achompas

75 ms·

721.
by achompas 15y ago
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
722.
by achompas 15y ago
I've been asked once. The person had just asked me how many ping-pong balls fit into the room we were sitting in, so that should tell you something about their interviewing abilities.
723.
by achompas 15y ago
I'd argue that college is the perfect medium for learning about creativity: creative opportunities don't fall into your lap. Your first novel, album, or photography exhibit won't materialize from air--you have to work towards them. (Tha
724.
by achompas 15y ago
Agreed completely. Thanks for the suggestion--I'm going to try Lubuntu and Mint in VMs and stick with whichever I like more.
725.
by achompas 15y ago
This is a super-valid point--I don't want to spend 4 hours fiddling with drivers to get my Mac's webcam working. After reading your and Derek's advice, I'm going to pop Mint and Lubuntu into separate VMs, and transition to whichever I enjoy
726.
by achompas 15y ago
Are those people really looking for work in this market? Or are they fighting off recruiters from Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft?
727.
by achompas 15y ago
I'm ready to take the full-time plunge into Linux. Spend too much time goofing off on my Mac, so I'd like to set it up as a pure development machine and use an iPad for leisure. Would you guys recommend Arch Linux as a good starting point?
728.
by achompas 15y ago
I'll post this for the new HN members, since I would've loved to hear this after joining: the companies you want to work for don't give a damn about what languages you know. You want a job? Learn how a splay tree performs better than a bina
729.
by achompas 15y ago
Honestly, this tone is better. I downvoted you for suggesting an alternative because, honestly, parent is just as indignant as I am at this article's bullshit. You generally don't get a job by just learning a language. That's no different t
730.
by achompas 15y ago
What does "asking questions with data" mean?
731.
by achompas 15y ago
Comment content on HN is user-moderated. Your account won't get nuked by mods for anything but spam, but the community will vote you down for violating the rules: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html People don't get "hellbanned" he
732.
by achompas 15y ago
Totally agreed. Those titles serve to differentiate between responsibilities given to designers and programmers. So how does a data scientist's responsibilities differ from those of a business analyst?
733.
by achompas 15y ago
This is a good point, and it's a problem in theoretical economics. Some economic models abstract away some important real-world conditions. My experience, though, is with applied macroeconomics. We'd derive models consistent with theory, th
734.
by achompas 15y ago
A data scientist is two things: 1. A business analyst who has traded Excel for a Unix command prompt and a scripting language, because (a) there's more data now than before, and (b) data is harder to clean because of (a). 2. A mythical unic
735.
by achompas 15y ago
Agreed--that's how I was encouraged to think about statistics in my grad classes + research programs. They're tools for getting things done correctly, so they need to be understood thoroughly--no different than a given programming language.
736.
by achompas 15y ago
In my experience, economics is the exception. Many of the economists I've worked with know their statistics, and they put in a lot of work to make sure their models agree with econometric or time series theory (that's possibly selection bia
737.
by achompas 15y ago
Who...you? The government? Come on now. Let's not get sanctimonious about what people do with their time. It's their problem.
738.
by achompas 15y ago
I'm sure you're working to fix a couple of issues with your app, so I'm not trying to pile on here. Love the idea, and I just wanted to report two bugs: 1. githire.com/user/acompa returns my account, while www.githire.com/user/acompa return
739.
by achompas 15y ago
Have you used Hunch? Have you ever written a recommender system? Have you even read the source of one?? This isn't some naive Bayes spam filter from 1992. Hunch is really, really accurate.
740.
by achompas 15y ago
In all cases, those companies got the algorithms + the team that developed them. Are we really debating the difference? Or were you sitting in MS/Apple/eBay's boardroom?
741.
by achompas 15y ago
See my above reply to suking--$80m is kind of a bargain.
742.
by achompas 15y ago
Apple bought the tech behind Siri for $200m in 2010. MS bought Powerset (and their NLP-type search engine) for $100m in 2008. They also bought Farecast (travel pricing forecasting) for $75-115m in 2008. Hunch for $80m is a steal , as far a
743.
by achompas 15y ago
Agreed, this is completely absurd. Say what you will about Chris Dixon (zomg he doesn't code, wtf!!!!!111), but the engineering team at Hunch is second-to-none. Grandparent makes it sound like Dixon pulled this off in his spare time. He ass
744.
by achompas 15y ago
This sounds like a talent acquisition. I would agree, and it's a damn good talent acquisition. Hunch's team is made almost exclusively of engineers who (a) went to some of the best CS programs in the world (CMU, MIT, Stanford), and (b)
745.
by achompas 15y ago
This is an excellent idea--would love to contribute somehow! Contact info is in my profile.
746.
by achompas 15y ago
Not necessarily the case, especially if the interviewers are engineers or engineering managers at a startup. IME, they're usually overloaded with work.
747.
by achompas 15y ago
It's perfectly normal to want some closure, so don't think you're stepping on anyone's toes. Your plans are important too! Something like this would work: "Hey there, I interviewed with B three weeks ago and was told to expect a response wi
748.
by achompas 15y ago
Why haven't I seen the following comment here? patio11 10 minutes ago | link Programmers are paid in proportion to the value they create. If you want to make more money, work on stuff that makes money, then ask for t
749.
by achompas 15y ago
Freemium. See the home page, where they talk about "Premium" subscribers.
750.
by achompas 15y ago
In what way? I ask bc I agree with parent (and disagree with you), as far as the iPhone version of Instapaper is concerned.

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