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vorbby

80 karma · joined May 5, 2011

Name: Blair Beckwith email: root@FirstNameLastName.com
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vorbby··on Help me out by taking this spatial ability test
This is excruciatingly difficult. I have no experience with this sort of a test, and the method that I chose (albeit quickly and without a whole lot of thought) was to pick four sides that were touching, and try to find the one pattern that didn't have the same four sides touching.

This logic obviously didn't work, because I got 1 / 9. Does anyone have a strategy for this, or is it pure logic?

vorbby··on Angry Birds cross 500 million downloads
Man, I love The Impossible Game. Have you beat all four levels? I'm stuck on the "let's flip all this shit upside down randomly" level.
vorbby··on Whats the point of a CS masters, and why am I doing it?
Thanks a lot for this link. When I was trying to quit smoking, I would always have a full pack and would rationalize "Well, it would be a waste of money to throw this pack out now."

I knew there must be a name for this irrational thinking, and that article taught me a lot.

Thanks again.

vorbby··on [dead]
Hmm, interesting idea. Obviously a parody, but it makes a few valid points, that's for sure.
vorbby··on After the iPhone 4S, Android just feels wrong
For the problems he's talking about, I would make this point:

From my experience, after taking away features and just focusing on user experience, iOS 1.0 beats Android 2.x in nearly every category. Even back then, everything just worked on iOS.

vorbby··on Ask HN: Best Free Server/App Monitoring Solution
If I recall correctly, Zerigo's (http://zerigo.com) Watchdog service has a free tier.

I've used their monitoring and DNS hosting for a while, and have been thrilled with everything; performance, service, control panel.

vorbby··on Why isn't hacker news a subreddit on reddit.com?
Is it really better to use? HN is incredibly simple, and everything works as expected. There's a few UI quirks with reddit that I don't particularly like. For example: I don't think it's obvious to a new user how to submit a story. Second (and this might be a personal preference) clicking the reddit logo in the header should take you to the main page for that subreddit, not reddit.com. Particularly when said subreddit has a customized logo.
vorbby··on Why isn't hacker news a subreddit on reddit.com?
I think this is a valid idea. There's many times where there's things I'd like to discuss that is similar to, or related to, topics covered by Hacker News, but that I don't post here because I don't want to dilute the topics here with things that some people might not want.

A HN subreddit (or a subreddit with this purpose, not necessarily tied to the Hacker News name; maybe there is one already?) could solve this.

vorbby··on From South Africa, a faster and easier way to apply condoms
If this saves me say, 10 seconds, I'd love to say that it would add up over the course of a year...

But in reality, I'm probably saving about ten seconds a year.

vorbby··on Go Ahead, Sell My Data
I couldn't agree more. Really don't see what the big deal is. In a perfect world, they wouldn't be selling my data, and I wouldn't have to pay for all the services I use.

In the world we have, though, I'll take what I can get.

vorbby··on The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
They cover this in the article:

"Wasn’t it a bit hypocritical of Mr. Daisey to condemn Apple when he continued to buy the company’s products? “There are no alternatives in our ecosystem,” Mr. Daisey pointed out, noting that FoxConn makes more than half the electronics purchased by Americans each year. For all I know, my Motorola may have been made there as well. “What I can do is to force people to wrestle with the reality of how their precious gadgets are made.”"

vorbby··on FinalTouch Income Report #1
As far as your conclusions at the end, you're right. You definitely need to be better at letting people know what your app does. It took me until the anecdote about the paralyzed man to even have the tiniest idea of what your app did.

Of course, this also likely wasn't intended to be marketing material, but considering it made the front page of HN, it very well is now.

vorbby··on One heck of a bio
Mr. Victor's personal site is one of the most impressive I've come across. It's borderline magical.

Hate that he broke my back-button, though.

vorbby··on I'm Watch (Android watch)
This is pretty awesome.

Does anyone know if Android devices offer any kind of bluetooth-connected features for iOS devices?

vorbby··on Show HN: my 4-y-o son drew a video game. He drew then we hacked together.
Is that a domain name for your son in the future? I love the idea.
vorbby··on Show HN: my 4-y-o son drew a video game. He drew then we hacked together.
Could you elaborate on why you feel this way with some constructive criticism? All I see is a father who made something cool to teach his kid some fun things. Maybe you can't understand because your father never loved you enough to do the same?

I hope this kid grows up to be your boss.

edit: could

vorbby··on How to Cure Asthma Using Hookworms - A Practical Guide
An interesting solution to a problem; fascinating but gross read.
vorbby··on College Kids
Hmm, that's interesting. I guess the environment issue isn't black and white.

I guess what bothers me about all the people aiming for their government jobs is the fact that they're content doing menial maintenance of legacy systems in COBOL or whatever the hell they're written in. I know there's probably some brilliant kids in the program, and it seems like they're all convinced that it's the best/only path available to them, and they're fine with that.

vorbby··on College Kids
This program is as entry-level as it gets. No prerequisites, two years, assumes no prior knowledge.

It's weak, but it's the best I could afford.

vorbby··on College Kids
This seems like a good insight. It's true that most of the people I'm judging (sounds negative, but I guess that's what I'm doing) are the ones who are quite outspoken. perhaps there are some gems in the rough, just hiding.
vorbby··on Break Google
Ahh, makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
vorbby··on College Kids
This is great advice. I'm generally fairly introverted, so this is something I could put some effort in to and hopefully get some results.

One thing I need to make more of an effort in is to meet people outside of school. I should, and will, look in to some local meetups and things of that nature to meet people.

Thanks a lot for reading and commenting!

vorbby··on College Kids
That's my problem (and goal) right now: money.

I figured the gap would be quite large, so my goal now is to graduate from the two year program I'm in now, so that I have at least something under my belt, and then move on to bigger and better things at a bigger and better school.

Thanks a lot for the comment and advice!

vorbby··on College Kids
Thanks for the comment and for reading; it's good to know I'm not alone.

How did you deal with it? Did you actively seek out like-minded people? If so, any tips on how I can do the same?

Thanks again.

vorbby··on Break Google
Hmm, anybody have an idea as to why mine's different?

http://i.imgur.com/OrqtK.png

vorbby··on Break Google
http://i.imgur.com/OrqtK.png
vorbby··on Hacking Hacker News Headlines
As a counter-point...

This headline uses none of the hacks described in the article, yet it is ranking quite well.

Perhaps people should focus on letting the content speak for itself rather then using tricks like this?

vorbby··on The story of George — ayttm's most prolific non-developing contributor
What projects do you need help with? I'm looking to get started on some open source (non-developer) work myself, so if there's any cool projects you're working on (or even not-so-cool), fire me off an e-mail (vorbby@gmail.com) and I'd love to get involved in any way I can.