skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Jeremy Ashkenas writes good code, and that doesn't have anything to do with his English Major. The discussion was about being from non-cs gives you some insights which cs doesn't, which is simple, plain wrong. A person from non-cs background can have insights about cs only when he have picked up the relevant background, at which point he isn't non-cs anymore.

Look, I am not saying people who haven't majored in CS can't write good code. I am taking exception to the remark that you can do your undergrad in English, join a CS grad program and have insights about CS owing to your English program. That simply can't happen.

Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates et al. didn't finish college. That doesn't imply not finishing college gives you insight college doesn't.
Right now my FF5 main toolbar which is stuck between the actual content and my tabs contains the following elements:

* Back and forward buttons
* Reload / stop button
* Address-bar
* Search/google box
* Three buttons provided by various extensions
* A feedback button, since I'm on a beta.

Let's say they remove the address-bar (and the search/google box). I'll still need a space for the rest of my UI elements. Lets say I dont have those extensions and wasn't running a beta.

In that case, I'd still need a place for those back/forward and stop/reload buttons. Or are they going to take those away as well?

I'm not saying it can't be done, but in my (humble) opinion it would mean access to (other) crucial functionality would be severely displaced. I'm definitely not sure I like the direction which all this extreme UI minimalism is heading.
5-Year-Old Girl Makes Video Game
It sounded like he was just hopeful that he could get the word out about Stuxnet. Plus, he mentions that Vanity Fair wasn't even available on German news stands, so perhaps he didn't know what to expect.
I think it's the presumptuous nature of stating one is an 'idea guy' and all the connotations that sort of naturally follow from there... aka, we poor developers lack some special creativity gene or something. Not a good way to start a business relationship.

Case in point - my business partners needed a developer and when I met them for the first time they presented themselves as experienced business men in their niche - sort of 'vertical market experts' as another poster termed it. At no point did either claim they were 'idea guys' - instead taking a more humble approach that they had this idea they wanted to build and would like to hear my thoughts on it. I knew I could work with them because they weren't making such grandiose, ego filled statements from the get go.
Congrats to Dotcloud and Duostack! Exciting news.
"If you're in a real emergency, what would your rather rely on?"

I think the point was that if you have credit card debt then you are in a emergency situation already. So using money to pay off that debt means you can get 'out' of the emergency. Paying off the debt and then putting $2,000 into a liquid account allows you to declare the emergency over.

The trick that folks often don't quite realize is that when you carry debt, some of your 'income' (whether its a paycheck or money back from recycling aluminum cans) goes to servicing that debt and not to your benefit. If you are living at the edge of your means, any money not going to supporting you directly is wasted.

That's the reasoning that says "priority #1" should be "get out of debt." #2 is build a "cushion" so that when unanticipated expenses hit you don't take a long term hit to the income stream, #3 is invest in longer term income growth (could be night classes, could be a washing machine to save on laundromat bills, could be stocks and bonds).
Ask HN: HN is plagued by problems but we still use it
the more you use HN, the more you understand the mind of one man. PG, he goes by.
its odd. its a phenomenon I have noticed only with HN and yes, it sucks.
Any plans to support Tornado?
I have a question for HN hackers. I make over 6 figure a year. My wife doesn't work. She keeps telling me that we are not middle class, and that I should earn more if I want to afford us a middle class lifestyle, because everything is very expensive now. She also thinks that I'm a bit of an underachiever, professionally, for earning only 120K a year. Am I an underachiever or is she out of touch with Midwestern America? I keep telling her that the average family can only dream of the money I bring home every month with my two jobs.
Some core JavaScript knowledge for integrating Facebook's JavaScript SDK
I think its a great design coming from a designer myself, but I'm no lawyer and I don't think you can be making money off someones logo or brand. I dont think you need to be a lawyer to know that either.

Plain and simple, would you want to create a startup and someone make tshirts and make money off your brand or logo?
Ummm ... can I call BS? They say they pinpoint location. If you can do this indoors (with 5-10 meters accuracy) for a cost under 50 bucks a tag, I will tip my hat. Might as well give them a whistle.
It can't hurt. I've thought about doing similar, and have heard of many startup owners doing the same.

While you're at it you may as well give the URL of your web app here. I'll take a look myself and let you know what I think, if you like.
Exactly. In my opinion, one of the worst things a designer can do is have an attitude of "My change is better, deal with it". It presumes that everyone who uses their product will have a use case similar to them, and the people that don't are screwed. When the change made is actually good, designers will get praised for a "bold new vision" and such. When it goes wrong, it pisses off a lot of people, often to the point where they'll switch to a competitor. Think before you remove that option. "Clean design" isn't worth a damn if your product has become less useful as a result.
No very few countries do.
Also I did not say this was a "big idea", thats what developers have said to us that we pitched it too...
Problems I see with this:

- Low end phones tend to be crappy. If everyone who gets a "free" low end Windows phone hates it because the phone isn't very good, they're going to trash talk Windows phones, even if the OS doesn't suck. Windows phones already get trash-talked quite a lot (I don't know anyone with a Windows phone that actually likes it). I don't know anyone with a WP7 device, so I don't know if it Windows still sucks on mobile devices, but there's already a bad reputation to overcome. I know you've addressed this with this sentence: "all this assumes that they can make a phone with cheap hardware which performs decently", but you can't really wave away the limitations of the technology. In a year, feature phone priced hardware will be smartphone capable...but Windows Phone will be even further behind Android by then.

- Windows Phone is not, as far as I know, a resource light OS. Putting it on an underpowered phone in order to keep the price really low is likely to lead to an even worse user experience than normal. Again, trash-talking end users would be the result.

- To make phones cheaper than Android phones, Microsoft would have to give away the OS for free, and try to make the revenue back through app store purchases or something. Microsoft doesn't have a history of giving away the razor and selling the blades at a steep markup (XBOX might be a counterpoint, since it reportedly was a loss-leader in the beginning).

- There is already a solid low-end smartphone market built on Android. The Optimus line, for instance, is available for free with contract from several providers, and for under $200 without a contract, and is a very serviceable smart phone; roughly comparable to a Nexus One, though not quite as nicely constructed. With a contract, even the iPhone is now close to free ($49 for a 3GS).

Feature phone users have already mostly begun migrating to smartphones. The only people I know who still use dumb phones are people on pay-as-you-go plans, that didn't offer smart phones when they bought their phone a year or two or three ago. Smart phones are now common on pay-as-you-go carriers, and most of the people I know on those plans are upgrading or planning to upgrade in the next few months.

So, to summarize: Beating Android to the bottom seems untenable. Beating Apple for the aspirational market seems untenable (since nobody aspires to use Microsoft, as it was historically the value choice). Microsoft needs to find a niche in the smartphone market, but I think all the good ones are taken. Blackberry had a good one in the enterprise market...but they've lost it by falling so far behind technically. Maybe Microsoft can win in the enterprise niche and fill the hole probably left by Blackberry (though both iPhone and Android are reasonably capable of serving in that role, neither has focused on it).
The domain name would still influence Google results for the keywords in the domain name :)
This is actually the "Tagxedo" shop in Zazzle, and the category is called "Y Combinator".

The link goes to http://www.tagxedo.com/shop/y-combinator so this is also Tagxedo shop Y Combinator category. It's clearly stated that this is a tribute. I don't think I used language that is misleading, but I'll triple check.
I love the parallels... However this is so oversimplified... no its not.

Etch A Sketch can't send emails. Neither can Playbook.
Firefox still has the search box because it's where the majority of their revenue comes from. I suppose now they'll have a search box but no location bar?
this is how i typically recommend people to prioritize their money:

(1) pay your bills (2) get a small emergency fund together (enough to pay for a small emergency, car breakdown, 1 month's living expenses, etc) (3) pay down high interest debt (credit cards, etc) (4) get a large emergency fund together (enough to support you for a few months if you lose your job, major emergency, etc) (5) invest and pay down low interest debt (mortgages, student loans, etc).

creating a smaller emergency fund to start sets the best precedent because it creates a safety buffer. what happens if you throw tons of cash at paying down your CC bill every month and save nothing, but then you lose your job and have 0 income? you're going to end up missing payments, get penalized, and your debt will snowball again quickly. you need to have something to fall back on when bad things happen, just in case.
Link Building Resources
You Need a Look [Game Development]
This notion that the URL bar is too complicated is just plain poppycock.

I have a feeling most of the folk pushing for this have a vested interest in search. Maybe they are just overly eager UX people trying desperately to put a fingerprint on something.
Now HN only needs its own memes and its transformation to reddit 2 will be complete.
Google Cache -- English roots of langner are returning blank pages: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPFggJc...
Apple loads up for battle with over 200 Freescale patents
> response is annyoying

Hive mind at work? You wait to see how others are responding to my posts and then use annoying language?

> Is there anything that prevents an eight-year-old from learning C and doing your job? Theoretically, no. Practically, yes.

Is there anything that prevents a CS major from thinking at abstract level? Theoretically, no. Practically, no.

Does CS encourage abstract reasoning? Yes.

> It's not the right question, because whether there or isn't something that prevents them from asking those questions, the perception is that they don't do it.

CS comprises both abstract, theoretical aspects as well as concrete applications. If we are talking about that they don't do it in CS context, where does "CS doesn't do abstract" perception came from?
This is a good example of why specialists shouldn't talk to the media. Generally, the interests of (for example) the New York Times are opposed to the interests of (for example) a particle physicist. The incentive structure of mainstream dead-tree media is aligned against producing accurate summaries of specialized information. There are some good parts and some bad parts to this. The bad parts, though, are sufficiently bad that if manipulating the media isn't your actual job, you're probably better off outsourcing that task to a trusted third party. This is basically the same as talking to lawyers and the police: they will lie to you. There will always be some technical exception so that they can tell themselves and the people higher in their authority structure that they weren't really lying, but no, from the perspective of a layperson, they're liars. They lie all the time. So you need to either be the sort of person who can cope with that and tell them the lies in return that will get something resembling your actual views and statements into their publication, or you need a specialist - just like with talking to lawyers - on your side to do that job for you.

Never count on a reporter to act in good faith any more than you would count on that from the police or from a lawyer. They will disembowel you.

This advice is much less applicable, happily, to technical publications in your field, or to 'citizen journalism,' but you still have to be cautious there. The major difference is that with technical publications or citizen journalists, you may have some actual leverage, and they may have some idea what you're talking about. You have no leverage, as a specialist, over the NYT, so they don't care what harm they do to you - what the heck are you going to do to them? And the average reporter for, say, Fox News, doesn't know what the heck, say, Bruce Schneier is talking about. They are worse than laypeople, actually, because they have an incentive to misunderstand.

Don't talk to the mainstream media. They will lie to you, and they are not your friends.
Banks aren't ACID though. You can still deposit a check, withdraw against it, then have the deposit fail later.

How do we deal with inconsistency and failed transactions in the real world? Customer service. (anecdotes stolen from Eric Brewer's distributed coherency talk at a Riak event)
Not directly related, but play around with Paul's site. Lots of little hidden goodies there.
Considering WordPress uses PHP for its templates (like "<?php the_title(); ?>"), it would be more sane to just rewrite the themes to use the templating engine Calipso uses.
encourage her to go and get the best job available for her qualification. She will come to a more grounded opinion.
Finance to Coding: My goal is to learn how to build on the web
I currently work in finance, and I am on a mission to learn how to code.
My rule of thumb is "as much as you reasonably can". Always be throwing money into your savings. First you're saving for emergencies. Then, you're saving a deposit for a house. And finally, you're saving for retirement. There's never a point at which you should say "Phew, I've got six months' living expenses now, I can stop saving!"

The only point at which it's okay to stop saving is when you say "Phew, I've got more than enough money to last me for the rest of my life regardless of random emergencies, I think I'll retire!"
> 2. If you cannot read an URL then I guess sending links to others in email, IM, or Facebook is too hard as well. Heck, how are you even going to share the URL? Some kind of drag and drop that people will have to learn even exists?

First part: Non sequitur.

Second part: A "copy link" function either as a button or a context menu action lets people do exactly what you described. Still no need to see the url all the time.
I think you should. The worst that can come of it is no response, but at least you tried.

In my experience with my Entrepreneurs Unpluggd events, you'd be surprised the feedback you can get if you simply ask. We always send out a simple 8 question survey the day after our events and a good percentage of people respond. Extremely useful info.
Isn't there a sort of selection bias? Slackers who go to college will choose easier majors, and won't even bother with engineering. There's no reason a smart, hard-working English major can't earn a good salary.
Depends on where you live, but 100k+ is well-to-do where I come from. Most people I know aren't making half of that, and they are working 60 hour weeks. She's out of touch.
Most people, even those in the top 1%, think themselves as middle-class. You're probably still middle-class, but definitely quite close to the upper bound.
> From looking at your responses here and elsewhere on this post, it seems that you have difficulty accepting the idea that other fields of study might present skills that are not ordinarily available to a CS student.

I have difficulty accepting the idea philosophy, humanities or any other discipline makes you more competent at CS than CS education itself. If philosophy taught you something valuable, good for you. It didn't teach you CS and didn't make you more competent at CS.

You are the one who is having difficulty understanding that your abstract and esoteric questions aren't unique to philosophy, and things which are unique to philosophy don't add anything to make you more competent at CS.

> This seems like it would be the wrong thread for you to participate in.

This seems like unnecessary fluff.

EDIT: On second thoughts, this really is the wrong thread for me to participate in.

You keep editing your posts, not because you are correcting a typo or adding a new perspective, but based on if my post is downvoted or not. You use offensive language when my post is grayed, and delete that when it's not.
He's just talking about the double slip granny knot versus the double slip reef (square) knot.

Much more interesting is "Ian's Knot"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uONg5voLxo

Explained more here:

http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
On the other hand, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc, broke a few rules too. So I am not sure that championing rule breaking is going to help improve society.

More likely, what's actually needed is a balance. And, interestingly, the kind of person that makes a good entrepreneur is probably on the psycopathic side of normal. A very nice article in the Guardian made this point at the weekend - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/jon-ronson-how-t...
Unfortunately, most of these people are also deep in debt and have already made such cuts.

Sometimes I wonder about this. How many poor folks are wasting their limited budget on frivolous crap?

One reality show I really would like to see would be about a sensible financial advice type who parachutes into the lives of low-income, deeply-in-debt people and shows them how to budget properly.
Good comment. I am also impressed by this particular path - it indeed seems to be a wholly different way of interacting - if they get their cloud stuff right, i would actually give it a spin
I understand that minimum monthly payments and interest only payments are absolutely wasted and provide you with no benefit.

However, the emergency I'm referencing is not a general "my finances are a disaster" emergency. I'm talking about an emergency that has an impact far beyond your immediate financial situation.

I'm talking about "I cannot afford food" or "I cannot afford transportation to a job interview" type of emergency. That's a real emergency, in my opinion.
If I could use one word to describe that design, it would be "tasteful."
The WM7 IE version is a little jacked... hopefully Mango's browser is better than IE 7.5 or whatever is in the current release. The last thing I'd be happy about is yet another buggy, poorly updated browser from Microsoft, but if history is any indication that's what they'll be providing.
It's easy to say that, but the reality is that many of these people probably blew through their savings while enduring job loss, medical bills, increased energy and food costs, etc.

Most people aren't programmers, and are at the mercy of the job market, which sucks right now.

There are many cases of irresponsible behavior, but I know of far too many responsible people that tried everything they could to right the ship and kept hanging on, hoping that things would change...with no luck.

It would be one thing if gas prices were going down, utilities were getting cheaper, and food prices were getting back to normal, but they aren't.

Most of us are fortunate enough to turn to freelancing when money runs out, but much of America is screwed.
Just FYI: this "Bare Bones" does not refer to the long-time Mac OS software developer responsible for BBEdit, TextWrangler, etc.
For your information, about all polls are done on about 1000 people (slightly less to slightly more). You need to poll a lot more people to reduce significantly the statistical error level.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error
As a UK resident, I find that distressing. The idea that needing medical treatment might impoverish me or poverty leaves me unable to obtain the treatment I need seems exceedingly cruel.
On the nature of types
Responsibility is not a class issue.

The lady who cleans our office is poor by any definition. She works 14 hours a day, every day. She has two kids, no TV, and has cash saved up to buy Christmas presents and school uniforms.

The guy in the next office makes $110k/year leases a BMW 5 series, owns a new condo, and goes out of the country on vacation 3 times a year.

Who's irresponsible?
Don't be embarrassed. Many "rich" people have similar problems. It's just that, in their case, the cash flow figures are larger by orders of magnitude.

Desperation can be a tremendous motivator, and a great way to set priorities. Think of yourself as a newly-arrived immigrant. Now make your way in your new world.

Whatever you do, don't let depression set in. Depression = failure. Even if you struggle to pay the bills for the rest of your life, if you stay positive, you'll keep the people you love in your life.

It might help to imagine yourself getting that big break, and making enough money to never worry about money again. If that happens, how will you remember the tough times? Will you be proud of yourself, or ashamed? Will you regret that you treated others (and yourself) poorly? The history of the world is chock-full of successful people who were haunted by their past.

I'm on a roll here, so let me finish with this existential note: life is a bloody, sweaty mess, and there is no natural justice. From the day you're born to the day you die, you're flailing about on a tightrope over infinite emptiness. There's plenty to fear, and the easiest thing in the world is to fall.

But don't you really want to be the guy dancing on that tightrope and laughing at the void?
Well, I wouldn't suggest a person ever stop saving, I agree. However it just depends on the savings mode that you're in at any given time. If I anticipate a huge expense coming up (house / car), I'm going to penny pinch as much as possible. If things are seemingly normal and I have a good amount saved up, I might spend a little bit more of it enjoying life.

This might go beyond the depth of the article, admittedly.
Better build my own MVP?
Care to share the figure?
Twitter, t*ts and Giggsles
sure it isnt a full kernel. Its just a bare bone. Something where you can expand upon.
middle class is something like $40K family income...so you are more than double that.
I'm aware these may not be your intentions, as I stated in my post. I'm saying, be sure to step outside and think honestly about how it comes across to someone who isn't familiar with your or your business.
37signals: Our open source contributions
Er, I should have specified "on a Mac." Foobar is Windows-only AFAIK.
You're not an underachiever. Class is all relative. "Middle class" in America translates to "extremely wealthy" for the average human being. My wife and I were just in Newport Beach, CA over the weekend, and we felt very poor. But back here in Nevada, we feel very blessed.

Here are some links to make your wife feel better:

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/12/whats-your...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...