skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So you're implying that the government over-promises and under-delivers, while the private sector under-promises and over-delivers? I would beg to differ. There are as many anecdotal pieces of evidence that shows how wasteful and over-promising private enterprises are (though the over-promising ones are normally not around that long.) There are of course counter examples, but so are there for government (Medicare in the US goverment, many other countries seem to have better functioning governments than the US.)
A few weeks ago, someone on here wrote that if you are pursuing a business with no competition, you are either a genius or a fool.
Yes.

It says "Simply put, a real name is worth more than a fake one."

and we've already decided that a single real name doesn't exist for many people.
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Political Paralysis in D.C.
The standoff over the debt crisis in Washington D.C. is a painful reminder of the dysfunctional state of politics today. It’s depressing that the country stands almost a week away from a technical default that will likely result in the loss of over 1m jobs and 1.0% of GDP growth. It’s a shame that partisan divisions in Congress have created such uncertainty. Washington D.C. seems incapable of cooperation and collaboration.

Many political scientists have long dreamed of American parties that were more ideologically pure and coherent (similar to European parties). Today’s political environment is a realization of this dream - and unfortunately, it’s terrible. The fact is that America does not have a parliamentary system of government, in which one party controls the executive and legislative levers of power. Power in the U.S. is more balanced, requiring a cooperative approach to governing. Political parties must work together to get anything done. For a variety of reasons, cooperation has been absent from any political negotiations recently. Our government has been paralyzed by the intransigence of Republicans AND Democrats. And given the recent news coming out of D.C., the likelihood of a sudden change in mood remains bleak.
Who runs an internet-accessible development machine? Maybe I give the rest of the dev world too much credit.

I apologize for not having an underground cold war bunker with which to develop my software on. Until i get one, I'll stick with my one and only machine (which, as you can tell, has internet access) for doing development.

EDIT: And because of it, i'd never put this code on a machine i run.
Your example, "black men playing basketball" are a homogeneous group by virtue of your definition. Their trash talk, again, by definition can't consist of one group disparaging another using slurs... I hope you like the slam-dunk of setting up a straw man and knocking it down.
Need help for an idea
Hi,

I emailed Derek Sivers for advice and he recommended I post here.

Background Me: ER RN X 30 years, ENFP on the Myers/Briggs, founded TexARS; Texas Adoptee Reunion Services to have the non profit status for my Search Angel work of reuniting those separated by adoption. I searched and found my birth family single handedly back in 1976 (before the internet) and have helped reunited many families. Compiling a book on the Kerrville Folk Festival as I am very involved in the folk music community here in Austin, Texas. My nickname in my younger years was "TB" for tenacious bitch. I don't let go, I achieve my goals.

Problem: I decided to go back to school to obtain a Bachelors degree and then pursue a Masters, possibly in nursing. Since I have accumulated over 130 hours in nursing, criminal justice, sociology and psychology, I wanted a degree plan which would accept the majority of my credits and require the least amount of coursework to be awarded a Bachelors. I spent hours and hours pouring over individual college websites comparing my transcripts with their prereqs, degree plan requirements, etc.

My thought is that there are a multitude of people in my situation, especially now with the economy, many people are returning to school in order to improve their employment prospects.

Idea: A website where a user registers, enters their transcript information, coursework numbers, etc and selects colleges which fit their requirements; online, physical location, private, public, etc. The program filters through all the degree plans and outputs a list of colleges, degree plans, lists which courses on their transcripts would be accepted and what further courses would be required to complete the degree plans. This enables the user to choose the path of least resistance in order to complete their degree.

Setup: User registration is free, college, university, training program registrations are free. Ad space sold to colleges, universities, training programs, loan programs, book stores, apartment locators, etc Could be tethered to online communities such as facebook, etc.

Need: Partner or Partners to bring this to fruition. While the computer partner/s are building the program, I would be building relationships, obtaining funding, etc. Would prefer someone here in Austin and second choice would be Kitakyushu Japan because I lived there for a year as a child and would like to return for a visit. Really anywhere is fine, but if I don't tell the Universe what I want, how will it know what to deliver?

Other: Please send me a message if you are interested and/or if you see the obvious problems to this idea which I, as a non computer person haven't realized because I don't know what I don't know.

Thanks!
Also check out Robin Hansons blog: http://www.overcomingbias.com/
I'm sure that may change at some point.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Facebook has the same policy and deletes suspiciously named accounts as well.
Absolutely correct. Thanks for that link.
Most professional shops do indeed have dev machines. They live at Rackspace alongside the prod servers. They are protected from the Internet by firewall rules; you need a VPN connection to access them. Unfortunately, everyone who writes code has that VPN connection accessible at all times, because that's their job, and so rack-webconsole puts them a cute cat picture away from giving an anonymous Twitter user access to their data center.
Can't help but feel that the sample of people who have installed this plugin and opted in to send data back is probably skewed away from the average internet user.
There will be no tourism.

I'd want to see it if I am in Arizona! But I don't care if it is tallest structure in the world, I'm in it for the power engineering.
I see this like a phpMyAdmin on asteroids for rack apps.

Dear christ, please do not ever put this near production.
I think "they" meant SpaceX, not NASA.

Besides, you are incorrect: Atlantis just landed back in Florida, as did most of the shuttles. CA was just the backup landing site, and they often waited a day for weather in Florida to be good rather than land in CA to avoid the hassle of transporting the shuttle cross-country.
It basically is saying that the organizers either don’t want to put the effort into policing language at their event, or don’t trust the men to be mature and responsible enough to adhere to event policies.

I'm not sure if "or" is the right word there...
A screen name is no less "real" than a legal name.
> Many functional languages don't require pure functions.

Yes. Though I would suggest a newcomer to pick a language that requires purity, in order to make the transition cleaner.
That's a subjective judgment.

However, the window for even a popular link to remain on the front page nowadays continues to shrink. It's akin to the "attention span" of the site dropping. It has its pros and cons but shows that the system that fit the audience in a certain way in the past no longer does so (at least, it does not yield the same results).

My personal and subjective judgment is that this certainly becomes a bad thing at some point due to the lack of cohesion between users' experiences. Instead of a large share of the user base sharing a similar site wide experience, instead we only share knowledge within threads that we happen to see and participate in. There are, then, entire "shadow" discussions occurring in other threads that cover exactly the same topic. Fragmentation.
Thanks, it helps! I was thinking that it was better to focus on a couple of main features as highlighted by competitors. It's not that I have a lot of knowledge about the area, but I thought that I could see what the competitors in bigger markets have done and use it to my advantage.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to look at my comments here on HN and say that I’m cranky. Nevertheless, that doesn’t in any way add to a debate over my specific comment: Either I’m right or I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, say so and explain why. Saying (correctly) that I’m a cranky guy is still an Ad Hominem.

Summary: Ad Hominems can be factually correct yet they are still Ad Hominems and still the lowest form of disagreement.

And my point in this case isn’t that the entire argument was an Ad Hominem, but rather that it was a (possibly correct) Ad Hominem followed by a perfectly reasonable point. I stand by my assertion that the point is stronger on its own without the Ad Hominem.
Even if this type of project only provides a small fraction of the energy we need, it is great to see funding and construction because experience building systems like the one in the article will lead to more effective systems in the future.

My wife and I live in Arizona (in the mountains) and we are having solar panels installed on our roof in 2 weeks that will furnish 100% or more of our electricity needs for about 10 months a year (and we will often make a little money back selling back power to our utility company) and cover about 50% of our needs the two months a year that we run our air conditioning.

A few friends have been critical of our decision for monetary reasons, and they may be right, but it is something we wanted to do. Also, if prices for energy, food, etc. increase dramatically, then we will break even on costs sooner rather than the anticipated 6 or 7 year time frame.
Is this immature and inconsiderate of women and does it reflect poorly on the LAN? Absolutely. Are they within their right to do so? Absolutely.

People get up in arms about stuff like this because they're offended that people would so boldly exclude someone, but the key here is that it's a private event. Don't like it? Don't support them. Or, create your own private event with any rules you see fit.

As a nonreligious white male, I'm also excluded from minority scholarships, many religious private colleges, jobs with many religious organizations, being a waiter at Hooters, and plenty of other social groups, simply because of my personal beliefs or race or gender.

Women also can't join the Augusta National Golf Club (home of the Masters) for similar reasons as this, but I don't see that on the frontpage of HN.
This thread is quickly becoming /r/MensRights.

I also like how yummyfajitas states that young male gamers have traditionally been excluded by society. I'm a geek. I grew up as a socially maladjusted "gamer," but I'm not blaming society for my own lack of social skills. Cry me a river.
Depends on what you are looking for.

Apart from any benefit from actually using any language or tool, there's also the joy of learning.
Same experience here, I have 2 year old bugs fixed 2 major version later.

Unfortunately the official bug report system is opaque though.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the F-35 is built by Lockheed-Martin, not by the government.
I think it was this video but im not 100% sure. http://www.viddler.com/explore/oredev/videos/15/
OK, I was doubtful of spending time learning things that competitors expose in their "features & benefits" page, but now I'm convinced I should spend some time out of the building :-)
That depends on the university then. Some places do in fact pay staff from general college funds (aka the result of overhead). Either way, you are completely and utterly ignoring my question: How do you propose handling this things other than the overhead method, and how do you expect to find a way to do so cheaper than than a university, given that all other entities which can meet the governments requirements for getting grant charge so very much more?
I am always fascinated with flying like superman (who hasn't been), and this gives me confidence that one day humans can fly with a similar bird-like mechanical device, not a jetpack or massive engine on our backs.

I always thought if we copy nature, we will be very successul in engineering a device to allow humans to fly gracefully and safely.
Flipboard Kicks Off Its First Advertising Program With Condé Nast
OS X Lion: Resetting Your Account Password with Your Apple ID | The Mac Observer
It's sweet to see internet browsers opening up for development within themselves. We can surely do this securely with some amount of effort. I'd love to see a world without the need for Eclipse / Aptana.
"Twenty drug approvals in the United States this year, and others in the next few years, will help replace the revenue"

They make that statement at the end of the article in an almost offhand way, but no analysis I have seen for any of the big pharmas shows them anywhere near to replacing lost revenue from the near-term patent expirations. We are in a period of the fewest approvals for new drugs than almost any time since the beginning of the FDA (and similar regulatory agencies around the world). The industry is in bad shape, and there seems to be no relief for the lack of R&D productivity any time soon.
I would second the request to flag or exclude domains that aren't available to everyone.
Wanted to add that there are a couple of universities which have it set up for applicants to type in their transcript information as well as a common application site for those applying to nursing programs. Both of those are for individuals who have already decided which program is appropriate. This website backs up the process to help the person decided which program they wish to pursue. Especially someone like myself with multiple hours in various areas who is looking for the path of least resistance to obtain a Bachelors. These people are not really interested in a particular degree, they want the Bachelors which will give them the most credit for the classes they already have taken.
Looks like G+ isn't really a finished or proper tested product.

It's currently in a "field trial"[1]. If you're using it now then you are a tester, so complaining about a lack of testing a little nonsensical.

[1] https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/google-plus/fie...
Yes, you are indeed the only person that matters.
Why I Left My Startup Just as We Raised $1.5 Million
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As for what team you'll be working on, you as a candidate have a lot of power in that regard.

Well in my chat with a Google recruiter I mentioned the self-driving car project.... but it sounds like that team has no trouble finding talent.
The article claims, "Because the heat of the day warms the ground up so much, it continues working at night"
I added an illustrative analogy that wasn't in the original article. Maybe it was too obvious? Thanks for the feedback.

Edit: Since we're getting pretty deep in the comments here and the timer is in effect... To joshuacc: I did miss that line. Looks like the parent here is right I didn't add anything to the discussion. Thanks!
Minority status is one in which a feeling of 'lesserness' occurs. That lesserness is caused by a power imbalance, perceived or real.

A non-human example of this is between humans and insects. If it was about non-power (numerical) then humans would be considered a minority on planet earth, but because humans have ways to take control over insects (urban fogging, bug spray, bug zappers) they are considered a 'minority' interest.

It isn't all about numbers, it's about power. A perhaps more real world example would be women on college campuses, still considered a minority, but typically have a 5 point advantage on men!
Clean might also be worth a look. But it guess for a beginner the slight differences do not really matter that much.

I recommend Haskell over OCaml for learning. Haskell has a cleaner syntax, a living community, and emphasises purity.
Ask HN: Is HN the online Silicon Valley?, if not where?
We all know that, for now, Silicon Valley and the surrounding area is the hotspot for startups and successful IT businesses. Every one in the industry knows about it.

So where online is the most beneficial to be?
Point taken, and lest I myself appear persnickety, I'll leave it at that.
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My take has been that Facebook has been reluctant to do an iPad app because that keeps their cookies out of iPad's Safari.
Hmm, actually global scale is wrong too - I retract that :) The problem arises regardless of 'scale' (number of users).

To reiterate: the number of users (scale) is irrelevant to the issue of problem names.

I can see why someone sprinkled buzzwords on the HN title that didn't exist anywhere in the article, and weren't applicable though. Makes the issue sound more 'techie'.
The new home of Creative JavaScript and HTML5 | CreativeJS
> In a language like c++, what would be an elegant naming convention to differentiate between pure functions and others?

D is a bit like C++. And its type system supports pure functions. I don't know if there's a standard naming convention, but D is worth a look.
They technically have the same policy, but they don't seem to be proactive like Google is.

Also, Facebook doesn't use your name to find your friends, they use your friends list to suggest their friends might be yours as well.

Reason and method are both different.
You're absolutely correct and I should have chosen my words more carefully.

So I'll change my words to say: I think it's sad that there are so many educated and capable people doing back of the envelope calculations on Hacker News. Half of us are capable of hunting down the original papers on solar towers and running the numbers through the proper calculations.

Also why are we just typing out the equations using text. It's the 21st century! We need a better way to discuss technical matters.
Because it's discriminatory and illegal?
Right! A dev server is for dev, even to show off the app to your friends you've got to remove this console. So IMHO, you don't have to worry about security if it's your tiny dev machine that runs on your desk, unless you are paranoid about securing your iron cage.

If anyone has used the Seaside framework, can you throw some light on how this compares to the in-page editing that Seaside provides (as per what I've heard).
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He basically seems to have come to the conclusion (even moreso in more recent posts) that functional languages are not the way to go, so I'm not sure it's the best starting point unless that's where you want to end up.
There are lots of other signals to triangulate by. Name is just one and the primary one.

BTW, there are lots of people with my name, exact same spelling, in the US.
CreativJS is live (The new home of Creative JavaScript and HTML5)
Wait, wait... aren't patents supposed to encourage R&D? The monopoly rent from a patent is supposedly the only way to encourage firms to do R&D, to innovate rather than copy.

And aren't patents getting stronger based on case law? The i4i vs Microsoft thing re-affirmed quite a strict standard as to patent validity. I know it's nothing compared to how copyrights are being made stronger and stronger, but still, patents are being made stronger.

Shouldn't we be seeing more innovation on that basis? There's a general trend towards strong "intellectual property" protections, and Big Pharma has been the industry pushing that kind of thing pretty hard.

So where's the real problem? Big Pharma R&D not working, FDA getting irrational about approvals, Big Pharma coasting for the past N years? Biology research has hit the limits of what it can do?
Not sure why I can't edit my post. Anyway - downvoted for asking for clarification on an unsupported assertion. HN at its most scientifically rigorous!
What is it with all this blogspam?

This is the relevant link: http://opalang.org/
You might be interested in the talk "The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer’s Perspective" [0]. The authors argue that functional programming is the future of game programming.

[0] http://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/edu/seminare/2005/advanced-...
Most bug-trackers automatically send notices if the user has put in valid contact info. If they didn't, or opted out of the notices, then they'll see the message when they check it for updates.

If they never check it again, time is definitely better spent somewhere else.
I don't really get it.. In the demo:

* The font is almost unreadable.
* The buttons don't seem to move/click, which has confused me in the past on a slow connection.
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I find it hard to believe any company, unless you were applying to Oracle to work on the JRE, would care what your favorite programming language was.

I don't work at Google, but having had a lot of other technical interviews, I'm almost certain that was a primer question in order to:

1) Get you to talk in a relaxed fashion, to calm your nerves. You get to talk about something you already know.

2) Guage your "passion level"

3) See how you think by probing why you picked that language.

Assuming you're right though, and it's because you said you love Arc and they decided to dismiss you, why exactly do you assume it was C++ you were supposed to answer? Did they specifically tell you "Sorry, the correct answer was C++"?

I'm really going to go with the grandparent and assume your answer to the "What is your favorite programming language" turned out to be so obnoxious that they rejected you based on personality. This is honestly something you can work on though.
Buzzword bingo aside, the idea is interesting. That said, mixing html and code is not my idea of fun debugging... Is that the way you do it on big apps as well, or is it done that way to make the chat example as small as possible?
Perhaps you're missing the point of the article?

The original poster is complaining that evaluating a "Community Relations Manager" against their ability to reguritate the first half of Skiena's algorithm book (on a whiteboard, without syntax errors) is not a valid test of their ability to manage community relations.

From an engineering point of view (or more accurately Psychological), their tests are failing to stand up against any measures of validity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(statistics)

Google's "scientific hiring process" appears to be broken , not because of any problems with the principles of testing candidates, but because the engineers who designed the tests failed to ensure that their tests were valid measures for the roles they're hiring people into.

You know the phrase "when all you've got is a hammer, everything in the world starts to look like a nail"? I think that's possibly what the engineer-hiring process has managed to create at google.

It isn't all disadvantages. There's every possibility that placing an engineer in a community-manager role could lead to new solutions to "the problem of community management".

So maybe the external evaluation of "invalid and broken" is actually a business decision and done that way by design.
One of these days I wanted to try writing a C++ program in a totally immutable style, just to see how far you can take that concept. E.g. all classes have const members. The only way to mutate the instance is to pass its members to a constructor for a new one. Using smart pointers this shouldn't cause too much memory-handling overhead. Function objects for higher-level functions. You'd almost get a functional OOP language. But it might be hard to stick with it. I'm not sure it would produce very fast code however, doing allocation and deallocation all the time. Maybe if it was combined with a smart allocator that could reuse discarded objects.