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Ask HN: Software- Better to focus on or complement with?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13858596From your experience, what advantages/disadvantages are there to: 1) Majoring in electrical engineering and physics, minoring in software development 2) Majoring in software engineering, minoring in electrically engineering and physicsContext: I'm a first year engineering student and would like to pick either Software Engineering (electrical engineering with computer science) or Engineering Physics (electrical engineering with physics). I already have a couple years experience programming, really enjoy it, and is why I went into the program. But, I've also really enjoyed physics and math classes and they've given me a strong desire to learn more about physics. Intuitively, I think that having a strong physics background opens the door to more problems I could solve with software. However, I don't want to to discount the value of studying software engineering. I don't have the experience to see what kind of walls and limitations each choice offers. What have you seen?Mar 13, 2017 3:27 PM
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Costa Cruiseshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a898382b81a4bd99c481cef2ad411ba&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftravel.usnews.com%2Fcruises%2Fcosta-cruises-290%2Fon-board%2F&c=3919728074454779659&mkt=en-usCosta attracts couples and retirees year-round, in addition to many families during the summer months. You're likely to encounter more Europeans than North Americans on any given cruise, though you'll ...Mar 12, 2017 7:20 AM
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Costa Cruiseshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a88fe0a57ed4bc0bb2fabc9875d827e&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftravel.usnews.com%2Fcruises%2Fcosta-cruises-290%2Fon-board%2F&c=3919728074454779659&mkt=en-usCosta attracts couples and retirees year-round, in addition to many families during the summer months. You're likely to encounter more Europeans than North Americans on any given cruise, though you'll ...Mar 12, 2017 7:20 AM
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Ask HN: Moratorium on threads related to the culture wars and identity politicshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10659075The Hacker News guidelines permit "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".Now, even HN qualifies what isn't suitable for political stories: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." Rest assured, most such stories do not satisfy this criterion, or wear off their novelty all too quickly.Be it the Millennials whose whining will immanentize the eschaton, the white heterosexual males and their original sin of mercantilism and colonialism, the feminists and Cultural Marxists who want to usurp Western values (whatever they are this month)... it is all grinding.The chief complaint, of course, is that threads on this subject are devoid of any value pertaining to debate. They instead serve as hubs for signaling normative dispositions. The inevitable result of such vacuous posturing is attrition. Discussions grow ever more primordial, threads on the subject increase and these elements spill over to other threadsDec 1, 2015 9:48 PM
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Ask HN: How good are the local startup scenes in Lisbon and Sofia?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10638815I'm a solo founder and my startup is beginning to get some momentum. To capitalise on this I've decided it's time to move ops out of my spare bedroom and in to a more dynamic environment. Main goal for moving: increase my chances of bumping in to like minded people and finding a co-founder / first hire.I've narrowed the choice down to Lisbon or Sofia (having started with London, Paris, Barcelona, Sofia and Lisbon) and would love to hear the experiences of any HNers who have spent time in either city - especially if it was while bootstrapping your own startup (or working for someone else's)!Things I'd love to know: quality, size and diversity of local talent; quality of local accelerators and investors; how easy/hard it is to find (good) people that want to take a risk and work for an early stage startup; friendliness of the local startup scene.My pros for Sofia:- Betahaus co-working space- Fantastic cost of living (~30% cheaper than Lisbon - which itself is already cheap)- Lovely city,Nov 27, 2015 9:01 PM
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Ask HN: Staying Happyhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10104051I really remember it, back to the time when i was in college, i have so much tasks. I needed to attend campus club. Lots of assignment. But the fact i was happy still surprises me.It has been ~1.5 years since i graduated from my college and got to work as a software engineer. I got decent job with decent salary (at least pretty good in my area). The workplace itself considered as a "fun" environment: sleeping pod, ping pong table, coffee machine and no cubicles. Also, workload is lighter than class assignments. But it seems like i am not happy anymore -- i don't know why. (Btw, yes, i do love coding. I do some of my pet projects in weekend)I tried to do so much things (to try) making myself happier: Cycling around the city, playing some game with friends; but none of them seems to be working.After all, i want to create happiness, not to "do something" or "buy something" to make myself happy. I know happiness is intrinsic and subjective. Two persons doing a same thing may perceive that Aug 22, 2015 10:41 PM
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Ask HN: Blockchainshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10032099More and more noise seems to be appearing about blockchains. I see the small benefit of use in transactions between organisations, but am struggling for the case for private blockchains and some points of cryptocurrency in general. I don’t know if this is the best place to ask, but everything online is full of jargon and is inaccessible to me.I have a few questions:- What are the benefits of using a private blockchain (should I be thinking of it as a replacement to a General Ledger?)? Is this just another name for a ledger with auditable history?- Can a blockchain exist without mining or without a currency/coin? Will all private blockchains need a “coin”? (eg the Goldman Sachs coin or ABC plumbing coin?)And another couple of broader questions- What keeps people interested in a blockchain (and currency) once all of the easy mining is done eg, for people joining later?- I see that transaction costs for bitcoin keep rising, is that related to the size of the blockchain?- I thought bitcoinAug 10, 2015 12:27 AM
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MacOS is the new Windowshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9816994I'm typing this on my late 2010 MacBook Air. Recently I was starting having problems with it (you know when you type your password and the system does not recognize your key presses, etc.). And I thought, “Oh, ok, I have to accept that we live in a world of planned obsolesce (how else faster-than-a-gigahertz multi-gigabyte-RAM machine could become slow? If it is capable of real-time response to user's actions, it should respond in real-time) and I have to upgrade to get my job done”.So I switched to this new aesthetically marvelous wonder: an early 2015 13 inch MacBook Pro. In 5 days I'm using it the machine restarted two (or three?) times "because of problems" though it has much less software installed than my old rock-stable-in-comparison MacBook Air. And now I'm installing an OS update which already restarted my system twice. First it restarted the system, than it said, “Ooops, I cannot verify the update”, fiddled with it for several more minutes, restarted-downloaded-restarted... WJul 2, 2015 5:20 AM
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What does the Confederate flag mean? The history and design explained.http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8974cb07774e08ab0cc9b3dfb1aee2&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fhistory-of-the-confederate-flags-190828285.html&c=16028769065321972004&mkt=en-usAdd Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Confederate flag flies on the Capitol grounds on June 23, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina (AFP Photo/Win McNamee) ...Jun 24, 2015 12:08 PM
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Show HN: Minimalist HN reader with material designhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9755681Hello everyone!, this is a app I have being working on recently. I know there are number of HN readers on android. But couldn't find a one suitable for daily use. So I started developing this app. News articles, comments open in default browser of the device. Click on title of the item to open the article and anywhere else to open comments. Pull down to refresh. Swipe left and right to change the tabs. This is only the first phase of application. Lot of functions yet to be implement (you can read more in Google play listing). Before developing further I would love to have some feedback. BTW I'm a CS undergraduate.Thank you.Image :http://www.kasungamlath.com/assets/hnyc_framed.png Application :https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kasungamlath.hackernewsAny feedback is appreciated, thanks!Jun 22, 2015 1:12 AM
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Ask HN: Finding a technical lead in Cambridge, MA?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8675900Over the last several months, I have tested and validated a business opportunity in the legal space. Customers are very interested - 4 or the last 5 have asked to be part of a paid Beta as soon as possible. I'd like to get something workable into customers hands as soon as possible, but am hamstrung by my technical skills.I'm by background and skillset much more business than technically oriented. I know enough Python/Django to be dangerous and have built a working proof-of-concept / demo. However, I know when I'm at the limit of my capabilities, and to take it from POC to working product, would like to bring on someone to help buildout a real product.Some of the problems that need to be solved for (many of which I've been dealing with in one capacity or another): - web scraping. Done mostly with BeautifulSoup to date + lots of custom regexes. There are a lot of corner cases to deal with. - regularly scraping 10,000s of pages and watching for changes on those pages - entity and person Nov 30, 2014 3:42 AM
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Ask HN: What should I be asking for salary wise as a soon to be graduatehttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5827099I am soon to be Computer Science/Business graduate in the Los Angeles,CA area and am trying to figure what to be expecting/asking for salary wise.My background:-I have been programming for 9 years-I have worked for the CTO of my college through out college designing and implementing J2EE web applications from end to end.-I have had an internship every summer during college all related to computing/programming with companies including the Walt Disney Company-A colleague and I have a start up project on the side of school that I have developed in Rails.(I like rails a lot )-I know some other web frameworks including Play and Django.-My strong languages are Java, Ruby, Pyton,HTML/CSS, Javascript(Jquery and a little Node),SQL,PHP(basically anything web app related)Here's my linked in for more:http://www.linkedin.com/in/griffinmartyThanks in advance for the advice!Jun 5, 2013 5:24 PM
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Inside Telenovelashttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a88d3a6862143cf962c435034f09f7b&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.backstage.com%2Fmagazine%2Farticle%2Finside-telenovelas-29239%2F&c=12338625357373913097&mkt=en-usPerhaps only slightly more addictive to their audiences than to the many actors who earn their livings in them, Latin American telenovelas are an international sensation. In the United States, ...Mar 25, 2013 1:35 PM
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Inside Telenovelashttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8928726d3d4a5bb4ac7526016e5f0a&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.backstage.com%2Fmagazine%2Farticle%2Finside-telenovelas-29239%2F&c=12338625357373913097&mkt=en-usPerhaps only slightly more addictive to their audiences than to the many actors who earn their livings in them, Latin American telenovelas are an international sensation. In the United States, ...Mar 25, 2013 1:35 PM
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Ask HN: Anyone else seeing Gmail's "Display density: Compact" not working?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5383558TL;DR: Gmail theme "Orcas Island" is borked. Any others?(Maybe I should have tried harder to squeeze "theme Orcas Island" into the title...)--Yes, this is using HN as "Google customer support", but what other option do I have?In Gmail's web client, I use the theme "Orcas Island" for a more pleasant experience. (Not only do I like the pictures; it also changes the background from white to a less bright gray-blue.)Today, in that theme, "Display density: Compact" is no longer working. Whitespace galore.I noticed some other Gmail changes, e.g. the prompt to confirm mobile phone number (for security notifications). So, maybe the same push broke this aspect of theming?So far, I've only noticed this affecting the theme "Orcas Island". (But, I'm not going to check them all...)Googling has revealed nothing on this.Mar 15, 2013 11:09 PM
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Seabiscuit and "The money problem"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4158975Hello world!I'm not exactly sure the right way to approach this, I've never been much for doing things in an orthodox way, so I'll just be straightforward about it. I need to find an investor.I believe that I have all of the necessary ingredients to be successful at what I'm trying to accomplish, but I realize that I need others to believe in me to help me to achieve my potential; few people ever get there alone.I hear prominent figures say that they invest in the people more than the ideas and I wonder how true that is. Do you care more about me or my actual startup? In this case I think both are awesome, so maybe it's your lucky day (or mine).So, yes, I've got a startup. That's a lie, I've got two startups, but one is my baby. We'll get back to that later, for now I want to talk about who I am and why I am writing this.Maybe I suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect, but I think I might be just the right mix of crazy, creative, and calculated to accomplish something fairly impressive.IJun 25, 2012 10:03 PM
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Ask HN: How should I go public with a security hole?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4050901We're evaluating an expensive software system for a certain industry. We've found public facing exploitable holes in the login system (default passwords, improper firewalls, SQL injection), which is directly translatable into profitable fraud.That is, if we used this system and someone exploited it, they could cause direct financial harm. These systems are almost always exposed to the public internet.I spoke to the company, and they seemed rather apathetic about the situation, although they said they'd fix the SQLi. Despite the codebase being in C, they report they've had no RCE security issues, "just crashes". I find that highly unlikely, more no one bothered investigating.How should I handle this? I'm worried for my own company which is at risk, and I'd also like to publish this info, as this market tends to sweep things under the carpet. In the past, with another vendor in the same market, I've privately reported, and found the vendor lied about fixing things and did not explain theMay 31, 2012 11:04 PM
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The Best Encrypted Flash Driveshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx&aid=&tid=6a85d0aa9f634d5da3365ab6b0fba611&url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.pcworld.com%2farticle%2f464188%2fthe_best_encrypted_flash_drives.html&c=10353756227865127016&mkt=en-usFast, affordable, managed, the DT4000M is also one of the more affordable FIPS 140-2 certified secure flash drives on the market. If you’re physically transporting data you don’t want other people to ...May 23, 2012 6:33 PM
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The Best Encrypted Flash Driveshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx&aid=&tid=6a85ec39e475431c812df0980b6420b3&url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.pcworld.com%2farticle%2f464188%2fthe_best_encrypted_flash_drives.html&c=10353756227865127016&mkt=en-usFast, affordable, managed, the DT4000M is also one of the more affordable FIPS 140-2 certified secure flash drives on the market. If you’re physically transporting data you don’t want other people to ...May 23, 2012 6:33 PM
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The Best Encrypted Flash Driveshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx&aid=&tid=6a85ca9f01cb4da69b4ab2269fc2fe55&url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.pcworld.com%2farticle%2f464188%2fthe_best_encrypted_flash_drives.html&c=10353756227865127016&mkt=en-usFast, affordable, managed, the DT4000M is also one of the more affordable FIPS 140-2 certified secure flash drives on the market. If you’re physically transporting data you don’t want other people to ...May 23, 2012 6:33 PM
