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Why the Fuck?

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: Why the Fuck?

#521

Post by jtheory »

MDS100 wrote: post #438
kylemaxwell wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor with an understanding of programming - even if he's not a world-class programmer - is more than a few steps ahead of others. If you get that career in medicine started, you've got tremendous potential in ways other people do not.

How exactly?

Case in point, the founder of the startup I work for.

Mohammad was trained as a physician, but has had a long-standing interest in software (and has even some experience coding, though we don't let him touch it nowadays).

http://www.patientsknowbest.com/about-us.html

Re: Why the Fuck?

#522

Post by Semiapies »

DanBC wrote: post #224
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

There is a problem with the way that HN wants article titles - this one is link-baity and has caused some unneeded negative reaction to a reasonable blog post. I have no idea what it could have been changed to when being submitted, or if that new title would have been kept.

Someone could have shown better judgement and not submitted it.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#523

Post by raganwald »

DanBC wrote: post #498
raganwald wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that some occasional rudeness to the vainly well-meaning isn't part of the solution. Let's grant that this may be the case in general regardless of whether it influences me personally. It's important to consider the net benefit or loss to a social environment. It could be that incivility does discourage some people from posting things you think are unhelpful or noisy. On the other hand, such incivility…

Baffling that you mention the guidelines when your blog psot (although not submitted by you) had a tremendously link-baity title and had little of interest to say.

The "not submitted by me" is the key point. I submit my own posts when I think they're of interest to HN. I have zero problem with people downvoting or even flagging a post that doesn't belong here.

But when we comment on the post, we ought to follow our guidelines. As you did, you were able to criticize the post without being rude, mean, or nasty.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#524

Post by quasque »

vacri wrote: post #352
quasque wrote: post #180

Funnily enough, this is exactly why I gave up on software development and went to study a degree in the biosciences. Ten years of fixing crappy websites, writing dull database interfaces, troubleshooting bugs in shit code written by people who didn't give a damn -- and for what purpose? The paycheck was good but money is not everything. It felt like such a colossal waste of life. My mind is my best asset - I want to…

I've gone the other way. I started out as a medical tech. It's the same thing every hour, every day. Usher in a patient, do a test. Usher in a patient, do a test. There's no real scope for 'using your mind', but you are directly helping people. At least I saw patients - some medical scientists do nothing but pippette things all day, doing pretty much the same thing as assembly-line factory work. I know one that got R…

Sorry yes I was being rather general and should clarify that I ended up down the wrong path in my software work, didn't feel that I could change to anything more interesting - and really just desired a fresh start.

I do appreciate that there are fields in IT where one can make more of a difference, and I hope it works out well for you!

Re: Why the Fuck?

#527

Post by chronophilic »

flipside wrote: post #235
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

As someone who switched from a nanoengineering phd focused on medical diagnostics and blood analysis (including some diabetes work) to an internet rating startup, I have some opinions on this matter. 1. The time scales are completely different for internet and biotech. A/B testing online can take hours or days while biotech experiments take months to years. In fact, I came up the idea for the startup while I was wait…

As someone who has always viewed web technology as trivial/frivolous when compared to something as noble as biotech, I for one, out of genuine curiosity and with a goal of possibly updating my beliefs, would be interested to hear about what kind of impact the improvement of a rating system would have.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#528

Post by chronophilic »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #446
Evbn wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ads and there are ads. Spamming you with Brand awareness billboards so that you buy Frobulous instead Snaztacular (both produced in the same assembly line and recipe) at the grocery store is one thing, helping you find a good deal on a product you are searching for (even if you don't know its name) is another

The former is done by ads. The latter by communities and volunteers. I'm yet to see an ad that wants me to find a good (for me) deal on a product I want.

Part of the rationalization I have made for creating ads is that proper targeting gives exposure of products that people would actually need/want. When scaled up to millions of people this specialized ad delivery allows for much greater diversity of products and solutions in the marketplace. Ideally this should lead to less of a "winner take all" effect in a group of competitors and would allow for more niche solutions to be catered to and sustained.

Certainly I would never say this goal is comparable to anything in medicine, but the domain does have ambitions beyond simply making money.

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