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Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

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Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#101
post #97
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - ovi256 is now down to -15 in karma, and (as far as I remember in regard to the modding system) can't even comment anymore. Just because he thinks it's unethical to own a pawnshop. His other comments are fine. Would you PLEASE vote the poor guy up a bit. I don't mind burning karma doing this, I've got plenty to spare. This is just wrong.

that's a yc urban legend actually, an editor needs to kill your account for it to be killed. It just so happens that by the time someone reaches negative karma an editor has usually killed their account.

OK thanks for clearing it up. I just hope that ovi256 doesn't get his account killed because of this.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#102
post #77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not just wrong, but stupid. You don't have to be well versed in Christianity to know that most Christian sects have long since rethought their positions on usury. Most Christians take offense when people insinuate that they still believe in Geocentrism or something like that and this is very similar. But you are right, the comment is rather batty and I don't think the fellow meant anything by it.

>Most Christians take offense when people insinuate that they still believe in Geocentrism or something like that and this is very similar. I beg to digress, if you care to discuss it. It is not similar. Geocentrism is a theory of the world and was abandoned in the view of newly discovered undisputable facts. The prohibition on usury is a moral judgement, an axiom of a moral system, not a theory or view of the world,…

I sorry if you misunderstand; of course there is a difference. However, what is similar is what is important. Geocentrism and a strict understanding of usury are both beliefs that Christians once subscribed to, in a world largely devoid of secular people who disagreed, and have since been abandoned. Almost no Christians hold these views anymore. In spite of this, they are still commonly brought up as examples of backwardness by adherents to secularist philosophies that came to exist centuries after these beliefs had been abolished. Neither are any more relevant to a discussion of Christianity in general, than Communism is to secularism in general.

The fact is, Christian moral precepts are a lot more complicated and involved than you seem to believe. The Catholic Church (around which the usury debate is usually framed) has always held the doctrine and our understanding of morals a. develops and b. must be applied to the circumstances.

The fact is, 'usury' is still forbidden, but what in fact entails usury has been greatly refined. It was once assumed that the charging of interest granted the loaner a living that did not depend on him making contributions to society. The dynamics of banking and such have since reassessed and investment has since been shown to very valuable to the growth of an economy. IE., it has been demonstrated that those who loan money, do in fact, contribute through the act of loaning money. Witness the importance of VCs to startups, (arguably of far greater malice than pawn shops. ;))

The thing is, the concerns over which interest was considered wrong, have since been shown to be misplaced. Activities which allow one to profit of of others without contributing are still considered wrong, under similar language, but what constitutes 'usury' is no longer clear cut and is open to debate.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#103
post #39
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network, network, network, network, network! (Sorry, I cannot overemphasize this.) You are your own marketing department. All the time. No, you don't have to be one of those Amway pests, but don't be afraid to say what you do and to volunteer your opinion about something computer related. You're not doing it to get business; you're doing it because that's who you are. Even if nothing happens now, it could 6 months la…

>He said he had a friend who owned a pawn shop with a computer Unethical to aid a pawn shop, especially if you are a Christian. But hey, who am I to judge. Edit: pawn shops are unethical from a Christian viewpoint, as they charge interest. And the parent said he was doing Bible study. But again, who am I to give advice on such topics as an heathen. Just downmod and show me I'm wrong.

Regardless of viewpoint, introducing religion into an online discussion usually results in pointless, voluminous arguments that enrage a few and bore the rest.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#104
post #87
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - what is going on here? -29 for some batty comment about Christians and pawn shops? I would have voted it down to -1 too, but come on folks. We've always reserved big downvotes only for offensive, insulting trolls, not things that were in some way "wrong". A -1 or 0 is sufficient to indicate that.

Every now and then there are comments that elicit a "minus infinity" response. Enough people find his sentiment deeply offensive that it's going to minus infinity.

I'm confused. Has everyonewho has commented on this thread read:http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ? If not, take a deep breath and deal with it if a fellow HNer chooses not to pensieri stretti.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#105
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every now and then there are comments that elicit a "minus infinity" response. Enough people find his sentiment deeply offensive that it's going to minus infinity.

I'm not sure if people found his sentiment offensive or are just opposed to blatantly off-topic trolling.

A little of both I suspect.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#106
post #96
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He said he had a friend who owned a pawn shop with a computer Unethical to aid a pawn shop, especially if you are a Christian. But hey, who am I to judge. Edit: pawn shops are unethical from a Christian viewpoint, as they charge interest. And the parent said he was doing Bible study. But again, who am I to give advice on such topics as an heathen. Just downmod and show me I'm wrong.

Seriously - ovi256 is now down to -15 in karma, and (as far as I remember in regard to the modding system) can't even comment anymore. Just because he thinks it's unethical to own a pawnshop. His other comments are fine. Would you PLEASE vote the poor guy up a bit. I don't mind burning karma doing this, I've got plenty to spare. This is just wrong.

[deleted]

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#107
post #96
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He said he had a friend who owned a pawn shop with a computer Unethical to aid a pawn shop, especially if you are a Christian. But hey, who am I to judge. Edit: pawn shops are unethical from a Christian viewpoint, as they charge interest. And the parent said he was doing Bible study. But again, who am I to give advice on such topics as an heathen. Just downmod and show me I'm wrong.

Seriously - ovi256 is now down to -15 in karma, and (as far as I remember in regard to the modding system) can't even comment anymore. Just because he thinks it's unethical to own a pawnshop. His other comments are fine. Would you PLEASE vote the poor guy up a bit. I don't mind burning karma doing this, I've got plenty to spare. This is just wrong.

The history of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury is actually pretty neat.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#108
post #101
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a yc urban legend actually, an editor needs to kill your account for it to be killed. It just so happens that by the time someone reaches negative karma an editor has usually killed their account.

OK thanks for clearing it up. I just hope that ovi256 doesn't get his account killed because of this.

He should be ok, the editors are relatively benevolent.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#109
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - ovi256 is now down to -15 in karma, and (as far as I remember in regard to the modding system) can't even comment anymore. Just because he thinks it's unethical to own a pawnshop. His other comments are fine. Would you PLEASE vote the poor guy up a bit. I don't mind burning karma doing this, I've got plenty to spare. This is just wrong.

Don't feel too bad about it. If ovi256 really can't comment, ovi257 can pick up the usury/pawnshop debate where he left off.

This is very intriguing... haven't seen these downmod scores since the teenwag sockpuppets.

Re: Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?

#110
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Remember that you cannot get eight billable hours out of an eight hour day." This is an extremely important point. When I was freelancing, I was surprised by just how much non-billable overhead time I had (at least 5-10 hours a week when working with 3 clients). To reduce overhead, work with as few clients as possible. But you'll run into dead time that way, since jobs don't start on a dime. I know a guy who has fre…

Just curious since I haven't done freelancing yet... how do you determine what is billable vs. non-billable? If 60% of your time is billable then what constitutes the other 40%? I know part of it is looking for new work. What else?

In addition to what the others mentioned, there's also paperwork (such as my nemesis, filing); the time you spend running to OfficeMax to buy a new chair or a box of paper; the time spent looking for medical insurance (and being aghast at what it costs for an individual); "casual" contacts that sometimes can be transformed into business networking but don't, always; doing your invoicing and bookkeeping (most freelancers I know are terrible at this). And that's just off the top of my head.

I spent years as a sysop of the CompuServe Computer Consultant's forum. I'm kind of familiar with this stuff.

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