skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
San Francisco, CA

SeatMe is hiring! - http://www.seatme.com/jobs/
SeatMe is a 7 person funded, pre-launch startup based in downtown San Francisco. We're revolutionizing the restaurant industry and we need your help!

* Objective-C engineers for iPad and iPhone development
* Django web developer
* Server engineers (especially data sync experts)
* Designers (web & mobile)
* Product Manager (not on the website yet!)

How often do you get a chance to work at a tech startup where eating out can be written off as a tax-refundable business expense? Well not here, because our CEO would go to jail (and he's never going back to the big house), but we do work in an awesome intersection of technology and fine dining.

We offer a VERY competitive salary, benefits, moving costs and equity options for all full-time employees. H1B ok for senior positions.

Apply online - http://www.seatme.com/jobs/

Questions - jordan@seatme.com
I don't think you understand their motives.
Yes Mozilla takes money from Google, it does not make Mozilla Google does it? Mozilla has no share holders, no one to report to, and certainly they do not report to Google. Google pays Mozilla for the default Google search page index and if no one would load that page anymore then Mozilla would get no money.

Do you think Google also own every single adsense user then?

Chromium (NOT CHROME) is open source, but it does not fight for freedom or general public interest. It fights for bringing Google even more control and user base. In fact Chrome woulnd't even exist if it wasn't for Mozilla.

THAT is the reason why they still use Firefox.
If Firefox globally falls behind 20% global market share, Mozilla won't have much weight when doing things such as forbidding h264 support, pushing true open standards, etc.
> Are there some articles/papers that I can look in to?

There was little real science done because "real" science is when you do experiments, and a study of this kind would involve the so-called forbidden experiment, which would create a huge ethical stir. The most often-cited report is this one:
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/2053957/g...

Here is a brief Powerpoint with an overview of interesting cases:
http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING411/ppt/d39-FeralChildren....

While it is often said that it is hard to draw conclusions from the few reports that exist -- I think that the one conclusion that can be drawn is that nearly everything that makes us "human-like" is a product of learning and social interaction. No confirmed "feral" child has ever been reported to have acquired language in the full sense of the term.

> Is there something you can refer me to that compares the efficiency of learning in humans vs machines?

Just look up any introduction on machine learning. Nearly everything we do every day (recognizing objects, thinking in terms of goals, etc.) involves a classification problem, and every classification problem can be reduced to a regression on data. So there is nothing more fundamental to learning than fitting a model to data. Humans are pretty efficient learners, but they have their limits (your Bayesian spam filter is probably more efficient than you on recognizing spam, even though it may fail in a few cases because it doesn't quite "live" in the world you live in, meaning that its world model is not as deep/rich as yours). To acquire a deep/rich world model, you would need more training (provided you have a correctly balanced algorithm), which would ultimately be as expensive as raising a child. There is no reason though to think that it won't be done one day.
I think Justin needs calendar intervention, there's way too much info there no matter how you slice and dice it.

and way too many things entered in duplicate and triplicate...
yea, I deleted my parent comment for an obvious lack of math. you are absolutely correct
From what I can see, this is just for AdSense based PPC. Is AdWords analysis in the pipeline?

Also, can anyone tell me the attraction of AdSense (for the advertiser) over just using AdWords as I've never found the former to perform as well as the latter.
But they have been moving away from their complete reliance on Facebook. It will always be a (major) distribution channel, but they've moved onto iPhone/Android apps too, and I'm sure they're planning on diversifying further.
Palo Alto, CA

Do you like robots?

Suitable Technologies is a startup working to create an innovative new product for something called "remote presence." (Another common term is "robotic telepresence.")

Our first product, in development now, is similar to video chat on a computer you can drive around. Unlike videoconferencing, you’re not stuck to a wall or desk. It becomes your physical presence, anywhere in the world, with the freedom to move and interact with people as if you were there.

We're looking to fill a number of roles:

* Software Engineer (especially C++)
* Mechanical Engineer
* Electrical Engineer
* UI Designer
* Graphic Designer
* Supply Chain Manager
* Quality Test Engineer

More information is available on our site:
http://suitabletech.com
Unfortunately I don't think they're poised to move very quickly within the next 2 years. Everyone knows that their QNX-based Blackberries are coming up for next year. But having friends inside the company working on QNX, they don't think the platform looks any different from the current BB OS. So I don't think the fruits of any management restructuring will pay off until a couple years from now. And that's the saddest part. The stuff they have in the pipeline right now isn't even good enough if it were launched today. Then you realize it will launch next year and the story just gets more depressing. I want them to succeed, but I don't think they'll be getting their shit together for a VERY long time.
I'd argue this is not really true. Let's look at two notorious examples of "good" game dev companies, Valve and Blizzard (who I still consider good, even though I don't have any idea what's happening there since they got bought by Vivendi). Both take a lot of time to create games for example Episode 3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, TF2.

So you can argue that both methods - being cruel to the employees and being very nurturing - deliver good games but take a lot of time.
New feature: Sort users by most-in-common
Supposedly this Firefox extension can help defeat them.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus-...
I actually quite like the new design. Primarily because it seems that all the google web apps are going to move to a more unified design (whereas before docs stuck out like a sore thumb).

I agree though that the calendar space could do with being subtly changed so the focus of the window is on it again. The greys are a little too light, and when surrounded by colour they fade away.

But in general it seems like this is very close to what I've wanted for a while.
I'd put a lot more on this than I would on Groupon. Zynga is profitable, scalable, and has a huge amount of dedicated fans - three things Groupon doesn't have.
Somalia has tons of police, prisons, and politicians in every faction state. The TFG, Puntland, Somaliland, and whatever else dipshit Somali govts out there all have some resemblance of law, no matter how poor.

Don't spread the glib ignorant idea that Somalia is some sort of anarchist heaven. That just makes you sound like another silly westerner. It's a former state carved into several other competing states with their own separate order.
I've just realized today that I can use Sparks to get the news I'd be interested in finding on Twitter. For example if I look for "antisec" on Spark, I get pretty good new results with a much better signal-to-noise ratio.
The article indicates its not officially supported, although it could be.

Ian Lance Taylor replied that the behavior is
undefined, but so far stable. His suggestion was
to open a bug and request that this desirable (!!!)
behavior be explicitly permitted.
The beauty of it is that it doesn't need to be SEO-optimized.

Go to google.com and G+ is at the top before you even have to search.
I second this opinion. My experience has been, when I post to stackoverflow, it forces me to explain the problem as clearly as possible to someone else. In doing so, I have sometimes found the solution in the code or a level of abstraction higher/lower.

Even when I post, if it's not quickly solved and gets very few hits, at least I justify the problem as being non-trivial... this is also useful in determining cost/benefit of even solving the problem (perhaps it's better to spend your time on other things).
Thanks!

By the way, if you like SKI calculus, you would have loved this year's ICFP programming contest.
You can just retry several times from the same link, eventually you'll get in. People I invited on Wednesday couldn't create their profiles until Thursday afternoon.
You can change the work factor to scale the amount of time it takes to do the processing. Beyond that, there's a cost to security. If you actually need security, you may need to pay for it. How much is it going to cost you to buy an extra server vs the loss of business due to a serious security breach?
> My mistake quickly became obvious: I had built a tool for an audience that didn’t like to spend money.

The audience doesn't want to spend money for this specific tool but it doesn't mean they wouldn't spend money in general.
The fact employees and even senior management have to resort to posting their thoughts about the company anonymously to another website rather than being able to talk freely within the company speaks volumes about the serious problems they have.

In my opinion, a company can only function well if there's open and honest communication.
Isn't it better that a coalition won instead of Google? Now at least these companies will not sue each other. Its much better that way. Google should have joined the group rather than going itself.

Also Nortel was a really huge company and a really good one at their peak. So its not surprising it amassed that many patents or that they fetch that much value.
Google in preliminary talks to buy Hulu
Learning to program C++ via game development strikes me as remarkably akin to learning to maintain a car by starting on a Ferrari. (Well, aside from the notion that a Ferrari is enjoyable to drive, anyway.)

C++ is tricky enough. Game development introduces additional layers of ugliness and complexity that I think can distract from actually learning to write good, secure, safe C++.
Best of luck with it! My experience is that the hardest errors are the ones that happen when the system appears to run perfectly :) It may not be a browser error, but a communication one.
"If you take a 37signals-esque path you've got something that'll sell to 80% of businesses, let niche software cover the rest."

Er, has it occurred to you that the insanely convoluted world of NYC government might constitute a niche?
Yes, but the majority of the 1bn+ valuation rests on FB. That's exactly why it is listed first in the risks section.
Onset Launches Environmental Data API for Devices
You can find this screencast and more on coffeescript here:

http://www.learnivore.com/search/coffeescript
It's so you can manage multiple campaigns, for example, you may manage multiple forums/blogs and would like a campaign for each one.

I guess it would make sense to go straight into a default campaign, giving you the option to rename it afterwards.
I'll implement this for the next update.
When you said "something like that" I began imagining the type of liberties a well-meaning developer might take with that advice. For example, he might use the same key for all algorithms. He might use two block ciphers with two keys. The effective security you get from these constructions is notoriously counterintuitive.

We obviously use three independent keys. The security of the composition is then at least as good as the security of the best of these algorithms.

That's not obvious at all to an implementer. For example, there are NIST standards for 1-, 2-, and 3-key variations on triple-DES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES#Keying_options
Oh, I'm aware it's not a heaven. And history seems to prove that any anarchist system eventually turns into a bunch of little competing fiefdoms .
At least you can search for "Orkut" easily, and there's no ambiguity.
yes it's writing an app in JS in a way that's portable and that can use device-specific implementations of both UI Components (video for instance) and input methods (touch/mouse/keyboards/http/...)
Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancers? (July 2011)
Since the whoishiring bot seems not to have run...

Please lead with either SEEKING WORK or SEEKING FREELANCER, your location and whether remote work is a possibility.
Yeah - why do TC articles end up as #1 on big breaking topics? They have nothing to add but snark.
The audience doesn't want to spend money for this specific tool but it doesn't mean they wouldn't spend money in general.

I was struggling with the phrasing of that sentence for ages. But you make a fair point :)
I've had literally hundreds of interactions with MA and I believe he's fundamentally an OK guy. He's irascible, yes, but when he's harsh to someone it's not part of a calculated strategy to keep everyone in line. It's simply because he's mad.
The Hangouts part where you video chat with many people I suppose.
How would that be better? If they aren't listening, that would be a lie.

And from the open letter saying "RIM has a culture where nobody can speak out without fear of career limiting punishment" their reply is "I can't believe any real employee wouldn't raise these issues internally", does that sound like they even thought about the letter for five minutes?

A better (more honest) reply would be "we don't think there's a problem, Apple is just luck and hype, the playbook is industry changing (Mike said that, didn't he?), this better not have come from inside or else".

IMO.
First of all, I would like to thank you very much for your posts, they are informative and have great value for emerging entrepreneurs.

Some thoughts I had:

* You are spot on in concluding that this is a tool that would be used a few of times in a year. A lifetime payment is the solution, with an appropriate price bump of course.

* Regarding the users that signed up for free: You should have allowed them to keep using the service for free. They are your implicit marketing team. They got in early, they deserve gratis access for that.

* Regarding the recurring scheme of cancellations: Do contact the users, ask them why they are leaving. This will help you either validate my first thought above, or iterate on the service to become what they expect to get out of it.
I think we all need to appreciate the fact most people use Facebook and/or Twitter because they are agnostic - that is, are not tied or linked to any singular email account. I have a Gmail account - albeit "lay persons" in the tech world - use Yahoo or Hotmail, and sure, some use Gmail [shocking generalization :)]. Most, in some capacity, usually check FB and/or Twitter on their mobiles and website daily. Many do not even "log into Google" to use the search engine [why would they?]

Facebook works. Twitter works. All their friends already exist on it - FB friends list are closed, Twitter's are open. Both do everything they could possibly want it to do "connect to their friends" and "find what's happening in the world". In my mind - it's "Google and Bing" all over. For example, Bing is arguably just as good as Google now yet everyone continues to use Google. Why will Google+ bring about such a "rapid shift" that it will lead to a hemorrhaging of users from Twitter and/or Facebook ?

Google+ - great for technology people who want to "control their data". My friends don't even understand what "exporting data for portability" even means. They use Facebook, see their friends posts, upload photos, check-in to places and they love that. Those that use Twitter do so to find out instant real-time updates and news from around the world. Twitter focus on this and this only - not building and trying to be "everything to everyone".

Facebook will improve their "groups" feature to something similar to Circles and continue to innovative. Twitter will continue to expand as the real-time news service because it is so ingrained in modern culture now. People "tweet" it just like people "Google it" [in the verb sense]. Google+ - is great for "forcing" FB to continue to innovate - but I am still a cynic in relation to it's ability to have such a high incentive draw that users leave FB or leave Twitter "exclusively" - or even "in addition to" - Google+.

[that said, any chance of invite :) email in profile]

edit: Thanks to those that sent an invite. Seems that Google's disabled them :( i.e. there are no links in the sign up emails so there is no way to join. Awesome effort though! Thanks again +1 [pun intended]
I agree in principle on the risk, but compared to the GroupOn S-1 it looks like the proverbial dogshit-into-gold product [1].

So the interesting thing is if they can plug into Google+ and do other things to keep usage up they will continue to print money. That is not as disruptive as what other folks are asking you to believe they might have to do to survive.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/05/stupid-questions-vcs-ask/
This is bonkers, because Activision Blizzard alone are making money hand over fist with WoW. There's no way that Zynga is worth that much.
Depends. Assuming you're only hashing the password once per session, I doubt bcrypt would make a huge dent in your overall CPU time.

With a work factor of 7, hashing might take around 10ms. Which is not a whole lot, but much, much more secure than MD5 and SHA1.
EReader: A Library in the Cloud
I just don't want people to "close their eyes on opportunities" as it's fairly easy to jump to conclusions.

Thanks for sharing your insights otherwise, appreciated :)
No of course not. I mean yes, you misread me.
I agree that people get bored of seeing the same ones over and over but that's part of the same problem - with so few good choices people all migrate around the small number of least bad options.

I don't think that's the issue. Most people use the themes availabe in the design tab. That's it. I've shown people how there are more than a thousand templates available from the file menu and almost everybody says, "Oh, I didn't know about those!".
How common in the press and PR industry is the "exclusive"?

For UK national newspapers, an exclusive might be done for a front page, or page 2, 3, 5, story, but that's probably the exception not the norm.

Now in magazines, I suspect exclusivity is the norm, you want something special for your readers, you don't want something that was in a competitor last month, or will be in more detail with better pictures in a months time.

What ever happened to a good old press release and schmoozing one or two journos to cover it with decent background material - or is this just the logical conclusion of that in Silicon Valley?
I'm not a fan of any component in particular, well apart from one surprise, so I thought I'd have a rant:

Word - separation of content and layout is an absolute bugger to manage. Hard to share and version documents. It's actually hard to write a letter or lengthy document with it if you don't have a template to hand.

Excel - utter dog if you need to use it for anything more than trivial and all it does is "ugly" and "puke". most problems are solvable in a cleaner way with a small script (python wins for me). Some crazy organisations use it as a database and email changes around to each other via outlook, leading to sync hell. Sometimes, that is the entire company's business floating around in emails. It's just the wrong tool for most jobs it is given. I usually get the job of replacing these turds.

Publisher - I've seen it used for paper aeroplanes only so I can't comment on its usefulness, or perhaps that is its primary use.

Powerpoint - Many an hour I've toiled in front of the output of this program. HOWEVER, it's far better than most of the awful hour long diatribes you have to sit through with whinging monotonic voices in the form of streaming (or should that be steaming) videos. 2 minutes content in an HOUR of my life and they don't skip properly. At least I can scan through a powerpoint in a couple of minutes.

InfoPath - never used it. It goes near Sharepoint so it's off limit for me.

Access - Access is actually really damn good, but only if you use ADB projects attached to a SQL Server database. If you use local MDB files and Jet, it's another Excel.

Outlook - It's better than Lotus Notes. That's the only credit I can give it.

Office 365 is the above products, done half as well, with a third of the performance, without the old fashioned data security of being able to get it all back easily from a USB stick.
Google expressed an interest in using the patents defensively, and implied that it would share them with the open source community. If the coalition intends to use the patents offensively, which is very plausible considering the companies involved, then it is not better that it won.
I think it would be easier to sell small products for 1$ if the web had 1-click purchases. I would not consider paying with 1$ using Paypal because it is about 3 clicks to buy something and I probably don't want to be bothered (Unless it's really essential I have it).
I would argue that it (unlike all the other things that did not evolve) did evolve for the reason that it was useful. It's not like all of a sudden there was someone that had wrinkly fingers and that "stuck around because it was useful". In all likelihood, there were many incremental changes that were progressively selected for and the "reason" for that selection is that it was useful.

It seems to me that it's perfectly acceptable language to say that a cause is the "reason" for an effect, even if it's not possible to assign intent.

Your comment reminds me of Feynman responding to the question of why magnets attract each other (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM) which, while inscrutable from a physical point of view, seems not to be a fruitful way of approaching questions. There are always levels of deeper understanding, but you have to take it one level at a time.
I personally think that most rational people could see the article as unprofessional and that MA kind of dug his own grave there. It just seems slightly ironic to me that she used her blog to attack him for writing an attack blog post.
Why You Should Schedule Your Priorities
To be fair, he has every reason not to piss you off. I found the Caterina Fake situation peculiar at best, and the GroupMe scenario (which I'm just reading about now) is really not cool.
If the only way you can make money off of a good idea is by suing other people who are using it, then it's not a good idea.
How to speed up your prototyping process
Confused: why would anybody want to delete their DMs?
I hear Stalin was pretty advanced in keeping his people 'secure'. That's just just hyperbole, you can do better than that.
The whole article was about "Software patents are bad". The Nortel auction was just one example of why patents are bad. Fred Wilson's comments were to back up that theme. Lodsys is just another example.

Read it in that light, and things tie together much more smoothly. Whether it is good writing (e.g. effectively conveying a point) is questionable, since it obviously has cause confusion.
Supposedly that's still using Vidyo as it requires the google talk video plugin right now. The WebM stuff is coming down the road.

http://gigaom.com/video/google-hangouts-technology/
WordPress redirect to post when search query returns single result
I thought Google Wave was Twitter's doom. Then I got to try Wave. I think it's too early to hold a wake for Twitter until everyone can get into Plus.
Probably coincidental, but the math lines up where Google could retroactively buy into the group at the price of it's 900M bid. After that the 4.5 Billion would be split evenly between the five companies.

Edit: Looks the BetaBeat article excluded EMC and Ericsson, so the split wouldn't work so nicely.