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Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#131

Post by pchristensen »

ananthrk wrote: post #18
felideon wrote: post #12

To do research in natural language processing. Roadblocks: * Time. Or if time = money then I need money to be able to spend time on this. Also, in itself this wouldn't bring in much income I don't think. * No CS background. Don't know where to start.

Three good books that can get you started: 1) Natural Language Understanding - James Allen 2) Speech and Natural Language Processing - Jurafsky & Martin 3) Statistical Foundations of Natural Language Processing - Manning You can brush up your probability and Linear Algebra from the prep guides available from Andrew Ng's machine learning course. My best wishes.

I have copies of 2) Speech and Natural Language Processing - Jurafsky & Martin 3) Statistical Foundations of Natural Language Processing - Manning that I'm willing to sell. I tried to bite off more than I could chew and moved on to a different project.

peter at pchristensen dot com

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#133

Post by executive »

jeb wrote: post #4

I'm planning to identify a suitable candidate to get married to, and who is genetically appropriate enough to give me good quality kids, then convince this person to marry me and carry my child, within the next year. Difficult, but I assume interesting.

John Nash?

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#134

Post by davidw »

mrtron wrote: post #72
ronnier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited Vietnam three times over a 3 year period. Is it your first time? Since my last visit, laws have changed that require you to wear a helmet while on a moped. One of the things I enjoyed the most was the freedom in riding a moped around a huge crowded city for hours, not knowing where I was going, or where I'd end up. It's somewhat ruined now with the helmet law. Nearly 100 degree weather wearing a helmet isn'…

As someone who is currently riding a moped in 100 degree weather in Asia right now - I really don't mind the helmet. You really don't notice it. Hopping on a moped and heading anywhere, parking anywhere really is quite enjoyable. It is unfortunate north american cities are not well suited to it.

San Francisco is pretty good: doesn't rain often, relatively compact, lots of traffic.

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#135

Post by roel_v »

z0r wrote: post #62
wallflower wrote: post #44

Learn OpenGL so I can finally make those mobile games I've always wanted to. Hangups are thinking in matrices, understanding of the math involved

The math involved for basic 3d is overrated. Just sit down and copy code at first, and write reams of stuff that works. It should be no problem to magpie enough code to get a simple engine together.

Agree. Also, I liked this book: http://www.amazon.ca/Math-Primer-Graphics-Game-Development/d... a lot, even if it's quite basic and not hardcore (i.e. many applied examples rather than formulas and proofs).

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#136

Post by pchristensen »

felideon wrote: post #47
davidw wrote: post #16

Raising our daughter. Current bottleneck: not using potty. Think we'll just have to wait until she's ready though!

Do you know all the tips & techniques there are? We've just been going through this with our 2-yr-old for the past 8 months and wouldn't mind sharing what I've learned. But, I think the best thing we did that actually worked---which we always had been reluctant to trying---was to leave him running around the house butt-naked. The whole apartment has carpet. Fun times.

My favorite tip for potty training two year olds is to wait until they are 3.

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#137

Post by isamuel »

mattheww wrote: post #115

I want to start a company that builds solar panels in space. Roadblocks (the ones I think are the biggest anyway): Supply Chain. Probably going to first need a way to or supplier who can mine and process materials from somewhere other than Earth. Infrastructure. Definitely going to need some sort of factory in space in which this operation can be done. Knowledge. I don't know anything about manufacturing in space. Th…

What have you done to bring this to fruition?

While not insurmountable, the current situation seems to be "I want to build space-based solar panels. I don't know anything about building them, I have no way to get the materials, and no way to turn the materials into the product once I do." Can I ask, given that, what led you to want to do this in the first place?

Is the idea here to beam the power back in microwave form? I would add another hurdle, if so: Regulatory approval. You can't just aim a microwave laser at the surface of the Earth from space without anyone noticing or caring.

This certainly is an interesting aspiration, though.

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#138

Post by tricky »

tiffani wrote: post #88

To be a racecar driver--professionally or not. Sounds crazy, but something about watching Formula 1 for the last few years has driven (haha) me to really want to get involved some kind of way. Saving up for lessons at the Skip Barber Racing School for next summer. Current bottleneck: no time right now to dedicate to it. I just satisfy race longings now thru occasionally karting and flying around the backroads here in…

Do you know about Drivers Education (DE) and track days? I just got my $1500 "race car" running and am planning to do a DE event this fall with my local PCA (porsche club of america.) There are also Solo2 and autocross events everywhere you can do in your daily driver.

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#139

Post by donw »

abstractbill wrote: post #110

I'm trying to figure out: (1) how much time a newborn will actually demand from me and my wife, and (2) how we will fit in all the things we have decided must continue to happen (e.g. me still having a fulltime job, both of us getting regular exercise and a bit of downtime, etc).

Wait, if you're abstractbill, does that make the kid AbstractBillImpl?

Re: Ask HN: What's your most interesting life goal currently?

#140

Post by mattmichielsen »

tiffani wrote: post #88

To be a racecar driver--professionally or not. Sounds crazy, but something about watching Formula 1 for the last few years has driven (haha) me to really want to get involved some kind of way. Saving up for lessons at the Skip Barber Racing School for next summer. Current bottleneck: no time right now to dedicate to it. I just satisfy race longings now thru occasionally karting and flying around the backroads here in…

Solo II autocross is a really good (and super cheap) way to improve your driving skills.
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