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shadowcatson Ask HN: Life advice for 40yo Web Dev, single, $500k savings

You seem like an interesting fella. Wanna get in touch over email and bounce around some ideas and favorite blogs and such?

shadowcatson Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States

Related to Edward Norton the actor?

shadowcatson Vegetative patient says 'I'm not in pain'

Can this technology be refined?

Someone should do a startup to build devices that allow higher bandwidth communication.

shadowcatson Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

Are people really that good at duping themselves?

Seems metacognition, the ability to reflect on one's own thought process, would be a really good cure for such cognitive dissonance.

shadowcatson HN: I was fired today, is this even legal?

Yeah, that is a blatant imbalance.

Why, OP, are you not working as a developer?

Honest question, not trying to be negative or anything.

shadowcatson HN: I was fired today, is this even legal?

OP learned a very valuable lesson: people don't always play fair, and politics/appearances count for a lot in business.

The lesson was learned very cheaply, all things considered.

shadowcatson Ask HN: What is your development setup?

Is anyone using a 4K screen?

http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers

shadowcatson Four Books to Master JavaScript Engineering

I would of course add "The good parts" by Crockford to the list.

But maybe that is just par for the language course, before one even starts to wants to master Engineering :)

JavaScript: The Good Parts - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596517742/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Here's a few other good ones:

Functional JavaScript: Introducing Functional Programming with Underscore.js - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449360726/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193398869X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Javascript Allongé (free to read online) - https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge

Javascript Spessore (free to read online, but currently work in progress) - https://leanpub.com/javascript-spessore

Here's a good one about Angular, my favorite framework:

Mastering Web Application Development with AngularJS - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1782161821/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

I would of course also recommend the Egghead videos for any Angular aficionados: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP6DbQBkn9ymGQh2qpk9Im...

PS. The Amazon links are affiliate links.

shadowcatson Windows 3.1 written in JS/HTML

Something that would be cool: implementing X-Windows in JS, using HTML for rendering. So you could run your desktop applications remotely in the browser.

You'd have to tunnel the X protocol somehow to Ajax or Websockets, of course, but that should be quite easy.

Edit: I ran into this: http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2011/03/15/gtk-html-backend-upd...

shadowcatson Startups Outside Silicon Valley to Watch in 2014

No More Woof in Sweden:

http://www.nomorewoof.com/

http://oresundstartups.com/no-more-woof-aims-read-dogs-minds...

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof

TLDR: they sell brain-scanning equipment that translates your dog's thoughts into human language.

shadowcatson Offer: I will Build Your SaaS Application For Free

See also: http://6artisans.com/

shadowcatson Offer: I will Build Your SaaS Application For Free

I think this is a really awesome idea and I have a follow-up idea.

I'm kind of in the same boat as the poster: I'm a developer who wants to do a SaaS but I lack a worthy idea (ie one that is actually wanted by the market). I find it very frustrating to be told that "ideas are useless" and that execution is everything, when all I'm yearning to do is to get started executing.

I was writing a book called "How to find SaaS ideas" (obviously I failed to solve that problem) and I managed to get around 230 sign-ups from just a few random comments on HN alone, so that tells me that there is probably lots of other people in the same boat as me.

Anyway, I think there should be a kind of online marketplace for this type of arrangement. Ie developers can go and say "I want to build your solution for free in exchange for SaaS distribution rights" and people with a business in need of software improvement can go and find free code labor. Win-win.

Anyone think there's any merit to my idea here? :)

shadowcatson Ask HN: Making extra income with books

Thanks, I'm adding those to my to-buy list. Doing some research* on what will be my next all-purpose language and Clojure is currently my best candidate.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990935

shadowcatson The spiral of learning

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990935

Would appreciate your feedback on that!

shadowcatson Bodily maps of emotions

Fascinating stuff.

I guess non-mainstream methodologies/frameworks like NLP, chakras and yoga were on to something when they said that emotions have locations in the body.

shadowcatson Ask HN: is Clojure a good all-purpose programming language?

Thanks for the cljx tip. Is it commonly used, or more of an experimental thing?

shadowcatson Ask HN: is Clojure a good all-purpose programming language?

Right. If I ever need to do any low-level programming, I'll have to look at something else (probably C).

Mobile and desktop are not something I focus on heavily either. It's nice to know that if that were to change, Clojure at least offers some decent options.

shadowcatson Sign-up: like Codecademy but for design

X-post: http://firespotting.com/item?id=2083

shadowcatson Sign-up: do quests, get startup mentors

X-post: http://firespotting.com/item?id=2055

shadowcatson Test HN: interested in finding partners to learn stuff?

Original discussion: http://firespotting.com/item?id=1976

shadowcatson Show HN: Yoleo – A Beautiful RSS Reader

Oh, one more thing: consider adding Bitcoin/Litecoin as a donation option. Might be a good way to get some extra PR buzz going :)

shadowcatson Show HN: Yoleo – A Beautiful RSS Reader

I think you ought to listen to this :)

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-...

The host is our own patio11 here at HN.

shadowcatson Show HN: Yoleo – A Beautiful RSS Reader

I mean, if Google thought running a free RSS reader was too expensive, imagine the headache it can cause you if/when this gets really popular.

Seriously, I admire your willingness to give something great away for free, but I also think you need to think about recouping your expenses and making your service financially sustainable for the long haul.

shadowcatson Show HN: Yoleo – A Beautiful RSS Reader

PLEASE charge $30+ per year for this, so I can use it and not have to worry if it's going to be taken down due to lack of funds later on.

shadowcatson Ask HN: do you keep a stash of ideas?

HalfBakery was great but you had to sift through a lot of joke ideas iirc.

shadowcatson Ask HN: do you keep a stash of ideas?

That's a cool method. Feel free to post it here: http://firespotting.com/item?id=948

shadowcatson Ask HN: do you keep a stash of ideas?

Unload them on FS then :)

shadowcatson Ask HN: do you keep a stash of ideas?

Please do share them on FS :)

shadowcatson Kill your credit card-less free trial.

I'd like to see a "PubMed" of case studies and findings like that.

X-posted on FS: http://firespotting.com/item?id=1144

shadowcatson Ask HN: do you keep a stash of ideas?

Consider posting them on Firespotting then, good way to un-stagnate your ideas :)