skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Another effect this will have on the start-up scene is that if you build your company in 'The Valley' that companies like Google will be competing with you for talent. You may have an upside from being in the SV eco-system in the first place, however you may find yourself paying a lot more for developers than if you were in a place where parties with pockets as deep as Google are rare.

Headquarters in Silicon Valley, development somewhere else might be a good strategy if you want to keep the burn rate under control.

Any thoughts on this? Can a small startup compete with the Googles and Apples in the Valley?
I looked at using BSON in a project a while back, and ended up scrapping it mainly due to perceived poor code quality. Plenty of potential errors ignored, unclear error messages, unsafe practices.

I was also turned off by the sloppy use of memory. Heap allocated objects returned from functions with poor checks to see if anyone manages that memory on the other side. Lots of instances of strcmp, strcpy and similar unsafe string/buffer manipulation functions.

It's been a while since I looked at it so I don't have any particular examples at hand, but that was my impression.
Very interesting. I recently worked on a little side project using MongoDB and I noticed during testing that some records would disappear at random. Glad to see this has happened to others. I suppose it's time to check out Redis.
Back in day PC's were a bigger platform and Mr. Gates name is not in the list.
Computer Packages
German anecdote: A few years ago my 2yr old son seems to have dialed 112 by accident. We learned about this a minute later when the fire department called back to check if we needed help.
Royal Ontario Museum - Toronto
I agree entirely - I think when people rebel against "relational databases" they're actually just realizing that the normalization fetish can be harmful in many application cases.

You're better off with MySQL or PostgreSQL managing a key-value table where the value is a blob of JSON (or XML, which I've done in the past), then defining a custom index, which is pretty damn easy in PostgreSQL. Then you have hundreds of genius-years of effort keeping everything stable, and you still get NoSQL's benefits. Everybody wins.
No Radim, you had the whole thing wrong, is not Mark Angela going into the gaming industry list, is Steve Jobs being among the most important people for the Pizza Industry.
If we're going to be talking about the future, that doesn't necessarily mean that Apple won't enter the hardcore market some day. After all, it's all up to the developers and game studios, and with everything merging into the living room, it's a real possibility.
Empower Network David Wood's Suite
It should be noted that this was not really a problem with MongoDB. Foursquare used a poorly-chosen shard key that caused a disproportionate load on one of its shards, and on top of that did not have proper system monitoring in place to alert them that a server was running out of RAM. It should also be noted that no data was lost in the process of resolving the problem.
ASUS to bring out the first Quad-Core Tablet and Smartphone
They only talk about healthcare and functional replacement? People seems to not talk much beyond that. The implication could be staggering.
Agree completely with you. And to my shame, I didn't read the poll question well enough. I had thought it was about what had the greatest impact in the last 15 years or so.

But given that the responses were:

iPhone: 17%
Wii: 7%
Xbox Live: 3%
PlayStation One: 3%
Steam: 2%

All of those are relatively modern. I would easily put the original Nintendo and/or Gameboy before most of those. The poll question is terrible and the respondents have too short a perspective.

Then again, if you're an avid fan and/or professional, you ought to be polled on things looking forward. Much respect to the original game developers, but anyone who is in the industry today who is going to focus on the great accomplishments in the 8-bit era are going to find themselves in the same trouble as Nintendo's current revenue trend.
I get this: http://i.imgur.com/VMfYb.png
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I definitely agree. Casual gaming has its place, but hardcore gamers and consoles have a market that is no way threatened by gaming on portable devices.

While, Angry birds and Zynga brought large sections of population into gaming, their involvement in hardcore gaming is still minimal. I will possibly be downvoted for this, but the amount of research that has been contributed by hardcore game development companies far surpasses the amount that casual game developers have produced. There is a visible differentiator between the two segments of gaming - and it will probably always be there.
you already can at microventures.com
$ 250,000 a year must include stocks, bonus, 401k and healthcare. As is, it doesn't match the insider information I have about Google's salaries.

Let's be realistic a minute, $ 250k/year is a lot of money.
Someone -- and indeed, looking at the real estate ads -- a lot of someones -- have to be running up the demand for $1M++ houses throughout Silicon Valley.
Good article. I strongly disagree with this though:

> And implementation complexity is the worst kind of complexity in the world: it leads to subtle bugs that occur on 0.000001% of programs, it leads to unpredictable and hard to analyze performance, it leads to volumes of rulebooks that specify how to appease the compiler

Implementation complexity is much better than interface complexity. It does not necessarily break down subtly. Unlike interface complexity, it is localized.
I wrote quite a popular blog post on how to check if a user to your site is logged in to GMail, Facebook, Twitter and Digg:

https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Pri...

GMail doesn't seem to be working any more though. But the concept is still useful to learn.
Browsing on mobile needs radical overhaul;fingerover events,sessions tied to pin
Anonymous Rats Out Operation Facebook Initiator
Some people don't really care about daytime and nighttime at all. To them, the DST is just a mindless insanity.
Quite the contrary, you don't know Google's non-compete work-contract provisions and, if any, how would they held up in court, so your statement is quite speculative.

Besides, the last thing you'd want to do is to work after-hours and find out your employer is owning the IP of your project (that's besides pager-duty and other after-hour things your employer might make mandatory anyway).

Regarding taking twice as long, just imagine projects like Dropbox or Twitter taking twice as long to get to the market - I doubt they would be competitive in the same manner.
I agree with your responses to 1 and 2. I take issue with the example for 3 though because Redis is nowhere near the complexity or feature set of MongoDB.
The missing citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_%28video_game%29#Histo... :)
I'm not living in the Valley (far from it, mind you :-) but I think a small startup has more to be worried about other small startups than about Google/Apple.
There are other bugs in the engine. PCRE has had several, I have no reason to believe any other engine is not similarly vulnerable. In a security context, a regex engine is best viewed as a virtual machine. Most virtual machines are not secure in the face of hostile code.
Jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 Beta 2 by Redsn0w 0.9.9b8
I didn't study CS in university, but my friends who have often mention subjects named after languages and frameworks (remarkably, I remember hearing about a year-long course on COBOL "because most national banks have a backend writen in COBOL").

(To clarify: I'm talking about schools in São Paulo, Brazil. No names mentioned because I've no first-hand experience — maybe they do have better courses and my friends are the ones picking the language-and-framework–related subjects.)
An equally important question is "when?"
I don't understand why this part is overlooked. Getting ICS within a month of release is not the same as getting ICS 12 months after release.
Search Engine Marketing | SEM
Jerry Sandusky
Jerry Sandusky
Frazier put on an even better show in their third fight, Downton Abbey Season 2 Finale Episode 8 Jerry Sandusky
Home Media:

-I record shows from my hdhomerun network tuner with MythTV

-I like Usenet better than bittorrent so I use sabnzbd

-I have a script that runs every night to transcode all my new video into a format that make my iPad and AppleTV happy.

Other Nerd Stuff:

I setup SSH to use as an encrypted socks proxy, but I found that I use it more to forward X11 apps. For security purposes, I think its safer to run firefox on my secure home server on a remote X11 display than it is to run local firefox on my Mac routed through my home proxy. It also means that when I want to take my netbook instead of my MBP, I can offload the resources of an app to my server so my netbook stays responsive.
Are you familiar with California's laws in this area?
VC Robert King Gives Stanford $150 Million Gift
Daylight Saving Time is a huge mess
This is very dubious - the Glassdoor stats at http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm have 1,500 entries for Software Engineers that max out at $190k and average $100k.

The position above, Senior Engineer, averages $130k.

There doesn't seem to be an incentive for 1,500 people to understate their earnings by 50%+ on an anonymous poll, especially a poll of engineers at one of those most engineering-centric companies in the world, where corrupting a dataset would likely feel akin to high treason.

Not inclined to trust second-hand information from one individual - sounds like they're either working at a much higher level than regular programmer, inflating their salary by including perks/stock/etc to make it seem higher, an extreme outlier, or just lying (people who tell their friends how much they earn in casual conversations also sound like the kind of people who would inflate that number).
Once upon a time I thought about using ml/vision in slot machines. I would try to read the gamblers emotions/age/sex and the slot machine would change stimulation (music/lights etc; not mess with the odds) to try to keep them at the machine longer.

I thought it was a good idea until I actually visited a casino. People sit at the slots in what looks like a hypnotic state. The emotions don't change much. I don't think I could have made a measurable difference.

I'm not surprised the gambling industry is using ml, but cool to hear about it. Thanks.
You are right on the money. Starting a startup while working for Google would be an absolute non-starter. Any code you write, they own (within certain restrictions that end up being so broad as not to matter.) And moonlighting in a business that competes with Google would be grounds for termination.
I think it's likely an application of Dunning-Kruger.

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which ... the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Ask HN: Where can I make logos generated with Google fonts
A month or two ago, someone posted a link to a site that would let you type in your name and select a color and a google font and would instantly generate the logo on the page. What was that link I cant find it with the HN search.
It's really dangerous to take one anecdote as data.
Double Entry Bookkeeping Dilemma
Haven't there been several stories in the last ~year about outrageous-sounding salary wars between the likes of Google and Facebook?

The average for "good" developers at Google might have shot up recently.
I will preface this by saying I have never worked at google and have not seen their employment contract so perhaps they've found a way around it but from what I understand, California has well established laws in place protecting moonlighting. As long as you aren't coding up a search engine or something that directly competes with the company, you should be ok.
Uh? Have you seen any demo videos? The fact that it talks back to you and can interact only by voice is pretty much the only feature that sets Siri apart from previous voice control solutions.

You could argue that it's not complete yet, but they are doing exactly what you describe.
The first thing you have to ask when faced with a survey like this is: who conducted the survey and to whom?

The London Games Conference is a high-level biz-dev and marketing conference. The questions were asked to readers of MCV - a games industry business and marketing magazine who are also sponsors of the show.

Says the editor of MCV:

“LGC is the only event dedicated to examining the ways connected gaming has transformed video games – we will be welcoming 300 industry professionals to head great leaders speak and discuss hot topics including how smartphone games are transforming the world.”

http://bastion.gamespress.com/link.asp?i=2097&r=7899&...
California's laws state that IP can only be contractually assigned to the employer if it is "related to the employer's business or [to the employer's] actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development." Google's position, when I was there, appeared to be that 1) any web app and 2) any app for any phone or tablet, was "related to ... actual or demonstrably anticipated R&D."
I spent the time to write all that, and all you got from it is "MySQL is just as bad"...I obviously did a bad job.

edit:

I brought up MySQL because I think we all know that companies, you, me knowingly ship products with bug. In fact, you can look at public bug tracking for a bunch of major software and see bug fixes scheduled for future releases.

However, if you are going to accuse a database vendor of knowingly shipping data-corruption bugs, I think you absolutely have to back that up. It's slanderous. Obviously, if you think that, you also shouldn't use their product. But you either know something the rest of us don't, or you're a complete ass, if you make those kinds of statements without evidence.
thats like saying the future of watching movies is watching youtube on mobile devices.

Hardcore games are not going anywhere.
But casual games will be played more.
To avoid you the trouble of writing a third introductory paragraph, I have done the automata theory course. I have also heard about halting problem. etc, etc :-)

Perl don't allow code execution blindly in regexps.

I have just had too much problems with simple stuff in PCRE.

My take away is to not use languages with PCRE for serious regexp work. Damn. I had hoped later versions were better.
That is about right. Below is salary data reported by the company to Department of Labor for labor purposes
http://www.salarylist.com/company/Google-Salary.htm
I'm very skeptical of the lost data claims. People using MongoDB are writing new code. New code has bugs. When data is lost, it's certainly more convenient to claim 'the datastore ate it' than to admit you have a critical bug in your own code.
regexps aren't regular, so most "proper" engines also do backtracking.

Indeed, if you stick with the regular subset, you can be really fast:

http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html
Can't find the link at the moment, but this is incorrect. The first results that came out of the initial trial showed no significant improvement in student performance using KA's approach compared to the traditional approach.

Edit: here is the link http://blendmylearning.com/2011/08/31/the-results/
And both companies were extremely transparent about it and the community generally appreciated the way it was handled:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mongodb-user/UoqU8of...
Odd, works fine on mine. Perhaps the site was just down?
Let me add some perspective to this as both an engineer and a Google employee.

The first thing I'll say is this: people lie about their incomes. They even do this anonymously (Glassdoor, etc). Not that I'm calling (or even suggesting) this a lie but be very careful believing anyone's salary claims unless they show you an original offer letter, employment contract or a W-2.

I'm not even sure if they're simply bad at math, lying to themselves or lying to others. Whatever the case, they lie.

With respect to Glassdoor and similar sites, another problem is different people have different ideas of what "salary" means. Does it include stock? Actual bonuses? Expected bonuses?

Likewise it's a skewed sample. I kinda have my doubts that many principal/distinguished engineers have the inclination to accurately report their incomes on such sites.

That being said, my experience in the outside world is that your salary quickly tops out as a senior engineer, architect, whatever. The only way to increase it is to move into management.

While you can move into management at Google, you can go very far (in terms of career and compensation) being simply an engineer if you're good at what you do, get things done and have a lot of impact.

This compensation can take many forms (vested stock, base salary, annual and periodic bonuses, etc).

Also, Google realizes that after you've been here awhile you become increasingly valuable. This is true for an engineer no matter where you work. The cost to a company of replacing someone who has worked there for years is huge (both in recruitment costs and getting them up to speed). Google is simply the only company I personally have worked for that seems to both recognize this and build it into the compensation system.

This really is a great place to work. That alone attracts and retains an awful lot of people. You can also get to work on some very large problems and systems (another draw card). The fact that Google does (or can) pay you very well is just icing on the cake.
You are the biggest moron ever! WTF do you think "spirit" means as in basic "spirituality 101"? Puppeted.

"Filled with the Holy Spirit" means what, in real terms?

God says...
C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\BIBLE.TXT

Joseph, for the tribe of the
children of Manasseh, Hanniel the son of Ephod.

34:24 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Ephraim, Kemuel
the son of Shiphtan.

34:25 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Zebulun,
Elizaphan the son of Parnach.

34:26 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Issachar, Paltiel
the son of Azzan.

34:27 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Asher, Ahihud the
son of Shelomi.

34:28 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Na

----

Interpretation -- Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary had sex when she felt an urge or something.

Hanabarbera? possible? I donno.

------------

God says

supreme Living ascend Vanilla slave servants sheep received
songs intelligible laying cases cold laboured copy one's
Master unsuitably owns betrothed slippery Whom corners
race behind rest bridegroom Terence balneum simplicity
tenderly blind savoured lists rolled disagreeing trample
glad dispensers derides mastery multiple additional Creusa's
four dedicated forethinking hereof craftier wrath recognised
calculation certainly roarest spare black Jove's affirmed
liability recognised teeming Euodius element advantage
Pylades earnest pitiable Young busy agreed origin deliveredst
balls forgetfulness hindered relaxation ensnared company
bad graceful vagrant expends United ills Bear contentious
My impression is that there is an unusually large dynamic range in the salaries of programmers, especially when looking at the middle third of the organizational hierarchy in non-technical companies. This post informs the discussion about finding compensation levels that are adequate to retain people with around 10 years of experience, who are exactly the type of people HN-ers would want making implementation level decisions.
I think it's on HN because such salaries will hunt talented or not even good engineers down and if this happens it could be a really hard time for startups. Let's be real for a second without engineers ideas are worthless and if all of those good ones are at big companies which gives a out a lot of cash what can you do as a startup? I don't it is bad as it sounds but it could be tough and it could kill a lot of startups in future if this attitude by big companies grows.

In the contrast: you don't have to start your company in the Valley to be good and maybe it can save you a lot of headaches and money to not do so.

But at the end the source of this problem is different: the Valley just needs more engineers to get things rolling.
> MySQL had a much bigger effect to the database world compared to PostgreSQL

And if MySQL never existed, what would have happened ? Would we have all used PostgreSQL in the first place and avoided years of painful instability ?

I read here all the time that fashion and ease of use are more attractive than reliability. And we introduce plenty of new software in complex architecture just because they are easy to use. We even introduce things like "eventual consistency", as if being eventually consistent was even an option for any business.

The problem is to not use random datastores. Use a database that has a proven record of stability. And if someone builds a database, he/she must prove that ACID rules are taken seriously, and not work around the CAP theorem with timestamps...

10 years ago, MySQL was not stable. PostgreSQL was. Today, most key-value databases are not stable, PostgreSQL is.
Your post only mentions two people a CEO and a developer. No CTO or technical founder is mentioned.
this makes no sense. english majors aren't majoring in how to speak english, they are honing their reading analysis and craft of writing. cs students aren't majoring in how to write computer code, they are learning how to apply their mathematical skills cultivated throughout school.
Yes, bad teachers can absolutely ruin it. I had a stats prof that just destroyed the class. I failed, along with a great many students. Took it again with someone else, learned the material, and got an A.

The difference was that one teacher could present the material in a way that people understood, and the other could not.
You're a developer, so why do you work for someone else?
Demand for SSDs will rise due to lower cost differential between HDD and SSD, causing their prices to at least stay even, but maybe rise temporarily.
And any idea how to handle best duplicate content (since is a free classifieds website, these ads are across all internet)?
See the comment below, it's not "directly", it's "demonstrably anticipated research or development", which in the case of Google means anything (even games, thanks to Google+).
Ask HN: Git & the enterprise
Hey ppl!

As a developer, I'm really enthusiastic about Git and I think it fits greatly in my development workflow. However, I've only used it in small personal projects. I would like to know what do you think about using Git in a big enterprise company, pro's and con's, and failure/success stories if you have any.

KR,
vinth
David Gelernter: Pursuing a Piracy Claim Against Apple
"big joins" ?

Aren't joins one of the things that NoSQL loudly and proudly announces that it isn't suitable for?
For those looking to ditch Amazon over their mismanagement, try a real VPS provider like RapidXen.
MongoGate — or let's have a serious NoSQL discussion
No, GPLv3 does, OpenJDK is GPLv2 only explicitly.
http://use.fontorie.com/
>Why are we programmers forced to take courses in English when English majors aren't forced to take introduction to programming?

They were at Georgia Tech
One of the things that I love about Couch is that the standard way to shutdown the process is simply doing a kill -9 on the server process. No data loss. No Worries. Want to back up your data? rsync it and be done with it.

Couch may have its warts, but it is damn reliable.