Offer HN: Tax Help for Startup Entrepreneurs. - <AUTHOR> With everyone offering their services, I felt that I should put my hat into the ring too.
Background: I'm a tax accountant with years of experience in PwC and KPMG (Big 4: look them up and you'll quickly see they're like the google and microsoft of accounting firms.)
I've had experience in federal tax specializing in REITs and real estate tax at PwC.  I specialized in state and local taxation at KPMG.
Federal work related to 1120, 1065 and Disregarded Single-Member LLCs
State and Local: Income/Franchise, Sales, Payroll, VAT and Unclaimed Property
I currently have my own firm where I work with small to midsize clients.
You can pretty much ask me anything you'd like about tax.  I'll be pretty honest with you and let you know if I'm out of my depth.  If you have any questions you can check me out at www.thekenggroup.com and contact me at email@example.com or just reply.
Cheers <comment><USER2> Speaking of offers of assistance, if any (US citizen, non-felon, responsible, fairly competent, preferably either prior service or at least compatible with the military in terms of putting up with bureaucracy) wants help getting into DoD contracting (sysadmin or development), I'd be happy to provide advice. I'm no longer actively contracting, but working on a tech company which will have DoD clients, but I still know a lot of people. Deployed or stateside. firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER3> Slightly off topic, but seems as good a place to ask. How hard is it for foreigners (read Canada) to get a DoD or one of the big military contractor gigs?

Wanting to get into aerospace (any part of it) here, and Canada's aerospace industry isn't exactly big. Being barred from US Mil aerospace seems like having another big glob of jobs put out of reach. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> I really have no idea on Canadians; you certainly are limited, and I think the standard solution here is to get a Canadian clearance and then use the bilateral canada/us or NATO matching to participate. Sorry!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it'd be useful if you'd explain to folks on HN the tax implications of exercising their options (or holding shares) of their company stock over a 5-10 year period as it increases in value but not in liquidity.

For example, someone with stock purchased at $0.01/share that has a new 409A common stock value of $1.00/share may have a substantial tax consequence, despite not having any actual liquidity. You can discuss this better than I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stock options are a loaded question but I'll discuss it in general terms.

There are two types of stock options. Qualified and Non-Qualified.

Qualified stock options are those given to employees. So, all of the first employee hires that get equity are essentially going to get qualified stock options because they are getting an incentive. These options are not included in your gross income, but you may have to pay taxes on the year you exercise them due to the Alternative Minimum Tax (this was meant to be a tax on the rich back in the 1970s but now its hitting everyone in the middle-class).

Non-qualified stock options are those that you get if you're not an employee generally. This means that you'd have to include the value of stock options in your gross income. This is where Section 409a hits you. Section 409a has a bunch of requirements as to when you are allowed the options for example:

1\. The employee's leaves or separates from the company (if you're a key employee, then you need to wait 6 months later, before you can get the distribution of options.) 2\. The employee has an unforeseeable emergency 3\. The employee becomes disabled 4\. The employee is dead 5\. A fixed time or schedule specified under the plan 6\. A change in ownership or effective control of the corporation, or a change in the ownership of a substantial portion of the assets of the corporation; or

In reality…

If you're a startup and you're giving options, there's no way for the IRS to make you include these options in your income because they have no real value yet. The IRS requires income to be (1) accurately determinable and (2) reasonable assured. As we all know, options and common stock equity in startups is anything but determinable and assured. So realistically, this won't make a difference initially. But, once you start getting traction and get valued from VCs, this will come back to bite you.

You could also choose to use a variety of valuation models. There's even a "startup model." The startup model is basically where the VC thats funding you will tell you what the valuation is lol.

Conclusion: Stock options are not part of gross income if your getting qualified stock options.

But, later on when you sell the stock or equity. It'll lead to capitals gains. By then, you'd probably of had the equity for over a year so they'd be long term capital gains, which are taxed at 15%.

sorry for the long post. its late and i'm probably babbling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's a simple tax tip you give individual small business owners (sole proprietors or disregarded single-member LLCs) to reduce their tax burden, beyond simply claiming all business expenses? Once past the phase-out point for most tax credits, any easy tips to reduce taxes further -- perhaps a good place to invest savings without low income limits or an often overlooked deduction?

I usually end up paying taxes on the full amount of my business's profit, and I don't really know what else I can be doing. I was once told to get a Roth IRA but the income limits are too low.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not look into SEP, simplified employee pension plans. The limitation for last year and this year is $49,000. You sound rich lol, so why not just get this plan and start socking away money. You can put up to the lesser of 25% of wage income or 20% of self-employed before self-employed tax deduction is included (turns out to be about 18.25%)

Other options depends on what you're income is. But SEPs are great ways to just shove massive amounts of money away.

Note: If you have employees, the SEP can get a bit annoying and complicated. Its best for the small business owner that is operating primarily on his own. but, it could still be a great idea, even if you have employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) Which states are preferable in terms of tax in a start-up? If there is any states of particular preference at all.

2) My impression seems to be that registering your company in Delaware is more of a priority "down the line", even though it seems to be the go-to place for many companies. Is Delaware the place to go, or what is the current wisdom?

3) If I move from a European country to the US, should I expect to be taxed by the country where I spend more than six months a year, or are there things to look out for such as the risk of double taxation?

<comment><USER2> 1) The state where you are physically going to be present is going to want to tax you. If you incorporate in DE (zero tax basically, some fees and such), but are physically running the business from San Francisco, you owe the CA Franchise Tax Board all income tax.

2) DE is basically the correct choice (and C Corp) if you plan to take outside professional investment, maybe sell the corp, etc. And doing it properly will cost about $5-10k; probably closer to $10k if some of the principals are non- US-Citizens.

For any other business, you could consider C or S corp or LLC in your state- of-intended-operation, to lower costs and hassle (so you only have to file with one state). If you base yourself in Nevada, you pay no tax and cheap filing costs; if you base yourself in NYC, ouch.

Of the "startup friendly states", I think TX and WA have the best tax situations, but both have a weird corp tax (basically, on your gross receipts, vs. profits), which can actually be worse for an R&D intensive business (negative profits for a while) or a low-margin business).

3) This depends on the specific country you're moving from (i.e. where you hold citizenship), the visa you're on in the US (if you're not a US citizen), etc. There are pairwise double taxation agreements between countries, and I think some EU-USA stuff. It also depends on the kind of earnings you have -- if it's wage income, for work performed above-board in the US, you'll be paying US taxes + medicare/social security, and probably crediting that against your possibly-higher foreign-citizenship taxes. If it's capital gains, it depends on where you are when you realize them, and what visa, etc. you have. It's complex.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that RDL is giving valid and valuable advice. Generally speaking WA and TX has no income tax for personal and businesses, but the gross receipts is almost always going to hurt more than the average income tax because of the huge tax base.

For example, if your selling ads and your only making a margin of 30 to 10 percent. The base of your gross receipts is going to include the full amount and not just your cut of the profit.

Texas is known for having some of the worst gross receipts taxes. Michigan GRT and BRT as well as the Ohio CAT are horrible. So beware of those pitfalls.

But, again I think you should definitely head RDLs advice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems likely to be a common situtation so I'll keep it out in the open for other people to read.

I'm based in New Zealand and do my accounts here. I rent virtual machines in the US which run websites etc. NZ and US have some kind of dual tax agreement.

What do I need to know about US tax?

Thanks for the offer and any advice given!

<comment><USER8> Just having servers in the US does not mean you're doing business in the US. What is important is where your nexus of operations is or if you have actual staff working in what could be considered a branch in the US.

In the early days of the internet, several US citizens setup servers in offshore jurisdictions and bragged about it. The IRS quickly established that server location does not affect nexus and the offshore server owners ended up having to pay US taxes.

This all expects you are not registered as a company in the US. In theory if you have a US LLC with no real operations except outsourced hosting in the US, there would be no US tax liability either as LLC are pass through entities. A c-corp is not passthrough and you would probably be taxable in the US. Any dividends and capital gains would be under double taxation.

I am not a lawyer, accountant or anything. I just know a lot of people who do these kinds of things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nexus is a state and local tax concept. Nexus is defined as the "minimum connection necessary for a state to tax a taxpayer." Generally, there are three factors that lead to nexus (there are more but i'll give you the basics.)

If you have employees in a state then you have nexus (this may include contractors as well). If you have ANY type of property or rental in the state then you have nexus. If you have significant economic connection to a state then you have nexus (notice this is a very subjective and BROAD concept.)

Having servers in a foreign country isnt really important because YOU the owner = nexus to the state that you're living in. So, your state has the right to tax you.

The IRS doesn't care about your nexus because they dont have that rule. The IRS is the shit because they dont deal with silly questions of "the relation to income earned and the US." Their rule is simple, "All income you earn is taxable period unless we say it isn't"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi Camz... first of all thanks for all the posts here. Learning a lot.

I know someone who got offered employment (via internship) with KPMG before they graduated (ie. they've not yet started). Do you have any advice for a new employee who is interested in startups?

Or more generally I suppose, do you have any career advice for someone specifically interested in accounting and technical startups?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Catshirt, sorry for the slow reply but I lecture and that takes a lot of time haha.

Im sorry to tell you that you have a difficult road ahead of you. Public accounting is rough because you'll be abused with hours of overtime that makes you think you might as well create a startup, you be dealing with BS politics all the time, you're going to be undervalued and under paid.

I tell you this because you should know the shit storm thats coming. Knowing how rough it is will put you in perspective and help you deal with those rough days. Public accounting is meant to provide you years of experience in a short period of time. You can equate 3 years of experience to 1 year at a big 4. So the long term goal is to either become partner (which is a pretty shitty option) or to leave and get a cushy job as a manager, director, VP or CFO at a company and do nothing.

As for your own personal dreams and aspirations its going to be nonexistant your first year or two because your working, learning and trying to get a cpa.

But, like i tell everyone. If you want to do something, then stop sleeping. lol. i know it sounds like a joke but im serious. sleep vs success is a choice you're going to have to make in the accountant/law field.

I hope that Ive been helpful haha. and sorry for being a debby downer but the uninitiated need to know the truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to hear your opinion on the tax implications of selling an ecommerce website. In my case, it was a website that sold a single digital product. I sold the website code, the product code/copyright, the customer database and mailing list, advertising copy and 60 days of support for a single price. I operated this website for over a year before selling it. I am in PA, USA and the buyer is in Australia, and we did not break down what part of the purchase price corresponded with any individual element of the sale.

I talked to several accountants and 3/4 said I can claim it as a long term capital gain. 1/4 was unsure since part of the value is the software copyright. Am I safe to claim this as a LTCG at 15%?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm.. thats a complicated set of facts. I hope that the sale was done through a stock buyout instead of a sale of assets.

When you sell a company there are two major methods. A complete sale of assets (which it sounds like you did) and a sale of stock (which is preferrable).

the sale of stock would guaranty you long term capital gains.

I'd say that you should be taking a capital gain on everything generally

But, intangibles like copyright are funny. The creator can sell the copyright and sell it, but when you sell it theres a problem. How do you determine the basis of the copyright. Generally, companies buy copyrights and etc so its easy for them to have an adjusted basis or cost for them to calculate. But, you developed and created the copyright so your basis is probably going to be pretty small and the gain is going to be HUGE. You can say that you're hours spent is an increase in basis. Same rules apply to songwriters and etc.

You can sell the IP, but the gain is going to be significant.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback! I don't mind claiming the amount of the sale as a taxable gain, the only bad scenario would be having to claim all or most of it as ordinary income. This was just one website of many I operated under an LLC, so I didn't sell the whole company, just some specific assets. It was done on Flippa, the eBay of website selling, with a sale price of $90k.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd highly suggest that you separate your websites into different llcs because of a variety of reasons. Firstly, liability is rarely a serious issue in tech but it's always better to be safe than sorry right?

Secondly, by separating the assets you can make sure that upon a sale, the exit would go much easier and smoother generally. Making a purchase of stock is generally easier than buying individual assets. Also, you won't need to allocate the price of the sale to all of the assets based upon the fmv of the assets. Basically, it'll also save you money on legal and accounting fees.

Thirdly, selling through a llc or legal entity In general is great because it also leaves room for tax planning strategies. Ex, if sell based on assets you'd have to pay tax on the sale of personal property. Most propel don't even know that there's a tax on personal property or what personal property is. But, a sale through stock generally helps you avoid this type of exp. Learned this dandy trick in my stint in m&a.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Simple questions that are suddenly (more) important because we have just become cash flow positive and now have non-trivial revenues.

1) Do we need to charge sales tax on software as a service? Our customers are large organizations spread all over the country. Whatever research I did suggests that as a service, this should not entail sales tax.

2) Other than payroll taxes, income taxes and 1099s for contractors, are there any other taxes I should be aware of?

3) So far our accounting has been me noting expenses and revenues in a spreadsheet and making sure I have all the receipts. Do we need to start maintaining formal accounts per law? (Even if not, I have already retained a part time accountant to do this..)

Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome question!

Sales tax is a crazy world for software developers because there's a shitload of exceptions and rules. I'll tell you the general rule though.

Software is taxable IF

(1) it is a retail "off-the-shelf" program. A retail "off the shelf" program is anything that you created to be sold without further customization. So any standard program your selling copies of would be required to pay sales tax.

But, if you customized the software then it could be exempt from sales tax. because then it would be considered exempt under the professional services exception.

This is a very complicated area of sales tax because its new. I actually have a 50 state matrix somewhere that gives detailed instructions on every state that i prepared for a client. Its a fortune 500 company so i cant say its name but if youve ever done ANY financial or legal research, then you're using their name. I'll probably post it up later on as a separate HN post.

2\. Well for payroll, its a complicated area because you have federal, state and city withhold taxes, plus FICA, Medicare, FUTA (Unemployment) and others so u want to make sure that this is done correctly. Trust taxes are payroll taxes and if u F-BOMB this up, then you are PERSONALLY liable. It is one of those taxes that if u screw up, the IRS is going to literally levy you bank account.

Also, if your in NYC. We have a bunch of special taxes =D. For example, you get to pay taxes on your rent. the CRT or Commerical Rent Tax is a tax that people in manhattan have to pay if they pay more than 250k in rent LOLL. So, it really depends where you're located and how your business is being run. You should email me privately to discuss this further if you really care too.

3\. Well, if u hired an accountant then they should know what they're doing. (Assuming they're qualified). But, YES u need to keep records of everything. I suggest you scan everything because it makes life easier. But, honestly it doesnt matter how you're keeping track as long as you ARE keeping track. Obviously, there are better ways to do it but thats for another discussion.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the detailed answer. We do customize it for each customer (almost a requirement of "enterprise" software), but we have hedged our bets by making it very easy to customize.

We have our bank do our payroll and pay them for it, but I will have the new accountant take a special look at these. We are not in NYC! Love NYC but thank $deity, the rent is insane and it's SO COLD.

Scanning the receipts makes a lot more sense, but it is (was) just easier to throw them in a shoe box :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Quick note, if you are selling a standard software program and then tailoring it to an enterprise user, then you'd still be paying sales tax on the "standard" portion of the code. The customized portion COULD be non-taxable but it would have to be a substantial change and not something minor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also, you should put more information about who you are and where you are located on your website. There is zero real contact info.

Customer references are also helpful in services businesses like yours.

<comment><USER11> ask hn: review my law firm

<comment><USER12> Seems fair: Law advice for business critique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks camz!

I am at the very earliest stage of starting an ad network and will be taking money from advertisers and redistributing to publishers (after I take my cut). What are the tax implications here?

If I take a 30% cut and distribute the other 70%, how do I show the gov't that the 30% is the actual profit and the other 70% is not mine?

What other tax pitfalls can you see?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no real reason for you to stress about this point because if your taking in 100% of the ad revenue and then remitting 70% of it to your publishers then you're only keep 30% as gross profit.

Ex: Ad Rev/Sales = $100 Cost of Sales= $70 Gross Profit = $30

So, the IRS is only going to see that you earned the 30% either way. The only real important issue you may want to consider is whether you want your gross sales to be so high. Have a large amount of gross sales could exclude you from a number of small-business tax saving options such as the S-Corp election and it would make you have to file much more complicated tax returns. If you have a large amount of sales (millions) then you'd have to file reconciling schedules between accrual accounting per your books and records to your tax records.

Honestly, there's an unlimited number of possible problems when you start making lots of money. Mo money, mo problems. But, lets worry about making that first buck and take it step by step.

Conclusion, dont worry about it until you get there because you're fine so far.

<comment><USER13> Great, but "problems of success" aside, here's another question which is probably more an international law question but, here goes...

Out of the gate, I am seeing folks from all over the world signup for my ad network (mainly, US, India, Singapore), and it has me scratching my head. I don't know how to deal with these customers should they ever convert on a sale.

Does this affect the way I will pay taxes on the revenue?

Are there countries I should absolutely NEVER try to send money to (for example, if the country is under embargo)? If for some reason, I can't pay folks from those places, what becomes of the tax burden? Is the tax liability for 100% of it on me, or can the money sit forever on hold without being taxed (presumably until the embargo is lifted)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well income tax wise you'd have to pay taxes on the income regardless of where it's coming from. If there is a country that is under embargo (which I don't know haha) then you're keeping all of the income. Thus, you would have to pay tax on the full amount because you never remitted the portion of the sale that was supposed to be your cost.

If you pay it out later on, then you could take a deduction for it later. This is a common issue that people deal with. It's essentially cost of goods sold. It'll become part of your COGS once you pay it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One other question: As a foreign company with a bank account in the United States (but no operations, although our websites are hosted by an external company there), is there anything we should be cognizant of? (special US tax forms or similar we should be filling out, etc...)

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont think so, you should be fine since you're earning the income from a foreign country such as canada. You should be fine since you dont really have a connection to this country besides your customers.

But, some states might be aggressive and say that your bank account is "property" that is being held in the state and try taxing you lol. Its funny because states will try this on occasion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What are the tax implications if a US corporation grants stock (or options) to a non-resident alien? (Assume that said alien is not doing any work in the US and would not otherwise make any filings with the IRS.)

<comment><AUTHOR> A US nonresident alien has special rules because your not a citizen. But, generally a nonresident alien is not required to pay social security on income in the US if it is related to a foreign nonresident students studies. But if it's a general part time job or something then you'd have to pay like everyone else.

Also, you are not taxed on your worldwide income because you'd only be paying tax on your US income. Thus, you'd only be taxed on income earned in the united states.

conclusion: options are not taxable if ur an employee because they'd probably be qualified. Stock grants probably would be taxable since ur getting gross income in the form of stock or equity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are a foreign company (Canadian, federally-incorporated), what kind of actions can you take to make it as easy as possible for a US company to acquire you (from their accounting perspective) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Canada generally uses GAAP like the US so theres no problem there. Also, accounting isnt going to be a serious issue when a company wants to buy you. This is more like an afterthought. If the buyer gets a tax benefit then thats icing on the cake but the accounting wont make a big difference unless they see that your books and records are complete shit and totally messed up. Then the buyer might get scared and think you're cooking the books. But, thats the only situation i can think of that would make a big deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I go to a coffee shop to do a bit of work on the WiFi, is it legit to buy the requisite coffee or two on my company card and treat it as a business expense?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's honestly more of a semantics question. The IRS doesn't appreciate it but, they're not going to kill you for it. Whatever you spend on coffee is only going to be 50% deductible under meals and entertainment, so don't worry about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Any thoughts on buying my founder shares and cofounders and early team stock via a rollover as business startup (robs), ideally from a Roth?

And or thoughts on same using small business jobs act of 2010.

Goal is capital gains and amt minimization for scenarios from 10mm exit at 18mo to ipo and billions in 10 years, just to cover possibilities.

The irony is I'd probably donate 90 percent after a certain amount.

<comment><AUTHOR> In this situation you're essentially trying to increase your adjusted basis in the property so that you'd pay less taxes on capital gains and alternative minimum tax.

Honestly, I can't think of an answer that would solve this problem off the top of my head right away in the 3mins afters reading your question and here's why:

Regardless of how you transfer these assets, they're going to be transferred based upon your current tax basis and your still going to be paying cap gains every sale.

Ex. You sell for. $100 Basis is for. $50 gain is for. $50

Later through a series of transfers, you regain your shares at the FMV. New basis is. $100 but you already paid the cap gains tax at every junction so the whole series of transactions was pointless.

But, I'm sure there has to be a way to get around it and I just haven't thought of it yet lol. Give me a few hours and I might be able to string together a plan. I'm going to think this over and see if there's a way over the day.

<comment><USER2> I do not understand your thinking here.

If it's a ROBS, and you invest using already-taxed Roth IRA/401k funds as a rollover into a Roth 401k, you actually don't care about the basis. You just want to characterize it as capital appreciation on an asset acquired in the Roth.

My understanding is ROBS, aside from being hated by the IRS if they step even slightly out of compliance with 401k regulations, are basically close to magic. $50k to set it up, invest $50k in a company to give it $50k capitalization, and sell the company later for $10b; zero tax owed.

With the SBJA2010, you have a similar deal; as long as the capital gain is due to the sale of a qualifying asset, you owe no capital gains, and it doesn't fuck you for AMT either.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to have to say that I'm not familiar with ROBs, since I never came across it. But, its definitely peaked my interest. From the preliminary reading I've done on it, it's a very aggressive tax planning vehicle and highly despised by the IRS. Which means it probably is as amazing as you say it is.

Allow me some time to read up on the case law in regards to this topic and I'll email you directly if you don't mind. This is something that would definitely be more than a 30 second answer and I'd definitely be interest in discussing it merits and shortcomings with you. Thank you for bringing it to my attention! No matter how many years I deal with taxes there's definitely going to be a lot that I need to learn lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hi Camz, I'm a non-resident alien under a student visa and own a C-Corp in Illinois. I sell software as a service and would like to know if there is anything special tax-wise I should take care of being a non-resident alien. Also, any general strategies on how to minimize my tax exposure as a non- resident alien?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey eduardo,

We'll first, I would suggest you be very careful when you graduate and attempt to get a job in the US. Once, you get an H1 visa, its illegal for you to work for anyone other than the company that applied for your H1

As for non-resident aliens. There's pretty much nothing but bad news there because you dont get a standard deduction unless your Indian. The only benefit is if you're working for a company that is related to your education, then you dont need to pay social security tax.

Other than that, I cant really think of much else you have to watch out for off the top of me head generally.

<comment><USER17> Thanks! I have graduated already (almost a year ago) and so far so good working for my own company. We'll see when tax time comes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How do you expense website acquisitions? Five-figure range...my current accountant is doing them as goodwill over 30 years. Seems nutty to me! I'd love to expense them as quickly as possible, but only within the law.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds a bit awkward because goodwill is an intangible that should amortized over 15 years. I'm going to start showing legal statutes:

"General rule. A taxpayer shall be entitled to an amortization deduction with respect to any amortizable section 197 intangible. The amount of such deduction shall be determined by amortizing the adjusted basis (for purposes of determining gain) of such intangible ratably over the 15-year period beginning with the month in which such intangible was acquired. "

All intangibles are amortized over a 15 year life. Also, Section 179 is a deduction that lets you take up to 250k of depreciation in your first year as long as you meet the rules and dont hit over the phase out beginning at 850k i think of assets.

BUT, I must remind you that I could be missing something because I dont know your EXACT tax situation. I'd have to discuss your facts in detail to be absolutely sure.

But, again the general rule is 15 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I feel like many people avoid getting a tax accountant, because they think it's going to cost an arm and a leg.

So what are the rates usually like? i.e. monthly/yearly service

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, the cost varies because the quality of the accountant varies. Also, when you hire a "CPA" most of the time people dont think to ask the CPA what their background is. CPAs are broken into three types of people. There are tax guys, auditors, and advisory guys. If you're dealing with a guy that was an auditor or in advisory, then you're hiring the wrong guy because he doesnt know his ass from his nose.

This is BY FAR the most common mistake when people hire accountants because they dont understand the industry.

If you're hiring a "big 4" firm like pwc, kpmg, deloitte or e&y then their standard hourly rate is 375 per hour for a 1st year associate (fresh college grad). But, they never get to charge the full standard rate, so the real rate is probably closer to $250 per hour or (70% to 50% of the standard rate.) Senior Associates have two years experience cost $450, Mgrs and Sr. Mgrs cost about 600 and Partners cost about 800 to 900 per hour. All amounts are standard rates multiply the rate by 50% or 70% to know the effective rates.

For smaller size accounting firms, the price also varies because the accountant is going to charge based upon their experience and how they perceive their value.

I won't lie, I charge high rates because I think that I provide more value than your average tax accountant. A quick story on how I started my firm:

I charged 20 bucks per return during the first month I opened my firm because I was TERRIFIED and DESPERATE for clients. I got a few because I was so god damn cheap, but I was killing myself for literally NO MONEY. Obviously, this wasn't the way to do things. I very quickly learned a few things.

(1) Don't cheat yourself and charge ridiculously low prices because you dont get more clients. People question your skill and lack respect for you because you're so cheap. Charging will definitely lend credibility.

(2) You need to take a lot of time to ascertain how much the market is willing to pay for your services. In my case, I really didnt know how to quantify this so I just started raising my rates.

The second month I opened my firm, I raised my rates to 150-200 dollars per return. This was better but still not worth the time. This price point actually led to MORE clients and MORE sales.

Lastly, the 3rd month I basically started to just play games and REALLY push the envelope. I wanted to know what the market would accept for my services so i began to quote $3000 starting price for my services to test the waters. LOL. Again, my business didn't slow down at all. By now referrals were coming in left and right to the point where I actually had to SHUT DOWN my website so that I would stop getting calls.

Recap: $20 to $150 to $3,000 haha.

I generally dont charge hourly because people like certainty, I won't rehash this discussion because this point has been beaten to death by coders discussing how they handle consulting jobs. But, I'd say my hourly rate varies depending on the project. The lowest I'd accept generally would probably be around $75 dollars an hour? If it was for someone I liked or for a good cause I've been known to drop the price significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What state are you in?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in new york city and that's where I currently practice. I'm working on a nonprofit 501c3 startup/webtool for education from 1am to 3am. Its nothing as interesting as the stuff you guys do, but I like technology and really want to do something that helps people not follow the same roundabout path through life that wastes time.</comment></comment>


Video: Trevor Blackwell's Robot At Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZR1Rrz_-nic <comment><USER2> Very cool; however, for those unaware, it may appear more impressive than it is...

From what I can see, it is essentially a teleoperated hand/arm mounted on a (tethered, top AND bottom!) Segway-like base. The latter is a well-publicized Trevor Blackwell hack from several years ago. Watch for Trevor from about the 2 minute mark onwards, standing in the background and wearing a blue shirt. He is in front of a massive control panel, operating the robot's hand with an instrumented (haptic?) glove.

To be fair, this is still an impressive piece of engineering. Undoubtedly, it will serve as an important platform for future development efforts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Paul--any chance we can see Dexter at Startup School?

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought this video looked vaguely familiar, and then I noticed myself standing in the peanut gallery.</comment>


1% of English residents take one-fifth of overseas flights - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/25/1-of-english-residents-take-one-fifth-of-overseas-flights-survey-shows <comment><USER2> Almost certainly these are mostly business travellers. Increasing the cost would probably deter them from allowing travel where it's not really necessary.

I probably flew twice a year for 8 years and then started a job where I needed to attend events abroad, and flew something like 40 times in 3 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> This kind of thinking is absolute sheer evil and nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER4> I fail to understand how this kind of grandstanding is productive to modern society or environmental efforts?</comment>


Systems Programming in C# by Joe Duffy - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/06/systems-programming-qcon <comment><USER2> It always seems like a loss to me Joe's blogs read he's still selling the Midori C# OS to some extent, and either sees no real downsides to it or doesn't want to talk about them. Like, on the page introducing the series, he says his biggest regret is it wasn't out there so "the meritocracy of the Internet could judge its pieces appropriately," as if perhaps the big problem was just misjudgment in a non-meritocracy. (And, hey, the Internet's judgment sure has its warts too.)

It's fine to try to salvage good ideas from a project that failed at its initial goals (and MS seems to have!), or even to hold on to thinking the basic ideas were good even though the implementation failed. But if he could just be candid about what _wasn 't_ right, he could spread those expensive insights you get by actually building a thing, and show a real ability to learn from failures. Who wants a postmortem that doesn't discuss what went wrong? How useful is it to talk architecture if you aren't clear about downsides and tradeoffs?

Concretely: What did the decision-makers who finally canned Midori dislike? What were the performance bottlenecks (and numbers) after all their tuning? Had they given up too much safety by the time they had it performing well? Was it a compatibility thing, and if so what are his thoughts on an approach to that? Was it just going to take too much investment to finish? I think a little candor about the limitations, downsides, and hard-to-swallow parts of Midori could advance the thinking about its basic ideas much more than a lot of posts about implementation tricks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking at the history of similar fate in other safe stacks, the political reasons or desire to cut research money are higher on the list than technical issues.

Everyone that was able to use Oberon or the Xerox stacks knows that it is possible to have such systems and do productive work on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The first couple of comments are missing the point about this. Joe actually built a real operating system with a variation of C#. Some of the lessons they learned will be informing the next version of C#.

Mads has said that the changes that are coming are for apps like games that need more low level features.

No one is saying that a previous version, the current version, or even the next version of C# will be used to write an OS.

That being said, I really wish they had open sourced midori so that work was available to build on. I know that a lot of you think that only C should be used for OS development. (With the exception of a few of you that think Rust is magic.) They actually built a real operating system with managed code. It's basis in singularity included really novel ideas about where process boundaries should be drawn and how an OS should be composed. It's a shame that it isn't available. Not everyone wants to use or work on a UNIX clone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those ideas weren't novel in Singularity, just C's revisionism makes sure not everyone delves into the history of system programming languages.

Check Burroughs developed in 1961.

[http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burr...](http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burroughs%20B-5000.htm)

Or read about the Mesa/Cedar Workstation at Xerox PARC:

[https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox](https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox)

If you want to read about a OS written in a fully memory safe language, including the source code, check Niklaus Wirth books:

[http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/books.html](http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/books.html)

Specially Project Oberon. The 2013 re-edition has an updated hardware design for an FPGA.

[http://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/index.html](http://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/index.html)

This is how it used to look like in its latest incarnations as BlueBottle written in Active Oberon:

[http://www.progtools.org/article.php?name=oberon&section=com...](http://www.progtools.org/article.php?name=oberon&section=compilers&type=tutorial)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work on a project that does a lot of systems programming in C#. It's awful. Myself and several coworkers every now and then ask, "why wasn't this done in C or C++ in the first place?" So much jumping through hoops avoiding the GC kicking in, or the GC moving memory around, doing P/Invokes, translating things between managed and native, and so on... It's not fun at all.

<comment><USER5> Yup, same experience for us. We went back and forth between workstation and server mode gc. If you have a process that maintains things like leases/heartbeats in a low latency setting, C# doesn't seem like a good idea. Wonder how well Go works in this scenario considering it was purpose built for this.

<comment><USER6> Why Go, it has GC, too. I'd look at Rust.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because it is the spiritual successor of Oberon.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_\(operating_system\))

[http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Language](http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Language)

<comment><USER6> Oberon the OS was cool, but Oberon the language is sort of too 1990s. (But I'd definitely take Modula-2 for low-level stuff instead of C any day, as I did in early 1990s.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, hence why after my initial interest in Go I eventually switched focus to other languages.

However, it doesn't change the fact that it allows for lots of low level stuff in the similar vein as Oberon, which is why I happen to take Go's side, even if I rather use other more expressive programming languages.

And to be faire, Niklaus Wirth latest language changes (Oberon-07) are even more minimalist than Go's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting! No matter what the original intent was with Midory, writing an OS in C# and gain insights into what is wrong in C# Performance-wise is great. All of these findings can have impact on every C# program out there: a web server isn't considered "Systems programming", but it's not going to say NO to performance improvements

In the slides posted by pjmlp[0], I found one slide particularly interesting: Slide 38 about Contracts:

       Contract.Requires(buffer != null);
       Contract.Requires(
         Range.IsValid(index, count, buffer.Length)
       );

or the Debug variant of it :

      Contract.Debug.Requires/Assert/Fail

It reminds me of the Dafny programming language[1], but here this seems to be used for performance. The future C# AoT compiler could be validating those Contracts, and from these Contracts enables more aggressive optimizations

The slide about PackN (and future "Safe" stackallock) is also great, it seems like the easiest optimization someone can apply to its current code.:

      int[] array = new int[8] { 0, ..., 7 };
      // Heap allocation!  For short-lived arrays, this is bad!

Versus the proposed "Safe":

      Span<int> span = stackalloc int[8] { 0, ..., 7 };

[0] [https://qconnewyork.com/system/files/presentation- slides/csy...](https://qconnewyork.com/system/files/presentation- slides/csysprog-qcon-june2016.pdf)

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/dafny/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/dafny/)

<comment><USER8> >writing an OS in C# and gain insights into what is wrong in C# Performance- wise is great

In some ways, yes, but was C# ever intended to be a systems language? No, and that's obvious from its design. So, what is this _really_ telling us? That the language has issues when used in a way it was never intended to be used?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the 90's C programmers used to state that C++ wasn't a systems programming language, now their main FOSS compilers are written in C++.

<comment><USER9> On top of that, even some L4 microkernels are written in C++. So, efficient that they fit into a L1 cache as they run ulta-fast. I keep trying to get people to _not_ use C++ for these but funny it's almost a trend now.

<comment><USER10> > I keep trying to get people to not use C++ for these but funny it's almost a > trend now.

I can understand why L4 choose C++ at the time, as it had stricter checking than C, but OS kernels have very little internal code reuse that necessitates inheritance or templates. This is doubly true of microkernels. There is literally no reason to use C++ in this domain. Ada or C, and soon Rust should be the only considerations IMO.

<comment><USER9> Total agreement. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Slides are available at [https://qconnewyork.com/system/files/presentation- slides/csy...](https://qconnewyork.com/system/files/presentation- slides/csysprog-qcon-june2016.pdf).

Usually the videos take some time to appear at InfoQ.

<comment><USER11> The slides link to [https://github.com/joeduffy/csysprog](https://github.com/joeduffy/csysprog), but this has been deleted. Does anyone have a copy or fork? Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just tried it now and the link is working.

<comment><USER11> Are you somehow logged in? I only see the github 404 for that link!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry I misunderstood you, I was thinking about the PDF link.

You are right about the github one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's frustrating to see that people advocate to use programming languages in the areas where they don't belong just because those languages are convenient, have nice syntax, popular, etc. Go for example started that way but ultimately went to the niche of writing networking services where it shines. It's weird that languages with unpredictable runtime characteristics such as Java and C# are being advertised as systems programming languages.

<comment><USER13> You realize that Go also is GCed right?

<comment><USER12> Yes, and I never said that Go is a systems language. I said Go has found a niche of networking services. This doesn't make it a systems language.

<comment><AUTHOR> It makes it, because it has all the same language features as Oberon has.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_\(operating_system\))

[http://wiki.osdev.org/Go_Bare_Bones](http://wiki.osdev.org/Go_Bare_Bones)

If I am able to write an OS using just the language, with the help of some Assembly, or bootstrap the language and runtime, it is a systems language.

Many of the criteria people use to judge systems languages like inline assembly, would disqualify C when applied to a pure ANSI C compliant compiler without language extensions.

<comment><USER12> The primary criteria where a system language should be judged is the control over the underlying machine code execution. With GC languages you don't have any - the GC will kick in unpredictably. It may not be an issue for UI (although everyone hates when UI stumbles), but for system code like OS, DBMS, etc. it's simply not acceptable. Languages like C and Rust offer this level of control - you simply know exactly what your code is doing at any given time. With JVM, .NET, Go - you don't.

<comment><AUTHOR> And yet Xerox PARC, UK Royal Navy, DEC all managed to write operating systems in GC enabled systems programming languages, some of them quite productive Workstation OSes.

You don't want the GC to mess with your lovely data structure?

Allocate on the stack, as a global static or let the GC know not to touch it.

Check Algol-68RS, Mesa/Cedar, Modula-2+, Modula-3, Oberon, Oberon-2, Active Oberon, Oberon-07.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mac Text Editors and Navigation - <AUTHOR> http://inessential.com/2011/11/27/mac_text_editors_and_navigation <comment><USER2> On the Mac, I no longer think about this level of workflow optimization because there's a much bigger negative that make these irrelevant: the Mac's Alt-Tab behavior.

The most basic web page development exercise - 1 browser window and 2 editor windows for html and css - is ruined because I can no longer MRU cycle the 3 windows.

I would say this is one of the biggest usability mistakes on the Mac. Sadly, Unity & Gnome 3 have both copied this. Meanwhile, I don't fight the platform but use it the way it was meant to be - keyboard + mouse. But I'll be shifting back to Linux or Windows for all non Mac/iOS development.

 _Update: thanks to comments pointing me to Witch. However, I still stand by my criticism of the built-in Mac desktop behavior._

<comment><USER3> Yup this alt+tab switching behavior change is a real pain for me.I was under the impression that this is an issue only with Unity/Gnome3, now I got to know the actual place from where it all started. After seeing this change consistently across all the major UIs, I am starting to feel that this change in alt+tab behavior should have some strong reason for doing so and I am not aware of its actual purpose/use. I would be glad to know from someone on how this feature has simplified their work or improved their productivity.

<comment><USER2> I'm guessing the justification is that switching apps is consistent with the fact that the OS X Dock shows apps, not windows. Probably Unity & Gnome 3 made the alt-tab change to match their move to the Dock model?

Whatever the reason, they're wrong for us power users. And possibly for intermediate & beginners users as well.

<comment><USER4> I prefer the Mac way. I'm stuck using Windows at work, and it's annoying to have to Alt-Tab through the last five Excel (or mail or whatever) documents to get back to the editor. I much prefer to be able to go the application I want, then find the document within it that I'm looking for.

Then again, I'm not doing web development, so I'm not trying to cycle between my editor and one particular browser window.

I don't think it's a power-user vs. beginner issue; it's more of a workflow style issue.

<comment><USER2> It's not really personal preference if that's what you mean. It's about your work splits across apps & windows.

For example, chat is mostly fine. I'm either switching between multiple chat windows or mentally switching from chat to another task in which case I have no problem switching out of the whole chat app.

The same setup goes wrong when one chat window is for work, and I'm going back and forth with another non-chat work window.

<comment><USER4> No, I'm not saying it's preference. I think we agree, actually. By "workflow", I meant the way your particular work tends to split across apps and windows.

For me, it's a better default to switch entire applications than windows. There are edge cases, sure, like the chat one you mention, or different browser windows, but I'd rather just switch from Excel to IE to Outlook than have to tab through my history of open documents and browser tabs (curse you IE) to get back to my Outlook window.

It sounds like for you, it's the opposite: the better default would be to switch windows, not apps.

The question then is which is the most common pattern, but I don't know of any actual research on this. You can't generalize from personal experience, plural of anecdote and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like Sublime Text 2 meets his requirements. Goto Line is simply Ctrl-G, and up pops a simple input line, similar to hitting ":" in vim.

As an added bonus, the input line disappears if you press Ctrl-G again, hit <esc>, or press enter without entering anything. So, fast and easy to get into, fast and easy to get out of.

</comment><comment><USER6> Another thing that drives me crazy on Mac text editors: selecting something and hitting Cmd-F won't use the selected text for the search. (at least on Xcode, Sublime Text, and Google Chrome).

So I have to constantly do the sequence: swear out loud - press escape - Cmd-C - Cmd-F again - Cmd-V.

That's just dumb.

<comment><USER7> Most Mac OS X apps (including the ones in your list) allow you to press Cmd-E - Cmd-F to search for the currently highlighted word. Even better: once you have pressed Cmd-E you can hit Cmd-G to cycle through the results.

With all due respect, what is just dumb is not reading the manual of the powertools you use every day and blaming them for your lazyness.

<comment><USER8> But I think they had a valid point.

Cmd-F searching for the highlighted text involves one key-press. What you describe requires two key-presses.

The former is quicker and easier, and I think that makes it preferable.

Pretty much everything to do with computers, from Operating System features, to program and UI features, are ultimately about making it quicker and easier to perform tasks.

Wanting more convenience is not laziness. The goal of computer systems should be to provide more convenience.

<comment><USER7> I agree that _one of_ the goals of software is to make performing common tasks quicker and easier.

However, binding two different actions to one trigger is pushing the logic too far.

It could happen that I have some text selected and I want to search for something within that text, or that I've selected something by mistake and I want to search something else… In that kind of situation having the search field populated by the content of the selection by default would obviously lead to a less than ideal experience.

I believe the people behind these choices actually ran extensive usability tests and decided to compromise on what they found to be the most common use case: poping a search window and inputing the search term.

I agree this system is maybe a little dumb but I think that is what makes it robust and dependable. Which is in my opinion the single more important attribute of any system.

I don't think the parent wanting more convenience is lazy. But I think that not reading the manual and complaining about the absence of an obviously present feature is proof of lazyness. That's very different and so very common. And I wasn't mocking him, just improvising a pun based on his last line.

<comment><USER6> >I don't think the parent wanting more convenience is lazy. But I think that not reading the manual and complaining about the absence of an obviously present feature is proof of lazyness.

Parent commenter here. Some points:

1\. Just because it's buried in a submenu doesn't make it obviously present.

2\. When a user notices that something doesn't behave as it's expected, he/she won't think: "oh, let's look in the manual, maybe there's some way to do this". He'll just think the software is broken.

3\. Another very true example of this is cut and paste of files. For years you could not cut and paste a file on Mac like in any other OS. Lion adds this, but instead of the simple and obvious Cmd-X, Cmd-V, you have to do Cmd-C, Cmd- Option-V.

When a user tries Cmd-X to move a file and discover it doesn't work, you can say he's lazy for not looking up in the manual. Or you can agree that some things are just badly designed, period. And I believe Cmd-F to search for selected text falls in that category too, despite of you arguing it's more robust.

And no, they don't always run "extensive usability tests". It's not because it's Apple that they get _everything_ right. They're humans, too.

I answered curtly to you calling me lazy, but I think now you're a bit biased here.

<comment><USER7> 1\. Yes, it makes it obviously present. Menus are the primary way (besides the manual) to explore a Mac app.

2\. How did you create such an expectation? Searching the selected text on Cmd-F is not and has never been the default behaviour on Mac. Cmd-F not working as expected would be "the textfield is already populated by some random text and I have to delete it to input the text I want to search for".

You simply hit a well defined and stable and robust shortcut expecting it to do something different than what it has been designed for. Of course you are wrong.

When I moved to Mac OS X (leopard, I took my time) from Mac OS 9 I fell in love with Cmd-H but it didn't work in Photoshop where it was bound to something related but different. My mind was conflicted between my long time hardwired photoshop shortcuts and the new ones I used intensively.

Who sucked more? Adobe for not following the OS's guidelines and default or Apple for hijacking shortcuts used for years by their most loyal customers?

3\. Totally agree, it's extremely stupid.

I do agree that some things are badly designed (coverflow, your cut & paste example, window/app switching…). I don't agree that Cmd-F is badly designed.

I'm not at all an Apple-lover (no iPod/iPad/iPhone - my dumbphone is great, thanks - Ubuntu at home since 1 year after 14 or 15 years of Mac OS and Mac OS X). Not everything they do is right, obviously. But they have to make compromises for their software to work well.

Cmd-F is an example of such a compromise where they make the feature good enough for most but too dumb for some while providing an easy alternative.

The Cut & pate fiasco is another example where they completely fuck up their belated attempt at adding a feature wanted by all the Windows switchers they managed to bring in.

Also I'm extremely sorry for calling you lazy. I was writing my reply and didn't notice the implications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been noticing a lot of talk about BBEdit lately and am having a hard time finding what features might set it apart from apps like Textmate or VIM. Are there any features that aren't in other editors that I'm just missing? Two of my coworkers use it and I haven't been able to witness anything in particular, but with a line in the article like "I'm a big BBEdit fan" there has to be something I am missing, right?

<comment><USER10> As a long time BBEdit user, a lot of it has to do with the vast spread of features that cover just about everyone's needs. As a vim pre-novice, I think that part of BBEdit's appeal is that the features you may not use often enough to remember a command for are just a little mouse-hunting away. Having used Textmate a couple of time and the somewhat similar e.exe for Windows a lot, the appeal of BBEdit is that features are integrated into the application instead of loosely coupled in bundles that may or may not work well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does Mail make it into a comparison of text editors!?

<comment><USER12> Why not? It's the only proper text editor that lets someone else see what you're writing with the click of a single button.

<comment><USER13> Although you make an interesting point, I'm really having a hard time thinking of where a "Go to line.." command comes in handy in Mail though.

E-mail is so often reformatted, munged and quoted that depending on line numbers being the same on the sender's side seems foolish.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your cursor is at line 200. You read through your email and want to make a change in a certain paragraph. That happens to be at line 180. So you "Go to..." 180.

<comment><USER13> Interesting.. I've never used "Go to line" in that way, probably because my text editor never has line numbers showing. For me it is always to jump to the point of an exception or somesuch.. maybe I'll try it for a while.

PS. I use Emacs for virtually everything so C-N, C-P and M-N, M-P get used for that kind of navigation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use MacVim. When you want to edit or add some code, isn't it more common to want to do it at a particular spot rather than reacting to a exception/warning?

That's how I do it anyway. The only reasons I can come up with off the top of my head to do otherwise is if someone is doing heavy TDD or banging code into a Smalltalk debugger instead of a browser.

How do you do it? (Genuine question. I almost always code by myself and have never been around anyone while they are productively working with an editor.)

<comment><USER13> I've actually never met a developer that navigates a file using line numbers. Maybe it is the norm but I haven't seen it having worked with a few dozen developers over the years.

Getting quick at line up/line down (C-N, C-P) and page up/page down (M-P, M-V in Emacs) seems to be a more common way of navigation. (C-S for quick search in Emacs being the other)

I use "Go-to-line" almost exclusively to jump to the line where a stack trace is telling me there's an error. (TDD or not, stack traces are a way of life)

<comment><USER14> > I've actually never met a developer that navigates a file using line > numbers. Maybe it is the norm but I haven't seen it having worked with a few > dozen developers over the years.

> I use "Go-to-line" almost exclusively to jump to the line where a stack > trace is telling me there's an error.

yes that's pretty much it: use external tool to find some row (diff tells you this is where a chunk was changed, grep or ack tells you what you're looking for is there, ...), jump straight to row.

Although usually I'll open the file directly at the right line in emacs (`e +line file`[0]), goto-line is only for the IDE.

[0] where `e` is an alias for `emacsclient -n`

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> another thing the Jetbrains IDEs get right. They fail in their selection of shortcuts (Cmd-G which is "Search again" in every other Mac app) for it though, but that's easily remedied.

I totally agree with the article by the way. Selecting the line is idiotic. While programming, you never ever want it to select the whole line - in fact, I don't think I have in fact ever selected a line _at all_.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's obviously nowhere near as full-featured as vim or emacs proper when it comes to navigation, but worth noting is that OS X _does_ support a subset of the standard emacs key bindings for text navigation (Ctrl+a, Ctrl+e, etc). They even work in iOS with an external keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER17> Another far under-appreciated feature of Textmate(and emacs, probably vi as well) is incremental search. Ctrl-s and start typing what you are looking for, if you want to find the next item hit Ctrl-s again. I use this whenever I'm traveling more than 5-6 lines in either direction.</comment>


Google Correlate will shut down on December 15th 2019 as a result of low usage - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/trends/correlate <comment><USER2> Was this even advertised anywhere? I didn't even know it existed.</comment>


Planning Is Just Guessing. But With More Pie Charts and Stuff. - <AUTHOR> http://davidduchemin.com/2013/01/planning-and-guessing/

<comment><USER2> I don't agree...

Planning is only guessing if you don't use it to think through decisions ahead of time. You can also use it to test assumptions and make plans based on the outcomes.</comment>


Running a freemium web app? Here's a big reason we're growing. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2009/11/04/running-a-freemium-web-app-heres-a-big-reason-were-growing <comment><USER2> Interesting that Scout isn't actually a freemium app by a strict definition though.

At least, I can't see any free plans, only a 30-day trial.

I'm also intrigued by the difference in subscriber rates between freemium webapps and freemium webgames.

[http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/successful-mmogs-can- se...](http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/successful-mmogs-can-see-1-2-in- monthly-arpu/)

The numbers from there vary from about 5% to 15%.

What can freemium webapps learn from freemium games?

<comment><USER3> >What can freemium webapps learn from freemium games?

Games have some advantages that can be hard for apps to replicate; games are, in general, more social than typical applications. Games are also somewhat more enviable. When I was 11, a few friends and I played RuneScape (remember runescape?). After one of us got a paid membership, everyone else suddenly got _way more interested_ in having a paid RuneScape membership. That is to say, if one person gets a paid membership to a multiplayer online game, other people in their social circle will probably be more likely to subscribe as well.

Taking advantage of this with a webapp would require that you provide something that someone either finds worthwhile showing off or something conspicuous enough that they don't have to. The second condition applied for Apple's iPod in the early part of the decade. It'd also probably be a good idea to offer benefits to _groups_ of paid members as well as to individual paid members.

<comment><USER4> I remember RuneScape, from ads in old Dragon magazines. But I always thought it was a pen and paper game. Was it originally a P&P before going online, or were the ads simply unclear?

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure it was always an online game played through a Java applet. It's had a few incarnations, but overall it's still pretty similar to when it started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The 1% paid signup rate, like the "1% of shareware downloaders pay", is largely a non-scientific myth created to convey the general impression that "Well, its low -- 1% sounds good, let's go with that".

I do about 2.45% on my trial signups these days and I'm hardly the most successful guy at conversion optimization in the world.

Note that I quote it as a percentage of trial signups. As a percentage of visitors it would be _wildly_ sensitive to whatever method you are using to draw visitors to your site. If, for example, you're an early-stage startup with no significant link equity but are experimenting with an AdWords campaign, it is likely that most visitors came to your site responding to an ad which told them a) what you offer and b) sign up for the free trial. Bam, high conversion rates. If, on the other hand, you're a fairly established business with lots of link equity and a developed SEO strategy, you're going to be attracting folks across the spectrum from highly motivated to looky-loos to some poor sap looking for ["Patrick McKenzie" geologist]. (He didn't sign up for my trial. Rats?)

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't quite understand: 1% off all his traffic, or 1% of the people who sign up for the free version?

<comment><USER7> In my experience, it is more likely to be 1% of all traffic. Usually, conversion rates are like this:

100 unique visitors => 10 free version users => 1 paid app user

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Of course, this rule is true for non-web-app businesses as well. Improvements in quality increase the likelihood that customers will come back, and returning customers usually have higher margins (due to lower sales & support costs) than new acquisitions.

<comment><USER9> Taking care of _existing customers_ increases the likelihood they will refer you to their friends, thereby generating _new customers_. Most businesses would do well to love and leverage their existing customer base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yeah this isn't freemium at all according to the pricing plans here: <http://scoutapp.com/subscriptions>

Evernote is a much better example of a freemium model.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wait a minute. You're telling me that if the number of people who stop paying me goes down, I make more money? NO F'ING WAY!

Seriously, is this worth writing about? You should clearly optimize all three relevant factors (traffic, conversion rates, and retention). 1% is not set in stone, and you need only get to 1.5% to get the same 50% increase.

<comment><USER12> The point he was getting across is that a 50% increase in signups leads to a 50% increase in revenue, whereas a 50% increase in retention is a 100% increase in revenue. That fact isn't immediately obviously unless you do the math.

<comment><USER11> But it's entirely irrelevant because it may be more than twice as hard to increase retention by 50%.</comment></comment></comment>


Social Justice, Ideological Hijackings, and Ideological Security - <AUTHOR> http://thefutureprimaeval.net/socjus-and-ideological-security/? <comment><USER2> Wikipedia is actually falling victim to this. Some articles now show noticeable bias (e.g. compare the "Men's Rights 'movement'" article to "Women's Rights"). On many pages, particularly gender related articles, there is a band of aggressive editors who will fight reasonable efforts to balance the tone of articles. Outside contributors who try to improve these pages will get dogpiled on. Unless you are an expert at wiki-lawyering, you won't survive even a couple edits before you are banned or restricted from editing. They enforce/investigate multiple accounts, VPN & proxy usage vigorously, so once you are out, you are effectively purged.

If you are ambitious and make edits similar to what others have tried (often because all of them are trying to fix the same biased statement), expect to be accused of being a "sockpuppet" or of being a "meatpuppet." If that fails, you will be accused of "tendentious editing". Of course responding to these accusations takes extraordinary amounts of time -- which is the point. These tactics are used (very successfully) to reduce people's resolve to contribute or fix biased articles.

Wikipedia's ideological hijacking is a serious problem and arguably represents the biggest threat to Wikipedia's longterm legitimacy. Those engaging in ideological hijackings have (very rightly) realized that if they can define what is written about a movement on Wikipedia, they can control what society thinks about it.

<comment><USER3> There is a real, documented, historically significant movement for women's rights --- most notably, suffrage. The same isn't true of "men's rights", and the fact that you'd make that comparison is, I think, extremely telling.

<comment><USER4> This comes across as an effort to shut down discussion via ad hominem. I'm sure that you didn't mean it as such, but "the fact that you _x_ is telling" is a pretty commonly used rhetorical tool to impugn a counterpart without actually saying anything substantive.

<comment><USER5> What it was is a short comment implying the poster of creating a false equivalence between the women's rights movement and the men's rights movement. What it seems like to you has no relation to it's content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Things I've noticed about this discussion:

* The vast majority of participants in this discussion are extremists. Both sides. No matter their claims. No matter their organizations. No matter their cause. There is rife misogyny _and_ misandry to be had. Nobody knows why they are fighting so they fight over genitalia.

* Participants on both sides are just as vile as the other. Have anti-GG been harassed? Yes. Have GG been harassed? Yes. On equal terms of severity. _There are a few sane participants but they tend to be quieter and also seem to be taking a step back from it all._

* Out of "real-life" people these thought patterns seem to be a minority - they are just making a lot of noise and drama on the internet. I've challenged people with both sides of the discussion in "real-life" and was met with disbelief.

* Social justice (anti-GG term) within the argument is not social justice. Ethics and egalitarianism (GG terms) within the argument also do not hold their true meaning.

None of these people are worth getting involved with. Just stay away from this whole discussion. It doesn't matter how liberal you are or how well- intentioned you are: someone is going to find your weakness and provoke you.

Let Reddit burn. Really. It's just a website. It doesn't matter. Whoever wins the war will simply be the rulers of an empty kingdom.

Edit: glad the post was flag-killed.

<comment><USER5> Are you complaining that the anarchists seem extreme?

This entire discussion is ahistorical. Anarchists have murdered dozens of policemen, dozens of bosses, an American president and dozens of elected officials, and _dozens of people for what they said_ all over the world. Anarchism is not about a fantasy of organizing society after the zombie apocalypse, it's a body of thought with a few hundred years of tradition. Feminism is central to that tradition.

Gamergate is some bizarre internet misogynist media panic from last year.

<comment><USER6> > Are you complaining that the anarchists seem extreme?

Not complaining about anarchists at all. I'm fairly uneducated about their beliefs but I have come to understand that they are not completely unreasonable.

> Gamergate is some bizarre internet misogynist media panic from last year.

It's this that's spilling over into every discussion that I'm talking about. The origin of the anarcha-feminists on Reddit is most likely GG backlash. There is concern on that website that anti-GG extremists are taking over and it looks like /r/anarchism is yet another subreddit in the crosshairs; it's yet another completely unrelated discussion getting dragged into this internet misogyny/misandry.

My advice to you is: if you really care about anarchism then let /r/anarchy burn. Just leave. I don't care if you go to Voat. I don't care if you start your own website. I don't care if you leave the internet. Just abandon ship and rid yourself of this argument. You can't win because your opponent is not interested in a decisive outcome: your opponent is interested in noise and harassment.

<comment><USER5> You're mistaking me for an internet anarchist. I don't know anything about reddit, or much about anarchist discussion on the internet.

There are many wonderful archives of historical anarchist thought on the internet, making sources that were really difficult or impossible to find when I was young (before the internet) available to everyone in a few keystrokes.

Gamergate is completely insignificant, but positive in that the ensuing media panic exposed people to how difficult it is to be a woman or a minority on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He mentions a subreddit dedicated to no rules slowly but surely being taken over by the same kinds of rules lawyer-ing they were trying to escape.

I am so, so glad he mentioned this, because I have seen it happen to two, mid- way three, communities online where these exact societal issues work together only up until they really start to get to know one another, at which point they realize they're at odds. Sometimes it's a clear schism, but the ones that hurt the most are those that remain but are quite clearly forever changed in the favor of one side. It's almost as if they treat it as vindication and banishing a group of people for differences in opinion is, as I said, typically the antithesis of these groups.

My guess is that every online community suffers this sort of breakdown and reinvention if it lasts for more than a few years, but that social justice and other more "modern" ideologies are just the latest and most visible / tracked step in the greater phenomenon.

The internet brought us together, we struggle with that fact every day! :)

<comment><USER8> This is worth a read. It is GG centrist, but explains quite good the cultural war that is waging right now.

[http://popehat.com/2014/10/21/gamer-gate-three-stages-to- obi...](http://popehat.com/2014/10/21/gamer-gate-three-stages-to-obit/)

<comment><USER9> So LGBT people, and women are now the powerful people in society, as part of a 1,000 year culture struggle? What next, blame the Jews?

<comment><USER8> No. They are just the banners. Oh they are skillful at faking outrage on twitter. And sadly a lot of people with otherwise functioning brains think that for reasons unknown twitter is important and take cues. Sad state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism)

<comment><USER11> [http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm](http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm)

<comment><USER2> That was a really, really good read. It's worth highlighting the section where they describe the four conditions where unstructured groups grow effective:

1) It is task oriented. Its function is very narrow and very specific, like putting on a conference or putting out a newspaper. It is the task that basically structures the group. The task determines what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. It provides a guide by which people can judge their actions and make plans for future activity.

2) It is relatively small and homogeneous. Homogeneity is necessary to insure that participants have a "common language" for interaction. People from widely different backgrounds may provide richness to a consciousness-raising group where each can learn from the others' experience, but too great a diversity among members of a task-oriented group means only that they continually misunderstand each other. Such diverse people interpret words and actions differently. They have different expectations about each other's behavior and judge the results according to different criteria. If everyone knows everyone else well enough to understand the nuances, these can be accommodated. Usually, they only lead to confusion and endless hours spent straightening out conflicts no one ever thought would arise.

3) There is a high degree of communication. Information must be passed on to everyone, opinions checked, work divided up, and participation assured in the relevant decisions. This is only possible if the group is small and people practically live together for the most crucial phases of the task. Needless to say, the number of interactions necessary to involve everybody increases geometrically with the number of participants. This inevitably limits group participants to about five, or excludes some from some of the decisions. Successful groups can be as large as 10 or 15, but only when they are in fact composed of several smaller subgroups which perform specific parts of the task, and whose members overlap with each other so that knowledge of what the different subgroups are doing can be passed around easily.

4) There is a low degree of skill specialization. Not everyone has to be able to do everything, but everything must be able to be done by more than one person. Thus no one is indispensable. To a certain extent, people become interchangeable parts.

\----

You could actually apply a lot of these principles to software teams, particularly the need for open communication between everyone. When I see projects not doing this I often find their effectiveness drop too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

</comment><comment><USER9> To quote from [https://lobste.rs/s/ovabwi/social_justice_ideological_hijack...](https://lobste.rs/s/ovabwi/social_justice_ideological_hijackings_and_ideological_security/comments/vaypqt#c_vaypqt) :

> This author seems like a calm, unbiased source for social-justice issues. > Here is an article where they compare the rise of Napoleon in France, Hitler > and communism in Germany, and gay marriage in the US: > [http://thefutureprimaeval.net/we-support-diversity-and- > equal...](http://thefutureprimaeval.net/we-support-diversity-and-equality/)

> Nothing sensational to see here, move along > [http://thefutureprimaeval.net/content/images/2015/06/yck7qK7...](http://thefutureprimaeval.net/content/images/2015/06/yck7qK7cE.png)

<comment><USER13> I don't interpret the comparison there as "these are all equally bad" (I bet the author would endorse Napoleon's rise to power, in fact), but more as "this is what sudden changes in preference falsification equilibria backed by authority look like".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >and started banning and deleting the comments of the "trolls" who were making /r/anarchism an "unsafe and unwelcoming" space for women.

The best way to stick it to the man is to become him ...

</comment><comment><USER14> There are a lot of terrible opinions on that person's blog.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is no anarchism without feminism. Complaining about anarchists focusing on social justice is like complaining about water being wet.

I'd recommend reading books instead of reddit. The author must have accidentally made a left turn on the way to /r/libertarianism.

<comment><USER15> Define your terms please.

No anarchism without gender equality (feminism) seems like a reasonable enough point to have in a conversation about anarchism. It's conspicuously asserted and disagreed with more than the surface level point would warrant. All signs suggest this statement is in reality a loaded social signal.

No anarchism without the amero-centric slice of a 21st century political movement and all it's associated baggage? Ah, now we've got something bananastown enough to start the purported internet fights.

So, I'll repeat, define your terms please. And are your definitions the ones everybody in the conversation w/r/t r/anarchism in specific, and anarchism in general, understand to be in use?

<comment><USER5> > No anarchism without the amero-centric slice of a 21st century political > movement and all it's associated baggage?

I don't know what this is referring to, and I don't understand your question. Defining the real world conditions that would lead to or constitute "gender equality" is the root of the discussion.</comment></comment></comment>


Is It Time For NoSQL 2.0? - <AUTHOR> http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/22/1732221/is-it-time-for-nosql-20

<comment><USER2> > _they all provide a similar API that achieves high performance and > scalability by limiting applications to simple operations like GET and PUT_

Seriously? Sounds like the PR firm didn't actually take a look at these other DBs.

</comment><comment><USER3> People should stop complaining about Slashdot and marketing and look at the Hyperdex paper, it's quite interesting (<http://hyperdex.org/papers/hyperdex.pdf>). It also has quite an elegant python API (<http://hyperdex.org/tutorial/>).

<comment><USER4> Thanks for pointing out the paper. If the paper doesn't cover a question, I'm happy to answer (primary dev/paper author here) it via email, or here on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've got no opinion on HyperDex but I could barely read that slashdot summary. Just marketing goobly gook.

<comment><USER4> The homepage (<http://hyperdex.org/>) has more information, although the best source for technical information would be the technical report we've put together (<http://hyperdex.org/papers/hyperdex.pdf>)

Edit: Link to paper and not out-dated slides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Redis does not just provide the "simple operations like GET and PUT". The guy who wrote the article is a PR guy for HyperDex IMHO.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't provide much scalability either?

Redis is in a class of its own; there are lots of niche technologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In every serious development the db architecture gets selected on the use cases specific to the business, so without describing which use cases HyperDex addresses there will be no real interest for it, name it 2.0 or "on steroids".

<comment><USER4> HyperDex provides strongly consistent GET/PUT operations and fast searches over data. It uses a new object placement technique to facilitate these searches, and as a result, a search may contact a very small subset of hosts in the system.

<comment><USER9> There's always a trade-off somewhere. Does it take 3x more RAM/storage? Does it make record insertion extremely slow?

<comment><USER4> To tolerate f failures, we need to have f+1 replicas of the data. This implies increased storage, but the f parameter is entirely up to the application.

Record insertion affects all replicas of the data, so latency increases with replication.

The first graph on the performance page (<http://hyperdex.org/performance/>) shows that a 100% insertion workload will exhibit higher latency (and thus lower throughput for a fixed number of synchronous clients). Write-mostly workloads are slower, but I wouldn't say "extremely slow."

<comment><USER8> From what I gather skimming through the paper, you should be more concerned comparing HyperDex to Riak, than to Cassandra or MongoDb. The potential use cases seem to be quite different for the last mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can we stop calling it NoSQL? Cassandra has a SQL now and there are other "NoSQL" databases adopting this and the fact that they didn't use SQL wasn't a huge point with how they worked anyway.

Instead of NoSQL 2.0 how about Key Value stores or Document Stores or something else?

</comment><comment><USER11> A real Brogrammer 2.0 uses a NoSQL 2.0 database!

</comment><comment><USER12> I completely agree that it is time for NoSQL 2.0 - there are more than 100 different NoSQL datatastores and usually developers choose based on MARKETING - there are no good scientific comparisons on which one is better. This is why I founded the NoSQL alliance at <http://NoSQL.org> \- to standardize and offer unbiased advice of which database to use and why. This is an open source project - please contact me if you would like to participate</comment>