skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The fact that salaries in the 60-80k range come to mind in discussing compensation suggests that your company does not attract good talent and so the discussion of top of market doesn't apply to you.

The reason is that, in 2012, 80k is a fair starting salary for a developer fresh out of a good college with no experience. It is not the top of a range for people with experience unless the company is third rate, pulling from the discards that couldn't find work at a decent firm.

(Two year old article on starting salaries for college grads: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/022210-computer-scienc...)

As far as the situation goes with being able to tell whether someone is in the top 10% or so, that's pretty easy since bottom 90% can't code at all and fail at fizz buzz. Slightly more tricky is separating the top 1% that are really good from that top 10% who can develop and design at all. Distinguishing these two levels of competency is easily and accurately accomplished by an interviewer who is a competent developer himself. And yes, it is much better to pay the top rate for the small number of developers that are competent and efficient rather than pay a few percent less than that for people who can contribute little to a project, which is unfortunately the case for most of the talent pool.
It's interesting that nobody has yet mentioned deliberate under estimating so that the project sounds like it will come in on budget. Basically, for political reasons.

Every project I've ever worked on in the AAA games industry was deliberately underestimated so the publisher is happy with budget going in, with the added benefit that you can put pressure on the programmers because they are behind schedule from day one.
Clever. Great way to get your name out there!
How about being innocent unless proved guilty? Megaupload went down without any trial, and even though the site was obviously used for piracy (was it really?), that should still be proven in court and then only the illegal section of the website should be removed from web.
ClojureScript (which swannodette works on). You can invent your own language features in a Lisp.
Not too surprising when you think about it; it correlates well with high incidence of seasonal affective disorder and general lack of sunlight, as caffeine is a natural antidepressant. Same reason it's so popular in Seattle.
Not all scientific fields are created equally. Some simply have access to better experimentation methods than others. Climate scientists have ridiculously poor measurement methods, historic records, and computational models to possibly be coming up with any conclusions.

An article on this topic: Err on the Side of Bologna – According to Scientists, http://bit.ly/wYbEIB
Victory on SOPA: Lessons Learned
The strategy isn't the issue. It's whether it fits with the process you've set up.

If you do code-review on the contributions/pull requests then I can see where the merge-often strategy causes issues. The auto-generated merge commits don't give you the context of the updates that are pulled in and will lead to having to spend time going back through the commit tree. It may not lead to the introduction of issues or regressions but you can't be sure.

However, if you're set up as a small team with good internal communication or a high level of trust, then merge-often can be a good thing in that you usually aren't left with big merge issues to deal with and you're more likely to have any conflicting updates fresh in your mind.
Dave, your founder has a pattern of stealing not just from 37signals..

Guess what? The issue will not die this weekend..

What is your plan B?
This is petty and immature.
Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton, http://bit.ly/vZX5si
> I didn't mean to imply they had increasing badness, it just happened to work out that way.

Ahh, ok. My bad.

My moral intuition with regard to copyright probably isn't entirely consistent. For instance, if a poor kid wants to learn but the parents can't afford books, is it OK for him to pirate those books (either with a photocopier or digitally)? I think it is okay, and it's definitely in the best interest of society. After that it's just a slippery slope towards a very free interpretation of "fair use", regarding music, art and so on.

As for D, society punishes people harshly mostly for being unstrategic. After all, they should just do a "We fked up!" post regardless of their beliefs, because it's obviously the strategic thing to do. They didn't do that right away, so they are effectively punished for their poor strategy, not for their moral judgement. Even a transparently disingenuous apology is (erroneously) judged (by the public) as an apology of sorts, even though it only means that the company in question did a cost-benefit analysis.

Effectively we're browbeating companies into giving the sort of apology we want to see, regardless of what they believe they did was wrong. That's sort of messed up, when you think about it.
Translating for others that do know how to read the last flower of Latium.

> Posso comentar em português nesse texto? Just asking :D

Can I comment this in portuguese in this text? Just asking :D

> Muito boa a iniciativa do Paulo. Ainda não li nenhum livro dele, mas como é o preferido de Will Smith, lerei em breve.

Very good initiative from Paulo. I have not read any of his books yet, but he is a favorite of Will Smith, I will do so soon.

Rather literal but does the job...

My response for you.

I did read a book from him after my then girlfriend recommend it, I really hated it, I do not like the style of his writing and the esoteric thematic of the book, it was also one of the earliest novels that he published and so it had grammatically poor Portuguese.
Humility on either side would have gone a long way.
Something I wrote up nearly three years ago that should explain rebase vs merge

http://gitguru.com/2009/02/03/rebase-v-merge-in-git/

I really should go back and start making new blog posts... I'd dropped the ball because I ended up on a few enterprise SCM (software configuration management) gigs shortly after.
> Let's not forget Dropbox is just a replica of local storage. That's the whole model. It's more meaningful to discuss whether or not this could happen to S3.

Well, every Dropbox account has a `Public` folder with direct HTTP access.
You, Mr. living in San Diego, are trying to get KWIK24, PBS Wikipedia LA, instead of KOSA13, PBS Wikipedia San Diego, aren't you?

Well, unfortunately we know that you can't get it over 3G or 4G because you're outside the reception area and we've encrypted KWIK24 to be received by people in LA only on Fibre or ADSL.

KOSA13 might have 30 second ads before each article, doesn't carry half of the most popular articles and re-compresses every image with a watermark, but that's not our problem.
Please don't automatically assume the market is falling short here. Many governments including our own play a huge part in manipulating the price of fuels.
Agreed. Not that it matters much, but I just took Rework out of my wish list on Amazon. Reading his tweets in response to this has totally turned me off to 37Signals.
But that doesn't make it right. "It's how he approaches everything" isn't a reason, it's context.
Just on the website itself: it's very impressive presentation and usability for playing with examples. Couple of issues:

1. The floating title looks cool esp with greying out above it, but it page-down/space moves down more than a page (in effect), so it skips some text. I didn't realize I was missing some text for a while.

2. In the Animal example, the "Run" button doesn't work (though "run" works from the "load" overlay for it). I'm uising Firefox 9.0.1 on Ubuntu 10.04
Another tool to fight Internet censorship
The folks at OpenDNS just released a a new tool to encrypt DNS server traffic. In a few words it "DNSCrypt is a piece of lightweight software that boosts online privacy and security. It works by encrypting all DNS traffic between the user and OpenDNS, preventing any spying, spoofing or man-in-the-middle attacks."

I'm in China and have had nightmarish problems with DNS spoofing and poisoning so this tool is looking very useful to me.

It is currently Mac only.
I could see it being funny as a standalone parody if it wasn't attached to your company. But it seems that it's an attempt at publicity for gemfury. And since you're using an image of DHH, I think it's in poor taste. You may not get the reaction from the crowd you were looking for.
I agree with this fully. I know many people who wouldn't buy a pair of boots for $100, but would buy the same boots if labeled "Uusually $400, but on sale for $200!"

People don't understand the shopping experience. It's about going there, trying the clothes, getting good deals. The whole shopping experience starts at the parking lot: find the spot closest to the main entrance.
It should be noted that they changed their algorithm this year. They are giving more weight to good actions.

So this change in ranking is partially due to good countries getting more credit for stuff they were already doing, as well as new bad actions in the USA.

Nothing to feel proud about as this probably means the USA would have ranked pretty low anyway in 2010, were it calculated by 2011 standards.
A lovely observation
Any developer with any intelligence or skill doesn't do that. You don't just 'publish' something. As a developer there is no way I can imagine this being done innocently because it is something that is always at the forefront of your mind.
Allan has founded four companies. This isn't his first ball game and I'm sure he knows better.
One problem with this bill is that recording, lets say on your PVR, is not allowed for a long time. Here is the relevant section:

"29.23 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to fix a communication signal, to reproduce a work or sound recording that is being broadcast or to fix or reproduce a performer’s performance that is being broadcast, in order to record a program for the purpose of listening to or viewing it later, if:

(c) the individual makes no more than one recording of the program;

(d) the individual keeps the recording no longer than is reasonably necessary in order to listen to or view the program at a more convenient time;" http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Doc...

So now, if you have two TVs and PVRs, you can only record you show on one of them. Secondly, as soon as you watch it, you have to delete it.

Another problem is that while it allows backup copies, recordings etc., if there is a protection method on the media to prevent this, it becomes illegal to to backup or record the item. I can guarantee that companies will start putting DRM, just to take advantage of this clause, effectively making it as though the clauses that allows backups do not exist at all.
There are no such things as personal thoughts and corporate thoughts. They're all just thoughts.
> I’m the first to agree that any website obviously engaged in piracy (vs. having independent users leverage the platform in unintended ways) should be shut down

So if you wanted to start a website like this and maximise your business and legality - the simple answer is to just let people use it for piracy and pretend you dont know it is happening? This seems slightly silly to me..
"And it was the same way with design. I was totally psyched to copy a Müller-Brockmann poster, a Designgraphik composition, or an Apple UI. Merely executing the copy was a thrill. But now every design is supposed to be the next great thing. And as days and weeks and months go by, the design level stays the same while the aspiration goes higher and higher.

So maybe it’s time to take one of these Fridays off and just copy something."

(http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2412-how-do-you-turn-inspirat...)
The visionmedia stack. Can't live without him.
Developing a nice-looking design is the easiest part of a startup.

Yes and no. They didn't choose the design because it looked nice, they chose it because it had already been A/B tested as more effective (admittedly, for a product other than their own, but still).

As someone who has created nice designs, and as someone that has also extensively multivariant tested designs to see which one gets a 1% boost in clickthrough... the 'nice' part is just the tip of the iceberg.

To clarify: not defending what they did. Just suggesting what I think their reasoning was.
The cliches are strongest from a distance.
Sure, but that's not terribly relevant to CO2 production in the 21st century. The big issue will be the maturation of developing economies (China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, etc.) Even if the existing developed world drops their carbon emissions to zero tomorrow that won't drastically effect worldwide carbon emissions over the next hundred years. We need technologies that are not only suitable for developed nations but also for nations still in the process of bootstrapping themselves into industrialization.
Can you give an example or two of mistakes that you had read about "in the abstract" and how they manifested in your particular case?

Like you, I've found myself in situations where I realize after the fact, "oh, that's what they were all warning against!" It might have been sunk in better if I'd been given a practical example rather than abstract advice.
You don't think Apple and Google are solving big problems? They were startups too, once. I think the flaw in your logic is that once a startup successfully solves a big problem, they quickly stop being a startup, and become a big company. It's a mistake to conclude "startups can't solve big problems".
Hollywood business aside, I think you just came up with Twitter's business model. I'm joking, but only somewhat.
Define acceptable. "friendly business" - as opposed to "unfriendly business"? Explain the difference between personal and "corporate" thoughts.

"typical East Coast bullshit." is how Steve Jobs described this sort of drivel.

We've entered an age of clearer, more direct and transparent communications. There's no time nor need for formalities.
Or at the very least, host the images on your own server.
Definitely impressed with how quickly they got this page out there. It's a good example of someone seeing a very limited window of opportunity to do something that gets them noticed -- and actually taking it. I'll bet the designer felt a rush as he designed and coded the page as quickly as possible, for fear that we might have already forgotten about the thing which this is about. Certainly paid off.
Duck.com (not the search engine you might expect)
"I'll only use this power for good, it's ok."

The problem with that line of thinking is that there's no monopoly on such abuses. Once the "good guys" do it then what's to stop the "bad guys" from using the same power. And now that you no longer have the backing of truth on your side how do you prove to the public that you are in the right?

How is this any different from the police planting evidence on someone they KNOW, but cannot prove, is guilty?
Already done. Sadly as they're a non-Conservative MP, I expect it to have as much of an effect as screaming into the wind. The joys of your MP being on the wrong side of a majority.
Show HN: I made a list of online education resources; help me finish it
I'm hoping that by putting it up here you can help me improve the list. Any suggestions at all are welcome. If you know of any that I'm missing, please email me at clemmer.alexander@gmail.com
I guess the only problem is people can't recognize familiar URLS if you use a redirect page. If you link to a Facebook event for a concert, for example, people could see the trusted domain before visiting.
If you have a WordPress blog, you should use a caching plugin like WP Super Cache, Hyper Cache or W3 Total Cache. It will drastically reduce the server load and improve the performance significantly.

See caching plugins review: http://www.tutorial9.net/tutorials/web-tutorials/wordpress-c...
this is of low taste, i'm impressed with the ability of people to try to use any situation. And using the DHH pic is really lame.
Protest against Bill C-11, Canada's SOPA, planned on February 10th in Montreal
> I've been blasted to ashes by an inbound comet, but it's all OK because someone else made it out alive."

Don't be so selfish. Odds are a couple of the survivors are distant cousins, so, at least some of your genes are safe. And you can also record messages for the survivors to safeguard.

Or we can develop the technology to upload you to a simulation somewhere else.

> What is the probability that we'll all be expunged by a bit of rock zipping around the solar system?

Given time, if we stay limited to the Earth, 100%

> Is there another way we could allocate those resources to achieve a better expected outcome?

Again, it depends on the timeframe we are talking about. I think the first thing we have to do is to thoroughly understand the threats we face. The second step is to understand what Plan-B looks like. We really need to look into environmental risks (Yellowstone, climate change), political ones (Iran with nukes), economic ones and the risk of a floating rock with our name on it hitting us soon enough. If a rock or an erupting Yellowstone or a bunch of fanatics with high-tech WMDs don't kill us, we may get fried when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide (it'll happen in about a billion years, and while stars won't likely hit each other too frequently, gas clouds will light up). If that doesn't destroy the Earth, the Sun will eventually swallow it as it gets old, in, IIRC, 6 billion years.

The Earth is doomed. Every planet and star is doomed. Even the universe itself is doomed. Its only chance is if someone smart enough survives long enough to figure out how to avoid it.
Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz CEO) and Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot co-founder / CTO) are working on a site for this now:

https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/1dJvk7Ax...
Agreed. Based on Dave's response on twitter and the exchange between Allan and DHH, I believe Dave cracked the whip on them. This apology doesn't have the same tone.
They say "please don't take this seriously" and pretend it's a parody. Yet... the product is real, and the "see plans and pricing" button still takes you to a payment page. So because they're promoting their site on HN instead of on Techcrunch they think it's okay? This is like building a knockoff MacBook with an Apple logo on it, and pasting a "parody" sticker on it.

I guess the GemFury folks just wish they could get as much publicity as CureBit did, even if it's mostly negative.
The most import part of that apology formula is missing, actually meaning it. Also if the answer to #3 is obvious (ie stop doing what your apologizing for) then one shouldn't have to ask.
"Canada has always had more liberal copyright laws than the US, and I expect that to continue. You don't hear about a Canadian being sued for $20 million for downloading a few songs on Limewire."

Your'e far more trusting of this current government then I. It would fit into their message on "getting tough on crime" to have more restrictions on technology, to the point of having many actions that we take for granted now being outlawed.

I get the tagging of every little thing being "the next SOPA" is diluting the message, and agree with your point, but from the current governments track record, I wouldn't trust them on this line of legislation as far as I could throw them. Especially as this isn't the first time they've tried to pass such legislation.
Helpful hint: you can check out all of the page's css using the inspector. For this case you can see that what font-family is declared, and then reference it on google. Using this technique you can add styles on the fly to your sites and check them out as you are designing.
Well there's an interesting debate, there.

Launchbit bought a stock image. So even if Curebit saw the logo through Launchbit, is there a reason why they can't buy it too? I imagine the creator of the stock image wouldn't mind the extra money.

I think that using a stock image for your logo is probably unwise for exactly this reason.
Sure. But Dropbox could be taken down and you lose nothing
Where do people hear about this kind of thing in advance? I'm new to the area and trying to get plugged in, but it's hard to figure out what's worthwhile and what's a waste of time.
When the SOPA fury was going on in the states, I was talking to some friends of mine saying that it'd be a great business idea to promote Canada as a technology haven, not having a patriot act or SOPA at all. Forgot that our government seems to pick up failed ideas form other places and think they're golden.
Plus its pretty sloppy to use a stock illustration as a logo. I call foul on both.
Angry Nerds: Copyright Theft Is Bad, When It Happens To People We Like
Yes, but it's also good to respond to comments, to a certain extent. I like when founders come on HN and answer questions, solve problems and speak frankly. But there's a point when you're having a PR nightmare that you need to stop trying to fix things yourself.

My suggestion would be to acknowledge the issue, let people know you will address it shortly but you need time to talk with your partners so you could get a proper response together.

Perhaps some version of "we're going to get to the bottom of this." Sure, it could be deemed a short term cop-out but it's better than sticking your foot in your over and over.

I'm curious how public relations experts recommend people handle a situation like this.
Nokia Asha 300 Review
Productivity and the Workweek
"An average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950."
Yes, precisely. One case is copyright infringement for personal use, one is copyright infringement and misattribution for commercial use. Compare e.g. Bob downloading "The Dark Knight" to watch it versus Bob selling copies of "The Dark Bob, by Bob" which is actually just TDK with a different label slapped on it. I think a lot of people would find the latter to be much more wrong.
Side note, Justin's an awesome guy, he just did a short stint as a co-worker at Kiva for the last 4-5 months, but is now working on a startup. We had a great laugh around the office last month when he was still here.
The Perils of ‘Bite Size’ Science
Chris Matthieu, N7ICE, demonstrates how to tweet from a ham radio
My karma seems to be swaying up and down due to this comment. The page itself is funny but i dont think you are helping anyone but yourself with the page, which is very creative but in bad taste.
The voting history of MPs in Canada is available in an easy to use format at http://openparliament.ca/bills/votes/41-1/

Most of the votes have the Conservative majority solidly on one side and everyone else on the other. It's nearly impossible to stop or alter legislation that Mr. Harper wants passed.
People who write hash functions are both exceedingly anal about performance concerns and generally interested in having their work compile with any and all reasonable C compilers (yes, even those that aren't gcc) and still have at least good performance.

They also tend to be things that are not designed in code: they are designed in math and then translated to code as the last step, preferably in a way that is able to remain static forever (they should not need maintenance by an engineer, even/especially to update to support random new C compiler builds).

(Some of my friends entered the recent SHA3 NIST hash competition and lasted long enough to have random other mathematicians scrutinize, improve, and finally defeat their math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_Hash)
Thankfully we can use a user's ip adress to ensure this only effects Hollywood executives.
Ultra thin case for SGP case for iphone 4 4G with screen protector