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Very helpful post, actually included a lot of interesting tidbits that I hadn't read before with other b2b sales material.

One question that occasionally pops into my mind is, what is the legality behind charging BigCo A $x and BigCo B $x + y?

Surely one wouldn't be able to do this with products (I'll sell this burger to you for $5 but this other person must pay $10 for it), so how is it justified in b2b especially if the feature sets are the same?

Stripe Atlas has personally saved me as a bootstrapped startup founder more than 100 hours over the past 3-4 years we've worked with them. It's just so relieving knowing I'm covered on anything regarding incorporation, legal, taxes/accounting, and I won't have to spend a ton of my own time researching vendors and googling esoteric topics.

"Working out of one of their offices side by side is a great way to hear how they talk, what they care about, etc."

I've heard this suggested occasionally, how does this ask usually work? Besides the fact that our clients aren't near where we're based, it feels socially strange asking to impose on someone's office for a day - I must be missing something.

I had the same interaction but one day their algorithm flubbed and sent me a question that had very obvious Avengers: Endgame spoilers in the title. I had to unsubscribe after that.

Hate to admit it, but I'm a massive proponent of remote work (and other work/life balance-friendly initiatives), but my productivity on average is a lot lower than if I'm in an office.

I still wfh every day, but days where I work out of a coffee shop or anywhere public, I'm a LOT more productive. I think it's just the idea that at any time someone can see my screen, making me less likely to pull up Netflix or a game or something equally distracting.

I'm a simpleton when it comes to AI/ML, but this was pretty impressive to me! It's really interesting how well this seems to have paired up because the portraits, while generic-ish, do seem like they're legitimate human creations. There's probably an overworked animation studio out there that would be interested in this.

I'm fairly certain that, unless they changed in the last couple years, Uber is using Braintree as their payments provider.

What neighborhood is your LA office located?

I'm a specialist at full-stack development for startups and new projects--shipping is in my veins. I'm only looking for part-time, remote gigs, likely with startups or consultancies, as I currently focus full-time on my existing startup. I also bring a lot of soft skills to the table, including in design, UX, product development, marketing, sales, and so on. Email me and let's have a chat :).

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Ruby on Rails (6 years' experience), React.js (5 years' experience).

CV: https://kokev.in/cv.pdf

Email: kevin@kokev.in

A mix of stubborn dad syndrome and not wanting to "bother" me (even though of course it doesn't), shrug. I doubt my dad's stubbornness is the core problem here though, there are countless Americans being taken advantage of by our ISPs, stores like Best Buy, etc. on daily basis.

Recently, Cox had an outage in the city where my parents live. My dad, close to 70, misconstrued the situation and though it was just our modem being slow. He drove to a brick & mortar Cox shop, where a rep promptly sold him on leasing a gateway for $10/mo that would be (and I quote) "25 times faster" than the speeds we were currently getting (roughly peaking at 250 Mbps down).

Of course, my Dad, not knowing too much about this stuff, rents the new router. And of course, it doesn't solve the fact that there was an outage in the first place. I tested the new connection and while I could see _rare_ instances of faster peak speeds, for the most part it was not much faster than the old setup when sampled over time.

I really hope there comes a day when companies can be held accountable for straight up lying and taking advantage of customers who simply don't have the technical means to know any better. It really, really bothers me when my parents get taken advantage of like this and I know I'm mostly helpless to prevent it without micro-managing my dad's tech purchasing decisions.

> * The introduction of Reddit Gold, then the introduction of Reddit Silver - originally a joke, now a real thing

Why is this a problem? You're not forced to use it or interact with it. It's just a way for reddit to make more money, which I have no problem with.

old.reddit.com going away is a legitimate fear that I share, though.

I've been reading your comments with a lot of interest, but I feel like you took the easy road out on this reply. I think it's clear the OP isn't talking about single instances where someone verbally abuses another person. I agree it's useful/fine to criticize political leaders or for a rapper to diss another rapper. What we're actually dealing with in practice are people instigating hate for other groups of people, in some cases often the same fascist rhetoric used to incite violence (and the acceptance thereof) in Nazi Germany (yes, Godwin's law, yada yada), where do you draw the line?

Do we philosophically want to live in a world where people can be incited to great amounts of violence just because we want to protect FoS on private platforms?

That you called it "Baido" (unless typo) implies to me that you're not Chinese, and with that assumption, your post also reads incredibly condescending. Chinese tech is not subpar across the board, there are very smart people there who choose to work on the problems they choose to work on. Some in support of greater state surveillance, others not.

What you have here are American engineers choosing to not work in support of greater state surveillance for another country. Reducing it to thinking that all they're doing is wanting to virtue-signal is condescending.

Can you not see that the crux of your post, calling out others' supposed condescension, appears to be projecting a bit?

Thank you, I was initially dismayed because they have low English-levels on nomadlist [0][1] but I'll look further into them.

[0] https://nomadlist.com/bordeaux [1] https://nomadlist.com/montpellier

Thanks for the very thorough reply. I hadn't realized the exit would occur next Spring, which is around the time I plan to visit. I understand this can be tumultuous for residents, do you think it will also affect tourists?

Would you consider the English level of Bordeaux or Montpellier good though?

Before I entered this thread, I was already thinking about spending a couple months from late Jan to late March in Edinburgh. Could you expand on the weather and the Brexit warning you mentioned? Thanks!

I can actually vouch for this, but I discovered it independently for myself. I realized that the nights I couldn't fall asleep were nights my brain kept racing and thinking about different things. Kind of like a wikipedia rabbit hole where my mind keeps racing onto the next tangential thought.

So I found a foolproof solution: Relax all my facial muscles and imagine an empty, black (literally #000) void in my mind's eye.

The physical cue is to be cognizant of your eyes; every time my eyes began to squint, I know it was because my mind was wandering off. I'd reset my closed eyes to be as loose (imagine a very bored expression) as possible and revert back to my black space. As long as I kept fighting the temptation for my mind to wander, and maintain loose eyes, I fell asleep. All anecdotal of course, but I did use this just recently at burning man while soundcamps blasted my tent, and it's nice to see this method validated in this article.

We (https://mightyscout.com) started off on Stripe Atlas when they first launched in 2016. We started as a C-corp, as was the default at the time, but since we never wanted to raise money and didn't want to incur double-taxation, we converted to an S-corp. Nowadays they offer an LLC and that's the option we'd take if we started today.

Since 2016, we've had to interface multiple times with lawyers, accountants, the State of Delaware. Let me be honest: I absolutely loathe dealing with this kind of crap, I just want to build awesome products.

Stripe Atlas has integrations with various accounting and law firms/services, to the point where you can email atlas@${firmname}.com and expect a real human to carefully read your problem and forward it to the right entity. I _love_ that. We recently filed our Delaware taxes incorrectly and received a scary-sounding notice from the State. I emailed Atlas for help and they figured it out, pointed me in the right direction, and the person on that end didn't charge us to make the amendment.

In 2011 I started a company and back then our only recourse was LegalZoom, which was an expensive and unhappy experience. Now that I've worked with Atlas for a year and a half, I hope incorporating companies will be just as easy (and inexpensive) as Atlas has made it.

I make ~300/mo off of a peer-to-peer loan management software I created for lenders off of 0 marketing (just word of mouth sales). I have some residual revenue along those same lines for a book I wrote in 2015 on helping junior developers get hired at their first job (link in bio if interested).

A bit disappointed there was no reward for finishing all 20 puzzles, but that was neat :). I wish the sandbox were big enough though as I kept hitting the invisible edges multiple times per round.

Like in any nuanced field, there are good and bad apples. At the end of the day, attention is valuable, and Instagram influencers are driving attention like crazy.

Does it work? I don't have any hard science to back it up, but I've worked with many brands who see a ridiculous return on it (despite paying between $50-$2000 per post). It doesn't work for every brand though.

I'm a dev, I work in the industry (I run a startup in this space, check profile if interested), and I consider myself minimalist and not materialistic. Yet when it came time to purchase my first watch, I went with a nice, minimalist looking brand I'd seen advertised on IG constantly. Same with when I needed to buy a new set of t-shirts.

We constantly ask for recommendations on HN and accept them without verifying who the poster is or if they have ulterior motives. I've bought _so_ many books off of HN suggestions because I give the average poster a respectable amount of trust. It works the same in IG influencer marketing - those who follow a particular influencer grant the influencer a modicum of trust and are willing to trust their recommendations more than a banner, billboard, or magazine ad.

Understood, but just for perspective, we humans now have devices that seamlessly translate (more or less) foreign languages right to your ears. That's magical, sci-fi stuff. To nitpick it just because it's not readily available to all 7B+ people in the world is a tad harsh, though I know that wasn't your intention.

I'm not a fan of this line of thinking. Not every bootcamp graduate is the same. There may be less variance between them from a purely technical standpoint but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you'd get out college.

In other words, I don't think it's fair to say "there's an over-abundance of graduates from XYZ university. It's hard to choose among them." Regardless, stereotyping job candidates based on where they learned to code is poor practice. A good hiring manager ought to take the time to treat a candidate respectfully, but I know this behavior is rare. If your organization simply doesn't want to take on junior/entry-level programmers, it should be clear in the job post _and_ IMO, you shouldn't be open to receiving college-grad applications, either.

It always frustrates me when commenters are overwhelmingly undereducated about a topic but continue to make broad, sweeping generalizations. There's a ton of negativity, outright assuming, and misinformation being thrown around here. It happens in every bootcamp-related thread (and topics in other subjects of course).

No, not every bootcamp was legit. No, making assumptions about all bootcamps based on a handful of bad apples is not an honest critique. No, your anecdote about a bad bootcamp grad does not hold more weight than someone else's anecdote about a bootcamp completely changing their life.

The fact is DBC, which spawned an entirely new industry, was an overwhelmingly positive force. DBC has always made inclusivity and community a priority. For the vast majority of students, DBC has been a much higher ROI investment than a 4 year college degree and changes the way people think about modern education systems. There are thousands of capable engineers (including myself) out there today thanks to DBC, which often operated with high stress and, apparently, minimal funds.

It's a shame each bootcamp topic has its share of otherwise reasonable people making unfounded claims. In a community that values programming, startups, inclusivity, and helping others, you'd think the negativity and baseless accusations would be a lot more infrequent. It's been 5 years since DBC began and yet commenter ignorance still requires graduates to come in and defend their bootcamps.

If you have no idea what you're talking about, it's fine, ask and I'd be happy to answer. But this community really ought to be celebrating what DBC has accomplished.

Source: I'm an early 2013 DBC grad who has worked in SF tech since graduating. I've also helped hundreds of bootcamp grads with their job search post-graduation (meaning I have my fair share of honest criticisms for DBC). The vast majority of people I've talked with are now employed at companies most people on HN would love to work for.

I completely understand :). It tends to be easier than you think to acquire calorie-dense foods though, depending where you live (in America it's a cinch). Others have also commented on ways to consume calories elsewhere in this thread, but the key for me was "dirty" bulking. 3000 calories/day would be impossible for me if I were restricted to lean chicken meat, broccoli, and brown rice. However it was really easy (and enjoyable) when my meals consisted of:

1. Chipotle burrito bowls with extra meat: At least 1000 calories in this alone with a significant amount of protein.

2. Protein shakes with whole milk. Or fruit/vegetable smoothies with whole milk and yogurt.

3. Natural peanut butter (the kind you need to stir) for dessert, washing each mouthful down with whole milk. Alternatively I'd also have some rocky road (for the peanuts it contains) ice cream.

4. If I ever missed a meal and was significantly low on calories for the day, I'd eat a few slices of pizza to compensate.

It wasn't the _healthiest_ diet plan, and I definitely gained a lot of fat, but it's not like I looked awful - after ballooning to over 160 pounds, I still looked skinny due to my height. Once I got to a satisfactory level, I began to eat healthier, meanwhile my strength increased dramatically.

Adding on to say that the advice provided in the parent is 100% spot on and OP shouldn't disregard it. More calories in + weightlifting = massive weight increases, especially for beginners. This has been proven time after time, for millions, including myself: 5'11, went from 133 pounds to 165 in 4 months eating ~3000 calories a day and lifting 4x a week.

5 years later, I'm still in the best shape of my life and deciding to gain weight & exercise regularly continues to be one of the best, most profitable decisions I've made next to learning how to program.

The game is widely considered to be well-balanced, which is in part why the game has prospered on a professional level for so long. From what you've listed, Vultures are the only problematic unit (they're the most cost-efficient unit in the game and it plays an important role in every matchup).

If you're curious: Turrets struggle against small units due to their attack type, leaving Terran highly vulnerable against small, mobile Mutalisks in the mid-game. Siege tanks are gas-intensive and immobile in siege mode. Flying buildings' advantage is negligible (Zerg have flying supply depots for that matter). Medics play a very limited role in competitive play: Medic/Marine is sub-optimal against Protoss and Terran, and lately we've found that it doesn't scale well late-game against Zerg too (I find it fascinating that the meta changes dramatically even to this day)! Their blind skill has been used in professional play maybe twice in 15 years. I assume you mean Science Vessels, not Ghosts, can EMP - SVs are gas-intensive, slow, and squishy, but unfortunately are Terran's only effective high-tech unit (Ghosts are expensive and difficult to use well, Battlecruisers are expensive and slow and only see limited use in mirror matchups).

On the other hand, SC2 has struggled with balance issues (perhaps still does? I don't follow it any longer). Anyway the point of this isn't to call you out on lack of BW knowledge (very few people like me care about these details anyway), but I wanted to point out potential confirmation bias: SC2 appearing to nerf or remove these problematic units is not an indication that they are problems in Brood War. Merely a coincidence, if I had to guess! :)

I'm not seeing a rise. But more sophisticated software exists for it now compared to 10 years ago, that's true.

Guessing emails is also common practice, but it's also likely that you're on a lead list somewhere. And the original person curating that list probably got your email from another service, guessed it, or simply found it on your website provided in your HN profile.

It's not going away any time soon - cold emails play an integral role in the sales funnel for the vast majority of online b2b services. It's easier to ignore it than to let it annoy you.