skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think you got my point about regular expressions in Python. If its only one regular expression, then its 3 functions. But if say you have 20 regular expressions, now you have 60 function calls. Say you have to add 6 statements of exception handling to each of this, you now have 360 statements. Imagine this inside a giant if-else loop structure.

Without a doubt the Perl solution is a lot more cleaner than Python solution.
I'm not a female, but I feel that asking only females is making this question only artificially "irrelevant to 98% of HN." Me not being from the UK is probably a bigger barrier.

Still, I don't understand. Instead of your child being in a place where they can socialize with other kids and be watched by adults, you want to let them spend all day playing quietly by themselves or being babysat by the TV while you are working on your computer all day with your back turned? And this is your unrealistic, ideal best-case?!

If you don't mean full time, that may work (you can probably squeeze in a couple of hours a day, at the expense of the house growing messier and messier). This is much more reasonable when you aren't paying for daycare.

I'd also like to ask if you really think you could handle being alone all day, constantly juggling 2 stressful jobs at once, every day. A full time mom can leave the house with the kid(s) and socialize, but if you are working that would just be something else to stress over while you try to "squeeze it in".

If you can afford full-time daycare, are you SURE you can't afford to just stay home? (At least you OR your partner)

P.S. I actually am not a big fan of daycare, and my wife is likely going to go back to being a full-time mom after half a year of working part time specifically to let both mommy and baby socialize outside of the house (separately, in this case). Gas prices, tuition hikes, and the loss of alternative care have made it too costly (she was working 3 days just to pay for 2 days of daycare. Seriously).

(Edited to add a couple of sentences, didn't notice Jem's reply until afterwards)
I probably couldn't afford a nanny, but my sister is currently jobless and might be open to 'working' for me a couple of days a week.

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.
Hah, very true.

I won't mention the university, but they're in the northern Atlantic region (not MIT or CMU). My CS interests (machine learning and computational statistics) extend from my domain experience (applied statistics), and I also have a strong background in math. Finally, I bootstrapped my CS knowledge up to a certain level using online lectures from MIT, Stanford, and Harvard, and mentioned as much in my application.
As my boss said: programming is just typing.
That stuff is easy to overcome. What is difficult to overcome is the anti-cheating software that only accepts .doc and .docx files
Okay then, I'm asking it. Because other than relating to languages, I don't see how the question helps.

I've studied Spanish (in highschool) and Japanese (for years) and while there were some new concepts (in grammar and sentence structure, mainly) they don't apply to anything but languages. And I'm not likely to try creating a language, and I've never had trouble expressing myself in the one I have.
According to a tweet [1] from their technical lead, they're using Rails, Sinatra, Django and more. He says there should be a blog entry outlining the technologies soon.

[1] https://twitter.com/#!/jystewart
It's not just about trust - it's about cross-platform as well. Whether they continue that or not, who knows? But the ecosystems they've built before have all been MS-only. Skype is inherently cross-platform, and that's something they wouldn't ever have built in-house.
I usually get the financial argument when I ask people with kids why the mother doesn't work: "We wanted one of us to be a full-time parent. <Dad> made/makes more money than <mum>, so it made sense she quit her job."

It seems the situation is reversed for you, but does the argument not still apply?
According to Microsoft, Windows Live Messenger has ~ 300 million active users.

That may be less than Skype (I don't know), but Skype is mostly redundant tech for them.

This was definitely a brand purchase - and such purchases may be worth it, but I can't think of a single product that Microsoft bought and that doesn't scream "Microsoft" all over -- so whatever trust in Skype consumers have, those consumers that don't trust Microsoft will probably leave Skype at some point.
Well honestly, schools are decent at identifying whether you can succeed in their program or not. Whether you actually succeed is a different story, but I bet its a function (maybe exponential) of the effort you put in.
This makes a couple assumptions.

The first is that you wouldn't be fiscally responsible for the full cost if the device was stolen from you. In this case it would be worse than owning out right. As now you're on the hook for the cost of the device you lost at the time you need to pick up another device. Are they going to allow you to rent the second device? Details would be nice.

Also when at a college your college is usually your ISP. And at the one I work at as long as you have access to the classroom then you have access to the network.

I agree with the backups part but that is independent of this particular arrangement as Google Apps works on non-rented devices too. :)
Jumping into the pool at [the original] Facebook house
That's really cool, thanks for sharing.
My little girl is not big on socialising with other kids she doesn't know - and even after nearly 6 months at nursery she's still struggling to fit in. I would prefer to have her in an environment where I can focus on her current emotional needs and worry about socialising with people we know before forcing her into the big wide world. (We don't watch TV.)

I definitely would be aiming to do it part time. Earning enough to keep things ticking over, not to have some sort of luxury lifestyle.

Childcare currently costs over half my monthly income so I hear you there.
Intel Launches Z68 Express with Smart Response and Lucid Virtu
Because a classy employee sabotaged the deal because Skype is P2P and therefore would require a complete rewrite.

What an odd article.
Well yes, but we're talking all other things being equal.
In your statement:

"The difference between non-coercive (private) entities and government is that non-coercive entities adapt better."

it's not clear if you are equating non-coercive with private entities. If so you are very much wrong.

Private companies have killed, enslaved, tortured, kidnapped, etc. There are a tremendous amount of examples of private companies being coercive.

As to ratings agencies, some spectacularly demonstrated 3 years ago that they can fail and be captured (akin to regulatory capture) by other private entities.
Jenkins, Hudson and Eclipse
Actually, I would be the developer end of the deal and would get less share under a 'fair' split. So I'm not asking for a larger share at all. I said the CEO should get a larger share, under most circumstances.

To be fair, that smaller share sees me shouldering less responsibility, too, though. While I'd still be critical for the company to succeed, there's a lot of problems that just wouldn't be mine to shoulder.
if you choose Java, don't slow yourself down with full J2EE stack. Stick with Tomcat + Stripes (or any MVC layer) + Hibernate or iBatis + Spring or Guice
I typed my question into the box, and I had the right information instantly!

This is so much more efficient than any other government site I've ever interacted with, by many orders of magnitude.
It's also a good recruitment tool having a couple of world-class people working on stuff that interests a lot of computer science types.
Google Docs assumes you have access to the Internet in a form that is usable for the composing a document. Hense why I mentioned the traditional computer labs going away.
Writing Cohesive Event Driven Code in Ruby
Often I try my hand writing evented code with eventmachine and Node.js. I find that it becomes very difficult to take a top down approach to debug these programs. Here is what made my life a little better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#As_logical...

Go back and read your exchange. It looks to me like he answered your question, and you're changing it now.
Sonography Exam Review
I wonder how they're getting over any stigma culture shock. In their own products, they're careful to reduce any "creep factor" by not using our information in ways that provide too much immediate feedback, like ads that are too highly targeted. Unlike ads, a "robot car" is a significant jump. In the public's eye, I think Google's driverless cars last year seemed like a sudden leap.

There are obviously safety measures that will be in place, but I want to know how robust they're going to be and how much PR they're gonna put into this.
"Could this have anything to do with VUPEN's recent Chrome exploit?"

Is this going to be the standard post for every Chrome fix from this point forward? The only people who we know for sure would know ain't talking. ;)
This actually is the case all the way up until about age 12 or 13, when they will suddenly not want your attention at all. Speaking from experience.
Trying to apply logic to an illogical system is always going to be tricky.
That is your loss for sure.

It's probably one of the most interesting sites by any single person out there.
You can compile your own packages to statically-linkable libraries. Code sharing is what libraries are all about. Now, if you want dynamically-loadable libraries (written in Go), Go's tools do not support that. (You can, however, link to dynamic libs written in C and that linking happens at runtime.) Static linking is precisely what prevents dependency hell.

I'm somewhat hijacking the discussion with this, but with storage getting cheaper, why do we need dynamic linking anymore?
GL_ARB_robustness? I thought this might be satire or something, but it actually exists:

http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/robustness.txt

Apparently it does the same thing for OpenGL that strncpy does for strcpy.
I'm not surprised. Video drivers are big, complicated and buggy. They are developed within very tight performance and time constraints and have had little reason to think about security until now. Exposing a large part of them to the public internet is begging for trouble.

On the other hand, if it's ever going to happen, it will probably take a few embarassing public incidents to make the vendors change their priorities.
Worlds Smallest Atomic Clock Created
Well, he does seem to regret working there a lot.

From http://worrydream.com/#!/Freedom

"Are you free yet?

I declared my freedom on November 1. Apple has a depository where you drop off your soul for the duration of your employment. I went to retrieve it, and they gave it back to me scuffed, bruised, deflated, but hopefully still in working order."
We were edging on profitability before making this decision, but were operating at a loss (only overhead was rackspace cloud hosting.)

We want it, but frankly the financial cost of running the site is eating too much into our personal finances. We are both young, couple years out of college, student loan debt. I left my full time job in Sept last year to focus on this full time and I am almost completely drained of all money by now. That's why we made the decision to begin the sale process.
Right, but who owns the IP created by those students? Anyone here familiar with MIT's policies?
How to Succeed Writing Mac Software
Hi Rickdale,

I sent you an email, is it lost ?

G.
You wrote:

"Since government innovates more slowly than private industries, government regulation tends to become outdated, going from common-sense prudence to arbitrary burden on innovation. "

The space program spawned a tremendous amount of innovation. Public research universities throughout the nation innovate on a grand scale. The internet is an example of government innovation.

Regulation does not reflect a lack of creativity. It reflects an acknowledgment of a problem and steps to address the problem. Sometimes side effects occur and are bad and the regulation needs to be reanalyzed. Sometimes there is regulatory capture (by private entities).

Government had to mandate the use of seatbelts. This led to airbags because after the government made safety an issue innovations were made in this area. They probably would have been made without government intervention but government got the ball rolling and the innovations occurred sooner as a result of government.

Regulations can be good, bad, or neutral. But talking about "non-coercive institutions" makes your view look extreme.
Skype Investors Will Reap a Windfall
2011's best illusion reveals a visual quirk
I personally don't buy it. Sounds like a rewrite of history to more positively frame his involvement in the events that transpired.
Here is the problem: PayPal was born in the US. Among other things, probably because it was easier for them to do business there. PayPal couldn't have been concieved in Europe.
It will not be edited for the old lady in Dubuque
Hi Schraeds,

Email sent...

G.
Do you want to Test::Right?
This, also other possible arrangements:

* two part times

* actually use the daycare, and consider the stories as the usual legends, of the "we're pissing into your food" variety

* any combination of the above
See the comment and link above - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535773

Books are explicitly included in that document.
Sever down. Could they be building a computer where sparks fly from the terminal when it can't handle the input?

Did anybody get the text?
We have considered Dad staying home instead, if that's what you mean. The problem is my daughter being in daycare, not me being at work, so it's a possibility.
I think it forgot one thing on the list, Reviewing off-shore code to find that it is nothing but a big pile of spaghetti code.
> "I even had a [PowerPoint] deck that was super supportive of it," he said.

I sincerely hope that it wasn't PowerPoint...
Why you should build your startup to sell like Radian6
I would like to know how you handle this, because I am expecting my first child in July (missizii@yahoo.com). I am fortunate that my husband can support our family and if I wanted to, I would never have to work outside the home again. But I don't want to completely give up the personal satisfaction of building interesting software that is used by lots of people. I live in a low-tech area, and there is no such thing as a part-time software engineering position. My current plan is to use a half-day Montessori preschool starting at age 2 and use that time to work on an android application (I'm a jack-of-all-trades, but I started my career in Java). Is a half-day preschool an option for you?
Savvy Win32 devs used static linking whenever they could to minimize deployment hassles way back when. :)
We are using the daycare. The "little tales" I refer to are things they're doing/saying that I don't like, rather than people telling me their bad experiences.
Not because they can't build cross-platform, but because they don't want to.

Their first 2 announcements after the take-over will probably be about the integration with Windows Live (whatever that means these days) and the cancellation of the Linux client.
> I've never had trouble expressing myself in the one I have.

What's the english word for 'schadenfreude'? or 'entrepreneur'?
michaelf, I have to say: you are one of the most eloquent commenters I had a chance to correspond in HN. I would very much like to continue the discussion with you, if you want.
5 Crazy Platform Ideas for India's Telecom Companies
Ask HN: I just got an out-of-the-blue seed investment offer, now what?
I've been working on a side project web app for the past couple months that has been gaining in popularity, and I just got an email out of the blue from someone offering me seed investment. It was very brief and just asked if I would be interested in seed money in order to "add more features quickly".

I'm interested in discussing it further, but unsure of the proper way to respond. I've always been a salary man and I'm completely ignorant about the typical process here. Do I just respond with "Sure, I'm interested, what are you thinking?" or do I make an offer myself and see how he responds or what? What would you do in this situation?

To complicate things, the app is completely free and I am making no money off it whatsoever, so I assume that will have to change in order for him to really invest.
This article makes me a bit worried about Google. It reminds me of emperors and sultans (e.g. Sergei and Page) manipulated by their courtiers (e.g. Chan).
Tropo slashes SMS pricing in half Who wants penny SMS?
I kind of agree here. I think it says more about Googles culture not being all that different from any other big company. This article insinuates to me that politics are more important than sound ideas that are good for the business. If the skype deal was bad because it would need a large overhaul, why not just lay out a convincing case to that effect?
I'm surprised no one mentioned actually learning C or C++ for the experience in compiling/linking/makefiles/etc, as well as in vigorous memory management. THAT is a skill he seems to be lacking, and it's a skill that mastering can really help in the future. (Actually, I hope I'm wrong about that one :)

You program a bit differently when you have to wait minutes for it to compile in between tests.

He said he's familiar with the syntax, but that's only one piece (and often not the biggest piece).

[Edit: ouch, apparently I posted this with the last sentence unfinished! Also, I don't think the posted answer suggesting C or C++ is really talking about the same thing as I am.]
I am not female but have been through this.

Keep the kids at home. The only time to work is at night after everyone is asleep and it is quiet. Time trying to work during the day will be wasted due to constant interruptions and thinking about other things, and you'll be frustrated as well.

This means during the 16 day hours you need to take them 8 hrs and your partner needs to take them the other 8 hours. That means you aren't spending much time together. That's right, that's how this will work.

In the old days professionals made enough cash to hire a professional staff to raise the kids at home, and later off to boarding school. This is not possible now since most IT jobs that pay well are in areas that have such a high cost of living there is no money to hire a staff. Staff is for executive level folks that make $3 million +.
Many excellent answers given, but this comment, I think says it all:

"You seem to be a successful programmer, the rest is incremental. Not trying to be a dick, but ... how is your life finance-wise, relationships-wise, health-wise, fun-wise, hobby-wise? Perhaps now is the time to pursue some of those things."
...and boom goes the dynamite.

-edit-
Since the site's back up, I will ask this in relation to the article: How is there not an equivalent extension for Chrome that does voice input? I'd love to use that to compose emails.
Plugins that don't require developer tools to relink your executable.
Tech talents leaving Silicon Valley
Youth Is A Power Of Tomorrow: Leadership Process "The 4 E’s"
Updating your plugins (when using pathogen) is super-easy if they're stored in git somewhere.

Dir.glob("#{ENV['HOME']}/.vimbundles/*").each do |d|
next unless File.directory?(d)
puts "updating #{d}"
`cd #{d}; git pull --rebase; cd -`
end

in ruby, would be easy enough in bash/zsh/python/perl/ as well.

see also: https://github.com/hashrocket/dotmatrix/blob/master/bin/vimb...
To be honest we barely see each other now - we're at work all day then dealing with house stuff/etc in the evening. It wouldn't be a major difference!

Thanks.
Ask HN: Review my startup - Audio Transcription Outsourcing
A bit of backstory. I am a single founder in Bangalore, India and have been working on this since the past 2 years. I wrote the CallGraph Skype Recorder and was offering a bunch of services around it, and the transcription service picked up. I wanted to outsource the transcription to a 3rd party but didn't find any good ones. So I went ahead and built one.

We have done more than 1500 hours of transcription to date and have around 800 certified transcribers. We have some very satisfied customers and few of them are as old as 2 years.

I am looking to scale it up now and doing some marketing. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Over the past few years I've seen so many great discussions on HN and have learnt so many things from it. I can't thank HN enough for it. You guys are the best!
This is not China. This is the free world. How many tweets would there be, facebook pages, articles, etc.

We, unlike china, have the right to speak freely.
I am surprised nobody recommended C. It's a very useful language and if you ever want to design anything at all that scales, knowing C will help you a lot, even if you don't use it. Definitely an mind-altering language.

Also, doing some simple circuit design might be fun. Simulators are available.

EDIT: Also forgot about to mention, but I find it odd that people still talk about learning a syntax. The OP mentions how he is familiar with the whitespace and C-like syntaxes as if that is the main point of the language.
Clickable link http://scribie.com
Non-Technical Entrepreneurs Need the Right Partner
The English words for 'schadenfreude' and 'entrepreneur' are 'schadenfreude' and 'entrepreneur' respectively. Or did you think the rest of the language came to us on stone tablets?
>Check out http://blog.alpha.gov.uk/blog/alpha-gov-uk-design-rules for example

In the photo, on one of those mission-statement postit notes, next to "no need to understant govt" and "task focus" there's one that says "spin is trust."

This rather sours the milk for me.
Scraping, cleaning, and selling big data
OT: I'm suddenly put in mind that the U.S. is being turned into a nation of renters.

(With concern about the negative connotations associated with the term/relationship.)
It's an observation, not an announcement or prediction and focuses on three technologies — search, voice recognition, an OS for everything with a CPU — and their ability to create a Star Trekian experience.
McLaren's GT3 Take MP4-12C Supercar to The Race
A road-going version of McLaren's GT3 race car will be the next derivative of the MP4-12C supercar, mclaren race cars, mclaren supercar, mp4-12c Supercar, mclaren gt3 cars, gt3 price
"schadenfreude" and "entrepeneur"
Python is over 20 years old. It has been here since before Windows 95 but only got prominent (in the broad public) in the last few years because some opinion leaders of the hip and young crowd found out you could make cool web apps with it and hyped it into oblivion.

Hmm, I thought it became popular for scientific applications and as an anti-Perl for scripting before it became popular for web apps? I first got into Python because I needed a scripting language. People said, "If you don't like the design philosophy of Perl, then you might like Python, which made the opposite choices." The centerpiece of Python advocacy back in the day was this article by Eric Raymond: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882

I know that's the article that convinced me to try Python. Everything he praised about Python screamed "opposite of Perl!" and after experiencing my mind rejecting Perl like a body rejecting a transplanted organ, I was desperate for an alternative that would make me as productive at scripting as the Perl gurus. (Yes, I'm still jealous of the one-liners.)

So there is certainly room for a language to grow and become popular without having a first-class web framework. (These days any popular language will sprout a few web frameworks, but they don't have to become popular for the language to succeed.)