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barefootfordon A Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom

Because "just coding something" won't cover every method/function idiom you've ever learned. Creating a card with a corresponding challenge can do that. If you just make a Ruby script to practice programming you're allowing yourself to forget another language or framework knowledge.

barefootfordon A Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom

Yep, exactly. The majority of the cards I do are either a problem where I convert a sentence from English to X, or it's create a function that takes in these parameters and returns this. Most cards should be challenges, not just quick one word answers.

barefootfordon Ask HN: Why does Costco not have an express lane at any of their stores?

Nope, I don't think that's true. At least that's not what they told employees. They told us stores make almost identical money from the margin of most items (I think it was something like almost everything is marked up 20%) and yearly membership fees.

barefootfordon Ask HN: Why does Costco not have an express lane at any of their stores?

When I worked there I was told that the average checkout was something like 7-8 big items, so almost everyone would checkout in the 'express' (10 items or less) lane if they had one.

barefootfordon Google Gets into Battery Arms Race

"The company’s latest self-driving car runs on batteries recharged by electricity." I'm missing something, aren't all batteries recharged by electricity?

barefootfordon pCell, A Bold Scheme For Super-Fast Wireless Data

I wish he would have taken Apple's lead on having a big launch with a product that ships in a couple weeks rather than a dribble of presentations with a shipping: ??? slide.

If pCell works, getting press won't matter. If you can destroy the markets for mobile data + home internet you won't have to fight Stanford undergrads in some anonymous lecture hall. So, I am sorta skeptical.

barefootfordon Anyone looking for Co-Founders in NYC? (24 Year Old Male Here)

Learning to code couldn't hurt.

barefootfordon How a blacksmith learned to code

I love this story (and have read his book), but this sure isn't happening in the Valley or San Francisco.

As someone who's a similar skill level to Josh and applied to tons of jobs here in the Valley, I've found that this is an isolated story on the other coast. In SV/SF you have 5/6 developer bootcamps cranking out developers each month applying for a handful of junior jobs. I'm sure the blogging helped, but I doubt any companies would have offered the same salary here (60-80k) when they could have had their pick of developers that just worked 80 hours a week for 12 weeks.