pw0ncakes

11 ms·

31.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Early plunge: panic. Current status: probably a fairly rational reflection of the badness of the situation (which is not new, and although serious, probably not catastrophic).
32.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Misleading title. The drop occurred over about 10 minutes, and has partially reversed. As of 3:06 it's -400 for the day. The VIX is also up into the high-30s. Not to say this isn't August 6, 2007 or September 12, 2008. It may well be.
33.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
I think that you would have a great story to tell to future interviewers if you can get the bad code under control and launch the product Great point. Thanks. The "+2.5-3 sigma technical and +3-3.5 sigma big picture" stuff would be a big
34.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
I agree wholeheartedly on "waited too long". We all tried to keep him motivated and productive, but weren't able to in the end. Honestly, the current venture, minus the bad apple and the rickety code he has written, is still (in my estimati
35.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Thanks. 1. There are certain milestones we have to meet before we can launch. We have a great product, but we have some holes we have to fill. I can't get more specific here. 2. The leadership of the company is excellent. We're in trouble (
36.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Yes. A result of winner-take-all elections is that we have trench-style (as in World War 1 trench warfare) politics: two parties stand very close to each other on the political spectrum with ~45% support each, very little gets done, and the
37.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
I remember when a nonexistent person won student body president in college.
38.
Ask HN: I Need Career Advice from an Experienced VC or Entrepreneur
34 points by pw0ncakes 16y ago|33 comments
39.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
New York's housing prices are absurd even in relation to the average income here. If people make 30% more in New York than they do elsewhere, it makes sense that housing would cost 30% more. 300% more is unconscionable.
40.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
In the US, we have the equally loony Republicans, who started off on a reasonable platform but went insane around 1980. The problem is, they're one of our two major parties.
41.
Matt Taibbi on the SEC/Goldman Case(rollingstone.com)
4 points by pw0ncakes 16y ago|3 comments
42.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Isn't that, like, two or three posts in one? It's the Paranoid Android of blog posts!
43.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
No. We have to work on the housing problem quite a bit before that can happen, and since this involves inflicting pain on some very wealthy, entrenched, and powerful people, it's unlikely to happen any time soon. (Silicon Valley has disgust
44.
The British Loony Party(online.wsj.com)
24 points by pw0ncakes 16y ago|14 comments
45.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Where would you say that the trade-off is between dynamic and static if both are represented by best of breed representatives? Something like Erlang or your favorite Lisp? Lisp is a great language, but I still think static typing wins at
46.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Explain. Large projects are certainly doable in dynamically-typed languages. I just think that static typing becomes a win once you have: * enough code that internal interfaces become important, * enough code that at least 30% of time is sp
47.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Strong static typing is great. You can cut your runtime bug count by 70-80% easily if you know what you're doing, which provides an enormous increase in productivity. Also, type discipline seems to lead naturally to better architecture. You
48.
Metamath(us.metamath.org)
4 points by pw0ncakes 16y ago|0 comments
49.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
It's a proof, but not a formal one. It doesn't define the notion of "program", for example. It's somewhere between an informal proof and a proof sketch (a correct and valid one, of course). A formal proof is a sequence of statements where
50.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
For law students and lawyers, there's a "top 14". This is because the USN&WR top 10 has varied over the years, but the USN&WR top 14 has been stable for practically forever. The same is true of 17, 18, and maybe a couple of other in
51.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
Our individual professors are excellent. Our university system itself is poor-to-mediocre, and academia as a society and culture is, indeed, broken. "The universities" are great in the US because the professors and researchers are (mostly
52.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
This is a good point, actually. The quality of person required by a startup is much higher than what an investment bank needs, and most of the people going into IB/MC wouldn't be qualified. Also: analyst programs are designed to filter for
53.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
::shudders:: Facebook and all of this "achievements" bullshit spell the ruin of game design, which began its slouch toward infantilism in the big-budget 3-D era ("look, shiny!") and has been forced down our throats over the past few years (
54.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
I can explain in under 200 words how to bring a lot more bright people into technology startups. The following program, sponsored by VCs: VC firm takes you on as a protege. You don't know anything; you're not expected to. There's no guarant
55.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
That he can't afford the house he grew up in has to do mainly with two factors: 1. House prices are still ridiculously high, since cities and college towns haven't hit the back side of the bubble yet. 2. The academia job market has shit all
56.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
In many companies, your career will stagnate if you don't put in at least 50 hours per week. You might even get fired. Of course, no one will express the specific reason, but your reputation will fall and eventually you'll get hosed. Also,
57.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
The "hard living" comment seems to imply drug use, a common cause of premature cardiac death. There was also mention of "coke" at the end of the OP, although it's ambiguous which unhealthy substance (the sugary one, or the deadly one?) was
58.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
This article explains a lot about a problematic programmer I've had the misfortune of working with. Although he presents the air of a "great programmer", it's actually because his architectural abilities are absent. Given a small project, h
59.
Does Software Culture Reward Failure?(skorks.com)
3 points by pw0ncakes 16y ago|2 comments
60.
by pw0ncakes 16y ago
from some of the comments it seems like there are some people who would not stay at a company for more than a year or two regardless of the company's retention practices. I think that attitude's unusual. Most people would love to have con

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