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Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

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Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#71

Post by mbenjaminsmith »

moollaza wrote: post #66
mbenjaminsmith wrote: post #57

* was a guitar prodigy in my teens * almost got booted from college for publishing the president's dirty laundry on Paul Schrader's dime * had 3 top 40 songs with my band on the radio (alt top 40) * founded a pr agency at 26 * had my own newspaper column before 30 * got a client 25 minutes on cnn int (valued at 6 million us) * was the first to publicly attack the junta after the coup in thailand in 2006 * was intervi…

Very awesome achievements. Congrats. I particularly like the guitar/music stuff. Anywhere I might be able to hear those songs of yours? And by prodigy, was that specific to a style? Like classical etc?

I studied classical but was interested in guitar noodling a la Steve Vai. I played some of his stuff live around 17. I studied under a student of Segovia (or a student of, I can't really remember) and "learned faster than anyone he knew." My parents drove me 500 miles round trip for lessons. I don't have any of that stuff but could send you my punk-doo wap band's ep if you really want to hear it. It's pretty rough around the edges but we had a lot of fun.

Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#72

Post by mbenjaminsmith »

cromulent wrote: post #9

I survived being hit in the head with a running 110cc chainsaw. Minor flesh wounds only. Is that cool? I'm not sure. A friend of mine won the Nobel peace prize and then lost it in a bar afterwards. I wish I could say that.

Are you serious? Please tell both of those stories.

Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#74

Post by Femur »

I create adventure. I leave slain dragons in my wake. I build monuments, plant flags, discover wonders, and lead armies.

I sing duets, dance tangos, and play concertos.

I cook banquets. I wheel, make deals, and strike bargains. I purchase fruit in large quantities. I partake and imbibe. I articulate, expound, and drive home the point. I maintain a strong moral fiber and act with integrity.

I forge trails and bushwhack through jungles. When I am not walking, I am running. I sail and drive and fly and ride and crawl.

I write encyclopaedias. I learn, study, forecast, ponder, and calculate. I know the answer.

Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#76

Post by wallflower »

I think this is relevant to this (sometimes justified) accomplishment boasting here.

"A truly rich man is someone whose children runs into their arms even when they're empty"

"My daughter one time said... We were leaving church, like a church party. We were driving home, in the car. And she didn't want to go home. She was like 3 or 4 at the time. I don't want to go to Mommy's house. I don't want go to Mia's house.

OK, we'll go to Daddy's house. OK.

We pulled into our house and she started freaking out crying. Why? She thought my house was the office.

And that's when I realized I needed to start pulling back.

To step it up, be a baller at home"

- Josh James, founder of Omniture

From video originally posted by adammichaelc (I highly recommend the entire 1-hr video for inspiration and a kick-in-the-seat-of-your-pants)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1164815

Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#77

Post by buro9 »

pasbesoin wrote: post #68
buro9 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit something... my story hampers my present. The problem with such a dark background and fighting out of it is that once out, not going back dominates everything you do. This translates to, "Don't risk what you have". And therein lies a problem, if I have little but can't risk it then I'm risk averse and cannot gamble on high risk opportunities. I desperately want to do a start-up and to do something new, but…

Will the MSc help by providing a "safe" fallback position / opportunities should a venture not succeed (and/or a sense of same)? I don't mean the question simply rhetorically -- although it initially popped into my mind in kind of that sense. I really wonder what your perspective is in that regard.

I hope so.

I have no A-levels and no prior college education (due to being on the street at that point).

The risk I think I have is that if I find myself out of work then no matter how good I am I won't find a job in a world where HR systems have check boxes to filter candidates. If "has degree" is a pre-req on a position then currently I won't even have my CV considered.

The MSc is the highest level thing I could attain with no pre-requisites save for experience. It is, for me, an insurance policy for what is now a career (a job is what I had when I was doing manual labour).

I have two goals for the degree: 1) Reduce risk of unemployment. 2) Increase chance of employment by a company that works on interesting things (I want to be the dumbest guy in the room so that I can learn even more).

What's been interesting is reading recent posts on HN and elsewhere about how dire education is and questioning its value. Yet for me it may be a life-saver and at GBP 7k is a bargain if it just keeps me employed. Only by reducing my risk and creating a buffer and fall-back am I going to be able to be free of the fear of failing... or so I believe currently.

Anyhow, the MSc after more than a decade of experience... I'm pleased by how much I do know, and have loved discovering the gaps in my knowledge. I especially love set theory, graph databases, semi-structured data, and the data structures, storage and algorithms for these things. As insurance goes, I'm not sure anything else could've also given me so much satisfaction to do and yet also is so universally recognised.

Re: Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)

#79

Post by vijaydev »

kksm19820117 wrote: post #4

* I built a distributed search engine for my final year college project, when my teachers and friends told me I was taking on too much. It survived two project mates walking out, and some rather dumb ones pushed in. I got a 97 for it, and consider it THE accomplishment of my college years. * Wrote an indexing program in C that crashed a Netware network. :P * I've read the Bhagwad Gita, the Koran, the Bible and the Ta…

+1 for the last from a fellow countryman :) (who knows only his mother tongue and English!)
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