skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I use Chrome instead of FF despite the address bar. Other annoyances:

- Address you enter disappears when you hit enter, doesn't reappear until the page loads. This is a problem if the page spins for a long time; it can be indistinguishable from a total failure.

- Type-ahead will occasionally find matches like "ha" -> "Hacker News" despite the address being "news.ycombinator.com" which is good, but... When you type the "c", that result will disappear! It's really unpredictable and that makes it hard to use.

- The status bar's "..." replacement can be good, but it occasionally elides the important part of an address, like "...blogspot.com/..." Not useful.

That said, Chrome is vastly more usable (on OS X) than FF just because of its speed and stability. I only use FF for Firebug now.
Thanks. I do have to say that most of the programs you mentioned didn't exactly help me get a better view of semi-large-scale projects in K, the Krav Maga tracker is at least a step in the proper direction (non-trivial GUI, configuraiton, storing and reading data etc.). I'll work through that after work a bit...
How many people would pay an application fee for such a program? Founders Institute application fee is $50.00

Note: I am considering applying for my start-up.
This article is bit off the mark. The "Sunk Cost Fallacy" is to continue pouring resources into a venture because of an irrational desire to get back your initial investment. The fallacy part is that new investment will help recover old lost investment, even when it will more likely just be lost as well. A more rational investor sees that the previous investments aren't the best place to put the new resources, and instead should look for new opportunities.

So, while much of the effort that's gone into JS over the years could be considered sunk cost, it's probably not YOUR sunk cost, (so you aren't irrationally motivated), and JS itself is a bright, growing ecosystem.

What keeps JS in the lead now has nothing to do with sunk cost, but it's early success and the network effect. It's well known, has lots of apps written for it, and is ubiquitous. It's successful because it's successful and continues to be.
I like the idea that Boomers haven't been reproducing enough (although with 3 children I feel like I've done my part).

As a tail-end Boomer, I don't see current 20-somethings as "lazy and incompetent", but I know that my peers and I discuss the fact that Gen-Y seems to be motivated by different things than we were. In the context of the original discussion about job-hopping, I don't have any problem accepting that members of Gen-Y have different attitudes toward tenure in a particular job. However, as I mentioned in comments for a related posting, the issue from the employer's perspective isn't really whether they agree with your values, but whether they perceive hiring you as a good investment.

The costs of hiring someone are such that most companies want to be able to rely on the individual to stay in the role for at least 2 or 3 years. Furthermore, your value to the company increases rapidly as you gain experience in their particular business - they don't want to see that value walk out the door. Other posters in this discussion have suggested that the answer is for companies to make the job more interesting/rewarding, so that people will stay. I don't disagree with that - creating an environment that attracts and retains the best people is a critical success factor for IT organizations that I've worked with. However, when making a decision to hire, the employer can only consider the candidate's past track record, not some possible future where either the company or the candidate change behaviour.

I think this discussion may really be two separate questions: (1) is it reasonable for companies to discriminate against perceived "job-hoppers" when hiring, and (2) should companies adjust their practices to retain good employees? My answer to both would be a qualified "yes", although from some of the comments it seems like there are some people who would not stay at a company for more than a year or two regardless of the company's retention practices.
"to make the correspondence between the program (spread out in text space) and the process (spread out in time) as trivial as possible". Most programmers read programs as plain source most of the time, ie not as macroexpanded source. If editors showed macroexpanded source code by default, things would be different. Also macroexpansion does in practice affect the ability of the compiler to highlight what line caused the error, or the ability to step through code intuitively (you are stepping through macroexpanded code and sometimes its tiresome to be able to intuitively understand how that relates to code that you wrote).
This article makes it seem like Spolsky had way more to do with the founding/creation of StackOverflow than he actually did. Jeff Atwood was the visionary behind Stackoverflow / StackExchange, and (as a far bigger "voice" in computing than Joel ever was) the guy who built initial consensus/mindshare. Spolsky was (at best) just along for the ride, at least initially.
Just upgraded and almost immediately had to file a bug report. Flash video will not play in anything but full screen, and getting to said fullscreen requires about mouse clicks in quick succession.

I'm running OS X 10.6.3 on dual quad-core xeon (Nehalem 8 Core) Mac Pro with 6gb ram. Chrome is my default browser, and while I am part of the Youtube Html5 Beta, the inconvenience is rather large. Flash apps are a no-go entirely as they will not render.
In other news, Korea's GDP is expected to plummet starting around July 28th.
Adblock: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepj...
RSS reader: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/search?itemlang=&q=... (yes, not built in, but quite easy to install ;) )
At least once a day. More often in summer or if I'm doing sports that day. Vast majority of people I know the showering habits of are the same.
{{cn}}
This is certainly interesting; lately I've been wondering something similar: what software engineering techniques might also be found in genes or brains in nature. This could be summed up as "Does the brain have subroutines?"

I'm not sure you can take the conclusions in the article at face value, though: they seem to be hinting that Linux (or software in general) would be "more robust" if it were organized more like the control structure in the E. Coli genes, where there were many more "low-level" instructions with less "code reuse". But this is just a trade-off that is well known to any programmer: when you have a new situation, do you try to make existing subroutines handle the extra case, or do you cut/paste code into a new subroutine so that changes to it don't break existing things? One has to wonder how much of the difference here is due to different ways changes must be made: in the genes, random changes good and bad are sorted out by natural selection - there is extra pressure to keep things from affecting each other needlessly. (To be fair they do touch on this in the article.) In a program, a human has to go make changes manually, so there is a reason to not spread things out needlessly. What I'm getting at is this may not reflect whether one is "better design" than the other, but simply that they are the product of different circumstances.

But another concern I have is how do we know the design of the E. Coli control structure only reflects what is physically practical rather than what the genome would logically prefer to have: maybe it duplicates the lowest level worker subroutines not because that is a better design for it, but simply because further reuse is not possible in this setting, lacking the range of abstractions available to a programmer. (For instance, imagine if the genes represent a language that has only goto for control and no stack (therefore no recursion): this may be the best that can be done under limited circumstances; limits we don't have in high level languages.)

On the Linux kernel side, I think the level of abstraction at which the code is viewed has a big affect. I think we are viewing the "machine code" when we view DNA, but the Linux code was analyzed at a higher level. Particularly, wherever there is an inline function or macro used, it will look like one low-level routine reused many times from a high level view, but if you looked at the machine code it would not be reuse of a low level routine - the instructions would be duplicated instead. Perhaps if the compiled binary machine code of Linux kernel were analyzed instead, it would show almost an identical structure to the E. Coli gene with far more bottom level "worker subroutines"!
You get a free copyright violation thrown in, awesome.

I could be wrong he may have sought permission to copy the theme and reissue the theme music, I just didn't see a "licensed from ..." notice.
Software rating odors
The Economist redraws the map of Europe
Do they also have corrupt politicians? Regulatory limits? Entrenched social interests? Complex interpersonal relations? Arcane budgetary practices? Campaign demands? Lawyers?

Limits on municipal efficiency are far more often social then technological. For a trivial illustration, watch "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" on Hulu. It shows, on a sub-sub-domain, the role that regulations, entrenched powers, lazy participants, and disinterested constituents play in preventing sweeping and self-evidently good change. At one point he's trying to shift an elementary school to healthy food, but this means a lot of non-finger-foods, so he wants the kids to use a knife and fork. An appalled lunch lady scoffs, "Do you let kids use a knife in England?" A bewildered Oliver responds "YES!" and she demands documented proof. And this is in the US, where overt corruption is arguably less rampant than elsewhere.

Without resolving some of the problems above, technology won't fix much of anything at all.
Introducing Open Source, Web-Native Flash
A Book Apart: HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith from A List Apart
Unless its directly in your own interests, it's actually irrational to be working out of hours. If you're being paid for the extra work or you're the company owner or a major shareholder then it does make sense, but otherwise there's little benefit to be had. There might be other special circumstances, such as if you're working for a charitable cause where part of the benefit is in trying to improve the wider society, but in most for profit businesses this doesn't apply.
Except for one bit which was impossible to implement, though the spec said otherwise - even the client didn't realise this, but John picked it up.

Let me see if I got this right: it was impossible to implement, but the spec said it was possible. The client didn't realise it was impossible to implement, but John made it possible anyway.

So the spec was right all along, and John implemented it? Am I missing something awesome here that uber-hackers totally get? Can someone explain this to me?
This is an interesting read on the state of fonts on Linux/Gnome, read it to understand some of the complexity:

http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/fonts/
It's something I realized after I started working in finance-- the young are very "short housing", and most people are neutral at best.

In New York, housing is a source of widespread and ongoing misery. If you lose your job, you're truly fucked because rents can easily exceed $2000 for a studio. Many apartments lack basic first-world amenities in-building laundry and dishwasher because there is no need to include them when rents and prices are so ridiculously high. It's very difficult to save money here because a class of fucking parasites (most of whom don't even live in New York) are sucking everyone dry.

Land ownership is the justification for entrenched aristocracy and, in less-enlightened times, slavery. It always has been, and probably always will be. It's a concept that exists for a purpose that 90% of us would find distasteful. This is also why Americans have such a fetish for homeownership; throughout most of history, those who did not own land were at a social level comparable to slaves or serfs. What they don't realize is that if they take out mortgages on bad terms, they're assuming a speculative position while not gaining real ownership of the property.

I frankly think it's time for aggressive land reform, and I think private land ownership (with exceptions for small, single-house plots) needs to be retired as soon as we can build the infrastructure to replace it.
TribeCura ... a Facebook memetracker
Thanks for the suggestions. I did say "part of my advice", so our talk didn't consist of only that aspect.

There's no end to the amount of advice in the world when it comes to love and marriage. Some counterpoints:

Looking for perfection will make you dissatisfied with everyone you date.

Or, you will gain enough experience to realize when you've found the best one.

A lot of what makes a relationship work or fail is how you treat each other, not who you're with.

The way someone treats you is mostly a result of who they are.

"Playing the field" too much desensitizes you.

Maybe, but it is the best way to learn what personality traits you like and dislike.

Lasting love is way more satisfying than a lifetime of flings.

Your chances at finding lasting love are greatly increased if you search for and find the right person.
Same. Need to find something to build with embed.ly now.
I think this kind of thing gets overlooked a lot on HN considering the tech heavy role most have here. Personally I'm not surprised at all.

But never underestimate marketing. Building the best widget in the world means nothing if no one knows it exists.

(that being said having the best widget in the world is, in itself, a great marketing tool)
When interviewing engineering candidates I look for competence and curiosity/passion for technology. Implicitly, I also look for ability to communicate (why did you come up with a solution that you did on the whiteboard?). Given that I only have forty five minutes, I simply can't afford to waste time asking about their life story. I'll ask em about their projects and why they're interested in this position, but I don't need more than a sentence about why they've switched jobs in the past.

Why did they have six jobs before thirty? Who knows? May be they switched career orientation (I've started in operations and moved into software development, that required a "hop"), may be they didn't know what they were looking for, may be they had a family situation.

Likely, if they worked at a single company for ten years, that's irrelevant if they manage to have the desired level of competence and have the desired level of passion and curiosity.

Are they leaving companies since they were fired (rather than downsized or left voluntarily) or put on a performance plan? That's to be checked through their references. Are they hopping purely for increased compensation? Then just refuse to meet outlandish salary demands (out of proportion to their skill level).

It's true that a bad looking resume may not make it past an HR filter. However, I've been swamped by recruiters (agency and company HR) at all times even after my resume had shown I've only been a few months at my company. Furthermore, when you're over thirty you'll likely have a network of coworkers who will be able to refer you to jobs bypassing the HR filter.

Rather than worry about what a blogger thinks about you and your generation, worry about learning and increasing your competence level. Make multiple companies fight over you (because you have a rare talent and excel at it) instead of fighting to get into a company.
Stack Overflow is optimized for Q & A, while you can do more than just asking questions in a forum (i.e. actually making friends and building communities).

They are both great. Really, every forum should just have a Q & A section that implements Stack Overflow or use a similar widget.
The Nature of Lisp (2006)
Its a shame the article is so lacking in content... this is an interesting subject.
John did not make the 'impossible bit' possible, he discovered its inclusion in the spec and recognized whatever it was as impossible to implement.
I don't even play games and gave them some money and I will most likely never play any of these game, other than probably just check them out once. I can only hope there are others like me who would never spend a dime in any form of games.
The first 48 hours, iPad 3G review
Europe's Debt Infographic
1. I make sure the job description is inline with what I want to do. I also make sure it's documented in case 2 months into your new job your boss decides you need to focus on something else and you end up pigeon holed into something you don't want to do.
2. Make sure there is a solid career path that could help you grow within the organization. Ask the employer to highlight such a path for you.
3. Compensation, benefits, stock options, bonuses, etc. Make sure this is all clearly documented in the offer letter. If they say no to documenting it they will most likely end up not giving it to you once you are on board.
4. Make sure you clearly understand the company's strategy, growth plan and financials. You don't want to get into a place that will end up on it face a year later. Many times it's easy to spot such companies with simple research. If their strategy doesn't agree with you, you will end up frustrated very quickly.
5. I usually also do research on the products being sold and try to understand how I can personally add value to make these products more successful. This helps me determine if I will enjoy working on them or if I would be bored. Companies strategy might be good but if the current products are blah you'll be bored quickly and might not have the patience to wait for the strategy to unfold.
HTML5 Super Friends' Guide
Restraint of trade (argument used in the article) is illegal pretty much only under Sherman's act, and even then only in set circumstances. I don't see how this argument can be about anything else other than Sherman's act.
IPhone OS4 Beta 3 released to developers
I listened to their podcasts right from the start which doesn't qualify me to comment. But I will anyway.

I'm just not sure this is the case. Joel seemed to have a much better grasp of the big picture. You could tell that he'd thought everything through really well, in the way that you'd expect from a successful business owner.

There's no doubt that Jeff did all the 'work' between the pair - Joel was mainly advising. But I would be very careful about writing off his contribution. I would personally bet a lot of money that Atwood going it alone would have been far less successful.

I'm not saying that Joel contributed more than Jeff either. When you look at two partners, and claim that one is more important than the other... that's a pretty big call to make. And unless you personally know them, I'm not sure you have the evidence to back it up.
K, J, Lisp, Prolog . . . I'm beginning to be worried about my own fascination with uncommon languages.

Is there a support group available? If the three books you read when the kids are asleep are The Reasoned Schemer, The Art of Prolog, and On Lisp, are you now officially beyond help on the language geek scale? I used to be a somewhat productive programmer. These days I think more about making sure I've picked the right language for the problem . . .
So it was an NP-complete problem with a fixed time requirement?

Edit: That was rude. My apologies.
oEmbed is notable for its part in Facebook's share/status update features...from just a URL for a given page, the correct content can be extracted and displayed directly. Probably tumblr, et al use it as well, though I am not certain.
There’s a worldwide market for 50,000 of anything.
Darwin's Little-Known Psychology Study Aids Autism Research
http://www.dynadot.com/resource/article/qa.html?aid=0

TL;DR: you can do it, but understand the risks you are taking. The whois record is the authoritative record of domain ownership, if your name (or company name) isn't on it, then if there is a dispute, you lose.
> So, lawyer vs programmer, which one is the chump?

The paralegal working 80 hours a week is a chump, no doubt. Many lawyers want money and status, and get disillusioned once they realize not everybody is going to make partner.

Most of them didn't enjoy law school much either. So they invest most of their adult waking hours in the law, only to realize at their 32nd birthday that they might not make it.

So I think they outchump us.
Weave (https://mozillalabs.com/weave/) solves the bookmark (and configuration in general) synchronization problem for Firefox; I was hosting my own server quite happily until I switched to Chrome.

Switching was a hard decision for me: I like Firefox, quite a lot, and I'm very comfortable using it. But on Linux, it's unbearably slow, while Chrome flies. Once a mostly-workable adblocker was available for Chrome, I didn't have many reasons left not to switch to something more productive.
I'm against entrepreneurs paying for anything like this, BUT I can understand how it might be a basic litmus test for who is serious and not. $50 isn't a ton. One option might be to refund the money if accepted.
Facebook Tries to Make Violations of Terms of Use Into Criminal Violations
Domestic flights. I'm flying to Canada, our land-based neighbor, not Australia.

The additional cost is purely because of bureaucracy, not the least of which is our security theatrics.
Well, they do say that the product is #1. I think the focus of the slides was the nontechnical stuff.
I think that's meant to read "but John picked up on it". I.e., he found the error in the spec which the client had overlooked.
I've been playing on my MBP w/ 2.4 ghz c2d and 8600m and its been working surprisingly well. I dialed down the setting just to maximize FPS, but other than weird choppiness with the menu screen the game has been very stable.

I'm pretty new to the game but I'm starting to get the hang of it, if anyone wants to skirmish or give me some tips my id is corohd.warpath
Does it make a difference though? I think oit's plenty fast enough to run most non-game apps. It would help to see an app that's hindered by it before proclaiming a BFD.
It surely is a way to discourage people that aren't serious about their business plan. However, my instinctual response is: No.
Ah, I guess I didn't understand the scenario. I assumed these services had an option to import financial data via a file the user uploads. This gets around the whole credentials thing.

When you provide these services your login credentials and account information they are most certainly logging in via the web interface just as you would and either downloading the exports themselves or screen scraping the html.

The system I was working on was time sensitive so we needed the most up to date and complete data, and unfortunately this usually came in html form (idea being customers rarely looked at the exports, and are quick to report discrepencies in what they do look at which is always atleast the html page).

We had built a unified parser/normalizer/lexicon that could understand the financial data from all of the FIs, we just had to download the pages. Which isn't a hard problem and easily distributable.
More likely it was simply logically inconsistent. That's not at all rare in requirements documents.
"Programmers love to work long hours! There I said it, c'mon admit it, your job/boss doesn't make you do it, we do it to ourselves."

I stopped reading. We don't. In fact a job that only required 30hr/w would be great. Even if I took a pay cut.
I'm surprised the gap isn't much larger.
This reminds of Seth Godin's "Linchpin", it's kinda the same idea. Misfits provide value that can't be placed on a resume in terms of job skills - but they do have the ability to provide value that creates hearty, intense recommendations from their co-workers as they move forward.
Actually his example can be written quite succinctly (but in general case closures would be much more expressive):

copy(words.rbegin(), words.rend(), ostream_iterator<string>(cout));