skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Design, for me, is about evoking interesting stories. Data is an excellent tool for honing those stories but data alone isn't that compelling. Much of Google's success has been reliant on utilitarian pages that are designed to redirect users to other places - functionality which often calls for very subtle design treatments. The frustrations i've felt with their user experience is that frequently the details are smart but they miss the big elements connecting their tools into a coherent story. Ever use gmail with igoogle? or attempt to share your google reader with a friend who isn't already in your addressbook? these disconnects eventually add up & it sounds like they lack a system for coherently addressing the gestalt of their overall user experience.

A visual designer friend pointed me to an Einstein quote that i think sums up the frustration of collaboration that occurs with a purely data based approach quite well:

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination."

They've got the fast, accurate & stupid down very well. There's a lot to be said for some well thought through inaccurate & slow brilliance though too.
I'd recommend sleeping in a room that gets sunlight as early as possible. As the room warms up (and gets brighter), you'll naturally wake up less groggily.

If your schedule can handle it, try just going to sleep when you are tired and seeing when you wake up (ie. don't use an alarm at all).

I tried this for about six months, and the following happened.

The first week or two I slept upwards of 10-11 hours a night, and woke up in the afternoon.

The next couple months, my schedule kind of rotated around the clock (I'd wake up about 30-45 mins later each day), but I only slept 8-9 hours.

By month four, I was only sleeping 7-7.5 hours at a time, and my schedule rotation had slowed to where it was only shifting about 15 mins a day.

The best part was that I always woke up extremely fresh and ready to go. I never felt like the walking dead, and generally was happier.

Before I tried this, I thought I was a night person, just because I always seem to stay up too late and dislike waking up... but I realized what I really liked was the quiet, and found that early morning quiet time (4-7am) was actually more productive, just because I wasn't worn out from a whole day of being awake.

Sadly I had to return to a day job for a bit before grad school, so now I survive mostly on coffee, but it was fun to try when I had the chance.
With only a couple months of expenses saved up, you're taking a big risk. It sounds like you could live a couple months off savings and a few months off contracting. I have no idea what the economy will be like in 6 months, but you will probably not have enough revenue from your web startup to fund yourself. You may from contracting - good developers always seem to be in demand, even in bad economic times - but the contracting market is hurting from the economy too.

OTOH, there're risks to staying in a dead-end job too, particularly to your sanity. It sounds pretty bad. And sanity is not something you should sacrifice for money.

Honestly, if I were in your position, I'd do it. But acknowledge the risk you're taking and take steps to mitigate it. Cut your expenses to a bare minimum and line up contracting jobs well before you need them. It really sucks looking for work when you're running out of money - you're in a much better bargaining position if you've got income and plenty of savings.
Rails won
Wonder how long linux or *bsd would survive? Are they easier or harder than mac os x?

//olme
I didn't get "trashing". I got frustration and cultural mis-match. If I were looking to hire the guy, I'd appreciate the insight into the culture he would fit in. If I were at Google, I would know that there is no way he should come back.

In major culture mis-matches, both parties know there is no returning anyway. I've had that experience, and I know I can never return.
Spiritual movies
Spiritual movies have played to an enthusiastic audience at film festivals all over the world, and many have won major awards. These movies appear to be developing a theme that rejects materialism and embraces a spiritual basis to human nature. .
Very useful! Added to the links I visit every morning. Thanks a lot for this webapp!
The article says it's in Newport when it's actually in Cardigan Bay:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?t=h&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF8&#...
This doesn't seem so much a trashing to me, as pointing out a poor fit.

In other words, if other companies with an approach to design similar to Google's don't want to hire him in the future, that's probably fine with him.
Sleep on the couch...you will be uncomfortable and definately get up early.
My use case is basically taking an automated web-based daily newsletter (html, css, images) and generating a PDF
Or, take your vacation.
Go for it, man, and since we're quoting things:

"Well, the funny thing about regret is: it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't."
Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur?
Where's the Google integration in the Facebook UI anyway? As this article points out, there isn't one.

They don't have a Google search box. They don't use Google's index for their internal search engine. So, what could Facebook change to deny Google referrals? Disable outbound Google links in people's feeds? That seems implausible, and I'm putting it kindly.

This isn't Mozilla switching to Live Search for the default search provider. There's no partnership that could really be broken to hurt Google.
Thanks for doing this - JavaScript testing is a huge PITA, paricularly doing it cross-browser, and I'd welcome anything that lets us automate more of it.
Git Hooks, Present.ly, Sharks, Mice, and Zombies
Yes, but you can build one program (or hardware box) that does packet authentication, and another that does the chaffing. Each of those could be exported separately, then the two subsystems combined elsewhere.
A Plea to Pass to your Friends and Family using IE 6
Ever tried Scribes?
http://scribes.sourceforge.net/

It has been around for a while, and I think is the closest thing to TextMate under the Gnome environment.
Cool, thanks.

I'm assuming since Adobe already has an SDK for Lightroom that I wont have to do much customizing ... rather, just interact with their libraries.
A standard Emacs install fulfills that requirement nicely.
I suppose it's only right they focused on HUMAN languages, otherwise you'd see machine language up there. Most forms of assembly have always felt like a different language to me ...

Someone needs to invent "gibberish" or "crazy cat lady". What kinds of humorous programming languages are there? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is INTERCAL
SoundManager was central to this project. Not having to deal with flash saved me a lot of time and makes for a more lightweight player, I think.
ad hominem

Is it? If he had said "this writing style is bad because Jeff uses it", perhaps.
The Valley is a Harsh Mistress
I'm not sure if Zed impregnated a member of your family, or pissed in your coffee or what, but maybe you should wait to comment until you have something of substance to say.
If you use a packaging transform, then this becomes efficient in the use of bandwidth.
Talking about the talent that is sitting on these (very) long benches...

First, lets look at how Microsoft structures its business in India.
Even the mighty Microsoft follows a stratified talent pool system. They have 2 companies / teams here. The one that builds their products is called Microsoft R&D and the people there are _GOOD_. Whereas all their global internal IT systems needs are supported by Microsoft IT Services, which is staffed by simpler developers who are not good enough to contribute to products, but can cut all the HTML needed as well as make all the CURD applications that the business operations need.

Indian IT companies are no different, they have a small cadre of excellent developers, who form the core of their teams, and are very busy -- even now.
The rest of the millions are poor developers, not algorithmically sound, but can make simple CURD applications.

Its this second layer that fills up the benches. And they are not going to be valuable contributors to any of the projects you've picked -- (unless of course you want coded an Add/Update form on the project's website ;)

If you look at the biggest revenue earners for Indian IT you'll realise its this kind of internal CURD applications. Why should an Indian IT company hire super smart developers, when it makes more by hiring (_and billing for_) many warm bodies who'll hand code stuff because they are not smart enough to create their own frameworks?
I have two Rhode Island Red roosters that are both quite loud. I only need one; do you want the other?
Man as a mostly-outside-admirer of Python, I love its terminology: "pickle threadlets". Delicious!
They've stated publicly that they have a business plan, just not what it is. Speculation abounds (as I'm sure you know), and many potential plans that have been dropped online could work pretty well.
I think the term "lifestyle business" scares a lot of startups.
I say quit and try it out. You're young (from what I can tell)

I told my boss I was quitting about a month ago during our year-end reviews. I'm leaving in July and trying something entirely new, in a new city to boot.

On the down side, I haven't found a job yet but I haven't really sped up my search quite yet so I'm not worried. :)

I say, go for it! The worst thing you can do is keep thinking about it.
Most consumers a paycheck away from ruin
I'm 99% certain he's moving on to Twitter, plus he had a very successful freelance career b/f Google, so I see it less as "trashing" and more as freedom to be honest.
Ask HN: Review of Snipper
Snipper is an easy way to share code with developers through Twitter. Provided as a plugin for Eclipse(initially); developers can select a file or snippet of text in an editor and share it on Twitter. Check out the about page for more information.

http://snipper.rockstarapps.com

I created Snipper for two reasons:

1:) Wanted a way to share code snippets with myself and others. Many times I find myself looking through tons of code to find a function or line of code that's need in another project. Also when looking for code online, I am constantly running across developer sites that are basically link farms for ads. I won't name any names but "WTF"; I'm busy and wasting my time looking through pages with no content is very annoying.

2:) I have been reading articles on Tim Berners-Lee concept of linked-data. The concept is interesting and the way I have envisioned this working is what I call "Services without Servers". As a developer I should be able to create new Services without having any servers either shared, hosted, or in the cloud. Using only APIs and the user's machine, I should be able to create a service.
"The biggest advantage a startup has is no legacy"

very very insightful.

In my last job the charter of the group of which I was a part was to "break the mould" and come up with "radical innovations" but every idea we came up with was shot down with "we've never done anything like that before".
Go to bed earlier at night.
" but large applications/sites with so many users are not the place to test it."

I am not so sure. Why not just A/B test anyway. You just might get stunning non incremental progress.

Or if that is too radical, just focus test. Or something other than just rejecting non incremental designs.
Considering that even the wiring & conductors you use to interconnect components have resistance, I'd have to agree completely :-)
Heh .. just wait until you discover a subtle elegance and deceptive simplicity of Petrovich.

http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/petrovich.html
Where do you see yourself in this dichotomy of "measure everything" versus "subjective considerations are important, too"?

As pointed out elsewhere in these comments, Apple represents something like the opposite prioritization of Google. The argument for "subjective" design is that it is impossible to build up a good, coherent design by testing out each aspect empirically then putting all those things together. Consider the classic Slashdot review of iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." The consideration of each aspect in isolation missed the design trade offs that made the iPod great overall.

I suppose Google misses out on that, but it's not clear that they or their users care. I do think, though, that Google has a unique approach to usability. Which is "Here's a box. Type some stuff in, and we'll figure out what to do with it." Google "search" is actually several different applications, and Google routes to the ones it thinks best suit what you typed. Chrome's single address/search bar follows this philosophy.

It's interesting to think that what distinguishes Apple and Google, more so than the product spaces they operate in, are the balance of empirical and subjective factors in their engineering cultures.
you're assuming that the government must step in to renominate those debt contracts. consider this: you're an economic agent owed a debt when this happens. Your debtor gives you two options: 1) you hold them to their original contract, they default, you get nothing. OR 2) you renegotiate and at least get some of your money.

part of the problem with the current crisis is indeed "stickiness". That is, people refusing to renegotiate. Why should we reward such behavior?
Group believes they have found the answer to the auto industry
Take a look: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-03-10-auto-buying-i...

or Answertoautos.com

Kinda cool concept.
I think it probably would have. Twitter was originally started as a side incubator project within Odeo.com (it became obvious corp). Three guys, @noah, @jack, and @csshsh (florian) were working on it day and night. They basically lived at the office, focused on getting something working quickly, had a good set of ideas and some examples of how it could work. From initial idea to working prototype was just a few days. They even had a business model, which was thrown out, to make money via sms from the carriers. Later as it grew, not having a business model and focusing on the platform, tools, scaling, and community made more sense.
I've written my own editor too. Would you like to see my .emacs file?

All kiding aside, the most important thing about an editor is an ability to customize it, whether it be via Emacs Lisp, Vim Script, or some other means. No software developer or plugin writer is going to be able to anticipate your needs, instead give yourself the ability to fulfil them.

For example, just recently I wrote up a quick Emacs Lisp function to allow me to toggle between header files and source files for C/C++. I'll add a recursive search (to account for more complex project layouts with /inc and /src) after exams.

http://paste.lisp.org/display/77348

For those that think learning to customize an editor takes too long, learning to program takes even longer. You'll learn how to make your editor do anything you want longer before you become an excellent programmer. Textmate and textmate like editors are great shortcuts, but probably crutches in the long run. That being said, Textmate does anticipates the average programmer's needs suprisignly well out of the box, so in that sense it fills a niche.
Fill a book and sell it. OOP! Write that one down :)
Is it Innovator's Dilemma ?
ASK PG: What were your first thoughts knowing for sure Viaweb would be acquired?
Just finished reading Founders At Work. Amazing book!
I am curious, Paul, what were the first feelings you had when you knew for sure the Yahoo acquisition was for real? What did it feel like? Was it a big relief? Becoming rich? What were you first immediate thoughts?

Thank you for sharing with us.
Wake up early. Go to bed when you're tired. Don't work on a computer past "X" at night (X varies for a lot of people, but usually an hour- from when you want to sleep).

Not sure what it is, might just be not winding down -- but the light of the screen probably doesn't help imho.
Maybe a different kind of summary would be helpful for certain people.

The article is roughly divided into two parts:

Part #1: How this regular guy, a college dropout, an apparently average Joe, can walk into a room full of parents and children and own them, making the children laugh uncontrollably, the mothers secretly want to sleep with him, the fathers impressed by him. Then they gladly PAY him and he earns six figures working only on weekends. At a business he started by pretending to talk to customers on his cell phone.

Part #2: How every business is made up of real people, with real personality and real-life problems. And how some people (all people?) who have fantastic qualities can also be deeply flawed in other ways.

Part #3: Yes I know I said there were only two parts. The third part is afterwards when you realize this essay that started off as a not-too-serious business article about marketing was in fact an amazing work of art and that it won a PULITZER PRIZE for a reason.

Now go read the whole article.
You Might Not Love the New Facebook, But Brands Should
I think his reasons for not using Selenium Grid are based out of ignorance and there's a clear whiff of 'not invented here' in his post. Happily, if you read the comments a Selenium developer has now responded.

If I might deconstruct his argument:

"As far as I can tell, Selenium Grid requires that you use Selenium to run your tests. Currently no major JavaScript library uses Selenium (and it would be a major shift in order to do so)."

Doh, yes Selenium Grid uses Selenium. And the argument about no major JS using Selenium is not an argument to not use it.

"It isn't able to test against non-desktop machines. Each server must be running a daemon to handle the batches of jobs - this leaves mobile devices out of the picture."

Unless you write the appropriate daemon for those devices and integrate it into the existing Selenium Grid set up. Surely that's easier than starting afresh?

"It can't test against unknown browsers. Each browser needs special code to hook in to triggering the loading of the browser by Selenium, thus an unknown browser (such IE 8, Opera 10, Firefox Nightly, or Chrome) may not be able to run.'

Huh? That's just bizarre. If you've got some new browser then teach Selenium how to start it. It's not that hard.

"And most importantly: Selenium Grid requires that you actually own and control a number of machines on which you can run your tests. It's not always feasible, especially in the world of distributed Open Source JavaScript development, to have the finances to have dedicated machines running non-stop. A more cost effective solution is required."

This is solved by virtualization.
So do we earn degrees, or do we rent degrees?

edit: I know it sounds snarky, but I mean it in a curious way, inspired by your 'life-long relationship' phrase. Is the school vetting you for life, or is it a one-shot irrevocable deal? Can a school revoke a degree for incompetence (...where it was obviously a mistake to award the degree in the first place)? What about discontinued financial support?
Drink lots of water a few hours before you go to bed, and use an alarm clock. I often find that I'm up before it goes off, but if for some reason that doesn't happen, the alarm clock wakes me up.
If you do not sleep enough, your life will be shorter!
have children - you will quickly become an early riser ;)
I'd recommend this as well - particularly waking with the sun. I've been in some light-deprived places, and then I got a wake-up light (basically it slowly lights up the room, rather than an alarm).

Instead of having an alarm BAM wake up, it's much more natural - you'll find yourself thinking "hey I'm awake". Much, much more pleasant.

I used to wake up to my nokia mobile phone alarm (which are excruciatingly loud). I'd snooze it about 4-5 times... Terrible habit. It would totally wreck me for the morning.

I also tend to exercise in the morning. I find this motivating. Doing this, or taking a walk, or something similar - you hit the day in peak form.
i highly doubt this would work.

hyundai is seeing success at the expense of the other automakers. take away their advantage and the buyers will spread out again, giving everyone somewhat equally sub-par performance instead of having the one business doing kind of well. more people will buy cars, sure, but i highly doubt that enough people will buy cars to make it to where all (or even most) will turn out growth.
Buildmeister: Managing your build process using Lighthouse and Git
It depends on your biochemistry to a large degree. Some people need hardly any sleep, some do _much_ better work if they sleep a full night's sleep, which can be defined anywhere between 6 and 10 hours. Some people do well on a 24-hour clock, some don't. Minor sleep disorders are common and often not diagnosed.

Don't worry about anyone else (one of the luxuries of a lot of tech jobs), find the schedule that leaves you feeling alert and awake and able to get things done. If you need 8 hours of sleep to be able to code the next day and not walk through the day in a haze - that's you. If you do well keeping a fixed schedule and not deviating, that's great. But if not, don't fight it, listen to your body.

Similarly, some people can code for 10, 12 hour stretches. Some people stop doing useful things after 4 hours without a serious break. Experiment, find what works for you, and _do not_ expect other people to work like you do. Focus on end goals, not processes.
This plus consistency (i.e. Don't try to wake up at 5AM M-F and then sleep til noon every Saturday and Sunday).
do it. once you've reached that stage with a job, there's no coming back. I recently went through the same situation where i decided to quit my corporate job to pursue my start-up (www.probuddy.com) full time. the decision will certainly put some pressure on you (financially and socially), but this will be productive pressure.
1. Plan in the evening what exact tasks you are going to do in the morning. Come up with detailed tasks - code this function, debug this issue, write follow-up emails, etc. If the tasks are not defined, then it's hard to push yourself to wake up early in the morning.

Basically you need a reason to wake up in the morning. If we don't have reason, then even if alarm rings, we snooze it and procrastinate waking up at the decided time.

Do all brainstorming, planning, HN/news/blogs reading in the night. And decide a clear action plan for the morning.

2. Sleep early. One of my advisers sleeps at 10-10:30 in the night, and wakes up at 4am. I tried following same pattern, and it worked flawlessly. I used to get solid work done in 4am-8am before I go to my day job.
True words. A connection can be made to the programming. It's generally accepted by programmers that there is no way to "hack" the process of becoming a really great programmer. That's why it's obvious that the whole notion of "[Persons] Teach Yourself [Enterprise Language] in [Unrealistic Time Frame]" is just garbage. Yet I personally had a hard time accepting that a good night's sleep wasn't hackable. I've tried all the methods you can think of: various routines and schedules, etc. When it comes down to it, like programming, it's something you can't hack. Trying to hack a good night's sleep is much like trying to learn a programing language quickly. True success requires effort and consistency, in the case of sleep, going to bed early.
pfft now your being geeky!
20 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02...

another article by the same writer. A very sad one this time, but great writing.
My wife is out the door very early in the morning. I make sure I get out of bed when she comes in to say goodbye for the day.

My alarm clock has proven ineffective. I'll wake up an hour after it should have woken me up and realize I turned it off in my sleep