37 karma · joined January 12, 2010
On a side note, why do you have invite only on?
Best of luck whichever way you go with your startup. Maybe you just need a short holiday to sleep on it...
If there is one thing I learnt (as a caucasian), it is that anyone who talks to you on the street (who doesn't have an obvious reason to be there like a shop keeper with merchandise) is probably trying to scam you. Trying to buy a train ticket to Agra from Delhi was a nightmare; we ended up organising a taxi through our hotel. It was hard going from being used to trusting directions and advice from strangers at home, but I got over that pretty quick.
Also, carry plenty of small change; anyone who does absolutely anything at all for you will expect a tip.
Have fun :)
I don't want to sign up to stuff and I don't want to answer 20 (unknown) questions to build something (a "taste profile") that I don't understand. After I've seen (and used) some benefits then certainly, but not as soon as I hit their page. I guess this is because every website on the web seems to want me to sign up and invest time and effort in them. I wonder if there is something they can do to lower this initial barrier a little.
My solution is to use a spreadsheet like Excel (or your choice of GoogleDocs, OpenOffice or other equivalent). I put a cross next to items as I complete them. When I lose interest in my list it tends to atrophy, but at least my tasks and accomplishments are still recorded.
If I come back to my spreadsheet after an extended break and it has atrophied substantially (as in I've completed many tasks without marking them off, priorities have moved away from uncompleted tasks to new unrecorded tasks etc), I simply create a new page and copy across old tasks that I still need to do.
It seems to work quite well for me; it keeps a record of what I've been up to and what I need to do (when I need it to), and works somewhat like agile development iterations without me worrying too much about whether I'm doing it 'correctly'.
The main complaint I have about StackOverflow is how the reputation system negatively affects peoples' behaviour. Although the net effect of the system is very positive, I find that people rush to answer easy questions to get some up-votes. If they take too long to craft a detailed answer, they miss out. Answers to difficult questions take longer and get less views and up-votes, so people don't bother trying.
Many of the questions that show up on StackOverflow can be answered with a quick google. They only serve to dilute the quality questions and answers, and cheapen the reputation system. I also get the impression that people who couldn't be bothered to google a question first also couldn't be bothered responding to the comments and answers that they get.
Having said that, StackOverflow is still the best programming forum for languages that I use and I don't see it failing any time soon.
I'm very interested in neural nets but I don't know much about alternative tools/models, so I'm keen to hear your reasoning.
Yesterday I woke up much earlier than I'd like (via alarm clock) in the hope of being tired enough to get to sleep before midnight last night. I struggled to concentrate and keep my eyes focused all day, but I was still awake until 3am.
I hate spending 12 hours in bed and get up feeling like I've had 6 hours of actual sleep. It's hard to understand if you don't have this problem yourself.
I quit HP early this year (around 18 months after I joined HP in an aquisition). After that experience, I can't believe HP continues to grow at all.
The system isn't perfect (and one of many issues is unis compromising difficulty/quality for full fee paying overseas students), but I'm pretty happy with it and paid off my debt easily enough.
I assume some other countries do a better job again.