skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My question is: where are the parents in this? I don't know about the UK, but in North America there are few things a school fears more than angry parents. A group of angry parents can rain hellfire down on a school board and principal.

Why is there no outrage that their children are being served slop?
> NYC coops have an absolute right to reject anyone
> for any reason

No they don't: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/42/45/I/3604
Now THAT would be cool.
Thats only 3k for each american (roughly). Obviously that is a lot of money, but I doubt it is impossible to get.

Heck, assuming the funds are to be spend at a constant interval it is 150 usd/year. Which is a lot less than the wars have cost.
I just want to point out a MUCH more serious attrocity being committed here: This poor, sweet child is so under-educated in the UK that she doesn't even understand the difference between "dinner" and "lunch".. We must rectify this injustice! Will someone think of the children!!!

;)
A very important aspect that people usually overlook in these cases is the exercise price (in case of options), or immediate tax consequences (in the case of an RSU 83(b) election). If the question is relevant to you, CONSULT SOMEONE WHO'S PROFESSIONALLY DOING THIS STUFF, or at the very least, make sure you read a lot about it.

Generally speaking, the equity you receive (in whatever form) will effectively only reflect increases to the company valuation.

In the case of options, if you get 1% of a $100M-valued company, it is worth $0 if the company value stays <=$100M, and will only be worth $1M if the company value increases to $200M.

In the case of RSUs, if you get 1% of a $100M-valued company, you are taxed as if you were just gifted $1M (pay 35% to Uncle sam today, and a few more % to uncle state as well), although you can't do anything with it, and if you forfeit it (because you're fired or quit or the company folds) you can't get the tax back. However, if the company does get to $200M valuation, and you manage to sell your equity, you'll get $2M in proceeds and only be taxed on the $1M increase this time.
Does it reliably boot headless? If it does I'll order one before the ink dries on this comment.
I am always surprised, looking at pictures of him, how much he looks just like a total Haredi.
We're using this to power Roll20[1]. The whole team has been very responsive and supportive of any and all questions. Congrats!

[1] http://roll20.net
1. The trend seems to be towards Android.

2. Apple seems to be making more, not less, difficult to code iPhone apps.
"The Gen1 Enterprise will be powered by three ion propulsion engines. These will provide constant acceleration, and versions of this technology are already used in spacecrafts."

to my knowledge they are used in spacecraft that can afford acceleration cycles that last several years and "rapid" maneuvers that last several months. ion engines produce very little thrust but for a very long time. i'm not sure how practical they would be for anything except a lifetime spent aboard a ship on a never-ending quest to reach somewhere distant.
School dinners in the 80s: healthy, fun and £1. In 1990 the kitchen was closed down and we all had to eat packed lunch in a classroom. Decided there and then never to vote Tory.
Ryanair broke down the charges, but tended to have "FLY TO PARIS ONLY £9!!!" in huge type, with a list of additions in tiny type at the end of the ads.
Dinner can mean lunch in Britain. Also, tea can be biscuits and cake in the afternoon, or the main meal in the evening, which can also be called supper.

Google 'define dinner';

din·ner/ˈdinər/
Noun:
The main meal of the day, taken either around midday or in the evening.
No surprises here. I always cringe when I see 'mum and dad' flotations. These type of deals are always plagued with bias, mostly in the favour of the big guys.

The poor retail investors get sucked in by the allure of holding a brand name or having boasting rights. This thinking is dangerous when making an investment. I doubt most people would throw $1000 on a sports bet but quite happily to throw in more on buying a 'big name'.
What captures peoples' imaginations isn't the vehicle. It is the journey. Or, more importantly, the destination. The vehicle is just the can they sit in to get there.

People (the vast majority, anyway) don't travel because they like to travel. They travel because they want to get somewhere. What excites their imagination is the thought of being at that place, not how they got there.

Part of the reason people aren't excited about space travel today is because there's nowhere to go. There's no orbiting low-gravity resort to vacation on, no Mars colony where Cousin Phil lives with his family to go to for Thanksgiving. And a big part of why those things don't exist is because getting people into space is a damn expensive and risky business, even today. If the only way to get to Disneyworld was to spend $20,000,000 and ride a thirty-year-old Russian relic, Disneyworld wouldn't exist either.

A cheap, safe and ugly ship would do a lot more to solve that problem than an expensive and beautiful one would.
Murat Boz Şarkıları Dinle (Tüm Şarkıları Bir Arada)
I applied to a bunch of software engineering internships last fall and was amazed by the variation from company to company in terms of how I was dealt with as an intern candidate.
It's an interesting project, I have only one concern, it's how you throw errors, actually just echoing the error message with some html tags is not the best way to communicate with the developer. What would be great is to throw exceptions with an error message. But please, no more echo in a php library!
Very nice work. I couldn't find a way to export my quick design though, how was I supposed to do ?
will it have beaming capabilities? That's all i care for.
In Canada, the prime minister did a similar thing, announcing soon before the census's administration that the long version (administered to a random subset) would no longer be mandatory due to "privacy-related complaints".

The decision prompted the resignation of the Chief Statistician, a man appointed to the position by the prime minister. The people in charge of the decision equivocated repeatedly over how and why it happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2011_Census#Voluntary_lo...

A cynic would say that the Prime Minister advocated for the position in order to take advantage of the resulting lack of data and potential for "truthiness", and only used liberty and privacy arguments as political cover.
Awesome and hilarious - I would be a very proud father or older brother.

But on a serious note, directed at the media woohoo that always ensues, demanding better food for schools Jamie Oliver style misses the constraint of a limited budget. Presumably there's some price/utility tradeoff between the cost of the food and the health/taste.

Then there's a tradeoff between teacher quality and wages, school size and the number of teachers you must hire, etc. What we should be asking is whether the nutritional value outweighs wherever else the money would be spent. Maybe it is, maybe it's not, but 'oh the school is shamed' is a little much.

Edit: of course the other discussion to have is whether there is a tradeoff between cost and health (including additional cooks needed to produce healthier food on a large scale). But I don't see this in most media discussions either.
What is technical snarkiness, and do you believe that a newbie would be able to tell the difference between it and snark directed at themselves?
I know it sounds silly to people in the space business, but the public could really use some futuristic looking space ships and more exciting missions to get excited again.

Who cares what the public "could use"?

This is a self-defeating argument because you're starting with the premise that the govnermnet ought to be in the business of making people excited/happy, and then argue that therefore, we should build awesome space ships. Once that premise is accepted by society, it'll be all about wealth redistribution, healthcare, and regulation (and ultimately economic stagnation), and building space ships will be the last thing on anyone's mind.

This post also really bothers me because it's not like the public is a bunch of 4 year olds going "oooh, shiny." And if they are, we need to be finding ways to improve that problem, not playing to it. If society is that messed up, society is headed for the gutter anyway.
Thanks! Actually I was just using arbitrary numbers to show the calculation and make it easier to understand. I am sure the costs are going to be way higher since we are trying to partner with not a top firm, but a mid-tier company that has done projects in the past.
Absolutely. A lot more than Java, in fact.
Microsoft Discontinues Free Visual Studio C++ IDE, now Metro only
Self-updating scripts
My initial thoughts were that Meteor would be more widely deployed in production than Firebase would. But it also seemed like Firebase had a more obvious path to profitability than Meteor.

Given the current VC market and the rapidly evolving landscape of (so called) real-time services, I'm surprised they raised such a small sum. I would have thought if you were going to go the VC route, you might as well go all in and raise a massive chunk.

With a (somewhat conservative) estimate of $10K a month per engineer and $1.1M to spend, a team of 8 engineers would give you a runway of just under 14 months. I think you would want more runway than that.
I believe the two largest items in the budget are:

$890 Billion - licensing fees to Roddenberry estate & Paramount

$67 Billion - overturning relativistic physics
How 'technical' is the founder? It sounds like he/she doesn't have the background to be able to tell whether the outsourcing company knows what they are doing. It's really difficult to manage a project like this when the founder can't look at the code and tell whether it's crap.

It might be worth it to find a developer who can look at what you have so far and talk to the outsourcing company to find out if 1) what you have is salvageable and 2) whether the team is capable of completing the project. There are a lot of hacks out there that will hold themselves out as accomplished outsourcing firms. You have to be careful who you hire.
I think you should program for iOS first. Think about a company like Instagram, they made the app for only iPhone users, then it became popular. Once the app was released for Android, millions of people downloaded it in less than 24 hours. In my opinion iOS apps gets more attention then Android apps.
Android apps aren't a bad place to start though, there are some really good Android apps I use everyday.
I love the instant search query results given in the preview pane!
Building on the LAMP stack is still worthwhile when you don't have the time or money to devote to sysadmin tasks.

I use Rails, Django, raw PHP, whatever makes the most sense for the job at hand.
FCC helped out pro-net neutrality groups
Jason. Happy to hear you were able to push through the initial issues that appeared. Hoping you could clarify something for me. I know company / process you are using for the historical data, but is this article saying that are you pinging esurance's API directly for quotes? Thanks, and congratulations again.
Was a backer of Roll20. I love you guys. Excellent platform. Haven't had a good chance to really put it to use, but I love everything about it.
Hyperpolyglot - Learn Lua if you know Javascript
I used to think like you.

But we have been trying to solve that problem forever. It is not going to happen. Ever.

So might we not have fun as part of the 1/5 who make it to space?
> There's nothing about the single-player gameplay that warrants requiring an internet connection.

If your goal is to get the achievements and even touch the Auction House for items [1], then yes, an online component is required. Diablo 1 and 2 had issues with client-side item duplication cheats. With server-side handling of item generation, that is no longer possible.

The only solution I can think of is letting players create entirely "single player only" characters, which will never be available online. Otherwise there's no (guaranteed) way to verify the save data hasn't been tampered with.

[1]: The Auction House dramatically amplify your statistics, as itemization is always behind your current level. So the idea is players ahead of you can sell items they find to the people behind them. Ultimately those ahead of everyone are not finding 'gear' for their level [2].

[2]: Okay, so "Inferno" mode is a "flat" curve where everything is technically your level, but the difficulty still ramps up, and item quality is still behind the curve.
It might be the case that its generally not economically sensible for talented engineers to join validated startups.

This also explains the "its so hard to hire" sentiment.

@benjaminwootton: reasonable argument that typical early stage employee equity is dwarfed by what engineers can get by founding their own company and that engineers might rationally require larger salaries at startups to compensate for failure risk (sucks to job hunt, even if its not hard to get a job).

on the other side, the founders who are trying to give away 120k and 1% to get a great hire have the responsibility of maximizing their own total EV as well, so if they were to give away 10%, it would have to be clear that the hire would be expected to grow the total founder EV by more than 10%, and in fact, more than that to compensate for the risk of the failure of the engineering hire to do so.

So if the founders are sitting on a validated, funded, post-revenue startup, its not necessarily enough for the engineering hire to help accelerate product. they have to make the total pie bigger, and by enough to compensate for the variance in outcomes for how much bigger they can make that pie.

So if you want 10%, and you're trying to join a startup with 100k/yr in revenue, you can't just help them get to 1mm/yr in revenue 1 year faster. you have to demonstrate that if you forked the universe into two paths, one where the founders gave you 10% and salary, and one where they walked away from you, the present value of the cash flows (or some metric) of they company in the "hired you" scenario is:

1. > 10% better with 100% certainty
2. more than > 10% + x% better with something less than 100% certainty to compensate the founders for the variance...

The more established / validated the startup, the harder it is for the engineer to deliver sufficient value or certainty to the founders to warrant more than the standard early-stage hire stake.

So generally these decisions are probably made with non-economic reasons, like "We like each other" or "I get off on working on bleeding edge technologies" or "The engineer is willing to give up substantial economic EV in return for te ability to feel like part of a team or affect decision making".

TLDR: engineers work for companies when the needs of the engineer and the company converge. the bid and ask between "what an engineer needs/delivers" and "what the startup offers/needs" separate as early stage startups move past "MVP" into being somewhat validated.
But this argument based on "freedom" is silly.

I am rather sure Ted's argument isn't that it's difficult to pay your taxes. His argument is for "complete freedom" from what he views as technology. Social structures such as taxation are a form of technological innovation.

In his view, you wouldn't be enslaved to technology because it's difficult to pay your taxes with a computer instead of paper now(which, coincidentally, is also technology) but that you are enslaved to technology by virtue of being forced into this structure of taxation and the social contract.

At least that's the way I see it. It's the only way I can reconcile his philosophy. And it sounds like crap.
What makes it seem fantastical is not the facts of the story itself, but that it's so similar to the plot of a 1965 Jimmie Stewart movie -- and seems to make no mention of this.
An Intro to Haskell for Ruby Developers
When a case such as this is brought to trail, does the judge and jury need to take into account the implications of the decision or do they only have to judge within the context of the given situation?

I mean, if in this case a decision was made in favor of Oracle it would mean that basically the entire software industry would have a significant problem.
They appear to be carbo-loading. If I ate that lunch, I'd be asleep an hour later.
Why the Next iPhone Won't Be 16:9
Without knowing more details, how can you state the above so confidently?

It's safe to assume that Ellen is a smart woman who realises the risk this poses to her career, and any smart person wouldn't wish to burn the progress they have made over years for some mythical "pay day." That's why I can say with some amount of confidence that KPCB failed to address concerns in a responsible manner and let things come this far.

To quote from the filing;

Upon information and belief, Ray Lane and John Doerr discussed
how to respond to to Plaintiff. Ray Lane met with Plaintiff.
While acknowledging that Mr. Nazre's behavior was inappropriate
Mr. Lane pressured Plaintiff to drop the matter because of
Mr. Lane''s close ties with and mentorship of Mr. Nazre.
Though Plaintiff had formally cmplained about Mr. Nazre's behavior,
Mr. Lane encouraged Plaintiff to engage in a personal relationship
with Mr. Nazre and even to marry him. Mr. Lane said, however,
that in such case, either Plaintiff or Mr. Nazre would have to
leave the firm because two spouses could not work together at KPCB.
Mr. Lane said he and Mr. Nazre had discussed Plaintiff's report
of sexual harrassment.

KPCB was aware of and did not take reasonable steps to prevent
retaliation and gender discrimination. KPC management was aware
of and did not prevent Mr. Nazre from engaging in repeated
retaliatory behavior for nearly five years. Following her formal
complaint described above, Ray Lane insisted that Plaintiff
have a one-on-one lunch with Mr. Nazre outside the office
to discuss their relationship. Plaintiff saw no choice but
to comply with the demand of a Managing Partner. Unsurprisingly,
Mr. Nazre made inappropriate comments and engaged in unprofessional
behavior, and seemed to be further empowered by KPCB to further
retaliate against her.

... and we wonder why there aren't more women in tech.
Blarney.

Healthy food is not pricier unless you get fancy. Legumes, quinoa, and vegetables aren't more expensive (though they do have smaller margins!) than the crap that they had been serving previously.
Not a review, but if you're looking for a web host, check out http://lithiumhosting.com/

I'm very happy with their service.
> A big cause of waning public enthusiasm in space is, I believe, that it all still looks like the 60s. The ships look the same, the suits look the same, the propulsion technologies look the same,

And the ideal of manned spaceflight should remain in the 60's - at least for the foreseeable future. We are magnificently evolved to inhabit this planet. The remainder of the solar system is insanely hostile to our form of life. It's far more sensible to engineer machines that can act as our eyes & ears and extend our narrowly evolved senses to far-out and lethal environments.
Or just the landspeeders! Imagine the savings on highway maintenance if we all drove cars without wheels...
As a huge fan of space I agree we need progress, but we can achieve that by no longer 'visiting' space and instead 'moving' there.

I was talking with a JPL engineer about SpaceX and he said something which really knocked me for a loop. He said "We don't live in space, we camp there." And by example he suggested what if there was no food, fuel, or running water in Barstow California. Everyone would have to carry what they expected to use from Los Angeles, stay for a while and then go back to Los Angeles to reload with supplies. Now imagine there is a toll gate on I15 outside San Bernadino that charges you $100M to use the road between LA and Barstow. Now what kind of town would Barstow be? A ghost town.

Space, and low earth orbit in particular, is the same way. We don't have any infrastructure up there. Just a single campsite. Every time we launched the shuttle we took perfectly good fuel and burned it up in the atmosphere because we had no way to take the left overs from the external tank and store them in orbit. If you consider just that one problem, keeping fuel around. You see how far we are from living in space vs just visiting.

At $54M/pop SpaceX will make somethings a lot more accessible in space. Putting some infrastructure in space like a gas station and a space tug, will go a lot further.
The apparent total lack of understanding from the US congress about the very things they legislate upon strikes me lately.

I'm a Canadian myself and our current government isn't any better (or only slightly) in this regard. It seems to me that the basic step would be to ensure you understand what you're talking about before trying to make up laws.

What the hell is wrong with these people. Randomness in the chosen dataset is an inherent concept of statistics. Any high schooler is familiar with this for christ's sake.
Do there even exist a trillion dollar? I don't mean a trillion dollars worth of wealth, but a trillion dollar in currency (or even as deposits in banks)?
I certainly will grant that such a thing is possible. But I will believe what you're saying when I see it.
They might be cheap, but they are far from easy, I would actually qualify it as the most painful purchase process I've ever experienced (my former employer had domains there). And my political beliefs had nothing to do here, technological beliefs at most.

Anyway, Godaddy is where I would expect my father to buy a domain, not someone at HN. Hence my surprise. But turns out the op didn't register the domain himself, he was just pointing it out.
Great overview of the different interview styles being used. I cannot say I am convinced you always get the best people through.

I don't have any aspirations to interview at Google, but did stumble across an 'Google Interview' book at the local bookstore. It makes great reading.

WSJ did an article on Google interviews late last year, including answers. Here are the questions (click the link below if you want answers).

"1. What's the next number in this sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66 … ?

2. You're in a car with a helium balloon on a string that is tied to the floor. The windows are closed. When you step on the gas pedal, what happens to the balloon—does it move forward, move backward, or stay put?

3. Using only a four-minute hourglass and a seven-minute hourglass, measure exactly nine minutes—without the process taking longer than nine minutes.

4. A book has N pages, numbered the usual way, from 1 to N. The total number of digits in the page numbers is 1,095. How many pages does the book have?

5. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?"

[Answers]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455230457711...
There is much to learn, my friend.

With the exception of the startup porn you read on TC, the only companies that raise multi-million dollar Series A rounds already have traction. The difficulty in gaining traction in today's saturated marketplaces should not be underestimated.

In most standard Series A rounds the company creates a 15-20% option pool and the investor gets around 30% of the equity.

Assuming two co-founders and a small seed round, the founders each likely own 18-20% of the company. They also went without pay and healthcare for a while, built a product, got traction, raised a real round (which is more difficult than it seems you believe), and are giving you upwards of 10% of their own stake. In addition, it is likely that the founders are taking below-market salaries while paying everyone else near -market salaries. That said, 1-2% for an early, senior hire is right on the money.
New York Legislation Would Ban Anonymous Online Speech