skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would pay 3x the salary, because a 3x developer creates a lot more value than that

Many people (including op) look at the 3x in a linear fashion. They think the 3x programmer is working 3 times faster, like a 3ghz CPU to 3 1ghz CPUs, or that they work 3 times longer, or a combination of these. This leads to 3 times more code, documentation, delivery etc. of exactly the same quality

I've never met such a programmer

Usually the <magnitude>x comes from better quality, and less quantity. So the 3x programmer has achieved 3x the functionality as requested, but that code base is likely 2x - 3x simpler, with 3x less bugs, which combined is closer to 6-9x easier to maintain. This code also influences the cost of code built on top of it. So the value increase in some areas is exponential rather than linear. You're unlikely to get this exponential increase in value from 1x developers

Another exponential value characteristic of 3x developers is that they have much better decision making. Maybe that means choosing the right tool for the job (choosing a distributed DB in stead of MySQL when you know you need scalability) or designing a customer facing UI. Recovering from a wrong decision can be very costly

These exponential traits mean that the earlier you are in a project, the more value there is in hiring that 3x developer
How to kill your startup: half measures
We use Postmark. The service is super easy to setup and very reasonably priced. We changed from Godaddy about 6 months ago because of how traditional servers queue email. With postmark and other services like it, there is no queue. This has a great impact on customers that are ready to signup and use/buy your products/services right now. Postmark makes it easier for us to capture that business.

It took me a long time to find a great one but thankfully my guy at Rackspace hooked my up. I now pass this on to you. http://www.postmarkapp.com/
Would you care to elaborate on your last statement?

EDIT: Actually never mind. This is only going to end up bad. You have your opinion and I have mine.
Things Entrepreneurs Should Avoid When Raising Capital
What TVShack's student founder can be extradited to US, court rules
Juvia: OSS commenting server in Rails 3 ala Disqus and IntenseDebate
I'm a former Googler who managed the deployment of their content distribution network. Outside of the codebase challenges that nostrademons articulated very well, Google has to deal with various big company concerns including shipping and logistics, human resources, legal issues in the many countries it operates in, hardware development, datacenter management, etc. To do this they have many talented people across disciplines. I was constantly looking for people to join our team while still maintaining the high level of ability and innate Googliness that Google looks for in an employee. In many measurements Google is still understaffed. Check out Royal Pingdoms profit per employee. http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/05/17/apple-staff-profit-per-h.... The difference between 2008 to 2010 is incredible and factors in growth in employees. Google still needs to hire... not for world domination but to maintain and improve the services that we love.
I got the impression through reading the Postmark site that it's an API only solution.

Is that the case?

I'm not sure the amount of pain I currently experience is enough for me to switch to a provider that expects me to build my own dashboard.

If they do have a dashboard, what on earth does it look like? Without signing up I cannot seem to find it documented or a demo dashboard to play with.
Is this serious? Correlation != causation. A PhD should know that.
Why should the causality go this way? Perhaps rich people drink and go to bars because they can afford it. I'm quite unimpressed with their logic
Holy french fries. With Google, I can get 80GB for $20/year: https://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

With Dropbox, 100GB would cost me $199/year.

I've been with Dropbox forever (I have account #315) but man, it is tempting to snag 80GB for the price of half a tank of gas.

Convenience is obviously the primary loss. But I'm a nerd. It would likely be easy to figure out some way of auto-syncing my whole music folder.

My other primary usage for Dropbox (and incidentally the motivation for its inception) is as a way to transfer files to other people. There's nothing like being able to host your own .html file within your own dropbox with literally zero effort. That said, a hybrid of the two seems best -- ridiculously cheap bulk storage, combined with the convenience of Dropbox when needed.
If 5 million+ need that specialist, then the specialist can be a startup.
From the article:

> Ask what you should do first. Should you stop working on X and Y and finish this new project first?”

How... niave. In my experience, in these situations the boss will say, "Work on Y"... then when X is due, wonder why X isn't done (and blame you).
That community being people who already know about the brand. I say it every day at work, too, but the OP still has a valid point for public discussion.
> You have your opinion and I have mine.

So let's not try to have a discussion about it? I've never understood that frame of mind.
I think it's a bigger stretch to propose that social drinking is the preserve of the rich.
Very interesting analysis. However the factor that prohibits one from using css3 transitions is browser support. Of course, one could always have jQuery used for older browsers and but keep it right for the new ones.

Probably you could be dive a little deeper to get some more empirical data with browser/device specificity. It'd help designers and developers to share responsibilities in a better way.
Sounds very interesting. I was planning working on a similar setup. Taking and improving on the many chef cookbooks and building around that. But due to lake of resources it may not be possible.

Do you need testers?
اطلاق النار على محل بونجور في الطيرة - نادي عباد الرحمن الإسلامي - الطيرة
That's not entirely true. There are still plenty of gunfights and ambushes being staged in Afghanistan, especially outside of the major cities.
so basically, about 1% of everyone is in the 1%.. surprise
Both: Google App Engine when availability is important. When privacy / data security is important I'll use dedicated server. This is funny but interesting solution: http://cloudroulette.me/
Kneejerk pseudo-knowledgeable response there.

They are not claiming causation. They are hypothesizing correlation between drinking and sociability/social network size, and causation from that to higher earnings.
You've got a shitty boss and a shitty job. If you're worth your dime you should start looking for something else right now.
Beside, showing that drinkers earn more does not show that drinking is an overall economic boon as the first sentence implies. It could as easily mean that drinkers simply get a bigger slice of the pie.
I'm going to refrain from commenting on her abilities. One problem I have with "X accomplished person passed away" on the internet is that a free-for-all seems to start, wherein everyone feels qualified to judge that person's accomplishments from behind a monitor. Steve Jobs, whoever, it might seem unfair that just because someone died that the "unworthy" things they did get celebrated. I disagree.

What did strike me as particularly relevant for HN and the drive to succeed was the following quotation from an earlier article on her life, where the author so kindly informed her that she was no longer the "youngest MCP in the world":

“This is the first time I’ve seen this story. But I must say that I’m really happy to have read it. This is exactly what I had been wishing for ever since I got to bring laurels for my country. I am very glad to see that people are following what I did and have succeeded in beating me. I don’t know whether you’ve heard or not but a boy, named Bilal, from Gujranwala in Pakistan also became a Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of nine. I would say that the other youngsters should follow suit, thereby convincing the people to take us kids seriously. Our generation is very talented and so should be promoted.”[1]

A lot of people are brought here by the will to do Something Great, so much so that we get caught up in whether or not credit is given rightly, whether we'll get it, whether the whole world of doing Great Things is fair (it's not). It was this perspective of humility in the face of eventually being passed up, which is so rare in externally validated precocious children, that I found inspiring.

[1] http://www.geekwire.com/2011/arfa
First of all, I would assume that you already know this person and what he's capable of.

Hiring someone with a 3x salary just because people say he's good or is a Rockstar in the community doesn't work for me.

I experienced several situations where a Rockstar didn't match expectations and unknown guys had to clean Rockstar's mess when they left.

I'm not saying that Rockstars are shit and you should not hire them, what I'm going to say applies to everyone:

Hire this person for a X amount. If he excels at his tasks delivering what you want, and you realize that his performance if above the average, raise his payment and both of you will be happy. Both sides win.
This is just sugar coating for the crap they're covering.

I'd reduce it all down to: we didn't want people to use SQL Server on *NIX because we wanted to sell them expensive OS licenses & licenses for other products.

>environment no one really knows nor cares what the underlying OS is. SQL Azure thus becomes Microsoft’s answer for those who don’t want to run an in-house Windows Server just so they can run SQL Server.

Nope, not really, I do care about the database and about the underlying OS. I don't like to use Windows for web hosting mainly due to its unpredictable HDD space usage (Windows folder growth vs number of installed updates over time).

Also, in Microsoft land, it's pretty difficult to be "up to date" with everything. You install hundreds of updates for the OS, the database and other components and there are some extra hotfixes you normally get when you have a support contract with them.

There's also the issue of the performance. You need more hardware for Windows than for other OSes. I had an "enterprise" CRM we will not name which had low performance on a Windows 2008 R1 Standard. I tried to upgrade it to R2 and the CRM stopped working completely. Of course, this wasn't done on the production box.
Wonder how long before people the article: "The gun that fires computers with bullets in them" or something to that effect.
Chinese baby boys free style
Count the effective number of lines of code of a project
While I definitely agree here, this reasoning makes me wonder a little at the longterm profitability of platforms like Heroku.

Tons of freeloaders (like me) using their resources for our off-the-cuff apps, plus some people using it to bootstrap. As the usage climbs, and theoretically your revenues are also climbing, you get to a point where it makes sense to move away to your own setup.

How can Heroku make money if all customers eventually plan to leave?
The point of the story is a metaphor for how burocratic process can establish itself for good reasons, but if followed blindly, the process may continue beyond its usefulness.

The point I was trying to make (poorly) is not that it is fun to torture monkeys, but instead that it can also be dangerous to stop following an established process if you don't know the reason for its existence.

The lesson here is that it is important to record the reasons for establishing a process, as once it is established, people move on. If no-one knows why the process exists, they might be stuck with it lest they get badly burnt.
You Want A new Life? Try This
Judging from the mollycoddling of modern equivalents, it was probably never realistically tested.

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2004/12/no-missile-left-behind-s...
That text is, sadly, no longer relevant or up to date: so many things have changed in the last two years wrt the text rendering and the font engines.
I tried to take care to avoid zealotry, and I qualified my observations with my background experience. I'm not saying that You don't understand python, I just found it hard :-). My experience is not meant to be a universal, just one data point.
LiveReload (http://livereload.com/) had already solved this.

I'm wondering if there's something that refreshes the browser when you make changes to the CSS files _before_ saving? Like CSSEdit (which I've used religiously for the past 2 years), but applies to all sort of files (HTML/HAML, SASS/SCSS/LESS).
Originally that was true, but the author mentions NT4 and I believe MS rewrote the engine specifically for NT...
Jesus, every damn time someone of note passes away we get a bunch of morons on here telling us how the accomplishments aren't as good as they seem. You people need to learn when to bite your tongues. I'm willing to bet if it were some VC going on and on about his/her life's works, the last thing you'd do is point out how unremarkable and unimpressive any of it is.

Let's see if a similar article is written up about your achievements when you pass away.

Thanks for the insight, though!
"We hypothesize that drinking leads to higher earnings by increasing social capital."

The hypothesis seems to be that drinking makes people like you and that gets you better jobs.

As opposed to being social getting you better jobs and making you drink more, or having a better job allowing you to drink and be social, two alternate explanations which seem a lot more likely to me.
Presumably they got their security right; no recommit after firing, for instance.

If not, I can easily imagine a "bullet jammer" gizmo that broadcasts a retargeting command. "Sorry, little grenade, you have another thousand meters to go...."
> we get a bunch of morons on here telling us how the accomplishments aren't as good as they seem.

Whoa, easy. I have expressed my opinion and I have backed it up well I think. No hate for the poor girl, that's just terrible that somebody 16 years old have to die, no matter his or her accomplishments.

On the other hand, what accomplishments are we talking about here? Seriously, I'm really sorry for the poor girl, I really am, but still I can't see the accomplishment she's made.

And, honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about what people will write about me when I'm dead.
Second this. You can also get the brown leather edition: http://www.merrell.com/US/en-US/Product.mvc.aspx/22874M?gree...

I'll never buy a "normal" running shoe again.
I also found startSSL to be fine. It's not the most user friendly of websites, but by no means horrible.

I can see why you may want something simpler if you need 10+ certificates, but if you just want to set up SSL for something then startSSL is fine.
actually fixed it now by installing the intermediate certificate chain
Pouring Water Into a Volcano To Generate Power
Generating Charts In Wicket Application On Google App Engine
fixed it by installing the intermediate chain on my server
Also, you have little to gain from doing it even if you don't get caught. It's probably much more cathartic to blast them in a blog post than it is to anonymously release source code of an outdated/discontinued product. Especially since source is only readable to x people and a blog is readable to y. With X<<y.
How  To Have More Fun Golfing
We are using qmail with ezmlm and while probably outdated now, this has been rock solid for years. When starting a new SMTP server I use postfix. Keep in mind that sending out newsletters from a new IP needs a lot of extra effort to keep the IP off blacklists and the mails out of the spam filters.
Written essay
Organizations such as reliable written essay are totally moral for me and substantially for manifold immature scholars who regularly need to certainly have progressive sequels within the at-large insignificant time usually.
I like talking to people. It can be pretty boring if they don't engage with you and just stay with formal/small talk, but if you can get someone to really talk, you learn all sorts of new things about the world.
If everyone would redirect to sopastrike.com, yeah :) would be good to set up a generic black page with simple explanatory text somewhere, hosted on something nice 'n scalable.
Bullshit. Utter bullshit.

I don't get this angry when commenting here but the disgusting lack of empathy continually expressed on HN really, really gets to me. If you truly felt sorry for the girl, for her family, considered her family's pride for what she accomplished not only for herself but possibly for other kids in Pakistan, then you wouldn't feel the need to point out any of what you've stated.

I read the article and found it quite inspirational that a girl her age had so much motivation. Most kids at the age of 9 are playing their Wii's and watching early-morning reruns of Power Rangers. Her achievements go beyond technical certification.

But it's alright. Let's be champions of truth and justice at the sacrifice of appreciation and empathy. It'd be the hacker thing to do, anyway. It's happened with Dropbox, AirBnB, Steve Jobs, etc, already; so one more added to the list is a drop in the bucket.
I believe he's pointing out, accurately, that wealthy families in Pakistan can be just as privileged as middle-class Americans. He's saying it's unfair to use this girl as an example of those actually living in under-privileged poverty conditions in Pakistan.

It's a fair objection, though rather emotionally contentious given the context.
More accurately, this should be called "what percentile are you?"
We've been through this before with the whole "Web is Dead" discussion.

http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html
I think there becomes confusion when a company looks at each service as a separate company. It is true while having one encompassing brand name is best practice, having distinct names for product lines and services is imperative. Each one of these products or product lines over time will become its own brand. Apple, Google and 37 Signals are major brands in the tech world to model yourself after.

Additionally, don't fall in the trap of naming your company a weird alteration trying to define your service. Building a brand is about creating a name people identify with a service. The goal is to make it easy for people to remember.
Can You Walk on Lava?
"""This is just sugar coating for the crap they're covering."""

Yes, please, do reduce an elaborate article discussing technical and business trade-offs into a silly anti-MS rant that wouldn't be out of place in Slashdot circa 1999 for us.
Not everyone migrates out because it's not trivial to do well. Once out of the free tier their offerings are quite expensive for comparable(well performance wise) service elsewhere.
Plagiarizing stories from Literotica could be stopped trivially - diff the stories against the database. Amazon doesn't do it, so they must not mind; I'd guess since they're making money too.
It's also self-evident that I was replying to the person who wrote it, thus I made no claims about what "all people" do.

Besides which, your statement that "piracy != lost sale" is demonstrably false. You could have qualified your statement with "in some cases" or "for some people", but such a trivially true claim wouldn't add much to the discussion since the discussion is about what one person does.
MCP at 9 and got to meet Bill Gates? Wow! That is a great accomplishment. I'm almost 30 and I have not done either of those things!

What a great quote, too. She seemed to have a great outlook. Rest in Peace.
You're absolutely right. Look at this (real) article I found on the internet, called "What a New York Prostitute Can Teach You About Conversion": http://www.conversionista.com/what-a-new-york-prostitute-can... -> it sounds like a title The Oatmeal would put in his cartoons.
Maybe they don't want to give specifics until things are more solidified. Were it me I'd hate to make an announcement and then have to double-back and disappoint people.
The Gentleman Hacker of 1903
It is an API service and will take you about 25 minutes to do the initial set up. Here is why its worth it. Once you set up the server its done. It takes 2 minutes to set up a new email address (support, general, sales, etc.) But after the setup, you don't have to worry about anything. If they update, your service is not effected and that leaves you free to stress about more important things. Big or small company, it is well worth the initial upfront time and will save you a great deal of headache in the future.
Regular updates: New EarnEasyCash Feature – Social Share
The common goose
A very different approach, but Fog Creek's WebPutty helps solve this as well: http://www.webputty.net/ (HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786893)
I know privileged and smart 30 year olds for whom getting a real job or moving out of the house would be a major major accomplishment. This girl was 10.

Writing off her accomplishments due to privilege is unfair.
Whats the deal with managers ranking above CEO s.
On the issue of performance you should read the stackoverflow blog.
Show HN: I made a social experiment while drinking coffee this morning
Yeah, it's important to realize he could be both really right on some things and really wrong on others. However, here I think he's right. They play in a space that is so important to the OS vendors' product and strategy. It's hard to imagine sync remaining 3rd party forever.
In this era of global mass instantaneous communications, every citizen of every country is our neighbor. There is no excuse for the continued existence of this disgusting military industrial complex.

The only things keeping this going are racism, ignorance or misperception fueled by propaganda, and a sick, inhuman and outdated Social Darwinism.

We just cannot permit criminals and thugs to continue to have control.
I understand your general thesis, but your statements about art just seem completely off.

> You can't have art unless you constrain yourself somehow.

> They could just take a photograph of a setting, and that photograph wouldn't say a thing to anyone.

While I realize that art is subjective, I'm very surprised that you would put these conditions around what you consider to be art. Especially since it seems to be a condemnation of a large subset of photography.
Ask HN: What would you do with the domain www.pipasucks.com?
I was recently blessed (or cursed) with a credit card, and have been stimulating the economy quite well :) Around the beginning of the SOPA saga, I thought of buying the domain www.sopasucks.com and throwing an info page up on it, but, to my shock, it was on GoDaddy auctions (of all places)...
I went on and checked pipasucks.com and it was available, and picked it up on NameCheap. So, any suggestions on what I should do with it? Or, if one of you feel like you have a good idea for it, I may be willing to give away the domain or access to it. Thoughts?
Your point is well taken, and they are clearly generating a non-trivial amount of revenue.

But my point wasn't "they're losing money and making it up on volume"; more that true juggernauts like Apple and Google have business models that derive at least some additional incremental revenue from every user they acquire. Google obviously plays a longer game to receive that revenue through advertising than Apple does selling hardware, but the revenue does eventually arrive.
Yours sounds like a question assuming all people can build all software. That is simply not true. Sure, if you want to build some enterprise software with open source tools, hire an average bloke with XP and TDD experience.

I would pay someone 3X the salary to someone 3X "above average," but that does _NOT mean that s/he would accomplish the work in 1/3 the time at the same quality.

The difference between _brilliant programmers and average programmers is MASSIVE: someone 3X as "good" needs to be paid 3X the salary because they can create something new, imaginative, life-changing.