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Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

500hats.com

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Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#191

Post by julien_c »

Timothee wrote: post #22

Oh, rundmc is Dave McClure? I missed that on the first read. Even though I know he's behind 500Startups, I just didn't even think that he could consider himself a failure. I started to write a comment saying that "the author" was far from being that, but now that I realize who the author actually is, I'm thinking "what?! are you high?". Anyway, I related a lot to the first few paragraphs (maybe until he was about the…

Always good to stumble upon fellow alums from the "best French engineering school" here on HN :)

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#192

Post by Timothee »

julien_c wrote: post #191
Timothee wrote: post #22

Oh, rundmc is Dave McClure? I missed that on the first read. Even though I know he's behind 500Startups, I just didn't even think that he could consider himself a failure. I started to write a comment saying that "the author" was far from being that, but now that I realize who the author actually is, I'm thinking "what?! are you high?". Anyway, I related a lot to the first few paragraphs (maybe until he was about the…

Always good to stumble upon fellow alums from the "best French engineering school" here on HN :)

I'll say that I tend to be self-conscious about saying "the best school", but it is what it is, right? And, looking at how little it's been serving me over here (in the Bay Area), I should at least be able to say it in a random HN comment… :)

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#193

Post by svdad »

Vivtek wrote: post #186
svdad wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I went out for a celebratory dinner recently when our net worth finally turned positive after years of grad school.

The question is: did the dinner put you back into the red? If not, maybe it was warranted. :-)

Only briefly. :)

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#194

Post by julien_c »

Timothee wrote: post #192
julien_c wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always good to stumble upon fellow alums from the "best French engineering school" here on HN :)

I'll say that I tend to be self-conscious about saying "the best school", but it is what it is, right? And, looking at how little it's been serving me over here (in the Bay Area), I should at least be able to say it in a random HN comment… :)

Definitely. Wasn't being sarcastic in any way! ENS rules (joking)

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#195

Post by cefarix »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #32
prophetjohn wrote: post #19

This is kind of inspiring. As someone who wrote their first line of code at 25 and won't be able to shed the "intern" title until I graduate at almost 28, it's really easy to feel like I screwed myself over by not being where I am now 5+ years ago. Especially so in an industry where the younger you are the better and there are stories of people in their 40s having a problem finding work. The real kicker is that I act…

To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much. Everyone is like "I was programming since I was 10!" Nobody ever asks what they were programming at 10, most people wrote relatively simple stuff until they grew up and got a professional job. Now to wait for replies from people who designed OSes when they were 12 :)

I started when I was 8 using QBASIC. When I was around 11 I discovered Java, and from there C.

My first programs were text-based games written in QBASIC. I also wrote a program to help me with my math homework. Later on, one of the Java books had a 3D game engine so I dabbled in that.

After I discovered C from a Windows programming book (age 11-12) I quickly started experimenting with various lower-level things. I wrote a DOS-based 3d engine. I studied printouts of the Allegro source code. I used DJGPP (remember that?!). And I played around with BIOS interrupts, and real mode extenders, etc.

It was around this time (when I was 12, in 2000) that I was introduced to Linux (Red Hat), and I also got a printout of a shell/OS written by some guy in Obj-C, which had assembly code and stuff to do with context switching and registers. That lead me down the path of making my own OS. My first attempt was via a ASCII-HEX to binary conversion program. I wrote a HEX file that switched to mode 13h and filled the screen with blue, copied it to the boot sector of a floppy, and booted from it, and it worked. I was hooked.

My teen years were spent working on different versions of that OS, and also doing 3d graphics stuff.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#196

Post by [deleted] »

avocet wrote: post #177
leeny wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apropos, http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_Gir... and http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=1392

I read through "Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend". It's a self-defeating load of bollocks. His odds are VASTLY better, and he's not giving himself any credit. So he's saying out of all of the women in developed countries aged 18-25: 65 399 083 And let's assume his claim that only 50% are single: 32 699 541 (rounded down) According to his numbers, only this many of these women would be beautiful and available: 73 91…

[deleted]

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#197

Post by brohee »

avocet wrote: post #177
leeny wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apropos, http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_Gir... and http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=1392

I read through "Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend". It's a self-defeating load of bollocks. His odds are VASTLY better, and he's not giving himself any credit. So he's saying out of all of the women in developed countries aged 18-25: 65 399 083 And let's assume his claim that only 50% are single: 32 699 541 (rounded down) According to his numbers, only this many of these women would be beautiful and available: 73 91…

The guy also obviously think of himself as intelligent but can't think of a better mate finding strategy than blind dating once a week.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#198

Post by olivier1664 »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #171
larrys wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why so few people vote or take part in the discussions." To vote or participate you have to be logged in. Would be interesting if PG released some data on logged in visitors. Also, isn't the amount of votes the amount of net votes? So you could have 100 upvotes and 60 downvotes to net 40? (Of course that still doesn't jive with his numbers which I agree were very interesting and unexpected I would have never guessed…

I don't know about the reason behind low number of votes, but the relatively low number of comments could be because the general attitude on HN (for the most part) is to be silent unless you have something constructive to say :) For example, I don't know anything about python for example, so anything I can possibly say would be completely un-constructive (except if it's a question), so I shut my mouth and don't say a…

And in general, there is a reply that say what you think better than you could express yourself ;)

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#199

Post by xilei »

Timothee wrote: post #192
julien_c wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always good to stumble upon fellow alums from the "best French engineering school" here on HN :)

I'll say that I tend to be self-conscious about saying "the best school", but it is what it is, right? And, looking at how little it's been serving me over here (in the Bay Area), I should at least be able to say it in a random HN comment… :)

No it's not what it is.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#200

Post by julien_c »

xilei wrote: post #199
Timothee wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say that I tend to be self-conscious about saying "the best school", but it is what it is, right? And, looking at how little it's been serving me over here (in the Bay Area), I should at least be able to say it in a random HN comment… :)

No it's not what it is.

Care to elaborate? :)
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