skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Just quit. Walk out and never go back. Start working for yourself. Every day you're doing something you don't want to do is a day you never get back.

I quit my tech support job with no plan and 4 months of savings. Within the year, I had started my own business, and was making more money than I ever did at my old job.

Take the risk. Trust in your own abilities, and go for it. You'll never get the life you want by living the one you don't.
Introducing the iPwn :)

* multitasking

* cloud storage

* webcam/video calls

* no app approval required for developers with 10+ apps in the store already

I just made this up. But you never know :)
same for me. I emailed ORA friday night and (not surprisingly) haven't heard anything back yet.
I've worked with someone with pretty much exactly your background, someone who found himself in a software development project, and I'd indeed never hire you as you are today for a software job. :-(

The only answer is simple in principle, you just have to find the time and energy: do a lot of programming. If you're hard core or want to find out if you are or have that potential, I'd start with SICP/6.001: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of...

Good luck! People with your background can bring a lot to the table, you just need to achieve the relevant software background first.
Ask HN: Can I contribute to a startup?
I am an experienced Oracle DBA. I have 15 years experience in IT. I know Unix, storage and networks, and naturally I can code in bash, perl, sql and pl/sql. I'm a very good DBA - in addition for doing a good job for my employees, I also speak at conferences, write articles and in general I'm respected by my peers.

My problem is that me and most other Oracle DBAs I know are employees of IT departments of very large organizations. But I live in the bay area and working for utility companies and banks feels like I'm missing all the fun. I want to work at a more fast paced, exciting, cutting edge place. With maybe 20 other employees working on something unique.

I realize that most startups can't work with Oracle. I'm learning MySQL, but I'm wondering if DBAs at all are interesting to startups, or maybe the position is normally shared between sysadmins and developers. None of the "HN Jobs" I've seen were looking for DBAs.

What can I do to make myself (and my CV) more interesting to startups?
Nope, glad to hear I'm not the only one. I registered for a new account as part of the purchase; I wonder if there was a bug in that code path?
Astronomer Copernicus reburied as hero in Poland
Same. I've tried their normal site and mobile site.

I was excited about the sale and the chance to purchase an ebook in a format that would work on my Android phone, but this experience has dampered my excitement.

As a technology publisher, O'Reilly should be ashamed of themselves.
Google, Apple and Lost
The game music is a Shostakovich piece. Awesome.
Why does taste have to cost hundreds and thousands of dollars?
It's a gross mistake and they made no attempt to reconcile the error (you know by shutting down the site) until 6am

Did you read the article? They shut down the site when they saw the problem, which occurred between midnight and 6am, a popular time for sleeping.
This assumes that some artificial organism we construct would be more robust and efficient at self-replication than run-of-the-mill single celled organisms.
Same here; sent them an email and this is the response I got back:

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting O'Reilly Media Customer Service. Today we had a
very heavy volume of orders due to our "ebook deal of the day"
promotion. This is affecting the delivery and accessing of electronic
media. We have verified that your ebooks are in your account. Please be
patient and keep checking your account. We apologize for the
inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Best Regards,
O'Reilly Media Customer Service
I got an Evo at I/O also and, while I really like some of the phone's features (I'm typing this now on 4g wirelessly tethered to my Macbook) the Sense UI is very annoying. I turned it off a few days ago and the phone's been much more usable.

It's also annoying that the Sprint NASCAR app and Sprint Football app can't be removed through the normal ways. You can remove from the desktop but they're still in the phone.
I emailed customer support and got this email back:

<quote>
Thank you for contacting O'Reilly Media Customer Service. Today we had a very heavy volume of orders due to our "ebook deal of the day" promotion. This is affecting the delivery and accessing of electronic media. We have verified that your ebooks are in your account. Please be
patient and keep checking your account. We apologize for the
inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
</quote>

I still haven't been able to download my ebooks yet though.
Self-replicating-nanobot Earth-death final-state.

Things like this always make me think of Sam's Archive's "Geocide" page. Which, by the way, points out that this does not in fact bring about the destruction of the Earth: http://qntm.org/destroy
My Android Toolbox
I'm in the UK too, but for a brief time I wasn't. I'd really like to hear from you, if you'd be happy to email (oliver dot saunders att google's mail service). Your situation reminds me a lot of where I was a couple of years ago.
I agree with your advice, but just a note on the UK:

Software companies aren't the same this side of the pond, the culture seems rather different. Maybe I've just had bad experiences, but London is full of soul crushing financial services/admin software type places. I'm sure the US is too, but there also seems to be a healthy community of fresh companies.

Check out your very own jobs.stackoverflow.com - this is one of the places I would expect a modern company to advertise, but there are nine jobs listed for the whole of the UK, compared to over 50 for NY alone. If you want a "normal" programming job you have to take your chances with the vast sea of recruiters on Monster.co.uk.

(or, of course, build personal connections and/or do your own thing)
Wow, so you are just going to quit working at Microsoft because of some agreement you made with your wife. That concerns me that you aren't making decisions for the right reasons. Make sure you don't mention that in an interview. I would prefer someone to stay around because they like the job, or leave if they don't, not because there wife wants consitency.

Apart from that, if you can talk about the things you achieved at working for such a huge company, that would be great. It is going to be a huge step moving to a smaller company, they way things work. Having worked at Microsoft for a shor time myself, the amount of organisational structure you have to go through to get the simplest of things done is insane, and a full time job in itself.
Program your Finances: Command-line Accounting
I bought 3, only 1 (Beautiful Code) was available immediately. Still the only one.
EDIT: whether anything I say below is actually true, making new syntax is totally supported in Factor both in the language and in the community.

http://factor-language.blogspot.com/2009/09/survey-of-domain...

pretty much the same as lisp's.
MACRO: defines a lisp style macro, http://docs.factorcode.org/content/word-MACRO__colon__%2Cmac... (MACRO:: defines a macro with local variables)

SYNTAX: defines a 'parsing word' http://docs.factorcode.org/content/article-parsing-words.htm... which I think is basically the same as a lisp Reader Macro

Though you don't seem to need macros very often because you tend to pass things around as lambdas, cond for instance is implemented as a normal function.
Still waiting for a book I bought on Friday.
A friend of mine runs a similar bot on Twitter, seeded with Twitter messages it sees:

http://twitter.com/x11r5

...on Identica, seeded with Identica messages it sees:

http://identi.ca/x11r5

...and on the web, seeded by content from an IRC channel:

http://www.x11r5.com/

As the about page says, "X11R5 is an insane geek on Identica, X11R5 is an insane 12-year-old on Twitter."

http://www.x11r5.com/wtf?
If a large % of users have the problem you're trying to solve, they might rather abandon twitter altogether than going to yet another tool to try to fix it. And if not, you're building a product for a (by definition) niche audience. Is going for a niche audience indeed the plan?
Harmonics are how you figure other notes are in tune with your absolute note - they're related to how the frequencies interfere. But that only tells you how to tune one note relative to another. It doesn't help you get a bunch of instruments in tune with one another, even if they're in different locations, etc.

Perhaps if you explained your confusion more, it could be answered better.
nah, just wanted to give real stats instead of "make what people want - 15,000,000"

actually kinda funny "what people want" gets 1,300 searches a month
I'll also add that I really like working with people who I can consider my equals or who are better than me. To give someone who is as good as me or better a lesser equity share when we're both pushing hard for the same thing doesn't make sense.

Good luck in your search!
mmm this could be a case of Scoble publishing before thinking.
Scoble is being a jerk about this whole thing, a classic blog jerk.

First, he publishes a lie that he should have known was a lie. Then, he got contacted by both Schrage and Zuck. So, does he edit his post or add a disclaimer to the top? Of course not! Only a journalist would check with the accused first, and only a journalist would correct the story in a meaningful way.

But Scoble is a blogger, so he adds the emails he got from FB to the end of the blog. And what is the net effect of this? It's two-fold:

1) many people will never get to the correction part

2) those who do will see resolute Scoble posting the rebuttal at the end, but that's just because he's an honorable blogger.. of course the gist of the story is right, or he would have changed it, right? Right? :(
Yes, there isn't really a software startup/innovation culture in London.
This implies they've been in (and left) or are attempting to be in fashion, though I prefer to believe they've escaped. (the difference being left-out or left-willingly, vs running away after being captured)

I've got a "Shrodinger's cat is dead" (with "not dead" on the back) shirt which helps me find interesting people (THE most random people understand it). I'd argue that's more useful than fashion (does it have a use?), and remember that stick-figure shirts occasionally explode in popularity (I remember a big burst several years ago). XKCD is just a superior-taste subset of those.

edit: heck, "fashion" hasn't served me too well anyway. I wore a blue-screen-of-death shirt to one of my interviews, and got the job. The interviewer called the boss in to laugh at the shirt :)
I'm not sure why you're saying sorry. The point of Al Qaeda attacking NY was to provoke an over-reaction. It radicalizes the Muslim world, and strengthens their hand politically. And the same is why they would be very unlikely to use a nuke.
My favorites:

Doctype Decoration: When web designers add a doctype declaration but don't bother to write valid markup.

Object Oriented Pasta: Used to describe spaghetti code wrapped in classes to make it look like an object.

Hooker Code: Code that is problematic and causes application instability (application "goes down" often).
I was able to download the book I bought (The Book of Xen), after about 10 minutes.

It's the second ebook I've gotten, first one "Learning iPhone Programming" came available instantly.
Silverback: Guerilla usability testing
It doesn't justify anything. It just shows that we are already killing people in almost every way imaginable so another new one would not be anything all that new.
No, there's limited interaction by means of 'bones' files if you play on the same host.

If you die and certain conditions are met, you'll leave your corpse, all your items, and a ghost for another lucky (or unlucky, given that whatever killed you will still be around) adventurer.

There do exist some multiplayer roguelikes, Mangband
http://www.mangband.org/ is probably one of the most well-known/popular.
ordered on friday, just downloaded it about an hour ago.
Susan B. Anthony: The Crime of Voting "While She Was a Woman"
Nope. Ordered on friday. Still not available.
If you're prepared to take a significant pay cut in return for equity in a high risk environment I'm sure any startup with big plans will have you gladly.

You probably will be wearing a few more 'hats' in the beginning though. Start-ups tend to employ people that are multi-talented to keep payroll costs down in the beginning. Later on there is usually more specialization.
What might actually be disruptive is if they made an iPod Touch with phone capabilities, expanding the market by not requiring a $30/mo data plan. Even better would be if the data was available but optional and plan-free, like the iPad.
The last time they had a sale like this I had to call them twice before I could download my ebooks. They don't seem very well prepared for the volume they get for sales.
Silver lining.

Until today I had not ever heard about 6pm.com.

Due solely to their mistake, this post, and their honor, I'll be sure and check them out for future purchases.
You don't see Christians going around murdering political cartoonists for offending them do you?

Relevance?

I'm sure the ones who are ready to kill people for drawing Muhammad will be so impressed by your principled defense of free speech that they will see the error of their ways...

Seriously, the only thing this will accomplish is to convince those that would NOT murder you but still consider what you are doing extremely rude that you care not one whit about what they think is important. In case you didn't reflect on what you just posted, you are exactly advocating special treatment for Muslims just because they were offended.
Let’s Have a Meeting: Hopcroft
Google Map Mashups are About to Get a Lot Better
It puzzles me why phone vendors would invest money into writing and maintaining a layer of marketing-heavy UI when most people would probably be perfectly happy with standard Android.

This was a great and useful tip.
Ordered on Friday. Downloaded Saturday.
Personally, I think a DBA would be a valuable resource, mainly because my primary skillset lies in different area. It's the area in which I could use the most help in my project, also the area in which I have the fewest possible resources to tap. But as Jacques says, you can't be just a DBA. Try to pick up some more programming, especially in one of the popular frameworks (Django, Ruby, etc.) or maybe even design work.
I don't like the VP's reply. If you didn't delete the page, say so. If you did, explain why. I really do hope Scoble follows up on this, and pushes for an update to his 'investigations'
The monadic chaining style of LINQ from the .NET world is also relevant; it's even more pipe-like, in that it's creating a pipeline, rather than modifying the data en masse, one step at a time.
I registered for a new account as well, and I've had access to my books since Saturday.
Some places insist on having a "Product Manager" handle all the face to face communications, which kills it even more...
I propose the Groklaw corrollary of Godwin's law: In any sufficiently lengthy dispute in US law, one side will inevitably end up comparing themselves to a famous martyr whose constitutional rights were violated.
There is nothing wrong with making career decisions with input from your family.

Maybe I wasn't completely clear though. My staying at Microsoft even at times when I have been frustrated with management or direction is related to my personal goal (which my wife helped me to define). I am thankful that I have stayed, my team has done some really good work and I have influenced direction at a level which I never thought I would get to. My leaving Microsoft is not related to that goal or to my wife, except that meeting that goal allows me to more easily justify looking at new opportunities.

I am getting close to my 5 year goal and I am starting to seriously evaluate my future opportunities and trying to figure out what I want to do. It's possible, though unlikely, that I will stay at Microsoft. The job I have now is a great job and I have worked hard to obtain the influence that I have within Microsoft.

I left startups when I got married to provide my new family with some consistency and with the goal of really building out my resume with time spent influencing key projects at a strong industry leader. I feel that achieving that goal is a strong accomplishment. I am now well equipped to be a much stronger contributor for future employers and have the maturity to push through difficult times without bailing.
how ? I couldn't find any edit button..thanks
Jisp - Lisp implementation in JavaScript
Find a friend who runs small software company,
bribe him a bit, so you can then easily write that you worked
in his company a year.
No problems here. Ordered ~23:30 Pacific and immediately had access to my purchases.

Not sure if this may have something to do with it, but I'd ordered a few ebooks from them before. Maybe the backlog has to do with setting up new accounts?
Tzury, I absolutely agree with you. The power of Twitter certainly lies in their API.

To many other posters here: Twitter does have a strategy. At this year's Chirp the Twitter exec team and Ev Williams in particular struck me as being very strategic and thoughtful about their progress. Promoted Tweets in combination with their position as a channel (and not a tool) are a powerful and economically promising combination. And this is only one of their three pillars of monetizations. IIRC the other two were not disclosed.

Another note: A company can only develop technology so fast. Twitter is currently growing by a couple of employees every week and soon they will have the resources to address many of the points mentioned here.
OMG, is the laundry bot for real? Want!
Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally described by mathematician John von Neumann, and are sometimes referred to as von Neumann machines.

I suppose their memory holds both code and data?
This is abusive, not clever. Anything that forces you to code things as opaque string literals that get eval'ed is not a good idea. The next person to come along is going to wonder "what is this doing inside a string? what is r?" You also lose syntax highlighting and debuggability. Building the expression strings dynamically is going to be too tempting, and then you will have code generation and the potential for security issues. It's not even that much shorter than building the closure.
And, Why Didn't Dijkstra Like Lisp?
Mac sales are on a big upswing regardless of Apple's mobile devices (which are on an even bigger upswing).
You weren't part of the Holocaust, I assume??
Don't forget to resize the window and watch the background move!
I had nothing, and no reply to my email, until I mentioned it on Twitter with @oreillymedia in the tweet - within minutes my ebook was available.

Which makes me think that they're having to fix this by hand.
Another person who hasn't yet, but if you follow @oreillymedia you'll see them actively working on it, although it seems like those people are currently cherry picking, which makes me wonder if someone else is doing the rest come monday or what. If I don't have them available by end of tomorrow I know I'll be throwing them another email.
Send a tweet to @oreillymedia and you'll get faster action than actually trying to use the accounts =at= oreilly.com email they are giving out.

The have all hands on deck trying to deal with this but their systems have been completely over whelmed.
For your own name that can be pretty hard if it is a common enough name.

Alex Blom probably will do just fine (it does, I checked), but John Smith would have a much harder time of it, even John Smith the greengrocer.
That advice may or may not be good advice depending on your location. I can see how in the bay area it will work, the OP is in London, so for him it probably would work too (even though the market is not quite what it was a few years ago).

But for some regions it is probably best to keep your old shoes on until you've bought some new ones.
Do you see the last release of Mac OS as a commitment to the platform? The platform is very mature, and rather than add more bells and whistles ala Vista/Windows 7, they decided to product a sleaker, faster OS.

I see this as a positive, but I guess they definately see huge growth from other areas, like the iPhone/iPad.
I totally agree, that comes down to competitiveness.

A huge issue will be, as another commenter has said, when people forget to rank their own product name.
Very frustrating. When picking product names now the ability to SEO them is now something I consider!
So we're linking to one of the google homepage graphics, because you know no one who uses HN will have ever seen it.
It's not necessarily a matter of it being hard in a "I can't figure out how to do this!" way, but just in the amount of cognitive effort that's required to learn how to do things a new way. Including unlearning the muscle memory of doing them the old way.

So it's a matter of comfort and ease, things that are especially important on such personal devices.
jacquesm,

When I quit my job in 2008, it's when the recession hit. Bay Area was no exception. I cannot find any job and my skill (.Net) was not in demand.
4.a) Implement REST
Note: San Diego is not in the bay area. He quit his job and moved here without having an offer in hand.
Sure, but it is still a damn sight easier to find another job there compared to say rural Ontario, Northern Michigan or in smalltown Iowa.

Of course someone could move to a place where there is more employment, but that's a double risk, it means you also leave behind the social net that just might be able to catch you if things don't work out immediately.
Yes, he wrote that, I got it. The point is, that the Bay area is just about one of the best places to be an out-of-work programmer on the planet.

Even during a recession it would probably still be easier for a qualified coder to find some work there than in most other places, the fact that he found a gig within a relatively short time seems to prove that.
Though it wasn't part of his explicit advice, your location is not constant, especially if you've quit your job. Thus, the limiting factor isn't where you are, it's where you could be.
A few thoughts on SSL Search
> Microsoft has shipped more software than any other company on the planet.

Do you know this as a fact or are you just speculating? (I don't care if it was speculation, I would just like to know if this is true and how it was measured if you know.) I would imagine it would have to be either Microsoft or IBM who have shipped the most software in history but I'm not sure the best way to measure the "most" software (does one count titles, licenses, revenue, etc.)?
I think Pro/E stopped supporting linux (or maybe solaris) recently (like wildfire 3 or something like that) if so I doubt it is available on the mac
Being able to control media coverage until you can be pretty sure the product works well is never a bad idea. A private beta allows you to do this.
Natural interfaces in 5 minutes. How to prototype iPad apps with PowerPoint.
That depends. If you have a family, kids in school, a mortgage, strong family ties, friends and so on that really counts for a lot to a large number of people, and that means that where they are is where they'll stay.

When you're young, unattached and without too many responsibilities this is a lot easier (and possibly even hard to imagine that one day it may not be that easy).