skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Requirements are an information tool, just as any document is an information tool.

Any company where software is handed down from developers to users on a one-way street with no collaboration, refinement, and iteration is working with an inefficient process.

Any company where requirements are handed down from users to developers on a one-way street with no collaboration, refinement, and iteration is working with an inefficient process.
Remember unemployment insurance rules vary depending on the state. New York State for example asks if you are employed, not if you are drawing a salary.
How Online Privacy Has Become an Oxymoron
I built this thing as a learning experience.

Jeremy Ashkenas then proposed to make it open source as an example app so that people could learn from it too. I finally had a chance to contribute to open source (but I did not know it would be a significant contribution)

I'm just glad it's been picked up by so many frameworks along the way. I think this is in big part due to the fact that it had just the right amount of simplicity / complexity and is perhaps one of the most basic use case for a framework like that. The new "Hello World" first-timer experience.
He's being honest. The existing solutions aren't any good, so he made one that is better.

There are thousands or millions of FOSS projects that were started because the existing ones are bad, and they've all said that they were started because the existing ones are bad. It's just the way it works.

Now, if both he and his competitors were serious companies with a handful of employees that were charging money, then it would be less appropriate. But they aren't. His project was created because the competition's projects are ugly, and he should be able to say that.
Show HN: console4Worker - Console API for WebWorker
Microchip open source USB/TCPIP stack competition rules announced
There is a comment from jmfay on there that talks about "illegals"...
Hmm, it appears as if you have a stick up your ass. Maybe you should work on that.
How to Design a Business Card
Smeed’s Law for Programming
I am in Australia so have to watch from afar, but I am really keen to see exactly how Stripe operates.

As far as I can work out (I obviously don't have a login) part of what will make them brilliant is they enable you to accept payments in minutes, I.e don't require you to hold a merchant account / create one for you.

Is this correct? Keen to know more as PayPal are really the only other service that do this and their increasingly difficult fraud protection barriers must be a result of the complexity of managing such a service.
From what I've read, I wouldn't pick MongoDB my first choice for a large data warehouse. Maybe 10gen can change that.
Looks quite useful for people who use vim a lot.

Seems basic vim features work well enough.

Will keep an eye on it for sure.
Google: replacing the Web one part at a time?
The idea is that we all plan to get "senior" together: after 10 years, one year of seniority difference won't impact the ending value much at all.
No text objects yet: https://github.com/misfo/jim/issues/11

This was the implement-everything-from-Vim-that's-really-annoying-not-to-have release. Text objects are scheduled for the implement-everything-from-Vim-that's-pretty-annoying-not-to-have release.
Insider Threat: Top Scientist Pleads Guilty to Espionage
That quote doesn't appear to be specific to this post. It's on every page of the blog. For example:

http://itechtalks.blogspot.com/search/label/amazon
Previous discussion about these stacks and Microchip's licensed GCC compiler on HN here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2972794 A quote from the referenced article, also by the author of this post:

> "It’s their time-honored right to deal in closed source software – most companies do! With the chipKIT, however, Microchip wants to tap the Arduino buzz. They want promote products using the work of an open source community, but they’re not participating in the spirit of that community. It’s not illegal, it’s being a bad neighbor."

The previous post was much more negative, this one represents a complete turnaround for DangerousPrototypes. See also http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/09/07/microchip-responds/:

> "Bottom line, we can’t release our existing stacks because we have contractual obligations to many of our customers that prevent us from making them open source. \ So how about this: We offer a prize for anyone who writes these stacks for the community. To get started, the two that we want to target are the TCP/IP and USB stacks. Heck, who better to write these than the experts in the community…?"
1. I run a business. Therefore I make jobs. Or don't.

2. If I fire an employee, a portion of the cost of that person's unemployment claims is charged back to me. The employer. It isn't government largesse that funds unemployment claims. It's me.

3. Will this program be yet another potential cost to me? Hard to tell from the PR and press-gab. We'll have to see the law and how it is implemented. Devil in the details, etc.

4. My payroll is suddenly $100K/year lighter than it was. Am I going to replace that guy with another full-timer? Fuck, no. Hello, independent contractors.

5. By the way. I pay 100% of the medical costs for all my employees.
If you do this you are probably violating the unemployment rules in your state[1]. If you reported this income with the unemployment office you will most likely have your benefits reduced or eliminated. But most people don't report this income and get away with "double dipping" which was heretofore not allowed. Technically if the government found out you did this they could penalize you retroactively. But this is a hassle and most people just get away with it unnoticed.

Even more technically, some states will even deny unemployment benefits if you are working without pay such as in a startup situation (and you are honest enough to admit this). It's not about income or full utilization, it's are you working at all.

The change in the law makes getting paid for self employment legal. Although if your self employment included revenue I assume it would still count against the amount you received from unemployment, again depending on your state.

[1] http://career-advice.monster.com/salary-benefits/benefits-in...
BASIC worked just fine as a first language for most people who grew up in the 80s.

But as I said earlier in the thread. We shouldn't teach them programming, or specific languages. We should teach them general problem solving.
what does she make with Scratch?
Well, I'd say then, that's what abstractions are for!

Seriously, I think that's part of the role of abstractions, and that's why we _currently_ can talk about and use reals.

Even though we can't write the entire Pi number, and the program used to calculate all its digits might never finish, we do have a symbol for it, and put it to good use. What do you think?
Yasheng Huang: Does democracy stifle economic growth?
The Totally Unofficial Ruby coding style guide
Cdncss.com - the next step
Instagram: Fashion's Latest Darling
he fashion community has always been quick to adopt new technologies, but its passion for Instagram, a platform that allows users to express individual visions, is unmatched.
Can you elaborate on that? If you could open a Github issue describing the functionality I'll do my best to make it in the next version.
The Future of Artificial Intelligence (1984)
Screenshots of UI frameworks could be nice.
Global Domains International - Build Your Residual Income
Work from home with Global Domains International (GDI) and build your residual income. The 37th fastest growing and Inc 500 ranked company.
Knowing things isn't really the tip off of a good programmer.

Put them in a foreign environment, with a foreign language/api/framework/application/etc and within a short learning curve they will find solutions to problems 1) you didn't know you had, or 2) you had long since given up on finding a better solution to.

If you can replace the programmer with books (and time to read them), they can't be that valuable. You don't pay one person 5 times market rate if 5 people at market rate can do their job. You pay someone for the concentration of talent.
There seems to be an issue with detecting the second monitor on certain cases. I'm looking into it but didn't find a solution yet.
As an iPhone Developer I've found Testflight to be really really simple and easy. For users of my apps they've not had to do anything too technical and they get guided through the process.

Kudos for them, and even more for letting it be free!
Well I did not agree with the 'God being a single electron'. I just observed that a theory like the single electron is nominated for being 'interesting' while other theories are being nominated as 'not possible'.

Edit: The egg theory is even on top of this thread...
Thank you times a million for a Heinlein I'd never read! I thought I'd got them all.

Isn't there another one like this involving a wizard who rules in a castle?
A Virtuous (and Fun?) Way To Trade In Old CD's
I don't know how the current flagging system works, but dealing with it in a slightly more intelligent way could reduce the number of false positives. Some basic filtering based on obviously spammy links, domains, language could be used. For flagged posts which aren't caught by such a spam filter, let the total number of flags decide.

Right now it seems that it only takes a couple of flags to push a story off the front page.
How to Improve Your Website Revenue
It would be really good to get some Selenium tests written up for them as well so that we know they all, and all future ones, behave the same. I might do this if I get a bit of spare time.
Hi guys,
January this year we created "cdnjs.com - the missing cdn". Since then we have acquired full sponsorship from CloudFlare.com who have stabilized the hosting infrastructure and reached new speeds Amazon S3 could not.

Cdnjs has had measurable popularity and going into the new year we thought it's time to step it up a notch and host popular CSS snippets/frameworks. The idea itself is in a trial and once the community has spoken we will again make informed decisions on infrastructure if we are to go ahead.

At the moment we are inviting anyone and everyone to contribute to the cdncss.com project.

Simply create an issue or comment on issues that you think are important, if you have the time we would greatly appreciate populating the actual repository via a fork request.
Budget Travel
Take some tips for your next vacation .
I think this whole episode is fascinating. I've been expecting larger companies to make clumsy moves into open source hardware for a while now, and it's finally happening.

I'm a little surprised that the Dangerous Prototypes fellow isn't more skeptical of a $1000 prize for a TCP/IP stack. It's certainly far below market rate for porting an open source stack to a new platform. I wonder whether it will work-- will they actually get a functional stack out this gambit?
Too bad that EVE Online only seems to get into news for that kind of thing. I haven't played it, but I occasionally dream about the possibilities of less regulated MMORPGs, which EVE seems to be.
CCK 3's stability isn't the issue here. Given the module maintainer's track record nobody in the community doubts that 3.x would have reached maturity. That development effort was halted when it was announced that Fields API was going in core. In the mean time you still can't sync multiple instances of multiple fields using pure Fields API, not to mention the huge number of field types entirely unrepresented in the core implementation.

So again, we have traded 30 extra sections of time spent on an initial site installation for a feature locked partial implementation that cannot change for at least the next 3 years. Even if the implementation was complete, given how quickly the web changes I don't think any of us can confidently say that it will be well positioned to meet the needs of the day 3 years from now and now that it's in core, it cannot grow between major number releases, which is really what this is all about.

My statement about the database is not incorrect, but I recognize that it's an unpopular position. I am well aware of the stated design goal of the new API. The problem remains that core devs have troweled a ridiculous amount of additional complexity into core to satisfy a small contingent of potential enterprise users that are hell-bent on running MSSQL or Oracle.

I recognize the tradeoff here. On the one hand you have ease of use. On the other you have huge stacks of enterprise client cash. I don't think anyone's confused about which way Acquia went on this one.
Droplets Patent Lawsuit Targets iTunes, Apple Web Sites
Agreed with the divide. Technically, back in the early 90's we did "office studies", "mathematics" and "technology" which each had overlapping portions of relevance.

It's still like that today.

It's just with the ubiquity of computing, most people just don't give a shit about writing software any more because they don't have to when doing useful work.
This week's CodeBrawl contest
Yeah, or they could not. HH is a great idea, but with a tutorial that most people it's targeted at can't follow.

It's the kind of thing programmers love, "look, it teaches people to code using my favorite language!", but doesn't actually do anything to teach kids to program.

If you want to teach someone to code, start them off with Scratch (or something similar), then pick a language to start with based on their intentions. If they want to learn gamedev, for example, give them C++.

Yes, I fully expect this to be downvoted to hell and back because of all the _why worshipping on HN. I'm fine with that.
The Hotness of Hurricane Names
Poll: Your YCNYC application response?
Diversify Your Link Sources to Protect Your Site
I don't see much use in redefining the word 'thing' into oblivion.

An electron is a thing. Start with that to build your definition. If you think 'thing' has strange and wondrous properties then get to that separately.
Ah, then it's a bad idea because it seems to be casting judgement on it. (And probably many other pages.)
I absolutely agree. There are zero guarantees in life.

I left a reasonably stable small company to take a risk as employee #2. But where my experience may have diverged from what OP describes was in the hiring process. My new employer was very up front with the fact that, hey, it's a startup, and it might not take off. We discussed some alternative options & put some timelines in place to help reduce the risks I'd face.

Might everything fall apart tomorrow? Sure. But my company was 100% up front with me regarding my risks -- at least if we fail, we fail together.

I've had friends who have joined companies as the #1 where the owner completely misrepresented the situation of the company throughout the whole process, were burned, and are now working stable jobs that they hate. That's the biggest shame of all.
Competitive wages are incentive to not leave. Profit sharing is incentive to do good things.

The former must be dependent upon local wages. The latter is able to incorporate fairness.
If you happen to be in Chicago, or near Chicago this week, be sure to come to PostgreSQL Open from Wednesday to Friday this week(Sept 14th-16th).

http://postgresopen.org/2011/
How web-based software can help USA Small Businesses in Recession
I taught my kids Scratch from MIT. I think that is sufficient for the average 9/10 year old. Then the girl went on to learn more on her own and is now programming electronics.

If LOGO is no longer being taught in schools as it seems, then we have a problem. LOGO is what made me love programming. That fucking turtle/pixel. Goddamn.
Vim mode for in-browser editor Ace (used by GitHub)
There was actually a time in the 1980s when software developers got a percentage of profits. I remember working at WordPerfect in the late 80s and seeing some of the developers houses - one guy built a medieval castle complete with a working moat and drawbridge.

At the time I was hired in '89 or so they were doing away with that practice. "New developers don't get royalties any more."

But, it was a good business to be in for a short time. I'm not sure if Microsoft developers ever enjoyed royalties.
That situation has somewhat improved in Windows 7. In Enterprise and Ultimate editions users may choose their language freely, and MS docs are bit unclear, but apparently there is Language Interface Packs for other editions too. And I think system locale is settable even without the corresponding language pack, but I'm not sure what it actually does.

But yes, I forgot that in Windows language settings are bit strange.
If there is, I don't know of one.

History teaches all sorts of wonderful analytical skills that I use all the time as a start-up founder - it's great training for what I do.

However, by the time you make it a significant way into a Ph.D. program, you get ruined culturally - you end up thinking you're going to get a job in academia, or you're a complete failure.

Switching careers after your mid 20s feels like an impossible undertaking (it's not hard at all, but we're talking about feelings here), so you keep on slogging it out.

If you do come across some all-but-dissertation from a good program who actually wants to try new things, snap them up.
Even if you do, your total assets are taxed. If you're rich enough, you'll lose ~35% of what you have if you decide to expatriate.
Average of 2700 calories/day?! This might not be unusual for certain types of athletes, but this is astounding. Even more so when one considers that number likely includes children, so the adult average may be even higher.
Better habits
Great story, thanks! I don't believe in the collecting of experiences through past lives thing. However, I sometimes think if the Borg are misrepresented in Star Trek: wouldn't it be great if we could save all experiences and thoughts of all beings on earth living now and also have a way to easily browse this vast collection? The Internet to the n'th degree.
Did anyone really need this explained? I think anyone questioning this is trying to be a chicken and just grousing about the status quo.

I mean, if they aren't willing to commit big-time, why should a VC?
Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings. Inquire within.)
GOOD MORNING!! About once every month, I ask the community if there's anything I can help them with. I do this becuase I like this community a lot and totally believe in the whole "Pay It Forward" mantra. Crazy or not, I'm interested in helping you be a little more successful today. I've been calling these "No Strings" sessions. (Because there are no strings attached.) I've been doing this for a little while, so let me tell you a few things I've done to help others...

- I've given some really helpful advice for new-comers to the tech industry and those wanting to break into the field (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2544986)

- I'm a product of my own re-invention and like to show others how rewarding it can be (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2545255),

- I'm planning educational workshops for our community to learn (cram) on different technologies and how they can be quickly used for different benefits,

- I read approximately 600+ different articles, blog entries, and stories each month about what the tech world is doing. (I'm pretty informed!)

- I understand good design from bad design. Aesthetics are not lost on me.

- I have a family (two kids) and juggle a hectic work-life balance (volunteering, full-time gig, building a startup, social life?) that's gradually improving.

If this sounds too good to be true, feel free to learn more about who I am and why I do these things at my blog: http://nobulb.com/personas/.

If there's something I can help you with, just ask here or @mikegreenberg on Twitter. Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out. Also, I should be able to do your request within 10-15 minutes (a soft time limit so I can spread the love a little quicker).

Last time, the response was overwhelming and I was still answering questions days later (because I wanted to). If you want to get your question answered sooner (rather than later) your request should be thoughtful, sincere, researched and considerate of other people who might want help, too.

Cheers!

PS: This is how it went last few times I did this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2877712

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2767448

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649226

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2544886

PPS: I'm not asking for anything in return, however, there IS one way you could show your appreciation if you felt the need. I'm working on a project and currently doing some validation. If you would consider taking a short 2-minute survey, I would be quite appreciative.

Survey: http://idjump.wufoo.com/forms/online-identity-and-you/
Kevin Grittner will be talking on Serialization this Friday,
September 16th 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. His talk will be recorded... so those who aren't in Chicago can see/hear it later next week.
http://postgresopen.org/2011/schedule/presentations/61/
We use F# and Scala at our fund.

I run technology there.

Feel free to fire me off an email if you'd like to know more.
Yes, even if it gets the job done. Because if it gets the job done poorly, by causing significant battery drain or performance problems or other hallmarks of bad code, you are mistreating your users.
I think this story is one answer for why to do this instead of real investing: risk can be more fun when not much is really at stake. The victims of this scam just lost some numbers, not their life savings.

As for a dedicated trading game, often having a game mechanism embedded into a larger universe makes it more fun than just doing that on its own. This way you have enough consequences to the risk to make it interesting, but not enough to really be damaging.
I only have a couple criticisms. One is that I wish the shortcut for copying to the clipboard were easier. cmd shift p takes two hands, so I have to take my hand off the mouse to copy the color.

The other is that the zoomed in preview probably shouldn't be antialiased as it makes it harder to see the individual pixels.

Other wise this is a really nice app, good work!
Just a question about Yipit... don't they need millions of visitors to be successful?

100K visitors/month sounds nice, but they're in the deal aggregating business, so the margins are even less than if they were a deal site. They don't make money off every single user, and when they do... they make a tiny percentage as affiliate commission. Am I missing something here? I know regular old-fashioned coupon sites(like CouponCabin) that make good profit, but they have visitors in the millions, and their margin is much more.
Maybe I am projecting, or misinterpreting because I lack context, but I actually find the quote posted by angrycoder to be (by Nietzsche's standards, anyway) rather uplifting, and not about absurdism or a fundamental lack of meaning in the world. My take on it is quite the opposite - that he was expressing something noble and almost 'hyperreal', namely the triumph of curiosity and exploration over the safe and familiar.

I may have totally missed the point, of course. Thanks for replying - I'll definitely check out your links.
That's a neat idea, but I'm not sure I've ever needed it. :)
Ashton Kutcher goes naked on live TV
I really wish they would straighten out their documentation. I've only looked a few times but it seems very conditional in the description of features like replication sets, etc. I think they should have it organized like the MySQL site has it. E.g. view 5.0 documentation here, or 5.1 here, etc.

The way it is now I couldn't tell you right away what version supports what just by glancing at the docs for a minute.