skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"There's a reason that Silicon Valley is almost entirely white, male, and under 40, and it has nothing to do with technical aptitude."

Ouch....That's a very damning statement. I'm not in a position to comment on the truth of it - all I can say is that I hope you're wrong.
It will never improve until there is a "real" shortage in the market.
> they're discouraging college students from applying by having pointless job requirements that don't actually matter.

From the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm always amazed at the jobs that slap on the computer science degree requirement. My small rural municipal government was recently looking for a web developer to work on their CMS. A CS degree was a requirement for the job, despite there being very little pure CS work to being with (it is your standard db-driven website).

I don't know, It struck me as odd. Why would this small government, in a low income area - average single income was $25K/year in a report a few years ago - restrict their search to people who are said to be in high demand and probably being courted by places like Google with interesting CS problems that they trained many years to work on? And as a taxpayer, why would I want to pay Google prices? It is a useful resource, but not $100K/year useful.

After several months they finally did find someone for the role. Though, I cannot say if they finally relaxed their CS requirement or not.
I'd say everything is private by default and we actively have to make something public. Like sand boxing. Oh man, never mind.
While, I'd like to agree with most of what you said. At least one of the parameters in the last statement you made can be statistically invalidated: Have you not seen the multitude of brown men in programming?
Big discussion: Do Static Source Code Analysis Tools Really Work?
That's a really interesting piece.

The "good old days" bit at the end was a bit obtuse. Clearly life expectancy and quality of life has gone up. People are less likely to die a horrible death. Even if there are more violent crimes driven by new money and disparity between classes, if it isn't just increased connectivity and a huge amount more news making more people hear about violent crime more often, then people are still better off.

But it seems like everywhere people are driven by their crappy human risk assessment system. The west has been inundated with the stats about crime rates going down but the "fear of crime" going up (seems like the fear is more correlated to the news cycle than the crime rate but that's besides the point).

So the irrational "good old days"/out of proportion fear of rare events thing seems be another common American and western trait. I guess he's inadvertently supporting his premise with this misunderstanding as well.
The problem is that people are very good at avoiding sources of contrasting opinion. What we need to do is force people outside of their comfort zone. Imagine if somebody rich paid for 24/7 ads on popular networks that do nothing but teach science and demystify common beliefs.
Other problem is that interviewing is a lost art. Most companies ask their developers to interview from a set of predefined algorithm/DS questions - there is no way to know if the candidate answered from his own thought process or just knew the answer. So most of the tech interview become a game of chance. I liked this article which says "let the interviewee impress you" - let the candidate show what he can do - give him a problem to solve on computer during a whole day or perhaps a week - see the results ?
Not sure if you're Indian or not. But if you're not, your reply seems mean-spirited and misses the point of the article. And as an American, I want to distance myself from this attitude. Each country has its issues that it is dealing with. It's hardly for the elites on this site to tell the elites in India what to do.
All I can say is that when I bought my first-ever laptop in 2006, it completely revolutionized my trips to the bathroom.
I've hear that Interview Street is aiming to solve this problem by letting people show their chops in coding contests (https://www.interviewstreet.com/challenges/) , pass one of those and you're closer to getting into the door of a big company than you were before.
A Developer’s Guide to Photoshop
Install a background? Photoshop? You do realize that the backscatter machines aren't taking a picture right? There isn't a "background" to change. It's basically an X-ray machine, throw some radiation, see what bounces back.

I'll let you figure out why building a backing that is made up of different materials that reflect radiation in a checkerboard pattern won't work.
You are so right. The connection is really weak ...
But as for the audacious title - the article begins the analysis in the correct era - the liberalization of the Indian economy. But more than anything, why India became a "half-hearted" America - is:

1. Because it wanted to - We grow up n stiff competition knowing the holy grail is to crack the IIT entrance exam which is really an assurance for your trip to the promised land. The uncle and aunt staying abroad are a constant source of inspiration, who _defined_ "success" and would return home once every 2 or 3 years like war heroes with loots in the form of Lindt, Ghirardelli or board games that had a strange smell of, well, "happiness"!

2. MTV - MTV India was launched sometime when I was in standard 5 or something. Indian youth till then had seen only two channels which where sacred entertainment came in the form of "Mahabharata", "Ramayana", "Krishna", "Chanakya" - all epics or history heroes, mythical heroes - mind it none at the same time - often years apart. "Chitrahar"/"Rangoli" had some hot sauce - songs from our Bollywood movies - which featured middle aged angry young men dancing with a troupe on a massive drum in a forest. And then there was MTV - a breath of fresh air, new GODS, new way of dressing, and a better glimpse of the promised world. This was followed by the explosion of cable tv - HBO, Star movies, Star World - streamed in streets of New York, Chicago directly to our living room, and engraved it in our hearts.

3. Movies - Some argue Bollywood and cricket can change governments in India. Our movies soon caught up with the cable and MTV - and in no time the colleges depicted in movies started looking more like a school in the US (For any Indian reading this - these are Shahrukh Khan & Yash Raj brand of movies). They defined what is cool. Soon there were fake american brands available in every footpath stalls.

4. Broadband - Internet changes everything. Soon we were talking on chatrooms, downloading pirated mp3-s of Pink Floyd, watching more of Hollywood (yeah - sweet p2p baby). Our regular vocabulary has been enriched by the f-word, Kurt Cobain T-shirt was a must have. Even Indi-porn - which primarily featured voluptuous females taking bath had adopted the new tricks of the trade.

5. Final blow - IT, outsource and call center. This is the only part where America had a direct hand - you Bangalored your overpriced jobs and provided the jet pad we needed to take off for the american dream. Easy money => more american brands + worst_of_both_worlds_accent => Cool. With more purchasing power young college graduates _with_ a job in Wipro, TCS, Infosys etc. were looking for places to spend - and this is what led to mushrooming of shopping malls all over the country. So where did the design inspiration for these malls come from? Well, to cater to the needs of the customer oriented the architects looked West ...

That in a nutshell how India is becoming America. Nothing is good or bad, its just the way it changes.
"I think that a very, very large percentage of the 'screening' is really just to provide justification to the subconscious decision that was made within moments." - You are correct, but that's not because companies really want to drag you through these justifications, rather because (I believe) many are required to do so by law.
I personally hate graph algorithms and all the stupid associated questions. I have to spend two weeks reviewing all that stuff every time I change jobs to go ahead and never ever use it again. It simply never comes up in the type of work I do.

At my current place of employment, one of the engineering managers was complaining that an interviewee bombed a graph algorithm question. I asked, "Where -- if anywhere -- in our codebase do we use any graph algorithms?" Answer: "We don't." At all. Yet knowing graph algorithms is apparently a requirement for working here, which means that at minimum, I am unqualified to do my job. Sigh.

I'd much rather candidates spent time understanding memory implications of different types of java/jvm data structures, or know how to diagnose and fix memory pressure, or have experimented with design patterns to reduce memory requirements, etc. But nobody asks me. If you know off the top of your head that in the hotspot jvm an Integer is 4x as big as an int and that a Double is 24 bytes, and can figure out the rough size (8.5KB!!!) of a 100 entry TreeMap<Double, Double>, and know what compressed oops does and why it works, you'll almost certainly get a "please hire" vote from me.

edit: note that knowing a bunch about jvm memory use isn't a requirement, but knowing it will impress me. It probably also means you've been burned by jvm memory use before and that's why you know this stuff.
The author attempted to solve issue #1 by adding the 1000-msec delay for the first challenge and unrelated-password request throttling. That solves the issue for attackers using the client API (they can't narrow their search space).

The author has already acknowledged in the article that, were an attacker to get ahold of the stored password hash, they would have "everything needed to carry out brute-forcing."

I agree this is probably a deal breaker and defeats the purpose of using a hash function with a work factor like bcrypt.
Why not simply show the formula?

x * (10^n - 1) = (x - 1) * 10^n + (10^n - x)
Get Free 90 Days Trial of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
These are also skills most adults should learn as well.
What Makes Python so AWESOME
Nonsense. I've worked in an organisation where we trained our recruiter to ask simple weed out questions. We would use questions like 'what is an A record?'. The candidate must give a two sentence or less answer right away. The recruiter didn't really know what an A record was, but knew how to ask the question. This saved us so much time because he could filter out tons of bad candidates for us immediately, without even looking at resumes.

As for 'crisper' resumes ... this guy was a Santa Cruz hippie at heart. He knew what was up in the tech industry. If you pick your recruiters for having some personality, it makes your hiring process go so much better too.

PS - This is about Operations hires, there are similar tricks applicable to Engineering hires.
Silicon Valley is almost entirely white

That's far from the case.
Well, honestly, no, I haven't. I've heard second-hand reports of some large companies that seemed to hire an amazing number of Indians, but I've personally worked almost entirely with white males (with a few East Asians and the odd female thrown in).

Also, I think it might be pretty much the same thing: Indian workers might be given a pass because they're "cheap" (i.e. decision made based on instant impression and personal biases). That shouldn't be happening, H1-B's and minorities should earn the same as locals, but it seems common knowledge that it's true.
Actually,I would argue that talented teams build products.
Japan Quake and Tsunami Disaster; Marks One Year, Quick Recovery
Saying "there's absolutely nothing wrong with ____" is a bad idea.

The sentiment is that too much social media is bad, so he is for reducing the amount. And if things are addictive at some point it is easier to go cold turkey than to manage use, it's a much simpler rule.
Boy, are you wrong! http://research.fhda.edu/Planning/2010-20%20EMP%20Demographi...
She's an android declared for office/home/personal use, so yes, skin tones are not unreasonable.

She covered herself shyly as a subtle way of displaying her newfound self-awareness--it was a pretty obvious (but well chosen) device.

The clothes weren't that skimpy, and even if they were, it would make sense to have as little material being shipped as possible to reduce transportation costs.
Isn't #3 what your network is for?
I was sort of overstating for dramatic effect although that's hard to convey online. From time to time, though, I really find myself consuming more and more and producing less. I can't really tell if its getting worse but I think it's a good idea to schedule internet consumption quiet-periods every now and again.
From the comments here, and in other similar posts, the HN community seems to think only one side of the interview process is broken.

I posit that all sides are broken -- yes -- the recruiters, the hiring companies, and YOU, the engineer/marketer/whatever you are.

I'm only going to address the one part that matters -- you.

Who cares how qualified you are? You think that entitles you to a job? Gimme a break!!! Do me a favor and put aside your naive and childish ideas about job entitlement...

The following is not prescriptive, but it works for me. The HUSTLE.

1. Skip the resumes and all formal methods of first contact. Scrape linkedin and other places to get an inside contact where you want to work.

2. Skip HR. They are only good for filing paperwork once you have a done deal.

3. Once you have a contact send a two line email asking for 15 minutes and a coffee. Be charming and funny. Don't sell yourself. Let your good looks and excellent hygiene speak for you.

4. Whatever your salary / hourly rate is, double it. Think perceived value.

5. Ask lots of questions.

Note -- this is nothing new. This is business as usual, and I love it. Networking is everything.

In case anyone here is wondering, yes -- I am a developer from time to time.
Of course, but that includes being talented at being part of a team ;)
Right, because North Dakota is a far more enjoyable place for a teenage kid to live than the state that's home to Las Vegas (;
I was checking out the interview questions people are posting on glassdoor.com and felt pretty stupid after going through them. I work at a successful startup at a pretty high level, and I could not tell you the best sort algorithm for some particular case. I could tell you how I would model it in a database, since that's really where large datasets get manipulated in my world. I wonder if the types of algorithm-heavy questions I see in interviews are there because these companies need that skillset, or is it to weed out people who aren't 'rockstar' or 'A Player' engineers. Sometimes it feels like a pissing contest to see who has the hardest interview. At my company, we give you a couple of real world coding tests, as long as you do ok, it's all about your personality and whether or not you seem cool to work with. It seems to work very well.
Reminds me of Joel's Law of Leaky Abstractions. At some point, you must deeply understand the entire stack.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...
I'm not American. I think it's pretty fair to hold the successful to account for environment in which their success exists.

“A Nation’s Greatness is Measured By How It Treats Its Weakest Members.” Mahatma Gandhi
Identity != reputation.

It should not matter what a person's name is but for the services people provide, reputation is the key metric.
It would be interesting to know what the elites of America would do if it was easy for a poor person to board a flight and land in the US. I guess stop them at the door by not allowing visas.

poverty and human suffering is a burden that must be shared by everyone who is aware of it. Americans owe their prosperity to many historic factors, including a near virgin land and colonising a native population, apart from the American spirit.

Having said there is no doubt Indian elites must do more.
These are issues that aren't going to be addressed overnight, no matter Indian elites wishes for or not. These will take years or even decades to be addressed because of the socio-economic differences here and complex to understand cultural issues. There should be steps taken to rapidize the process and main problem which is preventing it in my opinion is the another big elephant in the room - corruption. But in the same time, I'm really happy with whatever progress we've made from 1980s (when i was born) till now. I grew up with it and live between 2 worlds still. But not everyone had the same opportunity I had and definitely it will take decades to address everyone with the huge population we have. Poverty less or fully literate India is most probably not possible in your or my lifetime.
This is a great product. Being a biopharma guy I can say it has a lot of potential. My suggestions is to push this product aggressively to launch globally so that you will have a threshold number of users to survive the startup.

Couple of caveats:
1. When I type a product I have to click on search button to get the result. Can it be such a way that only clicking on enter tab should do the search?
2. When I deliberately misspel a drug name it just does not return anything. Does the search engine has auto suggestion method like google's?

Few questions:
1. What will be the revenue model? Will it be a SAAS?
2. Will there be a free version on the web? If yes then how will it be different from paid SAAS service?
3. Will it be limited to drug molecule and genes or it will extend to other categories in future such as scientific literatures and metabolic pathways?
Yes, because if there's two things American elites care deeply about, it's literacy and poverty.
WebSocket Layering over SPDY draft specification - Google Groups
I am a first generation American, my family owned a farm in Gujurat, India. I am grateful to have been molded by two cultures that both value Universal Compassion and Scientific Method. Not all members practice it, but the ideals were passed down at least and the future of both nations will depend upon how seriously they practice their founding ideals.

"Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work." - Swami Vivekananda, a founding father of modern India
I've started just pushing the interview in that direction regardless. Generally a question will come up that's relevant to a project I'm proud of and I'll pivot the conversation over there. I've also found that if I really frame my answer as a "teaser" the interviewer will be interested enough in it to ask a follow-up.

When I'm able to pull it off I've generally felt that I've left a better impression on my interviewer.
Why did you list Ruby/RoR users as developers but list everyone else as programmers? I'm learning RoR so I'm curious if there's a specific reason for your wording.
IPad 3 sold out already
One of the things I keep hearing over and over is that people are being flooded with so much crap that they can't keep up. Thats not the problem. The problem is that theres such a glut of good material that people can't keep up. If it was all crap people would ignore it. The thing is, a lot of this stuff is interesting, and thats where it gets tricky.

To read all the stuff that you want to read will leave you with no time to actually do anything. But on the other hand not reading anything will stunt your ability to generate new ideas. This is the question: How much do you need to read before you've read enough that the diminishing returns are no longer worth it.

Reading is sort of a thing that becomes less and less useful the more of it you do. Eventually the returns from reading become low enough that it makes more sense to actually go do something.

If you've been following hacker news long enough to be sick of it you've probably hit that point.
Here's a few FAQ'ish type links:

Body scanner proven ineffective video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idICUSiGcqo

Body scanner has 54% false positive rate
https://www.propublica.org/article/sweating-bullets-body-sca...

Cost of the body scanners
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/03/07/what_tsa_se...

Some pretty interesting numbers here:

"Of these, 18 airports handle fewer than 1,000 passengers daily but were equipped with 21 scanners at an estimated installed cost of $7.3 million to screen 9,538 passengers per day."
> I used to wish there was a way I could talk to an engineer in a company over coffee

There is. You offer to buy them coffee.

In practice, this is actually how much of business (and that includes hiring) gets done.

The whole "Send resume, pass phone screen, do interview, get offer" thing is more the exception than the rule, especially for really desirable jobs.
Your story sounds… normal? This is how interviewing works, especially if you know what you want. It's a two-way street. Most jobs are pretty lousy, and even the great ones often don't fit you. You need to interview them and figure out whether or not their job is worth taking, then turn it down and move on.

(This is especially true for folks who program Javascript in 2012. It's a field in enormous flux.)

In many fields, it's normal for interviewing to take months. They warned us grad students to expect to spend a minimum of three to six months looking for Ph.D.-level jobs, because you tend to be searching among a fairly small pool of employers who are looking for folks with specialized training very similar to yours.
Sounds generator (for create games)
Author has a very laser-focused view of India. The country is much more diverse that this article supposes. There is still extreme poverty, religious bigotry, no-holds barred traffic lawlessness, corruption, discreet money and hundreds of other very-Indian issues.

Americanization of India is limited to metros and big cities, and there too you see a mind-boggling mix of poverty and abundance.
I remember ages ago getting in an argument with the kernel hackers on unix-wizards. My position was that filenames shouldn't be allowed to have meta-characters in them because it made shell programming difficult and dangerous. Their argument was that the spirit of Unix was that the kernel should be as simple as it possibly could be, and that you should "Live free or die". Therefore it was not the kernel's business to dictate what characters should be able to be in a filename.

They were wrong of course. The true spirit of Unix was to enable programmer productivity by being able to easily piece together new programs out of reusable components. E.g., via shell scripting, and the kernel hackers' notions about filenames and living free was directly at odds with this true spirit.

The OP claims that they've solved this dilemma in Julia. I await with bated breath.
As far as I can tell, a real shortage is basically impossible.

I come from a farming background. On the farm, when the work has to be done, it has to be done. The crop will wither away and be worthless if you spend any time waiting. That often means hiring people who are not skilled to get the job done.

On a grain farm, at least, good help are worth their weight in gold. I see some farms offering $50/hr. just to find talent. But in the absence of those good people, you still need someone to do the work. That often means settling on someone who is unskilled for, say, $10/hr. You just end up hoping the reduced pay will offset the additional costs of employing them.

The technology sector is different. The constraints on time are completely artificial. If a really good programmer isn't available today, the project can wait until he is available next month. Unlike other industries, here there is simply no reason to hire the less skilled programmer, even at a reduced salary.
For a specific example I just implemented recently: a database utilizing MappedByteBuffer's to the main DB file that can transferTo the record requested as-is to the requesting client.

The use-cases are certainly specific, but when you need them, it's great.