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justinwi

589 karma · joined January 15, 2011

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justinwi··on Building Serverless Apps with Webtask.io
Pro/con vs Lambda?
justinwi··on Show HN: GrowthHack as a Service – mturk + Google news api automation
Thanks for the shout. Let me know if I can be of service: http://sohelpful.me/justin
justinwi··on A collaborative spreadsheet in less than 45 lines of JS, one library used
Sweet. How do you do I make it so not every Joe can hack the sheet?
justinwi··on BTCQuote.com - Embeddable, real-time Bitcoin price ticker
Nice, but does it update automatically or require a refresh? Hung out on the page for 30 seconds and didn't see it change.
justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
I didn't use masters for mine because it was easy enough for me to look at the email addresses that were coming in and see if they were junk.

Would be curious to find out if masters will work for $.05. Please keep me posted! :)

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Mailchimp. Didn't appear to have a problem with spam - each article was personalized, and included an unsubscribe link.

Could have made it into some folk's spam folders though. No data on that.

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
That is sick! Oh...that feels like it definitely belongs in this hack. Great stuff.
justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
What part depresses you? That we need to do the write up for reporters?

(fixed the typo...thanks!)

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Comments welcome here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483636
justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Love your passion social justice. I share it, and I can understand how a cursory understanding of mTurk may feel exploitative.

That said, it's clear neither the NYT nor the Daily Beast understand MTurk users - and because of that, they mistake a hobby for a job.

For many people in the US, MTurk isn't about making money, it's about doing something while you're bored. It's not a replacement for a job, it's a replacement for Farmville.

"Ever wonder what our labor market would look like without minimum wages or labor law protections?"

If Turkers were paid with a virtual currency, there would be no comparison to minimum wages - but because they're paid with cash, the puzzles/work exists in a weird world between work and play.

Also worth mentioning, I intentionally price my HITs low so as to target turkers who aren't looking to supplement their income. It only takes 5 minutes of trying to find one person's email address to realize $.03 isn't worth it - if your goal is to make money.

I may be still missing the boat, but if Turkers really are doing this as a hobby - is it still exploitative?

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Good question. Overall quality was high (you're able to see the results as they come in and if they look funky, you can reject them and you won't have to pay).

Stats on our campaign are here: http://screencast.com/t/5XizDvsvjP

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
True, but deprecated != dead.

API still works great. You can try it yourself: http://press.CustomerDevLabs.com

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Exactly. Full instructions for the worker are available here: http://screencast.com/t/HBl34oh58p
justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
There are rarely email addresses on a particular article, it's usually a matter of tracking down the author and finding his/her email address.

We ended up getting addresses for about half of the article authors.

justinwi··on MTurk + Google News API = press
Thanks for the heads up! Fixed.
justinwi··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2013)
Firebase, Soma Water, Syncplicity and PagerDuty - Silicon Valley

More at: http://hiring.customerdevlabs.com/work-in-silicon-valley

Startup friends banding together to find great developers (and lure them to the valley).

We're looking for:

- Senior devs (3 - 7 years writing production code)

- With strong CS fundamentals

- And shipping experience with Rails, Scala, Java, JavaScript and/or iOS

Happy to bring you here for an interview and, of course, relocate you if/when the time is right.

justinwi··on The hacker's guide to getting press
Fwiw, I've used press release services like this in the past, and haven't gotten coverage like this. No doubt a targeted approach per author would be more effective than mass email, but from my experience, this certainly more effective than a press release.
justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
Absolutely.
justinwi··on [dead]
Thanks, fixed!
justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
There are an adequate number of funded startups that want devs/designers to help build their empires.

https://angel.co/jobs

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
Pleasantly surprised Austin's representation on this thread. My homage to you and your great city: http://hiring.customerdevlabs.com/work-in-austin/

Just submitted to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest if you'd like to get the word out.

Who do you suggest I pass interested people along to?

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
The only thing SV doesn't offer is 3 months of vacation - unlimited vacation on the other hand is fairly popular: http://www.quora.com/Startups/Which-companies-have-an-unlimi...

There's a war on for talent now. Be careful what you wish for.

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
Absolutely right. But who needs all that space anyway? Apartments are for sleeping...you'll spend all your waking hours at work ;)
justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
All fair points, and don't forget the ever-present parking enforcers. I pay $100/month in accidental tickets despite being here for years knowing all the rules.

On the positive side there, there's an "energy" (please excuse hippie nonsense) to people here I haven't seen in other places. A kind personal momentum that is intoxicating - hard not to get crazy shit done around here.

Certainly not for everyone, including me on occasion, and it's got its downsides...but I haven't seen a place better for the ambitious to design their future than SV.

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
Rent is crazy here, no doubt about it, and from the submissions we've gotten so far, it's the #2 concern after visas.

I predict, extravagant housing prices lead to the competitiveness of other technology markets. But for the next 5 years at least, feels like there will be more investors, buzz and energy in SV than anywhere else.

Higher perceived chance of success worth increased rent?

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
Good call Ryan, on both accounts. On the wording, I've tweaked it to include "some of" the smartest people in the world.

But doesn't address the bigger issue of smugness, which I've noticed too. Certainly something in the SV attitude that includes a holy-than-thou vibe, but now that I think about it, I get that vibe whenever I'm around successful entrepreneurs - no matter what city I'm in.

Re the living expenses - it's definitely a deterrent if you're starting your own company. If you're working for someone else though, from what I've seen, the increased pay more than offsets the increased cost of living.

justinwi··on Want a job in Silicon Valley?
absolutely! If you're already here you're in even higher demand. Please send your details via the form or email me at justin at link's domain.
justinwi··on Testing your domain name
same ideas apply, just point a different audience to the survey. See http://bit.ly/16W7fhF for more details.
justinwi··on Know someone in Boston? Have dinner with them tonight.
Just put up a flyer site: https://smore.com/a199
justinwi··on Testing Company Names with Mechanical Turk
You'd think so but a good friend of mine (hope he doesn't mind me sharing this) founded Syncplicity. A name I thought was brilliant until I saw him at a networking event:

Him: "The company is named Syncplicity" Them: "Simplicity?" Him: "No. SINK-plicity" Them: ??? Him: "We're Dropbox for enterprise" Them: Oh, I love Dropbox!

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