skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I guess I'm looking from a startup founder perspective...

If you choose an unknown technology because you have solid reasons to believe it will bring a substantial advantage to the product, which will offset the loss in productivity, then sure. If you choose it just so that your team will be motivated and you willingly take the productivity hit for that, I find it difficult to understand.

It's not the technology choice, it's the reasons that seem weird to me. It's probably because of the runway length they have that they can venture into unknown territory for no reason other than trying things.

I'm reminded of Asana and Lunascript - a fun experiment you can afford when you have lots of money in the bank, but not something I'd see as practical.
Very good on Timothy's part too. In the same situation, I would probably sell the extra XBox to be honest.
Also, public libraries aren't necessarily the best venues for Internet usage, free law clinics, resume-writing/job assistance, etc.

A community center that also has a library component, maybe.
It says I can use warrior.health, but that doesn't seem to be true - I constantly get

player.rb:5:in `play_turn': undefined method `health' for #<RubyWarrior::Turn:...> (NoMethodError)

Not sure if it's supposed to be added in later levels or what, but it's a bit frustrating. This looks really fun.
What virtue do you see in "1. Must register for protection"?
This is slightly off topic but may be of value. When I solve a particularly difficult problem, I stop and ask myself a couple of questions that help me grow as a developer.

* If I created the problem, How could I have avoided creating this problem? Was it a design error, was I careless or sloppy, did I fail to test or understand something?

* How did I solve the problem? What steps did I take to solve it? How can I optimize my problem solving skills to solve problems quicker. Does this apply to a broad range of problems or is likely a unique problem?
> Oops, looks like we found 0 errors in your code. Try again and click "Grade it!"

hmmm.

Also, when you have a syntax error, you need to copy it to a file on your system and figure out where the error is because the game doesn't even tell you what line it's on, let alone what the error said.

edit: Also, "a" is an archer, but it's not in the legend so you can't know what it is until you die from it: https://skitch.com/llimllib/gsi36/ruby-warrior-beginner-bloc
The Disloyalty of Generation Next
Oh, and to add more... JavaScript, HTML, and CSS are primarily client side languages. You can learn these by simply creating content in an HTML file on your own computer if you do not even have a web site.

If you want to do anything with databases, you will want to use MySQL with something like phpMyAdmin to help you create your databases. Learning MySQL is important, but if you just want to get started, you can use phpMyAdmin at first. When you are ready to be a real web developer, though, you will want to learn the following:

• HTML, CSS, Javascript
• Basic Linux commands with a SSH login
• Use something like WinSCP instead of FTP programs
• MySQL
• Object oriented programming in the language of your choice and how to make your code modular
• (PHP with a framework like Yii or CakePHP) or (Ruby on Rails)

I recommend simply playing at first. Always remember to abstract and encapsulate whenever you can. This is a good habit and can make learning easier because you basically start to form your own meta-language in this way and things are easier to learn if you are the one that created them.
You could setup another profile and disable it in the options (or just disable it in the options while developing / testing and enable it back afterwards)

http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans... has instructions on how to disable it.
Motivation Hacks
This Can Cure Deep Procrastination
Show HN: Courtside.me
There's also http://teambox.com with freemium approach. The new beta has a kanban-style view, too.
.es can provide some great plural possibilities too.

Even .info (that was considered to be spammy some years ago, don't know now) can offer some great ones. A throw-away reg fee of $1 to $2 (first year) makes it all the more attractive. :)
I use Rhapsody (piror Yahoo Music) and I love it. I also use MuvAudio.
I'm seeing only bad links to the PDF on that page.
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

I'm starting to feel like a shill for pushing this one on people, but it really is one of the best "learn to program" books I've seen.
Ron Paul's been on the front page of the Washington Post web site nearly every day. And they're kinda mainstream.
Never stop coding. Look back each 3/6/12 months at code you wrote back then. If it looks as cool as it was 3/6/12 months ago - you stuck. If it looks like shit - you are on a right track and right speed.
One answer to that: http://codeyear.com/ :-)
What? No. My IP does not locate to my state's capitol.
Beer News | | Worst Beer Blog EverWorst Beer Blog Ever
They also have a DMCA section of their site for claims: http://www.grooveshark.com/dmca
You can always pull from the gitorious repository and build it yourself.
Quicker Salary Tip for Software Engineers: The first one to mention a number loses.

Even when pressed, I never mention a number.

For both of our sakes, however, I want to make sure that we're in the same ballpark or we're wasting each other's time. So I may (only if I have no better way) say something along the lines of, "I'm in the 90's now, but I'm clearly underpaid and I'm looking for the best way to solve that problem."

Then I'll ask, "Are we in the same ballpark?"

If not, we both smile and move on.

If yes, we proceed. I always let them make an offer first. That's when the negotiation begins.
Developer here.

I check back with the competency matrix semi-annually to re-evaluate where I'm at. Anything that I'm unfamiliar/unskilled with is fare game for the next 6 months.

If I were focused solely on global supremacy, I would check the matrix weekly, but alas, I have work to do, and I'm competent enough to do it now.

READ. It's the best way to discover the unknown unknowns.

Your ability compared to others only matters only when framed in the context of "What do I want?" What skills do you need for the career path you want? What skills do your future employer(s) need from you. What are the non-academic PhD guys working on, and does that interest you enough to wake up at 3am for?
Darwinian_Coding: ( Talking to your AI’s: Universal Language )
اسعار الحديد فى مصر اليوم السبت 7-1-2012
Considering his whole business is basically being the tech company for the finance industry it's surprising he never learned about it.
Thanks, gives me some things to think about.
Good for him, and good for Codecademy. While a largely symbolic gesture, it can certainly never hurt to have political leaders be at least somewhat familiar with technology, especially when they're trying to create a new SV. I hope this is an actual intention and not just an empty PR move. He could, however, score a massive PR win both for himself and for NYC as a tech center by taking Codecademy up on their offer and showing up for lessons in person.
Show HN: Hacker News User Demographics
I do believe i may have a copy of that book somewhere in my "to read someday" pile :)
Already signed up to that! Also saw the link on that page to codecademy.com, so might take a look at that too.
Caching in HBase: SlabCache
Lets not get bogged down in the tennis; I don't even play tennis, I just chose it because almost everyone recognises that investing time in fundamental skills is important in sports.

I spent some time, last August, playing with Haskell.
This didn't help me build the next thing I needed to. I didn't need Haskell to help me solve any immediate problem either then, or since.

I spent that time because I believe that the experience will make me a better programmer, in the long run, and give me a bigger toolbox with which to conceptualize problems.
I thought that, in the long run, in some sense, it would improve my fundamentals.

You seem to be arguing that things are so dynamic, that there's no point making long term investments like that.

If things were so dynamic that I thought there was a good chance I'd be making sandwiches for a living next week, I'd agree.

But things do not change that fast in programming.
There's a copy of SICP on my desk that I'm reading; its the 2nd Edition from 1996, of a 1984 book, and the code is in Scheme.

And I don't feel like I'm wasting my time reading it, at all!
I laughed out loud on that one (made the guy next to me jump.)

I gotta say, good PR or not, easier or not, the email saying we noticed our own mistake, let something good come out of it, really does make me like them a bit more.
Ask HN: Open-source submission rather than a resume for job applicants?
Sparked by the recent 37signals post on not using tests for hiring I've been thinking about ways to incorporate open-source work as part of a requirement for hiring.

Interested in everyones thoughts on how they would respond to the following hiring technique:

To apply for an engineering role, find an open source project on github, get a patch accepted for a feature request or significant bug fix. It has to be of useful scope, with a unit test. Object-oriented code only.

Send us the diff, a brief work history, a reference and why you want to work for us.

If we like it, come work with us for a day, paid at market rates. If you like us, and we like you, we'll make you an offer the following day.
Reminds me of a modern christmas song I heard this year "White Wine in the Sun" by Tim Minchin:

"I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy"
Well, the article says for example:

Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.

That's strange to me, because from what I know practicing yoga to a lot of people means following a specific mindset, diet, doing breathing exercises and holding various quite simple positions, I don't see how that can be dangerous and describing it as all headstands and neck twisting later in the article seems like a deformation of the original philosophy.

What is really deeply wrong with the article in the end is that it blames a specific kind of activity as the source of problems, so that people who read it maybe will think that yoga is dangerous and choose running instead, but will be left with no understanding of the fact that what really causes most of the injuries in most of the sports is ignorance of technique and basic safety restrictions, ignoring warnings signs from the body and most of all not learning enough about the given activity along with practicing it. Those people will end up having the same problems in any sport they choose. Yes, holding a headstand for five minutes can cause serious health damage if you have any problems related to your blood vessels, but the same thing can just as easily happen to a person doing a decline bench press in the gym or when training traditional gymnastics. Yes, pushing your body into unnatural positions when it's refusing to do it and signalizing pain will cause joint issues.

Guess what, education is as much needed for sports as it is for anything else.
I think there is insufficient information on the pages on what to do, since you require very specific commands and there are no hints whatsoever.

I love the idea though. If someone would be interested on working(for fun and as a learning experience) on something like this with html5 canvas and some graphics and all with a Ruby or Python back-end, tell me :D
Well, NYC finance is still about dealmaking, even in the days of digital trading. Business is still done face-to-face, and the sheer density of New York will probably make sure that deal makers are more valuable than technologists for the foreseeable future. That's not to discount technologists in NY at all, though (they're deal makers too). It's just the reality that handshakes and coffee are irreplaceable.
One Div Zero: Type Errors as Warnings
I think Slashdot has been using gzip to detect spam for a while — anything that's too highly compressible or completely incompressible isn't English text.
Note the interesting bit about the London mayor: "The move even prompted London Mayor Boris Johnson to state he was in “awe” of Bloomberg and would consider joining him on the quest to become adept at, or at least acquainted with, programming, as the BBC reported."

This is a great thing for Bloomberg to do. In an age where so many politicians are trying as hard as they can to stifle the new economy in favor of the old economy, the major of a city with a GDP bigger than that of 47 other states paying such public attention to the tech industry is a great step in moving our politics forward.
It will be interesting to see what will happen. Personally I can't see Apple or Google or anyone else getting an exclusive right to stream the Premier League through their media streaming device. There would have to be some sort of dual offering, if only for the likes of existing consumers who don't want to know about media devices, for pubs, etc. Traditional broadcasting will be around for quite a while yet - people's attitudes only change so fast.
Charles Addams
Charles Addams , Charles Addams , Charles Addams ,
Charles Addams , Charles Addams , Charles Addams ,
http://www.psdmate.com/2012/01/06/charles-addams/
>.. I tend to sink like a rock...
Have you tried total immersion?
tl;dr

Do you do Yoga?

I do the asanas.

Do you attain enlightenment?

I attain injuries.
Yep, same here. Google isn't helping either. Anyone want to upload the pdf for all?
This is so cool. Thanks dude!
How To Add DNSSEC Support to Mozilla Firefox
> Because of all the feel-good community stuff libraries have to do in order to remain "relevant", the actual point of the library gets slowly undermined and weakened.

I want to point out that the actual point of a library is to do all of the things you mention. A community's library isn't just a repository of books, it's an integral public meeting space that facilitates access to information and helps with the needs of its community. Running programs for kids (in addition to ones for teens, adults, the poor, etc.) and providing access to civic information are all fair game for a public library. Libraries balance the needs of their communities, and in your community it sounds like there is a big demand for services other than books.
Even if they sell off a lot of books they can still be helping out the library. Its a sad fact that books, especially paperbacks, wear out if you let them circulate. Whenever we get donations we always compare them to what we currently have on the shelves, and keep whichever is in the best condition.
All the arguments for the legality of Grooveshark aside, it is ridiculously (read: Napster-like) easy to download high-quality MP3s from the service for free. Yes, there are rippers for Youtube and other services, but the quality of downloads is so spotty.

I watched a friend used GrooveShredder [1] the other day, which is a simple Firefox add-on. In 10 minutes, he had downloaded about 50 tracks. That alone made me realize that they were on their way out, so all the arguments for their legality are largely moot.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grooveshredde...
Uncloaking a Slumlord Conspiracy with Social Network Analysis
Completely incorrect. A standard fee is usually based on six months of salary at the new job. Recruiters incentive is almost always to increase your salary.

It's a bit different for internal recruiting, but this fellow seems like a normal external recruiter.
You must be a "hacker"!

In my world, if you tell someone you're "hacking", they assume you're breaking into a bank, or changing your grades in the school computer.
At first I thought someone just linked to an old comic, as it seemed like there were thousands already (most of them really good too!)
Top Investors Publishes Previously Confidential Tech Theses
Weaving Education Data Into Your Local Places Applications
Occasionally, I take 2-4wk coding breaks to re-evaluate something that's been nagging me each time I code. Is OO working for me? Do I like functional languages (I don't)? How's that PHP treating you (unstable buggy broken)?

I've discovered that PHP makes me angry. Functional is good for small stuff. I need [much] more practice with OO. I don't know anything about ... a lot.

The next 2-4 wks are spent reading and comparing alternatives to doing whatever it was that was nagging me. These time blocks do actually include small coding problems (1-2hrs), but I can't really call it coding. I then begin with new optimism about the new language/skill/feature/paradigm that I've now incorporated into my daily programming.
My other tip is, there's always a little wiggle room to your advantage.

When they give you their 'final offer' tell them to come up a little. They never fail to do it, even if it's only 1-2%, and it's increased my salary substantially over the years.
Usability Evaluation for Video Games (Part 1)
It's a dangerous road when you value your own operations over customer needs. I'd say invest in the infrastructure needed to one-click deploy outside your data center as well.
someone read freakonomics
In my experience, I find huge value in my local library, and I have no children. For myself, when unemployed the library provided a fantastic public space for me to get away from the home and do some serious programming work and job hunting. I know a few people who work on their side project ideas at the library (they bring their own laptops for this) and I know several people who use the library as their only source of internet access.

Keep in mind the value for a particular local library may not fall along your particular interests. Libraries serve the community as a whole, and there are many diverse needs for a typical community that a library has to serve.
Your book selection is among the best.
http://trello.com and http://teambox.com (beta at http://beta.teambox.com) have a common ancestor: http://www.pivotaltracker.com

That was the first widely adopted kanban tool for developers that I know about
I think you've missed the gist of those lawsuits.

The other labels are contending that Grooveshark employees uploaded the songs and were asked to by management. They claim to have leaked internal documents to prove it.

YouTube didn't upload the content themselves, their users did.

The latter is legal if you comply with DMCA take down, the former is illegal.

This case outlined in the article has nothing to do with either, basically Grooveshark haven't paid a penny to their only major legal avenue to music.

TLDR; Youtube case is nothing like the Grooveshark ones.
What an AMAZING blog post. A++ would read again
yeah been working on it, decided to share it with the community.
Typically your best opportunity for a big raise is in the initial salary number. Future raises are often at least partly formula-driven. And since they are likely to be computed as a percentage of your current pay, perhaps with a merit component as well, getting more in the initial salary also means your raises will be more later.
Red Hat touts Raleigh, NC as an open-source leader
But she's not complaining to FB, she's complaining to me and probably her friends. Word of mouth got FB started, and word of mouth will probably be it's death.
I think the two are linked, some developers feel secure that a compiler / debugger will catch the inevitable simple mistakes that we all make. Not having one in front of an audience makes it that much worse. A lot of those that protest would feel a lot more comfortable in front of people if they knew they had a net to catch the simple errors they make before they show off their code and that's the core of my position on the subject, code test guarantee that these otherwise competent individuals will look incompetent and once they do, it's hard to minimize that experience in the interviewers mind, Steve Jobs called it the bozo bit and once it is flipped it's pretty much flipped for good. The fact that they look incompetent on the whiteboard is such a strong reaction, that it outweighs compensation factors like looking at code already written, in a more conducive environment.
I have to agree that most people ignore SEO because of the lack of understanding. May be they are intimidated by the very word.
The three steps mentioned in the article: URL, Navigation, Page title go a long way. This is were content management systems like WordPress really help as these three things are taken care by design. In addition to this, internal linking structure is important to. Again, a proper CMS makes it way easy to get a decent SEO going to begin with.
Precautions for content security(hollywood studio)
I am having a meeting with a hollywood studio/content producer in two weeks. We are making a "behind the scenes" app for them to integrate into their existing distribution systems. What precautions do I need to take with respect to their content? What softwares do I need to install, how should the permissions be set up to avoid piracy, etc?
"With power comes great responsibility." Yoga is powerful, use it wisely.
Typically people who use the libraries for things like a free law clinic or assistance with writing a resume don't have an alternative resource. In my area our local library does a week of tax preparation for individuals at tax time with volunteers, and they are so busy that they have to turn people away each day. Many of those individuals simply cannot shell out the money to go to a tax prep service and don't have the resources or knowledge to do taxes themselves.
It is a symbolic move, but the interesting thing about it is that this kind of symbolism wouldn't work in most other places on this planet.
Every team should have a Devil's Advocate
I used to work for a company that shipped products. It was a pain in the butt to have customers ship stuff back to us, even if we sent them 2 or 3 of something by mistake. We did this all the time. Well handled though.
Ubuntu on mobile:  A Mirror Image
As an admin of a largish forum I find these attempts to sort people and their output algorithmically very interesting.

Could low entropy of a string be reasonably substituted by a short length as a symptom of low quality?

What mathematical property of a text could signify high-quality posts?
What is the underlying stack? Is it Ruby/Rails or am I just dreaming? isitrails.com says it "might be"
I love this idea and learning from it, but I thought I could move left and right and instead I bump into walls.

Damn you archer!