HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

lowdown

44 karma · joined July 24, 2008

submissionscomments
lowdown··on Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?
the book "How to Read a Book" describes the technique in his conclusion in excellent detail. It is essentially about owning the information you are consuming.

Personally I think this applies to non-fiction works only. At least in my personal reading. My brain doesn't need to store the details of fictional works. It seems like it actively discards "entertainment" items in favor of knowledge I need to pay the mortgage and feed the kids. I am much more deliberate with that information.

lowdown··on Stop complaining and pay programmers more
really, keep your "perks" - it is like giving a gift card. Just give me the cash and I will buy what I want.
lowdown··on Joe Hewitt: On Middle Men
Hewitt is dead wrong on his definition of middle men. They are there to facilitate and earn a profit. Nothing to do with lowering cost. They increase cost. Period.

Frankly, I think he's being a bit of a whiner about the whole thing. There are what, 100k apps in the store? If they weren't QCing it would be 1,000,000 and the percentage of shit apps would be MUCH higher than it is now (and it is through the roof right now).

lowdown··on Blizzard internals from GDC Austin
Tom Chilton was a guildmate in UO. Great guy. It's cool to see him doing well.
lowdown··on Beautiful Reading via Flex 4
He says this will be open shortly in the article.
lowdown··on Eulogy to _why
I'm really sad for purely selfish reasons. My 11 year old really enjoyed hackety-hack up to the point that it worked. Likely it won't be finished now, which is a shame because it was a really great tool for introducing kids...
lowdown··on PythonTurtle - the most low-threshold way for learning/teaching Python
I'll look at it today and see if I can get it up on the Mac
lowdown··on Rules for Bootstrapped Web App Startups
I've actually signed up my first beta customer, which will be a big step towards an actual product. We use the product for our business, but n+1 is challenging. I'm doing it though. I want those 500 customers and the freedom to work on my own IP.
lowdown··on Rules for Bootstrapped Web App Startups
I've been stuck at number two for MONTHS. Analysis paralysis.
lowdown··on [dead]
I just signed up my domain to the free edition this morning.
lowdown··on StackExchange- The Stack Overflow Knowledge Exchange Platform
$129 PER 1,000,000 page views.
lowdown··on Visible Tweets - best twitter back-channel visualisation yet?
This would make a great screensaver. Has that been done yet?
lowdown··on Want to Fool Apple’s App Store? Plant an Easter Egg
Is this a suggestion that Congress needs to step in and provide oversight on the iPhone App Store?
lowdown··on "Auction Site" Swoopo got $44800 for a $2500 computer. See comments for explanation
5-10 in a federal penitentiary?
lowdown··on FlairBuilder - Interactive Wireframes and Software Prototypes
If I was going to this level I'd probably just use Flex itself. I also think that Balsamiq has the right concept in terms of level of detail.
lowdown··on Ask Freelancers: How much do you charge?
I've generally charged $50 for my "still learning" rate. I need to raise it to $75 soon I think.

On a related note, I started networking lately - going to user group meetings and the like - with a lot of success in regards to my freelancing. I hit groups for topics I am interested in and with good crossover in the fields I know well.

lowdown··on Processing + Javascript = Flash Killer
Flash is only as good or as bad (in terms of UX) as the developer(s) make it.
lowdown··on Ask YC: Cheap alternatives to Aeron chairs?
I've had my $400 used Aeron for 10 years at home and it is as good as new. All that time I have seen at least 5 lesser chairs crumble underneath me from normal daily use. Do the math.
lowdown··on How do kids these days get started in programming?
the Lego Mindstorms system is awesome. Squeak and Alice provide very approachable implementations of Smalltalk in a Turtle graphics-ish environment.
lowdown··on Ask HN: My idea has just been launched...by someone else. Now what?
Nothing at all, you're totally right.
lowdown··on Ask HN: My idea has just been launched...by someone else. Now what?
Is your concept search? If yes, get back to the drawing board.

Seriously though, if you aren't going against a company that whose name is used as a verb in the common vernacular, I think you should stick with it. As mentioned, the fact that your idea has been implemented is a validation. If you take it as a defeat then you lose.

lowdown··on 50 years of bad grammar advice
His grammar book is $161.42 - ouch! I bought the 50th S&W Elements. It is a nice little volume and has some good advice in it. There are certainly better style guides out there - no doubt. It's a guide, not a 6lb 1860 page grammar bible.
lowdown··on IPhone fart app pulls in nearly $10,000 a day
How mighty of you. You can buy silly mechanical fart machines, cds of farts, whoopee cushions, etc - all of which are many times more expensive (and less fancy) than iFart. So all those people that are looking for a tech bargain and think loud stinking gas emitted from a human anus is hilarious are in luck.

Outside of your self-righteous indignation, of course.

lowdown··on ProFont: The ultimate programming font.
This font is so tiny at 1920x1200. It also has odd brackets when editing XML.

I'm a big fan of ProggyClean and Pragmata.