Hacker News Reader

bjpcjpon Barbarians at the Gateways: High-frequency Trading and Exchange Technology

My company builds memory ICs that sometimes sit beside the ASIC or FPGA on an HFT card. The bandwidth & latency numbers didn't surprise me, but the cost of power certainly did. No wonder customers are always crawling up our butt on power consumption.

bjpcjpon After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

Congrats to Jennifer. Much respect.

bjpcjpon A beginner's cheat sheet for web development

This needs to be on a shirt. (Probably in very small font.)

bjpcjpon Bots Gobble Up Restaurant Reservations in the Bay Area

SO happy I don't have to live out there & deal with that crap.

bjpcjpon VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

Update

Justin, thanks for the private reply as well. Props for the consistent and genuine efforts at damage control.

bjpcjpon VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

Speaking on behalf of a LOT of people - F 500friends and the under-30 horse they rode in on.

bjpcjpon Starting Forth – the classic Forth language tutorial

My first job after grad school with at Harris Semiconductor. We were selling RTX processors which natively ran Forth instructions. (The architecture was completely stack-based.)

I agree that Forth is a liability today. I could see it being used as an introductory language - in junior high school, for example - but not much beyond that.

bjpcjpon [dead]

Hey, I hear ya. Much respect to the Radar O'Reillys of the world.

bjpcjpon Which JS framework should I learn FIRST?

tks @electrichead, I've got copies of the JS Cookbook and Crockford's "...The Good Parts" at my fingertips.

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=ruby+or+python+or+javascript+or...

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

Props to RTP too. Not to mention better basketball.

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

I do - an excellent point. Don't get me wrong, I love coming out there to visit. (Especially in June/July/August.) But the cost/benefit seems way out of whack unless you've already done a startup & have an inside straight to more startup $, or already have family in the area.

It's not just me: http://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/Whats-the-dark-side-of-S...

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

@throwaway1979, see above & good luck!

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

Done. The Austin tweet is in my Buffer queue.

I suggest http://capitalfactory.com/, http://ati.utexas.edu/, http://techranchaustin.com/ for starters. Also consider hitting up http://austinonrails.org/, and any of the Javascript/R/Python meetups. Every one of them seems to be packed every week.

Happy Friday, 'yall.

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

Here's a great starting point: http://capitalfactory.com/. They are connected.

bjpcjpon Want a job in Silicon Valley?

I live in Austin. Same concentration of crazy smart people, only with less attitude. Did I mention that you can actually buy a house here? With a chance of paying it off? And a 25 minute commute?

THIS is why 1 of every 50 cars in Austin has a California license plate.

EDIT: there's less access to VC money here. But that doesn't seem to be stopping people.

bjpcjpon Ask HN: I need to learn D3. Help design my curriculum.

+1 on the O'Reilly book.

bjpcjpon My Dad The Engineer

This is so awesome. Wonderful stuff. Props.

bjpcjpon It ships when it ships

I can think of several multi-billion-dollar customers that schedule their product releases to the day, quarters in advance, with untold advertising / validation / manufacturing commitments on the line. If your prototype isn't on their doorstep ON THE DAY that you promised, a competitor is selected to take your place. NO BULLSHITTING AROUND. MAKE A SCHEDULE, ACCOUNT FOR THE RISKS, AND EXECUTE.

I can't believe this blog post is even allowed to exist.

bjpcjpon Ask HN: How come hardware engineer's salary is declining?

As an ex-program manager on major chip projects, I would be astonished if open-source alternatives exist for major design tools. GMs can complain all they want about seat license costs, but they will stick with a proven tool until somebody proves they can meet the same quality metrics.

bjpcjpon Ask HN: How come hardware engineer's salary is declining?

Don't forget that many large-company positions - HW or SW - are being filled in design centers in India, China, E.Europe and elsewhere. Yes, there is an income difference. But their economies are pumping out hundreds of thousands of engineering grads. And HW design in the U.S. is definitely seen as less glamorous.

bjpcjpon Ask HN: What todo app do you use?

Remember the Milk for me. The right balance of simplicity & features. Plus a Chrome extension.

bjpcjpon Old People

Old guy here.

Musing about the reaction if I reblogged this post with "younguns".

Don't get me wrong, the points are valid. But I'd bet an equivalent post about what could happen to a startup when a young new hire comes in would get uber-flamed. Just sayin'.

bjpcjpon Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy

I'm pretty much convinced that the GH movement is merely a recognition that us product management folks now have a deeper pool of data on which to base our decisions. This is, in the bigger scheme of things, a recent development and not available to product managers across all industries.

I welcome the controversy. Eventually GH as a buzzword is going to fade away; those left standing will have simply added GH to their personal toolbox. 'nuff said.

bjpcjpon Please stop with the video tutorials

+1. I almost never make it through a video tutorial. The only exceptions are Railscasts, and my batting average there is only .500.

bjpcjpon Destined To Fail

Same here. Here's to hoping that some contact info gets shared.

bjpcjpon Historical Chip Pricing now on Octopart

Chip prices are a function of supply v. demand and the supplier's learning curve as a function of cumulative volume (ie, yields). Chip prices DO increase as they approach the natural end of their lives due to other suppliers dropping out.