hiddenfeatures

FAQs: (more readable version here: http://pastebin.com/Y6QzCEpc)

What is in it for me?

Get a very good Bachelor of Engineering for free. He'll be working five months for you, you pay him nothing.

What's the catch here?

The biggest points seem to be: a) you are NOT allowed to make any payments towards him b) you will have to sign a cooperation treaty with the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) - you can get an english translation of the treaty upon request c) He is not allowed to sign any contracts with your company. You will have to accept the cooperation treaty :-(

Why doesn't he want money?

Because he is an officer in the German Armed Forces and already gets a full pay. He is simple not allowed to receive payments

Who will pay for this?

The Bundeswehr will pay for his expenses (air travel, lodging, food)

When will he be able to work?

The time frame is 4/1/13 to 8/31/13. He will be able to stay in the US for a total of 5 month

Does he have full legal rights to enter/work in the US?

Absolutely. He will enter the US with a military ID and a NATO travel order. While in the US, he will not work for you. He is still employed by the Bundeswehr and is just an "external employee" at your company. This procedure has been done about a dozen times in the past two years and is covered by NATO-status of forces agreements. For more information: http://germany.usembassy.gov/visa/niv/visacategories/diploma... (scroll down about 80%)

Why do you ask on HN ?

Because the previous agreement with another company fell through and he's running out of time/options.

What projects are suitable for the thesis ?

Anything in the following realms: - FPGA programming - Microcontroller programming - Mixed hardware/software development projects

The perfect project should be reasonably challenging (i.e. worthy of writing a master's thesis about the topic) and ideally be self-contained (so he can work on it all on his one - with supervision of course)

Where can I get a hold of him / Where can I get the cooperation treaty ?

Write an email to kai.wissel@unibw.de - DEADLINE to get in contact with him: 2/24/13 23:59 UTC +0100

I love the idea. Using images is an interesting way to implement the concept

A bit like https://noplaintext.com/

Welcome to the club, dear Swedes!

The average German household will pay 215,76 Euro (~290 USD) for "receiving" (whether you have a device or not) government-run TV and radio programs.

In contrast, the same household will pay 786,56 Euro (~1050 USD) for National Defence.

Obviously watching football (the real one, my American friends) is almost as important as living in a free country

Ha... I should stop scanning and actually read the articles on HN.

Then again, maybe not.

Interesting piece of technology.

Sounds a lot like the XM-25 grenade launcher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE) but without the air burst grenades.

I wonder why this has not been developed by the military / government.

That's a very interesting trail of thought.

You could essentially say, that whenever anything does not work, we (the developers) have failed to meet the user's expectation. So we should try to convey this message as gentle as possible - right?

That's a really interesting topic and one I have not yet considered for my own applications - which is a shame.

I would probably stick with the apologetic approach. The rationale being that apologizing once too often will have a far less negative effect than not apologizing when appropriate. IIRC that philosophy was also discussed in Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people".

I really, really, really hope you are right about "users could make a habit of this, and tools would be developed.".

But I guess that less than 5 per cent of users would ever go to the trouble of setting up backups. After all Facebook is in da freakin' cloud - what could go wrong?

From a one-time tourist to SF (I can't help you with the SV / job stuff, sorry) : - Don't shop/eat out anywhere close to the cable car lines. The prices are just through the roof

- use Yelp.com to find good/affordable places to eat. Do your baseline shopping at Walmart.

- We didn't need a rental car for sightseeing. IMHO most of the attractions in SF are within walking distance. This probably won't apply to your situation.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

A special 'thank you' to all NATO and allied troops stationed abroad and far away from their families. Come back home safely

Got it. The mountain in the background is the one you are talking about

There's also a big camp right at the bottom of the picture on the soil next to the glacier. There are at least two dozen tents there.

Very good point there. That still seems to be a big taboo.

OT: Proud to be German today :-)

OMFG. That is hilarious!

Made my day

Oh man... yeah. Seems like I am going to waste a few hours this weekend on this game :-)

Also possible in the online version

I need a child. Anyone got a spare one for me? :-)

Not interested, if I don't get a chance to carry some diesel! :-D

WTF ?

Are you working full-time? Which country are we talking about?

Could you please give more context? Which country are you working in? Do you have a formal education / certificate for your qualifications?

In 2007 I earned about 1.300 Euros net (no perks) as a programmer (Fachinformatiker Anwendungsentwicklung) in Germany. So if you don't have a university degree, I would assume your pay to be average.

Just my 2 cents

The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy.

IMHO success proves Patrick right.

Yeah, email would be cool for a lot of international "customers" as text messaging doesn't work in a bunch of European countries with twilio.

I'll try to make it this time. Thanks for dropping me an email!