johnqian

8 ms·

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To the rejected(blog.johnqian.com)
2 points by johnqian 1y ago|0 comments
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Show HN: A minimal Chinese learning site(chinese.johnqian.com)
1 points by johnqian 2y ago|0 comments
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My take on AI safety(blog.johnqian.com)
2 points by johnqian 3y ago|0 comments
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How a startup loses its spark(blog.johnqian.com)
3 points by johnqian 3y ago|0 comments
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by johnqian 3y ago
Fixed--made it generate questions in the same language as the answer! Do you find that GPT 3.5 can write in fluent Vietnamese? Branch highlighting is on the top of our to do list, should be able to get it out soon!
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Show HN: WhyBot, making GPT-4 question itself(whybot-khaki.vercel.app)
77 points by johnqian 3y ago|32 comments
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by johnqian 4y ago
Bizarre that this is the top comment on this thread right now. I agree they've done some damage, but you seem to have dismissed their justifications without any explanation. Do you really believe we should trust random tabloids just be
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by johnqian 4y ago
I really like the idea of making the main input a saveable textarea that can hold multiple words rather than just one. Reminds me of Numi and Soulver, which do this for calculators (I never went back to a traditional calculator app after di
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by johnqian 4y ago
I think you defended my point for me with the glass panes example. Price is definitely a part of the optimization formula. In fact I think most trends in architecture are much easier to explain than in UI because they’re so clearly enabled
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by johnqian 4y ago
This was a really great read. There's a few comments here saying something akin to "No, design trends are totally random, some hotshots decide they want to be different and then everyone else mindlessly follows". I got simila
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by johnqian 4y ago
Whether it be healthcare, housing, or education, the government always responds to rising costs by subsidizing demand rather than helping increase supply or fix incentive structures. Really frustrating but almost inevitable because subsidiz
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by johnqian 4y ago
This is spam-tier content. Almost nothing specific to scaling data intensive applications. You could rename the article to “how to catch the squirrel in your backyard” and it’d be just as relevant. I wonder if the upvotes were purchased or
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by johnqian 4y ago
The term "10x engineer" always leads to incongruous conversation. Everyone has a different impression of what a 10x engineer is, depending on who they've met and how much they enjoy coding. There's those who think 10x =
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by johnqian 4y ago
Now that I think about it, an incredibly valuable exercise would be to give students a longwinded, vague, rambling essay and make them rewrite it to be as clear and concise as possible. This even works within the time-constrained test envir
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by johnqian 4y ago
Agreed that reading with readily-available translations is the most important method of learning, but with technology we can do better than the interlinear texts this article describes, which seems to just be foreign texts where each word h
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by johnqian 4y ago
This doesn't ring true to me; most people at the gyms I've been to don't talk to anyone. I think most people actually want the equipment, mainly the squat rack, bench press, and treadmills. I personally love bodyweight exerci
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by johnqian 4y ago
I think this is a great presentation. I've found that learning to write has largely a process of unlearning everything I was taught in secondary school. In school we were conditioned to excrete as much bullshit as we could in a fixed a
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by johnqian 4y ago
That actually sounds like a great way to workout while getting paid! Do they accept short/temporary/irregular stints?
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by johnqian 4y ago
This appraisal of Van Eyck's painting strikes me as odd. If my mission was to paint a room as photorealistically as possible, I would certainly notice all the differences between my painting and reality, I think anyone would. What diff
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by johnqian 4y ago
Is this product strictly for people missing a hand? I can’t see any other market. Sure it looks and feels cooler to type with one hand, but that is not nearly enough benefit to cut your typing speed in half.
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by johnqian 4y ago
Helion and Luminous Computing come to mind as universally interesting and unquestionably risky. There's more controversial ones I like but won't name.
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by johnqian 4y ago
I'm wary of engaging with this comment at all but... How are you so sure it was "some psycho test" rather than, say, their actual availability?
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by johnqian 4y ago
The standard coding challenge is still most of the interview, so that provides some consistency. I just want to give candidates an additional opportunity to flex, in case they feel there's an important thing that most interviews neglec
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by johnqian 4y ago
I sometimes ask candidates "what kind of interview do you feel would best bring out your strengths?" and try to adapt the interview to their response if I can. It's helpful if they want to talk about side projects or war stor
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by johnqian 4y ago
Another trite complaint about startups not being cool enough these days. There are plenty of interesting and well funded startups if you earnestly look for them. As for the majority that aren’t interesting to you, well, they don’t owe you e
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by johnqian 4y ago
I think a lot of commenters here would benefit from adjusting their scam-radars. The way you scam people is by offering something that sounds great and plausible, but actually isn't. Consider Theranos, Bernie Madoff, etc. Worldcoin doe
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Math Poetry (2015)(3blue1brown.com)
37 points by johnqian 4y ago|3 comments
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by johnqian 4y ago
> The answers I get have taught me that most programmers don't have a basic understanding of how the internet works outside of their narrow specialty. This lack of a rudimentary mental model is one of the largest contributors to was
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by johnqian 4y ago
HN was founded not just for programmers, but for people interested in startups. For most startups, understanding people (your users) is even more important than understanding the tech.
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by johnqian 4y ago
Google's search results are bad by default because they're hijacked by SEO farms. Despite this, I find that there's almost always a way for me to find what I want with Google. If I want thoughtful discussion about a topic, I&

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