kennon · HackerTrans

kennon

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Ask HN: tips for improving scheduling estimates?

6 pointsby kennon16 yıl önce8 comments

Teach entreneurship in Ghana

jobscore.com

1 pointsby kennon17 yıl önce1 comments

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12 yıl öncediscuss

Good tips but the 3-month claims create unrealistic expectations. It likely results in higher book sales but means most people will give up before they actually become fluent in a foreign language.

Fluency, also, is difficult to define. I listened to a couple minutes of Benny stammering his way through a Mandarin language interview. His level seems on par for 3 months of study, so perhaps he equates basic communication as "fluency." If I can talk to a stranger on the bus for 10 minutes, does that mean I'm fluent? Not according to most language rating scales, though they are admittedly very subjective.

The Foreign Service Institute of the US State Dept sorts foreign languages into three groups, based upon how long it takes a typical student to reach professional competency (CEFR C1, IFL 3/3+):

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lang...

Professional competency means: can you perform office functions in that language? Most non-Latin languages take a year of dedicated study (1000 hrs) to reach fluency. Exceptionally difficult languages, such as Arabic or Mandarin, take 2 years. Also, it's debatable whether even the 3/3+ moniker equates to fluency. I scored a 3+ in Russian and there are many, many situations that I cannot navigate in that language.

So could you, for instance, learn Arabic to a C1 level within 3 months? It's highly doubtful and shame on the author for giving people that impression.

13 yıl öncediscuss

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

"This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

--eisenhower, 1953

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech

13 yıl öncediscuss

Just curious what you do with returned inventory? I adhere to particular brands because I more or less know general quality and more importantly, I know how the clothes will fit. With a new designer each week, suddenly variance becomes a serious issue. Big retailers can absorb the inventory, but what will you do with out-of-date items?

In any case, i like the idea and hope it works out. I buy clothing online pretty frequently (most stores dont carry my size) and it's nice to see the industry evolving.

14 yıl öncediscuss

I agree with rmc. There are similar cultural roles in Samoa, India, Thailand. Gender-- the cultural notion, not the biological one-- is definitely more malleable than we typically assume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender

Also, if you haven't read Middlesex, it is excellent.

14 yıl öncediscuss

I like that the article is attempting to encourage people to cook more, but the premise is flawed. You don't take someone who's interested in food and tell them to read the French Laundry Cookbook. You tell them to start with Julia Child, or the Joy of Cooking, or Cooks Illustrated, or Mark Bittman. Crawl, then walk, then run.

Similarly, you don't tell a novice to spend $1000 on equipment they might never use. I've cooked "gourmet" for over a decade and I've never owned a stand mixer. You tell them to buy a good chef's knife, a good paring knife. A stock pot, a frying pan, maybe a saucepan. I have a cast iron pan but i use my nonstick pans much more often.

The difficulty in learning to cook is not in getting the right tools. It's in getting someone to overcome their fear of it. You just need to show them that it's actually not a difficult thing, that you can screw up a recipe multiple times and still have a delicious result. Make a pot of spaghetti, then a simple soup or stew, roast a chicken, fry a steak. Then go nuts making Keller's Oysters and Pearls. But only after.

The people who would find use out of many of the items listed are the same people who know what they need, anyway.

14 yıl öncediscuss

Actually this brings up one concern I've had for a while. I've been doing yoga fairly regularly (2x a week) for about six years. I have no problem keeping up with advanced classes, holding plank/bridge/wheel, can almost do a full split, etc. Yet, I have pretty extreme APT. I don't really know where I'm going wrong; I've tried similar exercise and stretching regimens in the past, supplementing the yoga, but never seemed to get anywhere with them. As a result, I feel like perhaps more direct strength training (squat, deadlift, etc) might be worth a shot. Thoughts?

Also, is APT the same as lordosis or is there a medical distinction?

14 yıl öncediscuss

I think it'll be interesting to see if there are households who have a tablet but not a desktop/laptop. Until that happens, it still feels like a luxury product.

14 yıl öncediscuss

Despite owning my own bike, I have considered signing up for DC's bikeshare program (havent pulled the trigger yet; just moved here). A couple advantages for me:

  - I don't have to worry about my own (rather nice) bike getting stolen
  - I don't have to lug around a lock+chain for short trips.
  - I'm not stuck with my bike if I use another means for the return trip 
    (e.g., going to a bar, then cabbing home or hitching a ride)

The main negative, aside from the subscription fee, is that the bikes supposedly weigh a ton and are far from smooth rides.

When I first moved here I was amazed by the number of people that use the program. I'm quite curious about the actual municipal cost, though-- especially as a before/after comparison. Also would be interested in other effects. For instance, did it decrease parking woes? Increase public transportation usage? Cause more traffic accidents?

14 yıl öncediscuss

I don't think this is news to anyone who's familiar with the rising popularity of social games. During the facebook gaming boom, "pink" games far outpaced "blue" ones in popularity and profit. I worked at a zynga competitor around 2008-10 and it was very clear that female audiences were less demanding, less prone to cheating, and more willing to regularly spend money (in the aggregate) than their male counterparts. In other words: lower maintenance, easier profits. We would release the exact same feature in two games-- one pink and one blue-- and the pink game's revenues would spike while the blue's flatlined. Definitely not a scientific approach, but one that repeated itself on multiple occasions.

All of this transitioned nicely into mobile social games, where we are today. There is some risky gender stereotyping that can arise in tandem with these kinds of discussions, but from my experience the revenues make it pretty clear which audience to target.

14 yıl öncediscuss

If that's the case, then there's also a bit of a UI issue. The current shuffle button is a toggle, not a "click once each time you want to shuffle" button.

14 yıl öncediscuss

> My ISP doesn't install software on my computer, ...

Not for lack of trying. I recently helped my friend set up Comcast and part of the installation process included downloading a required suite of "configuration" software. We were able to figure out a way around it but most people probably just click through without a thought.

14 yıl öncediscuss

Very cool, but I'm still a little confused. The earth's surface more or less just extends out in two dimensions, but doesn't space extend out in three? How does all of this work when you have take into account the z-axis as well as x and y? How would a three-dimensional object "close" in around itself?

14 yıl öncediscuss

I understood mtgx's question to be based on practical grounds, not moral ones. But in answer to your question, I think of espionage as something akin to the military. Perhaps in an ideal world neither would be necessary, but unfortunately the world is not a utopia.

Thus, from a realistic standpoint, spying is sort of like doing market research for a startup. It allows you to make predictive decisions instead of reactive ones.

14 yıl öncediscuss

I'm curious why you think international spying is unnecessary. Until countries cease to compete for limited resources, it seems to me like an inevitability.

14 yıl öncediscuss

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if this is selling below manufacturing cost? At least, I thought that was the case with the Kindle Fire, which has less impressive specs?

Either way, could be interesting times ahead if Amazon, Apple, and Google are all marking out their tablet+store territory...

14 yıl öncediscuss

I think you may be contradicting yourself. Using your example, one thing leads to another but it all hinges on an initial lucky roll of the dice: born in the US to the right parents. No one "earns" this head start but almost everyone reading this discussion has it.

Like you, I believe that I've had some say in getting to where I am today, but it's hard to tell how much of that is reality and how much is self-aggrandizement.

16 yıl öncediscuss

Interesting, thanks for the advice. I guess I was basing my assumptions on the experiences friends have had at larger firms, where all the salary changes were relegated to yearly reviews.

This is my first time working at a company with more than 40 people, so it's all been a learning process. Glad I asked about raises here-- otherwise, I probably would've waited till my first year was up, only to be disappointed!

16 yıl öncediscuss

I've actually been hoping that a formal review process will be put into place soon at my current company, and I've been asking my boss(es) about it regularly. This is because I was under the impression that a formal review is the only way for me to get a raise. From that perspective, it's definitel in the company's best interest to dodge this as long as possible: upon reviewing me, they either have to tell me I don't deserve what I think I deserve, or they have to pay me more.

Is my understanding of the process wrong? Granted, this isn't a GE kind of company-- we have employees in the hundreds, not thousands-- so hopefully it's different.

17 yıl öncediscuss

I agree, except for one thing: I couldn't find a way to put a 24-hr hold on a ticket through their website. Seems like a pretty standard feature; not sure why they don't allow it.

17 yıl öncediscuss

I wasn't sure if it's inappropriate to post a job listing on here, but it sounds like a good opportunity for someone who is looking for something a bit different from the usual startup/desk job.