skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: I feel severely underpaid. Is it me or them?
I started hand-coding websites at the age of I was 10. Now I'm 22 years old working full time (40-50 hrs/week) as a web developer at a small consulting company. I make $19,200 per year, which I know is well below the average salary for a developer, even at this early stage in my career. I don't have benefits either (no employer 401k, no health insurance, etc.).

I'm also in college part-time, working on a BS in Computer Science. I live on my own, have zero debt, and my bills are low, but after paying tuition, I am unable to save anything.

They offered me the job in August 2010 at the end of my 6-month part-time (unpaid) internship with the company (which I got by calling them and asking). I took the job because it was an opportunity to do what I love full-time, and frankly, it was more than I was making previously.

But now I really feel stuck making so little money, and my financial goals are unattainable. I like my job for the most part, but I have only partial schooling and little professional experience under my belt. It is certainly a frustrating predicament.

TL;DR
I want to ask for a significant raise when I hit my 12th or 18th month of paid employment here, but I feel like I can't justify it to myself or my employer without having yet completed my degree, and with no higher-paying offers on the table. I also don't think "The average market rate for developers is significantly higher" is a sufficient argument (or is it?).

I would appreciate this community's advice. Thanks in advance.
Rockstars, ninjas, gurus. It's all insecurity if you ask me.
This is really cool. You might want to add support for something like Typeset to get even closer to the TeX experience: http://www.bramstein.com/projects/typeset/
Daily deals business reality check
Snorby: Rails UI for network security monitoring
You could run it on the server side, like https://github.com/timrobinson/try-fsharp/.
Maybe when you "were 14 a few decades ago", you'll understand.
Sure, we do that
Have it build a playlist based on music a friend has liked.
"Remember, what is the default search engine of Android and Chrome? It’s Google."

Actually every time I've installed Chrome it has given me a choice of search engines. Maybe he meant Chrome OS? I don't recall choosing a search engine the first time I booted up my CR-48.

Edit: Here's what it looks like for the doubters http://imgur.com/dobse
As much as I'm sympathetic to a small team getting a spike in traffic, I stand by that comment... It's a pretty big "fail" when a huge rush of users trying to register results in... nobody being able to register. At the very least they could have been capturing the emails for later follow-up. How many of those people will remember to come back later and sign up again?
Cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
I think it depends on the kind of CAPTCHA, how many people will give up. Some captchas are literally easier to read for a machine than for a human. For example, some use simple rotated text in unreadable grey on grey. Humans can hardly read it, but an algorithm doesn't care about the contrast at all. Very stupid. A captcha should be as easy to read by humans as possible.
ok, that page crashes the stock android 2.2 browser every single time.
Yes this is exactly what the world needs. More websites with garbage content. You can build something small and useful, you know.
I would say that falls under "I have debt." Perhaps better phrased is "I can't afford to bootstrap."

At the very least, it limits your options in terms of what kind of startup path you take. If you can't afford to bootstrap, then your only options are either working around a fulltime gig or trying to raise money out the door (from investors or friends/family or loan).
"The average market rate for developers is significantly higher" is a very strong argument.

If you quit, they've have to pay somebody else average market rate.

If you stay, and they raise your pay to match the market rate, then the company are still no worse off: they save having to hire somebody new.
I don't see why they would or should care about "usability and user experience" for 3rd party devices.

Closing Honeycomb's source is not going to stop cut-rate handset manufacturers from shipping a terrible Android experience on their phones, it is merely going to mean the terrible experience will be built on Gingerbread or lower instead of Honeycomb. Either way whatever damage might be done to Android via the user's own bad choices is done and in any case that's a caveat emptor situation that Google can't and shouldn't try to control.

I'm not sure what the actual reasons are behind this but IMO the consequences are all pretty negative. This move makes Andy Rubin look like a bit of a hypocrite in light of his public twitter-spat with Steve Jobs, it generates ill will for them among the open source community, it mildly kneecaps one of the important things that make a subset of tech-trendsetters favor Android over iOS, etc, and for what purpose exactly? No good one that is visible from the outside looking in.

Ultimately Android is Google's thing and they can take their ball and go home for any reason, but if they are going to do so they should really give a better explaination of why they are doing it because the one they seem to be going with rings hollow.
I agree. I'm a Windows/Android user (though not a religious one in either case) who's tempted to switch periodically to Apple stuff. It would all be so easy, it seems.

But the more I play with Apple devices (my wife owns a Mac and an iPhone and we have iPod Touches and a ATV2), the more I realize that I want computers, not computing appliances. And it seems like the future of Apple, even Macs, is in appliances.

Don't get me wrong, I think some appliances are great for some applications, and I think most people don't need more than that, and Apple is obviously doing very well and is going to continue to do so, but it's not what I want.

And there's another component, too: Apple's control over their devices comes with a weird moral component in the form of quality control. Which is fine for some, I guess. Disneyland is a fun place for lots of people to visit, too, I understand. But I don't really enjoy it that much, and I definitely wouldn't want to live there.
A Behind the Scenes Look at Y Combinator's Demo Day
That's exactly what is trying to be avoided. If the latest release is available too soon, manufacturers will put it on devices and then leave people on that unfinished/unpolished version. You make it sound as if this latest version was released that your device that the manufacturer is already ignoring for upgrades would get the latest version.
MySpace’s death spiral
Ok cool - I'll put together a repo with my .config files sanitized out of it and with a few critical bug fixes in place and drop it on Github. I'll see if I can get this done this weekend.
You'd be amazed at how cheap mass produced injection molded parts are, 3D printing won't ever come close to those prices. Also you're forgetting about the assembly cost which is the Chinese advantage.

Really I don't think it will change even the prototype industry much, maybe for first runs but for production models I like to select the finish, shine, paint, etc and a 3D printer just can't do that at the same cost. Even comparing turnaround time, I can get a prototype rushed from order to me in 24 hours for less than a $1000. If you're willing to wait a week, a few hundred and it looks like a factory part.
Now having one of those for each family member would be friggin cool. My kids would love it.
Just curious...are investors allowed to sit in on all of the sessions or are there different investors for each session?
Why does this belong on HN again?
The best way to ask for a raise is: 0. Tell your boss you're severely underpaid and ask for at least 50% more, 1. Job hunt, 2. get a much better offer from someone else, and 3. Tell your boss you're leaving unless they can do better.

It takes some balls. There's no real reason for your boss to pay you more if you're doing the work at the current rate.
There are three Demo Day events, each composed of two identical sessions. The only reason we have multiple events is that we don't have enough room for all the investors at once. Though it does have the additional benefit that if someone screws up their presentation, they get other chances.
Cs.Plictisitii.Ro
I can't tell if this guy is just nervous, or a terrible presenter. A little of both, I'd guess.
the rss feed works well for me in google reader. It allows me to keep track of what I've read and what I haven't.

If it seems like the comments might be interesting I just click the 'comments' link.
Seedcamp and Facebook team up to give startups a social boost
I'd thought about that, I might give it a go once I have a few more features in the language worked out.
That's really interesting. I'd love to chat more about how you find items with no upvotes or comments that you want to read. (email in profile)
Sounds like a test/security nightmare, too.
What happens when a BB game plays fine until the (very popular) Android tool in the background messes it all up?
Google Realtime Search Manager Leaves to Build Foursquare as Platform
Hrm -- this seems a little too... nihilistic? I mean, I agree, the system is highly flawed and quite possibly broken, but it's the system we live in. If we don't like the system, we can either withdraw from it completely, as you're advocating, or at least try to change it for the better. If you withdraw, it's only going to get worse.
You mentioned that you're already frustrated with your current situation now, so I think it would only increase the level of your disdain if you wait for a couple of months before asking what should be just appropriate.

If you know you're good, capable and extremely passionate, pretty much you'd be able to secure some other gig which would at least take the financial matter off your head.

But right now, given what you're making - it does would rattle you out knowing that your financial goals are unattainable.

Good luck.
Apple is replacing Samba with their own implementation of a newer version of the underlying protocol used in Samba (SMB2) that appeared in Vista.

As a protocol, it's better suited for large file transfers, etc.

How is this possibly a bad thing? I don't understand. This is good for users in every conceivable way. Also, most of this information is in the article you listed.
Facebook Search May Be Soon
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines novel as "new or unusual in an interesting way". While it may not be new, it's definitely unusual.

(Also, you're not mistaken, according to the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus. But they are different words.)
This works well assuming you're disciplined about it. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to start my own startup, but I planned on bootstrapping and needed money. I worked two years exactly, living cheaply and saving as much as I could.

My job was comfortable and I really loved it. It would have been very easy to stay. The advice to start "now" is really a reminder that if your answer is always "tomorrow," you'll never get started.
I don't think it's fair to say that they (ICANN) are doing what I've described above.

ICANN's policy:
- Create close to one new TLD a year.
- Either make it converge to the same logical"namespace" (what's the difference between .biz and .com?) or make the new TLD highly specialized and charge "premium" prices (.mobi).

This does not alleviate the "deficit". For example, if you own food.com and someone else buys food.biz, you're in conflict. Solution? Offer lots of money for food.biz. Oh, but there is also food.mobi! You company has a mobile app, right? So you try to buy buy food.mobi as well. The system encourages you to hog the domains.

What I've described:
- Make a large number of TLDs available at the same time.
- Make them describe the type of content the server works with.

This would create a multitude of logical namespaces, which would drive the prices down. If you own food.review and someone else owns food.wholesale, you're not competing for the same name any more. This wouldn't completely remove contention, but it would reduce its intensity.

As for remembering domains, I don't see how adding meaningful TLDs would make it harder. Is food.review really harder to memorize than foodreview.com?
I wonder if this "investor friendly" presentation format evolved from the experience of YC doing this year after year.

Very much so. We always stand at a point where we can watch both the presentation and the investors watching the presentation, to see how they're reacting to it. And I've probably watched over 700 DDay presentations now. So by this point I can even predict fairly well which jokes they'll laugh at.
Is it actually true that unions find it easier to extract rents from monopolies or oligopolies than from competitive markets?

Imagine that all software without exception is made by Microsoft. Then (near enough) all software developers have to work for Microsoft. That gives Microsoft a lot of bargaining power against its employees, unionized or ionized. The only way in which the Universal Programmers' Union is better off in this world than in the real one is that Microsoft (having a monopoly) may be under less pressure from the market to sell its software cheaper, and therefore may be better able to pay rent to the unionized programmers. Fair enough, but is there any actual reason to think that that outweighs MS's gain in bargaining power over its employees? (Which exactly parallels the gain in bargaining power over its customers that makes it better able to afford to pay what its employees demand, if that seems worth doing.)
Chrome Web Store Has 79% More Apps Than Mac App Store
At month two, Chrome Web Store offers more Apps then Mac App Store
Thanks for the suggestion! I just added a cheatsheet for common markdown in a panel on the left when in edit mode, not a comprehensive list (and I'll add some common LaTeX stuff in a bit) but better than knowing nothing.
Some comments about Curebit because our project is in the same area as Curebit
My name is Wei Miao. I just figured out the new project of YC Winter 2011, Curebit, is similar to our project, Businux. Thus, I want to provide some comments about Curebit, I think it might be helpful.

Pros:

· Fully utilize FB, Twitter to do promotion

· Easy for normal users to utilize

Cons:
Curebit does not have users(individual users) independently. It cannot make sure users and companies stick on it instead of other affiliation marketing platform.

· Users can only save money; there is only one-time promotion while there are always hundreds of trends on FB and Twitter; Users are not encouraged to do promotion positively.

· Companies are just promoted after each deal is made. People who like it without buying it cannot do promotion. Thus, companies can just get limited promotion
If you have a mac, you can just right click on a url, which osx detects automatically, even if it's not "a href"'ed, and using the easy popup services menu, you can click OpenURL.
Comparison of Dropbox versus Live Sync (2009)
I barely read into the intro and I already know he's right. unfortunately, most biz-focused mindset is to get something in front of the customer as soon as possible. As someone who spent the better part of a decade building dashboards, I cannot emphasize enough that you need something more than just server logs to manage and grow your business.
This Kindle book is... not available for customers from Canada??!!
Indeed, it's very common for something to be invented independently in different places. (Some would go farther, citing evidence that independent simultaneous invention is, in fact, the rule rather than the exception.)

Further reading: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/08/progression_o...
How to work in team, how to understand a vision, how to compromise, how to lead, how to educate, how to accept others' education, how to accept to be wrong, how to justify when you're right, ...

Ninjas, gurus, rockstars, ... isn't that just 2006 buzz words for biz pple recruiting tech pple ?
The bottom line is that people don't like CAPTCHA, and it cannot leave a good impression to irritate potential customers/users within the first five minutes of a visit. Most people don't really understand what they're used for, and they get frustrated when they cannot read them and/or get rejected. I have have definitely been taking steps to limit my use of them or dispense with them altogether.
Google patches 6 serious Chrome bugs
Here's a trick not a lot of people use:

1. Whois IP address of spam accounts.

2. Identify bad blocks of IPs. If it's a datacenter, someone is probably running spamming software on a dedicated server or VPS. Maybe get your hands on some of those open proxy lists that are floating around.

3. Use your data to prune bad accounts, throttle or block creation of new ones, etc.
Here is my experience with the app store , I created a website for toddlers http://microangels.in , Someone suggested that I make an app, since I had the HTML and Javascript ready I used the android webbview and Jquery mobile to create the Toddler books app https://market.android.com/details?id=in.microangels . The app was released on February 10, As of today there have been 7951 installs with 68% active.
I have integrated the app with admob and it has made $45 so far, I don't know if this is because kids tend to click on advertisements or its because the list scrolls below the screen and the clicks are accidental

My other app Taekwondo forms https://market.android.com/details?id=form.TaekwondoForm is webview based and released on Feb 25 , it has 532 downloads with 68% active installs and has made .83 cents so far.
Much appreciated especially for the link provided. Quite helpful. When thinking about it, for a user registration (I don't have comments) this seems pretty reasonable. Combined with a few fun tricks on the input fields this should be sufficient enough, especially due to other mechanisms in my site. One less captcha on the web is only better :)
Perfection Is Not Inspiring
I know OP means well, but there's one piece of advice that's exactly the opposite of my experience.

First he says:

There is very little you will learn in your current job...that will make you better at starting your own startup.

Then:

Good ideas only come through trial and error.

Both are terrible advice.

There is a whole universe of things you can learn in your current job: technique, experience, exposure to different ideas (in practice, not in theory), how to manage projects, how to deal with people, what to look out for in real world situations, and the two most important things: what NOT to do and what people need.

I can think of no better way to get good actionable ideas for a startup than from one's job.

And for many aspiring entrepreneurs, having a job and learning a few of these things is the single biggest missing piece in their bag of personal assets.

If you have a great idea and the wherewithal to start a business, then by all means go for it when you're ready. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with having a job; it's probably the best thing you could be doing until you're ready.
looks good, I like the clean design.
If you a interested in self-reconfiguring houses and furniture check out this Swiss research http://biorob.epfl.ch/page-36376.html
Here's an idea: Force registrants to submit a computationally expensive token along with their registration form. Perhaps it's computed with javascript. Users usually spend more than 15 seconds on the form anyways, and spammers will hate to peg their hardware like that.

Any thoughts?
My only concern is paying $100 to another publisher. If you're developing free apps (or your apps just aren't selling that well) that's a deterrent from submitting.
But... that's my point. If you run 20 completely random tests, the probability that at least one of them gives you a "95% confidence limit" is ~63%. Statistical significance has to be adjusted depending on the number of times you run your test, else it loses all its value.

I've already posted this link today, but I really recommend this guide: http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-run-an-ab-test.html
Well it appears that 100% of your karma comes from comments as you haven't submitted anything.
Successful Strategies for IPv6 Rollouts
Holy Smoke New technology creates 3D images projected into mist
My pre-release copy of Javascript: The Definitive Reference (perhaps because it's pre-release) does have personalization on every page.

The other (regular, relased) books from ORA don't.
Sounds like you need a technical co-founder, in this case - someone who's technical and believes in your idea enough to put time developing for it.
Stopping spambots with hashes and honeypots
Possibly just nervous
So.. I assume you did start a startup eventually?

EDIT: nevermind, looks like you're co-founder with OP.
Mention one time to your boss that you believe you're very underpaid. Then, don't say it again. If a raise doesn't come, start looking for a better paying job. When you find one, put in your notice, be professional, but don't take the counter offer. It seldom works out.
"They also asked him to try to keep Intellectual Venture's involvement in derailing patent reform quiet, since top investors in IV, such as Bill Gates, supported patent reform."

Stay classy, IV.
Visiting HN leads to at least 10 new tabs open
There is one thing which I don't like about Hacker News, every time when I visit HN, I find most of the links interesting, this usually leads to at least 10 new tabs filling up my tab bar. Often I can't wait till I finish one article to start the next one.
Just throwing it out there, if any of you are looking to get into the gay business I'm the owner of MeatGalore.com and it is looking for a good home.

:( it was the bastard child of to much beer.
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2366172
The site is running on Wordpress. Incidentally, one of the major reasons for Wordpress blogs to go down under heavy traffic is excessive keep-alive times causing too many Apache threads to be open. It's exactly this lots-of-connections problem that node specializes in handling gracefully.
Little-known fact that shows just how enlightened ORA is: you can go to https://members.oreilly.com/account/benefits, and buy any ebook upgrade from a physical book for $4.99.

They don't even check--they just take your word for it.

I just hope people don't abuse it, but, as Tim says, they'd rather have 100K books floating around and 10K books sold, than just 10K books sold. Can't help but improve their visibility and overall sales.

Good folks.
You have a valid point. However this is pointing out ignorance of developers (I being one of them) that most of the time captcha is unnecessary and annoying to UX.

So yes, who would spam animoto? But you know what, now their spam filter is good enough, their user registration has been increased. Better more "foolproof" techniques will always be needed, and directed attacks are hard to prevent, but getting to a good enough point is great as well.

And the problem you face may be a smaller percentage of sites than animoto, who do need captcha especially if you are the target of a directed attack.
This made me think of the olden days when countries waged war for natural progression of the country. I guess its a good analogy for how we progress as a life form. Instead of killing people to get what we want, companies wage war to get what they want. Same aggression and reasons, different tactic.