Interesting read and nicely written. It's just a shame HN doesn't have a 'report' feature like Reddit, as I can't report all the whiners in this thread as douchebags.

Being in the UK, I typically enjoy a substantial amount of tea during the day. None of that poncy herbal tea though - stricly strong white tea.

The British Armed Forces are supplied with a particular brand of tea from NAAFI (http://www.ringtons.co.uk/shop/tea/naafi-tea), which is now available to the public too. I had it described to me by an ex-forces friend that 'it's a tea to clean your gun with', but I actually find it to be one of the heartiest and warming drinks I've had.

Supposedly sell it in Spar too.

Does anybody actually use top, rather than htop? It's the first thing I install on every system I build.

Something I've become very fond of recently is Monit, which doesn't appear to be on the list. I've found it very reassuring to have Monit set-up and watching the processes on my server.

I came here to say the same thing. htop is streets ahead from top.

atop is fun too

I live quite close to Bletchley Park; we used to go on school trips there when I was a kid. :)

The number of available and useful gems makes Ruby my favourite for the kitchen sink. I recently had to build a web spider very quickly for a concept, and there was a gem that provided a multi-threaded spider. Obviously, Ruby wouldn't be my choice for an actual production spider for larger projects, but it let me get a prototype done very quickly :)

I google this nearly every time I use a PHP function.

I really like it - the interface is very clean and exactly what I was expecting (which is good)!

It's nice being able to track a conference, but how about being able to track a topic too?

We're planning the ability to track topics, locations and conference series - but we'll need to build some sort of activity stream first so that tracking actually does something useful.

I first read your reply as "I am a large database and this is epic" :|

Your response seems overly-critical for someone who's simply looking for advice. I have a few issues:

Quitting a job within a year won't look particularly bad on your resume; quitting multiple jobs within a year will, however. I left my first job after 3 months and I've never faced a problem because of it.

There's no need to berate him on his English, especially if he's moving to London - as long as it's clear that English isn't his first language, or that he's dyslexic, then he won't be judged harshly there.

There's no point sticking with a job you hate if you have the means and freedom to move on. Being young allows you to change your mind before too much depends on you having a stable job.

@op: Look up on what's currently in demand in London (Java, probably) and start learning in your spare time. Check up on a few UK-based recruitment websites (http://reed.co.uk has a good list of programming jobs). It's totally possible to change your area of expertise; I currently work as a Ruby/PHP developer and I have a first-class degree in design :)

In my initial response I was actually going to write that judging by his written English he would have no problems getting a job in London. I've certainly interviewed and worked with loads of people with far worse English than he exhibits in his post.

I would assume that they're building momentum before they introduce premium services. Flickr's probably quite a good example of this. I know Posterous have mentioned that they'll be implementing paid-for extras in the future, but that the current offering will remain free.

Doesn't seem fair that somebody can come along and offer a service for free/no ads in order to get people to switch over from a provider that charges/has ads, only to eventually switch over and do the same.

Considering that they do not lock you in (they allow to export your content), I see nothing at all unfair about it. If you have your own URL that you point to your blog, switching should be pretty seamless as far as your readers are concerned.

Yup, this is a popular option. Offer a free version to get people in the door then add value added features for users who want to do more with the service.

>Flickr's probably quite a good example of this.

Flickr had contextual ads since, I believe, day one. Then they added paid accounts and I subscribed and have never regretted it.

I've been a paid "pro" subscriber to Flickr for many years, trusting them with my media (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dforbes/4657268471/ <- one of my sons nibbled by a goat!) because I had faith that they had a coherent, sustainable business strategy.

Similarly I have faith in Gmail because I can see they aren't struggling to find a revenue model.

I don't trust services that are saving a revenue model until "sometime later", especially where the service has any sort of lock-in or inconvenience if they get bored and move on. Such a make-money-later strategy usually arrives with very negative changes when the day of reckoning comes: It is essentially a bait and switch tactic (one that PG is a big advocate of), and really I view as deceptive, even if it gets a big enough user base that you can flip it to some VCs.

"All blogs now served with free pop-under advertisements!"

> I don't trust services that are saving a revenue model until "sometime later" ... essentially a bait and switch tactic

Ning! Ning! We have a winner!