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jmorton | 13 years ago | on: The Mechanical Keyboard Guide

I use a Happy Hacking Pro 2. I think the tactile feel of switches are a mater of taste, and I'm not inclined to hard sell you on my preference.

Aside from a pleasant feel and sound, the keyboard's compact size makes it an ideal travel companion. It also has a control key where a caps lock key is found traditionally.

The HHK uses a Topre switch which is a hybrid between a rubber dome and a spring. http://deskthority.net/wiki/Topre_switch

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Hacking_Keyboard

* http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hhk...

* http://geekhack.org/ -- quite informative about various keyboards and key mods.

[edit: formatting, and more HHK details]

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: The Rule of Awesome

"If we are hiring you because you are awesome, then you have 30 days to do something awesome"

I'm curious about how much autonomy and latitude people need to do something that breaks the awesome threshold. It seems to me that the more guided or directed someone is, the less likely the work they do will be considered awesome.

I tend to prefer more quantifiable terms. For example, having a clear million dollar improvement to the top or bottom line in one year. However, I very much agree that everyone should add something to the team.

[edit, format quote]

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: 10x developer talk is fundamentally misguided

most garages are ill-equipped barns

To abstract and paraphrase (wildly): there are 10x work environments, and 1/10x work environments.

It seems to me that the least productive environments let "now" trump "great" – so attracting (and retaining) the top 0.1% of talent becomes necessary for a company to survive. I wonder which costs more in the long run.

When I make technical decisions, I think hard about how to keep things simple so that a reasonably smart and attentive person can use or extend whatever system down the road.

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: An acquisition is always a failure

Maybe, maybe not. This essay was published almost ten years ago...

"Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money." http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: How do you find a technical cofounder with little experience?

Read this, or if you already have, read it again. http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html

Done? Good.

Start coding today. Seriously. Today.

You need to find and talk to people one-on-one about what you want to accomplish. Go crash an upper division computer science class tomorrow morning, and look for students that "get it" – the kind that engage the professor, ask and answer questions. After class, pick one of them and talk to them about what you're building.

Search for new posts like "Show HN: ..." these are generally technical people that can deliver. Figure out if they have technical chops or just do launch pages.

Bonus: Get a t-shirt made that says, "Co-Founder Seeking Co-Founder" and walk around campus. Or stand somewhere.

Repeat this every day between now and Friday. If it doesn't work, I'll give you a full refund.

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: A Tip That Will Help You Learn To Code 10x Faster

At first, that quote made me shake my head. However, it took me a minute to realize that the advice isn't "Google all the things!"

Certainly, having to search for an answer is inevitable. But it is also orders of magnitude more slow than recalling something from memory, at least for me. I think the key here is having the wisdom to know what is important enough to recall immediately versus referencing as needed.

As an analogy, and acknowledging the differences, being proficient with an editor isn't about the speed with which you look up how to do something: it's about what you can do without having to stop and think.

jmorton | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Do you have dead domains for sale?

I would be unlikely to pay $8 per month, but I would pay commission for selling it or sharing advertising revenue. Using a TXT record to indicate a domain is for sale seems interesting too.

(edit: yes, I do have a handful of "unused" side-project domains)

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