skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I do this a lot. A couple things I've realized:
- Quite a few of the people you meet aren't going to lead to much. A few of them will lead to something but not until further down the road. Basically, not everyone is looking for freelance developers.

- You have to know a bit about sales. If I'm talking to someone non-technical looking for an online store, I'm an expert in e-commerce, but if I was talking to someone in the industry, I'm less likely to throw out the term expert and more likely to try and talk about specifics.

- This is culture dependent but in the States, I've found being too modest is a negative and people seem to interpret it as either disinterest, lack of confidence, or lack of skills.

- I once overheard a discussion that went something like this,
"I'm looking for a developer."
"If you can get <that person> that would be great."
I'm not there yet but I want to be <that person>.
If you can read French, there is a news outlet called PCINpact.com that consistently reports on everything that happens on the IP 'scene'. They offer regular updates and thorough research when it is necessary, and are one of the major voices (here in France) of the anti IP-dictatorship movement, in addition to being a known source on tech news.

Anyways, in case you read french and wouldn't mind getting regular info on the IP side in Europe and the US.
Proceed with the semicolons.
http://www.codeschool.com/courses/rails-for-zombies

http://www.codeschool.com/courses/rails-for-zombies-2

http://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-ruby
I think it's possible that you've misunderstood the comment I was replying to. The poster is referring to permanent employees under a ROWE-like system.

As you say, I would have to be in dire financial straits before I accept a freelance contract that even casually mentioned IP outside the scope of a given clients project.
> Rubyists get a lot of flak for the kind of DSLs and black magic method_missing tricks the above libraries use; but you know what, maybe that attitude is just what Objective-C has been missing.

I politely disagree. Objective-C hasn't been missing risky and error-prone approaches that merely attempt to save a few characters at the cost of correctness. Extensions like 'when' are vague, and could just as easily be co-opted for KVO as they could for UIControl event handling.

Also, the example is not accurate. In Objective-C, you'd control-drag from the button to your action method, using Interface Builder.
U.S. base housing terror suspects to get $40 million upgrade (Guantanamo Bay)
Unemployment has been becoming more permanent for decades - Marojejian
The RLZ tracking is not active anymore, from what I can remember.
India doesn't just have the best and worst of humanity in it. India puts a real mirror to you on what you think you know.

We live in a bubble. Trying to change our world with startups is quite different than trying to change the conditions 1 billion people live in.

The spectrum of good and bad in first world societies isn't as side as third world country. It's maybe why the good isn't good enough in our lives. Anything we experience in a foreign land as being shockingly bad, or good, can show how out of touch we are with humanity, and our own humanity.

This begs a deeper issue. Everyone likes looking outward, trying to understand the world, not themselves. We don't like righting with how little we actually know, or, more importantly do.

This article in many ways mirrors my experience of India. It's real. Sorry the education from TV makes it a bit shocking. That's what happens when we take someone's word on how good things are in another part of the world. There's a reason people want to leave and get out. Are Americans and Canadians desperate to leave?

This 0-star India is the majority's India. Not the 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 star India we can buy and hide in while visiting pretending to take in the foreign eat pray love exoticness of it all. They say you can tell the true state of a country by the numbers + health of their poorest. Similar experiences exist in other countries too. The money at the top does not find it's way down. The rich build themselves skyscrapers to live in so they don't have to deal with anything beyond their 4 walls. When the majority is not enjoying the advanced civilization, is it advanced, or civilized?

These are two good questions and ones worth not shying away from. They only provide us with more understanding of ourselves, and with dots connected, more determination to go make your startup fly. If we can't buy our self-worth and esteem from commodities, brands, and experiences, how can we judge anyone who's in such a harsh place of life not to improve their own life? Herein lies the quagmire of duality.

India suffers. From the shadow of it's dark past of brutal oppression of the masses by Indians themselves -- the masses were forbidden from education, learning trades, defending themselves from invaders and left to a life of subservience and suffering. This has carried through far too many generations, over 600 years. Still I hope is humanity can find some way to correct itself by the harshness of the original 1% in India.

If you go there, or anywhere, find your one corner of someone else's universe to make a dent in, whether it's a school for orphaned girls in India, or helping a homeless person in our own towns that everyone else sees as invisible and shower animals with more care. The hunger in someone's eyes is no different than mine when I have to drop what I'm doing and find some food.

When we give up on humanity towards others, we give up on our own too a little, and feed the monster ourselves. The moment we dare to take a minute to make strangers into real people, we become more human.
Couldn't you just model your data in a traditional RDBMS with a time stamp as well? In fact for mutable data that you'd like to keep old versions of, this is pretty standard. A simple design would be to have a separate table for person_locations that mapped a person to a location.

With everything else, the standard RDBMS table could be considered as having a 'snapshot' of the Datomic values.

I'm still not sure what benefit this has over a traditional DB. Perhaps I'll just have to wait for the next post.
Not really. I fully agree that Zynga is evil. Their CEO says so; it's hard to get more authoritative than that. As someone who knows a fair bit about game design, pedagogy, programming, and philosophy, I generally find Zynga and its products to be a dirty stain slightly worse than the wide, wide gamut of bad porn.

That said, I don't stoop to emotion-driven fallacies when taking a look at these things. I actually bother with knowing what I'm talking about.

But to actually answer your question,

My children enjoy Farmville and their ilk, and also spends time playing outside and with their friends. It is not ruining their lives. I may find their tastes discouraging, but their tastes are not immoral according to the moral system I've personally adopted and hope to pass on.

I will say it's amusing to be lectured on morality by "eevilspock".
In a software company with under 50 employees you can get away with almost anything.

With over 50 employees the only model that ever worked is the one described by http://manager-tools.com/ :

- Between 8 to 12 direct reports/manager, never more than 12.

- Weekly 1-on-1 with EVERY direct report, never missed.

There's a way to flatten the structure somewhat with Team Leads managing up to 6 people: part development, part people management. Even then the Engineering Manager has to be hands-on.

This is how people work and it will not change anytime soon. Everybody needs weekly check-in with the company (represented by the manager) to stay in course. And everybody needs to know "who's the boss", even it it's not an official title or formal authority (think about Linus).

Citing Google as a good example is not too inspired. With all the billion $s they can't come up with one more product - it's still a single trick pony.
There's Search/AdWords, everything else is pretty much failure in comparison. Maps is somewhat profitable, but it was bought from somebody else and it's pocket change next to Search. Everybody profits from Android, except Google. And then there's Google+, Wave, Health, Video, Buzz, Catalog, Froogle, Orkut, ...

So before trying out a Google-style manager-less chaos, make sure you have a couple billion $ in your bank account first.

And yes, when somebody is not calling the shots on who gets hired in his/her team, that's not a manager. They get the task (deliver the results) without getting the tools (pick your team). How that would ever work?
You argument is solid and it would be great if math was taught more as a connected whole but many do not have that luxury. Key though, is the author never went into much detail as to his or her intentions and motivations so not much can be said if your list is inspiring or too intimidating.

One thing I'd like to point out is that measure theory is not the only and probably the least interesting way to study probability. There is the more elegant (IMO) approach via Nonstandard Analysis. And the fun more practical approach via Game Theory and Markets (which also support "imprecise probabilities").

I also think theres room for different approaches to the same thing, each offering their own unique insight. Many differential equation modelling problems, especially those involving populations could be fruitfully replaced by agent modelling.
Of course, the same is true for tests. If you prove the wrong thing, your code obviously won't be correct. If you test the wrong thing, your code obviously won't be correct.

However, if you prove the right thing, your code is correct. If you test the right thing, you code is correct in the cases you tested.

And yet, for whatever reason, only having tests is fine but only having proof isn't.
> What if you wanted to use a class that had a name conflict with a Ruby library class?

I just try to avoid going around calling my classes things like "Fixnum" or "Array".

Seriously though, this kind of thing is all set up at the framework level, though you do sometimes have explicit requires for external libraries (gems) that you bring in. The Ruby standard library isn't that big, and Rails' libraries are named and namespaced intelligently and pretty much sit in the background without having to be explicitly invoked too much.

It helps that the main source of Ruby libraries is RubyGems, most RubyGems have a class or namespace named after the name of the gem, and there's a canonical source of RubyGems that doesn't allow you to use the name of gems that already exist.

> Well sure, exception handling shouldn't be the rule, but how often you use them isn't usually a language concern (except maybe with Java and checked exceptions). Nonetheless, when you do use them, having your IDE give you shortcuts to write the boilerplate code is a plus.

I guess Ruby exception handling just doesn't have much boilerplate code.
Not using those exact terms, but the article discusses this explicitly as well.
Still sounds a lot like "the hustler mindset" to me.

I like the comments from that page. Here's one I'll cherry pick:

Indranil Roy Chowdhury wrote:
Seems like Jugaad has become a fad these days as I keep hearing the term every now and then in conferences and beyond..But the very essence of the term has been highly misplaced..To start with 'Jugaad' has a negative connotation to it and shouldn't be seen as innovation..I suggest Innovation should be kept away from the ambit of 'Jugaad'.

The problems with confusing Jugaad with innovation are;

(1)Jugaad is a short term mindset and doesnt serve anyone, while Innovation should be something that can have long term impacts

(2)Jugaad is a Tactic used in daily life, while Innovation is a long term Strategy..

(3)Jugaad is a way which corrupts the system or makes use of systemic loopholes, while Innovation is something that brings a solution which can in turn strengthen the system.

I shall quote an example here which is a classic example of Jugaad:

In India electricity theft remains a major problem. With govt's initiatives the problem has been curtailed to a large extent, hence the instances of theft have come down significantly. So what people have started doing is that they steal electricity from lines to TV antennas which take 49V..How? Simple solution..put a step up transformer in the way..convert 49 to 110v or 220V and light your bulb..

Now the question is would we like this to be seen as innovation ??? Or should it be left as 'Jugaad' ?????
Yeah,what I mainly got from his post is that the author suffers from low self-esteem.
UI is indeed interesting. I've spent many years working on a solution to a similar problem (data, rather than files, although nodes in my app can contain attachments) and the UI is the part I've struggled with most. My most recent version isn't online (yet), but the basic design hasn't changed in the two years since I put this up: http://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Interact/

It requires a central server, but has a redundancy mechanism built in, in that if server A is unavailable the client simply goes to server B.

It also has a panic password the hides/deletes data with a particular protective marking. Everything is encrypyed, and the server cannot identify any user, even given a user name.

The app can easily be converted to work with files. The thing standing in the way of that is time. I have a four-month-old son that expects board and lodging.
LIBOR: The Largest Insider Trading Scandal Ever
That would work fine in a lab, but is way too expensive for recycling.

Those ovens with accurate temperature control and very expensive, and pretty small. And manually hooking up each battery to a discharging station is far too complicated to do in bulk.

You don't need to recycle anything at all as "concrete filler" sand works just fine.
The article is nice, learning by doing is way more effective than just reading about something. I just don't feel very confortable with the word "hacking". This term is so overloaded nowdays that it's almost meaningless.

Anyways, good job :)
Excellent reference. Papert created his own theory called constructionism based on the tenants of learning by doing and accumulated knowledge acquisition (genetic epistemology). He emphasized making learning tools meaningful and relevant to children, so that they could use their prior experiences to help model new concepts. With LOGO, children used imperatives to command a turtle around on screen. When things went wrong, children could "act like a turtle" to debug, often by physically acting out the commands themselves. He called it body syntonic learning, as opposed to the more traditional disassociated learning we typically see. Shameless plug: I recently wrote more about this in a review of the book "Mindstorms" that this was an excerpt from: http://bsumm.net/2012/07/01/mindstorms.html
This is why Turing-complete languages are evil and you should use Agda.
Hey AshleysBrain, author of the post here. Thanks for your comment. To address your point:

The users' enjoyment isn't really the issue. It is not immoral to play the game, nor to pay for it, nor to have fun doing it. The issue is whether the motivation of the creator are to build a product that gives their customers value, or a product that is effective at making money (there is a large distinction here). If your product provides entertainment, it is pretty much essential that your customers enjoy it, but the key is whether you abuse their enjoyment by turning it into addiction (which you can then exploit for your own monetary gain, e.g. drug dealers), or whether you aim to give them the best entertainment you can while keeping their consumption of it in moderation -- in other words: your primary motivation for making the product is the product itself, not the monetary reward.

I posit that Zynga falls into the former category, that is: their primary motivation is to make money (and I may be wrong, but this is not a wild assumption), and they achieve it by developing an addictive product. I also posit that this leads to overconsumption on the part of the users (again, not improbable). Making money isn't immoral, but exploiting another's loss for your own gain is. I am prepared to argue further about the specific example, and perhaps in doing so we may discover that Zynga do actually care about making a really great product, in which case I will be happy to retract it, but the general principle for which the specific example is given still stands.

At this point some will make an argument along the lines of: the responsibility for moderate consumption falls on individual users, not on the creator of the product. Now this is a very important point, but it is by no means a resolved question. I side with the camp that says that some of the blame does fall on the creator because it is only through the combination of their intentions to make the product addictive and the user's weakness that overconsumption can occur. My argument is that by choosing not to make addictive products -- that is, to make moral design decisions -- we can make products that benefit society rather than cause it ill.

This is not some moral condemnation of the creator, far from it, for I care about the creators just as much as I do about the consumers (I am one, after all), and as much as the question is about what products are good for society, it is also this: What products should we be building? What products will truly matter? What design will live on and be cherished after we die? Resolving those questions will help us develop a society we all want to live in and be proud to be a part of, both as creators and consumers.
I think the reason you have pirate parties is because of your governmental systems, not because it's more popular there. First-past-the-post elections essentially force a 2-party system, where the European style has a lot more support for smaller, side parties.

This isn't to say it isn't a US centric thought- honestly, I don't know enough about Europe to say definitively. But I do know that it's nigh impossible to meet someone under 30 in the US who doesn't think copyright law is a joke.
You can setup your method to accept a hash, and then do something like this...

syntax = options[:syntax] || "default value"

...in the method body. Still, it would be nice to have it built in.
Some people argue that in an ideal world we wouldn't be using Turing-complete languages. Nothing like a total functional programming language to make life better :).
5 Things to Think About for Any Online Marketing Campaign
iOS development is not only objective-c and Cocoa Touch. XCode, interface builder, instruments are also big helpers and sometimes there can be memory problems that you can only trace with instrument.
"Depending on the chemistry" is not a valid answer when recycling something - they don't have time to lookup the specs of each battery.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safet... says maximum temperature of 265°F, which is very very close to the temperature needed to melt the glue (250°F, for low temperature glues, and 380F for high temperature glue - which is very close to even your 400° number.)
Your Mobile Device is the Least Social Device You Own
Google suggests he lives in Santa Cruz. I'd always assumed someone with his description would have no problem finding a job in the Bay Area.
I think that, paradoxically, Hitler and the nazis helped make Germans an honest and decent people that care greatly about the law and taking care of minorities.

They've experienced what can happen if you don't.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wonder if your experience is clouded by the (past) inadequacy of your skill set and learning level. We use Haskell in production across a number of domains and it has produced solid results. So do a number of other very serious companies out there (as an example, most banks have varying degrees of Haskell in production for critical systems).

Also, how are parsers or in-memory data structures NOT real-world tasks? You never had to parse some bit-stream or stage a sophisticated-enough computation pipeline that required lots of different, intermediate data types?

I'm not sure why you're seemingly dying to make negative blanket statements based on how "it was a pain in the arse" for YOU.
Hey Mz, I've read a lot of your blog posts in the past. I can totally see why this is happening.

The design and layout of your blogs don't present you as the subject matter expert that you are. Blogging & blogging platfoms have changed a LOT over the last 10 years since you started some of your sites. Making your sites look professional will present your free work in the right light.

You're not making it easy for people to :-
1)consume your writing & remember you
2)know instantly what you're about & what your aims are
3)move from post to post
4)find specific posts relavent to them
5)promote you, your newest work or product

I know it sounds shallow and that folks should just look through the formatting & design to find the value in your writing but if you're competing for attention and eyeballs with all the other sites out there, then the shine matters. Also you've got to consider some kickstarting some income streams that are both value to your customers and value for your time.

Just visit some of your favourite blogs and compare and contrast layout, style and design.

You've got a great body of work and I know you can start making the income you want from this.

I can see you're totally frustrated with how it's going so far. If I can help in any way or if you want to discuss this my e-mail is in my profile.
I don't think you realize just how condescending and full of arrogance your posts are.

You are implying that computer science is both useless and only consists of implementing toys. What makes your problems "real world" and the problems that haskell is good for not "real world"? What makes something "not a toy"? Parsers and compilers are toys?

If you want to start a discussion about things that make haskell difficult to work with on a daily basis, please do so. Otherwise, kindly stop throwing around insults.
The famous "Apple is only successful because they have great marketing" delusion.

Advertising works to reinforce a product's strengths. It can't turn water into wine. And so if those Nokia tablets aren't appealing (and they aren't) then no amount of advertising can change that.
You explicitly pay people more money if they have kids? That's interesting ... I've never heard that one before.
Great writeup.

And yes that book is great if anyone want to understand and truly develop ways to better teach children (and adults).

So many insights it's almost sickening.
That's definitely a step in the right direction - I know it was pretty hard to open a GmbH just a few years ago (2009 I believe). Germany is much more entrepreneur-friendly, too.

All the back and forth with papers isn't that hard, but why can't it be simple like in the US - open an LLC online and a bank account in less than an hour and you're good to go.

In Europe, opening a company is serious business. In North America (well, US and Canada), it's a given...