plam's comments | WingNews

if you're interested in this, you might find this alternative interface useful -- https://hckrnews.com It keeps track of top links each day and you can scroll back in time. This has been helping me check HN less frequently as I don't feel like I'll miss out.

plam | 12 years ago | on: $1000 for making HTML5 supercomputing applications open source

It seems one of the biggest business issues is site visitor perception. I have a couple questions please.

What's your opt-rate rate so far out of the sites that have shown this option?

do you have any real data regarding hidden cost to a site visitor? like power consumption A/B testing or something?

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

email sent

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

That's a very real problem I totally forgot. We could do the same thing and have a small team of interns + mentor do maintenance mode work.... but not exactly exciting. I don't know. Any idea?

plam | 12 years ago | on: Cheap smartphones are about to change everything

You can buy all sorts of Chinese phones (with dual SIM) directly from China online on sites like Aliexpress.com. The thing is, US uses weird 3G frequencies or something from the rest of the world.

I bought my 3G MTK phone a year ago on Aliexpress.com. It worked fine perfectly while I was living in Europe. Then I came over and now I'm always on Edge network and network speed is significantly slower.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

do you have a few minute to chat in the next few weeks? drop me an email please [email protected]

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

yes, a large part of it is figuring out the problems and where are the lower hanging fruits and what resources are needed.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

drop me an email please [email protected]

I'd love to hear of your experience.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

lots of great suggestions here! I'll reach out to local schools, bootcamps, etc. to get some feedback

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

what student would get is a tech mentor and a chance to solve real problem with a good cause. wouldn't that be a competitive selling point vs. a paid internship with perhaps a few thousand dollars? Perhaps I'm being naive / optimistic?

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

good question, I edited post to clarify.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

not yet, but probably eventually. I'll start with just doing it for a project first to test out the model. I have a nonprofit on board with needs. I have connections with developers. I can find an intern. I can get most of it in place but lack time and experience (haven't done this before). So I want your help to iron out the model as much as possible to not waste time.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Charity to pair tech mentors with interns to dive into non-profits

that depends. to pay students I would need to source funding too. that is doable but does add another level of barrier to get things going. I'll probably start with finding unpaid to get a few batch going, gain momentum, then if all is well, we can start looking for funding.

plam | 12 years ago | on: An Introduction to Programming in Go

I did a piece on using Clojure with Go recently. For me, it wasn't a switch but using them along side each other to tackle different problems more efficiently. Here's the link -- http://www.quantisan.com/simple-easy-quick-using-go-along-wi...

plam | 12 years ago | on: Why functional programming?

Much of Clojure itself is written in Clojure. I would recommend going right to the source for idiomatic examples. https://github.com/clojure/clojure

plam | 12 years ago | on: Why I don't trade stocks and (probably) neither should you

I wrote some R scripts to perform historical data-driven asset allocation for long-only, low-load funds investment for the long term. This seem like a good time to put it here: https://github.com/Quantisan/touzi

It scrapes not only price data but management fees, etc to minimise cost and risk. The goal is not to make profit but just to keep up with the market but at a lower risk.

plam | 12 years ago | on: Autodesk's Idea to Knit the Hyperloop Out of Carbon Fiber

Regarding ground changes, we can look to current bullet-train rail systems. Nobody has ever died on a bullet train in Japan due to earthquakes. I saw on a documentary that Japan feed seismic sensor data into train control centers where any dangerous seismic event would trigger automatic stopping of the trains.

plam | 12 years ago | on: You Can't Fix People

I share your disagreement with the piece. Not everyone needs or wants to be "fixed". It took me years to realise that the best I can do for others is not to listen for a solution to "help" them, but listen just to listen.