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Ask HN:Is there anything like Word of God? | yannis: For over a thousand years the majority of the 'civilized world' believed that women had more ribs than men. Personally I remain agnostic about the beginning 'first word', but I have a strong opinion that the second one was uttered by a woman! (Evolutionary speaking this might be quite plausible). |
An alternative to Horowitz and Hill? | RiderOfGiraffes: I've just pulled out my H&H and had a look. It's terse, but its explanations are pretty complete. Looking at one circuit and trying to work out why it works I had to back-trcak through several earlier sections, but it seemed pretty clear.I'm not sure what else you'd be looking for. Pedagogically if ... |
How to learn the art of web design? | yosho: read a book on design and pay attention to popular design sites like smashing magazine.Most good designers I know usually have an artistic background. Maybe taking an art class would help too. |
Feature request: Notification when I get a reply to my comment. | icey: The only thing you missed was the feature request link:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363(in other words, the feature you're requesting is not currently in the site) |
Why are there still human teachers? | kirubakaran: I've found that the best thing teachers do for me is to nudge me out of my comfort zone. I self-learned pretty much most of the things I know and I am very self-motivated. I thought I don't need human teachers at all. Teachers in my school seemed to just slow me down. Then I took a drawing course in a loca... |
How do I meet qualified business and marketing people? | rubbercan: I'm looking for a partner myself...definitely not an MLM type, for they can go to HELL. LOL. Seriously, in regard to your note, I'm opposite. My degrees are in information systems; as a result, strong in business/marketing, but skills in software development are light. Although, I have programmed lightly ba... |
What's the better AIR development strategy? | bjm: I used to use Flex for AIR development, but I think I'm about to switch to HTML/JavaScript now. Here are a few reasons:- I can reuse more (code, designs, etc.). This, obviously, will vary for different people. If you are Flash/Flex developer already your situation will likely to be quite the opposite.- HTML is eas... |
How do I meet qualified business and marketing people? | hagope: Try Twitter! Use Twitter search and enter in terms specific to the problem you are trying to solve. You'd be surprised how many qualified people are on Twitter and sharing their ideas and willing to help. That is how I found a developer for a project I am working on! |
Idea for an open source library | perone: A decent and Pythonic library for llvm. |
An alternative to Horowitz and Hill? | npk: Sparkfun just started selling a book called "Electrical Engineering 101". I've never read it, but I imagine it's pretty good.Do you have access to a good electronics lab? A lab + H&H might be sufficient. I learned 80% of my electronics this way, but the last 20% was learned from old crusty EEs. If you don't ha... |
Why are there still human teachers? | rauljara: The success of such a scheme would depend on the quality of the software. I could imagine software that would have many advantages over traditional teachers. It would be a hell of a piece of machine learning, however. Given what I've seen of the very best of the chatbots, it is a long, long way off. If yo... |
Why are there still human teachers? | elbenshira: Because humans are social beings. Sure, most of us are good at self-learning, but a good teacher can provide so much more than a textbook can. A good teacher is a mentor and a dispenser of wisdom (and opinion). They've been there before, so they know what the hard stuff is, and where you might go wrong in y... |
Why are there still human teachers? | imp: I think the biggest role that a teacher plays is baby sitter. Through 12th grade, most of the class is there because they are required to be there. If you could write software that sends kids to detention, then you might have a good replacement.Besides the social part, software probably could be a great way to t... |
Why are there still human teachers? | buugs: My brother goes to a school where they use computers to work through lessons at their own pace. There are humans lecturing (kind of a youtube with powerpoint split video) and they solve the questioning problem by having teachers for each subject in the same room as the students.Personally I think this is a rath... |
Why are there still human teachers? | ErrantX: Many people still have trouble with computer skills.Even more people (me included) prefer printed and taught material to staring at a PC screen all day.Language is very expressive: you can teach things with the tone of your voice that might take 20 lines of text just to describe.Passion for a subject.Social sk... |
Why are there still human teachers? | tommusic: One of the most difficult things to do is to create an effective mechanical way of measuring that student has learned the subject matter.Naturally for some subjects it is more straightforward than others, but the problem is still challenging on balance.Early childhood development requires a lot of psychologic... |
Why are there still human teachers? | henrikschroder: I'm sorry you only had bad teachers. If you had had a good teacher sometime in your life, you would not ask this question. |
Why are there still human teachers? | scottw: HN readers are a vastly different audience than Joe Student. I would bet that over half (or more) are autodidacts, extremely capable learners with few mental obstacles to motivation or learning.All of the good research I've read on online learning is done with self-selected groups of adults who would probably l... |
Who do you follow? | nym: Ok, I'll start off. I follow the following twerps:JavaScript / Visualization:
@jeresig
@sanchothefat
@flight404
@paul_irish
@rem
@F1LT3R
@zacharyjohnsonWeb Standards / Policy:
@danbri
@ppk
@EFFGeoWankers:
@Billfgreer
@mikel
@anselm
@mikeliebhold
@ajturner |
Why are there still human teachers? | mping: Teaching/learning is far more than just acquiring knowledge.
Just the mere presence of a human being, let alone a sympathetic one, transforms the whole learning experience.A good teacher shapes the children's mind, inspires and motivates children to do things that otherwise they would probably not dream of doin... |
Why are there still human teachers? | bsdemon: One of the most stupid questions I've ever seen. |
Why are there still human teachers? | justlearning: This is one of the reasons why we need human teachers:http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebra...more at : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850485 |
Why are there still human teachers? | hendler: To learn to be human. |
Better alternative to daily RSS feeds reading? | toddcw: I got so tired of this problem I created my own service:http://www.ectofeed.com/It takes a bit to set up the filters, but once you do it gets rid of all kinds of junk. I've experimented with the services that claim to be able to watch what you read/mark/save and cater your feeds accordingly, and have found the... |
What to do with a spare laptop? | yan: If you already have a workable computer, give it to a relative who needs one, or sell it. No need to stock up on hardware other people can find useful.You can also keep it as a spare, but that's wasteful. Computers are a commodity. |
What to do with a spare laptop? | ErrantX: War driving and wireless sniffing - even decrypt some networks (with permission). And more..A security distro like Backtrack will give you hours of random fun playing with all the tools.Something a bit different anyway. |
Why are there still human teachers? | marze: Same reasons the Turing test hasn't been passed. |
What to do with a spare laptop? | javanix: Put linux on it. The "rabbit hole of drivers" doesn't really exist any longer, and a passing familiarity with linux can really be a useful skill to have. |
Zealous community member wants to help | khafra: As a first approximation, I'd say your safest choice is to create an official "power user" or "moderator"-type user class, with explicitly defined responsibilities and privileges, and make him the first member of that class. |
Zealous community member wants to help | ScottWhigham: I had someone like this a few years ago but they were asking for other little things they could help with. I found them some low-level yet important things they could do for us, made sure to thank them publicly in several places, and it was win-win. At no point did I give them user/pass somewhere nor did ... |
What is a good client mgmt tool for IT Consultants? | there: Corduroy is used by IT consultants, among others. We're very receptive to feature requests and new ideas from our customers on how to make it fit their business better. Give it a try: http://corduroysite.com/(Disclaimer: I'm the author) |
Zealous community member wants to help | growt: We had two of those volunteers when I ran a rather large website. And it was a realy positive experience. We gave them admin rights to subsections of the site (message board, etc.) and they did a really great job.
So no horror stories from me. |
How to Hire an Econometrician? | gtani: Try meetups or user's groups for R, SAS, SPSS, data mining, etc. My local R group meetings are really interesting and info-packed. |
What are your favorite brain teasers? | rottencupcakes: This one's my favorite. Good luck. I'll buy a 6-pack for the first person to solve it:A hundred prisoners are each locked in a room with three pirates, one of whom will walk the plank in the morning. Each prisoner has 10 bottles of wine, one of which has been poisoned; and each pirate has 12 coins, one ... |
An alternative to Horowitz and Hill? | joe_bleau: You do know that there is a companion hands-on lab book for AofE, right? http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual-Exercis...The ARRL handbook is also a very practical intro text, but quite broad.[edit] Oh, another decent book that's aimed at technician level students: Electronic Principles by Ma... |
Getting users | offyourfacelook: We're trying to get bloggers.
www.offyourfacelook.com |
What to do with a spare laptop? | sshconnection: I just finished installing Karmic Koala on an old D610. A while ago, I went ahead and slapped 2 gigs of ram in it, up from the like 512 it came with, and under Karmic this thing runs like a champ. Give it a try, it breathed new life into my old clunker. |
Reattempting Failed Startup/Project for Second Time? | quellhorst: If you think the idea is still good, or could do better this time, go for it.You should read The Dip by Seth Godin. |
Reattempting Failed Startup/Project for Second Time? | pg: It's probably a good idea as long as you know what went wrong the first time. |
How to learn the art of web design? | Scott_MacGregor: Get Photoshop and spend time learning how to use the tools before you try to become an artist. Get your skill set down first.While you are learning to use the application spend some time surfing the net and looking at the myriad of plugins available for special effects to get some ideas on what you can... |
What to do with a spare laptop? | fsniper: I'm using my old celeron 1.5GHz laptop as a linux server for my company. It runs dhcpd, bind for the network, apache, mysql, postgresql, tomcat for development purposes, zoneminder for a camera (not in use anymore), in all their respective openvz containers. And it's doing pretty well with a cooler. Before the... |
Reattempting Failed Startup/Project for Second Time? | SwellJoe: On a couple of occasions where I've seen Joe Kraus speak, he had a slide that said something along the lines of, "Being early feels a lot like being wrong." And he explained that sometimes you attempt to tackle a market before the world is ready for that product or idea, and it fails, not because the idea is... |
Reattempting Failed Startup/Project for Second Time? | jeremymims: Many intelligent people seem to be solving the same sorts of problems over and over again.- Evan Williams created blogger. Then he created Twitter.
- Paul Buchheit created Gmail. Then he created Friendfeed.
- Mark Zuckerberg created several unsuccessful social interaction tools before facebook.
- Steve Jobs... |
Why are there still human teachers? | mgenzel: Also see a sci-fi story by Robert F. Young called "Thirty Days Has September". |
Why are there still human teachers? | hackerblues: What advantages do you think software offers in this respect that books don't? All I can think of are:
a) Logging successes/failures
b) Suggesting questionsBoth of these are partially replicated in books by
a) Having a list of answers at the end of the book the student can check their answers against and s... |
Zealous community member wants to help | Mz: Some people just like to feel helpful/needed and like to spend their time working on stuff they believe in. If no money is exchanging hands, your best currency is to make them feel respected and appreciated. But, as others have suggested, don't give access to something that might lead to regrets. And start small... |
How to learn the art of web design? | ScottWhigham: I'm a fan of Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think and Ginny Radish's book on web copy. Both are great for web design |
Who do you follow? | ScottWhigham: I'm a mostly MSFT guy so here are a few of mine:SQL Server - @brent0, @bradmcgehee, @GFritchey, @lazycoder, @MladenPrajdic.NET - @shanselman, @scottw, @RickStrahlMisc - @meetdux, @edbott, @codinghorror |
Is there a spam filtering web service? | _pius: Defensio? |
How to learn the art of web design? | rebelvc: Thanks for the tips! |
Is there a spam filtering web service? | RossP: Akismet does just this for blog posts. |
Reattempting Failed Startup/Project for Second Time? | staunch: The only concern that comes to my mind is anger from the previous co-founders. You probably want to make sure they can't claim any ownership of your new attempt, should you succeed. Make sure you don't re-use the name, software, servers, or anything! |
The cloud, why are you doing it ? | icey: I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people don't really go through the math of it, and instead focus on the specter of scalability instead.It's tempting to do when you're starting something new, and you think of how painful it is to switch hosts later; and the cloud has the suggestion that scaling is much ... |
Why are there still human teachers? | silvershadow118: Try asking "Why aren't robots/computers teachers?" and I think you'll find a nice answer to your question. |
The cloud, why are you doing it ? | wgj: A lot of the commentary on cloud deployments talks about scaling from 1 to n servers easily and dynamically (and from n to n-1, etc.)In practice, partly due to the pricing model, it seems the primary market is actually for 0 to 1 server, not 1 to n. New hosting products in the Rails space like Heroku and the new c... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | dacort: It's not the people saying "hotdog", it's the people saying "Oscar Mayer hotdog". Brands are excited about real-time search because it's the first time that nonsensical chatter has actually propagated beyond people's lips on to the Internet where they can monitor it on an ongoing basis. ... Just sayin' |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | pg: Among other things, it is the fastest source of news. And in news (as the name suggests), fast is everything. |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | jasonlbaptiste: I think the value out there right now is significantly higher for businesses and brands. That's okay and usually how the cycle goes. "computers" were first for corporations with mainframes, then the "personal computer" came along.Anything that makes information flow at a significantly faster rate is v... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | fjabre: It's not hype unfortunately.Even businesses should be worried. Now I need to hire someone full time to tweet, digg, stumbleupon, and start a linkedin group, facebook group, a couple of blogs all the while making sure we're in Google's top 10 for relevant search words.Whatever happened to build it and they will ... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | jlees: I can't really think of a better way to follow breaking opinions than real-time search. Sure, if you wait a while you can get news indexing from Google, but it's the bias that you want. Especially if, say, you're at a conference/event and want to know what's kicking. We found real-time search particularly valuab... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | seasoup: Real time search is not for researching a particular topic, that is what regular search is for. Real time search is used to find out what is happening in the world right now. For example, one day Pandora stopped playing music. I checked my connection and it was fine, then I went on twitter and searched for ... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | tlrobinson: Of course it's not particularly useful if you're searching for "hotdogs"... unless there happens to be some current event involving hotdogs.Obviously "real-time search" is all about real-time events. Stuff that's happened in the last few minutes, hours, days.I've found myself using search.twitter.com for mo... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | patio11: Ordinarily I would be merely skeptical of a business model which a) competes with Google b) in search advertising c) to technically adept folks d) who never, ever click on ads.The fact that it is a type of search which generates no commercial value is merely icing on the cake.However, this is not the first tim... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | joez: Real-time results have a human element to them. It was tweeted by a 'real' person. The result is what is happening in that person's life and they felt inclined enough to tweet it. Top search hits are usually professional blogs, journalist articles or wikipedia. These have lost that personal connection. |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | auston: "Real time search" is just a way to make sure you're not the only one experiencing a problem...ie: gmail is down, cops hassling people @ a political rally, recommendations for parking in Miami Beach, reviews of Movies by real people, etc etc |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | netcan: We can't really know at this point. It's just trying to do something useful with a big pool of information that is a growing part of how we communicate with each other. People do go to search.twitter.com.This is more a kind of thing where you say 'there must be something useful we can do with this' then the kin... |
what's stopping you from launching? | wlievens: A name for my game! |
Halloween Costume Ideas | TTDaVeTT: You could get two other friends and be rock, paper, scissors. Then go around battling each other with character driven dialog. For example, if you're rock and you fight paper and lose, you would scream, "Why does this keep happening?! What does he have that I don't have?!?!" |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | chadaustin: As a software developer whose customers happen to also use twitter, I leave search.twitter.com open all day. Listening to happy customers tweet about our product is motivating. In addition, it keeps us honest - the negative feedback is unfiltered.In short, twitter is a great way to ask "How do people _rea... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | chrischen: It would be kind of useful for seeing status updates of your friends in real time. |
Have everything but the domain for a side project? | davidcuddeback: There's nothing that says the blogger will ever give up his domain. My suggestion is to start thinking of new names. You might even end up with a better name than you have now. |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | kyro: I used to think that until several months ago when I was on campus and got a call from a friend saying a gunman was roaming about, armed and ready to unload. The first thing I did was search for #uci (my uni) on Twitter and got hundreds of tweets from students around campus who were being herded to back rooms and... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | axod: It allows hipsters to know what is "so hot right now".For people who can't really think for themselves, they can just search and see what everyone else thinks. |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | roundsquare: What you (and some other people) are really saying is that you don't want real-time search to be the default. I'm not sure it should be or not, but I'd agree that we need to have a way to disable it lest we get too much noise. |
Have everything but the domain for a side project? | oscardelben: maybe try with <keyword>app ? |
Is there a spam filtering web service? | kngspook: Well, Google's own Postini does spam-filtering.I could imagine a setup where you have people send mail to an alias on your domain, route it into Postini, and then into Google Groups. The big problem would be getting users _not_ to send directly to Google Groups. And I'm not sure you'd even be able to tell the... |
Is there a spam filtering web service? | kngspook: Can someone outline for me the pros/cons of a mailing list vs. a forum?Except for the registering-over-and-over-again issue, it seems like forums would be preferable generally... (Especially given that most will send you emails with new posts if you ask it to.) |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | jfager: Realtime = Knowing who just trashed my brand, so I can go and fix it before or while everyone's paying attention to the issue. Including 'happening right now' sales in my search for an affordable camera. Hearing news that much sooner than I can hear it today.Realtime + local = Knowing whether that restaurant ... |
Why are there still human teachers? | cwb: The strict answer to your question has to do with humans being social, motivation, and strong AI, I think.However, if we allow teachers to stay in the picture, software could (and should I think) be used more to support learning. It could improve students' abilities significantly if done sensibly.Data-mining would... |
Have everything but the domain for a side project? | ScottWhigham: I'd find a new name and go with it. How about using some of these:http://www.makewords.com/default.aspxhttp://www.nameboy.com/index.php |
A Process Definition to Implementation Software | teyc: Yes, it's called BPM (Business Process Management) and Workflow Engines. There are some open source ones as well. |
What to do with a spare laptop? | tug61granpa: I'm a neewbie to computing, old[63], on minimum wage , and not tech-savvy at all. However I've managed to install Mint Linux on 2 elderly pc's and Ubuntu on an early Asus eee. All can be downloaded for free quite quickly and easily. An installation disc for Mint costs £3.99 in the UK. After XP Linux is a j... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | coliveira: Finding people that are interested in your topic, right now. There is certainly a value for that -- especially if you want to sell something. |
How to Analyze Coder Contribution | cperciva: Ask not what contribution people have made to the code - ask what problems they solved thereby.The person who makes the largest contribution is often not the person who writes the most code: In the extreme case, it can be a person who figured out how to increase functionality by removing code. |
How to Analyze Coder Contribution | jefffoster: Check code_swarm out (http://code.google.com/p/codeswarm/). It'll give you a quick way of visualizing who changed what in the code base. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | fogus: Audio books. |
How to Analyze Coder Contribution | mbrubeck: The real answer is to ask their peers. Developers know how much their teammates contribute. The hard part is giving them reasons to be honest with you.Code statistics are fun, but they won't tell you anything real about productivity. That said, running "git blame" (or "cvs annotate" or other equivalent) ov... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | byoung2: I've had a 2 hour commute for about 5 years now, and over the years I've used Pimsleur's language cds to learn Japanese and Italian. Today I just didn't feel like driving, so I'm typing this while riding a commuter express bus. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | replicatorblog: For $20 a month you can get two books from audible. Their catalog is pretty decent and it is a good way to keep on top of your read list.I've also been enjoying the "How Stuff Works" podcasts. Their "Stuff you missed in history class" is especially interesting. Lots of stuff from the well known "Pompeii... |
Wrist Pain | ChiroFITCMT: I'm a massage therapist. I have worked with professional athletes, college swimmers, and desk jockeys alike.Get yourself a good massage therapist, I don't know where you are, but find a qualified professional on www.AMTA.org. be sure to ask them questions about whether they have dealt with chronic wrist p... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | percept: That sucks. Any way to work a 4-day week? Or pry a telecommuting day out of their cold hands? [Unless you're the boss, in which case strike that last remark.] |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | yan: Some podcasts are excellent. Check out radiolab.orgedit: I have family+friends 4 hours away and gf 2 hours away, so I spend a huge amount of time behind the wheel as well. I download courses from iTunes U, OCW or individual universities' web sites. I also follow a few podcasts. The skeptic's guide to the universe ... |
Why are there still human teachers? | bofh: I'm sorry about all of you, guys who think this is a stupid question. You are all romantic people, saying there exist good teachers, and teacher is a friend of a student and blahblahblah. But the reality is - most of the teachers are BAD. I know much more examples of bad teachers, who even demotivate students, in... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | ZeroGravitas: If you can cycle your commute then you're getting fit and can save on your gym time (and membership fees). |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | jacquesm: Depending on the kind of transportation, audiobooks, or a kindle with some good PDFs.If you can manage the latter then you can look at what stuff gets posted to HN that ends up on scribd, put them on your e-reader and you'll have your commute fly by, you might have to take detours :) |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | mtrimpe: 1. Become a freelancer.2. Get a spacious car where you can work in the back,3. Get a high-speed UMTS/HSDPA subscription.4. Get a driver that earns at least 50% less per hour than you.5. Work from your car and bill the time. |
Why are languages seen as tools but DBs aren't? | davidw: You shouldn't necessarily pick the best one for each job, depending on the size of the job and a lot of other factors.http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/12/12/programming-languages-... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | JeremyStein: Listen to college lectures in the Great Courses series. Your library probably has some. http://www.teach12.com/ |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | dabent: I'm in a similar situation:1. Podcasts - Venture Voice and The Moth are two easy recommends. You could try to get old Radio GoDaddy podcasts back when they had entrepreneurs on.2. Audio Books - Audible.com/Amazon/Library/etc. are great sources. I've managed to listen to quite a few.3. Satellite radio: I got a... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | HeyLaughingBoy: I mostly listen to jazz or public radio, sometimes business podcasts. It's not a waste of time: it's time to relax, especially the commute home.Sorry, just saw you're in traffic. My commute is mostly on rural roads, no traffic to speak of and much more relaxing than city/crowded interstate driving. |
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