skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
1. What sort of technical exam do you use to screen programmers?

2. What do you do to make your programmers lives easier?

3. What percentage of the developer’s time is spent in meetings versus uninterrupted coding time?

Interesting questions, but I prefer to not beat around the bush:

1. What will I be building?

2. What will you pay me?

If the answers to these 2 questions are right, I don't care that much about anything else. If they're not, nothing else matters.
This has greatly improved my understanding of relativity. Thank you.
If you think it's so weak (and that makes sense to me), could he likely appeal the decision and have it overturned?
Sorry about that guys. Just increased the font on the article.
I think a more accurate assessment would be:

Imagine your friend gave you $5,000 for lunch, but agreed that he'd take your Apple Newton in exchange for $4,500, in the hopes that some day people would like to buy small parts of the Newton for pennies, even though at the time of purchase the Newton looked downright toxic and hadn't looked attractive in years.

Lunch comes to $4,400 so you give him $600 back and immediately spend some of the $4,500 making a commercial talking about how fiscally responsible you are, and in response he issues a press release stating that you have paid him back early, with interest.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of people in the world somehow manage to commend both of you for your sound fiscal practices.

A small minority of people will say "wait, hang on, HE PAID $5,000 FOR A FUCKING APPLE NEWTON?"

They will be ridiculed on message boards.

And I didn't bother shoehorning it in, but it's more than a fine point that it's not even your $5k to start with.
Interviewing is a two way street, or at least it should be. If the interviewers don't want to be interviewed it's a bad company.
To that end here are some points I'd like to add (I'm currently hiring some programmers and would love to have any of them ask me for the following. None have so far):

1. Ask questions about how a manager would handle a situation. If you're not being interviewed by your direct manager (why not?), ask what the company would do. Start off simple, "I want to use a new technology that we don't already support but I believe will make a project easier/quicker/more profitable. What's your response?" and work up to harder things "We're pushing to a rapidly approaching hard release date and someone vital quits. The team is already at breaking point. There's no way we'll deliver. What do you do?"

2. Ask to see the working environment and sit down and talk with other employees of all kinds (programmers, designers, secretaries) without management present. Not for long, just 15 minutes. If they say no, it's a problem.

3. If you're expected to maintain and existing code base, ask for code examples. They often do it of you, it's only fair. Nothing in particular, just something so get an idea of the quality.

Just a few of the things I'd be more than willing to do as a manager.
Sure you can create content with free open source tools and yeah there are some oss runtimes. But the runtime that the majority of the world has installed is created by adobe. If a new platform/os has a new feature, you still have to wait for adobe to support it in the vm. So no, flash isn't really that open. Adobe controls and drives its direction.
Google does a lot more than that. For example copy and paste works if you select some text and copy it out. That's non trivial.
The more I find out about the guy, the less it's sounding like religious extremism...
Investment risk. Scribd is a small company, and putting a whole battalion of developers on a PDF to HTML5 conversion for half a year without even knowing whether that'll turn out to be possible (as in, good enough for 10,000,000 documents) is a scary move.
That being said, check out our upcoming engineering blog for technical details about how we convert to HTML5 now!
You are extrapolating from your own experience on situations which are very different. My argument has two points:

1. I don't consider the current situation in the US "terror". I'm talking about different times and places. If you were boarding a bus in Israel, Sri Lanka, Iraq during certain periods of time, you would have a higher chance of dying from a bombing than from an accident.

2. The natural response to terror is anything but rational. It is a completely different feeling to go on a bus knowing there's a possibility of an accident to going on a bus knowing that one of the passengers may be carrying a bomb.
Get into a proper Finnish sauna at around 95 degrees Celsius. After ten to fifteen minutes you will long for the cold shower. And it will actually feel good.
Why? What do you need from HTML5 to render a static document?? The AUDIO tag? VIDEO? websockets?
For those interested in the API there are also official bindings for ruby, python, java, and objective-c.
Apple is very profitable. It made 3 billion last quarter, about twice Jet Blue's market cap. Apple has no debt and a lot of cash. Apple could essentially buy Starbucks with cash. Apple's current assets is more than 30B and Starbucks market cap is less than 20B.
"[A]rguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do.

There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism." -- An Authority [1]

.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
"Betting the company" was clearly designed to get upvotes and media interest.
Disagree. Depending on the specific market, Asian markets are predominantly brand based, not value based. The crowd gravitates to the trendy brand more than anything, and Apple has been effective in building their brand in asian markets.

I'm just saying monthly salary/income doesn't always serve as a barrier to an iPhone or iPad acquisition. I can see the 3G iPad dominating the market in certain countries.
25 Lessons, 25 Years
"... using H.264 to distribute free internet video to end users doesn't cost a thing, and won't cost anything until at least 2015. After that, it's up in the air, and that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it -- there's a chance the MPEG-LA could start charging a royalty for free video in five years."

Oh, perfect. Let's get everyone accustomed to using this, and then start charging.
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages."

- Tennessee Williams
"putting a whole battalion of developers on a PDF to HTML5 conversion for half a year without even knowing whether that'll turn out to be possible"

The Google pdf viewer seems good enough to me. It'll be interesting to see what you can improve on that.
The Google PDF has an OCRed text component to it, Google Books is a real bear to use on the iPhone. On the iPad, depending on the book, it can be acceptable (when compared to the pain of trying it on the iPhone!).

I don't know how Scribd is going to carry this off, what with people sometimes uploading outright scans of books. I mean, Scribd is not Scribd without the stuff put there by people -- like with Youtube.
Both Southwest Airlines and Amazon.com do this in the U.S. They've both called my cell phone before to do it.

With amazon, it's actually even easier. IIRC, you can click a button on the site to queue you, and that's what gets you in the queue.

Other corporate phone tress I've called before have had a similar option. After a given time they give you the option to leave a voicemail, and they'll return your call.

I think the major obstacle is psychological. People don't actually believe in their lizard brains that they won't lose their spot in line unless they're standing there to preserve it. Even though being on hold isn't the same (after all, it's not like you can see the people in front of you, to ensure no cutting in line), I think people interpret it the same.

That, and, async like that would probably make people feel like they're being put off. Whereas with blocked IO, you think, "it's not that they don't care, it's just that they're busy right now."

But I agree -- I love it. I think people's attitudes will shift towards the system you're suggesting. It'll just take time.
Can you provide other examples where a gadget site pays money to a 3rd party who happens to have an unreleased development model of a future product? I can't think of any...
I hate to admit it, but I quick-clicked the upvote on your parent basically -as- I started reading your comment and thinking. Normally I'm firmly in the "misdiagnosing stupid" camp.

It's sad and frustrating to realize that we, too, are human! and so must constantly self-check on these sorts of things. While the word "community" gets over-used, I think that's part of what community can do.

Or perhaps: civilization.

Thanks for the gut-check.
True. A background API only being offered just now is a good example.
Apple is fundamentally a different kind of company than almost all other software or hardware companies.

I was just reading this today (it's not fresh, I just got around to read it finaly): http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/6/4/...
Shootings in Japan [1]

.

[1] http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Shootings+in+Japan
I agree. Also the industries that have large volumes of video to be encoded, who can afford that rate, are ones like "adult" -- and I believe Zencoder won't touch adult video conversion.

I know they have their reasons, and I respect them, but I do think it is a mistake and a limitation.
Github repository and additional information: http://github.com/RISCfuture/dropbox#readme
"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

"There are no right and wrong decisions. Make a decision and then [work hard enough to] make sure it was the right one." -My Mom

Both of these have gotten me through some dark days, both career-wise and personally.
FTFA: " ...using H.264 to distribute free internet video to end users doesn't cost a thing, and won't cost anything until at least 2015. After that, it's up in the air, and that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it -- there's a chance the MPEG-LA could start charging a royalty for free video in five years."
There's always risk in changing the technology platform of your core product.

Things to consider:

- What development tools will devs use?

- How long will it take devs to get up to speed on them?

- How does debugging work?

- How do you handle losing breakpoints?

- What does the new build process look like?

- How are you going to handle graceful degradation?

- How does font-end error reporting work?

- How long will it take to make the migration?

- What business metrics are you tracking to acknowledge you made the right user choice? The right technology choice?

- How soon will we see the needle move on those business metrics?

- How will this affect growth in the short term?

- Do your hardcore Flash employees want to be working in HTML5? What will you do if they don't?

Major technology shifts are a lot more complicated than just "code it and see what happens" when you have an established product and team.
I was kind of hoping for something more specific. After all, WebKit manages to use modern APIs (CoreAnimation, etc.) on MacOS X, yet Chrome and Safari both ship on XP. Can you think of anything that can't be easily shimmed?
tenacity is key, but personally, I don't think 'soul suck' relates at all to 'hard work' except in the sense that soul sucking work is hard. 'Soul suck' is almost always a sign that work is being done that doesn't need to be done, or that work is being done in an inefficient manner.

In my space, the major 'soul suck' for most people is phone support and sales. I simply don't provide those services (and I've lowered my prices to compensate)

The thing is, when it's your company, you never have to do something you think is stupid. (yeah, you still do some stupid things, or, at least, I do, but when I notice it's stupid, I stop.) It's completely different from working for some PHB because when a customer gets unreasonable, it's simple enough to simply refer him or her to your nearest competitor.

Sure, you still have to do things that are /hard/ but there is always a clear reason why you are doing the thing, and if you don't think that reason is good enough? you don't have to do the work.
Too often we are scared.

Scared of what we might not be able to do.

Scared of what people might think if we tried.

We let our fears stand in the way of our hopes.

We say no when we want to say yes.

We sit quietly when we want to scream.

And we shout with the others,

when we should keep our mouths shut.

Why?

After all,

we do only go around once.

There's really no time to be afraid.

So stop.

Try something you've never tried.

Risk it.

Enter a triathlon.

Write a letter to the editor.

Demand a raise.

Call winners at the toughest court.

Throw away your television.

Bicycle across the United States.

Try bobsledding.

Try anything.

Speak out against the designated hitter.

Travel to a country where you don't speak the language.

Patent something.

Call her.

You have nothing to lose

and everything

everything

everything to gain.

JUST DO IT.

(http://joshpremuda.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Barry-Sand...)
I'll believe it when I see it.

To me, this feels like desperation. It seems a little late to stop depending solely on Flash. Also, why not say that you're moving after you partially move? The companies I admire the most brag about distant features the least.
That is true, their conversion understands text regions and various other things. However, what makes Scribd's viewer more sophisticated is that it will actually use structured HTML to render the document content. This is more than just putting on a layer that specifies regions in the document, it will actually just be a normal HTML document, made of divs, text, images, etc.

Plus, it will maintain the fidelity of the document -- meaning that even PDFs with complicated layouts will be rendered properly in HTML. No trivial task.
It's hyberbole, but on the other hand, it's ridiculous to think that Apple had nothing to do with it. If Apple remains silent, doesn't file any sort of police report, nothing would have happened.

That said, Apple has been a litigious, heavy-handed company for it's entire history so their actions aren't surprising.
Some of those companies are failing (e.g, NYT), some are commodity suppliers highly subject to market fluctuations (e.g., Du Pont), and others are locked in eternal marketing struggle in a highly-competitive and arguably saturated marketplace (e.g., Burger King, Abercrombie & Fitch).

Not saying that Apple's valuation is correct, but there is a certain attraction to the company: it sells premium, high-margin products that have proven their ability to withstand general economic malaise, are non-commoditized, not easily substitutable goods, and have few realistic competitors (the MacBook Pro sits almost unchallenged in the premium laptop market, the iPhone is - for now - at the top of the smartphone game, etc).
I recall Zencoder had promo material out at Railsconf last year. I'm curious what's changed or why they've become a YC company.
Oh, and then a harder one: Could you take a bunch of images & soundtrack file, and render it to a movie?

Not at the moment. It's something we're considering at some point, though.
it'll probably be like openid. a few big names will host a data for a large number of people that don't care to setup their own, but for those that want more control, they can host their own data.

even if those non-technical people don't host their own data, they'll be able to switch to something else that may have different privacy policies.
Pretty much everything else has been put aside for about 6 months now, unfortunately. If I had a consistent net of like 2K from just my software I'd be pretty excited, actually. I pretty well expect there will be another contract before that happens, though.
custom fonts, for starters :)
Do you want to go to your grave saying, "I wish I had . . ."?
While running some errands, I think I realized the core of my trouble accepting this proof. I think it may be the same for a lot of people, but I've never heard it stated, so here it is:

To my mind, it seems logical that if P reaches a paradox, it never returns. It's an infinite logical loop, never finishing, thus never returning true or false. Like evaluating "this statement is false", it's stuck on "if it's true, it's false. If false, true". To that end, the paradox isn't a paradox: it just never finishes.

If this is the case, then P(Q(Q)) does indeed escape the problem entirely: it shows that Q(Q) will never finish. That argument I've made, and I've seen others make, but the realization of the previous paragraph is new. And nobody I've debated this with has really attempted to look outside of "but it's a proof, it proves it", and re-iterating the steps of the proof. Not that many have tried for very long, they usually get upset that I can't see the "obvious". Thanks for sticking it out, I've had longer to think on this than I've had with others, and that may have been what I needed.

This reveals a missing assumption in the proof, or at least one I've never seen stated: that P must finish. If it must finish, then I accept the proof completely. If it's a paradox, I agree, it's a paradox, and it certainly is within that requirement. It must return, but it cannot, therefore it can not exist.

But then I must ask: Why must P finish on all inputs? I can make a program which doesn't (print(num) when passed Pi), why not this one?

I'd be very interested in any input / rebuttals to this. I'm not trying to be difficult, honest! I've understood the proof where P must finish for quite a while, but I don't see that it's a valid assumption if categorically stating that it's inherently un-doable.
What will be the main advantage?

It's a great technical challenge, but will users notice the difference?
"Distant features"? It's launching tomorrow.
Lean startups: 0.5 is the new 5
Posted link is just a redirect. Original link is: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/13-is-quantum-mechanics...
There is no logic at all underlying this piece. It's just pure entitlement — "I want everything and I want it for free without sacrificing any quality and I'm blaming you if I don't get it."

At no point does he consider the obvious — that if something is so important, maybe you should just pay for it. He talks about getting the government involved to provide a "cushion," whatever that means. Like, really? You think a huge regulatory department essentially tracking the entire Internet would be free?
Have you missed the vague patent threats against Theora?

MPEG-LA has spewed their share of bullshit, and Thompson before it spewed plenty as well.
Thank you, that was a very clear and succinct rebuttal.

I would add to it, that "advancing freedom" is one of those phrases that is, when you examine it, quite poorly defined. Freedom is more a set of associations than a strict definition, though I'm sure one can find philosophers who have attempted to strictly define it, so you get "freedom sub Professor X". Freedom is much easier to talk about in the abstract than to define, and lends itself to pithy (or, less charitably, glib) phrases that can be twisted to whatever one's own definition of freedom is.

My original post was flippant and lacking in nuance, to be sure (still not warranting the personal attack; I do, in fact, attempt to point out logical fallacies and bring about reasonable discourse). I am not immune to making the odd sound-bite myself, though calling my post cynical and then making a strawman attack also does not advance the cause of rationality.
I'm trying to wrap my head around how backward this guy's reasoning is. He wants the "new atheists" to provide him with a compelling logical argument that his god does not exist. It seems like an oddly backward supposition of where the burden of proof lies in this argument.
Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself
Same here, just felt it needed to be pointed out. There are plenty of people who do make the claim, in which case experience appears to disprove the proof.
Every time I've tried to use this trick the email validation rejected the + sign.
Kids don't have $80/month, but their parents do -- and anyone who has visited your average high school will see that it's all about haves & have-nots. You think those kids in high school driving around in a mustang actually paid for the car?
Ask HN: What do you use to organize your bookmarks?
Simple question. I still haven't found a way to organize my bookmarks the way I want, namely:
1. available on all my computers
2. should not take too many clicks and tags to put away
3. should be easily searchable when I need them

What do you guys use?
Say halting detectors exist, then you can build a looping detector trivially by merely reversing the outputs from the halting detector. You can then modify the looping detector so that it loops if it doesn't find any loops in the target program.

Then you use the modified looping detector on itself. If you think about it, it can't be used on itself. Because if it says that it will loop then it will itself not loop, and if it says that it won't loop then it will itself loop.

It's a logical paradox, which is also a reductio ad absurbum proof that no such thing as a halting detector can exist.
It is said:

> However, this solution does not work very well for the Japanese community. For a variety of complicated reasons, Japanese encoding, such as SHIFT-JIS, are not considered to losslessly encode into UTF-8. As a result, Ruby has a policy of not attempting to simply encode any inbound String into UTF-8.

> This decision is debatable, but the fact is that if Ruby transparently transcoded all content into UTF-8, a large portion of the Ruby community would see invisible lossy changes to their content. That part of the community is willing to put up with incompatible encoding exceptions because properly handling the encodings they regularly deal with is a somewhat manual process.

Does someone has any sources about this?

Esp, why is SHIFT-JIS important? Is Unicode not capable of encoding the full Japanese language? What information would you loose by encoding with Unicode?

And why can't Unicode be extended to encode this missing information?

This seems to be a much better solution than this encoding nightmare. Esp in a language like Ruby, I want to have it simple and straightforward.
True, but not convinced enough people care about custom fonts over rendering an image. It ends up being pretty much the same experience for them. (Actually custom fonts may well load slower for users, so it's a worse experience in some ways).
This is a little off topic, but I really don't like policies based on the phrase "we can't get Americans to ____, so we need to create a visa where foreigners are allowed to live in the US and apply for citizenship provided they spend __ years doing ____"

If you can't get Americans to do this, that's because it's a crap deal. And it's not going to become a better deal if you can indenture workers to do it instead - in fact, these policies virtually guarantee that nobody with choice will ever want to do this job.

Btw, I'm alright with foreign doctors coming to the US, I'm just opposed to these conditional immigration programs. Everyone who participates in the US economy should be free to make their own choices.
Google Chrome Experimental Extension Infobar API