skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>First you say

>I received my contract...

>Then you say

>But when I got here I discovered that I'm not allowed...

On my contract there is only the non competing clause. What I mean when I say "I discovered" is that they told me so by email after coming here. It is not something written on the contract.

Asking a lawyer is exactly what I want to do now. The non competing clause in my contract is very short and in my opinion it does not enforce what they are trying to compel me to do (I don't have it with me now, but I read it several time to be sure). But that's only my opinion and I really need legal advice on this.
Looks like they just had a dry monday over at the NY Times and had to fill the empty space with something old and "sensational" :P This was taught to me 16 years ago in high school biology back home in Sweden.
Is legal action really going to help, especially when the initial contract was verbal?

Legal disputes only work well when they are between equal parties. This employer/employee relationship is far from equal.
In Germany it's a common clause in contracts. And it's valid if the work you do in your spare-time might affect the work you do for your day-job. For example because it makes you too tired to concentrate in your daily work.
Telugu-News.com - Cinema News - City Events - Andhra Recipes - Classifieds
I'm actually in the Netherlands. I will ask for legal advice to be sure.
I've always refused everything but the non-compete and "do not use company resources" clauses on the principal anything else is just rude and controlling (and missed out on a few jobs because of it).

Maybe we should, as a collective, start a campaign to drive out the most over bearing clauses!
You are out of your fricking mind -- buy the wifi SD card and the keyboard or -- buy a netbook and get a CPU, hard drive, screen, battery, etc thrown in for free.
The one thing that is difficult for people is setting up a self hosted WP blog. Us here, myself, and other tech people know how it is done; however, most people don't know the ins and outs (let's be honest, SQL isn't brain surgery).

Posterous will absolutely corner the market for socially aware businesses who want a one click solution to their blog / twitter / friendfeed / etc. I currently work in the Social Media space and I wish my clients had the foresight to jump on such a dead simple blogging platform. The export issue really isn't much of a problem either, set up a blog in tumblr or a hosted WP solution and just export it all there.
I didn't even know he was a homosexual. Nor does it matter.
Whatever happened to the New Turing Omnibus?
"I've read all of these books myself, so I have no difficulty believing that many moderately competent programmers have read them as well."

What a strange thing to say.

I've read all of the books in the "Claim To Have Read" list and only a couple in the "Have Actually Read" list. So based on my experience I have no problem believing that programmers at least as dumb as me have read the same.
Your paper contract is what matters, not the opinion of your managers.

Most contracts refer to (in the UK) the patent act of 1974 and specifically claims by an employer against work are restricted to that which they ask you to do, that which they support you in doing (financially, or with time benefits). Anything outside of those fall within your own remit and providing it's happening without their asking you to do it, and without them paying you or giving you time to do it... then anything you do is outside of work in your own time and whatever your employer says has no bearing on this.

Basically, they can control what you do at work and on their behalf... beyond that, they have zero say.

If you want to stay where you are, engage a lawyer to have this conversation with them. I pretty much had to do the same with my last employer just to make it explicit that what I created in my own time was nothing to do with them and they have no say over.
I've tried to write a space game, and let me tell you, 32 bit floating point is woefully inadequate. Unfortunately, most 3D hardware at the time was built around 32 bit floats. Those only give you about 1 in 100,000 resolution. I had to create scaled-down "billboards" for nearby celestial objects and park them 1000's of kilometers away. (When they were actually 10's or 100's of kilometers away.)

Even 64 bits wouldn't allow for a naive implementation of a realistically scaled space game. There would still have to be a lot of optimization tricks played.

EDIT: I realize that the parents posts are talking about Integers, but you can't send those directly to the GPU!
Just subscribe to HN in Google Reader and use its search function.
This is why I'm reluctant to go on a legal way. I will ask advice to be sure, but I prefer not to go in any legal struggle, since I really can't afford it now.
You say you don't have a choice, but really, you do. It's not an easy choice, but nevertheless it IS a choice. Sure, making that choice might mean going back to your country, but it's your decision to make. There's a good chance that if you (politely) threaten to walk because of that clause, they'll take it out of the contract. Have a letter of resignation written, and ready to hand them - the threat has to be credible.

Most people face these sorts of big, tough choices in life. Many let the situation make the choice for them. Those people are generally not entrepreneurs. Make a conscious decision. Make it and mean it.
> Sentience is more than just a matter of modelling, surely?

Why? What if it is the pattern that matters for sentience, not the form of the implementation, and a model captured that pattern?
Doesn't murder require intent? Are you saying that the government planned on destabili+ng him in order to make him commit suicide? Am I just thinking of murder 1?
Two Kinds of Generativity
There's one on my bookshelf, unread of course.
It is not most customizable and secure forum... but it works ;) Brilliant :D
I had a similar feeling with the OS 2.0 version of the Facebook app, the OS 3.0 version is much better. Doesn't crash when opening large photo albums, for example.
Great look at the new featureset. Thanks! Can’t wait to try it out
What is meant when using grams as force units is actually the gram-force (which is not part of the SI units). But the -force suffix is typically dropped in informal speech, so gram appears to be used as both a mass and force unit.
LOL, @indiginous welcome to HN. You will find that comments such as this just won't fly with the community. Get a better argument or attitude. (By the way, I didn't down-vote your comment, someone else did, as the original commenter cannot down-vote replies made to his/her comment)

I will entertain your reply for just a short moment.

1. Nothing is "thrown in for free" There are always cost associations. Some food for thought, that also goes for software. - A comment such as that will make your credibility for intelligent conversation go down the drain.

2. You are missing the real point of my comment above.
I love Dilbert - this cartoons from the post are brilliant =)
Apple Logo Deconstructed - Photo from Apple's Identity Guide
I am not suggesting legal action.

I am suggesting legal advice.

None of us should ever sign any contract or make any legal assumption without proper advice from an expert in this area. OP is probably no more aware of his rights and options than your customers understand how refactoring your code will affect their business.

OP acted without legal support. But it may not be too late to fix it. He needs to find that out. That is all.
Ai probleme cu creditul de la banca?
“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,”

This would explain why it's so popular for middle management type meetings. People talking about things they don't understand but are responsible for have to give the impression that they're in charge.
Analogies are a dime a dozen. If the #3 sprinter has the running shoes and water bottle that #2 is lacking ...

Interesting bit (news to me) in the original piece:

the Canadian purchased a perfectly decent operating system for future devices in early April for an estimated $200-million, when it bought a small player named QNX Software.
Just because something is edible doesn't mean it is food.
I'd suggest also watching Larry Lessig. He puts almost no information on any individual slide, but he gets his meaning across with about 4 slides per minute. He often repeats slides for emphasis.

In a tech talk, you'll never quite match his style. But getting halfway there can improve many talks.
Don't get me wrong. I want one. A jet-pack. Although owning an A380 would be really cool.

Now I just have to convince my wife.
Also, if you are a member of a union, they will probably have someone look over your contract for you for free. And if you get into a legal dispute, they can provide help. If you're not a member, you can probably join one for about 10€/month.
Top 5 mistakes made by software development managers.
I'd say they suck because the authors cared about specific issues other than making the implementation not suck (which I guess means fast performance performance?).

But how does lua bears lisp inheritance in its implementation?
IIRC lua does not use pointer tagging which is a typical lispism, uses tables for everything, has no lists, and uses a different approach for implementing closures.

Are you thinking of LuaJIT(2) ?
Wow, glad I don't live in Germany then. So do they also forbid late night snacks, because it might cause you to sleep poorly and be to tired to work?
How can you tell the study wasn't double blined? The article gives so little information, I'm not even sure where to find the original study or if it has been published.
I also round 1 kilogram-force to 10 Neutons.

Unless you are trying to hit another planet, you'll be fine.
Harvard Business School Study Shows that Angel Investing is King
In their recently published landmark study, Professors Josh Lerner and William Kerr were able to demonstrate that on the whole, angel-backed companies enjoy performance gains of 30-50% when compared to other non-funded startups. Their paper is meticulously researched, invoking in one instance Hammurabi's Code itself to underscore the ancient provenance of individuals making equity investments in high-risk ventures. A great deal of the data analyzed was derived from the actual practices and outcomes of both the Tech Coast Angels (Southern California) and the CommonAngels (Boston).
Forex Trading Account
This website is for newcomers to Forex investing - it attempts to clarify things for the newbie.
From Panic's website i can see these guys have fun at work!
The worst is that cheap food usually tastes great... :)
Confirms my belief that the iPad is for consumption and a laptop/netbook for production.

EDIT: of course the question then is if an ordinary user can do with an iPad most of the time or not.

When you look at a user generated site there's a 90/9/1-rule, that is, 90% of visitors are viewers only, 9% comment or rate or make small contributions and 1% create stuff.

Perhaps a similar division can be seen in how we use the internet during a day. 90% of the time we only consume - then an iPad is fine. It's the the other 10% we need a laptop with a keyboard.
"The keyboard is hunt-and-peck."

Not for me. Only if I'm lying down or carrying it in one hand. In fact, my one-handed typing speed at this point is probably faster on the iPad than it would be on a netbook, simply because I have gotten used to using completion and I can glide over the virtual keyboard with minimal motions, not worrying about exerting enough force to depress real keys.

If I am sitting down, I can type at full speed on the iPad keyboard in landscape orientation.
It's also very common in the US, but it's largely unenforceable unless the company can demonstrate a legitimate conflict of interest. (IANAL)
I'd be hard pressed to stay with that company.
Everybody Needs An Evil Plan ~ Hugh MacLeod
Ask HN: Diplomacy Tips
Dear Abby (ha ha - I'm such a comedian),

I'm a programmer, and I recognize I don't have a very good mind for business. I was recently approached by an old friend of mine about participating in a startup. He already had a business plan, had several investors that were interested, and seemed to know his stuff - so we seemed like a good match to work together. I agreed to work without pay until there was more money, but I was promised 33% equity, maybe 30% since our most promising investor at the time wanted 10%. I began doing the site, but quickly informed them that I would need more details of what they wanted before I could go further, and that I really needed my role to be on paper - I was told that they trusted my ideas, and I should do what I think is best. Within a couple of weeks I found out that there was yet another 'partner', and my share was down to 20%, and even more frustrating - I kept being told conflicting things about what they wanted in the web-app, and being told that what I had done wasn't what they wanted. As politely as I could, informed them that I was happy to work with them, but would be unable to do any further work until my role was on paper, and my compensation/ownership was satisfactorily defined. I left it for a couple of weeks, understanding that they've been busy finishing school, etc... I was told that when this semester was over, we would sit down one day, incorporate, and I could ask for all the specifications I wanted. In the mean time, I specifically told them that until we had an agreement, the code was mine, and it would be wise for them to assume they had no code until I had specifications and owned something. I even sent them a contract and said if this is what you want, sign it, if not, I need to know what you want.

I got an email last night informing me that an incubator they applied to had asked for a demo, and they had said, "Yes, we'll upload it!" It's become apparent that 2 of the other partners have done absolutely nothing, no one has put anything paper other than my constant requests to do so, and they have ignored all my messages regarding what needs to happen before we can have a decent demo.

I realize I shouldn't have even worked this long, and I plan on absolute refusal to do anything until this is resolved, but any tips? I'd really like the project to go forward, if nothing else so I have my name on a really cool project with no NDA attached. But I no longer feel comfortable doing business with this group, however they don't seem to understand that if I leave, the code goes with me, no matter how bluntly I say it. Incidentally, they have no physical access to the code - my main problem is how to resolve this diplomatically, and how to do it in a way that the business might have a chance.
Nook outnumbers Kindle in March, says Digitimes Research
Which netbook comes with IPS screen? What's the typical battery life?
It's a game. People are having fun. Playing golf is also pretty pointless when you think about it.

Relax, nobody is suggesting this is how you are supposed to write all your code.
Rebooting Your Job
This seems to be the best buyer for Palm from my perspective. HTC and others are currently selling popular Android devices and there's little sense for HTC to sell Android, Windows Mobile, and an HTC owned webOS to consumers. RIM, on the other hand, could use Palm much like Apple used NeXT. webOS could become the foundation of the next generation of BlackBerry devices. It provides the same all-in-one experience that RIM does on a more modern platform. They would just need to integrate it with the tools that business people buy BlackBerries for. Combined with the BlackBerry name, it could go far.

Other manufacturers have already cast their lot with Android and it wouldn't make sense for them to offer both Android and webOS since they would have to keep pouring money into webOS development rather than getting mostly free Android development. And, to be frank, consumers have shown that they prefer Android. RIM is really the company whose weight could change that. A "BlackBerry" webOS running with one of RIM's keyboards and integrating with their Enterprise Server could do well in terms of market-share.
That's funny -- I've been reading HN for a long time and am aware that most comments are left by lonely idiots with super low IQs. I've tried to adjust for that, but even so your position is even more inane than most. Keep trying. :-)
Works great for me. (5.0.342.9)
If it's not in your contract, it doesn't exist for the purposes of law. That's good, because it means they can't take claim of any IP from your startup (which is the most important thing). The common wisdom in the US is that if you don't use your employer's time, resources, or equipment, and you don't compete materially with them, you're fine.

That being said, at least in the US, employment is at-will, and companies can fire you for pretty much any reason. Arguably, a side business is a large distraction. For example, what happens if someone needs support during business hours?
Uh, actually I did not think about this.
I think I will temporarily remove the link from my profile, just in case.
Review: Vampire Origins for iPhone, a chilling gothic horror survival
Anything insufficient with site:news.ycombinator.com ?
Like someone else said in another thread big company managers do never look for productivity but for how to rule the world
I read Design Patterns (GoF) and actually tried to write a text editor the way it describes it and found that it made selection really really difficult, so I had to find my own solution.

But I really grew fond of the Visitor Pattern, because you can do a lot with very little code.

Computer Graphics is the best school for Object Oriented thinking, I've found.
Yet another article saying "Powerpoint sucks" without offering any alternatives.
From the OP, it sounds like it wasn't even in the contract.

I understand non-compete clauses, but this doesn't seem to apply here.
Privilege Pulls Qatar Toward Unhealthy Choices
When people recommend an app that is just a substitute for a website, it confirms my impression that Safari is not that great on the iPad. I used to think this was the case on the iPhone solely because of screen size, but if apps are still better on the iPad I guess not.
These scientists do understand we have been genetically modifying our crops since the day we decided agriculture was a good idea.
I wasn't familiar with Grooveshark, and I'm having trouble figuring out their licensing arrangement.

For example, they have quite a few tunes by Pink Floyd, who have instructed EMI to keep their music off of iTunes, Spotify, and all other sites which would allow "per-song" downloading or streaming-- they want to keep the integrity of the albums intact.

This, coupled with the bits of the Grooveshark FAQ like "All of the music on Grooveshark is uploaded by the users!" makes me think that Grooveshark is not long for this world, once the RIAA discovers them.
Interesting info. When I have talked to authors to bring their work to Fifobooks, many were not even aware of the nook.
One-liners should be avoided at all costs.
That can fail to locate a newer post, leading to a repost.

I also suspect it doesn't index everything, at least sometimes I can't find an older post and its either them or my brain, so I blame google.
> "The best signal we’ve seen from Lunokhod 2 in several years of effort is 750 return photons, but we got about 2,000 photons from Lunokhod 1 on our first try."

I was trained as a physicist and I'm still impressed by astronomers' ability to learn things from countably small numbers of individual photons that make it through a telescope.
I believe this is the original study: http://oagb.ru/lib.php?txt_id=12292

Alas, I cannot read it. Nevertheless, the way the story is told in the article, it is clear that this was not blinded. It is possible that the article was both clear and incorrect, I admit. (Also, I don't know what you mean by double-blinded in an animal study.)

From the scientist interviewed in the article, it is difficult to tell if the animals were even randomized, though I assume they were.

The last paragraph gives away the political nature of this experiment: "They suggest implementing the project, 'Safety Gene Technology' at the innovation centre, 'Skolkovo' which is being set up near Moscow."

Update: the Russian livejournal author's page is Google-translatable, and she states that this study was not even single-blinded. And she points out that this could all be an inbreeding effect, since not enough information is given in the study to rule that out.
No. These guys don't need jobs. They obviously need education and also to stop posing as scientists unless they adhere to acceptable standards.
> On my contract there is only the non competing clause.

If that is all there is then they don't have much legal grounds to limit you like this.

It depends on how they define competing though as to whether this affects your startup or not - if your doing iPhone work for them it may count (that's probably why it's worth talking to a lawyer to find out).

Anything else (non-competing work, outside consultancy and open source code) is irrelevant - unless it comes under employment laws for the country (highly unlikely).
World chess championship - live coverage (Game 3)
Your comment is biased towards production in the narrow context of computers/web browsing. That sort of activity, for most people, requires a computer keyboard, which the iPad lacks, so it's a foregone conclusion.

There are other sorts of activities that do not have a computer keyboard as the most efficient input method.

http://hexler.net/software/touchosc
Seriously. This is merely a precursor to what you'll experience in coming months if you stick around. Their policy against outside development is a symptom of diseased thinking, and if you have diseased thought dictating policy, things never work out for the better.

Your current employer should be considered an enemy to your well-being and you need to find new employment post-haste.
I've always wondered why this isn't used... perhaps because if you can't figure out site:whatever on google you're not a hacker?

Still, it's easy to implement and certainly better than nothing.
Do you have a sister who might be into running an iPhone startup?
May I ask what you gain from calling him inane without any arguments to back up the point?
There’s Something About Apple… And Other Essential News
As news goes, last week was pretty exciting. There was the iPhone 4g debacle, the leak of details regarding Dell’s new smartphones, and Apple’s quarterly financial release, among others. When it comes to the mobile space, one thing is becoming clear, this is still anyone’s game.
couldn't you just continue to work on the project during your own time and simply not disclose the fact that you are?
Mc Nealy banned all Microsoft products at Sun, period. It was much more of an emotional decision than a rational one, and all it did was force thousands of employees to go through bureaucratic hell to receive exemptions just so they could get their work done. Yes, I was there, and it was one of Mc Nealy's comically horrible decisions as a CEO (he made many more).

And then, the next step was trying to find a Windows machine... Some employees sometimes had to go to a different building just to fill expense reports.

Good times.
Are comments included in HN's feed?
I hadn't thought of that one!
So you're saying my gay partner should not be allowed to adopt my biological kid to provide a stable legal environment?

In another scenario, isn't it better for a gay child in foster care to be adopted by gay parents than by straight parents?

When you say "peer pressure", is that just a euphemism for bullying?
The Facebook app is able to do things the web interface can't.
If you don't have the time to read the whole article

Quick summary :

- subsidized cheap food has adverse health effects and health care is expensive

- affects the ecological system and is not sustainable

- animals raised in meat factories have to be fed a lot of antibiotics that have consequences on human health.