skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I like the concept.

When I worked at a small startup, I proposed and implemented an idea where instead of doing our take-home screening, applicants could instead produce a 1-pager of publicly visible representations of the achievement. Like, if someone has open-source contributions, why should they have to do a canned take-home project?

The idea was that they could select three examples to link to, and then write ~5 sentences on each for why they selected the example and what it shows about them.

The goal of the format was to cap the amount of effort on both sides, while getting valuable signal.

No one actually took us up on this during the time I was there, but I am still proud we offered the option.
In "Slouching Towards Utopia" there's a lot of emphasis on "communities of practice". I think HN is a great example for software people. I wonder if the hollowing out of print media begins a vicious cycle where the community of practice also decays. People leave the industry, connections don't persist across jobs, fewer events, fewer new people coming in and getting excited, etc...
I'm torn here because I think there is very real harm being done with social media not just to kids but to adults as well but you should look at anything being "to protect the children" with extreme prejudice as it is likely just a power grab and way to reduce privacy. The saying "never let a good tragedy go to waste" comes to mind here.
Is there a better way?
> I have written more code than most people and I still will be judged for not being able to solve a coding question

Why would you fail it though if you have written more code than most people (assuming most people means most people in tech and not most people worldwide in general since most people are not software developers), and published in A* venues
Scammers will use pressure and emotion. "Grandpa they put me in jail, I need you to bail me out please, there's not much time!" The last thing on the victim's mind is to hang up on what sounds like their crying distressed grandson to call them back. Sometimes even calling back won't work, the real grandson isn't picking up their phone and the scammer is saying that it's because they're in jail and their phone was taken.
That could work for some use cases where you transfer in bulk, like backups, CDN sync, research data transfer, etc. Either auction or off-hours or "spot"/low-QoS.
Anecdotally, in my 14-year career across 15+ jobs/contracts in the EU/UK, I was asked to do LeetCode only once.
The information theory problem is how to do so without creating a government ledger of every platform that every person uses, and a government kill switch to disable any platform the government doesn’t like.
To be fair, a lot of comment sections are garbage, and they can be trolled and brigaded.
Double-secret misdirection. The new stealth!
Isn't this obvious when you work with a stochastic system that giving it tons of wrong moves is gonna increase the failure rate.
If you're not already rich, my suggestion is to get used to the idea of passing purely formal tests. It's a really common part of life for everyone else. Sorry.
Theory of software (a la theory of mind)
Are we currently going through an epistemic rupture similar to development of the theory of mind?

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind>

<https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind/>

When I interact with software I recognize that "intelligence" in the software is trying to manipulate me. Hopefully that's with good intentions - e.g. an intuitive UI. More and more, the software creator's intentions are dubious or even openily hostile to my interests.

Does everyone with a smart phone possess that theory of software? Do most? Do you?
> Surely the problem of verifying a property of someone (the Boolean of “is over X age”) without sharing further details, is a surmountable problem given all the cryptographic technologies at our disposal.

Only if preserving privacy is the goal and I'm sure we both know it isn't.
Indeed, the challenge is already resolved in Europe by eID/EIDAS in a privacy respecting way, so the technology exists and it's already proven on a large scale.
The C-Suite coming up with this garbage is in every industry. You notice it more with tech companies on HN because that's the industry we usually focus on
My issue with this idealistic and understandable perspective is that it completely ignores all historical precedent in the modern age. That is to say: if you think the government is going to use this as anything other than an opportunity to turn all those little dots on the GPS tracker into fully-authenticated names and profiles they can keep tabs on 24/7, I have a bridge to sell you.

And if you think the third parties they contract out the tracking to won’t sell that info/access for profit, I have some magic beans as well.

I support keeping kids protected. I’m just not naive enough to think the current governments of the world have any interest in achieving that goal while maintaining any semblance of privacy for their citizens.
Amdahl's Law and AI Productivity
If you think something you have to do in an interview is “humiliating” when all they’re asking you to do is demonstrate some skill on a whiteboard you have some self-reflection to do. I don’t personally think leetcode is that great for interviews but candidates who act like it’s above them to figure out problems etc have a serious problem. In other fields this is not only completely normal but absolutely something people embrace. I have been in music masterclasses and heard absolutely world famous musicians playing basic scales to demonstrate something, in maths solving basic problems is absolutely something people will do all the time[1]. My dad was a chemical engineer and he was always happy to get a pen and pad out and solve some problem

It’s completely ridiculous to think you’re being humiliated by being asked to solve some algorithm question or other on a whiteboard and if you think that, I implore you to change your perspective. You want a job - you should be prepared to demonstrate that you’re prepared to do things that people ask you to do.

[1] Fields medal winner James Maynard doing first year linear algebra problems on a whiteboard https://youtu.be/100Im_72xl4?si=id2Y1SwvM2ZRBCW4
I think the loading blur effect is cool and, if it weren't for the drama queens on HN, inoffensive.
Kubernetes allows me to treat hardware more like software and like it very much for this reason.
Maybe we've gone full circle here, since internet discourse drives much of that angry shallow populism.
Top tier companies can filter on both, the market is saturated now.
But 10-15 years experience has to count for something. Why do senior and principle positions still need to leet code interviews?
Probably not, as long as we continue the requirement that all information conveyed to the public must be done in a way that is maximally profitable to the producer. As long as information must be profitable, it will inevitably cease to be information and turn into entertainment soon enough. When was the last time you saw a TV Station that wasn't majority ads?
What makes you think that? Secure Boot prevents this rootkit from running and is the recommended mitigation:

> Bootkitty is signed by a self-signed certificate, thus is not capable of running on systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled unless the attackers certificates have been installed.

> To keep your Linux systems safe from such threats, make sure that UEFI Secure Boot is enabled

In fairness, the blog post confusingly says this in the next bullet point:

> Bootkitty is designed to boot the Linux kernel seamlessly, whether UEFI Secure Boot is enabled or not, as it patches, in memory, the necessary functions responsible for integrity verification before GRUB is executed.

However, this would still require Rootkitty to have gained execution already, which it wouldn't be able to if Secure Boot was enabled and the malicious actor's certificates weren't installed.
Frankly I want Australia to go ahead with this law so the rest of us can have a test case for it. If it works well we can copy it with tweaks. If not, then we know to seek other options.
IIRC one of the common factor with genius/prodigies of yesteryears is they all worked 1:1 or in a small group with some reasonably talented teachers. Unfortunately that is not scalable for mass, so may be custom designed Device + LLM may work better than giving up digital.
it always cracks me up that the training data always already contains the answers.

There's more token guessing here with a lot of unavoidable hallucinations.
Because these kinds of questions are coding trivia and your ability to do them is a function of having seen them before. Having to study for an interview kinda defeats the point, no?

I'm so glad I'm on the ops side where these kinds of games aren't common. At best you'll get some light Linux userspace trivia.
This has been one of the hard things to deal with working in tech. Tech has advanced so much but am I happier or more connected to people than my parents were at my age? Not really. I've had an existential crisis recently about what all this work I've been doing is for. Outside of work I've been using less and less tech and I think I've been happier (like today I have a physical cookbook and a couple handwritten recipes instead of using recipes on my phone).
> They're only raising the prices of customers whose servers use more than a terabyte per month.

It sure reads to me like they raised the base instance price across the board. The biggest increases will be for those using over the new included bandwidth (min 1tb) but they are going up for everyone.
I publish and maintain dozens of open source packages that are downloaded millions of times per year and I couldn’t off the top of my head implement a bubble sort. Because why the heck would I ever do that?

The point is that LeetCode does not test the actual skill set of writing useful code, it tests how much you’ve grinded LeetCode.
MBA value extraction 101.
Absolutely agreed!

The issue I have -- and this seems to be a modern, last-10-years phenomenon -- is that an attack on one party's candidate is responded to by attacking the other party's candidate on a different issue.

That's... not normal. And didn't used to be as common as it is now.

You answer the question/issue, as proposed.

You can append an attack on the other party after the response, but people have gotten in a habit of lazily skipping the first step, and I think the quick-take nature of internet discussion has exacerbated this.

"Trump did this!"
"Well, here's something the Democrats did!"

"Kamala did this!"
"Well, here's something the Republicans did!"

Neither of those addresses the original point.
Openvibe: Town square for open social media
woah, that's a fantastic blog post!

"""After all, functionality is an asset, but code is a liability."""

I say this all the time! But i've not heard others saying this also. Great to see some like minded developers!!
People really hate coding interviews but they now exist as a "stupid test."

Academia has a problem with possibly fraudulent papers and grade inflation. It is inevitable that companies won't trust the papers and grades/degrees like they did in the past.
Things simply don't work that way. It cannot be explained, it has to be experienced.
Honestly, if you are Google, Meta, Netflix, etc, and/or pay largely above the market rate, fine, go for it. What I don't get is when start-up, who struggle to recruit, do the same.

I have been on both side of the recruitment process. I wrote some technical tests. The thing is, it is very hard to evaluate someone level with synthetic test, and leetcode, a.k.a hope-you-know-the-right-algo-for-this-question, type of test are, in my experience, amongst the worse (especially if live-coded or timed).

This type of test will filter out a lot of competent dev, because let's be honest, most dev don't need to be able to come up on the spot with a dynamic programming solution to a completely synthetic problem.

And I also find that algorithmic / programming skill are often way less important for a SWE than good communication, transparency, the ability to learn, ...
Unless you working on a product where performance is absolutely critical, I find that having a difficult technical test that is a go/no go, yield worst result.
And HN even recognizes it can be addictive to some. See the "noprocrast" setting on your user settings page.
To give some balance; I’ve worked with people strong in CS that suck as people and have no ability to help with product.

Experience is not equally distributed given any context. Well rounded people overall have been the best to work with.

Optimizing for a single variable is a very powerful technique of the stupid.
Because there are a lot of fraudsters.

With social skills and salesmanship, you can never have delivered top-class work even after 15 years as a developer.

Quite a few people know how to "play the game". That's pretty easy if your superiors have no idea about software development themselves.
I honestly don’t understand what it gets companies. It amounts to eliminating surgical candidates with 30 years experience because they can’t do organic chemistry on the spot.

Who came up with this scam? From all I hear the quality of engineering at these FAANGs has not been increasing.
"I Bought and Installed a Payphone" [video]
This tweet is about "grinding", eg the time-consuming prep work before interviews. I think.
I think a lot of people who don't know much about London are surprised that the City of London is quite small and not what people generally mean when they say "London".
Not everyone who disagrees with you is lying.
"Recruiting Apparatus"? What do you mean by that?
Like the spirit, dislike the execution.

Passing legislation to “protect the kids” is politically easy. Bans are simple. Much more effective, IMO, would be to legislate the way social networks behave. Stop their most addictive patterns. Adults are just as susceptible as kids in my experience. If there needs to be anything kid specific, perhaps a block on using the service during school hours, or only for X hours a day.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate your skepticism, and you’ve raised some valid points.

First, regarding the offer of equity instead of salary — you’re absolutely right to question the viability of that model. In an ideal world, there would be immediate capital to pay for work upfront. However, as with most startups, especially those in the early phases, I am focusing on building the foundation of a revolutionary product and can’t offer a salary at the moment. Instead, I’m offering equity to people who are willing to share the risk and work towards building something big.

I know the road ahead is not easy, and yes, creating a new video streaming platform is no small feat, especially when competing against established giants. That’s why I’m not just focusing on the “crypto for fair payments to creators” part. The vision includes leveraging new technologies, a unique user experience, and most importantly, a sustainable model that combines free access with user-generated monetization.

As for your point about risk — I agree that the risk is substantial. However, I believe the rewards will be equally significant for those who choose to get involved early, once the product begins to scale. I’ve been working on this for a while now, and while it’s true that not everything is figured out, I’ve validated some core aspects of the idea. I’m bringing a mix of software development knowledge (including blockchain experience) and a deep understanding of the market to the table. It’s a long-term project, and I know the road to success will be tough, but I’m prepared to push through it.

Regarding monetization: yes, it’s a challenge, but the idea behind this platform isn’t just to compete with YouTube or the existing giants in the same way. I’m focusing on solving real problems, like fair payment distribution, user engagement, and content ownership. There’s a lot of potential, and while the path isn’t completely mapped out yet, I’m working tirelessly to make sure it’s a project that has long-term sustainability.

I totally understand why you’d be cautious. The amount of work required is immense, and it won’t be easy. But I’m committed to making this a success, and I know that having a team of like-minded, passionate people can make it happen. If you have any specific questions or concerns, I’d love to chat and explain more about the project, and how I plan to mitigate the risks you’ve mentioned.

Thanks again for engaging — I’ll keep pushing forward, and hope to prove that this is not just another “crazy idea,” but something with real potential.

I appreciate rational and thoughtful feedback like yours. I’d be glad to hear your insights to make the project more grounded and promising. Thank you againx2 for the constructive criticism!

@CrazyGenius xd
I picked street fighter because you don't interact with your opponent other than fight him (I haven't played the last game though, maybe that's changed).
Yes. You might think it's humiliating, but sometimes showing some humility (rather than tweeting something along the lines of "They want me to do the same type of interview like the peons? Pah, I'm too good for that!") might be in order...
no no
> "Unlock the huge potential" = "We have big money with big self serving plans coming in."

tldr from bsremover too:

Smithfield: Big meat market, been there since 1860s.
Billingsgate: Huge fish market, been there since 1327, now moving to make way for homes.

So a real state take over, pretty much?
I'm currently on Wayland and it's working flawless for me. Will test on X11 this evening.
It is humiliating to work for someone else. What else is new.
Since they will then lose all interest in their phone, it might be more effective to ban them from smart phones.
"I'm so smart that you should just hire me without any interview but also I have to practice for weeks before I can implement a topological sort or longest common subsequence algorithm."
This is exactly what I was asking myself, too.
hotels in India also use the word tariff for room rates, as in, see the tariff chart on the wall behind the reception desk.
Pedophiles. I had no idea "MAP" had a foothold anywhere but their own communities.
Computer science has a long tradition of not or misattributing inventions. Unsurprisingly, the early contributions from Japan can be found in the historical summaries by Schmidhuber (see e.g. https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/deep-learning-history.html), who seems to be one of the few who cares about mentioning the correct authors.
There's possibly some worldview mismatch on your comment, because leetcode isn't "basic scales" programming for any specialty.

It's much closer to expect your world famous violin player to sing on the stage than it is to expect them to play scales on the violin.

But then, maybe not. Some people call all kinds of random exercises by "leetcode". The author may be one of those, I don't know if anybody can know this.
The Anxious Generation is poorly researched pop science book that people believe to be true because it feels intuitively right to them.
> Cutting off young teens from access to the world via 'social media,' is a human rights violation.

Is that more or less of a human rights violation than preventing children from buying alcohol, preventing them from buying cigarettes, preventing them from buying pornography, preventing them from voting, preventing them from working full time, preventing them from entering into contracts, or preventing them from driving an automobile?
I'd say human rights violation is a bit of a stretch - the negative impact of social media use on an adolescent's psychological well-being is well documented - so possibly even the exact opposite.
I'm a prof. I grind when I prepare a lecture. It's part of the job.
Agree with everything but I don't know think James Maynard was actually being interviewed during that video.
The issue for me is that even if you have strong computer science fundamentals and lots of experience most of the time you won't be able to come up with an advanced optimized algorithm (that took years of research) on the spot, which is what is often required in these kind of interviews. Even if you manage the average kid that grinded leetcode for years will appear a better candidate than you, maybe he really is, but that's unlikely on the day-to-day job. In the end it's just about who grinds more, obviously if somebody is really weak on the basics it shows immediately without having to go through the hops, fizzbuzz is enough.
Really? Peering is very big in Europe, we have like 10+ CIX operators with 20+ locations in Germany alone.
Author's point is not that it's too simple but that it is not relevant. It's not similar to asking a mathematician to do first year math problems, it's asking them to, dunno, remember obscure regulations on accounting.
Sadly I can confirm that people still do cocaine
What did you switch to? (looking alternatives myself)
This is completely incorrect, please don't spread culture-war lies on HN.

The £12.50 charge is for old, polluting cars.

Petrol cars made since around 2005 are exempt, and diesel cars since 2015. Vans from ~2006 and 2016 respectively.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/car...
UK net migration figures missed out 166,000 people, ONS admits
"Prison and Crime: Much More Than You Wanted to Know": My Thoughts
How slow we're talking about?
> I could perhaps understand using it for example for someone that tried to store a petrabyte of storage on a consumer unlimited storage plan.

I couldn't, don't call it unlimited if it's not unlimited, using what you paid for is not a "misdeed".
You missed the third type, "write detailed leetcode regurgitating an obscure algorithm for this problem set up to have a very specific answer".

IMO, most complaints about leetcode are about that type. Nobody should need to "grind" to pass the "can you program at all"-type fizzbuzz problems. They're annoying, and indicative of a remarkable failure in our hiring system, but they're a minor nuisance.

Your second type, in my experience, is not typically referred to as leetcode at all, and is effectively impossible to "grind" for.

Unfortunately, my third type is extremely "grindable", as memorizing all the common algorithmic puzzles is a thing you can just do if you spend enough time on it.
Jazz Kissa
In the spirit of "Falsehoods programmers believe in"[1] for human ages:

* Not all people know their age.[2]

* Even if people do know their age they may not have any means to prove their age.[2]

* Even if people know their age, they may know their age only in a calendar system which is ambiguous or with a margin of error.[3]

* Even if people have documentation proving their age, the documentation may provide an approximate age or use a calendar system which is ambiguous or with a margin of error.[3]

* Even if people have documentation proving their age, they may know it to be incorrect.

* People may have multiple documents each nominating a different age.

* People may be reissued with new documents changing their recognised age.

* Even if the government tries to guess someone's unknown age, it's an inexact science and could be revised later.

[1] https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

[2] https://www.racgp.org.au/getattachment/fe71891a-aafe-453f-a3...

[3] Example calendar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_calendar
Probably doable as the participant does not need to do the heavy lifting of the host with drawing cursors over other windows.

Might sketch out a quick demo at web.getbananas.net this weekend.

This should be also OSS and everyone should be able to host their own version of that web Framework.