skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Exactly what I came here to post. There is a huge difference between smart spec work and the 99 designs marketplace spec work.

That said, I really don't see where the problem is in the design ecosystem right now. Talented designers are not having problems finding really well paying work, in fact there are probably more opportunities than there are designers. On the other end you have the 99 designs space. Here there are a few hundred "designers" rehashing the same concepts, over and over, for clients you'd NEVER want to work for on anything significant.

You pay for what you get.
Your motivation for discounted work is that you want them to come back and continue to give you work, and you want them to recommend you to others.

Forest, trees, etc.
Amen. Buttons are a hack: http://globalmoxie.com/jhc/prez/buttons-hack-w2e.pdf
Churchill & FDR rallying their countrymen in a time of global crisis; JFK leading Americans through one of the most tense periods of the nuclear age; MLK bringing discipline, wisdom and guidance to a country deep in the throes of social upheaval; Obama addressing a country embroiled in two wars and entering a deep economic crisis to offer hope; Steve Jobs announcing the iPad.

One of these things is not like the other.
Np, feel free to email me if you have any day-of questions! I love hackathons and need to start going to more out-of-SF ones.
I doubt there are sea serpents beyond the poisonous sea snakes I have personally seen and which are not contested by anyone.

However, using this same, common "debunking" methodology, I can debunk the existence of airplanes by pointing out that sightings of alleged airplane lights in the sky can be explained by hypothesizing they actually saw the planet venus and swamp gas. Concluding then that airplanes don't exist doesn't really follow from this though.
Since when are most designers against "true" spec work? Anytime I hear something like "the possibility of future payment and work", I run away as fast as I can. That's the kind of "spec" work the design community could do without.

Crowd-sourced spec work is another matter altogether. If a potential client points to those sites as a way of driving down your price, they're not the kind of clients you want to work with.

There's nothing wrong with taking on a high profile job for the exposure and doing it for free if you treat it like an extraneous circumstance and a business decision. But compared to people in other fields, designers are a little soft on what are acceptable payment terms, and are often taken advantage of as a result. Free = free and paid = paid, but "spec work" is a grey area that is on the whole bad for the community.
I've had a gmail account since the service started, and I have an email address thats just my first name--a very common first name. Because of this, 15 email addresses are associated with mine (as in, I can reset their passwords and what not). Not really the same kind of deal, and it doesn't really affect me--just the people who signed up with my email. Just had to rant about it.
yeah, but, it's not immediately clear to me why they built sugarskull instead of a client library to match connect's routing (I've used sammyjs for that purpose)
and while I do appreciate the philosophy of plates (I've done something similar), I wonder why wasn't that implemented as an express 'template engine'.
I'm sure there's good reasons:
I'd like them spelled out ;{)}
looking good.
Yeah, I think I got the better end of the deal :-)
Tribe Marketing- Is This THE Trend?
There are alot of banks and even Hedgefonds that did not invest into realestate (because the could not actully figure out what that stuff was worth and didn't buy them just because it was what "The cool kids where doing") and where not in trouble. An yes you are right the hole system has "trouble" but the system wont just crash. Everybody that is "bad" will go done and maybe some others will go down but if a bank had enough reservse and had not a shitlode of bad asseds the could survive the storm. The remaining good asseds of the banks that go bust will be liquidateted. The conservative banks can now make the money that the did not get in the boom years.
It also gets laundered through Hong Kong (mostly Lantau) through gambling (a good reason to be against gambling in general - it's a very well known way to launder money)
A smart employee would make sure that such a contingency was added to the contract; e.g., if you sell the company at two weeks before my five-year anniversary, I get the pro-rated bonus.
monetization idea -> sell as a background service on say HR application forms (or any text area on a form) so that they can watch back exactly how somebody filled in their application.
Hm, that's a good point and would be a better system than what I was interpreting it to be since there wouldn't be the gut feeling of a wage loss after 5 years.

BTW, I should clarify I'm not intrinsically opposed at all to anything in the article, I'm just pondering about the design of the system and its potential advantages and drawbacks compared to other possible incentive systems.

Ultimately such human incentive plans are unpredictable in advance of being first done and thus the proof is in the pudding, it will be an interesting experiment to see carried through and see what the results are.
Loveless: Betrayal
>Technically the state still owns your apartment and you were just paying for "usage fee" because that's how communism/socialism works.

The fee part sounds like something other than communism.
Ultimately, whoever writes the checks gets to decide what to strive for. If you can afford to hire a developer for each platform, great. Otherwise HTML5 is a compelling alternative.
SHA 3 hash function competition
Hm, side projects, I have a few...

http://localbeer.me (find locally brewed beer)

http://la-weather.com (what's the weather like in LA - still in _very_ early development)

http://imgonly.info (just the images from the Reddit RSS feed)

http://uberqr.com (QR Code generator/link shortener, _very_ basic)

That's all I can think of right now...
> Although the Unix v6 source may seem like an ideal introduction to operating systems engineering because of its simplicity, students doubted the relevance of an obsolete OS written in a now defunct dialect of C. In addition, students struggled to learn the details of two different architectures, the PDP-11 and x86, at the same time.

Those students were MIT students. I'd expect MIT students to not have had a problem with either of these, so I'm a bit puzzled.
This is a video.

If you submit a link to a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There is a death penalty in China for trying to form a labor union (and people said American labor unions opposed "free trade" agreements with China out of pure selfishness...).

Anyway, there's a complex mix of people in China afraid of being killed.
I can think of 6 frameworks: iOS, Android, WP7, Blackberry, Palm OS, Meego.
As a recent adopter of MongoDB, it was interesting to read about the issues that were raised. While I was already reasonably familiar with how it worked from my experiences with it, following this whole kerfuffle has actually been an interesting insight into the history of MongoDB and helps equip me as a potential advocate/evangelist to be able to respond to common criticisms.

10gen definitely handled it perfectly.
I Want!

How do you plan on countering the lack of trust (for anyobody making an AMI)? Will they be audited by a third party?
The "shit work" essay was picked up by another writer I deeply respect, John Gruber, who quoted it and put it in the slug:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/03/shit-work

So I'd say it did benefit.

"Shit work" is an evocative image that is more than just swearing.
True, but any work counts. Having a logo crowdsourced by Moleskine would be a great honour. Something which the AntiSpec campaign is up in arms against.
Contractor Posting
Contractor Posting

We are a start-up equity hedge fund based in San Mateo, California. We have an immediate opening for an experienced Python developer as a contractor for 2 (or more) months. Work hours are flexible, but we are looking for an average commitment of at least 20 hours per week.

The job includes Python programming, creating graphic reports, automating processes, writing bash scripts in the Linux operating system, working with large data sets, and software QA. The successful candidate must be experienced in Python (NumPy and matplotlib a plus), SQL, Linux, and bash. Some experience in the financial or money management industry is a plus.

If you are interested, please contact: ken.hui@nipuncapital.com.
Instead of thimbles, implants beneath the skin within fingers?
The funny part of this is that maybe everyone is tired of this argument after so many weeks of it. No one whining in the comments of this story. Yet, anyway.
No, I’m serious. Who the hell are you people and what do I do with you?
That doesn't change the fact that people who bought a 3GS 2.5 years ago are still getting significant updates to the hardware. Really, what better way is there to support a product than continue selling it?

If you want to look at the other options out there, Android is doing a terrible job. A number of Android phones don't even ship with the most recent version of the OS and some never see updates at all. It's getting better, but it's far from great.
YouTube insisted I login in order to watch some movie trailer, so I did so with my gmail account. It then insisted that I give a nickname. I didn't care at the time, as I figured I could just change the name later - surely the only unique ID here is my gmail account. And that's why my YouTube name is skadfjlsakdfjlksdfjl.
We all edit ourselves and present various versions, but hopefully the personas we create have an integrity beyond an intention to 'brand' ourselves in simple marketing scheme.

I like the way you phrased that: 'consistent self'. It's true we have lots of 'selves,' but hopefully we work to integrate those and connect them to some truth about us that's more than simply 'build a following.'

The idea of a persona as a 'brand', it seems to me reduces too quickly to commericalism or ego or both.
I disagree.

I think a lot of people are taking people's anti-spec to be very black and white, especially from the email and private communication i've received from this. :)
"13 things you can do right now to increase your conversion rate.

#1: block the content."

http://i.imgur.com/GTgzM.png
If you want the rest of the smart phone market, you'll need a C++/QT app, another Java app, and a .Net app. Conveniently, you can #include lua.h in all of these (except maybe BlackBerry) and end up only writing the UI code in the native language.
Stop haranguing this kid with alternately treacly and condescending tone. Just drop it! This is HN at it's conformist worst.
Very bad, at least in our case (small company). They reply mostly with templates. When one issue would have taken a bit more time to solve (Thunderbird IMAP issue with ONE of our user names) they simply stopped responding after a while.

AND: You can NOT go back to the free service, at least not easily! Talk about lock-in...
Interesting. Both programming and design internships I've seen personally have been severely lowered pay. Because mentoring is meant to subsidise that (Though I've seen little mentoring in those cases.)
The OP isn't saying "let's not offend anybody." She's asking conference speakers and organizers to maintain a minimal level of professionalism and respect as is standard in pretty much any other industry.

Dirty/sexist jokes in professional conferences do not count as "diverse standards of humor." They just make our industry look immature and unwelcoming.
It's great that you're caring about the things that you do, but what's a corporation's primary goal? increase shareholder equity

Especially, I would think, in companies that received millions of dollars of investment from outside sources (VCs). (In exchange for amounts of control by those same investors)

Pride of creation is one thing, but I would caution you against using this as a blinder: the corporation is not (and can not legally be) loyal to you. [Edit: unless you provide more shareholder equity then the next person... and then only until the person who increases shareholder equity more than you comes along]
The documentary "One Millionth Tower" was uses popcorn.js to pull in realtime weather data, Flickr photos, Google Streetview maps while you are watching the video. All of it seamlessly integrating into the documentary. Here is the code for the documentary: https://github.com/m4robb/one-millionth-tower

There are a lot more examples on http://popcornjs.org

Using Mozilla's Popcorn Maker webapp, anybody can make a similar project: http://mozillapopcorn.org/popcorn-maker/
Well who would you put in chail? The people that plaid the system to make a better salery? Why everbody does that, people just want to get ahead, its human nature (evolution).

The people that bought the realastate the couldn't efford? Well the state wanted people to buy realastate and everbody knew the prices cant go down.

If I would have to blaim one person, it would be alan greenspan (read up on the "greenspan put" and what he did after 2000) but I would put him into chail for it. If we would put everybody behind bars because the did a bad job half the world would be there.
I love swearing. The better the programmer, the more I enjoy it. No humor attempted in this serious post of support for Zach, whoever he is.
I wonder what Robert Graves would make of all this? [See his Lars Porsena, or the Future of Swearing and Improper Language, 1927, Kegan, Paul, and Trench, London]
The Pirate Ship as an Organizational Model for Startups
> Perhaps it's an American thing, but in Britain I'm not aware of anyone I know who'd react in hysterics at the thought of a strong word appearing in something as public as a slide deck!

Never once has this discussion been about the offensive nature of swear words in slide decks or presentations. It's about whether or not swearing adds value or is just used to cover up a speaker's inadequacies in capturing the audience's attention.
False dichotomy. There's a broad middle ground between the positions "Don't do anything that may ever offend anyone. Humor of any sorts is completely unacceptable" and "Dick jokes totally belong in official presentations at industry tech conferences".
Contractor Posting for Bay Area

We are a start-up equity hedge fund based in San Mateo. We have an immediate opening for an experienced Python developer as a contractor for 2 (or more) months. Work hours are flexible, but we are looking for an average commitment of at least 20 hours per week.

The job includes Python programming, creating graphic reports, automating processes, writing bash scripts in the Linux operating system, working with large data sets, and software QA. The successful candidate must be experienced in Python (NumPy and matplotlib a plus), SQL, Linux, and bash. Some experience in the financial or money management industry is a plus.

If you are interested, please contact: ken.hui@nipuncapital.com
One of the best ways to influence people is to ask someone to do a favor for you. Especially if the person you are asking has more perceived power. It is called the "Ben Franklin Effect"

Teenage girl (to teenage guy):

"Can you help me with my homework?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
A Tale of Two Ski Areas
It's interesting how much more positive the reaction overall is to spec-work not in design, like Kaggle's machine-learning competitions. There's some negative sentiment towards Kaggle, but much less, and much of it boils down to, "meh, I don't consider it worth my time, but if others do, that's their decision". I'm guessing it's mostly a question of economics; ML consultants don't feel like spec work threatens to seriously affect their pay, while designers are more worried. Photographers seem to be at the far end, with photography forums full of all sorts of crazed ranting, some even claiming that people who CC-license photos and upload them to Wikimedia Commons are unethical.
Flash in some ways delivered what Java promised to. Truly one code base on multiple devices. Supporting many devices and OS' is what Flash conquered. I kind of chuckled at the iOS statements about Flash, but it seems to run OK on every mobile device I ever got to try it on.

Potato, Potatoe.

If browsers are the new Universal Interface to conquer and standardize, there's a new problem. We now have variety in implementation of standards, making those standards tough to use.

Where Flash was when it was 2-3 years old isn't much different than where HTML5 is for those of us who have been around long enough... except there's a lot more browsers out there than there were Operating systems.

Flash could control how efficient it was, or wasn't.. but who will make sure all the browsers process HTML5 efficiently?

Are we really aware of how much we're going to get ahead, and how soon?

How much time will I spend recreating what Flash, or something else could do for me already today, so I'm not just trading some great HTML5 features for spending my time coding stuff Flash has?

I don't use a ton of Flash or HTML5 right now and don't foresee it. When it's the best tool, I use it. Where it's not a complete tool, I'll think twice.

This is one area though, where Adobe's expertise might be second to none -- making it work identically everywhere as best as possible with gracefully degrading libraries.

I hope their recent acquisitions serve as fuel for solving a problem really needing solving.. by them or someone.

Should be interesting to see what happens when we get what we wished for, the devil we don't know vs the devil we kind of did.. :)
That is definitely not our intention. We added the automatic screenshot uploading because we thought it'd be useful for us. It's something we use everyday and we thought others would like it as well. We will be releasing a new build today that turns this off by default.
I know! And it's ridiculously high, beats any property tax in U.S. That's probably one of the reason why the Chinese government is so rich.

The propaganda has invented a new saying, calling this the Chinese Socialism, and it tries to credit itself for the economic boom after the 1980s. We the people think that the gov is just trying to collect massive money after they abandoned soviet communism so everyone had a chance to make a better life. The chance is getting slimmer as the gov is getting much more greedy than in the 80s.
You need to compare with a female presenter, audience with a vast female majority and jokes meant for women -> I think men in the audience would be uncomfortable.
Actually, in this case, they made sure only one person was on a thread at a time, to make sure "Alla" had a consistent voice.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that an internship where you create something that a company benefits from, and you are not paid for it is illegal (although by no means uncommon) under US labor laws.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html

Which references: http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/TEGL/TEGL12-09acc.pd...
My only experience with Apps phone support was when I signed up for the 30 day business trial to use the IMAP import feature. Half way through a massive import, I got an email from Apps saying that I was going to be charged the $50 yearly fee about 25 days early and then another that my account had been downgraded (I did not downgrade it). Called phone support, got a real person in what sounded like England very quickly. They were helpful and reported the issue to the engineers. They reversed the charge no questions asked, I re-signed up for the demo, and all was well.

So tl;dr the phone support seems ok.
Adobe discontinues mobile Flash Player
APIs for World Records
Really? I had no problem downgrading my account. It was during the demo period though.
Web apps beat native apps because there's no install step, no upgrade step and hyperlinks provide the ultimate way for different apps to communicate with each other.
this whole nospec movement really depresses me, because it seems like a sign that the blogging community is getting taken over by people who no longer really love their work.

to me, spec work is good because it's fun. there's no boss, there's no client, and there's no pressure. it's a chance to take some risks and make something crazy, if the 'client' doesn't like it you haven't lost anything.
I was wary of this change myself, but I was just prompted to upgrade Growl, which linked to http://growl.info/growlupdateavailable and also included a link to source and how to build and install http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-insta...

Major props to the Growl team for subsidizing their work while also keeping it free.
The best place to start is various users' groups and developer meetings. You can find a schedule of them here:

http://conga-wm.org/

HN is great, but user meetings is where you meet local like minded developers.
Common Marketing Theories Designers Should Know
Hallelujah Facebook News Feed Now Lets You See Recent Stories First
Ah ok. I just skimmed over this and assumed they were from Cialdini, because I have heard most of them before.
There's also the little problem of China letting them out.
Don't you think it makes a difference that there are many other forms of evidence for the existence of airplane lights in the sky?

http://centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/landing_...

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/electronics/q0263.shtml
http://www.google.com/imghp?q=airplane+lights+at+night

AFTER EDIT: Thanks for your reply, in which you wrote,

The argument that because one imagines an alternative explanation, therefore something is debunked; is fallacious.

I don't read the submitted article as making a fallacious argument of that nature. From what I know of the author's other writings, observer reports are examined for plausibility on the basis of all available evidence, including evidence about how human observers can misperceive things they think they are observing. If someone tells me, "I see a moving light in the sky," I can respond with, "Let's look at how it moves, and see if it is an airplane or a satellite." If the observer says, "It's neither; it's a spaceship from another star system," my response would be "What evidence do you have for that?" The point is that the observer of something unusual (a sea monster never observed by a professional biologist, or even an experienced fisherman) should have more evidence than the bare observation for a claim that something that unusual exists.
Isn't that the point, to have consistency between integrating social networking buttons on your site?
I'm sympathetic to what he's saying. It is painful to develop lots of separate platforms.

But I work making games. And so this promised land is still way over the horizon. We're only just getting to the point where a HTML5 game can be notable as anything other than a tech demo on the desktop. It'll be another few years before we reach that point for mobile.
There's a key point here:

> Facebook provides detailed demographic information to site owners, using the profile details of people who didn’t log out of their site and happen to stop by our site.

What about those who have logged out of FB, or don't have a FB account. They don't get counted (EDIT: along with the "tech savvy" who block such things, as kuratkull pointed out).

What percentage of site viewers is that? How do we tell?

Secondly, if one puts up a site to serve a particular group, and others end up viewing the site, does that give one an obligation to serve these others? Is it necessarily even a good idea to do so?