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circuiter

116 karma · joined May 4, 2013

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circuiter··on Asian woman who quit Google: 'The culture there is really discouraging'
How do you deal with over-representation if you don't want to increase headcount? Fire the over-quota demographic so that their numbers match the general population? That seems to be the way most diversity initiatives want to solve the problem.
circuiter··on Young voters wanted Brexit the least – and will have to live with it the longest
Did this link get so many upvotes because we want the same ageism that's in tech to be in politics and government?
circuiter··on Perl 6 Is Slower Than My Fat Momma
Yes, because only men have mothers right? /s
circuiter··on Terrorist’s Apple ID Password Changed In Government Custody, Blocking Access
What's strange is that they're investigating two international terrorists who committed mass murder and all they're talking about is their fucking iPhone?

What if after all this drama and forcing everyone to install backdoors and disable encryption they find out that they used it only to play Clash of Clans and take pictures of food?

circuiter··on 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
The cop's expression suggests he's not happy with what's happening to the kid.
circuiter··on Refugees Welcome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_W...

Their nearby brethren have already taken in MILLIONS of refugees. It took only a few hundred thousand in Europe for the media circus to begin and for their plight to be put in the spotlight.

circuiter··on Report: U.S. average daily mobile game time drops over 30% in a year
This is so true and it is getting ridiculous. I recently tried Mortal Kombat for iOS and I just wanted a fighting game, but instead it was full of 'Kards', 'Koins', 'Kostumes', all of which you could pay for. It actually felt like work, not a game.
circuiter··on Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement: a systematic review
Actually modafinil is a schedule 4 stimulant (which matters in some states). And Pharm.D.s can get into an agreement with Physicians to dispense medication on their behalf as they see fit, it's called Collaborative drug therapy management.
circuiter··on Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement: a systematic review
Yes. There is some minor paperwork involved for them, which is why you should ask nicely, and YMMV.
circuiter··on Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement: a systematic review
I don't know how he got adderall, but modafinal and the other drugs he mentioned are either schedule IV to Rx Only, so if you ask a pharmacist nicely they can give it to you. (That's how I got modafinil when I was in college)
circuiter··on Mozilla in 2013 paid CEO $801k, Director $779k, and Treasurer $613k (p. 47)
Well, looks like this thread got nuked. I was just about to post the the (much smaller) Wikimedia Form 990 if anyone was interested:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/7/76/Form_...

circuiter··on In China, Women Hired to Motivate Computer Programmers
Yes, the US has only recently started warming up to cannabis. It's ironic considering the US strong armed the world into banning Cannabis (starting with the International Opium Convention). Now they're claiming to be more progressive by fixing issues they created.
circuiter··on Ask HN: 23 year old loss in life. What to do now?
Giving advice is so easy, so here goes:

> Just a bit of background. I'm 23 years old this year.

You're still young, don't worry, the sun is still rising in your life, but don't just sit back and watch it.

> Graduated last year from a top university in UK with a Bachelors(Hons) Chemical Engineering. Right after I graduated, I went back to my home country Malaysia. I always knew I wanted to start a startup.

Congratulations, with an engineering degree from a top UK university, apart from whatever you learned and whoever you met, migration to other countries is easier for you.

> In fact, I did try to start a couple of startups -Tripadvisor-ish for students, Groupon clone and some small 'projects' during the summers like trying to sell "pure fruit juice" during carnivals and stuff like that. None worked out.

You've failed several times early, that's good, failure is a good teacher and failing is much harder when you have a spouse and two kids. The important thing is to know why you failed and learn what you should and shouldn't do next time. Hopefully there were people to give you feedback. You also need to look at your ideas in a more fundamental and original way. The desire to solve a problem and a way to the solution should come first, not the startup. Describing startups as "Tripadvisor for students" , "Hackernews for ballet dancers" , "Mixpanel for paper trails" betrays a wrong mindset. An example of doing it the right way would be "I have an idea for a case that allows you to use electronics with magnetic storage in places that have strong passive magnetic fields, I should start a company to sell this to the several industries in my state"

> Last year when I came back, tried to start an online grocery startup but within 2 months, I just knew it wasn't feasible unless I had some decent funding or some sort.

Be glad you didn't have enough money to spend to setup an online grocery.

> For the next 6 months, I literally just stayed in my room trying to come up with ideas, but none came up.

You should've expected that, isolating yourself in your room isn't the place to come up with ideas. You need to go out, look at what people are doing, talk to them, do things, be busy, go to events. Maybe some people have the ability to generate ideas upon request, but for me, it happens when you're not looking, like at a party, in the shower, when driving. You don't 'come up' with ideas, you 'get' ideas.

> Ever since then, I’ve been trying to sell an animal feed called rumen bypass fat(dad’s idea), but no customers so far.

Did you study the market? Were animals hungry and farmers broke and was your feed cheaper and better?

> If you asked me what I really want in life, I’d say I want to make a difference on a large scale.

Why so grandiose? Anyway, a lot of people seem to want that. What you want in life shouldn't be what you want in a startup. In life, I hope I become a good father, a good husband, spread joy, reduce suffering. I could do that if I made sure my neighbor never went hungry, or by solving world hunger - win, win.

> I’d like to start a startup that solves hard engineering/science problem.

Good, so find the problem and the startup will follow.

> The local startup scene is still playing catch up at the moment. The hot stuffs are ecommerce, on demand startups etc...

You gotta catch up before you can lead, so are you bold enough to get into the local startup scene and move it forward?

> Hence, I’m not particularly excited about joining the startups in the local scene and I would like to avoid joining big corporate companies. Any advice?

See above.

circuiter··on The tech boom may get bumpy, but it will not end in a repeat of the dotcom crash
I also remember when the Economist boldly predicted that the PS3 would outsell the Xbox 360 and the Wii, and this was months after the consoles were released.
circuiter··on Reddit
Excellent. The comments here simply further the notion that HN is slowly turning into reddit.
circuiter··on Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”
Did you read my entire comment? Notice how I said "over the past 3 years".
circuiter··on Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”
If these are the kind of people working at Mozilla it's no surprise Firefox has been continuously losing market share to both Chrome and IE over the past 3 years.
circuiter··on How a Fake Beard Can Get You Hired on the Internet
I experience something similar. When I have a beard I can't look at myself in the mirror because I think I look like a bum, but everyone (both men and women) are more friendly and pay better attention when I have a beard.
circuiter··on According to YC the online coding education market is too crowded
Congratulations on your launch, and your approach looks unique enough to have place in face of the many online coding shops.

Just don't get complacent with your revenue, it really isn't much.

circuiter··on Women's magazines ignore technology and demean women
Yes, but if women want to read about technology they can buy a technology magazine. How much of Men's magazines column inches are given to tech?
circuiter··on Page not found
> This bet was attacked by feminists (rightly? or too sensitive?)

Everything you do gets attacked by someone. If you ate meat for dinner; if you drove a car; if you use Microsoft Windows; if you didn't pray to Zeus, you offended someone's sensitivities. So if feminists attacked this bet, just ignore them.

circuiter··on An exclusive interview with Bill Gates
I wonder if Microsoft's failure to dominate search, email and social networking has anything to do with his view.
circuiter··on Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85
> My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition,

What?

circuiter··on Rambling On [PHP] Internals
No, you're not wasting your time.
circuiter··on Rambling On [PHP] Internals
Indeed. I've found PHP simply allows me to get things done and consequentially it put a lot of food on my table.

There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses - Bjarne Stroustrup

circuiter··on How Carnegie Mellon Increased the Proportion of Women in Computer Science
Does anyone know what are the 'serious consequences' we face if there aren't as many women studying computer science as men?

The male-domination unfortunately persisted since 2000 but the industry has still grown leaps and bounds beyond anyone's imagination. So what seems to be the problem?

circuiter··on Wikileaks reveals Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian emailed with Stratfor
A thousand dollars an hour to speak with him on skype ... I wonder if he gets a lot of calls.
circuiter··on Average Income per Programming Language
As a C and Java developer, the numbers made me feel good.
circuiter··on India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear
India is really one of the worst places to be a woman. My coworker told me that the constant stress and vigilance needed when she went out would wear her out.
circuiter··on Goread - Open Source Google Reader clone in Go
Looks like Matt Jibson is on a front page roll.
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