skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sometimes I feel like that. I mean, after all, I am working my day job to make money as a first priority, in order to take care of myself and my life. If I were able to do what I wanted purely without a need to make money I probably wouldn't be working where I am. That's not to say it isn't often fun and engaging to work on iOS, web, and business development with a team of people who are great at it. The developers on the team all seem interested in learning more, like you, and I don't get blank stares when I mention github, but I used to get blank stares when I talked about things like the Earth's environment, physics, and the way that the world works. Gradually, with patient persistence over a few years, as I shared some good problems of why it is important through whatever appropriate opportunity it was, they began to realize. Now I don't get only blank stares and mocking smalltalk, but there are some questions that they ask me about them and I can show them things through the questions they have.

Anyway, we are a small development firm that works with design partners and other clients, we build software for them, and we have a CMS platform that we tailor to their needs too. This is a big reason why the environment at my office is different than yours (we have a team of about 8 right now). Each person has to pull his weight for things to turn out well and we each recognize it, so many of us try to get to the level of expert in our own specialties. If expertise is recognized or rewarded then it provides an incentive to for self cultivation.

If you don't mind me asking, what is the specific area of software development your group works in?
My first thought after reading the title was: "Oh great, now they can trade faster than they can think".
And then…
s/third parties/Google/

(I realise this isn't an official Google product)
Any of you guys use CakePHP? I've inherited a project that uses it. It seems ok, a bit like Rails...
I have watched presentations from very serious people (in computer science) using this font.
This is a very interesting product from the great Chuck Moore that needs a "killer app" to take off. I wish I had time to invest in it...

What's interesting is how different this company is from the idea of a startup that most of us here have in our heads. Just look at the team and try to figure out what the average age of the company is:

http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/about/bios.html

I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that chip design requires a lot of experience or the fact that these people just happen to be in great Chuck Moore's professional network. Or likely both.
Haha, I didn't realize you were pointing out a typo and was wondering why you were getting up voted. I thought you meant I was nit-picky over Libya's government or something :D
To be fair, the article says that something that is "difficult to read" is what helps recall, not comic sans per se.
I think this is huge. I say this coming from working with MVVM in .NET/WPF for the last year. I've worked with Javascript (ExtJS) before, but I always found it a pain in the ass to use.

MVVM promotes testing, while allowing developers to build simplistic and decoupled apps. I for one am pumped to have found this!
Software engineering, just like other jobs and vocations, are just that to most people: jobs. You will always have some small minority of people that are going out of their way to attend user groups, seek out communities and contribute, but the majority are just looking to take home a paycheck so they can do other things. I'm sure you've encountered this when in school and I don't think this is any different in the US.

Stop trying to change, or more importantly, judge, people who just don't care. If it's just a job to them, that's fine. Changing diapers is much more immediate to them then github.

If you feel stifled, seek out user groups in your area, spend more time learning on your own and stay active online. Not much else you can do.
Three six-bit instructions per word, followed by a single three-bit instruction that can only assume a restricted subset of instructions. Since the chips have 64 words of RAM and ROM you could theoretically pack 512 instructions into each chip. In practice, this figure will be a fair bit lower- Jumps, for example, store their address in the remaining slots of a word, so they could consume as many as 4 "theoretical instructions".

However, communicating in parallel between CPUs is very easy. I/O lines between CPUs have essentially a hardware semaphore that will cause reading CPUs to block until they get a write and writing CPUs to block until they get a corresponding read. By bit-indexing ports you also get pretty easy fanout.

The docs also mention that CPUs can directly "push" instructions to one another without needing a bootstrap on the receiving end, which allows CPUs to act as extended memory for one another, eases debugging and opens up tantalyzing possibilities for self-modifying code.

You aren't going to get very far trying to execute a conventional language on this architecture, but color me interested.
Apple.com leaks confirmation of iLife '11, new MacBook Airs, more
I can't stand startups named .ly, .io, .me, and others.

It sounds wimpy and it's incredibly Web 2.0-ish. It's also so startup community-like, meaning that I can't think of the last startup with such a name that actually got significant traction and has entered the mainstream.
I guess you're right, yes. From a technical point of view, Windows is quite fragmented. However, it always offered surface-level consistency, with the exception of proprietary management software for certain tasks.

Put a customer in front of a Windows machine, and he'll feel at home. Give a customer a smartphone from HTC, Samsung and Motorola, and I'd be surprised if he could tell that it's the same OS on all three.

This software fragmentation is both a blessing and a curse. Without it, Android would never have taken off the way it did, because networks/hardware developers like the malleability. However, from a customer's perspective, this is sub-optimal.
Fragmentation in software is not the same as competing laundry detergents, even by the same company. I'm not a detergent engineer (a real job title?), but I bet that if the scent in one detergent proves popular, it's not so hard to add it to another.

By contrast, if there are 30 branches of an OS, although it does allow different ideas to compete, it also divides up the efforts of people who want to contribute, and even complicates the decision to contribute at all. And it's not always trivial to take good ideas from one project and port them to another.

Is fragmentation overall good or bad? Hard to say. But it does present challenges that go beyond just competition.

In short, sometimes the most helpful answer to "I'm not happy with the direction of this project" is not "fork it," but "talk and compromise or deal with it."
Mobile developer speaking here. As far as I can tell, most of the grousing about Google not being "open source" revolves around two points - one, they don't accept outside contributions, and two, you can't just install on whatever hardware you'd like / carriers do crappy things.

As far as point two goes - blame the carriers, not Google. It's not even necessarily clear that the carriers are in the wrong to do things like this - part of open source is that you are free to modify as you see fit. Sprint exercising this very right is why they have their own interface now. If all of the carriers choose to pull this shady crap, put the blame where it belongs.

As for point one - who ever said they have to? First off I'm not sure I'd want patches from Joe Schmoe running on my cell phone, and not even Google has all of the resources they need to review every submission they'd get. Secondly, plenty of open source projects are notoriously stingy about who they hand out commit privileges to - and the quality of the software in these cases more than justifies this policy.

If you're free to read, download, modify, and re-distribute the source code as you see fit, it's open source. If a third party intervenes to make this pragmatically difficult, then that's a different issue. Google has certainly been more open than any number of other software companies - only Apple really comes close, as far as I can tell, and they still hold back huge chunks of their code. Google deserves the press they get for being open source, because at the end of the day, they are.
Cool I suppose, but I would much prefer a simpler solution. A solid steel rod that bends 90 degrees at the end, high enough to keep the roll on, but not high enough to prevent changing it. Like this:

| Here is where
| the rod is
+------------------------------anchored.

Assuming the radius of a toilet paper tube is greater than 3 line heights.
There was a post on "who's hiring in October 2010" just recently:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1748045

I went through all the items and there were some for part-time/remote guys.
I wrote about this previous in a European context:

http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/06/yes-europe-does-produc...

There are plenty of recent tech success stories. European companies pretty much dominate the global telecoms and gambling markets, financial tech companies are fairly evenly split between New York and London. And while we don't dominate, the UK has a disproportionally large market share of the chip design and computer games industry.
"Of course, specific choices don't tend to survive if nobody wants them--that, too, is part of a competitive marketplace. If there isn't demand for them, individual choices will disappear."

The competitive market between desktop Linux distros is small and weak compared to the desktop OS market as a whole. Quality control seems non-existent from a naive user's perspective, as things often just don't work like they claim to, or work for the moment and regress when there's a software update they were prompted to install.
This isn't an insoluble problem, but it's hard to see how we can get there from here. Microsoft solves this problem (in users' minds, at least) by throwing enormous resources at QA and bugfixing -- more resources that all desktop Linux vendors together even have. Apple solved this by limiting hardware to a comparatively few models, but if a desktop Linux vendor did this and had enough sales to justify it, they would have already either defragmented the market or grown sales enough to escape the trap.

Basically, the lack of quality control in desktop Linux distros seems mostly attributable to the fragmentation, as distros try to differentiate themselves via UI design and package managers rather than helping solve the upstream problems that seem to be holding adoption back.
Flash comes to mind.
Am from Africa, I've tried craigslist and a couple of other freelance sites but I didn't get any leads. Thanks for the response.
So much of the protection from this sort of attack has to do with user training (or the lack thereof). We need the same sort of PR campaign / public service messages that aim to reduce drunk driving, lack of seat belts, etc.

And before you scoff at that, think of the economic cost of letting folks get "trojan'd" -- this helps build botnets, which have a measurable negative social impact on the Internet -- more spam, financial fraud, DDoS attacks, etc. Obviously not as severe as drunk driving deaths, but worthy of prevention nonetheless.

I know I'm trained -- I look at that "OK" button on the install dialog and my stomach churns. But others don't have this geek instinct, and that should be corrected.
Digital versions aren't a good enough replacement for a physical textbook yet. I've used the Nook e-books (on a PC, not on a tablet), and the interface is hell to deal with. But they are fantastic supplements to the real book.

I think they would be a lot more popular if the publishers did with textbooks what record companies are doing with vinyl records: buy the textbook, get a code to download a free digital copy too.
I am creating a business intelligence tool for franchises. Have some seed funding from a local YC / TechStars inspired program.

Also doing some work for a company that makes international e-commerce easier for US merchants (handles billing, shipping, and duties).

And wrapping up two mobile app projects for clients.

Also I am working on getting married. That part is pretty awesome :)

Edit: technically "right now" I am working on posting comments on HN. This is not what I should be doing.
I've had a few occasions to do socket programming in PHP and I agree, it's a pretty basic, and when you're talking programming in general, a fairly common thing, but I don't think it's something the average PHP developer does very much of.
Doesn't work too well for a remote VPS though ;)

But I agree, live distros have saved my life (or at least my data) on a number of occasions!
Firefox's html warnings in the browser's content window seem to make this particularly easy, though.
Do you have an online resume that shows/proves your skills?
Samsung Galaxy Tab hitting Verizon Wireless Nov 11th for $600, unsubsidized
Google Blog: This is Demo Slam
I think both. Plus consumer web applications and consumer smart phone apps and social media apps are some kind of fashion among young people. (I am 35 years old and even I feel the generational differences from younger folks a bit.) Older folks are not so sensitive to fashions.

Edit: or maybe every generation have a love affair with the topic which is the 'next big thing' of their youth? Maybe in 2040 a social media startup will be founded by old folks, while the young guys will be enhusiastic about something completely different? My father is a mechanical engineer, I am a programmer, maybe my son will have the profession regarding the 'next big thing'.
Why is it bad if google or facebook know a lot about people? Can you give me some examples?
Same here, I have worked with RoR/Coldfusion/actionscript/Mysql/Oracle primarily in jobs and Co-ops and familiar with HTML/CSS/javascript. Before that I have worked with java/C#/c++ and a little PHP. I am looking for a remote flash job, particularly in games, I have previously worked for a company called Woogi World and have several of my creations online.
The easiest way to find one depending on your location might be ebay.

There are a lot of new & unused N1s on ebay.de and ebay.com
When I went to college, it was a little strange to also see older folks (40s-50s) on campus getting their education right next to 18-20somethings.

But being a little older now I really have to give this old guy his props. Life doesn't stop just because you're old.
I block the following:

static.ak.fbcdn.net

||connect.facebook.net^

*.facebook.com

Among a bunch of others, but these are the FB-related ones.
"Choice - between truly different strands of Android - is good for the consumer. Don't conflate these issues."

I think part of the problem is branding. When someone says they have an Android phone, how do you know what that means? Whereas "Fedora Linux" or "Ubuntu 10.4" are quite clear for those who care to differentiate.

If manufacturers and carriers and everyone else specified things like "HTC-modded Eclair Android" or "Stock Donut Android" or whatever, you'd at least be able to more easily choose between two phones. And with clearer choices, consumers could express their preferences in dollars more clearly.
Sounds like you're ripe to work for or perhaps, found a startup. You don't have to quit your current job to start a startup on the side or hunt for a new job.
This is why you've got to work on side businesses when you're younger and don't get married too soon. By the time you've got kids, you can't really focus on other businesses. Don't worry about their own failings, just work on creating your next successes on the side.
I think Jobs is absolutely correct, in the context of consumer-facing mobile app stores (and probably consumer computing in general). Choice is great until it becomes a barrier to purchase. Non tech-savvy types flock to Apple because it "just works". No education required, no need to decide between six different almost identical models. The purchase is brainless, and the consumer gets a device that does what he expects. A savvy user who wants to tinker and operate outside a prescribed set of use cases will want choice--Android. Everyone who purchased the iOS product had full knowledge of what it can do--and doesn't care that it may not be able to do anything/everything else.
As someone who has had the same attitude in the past, working full-time on one thing at a time that eventually went nowhere, I'm beginning to think of side projects as insurance.

Perhaps it is more fruitful to think about how to work more efficiently in the present and track potentially good ideas for the future, than to keep throwing them away.
Puma Future Cat LO Engine - Cheap Puma Future Cat LO Engine : Puma Shoes
It's also calling eval() on every single data-bind attribute you have:

http://github.com/SteveSanderson/knockout/blob/master/src/bi...

Perhaps Steve can comment on how well this performs in real-world views with thousands of DOM elements...
I like using comic sans, but I do so ironically. :)
Control of your devices falls under the carrier, not Google. Blame the carrier if you can't re-flash your phone to your heart's content. You certainly can modify the base OS, with the exception of a handful of binaries. If the binaries in question (Gmail, YouTube, the market) bother you that much, there is nothing to stop you from writing your own versions.
We're only allowed to say that after we invade.
I agree, good thread, but there was precisely one option there that fit my skill set (and I'd venture to say that my skillset is quite similar to many folks looking for part-time work), so I figured it'd be useful.
Investors Are Looking for the Startup Dream Team
This looked like a standard quite nicely typed "motivational speech", albeit a bit cliché, until the last sentence: "Live your dream, and wear your passion".

Coming from what appears to be (I didn't know them before) a t-shirt company, to me it now reads as "life is short, buy our t-shirts". But maybe I'm just jaded. :)
as a designer this still seems a little convoluted to me. I think jquery did so well because of it's simple interface and I think javascript mvc can also be done simpler then this.

I'm not saying this is bad. Just that I'm not going to jump on this until a simpler option come around. I am also a mvc fan.
How to Change the World
I am definitely going to do that, plus I will add a way to save scripts to the local SQLite DB.
"add your own reasons via twitter #comicfuckingsans"

Maybe you're already doing it, but would be cool to have a feed for them right under the list
If side projects are like kids then i'd be dragged away by social services by now for total neglect of my 30-40 kids.
How to reduce bugs while coding
Hello, my real name is Fred Grott and I am an android developer with previous exp in enterprise java and lamp and mobile java.

I am building some android applications and some sever side applications to demo android integration via restlets and GoogleAppEngine.

Basically using this as a resume to obtain some development contracts so that I can fully launch my startup.

Failed Startups thus far:
-Xspot-same as Google Latitude but I did not execute fast enough to get prototype out to obtain venture funding

Hopefully, I will have better luck this time.
The Starbucks Cup Dilemma - Corporate Social Responsibility
Seems a bit "blog spammy". The David Hertz site has more info: http://www.studioea.com/projects/residential/wing_house/inde...
37 Signals: For a Company That Sells Productivity, A Space That Fosters It
Yeah, trying to add that now, thanks :)

edit: done. Thanks for the suggestion.
try doing it on a dos machine using Lotus-123 macros..:)
I don't have a resume online but I can easily send an email with all the websites and facebook applications that i've developed.
Not to worry, diaper change discussions will soon enough turn from quite boring to utterly fascinating, believe me. (Then they go back to boring again.)

Meanwhile, get all the sleep you can (with that kid on the way), do NOT start a startup now (with a kid on the way), but start job hunting on the side for something you like better.
Good.

I won't miss their stupid branding (http://developer.symbian.org/).

I won't miss their slow app signing (http://twitter.com/buddycloud/status/13062324669 (ended up taking 6 weeks)).

I won't miss all the crap we went through to get buddycloud working on this godforsaken platform (good work @incrediblepants).

It could have been so good. But Nokia dithered around opening the platform. Even with an open platform, how many hackers really want to look at some long-closed source code and start fixing strangers bugs? Meh!

Had the platform had gained adoption amongst hackers with an ecosystem comparable with Android, writing and debugging code on it was still at least 5x slower than iOS or Android and about as enjoyable as pulling fingernails with pliars. Then you were fighting back up against a terrible widget-set and UI (http://n8fail.tumblr.com/). Yes, I know the "but Nokia sells more phones blah". A big ship will also keep drifting for 10km after its propellor has fallen off.

On the other hand, working on Symbian has been a good example of where concentrating on niches can reap benefits; Symbian never received the hype that some other platforms have enjoyed and did allow buddycloud to gain about 500k users that were underserved by the dearth of decent social and location apps on the platform. That's been a win for us.

This article is about Mr Williams leaving. The writing has been on the wall for ages - all the good people left two years ago: hired away by other mobile startups in London like Truphone or to start their own ventures.

I hope Nokia can get their shit together because I like their hardware and have some friends working for them. But they don't deserve to.
It's On: Google Launches Demo Slam
CEO states rival product is worse than the one his business sells, Film at 11.
I feel like I did a bad job of explaining the core of my analogy, which is that creating a child or a side project is easy and fun, but they're potentially with you for a long time, and thus deserve careful thought before starting.
There are basically two ways to write software you can either completely understand the problem and create a completely understood solution, or you can approximate a reasonable solution and then patch. Now when it’s possible the first approach is far better, unfortunately some of the worst systems where created when people tried to use the first approach when it was simply too complex for any one person to understand.

If you have ever copied a function changed the name and modified the code you are on the second path. Now plenty of people have gone down that path and know it’s likely to produce bugs, but as long as you have reasonable mitigation strategies it can still be a good idea. Building a tool that does similar things with larger sections of code would be dangerous, but with a little care it could still be useful.

In the early days of Fortran compilers they tended to be buggy so people would often money patch the output. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_patch While error prone this was significantly faster than hand coding in assembler from the start. This died out with the invention of better compilers, but plenty of good software was written before then.

PS: I wish most software could be written using the first approach. I just don't think that's possible.
I used to use Comic Sans as my font for code editing. It had the nice effects of:

1) Annoying the font bigots in our company.

2) I giggled every single time I opened a file to edit.

And Comic Sans Mono would be wonderful.
what do you mean? are you speaking from experience?