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Ryan Waggoner
ryanwaggoner.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Ryan Waggoner writes about productivity, minimalism, freelancing, and personal finance, including going paperless and an experiment with getting up at 3:45am.
What HN saysHN commenters mention it for its self-help slant and its ebook-reading posts; the author notes his Greet Box plugin is controversial among HN readers.
22HN people shared it
9linked it in comments
88stories submitted
3.3Kstory points
8 years agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The daily tomato: How to maintain focus and kick ass on multiple projects3 people · 107 points · first shared 2010 · 14 comments on HN
- 2Why I started reading more once I got rid of my books3 people · 12 points · first shared 2010 · 7 comments on HN
- 3How to become a freelance web developer2 people · 256 points · first shared 2010 · 63 comments on HN
- 4How to retire at 30 on $1 million2 people · 183 points · first shared 2010 · 125 comments on HN
- 5How I filled two dumpsters and went paperless2 people · 167 points · first shared 2010 · 58 comments on HN
- 6How to hit the Hacker News front page (and what it’s worth)2 people · 106 points · first shared 2010 · 56 comments on HN
- 7No company should ever have a noreply email address2 people · 75 points · first shared 2010 · 25 comments on HN
- 8What self-learning methods do you use?2 people · 36 points · first shared 2010 · 6 comments on HN
- 9135 days of getting up at 345am (and how I fell off the wagon)2 people · 9 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 10May vs. can, or thoughts on the downfall of Western civilization2 people · 5 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 11I’m done building Facebook apps for clients1 people · 348 points · first shared 2010 · 76 comments on HN
- 12How to be a freelance web developer, part 21 people · 284 points · first shared 2010 · 73 comments on HN
- 13How to build discipline and brainwash yourself1 people · 253 points · first shared 2010 · 128 comments on HN
- 14You don't really want a million dollars1 people · 221 points · first shared 2010 · 169 comments on HN
- 15Damn you, Arduino...I have no free time for this.1 people · 169 points · first shared 2010 · 62 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
Luc · 2011-02-02
Looking at your blog http://ryanwaggoner.com/ , I can see why you would come to his defence. You're obviously very much into self-help books. That stuff doesn't work for everyone.
ryanwaggoner · 2011-01-27
I've had that for awhile and it's actually pretty controversial with the HN crowd...every time one of my posts hits the homepage there's a thread of comments about whether it's appropriate :)
If you're interested, it's the WP Greet Box plugin for Wordpress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-greet-box/
I'll be blogging more in Feb and March about what I'm doing to grow the blog aggressively, but it has less to do with communities like HN and Reddit (which have been amazing to get me going) and more with building subscriptions. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, you should...subscribe :) http://ryanwaggoner.com/feed/rss/
billpaetzke · 2011-01-07
> Has anybody _exclusively_ begun using ebooks?
I have. I got a Kindle, and I love it. It's a no-brainer for me. I move relatively often, like to travel, and commute to work by train. I mostly read non-fiction books that are all (or mostly) text.
Re: e-readers vs tablets
The e-reader will give you less physical strain due to the lighter weight and e-ink screen. And less strain = more pleasure, while reading. It's the strongest benefit of e-readers over tablets.
If you read books with mostly text and read in a linear fashion, then get an e-reader. Examples are: most paperback books. If you read books that require a large viewing area, color images, or strong navigation features (for non-linear reading), then get a tablet. Some examples are: textbooks, magazines, technical books.
Ideally, you'd get an e-reader for paperback-type books and a tablet for the media-rich or reference books.
Also, this fellow HNer wrote an article on switching to e-books: http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/how-i-read-more-by-getting-rid-of-my-b…
jv22222 · 2010-10-12
I didn't write anything about doctors. I just submitted the link. Each comment here is submitted by a different hacker news member.
The reason why I submitted the link is because over the past few days there's been a lot of articles on hacker news about how to work as a freelance coder. One of the routes they spoke about on those articles was to apply to craigslist jobs for freelance work.
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/10/how-to-become-a-freelance-web-develope…
They mention quite specifically to avoid jobs that have very few details on the job page (or the follow through page) and especially wary of ads that offer shared ownership.
Since your ad matched that criteria I thought it would be interesting to submit it to the community and get the general thoughts in it.
FYI - Hacker news is a community where thousands of coders hand out. They use this site to find and promote articles they are interested in.
GoldenMonkey · 2011-12-02
nah, just new habits. Like this guy who got up at 3:45am for 135 days:
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2011/01/135-days-of-getting-up-at-345am-and-ho…
nicksergeant · 2011-07-13
Absolutely. I use a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner[1], along with the software that comes with it. Automatically OCRs both sides and then stores it on disk. I don't even have to name files as they are full-text-searchable in Finder on OSX. Check out Ryan Waggoner's post[2] on this (where I got the idea from).
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XWCQO2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&am…
[2] http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/how-i-filled-two-dumpsters-and-went-pa…
RiderOfGiraffes · 2010-12-06
Clickables:
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/07/more-on-habits/
Congrats - I'm pleased you're happy, and keep it up!
lwhi · 2010-11-24
I don't care one way or the other.
However I do think it's slightly disingenuous to brush off a comment about affiliate payments in such a flippant way, when monetisation seems to provide at least some motivation for writing the blog (http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/october-2010-blog-income-update/).
replicatorblog · 2010-10-29
I thought this was a good post:
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-free-online-education-wont-replace…
Presents an interesting case against a lot of technical Utopian ideas about tech/ed, highlighted the resistance to change in a lot of entrenched interest groups e.g. parent pressure isn't stressed nearly enough by most. It is a well thought out articulation of an interesting POV.
I really wasn't trying to be content police, just concerned that a post that essentially says "I Bought Something" was the most interesting technical news of the day ;-)