news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: What's the point with so many stupid people in the world?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2997502Have you ever tried to sit and write code in a bar? It's nice. It's a hell of a lot more conducive to creativity than working in an office cubicle. You got your drink, you got your smoke. You sit at a table with wifi and a plug and you're invincible until about six drinks in. You look out over the patio at the mountains and you think...this is what life's all about.Then at about 6pm the soccer game starts. Suddenly, the owner of the bar comes out and unplugs your laptop, turns on the TV, and cranks the volume up to 7000000. Even though there's no one there. You say, "Man, that's too loud." And he says, "when they show up, that's what they're gonna want."Sure enough, about 3 minutes before the game starts, the patio goes from empty to packed. People are trying to move your table, your laptop bag. Then suddenly they're all staring, slackjawed, at this stupid TV that's blasting the same shitty commercials it was showing yesterday, last week, last month.HN readers, I'm sitting in that bar Sep 14, 2011 7:22 PM
news.ycombinator.com
If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2919708Software, as Marc Andreesen said in his famous editorial, is becoming a larger and larger part of our daily lives. Given how important software is, then, you'd expect computer programmer - the task of developing and maintaining software - to be one of the highest-paid, most-wanted jobs. It isn't. Why not?"Hold on", you say, "isn't programming a high-paying job"? Sure, next to the average American worker. But the average American worker is a college dropout. What if you compare programming to jobs for other highly skilled professionals?Consider a 35-year-old, senior Google engineer. He probably makes about $150,000, which is enough to buy a good house and raise a family. But Google wouldn't hire a random guy to fill that job - this engineer probably has an Ivy League or other elite degree, fifteen years of work experience, a very high IQ, strong drive, and numerous other skills (anyone who's been through the Google hiring process can tell you how hard it is to get in).As a doctor, howevAug 24, 2011 6:34 AM
news.ycombinator.com
New documentary #killswitch exposes media consolidation and government collusionhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2656444#killswitch The Battle over the Internet Educator and Writer Chris Dollar is teaming with filmmakers Ali Akbarzadeh and Jeff Horn of Akorn Entertainment to create the full-length documentary #killswitch. They are raising funds on KickStarter.com to produce the documentary so they can educate the Western world about the fact that big corporations will continue to have more and more control over our news and Internet… unless we do something now. Check out the trailer and learn how to become involved in this project here: (#killswitch trailer) (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akorn/killswitch-a-documentary-film?ref=live) ____________________________________________Everyone who is a regular to Hacker News knows we have a culture of corruption in Washington and are in desperate need of media reform and legislation protecting Net Neutrality. So, why does mainstream media ignore the massive amounts of corruption and collusion between large corporations and big government, while also ignorJun 15, 2011 9:08 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Online Computer Science BS Degree?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599618Does anyone know of a good online undergraduate Computer Science program? My girlfriend is almost done her Masters of Science in Nursing online at Vanderbilt. All her courses are online, she does clinicals at local hospitals and private practices, and flies to Nashville for a long weekend every couple of months. I've been looking for something similar for Computer Science, but can only seem to find programs at scam schools. If it's possible to get the credentials which will give you the ability to suture and prescribe narcotics online, shouldn't computer science be handled similarly?Yes, I am aware of the social implications (e.g. college is a great place to meet people, develop as a person, etc...). I did attend a traditional college, and have about 85 credits. The difficulty is, my business started making money, so I'm too busy to attend scheduled courses. The university wouldn't work with me, at all, so I stopped going. I see value in having a degree, and would like to finish, but iMay 30, 2011 3:28 PM
bing.com
Tokorozawa Civic Cultural Centre Musehttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8aaacc5fff4ae5b6cf1a4e566e52c0&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.timeout.com%2Ftokyo%2Fmusic%2Ftokorozawa-civic-cultural-centre-muse&c=2659384179781747994&mkt=en-usBack when it was conceived during the Bubble era, Tokorozawa's multi-venue arts complex probably seemed like just the cultural leg-up that this Saitama city needed. Today, its three halls – ranging ...May 29, 2011 9:36 AM
bing.com
The 6 best places to get pierogies in Clevelandhttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a89b23a867f451dbc9453d908ffe045&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fblogs%2Fcleveland%2F6-best-places-pierogies-cleveland-192431215.html&c=12518562586294473806&mkt=en-usWhen people from Poland, Slovakia and other countries in that region settled in the Cleveland area in the early 1900s, they brought with them recipes for hearty foods like pierogies. Through the years ...Apr 19, 2011 12:24 PM
news.ycombinator.com
I've got a Facebook fan page, How do I get more people to join it?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2427998Hi all,I've created a fan page for a small family business my family and I run (we have a small music studio). As the relatively 'technical' person in the family (I know just enough html to color the background of page) I got the job of running our facebook fan page.I started reading all those "10 tips for the best…" tutorials out there on the web, but from some reason I am pretty skeptic. I keep feeling people are trying to sell me their services.What I'd like to hear is some good advice from people who perhaps succeeded themselves in building a good facebook fan page. Also, I would like to unfold the mystery behind the real figures. I understand that everyone these days must have a faceook fan page, but how much money \ how many customers can I really expect to gain from this?Thank you,Apr 9, 2011 8:20 PM
news.google.com
Time Machine Triumph: when Trackmaster met Tracyhttps://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMijwFBVV95cUxPRWZZT3R6dHktZ2RBNzM1SW8xN3RrSUhFdEs5YURFWF9SbDdNcGNoM3FOSlBEQXFucXo2ZW1MTWk1OGkyQjF3T29ENkVCVlU5MVBseW12c1hHc1hRaWRhUlNnV3Bub1d3YUVNcW5OY1g5TkFVRmtMWWx3VkRJQ25Pcm9iakQ1RW1wcHhYc1IwTQ?oc=5Time Machine Triumph: when Trackmaster met Tracy RideApart.comDec 28, 2010 8:00 AM
bing.com
Transcript Requestshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a88ea6d9e0642c8a794cc5db5e372c6&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bates.edu%2Fregistrar%2Facademic-record%2Ftranscript-requests%2F&c=3108604821078488767&mkt=en-usWe have partnered with Parchment, Inc. to process transcript requests. Please click the link below, select “Ordering your own credentials or academic records” and follow the system prompts. Utilizing ...Aug 26, 2010 1:03 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: What is Gravity?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1629794While watching a documentary that mentioned gravity (forgive me the particulars escape me at the moment) my 8yo son reached across my lap and tapped the space-bar pausing the video. He then turned toward me and asked, ‘what is gravity?’Now, in our house we require explanations for actions because we are becoming, sadly too late in life, convinced that being on purpose is paramount. Because it is our opinion that if you do not understand, even at the most base level (epistemological questions aside), why you are doing something then you will never have any power over what you do. When any of us does something that results in negative consequences we try to be in the habit of either tracing down the root of our reasoning or admitting that we had none.To this end we have made much of the distinction between description and explanation. Briefly; all explanations include description but not the reverse. When we ask one another for an explanation and instead receive only description it has bAug 24, 2010 2:04 PM
bing.com
Shean struggles, but will likely make cuthttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8a83c35d2848d7a8532ee9677c02c8&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.golfdigest.com%2Fstory%2Fshean-struggles-but-will-likel&c=16943326826865215455&mkt=en-usSuch is the case with Kelli Shean a 22-year-old South African amateur who plays her golf out of the University of Arkansas. Shean won a ton of hearts with a one-under-par 70 on Thursday over a ...Jul 9, 2010 6:37 AM
borntechie.com
Recoupe your Windows PC after a major virus attackhttp://www.borntechie.com/entry/recoupe-your-windows-pc-after-a-major-virus-attack/A computer virus attack on your system can render it crippled in many functional areas, leaving you helpless with glitches galore. It can change your registry entries, change security settings, delete/modify Windows files/Start-up items or run processes in the background. This can affect the performance of your Windows PC, which makes it vulnerable to even more virus attacks and unsuspected problems.Feb 11, 2010 5:18 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Does changing locales to fix productivity doldrums work for you?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=757407The article about the creative bliss of moving to an attractive, cheaper foreign environment to bootstrap a startup:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=756570... got me thinking on a somewhat tangential question: Does moving around to change your environment actually help you work? Or is it solving the wrong problem the wrong way?From a personal state-of-mind angle that the author is pushing, I guess I'm not entirely sold on the fact that a change of scenery will let a hundred flowers of creativity bloom - in a sustainable way - to an extent that confers upon a startup a meaningful economic advantage. The cost differences might, but I'm not so sure about the aesthetic/spiritual quality.I've moved around a lot in my 23 years. I emigrated from Russia with my parents when I was 6, and moved around the US several times during childhood. Within the last few years spent in Georgia, I've moved several times within the general area I inhabited, including twice within Atlanta. When I was young,Aug 12, 2009 5:53 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: What is your favorite hand-rolled malloc?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=741895In a similar vein to http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html, I'm curious to hear the people's choice for memory pool/slab allocators. My question is a three-parter:1) Allocation size function: Do you allocate fixed size chunks of N objects at a time? Exponential increase in chunk size (I believe valgrind does this for its memchecker)? If exponential, do you also back off exponentially, or linearly? Something else?2) Used/free record keeping: Bitfield? Linked-list? Other?3) New allocations: realloc or array/linked list of pointers (I bet I know the answer to this one)?Some justification would be nice, if you've got the time.Aug 4, 2009 7:21 PM
news.ycombinator.com
On Buying Silicon Valleyhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=500785Silicon Valley 2If one wishes to replicate the Valley's success and status as a startup hub one needs to mimic the ecosystem and support structures that have grown up around it, the angels, VC funds, (money) legal expertise, financial infrastructure (enabling infrastructure) and entrepreneurial culture (residual). The money and enabling infrastructure will accrete around the residual if it exists, quickly or slowly. Paul Graham has proposed that for US$30m-$100m this could probably be achieved in any US city fulfilling certain criteria, with greater or lesser likelihood of success dependent on the degree to which it fulfils them.The money can realistically come from three types of sources, governments of whatever level, private individuals, or corporate bodies, profit-oriented or not, or some combination of the three, acting in concert. Given the electoral dynamics they labour under it is unlikely that any politician or party in serious danger of being out of power 10 years after the fMar 2, 2009 11:29 PM
iht.com
From books, Obama found his voicehttp://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/19/arts/19read.php?page=1Obama has said that he wrote "very bad poetry" in college and his biographer David Mendell suggests that he once "harbored some thoughts of writing fiction as an avocation." For that matter, "Dreams From My Father" evinces an instinctive storytelling talent (which would later serve the author well on the campaign trail) and that odd combination of empathy and detachment gifted novelists possess. In that memoir, Obama seamlessly managed to convey points of view different from his own (a harbinger, perhaps, of his promises to bridge partisan divides and his ability to channel voters' hopes and dreams) while conjuring the many places he lived during his peripatetic childhood. He is at once the solitary outsider who learns to stop pressing his nose to the glass and the coolly omniscient observer providing us with a choral view of his past.Jan 20, 2009 9:04 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Trader Joe's Is Not Your Average Business (2002)https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340188One day a few years ago, a guy at a Boston financial firm called up Trader Joe's headquarters and said he'd like to tour a store with a group of visiting Japanese investors. The brass at Trader Joe's was blunt: "You can't come." Not "We'd rather you didn't," or "Please don't." The visit was officially forbidden.This led to a predictable go-round about it being a free country and all, and Trader Joe's finally said okay, okay, you can come, but you don't get a tour. And as the investment company guy tells it, the tension in the air during the visit was thick enough to cut with a machete.Well, you probably can't blame the folk at Trader Joe's. They've got a phenomenal thing going, and don't want to give it all away. Some observers think that sales per square foot at Trader Joe's are hovering at about $1,000 -- twice the level of typical supermarkets. And with between about 70% to 85% of its products being private label (depending on who you ask), Trader Joe's has reached a benchmark otherOct 22, 2008 4:19 PM
bing.com
IFC Blog: Thoughts on ‘Matsuko’http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a89b72d27514179a8dfbd665224e973&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiewire.com%2Fnews%2Fgeneral%2Fifc-blog-thoughts-on-matsuko-221863%2F&c=17827034071908825317&mkt=en-usAs part of their ongoing preview coverage for this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, Alison Wilmore’s IFC Blog takes a look at Testuya Nakashima’s stirring narrative feature Memories of Matsuko.Jun 20, 2007 1:24 AM
bing.com
Skybus taking off in Columbus, but can its business model fly?http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8974bd3c44472498d6b18535888b61&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.travelweekly.com%2FTravel-News%2FAirline-News%2FSkybus-taking-off-in-Columbus-but-can-its-business-model-fly-&c=6737683002126738164&mkt=en-usSkybus taking off in Columbus, but can its business model fly? Andrew Compart W ith the launch of Skybus, the new all-coach airline starting service in Columbus, Ohio, on May 22, the U.S. airline ...Apr 28, 2007 5:00 PM
news.google.com
Photography and Surrealismhttps://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMia0FVX3lxTE9yaUsxREEwQnRfV29KWnNHYkpWNlY0WEtZUmRFVVdzRGhkaTJ3alI5a0xJc3RlLTNwa2swdGZKNldIYTRhdUs2WGd3ODdKNHNIVzRDNURla2Q5OVBFaDFJU3BDWDVtMG80eW1F?oc=5Photography and Surrealism The Metropolitan Museum of ArtOct 1, 2004 7:00 AM
