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jongos

176 karma · joined April 1, 2010

Founder MetaLayer, Abayima, and BotTalk. Former staffer at Ushahidi
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jongos··on Ask HN: All of you working with Big Data, what is your Data?
Job: Data Science Consultant, Governments and NGOs

For me it's primarily population data. It's not exactly 'big' data in the raw form, but what makes it bigger are the variations analyzing, applications of predictive models, and new metadata values extracted from it.

The data grows faster than we're collecting it exponentially because of all the analysis.

jongos··on Facebook Unveils Facebook at Work
It took them 8 years to figure out there's a market in Enterprise? I hope they make it easy to convert from private FB Groups to 'Work' accounts because any company I know who would use FB for work is already doing so using that option.
jongos··on Why Purdue should remove 'This is Engineering' viral video
Calling out racism and diversity might be a problem worth talking about, but it's a shame to me that this community seems more interested in having that discussion versus reflecting on why it continues to be called out in the first place. It seems like we're all about solving the worlds most difficult problems until it comes to the ones that hit closest to home.
jongos··on Show HN: glipho.com, social macroblogging
This logic works until scale, then it's the same 'signal to noise' problem all social networks have. Tumblr, Wordpress, and Blogger all claimed to help build communities around user content at one point...and now Quora is throwing its hat in the ring. I use all four for blogging and rarely get any attention I didn't create the old fashioned way (self-promotion).

I think what's been built here is cool and wish you the best, I'm just doubtful that the proposed value prop allows Glipho to differentiate from the pack.

jongos··on TextMate 2 is not Open Source
Yes, it is.
jongos··on Ask HN: What startups use C and Python?
At metalayer.com we use Python heavily for our web app and some C for backend/scalability stuff. We're also hiring. Would love to chat.
jongos··on 37signals Tada-List is now closed
It's called 'free market'. Whether it's because sales are declining across the board, or those products aren't as profitable as they want them to be, I see nothing wrong with charging people to use what they make.

They're a great company, with great products, more power to 'em.

jongos··on Rethinking "Out of Africa" (Origins of humanity)
Truly fascinating read.

One might conclude, though the evidence put forth here indicates otherwise, most of this intermixing probably occurred within Africa before spreading outward.

I suggest this because traces of earlier, middle, and later stage evolutionary branches are all found in African fossils of modern humans (apparently through various stages of history). So though the evidence of mixing with Denisovans exists in Asia, with the Neanderthals in Europe, and with Homo floresiensis in the islands, in modern human fossil records (which seem to originate from Africa) apparently traces of each still exist.

Thus, one might conclude that either recent mixing has reintroduced these genes back into our most common ancestors, or that the distant mixing occurred in a period that we no longer have evidence of (but might in the future).

jongos··on Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (October 2011)
Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia, PA - metaLayer (http://metalayer.com/careers.html)

My data vis, visual search technology startup is looking to make three hires. We're an early stage startup currently in DreamIt Ventures incubator in Philadelphia, PA which means you'll get to experience the startup life while surrounded by 14 other startups at the same time.

Market Research Assistant - INTERN

Senior Software Engineer (Python, Hadoop, PIG) - FULLTIME

Business Development/Sales - FULLTIME

The details are too long to list here but you can find out more and how to apply at our site - http://metalayer.com/careers.html

jongos··on Show HN: It took me 6 months to write my iOS word game app..am I still a hacker?
There's always someone more capable or skilled than all of us. It's good to appreciate that, but know your own abilities and be confident in them. Your customers will have no idea whether an app took you a day to build or two years. They'll know if it works and if they like it. That's all that matters, IMHO.

Also, I admire humility, so thanks for posting this question.

jongos··on How The Hell Is This My Fault?
I dont't think this puts their business model into question at all. In fact you just described what they might do to improve, by making risk mitigation part of their model (offering to sell insurance of some kind, options for getting verified or pre-screened etc.)
jongos··on Making Google+ like Twitter
Awesome work! A lot of people have written about the need for something like this (including me http://bit.ly/nngbKc). Hopefully GOOG is listening. Kudos, and thanks for releasing it.
jongos··on Ask HN: What do you use to host your Personal Site?
I use Tumblr for my blog, About.me for my bio, LinkedIn for my resume, and Twitter.com for people get in touch. When I have to host anything myself I use MediaTemple.
jongos··on Ask HN: Apps for managing a startup's finances?
Good find, this sounds like exactly what we need.
jongos··on Ask HN: Apps for managing a startup's finances?
That's what I'm doing right now but I fear the wrath of the IRS.
jongos··on When it comes to presentation, Mark Zuckerberg is no Steve Jobs
He's got his entire life.

There's no pre-requisite to running a billion dollar company that says you have to be charismatic. Heck, just look at most billion dollar companies that aren't called Apple. Zuck should do what he's comfortable doing.

If I were him I'd consider putting forth a different 'face' for my company simply because he can afford it, but I don't respect him any less for putting himself out there to represent his own thoughts and aspirations.

jongos··on Ask HN: What is an ideal salary for a web engineer in the Silicon Valley?
Indeed.com has some pretty good visualizations of such salary rates which are based on the rates that companies who are hiring publish, or that people employed through their site confirm.

Here is a page from their site that might help answer your question - http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-Silicon-V...

jongos··on Google Already had a Like Button (and other redundancy)
Sure. My point isn't that +1 should be all things social for Google, rather why isn't there +1 button on YouTube or in Reader? If it were there, people would use it. And if there are buttons there that aren't being used, such as 'like' and 'share', get rid of them. If they all get used, great.

It just seems like a great way to create a more unified social experience for users to leverage the thing that's working - +1.

jongos··on Ask HN: Mechanical Turk - equivalent outside USA?
Crowd Flower