skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You're mistaken about the article... The testing way that is being discussed is NOT about the university test (which nobody is arguing for, it's pretty stupid), but frequent testing early in life.

This is already gaining significant traction in the US, as is said in the article.
A job posting is attractive if a friend who works at the company IMs you about the job, tells you how great it would be to work together, and then casually includes the link so that you can get some background information and feel prepared when you go in for your interview.

I always have trouble writing job descriptions because I feel like the default approach boils down to writing marketing copy for people who think job postings are full of shit. I bet, it'd be easier if I just put myself in the frame of mind of answering, "what information do I want the candidate to be prepared for when they come in for an interview?"
It's actually a huge plus for me if the company takes the time to put a novel programming puzzle in the post. It says a few things:

1. this wasn't posted by a recruiter or somebody clueless in h.r.

2. engineers at this company still care about hiring

3. a lot of buzzword bombing b.s. artists aren't going to be applying

4. the company recognizes that raw aptitude is more important than bullet list bingo

In other words, it's a sign that the engineering culture is probably still healthy at this company.
I wouldn't call my previous job "high paying," but it had a good enough salary. I could've stayed for years and save enough to live a good middle class life.

I've since left and joined a startup, I'm making slightly less and with less benefits but I'm definitely having more fun and learning 10x as much working in a small very early stage startup versus a corporate 100+ year old company.
"Internet savy and those who are aware of the nature of software economic already realize this"

The youth of today are Internet savvy. As time goes on, there will be less and less people that don't know how to find software, music online (for free).
the startups in need of hackers are often the ones you haven't heard of just yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4
Some things good programmers care:

* good engineering practices (as all those described in books like "Pragmatic Programmer" and "Code Complete": code reviews, unit testing, continuous integration, coding standards)

* tools worth respect (e.g.: subversion, git or mercurial but not Visual Source Safe)

* a well defined development & project management methodology, agile or not (e.g.Scrum, RUP), instead of clueless project managers.

* a concrete problem/puzzle in the company website to filter out bad candidates

* respect for the developer private life; i.e: what to expect in overtime work
If you are not falling, then you are not trying
Establishing Your Reputation as a Startup CEO Before Launch
When I was in middle school, I left my usual clique of friends to be in the "Abercrombie & Fitch" clique. Reasoning that being popular would expose me more to cooler people and prettier girls.

When I was in high school going over college, I decided to go to a school based on its prestige over the school I fitted in. Reasoning that a school with a better name would help me get a better job and impress people when I go to dinner parties.

When I was in college, I decided to chase girls that I can't have and break off with girls who I clicked well with. Reasoning that I should get what I can't have and that most people will judge me better with a good-looking girlfriend.

When I'm working, I chose to work at a well-known Wall St. company over a unknown startup. Reasoning that the compensation and the cocktail impression factor would be better this way.

Like a trader, everyday people make choices. Some people choose to play it safe their whole life, stay, work, marry & die in the same town that they were born in. Some people take incredible unwarranted risks, like dedicating their lives to be a professional athlete/musician/actresses despite overwhelming evidences that they don't have the talent for it. Some people take huge risk by letting themselves emotionally vulnerable when they fall in love. Some people follow the most optimized investment plan, go to the right school/major, work at the right company, choose the right partner, put the right contribution into one's 401(k) plan, have the kids and then retire the right time and finally die the right way.

But the market is simpler than life because in the end, everyone's measuring stick is the same, how much money you made/lost. But in something vague as life, everyone has different measuring stick; what's even more frustrating, your own measure stick is constantly changing; what I thought was important two years ago is completely trivial to me now and vice versa for what I thought was trivial.

And there's no use in predicting what you think would be important to you in the future because you most probably end up being completely off; plus, it'll just leave you frustrated to forgo your present moment to work towards a future that you might discover that you won't want anyways. Attribute that to any philosophy or psychology B.S you want (cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, existentialism), all I know is that it has happened and will happen again.

The only certain I'm certain about is the present; I'm not talking about being hedonistic, but to take risks for the present and to leave the present moment without any regrets. Kiss the girl, stay up late to finish coding & take the day off just to take a walk.
I did - and this is in India, where "high" isn't really all that high to begin with.

My thought process was pretty simple: at the time, I was more or less independent, and living /very/ frugally, which made the decision easy. I do know this: if my financial needs were different, I wouldn't have moved.
You can trade in-game money for timecards, which you can then sell for real money.
This just boils down to "what are you looking for in life?"

18 months ago I was at a "high paying job" by most standards. I worked 45 hours a week, had great coworkers, and even generally enjoyed my work.

I left because a regular job gets in the way doing other things that are important to me: enjoying the sun in the middle of the day, not working on tuesday if i don't feel like it, traveling for 3 weeks at a time, etc.

Being incredibly rich or owning shiny toys isn't nearly as important to me as scheduling freedom (and hopefully eventually location independence), so it wasn't for me.

Sure, it'd be great if I somehow had a big payout for doing what I'm doing now, but its not even in the top 5 factors for why I chose to pursue "the startup route".

No amount of encouragement or advice from others who have left their jobs will help you decide if its the right choice for you. You have to dig deep, figure out what you ACTUALLY want, then you can decide if leaving the day job is right for you.
Usually, if the result is not in the first 3 or 4 I try a new search, so changing the default doesn't do much for me.
This is good advice, but there is two ways to go about it:

What normally happens, esp for employees (rather than 1099'ers) is that you disclose that you are working on your social network for farm animals (or whatever) and your employer in the CRM space agrees a clause that says that all work you do in the "farm animal social networking" space is yours.

However, you've a) had to disclose what you are specifically working on and b) this doesn't cover you if you then subsequently discover or design something in another space entirely.

Rather than agreeing all IP is your employer's and then jointly negating your own project, what would be better would be a closer ring fencing of what is theirs and you keeping control of everything else.

You would still need to declare any conflicts of interest, but I doubt a social network for farm animals would be a conflict for a CRM server and thus you might never need to disclose.

All of the above requires some careful lawyering and also assumes that you have the leverage to write/re-write your employment contract. Ideally this is best when you are negotiating at the start of the job.

But never assume that just cos an employer gives you are 'boiler plate' contract you can't cross it out and redefine your own terms - regardless of the size of the company. It just depends on your ability to negotiate and leverage.

tl;dr: don't ring fence out your IP, ring-fence out your employer's IP and own the rest.

--
UPDATE: not everyone in life comes up with startup ideas and needs to consider IP issues. If you are that kind of person, which it sounds like you are, then consider whether being an employee makes sense for you at all (it doesn't for me for these reasons, which is why I've not been once since 2006).

Don't be afraid to take the same job but negotiate a 1099 contract instead which gives you greater freedoms (although you need to talk to your accountant to make sure your total business activities ensure the IRS agrees you are a 1099 status and not a W2). If a company needs a developer and you are good they shouldn't care what the paperwork looks like for you.
So where are the Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Alienware, Samsung, MSI, etc of phones?
This was just posted 4 months ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1340115
I do not like it. Until today I couldn't get Google to use my saved search settings. It kept using Instant and giving me 10 results per page.

I have developed my Googleing technique over a long time. This was a major interruption and for no benefit to me. Maybe if all you do is enter searches that always display the result you are looking for in the top 10, this is something good.
Using Core Wars to Simulate Evolution [pdf]
Under development: http://iswebapp.com/itunes/rss

For now the site does cross country iTunes RSS search (for Music, Podcasts, Apps, Movies, etc) and displays Album art with tooltip Artist / Album info (via title="...").

iswebapp.com will be a collection of "Unofficial and Experimental iTunes Store Web Apps"... aiming to build new experiences for iTunes content with lots of HTML5/CSS3 sexiness.

A minimal UI with fast load times. Single purpose apps... much like Stephen's brilliant work.

I will be building more web apps on the iTunes RSS/Search API's - affiliated of course. I plan to release an open source jQuery Plugin for RSS, Search and Affiliate link generation. If you're interested drop me a line @i_chris_jacob

I started this site a few weeks back but got distracted by Node.js and theories on how to best make the AJAX content indexable (headless browsers, etc).

Excited to see such keen interest in Stephen's work... guess I'm onto a good idea. Congrats to Stephen for nailing Instant Search while it's so hot. Wish I was as clever at 15 y/o!

Follow @iswebapp - I'll be tweeting once the ball gets rolling.
It does seem a little soon in the war to be declaring Mission Accomplished.
throwaway account:
When I left my job a few months ago, my total income from my employer to that point this year was over 400k. It includes payouts from my last startup I sold, but this would have continued for the next year or so had i stayed.

Since this is a financial article, I'll focus on financial stuff.

Its anecdotal but I think the average financial return for doing a startup is slightly better overall, and probably decently better if you are highly intelligent and skilled overall.

If you are not highly intelligent and skilled overall its possible working at a company is a better deal.

Two questions to consider:

Q1: Long term--what will open up more avenues of opportunity for me?

In general I was not a very good corporate climber. Some ppl are. Some ppl aren't. I am not. I dress casually, speak colloquially and comparatively don't care too much about what other ppl think and don't like 9-5.

Given I already have startup success, it was easy for me to decide startups are financially more lucrative for me.

Why didn't I stay and wait for all my earnings to pay out?

1. I got most of it already

2. I'm not getting any younger

3. I found a great team that I wanted to start a company with.

4. The remaining cash would not change my life significantly.

Given all of that, I decided I'd rather leave.

Q2: Having been in your position when I was a bit younger and first starting out (relatively high paying job...didn't love it but i wasn't going to shoot myself), I'd ask myself the "bezos/jobs question" : When you are 80 and on your deathbed, your life flashing before you in your last days, will you look back and regret the decision you took to jump ship and do a startup?

Imagine all sorts of realistic worst case scenarios....completely flops, you go bankrupt, waste 3 years of your life, gf leaves, mess up your health for a while...whatever is really bad but realistic.

Does the 80 yr old regret the decision of doing the startup? If so, then thats fine. Don't do it. I think I would have balked if I had a mortgage, kids and no savings.

However, in general people regret things they haven't done more than things that they did.
Another vote for a search box in the home page. I've so gotten used to one that it felt odd to be in a page without one, I was subconsciously searching for it for some time.

Also, I was initially confused by the "find and recommend books about logic" line staring at me, wondering whether this was a niche site for logic books or something. Only because I gave it more time I realised it changes to other topics. There must be a better way to indicate that this is what is happening, that it's gonna animate to other topics, try to think of one.

All the best.
One of the things I learned nearly 20 years ago is that it sucks to work in shops where the engineers are arrogant, because the more arrogant the less likely any good engineering is tolerated.

These kinds of puzzles communicate arrogance to me. They say "We're more interested in excluding you based on a trick question than in getting to know you".
I only see there doodle when it is mentioned in blogs or someone on twitter or facebook
I won't get into the murky waters of iPhone vs. Android - usually these end in both sides calling the other fanboys.

I will say that I tried to get into JavaME development and had a few leads (back in 2006 - 2007) but it was such a nightmare to test on many devices and know which would work, that I got out of that business.

When the iPhone came out and set its own terms, I sighed with relief. Yes, its closed and has its issues, but I really like knowing that there are rules and as long as I play nice, I will be able to distribute my app in that platform and it will work perfectly in all devices. I have an iPod Touch running 3.1.3, a 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 (all bought on launch and kept them as I upgraded) on iOS 4.0 and 4.1, and an iPad on 3.2, where I can quickly deploy and test and be pretty much sure that the application will work across 95% of iOS devices.

We haven't turned our back on Android development, but we tread that soil lightly. I could perhaps have various devices on 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 to test, but then even that is not enough as the screens vary, carriers add different enhancements and the hardware is different for each device. Before Android users gang up on me, keep in mind that I am not criticizing it from an user's POV. Rather, as a company doing mobile app development for clients, it is a very risky endeavor to sign a contract that includes Android app development for these reasons stated above. Also, since I am already an iPhone user, having all these devices around for testing is a given - I would have to invest some more to gather various Android devices in addition to the G1 we got two years ago when we were thinking about offering services on both platforms.
I'm the same. It is nifty and a cool trick... but didn't deserve to enter the mainstream (in it's current form). But there are underlying motivations that warranted the change before it was ready for mass deployment.
Sure, it changes the way we will search. But is that a good thing?

It's all about whether we want change. Change can be good, but think about how long (if ever) it could take for more time to be saved than time lost getting used to the change in the first place.

Also think about it this way: people have been searching on search engines for over decade in an very uniform way, regardless of the search engine. Search engines aren't that intuitive, even if they try to be. They aren't that user friendly, even if they try to be. But people worked with what they were given, and got quite good at. Now Google wants to break our habits, and a I don't think I want to. Not only because of the time I would lose changing my habits, but because it works just fine.

Another reason why Google Instant does not work for me is since it only works for "browsing" and not "finding". Sometimes people will go to Google to just "browse" a broad topic. They're not necessarily looking for a specific website or detail. So after entering a broad search term, Google Instant helps them narrow their search query. On the other hand, sometimes people will go to Google to "find" a specific topic subject, point, or answer. Therefore they don't want suggested search terms. They have already crafted a detailed search in the heads and are not looking for suggestions. In these cases, Google Instant just acts as a distraction. And that brings me to my problem with Google Instant: I use it for "finding" 90% of the time and only 10% of the time do I use it to "browse". I have a feeling that many tech-savy people here on HN probably have a similar distribution of their time spent on Google Since Google Instant only works for us the 10% of the time, it's hard to justify using it all.
The Google recruiters recommended me this Steve Yegg post: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog.... Also take a look at his posts on Amazon recruiting, as I found they were very relevant.

Learn Big-O notation for various algorithms

One thing that was recommended to me and I didn't do was the Topcoder practice rooms. In retrospect I think that could have been useful.
It pains me to see a Mashable story on the front page. This post (like most Mashable pieces) is of little use to the HN community.

Let's keep this sort of "lowest common denominator" stuff on Reddit and Digg.
Sounds like you and pigbucket up there should have a chat.

(Re: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685161 if you hadn't seen.)
It is amusing to see that you commented in the linked submission too, saying the same thing (that it was posted 4 months before that):

> This was post here about 4 months ago, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1035100 , lots of good comments.

Thanks for keeping track, found it useful.
>Actually I wish our profession wasn't just 0 or big chance payout but had some in between too.

It's not. I mean, if you don't take on investors or debit, it's pretty easy to setup a sub-minimum wage business for yourself. I've set up more of those than I care to remember.

Now, getting yourself up to ramen profitable from that is a little more work, (I can live on $15/hr, but not on $5/hr) and getting yourself to opportunity cost profitable is a lot more work. But if you are bootstrapping, there is a whole continuum between zero and 'big payout'
No. If you're dating around, do you tell your first dates that you have other girlfriends?

Later, if you actually get the job and you see the contract steals your IP, mention your discomfort with signing away your IP. Say that you work on side projects from home.
HTC Evo 4G from Sprint. It was updated to Android 2.2 quickly after release, has similar hardware to the Nexus One, but with the addition of a 4G chip and huge screen. Even in the suburbs out here there is 4G coverage from Clear and Sprint. The plans are cheap compared to everyone else ($79.99/mo for unlimited data, unlimited sms/mms, unlimited cell-to-cell calling on any network).
I guess it depends on the question. If it requires previous knowledge of some kind of gimmick then I agree it's a turnoff. A good puzzle that challenges your thinking and tests some basic algorithmic chops is a good sign though, I think.

For example, the puzzle in this ad is a good one:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sof/1927765905.html
So you are exactly right. I spend a lot of time trawling my competitor's job reqs (and even just those of interesting startups) to get a feel for what they are working on next.

I still say that you have to alude to the nature of the problems you are looking to solve - it's better to have A1 suitable candidates and your competitors having some clue about what you are doing rather than be so vague that you miss all the good developers and your competition pwns you on execution.

If you are hot then your competitors probably already know what you are working on from leaks, failed candidates breaking NDAs, etc. But most of the time no one really cares that you are about to spin up a map-reduce datastore and need folks with experience.
I had no idea there were so many people unfamiliar with secure networks. Anyone who is anywhere near U.S. govt classified networks knows that if they hook up their device up to one of them, they will be lucky to get their equipment sans storage media--and quite likely delivered with a pink slip.

Corporations may not have national security in mind when they protect their data but to them their data is every bit as important.

What I want to know is, can Google wipe my iPhone if I have Exchange synching? Looks like that's a "yes". How about an option to wipe my device, myself? Wouldn't mind getting that without paying for Mobile Me.
This is a great idea. I love the NYC tech scene and deliberately chose to move to NYC over Silicon Valley a few months ago. I like the fact the scene is still developing, small and community driven. There are so many events to check out and people are very friendly. People are building interesting products in NYC.

If anyone comes to NYC check out these events...

New York Tech Meetup,
NY Resistor,
Hacks Hackers,
Next NY
The best ones that you can buy are the Motorola Verizon Droid X, Motorola Verizon Droid 2 (a different phone), HTC Sprint Evo 4G, HTC T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide, AT&T Samsung Galaxy S Captivate, Sprint Samsung Galaxy S Epic 4G, T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant, and Verizon Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate. Be prepared to buy a new one each month to keep up.

I suspect Google's vision for Android was not a confusing array of confusingly named phones running confusingly different variants of software that confusingly require your cell provider to upgrade.
Some of TechCrunch's postings have been real winners. Although I probably wouldn't really want to go there, they usually seem to care more about the candidate's passions than their experience and education. I'm sure once you get into the hornet's nest for the face-to-face, the team will grill you to smithereens to see if you can hang with them or whether you're just blowing smoke.
No - there are several "Android" phones. These are the ones which Cyanogenmod supports.

Cyanogenmod is a community supported Android distro made for each and every phone model that it supports. My HTC MAgic (equiv. T-Mobile Mytouch 3G) is now running Cyanogenmod 6 based on Android 2.2

Most of the other custom firmware for phones are based off Cyanogenmod, rather than stock Android.

Support the project financially or otherwise, and request for your particular phone. Usually, all HTC phones are supported.
I like it for certain searches. If I'm trying to debug something, putting in the full error message doesn't always help. I start typing in part of it though, and I may get someone with a similar, but not exact issue. so it's useful for things like that. But if I know what I'm looking for, I can just as easily use the Chromium address bar.
This seems more graph like than infographic to me, at what point do we draw the line?
Amazingly and beautifully put, sir.