A Project of One’s Own • Hacker News Board

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#331

Post by tomhoward » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #322

tomhoward wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say this? I can't find any mention of anything like this on the application form or FAQs. https://apply.ycombinator.com/app/edit https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/

Under your personal profile: > Schools, Degrees (including field of study), and Years of Graduation

Interesting. I haven't heard of anyone actually being asked for this.

Perhaps it's because they're so big now that they get a lot of fraudulent applications, so they reserve the right to check that people have really done what they say they've done. I.e., it's just to ward off bullshitters.

It may also be needed for applicants proposing ideas based on deep tech and/or bleeding-edge research, in which it would be hard for the YC interviewers to be sure the applicant really knows enough about the field to deliver what they claim they can.

Given that the thing YC was being dunked on over last week was for not doing enough due diligence on a startup trying to build an "MMO metaverse" [1] that has been unable to deliver, I guess there are still cases where they need to verify capabilities to some degree.

That said, it's still very much part of the YC ethos that founders who are self-motivated to work on interesting and ambitious projects in their own time is the best indicator of potential. They'd never make a funding decision based substantially on someone's academic record.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27319457

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#332

Post by imperialdrive » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

consultSKI wrote: post #309

>> Remember that careless confidence you had as a kid when starting something new? That would be a powerful thing to recapture. Indeed. Never lost it. Thanks for sharing.

Amen :)

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#333

Post by xmprt » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #174

chubot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that Christopher Alexander makes this point in one of his books, maybe A Pattern Language He says that suburbs are configured "wrong", in a way that's antithetical to life. Because the children go to school somewhere nearby, where they are babysat, and the fathers (at that time) commute to work in the city. And the children have no idea what their parents do, and that is alienating. The configura…

I feel fortunate in that regard, in that I work from home and we homeschool our children[0]. Not only do they have a chance to see how adults work, but I they also get more opportunities to see how adults interact with each other in general. I also get a chance to be more a part of their childhood, which is a nice plus. [0] Don't worry, they socialize with plenty of other people

I think in coming decades, homeschool might be the more sought after education for families that are able to afford it (which will be sad for public schools). It makes sense to allow kids more leeway in what they study and apply, especially with how available knowledge is on the internet (eg. Khan Academy and Wikipedia). Literally just playing Wikipedia races to get from one topic to another is probably more productive than some history or science classes.

I do wonder though how you managed to get enough socialization time with other people. Scheduling that seems like a massive pain unless there are also a lot of other families homeschooling nearby and in the same age group.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#334

Post by brabel » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 7:06 AM UTC

brhsagain wrote: post #131

Good essay overall, but this footnote in particular stood out to me: > [2] Tiger parents, as parents so often do, are fighting the last war. Grades mattered more in the old days when the route to success was to acquire credentials while ascending some predefined ladder. But it's just as well that their tactics are focused on grades. How awful it would be if they invaded the territory of projects, and thereby gave the…

I am the kind of person who never gets a job unless I am so far apart from the other candidates that taking someone else would make it too obvious that they were basing their decision on "gut feeling" (or like they like to call it now, cultural fit).

The way I found to overcome that was to excel academically and technically, giving me that clear advantage I need... Unfortunately, many companies will only check your basic technical skills and then focus massively on "cultural fit", and to succeed here there's nothing much I can do other than try to show that, yes, I am a social person and I do like to work with other people and so on (things they will never be able to objectively measure). But to really have a good chance here, let's not kid ourselves: being white, male, good looking and from a wealthy background will get you way ahead before you even say a word.

My strategy served me well while I was relatively junior... but now that I am reaching a second decade in the industry, I again don't seem to have a clear advantage that I can objectively prove, and back to square one: getting a good job is a real challenge again.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#335

Post by ErrantX » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #141

brhsagain wrote: post #131

Good essay overall, but this footnote in particular stood out to me: > [2] Tiger parents, as parents so often do, are fighting the last war. Grades mattered more in the old days when the route to success was to acquire credentials while ascending some predefined ladder. But it's just as well that their tactics are focused on grades. How awful it would be if they invaded the territory of projects, and thereby gave the…

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for trackin…

Yup I came here to say the same thing; I'd go further and say it's not just mega rich families but most of the middle class. You got options even with just a little disposable income (ie paying for clubs can unlock a career, for example).

For those from traditionally working class background, differentiating from your peers through grades is essential to unlocking funds that can take you where you want to be.

That's why through the pandemic school grades (in the UK at least) have been so sensitive; they deployed an algorithm last year which probably mostly got it right but also (because it was averages) didn't pluck out those from the poorest backgrounds who would have managed to differentiate themselves.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#336

Post by victor9000 » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 7:38 AM UTC

brhsagain wrote: post #131

Good essay overall, but this footnote in particular stood out to me: > [2] Tiger parents, as parents so often do, are fighting the last war. Grades mattered more in the old days when the route to success was to acquire credentials while ascending some predefined ladder. But it's just as well that their tactics are focused on grades. How awful it would be if they invaded the territory of projects, and thereby gave the…

Similarly, my first programming class was a middle school lunch table where me and a few friends sat around abusing TI-81s. We found ways to do fun things with these devices and showing off your work to friends became a natural driver that kept us focused. This continued through all of high school and then people wondered how we all became software engineers when our school had no such classes.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#337

Post by shmageggy » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 7:41 AM UTC

omarhaneef wrote: post #259

shmageggy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PG gets held to a higher standard than anything else on here. This is a crazy statement to me. I'm sure you believe it, but I have the exact opposite impression: that if the majority of his stuff were posted anonymously on another domain nobody would notice or care. > even if people don't like something, they don't usually go out of their way to tell the author I think people do this because of the outsized home-cr…

> if the majority of his stuff were posted anonymously on another domain nobody would notice or care. That may be true, but it does not contradict anything I said.

What? Yes it does, directly. You said he is held to a higher standard, and I gave a (hypothetical) example of how he is held to a lower standard. HN readers (IMO) give an outsized amount of attention and respect to his articles due to the author's name rather than the quality of the work, thus applying a lower standard.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#338

Post by msg » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:04 AM UTC

shard wrote: post #295

kbelder wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can program Roblox... and Minecraft pretty much _is_ a programming UI.

I've never played either but have seen some videos of it. How much of it is just gaming and how much of it is programming? Is programming required to play the games? How often do the players engage in programming part of it as opposed to the gaming part of it?

You mostly play the vanilla game of Minecraft without programming. The survival loop is to mine resources in order to craft better tools that allow you to explore, build, and defeat enemies.

You can get a lot of mileage out of it this way and never touch the programming side. It is an all time bestseller for good reason.

There is an in game material called redstone that is used for simple electrical engineering and circuitry. The devices can play music, push blocks around, open doors, fire arrows, run train cars, and other applications.

The programming starts with command blocks, which can use redstone triggers to execute keyword commands.

There are a bunch of mods that can add automation through programming. For instance, programming a mining robot to drill out a tunnel, using Lua.

Mod programming itself would often be in Java, and add new game entities or systems. This can get fairly advanced and there are some total conversion mods (eg some Pokemon clones).

There are other fun games that are more like programming, like those from Zachtronics. So why Minecraft? It's fun and familiar, and provides a massive canvas for creativity that fires the imagination.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#339

Post by martindbp » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:32 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #166

martindbp wrote: post #33

> If I had to choose between my kids getting good grades and working on ambitious projects of their own, I'd pick the projects. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Unfortunately kids in Sweden have to attend school by law, homeschooling is not allowed. By extension, you're not allowed to go on trips, or take any other time off without permission from the school. As my kid is only 3, I'm not sure how strict…

If that is at all an option for you, cross the belt over to Denmark, not only is homeschooling allowed, but you can get 85 (I think) percent of what is paid towards a normal school to be paid towards a school of your choosing in case you want your kid to attend a private school, making private schools very affordable.

Denmark has been growing on me. Less crime, less woke, further south (slightly better weather), still fairly close to home, Copenhagen seems super nice. But Stockholm is still where friends and family are so at the end of the day it's not really an option. Also I don't want to add to the confusion of learning 3 languages for my son (Swedish, Chinese, English) by adding a fourth!

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#340

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:34 AM UTC

shmageggy wrote: post #241

ximm wrote: post #5

I kept waiting for the virgina woolf reference, but it never came…

One (of the many) things that irks me about most of the writing from SV-bigwig-types: they almost never cite anything.

Citing things is an academic tic, not one generally followed in other forms of writing. Terminator didn’t point out that the idea of machine intelligences taking over was first thought of by the Czech guy who coined the word “robot”. Nor does Terry Pratchett cite Conan the Barbarian as inspiration for Cohen the Barbarian.