instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | frankus: This all sounds kind of lame compared to the other comments, but you asked:- Converted a car to electric drive when I was 20- Was a contestant on a reality show pilot that aired on Discovery- Built a motorized rotisserie out of two old bicycles to cook ~100lb of lamb for my friend's wedding- Built a weight-controlled electric longboard (3wdm.blogspot.com)- Built my own Mazda 323 GT-R (not sold in the US) out of imported parts and a US-spec AWD Protege- Gutted and renovated a 1914 house, including all wiring, plumbing and heating, not to mention stripping eight layers of paint off of every last bit of the original woodwork and windows.Although countless other people have done it before me, I most proud of the last one. A project like that completely takes over your life. I was working to the point of complete exhaustion on it during every moment that I wasn't at my day job for well over a year. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | patrickk: Hacker News > Lists > Most Active Theads > "Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)"187 Comments in 9 hourshaha I guess everyone's favourite subject ultimately is themselves |
Linode servers not responding. Is anyone else having issues? | gamache: My vps in the Newark facility is cruising along just fine. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | razerbeans: * Good friends with the man who was the head of the Missile Intelligence Agency during the Cuban missile crisis. He also worked with Von Braun on the Saturn V rocket. (Interesting story, by the way.)* Turned down a potential offer to Westpoint.* Achieved the 99th percentile in Standford Achievement Test every year I took it (5 years), each in different subjects. However, I don't have the grades to support it.* Touched the Stanley Cup.* Learned PHP when I was 13. C, C++, Java, etc. came soon after.* I'm a programmer by trade, but I am going to school for management.* I've recently become friends with several of my childhood heroes. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | RiderOfGiraffes: Strange life experience: I've juggled 5 balls on the flight deck of a 747 while 35000 feet in the air over India. |
Best technology for web development | hoffmabc: Javascript. Learn it asap. HTML obviously and then use what you know already for SQL and Java/C++ to code the backend. You already have a lot of the framework for it having done application development. |
Best technology for web development | patrickk: Not sure of your level of knowledge, but the LAMP stack is a good place to start.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle)For the scripting language, you won't go far wrong with Ruby on Rails (pleasure to use) instead of PHP (potentially heartbreaking).Also, it's considered good etiquette to have your basic research done before posting help requests on forums, saying things like "save the effort of looking them all up" smacks of laziness, fyi. It's not like a Google search can be compared to running a marathon or something!Hope that helps. |
How do I get the word out on my data mining report | kalendae: thanks guys i kinda gave up after seeing no comments at first, but im glad i checked back. I will write several versions of it as articles and hopefully it will be worthy of showing up somewhere. |
Best technology for web development | Roridge: If you have Java experience it is a small jump to JavaEE technologies.Check out Servlets and JSP technology. It's bascially the same as LAMP but with a J instead of a P (and often a T instead or as well as an A). |
Is this a scalable idea? | Roridge: You don't need to assemble the team.You can build a web site as a one or two person company, and the idea with enough traction you out source each part to oDesk or similar (as your team of technical people). |
Linode servers not responding. Is anyone else having issues? | Travis: My dallas VPS seems fine. |
Linode servers not responding. Is anyone else having issues? | commx: You may wish to open a support ticket for assistance if you're experiencing issues. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | chrischen: * I used to take shits in an outhouse and swim in the river where that same shit was dumped in. Though I didn't do this for long--eventually we got a toilet.* Appear in the background in a movie scene with Judd Nelson (John Bender from the Breakfast Club). |
Where to stay in San Francisco? | ochiba: There's a lot of good info in these old threadshttp://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t... |
Is this a scalable idea? | apsurd: Your model makes the assumption that "people of the world submit ideas" and "vote". Gaining a userbase, even nonpaying, is at minimum - half the battle. |
Where to stay in San Francisco? | _delirium: While it's possible to stay in San Francisco, the YC stuff is all in Mountain View, I believe, which is about an hour away from SF by car or train. It's also cheaper to stay in Mountain View or elsewhere in the Valley than in SF. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | Mz: I kind of feel like no one here will care/be able to relate, but these are some of the things I am proud of:* I graduated high school as STAR student and a national merit scholarship winner -- while missing 18 or 19 days of school every year and dragging myself to school sick much of the rest of the time and also being called "lazy" and told I "wasn't really sick". (I wasn't diagnosed with CF until I was almost 36.)* I was also inducted into Mu Alpha Theta in 11th grade (the earliest you can be) and was state alternate for the Governor's Honors program in the subject of Journalism.* I have a 22 year old son with cystic fibrosis who has not been on antibiotics in 12 years and has needed no medication at all in 3 years or so.* My sons and I live without a car and walking is our primary mode of transit, in spite of two of us having CF which means we are supposed to be deathly ill.* My divorce was amicable in spite of my family background. (In contrast, when my two siblings got divorced, their spouses made attempts on their lives.)* As of last summer, I am drug free, having gotten off about 8 or 9 prescription drugs and then gotten off the OTC drugs that replaced them.* I genuinely like men, as friends and lovers, in spite of having the kind of childhood that tends to produce women with multiple personality disorder.* I am the one who decided to get divorced, not my husband, even though I was deathly ill at the time and had been a homemaker almost my entire adult life.* Now that I am basically well for the first time in my life, I think my best years are ahead of me, not behind me. I'm 44. :-) |
Where to stay in San Francisco? | mschaecher: check out YC funded Airbnb |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | vusal-zeynalov: * I know 7 languages. (5 of them I speak perfect)* Everyday I read 300 pages (book & articles) of writings, and scan (eye scanning) 300-400 articles online. Pro day.* Now I study my second university. First was 6 years medicine, second is also medicine, I am in 4th semester and I am 23 now.* I went 5 years to piano school.* I went 2 years to painting school.* While I study medicine, I learned graphic design and it's already 5 years that I work as a graphic designer in a very big design firm.* While studying medicine I've learned myself - Marketing* I was born in USSR and now I found myself in Germany.* In 2003 I became a muslim.* After 3 month I am planning to start a startup.I saw that HN people are so SMART! so great brains in one place. wow. |
One startup at a time? | Mz: A) I would be concerned that the one with all the money will turn out to be a lot better at raising money than at creating something. In the long run, you cannot borrow your way out of debt. So if they can't produce something, they would eventually go bankrupt.B) If at all possible, in the same situation, I would try to spend a little time on each one and see if I could learn enough from each of them to figure out what is 'wrong' with each and try to make a more viable go of whichever one seems best for me. They sound like each one has done one piece of it well and not the other. It sounds like a unique opportunity to experience the two things first-hand and grow a unique knowledge-base, out of which something really viable is much more likely to be born in the future. |
Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | daveturner: Have you taken a look at another Java-based framework www.scooterframework.com? All your experiences in Rails can be found there: ActiveRecord, associations, routes, named sql queries, i18n, ajax, etc. I particularly like the one-click routes link. I think Scooter's routes which is based on Rails is much better. Also I like Scooter's ActiveRecord over Play's JPA. I just cannot tolerate annotations polluting my Java class everywhere. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | jacquesm: Built an off the grid house. |
Who's hiring? (march 2010) | pjharrin: I think this happens every 90 days, the last one was 41 days ago |
Who's hiring? (march 2010) | macros: We currently have 7 positions open in San Francisco in technical, community, and product roles.http://www.wikia.com/Hiring |
How do you evaluate a lawyer? | pinksoda: If it's a US or Canadian lawyer try searching for their name on http://www.talkburst.com/ - anyone with a name can be reviewed now. |
How do you handle battle between self-doubt and hope/persistence? | anigbrowl: Set goals and triggers (warnings) on different timeframes and levels. Not too many, so you are able to keep track of them mentally and don't spend much time administering your list. Get advice from friends and/or your romantic partner (if you're in a serious relationship) about what should be on that list. Have good friends who will encourage and applaud your progress, and some close ones you can share problems with and who'll tell you if you're driving into the ditch. I have a shrink I go to occasionally and it's good to have someone you can speak to with total unabashed honesty, and who will ask questions or notice things about your thinking patterns that may not even occur to others. A good attorney can fulfill a similar function for some people.Have a safety valve and an anchor, too. Could be a place you go or an activity that lets you reboot mentally when you're having a particularly difficult time, or some obligation or giving-back to acknowledge your good fortune when you find yourself feeling cocky. Church or a community activity fill these roles for some people.Finally, have an escape hatch. Have some place you can take off to for alone time and an excuse for why you will not be available to anyone, because when you go there you disable your phone etc. There are times you need to stop talking, stop planning, stop thinking and just be. To quote an old Zen proverb, if your cup is too full of your thoughts and ideas, there is no room left to pour in new ones. So empty your cup from time to time. |
How to datamine grocery stores? | Kliment: Grocery store websites tend to show very, very little of inventory. The typical grocery store considers the data a trade secret, and are unlikely to tell you if you ask. You could walk around the store with a camera mounted to your hat (seriously) and then work from the images. You are more likely to get data from smaller stores than from big chains, but they tend to have less accurate data (weekly inventory rather than real-time). But I don't know if you will get far without the big stores. If they notice you gathering data they may get suspicious.One trick would be to ask people to upload receipts from stores. Then you work from the product listing on the receipt. This will tell you where people are buying things also, in the sense of "Store X is where most people in this area buy product Y." Think about it, this might be the easiest way. |
How do you evaluate a lawyer? | bragen: It's really tough if you aren't one (probably akin to the often-mentioned difficulty non-technical folks have evaluating programmers).But there are a few places to start. First, Martindale-Hubbell is a respected reviewer of legal talent and provides ratings.Second, if your lawyer happens to be a "SuperLawyer" you're probably in good hands. SuperLawyers represent the top 5% of a given field as voted by their peers.Hope that gets you started. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | marcamillion: Not that this is something to 'Brag' about:I died at age 5/6 (am now 26)...well...technically I had a cardiac arrest and my heart stopped beating for 15 - 20 minutes. |
Blog options and experiences? | jarsj: I wonder what no comments from last 7 hours mean, either people here are bored of blogging or answers to your questions are too obvious. |
How to datamine grocery stores? | Predictor: I wonder how many receipts could be acquired from the ground or garbage cans outside the store? It would be a biased sample, possibly, but it is hard data and free of cost. |
How to datamine grocery stores? | ig1: Tesco offers an API (still in beta until later this year), although it's poorly documented and all the examples are in Microsoft languages... |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | fara: I brew my own beer |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | peterwwillis: * I've been to 5 high schools
* Went through 9th grade twice
* Dropped out of school entirely
* Self-taught everything I know about computers and technology
* Work for a large media company doing the job I set out to do for a decent wage
Technically i've achieved all the [other] goals I set out for myself as a kid. Time for some new goals...* Not that this is impressive, but finally began working out 5 months ago and continue to stick to it 4 days a week. This is the longest i've stuck to anything besides a job/relationship and I am in the best shape of my life. |
MySQL expert anyone? | lsc: Each item on this list is largely unrelated to the others.1. turn on your 'slow queries' log. read it. tune it down so that it becomes more sensitive.1.5 add indexes. use 'explain' to figure out what is slow about your slow queries. Indexes can quite often make those things less slow.2. buy more ram. Buy a dedicated server if you have to. This is cheaper than you think. Make sure you replicate it somewhere, of course. Ram is many orders of magnitude faster than disk. Many, many problems just go away with the application of sufficient ram.3. if your load is mostly read-only, replicate up a few read-only slaves. (when I setup webapps, I connect to two different database servers; a readonly and a read-write. At first, I point the dns records at the same server, but this makes it easier to split when performance requires it.) |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | toddt: * I was hit by a bus while walking on the sidewalk in Brazil* I'm a scratch golfer* I speak portuguese and spanish fluentlyAfter reading some of these I feel that I haven't done much with my life :( |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | jokull: This has just been posted on HNhttp://msgpack.sourceforge.net/Make sure you benchmark simple JSON. It might be enough. |
Using vague metaphors as job requirements | yesbabyyes: I would assume that the people you would be working for are kind of corny, FWIW. |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | jbooth: Check out Avro, too. With both Protocol Buffers and Thrift, it's really hard to evolve schemas because you won't be able to read data written with an earlier version of the schema. Avro has the speed of binary while being flexible enough to read older data with later versions of the schema. |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | pwpwp: If your data layout is fairly static, PBs are good.What I did for an app was encode a kind of JSON in PBs:http://pwpwp.blogspot.com/2009/08/storing-json-as-protocol-b... |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | egb: * I wrote WebRPG back in the Java 1.1 days, with a very thin distributed object graph for all communications, and it mostly worked :-)A highlight of that experience was having Gary Gygax hang out in our booth at GenCon - http://web.archive.org/web/19980205004902/www.webrpg.com/?li... |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | nekopa: Wow, I now have to upgrade all my goals :) As I always find myself becoming a teacher no matter what job I do (I finally gave in and am now an English teacher) my proudest moment was during my technical training for the US Air Force as an enlisted man (Computer maintenance and telephone systems engineer, which I went for because I had always been a 'software guy' so this allowed me to play with big iron):
During our basic electronics training segment our lecturer took off sick and so we had a substitute teacher who was trying to use the original teachers notes, but knew nothing about the subject. After 2 classes of confusion, I offered to take over the class and taught it for the remainder of the 2 weeks. The best part was that it was the only segment of the whole course where everyone scored +90% on the final. |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | MichaelGG: We were using .NET's WCF messaging system, but wanted a faster/smaller format. http://code.google.com/p/protobuf-net/ let us keep our code the same, while using protobuf for the wire format. Worked quite well.Another approach to consider is using a text format (XML, JSON), then running it through fast compression like QuickLZ. This has the benefit of not having to change the program much more than a call to compress/decompress. |
Blog options and experiences? | imp: Yeah, I think other forums might be better suited for talking about blogging in general. Here are previous discussions about blogging platforms on HN:http://www.google.com/search?q=blogging+platform+site:news.y...For my two cents, I've been using Wordpress a lot, but I'm currently working on switching to custom blog software because of the continuous security problems with Wordpress. |
Blog options and experiences? | adrianscott: I am now using posterous (even though I'm not blogging heavily). I can have a domain name working with it, multiple blogs from one account, I can set up a favicon, and more. I like their approach better than wordpress.com, and I'd rather focus on other tasks than set up my own wordpress install, adding plugins etc. |
Books to get started on Angel Investment | gyardley: The Definitive Guide to Raising Money from Angels, by Bill Payne. http://billpayne.com/definitiveguide.htmlYes, the site looks like godawful direct marketing spam and yes, it's written for entrepreneurs looking to raise from angels. But there's a ton of useful info in here about 'how angels work'.EDIT: There's some weird pricing tests going on on Bill's site - try this URL for the same product, potentially cheaper: http://billpayne.com/get-angel-money |
Using vague metaphors as job requirements | coryl: Copy written like that are probably from younger companies/startups with less care for rules and being formal. They're just describing the type of people they want and are looking for. Nobody wants someone "proficient in CSS", "experienced with PHP". If the applicant is uncomfortable describing themselves as wizards/rockstars, they're probably unqualified for the position, right? |
Legal advice for Web developer | hga: I don't know UK law, but passing a bad check is certainly illegal in the US and would give you immense leverage against him, at least to prevent the lawsuit. But I'm pretty sure you have to be careful in using that (i.e. talk to a solicitor before making any threats WRT to criminal prosecution).On the other hand, if he can't afford to pay you, how could he possibly afford the costs of a lawsuit, especially in a loser pays jurisdiction?(We in the US quaintly call this the British Rule, but it's really the Rest of the World Rule.) |
Copy protection? | hga: If you're serious and "cost is no object", you probably want something dongle based: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle#Copy_protectionNote that the objective probably isn't something you can't break, but something that raises the bar high enough it's not worth it for any/many of your customers to pay someone to break. |
Using vague metaphors as job requirements | tiffani: I don't see anything wrong with it if you actually know what all that (being a supposed "rockstar" in a field) entails. It only annoys me when I hear it thrown around in general conversation by folks who have no clue what a "insert-programming-language-or-framework-or-markup-language here" rockstar really is and they're just tossing it around because they've heard somebody else say it.> "Is this a by-product of a job market so oversaturated with incompetence that the employers must resort to extremes to make sure only people with real talent apply"I think it might be. I figure folks would still just ask for an "expert" in a job description if that concept hadn't been taken up by a bunch of folks that aren't (in fields everywhere--not just writing code). |
Copy protection? | fragmede: Depending on how much 'cost is no object', hardware dongle's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle) are very much still used for copy protection on larger, professional software packages. http://www.safenet-inc.com/ and http://www.marx.com/ are two that I know of.Another method I've seen is to lock the software down to a particular hardware instance. In this method, the customer has to run a program on the computer that the program will be installed to, which grabs all sorts of unique things, like MAC address of any network devices, hard drive serial numbers, etc. The customer then sends the resulting info file back and a unique unlock key is generated.But at the root of it, the protection is still done in software, which is very much still crackable to a skilled enough attacker. But for software you cannot download from the internet without a company provided password, skilled attackers are harder to come by. Compare that to something like winzip which was used as a teaching tool for how to write cracks. |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | JoelPM: Protos will work fine. Thrift will also work fine. ________ (insert other binary format) will also work fine.As long as there are libraries for the languages you're using it's not a big deal. I'd recommend solving the problem and moving on - in the serialization format wars the real victim is productivity. |
How do you do your Market Research? | bgnm2000: I used to use my schools' database connections, but lost them upon graduation. Oh the joys of being an adult. |
Review my FB app, Photo Memories | coryl: Clickable: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=384777439272... |
Legal advice for Web developer | nudge: For the love of god, talk to a real lawyer, not HN! You might be able to get the advice free at the citizen's advice bureau. Or try direct.gov.uk, maybe.Out of interest, is it as crazy as you make out or does he have some way of presenting these events so as to make it seem like he might not be totally insane? For the court, I mean. |
Experience with Protocol Buffers | joeld42: I've used this for some projects, with much success. In one case I used it as a data interchange format between a C++ app an some Python utilities. It worked very well for that and the generated API's were easy to work with, albiet a bit bulky.In another case, more of an experiment, I used them to serialize game data and sent it using enet. This proved very flexible and easy to change/add things, and the packets were extremely compact.Pros:* Read/Write access to data from C++ or Python* Generated API's were easy to work with* Very compact representation* Ascii-dump version very useful for debugging* More error checking than something like json (i.e. it tells you if you leave out a required field)Cons:* Adds some build steps, can be more of a headache to maintain (compared to json or something)* API can't parse ascii version, bad for config data or other stuff that might want to be human readable (vs. xml or json)* Generally requires copying your data into the protobuf struct, and then packing, rather than going straight from your "native" format into a packed buffer.* Adds a bit more complexity* Not as lightweight as jsonFor what you're doing, I would recommend them.They're great for "structure" style data, a little weird for array-style. For example, one of the things I was storing was a 4x4 matrix, and I resorted to making a struct with 16 members such as m_00, m_01, etc.. which worked fine and it stored it compactly but was a little weird. I don't think there's a way to have a float[16] or something like that. I could be wrong, maybe there's a better way to do this.Generally, these days i use one of three formats. I am very happy to have outgrown xml.protobuf -- for hierarchical, nested data, if it needs to be compact and accessed from different languagesJSON -- for quick and dirty stuff, when format needs to be flexible (or when i need to use javascript)GTO -- for large sets of structured data. (www.opengto.org) |
How do you recommend getting a basic understanding of the law? | mikecane: Both the Copyright Office and Patent Office have sites that can give you the 101.http://www.copyright.gov/
http://www.uspto.gov/If you are ever thinking of living in the U.S., especially in NYC, then there's a whole set of laws you should understand regarding the rights of tenants, if you rent:http://www.tenant.net/Note that NYC tenant law is not transferable to other cities. The laws exist as they do due to several distortions, both by gov't and the market. |
How do you recommend getting a basic understanding of the law? | timwiseman: Particularly on laws regarding the internet you may want to look at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/about/readings especially Free Culture by Lessig. |
How do you recommend getting a basic understanding of the law? | subud: Nolo press publishes a lot of good books for people who want to learn about various laws:http://www.nolo.com/ |
Review/Seed My First Web App | MrSafe: It's a simple app I built to help me prepare for programming interviews. This is a very early version but if people like the idea, I'll continue to develop it. |
How do you debug your rails applications? | jeffy: I use the Netbeans IDE debugger. It can get hung and crash your rails app if you put breakpoints in certain places, but it's pretty good for simple debugging. |
How do you debug your rails applications? | jrallison: the ruby-debug gem has always worked for me. |
How do you debug your rails applications? | seven: I use the ruby-debug gem.Quote from a co-worker: "If you need to use a debugger, your code is too complicated. :)" |
Review/Seed My First Web App | keefe: down site is down :[ |
Using vague metaphors as job requirements | ploppybob: I read that kind of thing as "only those suffering from severe Dunning-Kruger syndrome need apply". |
Durable Earphones Wanted | anigbrowl: Sony MDR-7506 for about $100. I have over a decade's experience as a professional sound engineer, score in the 98th percentile in clinical audiology tests, and use >$2000 microphones. All other headphones are junk.Also, noise-cancelling headphones are a tool of the devil. Consumer earbuds were invented by one of his minions. If you own a pair, sell them or better yet throw them away. |
Durable Earphones Wanted | chris11: Unfortunately, I can't really help you with a decent pair. I too go through headphones really fast.But if you don't care about quality, I'd suggest that you buy a really cheap pair. I am currently using a $4 dollar pair (eh 220 earhugger). Sound quality isn't great, but they work well for audiobooks and are okay for music. And $4 dollars is cheap enough that I don't care buying more once I break them. |
How do you evaluate a lawyer? | pseingatl: Look for a local firm that has an office overseas. Then, the local lawyer will be ultimately responsible for the work done there and you have recourse in case something goes wrong. Big law is pretty much fungible these days, there is really very little difference between one firm and another. If you have a contentious matter, it's a little bit different, but if you can you should try international arbitration rather than use the legal system of either country. |
Please review my side project | duck: It wasn't clear what was being compared until I tried to add an item and see that it is length. I would of assumed area based on the current design. |
Durable Earphones Wanted | brandonkm: I would check out the Bang & Olufsen A8 earphones. They run about $160, but the sound quality is amazing and they will last you a lifetime. |
Please review my side project | nzmsv: I'm really confused as to when the top/bottom item is replaced. |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | rick_2047: * I am the Webring master of IEEE student branch of my college. (first freshman to do so).* I am the webdev for the alumni committee of my college (the first freshman to do so).* A turn to man for circuitry for the robotics club.* Beat MTech Students in debates and Treasure Hunt in a recent techfest at our college.OK nothing glamorous in there but Just wanted to add something. |
Please review my side project | mattm: I like the font and layout. It's very slick. I'm not really sure of the purpose but it kept my attention for a few minutes trying to figure it out. I'm not sure how China is equal to only 1.03 Great Walls of China |
Review my FB app, Photo Memories | coryl: Dang, getting a review is tough. |
Where I can find the latest security exploits? | cperciva: Wrong sort of hacker. We build stuff people want, not break it. |
Online Video Speed Dating through Facebook | yesbabyyes: Something like http://faceroulette.net/ or http://apps.facebook.com/globeroulette/?None of them seem to have that mix of some selection, some chance that you suggest. |
Are you trying to steal my contacts? | eagleal: I couldn't find anything on the Clickpass (YCS07) website about the actual data accessed. Not mentioned on the privacy policy neither[1]. We should ask Clickpass or PG (he implemented it on HN).[1] http://www.clickpass.com/docs/privacy-policy#pp1 |
Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread) | herval: hah! No big feats to brag about here, but I'll join the game anyway :-)* started my first 'gig' translating books/magazines, printing them in a borrowed dot-matrix printer and selling around the town (at age 9). Also wrote original pieces about videogames and stuff (sold around 100-200 copies, heh)* got my first programming-related 'prize' at school (age 11): won a couple of books because of an RPG game I did in LOGO (self taught) for a science fair* rooted two ISPs back in the 90's - one by going through their garbage bins and finding password info, other by cold-calling at night and convincing the security guy to hand in some info. No harm done, but it was fun fun fun* founded and leaded a programming 'association' (PBJug, a Java User Group) - the first one in my hometown's region (now with 500 people signed up)* got a couple of articles published as reference material on PhD and Msc thesis of people I don't even know. I'm a college dropout, btw* had access to a lot of prototype mobile phones from two different makers. Now THAT's something to brag, for a gadget-addict* programmed an easter egg into a very popular mobile phone - you'd see me (and the rest of the dev team) by pressing 666# while in the file browser app. They've added easter eggs on new phones after that, to keep up with the 'tradition' fixed a bug in a finance system that saved 4mi euros from
one customer. Got a "thank's from noticing" from middle management and that was about it* went from nothing (born in a small town w/ a relatively poor family) to live and work abroad, in some very respected companies (IBM, Siemens and the like), despite everyone saying I was crazy for even trying.* went from working to high profile companies to starting up, despite everyone saying I was crazy for leaving those jobs behind* founded 4 companies so far, all on software (different areas - one still open, just starting the 4th one)* survived from death at least a dozen times: one from drowning at sea, one car crash, couple of very strong electric shocks, mugged (with a gun) twice, jumped into a pool with some electrical wire hanging on and almost drown/got electrocuted. Still alive and very proud of my nine-lives syndrome* travelled 100k miles in a single year* lost 40kg in 6 months* drove at 200km/h in a German highway. Priceless!* married an amazing woman and got the cutest dog on earth (named Frodo) :-) |
System administrator (to be or not to be) | hga: Yes. I got unceremoniously dumped out of my college path by finances after my freshman year and started out with a sysadmin job that eventually had some serious programming.Can't advise on the "how do i prove my worth", I found the job by networking and by virtue of being one of the very few at the time (1980) who knew UNIX well (at least at the user level) and was mentored/apprenticed for what I was lacking. |
Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | agentcurry: I ran across play a couple of months ago and I love it (wrote article on my initial thoughts back in Feb - http://www.agentcurry.com/2010/02/15/the-power-of-play).Like a couple other commenters, I come from the J2EE world and always found the MVC frameworks overkill for most non-enterprise apps (even some enterprise apps for that matter). I really like all the niceties they have integrated into Play. It's intuitive, easy to use and you can get something up and running fast (very fast). To get my feet wet I've created a URL shortener app. It's a pretty simple app, but has allowed me to explore and familiarize myself with the features of Play! It's been a great experience using Play! thus far; I've just started a more "robust" application using Play! and hope it continues to exceed expectations. |
Online Video Speed Dating through Facebook | marknutter: Sounds pretty awesome. I could get behind this. |
Is anyone doing any significant work with the play framework? | rufugee: Has anyone come to play from Rails (as I have)? Is there anything you miss from Rails? |
System administrator (to be or not to be) | hga: Here's another career possibility, given that you can program, but don't want to do that.(Note: DO NOT BECOME A SOFTWARE TESTER: No respect, no upwards career path to speak of, deadly boring. Only do this if starvation is the alternative.)Anyway, there's the specialty of software building. Someone needs to set things up so that developers can "push one button" and get the current system built (see the Joel Test). Many need help with version control/SCM and so on (and that has to be set up). And all these have to be maintained.This can also extend into system administration, someone has to set up their systems, in some cases they'll have a test machine with the latest version of foundational software that they're trying to work with or on top of, and someone else should maintain that and keep it up to date.(One of the disasters of Vista was how little time the programmers could spend on actually programming. Besides the usual, according to a Mini-Microsoft commentator, they'd have to spend about one day a week keeping their Vista test machine up to date.) |
Where I can find the latest security exploits? | hatchack: If you're really interested in security and not just looking for 1337 5ki11z, start here:http://www.google.comhttp://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1http://cve.mitre.org/ |
Please review my side project | roundsquare: The site is a bit confusing to use. The first thing I looked for was how to put in whatever items I wanted.How does the text box and the something random button work? Quite confused... |
Serious 2010's Ruby on Rails vs Django opinions? | tomkinstinch: There are still more Python libraries out there than there are Ruby libraries. |
Serious 2010's Ruby on Rails vs Django opinions? | mtarnovan: I don't know about Django, but take my advice and don't use Rails 3 just yet. It's not ready (for development mind you, albeit for production). |
Is this true? | gaius: Are you hiring a CTO or a sysadmin? |
Is this true? | ihodes: I think that's BS. While I'm not a professional as either, I do both and enjoy both – I didn't have the resources to hire my own sysadmin, but now I've found that I enjoy it. I think to enjoy doing either requires many of the same qualities: problem solving, patience, innovation, curiosity and vigilance.Then again, there are jaded "specialists" who don't dein to dabble in the "other" field, I'm sure. |
Is this true? | delano: That certainly used to be true for the most part. The lines have started to blur:http://jedi.be/blog/2010/02/12/what-is-this-devops-thing-any... |
Is this true? | jk4930: Mostly true. Tautologically because programmers specialize in programming and server guys specialize in running servers. Different problem domains with different ways of thinking, tools, problems. And we are talking about real programmers and real sysadmins and not some young hobbyists, I guess. |
Is this true? | paraschopra: No offence but you why are you calling the position CTO if he is expected to code and do sysadmin work. Why not simply call him/her an engineer?Just curios on the choice of title. |
Is this true? | jeromec: True. It's about specialization. You could also ask if programmers make good database administrators. Highly capable/experienced programmers that develop for the Web (like many on HN) will have some level of knowledge of all facets of the network computing experience, including how routers and browsers work. However, their primary focus and highest area of knowledge should be programming, hence their title.An analogy might be basketball. Growing up you learn to just get the ball in the hoop, but those that turn professional specialize in a certain position. Very few can play all five positions quite well (like Magic Johnson). |
Is this true? | madair: I think it's worth realizing that it's tribal behavior as much as anything else. Corporate fiefdoms develop. Staff protect their turf. In my opinion many people are unaware of the likeliness that this is the result of evolutionary biology.That said, the value of some level of specialization clear. We have to commit a lot of energy to the things we will become really good at. However that doesn't come without problems. In the scientific community there is concern that it's becoming harder to do cross-discipline research.While we must accept specialization for practical reasons, and realize that there are also social and biological factors, there is value in encouraging cross-disciplinary experience, especially in leadership positions.The programmers may like to critique the potential CTO as not as good a programmer as them, and the sysadmins may do the same. But I sorta think you want a CTO who can see the forest for the trees.(Cue criticisms of dumb CTOs....Now! ;-) |
Is this true? | viraptor: When you don't expect much at the start, one person can do programming or sysadmin job first - if you're just hosting your own page without any special features. If you get to the situation where you have many servers to take care of (5+ let's say), then sysadmin simply becomes a full-time position that needs someone experienced with this environment. Someone who's mainly a programmer may not have enough real-world experience to deal with the potential problems, or might not know where to look for solutions. If you require quality, you'll need specialists at some stage.Splitting the roles is also practical. At some point you may have a project deadline coming soon, when suddenly (for example) network fails - do you really want to send experienced programmers on a trip to the datacenter in that case?Really, it's a question of how big you are and how much time does your infrastructure need... |
Is this true? | snom370: At a certain point you're talking about SANs, FibreChannel routers, HVAC systems, UPS, virtualization, etc etc, and keeping up to date on all of this knowledge is a job in itself. So a guy spending most of his time doing "big IT" sysadmin stuff might not have the time to become a really great programmer.That being said, I know plenty sysadmins that have gone on to become great programmers. And truly great programmers tend to love computers, both software and hardware.Larry and Sergey were apparently also server guys: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsmif/3465464623/ |
Where I can find the latest security exploits? | ig1: Bugtraq and vuln-dev for the more whitehat side, irc and zeroday forums (often invite only) for the blackhat side. |
Is this true? | kogir: I've found that the best sys-admins know enough programming to automate their jobs and debug application issues. They don't have to be the greatest programmers, but they're fantastic debuggers.The best programmers know all the system settings, services, and behaviors that can affect their apps and thus have to know the underlying system.I have yet to meet a truly great programmer who didn't thoroughly understand the system he was running, or a fantastic sys-admin who wasn't a pretty good programmer. |
Is this true? | anigbrowl: True IMHO. Get a server guy, that's where the rubber meets the road. Ultimately your business succeeds or fails on whether your service is secure abd available. |
Is this true? | thaumaturgy: It depends on what you mean by "good" programmers or "good" server guys. Up to a certain point, yes, there are plenty of people that can do both well enough to get most jobs done.However: unless the guy you're hiring happens to be an active developer for the operating system that you're expecting to him to admin, then there's a pretty low chance that he could be considered an expert in both fields. Each field is just too deep and broad, and requires too much time to maintain current knowledge in.A programmer can probably figure out a particular sysadmin problem, and a good sysadmin can probably figure out a decent approach to a programming problem, but while they're figuring it out, you're paying them and potentially also paying for downtime or a slower development process. |
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