skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
All this is true, and there's another statistically-rooted problem that pertains even to mundane "enterprise" projects where there's little new invention and where reliable time estimates should be possible.

Let's say that you have 20 tasks. Each involves rolling a 10-sided die. If it's a 1 through 8, wait that number of minutes. If it's a 9, wait 15 minutes. If it's a 10, wait an hour.

How long is this string of tasks going to take? Summing the median time expectancy, we get a sum 110 minutes, because the median time for a task is 5.5 minutes. The actual expected time to completion is 222 minutes, with 5+ hours not being unreasonable if one rolls a lot of 9's and 10's.

This is an obvious example where summing the median expected time for the tasks is ridiculous, but it's exactly what people do when they compute time estimates, even though the reality on the field is that the time-cost distribution has a lot more weight on the right. (That is, it's more common for a "6-month" project to take 8 months than 4. In statistics-wonk terms, the distribution is "log-normal".)

Software estimates are generally computed (implicitly) by summing the good-case (25th to 50th percentile) times-to-completion, assuming perfect parallelism with no communication overhead, and with a tendency for unexpected tasks, undocumented responsibilities, and bugs to be overlooked outright.
You need to have a frank discussion with your co-founder ASAP. Is the plan really for her to do no work at all for a full year? I don't see how that's possible as a startup co-founder. For instance, how will you pay your bills?

This is a major risk/threat to your startup and you need to plan carefully on how to managed it if you plan to be around by this time next year.

Also: http://www.quora.com/Pregnancy-and-Work/Is-it-wrong-to-fire-...
I was hoping this would be a system that determines what kind of faces go with different kinds of names, like "Hm, he doesn't really look like a Steve."
What Apple Could Do With Its $100 Billion Cash Hoard
It's not always just about the savings. While it may not be the tactic that yields different result than just straight shooting, the concept of negotiation teaches you about the person and the way they deal with controversy and conflict. As a hiring manager I use salary negotiation to learn oodles about the candidate.

It was salary negotiation that made him take the second job (or so you think), but what do you think how would that person respond when you (or his peers) disagreed with his approach to development, architecture or other difficult people on the team (assuming that there are some). How did he react in other situations?

Don't get me wrong. I think that paying people what they are worth is very important. I recall a conversation with a manager from whom I inherited my team about a potential raise for one of the team members.

Me: Claire didn't get a raise in a year a half. Can you tell me why?

Former manager: She didn't ask for one. Why would we throw money at people.

Me: Because I value her work and given inflation and cost of living, she is technically making less now than she was when we hired her.

Former manager: I don't work that way. I don't give raises unless people ask for them.

She was let go and I inherited her new team as well.

In a nutshell, neotiating initial salary can teach you a lot about the candidate and the way they deal with difficult situations. If we, as managers, don't walk away from the table and hire the person, it is our job to be proactive and pay them what they are worth and what market will bear.

And that is what makes loyal employees.
Walks And Walking – Essex Walks Epping Forest Abridge Walking Route
No, you cannot say that every project is impossible to provide clear specifications for. Many projects are simple enough that you can provide accurate estimates for them. Let me give you a trivial example:

I want a program that adds three numbers together and appends the string "asdf1234" to the result.

1) I can provide a very clear specification for this.
2) I invented something new.
3) I can provide an accurate estimate for how long it will take to develop.

It's not very useful. But there are many "mini-projects" in organizations that are of small enough scale that you can provide accurate estimates and specifications for them. A more complicated, but "useful" example, would be to implement a logging server according to a REST API. The specifications are clear, the project is simple, and the estimate will be very accurate unless the software developer is not very experienced.
I use a second browser just for JS and flash. It never has more than 3 tabs open and is quite light on memory usage.
Excellent. I would just add a line to the Features page like:

Custom email address - Promote your personal brand by using an @yourdomain.com email address.
We pay better than market salaries. I don't "give" the salary range because I'm searching for the right candidate. In most cases, we adjust our offers higher than what we expected we would find in candidates.

These aren't tactics, they're filters to see where candidates are in line with our evaluation and what we expect to pay them.

I can tell from your comments that you already assume I'm trying to screw you over and repress your compensation. If you ever dealt with me, you would know that's not the case.

Given the team we've constructed, I'm pretty sure we've got the right folks. Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm not sure about ES3, its just my own experience but I've worked for some companies with rather broken processes and they would still involve the engineering team in giving estimates, sure there is pressure to give a lower estimate but I don't see how a company could function by having non-engineering people give firm estimates
Google informs users about new privacy policies--even when not logged in
When was the last time that someone haggled at JCPenny?
http://www.edmunds.com/car-loan/four-square-basics.html
Wanted: Banking App to Monitor Balances
Just search "four square car sales":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWuSTCj3Y4E
Are there any airlines that do the flat-pricing thing? None in the US that I'm aware of.
Yep, you shouldn't take anything personally from anyone that isn't family. Most people just want more dopamine, whether it comes in the form of more money, more sex, or just getting to work in time. You're just a means to an end for most people. hence, don't take what they say personally.
That would be my guess too. I came to software engineering from electronics engineering and the meaning of software driver was immediatly obvious to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_circuit
Out of curiosity, do you work for a relatively small company? I ask because I can't imagine this scaling particularly well, with production code containing a large number of "dead" code paths that you have to cross reference with your feature toggler to check on their status.

Do you feel like you gain anything significant from your method (apart from the simpler git interaction from having just one developer branch)?
Better Random Ints for NodeJS
So was there more discussion about await and defer in the many github issues on the subject? This output seems more debuggable than previous CScript defer attempts.
Siqik Social Community Network
This only supports my long running contention that normal people (outside of Japan) do not understand QR codes, and wherever they are printed, you would be better off writing a short URL. They are 1) opaque, 2) ugly, 3) impossible to memorize, 4) confusing to non techies and 5) no faster than typing the URL for the majority of viewers.
When We Build - Wilson Minor (Django, Apple)
http://www.shouldiuseaqrcode.com/
> every distro becomes the same once you remove their defaults

You can remove some of the defaults and not all of them. For example, I still use the default Ubuntu package repos. I'm still getting value out of the default Ubuntu system without needing to run every single default.
TBH, was hoping to get more meat in this article. like why they were invalidated and what exactly was invalidated.
It's about time someone released this. I hate having to check craigslist everyday for the same item

At least this way they email me
Tricky situation!

Here are my observations based on what you described:

The very fact that you're thinking if it would be fair for you to build the business on your own while owning only half the business suggests to me that it's only the incentive of owning more of the business (or rather the lack of such an incentive) that is preventing you from actually doing it on your own. You already know you will be able to do it alone deep inside or so your style of writing suggests.

That said, I would suggest you speak to your co-founder about how the business should grow in her absence. That should get the ball rolling and set the tone for one of you to bring up this topic.
Donkey Source:

http://drivey.com/DONKEYQB.BAS.html
Yes, exactly, one issue that I've seen, at least in the Java world, is the original web application they have is so out of date and obsolete (but its still making money) that you literally have to bend over backwards to not mess things up which means severe restrictions on using new libraries, etc and then this leads to having to do stupid things like forcing people to write their own CSV parser because its too much hassle to put in a library for it and make sure it doesn't break anything.
The author conflates small outward-facing practices with small inward-facing practices. I don't think they are the same.

Arguing about small outward-facing stuff is just bikeshedding. In the case of the "n/a" versus "ø" debate, you should settle it with an A/B test, some paper mockups, or even just by manager fiat. If a manager's job is not to keep the developers away from unproductive ratholes like this, then what is it?

Arguing about small inward-facing stuff, like house coding style, is about control of one's own environment, and having a pleasant workplace. So it may well be a matter of human dignity and respect to let them spend "useless" time on it.
I would file it under 2), assuming it was well written rather than just a generic dashed off thank you. In my relatively brief interview experience for software developers, I have yet to get a thank you note (and I'm ok with that).

I would lean toward being okay with the surprise thank you, if only on the grounds that I think we all accept that such things are discoverable on the internet and the intent was clearly non-malicious.

That said, I cannot imagine ever changing my decision after receiving such a note, so I'm curious what the goal of sending it would be? Just obligation?
Oh, the job titles these days
A satire on the meaningless job titles, esp. in the IT industry today.
My Startup Failed, But It's OK
> I do not use 'GNU bash' at all, it was a fork called 'dash'.

If I'm reading this right, you must be one of the very few people on Earth to use dash when you have the option to use bash.

Anyway, I don't use bash, either, but that's because I moved to zsh before Ubuntu even existed. I think I was using Slackware then.
I'm sure your cofounder has thought of this too. At some point did you miss the opportunity to have a discussion about the future of the startup when she leaves for maternity leave? Or is she convinced you can do the majority of the work for a year and the matter is settled in her mind? edit Anyways, you have to have a discussion with her. It's going to hurt less now than later.
Exactly, it's be interesting to have the average number of hashes needed before you hit a collision.

Crypto hashes are made so that collisions are as rare as possible.

Sometimes, you need something very, very fast, with as little collisions are possible (aka it "never" happen, like crypto hashes) yet those are not hashes of passwords and the like, so if it would happen it wouldn't be a security issue.

For that reason, this question is in fact interesting. Not that I have the answer to that :-)
hah yes you are right, thank you
http://consumerist.com/2007/03/dealerships-rip-you-off-with-...
For iPhone and iPad apps it compiles into pure Objective-C (and even includes an XCode project). You can certainly create games, though there are no animation features (unless you code them yourself using Custom Blocks). So the graphics would be static images.
I can't answer your question explicitly, but how about making your initial customers also your initial marketer? Word of mouth is one of the best, if not the best, ways to market your product or service.
Have these been software companies? In software companies, software is the product. In other companies software is an expense. It makes a difference in how it is managed.

Some companies certainly are behaving better software wise. I recommend his book, he goes into a longer discussion of the details, has citations, and includes counter points. It's also possible that this has shifted since the book was written (2002 I believe), but I suspect it's more that you've been at companies who managed to get this part right.
I'm not female nor a parent (yet), but I also believe in a family-first environment. My startup is in the education field, so children and families are at the core of why we're doing what we're doing.

Here's one thought:

What if your cofounder wasn't pregnant, and simply wanted to take a year off? How would that change the way you think everything?

In other words, forget the fact that she's pregnant (or even that your cofounder is female, in case that's swaying your opinion), and just think about it as a generic cofounder with complimentary skills that will be departing for a year.

This would raise some thoughts and questions for me:

1. How likely will your cofounder come back in one year?

2. How do you keep going forward alone? (e.g. hire, find more cofounders, etc)

3. How do you compensate her for the IP she's already contributed? (i.e. company equity, consider her work done as a loan to be repaid, etc)

4. If the compensation to her is equity, what is the equity split? My guess is it wouldn't be 50/50, but what is a fair amount that compensates you adequately, yet still provides an incentive for her to return?

5. How will being alone for a year effect your fundraising activities? Most investors invest in teams moreso than ideas. If you are doing this alone for one year, investors will likely view you as a single founder.

It's very likely that you come up with a contingency plan and hire contractors to keep you going for a year, then when your cofounder returns, she returns to her part of the venture.

Or, you part ways amiably, and her compensation is a small equity stake and a role as an advisor or something, while you seek another cofounder to continue.

I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you both can talk it out and come up with a suitable arrangement for you both.
No. It had a reach of 4% which is quite a different thing.
I find it really surprising that their profit margins are so small, considering that the actual physical product is so cheap to produce.
WP7 has them built in, and I agree, it _is_ rather convenient. But as other commentators mentioned, it is a phishing disaster waiting to happen because the UI doesn't display the full URL if it gets too long.
That means that your work has to be the top of the market. It is impossible for that to be true of everyone. Therefore, 90-95% of the people that employ the strategy will be out to lunch and that just may be enough for me to walk away from you as a candidate.
> I guess

Please don't astroturf.
Don't use honesty as an excuse for letting someone pick your pocket. Here's what happens when Mr. Niceguy mentions his requirements first.

You: I'm looking for $90k

Boss: Oh I think we can get you there, we start everyone at $70k then adjust based on performance. Perform well and you'll get there (you won't).

You: Oh, well I'd prefer $90k to start, and the position is worth $90k.

Boss: We don't make exceptions, and you don't really meet requirements X and Y for the position. But we'd like to give you a chance to learn here.

You: No I really deserve 90k, I might go 85k with the proper benefits.

Boss: Ok so will start you at 75k, and our normal benefits package of barely subsidized medical/401k/2-weeks vacation is easily worth 10k. Glad we could come to an aggreement.

You can be tough and honest. Negotiation isn't about being dishonest. You can negoatiate very well and be honest the whole time.
> If you've even got me torrenting stuff, you're probably doing something very wrong.

I never pirate and even I was sorely tempted. They've managed to produce a hit show that people are excited about, but then expect people to ignore that excitement and delay gratification for months. I feel like I'm one of those kids in the marshmallow experiment.
I have always used the following when thinking about my money:

I always round up any price I see.

I always round down any money I have to spend.
Beautiful web type: highlighting the best of the Google web fonts directory
US plummets on World Press Freedom Index, from 27th to 47th
What do you mean by flat pricing? That everyone travelling between two cities pays the same fare? Because that certainly doesn't (or shouldn't) happen anywhere. Airline tickets are substanially different from standard goods (be that cars, clothing or whatever else)
Ask HN: Are there news archives for commercial use
Hello YCers,
I am looking for a free news archives for commercial use. I could do a focused crawl the news websites and extract relevant information. But wondering if there is a easier way.

Also, are you aware of any affordable licencing of news archives ?

Thanks
SM
Suit claims Silicon Valley anti-poaching scheme
> it is a problem nonetheless.

I think the disagreement is over how much of a problem it is. It's not like piracy is a new problem.

It's just that:

1. The Internet has made distribution trivial.

2. The price-point is now 'free' instead of 'cheaper than the original, but still costs money.'

3. Storage is now trivial. It's easy to pirate a 1000 PDFs of actual books. It's less trivial to deal with 1000 actual books, even if they are free.

In general though, when people are arguing that the pirates wouldn't have paid for the product at any price, they are attempting to dispel the myth that 1 pirate download = 1 lost sale. It's this calculation that is used time and again to 'prove' how much of an issue piracy actually is.
Irrelevant.

That the possibility for an email client to be so configured that it would AUTOMATICALLY process a false positive validation, makes this system utterly unusable for any developer with a [brain|conscience].
Pretty sure the PDP-8 had the ability to use different peripherals off it's bus and therefore needed code for each one.

PDP-8 was mid-1960s so check it's manual and manual for its peripherals.

Maybe the word "driver" was borrowed from magnetic tape drivers?

There are also "solenoid driver boards" in the PDP8 so the word has a logic circuit meaning too.

Gate drivers and SCR drivers, etc. all physical circuits before software. So software borrowed the concept.
Not sure if that's entirely accurate. JCP is a mall anchor/dept store, not an H&M or a Zara. They sell other makers' labels. And this announcement seems relegated to the pricing domain, haven't read anything about them changing their production/distribution model.
Why didn't the "iced" feature just get added to CoffeeScript? Why have two separate packages?
yes, it is interesting MegaUpload got taken out shortly before it was going to launch its own label/music distribution system.
Hey, just a quick reply, that, yes I'm rather busy right now but I still squeeze in time for Mongrel2 and should be getting out a 1.8 beta soon.
I couldn't agree more.. software developers in general (and presumably those in other related fields) tend to mostly be autodidacts. Sure, you learn from other employees and from what the company has in place already but usually they are adding value the entire time, its not as if they sit you down for hours every week and put you in a classroom where there is no pressure other than "learn something new". Thats what school is for and anyone who is working in an engineering field is most likely spending time on their own working on projects, etc that improve their skills.
Exactly, they likely trained themselves as part of building this value, as well as probably training, mentoring and increasing the value of those around them.

The purpose behind these companies actions was nothing less than to artificially deflate the market value of these individuals, which is completely despicable.
Stealing Machine Time (go to page 36)
Yes, most of my crashes on the mongrel2 server I run come from ZeroMQ too. They fix them when I find them, but I actually run my servers under valgrind continually so I can catch them and report them.
I downloaded this app and used it for awhile. Although the concept is amazing the execution fell short. I noticed that it frequently woke me up at the wrong time of the sleep cycle. I'm sure that sleeping with my spouse also threw off the sensor since 2 people were moving in the bed. Maybe it's just me, but I believe that a option like this would "catch" the motion much better. Hope this idea makes it to funding.
I think the best thing I did for my team is explain them how branches work, and how not-so-special are they, branches are just pointers to a commit, and commits are never 'lost'.

People need to understand how simple Git is.
If you can, get him to say that in writing (email will do), find a good lawyer and sue him, the more scum that do this that are exposed (at any level) the better off employees are in this industry as a whole.
Exactly, the fundamentally hard bit of software development is the specification part.

As developers we translate between what the customer appears to want and what the compiler requires. If the customer had specified what they want with perfect clarity we would be able to automatically generate code from those requirements (or even compile them directly). But because they haven't been completely clear we have to use judgement and inference.
Steve Jobs, Superhero
Vanilla jekyll can highlight C++ using Coderay.

You can try the quality of the code highlighter here:

http://coderay.rubychan.de/rays
City count from Crunchbase:

NYC: 2407

London: 1807

Austin: 576

Paris: 549

San Diego: 499

Boston: 405

Vancouver: 288

Berlin: 284

Portland: 247

Washington: 200

Boulder: 163
The point is that piracy has happened throughout human history. The recent attempts to act like it's possibly to eliminate piracy are lacking in common sense (or are just down-right intentionally deceptive).

It's content creators like this that demonstrate the correct way to deal with the situation regardless of your views on the morality of piracy. While the MPAA/RIAA spend all of their resources attempting to conquer gravity, they could have spent their resources to mold their business into one that incorporates gravity into its strategy.
I haven't looked at this implementation specifically, but the issue with many similar proposals/implementations is that the generated JavaScript is ugly. One of the nice things about CoffeeScript is that there's no magic--it's very easy to figure out what the generated JavaScript is doing, and there's a straightforward CS <-> JS mapping. jashkenas (CoffeeScript's author) has been reluctant to change that.
Yuri Milner on Investment in China, Brazil, Facebook
That means that your work has to be the top of the market.

Well, if you work is top of the market, your average base will be higher to begin with. It is already factored into the market avg.

The 10-25% flexibility is something you can extract purely from negotiation IMO.
... but the investigation that lead to the take-down was 2 years in the making.
I'm in pretty much the same position. I pay for cable, and extra for their DVR. I pay for netflix. I pay for the BBC's international variant of iplayer, even if it is device-specific.

Every chance they've given me, I've paid. And I still end up 'stealing' content because geolocked business models don't work anymore. If they can't adapt to us, we'll have to adapt to them.