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tdr

112 karma · joined November 13, 2011

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tdr··on Ask HN: Resources for getting back up to speed on SQL
https://sqlzoo.net/

By far, the best actionable resource I used. Google search for answers/explanations & theory

tdr··on Are diesel’s days numbered? A view from a trip to BYD’s electric bus factory
1) if it’s so simple, why isn’t it done yet? And no trade-offs?

2) references please (for you arguments)

tdr··on Are diesel’s days numbered? A view from a trip to BYD’s electric bus factory
> They are superior to gasoline engines in every way.

What about pollution? There is sufficient evidence that the fine particles cause cancer

[0]https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/diesel-exhaust-a...

tdr··on The 17-Year-Old That Yahoo Paid $30M Was Licensing His Startup's Core Technology
KeenSkim will soon launch an iPhone version, after developing it's own in-house tech.

https://www.keenskim.com/static/KeenSkim_iPhone_app.htm - sign-up for reminder when ready

https://www.keenskim.com/

tdr··on What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
KeenSkim created it's own tech - will soon launch an iPhone version

https://www.keenskim.com/static/KeenSkim_iPhone_app.htm

https://www.keenskim.com/

tdr··on Steve Blank - VCs Should Be Startup CEOs
Entrepreneurship is learned by doing it.

Investment is diversification-driven.

Put these 2 things together and you minimize a lot of risk.

tdr··on The Antivirus Era Is Over
used to think more-or-less the same thing: antiviruses are unneeded resource hogs...

until I connected my laptop to the network at school.

I didn't notice anything strange until a month later when I reinstalled WinXP (was doing it regularly for speed). My mistake was that I installed Winamp and other software from kits on a shared folder (full access for everybody) on my laptop, before installing the AV. That's when all hell broke loose: the kits were injected by some virus and got activated only when were run

tl;dr: Thing is even "power-users" can get it wrong. Is it really worth it risk so much, for so little?

PS: referring here strictly to platforms that need AVs

tdr··on F1 - The Fault-Tolerant Distributed RDBMS Supporting Google's Ad Business
could you elaborate more?
tdr··on Dempsy: Distributed Elastic Message Processing System
Sounds cool and looks like it has very good documentation.

A benchmark of how it performs against the other solutions would be great!

tdr··on Screw the power users
I really miss the "mark as unread" contextual button, but even without it FeedDemon is by far the best RSS reader I have. (The premium version is worth the money).

Also, lately I see a lot of great lessons from "lone wolfs" like Nick (FeedDemon), Marco (Instapaper) and Mark (Pinboard).

tdr··on A marketing guy's guide to Getting Technical
> More generally, a technical product understanding just helps in communication. If the tech lead makes the decision to refactor the code, which leads to delays affecting the business, it's good to know why.

That's great! I'm interested mainly in these kind of benefits. Besides communication, how does it help your relationship with customers/team/partners?

tdr··on A marketing guy's guide to Getting Technical
If you work in a small team, especially a startup, knowing what’s going on and how your product works is valuable also to a non-technical business co-founder

Couldn't agree more! (especially for product people)

Can you give more specific details about how it helps you/the team? (no sarcasm here, I'm genuinely interested to understand this form the marketers' perspective)

tdr··on Why I will not negotiate with you about cost
Then that's not a partnership!

The other party just want to squeeze every drop of value before finally disposing of you. They say it's "just business, nothing personal".

Personally, I think good partnerships are always personal.

EDIT: to be fair, this happens on both sides. This is also very damaging to both the company and the contractors.

tdr··on Why I will not negotiate with you about cost
I also agree, but probably they know more about their business than I do.

At least they should

tdr··on Why I will not negotiate with you about cost
First off:

1). any business will start to decline at some point, including you(rs). So cost cutting is a proven solution. You are not buying a business, you deliver a service

2). the whole point of hiring subcontractors is to reduce risk (in my opinion). You are an expert they want&get when they need, probably with some strict clauses.

3). agree that the request is pretty left-handed

Secondly, about negotiations:

Everybody likes to feel special or more exactly that they "won" something. Why not make them happy by giving them a 2-3% (negotiate) and ask for this a contact-commitment of minimum 20/30/50 hours/month. That way you also minimize your risk of looking for work.

If you do have too much work however, then you have the upper-hand in negotiations. Play it now!

tdr··on Moving from programmer to entrepreneur
No pun intended but finding out how to "do the business" after I already created it doesn't really bring much value. The article itself is called "10 Tips for Moving From Programmer to Entrepreneur" (i.e. how to do it, not what to do after)

Several points are hit here (some I said in a previous comment): - get to know the customer (build MVP ...), see what they want, make a product not a Software Design masterpiece - prioritize correctly (and oftentimes - especially after you built the product - the biz is more valuable)

Anyway, my experience is that even if one knows this theoretically, he will get it after the practical experience. Good luck building!

tdr··on Moving from programmer to entrepreneur
I think he is referring here to setting the priorities straight: focus on growing the business and what people want/appreciate; code only the most important part (the entrepreneur himself)

Also, this reminds me of the "nail it, then scale it" approach. Don't focus on scalability when you don't have customers.

tdr··on Ask HN: Cost of living in Silicon Valley - 2012
thanks!

So 2 questions:

1) Would it be more worth it to furnish myself the apartment?

2) Do you really need a car daily? I read a car-sharing service like ZipCar is worth it.

tdr··on Ask HN: Cost of living in Silicon Valley - 2012
could you give the ballpark figures for the top 3-5 locations?
tdr··on Ask HN: Cost of living in Silicon Valley - 2012
I'm thinking somewhere in the area Palo Alto/Mountain View +5-7 miles, not SF
tdr··on No, I won't be your technical co-founder
Both points-of-view are a little one-sided (although martin explains why), but yours is too aggressive.

Vision and execution together give the value, not one or the other. That's why YCombinator and PG focus so much on the team: you need complementary skills.

While I can't fully agree to "ideas worth nothing, execution is 100%", the fact is people come up with your idea independently. The value of it will be show by the ones who execute it.

This "you are easily replaceable" thinking is probably the worst way to think of getting into a startup or any kind of business partnership.

To not make this any longer: startups are like a marriage. Is your wife (/husband) easily replaceable?

tdr··on Apple to crush carriers, become direct service provider
Actual quote: [..] says Apple will soon begin to offer wireless service directly to iPhone and iPad users.

In the last years Apple focused on innovation. Moving against the carriers (voice service) doesn't look too good (going against partners, very mature business == little potential & high costs)

Going in the wireless data service (internet) would however bring value: less latency, more speed, better Siri service.

tdr··on Advisors Stop Screwing Startups

     - focus is more important than anything
     - every relationship is a business relationship before all else
     - not all advisers are great (you want their expertise before the money)
In summary: stay focused, do your due diligence!
tdr··on Build a Team that Ships
> Keep the team small. All doers, no talkers.

Totally agree here. Best teams I work in were the small and focused ones!

I can't really see why small companies with high revenue/traction are portrayed as "risky/volatile" because they have 5-15 employees.

To some extent, the same is with single-founders. Why "dismiss" a 1-man team if he did the work of 2-3 people?

PS: I know the motivations for both, but there is a distinction between possibility and likelihood of a risk to actually occur.

tdr··on Should You Do A Startup? I Have No Idea
That's why I said it should be tried by everybody: you learn a lot. Most likely "the hard way".

But nothing good can come out when people jump into it without a proper preparation & plan.

tdr··on Why being broke is the best startup strategy
The actual reason: you never want to get there again (i.e. being broke)

Now that's a real motivator in life! (especially if you've been "rich" before)

tdr··on Should You Do A Startup? I Have No Idea
I think the idea behind "don't do a startup" is to warn and discourage people that want to do it because it's cool.

The fundamentals behind starting a startup should be orders of magnitude stronger than that. You'll know if you got them.

While I think the startup experience should be tried by anyone (and by the way, I don't think startup life sucks, but it is hard), I hope it won't turn into an international trend where every "social" site equals a multi-million $ business.

tdr··on European server provider Hetzner now offers a 64GB RAM box for 109€/mon
I didn't blame anyone:

> Great hosters!

And I mean it.

The payment problem appeared after my card expired (the second month of using Hetzner) and the new one didn't arrive. They understood the situation and allowed me to fix the situation in a couple of days.

tdr··on European server provider Hetzner now offers a 64GB RAM box for 109€/mon
Tested and it's very good.

They also answer quickly and document pretty well the problem/reason.

tdr··on Skype IP Lookup
Can it be used like the invisible scanner for Yahoo Messenger? (see who's invisible)
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