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jakejohnson

118 karma · joined July 29, 2010

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jakejohnson··on Superpowers, Not Superintelligence
Does the CEO and co-founder of Bond actually expect folks who read this announcement, as it shifts from Facebook's ambient data collection toward promoting Bond, to give Bond access to their valuable "identity capital" and sign up because they promise to give us more control over how we share our memories with AI and "provide a safe medium" via closed source? Absolutely not. Keep your superpowers offline with a local model.
jakejohnson··on Gemini 3.1 Pro
I haven't seen any deprecation notices for 2.5 yet, just for 2. I'd expect (and hope) the deprecation timeline for 2.5 is longer since 3.0 is still in preview. Maybe they just default to 1 year here?

> Note: The shutdown dates listed in the table indicate the /earliest/ possible dates on which a model might be retired. We will communicate the exact shutdown date to users with advance notice to ensure a smooth transition to a replacement model.

jakejohnson··on Bridging Elixir and Python with Oban
LLMs work great with Elixir. Running tsc in a loop while generating code still catches type errors introduced by an LLM and it’s faster than generating additional tests. Elixir is also succinct and highly functional. If you can’t find a specific library it’s easier than ever to build out the barebones functionality you need yourself or use NIFs, ports, etc.

https://dashbit.co/blog/why-elixir-best-language-for-ai

jakejohnson··on Bugs Apple loves
I set up a couple developer accounts recently for my clients. Just use a new Google Voice number for 2FA. I had to live chat with Apple support to get past initial verification both times and after that setup went fine.
jakejohnson··on Video Game Websites in the early 00s
Nintendo 2k1 website [1] was god tier slicing with the curved layout, inset menus, and sprites for the corners, edges, buttons without transparency. The pixel backgrounds, fonts, buttons, shadows looked great on a CRT. Tried to replicate it myself back in the day with HTML tables.

[1] https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/nintendo-2001

jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2021)
TaxJar | Engineering, DevOps, QA, Integrations | Remote (US Only) | Full Time | https://taxjar.com/careers

TaxJar is the leading technology solution for busy eCommerce sellers to manage sales tax and trusted by more than 20,000 businesses. We’re solving problems at scale, supporting our growing customer base and creating new solutions in a complex domain with Elixir and Ruby. We deal with large datasets, intricate sales tax rules, and automating complicated processes for thousands of business customers.

We’re actively hiring for the following positions:

  * Ruby / Rails Engineers
  * Elixir Engineers
  * Integration Engineers (NetSuite, WooCommerce, Acumatica)
  * DevOps Engineer
  * Security Engineer
  * Information Security Analyst
  * QA Engineer
  * Support Engineer
  * Engineering Manager
  * Product Managers
  * Product Designers
Apply here: https://www.taxjar.com/careers/
jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2021)
TaxJar | Engineering, DevOps, QA, Integrations | Remote (US Only) | Full Time | https://taxjar.com/careers

TaxJar is the leading technology solution for busy eCommerce sellers to manage sales tax and trusted by more than 20,000 businesses. We’re solving problems at scale, supporting our growing customer base and creating new solutions in a complex domain with Elixir and Ruby. We deal with large datasets, intricate sales tax rules, and automating complicated processes for thousands of business customers.

We’re actively hiring for the following positions:

  * Software Engineers (Ruby / JavaScript)
  * Integration Engineers (Junior or Senior)
  * DevOps Engineer
  * QA Engineer
  * Support Engineer
  * Engineering Manager
  * Product Managers
  * Product Designers
Apply here: https://www.taxjar.com/careers/
jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2021)
TaxJar | Engineering, DevOps, QA, Integrations | Remote (US Only) | Full Time | https://taxjar.com/careers

TaxJar is the leading technology solution for busy eCommerce sellers to manage sales tax and trusted by more than 20,000 businesses. We’re solving problems at scale, supporting our growing customer base and creating new solutions in a complex domain with Elixir and Ruby. We deal with large datasets, intricate sales tax rules, and automating complicated processes for thousands of business customers.

We’re actively hiring for the following positions:

  * Software Engineers (Elixir / Ruby)
  * Integration Engineers (NetSuite / Magento / Acumatica)
  * DevOps Engineer
  * QA Engineer
  * Support Engineer
  * Engineering Manager
  * Product Managers
  * Product Designers
Apply here: https://www.taxjar.com/careers/
jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2020)
TaxJar | Remote Only (USA) | Full time | https://www.taxjar.com/about/

TaxJar is the leading technology solution for busy eCommerce sellers to manage sales tax and is trusted by more than 20,000 businesses. The product engineering team at TaxJar is solving complex problems on a daily basis, supporting our growing customer base and creating new solutions in a complex domain. We deal with large datasets, intricate sales tax rules, and automating complicated processes for thousands of business customers.

We’re actively hiring for the following positions:

  * Software Engineer (Ruby / Rails)
  * Software Engineer (Elixir)
  * BI Engineer
  * Engineering Manager
  * Full Stack Software Engineer
  * Senior Product Designer
  * Product Managers
Apply here: https://apply.workable.com/taxjar/
jakejohnson··on Ask HN: How are you handling US sales tax?
If you're just starting out, I'd register and collect sales tax in the state where you have a physical presence. You would only collect and remit sales tax in that state. As you grow your business, you may need to consider economic nexus thresholds to determine if you have nexus in additional states based on revenue or order volume [1].

You may have different sales tax obligations if you decide to sell on a marketplace such as Amazon. FBA sellers may have additional nexuses based on where Amazon is storing your products in fulfillment centers [2]. Marketplace facilitator laws are taking effect where the marketplace may collect and remit sales tax on your behalf in specific states, but you may still be obligated to report sales tax [3].

All of this can get complicated fast. As always, it's a good idea to talk to a CPA or tax professional first.

[1]: https://blog.taxjar.com/economic-nexus-laws/ [2]: https://blog.taxjar.com/find-amazon-fba-sales-tax-nexus/ [3]: https://blog.taxjar.com/sales-tax-by-state-marketplace-facil...

jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2018)
TaxJar | Software Engineer (Ruby on Rails), Integration Developer (WooCommerce) | Remote / Distributed Team (US Only) | Full Time

TaxJar is the leading technology solution for busy eCommerce sellers to manage sales tax and is trusted by more than 10,000 businesses. Our remote-only team of almost 40 people is growing quickly. We have immediate openings for a Ruby software engineer and WooCommerce developer who want to help us make eCommerce easier for everyone. Learn more about us at https://www.taxjar.com/jobs/ and https://life.taxjar.com/

Apply directly:

Software Engineer (Ruby on Rails) - https://taxjar.workable.com/jobs/712896

Integration Developer (WooCommerce) - https://taxjar.workable.com/jobs/748990

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Can you expand on why TaxJar seems lighter after collecting sales tax? We have a fully automated reporting and filing solution that works at scale for over 10k merchants.

Disclaimer: I work at TaxJar, just curious to hear your feedback. Thanks!

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Correct, that pricing is specific to TrustFile for reporting and filing. They have a separate product called AvaTax [1] for calculating sales tax. If you decide to speak with a sales rep for an all-inclusive package, be mindful of setup fees, cancellation fees, and annual contracts.

[1] https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/ava...

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
When using a sales tax API, the merchant configures their product catalog by assigning products to specific tax categories or tax codes based on the sales tax provider. Some tax categories are extremely granular to accommodate the scenario you mentioned. The logic on whether or not the product is taxable in a specific state based on a certain threshold is done completely within the API when passing over tax codes for each line item.
jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
SaaS is taxable in some states [1], so if you have nexus in one of those states you'll want to register for a sales tax permit and collect sales tax for that state. When these states introduce thresholds similar to South Dakota, you may be obligated to collect sales tax in additional states.

You can use a sales tax API with Stripe [2] to calculate sales tax before processing the payment. From there, you'll have to remit the sales tax to the state manually or use sales tax compliance software like TaxJar or Avalara.

[1] https://blog.taxjar.com/saas-sales-tax/ [2] https://developers.taxjar.com/blog/handling-sales-tax-with-s...

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Some states consider SaaS [1] and digital products [2] taxable. Refer to the blog posts below:

[1] https://blog.taxjar.com/saas-sales-tax/ [2] https://blog.taxjar.com/sales-tax-digital-products/

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
You can sign up for a free trial with TaxJar right away without calling a sales rep, no CC required. Sandbox API environment is included for all plans, but marketed toward Plus plans. Once you log in, generate prod / sandbox keys from the account page.
jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Keep in mind that Stripe only provides automated tax calculations for their Orders API (previously Relay) at this time. You'll have to use a sales tax API to handle calculations for subscriptions and one-off charges.
jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Yes, those platforms may handle sales tax calculations automatically for you for their specific platform. That's only the very first step. Merchants will then need to report and remit their sales tax to each state. If those platforms plan to handle the entire process, trust me they have a ton of work ahead of them if they decide to handle it in-house.
jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Yes, there are affordable sales tax APIs available for calculating sales tax. Usually massive lookup tables are at the zip / postal code level and don't provide enough granular detail by jurisdiction to accurately collect sales tax. They also don't contain logic around product exemptions, customer exemptions, shipping taxability, sales tax holidays, etc. I recommend using an API if you want to avoid under-collecting or over-collecting sales tax.

However, this is a HUGE change. Instead of registering for a sales tax permit and remitting tax for one state, smaller merchants will have to do this in many states if they meet a certain threshold. They will likely have to use sales tax compliance software to aggregate all of their transaction data across multiple platforms (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, etc) and their shopping cart, then report / remit accordingly.

jakejohnson··on States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules
Payment processing services could certainly build out their own solution to collect and remit sales tax, but a lot of merchants sell on a variety of platforms and channels. For instance, a merchant might sell on Amazon and their own eCommerce site powered by Shopify. They might also have an ERP system as a "single source of truth" to record all of their transactions. Each of these platforms collect sales tax differently, possibly providing automatic calculations or simply leaving it to you to provide your own rates. This can get complicated very quickly and a payment processing service only has insight into the data you're passing over to them.

That's why companies like TaxJar and Avalara are focused on sales tax -- to integrate with every shopping cart, payment processor, marketplace, accounting, order management / ERP platform out there to combine all of your transaction data and determine how much sales tax you need to remit in every state.

jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Do you collect sales tax for SAAS?
If you have nexus in one or more states where SaaS is taxable, TaxJar can certainly help out. Here's a breakdown of SaaS taxability in the United States: http://blog.taxjar.com/saas-sales-tax/

As patio11 mentioned, SaaS products are non-taxable in CA. For other states you can use TaxJar's sales tax API for calculations. This post describes how to use TaxJar with subscriptions in Stripe: https://developers.taxjar.com/blog/handling-sales-tax-with-s...

Disclaimer: I'm the developer advocate for TaxJar. If you have any other questions, please let me know!

jakejohnson··on Show HN: Host your status page on GitHub
StatusPage.io is nice but they charge $99/mo for custom CSS and $399/mo for custom HTML. I don't see that as being cheap.
jakejohnson··on Verizon Routing Millions of IP Addresses for Cybercrime Gangs
Exactly. Spammers can use any email address they'd like and Verizon simply passes it on to the recipient. A spammer used one of my domains (with valid SPF records added years ago) and texted thousands of Verizon customers. I intercepted all replies to the texts with a catch-all email and found hundreds of complaints including several death threats and a father who told me his young daughter received a porn text from my domain. After 3-4 days, their spam filter finally kicked in. My domain was blacklisted and I basically had no control over it.
jakejohnson··on Verizon Routing Millions of IP Addresses for Cybercrime Gangs
Verizon is also allowing spammers to abuse Vtext, their email-to-SMS gateway with spoofed domains. No SPF/DKIM checks so they can forge email From headers and send out tens of thousands of spam text messages: http://blog.unto.net/a-bug-in-the-system-or-why-isps-should-...
jakejohnson··on Static Web Apps – A Field Guide
A great example of this in action is Apostle.io. There's a short delay to front-load things and then the app becomes blazing fast when transitioning between states. Internally, it's only making JSON requests to an API that it needs for the view/state. Only parts of the DOM are updated instead of re-rendering the entire page.
jakejohnson··on Static Web Apps – A Field Guide
I recommend checking out some of the examples provided by Firebase. In particular, something like angularFire-seed (https://github.com/firebase/angularFire-seed) is a great way to get started. Firebase can handle user authentication and data storage. AngularJS + Firebase is an amazingly productive combo. Set up Bower and use Bootstrap for the user interface, you’re all set.

It would be a great idea to set up some boilerplates for StaticApps.org showing how easy it is to get started.

jakejohnson··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2013)
Divshot (http://divshot.com/jobs.html) Los Angeles, CA (or remote)

Are you a <div>?

We're building tools to make web development fitter, happier, and more productive and we're looking to hire full-stack and front-end web engineers.

If you love working with bleeding-edge browser technologies, shipping open source, attending hackathons, and lots and lots of JavaScript (Ruby too? Bonus!) let us know!

jobs@divshot.com

H1B, REMOTE, and INTERN positions available for the right candidates.

jakejohnson··on Tools to Bootstrap your Startup Weekend Idea
One of the most popular tools I've seen at Startup Weekend would have to be LaunchRock. Zapier sounds like a great addition! I'll need to brainstorm some ideas. We had several teams use Divshot to quickly prototype web apps at Startup Weekend in Lincoln, NE. Divshot was also used to build Qup.tv in 48 hours.
jakejohnson··on Divshot
We're huge fans of Alex MacCaw's open source projects. Divshot is written completely in CoffeeScript and Spine. There are features in Stylo that we'd like to add to Divshot such as color pickers and more design options for the inspector (gradients, border radius, etc).
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