Hacker News Reader

throwa_wayon Stanford CS enrollment increase "downright scary"

I'm not worrying. The fact that the market is being flooded with lots of (likely less skilled, because let's face it, fad majors attract fad-following types that aren't really as much interested in the subject matter as much as making money) programmers means I can charge a premium for my skills.

Edit: Of course, you better damn well be sure that your differentiation from the rookies is fairly obvious to the casual viewer of your resume.

throwa_wayon The future of Raphters, a web framework for C.

Specifically, the luajit implementation is known for being ridiculously fast.

http://luajit.org/performance.html

http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-06/msg00071.html

throwa_wayon Sedtris: Tetris in sed

Uh oh, you threw the stone in the proverbial argument well again:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2420509

throwa_wayon Khan Academy: the bad

This actually points out the issue perfectly: Khan Academy is great for people who are actually interested in learning. They seek out the website themselves and are already motivated to watch. General education seems to me like it contains a lot of teaching things to the unwilling.

throwa_wayon One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves

"I don’t make idle threats. I have all kinds of information about this person, and I’m going to be keeping an eye on him, this particular domain, and any other domains run by him or his host that access my servers."

^ Still the wild west indeed.

throwa_wayon Google acquires ITA Software

So, I have an interesting perspective to share. I'm graduating and might end up working for Kayak. I know at least part of their infrastructure depends on ITA, and while the existing contract goes until 2013 (I think), Google is obviously looking to compete. Kayak also recently filed for IPO.

It's not like Google has never failed at any of its ventures, but to me it seems like it might be a tough competitor to everyone in this field, since a decent amount of traffic does come through search results. On the other hand, I think a majority of users come in directly, either through WOM or advertising or previous use.

So, what is HN's thoughts on the situation for Kayak? Would it be a wrong move to accept a job there? The engineers seem smart, the work is interesting, the culture is sane and easygoing. What's the worst that could happen?