Hacker News Reader

narakon Data Structures for Coding Interviews

Good CS fundamentals are important because they are transferable skill to a wide array of problems a startup may face. Just because someone wrote an impressive framework or library doesn't mean given a complex problem outside of their known domain (web framework design or package management tool), they would be have the necessary background to solve it. With strong math and CS knowledge, you can reason through almost any problem.

narakon Ask HN: I have Bitcoin in Coinbase, what should I do before the forks?

https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Some self-education links at the bottom as well.

narakon Ask HN: What is your password management solution?

Password Safe + pwSafe ios and mac clients + Dropbox

narakon Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

In fact the almost case is more valuable because the survivor in this case was doing absolutely nothing wrong and lived to tell the tale.

narakon How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

Running has recently been shown, in contrast to previously held views, to strengthen spinal disks. [1]

Pull-ups/chin-ups/dips are probably the best upper body weight exercise, followed by classic floor exercises pushups and leg raises for the core.

Many of these stress bones in addition to the muscles.

[1] http://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/media-releases/article...

narakon Is social graph portability workable?

Email is still the de facto protocol for business communication, so you could probably build a professional network on top of it.

narakon Ask HN: Which sites you visit on a regular basis for knowledge and inspiration?

http://www.metafilter.com/

http://lesswrong.com/

http://www.econlib.org/, https://www.cato.org/, https://mises.org/ (disclaimer: austrian econ slant)

narakon Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

What about GM/Cruise's existing fleet of 50 with an additional 100+ on the way? [1] All equipped with LIDAR which to my knowledge you and Tesla don't have, but will need for level 5. I know Uber ATG also has a sizable fleet as well.

I have a lot of respect for your technical chops and the iPhone/PlayStation hacking you did back in the day, but the lofty claims here are hard to back up. At least Tesla has high margin electric car sales to keep them alive while they catch up to their claims.

It's easy to fool the lay public and tech journalists who don't have any technical backgrounds, but there is a world of a difference between doing fundamental AI research and development vs. patching together off the shelf commodity hardware and wiring it all up with some python.

That said, I wish you all the luck, I think a16z is betting on an acquisition like GM did with Cruise when they didn't really have anything that advanced either.

[1] https://electrek.co/2017/06/13/gm-self-driving-chevy-bolt-ev...

narakon Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

One eye backed by millions of years of training in depth perception and object recognition... The argument that humans are able to drive with just two cameras and software (brain) is deeply flawed because the brain is highly advanced in areas necessary for driving and Tesla's claim it will replicate that any time soon is absurd. This is why you need additional sensors like LIDAR to alleviate the computational load.

narakon Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

Would also recommend "Principles of Object Oriented JavaScript" by him: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Object-Oriented-JavaScript...

narakon TLDR Stock Options

This type of smoke and mirrors bs is common in tech startups in my experience. The good news is even if the company is unwilling to disclose, Delaware law requires companies incorporated there (most tech startups, even in the Valley) to disclose key cap table numbers to share holders. You can exercise even 1 option to own a share and send the company a letter asking/demanding the info you seek.

https://calcounselgroup.com/business-stockholder/

"As a Delaware corporation, all of the company’s stockholders (including minority stockholders) have the right to inspect and make copies of the company’s stock ledger and its books and records upon a written demand to the company. The stockholder’s inspection rights also apply to the company’s subsidiaries. Although Delaware corporate law does not specify the types of books and records that the stockholders may inspect, these rights extend, at a minimum, to the company’s financial records and corporate minute book."

narakon Why Milton Friedman Supported a Guaranteed Income (2015)

Highly recommend watching this to get answers from the man himself: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

narakon How to Create a Neural Network in JavaScript [video]

This is a super cool idea really well executed. I wish this existed when I was learning to program.

narakon The Boring Company [video]

It reduces the complexity of the tunnel needed for combustion vehicles (most cars today) by not needing more complex exhaust infrastructure, and thus makes this idea more immediately viable.

narakon Ask HN: What are some reliable sources on nutrition?

I use the following 3 sources:

- https://examine.com (each article is well sourced)

- Canadian Government: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index-eng.ph...

- US Government: https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/ (I'm more skeptical of USDA's https://www.nutrition.gov/)

narakon Ask HN: Do you still use browser bookmarks?

I used to feel this way but there is intellectual concentration risk. Reading the same stuff as everyone else has created an echo chamber for me, and I intend to seek diverse sources again like I did before the link aggregator era.

narakon Ask HN: Do you still use browser bookmarks?

This is really cool. Do you mind putting your contact info in your "about" box if someone wants to get in touch to learn more?

narakon Ask HN: How do you design a website in 2017?

I've tried a lot of the newer tools, of which I like Sketch and Framer the best. However, nothing seems to beat paper+pencil and then directly going to code. Somehow, static design tools have never been able to capture what's possible in web, and what's possible now with canvas, SVG, CSS3 transforms, etc is even more than before. Recently, CSS Grid Layout went gold in major browsers, and Flexbox has been supported for a while, so there's no good reason for CSS frameworks anymore either (would read http://jensimmons.com/ for more on this). Exciting times in web!

narakon Ask HN: What do you use to digitize your paper records?

Thanks. Did you bother with OCR and encryption?

narakon Spring vs. Java EE

http://sparkjava.com/

Definitely not all batteries included, but a great minimalist web library to get started with.

narakon Ask HN: Where do budding entrepreneurs find mentors?

Beautifully designed and informative landing page! Makes me want to find a reason to use the product :)

Since you seem to live in the Bay Area, have you tried reaching out to some people in the industry you admire? Also, you must have some existing network, maybe some folks who work in large tech companies with experienced managers, or friends who run startups and have advisors/investors. Why not ask for referral and introductions there?

Vet advisors and potential investors like you would any new hire. Understand their unique background and why they would be valuable to your startup, and then communicate that to them in your initial conversation. Let people know why you want them as your advisor. Wouldn't hurt to throw them some upside, or ask them to invest if you are raising capital :)

Also, always get a second opinion on any advice. A lot of the time, you will get conflicting wisdom and you have to ultimately decide what's right for your company.

Best of luck!

narakon Tesla Autopilot Crash Caught on Dashcam

I agree that autonomous doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better than humans (by how much we will leave to regulators) but it's not clear that the actual safety of these systems has kept up with the marketing around them. I would love to see the evidence.

narakon Tesla Autopilot Crash Caught on Dashcam

Huge Tesla/Musk fanboy here, but I have no idea how they've gotten away with marketing decade old lane-keeping technology as autonomous driving to customers. Already resulted in a couple of deaths. It's clear from this video that the car didn't event attempt to avoid the upcoming obstacle, while the human driver in the pickup-truck ahead had no issues.

And somehow, stage 4/5 autonomy is a year away?

narakon Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

> So I want to be where the growth is happening. How do I do that? Do I need millions of dollars before I can achieve anything? Should I learn Mandarin, Hindi, or Swahili? In the past, I would have had to visit some of these countries and talk to some local entrepreneurs. Now I can just do my own research, meet people online, and have Skype calls. There's really no need to travel in order to find opportunities.

I don't know anything about Africa or China, but I just spent 1 month backpacking through India doing exactly this: meeting local entrepreneurs (tech industry, non tech, small business, street vendors, etc) and meeting people and families from the north to the south. To really get an appreciation for a market, how the consumers in that market think, and the obvious problems and opportunities around you, you HAVE to go there and see it for yourself. I spent the previous 2-3 years keeping an eye on Indian development from the West, but the 4 weeks I was there eclipsed any prior learning I did. Go visit.