News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

taxcoder

Because no farmer ever will tell you he had a good year. He should have sold a month earlier than he did, or held on a week longer. Just the way it is, I guess.

In my business I see their books. Good years and bad years. Some things are more volatile - dairy can swing between losses and significant profits. Layers are pretty steady if you are on a contract, as long as you don't get the avian flu. Produce farmers rarely have a loss year, but their high income years are generally not as high as crop farmers, who sometimes do show a significant annual loss. More risk = more reward.

The last few years have been pretty good overall, for my clients.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @04:17PM (#43850177)
Reminds me of Emacs for Excel nerds. I like it! Do you plan to open-source it?
On a per individual basis, I think most individuals would prefer to overpay mortgage fees slightly rather than lose the entirety of the money they wire.
Upvoted for Ocaml. They are making progress on using on Windows.
Re:Ask HN: Ways to make side income as a SWE? on Friday November 10, 2023 @09:04PM (#38226942)
I know accountants who work between 80 and 100 hours a week for 3 months every year. Is it miserable? Yes. Is it impossible to work that number of hours and turn out quality work? I don't think so.
Re:Ask HN: Where do you all invest your money? on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:53AM (#38189722)
And the Richest Man in Babylon.
Here, desktop for online services, flip phone when traveling, VOIP for most phone usage.
Re:Ask HN: How do you store cables? on Wednesday April 12, 2023 @09:48AM (#35539598)
Coiled, coil held with twist tie/s depending on size of coil, in one of several boxes depending on type, boxes on closet shelf above server and network equipment, closet in office behind desk, office in west end of home.
We spend our days in a Microsoft world, the ribbon is familiar. I'd be happy if it was more keyboard driven but most others would complain.
I spend a lot of time in Nitro PDF. The feature set I use is comparable to Adobe. We switched for better price with perpetual license and preferred interface (ribbon vs. whatever Adobe's is called).

https://www.gonitro.com/

The university is part of the reason I have not done more than look in from the outside. With no credits at this point and a life and family to support it isn't a great time for a change.
I never wanted a desk job, but health and economics said otherwise. I did ease into it over several years and have gotten more used to it. It took a few years to get used to less "people time". Going from working on two to five man crews to sitting in an office by myself did weird (and not good weird) things to my head. It didn't help that I tried sales for the first year or so and that was emphatically not a good fit. That's a long ramble, just saying I've been there. Since you have the GI bill it might be worth trying something else. Or perhaps you are like me and want something else once you master the challenge in front of you.

Check out land surveying. Haven't done it but it looks interesting from the outside, good mix of inside research and outside work.

Another reply mentioned engineering. I met a man who had been a site engineer, responsible to make sure construction projects were accomplished according to plan.

When you find the answer we'd love to hear.

Re:Ask HN: What is the most efficient way to do good? on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @05:25PM (#33525167)
Along with that, ask the charity what percentage of donated funds go to the cause or what percentage is used for overhead.
Re:Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend? on Sunday October 23, 2022 @07:39AM (#33306173)
Sugar water. The ph isn't perfect but it beats having them starve over the winter from not having enough honey. Some of the big producers will feed sugar water or high fructose corn syrup and sell the result as honey, from what I hear.

As far as the mechanics, this time of year 2:1 or so sugar to water. Sometimes you can open feed in barrels or buckets with a float of some sort for the bees to land on. You can also put various containers in the hive. Sometimes I open feed, but this time will put a sealed, inverted jar or bucket in the hive on top of the frames of honeycomb. A few tiny holes to allow droplets retained by surface tension to form and the bees will happily store it away for the winter.

Re:Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend? on Saturday October 22, 2022 @11:59PM (#33304468)
Saturday:

  Milk new cow
  Keep working on fixing my pickup
  Move cattle fence
  Feed bees - *didn't get this done*
  Study for church responsibilities tomorrow
Sunday:

  Church
  Keep my son occupied for the day, solo since my wife is away
  Go to nursing home to sing
  Read for a few minutes
  Maybe visit my parents
Re:Ask HN: Which web browser do you use and why? on Saturday October 08, 2022 @11:05AM (#33132903)
Firefox, for the illusion of privacy it provides over Chrome, without requiring much effort on my part.
Re:Ask HN: Best book to learn C in 2022? on Saturday October 08, 2022 @11:03AM (#33132882)
Agreed. The tool chain help in here is very useful for a beginner.
Re:Don’t think to write, write to think on Monday August 29, 2022 @08:35PM (#32645344)
My employees don't seem to understand why I prefer they email questions to me instead of calling. The clarity writing often brings aids the conversation. I frequently call once I have the email.
Re:Ask HN: Has DuckDuckGo suddenly gotten worse? on Thursday August 25, 2022 @12:02PM (#32595653)
Haven't noticed any problem here. A poor A/B test, maybe? I find DDG's results superior to Google's 99.9% of the time, anyhow.
Agreed we need to help the sick, I didn't make that clear enough. I was trying to understand if the previous poster thought it was wrong to say "Here is housing and a program. You can't have the housing without the program."

After working with foster and adoption of two preteens from an unhealthy home situation my opinions have changed a bit as well. Compassion is hard - it should push us to do. Now if I can just work on being less blunt ...

Re:Is wide or deep knowledge better? on Saturday August 13, 2022 @01:19PM (#32451851)
Both, of course. Depth in one or a few areas, breadth in many unrelated areas.
Do you think it is wrong for society to have contractual requirements such as "I will help you if you are trying to help yourself"?
Re:Would you quit a job three months in? on Friday August 12, 2022 @06:38PM (#32444804)
Better now than to be fired or forced out due to personality conflicts in a year. Sometimes a bad fit is invisible until you are in the trenches - insufferable bosses might be hard to see before. Is it worth slogging on? I don't know your bosses, perhaps you will learn to tune it out or they will back off when you aren't new any longer.

(And it is refreshing to see per se used correctly. Thanks!)

Also, does anyone know of a multi-user password manager that can have permissions assigned to users? A number of the government accounts we use have a single company level login and keeping password changes synced between multiple users is difficult. We currently use one manager with a shared password but I would prefer something with better permissions and history.
Re:Ask HN: What skills have given you a 10x return? on Thursday August 04, 2022 @08:42PM (#32350150)
Yes. I decided I have to get in shape. Weight loss is part of it and I am slowly working on that but some basic barbell work has improved things amazingly.
Re:Management with Intent on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @04:39PM (#32256600)
I don't know how to feel about the move to remote. I work remotely and like it. However, it is a struggle being one of the few remote workers at an office-first company. How to build culture in those cases is difficult. Also, those of us who are not fond of social interaction do benefit from forced interaction.
Are you familiar with the story of Procrustes? (0) Who decides what is too good or how much study is too much?

0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes

Ask HN: New Google Account Issues

New individual google account has calendar issues. Calendar sharing only allows "See only free/busy(hide details)" and "Some sharing options may have been turned off for your organization by your administrator."Going to Who is My Administrator with that account says there is no administrator for my current accountI was going to delete the account and re-create it, but under Data and Privacy...

( Read More... | no comments | on HN )
And they only have two models to work on.
I wish I remembered where I read this: "The definition of business is problems. The people who are the most successful are the ones who have the most fun solving them."

Older »