skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
From the way it sounds, you were never treated as a cofounder

On a personal level, I like our CEO a lot. He's really smart and one hell of a great guy but he wants to hold the power/control in his hands as much as possible-- a "benevolent dictatorship" of sorts. I also think he has a great vision and would be excellent in a lot of contexts.

My issue, personally, is that I am doing this to get to a position of high autonomy-- and that may never happen, I'm coming to realize. I figure that if I work to get rich, I'll probably be miserable and might fail and, even if I succeed, won't be for the better for it (though if I have kids, they will be). Or I can work toward autonomy and enjoyment, maybe get rich and maybe not, but at least have the rare privilege of actually enjoying going to work. I'm doing the startup because, if it pans out, I'll have a really cool job and lots of autonomy. Maybe. But if the CEO decides I'm "just a developer" and I end up answering to some hired-gun VP, then I'll have no choice but to quit and, if my equity doesn't do well, years of my life will have been lost.

There's a certain natural distrust I have of business people. Most of them don't mean to do any harm, but they waste others' time and ruin lives with their overconfident promises and their willingness to trample others' interests if they see it as the profitable thing to do. On the other hand, a dismal realist like me, one who acknowledges that failure is possible, can't inspire people in the way profound promises can, now can he?

three years and still no launch is an insane amount of time for a startup. Regardless of what the reason may have been, it should definitely not have taken that long.

I'm not sure how I feel about that one. First of all, there were definite (but forgivable IMO) time-eating mistakes we made in the process, and our first technical hire is brilliant but was a really bad choice for the first programmer, and we're still paying that down. As for time-to-launch, I think there are a lot of "social" startups that can be hacked together in a few weeks, but deep technology takes longer. Maybe not 3 years, but definitely 12 to 18 months.

As a developer, assuming you're good, the market is wide open.

I think I'm both too good and not good enough. "Too good" in the sense that I die a little bit when I have to use languages like Java instead of languages like Haskell or at least Python. "Not good enough" in the sense that I didn't become a programmer until age 24 and, despite natural talent, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. There's so much in software that I've never touched; it was only a few months ago that I learned HTTP and REST.

PS As a side note, if you're ever interested in joining another startup, I am looking for a cofounder (made a post on here earlier).

Thanks. I'll look at it. I'm actually not looking to move until mid-summer. Given that this is a tiny company, I'm more inclined to give 2-3 months' notice than the standard 2 weeks.
What I'd really like to know is the source for the hopefully uncropped version. I assume this is from NASA, but between servers that are down and search failures, I'm thinking that one of HNs readers might already know...
If the templates are raw PHP, yeah. Constructing HTML in code like that is a PITA and a recipe for errors and XSS vulnerabilities. It's common to use templating engines like Smarty or Mustache. In that case, you can standardize on PHP files starting with an opening tag and having no closing tag. Then syntax checking is a piece of cake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_A...
In some markets (like St Paul where I am) "B" doesn't pay as much as "A". For example right now I rent a sweet house for $2500 that I've been told the mortgage is 3600 + a hefty association fee + prop tax + maintenance.

Oh not to mention the value the property has already lost since purchase, and is still modestly loosing each and every month.
I love how Steve's articles get rediscovered and resubmitted over and over.
I think you fail to give them credit for what they're attempting. Security is the focus of many readers of HN, but Tumblr's focus is the user experience.

This isn't to say security isn't important, but they're rushing to make Tumblr as fun to use as possible so they can survive.

Yes, they received money. They also have monstrous growth. Now they can afford to expand the engineering processes beyond, "get it working" to "make it work really well and securely".

Good things are still to come from Tumblr so let's go easy on them when they use duct tape instead an arc welder.
In the UK at least, rent is higher than the equivalent mortgage payments at the moment. I pay around 2/3rd the cost of what friends pay for their rented property and this is common across the country. This has been caused by the decline in mortgage lending.
This issue isn't the site breaking. The issue is the leaking of the configuration options. By removing it from the code, you can help avoid that. And you can even go the extra step of making sure that even if you load a broken config, the system will continue to use the old config.
Depending on the market, there are times when renting is actually cheaper than buying, also considering that you pay taxes, repair, and maintenance on a house you own.

See here for an elementary explanation: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/renting-vs--buying-a-home?p...
If someone is getting $1500 /month rent for their $100,000 house, then reason #1 to own a house is "Rent it out, and get 18% p.a. returns on it"
Bilski Applied to Invalidate Computer System Claims
Thanks, did not know about the book. I'll be sure to check it out. The video though was more like an interest generator than anything concrete.
This is a very biased view and it might become invalid in different market conditions. Just think of a great inflation or any market collapse. If you own a house, you can still live in there. But you can only burn your cash for heating.

As long as our financial system works, cash is of course the best form of an asset.
There must be some ancient evolutionary tic that makes us want to tear down walls or put nails in them or paint them.

And? Most people decorate their homes, put up art, paint, or otherwise like to decorate and furnish their homes. It's what makes it feel like a home rather than a box you sleep in each night for, and I'm sticking my neck out here with a guess, a plurality of humankind.
Twitter completing 5 years, some interesting facts.
Well, depending on the size of the house.
I've seen apartments go for around $500/month in areas where a decently sized house is about $100,000 to buy. So, it's not that unreasonable to expect to rent a house for $1,500/month.
Decide for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...
The man's got a point. And I say that as a homeowner of nine years.

The first point I would make is that unless you're independently wealthy, you're either going to be renting housing or renting money. All else equal, thirty years later you'll own some money or you'll own some property, respectively. The trick is in the "all else equal" part, because given rent versus price ratios, interest rates, and inflation expectations one or the other may be a far better deal.

Secondly, in a lot of desirable areas renting an equivalent property is far cheaper than buying. A lot of that has to do with the fact that rentals aren't usually quite as nice in terms of location, condition, and accoutrements as owner occupied places, but the effect often remains after correcting for this.

Good reasons to own your house? If you have pets, finding a rental can be really hard. If you enjoy renovating and general handypersonship maintenance might be a feature as well as a bug. Finally, if market conditions make it a no-brainer.

Tl;dr don't pay more in mortgage than you'd be comfortable paying in rent, and don't feel like you need to own a place to be a grownup.
Why is the title of the submission different from the article's? "Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again" sounds trollish. It's does not apply to a large number of people for whom buying a home is indeed a good idea. Please edit the submission title to match your current title:

"Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again"
I am just curious how your grades turn up . Also, doesn't it make more sense to just take a gap year / drop out if you are not attending classes / etc ?

[uni student]
What If Every Developer Focused On Lifestyle Businesses?
Life is not all about money!

Buy a house because you want someplace to be your own, that you can customize, and really be part of a neighborhood, and not worry about asking a landlord for permission.

I bought a house because all the apartments I looked at for the price were dumps, and in a house at least I had incentive to fix the stuff that made it a dump.
I fail to see how that isn't also a human error?
I agree in theory, but in practice people don't go from renting houses to buying identical houses---they always trade up: from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom condominium, from a 3 bedroom house to a 5 bedroom McMansion, etc.

Because of this the costs of ownership once mortgage, taxes, utilities and maintenance are tallied up are often more than what a person was previously spending on rent.

Secondly, his major point is that home ownership involves a cash down payment. Its' not a case of person A/B spending 1500 per month, its a case of person A buying a 100k home and paying 20k in cash for the right to a loan. That 20k may have been better spent in more volatile and profitable investment than home ownership.

Third and lastly, a house can lose value. Did the major employer leave the area or downsize (e.g. Detroit most prominently, Ghost towns, and a scattering of towns all over US that relied on heavy industry)? If so, then your house value has fallen. Did the area fail to gentrify or did you buy in a bubble? If so, then your house value has fallen. Has there been a disaster that the economy hasn't recovered from (e.g. Katrina, coal slush floods in W. VA, BP oil spills effect on homefront properties)? If so, then .....

The argument that a house is an investment fails because it is the least liquid of investments, and thus harms the buyer the most when the prices fall. You can always sell your stock even in a strong downturn, but who is going to buy your drafty McMansion situated in an edge of town neighborhood in a down economy?
hate: google places (silly aggregator site hArdcoded into the google serps)
hate: google custom seatch api (with a hundred (!!!!) searches free / day) instead of the proper google search api
I really hate when something being down automatically translates in peoples' minds to a reflection upon the tools. That's like blaming plow manufacturers for a snow day; while possible, there's far more explanations that are likely before plow failure is a consideration, such as a lack of manpower to drive the plows.

I see this at an ISP, too, all day long: oh, my site's down, what's wrong with your platform?
> Edit: And if you're an Android or iPhone developer who's interested in education and games and lives in the bay area, forget everything I just said. Your company is beyond help and you should come work with us ;-)

Who is "us"?

I'm in New York and wouldn't leave except for a really great job, but I meet at least some of that bill. I'm also not available for at least 2-3 months. But I would love to talk to you even if it doesn't lead to anything. Care to take this offline? march19th2011@gmail.com
It depends on when people bought and the region of the country. I see the exact opposite picture here in a rural, northern area.

My small 2 bedroom end of terrace costs me just more in mortgage payments than a 4 bed detached house in the same town. The reason? I bought at peak of market in 2007 whereas the people renting out the big houses bought 10+ years ago when such houses cost little more than my shoe box. Given the total lack of a job market, too, the rents have failed to increase.
There are several advantages of home ownership that most people do not take advantage of.

A tax free gain for the sale of a primary residence (2 years + ownership) is one in particular. I am on my 2nd 'primary residence' in 3 years.
I had a dream last night (after reading this article) where I met a Google employee (who happened to look a lot like Agent Frank Lundy from Dexter, it was weird) and I was trying to give him a demo of my project. For some reason my laptop was running really slowly and stuff kept popping up and messing up my demo, it was awful!

I blame this article on my dream last night.

So...any Google employees want to become fast friends? I like Python, Django, Android, Git, and long walks on the beach.
Exactly right. There's no reason for a config file (or any of the setup code) to be writing output. A good way to force this is by immediately starting an output buffer with a callback that returns nothing, then calling ob_end_clean() after setup is complete.
Japan's earthquake news journalist wall of shame
looks like Nodester ran out of disk space :) It's back online...
The title on the post itself (and the slug in the URL) is "Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again" (emphasis mine). In the article, the author states "there are many reasons to not buy a home," and the reasons are from his perspective, which presumably is what his friends are asking for.

However, the title here on HN makes it sound like the author is suggesting nobody ever buy a home again — probably not his intent. Sure, there are numerous reasons for not buying a home just as there are numerous reasons for buying a home — it depends on your situation.

I can personally relate to some of the author's arguments. Having rented out the house I bought 5 years ago while I'm living abroad, I'm essentially paying a 2nd rent to make up the difference between what I'm getting from my renter and the sum of my mortgage, taxes and homeowner's insurance.
Surely, you have to own some assets. "Leased food" doesn't sound like fun.
Location bookmark
Bookmark for locations - replace address info on your site with mobile map
Ask HN: Are there any mobile marketers in the house?
I really need to ramp up effective mobile marketing for my Android/iOS apps. Are there any marketing people out there with proven repeatable strategies that have time to work with a sole proprietor bootstrapping a profitable business?

I'd love to hear from people themselves and any referrals/recommendations.
IBM’s fosters innovation among Entrepreneurs in Bangalore India
3 years is an eternity in Internet years. If there's a failure to generate a MVP like you mentioned in 3 yrs (one should've been able to get something out in 6 months to a year at most to test the markets), then it's time to cut your losses. Tenacity and willingness to not give up is one thing, but it's also another to know when to call it quits.

Each day spent without releasing an MVP is a day of lost opportunity that could've been spent elsewhere.

A large company isn't necessarily a bad thing either as it'll help you accumulate savings in your early years (which are the most important years to accumulate savings so you can put it to work generating interest, capital gains, etc. so that the power of compounding works passively for you). There's some chart out there somewhere comparing savings compounded early on vs. someone that started later and the difference when you retire is huge.

Plus sometimes you learn alot about how big companies processes work, how they make purchases, contacts, etc. that will help you later on in life if you do intend to go back to a startup world or start your own.

Good luck!
Porn sites now have .xxx as top level domain
The Male Bastard Gene
These inefficient market conditions are exactly what I would look for when purchasing or investing in a home. The worst case scenario is + cashflow.
One tip if you join a bigger company: make sure you join a team that knows how to ship and is critical to the company. I don't think you want to spend another three years on something that doesn't get traction. Working at Microsoft for several years, I saw too many team that didn't know how to really arrive at a meaningful feature set and ship. Well established companies often have so much money these teams don't get weeded out as quickly.

Fortunately, I didn't have to ever live through this first-hand. And that was by far my favorite aspect of working at a big company, I knew that I was working on something that tens of millions of people would use, and it would be a significant part of their lives.

Go for it! There's plenty you'll learn and you can get financially rewarded a lot more than many startups.
In theory, journalists have jobs that are about synthesis, not information. You read the story about the local town council meeting mainly because it is entertaining and engaging, not because it's a summary of the meeting notes.

That's a very difficult thing for technical people to grasp. Sometimes I think we view everything online as various versions of wikipedia, and it's not like that at all.

In practice, sure, they do a bad job many times. Sometimes they just copy and paste Press Releases. Many times they bungle a quote (Although most quotes are problematic to use verbatim. People don't talk in real life like they do in movies and books) But reporting is an art, not an algorithm. Reporters and editors are supposed to be very good at taking multiple sources, including the reporters own generated research, and mashing it together into something greater than the sum of the parts.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other about linking to primary sources. If I had to choose I guess I'd like for them always to be included. But the idea that somehow it's going to make a big difference doesn't add up for me. For researchers, sure. But not for the average reader.
My wife and I didn't sell our first house when we moved, we're prepping it to rent out. It was a serious fixer-upper, so we renovated the bejeezus out of it while living there (learned a lot and bought a bunch of tools). Average rent for a property that size is easily double our mortgage payment - which is why we bought instead of renting in the first place.

Even factoring in taxes and maintenance costs, renting out that first house, even at the low end of what we could get for it, we'll handily subsidize our current residence as well as pay off the old house. Even if we were to sell it, the quality of work we put into it more than pays for the time and money we put into renovations.

To each their own I guess.
It's not 'automatic'. The above poster asked about excluding the possibility of the tool being poor as opposed to the infrastructure being bad, or the tool wielder lacking competency.
You can attach a callback to the buffer to prevent that implicit flush.

ob_start(function() {});
And there is the problem.

The phrase 'job ad' has the word 'ad' in it and thus anything which is mentioned in the ad was probably (re)written by marketing and thus isn't true to begin with. ;-)
>Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I’d look out the window and see Wall Street. How exciting! Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I look out the window and see the Hudson River. And its quiet and I can walk along the river in the morning with no noise.

I can't imagine that was cheap. Most of the article is inflected with desire to retain hoards of cash and sleep on top of a pile with many beautiful women (well, that's the undertone). Yet he's blowing what must be a huge wad on an apartment in NYC in an upscale area.
It's not loading for me =/ Anyone else have this problem?
As opposed to an anti-social solitary chat? :)
Yeah, I used to have a similar mindset before starting my (big) family. I can understand what he's saying (though very arrogantly) but I hope he's open to changing his mind someday, just in case.

He mentioned he likes having a hassle free life. Once you have a lot of kids, not only do you have your own hassles, you get to be a part of everyone's hassles and there's no such thing as a hassle free life.

All I'm saying is, never lock yourself into any mindset as circumstances can change.
Some of the Slashdot comments[1][2][3] for this clarify what he really means. It seems like the guy from AMD overgeneralized his remarks for the press.

1: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2044704&cid=35...

2: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2044704&cid=35...

3: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2044704&cid=35...
I think it would be quite an accomplishment.
jedsmith - I asked the question not to imply that it was because of node, but because the outage correlated back to the post (i.e. spike in traffic) and I honestly wanted to know the cause. It not node, then what? I think it was a perfectly valid question and sorry if I offended you or anyone else.
Outside of property tax increases (at least in the State of Tennessee), the landlord can't increase rent on you if you've got a lease contract. Things are much stricter in many other states.
The analogy is similar re: stock. Is your $25 citigroup stock really worth selling @ $3?

Most likely those people sold at .60 cents.

Most people who are losing money in real estate were also selling stocks at the bottom (2 years ago) and were buying tech stocks with two hands in 1999.
The academic literature has been citing sources for far longer than the web's been around.
I have to disagree, based upon my reading the question. "You're down. Why? I thought Node could handle it." I don't have any stock invested in Node, personally, but it sounded like a conclusion had already been made by the asker.
No matter how much a company is willing to spend on gadgets, everyone seems to stick with that same $100 Ikea desk.
Yes, but it's a different and more serious kind of human error.

"Someone made a typo" is one kind of human error. It's common and easily corrected. "We are running our servers such that someone can ruin everything by making a typo, and we won't catch it until it's too late" is a different, more serious and less easily-corrected error.

But yes, all bugs are human error.
Where do you see this?
I was also making around 70$ to 80$ an hour. I decided to get in to Wall St (Investment Banks/Hedge Funds) and now I am able to make more than 100$/hour. In NYC, other than finance industry, I haven't seen anyone paying more than 100$/hour.
I got this while visiting Nodester.com repeatedly:

The application is not running..
ECONNREFUSED, Connection refused

Looks like they have/had some issues at their level.
If you are seriously considering leaving, it seems like you have a lot of leverage to ask your CEO to be treated differently.
Journalist are probably even less inclined to be caught doing that.
Security isn't something you just bolt on after the fact, it's part of the design, and involves so much more than just code.

If they failed to take security into account in the early stages, never mind implement it at the beginning of development, then odds are they won't be implementing it effectively any time soon, especially with the rate at which they'll be expected to keep growing and adding functionality.

This kind of issue that they're showing now could (and probably should) have been detected and handled early on, even with a simple third-party code review.

And the fact that they are as big as they are, and growing as quickly as they are, means that they should have an increased sense of responsibility when it comes to security and protecting their users.
Shouldn't this have been caught by checking chsnges before committing them or on a staging server.
I may not have a cinema display, but many in my company do. When I started, I had a brand new HP desktop. A few months later I got a brand spankin new Macbook Pro when I started doing Mac development. I would expect AT LEAST what I see from the picture at any serious software company and I live/work in mid-michigan. We don't have to put our monitors on cardboard boxes either.