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Ask HN: How to split equity?
49 points by espitia  5 hours ago   32 comments top 15
patio11 4 hours ago 4 replies      
People who are doing this for the first time care a lot about the numerical split but people who do this professionally care a heck of a lot more about vesting. Whatever you choose, your outcome will be a lot better with a defined vesting schedule. The standard one in the Valley is (for both of you!) "four year vesting with a one year cliff", which means that 25% of the eventual grant is durably yours on the 366th day and then 75% gets parceled out in equal increments every month for the next 36 months after that.

I'd be inclined to have the company write you an IOU for your cash contributions so far, and split it 50/50, perhaps with one of you getting a tie-breaking share. The company can dispose of your IOU like any other short-term debt of the company at some point in the future when it has the financial wherewithal to do so. [See below about IOUs.] Your vesting clock starts 3 months ago, your partner's starts as of the day when he becomes full-time.

I cannot emphasize enough that your equity split is not nearly as important as "Does bringing this guy on uniquely make this business successful and do I have confidence that we will both be happy with this arrangement 5 years from now?"

Edit to add: As I get older and wiser, I am coming to appreciate the discipline of separating one's personal and business finances and explicitly receiving written acknowledgment for transfers of money into one's company. These feel like moving money from one pocket to another in the early days, but they are not, and explicit written confirmation of that fact will make your life easier in a lot of futures.

For example, I know one entrepreneur who, like many, tightened his belt, ran up substantial personal debt, and put blood sweat and tears into building a company. Professional money came into the company. Without documentation that he had loaned the company money, the best resolution would have been asking the other stakeholders to approve increasing his salary so that he could cover his "personal" debts. Had that documentation existed, he would have had ample authority to extinguish that debt in the ordinary course of business, and it would have likely had favorable personal tax consequences.

shin_lao 4 hours ago 0 replies      
My first advice would be that this friend has to put money into the company. You need him to show commitment. It doesn't have to be a lot, maybe just $ 10,000. If he refuses to put any money into the company, you have an employee, not a partner.

Trust me on this one, you want to test risk tolerance as soon as possible.

Second question, will he work full time? If he doesn't work full time, you should give him very little equity, or just relative to the amount he invested in the company with maybe a little extra relative to the value he brings.

If he doesn't want to work full time and doesn't want to put money, just pay him by the hour. Pay him by the hour can also be a way to start the business relationship and build trust.

Third question, how much can you pay him if he works full time? For example, if he works full time but you can only pay him $ 50,000 instead of $ 100,000 the first year (assuming $ 100,000 is what he could get), he's putting $ 50,000 into the company.

Now, the last part: value your company. The best indicator is profit, when you reach it and how long you hope to sustain it (for ever, possibly). There are many tools and formulas, your accountant can probably help you. Because you have an accountant right? And a business plan, right? ;)

Another approach is that if he puts a decent amount of money (enough to give several months of runway) into the company and works full time for a well below market salary you can give him 49% (or 50%, up to you).

lukasm 2 hours ago 0 replies      
Ask her what, in her mind, is fair. If she says "we should do 50% 50%" and she won't give you the credit for starting the venture, you should think twice if you want to establish the partnership with this person. If she says "you did most of the work. 20% is fair" you should do 50/50 with IOUs and vesting.*

*Partners are working full time on this.

Here is a good summary of how to pick a cofounder http://venturehacks.com/articles/pick-cofounder

sauronlord 1 hour ago 0 replies      
I wouldn't give any equity away in this case.


He has not done anything yet.

This sounds like you are afraid of sales/marketing/biz dev/something and you think he will solve your problems.

I warn you: he will not solve your problems, you will have more on your hands.

andreash 4 hours ago 1 reply      
Google "Startup Lawyer If I launched a startup 2014", which sums up most legal questions including equity splits. Founders Dilemma by Wasserman covers the topic from a scientific research point of view.

tl;dr as far as I remember from that book: Make sure it is fair, and enough equity for both to be motivated. You have to discuss with each other to find out. It can be everything between 95/5 to 50/50. If you value the friendship more than you value the company, you should go for 50/50. Otherwise 50/50 is not a good option according to Wasserman's research.

ABS 2 hours ago 1 reply      
I like, a lot, the Grunt Fund idea of Slicing Pie (no affiliation): http://www.slicingpie.com/

The point is: why split the pie before it gets done or after? why not dynamically split based on the actual resources (money, time, equipment, whatever) people put in in the early days?

rajacombinator 1 hour ago 0 replies      
What is the other person bringing to the table? Just treat them as a first hire and offer the minimum equity needed to get such a person.
onion2k 4 hours ago 0 replies      
If I was in your potential business partner's position, I'd ask for 50/50 vested with a schedule of (say) 12 quarters, so every 3 months I'd get 4.1% of the company, with a cliff of 6 months to test whether the relationship will actually work (e.g., no equity transfer if the relationship breaks down in that time) That would recognise the work you've done already, but also appreciate that if the business lasts a long time the initial work will become less important. There's no good reason why you should have more equity than your business partner after a few years - by that point the risk each of you have taken is effectively the same.
Axsuul 4 hours ago 0 replies      
My experience is it should always be evenly distributed at such an early stage (3 months is still considered early). I've started two companies and it has never failed me. This eliminates any drama and holds each founder accountable for the work that is required. If you don't trust this approach, then there are deep underlying issues that need to be addressed first. This could be not trusting the incoming founder to make up for the time that has passed while you were running the company initially.
mattei 4 hours ago 0 replies      
Here's a link to an in depth talk & infographic that'll help you see a more detailed view of what might impact how you approach equity splitting someone.


Disclosure: I work at Saasu but think this is relevant.

_pius 3 hours ago 1 reply      
Joel Spolsky has weighed in on this: https://gist.github.com/isaacsanders/1653078
woogle 4 hours ago 0 replies      
> can contribute a lot in many areas that need to be covered in order to build a succesful app company

You told us what you've done until now, but are those "many areas" ?

staunch 4 hours ago 0 replies      
What you've done to date is simply what was required. All of the really hard work is in front of you. If your partner isn't worth an equal share they're not worth being partners with.
polvi 4 hours ago 1 reply      
Sounds like a good time to use the equity equation:


Ask HN: How do I find a buyer for private shares?
2 points by jgallant  14 minutes ago   1 comment top
jacquesm 8 minutes ago 0 replies      
Offer your shares to the other shareholders first, chances are that you are required to do so anyway because of the shareholder agreement you presumably signed and/or the minutes & bylaws of the corporation. They are also the most likely buyers so besides the fact that you are likely obliged to do so anyway it makes good sense.

Valuation will be a problem, but you could use the last transaction as a starting point (and therefore a floor), the high end depends very much on the state of the company (growth and turnover in that order).

Just the fact that the company received an investment does not automatically mean your shares are worth something, for instance, if the company is about to tank they'll be worthless, it all depends on how the company is doing.

Good luck!

Ask HN: How would you invest your money in 2014?
3 points by bresc  3 hours ago   1 comment top
sytelus 2 hours ago 0 replies      
There are never great risk-free ways to invest your money that earns you good return - whether its 2009 or 2014. If you have resources to keep track of micro and macro economic indicators you can probably do specific investment but otherwise you probably want to just diversify as much as possible that your level of capital allows.

For example, there are growing indicators that home rental business is going in the boom. You can see Berkshire Hathway grabbing tons of rental properties in anticipation for that with additional benefit that when rental boom dies down, housing would be in rise again (meaning that you can milk rental properties for next few years followed by selling them off as housing units).

However to do things like above you really need significant market research and may be even a team of economist processing away all data. Next best thing for regular folks is investing in index funds which allows you to diversity while still retaining liquidity.

Ask HN: Can I see comments I've upvoted?
16 points by porker  21 hours ago   discuss
Ask HN: How do you share scripts with non-coders?
7 points by hackerews  11 hours ago   4 comments top 4
glimcat 4 hours ago 0 replies      
Set up a lightweight web interface using Flask. When people log in and submit a job, it gets added to an RQ task queue for asynchronous execution. If they need anything back at the end, job status, results, whatever - that goes in a database. Congratulations, you've just made a simple web app.

If people are actually getting use out of it, go back and pretty it up a bit with a Bootstrap template or whatever, it doesn't take much here to have meaningful effects on user perception. It mostly just has to be nice enough that it looks reasonably professional when people show it off in meetings, which is NOT a cutting-edge design problem.

Add more pages for more scripts as needed, and tag users with permissions so you know which scripts should be exposed to which users.

If merited, go back and add fancy features like generating PDF reports and emailing them to the head of department every week.

sudont 7 hours ago 0 replies      
At my day job we generally will bundle small procedures/scripts into a simple webapp with either flask or express.js. For our backend systems, we're looking into rundeck to allow non sudoers the ability to restart a system service. That might be potentially useful.

It seems like there might be a niche for a "Delphi for the web" stack of reusable components and standard backend systems.

bluerail 9 hours ago 0 replies      
I have created a standardized code numbers for the output (like 12 for success, 13 for suspended, etc..) and the script will output the respective number as an output of which the list of numbers and their respective output is with them already..

Then, I ll just Zip it, and send them the scripts along with some step by step instructions on how to execute it (with screenshots) and the results expected.. At beginning it will be hassle but on the way most documents will become common for all...

markcampbell 9 hours ago 0 replies      
Link to zip of gist separated into the files related.
Ask HN: Learning about Type Systems
10 points by krat0sprakhar  14 hours ago   4 comments top 4
CmonDev 3 hours ago 0 replies      
Search for "static dynamic" on Programmers.SE (the general consensus there is that static typing is superior for most tasks):


zan 13 hours ago 0 replies      
For me it was just the experience with both. Coming from Java background it was exactly the opposite when I was first dynamic languages, but it got easier eventually (quickly).

I guess you just have to try out different approaches (and mixed ones, Dart and ActionScript come to mind) and gradually understand benefits of each way.

gkuan 13 hours ago 0 replies      
Bob Harper's _Practical Foundations for Programming Languages_ is a good starting point and from there I would go on to Benjamin Pierce's _Types and Programming Languages_.
noblethrasher 13 hours ago 0 replies      
Which podcast?
Ask HN: What is the most accurate 3D indoor positioning method in small spaces?
7 points by gerhardi  14 hours ago   3 comments top 3
chrisa 9 hours ago 0 replies      
Other than computer vision, the most accurate positioning method is "ultra wideband" (UWB). It's possible to get close to cm accuracy, but it can be expensive. There is also a calibration problem: if the readers get bumped or moved, then you may have to recalibrate the system. UWB uses time distance of arrival instead of RF triangulation, so it's extremely accurate, and you can get to 100 Hz.

You can check out a few examples: http://pluslocation.com http://www.timedomain.com/ or google for: ultra wideband real time location

If you have specific questions I'd be happy to help - contact info is in my profile.

lahirurlt 7 hours ago 0 replies      
If you have line of sight and can use fixed beacons whose position is known apriori, ultrasound is a good bet. However, if you need to track multiple objects within a defined space, things get tricky with ultrasound. Also, if 100hz is a strict requirement, ultrasound is not a great option due to issues such as signal attenuation in the environment.
beamatronic 13 hours ago 0 replies      
Have you looked into wi-fi triangulation?

Here is one example:


If you went ultrasonic, this part can provide "0 to 765cm (0 to 25.1ft) with 1cm resolution" at 10 Hz


Ask HN: How do you become a UI/UX Expert?
13 points by michaelbrave  18 hours ago   5 comments top 4
marcomassaro 17 hours ago 0 replies      
There is definitely a market for freelance designers. Just look at Dribbble - more than half of the users there are freelancers who take on clients locally or remotely.

I run a remote design studio and have been a UI/UX designer for over 8 years. I decided to go the self-employed (freelance) route because I wanted to work with a variety of clients and grow a company, rather than work at an agency or startup (something I was less passionate about doing).

To answer your questions:

1. It really depends on your interests and niche. Figure out if you want to focus on designing mobile or web products (or both) and for what industry. I chose to focus on internet startups - whether it be SaaS, social, b2b etc because there is usually a high demand for UI/UX talent in this niche. And internet startups value great design, unlike some other industries.

2. 5 years of experience is pretty vague. Focus more on building a portfolio of quality projects where you show your design and UX skills. This will take time of course if you are new, but if you have 5-10 projects most companies will find that you have experience. If you have 1 project then you don't look as experienced or have as much under your belt.

Hope that helps. Feel free to email me at marco@masswerks.com if you want to ask some more questions or talk shop.

headsclouds 18 hours ago 0 replies      
Being a good UI designer means being able to empathise with the users, understand their needs, and enable them to do what they came to do in a most efficient and pleasant way possible.

If you don't have much experience in these fields (UI and UX, as if they are two different things) you will quickly learn that the above trumps most of what you might have learned throughout a formal graphic design education and/or experience as a graphic designer.

So, my direct advice would be to study user behavior on the Web, psychology, and usability. Learn (if you don't already have the habit) how to think through user flows in lo-fi mockups and wireframes, immerse yourself in good UI design, and make it your priority to pay attention to details when using other people's software; and I don't just mean on the UI side. Pay attention at the company behind the app, how they prioritize features, and how they handle unsexy, menial tasks such as recurring billing, support, and how they integrate that into their work, the software itself.

I strongly believe that you can't be just a UI designer. I mean, you can be to a certain point, but you need to know all of the ins and outs of what it takes to take a product to market in order to be one of the few superstars who we all look up to and learn from. You need to be aware of the entire process, have insight into the business decisions that need to be made, so that you can paint a whole picture.

orky56 17 hours ago 0 replies      
It's important to both 1) understand user needs & 2) communicate those needs through design.

To best understand user needs, you need the soft skills of empathy and humility. However, you also need to be able to understand a user's mindset through the various tools/tech they use, who they are, and where they come from.

In order to communicate those needs, you need to best understand the constraints of what is possible with the given tools/tech of the product you are involved with. From there, you need to be able to use existing paradigms to give stakeholders a vision they can aspire to and then ultimately build.

Portfolio worthy projects: Take a high-visibility product/process and redesign it from the ground up. Make sure it's in a market you are interested in tackling. Go through the process of understanding user needs and communicating the design.

You should definitely try to get a full-time position to get the reputation which yields contacts and potential future contracts. Learn from the best and keep a healthy portfolio of side projects that are fresh and hone your skills.

danso 18 hours ago 1 reply      
Do you have any coding experience? In addition to HTML/CSS?

I'm not sure if there is UX/UI position that doesn't require coding...but I'd take a designer with a lesser years if they were competent around frameworks, such as Compass/SASS/Less, etc. and various build systems.

Speaking as a general web developer, I find that it's not at all fun working with UX/UI people whose primary experience is in providing sliced layers from PhotoShop...and greatly value designers who understand the overall workflow of web dev. If you want to skimp on years, I would highly suggest getting practical web development experience, even if it's just building your own sites and getting familiar with commonly-used frameworks and systems.

Ask HN: Favorite podcasts to code to?
3 points by l33tbro  10 hours ago   4 comments top 3
chatmasta 8 hours ago 0 replies      
You are able to code while listening to a podcast? That seems incredibly distracting. I'm curious how you manage all that auditory input. Do you just listen to it when you hear some keyword that peaks your interest, or while you're taking coding breaks?
thret 9 hours ago 0 replies      
Radiolab (Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich)

Dr. Karl (JJJ) http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/podcast.htm

kennethfriedman 9 hours ago 1 reply      
The Talk Show (John Gruber), Star Talk Radio (Neil deGrasse Tyson), Freakonomics Radio (Stephen Dubner), Accidental Tech Podcast (Arment, Liss, Siracusa), Stuff You Should Know (howstuffworks.com).
Ask HN: Should I Open-Source my Startup?
8 points by silouanos  23 hours ago   4 comments top 3
CmonDev 3 hours ago 0 replies      
You will also need to ensure you don't (accidentally) violate anyone's algorithm/code-related patents.
schmidtc 19 hours ago 1 reply      
I've been thinking about open sourcing my source code as well. I've been trying to monetize a new mapping technique and I think there just isn't demand for it. So now I'm leaning toward open sourcing the mapping tech and trying to build a business the uses the maps to solve part of a larger problem (like real estate search, or business relocation).

My biggest fear would be one of the big mapping companies picking it up and taking credit for it. Though I'm sure this is unfounded and even if it happens at least people get to use it.

RobAley 22 hours ago 0 replies      
Use the AGPL, then at least you'll be able to take advantage of improvements your competitors make.
Ask HN: What do you think about this idea?
3 points by graham1776  13 hours ago   1 comment top
wiseleo 7 hours ago 0 replies      
Word uses an open XML format now. You can certainly accomplish this.

Having used Microsoft Word since Word 2.0 (and WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS for good measure), I am not sure I agree that it's bad at managing content and formatting if the user fully understands how its layout engine works. It has useful multi-author collaboration features, especially as of 2013.

Word's power gets unlocked once the user fully understands its styling and themes system. Reformatting a document to company guidelines becomes painless if every element is associated with the correct style. It is similar to CSS.

The value of rendering to Word escapes me. I would render to an HTML5 document and then to PDF.

Ask HN: Do long, [funny], descriptive URLs help?
5 points by cjrd  17 hours ago   6 comments top 4
vtd 4 hours ago 0 replies      
The long URLs are fine by me. See http://uniformresourcelocatorelongator.com/
bramgg 14 hours ago 0 replies      
Don't use such URLs for your business or products. You want your name to be short, memorable, and work with social media.

Long novelty URLs help micro content sites go viral, just make sure to include some prominent share buttons. The trick is to make many of these novelty websites that relate to your main product, and then link to that in the footers.

An example of someone who's used this technique multiple times before is TheOatmeal[0], though the only one I can remember off the top of my head is ThingsBearsLove[1].

[0] http://theoatmeal.com/

[1] http://www.thingsbearslove.com/

minimaxir 17 hours ago 0 replies      
Considering that such links are gimmicks and have little staying power otherwise, I would say that it does not help.

It's hard to quickly mentally parse such phrases in URLs too.

Startup negotiation first engineer hire
10 points by dvt  1 day ago   15 comments top 8
sauronlord 1 day ago 1 reply      
Huge red flags:

Have great ideas: indecisive and flaky

Chance to be CTO: Yeah right. Become CTO now

2%....too risky and tiny payoff.

Here's what I would do:


21 - 32% equity, with linear vesting over 4 years. 6 months and vesting starts until 3.5 years later

28k signing bonus

Don't be a sucker. They will both your worse nightmare.( two dads!)

There's no product, there's no revenue, no prototype. Sounds ridiculous.

They have a pitch deck. However ideas are cheap and some investors are dumb.

Make sure any shares are voting shares and look for the termination clauses and trigger events.

Don't sign any agreement without a lawyer explaining things to you.

Good luck

chadkruse 20 hours ago 0 replies      
The times I've been in this situation it really came down to figuring out if I was a true co-founder or just the hired gun. True co-founder roles meant I was confident in the founder(s) ability to execute, was confident we'd work well together (takes time), and was stoked about the industry/product/role. We paid ourselves the same salary, I received founders shares (not options), and off we went.

When I didn't have time to properly date first I just assumed I was the hired gun. In these situations the cash component was high and any equity vesting immediate.

Do you have enough time to flirt/date to get a better handle on how you'd work together as a team?

JSeymourATL 20 hours ago 0 replies      
Remove the word greedy from your vocabulary. These guys have nothing but an idea and seed capital.They need a solid tech founder to build and navigate uncharted territory. Create yourself as their peer. You're the prize. They need to earn your attention, respect, and time. Suggest reading Oren Klaff.
mifreewil 1 day ago 1 reply      
If you're looking to join this company that doesn't even have a prototype and has no technical people, then I would consider yourself to be a founder. If you want to be a founder, 140k would probably be too high at this point for a salary, but I would be looking for at least 20% equity.

If you don't want to be a founder, then keep looking.

gumballhead 1 day ago 0 replies      
Greedy? Not only are you the first engineering hire, but you're the first engineer, of what I presume is a technology company.

The salary is too high and the equity too low for a company at that stage.

crazypyro 1 day ago 1 reply      
How did two non-tech founders raise 500k without a prototype or engineer lead?

This can't be usual....

PeekPoke 1 day ago 2 replies      
So you want 28% of their funding and 2% of their equity?

28% seems high to me but I don't know their circumstances, be ready swap salary for equity (or vice versa) depending on what they can pay.

7Figures2Commas 1 day ago 1 reply      
A $500,000 raise pre-prototype is not a Series A. It's a seed round in a market in which lots of seed rounds (perhaps the majority) are being raised by companies that already have a prototype or launched product.

That means this company is going to be playing catch up. Instead of using $500,000 to improve an existing prototype or product, or scale a nascent business, the founders here need to use the $500,000 to build a product from scratch and get it to market successfully. If they don't, it is unlikely they will be able to raise a Series A because while the bar for raising seed funding is incredibly low today, the bar for raising a Series A is fairly high and only getting higher.

If you're intent on being this company's first engineering hire, responsible for building the first version of the company's product, you should consider that you are largely going to be responsible for getting the company to the point where it can raise a Series A, which is going to be a low seven-figure amount at a minimum.

In other words, if you deliver, you are going to put these founders in the best position possible to raise millions of dollars at a valuation meaningfully higher than the current valuation. From this perspective, you might want to consider that $140,000 and 2% of the company is not too much but rather too little.

Be aware of phishing at airbnb
217 points by jalapl  3 days ago   discuss
kilburn 2 days ago 1 reply      
@everyone: Renting your place through airbnb is most probably illegal in Barcelona. Please double or triple-check any offers you get because you must be registered (and pay) if you want to rent your place to tourists [1] here.

@poster: Contact me (mynickname at la3 dot org) if you are running short on money because of the scam and need a place to stay for a few days. This is a couchsurfing style offer, not airbnb style.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/07/airbnb-fin...

jalapl 2 days ago 0 replies      
Just to clarify, the naked e-airbnb request indeed redirects to airbnb website. The generated by the cheater URL was the only one working fine.

It had the same layout as the whole airbnb website and every url available on that website was also redirecting to real airbnb website .... except the one with payment and booking details ...

squids 3 days ago 4 replies      
We just had a run in with a scam for a place in Majorca on Airbnb. The place looked amazing and was reasonably priced for what it was so I reverse image searched the pictures and it turns out they had lifted them from a resort in the Carribean. The google maps view of the place lined up nicely with the other property so they'd obviously put some time into choosing the right fake. Luckily we cancelled our booking within 15 mins. To their credit airbnb have taken it down pretty quickly.
ufmace 2 days ago 1 reply      
Wait, I've stayed in several AirBnB places, and you always pay with credit card through the website, where they act as an escrow agent. Wouldn't a request to pay through any off-site means be a massive red flag?
xyclos 2 days ago 0 replies      
matthewmacleod 2 days ago 0 replies      
That sucks, but:

- It's not really Airbnb's fault - not much you can do about this aside from apologise and remove the listing (which I assume they did, or will at least investigate)

- You will get scammed if you use MoneyGram. It's the equivalent of sending an envelope full of banknotes. Don't do it!

raverbashing 2 days ago 0 replies      
The payment is done through the Airbnb site, not moneygramm

Seems like a scam that's avoidable

EDIT: Yes, I believe some people still get caught by it, looking at the AirBnb site they should make this information more prominent

This is very hidden: https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/51

padobson 3 days ago 0 replies      
I've had similar phishing attempts on my Airbnb account. The service seems to be a target for it. A few tips:

Always check the URL before you log-in to any site.Don't ever send money through unverified means (mail, western union, etc) for any transaction over the Internet.If you use Gmail, report phishing emails to them.Report phishing attempts to Airbnb.

purge 3 days ago 1 reply      
One of my friends was caught out by a similar scam last year. There is plenty of prior art for airbnb to look at when developing a safe platform for people to communicate through. At the very least they should disallow exchange of e-mail / non-airbnb websites via the platform communication channels.
sentientmachine 3 days ago 2 replies      
Also watch out for a bait and switch on Airbnb. I'm actually sitting in a nice apt now from airbnb. So I am happy with it. But there is another host who is trying to get me for an $1800 cleaning fee. What happens is you book a room in advance for a month. Then the host waits until 12 hours before the point of no cancelation to say "its not available but there is another one for a lot less cost that is a lot worse.". You say no before the cutoff window but then he lowers the cost to bargain basement levels. You accept. And he accepts by booking a different apartment under the haggling text message agreement. Naturally you move to requisition the disagreement as he said he would. But he stalls until the last minute and unsweetens the deal until you cancel. Boom. He has your money and can point to the fine print and his strict cancellation policy that the trouble he went through to clean the room and get it " fixed up" justifies the $1800 charge for a room I didn't set foot in.

Moral if the story. If you don't get prompt reply and if any changes occur after booking. Stay away from that host. They are fishing for free money playing the rules of Airbnb.

Airbnb is supposedly going to get back to me about this disagreement, and there is a ticket to deal with it. But its been 5 days after the event and I pinged them twice with email. My other option may be to contest the charge on my credit card. Scammers are everywhere that rules and large sums of money can be found. And many of those scammers will be right there along side you jockeying for victimhood status.

NickWarner775 2 days ago 1 reply      
@Poster and @Everyone: I just returned on July 1st from traveling through 8 different countries over a month's span, and AirBnB'd the whole trip. A fellow traveler also experienced the same tragic incident in Berlin. He came to the conclusion that he was logged in to the website via safari on an insecure network and was redirected to the fake site. Its a serious bummer but there was nothing he could do. The best and most secure way to use AirBnB is through their mobile app, not by login into their "site" on an insecure WiFi NetWork. Search through hosts and seriously read their reviews. I contacted everyone before hand and would not book unless I received a response.

@everyone: I returned from Barcelona three weeks ago. I rented a very nice apartment in the heart of the Gothic Quarter using AirBnB. As far as AirBnB being illegal, I don't think that is correct. I have many friends who have studied abroad and when they would leave Spain to go travel they would throw their apartment on AirBnB to make a couple bucks. Like with traveling anywhere, just be careful.

cgtyoder 2 days ago 1 reply      
Interesting - e-airbnb.com now redirects to airbnb.com. whois records still list Australian ownership/Russian name servers though.
amirmc 3 days ago 1 reply      
This kind of thing isn't unique to Airbnb. I believe any online marketplace (eg eBay etc), has similar problems.

My usual approach is to keep as much communication on the platform as possible, including the payment process. Anyone who tries to communicate off the platform (eg send money via another method) immediately warrants more scrutiny.

In this case, there are probably things Airbnb can do to help users and reduce the likelihood - for example I don't see the host's email address until I've paid (via the site).

hammock 2 days ago 0 replies      
Payment via Moneygram is the biggest red flag here. If you've ever used craigslist you know they warn you, and there are tons of scams that use Western Union/Moneygram.

If you pay with a credit card through airbnb, you have several layers of protection: you could appeal to airbnb, and you could also dispute/issue a chargeback through your credit card company.

pbreit 2 days ago 0 replies      
More importantly, never use MoneyGram (or Western Union or cash) for non-face-to-face transactions.
th0br0 3 days ago 1 reply      
Uh, doesn't AirBnB enforce payment via Credit Card or PayPal?

Sorry to hear your storry though.

tudorw 3 days ago 3 replies      
Perhaps Gmail et al could have something a bit more pro-active to detect this kind of bait and switch, so if an address has been used a number of times, then a small variation on that address is seen, then steps are taken to warn the user.
wehadfun 2 days ago 0 replies      
Host usually do not get a person's email address until after they pay on airbnb.com. How did this scammer get the email prior?
markcrazyhorse 3 days ago 1 reply      
Thanks for the heads up. I was actually considering using this service in a month or two when I wanted to go travelling
etattva 2 days ago 0 replies      
I have seen earlier where the pictures did not match the actual site. Otherwise used for NYC and works well
bert2002 2 days ago 0 replies      
I always check the comments of previous guests and so far every thing was good.
jcr 3 days ago 0 replies      
One thing to keep in mind is the host/owner may have been entirelyfake from the start, or they may be just another victim that gottheir account hijacked and then used to scam you. In other words,the host might be real and properly verified, but the scammer tooktheir account.

You might want to make sure that your girlfirend changes the passwordon her own account, just in case she did a sign-in on the fake site.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Alex-Galapagos 2 days ago 0 replies      
sorry to hear about it.. Thank you for letting us know
hezone 2 days ago 4 replies      
Curiosity killed the cat, I just tried "www.e-airbnb.com" and surprisingly it redirects to "www.airbnb.com"

Seems it is not a fraud website, why?

uladzislau 2 days ago 0 replies      
So what happened with using some common sense and due diligence? If you're not an adventure seeker choose the host with lots of reviews. If the rate for the property compared with other listings is too good to be true then it's a scam.
Ask HN: How do normal people find jobs?
9 points by melvinmt  1 day ago   7 comments top 5
laughfactory 1 day ago 0 replies      
It's a numbers game frankly. Right out of college I scoured the web for data analysis and credit/banking related jobs because I had a bachelor's degree in economics with lots of supplementary statistics and math. I put out 84 customized application packets (cover letter and resume) in a monthbefore receiving my first offer.The offer was good so I went to work as a Credit Risk Analyst using SAS. A could years later (last fall) we moved to Southern California and I did the same thing. This time it only took, I think, 30-40 customized application packages to find a job. It pays well, but not well enough for the area ($65000), and the work is super dull, but it's a job while I work on developing my Android development and Rails development skill sets in my free time. Hopefully in the next year I'll be able to make the jump to development and out of banking. But yeah, it's a LOT of hard work scouring for interesting job posts with requirements which don't read like they're looking for Superman, with reasonable pay then digging up the direct email address of the recruiter, customizing the app packet, emailing it to them, following up, getting the interview, aching the interview, and getting the offer. It's probably partly why so many stay in suboptimal jobs for so long.
nandemo 1 day ago 1 reply      
Perhaps you mean "we software engineers in the USA".

I live in Japan. I don't get attractive job offers thrown at me every single day.

LarryMade2 19 hours ago 0 replies      
Newspaper classifieds, Craigslist and other on-line classifieds, online job sites like monster. Cold contacting businesses looking for work. Advertising services. Workmarket and other tasks for hire services.

Beyond that it is also networking, knowing people who know where there is an opening available, nepotism - hiring family members to meet needed demand, etc.

jhwhite 1 day ago 0 replies      
Networking. Attending meetups in my industry.

Endlessly perusing job sites.

a3voices 1 day ago 0 replies      
Obama gives them jobs
Ask HN: Are EMBA programs worth it?
14 points by JonathanWCurd  19 hours ago   27 comments top 13
talltofu 19 hours ago 1 reply      
This summer I started the Wharton EMBA program. Here are the few things that struck me

1. The program is truly demanding. I do believe the program weeds out candidates who might not able to handle the demands of the program. But I see a lot of my fellow classmates struggling to balance work, life, and school. This is the #1 consideration if you'd like to pursue EMBA from a top school. Make sure you have the buy-in from work and family. They will not see you for a long time!

2. Cost - it can be extremely expensive. Our tuition is 180K+ for two years

3. Travel - if you are an out of towner, don't ignore the costs + time to travel. Jetlag can be brutal

Now the pros

1. Everyone in the class is extremely smart and motivated. So much so that coming back to work will means having to deal with not-so-intelligent colleagues. A classmate summed it up very well - she said her life is now measured by 'days to class'

2. Networking opportunities outside of your classmates too. Just last week we had a fireside chat with Steve Blank!

3. Amazing professors and staff. It goes without saying that the professors are truly phenomenal. The staff does whatever it can to make our life easier

At the end of the day though, what really matters is what you are looking for at the end of the EMBA. If you are looking for a change in career, you will have to work for it yourself. If you are looking for more knowledge or vertical movement within your current org, then go for it

Let me know if you have any other questions

akg_67 18 hours ago 1 reply      
Based on my own experience in EMBA program and then finally dropping out 2/3rd of the way. I also know several people who have gone to top-rated EMBA program and have good idea of their results before and after EMBA program.

Goal----If you are interested in entrepreneurship/startup, EMBA is not worth a penny. You are better of taking the EMBA fee, spending some on buying a few book focused on starting a company and investing the rest in your startup. But if you are corporate type in large organization, the EMBA degree might help you get up the ladder.

To give an example, couple of my classmates decided that they wanted to build a business based on the idea and business plan they developed in the entrepreneurship class. After finishing MBA program, they invited me to join the dinner to discuss about getting started with their idea and next steps. They were interested in bringing me on the team. The outcome of the meeting was they wanted to rewrite the business plan document already written during the program. That's when I knew these guys will never start the business and declined to join them. And, they never did start! They wanted to plan first. They kept planning and strategizing and never executed.

Knowledge---------If you are the type who can self-learn and don't need external stimulation/kick in the behind to get started, you can learn on your own what you need in business. EMBA program will actually be drag on your learning. These programs are much more appropriate for people who need to be fed information in small bite-size chunks.

Majority of the information I received during my time in EMBA program was something that I already knew and/or rarely have used. But couple of my fellow classmates have really benefited from the structured way of delivery of information, the basic business knowledge program provides and training on developing framework/process to evaluate and address issues.

Networking-----------Over-rated. Majority of EMBA students are mid-career level and corporate type either trying to move into management or move up the management chain with limited future upside potential. The homogeneity of the type of students makes networking with them not as rewarding to both parties because everyone in the same boat. In addition, with family and job pressures, you/they are least likely to go out of the way to respond/help/meet after the program.

rosenjon 19 hours ago 1 reply      
I'll take a stab at this one. EMBA programs tend to be tailored to people who already have a relatively significant position within an organization. My understanding is that a large majority of people attending these programs have them payed for by their employers. The idea is to provide additional training to people who will have future, higher level roles within the organization.

I think that there are probably different flavors of this type of program depending on where you attend, but from my observations (regular MBA who had some minor interactions with EMBA's during school), they tend to fly/drive in for the weekends and return to work during the week. Depending on the program, you may or may not be exposed to "hard skills" such as finance, accounting, etc, as there is a presumption that students already have some of these skills. My understanding is the focus tends to be more on soft skills like leadership, management, etc, which will help competent employees become better managers in the future.

From the way you posed your question, it sound like you are thinking about paying for this yourself. If that is the case, and you don't already have an undergrad or grad business degree, then I would probably recommend either a full-time or part-time MBA, instead of executive MBA. You will probably get more for your money out of one of these programs.

digita88 4 hours ago 0 replies      
EMBA programs differ with each school so it's a good idea to sign up to their open days so that you can sit in on the classrooms. With one of the schools that I researched, the cohort were very finance heavy so that school is a good choice if you work in finance.
corncup 18 hours ago 1 reply      
There are a lot of reasons to get an MBA - to the extent the intelligence of your fellow students matters, I thought I'd chime in with my observations. I've had the opportunity to interact with quite a few students from HBS, Wharton, Sloan, Stanford, and other reputable schools. My impression is that among the top 3 - HBS, Wharton, Stanford, 1/3rd of the students are would I would consider to be pretty intelligent. Another 1/3rd are okay in terms of intelligence, while another 1/3rd leave you wondering if they got in through massive donations from their parents. This ratio declines rapidly (away from intelligence) as you move down the rankings (as early as the #4 spot), at least from what I have observed.

Again, intelligence isn't everything, so I don't mean to say you should make your decision based on that. Just offering my observations in case they are at all helpful. Also, I should mention that this is all for the normal MBA programs - haven't had enough interaction with EMBA students to make a judgment.

jonbishop 19 hours ago 0 replies      
I don't have one, but I can tell you that it completely depends on your unique situation. Can you provide more details to help people answer the question?

What industry/product are you looking at?What type position (dev, design, business) do you have or want to have?If you're currently employed, does the company prefer it for you to move up?Are you looking to learn or just add to your resume (or in between)?

One major reason (some of my friends with MBAs from top schools say the only reason) to get an MBA is for the network. With an EMBA, you don't spend as much time around other students as you do with an MBA, so you don't get a chance to build as strong as a network.

univalent 18 hours ago 1 reply      
I started the Berkeley EWMBA (halfway through) and am bitterly regretting it (though work is fully comp-ing tuition for me). I'm going to stick it for another year and complete it. 1. It is a lot more work that you can imagine2. You will have to learn a great deal of stuff that you know you will never use again. The benefits you get out of it are the networking and some basic business knowledge which you could get for a lot less if you are motivated. I'd say don't consider it unless you are getting some tuition reimbursement. Not worth the $125k-$175k otherwise.
bsmart10 18 hours ago 0 replies      
I worked in the admissions department for a top 20 MBA program for two years. I'd say that if you're going invest the money and time to get your MBA, you should get it from a high-ranking school. Name/brand recognition does matter. Plus, you want a degree you can be proud of.

EMBA programs are great but as talltofu said, the travel time and costs can be brutal. There are one or two MBA programs that are comparable to on- campus programs (in terms of quality and the degree you get when you graduate)- that would be my suggestion. Good luck!

bitL 19 hours ago 0 replies      
If you are running your own company that grew and stabilized a bit, and you have time to learn about how other established companies do their stuff and most important connect with other people in a similar situation, it's worth it. If you want to get just another title to show how good you are, it's not a good use of your time.
louhong 19 hours ago 0 replies      
It really depends on what you're looking to get out of it. A job, networking opportunities, better understanding of business? Also, look at cost factors, are you paying for it, is your work? How much time can you invest?
foobarqux 19 hours ago 1 reply      
They are not particularly prestigious.
lauradhamilton 19 hours ago 0 replies      
Depends, are you in startups/technology? If so then probably not. YMMV
hyperliner 18 hours ago 0 replies      
They don't just allow anybody to enroll. The majority of these programs have experience requirements. If you don't want to spend the time with "clueless" 20 somethings just out of college or with 2-3 yrs of experience, then that is valuable. The problem is that the workload is huge. You basically won't have a life for two years. Get up at 4, do homework, go to work, do homework at lunch or study, leave work at 6 or so, study, do homework, go to bed at midnight. Weekends? Forget them.

For most, you will need to take days off work, which hopefully your employer allows for (this is actually a requirement, so without this flexibility you won't be able to enroll).

Is it worth the time, money and sacrifice to you? - Traditional programs require you to quit your job, which is a cost of opportunity- The network is valuable- the learning is valuable- You could get a bigger salary. Could. Or could not.

So the math depends on you really.

Ask HN: Help with offer negotiation
6 points by verite  1 day ago   14 comments top 2
chadkruse 9 hours ago 1 reply      
> they claimed that this offer is in 75th percentile of comparable companies.

Empirical data is the best data: https://angel.co/salaries

Bummed OP had the original offer rescinded, but for anyone reading this in the future, a quick Google search for "startup salary survey" should bring up a few additional resources. I've filled a number of these out in the past and the data is always awesome. Lots of 'em are behind paywalls though, so beware.

byoung2 1 day ago 1 reply      
Where is this company located? If it's Silicon Valley, those numbers are very low. If it's Idaho, that's a different story. So we need to know that, and more importantly, we need to know what salary you want (is the $100k and 0.22% what you really want, or what you thought they'd agree to?).

First of all, I hope you didn't tell them that $96k number before they offered $100k. If so, you screwed yourself by anchoring your offer to a low previous salary.

Second, if they are even discussing salary, it means they like you and they have already mentally committed to you. Going back to the drawing board will mean weeks or months of reading resumes, interviews, negotiations, and possibly recruiting fees which will cost easily $20-40k. In that light, giving you $20k extra would be a bargain. The fact that they went from $96k to $106k proves that.

Third, I wouldn't let equity be the deciding factor (that could just be me), since it could be worth $0 (and 90% of the time it probably is).

As far as negotiating, I suggest you read this post in full: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Ask HN: Macbook Air or Pro for Visual Studio dev machine?
7 points by cbovis  2 days ago   15 comments top 9
Someone1234 1 day ago 1 reply      
Why get a Mac at all if you're going to be running Visual Studio? Running Windows in a VM and then a chunky piece of software under that is not exactly the most ideal runtime environment.

I'd get the Thinkpad T440 with the 9 cell battery. It will cost you roughly the same as a MBA and less than a MBP.

The Thinkpad T440 is 4.0 lbs, 1 lbs heavier than a 13" MBA and between the 13" and 15" MBP in terms of weight (as you'd expect from a 14" machine).

I will say that the Thinkpad's touchpad isn't as good as the one found on Apple's machines (but those are industry leading). The display is also worse (although Windows doesn't take very good advantage of the "Retina" display anyway). However you gain more port options, battery options, you can upgrade it, it is cheaper, and less "showy" (so less likely to get robbed, etc).

If you REALLY want to get a Mac I'd definitely get the Pro just to somewhat counteract the VM performance loss.

dennybritz 8 hours ago 0 replies      
New models are expected to come out soon, so if possible I would wait for a bit: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

I was in a similar situation last year (coming form an old MBA) and I decided to go with the Pro. The weight difference is not huge but noticeable. In terms of performance you don't need to worry about the Air, it'll be able to handle everything just fine. What really sold me on the Pro was the retina display. Beautiful. Once used to it it's really hard to go back to non-retina. What the Macbook Air has going for it is slightly longer battery life. So, I'd look at it as tradeoff between retina display and battery life. Don't even worry about performance.

chrisbennet 3 hours ago 0 replies      
I use a pro retina 15" as my windows Dev machine.I boot to Windows (boot camp). There is no need to run parallels or VM if you don't need OSx simultaneously.
ibytencode 15 hours ago 0 replies      
My current development machine is a MBPR utilizing the 2.3 GHz processor & 16 GB of ram with Parallel, Windows 8.1 64 Bit, and VS 2013 Professional without issue.

We chose the MBPR displays because we could pick them up the next day and didn't have to wait on the build time for the T440s. I cannot say I didn't really look at those, but I did and would have probably purchased those if we weren't on such a time crunch.

dopplesoldner 1 day ago 0 replies      
I was in a similar situation last year - but after visiting the apple store and trying the different variations I ended up going for the 15" pro, i7 quad-core, 16GB RAM, 512SSD and the retina display with 2880 x 1800 resolution.

It does cost more than the other 2 options but if you are a developer, it might be worth it.

markcrazyhorse 2 days ago 1 reply      
Pro has more power. The big projects will need it. I chose a pro when I was doing my iOS stuff as my mate has an air and Xcode just killed his resources when running the app simulator.
mlin6436 1 day ago 1 reply      
I was in the exact situation before, and landed with an Air (top spec).

It really depends on what things you wanna run on it. A VS, even inside a VM, the Air can handle the job easily. But if you want to run more programs on it, it will burn!

The upside of Air is the battery is awesome endless, giving that you don't have a lot programs running. On the other hand, and is the reason why I'd choose a Pro in the future, the retina screen!

emersonrsantos 1 day ago 0 replies      
I'd get a Pro and use OSX BootCamp to dual boot.

My i5 Air, however, has a turbo boost option that up the processor speed from 1.7ghz to 3.7ghz when it's needed, and it's very fast comparing to my i5 lenovo running anything because of SSD.

joshuaellinger 1 day ago 1 reply      
You'll want the 16GB ram on the bigger one if you are running any databases locally. Otherwise, 8GB will work.

Did you consider the Yoga? It looks pretty competitive.

Ask HN: Good countries for American expats
112 points by gregd  5 days ago   121 comments top 25
gyardley 5 days ago 4 replies      
Living in another country is way, way different from going on a vacation in another country. You're removed from the tourist infrastructure that caters to foreigners and you've got to deal with all of the country's bureaucratic procedures and regulations (even simple things like renting an apartment vary ridiculously from country to country). The same places that are fascinating and fun for foreigners to visit are often stressful and annoying for foreigners to live in. Not speaking the native language makes this all the more stressful and bringing people with you that speak your language makes it a lot less likely you'll learn the native language well.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but there's a reason packing off to a completely different country and successfully 'going native' is usually done by single people right out of college who haven't yet experienced a lot of success in their own country. Yes, plenty of older, more-established people do migrate for economic or political reasons, but they usually end up living in ethnic and linguistic enclaves.

My advice? Pick another country that uses English as their primary language, so you don't have that stress going for you, and pick one that's economically developed, so you don't have that stress going for you. You'll still have to adapt to the local bureaucracy, but at least you'll have a fighting chance to understand it. Many English-speaking countries use a points-based system for immigration that favors skilled workers, so you'll also have a much better chance of getting permanent residency.

istorical 5 days ago 4 replies      
I'm building a website that seeks to answer this question and similar questions through user self-reporting of slow travel and expat experiences.


A post by a Brit who moved to Prague:


An American's experiences moving to Germany:


A couple of interesting posts about life in Japan:



There are only ~150 or so posts so far but I think there's already a lot of interesting insight and stories to read!

Broken_Hippo 5 days ago 1 reply      
I'll give you what I know:

I moved to Norway almost a year ago from the midwest US: I absolutely love it here and have no plans on returning to live. I can't give much career advise as I'm not working, but there are tech jobs in oil and naval industries from what I can gather. Being from the US, you will need a job before you move. I didn't have many moving expenses because honestly, I decided it was better to give my stuff away than to ship it plus I moved for marriage, so I had less to consider. Schools are good and higher education is free as well. The process seemed simple to get my residence permit: The most difficult part was waiting. I don't get permanent residency until a minimum of 3 years: until then renewal each year, mostly a process of a form, an interview perhaps, and some waiting. We do rent, as do most people here - I think we are paying around 8,000kr ($1300USD) and that is on the cheap end - though I'm in Trondheim and housing is cheaper outside of the city. Everything is expensive - I gave up trying to convert to USD and just learned the economy like I would a game. Though the actual cost of living is more here, the quality of life I have is greatly improved. I can walk everywhere safely. Public transportation is excellent - not having a vehicle is definitely not all that restrictive. Healthy food is the cheap food and healthcare is universal. I'm not fluent yet. It is important to learn (I start language classes next month) but isn't always required in some industries. Eating out is a rare treat because it is always expensive - but on the other hand, a good latte is cheaper than a bus ride. Yes, I do choose to walk with coffee instead of riding a bus at times. Nature is absolutely free - it is almost too bad I wasn't more of an outdoors person.Some of these I'm sure carry over to other countries: I imagine most people don't have dreams of living in the arctic, which comes with its own advantages/disadvantages depending on viewpoint.

sdfjkl 5 days ago 5 replies      
German expat in the UK reporting in.

> What has your experience been?

Mixed. Do your research first. It was difficult to get a bank account and rent a flat without references or fixed address (I stayed in a hostel the first few weeks).

I once got evicted from a flat (with 10 days notice) because of a legal loophole. The landlord was insolvent, bank repossessed, my tenancy agreement was declared void because landlord hadn't sought permission to let it out from the bank. As a tenant, you have no way of checking this upfront. Generally tenants are treated like shit and you need to be really wary. I was ignorant of any of this until it smacked me in the face - now I'm sufficiently up to date to give tenancy advise to the natives.

Compared to Germany, recycling here is barely known, which took some getting used to. You can't get a proper sausage in this country, but there's new exciting foods to compensate for it, and a wide variety of popular foreign dishes.

Other than that I like it, apart from the worrying rise of xenophobia, anti-EU sentiment and increasing internet censorship and monitoring. There's always Scotland though, after the breakup.

> What is your particular career?> Did you have to already have a job when you moved to that country?

I was offered a job as CTO, which was the opportunity to move I needed. If you do not have an offer letter in your pocket, it will be even more difficult to get a bank account and rent a flat (but search for "HSBC Passport").

> What were your moving expenses?

A flight for me, and a couple hundred euros to transport a few of my most important belongings. Do not bring more than this. Definitely don't bring furniture. Do not bring bed sheets or anything that is sized to fit certain items of furniture, it will not fit.

Then the price of a few weeks of temporary accommodation while I searched for a flat. I went cheap (40 a night) because I wasn't sure how long it would be for, and ended up in a hostel where the shower didn't work reliably. Found a flat after two weeks.

> How much is your rent or did you buy?

Rent in the UK is obscenely high, and so is buying (especially in and around London), and one of the things I still struggle with is the generally poor quality of available housing (ancient heating, drafty single glazed windows, "period" buildings).

> Have you become fluent in the native language and was the language barrier difficult to overcome?

Yes. I spoke English before, or thought I did, but the language barrier was still immense. English has many variations (I ended up in a meeting with an Irishman and couldn't understand a thing) and there's a lot of slang in use. It took about a year before it got acceptable, and after 5 years I can cope with almost all of it, including Glaswegian and Scouse.

> What was the process like to become a permanent resident?

Depends on where you come from. After a few years of legal residency, you can apply for naturalization and do a test that every person born in the country fails (but you just study for it and then you'll pass). As EU resident, there's no huge advantage in becoming a citizen (well, you get to vote if you like).

> What's the cost of living compared to where you moved from? Has your quality of life improved or not? How and why?

Considerably higher cost of living, all due to the high rent (other factors about the same). I'm not sure about quality of life, but I can tell you it was the most important thing in my life and everyone should live in a different country for some time (actually live there, holidays don't count).

As American, please consider that you will be made fun of by some, you will need to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road and how to use a stick shift.

In general, be prepared to accept that things aren't like home and miss some food.

doxydexydroxide 5 days ago 1 reply      
1. What has your experience been?

Incredible! Extensively checked out all the major European Cities for 2 years before making the move. Government & Commercial Aerospace R&D funding fell off a cliff in 2003 and that triggered the move.

2. What is your particular career?

Safety critical Air & Space Flight Control Systems Design & Certification. Commercial, Military, Space.

3. What were your moving expenses?

$11,000 dollars in 2003

4. How much is your rent or did you buy?

1143 Euros per month or $1545.85

5. Where did you move to/from?


6. How are the schools?

AMAZING! I had 3 young children (3,7,10) when we moved in 2003. The Vienna Bi-lingual Schooling project is a world famous education initiative. My 2 school age children had no difficulties. My 3 year old went into 2 years native German kindergarten.

After 4 years, both of my 2 older children moved to the German schooling. They have native Viennese accents, without any US detectable accent.

Education in Austria is intense, compared with the US. Up until the 9th year, kids go to school only 4 hours a day, and no homework!

The emphasis is entirely different. In the US, emphasis is on the 1st 4 years of gaining solid BASIC competency, at which point intensity goes to zero.

In Austria, the first 4 years are used to expose children to a large variety of subjects, and then the student decides where their interests are, and then attend the schools focused on that subject.

The 5th - 13th(HTL) years are intense. With the 9th year, students are taught the equivalent of college courses.

My oldest already knew what she wanted. BioEngineering! When we de-registered her at school, they gave us her education records, which contained testing results showing that she was 5 years ahead of her age in math and science!She attended HTL Rosensteingasse. A world renowned school of chemistry. http://hblva17.ac.at/

My middle son is at HTL Spengergasse which focuses on computer programming. http://www.spengergasse.at/

My youngest also starts at Rosensteingasse in the fall.

Higher Education is 100% free! So anybody who can pass the Matura(a tough school leaving certificate test founded in 1851) is guaranteed by law a free higher education.

7. Have you become fluent in the native language and was the language barrier difficult to overcome?

Yes, our entire family is fluent. German is a challenge for native English speakers. As Austrians are proud of their english lanugage education in school. They want to impress you with it, and practice it, wherever you go. They immediately pick up on your being a native English speaker when you talk German. You have to be polite and insist on speaking German with them, if in anything other than a shopping experience.

8. How long have you lived in this country? Are you a permanent resident or do you plan on moving back to the US?

We have lived here for 11 years. We are all permanent residents. Vienna is home for all of us. We have fully integrated.

I love my country (USA) but hate my government (USA).

Every American deserves the quality of life that Austrians have, thanks to the structuring of the Austrian Constitution on the US Constitution after WWII, Austria is the country that the USA used to be when I was growing up. A government of virtue, and a nation of "self interest rightly understood". A land of safety and security. A land of highly educated and intelligent people.

Now, its a nation given over to legalized (legal is what you can get away with (Bill Clinton)) piracy (take what you can, give nothing back(Captain Jack Sparrow)), kleptocracy and crony capitalism. Dog eat dog, everybody for themselves, and buyer beware. Injustice is everywhere you look. Crime is rampant. There is no "America" or "Americans" any longer. Just selfish spoiled brats who never grew up, and their victims. The rare exceptions can be found in the "flyover states" places like Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, and Missouri where we lived before emigrating to Austria. However the disease has now infected these once sheltered areas, and taken hold in a majority of the population. There are a few isolated pockets such as Boulder Colorado, however the signs of infection are now visible here as well.

The USA is a majority population of Apostates (who have perverted the rule of law, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Urinating on wisdom of the founding fathers.

Most egregious examples:

1. The "American Stazi" (NSA,FBI,CIA).

2. The Toyota software/hardware defect coverup & conspiracy http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=13216...

3. The killing of Aaron Swartz.

I am proud to be an American. I am embarrassed and ashamed of my government, and the people who disgrace our proud heritage as cowards who tolerate the destruction of this once great and proud nation.


Where is the outrage. Where is the revolution?Only a "second republic" of the United States of America will solve this problem.

I am a 3rd generation US citizen with all of my genetic heritage from Ireland.

I now live in a land with a terrible past (NAZI Genocide in WWII) which learned the tragic mistakes of the past and now respects life, and personal freedoms more than the victor of WWII and the worlds only superpower. I respect the Austrian Government far more than the government of the United States of America. This is a personal tragedy.

At this moment it is deeply painful even thinking about possibly giving up US citizenship (Hold out hope of revolutionary change). I regret that this however has become inevitable. The USA shall not recover its virtue in my, nor my children's lifetime. The people have to be willing to fight for it! FREEDOM IS NOT FREE. Citizens must hold its government accountable to the rule of law. US citizens choose not to given the cost of personal sacrifice. A Napoleonic "DIVIDE AND RULE" has poisoned our people and our politics.

We should be Americans first, but sadly we are now Americans last.

9. What was the process like to become a permanent resident?


I was classified as a "Very Qualified Worker" which substantially reduced the red tape.


Permanent residence in Austria also conveys permanent residence in the whole of the European Union.

Permanent residence requires B1 level German competency.

After 5 years of full time employment in Austria, exceeding a minimum income requirement, one can become a legal permanent resident of Austria and the EU.

10. Did you have to already have a job when you moved to that country?

Yes. In 2003 this was the case. However this is no longer the case with the Red-White-Red card (EU blue card)


The European Union spends far more money on Aerospace R&D than any other country in the world. Its why Airbus is the world leader in commercial aircraft, and Ariane is the number one satellite launcher. NASA is a hollow political bureaucracy compared to world leaders DLR & CNES.

Weather: mild winters and summers.

Skiing and climbing in the Alps.

Austria is a country which tries its very best to eliminate "uncompensated externalities"(subsidies and privatizing gain while publicizing losses are extremely rare, but do exist here but in lower proportion). Actual costs (healthcare, pollution etc.) are incorporated in product pricing. Most things, as a result, cost more than in the US.

Austria is a "social" country(not socialist/communist). Over 50k in income taxes are 50% or greater, and very few tax deductions are allowed.

My quality of life has skyrocketed in comparison. Vienna & Zurich Switzerland for the past 40 years have had the highest quality of life in the world. I gave up my McMansion in a gated community in the USA for paradise on earth. My children have the very same freedom I had as a child growing up in the early 70s. Children here as young as kindergarten travel unaccompanied on the public transportation system to school. There is virtually no crime, especially violent crime. There is no poverty.

In Austria the private funding of political campaigns is illegal. The government funds 100% of the costs. As a result, the government belongs to the people. In America, nothing short of a revolutionary civil war can eliminate the corruption of the government by wealthy individuals and corporations.

Quality of life has a high price that Americans are just not willing to pay.

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society"US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

mynegation 5 days ago 4 replies      
You are asking a lot of questions but it would help people to understand what you are looking for (or what you are moving away from).

If you are looking for almost USA that is not USA, then Canada. If you are looking for a good climate outside of USA then Australia. Or France, or Italy, but then you will need to learn the language. If you are looking for low expenses, then India, Thailand, or Vietnam. If you are looking for great social stability then Northern Europe countries, but these are notoriously hard to emigrate to... etc etc

(Creds: moved from Russia to Canada, travel a lot)

dodyg 5 days ago 1 reply      
I've lived in 7 countries now and here's a quick review of them.

Australia: This is a great country to live. Great education, good jobs and awesome climate. I lived in Brisbane, which is located on the Northeast on the country. The only problem is that it takes forever to go anywhere. If you have a young family, this is one of the best place to raise them. Housing is apparently expensive now there.

Singapore: The living standard there is higher than the US. Everything is efficient, food is great and it has first class education. It is damn humid though. English is the native language there. It is located in South East Asia which makes many parts of Asia really accessible.

Czech Republic: I lived in Prague for a while. It is gorgeous, the public transport is efficient and it is cheap to live in. I have no idea about education. You can get by with English in daily life. However for paperwork you will need assistance from local. There are many expats living there.

Italy: I lived in Central Italy in Umbria region and my wife is from Ferrara. Italy has so many charming towns to move in and live although employment could be a problem. English will get you by OK and basic Italian is not hard to pick up. You will need assistance by local to do paperwork.

Indonesia: This is my country. It is a cheap place to live and you will get by with English as long as you stay in the big cities. It has fast growing economy and there should be plenty of opportunities for jobs. The international schools should be decent. In the capital city like Jakarta though you will encounter terrible traffic jam.

USA: I lived in Chicago when White Sox won the World Series. Enough said.

Egypt: I live here in Cairo now. It is both a very charming, surprisingly cosmopolitan and yet frustrating city. It is a very safe city. This is the most conservative city I've lived in terms of dress code and it is crippled by traffic jams. If you have adult children, Cairo is a fine city.

s_dev 5 days ago 2 replies      
I've noticed a lot of Americans moving here to Dublin, Ireland the past few years - most seem to be 30+ though and career focussed. I suspect younger Americans are attracted to destinations like California, China and Continental Europe.

I guess Americans who don't mind the rain and grey skies would find it easy to settle here - English speaking, high quality of life, great education prospects for children. I have to say though tech wages here seem to be about half what they are in CA but even within the US, tech wages are much lower than CA.

sivers 5 days ago 4 replies      
One of my favorite links I've ever seen on the subject is this:

Top 15 Cheap, Safe and Friendly Countries


Here are the top 15 cheapest, safest and friendliest countries:

    COUNTRY  /  RATING    1. Macedonia 0.99    2. Georgia 0.98    3. United Arab Emirates 0.82    4. Morocco 0.80    5. Hong Kong 0.75    6. Montenegro 0.71    7. Malta 0.68    8. Taiwan 0.67    9. Ethiopia 0.63    10. Thailand 0.62    11. Estonia 0.60    12. Sri Lanka 0.59    13. Nepal 0.55    14. Bosnia And Herzegovina 0.55    15. Portugal 0.46
(+ gregd, feel free to email me about this. I've been living outside the U.S. for years, and have applied for permament residency in 3 different countries. Happy to share any experiences and advice.)

fingerprinter 5 days ago 2 replies      
I've lived in Both Australia and Canada (I'm American) with my family for significant amounts of time (currently in Canada). Both are great with very little "differences" from the US.

However, there are some major annoyances in both places as well. We Americans have come to expect things to be A. cheap B. quick and C. easy. See amazon.com. Those either don't exist or are 1/100 as useful outside of the US.

Other things are different as well, but nothing that is insurmountable and some are enjoyable as well.

BTW, I just got my perm residency in Canada and plan on staying here forever. The schools are better than where we came from (Phoenix), the people are nicer and the weather is much, much better (We live in Victoria; wife, 3 kids). Kids go to a francophone (not immersion, though there are those as well) school, ride their bikes everywhere and have parks around every corner. People still don't lock their doors sometimes.

That said, I probably would never live anywhere else in Canada other than Victoria....maybe Vancouver (though that is kinda pricey and doesn't offer the kind of lifestyle we are after). Rest of Canada has mostly miserable weather as far as I'm concerned.

softwarerero 5 days ago 0 replies      
I moved to Asuncin, Paraguay 6 years ago, after having been here twice for language-learning-vacations. It took about 3,5 month to feel fluent but I will learn more language and culture all my life. I came from central Europe and enjoy the warmer weather and the relaxed live style. I put all my stuff in a container and paid about 7.000 USD to including all the packing which I never could have done that well myself, I also could live back home normally until 2 days before I moved. One monitor crashed on the way but the insurance payed for it. I live in a nice apartment of about 2.000 square feet with 24 hours guards, janitor and gardener for 1.000 USD/month.

Good education is expensive here. I meet later today with some US embassy workers and will ask what they pay for their kids.

I want to stay here and planning a marriage, it is really difficult to get a Paraguayan girl to live far from family for a long time. People here are extremely family oriented.

I thought it would be easy to find a job here as a Java/Groovy/Smalltalk/C++ developer, but it was not. You can find work here if you are into M$ technologies or maybe PHP. You will work many hours on boring projects and get paid almost nothing. If you work with a cooler tech stack there is no market here. Since I am here I have learned Scala, object oriented databases, search engines like Lucene and Elasticsearch, node.js and Meteor. All of that is not in use in the country. Finding remote work has never worked for me and only once I found a project for two month in Berlin. A friend who a Java developer is still employed by a German company and moved to rural Paraguay, he is married here and plans to become old here.

Living costs easily doubled since I am here. The quality of life is higher in some areas and lower in others, it always comes down to the compromises one is willing to make.

Last week I helped a guy from Tennessee to get his residency. A friend met him on a flight from Miami to Su Paulo, he wanted to get a second passport as an insurance to the limitations on civil rights going on in the US. We ran around for 4 days to get all the papers and seals the government asks for and now he has to wait for 90 days to get his permanent residency. After that he still has to apply for an ID card which will probably take another month.

danieldk 5 days ago 0 replies      
Not that my experience is that relevant, since I've only hopped to a neighboring country (Netherlands -> Germany). But maybe it's useful anyway ;). It's been a fun experience so far, because ~6 months after we moved our daughter was born. My wife is German, but had a preference for staying in the Netherlands.

What has your experience been?

More bureaucracy, more organizational hierarchy, but also a nice environments (close to the woods, mountains, etc.). People are a bit nicer/warmer here, but Dutchmen are more honest/to the point.

What is your particular career?


How much is your rent or did you buy?

We rent. Southern German university city. Approximately 900 Euro, 1100 Euro including garage and water.

Where did you move to/from?

Groningen, The Netherlands, though I commuted to Amsterdam for a while.

How are the schools?

Our kid only goes to kindergarten now. They are great. Less commercial than NL, much cheaper, nice personnel. I don't know about schools, but many German Bundeslnder have free university education.


I had German in high school, so I can understand the language without too much trouble. I can speak at a basic level. The percentage people knowing English as a second language is far lower than The Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. But since we live in a university city, it's not too bad.

How long have you lived in this country?

1 year, and a couple of months when I was a child.

Are you a permanent resident or do you plan on moving back to the Netherlands?

Not sure, so far I am leaning towards staying permanently.

What's the cost of living compared to where you moved from?

Pretty much the same, though the wages seem to be better in academia.


Yes, there are more opportunities, since it's larger country with more cities. Also, it's easier to relax more here, given that nature is nearby.

BlakePetersen 5 days ago 5 replies      
Watch out for the whole double taxation issue. You will need to pay taxes to the US (there's a certain income threshold if I remember correctly, but you'd likely surpass it). If you wind up taking permanent residency, you may need to renounce your US citizenship to stop having to owe taxes Stateside.

(http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/U.S.-...) -- "Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you reside."

asadotzler 5 days ago 1 reply      
We have good friends that moved to Costa Rica a decade ago. The climate is nice, the scenery is amazing, the country is a stable democracy with no standing army. Land and housing was very affordable.
GnarfGnarf 5 days ago 2 replies      
If you are young, embrace the opportunity to learn a second language. Take a course before you leave, study your new language thoroughly, and bask in the joy of being accepted in a rich new culture. The culmination is when you can understand their jokes. The motivation is to bargain successfully in the marketplace (eg. Latin America) and not get taken advantage of.

I lived in Peru/Bolivia in 1968-69, taught high school physics in Spanish. One of the most enriching experiences of my life.

scottlilly 5 days ago 0 replies      
I moved from the US to Uruguay for almost a year. Three years ago I moved to Paraguay, where I currently live.

What has your experience been?- Mixed. There are good things and bad things. But, overall, I'm happier here and plan to stay.

What is your particular career?- .Net back-end programmer, back in the US. However, I'm trying to do other IT-related things here that don't involve me sitting in someone's cubicle for eight hours a day.

What were your moving expenses?- Just the price of the plane ticket. I sold everything, packed a few bags, and left.

How much is your rent or did you buy?- I'm renting a tiny apartment in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Asuncion for about $300/month. I highly recommend that you don't buy until after you've lived in a place for at least a year. It will take you that long to see if you really want to stay there, and also figure out the local real estate market.

Where did you move to/from?- US. Chicago and Texas.

How are the schools?- I don't have any kids, but I've heard that you'd probably want to send your kids to private schools here.

Have you become fluent in the native language and was the language barrier difficult to overcome?- I've become a little bit better than "functional", but nowhere near fluent. Unfortunately, it's easy to get lazy at this point. You'd generally need to be close to fluent in Spanish, to get anything done here. However, since I mostly hang out with Paraguayans who are educated IT people, many who have learned English. Since they're usually better at English than I am at Spanish, we often end up speaking in English.

How long have you lived in this country? Are you a permanent resident or do you plan on moving back to the US?- Just over three years here. I've had permanent residency for two and a half years. I plan to apply for Paraguayan citizenship at the end of this year (when I'll first be eligible). I don't plan to return to the US.

What was the process like to become a permanent resident?- Fairly easy. Get some documents from the US (birth certificate, police background check, etc.), have them legalized by the Paraguayan Embassy/Consulate in the US, deposit $5000 in a local bank (to prove financial solvency), and hire a local "gestor" for about $800 to deal with getting the paperwork stamped and submitted, dragging me around to the required appointments, etc. Six months later, I have my permanent residency and applied for my "cedula" (national ID), which took about a month to receive.

Did you have to already have a job when you moved to that country?- Nope. But I had a decent amount of savings (emphasis on "had").

What's the cost of living compared to where you moved from? Has your quality of life improved or not? How and why?- I live on around $1000 a month. I could live cheaper if I cooked at home more often. I could live more expensively, if I rented a bigger/nicer home. Overall, I'd say my life is better - even when you include the stress of still trying to get some business idea to work. I lost about 25 pounds of excess weight, from eating better and walking more. I feel less stressed, since I'm not being constantly bombarded by wars/bad economy/etc. I'm in a place that I believe will grow and improve over the next few years/decades (something I can't really say for the US).

fenomas 5 days ago 0 replies      
Japan checking in.

> experience?

Japan is a country that suits some people very well, and others not at all. It's not great if you like driving, lots of personal space, fitting in, etc. Personally I find it almost entirely very agreeable. It's such a homogeneous society that some things might depend on your background.

> particular career?

Miscellaneous web/front-end/content development; later tech evangelism.

> moving expenses?

Minimal, but that was ~15 years ago and I had very little stuff. I brought two suitcases and shipped a few boxes by sea. It was under $1K, perhaps half that.

> How much is your rent or did you buy?

Tokyo center is on par with downtown S.F. - i.e. egregious. But due to unbelievably never-want-to-leave public transport, you can live well outside the city comfortably. My rent is around $1300/mo; commute ~40 minutes.

> Where did you move to/from?

From midwest US to Tokyo environs.

> How are the schools?

Mixed. Japanese schools are excellent at many things - fostering discipline and responsibility, math/science, work ethic. Having students fetch/serve/clear up their own lunches, sweep their own corridors etc. is something I wish I could export. On the other hand schools here are terrible with initiative and English. International schools are super pricey - possibly beyond the reach of a typical programmer.

> fluent in the native language, language barrier difficult?

Yup and yup. You can live in Japan easily with very little language skill; career-wise being bilingual is a massive, massive boon. I sailed into my first tech job purely because I could speak very basic Japanese, and I could learn the tech faster than some other guy could learn the language. The language has a high initial hump, but is relatively sane and has very few rules to learn. (Apart from kanji, which are hard but for some purposes optional.)

> How long? Permanent resident? return to the US?

15 years or so, and yup for PR. I could see myself returning if there was a good reason though - I don't think it's very useful to try to plan such things very far out.

> process to become a permanent resident?

Easy if you meet a few well-defined requirements, impossible otherwise. I vaguely recall it being: 10 years residency if single, 5 years if married to a national, but there are a few addenda.

> already have a job when you moved?

Nope - just arrived as a tourist and poked around. With tech skills and a smattering of language ability you can trip over an entry-level job; with one but not the other it's doable but might take some looking. If you're a senior person with no language skills, it's still very possible but having several leads before arriving would be well-advised.

> cost of living? quality of life?

These are subjective, but for me, absolutely. Clean, safe, amazing public infrastructure, etc. It's fairly pricey but salaries tend to be commensurate. If I was more bohemian I might hate it - I've known people who came intending to live here and left within three months. But I'm not sure it's possible to know what you want until you try living with it.

Do hope this is helpful!

xlcashlx 5 days ago 0 replies      
I'm presently living in South Africa. I'm young, and left the corporate world behind to pursue a masters degree abroad. I was getting dangerously comfortable, so I wanted some excitement. Jokingly I've called this a mini retirement.

>What has your experience been?Its been wonderful. As a kid I lived in Germany for a few years, but this is my first time living abroad since. There are pros and cons with every place. No place is perfect. Living abroad youll learn to appreciate the positives you can enjoy in each place.

>What is your particular career?Mechanical Engineer

>What were your moving expenses?Single 1 way ticket - $1000 - $1500Visa - $1500 deposit (refundable on return. Fingers crossed)Everything I brought fit in two suitcases. Import taxes are high

>How much is your rent or did you buy?I pay $350 a month to share a three bedroom, 1.5 bath town home with two others. Water is included. Electricity is slightly higher per kwhr when compared to the states.

>Where did you move to/from?From Colorado to Cape Town

>How are the schools?You get world class private schools to third world public education. A lot of the schools are a mix of public/private entities. Similar grade system to USA. Cant really talk about this though, dont have any youngsters

>Have you become fluent in the native language and was the language barrier difficult to overcome?English is common, but learning one of the local languages would be a fun task. The Afrikaans language is similar to Dutch. The native African languages would be more challenging to learn coming from English.

>How long have you lived in this country? Are you a permanent resident or do you plan on moving back to the US?Ive been living here since January. My visa is temporary, 2 years. Not sure what will happen or where I will go next.

>What was the process like to become a permanent resident?N/A But the visa process not fun, lots of documents, medical records, and the return envelope I sent went missing which delayed things further.

>Did you have to already have a job when you moved to that country?N/A Although I would say that I already had a connection here. Moving to a new place one way ticket style without visiting or talking to anybody may be a bit more exciting.

>What's the cost of living compared to where you moved from? Has your quality of life improved or not? How and why?The cost of living here is cheaper. Quality food and eating out is cheaper. McDonalds prices and Burger king prices are similar to back home, and taste the same surprisingly Im definitely earing less money now than I did in the states. In general basic necessitates are cheaper, but luxuries are more expensive including cars, electronics, bicycles, etc.

gmays 5 days ago 0 replies      
The Tropical MBA podcast talks about places like this quite frequently, so it's worth a listen. Here's a list of their top cities, most are international: http://www.tropicalmba.com/2014lifestyeldesigncities/
radicalbyte 5 days ago 0 replies      
> What has your experience been?

Great, I really like it here. Mostly because for the most of my careers I've been working next to highly educated people, so my perception is that the Dutch are much smarter than the English. Plus I'm usually not the smartest person in the room (thankfully!). None of that small-minded idiocy that I see at home.

The culture is great; they're direct like the Americans, commercial like us Brits and diplomatic like the Scandinavians. The directness suits me, and I can use my British politeness when needed too. More tools in the toolbox.

> What is your particular career?

Software Architect (the good kind, who can code) though I'm trying to start up for myself.

> What were your moving expenses?

About 10k EUR, moving was 1k but you need 5k for a cheap 2nd hand car and 1k for health insurance and other costs.

> How much is your rent or did you buy?

Buy, 1.2k EUR a month mortgage on a house in an average town.

> Where did you move to/from?

UK to Netherlands to be with my dutch girlfriend (now wife). That was 8 years ago.

> How are the schools?

Excellent, because they're split by capability (vocational, technical, university).


I'm fluent through a combination of not fearing saying something stupid and investing 3k EUR in courses at a local university.

> How long have you lived in this country? Are you a permanent resident or > do you plan on moving back to the US?

I want to bring my baby up here. Much better than the UK.

> What was the process like to become a permanent resident?

EU to EU is very easy.


I had a low-level job arranged, found a better job within a month.

> What's the cost of living compared to where you moved from? Has your quality > of life improved or not? How and why?

Cost of living is much higher: the social system here is better, the taxes are higher and more progressive. My income is high enough that it means that I'm paying about 25% more tax. Plus in the UK I could probably earn more because I could easily switch to Sales.

djmollusk 5 days ago 0 replies      
Living in Puerto Rico is a good way to see if you'll like living outside of the USA. It feels like a different country, but uses US Dollar and no passport needed. Puerto Rico will give you a taste of what it's like living without a lot of the conveniences you get in the states.
rdl 5 days ago 0 replies      
Canada and England are easy-mode for an American expat, in my experience. In addition to language, there are plenty of US firms already doing business there.

The easiest way to be an expat, by far, is to work for an American company who then sends you to work overseas. Ideally, an American firm with a large number of overseas US workers and an established program for that -- or a government organization like the State Department, entities like USAID, etc.

It's probably easier (in terms of not needing to make any decisions) to work for a US oil company and live on a compound in Saudi Arabia than it is to find your own way in a more permissive country. But less fun, I'm sure.

modoc 5 days ago 3 replies      
Not an actual expat, but travel a lot.

Lived in a small beach town in Mexico for a month. There were a lot of expats there, super cheap, safe, friendly town. Everyone there spoke enough English that I could get along easily without any Spanish. Quality of life was fantastic. Only downside was very slow/unstable internet access.

I'd seriously consider South Africa, a place like Durban. Great city, everyone speaks English, low cost of living, lots of culture/resources/fast internet, tons to do. Was just there for two weeks. Super nice people, very health focused society.

greggman 5 days ago 1 reply      
Part of this is your definition of "expat". For me "expat" = person who gets sent by company and set up by that company in a foreign country. Most of those types get a sweet deal. The company pays their rent and usually tries to give them something close to what they'd have in their native country which could easily cost way more than they could afford on their own. Plus, since the company is paying it means an instant 20-30% raise since they no longer have to pay rent.

An example would be someone sent to HK, Tokyo, Singapore, maybe Shanghai. I have less experience with Shanghai but just looking at the services available it looks like there's an "expat" crowd. Simply search for "apartments in ____" If you find several websites advertising expensive apartments for expats then that city is probably a place with lots of them.

Me, I've never been an "expat" by the definition above.

In any case, if you can get a company in your local country to send you you'll often not have much trouble. They'll take care of the visas and immigration issues. You won't be expected to speak the language. You'll likely get paid more than you would if you went on your own which can be a big deal.

You might also consider a country that speaks the same language. Their cultures are still different. England has a very different culture than the USA. So does Singapore. I'm going to guess so do Australia and New Zealand. Might not be as different as China or India but still different.

dlayf 5 days ago  replies      
Not not exactly an Expat, but I spent 6 months living in Rome as a student. This doesn't answer all of your questions but I hope it helps.

Pro's: - Great culture, great food. Groceries fresh and reasonably priced.

- Coming from english, Italian is a relatively easy language to learn and people are happy to speak it with you.

- Pretty good infrastructure. Good train systems to move around the country. Rome has a good subway system.

- Lots of walking/biking in daily life keeps you in shape.


- Anything ivolving the government is a beaurcratic nightmare. We applied for student permits in August and didn't get them till after we returned home in January. Never tried it but starting a business is probably a lot of paper work.

- Nothing in the city runs on a schedule Buses, People, any type of meetings. The saying that Mussolini did bad things, but he made the trains run on time definatly makes sense after living there.

- Cost of housing his high, though the outskirts of the city are cheaper.

All in all I loved my time there as an experience, but working there may be a challenge.

Ask HN: What do you think about future of Android?
7 points by wsieroci  19 hours ago   5 comments top 3
josephschmoe 15 hours ago 0 replies      
Android needs two things:

1. Real compatibility instead of compatibility libraries. Compatibility libraries just serve to fragment the community and frustrate developers (try to use Facebook integration fragments in a 4.0+ application if you don't believe me).

2. C#.

petervandijck 12 hours ago 0 replies      
Android will own the low end mobile space. iOS will own the high end.

Either the mobile OS wars are over and Android and iOS won (I think the most likely scenario for the next 10 years), or there are major developments coming up that we (I) can't foresee that will change this dynamic. But for now, that's it.

curtis17 18 hours ago 1 reply      
Android needs to evolve away from Java. It needs a Swift - something richer, more expressive, focused on modern 64bit platforms and above all open.
What to do after a patent is discovered?
2 points by markkudlac  17 hours ago   6 comments top 5
dalke 17 hours ago 0 replies      
Alex-Galapagos 15 hours ago 0 replies      
You need to get a pattern attorney and ask. Basically if you word it differently and describe it differently then it's a different product
petervandijck 12 hours ago 0 replies      
Your smart patent laywer might say: delete this post asap.

If you KNOW you're infringing a patent, it's MUCH worse than if you're infringing without knowing. That's why it can be better to not do patent searches.

smooty69 17 hours ago 1 reply      
3/16/2013 the rule "first inventor to file (FITF)" was put in place, you are out of luck and now infringing on Yahoo's patent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inve...
informatimago 16 hours ago 0 replies      
Open your wallet?
Ask HN: What to expect in final round of accelerator interview?
3 points by scollins  17 hours ago   discuss
Ask HN: What are good blogging platforms for programmers?
54 points by hhimanshu  1 day ago   80 comments top 32
minimaxir 1 day ago 8 replies      
Using Jekyll (w/ a good theme) + GitHub Pages is more than sufficient. More importantly, it's free, fast, and can handle large amounts of traffic, such as the front page of Hacker News.

A year ago, I used Wordpress on shared hosting, then my service was terminated once I hit the front page of HN (~300 concurrent users). I've been using Jekyll + GitHub Pages since, and I've had no issues whatsoever, aside from the occasional GitHub outages.

swah 1 day ago 5 replies      
TIL we are all now mature and educated in the perils of the Not Invented Here syndrome so nobody will be telling you to go write your own.

(and this makes me sad)

billmalarky 1 day ago 5 replies      
Is everyone shying away from wordpress for security reasons? I like the simplicity of wordpress, but in the back of my mind I am concerned that one day I'll visit my site and it will have viagra ads all over it. It would be less of a concern if I blogged daily, but I go to it rarely enough that it could be hosting malware (and making me look like an idiot) for quite a while before I realized it.
yummyfajitas 1 day ago 1 reply      
I use Pelican (roughly the Python version of Jekyll, a successor to Hyde). I just write markdown in emacs, publish and it's good to go. Everything is stored in git.

See the pelican folder here for code examples - feel free to steal the theme, just write your own content.


JelteF 1 day ago 1 reply      
You should try Ghost. I've had a good experiences with it. It still has some quirks though like mobile editing (viewing works fine). But it's officially still in beta so that is to be expected.

It uses markdown, has lots of themes (some paid, some free, some OSS), you can host it yourself.


logn 1 day ago 0 replies      
HTML is built for making documents and a blog seems like a perfect case when you should just open up a text editor and write some HTML. That's how I started my own blog recently. Then I switched to ghost.io. It's a nice platform, but I might go back to hand writing it.

To do code snippets, try the <code> or <pre> tags.

I suppose if you want a full commenting system, then a platform makes sense. However, on low-traffic blogs I think the comments (or rather, lack thereof) make it seem like someone's talking to an empty room.

mostlybadfly 16 hours ago 0 replies      
If you're saying programmer I'm assuming there is already this level of experience, but I went ahead and made my own blog set up. This was mostly really to learn Rails. Even though I am mostly doing strictly Ruby stuff at the moment, I hear of or see features I want to add to the blog so little by little I pick up more rails techniques.

For just having something already set to focus on your writing, I really like what I've seen from Jekyll, I don't have a need yet but I'm definitely keeping it in mind for future projects.

jordanlev 1 day ago 2 replies      
If you wind up going with a static site generator (like Jekyll, for example), one thing to watch out for which I experienced on my own technical blog is that if you want comments functionality then your only realistic choice is Disqus... and Disqus is absolutely horrible for comments on technical blogs because it does not allow code snippets! It used to (a few years ago), and then they changed it... now I have to create a pastie or gist for every little piece of code I want to put in a comment response... very annoying.

Not a dealbreaker, just something to be aware of. (And if anyone knows of other embeddable comment systems that can be used on static sites, I'd love to hear about them!)

oddevan 1 day ago 1 reply      
I definitely recommend deploying static pages (either GitHub pages as people have mentioned or a static website through Amazon S3/CloudFront). Personally, I use Ghost and Hipstadeploy:


And demo: http://www.oddevan.com/

brianbarker 1 day ago 0 replies      
You can share snippets on any platform using either github snippets or an html/js code formatter like https://code.google.com/p/google-code-prettify/downloads/lis....

Rather than host your own, I prefer just going with tumblr or something slick. I do like tumblr for its social connectedness, easy sharing and liking. Whatever floats your boat, though.

lrichardson 1 day ago 0 replies      
Depending on whether by "platform" you mean the actual software package or not, I will throw http://tech.pro into the mix. (Full disclosure: I am the founder)

Tech.pro is a blogging platform / professional network catered only to the tech world (primarily software development).

Our editor is markdown-based and handles code snippets etc. quite well in addition to having support for embedded frame sites such as jsfiddle/codepen/sqlfiddle/etc.

Although you're writing on the TP platform, you still retain full ownership of your data. You can even download a neatly organized archive of all your blogs (and revisions) in both Markdown and html format at any time.

My Blog: http://tech.pro/leland/blogMy Profile: http://tech.pro/leland

kazinator 1 day ago 0 replies      
I'm interested in this too, in particular answers which assume that:

* I already have a server running under my desk, running Apache, and a git repo web-served via CGIT, where I can store any serious code snippets that require versioning. So I'm not interested in anything that uses third party hosting.

* I'm the only blogger: no multi-user capabilities needed.

* The publishing side doesn't even have to be web-based; the minimal requirements are that I can log in to a shell account and post a blog by creating a text file and running some command. This then updates the page nicely, including the RSS feed and whatnot.

* No user comment feature required; it's okay if users mail-in comments, and there is a way to publish selections from the mailbag.

austinl 1 day ago 2 replies      
Here's a list of resources, mentioned in this thread and elsewhere. Some of these are better at sharing code snippets than others, but you might find the features of the platform more enjoyable.

- Jekyll + GitHub Pages (https://help.github.com/articles/using-jekyll-with-pages)

- Octopress/Jekyll + GitHub Pages (http://octopress.org/)

- Svbtle (https://svbtle.com/)

- Medium (https://medium.com/)

- Ghost (https://ghost.org/)

laacz 1 day ago 0 replies      
I know it's already too late, but recently CodePen announced their blogging platform [1] which is nicely integrated with their base service - sharing of code snippets.

[1] http://blog.codepen.io/2014/06/19/can-write-blog-posts-codep...

medwezys 1 day ago 1 reply      
http://svbtle.com is nice. You can use GitHub flavoured markdown. The code highlighting is not ideal, but other than that it's a very nice platform.
growlybeard 1 day ago 0 replies      
Hi there! I'm in the early stages of building a blogging platform just for programmers. My main criteria was ease-of-use and that it support code-highlighting out of the box. You can check out what I have so far at www.progblog.io. I must warn you, that it is NOT a mature app at all, and I wouldn't even call it alpha. I will be releasing (and announcing) something here on HN in about 2 or 3 weeks, with a much nicer design (similar to Medium in its simplicity) and a more natural workflow than what exists today.
Deusdies 1 day ago 0 replies      
I was using Nikola for some time, but Github Pages + Jekyll is a good alternative. Though I am currently using WordPress (not that anyone is visiting it), I think I may look into Ghost.
arikrak 1 day ago 0 replies      
You can install Wordpress for free and easily on OpenShift. Setup some simple caching (or even just cloudflare) and it will be able to handle basically any amount of traffic. Install a plugin to display code nicely, or embed the code from elsewhere.

(for more tips, see my kickstarter project: http://kck.st/1sYmezD )

datamoshr 1 day ago 0 replies      
I am partial to Ghost (https://ghost.org/). It's a super easy platform to use. You can host it yourself or get paid hosting. Also it's open-source so you can contribute to it's development which is something that you can also learn on. Default theme supports code-snippets out-of-the-box too.
jason_slack 1 day ago 0 replies      
I'm using MDWiki (http://dynalon.github.io/mdwiki/#!index.md) since I am spending a lot of time in Markdown anyway. Easy to scp articles up to my VPS.
sergiotapia 1 day ago 0 replies      
I use Ghost on ASmallOrange. I have the tiny yearly package.

I wrote my posts using Markdown and done with it. Pretty simple.


s992 1 day ago 0 replies      
I use Octopress on GH pages. Switched from a full blown CMS and haven't looked back - it works great for me.
saj1th 1 day ago 0 replies      
Hugo lacks a couple of features that are present in Octopress or Jekyll but is much more performant.

Hosting Hugo blog on GitHub Pages ~ http://hugo.spf13.com/tutorials/github_pages_blog

wirrbel 1 day ago 0 replies      
I really like python-based http://tinkerer.me/

It uses Sphinx markup which is great for embedding source code snippets and extending the blog with own extensions or pre-built ones.

quotient 1 day ago 2 replies      
Honestly, I would just write my own HTML/CSS and buy hosting on a server somewhere. This is cheap, and gives you a great deal of control, while also honing your web development skills. (And doing it yourself feels good!)
eddie_31003 1 day ago 0 replies      
+1 for Github Pages and Jekyll. I used a Bootstrap theme that I tweaked a bit.
tortoises 1 day ago 0 replies      
I like to grab 100s of pieces of unattended plywood & two-by-fours from a junkyard or not-too-dilapidated forest horror cabin or something and drag them back to my house. Then I assemble them using hammer & nails, or I climb up a tree and nail them across some branches. You will need a hotspot for wifi & a tarp to protect u & ur laptop in case of rain while u are sitting up there.

Some hip ppl might try to use a makerbot or w/e but to get any kind of height on the platform u will need a LOT of plastic.

jMyles 1 day ago 0 replies      
Mezzanine (Django blogging platform) with Pygments for code samples. Not a bad choice.
blooberr 1 day ago 0 replies      
Ghost was super easy to setup on digital ocean (pretty much one-click install)
duiker101 1 day ago 1 reply      
I am not sure it's really what you need but coderwall.com is nice
berzniz 1 day ago 0 replies      
Tumblr. You could have your blog up within 10 minutes
programminggeek 1 day ago 1 reply      
It doesn't matter what tool you use. Write things, share with people.

Platform isn't important. You can do what you are trying to do on ANY platform.

Is there an easy way to add email template support?
3 points by 24x7  19 hours ago   6 comments top 2
patio11 18 hours ago 2 replies      
We have a button for this in Appointment Reminder. If I recall correctly, the implementation pops a modal and says "Sure thing, we can get any email template you want set up for you. Send it to support@ and we'll get it ready within a day or so."

I've done this a grand total of once, so didn't spent 3 months building out the rest of the feature.

I use the same trick for doing data import. I'd love to get that working in an actually automated fashion, because it does get used pretty frequently, but unfortunately arbitrary column-to-column mapping UIs are hard to do well.

thedogeye 13 hours ago 1 reply      
SendWithUs.com is exactly what you're looking for
Ask HN: So when is Google going to communicate about Python 3?
5 points by andrewstuart  23 hours ago   1 comment top
quadlock 14 hours ago 0 replies      
It's open source, we could do some Python 2 to 3 sprints on https://github.com/google/google-api-python-client.
Ask HN: What are the major problems in drone technology?
7 points by zxcvvcxz  22 hours ago   9 comments top 5
bliti 19 hours ago 1 reply      
For what application? The word drone is usually used to define a flying autonomous robot, but it applies to ground, and water based ones too.

[0]For flying types:

- Regulation. Which is understandable, due to the safety risks of autonomous flying machines.

- Energy storage/consumption. Electric drones are the most common now, but there could be a move towards Petrol based ones once technology catches on (lighter/more efficient engines).

For land type:

- Mobility. Right now there is a lot of focus on leg-based and weg-based[0] designs.

- Vision. Object recognition is slowly coming along, but the POV of a land based robot makes it a bit more difficult.

- Costs.

For water type:

- Costs.

- Regulation.

[0]From my experience.[1]Wheel-leg hybrid design.

notwedtm 20 hours ago 0 replies      
I have been building drones for a few years now as a hobby.

From a consumer standpoint, the pricing has come down substantially. You can build a fully autonomous quadcopter for ~$500 these days (minus the transmitter).

The problems I see are regulation, and battery performance.

Regulations are really up in the air right now. There have been two rulings by judges that the FAA's current policies do not cover restriction of commercial usage for drones. The FAA is actively fighting this. I feel that over the next few years, we'll see some solid rules set down, and more than likely they'll be extremely strict to start. Statistically speaking, the FAA has an amazing track record, and letting anyone into the skies has a real chance of marring that record substantially.

Cell power density is getting better and better, but it still takes a lot of work to get over an hour flight time on a multirotor. Thus they tend to be used for on-spot and precision flying shots for video. Fixed wing drones on the other hand have amazing range (I've seen 70km+ flights), but are less capable in the precision flying that a multirotor provides.

On this topic, I am a huge fan of what Chris Anderson is doing over at 3DRobotics. Their open-source APM is the flight controller I choose for most of my projects, and it is extremely configurable.

Hope this helps :)

thejteam 15 hours ago 0 replies      
The DOD has a fair number of SBIR topics each release on various types of autonomous vehicles, including air, land, and sea based drones. Look at http://www.dodsbir.net and look through the recent archives, say the last two years, and you will see what the DOD thinks some of the major challenges are.
schmidtc 21 hours ago 1 reply      
I started a UAV company several years ago. The biggest hurdle we faced was governed regulation. Not only was it nearly impossible to operate the things I the US, it was also exceedingly difficult to get an export license. I haven't been paying attention since I left the comply a few years ago, but it sounds like the regulations are getting better.

On the technical side we faced a few chanllanges. The first was reliability. Our planes were small <10 lbs, but would enevitly go down and be very difficult to recover. After the first couple crashes we designed a protective shell around the expensive bits. Causes of the crashes we always unique, from a loose connection, to interference.

The next biggest problem was battery life, ours was an electric system and getting more flight time in the tiny platform was difficult. This of course limited the range which limited it usefullness.

Otherwise, we solved the autonomy with off-the-shelve components (albeit military grade). Otherwise most other issues were resolved with software (flight planning, data recovery, etc).

Our application was aerial imaging, I imagine other applications would have another set of problems.

joshdance 21 hours ago 2 replies      
Reliability. You don't want 20 lb blenders falling from the sky.
Ask HN: Intelligence and the time of day
5 points by glynjackson  21 hours ago   7 comments top 3
dmurdoch 20 hours ago 1 reply      
Do you eat breakfast? If so, how much? Do you then not eat lunch into 12-1 o'clock? It may have to do with diet as well as sleep. I find eating snacks throughout that time, and drinking a decent amount of water helps keep me in that zone for a while longer.
bjones53 20 hours ago 1 reply      
Have you considered that your diet and exercise routines may have a greater impact on your cognitive abilities than sleep? Can you provide more information on your daily routine?
drKarl 21 hours ago 1 reply      
Have you tried a 15 minute power nap?
Ask HN: Coding outdoors
45 points by innsmouth_rain  1 day ago   54 comments top 31
easyname 1 day ago 2 replies      
Currently I live at rented room on roof top of a residential building. Temperature of my city(Bangalore) is around 22 degree centigrade(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore#Climate), mostly cloudy. I have setup a table with four chair outside on the roof. I find it pleasant to work outside mostly during morning and evening. In day time if its cloudy and little wind, I feel better working outside.

I use macbook and sublime to do my work, light reflection sometimes blurs the text, but it is mostly tricky, I try different position and get it working. It's little difficult to work outside during sunny days.

At times I love the reflection of sky on my screen http://imgur.com/a/ZhOv2

arh68 1 day ago 1 reply      
I do like printing code out and editing it from the hammock. You can't do it all day, and it doesn't seem very fast, but it sure is nice to plan all the edits on paper (4 color pens = colordiff!) and then type it up, test it, commit it. My hammock is about 30 paces from my laser printer, so if I wanted to go much further than that I'd need a portable printer.
archagon 18 hours ago 0 replies      
Phone tethering makes it really easy; I'm having a lot of fun spending my afternoons coding in the park. Otherwise, if you're away from any connectivity and you're working on something local, I highly recommend the Stack Exchange data dump[1] along with Samuel Lai's excellent Stackdump[2]. I worked without internet for 2 weeks using this setup (+ offline documentation) with great success. (Warning: Stackdump copies the SE XML data into a local database, which currently takes 7 hours on my Haswell i7 and requires extra disk space. Prepare ahead of time!)

[1]: https://archive.org/details/stackexchange

[2]: http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-bro...

bildung 1 day ago 1 reply      
I sometimes work in the garden. On cloudy days my Thinkpad display works just fine. If it's really sunny I use a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet pc I bought used on ebay, along with an external keyboard. The Stylistic tablets have (at least used to have) models with transflective displays (the ones with frontlights instead of backlights). Those are awesome in daylight, but look dull indoors. The resolution normally is not that great, but for ssh it should be just fine. Still kind of unwieldy, though :/

Hah, I just remembered that my alternative would have been a netbook modded with a Pixel Qi display from Maker Shed. Maker Shed does not seem to have them anymore, but perhaps you can find one of the prebuilt devices with pixel qi displays: http://www.pixelqi.com/devices

edit: I cannot recommend working in nature enough! I'm usually both super productive and in great mood while working outdoors.

colinramsay 1 day ago 2 replies      
I've tried this a couple of times. IMO screen technology in sunlight is the limiting factor - no-one's made a laptop screen good enough to make this work without you straining your eyes. Shame, because I write this from my office and I can see that it's a gloriously sunny day outside!
innsmouth_rain 16 hours ago 0 replies      
The most viable seem to be getting a tablet with a pixel qi display. This way the battery life will be good, it's in a good package and you won't need to rely on your own modding skills.

However, the first Adam tablet is out of production. It also got obliterating reviews. The only two devices I find is the Adam II which is only available for shipping in India and the SOL 7" android-g.

Adam II: http://www.amazon.in/Notion-Ink-Adam-Tablet-White/dp/B00HYVR...Android-g: http://www.solcomputer.com/sunlight-readable-tablet/7-androi...

The Adam II got good reviews by the Indian users but I haven't seen any western review of it.

I would so back a kickstarter campaign for something like this.

TimGremalm 1 day ago 0 replies      
Maybe a tablet/laptop with a Pixel Qi-screen?

"The advantage of Pixel Qi displays over conventional LCDs is mainly that they can be set to operate under transflective mode and reflective mode, improving eye-comfort, power usage, and visibility under bright ambient light."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi


danschuller 1 day ago 0 replies      
If you're working on your own projects or freelance, all you need is a bit of shade. Depending where you are then using mosquito coils, once the sun goes down, is a good idea.

I was in Ubud, Bali earlier last for a few months and worked in my garden under an awning. ( photo here: http://goo.gl/p1HdNG ). The garden had a power socket. Nicest working location I've had! On the downside wifi could be a bit spotty and there were occasional power outages.

abrkn 1 day ago 2 replies      
At least in Thailand, most beach bars have both wifi and power outlets these days. Even on small islands, they have surprisingly good satellite Internet.

Even on a Macbook Air, the screen is bright enough for me to code during the day (in the shade). As a bonus, you have an unlimited supply of alpha testers for whatever you create!

treerock 1 day ago 1 reply      
If my garden was big enough, I'd get a shed. Or a gazebo, but I'd still call it a shed.


alltakendamned 1 day ago 0 replies      
I am currently travelling around Asia and often work outdoors. I think it's already quite easy to do, though I am not sure whether you mean working 'outside' or in 'the outdoors'. Mark that up to English being far from my native language.

Requirements for me:- shade: the sun is too harsh to be exposed to it for any considerable period of time and causes plenty of screen glare. - decent hardware: I'm using a standard laptop. XPS 13 in my case. Too small kills productivity but YMMV.- internet connection: easily found in hotels and restaurants. data card if further away or with bad signals. local if no connection is available.- reasonably quiet: I don't like headphones, but if the environment is too noisy it makes longer stretches hard/impossible.

aashishkoirala 15 hours ago 0 replies      
I find it very hard to work with just a laptop. At minimum I need it connected to a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse - which means I obviously need a desk at minimum as well.

As long as that setup can be carried outdoors feasibly, I would not mind working outdoors if that was an option - weather permitting of course.

rudenoise 1 day ago 1 reply      
The kindleberry pi has all the elements I think are essential:

- low power- out door readable- light weight

The problem is that it isn't in one, handy package.

Laptops are limited by displays, it sounds like transflective-LCD is ideal. Panasonic Toughbooks have them, so could be a good bet.

I'd like to build an enclosure for a Pi and a PixelQi setup (they made the screens for OLPC). https://www.adafruit.com/products/1303

I assume there just isn't a market large enough to force these into existence?

insky 16 hours ago 0 replies      
You might be able to flip this a little. I can spend lots of time sitting in front of the screen and achieving pretty much nothing. Whereas sometimes a good walk and logical run through of the problem is all that's needed, in fact it's pretty vital for positive head space.
jongold 1 day ago 2 replies      
A couple of years back I bought a MacBook Pro with the antiglare display for this very reason. It was great to be able to work in the garden, in theory, but then you realise MBPs have/had awful battery life, especially in the sun, and when they get hot they're literally painful to work on. Oops.

Would love a simple, cheap, tiny Linux netbook with high quality keyboard & trackpad. Resigned myself to the fact that I'll always need a Mac for design (Sketch etc), but I oculd happily hack on code in Arch.

Illotus 1 day ago 0 replies      
Laptop with reasonably bright screen and good battery life gets you pretty far. Currenly I'm sitting in the shade outside my workplace with Lenovo X230. Its 26 degrees celsius in the shade, which is cooler than the 30 inside my office (3rd floor, no air conditioning, even ventilation is shut off for repairs).

The screen is an issue though, I'd much rather have the Lenovo W530 I had in my previous job. It was really nice when working without external displays and had very nice battery life to boot.

keenerd 1 day ago 0 replies      
Most people here have mentioned how a reflective or transflective display helps a lot. These used to be much more plentiful, they were standard on PDAs for example. Kind of rare and expensive now.

One thing that no one has touched on. It is much easier to work if you use an inverted color scheme for your terminals. Black text on a white background works better when front-lighting LCD technology.

tomwalker 1 day ago 0 replies      
Although I don't work outside, I try and go for a walk outside most days at lunch time. It gets the legs moving and the detachment helps me think.
kromodor 1 day ago 0 replies      
This started into a realm I had some knowledge and ended into a realm with zero knowledge from my part.

I can't help with cracking the reader. Keep in mind, while it has a benefit of not reflecting sun light with a glare, it still is not 100% immune to it.

You can always try making some shade where you work. Bring some headphones and music, as some environments can be distracting and noisy.

SanderMak 1 day ago 0 replies      
I'm sitting in my garden doing work on a MBP right now. Only 'downside' is I have to sit in the shade. Glare/flare makes it unworkable otherwise. Otoh, sitting in the sun for prolonged periods doesn't sound too good either. I'm perfectly happy with strolling around in the sun while mulling over some problems, then returning back to my laptop.
benji-york 1 day ago 0 replies      
I enjoy working outside on a covered porch (for shade). I have neck and wrist issues though, so the standard laptop-in-lap setup doesn't work for me so I build a laptop stand: http://benjiyork.com/pictures/outdoor-office.jpg
daemonk 1 day ago 1 reply      
Is the screen in google glass big enough or bright enough to work on? Ideally, it would be nice not to have to lug around the laptop and burn your thighs. Just have a bluetooth keyboard/mouse connected to a head mounted screen system.
bjourne 1 day ago 0 replies      
You need to find a screen what works in a sunny environment. Even if you sit in a shade the ambient lighting is too much for most laptops. Glossy screens are horrible, matte ones slightly more readable but not nearly enough for my eyes.
TobbenTM 1 day ago 3 replies      
I would think a tablet along with a wireless keyboard would be the best option if you are looking for something small. A tablet with a data-connection even better. The biggest problem would be a good enough screen to use in the sunlight.
BasDirks 1 day ago 0 replies      
When I code outside it's on my Air, on my local copy of some project/repo. Get a good bag so you can take your kit anywhere. I love my Freitag for this purpose.
r_bartoli 1 day ago 0 replies      
If your connection isn't extremely stable, Mosh is a very good solution: http://mosh.mit.edu/
viach 1 day ago 0 replies      
From my personal experience, I just want to suggest you to avoid swimming pools areas and kids with water guns. Anyway, no working outdoors for me anymore.
jwblackwell 1 day ago 0 replies      
If someone made a display, or some sort of filter for my macbook so I could see the screen properly outside, I'd be out there all the time!
bbyford 1 day ago 0 replies      
The Pi / kindle solution looks fun, but I agree - I wish there was a simple external screen solution perhaps
chippy 1 day ago 0 replies      
Try it and see - experiment with different setups, equipment, locales and work out what suits you best
sfeng 1 day ago 0 replies      
I've had a lot of success with my MBP and a cellular modem.
Ask HN: Recommended SSL CA?
6 points by tfb  1 day ago   3 comments top 3
nmjohn 21 hours ago 0 replies      
All SSL certs are essentially the same, within the three(ish) main classes. And the price can vary 1000% within each as well, because the entire CA industry is a complete sham.

If you just need a basic cert, either your domain registar (to keep everything in one place, assuming the price is at least competitive) or ssls.com (cheapssl.com) - If you are paying more than $10 you're being ripped off.

The next class is the wildcard variety. You'll pay a bit more for this, but the one cert will handle any subdomain on the primary domain you register. If I remember correctly these are around $80-90.

Finally, to get the green bar in URL bar, you would need an extended validation. SSLs.com has these for like $125, but I know I have seen them for under $100 elsewhere.

akg_67 21 hours ago 0 replies      
I use the free basic SSL certificate from StartSSL for my crowdlending analytics site PeerCube. I haven't had any issues or need to look somewhere else. I am actually thinking of getting another one for a new site I am building.
nodata 1 day ago 0 replies      
Get a cert from Namecheap or gandi.
What is a Node.js streams alternative in Go lang?
3 points by mac-r  22 hours ago   discuss
       cached 24 July 2014 12:05:01 GMT