty strong hint that it was unwelcome to begin with.

 _Also, you might want to build an ad exchange site where if you look at k ads carefully, then your ad will be looked at by k people carefully._

That's a reasonable arrangement if people viewing your ad are your peers, e.g., if you're blogging about your cat and you want other people who blog about their cat to find your blog. But if you're a startup trying to drive people to your site, it's a terrible investment. It means you're not being any more productive than people sitting at their home computers watching your ads.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't have to be an exchange. You could pay people to look at your ads -- but only if they so carefully.

<comment><USER2> That once seemed like a good idea to me, but several companies tried this during bubble 1.0 and they all flamed out spectacularly. The trouble, it seemed, is that it just isn't an effective investment of people's time. Anyone willing to get paid $X/hr to watch an ad doesn't have enough disposable income to make it worthwhile to spend $X/hr on their attention. The market doesn't clear and the price just shoots to zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> No. It would not. In a quarter of the time it would take to watch an entire advertisement, the user could simply have typed out the appropriate letters, and moved on to the next stage of the application process if you want to consider the fact that users have to load the video, wait for it to continually stop and buffer (for those on slower connections) and then fill out the information.

Entirely pointless. Sorry.

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea is not to build a better captcha, but rather, to find a way to force users to look at ads carefully.

<comment><USER3> Read what you just said aloud. You want to force users to do something they don't want to do. If that's the case, what's going to stop them from finding alternatives to access certain features of the site they need where they don't have to look at ads?

Users control software, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would refuse to use any site doing that. If the site had anything worthwhile on it, the content would be ripped to a blog, thus completely subverting your efforts.</comment>


When are accelerators worth it? - <AUTHOR> For a profitable, growing SaaS, with an experienced founder - are accelerators ever worth it? Looks like angel-funding and mediocre info for VC-level terms. Read: what most ask for is not equal to the value they provide. Am I wrong? <comment><USER2> You get two things from an accelerator, and the value you get from them depends on the particular accelerator and on how much you need those things.

The first thing you get is access to a network or advisors willing to help you learn how to grow your business and make connections for sales and VCs whom you might be able to persuade to invest.

The second thing you get is legitimacy. This is mostly signaling. If an accelerator with a good reputation accepted you, that's a signal to others that your team and business have been vetted and have potential.</comment>


Apple store is down again, promising something special at 8am PDT - <AUTHOR> http://store.apple.com/ <comment><USER2> New iPad?</comment>