skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Here's what I did; I went part-time off-and-on for 4 years and it seemed like an eternity and sucked big time. Finally quite my job and financed my 1st year of full-time (State) college with my credit-cards, worked in the Unix lab. In my 2nd year I got an internship, as a software engineer, that paid well and continued the internship part-time till I graduated.

One summer (3 months) working as an intern and I made more money than working 6 months at my previous full-time job ... also after going full-time to college I made life-long friends that I would not have met going part-time.

On the other hand, if your want to continue as a programmer, U might not really need college if your really, really good. But, a good Computer Science program (and not a whimsical Informations System program) will teach you skills and knowledge that will be invaluable throughout your career. Also, having a degree can be a requirement for many jobs, they might not consider your resume or cv if you don't have one.

Even earning $1600 a month you can go part-time to a state college and start working your way to a degree. Tis better to have a degree even if it takes too long that to not have a degree and get stuck in a rut.

My advise, find an inexpensive state college with a good CS program, go to their open house, talk to their funding specialists. Be prepared to give up the niceties of life for a few years and you'll manage somehow.

OR, come to Boston and sigh up for Ycombinator! :)
if you are going to wait for the perfect storm for your profile to start a company, you'll never do it. To quote nike, just do it.

Something like 90% of people want to start their own business, but only 1% actually does. Don't really remember exact stats, but that should be pretty close
Python because it is

1. easy to learn,

2. has lots of libraries,

3. is anointed by Google,

4. is anointed by Peter Norvig (http://www.norvig.com/python-lisp.html) .

Or go to Erlang. It's concurrency model is untouched. You'll be programming in Erlang someday.
From the developer's Twitter stream: "I'm seeing the exact same ratio for Exposure: 2819 free, 67 paid right now."

Exposure Premium costs $9.99 to download from the iTunes store.

In a later twitter, he raises a concern about the iPhone app review process slowing down bug fixes he needs to get out.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=fraserspeirs
Hmm... Good question... Bit torrent might be worth looking into. It will probably take forever, but once it gets going you can just leave it for a couple days and it's easy to resume a transfer if anyone gets disconnected.

It might even be easier and faster to go low tech. A few DVD-Rs or Flash drives and stamps would do the trick.
I have excess capacity on ourdoings.com and no limits yet. I've made a lot of UI improvements lately. Let me know if you encounter anything difficult for non-IT people.
Probably later.
True, but if you have a reasonably popular site SOMEONE has always broken DNS TTL's along the way. I've been through this more times than I can count... If your site is still small/early, it's less of an issue.
That would have unfortunately valued his stake at $0.
How to run a campaign, Internet Style
The Twitter brand
This post is really epsilon from linkjacking.
On a related note, what are the odds for alternative programming languages for the iPhone to appear? I think interpreters are forbidden, but hopefully other "compiling" languages would be possible? I don't know Objective-C, but my first impression wasn't favorable (no garbage collection on the iPhone).
Been reading Zen and the Art lately Raganwald?

Pretty sure Pirsig decided in the end that 'quality' could not be defined analytically.

I'm sure Webster begs to differ, but I'll stick with Phaedrus on this one. I think quality, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. To some, it might mean robust code, to others, 'beautiful' code, to others, bug free, etc. If it was objective, then everyone could have agreed on it long ago.
[YouTube] Google TechTalk: How Cybercriminals Steal Money (From Web Apps)
99.999% of the content of this submission is in a link from the article submitted itself, and the article itself has only the barest familiarity with the topic ("XSSI but no XSS?").

I'm glad it was submitted, but we should vote and comment on the Google TechTalk itself. I just submitted it.
I thought there are also laws in terms of what equipment is required, like a sealed off lab if you are dealing with bio agents?

I am still doubtful that equipment is in general the biggest cost factor. Isn't wages always the most important factor? In that sense, doing an IT startup is not so cheap either, at least counted in opportunity costs ("what could I earn as a consultant instead").
http://streamfile.com lets you "stream" a file like a movie, so you don't have to wait for an upload to finish. Just zip up the 5GB into 3 packs (browsers won't let you upload more than 2GB), and stream it. Then let it stream until the other party receives it.

P.S. Streamfile is written in Erlang, which is kind of cool.
Why not swap photos before you leave and you're all local to each other?

Otherwise, I'd say find a $5/mo web server account. Everyone zips up their images, ftp's them to the server, and you download each persons image bundle as a simple link.

You'd probably have no more than 100GB of aggregate monthly transfers, lots of options in that range. Plus you'd get email accounts and maybe make your own private forum to stay in touch.
Or http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html --- no book required, and you avoid a really spotty security track record.

DJBDNS will hurt a bit if you're not Unix-y, but it will hurt less than managing zone files if you're not BIND-y. No sequence numbers, TTLs, or cryptic "IN A blah blah terminating period" syntax.
Is this one portable? I do use an external keyboard when I can but mine is too big to carry.
I appreciate your candor, but you're missing the point. No source of funding, no school.

It's not like I need to "snap" out of anything. I want to go back to school. As I've already said I've spoken with a financial aid advisor, things are grim and don't seem plausible failing a windfall.

My car is mine, I'm not an idiot, I'm just poor.

You're quite right, problems don't fix themselves, they also aren't fixed because you one says to fix them.

As for girlfriend/pregnant whatever, I'm not having kids. This isn't some post-adolescent, "lol I hate kids". It's just...I'm not infertile, it's just that the idea of dumping as much time and money into kids as is required to do a half-decent job or better is a bit repulsive to me.

To illustrate my point, I decided not to pursue a fairly cute girl recently because she would cut into my coding and learning time. Nothing in the world is as important to me as my work and my intellectual pursuits.

I know you got a couple "hear hears" for your bluntness but I'd appreciate it if your tone reflected the generally friendlier and quieter atmosphere here as opposed to reddit/digg. Frankly, this sort of uninformed rudeness to someone you don't know is the sort of thing I'd expect on rowdier places like the aforementioned, and it saddens me to run into it here for the first time personally.
Why non burn to DVD and drop in the mail box?
I'm not a flake, I just don't have access to funds.
Agreed. I work on recording projects with musicians all over the U.S. For huge data files, a DVD in the mail is way more convenient than the internet, and possibly even faster, if you factor in next-day delivery and less-than-robust network transfers.
Well if it's normally that cheap straight up, I'll just pay in cash as soon as I find a school that cheap around here.
Honestly, the "high end" DNS hosting services cost ~$15/mo. If you DIY, during setup you're going to incur many times more than that in time and effort costs, and you'll do it again every time you need to move DNS. If I were you, I'd just use a good hosting service with a web interface.
Here's an idea, make a gmail account that you all have access to and use the gmail hard drive (http://en.seguridadpc.net/gmail_hard_disk.htm) to share between yourselves.
Yeah, wages factor in a lot too. Probably the most important thing is that it takes a while to get something that you can sell to other people, so all the equipment and wages have to be paid for up front.
OP overlooks the real reason people have leaned toward the bigger house for the past 50 years (and it has nothing to do with bathrooms or Grandma). It was because it was generally accepted financial advice and because it worked.

The general rule was "Buy the biggest house you can afford, and then, when the time is right (5 years or so), take your equity or flip, and do it again. By retirement time, you should be sitting on a tidy next egg."

A lot of older baby boomers have earned more in their lifetime from this strategy that from all their jobs combined!

Then people forgot about the phrase "you can afford" and starting breaking the guidelines in a boom market. They also forgot about the busts, when this strategy goes on hold.

When you blindly follow "rules" you don't understand, you're just an accident waiting to happen.
California Uses More Gasoline and Diesel than China
I understand what you're saying about Dunning-Kruger, but I could sit here and tell you about the merits of Linux Kernel asm-level syscalls versus DOS interrupts.

I know i386 and PPC asm.

I have a passion for algorithms, in particular, I like in my spare time to create mini-benchmarks of sorting algorithms against various arbitrary datasets.

I know my stuff. I just can't demonstrate the more advanced work I've done because it usually violates US Copyright Law.

EDIT: Let me qualify this by saying there is tons more I need to learn, and want to know. For example, I really REALLY need to learn more about web application development.
Microsoft Mesh (in P2P mode, without storing data on server)?
Amen. And stop treating life like a series of college interviews. You win by winning, not by convincing people you can win.
Most of my work is in Python as of now - I use MacVim [1] along with a bunch of plugins (see [2]). I was using Eclipse with PyDev for the longest time, but I just got tired of the bloated memory usage, especially when I wasn't using many of the things Eclipse is famous for (I still swear by it when I do Java development).

[1] - http://code.google.com/p/macvim/
[2] - http://blog.sontek.net/2008/05/11/python-with-a-modular-ide-...
I just checked with a diff comm college, I'm going there. I can go for ~1500 a semester.

I'm super frugal and have no vices other than computers, I can afford that twice over.

Problem solved until I want to go to Uni I guess.
jgamman can you email me at ycseattle (-at-) gmail.com? I am working on this exact idea.
I took the same job, from a factory - the owner set me up working as a "ebay poster" , I asked the company why they didn't move beyond the 21-23% fee ebay takes and build there own website to sell their products.

- they had already spent 5k and in 2 years without sales, they said "No Way!" ...

- i went home and bought the domain www.econoPalletJack.com for $10.20 - I built the site in 2 days (yeah its not perfect) but with a #5 in google for pallet jack and 20k/mo in sales it all worked out, I have since left the company but the owner and i are still greats freinds (wouldn't you be if a guy left you 20k/mo residual)

- have hope and make things on your spare time, little programs perhaps to sell, find a hurt point that you are passionate about and do it.
Why are interpreters forbidden?
72 days
Well using reverse sort of misses the point. You are supposed to implement reverse.
True I wouldn't call it bleak either. eBay posted 20% earnings growth although the stock is down. It is interesting to go through this again though having been through the first one. It's tough. I remember so many friends and colleagues leaving for places like Austin or Boston way back when. Now, I wonder if the same will happen. Engineering wise, I really don't expect many to leave but the mom and pop shops that rely on high valued incomes... and maybe business units, always the first to go.
The same piece of code will have a different value from one owner to the other. Thus, since the definition of quality depends on the context, doesn't it make quality inherently subjective?
a) we pay no custom for computers in the last 5 years

b) installing ubuntu on it and dealing with the soundcard and the built-in camera seems to me like an headache. I think apple fans might be happier with this machine.
Because Apple wants to control what applications can run on the iPhone. With an interpreter installed, you could just download the software from anywhere and run it through the interpreter without installing it, bypassing Apple's controls.
Squeak People's trust metric
Start-up Scars: My Failed Startups
> "I might just have to try without YC funding"

> "Hoping to be accepted into YC (for example) could provide a good motivation boost."

YC should not affect your motivation at all!

It sounds like your goal is not to start a successful business, but to be accepted into YC. This brings up two things.

1) If you don't seem dedicated and committed to an idea, you are not an attractive investment. Anyone reviewing your application is likely to pass. Investors look for people that will succeed without them. What will your motivation be in the case that you are accepted into YC? Why do you equate YC with success?

2) Don't even think about YC right now. Like with all deals, you should assume it won't happen until after it is set in stone. You can avoid the discouragement and de-motivation that comes with rejection by keeping your focus on the most important thing, the improvement of your product.

> "...the projects I finished successfully (most I didn't finish) usually took too long, and did not reach the scope I was hoping for."

You need to finish a project by yourself. Start small if you have to, but the only thing that matters is that you finish something that you start. I think this will help your confidence and help you get out of this pattern. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't turn out the way you had hoped, but don't let it drag on forever if there doesn't seem to be potential.

> "I suppose the obvious path to take is to work on a demo day and night, and anyway, giving up is not an option..."

I suggest reading some 37signals on this one. Just because you work on something day and night does not mean it is time well spent, and sometimes giving up is indeed the best option.

On a side note, don't get your identity in your achievements, failures, or age. You are never too old or too much of a failure to do anything.
fedex?
Ask HN: Yahoo spam filter, is it possible to get through?
Hi all,

I have been trying to tackle the problem of getting through Yahoo's spam filter for months now without luck -- hopefully you guys could give me some tips. Our service is not sending mass e-mail or anything, just Email confirmations upon registration and notification emails.

I followed all the tips from this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=92022

I have implemented RDNS lookup, SPF record, and DomainKeys/DKIM

I am able to easily get through Hotmail and Gmail's spam filters... but Yahoo is just constantly giving me a headache. I have tried everything under the sun other than calling Yahoo and scream my heads off, could anyone shed some light? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I never thought I'd see one of my own pages on here :)
1) Use an embedded bittorrent tracker inside Azureus/uTorrent

2) Sneakernet! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
Legg Mason Capital Management to Support Yahoo
I am glad to hear your opinion.

Not everyone has an hour to watch the lecture. I have been blogging about video lectures in this style for a while now, and I have received quite a few emails thanking me for providing sum-ups of the videos.

I was also very surprised at the time of submission that he talked about XSSI but did not cover XSS! Only later did I add a paragraph about XSS! Sorry about that.
One byte at a time! lol

I would sign up a gmail account and upload the photos to it. Then give access to all your friends so that they can download and archive what you all want. It won't be pretty but you will be able to send the account.
Ah, well that does make it a bit more interesting. :)
Thanks for the excellent advice.

As I said in another reply, I found a community college that is cheap enough for me to pay for the tuition in cash. I'll just get my degree and go from there.
Do you all need all 5GB of photos? Probably not. I'd venture that:

-- the total number of shots can be edited down to the 'keepers'

-- web-resolution is sufficient for 95% of the photos being traded

Have everyone edit out the losers, batch process down to 800px jpegs, upload to a flickr group, and then transmit the ones you need higher-res versions of individually via email or mediafire or similar.
My primary goal is not to get into YC, but the odds of making it probably have an effect on how I will spend my time untill the application deadline. Maybe that was the main reason for my post, to figure out if focussing on the YC application even makes sense. I do believe that YC would increase my chances of success by a big factor.

I think it wouldn't be a loss to focus on the application, because whether I would be accepted or not, I would make progress with my project/startup. But without the YC application, I would probably choose different projects. For example smaller targets or less "sexy" projects. Maybe I would finish my old projects instead of starting a "YC potential project".

This kind of "double-win"-thinking might be a frequent cause of my downfall, because I don't focus on the most important point: what do I really want to do. Instead, all the decision factors might get too confusing in the end.

I take your point and will try decide on my favorite project irrespective of it's imagined YC potential.
I guess they probably include videos too.
Who's Going to Fund the Next Steve Jobs?
The Vietnam of Computer Science
TED - Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers
It's actually not very hard to get back into school.
No, the post he was responding to was markedly ignorant of the macports system and seemed to think that something as simple as apt-get was completely unknown in the Mac world.
Macports may not have everything that is in the bsd ports system, but it is pretty damn close. For everything else it is not too difficult to do the configure ; make ; make install dance...
'eye of the beholder' is a cop-out argument. In both art and code, there are objective differences between high-quality and poor-quality products. Leaving the definition of quality as merely a personal taste sidesteps the difficult yet rewarding issue of determining what those differences are.

The old line was that "Jazz can't be taught, but somehow you have to learn it." Modern musical teaching and theory amply demonstrates that Jazz can be taught. It just took time for the pedagogical techniques to catch up with the modern practice.

We may not yet have a complete definition of what makes Quality code, but that does not imply that no such definition can exist.
Alnayyir, I am by no means belittling you; stop calling yourself a flake.

College: You can do it. You should do it. It's worth it. The tools are there. Almost everyone wants to help you. The mechanism is set up to help you. Heck, there are even scholarships for grandchildren of volunteer farmer firemen; and there are searchable databases too. My message to you is: Do it.

Here's what I did, I had a similar situation and I worked my way through college for a CS degree:

Go to a local community college (in your state as they often have huge discounts for state residents) that has a way to transfer to a big 4-year university. Do research, and choose the one that has the best transfer track record. These colleges are good not only because of the implied higher education quality but because the counselors are better equipped to get you into the 4-year.

Use this time wisely, accomplish two things: a) Get good grades, the best you can; and b) build up your professional programming history so you can get a steady stream of consulting gigs later in life (you're gonna need the income).

It's perfectly OK to take 3-4 years doing this. Do it well, this is the key to your future.

Use the system too. My community college permitted dropping out of a course late in the term,so if the calculus class is looking like you'll get a C or maybe a B, drop it and take it again. Don't screw up your grades, they are your ticket to the future. When I found out 4-year universities did not care about dropped courses, I started keeping my "A" classes, and dropping everything else.

When the time is right, transfer to the best 4-year university you get accepted to (you will because you got good grades at the community college). Work your way as much as you can through university, come out with as little debt as possible.

Nowadays you even have guru.com and the like. You can certainly find a job there. One of the best things in colleges/universities nowadays are the job centers. There are lots of companies that advertise for jobs only at their college's job center.

That's pretty much it. It's not impossible.
rapidshare
Pointed criticism at FSF's stand on iPhone
Ask HN: Would free copywriting assistance appeal to you?
As a recovering Marketing / Biz Dev guy currently considering taking the plunge and starting a company, I find myself seriously lacking with regards to engineer contacts. I'm in the NYC area (yes, I'm going to try to hit the meet) and I know there are plenty of great minds here; I just don't know them.

In brainstorming ways that I might remedy this situation, I had a thought. Many startups whose sites I pass by seem to have a common issue - Copy. For a number of reasons, an invaluable sentiment escapes many companies large and small: You can build and launch the greatest product in the world but if you can't tell people about it, it’s all for naught. Companies big and small have this issue - typos, grammatical errors, inefficient structure, verbosity, and so on.

In my eyes, the big guys have no excuse. For small and emerging companies however, money is a huge factor. Hiring a wordsmith is the obviously the last thing on your mind when deciding whether to spend a few hundred dollars on XYZ... Or eat. At the same time, poor copy puts you at a serious disadvantage in your market.

No, I’m not offering to write copy for entire websites free of charge. What I am considering is to take a look at your homepage, marketing sheet, mass email, elevator pitch, or whatever other single item you need the most help on, and refine / polish it. This will be the start of an infinitely more professional image and may even help put some minds at ease just a bit so that focus can be where it should be: On the product. The clear benefit to me will be working with intelligent and technical people immersed in interesting projects, all while expanding my contact list. No I’m not going to pitch people who approach me on my idea, but perhaps you have a talented friend currently looking for the right founding opportunity to potentially break him/her out of a corporate rut. That might be something we discuss while refining that document you’d like me to look at...

So is this something people here on HN might find appealing? This is an issue that I’ve seen mentioned numerous times here and as such, I’m posing a potential solution that may benefit everyone involved. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.