skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> This is not actually an explanation at all, it just restates the observation

It's an explanation for "why the pen fell down". It states a law whereby "things always fall down".
Amazon's cloud used for brute force attacks
"It seems like it was originally a good idea: if your startup is dead, let it die."

I never saw it that way, or at least at that scale. I see it as a way to move fast by validating assumptions with evidence and being unemotional about sunk costs. Rather than spending many hours of meetings and design sessions and approvals to try a feature or change, just do it, measure it, and if it's not working, kill it. If it is working, keep it, and nurture it. If you just spent 3 months on an idea that is getting no traction, don't spend another 3 months trying to fix it when you've got other promising things in the pipeline.
Maybe it is ok for editing Wikipedia to be a little more complicated than leaving a comment on YouTube.
Sure, I know, but I was mainly talking about the serverside of things (and the poll was focused on that, too, since the majority of languages there can't be used on the clientside).

And yes, I know that you can use JavaScript on the serverside too, but I highly doubt that something like node.js would be the backend engine of the majority of startups. So the way that I'm interpreting the results is that everyone (or most) startups use JavaScript on the clientside, and a majority of startups use Python on the serverside.
Like the idea; sounds a localized twitter-like thingy. No one around where I am seems to know about it, which is a bummer.
But he can do other things that will help him pay of his debt until he passes the bar and then work as a lawyer.

Just because you go for school for something doesn't mean your guaranteed a job doing just that. You go to school to learn something. Usually you use that knowledge to advance your career (or start one). However, it's unfair to demand that just because you went to school to become a lawyer (or doctor, or whatever) that people must hire you into that position.
For someone that didn't grew with Java, what is hard is finding your way on the ecosystem.

If you're a newcomer, and you're going to do a website in Python, you soon find out Django, which recommends you to use, lets say, Apache and PostgreSQL. You feel good because you got a sense, immediately, of what you need to know and install to run a website.

Compare that with Java...

I'm using Clojure with Jetty now, I haven't launched yet, and I'm afraid of things like application servers and doing everything with enormous amounts of XML.
What problem domains are you refering to? I can think of some quite similar ones..
Answering my own question:

http://www.slideshare.net/dahlenc/groupon-business-model

Slide 9

Negatives:
Lack of network effect
No technology barriers to entry
No switching costs for merchants and customers
Scaling is expensive(sales people on the ground)
High cost of customer acquisition

Pluses:
Brand
Economies of scale (winner takes most)
Just checked http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-hiring-in-the-San-Fr..., and it seems that the languages most in demand are Python, Ruby, and PHP.
I have sold 6 so far. I don't have any tracking but I believe they all came from my postings in Steve Pavlina's forums.

Somebody else did an iPhone app - which I am guessing is doing way better:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/technology-technical-skil...
> If someone on your network decides to search for content you have blocked...

I don't mind; it's a device for the home, not for the office. I'm not trying to enforce anything for my "users", I'm just looking for convenience for me.

Content blocking is not a punishment that people would want to escape: it's a reward! Use it if you want to, don't use it if you don't want to...
Yes, what is true is the fact, that they are finally working on a better ways to support async-code in a more frictionless way... (yes, Hejlsberg, F# team and Async Team rock, as does Erik Maijer)

They are still not where they would like to be though i guess:
just check out what subtle issues you can run into by using this quite intuitive way of handling async resp. auto continuations:

"Await, and UI, and deadlocks! Oh my!"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2011/01/13/10115163....

I'd say they are on the right track, but still not there for big time ... just imagine this in hands of millions of average devs under pressure...
There's a big confusion between morals and ethics, and they are often used interchangeably, which is what some of the posts to which you are replying have done.

This is definitely an ethical issue, which is (yes, yes, it's ironic) a cornerstone of Bar admission and the ability to practice law. Many disbarments are the result of ethical misconduct.

As an aside, he would also not be able to get a top secret security clearance, and would also be unlikely to get a secret clearance unless he had particularly amazing skills.
The most mysterious Google ranking ever...
Sync is harder than you think.

But see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree
I downvoted you because I disagree. We have so many "superman" posts here on HN, we do need the occasional "kryptonite" post.
Thanks for the list. I disagree with the notion that Scala is one of the biggest three scripting languages around. Judging by the startup job listings at http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-hiring-in-the-San-Fr... almost everyone uses Python, Ruby, or PHP. There was little to no mention of Java (in a web context) or Java-related languages such as Scala. Things might be different in Brazil, though.
A Signal/Collect Framework
Observation: Not a single female in the pictures
VC’s Finally Realize Billing is the Future of e-Commerce
The speed limit switch
What would you do if you could change the speed limits. See what deldot or modot does with their switch.
Looking for an old classical Unix toolkit textbook
Peter Skomoroch's bookmarks of redistributable datasets
I thought it was a great question to open the interview with.
Every time Mickey Mouse is about to go out of copyright, the term mysteriously gets extended...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse_law
Still, wouldn't it be better to not do repeat votes? Easy enough to do a query to see if a duel's already been done between 2 folks, though I wonder if that would cause too much of a load increase on your database for you then?
First Windows Phone 7 update blocks jailbreaking
Hey you have something really attractive here, after lunch im gonna try it, and if it convinces me, i'd be very sorry for workflowy but i'd leave them.

More comments later :)
The Lenna (or Lena) picture
The Lenna (or Lena) picture is one of the most widely used standard test images used for compression algorithms.
Adopt rinah
Companies that outsource development. Indiatimes and Zimbra? NDTV and Tekriti?

But, I had asked a question in the parent comment - can it be shown that any of the start ups who failed or the ones who have done well can do even better if they did the stack internally?
paper: http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/pax/uploads/pdf/publication/1450/Signa...
Becoming a Psychic in 6 Easy Steps
So, you are broke again. Getting a real job is ...
This is a small detail, but this checkbox:

<input checked="checked" id="s" name="s" value="1" type="checkbox">
Save your name and work history.

could use a <label> so that it works when one clicks on the text as well as on the box.
Doing it yourself over a long period of time as a personal project. That way you could do it as time permits, which is pretty much free, and then the code would also be up to your own standards because you did it yourself.
i've been saying this for years. my idea was - hover over an item for more than a few seconds, it's delivered to your house! you better lawyer up.
Quote: The Lenna (or Lena) picture is one of the most widely used standard test images used for compression algorithms.
As a bit of background, you're not required to have any programming knowledge when applying although most candidates will have done D&D Maths which covers topics like graph and bin packing algorithms.
Yeah, that was my hunch as well. Shit's gonna hit the fan once retail investors start biting on overvalued companies...
House.gov moves to Drupal
Plain old blocking code is not always pretty, but it is much more clear what happens, and how errors are handled; all steps are in one place. Also, in my experience, it is usually much shorter.
you wouldn't believe it anyway
The business of Groupon (local deals) lends itself particulary well for copycating: target a city (or a country) where Groupon is not present (or expected to come soon), do everything that worked for Groupon, and learn from their mistakes (if any).

In Croatia we've got several Groupon copies (incl. copycats of copycats :-) The main one (Kolektiva) is doing rather well and expanding into the region already.

This is opposed to other global successes that simply make no sense copying or adapting for local market, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or YouTube (we've had our share of those, too).

Would Groupon's eventual entrance to this region demolish the local copycats? Once they're a known local brand, not neccessarily.

OTOH, copying in the same market Groupon are already in and doing well (what article talks about) doesn't make much business sense to me.
News Corp., Apple delay launch of The Daily for iPad
Why Google can't let you ban sites from results
Robust Navigation and Fixed-Point Math in PathEngine (Game AI)
Django/Python in our case http://alpha.beepl.com
Caffeine lycanthrope
Blocking Tynt, the Copy/Paste Trackback Service
Picture of the Day: The Most Complete Map of the Universe
Atari’s 'Missile Command' Will Get Big-Screen Treatment
In this case, speed wasn't a variable. I intentionally left it off. (Thanks for being my straight man ;-).
Amazon EC2 allows cracking passwords cheaply
Health reform: The politics of pre-existing conditions | Analysis & Opinion |
Thanks for posting this. Hadn't come across Mr. Pavlina before but just from a quick scan it seems there's some real nuggets in there.
One more thing to keep in mind: Cambridge and Oxford interviews are more about thought process than actual solutions. I've seen candidates with correct answers not get in while peers who never found an adequate solution make it.

Interesting questions, though.
I just use -"whatever.com" in the search.
North Korean domain names return to the internet
you are right !

PHP totally slipped my mind... but My point was the "New" ones :D I would not advise anyone to learn PHP nowadays... to much trouble for to learn an old language, it's still in use I agree but has too many problems solved by those 3.

Java Web is a pain I work with it and takes a lot of time to master and be able to code anything useful in it... would never recommend it for a web Startup.
Ok, maybe for a webbroker I would :D
Ok, it generalises the observation to other things as well.
EDSAC computer to be rebuilt at Bletchley Park
How Can I Find the Number of Permutations per Sum?
AsciiDoc - Text based document generation
ArduSpider robot battles household pets, beats other homemade gifts
Precrime: Feds try to identify potential leakers
(Disclaimer: I work on StratifiedJS)

The point about not being able to use 'normal' JS debugging facilities with StratifiedJS (or other 'higher-level' languages compiling to JS) is certainly true, but IMO it is not nearly as bad as it sounds.

Debugging highly asynchronous programs (whether written in 'straight' JS or in a higher-level language) with a 'normal' JS debugger isn't really much help: the callstacks that the debugger spits out in no way correlate to the asynchronous actions that are going on.

Having an abstraction that sits on top of JS, as it is the case with StratifiedJS, gives us the opportunity to write a debugger that spits out stack traces that actually reflect the true causal state of your program logic.

Granted, we don't have such a debugger yet, but we will in the not-too-distant future. What is already working is that StratifiedJS will amend exceptions with the correct linenumber and module name of the original StratifiedJS sources that threw the exception. So you don't have to manually correlate the generated source code with the original SJS source code, like you would need to do in systems that do a more or less 1-to-1 translation to JS.
I should hope that's true of interviews everywhere.

It's worth noting as well that Oxford is by far the most theoretical of all the CS departments in the UK.
I disagree with your stance on PHP. It is not an "old" language (in fact, it's younger than both Java and Python), and while some programmers seem to have a problem with it, most of the criticism is exaggerated in my opinion. Personally I like both Python and PHP, but in terms of getting something simple up and running quickly, nothing beats PHP (and yes, the thing that you get up and running is actually very maintainable).
Could some kind UKer(s) please explain to this American exactly how Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK university system works? I'm familiar with what A levels are, and that you supposedly apply to a particular college at each of Oxford and Cambridge, but then I hear about university-wide "departments", and I put that in my American-style mental model. Googling hasn't helped me, but perhaps I'm being unimaginative in search terms.
That last part explains why customer experience in Europe sucks so utterly and completely. Decisions at Apple seem to be made by these design teams, which have no direct experience or feedback from Europe.

Examples:

- There is a § key at the top-left of my MacBook Pro keyboard. It has been there for years, in all the different models (Powerbook, iMac, etc.), and this is the first time in over several months that I've actually touched that key.

- Applecare in Europe is a joke. We pay the same premium price for a service that is only a fraction of the kind of service you get in the US. In Europe there are next to none official Apple Stores, which means a repair must always be dealt with by the official repair center. This means that any repair to your computer means you have to part with it for over two weeks.

While I completely support the idea of being your own customer, you have to extend this globally if you are planning to expand your market globally.
I saw these from a customer. Looks like a neat idea for awhile. I'm not sure what it's staying power is (sort of like animoto felt like at first)
CubeDuel is Like FaceMash for LinkedIn and It’s Twisted
Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins?
I think Richard Feynman does this exceptionally well. He always explains it in terms that the audience can understand. You should check out some of his videos on Youtube..
Maybe you should have had it say "software developers."
Like others here have said, my main issue with Java is not the Java language itself, but rather with the culture of overcomplexity. As an example, every web framework has the issue of abstracting pieces of templates in a consistent manner. Django solved this by writing their own (simple) template language that supports template inheritance.

The java ecosystem seems to have solved this with Sitemesh, a library that implicitly decorates xhtml for you, based on another XML configuration.

I see a few things wrong with this approach. For one, it presupposes all of this nice template work is only ever going to be needed for xml/html. Need to send a text email? Need to make a latex document? Second, it's entirely implicit. This is a common theme with java libraries-- if the usual task is too verbose, usually implicit is the solution. I don't think there's a good reason Java can't be concise and explicit. It just isn't the thing to do.
Unfortunately, in cases of societal breakdown, there are very few ways in which agreement and contracts and so on can be enforced. This is why even the staunchest libertarian will admit we need governments to enforce contracts! In the absence of such a thing, personal integrity and honor play a much larger role in the scheme of things. A man's word could in fact be his life-blood.

The short of it is you have no guarantee that I will not steal cache, other than my personal beliefs and ethics prevent me from doing so.

As for me dying before your winnings can be distributed: I understand this concern. I assure you I will actively do anything in my power to prevent this. However, in apocalyptic situations this is frequently not enough :(. Of course in an apocalypse a chance at a surviving cache is still better than not having the chance, so consider it a 5th condition on the pool:

Will sophacles survive in the apocalypse to hand out the prize. If you choose yes, sign up. If you choose no, don't sign up :P.

tl; dr -- ignore that paper on my desk that says "how to fund an apocalypse stockpile without spending a dime"
Even better is that Amazon might even start stocking the squishables if they are popular enough, giving them another channel.
Zimbra was a packaged product that they bought - so this example does not work. NDTV and Tekriti - oh well! Great Online company???? Do they even qualify?? There is enough empirical evidence from startups that have done well that they are all built by great technologists and have not outsourced that core capability. As for failed startups, you will never know as a lot of those stories just die with the companies.
مشاهدة مباراة مصر وكينيا
مشاهدة مباراة مصر وكينيا مشاهدة مباراة مصر وكينيا مشاهدة مباراة مصر وكينيا مشاهدة مباراة مصر وكينيا
Regular Expressions on iOS
Also relevant is the pre-interview aptitude test:

http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/csatox/images/d/d4/Test10.pdf
But you don't actually need the main:

class a{static{System.out.println("Hello world");System.exit(0);}}
Sorry, what is your source for this?
I don't think state machine means what this writer thinks it means.
>This means that any repair to your computer means you have to part with it for over two weeks.

Recently had my 17" MBP Logic board replaced (due to the NVIDIA problem) completely for free, and it took 3 days. I'm in Austria, Vienna .. dunno about the rest of Europe, but that was reasonable, imho.
He's amusingly wrong in his certainty that everybody else is wrong.

Two spaces grew out of a typographic convention of using a 1.5-width space that was favored by typesetters for proportional typespaces because typewriters didn't have half-width spaces represented on their keyboards. The actually "correct" approach would be 1.5-character width spaces, because even in proportional typefaces a little extra space serves as a useful visual cue that aids in quicker text scanning by eye.

The modern convention of using a single space is the result of journalistic publishers' desire for economy of printing paper. It costs more -- either money for extra pages or characters that won't fit on a page -- to have two (or even 1.5) spaces between sentences. For that reason, a new convention for non-personal correspondence arose, not out of "correctness" or readability concerns, but out of the miserliness of accountants.

As for the lack of studies, that's because it's pretty difficult to come up with a meaningful set of criteria that can be (relatively) easily measured in such a study. Worse, the people with both the resources and interest necessary to fund such studies are for the most part not interested in finding out their cost-saving measures make it harder to read their publications. People I know who read a lot -- who enjoy reading -- including myself all agree, though: having more than a single (proportional or otherwise) character width of space between sentences helps with making it easier to read quickly without having to backtrack and without missing things. In fact, if anything proportional typefaces makes the problem worse, because the spacing between sentences tends to end up smaller than it would otherwise be.

For all his annoying certainty that people who are certain of their disagreement with him are annoyingly wrong, Farhad Manjoo is pretty laughably lacking in the proud correctness he claims.
Weirdest part of the whole article: there are 'music haters' at apple. Who hates music?
I haven't seen the rest before, but the Cleveland and McGill paper is excellent, and well worth the read. They make some very interesting conclusions about the effectiveness of commonly used graph types, and concrete recommendations for alternatives. The criticisms of 'patch maps' is very strong, and makes an interesting point.

If you can find copies, its worth reading all the Tukey papers cited by the Cleveland paper, especially "The Future of Data Analysis".
Twitter for Mac Bookmarklet
Seznam used to be much better in searching czech terms. There aren't many differences now. Many people have seznam as their homepage because it contains news, e-mail and search.
I suspect the Oxford\Cambridge undergrad interviews have less to do with assessing technical competency and more to do with providing admissions with a reason to discriminate against state-educated kids. The amount of Oxbridge intake come from private schools is disproportionately high to be due to exam results alone, and is better explained by an ingrained negative view of those with a state education or old boys networks.

I've seen this in action, exceptional state school students turned down from Oxford, and utter buffoons (but with the correct background and accent) being accepted.
Exactly -- feasible, yes. Sustainable, no.
Unfortunate, really unfortunate, because the software is good. Back to org-mode and Dropbox then.
Just assume there is a 99.9999% chance it will kill you. Many people would still take the chance to make a difference.
I really like those questions - they seem very tricky until you think of some way to do it in a smaller subset or try to figure out the solution by doing the actual actions in your head. I think they're very different from the typical hiring interview logic puzzles you'd see in the companies, but I can't really express the difference...

Then again, I can't really figure out (an optimal) solution to the second one... [spoiler alert] Since you cannot know more about the function than the value itself, is there a better option than dividing the range into 3 equal segments, choosing the one with maximum and recursing? That would give 1/3^5 accuracy. On some values generated in a natural way, you could introduce bias to the segment-selection based on the values you get - but then you could prepare some data which would actually lower the accuracy that way...
Google’s John Hanke Speaks About New Mobile Incubator
Oxford and Cambridge are a bit different from most UK universities. The college system is orthogonal to subject-specific departments. A college provides accommodation, social support. Academic staff are also associated with a college, and teach students from that college in small group tutorials. Lectures however tend to be organised by department rather than by colleges.

As students become more specialised, or if their college doesn't have many professors in their particular subject, they may have tutorials with academics in other colleges.
He's obsessed with ego achievements and self aggrandization and is unabashedly arrogant.
IBM Watson trial run at Jeopardy (video)
The writer mentions "other Internet services which are valued well north of $50bn." I am having trouble producing much of a list: Google, Amazon, Microsoft (some value is in "Internet services"), Oracle (the "Internet" here is arguable). Who else?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2102892
No, Google is being gamed. If you follow the money, e.g. AdSense, Affiliate Links, you will eventually disincentivize SEO spam.
I got into Cambridge without any specific 'accent' or favour. Btwn, i come from a minority group.
I would donate money to this.
Here's my list of spam sites (I use OptimizeGoogle for firefox to filter them:

/efreedom.com/i

/bigresource.com/i

/thefreecountry.com/i

/sharewareconnection.com/i

/x64bitdownload.com/i

/softpedia.com/i

/tucows.com/i

/softexia.com/i

/mysharonbiz.com/i

/informe.com/i

/whois.net/i
It's not working for me. I get just empty dialog window (chrome).
10 irritating design quirks of Twitter for Mac