reduxredacted

She used to spend an hour a night making meals, now she gets the week done in a couple of hours (she is a stay-at-home mom and the only one capable of making a meal that's edible in my house).

Buy a box (10 or so) of small LED flashlights. Place one discretely behind anything you routinely have to peer behind. I have one behind my fridge, my television and inside my computer rack.

Work Hack:

When hosting a meeting, never schedule more than 30 minutes. This requires keeping things on point and moving ahead. Start on-time, state the point, tease that the meeting should only take 20 minutes. Avoid rehashing for late-comers, explain that you'll get with them after the call/meeting. Participation goes up when people have incentive and when you have a reputation for starting on time, people will arrive on time. The ones that don't probably don't need to be there.

If you're at a larger company, greet everyone you pass in the hallway regardless of title, position, or rank. Get to know their names and use it in the greeting (there was a famous book somewhere . . .). "Good Morning, Joe" is enough.

Completely disconnect for more than two days every once in a while, especially if you're in a rut somewhere (dead-end project, writer's block). I'd take short cruises and spend the majority of the time watching the water (this was back when cruises didn't have internet access or cell service, and even now the cost is prohibitive enough that you can tell work "You can reach me for $9.00 a minute"). The first day or so is discomforting, but after the third you stop thinking about what you missed on Hacker News.

You didn't say Vacation Hacks, but I have a few:

- Schedule trips during the common first/last week of school. Parents usually can't take trips at this time, so resorts/cruises are usually under-booked and less expensive.

- If you like cruises, watch NYC launches that happen over one of the big Jewish holidays, especially themed or promo cruises. Cruises are usually booked several months in advance. Cancellations are common, the cruise company gets paid partially and wants to fill the room. I got a $500 and $400 balcony on a 7-day in East Caribbean on a great ship this way. Both were themed cruises, so this may make a difference (much earlier booking, perhaps).

I've watched this movie several times and I pick up on new things almost every time.

I don't think I've ever used that phrase in this context before.

Though I did think the part where the guy used it as a shield seemed to be the least optimal for the situation at hand. Seems he could have used the blade more effectively, but then that would have made the scene a little less palatable for an infomercial.

I find this problem to be more the fault of the facilitator than the participant. There's always an opportunity to say "I understand your concerns, lets take this offline so we can continue with our discussion."

As a participant, depending on who is hosting, you may step all over sensitive toes if you try to correct the individual in question.

When I host I have a few rules. I always start on time and avoid repeating myself for people who arrive late. I define the purpose of the meeting up-front. I never schedule more than 30 minutes. I stop people who bloviate or go off topic by suggesting a possible follow-up (often unnecessary).

And the most useful opening line is "Though I booked 30 minutes, I want to value everyone's time, so I think we can [insert purpose for meeting here] and have plenty of time to spare." Any variation of that seems to get people to pay attention and contribute because there's an expectation that we'll get somewhere, and be done quickly.

As a participant: If I know the meeting organizer well enough, it's a conference call and the organizer is not sharing their desktop, a simple IM to them host saying "Land the plane." or "Find a way to shut him/her down.", perhaps with more carefully chosen words depending my relationship with the meeting host helps.

If you feel comfortable enough with the host, content and meeting arrangement you may find that you take over for the host as a participant. Be careful, though, some peoples' egos bruise easily.

That's precisely what I thought.

I have three To Do lists:

1) The Honey Do list of things my wife needs me to do around the house.

2) My "Routine Maintenance" list that includes things like, ensuring I'm up on my automobile and home maintenance (check oil, fill up the cars every Sunday, etc).

3) My "Do Every Day" check-list like, take vitamins/medication, sort yesterday's laundry so it gets cleaned by my bride, put away any dishes/glasses I used the night before, set out clothes for the morning.

I couldn't, personally, think of One Thing I'm excited about if I spent ten minutes wondering if I have everything I need before I go out the door to the office. It frees me from having to fret about forgetting to charge my phone (evening checklist), or finding out on my way to work that I unexpectedly need to fill up my car (Sunday evening check-list).

They just get done without thought so my mind doesn't wander over to them.

I thought this at first, as well. However, after reading the advice about only using "long-time customers" for this approach.

1) Only applies to a long time (happy) customer...and:

2) Said project should be appropriate for this sort of billing method. And will often vary, but I think he got it right. It should be a project that is important to the business where quoting and billing is difficult to nail down.

An example from my past: I used to do network config/wiring/support work for a small firm. They found out that I also wrote software and asked for my assistance on a small, very important, project in an area that was not my expertise (an EDI system). They didn't ask me for an up-front quote due to our previous business relationship. They did, however, gave me a short, hard deadline.

I billed them two hours instead of the twenty or so it took me to figure out the problem because I was inexperienced in the technologies they used. They volunteered a $1000 bonus to me on its completion.

I learned later that the short deadline was to give them enough time to pass the work off to a well known company that could easily get it done, but had quoted them north of $10,000.

I'm not complaining. This company and a few others that I did regular odd jobs for made my college years reasonable.

Really, all you're doing here is leveraging the relationship you have with a customer and the circumstances of the job are largely going to determine whether or not it would work or, as you put it, come of as naive and lacking confidence.

This customer knew from my past work that I was a little less expensive than most of their other options and yet I did quality work. They also knew I was going to school and -- like an employee of their company -- had to give me incentive to take on more work when it was necessary. I needed them, they needed me. In the case of this small assignment outside of my area of expertise, they saw underpaying me as more to their disadvantage.

I was shocked to receive the unsolicited bonus, but I'm willing to bet it would have been more than $1000 if I had just said "I don't know how to bill this. Pay me what you think it's worth" to this particular customer.

If I saw a kid out in front of his grandmother's house in the summer wearing a suit selling lemon-aid, I'd purchase it and probably add a tip:

- It's the middle of summer[1] and the kid is serious enough that he's willing to sweat it out in a suit. That's an attitude I'd respect.

That would be my instant, gut reaction, walking by that stand for the first time.

[1] I'm assuming he's not selling lemon-aid while attending school

Agreed. There was a gentleman I had the pleasure of working with years ago who wrote an application in Perl that literally performed an inventory of every switch, router and attached device and did so faster than anything I've seen commercially available.

He quit on negative terms (I can't remember the specifics) and upon examining his code, it was FORTRAN in Perl (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/04/you-can-write-fortr...).

He was a brilliant individual. Myself and a few of his coworkers enjoyed bouncing ideas off of him, often is areas outside of his expertise. When he didn't have an outright "try this instead", he knew what questions to ask to get us mere mortals to think about the solution differently.

If I didn't know the man better, I would say that he intentionally obfuscated his own code. But I get the impression after reviewing several of his projects that he simply thought differently and that expression was displayed in his work. Unfortunately, it made him an island and all of his projects a one-man effort. His manager didn't know good code from bad and didn't require documentation or review. Nobody could support this guy's code except this guy.

It was one of the driving factors for me buying her a laptop of her own that I never log into. I really need a prospective employer or friend Googling my name and seeing that I not only read Breaking Dawn, but that I felt strongly enough about it to bash it with a bunch of other ladies.

EDIT: Just to clarify: the forum was 99% women according to my wife. I am not implying that Real Men don't read Twilight, just that I'd feel like less of a man if I read it. To each his own.

"You remind me of Michael Scott"

This really did sort of feel like one of the videos created by The Office writers for everyone's favorite manager.

From my perspective:

- Last week is important on Monday ... but only on Monday. I do a quick review/plan for the following week and I use data from the previous week for accountability purposes -- as in: Did I deliver on action items from the previous week? I like to get that out of the way on Monday morning so as not to have it hanging over my head the rest of the week.

- Some appointments and meetings are more important or come with greater consequences if missed. The day view is dead on, but I'd expand it to be a pad of "Day View" (a.k.a. What's Important hour by hour) at the top with starred items beneath. For instance, my Dentist charges $75 if an appointment is canceled with less than three days notice (this is never enforced, but his time is important, too). My current method is to set a reminder four days before. Once I receive the reminder, I validate that I can make the appointment and reset it to remind me 1 day before hand so that I can cancel anything else that is short-notice that conflicts, then I reset the reminder to 20 minutes prior so that I get off my duff and drive to the Dentist office. I have a similar kludge for important meetings or ones that require a great deal of prep work. Since I check my calendar constantly, I could avoid all of this nonsense if it was just sitting under a thick line beneath my "Day View" as a constant reminder.

One of these days I'll, perhaps, understand the fascination people have with attacking this woman. Frankly I don't care if it's a positive or negative story. There has to be more important things to talk about (look at me, contributing to the problem . . .)

"We just watched and waited until the crew checked into their hotel", Popovich says, "then we grabbed their plane and flew away."

That certainly doesn't sound like they're doing a lot of inspection to ensure a safe return. Granted, it's only their hind-ends and they are aware of the risks, but I think this guy and his crew certainly deserve a brass balls award.

Define porn.

Travel to another country.

Define porn.

In the US, periodicals don't post pictures of naked men/women (at least not the defined "naughty bits"). The ones that do are considered pornographic and require the purchaser to be a certain age.

In Europe, nude women in periodicals is not unusual.

In Muslim countries ... well, if you can figure all of the nuances of the most restrictive Muslim countries, I owe you a beer.

I work in a rather open office environment now. Our management has no problem if employees blow off some steam by surfing to a site that might not be work related as long as its not excessive (just like they don't punish people for going to the break room to get a candy bar from a machine, or going outside to smoke).

However, click the wrong link and end up with porn (or something otherwise seriously inappropriate for a typical work environment) and you get noticed very, very quickly.

I will be happy to share my experiences after I receive mine and see the results on their site. I don't expect it to compare to what my sleep doctor can get, but it'll be interesting to see how close/far they are. I don't have a blog, so I guess it'll just be a reply to this thread.

However, I wasn't surprised they missed the January ship date, and probably less surprised that they missed the Q1 ship date:

- It's a unique product. Identifying demand is difficult. My guess is their demand was underestimated. This is a product focusing on an area of life that everyone I can think of wants to "fix". All of my coworkers who I consider "early adopters", also pre-ordered after I IMed them the URL (16 people)

- It's priced significantly lower than the few alternatives that are out there. It's also designed in a way that is more convenient than similar products offered by competitors (no head bands).

- Smartphones are common now, so the barrier for entry really is the $50 for most people

- Hardware is difficult to get right. You can't just tweak a few lines of code and recompile. If something is wrong with the trial units (and I'm not saying there was, I have no idea), it can be a serious setback.

It's too late now, but here's the formula that should be applied:

- Decide the amount of pre-orders you think you can safely get out the door on time (be incredibly conservative). Set your web app to stop taking pre-orders when you get anywhere near that point.

- Before turning pre-orders back on, up the price committment, and push back the date (while notifying your initial pre-orders that they can still expect theirs on time). I know when I visited the site, I thought "Gee, I'm out $5 if they fold, who cares?" It's also the only reason I haven't cancelled my pre-order.

- Pick a very conservative ship date, then add more time. Have an option at check-out that says "if we can ship earlier, would you like us to?" to catch folks who might be caught off guard by the unexpected $45 charge. Or skip that and simply e-mail your pre-orders to see who wants one early. Nothing makes me happier than when I get something I want sooner than I expected.

- Hire someone with a history of dealing with sourcing parts, dealing with vendors/manufacturers and getting stuff out the door. These are usually not geeks and not folks who are attracted to start-ups.

- Don't take any preorders until you are sure you have the hardware right (as I said, I'm not sure if this was the problem but the delays are so long it certainly smells that way)

I don't understand sites that have serious length limitations on passwords. I recall Amex had an 8 character limit last year when I had an account with them.

Passphrases + randomly generated passwords via KeePass or Password Safe is the way I go.

Though, admittedly, I don't think I've ever looked at a piece of code I've written that was more than six months old without thinking "who the hell did this and why did they want to torture me?"

I don't think the bar is set at coder, programmer or developer. I don't run, nor do I desire to run a start-up, but I read plenty about them here because the quality of submissions generally means I'm going to enjoy the post. And the items that fall into the "non-startup, non-development" category are often very interesting...even the ones I disagree with philosophically are often good reads.

I wonder what makes a hacker, exactly?

The source is unnamed.

The source may very well be telling the truth. I've contacted customer service at AT&T U-Verse. I've never had fewer than three transfers and the person I end up with, while almost always being very polite and sounding as though they're smiling through the telephone ... generally has no idea what's going on.

The conversation could have gone like this:

Caller: It looks like 4chan is being blocked. I can't access it from my (DSL/U-Verse) connection. [... after a few minutes of sorting out what 4chan is ...]

Rep: I can't seem to access that web page, it says it's blocked.

[...click...comment...]

Just a guess :o)

A few months ago I couldn't access drudgereport.com and a few others sites reliably for several days. It worked via vpn from work, and on the neighbor's Comcast connection, but those of us in my area on U-Verse were getting server connection resets.

I don't attribute it to network filtering (Hanlon's razor as mentioned in another comment ... and I work for a large telecom ... sometimes the tubes need to be snaked).

Though we ruled out DNS -- I use OpenDNS and we tested the Comcast connections set up to use OpenDNS which worked fine. There was at least one other person outside of my home state that experienced the same problem on U-Verse as well.

- My back hurt less and I was generally in better shape when I had a job that involved standing for the majority of the day.

- When the dominating factor of your job is smiling at and being smiled at all day, I think it'd be hard to leave work in a bad mood.

My father-in-law makes and gives away enough that he's probably violating a few laws about liquor distribution.

He's from Eastern Europe and everyone he knew made wine. It's amazing how interesting his wine tastes compared to the bottled variety. No sulfites, no ingredients other than grapes.

It tastes best about 9 months after it was created and goes south after about a year. The craziest thing, though, is that at about month 12 it starts to sparkle a little. Nothing serious like Champaign, but a bit of tingle on the tongue (and it hits you a little quicker imo).

There's only a few downsides:

1) Fruit flies. Oh man. It's bad. When I assisted him last year the first stage of filtering, we poured the waste out and it looked like half of it was dirt... except the dirt was moving. He does it in his garage so for about three months there's a thin layer of flies over everything in there and enough get into the house to make it sufficiently annoying.

2) Pressing is hard work and the amount that he makes, just about every other step in the process is very tedious. Part of that is because he refuses to use anything resembling modern equipment. It's all hard labour.

3) The temptation to turn the wine into Brandy always looms. Which is a great idea and produces fantastic truly snifter worthy brandy, but also runs the risk of burning your house down.

It's worth it though. Even the labour, since in the end you have natures best pain killer as your reward.

"By emulating this behavior on page-based websites, where the back button now essentially takes you 'out of' the web site, is Google trying to train us not to use the back button"

I certainly hope not. It seems wrong to emulate what's "bad" about no refresh web applications -- that is not conforming to a convention built into the browsers since most people's first experience with a browser.

It's not going to change anyone's behavior, it's going to make them return to a browser that works the way they expect it to.

I remember having a conversation with an internal developer at my company where he was talking about how their team had removed all of the chrome around the page and did some javascript magic to make it very difficult to invoke refresh or back.

He was complaining that users didn't understand that refreshing "broke" the app and continued to find ways to block it. He was fighting a losing battle. You have to find a way to do something logical when the user hits refresh or back or you're going to spend more time adding kludge after kludge when users behave in your app the way they would in any other web based app.

You have to understand that many of us ditched sites like Reddit and Digg because for weeks on end hit pieces on her were the front page. On Digg it was a farce because you could limit the topics down to any one of the narrow choices and still get two or three Palin stories on the front page.

My first instinct seeing that title was "Oh on, not here. Aren't we done whipping her around yet?". Then realizing the source was HN, I had to click the link... I'll concede that it was interesting to see the edited copy.