Alexx · HackerTrans

Alexx

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Ask HN: Recommended study tools and aids?

4 ポイント投稿者 Alexx10 年前2 コメント

Crafting a Bespoke Hand Illustrated Logo

bowhurst.com

1 ポイント投稿者 Alexx12 年前0 コメント

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4 年前議論

The nuance about DCA that is commonly missed is that lump sum gives a better return on average. The key word is average; averages hide much!

When people struggle to understand that I say DCA can be thought of as a sort of insurance. You pay a price to insure your home to protect against the unlikely event that your house burns down. But on average buying insurance will loose you money. But the cost is comparatively low, and for each individual likely worth it to protect from total loss, even if in aggregate it's clearly a loosing proposition.

DCA is similar, most people will end up with marginally lower returns, however a small percentage of individuals caught close to a rare negative market event will be less impacted by sudden large drops and experience overall much greater returns in the long run than if they had invested as a lump sum due to the nature of volatility decay.

4 年前議論

A few thoughts having gone through a similar journey from 0 to several million in revenue.

- The main thing when you are small to focus on is accurate high quality bookkeeping, rather than broader accounting. Almost all of the points you listed above are generally considered bookkeeping concerns (which ledgers to use, debits, credits, etc). So in terms of material to read and learn, bookkeeping is your starting point.

- Most small business accounting software will take care of more than half of the points above automatically - Xero, Quickbooks etc, just pick one and use it - but it is always useful to somewhat understand the underlying principles.

- The only accounting principles you really need to know are having a decent understanding of the balance sheet, P&L and cash flow statement - which are all interlinked. It is wise to be be able to understand each line item on them and to know how changing a figure in one would change figures in the other two and be able to do that even with just pen and paper. This is just useful as a business owner, and is quite a large topic which requires some study and practice.

- Actual statutory accounting I would entirely leave to a 3rd party as it's mostly just for tax and GAAP filing purposes. From day one I just hired a small external accountant and at year end gave them access to our books and let them prepare our filed accounts, I also paid them to file the quarterly tax returns even though our accounting software prepared the statements. That was a good choice as after we'd grown eventually I ended up having the accounts audited by PWC and it meant I could just point them at our accountant and leave them to it. It also means you won't make any silly filing mistakes.

- Set calendar reminders and do your bookkeeping, payroll etc every single month like clockwork, for years I just did it on the 28th of every month, and only later once we were large enough to hire an actual bookkeeper did we start doing it weekly.

- Lastly, once you're under way the things to keep your eye on as a small business is: your cash flow, your working capital requirement (keep it as low as you reasonably can) and your debtor and creditor days (which is part of your working capital requirement). Those are the things most likely to cause you issues.

Also, don't worry too much about it, it's a learning curve - as long as you improve your skills and tools in line with revenue it will be fine.

7 年前議論

Yup, WH-1000XM3

7 年前議論

Best Buy has an inventory turnover ratio of approximately 6* - So clears its entire stock on average every 8 weeks. While there might be a large percentage of USB-A products currently, once a technology market shifts it's quite surprising how fast suppliers will also change their product supply and you see a fairly rapid change in stock even in big box stores.

Most of the devices I have purchased in the last year have been USB-C. Sony headphones, LG display, my car even has USB-C charge ports. Look at many manufacture lineups and the new flagships are USB-C. I do still have a bunch of USB-A devices, but they're older buys at this point.

I think there will be a few year gap, but 10 years might be a little too pessimistic. Time will tell I guess!

* https://www.gurufocus.com/term/InventoryTurnover/BBY/Invento...

9 年前議論

The most striking thing about visiting the southern industrial cities for me was how (especially towards the outskirts) they tend to build the exact same residential skyscraper several times next to each other. You just don't really see that in Western cities so much.

10 年前議論

Well how things would go if they went to court I have no idea. That's anyones guess really. But that's a different tangent.

All the questions you're asking are, essentially, what would be argued on.

But my point was that none of the involved parties can just indemnify themselves against any consequences. With sums of money like that, any of those parties could well be sued, and end up in court. You can't EULA yourself out of that.

10 年前議論

I agree with your analysis there.

But my point was the patent trolling exists because the law is unfavourable. Not because there is a system of mediation in place. If the patent system should be abolished or not doesn't really relate to how inconsistencies in contracts are handled, as far as I can see?

10 年前議論

I was just using an example to refute the claim that it's possible to indemnify software creators and users against 'any consequences' via a EULA. A EULA can not indemnify you against tort.

I think your example is convoluted. Free open source software has no contract. For a contract to be legally binding it must have consideration (exchange of goods / services / promises). This is not met.

EULAs and 'Software licences' (like MIT) are't the same thing. A EULA is a legal contract between the copyright holder and the end user, containing consideration, to which the user must agree. An open source licence such as MIT is just a declaration of permissions of use, and has no consideration.

So above it seems to me you are comparing having 'no contract' to 'a contract'.

But the DAO definitively has a contract, not a licence agreement.

Now, the DAO contract basically says 'no one can be held responsible for anything' - which in my opinion is a legal fantasy, contracts can not supersede the law. Regardless of the technological hoops in between, there are real people, with a binding contract - thus there can be tort.

I do accept when ever something new comes along and case law hasn't yet settled any technical loop holes there will always be debate, but I do think this looks pretty clean cut.

10 年前議論

A software licence is a legal contract.

There are many things you can not indemnify yourself against - so indemnification against 'any consequences' is not possible.

Apple can not update their EULA for Apple pay, and avoid being held negligent if they messed up and all their customers money was stolen from their accounts. Otherwise every single EULA would make all software companies legally untouchable - which they aren't.

10 年前議論

A bug is the difference between the intent and the produced document.

10 年前議論

I don't think that is the same - There is no claim that rules of written law always gives the most favourable outcome. But rather that the written law (or contract, in this case) allows for the reality of human error or omission by leaving space for human interpretation, enforcing the underlying intent, rather than strictly enforcing 'bugs' in the contract.

After all, there are almost always small mistakes in complex systems. The system of case law is, essentially, a structured way of turning differing interpretations into a stricter framework over time.

10 年前議論

In the UK at least, under case law (Hyde v Wrench, 1840), if you give a counter offer it legally voids the original offer. So if you offer to buy something for £1m and the seller responds that they will sell it to you for £2m, the original £1m offer is legally terminated - so in the UK, legally speaking, this would count as a refusal.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with how this translates over to US law, but I'd be interested to find out.

10 年前議論

I think an analogy more in line with the parent comment would be - if you tried to sell 30% of Apple stock in a single day would the dollar collapse, wiping out all remaining shareholder value.

12 年前議論

I didn't down vote you - but the way I always see it is a sliding scale:

[Lowest payout] Totally guaranteed money - [Highest payout] Risky very unlikely money

On the left you have a salaried job. On the right a shoot for the moon VC startup. In between you have the entire range from trying to build products for 'passive income' on the side, to going alone starting a small cash-positive business, or freelancing. Your level of risk is entirely up to you, and the reward will usually be fairly linear, within your own earning capacity and skill set (money is fairly efficient in that sense!).

Working more hours or quitting your job fits into that scale along with all the other factors. If your appetite for risk is on the lower end such you won't quit, then you will have a harder time competing with people who've positioned themselves with more risk.

There will always be the outliers who just break the model though.

12 年前議論

Having read through all the answers here, I really think that HN is possibly not the best place to ask such a question.

   Solve a problem

Seems to be the largest response. Solving problems is hard. If you want to earn $100k this year, don't solve a problem, don't do a startup[1].

Startups deal with problems, are capital intensive, risky, and high reward. If you want to potentially make a lot more than $100k in the next few years then, sure, go find a problem.

If you simply want to make $100k this year, then my choice would be to start a simple service business. No need to build anything new or solve a complex problem. The majority of SME businesses fit this mould really, everything from software agencies to recruitment companies.

Pick an area you have some knowledge in, start on your own, and execute to the best of your abilities. The main challenges are usually managing cash flow and the day to day realities of running a small business. But if you end up with 4-5 employees and stable cash flow, you now have your own earning power plus around 20% of the people below you typically.

That or review your CV, and plan the most aggressive route towards a position in a financial / high yield company, adding $100k to your salary as an employee could be feasible depending on your background.

Either way, the people who just stumble upon money are outliers. So the really short answer is just work harder and accept more risk in you decisions.

[1]http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

13 年前議論

I think Collins has a more succinct definition:

  > Feeling or showing no mercy

Ruthless doesn't have to be 'towards others' - you can be ruthless in cutting unnecessary spending.

13 年前議論

That's fantastic, the very first shot is of my street, filmed next to the building I live in. I can't quite make out the sign on the building corner - but I'm pretty sure it's the exact same pub that's there now.

It's also odd seeing trams in London.

13 年前議論

Those two statements don't really connect.

Money has value because people think it does, but also because it represents economic value. Once you can buy enough economic output to sit at the top of maslow's triangle then you're free to pursue whatever arbitrary things you please.

It's not an abstract concept, it's a cold hard fact that's held true for centuries.

13 年前議論

Pavel Durov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov

13 年前議論

That has nothing to do with going to jail, nor the EU.

A whole load of both public and private organisations have the right to tow your vehicle for many, many things, like simply parking in the wrong place, and you have to do the paperwork.

At this point you're essentially just arguing that if you break you countries local laws you have to deal with the police... mmm.