skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Do you propose it be the exclusive law.

I don't know. I'm not a traffic engineer, and that's the sort of question they would be best equipped to hash out. It certainly needs to be a component of the law, or a policeman would have no legal way to stop some lunatic who drives at the posted 75 MPH limit in a foggy blizzard.

I do know that "reasonable and prudent" was the exclusive rule on Montana's highways prior to the 55 MPH Federal NMSL law in the 1970s, and that they tried returning to it for a time after the NMSL was repealed. For whatever reason, it didn't work for them, and they went back to setting specific limits.

And the point of my reply is that speed limits are not artificially low, that's simply your contention, one that you have failed to provide any proof for.

Sorry, I'm not a librarian either. I'm satisfied that my position is correct and I have the same right (or lack thereof) to state it here that you do.

As far as our disagreement is concerned, it might help if we could drill down and find out exactly where our opinions diverge. Here are the premises I'm working from:

1) To optimize safe and efficient traffic flow, speed limits should be set by traffic engineers, and not by mayors, police chiefs, legislators, or soccer moms. (My main concern is highway speed limits, as I almost never find myself exceeding posted limits in populated areas, but I assert that this is true in all cases.)

2) However, not all speed limits are set by traffic engineers. It's indisputable that some are set for political reasons, and no, I am not going to "provide citations" for something this obvious. Subjectively, as my initial post in the thread stated, I'd go so far as to say that most limits are politically influenced. An organization such as www.motorists.org would be a better place to look for cases and statistics.

3) People who have the political authority to set or influence speed limits, and who are not qualified traffic engineers, almost always want lower limits than the engineers would advise setting for the conditions at hand.

From these I conclude that it cannot be the case that speed limits are always set at the optimal point for safe and efficient traffic flow. Experience as a driver suggests that speed limits are not commonly set at artificially high values. That leaves only one conclusion: that at least some speed limits are set artificially low.

Which specific assertion(s) do you disagree with, and why? I'd invite you to show this reply to your friends in traffic engineering as well, so we could see what areas they would agree/disagree with.
Ah, that's a different bet than what I had in mind. I don't want to take that one. Though I'm curious to know what test you're going to apply to make sure they know what you intend to teach. If it's just a prompt "write hello world", I bet someone could teach a chimpanzee (or, if he was still alive, Alex the parrot) to do that on prompting and it doesn't seem very remarkable. (Now solving FizzBuzz when prompted, without them having ever seen the complete solution before, would be remarkable.)

My bet is finding a "decent programmer" with such an IQ, whether you teach someone with such an IQ to be a decent programmer or find one at some company doesn't matter, so long as they're decent. I'll charitably define a "decent programmer" as one who in principle could get hired (or has been hired) at any company doing programming and related tasks and not get (or have been) fired for incompetence at programming. So solving "real problems" is kind of a requirement, which I'll cop-out and define them as "problems the manager asks to be solved". They shouldn't be complicated but the most mediocre of currently employed junior or intern programmers across the world should be able to accomplish them. Also charitably, gluing code blocks written by other people shall count as programming and solving a real problem. I think there's someone out there with an IQ of 97 doing such a job, but 85? I really need to see it to believe it...
Is it just me or did the section about "creature comforts" seem completely out of touch with reality? "...mood lighting and holographic entertainment units..." I'd be happy if my flight just had free wifi. Not to be overly cynical, but it's far more likely we'll see the airlines finding more ways add fees and pack in passengers.
Such a great answer. This is why I love Stack Exchange.
Ignore the competition, it's just a distraction from finishing your product.

But that doesn't mean you don't need to pivot. For any startup, but especially a community-driven site like this, you need a Custom Acquisition strategy.

Why will people sign up for your app? << That's a question you want to have answered _before_ you start building. Then take that a step further, and start building a waiting list of signups.

If that's not practical, maybe you need to downsize your idea/pivot. Marketing is harder than building!

More here - http://startupbook.net
If globalized, the social effects might be even more interesting. No more incentive to buy 'stolen' organs, some classes of crimes will be rendered useless.
This statement from one of the cited studies caught my eye:

"All teachers of programming find that their results display a 'double hump'. It is as if there are two populations: those who can [program], and those who cannot [program], each with its own independent bell curve."

It's making an unwarranted generalization to say that this is evidence of people being unable to learn to program. It's more likely that each teacher has a methodology that can succeed with students having some set of characteristics, and the teacher assumes that because he or she can't teach a particular student to program, then nobody can.

In a college environment, the teacher probably has an inflexible, non-individualized methodology that is expected to work with everyone in a 100-person introductory class -- it's impossible for one teacher to give individual instruction to that many students. Our teaching system also implicitly assumes that everybody in the same class has the same background knowledge and can learn at the same pace.

Also, at the college level, many intro-level CS courses are taught by grad students. When I was a grad student teaching intro CS at an Ivy League school many years ago, we had absolutely no training in how to teach, so we pretty much had to teach our students the same way we ourselves were taught as undergrads. The same old methods get passed down and reused with little thought as to whether they work well or not. Better methods might have succeeded with more students, but the university didn't seem to give a shit about how undergrads were taught as long as some fraction of them did OK.

I think it's likely that a lot of people who can't learn programming from a college class could learn it if they were taught one-on-one. And I think this is true for many other topics taught in school: math, physics, writing, etc.
If only these questions appeared on one's résumé...
Nowadays just having java and or .net or your resume can get you turned down, specialy at hipster startups.
They have a demo video on their getting started page: http://www.rubymotion.com/getting-started/
Are you stating current salary on your application letter/CV or anything else that might make them think you might want banking-level remuneration? Remember that the City-startup transition is likely to halve your annual income or more, especially if you're quite senior at the bank.
Meant constructively:

1. You didn't say how old you are. After 30 you should rely on relationships and reputation more than your ability to describe skills. Tech employers want malleable underpaid wage slaves.

2. Perhaps working at a bank makes you look unattractive. I wouldn't want to hire anyone that was brain damaged from working at a bank.

3. Perhaps you are too narrow and apply for broad jobs.

4. Perhaps the inverse of 3. Consider what job you are applying to and customize your approach to that.

5. It's a numbers game. Keep on trying!
Move to SFBA?
I'd like to work in a company to which I can contribute in a more meaningful way — not necessary a startup. A company with a real product and respect for engineers blended into their culture (or even better, engineering-driven) would be a dream place.
From serving on a federal grand jury I got the distinct (though unstated) impression that the indictment was used as leverage in plea negotiations. It is fine and good to display "I will fight this to the bitter end" bravado on the internet, but when faced with an uncertain trial outcome (all are, even if you are 100% innocent) where the cost of losing is say 20+ years in the federal system (which has no parole, so if you get 20 years you serve 20 years), people tend to welcome deals/pleas. In one view everyone wins, the govt. has a victory and the defendant avoids the worst outcome. On the other hand it is depressing to see the justice system used in this manner (i.e. bullying/threats used to get defendants to agree to a plea deal so the govt. doesn't have to bother with a real trial).
Though hundreds of thousands of engineers and 16 countries have participated in the construction of the ISS, only 167 people have ever seen it in person.

-- Sobering thought. Interesting work.
That would be a pretty bad joke but it someone doesn't sign out of their Facebook or email account on a share computer, they kind of deserve it.
That's a great question - I'll reach out and see if we can pull one of their DODs too
During that era, having Rosa Parks (and potentially many other men and women of color) in "the wrong seat" could have potentially diminished the attractiveness of taking that Bus line for the patrons, thus damaging the Bus Line's profitability.

A more modern example of the presence of something "unwanted" bringing upon "damages", is Walmart moving into a high end town (which from what I understand, leads to a decrease in property values).

I am playing devil's advocate here, but Rosa Parks certainly could harm the Montgomery Bus Line with her inaccurate seat occupation.
No. Imagine a museum was displaying an oil painting that had been illegally taken by the Nazis in the 1940s and kept from its rightful owners, who were alive today and appalled that their property, evidence of the 20th Century's worst war crime, was hanging on someone else's wall. Now imagine someone was invited into the museum, took a picture of the painting, and wanted to, but didn't post it online.

That person is guilty of breaking arbitrary laws guided by poor analogies between the physical and digital worlds and, I believe, of nothing.

We are a nation ruled by laws, not people. It is via the due process of law that claims like "wow, we need to wake up and change some of these ridiculous laws" are resolved. It is not up to just Aaron Swartz.

FTFY.
Such a great question. Want to predict cow movement while taking into consideration sudden events, food and sun, using thousands of if then rules? Sounds like the perfect problem for one of the following tree learners that not only manage themselves but build the model for you, in order of suitability to the problem* :

Genetic Programming

ADTree

Random Forest

Decision Tree

Most of the work would be in figuring out the best way to gather all the data.

*opinion.
Honestly, there probably isn't a really compelling reason to switch, if you've been able to survive through DNS caching. Dreamhost's customer service is good, and their problems mostly stem from the fact that they do the exact same thing every other budget shared hosting platform does: oversell like crazy, cross their fingers, and hope that their users don't actually use all the storage and bandwidth they've been promised. The only difference I can see is that Dreamhost is probably the most popular such service, so that strategy bites them in the ass more often than others.

For me, though, having relied on more than just registration and DNS through Dreamhost and gotten screwed too many times, moving to Webfaction made a world of difference. Their shared plan isn't as solid as dedicated hosting would be, but at least I can say I get what I pay for. With Dreamhost, that much wasn't true.
I wonder if some of the issue is that maybe that a lot of the people running startup type companies are perhaps younger and maybe less experienced than you.

So in a sense it might be frightening hiring someone with more experience, they might also be worried about your salary demands.

There also seems to be a (probably unfair) stigma that banks are where mediocre programmers go to die. So there may be a fear that you have been hopelessly tainted by Enterprise SOAP or whatever and need a 2000 page spec document to get anything done.

If you have skills writing performance sensitive code there is a market to be exploited in terms of contracting/freelancing as this might be a gap that can't be easily filled by more general programmers?
I'd be interested reading further on this. Can I encourage you to post a blog about it.
Google: Don't expect Alliance help if you fragment Android
Are you tailoring your job application process to each company? If I'm at Amazon see a bunch of Java I might think "Ok, I can find 20 people with these Java skills." Instead of showing Amazon why YOU are indispensable for THEM.

Also, I'm guessing that Google, Twitter, Facebook & Amazon get several applicants a day. So having a contact on the inside might be more helpful.

A somewhat similar story was I tried to work at a consulting company here in town, and got turned down. Two years later I had worked with a couple of their consultants at another job, spoke at a user group meeting (where the leader was another of their consultants). When I left my job for a different one I had 2 people from the agency talk to me about applying with them.

I had already accepted the offer from another place, but in that time I was able to showcase my skills to the point they were at least interested in talking to me. Whereas 2 years prior they weren't.

The lesson? Network, if you're as good as you say you are, do some user group speaking or showcase your code to some people. Hit a couple local/regional conferences and start talking to people. As they get to know you, not only might they hire you, but they might also pitch your name to someone else.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/ios-benchmarks

That page is a chart of results for many of the previous models. As one can see, the iPhone 5's results are 2.55x better than the iPhone 4S. However, that should be taken with a grain of salt since we only have one iPhone 5 result.
And if you want to get it via Amazon for your Kindle, Amazon offers a sample of every book.
Bitcoin Cold Storage In Plain English
The new USA Today
For comparison, iPhone 5's score of 1601 is better than:

• 2004 Power Mac G5 - 1571

• Samsung Galaxy S III - 1560

• Asus Nexus 7 - 1591

• iPad (3rd Generation) - 766

• iPhone 4S - 629
Me too! In fact, that's why I said "by default" :)

Similarly, Pepper Flash Player can also be integrated from AUR.
Yeah, I couldn't afford a DX. I end up reading the "content" on my Kindle and when there are long code snippets, I read it on my Mac.
Here's benchmarks from a year ago (iPhone 4S): http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-ben...

There's more context and links here: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/16/iphone-5-benchmarks-appe...

TL;DR: iPhone 4S scores 623, iPad 2 scores 751. The iPhone 5, linked here, hits 1,601, according to Geekbench.
Just buy a copy from Amazon and then strip the DRM in < 30 seconds with a Calibre plug - http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from...
The only problem with hetzner is they don't do multi-cpu machines.
Anecdotally, I know some recruiters who are timid on recruiting technical people for engineering roles under the premise that after being in industry this long the person should have become a manager or a VP of Eng. type or CTO type more than a senior engineer.
You don't use a mouse?
Hopefully he's not wasting a bunch of time debugging cross-browser javascript because A) He already knows how to fix it, or B) It didn't break to begin with. JavaScript is hardly difficult material.

As for documentation, I'm not sure quite what to say. The best person to document code is the person that's writing it. The best person to document things that aren't code is a technical writer, not an engineer.
That's a good point; I honestly don't know. I suspect that it would be fine as I suspect circuit breakers allow a reasonable frequency through and it's the main isolator that protects the outside world from your powerlines tech. I may be completely wrong.
I read this book well over a year ago, and I still remember nearly the entire list of items he used as an example in the book. The techniques described really work, though the book is more of a memoir than a guide.

Here's what I remember, for the record: pickled onions, cottage cheese, peat smoked salmon, six bottles of wine, three pairs of socks, hula hoop, scuba diver, dry ice(?), Sofia Lauren.

I know there are a few more, but I think I covered a pretty considerable number of them.
To give a curmudgeonly viewpoint, here's what doesn't excite me about RubyMotion: it's for iOS.

As a Rubyist, my entire toolchain, from text editor to interpreter to production server, is open source. I use and create open-source gems. My media is the open web, and many of my users are on open-source browsers. I love this.

So while I'm generally a fan of any clever technology, I'm not keen to see my fellow developers lured into developing on proprietary platforms.

Yes, this is a rather zealous point of view. But as Mr. Ballmer famously reminded us, the success of a platform depends on developers. And I'm rooting for open platforms.
Hackerjobs is a wasteland - for example, just 3 or 4 Python jobs. Don't waste your time there.

My suspicion - based on own experience and some hints in the OP's post - is subtle ageism in the industry.

Experience, track record and ability go out the window when the company you're interviewing for are in their early 20s and don't want any old guys cramping their style.

Odd maybe but when I read numerous posts on "developers in hot demand" it just doesn't gel with reality. I had way more offers 10-11 years ago after the dotcom crash than I've had the past year or two, despite much more experience (both in the industry and open source).
I have a vague recollection of reading about this in a magazine when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I also recall being very disappointed in the results of my coding based on the article. I had recalled through the years my attempts at drawing some flocking pixels, but had forgotten the source of my 'inspiration' and never really regained my curiosity.

I think I had decided that I just didn't understand the material. Now I think that the article wasn't a technical paper and I didn't know any better at the time. Your link to the original paper (!) is most certainly welcome. I've finally decided to get back to some graphics programming and this would be a fun exercise.
It'll be interesting to see the comparison once Geekbench has been compiled to support armv7s instructions.
http://schneems.com/ut-rails
Ope. Looks like I was actually off by a fair bit. :P Here's the actual list, from http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/155631525:

Pickled garlic.
Cottage cheese.
Peat-smoked salmon.
6 bottles of white wine.
3 pairs of socks.
3 hula hoops.
Snorkel.
Dry ice machine.
Email Sophia.
Skin-toned cat suit.
Paul Newman film.
Elk sausages.
Megaphone and director's chair.
Harness and ropes.
Barometer.
1. I'm 31, this is not stated in my resume, but can easily be concluded from my education info, etc.

2. What can fix this image in your eyes? Github account?

3. Maybe this is the case. When I was searching for a job last time (and landed this job in a bank) I noticed how differently banks and non-banks react to my resume. In short, for banks I have worked in a company they know and did the things they want to do too. For a software companies, I worked in a boring BigCo and did some things they never will deal with. It's all great but it's not clear how to fix this — I wouldn't say there's loads of attractive tech firms in London compared to SV, so if I'll narrow my search to try to find better suited companies, I'll be left with that Twitter opening.

5. Thanks for that!
Is iOS now the only option for mobile musicians?
I don't believe you have really given us any points that would help us give you any advice.

From my past experience interviewing java developers with LONG runs developing java such as yourself was extremely boring. All of their resume's looked the same. Full of java related keywords. All with the same experience. None of them had soul. None of them seemed to develop anything out of their comfort zone. NONE of them knew what github was nor had an account.

Out of 300 people, over about 6 months we found only 2 java developers that seemed to be worth anything outside of their extremely large teams they were used to working in.

Now I don't know anything about you nor have I seen a resume of yours but I will say that when I see Java developer with 10 years experience writing java, it sort of already puts a negative connotation on the experience right away.

If your trying to sell yourself for a startup, your going to have to do some major overhaul of your selling points.

You are really going to have to highlight your experience with other technologies and things you are doing to keep yourself current with the times. What have you done in the past 10 years besides java? A lot has changed since 2002 in the world of development!

Last but not least, I can't believe you turned down an opportunity to work in a new environment. If all you have is years and years of java and someone (even if your personalities don't match) offers you a job doing something else and you don't take it! Its obvious that times are really not that tough in your current position.

Your going to have to suck up your pride a little and get some relevant experience in the job type you want before you can become picky about personality matching. You should be happy for the opportunity to even get considered.

Knock that AOL syndrome out of your nose and dig in. If you really want out of the banking industry, get a job for the experience. NOT to meet your new best friend or be on extremely hipster wavelengths with your boss...

To me you don't really sound all that desperate if your passing up job offers.
Perhaps other HNers will correct me, but I can't think of too many startups that are Java shops. In fact, I can't think of any. Java's a big corporation language and it just doesn't map well on a hacky nature startups.

Another thing is not the resume itself, but its format. The most effective resumes I've seen (those that get the interviews) were quirky one- or two-pagers. Can you perhaps strip yours of all personal info and post here?
Perhaps you could help me out here, your quest is to find a 'decent job', what does that mean to you? Clearly you pay your rent, clothe and feed yourself on the bank job so by some definitions it is 'decent', no doubt it has some sort of retirement plan you can contribute to and some days of paid vacation.

What you don't say is what you want to do. What are you passionate about? You know that "just doing your job is not enough" so you start a side project, great how did you pick it? Are you more passionate about it than your current job, if not why not? You had complete freedom to work on any side project you wanted. Do you even enjoy programming? Why do you do it? Why not gardening, or auto repair, or architecture?

People who are passionate about what they are doing are 10x better employees than ones who are doing it for some externally generated reason. Ask yourself what you really like doing and pursue that. You've got a job (great) and if you discover your passion is something else use your job as a springboard to cover expenses why you develop enough runway to leap into what your passionate about. Don't try to do that at a start-up though, its really really hard to be passionate about something other than the start-up's mission and be successful.