skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing.

But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other contributions through the 90s and early 2000s. Aaron is being totally misremembered.

Of those who knew of him before his death - and he was not a "celebrity" or "famous" or considered "brilliant" or a "genius" by technologists - most knew him as a blogger. He was actually a very good writer, even from a young age. He wrote with clarity and purpose, and he had many interests. His technical output was not major. To pull a random name out of a hat, his contributions were less than someone like Craig McClanahan and far less than someone like Brian Behlendorf. Basically, Aaron got a chance with Y Combinator, which he parlayed into a merger with Reddit's parent company, mostly through personal connections. Aaron didn't get end up getting along with Alexis or Steve, who considered him immature, dramatic, and unreliable. Reddit was shortly rewritten entirely, and web.py was too buggy to make any further contribution to Reddit. Aaron was fired from Reddit's acquirer because he didn't bother doing anything after the payout. He then floated around, wrote a few minor libraries and some more interesting blog posts, and then became a very good activist worthy of deeper respect on that front. He wasn't actually a tech celebrity before his death. He didn't "invent RSS." He didn't singlehandedly "defeat SOPA." His work on RSS 1.0, a version of RSS that was never significant itself, was mostly of interest to the semantic-web people, who have themselves have never made much of an impact, although the work is interesting to some.

I didn't know Aaron personally, but I do think his volatile relationships with others and his desire to be famous within this community were a source of extreme anxiety for him, though probably more so in the past than recently. But his professional life was, perhaps understandably, extremely frustrating for reasons that had nothing to do with his criminal case.

That's not an attack. Most people don't make major technical contributions. But I wish people would see this case for what it is - a volatile activist who pulled a stunt that spiraled out of control.
Yeah, lets ban violent video games. That way I'm forced to pirate them instead of buy them on Steam sales. I haven't had to pirate anything since I was a poor college waif.
One of my big concerns is user / session security.

I have tried to follow and reason through discussions on stackoverflow and much of tpatchek's notes. I would be interested in how "high level" the security chapter is from anyone who has shelled out already.

For example I assume I will

1. only use persona or openid (avoids storing passwords in my servers thus making a lot of things much much easier)

2. sessions - store absolutley nothing in a session cookie other than a nonce session id, and lookup everrything I need from cache on servers form that sessionId

3. That seems to be it really

I just do not know where to go to have this discussion sensibly - any hints?
Sure, and I was pointing out that this isn't relevant to GiffGaff's lower pricing. You were responding to a comment about GiffGaff being too good to be true but it's not 'cheap service in exchange for data-harvesting' as your previous comment could be read.
And ending the post with a question to the reader. And encouraging the readers to LIKE, SHARE, and COMMENT on the post!
I've noticed that more and more topics are being labeled as inappropriate in interviews for developers. I have heard complaints about interviewers asking candidates to complete short programming tasks, producing past code samples, doing a whiteboard exercise, completing a pairing exercise, and objecting to a wide variety of questions. I understand that highly experienced professionals may get frustrated by some lines of questioning, but it's getting to the point that programmers feel they should walk in with a resume and say 'Trust me, I'm good', and immediately get a job offer.

Keep in mind some interviewers will ask questions that they don't expect you to answer in order to learn something about you. Will you lie, admit not knowing the answer, describe how you'd find an answer, get frustrated and rant (as this author does with riddles), etc? It could reveal how you'd treat a customer or a co-worker.

Candidates obviously have the power to walk out or not interview with places that are going to be more rigorous (or transparent) in the process, but what many candidates are classifying as 'unreasonable' for interviews these days is becoming a bit too long a list.

I just published an article about this very topic http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5073791
Good idea! Draw them the "Thinking outside the box"[1] puzzle or something.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box
No way. In most cases, the company would much prefer to have the candidate work on technical problems that the company actually has, but that almost always requires significant background context and disclosure of not-so-public info.

The riddle should be a stand-in for a collaborative, thought-provoking problem, not a general intelligence test.

To the original author: if the hiring manager or interviewer doesn't see it that way, then fine, write off that company, but don't write off riddles!
Hah, I felt exactly the same way. How ever will the parents with 4 kids making $650k per year ever be able to survive without that $21k taken in taxes? Will they not be able to remodel that master bath at their 2nd beach home in Nantucket for another month? Will they have to slum it in the penthouse of the 4-star hotel in Cancun for Thanksgiving this year?
This would only be the determining factor if you believe that California on its own would not vote for the federal government providing support for the lowest income people.

The evidence seems to indicate that is not the case.
The only critique I have: PBR is the hipster brew of choice everywhere especially here in NYC and up in Portland... BUT in SF there is a healthy dose of Tecate as well.

In fact what sets SF hipsters apart from their peers is that they drink Tecate (and modelo).

Anyway I'd call it a Tecate town. Really miss the stuff here in NYC... $2 at delirium, those were the days

*edit: with lime!!
yes I know. Practically everything under Windows uses Ctrl+W as well for closing tabs/windows.
If you are resistent to change, it's hard to attract people who want to create change....
Palo Alto is the answer to the weather. Consistently awesome compared to the city.
I didn't see it in the chapter list, so probably not, but is there anything in your book about writing (good) tests?
How do I figure out if I've been hellbanned?
I agree pretty strongly. I read, for example, that the Obama campaign expanded the Democratic Party's voter database by something like a factor of 10.
deterrence is not a binary yes/no

That's true, but it doesn't change the argument. Just change D to the minimum punishment that will provide an acceptable level of deterrence. The same logic goes through. (Technically, yes, you now can allow P >= D instead of forcing P = D, but that doesn't matter if D > R.)

Therefore if #2 limits punishment below the absolute maximum from #1, you can still satisfy all of the principles at once.

Not if #2 limits punishment below the minimum that will provide a acceptable level of deterrence. See above.
http://www.ryanholiday.net/about/
"Ryan Holiday is a media strategist for notorious clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. He is the Director of Marketing at American Apparel, where his work in advertising was internationally known. His strategies are used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube and Google and have been written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker and Fast Company. His first book, Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller"

Books from his reading list are very interesting: http://www.ryanholiday.net/reading-list/

On why I posted this interview:
I've been influenced by Ryan's work over the last 4 years. His writing is usually very thought provoking and honest despite the name of his book. I have noticed similarities between topics discussed in this community and Ryan Holidays writing. I think that if HN readers research Ryan a little, they will be interested in what they find. His influence on articles written by massive media outlets becomes increasingly apparent as you read into his work.

One of the best things I've taken from Ryan's work is how to identify Media Manipulation and devalue content that has been affected by it accordingly.

Ironic right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4a0Vrk4ZEw&feature=youtu...
Funny interview with the creator of HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and Ryan. To promote and validate his book, Ryan manipulated the service HARO into providing news outlets with completely false information that they published http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/07/18/how-this-g...
"One of Ivanov’s losses was in a long game in a closed position (the kind where computers perform poorly)..."

The top computer engines have been strong in closed positions for many years now. If this person did cheat, he most likely was selectively using the engine in this game, or not at all.

There's a reason we don't see computer vs. human matches these days. The computers are too good. You can beat today's elite grandmasters with a free engine running on your laptop.
Better than Seattle.

But oh the sunny days. Oh. The. Sunny. Days.
The argument can go the other way as well, if your organization is not so hierarchical that it can't learn anything. Point at this episode as proof that when in direct competition, the organization that's open to multiple approaches and tests to discover what works, has a distinct advantage.
someone who performs poorly under the pressure of an interview may be a fantastic programmer once hired and working on an actual project

Maybe. But then again if I have one spot open for the quarter then I'm probably not going to take the chance on someone who crumbles when asked how to get the duck safely across the river or whatever.
If you were affected by the highest possible increase in payroll tax ie 2% of the first 113k of payroll income, that would be $2260 per year, or $188.33 per month.

You must have a very low mortgage payment.
Not at that price.

Samsung has their Armdale board at $250:

http://www.arndaleboard.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

If you're going to drop ~$250 it might make more sense to just buy the Samsung ARM Chromebook or the Nexus 10 and slap your own Linux or Android build on it, unless you really need the easy JTAG connection or something.

There's supposed to be a cheaper ($135) option in the form of the 'ARMBrix Zero', but it is currently only up for preorder:

http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/12/26/135-armbrix-zero-exyn...

There's also the novena laptop bunnie and xobs are building (still in progress), if you want something very DIY (and presumably lots more expensive):

http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena_Main_Page
I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government ...

You do realize you live in Texas, right?
Love it. It would be nice to be able to subscribe to certain specific time frames, e.g., over the weekend; it's much easier to impulsively travel then while holding down a traditional full-time position. Nevertheless, subscribed!
Less than 6 months? Sounds like an anomaly.
According to the BLS[1], the average wage (based upon weekly pay in 2012 Q1) in Manhattan is $128k and the average wage in other boroughs is around $41k.

[1]: http://www.bls.gov/ro2/qcew9310.htm
I like how the 'poorest' person in the infographic makes $25k per year in investment income. Assuming an average rate of 8% in returns from an low-risk and diversified portfolio, that person has roughly $312,000 in investments. Man they have it hard.
It's fun driving around in the hills, which represent a massive slice of property taxes, and often be on street surfaces that are far worse than anything you'll find in the most rural sections of Georgia.
I'm not sure why this is news. (I'm not being sarcastic -- just curious if/how this is different from the million existing from-your-city flight deal notification sites.)
Tell a New Yorker that SF is called The City and they're guaranteed to laugh ;)

Saul Steinberg might put you guys on his map if it were to be made today, but you never know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Aven...
As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad.

The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged.

The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more traditional OSes allow for more experimentation and learning. You won't be messing around with video editing on these in any significant way. Web design wouldn't be easy either. Web design was one of my favorite high school classes.

For library and research computers, this seems like a great option. Rugged, secure, portable. For a learning tool, wouldn't something more open, more able to run more applications be better?

From an IT perspective I get it. These machines require so little maintenance and are much more hardended than your typical PC.

In many ways, I feel the original ThinkPad that this is based off of would be a better educational tool. This of course comes down to whether or not school want students experimenting these days. I hope they do.
Maybe the interview process was to gauge your flexibility. :) An evil flipside to open-allocation, if you will.
Build quality. Support. Keyboard and mouse. Able to be locked down to limit app installs. Many reasons why a laptop, even a Chromebook, is more useful in certain situations than a tablet. This isn't meant for your home, it's meant for the classroom.
I have very close friends in Vancouver, and over the last 20 years, I've been to there often, throughout all parts of the season. I'm fairly familiar with it. If I could retire in Vancouver I would because it's a nice, quiet, slow-paced town. Even at the height of work hours, there is very little traffic downtown.

It doesn't have the same flair that a city like SF has. SF has major events throughout the year. It has a culture of weirdness, wackiness, lots of technology, lots of greed. It has very vastly different neighborhoods with vastly different cultures. Haight is completely different from
Noe which is different from Castro which is different from the Marina. It's not like West End vs East End in Vancouver.

There is a culture of risk taking. People always coming up with stupid or crazy startups, trying to push it on the local businesses. There are lots of great restaurants as well. There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF). Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.

So go back through the article, and you'll see most of the stuff on startup life doesn't apply at all. There is no craziness or wackiness, no real tech scene, not on the scale of SF or Seattle, no sense of early adoption (not very many people has iPhones in Canada because of the draconian cell phone contracts), the idea that neighborhoods are far away doesn't exist in Vancouver because the traffic isn't nearly as bad as it is here, not even 1/10 as much fog as SF, etc.
I'm curious: do families usually move out of the city and down into the Valley? (there are 5 of us and generally prefer a 3-4 bedroom house).
This is a great story. I think MOOCs have really been giving students a postive experience and new way to enhance their learning.
Comparing any Western economy to a warn-torn and completely corrupt country that just happens to not have an income tax is a bit absurd isn't it. You're implying that if only they paid a high income tax in Somalia all all their problems would be solved. To say nothing of the fact that there's a reason for it. The country basically has a barter economy making tax collection impossible. It does however have an official tax policy:

From http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Somalia.html:
In 1986, tax rates on wages and salaries ranged from 0% to 18.9%. Income from trade and the professions was taxed at rates of up to 35%. Indirect taxes are imposed on imports, exports, mortgages, vehicle registration, sugar, alcohol, and a number of other goods and services. In 2003, Somolia's sales tax rate was 10%.

And you're ignoring the fact that many countries in the world do not charge income tax are quite nice places to live. Bermuda, Monaco, Kuwait and UAE to name a few.
Yes you could, if that were the only operative consideration. The U.S.A. is a club and the people are free to charge whatever fee they wish for membership. In the absence of belonging to any such club, we'd just be subsistence farmers so any fee between that and what you can make as a member of the club is in my opinion fair in that sense.

Of course that's not the only operative consideration. There are other clubs that charge different fees, which might be less. You can always move to Club Canada or Club Germany, (or wherever). In a globalized society the "fair" tax rates are limited not by some abstract ethical consideration, but by competition between countries to offer the most pleasant societies for the lowest tax burdens.
It boggles my mind how popular ChromeOS would be if it did indeed have strong offline capabilities (like say, an Android tablet).

This is likely why I would recommend a Transformer+keyboard instead - around the same price, but higher utility.
The fist task is converting the GIF into a data structure. That could take anywhere between one hour and one day. Since I personally have no experience reading data from GIF files, it is probably going to take me one day.

The next step is to figure out how to reverse generate conway's game of life. If you have previous game of life experience, you may already know how to do that. But I'm not a game of life expert. Its going to take quite a bit of research and trial and error to get that working. It will probably take me at least a day.

It all boils down to this: I don't want to waste two days of programming time for something as pointless as this. Especially since they could very easily say "sorry you're not a cultural fit" after spending all that time. Thats actually what happened to me a few months ago when I spent 4 days doing a programming problem for a job at reddit. They called me about a month later and had a 5 minute conversation with me, and then never heard from them agan. Assholes.

My new rule is that I don't spend any ore than a few hours on any one single problem, unless they pay me, or if it's interesting enough.
Hear, hear. The good software engineers are worth the money; they care about your product and apply years of expertise.
I believe you can undo the update with ctrl+z
How Tealeaf Academy increased student engagement 3x
Hmmm, the campaign has San Francisco in the URL referral link. Why not pre-pop the correct city based on my IP Address? You'd get a better conversion rate if it said deals in New York City, where I live, rather than deals flying from San Francisco. I know Hacker News has a sizeable following in SF, but still.
Each microserver has SO-DIMM slots for RAM.

Although this project is vaguely similar to blades, it isn't hot-swap, it can't hold 2S/4S servers, and it's not clear how I/O consolidation will work. So it's pretty different from existing blades.
Silicon Valley’s under-the-radar VC firm sees record-breaking year
Good point! I'd heard about this, but didn't realize the significance.

So my dream of becoming a homeless programmer in Hawaii is still alive!
Based on the 10x at 50 multiplier, I'm guessing that's for retirement savings/investments alone, not a net worth target. (It makes a big difference if you're planning on making any other big expenditures -- down payment on a house, helping the kids with college, etc.)
Prosecutors are supposed to inform defendants of the sentencing guidelines, which are usually quite different from the maximum allowable penalties. I think the office must have done this. Whether that was shaded with "and that's what'll happen" or with "but you're an enemy of the state, and we might just press for the maximum" is directly addressed by this statement, but we've heard more-or-less the opposite from Aaron's counsel. At this point, we have some he-said/she-said, but on the whole, given the contradictions in the statements and actions from the US attorneys, Aaron's counsel seems more credible. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out...
Software Foundations: theory of programming and programming languages
"If you're not for us you're against us" is a poor counterargument, no matter how eloquently stated. There must be room for more nuanced positions. If insufficient knowledge is not sufficient cause for having no position, the only possible result is complete polarization.
And if a good programmer has a choice of employers (and they do), they probably aren't going to take a chance on someone whose idea of evaluating their skills is to ask how to get a duck across a river.
Hacking Your Genes
For the purposes of a given job, let alone the types of jobs discussed in these threads, it's going to dump a bunch of false negatives. Since software is an industry that thrives on overqualified employees, this may not seem like a big deal, but having people who can interview a Big Degree person such that they'll accept these jobs has its own cost and management overhead.
This is basically a nice tutorial on implementing two-way email messaging between machine and humans. Kudos for creative use of our "Email Routes" feature (disclaimer: I work for Mailgun).
Yes, real products, from haute couture handbags...

I don't think they know what haute couture means. The maker bot is about localized mass production, not something made specifically for one person. And clothing has always been a maker activity - you can go buy a sewing machine (and pretty advanced ones at that) right this second.
Coming from you, this really means a lot to the two of us. :-)
I am amazed they did so well. Good execution. I like the new building they are constructing in Palo Alto as well.
Judge the sh*t out of (IT) recruiters
We're a recruiting company and we're telling it like it is. Lots of recruiters suck. Some don't. Hopefully this guide helps you weed out the duds from the studs.
This is not a trivial career so why trivialize it? I'm more keen on seeing a person's past work or hearing about their experiences. Asking them how they've solved past problems and how they've faced past conflicts gives me insight into if we can start working together. That's all an interview is. There's no guarantees it will all work out and I believe no amount of interviewing techniques will change that.
I think you are getting a bit too aggressive about some slides with poor UI. You are asking a lot of the slide authors to minor facilitate secondary usage at the expense of primary usage.

It could be a lot worse, they could be like 99% of the other slides in the industry: completely worthless without listening to the accompanying lecture.