skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I underwent a sea change regarding school. In my first undergrad stint, I didn't reflect on what I was learning or why. More important I didn't try to think about my strengths and desires, and try to fit my program to that. My second time through was laser focused on CS, math, and engineering. For me, that translated into close to two letter grades.

One thing I had picked up in between was a strong desire to learn the computer. I didn't grow up programming, so Perl was something of a revelation to me. I picked up C after that and read Code Complete, another revelation. About then I figured out that I wanted to work on software professionally.

I continued to work on programming skills and CS outside of the four walls of my program (and I still do).

There was no secret sauce in getting into Amazon. They were (and we still are) desperate for people, with hundreds of engineering openings today, who know CS fundamentals, are not one-trick ponies (ie, work at many levels of the stack, from UI through service to DB), and can code their way out of a paper bag. There is a ton of customer-impacting work to do and never enough engineers to do it all.

It is not an exaggeration to say that if you can solve algorithm, coding, and design questions in phone screens and on the white board, and communicate your thought process along the way, you will be head and shoulders above the vast majority of the candidate pool. Having a work record of delivering software products helps too. That said, you are not likely to pass the interview loop if you try to fake your way through.

After I finished the MS CS, I worked at a defense contractor and shipped some software in C++/Qt/MySQL. I learned a lot and loved my coworkers, but the defense industry environment was not for me. I read Steve Yegge's posts about Amazon and services and the rest, and that was for me. The ones about interviewing are all still relevant for the Amazon interview. The specific questions have changed, but the areas to bone up on are basically timeless.

Then I submitted my resume online for a position in Amazon's Recommendations team. I didn't know anyone in the company (although it turned out that I ran into acquaintances after I joined). I didn't get picked up by them but somebody else needed people badly and started the hiring process with me.

There are a broad range of teams and experiences at Amazon. Some teams are high pressure, high reward (Kindle comes to mind). Some are redefining industries, like AWS. Front-end vs. back-end. Huge resources, many dependencies, and a two-year roadmap vs. two guys launching a brand new business.
If only other countries would follow suit. Afew years ago I had a great plan in place for an internet cafe (and more) planned for a great location in Grenada, and was basically told that I needed close to $300k in assets and/or financing in order to qualify for residency and make it happen. The entire project could have gotten off the ground for less than $200k (for which I had good faith agreements), and my plan involved hiring at least 3 locals to start with, so why did I need the other $100k?

"Just because..." was pretty much the only answer that the immigration officials could give me.

Oh well, it was a great 9 month vacation while it lasted...
Startup Quote: Jack Dorsey, co-founder, Twitter
GutCheck: Online Real Time Qualitative Market Research
Fantastically succinct market analysis and reality check.

Continuing the aside: Going short in 1998 would have been too soon, 2001 Q2 too late. Countless startups have flipped in the past few years after only a year or two of growth. There's ample time to build something valuable and flip it in the next few years. History repeats itself but that won't help us predict the market.

(I'd give bonus points for your Camus quote!)
Fact: most witty statements tend to break down when you look at them closely.
I really enjoyed this post, and skateboarding has been one of my greatest teachers in life (which probably isn't saying much). I do believe in Machiavellian criticism, but progressive Machiavellian criticism with the intend of doing whatever you're focused on better.Not for the sake of the critic feeding their own ego, although the two can mutually interact. :)
The strongest thing you can cultivate as an entrepreneur is to not rely on luck but cultivating an ability to recognize fortunate situations when they are occurring.

- Jack Dorsey (@jack)

http://startupquote.com/post/3866215350
Why I am not worried about Japan’snuclear reactors
Let's direct the money necessary for those into renewable energy instead.
I have wanted a Flickr competitor with start-up culture and mentality for a while

Kind of like Flickr was back when they were a startup?

I want a competitor who can exist and provide hassle-free service for at least a decade, and my standards are always rising. I can't spend all my time jumping ship from one "start out, sell out, burn out" company to the next.

Yes, there is an opportunity: to provide a service that is sustainable.
Much of a last glory.
The cool billion was just the up front fee, Nokia still has to pay licensing fee.

from your article,
"Nokia will have to sell more than 60 million phones, as Microsoft is estimated to charge no more than $15 per handset for Windows Phone."
Firefox hacks - Open a new Window inside a Firefox tab
Lycos was still around in 2004?
I can't relate. I generally do not take glee in the misfortune of others and don't enjoy such "jokes". And this whole thing just makes me shake my head. He did absolutely nothing good for his childhood friend. He just made it worse by providing all kinds of additional personal info and extra publicity for something I'm sure the guy wishes would just go away. Ugh.
HN traffic would drop suddenly...
I honestly couldn't believe that my friend, who is a very street-smart, intelligent man who built literally an empire in the construction business, would agree to crazy conditions like this. He said that it never seemed like a possibility for him as he was paying down the loans much faster than loan required. I'm really not sure why the banks would do something this stupid to loans that were getting paid on-schedule. My friends theory (just a theory) is that were going to be able to write-off the loan and get part of it back through TARP funds. This way, they'd be able to cash-out faster without loosing much and build up a cash-reserve for uncertain times. I'm not sure what the real story is on why they would pull this kind of nutty behavior.
This script is awesome! Thank you. This is a nice unobtrusive way to chat without slowing down the user's experience.
oh I've been there and I know how frustrating it is.. Another friend of mine is in the same situation right now. I couldn't believe when my app was approved so fast, but I wanted to share that.

Hopefully they'll release your app soon.
>In other languages, the abstractions and sweet (if helpful) syntactic sugar that attend the code conceal the heartbeat.

IMO, that means they're failed abstractions and syntactic sugar. Proper ones should result in better understanding due to simplification - you can learn it in levels, easily encapsulating the knowledge at each level so you know you can "trust" what it's doing without having to remember all of it.
I would say that brute force is absolutely a skill. Your point about developers Y and X is kind of interesting, though. I think both types of developers are important. I read an anecdote here or at reddit that mentioned a couple of coders that worked together, one who had the idea and a creative method of implementation and the other who enjoyed bludgeoning out the hardest, mind-numbing parts of the code that are required in a true finished product.

The trick is identifying who is who, and assigning tasks appropriately.
> "What is/will be the new valuable thing if ebooks really do push down the price of books to the end consumer to near zero"?

They already have. Downloading an ebook costs less than a tenth of a cent: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2010-October...

Of course, there are books you can't get that way legally. I imagine there are books that are hard to find online that you can still get on Amazon. And there are people who don't know how to find ebooks online, even the easy ones like Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive books.
Internet Explorer 9 launches tonight, we've got your early look
Of course this isn't a feature of the language -- but most implementations (e.g. gcc) technically allow this, if you really, really know what you're doing. For example:

http://www.cesarbs.org/blog/2010/07/19/run-time-machine-code...
Wow! Awesome idea ...
Books Everyone Should Read
I was not just trying to be clever. I feel the subject is very applicable here. But more importantly, the horrific complexity is not due to the solution (it really isn't that complex), but is a rather good demonstration of why Java is a rather difficult language to write correct software in.
That's about 4 years too early for you to be running Gentoo, buddy.

* tugs at Locke1689's neckbeard to see if it's fake
> we watch Ronaldo doing things on the pitch

Hmmm...

Lionel Messi does crazy things you never thought were possible. He's Lisp.

Gareth Bale has few fancy tricks, but does what he does very well, and often relies on pure speed - C.

Joey Barton is good, but has a bad reputation and a sordid history - Fortran?

Etc :-)
>To hide feedback for all purchases, don't leave feedback?

I thought the point was that access to seller feedback is public too - even if one doesn't leave feedback if the seller says "thanks" then you're marked publicly as a buyer of that product.
There's actually no requirement to hire locally, but the parent poster is wrong for a number of reasons.

First because some companies are already generating revenues and spending that cash locally. Add those inflows to the matching funds participants are expected to provide (most end up spending more) and it's clear Chile's exposure per startup is lot less than $40,000. And that's without considering the multiplier effect all this spending has on the local economy.

How the exact numbers run will depend on how they pick the teams, but I'm guessing that if two to three percent of the participants take investment or stay on permanently the program will be a net plus. Which makes it an income transfer if it works - but one from other parts of the world to Chile. And it's a good deal for entrepreneurs too so what is not to love?
You cannot compare use of the metric system to use of Dvorak or tau=2pi. While Dvorak and tau may be objectively better, the real world gains to be had by switching to either are slim in reality. I already type upwards of 90 words a minute on Qwerty and I doubt that switching to Dvorak would yield much of a gain to my typing. The problem behind pi is that it is never explained correctly, and this can be worked around by fixing pedagogy without having to introduce yet another physical constant. If the United States switched to the metric system, however, doing business with foreign economies would immediately become easier and we would no longer have to memorize long tables of arbitrary conversion factors. It makes much more sense objectively AND pragmatically to use units that are derived from physical quantities, rather than legends about kings' feet and so forth. With the other two examples, the pragmatic improvement isn't there -- the improvements in quality of life/quality of thought that we would experience simply aren't worth the trouble of switching.
Ask HN: What's your Myers-Briggs type?
What's your Myers-Briggs type? I'm curious about what the landscape looks like for founders, programmers and YC readers. If you don't know, you can take the test here:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
SmugMug lacks the social angle is that is important to some photographers (including myself). Self-promotion via Flickr is incredibly easy - their metrics on each of your uploads is incredibly useful also (for gauging general public interest in your work).

Flickr is less about your personal gallery - it's more about a universe of images, made easily discoverable, and easily shareable and discussable. SmugMug is definitely more of a "your hosted gallery" service, which is useful as a portfolio for photographers (and a sales point, via their tightly integrated print sales), but is really not comparable to Flickr as a social and promotional tool. I really enjoy exploring and looking at the work of superior photographers and learning from that - losing Flickr would be a huge blow to the photography community. SmugMug is not nearly so discoverable.
I keep hearing that this is the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Folks, this isn't even the second-worst nuclear disaster on Japanese soil.
Vote: INTJ
VOTE: INTP
Vote: INFP
VOTE: INFJ
It seems like a reasonable response to say "if they don't fix this today I'm never using them again", etsy took information which people had assumed was private and made it public. If they respond quickly and take steps to ensure something like this doesn't happen again then I might consider using them again. One of the fastest ways to influence a profit driven enterprise is to make it clear that there actions mean you will no longer give them money (either by no longer shopping on etsy or listing on etsy).

I also take issue with your statement that "this is a relatively small issue", while the items I personally bought on etsy are fairly mundane I don't want my shopping history to be easily googleable. How would you feel if the local XXX store started posting pictures of all of the customers in the news paper (or even just putting them up on the web)?
Given the recent events this post is just cynical.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?...

New Blast Reported at Nuclear Plant as Japan Struggles to Cool Reactor
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATT WALD
Published: March 14, 2011

TOKYO — An explosion early Tuesday morning damaged the No. 2 reactor at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the third in a series of blasts that have now hit each of the three crippled reactors at the plant, plant officials said.
Enlarge This Image

It was not immediately clear if the blast was caused by the buildup of hydrogen, as occurred at the two other reactors at Daiichi — one on Saturday and the most recent one on Monday, when there was also a large explosion at the No. 3 reactor. Some early reports in the Japanese press suggested the latest explosion amounted to a different and more critical problem than the previous two.

This explosion, reported to have occurred at 6:14 a.m., happened in the “pressure suppression room” in the cooling area of the reactor and inflicted some degree of damage on the pool of water used to cool the reactor, officials of Tokyo Electric Power said. But they did not say whether or not the incident had impacted the integrity of the steel containment structure that shields the nuclear fuel.

Radiation levels around plant spiked after the explosion to 8,217 microsieverts an hour from 1,941 about 40 minutes earlier, the company said. Some emergency workers there were evacuated, though the levels would have to rise far higher to pose an immediate threat to health, officials said.

Any damage to the steel containment vessel of a nuclear reactor is considered critical because it raises the prospect of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material and full meltdown of the nuclear fuel inside. To date, even during the four-day crisis in Japan that amounts to the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, workers had managed to avoid a breach of a containment vessel and had limited releases of radioactive steam to relatively low levels.
...
VOTE: ENFP
VOTE: ENFJ
VOTE: ENTP
VOTE: ENTJ
VOTE: ISFP
Vote: ISFJ
Vote: ISTP
The end of sales and marketing.
Vote: ISTJ
Vote: ESTP
Vote: ESTJ
Vote: ESFP
Vote: ESFJ
Given that typically "how much you're willing to gamble" << "how much you're actually worth", he basically equated the other guy's whole worth with a single bet of his (which was true).

Would be fun to see the guy's reaction.
Maybe we should wait for June the 28th for that discussion. Just to show some respect for pi that was with for quite some time
It's been muchly debated whether I am an ENTP or an ENFP: Feelers accuse me of being an icky Thinker and Thinkers accuse me of being an icky Feeler. (I apparently am an equal-opportunity offender). I'm definitely an ENxP though.
Looks more like something for bank accounts etc? Strong auth?
The Female CEO: Rare Species or Dead on Arival
Let the music business die.

There were musicians around long before the invention of copyright. There will be musicians when the music industry goes away.

We are in a temporary period that began with the invention of the phonograph and extended to the development of zero-cost copying of digital music. This temporary period enabled a few to become famous and rich off of the proceeds guaranteed by copyright law. We should not expect this period to last forever.
First off, I apologize. I was in a horrible mood when I left this post, and you struck a nerve. I appreciate the discussion.

I don't understand this dichotomy between needing to ship, and creating quality software. It only exists because of the tools we choose to use. The techniques he discusses in this article I feel are founded in (pure) functional programming. These techniques have been around for quite some time. I have been using these techniques in languages from Haskell to C/C++ as much as possible, and they have vastly increased the quality of the software I write (measured in defects). I also do not feel they have slowed me down much at all. In fact, they really have forced me to think more about the problems I am solving and in the end creating better solutions faster (instead of constantly refactoring and unit testing).
well, Gamma(1/2) = sqrt(pi), putting tau there wouldn't make things better.
No. X-Box should not be excepted, because it is a major new product and is successful. I was expecting the X-Box strategy.

Actually, I also still think that they will make an "X-phone", if you will. Think a PSP + voice/data and Windows Phone 7.
Well Played, Google eBooks [photo]
If this makes people get off IE6 & IE7 it's good enough for me.
"somehow" = social. That's how Facebook won with a vastly, vastly inferior product otherwise.
Jetpack for wordpress
Extremely useful for your own wordpress installation.
Yeah, so they can explain why it's a problem for them. If Etsy know why users are concerned they can work out a suitable solution. For example, how does "Yep. That's pretty horrific. Never buying on Etsy again." help at all?
Which YC companies started with a non-technical founder?
Any of you guys know the answer? Curious with YC application deadlines around the corner...
>the interviewer would ask, "How would this work in Windows?"

Cygwin?
As such, any abstraction or syntactic sugar that distances you from the flow of the program fail.

Bu that's for programs that are procedural. Functional programming has no flow. Truth neither moves nor changes.

To use an analogy, a procedural program is like music, where rhythm and motion of the instrument are the essence of what you are representing. Functional programming is more like sculpture, where you create an elaborate piece that has no rhythm or movement of itself, but guides the flow and transformation of the data around it.
In my experience it is more 'fun' to write C code then to lay down yet another line of boiler-plate high level code. However, it seems to take longer to get things done and the resulting code is also much more error-prone (at least my code that is).
The Resumator - what can we do better?
Sitting in a bar and I just wondered, what would HN say about our service two years later?
The real story here is how valuable and important free internet access points are. We should all support companies and individuals that provide free network access.
Jasber, thanks for building this. You're really really making it easy for me to find a great name for my projects.
Most People Aim At Nothing In Life..And Hit It With Amazing Accuracy
You can thank Tim Ferris for that little idea. Pretty smart dude when he isn't tooting his own horn.
Lycos is still around today.
While we're at it, can we please:

- change electric theory so that it's a flow of negative charge and not positive.
- get the US to use SI units instead of Imperial or whatever they think they're using.
I disagree with everything you said, including the offhanded remark about the constructiveness of my response. As far as being constructive goes, I clearly laid out what I believe without attacking anyone, which is more than I can say about your question "Serious question: do you really think that was the previous comment's claim?" that I perceive as a mock inquiry despite the disclaimer of being serious.

Between so many aspects I'd like to focus specifically on what I perceive to be the core issue where you state:

> "But I know very few people who would think that someone's intellectual output or energy keeps growing past their 20's."

Let's not even try to discuss how many people we think are on either side of this. Let's instead talk about what we personally believe. And in this context I assert that it's very sad and indicative of a huge waste if a person's output doesn't increase meaningfully with increasing age, after all of the experience that should have gone along with it. It also sounds like there is a pseudo-biological assumption here that the brain basically goes into standby mode after you a person goes through their twenties; I don't believe that's true.

I don't think we're going to come to a consensus about this.
It's groovy! Seriously - that's fantastic.
This may explain only the one direction of the equivalences: "low status" => "insecurity" => "condescending feedback", not the inverse. We can all come up with examples of high status individuals demonstrating condescending behaviour.
Man, wtf happened at Unit 2? I keep repeating the NHK broadcast and I'm not sure whether the suppression pool itself suffered damage and not the reactor vessel, or both, or what.

They mentioned radiation going up right after the explosion, which could indicate a reactor vessel or other primary piping rupture, but could also just be from trapped radioactive contamination in the suppression pool being thrown out by the explosion.

Either way it's important to make sure they don't allow the concrete building shell to get damaged at Unit 2 if they want to avoid further airborne release.
Microsoft kills Zune hardware (but not software)
This issue has been addressed:
http://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/6818578...

+10 for continuous deployment, too.
It's refreshing to see them adopt some minimalism in the application, even if it does look like a ripoff of Chrome.
I feel like the leader board that yelp uses to track how much people are drinking I would think encourages more drinking. Cause you know once you got a leader board you have to become "mayor". I've seen this effect with portable breathalyzers...how drunk can you get!
We take this stuff very seriously, and I just worked with Rob (CEO), and we implemented this solution: http://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/6818578...

Being able to react to issues like this quickly is one of the great things about the Continuous Deployment process we have set up at Etsy. You can read more about that here:

http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/05/20/quantum-of-deployment...
I think under fair use provisions this might count as de minimus.
What would have happened if your original bank did not sell your loan and kept asking you for monthly payment as usual?