skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I say "body shop" I mean a company that hires you, then rents you out to someone else, as distinguished from a "head hunter" which finds you for a company, but the company hires you directly and gives the headhunter a fee.

>There are other companies that focus on quality and delivering actual and not just perceived value. Those are not mere "body shops."

If so, they are providing actual value that I can not see. I have never seen such an agency consistently deliver good people.

Or maybe I haven't seen the right agency? as far as I can tell, only the very best of them pay contractors on time.

The very best body shop I've ever worked for or seen was one guy who never actually met me in person. But he paid me on time, and the guys he sent to the client were consistently technically better (and socially worse; or, at least, more weird. Remember, this guy hired me.) than other body shops.

I think the main problem with quality is that all other things being equal, people prefer safe jobs with benefits. Even the really top end body shops that give benefits usually don't pay you for bench time, so a full time job is safer, and generally more desirable, so the people who end up working for the body shop (or contracting house or whatever you want to call it) are people who, for whatever reason, can't hold down a full-time job. the inexperienced or otherwise less desirable.

Yes, there is a premium paid for contractors by the client, but that is nearly always entirely taken as overhead or profit. So long as the contracting house doesn't pay significantly more than full-time work, this disparity will remain.
I'm not sure which part about Maoism you are referring to.

No, the infanticide is not well-grounded, just reports.

I'm Chinese btw. I actually don't know anyone who buys these bags, I only see them on the streets occasionally. Giant wallets/strapless hand bags seem to be much more common among the middle-aged men. Most young people wear regular messenger bags.
Why is this split into 7 pages? I could understand maybe splitting it up into 3 pages to get more pageviews, but this is just going to irritate of every single one of their readers. Not to mention that the article fails to address the very significant issue of font rendering, and how bad it can be on Windows without ClearType enabled or special hinting larger font sizes (which is resolved in IE9 and Firefox 4, neither of which are released yet).
Inspired me to dig up details of a Braves game I went to on my 21st birthday. The Braves scored 7 runs in the 9th to tie it. The game ended up going 15 innings for over 4 and a half hours, and needless to say I was pretty drunk and broke by the end of the game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL199405100.sht...

Amazing game, wish I remembered it
This eHow page was written by a human being and convincingly answers a (trivial) question:

http://www.ehow.com/how_13856_play-valentine-bingo.html

This Mahalo page was written by a sloppy computer program and is a shotgun blast of random gronk schlorped on a page in the hopes of making it appear to answer a question that nobody, even at Mahalo, really thought about:

http://www.mahalo.com/christmas-bingo/

If Google is bonusing up the owner of the former page to the detriment of the owner of the latter page, they're doing the Internet a favor. My only knock on them is that their response to the latter page didn't involve blowtorches.
Maybe its not your skills but how you display your skills in your resume/cv. Be sure your resume is up to par with what your competitors are handing out.
That was my point exactly.
Good password hashing is important. However, every single Django application being vulnerable to CSRF is a much bigger deal. ;-)
A bothersome change, especially for all those employing jQuery plugins that don't have a quick method to add the CSRF token to AJAX requests.

I think I might just add @csrf_exempt, as long as we aren't changing vital info via the request...
Honestly, I don't know that many people who have built a community site of similar traffic level that quickly

Maybe I missed it, but did you mention the site's age anywhere in the article?
surely. the first reason is clear to me. i use client side transformations for this purpose.

performance was admittedly awfully misdirected in a general context. i suppose my situation is unique; several templates on my app require complex logic or additional requests based on properties of the initial request. this is where you start to see it get hairy.

again though, admittedly not the normal scenario. i appreciate you taking my question literally, as it was meant.
Thanks!

Yea, there are like 10 test messages and 33 real ones!
We are going to build a wide, commercial version of the Kahn Academy.

This is a terrific idea, and I wish you all the best in doing it well. You've got the drive, money, and PR skill to make it a reality. Go for it.
Background: He's credited with the term "net neutrality", and is author of "The Master Switch", which argues that U.S. government regulation of communications from the telegraph till now has been generally over-friendly to incumbent monopolists.
Out of curiosity, why doesn't hooking beforeSend (as suggested in the blog post) work?
"a net full of cool, informative, and deep articles about just about every subject imaginable. That's a noble goal -- but in my opinion you have to crawl before you can walk. Shutting these guys down isn't going to do much except stifle innovation."

The Internet is a net full of cool, informative, and deep articles about just about every subject imaginable. The content farms are not where you find them, and they're getting in the way of the quality results.

The fact that eHow shows up, at all, in Google listings, is a failure of Google on an epic scale. There are always better sources for any given topic than eHow (or Mahalo, except maybe on cooking a turkey).

Killing content farms by blacklisting them from Google would not stifle innovation, it would allow the the quality content to rise to the top, as it should. The best content on any given niche subject is usually found on a tiny niche site run by someone that loves their subject. Google punishes tiny niche sites, comparatively speaking, despite the fact that they are better for niche subjects. And, it rewards big-ass content farms like eHow, despite the fact that 99.9% of their content is literally worthless.
Is there any reason to reset the session on a CSRF failure vs. just failing the request? Seems like you could have fun DOSing people from their sessions on other sites with that default behavior.
Including programming languages?
The most common phone number: 214-748-3647
I had to follow the non-link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Krebs to be able to tell if you meant programming languages or natural languages. It's the latter.
It has made me more aware of my own ability. It is really easy to see yourself as better than you are when your peers aren't expert, but on Hacker News I don't have that problem as so many of you are above me. This helps me to keep improving.

It has also exposed me to concepts that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. For example, I was introduced to Lisp through Clojure in part through this site. This exposure to other ideas is pretty awesome, since it helps me get a more nuanced picture of the tech world. In my C++ class I have a teacher who preaches object oriented programming as the most revolutionary idea since the wheel (which you can model with object oriented programming..) while online I'm exposed to the many advocates of functional and even event driven programming. I could give more examples.

I think some people might find these things to be inconsequential. I mean, it isn't getting a job or a wife. However, these little things are constantly adding up to more intelligent decisions which are leading to other wise choices. I think it qualifies.

I think that I can safely say that Hacker News has made me a slightly wiser person.

Oh, and god willing I'll be able to get an internship through contacts on Hacker News. Wish me luck. =)
How much can you make with 100,000?
Does this include artificial languages?
Objective C for me.

It's not 'new new' in a sense that I use C# regularly enough, but it is new enough that I can get lost in it without being demoralised (so far..)
NO.

Why do people conflate the two?
Jason, I think you finally see the points made by those who were originally Mahalo active members..I know I made the point several times..:)
Exactly. Break it down into something useful & tangible.

This is the startup equivalent of reminding a 2 pack a day smoker that their habit could pay 1/3 of their rent or buy dinner for a month.
Should have known there would be confusion on a site where so many of us are programmers. Thanks for pointing this out; I've now added clarification to the question.
Newer browsers ( http://caniuse.com/#search=history ) can manipulate the url without needing the #! hack.
Cebuano
Boholanon
Winary
English
@endlessvoid94 - Good work solving the chicken/egg problem. I noticed you're a UIUC alum (couldn't help but make the connection between your mentionong of chalking the quad in the article and the actual THATHIGH.COM chalk I saw everywhere last year). I would love to hear your thoughts on entrepreneurship in CU and what prompted you to move out west. Just sent you a tweet.
1. Startup

2. ????

3. Profit!
wow. it is amazing how little content that article contains. i've noticed that a few sites like mashable, RWW, TC, and a couple of others are generating content that is nearly devoid of content. don't mean to put down you linking to the article. it's good to know that wsj has the inside scoop, but they had absolutely nothing to add.
Bill Gates Sells 90 Million Microsoft Shares
Ask HN: Can one convert from a developer to a designer?
Have you or someone you know done this? I'd love to hear about it! I constantly hear stories of designer learning to program but rarely the other way around. I guess this brings up the age old question "Can art be taught?"
if you look at the history of those accepted, I dont think there is a formula.

Groups have been accepted with a prototype for one product and turned it into another.

Groups have been accepted with just an idea and nothing more

Group have been accepted with nothing except the group

It seems like acceptance into Y-combo is a mixture of several elements. I dont think you can rely on slick mockup or prototype just as much as you cant rely on 3 Harvard grads with nothing.
Because we use the same word to describe both.
Ask HN: Hacker-friendly setup/install tools on the Mac?
After my post about wiring up the Mac app Notational Velocity to a Github wiki got some interest (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2194998), I started working on a more generic solution that any Mac hacker could fork and go with.

I've realized that I don't have a good idea of what command-line install/setup tools to use. The solution involves a simple perl script, a .plist file, and some customization for the user's desired environment, but little else. What hacker-friendly setup/install tools should I use that can be used easily from the base of a cloned repo?
I'd assume so, provided that it's not extremely basic.
Crossing your wires chief. Unrelated busywork isn't what I was talking about, anymore.
I voted for 1 although I have what I would call a "supermarket" level of Chinese (Mandarin). I can converse for about 20 minutes assuming I have never met the person before before running out of things to say :)
barely 1
So? What's your point? I mean, Calcanis was clear that he felt that this was the best business decision. Does the fact that he's doing it to make more money make it any less a good thing?
Help! Looking to hire NYC based RoR Developer for style advice Q&A project
Just launched the first version of my site, an online Q&A platform for style related advice, built with RoR, called GoodToGoOut (www.goodtogoout.com), and I'm looking to contract/hire an engineer who's interested in the idea, preferably in NYC, to help with the concepting and development of some part, or all, of the product's next iteration.
Believe me, I don't like pagination either - and I really mean it, but I thought that a single page or fewer pages would be too long to read, and I also thought it would be easier to organise the information in distinct sections.

Next time I will reduce the number of pages though, if feedbacks like yours suggest that I do so :)

As for the font rendering issues, I did mention -although briefly- the https://github.com/MichaelvanLaar/Webfont-Load-Enhancer library, as a possible solution to improve the web font experience on Windows. Did you mean this or something else?

Thanks a lot for your feedback ;)
While I'm glad the extension of these provisions of the act didn't pass, I'm skeptical that compromise legislation that's as bad for privacy and civil liberties generally but more politically palatable won't pass shortly.
I'm only fluent in English, but at some point or another I've held basic conversations in four other languages (Norwegian, Spanish, Japanese, and American Sign Language).

I think if I had the occasion to actually use these languages I would have progressed to fluency. As it stands each one just overlays the previous ones. Attempting to speak a Spanish sentence results in something like:

[spanish subject] [spanish verb] [spanish object] [japanese version of the same verb, fully inflected]

Happily, ASL (my current language of study) doesn't conflict with anything else. :)
Could this article be any more biased. It talks as if rumors are facts and then positions itself as if Android tablets are currently the market leader. Last I checked it is Android devices trying to keep up with the iPad. There is one Android tablet shipping today and its sales are "smooth." The next one coming out will be considered $300 more than the iPad. I expect more from RWW. Too many good people working there to write junk like this.
i've been in the office. it's really awesome.

a lot of the stuff was done on a 2d cutter, so up close there's not a lot of detail.
English and Hebrew, highschool German never stuck.
Spanish is my mother language, I'm fluent in English, did 1.5 years of Chinese, and I'm planning to start with German this year.
Coping with Diabetes on Valentines Day. A Chronic Disease for Lovers?
It's almost like there's more than one person with an opinion on foreign policy in America!
The connected company
That was a nice read, though I wonder if there are legal issues with mining the web for content. For reddit they were just submitting links, so they probably wouldn't have gotten into much trouble.
Does that include dialects? For instance I speak French and English on a bilingual level, but also a type of French creole.

It would help to know the motivation for the poll for my vote to be meaningful e.g. if you're trying to correlate language proficiency with intelligence/business acumen for instance or creativity/flexibility based on different ways of thinking as per the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity)
According to the comments it looks like DataTable works well: http://datatables.net/
I accept the brittleness of a content-oriented site switching to a javascript-driven SPI implementation, however I'm confused by the assertion that the strongest reason to switch is because it's cool. I can't speak for Gawker, but some sites may switch because they want the browser to do more of the rendering work, such as rendering templates. Others may want to avoid the overhead with a full page refresh as users navigate the site.

The author clearly dislikes what's going on, and the post would be stronger if he simply stated the disadvantages and let others speak to the benefits rather than putting up a strawman and claiming that people implement this sort of site because it's cool.
I think Sephr is referring to the fact that many fonts look absolutely terrible on versions of Windows that don't have font smoothing enabled, namely XP. We almost threw out using custom fonts after we saw what our website looked like in XP.

I wrote up an article not too long ago about how we worked around this, which I feel weird mentioning because I just posted this on another thread like two days ago, but oh well:

http://dev.codio.com/graceful-degradation-for-non-web-standa...
ExpertVillage, developed the content farm video strategy, like 6 years ago... Almost exactly as you describe.

Guess who founded that: Byron Reese the brains behind Demand Media's entire content algo system. http://www.demandmedia.com/executive-leadership/byron-reese/

So unfortunately, this isn't some new idea Demand missed... it's one they've moved beyond.
Or wait until you've succeeded with it of course. I see your point and agree with it though. It's better just to dive in and see if it's successful than to try to make absolutely sure it's good and see someone else take off with it.
There are entire countries where everyone speaks >= 3 languages. This poll would be more meaningful if we banned the Swiss. Also, most educated people from Indian subcontinent speak three language; their local tongue, the nation's lingua franca, and English.

Rule of thumb is: sizable minority language + official/ruling language + one international language:

Cantonese / Mandarin / English

Swedish / Finish / English

Tamazighi / Arabic / French

Basque / Castilian / English

I speak 3 and read another 3. My father is fluent in 5 and can bullshit in Russian. My maternal grandmother speaks 7; but she can't read or write :-)
Fully agree. While I was in Hillsboro - a tiny town in Oregon, the public library was my study abode. A sprawling campus with a lake and a lush greenery all around. Floor to ceiling glass windows. The place was a heaven to study. I have sat there all day sometimes. They served good coffee as well. So technically, it was Starbucks sans distractions (both in terms of coffee and cute girls). :).
Yes, the office still looks like that and yes, Daniel James still dresses like that.
On a programming language centret website you have to be specific in terms and descriptions.
Heck yeah, I'm interested info@swayable.com
Ask HN: Please review my startup, CashBase (personal finances)
http://www.cashbasehq.com

CashBase is a personal finance app for people who hate personal finance apps.

It's a side-project, started as a web application, but since December we have an iPhone app and the Android app is on it's way, ETA 1 month.

We launched it (almost completely) silently in June 2010 and now have over 2,000 users. The app is completely free (web + iPhone) because we have yet to find a good business model. But we're using this time to improve the product, connect with our users and figure out how to make money.

What features do you consider would be worth having in a Premium paid subscription and for how much (per month)?

We'd love to find out what you think about CashBase!

Thanks :).
I got fed up with using other registrar's myself and became my own via tucows ($95 at opensrs.com to become a reseller) but there are many out there that are good I'm sure.

I'll just say this, stay as far away from 1&1 as possible. They are complete idiots there, and are very slow.
> My maternal grandmother speaks 7; but she can't read or write :-)

Very interesting to hear that. What are the languages that she speaks?
Clickable: http://www.cashbasehq.com
If you want to take this to its logical conclusion, then language is nothing but a fixed set of "alphabet", and a set of rules that generate infinite strings from this alphabet in some meaningful combination.

Alright, I will start: I am fluent in the language of traffic signs.
Jason is right, your oddly skewed example isn't a counter to jason's point. Google doesn't rank based on quality, but a proxy that is gamable and is heavily gamed. I'm skeptical that they can ever effectively solve this problem.
Lasers have a killer feature most people don't consider. You can not print color for months at a time and then instantly print a perfect color image. I've never seen an inkjet that can pull that off.
I would be interested in this writers forum, and saw no contact information in your profile to ask :)
We used to call them letters

The path from the age of the letter to the age of the one-paragraph, stream-of-consciousness email may be a fairly easy-to-follow one, given the obvious way that technology first enabled, then gradually enforced a vastly lower expected interval between missives, but I'm still curious to see a critical investigation of this process in a McLuhan-esque sort of context. Anyone have any recommended reading?
Yikes. People store phone numbers as integers? Why would anyone do that?

Is there some use-case where being able to treat a phone number as an integer value has any usefulness?
Hey other guy with a girls name :)

I ran through your portfolio so I know you've got some decent design chops (as you should, designer by trade), so what gives with the design here? I'm not a professional designer, but when I see poorly designed websites, it's a huge turn-off.
Add pws=0 to your queries. You probably have stopped seeing them, but it's based on your click behavior.
I know what you're saying. There is a big difference between speaking a foreign language and expressing yourself in a foreign language. E.g. finding your way around town asking for directions and simple conversations is very different then telling about that funny thing that happened to you the other day.
This was my favourite resource for a fresh install about a year ago, and then I forgot it existed :(
Where else have you heard it? What makes it a tired image beyond the fact that you heard it once in Paris?
Most Swiss don't speak more than one or two languages.
I think the easiest answer to this is: when people are coming to you versus the other way around. I think this is true even outside startups, just in general once you're wanted you're over - at least the initial - hump.
Guinness documents new video-gaming records
I was referring to that, and the inadequate font smoothing at large font sizes even with ClearType on. It was fixed in Windows 7, but no browsers except for IE9 use the new text writing API that takes advantage of the better smoothing. I have edited my comment to be a little less ambiguous.
To be specific, it's just the # hack, or fragment hack if you like. The bang leading the fragment is a Google-specific thing to help the Googlebot crawl your content.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009380/whats-the-shebang...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harar#People (+ arabic and turkish)
29 Financial Articles Every Freelancer Must Read
That's right. Of course, without knowing more details about the vulnerability, it's hard to say whether there's a benefit to ending the session.
Apparently there are people who are fluent in Klingon. Not sure where I read it the other day, but there was this couple who raised one of their children to speak fluent Klingon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon

Qapla!
"A string of characters acting as numbers? Hell no. People could put in anything. '234-fake-num' isn't a real phone number! This way we'll be sure the numbers are real. Besides, look how much space we'll be saving."
Increase traffic by sharing links
Through quality content, a business owner can easily create a nice following of readers and possibly higher search engine rankings with the use of social bookmarking sites. For more details about bookmarks site, please visit our website.
Sony, take that piracy.
True, the hash method works everywhere though with little changes, if you go the new html5 method you need to support both that and the hash method for the IE7, etc.