What did a teenager get out of attending Startup School? | Hacker News Reader

What did a teenager get out of attending Startup School?

kulpreet.com

52 pointskulpreet15 comments

This is a weird example of something I will deem "content subject scaling". I've come to realize that we often judge content based on not the sole value of the content alone, but actually, the nature of the author who created said content. Here, we are amazed the author is 16 - if he was not an outlier in this sense, this piece would surely not be front-page worthy. Similarly, InDinero founder Jessica Mah is outstanding because of her age, but beyond that, would we really be focusing on her product so often? I have my doubts. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we sometimes view and promote content that is largely throwaway based on the author's known history.

Not to say this isn't okay and it's not worthwhile, but most of the time, these kinds of posts need to be acknowledged as what they are - not things that are really strong contributions to the HN knowledge base, but instead, curiosity impinging posts that ACTUALLY serve as mini-biographies of the people that post them and/or are featured within them - where our REAL interest lies.

So, my point - serve me up the 301 redirect to their about page, stat.

Youth is simply one form of power that can be exercised to get publicity, guidance from older mentors, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Entrepreneurship and engineering are both about using what you have to build what you want.

This is actually one of my first attempts at blogging, so I appreciate the feedback. To be honest, I was not expecting to make the front page.

Similarly, I only read his article to check whether he chose the title as posted on HN. Sure enough, he did.

All the credit to him for knowing how to play his audience. That showed a tremendous amount of perspicacity.

As a fellow high-schooler ("one who high-schools"?), I'm impressed! You certainly seem to be doing everything that I wish I were doing right now.

This is new found motivation for me to start working on the Rails app that's been in the back of my head for a while now. Here's hoping that I can sustain that motivation long enough to build a finished product.

kulpreet, not all the (ethnically) chinese people in the bay area are Chinese (citizens).

I found that out first hand when I flew into SFO after a year+ in China. There is such a huge cultural difference between people born and raised in the mainland, and those from other ethnically Chinese but non-PRC communities that it's alienating sometimes.

(I want MORE 广州人, dammit! I will forever consider SZ, DG and GZ home; Guangdong pride!)

[Edit:

Added qualifiers to disambiguate ;-]

> kulpreet, not all the chinese people in the bay area are Chinese.

I understand what you are saying, but capitalizing a single letter is not really enough of a distinction to rely upon in casual conversation. For example, I will often intentionally describe an american-chinese friend as "Chinese" rather than "chinese", capitalizing the C as a way of signifying importance and respect in the same way you might say The White House or Stanford, rather than stanford. To many, "chinese" simply implies you are too lazy to capitalize the "C". (which is, conversely, why there is an implied value and respect associated with capitalizing)

I hope that makes sense, it is a somewhat amorphous subject and as such difficult to articulate.

You're absolutely right. I just wasn't sure how else to distinguish between Chinese (citizens of the PRC), and diaspora Chinese (people of Chinese origin that are not PRC citizens)

Ok, added qualifiers.

Actually, I think I'm wrong because I wrote 中国人, which literally implies a person from PRC. I'm still learning Chinese in school and I didn't know how to say "people of Chinese origin" haha

This may betray my own ignorance, but I believe 中国人 is perfectly fine for describing oneself even if you are not from the Mainland, such as in my case. I've hung around plenty of 1st generation Chinese folk from Taiwan and conversation seems to still use 中国人 as a general term, not as something specific only to Mainlanders. I suppose if you really wanted, you could use the term "Han Chinese", but that is in fact more ethnically specific than 中国人.

I think we sat next to each other during the latter half of the event. Hehe, can't wait to see what you make next ;-).

Good summary of what happened at SUS2010!

I really like Tumblr theme. Very clean and classy.

Well, I find the text to be hard on the eyes.

I wondered why that was as well. Then I noticed the blue and red lines and it should be noted that is not a good way to view images on screen: http://i.imgur.com/r6WI2.png

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