Hacker News Reader

solipsiston Ask HN: Has anyone ever turned down an offer to join Y Combinator?

I know someone who did because they had grown quite a bit since they had originally applied to YC. I guess Quora demonstrates how you can never be too big for YC, though :)

solipsiston Conway's Game of Life in HTML5

The methuselahs[1] always amazed me in Conway's Game of Life. If anyone's interested, here's the population growth (number of live cells in a given state) of the R-pentomino: http://i.imgur.com/lR3i9.png

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(cellular_automata)

solipsiston Show HN: Wayback Letter - Looking back at 5+ years of Hacker News

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but here are two links I found:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1884724/what-is-node-js

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=954682

solipsiston Ask HN: Should I buy Facebook stock while the price is low?

Can't really pinpoint it to one thing. What I was trying to get across was the fact that numbers (P/E ratios, etc.) should only be a factor in one's purchases. I think that when you look at Facebook, the market it is in, and its revenue model, and then compare it to Apple back in 1980, there are some stark contrasts you'll find. Sure, there's hindsight bias and all, but I personally feel that Facebook has entered a market where making money is a lot harder that it was for Apple. In order for Facebook to grow a few order of magnitudes, I feel that there would need to be a radical shift in the way we Internet users feel about spending money online or else the way advertisers reach potential customers.

But I just looked at your profile... and wow! That's one impressive resume! I'd be a lot more interested in hearing your perspective on Facebook and its financial strength, etc. This is one of those moments where I'd really wish HN had a PM system.

solipsiston Ask HN: Should I buy Facebook stock while the price is low?

Glad I could help. Just remember that numbers aren't everything. I personally would not buy Facebook at this time due to other reasons...

solipsiston Ask HN: Should I buy Facebook stock while the price is low?

As most of the HN crowd is skeptical of Facebook's future stock performance, I'd like to offer another perspective.

  1980: Underwriters Morgan Stanley and Hambrecht & Quist take Apple
  Computer public in the largest IPO since Ford Motor Company went
  public in 1956. Originally filed to sell at US$14 a share, the stock
  opens at $22 and all 4.6 million shares sell out in minutes. The stock
  rises almost 32 percent on its first day of trading to close at US$29, 
  giving the company a market valuation of US$1.778 billion. For fiscal
  year 1980, Apple showed a profit of US$11.7 million, or 24 cents a share 
  on revenue of US$118 million (compared to US$8.3 billion in fiscal
  2004), giving the IPO a P/E ratio of 92. Of Apple's 1,000 employees,
  more than 40 become instant millionaires thanks to their stock options.
  [1]

Facebook's P/E ratio today (5/29/12): 92.31

Apple's P/E ratio in 1980: 92

Fun fact: Apple's stock was down 20.44% a year after they went public.

[1] - http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thisweek/2004/20041218.sh...

solipsiston For HN: Hacker News Enhancement Suite (Chrome extension)

This needs to get more attention! Awesome!

solipsiston Books geeks should read to their kids

Saving you two clicks: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/67-B...

solipsiston Writing and Speaking

This is interesting. So you think that being a good speaker negatively impacts one's ideas, although it won't necessarily be noticeable to others? That is because those who are good speakers have counteracted the negative impact with more practice.

solipsiston Writing and Speaking

  Being a better speaker doesn't necessarily mean your ideas are going to get worse.

In your essay, you say:

  Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in
  many ways pushes you in the opposite direction.

Paraphrasing the above passage, "being a really good speaker ... pushes you in the opposite direction [of having good ideas]".

These two statements seems to be in direct contradiction of each other.

solipsiston The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine [1998]

I think that this paragraph from the appendix is the real gem:

  Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising.
  The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality
  search to users. For example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for
  cellular phone is "The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention", a study which
  explains in great detail the distractions and risk associated with conversing on a cell
  phone while driving. This search result came up first because of its high importance as
  judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the web [Page,
  98]. It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads
  would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying
  advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Ba2dikian
  831, we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the
  advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.

solipsiston Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

http://bjk5.com/post/14059107433/after-giving-logged-out-use...

solipsiston Wikipedia is still on for anti-SOPA blackout

> Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?

> The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation seeking to regulate the Internet in other ways while hurting our online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

> On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.

solipsiston Stop whining and start hiring remote workers

Khan Academy

solipsiston History of Programming Languages

Here's the original source: http://www.levenez.com/lang/lang.pdf

Also...

Unix history: http://www.levenez.com/unix/unix.pdf

Windows history: http://www.levenez.com/windows/windows.pdf

solipsiston Microsoft, Nissan, Clear all use GoDaddy. Let's ask them to stop.

Because Microsoft supports SOPA

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companie...

solipsiston Apple - Ergonomics - Introduction

  Cause: Unable to touch type    Solution: Learn to touch type.

http://www.apple.com/about/ergonomics/baksol.html

solipsiston GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"

Ok, awesome! Glad to see that much commitment.

solipsiston GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"

Yes, but I was rather inquiring about whether it was even possible to do so. That list is huge and most likely growing. One of the companies on the list is McGraw-Hill Education. I have to use their products at my school - how do I get around that?

solipsiston GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"

While I understand your sentiments towards SOPA, are you really going to distance yourself from all of these companies?

http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Su...

solipsiston Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

I recently had my first interview for a programming internship that I was applying to. It was over the phone, and I more or less "froze up."

I haven't had a lot of formal CS education - most of what I know has been self-taught. However, I'm looking for a way to prepare for interviews in the future. I have tried coding on the whiteboard, reviewing sorting algorithms, reading interview blogs, going over data structures, etc.

However, the interview was nothing like I had expected. It was not about prior knowledge (which was lucky for me) - and rather about thinking on the spot. What stopped me from doing my best during the interview was a combination of the anxiety and time pressure that I felt looming over me.

It would be great to get some advice on these types of phone interviews and how to stay calm during them. Knowing ways to reason through or tackle programming problems that are new to you (and can seem intimidating) would also be helpful.

If anyone's feeling especially helpful, it would even help to have some practice coding sessions over the web.

Thanks!

solipsiston Why apps are not the future

Has it ever occurred to you that the next generation technology might harness the advantages of both apps and the web?

That's the way innovation occurs. Incremental improvements. Referring back to past implementations. Standing on the shoulders of giants. Learning from both the good and the bad of technology.

When people bring up the debate of Apps vs. Web, it's equivalent to saying "Facebook vs. Google+ - which one will people use in the future? You either get the Facebook like button or Google circles. One or the other, but not both."

solipsiston Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

The problem with this article, along with the rest, is that it is full of generalizations. It attempts to dichotomize the situation, which simply shouldn't (and thankfully can't) be done.

I didn't read past the first few paragraphs.

solipsiston Android Ice Cream Sandwich Features

One interesting feature that I didn't know about in Ice Cream Sandwich was Face Unlock. Make sure you scroll to the bottom to read about it.

solipsiston Hacker News Instant

As long as you were "touching up" the photo, you might have wanted to hide the bookmark tab titled "Piracy"

solipsiston How to Make Wealth

Just out of curiosity, is pg a millionaire? A billionaire?

solipsiston Codify: native coding environment for iPad

  "A lot of times, people don't know what 
   they want until you show it to them."

  - Steve Jobs

solipsiston Sony Ericsson Forces A Fan Site Into Submission

Sony ≠ Sony Ericsson (two separate companies)

solipsiston Steve Jobs explains object-oriented programming

Another explanation from him (skip to 2:04): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJp66ArJVI&feature=playe...! [video]

solipsiston Folklore.org: Touching Stories of Steve Jobs

In case the site goes down (which I expect it may): here is another link: http://web.archive.org/web/20110726072224/http://folklore.or...