Why am I never using PrestaShop again, ever - <AUTHOR> http://progfu.com/post/16974571560/why-am-i-never-using-prestashop-again-ever

<comment><USER2> I've had many issues when working with Prestashop. Something as simple as removing the category ids from the URLs was a major pain, there were a few work arounds and one which involved modifying the .htaccess file every time you added a new category. Now this included modifying core files, which made updating PS an issue.

Also importing products was another major let down in Prestashop. Are there was a lot of hacking around the TPL files to get various things working.

</comment><comment><USER3> What alternatives would you consider? Big Magento fan here but it takes some hair pulling to understand how to write extensions in the beginning - relatively high learning curve.. It is a bit of an overkill however.

</comment><comment> dale-cooper I had the same experience with several open source e-commerce projects, sadly. Huge communities but horrible code.</comment>


Facebook users rebelling against clickbait with one of the only tools they have - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/ct-facebook-rebelling-clickbait-wp-bsi-20160702-story.html <comment><USER2> The title of the article itself is clickbait, and the article underneath "9 key rules for CEOs to live by" is also clickbait.

One quote from the article is: "The way I would define it is, it has a headline that tries to trick you to read the story and when you get to the story there's nothing of any substance."

And it ends with: "The results are clear: Clicky headlines attract readers. The responsibility of journalists is to make sure there's something worth reading on the other side."

Congratulations Chicago Tribune, you have failed.

<comment><USER3> The optimist in me hopes the journalist came up with a good headline but it was changed later by an 'online media specialist' to attract more clicks. In the HTML I see

        <meta name="Description" content="Facebook users are fed up with clickbait headlines, and they're fighting back with one of the only tools at their disposal: the like button." data-meta-updatable/>

so the answer might have been in the headline but later cut off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TLDR they like-and-then-UNLIKE the offending post, sending a signal to FB's algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER5> I found the best way was to block links from particular sites from showing up in my newsfeed.

For example, I clicked "Hide all posts from Buzzfeed".

<comment><USER6> That works if the links don't link to a subdomain. For example here in Finland I can block everything from iltalehti.fi but people share the same stuff from their mobile site m.iltalehti.fi which cannot be blocked in Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could "one recent paper" be [http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04723](http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04723) ?

</comment><comment><USER8> People have started going to the comment section to explain something is clickbait. Which is similar to what the account "Saved you a click" does on Twitter.

The problem is that I don't know if publications see that as a win because it's "user engagement," but if no one clicks the link because of that comment, surely they'll see clicks drop off?

</comment><comment><USER9> Clickbait includes generalizations or provocations in the title like 'everyone thinks..' I see sites like Forbes, Fortune, Qz, Vox also incorporating these elements, and it's kinda annoying but I guess there is so much content online these days , that you need to tantalize people to make that all-important click.

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh the irony

</comment><comment><USER11> > the Internet equivalent of being force-fed melted Jolly Ranchers by the > spoonful

I've never heard of being force fed jolly ranchers by the spoonful... not a very relatable analogy

</comment><comment><USER12> Dislike

</comment><comment><USER13> I believe in evolution. At least personally, I feel like I have evolved an increasing resistance to this garbage. Unfortunately, I also know that it will at best take a very long time before evolution reaches a critical mass. If not, email spam would have died long ago.

<comment><USER14> That's not what evolution is</comment></comment>


Google's Fuchsia OS on the Pixelbook: It Works - bauta-steen https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-os-on-the-pixelbook-it-works-it-actually-works/ <comment><AUTHOR> Why

<comment><USER2> The cynic in me believes the whole Fuchsia thing is to avoid the GPL.

<comment><USER3> Why would they? Google has nothing to gain by going proprietary. And if you think they do, I'd be interested in your reasons for thinking so.

<comment><USER4> Fuchsia is permissively licensed; it definitely avoids the GPL (whether or not that is a key motivation), but is not "going proprietary".

Now, it permits proprietary derivstives, but that's a different issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Update On The TechCrunch Tablet: Prototype A - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/update-on-the-techcrunch-tablet-prototype-a/ <comment><USER3> Browsing the comments on TC, and I found this quite telling/interesting.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/update-on-the- techcrunc...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/update-on-the-techcrunch- tablet-prototype-a/#comment-2451799)

In case it goes: "A couple of weeks ago I was asked to make a simple cad model for the prototype hardware. <http://tctablet.altronix.se/#2.11>

I would like to finish the work but since last week I have not been able to to get in touch with them on either irc or skype… :/" Refer

</comment><comment><USER4> The idea is not bad, but they are working on obselete technology. What they should be working on are extension screens for even smaller computers - <USER2> of a very flat panel with a slot for an iphone that immediately expands the iphone screen into a 20 inch thing.

The computer itself should be expensive, but the screen part of things should be cheap.

<comment><USER5> There were rumors Apple patented this a year or so ago.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean "rumours"? Patents are open and available for all to see.

<comment> daniel-cussen Yeah, but who actually goes to the patent office to look for ideas he can license to build products?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are any HN people helping out with this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Classy. Do these guys really think you can brew up a $200 web tablet at an old kitchen table?

I've been critical of this project before, but my advice on the matter would be to refer techcrunch to the first facet of this effect:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect>

I don't understand how the commenters on TC think it's anywhere near an actual prototype. Groupthink?

If they're serious about this project, TC should focus on the skills they have (PR, contacts and reputation) and get this actually built by some pros rather than by some barefooted web 2.0 nerds with bits of Arrington's old macbook air.

Still willing to be proven wrong though.

<comment><USER7> _Do these guys really think you can brew up a $200 web tablet at an old kitchen table?_

Actually, that's a very good sign. Every one of the smartest EEs I know works like this: In apartments or labs filled with piles of random wires and oscilloscopes and beat-up hard drives. You can tell which parts are the important ones because they're the ones that are only _half_ -covered with random junk.

The first danger, when this project was announced, was that it would be a vanity project like so many others before it. It would consist of 85% talk, and 10% fundraising, and the remaining 5% would be outsourced to some team of professional ditherers with flashy Powerpoint presentations who would produce lots of shiny plastic mockups and cost overruns and never quite manage to ship anything. Or there would be a giant mob of 'contributors', each of whom is invited to bring a single resistor to be soldered into the heap.

Instead, after the initial rush we seem to have seen very little loose talk, which implies that there might just be a handful of people quietly plugging away on the thing. And now we get a benchtop prototype. All promising signs.

Of course, I have no doubt that you can produce a single, working desktop prototype of a web tablet. That's still a far cry from being able to mass- produce a reliable version for $200. But, if they want to get there, they appear to be on the right track. And, if they fail, at least they might learn exactly why, because they will have gotten into the weeds.

<comment><USER3> And that is exactly my point. It's one thing to build a prototype, and another thing entirely to be able to mass produce a web tablet for $200. And no matter how good the EE, you can't do that stuff at a messy kitchen table - you need serious resources.

<comment><USER7> Well, sure, but those serious manufacturing resources belong to OEMs in China. As a US-based designer, building a factory is not your problem -- there's no hope of doing _that_ profitably at this rock-bottom $200 price point. Your problem is design -- figuring out which combinations of commodity parts will do what you want. After which you'll take various iterations of your prototype to meetings with OEMs like Foxconn, asking them to bid for the honor of manufacturing the product in bulk and sticking your company's label on it.

Of course, there are lots of potential pitfalls in that process -- there are several middlemen who can mark the price up, there are lots of suppliers to coordinate and play against each other, and there's the constant risk that your design is lousy, or unmanufacturable (when the factory is half a world away, it's hard to establish a good design feedback loop), or that you'll cut so many corners trying to meet your budget that your brilliant design _turns out_ lousy. This is presumably why there are so few decent $200 web tablets.

Incidentally, though I used to be a product engineer in the cellular components industry, I'm no expert on the overall design/manufacturing process -- I was a tiny cog in the giant cellphone machine. For actual knowledge I recommend something like Bunnie Huang's blog posts about hiring folks to build the Chumby:

<http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=6>

UPDATE: I just surfed through my own link, and I have to say that Bunnie is a great blogger. His hints for getting quality designs out of Chinese factories (my capsule summary: "live in China, watching the assembly line, for as much time as you and your budget can stand") are in line with my own experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacked Molecular Machine Could Pump Out Custom Chemicals - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hacked-molecular-machine-could-pump-out-custom-proteins/ <comment><USER2> I think this interesting to study the functions of the ribosomes, but the "Custom Chemicals" part is misleading.

IIRC it's not necessary to change the ribosomes to make strange proteins with weird aminoacids. It's enough to change the enzymes that connect the aminoacids with the tRNA. Once the tRNA has a weird aminoacid, the ribosome blindly use it in the proteins. But I don't know if someone has done a living cell like this. More info: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_RNA#Aminoacylation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_RNA#Aminoacylation)</comment>


Susan Fowler: Why I Wrote the Uber Memo - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/opinion/sunday/uber-susan-fowler-harassment.html <comment><USER2> I reread her memo, [https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on- on...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very- strange-year-at-uber)

It is discouraging, the corruption shown by just one of any of the people she interacted with. Then to see it in so many different people, so consistently, with no exceptions, is eye opening to me. But worst of all is their job titles: manager, director, executive, Human Resources. Part of their jobs was to get in the way of this very thing!

<comment><USER3> HR is to protect the company not employees.

<comment><USER4> Asking because I'm genuinely interested in a solution: Is there a way to design a HR department against this?

For your own company, how would you set up a HR function that does not have this tendency?

<comment><USER5> You wouldn't have an HR department as they currently exist, imo. Too many companies lump too many roles into that space because they don't fit need buckets besides "people stuff." Like just split of disputes into a department like you would compliance or an outside auditor.

But honestly it's an organizational systems and behavioral science problem. Look at the trends of HR problems that cause risk to the business (either directly through settlement or brand harm, or indirectly by losing good talent, also personal risk like being able to sleep at night), then isolate the feedback loops that allow the discord to amplify and eliminate them. So go trawl some unis that have systems researchers and spend money on IO psychologists, also listen to them because they're better educated on the subject than most business folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I want to build a big company how do I prevent stuff like this? What if I aggressively fire those kinds of managers and anyone playing these kinds of political games? I imagine you'd have to deal with lawsuits but you'd be more successful as a business so it wouldn't matter.

Setting the right vision and hiring well helps. But I think you need to have consequences for when you make mistakes there.

</comment><comment><USER7> book advertisement.

do not take that as being critical of the content. just calling it out for what it is. i think it will actually be a good read and i admire her courage.

<comment><USER8> it's double-shipping

[https://zachholman.com/posts/double- shipping](https://zachholman.com/posts/double-shipping)</comment></comment>


New Y Combinator startup: overhear.us - <AUTHOR> http://overhear.us/ <comment><USER2> Is anyone else kind of dissapointed to hear that after what seems like a grueling application process (I didn't apply) this is the best YC can come up with?

Maybe there aren't that many areas on the web that are still ripe for innovation...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's kinda clever.

It reminds me of my reaction when I saw Reddit. "Well, this is new, but I can't imagine anyone ever doing something useful with it." I was right about the first part, right about the second, but completely wrong about the implicit assumption that things have to be useful before they'll be used.

<comment><USER2> Agree with the first two parts, although I do think Reddit serves a useful purpose. I don't use it because news.YC and Digg provide me with more than enough to digest every day.

Back to the point, though: who do you see as the target demographic of overhear.us?

I suppose when I think about work, I think of my parents, and despite being technologically capable, 1) this site would get blacklisted where they work and 2) I can't see them sitting in front of a computer at home gossiping, although they do talk about work quite a bit

<comment><AUTHOR> I figure it's made for the younger FaceBook generation who're just now entering the workplace and want a place to gripe about FaceBook being blocked at work.

<comment><USER2> I can certainly see this being more appealing to them (us) as a generation, but I still think the fear of getting caught will outweigh the desire to post one's thoughts online in many cases, especially when it isn't all that hard (and is actually more useful for one's social life) to talk to someone at the office, be it at the water cooler, in the hallway, in your own office with the door closed, or at lunch or dinner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you serious? This _is_ the idea? That you had 10 slides or whatever to present it to investors? Wholy cow. The end is near...

Soon dressed up "hello world" implementations will pass by as "startup ideas".

Why bother going to college and paying for CS degree if after 10 days with a RoR book you can start your company!

<comment><AUTHOR> "Why bother going to college and paying for CS degree if after 10 days with a RoR book you can start your company!"

I think that's kinda the point of YCombinator...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> YC folks: I sure hope you told this crew about password hashing.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think people are paranoid enough to use this.

<comment><USER6> That depends strongly on the company, doesn't it? A list of companies represented here after they get some usage would read like a "don't apply to" list.

<comment><USER7> That shouldn't be a problem. You have to already have a company email to view that company's comments.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you can view the fact that people are commenting on a company. If a whole bunch of one liners suddenly appear as soon as the work day is over, you could guess that it's been banned at work and everybody's griping over it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This thing will be a victim of its own success. If it ever takes off, it will be blacklisted by every web-content filtering program. If gmail and vault.com are blocked, you'd better believe this will be, too.

<comment><USER9> They thought of this. In that case people will use it from home. And if they're working for the kind of company that would block Overhear.Us, then there will probably be a lot they need to talk about.

<comment><USER8> People are lazy. And people at big companies, where web-blocking software is routinely deployed, are especially lazy. Standard Bayes.

Vault.com, despite not having nearly as nice a site as overhear.us, had reams of traffic and posts about individual employers, until it got blacklisted.

I can imagine this site having a good following with companies that are not strict about the web-filtering list [which I abhor, btw].

However, those companies are not likely to be large because large companies have burdensome regulations [SEC in financial industry, HIPAA in healthcare industry, SarbOx for all public companies] that generally require (or imply that) employee communication and web usage should be monitored.

And large companies are the interesting ones for overhear.us, because they have the most interesting networks and stories!

<comment><USER2> And also provide the least chance of getting caught. Yeah, I know it's anonymous, but at a small company "anonymous" doesn't mean much. It's not hard to figure out who's dissatisfied, who's the gossip queen/king, or even figure things out just by the way someone writes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea, anonymity but based on verified identity, facebook could do a similar spin on it for university gossip, or in fact you could do a similar spin on it for universities with a little fb integration. No one should be using it from there work though because if they post anything offensive up quite a lot of companies monitor all traffic and it wouldn't be hard to find out who it is. Txt-in method would help with that, trcky but not impossible.

</comment><comment><USER11> Guys, watch out for lawsuits and subpoenas! Some employers are gonna go nuts over this... trade secrets, harassment charges etc. Make sure you remove logs, IPs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. I guess this explains why they weren't interested in our <http://dontrentfrom.com> , since it's a variant on the same idea. It would be trivial to spin off various topical forums.

</comment><comment><USER12> This has to be weakest idea I have seen come out of Ycombinator.

</comment><comment><USER13> Look out when the bosses pretend to be coworkers.

<comment><USER7> A boss _is_ a coworker. It's all anonymous, anyhow.

<comment><USER14> That's the point. I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's actually a lot of fun to use. I'd like to see a web chat client that works the same way.

<comment><USER15> thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Guy Kawaski just invested in something similar to this didn't he?

<comment><USER17> i don't think its similar. kinda like a papparazzi thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This could turn into the non-nerd version of InklingMarkets.com. Or it could just be a place to bitch about your boss. I think it's great!

</comment><comment><USER19> xx xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxx?

so the arrows are for rating?

I guessed it, haha!</comment>


To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://daedtech.com/key-becoming-software-consultant/ <comment><USER2> Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)?

Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central european country:

My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex custom-built web applications on time".

I suppose we might fall under the authors category of predictably positioned "opinionated developers".

Our ideal customer is a non-technical entrepreneur who needs someone to help them polish their idea, turn that idea into a high-grade working product, bring that product into the market, and start making traction and revenue.

I noticed that many entrepreneurs, especially non-technical folk, have a very difficult time building their first product — especially if it's a relatively complex piece of software. Most contractors are focused on using cool tech or writing clean code instead of helping people build successful businesses.

Our selling points are pretty basic: Learn about your client's business, be reliable, communicate effectively, deliver a great product on time. If needed also help with additional hires, validating PM-fit, marketing.

It's nothing revolutionary, but the fact that there are so many uninvolved developers on the market makes it very easy for us to find long-term engagements. The clients are happy and we're able to charge San Francisco-like rates. Just last year I put $1XX,XXX into my savings account.

We're in our late 20's so there's a long road ahead of us. Who knows, perhaps we'll get bored with programming in a couple of years.

But people should know that you CAN make very good money while still writing code most of the day.

<comment><USER3> How do you find new customers?

<comment><USER2> For the past couple of years our average engagement was full-time and 8+ months long, so we only needed to look for new customers once or maybe twice a year.

We took some time to create our consultancy website and make sure we're communicating our value and principles at least somewhat effectively.

It also helps having satisfied past clients who will speak well of you when someone calls them up.

We don't really do any speaking, blogging, traveling to conferences to network, or anything like that. I just advertise on a couple of websites like HN who wants to be hired, for hire subreddit, angel list, startupers.com, etc to let people know we're on the market looking for a new project. We usually find someone who is a good fit within a couple of weeks.

We are also involved in the local tech community and in the past we would get some projects through word-of-mouth, but those were at lower rates near the beginning of our careers.

You could also try platforms like codementorX and moonlightwork until you manage to connect with someone yourself.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have a lot of work through word of mouth at the moment. I was more curious how someone in central Europe (Croatia?) finds high paying customers in the US. You make it sound much simpler than I anticipated.

<comment><USER2> It is simpler than we anticipated as well. I will say that many of our past clients had something in common — a recent ugly experience with one or more other development teams.

So far we have a history of delivering on what we promised (knock on wood), and we make sure to communicate that there is a very high chance that we will be the last team they will have to hire to solve their problem.

There's one more thing... A couple of years ago we created a passion project ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351)) that experienced quite a lot of traffic. I'm not sure how much influence (if any) this had on our ability to find clients, but a few of them did tell us how cool it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This notion of the distinction between contractors and consultants as a career status strikes me as similar to the distinction we make between developer and manager. And then, this is useful advice if what you want to do is manage, and code less.

I've been consulting professionally since 2005, and I think I've gotten pretty good at it? And my take on this is, graduating from "IC" to "manager" in the eyes of your client is presumably one way to ratchet up your status. But there are others, and I think they can be more lucrative.

Two straightforward alternative approaches to leveling up a consulting business that you've started by freelancing IC-type work:

1\. Scale it out. Take on more work, find trusted people to subcontract it out to, eventually bring on a partner, standardize and methodologize what you do, get to the point where you can train other people to do it, start hiring people. You will probably find that when you get to the point of hiring consultants to work for you, your business accelerates naturally --- one of the most overlooked and important value components of most consulting businesses is _on-demand availability_ , which is expands as your roster does.

2\. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals. In both kinds of cases you'll find that you become attractive to different kinds of companies when you change from generic to specific.

In neither case do you stop coding, or reposition yourself from the kind of company that writes code to the kind of company that tells other people how to write code.

We agree about hourly billing, though!

<comment><USER5> >2\. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals.

A former manager of mine, who had some consulting background, once told me that the big management consulting firms like McKinsey do something like this. They compile tons of detailed case studies from former engagements (that's what consulting gigs are called in that field) and then reuse the hell out of them for new gigs, thereby saving a lot of their staff's working time on those. Also probably surprise the clients (who may not know about this practice) by being able to come up with results sooner due to this.

<comment><USER6> Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1\. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement

2\. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area

3\. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project

4\. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm (same industry) and dig through old case studies to figure out if #2 is actually true

5\. Staff hurriedly compiles a proposal deck from a mish-mash of slides from other projects that are mildly relevant

6\. Multiple iterative feedback loops where the partner gives vague suggestions on improvements and staff makes the changes

7\. Send finalized proposal to design/production team

If you win the proposal, you use some lead time before the project to build an approach using past projects. In rare cases there would be a firm-sponsored template or framework (often when there is associated whitepapers or other marketing materials), but in general the situation was a more reactive "I do not have time to start this from scratch, so what can I gather from past projects?" and less of a proactive "let's build a template to reuse for new projects"

<comment><USER5> >Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1\. I did not claim to "paint" the full picture. 2\. I did not paint the picture. Was saying what my ex-manager said to me. 3\. The plural of anecdote is not data.

Interesting to hear of your experience, though.

Regardless of your experience, systematically collecting and analyzing data on prior projects, with a view to applying the learning to future ones, is useful, for any discipline, not just management consulting or software engineering. That's part of how progress in any field happens.

<comment><USER5> Also, I'm well aware of the "golmaal" (Hindi slang term) that goes on in any field. Hey, it's common knowledge. But that does not invalidate work of the good actors in the field.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I didn't explain what golmaal means in English, also may have used the wrong word. I meant something like skullduggery, but golmaal means chaos or confusion (according to Quora, at least).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For any devs worried they're missing out because they're not in the "strategic" role described here: There's still a boatload of money to be made just doing the coding.

Yes, strategic work can be the way to big buck$, but there's also a shortage of reliable implementers of moderately-technical projects who _don 't disappear_ and communicate reasonably well.

Sure, you might not get to a $20k/week bill rate, but for many of us $4k/week isn't a bad start.

<comment><USER8> I've worked with some "strategic" consultants. Believe me, these guys did some pretty diagrams and wrote a couple of nice word docs, but they didn't do any real, useful work. It was almost laughable.

<comment><USER9> And yet, they get paid more and treated better than contractors and "consultants" who write code. Is the joke on them? Or us?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having seen all type of consultants over the year:

\- The strategic consultant you describe manages to have a higher tariff, but the sales cycle is long and the downtime between gigs significant

\- the 'software consultant' has an on average lower tariff (depending on the specialization), but little downtime and faster sales.

Pick your poison and do what you feel most comfortable with.

<comment><USER11> When you say tariff do you mean price?

<comment><USER12> I think this is a British-ism. I'm British. The parent's post used tariff in a way I found normal. Google tells me:

      tariff - noun:

      BRITISH
      a list of the fixed charges made by a business, especially for use of gas, electricity, or a mobile phone.

<comment><USER13> In American english tariff is usually used as "tax". Especially in the context of import & export taxes on goods and services. (E.g. The American colonies revolted over the tea tariff.)

<comment><USER14> Indeed. Tariff is a dirty word in American English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All is good and well until 5 years down the road you don't have experience implementing the newnosql.js stuff that is all the rage. You try to conform it to what you already know and end up with a myopic view of the solution. Since you are already respected people listen to you when defining architectures. Coders think you are a moron, impostor syndrome sets in. The doctors prescribe the new and improved treatment, but the new balm doesn't work as well as the goop for some cases.

You have to remember what made you a specialist in the first place was coding at challenging projects. Our market changes too fast for you to stop doing that. Studying and trying out new things using a private lab will only get you so far, the real challenges are the ones which push you to really master something.

<comment><USER16> Do you think the VPs and CTOs know how to implement newnosql.js? The biggest challenges involve more that to get solved.

<comment><USER15> We are talking about consultants, but CTOs should have this knowledge if they if they are the ones making system architecture decisions. I have been at positions in which I had to explain to hierarchical superiors why a decision was bad or why some architecture was preferable. I was also overruled in some of these occasions, and in these cases we hit obstacles I predicted and had to change on the fly, ended up with delayed deliverables and a sub-optimal solution.

<comment><USER16> It's not realistic to expect CTOs to know the intricacies of all the latest widgets and libraries. I'm talking about CTOs of mature companies, not "CTOs" of a 10-person startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been thinking about this for a while.

There is a lot of good advice out there. OP, Jonathan Stark (expensive problem), Philip Morgan (positioning), Double your freelancing, Patio11 etc

They all have read the same book: Positioning by Al Ries.

What the OP (and others) are saying makes total sense. If you move away from being a generalist and carve out a niche everything becomes easier: your marketing (no more job hunting, no more interviewing), the stress (no implementation "details" to deal with) and as you can charge much much more life in general.

The problem: no one can tell you how to get there. It's survivorship bias.

Some of them got there by luck or not at all (they just coach - J.Stark, for example, started with rare (at that time) mobile dev skills and now decided to do just coaching after his skills have become commoditized).

The advice can be summed up in network as much as possible, talk to lots of people, try to find common pain points and so on.

Please note: I'm not meaning to discredit anyone, I'm grateful for what they do and learned a lot from them.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've only been at it a year but I find this to be nearly impossible. 95% of my income this past year was writing software. Whenever someone saw me as a "software consultant" they thought "well why don't we pay him to implement it too?" But I also made more than double what I made when I was full-time.

I really would like to know how to not immediately be slotted as someone who is just a coding mercenary.

<comment><USER19> Don't take the work, or subcontract it.

<comment><USER18> So the breakdown I saw this past year was:

* 5% consulting (e.g. reports, audits, et al)

* 10% subcontracting to other devs

* 85% direct software development

The highest margins were certainly on that 15%, but the volume was not nearly high enough to be able to make it work.

Would a scenario be something like:

Prospect wants work done. Instead of turning them down because my rate is too, subcontract that to someone who is maybe less experienced and _can_ do it at less than the advertised rate and bake in a margin there?

<comment><USER20> This is how body-shops make the big bucks: squeeze production prices down so you can carve more profit.

The alternative, I believe, is to find niches with higher margins or that scale better (white-label products, saas, and so on). Facebook makes $640k for each worker they employ, and they certainly don't skimp on salaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very true sentiment in this article. Also a corollary to this would be to deliver based on the value you provide the client, not the time it takes you to complete the problem. I've written about this before on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942561)

<comment><USER22> I read your linked comment, and it's important to distinguish that you are a consultant in the "not on a W2 sense," rather than a consultant in the "people pay me fat fees just for advice sense."

It's great that you are successful at getting contracted to build apps, and I'm envious because I hope to do something similar one day, but I regard it as a different job from the consulting described in the article, where you are paid to advise an existing team, not build something by yourself.

<comment><USER21> True, i also build but its a smaller part of my job since as i have employees etc that do the labour work. But the biggest part of my job is to listen to a problem and come up with a solution, more often than not, my company also delivers that solution, but i get paid for the answer to the problem, not the time taken to build it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that provable deep expertise in some niche is a pre-requisite to this kind of positioning. Is there a market for general purpose software consultants? Who is the target audience?

<comment><USER24> What I have seen is that some people/consultants have the ability to talk to C*O or VP level in their own language. Once you get these people to trust you, you can hire people with expertise you need. You can probably also get contracts because of your specific domain expertise but I believe the ability to communicate with high level management is more important for a successful consulting business.

<comment><USER25> Do you have any tips on how to do that or to grow the ability to talk to C-level in their own language? I feel that that's what's holding me back at the moment.

<comment><USER24> No, I have been struggling with my whole life. Let me know if you find out something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One way to get clients to respect your input is to charge a lot.

<comment><USER18> Easier said than done. They may respect you but they'll also likely not hire you. They have to respect you AND know you. It's hard to justify paying someone a lot if they are an unknown quantity. I checked out your HN profile: do you think you can hire more because you specialize in Computer Vision/Graphics? I'd also imagine your clientele is highly-targeted as well?

<comment><USER26> As long as _someone_ hires you, you are much better off. The clients that want "cheap" are generally not great clients. It's counter intuitive but charging more gets you better clients and more respect (in addition to more money).

<comment><USER18> I should have asked what you believe is _more_. $75-100 is definitely in the "cheap" range, $100-150 I see for senior generalists, and $150-300 I see for the principal/architect/specialist rates. At _some_ point the number isn't sustainable unless you're like a brand-name entity (e.g. John Carmack, Jeff Atwood, John Resig, and I'm just guessing here).

<comment><USER26> Good point. For context, I'm outside of Boston, not a web developer and I charge a very reasonable $150-$200 hour. This weeds out the clients that expect something to "take a couple of weeks" but have no idea what is involved and then don't appreciate/value the work once it's done. ("My kid cousin could have done this.")

Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and then turn around and charge $130+.

<comment><USER27> How do you market yourself? Personal network?

<comment><USER26> That the weird thing. I don't (market myself). I made website but I don't get leads from it. It's just a portfolio. I am very friendly and I do keep up with people I worked with decades ago but that is the extent of my "networking".

<comment><USER27> Interesting. I've heard that before, it does seem to be mostly a matter of building up a solid reputation over time and getting referrals. Thanks for the info!

<comment><USER26> I'm naturally friendly and I keep in touch with people I've worked with. I go out to lunch with them every now and then, etc. I keep in touch with them because I really do like them but a happy side effect is that decades after I last worked with them, they'll contact me with work.

I know some people can go 30 years and not have any friends they used to work with. At the very least, you should make contact on LinkedIn for your (former) colleagues when you leave a job. Drop them a line once in a while. "Ping" them a text at Christmas, etc. You don't want to wait until you need work to start building your network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This article suffers from too many analogies. After the long DaVinci analogy, he goes into a medicine analogy. Please just say your point clear and up front. I don't think analogies are necessary to explain each point.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. I _think_ I understand what he was getting at, but when I read the analogies, I start to second guess whether I really understand the message.

<comment><USER30> What I got out of it can be summarized pretty succinctly. Freelance programming is not the same thing as software solution consulting. If you want to do more consulting, don't write code for the same clients for whom you're designing high-level solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How do I go from general software developer to domain specialist if I don't have domain knowledge in the first place (or want to get out of the domain I'm working in)?

I suspect that people who are in a great niche got there by accident and that luck is a much bigger part than most want to admit.

I don't think a deliberate attempt to move into a great position will work.

<comment><USER32> To answer your first question: you simply sacrifice your free time to do it. No magic bullets sadly. Or, if your day job is very boring, get a fixed slice of your workday and utilize it for your future prospects / education. So many people do it and yet it's a largely denied phenomena. One of the so-called "public secrets". :)

A deliberate attempt to move into a higher position is just an intention and nothing else. The real hard part is changing the way you think and view yourself. You can start with reminiscing all the times in your career when you had a much bigger advice to offer outside of the usual coding monkey trope: "this feature will be done in 2 days". In this regard I believe the author hits the nail on the head: it's all about how people view you. If they view you as a coding monkey then they will not listen.

Start thinking about the advice you have given and which was ignored.

The process of self-transformation can take anywhere from several weeks to decades (and many people never achieve it). It seriously depends on the person. I am currently in that hard transition and I have to tell you -- it's exhausting and it will challenge a ton of preconceptions you didn't even know you had just a week ago. Be prepared to put anything and everything in your life philosophy in question. It's more than most human egos can endure.

I am still a programmer, damn good one at that. But I regularly get rejected based on "cultural fits" or half-arsed excuses where they have no idea how to twist the fact that they don't want somebody with my rates or my resistance to BS. And I started having other people market me as not-only-a-programmer. I am in no-man's-land right now but I can feel the attitude of several people changing -- and see a few new ones coming with a drastically different one compared to what I am used to when people hear I am a programmer.

TL;DR: It's extremely hard and the main limitation and hurdle is you. Sucks to admit but it's better for one fo be a realist. Remember the amazing "Cloud Atlas" movie:

" _All rules are conventions and are meant to be transcended. One can only transcend a convention if they first imagine of doing so._ "

\---

And yes, luck plays a huge part to it. But in one of the towns in my country people love saying "luck doesn't come to you, you go to it" \-- which illustrates that if you keep trying eventually you will bump into the right people and conditions.

<comment><USER14> You can't slice out a portion of your day to learn niche domain knowledge. You get it by working in the industry or studying under a professor from the industry. You can't learn the payments industry from a bookfir example. All the information is tacit and passed verbally. Arcane is a good word.

<comment><USER32> Oh I agree what you say is true for many areas. But what I say is also true for others. It depends on what the person is aiming at.

My general point was that there are no magic bullets. I was always to irritated at the Hollywood trope of the person who hates their job and decides to change their life... and then we fast-forward to them having a villa at the sea and working only when they want. I was trying to show that a lot of hard work is involved, and that some sacrifices have to be made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of the art of value podcast that talks all about positioning yourself to provide value, not services.

As a UX designer who has positioned himself as consultant, I now have fewer projects but charge for value provider. There is more downtime in between projects but I actually end up making more money. If I get 2 or 3 projects at once, it's really nice.

Of course, I have to decline 98% of requests coming my way but it's well worth it. The businesses I partner with realize a good ROI and everyone is happy. Just so happens this process filters out a lot of the undesirable qualities in businesses I don't want to work with.

I had to eliminate every mention of client, freelancing and rates from every piece of content I have put out, because I think the moment you position yourself as subservient to your "client" the game is over. I see it more as a business parntership.

</comment><comment><USER34> Another way of looking at this is to focus on the what the client is buying, rather than what you are selling. We all lives in our own worlds, so by default we tend to think the client is buying what we are selling. If you can switch it around, then you can sell (and deliver) what they are buying.

</comment><comment><USER35> _> Don't ever let would-be consulting clients pay you for code that you write._

A similar piece of advice is in the often-submitted article by Patrick McKenzie.[1]

The common idea is that instead of being just a "code monkey", you position yourself higher up the value hierarchy to be more of a "solutions provider".

In my observations of programmers that successfully sell consulting vs earning a W-2 salary, both articles leave out the _dispositions and natural inclinations_ of the reader. This affects how easy it is to move up the value hierarchy.

To do high-value consulting, one has to take an honest self-assessment:

1) Do you like to be somewhat entrepreneurial and "hustle" for work? (Some programmers would prefer to be given a set of defined tasks and then be left alone rather than scout for new jobs and projects. The act of "selling yourself" to prospective clients is uncomfortable.)

2) Do you accept that there can be cycles of feast or famine because of downtime between freelance contracts? (Some programmers would rather have the predictability of steady paycheck rather than stress over contracts and chasing Accounts Payable for past-due payments.)

3) Do you find "solving business problems" more interesting than programming languages? (E.g. some folks are more interested in Python 3 vs Python 2 differences or studying Lisp macros -- rather than tackling the domain knowledge and complexities of modernizing a hospital billing system, or the code to monitor container ship logistics, etc. The coder views the business stuff as _boring_ but programming languages as _interesting_.)

Once you've done the "know thyself" exercise, you can then analyze how various types of "consulting" is sold in the marketplace and where to position your services.

If you're just a generalist programmer in (e.g. C++/Java/Python), it will be difficult to sell that as "consulting" to companies. You have to go up the value chain and sell "solutions". This is easier if you have expertise in a _specific_ business niche that interests you. As for examples of selling _general_ consulting that covers the spectrum from "bodyshop of programmers" to "solutions providers", that would companies like Infosys (India H1B), Pivotal Labs, Thoughtworks, Accenture, IBM Global Solutions.

Some exceptions to selling small scale "consulting" without being a being a solutions provider would be web freelancing and maybe cybersecurity auditing. Otherwise, generalist programmers either need to work for the solutions providers above, or become a solution provider themselves, or find contract gigs on marketplaces like Upwork and Dice. However, selling your programming skills on Upwork is the probably the opposite of the advice given in the 2 essays.

[1] [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pr...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

<comment><USER18> When I got into consulting I read that MacKenzie article and answered an ecstatic "Yes" to all three and yet people see my resume and previous work and just immediately slot me into the "code monkey" territory. I am able to negotiate a great rate, so I've done very well, but I believe I could do better if I was able to get the higher value projects, but no one has yet to perceive me this way.

<comment><USER36> Is it possibly because you've positioned yourself in a such a way that you attract customers who will only ever see you as a coder for hire?

I love the look of your consulting website, but "We create beautiful, engaging applications" isn't a very strong positioning statement. Most generalist software shops have something similar on their site. And if you position yourself that way, whether online or in person, I think that most customers will inevitably see you as an implementer of software.

In smaller text, you write "If you're a healthcare or fintech company, we can help you launch products faster with fewer resources to increase conversions and get results".

Now that's definitely a stronger positioning statement. Do you think it would be helpful to position yourself more strongly along those lines? Like, instead of your big hero text saying something general, could it be something more specific like "End-to-end app development for healthcare companies", or to narrow it down even more, something like "Dashboards for fintech companies".

That last one might seem really narrow, but that kind of narrowness also helps you build up a reputation as more than just a code jockey. It's hard to become known as the go-to person for beautiful, engaging applications, because there are just too many people who market themselves and their companies that way.

But it's a lot more doable to become known as the go-to person for reactive fintech dashboards. It takes a bit of time to establish your authority in a niche like that, though. But since you're already doing software consulting profitably, you're in a good position to move in that direction.

And once you're known as an authority in a specific area, you almost automatically become seen as more than just an implementer. Instead of coming to you with exact specs that need to be coded up, you'll have more conversations along the lines of "this is what we're trying to achieve; since you're the expert on this topic, how would you recommend we do it?".

Since you've completed customer projects successfully, you now have project management experience. In your marketing materials, and in conversations with potential customers, would it be possible to emphasize the project management angle? Because that could be a solid point of difference that works in your favor. Unlike most software developers, you have project management experience. You don't just deliver code. You deliver complete end-to-end solutions that don't require the customer to specify everything in excruciating detail. Instead, you're like an amazing machine to which customers only have to insert high-level business requirements.

Please note that none of this is intended as criticism. You're obviously already enjoying success! Over the years, I've just seen other people in the same position you're in, asking the same questions you are. And so I figured that sharing a few observations might be helpful.

If you haven't read it already, Philip Morgan's positioning manual covers this in a lot of detail: [https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning- manual-fo...](https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-for- technical-firms/)

I don't have any connection to him aside from being a customer.

<comment><USER37> Thank you so much for writing this. I've struggled with positioning for a long time, and although I have a niche, it was a challenge to communicate the value I offer in a succinct way. This nails it:

> You don't just deliver code. You deliver complete end-to-end solutions that > don't require the customer to specify everything in excruciating detail. > Instead, you're like an amazing machine to which customers only have to > insert high-level business requirements.

Reading over the website, The Positioning Manual seems to have more actionable information than the sum of all other source I've found, so thank you for that too.

<comment><USER36> You're welcome! I'm glad it was useful.

If TPM seems useful to you, you'd probably enjoy signing up for Philip's newsletter. He sends out an e-mail every day, and I usually find them useful and insightful.

Along the same lines, you might like Jonathan Stark:

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

I haven't bought anything from him (yet), but I signed up for his e-mails and find them valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Exceptionally well written, and very believable advice.

Wish I had understood this concept of positioning long ago...

<comment><USER39> I found it rather enlightening and quite enjoyable to read as well. Gonna go quit my job now ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm confused. The title made the think the article would be about licensing is IP transfer on project completion, but I got a lecture on what I consider to be a nuanced lecture about marketing.

Because of this and the reactions here, I'm sure I'm missing something and I think others may as well.

Is the author essentially saying "outsource the development?

As a consultant, I'm expecting to sit with the client, figure out their problem, and provide a solution. I charge based on the project and provide a breakdown of how much they'll pay for each deliverable and when it'll be available. The customer doesn't have to care who does the work (it'll probably be me), provided the deadlines are met, and at anytime the client can stop (they'll pay for any in-progress work).

Is that what the author is saying? Or are they saying to avoid taking any responsibility over the development process? Subcontracting is always an option, so if there's too much work, outsourcing is an option. I just don't feel comfortable just delivering a design, but I can if that's objectively better.

</comment><comment><USER41> As a Deloitte alumnus and a current cofounder of my own cybersecurity services and advisory firm, I hope I am qualified to weigh in here.

First, lumping all consulting firms together is a mistake. The main lists here cover the big brands, and I've added a couple more. Each has their strengths, weaknesses and approach to the market:

\- Pure technology consulting: Accenture, IBM, Cap Gemini, Tata, Cognizant and Infosys

These firms usually win because of their reputation for solving large scale technical problems. They can mobilize large teams of relatively qualified people and often have exclusive or at least preferential treatment from software providers who are eager to sell into their distribution channel.

\- Prestige strategy firms: McKinsey, Bain, BCG

Very little technical knowledge. Almost no implementation. Usually bought for political reasons that require "hiring the best." A true Veblen service. Still, they often are the right choice for a question that has an unknowable answer and requires panache and persuasion.

\- Big Four: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC

Outside of government practices, these firms win because they have a monopoly on the CFO relationship. This entree into board conversations around audit and financials is powerful enough to build a relationship that can lead to strategy, technology, supply chain or myriad other consulting projects (SarbOx made it illegal to sell both audit and consulting at once, but once Deloitte made it clear that some hand waving and compliance measures were sufficient to fend of regulators, as long as services weren't sold at the same time, the rest jumped back into consulting).

\- Niche players: Aon, WTW, AT Kearney, CapCo, ATT, Verizon, Marsh, Sapient and Booz

This heterogenous group often wins because of a specific strength, relationship or reputation. For Aon, Marsh and WTW it is around insurance and the CRO. For ATK, they are known for logistics.

Finally, to address the article itself, one of my earliest observations about the corporate world is that the less work one does, the more one gets paid. Partners delegate work and even proposal writing to focus on selling. Those who get promoted most quickly are those who sell the most work. Relationships are what lands deals and working is in conflict with schmoozing, so it is important to do very little actual work.

Furthermore, what people are saying about bureaucracy and management being inherent to an organization is correct, although I'm less jaded on this point than I was while working for somebody else. Sclerotic organizations need third parties to make change because inertia is such a powerful force, and a combination of risk aversion and other fallacies can do harm to one's career unless there is somebody else to blame. See Rene Girard on this point to fully understand why scapegoating is a feature, not a bug.

The last thing I would say, is that having real expertise and experience is crucial to making a convincing sale. My field, cybersecurity, is still professionalizing so credentials don't mean as much as past work experience. Social proof is everything and competing on price in markets with information asymmetry is a sign of bad quality.

There are a few ways to get to the place that was laid out by the OP. The first, and most desperately needed, is somebody with deep technical knowledge who can develop and implement processes. The second, and almost as important is somebody who can create documentation that ties everything together and explains code, networks, data and systems at various levels of granularity (C-suite, middle management, engineering lead, devs, network engineers, etc.). While the latter should be the responsibility of a good engineer, it often gets left behind and is almost never prepared for different audiences. Third and final is where we are positioned, risk management. We assess, mitigate and quantify risk in terms leadership can understand and act on. Whether a bank is worried about regulatory pressure and needs to demonstrate a good faith effort to comply or a due diligence team needs a financial quantification of the current cybersecurity risk in an acquisition, the greatest value here is being fluent in business and technology. Translating between lingo, goals and most importantly culture is easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does the author ever actually say what you should do? AFAICT all he says is "don't let them pay you for code" and never really got clear about what you should do instead. Did I miss it?

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone else have trouble reading this site? The combination of low font-weight and color makes for really poor legibility.

</comment><comment><USER44> That was a surprisingly well written article with a well articulated point.

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone here do UX consulting? How much or how do you charge?

</comment><comment><USER45> By the time a business believes that a "solution provider" is not the same type of person hired for the technical implementation, the battle is already lost and you should leave. The idea of wanting to work in these situations as consultant or software engineer is all pretty crazy.

For example, Scrum is a pretty stupid and horrible thing, at least as stupid and horrible as Waterfall and often quite worse.

Anybody who thinks it's important to give consulting advice about whether to adopt Scrum is someone to run away from. It's like a daisycutter of common sense.

There are great, small places to work where you can be paid well _and_ have your technical opinion respected and considered as an implementer.

You can't do that in places that are brainfucked with politics and bureaucracy, and the willingness to hire outside "solutions" consultants is a pretty big indicator that a place is brainfucked with bureaucracy and politics.

<comment><USER46> Some people work to make money. If providing solutions to bureaucracies pays well, why not do it?

<comment> saiya-jin _Most_ people work to make money, even in IT, even in software development. If you don't believe this, stop paying them and lets see who comes next day.

Working in bureaucracy is great indicator/training ground for patience, and not really caring about meaningless things in life and instead focusing on those with true meaning. Yes, it wouldn't be work in that case.

'All we need is just a little patience...' music in the background

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> And that ladies and gentlemen is exactly how American IT became taken over by Indian outsourcing companies and the quasi ones like Deloitte , Accenture. American exceptionalism and a good education system might make you a great consultant but who turns that spec to code and does the grunt work ? Surely you aren't hiring American college grads because they have already been told this work is boring and shitty and they are special and should build domain expertise or salesmanship . Don't get me wrong - it's an excellent article but I think this is targeted towards developers with experience who also understand the big picture (accounting , P&L, systems). However doing implementations , turning spec to code , reusing it are great ways to enter the IT industry with solid pay and something that American college grads encouraged to take up for a solid middle class life . Infact community colleges and colleges should teach those skills similar to how it's done in India. (No I am not a Trump supporter).

<comment><USER48> Undertook a rewrite of grant tracking system for an NGO. The first solution was butchered by one these 'consulting' firms. They had set up fragmented Google Sheets, Trello and MSSQL and lots of repetition. Non-programmers shouldn't undertake this kind of work. The majority of the work was data cleansing to get rid of duplicates and normalising the database to 3NF. The rest is a user-friendly frontend to enter data and some data validation. Our solution worked out cheaper than the 'consulting' firm's and actually increased productivity.</comment></comment>


The posting describing XCVB, the replacement for ASDF that is in development at ITA. - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cclan.general/807

<comment><USER2> Yes - this looks to be a winner: reliable packages will make Lisp easier to approach, and easier to use.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this looks really promising - I personally found learning to work with ASDF to be one of the more challenging aspects of working with Common Lisp.</comment>


Amazon's Universal Wish List button: add anything on the web to your wish list - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/wishlist/get-button/

<comment><USER2> I got really excited about this when I found out about it, but have barely used it since. Maybe it's because the only person who buys me stuff from my Wish List is my Mom.

</comment><comment><USER3> On a barely related note, I just noticed Amazon is now advertising the 'optimized for Amazon' feature of IE8. An interesting partnership.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish there was some magic to this, but it's just a static entry in the wish list that doesn't reflect any changes that may occur to the offering after adding it.

I didn't think much of that until I noticed myself automatically skipping past those entries visually while examining the contents of my wish list. I don't trust that information, so it's ignored.

</comment><comment><USER5> It has been around for a while. Been using Amazon Wishlist through Shareaholic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Likely inspired by Facebook's universal Like button. Now AMZN can know what you like (and would pay for!) across the whole web ... very smart move.

<comment><USER6> If I'm not mistaken this has been around a lot longer than facebooks like button.

<comment><USER7> Correct. At least three years as a concept.</comment></comment></comment>