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bbg215

19 karma · joined December 21, 2013

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bbg215··on Millennials accuse Baby Boomers of ruining the economy
millennials are gonna inherit all that baby boomer wealth
bbg215··on Costs of the Afghanistan War, in Lives and Dollars
Any US withdrawal was going to end with the Taliban taking over, regardless of method. All of the costs were always going to be in vain as there was no way to actually win.
bbg215··on Ask HN: Why does HN hate Bitcoin so much?
Much like certain sports teams and other cult products or companies its loyal supporters are incredibly annoying and turn off people who might otherwise be open to it.
bbg215··on Ask HN: Why So Bullish on Bitcoin?
Everything is rallying to new highs. Tech stocks are doubling or tripling up in a quarter, or even just a month, just based on a single earnings beat.
bbg215··on Why I've stopped saying 'hey guys' (as a male in tech)
I used to have a bad habit of saying "thanks man" and "hey guys" regardless of who I was talking to. In all cases it was more due to laziness and habit than anything else and I was somewhat unaware of it.

It wasn't hard to change, with the main benefit being I no longer came off like a complete dumbass to a room full of women or a trans person.

bbg215··on Lambda School’s Misleading Promises
This is the biggest red flag imo
bbg215··on Amazon soars after earnings beat
sample size.
bbg215··on Porn site to pay $12.7M to women who didn't know videos would be posted
Exactly. Even if what they told the girls was 100% true -- the videos would be on DVDs only distributed in Australia and New Zealand, there is little reason to think those scenes on a DVD wouldn't end up online on a streaming porn site.

The most disturbing part of this is the doxing of the girls after the fact and that they shorted them on payment after doing their scenes. Changing the terms of the shoot once they arrived actually has happened a lot in porn over the years.

There is no free lunch in life -- you don't make $3000-$5000 for filming something that will never see the light of day.

It sucks that the girls fell for their con, but there was an extreme amount of naivety on their part that allowed them to be conned in the first place.

bbg215··on Jeff Bezos says firms should feel comfortable working for the military
just let the whiny self-absorbed children go work at Google or Facebook. Amazon can be for the grown-ups.
bbg215··on Andrew Yang's Presidential Bid Is So 21st Century
The whole platform is around the major threat and consequences of automation and how UBI can help. He's far too smart to think he's going to pull of a Trump type miracle. The message is the goal.

My assumption

1. Yang knows that he little chance to win the nom

2. Yang is running so that his ideas enter mainstream convo (successful already due to JRE's massive influence) and the eventual nominee may incorporate them in their platform in some manner

3. He possibly gains enough early steam that he could be a VP candidate or in the administration which helps accomplish goal #2

bbg215··on Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month
I don't think it would make sense to do so from a business perspective unless they were concerned about elevating their post graduate placement rates. Most students pay upfront or on a monthly basis for bootcamps.

It would be a lot easier to just tighten your admissions process.

bbg215··on Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month
Wait, does #3 imply you enroll students who don't want to work as a programmer after graduating? i.e. a online marketer who wants to learn coding as a skill set.

I would assume these types would be filtered out during the admissions process.

bbg215··on Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month
Appreciate the response!

First part: Makes perfect sense

Second part: How do you assess this beyond prior school/work history or how quickly they finish the prep course? I could see it being much more difficult to assess with older students/parents/people who struggled in school etc.

Third part: As a non-programmer, any examples of one of these steep curves?

I wasn't meaning to imply the demand isn't there, was just trying to picture LS at scale in 3-5 years (say 25k-100K students a year). Do you think that 75%+ placement is possible at scale -- I'd assume abandonment/failing students etc would increase greatly similar to other "open enrollment" coding bootcamps.

Regardless, it clearly is a +EV decision for any student who is able to get in. Congrats on creating a great product.

bbg215··on Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month
What exactly is your admissions criteria for someone to get accepted to LS?

How big of a problem is that for your student-to-job conversion rate when the criteria has to become less stringent to scale?

bbg215··on Bill Maher Tells Amazon's Jeff Bezos to “Take One for the Team”
The biggest joke in all of this is that someone like Bezos or Zuck or Dorsey etc actually cares about shit like this. They don't. They live in a completely different world detached from 99.9% of the populace.
bbg215··on Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself
He didn't give anything up. He can have his job back anytime he wants it back realistically. Title should be "Quitting your 9-5 is easy, just make sure you are loaded with $$$ and have the most in demand skill set on the planet."
bbg215··on Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
go to lambda school
bbg215··on Dear Jeff [Bezos]
Bezos doesn't care. Resistance is futile.
bbg215··on 3 huge new studies of 0.5MM people are casting major doubts on the keto diet
The majority of the people who say they are on a keto diet aren't actually in ketosis.
bbg215··on Most Millennials are not on track when it comes to saving for retirement
Everyone viewing this thread is likely an extreme outlier. The majority of millennials are prob making less than 50K until their 30s/40s.
bbg215··on Ask HN: Cities underserved by tech jobs?
Phoenix is ripe for a tech explosion but likely has been hindered by the government and it's aversion to incentives.

Perfect weather 70% of the year, summer's are hot but easily escapable due to pools and air conditioning, one of the largest public universities in country, unreal amounts of sunshine, little humidity, huge swaths of available land, low cost of living/rent, little traffic besides rush hour, and its trending blue politically as a result of all the inflow of former residents from CA, OR, etc.

San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas all are with-in a 1 hour flight from Sky Harbor. Massive elevation changes with-in 1+ hour drive. Wine country and Mexico to the south and ski slopes/alpine forests and Grand Canyon/Lake Powell to the north.

Will be a swing state in the next 8 years and is likely to have a education focused Dem Gov over the next 4. A focus on education and incentives to lure more tech will be the key.

bbg215··on Ask HN: What were/are you doing at age 25? What would you change?
What I would tell my 25 year old self (just turned 35)

1. Hire a good personal trainer and go consistently.

2. Your thinking should always be in decades, not years: Investing, relationships, career, etc. Patience is something most 25 year old lack, esp in our modern world. Its now a skill you have to learn.

3. Travel WITH YOUR FRIENDS while everyone's free time is vast.

4. Open and max out your Roth IRA

5. Make sure to acquire a new skill each year: playing an instrument, learning web design, coding, cooking, video editing, scuba diving, painting, flying drones, etc.

bbg215··on Ask HN: Apple shutted down our 30k/mo business. What now?
Just modify the app and/or VPN functionality slightly and re-submit as a new update.
bbg215··on Starbucks to Close All U.S. Stores for Racial-Bias Education
I find it highly unlikely that if this same scenario occurred with two middle-aged white men dressed in chinos and dress shirts, we get the same ending with cops being called and an arrest.
bbg215··on Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?
FB isn't going anywhere lol. The HN bubble is so much fun.

The recent swatch of negative press is just amplified 10x in the US because it almost always revolves around Donald Trump being elected. If Hillary won and this same stuff leaked it would be noted but die fairly quickly in the news.

Every old person practically lives on FB 24/7. Most middle age people are on there and will stay due to kids, family, etc. Millenials use Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp like crazy.

bbg215··on Ask HN: Has Facebook started to plateau?
the user base of HN is in no way an accurate reflection of the user base of FB.
bbg215··on My First Job Interview was with a Billionaire
sup bro - nice post.