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How to choose the right language | jwecker: Some great stuff here in the comments for you, but don't get caught up in decision paralysis. The truth is no matter which you learn it will create a foundation for you to (if you're interested) pick up other languages and/or frameworks. Get one solidly under your belt. None of the languages/frameworks are ... |
Other businesses? | jacquesm: I've had a gas station in Northern Canada, but it was a total failure, which is sad. We got defrauded big time while we were in Europe and the whole thing almost literally collapsed. Some of our employees had had the great idea to go and gamble in the casino with the proceeds of the business, they would put b... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | DenisM: amazon has large dataset.
http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/ |
Confronting impossible people (In life and business) | lcordier: I would like to recommend something I call "Sleep Deprivation Psychology". I used it with great success at varsity. ;) Basically if someone irritates the hell out of you, wake him up at 4:00 AM. Whenever he/she is in deep sleep (REM sleep, Theta brain-waves). A rough estimate would be 1/3 or 2/3 of their norm... |
What do you think makes a good teacher? | BSP: I thought about this for years until I graduated from university years ago. Besides knowing what they are talking about, the second most important pre-requisite for me in a good teacher is sense of (healthy) humor. Plain and simple. Knowing their stuff but no sense of humor, I rather read Socrates or learn from a ... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | jacquesm: spider + scraper ? |
How or Where can I get data sets? | lotze: infochimps.org (http://infochimps.org/search?query=weight) is an easy search in general--it certainly has many health-related datasets, but I didn't see any specifically on exercise. The census bureau (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthins.html) also collects some health data, though a good part of its... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | psyklic: http://data.gov/ |
How or Where can I get data sets? | TweedHeads: I had this idea for a long time in my to do list: a place for everybody to download datasets of any kind, from list of countries, states, cities, names, etc, where everybody can upload a dataset and make money from every download in any format, csv, xml, json, yaml, etc.Small sets will be free, as anybody c... |
Other businesses? | yannis: I had and have numerous over the years. I had a successful Contracting business (electro-mechanical) for quite a few years, a Consulting Business in the same field, a Computer School in the days that the masses wanted to learn DOS :), a plastic bags factory. The software business has always been my sideline eve... |
How to choose the right language | stefano: Most common languages (but not all languages) are basically equivalent, and choosing one or another is more a matter of taste rather than "the best tool for the job". If, for example, you want to write a web app and need to choose between Ruby, Python or Perl pick the one you know best and go with it.One facto... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | Estragon: Generally speaking, data analysis has to be tuned to the specific question and data you're interested in. What are you trying to do with this data? Would random numbers work just as well? |
How to choose the right language | JDigital: Use Python.If Python is too slow, use C.If you don't know C, use Java.If you don't know any of these, you ought to learn at least one. Use Python. |
Hardware business; preventing a competitor from using your driver | jacquesm: Why so worried ? Is the market such that you think a larger company will do that ?GPL the code if you are going to release it (that way you can sue if they modify your driver and only ship binary), keep the design of the hardware itself a trade secret.If you can, integrate the design as much as you can (that ... |
how would you A/B test iPhone apps? | wmeredith: Design an iPhone app that's a CMS pulling in data streams (XML) and displaying them to users. Set the first queried data stream to be the A/B switch and all other data is pulled into the app dependent on the state of that switch. This is all assuming you're talking about testing within the app itself after i... |
How to choose the right language | gruseom: How do you decide between two similar languages?If two languages are truly similar, like Ruby/Python or Java/C#, it doesn't matter much which you start with. If I were you I'd pick one based on gut feeling or a coin flip and get at it. |
How to choose the right language | ams6110: Funny, when I was a beginner most people hacking on a computer at home had two choices, either some dialect of BASIC or, assembler. Today you can probably choose from literally hundreds of languages.Here's what I'd recommend: start off with an interpreted language, maybe Python, and work through a couple of t... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | radu_floricica: http://www.freebase.com/ ? |
Anyone else having problems with Google Analytics? | bdmac97: Hmm, strange. I just tried it in Safari and it worked. Still not working in FF3.5 on OS X for me. |
How or Where can I get data sets? | RK: http://www.swivel.com/is a site with a lot of different types of data sets, including health data. Their mission is to "liberate the world's data and make it useful so new insights can be discovered and shared." Whatever that means. |
How or Where can I get data sets? | ssn: See http://kevinchai.net/datasets/ |
How or Where can I get data sets? | EastSmith: Ask this question here:
http://groups.google.com/group/get-theinfo/topics |
How or Where can I get data sets? | physcab: uc irvine machine learning repository. http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/
it's where the netflix dataset is headed. you'll find many datasets there that have been used in scientific papers as well, so you can benchmark whatever tests you want to run.the data wrangling blog also has a pretty good list of dataset... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | paulsb: The guardian newspaper has a lot of interesting datasets; plus a blog and flickr group for those interested in using the datasets for data visualisation.http://www.guardian.co.uk/data-store |
How or Where can I get data sets? | andreyf: Aaron Swartz (of reddit fame, and sometimes news.YC visitor) started http://theinfo.org/ |
How to choose the right language | sid: Also dont forget that once you learn the language well, say you picked python, dont evanglise it as the best language onces you have fnished your first little app or program. Read about other languages also and just play around alittle. If you know one well you know where you can always run when there is a big pro... |
What do you think makes a good teacher? | MaysonL: Belief that your students can learn to excel, with enough disciplined effort.Coupled with the ability to convince them of the same thing |
How to choose the right language | jhancock: If your new web app isn't too complex to get bootstrapped, you will learn better if you choose a light framework: ruby - Merb or Sinatra, python - webpy, etc...One of the reasons you see so much disappointment with ruby is people start with rails and that doesn't really help you become a good ruby programmer.... |
Confronting impossible people (In life and business) | netconnect: To anyone still following my amazing misadventures,I woke up this morning to find house-mate #4 laying down the law. Turns out no one opens the door in the morning, it's all the one guy and now I know at least two of us have had it. For now the problem has gone, but at the cost of fuelling his paranoia that... |
how would you A/B test iPhone apps? | frosty: If the screen which you want to A/B test is not the first screen, you can make background calls to your server and based on result decide which screen to show. Write to user settings when you want to permanently disable it.Note:i) Reasoning behind not having it as first screen as it really slows the application... |
Other businesses? | loganfrederick: An "entertainment" company with a friend. Currently shooting a short film and produced/performed one theater play. |
How or Where can I get data sets? | pjonesdotca: machine learning repository here:
http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/ |
Web programming for a C++ server developer? | wheels: I went through that jump about a year back, so here are some of the things that I've gleaned:- You'll be doing a lot of JS. Just use jQuery. It's the most popular of the JS / AJAX frameworks, so even if you decide not to use it later on, it's a good starting point.- I dig Ruby / Sinatra. Never really got int... |
how would you A/B test iPhone apps? | ryanpetrich: It's actually pretty simple to A/B test on App Store apps:1. Prepare two versions of each feature you want to test2. Generate random integer on first launch3. Save to NSUserDefaults4. Present A/B based on the value of a particular bit in the random integer5. Collect statistics and send back anonymously via... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | asimjalis: Step 1: Figure out a way to quickly and flimsily implement the idea and release it.Step 2: See what happens next and react to it.Step 3: Repeat step 2 until the idea becomes a success. Or give up if its clear it could not possibly succeed. |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | mahmud: Way different than how I usually do it.1) Meet someone at a pub and introduce each other.2) Learn everything I can about his work/business, rank within the organization and what they do.3) Discover something we can work on, either on the spot or after another planned meeting, this time over coffee.4) Bet the fa... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | p01nd3xt3r: Define idea as a problemFind someone that has this probem [ID your target market]Ask them if they would use your solution |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | DTrejo: Looking for competitors can be discouraging. When is it a good idea to seek out the tougher aspects of the idea? If you get discouraged too early then that's no good. Ideally one would be able to stay excited and keep working either way.Anyone have any experience with this? |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | apsurd: Perhaps replies should include the business(es) that was/were yielded from the the steps outlined.I'm all for discussing ideas, but this question is more about getting better results than merely throwing out "this is how I do it".I'd want to know how the dropbox, reddit, google, basecamp, balsamiq, uservoice, p... |
Web programming for a C++ server developer? | huhtenberg: > I've been programming low-latency, high throughput C++ systems for more than 5 years nowYou will cringe at the web stuff then. Lots and lots of CPU cycles are wasted to shorten the development cycle and simplify (dumb down) the life of the developers. Layers upon layers of abstraction. Using PHP to genera... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | iamelgringo: I built a social news site this past spring called cuuute.com. It was a reddit for cute stuff. I built the site because I thought my wife would enjoy it, and I thought I would enjoy working on it. I was wrong on both accounts, so I shut the site down 3 months after it started. I still think it's a viab... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | mailanay: I think one of the earliest questions to ask is whether would you, the builder, use it yourself and secondly, whether you would pay for it. If both answers are yes, then that is a start. Build a simple workable prototype (without too much effort and cost) and start finding customers and listening to them. |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | paul9290: Have a passion for an idea, get feedback from friends and family; majority dig it, go build it!That's what I did, yet it was not sucessful in terms of getting an audience, but it did get a lot of attention and some funding. THough I learned from that experience, but the process for building an idea remains, ... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | pavs: Action.Ideas are a dime a dozen. Its only worth its value when ideas are converted in to action. Without action, your ideas are just that, "ideas" and everyone has one. |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | chrischen: 1. What can I build to improve some aspect of my life
2. Is there something out there that already does this and satisfies my needs well? If not, exit.
3. Build it
4. How can this be made into something that can generate money? If it can't, exit (not likely).
5. Modify it. |
Web programming for a C++ server developer? | nwatson: I'm in the same situation. I've never really written a DB-backed web-based application, so I'm starting down that road. Been working mostly on C++ distributed multi-threaded servers with lots of asynchronous network communication.I'm a big Perl fan and am comfortable with its object-oriented model so I've ch... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | lionhearted: > 1. Lots of Google searching for potential keywords to see if anyone's posted about a needThat's good. Make something people want.#2, ideally, is get some money. Like, make your first $20 ASAP in the market. There's been lots of "cool ideas" that don't make money. A lot of smart people in tech gun for a F... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | scottjackson: I think iTunes on the Mac is pretty decent (compared to the Windows version, at any rate. God, have you tried doing any heavy I/O stuff in iTunes for Windows?).I'd love the ability to have nested queries in Smart Playlists. The only "solution" at the moment involves having folders full of Smart Playlists ... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | martey: Better support for another MP3 players/mobile devices? Right now, if I use iTunes, I need to use an iPod or iPhone as my MP3 player. Other companies (e.g. Palm) that have tried to use iTunes to manage music have been shut down by Apple. |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | riffic: It's dog slow for huge libraries, and doesn't watch directories for added/removed files.musicbrainz support would be nice |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | sjs382: I really like iTunes (on Windows) and don't know how it could be made better. It's perfect for the way I want to browse/listen to music. Am I alone in this? |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | jquery: I know you didn't ask about Windows users, but assuming you are from Apple and have an ear there, please forward this message to the appropriate individual...With my fairly large, multi-gigabyte library, iTunes often takes minutes to respond to user input. Sometimes during syncing it can take up to 30 minutes t... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | bkovitz: Support for classical music.iTunes treats individual movements as "songs", not part of a complete piece of music. So, you can't, say, click on Dvorak's Piano Trio in F minor, you have to first create a temporary album to hold all three movements.Also, the searching is messed up for classical music. The compo... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | tolmasky: Anyone remember when you could share your library on iTunes with anyone, not just on your local network. Yeah, I'd like that back... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | nickfox: iTunes on windows, perfect? When I click on a link to something on iTunes, it opens up another browser window and then opens up iTunes and leaves that orphaned browser window sitting around. Seriously, is that the best they can do? |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | edw519: 1. Code a demo.2. Show prospective consumers of the app. The more the better.3. Use their feedback along with your judgment to scrap or enhance the project for the next cycle of feedback. Your judgment is just as important as their feedback, maybe even more so. Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut or el... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | GTanaka: 1. The biggest problem I say is its entirely closed nature. I don't mean simply closed source -- I've used tools such as Mediamonkey for Windows and have been relatively satisfied -- but entirely closed to plugins or user developed support. Specifically I refer to the inability to use/add anything to use FL... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | Radix: Single biggest flaw, as far as I'm concerned, is the inability to script the folder hierarchy. If I want All albums folders to be prepended by the release year I should be able to do that.Edit: Also, sometimes I have correctly named mp3's, but I haven't tagged them. Itunes gracefully renames my files to 'unkn... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | Tichy: "see if anyone's posted about a need"I think most people just accept the status quo of living, so few would be likely to post about needs. Unless you read between the lines, like people complaining a lot about certain things (mostly the weather and late trains?). |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | pudo: There is a lot that could be done regarding library management: It should be a lot faster, support bulk operations a lot better and implement fragmented libraries.What I mean by that is that I use a MacBook with a 240GB hard disk for media stuff. I'd like to have a part of my library on the macbook (including stu... |
You have a start-up idea. Now what? | Mz: "Just curious what everyone's process for turning an idea that you just thought of into a real opportunity. Essentially the period between idea generation and actually executing on that idea (if there is a period of time)."Live my life. Solve my own problems. Go talk to people and discover that other people have ... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | alaskamiller: Better video/media files support. It's such as hassle ripping my tv show or movies DVDs and getting it work with iTunes. The meta tags they do for tv seasons or movies don't even work that well. For example, trying to setup a 1 gig file with a movie poster always crashes iTunes for me and my tv shows can ... |
How or Where can I get data sets? | swapspace: http://delicious.com/pskomoroch/dataset |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | cakesy: The most important thing you can add is the ability to sink between two computers, so I can sink my iphone to my work computer, and my home computer. |
Web programming for a C++ server developer? | laurent_b: Coming from C++, if you do not want to become crazy using untyped languages you might be interested by the haxe programming language.A nice inference typed language which can be compiled down to neko bytecode (much like java bytecode), JavaScript (for the client side), Flash movies (idem), and even C++Plus, ... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | mgrouchy: I like itunes, my main issue to date is that it is godawful slow. Which is why I switched to songbird, which is still pretty slow, but not as slow. |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | charliepark: It's absurd that I can't search in both podcasts and my normal music library with one search field. I have a number of podcasts from live shows (like NPR's "Live Concerts From All Songs Considered"), and if I look up an artist ("Neko Case"), I'll only get tracks from within the "Podcasts" or "Music" folder... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | zackola: Wrong with iTunes: Slowness, Storage of metadata in proprietary format, Easier to detect/remove dupes.What I want? Something as fast and responsive as the original versions of winamp, with the search, playlist, podcast and sync functionality of iTunes. |
Why does HN not allow you to modify your comments after 1 hour? | stijnm: I think the main reason is to keep the context of a discussion in a thread.Turning your question around: Why would you want to modify a comment after one hour?Read your comment before posting and be happy with it at that time of posting. If you come to new insights later then post another comment. There's no sh... |
Why does HN not allow you to modify your comments after 1 hour? | jacquesm: It's to make sure that history does not get 'revised'As it is there is already plenty of that going on.I'd be fine with locking a posting or only amending it after it gets 1 comment or upvote (or downvote). |
Staying Sharp | wyw: You say you have a day job, make regular open source contributions, have a girlfriend, a social life and not much free time. Sounds like you've got things figured out pretty well as it is.I would mostly stick with the current plan if I were you. Maybe you could pick up some scientific textbooks to read during your... |
So, what's wrong with iTunes? (or what more would you want?) | devicenull: It's single threaded. All my music is hosted on my NAS, which I connect to via wireless. iTunes fairly regularly freezes up for 15 seconds when I switch between playlists, or while it's attempting to add music to my library. |
Staying Sharp | lsb: Sit in on some classes at a nearby university? Watch Feynman's lectures again? |
Staying Sharp | amitt: Depending on how you're trying to exercise your mind, there are different options available:1) I tend to use google reader to keep tabs on several authors I find interesting. I then make it a habit to find time to read a couple articles a day. So in aggregate, I've actually read quite a bit and kept my mind fr... |
Why does HN not allow you to modify your comments after 1 hour? | pg: You need to be able to modify comments for some amount of time to correct typos, but if you can modify them for too long you can rewrite history. The current time limits are arbitrary but seem roughly correct, judging from the fact that users complain roughly equally about missing typos till it's too late, and peo... |
Staying Sharp | californiaguy: Set lofty goals. Attain them. Repeat.Right now you're living a mediocre life. You live in an apartment, you program web sites and haven't finished college. What's so special about that? Why do you need to be incredibly sharp for that? You don't. Do something you need to be sharp to do and you will... |
Staying Sharp | decavolt: It most definitely isn't just something you have to accept and deal with. Staying sharp takes effort, but it's worth it. And you don't need to upset your work/life balance or carve out massive portions of your week to do this. You do, however, need to make some time for yourself and your brain even if it's ju... |
Staying Sharp | Virax: I have a full time job as a web developer, do not make open source contributions, do not have a girlfriend or a social life, and do have a healthy amount of free time. I spend much of my free time reading technical articles and textbooks in CS and finance (although I could be reading up on representation theory ... |
Staying Sharp | sayem: Play bridge or poker regularly. Chess is also good.That's how Buffett is still kicking ass, despite being in his 70s. |
Staying Sharp | ryanwaggoner: I sympathize, believe me. Life is too damn short and there's hardly enough time in the day to juggle work and time with people I care about, let alone learning new things that have no immediate application to my life.I think my long-term strategy for dealing with this is to amass enough wealth to have mo... |
Staying Sharp | all_elements: I am in a similar situation.I listen to books on my iPod when I commute. I catch some online reading sometimes at work. I meditate and get some exercise 3 times a week. And I hang out with sharp people.But I guess there is no all encompassing formula. Some people here seem to have other avenues. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | mtinkerhess: I'd say it's more rude to touch someone else's screen than to ask someone not to touch your screen. Go ahead and tell them not to dirty up your screen.The situation with the company laptop is a little more complicated because the property is, in some ways, as much theirs as it is yours. Still, you're using... |
Staying Sharp | jhancock: At the age of 40 now, I have a strong desire to re-learn math. Up until the age of 22 or so, I excelled. Now most of the knowledge is gone. Two days ago I was writing some code that required me to solve an equation. I picked up a pen and paper and thought I should be able to quickly figure it out. But my... |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | stijnm: It is not OK for others to smudge/grease/smear/taint/foul or otherwise violate your screen. No matter how expensive the screen is or who owns it.I used to be one of those until I forced myself to take a pencil everywhere for if I could not hold back the urge. This keeps the screen clean and makes pointing more ... |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | mgrouchy: I agree completely, people do this all the time, waving pens at my screen, etc. I think the easiest way to do it was the way you suggested, most people will get the hint if you just polish the smudge they left in front of them. You don't have to be rude or anything. You can even be discreet about it. People w... |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | dryicerx: don't touch it
slaps with large trout
so sad a smudge |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | keefe: I remember getting chewed out when I was assisting in some training class for my company and accidentally touched this guy's screen.... I think it's a pretty common gripe and there's nothing inherently wrong with asking them not to do it, but if I were freelancing? I certainly would not be complaining about triv... |
Staying Sharp | rw: What do you think about reading academic papers and posting distilled versions to a blog?How about doing a reading course with a professor-friend of yours? |
Staying Sharp | jey: If you're coding for your job, why go home and code more on open source stuff? If you miss the discovery and excitement of learning science, you should consider putting the OSS time toward reading papers and working on problems. |
Staying Sharp | spaghetti: I keep my mind sharp by doing a variety of things. For example daily participation in programming contests/on-line judges (topcoder.com, spoj.pj etc) is a great mental exercise. Importantly I do this only when I feel like it... so daily for 2 months then take 5-6 months off is common. Also physical activi... |
Staying Sharp | olliesaunders: Solve Euler problems <http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems> in Clojure <http://clojure.org/>. Tough stuff, but fun too. :-) |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | jhancock: I ask people to use the back of their finger (the fingernail side), instead of the part with all the oil. Its a nice compromise and keeps off most smudges while not taking away people's ability to express themselves.As for a pen, that simply warrants breaking someone's hand for a first offense. Word will ge... |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | jlees: Sometimes if I'm pointing something out I can't help but touch the screen by mistake but I'm always apologetic about it :/ |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | reid: I've tried moving my laptop further away from their hand, but that was apparently too subtle. Next time I'll be more vocal about it. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | californiaguy: If you don't have the personality to tell them, just print out a small label that says "Please don't touch the screen" and tape it to your laptop. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | mad44: Boy, it seems like your post hit a nerve. On the other hand (no pun intended), we look forward to buying Apple's tablet... Go figure. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | duncanj: I think it's fine to touch the screen. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | SwellJoe: I've seen children do this (and asked them politely to look but not touch), but adults, really?You could keep a couple of laser pointers handy for the touchy ones. Just hand it to them whenever they show up. Everybody likes lasers. |
Trivial etiquette question - can he touch my laptop screen? | tsally: Wow I'm hearing tons of complicated ways to avoid direct conversation. If you pay several thousand dollars for a machine, I'm pretty sure you get to decide to gets to do what with it. If it is your companies screen, you are still responsible for it, so the same thing applies. Next time it happens, just polit... |
Staying Sharp | octavia: Great question to discuss. I have a slightly different take, hope this is helpful.Sharpness is not something in a vacuum; sharpness is about your mind and intelligence as it relates to people in the outside world. Thinking you are sharp doesn't amount to much. Being sharp in situations is what counts, and w... |
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