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mcargian

943 karma · joined September 9, 2008

Frequent flyer and head of technology for a Brooklyn based ad agency. Reach me at username @ madwell.com
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mcargian··on Ask HN: Share your personal website
https://www.cruiseqa.com/

I built a Q&A style blog about cruising, with an initial focus on Disney Cruise Line. We're heading out on our first family cruise, and I had a lot of very specific questions. LLM answers were usually close, but often missed important nuances, so I ended up digging through countless Reddit threads and forum posts to piece together reliable answers.

I started collecting those answers for my own reference, which gradually turned into a public blog. The funny part is that the posts themselves will probably end up as training data for future LLMs, closing the loop.

mcargian··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2024)
Madwell | NYC (Brooklyn) | Hybrid (3 days onsite) | Elixir Developer | $130k - $200k https://careers.madwell.com/apply/3XRWNKFu2h/Elixir-Develope...

We're building a new ad agency reporting platform and we need someone to lead development of this project. You will make pivotal decisions about backend systems, such as authentication, search relevance, personalization, and API design.

Email is in my bio for any questions.

mcargian··on Software engineer salary numbers in the US
The original linked article calculated combined income by combining salary + bonus + profit sharing.
mcargian··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2017)
Madwell — New York, NY — Full Time, ONSITE — A tiny giant marketing agency in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

We're looking for someone who is passionate about delivering an amazing user experience and building something that they can be proud of.

Senior Wordpress Developer — http://careers.madwell.com/apply/4sqDxRZ6Cm/Senior-PHP-Devel...

Magento Certified Developer - http://careers.madwell.com/apply/ZLMrL4wAEC/Magento-ECommerc...

mcargian··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2016)
Madwell | Brooklyn, NY | Fulltime | Onsite

About the position: In this role you will find creative ways to supercharge PHP and Wordpress environments, extending its functionality and transforming it into an engine capable of powering a limitless variety of CMS-driven websites. The work is varied and we have a fun team and office environment.

Learn more about us: http://www.madwell.com/

Experience: * 3+ years of experience with strong knowledge of Wordpress development, * Deep knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, and CSS

Optional: A taste for irreverent banter, communal music, chips, Super Smash Bros., and ping pong

Applying: http://careers.madwell.com/

mcargian··on Show HN: How many days until?
I always use something like https://days.to/since/new-years-day to check when eggs are packaged. All eggs (in the USA at least) have a three digit code showing the date it was packaged on the end of the carton. Helps to see how old the eggs are at the market.
mcargian··on The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)
My ad still works. Although I always have trouble finding it since it was just a 10x10.
mcargian··on Kalzumeus Podcast 5: Quitting Consulting Via Productization
Levelator [1] does a great job of leveling audio between guests, I'd suggest running it on old episodes too.

[1] http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

mcargian··on Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures
Hi, upgrd.com is my site. I always wondered what would happen if a story was picked up on HN. Now I know! There's some interesting comments from other passengers, on the same flight, about the behavior of the flight attendant.

Regardless of your view on Matthew's story - has the site been working well for everyone? Is my little FreeBSD VPS (with photos on cloudfront) setup performing well? I can see the stats from my side, just wondering how it loaded for you. Thanks!

mcargian··on Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist
Replace "Craigslist" with "Classified Ads" and the same thing can be said for over 100 years. ugly, spammy time waster calls for your ads, fake apartment listings (or worse scams), sex trafficking and more. I don't see how any of those things (other than perhaps "ugly") are immediately fixable on CL or any other site.

Personally I've done dozens of local CL transactions safely, securely and with a minimum of inconvenience.

mcargian··on Balancing text for better readability
I think it's odd that a post about readability has grey text (#686868) on a white background. Next to the black screen grabs the text is very light.
mcargian··on [dead]
You should make a real poll. Unless you are only asking this question for karma. http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll
mcargian··on Flight tickets: buy two weeks before even during holiday seasons?
Yes, it doubles at 6 days and under, but my point is, it's neither 14 days nor 21 days for pre purchase, and no round trip is required. The "old" thinking about fares is no longer valid.
mcargian··on Flight tickets: buy two weeks before even during holiday seasons?
While traditionally flights were cheaper when booked round trip and 21 days in advance, those requirements are often no longer required. I just did a month long search on ITA for one way flights from New York to Los Angeles. There are plenty of tickets for next Saturday (7 days from now) for $130. The round trip price is simply the two one way tickets added together.

Within the next 7 days, the price increases but not by much. You can travel anytime before Saturday for only $284 one way. Obviously if you want a refundable/changeable ticket the price is more expensive.

While this is only one example (and a domestic USA itinerary only) the point is that the days of requiring a round trip, with a Saturday night stay and 14 or 21 day advanced purchase are often no longer required.

mcargian··on How to land an airplane if you are not a pilot
There was a bet on another forum. Could someone with only flight simulator experience take off, fly the pattern and land a single engine plane on their first try. I won't spoil it for you, read the thread here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/prop...
mcargian··on ITA by Google and MileWise let you search flights in cash, miles and points
Agreed. I wish ITA had the Google Flights speed and interface for browsing multiple cities and dates but still allowed the advanced routing rules. Unfortunately, I doubt people like us doing MRs are their target audience.
mcargian··on JetBlue to offer free inflight wifi in 2013

    will offer free basic Wi-Fi services until the service is installed on 30 airplanes
While nice to have, if the installation is anything like Gogo (less than 24 hours) it doesn't sound like it will be free for long.
mcargian··on Announcing Hipmunk's $15M Series B Funding
What percentage of their traffic comes from paid advertising?
mcargian··on Refill cartridges cost more than a new (fully loaded) printer
The printer usually comes with less ink per cartridge than the refills. So buying a new printer every time you run out of ink is not cheaper than buying the refills.

Nor practical.

mcargian··on Airplane boarding simulations
None of these simulations seem to take into account the usual activities that delay boarding:

* Not all of first class boards early, many flyers stay in the lounge till later and then hold up the aisle getting their bag into the overhead

* Passengers board together regardless of boarding order. Friends flying with an elite member can board early and not with their group.

* When the overhead is full passengers must swim upstream to bring their bag to be checked.

* Although there are plenty of bathrooms near the gate, many passengers insist on using the lav the minute they board. They again end up swimming upstream holding up the queue

* Seat stealing - whether intentional or not, some passengers help themselves to a roomier exit row seat (or on one occasion I've seen them in first class) hoping no one shows up to take that seat. Once the passenger with that seat arrives, the original passenger has to get their belongings, perhaps clear the overhead and again possibly fight their way against people boarding.

Southwest's self serve seating helps in some regards, but this style of boarding will never be used my the major carriers - at least in the U.S.

edit: typos

mcargian··on Easy Book: book publishing as easy as it should be
Yeah the license wording is very unclear but in the docs he tries to clarify. From the docs:

    You must publish your work under the very same conditions. This means that other people could use and profit from your derived work.

    In any case, you are the sole proprietor of the books published with easybook, including all the copyright and related rights applicable in your country of residence. You are not obliged to share these works in any way, even if you benefit from them financially.
mcargian··on Why I Won’t Turn Off My Gadgets on Planes
Although the rule is dumb, taking it out on the flight attendants is even dumber. Flight attendants shouldn't be expected to know which devices transmit and which don't or how a kindle works. There are stiff penalties that the flight attendant must pay personally (can be up to $10,000) for not following FARs. If it's dumb let the FAA know - it's their rule not the flight attendants.
mcargian··on Learning to Eat Well and Stay Healthy
I don’t eat much of any refined foods anymore, few if any carbs (bread, pasta, cake, bagels, etc), and lots of good quality meat, seafood, and vegetables.

This is the what I did as well, dropped 25 pounds from 200 to 175 over a few months. And gained 5 back when I started eating more breads again.

I'm not sure what new topics are going to be covered as the evils of refined foods and bad carbohydrates have been rehashed since The Zone almost 20 years ago, but I'm glad to see Jeremy reiterating the success he had for others to follow. I'd be curious if there will be a section on stamina - I still crave my evil carbos at the holidays.

mcargian··on The Ultimate Airfare Hacking Guide
Agreed, and it's a little strange to mention using airline miles to reduce your costs, but then fly Astraeus which doesn't award miles. There are lots of better ways to "hack" your travel than spending time on the sites he listed.
mcargian··on HP 15c Scientific Calculator to be Re-issued
Am I the only one that would prefer a HP 42s? $300 on ebay? are you kidding me? I know, I've got "RPN Calculator" on my android phone, but it's just not the same.
mcargian··on Sublets Just Got Easier
Wow, is anyone else shocked by the prices? A couch for $900 a month? A one bedroom rental (in Sunnyvale that would normally go for $600 to $800 a month on CL) for $1200 and up?
mcargian··on UsingMiles Founder Arrested
Will this effect usingmiles.com recent $2.7 million round of funding? http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/usingmiles-raises-2-7-milli...
mcargian··on InboxQ (YC W10) brings its Twitter Q&A service to Firefox
I've been using InboxQ for two weeks now. Not specifically for my product, but for my topic of interest. So far, the questions that InboxQ finds seem to simply be a keyword search that also contains a question mark.

I'd say 1 out of 100 have been a real question. The other 99 are usually someone complaining on the internet in the form of a question "Why can't I ever pick the fastest line at McDonalds?".

I'm curious, have others found better results or a combination of keywords to get better questions?

mcargian··on Why did Borders Tank and B&N not?
Well this is timely. For anyone near San Jose, the Borders at Santana Row has "store closing" signs out today. Most things 20 to 40% off.
mcargian··on When we have money we'll do X
With something like 1 trillion dollars in credit card debt in the U.S. I'm think it's safe to say many aren't "living in the future" at all.
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