I would argue that the hard problem is not "reasoning" (taking absolute truths and deriving other truths); but rather dealing with noise.
The former problem -- logic -- ended up giving us the AI winter, and it's the later (with machine learning) that is driving Google and modern robotics.
If this is just Mathematica + Prolog + A giant hand tuned database, I think it'll be a disappointment. (Look at the Cyc project -- led by a former Stanford professor, lots of funding, supposed to revolutionize human knowledge -- where is it now?)
"Let's only write performance intense parts in C++", and have the rest in an interpreted scripting language, where things like this (and more) come much cheaper?
I found this book far more insightful than a bag of tricks.
Clearly, anyone who practices these rules religiously will end up living a very lonely, paranoid life.
However, as a nerd that doesn't understand social dynamics very well, I've found this book to be of immense defensive value -- I started seeing how people utilized these rules (either consciously or subconsciously) around me, and have been able to avoid being influenced / controlled by them.
I really appreciate your comment. For a while, I thought it was an Asian thing (never as an Immigrant thing); you logic makes sense. From personal experience all the things I labeled as "Asian" that's causing pressure, actually, in reality, can probably be associated with "Immigrant" instead.
It's not actually a hash of the URL, rather it's typically simply a base 64 serial number that increments for each new URL. That's why the URLs start at 2 characters and grow to 4 or 5, though the number is so large that they'll rarely see 6. http://tr.im (my weapon of choice) for instance is still at 4 characters.
I have pondered this route, but it seems that in general, the research community / academia tends to "shun" those that don't do straight undergrad -> research.
Neither yet, but I feel like I've been accepted by the academic community and the opportunity is mine to lose.
I dropped out of my undergrad CS program to do my first startup. That was 15 years ago. When I decided to go back for a PhD two years ago, I still had to complete my undergrad. I'm finishing up this spring and will be starting at a top 10 graduate program in the fall. My grades from 15 years ago were not particularly good and my background is rather unusual. I wasn't sure how I would be viewed as an applicant. This was not a easy year for admissions and I feel I did extremely well.
I know two other people went back to study math after working for a while. One is now a grad student at Brown, the other is a postdoc at MIT.
