The Expert - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg <comment><USER2> PHB: "That's it. Now you've confused everyone. So what exactly is stopping us from doing this?"

Anderson the Engineer: "Geometry."

Client: "Just ignore it."

PHB: "We have a task. Seven red lines. It's not 20. It's just seven! Anderson I understand you're a specialist of a narrow field; you don't see the overall picture. But surely it's not a difficult task to draw some seven lines."

Walter the PM: "Exactly! Suggest a solution. Now, any fool can criticize --no offense-- but, you're an expert. You should know better."

It's a shame that this will die in "new" submissions. Because it's fuckin' hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Solution:

Use red paper.

Draw the straight lines in parallel to one another then fold the paper diagonally so all lines cross all lines.

Draw the transparent lines with transparent ink (e.g. an ink corrector pen).

Using a green pen draw long thin boxes; i.e. outline of the resulting red lines.

Kittens / birds: have it in the shape of a kitten or bird approaching a blackhole (spaghettification) - or draw in a straight line whilst moving the paper to create the shape / do some really creative folding.

Kitten Balloon - put the deflated balloon into a (small) kitten shaped mould and blow it up in there (leaving it in) - or pose as a kitten whilst inflating the balloon (so you're inflating it in the shape of a kitten, rather than the inflated balloon being in the shape of a kitten).

Or... Based on Randall Munroe's strip [http://xkcd.com/1351/](http://xkcd.com/1351/), an even better solution to the ink colour problem.</comment>


Serving Justice Online - <AUTHOR> https://lawless.tech/serving-justice-online-online-dispute-resolution-as-an-alternative-to-traditional-litigation/ <comment><USER2> That brings such a hope in the future of legal technology! I bet everyone will use ODR in different spheres of law eventually.</comment>


Beautiful code — The Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/11/beautiful-code-take-1/

<comment><USER2> The author writes:

"I've received about 6 comments from C# developers all giving me their take on a better version of the liquid-value code above. A couple of them using Linq, which simplifies the code substantially. I've taken a drastic step in deleting all those comments — sorry guys!!"

 _sigh_ OK, clearly this guy is not worth attempting to have intelligent discourse with. What good are comments if you just delete those from anyone who disagrees with you?

<comment><USER3> @snprbob86: I don't mind you moving comments from my blog to HN, but I do mind you misquoting and thereby lying publicly - it's not good for you and it's not good for me.

Here the full quote: "Hi all — I'm serving up the first comment!

I've received about 6 comments from C# developers all giving me their take on a better version of the liquid-value code above. A couple of them using Linq, which simplifies the code substantially. I've taken a drastic step in deleting all those comments — sorry guys!!

Not because they didn't present valid points, but because they entirely missed the point — I tried to spell it out with the K example — We're discussing principles here, not code examples. I have no doubt that my rusty C# can be written in a more idiomatic sense, using better libraries etc. But thats much beside the point. The point is, that while the language so freely permits and even encourages me to code that way — I will end up seeing that type of code in my systems. If I had the privilege of hiring a team of superior geniuses and unspeakable coding skills, then sure, they might consistently produce rock solid functional code even in C# — but that's not a real world scenario.

So lets stick with the principles. And if anybody does provide examples, please connect them with something discussed in the post. That makes for a better discussion than just swapping code.

Thanks to all for taking the time, sorry for being so harsh /Lau"

<comment><USER2> Not reproducing the full comment does not constitute a misquote.

Using Clojure doesn't enable you to magically write perfect code. You posted well written Clojure and poorly written C#. You can write poor code in any language.

If you wished to remain on the topic of imperative vs functional, you should have avoided phrases like "using C# as the tool has added a huge degree of ceremony". You made a direct attack on the language, not on the coding style. You also make significant mention of the number of lines of code, but it seems as though you have intentionally included boilerplate to make your point. Being misleading and deleting comments are not ways to make an effective case for your cause.

EDIT: Oh, and on the actual subject of functional style. I still much prefer the C# approach as it reads in order you perscribed:

1) calculate liquid value of each item

2) filter candidates

3) accumulate value

      (from asset in assets
       let liquidValue = GetLiquidValue(asset) // 1
       where DoubleMargin(asset, liquidValue)  // 2
       select liquidValue).Sum()               // 3

Compared to the Clojure which reads:

      (reduce (sum-field :productioncost) 0       ; 3
         (filter doubleMargin?                    ; 2
               (map attach-liquid-value assets))) ; 1

or the Python which reads:

      sum(liquid_value                           # 3
          for liquid_value, asset in assets
          (get_liquid_value(asset), asset        # 1
           for asset in assets)
          if double_margin(asset, liquid_value)) # 2

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Let's compare apples and apples, rather than apples and oranges, shall we?

      (reduce #(+ %1 (:productioncost %2)) 0
        (filter #(> (:liquidvalue %) (* 2 (:productioncost %)))
          (map #(assoc % :liquidvalue (* (:sdfactor %) (:productioncost %))) assets)))

vs.

      (from asset in assets
       let liquidValue = asset.SDFactor * asset.ProductionCost
       where liquidValue > asset.ProductionCost * 2
       select liquidValue).Sum()

I'd prefer that C# _3_ code any day of the week.

<comment><USER4> You seem to be intentionally taking that Clojure code out of context. The refactored of version of that code, which compares much more favorably with your C# 3.0 version, was given as:

      (reduce (sum-field :productioncost) 0
         (filter doubleMargin?
               (map attach-liquid-value assets)))

<comment><USER2> On the contrary, I think that the C# code the author presented was unfairly IN CONTEXT. It showed using statements, a namespace, the program entry point, and other boilerplate. While I agree that C# has a non-trivial class boilerplate and non-zero function boilerplate, the Clojure you quoted doesn't even show any function boilerplate (defn foo [args] body)

I compared a C# 3 expression to a Clojure expression.

And that bit of Clojure that you quoted uses helper functions which are not defined. The C# version of that is:

      (from asset in assets
       let liquidValue = GetLiquidValue(asset)
       where DoubleMargin(asset, liquidValue)
       select liquidValue).Sum()

Clojure is a great language, but this article unfairly bashes C#, which is also a great language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blind Clojure love. I like how right as he starts to approach the specific problems that Tim Sweeney and Epic have to deal with in handling what is fundamentally a mutability problem(unified game state), he sweeps them under the rug so that he can go back to talking about how functional code is beautiful, disregarding that it is insufficient for the problem at hand.

</comment><comment><USER6> More flamebait from lau. See also Clojure vs. X.

There is a place for mutation (certain algorithms absolutely require it), in spite of the obvious advantages of immutable+functional programming.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Every line of code, whether it be PHP or Clojure has roughly the same potential for a bug. But 20 lines of Clojure may sometimes translate into 1000 lines of PHP."

Not PHP, but C:

        int x = 6;

I'm pretty confident about that one. A lot of those 1k lines of code will be "stating the obvious". I don't think it's fair to imply that the probability of a fault in a line of C code is anywhere near the probability of a fault in a line of Clojure.

I doooo like Clojure though :)

<comment><USER8> I can point to a Clojure line that has similar characteristics (and I don't even know Clojure):

(+ 1 1)

Done. Clojure's awesome, right? No errors. That rocks, huh?

No. Even that line has the potential for errors:

      1. You could have a typo (int z = 6; int x = 7;)
      2. You could have misunderstood the requirements (it should actually be float x = 6.5)

The only possibility you excluded with this trivially simple line is:

      3. An error in how you used your own tools (easier to imagine if the line involved pointers).

Part of the difficulty of debugging is, you don't know _which_ lines have errors in them. If you have 1000 lines, you potentially have to review them all to find the bug. If those lines are poorly compartmentalised, so that you can't heuristically find your way to the likely location of the bug, that is doubly the case. Conversely, if you only have 20 lines of code, then you only have 20 lines to read before you've definitely seen the line with the bug (whether you recognise it is another matter, which has more to do with experience, capability, and the clarity of the code).

Intention-revealing code does tend to be much, _much_ clearer, though. (although I'll grant you it's possible to obfuscate code with malevolent intent).</comment></comment>


Long line (topology) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_line_(topology) <comment><USER2> Newbie here. What is the counterexample of Topolopy Long Line serves?

<comment><USER3> It is a Hausdorff space that is locally homeomorphic to the Euclidean plane, but not paracompact. Manifolds are usually defined to be paracompact because this implies the existence of partitions of unity which have many nice implications: [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/98105/why-are- smooth...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/98105/why-are-smooth- manifolds-defined-to-be-paracompact)

<comment><USER4> Euclidean plane? Not line? Did I misunderstand the construction?

<comment><USER5> No, he probably meant the euclidean line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Insert "come from a long line of topologists" jokes here.

</comment><comment><USER7> it's really weird to see a euclidian-looking line that has no strictly increasing sequences or functions..

</comment><comment><USER8> I am baffled by this and feeling stupid

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't worry about that. I'm studying mathematics and I also feel stupid while reading new concepts on Wikipedia. The problem with mathematics is that, if you don't know the idea behind the concept or which kind of problem is it trying to solve, it's almost impossible to really understand the definitions.

And even when you understand the concepts and ideas, it can still be difficult to understand the definitions. Few months ago, a professor told us the 100% formal definition of a function: it wasn't easy to understand and we all had this "wtf" face.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the thing with formal definitions is that they're like little programs you have to compile before you can see their output. Trying to understand what a function is from a statement such as "a function from A to B is a subset F of the cartesian product AxB such that for all (a1,b1), and (a2,b2) in F, b1=b2 whenever a1=a1" really obscures the notion this is all about "mapping" or "doing" something. This definition is more like something that you would feed to a computer who doesn't "understand" what really is going on. Or to a human, who would work through it piecemeal, and try to build a few functions following this definition until the a-ha moment would come and this human would form a different intuitive understanding of what a function is or does.

But the reason we write definitions as little programs to be compiled is to make sure that there can be no room for ambiguity. You compile the definition and arrive at the same mathematical object as anyone else. If we define a function as a mapping or a procedure, then we just shifted one word for another and still have to elucidate what a mapping or a procedure is.

<comment><USER10> Well, the set theoretic attempt to describe functions isn't a very nice one.

Type theory gives a formal definition closer to the intuitive notion: a function from A to B is a program of type A -> B. I.e., a rule for turning things of type A into things of type B.

<comment><USER4> I admit I don't know much about type theory. I assume "program" is a term of art? Also, does this allow for functions that have literally undescribable rules, such as a function arising from the application of the axiom of choice? Wanting to allow such undescribable functions is the reason for the set theoretic definition. I assume "rule" isn't a term of art?

What's the book to read for this stuff?

<comment><USER10> Yes, program is a term of art. It means a "term" in the type theory under consideration. A type theory is essentially a programming language with a fancy type system, and there are many type theories, just as there are many programming languages.

It does allow for functions without computable rules. In the case of the axiom of choice, one postulates as an axiom a program with a type that says something like

"give me a type A and an A-indexed family of types, P : A -> Type, such that for all a:A, the type P a is non-empty, and I'll give you a function f : (a : A) -> P a".

As far as I know, there is still no one comprehensive book on type theory. I think the type theory parts of the homotopy type theory book ([https://hottheory.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hott- online-61...](https://hottheory.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hott- online-611-ga1a258c.pdf)) are quite good.

Chapter 1 gives the basics of dependent type theory.

Chapter 2 is about the groupoid interpretation of type theory and is quite nice. Chapter 3 is about "logical things" in type theory (things like axiom of choice).

Chapter 5 is about inductive types which are quite central to type theory (these are generalizations of algebraic data types like trees and lists from functional programming languages).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Closely associated with the Navel Line of Sight.</comment>


Show HN: Spending GCloud for startups credits on a free demo - <AUTHOR> https://start.cloudbrowser.xyz/?demo! <comment><AUTHOR> The Open source code here: [https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserGap](https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserGap)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm doing a similar project, and have a few ideas that might interest you - can you get in touch (contact details in my profile)?

</comment><comment><USER2> Do these browsers have GPU?

Is it built on the Chrome devtools protocol/puppeteer?

<comment><AUTHOR> No but I could add gpus to the machine. Good idea to try I guess.

Yes it's built on top of chrome Dev tools.

<comment><USER2> When I tried something similar I found that Googles profile-based compilation seemed to really affect performance of their builds, and with my own build I couldn't seem to match their performance, presumably because I didn't have as good a profile, but maybe because they had some spiffy compiler optimizations they were keeping close to their chest.

Also, GPU is an economic requirement - it doesn't make a huge difference to user-percieved performance, but makes a big difference to CPU used, since all the render worker threads suddenly drop from 100% CPU to near zero... That lets you put more users on the same VM... There are some ideas I was experimenting with trying to do 'remote rendering' \- ie rendering work is sent to a remote machine with a GPU. I got it working for basic image/text rendering, but not webgl/canvas/video encode/decode... In general, a single GPU can handle hundreds of browsing sessions, whereas a CPU can only handle tens of sessions, so costs can be cut quite a lot by decoupling them. That and one can get better bin-packing by decoupling...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great advice about GPUs. Thanks!

I am seeing some lower CPU usage on a new machine with 4 Nvidia T4 GPUS I just set up.

[https://gpus.cloudbrowser.xyz](https://gpus.cloudbrowser.xyz)

<comment><USER3> Doesnt seem to work with webgl, I tried with some old project of mine: [https://coinminingstats.com/globe](https://coinminingstats.com/globe)

Its pretty responsive otherwise though, really cool

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll look into this

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems this is an open issue: [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=765284](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=765284)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explains what this site actually _does_?

<comment><USER5> Think it runs a cloud hosted browser in your browser similar to browserling.com</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What book do you recommend everyone should read? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,<p>Every person I've come across always has one book that sits at the top of their book list that they would recommend to everyone. For me, it's "How to win friends & influence people" by Dale Carnegie. What's your book? <comment><USER2> Another book I recommend: On the shortness of life, by Seneca

I's life changing, it teaches you the importance to do not waste our most precious finite resource.

</comment><comment><USER3> A Guide to the Good Life, by William B. Irvine

</comment><comment><USER4> Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise [http://peakthebook.com/index.html](http://peakthebook.com/index.html) It is on deliberate practice. Together with "Deep Work" can help to build a personal system to achieve the goals in study, work, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want to play the game: The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

And if you don't: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

</comment><comment><USER6> Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character.

It is very motivating, witty and just great fun to read!

</comment><comment><USER7> Non Fiction: Godel Escher Bach

Fiction: Seveneves

Both of these I've read several times and glean new things each reading. And those things I've learned have formed essential parts of the heuristics I use on a day to day basis to deal with the dark ambiguities of life.

</comment><comment><USER8> Fiction: War and Peace; the more everything changes the same humans stay. 200 years old and yet you can empathise with every character

Non-fiction: Letters from Seneca; the only philosophy book I enjoyed and whose tenets I aim to practise every day.

<comment><USER9> Did you mean "Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca?

<comment><USER8> Yes, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. If you ever think about the design of your town or city or wonder why it's not safe to go out after dark in parts of your city, among many other things, it's applicable to you.

Reading Jacobs' most famous book, you're hit with this feeling that she possessed the perfect balance of humility and knowledge. That we still make the mistakes she described half a century ago is quite unfortunate, especially once you realize the we do and for a long time, have, known better.

</comment><comment><USER11> Deep work is one of the best book I had read in this year

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1455586692/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1455586692/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489895766&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=deep+work)

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

2\. Deep Work - Cal Newport

3\. Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

<comment><USER13> wouly you say it's enough to read the wikipedia page on the first one? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People#Twelve_Things_This_Book_Will_Do_For_You)

The only section where I would use an example is with "Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers.". It's also one of the few that are not just about being positive and honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How to win friends and influence people

Man's search for meaning

Architecture of happiness

Eternal Golden Braid

</comment><comment><USER15> The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering - Frederick Brooks

The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company - David Packard

I have read countless books and articles and have attended countless discussions and talks on software engineering and business practices and it never ceases to amaze me how many of the principles tie right back to these two books. Each is short and can be easily tackled together in a day or less.

</comment><comment><USER16> 1\. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth - [http://amzn.to/2mLuQyU](http://amzn.to/2mLuQyU)

2\. The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman - [http://amzn.to/2mXSlFB](http://amzn.to/2mXSlFB)

3\. Strengths Finder by Gallup Press - [http://amzn.to/2mqDNuY](http://amzn.to/2mqDNuY)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sun Tzu - The Art of War.

<comment><USER18> You can breeze through it in an afternoon and it ends up being strangely applicable to life.

<comment><USER17> TBH if you read it in an afternoon you're probably missing on a lot of things.

I find that the original text on its own is very hard to fully understand. Usually better to read a commented/detailed edition. At least that's my experience.

But yeah, it is amazing how it can apply to so many things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1\. Prithvivallabh (Gujarati Book) by K.M. Munshi 2\. Glimpses of World History[0] by J. Naheru

[0]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glimpses_of_World_History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glimpses_of_World_History)

</comment><comment><USER20> Technical - Hacker's Delight by Henry Warren

Fiction - The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

</comment><comment><USER21> "Economics in one lesson"

I found it on a libertarian website, free to download, its about free market, against government intervention. It gives many examples of how "anything that the government touches, it dies"

</comment><comment><USER22> _The Fountainhead_ \- Ayn Rand

</comment><comment><USER23> Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Bogleheads for investing

</comment><comment><USER24> Health Related:

1\. The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss Jason Fung

2\. Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer

</comment><comment><USER25> The bible.

<comment><USER26> A bit dry but worth a read.

You will know more about Christianity than a lot of Christians.

It's definitely a good book if you are looking for common sense morality. I think the Jefferson Bible is a better book if you are looking for moral teachings (never read it, only heard about it)

<comment><USER10> On the Bible front, I'd recommend a story bible. There's a good reason so many people fail to read the Bible: it's full of motivational landmines such as genealogies. Even reading a story bible would put one far ahead in terms of understanding.

The one I read is the Ritchie pruehs story bible, which is free as a Kindle book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I recommend a book only recently I could read, the classic: 1984 by George Orwell

Every citizen should read it, on my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER27> Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki

<comment><USER26> I've heard that book isn't very good. It is full of stories that didn't happen and are just Robert's ideas about what makes a rich person rich.

Basically, Robert got rich from telling others how rich people are.

I've read plenty of books about finances that are just mind-numbingly obvious that it is a skip for anyone with common sense. Would you agree RDPD is that kind of book?

[https://www.johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate- in...](https://www.johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment- blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor- dad-part-1)

<comment><USER28> > It is full of stories that didn't happen and are just Robert's ideas about > what makes a rich person rich.

If you read it like a parable similar to The Richest Man in Babylon or The Alchemist you can still gather some useful info and refreshers from this book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Fiction: The Baroque Circle + Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

Non-Fiction: Presence - Amy Cuddy

</comment><comment><USER30> Fiction: The Martian - Andy Weir

Non fiction: Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

</comment><comment><USER31> Asimov's Foundation

</comment><comment><USER32> Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

</comment><comment><USER33> Peter Thiel - Zero to One

<comment><USER26> I read it in one sitting.

I wouldn't say it is a must read, but it brings up a few good points. It isn't a heavy thinking book, it is like an extended Medium post.

If you want to hear Thiel's ideas, it is worth a read but otherwise I wouldn't really recommend it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Transylvania Sunrise

</comment><comment><USER35> 1\. Cosmos

2\. Demon Haunted World

Both by Carl Sagan

</comment><comment><USER36> Commenting so that I can come here later

<comment><USER15> The reason folks here are downvoting you is because you can favorite a submission or a discussion and see it in your own profile. No need to comment so you can come back. :)

<comment><USER36> Well, thanks for telling the reason. I'll take care from next time</comment></comment></comment>


Sheds For Living: Small Practical Prefab Living Space  - <AUTHOR> http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/06/16/sheds-for-living-small-practical-prefab-living-space/

<comment><USER2> Is it me or are these things insanely expensive. Maybe if you live in the bay area this is cheap, but I live in Indiana and in some places you could by a house way bigger than one of these for the same price. And that includes the price of a 1/8 to 1/4 acre lot.

The other problem is where do you put it? I am not going to live in my parents back yard.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, from the post title here and the opening of the article, I thought this going to be alternative housing on a budget, but instead it was more vanity guest house for the stuffwhitepeoplelike.com set.

<comment><USER4> While I mostly agree, in their defense, the material/feature quality is significantly higher than your average home. LED lighting, high efficiency appliances, radiant heat, and solar aren't cheap features... nor are they easy to find in houses of comparable price.

Also it's hard to compare the price of something made for the British housing market to prices here in America. It could be the case that housing in general is just much more expensive there.

That said, it does seem way too expensive for the average case, although it might be worth it to me if I could stick it on a green roof somewhere.

<comment><USER5> Actually these are astonishingly cheap compared to a poor quality house in the UK. My parents bought an ex-rental unit to renovate at ~£100,000; it was single story (in the UK basements are virtually non-existent outside of cities) semi-detached and probably hung around 1,000 square feet of floor space. It was quite literally the cheapest house on the market in the area and it had nicotine stained walls, ceilings that seeped tar, had plumbing, gas and electrical problems. Not to mention one of the clauses for sale was that my parents dispose of all the junk in the house, which not only included bedrooms crammed full, but also a garage and a shed.

If you can get property in the UK and get the rights to put one of these sheds on, you'll probably save yourself anywhere between £25,000 and £100,000 on your lower end priced home.

<comment><USER2> The large versions of these homes are a quarter of the size of that apartment. It is only like 258 square feet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This shed is significantly nicer than any studio apartment I've ever lived in. So the answer for many people would be, "yes".

<comment><USER7> I found this site devoted to buildings made from containers. <http://www.isbu- info.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are you kidding me? I live in Manhattan. The shed's bigger than what I live in now.

And in grad school, I lived for a while in a bedroom that measured 81 sq ft.

Bachelors (especially) need almost zero space to actually operate. Hacker- bachelors (hackelors?) just need power, network, and a project (+ atop the standard amenities) to keep themselves pretty satisfied.

<comment><USER9> That's generalizing a bit. As a "hackelor" myself, I can tell you I don't function well at all in small spaces and can't productively live anywhere that lacks copious empty space. I live in a three-bedroom apartment with one other person, expressly because we couldn't find a two-bedroom place with enough open space.

<comment><USER10> Yes, empty space is important. One personal trick I've found for doing with less actual space is to sit next to a window so that almost half my peripheral vision is into a much larger area. This is especially helpful if that window also has long lines of sight available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would not live in a nearly $60,000 shed. That doesn't even include the land you need to put it on. Say in many places you can find a cheap apartment for $500-$800/month and just do the math. The shed makes absolutely no sense. You'd honestly be better off with a trailer since there's a bigger existing market for them including used & rental options.

</comment><comment><USER12> I lived in a shed on my parents farm for more than a year. it definitely wasn't anything like the ones they are selling here: It was incredibly hot in summer and the pipes froze once in winter, I did what I could to insulate it and enjoyed it very much. (After I air-conditioned it).

The total cost of construction for my shed was R50,000 (~$6 145.35) complete with bathroom and kitchen. I now live in a 140 square meter (2x bed, 2x bath, loft) apartment which almost costs as much as these sheds.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've always been very interested in this kind of housing. To be honest, I have the feeling I will build myself a house like this one day. I can probably find a small patch of land at a reasonable price about an hour driving and take a small loan to build it. I lived in a 12 square meter studio for 3 years, this seems heaven in contrast to that. Mix it with solar panels and you have a very nice place to call home...

<comment><USER14> I think it would be even more fun to get a big farm/orchard/ranch with an old farmhouse, sheds, etc., and then bring in high speed fiber, cheap/sustainable utilities, and then put a bunch of 200-1200 square foot cabins in the less- productive, more-scenic parts of the property. Walkable community, private housing, cheap, and then big common areas for workspaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> $30-50k is a rip. If you are going to live in a shed to save money, you can get a perfectly fine shed for much less. ~$10k

<http://www.panelconcepts.com/priceitOR.htm>

</comment><comment><USER16> If you like small homes, check out:

<http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses/>

</comment><comment><USER17> I knew an entrepreneur during the nineties who started his company with an office in a 10 by 20 foot rental storage unit. He went onto raise millions in venture capital, turned down a big time exit and then lost it all after the crash. Last time I talked with him he was living in the storage unit. I lost track of him after that but have no doubt he eventually succeeded. He was smart, fearless and had amazing drive.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is not sustainable at all - they require lots of space, materials, they are expensive... Dense cities and tall buildings are, surprisingly, much more material and energy efficient than this.

<comment><USER19> Your correct. The Urban density of London for example is so low compared to New York. Because of shoddy building in the sixties and poor maintenance from the 60's on the British are not fans of high rise.

A lot of Brits are obsessed with owning a small house with two gardens and a drive only to leave the gardens to go over grown!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Many people already live in sheds to save money. They are called "trailers."

+1 to ellyagg for the "stuffwhitepeoplelike.com" call

</comment><comment><USER21> There was an entertaining exhibit of fabricated housing at MOMA last year, including some "working prototypes." The "micro compact home" was incredibly cool. The attention to detail and slick, functional design was really inspiring. I left with an "I want one of those" feeling, a little like you'd experience after seeing an exciting new gadget.

<comment><USER22> If the prices come down, I would love to have one of these. But only if they can get some economy of scale and mass produce parts for them cheaply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> On a similar note a very nice Yurt can be built for under $10K, as always the real trick is finding a place to put it that has services.

Check out <http://www.yurts.com/> (if you want to see what they are like several Oregon state parks have them for rent)

</comment><comment><USER24> somewhat cheaper ($110/ft^2) [<http://www.cusatocottages.com/buildingyourcottage.php>] and more beautiful: <http://www.katrinacottagehousing.org/original.html>, <http://www.cusatocottages.com/photogallery.php>

</comment><comment><USER25> I haven't seen one of these Dwell-Magazine-Modern-Prefab inspired cottages, but an old girlfriend of mine lived in a studio cottage in the Bay Area. I also checked a couple of them out when I was looking for an apartment a few years back. So I guess the answer is "yes."

</comment><comment><USER26> That's cool and is about the perfect (if not more) amount of space I need. However that is ridiculously expensive for just that alone. You could build one of those for next to nothing compared to their prices fairly easily.

</comment><comment><USER27> A mite pricier than the original: <http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html>

</comment><comment><USER28> This is all highly Hiro Protagonist, don'tcha think?

<comment><USER29> Who needs a bookshelf when you've got the Street?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> umm.. it's a fancy looking Granny flat? Perhaps with some more eco- friendlyness thrown in. What's the big deal?

Do they not exist or something over there?

// currently living in a converted garage/shed.

</comment><comment><USER31> May be they can have these floating around like in _Up_ movie.

</comment><comment><USER29> FYI, multiply by 10 to roughly convert sq.m to sq.f

</comment><comment><USER32> Yes. I would definitely live there.

</comment><comment><USER33> Curious what they do with sewer/water/electricity... must be an easy hookup I assume?

<comment><USER13> They explain it here:

<http://www.shedsforliving.co.uk/>

Choose options => FAQs => 05 How do we connect to the services

Basically they say it's easy + for a cost you can make it independent of any services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have an idea: let's build solid houses out of classical materials like stone and brick that will last over 100 years. Let's also build them with time tested architectural aesthetics and in traditional neighborhood designs that have been proven over the decades. Slightly higher upfront cost, dramatically lower cost long term.

The last thing we need is more ticky-tacky garbage that will look like shit and be worthless in 10 years.</comment>


End of the road for independent bike distributors? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bicycleretailer.com/opinion-analysis/2017/12/04/opinion-its-end-road-ibd-say-hello-ibs <comment><USER2> I live in a college town with several bike shops, all of them still tied to the traditional retail model. The one I suspect has the worst prospects is the most upscale one. They have a big clean showroom full of expensive sporty bikes, but their mechanics are second-rate. You can tell because their shop is in the basement and you're not allowed to come down and watch them work on your bike. And the one time I made the mistake of going there for service they sniffed at my decent, well maintained commuting bike because the paint was dinged up and it was covered with road dust, charged me twice what the repair was worth, and didn't fix the problem. The shop I'm rooting for has a tiny showroom and a big repair shop right behind the counter. There's grease on everything, and I'm pretty sure they've been under-charging me for labor because they know I commute by bike. They already order and assemble bikes for people, and they also rent by the day. They, I suspect, will be just fine.

<comment><USER3> One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours.

Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell accessories and service plans.

<comment><USER4> > A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours.

Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it. That's why I do most of my own car repair, even though it takes me longer than a shop would take.

Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about the "Romantic" vs. "Classical" approach to such things.

<comment><USER5> Once you've done that work once it will be much easier the next time. Affordable bikes don't have any sort of self adjustment, everything has to be done manually, so if you don't know how to make the adjustments you will be in the shop every few months getting it tuned back up. In my experience shifters are the worst for getting slightly out of whack as the chain wears out, and are the most fiddly when tuning. Brakes are the second worst as you're trying to balance the spring tension on the two sides exactly so it doesn't rub.

<comment><USER6> I'd say wheel truing is the worst. It's tedious and you really want a dedicated wheel truing stand, and you may need spare nipples in case you round one off. Second to that is setting up tubeless tires, it's messy and you might need an air compressor to seat the bead.

Derailleurs are easy once you know how to set the limit screws and adjust the cable tension. Disc brakes are tricky, but again if you know the trick then it's pretty easy as well.

<comment><USER7> Occasionally I imagine that I understand how to set derailleur limit screws. Inevitably, that illusion shatters within a month. b^(

<comment><USER8> The easiest way to get a derailleur limit setup is to de-cable the derailleur, and back both screws all the way out.

Then the derailleur spring will bring the chain all the way to the highest gear (smallest cassette cog), and since you backed the limit screw out, the chain will want to rub against the frame stays.

Use your fingers to push the derailleur up into a lower gear and then turn the limit screw for the outside limit one full turn. Repeat this until without using your hand to guide the derailleur the chain rests in the highest gear without needing any force, but also doesn't rub against the frame stay.

Then use your hand to push the derailleur all the way to the lowest gear (largest cassette cog) and try to get the chain to fall between the cassette and the wheel spokes. If it can fall over the inside of the gear and into the spokes then turn the limit screw for the inside limit one full turn. Repeat until the chain can reach the lowest gear without using excessive force, but cannot fall off the cog toward the spokes.

Add some lock tight to both limit screws so that you don't have to adjust them again, and you are done!

Now just reattach the rear derailleur cable and adjust the tension if you need to.

<comment><USER6> Also, if you don't have a cable puller, an easy way to tension the RD cable is to put the chain on the second smallest cog, then tighten the cable bolt. Cable pullers are really worth the money, though. Especially for cantis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have spoken with many bike store owners and employees, they know they can't compete with the prices you can get for parts and accessories from online retailers. But very few have an alternate plan.

The ones I see who are being smart about this reality are instead focusing on having absolutely excellent mechanics and experiences like shop rides to get groups out on amazing day trips / overnights. There is a huge value add in teaching people skills and thus converting them into more advanced cyclists who'll want better gear.

<comment><USER10> This is spot on - the shops that will survive will be the ones that provide knowledge, service, and experiences. Group rides, classes, free espressos while your bike is being serviced, etc.

<comment><USER11> Well, actually, a cook and kitchen shop in a big city just closed. They did all that and still people just ordered from the web

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a 17 year veteran of Independent bicycle dealers, this hits it right on the head. The most successful shop I ever worked at focused their inventory on parts and offered 24 hour turnaround provided the bike didn't require special ordered parts. Service is the only thing that can't be replaced by the internet.

<comment><USER13> And service is what distinguishes bike shops from each other. In reality, bikes are commodity items, things you can buy anywhere and are sensitive to price. The same for computers, appliances, and most electronics. Service, however, is unique to that store and people remember good service (and bad). When I get good service at any type of store, I feel good about the experience and am more than likely to spend my money with them again. And a key point, I am willing to pay more to get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Spent years working in a bike shop, so this was a really interesting read for me. He may be right, but I can't help be think that most people just don't care enough about their bikes to have enough customers to sustain a good Service Shop. Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy like this to get it fixed or serviced. They paid $100 for it at Walmart.

He said something in there that caught my eye:

"Think back to the '80s when market experts were predicting that internet sales were going to doom UPS and FedEx ... Huh?! Crazy as that sounds, that's what experts said, which made absolutely no sense to me."

Is that true?

<comment><USER15> > Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy > like this to get it fixed or serviced. They paid $100 for it at Walmart.

As with many other markets, the middle is being hollowed out - there's a large low-end ($100 Walmart bikes) and a niche of high-end pro-sumers who have disposable income and time to spend on expensive hobbies (I believe a "decent" mountain bike starts at $1,000-2,000, going up to $xx,000).

The old middle ground ($300-500 bikes bought by unknowledgeable consumers who need the help of local stores) is what is being gutted by the decline of the middle class' disposable incomes and the specialized knowledge high-end hobbyists can now attain thanks to the Internet.

Service businesses can do well targeting the high end. The low end products are disposable.

<comment><USER16> This is incorrect in my experience. I live in a city with a high percentage of bike commuters and they all ride bikes that fall squarely in the middle of your price range (anywhere from $400-$1000).

There is actually an entire segment of the cycling industry that has sprang up around catering to this demographic, urban commuters who want something functional and hip looking and are willing to pay the premium, but don't need a $1000 mountain bike for their trip to and from work. I have not taken a full survey of every bike commuter I see in my city, but I feel confident in assessing the cost of their ride falls under or just around $800 (assuming they bought brand new and not used, I think less people tend to buy new).

The amount of these hip cyclists grossly outnumbers the amount of "prosumer" cyclists (spending $2,000 on a carbon fiber bike) I see on the weekends riding trails. I would imagine these numbers are inverted in the suburbs, where you wouldn't find as many bike commuters, but the suburbs are also lower density than a city and therefore fewer potential bike riders to compare with.

EDIT: Also your point about middle class incomes and their effect on how much a consumer can afford to spend on a bike doesn't square with economics. I see your general concern regarding middle class wages not keeping pace with economic growth, but if a bike is essential to someone's lifestyle they will find a way to afford what they need.

And on a related note, many city dwellers are starting to give up on the concept of owning a car, favoring their bike or public transit or ride shares as a means to get around. Do you know how many bikes you could afford if you sold your car and no longer had to maintain its upkeep/insurance?

<comment><USER17> Unlikely in London where serious multimode bike commuters will be riding Brompton's of which the entry levels are about a grand and nice light weight on is more like £1700-1800

<comment><USER18> A Brompton is a superb commuter bike, but it's only one option. Most commuters don't need multimodal capabilities, particularly if they live within Zone 6.

<comment><USER17> Ah rich people who can actual y live that near :-) I was thinking of those that use the train

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I dont think this is new - a lot of bike shops are repair only now, with a few loyal customers.

I also think that bikes are getting more technical - electric shifters, the tolerance limits on gears means that its increasingly hard for people to repair their own bikes. So bike repair makes sense, and they can probably charge

At the higher end - lets say $1000+ bikes bike shops can still do a good trade as people new to the sport probably need a bike fit to ensure they are getting the best machine for them

<comment><USER20> My current bike I did buy at a local shop partly because I wanted to be able to test-ride before I made the purchase. And I'm glad a did. I tried a few different models, and have been pretty pleased with the choice I made. But most of the subsequent maintenance has been done by shops that are primarily service shops, and not dealers. They sell bits and supplies, of course, but their bread & butter is repair work. My experience is that I get better service from them than from dealers that just want to get your bike out of the shop as quickly as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is interesting on its face, but also as an analogy. My employer is a B2B reseller of computer hardware and software, and this sounds very much like your industry.

Cloud services are eating into hardware sales, and manufacturers (e.g., Adobe) are going direct, disintermediating us. There's no sense fighting back, but there's new opportunities for those helping with cloud services, and with managing software licensing and so forth.

</comment><comment><USER22> I live in Edinburgh, and I've personally counted half a dozen of these little, one or two person IBS type shops open up round town in the last couple of years. They have a small retail space at the front, an open workshop at the back, and the mechanic stops working on a bike to have a chat with you when you come in to the shop. Edinburgh's pretty bike friendly, so given the number of these shops springing up, they must have a viable business model here.

<comment><USER17> Edinburgh is hilly and all those sets (cobbles) make those fat tired MTB's look a sensible choice

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As bicycles prices start moving toward motorcycles and cars, I don't understand why the shops still feel like the margins can't/won't change. They say 20-30% profit is small, but compare that to buying a new car: 2-3% profit.

And to keep the car comparison going: during the summer, bike shops routinely book two weeks out, which is almost unheard of with car service.

I'm both surprised and not surprised to hear that clothing is not a big seller --I've never been a fan of getting clothing without trying it on. However, once I know how a brand fits, that's not as much of an issue. It is surprising to walk into a bike shop and want some shorts only to find they don't stock anything under $80--you really have to work hard to find $80 shorts at the mall. So maybe the problem is they need to do better at picking what their customers want.

Unfortunately, I don't have good ideas at what they should sell in addition to labor. Need it now items are great (tires) but it's hard to make all of your money just on mechanics.

<comment><USER24> > It is surprising to walk into a bike shop and want some shorts only to find > they don't stock anything under $80--you really have to work hard to find > $80 shorts at the mall. So maybe the problem is they need to do better at > picking what their customers want.

Funny that you put it that way because I wouldn't buy any shorts under $100 (haven't found any at that price that will be comfy on a 100-mile ride). I suppose that's what bike shops are up against: customers whose wants and needs are all over the place, which is what suits big online retailers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm surprised the bike manufacturers have not stepped up to create their own branded shops as a way to provide/control a more direct 'experience'. Imagine separate 'Specialized' stores, 'Cannondale' stores or "Gary Fisher' stores all with carefully crafted service and support.

It's similar to how the local generic electronics store (including CircuitCity and now BestBuy) got squeezed from the bottom by Target/Walmart on the low end and the high end by the Sony/Apple/Bose Store at your local luxury Westfield or Simon's mall. Even woman's fashion is trending way - Target/Walmart/Costco for the majority and direct 'experience' stores like Coach/Burberry/Tiffany with Macy's and Kohl's getting squeezed out.

<comment><USER18> Specialized and Giant already have single-brand stores in many markets. Giant have a handful of stores dedicated to Liv, their women's sub-brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This has been an ongoing debate in the mountain bike world for a number of years now. Direct to consumer brands have clearly been making a dent in the traditional retail model. Intense just announced a hybrid model, where shops stock demos and consumers receive their new bike directly from Intense. Seems like a win-win - shops don't have to stock slow moving inventory and consumers get lower prices year round.

This artcle explains the pros/cons in detail: [https://www.pinkbike.com/news/intense-announces-lower- retail...](https://www.pinkbike.com/news/intense-announces-lower-retail- prices-and-hybrid-direct-to-customer-sales-model.html)

<comment><USER27> Not about bikes specifically but I've been a bit surprised that formal showrooming hasn't become a bigger thing. My guess is that, if you're going to have storefronts, for a lot of things you might as well stock merchandise for impulse buyers or those who want to take something home right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a bike shop that opened near me but I've had the impression that most of their income comes from the coffee shop in the front and the bikes are more of a passion of the owners. They're nice folks, but their bikes start at $800 and go up very quickly from there.

I actually did give them a chance and tried out a couple of the bikes when I was looking to replace my tired out commuter bike but I just couldn't feel the $600 premium. The biggest surprise is that the shifters didn't even feel any better, it was the one area where I expected the better bike could really make a difference but they were no better at shifting quickly or under load than my old shifters.

<comment><USER17> That's about the sensible minimum for a decent long lasting bike I definitely noticed when I went from cheap MTB to one twice the price the stopping power was phenomenal I almost sent my self over the handlebars in a driving rain storm as I was used to the soggy breaks in the wet of my old bike.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how e-bikes are going to fit into all this, although I'm happy with mine the buying experience was awful.

<comment><USER29> What do you mean by this?

<comment><USER30> From what I've seen the E-bikes have their own 'dealer network' independent of regular pedal bike shops. There used to be one next door but they moved a while ago, think the rent was getting too high since they've been steadily improving the neighborhood.

<comment><USER31> Most of the large traditional manufacturers are into ebikes now and although a LBS might only have 0-2 in stock, they can all get you one within a week or so.

<comment><USER32> They're rather expensive to stock. 2x to 4x the price of a regular bike.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hmmm. A lot of this rings true, but a couple of things seem to indicate to me that brick-and-mortar bike shops may continue to exist over time:

Bikes are an interesting confluence of both _very personal_ (i.e. the style/"feel" of someone's new bike is important, or the "fit" if they're buying with a bit more experience), _very expensive_ (relatively), and _very physically large_ (and hard to assemble).

That means that people will want to try out bikes before they buy, since the investment is substantial. Bikes need to be assembled to try out. If a brick- and-mortar store went online-only, it might be a substantial outlay for them to ship bikes to people to try out, and a hassle for folks to assemble them before trying them (unless they were shipped assembled, which is a much larger container). It seems like that might be cost/difficulty preventative for moving a lot of merchandise compared with the benefits of a showroom. Sure, bike stores might have to become more showroom-only, but I don't think they're going away.

</comment><comment><USER34> > "Dan Sotelo was the founder of Onza"

Onza stuff was awesome. Was always insanely jealous of the bar ends and clipless pedals one of my friends had.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is generally correct, and certainly aligns with larger trends in commercial real estate. On-premise retail of easily-shipped items, with no value-added ties to online retail, is on its last legs. The strip mall of the future has coffee shops but no clothing stores. Bike shops are fortunate that they have this sort of transition to attempt. Lots of menswear shops have an in-house tailor, but it's not as though they can refocus the business around that.

Bike shops aren't the only party trying to hold back the sea, however. Some specialty equipment distributors are so proud of the "network of bike shops" (often with various goofy "badges" and "qualifications") they had to build 20 years ago that they won't ship outside that. As if it's to their advantage to erect barriers to potential customers! Someone should send e.g. Surly a link to TFA. The author has a better idea of how they ought to run their business than they seem to have.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am baffled why the manufacturers aren't all offering direct B2B for the bike shops. There clearly isn't enough margin left for the average bike shop if they aren't moving the volume of bikes due to direct sales, but at the same time, all the supplies they need for servicing bikes are sold through some intermediary that's skimming a cut for the service of aggregating all the different manufacturers. [https://www.ogc.ca/](https://www.ogc.ca/) and [https://norco.com/](https://norco.com/) haven't substantially reduced their margins since I last worked in a bike shop 20 years ago.

And aggregation is not a service that would be required anymore if the shops could just go direct to Shimano, SRAM, Fox, Maxxis and DT-swiss (etc). That aggregation can be performed by the bike shop itself via a B2B solution.

</comment><comment><USER36> A local bike shop closed business a few months ago. They had had a location on Downtown Main Street for years, but for some reason [I'm guessing rent] moved several blocks away from their old location -- and several blocks closer to where I live. I imagine that this negatively impacted their foot traffic, even though it was directly in line with my own walk-to-the-bus commute.

I shopped at both of their locations several times, but not routinely or regularly. When the "inventory sale!" signs started going up, I admit that a part of me literally saw the writing on the wall but I didn't want to believe it. I believed it when I walked by and saw the location empty and deserted, a lonely 8x11 explaining what was up.

I'm curious as to what happened, but suspect that I was part of the problem -- not shopping there more often, for product or maintenance service, even though I am just one person.

</comment><comment><USER37> I buy bikes from local specialty shops because they know how to put the bikes together and service them properly. Other customers like to use them to try accessories before purchase.

The family-owned shop I use in the Boston area ([https://farinas.com](https://farinas.com)) has a pretty solid, all-season business model: Bikes on the second floor, lawn mowers and snow blowers on the first floor, and the repair shop on the first floor. I see they also sell generators and chainsaws - items that may not be easy to ship or service online.

</comment><comment><USER38> Great article! I had a similar notion a while back for ski shops. Here are a couple of additional ideas from that thought experiment.

1.) Deeper web presence. For example, why not sell coupons for services on the stuff people buy on the web?

2.) Subscriptions. Basically an add-on support fee for your bike. This makes sense for anyone who commutes, especially if you can make it trivially easy to collect. That leads to...

3.) Additional services. Combine bike parking in cities with on-going maintenance . This already exists in some cities.

</comment><comment><USER39> Even the service model is not that encouraging. I knew someone whose dad owned a bike service shop in Japan; it wasn't a vibrant model. I got the impression they scraped by, but by and large it was a labor of love--nothing wrong with that, but it does not have ample opportunity, except maybe for a franchiser.

</comment><comment><USER40> Similar to that recent article posted here about how "experience retailers" are inverting the relationship of the vendor. (Where an experience retailer is actually a marketing arm of the manufacturer).

But yes: I would love to able to drop by and get my bike fixed by someone competent.

</comment><comment><USER41> This brings to mind Moen's Law of Bicycles:

"Good customers make for good products"

[http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw- bicycles](http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles)

</comment><comment><USER42> I've recently become aware of Canyon Bikes as well as other direct-to-consumer manufacturers. In one video I watched, the buyer had a mobile bike shop come and setup their new bike. I think the mobile bike shop approach plays well with the direct-to-consumer model.

<comment><USER43> A whole mobile bike shop sounds expensive. More likely these companies will make deals with "freelance labor firms" to get someone there to assemble it.

IKEA has already signaled as much by buying TaskRabbit, but my guess is that there's a good opportunity for an independent middleman to sell services for companies that need a broad geographical coverage but don't have enough sales to keep dedicated teams everywhere.

<comment><USER44> Ikea sells a city bike with belt drive and a mount system for racks and a trailer for $400. It is a better-documented assembly process that the you-get- what-a-bike-shop-gets experience of ordering the cheapest online bike, but still a bit challenging on the Ikea scale of difficulty. It has a 25 year warranty on the frame and a 10 year warranty on the belt drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Tire Rack has done this to the tire retail business. You can get the tires you want from Tire Rack, and get referred to a shop that will mount and balance them. That's what should happen to bike sales.

</comment><comment><USER45> Title should say independent bike _dealer_</comment>


Ask YC: How many people here have a degree and are programmers? - <AUTHOR>

Quick poll - what type of degree - from what school - <comment><USER4> PhD in Atomic Physics.

Started programming with 16, started to love it when I wrote the code to run my lab automatically (adjust the lasers, pump the vacuum chamber, run the electron gun, calibrate the spectrometers and do the measurements), while I was downtown having a beer with my friends. Did it in ansii c on a eltec os 9 lab computer using a camac crate.

I still had to type the thesis myself.

<comment><USER5> Cool. I minored in physics, and I thought it was much harder than CS. Respects from me.

<comment><USER4> Thank you!

Maybe I drop a word about why. CS was an option for me, but I would have done it only to learn more about programming (and maybe how the hardware works). Since I already knew a lot about programming when I was 18, I decided to go for physics, because Astronomy and Quantum physics were both also strong interest of mine.

Basically this decision opened a bunch of very interesting job opportunities in science programming that would have been hard to get into without a scientific degree. I can wholeheartedly recommend to not study CS, but a different science, especially if you know that you want to write software. You can easily learn programming by yourself and get detailed knowledge in another topic. This combination is hard to beat (most scientists are very bad at programming).

It was a lot of fun to program in my own lab environment. Maybe because I controlled the whole pipeline starting from requirements to finally using the software for my own scientific work.

Its a pity that this is rare. Currently I develop software for an ESA space observatory. Sounds incredibly cool, but sucks a lot because of the size of these scientific projects (and because of the bureaucracy of ESA and NASA).

<comment><USER6> How rare is this? The caliber of mind required for physics should be more than enough to make a decent programmer. What's preventing your colleagues from just picking up what they need to know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Still in college for CS but plan to complete course work on part-time, I've been programming since I was 14 professionally. (A friend of my father had an SEO startup and needed a script kiddie for PERL/JS/HTML stack. He bought me any book I wanted and payed 15/hour. Purely self-taught, but higher level mathematics and discrete theory have improved my programming beyond anything else I've taken.)

Computers are made for making life easier, and in a capitalism that equates to making money if you can teach a computer to do a human job. Just waiting for that dynamite concept to take to market.

I love this site btw.

<comment><USER8> When I stopped going to school full-time (about 2 years ago) I thought that I would continue my degree part time. It hasn't really worked out however. The reason I stopped going full time is that classes were boring, and since I work full time, wasting a couple of nights per week on boring classes (instead of staying at home hacking) is not something I enjoyed. I'm still "planning" to finish at some point in time but I'm starting to doubt if it will ever happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dropped out of business school.

Too boring, especially macroeconomics. It was quite clear early on that they had absolutely no idea how things actually worked in the real world, and were just dreaming up theories.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm learning. It's so hard to get good programmers that I thought I would learn how.

<comment><USER10> The trouble with business school is that some students mistake the classes for... well, for anything other than an opportunity to network. If you want to learn about finance, work for a fucking bank! If you want to make contacts, you could do a lot worse than a top MBA program.

An EE friend of mine (who helped me survive PChem, since I taught myself linear algebra and multivariate calculus, poorly) went back for his MBA recently. He began a standard engineering exposition of market forces in terms of structural equations and nearly the entire class glazed over. Afterwards, the professor (a former physicist) told him that, while his math was spot on, you can't use calculus in front of businesspeople and expect them to follow.

He almost cried. I laffed when he told me about this. (We both worked at JGSM and also at the supercomputing center as undergraduates -- even still, I think he was disappointed.)

Scientific programmers (what I was trained as) and everyday build-something- that-works programmers (which is more fun) are as different as FORTRAN77 and Lisp. Just an observation (related to your final sentence), not a tautology. There is, however, a divide between systems/performance-centric programming and logic-centric or symbolic programming, and the latter is more efficient in terms of man-hours IMHO.

<comment><USER9> There is definitely a difference, and my goal is not to become a scientific programmer - I'm not smart enough for that. I am just curious as to how it all works, and my goal is primarily to better understand the process. So it is just basic CSS, javascript and PHP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe half of a theater degree? I completely failed out of college, then tried to make a living as an "artist," then accidentally stumbled into a programming job at a start-up. Now I'm a principal software engineer.

<comment><USER12> Do you still practice your art for fun and non-profit? I think exercising creativity is important for personal satisfaction.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. I'm very involved as an organizer & I still do workshops, etc. I make maybe $500 a year off of the work I do as an artist, which is great, but also clearly demonstrates why programming is the more prosperous carer path. Fortunately, I really, really enjoy programming & I've been able to use it to benefit the arts community I work with.

<comment><USER12> I'm glad to hear that you are able to contribute both your programming and artistic (and probably leadership) skills. My brother-in-law is a photographer and he's started to sell some of his photographs at small art fairs.

I've always wanted to be able to sit in a busy city park and either do caricatures or play classical guitar and draw a crowd to a stop and make a moment of their day more beautiful.. But it takes practice and practice. Not a priority, just a pipe-dream right now.

I'm starting to get involved with a non-profit - PHP stuff - I think it's better than stuffing envelopes (e.g. provide value with your skills)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> PhD in pure mathematics, University of Nottingham, UK.

Self-taught as a programmer, but it's a similar mindset.

<comment><USER14> PhD in Biology (Developmental Genetics), Univ. Barcelona, Spain.

Self-taught as a programmer as well, but it's a _totally_ different mindset.

<comment><USER15> PhD student in EE/solid-state, currently vacationing in the math department.

I started out in CS and hated it, but I still spend a lot of my time coding.

Most of my math classmates can program a little, but all the engineers I know are hopeless.

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate on "hopeless," and why do you say this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Made it 1.5 years into an aerospace engineering program before realizing I was wasting my time and money. I was making six-figures and had racked up tons of hands on experience working with startups and Fortune 500s by the time my classmates walked out with a piece of paper and some huge debts.

</comment><comment><USER17> No degree, I left for Italy afer a few years of Italian courses at the University of Oregon. I have worked as a programmer for 11 years.

<comment><USER18> How'd you end up writing a programming language?

<comment><USER17> You can't be in this business without being passionate about it. Well...I guess you can, but I think everyone on this site falls into the 'passionate' category. And with that comes the ability to pick things up on your own, which is in any case pretty much a necessity for this field, as many aspects of it change frequently.

One of the wonderful things about this field is how much is possible to do on your own, if you have a computer a decent internet connection.

In terms of Hecl itself, taken from (<http://www.hecl.org/docs/j2me.html#javame_tutorial>)

"I became interested in writing cell phone applications several years ago, after a rainy day high in the Italian Dolomites near Cortina d'Ampezzo - <USER2> old phone ended up in a mud puddle and died, leading me to purchase a new phone with J2ME (Java) capabilities. Writing applications in Java was okay, but I thought to myself that it would be an interesting experiment to try and create a scripting language that runs on top of the J2ME (now known as Java Micro Edition or Java ME) environment."

<comment><USER19> hey a Tcl'er :)

Tcl is the best lisp tell them the truth, enlighten their braces crippled souls :PpP

But seriously, Tcl is a very smart language, one can only wish it was used more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Cornell

(also B.S., Physics, Case Western Reserve)

I had one formal course in software: Motorola 68k assembly language programming, in college. Three months of super-tedious review for the slow students ("this is a hexadecimal number") followed by perhaps one month of interesting new knowledge ("this is a stack frame"). I never tried to learn programming from a lecture course again.

I self-taught my own way through ArsDigita's web programming curriculum in the late 1990s... reading Greenspun's stuff was what convinced me that software was actually worth doing, and the reading list was great: SICP, _Learning Emacs_ , Fogel's CVS book (hey, that's all they had in the elder days... :), _Internetworking with TCP/IP_ , _SQL for Smarties_ , Tufte, etc.

</comment><comment><USER21> PhD in Mathematics (computational physics), 1997. Self-taught at programming from age 14. After finishing my PhD I decided to get out of academia. Didn't want to work as a "quant", hence: software (mainly programming).

</comment><comment><USER22> MBA, BA, Economics BA, French Université de Montpellier, France International Interpreter's School Mons, Belgium

Started coding at about 8 or 9 years old on a C64 and Apple IIc/IIe. I have always been a tinkerer of sorts... taking things apart then wondering why I have extra parts left over when I put it back together.

I have done it all, networking, development, support, QA, moving up the food chain so to speak. These days, I spend a lot of time in Project/Process management.

<comment><USER23> When you have leftover parts, that means you were more efficient than the manufacturer. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> No degree. I've been programming professionally for 20+ years. Usually better off than my peers salary-wise (since the beginning). Generally regarded as the best amongst the programmers I know personally (which is a bad thing, in my view). Started several companies. Most failed. One sold. Have had a 9-5 job for the last 3 years (telecommuting from home). Title: Senior Programmer Analyst. Actual Work: developing new products (programming).

</comment><comment><USER25> I dropped out of college after my freshman year to join a startup. I've been doing programming and general IT work ever since (~8 years).

After taking some more classes part-time, I've probably got about 1/2 the requirements for a degree in mathematics from a couple of different schools, but never seem to find the time to go back full-time and finish it out.

I do work at the college I dropped out of all those years, ago, though.

</comment><comment><USER26> BCS (yes it exists...) University of Waterloo

So at Waterloo you can now get a BCS (in the math dept, school of comp sci), BMath - CS, Comp Eng, or Software Eng. I think the diversity in the programs is a good thing. Hell half the Electrical Engineers end up as programmers, but I would never hire one :P

</comment><comment><USER27> High school kids don't have degrees yet ;)

</comment><comment><USER28> B.S., M.Eng. C.S. Texas A&M University. Programming for the man (but working on a little bit of just about everything on my own at home). Really. Desparately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC.

Daggum Californicators.

<comment><USER29> _Desperately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC._

You can do it, if you can find a good cofounder where you are. When people like me talk about it being a net win to be in the Valley, we mean no more than that. It gives you an advantage. But it's far less important than the quality of your cofounder(s).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> BA Philosophy & Biology - UNC Chapel Hill MA Philosophy - University of Maryland, College Park

<comment><USER31> WOOHOO! +1 Philosophy

BA Philosophy from Ripon College MS Information Systems University of Maryland Baltimore County (in progress).

been a avid "hobbyist" programmer for 7-8 years now... just recently started getting paid for my programming.

<comment><USER32> BA Philosophy Colgate University, 1 Year Post Bacc CompSci University of Oregon - have been programming for food since 2000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> BA in communications from the University of Arizona - minor in CS.

They were restricting the students going into the major and I flubbed up the first semester. (I got a D in discrete math. None of the concepts were difficult for me, but they combined it as a proof class and I just couldn't get the hang of them.) Also, I knew I was pretty good with the computers, it was the interaction with people I was lacking.

I'm strongly considering going back for a Ph.D in cognitive science, but I'll likely have to shore up some of my undergraduate weaknesses first. (The years in industry have taught me that as much as I am frustrated with academia, it suits my personality much better.)

</comment><comment><USER34> B.A. in Art and Photography. I was working in the mail room of a financial company here in Chicago when word got around that I was an art major and that I was into computers. The CIO came over one day and dropped a 4" stack of HTML print outs on my lap, asking me to build a company newsletter website. I haven't stopped web development since. (I can't believe that's pushing 10 years ago).

I dropped out of grad school (computer science) a few years back after completing 1 year only because it wasn't enjoyable. It felt like high school, no enthusiasm, like every HAD to be there. Classes were painfully slow and sequential, stripped of any creativity.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've been coding since the age of 8, never got a degree as I found university moved too slowly. I knew from childhood that all I wanted to do was code. Now I've been coding professionally for 13 years, and overall for 27 years. I'd thought about going back for formal education but the reality of it is that I still learn at a faster rate on my own and do take the time and effort to learn even those things that I don't think I'll need or particularly care to learn. I do feel that I missed out on some camaraderie with peers, though I have since gained that via professional and non-professional venues.

</comment><comment><USER36> I went to a college in Canada, which are basically regarded as the "lower form" of post secondary, as Universities are for the big wigs.

I graduated from a 3 year Computer Programmer / Systems Analyst program and couldn't be happier. Now working at a retail startup doing all their tech / web/internal development / online / offline marketing and I couldn't be happier

Apart from that I stick in some freelance and my own projects on the side. Currently working on my own startup. I live code, I loves it

So to the initial question: No major degree, but I can code!

</comment><comment><USER37> BA Mathematics, concentration in Comp. Sci. from University of Rochester. Graduated a year before they had an undergrad Comp. Sci. degree--there was already a graduate program. Oh, yeah: I'm a programmer.

<comment><USER38> B.A. Cognitive Science - University of Rochester. - Programmer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a degree in Civil Engineering. Since I was bored/nearly falling asleep in some of my structural engineering classes, I knew it probably wasn't the field. (I've always loved coding/playing with computers).

An engineering degree really emphasizes problem solving. We had homework sets where you'd be lucky to solve all of them. Spending hours on a single problem. But you learn a lot. I see software development mainly as creative problem- solving.

Getting my first job was a combination of luck and persistence.

</comment><comment><USER39> BA in English and Creative Writing, Oberlin College

Most of a second bachelor's in psychology, University of Pennsylvania

A year-and-a-half in a Clinical Psychology PhD program, University of Texas, Austin

MS Information Systems, and MS Library Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia

Web developer at a not-for-profit medical publishing company, doing Rails and pretty much anything else related to the web.

</comment><comment><USER40> Ph.D. Computer Science UCLA 1997

<comment><USER40> Oh yeah and B.S. Computer Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1991

<comment><USER41> I'm a current undergrad at University of Michigan, AA studying mechanical engineering. But, I started programming at 11 when I first got paid for my programming skills. I've worked in the "real world" each summer and have found my hacking abilities more useful than many other skills.

Sometimes it's a php script to scrape data, other times it is a vb macro to make excel work more efficiently or a bash script, etc. etc.

<comment><USER40> Sounds like you are doing well. What are your plans?

I was back to A^2 last year for a week. It has the same feel. I must admit that I miss the place from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> no degree, quit when I was told I couldn't take the fun (math, chem, etc) classes and had to take poly sci

code part-time, not as good as I'd like. Thinking about going back to school and finishing a CS degree, but I'm 40 with 5 kids to support (geeks get lovin too)

PS: You might want to warn someone if they have cookies turned off... the error message is counterintuitive.

</comment><comment><USER43> "professional" programmer, self-taught, no degree.

</comment><comment><USER44> no degree, can't code, rejected from yc funding 3 times, and still working on my startup.

<comment><USER45> 3 times? That hurts. Shows your dedication though.

<comment><USER5> or obliviousness... *ducks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> BS Material Science - Rice Took no comp sci in school, but I've been coding since I was 8 (Drawing Mr. T in VB) Currently work as a coder, never used the degree but.. co-workers who do my same job without a degree pull 20k less a year and are career limited (in that they can't advance anymore until they get a degree of some kind)

</comment><comment><USER47> No degree. Taught myself how to code when I was kid. Started a Computer Engineering degree, but I would get bored and stopped going to class. Switched to Econ, but never finished that. Started taking classes I wanted in an order and grouping that was never going to get me a degree. So I left. I've been a programmer ever since.

</comment><comment><USER48> BA English, UC San Diego BA Math, UC Santa Cruz (strange case, they let me finish the double English/Math major at a different university - I did about half of the Math at UCSD and the other half at UCSC) MS Industrial Engineering and Operations Research - UC Berkeley

Still learning, of course...

</comment><comment><USER49> BA Software Engineering, University of Waterloo.

Working as a C++ developer at a big online retailer.

<comment><USER50> Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Also worked as a software developer at a big online retailer ;-).

<comment><USER26> Haha, I know a few people working as developers at a big online retailer from Waterloo too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Kind of boring by comparison: B.S. Computer Science, Gonzaga University. Working on my Masters thesis in Philosophy to be done in May. Been working continuously as a programmer (mostly legacy support) since January of 2006, with a few other internships before that.

</comment><comment><USER52> High school dropout who has been a programmer for about 7 years now. Voracious reading habits on a wide variety of subjects, a willingness to work hard along with a constant assessment of knowing what I don't know has served me well.

I stretch but know my limits.

</comment><comment><USER53> BS Comp Sci, USC - 1 more year to go

<comment><USER54> Fight on!

BS CECS and MS CS, USC, '07

<comment><USER53> Fight on! Yea, I was surprised that when I posted I didn't see any other USC students or grads. Glad to see they're here!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> That's an impressive number of philosophers. And of replies in general; turns out we do all like to talk about ourselves ;)

My degree is in sanskrit. Programming was as obvious a detour as any after that, once I figured I wasn't cut out to be an academic.

</comment><comment><USER56> B.A. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE)- Claremont McKenna (small lib arts college in SoCal); non-hacker, but man do I wish I could hack...

My partners are:

BA PPE & CS, Claremont McKenna BA Economics & CS, Claremont McKenna

</comment><comment><USER57> BS in Computer Science & Engineering from The Ohio State University. - Programming for the man.

the '& Engineering' just means I took more math and physics classes and some intro to (insert Engineering Discipline) classes.

<comment><USER58> MS in Industrial and System Engineering (thesis in Systems) from Ohio University. Learned programming as a mix of self-study, and great mentoring by a professor at OU.

Bachelors in Production Engineering from Bombay, India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> No degree, but 990 GRE in maths, and 3 top 200 scores on the Putnam. First programmed in '63, unless you count wiring a Brainiac, which I did some years earlier. Finally getting around to studying Lisp <(+ grin groan)>.

</comment><comment><USER60> BS Electrical Engineering & BA Philosophy, 2004, Univ. of Texas at Austin

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm currently on a break from school while I move and get settled with a new job (software developer at a near-Silicon Valley startup). I'm going back this fall to work on my BS in Comp Sci at CSU Fresno.

</comment><comment><USER62> MPhys in Computational Physics from University of York, UK.

Self-taught in programming from age 9. Had 1 long-term job as a game programmer, got fed up with it, now working on my own tech. (I'm 23)

</comment><comment><USER5> Computer Science major, minors in Physics and Mathematics at Radford university, in VA.

A party school, so my gpa wasn't perfect, but I had a good time. I had a full academic scholarship though.

</comment><comment><USER63> I dropped out of Informatics (Universidad de La Plata), in 3rd year. I'm now starting studies on Maths (Universidad de Buenos Aires).

I've been programming for about 12, or 13 years now, I think.

</comment><comment><USER64> BS Math CMU, MA Math UPenn. Both too long ago to matter anymore. A programmer and failed mathematician. On good days, a software developer. Never a computer scientist or software engineer.

</comment><comment><USER65> B.S. in Management with a concentration in MIS from the University at Buffalo. Transfered out of comp sci from the University of Delaware (I was bored and had no pretty girls in my classes).

</comment><comment><USER66> I graduate this summer. I've got only 12 credits left out of 204 for my dual BS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. I go to Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute).

</comment><comment><USER67> Engineering degree in civil engineering. self taught programming while in college and switched to full time programming career after a year stint has a civil engineer on the field.

</comment><comment><USER68> Been developing software for more than 10 years.

\- Stanford U, Masters in Engineering \- UC-Berkeley, Engineering \- UC- Berkeley, Computer Science \- UC-Berkeley, Business Admin.

</comment><comment><USER69> Working on my degree now. Two more years to completion, suposing I ever attend the classes. I live in Brazil so the name of the University is probably meaningless to you all.

</comment><comment><USER70> Generic Information Systems from Villa Julie College in Maryland. The courses taught me Visual Basic and SQL. I've taught myself everything else and have so much to learn.

</comment><comment><USER71> BA in Computer Science from a tiny liberal arts college. I worked as a programmer for 3 years. now I'm back in school, working on a PhD in the biomedical sciences at BCM.

</comment><comment><USER72> AS Computer Science - Penn State York

7 years out of college. Web programmer for a startup. Still learning the ropes, hoping to have my own startup someday.

</comment><comment><USER73> BS on CS (Concentration: Machine Learning and Computational Logic) from GA Tech. Currently working as a Python (30%) and Lisp (70%) programmer for a startup.

<comment><USER74> What gloucester does your username refer to?

<comment><USER73> It's from Hamlet. I chose the name because it's somewhat sui generis and thus not too many people will be using it as a user name.

<comment><USER74> OK, not the town on the north shore of Massachusetts, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I'm about to graduate from Babson with a degree in entrepreneurship (real useful that's gonna be), and I'm working at a startup as a programmer (self- taught).

</comment><comment><USER76> Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I graduate in May, looking forward to working full time on my startup after that.

I-L-L!

<comment><USER77> I can't believe nobody has jumped on this yet... I-N-I!

All UIUC/Chicago hackers interested in meeting up should email me: jared [at] aftervibe [dot] com

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> MS, Computer Applications (National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India) Manager of a Development Team. still like to call myself database programmer

</comment><comment><USER79> M.S. from Norwegian School of Business Administration and Economics (NHH), M.A. in linguistics, University of Oslo, currently programming CL in a telco.

</comment><comment><USER80> B.Sc (Computer Science) and an incomplete B.A (Philosophy/Classics). University of Canterbury here in New Zealand. Currently programming for my startup.

</comment><comment><USER45> I decided not to go to college and instead work 100% on my startup. Life has been good. I can work with PHP if you want to consider that programming...

</comment><comment><USER81> BS in Computer Science from Temple University. I started on a Masters, but dropped it. Now I'm taking classes at the University of Pennsylvania.

</comment><comment> a-priori I'm 3/4 of the way through my Bachelor of Computing degree at the University of Guelph. Taking some time off right now to work on my start-up.

</comment><comment><USER82> Sophomore undergrad at Carnegie Mellon University. No desire/plan for grad school...I'm thrilled that I'll be done in a little over a year.

</comment><comment><USER83> M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics (no, not two degrees, a combined syllabus). Oh, and I'm a programmer. Or something.

</comment><comment><USER84> no degree for me. i started programming in my early teens with vb, worked for an isp during high school doing unix sysadmin and perl/php programming. after high school i didn't bother with college and just continued at the isp for a number of years doing perl/php/ruby programming. i left there two years ago to become self-employed doing software development.

</comment><comment><USER85> BS Computer information systems, University of Chihuahua (in Mexico); MS Computer information science, University of Michigan.

</comment><comment><USER86> AA Liberal Arts!

Applied for it after I had started programming professionally. (Already had the credits, so why not? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER87> B.S. in Computer Science

Guess you could call me a programmer as I wear many hats, but web developer is my prime role...

</comment><comment><USER88> BS CS Washington State

Will finish this year: MS CS University of Washington

programming for other people for 5 years

</comment><comment><USER89> BS Applied Math

BS Comp Science (both at Appstate)

Former Java programmer; current language is Ruby, professionally.

</comment><comment><USER90> Computational Science (2nd Division) - St Andrews University, Scotland.

Writing software that bills gas pipelines.

</comment><comment><USER91> B.Sc. Computer Science; Colorado @ Boulder

<comment><USER92> Me too! I don't miss the concrete jungle at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> BS and MS in Electrical Engineering-Marquette. I am not a programmer...although I read a lot about programming.

</comment><comment><USER19> BA in Management Information System, MBA sorbonne/dauphine (mbaip.com)

Programmer ... hmmm ... someday I will!

</comment><comment><USER94> B.S. Computer Science, University of Akron (Ohio). Software Architect at a small (25 people) consulting firm.

</comment><comment><USER95> 3.5 years studying CS at Georgia Tech, life forced me to pull out and I'm working at a startup in Orlando.

</comment><comment><USER96> BA in Philosophy from the University of Montana and a JD (in May) from the University of Pennsylvania

</comment><comment><USER97> B.A. in Philosophy from University of California, Santa Cruz 2006. Started programming around 1999.

</comment><comment><USER98> Degree in Computer Engineering - Marquette University php/c#/vb.net

learning as3/ruby/linux shell

</comment><comment><USER99> B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Mississippi. Programmer Analyst at FedEx Services.

</comment><comment><USER100> MIT^3

Depending on who you ask, I was either trained as a rocket scientist or a propellor head.

</comment><comment><USER101> Info & Comp Sci Degree from UC Irvine. Just transitioned to being a programmer in our group.

</comment><comment><USER102> M.S. Computer Science, CIMS NYU. Actively programming when not wrangling departmental politics.

</comment><comment><USER103> B.S. Comp. Sci. from the University of Rhode Island

Java programmer for a Defense Contractor.

</comment><comment><USER104> BA UC Berkeley in Mathematics '93, MBA NYU Stern '06, run a small startup and still get to hack

</comment><comment><USER105> BS Computer Engineering Technology, 2004 - Southern Polytechnic State U. I program non-stop...

</comment><comment><USER106> BA in Mathematics and Computation and then a DPhil in Computer Security. Oxford University.

</comment><comment><USER107> BS, CompSci, University of Memphis

</comment><comment><USER108> Master in Applied Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium).

</comment><comment><USER109> BS Information Systems, University of Texas in Arlington working as database/web developer

</comment><comment><USER110> BA Political Science, UC San Diego. Still learning programming. Stuck in insurance atm.

</comment><comment><USER111> BEng Software Engineering Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London UK.

</comment><comment><USER112> MSc in Civil Engineering. Always worked as a computer programmer, never as a civil eng..

</comment><comment><USER113> I'm a sophomore working on a BS in Comp Sci from Northeastern University. Go Huskies?

</comment><comment><USER114> BASc in EE from University of Toronto (in 3 months) -- already into my first startup

</comment><comment><USER115> BSE computer engineering and economics, Penn, but don't use any of it at my startup!

</comment><comment><USER116> MA Mathematics from Oxford; MSc in 'Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems' from Sussex.

</comment><comment><USER117> BASc in EE from University of Toronto; immediately followed with my first start-up

</comment><comment><USER118> BS in CS, BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering -- from Carnegie Mellon

</comment><comment><USER119> BS in Comp Sci, St. John's University, currently a programmer at an i-bank.

</comment><comment><USER120> BFA, Illustration, Ringling School of Art and Design, and a programmer.

</comment><comment><USER23> Business Marketing from CSUN (Cal State Northridge)... in 2 more years.

</comment><comment><USER121> bs math Pomona College, ms statistics, ms,phd computer science U Wisc -Madison Am a programmer; love what I do. 6-word novel describing my life: "It worked! Still can't believe it."

</comment><comment><USER122> BSc (Computer Science) from Curtin University, Western Australia

</comment><comment><USER123> (pursuing) BS Computer Science, BA Philosophy, Duke University

<comment><USER124> B.S. Economics and Computer Science, 2006 - Duke University!

GTHC! GTHC! ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> BS Comp Sci / BA Philosophy - Monash University (Australia)

</comment><comment><USER126> Masters in Mathematics UC Berkeley Programming since 1969.

</comment><comment><USER127> Purdue University - BS in Computer Programming Technology

</comment><comment><USER128> BSc Computer Science from University of Cape Town 1997

</comment><comment><USER129> S.B., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

</comment><comment><USER130> Computer Engineer degree from the University of Ottawa

</comment><comment><USER131> BS, Computer Science, Central Washington University.

</comment><comment><USER132> BS, Finance - run and hack in a small software firm.

</comment><comment><USER133> B.Sc. Software Engineering - Universtity of Calgary

</comment><comment><USER134> Half a BS in physics, half in Economics, both UIUC

</comment><comment><USER135> BS Computer Systems Engineering, Boston University

</comment><comment><USER136> BS in CS and MS in HCI, both from Carnegie Mellon

<comment><USER101> I've been thinking about getting an MS in HCI. How did you like the program?

<comment><USER136> I actually did a 4.5 year program for Master's and Undergrad there, so I don't have the typical experience.

I liked the program, I definitely learned a lot from it, although I can't honestly say I've used it much in my career (ended up lower level than UI often times).

My only gripe is that I wish that (at least at CMU) they had taught more graphic design. We had a few classes, but they were quite basic (I took as many as I could, but ultimately the interesting ones were restricted to Design majors).

Before you go get a Master's -- think about which part of HCI are you most interested in? Usability (evaluating, running tests), UI design, the programming?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> BS, Computer Engineeering, University of Florida

<comment><USER138> Still there? It'd be nice to speak with fellow Hacker News readers on campus.

(in progress) BS, Computer Science, University of Florida

</comment></comment><comment><USER139> BSc Computing Science. Simon Fraser University.

<comment><USER140> Another Canuck here! I did my graduate diploma (1 yr) at SFU

I did my undergrad at Canadian Bible College - B.A. in Religious studies (with Music History and ancient Greek). Thought the subject matter doesn't help coding, I think the college work did. I'm also a "started at age 8" story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER141> BS Math, BA Philosophy, EMT-B certification.

</comment><comment><USER142> No degree, some CS classes, lots of books.

</comment><comment><USER143> BS Comp Sci - University of Kansas - <USER3>

<comment><USER144> Go Jayhawks!

BS Comp Sci Kansas 2006 here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER145> BA English from The University of Dayton.

</comment><comment><USER146> BBA in CIS from Georgia State University

</comment><comment><USER147> CS from RPI... programming for The Man.

</comment><comment><USER148> BS Finance, University of Dayton, 2006

</comment><comment><USER149> B.S. Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley.

</comment><comment><USER150> Physics degree, University of Lisbon.

</comment><comment><USER151> Dropped out of CS school, twice.

<comment><USER12> Can we assume you won't go for the hat-trick as you probably already have the skills to pay the bills.

<comment><USER151> Well, I often think I should go back to school. But I guess I've been lucky so far :) That said, I think self-learning is much more important. They don't teach you how to use version-control, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER152> BA Mathematics, Rice University.

</comment><comment><USER153> BS Comp Sci, UC Santa Barbara

</comment><comment><USER154> B.S. Computer Science, FSU

</comment><comment><USER155> CS BA NYU, Robotics MS CMU

<comment><USER102> A CMU Robotics masters is totally sexy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> BA in CS, Amherst College.

</comment><comment><USER157> Masters, EE, Penn State

</comment><comment><USER74> S.B. Math MIT

</comment><comment><USER158> BA Comp Sci & Economics, UC-Berkeley

</comment><comment><USER159> dropped out and coded in.</comment>