skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think I agree about massive market. There's a large # of newsletter publishers that don't advertise. Thing of every SaaS newsletter promoting their own sales, Best Buy and their newsletters, Groupon doesn't directly advertise (this distinction is somewhat complicated).

Selling ads appropriately is also extremely difficult. Click-thru rates is another issue, but I could probably overcome this issue with unsubscribe rates data from easyunsubscriber after it finds P/M fit.

I don't think a lot of this stuff is public unless SendGrid/MailChimp/et al has open APIs which I doubt. I think publishers often fudge this data and if their open rates are bad, they inflate the numbers of don't mention them. Very difficult to monitor esp. since the data isn't open.

Do you advertise in newsletters or publish one? I'd love to hear more of your experiences.
Simulator? Build a real one!
While this is definitely true, it's also true that teachers don't generally work right through summer vacation, either. I'm from Ontario, not Rhode Island, but I had a teacher who was telling the class about the construction business he runs in the summer, basically because he had too much time on his hands. I don't hold it against him, though. He certainly never whined about being overworked or underpaid.
this is one area that android as an os is better at. it's ready to go out of the box, syncs data from your google account and upgrades the os over the wire.
Let's talk more. Couldn't find your contact info - bob@easyunsubscriber.com
Being 43, the question got me alarmed. The article, even more.

Am I the oldest person on HN?
old programmers become managers or they loose their edge and fade away. Rubbish, as the comments in the article point out.

Programmers who love their craft stay current in the areas that interest them. No one talks about older writers or older lawyers loosing their edge.
any YC alums in the DC area?
there really aren't that many older (for all you old-timers reading this: i mean that in a loving and respectful manner ) developers that are any good in this industry.

Here's a hint: When you find yourself writing this kind of awkward, smiley-equipped parenthetical statement in the middle of your big topic sentence, it means something. It means that your subconscious is trying to tell you to delete the sentence and start over.

I'd say more, but I'm turning forty any day now, so I'm out of time. I've only got hours left to learn Haskell before I become senile.
Yet being around people you can relate with is priceless. We hackers need new thoughts and cross fertilization of ideas. The web helps but personally, my most interesting moments of this year so far where in a Linux meeting in Quebec and a San Diego HN social event last week, before returning home to my tropical island. Don't underestimate the power of socialization until you start to really live outside north america/europe/australia-nz/japan.
It's not hard to disambiguate, especially since there are free databases like MusicBrainz that already do that for you, and especially since Last.fm is already using that data.
Hell no. You were in diapers when I started.

Edit: That goes for pg too.
At my last workplace around half the people I worked with were in their 50's and still going strong, working on things they love. A couple were just a year or two from retirement.

You may be glad to know that HN ⊂ 'the' developer community.

(For the record, I'm 'only' 26)
Justin.tv?

Also, plz commit your code live to github?
Not even close, sport. I have 12 years on you, and I'd guess I'm not the oldest.
Last.fm and Dropbox are the only consumer services I pay for. Their streaming radio works well.
Any good experiences with the providers listed?

http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders/
The Ultimate Machine by Claude Elwood Shannon
No specific commands really, but I think the whole hg UI is just more consistent. I use both, yet with git I have to revert to `man` almost every day :/

Compare: `git branch xxx / git branch -a`, `git tag xxx / git tag -l`, `git show-ref --heads`

To: `hg branch xxx / hg branches`, `hg tag xxx / hg tags`, `hg heads`

There are also "duplicates" that I'm not sure why aren't folded into one command: `show-branch/branch`, `show xxx` which is `diff -c xxx` in many other systems, etc.

These are just simple cases, but there's loads of situations where you have to find out yet another command in git / yet another parameter to do what you want. Hg has better defined defaults and the whole list of commands looks like it was designed, while git looks like everyone just added what they needed... Auto-expanding commands in hg is also nice - I hate it when git tells me 'ci' or other short name is not a command (yeah, I know about aliases).

In some situations I also think that git does exactly what it's programmed to do... which isn't always the same as - what workflow makes sense in a specific case. For example `branch` creates a branch, but you still need to do `checkout` (or just `checkout -b ...`). Why? What's the common use case for creating a branch you're not going to work on? Which behaviour do you expect more often?

All in all, not the end of the world, but when you use the tool every day, it becomes annoying, especially if you see it can be done better.
You know, comments like that disparage by implication anyone who finds value in PHP or SVN.

Maybe if we disparage them enough they'll switch to a real programming language and version control tool.
CamTwist
The differences on commit both have good arguments. hg is going for ease of use and is very much like the non-dvcs's that came before it, like CVS and Subversion where a commit commits all changed files.

git add just adds the file to the index and stages it for commit, this means you can group files logically depending on what has changed, you can even using git add -p have only certain parts of a files modifications be committed and the rest be staged for the next commit. This can be very powerful.

For example, if I did a full refactoring of a class, and fixed a quick bug rather than committing them both at the same time in the patch I can just keep the bug fix and then later commit the re-factored code even if it is in the same file.
How many Octocat merges have there been?
Solutions to graph algorithms for 99 Haskell Problems
Firing everybody allows them to make their decisions based on who is actually a good teacher, instead of only being able to base their decision on who has been their the longest.

So really, you got it completely backwards.
The reason for erasing data is generally to free up space so new data can be written.

Whether this erase procedure happens immediately upon the user's request to delete the information or whether it's added to a queue of areas to erase (the "purging routines" or "garbage collection" mentioned in the article) is a small detail. A modern OS will return control to the user immediately upon issuing the command, and all that matters to the end user is that the erase command is issued before the next write. A firmware

I seriously hope that these researchers aren't advocating a mandate that states that the erase procedure cannot be issued until a write is requested to that space.
Wikipedia claims that PG was born in 1964.

I won't speak for any of the others, but rest assured you're not alone.
your first two points are mostly solved in Lion.
Hmmm ... I feel like the setup is too much for tonight, maybe I'll make a screencast another time. Getting a twitter clone solid tonight'll be a serious challenge w/o screencasting it.
Apple does have a similar policy.
In that case put "Get in touch" N/A sounds obscure
I spent my 30s as a sysadmin and started learning and using Ruby on Rails three years ago. Now I'm a freelance web developer with tons of backend knowledge, which people like. Everybody knows what a good looking website looks like and so can reasonably be expected to squeeze a decent job out of a freelance designer, but systems stuff is still inchoate for a lot of people.
Oh yep, you've got some great applications there. Maybe ideone should advertise how they intend to be used instead of putting the creative requirement on the user?
Do you have your own site for people who boycott tech crunch links? ;)
Hands down Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

If you don't have it on your bucket list, make sure to add going to take the tour there. The outside is not nearly as impressive as the experience of being on the inside and imagining yourself living there. Wright understood that the beauty on the outside isn't nearly as important as the feeling of being inside.
who the hell signs up for newsletters? interesting how your other business was created because newsletters are lame.

these problems don't seem like ones normal people deal with. they're just problems for people trying to add something to their domain squatting businesses. spam my inbox with lame content, and then spam the newsletter with ads? ugh.

how about, people want really good content through email (huge assumption), but great content publishers aren't publishing content due to low advertiser involvement. the service could hook writers up with relevant advertisers who could add something to the conversation, giving the user something other than a text ad or banners. if it's a small market, the service could be very specialized and deal with people/advertisers individually.

but honestly, there's probably more money in viagra ads than there is in email newsletters.
Forensic analysis of your hard drive for forgotten but not erased data is not an acceptable backup policy.

Many people (both criminals and victims of criminals) have also been burned by thinking that data they thought they deleted was recoverable in this way.
The article says he made money from advertising, if that was Google Ads linked to his email address, wouldn't they have his name and address linked so they could send him cheques?
Here you go.... http://view.io/
If you cannot honestly make this claim: "I believe in god/s", you are an atheist by definition. You may not be a strong atheist which is someone who would make the claim: "There is/are no god/s", but you are still an atheist (a weak atheist, which anecdotally appears to be the most common variety). Just think about the roots, atheism - without theism.

You're also an agnostic if you can honestly make the claim: "It is unknowable whether or not there is/are god/s".

I used to call myself an agnostic because, for whatever reason, people always assume that if you are an atheist you hold the position that there are no gods (which you also seem to hold given your assumption that atheism is a position that requires belief).
I'm an over-50 developer. Most of my friends don't write software anymore (some burned out, others got bored with it). I've always loved creating software, so I try to spend as much of my day writing code as I can.

I left <big company> several years ago - part of the reason is that it was not as rewarding to me personally to be spending all of my time on management and administration.

My advice would be to follow your passion - if you want to build your skills as a developer, be sure to refuse to be "promoted" into management or do a really crappy job at all the non-development tasks your company tries to get you to do.
Better question: how many people (developers or not) over 40 keep learning and stay hungry? How many people over 30?

This is not an issue unique to developers.
You might be, but then, if you're here, you're probably trying to keep your skills up to date, so avoid the problems expressed in the article.
The other direction?

You mean that people don't know how to talk to me?

Excellent illustration of the issue. In answer to the 2nd question: It's possibly an intractable problem!
http://scri.ch/2k6 :D
I agree. The worst part was this little tidbit:

> As far as SSDs are concerned, the state of the drive cannot be taken to indicate that its owner did or did not interact with it in ways that allow prosecutors to infer guilt or innocence.

> "The fact that data has been purged does not mean a human knowingly did it (e.g. accidental guilt). [But] data purging may make a guilty person look innocent (e.g. accidental innocence)," says Bell.

Wait - Prosecutors can infer guilt because I purged my hard drive? Because, of course, the only thing that I might want to delete personally must be criminal in nature, and not, say, personal correspondence or confidential information.

This article seems like good news to me. The only bad news that I see is that the analysts who worked on the article will have more difficult jobs in the future.
On the other hand, roughly an entire 2% of merges on linus's linux tree have been octopus merges. Hardly something to scoff at.

5 10
6 11
5 12
3 13
2 14
1 18
14592 2
1 20
1 21
1 24
129 3
1 30
50 4
25 5
21 6
13 7
18 8
7 9
I also did CS competitions in college, but I always felt they over-stressed speed. They are for quick problem solvers, who are also comfortable with the languages the competition accepts. However, the way I see it, merely being sharp and knowing a language well isn't good enough to be a good programmer. Programming to me is a strange mixture of problem solving, technical knowledge, design, writing, and typing and a good programmer is good at all of them (throw English in there as well if you're not a native speaker). Problem solving and typing are things they teach you to get a CS degree, and it's what those competitions measure, but most of our submissions were really poor code, even by my standards at the time.

[Edit] Add discipline to my long list of essential virtues for a good programmer. Discipline is a big one.
This seems abusable... imagine photoshopping a picture to reflect poorly on a competitor, spoofing the GPS and then getting fake accounts to vote it up.

This is not a unique criticism - all social media is subject to attack cases like this - the difference here would be that pictures tend to carry more weight than a simple textual message.
you just have to lie and say you're accredited.
The commercial internet didn't exist as a career path for those over 40, so it is a relatively smaller cadre. For example I'm almost 40 and a dev who studied history in college. There were fewer than 20 computer science majors in my graduating class.
> If you can work out exactly what makes someone 45x more productive then maybe you can hire/freelance more efficiently for individual tasks.

You don't need a study to figure that out. When your project needs help in a specific area, just hire someone who is an expert in the area. No matter if that person is clever or even talented: As long as (s)he is clearly experienced in that field, (s)he will work a lot more efficiently than anyone else in your team.

And of course you should have someone in your present team working with him/her or at least reading and adapting her/his code, so you get more people of your team up to speed. Also, that way you'll notice timely in case the expert status isn't justified (i.e. in case the "expert" wasn't one).
Thanks! It's my mission to share the explanations that actually worked for me :).
making a note here for potentially lucrative game idea: Sid Meier's Startupization
I am not sure of that. I don't have enough evidence to deny nor to accept it.

I remember once another classmate had a presentation and she spoke faster than normal and got criticized for it. However I did not think she was speaking fast until she was criticized. It seemed completely acceptable speed to me and I could very easily follow her line of thought.

This is the only example I remember and it's probably insufficient to accept your conjecture.
Charlie Sheen Will Live Demo "Winning" Tonight on Ustream at 7pm
Yeah, I like it when people I work with, directly or indirectly, play fair. When they don't, I feel I have every right to criticize them for it, which is what I've been doing.

I believe Microsoft is doing the web (and me, as a developer for the web) a disservice, and I'd like them to stop damaging the web (and me).
I think the thing about this story clickbaitable is nothing about what surrounds the noun, Sean Parker. It's the noun, Sean Parker. Sean Parker is an enigma the hacker community wants to know about, because he has been insanely successful and at once is largely anonymous.

So, I will click a post that says "Sean Parker's drooling habits" little because of what surrounds it - I will click it because have strong interest in finding out more about the noun, Sean Parker, without caring much at all about the totality of the title.

The more I know about the noun, the less I click on the titles (especially as they parse down to less interesting things), but the less I know, the more likely I am to click something as snore-inducing as "Lunch with Sean Parker".
I think Google has it figured out with how they do updates for Chrome. On the mobile side they don't have the luxury of everyone running the same software (carrier/manufacturer customizations) like Apple does, which really gums up the works. Apple should be able to significantly improve the update experience.

As far as syncing goes, I think a good first step would be to do it all over WiFi on the local network in the background (TimeMachine style). I have my iPad/iPhone running on the same local wireless network as my laptop all day/night, it's nuts that I have to physically connect the two. The step up from there is to sync to the cloud, but still over WiFi.
Dial-up for Libya
Telecomix: +49 231 97844321
Login: telecomix password: telecomix
xs4all: +31205350535
username: xs4all password: xs4all
When I click the "Start single-player game" button, it puts me into a multiplayer game. I had to leave and re-start several times before I got into a game with only AI opponents.
I'm an over 40 developer. I worked with a mid 50's and a mid 60's developer a couple of jobs ago. Both good people. Both whip-smart and very thorough.

I've met plenty of good older developers. I've also met plenty of marginally competent younger ones.
Our house? I like it :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/petervandijck/sets/721576255515...
# When I click "Try it for Free" on home page - get me to sign-up page already. Why are you showing plans? Make the 2nd CTA button "See Plans". When you have a chance to get me sign-up then do that, do the selling after I've seen your product.

(If I am already sold, I'd click on pricing & plans).

# Your 14-day free thing on every account is confusing. Either add it as another plan or just take me sign-up already.

# When I add my blog I understand that the data is loading, but for how long? After 10 mins, all it has done is get my blog posts listed. No other data at all. How long do I need to wait? Show me a progress bar or tell me that you are processing it?

# You might wanna check your date selector in Chrome in Windows 7. It just doesn't work for me.

# When I select span of 2-3 months (did it using tabs since your calender thing was not responsive) the scale of days become messy. use smaller data points there?

# Not sure if I'd wanna pay that much to see these stats which even tweet button and like button on my blog can show me. Guess you guys will be adding more stuff? Like overall ranking, what audience liked it or what?

I know you guys are going to get down to these points and might already know these points but then again.

If I were in your shoes, after reading my own feedback I'd think I hated the service. So let me give the other side of the coin, what I liked:

Though there are some design flaws but site is not falling apart and is good enough in terms of design. Again there are some basic flaws like black-on-blue but much better than what I am seeing nowadays.

After I figure out where to click to sign-up. I hardly remember the process of singing-up which is good! Means it was painless.

It's a nice concept, can take off if you build upon it. Perhaps till beta you wanna keep it free and once you know what they are really looking for - offer it for paid or something?

Keep at it
Can't...wait.
It's a little complicated, although not so complicated that it has anything to do with the spin of elementary particles.

The basic reason is due to perpendicular axis theorem. If you have a plate, there is some moment of inertia about the axis perpendicular to the plate, and a different moment of inertia about any axis in the plane of the plate. The perpendicular axis theorem says that the moment of inertia about the axis perpendicular to the plate is twice that about the axis in the plane of the plate.

Now, suppose you attach a rod through the plate, but at a bit of an angle, and then you spin the plate around this rod. As you can imagine, it'll take some effort to keep the plate spinning about the rod; it'll be rattling around trying to spin in a different way. Because you're not spinning it about any axis of symmetry, the angular velocity vector is not lined up with the angular momentum vector and so it requires some torque to keep the plate spinning around the axis you want. But if you're just throwing a plate up in the air, you can't exert any torque on it---it's just going on its own. So if the plate is spinning about some funny axis, it has to do so in a special way in order that the angular momentum vector lines up with the angular velocity vector.

So, draw a diagram of this lopsided plate turning around a rod. The angular velocity will have some component perpendicular to the plate and some component parallel to the plate so that the overall angular velocity is parallel to the rod. Let's suppose that the angular momentum vector's component perpendicular to the plate is exactly as long as the component of the angular velocity perpendicular to the plate. Because the moment of inertia in the plane of the plate is half that perpendicular to the plate, the length of the component of angular momentum in the plane of the plate is half the length of the component of angular velocity in the plane of the plate. As you can see, the angular velocity vector is not lined up with the angular momentum vector.

Now we decouple the plate from the rod so that it can also spin about an axis perpendicular to the plate. If we spin the plate about this axis backwards at half the speed it was originally spinning about this axis, the length of the component of angular momentum perpendicular to the plate is now half the length of the same component of the angular velocity. And so the angular momentum vector is now lined up with the rod that we're spinning the overall system around. But because the angular momentum vector and the angular velocity vector are parallel, there's no need to exert any torque on the system to keep it going. So we can remove the rod entirely and the plate will wobble in the air in a ratio of 2:1.
Pros and Cons of the new Facebook Comments plugin
It's different because they are not assigning guilt based on forensic analysis of evidence that someone tried - but failed - to destroy. Instead, they're assigning guilt because something, which may or may not be evidence, was destroyed.

It's as if they discovered that you used some documents (now unreadable) which you'd run through your paper shredder to light a fire, and that you cleaned out your fireplace after you were done. A clean fireplace? You must be burning human remains in it!
SEO is no longer a viable marketing strategy for startups
A Workflow for Making Websites
Who are you currently targeting as customer? It seems that your clients would be digital advertising and marketing studios who often manage a lot of social media channels for their clients. For them it would be a great service to see all these channels in one coherent interface.
I think it's called Git Bash. It isn't so bad though, you get some working Unix commands with it. Come to think of it, I think it's better than CMD, to an extent.
The best response I've seen to this kind of thing is along the lines of "Who do you think built this place, anyway?"

Engineers who are now in their 40s, sonny.