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ASK HN: I'm lost -- need direction | known: You may want to check /. wisdom http://developers.slashdot.org/story/09/07/07/2256206/Tech-O... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | anatoly: It's hard to name only two. I'll choose two that deserve to be more famous than they are, in my opinion.Helen DeWitt's _The Last Samurai_ (no relation to the Tom Cruise movie) is the best novel I've read in years, a brilliant tale of an absurdly precocious childhood, with several more rich tales of their own v... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | axod: Gregory Maguire: "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"The other would be this 8088 chip reference book I had. I loved that book. Had all the instructions with timings etc etc Blue cover but I forget the exact name. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | jlees: These books are both ones I read as a kid and hold in lifelong regard as a result:The Fellowship of the Ring - long before the movies were a glint in Peter Jackson's eye, this was my introduction to fantasy, a genre I adore.The Way Things Work - I still remember the frabjous day when I understood how an internal... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | nazgulnarsil: fiction: time enough for love - robert heinlein
non-fiction: on power - bertrand de jouvenelboth are treatsies on the human condition. |
Your biggest non-technical hack/discovery | flooha: I'm not really sure if this qualifies as a "hack". A friend and I were riding dirt bikes through the forest and he crashed in a mud hole which was next to a bees' nest in the ground. He was allergic, got stung twice and we were deep in the forest, so we had to get out asap. The bees were swarming around his bik... |
Please review my startup Wingify - Realtime Conversion Optimization | betageek: Wooah, jargon overload - you've managed to put pretty much every technical term on one page and I think that could be a problem to your audience. Publishers & marketers are a varied bunch, and very few of them would be able to understand the value of what your suggesting from that first page (that's from 10+ ... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | wynand: The unbearable lightness of being - Milan KunderaCandide - Voltaire |
Little things/tools that improved your work or life lately? | extension: I remapped my keyboard to avoid some common wrist-wrenching motions. I bound Shift-space to _ (underscore). I also changed the backslash/pipe key into a modifier key called Woot, then bound Woot-[ and Woot-] to ( and ) respectively, Woot-- (minus) to * (asterisk), Woot-0 to & (ampersand), Woot-; to | and Woo... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | Confusion: Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (first part of the Gormenghast trilogy), because of the wonderful flowing prose.The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, because once I truly understood the full text of aphorism 125 (The Madman, with the famous line 'God is dead'), I felt liberated. It's an extremely powerful apho... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | walesmd: 1984 and A Brave New World |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | ilitirit: Franz Kafka - MetamorposisRoald Dahl - James and the giant peach |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | chett: Cursed is the Peacemaker - Boykin. Excellent biography/narrative of an American diplomat working in the Middle East.Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut. Not my favorite of his but my first. I've been hooked since then! |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | joubert: The Selfish Gene - Richard DawkinsLord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien |
SaaS peeps, what's your charge approval rate? | jacquesm: Before you start making stats you need to take in to account the time that it can take before chargebacks and credits start to come back to you. This can be up to 6 months depending on the IPSP and the processor as well as the card company.So unless you are already operating for a long time you really shouldn... |
Voting Do Over? | DanielStraight: And you even provide your very own reason not to do this:"This would save me the trouble of actually carefully digesting what my fellow HN readers have written before voting" |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | revorad: The Catcher in the Rye by SalingerAn Equal Music by Vikram Seth |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | richieb: "War and Peace" Tolstoy
"Wind< Sand and Stars" Saint Exupery |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | jakkals: Right now, Anathem by Neal Stephenson is my favorite.I read through the comments before adding my 2 cents. I saw a lot of my favorite books, including a few by Neal Stephenson. But I did not see Anathem. Hmmm...I also saw a few references to James Clavell's Shogan. Excellent book. But I liked Tai Pan more, and... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | electromagnetic: Fiction: The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, it made me realize that the things I wanted wouldn't just come to me if I waited around.Non-fiction: Surely, you're joking, Mr Feynman! It made me realize that even the most highly qualified people are still just people and can just as easily be wrong as anyone... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | tejus: The Prize - Daniel Yergin.
Siddhartha - Herman HesseThe first is a fantastic history of oil. It brings out the politics, economics and personalities that have lit up the history of oil very well. Especially relevant in this day and age, when oil is behind so many geo-political conflicts.The second is a bit more ... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | artost: Ishmael - Daniel Quinn |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | timwiseman: Fiction: I am fan of The Fountainhead, though I still have fond memories of The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe from when I was younger.Nonfiction: So many good ones, but I think Surely your joking, Mr. Feynman! is probably the top. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | white_eskimo: I really enjoyed recently reading Snow Crash. Watership Down was great back in the day |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | many: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, Collected Works of Robert Frost |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | jgrahamc: I go outside |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | monos: Ha Shu'al B'Lool Hatarnagolot - Ephraim Kishon. funny from page one & my first contact with the strange world, rules and absurdities of political systems (couldn't find the english title, sorry)The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - Fred Brooks. introduced the concept of an essays to me, and th... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | amichail: Try spending the first half of your work day in a different place thinking while keeping web surfing to a minimum and doing no programming at all. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | thunk: All of Sherlock HolmesGlasshouse by Charles Stross |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | idlewords: Go for a long morning run (creativity) and then take half a modafinil (productivity). |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | patternexon: 1. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
2. The Soul of a new machine |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | nahumfarchi: That's a really tough question. Narrowing it down to two is almost impossible but I'd definitely name The Stranger. I'm less certain about the second one, maybe Nine Princes to Amber by Zelanzny, or Crime and Punishment. |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | patrickryan: I play music everyday. For me, it's acoustic guitar. |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | pavs: Do more than one thing (not at the same time) in a day. preferably tasks that are quite a bit different from each other.For instance, I work from home on my computer. This makes me sit in front of the computer for a long period of time even when I am not working (for non work related computer time). So I try to p... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | edw519: The single most important thing I do to "boost creativity and/or productivity" is to work in such a way that I don't need to "boost creativity and/or productivity" to get my work done. This has to be done the night before.I always quit all online work at least 2 hours before bedtime and print whatever I'm work... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | jlees: If I get into that sort of zero-to-negative flow state, I travel, go to a conference, do something to actually transplant myself away and rekindle ideas. On a more local level you can just change scenery. Go to starbucks. Whatever.I know what you mean about the 'zone' issue. I found that happening when I worked ... |
Why cloud computing? | nagoff: Recovery is also pretty useful - I posted about our recovery from a worst-case-total-server-death here:http://unfeatureddocuments.com/content/disaster-and-recoveryFor a small startup without a dedicated sysadmin I can't think of anything better than EC2 for handling this kind of thing. |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | tcskeptic: The two things that make the most difference to me are haivng a "Personal Productivity Scaffold" and excercise. (See (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/07/how-to-create-a-per...). The scaffold is nothing overly complicated, it is essentially a standard way of planning my day and starting work in the mor... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | catone: Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
and maybe
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | vital101: I agree with the comment about going for a long run. I always seem to be in a better state of mind after a few miles. If I'm still having issues maintaining focus, then I try to make a list of everything I'd like to accomplish today. By setting smaller goals I get a deeper sense of satisfaction with my wor... |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | byoung2: I like it! I wish you had my city (Los Angeles). I'd suggest adding downvotes, but instead of having upvotes and downvotes affect a single score, like Digg/Bury, maybe have 2 scores, one for Buzz, and another for Kill, so we can see a particular bar had, say, 20 Buzzes, and 5 Kills.Also, do the Buzz counts w... |
Please review my new startup. [Free account for HN community] | NEPatriot: Seems like a great idea that would really give start ups a leg up when starting with the twitter world.I wonder if the hubspot app has something like this?
This is great because it takes one piece of functionality and lets users roll with it.Just launched - will let you know how it goes.
LiranBaron at gmail ... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | sidmitra: For years i've been reading up on improving productivity but nothing worked untill i started on the Pomodoro Technique, with a s/w timer. I don't follow it religiously but enough to get work done.Some Tips:
Once that clock is set honor it for that 25 minutes. Try to start the timer as many times you can in a ... |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | jasonlbaptiste: Very well done in terms of UI. I like the concept. The problem comes down to: why will I come back on a fairly regular basis? Not sure if that is every week, every month,etc. but it should be fairly regularly. |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | scottw: My never-fail recourse: sitting down in an uncomfortable chair for a few hours at a local smoothie shop with lousy background music and telling my self I can't leave until something good comes out of me. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | olifante: Frederick Bodmer's "The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages", an oldie but goodie from 1944.Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid".Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies". |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | seven: Like it.
The header part is to big in my opinion. You should come up with a nice slogan or a line to describe what your project is about.How do you do approach new customers? What is the business model behind it? |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | TrevorJ: I have talked with a neurologist's office at length about brainwaves and the behavior associated with them. We all exhibit these wavelengths, but in different ratios depending on individual makeup/what we are doing.Typically Alpha wave activity (8-12 mhz) is associated with creativity and calm alertness. Accor... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | yesimahuman: I make sure I get enough sleep often enough. Also, I lift weights and go off of caffeine (for some reason, when I get back in the caffeine addiction, I have far less energy during the day and just get cranky and unproductive). |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | kp212: Hmm, maybe I am approaching this incorrectly, but I'll go out, drink it up with friends, and not think about work, or my side project. I'll come back to it a day or 2 later, after not looking my problem for a bit. Sometimes that break lets me see things another way, albeit a little hungover ;). |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | jeromegn: (UX point of view comment)Hmm, the design is inspired by www.kontain.com? It's well done though. A few UX quirks here and there, but most of it is fine.Maybe that nice image and copy on the login/register page should be on the homepage when a user isn't logged in? I'm thinking it could convert more in some wa... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | gte910h: Whenever I have issues getting something done next, I say: "What activity, if I do it right now, will bring me closest to the next payment" I then do that.(Disclaimer: If you do not run a custom prodcut development company, this question may involve some heavy reworking to get you something useful).If I'm havi... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | dschobel: The Brothers Karamazov - DostoevskyAll Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | marcusbooster: Keep a notebook with out at all times to jot down those random, incomplete ideas you have over the course of a day. Then when you sit down to work you can just go through your list and throw away the mostly bad ones, but hopefully you'll have a good one in there worth expanding on. Either way at least it... |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | chaosprophet: Nice idea and nice design. It would also be nice if you could show people stuff from their own city (IP geolocation maybe?). |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | rodyancy: I'd be interested to see a service like this track what is happening real time. So, imagine a user goes to a bar and texts/emails/iPhone app, whatever, that would buzz up that local for the night. Then users could look to see what is going on in real time. That may be what you are doing here, if so, I would m... |
Please review my startup Wingify - Realtime Conversion Optimization | AlexBlom: I found there to be a lot of Jargon. Keep a sales pitch simple. A good rule of thumb is not to say what your business does / what the script is, but what it can likely do for me.As the script is complex simply ask users to identify themselves as personal, small business or corporate before entering the websit... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | jdlegg: 1. Silence. I'm not smart enough to get anything done with a lot of noise or music going on.2. Distracting my mind. I read long, complex fiction novels for 30-60 minutes at night before bed. This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind. Afterwards I feel completely... |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | Kollner: I wanted to add a couple of nightclubs in my town (Kiev, Ukraine) but I was limited to London? |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | Kollner: I'd like to see a feature where people could at photos from those buzzed locations. Integrate with twitter, facebook etc. |
Your biggest non-technical hack/discovery | Noether: Nowhere near as awesome as most of these, but I made a magnetic screw-picker-upper out of a broken pair of earbuds and a bottle cap. |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | nobody_nowhere: I'm a little confused as to the workflow. Here's what i did, assuming I wanted to vote on a place I like:1. Enter "fernandez & wells" into the name box. Hit search.
2. Two results are shown. Both have what look like votes already (+4, +5 icons). But my only action is "add this place." Where do I vot... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | TrevorJ: The Hobbit,I, Robot |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | symptic: I clean.First, I clean my room, so my atmosphere feels less cluttered and my mind is less likely to wander of to thinking "I should get around to this."Then, I'll clean my desk, which usually means throwing everything away that is not 100% absolutely necessary (old notes, ideas, drawings, cups, etc.) These all... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | jokull: I make sure my work motivates me without any extra effort. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | garyrichardson: Starship TroopersDay of the Triffids |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | leecho0: Question, if a restaurant gets on it once, will it ever be able to get on again?If there's a "buzz" at a restaurant, there will be a lot of people there, and it will be harder to find a seat. Of course, it'll be a good sign if you have this problem, but it may be something to watch out for. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | dminor: Jonathon Strange and Mr. NorrellPost Captain (well, basically all of the Patrick O'Brian series) |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | peterwwillis: Music for me. If i'm feeling distracted or can't quite get my thoughts clear, I blast hardcore punk or drum & bass and once my blood gets pumping the productivity begins. Sometimes it doesn't work so well and i'll try something on the opposite spectrum - bob dylan's first album, slow classical piano/strin... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | dstorrs: This will sound weird, but I harness hatred.Find a person or organization that you absolutely despise. Preferably a person that you know personally--someone who makes your blood boil just from thinking about them.Then, do the following:1) Every night, put together a task list for the next day and do whatever ... |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | dustingetz: this absolutely has to be a mobile app--the only time im ever looking for a place to go to is when im already out and the present venue is lame. for 20-somethings, venue is rarely planned ahead of time, and we usually hit multiple venues.as far as venue discovery, again, its something that is gonna come up... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | SaurabhGarg: For me, Following things work..1. Keep a notepad and a pen handy. Whatever occurs to me, I write it down. And then I type it out on a personal wiki. Right now the wiki is organized by days. Eventually it would be organized by topics.2. Use tools like bookmarking etc to be able to retrieve things fast.3. Ac... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | dandrews: Mister Doghttp://www.redbug.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2003/11/10#Peanut_... |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | thunk: Long walks (to gather my thoughts), greenery (creativity) and tea (productivity). |
Your biggest non-technical hack/discovery | chaosprophet: Gunpowder on an omelet makes a huge difference to the taste, making it super spicy. (Gunpowder is a mix of red chilly powder, salt and a number of other spices, and is found in many Indian recipes). |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | percept: Whenever I start forking around too much, spending too much time reading HN and the like, I go and read job ads. Once I've read a few of those, and remember what it's like to work in a corporate environment, I'm sufficiently motivated to get back to work on my own stuff.No joke! |
Is my college education worth my time? | icey: If you have to ask a bunch of strangers if it's worth your time, then chances are that it is.[Edit to add some clarification]There aren't many cases where getting a college degree isn't advantageous. Those few cases are if you already have a strong idea of what you want / need to do, and have the drive to get the... |
Is my college education worth my time? | mbrubeck: What you get out will be based on what you put in. If your coursework isn't working for you, find different courses or find a faculty member to advise you on independent projects or research (for credit or not). Audit upper-level or graduate courses. Talk to professors and grad students outside of class to... |
Is my college education worth my time? | noodle: your time is as valuable as you make it. why aren't you following your passion by getting your degree in it? if you are and you just think the classes are boring, its probably because they are. the first year or two tend to be filter classes to pull out the people who don't really want or deserve to be there.... |
Is my college education worth my time? | seasoup: College is a great chance to network. Get to know people with similar goals as your own. Get to know your classmates, this is where you will meet your future co-founders. You will get out of college what you put into it, if you want to party and have fun pledge a fraternity and party all of the time. If yo... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | gr366: "The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Bakerand"White Noise" by Don DeLillo |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | Ixiaus: The best hack I know for this, is solitude. The more time you spend alone the more the unconscious wants to express itself (you can find many creative ideas this way).Solitude also gives you no option but to do the thing you are secluding yourself to do. Block distracting websites if your task is computer based... |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | Ixiaus: Dune by Frank Herbert and Anathem by Neal Stephenson |
Please review my new startup. [Free account for HN community] | bdmac97: Am I missing something or hasn't this already been done by others like Twittermass? |
Is my college education worth my time? | elblanco: Yes, stop partying and socializing and use your free time to do the stuff you want. Next question? |
What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? | jamesbritt: Create crap. Write drivel, draw shitty pictures, code a half-assed one-off script.Biggest obstacle I often have is getting started, that whole "fear of the blank page" thing. But once I get into something I find I can keep rolling, and editing and revising starts to bring out the better stuff. |
Your biggest non-technical hack/discovery | saurabh: When i was a kid I stuck a crumbled reflective tape to the ceiling to bounce off the remote signals to our TV. I could then just press the buttons without giving a damn where it pointed. |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | joeld42: Nanowrimo (www.nanowrimo.org) is coming up. Try /writing/ a book, it will have a more profound influence on you than any reading could have.my recs: "Godel Escher Bach", as previously mentioned, and "The Fifth Head of Cerebus" by Gene Wolfe (or any Gene Wolfe). |
Please review my startup. theBuzz.at | mailarchis: Nice concept and great implementation for an Alpha version... some suggestions1. I searched for Curry and got 4 restaurants. If possible, you might wanna change the labels design on the map, they don't stand out on the map2. People visiting your site might also wanna search for restaurants of specific cuisi... |
Best startup space in NYC? | jwt: Check out the new hackerspace at Soho Haven http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876580 |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | owid: The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels by Agota KristofLove and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | lackbeard: Understanding Comics and King Rat |
Please name two of your most favorite books. | utx00: all the kings men - warrenthe floating opera - barth |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | ddemchuk: I've found myself in a similar boat for a long time now. Go see your doctor and get referred to a psychiatrist for an evaluation.Not that medication is the only solution, but ADHD can manifest itself in different ways and sometimes taking something can help you bridge the gap. |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | zackattack: You don't have to get a high school degree. Seriously. But there is some unpleasant work that needs to be done. High school is not unpleasant work that needs to be done. |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | edw519: I'm not going to try to motivate you, because only you can motivate yourself. I'm just going to share my perspective that might shed some light on your issue.I had the same problem in college until a fraternity brother who had graduated 2 years before told me something I had never thought of. He said, "You ma... |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | quizbiz: I split it up into tiny tasks on a physical paper so I can cross items out and feel accomplished. |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | jiaaro: fogbugz... Being able to guess how long it will take, and then meet your own deadline is strangely fun in itself.If you have trouble getting started on your work, just make a few subcases, and estimate them as well.As quizbiz said, crossing the todo's off your list makes it feel like you're accomplishing someth... |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | ScottWhigham: Okay - let's get the obvious out of the way: are you ADD/ADHD and, if so, have you been taking any recent meds? If not, let's talk about your diet: tons of carbs but lack of protein? How about sleep - getting enough of it? Lastly, when was your last vacation?These are all major factors in feeling a sense ... |
How do you motivate yourself to do un-motivating work? | scott_s: Look for ways to make the assignment relevant to your interests. Sometimes it's as simple as choosing a topic you like for an English essay. If you're not interested in your math homework, try poking around those topics on Wikipedia. Being able to click through to subjects that seem interesting might peek your... |
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