ipince

Well, looks like 20,594 people made it through the qualification round. Higher than last year, when 17,054 people made it: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/13/round/0

I do think there is some "fundamental truth" (whether it was "handed down to us by God" or not. Sure, maybe our math system is not able to fully express that truth (and in fact, we are pretty sure it is incomplete--that is unable to proof certain truths), but that doesn't mean it's arbitrary..

How is it "joining" the winter batch? Isn't that batch just about done now?

Note that "sum of the numbers from 1 to N" is not the same as "summing the numbers from 1 to N".

Passing judgment based on a "why is ..." auto-complete suggestion seems flawed, as the searches are heavily biased to the negative end.

Erica, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but may I suggest that maybe you're reading too much into (some of) this?

I've seen the lack of eye contact problem happen many times, with a mix of genders/races/etc. Sometimes I'm the one being ignored (I'm male); sometimes I feel weird because the person talking is only looking at me and ignoring everyone else in the group. It feels random to me.

IMHO, it points more to a general lack of social skills than a sexist/racist thing. I try not to take it personally. And I try, in my own conversations, to always be very inclusive (e.g. eye contact with everyone, even if I'm answering one particular person's question) and encourage others to be inclusive as well (e.g. deliberately introducing people, asking questions, or simply giving others in the group eye contact even when I'm on the listening end). I think steps like these can go a long way.

> For example: if you saw two guys at a company booth, one guy who was slightly overweight, had a unkept beard, and wore a t-shirt that had the Perl deCSS code, and standing next to him, was someone in dockers, a button up shirt, and had a blackberry, you might make some snap assumptions.

I think the point here is that even if you (internally) make those assumptions, you shouldn't externalize them. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, so to speak.

OT: "We call brunettes with straight noses bitchy."

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I really don't understand... Can anyone explain?

Rafael, on iPhones you can enable VPN and get over the restrictions. My friends have been using superfreevpn.com with great success. It only involves adding some setting on the iPhone and setting the vpn password (it changes every 24h and is published on their website). This is for WiFi access of course. The mobile data is not censored (yet).

I suppose something similar can be done for android but I havent looked into it.

-How to the funds reach the borrower? Zidisha is essentially doing the work that the local partners do in the Kiva model, right? How is that scalable across different countries?

-As a lender, I can request the funds be given only to the business itself, right? In many of these places, it can be incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to create a formal "business". How does Zidisha help with that, if at all?

I actually don't know how to solve it programmatically without doing things that feel nasty.

Solved it with pencil and paper, if "pencil and paper" includes asking Wolfram Alpha a few questions :)

Have you thought of selling the business to some other developer? I'm not talking a big acquihire to some random bug company, but putting it on one of those sites to sell other sites to folks like you and me.

I don't think this is right.

There are certainly prime gaps that exceed 600. In fact, the higher you up (in the number line), the higher these prime gaps tend to get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_gap

What's being said here is that despite of that, there will always be prime gaps smaller than 600. No matter how high you go, you can always find a pair of primes that are separated by less than 600. In other words, pick the biggest N you can ever dream of, and there will exist primes p1 and p2 such that they are both bigger than N and their difference is smaller than 600.

This is exactly like TrackItBack, which you've probably heard of? I came across them since they had some pretty awesome airline mile bonuses. I never used the stickers (I still have them); all I remember was thinking to myself "damn these are some expensive stickers." (The miles promo was so good that it made sense to buy them even if you wouldn't use them).

..

I just searched for them and found that they're out of business. Other competitors seem to be idstickers and foundit, though I know nothing of them.

I don't know if it is that things have changed recently, but I did see that schools were handing out free money (at least MIT did when I went there). I got sizable debt-free aid + small (4k/year) loans and I couldn't be more grateful. I know many friends that got much more aid, including monthly stipends to pay for food and other expenses.

It does seem that this is the exception rather than the rule, so I don't usually bring this up. You explicitly mentioned MIT though...

Did I miss it or does it not say how it works?

Well thank you, but that's not useful. Would you mind pointing out some examples of wrong statements? Otherwise I'm none the wiser :(

You can still do this, but the mint imposed limits on the number of coins they'll sell you per week, effectively making this scheme not worth it anymore.

However, to me it is still the best way of getting all those bonus miles when you sign up for a new credit card, without actually spending any money.

Where do you live?

Couple things: - Donors use some criteria to decide which person to give money to. I guess this is more relevant to Kiva than Watsi, where a donor potentially evaluates the project the loan is funding, its potential for success, etc. In reality, your decision doesn't make (that much) difference at that point. The loan is already out. - More importantly to me, when I found about about this model, I just felt misled. I felt tricked into believing something that wasn't true, and it made me slightly lose trust in the company. Not a big deal, I still fully support them and recognize that the model works, but it can be kind of misleading to donors.

Sure... What I meant to point out is that the model is that everyone that appears on the website has already been funded. This is the same model Kiva uses, and the model can be a little misleading for people who think they're actually crowdfunding someone's health/loan. The health coverage or loan has already happened by the time the users see the faces of the beneficiaries on the site.

"the way Watsi works is that we accept every single patient’s profile before the patient receives care. Just like an insurance company. We’re not retroactively approving things. We guarantee funding. We won’t take a profile down until it is fully funded. No other crowd-funding platform that I know of works this way.”

Isn't this exactly how Kiva works? AFAIK, profiles on Kiva have already received funding from their respective microlending institution. Kiva then pays the microlending institution from the funds they raised. That's a reason why repayment rates are so high; the borrowers have already been vetted and given the loan...

http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more

I don't recall being in a car w no indication of which side the gas tank was on. Usually a little arrow indicates it next to the gauge.

Why is the browser history being filled up?

nostromo can you elaborate on why its a dream come true? what could the landlord do?

You don't know what he wants or doesn't want. It _could_ be selfish, but it could very well not be.

Maybe he just had the chance to learn a lot more about this particular disease and so it's more natural for him to invest there. It sure would feel more natural to me to contribute to research on a disease that I have experienced first-hand than to some other random one, even if the random one is more "important." No selfishness there. I would just identify better with the victims and have a more real urge to help them.

Care to explain why?

I’m all in favor of teaching kids how to program, but please be careful about setting expectations. To me, it sounds as if you’re telling people “hey, learn to program in 6 months and get a six figure salary at Facebook!”. While that may be a good way to sell the program, it’s unrealistic and deceitful.

Can you replace a 4-year CS program with a 6 month course? No offense, but I doubt so. I figure the best you can do is have students to know their way around Ruby, know how to build simple apps relying on Rails, some basics about algorithms, familiarity with git, etc. That might be enough for some jobs, but I doubt that’s the kind of engineer companies like Facebook are looking to hire.

Again, I’m not saying that teaching these kids how to program is bad. It’s great. But please think about the expectations that you’re setting.

(I would’ve written more to express myself better, but I don’t have time!)

Well, I'm not currently living in Venezuela, but throughout my network I see much rejoicing. It is not an accurate representation of Venezuela though.

A sample statement (not mine) to show how much of an effect he's had:

" As it turns out, I'm not happy on this day of Chavez's -official- death. The things he managed to do to our society, the way his every whim ruled and stepped over all of our lives, what his deranged followers turned him into, how he made it ok to hate and dehumanize his opponents, what he did to specific individuals who opposed him, the lives ruined by unbounded crime and social decay ...all that, my friends, earns him a word that I have associated with him for a long time, in a way that almost makes it hard for me type: a monster. Something to be feared, a force so strong you must run away from to keep out of its path of destruction.

So I cannot manage to be happy. Trying to be happy requires forgetting for a second of the nefarious crimes and wounds he inflicted on Venezuela that will far outlive his physical presence.

The apprehension of how his wicked legacy will haunt us for generations drowns all else. No room for happy. "