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PhD, Startup, or Career? | Mystalic: I jumped into a startup at the end of my college career, but didn't have the burn capital to do it boostrapping. You may be better off acccumulating a bit of capital before throwing yourself into the start-up (the most rewarding, for most of us).Remember, you can always change your mind and any software comp... |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | ks: I would use Helvetica Neue but I am not sure whether this font is available on Windows. |
c++ or iPhone? | Morieris: What languages do you currently know? |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | jcl: I'm a little surprised "21" wasn't mentioned yet. The movie, like the book "Bringing Down the House", is a fictionalized account of a true story about how the MIT blackjack club took Vegas casinos for many thousands of dollars. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | jgilliam: one simple idea: put a big number in the header or on the homepage with how many terms you have. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | jseeba: I found this to be a good guide to the design of a resume:http://www.lifeclever.com/give-your-resume-a-face-lift/It discusses fonts, layout with a good eye for design. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | iuguy: Go to the big vendor, try it out there. In the meantime learn how to launch, promote, grow a solution with a safety net. You'll have other ideas. When you do you'll be able to do them on their own and use all the advantages of what you've learned to push it through. |
c++ or iPhone? | yan: How are you planning on tackling each task? Do you have a project in mind that you will create using either c++ or objc/cocoa touch?Plus, does it have to be "either/or"? Spend a few days learning one, spend a few days learning the other. You should have gotten to some non-trivial level with each one and more of a ... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | huhtenberg: As others said - don't do PhD right away. Take a break from the school and have a closer look at other options first.For one you may discover that you can do cooler stuff in less time and to more satisfaction. For two you may notice that not all PhDs are created equal.I had a choice of doing PhD when I was ... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | gcheong: 1. Start-up2. PhD3. Corporate jobOrder is from "earlier the better" to "later is better" order.I would also suggest you read this: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Choices-Practical-Making-Decisio... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | webwright: Do you have a sense of which one you'd regret punting MOST? I can't imagine not getting a PhD gnawing at you for the rest of your life unless you love deep academia.I can't imagine regretting punting a job offer from BigCo, but people are different.The startup idea sounds cool, but making a better (or at le... |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | mattchew: My ASP.NET is a little rusty, but I did a fair bit upon a time. Bottom line, if you drink the Kool-Aid and do it their way, it's not so bad. If you try to translate some other web stack concepts into ASP.NET, you're going to be very frustrated.Specific things to understand:Page cycle. Critical.
ASP.NET eve... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | mmc: Some good points - I agree with hs saying 'do the scariest thing'. While you're young. I think this means either the startup or the PhD. But you sound more interested in the startup - you didn't even mention your intended research area!A PhD is lots of really hard and thankless work, and if you're not really excit... |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | iuguy: Use a serif font for headings and a sans font for text. For code blocks or anything requiring monospace be sure it clearly defines characters (like profont) such as 0.You can go all Sans-Serif or all Serif but it won't be the same as combining the two. Going Sans-Serif for headlines and Serif for text kind of wo... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | brentr: If I had a cofounder with an interest in finance, I would choose the startup path. |
How does HN rank the comments section? | jwilliams: Code is available here:
http://arclanguage.org/install |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | vidioradeo: Considering you have a masters or at least an undergrad, you could probably ride the recession out inside a classroom.A startup seems like a relatively quick return but its a gamble.As for a career, both other options constitute as elements of one. If you mean striving to have some polished, dignified socia... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | alain94040: Congratulations on lining up all the top options. This may as well be a rethorical question since it covers all the possibilities!Normally, based on my background I'd recommend the startup as #1, the job at Microsoft as #2 and the Ph.D last.But I must say I'm not crazy about the startup you describe. Would ... |
c++ or iPhone? | joubert: C++ programming is like a monkey fucking a ball. You would probably want to stab your eyes out.C / Objective-C will probably provide you with more joy and opportunity to work on the iPhone.I suspect other mobile platforms either use C or Java for programming apps (as opposed to C++), but I might be wrong. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | johns: I've been using .NET full-time for 3.5 years. There are two types of .NET developers. The first group uses the * View controls, uses the designer, does everything (or most things) declaratively and generally conforms to the Microsoft way. Then there's another group of developers that care about design patterns, ... |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | johns: You should have probably disclosed up front that you work for Microsoft. As much as I like .NET, I like full disclosure more. |
c++ or iPhone? | alain94040: If you learn iPhone programming, you'll learn essentially the equivalent of C++ in the process, so you win on both sides.If you just try to learn C++ with no clear purpose, I'm not so sure your learning will stick.So go with the iPhone, you'll enjoy it more and you'll learn just as much. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | jonursenbach: Life is all about taking chances. Do what you think is best to further your career. |
How does HN rank the comments section? | spoiledtechie: Found it in the news.arc page. About 1/4 the way down. Do a search for ranking. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | RK: How about work for a year, save as much money as possible while working on your idea. Then quit to start your startup. If that tanks, go for the PhD. |
c++ or iPhone? | Allocator2008: I'd have to recommend c++. I own an iPhone myself, so they are definitely fun, but c++ is more ubiquitous. Personally I know C far better than c++ (which is a superset of C). The main difference is c++ has classes and more "object oriented" concepts. For the long-haul c++ I think will have more staying p... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | bluelu: My former employer also had an AML solution. You entered the name of the person as starting point, and the solution tried to fetch all related persons from the web by analyzing the name where the person was matched. These names were then associated with different keywords to create a ranking for each person and... |
c++ or iPhone? | siong1987: I have been working on iPhone development for the past few weeks. The entry level to learn obj C is actually quite high because I really cannot find any book that helps me to learn obj C. Most of the books that I stumbled upon require me to learn some sort of C or C++ before learning obj C.After I finished t... |
How does HN rank the comments section? | pg: it's (* (/ (- (realscore s) 1)
(expt (/ (+ (item-age s) timebase*) 60) gravity*))
where (= gravity* 1.5 timebase* 120)
and item-age returns age in minutes |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | mattdennewitz: The Serif, Avenir, Black Slabbath |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | zackola: PhD or Startup |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | TweedHeads: Go for a PhD, the older you get the harder it is to pick up the books again. You know, family, kids, and once you taste money you will want more and more, spending less time in other activities.If you don't do it now, you will never do it. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | kin: You should ask yourself what you are really passionate about. I'm currently going through similar options and here's what I have to say.If you can do PhD later, then do it later. If it's an opportunity that you must act upon immediately, then do so. You'll double-triple your salary when you re-enter the corporate ... |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | arc: I'll consider CMS solved when end users can create most any basic site -- to the pixel, with absolutely no XHTML or CSS written by hand coupled with a robust management and analytics framework. It's a ridiculously difficult problem to both create a system that is developer AND end user friendly that satisfies thi... |
What's a fair policy for employee-generated IP? | jwilliams: In the past I've requested explicit opt-in and out.Usually there is a blanket IP clause, but if I say "I'm going to work on ABC in my spare time" - and we all agree this isn't core the business - then it's added as a schedule exclusion.You need to be specific, but it works just fine if all the parties are op... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | abl: This question reminds me of Howard Rourke's (Fountainhead)advice to Peter Keating when Peter is presented with a similar choice after graduating from Stanton. Rourke ranks them as 1.startup 2.corp 3.continued study |
Considering an affiliate program. How to decide/implement? | il: Read wickedfire.com. You'll learn everything you need from the advertiser perspective and the affiliate perspective. |
What's a fair policy for employee-generated IP? | sunir: California law has a pretty good balance. If it's related to the job, it's the company's. If you use the company's resources (hardware, software, customer list, employees, ideas) it's the company's. Otherwise, if it is on your own time, with your own resources, and unrelated to your job, then it's yours. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | z3r0p4r4d0x: Zack and Miri make a pornoSeriously, they're broke, they bootstrap and they make the porn, and it's really entertaining. |
hn for biz students? | sil3ntmac: Is HN open source? I never thought about that... |
What's a fair policy for employee-generated IP? | newy: "(and doesn't complete freak out investors [and their lawyers doing due diligence])" is the key here.I totally get where you're coming from in trying to be reasonable with your new hires. Unfortunately, everything-you-do-belongs-to-us is pretty much the standard for IP ownership in employment contracts. Whether... |
What's a fair policy for employee-generated IP? | whichdokta: What is a fair price for permanently giving up a piece of the only brain you're ever going to have in your career in exchange for a job from which you can be laid off at a moment's notice without, it must be noted, getting back that piece of your brain you had to sign away?If I were (which I am not) gullibl... |
Does anyone here use software RAID on Linux? | RobGR: The most reliable general solution on linux is 3Ware RAID cards, but linux software RAID generally works, as other posters have noted.If you are having persistent problems, you should search carefully for a flaky hardware cause. Are the drives in an external sata enclosure that might have a barrel-type power co... |
Best Book for learning SQL? | kqr2: I actually recommend playing with sqlite. It's fast and easy to setup. You can work with it via command line or use a web browser plugin.I can also recommend Mike Owens' book Definitive Guide to SQLitehttp://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-SQLite-Mike-Owens/dp/... |
Best Book for learning SQL? | morbidkk: if you are completely new to this then Head First Sql would be good start |
c++ or iPhone? | hboon: Why are the only choices C++ and iPhone?You mean Objective C on the iPhone, since you can do C++ on the iPhone too.Almost definitely Objective C + iPhone if these are the only choices you have. It's helpful to switch programming environments once in a while to gain a new perspective.What work do you do which mak... |
Best Book for learning SQL? | NonEUCitizen: online: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | randomtask: Can you defer the Phd? If so then you can choose to give the startup a go for a while and see how that works out without closing the door on the Phd. Personally I wouldn't give preference to the industry jobs unless they're really very good. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | sweis: I think you can build a broader network of colleagues and will be exposed to a wider range of ideas while pursing a PhD.That being said, a PhD is a long haul and a lot of work. The good news is that you can always leave after getting a masters. |
Best Book for learning SQL? | wigglywonk: Skip the book. Find, read, and 'do' a few online tutorials, and you'll know over 90% of what you need to get going. Pick one specific to your engine of choice (MySQL in this case, it seems) and just go with it. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | seshagiric: You can narrow down the choices to two:1. Take the startup job. In the worst case it will fail. If so you would have gained so much valuable experience in programming + project management + finance + HR. With that experience you will easily get a Senior level job in any company. And that is the worst case. ... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | pclark: A lot of users want to share their photos and are blissfully unaware of FaceBook/Flickr.You said it yourself:>But there are always people who are looking for a better solution.Don't dive straight in, work out what users want that flickr/etc doesn't offer - and do that. |
Best Book for learning SQL? | compay: Joe Celko's "SQL For Smarties" and "SQL Puzzles and Answers" are classics in the field. They're still very relevant despite being 10+ years old, since SQL hasn't changed anywhere near as much as, say, Java in that time.http://www.celko.com/books.htm |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | axod: Seems like niche specific sites like twitpic.com can do pretty well... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | nader: It would have to stand out clearly as there is so much competition from big and small players out there. |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | tdavis: Sam seems to think so and apparently YC agreed with him (well, maybe): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453303 |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | andhapp: There is always room for better solutions. Think about Google...there were other search engines around when Google was launched but where are they now. If you can deliver a better solution always go for it. |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | eterno: I think photo-sharing services need to verticalize and create niches.I see a clear case for a photo-sharing service specifically designed to host high-resolution images (big size) images which are rapidly becoming the norm with higher resolution cameras rolling out.What would it take:1. Uploading will take more... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | theklub: Yeah, it's tough when facebook is becoming the default for everyone uploading their pictures. If facebook expands that aspect of their business it might hard between them and flickr already being huge. |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | vaksel: of course there is. even the biggest photo sharing sites like Flickr have less than 1% of market share of internet users, plenty of space to go in.Also you have to remember that its a standalone service, so users will get value from day 1. So just throw up a good looking user interface and first time users will... |
How Trustworthy is Google PageRank? | pierrefar: There are two PR calculations: the internal one and the publicly visible one you see on the toolbar.Google uses the internal PR value as one factor (out of reportedly hundreds) in determining the rank of a page in the search results.The publicly visible one is, for all intents and purposes, an entertainment ... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | Maro: There are probably a lot more of these sites out there than the "big ones". I estimate in the tens, but possible 100+. I'd spend a few days enumerating and categorizing the competition in terms of approach taken, features, etc. learning what their Google footprint is, whether they're mentioned in blogs, what Alex... |
Best Book for learning SQL? | gtani: fromthat other sitehttp://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7n9q8/ask_progg... |
Best Book for learning SQL? | silentbicycle: It isn't specific to MySQL, but an excellent book for understanding relational databases is _An Introduction to Database Systems_ by C. J. Date. Reading that (even just the first several chapters, and then others as needed) will help you understand the mindset behind both SQL and relational databases in ... |
How Trustworthy is Google PageRank? | profgubler: Forget about your page rank. It won't get you anywhere. It helps you know where you are at, but what matters most is search traffic. You want to make sure that continues to climb. A high PR helps, but focusing on it won't help. Focus on building links with good anchor text, that match the keywords you are f... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | catone: My buddy Allen Stern (of CenterNetworks) said something recently in a podcast that I liked and is relevant here. Paraphrasing, he said something like, "In New York City there are a thousand pizza places and new ones opening up all the time. Many of them are successful and some of the new ones will be, too."Or... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | matthias: flickr etc = images + community... so go create images + technology.that photo stuff we hear about from time to time, like face recognition or stitching together photos or turning them into videos or building 3d models of landmarks from tons of user photos... are any of those on photo sharing site yet? |
How Trustworthy is Google PageRank? | puzzle-out: If any of your team went to university in the uk, get the company featured on their news page - they all want to push their enterprise credentials - with a link, thats a free way of getting good google juice. |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | sstrudeau: What I'd like (and what I'd build if I had more spare time & mental capacity) is a photo-hosting service driven by a Flickr-like API, but designed to be an intelligent "asset store" for photos so large sites or communities can use this service as their photo storage & hosting back-end. The service itself wo... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | dpapathanasiou: It seems hard to believe now, but when Google started, some people wondered "why another search engine?", since Yaho and Altavista had that market "locked up".So yes, there is room for another photo sharing service. |
Does karma affect what you write? | pclark: 25 you can downvote200 you can post polls250 you can change colour of top bar |
Does karma affect what you write? | tokenadult: I don't mind checking karma results of my individual postings to see which ones fit best into the site culture.I've been considering karma systems, and I guess I think a two-dimensional system might be a useful improvement. One dimension would be1) agree or disagree (factually) with this post,with no impact... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | greyman: Yes, there is a room. For example, I myself still didn't found an "ultimate" sharing site for myself. I use Google picasaweb, because I like the integration with the Picasa client, but I miss the social features. I can have those on flickr, but on the other site, the free option in flickr is rather limited and... |
Does karma affect what you write? | jncraton: I rarely think about karma before posting, but I used to think about it a lot more. It was never about following the HN group think, though. There is some of that here, but it really isn't comparatively that bad. In general, it just makes me think twice before posting a comment that isn't well thought out, ad... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | buro9: I'd like a service that in one way made photos second class entities, and in another way treated them as the be all and end all.I want the hires, the digital negative, to be able to pair a digital negative and a jpg... so that's the first class stuff.But I want the current attributes of a photo on Flickr to be f... |
Does karma affect what you write? | Jem: If I have something to say I will say it irrelevant of how I feel it will perceived and/or affect my karma.I do find it helps me concentrate on "unstupidifying" what I've got to say though. Nobody wants to see me explain myself 5 times because I couldn't get to the point the first time. |
Does karma affect what you write? | th0ma5: naturally, i want to be interesting to you all ;p |
Does karma affect what you write? | jerf: I look more at replies. My goal over the past few years is to learn how to post a controversial argument without getting a ton of replies arguing with something that was not in my message. You can't avoid getting arguments about what was in the message, of course, but it's just wearing when you get tons of flames... |
Does karma affect what you write? | ericb: Absolutely. It makes it better--usually.Karma, the way it is used here, kills off some normal parts of human conversation, such as the making friends-by-agreeing and making mundane conversation part of socialization. From the perspective of a reader, though, those parts of conversation are very dull if I'm not ... |
Does karma affect what you write? | fredBuddemeyer: good question. recently there was a "capitalism as a ponzi scheme" article and i wrote that ponzi had better insight into nature than malthus. i can't see anything objectionable here - just an expression of opinion and an implicit comparison between tim o'reilly's thinking and that of thomas malthus. i... |
Does karma affect what you write? | ars: I do think about it, but I never let it stop me.But a few times I've been surprised (both ways) by the karma score, so either I don't fully know the "group think" here - or there isn't one. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | abyssknight: I'm just going to take a devil's advocate role here and say get a job.A start up is nothing without capital, and until you get funded that capital is you and your cofounder. Your savings, your time. A job means you can't put all your time into your startup, but it also means you can eat.Having coworkers to... |
Does karma affect what you write? | Prrometheus: It sometimes affects what I write, but not in a bad way. If I see a comment that I wrote has poor karma, or a critical response to a comment I wrote has high karma, I will often go back and flesh out my argument better.At least on Hacker News, it seems to be a sign that my comment was poorly written rather... |
Is there room for another photo sharing service? | mattjung: The fact that a lot of your friends are not happy with the existing solutions should be an indicator that there is potential for a new photo sharing site. I think, "photo sharing" includes a lot of different, sometimes very specific use-cases implying different devices that could be explicitly supported. The ... |
Does karma affect what you write? | tptacek: Choosing what to say so you can rack up karma points is just trolling in reverse. Nobody you care about cares about karma. |
Does karma affect what you write? | russell: I think it encourages civility, which is sorely missing on other sites. There is almost no mudslinging and very few comments of the "Great post" variety, no "profit" or "in Soviet Union" memes. It encourages me to think clearer, especially if I have a negative opinion. OTOH it probably discourages the pithy... |
Does karma affect what you write? | rsheridan6: Sort of. I don't make smartass reddit or Digg-style comments here because they seem not to be appreciated. But if you say something relevant and interesting at a website like HN, reddit, or Digg, and you get downmodded, that either means that you were wrong or that the site is full of idiots and you shoul... |
Does karma affect what you write? | Angostura: Yes. If my karma is sufficiently bad, I won't have opposable thumbs anymore. That makes writing a drag. |
Best banks for startups/corps, by their web interfaces | run4yourlives: You guys aren't going to like this, because they are out of reach unless you're Canadian, but both TD Bank and Coast Capital Savings (my credit union) have great web interfaces.Take a look: http://www.coastcapitalsavings.com
Demo: https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/Online_Banking/Online_Ba... |
Does karma affect what you write? | time_management: Not directly. Occasionally, after a couple down votes and a rebuttal, I'll restate my point in a clearer, less confrontational way. |
Does karma affect what you write? | known: I really don't care about karma. Recently I suggested to regulate market capitalization of companies so that more opportunities are created for start-ups.I know HN won't like it. But still I expressed my opinion. |
Does karma affect what you write? | josefresco: I do think of karma when I post. It helps me keep my comments helpful and not negative, and forces me to think a little more about each comment then I would at a site with no karma system. The sense of community/group of peers plays a part as well. |
Does karma affect what you write? | vaksel: Not me, karma affects nothing, even if you get downvoted -1000 so what? It won't change anything.If you are worried about karma so much you have a few options.A) diversify: post more, that way if you "screw up" and say something people won't like, it'll be made up with points from your other comments.B) deletio... |
Does karma affect what you write? | dan00: No. Or I'm trying to convince me that it's not.But at the end, I think that's the main reason why I have few friends.
Most people aren't interested in real discussions, they get upset if you
argue against their view. They take it to personally, they aren't
interested in new views, they just want to get their vie... |
Idea for Next Generation of Social Networking | nostrademons: I think you really should create a prototype and test out some of these ideas. You know Rails; you don't need a super technical genius to test whether this'll be somewhat useful for people. And you'll find out a lot more than you would by simply thinking about the problem.If your prototype is interestin... |
Does karma affect what you write? | froo: I don't think it really matters - I try to contribute to the great little community here, provide whatever insight, argument or counter-argument that I can.The only times I've put in a "I know I'm going to get downmodded for this" are when I'm commenting that serves no purpose other than my own personal amusement... |
Does karma affect what you write? | andreyf: Similar post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222211 |
How to programmatically observe program execution? | fauigerzigerk: Maybe something like dtrace? I'm not sure what your application scenario is though. |
Does karma affect what you write? | alex_c: Not directly. The only two filters I apply to my comments are: Is this self-evident? Is this disrespectful of the community? If the answer to either question is yes, then I try not to post.I find myself not always using these filters on other websites where the quality is lower to start with. I suspect that... |
Does karma affect what you write? | jws: It does not affect what I write. I regularly put in comments that are not "up worthy", just small factual additions or musings for further thought (or data responses to questions). Sometimes these get pushed down, I have no idea why, but I do not care.It isn't karma that prevents me from posting inflammatory or (i... |
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