I miss Slashdot's April Fools summary. The OP that said, "thank you" can just ignore the summary one day. It isn't wasting his time unless he keeps spending time reading it. It snuck up on me about 1 year in 3, which made it even better as they "got me" for a bit.
We miss you CommanderTaco!
OMG Ponies was the best! If you really used a plugin to keep it alive, you are my hero
(my id# misrepresents how long I've been reading slashdot)
The majority of professional hockey players are born in January and February. ..
. . . because the cut off for each age group, when they are kids, is Dec 31.
If you are a little better than everyone else young(a few months older or left handed in a sport with time pressure), you get more attention from the coaches, more playing time, and get better. That compounds over years.
The book Outliers is a great read and explains all this.
Even if left handedness's advantage gets diluted later in life when half the people are left handed through selection, the effect when you are young would still persist.
Cruise ships during the "days at sea" are the closest thing to this still existing (in my opinion).
No cell phone (rarely a reason to take it out of the room). No credit card. No news. Conversations with random people (eat in the main dining room not at a table for 2).
Worked in the fields (detassling corn, walking beans, and bucking hay bales) to buy it.
IBM clone.
4.77 MHz with a "turbo" button to take it to 8Mhz (which you had to be careful with because it would make some games unplayable)
One 5.25" floppy drive
512K of Ram (I think I remember that right)
No HD
Came with MS DOS and GW Basic as the only disks. A manual for each.
I had borrowed other computers from my parents' schools (trs 80, apple II, etc) but this was MY first computer and the first one that stayed in the house all the time (not just christmas and summer breaks)
I started my own custom software company without an "idea" and with no business experience.
I grew it to 11 employees making more than a $million a year of profit. Sold it for multiple millions.
I've started companies around an "idea." (most of these failed. Some were ok)
I started a second custom software company that is still going strong. It works primarily with software startups. We've launched about 50 companies (all around an "idea") so far.
I'm actually working as the CTO of one of the companies we've launched as they've grown explosively around their "idea."
My advice:
Pre sell. Do not think of something, go build it, and try to sell it. Don't do that. As others have pointed out, that requires sales, business, etc. You don't have that.
You say you can code. Talk to anyone and everyone around you (focus on existing business owners). Try to see problems that they might not even see that can be solved by computers. Anything that a human is spending a lot of time on that a computer can do better.
Offer to build that computer program for $x. Ideally you've already learned that they are spending 10x in labor costs on that issue. If they say no, move on. If they say yes, you have your first sale. Delight them.
Repeat.
If you start seeing the same types of problems or if you start getting skill in a particular area, a natural business will grow out of it. You'll naturally realize you are making more with these other projects than your full time job and you'll quit the full time job to do this.
(As an aside, you can start a software company around an idea, but you need deep domain expertise so your idea is already vetted by your expertise in that industry as an industry-wide problem that you *know* lots of people will pay $x for)
Bill Paxton's characters quotes are THE quotes I think of when I think of memorable movie quotes. (He's #2 in my book behind the Simpsons). "This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training." "Why don't you put her in charge." "knives. sharp sticks"
Thank you Bill Paxton for your impact on my life. I'm saddened that this happened.
I scanned the whole thread and didn't see anyone suggesting what I've been doing for years. . . The first letter of a long sentence that only I would have made up. ..
For example, reading the thread makes me think of the sentence: "xkcd says that its important to add extra bits of entropy" turns into "xstiitaeboe"
So easy to remember, that I still remember passwords I created 20 years ago (and haven't used in 16 years). . .
I never had to write it down
For special character "requirements," I still make up a sentence, and then capitalize the first letter and add a number and a special character to the end.
"Xstiitaeboa5%"
I used to have to remember a lot of different ssh passwords for lots of different clients. . . I remembered a different sentence about each owner. . . first letters turned into VERY different passwords. ..
My parents were teachers. They brought home a TRS-80 and an Apple ][ with no external software for christmas breaks and summer breaks. . . No software. None. All you could do was break out of it trying to find something and start programming it. . . I borrowed a book of example programs (not instruction) from the library and typed a bunch of those programs. . . eventually learned what the things meant, in context at least. . . . Nothing to save the programs to, so they had to be left on all break or all summer or I had to start over. . .
I worked summers walkin' beans, detasslin' corn, and buckin' hay bales and eventually bought a Laser IBM compatible which had a REAL GW-Basic manual! Read that cover to cover and learned things I'd been using for years but didn't really understand. . .
I wrote a lot of programs for my own use on that computer (and follow on ones I bought) for school work, organizing stuff, stupid games, etc.
Got a job as a programmer when I started college in C++, which I'd never heard of (I remember looking in the book store in the "S's" for "See Plus Plus" because I had no idea there was a language called "C"). I totally faked my way through the interview. I did know "programming," just not language specifics, so that helped. The interview was luckily on a Friday and I bought a book on C++ on the way home from the interview, read that book cover-to-cover over the weekend and started the job Monday.
I had a lot of programming classes in college (Computer Engineering major at University of Illinois). That helped a lot.
Told my first day on the job (officer in the Air Force) that I'd have to be programming in Java once my security clearance came through, so I spent the time learning Java from a book (or maybe the internet existed enough at that point that I used that. I don't remember).
I'm not proud of it (probably still leads me to be more "hacky" than properly trained Computer Scientists), but I think I'm about as "self taught" as is possible to be. . .
I was in Vegas on Sept 21st, 2015 (3 weeks ago). Myself and 2 co-workers took several Ubers and several taxis that day.
I don't know what was true when this article was written, but it is very out of date when compared to the reality I experienced, first-hand, just 3 weeks ago.
Uber exists there; seems to work great, just like it works everyone else that it exists, with one caveat. . .
The uber drivers are scared to death of going to the airport; either to pick up, or drop off. . .
They claim that if they do, they get cited by local police (more than one uber driver said this).
That one problem creates an incredibly messed up situation. . . as illustrated by one of our attempted rides:
- We called for a cab to the airport at the end our business meeting (because we knew by then we couldn't take Uber).
- The cab company promised to come get us, but wouldn't tell us a pickup time other than "hopefully under 30 minutes. Answer your phone."
- 30 minutes later, we called again.
- The cab company said, "Oh I'll let dispatch know you you called again and that you are still waiting." (like she was shocked we were still waiting)
- We called another company.
- The second cab company was willing to come get us, but only if we put down a credit card first, and they were unwilling to guarantee a time that they would arrive to get us, not even a promise that they would be there in the next 30 minutes.
- We declined this option.
- 60 minutes after our first call, in desperation, we had our co-worker (who was already at the airport) get a cab (at the airport) and take it to our location, to pick us up, and take us back to the airport. That was the only way we could figure out to get there.
- We never received any call saying "hey we're here" or "we can't get you" or anything. (Call us bad for contributing to the problem by not calling them back to let them know we no longer needed a ride.)
Mind you, we had taken 4 ubers (get there, go to lunch, come back from lunch, send co-worker to hotel to get luggage) from this same location/area, all that same day, prior to this attempt to get to the airport. They all showed up in under 5 minutes, were all clean, friendly, and willing to take us anywhere we wanted to go (other than the airport).
I have lots of opinions about what this all means, but I'll try to leave this post to just what I experienced.
1) I like the intellectual challenge of dismantling his argument in my head as I read it. (Maybe "challenge" is too strong a word, but you know what I mean)
2) It makes me think about a topic I probably wouldn't have thought about.
3) The slashdot comment section assassination is hilarious. I don't think I've ever read the comments section of Bennett Haselton post and not laughed out loud to the point others around me want to know what I'm reading.
I feel bad for the guy (hopefully he doesn't read the comments on his article) and in a way I feel a little bad for getting enjoyment out of the misery of others.
If slashdot turns into only articles like this, I'm out, but 1 in 20 posts like this is a nice change of pace.
What was the last time anyone other than thieves and would-be robber barons hoping to profit from misery of their fellows actually asked you [United States] to show up and blow their country to smithereens in the name of "saving" it?
Libya. 2011. Not just the everyday people of Libya, but the Arab League of Nations.
Source: Both Newsweek and Time Magazine (although Google will instantly back me up from many other sources as well).
You can also very accurately claim that the people of Syria are at this very moment asking for the same action, but have not yet been successful in convincing the United States (and/or others) to do so.
the only reason to want me to sign one is so that it's easier to sue me in the future.
As GP points out, there is another reason an entrepreneur would want you to sign an NDA, namely, "I want to raise money. Some subset of potential investors will ask me if I have everyone involved under NDA. Because I want their money and I want to be able to say yes, I'm asking you to sign this NDA."
I think it's a false assumption to assume that "more intelligent without a degree" is more valuable to an employer than "less intelligent with a degree." I think the market values many things as much or more than intelligence and many of those valuable traits are demonstrated to an employer by holding a degree. HR departments are right on when it comes to representing this perception of value in the marketplace.
One man's laziness is another man's efficiency. Take morality and ethics out of the equation and the two are virtually synonymous.
I think I can make a pretty big distinction without resorting to morality or ethics. ..
Lazy = I do nothing with the time I save
Efficient = I do more with the time I save
One of our four Core Values is "Be Pragmatic." We're a custom web development shop. For us the decision was easy. We figured out what supporting IE6 was costing in terms of extra time and effort in development and testing up front, what it was costing in terms of features we weren't able to deliver to clients, and what it was costing in incompatibility bugs and fixes going forward. This was a cost that we would have to pass along to our customers. It just didn't make any sense, even if IE6 use stayed high, it wasn't worth the cost. Eight months ago we dropped support for it, put the language in our contracts, and build IE6 detectors to notify users of IE6 in a friendly way that they shouldn't expect the site to function properly, but they were welcome to try to fight their way through it. We make sure we point it out to customers before they engaged with us and when challenged on it we explained that we were doing it to save them money and deliver a broader feature set to the majority of their audience. It has been a resounding success for us and our customers.
A good adjustment, in my mind, is one that allows lower skills to play the game with enjoyment for as long as it takes to obtain the skill with the game that an experienced gamer would have.
The closest example I have is Rock Band (and it's a poor example, so follow with me)
Playing easy allows you to enjoy playing the game. If you suck, you could play easy forever and have fun. There is point though where you can't go any further with easy. You've obtained all the fans you are going to obtain. If you don't step it up to medium, you aren't going to go any further. Those other things will forever be outside your reach.
If a game automatically adjusted to this dynamic, leaving it fun, but "slowing down" progress until the skill with the game was sufficient to progress to the end, instead of forcing the users into "pick easy or medium" that would be a great, immersion-enhancing, addition.
The adjustments widely panned in the other comments (and I agree with) are adjustments that allow false satisfaction. It would suck if you could get every achievement in any game without being good at the game.
If the goal is "Hmm. . . What's over there that can kill us?". ..
Isn't part of the challenge of throwing several robots "context?" You throw 5 in (plus the 20 you've thrown over the last hour that are still in range). . . Which of the multiple camera angles ties into the direction from the Marine's point of view? It quickly gets overwhelming and this is only useful if the data it is relaying can affect decisions in a matter of seconds.
I sold a company that was 11 of my friends, all working remotely from our respective, basements, kitchen tables, garages, extra bedrooms. . .
I was young and stupid (I'm 35 now, so I'm older and still stupid).
I had no idea what I was doing, no business background, no accounting, no law. My degree was in computer engineering.
A company approached us and wanted to buy us. All I did as a negotiating tactic was say, "We're not interested in your offer. We probably won't be interested, we're going to keep working, but we're open to listening to additional offers if you can find a way to address our concerns."
I kept saying essentially "no" for 9 months. They kept piling on additional offers and contractual independence and upping the price. They finally created a "wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary" that I could keep running. They offered rights to buy back out if I didn't like it, let me pull all the AR out of the company prior to sale, etc, etc. None of these things I would have thought of myself.
So my advice is to not tell them to go away, but to tell them your objections and that they have to overcome those (on their dime, with their creativity). If they don't, great; you got what you wanted. If they do, you can consider that option with all your co-workers.
I lucked into this approach (I meant it when I said I wasn't interested in selling), but in retrospect it was brilliant. I think I would have "lost" the moment I ever counter-offered.
Thank you for the trip down memory lane! Man I miss the old 4.77 -> 8 turbo button. . . The warm orange-yellow glow telling me that I was going BLAZING fast.
And for you whipper-snappers out there, it WAS important. Lots of games depended on the clock running at 4.77 to run properly. . .
Ok maybe not "important," but I liked playing those games.
I can't decide if I find the post more informative or the extra disclaimer more funny. I'd be interested in the original author's viewpoint on the circumstances he finds himself in that compels him to double-disclaim a post of this nature.
Slashdot Mirror
I miss Slashdot's April Fools summary. The OP that said, "thank you" can just ignore the summary one day. It isn't wasting his time unless he keeps spending time reading it. It snuck up on me about 1 year in 3, which made it even better as they "got me" for a bit.
We miss you CommanderTaco!
OMG Ponies was the best! If you really used a plugin to keep it alive, you are my hero
(my id# misrepresents how long I've been reading slashdot)
. . . because the cut off for each age group, when they are kids, is Dec 31.
If you are a little better than everyone else young(a few months older or left handed in a sport with time pressure), you get more attention from the coaches, more playing time, and get better. That compounds over years.
The book Outliers is a great read and explains all this.
Even if left handedness's advantage gets diluted later in life when half the people are left handed through selection, the effect when you are young would still persist.
Cruise ships during the "days at sea" are the closest thing to this still existing (in my opinion).
No cell phone (rarely a reason to take it out of the room). No credit card. No news. Conversations with random people (eat in the main dining room not at a table for 2).
IBM clone.
I had borrowed other computers from my parents' schools (trs 80, apple II, etc) but this was MY first computer and the first one that stayed in the house all the time (not just christmas and summer breaks)
I grew it to 11 employees making more than a $million a year of profit. Sold it for multiple millions.
I've started companies around an "idea." (most of these failed. Some were ok)
I started a second custom software company that is still going strong. It works primarily with software startups. We've launched about 50 companies (all around an "idea") so far.
I'm actually working as the CTO of one of the companies we've launched as they've grown explosively around their "idea."
My advice:
Pre sell. Do not think of something, go build it, and try to sell it. Don't do that. As others have pointed out, that requires sales, business, etc. You don't have that.
You say you can code. Talk to anyone and everyone around you (focus on existing business owners). Try to see problems that they might not even see that can be solved by computers. Anything that a human is spending a lot of time on that a computer can do better.
Offer to build that computer program for $x. Ideally you've already learned that they are spending 10x in labor costs on that issue. If they say no, move on. If they say yes, you have your first sale. Delight them.
Repeat.
If you start seeing the same types of problems or if you start getting skill in a particular area, a natural business will grow out of it. You'll naturally realize you are making more with these other projects than your full time job and you'll quit the full time job to do this.
(As an aside, you can start a software company around an idea, but you need deep domain expertise so your idea is already vetted by your expertise in that industry as an industry-wide problem that you *know* lots of people will pay $x for)
Good luck. Happy to help more if I can.
Bill Paxton's characters quotes are THE quotes I think of when I think of memorable movie quotes. (He's #2 in my book behind the Simpsons).
"This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training." "Why don't you put her in charge."
"knives. sharp sticks"
Thank you Bill Paxton for your impact on my life. I'm saddened that this happened.
I scanned the whole thread and didn't see anyone suggesting what I've been doing for years. . . The first letter of a long sentence that only I would have made up. . . .
For example, reading the thread makes me think of the sentence: "xkcd says that its important to add extra bits of entropy" turns into "xstiitaeboe"
So easy to remember, that I still remember passwords I created 20 years ago (and haven't used in 16 years). . .
I never had to write it down
For special character "requirements," I still make up a sentence, and then capitalize the first letter and add a number and a special character to the end.
"Xstiitaeboa5%"
I used to have to remember a lot of different ssh passwords for lots of different clients. . . I remembered a different sentence about each owner. . . first letters turned into VERY different passwords. .
I worked summers walkin' beans, detasslin' corn, and buckin' hay bales and eventually bought a Laser IBM compatible which had a REAL GW-Basic manual! Read that cover to cover and learned things I'd been using for years but didn't really understand. . .
I wrote a lot of programs for my own use on that computer (and follow on ones I bought) for school work, organizing stuff, stupid games, etc.
Got a job as a programmer when I started college in C++, which I'd never heard of (I remember looking in the book store in the "S's" for "See Plus Plus" because I had no idea there was a language called "C"). I totally faked my way through the interview. I did know "programming," just not language specifics, so that helped. The interview was luckily on a Friday and I bought a book on C++ on the way home from the interview, read that book cover-to-cover over the weekend and started the job Monday.
I had a lot of programming classes in college (Computer Engineering major at University of Illinois). That helped a lot.
Told my first day on the job (officer in the Air Force) that I'd have to be programming in Java once my security clearance came through, so I spent the time learning Java from a book (or maybe the internet existed enough at that point that I used that. I don't remember).
I'm not proud of it (probably still leads me to be more "hacky" than properly trained Computer Scientists), but I think I'm about as "self taught" as is possible to be. . .
I don't know what was true when this article was written, but it is very out of date when compared to the reality I experienced, first-hand, just 3 weeks ago.
Uber exists there; seems to work great, just like it works everyone else that it exists, with one caveat. . .
The uber drivers are scared to death of going to the airport; either to pick up, or drop off. . .
They claim that if they do, they get cited by local police (more than one uber driver said this).
That one problem creates an incredibly messed up situation. . . as illustrated by one of our attempted rides:
- We called for a cab to the airport at the end our business meeting (because we knew by then we couldn't take Uber).
- The cab company promised to come get us, but wouldn't tell us a pickup time other than "hopefully under 30 minutes. Answer your phone."
- 30 minutes later, we called again.
- The cab company said, "Oh I'll let dispatch know you you called again and that you are still waiting." (like she was shocked we were still waiting)
- We called another company.
- The second cab company was willing to come get us, but only if we put down a credit card first, and they were unwilling to guarantee a time that they would arrive to get us, not even a promise that they would be there in the next 30 minutes.
- We declined this option.
- 60 minutes after our first call, in desperation, we had our co-worker (who was already at the airport) get a cab (at the airport) and take it to our location, to pick us up, and take us back to the airport. That was the only way we could figure out to get there.
- We never received any call saying "hey we're here" or "we can't get you" or anything. (Call us bad for contributing to the problem by not calling them back to let them know we no longer needed a ride.)
Mind you, we had taken 4 ubers (get there, go to lunch, come back from lunch, send co-worker to hotel to get luggage) from this same location/area, all that same day, prior to this attempt to get to the airport. They all showed up in under 5 minutes, were all clean, friendly, and willing to take us anywhere we wanted to go (other than the airport).
I have lots of opinions about what this all means, but I'll try to leave this post to just what I experienced.
document.getElementById("Comment 47014239").value = "+1 Funny";
2) It makes me think about a topic I probably wouldn't have thought about.
3) The slashdot comment section assassination is hilarious. I don't think I've ever read the comments section of Bennett Haselton post and not laughed out loud to the point others around me want to know what I'm reading.
I feel bad for the guy (hopefully he doesn't read the comments on his article) and in a way I feel a little bad for getting enjoyment out of the misery of others.
If slashdot turns into only articles like this, I'm out, but 1 in 20 posts like this is a nice change of pace.
+1 entertaining to both sides!
Libya. 2011. Not just the everyday people of Libya, but the Arab League of Nations. Source: Both Newsweek and Time Magazine (although Google will instantly back me up from many other sources as well).
You can also very accurately claim that the people of Syria are at this very moment asking for the same action, but have not yet been successful in convincing the United States (and/or others) to do so.
the only reason to want me to sign one is so that it's easier to sue me in the future.
As GP points out, there is another reason an entrepreneur would want you to sign an NDA, namely, "I want to raise money. Some subset of potential investors will ask me if I have everyone involved under NDA. Because I want their money and I want to be able to say yes, I'm asking you to sign this NDA."
Cray(fish)-based has existed for decades. Cray(fish)
I think it's a false assumption to assume that "more intelligent without a degree" is more valuable to an employer than "less intelligent with a degree." I think the market values many things as much or more than intelligence and many of those valuable traits are demonstrated to an employer by holding a degree. HR departments are right on when it comes to representing this perception of value in the marketplace.
One man's laziness is another man's efficiency. Take morality and ethics out of the equation and the two are virtually synonymous.
I think I can make a pretty big distinction without resorting to morality or ethics. . .
Lazy = I do nothing with the time I save
Efficient = I do more with the time I save
Mod parent up. This has worked for months and is awesome for USAA customers. www.usaa.com
One of our four Core Values is "Be Pragmatic." We're a custom web development shop. For us the decision was easy. We figured out what supporting IE6 was costing in terms of extra time and effort in development and testing up front, what it was costing in terms of features we weren't able to deliver to clients, and what it was costing in incompatibility bugs and fixes going forward. This was a cost that we would have to pass along to our customers. It just didn't make any sense, even if IE6 use stayed high, it wasn't worth the cost. Eight months ago we dropped support for it, put the language in our contracts, and build IE6 detectors to notify users of IE6 in a friendly way that they shouldn't expect the site to function properly, but they were welcome to try to fight their way through it. We make sure we point it out to customers before they engaged with us and when challenged on it we explained that we were doing it to save them money and deliver a broader feature set to the majority of their audience. It has been a resounding success for us and our customers.
The closest example I have is Rock Band (and it's a poor example, so follow with me) Playing easy allows you to enjoy playing the game. If you suck, you could play easy forever and have fun. There is point though where you can't go any further with easy. You've obtained all the fans you are going to obtain. If you don't step it up to medium, you aren't going to go any further. Those other things will forever be outside your reach.
If a game automatically adjusted to this dynamic, leaving it fun, but "slowing down" progress until the skill with the game was sufficient to progress to the end, instead of forcing the users into "pick easy or medium" that would be a great, immersion-enhancing, addition.
The adjustments widely panned in the other comments (and I agree with) are adjustments that allow false satisfaction. It would suck if you could get every achievement in any game without being good at the game.
If the goal is "Hmm. . . What's over there that can kill us?". . .
Isn't part of the challenge of throwing several robots "context?" You throw 5 in (plus the 20 you've thrown over the last hour that are still in range). . . Which of the multiple camera angles ties into the direction from the Marine's point of view? It quickly gets overwhelming and this is only useful if the data it is relaying can affect decisions in a matter of seconds.
Anyone else notice in TFA that one of the briefs was filed by:
Austin IP Law Ass'n
I was young and stupid (I'm 35 now, so I'm older and still stupid).
I had no idea what I was doing, no business background, no accounting, no law. My degree was in computer engineering.
A company approached us and wanted to buy us. All I did as a negotiating tactic was say, "We're not interested in your offer. We probably won't be interested, we're going to keep working, but we're open to listening to additional offers if you can find a way to address our concerns."
I kept saying essentially "no" for 9 months. They kept piling on additional offers and contractual independence and upping the price. They finally created a "wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary" that I could keep running. They offered rights to buy back out if I didn't like it, let me pull all the AR out of the company prior to sale, etc, etc. None of these things I would have thought of myself.
So my advice is to not tell them to go away, but to tell them your objections and that they have to overcome those (on their dime, with their creativity). If they don't, great; you got what you wanted. If they do, you can consider that option with all your co-workers.
I lucked into this approach (I meant it when I said I wasn't interested in selling), but in retrospect it was brilliant. I think I would have "lost" the moment I ever counter-offered.
Anyway, I hope that's helpful.
Thank you for the trip down memory lane! Man I miss the old 4.77 -> 8 turbo button. . . The warm orange-yellow glow telling me that I was going BLAZING fast. And for you whipper-snappers out there, it WAS important. Lots of games depended on the clock running at 4.77 to run properly. . . Ok maybe not "important," but I liked playing those games.
I can't decide if I find the post more informative or the extra disclaimer more funny. I'd be interested in the original author's viewpoint on the circumstances he finds himself in that compels him to double-disclaim a post of this nature.
Next up. Scientists discover Slinky like organism as missing link between Apes and Man.