jdotjdot

I don't think it's so much a macho thing. It's one thing to ask for help when you need it--but quite another to ask for help in the form of room and board, the implication (and correctly so, here) being that for whatever reason you are unable to support yourself.

As a father, to be unable to support yourself, let alone your kids, can be a destructive blow not only to your self-respect, but to your children's respect for you. I suspect that that's what he was trying to avoid, and I find it wholly reasonable. His children's respect might never return, and it's clear from the article that his relationship with his children is part of what he valued most.

Possibly, except my point was Meem is hardly random. If everyone took that initiative, Meem would get a ton of support because of the publicity--but no one else would.

I can't decide how I feel about this.

On the one hand, I love the initiative you're taking here and the drive you have. Reading the article, my immediate thought was "that's terrible"--whereas yours was "What can I personally do about this right now?"

On the other hand, I remain unconvinced that directing resources simply to the people and charities that come my way through the media is the best way to distribute these resources. Yes, Meem will greatly benefit from this money. But is it good that Meem gets it simply because she happened to be written up in the paper? What about those who are never written up--and does that simply incentivize people in need to seek publicity rather than promote more sustainable macro-level solutions?

I don't have a real answer here, it's just that actions like these make me feel strongly ambivalent, if you'll forgive my oxymoron.

You've had that difficult of a time going for a CS masters? What schools have you looked into?

I ask because I'm considering the same thing, but I find it surprising that you can't find anywhere that will take you without an undergrad in CS given that you have work experience, especially given that your degree is in IT, which is very related.

I think the question is, how were you able to afford to take so much time to do that?

Everyone agrees that your effort is admirable; it's a matter of understanding how you even had that kind of time to spend in the first place.

" The new material, the researchers say, could revolutionize the assembly of airplanes, spacecraft, and even larger structures, such as dikes and levees."

I hate sentences like that when journalists are talking about a scientific paper. I feel like I read one of those every week--and they're rarely revolutionary, usually just the next step in what has been a long process of discovery and may not even change things that much, especially as far as the average Joe is concerned.

So let me ask someone who knows more about this than I do the questions I really want the science-covering media to answer: How realistic is it that this will become a reality, whether physically or financially? By when? And how will it impact me?

you have a fantastic HN handle

Or maybe some of them could have been mentored away from the problems they had? Or maybe someone could have done a better job not hiring them in the first place and not starting a relationship?

I don't agree so much with the implication of "VC meetings aren't job interviews, they're relationships." Jobs are relationships, too. In fact, your employees are often sacrificing more than your investors to be with you. For your investors, it's just money, and they have enough or they wouldn't be risking it in investments. For your employees, it's their livelihood, health insurance (in the US), families, and 8+ hours out of every day--time which is key when in your life, time is really all you ultimately have.

In other words, don't be so non chalant about employees. They're people too.

Maybe they should have tried pay for access? I would have paid. Would have been a bit like taking its usership hostage, but it remains the only rss reader that fit my needs perfectly.

A little risky though, if your test is imperfect. People may work to outsmart the tests rather than actually solve the bugs.

How exactly do I identify the product I want to purchase? There can be many slightly distinct versions of the same product on amazon. It sounds like I would have to pre-select the products that my users would be purchasing, because for them to search for what they want they'd have to use the amazon website anyway.

I'm just having trouble seeing the value in this, except for the very specific use case of regular, event-driven, identical, automatic orders (eg, I have my lights hooked up to an intelligent system that notices that the bulb blows out, so it then submits the pre-prepared order for the correct bulb via zinc.io).

Actually the trend these days is aircards... Never even get as far as checking out the hotel wifi.

While I agree about missing the technical articles; I appreciate seeing these, as I actually had no idea about the seriousness of some of these re-entry issues.

Maybe the solution is a dedicated HN technology page, and a separate, dedicated "Of interest" page.

It's only a good practice if X is very, very highly correlated with (and only with) being a terrorist.

It's not really that great security practice if you're missing a ton of real terrorists who don't do X, and you're catching a lot of non-terrorists who do do X, and no one can figure out what's going on since no one knows what X is. That's not protecting our methods; at that point, it's really just picking people out randomly.

I wish someone would post an article that actually provided a serious, levelheaded view of the ups and downs of a PhD as well as what it's actually like instead of the overly negative articles? I understand that it might not be what it seems, but it's hard to figure out what's for real and what's just somber humor for the uninitiated.

Isn't that kind of how it is right now?

Agreed. What if we could have a world where work was the pursuit of intellectual growth rather than the pursuit of money? What would it be like?

How could that possibly be acceptable? Not just the fact that it remains mob justices, post trial or not, but what about appeals? Errors? New evidence?

And how is any of that not torture? Seems like your definition of torture is just "doesn't result in death."

Disrespectful because of the playing of music or because it's out of fashion?

(not serious)

That's absolutely incredible that your university refunded everything, and I'm glad to hear.

Maybe you should consider pursuing fellowships or work at companies that would pay for you to get a higher degree and also provide a reasonable living stipend. Seems to me like someone with the drive you have, clearly hoping to pursue it but financially unable to, is the perfect candidate for one of those positions.

If you're interested in this, you might also be interested in the Atlas of American English by William Labov, et al (some information about it can be found here: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html). Brilliant guy.

You actually can open two word files side by side with advanced functionality as part of the compare or combine documents feature, at least in Word 2010.

But you're right, it's really hard to use, and almost no one knows it exists.

I'm not sure why you assume he didn't make any mistakes, or even that he didn't make any serious one. Just because he was ultimately successful doesn't mean there was a lot more behind it than pure "right-decision-making" or skill.

How many great people never finished their works because of something completely outside of their control?

Can you talk more about this? I hear more and more PhDs aren't worth it, which is really sad. What's a guy who wants to continue studying to do?

You're just proving the point that there's a huge shortage.

Such as?

I am both astounded and encouraged by the fact that the NHS has such a high trust rating.

I wonder how that could factor into the ongoing American health care debate.

No lock in because we don't get pensions at all. Not exactly a benefit.

Thanks for posting about this. I know I've found the resulting conversation helpful, and I bet many others have as well who are looking for meaningful work with a sustainable lifestyle.

Agreed. Not everyone is aware of OpenOffice (or even if they are, of what the .odt extension refers to), and PDF is probably the best way to go.

If you're really against proprietary formats, why don't you just create a simple HTML/CSS webpage, supported by all browsers?