skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Great article Patrick. In particular, I liked where you mentioned doing external API calls asynchronously. I hadn't thought of that in the past and I know I'll be doing that in the future.
The Second Law of Organization
ADD Isn't Just for Kids. Why Adults Are Now Being Diagnosed, Too.
Simple Advice for Youngins Pt. 1:  Your Media Career = Frogger
I have hired a lot of contractors over the years, and I must say that if one of them pitched this to me I would likely walk away.

I thought this at first, as well. However, after reading the advice about only using "long-time customers" for this approach.

1) Only applies to a long time (happy) customer...and:

2) Said project should be appropriate for this sort of billing method. And will often vary, but I think he got it right. It should be a project that is important to the business where quoting and billing is difficult to nail down.

An example from my past: I used to do network config/wiring/support work for a small firm. They found out that I also wrote software and asked for my assistance on a small, very important, project in an area that was not my expertise (an EDI system). They didn't ask me for an up-front quote due to our previous business relationship. They did, however, gave me a short, hard deadline.

I billed them two hours instead of the twenty or so it took me to figure out the problem because I was inexperienced in the technologies they used. They volunteered a $1000 bonus to me on its completion.

I learned later that the short deadline was to give them enough time to pass the work off to a well known company that could easily get it done, but had quoted them north of $10,000.

I'm not complaining. This company and a few others that I did regular odd jobs for made my college years reasonable.

Really, all you're doing here is leveraging the relationship you have with a customer and the circumstances of the job are largely going to determine whether or not it would work or, as you put it, come of as naive and lacking confidence.

This customer knew from my past work that I was a little less expensive than most of their other options and yet I did quality work. They also knew I was going to school and -- like an employee of their company -- had to give me incentive to take on more work when it was necessary. I needed them, they needed me. In the case of this small assignment outside of my area of expertise, they saw underpaying me as more to their disadvantage.

I was shocked to receive the unsolicited bonus, but I'm willing to bet it would have been more than $1000 if I had just said "I don't know how to bill this. Pay me what you think it's worth" to this particular customer.
> If this were about, say, weight resistance training, would you expect to have bigger muscles after this program?

Yes, absolutely, and you will have better muscles. You can have big changes in performance in a few days if you spend more time per day (but whether your muscles look bigger maybe not).
quite right .. its like a first impression, so it should be creative enough to capture attention
I wonder if the language barrier will restrict it to Japanese nationals. A lot of ambitious would-be founders will be stopped by the application form.

http://www.onlab.jp/guidelines.html

China might have a better shot at getting truly competitive applicant pools, but an awful lot of founders around the world work in English.
An investment of fourteen hours of training over five weeks does result in some changes:

Changes in Cortical Dopamine D1 Receptor Binding Associated with Cognitive Training

McNab et al. Science 6 February 2009: 800-802

Working memory is a key function for human cognition, dependent on adequate dopamine
neurotransmission. Here we show that the training of working memory, which improves working
memory capacity, is associated with changes in the density of cortical dopamine D1 receptors.
Fourteen hours of training over 5 weeks was associated with changes in both prefrontal and
parietal D1 binding potential. This plasticity of the dopamine D1 receptor system demonstrates a reciprocal interplay between mental activity and brain biochemistry in vivo.

http://www.klingberglab.se/pub/McNab2009.pdf
BDD: The Twitter Pitch
The Elevator pitch is so old-school, what counts in our social-networked age is the twitter pitch.
Recently Dan North was challenged to give his twitter pitch for Behavior Driven Development (BDD).
Unfortunately it interprets everything as a circuit diagram.
In the weight-training case, you'd probably see some difference between the group that did 10 mins of lifting 3x a week for 6 weeks, and the group that did none at all, wouldn't you? It sounds like they were hoping to find a smallish but measurable increase which they could then use to speculate on what would happen over a longer period.
Standardized tests don't stunt the curriculum, they merely define it. They force an "inflexible notion of what is worth knowing" only as much as a syllabus does.

For example, I'm forced to teach eigenvalues, but I don't get to teach about linear programming, even though I think linear programming is well worth knowing. That's because eigenvalues are on the syllabus, but not linear programming. This would not change if someone else, rather than me, designed my final exam.

All standardization does is give you a mechanism for comparing my students to yours.

Obviously you don't use a standardized test for research credits. But you do use it for already known material taught in class. In fact, many graduate schools do exactly this - the standardized exams are called "written qualifying exams."
In Magical Market Robot Monkey Land, yes.
"Some will even charge you for their beta releases."

I love the SproutCore versus Cappuccino battle. Two frameworks enter, one framework leaves.
Actually, Rakudo Star is probably about two months off at the moment. Q2 was the originally announced timeframe, then April was batted about, but the lead developer has had major family health issues taking up his time, so we elected to push it back towards the tail-end of Q2.

On the other hand, it's already a pretty good time to play with Rakudo Perl 6. It's still got some rough edges, and it's slow, but it's also expressive and powerful.
Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's no less relevant who dropped the iPhone than who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

The story in this case was that an iPhone prototype was found after being lost. The key thing here was the prototype itself, not the person who lost it. Contrast with the Plame case, where the central question was who leaked the information and why; your assertion simply doesn't hold up.

They in fact mentioned many times that it could happen to anyone.

Which supports the thesis that the identity of the specific person it happened to is irrelevant to the story.

It's also standard operating procedure in journalism to name who.

When it's relevant or adds to the understanding of the story, yes. You've not explained how it meets either of those criteria, though.

So I'll lay out the question clearly: what do we gain, in terms of understanding this story, from having the guy's name repeatedly tossed out for ridicule, that we wouldn't have without it?

And what do we gain from stories like this?

http://gizmodo.com/5520669/it-was-gray-powells-birthday

It's not that Gizmodo did anything wrong, which they clearly didn't, at least not in naming him.

It's quite clear that they did several things wrong. This wasn't good journalism; it wasn't ethical; parts of it quite probably weren't legal. If you can't see the problems here, I'm not sure how much more clearly I can explain.
yet ;)
FWIW, I implemented inertial scrolling (or flinging) on the timelines at http://www.preceden.com. You're welcome to check out the JavaScript if you're interested in implementing something similar.

It was exciting to set up... really brings you back to high school pyhsics.
Video: Selecting hair with Refine Edge in CS5
It's understandable though. That level of customization requires an increase in dev resources, QA resources, turnaround time, bugs. And the payoff only pleases a small percentage of your users who probably aren't making a purchase decision based on that functionality alone (it's nice if it's there but it may not cause you buy something else). So, understandable that they may want to focus resources on more important features.
He's also subtly lying. The implication in his statement is that porn apps are allowed in the Android Market, which is false and I'm sure Steve knows it's false. See the android developer content policy here: http://www.android.com/us/developer-content-policy.html.
Honestly, I would be more interested in hearing about Google's requests of government data.

For example, the fact that they have tax parcel information showing up on the map in my neighborhood means that they also have the amount of taxes I paid, my name, and property value. I know this is all public information, but an "ordinary citizen" would have to walk to the courthouse and pay $1/page for a printed copy of the city records and then scan it back in. Did they really do this throughout the country?
I guess it depends on what kind of porn you like to view? :-)
Study: Frequent password changes are useless
I don't agree with this statement at all. Look at how many photosharing sites there are. Are you saying on Flickr or Photobucket can have viable businesses and the rest should just keep over and die. There are tons of nice little "Italian restaurants" of photosharing on the net that can have perfectly viable businesses. Look at SmugMug.

Another example is video sharing sites. By your statement, if you are not Youtube or looking to be 10x better than YT, you should just call it quits and forget it, but look at all the other video sites - CollegeHumor, Justin.tv, Vimeo, etc.
So you think the government will go after the google employee because they are going public to support Google? Have you heard any Google Chinese employee "reportedly" supporting the employer and bashing Chinese government, even those living in US?

Do you know the full story of the 40 people in jail for criticizing the government? Do you know the population in China? Do you know how many people are jailed in US because of Patriot Act, with no reason and no trial?
I wonder if Apple has grounds to legally fire him.

It's probably a good opportunity for Apple to handle this case with delicacy and earn more brownie points.
Loops are just special cases of recursion.

And binary search is definitely not the right operation on linked lists. So even in Lisp you should use a different data structure if you want to do a binary search.
ya you right bro .. there are many lists around ...
Hold Common Lisp next to Perl 5, and you tell me which one has "a lot" of syntax.

I realize that Lisp has some syntax, and of course the fact that everything fits into S-exps is important, but I would not say that it has "a lot" of syntax compared to the vast majority of active languages.
To me, saying "rockstar" would imply the following positives:
an otherwise-inexplicable charisma, resonance-with and/or understanding-of what the average person wants, and an employer who pays commensurate with the employee, not the job

"Rockstar" definitely carries the baggage of being highly-associated with douchebags and prima-donnas. But it's not all negative.
Google gravity – a cool browser experiment
Google gravity – a cool browser experiment - a creative use of javascript though
Let me guess, you've never been to China and you don't know anybody who grow up in China.
Most of the initial quick gains in weight training are related to gaining the skill needed to coordinate your muscles correctly to do say a bench press. Adding muscle requires patience - gaining 10-15lbs of muscle per year is about as good as it gets without steroids, and that's with training hard and eating right all year too.
They've been afraid of this before.

From http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china... :

<blockquote>Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.</blockquote>
Hitler “Downfall Meme” gets taken down
I'm the co-founder of the company mentioned. Feel free to let me know if you have questions, whether they're business-related or technical.

We're treated as a barter exchange by the IRS, and play by the rules set forth in there. Namely, transactions are treated as taxable, and we're required to provide 1099B forms to all involved parties at tax time.

Also, we're located at http://dibspace.com
Risk and Startups
> you are quite obviously just putting different skins on the same semantics

That was exactly my intention. Translating "at the deeper semantic level" is reserved for actual compilation. Now you may be right about syntax being useful for differentiating languages. My stance right now is that we should try (or look at the failed attempts you speak of, do you have any link?).

Testing my idea will require quite a bit of work: I need to write a compiler and an IDE with some kind disciplined editing. I also will have to bootstrap all this stuff, so it passes the minimum credibility threshold. If I ever get to this point, I will (at last) be able to test my language for actual (f)utility.
^-Author of Greenhouse, why the downvotes? I think he knows what he's talking about.
I actually saw someone who was job-hunting self-describe with "My technical experience, business knowledge, and passion for technology make me a ninja-rockstar."

Double bzzzt!
>I know this is all public information, but an "ordinary citizen" would have to walk to the courthouse and pay $1/page for a printed copy of the city records and then scan it back in.

This definitely isn't the case everywhere. My county (not a particularly tech savvy one) has it all available online on their own website, including full assessment information on the house, your name, amount you paid in taxes, etc.. You just type in the address you want. Or, you can search by name instead of address!
Tips for generating and screening ideas from Facebook, IDEO, Google, and others
It's bad if a substantial number of people feel that porn is bad, or at least claim to feel so (which is pretty much a given) and can be made to think that "porn is the only reason to prefer Android over Apple" (which the statement can be read to imply).

But I don't think that a large enough section of the general populace pays attention to Steve Jobs' every utterance to make this statement problematic in that regard. But it could be a pretty nasty way to run a reverse astroturfing campaign.
C'mon. Who didn't dream of becoming a rockstar.

The recording industry has used the same manipulation techniques to screw ingenuous people for ages.
Yes. You are missing the joke.
The answer is 42. The question is "What is six times nine?"
Yes, we all know that 6 * 9 is not 42. It makes no sense, and that's just part of Douglas Adams' humor.
Many people mistakenly remember the question as "six times seven", probably because it's been a long time since they've read Hitchiker's Guide.
Apple has an opportunity here: if they publicly signal their support for him, they will earn a ton of goodwill and make Gizmodo look even more idiotic. If Apple fires him, Gizmodo would have won.
In the positive sense, it refers to somebody who is looked up to with awe and respect, like a rock star. For example, DHH had something of a rockstar air when Rails was the cool new kid because everyone was in awe of the guy who created this awesome framework. What they're trying to convey with "Are you a rockstar?" is "Does everyone you work with think you are amazing in an almost unattainable way?"

It's still stupid, lazy phrasing IMO, but that seems to be people's meaning.
I know that feeling. :(
The lorem ipsum is for the templates, not the actual examples.
You join a startup knowing those risks. And yet people still do it because we know that with that risk comes a potential reward at the end. BTW, he's not asking for the perfect employee, he's asking for what every company should be asking for. If not I question why you're hiring to begin with.
Most students list difficult courses on their resume. They also ask tricky brain teasers on the first phone screen. It's not that hard to weed out the dumb ones. Students on the watered down track will never get into the front office.

I've gone on IB interviews myself, and I've spoken to students who've done the same. They do focus on conformity and big company culture (I was definitely a bad fit at Goldman), but they also aim for a great deal of intelligence.

I think you are basing your opinion more on politics and tribal identity than on facts.
Not really sure what that means. I don't think there has to be one winner, and we're glad to have more people in the market trying to realize our goal of desktop class web apps.

But let's not kid ourselves. Cappuccino has two interface builders, Atlas and nib2cib+IB. Both of these have been used to ship commercial software. nib2cib is completely free and open source, it's been out about as long as Cappuccino has, and it runs together with Interface Builder, the best in breed tool for designing interfaces for the last 20 years.

Greenhouse isn't even playing in the same game at this point.
T.imo.im
I'm the Beethoven of programmers. I don't listen to what my co-workers are saying and I always leave unfinished work.
Great story. My favorite part is the contrast between Gates' and Jobs' negotiating styles. Gates: use your pride to set a lowball effort/value frame. Jobs: imply use of Apple proprietary information, leverage reputation of stubborness.

Hertzfeld's tactic is nice, too: request a royalty for the unbundled version that Apple "would never do" -- but did.
> "Little or no honest feedback throughout the process"

THANK YOU! I hate receiving that form email that says that this job isn't a "good fit".
I agree. Just use proper objects and start internal member names with an underscore. Yeah, you cannot trust idiots not to misuse the internals, but they'll do worse with returning objects that close over function-local variables.
Those points do not refute the argument that the Chinese government might go after the employees, and Google is being careful with that. Google's position in China is sensitive given the things that happened there in the past months, and I can imagine they don't want to fuel the fire any more than necessary.
Basically what the author is saying he wants people what are smart a good, but humble, and not with narcistic traits.

What a 'rockstar' type of title might attract people that may / may not, be good, but are highly narcistic:
This paragraph is a classical npd trait:
"Do these people really want to hire self-absorbed pricks who show flashes of brilliance but generally leave mayhem in their wake? That's what a rockstar is. Selfish, demanding, unreliable, and requiring others to lavish them with adoration or they will have a tantrum and walk off the stage in the middle of the concert. Then they overdose and end up on a reality show."
The serious part of my comment was the last paragraph.

But it's certainly an interesting question: When should you adopt the latest and greatest for an existing project?
Holy Prepuce: Jesus' foreskin with miraculous healing powers.
Meguro, a Javascript Map/Reduce framework
A small javascript map/reduce framework that is built upon tracemonkey and tokyo cabinet. It is inspired by CouchDB, but can work with multiple types of input.
No, the key to Perl 6's success is to convince all of the Perl 5 developers to move on to the new language. Also, if they (the Perl coders) go on a binge and port all the CPAN libraries over to Perl 6, that will help.
I think he means that competition is good. It's been an exciting couple of years for JavaScript.
We get royalty money in the games industry. Of course it depends on the project deal, but often once the game has sold a certain number of units royalty checks start coming in. For very successful games these checks can be quite large.
It is an idiom, not a metaphor.
Ahh thanks! Was wondering this for a long time. So does that mean the google logo needs the same?
Paradox of hedonism: Pursuing happiness leads to misery
Don't forget 'deaf to everything going on around you'...another idiom falls.
estimation is a skill... it's an extremely difficult skill to master. I know I'm horrible about it. So yeah, you are right, this pitches the (difficult) job of pricing back on to the client.

However, I don't think that's always a bad idea. The thing is, as a contractor, I'm looking at the opportunity cost of the time and effort I put in to the project, right? but, as the client, you are looking at the value you get out of it. The two are almost wholly unrelated.

Now, if you've looked at how I set my prices, I generally use the 'what it costs me plus a reasonable profit' method (for me, 'reasonable profit' has to do with how long it takes to pay for my hardware, as that's basically what I'm selling.) And really, for commodity goods that have significant marginal costs in terms of investment capital required, I think that is the best and most fair way to do it. (using non-transparent and inconsistent pricing structures is a good way to get your commodity customers really, really pissed off.)

Now, I think contracting is fundamentally different from selling a commodity good. When I'm selling a commodity good, I don't really mind that my margin on each unit is a little (or even a lot) less than my competitors. I can make it up by simply selling more.

This is not true with contracting. my body has a expiration date; I mean, it's not set in stone, but my life will consist of a finite number of days, and each day I can only productively work for a small number of hours. So I really want to squeeze every bit of value out of it. So yeah; someone is going to have to do some work pricing it, either the client or the contractor. It sounds like this is one strategy for letting the contractor potentially share in some of the massive upside possible from technology work.
I'm the Jesus/Darwin hybrid of programmers. I inherit all the right things from each class.
Yes but perlmonks.org rocks anyway.
For more Mobile Safari features, check out the docs:

Offline applications and local storage:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/iPho...

HTML5 geolocation:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Appl...

Specifying icons and startup images while hiding chrome:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Appl...
Was the word "guru" involved? If so, the unholy trinity of HR buzzspeak would have been complete.
Related: an excellent debate on the social responsibility of business featuring Milton Friedman, John Mackey and T.J Rodgers

http://reason.com/archives/2005/10/01/rethinking-the-social-...
And people wonder why Rails has a juvenile reputation. Sorry, but this is just inexcusable.
Twitter A/B testing sign-up button (at least 5 versions)
Not only are kids expected to stay in school until their early/mid 20's, depriving them of necessary real-world developmental experience as discussed in the article, they are expected to accept decades' worth of debt to pay for it. The American education model is poison.
Apple reports second quarter results
The most odd thing is that Microsoft undertook this study. My experience has been that Active Directory can be made to enforce the most sadistic of password policies.
Do you have any pricing on the Portwell system?
Amazon refuses North Carolina's demands for customers' personal data
Were you really a good programmer, you'd have chosen to be a Jesus programmer with a Darwin mixin. But you didn't so now you have to worry about the diamond problem.