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gaplus

86 karma · joined August 7, 2013

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gaplus··on How to Live Without Google
dropbox paper?
gaplus··on Amazon soars to more than 341K employees, adding 110K people in a single year
Not exactly. It turns out, AMZN cuts 4 jobs for any 1 job that it adds. The full report is truly alarming and has pretty disturbing implications for the overall economy: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ILSR_AmazonRepor...
gaplus··on Meteor 1.1 Released – Now Supporting Microsoft Windows and MongoDB 3.0
yeah this is the mongoDB gridFS bug that keeps crashing my website.
gaplus··on Meteor 1.1 Released – Now Supporting Microsoft Windows and MongoDB 3.0
Just deployed a new version of the app with optimized images. Thanks so much for the thorough, constructive feedback.
gaplus··on Meteor 1.1 Released – Now Supporting Microsoft Windows and MongoDB 3.0
thanks for letting me know - is it better now? I just enabled oplog.
gaplus··on Meteor 1.1 Released – Now Supporting Microsoft Windows and MongoDB 3.0
My custom packaging startup Packlane (http://packlane.com) uses Meteor. Really grateful for this update since the old Mongo version had some major issues.
gaplus··on Show HN: Design Custom Packaging in 3D – Built with ThreeJS
Hey HN! Would love to hear any feedback or comments you have regarding Packlane.

P.S. We're also on Product Hunt today :) http://producthunt.com/posts/packlane

gaplus··on Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?
You can't be serious. First of all, wildlife and the rich biodiversity of nature has its own intrinsic value without needing to be "useful" to humans. Second, we're constantly learning from other species and I doubt we're even close to knowing everything there is to know about them. Some of our best tech was inspired by wildlife (sonar, swarm robotics, aviation, the list goes on).
gaplus··on New Requests for Startups
Couldn't agree more. Protecting wildlife is like protecting nature's most valuable works of art, and it's a real tragedy that they have become so marginalized in our anthropocentric system. It would be fascinating to focus on solving problems that go beyond our own species. One of the main issues is the economics of biodiversity — how do you put a price on the preservation of an ecosystem or a species? It's certainly not a straightforward answer, but it's a question that's well-worth thinking about.
gaplus··on With Subway in the Sky, Valley Meets Plateau
I'm pretty sure a gondola can hold its own in a hurricane (as long as it isn't running). Most urban systems use the same technology as alpine systems, which have to withstand harsh blizzards.
gaplus··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2014)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ⚛ Berkeley, CA

Web Developer | full-time or part-time

Berkeley Lab is looking for a talented web developer who will work on building powerful web-based tools for materials scientists on the Materials Project team (see materialsproject.org). We use millions of CPU-hours a year to compute the properties of advanced new materials, and disseminate the information with web interfaces and APIs.

This is a great opportunity for a developer with an interest in science and energy-related innovation. You'll work with a very small team of scientists and engineers and will have a major impact on any aspect of the project that interests you — from application architecture to data visualization.

A successful applicant will have experience in:

   ▪   HTML (HTML5 desirable) / CSS3

   ▪   Python and Django (or similar framework)

   ▪   Javascript — experience with Backbone.js, 
       CoffeeScript, and Require.js is highly relevant

   ▪   Web services technologies and REST

   ▪   Information visualization — knowledge of javascript
       graphing libraries such as d3 or HighCharts and   
       understanding of information visualization techniques
       highly relevant

   ▪   MVC-style development

   ▪   Writing unit-tests for client side applications

   ▪   Unix environments 

   ▪   User interface design principles
If you're interested in applying, or you simply want to ask some questions about the position, feel free to get in touch via the email listed on my profile.
gaplus··on Why you should move that button 3px to the left
"The problem with your comment is you assume everyone can dabble in everything."

How is it unreasonable to assume that a designer should dabble in web development? That's hardly 'everything' and it's highly relevant to their work and goals. Frankly it's remarkable to me that web designers can still get jobs without taking the time to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the engineering stack they're designing for, even if they don't work with it on a day-to-day basis.

gaplus··on President Obama calls on every American to learn code
hmm I suppose it seems obvious to some people, but I've met a number of people trying to become programmers for reasons that won't get them very far. Just my two cents.
gaplus··on President Obama calls on every American to learn code
Learning anything new is all well and good, but the thing that's actually valuable to society and "america's future" isn't really more coders, it's people who are really fantastic at what they do; whatever it may be. I'd rather someone dedicate their life to becoming the best preserve-maker in the world than fixing bugs in groupon. The preserve-maker may not reach billions of people with his/her work, but based on my own observations, I've found that the relative quality of one's achievements in a field has more leverage than the scale.
gaplus··on Ask HN: Where can I find a software job that helps society?
Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory is always hiring hackers: http://cjo.lbl.gov/ . I currently work there building software that helps scientists discover new lithium batteries.
gaplus··on Design tip: Never use black (2012)
Replace the word 'black' with any other color you can think of in this article and it's pretty clear how dogmatic this is. I'm all for setting rules and constraints for a given design project, but trying to set universal rules apart from the context of the project with these arguments is fallacious since one can easily give strong counter arguments in favor of pure black. In fact, OLED screens are as black as they come since a pure black OLED won't draw any power. This is a wonderful aspect of it's function that results in incredible saturated graphics like those found on the op-1 synth display: http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/overview
gaplus··on John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO
He's already an investor with a considerable equity stake.
gaplus··on John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO
I read the book last night. Pretty cosmic to wake up to this news the next morning. Earth shattering.