Viewing profile — arthurdent

Groupon China will be a huge failure. Groupon doesn't care a ton since they have boatloads of money, and they'll feel like they HAVE to take a shot since "China's a huge and growin…

i called it but couldn't figure out what the business actually was.

yep. i like betting on myself better than betting on most other people. its sort of an "all your eggs in one basket" strategy, but if you're going to put all your eggs in any parti…

1. a lot of people argue for things without backing it up. 2. it depends what you mean by " risk ". arguments claiming bond allocation in your portfolio are less "risky" describe r…

This sort of response is exactly the type i expect from "all talk" types. When I read your reply, I see, I'm awesome. I know so much about what you want to know that I can't even f…

Love the idea -- details are important here. I've tried a few other services for my properties, but the UI tends to be really sloppy for other "apply online" web services. You need…

I have my own trading algos, but I do not trade my own funds. I have a single investor, so you could imagine that he's the web startup equivalent of an angel or venture capitalist.…

I know trading isn't a popular topic, but I consider quantitative finance my one man startup. I have to wear a lot of hats, am constantly learning new things, get frequent feedback…

note: i can't sign any NDAs or anything, i invest in a lot of companies, etc. so please don't think that any idea you send is really that important… Not that he's wrong, but just a…

i filed 0 for several years in a row (before 2009), I will probably file 0 for 2010.

Its fun to look back and enumerate the reasons for success or failure, but dumb luck is just such a huge part of this game as well. Marc had a vision, stuck to his guns, and the co…

Drinking and partying and dancing a lot will make you get better at drinking and partying and dancing. People worry a lot about [achieve task X] optimally , when really its probabl…

This just boils down to "what are you looking for in life?" 18 months ago I was at a "high paying job" by most standards. I worked 45 hours a week, had great coworkers, and even ge…

do it. bcc was one of the steps on the way to me realizing that building the site is almost none of the business. as a friendly and encouraging wager, i submit that you can't or wo…

i've been working on trading algos for stock. interested in collaborating?

Talked to my vendors and I'm just updating this thread in case someone runs into the same problem and finds it. 1. Its NOT an Authorize vs Braintree issue. Your gateway doesn't car…

my understanding is that braintree is a gateway, and replacable by authorize. either way, its independent of my merchant service provider, which is the problem here. if you think t…

any recommendations for a merchant service provider?

I am using Authorize.net and they recommended Cybersource for my Merchant Service Provider. I thought I was good to go, then today I got this email: "On your web site you offer a 3…

sort of silly to try to keep the metaphor as a financial instrument. its really a simple message: write bad code, and you might pay for it later. sometimes you get lucky, sometimes…

I am almost done implementing cc payments on a small app I'm doing, and it was my first time. Advice: First, read revorad's list. I basically found as many HN posts as I could on t…

Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... This really spoke to me when I was a …

non PEP8 for mixedCase instead of CapWords for classes.