deservingend's comments

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Django Best Practices

I bought that book too. I was skeptical after reading some of the author's blog but decided to take the plunge. Just twelve bucks, so whatever. After reading it I'm certain most of those reviews are faked or the work of the author's friends.

This book is just a slideshow. The chapters are tiny, and there's very little useful content, just a bunch of "do it this way because we say so." No real justification or understanding here. Author hasn't made anything substantial with Django, and his understanding of Python itself is lacking.

People have been request a free sample chapter since the beginning, and he keeps saying that he's getting one ready. You see a free chapter, and you're much less likely to want to buy the rest.

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Facebook screws app developers on notifications

It benefits the Facebook user, which is what they should care about.

It sucks to be small and at the mercy of app developer spam.

Maybe it's time to create real products rather than just exploit the Facebook API to spread garbage?

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: High school senior, deferred from Harvard. Advice?

"it's also extremely unlikely to be accepted after being deferred" - What are your sources on this?

I meant your essays for other applications.

I'm a recent college grad. I didn't apply to Harvard but did get into Stanford, MIT, Princeton, etc. One thing you learn attending a top school and actually meeting a large volume of admits is that the people who talked about college admissions back in high school (on CollegeConfidential and elsewhere) didn't know jack shit.

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: High school senior, deferred from Harvard. Advice?

Agree with this, except for you telling him what schools he should be applying to. You don't need to spam out applications for undergrad like you might for certain grad programs.

People on here do not understand how strong financial aid at top schools is (or how sharply that aid falls off as you get outside the very top tier), nor do they realize which doors are opened to you.

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: High school senior, deferred from Harvard. Advice?

Deferral is not rejection. Yeah, I know very few people get rejected outright from EA, but I also know people at Harvard right now who were first deferred.

Care to share stats? Have you had your essays looked over by successful admits or other strong applicants? Most teachers are useless for evaluating college essays at top schools.

deservingend | 13 years ago | on: Startups that TechCrunch missed out on – October 2012

100,000 is already very good.

Anything inside a million at least suggests that there are real users visiting the site.

The sites in the millions basically do not have any traffic. Newly registered sites get into that range from a few random search engine hits even before they have any real content.

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