ottocoder · HackerTrans

10 lat temudiscuss

Bravo! Easily the best review of a children's book I have read. I would love to read your review of the subsequent Polar Bear, Polar Bear - are the children now actors for the state since they are the ones making noises or are they subversives?

My contribution to the discussion would be The Bear Snores On. Some great phrases in there that keep it interesting enough that I don't mind reading it 3 times a day, yet fun enough the little guy still enjoys it.

ottocoder

10 lat temudiscuss

1. Interactive Brokers. IB's interface is not my favorite (I liked Options House in this regard) but is exactly what I need from a pricing perspective.

My experience is likely limited compared to yours. I focused originally on covered calls, with some occasionally speculative short-term bets. I was very successful using Options House for about a year or so. It turned out to be mostly dumb luck and ultimately more or less broke even. After some analysis that wasn't too bad considering all of the commissions I had to pay. I've since re-evaluated my strategy, resigned myself to believing that I'm likely not going to beat the index, and only actively trade with "entertainment levels" of money. The minimum to open an account with Interactive Brokers may be high (or maybe not for you, depending on your situation) but just because you need an amount to deposit doesn't mean you have expose that full amount to whatever strategy you have planned.

Definitely check the numbers (and interface) for yourself. One "gotcha" is the data-access fees (some are waived with activity). My time-horizon for my current strategy is typically in the 3-6 month range so I can't offer much advice on the IB bells and whistle - which are many (Yahoo Finance checked once a day is sufficient for my needs). I currently only use options as protective puts on volatility based short sells.

I hope more people respond since I'm genuinely curious as well!

ottocoder

10 lat temudiscuss

Not going to college right away after high school.

I wanted to be a trombone player in a major US symphony but realized that while I could be accepted by many good schools, I wasn't good enough to get accepted into the "greats" (e.g. Julliard, Curtis, etc). I decided instead to join the Marines and became a Marine musician (the military is one of the largest employers of musicians in the US). I am very lucky to have made that choice for a number of reasons, but ultimately it made me realize that I didn't love music as much as I thought.

The military isn't for everyone, but I recommend everyone give it some serious consideration. In addition to the altruistic reasons to join there many great benefits for when you get out. Mine include

   1) Learning my original life-plan for after high school wasn't a good fit for me (while getting paid to make that realization).

   2) Getting college paid for (with some scholarships I was able to stretch the GI bill into nearly 5 years and got a Math/CS double major.

   3) This is the big one: I live in San Diego (a "military friendly town") and having military experience won't guarantee you a job, but many employers here will at least talk to you and give you a chance to make an impression beyond your resume.

A big negative (besides the possibility of risk to life/limb/mental health) is that you give up the "traditional" college experience. It may take some extra time to find where you fit in when/if you do decide to go back to school. However, that's probably true for anybody who delays college for more than a year or two.

ottocoder

11 lat temudiscuss

I think this article is a great reference for others wanting to write a small informational or how-to post. It's concise and easy to follow for those who are familiar with the subject while including enough details for beginners.

Back to the subject, I would also be interested to know a way to print out the value of a variable every time it changed in the course of a make system's execution.

ottocoder

11 lat temudiscuss

I wouldn't recommend it. It's not a "bad" book, but I went in to it hoping for something else. If you want some affirmation that introverts are awesome and under-appreciated (which they often are) then it's exactly what you want.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for when I read it but it started to go sour for me when she talked about Dale Carnegie's book How To Win Friends and Influence People. I couldn't help but think the author never read it (an irrational thought, but colored my perception the rest of the way).

ottocoder

11 lat temudiscuss

Great idea, I hope you do well!

One observation from a novice homebuyer (only bought once, never sold) is that I thought commissions only came out of seller's proceeds (of course price is marked up accordingly). The website says "buy a home commission free" but to me I would pay more notice if it said "sell a home commission free".

Of course if I'm wrong please take this as a data point that users need education :)

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

I know this isn't entirely on point but I couldn't help thinking of Mr. Jaggers replying to Pip's question "what will I do?" with "Be a gentleman, of course!" (Dickens reference) when I saw the title.

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

Hmmm, I would agree that some areas of mathematics are more "easily applicable" to programming.

However, mathematics is really all about reasoning and dealing with abstractions. A proof in linear algebra is not much different than proofs in real analysis or topology, in my opinion (the content might be very different, but the methods of reasoning are the same). So I think it really comes down to the answer to two questions: why study CS and why study math?

If we are a little more precise, and split "CS" into "computer science - the study of the theory of computation" and "programming" while also splitting "math" into "mathematics - the art of mathematical reasoning" and "a tool to solve problems" we can cross those two sets (to be a little math-nerdy :) and we get the following tuples:

(computer science, math for reasoning), (computer science, math as a tool), (programming, math for reasoning), (programming, math as a tool)

The problem is that people who have little or no exposure (and some people who have lots of exposure) may not think about/be aware of the difference between each of the tuples. Furthermore, by the time you understand the differences and what your personal preference is, you may have invested too much time into one particular school/program of study/however you're learning to switch.

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

I have never heard the "club" vs "company" comparison before, but that seems like a great way to describe the mindset of founders.

Is it possible to establish a company that is run like a club and are there any examples? Or am I extending the analogy too far? Perhaps some research organizations are set up along those lines?

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

Great job! Do you have any plans for keeping this up long term?

I managed to play for a while yesterday before it got HN'd (can we say that now instead of slashdotted?) and was looking for a temporary diversion but it does not seem to be functioning properly any more.

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

The story about Target outing the pregnant high-schooler has circulated for some time now, but has it ever been verified? I don't doubt Target's capability to discover if a woman is pregnant, but the citation given [1] sounds a bit too anecdotal (and isolated) for my taste. Are there more cases of this happening? Any other sources?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...

ottocoder

12 lat temudiscuss

I was thinking along the same lines. With millions of users, I suppose it makes sense that you can see "average" number of posts per day change when a relationship changes, but at the individual level how could the algorithm tell if it is a change in relationship or somebody was having a good week and felt like being chatty (of course these options aren't mutually exclusive! :) ).

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