skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
On a project headed for disaster.  When to leave?
I work for a small startup-ish company (LLC operating the US). They manage several projects and I have been working on one of them fairly autonomously for 6 months and finally have been put "fully in charge" of what I have slowly come to realize is fairly large and ugly project with lots and lots of problems. I am the only programmer on this project. It has so far been a very good learning experience. I now am finally receiving a good pay rate and lots of compliments. The project, however, is a huge liability and involves managing probably millions of dollars of customer assets. I can envision them getting sued at some point. I have never misrepresented myself, but they have been more than willing to give me a longer leash than I am comfortable with.

The project is clearly troubled and it is no secret, yet they take on as many new customers as they can. No investment is being made in long-term fixes. There is a clear partition between this project and the rest of the company.

I need the work, but feel I am being thrown under a bus.

My questions: Am I under any personal liability? If I am, what can I do to protect myself? I am tempted to ride this as long as I can and give it my very best effort. Does anyone have any experience with conducting a train as it derails? Did it hurt you in ways you did not anticipate? Has anyone felt this way and been pleasantly surprised or wrong about the outcome? Is failure ultimately a good learning experience?

Extra info:

I have no financial ownership.

I have always worked for large companies and have little experience with startups.

I do not work directly for the startup, but for them through an HR "outsourcer"
Google Maps Takes a Stab at Bing with Indoor Maps Feature for Airports and Malls
why would there be value in analyzing where the spam is coming from? spam is garbage so unless you're getting non-spam hits the site wouldn't be worth anything
Try Windows Phone on your iPhone or Android browser
It confirms with you, no trust required.
Can you link to the criticism? I only found a two sentence statement of fact that the app was pulled.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether
More than a decade into hosting-as-a-business model, I still don't see why 'temporarily over quota' messages aren't replaced with an offer to let the audience sponsor a bump in quota, either for just the current viewer or however many viewers the next quantum of hosting can support.
I'm curious as to where you got that link, considering that I didn't share my personal correspondance with Typesafe with you.
OK, Fixed!
The way to get over fear of something is to do it, again and again. The fear will go away.

Put yourself in situations where you can negotiate - start with going to garage sales and negotiate the price of something.

It's like the cure for paralyzing fear of public speaking - start doing it. The fear will pass, guaranteed.
Thanks - I'll check the books out.
Galaxy Nexus iFixit teardown
Also, clicking on the .c link breaks the back button, because it redirects to the .tex link before I can click back again.
Ten Interesting Health Facts
I installed Ubuntu 11.10 a few days ago on my AMD laptop as well as an ancient P4 that is inside of an arcade cabinet.

In some ways this article shows the gains made by the Linux community (and Ubuntu) in the last 5 years. It used to be the barrier to entry was lack of driver support for any number of peripherals, a user-unfriendly install that would render dual-booting impossible, performance so abhorrent without manual config changes, a community that would mock your problems, and regardless of package manager always having to break down and "untar; ./configure; make" at least one set of dependencies before getting your needed software to run.

Ubuntu (and the latest Fedora, as I've witnessed recently at work) installs with little more interaction than a partition selection.

That being said, I hated Unity and switched to fluxbox on both machines immediately. I'm not sure what they've accomplished exactly.. it's less intuitive for someone from a windows experience. I guess the dock is most similar to a tablet menu?

Anyways.. It's interesting, not for me, but if this is the new horizon of "linux problems" maybe <joke>this is finally the year of linux on the desktop? </joke>
You killed it HN!
Listening to user input is how Windows got to be what it is now (and is the reason of jokes like the explorer riboon thing of a couple months back).

Of course you need user input, but you also need strong guidance to avoid design-by-committee syndrome.

Disclaimer: I like Unity. It's not perfect but it's good enough and better than Gnome 3.
http://www.androidlicenser.com/
Blogging on Jekyll: URL Redirects
Will remove that tonight and redeploy. Used to be before I switched over to ^S
Good Listeners-visualizing the confessions obtained by divine web trackers
Wouldn't you just make the browser window smaller?
I've seen similar results regarding simple eye movements side-to-side, as an aid to certain mental/emotional processing. Generally, perhaps simple rhythmic motor tasks, and maybe especially those associated with the senses of communication (seeing, speaking, eye-contact), have a spillover benefit for concurrent thinking.
Distrowatch's audience is not a useful metric.
Oh thank goodness! It's all the women's fault. I was afraid people would have to address the residual sexism left in the corporate world.

Not to detract from the story, which by all anecdotal evidence in this thread appears to be valid, but this is a dangerous train to jump on - I would say akin to blaming racial disparity on 'cultural issues'.
I expected this to be downvoted because it's so awkward. It's hard to think about what will be the winning strategy five, ten, twenty years from now, a lot harder than complaining, but it's important for a group to do if they want to catch up with another group.
Bot also added that a programming language cannot be protected by copyright since that is an element allowing instructions to be given to the computer.

So it sounds like programming languages are considered inherently functional, and thus not covered by copyright.
Yammer moving back to Java from Scala
A Proposal for E.U.-Wide Data Protection Regulation
Nice idea on the CLI client.
Facebook Agrees to F.T.C. Settlement on Privacy
Is number of germs really an accurate measure of how dangerous/infectious/dirty something is?

I feel like this is a (slightly less egregious) version of like "cigarettes have X hundred chemicals in them, therefore you will die!" when in reality it only takes one chemical to kill you, and many normal food products have roughly as many 'chemicals'.
Personally, I find myself disagreeing with both sides too much for this to be effective at all.

I'm not going to say one should or shouldn't vote Democrat. But, there are too many considerations on which I'm unwilling to compromise to just vote for the enemy of my enemy. Neither party is your friend.
Thanks to articles like this, most probably.
American Airlines Parent Files for Bankruptcy
I agree, DistroWatch is not a good metric of measuring which distros are in use. Page hit ranking is more about which distros are currently being discussed more and talked about. Ive looked into mint and a few others on distrowatch, but I have never until today visited the Ubuntu.. Yet most all of my machines run Ubuntu or some version of Debian.
Google Adwords Coupon Hell
I think this has more to do with the speed of hardware innovation than it does a lack of interest. Could you run a Mac OS on a Windows PC from 1996? Could you run Windows on Macs in '96? Personal Computer hardware was changing so rapidly that I think porting OSs around wasn't anybody's priority. Of course, the hardware changes slowed down and things are more stable now.

I think there's little stopping you from hacking around and getting each mobile OS to run on the other's hardware, but the effort to utility ratio is so low since your hardware will be severely outdated by the time you're done.
It's the Pike Place Market gum wall in Seattle. Proof is in the "Market Theater" sign barely visible in the top right corner.
BugCam is the perfect tool for software developers as well as testers. Truly awesome!

Oscar Henry
definitely a good idea, i'll try to think of a way to add it but keep the minimalist approach. I'll file a ticket on github for this and get to it very soon
That's interesting, I always immediately removed the Firefox/Evolution/Help(?) launchers so I guess I would have voided it right away.
Dynamics of JavaScript
Maximum sum subarray problem — functional programming magic approach
Ask HN: Any book scanners in San Francisco?
I was looking to get a couple books scanned into pdf, and I found http://www.diybookscanner.org/. I thought there might be a few rogue scanners in the peninsula who could help me out. Would love to learn the trade
What does this add over http://screenr.com/ (which works 100% in the browser on all platforms)?
Nicely done. I was looking at screencasting software and I saw a competitor of yours doing this too - recording problems for user support. Theirs used java, so there's nothing to download. I thought I saw some code floating around for Flash that did the same thing.

Incidentally, over at StartupGuild, I was lamenting on how much yakshaving it takes between writing the code and actually having a functioning SAAS. How much time did you have to spend on generic tasks like payments, membership, access control?
Make sure you don't eat bananas either!
I would prefer a multi-os, non-intrusive solution like http://business.screenr.com/ except for it's price for small startups which is enterprisey
Sleeping Under Your Desk Doesn't Make You A Success
Your wish is my command:

https://github.com/chalst/pollockhostsfork

I'll see how good I am about updating this: there seem to be 2-4 changes most weeks.

Postscript - I've emailed Dan Pollock to see if he thinks this git repo is worthwhile. There is already a version of the file on Github at https://gist.github.com/399642, but it is not updated and is a year and a half old.
New Version of Google Maps Brings Indoor Floor Plans to Your Phone
Why Yammer is moving away from Scala
No, not really. The establishment embraced Ghandi to take the wind out of the more radical violent movements.

The same way the NAACP was embraced over the Black Panther Party.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_movement_for_Ind...
I don't quite understand the argument that some people made here.

This person wrote a blog post with a few Amazon links under his affiliate code. Some people read his blog post, click the links, (and probably read the reviews), and decided to buy the book.

The person gets the kickback, the interested readers get the books they want to read, and everybody is happy.

But why am I reading stuff like "getting away with murder", "purity", and etc?

Why such negativity/hate?
That's why I asked. My thought was maybe site admins could use this to create a blacklist of spam sources, or run some kind of experiments. No idea, that's why I threw it out there.

Thanks for your input!
I did this in 11.10, then switched back to unity because gnome-shell had some bugs that kept me from getting work done. I like it's interface design better, though.
I just read one of the papers that is a part of this project, "An Analysis of the Dynamic Behavior of JavaScript Programs" (http://sss.cs.purdue.edu/projects/dynjs/pldi275-richards.pdf), and I thought it was an excellent study of how JavaScript is used in the wild. They also have a more recent paper that goes into uses of eval in depth which I have yet to read (http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/jv/pubs/ecoop11.pdf).

Also, it's worth noting that the authors have the code and data available from for their experiments.
contact info in profile :)
Beginner Golf Basics With Padraig O'Sullivan
A plot of lag against income would be interesting. Is it the kind of thing you'd be interested in sharing?
Issue with Ubuntu is that 'new' is not that appealing, I don't think I would mind if things are not polished if those were the features that make me more productive, but they are in the way, and they are now instead of Windows, copying OSX, how is that innovative.
Other than that, I respect work put in Ubuntu and it is solid foundation that we can enjoy.
I switched to Mind on my desktop and loving it.
Program Selection Perfect Weight Loss
The key difference is that BugCam integrates directly with leading bug tracking tools. So in a couple of clicks, you can record a bug video, and create a new case/issue that includes the video.

We opted to create a native desktop app (Windows only, for now), because we had more control over the user experience. For example, our "window picker" UI lets you mouse over the windows on your desktop to highlight the one that you want to record. Hard to do with a JAVA-based app that doesn't have access to the Win32 API.

We hope that folks will install BugCam and let it hang out in the system tray to be used (for free), every so often. Again, native Windows app best for this, we think.
Turtle headset
The Turtle Beach X41 wireless headset uses Dolby 7.1 surround sound for CD-quality sound comparable to many expensive headphones.
Indoor navigation with new Google map for android
Another SCADA threat? Well, only if you count hooch as a hazard
Nope. That quote's not on the page that I received (updated content? A/B testing? geographical segmentation? who knows)

I did notice this bit, though:

"Little Printer sits in your home, but it’s BERG Cloud that does the heavy lifting. Because publications are created in our cloud on the Web, not in your front room, we can offer more services for your Little Printer without the need for updates or a replacement product.

"BERG Cloud Bridge sits by your broadband router and wirelessly connects Little Printer to the Internet, which makes it easy for you to place Little Printer where you can see it."

And then I noticed the domain that this page is hosted at; the people who built the little bridge box are the same people who make the printer. So, it makes perfect sense to me that they would build devices that work together, on their own little network, if each promotes sales of the other. Not an odd choice at all.
Being respective of your time, as well as others
Why IQ Fluctuates Over Your Lifespan
Please see the above comment I made in reply to the same question. Would you mind elaborating: when you say non-intrusive, what do you mean?
Thanks for this. I recently left a pretty damn good job except that I was extremely underpaid. They tried to point out they were trying to fix it with a generous annual raise, which was nice, but no where near enough.

I've been struggling trying to explain the situation to myself but you nailed it.
Aklbuquerque Hotels
Today I learned:
Pulse was apparently installed on my Kindle Fire for the past 2 weeks.
Pulse is some kind of news app that I've never heard of or used before.

Things I Already Knew:
I can't find out what Pulse is because my Kindle Fire doesn't support a proxy.
Is browser fingerprinting a viable technique for identifying anonymous users?
Reality TV killed music the same way it killed being young & drunk - not at all. And if you think there's a significant difference between, say, TC Disrupt & Idol, I think you're giving Disrupt way too much credit.

I do agree with you, though, that nothing would be a more foolish way to kill your reputation (and most likely your startup) than to submit it to the additional stress of reality TV. At least, it sounds like you're making that point in the second paragraph.
Cluzee for Android is a terrible Siri clone
Yammer should move thier client away from Air. Gabble too.
Thanks Henry!

(P.S. - Henry is an early beta tester, provided lots of great feedback that was incorporated into the product).
How Get Satisfaction makes customer support less robotic
Eat Great and Lose Weight
To defeat the fear:
I wouldn't recommend a book or a class. Instead find the best negotator you can and spar with them until you get over the anxiety. Find something arbitrary to negotiate over like who's buying lunch (I'll buy drinks if you buy appetizer etc...). Once you've got the basics go to a car dealership and haggle with the sales guys. See what works to get you the lowest price. They are skilled negotiators and will talk to you for free. Alternatively, go on a few job interviews where you have no intention of accepting the position. Since you have nothing to lose, push salary negotiations HARD. See what it will take to have someone actually rescind an offer. Finally ask for a raise at your current job.

Don't worry, even the big toughguy negotiators had to learn the process and were afraid of it at some point too. I've negotated 50% increases at three different employers (two during intial hire, one as a raise) and it didn't come to me naturally. There was no magic testosterone gift that made it easy. The guy across the table is just as worried as you are.

re: socialization factors
I blame the school enviroment where grading is fair and you ostensibly get the grade you deserve. This normalizes the behavior of 'just do good work, and you get the pay/grade you deserve.' Kids that wheedle the teachers for an A- when they deserve a B are reprimanded. In the real world it's completely different. Managers will give you a D everytime if you let them.
Mojo Themes Cyber Bundle 2011 for only $29
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AMD shifting competitive focus away from Intel
Why do projects fail? People
He wasn’t firing up a rant, but he mentioned that the app was only in the store for a few hours. But you’re right, it’s not nearly as pointed as quips like this:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-...

Or this skewering:

http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...
adblock + noscript ftw.

I was really (really) hesitant to begin blocking adverts. I believe in paying for what I use. What finally pushed me over the edge was "good" sites unknowingly distributing malware via adverts.
I've found that chewing gum keeps me more alert when driving late at night. Obviously I don't plan trips around this habit, but it works great in a pinch since I require significant amounts of caffeine for the same effect.

Edit: Additionally it helps mild upset stomach. Beware! Anecdotal evidence! I read somewhere that saliva "counteracts" the acid in your stomach. Can't find the evidence now.
Gruber criticizes Apple often enough, it just doesn't make Hacker News.

(Though I don't see any criticism in this story, except that he is reporting it, but then I'm not sure what there is to criticize, I don't know how the app got into the App Store in the first place).
I was reading recently that Amazon A/B tests showed that increased load time in orders of milliseconds were significantly affecting sales.
Maybe a better question for them to ask is "Why are Ubuntu users staying away from DistroWatch.com in droves?"
The Obvious, the Easy, and the Possible
for what it's worth, i had about a 50% success rate in college at meeting with a professor after my final grade was handed out and asking (with some form of justification) for a higher grade.

professors would get very squeamish and often bump my grade up (from a B to an A-, for example) on the spot.
Startup Domain Names
Pinax 0.9a2 Released
Wow, this list is brutal:

-In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn't warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.

- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need.

- Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with "Friends Only." In fact, selecting "Friends Only" did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.

- Facebook had a "Verified Apps" program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn't.

- Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.

- Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.

- Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn't.
I've been playing around inside the closure-compiler in my free time recently and the thing that struck me most after years of working in other languages (Ruby, JavaScript, C#) is that Java is a relatively simple language. I have yet to find myself spending any significant amount of time wondering at what a given snippet of code does.

[edit] I should note that I don't have much to compare the closure-compiler too, so it might be that this is the result of a very small sample set.
Why move away from Air? Serious question, want to understand its issues.
Rp 60.000 Untuk 3 Perawatan di Lvie Salon Senilai Rp 127.500 | Bandung
Developers fatigue and the art of not finishing strong
The second-last paragraph makes a point I've seen touched on a few times but never fully developed: That the labor of software developers is an economic complement to code. When developers write code and release it for free, we are commoditizing our complements [1]. Operating systems, libraries, frameworks and the like increase the productivity of developers, so by making those widely available, the demand for developers is increased.

Calling open source a "labor movement" as the OP mentions is not far off, considering its effects on control of the means of production.

[1]http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
I never understood why bodies like the FTC rely on 'independent, third-party audits' for enforcement, since they end up making the entire action pointless.

The independent third-party auditor will give Facebook a stamp of approval, both in the next 180 days and every two years thereafter, because the independent third-party auditor wants the repeat business.

Same thing goes for any regulation that depends on a third party, really. I mean, over the last six years how often is a 409a valuation not to the board's liking? Somehow, magically, the auditors collect their fees from the company and then independently deliver an acceptable answer.

Might as well not have the regulations - or just fine the company something meaningful - instead of engaging in this goofy kabuki theatre.
I think jwz would agree that "hard working VC's" are not what makes a startup (nor the VC's) successful.
I (or my team) use SAS in my everyday work. It is not a language to be proud about. There are many inconsistencies within, and it carries a lot of baggage - for example PROC MEANS and PROC SUMMARY do the same thing now (although they may have carried different meanings much earlier). PROC MEANS, PROC FREQ, PROC SORT all have very different (read inconsistent) ways to specify output table's name, whereas they could be the same. There are many, many other quirks.

Then again, for a system which sells mainly by virtue of traditional monopoly and being a legacy system, it is not surprising they would fight a case against copying their incoherent and utterly unintuitive language.
Ahh if only the world and media worked that way. Sadly as if you look at most politicians, being right is way less critical then being convincing.
Foursquare partners with Scoutmob
Gabble is a native client, that's why I use it, to avoid the Air client and it's CPU draining ability.
MoveOn.org Political Action: Say NO to Internet Censorship
Herbalife en Zona Sur