joshuago’s Bookmarks

An archive of quality Hacker News "Ask YC" posts grouped by subject.

On corporate blogs, summaries are usually superior to full articles because they let you expose users to a broad selection of topics. Offering more topics increases the likelihood that users will find something that really interests them and thus will click through to read more.

A well-expressed and thought-out collection of all the major reasons we shouldn't get excited about mergers.

Two ways out of the starving artists problem, both fun. First is to focus on making your art more valuable to others. The second is to stop expecting it to be valuable to others. Accept it as personal and precious to only you. Get your money elsewhere.

A really good explanation of Ruby modules as mixins, bundles of functionality.

An excellent explanation of one of the main purposes of Ruby modules: namespacing, and a fun read.

Strong opinions, weakly held.

Change that is too arbitrary and too frequent petrifies firms, especially before their rules have been tested in the courts.

Using the merger as a catalyst for change, Vasella and his management team not only captured $1.4 billion in cost synergies but also redefined the company’s mission, strategy, portfolio, and organization, as well as all key processes, from research to sales. In every area, there was no automatic choice for either the Ciba or the Sandoz way of doing things; instead, the organization made a systematic effort to find the best way.

Startups are primarly competing against indifference, lack of awareness, and lack of understanding — not other startups. In web startups this means you should worry about users simply not coming to your site, or when they do come hitting the BACK button.