Hacker News Reader

josh_carterPDXon As AWS Use Soars, Companies Surprised by Cloud Bills

Ditto. The other point to make here is that AWS is not the only game in town. I agree they're not an inexpensive option, but there are even some small "mom and pop" cloud providers that are cheaper and easier to use than AWS. However, until they stop gobbling up market share there will always be ancillary markets that will work to support those that invest in their services.

josh_carterPDXon As AWS Use Soars, Companies Surprised by Cloud Bills

I just joined a new company who is doing nothing but helping companies figure out how to save more money on their cloud costs. This is such a timely article.

The same costs that are being used to justify the value of the cloud are now being used to justify going back to buying servers. Which is the wrong solution, by the way.

With anything it just comes down to education and best practices. People need to utilize the incredible tools out there along with understanding better how the cost structures work.

josh_carterPDXon Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

I won't name the company, but I watched a prominent startup CEO stand in front of the entire company and angrily scold everyone about bad reviews on Glassdoor. He didn't understand why someone would post a negative review online instead of just coming straight to him.

josh_carterPDXon Two creators are not always better than one

When you think about how 80% of startups fail because of founder issues, this makes a lot of sense. However, to some of the other points made here, investors like to see that you are able to convince at least one person to go all in with you.

josh_carterPDXon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2019)

Location: Portland, OR

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Depends on the location/opportunity

Technologies: 15 years in telecom including an early employee at Twilio, product management, project management, operations (team/process), business development/partnerships

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuajcarter/

Email: joshuajohncarter (at) gmail (DOT) com

Notes: For the past year I have been running a Techstars accelerator program called Patriot Boot Camp. Before that I started a backend-as-a-service platform called BrightWork which we took through techstars.

josh_carterPDXon Craig Newmark’s New Hit List

Craig does amazing work to support veterans. As someone who helps to run a non-profit aimed at getting more veterans to start tech companies he has been a supreme advocate and has put his money where his mouth is.

josh_carterPDXon Show HN: Analysis of 2018 Hacker News “Who Is Hiring” Job Posts

This is great, but I would have liked to see more data around how many jobs are entry level, management, executive, etc. Thanks for this! Really cool.

josh_carterPDXon DigitalOcean launches its container service

Great distinction. Either way it's nice to see DO expand its offerings. Love their service and the team.

josh_carterPDXon Krisp.ai – Mute background noise during your calls

>When there was a conversation going back and forth, or when one person started talking right after someone else finished, the voices got mangled or muted and I couldn't understand them. I had to turn Krisp off.<

This may have nothing to do with Krisp as an app. All phones/communications device have the ability for either half or full duplex audio. Half duplex means only one caller can be heard. If someone were to speak, the audio would cut out as you experienced. Full duplex allows for conversations to happen all at once.

So this all could just be a symptom of the feature of the device or service you're using. I would try your test on different devices and/or services.

josh_carterPDXon Public Google Doc Copy of the S2018 YC Application

Thanks for doing this Carter! Very valuable.

josh_carterPDXon Mercer Family Grants $1M to MAPS for PTSD Research with MDMA

It was the first thing I thought of as well. I feel like there are ulterior motives behind the grant award. Will be watching closely.

josh_carterPDXon Show HN: Fruits and vegetables in season in your zip code

This is nice. I'd love to see this expanded as I am sure there are more than just 4 fruits in season right now in Oregon. :)

josh_carterPDXon Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

This is what has always concerned me. A lot of bootcamps are popping up making it hard to figure out which ones are legitimate. On top of that, as a military vet, I have worked hard to figure out how to get the G.I. Bill to be used with these bootcamps. Today, not many qualify because of a number of variables, but mostly include how the curriculum is dynamic.

Flatiron is one of the better orgs with a pretty good reputation. It's tough to read that they've fallen short for their students. It causes a lot of anxiety for those trying to utilize these schools to learn coding.

josh_carterPDXon Launch HN: PullRequest (YC S17) – On-Demand Code Review

All reviewers sign NDAs to protect your IP.

How does your company back this up? What happens if one of your Developers violates this? Will you pay for the legal fees?

josh_carterPDXon Benefits of a Lifestyle Business

I have grown both a lifestyle business and a startup and I still don't know which I prefer. I mean, it's nice to have some flexibility, but it's also nice to find the capital that helps propel your business faster. It really depends on the business, the person, and what you'd like to get out of the venture. At the end of the day it's a preference. I don't think one beats the other.

josh_carterPDXon Our Product Hunt Strategy: How we optimized for maximum success and impact

Not a company I work for, but a lot of good insight here.

josh_carterPDXon Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

Haha. We partially signed up to broaden our culinary literacy. My Wife doesn't cook and when I cool it's typically something very simple. Blue Apron has helped give both my Wife and I more confidence to try new things.

josh_carterPDXon Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

I agree with this. We struggle with how to dispose of the tremendous amount of waste created by our weekly delivery as we don't have a very large trash bin at our house.

Blue Apron and Hello Fresh need to figure out how to make their services more sticky. At some point we've collected enough meals that we like where we can just go to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients and make it ourselves.

Both of these services sell convenience, but it is hard to keep selling that to existing users who grow weary of the amount of waste and the simplicity of just grabbing everything they need to make these meals on their own. Amazon's meal-kit could help solve this if they just add the ingredients to shopper's grocery list automatically and it's ready to be picked up at their next trip. Delivery is a non-starter in my opinion. It didn't work for grocery.com back in the early dotcom days, and it's not working now.

josh_carterPDXon I'm a creep. I'm sorry

This is a very Dave-like apology and I hope it leads to meaningful change for him as it's clearly creating a bigger conversation. I believe in second chances and I really hope we see Dave back into the trenches. He's done a lot for the industry and it'll be interesting to see if he's welcomed back.

josh_carterPDXon Area code 710

I'm sure old issues of 2600 have a lot of articles on phreaking.

I used to red box a lot of old pay phones to get free calls using a tape recorder. Sadly there aren't too many phreaking hacks these days with everything moving to the cloud.

josh_carterPDXon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2017)

BrightWork (Techstars Chicago '16) | Lead Engineer | Portland, OR. | http://brightwork.io

You’re a developer that loves Javascript, NodeJS and web frameworks (Angular, React). One who is passionate about building tools that make the lives of other developers easier. You must be able to follow the direction of the executive team and turn the roadmap into a reality. Ideally you are good at both backend and frontend development, are a ninja coder with aspirations to be a leader. Willing to take direction and provide direction and leadership to junior team members. You have an entrepreneurial mindset and take ownership of projects and/or tasks to see them through to completion willing to wear multiple hats. You also have opinions and aren't afraid to bring them to the table.

Requirements: The position will require that you have experience with NodeJS, RESTful API, MongoDB or similar database. At least 8 years of development experience. Unit testing with Mocha/Chai or similar. Understanding of good software engineering patterns and practices, OOP vs functional, etc. Experience using Git for source control is required.

Bonus Points - MEAN stack, HTML, CSS, SASS experience is preferred. - Experience with ES6. - Agile development experience and continuous integration/delivery practices desired. - DevOps tools experience (Docker, Chef, Puppet, Vagrant) is desired.

Please no 3rd party recruiters or agencies

This is on site in Portland, Or. Local candidates or persons willing to relocate to Portland only (no relocation compensation included).

May be required to travel

josh_carterPDXon Ask HN: Is it worth it to move to SV in 40's with family?

However housing is so expensive out there that I'd have to either buy a much smaller house, or drain my savings and go into debt and work until I'm in my 70's to pay it off.

^^^ you've answered this yourself.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

I believe they're doing that. They've introduced two new products out of beta these past two weeks. My hunch is that they'll continue to find paths to long-term and more predictable revenue to mitigate the anxiety we're seeing with the stock. A lot of people don't really understand what Twilio does and its value proposition within the investment community. It's tough to sell this as a viable investment option if you don't truly understand what the platform does.

I do think this is just temporary. They'll bounce back. It'd be a good time to double down on the stock.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

They're a SaaS play with no lock-in. Which is great for businesses who want to use Twilio on a small scale then grow strategically. Sucks for Twilio because they want to have as much predictable revenue as possible.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

It's great for those that targeted their puts at the $25 range and definitely for those that have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to jump in. It's not going to stay down here for long. I agree. Total overreaction.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

Not yet.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

Not sure I would say that. They have voice, video, messaging, SIP, etc. They have a lot of tricks.

josh_carterPDXon Twilio stock plummets as major client Uber distances itself

Love the spin the media is putting on Twilio's earnings call. Uber load balances its traffic across multiple providers. Moving their traffic off Twilio shouldn't be seen as a signal that they're distancing themselves from Twilio. Twilio has a model that's hard to predict long-term revenue. This will continue until they figure out how to get more high value companies to sign contracts.

josh_carterPDXon How to Become Well-Connected

Sigh. Not a big fan of articles like these because it's different for everyone and there are a lot of variables that can make this a success or failure. There is not a play book for how to connect with people other than just not being a complete dick. There. I just gave you an awesome tip. Don't be a dick and people will want to talk to you. Be authentic. Not sure why people feel the need to write an article that serves as a reminder on how you can connect with people on a "real" level.

josh_carterPDXon Ask HN: What internal tools have you built to make your job easier?

More specifically, I'm looking for what you've built to make your job more efficient as it relates to engineering job functions.