skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Despite often outpacing Google in the development of new features, Zoho is looking to form closer ties with the internet giant.

"We are going to offer documents automatically synced with Google so you have two copies - one in Zoho and one in Google.

Source: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/76592,zoho-targets-the-iphone-...
Zoho targets the iPhone in mobile office race.
Thanks for the link, that's a good read.
If there's a security question I use a string of random characters as the answer and don't record it (which effectively disables the feature on most sites).

You're right about email being central to authentication on the Web. This makes it important to protect.
Google opens up a little on its search algorithms
"Identifying where I am now means I can't change myself" is one way of looking at this. Another, of course, is that by identifying where you are now, you can plot a course for what you want to do next.

I've been a "builder" my whole life, terribly shy, no clue about sales or marketing or business, just glad that other people took care of that so I could get paid to do interesting work. For the last couple years, I've been doing things to get over the shyness, and have had a lot of success. Now getting learned up about business, because I want to own the thing I'm working on and have it pay the rent.

That's why I'm on HN. Looks like a lot of us here are doing that.
Alternatively, you could use your "native" language and encode the data. I do that a lot, like so (Python):

>>> import simplejson
>>> v = ["My Values", {"type": 123, "Megahertz": 123.456}]
>>> print simplejson.dumps(v)
["My Values", {"Megahertz": 123.456, "type": 123}]

Heck, you could even do this:

>>> while True: print simplejson.dumps(input("JSON> "))
...
JSON> ["Hello", "World", [123, 321]]
["Hello", "World", [123, 321]]
JSON> [True, False, None]
[true, false, null]
Haml 2.0 released
What's so bad about degrees? I know there was this discussion a while ago, but I forgot the gist of it.

I guess you don't need a degree to do a startup, but on the other hand, if you are young and you enjoy learning, there are worse things to do than hang around on campus of a nice university? I personally missed learning when I entered the "workforce". Sure, I try the odd new thing now and then, but it is not the same as the dedicated effort I made at university.
Wikipedia: one of the top 10 web sites by traffic, and run by 15 people, most of them not even technical.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Current_staff
It all comes down to energy required to make a decision. Degree acts as a quick filter. For example, having a degree in CS does not mean that you are a good programmer but what I, as an employer, know about a person with a degree is that they possess a certain level of knowledge and they have also proven themselves and have shown that they can focus and accomplish something.

If you think about it, those two things I listed are incredibly important. When you're swamped with 100 resumes and you can interview maybe 10 people, these little markers help employer make a decision. Now, that doesn't mean that a person without a degree doesn't have a chance... it just means that they will have to prove themselves in some other way (being famous coder/blogger/speaker helps there)...
Mostly binary dependencies. Some are executable files (for instance, GRUB Stages 1 & 2), some are DLLs, and some are redistributables.

Reason they're under SCM is because we maintain some of them; with varying degrees of changes. Some have their own repositories, naturally, but others involve minor changes and/or just simply take too long to build. And for some of the redistributables: we don't have the source code for them in the first place.
what are you doing right now? i hope smart people like you are always busy doing something creative - if possible can u post your email please - i would like to contact you.
Moving to the Silicon Valley from Europe; Advice?
Hi guys,

I am currently doing my high school diploma. When I'm finished in august, I will move over to San Francisco with my business partner who has a Bachelor of Science in EE. We're both US citizens. That's one big issue already off the table. Next to school I have been doing website design and we have enough capital to start bootstrapping our startup.

I'm sure there are a few people here who have done the same. I have a few questions concerning living and work.

We have not yet completed our budget, what do you say is the total cost of living for two people?

If you've got some valuable advice for us, please post!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see you all guys in September! (I'll be @TC50)
Really interesting comment about realizing that right now is your real life. I also spent years in that mode of "this is just a temporary thing while I get enough money to do what I really want." A couple years ago, I had the same realization: that what I'm doing right now is my real life: the dumb conversation I'm having with my ex-gf, the boring Java code I'm writing at my day job, the hurry-up-and-pay-bills-and-answer-email-and-clean-the-kitchen rush in the morning.

Now I appreciate that stuff better, but I'm also spending most of my time implementing the dreams, and recognizing that the act of implementing--clumsy and distracted and imperfect as it is--is sheer ecstasy. I'm not waiting for the future anymore. I've had only a few tangible results so far, but wow life is way better right now.
David vs Goliath: the underhand tactics of competition
A great strategy that I've learned a lot from is to use a database like citeseer or ISI to find the author's of the most cited papers for a topic and then find their lectures on videolectures.net

Other's already mentioned Jordan, Bishop and Friedman -
these are all great

I really liked Thrun, Burgard, and Fox's text Probabilistic Robotics - they use a lot of ML like algorithms under very tough constraints (limited CPU and real-time performance)

Shapire (inventor of AdaBoost) has a good course
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~schapire/

Hinton et. al. have a good advanced course:
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/csc2535/

Moore from CMU has some good slides too:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awm/10701/
>For all the company knows, I (and countless others) could be the best developers they'd ever meet. And yet we're automatically excluded from even applying.

The game is about probability, not possibility. The assumption is:

P(qualified | degree) > P(qualified | no degree)

That's probably reasonable, since schools do filter out at least some idiots. To find a candidate, one must interview roughly 1/P candidates. If interview costs are high (e.g., face time is precious), you want as many easy filters as you can get.

This is especially true if you don't trust HR to properly find the "diamonds in the rough" (I certainly wouldn't).
that's not ironic. it's just coincidental.
Having interviewed quite a few people, I tend to think that there's a correlation between not just a degree, but also the quality of the school where it was attained, and the quality of the candidate - as measured by his/her professional knowledge and ability.
That's not always true. In fact, of the two best coders I know, one didn't bother with a degree, and the other did it as an off hand, graduating after 8 years, having worked full time all along.
Nevertheless, when it comes to people I don't know, and given that I don't have the time to interview everyone who sends their resume, a degree serves as an initial filter. If the resume is impressive enough without it, then I'll go ahead and interview, but it has to be really impressive.
In short, not having a degree is an impediment. You can succeed without it, but you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.
I'm in the exact same boat, I don't have a degree - I must admit, I worked at a company that hired people with/ without degrees and the programmers that I could relate best with were the ones who had degrees.

I've been thinking about getting a degree, but between working a full time job and doing a startup I just don't have the time, I have however bought myself two excellent books, which I'm hoping to fill the gaps with:

* The elements of computing systems (From Nand to Tetris...)

* Programming collective intelligence.

Web developers who don't have degrees aren't exposed to the fundamentals and fancy algorithms that are beaten in to you in CS courses.
1. GOOG promises(?) to "expose search algorithm secrets".

Nothing earth-shattering has been exposed [like MS promises to be interoperable and open, see OSL and ODF support...]

2. Nobody ever said, that what you see is what you get from them [like search results given by exposed algorithms]
because it doesn't add anything to the "conversation"...
OK I can understand it from that perspective, it's not that there's so much weight being put on a degree, but rather its used for lack of other filters, when there's lots of applicants.

Doesn't sound very accurate, but I can see the reason why.
> You seem to think I was being nasty by suggesting your maths was subpar.

> maybe it's your understanding of the word 'prolific'

> maybe your maths doesn't suck, but if that's the case, you have a serious problem with reading comprehension

> you're just plain wrong

> Sorry if you don't like hearing that

> Ah hah! There! I knew you could do it! A valid point!

What's with the rampant condescension?

As far as that last "valid point", it's one that I stated awhile ago, and you've only addressed it now.

Look, I'm always willing to have an intelligent argument, but I'll defer a long discussion to when you're willing to make points without blatant fallacies. I'll offer this criticism:

Your latest example no longer talks about moderators. Ignoring this, if a poster averages 30 points per "post", this still falls back to points, and the idea of "popularity contests" and "vote when you agree" mentalities, which are _points_ Giles brought up in his post.
OK, what's the upside?
Agreed, people with a degree have shown a commitment to a goal, and achieved it. That's definitely +1 to them, but as for the basic level of understanding, doesn't that become less effective as a gauge when candidates have 2-3 years of commercial experience?
Some new thoughts on the "atomization of conversation"
If a position stated that a degree is a "nice to have, or advantage" I would certainly still send my CV and hope that it was glowing enough to counter my lack of degree, which I would hope it is through sheer commercial experience gained while everyone else was in education.

But my gripe is that most employers don't even give us that chance.

In a way, that has played its part in my working life that has sent me on a path to be independent and start my own company, so I guess its not all bad :)
Images and MS Office documents. If you do anything with MS Access then the program itself is stored in a binary file.
If the company is great, but HR acts as a filter, skip HR. Contact the department you're looking at directly and be prepared to wow them.
Here's the book: http://tinyurl.com/3kr99k

It deals a lot w/ hiring interns-to-become-full-timers.
In my experience, even companies may ask for a degree, but if you show persistence, call & introduce yourself, walk in or network your way in.. they become more susceptible to giving you an interview.

Basically (in my experience) you have to show a genuine interest and pursue them at first, kind of like a woman/girl/chick/etc.
"I know several people that have degree's in computer science, and none have any magical abilities that you only pickup at university."

I think you are shortchanging the value of a formal education. You are forced to learn things you don't necessarily enjoy. For example, I was forced to take a few stats courses which I found extremely boring, but recently at work it was incredibly valuable. I know I thought I was a great developer when I was 16, but looking back I was just a good problem solver. A degree also forces you to work extremely hard on some things (projects, exams) with rigid deadlines.

Are you suggesting that people are wasting 4 years of their life? I realize it is 'just a piece of paper', but that piece of paper signifies an accomplishment.

Now I am sure a few people are going to say I have drunk the Kool-Aid. To that I suggest there are some places you can break the rules, and some times you have to play within the rules of the game. I think getting a degree still opens many doors, and because of that I followed through with it. Clearly there were times I considered skipping university or dropping out to pursue an opportunity, but looking back I have no regrets.
Separation Creek House
Maybe he meant that the people ask it ironically.
VC is just looking for money-making cows. That's what 'next google' or 'google of Europe' means: our local cow.
Maybe a degree means you are too willing to accept mindless mediocrity (like that found in our education system) and no degree (but the same level of ability) means the person is both autodidactic and unwilling to accept everyday mediocracies like found in our education system.

So the effect of demanding degrees is one of mediocre organizations (which are mediocre on account of, for example, routinely doing very dumb things like using tokens of accomplishment that do not reflect actual accomplishments and abilities to make decisions instead of doing the hard work of thinking and taking intelligent risks) reinforcing their mediocrity by selecting for people who have already demonstrated their ability to be content in a mediocre system. There are lots of studies that show very little to no relationship between grades and intelligence or grades and creativity. But organizations are unwilling to put this scientific knowledge into use.

I would feel more excited about interviewing a self taught developer who was good then someone who was taught through school, since I value self teaching, meritocracy and self motivation a good self taught person would display and despise the kind of cronyism, group think, and gradual relaxation of standards to the lowest common denominator that schools all too often represent.

If finding the right employer is like finding a needle in a haystack, anything that takes away most of the hay is good.
Smaller companies where productivity is measured more closely don't care that much. Big, dumb bureaucracies tend to hire based on buzzword counts on resumes and GPAs. You don't want to work at those places anyway.
I'm not meaning to take any value what so ever from a degree, and I believe that people that have them have accomplished something worthwhile.

What I am saying is that people shouldn't just dismiss people without a degree, because those of us who have a true interest in what we do, and learn, read books and experiment on our own - without being forced, or having a set syllabus to follow can become very talented developers.

If you've got to a very high level alone, I think that's a damn good accomplishment too, one that is at least comparable to a degree in itself.
Their goal is not to be perfect judges in individual cases.
A crude first pass works fine for them as long as it leaves a lot of good people.

http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html
that's a pretty neat plugin, thanks! Mr.Cheng and Mr.Wang,Guess they are American Chinese
Yes.

One the one hand, companies like Amazon whine (to whichever politician is listening) that there's a desperate shortage of skilled technical people. On the other hand, they subject new hires to 14 interviews.

Tell me: is this the sort of thing you do when you're in desperate need of employees?
I think you're shortchanging the value of being autodidactic.

The paper signifies an accomplishment that has nothing to do with actual ability. This obsession with degrees is a fetish.

Any decently self teaching person is going to wade through the boring stuff on their own anyway. That's a straw man.

In fact, you needing the pressures of deadlines and professors to get you to work, that's more indicative of you not being a great worker or being ambivalently committed to your work then anything about self teaching people. If you need to enter a codependant relationship with an institution that often calcifies mediocrity to get your work done or to wade through the boring stuff, that doesn't mean the self teaching dropout shares your problem or hasn't done the other work.
Photoshop to get GPU and physics acceleration
You've mentioned "2-3 years of commercial experience", as if that indicated anything. What most of the interviewers are getting to is that, on paper, almost anyone looks good. Look at the discussions regarding 'The Dead Sea effect' (http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...).

To get your degree from a school indicates that you demonstrated some abilities in a selective and competitive environment. The quality of the school tends to imply the level of quality vetting -- to get into MIT is more competitve than ITT. The name on the commercial experience reflects a similar vetting process -- a development job at Apple is more difficult to obtain and maintain than one at a local utility company. Arguably, a job at a notable startup is probably another strong indicator (on the idea that a startup can't waste time on inferior talent); but I wouldn't consider job upgrades at an unknown startup to indicate much (ie, everyone here could be a CTO or lead developer for their own startup... does two years of being a lead developer for a team of one to three, selected by company seniority, tell you anything about technical leadership ability?).

It is all just borrowing collective intelligence -- using the wisdom of previous crowds to give off quality indicators.
How not to get on covered on TechCrunch
I launched my startup officially last week (Eureka Science News - http://esciencenews.com - intelligent news aggregator, fully automated, similar to techmeme and Google News, but with full content on the site - check out the /about page if you want to know more). I got amazingly positive feedback from it; got covered on the front page of Drupal with a full write-uo on how I built the site, in details(http://drupal.org/node/261340); Drupal is the open-source CMS I built my site with, so it was my way of giving back to the community.

After that, I figured 'hey! Maybe I actually have a chance with TechCrunch!'. In my mind TC covers only very high profile, tech-related startups, so at first I didn't think that they would be interested by a science news site started part-time by a PhD student in retrovirology ;) So I submitted my story via the form on their contact page. No answer for two days, so I submitted it to Mashable, which wrote a post about the site very quickly (http://mashable.com/2008/05/21/eureka-science-new/). Cool, but the traffic this link generated was much lower than I expected (< 200 views, Drupal gave me > 6000).

I then looked back at TC contact page and noticed a the 'newstip' email link at the top of the page; the contact form is much more visible, but now I can tell that the newstip email link is much more efficient; I wrote a quick mail about my site and the coverage that we got so far on Drupal and Mashable, thinking that it would help getting covered on TechCrunch.

This time they answered promptly; I was very excited! But they said that while my site was very interesting, they like to cover news first and that they were going to pass on this one since we got covered by Mashable, even if they love science.

It's very sad because Eureka Science News is the first vertical I used my intelligent news aggregator for - copyright-free press releases are readily available for most news published daily; I'm looking for VC funding to license Associated Press content to build a website covering all news categories. Getting on TC would have helped for sure!

So don't make the same mistake, submit to TechCrunch FIRST via the newstip email link, not the contact form! At worse, you'll get rejected and you can give the exclusive to someone else ;) I sure wish I did, now I won't know the kind of traffic TC can send (but I'm sure its more than the 200 hits I got from Mashable!). I even had nightmares about it last night, a thing you sure want to avoid ;)
"Web developers who don't have degrees aren't exposed to the fundamentals and fancy algorithms that are beaten in to you in CS courses."

That's not true. First of people without degrees can be dropouts, having learned it in school before dropping out. Second, people can self teach that stuff too.
Don't self link, that's called spamming.
I used to do web-apps for a hosting company to earn money to help pay for school. (I think earning a degree was worth every cent BTW) None of the coders there had a degree and they were all very good at making everything work. This was a team of 2-3 people on a codebase of 50,000 lines of PHP / MySQL - The owners of the company also didn't have a degree and they seemed to prefer hiring people without one.

The other posters who have spoke of a degree as a filter which lowers the cost of interviewing are correct. I can think of two occasions over the 1.5 yrs that I worked there where they hired people who didn't have a clue what they were doing. This was obvious immediately and they had to be ruthless about firing them. I don't know if requiring a degree would have made this nastiness less likely, but these mistakes have a significant cost for both the employer and the employee.
Email Still A Preferred Method Of Communication Despite The Emergence Of Web 2.0 
"Consumers prefer email as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities; they will continue to prefer email in the future despite the rise of online threats and the emergence of other communication channels and web 2.0 applications."
preach it, brother.

after watching microsoft bully their way through the tech world for years, i'd finally had enough around 1998 or so. my first stop was beos, where i stayed for a couple of years, until be went out of business. i've been a mac user since then.
I used to think that a computer science degree was not useful. However, can you answer the following questions:

1. How would you program a compiler for a new DSL?
2. What is stdcall? How does it relate to the stack?
3. How many registers does a 486 have? What is a register?
4. How does ethernet work?
5. What is the most efficient way to break a project down into tasks and milestones when dealing with a large team?
6. If you break a computer which you bought, but has not yet been delivered, who is liable?
7. How would you mathematically model a computer controlled temperature controller system?

I know the answers to those questions because I learnt them along the way as I got my degree. I have a wide spectrum of knowledge which is not directly useful to programming, but is useful to me as general knowledge.

When you learn by yourself, you tend to learn enough to do what you need to get done. In school you learn things that are not immediately obvious that you need them.
That assumption will only allow you to pick based on a relative standard not an absolute one. Also, a degree being an eligibility criteria makes no sense. If you want to hire well then you should be willing to meet any relevant candidate. So in effect, with a degree being a REQUIREMENT you are actually lowering the pool of people who will apply and hence reducing your probability not increasing it.