skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I find Spolsky almost entirely "miss", but then I had something of a feud with him and that colors my reading of his articles...

I think the clear thing that is missing here in this section you've quoted (and the article itself) is that if your components are properly factored, or at least reasonably factored, (whether 3rd party or internal), you can "value add" on top of the component without rewriting its source code (or even necessarily treating it as anything more than a black box). Don't throw the babies out with the bathwater, you know.

The point he tries to make with "If it's a core business function -- do it yourself, no matter what," is undercut by his over-generalization in "If you're a software company, writing excellent code is how you're going to succeed.". If you are a software company and you've scoped "write all the software" as your job then you're likely to hit a brick wall when it comes to delivery. Your value as a software company isn't in how well you've rewritten the parts of code (like say a C compiler) that you can buy off the shelf, but in getting your final product out the door. From that perspective it truly doesn't matter how much or how little your product consists of your own code versus third party code so much as the product delivers the functionality you intend it have and adds value in meaningful areas.

While the example above of puzzle-piecing a product out of a bunch of well known smaller components isn't glamorous, it gets the job done and hopefully pays the bills. Presumably if done right it gets the job done faster and more productively than your competitors that are reinventing everything themselves... Also, in the industrial world outside of software, optimizing the pieces of the puzzle is entire sets of sub-industries (such as Supply Chain Logistics) and again while that's certainly not exciting work, it can be profitable and the market is paying for those skills.

Finally, I think it says a lot that the best example Joel could think to use was an out-of-date example from a version of Excel that no longer exists built by a team that also no longer exists. I don't doubt that there is code continuity from that era, but the days of Excel being a walled garden from the rest of Office, much less the rest of Microsoft, are past... I know there are critics of the push towards a "One Microsoft" culture and elimination of some of Microsoft's worsts NIH tendencies at the cultural level, but this consumer is a fan and watching what Microsoft is doing in Open Source these days is fascinating and wonderful. I absolutely think this example Spolsky cites is dumb. If Excel's 80s C compiler was so great they should have handed it off to the Developer Division to augment or better the C compiler they were selling as a product! In this case that actually was a core competency of the company and inter-team feudalism and NIH was decreasing the overall efficiency of the company and potentially keeping useful, profitable, and marketable enhancements from the profit center that could most benefit. Really just an all around terrible example.
> Ideally, at the end of that discussion, their would be a single flowchart, with each argument laid out exactly once, in its strongest/most persuasive form.

To some extent, that sounds like the StackExchange model, where editors feel free to come in and change what a person said in some way to create a permanent best answer. (Which, I have to admit, puts me off, personally.)
This is beautiful and I want it (hell, that's the reason I'm writing my own personal assistant at the moment), but if deployed as an OS-level product, what we'll get will be an abomination.

You see, such full-integration service, to be as great as described here, would require cooperation of all the third parties in creating the best experience for user. And here already are two things that will not happen. First of all, cooperation involves moderation, and I doubt all (if most) companies will suddenly refrain from trying to take the interlinking pie for themselves. You'll see multiple services competing for the same actions, or trying to capture ever single possible interaction, no matter how irrelevant. And secondly, you'd have to have app developers actually care about user's experience, and not about monetizing them. They don't care now, so I don't see how they're going to suddenly start.

Again - the ideas presented in this post are awesome and I'd love to see them, but I don't have my hopes high. I see this as yet another dream that will be doomed by tragedy of commons. Game theory is a harsh mistress.

EDIT:

The article itself sort of hints towards that in the very introduction:

"but when I got to texting Bus Time I thought, “Thank god I don’t need to download another f------ app for this.”"

Well, exactly. It should all be already unified. But it isn't, because everyone thinks they're special and so important that the user needs their app.
If at will employment doesn't carry any promise or value[1], why should it be allowed as consideration in the first place. It's an empty promise.

[1]-and I agree it doesn't
You are correct - the impact on your personal tax is negligible. Solar accounts for something well under 2% of total energy generation and residential rooftop far less. So almost all of your subsidy is paid by others. That doesn't make the over all analysis any more sound. What if we all had solar on our rooftop? Energy would cost more. The savings would be negative.
And that's certainly a reasonable choice... but, beware the tactics that are just to get you to buy Now, Today, without shopping at other stores and trying other mattresses. One of the places I went to get my last mattress was shocked that I wouldn't take his several-hundred off deal ("we have one blemished mattress in the warehouse, full warranty and all...") and was going to shop around. I'm guessing they mysteriously always have just one blemished mattress of the type you like, no matter what day you show up.
No, no, I did not want to imply any of that. Just that:

- For pretty much any of our apps the actual breakdown of Android versions is nothing like what the Play store shows.
- The amount of new Androids is significantly higher (we actually have an app with 57% 5.x and 80% on 4.4 or newer - Samsung updates have been significant for it) and varies greatly
- The users with newer devices and newer Android versions are usually more engaged, use apps more and also advertise them more which makes for a good network effect.
- We have noticed a major shift to apps with Material design, arrogant Apple marketing aside, there's alot of users on Android that DO care about design, UX and those tend to have rather newish phones.

Depending on your app you should of course also care for people on worse phones. If you're providing a public service app (e.g. showing public transport schedules), you should probably target as low as 2.3 (even though, perhaps actually building 2 APKs for that usecase makes sense). If you're building a modern 3D game, you should probably target API 19+ since users with older devices probably won't be able to run it anyway. But in any case, DO YOUR RESEARCH, because the numbers vary greatly across demographics, app categories and regions.
Tradey – Find and follow stock market traders with a proven track record
Ethereum, Nuclear Research and Avoiding Decentralized Cancer
My take: Further increases in efficiency could mean that you could install more capacity on your roof, or the same capacity in fewer panels. Assuming that you can fit enough panels to cover 95% of your demand on your roof, installing more panels doesn't make sense (over-generation is not really profitable today). At the same time, a lot of the installation costs are independent of number of panels (permitting, estimates, wiring to the junction box), so installing fewer panels won't bring the cost down tremendously.

At the same time, tax subsidies are scheduled to start phasing out, and utilities are making noises about discontinuing some of the more favorable rate plans that allow 100% net metering (generated power is credited at the full retail rate, not at the wholesale rate). Either of those changes would negatively impact ROI.

It's hard to know what will happen in the future, but with the current environment, many people can lock in a favorable 20-year ROI for a system today.
I would like it if I could just change what I order. The options are pretty limited right now.
Except that, as pointed out above, the utilities only pay the wholesale rate for the electricity they buy back from you, and sell the overage to your neighbors for full price. Meanwhile, you're likely losing money selling your peak day electricity for 5 cents and buying it back for 15.
You are welcome kind stranger! :)
I have not personally asked, but I think the Archive Team has. I don't know the reasons behind the policy.
It would be very surprising if it were, since it's also in co-NP. The other problems in NP intersect co-NP are all in P. It's not at all unlikely, and a lot of evidence points towards, that integer factorization is in P.
Same here, SFR.
Their vendors also don't include the roofing type. For example, I have a flat tar roof and many vendors, such as Sungevity, won't install on it. Local vendors will, but are not on the list, and require I install a new roof first. There goes the $24k in savings for buying outright!
> I haven't checked recently, but I think there now exists a bootable PCIe SSD for 2009 Mac Pros

OWC has such a thing [1].

It's a bit pricey. If you want better than the built-in SATA II, but without such a high price, they also have a PCIe card that provides a SATA III interface for a 2.5" drive that you supply and attach to the card. This card is only $60 [2]. This can be used for the boot drive.

You can also get a nice boost for external drives with a $60 PCIi card that gives you 4 external USB 3.0 ports [3]. They also have similar cards, except that instead of 4 USB 3.0, they give you 2 USB 3.0 ports and 2 eSATA III ports.

I don't think any of the USB 3.0 cards from OWC are bootable. There are bootable USB 3.0 cards available from other places [4]. The key is to get one that uses the same USB 3.0 chipset that Apple uses in later Mac Pros that had USB 3.0. From what I've read, it appears to be the Fresco Logic FL1100.

My main work machine is a 2008 8-core Mac Pro, with 18 GB of RAM and an SSD. I wish it had more RAM, but other than that it should be fine for a few more years unless the hardware break.

My main home machine is a 2009 4-core Mac Pro, with 32 GB of RAM, and SSDs for both main drive and Time Machine, and an external 1 TB mSATA SSD in a cute little case [5] for a weekly offline backup. This machine should be fine for a few more years unless the hardware breaks, especially if I toss in one of those USB 3.0 cards mentioned above, and maybe that SATA III card for the boot drive.

I wish I had more RAM in the work machine, but I messed the window on that. That's one thing to watch out for when using a machine long term. The price for a given RAM technology tends to start off high and then drop and stay low for a while...and then it tends to rise again as production is cut. Due to this, it often makes sense not to max out a machine when it is still fairly new--just get what you reasonably need. Then add RAM when the price drops. Usually at some point the price is low enough that it is cheap to max it out.

With my work Mac Pro I waited too long. I upped the RAM in that and the home Mac Pro at the same time, and it turned out taking the home one from something like 12 GB to 32 GB cost considerably less than taking the work one from around 8 GB to 18 GB!

[1] https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsi...

[2] https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury-Accelsi...

[3] http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/USB34PM...

[4] ...maybe. The web is not entirely consistent as to whether or not this is actually true. Also, check OS compatibility. Some of these are not compatible with Yosemite!

[5] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LRZPNHM?psc=1&redirect=t...
I'm slow-rolling my new application. Please let me know if you have any feedback, feature requests, likes, and dislikes. Regards, @philiprferreira
NLRB Dismissed Petition by College Athletes Players Associations
That's fun, but the whole point of neural networks is to train them against data, not tweak the weights by hand. Hand-tuning a neural network is not done much - it's like setting raw filter parameters by hand.
The hilariously sad part is there is no technical reason this feature isn't available. Just change the ASIN the button buys.
I enjoyed Coursera's two part Algorithms: Design and Analysis series. For me the additional structure of the time box is useful. It's also helpful to have a cohort to discuss the exercises with. Unlike the Sedgewick course, it is language agnostic, so it is also an opportunity to learn more about any language.
Video Drill Review – Video Drill Demo and Bonus
From the abstract:

'We find no evidence, by contrast, that experts can effectively assess the commercial potential of venture ideas in non-R&D-intensive sectors such as consumer web and enterprise software. Finally, we find that industry-specific and scientific expertise is not critical to experts’ collective ability to predict ventures’ commercial viability.'
Show HN: Jumpstart - Let's improve new developer on-boarding in open source
It reminds me of that old saw falsely attributed to W E Deming, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it". I often see it come up on twitter, usually quoted by people whose... managerial ambitions I would prefer thwarted for the greater good :P

On the contrary Deming himself was very aware of this effect, and explicitly cautioned against running a company on just the numbers.
Having some side projects, being active in communities (Stack Overflow, Github), and having a constant thirst for learning new technologies have been the keys to developing my skills and acquiring jobs in startups.
15 milestones to create a worldwide API in 18 months
really cool! is the source on github?
Hi Mz, a thought — perhaps your theories can be presented in a video or lecture, live or filmed. This would possibly be good, fast, cheap alternative in order to get your movement started.

I wish you the best of luck.
The code in the GitHub repository [1] is pretty interesting to look around in.

[1] https://github.com/01org/acat
You could organize a project to run under the Genetic Rescue Foundation's umbrella. We're currently sequencing the genome of the extinct moa. http://blog.scienceexchange.com/2015/06/sequencing-the-genom... .

We're also proposing to sequence the genomes of all 125 remaining kakapo. https://www.geneticrescue.science/projects/genome-sequencing... . If you have a conservation project in mind we can help you to publicize and crowdfund it if necessary.

So you can help out by organizing your own conservation project or by getting involved with our existing projects. Email info at geneticrescue.science to continue the conversation. Thank you for your interest!
I know you wouldn't cut high-voltage wiring, but I know at least on a Tesla there's a low-voltage loop exposed for firefighters to cut, which then isolates the high-voltage system as well as disabling the air bags and such. That's shown on page 10-13 here:

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/en_...

I have no idea if this is a common thing or not. Anyway, thanks for the PDF, very interesting stuff. Assuming the car is energized seems sensible. Even with a loop like Tesla has, I imagine you can't count on that having the intended effect after the car has crashed.
Not so. Without the ability to implement or simulate a stack, a language cannot be Turing complete. Otherwise, that limits the computational power to that of a finite-state machine. Even so, being able to implement a stack is not sufficient, because pushdown automata are defined as finite-state machines combined with a stack, and PDA's are a proper subset of Turing-complete languages. Given that a CPU in this case could be stateless or have a limited number of states, that does not change the class of language.

Anyway, I see the author has implemented arrays now, and more specifically dynamically-sized arrays, so I will concede that it is Turing complete. That wasn't really the intent of my post, as there are other ways to devise a language, but cool none the less.

For a view of the classes of languages in computation, see this hierarchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy#The_hierarch...
Here, the set of languages that Turing machines recognize are labeled as recursively enumerable languages.
I'm not sure, but I doubt it. You could order two or three and check for yourself.

According to a stack exchange discussion [1] duplicate MAC addresses could result from spoofing, a mistake during manufacturing, or willful negligence on the part of the manufacturer. I'd expect Amazon to follow the standards.

[1] http://serverfault.com/questions/462178/duplicate-mac-addres...
"Under duress" seems to be a somewhat fuzzy classification, but most of these necessities have either very low costs for switching to another counterparty (if I don't like one grocer's offer, there are plenty of others around I can go to instead on the spot) or some limitation on what they can require (e.g., no kicking a tenant out without a month's notice). At-will employment seems to be the odd one out here, in that switching to a new job normally takes quite a bit of time and hassle.
Your first team after hiring can be a bit arbitrary - you aren't cut out of the decision loop, but as an outsider it is impossible for you to know enough to make an informed decision.

Every team after that is your choice with full access to information. Google has a thriving internal job market.
Video Drill Review – Video Drill Demo
Sorry if this is obvious, but why does the pseudocode above actually run in nondeterministic polynomial time? What exactly is this "guess" function (is it just a random number, or do we not know what it is?) ? Is that a guessing black box reusable for all problems?

As a side question (sorry probably newbie question), why can't we just use nondeterministic turing machines to achieve what we want? (i.e. introduce optional randomness at the circuit level)
That would work best as a watch "complication". Pulling phone out, turning on, finding app, tapping activity button takes too long; much easier/suitable to turn wrist, tap icon (adjacent to clock), tap activity. Good idea, if implemented with zero friction.
Take your PRN medication, press button.
There is a libre remake somewhere.
http://www.braingames.getput.com/nether/default.asp
Show HN: New LoadFocus.com UI is live
I agree with you, however the only way to really componentize (decouple) your css from the rest of the webapp is to use the shadowdom.

In Web Components writing specific CSS for a component is fine. And it wont pollute or over-rule your other css rules. Since its the shadowdom
For your selected quote of the article - this is common in many stores. My friend told me about the "year long two week sale" the store he worked at had. They had a sales rack of items that were 40% off for "two weeks". A limited time offer! In reality those items were 40% off year long. But it still helped increase sales because people thought they were getting a good deal.

That being said - I see all this talk about mattresses and expensive beds while I've slept comfortably on this for the past 4 years: http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Futon-Mattresses-...
Given this, I'd go with the C#.NET route than, as your knowledge of C++ makes C# the natural choice and finding .NET devs is not usually too difficult.

My comment on scalability and Windows is mostly based upon cost as well as most distributed software solutions that are designed to scale are primarily done not on Windows Server but on Linux of some flavor. I am also biased here as I started my career in Unix, although I spent ~8 years doing primarily Microsoft development, and am dedicated to non-microsoft environments now. In some cases when clients have demanded we deploy on Windows some of the software vendors would tell us to significantly increase the number of nodes when running on Microsoft as they found their failure rates were higher, not to mention less resource efficient. Hence cost goes up more and maintenance increases as well. And no, I wouldn't necessarily say Windows is as capable as Linux, but that may just be some bias sneaking in.
Companies frequently put out job postings with no intention of hiring anyone. Is that wrong?
Circle Medical (YC S15) Brings a Full Service Medical Practice to You
"App standby" in Android M also works for non-stationary phones. It disables services and background data for apps that you don't use for some time.

https://developer.android.com/preview/behavior-changes.html#...

I'm pretty sure that Google cares a lot about battery life, but there's no magic way to save energy, so don't expect too much from optimizations. Apps, not the OS, use most of the energy for CPU, screen and radio time. The new features only limit the apps a bit by disabling or rescheduling background tasks.
The Vocoder [video]
>Civilization

Could be done

>The Sims
There is a home simulator for the C64 I think.
discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10072188
Thuy is one of the most hard-working entrepreneurs I know. Having been in the same batch as 500 with her 2 years ago, I have seen the hours she puts in, as well as the distance she goes with employees to make sure they are learning and seeking their own best potential.

Definitely an impressive human being and founder.
How are these agreements anything less than the end of national sovereignty?
Very nice. I was somewhat aware of the materials they provide, but I didn't know that video existed. I'm kind of impressed they sacrificed a car for it (although I suppose many of the valuable spare parts remained untouched).
"By clicking "sign up," you agree to your credit card immediately being charged $29."

So far so good. How about terms and conditions and a privacy policy?

People would love to know what you do with their data before one signs up. You could be selling search terms to rivals... ;)
Piracy gave me a future
Will we be programming in twenty years?
6 Essential Things to Do When Making a Mobile Game
So no one really knows? I guess going with your gut would be the best answer here.
I really admire Netflix's ability to put together developer documentation for their open source projects. I think it reflects well on their engineering culture.

I was similarly impressed when I was reading the documentation for Hystrix, which seems to share some functionality with Falcor, like request batching and caching.

The path syntax is very readable and obviously plays to JavaScripts strengths as a dynamic language. However, I would gladly pay the cost of more cumbersome syntax to recover static analyzability through a tool like Flow or TypeScript. With Observables in particular, the ability to track the type of the value inside the Observable is really convenient.
Monetizing Windows Phone Games: Interstitial Ads vs. Banner Ads
Rough bill of materials is probably around 3-5 dollars (I searched online and found low power wifi chips in bulk at around 2-3 dollars). I'd estimate 10-15 dollars after R&D, assembly, packaging, shipping, etc. Does that seem reasonable?
What Can Brands Learn from the #ILookLikeAnEngineer Campaign?
This is a cool post, but I hope it doesn't get him blackballed by any of the mentioned companies.