yef

Yes, absolutely.

When you're at the computer, you can step outside for some fresh air and to stretch your legs.

There's a long list of startup-compatible lifestyle choices that become much more difficult when doing a stunt like this.

30 days on a plane is just an awful lifestyle choice; it's a bad way to treat your body. There are other, more positive ways to challenge yourself.

On the bright side, maybe that much flying will give them some sort of insight into a travel-related startup...

No, focus on pre-college education. As funny as it sounds, we don't need another top-flight university (which would cost billions alone) as much as we need better education in our local schools.

I disagree. Techmeme is better for quick news scans.

And the level of discourse here is better than most places, but the time decay of stories (and comments) leads to quick bursts of discussion near the top, followed by dead silence.

Try morning jogs outside. Start slow. It does wonders for my energy level and clarity of thought for the rest of the day.

Call yourself what you are, don't be too cute, keep yourself out of Valleywag.

I strongly disagree. College is a great time to take the next, probably awkward step with the opposite sex. If you don't, you're stuck learning those skills while you're in "the real world", a setting which is generally less amenable to meeting lots of people who are around your age, thus inhibiting your rate of learning.

The goal is not to meet a soulmate at 18, but to become comfortable interacting with potential soulmates.

Since you're already focused on hacking and academics, my advice is to balance that by developing your social skills:

1. Read (and practice) How To Win Friends and Influence People

2. Go to parties and have fun at them

3. Cultivate a group of close friends whom you can count on

If you can graduate with great hacking skills, good grades, good social skills, and trusted friends, then you will be in a good position for the next phase after college. If entrepreneurship is on your mind, think of it as hacking+friends and start laying that foundation.

Regarding the opposite sex, don't fret them but absolutely do chase the ones you like! That's a wonderful part of life, and there is much to learn. :)

Not exactly the most eloquent criticism, but I do see what the OP is getting at. For me, HN has gone from a daily read (too much noise, hit-or-miss quality), to a weekly scan of http://news.ycombinator.com/best - which is generally pretty good. Techmeme is my daily scan for news, which I can go through in less than a minute with Instapaper as my procrastination shield.

Why the downvote, if I may ask?

Actually, they both spend money on AdWords:

http://www.google.com/search?q=word+processor

The whole interview is worth reading. It's also worth pointing out that Will has created an environment where people aren't punished for asking each other whether they're wasting time. (For the impatient, search for "Ocean Quigley".)

How many 5yr. olds do you know that book flights online?

When it gets in the way of effective collaboration. The way Dustin wrote his letter, he portrays himself as someone who isn't interested in his client's input. AA might have valid reasons for designing its site that way, based on years of being in the airline business. Even if he's written off AA as a potential client, he shouldn't alienate all potential clients by appearing so opinionated. What if he had picked one of my websites to bash, without asking me why I'd made certain decisions, proposing his own reasons for those decisions, or at least reaching out and being civil? I wouldn't be too happy at all. I'd have to waste time formulating a public response and managing my image in the face of an unprovoked attack.

I am frequently in the market for web design services, but I would never hire an opinionated snot regardless of his talent. Be professional and save rants for beers with friends.

Delete the snotty letter, it's not your main point. Also, remove the use of their logo and trademarks or they're just going to have their lawyers send you a letter telling you to take your page down. Use placeholders of the same size.

Focus on the before and after redesign with visual callouts of what wasn't working and how you fixed it.

Be professional.

You missed my point entirely, so I'll spell it out. Some of the hacker types on this site like to complain about silly-sounding job postings, clueless MBA's, etc. It turns out, however, that writing a job posting, and being a good manager in general, is very difficult.

If you want to criticize something, you should do so with the experience of having done a better job at it. (Yes, I have written job postings, and I take great care and pride in crafting them.)

For as much as HN'ers like to complain about day jobs and their stupid managers, I'd just like to point out that this is one of the least professional job postings I've ever seen.

Let the downvotes begin! :)

Good business is treating your colleagues with respect (even if you secretly want to crush them). You can be sure that Geoff Cook will never, ever, ever do business with Jeremy Goodrich after this display of unprofessionalism.

No, "How to Work the Room" is just very succinct.

Why is there so much drama in the Ruby community?

Yup. I think that reduces to "focus" as a core value, since it doesn't matter when you do your work, as long as you get it done fast.

I'd recommend it as a general life-skills sort of book, which can also be applied toward career success in sales or management. If you don't want to read it, just find the summary online, apply it, and see if your life changes. It's harder to implement than it sounds, at least in my experience.

I'm frustrated that the #2 link on Hacker News right now is a rambling rehash of How To Win Friends and Influence People, the first book listed here: http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

Working out in the morning seems to be a theme I'm noticing, as I read these little biographies about how people work. (Or people worth writing about, anyway. :)

So it took more than just a first rate university and rich people to create Silicon Valley.

Feynman got laid before he started drawing, if I recall his book correctly.

Also worth reading is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Terman, "the dean of engineering at Stanford, who as early as the 1930s sought to create an industry so his students wouldn’t have to leave the valley for electronics firms in the East".

I wonder how much of the early rise of Silicon Valley was easier due to being in a new, relatively unpopulated area that was eager to build its own identity. I also wonder what the current attitudes among college deans are, whether they're happy to send off their graduates to a good job in another region, or whether they push hard to keep them nearby and even start companies on campus.

Cool. Similar to http://www.poingo.com/Home.php (which I tried, but was flaky).

Ultimately, though, I wanted an email interface to write to my Google calendar, so I hacked that up for myself.

That's like saying "Thomas Edison didn't go to college, so nobody should be excited about going to college".

YC is in the business of creating entrepreneurs, which I'd expect most people here would agree is a noble (and profitable) cause. You don't have to read the interview writeups if you don't want to. :)