1. Have you ever had an abortion?

2. Have you ever cheated on your husband / wife?

3. Are you currently looking for a new job?

4. Have you ever being diagnosed with a mental illness?

5. Are you currently on anti-depressants?

6. Were you ever sexually abused as a child?

7. Have you ever fancied someone of the same sex?

8. Have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex?

9. Have you ever criticised your current employer or boss to anyone else?

10. Do you love all of your children equally?

11. Have you ever fantasized about...

12. Are you planning to get pregnant in the next two years?

13. Have you ever lied on a cv/resume?

14. Are you mean to your wife / husband on a regular or semi-regular basis?

15. Do you have trouble acquiring or maintaining an erection?

16. Are you one of those women who’ve never had an orgasm?

17. What prescription drugs are you currently taking?

18. Have you ever cut yourself?

19. Have you ever attempted suicide?

20. Have you contemplated suicide in the past 2 weeks?

21. Would you be happy with your answers to these questions being made public? Or being read by your employer, local 23 year old policeman, or nosey neighbour?

I could go on and on. None of the actions mentioned in these questions are illegal, but for many/most people, the answers would be intensely private.

That's a freelancer, not a contractor. Different ball game entirely.

In London? Sure, you could be laid off anytime, but if you can't land a new contract in two weeks then there's something wrong with you. Contract market in London is buzzing.

Ex: City (finance) contract rates of £500-£700 per day are far from uncommon, if you have finance experience. Non finance, £400+ per day is not hard to find.

I've been in discussions recently with a French company whose development team is based in Dublin (Ireland for the geo-illiterate). Most of the tech staff in Dublin were East European, and the company's HR department was in Romania - a non-EU country.

This EU centric perception is a media perception, and bears no relationship to the reality on the ground in Europe.

Company in question was owned by a a UK multi-national, and builds software for banks all over the world. The 'Western EU' leaning is pure fantasy. I understand why Americans like it - it's simple and straight forward, and appeals to people from what is basically a simply and straight forward country - but it's just not the reality on the ground.

!+": Romania: !+": Wasn't even aware of its EU status. Why? Because when you think EU, it simply doesn't pop up. Which points vividly to the diversity of the EU. Romania, even now, is no one's idea of a Western country. It simply ain't. It ain't western; it ain't even that European. Tarring all of Europe with some kind of EU white wash is simply foolish.

The code might be mediocre, but that doesn't mean that the product is mediocre. Pristine, beautiful code, that forms part of a bad product, is like a soprano singing the most god-awful piece of bilge anyone has ever heard. Doesn't matter how good her voice is if the song is rubbish and makes everyone cringe.

Replace the word 'programmer' with 'coder' and you might have a point. Whenever I hear the word 'coder', all I can think of is shelf-stacker. A coder writes lines of code, a programmer builds products or 'things'. All the rules and standards regarding code belong to coders - they have nothing to do with finished, shipped, or successful products.

But what do I know? I've only been building products for 13 years. And I'm drunk.

And they're usually the same people every day, if you catch the same train.

Does anyone care about what may or may not have gone on at IBM 30 years ago? At MySpace? Facebook is not a bank and it's not a government. It's a social media site. Nobody will care.

For static websites, even eCommerce websites, it's a great and effective way to add fresh content and pages to a site, and push up its rankings.

I'm a fast writer - easily able to produce a 600 word post in 20 minutes - and I write prose that is easy to read. The strategy works - on a robot level (Google), and on a human level (customers), but it takes time and persistence. It may take 6 months for a series of posts to cause a category page to rank in the top 3 of Google - in some cases longer.

It's also a strategy that many competitors cannot duplicate, as most are unable to write regular, meaningful blog posts. It's one of those SEO tactics that requires actual, real work, which is why so few do it well.

Wordpress, with a custom theme that fits in seamlessly with the website, is the way to go.

One of the great myths is that you have to put up with negative people online, that you have to 'toughen up', because, well, just because... You don't. Seth Godin wrote a great piece years ago telling you to fire your customers if they're too troublesome, and I've used this strategy in 2 businesses since. It's liberating. Negativity, insults, poorly mannered and poorly behaved people - you really DO NOT have to put up with any of that. Kick them to the curb and move on, because you really do not need those sorts of people anywhere near you or your new business.

Unfortunately, a lot of 'those people' hang out on HN (and the Guardian).