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Negotiating payment as a contractor (issues, tips)

Last week I shared the advice I gave to a friend who was quitting his day job and wanted to do more freelance/contract work. This week I'll share a bit of practical wisdom on negotiating payment that I figured might be useful those of you who are just getting into contracting.

The problem: contracting clients will often ask you to quote fixed bids for contracts.

Potential issues:

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Self-experimenting with Nootropics (AKA smart drugs)

A month ago I posted a summary of my Nootropics meta-research. Today I'll share some subjective results from my self-experimentation so far.

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Advice on breaking into freelance consulting, contract work, standard rates, wages and billing practices

Not too long ago, a friend told me he was quiting his day job to try going out on his own as a freelance consultant/contractor and asked for some friendly advice regarding wages and billing practices.

I may not have been the ideal person to ask, as I had never worked in the exact market my friend was going into. On the other hand, in my twenties, a few years back I did work as a computer security consultant.

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Rediscovering 19th century literature

Lately, thanks mostly to Moonreader+ TTS on my phone I've been getting a lot more reading done. To my surprise I've become a stickler for 19th century classics. Besides being free, they're old enough to have stood the test of time but not so old that I have difficulty relating to them.

Here are a handful of recommended classics I found particularly enjoyable:

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Google vs Microsoft: what's in a name?

Microsoft is a trainwreck. I used to abhor the desktop monpolist as an evil threat to standards-based open source innovation. But in the last decade they've been screwing up so badly I almost feel sorry for them. As much as you can feel sorry for a massive corporation that is.

One thing that puzzles me in particular is how Microsoft fails to grasp that their efforts to compete with Google in the search space are a pointless waste of countless billions and a lethal distraction that has allowed Apple to wipe the floor with them in the post-PC era.