maryrosecook

Ah, no. I bought the domain name because, for a while, I was going to call my new band The Perceptron. I ended up calling it something else, but figured I could reuse the domain for the site.

A music recommendation engine: http://theperceptron.com (code: will be open sourced soon).

A site for writing your autobiography in songs: http://playmary.com (code: http://github.com/maryrosecook/playmary/)

DanW did a project where his house's energy consumption is automatically tweeted. Raw data is gathered by a very cheap device that clips onto the main power inlet to the house.

http://appril.org/post/93599990/the-tweeting-house

I'm sorry, I thought that was what you were arguing when you said:

"The delinquency letter you send out to deadbeat clients that says you work with XXX debt collection agency to recover fees is likely to get a better response rate than the one that says you'll "pursue all options"."

I am not disputing the efficacy of debt collection agencies at recovering money, in the same way as I would not dispute the destructive power of a bomb.

But it seems to me like an unkind ("dickish") way of getting the money back.

Other people have made suggestions for alternatives: tptacek (small claims court), tjic (scary lawyer letter), boredguy8 (a social engineering approach).

Deterrent? Why would collecting one debt discourage other debtors? (whoops, I've taken a wrong turn into Alliteration Central).

What I'm getting at is that using a debt collection agency is an exceptionally nasty way to recover money. There are other avenues to explore, one of which was suggested by boredguy8 and another by tjic.

People view debt agencies as a last resort. To me, they are no resort: they are just plain mean. A company being a dick to your company doesn't give your company the moral right to be a dick back.

boredguy8 made an excellent suggestion of an alternative approach.

I'm shocked that a small business would think of using a collection agent to get money out of another small business.

First, collection agents are threatening and scary. Their presence will affect both the debtor company and its staff.

Second, by selling your debt to a collection agency, you usually give them the right to sell it to other - perhaps more menacing - organisations.

Third, collection agencies primarily work by first sending scary letters, then visiting the debtor in person, then confiscating things of value. None of these are efficient: the debtor loses far more than they owe, and you don't get all your money back.

Good implementation.

You could cut the text on the homepage way down - the complexity of the instructions is incongruous with the simplicity of the system. You could dump all the text I've put in square brackets:

[Hi! Thanks for contacting 3mindMe.com, here are some instructions to get you started:]

Quick reference: help@3mindme.com - Emails you back this information <when>@3mindme.com - Emails you at <when> echo@3mindme.com - Emails you at the <when> specified in the Subject:

Quick examples: tomorrow@3mindme.com - Emails you in 24 hours 5pm@3mindme.com - Emails you at today 5pm (in your timezone) 5pmPSTtomorrow@3mindme.com - Emails you tomorrow at 5pm PST 2days@3mindme.com - Emails you in 48 hours

What does 3mindMe.com do? Basically, we're a gateway to your future self: email us anything, and we'll mail it back to you at a future time and date of your choosing.

[How much does it cost? Nothing! This is just a fun project for me.]

[put this on a separate page] What's new? (updated 2008/5/3) Hooray, the first update not for timezones! Unfortunately, it's for spam. Luckily, I did something really tricky, so I'm hoping it won't be a problem... If you do get any spam via 3mindme, let me know. [/put this on a separate page]

How do I use 3mindMe.com? There are two primary ways: - Email <when>@3mindme.com and your email will be reflected back to you at whatever time or date you specify. - Email echo@3mindme.com and it'll be sent back to whatever time is set in the Subject line

[What do you mean by "<when>"?] You can construct your <when> in three steps:

[1) Ask yourself "When you want your email sent back to you?"]

2) Write that down just as you'd say it out loud, for example: friday tomorrow noon next tuesday at 5pm PST 2 weeks 5 minutes before January 1st 2008

3) If you're emailing echo@3mindme.com, you're done! Just put that on the Subject: line of the email and send it, and it'll be sent back to you at the time and day you picked. For example, you could make the subject: 5 minutes before January 1st 2008: Get champagne, quick!!

4) Alternatively, just take all the spaces out and stick @3mindme.com on the back, and mail to that. For example, the above ones would be converted to: friday@3mindme.com tomorrownoon@3mindme.com nexttuesdayat5pmPST@3mindme.com 2weeks@3mindme.com 5minutesbeforeJanuary1st2008@3mindme.com

[put this on a separate page] Do you store my mail? Only as long as it takes to deliver it. After it's sent back to you, the mail is deleted. [/put this on a separate page]

[What's with the crappy name? Ya, 3mindMe.com doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but all the good names were taken. Please don't hesitate to email me suggestions at dbarrett@quinthar.com.]

[put this on a separate page] Who are you? I'm David Barrett, and you can read more about me at http://quinthar.com, or just email me at dbarrett@quinthar.com. [/put this on a separate page]

[Thanks for using 3mindMe.com, and enjoy!]

[-david]

I played this game for the first time at Barcamp London 6 (www.barcamplondon.org) and absolutely adored it. Thought it would appeal to other hackers.

I'd love to hear more about your voting system...

Would appreciate some input on my back-of-an-envelope calculations.

Music is a terrible choice for a voting system. The homogeny of opinion for sites like Hacker News or even Digg is way higher than any sector of music listeners, and it's this homogeny that aggregators depend upon to remain useful. To put it another way: without curators, you need to all think alike.

The only way I can see this site working is for rankings to be calculated on a per-user basis, based upon the votes accrued from the user's neighbours. This would go some way towards the mental filter I use for music recommendations from friends: do I trust this person's music taste?

This talk by Linus Torvalds was what got me excited about Git: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

Clojure in practice: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494147

I've been to Berlin several times. Most everyone I met spoke better English than I do. I asked some of them whether this is a common German trait and they said yes, but primarily amongst younger people.

If you're willing to not confine yourself to the US, London is great for cheap public transport. On average, the cost of living is quite high: housing and nights out are expensive. However, if you're clever, you can actually subsist on a low amount of money: eat at home, live in a small flat outside central London etc.

Ah, well spotted.

I get this. It's to do with logging in:

1. Make sure you're logged out. 2. Open two HN pages. 3. Log in on one of them. 4. Click an up arrow on the other page (the one where you're not logged in). 5. The vote will get counted, but you'll be sent to a blank page.

I always figured it was a failure of the AJAX to check login status.

The motivation behind requiring a credit card for free trials is that many people forget, or can't be bothered, to cancel before they start getting charged.

Thanks very much for the shout-out.

I think that mashup already exists. last.fm lets you stream and buy tracks...

I ocasionally find myself writing, "Warning: obscenely hackalicious hackety hack", or something similar. When I come across it later, it makes me laugh and makes me refactor.

For me, the key is "turn off the creativity spigot". I always thought that creativity is one of those lovely positive feedback loops: do more, have more ideas, do more. However, this only works for so long.

I thought that trying to code a new site and write an album at the same time would work. It didn't. My ability to write songs just disappeared.

However, I took Christmas off from creativity and now I'm flying.

I've had a solo band for a few years (http://werenotthecoolkids.com/music/index.php). I've been in several bands with friends. I play the guitar, drums and sing. Being a polymath is really important to me.

I'm sorry, perhaps I phrased my critique poorly.

I wasn't trying to make any points about the particular situation in Greece. I was trying to say that, yes, the author cites some facts, but that he disregards the stuff he provides evidence for (the political situation is Greece over the last forty years), then draws conclusions that he doesn't provide evidence for (the circumstances that have brought about the current riots).

This is a very strange summary.

The history of Greece - both the current protests and the political history described in the article - are simply another playing out of some common patterns:

The US meddles in a country, a military dictatorship rises, the country is exploited, student protests follow. (e.g. most of the countries in South America.)

Mainstream politics undergoes a homogenisation: the number of influential political parties goes down, the policies of the remaining parties become more closely aligned. (e.g. England.)

Riots are sparked by a specific event, but are actually caused by socio-econonic divisions. (e.g. Paris.)

I've just made some horrible generalisations. However, the linked article offers no insight into the particular situation in Greece. History is briefly explained but then disregarded (the military government). General conclusions are drawn without any real evidence (riots in response to poverty). The current events described are linked to something that is getting a lot of headlines (the credit crunch).

Oh, whoops - I assumed it was a critique-my-site style post. Thanks.

* Putting the field title inside the field is not a win. It looks elegant before you starting filling the blighter in, but it's a hindrance during. I fill in field 1, tab to field 2 (forgetting to look inside the field to note what I need to enter), guess it's asking for my email, shift-tab to check, find I'm correct, tab again and then fill in my email. Repeat.

* "Whoops" is the first word you see after you sign up. The context is, "Whoops, looks like you don't have any snipts yet", but it's still jarring.

* It won't let me save a snippet without tags.

* Can the type drop-down not be a text field where I can type a file extension? Way quicker. Perhaps default it to txt.

* You need to make the most efficient use of space possible for showing my snippets. The only vertical space taken up by snippets should be the text itself. Put all the other stuff (edit, copy, add, My snipts, Public snips etc.) off to the side.