skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm a student (and an art student, at that, which requires a lot of physical presence, if not always mental), and it definitely requires a bit of effort to avoid burnout. I go to class during the day, and work for most of my evenings: wash, rinse, repeat.

How do I avoid burning out, then? Many breaks of a medium duration (2 - 5 hours every few days, generally, with much shorter breaks in the interim) -- go out with friends, go to dinner, see a movie, nearly anything will do. If I'm feeling particularly unmotivated or tired one day, I'll reduce my to-do list for the day and shift the extra stuff to the next day or two.

Even if you think you can just keep going and going without any sort of side effects, you're fooling yourself. Everyone needs breaks, otherwise, at some point, you lose either your determination, will, or sanity.
It is a real acquisition.

Sincerely, CEO of blippr
Apple's libc is probably SIMD-optimized. You can make strlen a ton faster with some basic SSE instructions.
Just FYI: she's not looking for a CS-related position. She's apparently a great fit for being the CEO's executive admin.

http://www.twittershouldhireme.com/executive-admin-to-the-ce...
The post on SvN yesterday regarding this sort of idea got me thinking. Why don't people use the model some museums use? "What do you want to pay today to see our exhibit?"

You default to the amount you'd ideally like to get, but have a few radio buttons that have other amounts (one is the free amount).

If your service is based around a subscription model, then you add the option of, "only charge me once, I can always pay later."

I wonder how well it'd actually work. My guess is that the same people that buy eBooks instead of downloading them for free will at least throw you a couple bucks.
Relentlessly resourceful. Twitter's new Founder Associate?

http://twitter.jobscore.com/jobs/twitter/founderassociate/bQ...
imo, yes, provided there's enough information on the startup available.

having said that, i feel that there is a startup/business concept available here (if it doesn't already exist). something similar to prosper.com, except with equity for startups.
Funny- That's exactly my story as well. I've met quite a few Boston escapees out here in SF who all tell the same story. Loved Cambridge; hated the winter.
don't @replies only show up in your /home if you're following the person that made the reply? I could be wrong, but if not, I see nothing wrong with it (other than the disagreement between you and Twitter's TOS).
I don't agree with that thought in particular. Here's my take:

http://briancooley.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/17/

For the tl;dr crowd: People that choose dirty jobs are often passionate about something auxiliary to the job.
When I last tinkered with PHP they did not have lexical scoping. That makes refactoring stuff out into separate functions a pain in the head.
Looks like the site is dog slow and overloaded by a little traffic. Mirrors the target company well.
Right, so I don't understand brandnewlow's stance. If Avvo is using public data, since when does anyone get to lay claim on public data?

Sounds to me that they're more upset about potentially being mis-rated, rather than the information itself. If the rates gave them more clients across the board instead of the negative reviews, I doubt they'd be complaining.
http://www.amazon.com/Story-Sushi-Unlikely-Saga-Fish/dp/0060...

The Story of Sushi.
Yes, that was what I was getting at.

Paragraph 4 from the article:

"This has nothing to do with obstructing access to information," said the bar's spokeswoman, Cynthia Kuhn. "It has to do with a commercial company taking this information without authorization and in some cases perpetuating misinformation" by not updating the data frequently enough."

Now, whether or not they have a case remains to be seen. Their willingness to pay for some of their data bodes well for Avvo, agreed. But the original commenter was painting this story as if it was about an organization trying to limit public information a la realtors with housing info.

That may be the case. But my comment was meant to point out that the other side is arguing that this is a case about theft and misuse of proprietary data.
If you charge a price and people are willing to buy, then yes, your product does magically become substantially valuable.
Paragraph 4 has the lawyer for the DC folks saying they're misusing their data. I was alluding to her stance in a way I thought was colorful.
I don't think she's applying for Alex Payne's position, everyone. Ever work with a Director/Marketing, or even a Technical Product Manager? I'll trade 10 shots of "professional experience" for a single shot of engagement.
TwitterShouldHireMe.com
At least it's up. Maybe they could hire her for that.
I'm trying to figure out what this comment means. What's a "breathing girl"? Who are "the boys"?
Its pretty interesting that Google seems to acquire several companies, and then awhile later mix them all together and launch something else.

I imagine infrastructure and code can rarely be reused from company to company, so I'm not quite sure what Google gets out of the acquisitions.
Ever hire someone insanely smart and qualified and had them turn out to be a total dud? Ever object to a candidate, get talked down from a "NO HIRE", and then had that person turn out to be an absolute total rock star?

I'd kill for a candidate pipeline that produced people like this. That's enthusiasm, initiative, and (a very small amount of) cleverness.
You know... these types of sites are a great way to show your enthusiasm for a specific thing. I made a website (wpi-should-let-me-in.com) a while ago to get me into WPI. It worked, but unfortunately they didn't give me enough money.

I wish you good luck and hope that Twitter sees that people like you will certainly be useful/helpful.
It wasn't that deep a comment, at all. It was more like, she's a girl who wants to work a technical company but doesn't have discernible technical skills that she's touting. But as someone mentions downthread, she's just applying to be the secretary. So, I stand corrected.

But there was no sexual innuendo embedded in my comment, at least not as intended it anyway in the slightest.
Your points taken together sound like a strange equilibrium from game theory.

In effect those hypothetical karma-hungry users amount to a voting ring, but one that does not need to communicate --- or even realize that they are in a voting-ring: Members just notice that sometimes --- when they are by chance the first to submit --- they get a huge karma boost. And when they are not the first, they do not lose anything from supporting the other members.

Potential solution: Decouple. I.e. do not make submitting an automatic upvote for existing stories. Just forward to the existing item and let people upvote (or not) manually.
The author's website has all the source code for download:

http://www.hackersdelight.org/
But now we come full circle:

The underlying data: not proprietary (do you really think membership in the DC Bar, of all things, is "proprietary"?).

The presentation of said data on the DC Bar website: presentation is proprietary, data is still not.

But additionally: DC Bar says "if you get this information via this venue, then you're accepting our terms of use which say you can't use the information obtained via this venue to, eg, compile an AVVO-like site."

So on the face of it: only if Avvo is crazy-stupid will Avvo get burned here: the only scenarios in which Avvo gets burned are somewhere between

(a) the DC Bar can show suspicious access patterns that either come from Avvo or come at suspicious times vis-a-vis Avvo's updates

(b) Avvo doesn't have any internal documentation demonstrating from whence they obtained the information that's ticking off the DC Bar (ie: we paid some dudes to re-type the relevant phonebook sections, or paid some dudes to re-type the printed member's directory, etc.)

So the whole thing is pretty silly (at least until more facts emerge).

Edit: Because without some mix of (a) and (b), the DC Bar is ultimately going to have to claim something like "there's no possible way they could have gotten that information besides misusing our site", which I doubt would play well.
It's 2x slower per iteration, but much faster to invoke, and friendlier to the microarchitecture. It's not as simple as you're making it out to be.

Also, using strlen() on a 4k string at all borders on malpractice.
Unfortunately the SDK doesn't allow backgrounding, but for the 1.7 million users running Cydia, they can install Backgrounder to keep AMBER Alert running in the background. It has a built-in background checking utility so that it will vibrate and set a badge if you're, say, looking at one of the other pages in the application. If you background the app with Backgrounder, this mechanism continues to run as well, providing notifications every 30 minutes.
It's also hard to be a pro tennis player. Not everyone can do it. But that doesn't mean trying is like buying a lottery ticket.

Succeeding with an ad supported business model, believe it or not, takes skill. Being acquired is probably more luck, but I'd say is still pretty 'doable' if you have the right approach.
Ask HN: What inherent traffic drivers exist for reddit-clones?
So, Ms. Foo can blog her heart out about her favorite hobby without telling a soul or attaining any links, yet she will still be found (to some degree) via search engines due to the inherent SEO of her blog title, pages of content, etc. (all blog-SEO specifics aside for the sake of simplicity).

If Mr. Bar launches a reddit-clone for his favorite topic, tells a few like-minded friends about it and fills it with some initial links and intelligent discourse, I suspect that there won't be as much inherent search traffic. The front page contains links and would always be changing, and comment pages might be too narrowly focused. There doesn't seem to be an obvious opportunity to say "hey -- here is our site topic, and here are some naturally-used keywords to back it up."

I first discovered reddit a few years ago because a fellow developer I respected said "yeah, I found that on reddit." I discovered HN recently because same developer said "hey, much better focus and discourse on HN." I'm not sure how I would have discovered HN, for example, without word-of-mouth of some kind (in person or online).

Am I missing something? Should Mr. Bar have a static, expository front page or something?

(Yes, I am thinking of becoming Mr. Bar for one of my favorite topics: modern music production. Currently if I hear a new radio hit and want to quickly google it to see what others think of the production values, I am bombarded with lyrics, ringtone, and mp3-downloady results. That's getting into a whole other discussion though.)
Programming isn't about typing. Therefore, you shouldn't be sitting there thinking "how do I type this"? Typing being second nature frees up more time for thinking.
Not to mention typing fast continuously is asking for RSI. I can type pretty fast if I try, but apart from the thinking vs typing ratio, I also avoid typing fast or continuously because I know that's asking for a relapse of my RSI. And whatever I gained by typing faster will be lost by orders of magnitude if that happens.

The argument for touch typing to avoid distractions I agree with, but not raw typing speed.
Nice one ... in light of recent privacy issues at Facebook and other online sites, I think something like this is sorely needed.

The Yauba alpha blows away Cuil's and Powerset's beta!
I think Apple calls these "product evangelists"
Poll: Do you still use Windows? do you intend to?
I'm wondering if people still actively use (and prefer) Windows, and I ask this to gauge the hacker community's direction.

I theorise that what hackers use now is probably what the general community will use in 3-5 years, so .. to the polls!

Thanks everyone.
I use Windows mainly and intend to keep doing so.
I use Windows mainly, but only because I have to.
I use Windows but I intend to change.
I use whatever OS I need to do the job.
I use Linux mainly.
I use Mac OS X mainly.
Who are "the boys"? The technical people? I was pretty sure they had "girl" developers too.

Also: we should acknowledge that there are technical roles that don't require lots of training; for instance, first-tier QA, or technical support.
How can a criticism be interesting when it is incorrect?
You remember that number from Freakanomics I bet.

Levitt cited that when talking about gun deaths in the US, though I'm not sure if you have the figure right.
How is this better than what Facebook uses?
You need a sample document, so people can test out the "using your mouse to sign" part without signing up.

I don't want to bother with the whole sign up, check email, wait, check email again, click verify link, go back to site, find document to test with, upload, blah blah meh.

I just want to see how the signy bit works first.

If you give me a sample I can scrawl "John Hancock" on and download and check out, I'll be much more inclined to go through the registration rigmarole.
What? No, just store every key that you officially sell in an internal database. Now if someone enters a key you check if it's in your DB, therefore if the key has been legitimately issued. Everything else gets rejected and your now 100% counterfeit safe, unless someone hacks your database, which is unlikely. Don't wanna pick on apple, but that's pretty much how things like that are done.
This is just not a news story.

The fact that the implementation details of Symantec's security products are proprietary is not a news story. The fact that their response to questions about their product generating suspicious alerts on users' systems is to delete forum posts asking about it is a news story. The correct answer in this situation is to tell users that the program is a legitimate part of Symantec's product.
This is a great method. I always start writing an email to another developer when I'm having a problem, and by the time I finish it I've usually solved my issue.
I agree with you. It is notable that SYMC flubbed the PR on this. I think I'm trying to say, there's probably no story in the executable itself.
Oh and the whole idea is damn clever. She's going to get a job out of it, probably better than the one she's targeting.
Indeed. This is pretty much the only thing I use Twitter for at the moment, and it would be cool if it were officially sanctioned.

About once a week, I'll do a twitter search for "BigCompetitor", which yields 50 tweets a day along the line of "BigCompetitor sucks. I just can't stand them anymore. Anybody know of something better?"

It doesn't seem like answering that question with a personal message should be against the Twitter's TOS, so long as you take the time to write a reply that actually addresses the tweet in question and is not simply a paste of your ad copy.

"Yeah, it's painful. That's why we built OurThing. Check it out when you get a chance."
No, just a pattern we go through whenever we get an influx of visitors. Then someone will be offended, and one of us will explain that there are a few curmudgeons here, but most are warm, lovable people. It's kind of a good cop, bad cop routine.
A shiny virtual nickel to someone who shows me how to quote text on this website.

http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
Well, my comment was a criticism of the poll, and you thought it was incorrect. But you responded to me, so it was still interesting.

So that's a good example, if you disregard the paradox ;-)
> While I won't claim that learning these 4 skills will make you a great hacker, it seems unlikely you can become one without them.
TenCent's strategy sounds a lot like iPhone apps, only the company might make more on a sale than Apple does.
@spydez. Hey hey--I think you can. You get a sample contract right after the invite page.
Why does this need an algorithm at all? Why not make them all random numbers? People have to connect to your server to redeem them anyway.

Sounds like sloppy design.
What's your definition of 'sell'? Should Best Buy report back to Apple whenever a card is sold? Or are we just talking about shipping to retail?

There's also probably a chance of collision, considering the volume of iTunes certificates Apple probably sells.
Apologies to RMS, I really meant GNU/Linux ;)
Technology Review: Solving AI
"For a better experience, please use a fully supported browser. For more information, click here." The "click here" link goes to localhost.

Other than that, I'd like to have some security and assurance that these contracts are in fact legally binding. Maybe a quote from someone in the government...

And instead of Plans, I'd replace it with Pricing. It seems more obvious.
I would be surprised if many actually prefer Windows over OS X or Linux (in our demographic at least).

I use Windows only to test for IE. If I were to develop a new desktop application today, I would either develop for Mac exclusively or take advantage of the new LGPL QT license to gain a larger market share.

I'm done developing apps for Windows-only. Those days are gone: If I'm going to focus on a single platform, I'll focus on a market that appreciates good software and UI design — and for now, that means OS X.
This list is interesting, but it really doesn't surprise me that so many of the Google features we know and love were acquired.

Acquisition for a company like Google is smart business. While we don't know the specific dollar amount that Google paid for most of these companies, it was almost certainly less than the cost of than paying Google developers to develop these features from scratch, especially when you factor in the opportunity cost of revenue and traffic lost during the time it takes to develop the product.
Thanks for this.

Lenat's probably the best-positioned guy out there to back-infer some of alpha's design and limitations from a two-hour demo; this is the most informative summary I've seen.
FYI: instead of using @username, you can reply to each post by clicking the reply link below the post.
Balance. Switching jobs and moving up each time you do it. But that really depends on your industry and timing.

Developing projects that can get you up and working for yourself, rather than those that take inordinate amounts of time/money and that are less likely to see the light of day.
Triburile
I use FreeBSD all the time -- so I selected "I use whatever OS I need to do the job".
Developer fights iPhone app piracy by turning cracks into demos
What makes you think we're moving toward a Microsoft Internet? It seems to me that we're moving in precisely the opposite direction. Flash is really one of the last few closed holdout technologies.
Siemens SL75 Pink Limited Unlocked
Siemens presents once again a model that gives a superb blue print to wireless communication world with an extraordinary design specially conceived for today’s people. This appealing GSM Siemens SL75 Pink combines energetic design with outstanding features.
Whether or not the underlying data is proprietary is a matter for the courts to decide. One side says it is, the other says it's not.

As for whether or not that argument would play well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I merely want to point out that the DC bar is trying to make this into a "they're stealing our data" case while the Avvo guys are trying to make this into a "they're just being lame" case.
Git as a Data Store in Python (and Ruby)
I think she crossed the line from 'I'm so impressed by your company I'll make a big fuss to get hired' to 'I'm mildly unhinged'.
Totally an aside, but: what fs do you use? I want to use pawel's zfs implementation, but am scared due to people complaining of issues on the mailing lists.
The first comment there:

People don't go to Google thinking "I must see some documents". They just want questions answered.
Sorry about that, I considered adding the BSDs, but I didn't really think anyone would seriously use it on the desktop.

I'll add it to the poll options.
I use UFS2. My understanding is that ZFS is perfectly stable in -current and works fine on 7.1-release on 64-bit systems; but since most of the advantages of ZFS only apply when you have multiple disks, I didn't see any reason to change.
That is a nice corner -- I used to work about a block away. The japanese Katsu place is awesome. Croger Galleria has some good Indian takeaway.

This is a delicate subject, but if you have 9 twenty-somethings working startup hours... that's basically a dorm. Consider frequent janitorial service.

Incidentally we're looking to share an office near Mission or Noe. If anyone wants to sublet for 2-3 people or maybe go in with us on a lease, drop me a line.
Ah, I see. I lost interest after I saw "a verification link will be sent to your email", and didn't read the paragraph above the text boxes. I don't want to bother with emails unless I know there's something I want behind the registration wall.

I do still stand by my comment though; if they made that sample contract available pre-signup, it would be a better experience for people who were unsure if they wanted RightSignature yet.
I use a BSD mainly.
I use OpenSolaris or Solaris mainly.
Regulate armed robots before it's too late
More statistics: 3582 fatal unintentional drownings in 2005, more than one in four a child 14 or younger. Then for every child who died, there's 4 children that needed medical attention for a near drowning. (http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/wa...)

Plus, I don't know where you're getting this "evil" thing. I didn't mention that anything is evil, more of a "do Amber Alerts actually work and how big of an impact do they have compared with the questions asked by this one person on HN?" I don't really have an opinion going either way on Amber alerts at the moment, I'm just giving you the numbers...the numbers taking into account fire alarms, firefighters responding, building safety codes, lifeguards, good samaritans, and more.

Just because Amber alerts are one way to approach the issue of child abductions doesn't mean it's the best way, doesn't mean it necessarily works, and doesn't mean that we should just go "oh look children are in danger you're evil if you don't support it!". It certainly does not mean we should be ignoring other dangers as well, such as fires and drowning and car accidents and more - what are those, the top three leading causes of accidental death in children? To do so is to be grossly irresponsible.

Another statistic: The CDC thinks using car seats and booster seats appropriately could halve the number of car related injuries, fatal and nonfatal, in children in the United States. This estimated number in one year may actually be larger than the number of children safely recovered thanks to an amber alert in more than the decade that has passed since the program started.

Last one, I promise: I don't dispute thousands of children do go missing every day, but even NCMEC's statistics are not grim: many children who do go missing are found again (http://www.ncmec.org/en_US/documents/Statistics.pdf). That is a testament to the wonderful work being done by NCMEC and law enforcement and people everywhere. Still doesn't mean Amber alerts can't be questioned for their effectiveness.
I didn't really think anyone would seriously use it on the desktop.

Why not? All of the major desktop environments run on FreeBSD just as well as they do on linux.
Interesting idea, but the presentation is remarkably unprofessional. I mean... cookies + me = job? I think that the enthusiasm and originality is great but I just don't understand the tone of the site, considering it's intended application.
Thanks for the input rksprst. Fixed the localhost reference BTW :)
I'm currently using it in a home file server that has 5 identical drives that are members of a zfs pool. It works fine, but just wanted some reassurance. Thanks.
Should Best Buy report back to Apple whenever a card is sold?

Many gift cards sold at retail have to be "activated" at the register (presumably to cut down on shoplifting); I don't know what this involves but there may already be some communication.
like... that she created a webpage without a <title> ?