Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

I carry around "Calling Cards."

These are more akin to the old Victorian concept[0], than the modern business cards. They are quite nice, Moo.com cards. They have my "personal brand" on one side, and simple contact info, on the other.

They are personal; not business (I also have business cards, but no one ever wants them).

People seem to like them.

[0] http://www.victoriana.com/Etiquette/victorianetiquette.html

View on HN

I finally managed to get my last name as a domain name. My calling cards are all letterpress (reverse embossing) and read "{first_name}@{last-name}.com". The twist is that first name and last name are black, the "@" and ".com" are struck blind (no ink). The result is a card that just has my name on it at first glance, but when you look at it you realize it's an email address.

That's it. No phone, nothing else.

that's what I did with "{first_name}@{last-name}.name" and a quite light grey for @ and .name.

On the card are the only immutables – my name.

All else has to go handwritten when handed over.

Yeah, I jot notes too.

Check out the letterpress idea. It's nice and subtle and adds a nice touch, but there is a higher setup fee. I think for mine it was like $100 for setup, but then typical prices for repeat orders.

If you ever want to add a phone number and a website, there is a way to do it while still being fairly minimal.

An IPv4 address is a 32-bit unsigned integer. It is commonly written in the form x.y.z.w, where x, y, z, and w are all unsigned octets. E.g., HN's IP is 3520653040, which in x.y.z.w form 209.216.230.240.

Most common IP parses accept the 32-bit integer form. E.g.,

  $ ping 3520653040
  PING 3520653040 (209.216.230.240): 56 data bytes
  64 bytes from 209.216.230.240: icmp_seq=0 ttl=50 time=41.239 ms

IP addresses can also be written in x.y.z form, where x and y are unsigned octets and z is a 16-bit unsigned integer, and in x.y form where x is an unsigned octet and y is a 24-bit unsigned integer.

HN's IP written in those forms is 209.216.59120 and 209.14214896. Those forms are also accepted by most common IP parsers. Browse to http://209.216.59120 or http://209.14214896 and you end up at HN.

In many countries, including the US, telephone numbers are written as 3 unsigned integers, x, y, and z. There are usually a variety of ways to format those such as (x) y-z or x-y-z or x y z or x.y.z.

It should be possible to get a phone number x y z where x and y are both less than 255 and where the IP address x.y.z is also valid. Obtain that IP address and put an HTTP (not HTTPS) server there (which can just redirect to your name-based HTTPS site), and then you can add to your business card

  Phone and Web: x.y.z

But then I'd get phone calls. :-/

yep. They are perfect. Then if they decide not to contact it isn't weird, it's very easy to say they lost it. Then we can all skip the weird ritual of adding each other to our phones so we can not call each other.

I do the same thing, and second the Moo.com recommendation. I splurged and got the tri-layer card for mine.

I have those (as business cards), but found people actually prefer the “velvet texture” ones (can’t remember what Moo calls them).

Of course, since I write Apple software, the corners are rounded ;).

I use Moo as well. Did the tri-layer cards for my business cards, and did these velvety ones [0] for my other card, with spot-gloss on the back.

[0]- https://imgur.com/3roJYWB

Great link, thanks.

I was actually talking to a guy from the late 1800s the other day at a dinner party, and he simply couldn't believe that we spend all our days (including early morning!) on "calls" with co-workers, but never have a set day and time set aside for social calls. Truly, we lost something.

Whatever was lost is pretty easy to find. Just put some time on your calendar and call your friends.

Does it say:

sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance

tender embraces

unusual sense of humor

Damn I had forgotten about that. Now I'll have to start forgetting about it all over again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com