Hacker News Reader

starkfiston IPod touch with two cameras, Retina Display said to arrive soon

Here are the downsides to the MiFi:

- it gets really hot

- the battery only gets about 2.5 hours, max

- in NYC area, it is slow.

- it's not really cheap, it's $60/m for 5GB. Plus you have to pay $150 to buy it in the first place

If that still sounds good to you, I've got one for sale... ;)

starkfiston Don't Be Ugly By Accident

In my experience, that combination works. :)

starkfiston Don't Be Ugly By Accident

You have to be too close to the face in order to throw out the background with a 20mm 1.9. It's going to make the nose look weird and accentuate a double chin, if you have one. (I have the same camera and lens)

starkfiston Don't Be Ugly By Accident

Is the self portrait in a bedroom mirror really more sad than these photos that look like they were semi-professionally staged? In my experience with OKCupid "good" photos are often the least "accurate."

starkfiston Don't Be Ugly By Accident

A 20mm lens is not an excellent portrait lens. It will make your face look fatter.

starkfiston Don't Be Ugly By Accident

4. Nobody wants to have sex with the Android wielding sysadmin

starkfiston The Startup Diet: How I Lost 35 Pounds While Working Overtime

but my blood panels were dramatically better on a low-carb diet

My blood panels were exactly the opposite - bad when I ate cheese, meat, fried, oily stuff... good when I switched to a diet consisting mostly of rice, noodles, fruits and vegetables.

starkfiston Nathan Myhrvold unveils massive cookbook for science geeks

I'm sure it's cool but it's a topic I have no interest in.

starkfiston Nathan Myhrvold unveils massive cookbook for science geeks

Yeah I've read that. He's an interesting guy but still kind of the textbook definition of patent troll.

starkfiston P ≠ NP

I don't think academia is really like that. One of my former roommates was a Physics PhD student at MIT, so I know him and his colleagues. They all drank beer and played chess and cards in this one basement bar in Cambridge, did stuff like hang gliding, rock climbing, ultimate frisbee and played in various awful experimental-folk bands. They were nerds but they were all bros and even attracted the weird kind of cyber-hippy chicks who are into dudes like that. They all eventually got married. They seemed pretty happy to me. In contrast I once got stuck in a corporate programming job, which was the most uninteresting and socially isolating experience of my entire life.

Whenever I read these HN screeds against academia, I wonder what they are comparing it against. In my experience academia was way more interesting and fun than working as a professional programmer. The only thing good about the later is that it pays a lot.

starkfiston Nathan Myhrvold unveils massive cookbook for science geeks

When I was broke I read lots of books but certainly didn't care about what a patent trolling dong from Microsoft thought about Sous Vide (still don't). Maybe that's what t.ptacek meant?

starkfiston The Startup Diet: How I Lost 35 Pounds While Working Overtime

There's a lot of glycemic index nonsense out there today. There is a low carb meme which will have you believe that just a few ounces of "carbs" will throw your metabolism out of whack and you won't lose weight even if you keep calories low. This is bullshit.

However, if you are trying to lose weight, it's often good to leave out carbs simply because it is so easy to overeat carbs. I love pasta and could easily eat 1200 calories worth of spaghetti and still have room for more. On the other hand , I almost have to choke down 1200 calories of eggs, fruit and vegetables.

starkfiston The Startup Diet: How I Lost 35 Pounds While Working Overtime

I love coffee, but when I go on a cutting diet, it makes me feel much more anxious than normal.

starkfiston The Startup Diet: How I Lost 35 Pounds While Working Overtime

You just need to eat a lot more calories. You might be doing the wrong weightlifting routine. If you can do egg whites, those work pretty well. I went from 150 to 180 in college on a "hard gainer" program. My diet back then was: egg whites, brown rice, vegetables. Now I'm trying to get back down to about 165, so be careful what you wish for...

starkfiston MRI evidence on how hypnosis works

Has anyone here ever tried hypnosis? I got sick from food poisoning a few years ago, and ever since then have had an on again off again issue with hypochondria. I've heard that hypnosis can help with this, but as a natural skeptic I'm... skeptical.

starkfiston My Lousy College Experience With Computer Science

My intro to computer science class had 12 people in it, and was structured the same way as 6.001 at MIT, using SICP, and whatnot. Subsequent courses had about the same number of people and used the top textbooks at the time. Cormen for algorithms, stevens for networking, foley and van damme for graphics, the dragon book for compilers, etc. The small class size put me in close contact with my professors, who cherry picked me to lead some NSF funded grant projects in computational geometry and atmospheric science research. They also let me be the sysadmin for the school's UNIX servers. This combined experience and education made it trivially easy to have a career working for various internet startups. Just wanted to point out that there's varying quality of education, and maybe it just sucks to be you.

On the other hand, maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about, since I went to one of those "hated on HN" flaky liberal arts colleges.

starkfiston Executive Leaves Apple After iPhone Antenna Troubles

I work in NYC, notorious for crappy at&t coverage. 30 people in my office tried to replicate the problem and nobody could.

starkfiston Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web

Bill Gates went to a private high school with tuition 2.5 times more than Harvard at the time, and computing facilities comparable to Stanford or MIT.

starkfiston Here's Why You Need A Liquidation Preference

"Lifestyle company" now seems to mean any business built without the intention of making money for a board of investors...

starkfiston In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars (2009)

It's easy to get tossed on any bike with an aggressive geometry if you are going fast and slam the front brake. Personally, I do not think the most popular bike styles in the USA have the right geometry for commuting in the city. The default accident for stopping abruptly should not be flying over the handlebars, which is what happens on road/track frames and MTB frames. My bikes are set up more like dutch bikes or beach cruisers, which have a very upright geometry with my bodyweight over the back wheel.

starkfiston In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars (2009)

I've ridden a fixed gear bike exclusively for the past 15 years. (alright, that's not exactly true... I have a dutch bike for groceries and recently bought a Brompton for traveling) It was built for me by the patron saint of internet cyclists, Sheldon Brown (RIP).

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html

You just need a front brake to dump speed, and ride a gearing suitable for your environment. For instance, in NYC this is about 42/16.

starkfiston Why did the US Government claim Kindle violates civil rights?

Legally, they're obligated to protect shareholder value

People regurgitate this all the time, but there is no such "law."

starkfiston Google CEO Schmidt: "People Aren't Ready for the Technology Revolution"

...augmented reality visors/goggles bluetoothed to your smartphone with useful advertising...

...walking down the street and an advert shows above a cafe saying "half off coffee today"...

...You could walk up to your friend, the goggles/smartphone would recognize their face as being your friend, analyze their emotions, show you their details next to their face...

That's nice, but I'm holding out for the flying cars and warp drive.

starkfiston Ask HN: Is the "adult space" a career-killer?

Loopt has a pretty good rep on HN. Other YC companies would probably hire you. Might want to try that new service where you can apply to 25 YC funded companies at one time.

starkfiston Wikileaks Must Be Stopped

too late

starkfiston Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

Schengen only requires a transit visum for citizens of a small number of states.

Schengen requires a transit visa for citizens of 140 countries. There's only about 40 countries that don't need transit visas. The USA has visa waiver programs with more than 36 countries, and other similar arrangements with Canada, Mexico and states in the Caribbean.

starkfiston Choosing New York over San Francisco

For example, when the iPhone came out, ... in New York, it was almost a non-event;

Really?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iSE0bBgUsQ

starkfiston Choosing New York over San Francisco

You can wear a scarf all summer long in San Francisco.

starkfiston Zed Shaw: "poll, epoll, science, and superpoll" with R

I dunno, that is how a lot of scientists I know interact with people. :/

starkfiston Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?

Wars and defense contractor money comes out of a mysterious black pool of federal tax dollars. One can actually kinda measure how unionized county sheriffs making $600,000 a year in California are bankrupting the state.