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Computing/Biology Resources? | fizx: Thank you so much everyone! |
Any goal setting sites? | ph0rque: http://www.bubbletimer.comdisclaimer: my partner wrote the app. |
What should I do if I suffer from 'pre-optimization syndrome'? | queensnake: Are you depressed? Depression can make it hard to make decisions, which I take the liberty of interpreting (being /able/ to make decisions, rather) as, 'having enough life-force to not sweat the small stuff', which might apply to getting stuck on micro-optimizations too.In which case, exercise, get enough s... |
How Google Maps works? | mixmax: here is a good walk-through: http://blog.grimpoteuthis.org/2005/02/mapping-google.htmlGood luck with it :-) |
How do you handle NDA'd projects and VCs? | wavesplash: Same as you would anyone else. You tell the VC that you can't discuss the details. If they want details they have to sign the NDA for the 3rd party company. You can always talk about the commitment in general terms (revenue vs. time spent) and if it's strategic to the growth of the company. The rest of ... |
Any goal setting sites? | lionheart: http://www.joesgoals.com/ |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | rrhyne: Software patents are evil. |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | mixmax: I've started two companies that took out patents, and thus have seen this up close. My experience is:- The market doesn't care about patents. Whether your product is good or bad a patent makes absolutely no difference to a customer.- Competitors care very little about patents. They know the cost of patent litig... |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | lsc: I dono... do you think you can compete better by marshaling lawyers? or by implementing a product better and sooner? How much of an opportunity cost does that money represent? (I mean, do you need that funding to run?)The big thing I see is that it takes money to be a patent troll. I guess if the patent is re... |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | mikeyur: I don't have any experience personally, but I would say just work on your killer product. If a competitor comes along and you're already established as the leader it won't matter.Save your capital.Just my $0.02 |
how do you discover new music? | light3: If you like classical try youtube and Nathan Milstein, not only a pleasure to listen to but also to watch. |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | shmoo: Some large companies only patent defensively, in order to prevent other companies from patenting their ideas and then suing them. Enforcing patents is difficult. |
How Google Maps works? | davi: this works, I use it, it's open source, maybe a good place to start:http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/demo.shtml |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | volida: well assuming you have a provisional patent and asking here, shouldn't you say what the patent is about? |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | rms: Write it yourself -- the provisional, especially if it was lawyer authored, should be almost good to go. |
How Google Maps works? | jaytee_clone: Actually, it is a collection of images for different zoom level.For example, the lowest zoom level uses one image and the next one uses two, and then four (from what I remembered).You can find this out in the google map API.I imagine vector calculation is just unnecessarily complicated when simply storing... |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | vaksel: if you can't afford it, forget about it. |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | natch: One patent is not likely to be worth much. If you can put together a small cluster of them, it's much more compelling for an investor/buyer. Depends on what kind of patent, though.'course, this isn't the best time to bet on getting funding, patents or not. Probably better to focus on finding an actual revenue st... |
What can't you do in Excel? | micks56: I have to use old software databases at my engineering job. The only way to get the data out of the system is to show it on the screen 1 at a time or to print it out. I would love for this new spreadsheet to pretend to be a printer and have the data piped directly to my spreadsheet instead of my pdf printer. |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | davo11: I'm in the same boat, my provisional runs out in April, and am wondering what to do. I lodged the provisional myself and save a few $K.Here's my current thinking, over the course of the patent it will cost around $250K or more over 20 years. If I had $250K now would I spend it on my patent? Right now, I'd much ... |
Is it possible to get cerified in PHP, Perl, Python, C/C++, etc.? | vaksel: Not really a fan of certificates...seems like a waste. The only time you should get one, is if your company promotes them...i.e. take so and so class and get a bonus or a raise.Personally I think you'd be much better of making a few sample programs in each language, and showing those to the potential employers.... |
Is it possible to get cerified in PHP, Perl, Python, C/C++, etc.? | gaius: You can be a Microsoft Certified Developer if you want, I think that includes Visual C++ or maybe it's all C# now. Oracle does certifications for PL/SQL too. No-one takes either of them terribly seriously. |
How do you deal with alienation? | SwellJoe: I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but never a mixture of everything. The peer groups I see are all so specialized and serve niche interests; none of them are generally interested in everything.Think on that statement for a little while, and ... |
How do you deal with alienation? | jwilliams: Where are the truly interesting people in life?If you haven't already - Travel, move overseas, etc - the world is a big place.Sounds trite, but broad horizons help. |
How do you deal with alienation? | unalone: The place where you'll truly find interesting people is the place that places emphasis on talent and skill above everything else. In high school I had the same problem you do; in college I'm finding it even harder, as we haven't had long to sort out into groups, versus the 12 years we had in grade school.I've ... |
How do you deal with alienation? | delano: Interesting people are everywhere and nowhere. You find them one by one.Feeling alienated sucks but you might find that not belonging to just one group is one of your strengths. It can give you a unique perspective because you have a wider range of experiences. It can also increase your tolerance for change and... |
How do you deal with alienation? | DavidHogan: If I could send my teen self some advice, it would be to relax and simply persue the topics that interest me. All else will fall into place.Hope this helps :) |
How do you deal with alienation? | mdakin: I think the type of friend you want is rare. But there is hope-- these people want to find you as much as you want to find them! Do what it takes to meet and get to know as many people as possible. I don't mean to befriend them all by any means but get to know them, try to understand them etc. Develop an in... |
How do you deal with alienation? | anovaskulk: Unfortunately you can hardly have it both ways. Most people only have one primary interest in their lives, and form groups around it. You don't seem to be like that, which makes you an exception. Of course there are other exceptions like you, but they are by definition hard to come by. So either you get rea... |
How do you deal with alienation? | jhancock: "Where are the truly interesting people in life?"everywhere. My network of friends includes less than 10% that work in IT. Most are not geeks but are ok with the fact that I am as I accept and don't really define what they are. I just enjoy their company.I had a friend that worked on the documentary series... |
How do you deal with alienation? | gojomo: You may want to reexamine potentially self-limiting assumptions:I always feel like the odd one out -- you may be partially imagining this 'odd man out' status; also, others you see as 'close knit' may feel just as tenuously connected as you do.my close friends [are not] a social group... they are all from diffe... |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | wavesplash: An alternate option is to give up some ownership of the patent for reduced cost and labor. Have you guys talked with IMSciences? They cut you a deal for a portion of the patent ownership and depending on the deal you cut can write most of it for you. (I don't work for them, nor have I filed anything with... |
How do you deal with alienation? | yason: Good friends are hard to come by and therefore finding a whole group of them at once is pretty improbable. On the other hand, there's something interesting and something worthy in each and every person if you only drop your expectations and demands first.Secondly, friends are also like women: you'll find a good ... |
How do you deal with alienation? | Russelldb: Firstly, don't feel bad because you feel this way. It is pretty typical for a bright kid to feel this way, often. The thing that is getting you down is the over-analysis and introspection not the relationships.Relationships with people are hugely rewarding and enjoyable but you can't depend on them for happi... |
How do you deal with alienation? | jcs: "I feel like when I talk to my "friends", I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but never a mixture of everything."Have you actually tried talking about other topics? It sounds like you're making assumptions about what your friends are interested in,... |
How do you deal with alienation? | rkts: I was thinking of posting a question very similar to this one, though the details of my situation are pretty different.See, I've been alone for most of my life. Alone in the sense that I've only ever had two or three real friends, and I often go for weeks without having a conversation with another person.As a ki... |
How do you deal with alienation? | numair: Don't try to meet people like you. Instead, become interested in lots of different types of people, how they live, who they are, etc. And don't just become interested, but actually make an attempt to blend into their cultures, social groups, etc. This is what is known as "social hacking." Successfully doing... |
How do you deal with alienation? | moswald: It's not really about friends,it's about growing up. Self reliance and such. The older one gets, the less anyone has in common with anyone else. In a couple of seconds you'll be contemplating retirement and barely remember this question at all.You are learning how to deal with the real world, the world you mus... |
Any Tips for Applying to Berkeley or Stanford? | cperciva: Does anyone have any tips for applying to Berkeley or Stanford's mathematics program?Win the Putnam. :-) |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | vidar: I like your idea, I cant help you per se but if it helps your selfdoubt then I think you will do fine, based on your courage to try such an unconventional path. And whatever you do, keep learning on your own time ... that never gets old! |
ASK HN: How did they break in to my Gmail acct? | rarest: Hello
I have just lost danish to this firm so I will WARN everybody to deal with this firm becaurse is a humbug firm.
My last mail from them:
FORGET YOUR MONEY AND YOUR LAPTOPSWARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING |
To Patent, or Not To Patent | dctoedt: One question to ask is whether your product or service is even patentable in the first instance. Ask your lawyer about the court decision in the Bilski case, http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/07-1130.pdf, which put some pretty tough restrictions on the patentability of software. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | satyajit: Are you looking for screencasts or videos of desktop apps of sort? I am not sure what people use for screencast softwares, but the Railscasts guys seem to be creating some neat looking ones. You might want to ask them.
I know the LearningRails.com guys personally, and they do a great screencast too. There is ... |
How do you deal with alienation? | robfitz: i went to an out-of-state college in a big city nobody else from my high school was going to. it worked well for a reset (not that i had particularly intended to accomplish that).and all the interesting people are in startups ;) |
How do you deal with alienation? | mikeyur: I'm 17 and I have a bunch of good friends, and guess what? None of them share my main interests.I'm geeky, I love my mac, I love podcasts, etc. My friends aren't crazy about computers really. A person I consider my best friend is really into cars, mechanics, etc. I'm really into SEO/marketing/startups.The reas... |
Any service out there for titles/phrases/names/etc. | mooism2: Seed a list from Wiki, then add weightings according to what your users type in? |
Any service out there for titles/phrases/names/etc. | tallanvor: You would have to create a dictionary where you can weight words (by frequency, most likely), and write a matcher that runs as a user types. |
How do you deal with alienation? | zupatol: I think you are giving too much importance to the kind of subjects you discuss with friends. The important thing is that you get along well, not what you are talking about.Part of what you say sounds like the trouble of growing up. There is an age when what interests you automatically interests your friends. W... |
RoR/Ruby mainstream yet or still underground? | pclark: mainstream. Where you based? |
How do you produce product demo videos? | ejs: I use XVidCap, edited with KDENlive, then uploaded to youtube and embedded that. All free (using ubuntu) |
How do you deal with alienation? | known: Have you tried Facebook? |
How do you deal with alienation? | zitterbewegung: I really don't give a shit about alienation. I try to talk about anything and analyze the person I talk to using philosophical techniques. (philosophy is good for good conversation). |
How do you deal with alienation? | noahlt: I'm a senior in high school, experienced similar feelings a couple of years ago. SwellJoe says "you seem to expect your friends to be a perfect clone of you", which, at least, is what I felt.Even though you might not find people with the exact same interests as you, if you look hard you will find that interest... |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | wesleyd: Yeah, working in close physical proximity to quality people is hard to beat, but you can learn a lot even working remotely on a pre-existing project. So go scratch an open source itch.Also there ain't no such thing as a free lunch^Wprogrammer. |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | vicky: A spoonful of medicine to help overcome self-doubt here => http://ub0.cc/0l/12 and here => http://ub0.cc/4J/1j |
How do you produce product demo videos? | apinstein: We use Screenflow. Mac-only, but quite awesome: http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htmHas a/b editing, records lots of things as separate tracks and has a special-purpose video editing interface just for screencasts.Editing interface is a little quirky to get used to but the results are great. |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | dan_sim: Don't be afraid to ask for money. Money often means respect and with respect comes self-confidence. If you are free, it means that you consider yourself so bad at programming that people will not even consider you. You'll learn nothing. You'll always be the "free guys" that everyone will laugh at. The one that... |
How do you deal with alienation? | time_management: I have no social group of my own and go back and forth between their friend circles.That's a sign that you're an interesting person. It's painful, though.I feel like when I talk to my "friends", I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but n... |
Is it possible to get cerified in PHP, Perl, Python, C/C++, etc.? | physcab: I would agree that certifications are not really important. Develop a solid portfolio of projects, show that users benefited, and then walk your employer through the lessons you learned. |
How do you deal with alienation? | noahlt: Work hard and get into a good college. |
How do you deal with alienation? | rokhayakebe: Believe it or not you seem to be a social butterfly. The best "socialistas" have several friends in every field of life. This is great as it allows you to not get bored and each niche will feed you with more information. Stick to this plan. Expand it. Materialize it. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | nickfox: I use Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp). It costs $299. It is hands down the best. It has a technology called SmartFocus which zooms in to where the mouse cursor is. This is very useful with youtube's limited real estate. Definitely put your product demo on youtube. You get exposure from markets... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | chrisconley: There's a great screencast about how to screencast over at peepcode.com ($9) |
How do you produce product demo videos? | rokhayakebe: Email Demogirl.com. She will do the job for you (assuming she likes your application) and get you a few beta users. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | ivankirigin: SnapsProX is pretty good. |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | physcab: You should look for small web development firms that might offer internships. Right now I'm doing an unpaid internship. I don't have a car and the place is 10 miles away, so everyday I take the bus for 5 miles, bike the other 5 miles, then do the same thing coming home. It's a ton of work for an unpaid job.... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | jcl: CamStudio is an open-source capture program for Windows that records to .avi, with the option to convert to .swf. http://camstudio.org/(See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133349) |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | utnick: WOW, you are selling yourself WAY short.You are more than qualified for an entry level developer job FOR PAY.Its a programmers market out there, if you can communicate half decently and have a java cert from sun, you will be able to find a job no problem. Just delete that webpage and keep sending resumes out. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | mhashim: I was recommended the following service http://www.screentoaster.com/ Didn't try it personally yet, but let me know what you think of it if you end up using it. |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | quellhorst: I am willing to hire any and all free coders. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | martian: Aside from all the technology, it's crucial to get a solid, professional voice-over that tells a clear story about your product. My personal experience has been that even the best video production can be quickly tarnished by a voice-over that is casual, meandering, or inconsistent. For our demo video, we first... |
How do you deal with alienation? | mixmax: Where are the truly interesting people in life? - they are here, among other places.Normal people just want to live a normal life, have their statistically approved 2.1 kids, have sex every wednesday and friday and live their life like everyone else. That is why they are called normal.And then there's this pecu... |
How do you deal with alienation? | Allocator2008: This is a link to a therapist I use all of the time. She is awesome:http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html |
How do you produce product demo videos? | timae: Jing (jingproject.com) is the only free solution I know of. Wasn't exactly what we wanted, so we used Screenflow, which is $99 and Mac only as has been mentioned. It's very easy to use and the editing options are great.Once you have the video, there's obviously still the decision of how to get it onto your site.... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | DanielBMarkham: I'm a big Camtasia fan. Like the interface and the capabilities.It's not cheap, but I think you can get it as 30-day trialware. Not sure. |
How do you produce product demo videos? | IanOzsvald: +1 for CamTasia (Windows) and ScreenFlow (Mac), also RecordMyDesktop (Linux). CamStudio (free Win) ok. Online solutions (screencastomatic, screentoaster, jing) also good.
I'm a professional screencaster (http://procasts.co.uk) - if you want to crib examples, see my Examples page, they all reflect live u... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | sh1mmer: I'd actually recommend Captivate from Adobe (it was a Marcomedia product). The reason being is it's awesome for mastering videos. It seems to run acceptably in VMWare fusion too.I've used iShowU to capture video on my Mac but then mastered it into Flash files. You can add pauses, description, etc.Screenflow al... |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | vaksel: if you want to work for free...why not find something simple and do a startup around that? Then release more and more apps as you learn more skills |
Y Combinator Wiki? | jaydub: Check out epi0Bauqu's site http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/ |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | lacker: Don't work for free.Try finding a smaller software company (like under 10 people, perhaps a startup) and working for them in any capacity they need people. Running ad campaigns, managing forums, tech support, whatever. Once you have a job with the company, you can then start helping out with programming to what... |
Is it possible to get cerified in PHP, Perl, Python, C/C++, etc.? | lacker: From the resumes I've seen, most people list far more languages on their resume than you could expect them to be very proficient with. I wouldn't worry about it - there are a lot more important qualities for a software engineer than "knowing the languages well".One friend of mine did like to ask interviewees qu... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | shimon: I'm a freelance developer, but a couple of months ago, one of my customers asked me to make some screencasts of the product we're building.I tried Camtasia and Adobe Captivate on Windows. Camtasia has been best to work with, although it has a couple of pretty horrendous bugs that require nonobvious workarounds... |
How do you deal with alienation? | mattmaroon: Ah yes, ask a bunch of people who aren't qualified to give psychological advice a psychological question. This is the same as asking legal questions here.Go get help. You don't sound suicidal or anything (though if you are, run to the nearest psychiatrist) but you do sound like you've got something other th... |
How do you deal with alienation? | jmatt: Wow, this sounds soo familiar. I remember having similar thoughts when I was in high school. I'll try to give some useful advice.I have no social group of my own and go back and forth between their friend circles.I'd ignore social groups entirely. Seriously, just forget any of these artificial groups of friends.... |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | rjprins: Hmm, I'll be 27 in a few months.. And I thought I was stil young!Geez, now I think I'm old too.. |
Is it possible to get cerified in PHP, Perl, Python, C/C++, etc.? | ideamonk: I just hope I don't get to see a day when certificates for C/C++, Python, PHP! start to exist and people start cashing on it! Some things are meant to be free from certifications, projects and work speaks of better quality than a certificate. Where ever money and tag starts coming into picture, there corrupti... |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | iamelgringo: I have been an ER/Critical Care nurse for the past 15 years. I went to nursing school right out of high school, because it was "a good steady job and you can help people." I administered narcotics to a patient before I could drink legally.I had always wanted to be an engineer, but I believed people that t... |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | biohacker42: Self doubt is healthy.Getting depressed and/or discouraged because of self doubt is not.And your situation is by no means unique.
It is VERY hard to catch your first break as a professional programmer.That is just how the industry is, the best way to get around that, is to do what you're doing.You don't H... |
How do you deal with alienation? | charlesju: Here is a concept.Your friends don't need to share the same interests as you and you can still be friends. |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | cchooper: I got my first paid programming job at 25. I've never found age to be a problem. |
Extending desktop to 2nd monitor on Ubuntu (for non-techie)? | icey: http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=dual+monitors+ubuntu |
How do you produce product demo videos? | dhimes: If you find the other recommendations here a bit more than you were looking for, have a look at Wink:http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ |
Ask HN:Finding a Break | spoiledtechie: I will hire you for free.Ill give you experience to work in the real world and work with you.A few months down the road after the projects we have worked on together start making money, you will then become a paid programmer.If this is a serious inquiry, get in contact with me. We can work something out... |
How do you deal with alienation? | dustineichler: It's commendable that you post this in the open. That takes a lot of guts. You aren't alone, in fact like you mentioned... this is why Catcher In the Rye is so popular, so identifiable.1. Take others advice with a grain of salt. 2. Dig down and get tough otherwise this beat you up. 3. Standards are worth... |
How do you produce product demo videos? | apstuff: Blue SnowBall (usb mic) + Audacity + Camtasia.Start with the written dialogue, record it meticulously then do the visual.The Blue Snowball referral came from Scott Chacon at GitCasts.
Great piece of equipment. Thanks Scott. |
How do you deal with alienation? | Spyckie: When I was in this situation, I somewhat wanted advice, but really I wanted someone to just take the time to talk to me.If you feel that way, I'm free to talk - send me an email or aim me - Spyckie (at) gmail or Spyckie on aim. |
How do you deal with alienation? | xenophanes: > Where are the truly interesting people in life?www.curi.us |
Any tips for using Python Interactively? | marcher: Up should work. If you want it to persist across sessions you'll have to enable readline history.You might find my pythonrc useful: http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.pythonrc.py - be sure to run export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonrc.py.My script does the following:1. Enables readline tab completion.
2. ... |
Any tips for using Python Interactively? | utnick: hmmm... up arrow gets the last command for me on ubuntu with putty and python 2.5.1what other frustrating things are you finding? |
How do you produce product demo videos? | timcederman: Camstudio is great and completely free. http://camstudio.org/ |
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