In addition, if someone reaches the "I need two hands to open this and both hands are full" stage and can not figure out a solution, it would appear that IQ is still the limiting factor.
I am reminded of something I first read on Schneier's blog [0]:
Back in the 1980s, Yosemite National Park was having a serious problem with bears: They would wander into campgrounds and break into the garbage bins. This put both bears and people at risk. So the Park Service started installing armored garbage cans that were tricky to open—you had to swing a latch, align two bits of handle, that sort of thing. But it turns out it’s actually quite tricky to get the design of these cans just right. Make it too complex and people can’t get them open to put away their garbage in the first place. Said one park ranger, “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
Do you want to improve your scaling, resilience and reliability, but don't have a full-time DevOps person on the team? Why not rent one?
I work with startups and online businesses to help them spend less time worrying about technical problems, and more time growing their business.
A few of the things I can do for you:
- Implementation of robust and resilient cloud infrastructure
- AWS cost reduction. I have saved some companies up to 50% on their monthly AWS bills, while maintaining or improving app response times and uptime
- Implementation of Continuous Delivery and Configuration Management processes and training, so you can take advantage of the efficiencies these processes introduce, without taking time away from building your product
The Who is Hiring threads on HN have been pretty useful - you tend to find likeminded people.
If you need any part-time assistance with DevOps-related topics (Continuous Delivery/Integration, etc.), I'd be interested in hearing more - my email is in my profile.
> Anyway it just strikes me as mean-spirited. I doubt the EU leaders really care about immigration that strongly.
Freedom of movement of trade, people/labour, capital and services is the core founding principle of the EU - they care about it a lot.
> Regardless, I suspect they won't do it because it would be irrational.
If Britain is given a deal that allows them all of the benefits of EU membership without any of the perceived downsides, all other EU member states will want this better deal too. Giving the UK such a deal would cause a number of additional countries to leave the EU. Thus, it would be irrational for the EU to give the UK a deal which would lead to the eventual breakup of the EU.
> I believe the EU has free trade deals with Australia and Canada, without unrestricted immigration.
There are essentially three ways to trade with the EU: As a member state (Britain's current position, France, Germany, etc.), as a member of the EEA (Norway), or under WTO rules (Australia).
If the UK wants one of the first two options they will need to allow freedom of movement. If Australia (somehow) applied for membership of the EU or EEA it would need to allow freedom of movement for EU citizens.
You raise an interesting point. The prices seem too high for some commenters. They are presumably capable of doing this themselves on a DO box so they do not think it is valuable enough to justify that price.
However, one of the features of their highest price ($39/month) plan is that you can use 100 custom domains. If you have 100 domains hosted on Route 53 you will be paying over $50/month for domains, at which point $39/month for the service which actually hosts your static site is entirely negligible. I am curious how many people fall in to that bucket though - it seems more likely that people will run multiple sites with few custom domains, rather than a single site with 100 custom domains.
I am planning to offer some of Netlify's services in a product I am currently building. I'm still working on the pricing model but it is likely to be based on builds per month and bandwidth/storage, rather than the actual number of sites. My cost driver is not 'how many domain names are configured in my HTTP-routing layer', but rather 'how much pressure is each site putting on my build and web servers'.
My bank (Netherlands) offers something like what you describe, and I would still prefer to be able to use services like Mint.
> Planning requires thought, so I'm skeptical that you can automate a budget and then have people follow it (unless it's a very lenient budget).
I agree with your point - your budget is specific to your situation, so you will still need to plan it yourself. But - once the budget is set up - don't you see some value in not having to update your spreadsheet and compare it to your bank statements? Or getting a notification on your phone that you are approaching the limit of your entertainment budget this month, because the system has tallied up how much you spent in the coffee shop?
> This is fixable. 6 months maternity leave followed by 6 moths paternity leave. Make it a law that spouses have the right to that 6 months.
This is similar to how it works in parts of the EU. You have maternity leave, paternity leave, and parental leave. The latter can be taken by either parent. The amount of time allocated to each category varies from country to country.
Leave must be requested (I think) 21 days in advance, and an employer that punishes you for taking parental leave can be taken to an employment tribunal.
Do you want to improve your scaling, resilience and reliability, but don't have a full-time Devops person on the team? Why not rent one?
I work with startups and online businesses to help them spend less time worrying about technical problems, and more time growing their business.
A few of the things I can do for you:
- Implementation of robust and resilient cloud infrastructure
- AWS cost reduction. I have saved some companies up to 50% on their monthly AWS bills, while maintaining or improving app response times and uptime
- Implementation of Continuous Delivery and Configuration Management processes and training, so you can take advantage of the efficiencies these processes introduce, without taking time away from building your product
> Does anyone remember the incident where Amazon just decided that they needed to delete books they had sold to Kindle users and just went in and did so off everyone's Kindle?
Yes. Amusingly, the books in the case I remember were Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.
> bring up a smtp and imap server and I can put it on the colo box or do it on AWS.
Is that all the server will be used for? If you just want to run a Linux server 24x7 you will not be taking advantage of any AWS services, so you would probably be better off getting a colo box or VPS to act as your mail server.
If you really want to run this on AWS, you just need to spin up an EC2 instance, and configure the Security Group (think of it like a firewall). There is a wizard which will guide you through the process[0]. Once the instance is running you can (optionally) use Route 53 to set up DNS records for your new instance.
Also, feel free to buy my book :-) It starts with the basics like launching instances, and then moves on to more interesting AWS-specific features [1].
The FB post you linked to is a response to the general allegations, and not a response to the Senate's request. Thune's letter quotes part of tstocky's post:
> In a statement responding to the allegations, Facebook has claimed to have “rigorous guidelines in place for the review team” to prevent “the suppression of political perspectives” or the “prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another.”
> I don't believe there's evidence to show that she did this for any other reason than wanting to stand out and look special by sending mail from [email protected]
Personally, I think [email protected] would be a much better vanity email address than <myname>email.com.
Even if the only reason was to have a custom domain, I'm sure the State Department's IT team could point the MX records to a government-managed mail server.
I use a modified version of the pomodoro technique in combination with David Seah's Emergent Task Planner [0].
The problem you describe is familiar to me - once I am in the zone I can continue there for hours, and taking enforced breaks every 20 minutes would force this streak to end early.
To work around this I just made the breaks optional, and use blocks of 15 minutes (as described in the Emergent Task Planner).
So, my timer goes off every 15 minutes. This breaks my concentration for a couple of seconds so I can reset my timer and tick a box to show I have completed another 15 minute block, and then I jump immediately back in to my task. A couple of seconds is not enough to take me out of the zone, but it lets me keep track of my progress on tasks and see where my time has been spent throughout the day.
Personally speaking, my biggest procrastination problems arise when I lack clarity about exactly what I should be working on at this precise moment, or when I finish a task and need to think of what to do next.
My bastardised pomodoro technique solves this problem for me by always making it clear what I should be doing right now. If my mind wanders for a moment, or I get distracted by an urgent task, this list allows me to immediately refocus without any mental effort. When a task is complete I might take 5 minutes as a break, and then jump on to the next task.
If my procrastination problems sound familiar I highly recommend the ETP approach. Print out five of them, grab a timer set to 15 minutes, and give it a try for a week. Make it part of your morning routine - plan out what you want to achieve for the day, write it down, and start the timer!
The idea of a book that could solve your procrastination problems sitting unread on a shelf is an amusing irony. And I say this as someone who has multiple procrastination books on my shelves. :-)
> It is very difficult if you are in the circumstance of having to learn things as you go and having to prodding at things and trying things to figure out how things work.
With respect, it sounds like you are describing a problem caused by not knowing the technology/tooling well enough to begin completing the task, rather than a problem directly caused by procrastination.
That being said, one can easily procrastinate the task of learning too :-)
In cases like this, the first item on the to-do list could be a time-limited R&D task where the goal is to learn enough so that you can compose a more concrete plan.