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Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | masterbranch: Hi.
We use Play! Framework in production since a year ago.We have two sites, http://www.masterbranch.com which is a site to manage developer CVs and track your open source experience in your CV. The other one is a network about developers, sysadmins, web designers (this one is in spanish) http://es.debugmodeon.comWe are happy with Play!. It's easy to use, has lots of built-in features and Play! team is also awesome and their work is exquisite.Cheers |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | cperciva: I don't normally mention this stuff, but since you asked...* I started at university when I was 13.* I won the Putnam Competition.* I hold a world record for computing Pi.* My bsdiff binary patching tool is used on tens of millions of computers and has saved several hundred human-years of waiting for software updates to download.* I found a security bug in an Intel CPU. (Osvik/Shamir/Tromer also found it, but I was first, by a few weeks.)* I'm the Concertmaster of an amateur symphony orchestra which is performing the Verdi Requiem tomorrow. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | kksm19820117: * I built a distributed search engine for my final year college project, when my teachers and friends told me I was taking on too much. It survived two project mates walking out, and some rather dumb ones pushed in. I got a 97 for it, and consider it THE accomplishment of my college years.* Wrote an indexing program in C that crashed a Netware network. :P* I've read the Bhagwad Gita, the Koran, the Bible and the Tao Teh Ching. I am still an atheist.* I've written a complete IM module at work when drunk. Oddly, this has been considered one of my better contributions to the project in that company.* I've completed reading five Asimov novels in the course of a single day.* I am an Indian, yet can't speak any Hindi. I have lived in the Gulf, yet can't speak any Arabic. My folks speak Konkani at home, yet I cannot speak that either. Dad knows Portuguese, yet I somehow never picked it up from him. Strangely though, I can speak French, Japanese, Quenyan and am on my way to studying Sanskrit. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | patio11: I once saved a five year old from drowning in six feet of water. Boiling water. While naked.(OK, technically speaking ~45C, not boiling.) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | bozmac: I created an appointment system and all its related subsystems from scratch in 7 days. The online part is on passport.com.ph |
Review my app: BlogRadio | chanux: Then click "Install Now" to get the BlogRadio Desktop ManagerIs it just me or the term 'Desktop Manager' kind of confusing in this context?.BTW, Nice work. |
List tasks you outsource and to whom? | patio11: Hmm, I should probably do this as a blog post. Oh well.CD duplication and delivery: SwiftCD. Every time I release a new version of the software I send them an image of the CD, and every time I sell a CD a service I use called e-junkie (which wraps Paypal's and Google's transaction notification API on my behalf) pings them to actually ship the CD out. I get billed later in the month. Costs about $5 ~ $6 a CD, or $150 a month.Content creation: I've talked on HN many times about how my core SEO strategy is publishing 800 (as of today) sets of bingo activities through my website. About 780 of those were written by freelancers, using (most recently) a customized CMS written in Rails. Costs about $3.33 an activity.Wordpress themes: One of my other SEO strategies, for activities I feel are likely to have tens of thousands of searchers (mostly holiday-oriented bingo), is to create mini-sites on Wordpress which serve as very, very focused landing pages for my product. I typically try to give them a laser-focused design. Most of my existing ones are from OSS designers, one is from a designer I know in town (hiya, Keith!), and one is from the gentleman who posted on HN recently about needing to make $400 a month.Content for mini-sites: So while I theoretically could crank out similar-sounding minisite content on Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving ... I have better things to do with my very limited free time, so I pay people to do this for me. (Runs about $100 a site for 5 pages. I tend to overpay.)Buttons: I'm passionate about A/B testing button designs and have all the image manipulation skills of a drunken squirrel. Most of the time I get people to make my images for me. I've actually got a few dozen in the pipeline right now for some A/B testing starting right after I go full-time.General HTML design: I don't do consequential tweaks to HTML that commonly, but when I do, I typically get them done for me. As soon as my designer and I mutually have a day free we need to work on my signup pages and landing pages again.That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm hoping to add taxes to the list this year, but we'll see what the pricing is on getting someone proficient with US/Japan tax issues versus just muddling through it again myself. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | buro9: * I fixed a Brit Award for Best Newcomer in 1998 (Belle and Sebastian) using social engineering* I built the consumer site for BTopenworld almost single-handedly in 6 weeks (CMS and portal from scratch in TCL), it was live for 7 years before being replaced* Recently enjoyed a 97.5% mark on an MSc assignment* Survived living on the streets for more than 2 winters (when you live on the street, you count winters and not years)* Every code I've ever written outside of education has gone live somewhere... I first learned to code by making a stock control system for a small company and knew computers should be good at that stuff* I taught myself TCL, PERL, Java, C#, C++, JavaScript, and am currently enjoying a foray into Clojure.* I've met Paul McCartney, hung out with Blur, Elastica, Pulp and Oasis... partied several years of my life away in a blur* I've created a data warehouse for semi-structured data from ECM systemsThis list is not necessarily in chronological order. I absolutely am missing stuff but the bullets above fill me with joy of some kind. I haven't done the thing I want most to do, which is to work with some great minds on some complex problems, but this is why I'm doing an MSc so late, I want to knock on Google's door. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | cromulent: I survived being hit in the head with a running 110cc chainsaw. Minor flesh wounds only. Is that cool? I'm not sure.A friend of mine won the Nobel peace prize and then lost it in a bar afterwards. I wish I could say that. |
Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | BonoboBoner: I am moving from Grails to Play, because i can no longer deal with the half-assed-ness of Grails. It is so buggy and those issues shine thorugh to my product. It is hard to break-dance when walking on eggs.>> The only thing I find missing is not really a problem with play! but rather a limitation of Java...I am completely, totally addicted to Ruby's blocks. I love being able to collection.each{|one|} over lists...it just feels right.Absolutely true and that is why they are working hard on making Scala a first class citizen with Play. With Scala you basically get a lot of the conciseness of Ruby but with the static type checking and early error catching that you get from Java. |
how do you promote a niche socail network? | shafqat: -Do you have a blog? Starting writing. Share the contents via RSS, Twitter, FB etc.-Do you have a twitter account? Start following relevant people, get involved in discussions, share your link (don't spam).-Write to bloggers/journalists who might be interested in covering social networking sites (mashable?)-Since it's niche, promote your site on every blog, forum, site related to the niche. Again, don't spam but inform others why its to their benefit to join your network.-Adwords?EDIT: The site wasnt loading when I tried, so I wrote all of that without visiting the site. But now that I've seen it, I'm not really sure how this is a "niche" social network at all. Confused.-Some sort of content where existing members can win prizes for referring others? |
How do I get the word out on my data mining report | ig1: Write an article about about it and submit it to photography magazines, techcrunch, etc. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Chirag: * I have been to all the states(28 states and seven union territories) in India* At one time I have worked on 4 start-ups at a time* I have donated Rs2000(Almost $50) to a begger* I have programming my self and taught my college professors |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | petervandijck: Rode a bicycle (that I constructed from parts) through the jungle of Congo for 2 weeks. Got a rare form of Malaria. Rode it back. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | AN447: * I paid off my parents mortgage (age 20) |
How do I get the word out on my data mining report | ScottWhigham: Shoooooooot - that there is some tech-nickel words there. I have a D90 - glad to see it seemed to do well but whoa... Well over my head what all those charts and such mean/do/tell me.I'm with ig1 - you need to write an article (maybe multiple) and submit to others. I would suggest you really work to make it accessible to people like me. I have quality gear, took a photography class in college, and like to shop for gear. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | k0n2ad: I woke up on time this morning. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | RevRal: Though, not something I did directly.... Two teachers have named their children after me, is what I'm most proud of. |
Specific feedback on GoDaddy / Rackspace | ScottWhigham: I'm unclear: are you looking for suggestions (a) after you have funding and can afford whatever is best for you, (b) before you have funding and are boot-strapping, or (c) during business planning so you can more accurately do financial projections and/or sound impressive to potential investors? The answers that I've seen seem to imply one or the other but I'm not quite sure your initial post told us this critical bit. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | hunterjrj: * two chicks at the same time |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | arethuza: I grew up in a fishing village in the north of Scotland - when I was 19 one of my school friends insisted that I experience what it is like working on a trawler in the North Sea.After a few days of sea sickness, hard work, lack of sleep, and fear I probably would have shot myself if someone had given me a loaded pistol.Nothing I did since then (and I had summer jobs while I was a student doing things like weeding large fields of barley, digging ditches etc.) was anything like that.So I learned to have a LOT of respect for people who don't have the chance to make lots of money sitting at a computer for most of the day. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | froo: * I lead the charge in 2008 to win the Best Act Ever award for Rick Astley at the MTV EMA's* I was the youngest competitor at a car rally event here in Australia, competing against the likes of Sir Jack Brabham. (side note, we managed to get the porsche off the clock at nearly 300 km/hr)* I designed a forced induction cooling system (originally for the same Porsche - the waste heat was then distributed to the fuel rail as a warmer), which then subsequently sold the idea to a racing team here in Australia. I'm pretty sure they shelved it.* Some years ago, I accidentally set naughty bits on fire while trying to cook Ramen. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | paraschopra: * I don't brag |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | duck: And I thought developers don't brag... |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | wdewind: I didn't read the word "Examples:" for a second and thought those were all your accomplishments until I read [Insert Title]. Was about to just quit and go home lol. |
Review my app: BlogRadio | tirrellp: Thanks for the input |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | The_Plague: I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've see C-Beams glitter in the dark by the Tannhauser gate. |
Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | mnml_: Playframework is just great.. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | petervandijck: I remember having a list of things I wanted to achieve when I was younger. Let's see:- Win the nobel prize. (not yet)- Write a book. (done)- Travel the world (not totally done, but I live in South America now)- Be Time magazine's man of the year (it's a bit of a cop-out, but done: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00....)- Have my face on a stamp (not done, but that's easy these days)Looking back, I was probably lacking ambition there, too focused on achievements that display what others think of me. Maybe I should make a new list. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | mdg: I used to shoot hoops with MJ |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | philh: When I was thirteen or so, I got a job offer for independently inventing AJAX. Everywhere I looked at the time said you couldn't read data from the server using Javascript, but I realised that if you opened a new window to a separate page it could be done.I didn't take it anywhere, and later (after people discovered xmlhttprequest) I learned that even at the time I could have used an iframe, which would have been nicer. I assume people were doing that before I made my discovery, but I don't know for sure. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Freebytes: It is sad that when thinking of my own achievements, I first tend to evaluate my 'virtual accomplishments'. These are tasks related to programming, design, etc. that have no actual existence in the real world. These are related to creativity. However, when referring to real life, I have nothing to mention that is not common. There is nothing real that makes me anything more than normal. I guess that is what draws me to the creative world that exists in my own mind... because there I can accomplish a lot without interference from the real world. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | drtse4: Mandatory up-vote. This could become one of the best thread on hn ever. Nice idea niqolas. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | b3b0p: My dad was responsible for the blue diamond marshmallow in Lucky Charms.As for myself, I have zero debt, no outstanding loans at all, including no car payment and no mortgage. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | aaronz3: Two chicks at the same time!</e-peen> |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | pnelly: I once kicked a tin foil sandwich wrapper into a bin on the street from my hands at about a 10 foot distance without losing a step. Unfortunately nobody witnessed the most glorious moment of my life, and I looked around with massive futility to find someone who actually noticed. The moment after my most glorious moment thus became my least glorious moment. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | mbenjaminsmith: * was a guitar prodigy in my teens* almost got booted from college for publishing the president's dirty laundry on Paul Schrader's dime* had 3 top 40 songs with my band on the radio (alt top 40)* founded a pr agency at 26* had my own newspaper column before 30* got a client 25 minutes on cnn int (valued at 6 million us)* was the first to publicly attack the junta after the coup in thailand in 2006* was interviewed on live tv for an hour without a script (hellish)* taught myself a handful of computer languages and secured early funding for an internet startup* got to brag about it all on hn =) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | jgrahamc: Whether you consider these things amazing is up to you, but I'm happy about them.* I obtained a government apology for the mistreatment of Alan Turing* I wrote an original book* I went to Oxford after my state school told me I wasn't up to it, I stayed and did a doctorate there* I learnt to swim when I was 21* I learnt to speak French fluently as an adult |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | moollaza: * Grade 9 (age 14) I Raised $3500 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation (Fighting Aids in Africa), I was the 2nd highest fundraiser (A gr.12 beat my be $50) But b/c of our fundraising we (the Gr.12 girl and I) got to hand Stephen Lewis (the United Nations' special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa) a giant cheque for $40,000* My parents are from South Africa, emigrated to Canada during Apartheid, and my relatives were good friends of Nelson Mandela's and played relatively important roles in the Anti-Apartheid movement. While imprisoned on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela wrote a letter (or two) to my Great Aunt. There's a copy in a biography I read. I believe he also went to at least one of her birthday parties. Later, when he was in Toronto (1998) I got to meet him, and sing ABC' and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with him (I was 7 @ the time)* My great uncle used to work with Mahatma Ghandi, when they were both lawyers in India. There are pictures somewhere in India's archives of them together.* Last week while in the grocery store with my dad, a woman near us yelled that the guy running stole her purse. Myself and another guy immediately ran after him (another guy joined us on the way) and we chased the culprit into the parking lot. He gave up and I sternly asked for the purse back, then I handed it to the lady and a bunch of people called the police. (I didn't want to brag about that one, but now seemed like a good opportunity) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | aaronz3: * Owned my own incorporated business at the age of 15 (Looking back, it was kindof dumb. It was essentially just freelancing with a shitload of paperwork attached). I dissolved it at 18 when I went to college.* Self taught every programming language I know (Started with BASIC, then JavaScript and PHP, did some windows programming in VB, then later VB.NET and now doing asp programming in C#. I've also toyed with Objective-C/C/C++)
I'm really impressed by some of the comments here. I've had a better understanding of these languages than most of my professors (which probably speaks more to the quality of my school than my programming ability) |
Review my app: BlogRadio | sjs382: Awesome page. Love it. An audio sample would be a great way to really show me how good the service is though :) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | edw519: I strongly believe in initiative, achievement, and success, but for some reason, I find this thread a little troubling. Not because it's bragging, but because it's seems to be mostly about "me me me". I'd rather hear people brag about what they've done for others.At the time I write this comment, most other comments are about "me".Noteable exceptions:- jgrahamc obtaining a government apology for the mistreatment of Alan Turing- AN447 paying off his parent's mortgage- patio11 saving a lifeGreat job, guys! You inspire me. (Apologies if I missed anyone.)As for me, I've done lots of cool stuff, but if I had to pick one thing to put on my tombstone, it would be, "He made his mother laugh when nothing else would." Everything else seems to pale in comparison. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Mc_Big_G: The first application I ever wrote, theoretically saved the company $10.2 million dollars.I was working as a systems administrator at a Big 3 automotive supplier and identified a gap in our million dollar production system. If we ever lost connectivity, the system would be useless and the off-line backup system was insufficient. Our contract stated that we could be charged $10,000 per minute for shutting down the plant. I wanted to learn how to program, so I wrote a backup app in perl.The electric company dug up our data lines and we lost communications for 18 hours. We tried using the backup system, but it could not keep up with production and we put the plant in jeopardy. My app, which was not in my job description to create and not supported by the company, ran production for 17 hours without errors in a complex automotive sequencing environment.I don't know that the Big 3 automotive company would have actually charged us $10 million dollars, but it would have easily been > 1 million.Raising 3 kids as a single father, among other personal accomplishments, by far trumps this achievement, but it doesn't sound as impressive on paper. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Femur: I create adventure. I leave slain dragons in my wake. I build monuments, plant flags, discover wonders, and lead armies.I sing duets, dance tangos, and play concertos.I cook banquets. I wheel, make deals, and strike bargains. I purchase fruit in large quantities. I partake and imbibe. I articulate, expound, and drive home the point. I maintain a strong moral fiber and act with integrity.I forge trails and bushwhack through jungles. When I am not walking, I am running. I sail and drive and fly and ride and crawl.I write encyclopaedias. I learn, study, forecast, ponder, and calculate. I know the answer. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | yourdaddotmom: My girlfriend and I never come less than 3 times each per fuck. Multiples are the best. If we are masturbating we can we can each come about 10 times in less than an hour. Go figure. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | wallflower: I think this is relevant to this (sometimes justified) accomplishment boasting here."A truly rich man is someone whose children runs into their arms even when they're empty""My daughter one time said... We were leaving church, like a church party. We were driving home, in the car.
And she didn't want to go home. She was like 3 or 4 at the time. I don't want to go to Mommy's house. I don't want go to Mia's house.OK, we'll go to Daddy's house. OK.We pulled into our house and she started freaking out crying. Why? She thought my house was the office.And that's when I realized I needed to start pulling back.To step it up, be a baller at home"- Josh James, founder of OmnitureFrom video originally posted by adammichaelc (I highly recommend the entire 1-hr video for inspiration and a kick-in-the-seat-of-your-pants)http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1164815 |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | borism: I've read this thread half-way trough :) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | zackattack: Sold my web app for 5 figures as a sophomore in college. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | jayair: I'm gonna brag about my co-founder @fanjiewang. This is what I filled out on our YC apps.* Co-starred in the film Air Hockey (2005), which was played at the opening ceremony of 2006 Air Hockey World Tournament hosted in Las Vegas (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2390531/).* Faculty upper year scholarship for University of Waterloo Computer Engineering '04 (for ranking 1st).* Finished 1st place in Sir Isaac Newton National Physics Competition '03.* Finished 1st place in American Computer Science League Competition '02.* Finished 1st place in Pascal National Mathematics Competition '00.* Broke the record for the fastest goal scored (3.57 s) in a group qualifier for the U17 World Cup while playing for the Chinese national soccer team '99.He has done quite a bit of stage work and he sings as well. Apart from being a really smart and talented guy he can work harder than anybody I know. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | thibaut_barrere: * I started programming computers at 6 and I still love them :)* I traveled all around the world in the french navy (http://carnet-escale.chez-alice.fr/JDA/escales/carte.JPG)* I left the french navy to do IT despite having a lifelong contract there* I'm about to move to the country-side with my family and bootstrap projects (that, I'm really proud of :-) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | avigdor: I lived and worked in Afghanistan, great country, guys. ^^ |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | pasbesoin: I initially opened this thread with trepidation, as I don't generally like bragging (from others or myself). However, I find myself quite enjoying the responses.It's reaffirming to read of these abilities and how they were NOT sidelined by mainstream or environmental pressures.I became friends in college with a fellow who is one of the brightest people I've ever met. And a great "explainer" and story-teller, to boot. His grades suffered at times, and he nearly left once or twice, because he was so simply and totally into his own interests (some very technical) as opposed to some of what was going on in the classes.Half his life some, particularly conventional people might call "a mess". On the other hand, he's an engineer on the CMS at CERN.As for myself, I was considered very bright, but struggled -- mostly with conventional social settings and also with very heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli. (E.g. I can't tune out neighboring noise; my brain doesn't filter it from my attention.). A couple of physical injuries with chronic after-effects sidelined me for a long time. (Injury I can deal with. Having no recourse against chronic symptoms is something else.)Nonetheless, I've had my moments. Such as pretty much single handedly converting a billion dollar cost accounting system from a hard coded legacy environment to instead interface with an underfunded SAP implementation.Pretty much ALL the inputs changed. Things were handed "over the wall" from the SAP implementation with no negotiation and very little in the way of instruction. No one taught me a thing nor provided me any tools or budget beyond my salary. The method proposed by "the other side" of the wall would not have worked at all. So, I rolled my own.It worked. It worked when raw, detailed order records replaced summary reports the manufacturing facilities used to provide (leaving me to processed multiple hundreds of MB of essentially raw data with product identifiers floating anywhere within a free form text field supporting any number of simultaneous and varying data points). It worked when headcount was reduced from four, for a while five, people down to just me.Not only did it work, it became much more accurate and full-proof.I like reading here how other people simply did things that were "impossible" or certainly not expected. And that it's not a matter of somehow placing oneself into some "abnormal state of being". It's who you are, and getting done what interests you and/or needs to be done.I still don't fit in to mainstream society. I burned out, hard-time, in my last job mostly fighting an environment of distraction and complacency. Reading other stories here provides a small boost; there are other people who "make it" being something other than conventional. And by "make it", I mean in their own eyes, as opposed to someone else's measure.Somehow, for me its been a difficult and necessary lesson that a lot of convention is a straight-jacket for bright people, and that criticism that is leveled against them is often hypocritical and self-serving even while it is espoused as being "for their good".P.S. Even when such criticism and suggestions are well meant, they may simply not fit. Trying too hard to please or accommodate the other person becomes self-destructive. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | zaphar: * I never graduated college but somehow ended up working for google* I survived and kept a roof over 3 kids and a wife while only making 10'000 one year. (in USA)
--- Did the same with 4-5 kids while technically homeless and out of work.* I'm raising 5 amazing children with an incredible wife* I've taught myself C, Java, Perl, PHP, ASP, Erlang, Lisp, HTML, CSS, Javascript* I'm a born again christian (Actually the thing I'm most proud of although I know not impressive to some, But it is a brag thread so I'm including it.) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | heed: I've done nothing. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | proexploit: * Bought my first house at 21 (Not outright, but I was the only one of my friends at the time near owning a home).* Skipped college and immediately started working full-time ... for myself. Nothing beats not having a boss to answer to.* Ranked a German company between #1-3 in Google.de for 19/20 very competitive keywords (Work I was proud of).* Web & print design for several top musicians (Work I was proud of too).I enjoyed reading all of you're accomplishments. Keep it up :) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | davewasthere: I've been locked up in a Russian prison while travelling. Met the local Mafioso. Ate great Borscht.Haven't seen a winter since 2006. I chase the sunshine around the world by doing mini-migrations to avoid the cold.I learn a little bit of the local tongue everywhere I go. Can say 'Thank you' in around 30 languages.I met up with my step-dad after 25 years of separation. An amazing guy and someone I definitely want to get to know better.My other great achievements are a work in progress though...EDIT: added a missed item |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | mixmax: * I've arranged big underground raves with international DJ's* I've successfully started a bar in Ibiza from scratch* I learnt PHP, javascript, SQL, CSS and HTML from scratch without any help* I hold three patents* I've done three startups* I survived an English boarding school* I bought a boat that I live on, which I've totally refurbished and redone without ever having had a screwdriver in my hand before.* I have been asked to star in a pornmovie, but declined* I've had a short but glorious career as a male stripper*I had fun doing all of it:-) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | kuldeep_kap: Trying to raise a start-up since last two years with a laptop, which is broken in the middle and I have to use a support each time when i work on it. Needless to say it's also a v v v very slow one. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | binarymax: Lived in and managed software teams in 3 different countries.Logged over 2000 offshore sailing miles.Learned to code when I was 7.Sold a work of art at auction when I was 8.Tied for 2nd place in a senior high national chess championship.Have survived 3 near-death experiences. |
What are the essential skills for a web developer? | ahmedaly: Hello,
Thank you all for your answers!I was asking about if I should learn frameworks like zend.. and if there is any other new tools, or skills that I should learn.Your answers helped me a lot, thank you all. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | sev: Not much compared to others here...* Won the Bank of America Computer Science award in high school.* Have only worked in my field of study and interest (comp sci)* Had a $20/hour job at age 18, which was my second job. First being one at $15/hour.* Two years later I asked for a 50% raise, got declined, quit, they came after me and they have been my client to this day.* I survived a horrible rip tide/current after accepting death without the help of a lifeguard.* Wrote the most efficient language generator based on a given grammar in discrete math class.* Taught myself enough about programming/servers/etc before college, that by the time college was over, it had taught me nothing new.* Know how to speak 2 languages fluently without an accent in either language. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | chegra84: * Taught myself pascal at 12 and many other languages since
* Skip a grade in primary school
* Got a 82(top 10 uni in UK) for MSc dissertation
* Discovered the British museum algorithm while meditating
* Sold tamarine balls when I was 5 for a quarter |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | japherwocky: I play in a band, and last night we posted our first youtube music video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-KbQv9qB9o |
What can you do with a "feature" for other's products? | pbhjpbhj: >What can one do with such ideas, except patent and try to market them to the most probably beneficiary?That's your answer though. Or if you're feeling benevolent you could just publish them. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | adrianscott: * Graduated university at age 16, Math PhD at age 20 (RPI)* Performed with New York City Ballet* Sang with Placido Domingo* Founding investor in Napster* Credited as a pioneer in social networking, founding
pioneering one in 2001, which heavily influenced Friendster which led to myspace, facebook etc.* Acted in Sundance Feature Film competition selection* Now doing next big thing, hehe ;) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | tirrellp: http://www.podblogr.com |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Qz: * I biked 5000+ miles across the US, in high school* I've traveled to 6 out of 7 continents* I've managed to stretch undergrad out into a seven year fiasco |
How many startups exist in the US? | CoryOndrejka: Lots of info at SBA: http://www.sba.govKey facts from http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf* 99.9% of all US businesses < 500 employees* 29.7 million total businesses in US* Approximately 600,000 new businesses start per year (and that number is relatively constant) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | jamesbritt: I played at CBGB. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | uptown: * Worked on the special effects of Starship Troopers.* Built an ecommerce site that has handled over $2 million in sales.* Went snorkeling with a couple of American actors in Australia during my honeymoon.* Ran the website for a non-profit film festival for the past 6 years bringing movies to a town that is about as far from Hollywood as you can get.* Currently working on two startups ... one funded, and one of my own. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | mo34: I invented walking and chewing gum at the same time |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | noodle: * standard "taught myself" a lot of various tech skills. i like to solve problems with an arduino where applicable.* had a brief career as a professional martial artist many years ago. you could also technically say that i was a professional magic: the gathering player, too.* i technically dismembered my left arm. it got better.* i'm not an olympian, but i know quite a few, including medal winners. on a related note, i train and compete on the higher levels of sport fencing, and used to do the same for other martial arts.* i'm working a full-time job, trying to bootstrap a startup, and working on writing a book.* my canonical bacon number is 3. non-canonical is 2. |
What do you think of my site 40hr Monkeys | ihumanable: I think, and I could be wrong, but it seems like there is a mistake in your markup.The Good Day link executes "javascript: rateUp(id);"
The Bad Day link executes "javascript: rateMiddle(id);"
And the LMAO link executes "javascript: rateDown(id);"This could be all well and good, it just seemed odd to me.Otherwise I like this site, might have to waste some time there. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | davidedicillo: * keep trying |
Founders from Non-IT/Programming Backgrounds | pascalchristian: Wow, I did not read this, I just started a thread very similar to this one. I am a self-taught coder myself, and since I dont live in Sillicon valley, I really wonder how is the attitude to non-tech founder in valley? From what I read in HN it seems that PG hates them with passion; how bout other early stage investors/VCs? |
How can a non-technical/non-CS graduate enter the high tech business? | djb_hackernews: You have to ask yourself what a CS degree would make different. You have an idea, you have a prototype. That should be enough for angel funding or recruiting a more technical co-founder.Also, a pet peeve of mine is when people call their programming code "a code". My poem isn't as pretty when compared to a words written by a guy that is related to Shakespeare. |
How can a non-technical/non-CS graduate enter the high tech business? | fjabre: Definitely not.. I have a CS degree myself but some of the best coders/entrepreneurs I know did not get a CS degree.. I might add that it's more important to understand what the technology is capable of than how to make it work. You can always find someone to help you make it work later on after you've fleshed out your idea.Excessive education seems to be at odds with a lot of successful entrepreneurs.. If anything, going back to school to get a CS degree will just slow you down. I'd dive in head first. I think the best entrepreneurs are doers and not passive learners.Build to learn, don't learn to build as the saying goes. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | jarsj: - I quit Google after hearing Steve Jobs Speak.- I won an IBM thinkpad from IBM.- I wrote a program that could sing.- I was slapped by a girl at the streets of Kolkata for wishing her good night. I was drunk.- I am doing what I love. |
How can a non-technical/non-CS graduate enter the high tech business? | samratjp: It helps to have a CS background, but you can still thrive. I was in your position a few years ago, but I had enough time in college left to get a CS degree.Some thoughts:
1) You develop a deeper appreciation for the "simple" stuff.
It's like this: you turn a wheel around slowly to study its intricacies, appreciate its design, see the structure of the spokes, etc. Now, when that wheel is in high motion, you can thoroughly appreciate the motion and the wheel. So, yes, a CS/engg degree may help you in this respect.2) Pair/peer programming. You can learn so much from observing a good coder at work. Even more importantly, get a big picture idea of data structures and algorithms even if you don't understand it completely. Ask your CS friends to explain it to you. Now, explain what you learned to your non-CS friends. Teaching someone else forces you to get to the core of a problem/question.3) Funny thing about code prettiness. Share your code on Git Hub and ask your friends for comments. Or pick a simple open source project and write your own code. Then, compare it with the source and see how you could have refactored it.4) Repeat 1-3.Well, it seems as if you are comfortable enough with yourself to admit your true capacity. So, go out there and find yourself a technical co-founder someone smarter than you. Chances are very likely that you don't necessarily need to know how to write a kernel, nor does your co-founder. The only thing that matters is that you are smart enough to figure things out and aren't afraid of reaching out to people who do AND can point you in the right direction.Well, if nothing works from above, sometimes it's just better to stick with something you are working on and iterate. Whether that sticking to maybe your startup software framework or improving your prototype, just start with the fundamentals and iterate! |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | benologist: * I've traveled to several continents* I've seen the olympics on TV* I've built a start-up from scratch and it's indexed by Google* I use consumer eletronic devices used by over 10m* I've watched feature length motion pictures [Many Titles]* I've had a lot of funny life experiences* I've seen pictures of Vladimir Putin |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | dnsworks: * I rented out a warehouse, filled it up with 1/2 dozen hackers and musicians, built some bedrooms, a stage, a sound system, a recording booth, a server closet, got a fractional T3 installed, and threw bi parties which covered 60-70% of our rent, essentially lived rent free for three years.* Built an application hosting & management firm with 4 employees and $1m+/year of gross-revenue, sold my half of it earlier this year* Worked as the only production sysadmin at Napster before the $100m investment, left shortly afterwards.* Once bought Joey Ramone a beer at CBGBs and spent an evening talking with him, a year or so before he died. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | darkxanthos: * Wrote a 30 day blog that was read by thousands of people and inspired many (several of whom saw fit to befriend me on Facebook)* Work full time as a software engineer with a 6 figure income without having gone to college.* Organizing the Seattle Alt.NET Conference for 2010 (looking to be around a 100 person conference this year)* Was accepted into a class for gifted students in elementary school.* Had a highschool reading level in 1st grade.* I've never known how it feels to not be able to learn something. |
What Unit Testing Framework do you use for C? | nwjsmith: I use minunit. It's _very_ simple (only 3 lines of code), but it get's the job done.http://www.jera.com/techinfo/jtns/jtn002.html |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | drawkbox: I was pleasantly surprised when after 2 yrs in the game industry (promo games industry before that) and my first lead development role was on ESPN X Games SnoCross for 2XL Games and ESPN which just happened to be the first game shown on the iPad on Jan. 27th, 2010, up on stage by Scott Forstall.We had no idea they were showing it and I was just watching the keynote and was blown away. So in short I was lead developer of the first game shown on the iPad publicly.http://wireless.ign.com/articles/106/1064149p1.html |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | matwood: * I was the computer science grad student of the year back when I was in grad school* I am a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon http://upe.acm.org/* I've been to Tokyo and competed in the web service composition challenge* I have climbed 2 out of Colorados 53 14ers so far. My goal is all 53 in CO and then the North American continent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteener* I have surfed big waves in Costa Rica |
One startup at a time? | pascalchristian: I think you should look at the problem as an investor: which startup has the best idea/product/market-fit/potential? |
What Unit Testing Framework do you use for C? | audidude: I love the g_test_* stuff in libglib. It can handle various types of tests (slow, fast, perf, etc). Runs them in sub processes. Generates reports. Easy to use. I also love the assertion helpers included for easy readability of the errors.Docs: http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/glib-Testing.html
Example: http://github.com/chergert/gdatetime/blob/master/gdatetime-t... |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | noonespecial: I single handedly posted a submission on HN that will allow me to identify the most HN users of any post ever! :) |
How can a non-technical/non-CS graduate enter the high tech business? | ig1: How pretty your code is has little to no impact on how successful you will be.All of my early projects were horrendous code-wise. Nevertheless they included a game with a decent number of installs (>250k) and one of the biggest social networking app websites (this was pre-facebook era so only ~300k users). The later was a huge mess hacked together in php full of global variables and flat files.Keep coding, keep learning and find a co-founder. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | abrown28: I've successfully conditioned every manager I've ever worked for to accept rolling in around 10:30 as normal. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | VonGuard: * I've met the following videogaming luminaries: Shigeru Miyamoto, Alexey Pajitnov, Ralph Baer, Al Alcorn, Nolan Bushnell, Stephen "Slug" Russell, and Steve Jackson.* I found unreleased Atari and Colecovision games at a flea market in 2008 on bare EPROMs.* My writing has been used to teach at Harvard, yet I flunked out of college. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | rokhayakebe: I infiltrated HN. For almost 2 years I was part of the top 100. I am not technical.I have lived 13 years within a 5-minute-walking distance from the beach. I still can't swim, but I always go deep.I was a bartender in a private club and got to mix drinks for several individuals. I met Senators, actors, tech founders, multinational executives daily. I missed Angelina Jolie one afternoon by 10 minutes because I decided to go home 10 minutes earlier. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | iamwil: I never really feel like I've done anything, but here's some moments of personal accomplishment: * drew a weekly comic strip that published online during college.
* discovered a corner detection algorithm using radon transforms.
* built operational sensor networks for the military. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | faramarz: I paid a large portion of my tuition by building 4 of the University Department websites. UofT is Canada's biggest university.It was nice to pay them with their own money :P |
Is this a scalable idea? | 8plot: I've had similar conversations with colleagues. I love the idea and hope to someday try it.One method I like is to use a simple agile/scrum type project where the product backlog is crowdsourced. |
Is this a scalable idea? | rglullis: What you are describing is not too different from micropledge, a company that was one of the first to be funded by YC. The largest differences I see is that you want to have your group of technical people defined a priori, while micropledge was more of a buyer/seller market.Finding out what happened to them is left as an exercise to the reader. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | JangoSteve: I wasn't going to, but reading a few of these inspired me... then reading a few more depressed me (mine aren't so glamorous), but I'll do it anyway.* helped my mother raise my brother and me. This past New Year, I was able to fly my brother up to live with me for a week, showing him what you can accomplish with hard work and dedication.* wrote an essay that received a comment saying that the post had helped the commenter overcome something he had been struggling with through years of therapy and self-doubt.* overturned our high school's regulation that allows only seniors to take classes at the university.* taught myself Calc 2 in high school and got a perfect score on the AP exam; my best friend and I were the first people at my school to get above a 4 on any AP Calc exam. I didn't consider this a great accomplishment until I ran into my old HS math teacher a few years back and learned that she now tells our story to all of her Calc students to motivate them.* started a rock band in college, played some really cool venues, did one show with a band that now gets airplay on Sirius XM, and won a few competitions.* landed a girlfriend (of 2 years now) who is out of my league.But I think my greatest accomplishment is that I seem to have made my parents proud. |
Is this a scalable idea? | lauken: Here is an example of an attempt.
http://www.cambrianhouse.com/ |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | wlievens: Wow, after reading through this thread I'm pretty impressed with some of the folks here.As for me:* I worked on software that was used to design a small part of one of the sexiest consumer electronics products in the world.* I built a browser game five years ago that's stil running, with a few hundred active players. |
Is this a scalable idea? | keefe: elance.com?
After you assemble your star team, why not carefully select profitable projects instead? The team probably costs you $50K-$100K per month. It seems that a more typical consulting or product business would be more profitable. |
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