skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This reminds me quite a bit of the "failure" vs "success" posts that are always showing up. I don't think this is binary. You can be a generalist, and still be a specialist in a given area. Why are people always jumping at the opportunity to make something a 0 or a 1. Where is the damned ambiguity?
Haha -- At least someone in here spotted the BS. This article is garbage.
It's definitely doable (http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=64465&st=...).
To Sell or Not to Sell
Want to buy Twitter? Better find $3 billion.
I would say that with the kind of "applications" you have people writing today, it's actually more effort to build scaling in at the start, than to throw away and rewrite the whole thing for a more scalable platform once you need to--there's just not that much code involved that's very hard to translate. To put it another way: live with the prototype for as long as possible.
Eric Raymond is a good start. I also like Steve Yegge's blog posts. Also Zed Shaw's essays are a good read, this one is my favorite: http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html

Surely theres a better list, but these are the first names that came to my mind.
Avoiding a social recession
Actually, yes. It is called polyphasic sleep:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
I think that you're onto something, namely the, "Why is it that all I can get is X and it costs me Y? Sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches!" meme. So many things this could apply to.
I'm not a weapons expert, but I believe this is a solved problem since the Falklands conflict. Target tracking a carrier by a simple missile traveling very fast a few feet above the water is not hard. Shooting down one such missile at a time is also not hard.

Whats relatively new is the idea is that no carrier group could live through 100 or 500 or 1000 missiles as advanced as the Exocet from the 80s launched simultaneously from small boats and planes.

These new guidance systems make the problem much worse, because shooting down even one is hard.
In my experience there's an inverse correlation for high level education (MS, PhD) and being smart, productive, etc. My approach was finish undergrad and then take my "education" into my own hands. It's worked well.
I was under the impression that carriers don't sail alone also. They're usually riding along with a fleet of ships equipped with Aegis system that would take care of ballistic missiles.

I had coworkers that worked on standard missile. When I asked them why we don't have missile plumes to take care of lots of low-value targets (as mentioned in the article), I was told that the back fire from one missile might destroy the other, and they would also travel at undetermined speeds, as they might hit each other.
What you're saying sounds right, but don't be silly, the author of this article is smarter than the US Defense Department.
I wasn't aiming to go that deep, but to answer your question I meant the ability to perform any given set of tasks.

Deriving the second conclusion needs a lot more data. Assuming there is no analog for swapping to disk, the biggest missing piece is the rate of GC. Is it the same for everyone? Additionally, is a given person's GC rate constant? When I go without sleep for two days, I usually need more sleep than when I missed sleeping for just a day. Does this mean there is more memory to reclaim? Or that my GC rate has been impaired? Or both?

More interestingly, how do 'brain-building' foods and activities affect sleep requirements?
"I think there’s a fallacy out there that having a high level degree means you’re an educated person"

Having a high level degree degree does mean you're an educated person, however, there is a difference between being book smart, and smart.
Not that it's impossible, but I thought I'd also mention that the backscatter reflection off the sea also makes it hard to discern your target.
I'd go for something by Paul Graham.
Maybe http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
Sort of appropriate for a question on HN, but it's also very good.
A false dilemma.
I've noticed that it's very easy for writers nowadays to just throw in a modifier in front of something objective, and immediately, subtly alter people's perceptions. Many people simply read by skimming and don't always stop to think about every point. Instead, they simply read while the back of their minds associates the huge task of sorting and processing data as insignificant.

Take the following, which is a slightly edited version of the quote:
"offering aggregation, lists and the ordering of all the information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time."

I took out "little" and added "all the". The whole connotation changes. But the change is so subtle that people don't notice the blatant lack of citation. Can Google really index all information? No, only what is available in formats it can read on the Internet, and it doesn't even have all of that. In the same way, the author doesn't explain why aggregation, listing, and ordering can be termed "mere". There is no solid evidence presented to back up the idea that what Google does is insignificant. A counter-argument is that, despite the presence of competitors in the search field, Google maintains a lead.
It's not a good day when the #2 story on HN is a War Nerd piece.

This "scrap metal" BS is typical of the kind of hyperbole nonsense Redditors get off on. Just because there exists a weapon that can destroy a certain target, doesn't make this target worthless - if that was true, everything is "scrap metal" since the first nuclear bomb.
If everything boiled down to money, then it would be simple as simple as the author stated.

I would look at it a little differently; people join companies for many reasons, if you are deciding to leave because of money. You probably already made a few errors; choosing the company, in the hiring process by not getting the salary you deserve and during your yearly review not fighting for more.

Once you joined the company though, you will most likely be working off your balance of intrinsic desire to accomplish everything you can for the company. If at any point your motivation turns to a purely extrinsic (i.e bonuses, cashing out) it is time to leave.

It is a funny thing how different things seem when you are using intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation. The best way I can explain it is simply: You will walk through hell with seem like heaven when it you are motivated internally vs. even the simplest of task will seem like hell if you are staying to receive a bonus.
While I agree to a point, I would like to add that this meme has not sprung spontaeneously from a vacuum - in my opinion, it is a fairly well-deserved reaction to American hubris on a wide spectrum.

One only need turn on Fox News for a few minutes to hear the familiar "I believe America is the greatest nation on earth", "greatest country on earth", "greatest nation in history" - you may not personally be a fan of Fox News but the fact remains it is the most popular news network in the USA, so must be considered to have some representative credibility - or if you don't believe that, just listen to George W. Bush's similar words. As a native of another country, I can attest to the laughter, then annoyance, then sneering cynicism about all things American such oft-repeated nonsense provokes. And I am far from anti-American.

I don't personally believe that America is headed inevitably for ruin and poverty, but its post-WWII shine is definitely wearing off as it takes its more rightful place as just another country - a big, rich, successful country mind you, but not the God-appointed Country of Countries in the minds of the "Greatest, Free-est, best nation on earth" crowd. It's not hard to understand the schadenfreude this inspires as the hubristic boosterism drifts yet further from reality.

Everyone hates a braggart. Everyone rejoices, at some level, when the braggart is shown up to be the vain fool he always was. There's an element to this in the meme you describe, I think.
Couldn't the same thing be said for NYC? Look at living conditions in a turn-of-the-century NYC tenement, and you'll be appalled. Millions of immigrants arrived with literally nothing except the clothes on their backs and toiled for pennies a day so the fat cats could have their mansions on 5th avenue. Yet most people don't say that NYC is an example of how not to build a city...
This isn't about a startup or a small business asking its employees to contribute to the cause. It's about a large industry that often views its employees as disposable parts.

The games industry has always been something of a meat grinder for developers. Long hours/constant crunch mode, comparatively low pay with no overtime, and no job security (because there are always more kids who want to work on games).

The article takes issue with the fact that a manager at Epic, a very influential game developer, has made a statement that could be interpreted as "you should make your employees work 60 hours a week". To add insult to injury, he did so while serving as a boardmember of a group that claims to lobby for improving workplace conditions for developers. To use a fairly extreme analogy, it's like a coal miners' union rep saying that breathing masks are for wimps.

This article implies that the IGDA's response to this "scandal" could negatively impact work conditions for developers at other employers, and at a time when employees are more vulnerable to those sorts of changes. That's something to be concerned about.
Why do I feel like I'm the only one that RTFA? He quotes an article by the United States Naval Institute.

Do you know more than them?
I'm curious to kick off a discussion around this... With regard to 'Lean Startup' principals, are you:

1) actively using them

2) planning on using them

3) only using/planning to use a subset of them

4) confused by all the attention they're getting
So, Eric and co have been plugging lean startups for a while now and it is no doubt an interesting way to structure things, but I'm wondering if anyone else has experimented with trying to implement these practices in full and could share your experiences?? results??
Bruce Sterling requests assistance proving the validity of his marriage
I think you missed my point. I'm saying these people aren't even book smart. They attended classes, studied for tests, passed the tests and then proceeded to forget the information. Meaning they aren't educated people or book smart.
Something was bugging me about this comment. I think this is it: Everyone hates a braggart

Why would I hate a braggart? I could care less about people bragging about their stuff -- cars, clothes, country, whatever.

The only reason I would hate a braggart is, unfortunately for this context, if I felt inferior to them. But otherwise, who cares? They're just a bore. Lots of people are bores, about all kinds of things. I don't wish them any ill or harm, and I would not rejoice to see them brought down. I just find better things to do than hang out with them. That is, once again, unless I felt that they had something I really needed or envied.

I guess that's the rub, huh.

EDIT: I'm very sorry if my comment seems rude. I'm sure there's a better way to say what I wanted. I just didn't want the idea that hating people who brag was somehow a normal or acceptable thing to do. It's not. I say -- let braggarts be braggarts. At least they seem happy about whatever they feel so superior about.
The article calls the iPhone an "open system." That doesn't give me warm and fuzzy feelings about the author's knowledge.
That is true. But the idea is that anti-ship missiles are now so easy to produce that you can deploy 100 or 1000 of them on small vessels and launch them all at once in a surprise attack to totally overwhelm the carrier group's defenses.
Ask YC: A good free solution for VOIP?
I am trying to find a good free software (preferably) or open source (at the very least) solution for VOIP in Linux.

I don't want to depend on anyone else - so it must a solution where I run my own servers (peer-to-peer would also be acceptable). Ideally, I would like a solution as good/practical and high-quality - once setup - as Skype.

XMPP and an integrated chat system would also be nice but are not required.

There seem to be literally dozens of options with no clear winner - which is why I am turning to your help, hoping that some of you had the same need previously and have some experience to share.
I entirely agree that the post-WWII shine is wearing off, but that is a sign of things converging to their right place. The U.S. emerged as the western world's only superpower after a war which left Europe in ruins and half the world behind an Iron Curtain. That was an anomaly.

There's a huge difference between ceasing to be the world's only superpower and collapsing. It seems to me that many people are blinded by schadenfreude indeed, while many others react way too negatively to this new reality.
Web 2.0 Booth Crawl
The headline (and news hook) does not necessarily follow from the study results. What the study actually found:

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” [Dr Brent Coker] says.

So first, they've excluded those (mentioned later in the article) who spend an excessive amount of time leisure surfing.

Second, what if tolerance of leisure surfing is essentially a reward granted to the productive? They studied 300 workers, of whom 70% engaged in leisure surfing, and they were "9%" (metric unclear) more productive . What if the unproductive workers who leisure-surf are promptly let go, and thus not in the 300-person population at all?

That the university where the study occurred does not itself link to the detailed written report -- instead only providing only video and audio of an interview -- is also suspicious.
Under the Covers of the Google App Engine Datastore (video of talk)
I'd agree with you for most places in the US vs most places in Japan, but NYC vs Tokyo may or may not be an apt comparison. Putting any lines at all in NYC is a huge hassle. There is basically no clear map of the underground areas. Try getting some quality dedicated lines put in in NYC, it sucks. I can't comment on Tokyo, but it would be a lot easier to run a startup in the suburbs simply for ISP reasons if only the talent would agree (damn fickle trendy programmers).
The quick and dirt: your mileage may vary.

It's probably worth mentioning that the reality is that not every developer is of equal ability, nor has the same level of potential ability.

I've met many developers that clearly don't have the same capacity for learning and applying languages to problems as well as others. Do what works for you based on your own perceived capabilities.
Everyone hates a braggart

It's a cultural thing. Scandinavians and Australians in particular hate braggarts and even have phrases for this cultural tendency: janteloven and tall-poppy syndrome.

Other cultures have responses for the boastful which range from eye-rolling and groans (UK) to active encouragement (NBA, pro boxers, battle rappers).
Multi-disciplinary.

This goes not just for hackers, but any type of engineer. Companies are increasingly looking for people who are not just distinguished in one area, but have multiple areas of expertise. Thus the hacker in the year 2019 (crazy!) will not just have to be good at programming, but knowledgeable about many domains.

How can you best apply a given skill set to new problems?
Can you use lessons learned in other disciplines to address looming challenges in the current project?
In the last 10 years, did you become any better at predicting trends and customer needs?
Shooting down a satellite or a free-falling ballistic missile is relatively easy - the trajectory is predictable.

The article talks about maneuvering ballistic missiles - this task is a lot harder, similar to shooting a static vs. erratically moving target on the target range. According to the Navy report the problem is not currently solved.

It's not just Chinese who figured it out either, two decades ago Russians started re-arming their strategic nuclear arsenal with Topol-M which in its latest versions is also a maneuvering ballistic missile.

And then of course there is the very old trick of multiple warheads per missile (some decoy) - these are impossible to shoot down as there are far too may of them at once. Chinese have demonstrated to world their ability to do this when they launched multiple satellites with one rocket - the same technology. This particular missile may not be using it though.

Due to both maneuvering and multiple warheads the entire missile-defense thinking has moved from intercepting missiles at target to intercepting missiles at launch or in flight.

Obviously at 2000km away the AC is not in a position to intercept the launch of the missile.

It is not a solved problem you make it out to be. And the article's meta-point is that in the arms race of armor vs bullet, the bullet seems to be winning in the historical perspective.
What do you mean, "this isn't how they operate at all?" Operate regarding what? Citation?
You are thinking about a different article - this one:
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&...

The article being discussed here is the one about new Chinese ballastic missiles as the newest threat.
Braggart is perhaps the wrong word, but I couldn't think of a more suitable one - perhaps you can pick up the gist from the rest of the comment.

There's some truth in what you say, of course, and I agree envy would also be a factor, especially coming from citizens of, say, Iran, or whereever. Your textbook love/hate relationship there.

However, when said "braggart" is in possession of the largest military in the world, and is inclined towards its enthusiastic use, ignoring them is not really an option. I am talking about, of course, the Iraq war, whose justification really boils down to "because we're America, and we can do whatever we want, and we feel like doing this". Who cares? Everyone who does not like the idea of one country invading others at whim, that's who, anyone who respects life. It is hard to overstate the loss in prestige, in basic respect, the Iraq war has precipitated for America.

Anyway, not trying to endorse this view, just trying to explain it to the GP.
Not necessarily.
Sometimes, the very structure (syntactic I mean) of language
makes ceratin kinds of abstractions (behavior abtractions as well) veryhard to implement, which is effectively same as having no way to express them.
I mean, for example - there is no way, absolutely no way to write Lapack benchmark in Ruby to be as fast as C one in reasonable amount of time (you can always emit machine code and run afterwards, but that is cheating). Or less controversial example: Java VM has no tail recursion optimisation, and for example Clojure does not have either. That means you have no way to use certain class of programmin techniques with it,
As a conclusion: languages largely prescribe the way to implement architecture with them.
How about switching from a dynamic late-binding brain to a much faster static typed compiled one?

(Or would that just render us faster, but much less flexible and adaptable?)
Fun? Personal brand? I mean, I make more than enough to get by on but I still promote my book every change I get. :)
I've read about half that list, and half of what remains is on my list. But it's a pity Charles Stross's Accelerando isn't on there. You can read it online for free here: http://www.accelerando.org/book/.
I read the article, but this one builds on his previous ones about the ballistic missile threat to carrier groups, and most of the confusion in these discussions would go away if people read the previous articles as well.
Haha, right on. Native Australian here : )
Obie's appeal to emotion while flying the flag of rationality does us all an intellectual disservice. The article contains many accusations, but few reasoned arguments to support them, and could not be any more antithetical to Alex Payne's appeal for calm, reasoned discussion.

"Alex is indeed scapegoating Ruby for Twitter's shitty legacy codebase"

"... frankly the timing of his essay made me throw up a little in my mouth. The nausea only grew this morning when I checked on how much it's being re-tweeted."
Was their product a Good Hack?
Some people have already mentioned that learning a new language often makes you a better programmer in other ones. I don't have any experience in improving skills that way (I started learning Haskell, but it's too early to see whether it's making my Erlang better or not), but what I've learned is that unwillingness to learn new languages makes you a fanboy of language(s) you already know. Being a fanboy of any language is what I'm actually afraid of (just because I know what it is to be a fanboy =)

Suppose, there is a guy (I will name him "Poluekt"), who is a master of Foo language (sounds like "a master of kung-Foo!"). Foo is a really good functional language having active community, excellent runtime and good libraries; Poluekt is good at writing in Foo but isn't brave enough to say "I'm not a Foo, I'm a programmer who wants to choose between languages when it comes to solving non-trivial problems".

What will happen with such a guy when he hear of nice features a new language (say, Bar) offers to solve problems in domain where Foo is (was?) the language of choice? Oh, it will be very offensive for our guy to hear that Bar beats Foo in some cases or even is press it. It will make Poluekt so unhappy, irritable...

Nobody knows how many Bars there will be on the Poluekt's way, but learning them seems a good way to become a good specialist.
By the way for me it is also important that the particular Language has non-gpl translators.That is also can contribute to the choice of the language for particular task, and consequently the final architecture.
At 2000km range, the aircraft carrier is not in a possition to deliver the first strike. Also, small ballistic missiles are typicaly launched from mobile platfrms (trucks).

If you were talking about nucler first strike, you should note that this article is about conventional warfare.
I've heard of one employer, who given a choice between music majors and computer scientists would choose music majors. Apparently their skill in composition translated well to programming.
J.K. Rowling: The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
Wonder if the architects considered the "ruin value" of what they were constructing. May become relevant sooner than anyone would wish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruin_value
For me, the city looks like if they were trying to build already complete adult human, then turn it on and hope it will live, without having to be born and then grow up to that form. Which is something I'm quite afraid of, because it usually works badly.
I've experienced that firsthand unfortunately. My advice? If you search for a domain you like that's free and find it, don't sit on it, buy it :/
Then we are in full agreement. The problem is that many Americans seem to have interpreted the post-WWII ascendancy of America as some kind of God-given mandate to reign forevermore at the top of Earth's and indeed the Universe's food chain, not for the temporary historical anomaly that it was. Those misguided people are in for a rude awakening, and none too soon.

But yes - America will not collapse, of course, no matter how much anyone wishes it. Talk about your "too big to fail".

And I for one am .. wary about the Chinese ever gaining as much relative power as the USA possessed at the height of its geopolitical dominance. Petty schadenfreude takes a pretty far back seat to that concern, let me tell you, so I for one am hoping the Yanks can pull out of their dive and go on to maintain a global counterweight to the Yellow Peril, soonest.
Pirates attacking an AC? Where's the profit in this? Seems like a bunch of red ink all around.