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epicvikingon Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

Given that you need a google account to access YouTube in the first place, shouldn't google already have all the data they need here? They don't seem to gain much with this...

epicvikingon Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

I'm curious how this will work with google play music. if we can now upload songs through drive instead of that terrible slow desktop uploader, spotify may have just lost a customer...

epicvikingon Software Engineers Will Work One Day For English Majors

I was in a similar place two years ago.

Everyone around me totally out classed and outsmarted me. I made friends with a guy who was freelancing on the side for a local company. I offered to help him in exchange for some tips and help. He said yes. I learned a bunch of front end stuff, and took on some freelance work of my own. One of my projects impressed a local company I met at an event and that turned into a full time job doing Android Development. I got called by one of my 4.0 classmates just last week asking if I could help them find an internship. It's funny how these things works.

Hang in there man, keep your head down and don't be afraid to ask for help. Its a hell of a lot more attainable than you think.

epicvikingon Software Engineers Will Work One Day For English Majors

I googled the good doctor, and wow, you weren't kidding.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

He really does see the H1-B as some sort of Ragnarok for the American programmer.

epicvikingon The One Product That Makes Apple a Trillion-Dollar Company Overnight

I thought this was going to be about an apple printer...

epicvikingon Chrome OS update adds Google's hardware-accelerated Aura UI

The comments on that article really make me appreciate hacker news. I had forgotten how bad internet comments could be.

epicvikingon Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

I had to use "PerfectScript" for something once. It was an awful awful experience.

epicvikingon Postmark introduces easy inbound email processing for all accounts

This got me thinking... Are there any startups that are doing something similar with physical mail? I can picture a large centralized mail room with a bunch of industrial sized scanners, mail gets opened, scanned, and uploaded. Customers could access pdfs of their daily mail through a Web interface and could search through archives. Through in some super OCR and I think you'd really have something...

epicvikingon What It’s Really Like to Work at Google

Whats the name of the book? I'd like to read it.

epicvikingon People paid us $10,000 last week to learn how to program. Lessons learned...

I'm really not sure how well this kind of thing can scale. Without some formal accreditation process for instructors I can't see this bringing in corporate workshops and seminars which are where I'd guess the money is. Having to evaluate every instructor and every curriculum is going to only get harder as these sites grow.

Sadly, I think this kind of thing is going to stay firmly in the realm of the hobbyists.

epicvikingon Bravo now casting Silicon Valley reality show

Real Housewives of Silicon Valley? Sign me up!

epicvikingon Flash Game Simulates Living on $9/hr.

This reminds me of one of my favorite flash games! Third World Farmer!

http://www.mofunzone.com/online_games/3rd_world_farmer.shtml

epicvikingon How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing (2009)

Merckle was quite depressed at the time of his death. I don't think his death had anything to do with want for money, he lived quite modestly and didn't exactly lose everything.

epicvikingon Inside Amazon.com warehouse workers complain of brutal conditions

You can't outsource customer facing jobs. Someone has to work the cash registers.

You can't outsource construction jobs. Someone has to update our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

You can't outsource healthcare jobs. Someone has to change the IV bags and push around the stretchers.

You can't outsource teaching. Someone has to teach future generations about math and science and history and puberty.

You can't outsource the maintenance and repair of our utilities. Electricians and plumbers, they're definitely going to be in demand.

Reports of the death of the American blue collar job are greatly exaggerated.

epicvikingon Inside Amazon.com warehouse workers complain of brutal conditions

I think people really over estimate the anti-intellectualism side of things.

When you come from hard labor you don't have much time to really think about your options. You're 18, you're on your own, you need to feed yourself and pay the rent. You don't have many options. Your family was never in a position to afford college for you, living paycheck to paycheck and all. Theres a vein of fatalism running underneath all of this, your daddy worked in a warehouse, his daddy worked in a warehouse, and you're gonna work in a warehouse too. It is just how it is. It is sad, but it is how it is.

epicvikingon Is Printing a Gun the Same as Buying a Gun?

http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Pistol-Workshop-Defense-Resist...

http://www.amazon.com/Bazooka-How-Build-Your-Own/dp/08736473...

Guns really are not that complicated. I wish I had the time and the cojones to actually try to make one of these.

epicvikingon Sell to Teachers

Teachers also have one of the more powerful unions in the United States, at least in non industrial states. A lot of ire is targeted not so much at the teachers as at their union and its policies.

epicvikingon Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop.

I think Indochino would benefit from pushing the customization angle though. As it stands now they are simply offering a product not unlike Banana Republic with a bit more customization in the lining and a bit in the sizing. I think the number of people who want custom suits is a lot higher than you think (not to mention, Indochino's business model is highly dependent on return customers) and aiming more for the market currently only filled by traveling Hong Kong tailors might be in their better interest. I do think they are going in that direction though.

epicvikingon Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop.

You really would benefit from sorting the items you have for sale. At the least Man and Woman.

epicvikingon Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop.

Gilt is VC funded I believe

epicvikingon Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop.

I actually think Indochino is an example of someone focusing too much on the "physical fucking product" and missing some chances to do some real innovative stuff. They could potentially offer some really neat customizations, possibly even a full "internet bespoke tailor experience" kind of thing, but they avoid that in favor of more dumbed down aspirational product that tries to sell itself as something it isn't.

As for wanting to learn more, I'm currently teaching a university of reddit course on menswear customs, history, and how tos. Its under menswear 101. Go check it out.

epicvikingon Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop.

I don't think the people going in to fashion start ups are going in to them to make large profits. It seems to me they are motivated by wanting creative control over some product or line of products and this is just another way to go about doing that.

epicvikingon Ask HN: Manufacturing small electronic devices?

Ideally I think in house would be the approach I'd take. The device in question isn't particularly complicated and the components don't exactly have to be top of the line. I have no experience working with vendors though.

epicvikingon Ask HN: Manufacturing small electronic devices?

Small sensor that can record some measurements than plug into a computer USB port to upload those measurements. Doesn't really need to be super precise or anything, price is the major constraint here.

I will contact some kickstarted folks, good idea there.

thanks.

epicvikingon Google Flight Search

From playing around a bit, it seems like Kayak still has Google Flights beat on pricing by as much as 150 dollars. A quick comparison of a bunch of flights and I found that Kayak almost always had the lower price. I'm gonna have to agree with you on the 90% thing, I don't really see why Google would release something like this and not take pricing into consideration. I guess that will be fixed soon though.

epicvikingon Twitter closing another massive $400M round

I've seen nothing to indicate they've seen a profit since 2009

epicvikingon Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

I can't even begin to imagine what Reddit would be like if Karma had a monetary value. Karma whore-ier I'd presume.

epicvikingon "I've got an idea for an app"

I've found it just as effective to start giving them the resources to make their apps. Offer to lend them books and point them towards tutorials.

Nobody ever wants my books.