skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"If you're doing little comp-sci type things on the server then sure you can do TDD."

Are you implying that your web site does not have any "little comp-sci type things on the server" aspects?

"Add an opacity slider for shapes"

This seems like the kind of thing that probably does have a little comp-sci part to it. Do you have an abstraction for shapes? Maybe a unit test for the API underlying the slider, that validates that all selected shapes now have the opacity value passed from the slider?

Maybe that doesn't fit the design of your code, but I strongly suspect there is some unit testable part of that task. The point being, unit testable things should have unit tests, and most tasks might have some unit testable part.
Looks nice. I love the price, but I don't want to have to mount my monitor for a few reasons.

I've been contemplating a geekdesk for ages, but at ~$800... I can't bring myself to do it. I'm a little nomadic, live in a 1 bedroom, and not sure how it will fit in a Mini Cooper or smaller SUV trunk.
Me too - it looks like a handy little tool.

It would be nice if I could share the mockup without creating an account. This little tool makes snippets shareable by giving all snippets a unique public url: http://write.fm/ymg5p79
Why do you need to generate income with something for it to have value?

True story: I have a name I really like which I did use previously, but it currently sits there gathering dust waiting for me to put a new project on it. A VC backed start up offered me $20k for it, but I turned them down. Should I have to pay more for that domain now?
When Facebook started, it was just people, a couple pictures, their contact info, their classes, and a Wall. There was no messaging or News Feed. It really wasn't much of a social network at all compared to what it is today.

I would argue that some sites benefit from having a non-specific domain name. If Google had been searchengine.com, maps.searchengine.com and mail.searchengine.com seem a bit weird. Having a less specific name allows a company to pivot without changing its branding.
I can imagine an interesting control scheme employing the tilt detection and accelerometers. Do they incorporate those?
Clickable: http://www.marriagelaughs.com/
In response to the quote from Hoare:

"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

- Don Knuth
Fair point, and coming from a great programmer, but he's neglecting crucial factors such as compatibility and reliability. A color-sensitive language probably exists somewhere out there (hell, Brainfuck is very real), but widespread adoption would require drastic changes in the toolsets we use.

It would have to be one hell of a language to change the landscape that dramatically.
Yeah I would highly suggest investing in a video monitor. because you're so paranoid as a new parent, you'll be tempted to run in and check on the little one for every little noise. Don't wake a sleeping baby ;) the video monitor will really help that.

We actually have two changing tables in the house. One upstairs and one downstairs. Last thing you want is trying to change a kid on the floor who's starting to twist and turn and has a really poopy diaper.
I love both the tool in general and the "couldn't sleep so i coded" sentiment. I had the same burst two nights ago when I made http://fstr.net (not nearly as cool as jmockups, but not bad for an evening's work).

Kudos to you! What's more, I may try to redesign my layout in jM. I tried to use a 960gs style "formula" for the buttons and ads... but really just did back of the napkin calculations. This might help :)
For security reasons? I feel like that too obvious an answer. Maybe I'm missing something.

Javascript can be potentially harmful because it's code running on your system, albeit sandboxed to some degree. You can also embed code in images, but I don't think that's why people disable images. It's probably either because third-party sites can track your web usage through images or simply because they want a simpler browsing experience.
And Sony in particular has tried it many, many times, and usually failed.

Beta, 3.5" floppies, Minidisc, Blu-Ray, Digital8, MS...any others?
The Tale of the Fisherman and the Tourist
There are many developing countries, e.g Indonesia, that are quite "free", too.
It would be awesome to get some help on this website i am working on. My wife is a Realtor and I've been motivated recently to work on something which allows people to find realtor's that live in proximity to their neighborhood and so on. What I haven't been able to come up with a design for the Realtor profile pages.

the website is: http://www.nearagent.com - i would be interested in trading services also.
I'm fairly certain that the majority of potential customers in our sector (information security) don't want to fill in a form, although we do have a few visitors.

We are in the same sector and have had great success with the "step signup" process - i.e. contact forms.

YMMV. But mid-range corporates feel happy about such things.

Random observation; but for anything related to corporate purchasing the more finicky you make it (within reason) the better it is liked. Middle managers are overjoyed to ring you up, ask for a costing, then ring again for an invoice and finally a third time to give you card details.
Are the comic and game examples inspired by _why? (also reminds me of http://learnyouahaskell.com/)
How about: "I'll post the site url on my blog, facebook, community page, and see what happens". My suggestion is find a way to drive traffic(me smiling). I like your idea and hope to see it grow. I'd post but I'm not married.....
Things are almost always more complex than they appear.

Developer tooling is an important area, and we want to see some great tools that make sense for a broad audience to be shipped with Firefox out of the box.

What those tools look like and how they're built are some big questions that we're working on answering, and we're starting to answer them:

http://mozilla.github.com/devtools/next.html

I've been manager of Developer Tools at Mozilla for 3 months, and I can't really comment on how things were before that. What I can say is that right now Mozilla employs someone full time to work on Firebug. Firefox 4 beta 7 has been held up in part to fix some things that have broken Firebug. We do care about Firebug.

If you follow the link I just posted (which I should note is a draft that will likely get some revisions soon), you'll see that I'm keen on us building new APIs that make all sorts of developer tools, including Firebug, easier to write and more stable.

I am not worried about "AwesomeBug". Firebug is already an awesome open source project, and they're free to take the project in whatever directions they wish. I am worried about Firefox having the best developer tools available anywhere (via built-in product features and add-ons).
Page 194: "Hey Buddy! Why don't you try to prove the correctness of this!" - LoL
"Lenient" would imply that their approach skewed the results. If that's what you meant, could you explain why you say that? I'm hoping your explanation could lead to a testable hypothesis.

If you meant that they weren't rigorous in controlling variables related to team composition, I'd agree. However, I think those variables can safely be ignored if the study is repeated and validated many more times (which the authors acknowledge is a work in progress).
Hey, I only disagreed with you so vehemently as a rhetorical device, to mirror your own statement:-)

Your strategy for filtering information obviously works for you, and my guess is that if you missed something good, it'll come back to you later when someone you respects says "Hey, I know Raganwald is usually a waste of time, but did you see X?"

So... Rock on! And yes, I enjoyed reading your comment and the reply to my thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to post.
From what I know, starch based packing peanuts are pretty common in the US already. How this would look without corn subsidies, I don't know…

ObJoke: "Thank you Mario! But our coffee machine is in another box!"
If you have PHP site i'd strongly suggest to keep going with PHP admin backend.

Otherwise you need to re-engineer all model mapping in Rails. Technically possible, but hardly makes sense.
My email is vlad@videolla.com
It's seems to be fixed now and I could download the eBook after logging in to NoStarch. Thanks for the book!
"I just need a couple of hours away from the baby" -> after the baby has eaten and been awake for an hour or so, take them for a long walk. They'll likely sleep, and your wife gets an hour (or two!) to rest.

Also AMEN to the routine thing. Create a routine. It works. For babies, this worked for us: 1. Sleep. 2. Wake up (they are now rested) and immediately feed. Now they are rested and fed, and will play happily. 3. Play. 4. back to sleep at the FIRST sign of tiredness (do NOT let them become overtired).
I didn't say Tree Style tabs were better, only more usable (for me). I can have 30 tabs open and see a pretty wide portion of the page title. I sacrifice horizontal real estate (which is often wasted) for vertical real estate. I can understand not liking tree style tabs for various reasons, but saying that their improved usability is subjective is a bit of a stretch.
Journey to Ithaca
I think it depends on both yours and your spouses contribution to taking care of the child. It also depends what number child you are on like ericb said. The first child is always the hardest and can be a distraction for a couple of months. After those couple of months, and even if you have more children the distraction becomes a need to support your family over your startup. If you can fund your startup and your family without making them suffer, AND you have a supportive spouse in terms of the hours you have to put into your startup, then you are all set.

Edit: I just noticed your user name is kia, so there is a high probability that you are female. Although it is not exactly "right" it is "traditionally" expected for a woman to be more of a contributor to taking care of the child than the man. Thus, it depends greatly on your spouses willingness to forgo gender bias and help you. I would suggest that you be very open and thorough in your communication about how you will share the responsibilities of the child.
I have a general question. More along the lines of "what's the best practice in this situation."
My first RoR app (recurseapp.com) now has close to 800 signups, and about 100 active users. It's also my only live RoR app.

Now with the advent of Rails 3, my app is stuck in a limbo of sorts. I'd like to upgrade it to Rails 3, but a few gems I'm using are really resisting the upgrade, and what's worse is that there's been no movement in their git-repos for quite a while now.

I know the best bet is probably to dig into these gems and fix them for Rails 3, but I really don't feel I'm that skilled a ruby programmer.
Thoughts?
I expect a lot of them are in customer service/business development/lead generation roles.
Instrument Your Mobile Apps
Smoking further linked with alzheimer's
It looks to me like a woman with arthritis covering her face from the (large) film camera across the street. That might be why she turns to look at the last frame, as well -- curiosity combined with fear.
The narrative might be longer than 12 months. Digg was the poster boy for web 2.0. At a time, they were in a small bucket of companies that was going to "turn" things around after the crash. This tale might be remembered just like friendster is remembered when talking about social networking. It will be even louder if reddit or another social news site really starts dominating the market. Digg might always be the company that blew it by not listening to their users and not iterating / testing changes.
Quora is high quality. You're missing out.
Honestly, the cost varies because the quality of the accountant varies. Also, when you hire a "CPA" most of the time people dont think to ask the CPA what their background is. CPAs are broken into three types of people. There are tax guys, auditors, and advisory guys. If you're dealing with a guy that was an auditor or in advisory, then you're hiring the wrong guy because he doesnt know his ass from his nose.

This is BY FAR the most common mistake when people hire accountants because they dont understand the industry.

If you're hiring a "big 4" firm like pwc, kpmg, deloitte or e&y then their standard hourly rate is 375 per hour for a 1st year associate (fresh college grad). But, they never get to charge the full standard rate, so the real rate is probably closer to $250 per hour or (70% to 50% of the standard rate.) Senior Associates have two years experience cost $450, Mgrs and Sr. Mgrs cost about 600 and Partners cost about 800 to 900 per hour. All amounts are standard rates multiply the rate by 50% or 70% to know the effective rates.

For smaller size accounting firms, the price also varies because the accountant is going to charge based upon their experience and how they perceive their value.

I won't lie, I charge high rates because I think that I provide more value than your average tax accountant. A quick story on how I started my firm:

I charged 20 bucks per return during the first month I opened my firm because I was TERRIFIED and DESPERATE for clients. I got a few because I was so god damn cheap, but I was killing myself for literally NO MONEY. Obviously, this wasn't the way to do things. I very quickly learned a few things.

(1) Don't cheat yourself and charge ridiculously low prices because you dont get more clients. People question your skill and lack respect for you because you're so cheap. Charging will definitely lend credibility.

(2) You need to take a lot of time to ascertain how much the market is willing to pay for your services. In my case, I really didnt know how to quantify this so I just started raising my rates.

The second month I opened my firm, I raised my rates to 150-200 dollars per return. This was better but still not worth the time. This price point actually led to MORE clients and MORE sales.

Lastly, the 3rd month I basically started to just play games and REALLY push the envelope. I wanted to know what the market would accept for my services so i began to quote $3000 starting price for my services to test the waters. LOL. Again, my business didn't slow down at all. By now referrals were coming in left and right to the point where I actually had to SHUT DOWN my website so that I would stop getting calls.

Recap: $20 to $150 to $3,000 haha.

I generally dont charge hourly because people like certainty, I won't rehash this discussion because this point has been beaten to death by coders discussing how they handle consulting jobs. But, I'd say my hourly rate varies depending on the project. The lowest I'd accept generally would probably be around $75 dollars an hour? If it was for someone I liked or for a good cause I've been known to drop the price significantly.
But it's still in beta ;)

I'm patiently waiting for my invite.
Datapoint re 1): the Sony Reader line is built on Linux. Not particularly open, though, since you can't modify anything. (There was some hacking done on the 500 and 505, but later models lack the firmware updater.)
Best two lines of prose I have read on the Internet today. Or this week in fact.
Will it be available if I purchase the PDF or should I wait?
The 2011 IT Salary Guide
What an amazing community - it's so insightful to hear comments from people at a stage I hope to acheive one day. I'm a full time web developer, not long out of University with dreams of running my own projects and getting recognition globally for my efforts. My time forever feels limited, balancing my relationships, work, personal projects and other interests at times feels impossible. Not to mention sleep, something I would happily have none of if I could survive, yet also at times enjoy it more than anything in the world.

Yet when I hear of those with children to balance and still pushing to reach great heights professionally - I'm encouraged as it never slips my mind how 'lucky' I am not to have such responsibility. I use 'lucky' in quotes, as the irony is - I'm aware I'm missing out on having a child who I imagine to be the biggest source of joy and pride one could feel.

I have a girlfriend who I love and the occasional thought of feeling a little overwhelmed and craving more time to work on my own projects is overshadowed by the motivation boost I get from knowing I'm not just working for myself. We're all working to be happy, all pushing for the best life for ourselves and our loved ones. The quest for the perfect balance will likely never end, I guess we just need to do what we feel is best at that point in time. Best of luck to all those putting the work in while still raising a child - I'm sure it can be difficult but also hugely rewarding. Thanks for sharing!
ECubation - eBusiness Creation, Incubation and Development
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I think a phone with dedicated gaming buttons / sticks can be successful.

I doubt that we'll see many Android games retrofitted to the PSPhone. What would be the point for developers to do that? It is just limiting the market for your game.

The big push will be developed-from-scratch, PSP and PS2-ported games on the PSPhone. If SE does the emulators and such correctly, the phone will launch with a massive library.

The PSPGo and most recent Nintendo DS series systems were massively outdated when they shipped too. And it didn't stop them from being successful. If you look at the specs for those systems (processor, memory) it is laughable. The PSPhone has a 1GHz processor, 0.5GB RAM and decent 3D rendering performance... so it is going to last a long time, at least 5 years.

The other Android phone makers won't want to have dedicated hardware buttons for gaming... so they won't cooperate with SE, and frankly, SE doesn't want them either. They'd rather be the primary phone gaming platform all by themselves, or failing that, carve out a dedicated chunk of the market.
Having an option to disable running code on your machine seems a good choice, especially considering that this came up in a time where most Javascript wasn't exactly essential.

Also, there's the annoyance factor, just like with images. Back in the days, having ads, animated torches and sparkling mouse pointers disabled was a pretty good choice. Also: Popups and silly messages (alert("Welcome to my Site!") ridiculously common)

Let me adjust the onion on my belt and tell you the story of a magical place called Geocities…
I have no idea what DECA is - I presume you're in USA? You could have at least spelled out the acronym for us.

You're going to get a lot of selection bias by asking HN. The number of $group members that aren't entrepreneurs but still respond to HN polls is going to be small I expect. Indeed IMO the only people _likely_ to respond are DECA members (as they'll know what the post is about) who are now entrepeneurs, so what's that going to tell you?
I have one. There are many changes, and most of them are good.
First you need to survive the first few weeks without much sleep. After that, the main thing is to adjust your schedule to help with the baby and to play with him/her. It sure takes time, but you won't believe how that time is well spent :-)
hmm, it is for me. Between number one and three normally. What country are you searching from? Do you have iGoogle or are signed in when searching?
As the father of a daughter of six-years-old, I know where you are coming from. The sleep deprivation, the feeling for the first time in your life that you would gladly give up your own life if it meant saving (God forgive me for saying it) the life of your child.

Even though I've read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins and I know it is all biological evolutionary programming the feelings that are triggered after the birth of your kid are very difficult to put into words.

It also made me realise why my parents made some of the choices they made in their lives. And parenthetically - not saying I agree with them but I didn't have the requisite empathy back then and having a kid gave that to me I think.
Interview with an adware author
Woohoo a cakephp user! I'd like to use that again. That said, you should probably update your favicon :p
Factors to keep in mind:

Twitter is a global, high-traffic operation with a pile of dedicated servers. It takes a lot of facilities staff to deal with that.

Twitter is an HA service that is trying to build a reputation for reliability. You need enough ops staff to keep a 24/7 NOC up and running and to deal with illnesses and vacations.

Twitter is in an explosive growth phase. They are quite likely to be employing lots of engineers on strategic projects. It can be a mistake to think of your R&D team as some kind of cost that you need to contain. R&D is an investment in the future. And Twitter has a lot of VC money to invest right now.

Not everything scales. In particular: Sales and customer service don't scale perfectly unless you deliberately engineer that from day one. For example, if you build Google Ads (and are able to compete with the original Google Ads) you can sell ads with Perl scripts. But traditional ad sales requires salespeople. Customers like to be talked to, they like to get their problems solved and their tickets closed by sympathetic humans. Depending on the various business models that Twitter is considering, they may need a bunch of sales people to negotiate deals with customers, and/or a bunch of systems integrators to help customers learn to process the data coming out of the firehose.

Twitter needs lawyers and moderators and ombudsmen. They receive DMCA takedown notices. They receive reports of threats and spam. People steal credentials and impersonate other people. There are privacy laws and telecom regulations. They have to deal with these things in multiple languages and around the world.
Proprietary ATRAC music file format, as used with MiniDisc and their other portable music players.
I am very new to Rails and would love to see a simple tutorial going from setting up a project to making an extremely simple multi-player game, maybe tic-tac-toe, (and ideally real-time). Most importantly I'd like to know the reasoning behind doing things the way they are done.

Would you be willing?
Someone else asked this... I'll let you know as soon as I find out.
Ask HN: Whatever happened to AngelGate?
Ever since TC got acquired by AOL, they haven't posted anything on AngelGate.

Part of the deal? :P
My son is two weeks old by now, and the nurses at the hospital all said that a mother won't crush her child in bed. Apparently women have some kinds of instincts at work here.

Men are a less safe bet, apparently. My sister (a phyisician) said that it can be dangerous if the men are drugged (alcohol, for example).

There is also the sudden infant death syndrome. They still don't know what's going on, but statistics seem to dictate to have the baby sleep in the same room, but separate bed. That doesn't apply for the first four weeks, though - in the first four weeks it is apparently fine to have the baby sleep in the same bed.

Also consider that the sudden infant death thing stems from the cold world of modern medicine. I think in individual cases it is probably OK to not stick to every rule. Some might be more important than others, too. For example smoking in the household seems to be extremely bad.

Wish I had access to the raw statistics.
I'm not sure how well a CV review service would work alongside a reverse job application. I'm not so sure I'd want (possibly), old copies of my CV so readily available with suggested changes.
Yo-yo :)
This happens all the time. Mainly a company wants the technology and, more importantly, the people making the technology to apply to their own products. This is how Sun got its Java hotspot VM, they mainly got people doing this successful for Smalltalk and other languages.