skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Just want to add another quick note -- this is actually something I learned from Mike Cassidy.

We like to do all of our interviews in 1 day, and when the candidate is in his/her last interview, we will all gather and make a decision right on the spot. If we like the candidate, we will make an offer when the candidate is on the way out. You can say this offer stands pending all reference checks went through. But this serves two purposes:

1. You show you have strong interest and is willing to make decisions quickly.

2. You lower the risk of the candidate going to another interview and receive another on-the-spot offer, and take that offer on the spot.

Great candidates are very hard to come by, and they are in very high demand. So realize your offer won't be the only one they receive. If you are unable to make a decision on the spot, he/she is probably not the right person.
Ask HN: Are there any good books on statistical quant analysis?
I'm looking to build an experimental trading system over the summer and was wonder if anybody knows of a good statistical quant book, something relating stats back to finance would be preferable

Thanks
1% preferential access outweighs the cost of helping others
From the article:

Up to 90 percent of North Americans consume caffeine products every day.

About half will experience withdrawal syndrome if they don't partake.
Do you like the saying: "Advertising Off-line"?
Great comment, thanks for this as it really exposes the real motives for 37 Signals (which isn't a bad one btw)

I love how when 37 does this they are considered innovative or clever, but if some marketing/blog guru did the same thing they'd be run out of town for being exploitative or slimy (re packaging 'free content' for profit).

Hey I'm all for making more money but what I'm not for is a free pass for some while others get roasted for being 'marketing/affiliate promoting scum".
We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.

Is attacking fair-use now the official go-to play when you can't figure out how to deliver your content to your customers in a way they actually want?

I swear I'm having a flash-back to the RIAA five years ago with this press release.
A well-designed type system reduces the number of tests needed by allowing the programmer to enforce correctness through the type system itself.
you want to find a freelance job? Get in your car, go to the town center, and go talk to all the small business owners there. Offer to build them a site for their business, or redo their current one. Or you can pickup a phone and try to pitch over the phone.

Out of the trip you'll snag a couple of jobs, and you can charge decent prices, since the guys have no idea about all the freelance sites.
Isn't this very similar to a lot of (differently modelled) business propositions backing OSS?
Just replace 'need' with 'want' and there's your answer. There's no shame in wanting more, as long as you do something good with that 'more' you get.
I don't think that the wall street folks have figured out yet that Pixar's unwillingness to make commercial films is a strong contributor to their success. They have imagination, story, characters, and not a lot of cliches, unlike most Hollywood lacklusters.

Those make them better movies, not worse movies, but at the same time, they're not executive-friendly movies. That of course implies that the executives are unimaginative and out of touch with what the audience wants, but that's hardly news.
thats because all those clone eBay sites are nothing more than $99 scripts that these guys just modify
Google becomes more local
Not sure what the name means. Kinda odd.

I looked in my area (Ohio) and you seem to have multiple listings for the same person. The college newspapers and other local rags are a great idea.
To be more precise, some logos are not copyrightable. From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf:

"Several categories of material are generally not eligible for
federal copyright protection. These include among others:
...
Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols
or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation,
lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients
or contents."

Every legally protected logo I've ever seen is trademarked either at a state or federal level.
Imagine this scenario: China decides it's time to take back Taiwan into the motherland, and invades and occupies the country. (China has been setting up this scenario for many years) Can we send an aircraft carrier in? No, we risk that missile. Check.

Alternately, we send in the aircraft carrier, it is destroyed, what then? We nuke a population center? Unlikely. Without missile defense, we are powerless. Kind of like not having air support during WWII.

Check Mate.
I have hired hundreds of people during the course of my career. In my experience, the most effective way to make solid hires consistently is to a) conduct an analysis of the candidates history of accomplishment and b)evaluate brains.

I understand you are currently seeking summer interns, no problem. Today, young people that are proven achievers have much to examine:

1) Projects they've built or been a part of--just because they were curious if they could do it.

2) What are they passionate about: who have they read/studied in the area?

3) Are they aware of market leaders in your sector and can they discuss what they believe is right/wrong in their model.

4) Extra-Curricular's (speaks to buy-in of culture)

5) How do they define providing value/work ethic?

The above represent top 5. Be certain that when you find a candidate you'd like to hire that you can articulate the value proposition you offer to them. Be prepared to demonstrate how being a part of your team will benefit them. Don't bullshit, anybody smart enough that you want to hire can smell it a mile away. Be Good. Absolute best of luck.
I thin he said to "Hire Fast, Fire Fast" something someone just said to me.
I've bought a lot of advertising over the years and would use a site like this.

Homepage has too much nagging to register without a clear value proposition or explanation of the site's purpose. It isn't clear what the service is from the overly broad homepage taglines: "Advertising Made Easy" and "The Advertising Marketplace". (The domain name doesn't convey either but it is brandable). I'd tighten that tagline into something more specific and compelling.

You might want to start by focusing on a specific geographic market (i.e. Philly) or vertical (i.e. political ads) or type of advertising (i.e. print) or even just college papers and expand from there. (I bet a lot of consumer product companies would advertise in college papers if it was easier to do) Newspaper or radio remainders would be good now that Google is exiting.

The calenders don't work in FF 3. Also, white text on a black background is tough to read and is unprofessional to me. The FAQ page javascript is an annoying and unneeded interface.

Happy hunting and let us know how it goes!
You might combine that with your current tagline to make this: "Offline Ads Made Easy." You still need to imply that you're letting people buy something or making the buying process simpler.

If you settle on a tagline you might think about using some imagery that represents what you do -- college newspapers, billboards, restaurant menus, etc.

A picture may not be worth a thousand words but it can usually replace a paragraph . . .
Mission accomplished ... love it. Love it because that banner was hung on one of these mega-carriers and while victory was being declared, the 'real war' was just beginning using new tactics that have been evolved only recently.

The other side of this argument being that the massive carrier that people point too as being too old and ineffective (against missile attacks) is the REASON why we were able to waltz into (and stay) Iraq (or anywhere) else with complete air superiority.

I also agree the whole "missile beats ship" argument is one that is receiving a disproportionate amount of press lately.

Although as I stated in yet another missile thread here just a while ago, the new defense budget is rumored to be cutting yet another potential defense to this type of attack. Which you could argue makes this story still relevant.
Hey Matt, those different listings are the same person but different advertising opportunities and outlets. The next version of the product will join all the opportunities under individual accounts.

Thanks,

-Pete
Great example of testing/measuring! In the article, there's a simple pie chart leading to a simple question, but without measurement in the first place, the question would never have been asked. ...and after half a dozen replies to the article, it seems like there are already good answers... This is a very compelling demonstration.
At the moment, it seems like a vote-blog of short stories... nice, but what are you trying to do? What do you see it growing into? What's your aim with it?

It's hard to provide feedback without knowing what you're trying to achieve...
I like your article a lot. I think passion is what really separates the 9-to-5er from someone who genuinely cares about programming.
Here's my advice as a two-time former intern at two different places.

As a small startup looking to hire hackers, you obviously want the best. You want experienced hackers who already know how to code and perhaps have experience on a project before (e.g. open-source). Of course, you want the brightest.

But this is always a challenge because the smarter, more experienced, and more valuable a hacker is, the rarer they are and--odds are--the less likely they are willing to work for you because they're less desperate for an internship; they can afford to shop around, or may even just decide to do their own projects for a summer.

So here's how you can try to attract those people.

1. Pay decently. A lot of companies like to pay interns nearly nothing these days (or in some particularly obnoxious cases, actually pay them nothing). This of course doesn't mean pay them as much as a full employee, but it does mean they should not feel insulted by the amount of money you're offering. If they could earn more than 5x your pay as an independent contractor, you're doing it wrong. While not all hackers do internships for the money, it's definitely a huge plus. And if you don't think you're going to get enough out of your intern to justify the pay, don't hire them; you should not hire an intern unless you have no doubts about their ability to produce significantly more value through their work than you're paying them.

2. Deal with the interns' practical issues with regards to working for you. For example, if they're coming from out of town, deal with their housing and flights. Hackers dislike dealing with bureaucracy--you'll save your intern's time and effort and sanity by dealing with these issues.

3. If your interns' time is so much less valuable than your employees' time that you cannot spare significant employee time to helping the intern with what he is doing (in the same way they would help another employee), don't hire an intern.

In terms of picking an intern, often you have to actively seek them out to be successful, especially if you're looking for the kind of hacker that doesn't go around applying to every internship he sees. For example, if your company makes very significant use of open source software, you can look through those open source projects for potential interns.
Thanks, your feedback was great. Please check back when you need to place/sell ad space and let me know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns.
This move may not be as naive as it may sound. Newspapers have built a user base and loyalty over the years based on and presenting perspectives that suit their readership base.

Google and other news aggregators break this ability of newspapers to "present a single perspective" and often present headlines from WSJ and nytimes side by side.

Imagine the advantage newspaper sites would have if you HAVE to go to online.wsj.com or nytimes.com to get your news instead of google.com/news or another aggregator.
By the way... the name comes from Tapping Ink - and the 'O' just ties it all together.

Long story short, I liked the Price is Right Game 'Plinko' because it was easy to remember... you get the idea.
IJCAI-09 AI Video Competition
There is a "share" widget next to the original article on the NY Times - you can repost the article to Facebook, etc, with the click of a button.

I am ... confused ... by what the newspaper industry wants us to do with their content.
US charitable foundations (Carnegie, Welcome, Gates, most private Universities etc) are there to make money for their cause - they do not exist to do good in the markets or only invest in 'nice' companies.

When a stock market pundit, wether they work for Soros, Fox News or XYZ charity publishes something about a sector - it is because their employers have an interest in it being beleived.
When Startups monetize Babbel switches on paid courses
"Troops and low-cost tools to fight insurgencies and terrorists are in. Gold-plated weaponry for tangling with another superpower are out."

Really? The NYT article on the same topic said Gates was buying more F22's. You can't get any more 'gold plated' than those babies. And that's not to say I don't love the F22, the 'running up the score' they're talking about is fine by me when you're talking about American lives at stake. I don't want to 'just win' in Iraq, I want a blow out, every time, 1990-Gulf-War style.

And yes, that means on the ground too not just in the air which means we need more robots, high tech toys and more soldiers to connect with the local populations.
But what would happen if Google just removed them all from the indexes for a month or so. I for one would be giggling hysterically for quite a while :)

Then the papers (or what is left of them) will be demanding that Google index them as an issue of national importance. 'Do no evil' does not preclude showing them who's boss does it? Tough love and all that.
I eagerly await the 2010 blog post by 37Signals telling everyone how dead simple it is to make money by starting a "university".
Why did you flag this? I didn't downmod you, but I'm curious why. FiveThirtyEight tends to be a very interesting read.
Japan Venture Capital Funds Face Mergers as IPOs Fade
I'm not sure what made the media start going nuts about this, but this missile is hardly new; it's been around for quite some time (and still hasn't been tested yet). It's not, as articles seem to be implying, something that came out of nowhere and surprised the US.
I wish I could access the site with Konqueror. But it redirects the browser forcibly to `please upgrade your browser to' page.

You could at least give some way to ACK the message and go ahead anyway, without fiddling with user agent settings.
Put "Web 2.0" Out to Pasture
The term is now meaningless. At least increment it, or just forget the term and conferences all together.
Hal, Call Your Office - Computers That Act Like Physicists
"We're working to solve this problem. With the recent addition of CVS/pharmacy to our network of pharmacy partners, more than 100 million people can now access their prescription history online and import it into a central, secure place — a Google Health Account"

Great, yet another thing in my life that I need to hand over to Google to control/handle and possible lock me out of when I need it the most.

Gmail, AdWords, AdSense, Search, and Gtalk is enough for me.

Thanks, I'll pass.
He made much of his wealth through currency speculation^. Profiting when entire countries or regions of the world were in economic trouble (arguably hurting those countries). I think it's quite a rare skill to consistently be able to come out ahead speculating on currency. It's really all about speculating on global politics and economics.

I think he's trying to make up for it in his philanthropy. Personally I think a thief is a thief. Robin Hood or not..

As for him stirring the pot and making a statement. It's his right to do so. He'll make money no matter what happens to the economy. Though I would suspect he'll make more if the recession continues. My guess, he knew exactly what he was doing when he made this statement.

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Business
Thanks Gavin... great advice.
Not going to look up the previous HN thread about it, but wasn't most of the feedback re: SMS pricing? It's still VERY expensive.
Housing prices in America can only go up. Buy something now or get priced out forever!
"Version 2.1 will probably look the way Google Chrome expects: individual apps are no-longer desktop bound, and we all live in something like Google Docs and Gmail"

If this is the future count me out. Not because I have any issues with online apps or Google (ok I do have issues with Goog), mostly because it sounds awfully fucking boring.

Ooo my same applications only .... online! Awesome, now what.
Accused Nazi guard faces deportation to Germany for War Crimes Committed 60 yrs ago
You do have to go to those sites to get your news. All you get from Google News is a two sentence blurb and maybe a thumbnail image.
You go without for a week or two once or twice a week? Seems unlikely. (Did you mean once or twice a year?)

Or: You decide to go without for a week or two once or twice a week? Quite possible, but your ability to do that doesn't seem to me to be much evidence of anything...

I'd guess that different people get addicted to different extents.
Not without reading or having been exposed to an alternate view point in the the cluster of headlines presented by aggregators...
I believe flagging the original thread and upmodding Jerf's similar statement (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=549451) would have been a more appropriate thing to do.
Interview with Posterous (YC S08) Co-Founder Sachin Agarwal
I just searched for "dentist" in Google and sure enough, it returned local results of over 40 dentists (without me entering my location)

The problem is that they're all about 120 miles away, which means Google's little geo-location trick completely failed.

I'll stick to crafting my queries with my desired location until they have these 'little' bugs worked out.

I also find it curious that the web results are all non-geo specific, which basically means that Google is giving it's own directory of business listings priority over every other website on the topic (local dentists with their own website and local directories) both of which are probably more helpful than a Google Map with inaccurate and out of date information. Why not go the full route and show Web Results from local sources? (oh right, follow the money)
Soros used leverage so his actual profits were vastly greater than 10%.
I'm getting the same thing, which isn't surprising since I'm using Opera. In general, I think it's fine to say "browser not supported" if that's the case, but it's nice to have a "Try anyway" link. There are too many sites that work fine with a given browser but refuse the user a chance to try. If you give the user a choice, the worst case is that the site really is broken with their browser, and they say "Hmpf, guess they're right" and move on.

I suppose there's a potentially worse case where the site is broken in some subtle way that causes data corruption or the like, but I can't imagine there are many webapps where this is a serious concern.
The article states that Google was not mentioned, and that legal licensees of the content (like Google is) would not be sued. Finally, the gist of the article is that publishers do not want their content appearing on unauthorized ad-supported sites, and Google does not appear to display full articles outside of the AP feed it licenses.
I agree partly with what you say, it is possible to understand another human experience, by reason, by analysis, by empathy - but only objectively. At least that's my belief. To truly understand it's subtle corners, in a more subjective manner requires being immersed in that experience. IMHO.
Whoo! Always fun to see a writing start-up.

The styling is blandly nice - that's a compliment. Reading your words feels nice. It could be better, but then it could always be better. I love the feel of the site.

What's the point? What do you offer that other sites don't offer? Right now it's nice but very, very generic.
When the NYT required you to register to read an article that a blogger was discussing I did not bother reading the article. Lots of people did just the same, it is news, it's not like other news sources will not cover the same event. I just have to wait an hour or so and it will be on the BBC where I can read it for free and without registering. The NYT does not have a lock on the events that it reports. Someone else will report the same event, if NYT cannot command my attention by the quality of their writing then putting up a pay wall is hardly going to entice me.

And as for the user base, why do you think that they are closing down, because the user base is no longer there.

The more stuff like this I see the more I am convinced that new papers are heading for extinction.

Perhaps I should buy some so that I can sell them on eBay in a decade or so :)
It's a site where writers can share and promote their work. I'm well aware of the dozens of writing communities out there, but most of these sites operate in a forum or blog model, which I find rather difficult to filter good content/writers from the bad. The voting process on Lit is modeled after a Markov chain where every writer has an assigned global rank. I'm hoping the competitive nature of the site will motivate people to submit their best writings. Eventually, I'd like to make this the destination where aspiring writers post their work and get discovered.
That's great advice. What about the type of responsibilities? It seems that what we've heard is just being able to make an impact and being able to show exactly what they've done to future employers.
Did you just wake up from a coma that was induced in 2003? You sound like my mortgage broker who (in 2003) recommended I go with a 5-1 ARM because "property values have been going up for 12 years straight and we're seeing 20-30% increases year over year, and don't worry, you'll just refi in a few years and get a nice low 30 year fixed".

We all know how THAT went.

I do agree however that prices are lower than they were a few years back, but that does not equate to a buyers market (yet).
They are innovative and believe customers will buy content of value...still a rather new idea to some tech. participants and observers.

Also, they are completely honest and transparent in their endeavors....this very post by andreyf was taken from 37Signals post. They didn't have to tell all of us how much money they make or how they do it........I believe they are passionate about the community and exposing others to what they've done that works and not works.

I am amazed with all the negative comments. I have seen, firsthand, how often 37Signals works to contribute.

I love their idea and think many thousands will find it a benefit.
If you don't know what kind of object you're receiving and how it behaves, then there's something far worse going on than a runtime check.

Even if you do those checks temporarily, I don't think they should remain there, especially in production code.
Going by historical policy, we'd have the carrier group in the waters beforehand if there was any sign of impending hostility. An attack on the carrier would probably result in retaliation against military targets.

That wouldn't need to be nuclear. We still have rather a few submarines for use against capital ships, invasion ships, etc. If they can do it, we can:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492804/The-uninvited...

Sadly, the very point of a stealthy submarine makes it useless for what a carrier group does very well - signify military presence and imply the willingness to use it.

Of course, carrier groups often include submarines. Perhaps in the future, carrier groups will have more submarines to get around the ballistic missile threat. Take out the carrier, and you've just blasted off the visible part of the iceberg, no more.