skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Cheers for being brave enough to challenge the prevailing sentiment on HN about credentialism.

But, strong disagree.

In my experience as a hiring manager (which stretches back quite a ways), I've noticed no correlation between school and on-the-job performance. I'm sure MIT does indeed present more challenging CS/EE curricula, but the inference I draw after stipulating that is that CS/EE curricula quality just doesn't matter much in the real world. Perhaps we just do our most important learning in our first jobs, or, even better, throughout our career? Maybe memorizing MESI cache coherence in school is just less important than, say, having to learn on the job how to do a u/k copy in an ioctl handler because that's the only way to accomplish what your next dev task is?

And, you suggest that tests/puzzles/interviews are "fairly inaccurate". Well, all of technology hiring is inaccurate. Compared to other professions, the recruiting/onboarding process in the tech industry is amateurish across the board whether you ask people to design manhole covers or review Github pages. The answer to this is to improve the tests, and, I think, to evacuate as much of the subjective stuff (school and GPA, yes, but also "interviews" as much as possible) so you can make apples-apples comparisons to candidates and discover what factors really correlate to good performance.
Startup gives university students a reason to keep cable TV
Couldn't they have an extremely minimal recovery partition that gets you to a device with functional WiFi, then let the download handle the rest? There's no reason for an entire Windows and Office installation to remain dormant "just in case".
I've talked to people who've done it, but you can't leave the country when you start the process. It's better to use an H1/L1/etc. As a Canadian, I wouldn't really suggest US citizenship although.
"So how many phones, computers, ipods, laptops, etc have you bought?"

I have bought plenty of devices and never have I had any of them present me with only 36% of the advertised storage space.
Awesome stuff. Is there an authentication mechanism built in somewhere?
is there any free one around?
Awesome command. Now in Windows I won't have to do Start Key + R, then type "notepad"...

The browser is the new OS!
It's no more misleading than advertising 64GB of storage with only 63.5GB free.
There are 2 kind of fabrics, the ballistics (solid colors) and all the others.

For the ballistics all the colorization is done on the browser using canvas. There is a grey mask that is exposure (based on an exposure curve for the color) and tint adjusted (based on the color chosen) and then composited on the canvas. All the swatches on the right side and the bag are colorized like that.

For all the other fabrics, it is a bunch of images precut and loaded on the canvas.
It's still a bit disingenuous. Most people (and Microsoft surely knows this) think "available" even though it is advertised as "storage".
Except when Apple decides that there is no need to have a SD slot, and thou shall use iTunes and iCloud to cover all of your needs.

If Microsoft decided to give a 32GB SD card as a "system rescue solution" to the Surface in order to save disk space, Marco would write another rant about how MS does not understand the mobile market, and no one wants to think about storage specs and oh my iPad is sooo pretty and it just works.
What kind of intuition did you get from algorithms class? What's an example of the kind of intuition you feel like you got that you wouldn't have gotten on-the-job?
One should expect how ever much is advertised. In this case 64GB's of storage is advertised implying there is 64GB's of storage accessible to the user.

Of course we have NEVER had the full space advertised by storage devices accessible for a multitude of reasons. We mainly go along with this because its advertising. But thats my point here, the advertising is getting out of hand, when you get a device and you have less then 1/2 of the advertised space that SHOULD be a problem.

On a side note the Surface and much less Surface PRO are no longer "techy" devices? I don't necessarily agree with that, but that and your statement are both opinions.
Quit Working So Hard
That's not an entirely fair description. Windows RT is a real Windows 8 installation, but running on ARM, and restricted to running only executables signed by Microsoft.
The course catalog looks very much like Coursera's, which isn't bad.

The UI for a specific class, the unlabeled boxes above the videos to display progress, is horrible though. The list to the right side of the video was far clearer. Each unit of a course is accessed via a drop down now, as opposed to the collapsible list that used to be to the right of the videos.

Also, they seem to have lost all their orange.
IOS and Android control 92% of the smartphone market, Analysts say
That's what I thought (and it's a pretty good counter-argument to the space issue if space is being used by free desirable software) but the small print on the Surface with Windows 8 Pro page says "Word 2013 and Office 2013 are sold separately."
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. http://cl.ly/image/1e143q1g1H3S

I got a technical error on checkout, but when I re-submitted it went through. Go figure.
Windows RT is a ARM build of the Windows operating system as we know it. It even has the familiar desktop but it is closed to run only Microsoft Office (on Surface RT tablet). Users may only install "Metro-style" apps. It is shrunken to include only those components of Windows that Office requires. But one can still start the familiar Command Prompt, Windows (File) Explorer etc. It's very much the familiar Windows we all know.
They are silly because the tech industry trains people about the specsmanship game early on

And after ~25 years in tech, I am sick of the omnipresent bullshit. I am tired of having to apologize to non-tech people for the assholes who inhabit tech marketing departments. We need less gamesmanship and more honesty.

On a more general note, WTF does an operating system need 41gb for on a fixed hardware platform?
I don't understand why that can't be joked about.
How did Apple set the precedent for that? If you're referring to iOS devices, then they definitely did not set the precedent there. PC manufacturers have advertised total space, not free space, for ages.
I believe this is also an indicator of an industry maturing.

Spin back to ten years ago and Silicon Valley wasn't wholly reliant only on institutional knowledge and skillsets were earned through work experience. Hiring a stereotypical computer hacker that's also a social misfit rebel was because those were the ones possessing the skills that colleges didn't teach.

My boss while I was at the big fruit company told me stories about how back then, back when it was still a garage startup of the literal sense, if someone showed up, poking around, and asked for a job was given some job to do. If they lasted and are competent they were hired. Only the true nerds came around, because only true nerds cared about computers.

That's not true nowadays.

Now that the body of knowledge has been collected and distributed, now that the lead time has diminished and colleges are teaching skills in almost real time, a college degree has a benefit of sorting those capable of finishing a 4 year project and those that don't.

The lambda between two candidates, one that earned his stripes while on the job while the other having a degree, has diminished. In that case, why risk it? No one ever got fired for investing or hiring an Ivy League grad.
Yer an India-nigger.
> "They are silly because the tech industry trains people about the specsmanship game early on"

Yes. Expensively. In time and money.
Maybe there's room for improvement?
One thing to note, there is a major typo which makes the history between these two coalitions confusing.

Original > Years before, the Test Alliance was part of the HoneyBadgers in a hulking super-coalition. Seeking to carve out a piece of the galaxy for its own, a large portion of Test broke away from the accord to form HoneyBadgers, an independently operating group still pledging allegiance to Test but not to GoonSwarm.

Years before, TEST was part of the Clusters (really: Clusterfuck Coalition, aka CFC). Only in the past year did TEST split off from the CFC and form the Honeybadger Coalition (HBC). TEST and Goons are old friends, so it will be very interesting to see how the current hostilities shake out.
Oh, they really have an API for everything. That's awesome. Now... I wonder if there are companies in China that have an API to order a pallet of stuff?
> Sometimes I just need to type garbage. Just to clear out my mind. Using editors to type such gibberish annoys me because it clutters my project workspace (I'm picky, I know).

This is a hack and a workaround. The bug is clearly using an editor restricted to editting files in a "Project Workspace". Yikes.

Everyone has their own workflow, and they're all insane (for myself, I have an emacsclient wrapper that when called without a file will create a unique name under ~/.emacsclient-scratch and edit that -- so I never lose anything I know I was typing at one point). Still... this just seems like a really bad solution. You get an "editor everywhere" but it's the default editor in your browser. Ick. It's cute though.
Ask HN: Feedback on job posting
I have taken over tech recruiting at my startup. This is my first time recruiting people. I read through the advice in past "Who Is Hiring" threads, and came up with this ad. Please let me know if you have any feedback on how I can improve the ad?

###Start of ad###

PrivCo, one of New York's hottest start-ups, is looking for an experienced web developer.

You will fulfill a central role focusing on the operation of our financial research database and web presence. This includes planning, coordinating, and implementing new features. This is a full-time, on-site position in NYC. Salary is based upon experience with stock options and a monthly performance bonuses.

PrivCo's clients include industry titans such as Google, Oracle, and GE. PrivCo's research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and the New York Times.

Requirements:
- 2-5 years related experience with PHP, MySQL, and CSS
- Thorough understanding of Javascript (jQuery specifically) and cross-browser compatibility

The folowing are all a definite plus, but not required:
- Scalable back-end development
- Server or network administration
- Data-mining

Interested?
Email Tech@PrivCo.com with either your resume or a link to your Github account.
Why is functional programming on the rise?

I have heard several times that the big payoff with function programming comes from parallel processing. Because functions typically have no side effects they can operate on a set of inputs in parallel without modification. This is important because future increases in processing power are expected to come primarily from more cores rather than higher clock speeds as in the past.

Is this correct? The author seems to focus on other real but lesser benefits.
The odd thing is that Windows 8 minimum disk requirements are only 20 GB

(spitting coffee across room) Only 20GB!? I can get a full Linux install, including desktop, development environment, graphics editors, office suites, etc, etc, etc for less space than that! It's sad that people have come to accept "only 20GB" as "not that bad". This reeks to me of the issues MS had trying to shoehorn windows on to netbooks, and just not getting it.
If for some reason you end up writing javascript that only needs to run on Firefox, you do get coroutines via the yield keyword. Pretty sure it will also appear in a future version of javascript.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/New_in_J...
Complimenting a woman by saying she's like a man is pretty much the definition of sexism.
Ask HN: Beginning Consulting
I'm a Canadian iPhone developer who started learning early 2011 and got a job with a seeded startup in the Fall of 2012. I'm under NDA so I can't talk about the product at all. I want to start contracting on the side, how much of a portfolio do you think I'll need to build up before finding clients won't be a struggle?

Also, how much should I charge as a Canadian. I've heard numbers as low as $30 and as high as $100. I like to think I'm competent, but am not sure if Toronto's market has a much lower ceiling than NYC or SF.
App.net File API And The Opportunity for Private Label BaaS Resources
My Meteorology and Clock app for kids.

It is already up on Amazon, for Android we are awaiting for authorization from Apple, so we can do a simultaneous launch.

Also, it has no traction yet, but I am not sure it will have traction (although the combined downloads across stores being 100k looks impressive, it is a low number compared to some much simpler competitors).

http://www.amazon.com/Weather-and-Clock-for-Kids/dp/B00B4YKW...
The best line of the article

If those numbers don’t sound as good, or the
manufacturers don’t leave themselves any room for OS-
update expansion without changing the names of their
products mid-cycle, that’s their problem to solve, not
ours.

The argument my Marco is simple really - walk the talk.
On the screenshots it looks like you packed your webapp as native. I'm nots sure if the app is downloadable, if so what did you use to pack the app with?

Edit : I found the download link at the bottom of the page and see you used Qt
Now it's every 3 years.
Windows RT is built from the same source code as Windows 8 and virtually all Windows 8 features are there.
I am not seeing the irony. HN isn't an invite-only site; it's not a club at all. That's the point.
Exactly. Reminds me of that classic C&H strip. "You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well mine are even worse!"

Being a college dropout doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a good hire, just like having a degree doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a good hire.
The example ToDo contains:
- Decrease entropy
- Slam a revolving door

http://firebase.github.com/backfire/
Findercodes Now Enables Your Lost Phone To be FedEx'd Back To You
Something tells me you're not going to be strung up for letting on you prefer older techies; at least, not while most of the industry is the inverse.
Great question - the bindings can take a regular Firebase reference object instead of a URL as well. If you had authenticated the Firebase reference using any of the regular Firebase methods (like Simple Login), the collection will simply inherit them.
Actually there's no hard disk at all in there, and I think if there were one, people might be annoyed.
Current favorite: ImpactJS. Closed source, costs $100 to get started, but comes with a nice level editor and a very involved community.

Great for making 2d games.
> My point is that everyone who has bought something with storage has experienced the "comes with X amount of storage (note Y is available for users)" verbiage.

Yeah, not seeing any such number on Apple's or Google's store. How many phones, computers, ipods, laptops, etc have you bought?
First off, great design on your site; it's beautiful. Question: How's this any different from the HelloBar? Not that it has to be. Just wondering if it is.

To answer your question, yes, I would be interested in this product, and a lot of other people would be as well (most of whom are using the HelloBar). So is there a use case? The answer is yes.

How to improve: I would consider making options that are the size you show on the site and also larger. Something that slides down and looks beautiful and serves the purpose that a pop-up serves. I feel like this would be less intrusive than a pop-up (everyone hates them) and would allow website owners to show more info than a single line. So as you mention, an author could have a "drop-down" instead of a "pop-up" that shows their new book and entices orders.

The main function seems to be getting special offers in front of people without needing to alter the website dramatically. An example of this would be a company that's hiring but doesn't know where else to mention that on their page. So for stuff like this, it looks good, and the one thing I'd be interested in would be the option for a larger drop down that could show more than a single line but still looks beautiful (which your site currently does).
Five critical ingredients to build a big company
Great post by Brett Hurt. Co-founder BazaarVoice (NASDAQ: BV) & Coremetrics (Sold to IBM).
If the OS takes up 50 GB, 100 GB or 500 GB, that's Microsoft's problem. They shouldn't pass it on to the consumer, and they shouldn't advertise a device as a 100 GB device, if only 50 GB is available to the user.

If the OS does take up 50 GB, then just use a separate, hidden to the user disk, and then add the 100 GB disk or whatever you're advertising. And don't make the user pay for that extra 50 GB you're using for the OS. He's already paying for the Windows license being included in the price.
The comments here are generally super confusing to me. Are there companies in San Francisco who actually give a shit about where you went to college? I've only been here for 5 years, but I spent 2 or so of those just bouncing around from startup to startup doing consulting work. I've never worked with anyone who gave a shit about what college people went to. Literally, none. The startups I've joined have been predominantly staffed with college dropouts (even including a high school dropout or two), and a lot of the best engineers I know here have no degrees. Where are all these startups that are hiring based on credentials?
Consider these similar topics:

A "5 seater" car, where some critical part of the car occupies 3 seats so you only have 2 for people.

A box of 100 staples, where 64 are used to hold the box together, so you only get to use 36

A 50 inch plasma TV, where the bezel accounted for 32 inches of that.

A car advertised as getting 30MPG, but when you put seats, seat belts, a heater, air conditioning and a radio in there it only gets 20 MPG

It feels a lot like getting ripped off to me.

Obviously we're power users, so we're willing to dive into this and understand that when you buy a 64GB device, you don't get that much storage. Do you think the general public understands that?
I never knew about Shirley until I read her apology today, though I have encountered many chronic liars over the course of time.

It would be wrong of me to judge someone I've never met before, though I believe her behavior speaks for itself. She may very well be seeking to change her behaviors, but given the reason for which she felt it necessary to write an apology, I will wait to see what Shirley is up to in a few months.

To repent is one thing, but to demonstrate positive steps forward is another.
I don't believe there's any intuition I got from my algorithms class that couldn't be gained on the job. However, the class does provide intuition in an accelerated manner, and it proves to employers that I have the intuition. Some examples off the top of my head:

- Memoization / DP

- Divide and conquer

- Using a bounded approximate algorithm in place of an exponential one for NP complete problems

I feel like it would have taken me a lot of time to internalize those types of algorithms on the job, but seeing them presented in my algorithms class made it easy.
For anyone writing non-fiction, read "On Writing Well", by William Zinsser. It will change the way you approach writing for the (much) better. Books, articles, blog posts, as long as it's non-fiction, it applies.

Needless to say, this book is a great read itself..
I've heard about the product from friends so I'm interested in looking at the developer apis. The product looks great - congrats on the launch!
The ones that don't know any better.
Anyone defending this is being disingenuous.

Having ~66% of the storage already used out of the box is nuts and most people would be rightly annoyed and frustrated to find this out after buying one.

The correct thing for Microsoft to have done in this situation is NOT release a 64GB model, if they were unable to free up more space.
Awesome, would be great to see this for Angularjs too!
For reference, Simple Login is a convenient way to add authentication to a Firebase app using Facebook, Twitter, Persona, Github or just plain old email/password identities. More at https://www.firebase.com/docs/security/simple-login-overview...
Those are all pretty terrible analogies.
Yes, I am from Brazil, here you are supposed to place many personal details on your resume (even if you are married or not).

I am not sure why though.
The point about how you market size is the least interesting part of this.

My question is why the the hell is Microsoft shipping such a pig of a mobile OS?
It would be great if you could distill:

"Most authors say that more than 80% of their eBook sales are via Amazon."

down to one metric. 'most' can be manipulated to be almost any value... just ask cats.
Seems like they could have something like a (but a little more nuanced than) union-FS for the primary partition joining it with the recovery partition. Only updated files would need to take space on the primary partition, untouched files would be sourced from the recovery partition. To restore you just wipe the primary. Of course, there is an entire blog written about how sensible ideas like that are completely impossible: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/
Thanks, AngularJS is definitely on our roadmap!
So you think this is ok because "people should know because they should have been burned by this before"?

I don't care if it's "the truth", it's still deception. It's a total outlier. If I sell you two televisions with 42" displays and one is nearly 42" like ever other one but the other is 42" but the bezel for some strange reason covers it so it's actually 16" are you ok with that? Oh wait, that analogy doesn't work because at leas then you can see the fraud before you make the mistake of buying it.
Having been involved in quite a bit of college recruiting in my former life as a hiring manager for a development/test org, I learned a couple of very important lessons:

- Every real school, no matter how low in the ranking, produces at least one competitive graduate each year and rarely an amazing candidate.

- The top schools produce not only a large number of competitive graduates, but also at least one amazing candidate each year.

For companies searching for a large number of candidates, hitting the top schools makes a lot of sense. Further, you also start to get data on your hiring so you can know if your yield was low in a given year; if some bad attrition means the manager is likely poor or if that school's candidates are just larger flight risks; etc. Sourcing candidates from small schools, at least for us, usually meant that they had either done something noteworthy or an alum already at the company was contacted by a professor at their alma mater, who passed along a resume and asked us to interview them.

That said, the amazing candidates from top schools are usually funneled off to graduate school without ever touching the recruiting process, whereas at non-top-tier schools they are much more recruitable for either a startup or software development shop.
When you talk to people, they are also going to give you, even if they don't exaggerate anything, "only the good parts", with maybe a carefully selected set of bad parts to make the stories believable. It's like making a movie, and then comparing it not to someone else's movie, but to their trailer: even if you made a really great film, it is going to feel boring and even tedious in comparison.
But without the filter of "top schools", how many candidates do you have to sift through? People use that criteria because its easy and means something (although maybe not much), not because they think it's perfect. You can only afford to spend so much time recruiting talent.
Using Vim/Emacs doesn't necessarily means ditching visual debuggers.