skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm in Melbourne, Australia, working (contractor) on a project based out of Sydney, Australia, with team members working in Georgia (state, not country), Alabama, California and in the Philippines. In the past, I've worked (from New Zealand) for a company out of Finland, and (from Melbourne)for a couple of companies out of SF.

My main experience of remote work is that a 'normal' 8 hour day doesn't work - everyone needs to be a little flexible with their days and hours of work both for regularly scheduled standup meetings and for ad-hoc conversations with workmates. The oft-seen "US only" may be a timezone related concern.

I understand that international payments are seen as comparatively cumbersome, and (for employees, at least) the tax situation may well be more complicated.
I'm not sure the civil war is a good argument. If they seceded lawfully, they weren't citizens. If they weren't lawfully seceding, they were traitors/insurrectionists. In arms no less.

More germane might be the experiments at Oak Ridge.
Plenty of people do like Sense, though. I agree with you- I hate it, and I'm disappointed that my only real device choice is a Nexus 4. But we're a minority, and manufacturers need to differentiate themselves from each other.
Which browser is infected? Perhaps your browser is infected.

Which browsers are affected? Any browser configured to pass along Java class files or jar archives to Oracle's Java plugin. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are all potentially affected.
I find it interesting to look at how many of the startups/services we build upon weren't around 5 or even 2 years ago. Makes me wonder what will I be using in another few years to make the development process even better.
Ask HN: State of Django vs. Rails?
I always like to keep tabs on the state of different competing frameworks. Any thoughts on the current state of Django vs. Rails? Especially with the upcoming Django 1.5 and Rails 4.

Some factors to consider beyond just the design of the frameworks: productivity, readability, documentation, activity of community, tooling, ease-of-use/learning, etc.

I've purposely left out node.js and its associated frameworks (Meteor, Derby, etc.) because AFAIK the field is still wide open and node.js has different use cases.
Keyboard shortcuts give me precision and efficiency, not speed, and that cognitive overload you talk about is a small price to pay.
disclaimer: all anecdotal experience

I work at a big co on the west coast and we have had developers in India, hired by the company's India arm, on some projects.

There are coordination issues because it's exactly halfway around the world, especially if a project requires collaboration with another department. Projects sent overseas need to be well-defined and self-contained to get a good result. This alone could cause you to shy away from hiring in other time zones.

Expectations and the engineering culture are different in the two countries. I have worked with India developers who produced work that was worse in terms of depth, quality, and maintainability than the same project later taken up in the US. I do not have an anthropological explanation, and the developers from India I've worked with stateside didn't have the same issues. /fireproof

More experience and tech muscle is concentrated in the US team. How about this: if you were highly skilled and experienced, as a rule you would have moved to the US for the greater opportunity and the big bucks. There's a positive feedback loop here, because banging together lots of skilled workers creates more opportunity and attractive companies, creating more motivation to come, and so on.
Why does success == exit? I guess to each his own, but I would hate to be working for years on something with the goal being some finish line, especially when often "exit" for the founders means being sucked into another organization where you have even less control over choosing your work. So many other ways to measure success that this story falls flat for me.
How to Get Things Done in an Organization: Disagree and Commit
Results of FOIA for Aaron Swartz
The two biggest problems are communication, and time delay.

Remote communication just takes a lot more effort - many underestimate the frictions of constantly setting up remote calls (sometimes with poor quality), dealing with any language barriers, proper scheduling ahead of time according to time zones, etc.

Now add engineering into the mix, and things get even more complicated. If there is a time delay, it means you are working at different hours of the day, so if you need a change, maybe it happens 7 hours later.

You have to design your systems to require minimum overlap and proper decoupling, which means more time planning and more architecture.

You also have to assume your engineers are good communicators, and can constantly be working out issues over instant messaging and email.
We ended up using Ruby's SecureRandom.hex, which is 128 bits of the form "e7e12f9b82f71d90b678373c360e497c" - roughly equivalent to the 126 bits of randomness you get from a version 4 UUID.
I think what we have here is a case of status quo bias -- new things get subjected to more intense ethical scrutiny because they're new. Selective breeding of humans has been around for as long as there have been humans; it's what people do when they choose a mate. Evolutionarily, this is simply a matter of trying to choose the most advantageous genes to mix with yours, to maximize the expected propagation of your own genes. In practice, it is a eugenics program on a vast scale, and nobody seems to have a problem with it, despite the fact that it "provides an echo-chamber for certain discriminatory beliefs" and can lead to inbreeding if you're reckless.

All that sperm banks do is amplify this selection.
Feel free to offer your comments via Ouija board.
I imagine most people sign up for the announcement and/or security mailing lists of the products that are critical to their infrastructure.
If throwing stones makes the targets do free vulnerability probing in return, why not? :)
I've been without a traditional health plan for quite a while. There's actually been a lot of innovation in this space recently.

For example, in some locales you can subscribe to a "direct primary care" practice for a family of four (2 adults, 2 kids) for around $150 per month, and visit your primary care provider as much as you need, paying only for supplies or possibly a token per-visit amount. This, combined with a legitimate "insurance" plan with a high deductible, might set a family back less than half as much as a traditional all-inclusive health plan. (This is what I had in Seattle, with Qliance as my direct primary care provider.)

My son recently needed a physical to start school. As a self-pay patient now located in Denver, I called around to independent clinics in my area and was able to get a fairly good price ($110 total out of pocket, paid up front.) My wife was recently able to be treated for an ear infection for around $80.

If you're actually paying out of pocket it can be a little bit of work, but there are ways to get your costs down to close to "free market" levels.
What MS lock-in? Nobody's forcing the world to use MS Office. They just already do. And since sometimes people will give me MS Office files, I need programs that can edit them correctly. I don't see how it's MS Office's fault that LibreOffice incorrectly formats Office documents. Microsoft doesn't seem to be taking steps to lock others out from editing Office format files.
I apologize for not being clear. It is my understanding that the Surface Pro is marketed as a tablet that is also a laptop replacement. I am arguing that current tablets cannot satisfactorily replicate the functionality of laptops.

The iPad, Nexus, etc. are marketed as supplemental devices, not laptop replacements.
I'm still interested by the fate of LTE in the Nexus 4- it has the hardware for it, but it's manually disabled. When T-Mobile launch their LTE network it'll be interesting to see if any hacks will re-enable it. It could end up being one of the first technically unlicensed LTE devices.
I haven't used LibreOffice since the true OS version was still OpenOffice, does it even have Track Changes itself, or is that part of why files w/track changes on look like garbage?

TT is probably the most useful feature for me in word, both for technical documents going out for review and my personal fiction writing things when it is time for me to deal with an editor (haven't yet, but EVERY writer I know says you need track changes to be able to effectively work with an editor).
Your tool doesn't currently show the last security update, according to your website last update was 2 months ago. Django wise, there is the Google group which you can be follow for all updates , you can also subscribe to the RSS feed of django's weblog.

Your tool seems interesting, i like the idea of being able to keep a list of all the software i use in a single place and get notified when a new update comes out(had a similar idea myself), however i would need some kind of reassurance that such an application is reliable and wont let me in the dark for some important update.
"A UUID is 128 bit long, and consists of a 60-bit time
value, a 16-bit sequence number and a 48-bit node
identifier.

The time value is taken from the system clock, and is
monotonically incrementing. However, since it is possible
to set the system clock backward, a sequence number is
added. The sequence number is incremented each time the
UUID generator is started. The combination guarantees that
identifiers created on the same machine are unique with a
high degree of probability."

Looking at the code, the node id is derived from the MAC, and the sequence number state is stored in /tmp or your home dir.

In an era of vm's that are frozen and copied around between hosts, this seems like a spectacularly bad implementation. It's way to easy for this code to end up running from the same start state in such a situation, and as soon as that happens you'll have tons of exactly duplicated UUID sequences. I would hate to have to debug the mess that would produce. And that's aside from possible security issues.

Please do not use this gem. SecureRandom.uuid has a sane (and standard) implementation.
Actually that's something I would like more about, Isn't easy for a company to hire a contractor in other country?

I've worked as contractor for companies in the U.S and Germany, normally I would just send them a receipt and received my money without problems in my bank (I did have to take care of the taxes in my country).
Less friction, established community, etc.
Dont do it unless you want to make inroads into academia or better your chances for working at Google/Microsoft/BigCorp. I have a BS with about 5-6 years of experience and I lead/manage a couple people with MS degrees. In other words Ive found that having an MS makes little difference as a signal to an employer in most cases if you already have a BS in CS. Your ability and connections seem to be the most important thing so if you think an MS will enhance either of those it might be worth it but it also could very well end up being money down the drain.
Why not both? http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/TmuxIntegration

iTerm2 can intelligently communicate with tmux in order to present splits and windows are handled by iTerm2, rather than within the single terminal window.
Yeah I've even seen pushback hiring from additional US states as there is more paperwork if the company doesn't already have employees there.
Why IDEO Encourages Its Employees To Switch Desks Once A Week
I'm a Canadian doing Android, BlackBerry 10, and other assorted dev work. I've done a mix of working remotely and working in the Bay Area. In fact, I'm here in the Bay Area right now. I don't mind a mix of the two, since it is straightforward for me to move back and forth. Most startups seem to like local workers, but it does vary.
I doubt OpsCode is getting much revenue from OpsWorks, or any, since AWS is giving it out for free. It's hard to compete with free. This tweet from OpsCode reads like they were blindsided and trying to catch up https://twitter.com/opscode/status/303941706888409089
Any coffee before lunch is just a placebo really

A tasty and enjoyable placebo that keeps me from getting a caffeine withdrawal headache.
It is a much better set up if the overseas worker can set up their own company, especially in the case of Brazil. Then the US company does not need to worry about any of this, they simply wire (via SWIFT) payments monthly, for example, and there is very little overhead to the US company.

In the case of Brazil, the worker is also better off in this set up in general, as they'll end up paying a corporate tax rate, which will be much lower.
Do you recall any examples of these bugs and poorly thought out user interface design?
+1 -- ex-opera employee
Want a summer internship where you ship code to millions in the first week?
Can you articulate more on your bad experiences? and why this experiences are overseas-only problems?
>How is the reliability of it? This professor had a data loss issue with the last version

I have experienced data loss with LibreOffice 3.5 on Linux several times when trying to save a freshly typed document as .rtf. I "solved" the problem by saving a blank document first and then adding more data to it. Oddly, that "fix" has worked with numerous programs through the years.

>keeping my creative works safe

I use LyX [1] and TiddlyWiki [2] for that. Uncompressed text formats are far easier to deal with in the long run and allow for better recovery of incomplete data in the case of a storage medium failure.

[1] A visual editor for LaTeX, see http://www.lyx.org/.

[2] A personal wiki, see http://tiddlywiki.com/.

Edit: expanded the post.
ZeroCater is hiring hackers
Look what just came across my radar a few minutes ago: https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/9328
Just search "remote" in http://hnhiring.com/
Progress Indicators as an Essential Part of Website
As for standard progress tracker design, it includes rather plain interface, simple outline fields to complete and a bit of graphics which are used website design.
Drones still face major communications challenges getting onto US airspace
Wheat is thought to be only be around 10,000 years old or so. If they were eating grains 100,000 years ago, it certainly wasn't what we are used to eating today.

Additionally, beer is considered by many to be the first significantly consumed product of grain. I don't think you could say modern day beer is completely free of any health side-effects. It gets the blame for quite a number of ailments.
Codecademy Partners With Twitter, Evernote, and Others To Offer New API Lessons
Typically, the updater runs about once a day. If you take another look, it will show the latest security update :) We're working very, very hard to guarantee that no updates go missed and ensure that you receive a notification within 24 hours of any update going out.

And while, yes, you can watch the RSS feed or Google group, do you really want to do that for Django and the other 29 libraries you use?
Do you have any data on that? Because I've seen a few (sample size ~4... so mine isn't useful data either) non-technical people doing this and in pretty much all of the cases what they wanted was to keep using the same software they'd been using for the past X years. Getting their "computer guy" (usually me, or some local teenager) to copy files over for them was their preferred way to move onto a new computer.
That completely made the difference, they should probably consider changing that.
First Bionic Hand That Can Feel
If I understand you correctly, you're wondering if you'll be able to install Ubuntu on all of your devices?

I don't think that is the model they are going for, and it really doesn't suit the mass market anyway. As I understand it, they are trying to provide the best experience so that manufacturers decide to use them as the OS platform for their devices. Then you'll just go out and buy Ubuntu devices. You don't actually install and select your OS.
Codecademy Partners With Twitter, Evernote, Box, And Others For New API Lessons
Dropzone.js - JS library for drag-and-drop file uploads with image previews
Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
On Reddit, just from this month alone, there have been some great AMAs that I personally think HN would be great participants in:

Stevin Levitt from Freakonomics http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18tp7t/i_am_steven_levitt_author_of_freakonomics_ask_me/

Bill Gates http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/

Peter Sunde of ThePirateBay http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/187iwo/i_am_peter_sunde_cofounder_of_tpb_ama/

SpaceX Software Engineers http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1853ap/we_are_spacex_software_engineers_we_launch/

Do you think this this is something we could start on HackerNews?
Yes, and I personally know someone who might be interested in doing one
Yes, but I don't think anyone interesting would participate
Maybe, as long as stayed civil and interesting
No, it would be a distraction from the core content
No, I don't think anyone interesting would participate
Oh wow, thanks for this, I didn't know the name had changed. So much for being such an advocate!
Thank you for the advice, the thought of this being one of the last chances to really spend time with my father has definitely been a big factor in my decision.
Fewer characters? :)

I dunno. I've done that in the past (actually using a separate init), too. Zile just seems simpler and it works fine for me. There's a billion ways to do things, it is hard to justify idiosyncrasies.

I think what started it was that I drastically simplified my emacs init file (used to be several files, very smart and thought-out but massive and filled with rarely-used stuff) and I found myself always popping into nano for quick edits to system files. Well this quickly got annoying as there were conflicting key bindings with emacs and my muscle-memory was causing frequent errors. So I googled an emacs-flavored nano and settled on the first one I tried. Then I aliased nano to 'echo "USE ZILE"' until that became second nature, too.
Isn't that what Quora was made for? To have longer Q&A style discussions with other HNers and (legitimate) technology celebrities?

Edit: I guess the downvotes mean I'm wrong?
Fair enough, I'm using:

Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 \n \l

Google Chrome
Version 24.0.1312.57

Not sure why the back button doesn't work. Great site/content though! Just a minor annoyance that I thought was on purpose.
Thanks, I will look into those.

I guess I should've been more clear. I've already been taught the fundamentals of a few languages (C++ and python mostly) in some first year classes. I'm just looking to take a few options to build on these without switching out of my math major.
Link to various Bitcoin markets: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/
Very true, I had thought about this before but somehow let it slip my mind over the last few months.

Thanks for the insight!
I use an anti-glare MBP outside. works great. Bought it for that purpose
Totally impressed by the Twilioboard. It's not a new way of monitoring your twilio, it's the best way!
I'm going to confess.. we Americans (I use the term "we" loosely..) often have a tendency to think that we're the center of the world, and everyone else out there on earth are no more than a bunch of barely literate savages, that at best, we have the divine obligation to go bomb, liberate, and introduce to democracy, freedom, and God. And our media reinforces this belief, so.. why consider otherwise. From the age of 4 years old, we're drilled with the doctrine of "We're #1!!" and hold our right hand over our hearts every day before school, and recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag http://www.wvsd.uscourts.gov/outreach/Pledge.htm

(my gf thought I was making this up)

So yes, there is a cultural barrier. No, its not fair.. neither is life. I hate it, and even as an American, its still a struggle for me to find remote jobs. But you know what? honestly? screw them. Money talks in the new age, and the rest of the world is catching up very very quickly
Probably not because of co-sleeping, many researches think that co-sleeping shows a correlation without actual causality.
List of reserved usernames to prevent url squatting
iirc the PHP explicitly states that these are not true random
Seriously. Python has plenty of good points to cite in its favor, but "lack of fanboys" is not one of them...
Having digital money go missing certainly feels like getting robbed. I'd be pissed if some ignored my inquires. A situation like this is why God invented email and SMS alerts.

Disclaimer: amorphid is full of $#it. I did not invent email and SMS alerts. I was having too fun thinking up a sequel to the duck billed platypus to worry about digital communication.

-God

P.S. Love of money is still evil, but I gotta admit Bitcoin is pretty cool.
It is really nice to have the original author show up and comment on something like this.

After looking at this site I started thinking about ways of crawling the whole database. The 500-record limit would make an alphabet tree crawl a bit more challenging but not too bad. Do you think the state agency would be amenable to requests for bulk download?

[edit] just saw your post which answered most of my questions while I was typing them.
Ha. Quora's signin/signup wall is enough for me not to use it.
> You ingest caffeine only in the morning.

I have slept so much better since switching to decaf[1]. I do miss a good coffee, but then some cafes do a good decaf and I'm quite happy drinking instant (decaf) coffee; it's also saving me a load of money[3].

> You avoid alcohol in the evening.

So it's OK in the morning then? Oh, I see.

1. Most decaf is not completely caffeine free but it's generally 10% (at most) of the caffeine.[2]
2. And I've never really drunk Coca-Cola or anything other soft drinks with caffeine in them.
3. An £8 a (work) day coffee habit is close to two years off my mortgage.
Without Android API the skills of existing Android developers (well, the platform-specific part) are irrelevant.

Java otherwise is a lackluster language with VM that still has 64K bytecode segments in 21st century, owned by a particular corporation seemingly intent on driving it into the ground. There is no reason using it with a clean start.
Enterprise dramatically out-performing Consumer
Or if there's actually a history of web frameworks doing behind-the-scenes coordination and watching each other's backs... oh wait, that's not as good a gossip narrative. Never mind.
I'm not sure, but I couldn't figure it out. In the end, I had a coworker print off a copy of the document from Word, and just kept that on my desk.
Software update knocks out space station communications
Really like the idea!Funny thing is I always advised people to do this when I worked at a web hosting company but somehow never actually got my own father to implement this in his business...time to practice what I once preached.

Thank you!
If Higgs Boson Calculations Are Right, A 'Bubble' Could End Universe
Why this poll? I'm sure there'd be no problem if tomorrow morning we see "I'm #{@name}, founder of #{@awesome_thing}, AMA".
I agree that the common presentation of cohort data is clunky. That's why I built this tool with d3js to visualize cohorts as stacked bars:

http://bslatkin.github.com/cohorts/

"Impact maps" are too blurry in my experience; they assume your traffic is normal and predictable. Cycle plots are fun to look at, but in practice the lines are too volatile to make a pretty chart.
It doesn't sound like the law is quite that strict:
"California law requires a business or state agency to notify any California resident whose unencrypted personal information, as defined, was acquired, or reasonably believed to have been acquired, by an unauthorized person. "

http://oag.ca.gov/ecrime/databreach/reporting
I like the idea of having AMAs here in HN.
Are you sure? We are talking about children that after autopsy are not found with a clear cause of death. See the wikipedia page about that.