Commit 15 minutes (11/16) to explain to a stranger why you love your job. | Hacker News Reader

Commit 15 minutes (11/16) to explain to a stranger why you love your job.

projectxpresso.com

40 pointsjontonsoup32 comments

Sorry to be negative, but ...

I clicked the about link at the bottom:

>"ProjectXpresso is not endorsed by any firms, but rather is a grassroots effort supported by caring professionals donating 15 minutes of their time and a career full of wisdom." //

Which is weird because on the front page you show a handful of "endorsements" as logos of companies who are "participants". If it's only staff from those companies that are involved then this may be a trademark infringement as you're certainly suggesting an endorsement by the companies in using their trademarks; you could use their names IMO [but it's jurisdictional and IANA(TM)L].

On more practical matters; from this page I couldn't return to the "homepage" without reloading, the back link was broken and there was no "home" link evident. Similarly when I looked at the "I'm a student" page I couldn't then return.

Espresso.

We just got sued by a patent troll because they found our logo on the site of a software company they claim infringed. As a customer [at some point -- this was >10 years ago], and without proof our contract indemnified us from such things, it was perfectly reasonable for them to do so.

So yes, adding logos of companies as endorsers when they are really just individuals participating is disingenuous and could get you black-balled by any company that realizes it's happening. You should at least ask permission first.

Completely agree that it looks like an endorsement.

Espresso.

It took me a while to work out what (11/16) meant. I've seen some bizarre way to write dates, but this is just random. I know it's space limited, but why not "16th Nov"?

do you mean that its placement in the sentence is bizarre? or the fact that it's written "11/16"? the month/day format is very common in the US...i'd say it's the default for most people, actually

(I'm not from the US)

My brain pattern matched it as two numbers that have some relationship with each other, but It didn't even occur to me that it was a date until I visited the page. If it was written 16/11 I might have gotten it(the bigger number on the left makes it unlikely that it's a ratio of some sort which is how I read it intuitively). But what if it was 5/11 or 11/5, still no idea what it means without context. If it said "on 11/16" I would get that it's a date, but it would still take me slightly more energy to figure out which is the month as I don't associate the right number with the day, but the opposite.

Keep in mind, if I look at it for more than 2 seconds I will figure it out, but if I need to spend more than a fraction of a second parsing a date, you have a UI problem.

For non-American it's not even clear what is it. Some fraction? Time? Street address? Okay, let's suppose it's a date. Is it 11-th month of year 2016? Or November 16th? In this case we are lucky that the day was <= 12. E.g. 11/12 could mean December 11th or November 12th.

US population: 313.9 million (2012) Estimated people in the world: 7.124 billion.

US is the only country using MD, isn't it?

So most people, perhaps not.

I have a thing about when actual numbers get used.

The thing is the website is in English, so it does not target 7 billion people. It only matters what percentage of target audience can process the message, and it's targeting professionals, so not even entire 300 mil population of US. Basically I think about 300 mil and 7bil numbers are wrong in determining if it was OK to use US-format.

I am not saying you are wrong, I agree that spelling out November would make it clear, but just that the numbers quoted are not representative of who will see the site.

That's actually a really good point, especially with the target audience of HN.

What were the results of the previous "where are you from?" ASKHNs? Not doubting US is the top audience of the site.

11/16 is very clear to someone in the U.S., and very confusing to anyone else:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1179/

edit: actually, according to my first link, Belize, Canadian newspapers, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Philippines (when speaking English, although not Filipino), and Palau all also use the month- day- year date system. TIL!

We Canadians proudly have no consistency. I've seen all of the following used: 13/11/16, 11/16/13, 16/11/13

And by proudly, I mean we don't even realize the rest of the world handles this marginally better. Even official forms have no consistency....

As it is, I didn't interpret 11/16 as being a date. I thought they needed five out of 16 interviews.

Hungarian checkin in, 11/16 = Nov 16 very clearly, as for those others in the "big endian" areas, though at least in full form it's 2013/11/16, not the (to me crazy) 11/16/2013

I find it fascinating that this isn't recognizable to you. For some reason I associate a high second number with a day, unless it's a on a credit card form. It's strange how context changes how I perceive the date.

Where are you from? How do they represent the month day?

Even though I'm in the US and that's the date format I know it didn't occur to me that was a date. Had it been 'on 11/16' or a having the year would have been a dead giveaway. I think the combination of not having 'on', being right after another number, and being in parenthesis made it unfamiliar.

Well, in this particular case, it's clear that it's month/day, since there are only 12 months in a year, but otherwise concur.

Looks cool. But with just a company name and a job title you're going to connect me to a student? Seems like you'll get a lot of near misses.

Seems like you might be better off getting LinkedIn profiles or something and letting students choose from available open appointments.

Completely off topic, but if you were going for the coffee vibe it really should be "ProjectEspresso". As a coffee fan, a small part of me dies every time I hear someone order an "expresso".

It looks to me like they were going for the pun vibe instead.

I think they may be trying to get the impression of a mix of "express" as in "fast", with "espresso". Maybe with a bit of "expression" as in "express yourself"?

Site appears to be leadgen for http://tradeup.io

Not that there's anything wrong with that... Looks interesting, will check it out. Just sharing.

But I __hate__ my job!

;)

Cool idea. I'd like it better if the "professional" icon weren't so gendered.

Only if you consider neckties gendered.

It's not up to me whether an icon with a necktie is some sort of cultural code for "serious professional man."

Cool idea, but I haven't enjoyed any job in tech yet. Would hate to discourage some kid.

cool concept, i'm learning to code using a bunch of online resources and have always wondered if that would get me anywhere in the industry, looking forward to linking up with someone who can shed some light.

awesome! I'd love to hear how your conversation goes.

I registered as a professional, looking forward to getting more information.

Would love to talk to someone interested in software. But I'm not a Skype user; haven't used that in 5 years. Not interested in installing it. Wish I could use Teamspace. I helped write it; I use it every day, and its head-and-shoulders a better way to communicate.

While I understand your point of view, both because not everyone is a skype user and because you wrote it. It is a fact that skype is the most used tool for video/audio communication. I would say especially for students. So I think it's a bit unfair to ditch a tool just because it uses the most common way to communicate.

Its because Teamspace is addictive. Going back is crippling. My work team uses Teamspace so I don't have to face this at work. I'm sure not going to volunteer to use Skype again.

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