skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It is an impressive list of items that you have been able to do. It is very practical and something a college/univ education might not provide.

At some point in life (there is still a lot of time for you) you will have to make a decision, whether there is some benefit going to school to improve your theoretical knowledge. The hard part is knowing if that is useful for you :-). It is becoming irrelevant each day with initiatives like coursera/udacity.

Wishing you all the best for a great future ahead.
Performance Saturday: How to Wake Up with Exercise
College may not be required if you're sufficiently self motivated, however I still feel that for the majority of ordinary people, college still makes sense.

If you leave aside a field like tech, which has ample resources for those willing to teach themselves, this is simply not true for most other skilled professions

Regulations aside, would you go to a doctor who was self-taught or live in buildings built by architects and engineers who didn't go to college?

Atleast for the STEM fields, I still feel that college should be an absolute requirement.

Of course this is not meant to criticize your choice, just feel that the whole 'brilliant people don't need college' thing is taken a bit too far.
I'm glad you noticed that! I added it as a convenience for myself when testing it... and wasn't sure if anyone else would discover it :)
Not the OP, but the Code for America program is really amazing if you want to get in to open government work. I know several people who've gone through it and they've all ended up in great spots doing work they care about. The founder, Jen Pahlka, recently gave a TED talk on the work she's been doing:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_pahlka_coding_a_better_gov...

http://codeforamerica.org/
it's still "desparation"

you should change it to desperation
Haha, I'm an introvert. I think if I had any more friends than I have now, it would take away from what I do. And hey, if you like having friends, you can figure a way to fit it in, but I like keeping things lean and simple.

The open government internship was actually found on HN through a link to a networking, chat roulette of sorts. It had something to do with Brazen Careerist and DCTech? (maybe, I forgot the exact name.) I would higly recommend finding somewhere where you can stay for a few months and have a solid experience and reference.
The problem with education is that these tests treat students as a commodity. "Standardized" tests tend not to be even remotely useful in diagnosing the positive social capability of a human being.

It is a travesty that American teachers and administrators are put in situations where they feel that they have to falsify results because their students are not reaching them. The learning capabilities and specialties of students are as diverse as the rest of human nature, and the best way to create proper incentives for students and teachers is to build a pervasive culture that rewards learning and meaningful contribution to society. Perhaps American education needs to edit its message: aligning extracurricular American cultural values to highlight the positive effects of learning on success will likely increase test scores more than the next set of standardized whatevers that get thrown at them by an overwhelmed, out-of-touch committee.
Fixed. Now it's just getting late. heh.
Yeah, I have heard this. I come from a more design background, I don't plan to get into hardcore programming too deep. As someone said, without a CS degree you probably can't design the next Javascript, or up-and-coming language. This is probably true, but not something I plan on doing anyway.
I was being facetious - my point is 2to3 has been around since py3 was released and Django was python 2.x only for years, along with many other libraries, implying that porting is a bit more involved than applying a script :)
Right on Josh! Engaging in the real world is a bit scarier that sticking with your peers and remaining institutionalized, but your growing the most vital asset any of us can have in this world... BALLS!

I hope you continue to kick ass and maybe inspire some more people to pursue a similar route.
Yeah, we sort of planned for more content, but decided against it and we have yet to remove the side bar! Will do it soon though! Thanks!
I wouldn't consider myself brilliant by any means. I just had an early start and really fell in love with the web. The awe of putting something I made online when I was 12 really sparked something that caused what you see in me today.

I agree college is a necessity for some, and it really is a stepping stone for people who don't know what they want to do. Not everyone is as fortunate as me and get to know what they're doing years before they graduate. I'm so thankful for this.
I'm too sleepy to figure out how to comment tere. So you guys get this.

The best text on learning how to draw is a copy of Preston Blair's book(s) on drawing for animation. However that's only half the equation, because it lacks exercises. So you need to go to http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/2009/12/preston-blair-le... and do what he tells you to. They will seem stupid at first. But trust John; a significant percentage of the talent in the Hollywood tv animation scene learnt their craft under his harsh tutelage.

Other textbooks on drawing I've read: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, The Vilppu Drawing Manual, The Animator's Workbook.

The combination of Preston Blair (long considered THE classic text on drawing for animation) and John K's exercises will VERY RAPIDLY teach you how to look at things,mbreak them down into simple shapes, and draw them convincingly. Other texts teach this but few start with the super-solid, super-simple cartoon art found in 1940s cartoons; you're immediately thrown into trying to break down a human body, or a car, or whatever, into shapes you don't understand yet. The simple characters wear their construction on their sleeves, so it's easy for you to understand it and learn.
"Higher Order Perl" is the book I learned most how to write functional python code.

Yes. I haven't read not a single python book. "Dive into python", "Essential Python", LPHW was boring.

I recommend HOP for every programmer.
True, if you intend to work on creating applications (rather than say systems programming), it makes more sense to hone skills with how to work with frameworks/tools.

Obviously having the gift to design as well will put in you in an elite league :).
Seattle Startup Offers Solution for Apps Rejected by Apple for Using UDID
I do not keep that in my car.

UK law allows me to carry only the license part and leave the paper part at home. In the event that I should be required to produce it, I am allowed four days to take it to my local police station.
GREAT decision. I just recently graduated with a BA in English. I loved it, but it was ultimately a waste of time. My biggest qualm with higher education is that there's not enough DOING encouraged.

Having said that, two months after graduated in English, I taught myself web development and UI and now work at an SEO agency.
This was me in 1998.

I ended up halfway around the world, in New Zealand. Getting paid well, enjoying what I'm working on.

You won't really have more free time than you have now, your life starts filling up with things that demand your time. So studying will be harder to pick up later.

But doable, I'm studying on the side, inching my way to finishing my degree.

I don't earn less than college graduated peers.

And in the job, if anything, I'm probably more inclined to delve deeper and get a more in-depth understanding because I'm curious as hell and have always had a bit of an inclination to try prove myself vs those who had the benefit of a college education :)

I just lucked out that I was able to get a job doing this, and that programming as a career is so amenable to self-learning, otherwise I'd probably have ended up a lawyer or accountant, or some other job requiring degree study.

Good luck!
Holiday Trip to Mykonos, Paros, Crete and Santorini Islands, Greece
>is there a way I can give you money?

Was thinking the same thing. I have paid for far less useful apps. This should be 99c
For clarifications sake, I consider myself a front-end dev and user experience guy. I like to stay between full fledge designing and full fledge programming. I understand the difference between fairy tell design, and what stuff can actually do. I think that's an important mindset to have.

If you plan on doing hardcore engineering, college is the way to go. I would also say if you are fortunate enough to get into a really good school, and get good scholarships, go for it if you feel it's what you want to do.
I don't actually see any reasoning for why you haven't gone to college. It sounds like you're doing cool stuff, but I hope you're not trying to argue 'at 18, without college, I'm doing cool stuff, therefore college is unnecessary for people'.
Have you heard of the 'gap year' idea, which is common in England/Australia? (maybe other places too, but that's where I'm familiar with it). Many people argue that there are cool things you can do at 18 before you go to college, which will then give you some more experience in the world to decide whether you need college, and how you could most gain from it. Personally I'm a big fan of all high school grads being able to take at least a year off before college to learn a bit more about life, it's great that you have taken this opportunity. I'd love to see some more discussion of 'why I decided to do this, and where I think it'll take me'.

[edit: word choice]
There is a good free tutorial on generics: https://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/pdf/generics-tutorial.pdf. It explains the design of generics, and tells a bit about why Sun engineers came up with this implementation.
Also, a little note to anyone who has decided to either skip or take a break from school at any point in their career:

There's no shame in saying that you weren't ready for it then. It doesn't mean you couldn't handle the material, or the environment, or anything... it just means that you had some potential which, at that time, was not going to be fulfilled by doing whatever. 5, 10, 20 years later, not only will your potential have grown but so too the chance of doing so much more with it. I'm still younger than all of my classmates but I feel like I have the same approach as an old man– I came to learn, with the added benefit that all the work I do goes deeper with my additional experiences. So err, "Keep on rockin' in the free world..." but don't be afraid to take home the royalties after you're famous.
You can use a proxy and substitute your words. Also take in mind that the format is <word>,<score (1,2,3)>,<premium word or not (0 or 1)>
The article hit the nail on the head for me. Maybe someone can offer some advice on my related plight?

I'm like many of you in the sense that I spend all day every day on my computer -- I work in security, and I'm introverted. At the same time, I do crave interaction, and I find that going to bars in my college town provides me with social stimulation (I don't talk to Jersey Shore airheads). However, as I am also a night owl, this is basically my only social interaction for the day: the day doesn't seem complete unless I've talked to people. Therefore, I have become an alcoholic, which has profoundly affected me psychologically, and it's beginning to affect me physically as well.

The obvious solution to this problem is to find forms of socialization that don't involve alcohol. But that's easier said than done: what should I do? I have no hobbies and few other interests that don't involve books.

Real advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
اسماء الجمعية التأسيسية للدستور بعد اعلان النتيجة
i can see how the UI is awesome from going one place to another, but really, anyone 'navigate' from anywhere that is not your 'current location'?

i don't. so it's an honest question.

thinking about it, the only few times i do search from A to B instead of "here to B" is when i'm getting the subway, but then, i always have to click the nearest station i'm willing to walk anyway... don't see i having one bookmark for each one
Paul Graham is:
the "Michael Jordan" of nerds.
All about Java Generics in one big FAQ
YouTube User Guard for Chrome: stay signed in to YT when signing out of Gmail.
Yeah, that's definitely a good point to bring up. I have heard of the gap year, it's gaining traction in the US as well.

I decided to do this because I didn't feel, at the time, there was a college that was affordable, that had a degree that was relevant enough for what I wanted, and would fit my unique personality and approach to things. It was a gut feeling that college really isn't best for me. And it's definitely not a general rule of thumb for everyone.

I'm a self learner and like doing things with my own style and attitude. As far as the where I want it to take me part, I want to have my own startup one day, solve a problem that users care about, make money, and be happy every step of the way. Happy being relative here. Obviously some days will be bad, but you get the idea.

[Edit] What I described above is probably how the majority of HN feels. Ha.
That's amazing how well it worked out for you.

But after I dropped out of college in '98 things didn't work out nearly so well for me, and it was many years before I was able to get some kind of software development career going, even though I had useful skills before I was in the 10th grade. Still not going great (OK though) and people always hold the lack of a degree over my head.

If I could go back in time and put in those two more years of school I would. Not because I think that college really makes a lot of sense, but in the context of our dated society it is still a better choice I think if you can put up with it.
YouTube User Guard is an extension for Google Chrome which allows you to stay signed in to YouTube when you sign out of other Google properties such as Gmail.

This extension requires chrome.experimental.infobars, so you must enable Chrome's exeperimental extension APIs. You can do this by going to chrome://flags and enabling Experimental Extension APIs. You must restart Chrome for changes to take effect.

I created this extension out of frustration. I don't want to stay logged in to Google and be tracked all over the net, but I do however want to use a YouTube account for favouriting and liking the various videos I encounter each day.

Now that I've been using this extension for months with complete success I feel it is time to share it with the world. Hope somebody benefits from it :}
Sony Alpha NEX-C3 Review
I chose Python. The lack of explicit types combined with a crappy documentation make the standard libraries a pain to use. Reading somebody else's code too, unless it is thoroughly documented (aka the what-the-fuck-is-in-this-variable syndrome).
Fair enough. I didn't think of my post as an attack, but if it read as one, I should consider softening my language more.

But from my perspective, the subtext of the post was "you don't know how hard this is, you should just be happy about what we do have". I think we need to demand more, and those of us who can contribute to educational reform, contribute more.
Congrats Josh. You are DEBT FREE! Just that puts you light years ahead of most your age.
Exactly. I just turned 20, could've gotten my bachelor's two years ago, and yet I still don't have one. And so what? I've spent every day loving the experience of whatever it is I'm doing, I don't even regret exploring all the dead ends. It's all part of life, even when your path twists more than others'.

Edit: I should credit my fiancée who is halfway through the last program that I left– she has much more patience for all of things that I would only see as a poor use of time (i.e. taking introductory classes in which I already have 20+ credits at junior or senior level). Otherwise perhaps I'd be a bitter sap, which is probably how I come off anyway after a couple days of no sleep. Dead ends for me are not for her and vice versa, so it's all rather interesting.
Maybe there's a series to be made here, a little like Zed Shaw's "Learn X the hard way", only it would be "Explain Y to an arsehole".
Perhaps it'd be a fairer comparison if he compared reading the Encyclopedia Britannica to wikipedia. Or perhaps he's trying to make the point that sometimes all you needed was a definition, and you should have <your favourite search engine>'d "define: root beer" instead of going to wikipedia to be distracted?
Jobs and Hiring – You’re doing it all wrong
Can I use this with multiple partners? Lets say I have 4 relationships all at once, can I have 4 separate accounts?
That sums it up in my experience. The entire 'idea' of 'personality' is likely much more dynamic than static, despite the concerted efforts of 'social 'scientists'' attempting to justify their existence (as meaningful) - despite nearly a century of data (facts) to the contrary.
I am not sure how you define those percentages, but Facebook's homepage is regenerated on every pageview. Storing the entire homepage html in cache for every user would not work, because every time someone posts something you'd need to regenerate the homepage for all their friends (# of times someone posts something * avg # of friends > # pageviews homepage).
Thirdly: Any malloc'd pointers that are only tracked on the stack end up being lost when you unwind the stack.

This third one makes using longjmp for exceptions almost untenable in real life code. You can make it easier to track and free memory correctly by using a pool allocator for the whole program, which may or may not be realistic, but I once wrote a webserver this way (from scratch, hey it was the 90s).
I can't help but think about the logical extreme of this type of trend, which is to put the server rack itself outside- what components would you need to weather seal or protect against the elements? There are fans and disks that have moving parts, and cable connections you would have to seal, but other than those changes what would you have to do? Maybe it would be even more efficient....
Hấp dẫn gỏi ốc nón, Ninh Thuận - Hội những người yêu thích du lịch
Yep, the site includes that word list now :)
Are Aussie startups worth investing in?
Entrepreneurs, next time your pitch is rejected by an investor, don't blame them for something that could be your mistake.
Looks like the same landing page that has been there for a while.. Anyone get a screenshot?
While I'm in the boat of not needing to graduate college, I do feel that going to a good school is important. It's hard to make it on your own and meeting equally motivated, and inspired roommates would do well for someone with an entrepreneurial mind. Most of the stories about top CEO's starting their dorm businesses instead of graduating college still went to great schools.

Of course, if you have plans to work for yourself, then college may or may not be an issue. If however, you only plan on working for others, at some point you WILL hear about positions that are only open to people with a college degree. I have a friend who stepped out of school early to get a job, now he's working nights and weekends to finish his degree so he can advance within his own company, and field.

Again, if you plan on being judged by others, you need to play the game and get the proper badges.
The main difference I can see that adult site have is the .gif previews as this can distinguish the fake from the rest. Also you cant see any troll videos on adult sites.
10 kg afvallen?  Unieke Tips Waarvan Jij Nog niet van wist.
You know, from the get go one of the goals of ZF2 was simplicity, though it sounds like it's regressed in that area. Speed was another goal. Though at the present, that's regressed as well:

http://www.enrise.com/2012/02/zend-framework-2-performance/

In ZF's defense, the ZF team has stated that they're aware of the performance problems and that they'll look at those at a later stage. However, that, combined w/your review, combined w/the complexity I see every time I view a profiled call stack of a ZF app in KCacheGrind, really make me want to start rolling my own framework. I've done just that w/my JavaScript, and I'm loving the net positive in simplicity and speed. The growing complexity of ZF makes me want to go that direction with my PHP code as well (though I'll probably look at simpler frameworks first, like Lithium) .

In regard to the following line of ZF2 code cited in the post ...

$message = $this->getRequest()->query()->get('message', 'foo');

That line in ZF1 would look like ...

$message = $this->_getParam('message', 'foo');

Not much of a difference, but I wonder what was wrong w/ZF1's less verbose alternative?
Wow. This is beyond ridiculous.

The sole strength of php is that you can drop a file with the literal words "hello world" in your web root and there you are.

Yes, you'd want to impose some structure as your application grows beyond that, but if your application ever needs this level of structure you better hope you aren't writing in php to begin with.
And honestly, if I wanted to program Java, I’d use Java.

I had a similar reaction when reading the intro to Symfony this morning. One of the first things you come accross is:

"Namespace X", "Use Y", "request->query(...)"

Which looks one hell of a lot like C# [1]. So is that what these frameworks essentially are there to do - make PHP more Java / .Net like? And if yes, what does PHP bring to the table that those platforms don't (aside perhaps for ubiquity, a big plus if you are planning to distribute your software)?

[1] And I guess Java, but I don't know that at all.
Ah, I stand corrected. I apologize.

I think if I were to use a node MVC framework built on express, I'd go with Matador: http://obvious.github.com/matador/
Social Revitalizer - Latest tweet
Show HN: yet another weekend project, Learning Curve
Dear HN, this is an app that helps its user organizing links, documentations, files, tutorials and other amazing resources one encounter online - by type and topics. It was built to solve a personal problem. Currently, it is browse only, I am the only user. If you like the little app, i would polish it more and make the thing open to all. :)
You can probably tell more about them by the problems they tackle.
Wrap malloc in a function that push malloc'ed pointer on a global stack, insert NULL at the point where a try happens. When you throw an exception, simply free everything on the stack until the previous NULL. Problem solved.

Better yet, simply free memory at the exception throw site, if possible.
There's a list here: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/modules#wiki-web-framewo...

I've also found Grasshopper to be a great one: https://github.com/tuxychandru/grasshopper
It really depends on your motivation to be successful. If you make a mistake learn from it.
I've never used ZF as a full stack framework, exactly because of its complexity, but I've plenty times used selected components from it. It makes a very fine component library in that sense - I just hope they don't mess that up with ZF2.
This is true. I believe Topalov was the last person to challenge Vishy for Chess Champion. Carlsen helped Vishy prepare for the match. Which, makes it seem like he's not particularly interested in the title.