skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would feel personally responsible if I found an exploit and later that exploit was used to compromise someone's bank account or private correspondence.

Which is why he's not even looking for exploits anymore. He is leaving it to Apple's QA team, since it is really their job.
Why not taking a salary is good
Would you really go to the effort of telling all your contacts you have a new e-mail address if Google added this feature?

I doubt it.
It sounds to me like leaving this job could be a good move. That said, I am a little worried by the tone of your post. You say that you "think" you are quitting your job today and that you've been borderline depressed. I don't think it is wise to go in and quit your job on a day when you are uncertain and still haven't made a final decision. Posting on this forum was a good move, and you've gotten a lot of high quality encouragement from other commenters which could help you make a decision. If you decide to quit your job, then go ahead, make that decision, and then sit on it for a few days. I doubt that it makes a big difference whether you quit your job today or next week. Once you're sure that you're not making a rash decision in the heat of the moment, go ahead and quit. You can use the time between now and the time you quit to plan your exit. I recommend giving a couple of weeks notice that you're leaving and winding down your job in an orderly fashion without burning bridges.
Be sure to take a look at Werkzeug ( http://werkzeug.pocoo.org/ ) - we've had great success with a Werkzeug, jinja2 and SQLAlchemy setup.
Just to clarify, I have already done a personal risk analysis. I have discussed this decision with my family, my friends, my business partners, and my mentor over the past week and a half. I have a few month's savings already, and I am well-qualified for many positions that are open in the area should I need to take one.

As I stated in the first line of the post, I've already made up my mind, and I was just soliciting additional feedback from a group of peers, whom I trust. I'm sure everyone else here would agree that getting feedback from as many sources as possible, is on the contrary, a very good "strategem" for any decision (btw, the word you're looking for is "strategy," a "stratagem" is a type of strategy used to deceive someone).

And finally, I see that you are new to this group. From experience I can tell you that this group is far from being anonymous. We are a very tight-nit, common-interest-bound group of thoughtful and contributing individuals.
I hope they didn't accidentally take pictures of the police!
I don't mean nitpick your title, but "revenue" is "making money" (actual money, even).

When the company is public (or acquired by a public company) you can usually find out if they're profitable.

For example, YouTube is not profitable. It generates revenue via advertising but not enough to cover its costs.
http://rochakchauhan.com/blog/2008/08/09/youtube-not-profita...

Skype, it appears, is a profitable venture for eBay. Search "skype profitable" and you'll find that it has been since '07.

Because Facebook is a private company, you'll find less specifics about their revenue and profit. My understanding, however, is that they're not profitable yet. IIRC Marc Andreessen told Charlie Rose that they could be profitable if they put ads on the home page.

I don't know enough about the other ...
I've been hacking Django apps around 50kLOC for a couple of years and have found it generally very well designed. It is true that the best-documented interfaces often don't meet your needs exactly, but I've had a lot of good results reaching into Django a bit. Sometimes this just means using some inconspicuous base classes instead of more "convenient" subclasses. Other times it results in some hacking monkey patches. But on the whole, I've found that it saves me time frequently, and in cases when it won't, it gets out of the way pretty fast.

That said, it is still a full-stack framework, and it is definitely targeted at sites that mostly serve dynamic pages. Like all frameworks, it has its archetypal projects, and for Django it's blogs/CMS/online community apps. The further your project is from that archetype, the less useful the framework will be.
Is it just me or does TestSwarm sound similar to PluraProcessing.com? The idea of companies being able to submit private test suites to be processed by a swarm for a fee sounds rather promising (given that legal constraints are out of the way).
He is taking a risk of getting fired already. Depending on whether the boss likes surprises and/or if you want to not blow up your bridges, asking for a leave of absence is a subtle way of giving notice before you give two weeks notice e.g. after they come back with - 'Sorry, we can't do it' - 'Thank you for taking the time. I've thought about this a long time. I'd like to tender my resignation'.
Google Enters The Load Balancing And VPN Market
Edit: My mistake - I wrote Black Hat, but it was actually Pwn2Own. Sorry for any confusion.
My favorite description of entrepreneurship is jumping out of a plane and trying to build a parachute before you hit the ground.

Note: I know it's not a perfect analogy. I'm comfortable with that.
A.I.G. Sues Government for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments
The worse example would be the silent withdrawal of an offer for a contract (not that anyone would do that)
Sorry, to clarify, the "think" part of the headline was actually due to the contingency that this friend send me the contract in time for me to read it, approve, and quit before the end of the day. It had nothing to do with uncertainty.
From a designer's perspective, this is an example of engineers over-thinking a problem in a space they don't belong. It's absolutely stupid and a complete waste of time for the simple reason that electronic color is not consistent. A majority of the users will see a different shade of blue depending on their display settings. A very small percentage of the population will see the color that's intended.

And if he's just being sarcastic, my opinion still applies. :)
This is a security non-starter until Apple enables the sandboxing by default on all systems. Average users just flat out won't do this. They won't even know about it.
The history of Tetris and Tetris copyright is an interesting one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris

It was developed in the USSR and spread to the West, so the legal implications have always been a little bit muddy...
Well you all may missing the point. It's not important at what hour You get up. The matter is how long did You sleep. Normal person needs up to 4 circadian cycles. We make one every 1.5h, it varies individually.
Here is real catch, if You sleep over this four cycles. Your brain starts to use some proteins produced during sleep. Its big waste because catecholamine is produced only during sleep. So if You over sleep, You loose energy, and You may wake up tired.

To start wake up earlier, this was tested by myself. You need to reset your brain. So don't sleep for night or two. And after go sleep on proper time. For 6-6.5h. You will be fresh as new born.

Interesting about the sleeps starts when You have idea about, training polyphasic sleep :-). Well its different story.
I'll do an update post ;-) Some unexpected events took place, but all in all, it went well.
TomTom countersues Microsoft in patent dispute
Microsoft is getting better when it comes to default lockdown modes (Vista) but I believe Administrator by default is the reason why Conficker et al and botnets exist.

I can't think of any good reason why the average home user needs to run as Administrative user, other than convenience.

I have to "administer" my dad's old computer and I gave him a Limited User account. Yes, he complains about not being to install some software his friends email but no viruses, no spyware. Cuts down on support calls and unnecessary trips home.
Over there, health care in general is super cheap (compared to the USA), and there are plenty of good hospitals/dentists/etc. in Bangkok. I'd bet they're good and cheap in Phuket too. You could probably even pay cash for services like annual dental and vision checkups.

I've signed up with WorldNomads.com for general accident insurance. I've never gotten sick or hurt so I can't personally vouch for the claim process. However, they're recommended by Lonely Planet and a bunch of other notable travel sites. They're worth checking out.

Also you could check out the Lonely Planet message boards too.
At Last: 10x better Electric Sheep client for Mac
Writing a Linux shell book the community way
I know other tech companies have venture arms, but I'm curious to know if being a G-backed startup would affect your exit strategy options (either pos. or neg.)

For example, what if MS was interested in acquiring a company that Google funded? Could they block it? Would it affect the price?

Or would G only fund startups that are outside their core competency or that they plan on acquiring later?
Can you drop the #comment off the anchor? - doesn't link to the actual article atm.
"When I was in grad school I once had a kidney stone so bad that I ended up in an emergency room on Thanksgiving Day. They gave me some fairly strong opiate intravenously. If you've ever had something like this, you understand the appeal of heroin. Especially coming after a week of being curled up into a ball with pain."

How weird to use that metaphor. I passed a stone during college, and simply being rid of the pain was an amazing high, without the need for drugs. For a week afterward, I felt as though I had just been born. (Coincidentally, the next time I felt anything close to that euphoria was when I turned in the final draft of my dissertation.)

I suppose that once you've grown accustomed to severe pain, having it removed is a revolution.
In case you ever need to generate your own data, I found it MUCH better to generate the data according to a clean, debuggable grammar, vs using a "test" database. You can return a spreadsheet with four columns, A, B, C and D for example, where each recordset would have a column-name prefix and to that you append a progressively "increasing" string. One sample recordset might be:
(a-aaaa b-aaaa c-aaaa d-aaaa)
(a-aaab b-aaab c-aaab d-aaab)
(a-aaac b-aaac c-aaac d-aaac)

The size of your data would depend on the "width" N of your variable string suffix. In this case N=4 or a dataset of 26^4 when using only lowercase alphabetical letters a-z.

Predictable data makes debugging trivial. I'm not sure how that helps you with UI. It goes without saying not to return large datasets via ajax ;-)
My wife and I had a baby. Now I get up at 7 every day.
I've not used Django but I'm intrigued by your thoughts. I want to stick with Python, do you've a recommendation for a Python web-framework?
I heard they were profitable before their first angel round. How long did that take?
Correct URL is here:

http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/javascript-needs-elvi...
"Implementation pending" is a great way to put it. There is a lull between the time an idea can be conceived, it's feasibility proven, and it spreading into the modern zeitgeist. I feel that at this particular point, we know that there are lots of ideas that can be implemented, but aren't, especially in the mobile space (hence, the oligopoly reference in my post). Other continents have disseminated many mobile innovations into the public before the U.S. has in the last ten years.
Stranger Knows Best: Other People Know More About What Will Make Us Happy Than We Do
The Railiens make a big fuss about favoring convention over configuration, and of course they picked the most bone-headed, moronic conventions imaginable, like coupling data objects to the database, using pluralized table names

He's entitled to his opinion, as is DHH. But for my money: why are Rails' conventions "moronic"? What the heck is wrong with coupling data objects to a db?? He'd prefer something more awkward and arcane?
By selling "virtual clothes", you're going to reverse "America's declining social capital" and revive democracy?
Interactive California Unemployment Map
I had to guess what F@W means.

The book "Founders at Work": http://www.foundersatwork.com/
Needed for AIG and the TARP: Silicon Valley Compensation Schemes (Brad DeLong, UC)
Less Talk More Code: Since when are programmers hippiesters with a keyboard?
The web has enabled so much eye "porn" many people are wasting time on looking cool (SEE SXSW) rather than building something that causes agitation in any given industry.

Why has a website like I ask you; why has Etsy gotten so much attention lately?

Has the definition of a programmer evolved into a graphic artist on steroids?

Why aren't the programmers out here trying to solve real problems?

See
http://www.etsy.com/
vs
http://www.psc.edu/

You pick where you want to be.

PS Stop reading Paul Graham essays, now that he has a kid his time is going to be marginalized to some extent.His writings may grow even more lukewarm than they have in the past year or two.

A short synopsis of what PG has to say.

Ronin Samurai + Programming + Learning + Writing Lisp + Knowing your friends and enemies better than they know themself.

Please uninstall your browser now.

Go solve a problem.
24 ounces of beans for one person? Do you mean for 2n, not for n/2?
btw i am looking for iPhone and Android developers.
Maybe I'm in an extra-cynical mood today, but its hard to take advice about building companies that matter from someone that makes a cut-down version of Second Life.
One word:

Modafinil
Except Google was solving a real problem, Seesmic created the problem that they solved. Some might find video comments cool, but if they ceased to exist tomorrow the world wouldn't be much different.
The scariest/most exhilirating challenge is one he plucked right from the running monologue in my head: "is our company vision really the path to a brave new world, or just a delusion?" http://bit.ly/bdS0
Comparing mobile browsers they ignored Opera - the most common mobile browser and the most secure.
Question: why are you going with FastCGI over mod_perl? Issues with mod_perl debugging/memory leaks? Desire to use nginx over Apache for higher throughput? The big advantage -- to me -- of mod_perl is the power of having your code live within Apache's process space.

I wonder if mod_perl works with event_mpm, yet.
Best Advices
I'm sorry you can't see the connection. It does require more than reading the subtitle, though. If anyone is interested in a serious conversation on this topic, feel free to get in touch. There's a lot more at stake than virtual clothes.
I wouldn't have written my comment if pg hadn't written his.
Listen to that man!
I was about to suggest the same thing. Take Steve Pavlina's advice as seriously as you can. That should be enough for starters. You should notice a great improvement just like Ryan and myself have.

I was known as somebody who's completely alarms-any alarms-"resistant". I'd set my alarm so loud and so annoying that I used to wake up my whole family and then they had to wake me up... this just couldn't go forever.

I read Steve Pavlina's article and applied his suggestion. Wow, what a difference... I experienced great results even after a couple of days of practicing.

As for the rest of the advices Ryan gives, I should probably listen to a couple of them (I already ditched coffee completely, don't watch TV before bed, but I do work on computer...) for better quality sleep, but I never really had problems sleeping - just waking up ;)
I've tried this, but it didn't work. I was able to wake early for about 3 days then I still went late to bed and my schedule became a mess again. This has happened to me a lot of times: no matter how tired I am, somehow I still manage to go late to bed. Or if I go too early (at 11-12 PM), I wake way too early at 4 or 5 AM which is impractical. In the afternoon I'll become very sleepy and transform into a zombie :-)
I think that's a better analogy for launching a new startup. The racing one more closely matches the on-going experience of running one.
You probably want a little more fat than this diet provides alone. Also be sure to watch out for Vitamin B12 deficiency :-)
Years ago my roommate emailed you when he was excited about rendering a particular sheep at high-res to make a print out of, and your only response was to refer him to your art dealer. Almost immediately the sheep in question was removed from the collection, which led to a serious WTF Dude moment.

It seems like you're planning on getting more communal involvement in the project besides free compute time, and I approve.
Does Flip acquisition herald the rise of dumb tech?
Yes, but I think it's safe to assume that HN readers are not average users. We can spread the word of safety :).
What about tests that intermittently fail? Race conditions etc.
Am I the only one completely underwhelmed by Drupal? The UI is awful and the demo doesn't even have a decent editor. Whomever revamped Wordpress needs to get in touch with the Drupal folks yesterday.
The article sounds like... "Rails has too much momentum, so well go with the hurd."

In my own case were building something framework-like, so Id be fighting the code if I used another framework - its more like systems programming than app programming.

I might have used Ruby but I hear Kernighan & McCarthy turning in their graves whenever I type "end" where a bracket would do the job.

The first hack was in PHP, and now I need some syntax to manage the complexity, and a custom DSL, so...

plt Scheme won, in my case.
(Thanks for changing the theme, Matt. I'll send you the bill for the points I got docked here for the snark ;-)

Well, now that I read it, I might as well comment: fine, keeping still kills you. But the Google-leaving Douglas Bowman hit the nail: you can either hope a designer does an Apple-class job, or you take the stolid measure-twice, cut-once engineering approach. And it's a matter of company DNA.

Plus, what if the designer lands you with dark-grey-on-black ?
This is maybe related to the study which shows you can reprogram your biological clock by not eating?

http://www.livescience.com/health/080522-food-clock.html
If you love what you're doing, the "economic conditions" won't matter, and it turns out that ramen tastes a lot better when you're happy.
The pop-up maneuver's goal is to minimize exposure to enemy fire. Imagine that you're flying an F-16 over enemy territory and that you want to hit a nuclear power-plant with a couple of JDAM's. Since the target is certainly protected by lots of AAA and SAM's, you want to drop the bombs as far away as possible from the target. In other words, you definitely do not want to fly over the target, as that will most likely get you shot down.

You can use the pop-up maneuver then. You fly low and fast to avoid radar detection and AAA fire. When you get close to the target you climb at 45 degrees, roll 180 degrees (you are now flying inverted), prepare the JDAM's to be deployed. You then pitch up and when you are at the top of a parabolic flight path, you release the JDAM's. The inertia build-up during the ascent will make the bombs go faster and farther. Once the bombs are deployed, you fly low again.

There are some technical papers on this. It's heavy math: optimizing flight paths is not exactly a trivial problem ;-)
The Sandbox Policy language is parsed by sandbox-compilerd, which embeds TinyScheme, and is sandboxed metacircularly.
I would build up more savings - two months of expenses isn't much.
Welcome To The Team, Sarah Lacy
The issue I have with the word "designer" is that in this case it is meant to imply "visual design only." I like to think of myself as far more than a "makes it look pretty" designer.

For example, I work with customers all of the time and design their web application interfaces, and the "interaction design." I spend a lot of time working on the information that needs to be presented, and exploring various ways to make pages easier to use. To me, that's design.
I've read Michal's blog for a long time. I used to host with him (in fact I think I still owe him about $60). One thing he is not is a windy tech evangelist. He writes about his experiences small and large. He's a interesting entrepreneur. I think something that's lost in your analysis is his resignation to building with an off the shelf framework. A better title would be "Rails and Django won and also I've given up on writing a better framework".

I agree the article lacks back story and deep analysis (probably making it unsuitable for an HN link), but if you were familiar with his blog that would be unnecessary as the sentiment and not the technical reasons are important.
Guessing this is a symptom of:
Tiny market share
Radically different approach to security (heavy sandboxing, multi-process)

We don't yet know if Chrome is actually more secure.
To answer the question asked by the title, three ambitiously innovative projects going on now:

vpri.org

newspeaklanguage.org

fluidinfo.com
> At this point, the only warning I’ve received is that deployment is hard, but then, deployment is hard with every web application once you start getting serious.

I have 5 django sites running at the moment and can't say that there are any deployment issues I came across. And its only getting better now that we gonna probably see "multi-database" support I'm guessing in ver 1.2
Is this really supposed to link to http://www.psc.edu/ ?
For partial roll-outs, A/B testing for features and more, check out http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/
Off With the Bankers
Many Restaurants Remain Oblivious to Mobile Web
Do you think it's more common than safari on iphone? Do you have any way to verify that?
While this piece is a bit light, I thought it might provoke discussion since it represents a real unmet need that is being griped about in the wild.
EC2 for Poets
Wow what blast from the past. That was a requirement for working with that dealer. I have had really mixed reactions and interactions with the art world. That relationship went really far south, unfortunately, and i no longer work with him. And to be clear, the selection of the sheep was mine, not your friends.

Initially i refused to make any of my work available under anything but open source licenses. Alas, that turned out not to pay so well. since then i've tried various compromises between my philosophy, and engaging with society in order to change it (and to make the electric sheep self sustaining). Pulling a handful of genomes out of the many thousands was one. Making limited edition works like hifidreams.com and the just-finished Blu Ray is another.

The next big step is a subscription/freemium model for the screensaver. You can read some about it here: http://community.electricsheep.org/node/492
Interesting, I spent most of the last year working on two serious Django apps, both of which were very different from the kind of sites Django was first designed for. Replacing the things that didn't work for us with custom components was incredibly easy. By writing middleware and custom template tags we were able to quickly add the functionality we needed.

Sure, there were times when we were frustrated by some Django design decision, but ultimately I walked away really happy with Django as a framework. In the past I have used Rails and Pylons and so far I prefer Django and will likely use it as a starting point for most of my web development, at least until I can start using Clojure more often.
That sounds like a problem with the test suites themselves, not TestSwarm or any sort of execution mechanism. For jQuery's test suite we've put a lot of work into making sure that the tests run stable and the results are easily repeatable.

There's a big difference between one test randomly failing and someone submitting completely bogus results.
Sorry, I don't have the time to read an entire book to understand the master plan behind a bubbly-looking startup. Surely you can give us a brief summary of what's "at stake" beyond virtual clothes.
The need is mostly met, at this point it is a marketing challenge. Weebly is good enough for just about every small business to make their own webpage.