Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why when we are mimicking analog watch design, can't we retain the proportions and the aesthetics?

Eg,the ratio of strap and the width of the watch face and the super wide bezel.

I hope they up their game as competition in this space is getting heated.

[Hopefully constructive criticism from a Pebble owner.]

myth_busteron The Risk of a Billion-Dollar Valuation in Silicon Valley

I agree with you. My argument was against altogether discouting Liquidation Preference as a suspect in higher evaluation by stating its existence in '90s.

myth_busteron The Risk of a Billion-Dollar Valuation in Silicon Valley

Just because it existed in the past shouldn't discount it's effects in the present as evidenced in the side effects of medicines.

myth_busteron The Risk of a Billion-Dollar Valuation in Silicon Valley

  If there is an adjustment in valuations across the industry, 
  it should not effect the public markets the way it did in 2000.

Isn't this only in the case where the said unicorn is not IPO'd. Like in the case with Groupon which lost 85% of it's value since IPO, the public market is affected.

If these 59 unicorns go public and begin to loose money, they would effectively trigger a domino I believe.

Like the VCs who get in during the E/F rounds, the general public is also susceptible to similar behavior.

myth_busteron Block and Unsubscribe

Interesting. Isn't there an information loss since now they would have to infer the motive to decide whether to blacklist the sender?

myth_busteron Block and Unsubscribe

What I don't understand (possibly noob question), is the scenario where I get spam and I click on "Report spam" to be prompted with "Unsubscribe and report spam".

I'd never subscribed to it so why am I asked whether I would like to "Unsubscribe". Is it that the spammers got hold of my email from somewhere and "Subscribed" me automatically?

Shouldn't "Report spam" implicitly imply that it's not a subscription?

myth_busteron Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition

Without the ref http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XNQECFM/

myth_busteron Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

College admissions process over an year is an introspective and gut-wrenching experience and irrespective of the outcome, it does leave a lasting experience. Now considering if he did indeed apply 10 times, that says a lot about how much it would have affected him.

myth_busteron Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc (2000) [pdf]

  In 1983 2 million was a shit ton of money. 
  By comparison, in 2015, it would be around 5 million

I expected a difference of an order of magnitude or more...

myth_busteron Reducing workplace burnout: the benefits of exercise

Could this be the case of missing the forest for the trees? Perhaps the burnout is happening due to stagnant wages and inflation which forces people to work longer or take up additional unfulfilling jobs. Exercises perhaps may only be helping in workers handle additional stress but doesn't improve their being on the whole.

Productivity vs Hourly Wage [0]

GDP vs Median household income [1]

[0] http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/0...

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/US_GDP_per_ca...

myth_busteron How to Ace a Phone Screen

I think the takeaway is that it's a competitive jungle out there and some companies may appreciate your effort to standout from the rest.

myth_busteron India (2002)

I agree with you on slowing down "reflexive responses" but I would say cryptic titles may not be the right approach specially on weekdays.

If I've to read an essay to understand the context the chances are I'll put it off for later and unfortunately will not be able to participate in the discussion.

myth_busteron India (2002)

Can a title be more vague?

I think it may make sense to use this title in the original article as the site might carry some context but using it in HN doesn't seem too efficient.

myth_busteron Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term

Well this gave me a good laugh.

  Brilliant essays by John Perry, defending yet more life choices 
  generally seen as faults.

myth_busteron I’m a white guy in Silicon Valley and I’m done buying the meritocracy myth

As long as there is "fit" based decisions being made, conscious/subconscious biases based on age/gender/race etc will creep in.

And as long as these pervade, hiring will not be a meritocratic process.

myth_busteron The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever

I'm wondering whether the use of

  ingenious (adj)
  (of a person) clever, original, and inventive.

in place of

  indigenous (adj)
  originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.

is a Freudian slip or sarcasm.

Edit: Never mind; they used it with in-house

myth_busteron Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

The risk taken by risk takers (entrepreneurs) is disproportionate as partly expressed in the article.

Apart from financial risk, there is the risk of employebility once you are off the radar and are asked for references once you try to join the workforce.

For immigrants the risk of maintaining the status to stay in the country. This is perhaps a major reason why graduates go back to their home country to start companies.

Additionally there is conscious/subconscious biases at play when startups filter people based on "fit" which is to say "birds of a feather flock together". Hence it could be rather daunting for people from a different demographic to gain relevant experience which paves their way to a successful startup. Once the startup grows, they usually become more accepting in this regard.

myth_busteron A neural algorithm mimicking artistic style

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.06576

Related discussion on the paper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141516

Additional example: http://imgur.com/a/jeJB6

myth_busteron [dead]

URLs

Examples

[0]: https://i.imgur.com/sb8dHcY.png

[1]: http://imgur.com/a/jeJB6

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.06576

Related discussion on the paper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141516

myth_busteron Why You Should Hire Computer Science Majors

I would like to hear their opinion once they graduate and get some years of experience in the field.

Software engineering is predominantly problem solving and the important traits are analytical and logical thinking. 4 years of education doesn't govern these. Some people have natural pre-disposition to these skills and filtering out people based on majors will reduce your pool significantly.

I've seen a lot many good engineers coming from the Philosophy, Physics and Mathematics majors. And I think this could be true for other majors too.

In short, smart people will easily catch up with what is taught in 4 years and hence given an average employment period of ~30yrs it's ridiculous to decide employment based on a major.

myth_busteron Minecraft creator Notch shares the darker side of life after a big exit

I think the main reason behind this is a lack of purpose.

The transition period between completion of a long time project and the beginning of your next will leave everyone vulnerable.

Once he finds the purpose and focus, all these would not matter.

myth_busteron How recursion got into Algol 60: a comedy of errors

You are not alone. NASA/JPL explicitly prohibits it in their coding standards [0].

  Rule 4 (recursion)
  There shall be no direct or indirect use of recursive function calls.
  [MISRA-C:2004 Rule 16.2; Power of Ten Rule 1]

  The presence of statically verifiable loop bounds and the absence of recursion 
  prevent runaway code, and help to secure predictable performance for all 
  tasks. The absence of recursion also simplifies the task of deriving reliable 
  bounds on stack use. The two rules combined secure a strictly acyclic function 
  call graph and control-flow structure, which in turn enhances the capabilities 
  for static checking tools to catch a broad range of coding defects.

[0] http://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf

myth_busteron “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

I think they are coming from the web vs native app frame.

myth_busteron “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

Exactly, if I visit a page where they have embedded commenting using fb id, it's not actually me visiting the site. An issue is if someone decides to place ADs in fb based on this publicity.

myth_busteron “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

  used Facebook in a single day

Just to clarify, is that fb.com, messenger, whatsapp, comment widgets etc combined?

myth_busteron China Sells U.S. Treasuries to Support Yuan

Guilty as charged. I've Currency Wars [0] in my reading list.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Currency-Wars-Making-Global-Crisis/dp/...

myth_busteron China Sells U.S. Treasuries to Support Yuan

  “Strategically, it probably has been China’s intention to find the right time 
  to lighten up its excessive accumulation of U.S. Treasuries,” he said.

I think that is the crux of it. They are itching to move away from dollar and any excuse to do so is used. This has also been tied with AIIB & they accumulating a large amount of gold to back up their currency to be the base denomination for global trade.

myth_busteron India turned off mobile internet for 63M citizens amid protests in Ahmedabad

This is freedom of speech issue. Imagine if the Egyptian government takes down fb stating similar concerns during protests, would you still defend it?

Additionally, government should not be in the business of controlling and determining the veracity of the messages people are sending among themselves.