Ask HN: What to learn to earn a little on the side - <AUTHOR> I had to drop out of university due to personal reasons and am working in phone sales right now. While it's fun and I learn a lot, I want to stay in software development and make a little on the side. I'm unsure what to do though, as I am still very junior and don't have any deep enough knowledge in any particular language/field that I would go for it as the default route.
I have the most experience in Java and was thinking about picking up Android programming, but have seen a few posts on here lately which seem a little discouraging in regards to app programming in general.
What would be a good time investment where I could work on something either on my own or do projects for others to completion so that I can earn a few bucks on the side each month (something around 200-300 euro would already be more than enough). <comment><USER2> You should really be looking for "Where can I get work for what I already know?" The single most important element of business is paying customers.

Feeling like you need to learn more before you can get paying customers is a potential infinite loop of excuses for why you can't go to market _yet_. After high school, there is college. After your bachelor's degree, you can pursue a master's. After that, you can get a PhD. Still not making money? Get another PhD!

Sites like Craig's List, Reddit, and UpWork will let you go ahead and start making a few bucks in the here and now with what you already know. (Yes, they have crap reputations. You aren't much of a developer. You won't become much of one without working. Just start where you are.) Making money that way is the single best way to figure out how to further develop yourself and also find market fit for yourself.

Participating in the market is how you find out what people are actually willing to pay money for, what skills you currently have that are worth money to someone, etc. It also exposes you to what "extra" stuff you should be learning. Some of that extra stuff will be learned in the course of completing small projects that you are already mostly qualified to handle.

<comment><USER3> While I mostly agree in principle, there are some counter-examples as well - people who mostly just played with personal projects who got hired at $300k jobs for the niche skills they've gained. These people are top-notch though.

<comment><USER2> [http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1424](http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1424)

I want Sven's life. But most of us don't live like that. We have to work at figuring out how to make money.

<comment><USER3> The people I think of weren't playing WoW all day, but rather coding/working through papers etc. all day, for years. For most people digging up this kind of intrinsic motivation without any external rewards in sight is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would encourage you to look at it from the other direction.

In other words, rather than finding a language, and then a problem you can solve using that language... go the other way.

Find the problem you want to solve first, then find the tools to do it with.

You will make money by solving a business problem. That is the end goal.

The programming language isn't the goal, it's just a tool you use to accomplish a goal.

Being a problem solver is the goal. I'm repeating myself on purpose, as this is crucial to understand and grasp.

If you look at it that way, your options are _limitless_.

Read this: [http://kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- program...](http://kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

(and pretty much anything else he's ever written, he's prolific on HN)

</comment><comment><USER5> I know you said you have Java experience, but it sounds like it's not a lot and so sticking with Java doesn't seem like a necessity to me in this context. I don't know Java so I'm not going to give you any suggestions that include it, but hopefully others here will.

Websites. Learn WordPress and basic Web Dev stuff: JS, Sass (instead of CSS), and HTML. In my world it seems everyone needs a website, and I could make ~$50-75/hour~ $50-60 in my small-ish area (300,000 in the tri-county area). Basic, nice, professional websites are not impossible, you can do it :)

EDIT: I lowered the hourly rate. I might've exaggerated. See [https://skillcrush.com/2014/03/11/how-to-charge-rates-web- de...](https://skillcrush.com/2014/03/11/how-to-charge-rates-web-design- freelance/).

<comment><AUTHOR> You're completely right in regards to Java, I am not set on any particular language, which is exactly why I am not sure where to head yet. I know basic web stuff (HTML, CSS, JS), but no frameworks or anything in that direction. I'm just not sure where to have the best chances with becoming a little profitable, especially with the competition that might have stellar experience.

<comment><USER5> Start letting people know you're open for business to build sites. Feel free to take things that are a little beyond you, but be careful about anything too difficult because that can cause lots of stress and reduce quality. Most people aren't asking for a full Stack site, just a few pages probably. Start with those and improve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO the best ROI for a junior level would just be to drive Uber or do something like tutoring schoolkids.

Another quick income source might be one day WordPress sites but good luck competing with Indians who can set up e-commerce site for $50.

It might actually hurt your career to do something programming related. It's like a pro athlete working as a laborer. Save your energy for your career, don't burn out like I did.

</comment><comment><USER7> You are in a sales jobs so you are meeting lots of people. Ask them about their background and if they own a business, work in management or as a developer they or their company may have a need for your skills.

If talking to a Dev you can say you are a freelance Java developer. If talking to a non techie tell them you make businesses run more efficiently using IT. Get some appointments arranged and see how it goes.</comment>


Homemade GPS Receiver (2011) - brian-armstrong http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm <comment><AUTHOR> The first time I read this write-up I found it to be such a great resource because of the range of topics it touches on, with each one an entry point to some new subfield I didn't know about (coming from a non-EE background).

DSSS? Time to go on a wikipedia dive into modulation schemes

Numerically-controlled oscillators? There's something I haven't encountered, and let's read about FPGAs while we're at it.

1-bit ADC? Crazy that that even works, but it uses a bunch of interesting DSP math that I never even knew I was missing!

Plus the entire GPS signal chain, from the atomic clocks to the demodulated bits and inverse trig problem... incredible to see it all compiled into one (so well documented) project. I still go back and read this sometimes when I've forgotten part of it because it's fun to rediscover all the gems that went into building this receiver.

<comment> brian-armstrong DSSS is an exceptionally interesting topic, IMO. It uses linear feedback shift registers which some CS types may have encountered as a very cheap PRNG. But it also makes these interesting spectral properties, and it's orthogonal to time-delayed versions of itself. That's quite a lot of somewhat unexpected properties for a fairly simple shift register construction.

<comment><USER2> To shed some light on the connection between these properties: they arise from the fact that the coding sequence _is_ pseudo random noise. Specifically, white noise.

White noise has this nice property that its autocorrelation is ideally a discrete delta function, aka a 1 at t = 0 and 0 everywhere else. In the time domain, this means that only an exactly aligned code sequence matches itself – ideal for communication symbols.

Spectrally, white noise is flat and fills the entire available frequency spectrum. This produces the "spreading" of digital spread spectrum sequences (DSSS).

Any kind of white noise could be used for this, but as far as I remember, the Gold codes used in GPS are: easy to generate and maximally different from each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Related from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13246682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13246682)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9470376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9470376)

2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5717674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5717674)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3065619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3065619)

</comment><comment><USER4> This article is amazing for its level of technical detail; something of which I would never be capable. But it reminds me of my first GPS, which I cobbled together from parts around 1999. A friend sold his minivan and for some reason yanked the GPS guts out of it because he thought I'd like to tinker with them.

Through a series of cable adapter, and some topographical bitmaps (maybe from Terraserver), I managed to get a working GPS on a U.S. Robotics Palm III.

It was a far cry from what we have today: locking in to the satellites took several minutes, I could only have one map at a time, there was no zooming, the display was 160x160px monochrome, and if I changed maps the whole system had to be recalibrated. But it was _the future_ right inside my own car.

Now a 100x better GPS is available inside my watch for half the price.

</comment><comment><USER5> Also relevant and interesting: [http://pmonta.com/blog/2012/06/04/gnss- firehose/](http://pmonta.com/blog/2012/06/04/gnss-firehose/) (plus associated github and additional blog posts)

</comment><comment><USER6> Great article.

The current state of the art for this sort of thing appears to be [https://gnss-sdr.org/](https://gnss-sdr.org/)

<comment><USER7> Notably GNSS-SDR supports not only GPS (US), but also Glonass (Russia), Galileo (EU), and Beidou (China). [https://gnss-sdr.org/docs/tutorials/gnss- signals/](https://gnss-sdr.org/docs/tutorials/gnss-signals/)

However, I believe it's worth mentioning that if you buy a commercial navigation IC these days, it will support them all out of the box, often with the addition of inertial navigation, which is what allows the navigation system screen to update properly while you drive through tunnels without satellite signals.

Other ~viable (for various definitions of "good enough") navigation paradigms include celestial, visual/terrain, other signal sources such as cellular, various radio systems, AIS, etc.

Here are relevant chips with prices starting USD$2.7 some of which support GSM/GRPS as well: [https://lcsc.com/products/Communication-Modules-GNSS- Modules...](https://lcsc.com/products/Communication-Modules-GNSS- Modules_940.html?q=gps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also there is DYI _GNSS_ receiver, designed by orienteering mapper.[0]

Additionally there is «GNSS Test Summary» (2019-12-03) made by another orienteering mapper.[1]

[0] [https://github.com/lpechacek/u-blox-gnss- receiver](https://github.com/lpechacek/u-blox-gnss-receiver)

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/groups/485564718218028?view=permali...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/485564718218028?view=permalink&id=2604736929634119)

<comment><USER9> The root link is kinda different, though... What you're liking to is taking off the shelf receiver stuff and accepting the data coming out of it. The root link goes into exactly how and why all of this works, and how the author worked with it. It's much, much lower level.</comment></comment>


Should I Become an Entrepreneur? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/01/should_i_become_an_entrepreneu.html

<comment><USER2> For people dreaming about staring a business the real question is _Will I become an entrepreneur?_ Everyone's answer seems to be _eventually_ , but, as a rule, the answer is _no_ \-- you won't get as far as selling an action figure on eBay.

But, you may one day write an article for the Harvard Business Review.

<comment><USER3> I agree.

Some people who would have made excellent entrepreneurs will never become one because their existing lives are satisfactory. However, they may still develop many of the same skills as an entrepreneur while rising up through the ranks of a corporation, which puts them in an excellent position to write business literature.

Others will never become one because their lives are hard and making the jump to starting a business would only make them harder.

For everyone else in the murky middle, the question remains. "Should I become an entrepreneur?" And if the answer is 'yes', falsestprophet's question follows: "Will I become an entrepreneur?"

Entrepreneurs are people who are risk-averse enough to try something new. The successful ones minimize risk by making calculated decisions that make sense.

Every entrepreneur has a unique story to tell, but not so unique that you can't imagine yourself fitting in to the stories of some entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER3> Ah, good catch sparky, you're right. The way I wrote that made no sense. Here's what I meant to say:

"Entrepreneurs are risk-takers that try new things. The successful ones minimize risk by making calculated decisions that make sense."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've forwarded this to a friend. After 10 years in a job, things finally fell out and he walked. He hated the job but it paid the bills and kept his family comfortable.

All this time he's been talking how he has been going to work on a startup, do something for himself. After his job finished I said to take a couple of months and get his head clear before launching into anything. It's now a couple of months later, and instead of coming back to me with a plan and some ideas, he's instead going to an interview with someone who rang him up out of the blue.

I'm not sure at this point whether to help overcome his fear or just write him off as a possibility to do something with. I had a couple of good things we could have collaborated on, but I think he is drifting back towards a job he will end up (start out?) hating. In the past this individual has built some tools and sold them on the side, has good networking skills and some good ideas. Personally I just feel he's too frightened to step out, even though they (as a family) are pretty secure financially.

So I guess what I'm asking is should I offer encouragement to step out, or just let him choose to walk back into another corporate job? Should all choices to follow an entrepreneur dream be self motivated, or does it sometime help if a friend gives you the 'it's now or never' speech?

<comment><USER5> How can _you_ overcome _his_ fear?

If his choice weren't self-motivated, the first thing that would happen when adversity inevitably struck would be to blame you.

Seems to me the best encouragement you can offer is to have a heartfelt discussion, then leave him free to go wherever his inner vectors add up to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you have to ask that question the answer is no. Entrepreneurial endeavors are not for the scared or unadventurous, and that basically describes anyone who answers "yes" to the questions in the article.

<comment><USER7> I couldn't disagree more. Asking the question "Should I" shows the realism required to successfully run a business you own.

<comment><USER8> Not trying to be snide, but I don't understand what 'realism' means in this context. Personally, if a potential business partner told me that they were 'realistic' about strategy or risks or whatever, I would take it as a warning sign.

No doubt there are limiting factors and risks in anything that you do, but I'd rather find those by bumping into them, not by cautiousness. I'd rather get a new paint job and win the race than lose without a scratch.

BTW, not sure what you meant actually, but it just brought out the thought.

<comment><USER7> If you do not analyze if you should be doing something, even if you really want to do it, you're jumping in without showing good judgement.

It's like going to get a PhD without researching what that makes your life like, etc, just because you like ______ topic.

"Should I be an entrepreneur" is a good question to ask oneself before being one. It shows measured caution, which is evaluation of oneself before embarking on something. The mark of a successful entrepreneur is taking _measured_ risks, not silly risks. Those who take silly risks are just accidental winners if they win.

The unwillingness to figure out if you'd be good at something before jumping in with both feet is a great way to show where you are on the spectrum of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

<comment><USER8> >It's like going to get a PhD without researching what that makes your life like, etc, just because you like ______ topic.

Funny, because that's exactly why I got mine. :) -It's worked out fine.

I think there should be an antithesis to the Dunning–Kruger effect: exceptionally-intelligent people don't achieve their potential, because their ability to see all possible roadblocks kills their confidence.

Bertrand Russel put it more succinctly: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

Sometimes you have to dare to be stupid. :)

<comment><USER7> >I think there should be an antithesis to the Dunning–Kruger effect: exceptionally-intelligent people don't achieve their potential, because their ability to see all possible roadblocks kills their confidence.

People shouldn't clamor for fog on the mountains they're going to climb to not get discouraged. They should develop enough self control to accept a challenge with eyes open. Then they know where they're stepping and can plan, as the mountain is in view, instead of shrouded in fog.

I mean, do you do brain research in a startup? I know I've been in my business for 4 years here after taking measured steps for years before that and it worked out fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> None of this matters. No stats, no rules, not what anyone else has done, or not done.

The only thing that matters is getting out there and doing it. Find a way to create value and sell it.

Want to be an entrepreneur? Then be one.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a general (and quite accurate) rule, if you have to ask the question, then the answer is 'no'.

If your goals are to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, etc., the answer is 'no'.

If you're sick of your current job, want a change, and hate being a subordinate, the answer is 'no'.

So, when is it okay to turn your current life, and risk it all for what seems like a gutshot straight draw? It differs for everyone, but the motivator must be sheer passion for eliciting change and realizing a dream. Moreover, the dream must be for you; it shouldn't be for anyone else. If you're developing a product, develop a product that you yourself would back; if you aren't absolutely, unquestionably committed to your product, then it is my personal guarantee that no one else will be.

<comment><USER7> >If you're sick of your current job, want a change, and hate being a subordinate, the answer is 'no'.

According to Illusions of Entrepreneurship, most entrepreneurs are in their _40s_ , not 20s.

Additionally, many entrepreneurs, (I believe it said a plurality) were entrepreneurs because they didn't like or couldn't work well under a boss more than any other reason.

[1] Non-aff link: [http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Entrepreneurship-Costly- Entr...](http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Entrepreneurship-Costly- Entrepreneurs-Investors/dp/0300113315)

<comment><USER10> What I was trying to illustrate was that those reasons shouldn't be the _only_ ones for starting your own business. I agree that those qualities may exist in many entrepreneurs, but they might actually be more of distraction than anything else. Passion for your product or solution should be the driving force behind an entrepreneurial endeavor.

<comment><USER11> >Passion for your product or solution should be the driving force behind an entrepreneurial endeavor.

I had this discussion with a co-worker. While I think you shouldn't have hatred/distaste for your product or solution, I think it's more important that you have passion for helping your customers/clients in a good-for-everyone way. For this reason I'd ideally entrepreneur in the charity sector, because I have a passion for helping charity organizations.

There might be varying shades of grey to this argument. I'm a web application developer, and my co-worker would only pursue building ASP.NET websites related to his passion, music. Less extreme versions would be either building for any platform in any programming language, something music related. Or building ASP.NET web sites/services but not for music. Also varying definitions of "passion".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you have the drive, determination and character to persevere.

Being an entrepreneur doesn't necessarily mean doing a high risk internet startup. I think that for those with the character to do so it's a very good choice. Entrepreneurs aren't irrational people. I didn't pick entrepreneurship for purely fiscal reasons. I chose it primarily for personal reasons, although I do feel that my economic outcome will be better as well. I mainly chose entrepreneurship because I want to work for a company that shares my values and operates the way I think a business should operate. I'm 8 months in bootstrapped, (ramen) profitable, and proud. Perhaps that's not fiscally viable but we'll find out.

90% of business may fail within a 5 years, but how many jobs fail within 5 years?

Sure a job is 'safe' but I'm not a part of the growing culture that prefers safety at the expense of everything else. Life is about living, not avoiding death. I want to live my life to the fullest, instead of merely prolonging the inevitable a little longer. I don't think anyone sits on their deathbed saying "Gee, I really should have stuck with that safe job instead of risking it all on a startup". If your startup fails and you don't want to try again, you can always brush off the resume.

</comment><comment><USER13> In my entrepreneurship program at school, someone asked a speaker how he managed to avoid taking a job and sticking with starting a company. He responded "I never made a resume. If you don't have a resume, you can't get a job."

Perhaps it isn't quite that simple, but it's a nice story.</comment>


The Multi-Carrier Shipping Api to Rule Them All - <AUTHOR> http://blog.goshippo.com/post/118298145528/the-power-of-the-shipping-api

<comment><AUTHOR> We just published an API update that allows multi-account endpoints for each shipping provider. I'll be here if you have any feedback!</comment>


Semiconductor device fabrication - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_manufacturing

<comment><AUTHOR> Tip: Follow the links to main articles.</comment>


On the Pedagogical Motive for Esoteric Writing (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://pdf.yt/d/pLzAvzFb7e8sWjll

<comment><USER2> There are some distinct ideas that this article at times seems to conflate:

\- Obscurity, speaking in fables, non-clarity, indirectness. Multiple layers to one's teaching. This possibly for the sake of pedagogy.

\- Teachings for the public versus teachings for the initiates/elite/true disciples. Two contradictory or opposed layers to one's teaching.

The former and the latter are quite different, and I wonder whether the latter might be far less common than the former.

It seems clear that some thinkers, particularly in ancient Greece and Rome, had opposed esoteric and exoteric aspects to their work, and that we should acknowledge and try to discern this where it exists.

But I'd question whether esotericism is "of the greatest importance for our understanding of the whole course of Western philosophy". The author seems to think of it almost as a kind of skeleton key, as though maybe there is a significant stream of thought that people have radically misunderstood. The idea of a hidden thread of elite, secret knowledge has an alluring, conspiratorial feel to it that the author doesn't mention -- a vibe that is not so foreign to our modern sensibilities (Scientology, Kabbalah, New Age, ...).

Melzer writes that "with pedagogical esotericism, the writer actually embraces concealment and obscurity (of the right kind) as a positive good and as something essential to the primary purpose of his act of writing: philosophical education". How does this not describe art of all kinds -- e.g. fiction writing -- where the creator has a didactic purpose, but artfully weaves this into their work? ("Ars est celare artem.") Again, there is no distinction made between nonclarity and the demand for active, engaged, creative reading and thinking on the one hand, and on the other, radically opposed esoteric and exoteric meanings.

<comment><USER3> I haven't finished the article yet, but I think one thread that's supposed to connect those two ideas is that in both cases, it's important for the external surface to be consistent with the worldview of a naive reader, while further thought reveals a meaning that's at least somewhat subversive if not completely contradictory to that worldview:

> It follows, then, that a writer who seeks to educate philosophically through > Socratic dialectics must make a special effort to enter sympathetically into > the received opinions of his time and place—though he may consider them > false—while pointing quietly to certain puzzles or contradictions within > those opinions.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also "Appendix: a chronological compilation of testimonial evidence for Esotericism" [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.p...](http://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Also a review at NDPR, which makes some points similar to mine above: [http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/53333-philosophy-between-the- lines-t...](http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/53333-philosophy-between-the-lines-the- lost-history-of-esoteric-writing/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting article. I've been covering Descartes recently, and his writing style is extremely ornate and complicated. From _Meditations on First Philosophy_ :

"For this reason I have no doubt that if you deign to take the trouble in the first place of correcting this work (for being conscious not only of my infirmity, but also of my ignorance, I should not dare to state that it was free from errors), and then, after adding to it these things that are lacking to it, completing those which are imperfect, and yourselves taking the trouble to give a more ample explanation of those things which have need of it, or at least making me aware of the defects so that I may apply myself to remedy them; when this is done and when finally the reasonings by which I prove that there is a God, and that the human soul differs from the body, shall be carried to that point of perspicuity to which I am sure they can be carried in order that they may be esteemed as perfectly exact demonstrations, if you deign to authorize your approbation and to render public testimony to their truth and certainty, I do not doubt, I say, that henceforward all the errors and false opinions which have ever existed regarding these two questions will soon be effaced from the minds of men."

That's one sentence! The translation is from _The Philosophical Works of Descartes_ , which was apparently translated from French, which was translated from Latin. So there could be some cause for this style in the translation work.

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome.

Or, should I say that my self-generated perception after a compressed review of the literature has left me inclined to believe that the author is highly self-aware and wry, with their oral muscular hydrostat firmly implanted in either the left or right side of the orifice.

</comment><comment><USER6> Related: _Persecution and the Art of Writing_ , short and very sweet.

[https://ia600407.us.archive.org/32/items/LeoStraussOnEsoteri...](https://ia600407.us.archive.org/32/items/LeoStraussOnEsotericismExotericism/Strauss- PersecutionArtOfWriting.pdf)</comment>


The dogs in Red Alert were attached to invisible bullets when they attacked - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection/blob/master/REDALERT/BULLET.CPP#L93 <comment><USER2> OOP is-a done right ... Nice find, love it</comment>


Ask HN: Separate liability by multiple LLC's? - <AUTHOR> I run my own consulting practice. It's just me at the moment. It's filed as an LLC.
I want to create a SaaS product, so I filed for another LLC which will house/own the product.
I am keeping both LLC's totally separate. There is no parent LLC. I want liability to be separate so that a law-suit against my consulting practice doesn't effect my product, and visa-versa.
I also like the idea of keeping it separate, since in time I could sell my product/company, and keep my consulting practice.
This creates more overhead, but almost guarantees separate liability.
What are your thoughts on this? What have you seen in the industry? I'm finding that the overhead is kind of annoying, especially some of the cross-over. i.e. if I hire someone for my product, but in a lull want to contract them to a client, that could be interesting. Also, until my product takes off, I'm just using the existing infrastructure that I bought under my consulting practice (i.e. laptop, email, office365, MSDN subscription, etc.) <comment><USER2> The limited liability of corporations is not absolute. See, for example:

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

And specifically, for US corporate law:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#United_States)

This article notes:

 _" In the United States, corporate veil piercing is the most litigated issue in corporate law. Although courts are reluctant to hold an active shareholder liable for actions that are legally the responsibility of the corporation, even if the corporation has a single shareholder, they will often do so if the corporation was markedly noncompliant, or if holding only the corporation liable would be singularly unfair to the plaintiff. In most jurisdictions, no bright-line rule exists and the ruling is based on common law precedents."_

Thus, before spending a lot of effort on setting up two LLCs, you should probably talk to a lawyer to see if this would give you any added protection in your situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I may ask _you_ a question: I'm considering setting up an LLC for commercial operation of a few small projects I've been working on. How did you go about setting yours up, and what have been your experiences with this? Are Registered Agent fees expensive? I'm not expecting to make much money, but I want the liability shield.

<comment><USER4> I'm not the OP but I did create an LLC. I personally used LegalZoom to incorporate in Illinois. Some states have as low as $25 filing fee (from what I've heard) so services like LegalZoom may not be worth it. All in, it cost about $750 for everything. The main thing to keep in mind is to keep money separate when it comes to an LLC. The moment you intermingle your funds is the moment you lose your liability shield. I have a business account that everything business related goes through and if I need to use personal money to fund something I write a check to my business as a loan and let the business buy it. It can become a hassle but it is worth it to keep the protections that come with an LLC.</comment></comment>


What Makes a Great Logo Design? - <AUTHOR> http://www.logocritiques.com/resources/what_makes_a_great_logo_design/

<comment><USER2> good stuff. I like this article. Paul Rand was a great designer.</comment>


Real 'Beautiful Mind': college dropout became mathematical genius after mugging - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/real-%E2%80%98beautiful-mind%E2%80%99-college-dropout-became-mathematical-genius-after-mugging

<comment><USER2> Complete bollocks. He draws stuff that people claim have "formulas" somehow in them. He doesn't do math, in what way is he a "mathematical genius"?

Answer: None.

And this story has previously been submitted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3908492>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3907482> <\- This one has some comments

There are probably more.</comment>


Review our weekend project: Bundlenut - <AUTHOR>

http://www.bundlenut.com
Its a really simple platform for making "bundles" of links and sharing them. Its alpha-ish right now so you might find some bugs. Release early etc.
All feedback appreciated! <comment><USER2> I really like it. It's a great project, guys. I like the art/design of it. I get it right away. Just some thoughts:

1) If I am not mistaken, I think your jscrollpane code is acting very wonky on some cases. jscrollpane default-styled scrollbar is popping up randomly. Double check the test cases to make sure.

2) mixpanel api script is dynamically putting intself into the DOM (head) multiple times

3) .directions a { text-decoration:none; } (for the "Make your own" button)

4) it seems that on initial load, the url-group pane goes up on any mouse click (left/right) and then acts normally.

Hope that helps and good luck. I think it's a very neat idea.

(Also, just a personal preference, but "brought to you by [Bundlenut] or [bundlenut.com]" look a bit nicer than "[www.bundlenut.com]")

-Vuong

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow fantastic feedback. Consider all of this done. What browser/OS are you using?

<comment><USER2> Firefox 9.0.1/Windows 7

<comment><AUTHOR> I fixed all the issues except 1). Sent you an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clickable link: <http://www.bundlenut.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool :) Like it. Some quick suggestions:

1) Show the URL of each link following the Title/Description (search-result style)

2) Make a browsable directory of topics/categories (possibly two levels: Topic/Sub-Topic, general web directory style). Next, allow bundle creators to submit/tag each bundle under a category.

This way, users interested in finding/browsing links of particular topics can find them all easily.

HTH and all the best. (Let me know if you need any more specifics/help - we've been building general/niche directories for almost a decade.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We'll let you know what we end up doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some latency with synchronous calls on the editing page when a new row appears (from down under, perhaps this is common for Australia web use).

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks good guys, I can see the uses for this

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> looks pretty cool, some students from my university had a similar idea <http://bundlr.com> you should check it out, they released a redesign some weeks ago.</comment>


A day in the life of an Apple Watch user - <AUTHOR> http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/03/21/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-apple-watch-user/ <comment><USER2> _Apparently I've been outbid for the 1986 Star Wars figurine I want so bad._

1986? This was written by someone who knows nothing about Star Wars. If you wanted a figurine at the latest you'd be looking at 1983 when ROTJ came out. Kenner stopped making the figurines in 1986.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was extremely surprised to read in the comments that this wasn't a parody.</comment>


PyPy Vectorization - <AUTHOR> http://pypyvecopt.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-end-of-summer-pypy-simd.html <comment><AUTHOR> From this reddit thread [1]:

> Right now this work is on a branch and will likely be merged to the default > branch after the PyPy 2.6.1 release which should happen any day now. So this > work should become available in PyPy 2.7.0 or PyPy 15.xx if the release > names change naming conventions.

What's especially cool is that any JIT generated by PyPy will be able to use this, so if you write your own language in RPython it will be able to automatically use SIMD as well.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/3ihhpf/pypy_vectori...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/3ihhpf/pypy_vectorization_the_end_of_summer_pypy_simd/)

<comment><USER2> That's how it works ( _)

_ \- you still need to make sure in your interpreter that your traces are optimizable by the SIMD optimizer, which is usually relatively fragile, that's just a feature of the optimizations at hand, GCC/clang also have this problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really cool work. The upshot of it is that SIMD optimizations can work within traced numpy calls. This is preferable to calling out to an optimized subroutine, because the first lets you keep your registers intact (and your trace) and the last does not.

I wonder what issues prevent them from tracing the happy-case list yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought that NumPy is already supposed to use "BLAS and company" internally and that BLAS is already as optimized as possible. What am I missing or misunderstanding?

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what the BLAS story in PyPy is, but manual looping over elements is not going to work like that, and SIMD will help significantly there. If you're only doing broadcasted operations, there's not much draw in PyPy over CPython.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Keep up the good work. Looking forward to this in a future pypy release.</comment>


Polygon Shredder - <AUTHOR> https://www.clicktorelease.com/code/polygon-shredder/ <comment><USER2> Looks like if I click to pause, rotate the camera, then resume, the camera jumps back to where it was when I paused.

It would be cool if it could resume the animation state at the camera's current position.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make it a screensaver!

<comment><USER4> I have no idea how well it would run or what the process for this might be. Could you use a web view to get a sort-of-working version built quickly?

Edit: in my old days I would just convert the JS to ActionScript and drop it into Flash to generate an SWF for use as a screensaver. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is cool, but why is there a huge blank disk in the scene ? Couldn't it be made transparent?

<comment><USER6> That's the light source, I suppose.

<comment><USER7> yes, if you place it 'behind' you, the cubes are nicely lit. This is lovely, if you have a decent GPU it flies along !

<comment><USER8> Flies on an iPhone 6S!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is cool it runs very well on my phone.

<comment><USER10> Amazingly it runs really well on a standard MBP with Intel graphics (under Chrome 62); though if you choose "insane" mode it chokes hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think I just got ADHD</comment>


IDEA Maven integration on steroids (For the Maven haters) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugttj4k6pkk

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the reason most people hate Maven is because they have only been exposed to the XML side of things. Which does suck.

But Maven was never created to have you work directly with XML. It has XML and APIs and plugins and whatnot so that tools like Eclipse and IDEA can create awesome tooling around it.

And I think this new Maven integration in IDEA shows exactly that.

Even if you are not using Java you should really check the short video. There are so many nice things in it that could easily be awesome on other development platforms.</comment>


Compose Is Joining IBM - <AUTHOR> https://www.compose.io/articles/compose-is-joining-ibm/ <comment><USER3> What makes me most sad is that a really, really great product is being sucked into a company who has no reason to offer services to a person like me. Knowing I could spin up postgres for $18/month was pretty much the sweet spot that gave me the confidence to want to do more personal, outside of work projects. Heroku's $50/month offering is far too much. But I have a feeling that this acquisition, like many others, means the end of the offering of a product to the lone-wolf developer who wants to just build something for fun that won't scale nor make money. I have literally no reason whatsoever to believe IBM cares about the little guy but I'm okay and willing to be proven wrong about that. I want to be proven wrong about that.

I don't want an email nor an empty promise. I honestly just want you guys to keep the name "compose" and keep that cheap postgres option open for the long run (years and years not weeks and weeks) so us folks who just want to build something for fun have a quality database with a professional operation to support it at the great pricing it is today.

<comment><USER4> This is important to us, and was a factor in our decision to go to IBM (which is a little counter intuitive, given IBM's history). Our entire sales model is predicated on people being able to start easily, and grow if they need to. Price, self service-ness, and the content we produce are all important in this model.

The thing about lone wolf developers, and side projects, and one off things people hack together over the weekend is that they sometimes "flip" and become big customers. That's when we win, and we monitor our funnel like crazy and continuously see that it's working. Interestingly, some of the bad customer experiences you see in this thread are the direct result of this model. We aren't very good at handling one offs, or doing things by hand, or consulting, because we focus so much on repeatable, self service offerings — which have to work for small applications.

IBM is interested in three things from us. The technology is good, the team is great, and the way we sell to customers is something they have told us they firmly believe is the future of selling tools to developers. There's a really, really good chance that you'll see other parts of IBM acting like us (and building things for you) before you see us becoming all enterprisey.

We'll keep the name Compose (because it's fabulous!), we'll keep the cheap Postgres option, and we'll do our best to keep that true for years and years.

For what it's worth, I greatly appreciate your comment.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry, but you may think this is the way it goes, but I suspect you'll find it isn't so. My prediction is that you will be booted as CEO within a year, not because you aren't awesome but because you are a big part of Compose and IBM will go directions you won't like.

Hope I'm wrong, but I can't see how this will be anything but disastrous. Your key company abilities were you controlled your own destiny to a degree, and you could react quickly. Now you are part of a larger group within IBM, I doubt this will be possible.

I do wish you the best though, and that my dire prediction is completely wrong. I've just seen what happens when a smaller company is bought by a massive one.

<comment><USER4> Well I can't be CEO of IBM! Not this year, at least.

I've seen utterly awful acquisitions, and good acquisitions. You're right that there's a lot we can't control, and we could be ground up by the big corp machinations, but I do actually think IBM has a big interest in not screwing us up. We shall see.

<comment><USER6> If it helps any, from my prior observations in situations like this, you'll know things are going bad when IBM starts "recommending" their personnel for management positions in mid-level and above.

That's "the canary dying in the mine" to watch for IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This explains a lot. I've been a (large) customer of compose.io for several years, and since the rename to compose support of our MongoDB clusters has really gone downhill. They recently pulled much of the monitoring that was available to us via MMS, they disabled New Relic monitoring for several months with no explanation, and support has been awful for what we're paying - <USER2> hours for a first response on a CAT-1 issue, due apparently to a corporate outing that took their entire support staff out of the office.

<comment><USER8> We have also found their support and general attitude towards us (as a long term customer) getting worse recently, so much so that we are migrating off their platform.

<comment><USER9> Who are you migrating to? I've been happy with Mongodirector (scalegrid)

<comment><USER8> Self hosting on AWS. The new MMS makes it pretty painless... clustering, backups, alerting etc, better IOPS and about a third of the price of compose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been a customer for several years, never once had a problem with reliability or performance. I've used several other services and nothing compared to the simplicity of mongohq/compose. They've also had pretty great support for some obscure issues I've had to deal with. Overall, I hope this move just means more of the same.

</comment><comment><USER11> All of the comments here that talk about price are saying how cheap Compose is. Really? Looks like they charge $12 per gigabyte per month for PostgreSQL, $18 for Mongo, and there's absolutely no free/hobbyist tier. That seems pretty expensive to me, at least compared to the _other_ IBM cloud DBaaS offering, Cloudant, which is priced at $1 per gigabyte per month and is completely free if your bill is less than $50/month. Cloudant charges for transactions (gets and puts), while it looks to me like Compose doesn't, but based on my (admittedly limited) experience with Cloudant that wouldn't do very much to close the yawning gap for most applications.

Would someone from Compose care to explain why their pricing isn't _really_ 12X or 18X greater than Cloudant? (And whose pricing is going to change? I'm kind of worried that IBM is going to quadruple Cloudant's prices, and then quadruple them again, to bring them into line with Compose.)

<comment><USER4> Cloudant's pricing is so different than ours it's hard to compare. Our DBs are all (currently) intended to be used real time, which means they could be handling several thousand requests per second. I would guess that Cloudant's pricing is similar to ours for DBs under load. Theirs just scales down in a way we can't currently.

Cloudant's actually going to be really nice for our customers. Since our service and pricing are meant for transactional databases, we've lost customers and potential customers who had mountains of cold data they needed to keep somewhere. As an independent company, that was the right choice, as part of IBM we now have a good answer for those types of data loads. We hope to be able to use our Transporter feature to make it relatively easy to keep data moving around between DBs, Cloudant included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good job. I have an idea that _might_ benefit Compose now. Research projects I've read on in IBM said that IBM allowed the internal use of any of its software tools for free. They have a lot of really good ones that you'd normally pay large sums for. I'm not sure if this policy (a) still exists or (b) applies to companies they acquire. However, if I was Compose, I would ask about it because IBM's tools & tech could greatly aid Compose in developing their stuff faster, more robustly, etc.

Plus, I'm sure other startups might want to know whether this benefit exists or not. Might even factor into a decision of whether a company wants to be acquired by IBM vs another company. A 100+ free (or cheap) software products would really really sweeten the deal to me if I was to continue working at the company post-acquisition. Especially those delightful, bug-hunting and productivity-boosting products. :)

Anyone on the inside know the answers to any of this?

<comment><USER13> Having worked at IBM briefly this is only partially true.

The way I understood it, IBM has a system called "blue dollars" or "blue bucks" I forget which one. Basically, groups within IBM are given an allotment of credits they can spend to "buy" other IBM products.

<comment> martin-adams Ex IBM'er here and I recall it as Blue Dollars. I was in one of the UK labs so 'bucks' isn't a term we really use.

When it comes to software, you pretty much can use any IBM software you want (or are told to). A lot of the Rational products were heavily pushed for teams to use, although I think you had to justify why you use it. This caused some contention, as I worked in automated UI testing and the capabilities of IBM products vs open source alternatives varied quite widely. It was always fun justifying your decision to management when the IBM product didn't match your needs.

But when there is a service cost things are different. I got pulled into my manager's office being showed my bandwidth and storage cost of my Lotus Notes emails and was heavily encouraged to download my emails locally as the department was charged. I think there were similar considerations when it came to using backup software into their TSM - I don't remember exactly but have a feeling you needed management approval to use it.

Then you have the consideration of building one product from another. For example, I worked on WebSphere Application Server which was the app server of many other IBM products. There you have the consideration of which departments earn the revenue when a core product is shared.

<comment><USER12> So, the software is free for the lab and with no clear limit so long as you fill out the forms and such?

<comment> martin-adams Yeah I think so. It's been 5 years since I left so my memory of the detail isn't a goods I would like :)

<comment><USER12> Appreciate it. Now I just gotta figure out if this applies to companies they acquire and are integrating into their offerings. That's the original comment I posted: Compose should use their tech where it's good and they get it free/cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've very curious what the general "impression" regarding IBM is around HN? They are not discussed much around here.

<comment><USER15> IBM is a financial engineering firm, not a technology company anymore: [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/the-truth-hidden- by-i...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/the-truth-hidden-by-ibms- buybacks/?_r=0)

<comment><USER16> What people remember them the most, is their R&D. The beat Intel to create the first 7nm chip process recently.

<comment><USER17> Between Alamaden (San Jose) and Yorktown Heights (NY) in the US, IBM is one of the last few industrial basic sciences/engineering labs in the US, resembling Bell Labs and Xerox PARC from a few decades ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > We love being a distributed company. Many of us work from our homes and like > to occasionally relocate for weeks or months at a time to work in other > parts of the world.

I love this working style

</comment><comment><USER19> Some of the hardest working people in show business. Congratulations!

<comment><USER20> this makes me happy! thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congrats to the compose folks! IIRC, they acquired Cloudant a little while ago.

<comment><USER22> And Softlayer.

As a friend of mine who works there says, "IBM wanted to have a great cloud business, so they bought one".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As an IBM'er, I think this is awesome news!

Cloudant is awesome for CouchDB, but if you want mongo or redis, we didn't have a lot to offer before today.

Looking forward to working with you guys!

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd really love to see a MongoDB provider in between Compose.io and MMS.

We were on Compose for 1.5 years, but recently switched off to MMS after we started running in to scaling issues.

Compose is a bit limiting if you need to tweak / monitor resources for scaling, but running reliably on MMS means really understanding how your deployment works (which might be the best long-term position to be in, but a bit distracting for a ~5 person team).

It'd be great if Compose could offer a managed MongoDB service that ran off instances in my ec2 account (so I'd pay base ec2 rates, plus a $50-150 per- server fee for managing the deployment)

</comment><comment><USER25> This is the second "Cloud Database" company IBM has acquired recently. They also acquired Cloudant, a CouchDB based "Cloud Database."

Side-thought: Did Compose refer to itself as a Cloud Database before IBM acquired it? That seems like a very IBM marketing oriented term.

</comment><comment><USER26> I just hope they are really keeping the pricing on current levels. I am running couple of legacy apps there, but I guess it is better to prepare for migration.

Any suggestion on similar services?

<comment><USER27> Pricing really isn't changing. Hope you stick around!

<comment><USER26> I am sure I am sticking around as long as possible, but it is always good idea to be ready for all eventualities. Especially when you are running legacy apps that you have no time to update, but still don't want to let them die.

Thanks to MongoHQ I was able to move one particular app three times to different providers. It took no time, just upload the code, change DNS and you are good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe off topic, but why are these hosted search engines so expensive? $45/mo to start. Are there any $5/mo, low volume, machines for hobby developers?

<comment><USER29> Relevant to my interests. Founder of ES host Bonsai.io.

Echoing mrkurt, ES is indeed hefty to run.

Elasticsearch is going to require a hundred+ megs of RAM just to run an empty node. And then you'll want enough heap and CPU that you're not GCing yourself to death while importing data, or while churning through filter and caches. And then enough memory to run those fancy aggregations in Kibana. Times the number of nodes you want for redundancy, and for your master-role quorum.

It's possible to do long-tail low-volume ES hosting for hobby development. But to do so you need to dig in and consider ES hosting as a holistic system. We've worked hard at Bonsai to build a hobbyist-friendly hosting system. Our approach is to fork ES itself to introduce native multi-tenancy. That means everyone in the cluster is amortizing the overhead of all that JVM memory (and redundant data nodes, and master-node quorum, a load balancer and authenticating reverse proxy, and analytics... etc...)

The problem remains that ES, while easy to spin up, is still a pretty heavy system to manage at scale. So it's generally a lot easier to chuck some extra resources at it, maximize your isolation, and eat the higher entry cost.

<comment><USER28> I don't really understand the technical limitations too much, but the hardest selling point for me is that an ES Bonsai instance cost more than a Heroku dyno.

I couldn't get over the fact that I have to pay more for one feature in my app, than the entire cost of running the app...

I totally understand that the economics does not work out for you guys and that sucks. Hopefully things will change in the future.

<comment><USER29> Hmm. Considering Heroku dynos start at $0/mo for development, that may be an apples and oranges comparison here ;)

In the context of reasonable hobby/development costs, I our $10/mo plan fits well for that and is pretty popular. Pricing wise it compares well to a $7 dyno or $9 Postgres instance. And addons are prorated to the second, just like dynos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Welcome Compose team to IBM. I sit in analytics tech sales and work with CDS (particularly Dash-DB) pretty regularly and am very excited to have you aboard.

<comment><USER20> thanks, we're all pretty excited

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Taking a look at Bluemix, I already see most of the Compose offerings listed. RethinkDB is missing though, are you discontinuing that product?

</comment><comment><USER32> Congrats guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty exciting!</comment></comment>


5.5 to 6.0 earthquake is possible in Northern Italy on November 11-15 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Quakeprediction/status/399560315521617920 <comment><AUTHOR> [http://quackpredict.com/accuracy.html](http://quackpredict.com/accuracy.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure if what I see is inaccuracy.</comment></comment>


The Best Marketing Method I Know - <AUTHOR> http://nathanbarry.com/best-marketing-method/ <comment><USER2> Using a story about marketing to market your new marketing product, eh? I'm onto you!

I don't have any products to sell, but it was still an interesting read. Good to see you focusing on building trust before selling since that was one of the things your last e-book sales page was lacking (at least in my opinion).

<comment><USER3> That was exactly what I thought when I came to the conclusion: a nice marketing story to make an announcement of the product that improves conversion. Should I trust you product?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one that thinks offering a free e-book and some drip marketing emails feels like those spammy SEO software companies?

You get a landing page where you have to give your email to get a download. The "Guide" is usually just some distilled thinking that's rarely worth the email you traded for it. If you were smart, you probably used an email address you use for all of your spam, because you know once you get the guide, the next thing up is a bunch of drip marketing emails to get you to upgrade.

The email tips are often just as vapid as the guide and you know you're in for at least 4 to 6 of them over the next 60 days, so you ignore every one of them and route them straight to notifications/promotions/spam.

Drip marketing and free giveaways isn't anything new, and it _can_ be effective, but it's not a silver bullet to sales, by any means.

<comment><USER5> Don't dismiss a method because some people use it for questionable things.

The goal is to build trust over time before asking for a sale. So putting out low quality content, followed by emails that aren't worth reading, doesn't build trust.

Use this method to deliver value and the sales will follow.

<comment><USER4> Can you point me to one you believe is done really well? The ones I have encountered, without exception, fail to deliver on this promise, and feel more like spam and less like value.

<comment><USER5> I think Kinvey does it really well: <http://www.kinvey.com/how-to-make-an-app- android>

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I'll check it out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was I the only one who saw this for the genius it was. The author walked us through the pain, selling us the problem. How he would never sell us a book he just wrote without developing a rapport. Then over the next paragraphs he transitioned us into buyers:

"Once you've had a chance to learn a lot from my material, and you've had enough time to start to trust me, then I tell you about the book."

then

"To put it in web marketing terms, the conversion rate will be incredibly higher by asking for the sale after building trust."

Followed by how hard it is to do this:

"It's actually really painful to setup."

Oh but wait! I have a software suite that does this for you: "With ConvertKit it is easy to set up a new landing page, upload a PDF or another file to offer as an incentive, then let the subscriber opt in to an email course."

And then the buy now link :).

Pure genius. Nice article.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! I'm glad you can learn from what I say AND from what I do. Your notes are exactly what I was going for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am not sure this is THAT big of a pain point. I do like the idea and direction sort of a mailchimp meets <https://gumroad.com> \- but $37/month? Although I will admit there are a LOT more non-technical people who still struggle with wordpress - so maybe more of a integration/leverage from that might be ideal.

One feature you should think of is hosting the landing page on their specific domain. For example - the user can buy a domain, point it at the DNS and you take care of the rest. Rather than having convertkit.com/[some-random-hash] or a variation of it.

Looking forward to seeing the results and/or how well received this idea is

<comment><USER5> I know a lot of people who know they SHOULD be doing this, but haven't bothered to set it up because they know it is so frustrating.

Custom domains are definitely on the feature list.

Also, I am quite good with WordPress, have a lot of experience with MailChimp, and this still really frustrates me.

<comment><USER7> You are right - I think the idea of "help building the funnel" is the most powerful one.

Not just 30 day course or 10 tips on ... but to really help people understand front-end sales, backend sales and cross promotion.

Super excited to see you hit the $5k/month goal by June :)

<comment><USER5> Yep, it's the best way to sell products online. I'll be writing a lot more blog posts about the process and how to implement it on any platform (not just mine).

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm definitely trying to hit that goal...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lots of good takeaways from this post, some of which might be a bit hidden or subtle.

If you're launching your e-book, SaaS app, online course, etc. you'll need to build a reputation based on trust and value. Think about it: how many people will find themselves on your landing page, looking at some of your app screenshots and click on your big fat "Sign Up!" button because "Wow, I've only known this company existed for 3 seconds but here's my credit card!". You can do better!

In this case, a free guide to "Designing Forms That Convert" is a great example of educational and valuable material. Nathan gets your email address, you get some information you're interested in receiving and everyone is happy. If you educate people like this, frequently and with valuable content, you'll have their attention when you're ready to sell them something that they actually need.

(Patrick McKenzie earned a reputation in the HN community over the years by sharing what he's learned. Sharing == educating. When he's goes to sell a ~$500 video course on email [0], he seems to do pretty well.)

There's a reason why Nathan's CovertKit plans include thousands and thousands of emails. That's what you should be doing: sending emails and keeping a dialog with people who know you and your work. You don't have to pitch your SaaS app in the footer of every email, but it's important that you become an authoritative resource for the market/audience that you're working with. You'll likely have much better success selling to them.

Final point: writing good copy and valuable content is important and is what is going to make you money, not your perfectly refactored dashboard code. Are you a mediocre developer? Enough to handle CRUD and a few extras? Good. Now to get to work on your writing skills.

[0] <https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails>

<comment><USER5> Well said. The more you teach, the more people will trust you. Focus everything on sharing valuable information and it won't be hard to build a business around that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I eat out a lot because I'm a terrible cook. Even given my lack of culinary skills, I never get salads or burgers because I can make that stuff at home.

That's why I am stingy as hell with software. I don't pay for anything because I know I _could_ build it myself if I _really_ needed it. It's worked well so far and it's a big reason why most of the $ I spend on software is for games.

But I'll be damned if I didn't read this and think "I'd pay a little bit of money for that."

I've been following Nathan's work here on HN for a while, and I think that son of a bitch finally got me. :)

Good luck, Nathan; I'm looking forward to see what comes out of CK.

<comment><USER10> I don't know if I follow the "I wouldn't buy that, I could do it myself" approach, for a few reasons:

\- variable quality: you could do it, but could you do it as well? It's not really a boolean proposition

\- updates/patches: you could reinvent the wheel, but do you want to spend your whole life updating all the various wheels you've accumulated? Paying for dev is also paying for support and upkeep, especially in the security space

\- time value: this is the biggest one, there's an opportunity cost attached to pursuing commodity projects. You could write Quicken from scratch, but the $20 you save probably doesn't cover your effort. And unless you were really interested in the tax code, it's probably not very fun.

Following your example about food: we have a boutique salad restaurant near my house. It's like $7 for a salad, which seems absurd. But they're giant salads, and really filling, and most crucially they offer about 4 dozen toppings. I can't personally justify having a fridge full of salad toppings: it's a lot of work to keep stocked on fresh stuff, and I don't know how much money I'd really save after all the waste. So I pay a little bit for the convenience, and I can have my kale salad with chickpeas and grilled tofu and beets and whatever else ridiculous stuff I feel like. It's all fresh and delicious, and I don't think I could have reasonably produced it at home.

That attitude extends to software as well. If it does what I want, and it does it well, I buy it. Apparently a lot of chefs end up eating out a lot, because they don't want to cook when they get home from work.

<comment><USER5> I've struggled with this issue a lot. I think when you are still learning or have free time it is good to code or design your own solutions. But after a while you learn that you could spend 40 hours (or more!) coding something, or you could pay $50/month for it. If you value your time at more then a couple bucks an hour (I do), then paying for software is a pretty easy decision.

Also I'd far rather have a team working on making it the best software for the job, rather than what I could do on my own.

<comment><USER11> Hey Nathan, Here's my impression: [http://wesleyadam.com/post/42029080908/convertkit-a- conversa...](http://wesleyadam.com/post/42029080908/convertkit-a-conversation) I'd love to speak with you about it further. Hit me up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is exactly the problem Rob Walling is solving with his new app Drip (<http://getdrip.com>). Friction-free, end-to-end drip campaigns aimed at increasing conversion rates. Competition!

I've had success with drip campaigns, but one key factor that is non- negotiable is that the content has to be phenomenal. It's really not the tool that matters. The reason why Patrick McKenzie can rave about double-digit spikes from drip campaigns is because he is a great writer and even better marketer.

</comment><comment><USER13> (FYI ConvertKit HTTPS is broken, at least on Chrome/Android.)

This was a no-brainer to buy: * I want to do EXACTLY this form of marketing, and it's cheaper at $100 to buy it than build it, so +1.

* This is not my core competency, so another +1 to letting me focus on building what I want vs need.

* Finally, from an initial read it looks like you know what you're doing, and just the landing pages have enough tips/hints that I bookmarked them for reference whether I use ConvertKit or not. +1 again, and time to bust out the credit card.

<comment><USER5> I'm really glad you find it helpful. Can you provide some more info about the broken HTTPS? I don't have an Android phone to test on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> When you create good free content for the user, they automatically asume that the paid content will be even better, which makes the selling point so much easier.

</comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately building trust using this method is becoming increasingly difficult. The more sellers use it (up to the point that books are written about it) the more it's being washed out and abused, the more aware consumers become of the manipulation and the more they reject it. I see more and more sellers having to resort to statements like "Free something - NO questions asked, NO registration, NO strings attached...", which defeats the whole purpose.

</comment><comment><USER16> The problem you are trying to solve is not a software problem. the part which you are trying to solve is the easiest part of the process. What to give free, how to get them engaged etc etc are more difficult than just setting up a landing page on wordpress.

</comment><comment><USER17> I can't help but feel I've "been had" by the time I got to the end of the article. Ugh.

<comment><USER17> To be clear: I like Nathan. I like his work.

But the feeling I got in my stomach when I started reading about ConvertKit was not a good one. This particular post was not a sales pitch that (what I think to be) Nathan's audience would be comfortable with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey! I just met you. Why are you trying to sell me something right after saying hello?

<comment><USER5> Ha, so true. It's always a challenge to sell to multiple audiences. That's why the main call to action on that page is to get a free guide on increasing conversion rates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meta. Telling you how he builds trust by teaching his audience. In turn he's teaching the audience. So he's building the audience's trust.

Recursive money algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER20> ... is to get listed on the first page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER21> That's good marketing for database connections.

</comment><comment><USER22> Nathan berry has started to piss me off due to two reasons

One he is always ranting about the book he has written. Two he is giving generic rant on how to sell stuff.

Come on dude show something original.</comment>


Walmart has patented autonomous robot bees - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/autonomous-robot-bees-are-being-patented-by-walmart <comment><USER2> I can't decide if this is cool or frightening.

<comment><USER3> The fact Walmart feels the need to go about patenting such things is the sad thing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So basically you can get a patent for saying 'robot does x'?

Has robot goats been patented, their skill is eating grass in hard to reach locations, like a super lawnmower.</comment>


Porsche on the financial brink - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/5383921/Porsche-on-the-financial-brink.html

<comment><USER2> More meat here (from New Mogul):

[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aMBk...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aMBkiI5gvZnA&refer=germany)

I'm still a bit confused as to what caused the takeover to fail. The Bloomberg article makes it seem that it was mostly a regulatory problem. Or is it more that Porsche doesn't have the cash to exercise its options in VW?

Edit: the Economist article posted by anigbrowl explains it better.

 _Three things thwarted Porsche. In January the firm increased its stake in VW to its present 50.8%, almost tripling its net debt to €9 billion in the process, just as sales at Porsche's car business were tumbling—leaving less cash to pay the interest on the debt. Second, conditions in the credit markets made it harder to go on borrowing more. On March 24th Porsche was able to roll over its existing loan only by pledging its VW shares to the banks and promising to pay back €3.3 billion within six months.

Third, Porsche was counting on the repeal of the so-called Volkswagen Law that restricts individual shareholders to 20% of the voting rights, regardless of the number of shares they own, and gives the state of Lower Saxony a veto on major decisions. The law's abolition would have allowed Porsche to use its anticipated 75% stake in VW to get its hands on the bigger company's cash reserves, which stood at €10.7 billion at the end of the last quarter.

But despite a recent amendment by the German federal government, the law still guarantees Lower Saxony's veto. The state's premier, Christian Wulff, sees Porsche as an opportunistic would-be plunderer. With his support and that of Bernd Osterloh, the head of the powerful VW works council, Mr Piëch feels he is in a position to dictate terms to Porsche._

<comment><USER3> Yes. A problem of regulation and family feuds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A weak article, but the story is interesting. It has been better covered in the Economist: [http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=1...](http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=12523898) [http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=...](http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13649071)

And if you are really interested in capital machinations and strategy, I would recommend reading all the Economist stories in chronological order (use Google rather than their lamentable in-house search engine) for the blow-by-blow treatment. It's a great story which will likely become the subject of a book next year, and might even make a good movie. Sadly, one German investor was so badly hit by Porsche's aggressive financial strategy that he committed suicide after losing billions of Euro when Porsche made its famous 'short squeeze' play.

<comment><USER5> _"Sadly, one German investor was so badly hit by Porsche's aggressive financial strategy that he committed suicide after losing billions of Euro"_

I just can't understand this kind of thing. If someone has enough money to be making bets in the _billions_ , you'd expect them to have at least a few million put away somewhere for a rainy day. Why not just take that and run off to the Carribean or somewhere, start a new life? It's not exactly hard to get out of Europe.

Killing yourself!? Geeze, it's only money.

<comment><USER6> Many people value their own worth based on how much loot they have amassed. If you lose it all, then you're worth nothing.

BTW, the german guy was an old tosser just waiting to see what kind of cancer would kill him. Not much of a loss to mankind, I'd dare to say...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's funny... To hear Ivan Krstic's story earlier this year, Porsche had made a brilliant financial coup:

<http://radian.org/notebook/porsche>

<comment><USER8> They had. Things change.

<comment><USER9> I was just thinking of porsche's brilliant financial coup. I'm confused as to how they are now in this position.

<comment><USER8> What's confusing? They've made some high-stakes financial plays. Their previous one worked, but this one didn't, and now they're in trouble. Is it really that mind blowing to see someone overplay their hand?

<comment><USER10> I like to look at their "financial acrobatics" in a more metaphorical sense. Like driving a 911.

The car is prone to oversteering, so if you push it too hard around a corner, you can lose control and spin out.

Looks like this this is what is happening to Porsche. Quite ironic really, their financial position taking on the characteristics of their signature vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please correct spelling: Porche -> Porsche. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER11> Surprising to me. I remember reading the article a year back about how Porsche made off with billions of hedge fund dollars and remembering being amused at their brilliance in gaming those idiotic pack rat fund managers.

[http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1854760,00....](http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1854760,00.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> One thing's for sure, after this crisis we'll all be driving Japanese cars.

<comment><USER13> I've been looking at new cars recently, and have to say that there's no way I would consider buying a BMW, or pretty much any car that isn't Japanese. The two- and three-year old used 3-series and Mercedes that I looked at seemed totally ragged, next to the condition of a used Lexus or even a Mazda.

I could spend $40k on a 3-series, or half of that on a used Lexus, or a quarter of that on a used Mazda 3.

<comment><USER14> Half that $40k would also buy an E46 M3, which would be a whole lot more fun that the Lexus or Mazda.

For the whole $40k you may be able to find an early Porsche 997 (like an '05) with little if any noticeable wear.</comment></comment></comment>


Let's Decode a VST - <AUTHOR> http://adamkulidjian.com/decode-scream4.html <comment><USER2> This is the format of patch files for Propellerhead's Scream 4. It is just a serialization format for the settings of the knobs. Not exactly the same as "decoding a VST".

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty unusable on mobile - my phone keeps trying to either start a phone call to the "number" of the byte sequence I clicked on, or it tells me (repeatedly) that the site has been blocked from making calls, after I have canceled out a few times.

<comment><USER4> Must be an iPhone thing. No problem on Pixel 3XL

<comment><USER5> Yeah, iOS will try to automatically detect phone numbers in web views. It can be annoying sometimes if the web page author doesn't take that into consideration.

<comment><USER6>
      <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">

<comment><USER7> And yet in some crazy parallel universe, content authors choose to tag telephone numbers as such to make them clickable, rather than having to tell a browser not to incorrectly interpret text.

<comment><USER5> A crazy parallel universe where iPhone came before the web and could shape it from its inception, surely.

<comment><USER7> RFC-5341 defines "the tel URI for telephone numbers" and is dated December 2004. The first iPhone was released June 2007, so there was already a way of marking phone numbers well before day one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > = 0072 + 2 * (filenameLength // 2)

I'm having a hard time understanding what is meant by this. Particularly when 114 is the size of the patch after the 8 header bytes. The description also seems to get the word size wrong by treating the first 4 bytes as a NULL- terminated string.

A 4-byte ID and a 4-byte big-endian length is almost universal for audio data. There's even a Python module[1] for it. And it's often nested, so within a chunk of data will be smaller chunks described the same way.

The more complete and easier to analyze description of this patch would look like:

        "FORM" (114)
          "PTCH"
          "CAT " (4)
            "REFS"
          "DESC" (35)
            [BC 01 03 00 00 FF] -- ?
            (2) "17" -- File name
            (19) "Scream 4 Distortion" -- Patch name
          "PARM" (37)
            [BC 01] -- Another BC01
            (15) -- Number of params that follow
            [01 01]
            [02 3E]
            [03 00]
            [04 3E]
            [05 1E]
            [06 00]
            [07 00]
            [08 00]
            [09 00]
            [0A 00]
            [0B 69]
            [0C 28]
            [0D 00]
            [0E 00]
            [0F 55]
            [00]
          "BODY" (0)

(In fact, "FORM" is the header used by AIFF files.)

So a patch is a CAT, a DESC, a PARM, and a BODY (required even if not used). The number and meaning of parameters will depend on the type of effect, but from this we can guess they're all byte-sized, though a mix of signed and unsigned. The 0 byte after the list is a bit of a mystery.

The meanings of these parameters I assume was found by changing a value then seeing which byte changed in the file. The next step will be to compare a patch from a different effect. Even better to find one that makes use of the BODY section. Another fun way of reversing a format is to modify an unknown byte then see what happens when it is loaded.

As for the way the website is presented, I think it would be helpful if the description activated by clicking on a byte instead of hovering. That would make it possible to then select and copy the description. (Truthfully, I'm increasingly convinced that hover effects in general are bad UX.)

[1] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/chunk.html](https://docs.python.org/3/library/chunk.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for this - and good suggestion about click vs hover - any particular bad examples of hover UX that you come to mind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This concrete page doesn't offer much (not sure why anybody needs to know how VST effect serializes its data in general), but the simplicity of it made me look into other site topic.

Assembly in 7 minutes is great:

[http://adamkulidjian.com/vlahb.html](http://adamkulidjian.com/vlahb.html)

Not sure what are the problems with mobile version that people complain, but I wish more sites are like this, simple and strait to the point.

I look forward for new articles. Keep up the good job m8.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the love for Assembly in 7!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The file format used in the song files of Rebirth by proppelerhead is similar, they are based on the.iff format created by EA. Propellerhead released a document in the late 90s describing the format, I found a copy in this GitHub repo: [https://github.com/nsauzede/jsynth/blob/master/RBS42.txt](https://github.com/nsauzede/jsynth/blob/master/RBS42.txt)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is something missing on mobile or is this literally just decoding a few bytes from a patch?

<comment><USER12> That's all there is on desktop, too

<comment><USER13> Hovering over the bytes on desktop tells you most of the file format.

Not a particularly device friendly way to describe the format, I'll give you that.

<comment><USER14> So it's a VST patch, for one particular VSTi. Title is wrong.

<comment><USER15> It's not even a Vst unless you count the fact the the entire reason suite was made into a vst/au/aax plug-in as of the latest release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Has anyone got some similar info for sylenth 1? I have a lot of patch backs for it, but they are not ordered in what I would consider a sensible way - random distributions of different types of patch in a bank. I extracted loads of them and sorted them into folders, but what I want to do is then put them back into banks (such as a bass bank, etc), but there's no way to do this quickly in sylenth other than to load them all in manually and then save the bank.

I can't make sense of the data in existing individual patches or banks (I did some single value changes and resaved and the file was completely different), so it's probably above my pay grade, but if anyone has some ideas they would be appreciated.

(I'm a simple amateur python programmer, for the record)

<comment><AUTHOR> I used the same approach: turn knob, save, see what the bytes look like.

For one of the Reason instruments that I was thinking of decoding, I encountered a similar problem. Even saving the same patch with different filenames resulted in different looking bytes.

This is outside my own scope but try graphing these patch files out, color coding and seeing what patterns you can notice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Please change the title

</comment><comment><USER18> Disappointed, but I would love to get some real insights into the workings of the VST format (not the patches) and its history. Apparently this is not about patch files for VST plugins (.fxp), but about PHs proprietary patch file format. So I don't understand what this has to do with "a VST". Patch files are the least interesting part about audio software anyway, aren't they?

</comment><comment><USER19> 0072 = 0072 + 2 * (filenameLength // 2)

That's wrong. filenameLength is 2, so that equation would come out to 74, not 72.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh did I make a mistake here? good catch. I'm gonna look back at my original notes for this.

I think 0072 + 2 * ( (filenameLength-1) / 2) should work but I'll test</comment></comment>