skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Our system

"Our system" is a hodgepodge of different systems. We've got regular system that most people are on (private hospitals, private insurance). We've got MediCare (private hospitals, public insurance). And we've got the veterans system (public hospitals, public insurance).

If a medical care system that even touches public money is so bad, then why do we have systems like that? Why is 'socialism' some sort of political hot-potato when we have so many current social programs that no one wants to give up that qualify as 'socialism?'
Why Twilio Will Kill AT&T
Hackers are Real life Vampires
I just resigned from a 4 year stint in the finance industry--not exactly a startup, but the same elements of meritocracy and self-driven achievement were involved in creating the tunnel vision most here, especially the OP, might appreciate.

The result: I have been left with more "free"/me time over the past 2 months than I can remember. The first 1-2 weeks I slept in till about 11am most everyday, due to sheer exhaustion coupled with the fact that I didn't HAVE to be up and alert for anything/anybody. Since then I have been rekindling old passions and finding a new appreciation for so many things I'd forgotten in the course of my work. I can only hope in the future--when I move on to my next project/job/career---I don't take so many things for granted.
The review from App Advice generated enough sales to push Commit (http://thinklegend.com/commit) into the top 25 productivity apps. Which got it even more sales.

Unfortunately I can't tell how many came from App Advice, only the total number of sales that day (600).
I ask this question to better understand whether we can provide an environment that will be right for the candidate in 5 years. I dont want to hire someone that wont have a shot at achieving their long term goals with us because it wouldnt be fair to them.

On the flip side, I just hired a new finance person. I wanted someone who can eventually become a controller then CFO. I have no idea if they are really capable of it, but I want them to at least want it and to have demonstrated some activities to have tried working towards it.
I was through the rough market in 2002, when it was rumored that all software would be written in India by 2012. If I recall, enrollment in CS, engineering math and the sciences dropped dramatically.

The thing is, I don't think enrollment has gone back up, in spite of it now seeming "cool" to be involved in a software startup again. I've seen articles on HN and elsewhere on how hard it is to get people involved in CS or other math and science related majors recently.

I guess that's a good thing for me, the middle-aged programmer, as it means less competition for my job, but I'm not sure it's good for any country (I'm in the US) in the long term.
Ever notice how many one-hit-wonder bands there are? Coming-up with original material is difficult. Frustration over my reality being bogus, sucks. Kill the Jews. Is real? Is not real? Kill the Jews.

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

d Methusael begat Lamech.

4:19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah,
and the name of the other Zillah.

4:20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents,
and of such as have cattle.

4:21 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such
as handle the harp and organ.

4:22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every
artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

4:23 And Lamech said unto his
I have a game on my iPod Touch called "Scene It? Movies 2". If I start that up while having too many other apps 'open', it shows me a dialog box saying, "Low Memory Warning - The system memory is low. To improve performance, please quit the game and then restart your device". Ever since seeing that, I've felt obliged to remove every app (except perhaps the built-in ones) from the iOS 'task switcher' after I'm done with it.

The article says "If the device needs more memory for a game or other large app, Suspended apps will be cleared from RAM", so what might Scene It be complaining about? Perhaps it's about apps in 'Background' state (no wait, masklinn has stated in this thread that /any/ non-foregrounded application can be terminated to free up memory).

While Scene It is probably just a crappy app (and I don't play it anymore anyway), I have to admit that I'm still unsure and I'm probably going to carry on, reflexively, closing apps myself just to be sure, and because I'm a bit OCD that way. Hooray for leaky abstractions.
I'm deeply skeptical of business types lately, which is why my buddies and I started our own company, sans suits. Maybe finding another group of misfit technicians would be more your speed. If you are interviewing for a job under a biz-dev cat whose only useful purpose is going to meetings, doing high-level idea and strategy work, and generally steering the boat, they're not going to be structurally inclined to invite you to get up in their business. (Which is where the real power in an organization lies, unfortunately.)
Oops, I got Arrays.sort confused with Collections.sort
An interesting statement I've seen in a couple of books about IQ testing as an employment qualification is that at ALL levels of ability it is advantageous to seek a college degree if that degree makes the difference between being classified as an "engineer" rather than being classified as a "technician." Some technicians plainly are very smart and very economically useful to the organizations that employ them. Both technicians and engineers can be found at a variety of levels of ability. But for the individual job-seeker, whatever the level of ability, the expedient thing to do (in that category of occupations) is seek the college degree and become an engineer. Apparently, the job market treats even a lousy engineer who is barely able to do engineering work better than a technician who is matched by ability proxy (IQ score) before the degree was sought.

I offer no firm conclusion about why this is so. Perhaps engineering programs in colleges impart skills that are valued by the job market enough to boost an engineer's earnings over the long term. Or perhaps hiring and promotion procedures in many companies favor the social signal given by possessing a college degree. Or perhaps there is a lurking variable other than IQ that distinguishes persons who seek engineering degrees from persons who do not seek engineering degrees for technical occupations. It would take more data to tease out the causation of this phenomenon reported in the literature on job-candidate testing for employment, but meanwhile I would advise people near and dear to me who have such career aspirations to seek an engineering degree if at all possible, as that appears to offer positive economic returns for a person with a typical lifespan and labor force participation.

I have no comment on the usefulness of degrees in other subjects, which may vary quite a lot.
My Summer of (Open) Source
You're assuming that every successful candidate is regurgitating this from memory.

By the same token, you appear to be assuming that successful candidates aren't. But I'm not trying to polarize.

Wouldn't it be better to invent a scenario for which a solution/algo must be constructed, during which the interviewer and interviewee can bounce their relative expertises? Is it too much to ask for the questions not to be rote(-ish) Pascal's Triangle stuff?
Puzzle Mechanics Are Better Than Game Mechanics
We would love to have someone like that for 3 years. I would then try to pitch them on how we might help them to accomplish that.
Second Crack released
I agree with what I think that you and other people here are saying: the Apache CouchDB project will continue to be supported by a good community so there is very little technical risk for using CouchDB. BTW, I think that datastore as a service companies like Cloudant, MongoHQ (and many other good companies) are a great convenience, but for self hosting, I wonder why anyone really needs support for CouchDB, MongoDB, etc. unless they have very large deployments.
I graduate with a B.Architecture in June but will likely be going into a mix web design/tech entrepreneurship. While the economy is relatively lousy at the moment I think the high unemployment rate is a mixture of both a decrease in jobs and the stubbornness/pride of architectural graduates. Many other professions you'd be glad to take most jobs in your field that offer a good pay, but I know of many firms I'd turn down on principal even if I was offered an attractive wage. Unfortunately the average pay for recent arch grads after 5 years tends to rest in the 35-45k/year range, so going into a different field where I could make more in less time is hard to turn down.
Fair points on Prohibition. It definitely has the negative-only effect that you'd want; I'll have to think about it.

Here's an analogy I've been using that might work: "They're tying your hands behind your back so you have to pay them to feed you."
really neat. any plans to create a patch for the official docs.
After 15 years of programming, one would hope that seeing the definition of it would be enough to let you implement it in short order. Expecting to have it memorized? Of course not. Expecting you to be able to code it up after a good explanation of what it is? I wouldn't expect you to have any serious issues.

I honestly had forgotten the definition of it (the last time I saw it was in high school algebra), but I was able to get a working solution in about 10 minutes, including looking at the definition on Wikipedia. I'd say I'm a rather average coder (I'm certainly surrounded by people far better than I am, in any case).

If you had never seen or heard of Pascal's triangle before, I'd say maybe 20 minutes to code it would be reasonable.
When the attacker obtains the hash from the database, this does indeed let him carry out the rough equivalent of a reply attack, but it doesn't let him carry it out on any other site. The reason you don't want passwords stored (or transmitted) in plaintext is so that an attack doesn't compromise the user's accounts everywhere. This double hashing scheme avoids that, but yes, leaves your account on this one site compromised if the database is copied.

Glad you liked the other scheme. It's more complex, but seems better. I really have to try it out at some point.
I would rather be tested by making changes to the the multi-kloc codebase. It's more similar to what I actually spend my time doing at work. And it's a good chance to see the code I'd be working on.

As for coding Pascal's triangle? It took me <30 seconds to Google it and find code I could copy/paste.
That's not a bad overview, but what's the point? How one way is better than the other? Does it make any difference which development server to use?
Terrible questions. I don't know if that was due to laziness, ignorance or an agenda.

"I'm considering canceling my paid TV service, knowing that I can watch all/most of my favorite TV shows online."

That should be two questions, and the last part after the comma ignores many other reasons to cut cable, including cost, not watching it enough to justify, not enough flexibility, etc. You could be cutting cable because the very product, TV shows, just isn't worth the time.

I cut cable TV years ago, because there's no there there. I cut cable Internet last year due to cost, and use my building's inferior but free wifi.

"I've recently canceled my paid TV service because I can watch all/most of my favorite TV shows online."

Same problems.
Yes, using the binomial coefficient formula is another solution that is shorter, but I downvoted you for not being civil. Please read: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Wait a minute—the ITA puzzles were supposed to be solvable in three hours? I wish I’d known that before I tried to solve one.
Happy fun time:

pascal = iterate (\xs -> zipWith (+) ([0] ++ xs) (xs ++ [0])) [1]

Bread and butter:

void pascal(int n, int *buf)
{
for (int row = 0; row < n; row++) {
for (int prev = 0, col = 0; col < row; col++) {
int curr = buf[col];
buf[col] += prev;
prev = curr;
}
buf[row] = 1;
}
}
Why pivot after making $10,000 our first month?
Battle of the Bands: Tech Firms Compete for Rock Stars
Why does the bottom one say 'recently'? I have never owned cable and have watched all of my media online. I wouldn't consider 14 years ago recent... there should be a check box there for people who are way ahead of the trend otherwise it is giving an incorrect trend.
Why does the bottom one say 'recently'? I have never owned cable and have watched all of my media online. I wouldn't consider 14 years ago (When I graduated highschool and moved out of my mothers house heh) recent... there should be a check box there for people who are way ahead of the trend otherwise it is giving an incorrect trend.
I changed my Facebook religion to this. I'm not sure whether that says that I take Kopimism seriously (because I'm on board) or I don't (because I don't know much about it but think I know enough).
I'm the total opposite of a server guy, but I think your tests may be in some way flawed. At work we have a site that got high traffic for a few months on a dedicated box @ softlayer -- and it keeled over, unable to handle the outgoing data.

Moving the site to a EC2 large completely removed the problem.

I realize this is completely anecdotal without much detail (well I know the softlayer box runs about $200 a month, so it can't be their worst thing) but it does make me wonder.
Thanks for the link to distimo.com analytic, I'm looking into it. My marketing suggestion: contact blogs that a cyclist would read, blogs by/for cyclist or even a blog by a boutique bike shop. Perhaps some will write about your app.
...you mean the profitable part?
I also think things like this should be blown up by countries impacted in their media and the UN. This will help highlight dangerous and over-reaching US foreign policy and potentially get US citizens and the UN involved which can then apply pressure on US officials to refrain from these kind of measures.

It is almost twilight-zonish to see the US government in favor of Internet censorship when speeches against it like this exist: http://secretaryclinton.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/secretary-o....

Why isn't the US media all over things like this? So much for being the vanguards of freedom...
Sweet, thanks for this.

edit: Took a look at Raganwald's combinator book sample.

It has this bit of code:

address = Person.find(...).tap { |p| logger.log "person #{p} found" }.addre\
ss

That's absurd.

Was this an editing choice by Reg, or is this something the software does?
Would the Costco business model work online?
I'll agree with you partly, but hacking with something just because you can hack with it can be a huge distraction as well. Put another way, "maintaining a blog" is a professional development goal, which can and will have direct benefit to many hackers. "Hacking together your own blog" is a fun side project, with the side benefit of you learning a new technology. However, I fear that most hackers would spend far more time coding their blog than writing to it, which completely undermines the purpose of having a blog in the first place.
The Future of Apache CouchDB
"Money tends to amplify one's personality, not alter it." Brilliant, and now part of my personal world view. Thank you.
I did the same experiment. Got a sheet of paper and figured out the concept behind this problem within a minute but i took me quite some time to put it into code. Wrong logic / not perfectly concentrated / choosing the wrong way for a moment etc.

Am i a bad programmer now if i cant get a running program in less than 5 minutes ?

I would rather let people apply with code they are proud of like in every design job than solving litmus tests/puzzles
pffft, what a silly question. Manhole covers are round because manholes are round...why would you make a square cover for a round hole?

(Seriously though there's a lot of conceivable reasons, and while that's one I doubt it's a major one, a lip prevents it. I think the fact that a circle doesn't need to be "lined up" and that they are easier to move, etc are much more important)
I cut cable, but now I'm going back to it. Not having cable has been expensive. For sports, the only viable alternative has been services like NFL Game Pass and NHL Game Center, both of which clock in at around $250 a season, and that's just for hockey and football (and BOTH services still have blackout games). On top of that I pay for a VPN account to get around geographic restrictions, otherwise both services would be close to useless. Add in a Netflix subscription on top of it and I'm up to about $700 just to watch football, hockey and Netflix; I'm still missing out on every other sport and anything that isn't available on Netflix.

"Cutting the cable" still isn't that viable an option for a lot of people, and traditional broadcasting and media companies are still very much in control of most media consumption.
I go to Starbucks every single morning. I buy a cup of coffee, and something to eat. I tip. I'm polite and friendly; I don't leave a mess and I don't leach too much wifi.

One morning I get there and there's a long queue. People don't know what they're doing - they're taking ages looking at the menu and choosing drinks and trying to order them and arguing over the drinks they're eventually given. And they all get a pack of beans, ground to how they like. And then I notice that they're handing in a coupon from a newspaper.

So: I don't get free stuff; I do get worse service; staff get a bunch of rude people who are only after the free beans. I was grumpy. Staff were grumpy.
Losing The Cops In A Foot Chase? There's An App For That
I must be reading it wrong, because I see 8.4% unadjusted for high school graduates in Nov 2011. How are you calculating aggregate regardless of higher level education? I don't understand how you can just add the high school, some college, and bachelors to get 20%.
Outlet: My Lisp to Javascript Experiment
(fn [r]
(reduce #(cons
(* (first %1)
(/ (- r %2) %2))
%1) [1] (range 1 r)))
Having weathered the autonomy of running your own company, you're probably no longer going to be happy just writing code for someone else. In a way, running a startup tends to ruin you as an employee.

Take a break. Meet with a lot of people, and see what they're working on. After a while, one of them might click with you, or you can start brainstorming and developing your own ideas. Try to look for a co-founder. And if you'd like to do an incubator, consider applying to YC, as you yourself suggested. They have batches twice a year, so you have plenty of time to figure out what you'd like to work on next.
This kind of problem has really short solutions when you have access to collection-at-a-time operations. For example, in Haskell:

pascal 1 = [1]
pascal i = zipWith (+) ([0] ++ pascal (i - 1)) (pascal (i - 1) ++ [0])

I'm not answering your question but just wanted to pique your interest in this because you were asking about language choice and had mentioned that your solution took 50 lines.

The above solution expresses the recursive solution as the sum of two earlier rows after appending some zeros. There is very little room for errors to hide and it provides you with a kind of 'definitional' starting point to begin optimizing if you want.
Internet of Things: 1st Print Exhibit is Live
Yup, and the lower the discount, the less excited the customers. Groupon is example of there being no free lunch.

Of course you can make customers happy.. anyone can.. just give stuff for free or 50% off, but how do you create value without giving it away? Groupon has no answer for that
At one point in history it was asked if everyone should learn to read and write so that they could more easily communicate with people from far away for the purpose of solving problems with collective action instead of as individuals or small groups.

The answer to that question was yes. The incorrect answer was. "Reading and writing is too hard, the scholars in the temple will do the reading and writing on behalf of the sheep"

Today the question is should the sheep learn to program the computers? The answer is no, it's too hard, we will do it on their behalf. Imagine a nation full of capable coders. Woah. Im glad we made reading and writing mandatory in school.
POW Radio
When I'm in bed at night dreaming of having a pony, I also dream about a world where the AT&Ts, Verizons, and Comcasts of the world have been reduced to "pipe providers". They just give you an IP address and try to give you the fastest, most complete coverage they can. Then everyone else sits on top of them and provides the devices, protocols and content in an a la carte fashion.

I still don't have my pony, but a man can dream.
I think worldchanging vs. just making money is completely orthogonal to software vs. banking. For instance, microlenders like Kiva probably "change the world" orders of magnitude more than the typical internet startup.

Of all the businesses that add real value to my life, the number of them that "changed the world" can fit on one hand. The others are just honest business, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Upvoted due to the fact "All other source control > Clearcase"
Prof Aims to Rebuild Google With Stuff In Desk Drawer
Congratulations! I went through a similar process with my first app as well. A few things I'd recommend:

- Use appfigures.com and appannie.com to track your sales and rankings. They provide much nicer reports than those provided by Apple. Also, they'll tell you if reviews come in, and even translate them for you. I'm personally addicted to the hourly ranking updates from AppFigures.

- Never stop promoting. Do something (even if it's something small) every day to raise awareness. Getting on the front page of Hacker News is an excellent start! But don't stop there.

- Get a 'press kit' of screenshots and descriptions to send to popular app review sites and tech writers etc. Many will ignore you, but the hits are worth it. A great review in AppAdvice completely turned around my app's fortunes.

- Don't bother with AdWords - at least at the start. Generally the price per click and the conversion rates won't support the revenue you would get from an app sale. Some people spend big on AdWords to push their rankings, but that's not a reliable way to make money.

- Expriment with pricing. Price changes are quick and easy to make. Don't be afraid to raise your price. You might be pleasantly surprised by the result. And if it doesn't work out, you can lower it again. I found I got fewer cranky reviews when my price was higher. but YMMV.

- Continue writing honest reports about your app's progress. We see so many news items about huge successes and huge failures, it's a good corrective to see how a 'normal' app fares.

- Work on your next app. I just launched my second app in the store and while I'm still not making enough to live on, it's great to get twice as much money coming in.

- Have fun. Building something of your own and selling it is great. You might start resenting your day jobs, though.
That's very odd. James Golick of Fetlife had the opposite experience with Softlayer (link to his video in my post).

I currently manage ~40 servers on EC2 and I'm confident that I could get away with just 5 "decent" dedicated boxes. EC2 gets expensive quickly, but most and foremost, managing so many instances is quite a headache.
Thanks. So, we had a $100 credit from Google to use on adwords. That was interesting but not something that would work if we had to actually pay for it. In terms of other marketing, Apple gives you 50 download codes so we handed those out to local bike businesses & nonprofits.

Our experience is that people rarely redeem the download codes, but will often reciprocate kindness. Our biggest sales came when we gave some promo codes to a bike courier company, and they tweeted about the app to their 3,000 followers.

Aside from that we comment on some of our favorite cycling blogs with our url. That's it. Suggestions?
I suspect it's the recent http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455230457711...