skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I was an undergrad at MIT, rumor had it that the biology department treated the high proportion of women biology majors as a topic of concern.

When I was an education major doing student teaching, I was told to my face that it was good for the kids to have another male teacher because I would be providing another positive male role model.
I totally agree 100%. If I see rockstar or ninja, I skip right past your ad.

You want to get my attention? Tell me you're looking for a professional, and you're going to treat me like one. I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource. I want to know that you're looking for craftsman, not ego maniacs. Mostly, I want to know that I'm not working with a group of people that saw the word rockstar and thought to themselves "Oh, rockstars huh? That's totally describing me."

Also, please please please don't tell me you have funding from a "Top Tier" VC. It's a sure fire way to convince me that you care more about your ego than running a successful company. Who the fuck cares who funded you? I don't care who, I only care that you're going to be around for a long time. And, you're going to consider anyone that gives you a ton of money to be "Top Tier", so it's completely meaningless anyway.
Does anyone know if there is any relation between this and the scheme shell Sun was working on about 20 years ago?
The funny thing is that stories like Yahoo's and Microsoft's are the reason DRM is declining.

If the record companies really cared about DRM, they would provide a service to distribute keys once an online music store closes... instead of creating a mass of disenfranchised customers who will think twice before buying DRM-laden music again.

But, no, they'd rather monetize the customer's convenience than protect their music.
To paraphrase from a popular movie:

"When everyone is a rock star, no one is."
How does this account for the continued growth of women in other technical fields? One of the biggest points in the article is that this trend differs strongly from many other intellectual areas.
Great quotes, illustrates the personalities of all three perfectly.
simple, useful, and original. It’s easy to come up with a task which is useful and original - just combine existing ideas in a new way, perhaps with some minor twists. But finding something that’s also simple is hard.

Interesting

a single task that can’t be reduced or explained in terms of existing tasks.

Simple things are often primitive (non-compound) in this way, but I doubt it's a requirement.
OSCON 2008 Expo Hall free registration opens at 1 pm Today (Portland)
Those "unpopular" classes like Formal Languages might not be so unpopular if serious profs taught them, instead of the usual lazy, disorganized people who outsource teaching to the TA's. Maybe some people make a point of avoiding the hard profs, but more people avoid the terrible ones.
I see some postings for code ninjas but where is all the love for code pirates?

Pirates need love too!
The fall in luxury spending is not to blame for Starbucks's troubles. In fact, spending on low cost, luxury items goes up in a recession. For example, the revenues of posh cosmetics companies generally increases in a recession. This is because people cannot afford to buy a high-price product like a new car, but they still want the post-spending feel-good factor so they buy a lower-priced luxury-brand lipstick instead.
Hasbro Notches Triple-Word Score Against Scrabulous With 'Lawsuit'
Eat Republican: How an organic movement born in Berkeley exemplifies conservative values
I'm getting a little tired of this age old spin about how hackers can't make good and simple products.

They can and they do, look at all of YC...

Atleast hackers can push products out, biz people can't even do that!
Startup Employee "Pit Crew"
It actually looked really interesting to me... I applied for one of the Tech Crunch invites earlier, but if you're passing them out here, even better ;) My email is in my profile page.
That looks nice, thanks for pointing it out.
I think a more accurate title would be "The problem with software people who become managers," or even more accurately, "The problem with articles that overgeneralize from a single anecdotal example."
fair enough. On that note, http://www.ccs.neu.edu/scheme/pubs/scp91-felleisen.ps.gz is probably the best formal treatment concision in a programming language.
This is a little off topic, but I loved the font in Konsole. And I just freaking loved Konsole, but haven't been able to get working for OS X. Has anyone here been able to?
Uncomfortable answers to questions on Economy
I have to listen to the "ninja" term all the time in my office. It drives me up the wall.
"Imagine a progress bar that involved Dogbert using a mallet to pound the Pointy-Haired Boss into the ground" - I'm sorry Scott, but this just smacks too much of the hugely-reviled clippy. Treating your users like idiots might amuse a few, but will completely alienate the rest. Those of us with an IQ greater than a handful of salt might take the time (while the regular progress bar is creeping up) to do something else, more productive. Like read HN :)
I find it funny that, typically, these companies want 'rock stars,' but are unwilling to pay a commiserate rate.

If you really believe you want a star, say John Resig or someone similar, you better have a kick-ass project and be prepared to pay for him ... otherwise, you're just hoping you can get someone good on the cheap.
Online Colleges Could Be Legally Allowed to Spy on Students
Invitation should be in the mail - let me know if you don't receive it. Thanks for the interest!
One thing that you just generally have to watch out for with startup job postings is the people who have drunk too much of their own Kool Aid. Everyone believes they will change the world and make a major impact. Some certainly will change the world, others will "merely" exist in a self-sustaining niche that never changes the game, but earns everyone a nice salary.

Most startups are masters of spin, you pretty much have to be. Every developer is a "Rock Star", every VC is "Top Tier", every release is a "Revolutionary enhancement", and even though there could be 8 players in any one market, each one is somehow or another the "Leader", "Market Leader", or "Top Ranked" one.

Don't be turned off JUST by the job posting...
"ROCK STAR Developer" is probably a synonym for an underpaid, overworked developers ;). They can't pay you with money so they pay you with empty superlatives.
This is a keeper... thanks!
WordPress for iPhone Source Code Released
Is that because you don't want your ninja identity exposed?
Pretty much. There are actually some fancy solar designs for low-speed unmanned cruisers that work up to the 80-100kft level (solar cells don't lose power with altitude, so they don't have the tropopause limitation that oxygen breathing engines do). Those things are all about efficiency, and they pick props for the same reasons that other efficiency designs do. Jets are comparatively more efficient at high speed (rather: high-radius prop losses grow with speed faster than low-radius fans), not at high altitude per se. But since tropopause-altitude is a design goal for speed designs, these two have traditionally been interchangeable.

As far as credentials go, I'm the author of the "YASim" dynamics model that FlightGear (http://www.flightgear.org) uses. So while I'm a hacker and not an aerospace engineer, I do have at least a little domain expertise.
As far as monetization on search goes, more eyeballs = more money, no matter how big or small you are. Not that Live Search is that small.
"I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource"

You wouldn't work at a closed source company?

edit: i read 8-hours-a-day -- sorry. that is somewhat reasonable.

The unreasonable side comes from the inability to create hours. You can only add work. Side projects are always additive, unless you can stop work on a core project to do the side project. That's often bad for business, unless you're Guido.

The solution is to just work more to make up the hours. Most people don't want to hear that though, because they like the idea of getting a gift of choice from a company.
Not everyone is a rock star.
I've found that the vast majority of functioning code is written by a small minority of people at the company. The current exception for me is Tipjoy. That's because I'm the only developer, and own 100% of both the angelic and filthy code.

While the term "rock star" is a bit silly, a goal of mine is to grab someone from that 1-5% pool at a company that actually writes good code.
Job ads are usually full of cliches. The interesting thing to me is how much they've have changed. Ten years ago it was "team player." Now it's "rockstar." Silly as it is, that's at least a sign of progress. It means employers have now realized that you want the smartest programmers, rather than obedient ones.

I suspect Google's example is the main reason for this change. Or evolution.
Digg developing Reddit-like sub-Diggs, Chicago Tribune goes after Diggers
Covered last night's Digg Town Hall meeting in Chicago. Jay Adelson told me Digg's working on sub-Digg feature very similar to what Reddit and Mixx are doing. Fascinating stuff.

Also, I broke down the Chicago Tribune's aggressive Digg strategy. Are they gaming the system? Not really. But it's still weird.
Clearly we need to develop some new titles

1) Code Baristas

2) Python Jockeys

3) CrackerJack Developers (retro!)
They'll get more DRM-free tracks when and if the RIAA gives up on trying to crush them:

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/05/why-apple-is-more-expens...
For me personally, the sticky point is having to go back and re-enter all my portfolio transactions. Neither site's import/export features are as nice as I'd like.
I don't think someone who simply rocks to the beat of chic and trendy catch phrases means they can produce the best code.
14 Ways to Deal with Email More Efficiently
I think Pownce does this.
"Product managers define what they think the customer wants (scope creep). Project managers get something that is good enough out of the door (scope suppression)"

Brilliant, speaking as someone who has worn both hats at different times, that is the dichotomy in a nutshell.
It's funny to hear how Lisp implementors of the day thought Scheme was too dynamic to be implemented efficiently.

Greenspun's experience with Scheme performance, including a startling confession from Sussman (as remembered by Greenspun, anyway): http://philip.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...
MagicPad: The Missing Rich Text Editor For The iPhone
I'm not sure what you mean, there are several legitimate interpretation that come to mind, but could you elaborate?

do you mean a) in the continuum of math that appears on, its deep, but not in the continuum of research mathematics?

b) calling something nifty deep math being overly simplistic?

c) something I'm missing
"Talk is cheap. Show me the code." is my favorite quote of all time and of all people.
Any company that leverages open source software should make an effort to donate back to the community, even if the core of their software is closed source. Use Linux? Python? Emacs? Firefox?

Allowing your employees to donate some time towards open source projects is probably a good way to attract talent. Advertising for "rockstar ninja" positions is not.
I once tried to imagine what one of those people was thinking and i felt a strong vacuum in the right part of mi brain. I don't know if anyone of you was ever asked himself what makes these people different. Weren't we the different ones? These people are boring, they live in their own worlds. Thats probably exactly what they think of us :D We understand nerds problems because we are nerds and these problems are our own. But we don't understand normal peoples problems, because they are not our problems. Our best shot is at the common stuff(communication is the most common) In this case we are trapped. We can search for ordinary peoples problems and solve them with software, but those are not our problems and we don't understand them. How are we to know if we are not solving it wrongly? Or if we are solving a completely different problem in a really messed up way? So here is my best shot at it. Get a boring job, get married, have kids and get stupid. Have problems and then get smart again, get divorced and start working to solve the problem. Sounds ridiculous right? :D Boring people not always have boring problems, but they can seem boring if you don't understand them. Im sure average Joe thinks solving the problem with multi-core processors is boring too.
Meetup(s) in Dallas Tonight
8. If AI can be created, should it be? What rights would it have?

What's wrong with this one? Maybe I live in my own mind, but this question seems to be asked a lot in my group of people.
Yep, enjoy it while it lasts. A good chunk of their profits comes from that hedging, so when they have to redo their agreements, the belt will probably tighten.
Easy...simple...I especially like the highlighting of the pages that have been read!
Umm...Do you only work 8 hours a week?

Seems like he's saying he's passionate about Open Source and wants that to be part of his job, not that he won't work on anything else. There are lots of people in the world who've learned that working on proprietary code means you say "goodbye" to it when you leave the company, whether you like it or not, and want to make sure they don't have to do that in the future. They've also learned that wholly proprietary companies are sometimes bitches about contributing to Open Source software even outside of business hours and on your own time and equipment!

If you're working for a company on Open Source software, you get to keep tabs on that code for the rest of your days, sending patches, if you like, etc. It's a major selling point for some of the best developers I've ever known--in fact, the very best developers I've known generally work on only Open Source software (so I'm excluding myself from this categorization of "very best", since I work on some proprietary software in addition to my predominantly Open Source work).
The reason Yahoo Music store is closing is b/c the DRM was very poor -- partly due to Microsoft's technology and partly due to Yahoo's flaky and untested music player software.

Apple is keeping DRM going strong with movies. Let us hope that rather than dying, DRM innovation continues.
My mistake in reading his comment.
The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google
I wouldn't get so hung up on wording of a job post. Talking to someone for 20 seconds will give you inordinately more information.
I prefer looking only at the information that is relevant to the current task. Having everything on one page reduces the time to switch contexts, but increases the effort required to process information in the current context.

Maybe something that made it easy to switch between contexts while preserving information hiding would be preferable. (keyboard shortcuts perhaps)
commiserate (http://definr.com/commiserate)

v : to feel or express sympathy or compassion [syn: sympathize]

I think you meant a "commensurate rate" :-)
concerned with Beacon 2.0? :)
Totally, and if you use Textmate (for ruby), the theme used in Railscasts is the ultimate theme if you ask me:

http://railscasts.com/about

Looks amazing with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono!
Well, I wanted that, too ("Python Pirates, Arr!") But it has a little bit of a bad connotation. Sounds like people who steal code all the time.

"Pirates ship it."
this is 100% true. when we hired a developer at edufire.com, the ad ripped the phrase "web 2.0" and said if you were interested in building a real business that would change the world, you should get in touch. we got about 15 resumes, half were high quality, and we ended up being lucky enough to have an amazing developer agree to come on board.

it's pretty simple: if you want to find the top 1% of developers out there, don't hire like 99% of companies.
I took a couple of grad level courses with Kalantari, they were great.
Work environment is also a big issue. I've known great developers (a few of which have written code every Python developer uses every day) who've made their employment decisions based on how they'll be treated, who they'll be working with, and with what tools they'll be working (and even what they'll be working on....Open Source development has a strong allure for many developers, beyond mere money). Aeron chairs have a reputation for being a "boom era boondoggle", but if you don't provide a good chair, you won't keep a good developer sitting for long. Great recent hardware to work on is a given. Big monitors, a given. Whatever software and hardware they need to be comfortable: trackball or fancy mouse, weird keyboard, monitor stand, etc. Likewise for snacks and their favorite beverages.

As a startup, I'm running cheap. But, when it comes time to hire folks, I'm stocking the damned fridge with the best stuff money can buy, buying great chairs and huge monitors, and anything else I can to make working for me and with me the best work experience of their lives. Even if it costs $5000-$7500 right off the bat to equip a developer, that's chump change compared to the opportunity cost of hiring a new one to replace him if he leaves. And it's a small percentage of their total compensation package. (And we have that wonderfully alluring Open Source thing going for us, so we won't lose folks just because they don't get to see their code set free.)

Reckon we could hire Resig? I hear he likes Perl.
it works the same with way with OpenId, right?
Why not? They can offer those flights for lower prices, so people willing to go for a longer, cheaper flight can choose to do so. If they become popular, then they've gotten new market niche.
Meh... after working with a team of 20 developers for a few months, I could very clearly tell you who are the rock stars and who are not. Particularly in software development, some people are just unbelievably better than others.
More terms to avoid:

* Ninja
* Guru
* ___ - Fu
* Kick-Ass ___
* ___ Chops
* Mad ___ Skill[sz]
"Ninja" and "Rockstar" are just a dorky way of saying "We're looking for energetic, self-motivating high-achievers to work in a dynamic team on its way to the top!" In other words, nothing.

If I read an ad that was looking for an expert in graph theory, or genetic algorithms, or whatever, with a strong knowledge of C++ for a small team where there were still opportunities to be treated as a co-founder ... then we're getting somewhere.

The problem with "rock star" and "ninja" isn't just that they sound dumb, it's that they're usually just a way of saying, "We don't really know what we're looking for, but if you're a workaholic, it might be you."
bleep.com was one of the first, and is still quite good. They stock the entire Warp catalog, as well as lots of other smaller ones (catering to indie rock, dub, electronic, etc.) such as Domino, etc.
Study: no gender differences in math performance
DevCentral Daily - July 24th, 2008
Java Zeppelins.
Gender bias in science: the evidence seems very weak
Good Suggestion. I could create a feature that would hide the news panel when you click on an article link, maybe turn it to a thin orange vertical bar running along the left side? Maybe a toggle preference feature, such as clicking comments above the article expands comments but collapse the article? Definitely things I could work in as user preference choices.
I usually ignore almost all the text in a job ad, because the vast majority of them all say the same thing. You want my attention? Give me an interesting puzzle to solve.

Actually, I find that the coding questions a company gives you can say a lot about the company. I really liked FriendFeed's interview problems, even though I struggled with them, because I saw them and went "Wow, these two questions test for nearly everything you need to know about a candidate, and do so with really simple problem descriptions." That's elegance - doing a lot with a little. While with some company's problems, you gotta wonder why they bother.

(That applies to some of the interview questions I asked at my last employer...damn, I was an idiot. But nobody else was asking any coding questions.)
I like your model. You're seeing the 'doing love' as input, and the 'market love' as output from a function you can't control. I agree that "entitlement" can create unhappiness with that output.

Getting away from PG's essay, there could be options other than to accept that output - we could change the input, and not necessarily selling out our 'doing love' for 'market love'.

The 'doing love' could be a set (not a single thing). Some members of the set just being tweaks on a theme, others being entirely dissimilar themes. By experimenting with our set of 'doing loves', we might stumble on the one that also gives 'market love' - without compromise. Like a breakout novel, giving overnight success, overdecades.
I like it, I'm definitely going to use this.

The comments button at the top didn't seem to work on every page.

But works good none the less.
Dang it, I had this same idea a while back, except with pre-loading the pages so you can mouseover titles on the left and the story instantly pops up on the right.

This would help get through Reddit way faster -- just slowly move the mouse downward and zoom through all the [PIC] and misleading title submissions.
Invite please (email in profile).
'Wanted: Rock Star programmer for Bubblegum Pop company'
I HATE IT. It turns me off too. I wonder if it attracts certain people though?
You don't have to sell your company to have financial security
I knew it!!!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=254409
Ask HN: Feedback on our technology - 'nested guis'
I've been working on this concept for a bit. http://www.nestedguis.com explains it, especially the videos.

I posted a link here a few days ago, but didn't get many comments. I have a lot of respect for this community and am hopeful that you could give me some feedback, good and bad. And please sign up for the private beta.

Thanks, Mike
Nutjob finds proof of the existence of God in Pi
That one struck me as well. I don't know anyone who considers that "off-limits."

The eugenics and race ones are the touchiest in my experience.
Side projects don't have to be additive - they could be something that's on the critical path for your main product and yet not intricately tied to your proprietary code. The decision is not "Can employees spend 20% of their time working on open-source?", but "Can 20% of the code that we already have to write be open-sourced profitably." I suspect that for many companies, the brand-building benefits of open-source and its effect on attracting top developers more than makes up for the chance that someone will take your open-source code and build a competitor. (Particularly since the best candidates for open-sourcing are low-level commodity libraries that somebody will write anyway.)
Yeah, I noticed that after click on the "More" link and browsing the second page of articles, that I ran into some problems with the comments bar. Sometimes it takes clicking on the comments link for the article. I will look into fixing this.
Ugh. Every large internet company tries to become the world's identity provider at some point. It's like you're not considered part of cool kids until you do.

Microsoft tried it years ago with Passport. Google has their proprietary one. Now it's Facebook's turn, apparently. At least Yahoo and AOL use OpenID, even if they are only providers and not consumers.

This will not be a fatal blow any more than Microsoft Passport or Google Account Authentication were.
Anyone using DB_DataObject with PHP?
I'm doing some PHP hacking for some experimental projects and seeking a lightweight database framework to simply the usual CRUD stuff.

Database is MySQL and am using MDB2 for the lower-level stuff.
Someone revered, respected and disciplined needs to compose a treatise so I'll understand the point in which it became acceptable to call someone with beliefs a "nutjob".
Sure, Yahoo and AOL did it.
Linux should rival Apple, urges Ubuntu founder