skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with the grandparent post, because I think it's misleading to lump all of mathematics together. I'm very bad at mental calculations and basic arithmetic, and I couldn't memorize integration formulas if my life depended on it, so I've never had very high grades in math, at least until I hit university. Yet I have a relatively easy time picking up the theory behind SAT solvers, Fourier transforms, or solving complex integrals.

I think some people are better at concrete things like geometry or arithmetic, some people are better at logic, some people are good with operators and algebra... but one does not imply the others, and engineers may have an above-average capability for abstraction or logic that does not translate to much higher results in a high-school level exam.

The study here is said to have studied people "from grade school to college and beyond", so I suspect the "math ability" they tested really has little to do with the math ability required for science and engineering.

Here's another (slightly caustic) blog post which appears to be about the same study:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/07/janet-hyde-boys-girls-in-m...

It is enough to read a brief review in Science to see that the headlines don't follow from the paper at all. The review explains the main reason of the results: they have detected no signal because the tests were too simple. They didn't really test "g" or the ability to think mathematically but rather attainment.
Kodu Teaches Your Kids to Visually Program Their Own Video Games http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1796189
I agree and disagree.

(i) True, but from my own experience the software field is plenty sexist by itself, with or without the naked slides.

(ii) Agree. Tons of reverse sexism happens.

Hell, I volunteer at a transitional shelter for women (cooking duties) and get a lot of weird looks and conversations. I certainly get a lot of attitudes about being the only guy there - that I must be looking to hook up/get laid because there's no conceivable way a man could ever want to work for a female cause!

Having experienced both sides of the coin, I think it's fairly safe to say that this sort of sexism is not inherent to software, or males, it's human nature and will happen in any place with a lopsided gender balance.
Can you give some super introductory pointers on how to start a "physical" business like this? My girlfriend and I have been batting around some coffee related ideas, but this domain is completely foreign to us.
Sorry, I accidentally down-voted you. To the contrary, your comment is thoughtful and helpful.
The best open source platforms and middleware: 2010
~2.77 for me.

In my opinion, email obfuscation is like DRM: it doesn't hinder those who want to crack it for very long, and it just annoys legitimate users.
No, homosexual innuendo is hilarious. It gives license to participate via another role or character.

If you feel uncomfortable when surrounded by homosexuals that's your prerogative.
Do you mean you have your own funds and trading algos? What kind of strategies do you follow? I assume 'traditional' HFT is out of reach for a one-man show, no? I've thought for a while now that there must be opportunities in niche markets that aren't profitable enough for big players to get into, but that someone with knowledge of the industry can exploit. I'd love to hear some details on what you do, and what kind of money you make!
It's sold in the US, too.
If you have more money privately invested than money earned, you're probably a startup. If you're searching for a repeatable, scalable business model, you're probably a startup.
Ask HN: How to setup a custom query & response SMS server?
Here is what I am trying to do: A user sends a sms to a number with a certain key-word, the server would respond immediately with relevant info.

Similar to the Bank of America text banking, you type and send the word "BAL" to the BoA Text banking number and it responds with your balance.

How is this setup?
Thank you.
I'm particularly excited about this part:

"many companies I have worked with have “sticky features”, although not all of them know it. (Some day when I don’t have another few thousand words to write I’ll tell you about what they are for Bingo Card Creator and how I know.)"
Teen to Plead Guilty to Staging Bomb Hoaxes For Lulz
Where are you located? Is your market local?
I would similarly object if someone were to breach my paywall.

So they are breaching a paywall? That wasn't made clear in the post. I assumed this was distributing funds for public facing content.
Most of these "privileges" are the privileges of the majority. Majorities and minorities are a fact of life, whether you distinguish gender, education, skillsets, race, age, religion, fitness, lifestyle, etc.

i.e. there is not much specific about maleness or programming. Programming happens to be majority male, so it's easy to think this checklist is more specific than it really is.

1. Any majority
2. Any majority
3. Not true. Male partner does not get a free nepotism pass
4. Consider a male nurse, appreciating McSteamy.
5. Consider a technician in coveralls. Janitor?
6. Any majority
7. Reasonable. c.f. Horny
8. Any majority
9. Reasonable. c.f. Pilates / Yoga
10. Reasonable. Assholes exist
11. Reasonable. c.f. Pilates / Yoga
12. Asinine.
13. Context? c.f. Pilates / Yoga
14. Asinine. Only distracts females? Products and systems are
anthropomorphized female as well.
15. Asinine. I've witnessed open door talks.
16. Completely asinine. How on earth could one possibly sleep one's way
into a bug fix? Assholes exist.
17. There exist male programmers who are not appreciated for their
professional competence. There exist male employees who are
appreciated for their dispute resolution skills.
18. Completely asinine. More context needed.
19. Asinine. Computer programmers are unattractive dorks who live in
their parents' basement.
20. Any majority.
21. Unfounded.
22. Reasonable. c.f. Sex and the City
23. Unfounded. c.f. skateboarding
24. Unfounded. c.f. Porcelain dolls
25. Unfounded. it happens both ways
26. Asinine. We all have to Dress For Work.
27. Unfounded. e.g. DHH [citation needed, but it can't be too hard to find]
28. Straw man. Not the same as LOLcats. False dichotomy regarding
colleague perspective. Did anyone really laugh at this?
29. Reasonable, but is there any evidence any attendee saw another attendee
primarily as a sex object?
30. Any majority. c.f. male nurse
31. Completely unfounded.
32. Reasonable. c.f. Joe Sixpack
33. Reasonable. c.f. Forums / 4chan
34. Unfounded. Why are males exempt from this discomfort?
35. Unfounded. Males are not exempt from this worry.
36. Asinine. Everyone without a chip on her shoulder has this freedom.
37. Straw man. *Pure* meritocracy, really?
38. Completely unfounded. Males are in no way exempt from death threats.
e.g. crypto / security researchers
39. Dubious. Let's see the responses to this very comment ;)
40. Dubious. c.f. the privilege to promote the privilege of the male
programmer

As a numbered wall o' text, it looks formidable, but a lot of these items are mere rephrasing or restatements of the same complaint (valid or not). I must admit this list is thought provoking, and it is good to enumerate these sorts of things.

However, there are some extremely weak claims here, and their very presence undermines the overall effort. I was interested to know just how privileged I was, but after scanning a few of these, it's hard to take the author seriously.
Resorting to let me google that for you to construct your reply mean you aren't taking me seriously.

I am told that deflation is a bad thing actually assume many things to be true.

1. Deflation is the result of collapsing monetary base. However, the bitcoin economy isn't experiencing anything remotely similar to what you think is going to happen. The Bitcoin economy is experiencing growth deflation.

2. Assumption that retention of cash is not investment. To the holder of cash, it is an investment. The economy, on the other hand, see money retention as a forecast of time preference.

Moverover, an inflationary regime favor investors and producers. A hard money regime like bitcoins favor the average joe who are consumer and savior of money.
There is a third choice: "I care, but please bring a better case-study". As stated above, the gist of my argument is that all are born equal, it is the society and the stereotypes that shape them.
I would love it if it had support for source code listings too.
I've always found sci-fi to be examples of upcoming technology and their possible implications on humanity.
You mean it would be best that others could copy the ideas of inventors so that inventors die poor rather than breakthrough pioneers who have given this world the digital age, or at least have contributed towards it significantly, be rewarded appropriately?
Hmmm, you made a mistake in not having your agreement in writing when you two agreed to work together.

Having said that you must now move on. You have the code, he doesn't have any rights for it. If you stay, this will backfire big time down the road.

The partnership must rely on trust and respect, clearly not what's happening here.

Move on.
The partnership is spoiled; sounds like you have to part ways. But, without some agreement, essentially neither of you could go forward with what's been built -- an awful lot of potential to write off. (He doesn't have the code unless he sues you; if you went forward without him, you'd be in for some legal hurt.)

Try to think of mutual-resolutions that both split you up and allow someone to move forward. (In the meantime, sign nothing and 'reserve all rights'.)

Something involving a side-payment or non-dilutable passive share might work. For example: you agree to walk away and give him the code for a cash payment and 25% share of the company with no further obligations. Then, if it does take off, you've got a great claim worth pursuing, but in the meantime, you're free of the headache and able to apply your talents elsewhere. Or vice-versa.

If you do go this way, you might ask him to 'walk away' with a payment and passive share first. When he says that's a raw deal, then see if he'd offer the same in reverse. And, make the negotiated agreement ironclad/final with a lawyer's help -- rule out as much possible 'but the code isn't as promised' or 'we had to rewrite it all' later-claims. (Remember: when shopping for lawyers, you essentially get 30+ minutes free advice from each one you talk to!)
great chance to pivot. financed or cash? how many? there is a provider here in the d.c. metro making a killing off no-name stations.
One reason for the growing US obesity problem
No. I wouldn't.

I've been dancing in gay bars quite a few times, which is a much more challenging situation for a straight guy (brought there by girl friends, or gay friends.) I only feel uncomfortable when I get hit on heavily or fondled, all of which has happened many times, but even then, it's not a big deal.
I nominate Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End. In particular, his theme of ubiquitous connectivity and access to information struck me as remarkable realistic. Of course, Vinge is a Comp Sci professor, so I would expect his treatment of related concepts to be well done.
Lesson learned. Move on to something else.
Gift HN: Anybody want a subdomain of ww.com?
Hey There, I've been asked for subdomains of ww.com and if I would give them out.

So, one time HN offer, if you want a subdomain of ww.com, you can have one for exactly $0.

The conditions:

- first come first served

- subdomains 3 letters or longer (and yes, 'www' is taken ;) )

- the subdomain is not currently in use by a ww.com user
(you can see that by going to subdomain.ww.com,
if it redirects to the homepage then you're good)

- you have a HN account with 20 karma or more

- you post your domain name in this thread with the IP to go with it

- no warez / copyright violations or other nonsense

- do not harm my business

- no spam, illegal content or otherwise bad behaviour,
first 'mistake' or headache for me and you lose
the subdomain

- never pretend that you represent ww.com

- send me an email to confirm this so I can contact you

- no guarantees, if ww.com gets sold or I have
a bad hairday you may lose it so don't use
it for anything critical

That's not to scare you, I just don't want to make promises that I can't keep in the longer term.

Offer valid for the next 24 hours.

if you liked this check http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1796266 Yan's book gift/exchange posting!

update: I'll make the DNS entries when this thread is 1 day old.
Sigh.

Yes. You're right. You win. Anything will "work" as an antenna at any frequency. You can match your radio's antenna stage to the impedance of a wet noodle, a nerve cell, or an intracellular vacuum cavity with the right network. Whether the antenna ends up electrically distinct from any other object in the vicinity is another question entirely.

As I suggested before I have neither the time nor the qualifications to offer lectures on EM physics, nor to calibrate my words carefully enough to keep them from being recast by verbal anklebiters, so I'll grant you the point.
My initial take on it (and take it with a grain of salt, I am not a LaTeX power user, I just wrote my thesis in it and a few documents and haven't spent much time thinking about shorthand but,) is that there are basically two types of users who write LaTeX: people who author complicated documents and typeset equations and need LaTeX as their bread and butter of publishing and casual users who just want to write an essay or two.

Sounds like you're targeting much more of the latter group to increase accessibility. However, for that group of people a few LaTeX IDEs already exist that make it even easier than typesetting with a simpler mark up.

A lot of very smart people have spent a lot of time thinking about (La)TeX formatting, syntax and interaction and I doubt giving it a simplistic interface will do it much justice or introduce it to someone who found the original markup inaccessible.

Just my $0.02.
Marketing Virtual Goods: Q&A with Zynga's Mark Pincus
Well, what are the actual acts?
It's also presumptive to assume that I won't be judged by the way I dress because I'm a guy, that potential partners don't immediately consider me a dork with no social skills because I work with computers, that I'm considered a hero rather than lazy when I put life ahead of work, that I get to walk home unafraid after a late night coding spree (because guys are never harmed, or raped, right? and I'm never worried that I'll be unable to defend myself since I'm a big strong man, right?)
Teen text messages hit new high: 6 an hour, 3339 a month
all starts with the product. find an excellent offering, work on the costs then build a small service around it. the couple that runs the blog http://mywifequitherjob.com/ have a wedding linens business and share lots of data about optimizing and sourcing.

spend 50-100x more time on the product features than the website at the outset.
I have been wishing for features like this for years. The just make so much sense! I was hoping the iPhone would have had it by now but no :( This is enough to make to switch to Android when my contract is up, shame that isn't until next June :(
Sure, I'd love one.

w.ww.com (hey i can hope :P)
ip: 64.22.109.95

edit: i won't use it for anything nonkosher.
edit2: Changed my mind to 'w-ww'?
That's not a third choice. If you can show that the methodology of the study fails to account for this, then you've got a case, which I accounted for. But when it simply doesn't match your "feeling", well, I'm sorry, but that just doesn't matter.
Do you freelance, if so, what is your freelancing rate. A reasonable rate is $150hr for a quality freelancer. At that rate 1200 hrs is $180,000. I would tell him that it is 50-50 unless he buys down the hours as contracting hours. So to get his 60% he needs to cough up 18k. If he wants to treat you like a resource then he needs to pay to do so and he should pay the prevailing wage. Further I would tack on an amount for the fact that you are getting paid after the fact and took on a portion of risk assuming that you where getting a 50-50 split. I would put it in writing. It is going hard for him to legally argue against giving you the correct percentage if he is unwilling to pay prevailing wages. Courts usually frown on exploitation of uncompensated labor. If you have given him an out to pay prevailing wages with a justifiable premium for being paid after the fact and he refuses, it will weaken his position in court.
nice site design.
By the way, I did not disagree with the results of the study. I agreed to it by stating my personal feeling instead of going by the article, since the article didn't mention the study in detail.
Here's a discrepancy. You said:

"it suggests this is a problem we (HN programmers or some other applicable group) can and should solve."

But then you said:

"stop whining and start trying to change something."

This list is absolutely on the right path - by recognizing and bringing attention to a list of privileges that male programmers might not have thought of, this list (and the people behind it, following in the footsteps of many other feminist/egalitarian privilege lists that have been created), they are doing something about the problem. Raising awareness is action - arguably the most important action in ameliorating sexism in this space.
Maybe so, but those cultural aspects are utterly irrelevant for most jobs.

Some info on my job: I program for an HFT company. Right now, I'm taking a break from building some graphing addons to my companies trading system (waiting for the program to finish running). Once that's done, I'll return to my primary task of increasing P&L by losing less money when certain market events happen. Any hint as to my ethnicity yet, or do you need UML diagrams, latencies, etc to determine that?

Here is a project I'm working on (command line bug tracker interface, i.e. access trac/github without leaving the command line). Can you point out my cultural influences? http://github.com/stucchio/Idli

You can easily detect the cultural differences between programmers and business guys. With a bit more effort, you can detect the differences between a computational physics guy (me) and CS guys (my coworkers). I doubt you could detect the ethnic differences. Can you really say ethnicity matters if you can't detect the result of it?
Why? Anyone who has or inherits $10 billion can give it away. It takes nearly no skill. Only a very, very few people in the history of history can make $10 billion.
I've seen ImportConcern from some car forums before. JDM Skylines in particular have always been in demand, and everyone was looking/waiting for R32/R33/R34 GTR's. Small world, glad to know your business is still up and running!
Wish I had the time to extensively rebut in this way, but completely agree. Privilege exist everywhere at all times, with all kinds of complexity, and goes both ways many times. It is overcome through character, not complaint.
http://www.privacyfoundation.de/crypto_stick/crypto_stick_en...

Basically they offload your private keys to a dedicated device, completely in hardware, that's isolated from the machine's memory, so they can't be compromised via a software attack. The only attacks I've ever seen used to retrieve the primary key involve cracking the case and trying to open the chips up physically.

The cards are OpenPGP, and have room for three keys, up to 3072 bit RSA. The first two are pretty standard PGP keys, a signing key and and encryption key.

The third doesn't get used as much. It's a 'certification' key. If you have a certification key, you can use gpg-agent as a drop-in replacement for ssh-agent. And then you don't need an id_rsa file or anything like that stored on your computer. It's all on the card.

When you ssh into a box that has your public key setup, gpg-agent asks for your passphrase. Once that's done, the session key and that stuff gets setup on the smartcard. Since all that happens on the card, it doesn't matter if your system is compromised, the key can't be retrieved. (It also invalidates that old XKCD joke about getting your password with a rubber hose. If you destroy the device, your password is useless.)

The cards also lock out after three invalid passwords, so they can't be brute forced. If you do lock it out, there's an admin password to remove the lock. If someone gets that wrong three times, it actually erases the keys and turns the device into a brick.

It's really way more secure than I need, but it's a neat little gadget.

Anyway, I've seen dozens of articles over the years talking about securing a server's ssh config. But I've never seen one that addressed securing the clients...
well the US could have given pasta!
I'm straight and I enjoy homosexual innuendo. Like all innuendo, I find it amusing more than I find it titillating.
Hmm my sandboxed iPhone is looking better :)
lol. interesting
Absolutely! I really didn't mean the post to be anything remotely disparaging of GitHub. More of a skepticism of any central place with as much steam as GH has. The original article on this post just emphasizes this -- the guy is hesitant to contribute to projects that aren't on GitHub. When a majority of people feel that way, we're somewhat at the mercy of our benevolent dictators.

Note: I'm a paying and satisfied customer of GitHub!
Google’s Greatest Trick Is Pouring Gas On The Hockey Stick
Its situations like this that make me wish YCombinator had some kind of resource available to the general startup community to advise on similar situations.

I started a company about 4 years ago where I was the sole developer and the idea was mine, but the financing and business end were mostly being handled by my old friend/boss. I knew absolutely nothing about how incorporation or IP laws worked. I really wish that there was some kind of "Start Here" guide at the time, a "Startup for Dummies" kind of resource.

In my specific situation, the failure of the company wasn't due to disagreement or anything. Rather, the economy in Florida tanked earlier than the rest of the country. This negatively affected the folks I was working with and they needed to relocate elsewhere in the country to support their family. Meanwhile, I was going through a nasty and heart-rending breakup with my longtime girlfriend and ended up ditching everything and moving to San Francisco. In the end everything has worked out, and while I learned a lot from the experience, I still wish that "How to" guide was out there at the time.
Sounds like you and him have never worked together before. There is an entire lack of communication, and I think your ignorance or lack of persistence is partially to blame.

Lesson learned though, good luck.
Fucking good idea. That is awesome.

No. And no.
ah, sorry, new rule :)

I should have added that right away, sorry.

Anything smaller than 3 letters is out for technical reasons.
I don't have the direct data. The book I referred you to summarizes the findings of a series of studies by the Gallup organization.
Nice footnotes...

Seriously though, I think companies are wasting their time getting into tablets. I see it as small niche market longer-term. Something that big without a keyboard just isn't practical for anything other than games and movies, at least until people start using a stylus with it.
Gift HN: Book Giveaway/Exchange
So, inspired by jacquesm's giveaway of subdomains a few minutes ago, I'd like to start a HN book exchange/give away. I currently have a few recent CS classics that I no longer need and would be up for shipping them to someone in the continental US for just the cost of shipping. (Media mail is just a few dollars. If you really need the book and can't transfer money, I'll just cover the cost).

I encourage others to post books others might want that they no longer need and would be willing to either give them away, or trade for others.

edit: if contacting anyone in this thread by email, please prepend "HN Books: " to your subject. Also, please consider upvoting this thread if you think it's a good idea. The more eyeballs see this, the better it works.