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bearwithclaws

4,720 karma · joined July 6, 2009

The guy behind Hacker Monthly.

cheng.soon@hackermonthly.com

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bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
Yes! I'll make sure subscribers with subscription until the final issue stay active at least for few more months. Drop me an email cheng.soon at hackermonthly dot com and I'll reactivate your account to download the back issues.
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
You still buy individual issues from the website. I'm thinking of offering a bundle of every back issues for sale.

Update: Now you can get all the back issues here https://gum.co/hm-back-issues

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
Thanks, Patrick. Now I finally have the time to get my hands on Stockfighter!
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
As other comments have pointed out, not having the subscribers list is my non-negotiable terms if someone wants to take over. In fact, after I refunded everyone, I'll reset my server and remove all my DB backups so I won't even have a copy of it.

I know it doesn't make business sense for someone to buy a business without any customers. That's why I never explore the option of selling it.

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
Thank you so much. That meant a lot to me.
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
Thanks Kale, and your kind support over the years.

And Yes everyone, Hacker Newsletter is excellent and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly Shuts Down
Thanks Jacques!

I'm thinking of "open sourcing" Hacker Monthly. The process of making it, the InDesign template I use (and optimized throughout the years), the resources etc. That way, anyone can start their own "Best of HN" magazine or really, any "Best of" magazine.

bearwithclaws··on When a Company Is Put Up for Sale, in Many Cases, Your Personal Data Is, Too
This is one of the reasons I didn't put Hacker Monthly up for sale when I've decided to shut it down.

Our subscribers (a little over 10k) trusted us enough to provide us their contact information (and mailing address for print delivery). Turning them over to 3rd party (even after due diligence) just didn't seem right.

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
I'm not sure there's a specific reason. 5 years is a long time (for internet years). I guess I just wanted to shut it down before it wither and die. I also wanted to explore other options (e.g work on new, different things).
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Thanks. Certainly more than I expected. And I definitely wouldn't expect people to subscribe to a service that's shutting down soon. (also didn't expect this to get on front page)
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Yup. You can still subscribe now and get all the previous issues for free.
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Thanks.

I won't be selling the site. I'll probably leave the site up (for as long as I can). There just won't be any new issue. People can still go to the site and buy digital/print copies.

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Thanks. Exactly how I felt about closing it and not selling to someone else.
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Thank you.
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
May be I didn't do a good job promoting it :)
bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
It is profitable. FYI, I'm living in a lower income country (Malaysia), and I would say my living expenses are pretty low.

Money wasn't the issue. It's hard to explain but I just felt the time is right to start scaling it down and eventually shut it down.

bearwithclaws··on Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now
Hey Ruben! How are you? :)

Well, HM readership has been increasing from month to month in the past few years. But I agree with you on the content shared on HackerNews. There are still a lot of top notch articles shared here, but the focus (votes by the community, in general) seemed to shift news-centric article, from more educational articles, which is the bread and butter of HM.

bearwithclaws··on Ask HN: Techniques for surviving a job you loathe?
Spend less.

I know Australia is an expensive country (and moving is out of the picture), But if you're able to cut down your spending by 50%, you'll be able to save enough money to quit your job soon. Apart from that, spend some time doing steady consulting to start building an alternate income stream. Once your consulting income can support your entire family, quiting is a no-brainer :)

bearwithclaws··on Will Work for Food and Lodging
This is great, Jacques! If I'm within your 1000KM radius, I would send an offer in a heartbeat. Though I don't think there's any project I have that would interest you, but would be really awesome to learn house building.
bearwithclaws··on Ask HN: How to increase self-discipline as a self-employed person?
Two apps helped me best: http://lift.do and SelfControl. Use SelfControl to block all the time wasting sites; Lift for reinforcing beneficial habits/routine such as exercise, eat healthy, meditate.

Work wonders.

bearwithclaws··on I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on
Any cache or mirrors? Can't seemed to view the site.
bearwithclaws··on Ask PG/HN: Recommended reading on the history of technology
Not 'reading', but I watched Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" presentation and thought it was mind blowing: http://entrepreneurship.columbia.edu/events/steve-blank-the-...
bearwithclaws··on Show HN: Life – A timeline of important events in (your) life
My favorite part of your description:

  How about Facebook timeline? Meh.
bearwithclaws··on Show HN: Life – A timeline of important events in (your) life
Wow. This is totally cool! I like how simple your implementation is. I can see this is not only useful as timeline of important life events, but also in recording company milestones.

Congrates, man!

bearwithclaws··on If It’s Not “Hell Yes”, It’s “Sorry, No”
Similar thoughts from Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby): http://sivers.org/hellyeah (2009)
bearwithclaws··on Things that suck in AngularJS
Been using (or, trying to use) AngularJS for the past 2 months.

The way to get around the bad documentation for me are sites like http://egghead.io/ and http://thinkster.io/ (and of course, tons of SO-ing).

bearwithclaws··on HNdigest: The top Hacker News stories in your inbox, on your own terms
Nice work!

Another shameless plug: if you need a curated, hand-picked, carefully designed, paper version of Hacker News (that delivered to your doorstep), there's always the good ol' Hacker Monthly (http://hackermonthly.com).

No internet connection required :)

bearwithclaws··on Show HN: Mr. Poole - A butler for Jekyll
Make that another one: https://github.com/bearwithclaws/poole (2 years ago!)

Never really released as well. Kudos for releasing it.

bearwithclaws··on I am not a css hacker but please HN change your css. smartphone experience suck
Another vote to HackerWeb, which makes the smartphone experience better than desktop.
bearwithclaws··on Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
A nitpick about its translation of "Ma Nong" (码农): it doesn't mean "Number Cruncher". Although the "Ma" is the same character with "Hao Ma" (number), in describing the profession of programmer, it means "Code".

"Nong" means farmer ("Nong Fu"). It implies laborious work.

The closest translation to it should be "Code Farmer".

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