Marissa Mayer Shuffles Yahoo Leadership Team - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/marissa-mayer-shuffles-yahoo-leadership-team/?_r=0 <comment><USER2> No mention of search at all. A year ago, Mayer was going to put Yahoo back in the search business.[1] Yahoo resells Bing search, for which Bing pays Yahoo. Yahoo's own search engine was discontinued in 2010. The deal with Microsoft/Bing is up for review, and Yahoo has the opportunity to exit. Yahoo hired a new head of search last year, but his area of expertise was negotiating with Microsoft. The Yahoo search announcement seems to have been a bluff to get a better deal from Microsoft/Bing.

This year, search doesn't even get a mention.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/11/technology/yahoo- mayer/](http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/11/technology/yahoo-mayer/)

<comment><USER3> Honestly, search is not a market I'd ever want to get in. Even if you build a strong ad network for it, ads are paying less and less and unless you have a new approach that give results that are a quantum leap better than google, you're going to fight a losing battle.

I mean, after Google, Baidu has ~11% of the market (and actually gives passable results for English), Bing has ~10% (after spending billions), Yahoo has about 9%, but is basically just Bing (so maybe Bing has 19%?) and after that there's AOL, Ask, Lycos, Excite there's also Yandex, Naver, Exalead, Gigablast, Munax, Qwant, Sogou, Soso, Youdao.

There's also Metasearch engines: Blingo, Yippy, DeeperWeb, Dogpile, HotBot, and a dozen more.

There's tons of language or geographic specific specific ones: Biglobe, Accoona, Goo, Miner.hu, Walla!, etc.

And then there's all the specific engines like Yelp, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, and hell, Reddit's search even counts given how much content is on Reddit these days.

This is not a space I'd want to fight in, search is fracturing, the monetization story doesn't look good long-term, and nobody seems to have figured out a way to search that's fantastically better than keyword + some graph weight + heuristics

If I were Mayer, I'd be looking for a way out of search as fast as possible.

<comment><USER4> > ads are paying less and less

Do you have proof of this on a search level? On a display level, I'd agree with you, but anecdotal, things seems as competitive as ever in search.

<comment><USER5> It's very likely that Google's search CPC rates have been falling or stagnant for years. Given the size of search in the makeup of their ad revenue, you can hardly have falling CPC rates for 3.x years without search being partially responsible (at the absolute minimum, rates are stagnant in search).

[http://searchengineland.com/google-cpc-declines-dont- mobile-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-cpc-declines-dont-mobile- advertising-problem-197141)

<comment><USER6> I had the opposite impression, from a friend who does adwords for a living and articles such as:

"AdWords Cost Per Click Rises 26% Between 2012 and 2014"

[http://www.adgooroo.com/resources/blog/adwords-cost-per- clic...](http://www.adgooroo.com/resources/blog/adwords-cost-per-click- rises-26-between-2012-and-2014/#sthash.9PERb6ub.dpuf)

<comment><USER4> Parent comment is talking about the entire ecosystem - not the specific markets.

As new markets emerge, it's less competitive (in those markets) and then prices drop (which drop the avg).

In general, CPC doesn't mean much if you talk in total aggregate (you need to look at the specific markets) and CPC still doesn't address volume (which is the other half of the equation).

I'm guessing most of the people decrying the search ads are doing so from anecdotal evidence rather than statistics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I don't understand is that there is the impression that that Tumblr isn't doing well because it hasn't broken out of the teenage and 20's demographic. By forcing changes to try to extend to more age demographics, they risk alienating the ones they already have. They could simply just focus on the teen and 20's demographic and wait it out until they get older and are entrenched in the platform.

<comment><USER8> It's not totally that simple. When they acquired Tumblr, the valuation was dominated by goodwill --- 750MM of it --- which was explained in part by the value to Yahoo of exposing Tumblr's users to Yahoo's monetization systems, and of integrating Yahoo technology directly into Tumblr. If that plan goes out the window, they may need to formally account for that, which can hurt their numbers.

<comment><USER9> IMO Yahoo is dinosaur that cannot see easier ways to monetize Tumblr. The site has so many potential, yet Yahoo decides to go the usual - advertising and data sales.

<comment><USER10> To be fair, Tumblr's monetization strategy was to sell to Yahoo and let them figure it out. And what are these easier ways you speak of?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a good track record of Yahoo-sized companies that got back on top of their industry by shuffling executives around? Seems like more often than not failing companies are always characterized by lot of shuffling in an attempt to "do something" and in the end stay the same or get worse.

<comment><USER12> I think the whole point is that this Khalaf gentleman is a total rock star and gets/deserves more power.

<comment><USER13> It's true. He did a great job at Yahoo's mobile developer conference this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The smartest thing I ever did was to sell my startup to Simon Khalaf's. Marissa's made a good move here.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if Yahoo will get back on track. Marissa is doing an extraordinary good job. I would say that if all measures Marissa is doing don`t help Yahoo, nothing can help Yahoo.

<comment><USER16> Why would you say that? Not that I disagree but I don't have any information that causes me to agree with you.

<comment><USER17> The simple fact that you're talking about this now is already a rather mighty feat.

Before Marissa took over Yahoo wasn't even worth mentioning anymore outside of sentences containing the word 'downhill' or equivalent.

<comment><USER16> It's a tech company with a market cap of $42bn and see was the fourth CEO to take the wheel in 2012. Of course, what happens at Yahoo! is news and that the conclusion that it went downhill during all the board shuffles makes sense. But I'm not sure this proves she is doing great:

Certainly seems to be in a better state than before. That can be credited to Marissa Mayer. A look at the stock price[1] seems to confirm she indeed does a good job.

However, one might argue that's just mean reversion at work: they hit a bad streak followed by a good one. The fact that this shuffle remembered me of the Henrique de Castro mess makes me conclude see is not doing an 'extraordinary good job', just good.

[1]: [http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=YHOO](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=YHOO)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple was saved through the creation of a series of world-changing products. Yahoo doesn't even seem to have creating breakthrough products as a goal. They have no excuse for not making something people want.

<comment><USER19> I think Yahoo is simply too quiet. To be honest the only thing that keeps popping up these couple years about Yahoo were

* email

* Fantasy Sport

* Flickr

* Yahoo Finance

* Mayer

* Tumblr

* Alibaba sale

The first four have existed for years. I bet a lot of Tumblr users don't even know Yahoo owns Tumblr now. Yahoo search is probably getting more notice given now Yahoo search is Firefox's default search engine (at least that's the case in North America).

Yahoo has some great ideas like the Digest app and doing some great mobile and streaming products, but I don't use them, and I don't always hear my coworkers and my friends talking about Yahoo (well except my friends who are working for them, but they are still pretty quiet about what they are working on).

Maybe their Yahoo Original series will catch on some fire.

<comment><USER20> I liked Yahoo pipes, but they're super limited compared to IFTTT

<comment><USER21> Pipes is a dead product, it's just waiting for someone to remember to turn off the light. Even in 2011 it was on life support.

It's a great example of how even when Yahoo hits on something interesting, they will neglect it and fail to profit from it. Instead IFTTT launches 4 years later and gets a $170mm valuation.

<comment><USER20> > Pipes is a dead product

It totally is. Is there something that can rise from the ashes or was it just a waste?

<comment><USER21> At least when I was at Yahoo (many years ago), there was zero apparent desire to even continue to operate in that type of service space. I guess Yahoo wants to be a media company and sell ads, not provide APIs to do nerd stuff for free.

I would look to Zapier or IFTTT instead. I haven't used Zapier, but the fact that they actually charge money (shocking!) gives me hope. Maybe they can actually build a business around it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Give her time. She did not start with a lot in my opinion.

<comment><USER23> I agree... but it has been 3 years since she took over. At some point people are going to want to see actual results. And so far Yahoo has gone from $5b in revenue in 2012 to $4.68b (2013) to $4.62b last year. (Even by quarter: Q4-2014 is 10m in revenue less than Q4-2013... and net profit dropped by more than half)

I understand there's a lot to fix at Yahoo.. but how much more time is she really going to have without posting real results?

Edit: link: [https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:YHOO&fstype=ii](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:YHOO&fstype=ii)

<comment><USER24> She should have as long as Yahoo is in the black. It's appetant stockholders greedy for short term gain that are screaming to lay-off gainfully employed people. People that are producing real and substantial profit quarter after quarter.

She should pull a Dell and drop the pack of vultures hoping for a takeover. Then she could continue to do the awesome surgery to rid Yahoo of its cancer.

<comment><USER23> Yahoo isn't even keeping up with inflation... much less kept par with average IT-industry growth.

If it were a private company, she would have "as long as Yahoo is in the black"... but Yahoo took money from other people. Those people are going to want a return at some point.

<comment><USER24> The vast majority of the current market cap is Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Heck, all of it by some accounts. The stockholders will get their money back. The stock price reflects this.

7b* in profit is substantial and it'd be a travesty if 15k people lost their jobs for a little short term action.

*[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=yhoo%20profit](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=yhoo%20profit)

<comment><USER23> _4.6b is profit is substantial_

No, they had 4.6b in revenue. Their operating income was 146m for 2014... (which is a big drop from the 590m in 2013, and 565m in 2012).

Re edit: I see you edited the profit number to 7b. This number includes 10b in one-time asset sales during 2014. (EDIT: sold 10b of Alibaba stake [0]). For Yahoo's sake, I hope Marissa's plan isn't to sell off Yahoo 10b at a time to boost net profits.

 _it 'd be a travesty if 15k people lost their jobs for a little short term action._

No where have I suggested layoffs. I said Marissa may find herself out of a job if things don't improve. I imagine she has another year or two max (unless things change). That's very different than saying 15k people should be let go.

0\. [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/yahoo-faces-moment- of...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/yahoo-faces-moment-of-decision- again/)

<comment><USER24> I hear you, and agree regarding the 10b. My point was simply that supporting 15k jobs and still being in the black has value. I know that you know that.

Would you agree that maximizing shareholder value is not the ultimate ethic?

Also, I never said that you were calling for lay-offs

<comment><USER23> _Would you agree that maximizing shareholder value is not the ultimate ethic?_

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I simply don't think that (most) investors agree with that, and will seek a change in leadership if the income statement doesn't improve.

<comment><USER24> Agreed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Me thinks the board is moving against marisa (yahoo board trying to change ceo, oh my)

the only change this time, instead of shoping around and turning the company upside down they shopped and put the CEO-to-be as SVP first.

</comment><comment><USER26> Should have skipped tumbler, saved $1billion and spent it on people and given them some freedom to fix yahoo products.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why do we still care?

</comment><comment><USER28> The phrase "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" comes to mind.

<comment><USER29> Superficially, any time anyone reshuffles or rearranges anything, that could come to mind. Please provide a more fleshed out post unless you're interested in quipping and moving on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Second envelope.

</comment><comment><USER31> She needs to shuffle her idiotic mobile team by firing all of them, at least the ones who made the mobile email app. Who the hell designs, in this day and age, an email app that does not let you log out; your only choice is to delete the app if you don't want someone who picks up your phone to look at your yahoo mail. I used to be skeptical of snapchat, but I'm coming around to new startups that understand how humans use things and don't want everything open to everyone.

<comment><USER32> Uh, Gmail on Android doesn't let you sign out without delinking the account from your device...

<comment><USER31> Uh, they should fix that. That's fucking stupid. And doesn't give yahoo an out. It's dumb to treat users like that.

<comment><USER33> it's not a bug, it's a feature!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hiring Software Engineers, Platform Engineers, SRE and DevOps Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://skybetcareers.com/our-tribes/bet-tribe <comment><AUTHOR> We offer help with relocation costs to the UK, Friday afternoon L&D time, and our technologists go to worldwide tech conference on us!</comment>


Parachute platform: Emergency management with live video, audio and location - <AUTHOR> https://parachute.live/platform <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I'm Marinos, I made this. To give you a little bit of background, soon after launching Witness [1], I started hearing from a diverse set of organizations who saw Witness as having the potential to be extremely impactful in their field and wanted to integrate with it in various ways. To date, more than 50 organizations have reached out about this. The Parachute platform is the answer to that - organizations receive live video, audio and location straight from people's smartphones, with emergency routing, archiving and analytics. Here's a medium post I just wrote going into more detail: [https://medium.com/p/c42d0a204a2a](https://medium.com/p/c42d0a204a2a). Cheers!

[1] [https://getwitness.com](https://getwitness.com), now Parachute [https://parachute.live](https://parachute.live)</comment>


How Clara Labs (YC S14) Is Using Humans to Build AI - <AUTHOR> https://blog.claralabs.com/cooperative-intelligence-5c59960c2d95#.9fvitxue8 <comment><USER2> This is SO interesting! I am surprised by how companies are trying to solve AI problems... Machines normally take you 80-90% there, and using humans for that 10-20% left is an amazing idea. It's also a great monetization model for many companies.!!! Also, Clara is awesome :)

<comment><USER3> We think it's a good idea too ;) Machines and humans truly have different talents: machines are great at memory, keeping track of state, distributing information while people are great at understanding subtle nuance in natural language.

<comment><USER4> And in another 3-5 years, AI will start understanding subtle nuances too (probably) judging by the number of papers in computer language understanding.

<comment><USER3> Even modern methods today (deep recurrent networks, etc.) can do pretty well with these kinds of tasks (a very large ontology for instance) if you have enough annotations of the nuance!

<comment><USER5> >> Even modern methods today (deep recurrent networks, etc.) can do pretty well with these kinds of tasks (a very large ontology for instance) if you have enough annotations of the nuance!

Where do you get that from? NLP, with neural networks or not, stays as safely away from meaning as is humanely possible while working in an area very closely connected to it.

Also, ontologies? Very few people are interested in that nowadays, though that includes the team that made Watson. The push is instead to do away with all that and rely on statistical approximation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me this seems like the right approach - either you start with some massive amount of data that's not quite adapted to the problem (think Google), you start with full automation and have to basically write the decision tree yourself, or you generate the appropriate labeled training data like this.

However, it seems like there are some scale issues if you start upmarket like Clara Labs has been. I wonder if there's benefit in having a cheaper more mass-market version as well that can be used to generate larger amounts of data and test algorithms better?

<comment><USER3> It's certainly possible. One advantage of our setup is that rather than getting ok -to- noisy labels from customers, our CRAs understand the end-goal of the application and generate pretty great data. We are also able to incentivize them to produce fewer errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We've posted a follow up on the humans behind Clara here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074657)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi! I'm the author of the post and happy to answer any specific questions here.

<comment><USER7> How much human tagging time does it take to process 1000 meeting requests or more general how does the annotation side work?

Do you have people overlap items since there can be a fatigue issue as you mentioned in the post?

<comment><USER3> Clara has a 1-hr SLA for the processing of an incoming message. While I cannot give numbers on the speed of annotators (or volume), I can say that our platform is designed to enable quick and accurate work via incentive mechanisms. We avoid fatigue in part by making it easy for CRAs to navigate and work with data. Wrt to overlapping annotator schemes, these are known to be effective. We'll be writing more about how our human backend works in future posts.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, in the future post would also be interested in the trade offs between building internal system vs. using a 3rd party (maybe you do?) like mechanical turk and the incentive structure.

<comment><USER3> Our follow up on the humans behind is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074657)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is AWESOME. Human+Machine is always going to be better and stronger than machine alone. Keep it up! I wonder how this can impact the amount of people that can participate in crowdsourced projects.

</comment><comment><USER9> Would love to integrate the ML and context aspects of Clara into our existing assistant team. Curious if that's something that's doable, or if it's just a package deal of their trained operators + AI.

But yeah, basically awesome and everything we'd need. Being able to go even more in-house and specialize our personal assistant and equip them with augmented capabilities here would be even more awesome.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very similar to x.ai, although x.ai seems to be currently constrained to one problem domain (meeting scheduling). However, I'd bet they're looking to move be beyond just this.

[https://x.ai/](https://x.ai/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Relevant: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/07/crowdflower- series-d/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/07/crowdflower-series-d/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Related: [http://messymatters.com/ai-plus-ui/](http://messymatters.com/ai- plus-ui/)

About how AI often needs a good UI to handle the last few percent of cases.

</comment><comment><USER13> Navigating to

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

freezes my Linux system - a reboot is necessary. Is this a SPAM blog post?

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of the writeup a few days ago about Google's machine emotional intelligence for email suggested replys - except Clara is doing it (and more) with a team the fraction of the size.

The business solution here is very clever. As an engineer, my instinct is to fully automate any system. Clara is a great example where the most effective answer is getting the 90% solution, then going the last mile with humans to bring it up to 99% (making that up) accuracy, with most of the same savings. Imagine similar solutions for customer support (especially over website chat bars. Some systems like this already exist.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Contemporary ML is really (and by that I mean human-level) good for some things: classifying images, guiding a car along prominently visible lane lines in perfect conditions, predicting timeseries that have latent patterns.

It's NOT good at the general "bot" problem (or should I say "true AI" problem), and some "features" of human assistants like EQ, generalized task completion, and complex planning are decades away from getting solved.

I would even argue that a mechanized/automated Clara would HAVE to pass the Turing test in order to work.

<comment><USER3> Your last comment on the seemingly circular relationship between Clara and a "turing-test-passing bot" is especially salient. This reference (found in the second footnote in the post) [http://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/95-1/Papers/125.pdf](http://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/95-1/Papers/125.pdf) has a lot of interesting perspectives on the role of machine learning vs. human intelligence.

<comment><USER15> I am going to read that actually, thanks.

On the note of bots and your denouncement of the Turing Test as a metric, I do remember an article on here a couple of days ago hinting that one of the biggest frustrations of customer service calls is dealing with scripted responses, bots if you will, instead of real humans.

I do wonder whether alleviating this user frustration will amount to passing some "similar" but possibly weaker test.

<comment><USER3> "The customer service test" \-- I like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Side note: your website's Javascript is broken. "i" is undefined.</comment>


Startup Fitness: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Working Out - <AUTHOR> http://www.derekflanzraich.com/2011/06/start-up-fitness/ <comment><USER2> Being overweight and having lost 35 lbs this year with plenty to go(I'm still overweight), I would say that you are more likely to work out and be active if you lose weight. That doesn't require much if any exercise, just an intelligent diet.

I'm not anti-exercise and I've worked out a lot in the past, but I've found that being skinnier makes being active easier and more fun. Moving sucks if you're carrying an extra 50-100 lbs. around. Most skinny people don't really get this.

So, I've focused on nailing the diet and that works for me. I basically didn't exercise more than once a week so far this year, but now that I'm down quite a bit, I am naturally finding myself to be more active.

In the long run both exercise and eating right are incredibly important, so if you're overweight and want to be more active, get rid of the extra weight and you might find yourself exercising more by default.

<comment><USER3> Good call.

I've lost 25% of my body weight this year (I started on 4 Jan) -- 16 to 12 stone, ~100kg to 75kg. I've run marathons and climbed mountains in the past -- big Himalayan lumps and I've sumitted Denali, for example -- so I know what fit means. Or at least my body does.

Exercise comes naturally after losing weight, It is incredibly hard when you are overweight. At the start of the year I would sweat walking around the supermarket. Now, I run six miles over the local hill for an hour and a half. And it's marvellous. But it isn't easy. It requires single minded, selfish determination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like Crossfit-style WODs (Workout Of the Day) because each workout has measurement built in, and you work to perform as well as possible against that measurement, which means motivation is built in, too. They're suitable for "startup" fitness because you can do the workouts by yourself or in a small group, and because you can adapt them to whatever equipment and facilities you have available.

For example, a circuit training-like WOD might be to do the following in the shortest time you can:

      21 pullups
      21 burpees
      800m run
      15 pullups
      15 burpees
      400m run
      9 pullups
      9 burpees
      200m run

If you don't have space to run, you can jump rope, and if you don't have someplace to rig up a pullup bar (unlikely!) you can do rows with something heavy.

Or you might do the following as many times as possible in 15 minutes (in Crossfit lingo, AMRAC -- As Many Rounds As you Can):

      10 deadlifts
      20 wall balls (throwing a medicine ball against a 10' target on a wall)
      400m run

After the workout, you record your time or number of rounds and the weights you used for each exercise. The numbers motivate you and allow you to measure your progress if you repeat the same workout every couple of months. For me, it helps a lot to have the measurement in mind while I'm working out. The harder I work, the better the numbers I get to write down afterward.

You can do this on your own, like I said, but for some people the pressure of performing in front of other people helps a lot. It's certainly true for me, even though I'm completely the opposite when it comes to mental work. Having instructors is good, too. They'll push you to pile on the weight or ease back on the weight as appropriate. If joining CrossFit is impractical or unaffordable, and you can't talk your friends into working out with you, competitive sports can serve the same purpose of providing motivation and measuring improvement.

<comment><USER5> I regret sounding like _that guy_ , but Crossfit didn't invent "scaling" or measuring your workouts. I know you're not making that claim explicitly, but the way you framed "Crossfit includes measurement!" can be misread.

The concepts of record keeping and adjusting volume/intensity/exercise selection to the trainee are older than dirt. I'd be surprised if there aren't clay tablets with rep counts on them in a museum somewhere.

In its defence, Crossfit:

* Gets people off their backside to do actual hard training,

* Provides social structure to encourage consistent training, and

* Introduces people to Oly lifting, which as an Oly lifter I don't begrudge at all.

<comment><USER4> Working out that way is synonymous with Crossfit for most people the same way desktop computing is synonymous with Windows and OSX for most people. They didn't invent it, but they deserve a lot of credit for making it convenient for people to just sign up for a class and do it. Most of the people griping about Crossfit getting too much credit weren't doing anything to make it accessible and convenient for people until Crossfit came along and proved there was a market for it. If I wanted to train that way before Crossfit, I would have had to: find a suitable place to work out, buy or construct some of the equipment, schedule sessions with a personal trainer to make sure I was doing the exercises correctly, recruit friends to work out with me, and so on. And there certainly would have been compromises. Most gyms aren't set up to allow you to do a set of cleans, drop your weights, and then run 400 meters without dodging cars or pedestrians. (Hell, most don't let you drop weights, period. As far as I am aware, there are only two commercial gyms in my city that have bumper plates, not including the four (at least) Crossfit locations, and one of them is a specialized Oly training facility that costs more than Crossfit.) With Crossfit, I just show up, pay attention, work hard, and have fun. It's a great service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do entrepreneurs somehow have different bodies from other humans? Fail to see what makes this article especially relevant to entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER7> Yes. Tiger blood runs through their veins & they have fewer active nerve endings. Don't forget the adamantamium skeleton.

<comment><USER6> Ahh, thanks, didn't now that. Good thing there's no charge for awesomeness.

<comment><USER8> ...or attractiveness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article essentially says "practice any sport, whenever and wherever, just keep at it". While that's not wrong, it's not very useful.

For me personally, scooby1962's videos on Youtube were really helpful. Great advice on building muscle without doing crazy stuff, not requiring a gym and almost no equipment.

<comment><USER10> I'll second the recommendation for Scooby. He's a little strange, perhaps, but his methods are effective and he's got a high signal/noise ratio.

<http://www.scoobysworkshop.com/>

<comment><USER11> if you had that level of testosterone and various endorphins in your bloodstream, you might seem a "little strange", too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love sports but I don't see why article this relates to entrepreneurs? Just a cheap catching title to get visitors? ;(

If I want some casual health tips I wouldn't go to HN.

</comment><comment><USER13> Attention Bay Area people!

If you are in SF: some of the best running terrain in the west is just over the Golden Gate bridge. Hop on your bike, ride to the Marin headlands, and go for a walk. If you're already pretty fit, go for a run. The trail network is amazing and you can go as far as you want.

If you are on the Peninsula: you're next to some of the best road biking on the west coast. You can make tons of loops up to Skyline Rd and they are all awesome. For starters try starting down in Palo Alto and riding over Arastradero to Alpine Road, work up to climbing Old La Honda.

Why go to a gym?

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't think I could go to a gym and exercise just for the sake of exercising and I'm guessing a lot of internally-motivated startup guys/gals are the same way, so I encourage you to pick up some sort of exercise that is also FUN.

I wake up at 5:00 am on Tuesdays and Fridays and go bouldering at Planet Granite (In Belmont, I'm currently located in Palo Alto (well, for a short time anyways))

For rock climbing/bouldering you need a fair bit of effort and it is also a very enjoyable exercise (it's kind of like playing).

This also fits nicely into the rest of my schedule.

Highly recommended

</comment><comment><USER15> I got a lot of value out of the Couch to 5k jogging program. Just downloaded the Robert Ullrey weekly podcast [1]. Then it was just a matter of putting on my running shoes every other morning and following his coaching.

It helped to follow two rules:

1) As soon as the alarm went off I was committed to get up right away, pee, step into my shoes, step outside, and close the door behind me. Once outside, if I _really_ didn't want to continue, I could opt out and go back inside.

2) The following morning I do it no matter what. No more than 1 skip between sessions.

It worked really well for me and I recommend others try it. No fancy equipment, no custom apps. Just my music player, running shoes, and a piece of paper with the 27 (9 weeks x 3 sessions/week)workouts for me to tick off as I did them

I _really_ wanted to try ShovelGlove [2] but have too many kids running around for me to feel safe.

-

[1] Looks like his blog is gone, but you can download his podcast files here: <http://c25k.com/podcasts.htm>

[2] <http://www.shovelglove.com/>

</comment><comment><USER16> Another place to look if you want a structured environment is your local community college. I recently rediscovered my love for playing soccer and was pleasantly surprised to find I could take a twice weekly class as a non- degree-seeking student. We spend most of the class scrimmaging.

They offer all sorts of sports like basketball, swimming, weight lifting, martial arts, dance, etc.

<comment><USER17> That's a fantastic idea! I didn't realize you could take sports as a class...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I tell practically everyone I know to try Crossfit. There are two basic difficulties with any exercise regimen, and Crossfit nails both:

1\. Figuring out what to do. 2\. Actually doing it, consistently, over the long haul.

Crossfit will teach you how to do the old-school, badass basics of fitness-- stuff that will get you in great shape and is actually fun to do. No gimmicks, no miracles, just stuff that will kick your ass.

Doing Crossfit also makes you a member of an incredibly friendly, supportive community. This makes it so much easier to stick with it--every class, you'll see people in your community, friends, going hard and making progress. You support them and they support you. You'll work out with beginners, who you can help, and with badasses, who can help you.

A well-run Crossfit gym is a magical place.

<comment><USER19> Crossfit seems to be for people who are already pretty strong athletes. Is it really something you can just jump on board with if you're fairly out of shape?

I've spent the last few months following the "Starting Strength" plan (<http://startingstrength.com/>) with the idea of getting in good enough shape to do crossfit.

<comment><USER20> Doing starting strength to get to crossfit seems a bit...backwards...to me.

<comment><USER21> It's also a bit ironic that starting strength will teach him the proper mechanics for most compound lifts, and then Crossfit will turn around and teach him how to work as quickly as possible with an often times alarming disregard for form.

If anything, I'd look into barbell complexes as a way to prepare for Crossfit.

[http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_trai...](http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/screw_cardio_four_complexes_for_a_shredded_physique)

Check out the Cosgrove Evil 8, it's one of my all time favorites.

<comment><USER22> Your statement about CrossFit encouraging a lack of proper form is patently false. That is a common, and false, criticism of a great fitness program.

CrossFit encourages you to work fast because intensity is correlated with power and results. Power -- what we want to build a capacity for -- is simply work over time. Results come more quickly to intense training because the body has shown to adapt faster to (relatively) intense stimuli. crossfit.com is covered in references for the interested.

Form is a key part of these movements, but learning a proper squat or clean is the endeavor of a lifetime. No one is perfect at significant load here. CrossFit teaches a balance of these elements that maximizes fitness in the athletes. Injury due to improper form or overtraining is contrary to what CrossFit wants to achieve.

Some people take things too far. Some people not far enough. CrossFit simply wants you to push your relative limits each time you do a WOD. That is how you get better. You're never going to be a great race car driver taking practice laps at 30mph.

There is more to say, but I'd challenge you to find a good affiliate and try it out. Experience is a grand teacher.

I'm CrossFit certified.

<comment><USER23> Off topic - but does anyone know of a Crossfit gym or a Crossfit group in Tokyo?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Server error unfortunately - this is something I'd like to see though as I basically stopped working out completely for the past four years of my start- up experience. I literally started running again last week, and it has already made a difference in my overall happiness.

</comment><comment><USER25> Having just moved to SF, I knew I had to get back to a gym, so I started looking around and was shocked at how expensive the prices were. Upwards of $100/month for anything decent, which is way out of my budget.

I just started P90X, I'm on day 5 and everything cost me $90 and I _own_ the equipment, rather than paying a high monthly gym cost. I probably get better results and spend less time traveling to/from the gym because I can do them from my apartment and they're demonstrated on video. I managed to find the following off Amazon, all for under $90: pull up bar, push up holders, 5lbs whey protein, 300g creatine, iPhone arm band, yoga mat, resistance bands.

<comment><USER21> Another suggestion - check out Never Gymless by Ross Enamait. It's a fantastic resource for people who either don't want to go to a gym or just those of us who work really late some days and don't want to miss a workout.

<http://www.rosstraining.com/nevergymless.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Start lifting weights. As someone else suggested, Starting Strength is a good place to begin with. Get someone to coach you so that your progress is kept under control and you don't hurt yourself with bad form.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've been using the BodyMedia FIT (<http://www.bodymedia.com/>) to get detailed stats about my fitness level -- calories burned, level of physical activity, sleep quality and duration. As a data geek, it's made all the difference in my motivation to stay fit: I feel a level of control and certainty about my fitness decisions, now that they are informed by data.

<comment><USER28> Scott Hanselman referenced <http://www.fitbit.com/> (hardware for $99 instead of $150 to $250) and <http://www.loseit.com/> (tracking software currently free in beta instead of $13/mo) in a recent blog post about continuous improvement measurement.

[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProductivityAndContinuousImpro...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProductivityAndContinuousImprovementMeasurementAndRescueTimeMakesItHappenBothPersonallyAndAtWork.aspx)

<comment><USER27> That's cool, but the BodyMedia is in actual contact with your body. The determinations it makes about calories burned factor in body temperature and galvanic response. AFAIK, the FitBit is a wireless pedometer.

True, you do have to spend ~$7/mo for the subscription, unless you hack it with Python (there is a module for interfacing with it over USB.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I suggest buying Vibram shoes and start running gently. My minor back pain went away and it feels great. Gotta ease in the calves and lower legs though.

<comment><USER23> I second that. I had problems with shin splints and sore knees running which seemed to go away once I switched to VFFs (Bikilas). You must take it slow and really focus on your running form to avoid hurting yourself though. Also, in my experience, running in VFFs will not result in you going any faster (probably a little slower), but definitely more comfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I plugged TacFit here before, and I'll gladly do it again. "A martial arts training masquerading as a fitness programme". A bit on the pricey side (1-off cost for an impressive box-set of digital training materials), but no gym fees or expensive equipment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you tell us more about TacFit? What kind of results did you get going through it? Are you still doing it now? How much of it is well packaged information that's free online and how much is "proprietary" stuff you won't find else where?

<comment><USER30> Can't believe it's been 116 days already. Damn how time's flying. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287850>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A better discussion: [http://www.quora.com/What-exercise-regimens-are-best- for-ext...](http://www.quora.com/What-exercise-regimens-are-best-for- extremely-busy-entrepreneurs-and-programmers)

</comment><comment><USER32> All fitness advice boils down to "just do it, then do it again" but intensity makes it a whole different game. I enjoyed the article but I'd love to see more on how competitive athletes "up the ante" in intensity.

</comment><comment><USER33> Personally, I've found <http://nerdfitness.com/> to be quite interesting, and he's also an enterpreneur in his own way.

<comment><USER7> Totally agree. Steve Kamb is the man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What about cycling to and from work? By the time you get there you are energised and at the end of the day it wakes you up too.

</comment><comment><USER35> 5BX - do it everyday and it really the most basic you need. 11 minutes a day.

</comment><comment><USER36> Me: generally fit, bicycled from Canada to Mexico last fall, climbed for years, weight trained off and on for more years, did a lot of yoga from 2005 - 2008. Right now, I go to a gym every other day, (almost) no matter what.

I'm currently focusing on muscle. I've reduced my workout to simply doing squats, bench presses, and pull-ups. I've gained 20 pounds in six months. This is way better than any previous cycle, when I had much more intricate, varied workouts.

Here's the thing, though: the absolute fittest and most prepared for anything I've _ever_ felt was when I was doing yoga 3 - 5 times per week.

Yoga? Yeah, yoga. The first month is absolute hell. After that, it got better. Over a few years I bumped up more and more until I was going five times per week. I was more prepared for random climbing, hiking, and cycling adventures from that than when focusing on _any_ of my other activities. Of course, a lot of it had to do with finding teachers who consistently taught difficult classes.

Additionally, if you're stressed, the whole yoga 'mindfulness' thing really works. I'm not spiritual _at all_ , but it really had a terrific calming effect on me, and was invaluable when I was having a stressful week at work.

</comment><comment><USER37> Disable the shower at your house so you have to shower every morning at the gym. While you are there, fit in a few sets and a run on the elliptical. I've been doing this for at least 7 years and I've got the body to show for it. (no my shower at home isn't disabled, but it is in my mind).</comment>


Ask HN: GDPR and the Civil Rights Act 1964 - <AUTHOR> With the wave of sites blocking users based in the EU as they don't want to comply with the GDPR, has anybody looked into the legality of these blocks? Specifically, how do they tie in with the Civil Rights act 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on national origin... <comment><USER2> Discrimination based on national origin in the Civil Rights Act pertains to US citizens and legal immigrants who are subject to the purview of US courts, not to foreign nationals living on foreign soil. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 pertains to employer and employee rights and obligations. It does not have anything to do with international trade and business relations.

US based businesses are free to discontinue services to foreign countries due to onerous legislation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not a lawyer, but sure it'd be trivial to argue that blocking based on national origin (eg the country a user was born in) is not the same as blocking based on geography (eg the country they're in _right now_ ).</comment>


Ask HN: Is a survey a good way to get user feedback? - <AUTHOR>

I run a startup web app and I am looking for more feedback on what current users like, dislike, if they share it with friends, what they'd like to see implemented etc.  Is a survey a good way to accomplish this or should I take another approach? I already have a feedback button on the site but I think the feedback it captures is only a small segment of my user's thoughts. If I do a survey, which users (heavy, light, new, old, all) should I send it out to and what other questions should I ask? Does anyone have a survey already prepared they'd be willing to share? - <USER2> <comment><USER3> Check out usertesting.com. I have had a lot of success using their service. For about $19 you get a screencast and talk track of a user trying to complete certain goals (that you pre-determine) on your site. Its not perfect, but it is a great way to get insights from 3-5 users that you can then use to create a larger survey for the rest of your user base.

My experience with surveys is that the more open ended you make them, the less valuable the feedback is. I would try to come up with 4-5 questions tops. Its a good idea to try and figure out what the theme of the survey is upfront (i.e. on core thing you want to be able to figure out from the survey data). Some businesses try to cram too much into a single survey- I have had more luck with shorter surveys more frequently than less frequent long surveys. Also, multiple choice and "rate on a scale of 1-10" questions have worked better for me than open ended text boxes.

As far as the audience for your survey, unless you have a very large user base you should send it to everyone. Responses rates on surveys tend to be pretty low and you want to make sure you have enough data to draw conclusions from.</comment>


Tup - an insanely fast build system - <AUTHOR> http://gittup.org/tup/index.html <comment><USER2> That page is full of meaningless marketing fluff.

 _In a typical build system, the dependency arrows go down. ... In tup, the arrows go up. This is obviously true because it rhymes. ... This makes it very fast._

You've changed your notation and this magically makes your program work faster? Don't insult me.

<comment><USER3> Come on. That's not "marketing stuff", that's humor.

The arrow changes because tup monitors source directories as opposed to querying the timestamps of the files.

<comment><USER2> Great! Why couldn't they say that up front instead of making it seem like magical thinking?

It's not very good humour, because it made me feel like they thought I was an idiot, instead of making me smile.</comment></comment></comment>


EyeBrowse: Record, Visualize and Share your Browser History - <AUTHOR> http://eyebrowse.csail.mit.edu/

<comment><USER2> Just days ago there was 'boomtango' here, written by a bunch of HN'ers, it works pretty good:

<http://boomtango.com/></comment>


The sad state of Detroit: outlook falls with home prices - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-detroit-housingjan29,0,5435392.story

<comment><USER2> Having experienced East St. Louis (and most of North St. Louis), reading about places like Detroit and Buffalo, I start to wonder, at one point do we just decide to 'give up' on a city?

Are there modern cases of abandonment of a major metropolitan area? (I don't mean losing 50+% of population, or large-scale migration to the suburbs like STL, I mean actual wholesale abandonment of a city).

It seems that with hundreds of thousands of people, Detroit and NOLA are still going to survive for quite a while, but at what point do we just declare a city below critical-mass for survival and start working on transitioning people out?

At some point it has to cost far more to provide fire and other basic service coverage to these heavily-built but sparsely inhabited areas than they could ever hope to return in revenue. Cities regularly clear out large areas for urban rehab or sports stadiums, would it be plausible (if even ethical) to just buy out 50,000 people and ask them to leave?

<comment><USER3> It's hard to imagine anything on that scale. Centralia PA (former pop. 2600) was deserted due to major underground fires. But real cities have bounced back from far larger disasters. Hiroshima lost 2/3 of its population but recovered in 10 years.

Remember, though, the actual city of Detroit is only 1/5 of the population of the metro area. While Detroit is failing, the metro area is only hurting. It won't be abandoned.

<comment><USER4> Note: The fires at Centralia will be burning for 100 years -- they cause sink holes and other dangers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lower your burn, move to Detroit and buy a house for 2-3 months SF rent.

<comment><USER6> Problem is, the houses are that cheap for good reason.

<comment><USER7> Supply for them exceeds demand. That would depress the price of flawless diamonds.

Here's an anecdote for you: in Nagoya, you can pay $700 a month for a one-room apartment. Not an awesomely located fully-furnished palatial one room apartment, just your generic twenty-something sleeping quarters which is about the size of many Americans' closet.

In my town, I pay $450 a month for a three-room apartment. It was so clean when I moved in that I suspected they had put artificial sparkle on the walls.

The whole of the reason it is cheap and Nagoya is not is that my town, sort of like Detroit, has some systemic economic issues which discourage young people from living there. Accordingly, after graduation they move to Nagoya to work, pushing the price of real estate there even higher and making landlords in my town even more desperate to offload inventory.

<comment><USER8> Without getting into a "mine is bigger than yours" game - I'd just like to note that I have a 600 square foot bachelor-suite (no bedroom), in a very, very old apartment building overlooking (complete with sound) the 101 freeway in a low income (and un-walkable) neighborhood of Redwood City and pay $1210/month + $65 water/sewer/garbage.

On the flip side, I used to fly out to Detroit and was interested in some of these $10,000 houses, but we could never work up the nerve to actually go into the neighborhoods out near 8 mile that had them, and I can't imagine living there.

Has anyone on HN been out to Detroit recently? There are many parts of that city that are like a war zone in terms of building/lot damage, and others that I would not go without armed escort. I guess this is just another way of saying the "absolute value" of property is pretty low in Detroit as well.

It's kind of like the "Anti-Paul-Graham-Geographic-Recipe-for-a-successful- startup-community" type of environment.

<comment><USER9> You're getting ripped off. [http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&minAsk...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&minAsk=min&maxAsk=1210&bedrooms=&neighborhood=84)

<comment><USER10> Not by much. Most of those places seem to go for $1150-$1200.

<comment><USER9> Most of them have more space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, that made for some surreal reading.

 _There is no major grocery chain in the city, and only two movie theaters_

I grew up in a town of 2000 people and we had 2 chain grocery stores. I'm guessing a walmart would be robbed blind, especially with an explicit corporate no-kill policy.

<comment><USER12> The theater part seems to be overdramatized: [http://www.google.ca/movies?hl=en&near=detroit&dq=de...](http://www.google.ca/movies?hl=en&near=detroit&dq=detroit+movie+times&ei=iqisSZy6FoOftwfIo6WKBg&sa=X&oi=showtimes&ct=title&cd=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> There are two in Detroit. Warren, MI, where the next closest theater is, is half an hour away.

<comment><USER12> That's the way it is in at least 75% of US cities. The "Donut-hole" phenomena is long standing. Just as an example, Detroit seems to have a comparable number of screens to Los Angeles proper: [http://www.google.ca/movies?sc=1&hl=en&near=los+ange...](http://www.google.ca/movies?sc=1&hl=en&near=los+angeles&rl=1)

The multiplex is almost always at least _somewhat_ suburban.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If it weren't for the immobility of building capital, Detroit would probably no longer exist. As is, it exists only because of the low level of demand for its buildings makes it the kind of place that the poor and desperate can afford to live, which further lowers the level of demand for its buildings.

<comment><USER14> Not even the homeless are moving into the city. The poor and desperate can't afford to leave. Sell your grandfather's house for 10k and go where? Once houses really become worthless, even more people will begin to walk away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since when the solution to all problems is a government bailout? A bailout is the kind of "temporary" measure that Ayn Rand mocked so heavily in her now famous book.</comment>


Budget cuts to U.S. reseach #NIHSequesterImpact - <AUTHOR> http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/05/nih-details-impact-of-2013-seque.html?ref=hp

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess leading scientist are not very good with coming up with concise catchy hash tags.</comment>


GNU Parallel 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://zenodo.org/record/1146014 <comment><USER2> Immensely useful which I am forever grateful that it exists. I've made use of it thoroughly during a search engine indexer test I ran back in 2013, which allowed me to pretty much download and index (download + indexing in one go) an entire country (Romania) pages in less than 1 hour on a laptop with only 4GB ram and i7 Ivy Bridge processor (Zenbook UX21 a particularly).

All the components I've wrote are optimized to the core (short of going assembly). It allowed me to scale my operations up to 10000 processes continuously for the duration of the test. All this was done on a 4G connection with roughly 40Mbps bandwidth at the time on a virtualized (VirtualBox) CentOS LAMP installation.

It blew all my expectations, without parallel it would taken more than a month. Learned a lot from the experience developing it and maybe will make a post sharing what I've learned.

In regards to being complicated, well it isn't really when you consider its use scenarios, for these sorts of tasks, it's a indispensable tool.

Think of it this way: It is far less difficult than the difficulty of the tasks where you need to use it.

<comment><USER3> How did you get the list of pages to download? Or was this spidering from some starting set?

One hour on that connection means a maximum of 18GB of data, which seems surprisingly small for a whole country's internet (not that I have any point of comparison), small enough that you could easily do interesting analysis of the whole lot.

<comment><USER2> I've started off a seed list (compiled from both Alexa and Romanian Wikipedia) and from there on spidering through links found on each of the pages. I needed only the pages written in Romanian language so right after download, a language checking would take place along with the ranking and finally indexing. Please note that only the HTML was downloaded, no images/css/js etc so the size would be considerably less than if you would normally browse the pages. The HTML/CSS/JS would be sripped off, leaving the content for analysis, ranking and indexing.

True and after that I realized how small the Romanian internet really is in the big picture, surely allowed me to put things into perspective. It's small enough that it would be doable to have a near realtime update of the index since less than 10% of sites update daily and less than 1% on hourly basis such as news sites.

It correlates with traffic details of top trafficked webs in Romania where one of the top sites gets around 200k uniques a day, a small amount when you consider the big picture. It is likely that today the amount of data would be larger but not by much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For everyone that don't like this one, they publish a big list of alternative

[https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/parallel_alternatives....](https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/parallel_alternatives.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a shame that this tool is so incredibly useful but simultaneously so unergonomic to use that it requires a 12 page manual.

Every time I reach for it the magical incantations that finally get it working properly are so completely unmemorable that it's begging to have a modern replacement (like httpie is to curl).

If someone wrote a version with a better interface it would be instantly adopted in preference to this. Might be a good weekend project.

<comment><USER6> Maybe not any better syntax, but xargs is usually installed by default in most distros, and I've never found parallel to be advantageous over it. I don't think this particular wheel needs to be invented again.

<comment><USER5> xargs is great but doesn't run the commands in parallel or chunk input does it?

<comment><USER6> -P sets parallelism, -n number of arguments for each execution. Those are my main weapons. (-i is usually also necessary, and can allow for some pretty creative situations)

<comment><USER7> I don't swear on HN, but Holy Shit, I just added -P to xargs in a testsuite bash script, and it's 7 times faster.

I only have quad core, but -P values higher than 4 give better performance. Maybe because the tests take different amounts of time, and it avoids them backing up. To get x7, I had -P equal to the number of tests.

<comment><USER8> If the tests are ever waiting for I/O or something, or otherwise using less than one full CPU core, then I think that could explain why running more than the number of cores would be an improvement. If you run "top", or use the "time" utility, what fraction of a CPU core does each test use?

<comment><USER7> Good thinking, but they don't do any file io, and I'm not sure how it could use less than a full CPU (wouldn't it just finish sooner? Though waiting for io could do that). OTOH it's java (on android, so dex format) and does some classloading of user classes... so maybe that is io? Here's time results:

      real    0m1.818s
      user    0m2.020s
      sys     0m0.900s

top. (It completes in 1 sec, so put in a while loop - BTW top isn't behaving normally, "1" not giving multiple CPUs and not fitting on screen). Jus the top line:

      User 51%, System 23%, IOW 0%, IRQ 0%

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> matt-attack I'm actually a huge fan on parallel. Use it often for various media processing pipelines. Um, you don't need to be daunted by the 112 page manual. A brief read of the man page has always sufficed. The best part is that every time I think of something new I need to do, it's _always_ there.

</comment><comment><USER9> Any discussion about GNU Parallel inevitably degrades into complaints about the requirements for "\--will-cite".

Removing that requirement is a two line patch:

        4723,4724d4722
        <        1
        <        or

<comment><USER10> There is no such requirement. If you read the text you'll see that author explains that's their only income source, so they ask you to consider citing them in your paper. It is an entirely reasonable thing for a software engineer to ask from their users.

<comment><USER11> > It is an entirely reasonable thing for a software engineer to ask from their > users.

It's also a reasonable thing for a user of free software to modify the software and improve it by removing this kind of garbage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dang that's some list of options :D [http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/src/paral...](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/src/parallel#n1412)

</comment><comment><USER13> I like some of parallels' functionality but I wish it was more performant and that it was easier to avoid the complexity when you only want a few features.

As a result of parallel's performance and invocation complexity I find myself using xargs -P more frequently than parallel.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is such a nice tool. Here is handy one liner I use it all the time.

parallel -a input_file_here -j16 --gnu 'ssh -q {} "echo 'Matrix has you'"'

<comment><USER15> Why not save some quoting:

      parallel --slf input_file_here -j16 --nonall echo 'Matrix has you'

<comment><USER14> Sweet, this is more elegant, thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon says it's working on free one-day Prime shipping - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/25/18516795/amazon-prime-free-one-day-shipping-update-earnings <comment><USER2> Still waiting on 2-day, and I have been a prime subscriber for years.

</comment><comment><USER3> i think its fake they didn't deliver in one day for amazon quiz visit our site www.thecboffers.com</comment>


Ask HN: Equity in exchange for clients - <AUTHOR> I founded a company 14 months ago in an industry where it is peculiarly difficult and time consuming to break through.
An established, relatively large business in the same industry has been monitoring my progress.
Today I receive a phone call with an offer: 40% equity of your company in exchange of clients — no money (save a nominal value to ensure compliance).
My immediate reaction is "no" — they are asking me to give out almost half of my company for no money, and essentially become a manager of a now-subsidiary of their business, with all the hassle and none of the benefits that an employee of that business would receive if he or she were a manager. I fee they are approaching me at my weakest because they know I'm desperate to break through.
On the other hand, it could mean guaranteed business and possibility of growth, albeit losing much of my autonomy and decision making: working hard for someone else's dream.
Have you had a similar situation? What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> That's a terrible offer!

Your assessment is correct that they are approaching you at your lowest. You said it yourself, albeit in different terms: they're trying to take advantage of you. This is a good sign that they're at least somewhat threatened by you and want to make you complacent.

It's not clear from your question what they've offered in terms of how many clients you'll get or how they'll decide that, but I'd imagine if you took the deal it would somehow work out that you got very few clients, those clients would be low quality, and you'd have a big loss in autonomy. When you give away parts of your company, you want to do it because you can see them giving you more than that back in value, not because it could help you barely scrape along (which is what it sounds like you're looking at with this deal).

<comment><AUTHOR> Essentially they offered two employees of their company stationed at my location (we are in different states, and I'm located next to a massive potential customer).

I would get to "manage" the employees, and pursue clients backed by some certifications that the large company has and I don't (like CMMI, ISO, and the like).

Also, they cannot apply to certain contracts earmarked for "small businesses", but I can. And if I get it, I can make the large business my subsidiary for contractual purposes.

I feel like they see me as a tactical chip instead of a great engineer, which is what I strive to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 40%? Wtf? No.

You probably won't even get anything and they'll just steal your ideas. Just string them along and try to figure out who their clients are and go to them directly with something that they want.

You can make it happen.

Just my 2c.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's my thinking: they have nothing to lose (literally, not even money), but they get to keep 40% of any upside. I really feel disappointed, because I let a couple of opportunities pass while waiting to make business with them. Oh well, live and learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fuk 'em</comment>


A mysterious 80 nm amoeba virus with a near-complete "ORFan genome" - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.28.923185v1 <comment><USER2> The title kind of makes it sound like "As far as we can tell, the virus has no genes," but the actual discovery here is that the virus doesn't share any genes with any other viruses that we know of. Which is still weird, but far less mysterious than it sounded.

<comment><USER3> > Which is still weird, but far less mysterious than it sounded.

Mysterious, maybe, but what is its effectiveness against humans and how long until it is recognized?

<comment><USER4> this is an amoeba virus. most viruses do not harm humans. harming or killing your host is generally a bad evolutionary strategy so viruses that do this are relatively rare enough that unless a piece of writing explicitly identifies specific harm to humans, you can assume it most likely isn't harmful and never will be.

<comment><USER3> > this is an amoeba virus. most viruses do not harm humans. harming or killing > your host is generally a bad evolutionary strategy so viruses that do this > are relatively rare enough that unless a piece of writing explicitly > identifies specific harm to humans, you can assume it most likely isn't > harmful and never will be.

Can you say this virus is not harmful to humans?

<comment><USER5> Amoeba is almost as far away from humans as you can get.

It's like a Z80 Spectrum virus infecting a Windows computer.

<comment><USER6> I hadn't realized before that the virus analogy carried that far. That's pretty cool.

<comment><USER3> Don't be carried away by their rhetoric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> By the way, the name (Yara) is a reference to a mythical mermaid from Amazonian folklore.

</comment><comment><USER8> Related (different info, so not exactly a dupe): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22276105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22276105)

</comment><comment><USER9> I didn't know an amoeba could be a virus.

<comment><USER10> I'm no biologist, but I think it's a virus which infects amoeba. By definition, viruses aren't alive, and amoebas are.

<comment><USER11> > By definition, viruses aren't alive, and amoebas are.

Interesting, I thought we don't have a definition for "alive".

<comment><USER12> There's no universally accepted definition but most biologists would say that viruses are not alive because they lack metabolism.

<comment><USER13> right they are "not alive", but do have a "life cycle".

How else would one define what a single log reduction (one tenth of virus particles surviving) means per given "UV dose" or _fluence_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Find Consulting Clients - <AUTHOR> https://chrisachard.com/how-to-find-consulting-clients <comment><USER4> I don't necessarily agree with all of this advice. Yes giving talks, having a blog, etc. help but they are a medium to long-term play and you have to wait for leads to discover you or be referred to you. You don't have much control over when this happens, which is what causes a lot of the feast and famine cycles.

I have had success just directly reaching out to companies I wanted to work with. This meant I was at least proactively putting myself in front of them, instead of hoping they find me or remember me.

Came across this comment from another thread [1] that breaks it down a bit:

1\. Go to [https://trends.builtwith.com/framework](https://trends.builtwith.com/framework) to find websites that use the tech stack you specialize in.

2\. Focus on smaller to mid-size companies (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)

3\. (Optional) Search for each company on Linkedin and add managers with relevant roles (VIP of sales, project manager, marketing manager, etc.). The goal is to familiarize them with your name so they're more likely to open your email (step 5).

4\. Find the email format of these companies with [https://hunter.io/](https://hunter.io/).

5\. Reach out to the most senior person with a relevant role at each company with a personalized 1-on-1 email.

The key here is to review their website and business and share 2-3 ideas of what you can them build or fix (if there are any glaring issues or vulnerabilities). They may not necessarily use your ideas but the goal is stand out and help them understand how they can put your programming skills to use. Here's a template you can reference: [https://artofemails.com/new- clients#developer](https://artofemails.com/new-clients#developer)

There are a lot of businesses out there whose teams don't have the capacity to build everything so they would be keen to have a reliable freelance programmer help them bring some features or projects out of backlog.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20971098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20971098)

<comment><USER5> > 2\. Focus on smaller to mid-size companies (large corporations likely have > the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)

Another aspect of this is that large corporations have pretty byzantine processes for hiring/vetting vendors. A freelancer acting as a sole proprietor or single-member llc raises risk factors with being classified as an employee, and will likely have to get routed through a third-party staffing firm for legal coverage. Which adds friction and cost to hiring you. A multi-member llc or incorporated entity, however, can sometimes be easier to get approval for.

You bypass all of those shenanigans by focusing on the small and mid sized companies first.

<comment><USER6> If a decision-maker at a large corp wants to work with you, they'll find a way to cut through the red tape.

When I consulted for a multi-national telecom company, the "paperwork" was easier to go through than for some startups. I filled out one form, sent my W-9, and configured auto-invoices to go to a designated email address.

As the scope grew and my invoices reached a certain number, they asked me to fill out one more form. That's all.

<comment><USER5> As you said, every capable manager learns how to work the system for when the situation warrants it.

I currently work (as an employee) for a marketing agency doing analytics consulting work, and we're frequently used as a backdoor to get around internal controls, be it hiring specific subcontractors or unapproved technology. Because the SOW that allowed for (and specified) that passthrough cost gets approved by their legal team, it's an unofficial way for many of our clients to both stay within the lines while simultaneously bypassing internal roadblocks. A particular favorite example of mine was helping a client swap out their janky WAF with Cloudflare, and using Cloudflare Workers to do some magic header rewriting to solve a longstanding issue of theirs. It solved a business-impacting issue that had been plaguing the marketing team, and the client's networking team was super excited to work with me on it as they'd been wanting kick the tires of Cloudflare but couldn't ever get it pushed through.

That said, the situation I mentioned in the above comment is typically the official process at many Big Corps (at least in the US, where the contractor vs. employee classification is a very big deal[1]). Some Big Corps are less risk averse, and virtually every Big Corp has tribal knowledge among the management on how to get things done when they need to. But you can generally avoid the issue entirely by focusing prospecting efforts downmarket at smaller enterprises.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us- findlaw-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont- treat-c/dont-treat-contractors-like-employees-idUSTRE53063S20090401)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title is way off: he's talking about contractors, not consultants.

Short version: Consultants tell the client what to do. Contractors are brought on to do what they're told.

The advice in the article is a lot about "do you need someone do to ___ task" or "are you hiring an FTE, and could you do with a contractor instead" and that's contracting, not consulting. It's still valuable advice, but you don't find consulting clients this way.

<comment><USER8> Assuming this semantic distinction holds, what are the practical consequences? How do you find "consulting" clients?

In fact, what is even the shape of a "consulting" engagement in software development, where I am telling the client what to do, instead of doing what I'm told? Do clients hire consultants to build software without knowing at least something about what software needs to be built? Not trying to put up a strawman here, it's just that I've seen this distinction made elsewhere, but not clear on how it plays out in practice. I suspect the line between "consultant" and "contractor" isn't that bold.

<comment><USER7> > Do clients hire consultants to build software without knowing at least > something about what software needs to be built?

Absolutely - that's what I do in the database realm. One common request is, "How should I re-architect this system to fix the problems we're having today?" Another common one is, "How should we be storing this data to retrieve it more quickly?"

This type of work tends to be very senior, very architectural. Another way to think about it is by billable rate - at my rate, clients don't want to pay me to _do_ the work. They just want to bring me in for short periods to tell them what work needs to be done, and how, and they have their existing teams (or contractors) execute the plan. It's not usually cost-effective to hire me to do it (although, for the right teams and projects, I cut deals.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I started a consulting business doing CRM work on nights and weekend about five years back that's now running close to $100k/mo.

It all started from a former colleague who'd moved onto a new role and asked me to help them set up their CRM. This colleague talked to their friends, I started mentioning it in casual conversation and more referrals started pouring in.

This process of working nights and weekends meant I could scale it without pressure.

Your network will be your best asset early on because you have no brand awareness not evidence that you can do the job. Folks will be working with you because they know and trust you.

We're now at an inflection point where that method of driving business won't scale as fast as we want so we're now relying on channel relationships we've built with the CRM provider. We also work with consultants in related fields that don't want to do CRM work which has been a huge boost to our bottom line as well.

On the flip side I have a friend trying to break into devops consulting who couldn't get a single customer despite relying heavily on his network so take both anecdotes with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, what does CRM consulting look like? Is it autonomous job (configuring servers and applications) or face to to face to work?

<comment><USER9> Both. You've got to work with the client to get an understanding of how they want to use their CRM, guide them on best practices and then pull the levers to configure things correctly. You can niche out and focus on one of the three areas but we find solving issues end-to-end is what our customers are looking for. They want us to come to them with issues we've found, best practices on solving them(as they apply to THEIR business) and to also take the steps to put it all in place.

All of our work is remote so there's no face-to-face per se but we do come on- site or take them out to lunch every quarter or two

<comment><USER10> Appreciate for sharing the insight!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I went the boutique consultancy route just last week and brought on a couple of people into the mix.

I pretty much agree that everybody kind of faces the same question and feelings. To be honest, I might have taken a small leap of faith as I pulled the trigger before securing a client. Though the only reason I felt comfortable with it is that I've been in the space enough to be pretty sure I can land a client in the first month or so (seems like it's happening).

The best advice you can have is 'talk to people'. Most starters think you're BSing them, but nearly everybody fails to leverage their network. You can't go indie fresh from college but after a couple years and some projects it's easy enough.

Talk, talk and talk some more. Don't be shy to send emails and chat people up on LinkedIn. Works wonders once you put yourself out there. Look at your contacts list now and you can surely find at least one that would be able to get you started with some work now or in the very near term.

The reason everyone keeps iterating on the same 'general/bland advice' is that it really is the bread and butter of it. Talk more, can't say it enough. Be honest, be respectful, don't spam, but don't be shy to talk to strangers in your line of work.

Not sure if this helps anyone, but just wanted to say it's easier than most of you think. You need a marketable skill, a minimal network and to talk. If you're doing honest work, things pick up on it's own.

Known pitfalls - there's more to running a consultancy than just talking and working, admin work takes a lot of time as well. Plan for the extras.

<comment><USER12> I'm curious how well this scales though. Are the kind of clients you're reaching out to small- to mid-size? I've spent a lot of time working at fairly large consulting agencies and the amount of time and resources that go into just pitching seem daunting to a newcomer.

<comment><USER11> I guess I'm in a good position comming from a Co which scaled from ~30 to currently ~220 before I exited. Nearly 70% is from a growing personal network from a single guy. Another 15% come from direct referals outside that network. The last 15 are a mix of random circumstances and some cold outreach.

Depending how you look at it ie. Building networks or just chatting people up can lead to very different outcomes. The above was mostly focused on the 'getting started' part. Though the 200+ setup is successfully run by a team of 7 or 8.

Things change as you scale and the approach that works on smaller mumbers does not work on largers and vice versa.

Feel free to ping me on email or otherwise if you'd like to chat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He's spot-on with that last part: you only need a few. The same few contacts (4-5) have brought me more work than I can actually do, and I often have to say no. It's pretty hard maintaining a relationship with all of them, though: when you say no, they have to look elsewhere, and that's when the relationship can falter.

<comment><USER14> Do be careful. Becoming overly dependent on upstream "feeders" is what killed my company.

It is a balance. Turning down work is dangerous, and the generally opposite of why you're in business. But giving other firms too much leverage will kill you just as dead as insufficient work. I started getting nervous when one company was over 50% of our income, but there was disagreement about urgency and what exactly to do about it with my partners, and we dithered until the bomb went off.

<comment><USER15> I my experience, at least for an individual, I think saying no is exactly the opposite of dangerous. I've been contracting exclusively for 10 years and said yes about 6 times and no dozens or hundreds of times. As long as you say no frankly, with a reason, and offer some names of people who can help, people are happy with you and will more often than not ask again in the future. Saying no, especially for bad fit, is one of the most important parts of success I've had in consulting.

<comment><USER16> "and offer some names of people who can help"

For people who are reading this quickly, this is the magic that makes saying no ok. If you are just turning down client requests they'll stop asking. Most people are extremely busy so they really appreciate having a "go-to guy" they can send any requests even vaguely related to what you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've used a lot of the same tactics. I find that although I like the "control" of direct projects, I do more and more subcontracted work because I can push a lot of the account and project management back to the company that subcontracts me, often this frees me up to just do the work, rather than all the activities around the work.

Also, I tend to do 80% of my work with the same two clients - <USER2> services firms that subcontract work to me. On one hand this is obviously a risk, but I know that I'm the most profitable consultant for one of the customers (significantly more profitable than their in-house consultants) and when I get in to a time crunch it is easier to deal with because a lot of the time it's a conflict between two of their projects and not one of their project s and one unrelated to them.

<comment><USER18> > professional services firms that subcontract work to me

How were you able to create these kinds of relationships with the professional services firms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's my take on this, based on what worked or didn't for me in my first year: [https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get- consulting-l...](https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting- leads/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I take issue with using "meetups" of other tech consultants as a way to get clients. I'd rather "network" (another _uncool_ word for meetups) with potential leads, within an industry vertical than spend my time talking to other geeks.

<comment><USER20> I can see how going to a meetup for an interest orthogonal to your own could be fruitful. If I'm a hardware/embedded person and I go to a python meetup it's possible someone works for a company who is looking for some one off embedded work.

Though as you say, if you can directly find the people who are looking to hire you even better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good advice on getting out to meet other people in the community. You could call it marketing, but the positive effect on you and others has a less clinical perspective. It's especially important to be a part of the community, rather than just show up to meetings. e.g. Give presentations, help with organizing a meetup, socialize outside of the meetup (e.g. coffee, lunch, beers) with folks you like. You honestly don't ever know where your next gig is coming from, so getting out and enjoying this part of it can be worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very good article! The only point that I don't agree with is about not freelancing websites.

When I started consulting/contacting 1.5 years ago I did start with a freelance site and at this time about 90% of my jobs still come from there. I would much rather have clients from outside of the platform but I don't find it easy to close them.

I need to point out that I'm in a very niche field (at least on Upwork); On average month I see about 3-5 quality jobs I can apply to and quite often I see them getting less than 5 proposals. I expect this wouldn't be a case for web development projects.

</comment><comment><USER23> I didn't see any advice on becoming a vendor or otherwise making inroads apart from cold calls on FTE reqs.

RFPs? RFQs?

This is all about "freelancing" and subcontracting, and may serve as a helpful intro to the person who isn't already in this (well-trod) labor market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes - most of the people who ask me this are new to consulting/freelancing, so this is meant to be an intro for them.

Once you're established, I find that people don't think about "finding new clients" so much as "winning new contracts" \- which (as you point out) - <USER3> entirely different.

If you're trying to win big projects (vs "find clients"), you probably have a small team already, and then yes, that's when you really get into RFPs, etc.

In the beginning though - I would advise against going after big projects that need multiple rounds of selection, etc - and instead focus just on relationships. Then, once you have a small base of clients, you can decide to go bigger from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Curious anybody use Facebook or google ads to find freelance or consulting clients? I'm finally building up some cash stores after a summer drought, but I'm working 70 hour weeks at $25/hour, trying to finish up the 25/hour gig as my other client is $40 and I'd like to get back up to my normal rates of $60-70/hour.

I've been doing laravel/fullstack since 2013 and vue since 2016. I also know basic devops stuff. How to use aws. I've even used ML recently with aws/rekognition and python/nltk-rake. I'm horrible at selling myself but I can't take another < 60k year - when I know I'm worth more than 100k.

</comment><comment><USER25> The way we've been attracting Software companies to our UI/UX agency is through sideproject marketing. I wanted to write an article about this but here's the tldr version of it: build small standalone projects that provide value and communicate the value you provide to potential customers. There are a few good articles about this but I feel sideproject marketing is highly underrated. You can use your skills as a developer/designer to market your service. Without feeling dirty about selling.

<comment><USER26> Interesting! Can you share an example?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As an aside: I recently had an agency/contractor reach out via a LinkedIn connect request with the "personal message" being an ad for their services. I have a few startup things I've founded/co-founded on my profile, so I'm guessing this is a new way to "source" clients... that is until everyone starts doing this and I start just instinctively ignoring these messages or LinkedIn figures out this eats into their InMail revenue stream.

</comment><comment><USER28> Would like to see a new write of of resources that are good for running a consulting shop these days.

Sure I have some things bookmarked from previous HN threads like open-source- contracts to use, contracts, communication tools, project management, milestone sharing, invoicing and such perhaps? demo - sketch mockup sharing and such?

whats the popular freelance tech stack these days if one was going to go this route today?

</comment><comment><USER29> I've been able to scale consulting to about 20-35k / mo as a single developer.I've gotten all of my clients through word-of-mouth and I've spend zero dollars in marketing. The trick being that I always try to do the best work and communicate instantly with my clients. I.e, if a client e-mails me, or sends me a text, I respond in about one second. They seem to love that.

I try to be as honest and forthcoming with each client and I've basically hit a cap now in being able to add any new ones and deliver the experience I want to each client. Scaling is the most difficult part for me right now since all my clients are quite varied. Some of them are web apps, other mobile apps and others just pure cybersecurity. They're so vastly different from each other that it's a bit difficult to hire someone who can handle the diverse amount of work. Also, I think for the amount of work I do, I should probably have much bigger retainers, so some clients are $1,250 / month, but jesus is that hard. It should probably be at least $5,000 /month.

For me tho, I've learned so much about business and my technical skills have skyrocketed. I honestly feel like I can tackle any problem in the world and it's a powerful feeling. I make decisions based on the problem its self and have no loyalty really to a specific technology. I understand why a client may want to use WordPress and why a client may want to use Kubernetes. Some clients want to just do servers using Linux and that's okay. I've learned that more basic technology (like bash) can be hugely beneficial to trying to write your own solution. When you're under time constraints, you start to have some pretty creative solutions, and not the creative where it breaks later, the creative where it does exactly what it needs to do, but it's done in 1 hour instead of 1 month.

The best advice I could give is to basically be brutally honest with each client, do the best work that you can and always reply in a timely manner, regardless of what's happening in your life. So many consulting companies are slow to reply, or don't really care about their clients on a personal level that clients will really love you if you spend time thinking about their business on a personal level, being responsive and just being honest when you're overloaded in work.

It is a stressful business tho and I'm in the alpha stages of a product I'm working on based on the problems I've seen over the years. It'll be interesting to move from consulting to a SaaS product. The transition being the consulting provides the funding to be able to work on the SaaS and then hopefully the recurring revenue outpaces consulting eventually and I live a less stressful life!

<comment><USER30> My trouble has been that I automate everything and document it so well, that I basically "code myself out of a job."

I also strive for instant response time (my wife hates that) and often, I'll already be working on a client issue that the servers emailed/paged me about by the time the client gets in touch (that definitely impresses them).

So, the typical pattern is this: I meet a new client, understand their needs, build a RESTful API back-end (Python, Django, Terraform, AWS), automate any internal processes and/or build internal tools, and then support their front- end team in building their web/mobile apps that consume the API.

Usually, it's a few days to a couple of weeks of full-time work, and then my hours drop off a cliff: either 1) the client's team takes over completely, or 2) if I stay on, any subsequent feature or issue takes just minutes for me to do, so then I'm back to square one, looking for the next client. So far, I've been lucky enough to make all the clients happy and have them become "clients for life," but that "life," added up between all the existing clients, is just a few billable hours a week.

Any advice for me to break this pattern?

<comment><USER29> It sounds like you are doing $10k-$20k jobs in a few days or weeks.

Charge way more than you're charging. If you're successfully building our their entire backend, their internal tools and their automation in a few weeks, you should be charging for a few months instead of a few weeks.

In your case, it sounds like project work is better for you. I wouldn't recommend that you work hourly since that's probably where you're being burned. If you quote a REST API, automation system and internal tools for $10k-$30k and you finish it in 2 weeks, then you're golden and so is the startup since they just saved a lot of time.

I would highly recommend that you get on retainers with your clients. If they appreciate your work, and need help from time-to-time, you shouldn't be charged for 1 hour whenever they need you. They should pay for you to be available for them, so perhaps try to get on $500 - $1000 / month retainers. They may only need you a few times a month, but you're not billing them for $100-$200 for 1 hour of work, what a bad deal for you (and a great deal for them!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some of this advice is also good for just plain getting hired: giving talks, having visible evidence of what you can do. It can cause actual humans to contact you directly rather than recruiters.

But it takes work and isn't for everyone.

</comment><comment> camping-monitor I have been thinking about this for a long time. If anybody is interested in building a consulting agency with me, feel free to ping me at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER32> you'd be surprised how productive hanging around some bars near office parks during happy hour can be. Lots of conversations can be eavesdropped, find the right one, and then strike up a conversation and get a card in someone's hand.

</comment><comment><USER33> How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported).

Every time I attempt to go indy, I land a good lead, go through the preliminary stages, and then the deal goes flat. It's almost like there's a blacklist out there and my name is on it for some reason. I know that is likely untrue and I scour Google with my name to see if some oddity comes up but really there's nothing. It should be no more difficult for me than others and yet it has been.

<comment><USER34> > It's almost like there's a blacklist out there and my name is on it for some > reason

If you're getting that feeling due to your HN account, it's because you're shadowbanned. Only people with showdead will see your comments. It's actually really impressive how you've managed to write hundreds of comments to void for the last half a year without picking up on the hint.

There's a good chance you're not picking up on hints IRL either. Maybe ask a blunt friend what they think of you? The industry is small and people talk.

<comment><USER35> I can see his comment and I don't have "showdead" turned on?

<comment><USER34> Turn on showdead to see all the other comments that didn't show up. You can vouch (if you have >500 karma) for individual comments to make them not dead.

<comment><USER35> Ah I didn't know that. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Yegge explains his verbosity (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-theory-201-size-does-matter.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Summary: If your writing is too short, then it doesn't spill over into people's long-term memory and they will forget it all too soon.

Having said that, you should go read the blog post so you can remember it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Official: Memory aid.

Unofficial: I love listening to me as much as you do.</comment>


Ask HN: Decent ads for a technical audience? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know of a decent ad networks to use for a technically-oriented site? (I.e., what ads don't piss you off and cause you to use an ad blocker?)<p>I have considered The Deck (http://decknetwork.net/), but it is exclusive and seems to be pretty difficult to get into. <comment><USER2> I think I can speak to this, as evidenced to the amount of time my 'out of space' sign has been up.

First, technical people really don't like feeling like you are manipulating them on an emotional level, so make sure there is some compelling and objective reason your product is better that you can highlight. (for me, that reason is price, but I'm sure you can come up with other things)

writing technical articles (or getting others to do so) is pretty good. I didn't ask for it, but Uggedal pretty much launched me last year[1] (that article hit both hn and reddit front pages) - i mean, revenue pretty much went straight from around a grand a month to around six grand a month within 30 days, and it kept going up after that (though not quite at that ridiculous pace.)

Getting on the reddit/slashdot/hn front page is incredible.

I don't know if I would recommend my next advertising method, as it was goddamn expensive, but I wrote a book[2]

that took a while. It was really expensive. But, it did give my company and myself quite a bit of credibility.

As far as bannner ads go, I think they are largely useless when compared to reddit. I have had fun playing about with project wonderful on webcomics I like, but that is nothing compared to reddit.

[1][http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-comparison-between- slicehost-...](http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-comparison-between-slicehost- and-prgmr)

[2]<http://nostarch.com/xen.htm>

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is "technical audience" is still too broad to guarantee relevance.

Relevance is the most important thing when placing ads.

If you're really set on using an ad network (rather than managing advertisement yourself) use something that will let you approve and reject specific ads for your site, like <http://www.adbrite.com/>

Props for putting some thought into this, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> check www.buysellads.com

a lot of the top blogs use that to sell their own ads

<comment><USER5> thanks for mentioning BSA :) I own/run BSA and would be happy to answer any additional questions people have, if interested (not looking to hijack this thread, just offering to explain more about BSA if people have questions).

<comment><USER4> This is exactly what I love about HackerNews. All the important guys are here.

I'm afraid one day when I'm bashing Microsoft, 'sballmer' will downvote me and say something mean.</comment></comment></comment>