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OneWhoFrogs | 14 years ago | on: Early look into Khan Academy iPad app

Khan Academy has had exercises for a while now. It's probably one of the best open source projects to work on, in terms of impact and how easy it is to contribute. You only need to know HTML and a little JavaScript. The exercises are modular, so you don't need to understand the whole codebase in order to work on it. Plus, saying "I've contributed to Khan Academy" is a pretty cool thing to put on a resume.

For all the upvotes Khan Academy gets, though, there really aren't that many contributors. I'd encourage everyone reading this with an afternoon to spare to try writing an exercise for KA.

https://github.com/Khan/khan-exercises

OneWhoFrogs | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings. Inquire within.)

Hi Mike! A few years ago, I created a website where users could submit Flash game walkthroughs. It got about 200 or so guides, but never really went past 1,000 uniques a day. I'm trying to build a similar site right now, and any advice would be appreciated.

Here's the link: http://hintbin.com/.

A few questions:

1. My main traffic will be from search engines. How can I increase PageRank? No one really blogs about Flash game walkthrough sites.

2. The demographic is mostly teenagers. From personal experience, I know that this group isn't very willing to give up their money. Are they worth anything to advertisers? How can I best monetize this site?

3. Is the current design good enough?

Thanks very much!

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover

You seem to be saying that if Gates didn't support the decision, then he would try to get Ballmer out. I disagree -- this isn't a big enough issue for that. (Edit: I should clarify. It is a big issue, but Ballmer wasn't acting on his own. Replacing him would accomplish little.) So while Gates is a long term investor, it still makes no sense for him to speak his mind on this at the cost of stock price. It might not affect him much, but why discourage others from investing, even the slightest bit?

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover

It doesn't have to do with political correctness, but rather stock price. If it comes out that Bill Gates thought this was a bad move, Microsoft shares will fall. He'd be hitting himself on the head with a hammer.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Show HN: See what happens when you translate a phrase through 20 languages

You should run the phrase through Chinese more often. Google Translate is horrendous with that language. I just had two Taiwanese exchange students over at my house for a few weeks, and they had a game of watching Google return garbage even with simple phrases.

In particular, "I am happy" gives back "I'm happy" in every case -- except when Chinese is part of the loop. Then, it translates to "I'm very happy."

Nice web app, though. It reminds me of Translation Party, which went viral on Reddit a while ago.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: Laptops in high school?

I'm a sophomore in a high school that allows, but does not require, a laptop. Two of my sisters go to separate schools which require them. I can't speak much about how well that has worked out there, but at the very least they haven't revoked the policy yet.

Last year I brought my laptop to school to take notes on. As someone with terrible handwriting, it was was enormously helpful. I will admit, though, that I did not hesitate to browse the web during class. Sure, the school put up filters, but HotSpot shield (and in my case, an SSH tunnel) could circumvent them with no trouble. A few students spent all of their time on sports websites, only getting minimal notes for the purpose of plausible deniability.

So your old high school should know that it is impossible to block students from messing around. However, laptops can be very useful. At my sisters' schools where laptops are required, teachers are using tools such as Moodle for homework, and email for communication. These make it more convenient for everyone. Whether the latter balances out the former is difficult to judge.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: PHP & Python/Ruby?

I found that RailsTutorial explains Ruby well enough that I didn't need to learn it separately from Rails. The author covers Ruby concepts not found in PHP (such as ranges and symbols) in chapter four. Everything else could be filled in by looking at the online documentation.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Chance of Dying From Backscatter Radiation Same as Chance of Terrorism

> Are you willing to kill 20 people per year to keep safe?

Unfortunately, the answer for most is yes. That's more or less the definition of war.

Edit: Yikes! I'm really getting downvoted here, but no one's saying why. I didn't say I agreed with it! I just said that most people would probably say yes.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: An Open Letter to Wired Magazine: We're breaking up

Keep in mind those of us still in high school. My mom is the one who collects the mail and the latest cover led to an awkward conversation.

It is wholly unnecessary for a technology publication to have that cover. At the very least, they should have limited it the newsstands.

OneWhoFrogs | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: I have a great idea, but nobody likes it. So here it is.

Recently on Reddit, someone posted a thread saying that he took medicine that made him forget the 15 minutes after he took it. The number one response for what he should do with this superpower is message a bunch of people on Facebook saying "Would you like to go out? Don't respond if the answer is no." That way, he doesn't feel the shame of rejection if he wakes up in the morning and there are no messages.

I can see this being an example use for your service. If you take out the "someone sent you a message and it failed to go through" part, then it might actually work. People can ask someone out, and just write it off to a failed message if they don't get a response.

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