skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Someone once said to me (I can't really remember who) "Good code does not need comments, it should be easy enough to understand without them, if not then it is bad code."

I think that if the code is not easy to understand without heavy commenting then the problem may even be the quality and not the lack of comments.

Most code I write does not have much comments, they are mostly API documentation or the reason why I did something in a specific way, other than that I feel like they are useless, they don't add value, the variable and method names are and should be enough to know that they do or represent.
As I said in another post, I grew up in Singapore. I've been in Australia now for a decade or so.

I prefer having more freedoms to less, but in retrospect I quite like the way of life there. There's nothing that I do or have done that would have landed me in trouble in Singapore.

So for a lot of these average people, it's great.
Nope, I'm wrong. I think actually nytimes has been changing stuff recently, but I just reproduced a case where I was blocked even by emailing myself the link. Pasting the link into Google still works tho.
There is a simple solution: don't punish the bank, punish individual bankers.

Don't revoke license, so the world does not collapse, instead make decision makers lose sleep.
That sort of thing leads to investor panics and possibly social instability. Go to the Wall Street Journal website and read the comments on any political story. there's a large number of people who are convinced that Obama is a full-blown Communist and just waiting for his chance to go down the same path as Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez etc.

That's why it's safer o work through legislative means. People have wildly distorted ideas about the executive branch.

EDIT: see, for example, one of the sibling comments here.
Really? I lose interest with those I have nothing in common with. For me, there is nothing quite as exhilarating like meeting someone whom you feel is wired the same way you are, whether they are a friend or romantic partner.

I was a Meeteor user, albeit an inactive one -- I don't remember receiving emails engaging me or asking me to come back, so I forgot about it over time. That said, I signed up in the first place because this is indeed a pain point for me and many others I know. At the time, I had just moved to a new city and was having a hard time making friends (basically, I didn't have the balls to attend classes, meetups, etc. by myself) so I saw products like Meeteor as providing a great solution. Even now, I would love to expand my circle of girlfriends but in an industry filled with men, it's been hard to find like-minded females who happen to share similar interests.
A locked bootloader is just another hurdle which those guys didn't opt to attack, but might not stop others. It's been shown that it is possible to bypass locked bootloaders:
-> Shortcut specific pcb pins to force USB booting on Exynos devices (c.f. unbrickable mod and similar, http://www.xda-developers.com/android/explaining-and-advanci...)
Yep, must have been discrimination, because we all know women can never be better candidates unless there's something else going on.

It's not that women can never be better candidates, it is merely that this is unlikely.

Consider a set of applications, 20% of which come from women (fairly typical numbers, from what I've read). Assume women and men are equally skilled. If 30 interns are selected without bias, the odds of choosing at least 60% women (18/30) is quite small:

In [1]: from scipy.stats import binom
In [2]: rv = binom(30, 0.2)
In [3]: 1-rv.cdf(0.60*30)
Out[3]: 2.8432472531925157e-07

So unless the applicant pool was extremely unusual, it is unlikely that a pool of 2/3 women was selected due to merit.

Anyone have more exact numbers to plug into this calculation? Perhaps kamens can give us some more exact numbers?

(Of course, in a much smaller applicant pool, e.g. 6 students, you might arrive at results like this due to random chance.)
The x86 android emulator with the intel HAX thing isn't too bad, already.
Fogcreek and Google's interview process both seem to yield a far larger number of male employees than females yes?

David, Dylan and Jamie are all men yes?

If any piece of evidence from the above points to an organization that values quotas over excellence in interns and the work expected of them, well please raise the alarm.

No one is accusing you of using quotas and no is saying you do not value excellence in interns. What's being asked is why was there such a steep increase in the number of female
interns accepted? Were there more female applicants? Were interview questions changed?
How did this result come about?
Eminent Domain is a very real and oft-used legal power that is given, especially by individual states in the US to seize property for whatever "public use" those governments deem worthy, including (but not limited to) road widening, infrastructure (sewer, electric, telecom fibre) improvements, and even private enterprise that trumps individual rights "for the greater good".

Please don't think that China holds exclusive dominion over such a concept.
We're always looking for solid developers with API experience at matchist (http://matchist.com/talent).
The article said,

"So now you owe an extra 10% on your $40K salary which is $4K. And you also owe 35% on that $50k which is around $18K."

Based on the numbers, this is clearly a misunderstanding of how tax brackets work, and not anything to do with the AMT.
Angels: Questions for Entrepreneurs, part IV
This is a nice proof showcasing an important idea, but for this particular theorem I prefer the beautiful constructive proof found by Liouville. It can be sketched in a few paragraphs, so let me do that.

0. The basic idea is to show that an algebraic number -- i.e., one that's a root of a polynomial with integer coefficients -- can't be very well approximated by rational numbers ... and then to construct a number that can be very well approximated by rational numbers.

1. Suppose you've got a polynomial p, of degree d, with integer coefficients. Let x be one of its roots, and let a/b be any rational number. How close can it be to x? Well, let's ask a slightly different question: how close can p(a/b) be to 0? Answer: it's always (some integer)/b^d, and unless x actually equals a/b that integer isn't zero, so is >=1 or <=-1; so abs(poly(rational)) >= 1/denominator^degree.

2. OK, so how close can a/b be to x? Well, roughly speaking the ratio between p(a/b)-0 (which we know isn't too small) and a/b-x (which is what we care about) is close to p'(x), provided a/b is close to x. So (after filling in the details) we find that: if x is a root of an integer polynomial of degree d then there's a constant C such that every rational number has abs(rational-x) >= C denominator^d.

3. Now let's construct a number that is better-approximated by rationals than that allows. Specifically, take a decimal that looks like 0.110001000... where the spacing between the 1s grows very fast. The traditional thing is to take 10^-1! + 10^-2! + 10^-3! + ... so let's do that. Then truncating after 10^-k! leaves an error that's approximately 10^-(k+1)!; in other words we have a rational number with denominator N=10^k! and an error on the order of N^(k+1), so for any integer polynomial of degree d, once k gets somewhat larger than d this approximation is "too good", so this number can't be a root of that polynomial. So it can't be the root of any integer polynomial; in other words, it's transcendental.
Step 1: Write a .dll that interposes on common windows controls used to display EULA messages.

Step 2: Whenever this .dll sees common EULA agreements, it randomly modifies them before displaying them. Changes "SHALL" to "SHALL NOT", changes "GPL" to "Public Domain", changes "may not be duplicated" to "ok to post to piratebay", etc.

Step 3: Embed this DLL in a self-replicating, self-destroying virus/worm. It spreads, stays on a computer for a random amount of time, then erases all evidence it was ever there.

Step 4: "Your honor, there's no way of knowing what I agreed to, since there is no permanent record and the current license does not match what I remember. Perhaps I had the EULA-modifying virus at the time."
Show HN: Zeitkit - Swiss Army knife for freelance developers.
Considering the way Python people have been trolling most every Perl discussion for the last few years when I've been on HN, I feel like I'm in orbit compared to people in the mud...

I might also note that I got two non sequitur answers in a row, so a joke like that is imho not an extreme reaction. Hardly as sarcastic as you was over a joke, at least...

Edit: I might also note that this article (76 votes) is 5 places below another roughly equally old article (8 hours) with 13 votes. So it is probably flagged to Hell. I do feel classy, compared to some others.
> I don't think much of slippery slope arguments.

They are already closing the "analog loophole" everywhere else with HDCP and DRM enabled theater projectors, it's pretty clear that's where "content owners" want to be.
She does get a straight answer. Regulators don't sue; they have a steady-state relationship with the banks where their concerns are addressed with consent decrees. Lawsuits are insanely expensive in the best of cases, but they're worse when you're suing a megabank, because the suit impacts the broader economy.

It is a little disingenuous for Warren to act surprised about this. She knows not only why regulators don't sue, but also how unlikely it is that we're going to start doing that (it'd be economically irrational for us to do so).

Her heart is in the right place. Too Big To Fail is a real problem. But if you've got a bunch of wasp nests in your back yard, you don't fix the problem by jamming sharp sticks into them.
Mr. Obama, I had no idea you were a HNer!
And what I'm asking you is: can you come up with any possible explanations for an increase in women devs over time that should be celebrated, especially at an organization that values equal education for everyone, without first wondering if our interview questions have changed?
Sorry, unless you either open-source all your code so anyone can pick up the pieces once you are unwilling or unable to continue or you show me the part of the business that details your contingency plan, this is just sweet talk.
I think it's an interesting question of time. Quake I came out june 1996; so, html5 is almost* capable of doing a 16 year old game. This... is interesting from a data point perspective.

There is an open question as to how html5 now compares to native some years ago since that's how (for gaming) it should be judged. I believe we will reach a limit point and in the long term, maybe the browser-related inefficiencies will just be marginal to the end user experience.

* mouse look is really what is missing.
I know, but those are sensors. That's a very different issue from weapons which can kill you. I think they should be in different bills.
> Eventually Google will render this obsolete.

If you have a smartphone, it already has. You can get around with no problem if you have Google Maps.
But, does that matter?

Do we need all the power a PC provides natively to make great games?
I would like to meet this person. We need more people building electron microscopes in their garages. Could you hook me up?
If your're curious about the power button on your old iPhone, here is an image of the flex cable: http://phonedoctors.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_5133.jpg

The top left piece is what is pressed by the external power button. The small black dot is raised, and wears down over time, eventually failing to make contact with the external button. The cable just needs to be replaced and can be found online for ~$5.
Data mining is new lobbying gold
Pickagenius-  Helps you with expert advice on anything
Short version: "Buy my stuff and I'll donate to a good cause".

Disclaimer:
I love and use namecheap and think they're one of the best registrars. But this is cheap marketing pitch.
I don't see how this could be helpful. Does the author imply that there exists only one branching and merging strategy for any CVS?
Assuming men and women are equally skilled is a big assumption. Given that few women enter CS, and many who do leave, it would not be surprising to find that the remaining women who have not been selected out somehow are in fact more skilled than the average male engineer.
I would suggest making the fitness function more complex. I think its a bit confusing to see the optimal result be equal to the fitness function's parameters, and it makes it easier to miss the point.
Ask HN: Anyone hiring entry level positions? (NY,SF,Canada)
Hey HN. So I just graduated and was planning to do an internship but it kinda fell through at the last minute so now I am looking for employment (entry level/internship).

I am currently in SF so if you are in the area I'd be happy to just stop by and chat :) I am looking for a job in SF area, NY area or Canada. I am Canadian so I understand I would have to relocate, but I really want to do that if it is not an issue.

About me:

I just graduated from university with an honors in Computer Science. So far my experience consists of projects I have worked on myself. I learn easily, am passionate and creative, and love getting things done.

I work mainly in JS,NodeJS/Meteor, C/++, Ruby/Rails, and have done things on the front and backend. I would not say I am an expert in these, but am comfortable with them and will be continually developing the skill.

My Github: https://github.com/jonovono/

And I few of my main projects:

http://tunesicles.com : A music web app I made to make it easy to search for songs/albums and play them quickly with youtube. Made with NodeJS. I used Nginx, monit and other technologies.

http://tunes.meteor.com : Another music site I made to learn MeteorJS.

http://urconnecting.com : HubChilla clone. A site made for the University of Regina. Basically a chat roulette for SMS.

http://github.com/Jonovono/C : A script for giving comments to files/folders in the terminal.

Thanks! At the very least I would be up to meet some people while here in SF or stop by some cool offices! I could relocate / start pretty much immediately.

Email me: me@jonovono.com (My name is Jordan)
Can you come up with any possible explanation period? You're dodging my question.
Clickable:
http://github.com/jonovono/

http://tunesicles.com

http://tunes.meteor.com

http://urconnecting.com

http://github.com/Jonovono/C
I am not sure whether this is what the parent meant. I mean one way of looking at it is that the more people from completely different backgrounds do things, the more interesting the work gets. E.g. it is possible that some people (teens, women) have a better perspective on solving some problems that affect them more.

I generally support the success of more people from varied backgrounds in tech. Mainly because it makes for a wider variance in problems that get solved. It gets tiring to see every startup out there that solves problems for 20 something people who live in San Francisco (who incidentally might be male, asian/white...). This does not however mean that I ascribe to the idea that one should impose quotas or have lower standards for people who don't fit in these demographics.
I'm confused. Doesn't this book by Cory have DRM?

http://www.amazon.com/Homeland-ebook/dp/B00AEC8O2K

If he's so hot on this issue, why is he selling his creativity with DRM, thereby hurting open standards which don't support it?
If you are a decision maker, though, that decision can come back and bite you in the ass.
>>Ruby code to Haskell

Uh... different paradigms. The scripting languages, which we are talking about here, are generally very similar.

>> I welcome examples of where anonymous functions are unable to be replaced by local functions passed by reference.

Where did I write "unable" -- did I disprove some Turing machine theorem and forget about it? :-)

In this specific case it was a declarative data structure with some data next to code. It was well suited to have a dozen or two short functions next to the data structures.

You could rethink the whole thing and do something different in Python to keep it readable. But among the normal languages (in the same paradigm), Python is the odd man out, just because of the lack of multi line lambdas.

(I also gave the example of bad influences on map, etc.)
The colon at the end of the first line was intended to map the first text string to the last text string of my original post. So, you're right, and sorry for the confusing grammar.
As a hiring manager for over a decade, I can't recall the last time I received a resume from a qualified female applicant for a full-time software position.

Internships tend to be a bit less one-sided, but the skew is still quite high.

This sucks. I want to receive those resumes, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I don't ever receive them.

Given that, I can't help but wonder whether:

1) You have a completely different applicant pool

or

2) You somehow changed your application process in a way that resulted in a 2:1 female:male ratio.

I don't think those are terrible questions to have. The answers could be enlightening.
It is interesting to view this as a situation in which some
development has had such wide-spread and continued success
in some environment that that very success delays the adoption
of some later better(?) development in that environment.

wired land-line telephony in the US vs. mobile in Africa

personal checks in the US vs. EFTs in the EU & cell credit in Africa

NAT vs. ipv6

automobiles in the US vs. effective public transit
$173,178.78 Shoes on Amazon: 5 Star Review?
Searchpath lets you quickly embed an elegant ‘popover’ search box on your site
So download the latest Python 2.7.x source code and install it yourself. Python is extremely easy and quick to build from source on Linux.
android-x86 is already very usable in qemu.
"Our mission is to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web."

It's not clear to me that FireFox OS has done anything for Mozilla's mission. Indeed, the Firefox OS home page seems to indicate Firefox's goal is to provide carriers and OEMs with an alternative to Android, and help them maintain customer relationships. WTF? Open source vendor lockin?
HN Monthly hiring posts
Will EMEs be a new attack surface for security exploits? Who will be creating them and will we be able to rely on them to fix bugs responsibly and in a timely manner?
Doesn't seem to work for me

sender$ tar -c awesome.jpg | nc -l 0.0.0.0 12345

(waiting forever)

recipient$ nc 255.255.255.255 12345 | tar -x

tar: This does not look like a tar archive

tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
Libor TLDR: "Organizations set their interest rates to a random number that some banks came up with. The banks changed how they came up with the number without telling anyone, and the organizations got mad because it caused them to lose money while the banks made money."
Well, sorry, if I offended you, but really, do you feel "personally insulted"? Because I made a pretty generic argument in both cases.

Is there a better definition for a moron than that of someone who shares "simplistic ideas"?

Come to think of it, isn't "simpleton" a synonym for moron?

So, yes, "sharing ideas" makes you a moron, if the ideas are moronic (as it often happens with quoted "wisdom"), or they consist of soundbites that have been shared to death (as it also happens more often than not).

How else would you call the guy in the office that emails everybody the same BS hoaxes, "funny powerpoints" and "inspirational quotes"?
Are tech internships a big enough deal with people to merit this controversy? Don't tell me you need to participate in one these days to break into the industry(if so, that's sad).
From the forum main page:

"Join the conversation. Share tips and solutions with fellow Apple product users from all around the world."

So, no.

If you have an iPhone 4S and your WiFi doesn't work after a software update, DON'T follow the instructions in that discussion thread. There's some really bad advice in there, like putting your phone in an oven or a freezer. Instead, make a tethered backup, then contact Apple to get your phone repaired or replaced.
Methods of Proof — Direct Implication
Apple's Podcast Disaster
Dropbox works the same way, doesnt it?
Actually, GAs are mostly described as global search algorithms, because they use populations with recombination and therefore simultaneously consider potentially disparate areas of the search space.
>Stop writing comments, stop writing blog posts and stop doing anything at all because you know: you're not better than anyone.

Oh, you say it ironically, but oh boy, how fortunate we would be if more people took this advice. Including the author, me, and you.

I'm pretty sure we are all familiar with the StN ratio in information theory.
One of the commonly-stated reasons for why discrimination persists in a field is that people making hiring decisions are biased. They might not know that they're biased, but they have some notions about the kind of people they want to see working for their company, and they disproportionately hire those people. This is quite an insidious form of discrimination because it's hard to prove, but it is possible to catch people out - for instance if they display a preference for talking to or dealing with male colleagues over female ones, or give more rewards, perks or encouragement to male colleagues. There doesn't need to be a "guys only" sign above the door for this to be a discriminatory environment.

Now, the original "Girls, girls, girls" post talks about how "super exciting" it is for KA to have hired twice as many female interns as male ones, how the women at KA network together, how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is advocated. I know what Jessica was trying to say there, but damn if it didn't wind up looking somewhat like the stuff I described in my first paragraph. Now, I do not believe that KA has done anything wrong, but I don't think it's unreasonable for some people to question this.

This (as I post every time there's a sexism thread, I really should just get a blog or something) is all controversial because people are applying different ethical rules. Some people are applying deontological ethics, which says that there are rules about how to behave, and we should follow those rules (e.g. don't discriminate based on gender). They look at the "Girls, girls, girls" post and see things that look like they might break the rules against doing the stuff I described in my first paragraph. They're not actually looking at the "big picture" because they don't believe that, philosophically speaking, the ends can be used to justify the means. If bias is wrong, being biased in favour of a minority group is still wrong, in this view.

There's another more pragmatic view, which says that we should care mostly about outcomes, especially if no particularly great harms are being inflicted in order to achieve better outcomes. Although I generally lean more towards the rule-based view, in this case, I think KA is pretty clearly producing a good outcome and even if there is some bias[1] then it's not really the end of the world. But I wouldn't condemn or insult someone who thought differently.

[1] A key point about bias and discrimination is that people aren't (and often can't be!) aware of their own biases. If people from KA want to claim that they're totally without bias, that's going to make it hard to accuse other people of bias in the future. This is, sadly, just a Hard Problem and the various problems inherent in solving it are why we keep having lengthy discussions like this.
Thanks a lot for this!!! Keep up the good work!