skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I said nothing about this specific product. I was simply simply answering the parents question about the use of Python at Google.
Hmm, seems I don't fall into any of these categories.

I design and build web software during the day, then at night and on the weekends I work on my own iOS and Mac apps. I've been offered full-time iOS & Mac design/development jobs but I don't take them for a few reasons, most importantly that I really like my current "real" job and the hardcore web work keeps my skills sharp.

So I'm not the first category because I'm married and do have a life outside work, I'm not the second one because I can easily find a different full-time job but choose to stay in the position I have, and the third just isn't applicable.

I don't really have a position on the pet-projects-as-interview-question topic, but just thought I'd put in my two cents.
I'm in. There is a free linear algebra text from UPS (U Puget Sound) as well.
More voodoo, selection bias, hiring B.S. Why hire on the basis of ability, when you can make up arbitrary criteria? Everyone is exactly like me, right?
I imagine something like a dynamic bode plot, from which you can judge the stability of a system.

But that is a plot of data, not an analog computing method on paper. You can simply improve the presentation or organization on data. I suppose operators have computers nowadays :-).
Your site lists the same companies as every other site out there - the problem is, it's missing so many other companies out there. It's basically a list of the same four or five companies over and over and over again with different plans.

Where are all my local companies? Where's BlueCross BlueShield?
People like to say this, maybe believing it fulfills some deep-seated need for cynicism, or makes the speaker feel wise and worldly. But what is your actual argument in support of this? Just saying it does not make it true.

If profit is the only motivation for decisions at Google, why did it pull out of China? I'm sure you're cynical and wise about that too, but here's what I can tell you. I saw Sergey up on stage saying the same things he said in this interview (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/interview-sergey-br...) and he got fiery and emotional about it. This is a guy who grew up in the Soviet Union until he was 6 and for him it is a very personal and ideological issue.

This corporations-as-profit-seeking-automata meme is old and tired. At the end of the day it's people who make decisions, and just as in every aspect of life people can have complex motivations for the decisions that they make.
Java doesn't scale to small projects and isn't "highly performant" when the metric you're trying to optimize is page load time, although it could conceivably be made to "support in-browser scripting".

Also, I think an implicit item on the list would be "doesn't suck", which is the whole point of the effort, not merely a constraint on feasible solutions like the "goals" you listed. They want something that sucks less than JavaScript, not something that sucks more, such as Java.

So I don't think "the reasons not to basically boil down to NIH, politics and the encumbrances"; they boil down to Java being a shitty non-solution to their problem.
If it is the kind of thing where people vote up stories, you are going to have to fight very hard to avoid the influx of low calorie news (same goes for crappy comments). Unless that's what you want of course, but people already get that from digg/reddit/gawker/fark.

From one of PG's essays:
"Hence what I call the Fluff Principle: on a user-voted news site, the links that are easiest to judge will take over unless you take specific measures to prevent it."

It would be nice to see a social news site that ends up with an intellectual feel instead of the polemic vibe that a lot of places give off.
The reason you've been downvoted (not by me though, I'm not popular enough yet) is because your assertation is wrong. In your very first line you state that he is not packaging the CBC content when in all literal meanings of the word Packaging he is. He has written a wrapper for the content that allows him to provide the interface free from CBC's control and is profiting from it.

Now due to CBC's disclaimer on the content they have the right to refuse people from repackaging their content as it abstracts the source of the data. Should the owner (OP) misuse this content in some way there is a chance that CBC become liable. CBC would not sue Mozilla for providing access to the stream within their browser because the stream is not repackaged with non-CBC logos or misrepresentation of their logo. I would wager however that they would pursue a website that embeds the stream and collects revenue from it.

Arguably CBC wouldn't care if he gave it away but since his application would not exist without the CBC Radio content they have a decent grounds for suit against him. The author plays the pity card by trying to sell us the idea he did it for convenience but in reality he aimed to profit from the app. We know this because of his refusal to stop and use his tool privately and his strong attempt to continue profiting from the app dispite legal tension.

The long story short is that the author may have grounds to stand on legally if he got a good enough lawyer to spin his version of the truth but as things stand right now CBC is looking to defend itself legally against any potential liability resulting from 3rd parties profiting from their service.
The HN response here is crazy.

Obviously 40 year olds are going to have less side projects, and obviously there are devs out there that treat development as a job, not a passion. I know a very good python dev that fits that description.

But seriously, no free time for side projects? Really? Absolutely no time?

It takes 30 mins to whip up something sorta kinda neat. That's an episode of Entourage. Give me a break with all this kids talk, eight year olds go to bed early, and teenagers don't need all that much attention every single day. Sure, help 'em with homework, etc. But lets face some facts, there are plenty of unpaid OSS developers that happen to be parents and they don't whine about not having enough time.
How Long Is the Coast of Britain?
Any more information on this? I caught the presentation linked from the article, which claims you can get a decision within 72 hours. Their website http://www.menloventures.com/portfolio_talent.html simply asks you to email them without clarifying what information they want. I'm curious as to what they're looking for in terms of application material.

What's refreshing is that they're not asking for referrals, which can slow things down considerably and put the less networked entrepreneurs at a disadvantage.
Ikea Redesigning Bookshelfs for a Book-free Future
This is a cool idea, and a good first start implementation. It's also the basis of the "Health Insurance Exchanges" that are due to be set up by the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obamacare in the pejorative).

Starting in 2014 individuals can buy insurance directly in an Affordable Insurance Exchange. An Exchange is intended to be a transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can directly buy qualified health benefit plans.

It doesn't solve the immediate problem obviously, but the Federal timeline for implementation is here: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html

Individual states are free to set up exchanges prior to the mandatory deadline, but with politics being what they are, that's not a guarantee of swift action. The details on implementation will be promulgated by Health and Human Services, most likely via the CFR and Federal Register, so we don't yet know how it will shake out in detail. But there's an overview PR-style here:
http://www.healthcare.gov/news/blog/health_insurance_exchang...
That sounds good to me. Here in Chicago? If we need a location, my office and apartment building are options...
U.S. in criminal probe of eBay employees
i'm interested. are you going to track the results over time?
and/or metrics around usage?

i'd be interested in all of the above.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp...
and
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejjicmeblgpmajnghn...
if you want two most recent examples of Chromium-only applications, where nobody gave a damn whether they follow agreed upon standards.
Thanks for the guidelines.
Daniel's in Canadia. We can just do it on HN, with a post every other week. It probably won't hit the front page often, but who cares?

We were going to do this internally at our Chicago office (Timur is a math grad student), so I'm open to Chicago-specific extensions, especially if they involve alcohol. I'm better at math when slightly buzzed.
We have detected that you are using an unsupported web browser. We support Firefox 3.5 or later, Chrome, Safari 4 or later, or Internet Explorer 8 or later.

?!? I'm using the Android browser!
I've seen a few of these stories lately. Darth Vader (David Prowse), and now Carrie Fisher are complaining about unfavorable contract terms. The fact of the matter is that at the time those contracts were signed, nobody thought the movies would be as successful as they were. James Earl Jones even requested not to be credited for playing the voice of Darth Vader because he thought the movie would ruin his reputation. These were young, relatively unknown actors, and if the movies had turned out to be box office duds, they wouldn't be complaining that they weren't seeing any money.
I seriously think we could just do it on HN threads...

There are feature-y-er places to do it, but this place actually works.
I didn't know linking to Amazon did anything other than link to a page. I added this to make a point in the discussion about training and investment.

Thanks for helping me and being so polite about it.
Ask HN: How do you learn web design?
I'm constantly amazed with graphically stunning new websites that pop up every day on HN. I'd love to learn the process required to get better at web design from someone who's been there.

I know HTML and Photoshop inside out but beautiful designs still elude me. Are there any good books, tutorials, or articles I should get my hands on?
Ah, I see. No, we have another language in the mix which is not relevant to this discussion. The "One True Language" comment was a bit tongue in cheek since I doubt we'd really end up with just a single language across all tiers. I had initially hoped Scala would become our primary backend language but it looks like that "honor" will go to Clojure as we're doing more and more work with that.
Augh, 3D pie chart!
Ask HN: Is there a modern web UI pack that I can download?
I was wondering if there is a modern web UI pack that I can download and implement in few hours? I'm picturing it would include images, css and html for all pieces like tabs, buttons, forms, navigation etc. I would be able to pick the pieces that I need, plug into my current site which like 1995 and be off and running in few hours.

There are plenty of jQuery widgets/elements, but coming from different sources it won't look consistent.

I'm thinking this problem would have been solved by the wonderful community out there. Any help would be appreciated.
I have never used Jekyll. I do, however, frequently use nanoc[1] - it takes a bit more effort to set up, but it is far more flexible, because instead of ridiculous configuration files, you are actually writing Ruby code (in a very nice DSL, might I add) that controls how each set of files is compiled.

One thing I did with it was create a Web site with recipes on it. The recipe files didn't have any actual content, everything was stored in the metadata. I had the Rules file set up so that they would run the Recipes through a layout that would expand them to HTML (consistently), then that was run through the normal page template.

It also used a preprocess rule to generate fresh items "on the fly" that serve as indices for each recipe type. Again, no content - the Rules file is set up so that the artificial items get all their content from a layout before being actually layouted with the site template.

[1]: http://nanoc.stoneship.org/
The Problem with Intel
For multiple monitors - yes, you can have 1 monitor dedicated for Metro and the other for classic Desktop and I believe you can flip between them as well. And believe the keynote demo also addressed your 2nd question on that.
You're probably right, but having so many versions of Windows is asinine, in my opinion.
It's a sendup of mootools, I believe. Evan is an interesting character and a master troll. Last week he added the "hacked by Chinese" banner to see if anyone would notice.
Filters that show what's popular and controversial with people that have similar tastes in articles to me
An interesting idea that I had once is a server-side application that can edit the site files, save them to Git or Mercurial, and then compile them statically and push to a server via FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3 API, or rsync.
Unexpected was the minimal data part... They have a short look-ahead and don't work with any international destinations.

The folks who are most interested in this app are the ones who are most likely interested in the above two points.
Need Programming Co-founder in India
I have an idea which I believe can be a big hit in developing countries and can generate revenue right from the beginning and hence we will not have to raise external capital. I do not know programming. Hence looking for a co-founder who can program the website's initial code all by himself. The idea is somewhat similar to airbnb.com but in a different field. Thanks and let me know if anyone on here is interested.
I'm in for this. A chapter every 2 weeks sounds like a good pace without any unnecessary pressure.
How do we coordinate? @gruseom, would you like to take the lead?
dunno. let's see where it goes?
What's new in Pyramid 1.2
Well Apple has now removed the app from the store. What's the good reason for that you'd like to share with us?
Put the Internet to work for you
The links have been removed by Apple. You can see the screenshots and app description here though.

http://thebln.com/2011/09/did-apple-find-a-sick-sense-of-hum...
Generally they are not enforcable, but it doesn't stop folks like Google and Cisco from having them. And they are written with big letters in the front "THIS IS AN AT WILL ARRANGEMENT ..." which basically says they can fire you at any time for any reason and later "We own everything you do while you work for us."

Basically the message is "Sure work on your own projects and we will decide it's no longer in our best interest in employing you." and "If you do a side project and publish it or let it out in any way, we may decide its no longer in our best interest to employ you." I have heard stories of course but only have first hand knowledge of one person with whom Google decided to fire because they did some open source work they didn't like.

When I asked an employment attorney about these sorts of things his advice was that I could probably sue them and win but it was simpler and less expensive to just quit if I really wanted to work on other stuff.
Reported crimes probably correlate more strongly to police presence, so the root question may be, Are police officers more heavily patrolling areas where people also need rides, and how do they know?
Being the 256th day, why wouldn't they choose the color 0x000100? Green's my favorite color.
> Your data on all websites
> Your tabs and browsing activity

Why does the extension need this level of access in Chrome?
What pie charts are good at is providing a visual comparison of a series of values that compose a whole. Pie charts work when you're trying to represent a percentage of a total value. The example in the link about "features" is crap because unless you're given a value of "100 features were implemented across these versions" the comparison that Word 2000 and 2003 provided similar values is meaningless.

Its not that you shouldn't use a pie chart, it is just about knowing when to use the pie chart to represent your data
Here is the app description and screenshots.

http://thebln.com/2011/09/did-apple-find-a-sick-sense-of-hum...
Completely useless for me. Doesn't find a single flight out of ROC.
While any court case, even a farce, may be more expensive than you want to bear, there is nothing to stop you from immediately removing the app from the store the moment they actually file.

What would that accomplish? He would still have in hand a summons to court and a lawsuit filed against him and whatever damages they felt were owed. Assuming they are unwilling to settle, now he has to go to court to defend himself, or risk getting a summary judgement against him.

You can ignore (as a calculated risk) letters claiming you're infringing. Ignoring an actual notice that a suit has been filed against you is another thing altogether.

[edit]
OK, at the time of filing, he won't have a summons, but he still has to Answer the Complaints filed.
Target’s New Missoni Collection Brings Down Site
This is just one more sign that investors fear AngelList. They are becoming increasingly desperate for anything that makes them not a commodity, and fragmentation is the only workable plan they have at this point.
in aggregate, i would say that everything in this study is on point. but there is a caveat—in aggregate. just as there is human variation in size, strength, appearance, so is there variation in intelligence, endurance and work ethic. try as i might, i will never be able to function well deprived of sleep, but my dad is a different story (he's 60, been through chemo, has migraines all the time and can still work longer than me—it's quite infuriating). the point is that all statistical methods which discount outliers, and productivity in aggregate would adhere to the gaussian bell curve†—the so-called normal distribution which by definition discounts outliers, will not show the work of the exceptional ones, whether they exist or not. given my own experience with my old man, i would say

1) it depends on the work
2) it depends on the type of production
3) it depends on the person
4) it depends on the time scale

i believe that those who think they are superhuman are mostly wrong, but some of them are right. wasn't it kahneman and tversky who measured confidence and for people over-estimated their skills? i'm pretty sure 95% of swedes believe that they are better than average in sweden (read taleb's the black swan#). and then there is the Dunning-Kruger effect^ which describes the underestimation of skills by the skilled and the overestimation of skills by the unskilled, the n00bs as it were. so i consider self-selection specious. i want to see a measure of the guys who didn't toot their own horn, or more appropriately, those recognized by their peers as being exceptional.

† production on long time scales does not fit to the bell curve because it can be 'bumpy', but normalized for innovation it should

# http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp...

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Here's what I am excited about as a developer. Access to live service such as skydrive etc. Ability to release the same app on windows phone with minimal changes. =Touch enabled apps in a marketplace where Microsoft does not take a cut as opposed to the 30% cut that Apple takes. What's not to be excited about?
I think his point was more that it can run an application as complex as Visual Studio, not necessarily that it can run VS itself.

Any tablet can create spreadsheets, but not as well as Excel. Any tablet can create a document, but not one that's going to be 100% compatible with the version of Word they have on their desktop PC. Those are all very strong reasons to buy a Windows Tablet.
Ancient world styling via bookmarklet.
Count me in. I already have Strang's textbook and have watched some of his lectures.

However, I was quite impressed with a few minutes of Khan Academy I watched the other day. I don't know what the dependency chain is for their L.A. modules but that site seems to have some good metadata and group organization tools.
Or they could forget doing their own fork and snag cyanogenmod or one of the many great custom roms that build on the open source core.

Oh wait, Samsung already hired Cyanogen...
Apparently there are at least two neg voters who think that showing an error message that something is "happy" when the app crashes to John Q. User is a good idea.
A Million Dollars Isn't Cool. You Know What's Cool? A Thousand Dollars.
I've been liking Khan's linear algebra stuff too, but feel like its time to level up.
"Obviously it would have to come with some lower level semantics, like memory management."

Why?

Once again: this approach means zero dependencies. And in a way, you answered it yourself:

Might not be fine for real time systems or games

And there are more examples where it might not be fine, here's a major one: building a C++ library. It's true, this article is not about real time systems (I do apologize for diverging...), but this language could be one solution to problems approached in this article (it would replace the C++ example).

I am interested in projects like shedskin or pypy, but they have dependencies. The bottom line to me is: a higher level language that compiles to C++ code with zero dependencies. Think about it: this language could be used for any application, deployed in virtually any codebase and any system.
I think old threads get locked (can't post new comments) relatively quickly on HN which would make it tough, it would involve making new posts and expecting everyone to find the new one. (Feel free to correct me on the locking thing)
That makes more sense but I do question the colleagues list, since a lot of people carefully sort which coworkers they fraternize with and prefer multiple lists, especially at large companies.
Awesome! Been wanting to build something like this for a while. One of the things the might be useful is the notion of which components of a stack are the most mature.
They did show an ARM tablet as well. Besides by the time it is released, processors would have gotten even better.
Thanks.

I will propose do something like this on my work.

Even if it's not practical, it will be fun to implement it.
Youtube - Since when was this acceptable?
As is evident from some of the comments here, the map and the search bar on top are totally extraneous to the basic task that the user wishes to perform.

The absolute barebones should be shown: Starting location, Destination, Dates. And then maybe a less noisy version of the price-points plot from which one can just drag and drop certain options into a bucket for comparison.

The fact that so much scrolling needs to be done to even get a basic understanding of the results means this needs to be reworked.
[sigh]

If you're on my lawn selling lemonade, I don't have to "ask" you to stop. If I tell you to stop, you'd better get your butt off, because you're trespassing. Same concept.
Windows 8 unveiled at BUILD 2011 | Front Side Bus
So do we post our answers and get downvoted if wrong? (and sometimes anyway)

It's hard to beat an elegant site like this that we're already registered for, but I'm having trouble visualizing matrices in this markup.

[ 1 0 0 ]
[ 0 1 0 ]
[ 0 0 1 ]

OK, worth a shot.
To me it seems it's a great idea that may save time looking for alternatives to a technology from its name.

Still, I think the most valuable part this site may add is the very notion of stack: what vertical choices work well together. For example would you or could you rather combine C# and MySQL or Python, Django and MySQL for a given context (scalability, criticity, developers profile ...)
I never said profit was their only motivation, but it is the reason they are a corporation, and not a charity.

I refer you to the comment above by jey

What Google "wants" as an entity is different from what the individual
component humans want.

Although Sergey is an obviously important influence at Google, he is not Google.
FYI: Metro and its tile interface predates Flipboard.