skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> the interview process is not always about winning/losing--it's about finding the best candidate.

Exactly, and this has many variations. On one of my recent interviews for a contract position, about 3/4 of the way through when we were discussing technical details in more depth, I realized I didn't have the proper background for the project, so I said that I would recommend they contact the headhunter to see if they had someone with more experience in this particular technology. They asked me if I was interested in learning it (they seemed to be looking for a reason to hire me), and I said sure, I'd love to, but in my opinion it was in their best interests to hire someone that already knew the technology well.

If I wanted to I could have taken the job, learned a new technology, and got overpaid for it. But I believe being brutally honest will pay off in the long run - some people will remember you some day, and you will reap the benefits.
I'm sure they are working hard. I don't think anyone is resting on their laurels. But I'm not seeing any results. I'm guessing that they keep running into problems shipping an overly designed new thing, but since it will be ready any day now, they aren't putting any resources into patching up the old thing that I have to deal with.
You never really learn a new language in the case of syntax that's all peanuts. Javascript and Lua are both prototype based languages and such trivial differences exist that can be ironed out over a week of productive use.
Indeed. I noticed that Hooters (between Aquatic Park & Pier 39 in SF) had 27% more women.
Well, just try out the Report a problem links right on the homepage. Maybe I should make such a report a problem box show up without a click at all?

I did that now. Better?
The Beguiling Truth About Beauty
Not sure I understand why this is such a big problem. Information symmetry seems like a worthy design goal, and if it bothers you that much, there's an easy workaround:

Create a second account for stealth/stalking. Voila - problem solved. Or am I missing something?
Why I Hate Beauty
Same here. At my current job I knew exactly 0 perl to start with. I haven't learned all the object oriented stuff yet, but I'm cruising (and have been for at least the past three months or more) at 4 mo. in, and I was capable of writing some of the simple stuff after a week or two.
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Mr. Jablonowski, who won last year's hack-a-thon with an app that used Twitter and Foursquare to determine the most "influential" person at a given place, carried himself with marked swagger as he demonstrated the bit.ly API on a laptop hooked into a projector. Earlier, when he walked in wearing a stripey V-neck, slim-fitting jeans and white Adidas, he had tweeted, "The king has arrived."

Puke.
That only means that even if you were in successful teams, they weren't good teams.
Why are “dead” elephants easy to find?
> as far as I know you can not make any new wiring with Aluminum in residential installations, pigtailed or not

Yes. But if you already have aluminium wiring you can - and should - add pigtails to it to make it safer.
Oops. I tried to reply to everyone; send me another one! I'll be sure to respond this time. :)
I really disliked that feature about Orkut. It would even show up when you visited a person's page who wasn't your friend. You had to think twice about visiting someone's page to see what who they are and what they've been up to. In a professional environment however, it can itself act as an introduction if the other person becomes curious to see who you are.
I've never had a problem with them - granted I only tested with accounts I had access to through family/friends. That said, it is up to the bank to maintain their end of the API and make sure that their server has the uptime and correct code to parse the request and return the response, so when that doesn't happen, the only resort is to scrape. Do you have a link to the thread where the claim occurred?
Hi, is any possibility to export book? O do I need to copy/paste all chapters?

Maybe in the future you are planing to let users to publish them work on line?

P.S. I watched video, but did not create account.
Ask PG: We are applying to YC for winter 2011, are we late?
Only thing that is keeping us from applying is, we are working on the prototype to show you off. Are we late? Most probably we will submit our application by tomorrow. What are the advantages that we have missed ? And what better we can do to increase our chances ? Thanks.
This is not correct at all. It generates actual native code from Java source files or byte-code.
Another great point.

I fixed the broken theorem, and I added a blurb on the "universe of discourse."
3000+ upvotes to the answer!! Amazing!
Ask HN: Feedback on freemium quotas and charging based on what it costs
The typical approach to pricing in the web-app space I am working on (CRM and Online-databases), is to have freemium plans with per-user pricing.

While there are a few vendors with seemingly generous "unlimited" (I am not sure how they can offer it, really), I have also seen vendors in this space fold away and reduce from something like 100,000 free records to just 1000 free records (of course, there was some backlash from existing user base, so they had to allow existing users remain with the old quotas, while restricting new ones).

But I would like to take different approach - based on what really costs us money. This means our free app may not seem very much generous, but our paid versions have substantially better value for money. I am trying to reason this out to users, with the following content in the pricing page..

"Did you know that the average conversion rate in freemium apps is just 3% ( link to http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/05/freemium_free_t.html ). That is, 3% of the users fund 97% of the other users who use the free plans. Our pricing plans are such that we don't over-charge our paying customers to fund our free users. In a way, our free users pay for themselves - since our free plans our ad-supported. This enables us to provide generous quotas for our paid-users.

We believe software apps are becoming a commodity and should be priced like one. Our rates and quota limits are based on what actually costs us money - the computing power, storage and bandwidth. This enables us to be generous in allowing more user-accounts per application."

The pricing page is at http://crm.ifreetools.com/pricing

My questions to HN :
1. Do you think that such a pricing approach (lesser in free, but much better in paid -and- pricing in terms of what costs us) is OK ?
2. Do you have other suggestions on communicating in a better way to users ?

Thanks.
More than a few startup ideas here. Certainly a big problem, but also a sticky one.
Given that the Winter 2010 YC funding cycle ended 7 months ago: Yes, you're too late.

But if you meant the Winter 2011 cycle: The deadline is October 19th; so no, you're not late yet.
Of course not. The deadline isn't till Oct 19. Half the applicants don't even submit their applications till the last 2 days.
oops, made a disaster. Thanks for correcting me.
So, Adobe, do you want us to update our flash player or not?
Interesting! You don't subscribe my love to "open ended paths" (i.e. activities with no end in sight, like karate, guitar playing, etc)? Or you just refer to work specific projects?
Content Marketing 
As digital marketers continue to expand and build their current content marketing strategies around professional publishing, it is critical that these organizations continue to identify and optimize their content marketing return on investment, both as marketers and as publishers.
Thanks! This is a relief.
Congratulations! I just wanted to say how helpful the html version of your book has been for me! Thanks for that!
I use layered security (in the sense of servers) with a password lifetime of 10 days. I deal with servers daily and the issue of compromise has been twice in on firewall containers/servers which was fine as the systems in place found it, found the issue with the net facing software and I fixed it. Practicality doesn't mean no security.
Megan Fox shows off her bra in public
But what if it's double the efficiency at twice the cost to produce?

It does sound rather more complex than a solar cell.
I'm really annoyed because there is no middle ground: I have to be completely de-anonymised to get the analytics. Even partial anonymity of the profile gets you absolutely no analytics.

Will I quit LinkedIn? No way at this point; I have way too much invested in it. But as LinkedIn provides no incentive for me to be even partially anonymous as opposed to total anonymity now, I'm conciously making my profile completely anonymous.
Ask HN: Who else is applying for YC Winter 2011?
We are applying. Who else?
If they didn't care about the users and features, chances are there won't be any, and without users and features, the project is unlikely to continue existing for any length of time.
The first tip: don't get your company email accounts hacked.

Ha.
> There's also a second reason British plugs are robust and fused: they're built to carry up to 3 kilowatts at 230 volts. (None of your wimpish American 110 volt mains juice here! Nothing quite makes your hair stand on end like accidentally touching a live pin carrying 230 volts and 13 amps ...)

Mainland european grounded plugs pretty much all handle 15A/230V, and none looks like a battlecruiser (see the well-known and widely used "CEE 7/7" aka "Type E/F hybrid": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CEE_7-7.jpg)
You know, I've always wanted to write a book, and I have dozens of pages of writing for different stories. So, when I saw your post on HN, I was stoked. Unfortunately, you did it all wrong. I say this in hopes that you will redo it, because I want your product.

Here's the problem - your software is supposed to help me write a novel, but it actually just hinders me. Your text editor functionality is non-existent, you have no integration with my usual tools, and your website doesn't suggest to me how to actually get a novel written.

So, go back and revisit your idea. If you are trying to help me write a novel, it's not going to be by providing some archaic text boxes on the internet.

Here's some things that would help me write a novel:

* give me points or prestige for finishing parts - gamify it

* help me to get feedback on my writing - socialize it

* provide me with tools that I can use - integrate with Word or Google Docs - I'm not typing into your system

I'm not sure you really understand how a novel is written. Have you used your system to write one?
You could learn it. But you should also realize the value in specialization. Your app idea isn't worth much. What should be worth something is your ability to sell that idea. Your ability to market it into something people want.

I think there's a balance between guarding a good idea and being paranoid someone is going to steal it. Talk to people about your app idea. Be passionate about it. If it's really a good idea and it's something you are serious about, people will mention it to friends who may be willing to work with you.
HackerNews is (loosely defined) a hacking/entrepreneurship community. I don't need to tell you where in this article to look for the hacking perspective. But the entrepreneurship slant?

Q: Which single line from the article should stand out above all others?

A: Were Mr. Stoller and his friend, Tal Safran, thinking of going to work for banks when they graduated? "Fuck no."

Extrapolate as necessary.
> Forwards compatible socket with the Euro plug. (that's the thin, ungrounded one with just two pins, one live, one neutral).

It's not really that it's forwards-compatible, but that the europlug was created specifically for this purpose. It's compatible with all european sockets but the english one I believe.
> if you stand on a US one, the pins will often get bent.

That would be the point. Better to damage a plug slightly than get the plug through your feet.
William Gibson says the future is right here, right now
Very well-written. I wish I shared the pastor's optimism!
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You can't do that (at least not with passive components). There's a famous optics result called the 'brightness theorem' that explains why not.
Like! (1000 times)
Unlock i phone 
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version 4.1
05.14.02
SVG vs PNG
Cute. Does give a nice picture. Move decimal 13 places one way, you get a galaxy, another way you get an atom.
Startmate '11 Application (Now Open)
> Thus, as long as total energy is conserved, there's no problem.

Where did the other laws go?

> The second issue is that solar heating is due to radiation, not conduction/convection, so there's no heat exchange as such.

I don't understand how there could be "solar heating" but no "heat exchange".

Unless I misunderstood the papers I cited, the efficiency equations show that there is a limit (efficiency drops to 0% with Ts=Ta), but I'll still try to address the "intuition" part of your post.

Let's say we are in a black room with no windows, everything being at room temperature. I use lenses to concentrate the infrared light from the walls onto a black cube. Would the cube heat up from the concentration of photons?
Have you ever held an english plug in your hands? These things are closer to a battle tank than an AC power plug. Forget about flimsy american crap, english plugs can be used as assault weapons.
The Tough Terms of Selling a Tech Company
© 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.

Quick! Somebody, anybody: who owns the AAAS? Is it the Rockefellers? The Rothschilds?

They're keeping ALL the habitable planets to themselves, I tell you.
Wow, this is one of those "why didn't I think of that" ideas. I could see this getting very popular over the next few weeks. Even if the data is not reliable, it's a very fun idea.
Bruce Schneier warns 'profits killing personal privacy'
Interesting story. Especially how often they tried to develop a new tracker. Any more insights why they failed so often?

Another already opensourced torrent tracker is opentracker http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/opentracker/. Its written in c and was developed because other trackers were slow or needed much resources. After some time piratebay started to use opentracker because it was much faster then the other trackers.

There was also a great talk[1] (German) at the 24C3 about the development of opentracker and some nice insider stories about running a big torrent tacker like getting a call from the provider "you are under a ddos attack.." "aeh no, thats normal and the load on the server is really low" (they had to change the hosting company ;0)

[1] http://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/CCC/24C3/mp4/24c3-2355-de-trac...
Information Loss: Linking from Twitter is Broken
> They should just switch their infrastructure to the "Euro"-plug as soon as they can, like the rest of Europe already uses since ages.

The only "euro" plug (CEE 7/16) only handles 230V/2.5A, it was made to be compatible with every continental europe wallsocket (and low-power Class II appliances), not to work with big appliances.

The second most compatible european plug is probably the CEE 7/7[0] (Type E/F Hybrid), which combines the german "Schuko" plug and the french Type E, the Type F being widely used across continental europe, and the Type E adding a few more countries to the mix.

Past that, Switzerland, the Danemark and Italy have their own plugs (though according to Wikipedia, the Type E is now allowed in Danemark).

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Type...
How Long was a Touch Event - Detecting When a Touch Event Starts and Ends
Slightly OT, but can someone explain to me what I'm getting from LinkedIn? I've codified a historical record of my coworkers. Occasionally a recruiter contacts me – 90% of the time, they're bozos carpet bombing by buzzwords.

I've given it something like five years to click and I'm still missing something. It's just not a fun web application to use. Twitter, Facebook, Stack Overflow, Quora and many others do a better job at the tasks LinkedIn half-heartedly attempts. If I want to connect with someone I don't know, I send them an email. The Rube Goldberg business where a chain of connections passes you around always felt weird and imposing to me.

At this point I feel like a cow at the feedlot, and LinkedIn sells me to staffing professionals.

Entirely willing to be put onto the right path, I'm just not seeing it right now.

edit: The score for jobs I've gotten through social sites:

LinkedIn: 0

Facebook: 0

Twitter: 2
I think you mean "Conservation of radiance". It corresponds pretty much directly with "Power per unit area". Obviously, mirrors and lenses can reduce the unit area, while keeping power constant (at best).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiance#Intensity
Verizon's Android Success Augurs Well for Its iPhone
There is nothing in the article that states he has not put away enough money for retirement, nor that he could not retire right this moment if he wanted to. For all you know, he could have $100MM in bank, ensuring that his family is well-off for generations to come. The article doesn't delve into his personal finances at all - it merely states that the Super Soaker profits are not able to fund his research as much as they once did.
As an 18 year old reading this sort of writing makes me want to leave the country. Except that I'd be taxed for ten years after expatriating, and there isn't any country that I know of as being similarly entrepreneurial. If anyone has suggestions, though, I would love to hear them.
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Being a 22 year old myself, I'm grateful that nothing in here is surprising to me and that my parents made me start a savings account when I was young (like 10 or something). To be honest, I don't think I've met anyone from my generation who expects to see money from social security when they retire.
IPhone 4 glass breaking 82% more than iPhone 3gs
A government mandated Ponzi scheme. Brilliant. :(
Totally agreed. I'm in NYC right now -- my first night of many, hopefully, as I'm here for the week interviewing -- and this is totally awesome. Going to have to play around with it, and maybe mine some data myself.
Who are the Y Combinator Companies? (Summer 2006)
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Well, that's confusing.

The comments on that site are even more confusing.
Getting Rid Of Spam
You can't control everything. Stop worrying about things you can't change and start enjoying life.
Devs are in pain right now, and considering that Google does web apps for a living, it is actually quite mindbogglingly that the Marketplace sucks so badly.

If they discussed these at Google IO, that's irrelevant: they should just deliver, everything else matters less.

Another annoyance the article hasn't mentioned: my European country is not on their frickin' list (not even with the latest update) and I cannot upload priced apps, even though I can do that in Apple's iTunes store. I mean, WTF ?!?
On Truth and the Tyranny of Illusion (2008)
Provocative and increasingly relevant with the advent of high-res displays and ubiquitous browser zoom. Thanks!
I thought that this applied to those 40 and under.
Highly dubious use of the word "stalker" to describe someone who views their ex's Facebook profile compulsively.
Yeah, well, my country is still not on that list; although it is available in the iTunes store.

You consider it an improvement, I consider it a late partial fix of what should've been there from the start.
I'm still not sure how to feel about usage of the word geek in the mainstream press, such as 'The geeks who report such vulnerabilities to software makers are known as "white hat" hackers.'
There seemed to be a disconnect here. Just because one is a Baby Boomer (i.e., has life experience) that doesn't give one the magic ability to predict the economic future of, really, the entire world. This article takes the tone of a wizened elder bestowing his wealth of knowledge on the younger generation but it's really just another futurist taking potshots on what's to come for the United States.

At this point there are so many people talking of what's 'inevitable' that I'm disinclined to trust anyone who has a prediction range longer than a week.
yeah, I'm working on it
> I don't understand how there could be "solar heating" but no "heat exchange".

Hmm, I thought that "heat exchange" referred to direct transfer of heat energy, perhaps I'm misremembering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer#Radiation doesn't seem to differentiate, but bear in mind that there's no way to focus molecular vibration with a mirror.

And if more photons hit the cube with your lens than without it, then yes, the cube will heat up.
I would presume anyone who has mobile support for Facebook.
xing a networking site like linkedin, already has this feature since a long time. But you can only use it if you are pro member and pay for that feature. You have to pay to see who stalked you, normal user don't see any details who visited their profile.

Punchline: you have to pay money on xing to see who's stalking you ;0
Ask HN: Service/APIs for getting User's Info.
Does anyone here know of any service / apis that can give information about users based on their Twitter ID.

Like their LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Hacker News, Reddit, Digg, etc profiles.

Something like Rapleaf. or something like what Rapportive is using.

Thanks.
Jessica.. you're going to be a really successful computer person. And you're going to grow up thinking that guys don't like you because you're a geek. I want you to know that's not the case - they're not going to like you because you're an asshole.

Just kidding, Jessica. Nice job on this interview.
Looking for cofounders
I want to invite you to this meetup event, Im from Mexico but will be in SV for a month looking for cofounders. I will explain my startup idea in that event, I am looking for RoR and AJAX developers as cofounders. its free for co founders. Will be in hacker dojo

http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/calendar/14858537/
Thanks!
The german facebook ripoff sites studivz, meinvz etc have this feature too. You can opt out though.