skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Here's my outsourcing story:

I run a busy web dev firm in the USA and we needed a way to speed up our project time lines while still maintaing high quality. The easiest way for us to do this was to outsource the front end code so we could concentrate on design, usability, marketing and back end development.

You would think that outsourcing HTML/CSS would be fairly easy. Turns out that many of the companies offering front end coding (from a layered PSD file) have no clue what they are doing. In fact, there were times we provided them with a complete, highly detailed spec and even wrote some of the markup for them and they STILL managed to screw it up.

We tried several different firms before we found one that actually knew what they were doing and would adhere to our specs. Now that we've been working with them for about a year they understand what we need and can consistently deliver quality work.

Just a quick note about the cost: they were a bit more expensive than the other firms we dealt with but I'll gladly pay a bit more if the work can be done right the first time :)

BTW - the company we work with is called XHTMLized
I highly recommend them for front end code.
The OS needs to be updated over the air

Not true. I did all my updates with my computer.
Thanks John for posting this as a main thread of its own. I noticed that your comment was lost in a flood of other comments in the YT thread. I don't know if you saw my comment but I mentioned your solution, while technically very solid, requires a lot more work for everyone.

Why wouldn't this work: Have a meta-tag (or something in the <head>) that says: do not allow in-line script tags on this HTML page. Only run scripts from external .js files. No onclick/onmouse code allowed in HTML. For additional security (I don't know if this is possible or not), external .js files cannot do document.write("<script>...") or $("#foo").innerHTML("<script>...") i.e. if external .js file makes an Ajax call and document.write() the response, the response should be handled as non-executable. Moreover, only external .js files can attach events and that too, using attachEvent etc. and not via the on* attributes.
The problem is that I don't live in the US. I live in India and the educational system over here is screwed up, despite what the PR guys would have you to believe.

>>>I think you should go to college and get some work experience before trying to make a startup. I tried developing my own fax server product when I was 20. The product worked, but I made some poor business decisions and gave up. Then I went to community college, transferred to university, studied abroad, graduated, got a software engineering job in Amazon Web Services, learned and saved money for a few years, and then left to start my business. Now I am in a much better position to build a product and company. You can be in my position in 6-7 years.<<<

That's true, but there is a time loop-hole over here that I want to exploit. I have an idea that is extremely time dependent in the sense it is the low hanging fruit, and the second someone else with more resources figures that small bit out. Then it'll be the second when the going gets rough.

I don't want money. Of course, I want to be rich enough to enjoy a few luxuries of life, but I don't want the money. I think that money inevitably corrupts us by distorting our perspective, and we end up chasing it. Instead, I want to make something beautiful and that startup idea is the most beautiful thing I can think of. So, I'll kick myself for the rest of my life if I don't make it. It's really not a choice for me in some ways. I HAVE to design things. I HAVE to make things. It's just the way I am.

Of course, if push comes to shove I will fight till the end for my idea, but I will abandon it if it screws other things up. I've realized that there are limits to obsession in this world beyond which your drive turns into brakes.
So where do I signup for Bootstrappers Anonymous?
Thanks, but how to enter "sender is in my address book" in the filter?

Edit: ah sorry, just saw that it is now an built-in option for the Thunderbird message filters.

Edit2: even better, just saw that the spam filter now has an option for "don't mark as spam if sender is in address book" :-)
This is what I use:

- XBox 360 $149

- Nullriver Connect360 $20

The other option is to connect your MacBook Pro to your HDTV directly. Not streaming; but it's cheaper and chances are if you're watching TV you don't need your laptop anyway.
Interestingly, it's also hypothesized that Brazilian Portuguese is closer to Portuguese proper 500 years ago than Portuguese proper today. The fact that the Portuguese spoken in former Portuguese colonies in Africa sounds more Brazilian Portuguese than Portuguese proper suggests the hypothesis is right. Moreover, Portuguese poetry of the Renaissance period only makes sense phonetically if spoken with a Brazilian accent, which further strengthens the hypothesis.
Apple is on the case, if you read the follow-up. Also, the last time something like this happened, Apple was very pro-active, fixed the issue really quickly.

I think the problem was really just that Apple didn't know about it.
I always been fascinated by accents and dialects, coming from a very young country like Italy, built on top of thousands of city-states, where it's enough to drive 30 minutes to encounter a completely different dialect and culture.
I always thought that northern New England was the closest to the original English. Why else would we subject ourselves to such ridicule from the rest of the country?
Is this really just a problem with MySQL DBAs? The article mentioned that companies 'can find MS SQL and Oracle DBAs easy enough (they just have to pay a lot)' but I suspect this isn't the case entirely.

My network certainly isn't the largest, but I do have contacts in pretty much all major web/tech fields. When I'm hit up for a position (I'm contacted probably once a week, give or take) I'm often hard pressed to think of anyone who's a) qualified and b) interested in switching jobs, regardless of the technology. The market seems to be pretty tight across the board. At least, that's how it seems to me.

As for companies 'just paying more', perhaps some are doing that, but more seem to be content to just sit some projects out if they can't find someone to meet their budget.
I mean that everytime you do "echo $myvariable;" (taking php as example), you must be sure about its content. If it's an URI, it shouldn't have the javascript:// format, if it is some plain text, it should not contain html tags, be it script, img, iframe, object tags.
And you can't trust data coming out of the database (google for "persistent XSS"), so you need to filter before showing the data on output, not only on user input.
If this kind of filtering was possible for a browser to do after receiving the input, it would be possible for the server to do to it's output before it sent that output to the browser.

IF this signing this was a solution, a given server could immediately solve its problem by doing this - at the cost of some processing time.

And if a given server wasn't interested in solving the problem now, they might not implement the solution even if it was implemented in some portion of the browsers out there - indeed, why would any server bother to implement a security protocol which didn't nail every exit (there would always be browsers which didn't follow the new signing protocol. Youtube could patch its problem immediately or wait a decade or two for your solution to happen...).
Apple is great on day one since it doesn't actually have many features.

I'm loving my Nexus One here, which has just been updated to 2.2 :) Different ringtones (Anything you like) for sms/email/facebook, tethering, portable hotspot! Flash? Simply in a different league than iPhone. The early Android hardware sucked, but the N1 is pretty solid.

>> The Android ecosystem doesn’t seem capable of producing devices that are great on day one. Yet Apple consistently pulls it off.

IDK, I've heard some things about the iPhone 4...

I had an iPhone for 3 years or so. It was a great device for what it did, but the whole hassle of having to use iTunes. No removable storage. Can't just stuff mp3's on it and use as ringtones. Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. It's just a PITA. Not to mention the mass of features that are just lacking on the iPhone but you take for granted on Android.
Interestingly, one of the most brilliant theoretical computer scientists I know only recently wrote his first computer program. Another very well-known,although now deceased, theoretical computer scientist didn't even use a computer. He would have his secretary print his emails and he would handwrite replies and give them to his secretary. Not sure how he wrote his papers, as he was prolific in his prime... maybe the typewriter?
Definitely a big issue, but there are quite a few mouse-only Flash games that work well on a touchscreen. We have a mobile version of Kongregate (targeting Android of course): http://m.kongregate.com
I'm disappointed that distutils2 didn't make it in this release. Does that mean it won't be in the standard library until the 3.x series?
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the Great Vowel Shift, but as far as we know that occurred naturally, not as a direct result of any royal dictate. At any rate, it was basically over by the time the American colonies got going. The oldest colonies might have been affected to some degree, but my (strictly amateurish) feeling is that it doesn't really fit as the main explanation (except in that the English accent was shown to be exceptionally malleable at the time).
Unusual quantum states may shake up quantum computing
Here's how I went about it. First, I read Abelson & Sussman's super-condensed SICP article, http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6064

Then I ordered the book, and during the month it took to arrive (back in the 80s), worked out the themes from the article in programs of my own. When the book came in, it was extremely instructive to compare with how I'd tried to flesh out their ideas -- for example, I'd come up with a scheme to express dataflow pipelines by hooking up coroutines in continuation-passing style, inspired by their CPS-coded pattern-matcher; then the lazy streams in the book were a revelation -- a beautiful solution to the same problem, as a data abstraction instead of a pattern of control. (And then it was interesting to see how you could refactor the different solutions into each other.)

I'm not going to tell you to go about it the same way, but there is a principle there: struggling with a problem yourself before seeing how the masters do it, you're much better prepped to learn from them (and eventually you'll find yourself getting somewhere they didn't). Feynman emphasized this point.

Anyway, book in hand, I worked straight through doing most of the exercises and also related problems that'd occur to me along the way -- anything that piqued my interest. Again, going off on your own tangents is not to be scorned. The concepts or sections to pay particular attention to are the ones that interest you, yourself.

I spent 2-3 months, I guess, taking up all my hacking time. It was totally worth it, though nowadays there's far more competition in easily-available worthwhile programming stuff to study. I've heard of some online study groups for SICP -- don't know if they're active.
They work great on my N900!
Looks like it's unique to my install. I'd delete the comment if I could.
Ask HN: Who do you outsource to?
Lots of talk about outsourcing lately. I Have a question for everyone, can you recommend someone/a group that you've outsourced to and had some what of a success with?

I am a nontechnical founder, I started a web company b/c I love start ups and had researched an idea that had too much potential not to try. So far we have one app that is gaining in popularity in our niche. Because I have no technical skills I've outsourced development, but have already gone through 2 developers and its been a crappy experience so far (Missing deadlines, ignoring my comments, not picking up the phone when I call, ect). I am looking for reliable developers who can take my notes and make them happen. In the US or Abroad doesn't matter to me.

Any help would be much appreciated. I dont know if I am out of line by asking a question like this and if I am I'll apologize now!

Thanks!
It never ceases to amaze me that otherwise smart people will sit down to a meal and eat until they are physically incapable of stuffing more food into themselves. Every single time. The concept of "meal" is synonymous with eating until full, rather than eating until no longer hungry.

Further amazement comes when these same people, now obese, don't immediately do something about it. If you had any other terminal condition, you would do anything in your power to fix it. If you're fat, you just ignore it and get on with life.

It all seems so simple, watching from the outside.
Ways iPhone Users Get Ripped Off
>>>That sucks. Do you sleep well? If no the obvious advice applies, walk outside every morning, install flux or avoid bright screens at night etc. etc.<<<

I try that every day, but every night it gets screwed up again. It is hard for me to sleep at night and harder to wake up. What happens in the end is that I end up sleeping 12-16 hours a day.

>>>For your year off have you considered doing something like volunteer work somewhere? 1. you'll be useful to someone 2. it will be cheap 3. your friends and the college admissions people won't think you're wasting your time (nor should they, you or anyone) 4. you will be able to live without stress from various obligations and social pressures (assuming this is a factor) 5. It's easy you could have it arranged in no time and just be off.<<<

I want to volunteer for things like Make A Wish Foundation, but my hands are full. I have to correct the fact that I am so volatile and I have to learn a lot of things. At the same time I will be honest to the college admissions people about how I've spent my time, and I'll show them the most important thing to me; my creations.

My parents will in fact pressure me not to do social work. They instead want me to "compete" and "beat" the rest of the herd to secure "selection" into an IIT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology). The only problem is that I am not interested in a rat race. I want to do more with my life than play a stupid game based upon a 6 hour paper.

>>>And medicines supposedly work as well, if you haven't you should probably talk to a psychiatrist.<<<

I don't have access to a psychiatrist anymore due to various social factors. Since, I can't pay for one and I am not living on my own I have to tow the line in silence. I think that it's important for me to pick my battles wisely, and there is no use to fight over this.

Thanks for replying!
That's correct. This was a decision made at the language summit at PyCon 2010.
I sort of disagree.

I feel that presenting a bunch of DAGs does tie it in to Computer Science for sure. Graphs are an integral part of Computer Science, and to present it from that perspective does make it more "Computer Science-y".

I agree that to assume that only Computer Scientists (or people who have majored in Computer Science degree) understand what a DAG is, is elitist.
Structal, a Ruby-like language in PHP
Same for Spanish, Spanish as spoken in Colombia is very crisp and precise, Spanish spoken in Spain much less so.
Doubtless it's true. There are pockets of people in the Colorado and New Mexico who essentially speak 16th century Spanish. They just got pinched off from the mainstream for a long time.
A regular expression to check for prime numbers
This is a huge deal. I've wasted so much of my life explaining to friends, family and coworkers the difference between a Google Account and a Google Apps account. Nobody ever understands or cares, and why should they? But never again! Out, foul spirits!
Desktop Linux has been getting better each year, though (at least on average). If it still hasn't crossed the threshold of being good enough for the mainstream, it's because their standards have also been increasing.
The 10 Founding Fathers of the Web
The Knox Trail
I don't think employee compensation is something publicly disclosed, usually, and the question might be perceived as probing at best, or offensive at worst; unless you're a potential investor or acquirer, in which case there are better avenues to conduct your due diligence prep work ;-)
Yesterday there was an app called "A mirror" at the top of the Top Grossing list selling for $499.99. The developer, SufPay, has no website listed and has only released one app. The app displays images of picture frames that are simply black in the center; that's it. It's by a different developer, but it definitely seems to be part of a similar scheme.

I checked just now, and the price has changed to 99¢, but it's scary to think that a completely useless app 'sold' enough copies at $500 a pop to become the top grossing app on the app store.
Add one more to the list: Make cool stuff
Mathematics. See the Fields Medal.
I wouldn't describe the American South as having had few upheavals. It's actually had more than most places in the United States. Though, I would agree that it's had fewer lninguistic influences than other regions of the country.
I just linked to a document that says it is true. It is an scholarly article that has been peer reviewed.

As well, the cost of living of a developer is irrelevant as documented in the paper. The additional overhead of hiring managers and technical / business experts offsets any reduction is cost due to cost of living that one perceives as a savings. These are the hidden costs that the papers speaks directly too.

Sure you can, roll the dice on elance or one of the other freelancing board, work directly with a developer and hope that they get it right, but if a company don't hire project managers to ensure the project hits every micro-milestone and business analyst to document the requirements in extreme detail then that company significantly increases their risk profile.

That is the crux of the issue, you get the development work for cheaper but you offset the savings with additional project management and analyst costs because outsourcing causes more oversight and management.
I think I may have broken palish...
Oh, good to know! Guess I don't need Flash on iPad for anything then.
I've always admired some of the things marco writes about, this is not one of them.

While article is a depressingly one-sided article (marco's prerogative, totally fine with me), he misses a very big point, that for the sake of full disclosure should at least be expounded upon beyond a dry-wit analogy to Desktop Linux.

Android and iOS are moving in two different directions, and have benefits for two different crowds. While they both enjoy their share of people who play by the party lines, and will gladly pull out their iPhone or Android Phone the minute the opportunity to use an application presents itself, it doesn't stray away from the fact that the two platforms should not be compared to one another.

Where the iPhone shines in brilliance, quality, and polish, Android reigns supreme when it comes down to making the phone do what you want to the core. That is not, however in the least bit to say that hacking the Android platform is inherent to its very existence. I'm not going to beat the "one is open the other is not" horse, because it's already dead, but it's very hard to ignore the obvious that Android is a pragmatic platform that prides itself on the berth of UX centric platform evolution where the iPhone gives users features, and expects them to work with those features withdrawn from the scope of downloading Apps.
Just to add to this, the Great Vowel Shift happened at around the time of Chaucer, which is why it takes a slight mental adjustment to read his text (well worth it though, the guy is hilarious once you get on his wavelength). Shakespeare used modern English.
It's an amusing thought that a couple of centuries ago we were all talking like Americans. It just goes to show that accents, like everything else, are subject to fashion.
I strongly believe that desktop Linux is just waiting for a paid, commercially supported variant that comes with limited, supported hardware options.

That is, like Apple. Vertical integration.
I think I've heard of this trick. What the developers do is that they make the app expensive ($500), then they purchase it with promo-codes, leading to it going into the top-grossing list. Then they switch it to 99cents, but since it takes some time for it to slide off the top-grossing list, a lot of people buy the app. This gives it enough sales to break into the top 100 of the category charts, and it will then use that momentum to rise up.

Devs use such tricks - if you keep in touch with the forum, you'll see some crazy stuff people are doing to sell.
Tim Ferris describes a similar idea in the Four-Hour Work Week, only a little more underhandedly - he has them fill in the order form, click the link as if to proceed to the payment page, only to present them with a page saying "Sorry, due to unexpected demand, we can't take your order right now." The customer believes that they are actually buying something, when they're actually just filling in a survey.

Like I say, it's underhanded, but at least you can have a little more faith in the results.
There's a list of HN contractors (including myself) here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262467

I guess if anyone dropped the ball you could out them on HN :)
i don't see how simply presenting a bunch of DAGs all of a sudden makes it like "ohhhhh Computer Science!"

Perhaps not, but CS students / graduates are more likely to be familiar with them from the often f^#kin crappy textbooks we have to wade through, which seem to think everything is better with DAGs / pages of near-identical diagrams for you to play "what's different?" with. I don't see that many who haven't gone through the education-machine would subject themselves to such things willingly to be efficient enough at it to make something like this worthwhile.
Objective-C has closures, they're called blocks.
Stepping into ASP.NET MVC source code with Visual Studio debugger
I did a 10-day vipassana meditation course and it changed my life. Meditation helps you to understand yourself and your thoughts, and I can't think of anything more important than that. I highly recommend it to everyone.
I think that's true, but also Linux on the desktop is the best system for some people right now (me for example). Even if money were no object, like if someone said you can have any Apple system you want, I'd still pick a normal PC with Linux on it.

I've always thought the whole "year of the linux desktop" was a meme mostly kept alive by people who never have and would never use Linux anyway. People who actually use Linux don't think it's going to suddenly take over. On the other hand, most think it is actually a good system today.
IPredator seems a nice idea, i didnt knew about it. Tks
This is a hard problem. There are all sorts of places you can hide JS. My favourite is inside a data uri in an iframe. Eg:

<iframe src="data:text/html;base64,PHNjcmlwdD5hbGVydCgnRk9PQkFSJyk8L3NjcmlwdD4="></iframe>