skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm in the same boat you are, my friend. I'm taking two classes over the summer to start my Jr. year on time.While I can't give you advice from historical experience, I can tell you what I'm doing.

Right now I'm using this time to save up some money. I know that I ultimately want to start a company, but I don't know what type (startup, lifestyle) or even in what industry. I do know that I like technology, but I don't think that I would be able to use my skills to compete in that industry, though I may be able to use my knowledge there to give myself an advantage somewhere else. Right now I'm doing what I can to see what my interests are, so that I have a plan after college.

I see college as two things: A way to meet people and build my network, and a plan B should the "own my own business" plans fall through.
hunger is not a biological phenomenon, it's driven by economics, politics, policy, and a host of other issues that we can change if we have the commitment to do so.
OCW is close to worthless on about 70% of the courses. There is a "lost in translation" effect when you remove the course from it's institution.
i'd like to say once more for the record that this conversation should be happening (or at least replicated) on my blog so that the people who don't know about hacker news can participate in this discussion
Interesting - it is definitely an awesome time to be in publishing. I redid (as all freshmen tend to do) the paper's website, which was a huge learning experience.

A lot of publications seem to have problems getting themselves online - collegepublisher is the witness. So you seem to be in a viable area.

Most of the misery was from schoolwork, which is improving slowly. The social side is at a standstill, because I really don't like beer. It's a catch-22 from where I stand. I think I've always just focused on what was fun/interesting and ignored much else, which you can't do in college, at least academically. I want the liberal arts anti-focus, but of course didn't realize it would be this hard.
If you're planning on a career in programming, I'd recommend trying to get an internship somewhere before you graduate. If you think you might want to start a startup, go that route, but it won't hurt to do an internship at a big company either (it's actually probably better than working at one after you graduate, but I wouldn't know first hand).

If you want to go the startup route, I'd recommend just sending emails to a bunch of startups you like. Most of them probably aren't actively seeking interns, but would be at least intrigued by the opportunity.
See what else is out there. Computers might be fascinating, but until you learn about a bunch of other fields, you will never know if they're what fascinates you most. Take as many classes as you can in as many areas as you're interested in, and be sure to take lots of classes outside your major. Finish more than one major. Join a sports team or club where you'll meet people you wouldn't otherwise. Save the specialization for your senior thesis, grad school, or for your job. Try to meet people with a wide variety of interests, so you can make a truly informed decision between majors and career paths.

Others may tell you to choose an field of study early on and become an expert. I definitely admire that goal, but I don't think college is the place. Most underclassmen have no idea what really interests them; I certainly didn't.
I don't think I'd be able to survive corporate. I had a summer job doing IT-ish things in a small accountancy a couple years ago, at the end of the two months I was about to kill myself from the boredom and monotony.

That expert advice is valuable - thank you. I'm currently interested in programming language theory (prompted by steve yegge), we'll see where that takes me.

I'm trying hard with the friends thing, but there are precious few who don't "submit" to the partying culture.
First off, since your a sophomore, your plans will change. Bet money on it. Don't get caught up in specifics of where you want to be. Instead take advantage of the powerful abstractions where you can to work out what "axioms of life" you want to design your life with. That's your homework assignment in the unwritten curriculum of the university. The vast majority of people fail that lesson, good folks recognize it and get it partially right, the great people master this lesson, implement, and refine it for the rest of their lives.

Always consider your personality. My regret may be exactly what you DON'T want to do. Having said that... Being a physics students at very good engineering school, and having participated in student design competitions my only regret is not having taken more pure mathematics. In science and engineering, if it works, there's your evidence. You have shown it can happen. Mathematics I viewed, at the time being so simple minded, as a set of neat tricks for solving physics problems (or engineering problems, which at the time I thought of simplistically as merely applied physics problems). The reason I regret not taking more pure math isn't the theorems or skills I missed getting, it was the mindset. Every profession and field looks at the world in a particularly special way. It's a more abstract version of the saying "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." I'm actually doing research in graduate school now in mathematics and I'm really glad for it. The perspective from being a bit physicist, a bit engineer, and now a bit mathematician really gives one a lot of versatility, and that's where the variety of experience in the "hard subjects" pays off. You see, everyone who has specialized to be only one thing, think university professors, are like shaft mines. The specialists dig deep to get at the really rich seams, but they pass by a lot of pretty good stuff following the very richest dig through their subject. Take a bit more breath in your studies and you will see lots of good stuff, and how it's connected together.

Finally, have fun too. Every day of my undergraduate schooling was a cycle of learn, work, play, build, fight, drink, sleep, and repeat tomorrow. It's the best that could have happened in spite of being exhausting, all consuming, obsessive, and unrelenting. I loved it because to me that is fun.

Best of luck to you.
Do as much extracurricular stuff as you can manage with as much time as you can give it, in whatever interests you. I was also a CS major, and my free time went to theatre. I actually ended up with two degrees, the second one being theatre, so I guess for me it was a little more than extracurricular, but the point stands. Now that I'm out of college and have a wife and job, I find it infinitely more difficult to find time to do any acting/directing/etc, and it's something I really miss and I'm very glad I did it in college while I had the chance.

Might not be theatre for you, obviously. Might be music, might be hiking, might be journalism, might be Ultimate Frisbee playing, whatever. Find something that isn't related to what you'll end up doing 9-to-5 after you get out, and explore that thing.

EDIT: slackerIII's point about making new friends is also spot-on. Luckily, extra-curriculars can make that easier so the two tips go hand-in-hand. ;) The social atmosphere of college is completely unique (at least in American society; I realize you may or may not be US-ian), so open yourself up to it and take advantage.
So far, I haven't ever had anyone teach me programming (will probably change next year). I just finished reading SICP (I love it!), and I've done _moderately_ difficult projects.

I've seen another article recently that claimed that self taught people will only attempt "easy" things. I just thought that was derogatory, because other than being self-taught, I didn't "resemble that remark" in any other ways; he painted a picture of someone doing some hypothetical "bad PHP website".
Do EVERYTHING you can that will not be economically feasible (travel for a month or three) or even possible (spend a summer at Cambridge University in England). You will live to regret not doign these things when, after you get a job, you get two measly weeks of vacation per year.

Use it all up: take extra classes, join a club, make a friend from another race, etc...
Mostly because "alpha" means "alpha" not "release candidate".

Ask yourself: do I want to associate my brand with the product in it's current state? If it is alpha quality but you still want feedback, think damage limitation. It's no accident that programs get code names: you associate all of your alpha woes with a brand you can throw away.
Get involved in something that isn't merely "fun," but fulfilling, too.
I'm 21 myself, so I don't know if I qualify as an advice giver but...If you want to meet like minded people, you've started in the right place.

With this in mind, depending on what metropolitan area you are in/near there should be events... like BarCamp [http://barcamp.org/] or Refresh [http://refreshingcities.org/].

Traveling is definitely something I recommend as well.
The harsh reality of suburban broadband
Researchers spot Mac Trojan in the wild
Hopefully this will get the guys who work on Transmission to add HTTPoSSL support :)
Time Tracking - GetMoreHoney.Com! Way awesome, very pleased with it...
omnifocus is excellent for todo's, but it's only for a single user.

billings is great for time tracking (has an excellent, easy to use (best in my opinion) widget for starting and stopping your timer), but is also single user

lighthouse (lighthouseapp.com) is great for team project manangement
CrunchBase: Now With Maps, Advanced Search, Jobs, And Milestones
Go out with as many women as possible. Once you join the startup life the women will be few and far between.
You could achieve the same effect by mailing a confirmation number via snail-mail. This would not fix one of the fraud problems - the hijacking of valid accounts in good standing. It would only affect fraudsters psychologically, as the police would generally be unwilling to deal with crimes of less than $3000.
Digital and Mobile Media Spending to Double Share by 2012
Agreed, that's the biggest issue with clever code. I'm easily tempted to do it too.

But mashing everything together into a big lump just makes for a exhausting debugging session in six months.
Sweden: wiretap all internet and telephone traffic
Not intending to get a job or get married (is the former actually feasible?), but will keep your advice in mind. I'm trying to get out hiking and climbing (I'm in the northeast), but (this) college is so much work.
Oops, I meant to give this a +1 and hit the down vote, but it is definitely the most rewarding experience I had until I joined a startup. Travel gives you perspective. Also, spend time making friends with people in many other majors, the wider your horizons the more interesting things become.
Is getting a job feasible? With a CS degree? Yes, it can be done. ;) What were you planning on doing after college other than getting a job?
Tiny refrigerator taking shape to cool future computers
I like 'things' for single person task tracking. It follows GTD and it's the best GTD app I've used. I use it regularly and daily. Unfortunately, the team functions are not implemented in it, but for personal tasks (not tickets), it's quite good. FogBugz look's like a nice ticket tracker, but it costs money.
More importantly, why do you want to create a small EBay? EBay works because of it's size & scale.

The hardest part of this would be handling the actual payments. The rest of it can be done with whatever you like best.

Edit: After I wrote this, I realize it's pretty similar to Keefe's recommenation
No, I meant the other way round - is it feasible not to get a job out of college? I was thinking the startup route, but again, that idea is still the vague-move-to-Valley plan.
Every thing you need to know about a Programmer ...
New functional language - C#
pen & 3x5" cards ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/488026860/
A separation of concerns is not just good for flexibility, it also helps with debuggability and readability and is a reflection of ability.
Step Away From the Keyboard…and Breath, Think
Yeah! Finally an excuse to do something interesting at work instead of at home.
as much as i hate joel spolsky's attitude, fogbugz is the best that i've seen for this.
Designers who also develop have more power
Believe it or not, formal education and self-study aren't mutually exclusive... you can do a combination of both and benefit from the value of each style of learning.

One of the good things about most tertiary institutions is that you're not obliged to show up to any of the lectures, so if your preferred learning style is self-study, then you can skip the lectures and just learn the material by yourself. But you can still take advantage of aspects of formal education that are valuable for autodidacts, whether it's clear course structures, access to good professors, hanging out with smart peers (ie. learning by osmosis), access to expensive journal subscriptions, deadlines to motivate your learning, etc.

Anyway I wouldn't write off school so quickly. A really motivated autodidact can use school to their advantage, instead of lamenting its obvious flaws. Study the required material, but then learn beyond the basic necessities of the course, study whatever interests you. Don't be too concerned about grades and don't bother studying just for the test. If you're learning for the love of it and for a true, deep understanding of the subject, then let me assure you that you'll have no problem passing.
Firefox 3.0 USB Lets You Take Your Browser Everywhere
Nevertheless, I'm quite bored, by the vapid partying (which I refuse to take part in - decimating my social life)

Doesn't seem like he may be too interested in this.
I really need to learn more about Seaside/SmallTalk. While I learned Scheme in school and believe Lisp is ultimately where it's at, I have a feeling that Seaside/SmallTalk would be a good waypoint between Python and the Hundred Year Language.
High school, part time hacker for a couple OSS projects

That leaves me a striking question: How many other readers here are high schoolers like me?
I thought the same for the first two years of college. Beware!
Travel while you can do it cheaply. Take as many electives as far outside your majors as you possibly can without graduating later; college is better at giving you exposure than skills anyway. Make friends that you want to have parties with. Meet people who do things you know nothing about; you'll have fewer chances to do that in the working world.

Drop out if you know you have better things to do with your time, and you can spend time around a large group of people with varied interests anyway.
Drinking <> Socializing

If you learn nothing else, learn that.

It is perfectly possible to go to a kegger and drink water all night and still have a good time meeting interesting people and talking to them about interesting things.

Find those interesting people. Keep looking at different parties until you do.

I still keep in close contact with friends I met at University, and would not trade that experience for the world.
You don't have to do jell-o shots to go out on dates or have a social life.
Wow... you sound just like me. I have the same issues with working, and the same desire to work in startups or similar. Honestly, I think it helps a lot to know that I'm not alone.

I actually just got this account as I only discovered this site a few days ago (and I love it!) so I don't know if there is an easy way to get in contact with you, but I think it would be interesting to get your name and maybe an AIM screen name or the like.

My advice? Make friends, and do whatever whenever while you can. Also, I have an internship in a big business now, and I hate it. It's boring, slow and totally uninteresting. Still, I'm glad I did it. It's something worth experiencing and it's given me new motivation to get good at something and start a business. Find out what you want, and don't stop until you get it -- even if you hate it, the experience is good.
to be blunt...

Pull your head out of your ass.

The world works as a social organization.

You don't have to sacrifice beliefs, but you do have to actually socialize.

And yes, that does mean going to parties and learning how they work just like you go to class and learn how to do homework.
Ask HN: Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries
I'm 26 and have been hitting keys since I was 6 or 7. For the first time in 20 years I now have a burning pain in my right hand and wrist. I think it has a lot to do with my mouse. I've switched to an ergonomic keyboard, and have also begun using a keyboard tray, placing it low enough so that my shoulders are relaxed when I work. But the pain persists. MacSpeech Dictate has pretty sweet accuracy and can replace typing for IM conversations and email, but I still have to type to code.

What are any of you doing to prevent such injuries? Do you think about the possibility? I have a feeling it could end up being something of an 'unexpected' pandemic (three co-workers of similar age have also begun to see their first symptoms).
You're right. I'm also depicting the social organization - and my resistance towards it - in rather polarizing terms. A large part of the problem is choosing socializing over doing something fun/interesting, which I've learnt, only a while ago, that you gotta do.
College, after sophomore year, tends to be less about the classes and more about the people. Choose as many classes as you can solely based on the professor's character/infamy. Those people will inspire you and help you choose what is interesting.

Also, try to see as much of the world as possible, and this doesn't just mean traveling. I'm thinking about people like this person at TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/233 - try to find these people and get connected with what they're doing.
> It also has a number of discrete cameras (and a microphone) that keep an eye on the user herself as well as the screen.

They only test females?
I think he totally meant well, but I could not resist. I found it funny how one little word can have a big impact.
I wasn't going to give it an upvote, but did for you. If one more person will do the same, it'll be +1 like you wanted.
Streamfocus is from gibsonf on here. It is more on the level of Microsoft Project than Basecamp. (or gibsonf1 now? http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gibsonf1)

http://www.streamfocus.com/
I agree... without failing, your successes are unimportant. I'm only 18 now, but one of the best, worst, and most humbling experiences was being let go from a job that I thought would take me straight into the field I wanted to be in. Needless to say, I've changed my mind.
Philosophy of Physics Debate
btw - Cheap Travel is just that...

I spent 6 weeks in Scotland for <$1k including airfare.

As a student, you are used to skipping meals, sleeping on couches and sharing a room in Hostels.

When you get older, those things are all out and everything gets much much more expensive (my most recent vacation to SF cost me $2k for a week).
And your assumption that socializing isn't fun or interesting...
Ask YC: How to conduct a meeting?
I'm the CEO of a fairly new web based startup (who isn't?) and I've been having trouble getting much traction going at my teams weekly meetings. I've read up on how to properly conduct a meeting however for some reason it just feels like I'm missing something.

Can anyone recommend a good read on how to conduct a meeting, or (if I could be so lucky) give me some advice on the subject?

As an aside, we are a small group, only 4 people.
I have and the same thing happens for me.
In general, if I need to maintain someone else's code, what I see the most important is that the author's intent is expressed clearly. Whether it is clever-and-compressed code or simple-and-verbose code seems a secondary issue. Longer code that has too much details (such as too many names for intermediate variables) could obscure the intent of the author, and I'd rather prefer clever code to it as far as it's intent is clear, for I can make it black-box in my mind while I'm reading the whole and only analyze it lazily as needed.
Can you type up some suggestions/things you did?
1. With better formatting it would be more readable. It's hard keeping track of the parens and braces.

2. What's with the call to parseInt? Are you trying to floor it? If so, just use Math.floor()

3. If you know the number of parameters to a function call you can use method.call(this, arg1) instead of method.apply(this, [arg1]). Slightly more readable, IMO.

Overall I would say this is a little too clever. I'd use a few extra lines to make it more clear.
Take note from the Paypal model when they first started out - have as few meetings as possible, hit only the key points, and again, don't have unnecessary meetings.

Just cover what needs to be covered and allow people to get to their work. Fast paced.

And have people stand if possible, not sit. And no laptops or cell phones in the room. They'll pay attention in both instances.
Working on the assumption that more than one person probably voted it up in order to compensate for the previous downvote, I voted it down. I'm sure it will all work out just fine in the end.
Before you have a meeting, consider what would happen if the meeting ended up cancelled -- then decide if you even need to have it. I've sat through countless meetings that could have easily been solved with a few quick emails or a phone call.

Also, make it clear what the meeting covers and stick to it, this lets people who aren't stakeholders in the current topic leave and get back to work.
hmm, we do some of this. more focused on the biz side than development side. if youre looking for dev/design time tracking try tick. Publictivity.com. if you want an early invite and free account, email me jason [at] publictivity.com
Clearly clever...
learn as much as you can and validate it with a degree,
learn some more and validate it with a masters
learn a little bit more and validate it with a PhD.
In theory J2ME has wide distribution, but in reality, the platform is highly fragmented.

I agree that the platform is pretty tightly locked down, and both of these issues make the platform useless for real development. If you want to write anything other than a Tetris clone, stick with an open platform.
take art 101 or design 101 or calligraphy 101, something that forces you to learn the basics of design and composition.
Smoke weed (or do tantric yoga) until you become conscious on a new level (you'll know when you have, if you have difficulties smoke more stronger weed, hash, oil, use a vapourizer or take it orally after extracting it with fat (bake < 300f) or alcohol).

Take mush (of the psilocybin variety) until you understand the nature of the change in consciousness created by the mary jane.

(you can try mescaline anytime after mush if you so wish, it will likely help you either understand the changes or find the connection, but would likely be counterproductive before mush is taken in a significant dose)

Take LSD until you feel an unshakable connection to the universe (start with a massive dose, theres no time like the first, listen to The Beatles [anything after Help! is best] and The Doors for assistance 'breaking on through to the otherside').

Then smoke DMT until you reach 'DMT hyperspace'. (Do not let fire touch the DMT, only touch the flame to the glass [and even then not /right/ under the DMT] take big hits you gotta take 3 big hits and hold them in before you become unable to smoke [mildly difficult]; keep trying.)

At this point you will understand your consciousness in a way science could never teach you, and you won't have to ask us anything about what you should do, you will already
know.
Participate in the COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling. It was the 4 best days of my undergraduate career. I did problem B in 2005, here's a link to the problem set:

http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/200...