skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Also while relatively uncommon do not be surprised if they happen to ask you to leave immediately - its typically nothing personal but can be policy.

If this happens, they should pay you for the intervening time. IIRC, generally in the U.S., if they don't, then termination was initiated by them, not for cause, and you are entitled to unemployment insurance. (Though you may debate with yourself whether you want to go through the exercise. Nonetheless useful to keep in mind if your new job then falls through at the last moment.)

> They will ask you to sign some paperwork. Tell them you will take it home with you to read in full. Do not send in the paperwork - it only is meant to clear your employer of any liability and void your legal rights.

Don't sign anything without reading it thoroughly and understanding. Even if you are quite friendly with your manager, this is not coming from them, it is coming from Legal and HR. They are, most likely, not your friends -- not to sound overly spiteful; that's simply the way it works.

If they are offering you money to sign ("severance package", etc. -- not as likely when you are the one quitting), that is all the more reason / warning sign to be cautious.
From personal experience, yes. (I am not, but I know a few). When they are good, they tend to be damn good.

There is a selection bias going on though. If you are a mediocre programmer with a CS degree, you can present yourself as a programmer with little delusion. However if you are, say, an English major programmer, chances are you won't advertise yourself as a programmer unless you really are the best sort of natural.

Skilled learned in an English program certainly may help, but all of the English major programmers that I know have always been programmers. They are naturals, have known it since at least early highschool, and picked their major despite that.
Oftentimes, that's just what an Alternate Reality Game is.
Phillip K Dick on Blade Runner - October 1981
It's gone at a [Windows] keystroke.

After about two weeks, I find Windows 8 more productive.

What is a bit disorienting is that the mouse is being deprecated, somewhat. I believe that Microsoft has determined that the interfaces of the future are keyboard and touch. Windows 8 does a lot of things from the keyboard...like switching between modes.

The more I use it, the more impressed I am with the way in which the two modes, Metro and Desktop, integrate.
I agree with the libertarian ideals, and the educational ideals popularized by Montessori, but the lack of ethical consideration of others is disheartening, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)#Criticis....
Isaac Asimov previendo el impacto de Internet
Why you're not getting a robot butler any time soon
Something like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant
I can certainly understand the psychological basis for enjoying sports. You get to cheer on people who associate as being part of your group, and watch them compete against people who are "other". This lets you vicariously share the thrill of victory and the despair of defeat. You're also able to form strong emotional bonds with those around you because you're all sharing the same emotional highs and lows. There's also some intellectual satisfaction to be had if you have a good understanding of the mechanics and tactics of the sport; you can analyze what the teams are doing, make predictions, and feel smart when you're right.

Personally, I have no interest in letting myself become involved because I think there are many more enjoyable and productive things to become immersed in. I also really dislike being a permanent spectator.
Canadian company crafting cloak of invisibility
Brainstorming is not the route to go unless you also believe buying a lottery ticket will pay your rent this month (i.e. they are both foolish). One way to identify an under-served niche is to consult - thereby helping clients solve problems. Sometimes you can be the 1st to solve a problem in a unique way, or at least become knowledgeable about a niche you didn't know existed, and have someone to learn from (client). Without a deep understanding of a niche you won't be able to spot opportunities as well as understanding the customer.
Co-inventor of bar code technology, N. Joseph Woodland, dies at 91
Just a couple weeks ago, I met someone who works at an Amazon warehouse. He liked his job, and he seemed happy about the overtime he'd receive during the Christmas rush.
Given the huge number of small businesses that run a box that doubles as a POS and a general-purpose PC (used for email, web surfing, and such) I'm honestly surprised that we don't see this more often.

A lot of mom and pop stores simply don't have any technical people on staff. I'd wager that a lot of these machines are running old, vulnerable versions of IE, and I'd wager that a lot more are operated by people who could be convinced to double-click an executable email attachment.

Throw in the potentially high per-target payoff (compared to, say, using a machine to pump out spam) and if I were a black hat I'd be tripping over myself going after this target.
My problem with the ribbon is that many options have just disappeared.

With menus, at least you could dig through the menus to find what you're looking for. With the ribbon, you're forced to rely on google to figure out how to use your application.

Ever try and figure out how to display the headers of an e-mail in Outlook?
Tips to improve CPA
I usually handle subprojects by having tags to go with the list, and optionally using a smart list to aggregate if need be.
Breaking Murmur: Hash-flooding DoS Reloaded
> Feinstein supports the extension. Her office can be reached at (202) 224-3841.

Don't let this stop you (or anyone) from calling, but it's going to take a lot to get Feinstein to switch her stance on this.
Standout in the music industry
This is so very true. Copy & Paste never made anyone better at anything (except for muscle memory in your left hand). For a while I typed out every single piece of code I used from the internet and it gave me a deeper understanding of what's going on in this code. I reflect on the code while I'm typing it.

I also do this with math these days. Whenever I'm learning a concept I'm writing out all the definitions and theorems, which gives me time to reflect on them and helps memorization. In general, writing is an excellent way of learning.
Low Cost Open Source Wireless Hacking – HackRF Jawbreaker
Most programmers gravitate towards programming because they is some aspect of programming that inherently interests them. I have about a dozen friends that I've tried to convince to learn how to program, even something as simple as Excel formulas, and they just weren't interested.

Most people won't find sitting in front of a computer day after day interesting. It takes a certain mindset to get comfortable writing and organizing things in your head an on a screen.

There is something to be said about the analogy to writing, however. When I code, I always feel like I'm trying to tell a story, and my goal is to make it easier for the next person who reads my code (likely me) to understand what I was trying to do. If it's too byzantine and "clever", and I have to sit there and think about what I was trying to do, then I'm doing something wrong.
> Normally, you could expect Republicans to oppose a big government program like this, but, as we all know, as soon as you say the word "terrorist", they're all suddenly in favor of big government and big spending.

It works on both sides of the aisle. I'm too embarrassed to count how many progressives I know who opposed the FISA wiretaps, the PATRIOT act, and Gitmo under Bush, yet bent over backwards to find ways to excuse Obama for taking each of those policies even further.
"English majors" is a pretty wide-reaching group. You have really intelligent people who are passionate about deep analysis of literature, and you have people who just felt like majoring in liberal arts because they're lazy and "science is hard". Anecdotally, I have a good friend with a BA in English Lit who's now doing Rails dev at an early-stage startup (and doing a pretty bang-up job, from what I hear).

I'm willing to buy that, statistically speaking, more people who major in computer science or math will become good developers than people who major in the humanities, but that's fairly obvious: what you major in is a decent indicator of what you're interested in. Sure, not every English major who learns to code will become a rockstar ninja guru, but that's true of STEM students as well. Unless you can prove otherwise, there's no reason to believe that there's something inherent about majoring in English that inhibits the sort of analytic mindset that engineering requires.
Yes, basically that, but using solar/wind to power the pumps, turning the lake into a giant battery to store the energy from the solar/wind power, which seems to be one of the major drawbacks of wind/solar.
I love sports for precisely the reason you don't.

Generally speaking, I'm militantly rational. My rational brain is engaged in perpetual combat with my powerful Italian-American emotions, and I feel as though even if I win most of the battles, the war will never end.

Except in sports. I love my Mets, Devils, and Giants (screw basketball) with the heat of a thousand stars. My rational brain recognizes the utter absurdity of it, but I simply don't care. It's fun almost because it doesn't make any sense.

In a way, being an avid, emotionally invested fan of something so insignificant is practice for the very real emotional ups and downs inevitably experienced in 'real' life. Sports instruct us both in how to react to traumatizing events (in a safe, controlled environment) and in how to feel, how to attach ourselves emotionally to something.
I've seen positive comments about her work on other blogs. You can't be a powerful woman without some jealous haters. Even Marissa Mayer was described as a clueless robot by some anonymous commenters who claimed to be Google employees.
See also the raid on Steve Jackson games where documents available in public libraries (and which were also sold to the public) were claimed to be sensitive secrets worth many thousands of dollars.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._U...)
I don't mean to sound like a smartass but it seems there is a spelling mistake in the video - it says for you condo and I think it's meant to be 'your'. It didn't make the best impression and turned me off the product almost immediately. I'm not sure but I guess it could have been a factor for other users too.

Also I would have mentioned the specific pain point condoly addresses - I sort of get what the product does but I still don't really know why I want it.

RIP condoly, I hope your next startup is a success eduardo :-)
This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote:

"I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the company and incentive structure that I have"

In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered why the employees didn't generally have the same sense of urgency that we did. My friend Bryan asked "so, what do you do when you read an article about a competitive threat?" and we both answered "we share it with each other". "and not the employees?", and we looked at each other and said "we don't want to be discouraging". Bryan said "no wonder they don't feel urgency".

And that's at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps that's one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet on the line, sharing information openly.

I'd love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I'd love to hear insight into the reasons.
Try Miranda IM ;)
If someone wanted, they could argue that "absolutely nothing whatsoever" hinges on music or architecture either, and then apply your counter-arguments back to sports. edit: and look, cobrausn has while I was typing this.

Some people like sports because of the athleticism it. A 100 mile per hour fastball is much more impressive when you've pushed your own limits trying to throw a ball.

Some people like it because of the strategy on a macro- or micro-level. When you've played/watched the game enough, you learn more about the big picture and the small decisions that shape a game. In ice hockey, like in chess, you might not get punished for a mistake until a number of moves later. Someone who knows the game can tell you, "You see how #15 turned towards the boards instead of away there? That puts him out of position for..."

Lots of people like sports for the social aspect of watching the game. Seeing the underdog Giants take on the undefeated Patriots for the Superbowl is a lot more exciting with a group of friends than it is sitting home alone. (Even moreso with a group of Giants fans in Boston, but I digress.)

I can come up with other reasons, but these are the big 3 for me.
How the heck did CloudFlare not get this?
You sir are a douchebag, and I won't participate in any project you're associated with.

I don't understand why everyone's pussyfooting around this guy. Please? No offense? This guy is THE PROBLEM. He doesn't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for providing crap people skills. People skills are part of a project too, just like code.

I downvote rude people on HN, and ascribe to the idea of not saying something you wouldn't say in person. But this guy? I'd say this and more to him in person, on a stage, in front of a million people. Go ahead, downvote me. It's all in a good cause.
It really does help - I had done this in the past, and I need to start doing it again. No matter how experienced you are, I think this would always be helpful as it can open your eyes to new ways of thinking about how to go about solving a problem.

That being said, word of advice: Make sure the code works before you start copying it, nothing is more frustrating then grabbing something OS - typing it by hand, then finding out it doesn't work (Granted, if you learned enough from typing it - hopefully you understand it well enough to fix it but you could have also picked up bad habits if it was broken to begin with.)
"As the head of Windows product development at Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green is responsible for a piece of software used by some 1.3 billion people worldwide", and hastily dropping.

Luckily for her, she will have a much easier number of users to worry about shortly, and her efforts are helping greatly in reducing this number further. Bravo!
I think a fair difference between music/architecture and sports is the relative permanence of the former. An individual structure will be studied 4000 years from now and tell us how an entire culture thrived. Music from the 1700s is still enjoyed today. Most sports games have no lasting effects beyond a week, and when we actually do study ancient sports, we study ancient art and architecture to learn how it was played; individual games within that sport usually have little relevance unless they involve royalty or politics.

It's certainly an important aspect of our culture, but it has a much smaller role than music and architecture. Everybody knows the Empire State Building and Beethoven, but most people don't know who won last week's football game and by what margin.
I think I signed up for more info so okay!
+1 for Power Grid. Like most of the best games, it actually gets more fun once you've figured out optimal play. Weak games just get boring.
They had this same thing over at Slashdot (reworded of course). Good work all the same.
I see nothing in that article that lends credibility to this.

He doesn't want to show the cloak actually working but mockups are fine. If the mockups are accurate then how is that different than showing an actual photograph of the cloak working?

The information needs to be secure, but hey, here's a list of people who've seen it working. Also, by the way, this is how it works.

Two sources to verify the technology weren't able to be contacted. Not that there was no comment or response, they couldn't be contacted.

No names of who exactly in the U.S military has seen the cloak working to verify their judgement of the technology.

One name from the Canadian military who has seen the cloak, but the Canadians are going to pass for now and might revisit it in the future.

The cloak has to be designed for each application, which means it's use is likely highly limited.

So, is this completed and ready-to-go technology that needs funding for mass production or is that he needs funding to clean up a handful of potential problems before it is ready for field use?

Sorry, I must see it in action to believe it works as described and is actually useful.
A few things

1) The start button menu has a built in search function that makes the search typing function in the start screen pointless - if I want to use the search approach. It responds in real time just like the start screen search does as well. And importantly: no need to switch visual interfaces to get to the program search. Windows key > type, all inside the desktop visual mode.

2) I use a two-pronged approach to pinning programs. First, I pin everything I use for work to the taskbar, so that's one click and no typing or start screen visual switching (which is obnoxious to work flow). Then some slightly less frequently used programs I pin to the first layer of the start button menu, so that's two clicks (to launch) and no typing to access another ten or so programs (20 programs, in one or two clicks, no switching screens and no typing; covers 99% of what I use daily). And if I want to, I can obviously use a key approach to opening the start button menu as well. Windows key > start typing, initiates a search, or an arrow key tap upward rolls me into the program list or into my pinned group. All from the same interface, without a visual switch.

3) With the start button menu I get a very fast alphabetical listing of practically everything on my system. Tiles take up considerably more space and require a left / right roll to see everything. It's cute for a few items, it's obnoxious and messy for 50.

4) The start button menu has a settings section that I can roll over to a control panel sub list or network settings sub list etc etc. The control panel item, for example, spawns an alphabetical list of 50 items on my system that relate to system management. This is similar to the small icons view under Control Panel, but I can get to the list with one 'click' and it's nicely hidden away in a compact multi-use start button menu.

5) This is just purely convenience: the start button menu has direct access to power / reboot (switch user etc). With the new Win8 approach I can swipe the right side of the screen (annoying), then access "Settings" and then access power control (more steps, less options under one item, much slower). And obviously ctrl-alt-delete still gets you quick access to these options as well, but that's just another reason the swipe screens and start screen are pointless for me on the desktop.

6) I can customize the start button menu more than I can the start screen.

7) I work in the desktop mode, everything I use is in the desktop mode, it's ridiculous to boot me into the start screen to begin my experience.

The start screen doesn't even come close to how compact and fast the start button menu is. Not to mention the visual switching the start screen requires is a nasty work flow breaker because I have to dive into and out of a different interface, when I shouldn't have to do that just to access simple programs.
If you're close to the Portsmouth area check out: http://alphaloft.com. They have regular talks and meet ups.

You could always head over to Boston there's a ton of web development stuff happening there and regular meet ups.
> But ultimately, it feels like a language with lots of good ideas, implemented poorly. I'm not a PL theorist or purist, but "everything is a string" constantly feels like a really poor abstraction.

I see where you're coming from, but IMHO:

Tcl's ideas make total sense if you understand why the language was invented. The name is the hint: Tool Command Language. It was never intended to be a "proper" programming language, AFAIK.

That is, a "sh++" CLI to be embedded in big programs. The role of the CLI is to be a thin layer between the data structures in the embedding program and the user.

The EIAS approach makes it easy to write commandline scripts. I've seen non-programmers abuse the hell out Tcl but the underlying C function still got the correct arguments.
I don't like these "so and so proven to be a great coder" type articles. Who cares what you have previously studied or worked with? Sure some skills can carry over, but with training any competent person can be a developer. We may not all be the equivalent of Vonnegut(well, English-studying folks), but then again not everyone needs to write an OS kernel for that matter. If you're a great developer there's a reason for that; you're intelligent and have a strong understanding. Understanding concepts can be learned over time, intelligence can't.
My guess, Microsoft.
The Daily: So Long, Farewell (video)
> [...] I'd love to not have to buy all the cards and worry about building a deck [...]

You might also want to try the booster draft format of Magic.
I've found a similar tactic useful for learning APIs: don't reuse example code, and don't reuse other people's code. Doesn't matter how annoying the API is - always write your code by hand. Re-type bits out of the code you were thinking of copying, if needs be! It's much easier to spot things worthy of note as you type them in than it is by reading them.
Catching Cross-Domain JS Errors
Just reached out via email to the site owner with some info/tips. We want to help.

CloudFlare doesn't cache HTML by default, though you can enable that with Page Rules. http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pagerules-advanced-ca...

And the origin needs to be responding long enough for us to keep a copy in cache, once the Page Rule is enabled.
Btw, the (draft of) the treaty is here: http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Documents/draft-future-itrs-pu... . It's really not in any way as bad as the fud on the internet wants us to believe. And it's certainly not about ITU taking control over the internet.
But how do you do that without occasionally handing over the maintainership of some important piece of infrastructure to someone who clearly can't handle it? The people at the top of the ladder right now are there because (and sure, there are exceptions) they are (1) very good at it, and (2) willing to do it. And they have employers who have made bets on those two facts. Those employers aren't really interested in someone else taking over when they have someone working now.

I'm sensitive to this, really. I work in an embedded linux world where I end up submitting a bunch of patches to various projects as an "outsider" (often one who is still learning the project in question). And yeah, I get yelled at a lot. And it sucks.

I'd love these people to be nicer too. But honestly I don't see a "process solution" like you propose. We just need to find nicer hard-working ubergeeks. I'm not holding my breath.
I would advocate it's a good thing that we have closed social platforms. Most of the content they generate does not leak to search engines and that's a good thing, because most of it is trivialities. Imagine a researcher looking for medical information having to filter through all kinds of anecdotal nonsense to find true scientific studies. It's like browsing youtube and expecting to randomly bump on gems. IMHO, most social stuff is of little value. People still publish in traditional platforms the important bits [with the exception of closed scientific journals; but that's a different issue].