skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's what happens when a site doesn't have a single canonical URL for each resource. The same problem causes duplicates on delicio.us or other sites focused on links.

Search engines deal with that by comparing actual content, maybe other services could take a similar approach. Of course in case of HN it's probably not worth the effort.
Look I like the sound of this but please : get it into production! I was reading these stories 4 years ago. They need to launch the product in a specific niche (camping? boating?) and iterate and learn. It's like a startup that never gets to launch.
I'll be honest, I am very concerned with this posting.

You don't want a loan, and you don't want stock, you want some benevolent businessman to... Give you the money? Those normally don't exist, you know.

As for your business, how many consultants do you have? Are the consultants working 40 hours/week with these 3-5 clients you have? If they are, how are you having cash flow problems? If they are not, you have to focus on getting more clients before you get more contractors. You may want to expand rapidly, but you can't just throw money for more contractors and hope the clients come, because when the money runs out you'll be in the same place before, but now with a bunch of debt over your head.
I'd love to have a 80x25 braille display. I believe they've been made in the labs. The blocker is the expense.
Design for Serendipity
This is why America is great.
Regarding competitive advantages: We are working on a new feature that will allow us to encode video uploads while they are still uploading. This change will affect the most critical aspects of our code base and it's very easy to introduce subtle bugs. TDD is helping us to make fundamental changes like this without being too afraid of breaking things. I don't think we would undertake this feature if we didn't have the tests we do. (And TDD is the only way to get tests you really trust)
Street Fighter IV Is Best iphone Fighting Game | InfoMov.Com
Talent Agency for Engineers and Product Managers?
Re-framing the dichotomies: Open/Closed vs. Integrated/Fragmented
I agree with you Jason. It doesn't mean I know Python. Perhaps I should use the phrase "basic Python" instead of just Python.

But the point that I'm trying to make is that it's so much easier to learn and build something using Python, even if it's not top notch or following best-practice/patterns or trying to be Pythonic all the way.

Of course this is not sufficient knowledge in the long term.
What does this say about the old adage: "All publicity is good publicity"?
> If there's a car dealership that doesn't need to market or advertise to people to sell cars, I haven't seen it.

Ok, but you're never really going to be the "star of the show" like the sales guys are. That's why I suggested finding an alternative industry where they're happier to have a developer on board.
This phenomenon has everything to do with intrinsic motivation. When you can decide yourself what to work on, you can be orders of magnitude more motivated & productive. Dan Pink's Drive is a good book to learn more about this stuff.
Your reaction says lot more about your attitude than it does about the OP's. I found the article interesting and informative, with none of the passive/aggressive overtunes you mention.

Your lip service about finding diamonds in the rough and catering to candidates who are nervous or can't think on their feet leads to just one comment: "Put up or shut up."

The OP has given us a very good, concrete example of his interview process, the traits it reveals in candidates, and how he tailors it to meet individual candidate reactions. Until you do the same your comment here is nothing but five paragraphs of whining about how some people don't interview well.

To which I reply, "Duh."

We all know the 45-60 minute interview is imperfect, and that both interviewer and candidate are just trying to make the best of a very contrived interaction to begin with. So, please, lose the attitude and give us something we can learn from rather than bashing the OP with vague generalities.
I think BDD would be a nice addition to our system tests. However, I have not worked much in Ruby, and from the outside it is hard to tell whether those cute DSL's are more poetry or business ; ). (Don't get me wrong, I love cute code - but not at the price of simplicity)
It could also be just a difference in marketing strategy.
Why Finders Are Losers (or The Startup World's Dirty Little Secret)
That's not really a counter-point as the post never claims that you have zero-chance of having a long-term relationship using a paid site.
> As a matter of fact, writing "good" Python code is a very seldom observed art and most performance issues can be gotten rid of if you know enough about the language and follow the style and design advices of true "Pythonistas", as the "gurus" there call themselves (and many more who do not deserve that title ;)).

First of all, should performant code in your language be "seldom observed" and require the knowledge of the "gurus"? I should hope not.

I have written plenty of optimized python in my day, and it's always been a decent constant behind c or java, no matter how many of the "best practices" I follow. Pypy may be a different story, but their toolchain was too complex and slow last I looked.

Most of python's best practices are language bugs, anyway. Generators are great, but most of the rest is crap. I should cache my namespace lookups outside the loop? Why can't you do that for me, Python? That's one of the simplest compiler optimizations we have. All the fastest Python is written in C extensions. Why do you think this is?
it doesn't seem like you even tried looking and are dismissing that because you think you have nothing to offer

based on the things you've done, I'd imagine there'd be plenty of companies that would have you...hell you can probably contact every dealer in your area and offer your services that should pretty much be exactly what they are looking for.
What I find interesting about this is that apparently the Chinese have developed their own interconnect 'sauce' rather than using Infiniband or whatever. The article does not mention Linux but I presume that is the operating software they are using. Oh yeah, reading the comment section in Engadget to this article reminded me why I stopped even scanning Engadget posts, talk about infantile.
I love how I was down voted for having an opinion that says "I won't create an account to just see what the site even does". HN is so different today lol
Having a partner is amazing. Whenever I feel down or just too tired to get things done, I go & talk to my partner to get myself fired up again. If you don't have a business partner, maybe you can find someone who works in the same field & just meet up for drinks & bullshitting from time to time?
> To an uneducated observer girls were being evaluated on their physical appearance. That is not a noble pursuit.

Yeah, that's right. It was the execution that was referred to as 'Turing' rather than the notion that they were being compared by a metric other than looks. (I'm sorry if I'm being redundant here.)

This is a reference to the Turing test, whereby, an observer holds conversations simultaneously with a human and computer counterpart over a network. The observer must attempt to identify the computer from the two conversations purely from the responses given. So it's the idea of putting two things side-by-side and choosing the more desirable... as opposed to simply assigning a number which is a little more arbitrary.

I suppose on one hand he saw an idea that would become an instant success due to the simplicity of execution.

You are right though: It's not a noble pursuit.
Does anybody know how this works for Europe? Going through the list at http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html I see European companies, but isn't the DCMA only a US thingy?
Ten Top Rules of Successful Entrepreneurship
It's not that I don't want to give stock, I just don't want the hassle of setting it all up. From the outset, it looks like a big PITA filled with lots of paperwork and formalities involving consultations with accountants and lawyers. That is the downside to taking private investment in exchange for stock -- a loan is a much better plotted course with far fewer legal, organizational, and financial vagaries, but a loan also seems to have a much higher personal risk.

As I acknowledged in the OP, I will probably have to either go through the paperwork and get the stock all filed/configured or take out a loan from a big bank. I am merely looking for HN's advice as to whether it is better to get a loan or trade private investment for stock.

I am happy to give stock or pay interest in exchange for investment. It's just all the attached overhead in one of these situations that I'd prefer to avoid. So I don't want free money, I just want money in the most expedient and least disruptive way possible.
It is quite ironic how OKCupid uses dating sites own stats to show how bad they are, using only simple math.

"It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com."

Wow, this was a sobering wake up call about dating sites.

"That is, a man can expect a reply to 1 in every 100 messages he sends..."

I shall pass it along to a friend who recently started using one, I can easily imagine what it would feel like to get a 99% rejection rate.
Unless your just doing it for yourself.
awesome! I am barely dipping my feet in this area, specifically using Django - so I have a quick question for you.
I'm setting up the dev environment on a Windows machine; should I go with BitName Django Stack ( http://bitnami.org/stack/djangostack ) - but it seems to have an older version of Django itself, or fo through all the manual steps ( http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/ ) ?
Is there, by chance, an easy way for me to use the BitNami stack and then manually update the django version inside of it to get 'best of both worlds' ?
Thank you in advance!
Two New Mac OSX Trojans
Hm. I smell a really good startup opportunity, if one could build a reproducible design.

I know there's a ton of blind people out there... do most of them know or rely upon braille, and would be interested in such a product?
It's nice to see some noteworthy CS/Mathmatics accomplishments coming from outside Stanford and MIT. But perhaps I'm biased being from the Dallas area.
I know you said they're windows only, but do you have any idea if they work under Mono or WINE?
I understand that I will probably have to do at least one of these anyway. Which is better? I am not an accountant or lawyer and have limited experience in loan-getting, corporate registration, private stock transactions, etc., and would like this to proceed with as little interruption or distraction as possible.

So, let's get this straight: you are not registered as a corporation, and you don't have an accountant?

It sounds like you want to hire an advisor to walk you through this. Do you have any contacts (among your clients and colleagues, perhaps) who could put you in touch with an advisor? Failing that, are there any business incubators nearby, or the Small Business Administration?

One more thing: if you think that "banks are sketchy and questionable" and you don't trust them at all, I wouldn't be putting my hopes into finding "some benevolent businessmen."
Offer HN: Free project management
I released Wedoist some time ago and I have mostly built it for managing my own startups and I know a number of other startups that are using it to manage their tasks. I think Wedoist is the hacker way of managing your startup :)

I offer 1 year of free Wedoist Pro (worth $60) for one of your projects. Wedoist Pro offers ability to upload files (5GB) and SSL (and upcoming features such as milestones).

Email amix@amix.dk with "Offer HN: Wedoist" as subject along with your Wedoist project URL (and your HN user id).

If you haven't checked out Wedoist you can do it on http://wedoist.com/
I ended up just skimming it.

The first problem I saw is that they think they fact that the average profile only lasts 6.5 months is a -bad- thing.

When you have a relationship, you don't NEED a dating site. This means people either find a match or give up in an average of 6.5 months.

The second thing I noticed was that they are very down on the dead profiles. I haven't used e-harmony, but I suspect there's a way to tell when the person last used the site. Simply don't message people who haven't logged in for months and you won't have to to worry about it.

Much more useful is the fact that they get 12-15k new customers daily. In 6.5 months, that's a LOT of people to look through. (Yeah, they mostly won't be in your area, but most of the dead accounts won't be, either.)
Awesome, I appreciate your help. Good Luck! Let me know if I can be of assistance in return.
What I find more interesting is this bit:

"Mr. Dongarra said a long-running Chinese project to build chips to rival those from Intel and others remained under way and looked promising. "It’s not quite there yet, but it will be in a year or two," he said. "

Can anyone comment on how much that comment reflects reality? I don't doubt China has the ability to do this, but at the same time, China does have a reputation when it comes to reaching parity with western designs...
So what's Ok Cupid's marriage data?
OkCupid doesn't realize that folks who pay for dating sites are those who are serious about finding a long term relationship. okcupid, pof among others are filled with spam and folks who sign up just for fun. I was working on a dating site and may get back into coding it once I find some time. I've asked friends who use such sites and all of them said they would definitely pay. Some of them signed up for POF and refuse to use the service due the ugly gui or the fact that messages are met with auto replies.
I feel for your situation, 'cos coding for me is actually more like 50% writing code and 50% daydreaming/browsing/whatever. Coding is a creative task.

Typically though I'll think of an excellent shortcut/solution after an hour of staring into space, and that shortcut saves about a days work. Problem is, how do I quantify that saving?

In the past I've spec'ed work to my boss on how long it would take to do a project the 'typical way' and got approval, and then it's just a matter of delivering it in less time than that. But if your boss can't estimate time to do tasks anyway, that's not going to help.

As a short term fix, you might want to take up smoking , or start drinking a lot of water, or something else that will let you get out of your chair for 5 minutes every hour.
Thanks for your excellent replies. I realize that part of the difficulties I experience with using TDD in real life is that testing feels "expensive" to me, e.g. I frequently spend more time futzing around with test code than I do production code.

Your responses illustrate a different perspective, that testing is cheap (this probably comes with experience, I would imagine). Anyhow, I can see that if I thought of tests as cheap, I wouldn't get so hung up on my tests breaking when I change direction on a feature.

I also write a fair amount of code that consumes web APIs, so I have lost a lot of hair figuring out to test against those properly without mocking out everything to the point of meaninglessness.
I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but you could argue that the solar panels do not need a long lifespan. What they need is a mounting framework that has a long lifespan, including robust hardware that interconnects with the electrical system. If the conversion efficiency of the panels will improve every few years, the cheapest panel possible would be a better benefit, as long as they are easily replaceable and recyclable. This would provide a more cost effective system in the long run.
20 days holiday? In the UK? That sounds like USA holiday time to me, mate. And if you're starting a new job in the US, that would be positively generous, I'm sorry to say.
How about making these service-based tools, so platform isn't an issue?

[and thanks for the offer]
I am registered as a corporation (LLC) and I do have an accountant. However, my accountant is a consultant I retain for a few hours every few months to go over tax filings, and I am assuming that stock configuration and dispersion is a bit more complex than registering a LLC. Maybe I'm wrong.

This is still very much a small business, "mom-and-pop" thing. I would like it to grow to something a little less "mom-and-pop"-y, and additional liquid assets would assist greatly in doing that. Having some cashflow history and not going out of business in the last year, I thought that this might be possible at this point. If you don't think it is, that's fine, please let me know that I still have a while to go before anyone would want to invest.
Yeah, there's no question that buying Skype was a terrible move and not just in hindsight (lots of people at the time were saying that it didn't make sense). But if you compare eBay to Amazon (which the author tries to do), the eBay share price dramatically outperformed Amazon during her tenure and just as dramatically underperformed after she left (but to be fair, the recent performance was also due to the fallout from Skype and to her failure to evolve the eBay business model)
This test is unfair, a lot of people have a really weird face and i can't even concentrate on the smile because i'm too busy going "WTF?"

Edit: Wow i still got 18/20, wasn't expecting that
Google TV Project Moved To YouTube Management
Sure, I was following that story most of yesterday.

I think it really comes down to what kind of app you're writing. Evernote could have written their app in assembly and it'd be screaming fast but it'd be a PITA to maintain. They chose to go C++ because speed is really important to their customers, but I think they're going to have a harder time adding new features and tweaking old ones. With such a robust, flexible system that WPF provides, you're obviously going to have some performance overhead, but creating new features becomes a lot more easy. And perf is obviously going to get better with time simply due to the speed of your average PC.

For me, I absolutely love WPF. The thing I love about it is that it is stupid easy to make intuitive UI - I can put any kind of visual element ANYWHERE I want. And using MVVM lets me keep a very nice separation between my business logic and my presentation. In fact, I'm hooking up the same view model to several different views and via declarative binding, changes to one automatically update all the others. Granted, there is a fairly steep learning curve, but there is a lot more training material now than there was 4 years ago.

Also, FWIW, I've been doing some Silverlight dev and if SL could step up a little and improve their binding system (WPF's is much more robust), I'd have no problem switching over to Silverlight. I consider them to be two branches of the same tech. I'm expecting a lot more parity between the binding systems in SL 5.
You need to move to a different area. Hell, maybe a different country.

This is a bad job.
IANAL, but I don't think you can have stock as an LLC, You'd need to be a C or S corp.

As for wanting to make it something bigger than a "mom and pop shop", that's fine, and you not going out of business last year is great, but you WILL go out of business if you try to expand with money from loans or stock if you don't have the clients to back it up. You are cash flow positive right now, work on getting more and more clients. Once you are at capacity for the work you can do, add on more contractors.

You won't (and shouldn't) get loans to try to boost up your business, you get loans by looking at trends in your cash flow (I am growing by 3 clients a month, but I don't have the ability to work that much), and getting loans based on that (Example: I've been making a steady $2k in profit each month for 24 months, growing at 500/mo. Based on that, I'm going to get a loan for $50k, and pay it back over the next 5 years.)
It would be if this was the "real" rms (Richard Stallman).
I hope I'm not giving you the wrong picture. We did have to cut features when rewriting our software (after node.js changed all APIs) using TDD. It does take more time to write tested code, and you do not get an advantage until you have the code in production. It is only at that point that you are seeing the returns on that investment.

So generally you need to try to find a small enough product so you can build it using TDD. Also stay as simple as you can with your testing - even if it feels very repetitive. I'm only now thinking of adding more tools to my testing toolchain after I have a better understanding of the actual problems I run into often.

About testing web APIs. You need both unit and system tests. The unit tests make sure your internal processing is solid. The system tests will directly make calls to the service. That won't always feel pretty, but it's the best way to approach it IMO.
How many others on HN are physical product people? I have a degree in Industrial design as well and would be interested in talking with others who've gone the physical product route!
I've considered it, but right now I've got too much invested in my current presentation layer, which I think provides a large chunk of the value.

That, and I'd be wary of uploading my company's IP to a third party system.
JS Libs Deconstructed
Brilliant List. So real, so today. The best one is number 56 from the list. Mature, but don’t grow up.
There's an entire community that's built up around odd products found on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/amazon%20oddities?ref_=tag_dpp_cus...
Nitriq doesn't sound like it fits the service-based model -- you'd have to upload your source code or your binary assemblies everytime you want to analyze something. To me, that would be like a service-based compiler or a service-based debugger.
Extreme Mini Golf Free Online Game
I have a one year old kid, he is learning to walk, so funny. With a baby you learn what the meaning of "responsibility", and you see a human being (the only really interesting topic) evolving, building it's self. You also get nightmares in the first days. Do one get nightmares when founding a start-up?
They say its organic plastic solar cells being used. Does anyone know how quickly they break down? Maybe that's part of the reason why these panels only last 10 years?
Is Atomiq more about copy-paste from foreign code or more about copy-paste instead of refactoring to more general code? If the former, have you thought about a turnitin-like service for CS departments?
Because Google is almost real time.
it does that to me too, :'( but only on linux, so I think it might be more then just the hardware.
What languages do you code in / where are you based?
Your last word worries me, because I've seen insomnia and it's a killer. Like you I often have trouble shutting off my mind, causing me to continue working on problems in my mind while I'm supposed to sleep. Sometimes productive, but you will crash in the end, especially as you get older. When it gets really bad I force myself to sit down & meditate. When I do that for a few days I know I can find a healthy rhythm again. Heartpain, headaches & stress-induced illness are not worth any perceived productivity gain. Learn to shut down your mind.
Haha, exactly. Keep your eye on the prize: hair loss, weight gain, and buying yourself the car you are currently lusting for.
You only get statutory sick pay when a doctors note is involved, which can only be gotten if you've taken more than two days off, aren't too sick to actually visit the GP and even then statutory sick pay is paid at minimum wage, I'm on £17k a year.

And thanks for the link!
Publishing, a New Meaning