skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Field robotics. Technically very challenging (involves computer science, math, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, control systems engineering, etc.) and very fun. Provides many different areas to specialize in, e.g. perception, planning, learning, control, etc. And you get to spend time physically working with machines just as often (if not more) than sitting at your laptop writing code.

For example, my formal background is in computer science and a large part of my job involves applied math, physics, algorithm design, and writing code but I am now also involved in electronics design and mechanical design (picked these things up on the job). Further, I spend many days outside working with vehicles, powered wheelchairs, and other mechatronic devices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fPgIPgzIfc I happen to work in an industry building assistive devices for people with limited physical abilities but depending on the application area you can be outside doing numerous physical things, for example, look at iRobot's involvement with the gulf oil crisis: http://www.irobot.com/gi/more_information/gulf_oil_spill_res... Heck, the guys at Willow Garage recently went on a dev sprint to have the PR2 (one of their robots) fetch them beers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Cq0sy4TBs

There is a somewhat steep learning curve to becoming a "guru" in the field due to how broad the required skill set is yet at the same time, due to the breadth of skills needed to build useful systems, if you have depth in a particular area (e.g. writing code) there is definitely room for you to fit in on a team and you can pick up the stuff you don't know over time as you get more exposure to it.
My career had a huge dip like this. Take a big step back, maybe a day or two off, and try to remember what you loved about coding. Then get the hell out of the tar pit you're in and figure out how to spend more of your time doing that.

I build tools and frameworks. I do a lot of other stuff incidental to that, and often the "incidentals" are what other people hire and pay me for. But what I truly love is building the thick layer of infrastructure and interface upon which a veneer of app and decoration is added. I want to build Back End Code, for any of several fun definitions of that. I especially love building stuff that enables other developers.

I also want to use Good Tools that make me feel good, and that build results that feel solid when I use them.

There are a lot of other factors -- algorithms, platforms, languages, performance. And while they're important to get the rest done, they're not what motivates me. Those two things are pretty much what motivates me, and the rest is done for the love of those.

Your two (or more) things are probably nothing like mine. But you really, really need to figure out what they are. Then stop "doing what a software developer does". Go do what you do.
Scientists in Britain close to cracking chicken-egg puzzle
I created a simple survey with dynamic questions based on responses using the database. Very impressive considering it only took me minutes. Love the feature that lets you see the call progress to each node as the call progresses. Great Job!
It worked fine on Windows at least a year ago when that build was in the same unofficial and unsupported state it is in now (http://books.couchdb.org/relax/appendix/installing-on-window...). What has changed in a year that makes it suddenly "production ready" on Windows?
That would be one serious leak if a programmer had to even be aware of the difference between SRAM and DRAM, yet alone of their respective schematics. It just doesn't happen. When it does, it isn't a leaky abstraction, it's broken to the core, and knowing these surface level details about electronics wouldn't be enough to fix the problem.
"Actually it lasted until I left the employer I was at."

Key takeaway.
see http://couchapp.org
Same day as CouchDB 1.0, too.

Mailing list announcement: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-user/201007...
Fun announcement: http://couch.io/

I'm using Clojure and CouchDB together, so it's kind of neat seeing all this happen on the same day!
Chicken came first
I'm actually far more interested in Fossil since it became BSD-licensed, but it's not nearly as widely used as the other three. The biggest projects I know of that use Fossil are SQLite, Lamson, Librelist, and Fossil (natch). Git's major projects are things like the Linux kernel, X, and Rails; Mercurial's include Firefox, OpenJDK, and Xen; and Bazaar's users include Emacs and MySQL. All three of those also have large commercial hosting options that are pretty heavily used (e.g., GitHub, Gitorious, Google Code, Bitbucket, Kiln, Launchpad), whereas Fossil currently lacks anything similar.

I'm not saying Fossil is bad for not being widely used; just that it's definitely not yet as popular as Git, Hg, and Bzr.
I and a few of my friends actually quit this time around. So I guess I don't care anymore.
I am surprised no one brought up astronaut.
This is the reason you don't use any GPL code if you want to:

1) distribute a commercial product
2) actually want to make a profit

I've steered clear of the GPL for years.
This is brilliant. There are many times where I would like an unbiased opinion from someone outside our immediate team. I can't help but think there is a major startup idea in here somewhere.
Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.
New development and maintenance are two very different development tasks in my opinion. Maybe you are discouraged because you are going through a brand new learning curve which you thought you had mastered and are now proven otherwise?

I definitely agree with everyone here recommending to take on side project and work on things in your spare time. Every job I ever got was because of skills/tech I gained on side projects (because I could do stuff with tech I though would become relevant...and it often did).

Relying on your job to teach you all you need to know is a sure way of becoming technologically irrelevant in 5-10 years. Your job will primarily tech your organizational stuff like working in teams, consistency, timeliness, playing politics etc. Even if they send you to any sort of training, those classes are usually a joke.

Learning your trade you really have to do in your own spare time. I easily (easily!) spend 20+ hours a week on my own stuff which I hope will land me the next position.
Yeah, I needed to weasel-ify it some more so it was clear I was talking about outright giving instead of giving in an exchange -- I probably should have just called it "donating" consistently. :)

The thing that's interesting is that they're clearly willing to go for the donation angle. Again, the line is so thin that you wonder why they don't just announce they're selling you a digital doodad for an inflated price with the understanding that it's essentially a donation. It's something that works for PBS selling $100 DVDs but maybe the worry is that it triggers the "outrageous price" receptor...
No. Newspapers died because of competition from the internet, but since there was little or no copyright violation involved it wasn't piracy.
The guy at perpetualbeta.com delved into this a few months ago with a couple of posts:

http://perpetualbeta.com/release/2009/12/why-the-gplderivati...

http://perpetualbeta.com/release/2009/11/why-the-gpl-does-no...

From what I understand, he -is- a lawyer, and he has done intellectual property work, so his opinion, at least on the surface, seems insightful.

s
Poll: What typesetting system do you use for long monographs?
I'm thinking about works as close to books as possible. Please feel free to add comments, as well as options I may be missing.

(I realize the choices I'm giving focus on the markup language rather than the tool (e.g. reStructuredText rather than Docutils), and that I'm mixing software products (such as MS Office) with markup language specifications, but please bear with me.)
Open Office Writer
TeX (plain)
Karma here is completely useless beyond a certain fairly low threshold that lets you do things like downvote. I wish I could sell some of it off :-)
HN doesn't have PMs. What's your email?
I only care about having enough karma to upvote and downvote. Now that I have that, I don't really care what happens with it.

EDIT: there is something ironic to come back and see i've picked up karma for saying I don't care about it.
I was very close to trying this for a recent apartment search, but I finally landed a place just before I crossed the threshold. I spent quite a bit more than 30 hours cumulatively, though, so I could have saved a lot of time for more productive tasks.
"Do, Or Do Not. There Is No 'Try'."
Wouldn't it make sense to tell people -how- you intend to use a new phone? I'm sure there are use cases where iPhone is better and other use cases where Android is better, but I highly doubt that either is best for -all- use cases.
I have no idea, but I imagine it this way. Your users are incentivised to talk to you on a regular basis. You are never going to see a tourist again. If you hate users, you will LOATHE tourists.
The independent game development community runs a Ventrilo chat server with the same goal in mind. Check it out here: http://www.tigvent.com/
Subtyping and Polymorphism: Java's broken arrays (2008)
I googled for an answer to your problem and found this: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/1305.

The link basically recommends that you learn Java first :).
For better or for worse, Scala relies a ton on Java, and no one has created Scala-specific tools to simplify some of these things you can already do with existing Java tools.

If you want to create a self-contained jar, the following URL has people discussing how to do this with SBT and Maven: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/6750. I wouldn't wish the curse of Maven on anyone, let alone someone who hasn't been force-fed it by the Java community for a while, so I'd recommend trying to learn sbt and then port the solution posted in the above link to your own sbt project. I really wish the solution were simpler, but Java tools have always focused more on server-side web deployment and have always been weaker in the area of client-side deployment.
Hi Eric, love your ambitions. Why did you feel the need to put something so database-y right into the repo and go beyond file/directory versioning and key,value tags?
I use reStructuredText as it seems fairly complete in terms on functionality and yet very simple to read as plain text. However, unless we talk about well-established systems such as TeX and LaTeX, I fear about long-term availability and support with so many ongoing projects.
How does this differ significantly from something like TinyMCE? From what I can tell, it's still using contenteditable.

I'd be interested in seeing an open implementation of the editor Google is now using with Google Docs, where they completely avoid using contenteditable.
Ahh, but books, tv, and movies are the pushers of love. If heroin were as high profile and esteemed in most societies as this love thing, then yeah, we'd probably all want it even before we'd had it.
Mel Gibson Calls the Internet
uhm.. North Dakota is doing fine fiscally (budget surplus) and has a lot of money coming in from oil. Perhaps you are referring to South Dakota which is home to a lot of credit card companies? Minnesota is running the 10th worst budget deficit (14.7% of state's general fund).
Woohoo! I'll come by :)
Summer Language Seminar: The R Project
"I would say it is most likely your job" -> I would agree so. Quit your damn that makes you feel miserable. But please find an offer before doing that! Money is still the factor to survive here.
I second that.
Though I have to confess, as I'm not quite there yet, I sometimes have to resist the tempation to post karmabait comments.
Stack Overflow's new Gaming site is in public beta
Right, but my point is not about whether or not they adjusted for the right factors. Whether or not they did that, it is clear that they took a retrospective peek at the data and said, "Aha! If we make cutpoints at 11 hours and 23 hours, we get interesting results." Adjustment for age, which should be done, has no bearing on whether this post hoc slicing of the data to give good results is proper. This is only OK so long as you're intentionally exploring, and then perhaps doing a follow-up study using those cutpoints in prespecified fashion using fresh data.

In other words, if you went back and looked at your data and found the best cutoffs to maximize difference in risk, is it any surprise that you found a big difference in risk? This is why they need to validate these cutpoints in a separate study.
I'm pulling this mostly out of my ass, but I'm pretty sure that to call a fashion model misvalued because of her facial attractiveness is misunderstanding fashion models.

Fashion models are not Maxim models; I'd imagine they're actually actually fairly disconnected pools of talent. There is some conjunction (eg. Sports Illustrated), but there's an availability bias -- most of the fashion models you or I are aware of are the ones who are culturally relevant outside the fashion world (mostly for being really hot). The value of a Maxim model comes from how sexually attractive she is to men. They'll mostly be shorter, healthier and have bigger breasts. Maxim models are also subject to the cultural whims of their audience and their variable loci of attractiveness, not all of them defined by purely physical factors -- Danica Patrick or Hillary Duff, while I certainly wouldn't kick them out of bed, in a cultural vacuum of pure adolescent horniness, would not be in the same league as Miranda Kerr.

Fashion models are frames for hanging art. A weird, angular face may be an important component in the look of a piece of clothing. Art also undeniably interacts with the personal character it's associated with. With most art, that's only in the creator, but I'd imagine that in fashion modeling, most of the spectators who care will perceive a piece of clothing and the character of a show by the composition of the personalities of the models in it. In high-fashion, anyways, where I'd imagine, like in the highest-level in any field, distinction is tuned down to subtle details that neophytes wouldn't even notice: it is crudely and fundamentally complementary to a fashion show or line to be shown off on somebody attractive; but when you get up there in talent, every detail, including the model, must be tuned to some creative harmony, and that value is not at all captured in the sexual attractiveness of a model by herself.

[again, disclaimer: I actually have no idea what I'm talking about. I haven't opened a Maxim in 6 years, I've watched a few episodes of America's Next Top Model, and I'm otherwise a red-blooded Canadian heterosexual male nerd.]
Nah, I usually just post if I have something to contribute. And like others have pointed out, there's no point worrying about Karma past a certain level anyway... it's not like the stuff really buys you anything.

Then again, maybe there's a micro-currency / digital cash based startup waiting to be had here... "Spend your HN Karma Points Now!" LOL.
"If the only thing that keeps someone motivated in life is the fear of dying alone, I'd rather not be involved with that person. In fact, I'd much rather not even know that person."

I am with you on this one. A 22 y.o. who's in a bland relationship because of fear of dying alone does not deserve my respect. But fear of dying alone is not the only fear. Everyone craves for approval, and everyone is hurt by rejection. Moreover, losing someone with whom one had a deep connection is painful, and normal humans tend to avoid pain. Therefore, I would say that fear in a relationship is a cocktail of various different fears, some better than others. Having said that, I still claim that fearing losing the other is a good thing, as lack of any kind of fear is a symptom that something is fundamentally wrong.
Good for you!!! Now I will try to pretend that I actually do care about what does repulse an internet stranger I never met and never will meet.
I'm coming down there
If you want to compete on knowledge, you'll have to look for a professionally-run organization such as a medical rehab clinic or a college sports program, which will probably require some kind of professional training or certification, maybe even a relevant degree. Without those, you'll be starting at the bottom. However, you'll be in a truly professional environment where you can develop expertise and work into a specialty.

In personal training, one-on-one in a gym, you need absolutely no training, certification, or even knowledge to get started. It's a bad situation from the consumer's point of view, which I imagine means a bad situation from the point of view of competent, knowledgeable trainers:

http://www.stumptuous.com/how-to-choose-a-personal-trainer

Many trainers are fly-by-night, students trying to make an extra buck, people filling time till they get a “real” job. There’s nothing wrong with working part time as a trainer but often it results in people with minimal hands-on experience. If possible, find someone who has experience working with various types of people, and if you get really lucky, someone who has powerlifting or Olympic lifting experience.

The trainer I use now works at a small gym (where I pay $10 per month), charges $25 per hour, and gives me competent coaching on all the lifts I want to do, including powerlifting and Olympic lifts. He has a sports training degree and experience both as a high-level high school athlete at a school with a very sophisticated training program and also as an assistant trainer with a Division I college sports program. That gives him no economic advantage over the Brad-Pitt-in-Burn-After-Reading type trainers. If you go to a fancy gym and hire a no-nothing bimbo or himbo to train you, odds are they'll charge a lot more. Knowledge and enthusiasm for the job are cheap. If you want to make money in personal training, you have to sell yourself on the other factors: looks, rapport, motivational skill, etc.

P.S. Make sure you check out the sample job listing at the end of the post I linked above.
on that note checkout 750words.com. Basically you write 750 words a day and it analyses the text to tell you about what you have written - whether it's extroverted, self-centred, positive etc. These stats are then displayed with nice graphs.
It would have to be Apple.com and for Dell laptop, it'd take them to search results showing the dell computers in stock or the specific model if specified. It's not easy but increases conversions and we're almost ready to roll it out.
The price of CDs were not "artificially high." That's copyrighted material. The copyright holder is supposed to have a monopoly on it. That means that they get to charge whatever they think the market will bear, not what you think is fair or the cost of production + x%. There were at least a few labels like Dischord that charged lower prices, but the masses didn't want that music. They wanted major label stars with lots of marketing behind them.

If the copyright holders still had the ability to enforce copyright, the fact that internet distribution is cheap wouldn't mean anything, except that they would be able to charge less and still turn a profit. The real problem with the internet for them is that it made piracy on a massive scale easily accessible. You don't have to respect their copyright anymore.

I'm kinda old now and don't follow pop music that closely anymore, but as far as I know the masses still want their top 40 pop music recorded by heavily marketed stars, not some dude on an indie label or no label at all who used his laptop as a recording studio. So the fact that said dude has an easier time now is irrelevant, except to the minority of people who are interested in hearing/recording that kind of thing.
Seems like unless there's a constant influx of people, eventually everyone that wants to buy a condo will end up with one... leaving a lot of built-up condos ready to sell, with nobody buying. Wonder how long it'll take.
I'm wondering where the guy he hired lives, and what the economy is like there.
Well, I used to be a field geologist, and while there was a lot of active in-the-field work, there was also a whole lot of sitting behind the computer writing reports and lots and lots of meetings.

I'll suggest an alternative that doesn't require you throwing away your 10-years of experience: you just need to find the right place to work.

I'm an engineer for a company located in a fantastic location with lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation of all kinds. We really do support a better life/work balance than any startup I've worked for.

And we do interesting work with modern tools and methods (Rails, agile, etc.) And we're growing and hiring.

I'm not gonna spam this post with a job posting. But if you're interested it's not too hard to figure out how to contact me or find out who I work for.
The fact that somebody doesn't spend $100/month on music doesn't mean he's spending it on concerts or merch. He might be spending it on heroin or video games instead.
Whenever I'm feeling low, I go to lunch with friends who work at a big enterprise software company, preferably in the financial or health sectors. Those guys make me feel like my job is a dayspa.

I've also found that constantly coming up with new ideas and suggestions for your company's core product, even if they never get executed, is very fulfilling. When you are doing so, you are often checking out new technologies or processes and the learning experience leads to the sparks that ignite my creativity and passion.

Side projects are nice and all, but it sounds like you want social acceptance for l33t hacks as well. I think you may just have to accept the fact that many developers are treated like factory workers and their managers are the ones rewarded with respect (and cash) on behalf of their best works.
The crumbs together make up the cake.
Ha, yeah, with a wife and two kids I can say that I can at least agree with the latter part of your assessment. :)
Thanks for the link to the Thursday lunches, never knew about them. Would be cool to drop by one day :)

Tomorrow would be good. ;-)

(Though I may skip tomorrow, I have the opportunity to go to a talk on public policy perspectives on potential marijuana legalization that sounds interesting.)

Your first time it is good to make sure you're on time. If you've been there a couple of times, you'll know who to call to figure out where it is. (I'm perpetually 5-10 minutes late to it.)
Apple Releases First Beta of iOS 4.1 and iPhone SDK 4.1
Well, if we assume a big-crunch outcome of the universe,
then it could be said that all matter would end up inside 1 big black hole. And then it might follow that the universe is re-spawned inside of the black hole. This solves your 2 issues, all escaping material would be re-absorbed, and there would only be a background oscillation of energy in and out of the universe that would net to a constant.

This example kinda kills the whole romantic-fantasy element of universes in black holes, since you would only get 1 child universe per parent universe, and it would not really be noticeable from our point of view. (what happens to those poor universes when 2 of the black holes combine??)
Ethernet is supposed to be AC coupled through transformers, so PoE which is DC doesn't (or shouldn't) affect non-PoE devices. The DC voltage is the same on both wires in a differential pair, so no DC current flows through the transformer's input coil either. PoE is extracted at the center tap of the transformer. If the designers of this new standard have any sense, they'll have done it the same way. So sorry, no fireworks today.
A Viral Wonderland in the Human Gut
Why Morning People Rule the World
Ask HN: Hacker social network?
I've seen several posts with people looking for other hackers to collaborate with or looking for help. If I setup a hacker social network with the open source social network engine Elgg, would anyone here use it?