What is this about?

“Happy Smiling price isn’t supposed to be the amount that will cause you to enjoy the work itself. It’s the amount that makes you happy enough to smile when you imagine accepting the deal.”

Disclaimers

I do not actually promise to do any of these, even if all my conditions are met. All of these would depend on scheduling and stuff. Some of these things I would be willing to do for free, occasionally and if I felt like it.

“Price variation, potentially including negative exists beyond one purchase of a service from me according to a formula unknown to me until such an event arises that varies by customer and circumstance. Customer satisfaction not guaranteed. Exploit that, you economically literate powergaming munchkins.” disclaimer stolen from

None of these are what I would consider market-competitive prices. Probably you should not pay them.

Writing

  • Write a short story of about 1000 words on a supplied topic or prompt $100
  • Write a short unmetered poem (under six stanzas) based on a given prompt $10
  • Read & opinionate on up to 10k words of fiction $1000
  • Read & opinionate on up to 1000 words of fiction $100
  • Read any professionally published novel of your choice up to 400 pages or so and provide some short notes on what I thought about it (not cliffs notes, just opinions) $100

Humans & Stuff

  • Go on one date in a coffee shop convenient for me to get to, for about half an hour, with a stranger (not an existing acquaintance or friend) whose name and face I am provided with beforehand. $500
  • Walk a dog once $300
  • Attend martial arts classes $500 per class
  • Paint your nails with one regular color per nail, out of colors that I or your currently possess $10 + $50/hr of transit time
  • Sniff you and tell you what I think of your body odor / cologne $20
  • 1 hour ramble on how I think you could use twitter in order to learn interesting things and listen to interesting people $500
  • Sit around and color things with you $10/hr
  • Eat one olive $50
  • One hour of walking around Golden Gate Park and photographing you with a DSLR for fancy profile pics $100

Code

(stolen from Steven Dee’s post, with prices changed)

  • Teach you programming 101 — if statements, loops, basic data structures and algorithms, basics of object-oriented and/or functional programming: $200/hr
  • Teach you how to do test-driven development in a language of your choice, including some light background and theory and a few practical worked examples: $300.
  • Do a mock technical interview for you where I ask you several programming-related questions, then give you feedback afterwards on what you could improve: $3000
  • Work at a friend’s startup with dubious but improving practices - apparently about $481/day before taxes

References: