kmak

7 ms·

1.
by kmak 15y ago
Seems like kickstarters are mostly okay with the risks.. it is inherent in the site, after all, but man, it doesn't seem necessary to be mean about things..
2.
by kmak 15y ago
Some variation of this happens in HK, where everybody wants to learn English (because they can't learn as well from their peers, unlike other subject) and English lecture/tutoring places pops up all over the place, and the top teachers teac
3.
by kmak 15y ago
If you have no moves, you lose. (You only have a king left and can't move anywhere with it) I actually learned this first, so imagine my confusion when I played western Chess and someone told me now it's a tie!
4.
by kmak 16y ago
I run "algorithmist.com" and was getting quite a bit of spam with using only recaptcha. I was looking for something mathy.. I ended up giving mathcaptcha a go first and it seems to work well to stop the spam, but I was ready to create my q
5.
by kmak 16y ago
Survivor bias in full power here.
6.
by kmak 16y ago
Thank the contributors, I only maintain the site! ;) Of course you can thank the site by paying it forward! That said, UVa's problems are better defined nowadays. Tough problems are actually tough, instead of trying to trick people!
7.
by kmak 16y ago
http://train.usaco.org/usacogate It walks you through the algorithms, though you need one of the languages. There's some terse list at http://www.algorithmist.com/ that might help. (Disclosure: I started Algorithmist)
8.
by kmak 16y ago
I think it's important for students to have critical self-feedback alone. The problem with tests (generally) is that it's feedback for the student (which is good) but also feedback for the teacher, with grades with implications. So basica
9.
by kmak 16y ago
I have a few friends who are in business school and the sole reason they went back (undergrad business in Stern) was to network a little bit and make connections. In terms of class and learning, they knew going in that there was not much t
10.
by kmak 16y ago
The Switcher story: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Switcher.txt
11.
by kmak 16y ago
I suppose it depends on the way you're framing it. If it gets to 7% as desired, it is 40% more!
12.
by kmak 16y ago
The best camera is on you have in your hand at the time. I don't see a problem with letting people use whatever they have -- the technology will presumably get better if it is what is demanded by the market.
13.
by kmak 16y ago
A little, I started projects when I was 16 (some silly web game) that might not be too PC, and the code is awful, and I've rewritten the code twice!
14.
by kmak 16y ago
Running back comment is somewhat amusing, if only because a recent article on ESPN said that Chris Johnson's total yardage is down because he's always aiming for the HR, thus lowering his average yardage, trying to find and create space tha
15.
by kmak 16y ago
Basketball is probably the best export. Baseball is semi-popular, but it has to deal with cricket, which is similar enough but not quite. I'm a huge fan of baseball and its history (Babe Ruth is nickname for an American back then!) but th
16.
by kmak 16y ago
I don't debate library usage (reuse!), but I teach mostly theory, with code snippets to present algorithms concisely. There are many tools to solve a problem, and I want to educate on a different layer. For instance, in sorting alone there
17.
by kmak 16y ago
I feel for you -- whenever I try to write about basic algorithms (sorting, etc) I always get comments that you can do it in library. Yes, obviously, but I'm teaching an algorithm, not how to use a library!
18.
by kmak 16y ago
I also had wrote some stuff that I ping alive once in awhile, except that if I don't, it'll tweet and send random emails to friends, complaining about the temperature. My idea was way less practical in that it is really more of a prank..
19.
by kmak 16y ago
I think Feynman's quote is meant that you should not learn only the name of things and pretend to understand what they are. There's also another anecdote written by Feynman where he describes creating his own notation for trig, or maybe cal
20.
by kmak 16y ago
One of my advisors liked to bring up this quote: The first time a teacher teaches something, the teacher learns. The second time a teacher teaches something, the students learn. After that nobody learns!
21.
by kmak 16y ago
I think the term "luck" is too overloaded. Tons of people do actually use the term "luck" as a clutch, as in it's bad luck that a pot of gold did not fall onto their lap. In that sense, I agree with the article. However, it probably swin
22.
by kmak 16y ago
There are no sunk cost in life. Even if you got really good at something, if you really want to do something else, you can drop them and start today!
23.
by kmak 16y ago
This was mentioned in "Predictably Irrational", essentially, this is exactly what you don't want to do, changing a decision from social to being economical. Unfortunately, you can't change it back easily. I believe the example given was t
24.
by kmak 16y ago
I think it's just an easy way to justify hiring -- if the hire turns out to be awful, you can say, "hey, he/she had 10 years of experience!"
25.
by kmak 16y ago
I'm paraphrasing someone, but I can't find the quote right now. Basically: If a fruit grows in a blight, you don't give credit to the blight.
26.
by kmak 16y ago
You need them in one of the earlier puzzles.
27.
by kmak 16y ago
I'm working on the language math. Seems to take quite a bit of time just looking things up!
28.
by kmak 16y ago
I've been bit by this before -- in my case it was math.h and hypot. It was quite frustrating to debug something that I assumed would be correct, so did not look at.
29.
by kmak 16y ago
I've read a variation on this where you commit money to a charity you hate, to motivate yourself toward your goal, or literally your enemies win.
30.
by kmak 16y ago
It is also probably true that, in a risk sense, there are many more attractive options, considering that cost of living in NYC is not cheap at all. Also, there are plenty of other startups in the finance sector, though perhaps not in the HN

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