Hurting For Cash, Online Porn Tries New Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/17/276897125/hurting-for-cash-online-porn-tries-new-tricks <comment><USER2> Porn has long been at the forefront of internet technology, driving next-gen solutions that eventually trickle down to many other sectors. However, when faced with declining sales due to privacy fears, Kink (and many other sites) are shrugging off privacy concerns in order to make a buck off of invasive advertising ("Honey, why am I seeing so many ads for condoms and nipple clamps today?"). Talk about self-destructive business practices!

North American society is _far_ too prudish about sex; especially sex that isn't deemed "mainstream". BDSM themes in particular have long been used by Hollywood to characterize particularly vile antagonists. Mainstream sexual mores are becoming less parochial, but not nearly fast enough to alleviate privacy concerns for most people. Acworth really ought to take this a _lot_ more seriously. His attitude ranks up there with the Sony exec's who figured rootkits were a good idea! It really is a recipe for disaster when pirated goods carry fewer risks than legitimately purchased goods!

<comment><USER3> >when faced with declining sales due to privacy fears

thats where bitcoin comes in

<comment><USER4> To verify, you mean by ruining any idea of privacy by making all transactions public? (It isn't clear if you are actually saying that bitcoin would increase the privacy experienced in this situation.)

<comment><USER5> You wouldn't have to make a payment from "JOHN DOES ACCOUNT" to "PERVERTED PORN ACCOUNT". You could easily set up several wallets in the middle, obfuscation the transaction and gaining deniability.

However, beware! If your wife is an paranoid data scientist, she could still find circumstantial evidence for your porn subscription.

<comment><USER4> So, if you aren't going through a remixer (which is the point at which my paranoid data scientist friends point out "that doesn't even really help, at least in the long run, if not even in the short run"; and it isn't like any normal user is going to be doing this) the obfuscated wallet approach isn't really helping you much, if nothing else due to timing correlations. Even then, most normal people (the kind of people who are likely going to run into this problem most often) aren't going to understand how to do anything other than use the default features encoded into their wallet software (which are remarkably deterministic in function, almost never obfuscates the change making the middle steps trivially transparent, and generally don't provide any control over which transactions will accidentally cluster). Bitcoin is simply not trying to solve this problem: there are things bitcoin claims to solve, and things bitcoin succeeds in solving (whether on purpose or as a side effect), but "I want my transactions private" was never one of them. While it would be awesome if it were true, not all things related to payments are made better by bitcoin :/.

It also must be pointed out that you aren't just dealing with your spouse at this point: you are dealing with everyone who might possibly care; maybe your pastor is a "paranoid data scientist", or maybe the noisy person across the street has taken up statistical correlation and inference as a new hobby. Maybe someone makes a new service that helps companies screen employees, and one of the things it does is scan the blockchain using some really epic algorithm coming up with some kind of bogus (and questionably-legal) "morality score" (I bring this up as there already have been companies constructed to do this for data on Facebook). The transaction record of bitcoin is out there for everyone to datamine, and if you make a mistake the record will still be there and still be public years from now. There might even be new techniques (whether bitcoin-specific, or generally in the fields of statistics or machine learning) that will make this data more transparent in the future. The defense model for "I don't want people I deal with to know about my porn addiction" of bitcoin vs. even a normal credit card does not come out very strong.

<comment><USER5> Those are good objections. I guess the only safe way of dealing with bitcoins is to get money into a wallet without in any way associating it with your real life persona, which could be very tricky. And after that never ever use your wallet to pay a service that is assigned to your real name.

Are there any good resources to read up on how the remixers work, and why they cant be relied upon?

<comment><USER4> I do not have any resources related to that; the summary (as I vaguely remember the arguments) came down to evidence being accumulated due to reasonable caps on fees and delays (if giving your money to the remixer occasionally ate 99% of the money and occasionally made it hold onto the money for a year, you are no longer in a position to effectively utilize it) combined with correlations on repeated transactions.

To be clear, though, my argument was simply to move the "data scientist" line from "wallet obfuscation" (for which I then provided more concrete issues) to "remixers", and then to point out that normal people (the kind of person who didn't solve the underlying problem long ago using prepaid credit cards ;P) aren't using remixers and are unlikely to begin using remixers (as they probably aren't even using the more useful forms of wallet obfuscation: they are probably relying on what their wallet software is doing by default).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Acworth says no one has to worry about personal data getting sold to outside > advertisers. "I shouldn't think anyone would really be interested in that. > Who would want to buy data pertaining to whether somebody likes bondage or > spanking?"

Hmm.. how about the same kinds of people who build websites that display mugshot information, but allow you to pay a fee to have yours removed.

<comment><USER7> Porn habits on one side of the table, real name pulled from the credit card used to pay for it on the other. $50 and this all disappears from the internet!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We're suffering what happened to the music industry a while back

Not really. Songs or artists are not perfect substitutes to one another; if you want to listen to a specific song from a specific artist, you'll be looking for that song and in most cases another song won't do. Therefore, if it was possible to make this song absolutely unavailable via illegal means, you'd have a very strong incentive to buy it.

Porn videos are mostly perfect substitutes to one another (in their respective broad specialty; a gay sex video isn't a substitute to a straight sex video, but a nurse video is a substitute to a teacher-student one).

Therefore, in order to make people pay for porn, the porn industry would have to make _all_ free porn videos disappear, which is impossible.

It would seem they're in much direr straits than the music industry.

<comment><USER9> Don't be so sure. Some porn stars are brands unto themselves, and go on stripping tours not dissimilar from musician's concerts.

Perhaps it's only a matter of time till we see pornography crowdfunding.

<comment><USER10> Pornography crowdfunding already exists: [http://offbeatr.com/](http://offbeatr.com/)

<comment><USER8> Excellent! The logo is a little reminiscent of Ted ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/)), is this on purpose?

Their fees are sky-high (30% of money collected) and the FAQ is not written in very good English, so I'd be rather weary of using them, but the idea is great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Given where we are (hacker news) I'm astounded the first response to this article wasn't "Use bitcoins!" since that's exactly the type of thing that it is best at.

Then all you need to do is start explaining bitcoin to your significant other just long enough for their eyes to go glassy, begging you to stop.

<comment><USER12> Paying for porn with bitcoin puts all of your porn purchases on a public ledger. I don't think too many people want that.

<comment><USER11> Let's be serious here, laundering a bitcoin is as easy as trading it at an exchange for another one. Getting a wallet is as easy as generating a new one. There's no permanent record that person X had bitcoin Y, just which wallets it passed through along the way.

If your significant other works for a Three Letter Agency, then maybe it's possible they could reverse the network connection logs to the exchanges, dig through their databases and prove that you were the one who owned the coin that bought that porn. Maybe. But given how little the FBI has done with the cache of bitcash they seized, I doubt it.

So admittedly, it's not as clean as a cash business... but neither is the sex industry.

<comment><USER6> All true, but who needs to launder bitcoin to keep a transaction hidden from their significant other, unless their SO is well-versed in the technology behind bitcoin AND really likes to snoop. In that case, an easier and more likely point of failure is a session logger/keylogger on one's porn-browsing device

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also people who actually end up paying for porn, will end up seeing the same stuff they can watch for free. The big porn clips get their watermarks removed, chopped up, re-watermarked, and spammed on tube sites to compete with all other parties who are doing the exact same thing:

Rip, re-watermark, re-distribute.

No one can really complain, because everyone is doing the same.. Sure you could buy some "unique content" from time to time. Costs around $750 a video, shipped from Prague, Czech Republic. But there's not much value in that, because other people will just rip, re-watermark, re-distribute :)</comment>


Going raw  –  how I switched from jQuery to raw JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kanecohen/going-raw-how-i-switched-from-jquery-to-raw-javascript-5b7e04d6cca3

<comment><USER2> More details on HOW you actually made the switch would have been nice. I'd love to stop using jQuery, but I feel like if I end up writing my own utility functions to emulate the original jQuery functions then I might as well stick with jQuery for the time being.</comment>


Sonic: Zero-Knowledge SNARKs from Linear-Size Universal and Updatable SRS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adjoint-io/sonic <comment><AUTHOR> Haskell implementation of the protocol presented by Maller M., Bowe S., Kohlweiss M. and Meiklejohn S.

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool stuff! Does this implement both the helper and unhelped mode?

<comment><AUTHOR> This implementation only provides the helper protocol for computing aggregated signatures of correct computation

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice, what does it mean to be updatable?

<comment><AUTHOR> As stated in their paper [https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/099.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/099.pdf) : "...the SRS is updatable, meaning an open and dynamic set of participants can contribute secret randomness to it indefinitely. Although this is still a trusted setup in some sense, it increases confidence in the security of the parameters as only one previous contributor must have destroyed their secret randomness in order for the SRS to be secure".

Basically, any party can update the Structured Reference String (SRS) at any point in time to increase the security of the protocol that will affect to any proof computed from then on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice!</comment>


Wikipedia wars erupt - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-webscout30sep30,0,344107.story?coll=la-home-center

<comment><USER2> Wikipedia uses the wrong criterion. Instead of asking of an article, "Is this notable?" they should ask "Is this useful?" If so, let it remain. This is much more elegant than their already large body of law ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_notability_g...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_notability_guidelines)) and precedent (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete>). It works for edits too; you just ask, "Does this edit add or subtract utility?"

The usefulness criterion would allow promotional articles and edits. Automated spam should still be deleted, but promotional handwritten stuff that contains some facts is better than nothing. Subsequent edits can remove the spamminess.

Of course, this means an article on any topic is OK. In a web encyclopedia, that's the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Take a look at the Mzoli's article now:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzoli%27s>

This is really why Wikipedia rocks: the more people complain about it, the better it gets.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would like to see someone create a new Wikipedia entry about Mzoli's that says "Mzoli's is a small restaurant in South Africa that sparked a fierce controversy among Wikipedia contributors..." Ironically, if deletionists were right before, they are certainly wrong now. Mzoli's does now have significance :-)

<comment><USER5> Couldn't you do that with my website instead, please? ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everytime I visit Wikipedia I contemplate writing a Greasemonkey script that would get rid of the "this article lacks citations" warning. I think they are definitely on the wrong track, hopefully they'll be able to change the direction again soon.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to learn a new framework/technology - <AUTHOR>

I am a seasoned developer and learning new frameworks/technologies is part of our life. Everybody says "Read the documentation." but after reading 3-4 pages of it then I get distracted. So here is my approach: I start with a very easy use case in mind. After getting an overview of the target framework, I will:
Step 1: Find use case related methods in the documentation.
Step 2: 99% time Step-1 does not work. Find a tutorial on that use case.
Step-3: If a good end to end tutorial is found. Repeat the process for next use case. Else Step-4.
Step-4: Ask on Stackoverflow. Repeat the cycle for next use case.
I may never use these frameworks in production but never get full confidence in my learning. <comment><USER2> This is a good approach or you can just check or add links to your fav framwork/ language in this link bank on github, which is in development repo and has all links to trusted blogs, videos etc. [https://github.com/theharshbhatia/Getting-Started- With](https://github.com/theharshbhatia/Getting-Started-With)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting the link. I am looking for the right approach not material.</comment></comment>


A Massively Parallel Computing Solution - <AUTHOR> http://www.micron.com/about/innovations/automata-processing <comment><USER2> The best info is in the paper prepared for IEEE:

[http://www.micronautomata.com/documentation/download_white_p...](http://www.micronautomata.com/documentation/download_white_paper?utf8=✓&commit=An+Efficient+and+Scalable+Semiconductor+Architecture+for+Parallel+Automata+Processing)

"An Efficient and Scalable Semiconductor Architecture for Parallel Automata Processing

Paul Dlugosch, Dave Brown, Paul Glendenning, Michael Leventhal, Harold Noyes Member, IEEE"

</comment><comment><USER3> Forgive my ignorance, but how is this different from an FPGA?

<comment><USER4> The AP is essentially a silicon implementation of regular expressions, augmented with a relatively small number of Boolean gates and counters. It has many simple matching elements that can be connected together to create automata networks that advance in parallel. The output of a single automaton is a Boolean decision, indicating whether the automaton is in an accepting state or not. It is natively a MISD architecture, a rather dusty corner of Flynn's Taxonomy, because all active states receive the input symbol at the same time.

In contrast, FPGAs are much more general purpose and as a result have fewer individual processing elements. Indeed, an FPGA can be made to emulate the AP for small designs, but the AP is able to accommodate much larger (or more instances of) automata on one chip, resulting in much greater throughput or bandwidth, depending on the configuration.

It is fair to compare the AP to FPGAs in the context of problems that can be reduced to regex (augmented with digital logic and counters), but not in a general purpose sense. Just because a problem might reduce to regex and can be run on the AP, doesn't mean that it can be done so efficiently. But there a host of problem domains in pattern matching that do map efficiently to the AP.

<comment><USER5> They run non-deterministic automata. Their class of grammars is bigger than regexps.

I think it is a good thing they have built.

<comment><USER6> I don't think this is true. All non-deterministic finite automata (NDFA) can be converted to deterministic finite automata (DFA), and regular expressions are equivalent in power to DFAs

Edit: Actually just read the paper that someone linked to. You're right that their grammar is larger than that of DFAs and regular expressions, but it appears that's because they extended it rather than because they're using nondeterminism.

<comment><USER5> The problem with DFA is that they explode exponentially for number of choices containing ".*". Then you fail to get a locality of reference, etc. DFA also very sequential.

This is why NDAs are better - you can run several NDAs in parallel with their states and inputs. It basically becomes vectorized problem.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, so it becomes a space/time tradeoff. I think whether which is better depends on the problem you're solving. Many DFAs don't blow up space exponentially, so you'd rather have the DFA in that case. You're right though that for DFAs with an exponential increase in space requirements you are better off just doing the NDA in parallel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Micron announced they were working on this some time ago. Have they released something new? Or are we just talking about the same unfinished R&D project that we were back in the spring?

</comment><comment><USER8> Their youtube video is a good intro: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWs8L4xnUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWs8L4xnUM)

</comment><comment><USER9> This site actually has more information: [http://www.micronautomata.com/](http://www.micronautomata.com/)

It sounds a like like the Parallela boards, as in it's a 2-dimensional grid network and it sounds like they broadcast to the edge of the grid. My question is how do you scale up bandwidth, if it's broadcast, and not multicast?

</comment><comment><USER10> TOMI Celeste is a lot more interesting.

<comment><USER11> The biggest problem the tech behind this has always suffered ,is being able to convince DRAM manufacturers to manufacture using their technology.

This doesn't seem to have changed.

<comment><USER10> Wait and see! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this similar to GPU programming? If not, how is it different?

<comment><USER13> AFAIK GPUs are floating-point centric, meaning you'd have to reimplement some functionality on top of FP. Plus it seems that each 'cell' can be it's own state machine, I also believe that GPUs are less fine-grained than that (you allocate clusters of units to compute a programmable shader).

<comment><USER14> Actually the throughput of integer instructions isn't that much lower than floating point operations, at least for arithmetic and bitwise operations.

[http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-c-programming- guide/#maximi...](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-c-programming- guide/#maximize-instruction-throughput)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> it looks totally like raspberryPI compute module.

<comment><USER2> Only the interface is the same (RAM bus) otherwise it's completely different, AP not having the CPU as we are used to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Micron, if you are reading, tell me why do I need to make up a super secure password just to sign up for updates?

"Must have a minimum of 8 characters including at least 1 special character (ex. !, @, #, $)"

FYI, this made me not sign up (at [http://www.micronautomata.com/](http://www.micronautomata.com/) )

<comment><USER17> Is there a legitimate reason not to use a password manager for personal use in scenarios such as these?

<comment><USER18> Is there a legitimate reason to require authentication to receive marketing information?</comment></comment></comment>


Neurosymbolic AI Advances State of the Art on Math Word Problems - <AUTHOR> https://pureai.com/articles/2019/12/05/neurosymbolic-ai.aspx <comment><USER2> Searching for Nuerosymbolic I can only find this paper from 2017 at Microsoft Reasearch. It is from 2017 and uses an RNN to incrementally grows some input source code.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/neuro-s...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/neuro-symbolic-program-synthesis-2/)

>The first module, called the cross correlation I/O network, given a set of input-output examples, produces a continuous representation of the set of I/O examples. The second module, the RecursiveReverse-Recursive Neural Network (R3NN), given the continuous representation of the examples, synthesizes a program by incrementally expanding partial programs

I think stuff like this is very interesting and look forward to a future of old-hats complaining that new programmers let the intellisense write all their code for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article seems pointless without detailing any of the results, why not give some numbers on their performance on benchmarks?

</comment><comment><USER4> Is the peer-reviewed paper available anywhere yet?

This article doesn't tell us anything about the Neurosymbolic AI approach except that it performs well and "essentially combines two existing techniques: neural attention Transformers...and tensor product representation".

<comment><USER5> It says it will be up on their blog soon, but I don't see it anywhere yet. And I agree, the article really says very little about what the title describes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> (I contributed to the PureAI article) The research article is still under peer review so that's why no detailed accuracy information or explanation of the technique can be published yet. If the PureAI article gave details, there'd be nothing to prevent an unscrupulous person from hijacking the content and establishing copyright/patent for the intellectual property. I have seen the research paper and it presents full information about the technique and the experimental results.

James M</comment>


Ground Floor: Basic styling for out-of-the-box NeoCities websites - <AUTHOR> http://groundfloor.neocities.org

<comment><AUTHOR> We're currently working on an even simpler version that uses less elements (we're going to push the <article> style into <body>): [http://kyledrake.neocities.org/groundfloorproposal.html](http://kyledrake.neocities.org/groundfloorproposal.html)

The basic idea is to provide sane defaults for people that aren't CSS experts and don't know how to use classes. Then they can slowly learn how CSS works without having their pages initially look like terrible un-styled crap from the early 90s.

This is a really cool idea, and Scott put a lot of work/thought into it. I think a lot of people outside of NeoCities would find this useful too, that's why I wanted to share it!

<comment><USER2> This is indeed a cool idea. Of course there are some of us who like the un- styled (or rather uniquely styled) crap from the early 90s as well ;)

I certainly appreciate the simplicity and it may be good to keep this to a limited number of tags.

Article, section, footer, aside maybe. And form elements, form, select, input (text, password, email, search) and textarea. And text, p, a, h1-h6, blockquote, ul, ol, li.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like this idea (as well as the notion of neocities in general), glad to see that it's adding basic styling and keeping it's sort of lean mentality (forgive the use of the word "lean" there). Good luck!

I'm a little worried about the use case, but no one ever really knows if anything will catch on or not, all we can do is speculate.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if one wouldn't be just as well off just using Zen Garden's HTML template -- then there's certainly a lot of beautiful CSS to draw inspiration from, for aspiring designers...

I'm a little confused about Zen Garden's current status, according to the official page, and the following link, work "has started" to convert to html5 -- but the code on github still appears to use xhtml...

At any rate the following link has a html5 starting point:

[http://www.nateomedia.com/notebook/web-development/css- zen-g...](http://www.nateomedia.com/notebook/web-development/css-zen-garden- html5/)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is great for people who really don't have an eye for design and style, like me. I'll have to work with this on my site, [http://gilgamech.neocities.org](http://gilgamech.neocities.org)

<comment><USER6> glad you like it.

plan on doing some more updates to make it more flexible/easy to use n' such.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Fontless – A simple, privacy-focused way to self-host Google Fonts. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/varld/fontless <comment><AUTHOR> Fontless automatically generates a Google-Fonts like service just for you. It does not include any tracking or cookies. The API is compatible with Google Font's CSS2 API.

If you have any feedback or ideas, please let me know.

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds great and convenient, but is convenience the only benefit over just hosting the fonts yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> The convenience is definitely a big part. However, Fontless also has best- practices for caching and performance built right in. It also has support for Google Fonts' CSS2 API.

You can think of it as a convenient way to self-host fonts, with best- practices built right in.</comment></comment>


MIT Sandbox invites 11,000 students to innovate - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2016/mit-sandbox-invites-students-to-innovate-0125 <comment><USER2> MIT student here. I heard about this recently, and looked into it a bit as an interesting way to get some funding.

First of all, it's not like every participant gets 25K. Getting that level of funding would take some serious doing. It looks like 1-5K is more likely. Additionally, there are milestones, meetings, course requirements, and a whole lot of work required to get any significant funding. This might not be so bad for many early stage startups, but as a full time MIT student, taking on the extra workload is daunting.

In my opinion, it's not worth it. I am paying ~30K PER SEMESTER to be at this place, so I'm doing my best to focus all of my attention on learning my craft and jumpstarting my career. 25K sounds nice and is definitely nothing to scoff at, but in the broad scale it's a drop in the bucket, and requires getting all tied up in MIT's red tape (and also "Students who receive +$5K in funding will be encouraged to give back to the Fund or MIT"). There are easier ways to go about getting 1 to 25K in strings attached seed funding as an MIT student. The mentorship is potentially a good benefit, but I already receive mentorship from my professors.

I'm sure there are some students who might benefit from this, but I'm not convinced.

<comment><USER3> speaking of getting tied up.. I wonder how this program applies to MIT's intellectual property policy: [http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html](http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html)

Quote:

 _ownership of Intellectual Property developed by faculty, students, staff, and others participating in MIT programs, including visitors, with the significant use of funds or facilities administered by MIT will vest with MIT._

From my reading of the policy.. it sounds like if you accept this small sum (1-5K), MIT gets the IP rights to everything you make. Good deal for MIT.

If they own the name (trademark) of your project; the content on your website and marketing materials; copyright on your code; patents... you're basically working for MIT for $1k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Official website: [https://sandbox.mit.edu/](https://sandbox.mit.edu/)

Apparently Sam Altman is holding a talk/Q&A there on the 13th. It's an intriguing concept - I'm not aware of any similar programs at other colleges.

<comment><USER5> It's similar to Velocity at UW: [http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/](http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/)

<comment><USER6> And my university (UAlberta) is having trouble with people graduating in CS, because within an hour all of higher level courses were booked so people can't take the courses they need to graduate, some people are forced to take a year off among other things.

<comment><USER7> I thought in most universities, the higher you are (Senior/junior) you get early/priority registration period, and it makes sense.

I find it strange not to have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really neat except there's no information on how to sign up.</comment>


Gay men tend to be shorter than heterosexual men - <AUTHOR> http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0800-9 <comment><USER2> The thing I found most interesting about this article was the hard number on the percentage of the male population that is homosexual - 1.97%.

<comment><USER3> Out of interest is this higher or lower that your own perceived percentage?

<comment><USER4> Not parent, but I've usually been quoted that 5% of the population is homosexual and that this number is even throughout cultures, though in some cultures it is suppressed, meaning much fewer are "active" homosexuals.

It is statement that I've heard several times in academia, but am still a bit puzzled at how it was reached.

<comment><USER5> LGBT activists tend to deliberately exaggregate this number to increase their perceived importance. If you have a political ambitions then you'd better represent 5% of society, not 1.97 %.

<comment><USER6> I am LGBT myself, and I think that, unfortunately, you are probably correct.

This is unfortunately something almost everyone is guilty of (LGBT activists included). Once you politicise an issue, people begin to twist the facts, misrepresent data and select evidence that is perceived as supporting their own view point, while tossing aside evidence that contradicts it. Everyone wants "the science" to come out in their favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I worked many years in nightclubs and this fits in with what I've noticed. And it's not just that gay men tend to be shorter, but that short straight men tend to be mistaken for gay more often than taller men, something a friend of mine was complaining about the other night.</comment>


US woman arrested over nine-year overdue rental video - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26225971

<comment><USER2> This happens "often" with public library books, also. That scenario happened to the wife of a coworker.

We used to have laws against debtors prisons but those have been gradually eliminated. The legal hack around creation of debtors prisons revolves around demanding the victims presence at a civil trial, no show results in warrant for contempt of court. The other maneuver is if someone owes you "something" as a civil lawsuit, if you can convince a judge to file it instead as a property theft crime, suddenly a simple civil matter converts into a criminal matter.</comment>


Show HN: Footstock – 5000% crowdfunded – trading, fantasy football and games - <AUTHOR> https://www.footstock.com <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: We are a licensed operator in the UK. HN might not be the place to advertise for this, but we are hackers, have some growth and proud to show!

Footstock is a combination of trading, fantasy football and casino gambling. With over 5000% of our initial crowdfunding target reached, we aim to be the daily go-to platform for soccer fans!

You can buy Premier League player cards, either from our shop, or the peer2peer 'order book' based market. There's opportunity to profit through buying players cheaply and then selling at a profit if their stock rises. These player cards can then be used to enter teams in our rake-free fantasy football tournaments which we run on Premier League, Champions League and Europa League matches. Buy-ins range from free up to £50, suiting all budgets.

We're also about to launch a £10k freeroll with £5,000 guaranteed to the winner in early November!

Cards can also be used to gamble in our roulette tournaments, with the opportunity to win other cards or cash.

You will love the thrill of the fantasy football tournaments and the 24/7 availability of the casino games. Anyone who's played Draftkings or FPL knows the buzz of watching your fantasy teams perform, with our platform you can profit from your football knowledge in multiple different ways!

<comment><USER2> GTFO spamdroid

<comment><AUTHOR> im not a spamdroid =) The headline is fine and the disclaimer says it all. sorry if you don't like it... not all posts around a licensed gambling business are spam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if you have bought the rights to use actual player likeness.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes we did. We are a German company and operate in the UK exactly because of this.</comment></comment>


Walmart Creating Massive Logistics to Catch Up With Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323566804578553301017702818.html?mod

<comment><USER2> 209 days ago I said this:

 _Re: next big markets--retail is an interesting one and it occurred to me that Walmart is going to have a RIM like crisis of its own over the next decade. E-commerce growth probably will continue as consumers grow increasingly comfortable with it, and the economics make so much more sense than building walmart 's everywhere. I suppose they will start getting rid of their stores and moving to online, finding themselves looking like Amazon at the end of it, or out of business._

I guess I figured they'd get rid of their stores rather than turn them into shipping centers, but maybe this is just the first step in what would be a hell of a pivot if they can pull it off...</comment>


Freelancing: How to talk yourself into charging more - <AUTHOR> http://andyadams.org/you-can-charge-more/ <comment><USER2> Justifying your costs by basing what you charge against the costs of a similar employee is a good start, and in my experience it's how most of us start (the old "divide by 2000" trick). I like that Andy makes note that you need to include overhead (prospecting, writing proposals, ...), which a lot of new freelancers tend to miss.

However, I think the big takeaway is realizing that the formula presented establishes a minimum threshold. It _shouldn 't_ be used to figure out what you charge. My rates are way north of what the a developer/marketer would command on the open market, but I don't contextualize my costs against the equivalent costs of an employee; instead, I anchor my costs against the upside that a successful delivery of a project would yield for my client.

The single best way to substantially make more money consulting is to stop selling commodity services (web design, Ruby programming, whatever), and to truly _consult_. Provide your clients with a way to bridge the problem they face with the solution they desire, and charge accordingly.

<comment><USER3> Also, I think there is a lot of focus on pricing (fair, it was the point of the article). But you simply need to back it up with what is your differentiator. It's just like any product: you need to be articulate as to why you cost your rate, and also have an idea of the value of your work to customers (different customers value the same work differently).

So, know what makes you different, find the customers that value that work more, and set your price according to that.

<comment><USER4> In my experience, differentiating from competition wasn't really a factor in how much I charged or how much I made. For a lot of businesses that would hire a solo consultant, there is no consideration of the competition.

Most of the businesses that I've dealt with are intimately familiar with the problem/objective, but really don't have much knowledge of what is required to get there. This is where the consulting part comes into play. Many times it's been as simple as "let's talk about what you're trying to accomplish here" and from that I am able to formulate a solution in my mind of how that can be solved with custom software (or in some cases, an out of the box tool). I make the recommendation, and boom, a sale is made.

This is where making the business case for what the client stands to make comes into play and why what another developer might charge is highly irrelevant. If you can convince a business owner that he'll make $100,000 with your solution, convincing him to pay you $30,000 is not too difficult, regardless of whether he could technically find a high-school student who would do it for $15/hour.

To me, the key word is _trust_. Once you prove that you have good ideas and know how to execute on them, making sales is really more about just repeating the process than undercutting the competition. It goes without saying that you must deliver, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Be very careful basing your rate on your expected salary. It's a trap that will hurt your returns.

The most important lesson I think you can learn in consulting is that businesses are paying for more than just lines of code; that a lot of things that you don't intuitively think have any value actually have enormous value. The best way I've managed to describe it is in this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2190379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2190379)

Each of those bullets is something that potentially adds dollar value to a project.

Some freelance projects can be valued against the cost of a full-time employee. But ask yourself: "Does the client I'm working for have the capability to hire someone full-time for the service I'm providing? Would they know how? Would they be able to attract the right talent? And: would it make any business sense for them to do that?" If the answer is "no", then please, think of it this way: _no more than 50% of the value you 're providing comes from actual code_; the remainder is business value you create by being available to solve a problem for your client in the precise scheduling and format they need.

When you grok this, you see why your rate has nothing at all to do with full- time salary for a comparable tech position. No full-timer can do what you're doing. By definition. Because they're only available full-time.

Also: please, for the love of all that's holy, don't bill hourly. You don't have an hourly rate. You have a day rate, for projects so small that you don't charge by the week.

<comment><USER6> I'd _really_ like to hear more discussion around this "don't bill hourly" concept. I'm 4 years in to a successful, solo freelancing career and this advice still doesn't click for me. I've billed precise hours for every one of the 20+ projects I've taken on.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER7> I bill weekly. Clients can book time in increments of one week. Each week costs a fixed amount, though I give clients a 10% discount for pre-payment in full, cleared in my bank account before work starts.

Snarky but true: implementing this was roughly as hard as reading a comment by tptacek about billing weekly, deciding that I bill weekly, and then telling all existing clients and future clients that I now bill weekly.

<comment><USER8> Question from a per-hour freelancer:

Does this mean you only work on one project at a time? I seem to maximize my billable time by doing one project at 20 hours/week plus a few long-term relationships with smaller ad hoc projects. Sometimes the "big" projects overlap briefly but I try to avoid that.

If I moved to weekly billing, I'm afraid I'd need a longer sales process and I'd have to turn down a lot of work that I can slip in with my current approach. So I'm curious: do you work one engagement at a time, and what is your time between engagements?

<comment><USER5> You can bill daily and still rotate through work for 3 different clients at a time. You don't even need to make special arrangements to do it. Just do it in the background, get your work done competently for all your clients, and be honest. You'll be fine.

The only thing we're telling you _not_ to do is to break your bills out by the hour. A whole lot of bad stuff happens when you start billing in sub-day increments.

<comment><USER9> How do you deal with the expectation that 1 day means 8 hours exactly and clients who think in those terms?

How precisely do you specify upfront what a 'day' means? Are you just keeping it vague and not working with anyone who takes issue with that? Or are you specifying it as 6 hours so you have time to handle other things?

I recently attempted a move to daily billing but had a client who was anal about 1 day = 8 hours and this caused significant friction/lack of flexibility. The client was a somewhat difficult/overly-controlling person but willing to pay well for quality. Would you simply turn down someone like this?

<comment><USER10> _How precisely do you specify upfront what a 'day' means?_

I don't. All my recent contracts of this nature have simply stated that a day on which any services are provided is chargeable, or words roughly equivalent to that.

This does require a client to trust that I won't abuse the deal by, say, charging for a day off just because I spent a few minutes replying to an e-mail. I suppose legally speaking I could do that, but then legally speaking a client can typically also fire me in the time it takes to get a letter delivered if they're not happy with progress on their project. As with so much of this business, trust goes both ways.

In reality, I have never found this to be a problem. As others have said, clients are typically more interested in the value of the work you produce than in how, when, or where you produce it. You might see the occasional raised eyebrow if someone asks directly and is surprised at your answer, but personally I'm not aware that I've ever lost business or left unhappy clients over it.

 _The client was a somewhat difficult /overly-controlling person but willing to pay well for quality. Would you simply turn down someone like this?_

Given a reasonable alternative, which is usually the case: yes.

Incidentally, in the UK, where I am, you should be very wary of taking on "overly controlling clients". If you aren't sufficiently independent -- as demonstrated by signals like your clients controlling your working hours -- then you could be deemed a disguised employee rather than a separate business. That leaves you with all the overheads of running a business, yet also leaves both you and your client with all the tax obligations of an employer-employee relationship, which is a Very Bad Idea.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure of the current state of things, but that last bit has traditionally been true in the US as well: if you spend all your time with one client, and they control your hours and/or work location and equipment, then you may be considered an employee for tax purposes (IRS Form SS-8 covers this).

<comment><USER5> In the US, that works to the benefit of the contractor; the problem is that clients know that, so if you look like someone the IRS might classify as a full-timer (an unincorporated sole practitioner), they may preemptively withhold taxes for you.

This is a problem a couple friends of mine have had. It seems like incorporation, which is cheap and something you should do anyways, mostly fixes it.

<comment><USER10> _It seems like incorporation, which is cheap and something you should do anyways, mostly fixes it._

In the UK, we have almost the opposite problem.

If you set up a limited company to operate a freelance business, then by default you get to run it like any other business. That means you're responsible for paying your own overheads and doing the same administrative paperwork and taxes as any other company. (Who else is going to pay for or do those things, after all?) However, it also means that if you're the only owner and director, you can treat most of the profits as dividends rather than salary, which can be a significant tax advantage in some quite common circumstances.

Unfortunately, this arrangement was being abused by some people who were in effect working as employees of someone else, who operated with little meaningful independence but were being paid through a company so they could take the tax breaks anyway.

Consequently, with probably good intentions but unfortunately not a very good implementation, a set of rules known as IR35 were introduced that basically said if your arrangement works like employment, you'll have to treat your contract like employment, with the full tax liability that goes with it.

The trouble is that there has never been any useful, objective definition of what counts as working like employment, so all we really have to go on are a few precedents from early cases. In practice, this means every independent professional here who works this way, however legitimately, has this permanent axe hanging over their head. You can pay some accountants for an expert contract review that comes with insurance if they tell you you're OK and you are subsequently determined to be within the scope of IR35 anyway, but that's a lot of hassle and a significant cost if you do change contracts often, so not everyone does.

The tax authorities did make an attempt to codify some more concrete guidelines with their Business Entity Tests a few years ago; those were supposed to give you a clearer idea of how likely you were to fall within the scope of IR35, but the questions were bizarre and completely ignored most of the really important distinctions between an employee and a genuinely independent professional operating as a real one-person company, and the BETs were effectively killed off not so long after they were introduced.

This leaves us back at square one. Despite protests from the independent sector about the ongoing burden of IR35 and the lack of evidence that it has ever generated anywhere near the kind of additional tax revenues it was supposed to, successive governments have maintained the rules arguing that if they removed them now then the floodgates would open and suddenly everyone would be going down the disguised employment path costing the government a fortune.

In practice, the good news for genuinely independent professionals is that the tax authorities have very limited resources to go after small time tax dodgers, so as long as you're behaving reasonably it seems you're unlikely to get in much trouble. This brings me back to where I came in, which is a warning that if you really are trying to operate properly as an independent, a very controlling client who is able to impose obvious restrictions like setting working hours is not something you want pushing you to the top of the pile for an IR35 investigation.

<comment><USER12> HMRC have an email address you can send information about your business and working arrangements to and they will tell you if you are caught by IR35.

I wrote a fuller explanation here: [http://digitalassassin.net/2014/07/am-i- caught-by-ir35/](http://digitalassassin.net/2014/07/am-i-caught-by-ir35/)

<comment><USER10> HMRC will tell you whether _in their opinion_ you are caught by IR35. However, it is important to understand that they are not a neutral advisor, and just because someone at HMRC thinks you are caught, that does not mean the actual decision-making process if they challenge your status will lead to the same conclusion. In reality, they have a record of chasing not very many people under IR35 in the first place and then winning only a fraction of those cases when someone has put up a fight.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that this is necessarily due to any ill intent on their part. It's just that even if HMRC people are trying to help when you call them, they can still fail to understand what the tax rules actually say and they can give incorrect advice as a result. When that happens, they seem to err on the side of saying you're caught by whatever it is you're asking about and should pay the extra tax.

If I'd taken them at their word the last couple of times I called, my companies would have paid far more tax than we really owed. (To be clear again, I'm not talking about any funny tax avoidance measures here, just applying the normal but somewhat complicated rules for things like international sales.) Fortunately, we also spoke with some accountants who could explain why the first advice was wrong, which in fact they did by citing parts of HMRC's own written guidance that HMRC's own people had overlooked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was nodding my head in agreement… All the way until the "How much would I charge?" part. Here's something to consider for other freelancers reading this:

1\. We all know what a pain it is to bill hourly. The way-off estimates, the tracking, the reporting… Why not bill on a daily/weekly/monthly rate? I know what you're thinking: "But how will my client know how much work I'm doing?!" In the past year that I've been doing this, the ONLY people to ever ask me that were other freelancers, NOT clients/prospects. Clients–the good ones, at least–don't CARE how many hours you're spending to do X and Y, as long as you're doing a damn good job at X and Y and adding significant value to their company.

2\. Why tie your rates to your cost of living? (And number of vacation days, and tax rate, and other arbitrary multipliers/divisors…) Your rate should reflect the value you bring to a company. (Yes, figuring the value of your work for a company could be tricky, but that's another matter…) Using living expenses to calculate your rates makes as much sense as pricing milk by the size of the cow that produced it. Charging based on value will almost always get you more than charging based on your thrifty living expenses. (And if it doesn't, then either you're underestimating your work's value or your clients are way too small.)

<comment><USER14> Your first point is solid. On your second, I don't think the rate is tied to cost of living. It is setting a minimum rate necessary before the contract isn't profitable. The formula is:

Minimum Rate = (Potential Salary * 1.25 – Freedom Tax) / 1000

When negotiating with customers, the formula will be:

Offer Rate = (Potential Salary * 1.25) / 1000

Potential Salary is the area where your value is estimated. Since the customer will likely negotiate down, the minimum rate is simply the point that one should never go below.

<comment><USER5> No. "Potential salary" is a number based on a salary. Salaries are discounted almost arbitrarily because they include a long-term commitment from the client (employer) to the vendor (employee). How big that discount is depends on a lot of different factors, but: a 2-year 40-hour-a-week commit from a client at my last company would have garnered you a _pretty freaking enormous discount._

You have to see the whole picture. There is always more being transacted than simply dollars for lines of code. When you grok that, you see that "salary" does not make sense as the "free variable" in your valuation equation.

<comment><USER15> Genuinely wondering what commitment you're speaking of. I've worked for some big names, in several states, but my employment has never had any commitment attached to it by the Employer.

<comment><USER5> If a company extended you a full-time job offer knowing that they were only going to use you for 2 months and then get rid of you, you'd be pissed, and so would HN when you told them about it. People would be disinclined to accept job offers from that company, once they found out what happened.

Legal commitment isn't the only kind of commitment.

<comment><USER15> Understandable, but I've seen several people let go because they didn't mesh with a company culture, within a probational period, and I think if it were me I wouldn't hold any hard feelings if such a thing were to happen.

<comment><USER5> I think we're talking past each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice write-up, but a little too complex for me. I've taken a slightly different approach that I've never had to "talk myself into"...

I got the gig by charging something we both felt comfortable with. Then I raised my rates 10% every 90 days. No discussion, no debate, no permission, just, "Starting October 1, my new rate is x." If they said no, I'd walk away. That _never_ happened.

I remember the first time I crossed $100 using this method. My client said, "Now we'll have to start treating you like a real consultant." I said, "OK."

<comment><USER13> > "Now we'll have to start treating you like a real consultant." I said, "OK."

That's funny... I bet it felt great hearing that. I remember when I had more than 1 concurrent client for the first time ever, I thought to myself: "Wow, now I'm a real consultant, not a wanna-be-consultant!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really wish everybody who was a freelancer had a chance to work for six months in a big-time consulting firm (e.g. Computer Science Corp, Accenture, Sapient, or IBM Global Services). Get an up-close look at how much companies will pay for developers, project managers, and designers. Medium-sized or larger companies have no problem paying $175+ per hour for average developers who have the right experience. If you're any good, you'll soon see that a big company will pay $200+/hour for you.

Sure, there's extra overhead involved in those big firms, but there's no way you'll come out of that experience thinking you're only worth $50/hour.

<comment><USER18> Small companies will, too. Just not the sort of small companies who look for talent on Freelancer boards. They're looking for bargains or non-critical work, in my experience, and the majority of them - if they get past the sticker shock - are not pleasant to work with.

<comment><USER19> How else do you find the right sort of companies? (genuinely curious)

<comment><USER20> In short, you painstakingly build a network over time. Eventually you get to the point where good companies find you. There's no definitive way to do this and that's what makes running a successful consulting company difficult. In my experiences, all of the consultants that I know (including myself) who are going strong, sort of fell into consulting after working a long time in their industries. If you are young, I would suggest working for a company in your industry first and gain experience/contacts before setting out to be an independent consultant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The most you can charge is the perceived differential value you provide. So, if the client perceives that you will make them an extra $1M compared to the alternatives, you can charge, say $300K. If you have to do 100 hours of work to do that, don't say that your rate is $3,000/hr. Just say that the $1M costs $300K.

You don't always get a clearcut case like that, but the key, as @bdunn mentioned, is that you need to help the customer in a way that other commodity providers can't. Writing Ruby code or working with Photoshop is a commodity. The market sets the rate for those services. But if you can use those skills to reduce costs, increase web conversions, etc, you can provide increased differential value.

I've helped a lot of small business owners work through these scenarios, and then come up with numbers that "don't feel right." They don't want to charge what they're worth. Then we have a conversation like this:

"I agree with you that it's worth it, but I just don't feel like I can charge that much."

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't feel right?"

"You believe in helping your clients, right?"

"Of course."

"Would charging the higher rate help you provide more resources and increase the customer's return?"

"Probably."

"So why are you so hung up on your own feelings that you're hurting your clients by not charging them properly?"

OK, it's a bit silly, but it's a real conversation I've had many times. When they are convinced in their head but not in their gut, I ask them to literally practice talking about price in front of a mirror. Do it so that it sound confident, comfortable, and unapologetic. Your customer is getting a great deal! Of course they should want to do this. Steve Jobs never apologized for the fact that a Mac had a higher price than many PCs-- it was just a great deal if you wanted to do certain things.

Feedback is that practicing in front of a mirror really helps. ;-)

<comment><USER22> >"You believe in helping your clients, right?" "Of course."

I think this might be the snag. The people who will pay what the SBO is worth will likely not be the same people as the current clients.

<comment><USER21> This is true in some cases, especially if they don't perceive the value, or they are so cash-strapped that they can't execute on the plans that would really help them.

However, this is often an excuse to avoid having the pricing conversation. I've worked with people who have raised rates on existing clients by 30% without losing any of them.

Usually, though, you'll lose some clients who don't perceive the value and are a giant pain, anyway. You'll get to do better, more interesting work for most of your clients, who will magically start treating you better, and you'll get to do work for a new set of clients who treat you better than the ones you lost.

(Of course, value is not something you assign to a project. It's what the buyer perceives. You can help frame the perception, but it's got to be credible.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For someone like me who is a "jack of all trades master of none" type of freelancer, this formula works fairly well. I have the advantage of having a full time job and freelancing on the side for extra spending/saving money. But if I ever do make the great leap to a full time freelancer, this formula tells me that I can make it for only a little more than I charge now.

Granted, I'm in a suburban/semi-rural area, so I may actually have to raise my rates to make a livable wage on my own, since the client pool is smaller, and this is part of why I haven't already made the leap. Admittedly, the "imposter syndrome" the author spoke of is probably a factor as well; deep down I know I'm good at what I do, but every time I have to research something I end up feeling like a know-nothing. That's something I'll have to overcome not only if I want to set forth on my own as a full time freelancer, but even if I want to advance as an employee.

<comment><USER13> If it's of any help, the impostor syndrome isn't unique to _new_ freelancers. I've been consulting steadily for over a year, and I _still_ feel it frequently. Acknowledge the feeling but don't let it be a barrier. (Maybe someone more experienced can chime in if I'm wrong about this.)

<comment><USER24> I contracted full-time for about 2.5 years before going back to being an FTE for the stability. Even as I steadily raised my rates upwards of $150/hr+ I still thought back to when I was charging $70 and that I was doing the exact same work and providing the exact same value.

Even when you're in the thick of it, it's sometimes hard to contextualize that no, I'm not charging too much now, I was just charging too little then.

You will lose clients as your rates go up, it's only natural (I had one complain very loudly when I went from $70 to $80 an hour, even though he only needed 2-3 hours of work a month at most; he left when I went to $95 about 6 months later). With few exceptions, most of them will be the painful ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've never freelanced and I'm just about to start (in an SDE-equivalent role), but getting the first job is definitely the hardest. I really need your advice!

The back story: My startup is experiencing a quiet period and won't be making money for a few months. I need to make my rent and pay for food, yet have the flexibility to continue working on my startup.

I considered asking for a low rate just because of my dire need to make money. This brilliant article makes me reconsider my worth (I've turned down 100k offers to pursue my startup), though. What's the best thing to do in my sitauation?

I've built a portfolio and I've considered four approaches that I will take. Which ones should I focus on? Is #2 too much of a long shot?

1\. Reach to my network (mostly recent grads, though)

2\. Apply to freelancing agencies

3\. Reach out to companies that are hiring, have a great cover letter which explains my situation and propose working on a contract basis (is that too much of a long shot?)

4\. Reach out to companies that seek freelancers (but how do I find these?)

Thanks for advice!

<comment><AUTHOR> I started with #1 and #4. In particular, [http://www.authenticjobs.com/](http://www.authenticjobs.com/) is a great place to find quality first-time leads.

To get jobs there, I use this formula:

1\. Make sure you're only applying to jobs you're really interested in.

2\. Write an introduction email that explains your interest in a personal tone. Nothing stodgy, nothing cookie-cutter.

3\. Try to be one of the first ones to apply - postings get _flooded_ with applications (most of them crappy), so it doesn't hurt to be in first. This means you may need to check the job board multiple times per day.

Beyond job boards: _Nothing_ beats word-of-mouth referrals. Become to "go to" person for your clients and watch the leads roll in.

(edit: formatting)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> After reading this (and other threads where 'tptacek has written in great detail about the merits of billing by the day, raising your rates, etc.) the only question I have left is: how do freelance consultants typically find clients? Assuming a clean slate and no testimonials or referrals to springboard off of.

Is it as simple as calling random businesses? Or is there a nice set of useful tips for starting out?

(Has this already been answered in another thread?)

<comment><USER27> Very few people start consulting when immediately out of the womb. One's first client or few clients is often sourced by one's personal network: an old day job, a college buddy who went on to work somewhere, someone you met at the local meetup for Pythonistas, etc.

After one is actually working as a consultant, one can fix the "I have no testimonials or referrals" problem fairly quickly. Do great work. Explicitly ask clients, as part of your aftercare (or before), to give you testimonials and/or referrals. e.g. "I'm really happy that this engagement seems to have worked well for everyone. Over the next couple weeks, I'll make myself available to the team if they have any questions about $PROJECT. Naturally, I'm also going to be doing the consulting rainmaking dance. I've really enjoyed working with you -- do you know anyone else who would enjoy working with me?"

There are a few other methods which work in a repeatable fashion:

a) Go to events populated by people who can say yes to consulting engagements. If you cannot be invited to these for whatever reason or if they don't exist in your area, throw the event yourself. Do presentations which relate in _any_ way to the sort of work that you do and then ask people at the end of the presentation to continue the conversation offline if they found it interesting. You will get 5+ coffee dates per 50 people you present to. Work on converting 1~2 to clients.

b) Figure out who should be buying your services. Cold call or cold email them. This strikes engineers as Black Magick Most Foul, but it is actually pretty routine in business, and clearly works in a reproducible fashion. Business owners mostly _will not be offended_ if you send them a considered, personalized, one paragraph pitch to explore business together. Selling and being sold to is _what we do all day_.

c) I hesitate to mention it, since it is a long-ball sort of strategy and typically will not help you pack Q1 with engagements when starting from a standing start in December 2014, but putting a few writeups of what you do for a living on the Internet (you can use WordPress for this but, crucially, you're not shipping blog posts) plus an email capture opportunity can get you a _lot_ of leads over the long run. Virtually anyone on HN who has ever shipped software with a business impact could spend four hours writing about that experience and get a handful of leads every month from now to forever for that investment. Assuming one's consultancy is known to work given people to sell services to, this strikes me as a good use of one's time between engagements.

<comment><USER26> Thanks! I believe I can work with all of this information :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A technique a friend taught me to make good prices.

"What number would you not say no to? Assuming you wouldn't enjoy the work."

It's helped me make reasonable, and sometimes unreasonable offers, which are good starting points for negotiation.

</comment><comment><USER29> > If I told you about freelancers charging $20,000/week or $350/hour, what > would you say? I know what I said: "Sure, they can get away with that, but I > couldn't because…".

How do you raise your rates from $88/hour to $350/hour? That's 4x the rate, it seems like a whole different ball game to me. I have a few regular clients, and there is no way they would be able to afford that, so is it time to ditch them?

<comment><USER30> My method goes counter to the article but still ends up with the same result - higher rates with the added advantage that I KNOW it is the highest possible rate I can charge and not worry if I should charge more or less.

Here's my simple method: Decide how many hours you want to work each week. Then find double or even triple work than that. Then raise your rates till clients start to drop off until you have your desired weekly hours of work.

If you feel your rate for a client is too high, you can always give free or discount hours every once in a while, especially when they are in crisis mode. If you want to drop a client, let them you know you are raising your rates in near future. If they agree to it, great, now you get a bonus for working with bad-client. If they can't afford your new rate, great, you just fired a client without burning down a bridge or having awkward conversation.

Your hourly rate is literally the only thing you are getting from the entire contract. They have projects, deadlines, specs, SDLC, deliverables, development methodologies, use cases, and a hundred other things they want. You have an hourly rate. No year-end bonus, no promotion, no office space, no profit sharing, no health plan, no 401k contributions, no office cooler gossip, and certainly no annual raises.

Of course, having been on the client side of this equation too, I know how wonderful it is to pay someone a single fixed hourly rate and not have to worry about a hundred minor things because I can trust them to be on top of it without my involvement.

<comment><USER31> Your second to last paragraph is a great way to word a conversation I'm about to have. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here's another way to look at it. When you're selling yourself as a freelancer, the last step in the sale is to make the business case. At that point, you've probably already proved that you could do something for the company, and the business case answers the question, "Why pay this much for this service, right now?"

There is more than one way to build a business case. They include:

\- ROI. How much money will the business make? What fraction of that will you charge?

\- Opportunity cost. What timeline would it take to get somebody else to do this? How much is that worth?

\- Productivity / knowledge. Will your work transfer knowledge to people internally? What is the alternative to not hiring you?

\- Flexibility. If they didn't hire a contractor, what is their equivalent of "freedom cost"? Reminding employers that they can fire you at any time is a positive for you.

You may even be able to find others. It's not a trivial task, and it'll take some digging, but keep your ears open. You can always find ways that different companies rationalize spending money, and using one company's framework to help another justify the spend can make things go much more smoothly.

</comment><comment><USER33> Charging more is only half the work on escaping feast and famine cycles when you're a freelancer or an agency. A while ago, I wrote a post to my inner circle of email suscribers about one sure way I've found that works when it comes to charging more (here's the email article: [http://logit.createsend.com/t/ViewEmailArchive/r/3991C04F56F...](http://logit.createsend.com/t/ViewEmailArchive/r/3991C04F56F89D262540EF23F30FEDED/C67FD2F38AC4859C/) \- hint: saying "just double your prices" does not work for everybody, like andy_adams discovered himself; I've got a better way - increase prices gradually and with every project.)

The second half of being satisfied with your (freelancing or agency) career is having abundant recurring revenue. I recently analyzed revenues, market size and the number of employees per company for ten or so related industries: graphic design, web design, domain industry, hosting industry, digital advertising agencies, advertising agencies, website creation software industry... The numbers told me that graphic design and web design companies cannot even afford to hire a second employee - on average. All the other industries, who are known for relying heavily on recurring revenue, had much healthier business indicators. For example, the market in the U.S. for web design / web development is seven times bigger than i.e. the domain name business, but domain name companies are in much better shape, financially.

I've described my experience with implementing recurring revenue services in my webdev agency in the book I wrote: [https://www.simpfinity.com/books/recurring-revenue-web- agenc...](https://www.simpfinity.com/books/recurring-revenue-web-agencies/) \- I now firmly believe that charging more + having recurring revenue is the answer to most freelancers' troubles. As soon you upgrade your attitude to charge more for your work, you're ready to start thinking about earning money from existing clients, every month. We've managed to pay for up to 90% of our monthly expenses solely with recurring revenue.

</comment><comment><USER34> This seems to be for the us and unapplicable to europe (factor 1.25 seems too low), right?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1.25 is too low for the US, too. However, we're just establishing the minimum, so I erred on the low end. 1.5 or 2.0 would probably come closer to reality.

<comment><USER35> It's highly individual. Mine is about 2.25 because of an infuriating rule about deducting health care premiums. bdunn's course Double Your Freelancing Rate[1] has a really good in-depth discussion on how you can figure this out for yourself.

[1]: [http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/](http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is great. The simple model to estimate minimum hourly rate is useful and I believe would create a convincing argument in negotiations of rates. (Of course, one wouldn't have to be so conservative in the estimates in that case).

</comment><comment><USER36> I have on occasion simply raised the number of hours in the equation, instead of my rate. Strictly for fixed-price projects though.

They get the same bang for their buck, but lower hourly rates is for some customers easier to swallow.

<comment><USER37> They get the "same bang for their buck" while you "simply raised the number of hours"? That sounds a lot like intentional misrepresentation of hours worked. Or more bluntly, this seems like fraud.

<comment><USER38> It's what basically every company that delivers project bids that include an estimate of work hours does, AFAIK. Higher hour counts make the managers choosing which bid to accept feel more comfortable, I think.

Doesn't necessarily make it right, but it's very common, maybe even expected and off-putting when not committed, in the way that a lot of business-related lies are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is great. Thank you so much! I was curious if you had any advise on figuring out per project rates? I'm pretty new at making Wordpress sites but I make nice, handsome, responsive and very usable sites. People I have made sites for so far have wanted a single fee for the whole project.

I'm not so good at estimating the number of hours that go into a project yet. Do you have a rule of thumb aside from estimated hours * rate?

<comment><USER40> I wouldn't do a project rate as a freelancer.

I own a design/development studio and encourage my employees to do side work if they want to, in order to get some experience in areas they don't normally dabble in. Examples are estimating, invoicing, figuring out tough problems all on their own (and being on the hook for the solutions), etc. I think it's awesome.

But I always tell them to bill hourly. I do NOT want them to make the same mistakes that I did when I got started. Working late into the night for free is never a fun feeling.

<comment><USER39> Well put. That makes perfect sense. Thank you for your input.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't see anyone pointing out that the impetus for this blog post was a _fixed-price_ contract that went bad. OP's solution was to raise his rates. This is an apples and oranges discussion. Charging higher rates is not the solution to the pain of fixed-price contracts. And for all but the simplest of projects, fixed price is ill-advised.

</comment><comment><USER42> Fantastic article. The company I work for is trying to solve this exact problem with the tool that we're building ([http://getbilly.co/](http://getbilly.co/) \- not ready yet but launching soon) - trying to get freelancers and businesses to value their time more and charge what they're worth.

</comment><comment><USER43> I did not read this article and am only commenting on freelancing in general.

It requires a good understanding, and importantly, articulation of the problem; but flatrate for projects is the way to go. You can charge more and make the client happier. So many software projects fail; that many clients are happy to pay 50-200%+ premiums for the insurance that if you fail to deliver they won't need to pay.

It is hard/impossible to do this when you first start out; but generally speaking if you realize you are selling "peace of mind" rather than whatever it is you are doing; you will make a lot more money and have happier clients.

<comment><USER44> When you charge a flat rate you are assuming the risk of a project. For this, you need to charge a risk premium.

My last fixed price contract (what was I thinking?) was estimated to take 120 hours and instead it took 400. I didn't do too bad because I priced that risk into my "rate".

If you would normally charge $100 hr, you should charge an effective rate of $175 or $200 hour for a fixed price project. Risk/insurance/peace of mind is something you need to charge for. Don't give it away.

<comment><USER43> Absolutely! You charge a super fat risk premium. My whole point is that clients will pay significant insurance (easily 100% premium) on a flat rate project.

I don't talk about hours with my clients when doing flatrate work. I am able to be like "okay.. this should take me 10 hours.. so really it will take me 40 hours, this is eaily worth 3k to them.. if i make anywhere from 75-300/hr I am pretty happy" Then I simply quote 3k and tell them they owe nothing if I don't complete the project to specification. I am very tight on specification and only would do this on projects I fully understand.

Even when I have been explicit about risk premiums being 150% of the estimate; clients nearly always choose the flat rate over the hourly with estimate. If I truly believe my estimates; this is an obvious win for me.

This is also why I said you can't do it right away; estimates are notoriously hard to get right, you really have to be a veteran to _make more money_ doing flat rate than hourly; but I stand by my conviction that if you are decent at estimating (within .2 - 3x of the estimated hours); clients are generally happy to pay you the risk premium at a rate that is much higher than the actual risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I confused "Freedom Tax" with self employment tax at first. 25% is definitely a low estimate if it includes 7.5%.

</comment><comment><USER46> Little bit of reality for you, HN.

All due respect to patio11, who has made an excellent career for himself, but outside of the usual suspects (NYC, SF, Chicago), the kind of rates he talks about will get you laughed out of almost all client negotiations.

<comment><USER5> It's true. Patrick is able to charge those rates because he was bit by a radioactive spider, and because he famously invented the idea of hooking "Hello World" up to a random number generator and people want a little slice of that sweet sweet bingo card expertise.

<comment><USER47> I think you're being a little bit flip. As a matter of fact, he _is_ famous for hooking up "Hello World" to a random-number generator. You're right that it's not really an extraordinary feat on its face, but he garnered a lot of recognition for it nonetheless. Most of us here don't have well-funded companies approaching us to consult for them, so I'm not sure why you're downplaying how special the results of that were for Patrick.

<comment><USER48> He's not famous. At all. We think he's great on hacker news (I've read the vast majority of his blog and listened to every episode of his podcast), but in the _real world_ nobody actually knows who he is. According to him, most of his consulting gigs have been word of mouth. If he can do it, so can we :)

<comment><USER47> You're saying the same thing I said using different phrasing — "word of mouth" _is_ fame. Those gigs came because people _did_ know who he was. It's true that there are people who are more talked-about (i.e. famous) than Patrick, but it's also true that most of us are much less so.

I don't like to be negative, but I just don't think Patrick's experience is reproducible without substantial amounts of luck. I have a friend who's constantly talking about lottery winners and telling me, "Look, they did it, so why can't you?" I feel the same kind of frustration on this topic.

<comment><USER5> There are four people in this thread that I can think of off the top of my head --- me, Patrick, Ali, and Brennan --- that have used these strategies successfully. Are we just all famous?

<comment><USER47> OK, I guess I didn't explain what I meant clearly. I've never heard Patrick talk about any particular strategy that gave him his start. You would know better since you know Patrick personally, but from the accounts he's written, it sounds like he basically had clients come to him thanks to his reputation.

Like, let me put it this way: If I were to create an exact clone of Bingo Card Creator the way it looked and behaved a few years back, do you think Joel Spolsky would come knocking at my digital door? I really, really don't think so. You were laughing at the idea that his "Hello World attached to an RNG" is hard to reproduce, but nobody ever thought that was the difficult part — it's the fame that followed from it that gave Patrick a base of good clients, and that seems to be harder to replicate or replace. At least that is my impression.

(Just to be clear, I don't mean any of this to disparage anyone. It's just like I said earlier — this kind of "it's so easy" talk bothers me in the same way as lottery ads.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> over age 53 - thought experiment. How much would you charge yourself to WORK on your own brain as a Brain Surgeon?

Or comedian star Chris Rock is just another black high school dropout or CHARGES what talent is worth?

YOUR CUSTOMER is monitoring your Facebook for signs of depression indicated by drinking too much. Of course your customer is 'paranoid' as your hobby and what you would really do if you were RICH is to RUN A VINEYARD and bottle champaign.

Most including perhaps ME are clueless as to what the CUSTOMER IS WILLING TO PAY. Think of it this way. THE CEO signs on with 'golden parachutes' and stock options. GE is still paying plenty for 'club frees' for former CE 'Neutron Jack Welch.'

the average tenure of a CEO is less than 3 years, yet some consultants LONGEVITY is 14 years and OLDER THAN the Unix systems of 'the BIG CORP.'

It's a simple question of CASH FLOW - most WAGES SLAVES are bound to the paycheck going to the rent.

THE VALUATION IS YOUR GENIUS and the MAJOR PROBLEM CHALLENGE is that 'the boss', even BIG CORP, even HQ and even 'the system' does not value your genius.

the CONTROVERSIAL SOLUTION used to great effects are the buliding contractors. They have even 'destroyed' the professional engineering consultant industry.

This is called design-build-all stops in one shopping.

So, BIG CORP. you do NOT pay me for my 'time.' because your employees are too afraid to tell you the truth, you need to hire FREE AGENTS. always offer more for BIGGER PAY.

Controversial point number two. Even Contractors and the big water tunnel by Chicago - can go 'bankrupt' and WALK AWAY FROM THE PROJECT.

Everyone except the FREE AGENT knows that SO SUE THE SMALL GUY, but too bad your company burns. This is NOT to say that you are an Oracle like Big corp that cannot easily be replaced. oh... have a good lawyer.

It has nothing to do with lousy reputation customers; bad environment; DEPRESSED and unhappy customer base and employees, etc. Heeeck. i was happy working for big corp

UNTIL I WAS FORCED TO LOOK for FREE AGENT FREEDOM as I was learning little. No, stuuupad! the company paid for your MBA degree but that will not get you a contract.

companies that are PROFITABLE are stingy. companies that are LOSING MONEY are desperate not to go bankrupt.

At least for me it is NOT the amount or the monies but THE TERMS. how EASY is it to extend the contract flexibly. YES, I expect to do work for your competitors.

SURE I LOVE TEACHING, demonsrating, but I am not going to raise the GENIUS LEVEL at your company. Too bad you are stuck with the dumbbbb geniuses there.

THE TRENDS - see economics are VERY CLEAR. Labor rates are DECREASING.

U get early cataracts from being on the beach sun at AGE 47 and too bad your CONSULTING CONTRACTS with plenty of plane time are GONE.

The rent is cheap at the run down apartments - walk up in New York City, but AS SOON AS MARKET DEMAND - area gentrifies, PRICES SKYROCKET. leases are less than a year and can be brocken by the LANDLORD or the 'BIG POWER.'

The reason you charge more is for the 'rainy days'</comment>


Ask HN: Engineer contractor rates in Spain, Catalonia (Barcelona)? - <AUTHOR>

Any ideas about contractor hourly rates for experienced software engineers in Barcelona, Catalonia or Spain in general? <comment><USER2> Some people here list their rates: [http://www.freelancermap.com/app/freelancer/profisuche](http://www.freelancermap.com/app/freelancer/profisuche)

They seem to hover around €50/hr. Rates in Europe seem lower than the States. If you can, you should find clients in the States. And try to raise your rates by €5-10 every project.</comment>


A Brief Retrospective on the Sprite Network Operating System - <AUTHOR> https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/spriteRetrospective.php <comment><USER2> I bought the Sprite CD-ROM (from Walnut Creek, I believe) in 1994 or 95. I actually got it to boot on a Sun SPACStation-IPC. I really wanted to try log- structured file system and process migration. Unfortunately, neither of these worked, LFS for some reason beyond me at the time, process migration because I only had one SS-IPC. It was na interesting system, for sure.</comment>