skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Mmmm, describing 50 Mbps down as "okay for rural areas" doesn't really mesh with reality.

Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with <10 Mbps, if they can get broadband at all.

If you know any region in the world which isn't densely populated, but where every home (not just 1 or 2) has 50 Mbps download, I'd love to read about it. I know of a handful of self-starter village communities which are doing this (e.g. B4RN in the UK), and that's about it.
The Quantified Man: How an Obsolete Tech Guy Rebuilt Himself for the Future
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/944/~/bringing-....

(Says canned, cooked, shelf stable pork only. Must be in commercial packaging with labeling to that effect.)
"Among other things" is one equivalent. Note that inter alia is a phrase, so you should probably be asking for an equivalent phrase and not a word.
I think that question about why manhole covers are round is more of a urban legend than anything else. Or it might be a question asked to someone applying for a non-technical role, to see how they reason about the issue (though it is most definitely not the best question to achieve so).
Using a Hosts File To Make The Internet Not Suck As Much
Show HN: Primer - The base coat for your Django app
Because we live in a society where we've empowered the majority to make decisions like this. We reap the benefits when it turns out well, we should share the blame when it turns out poorly.
Tegra 3 is over a year old. Not sure why MS picked it for their tablet considering its age, but its an ancient chip by mobile standards. The Transformer Prime was released in the US in Jan 2012. It had a tegra 3.
awesome quote, thanks so much.
If you can't do anything about it, don't waste cycles on it.

I think the point is that you can do something about it - it just requires stepping out of the engineering midset for moment now and then. I've seen this fatalistic attitude frequently, both in software developers and "real" engineers (mechanical, electrical, etc). It's not healthy for the engineer or the organization, and I can't quite figure out where the attitude comes from.
Indeed, some of them are basic optimization techniques that experienced jQuery users have 'discovered' over the years (through Google or otherwise) and they are essential to creating high-quality web applications.

Having a central resource is obviously a boon to the entirety of the community and it reduces the barrier to entry, and I personally know some designers (who get by on the bare minimum of jQuery knowledge) that would benefit greatly from this service.
I've been on both sides of the hiring process - and most recently was going through the interview process again as I sought out my next opportunity. One thing that stood out to me was the way companies would approach the white boarding or coding challenges. While I agree with the articles issue with coding up a specific question (especially when it is yet another fizz-buzz - even if it has a twist to it) - the puzzle style interview can provide some kind of insight in to the thought process behind someones work. One company in particular really stood out by having a great white boarding exercise that not only was entertaining, but offered a decent amount of a challenge that it really made them a frontrunner in my final decision making process. A good coding interview can be beneficial not only to the hiring company, but can also give decent insight in to how the company works for the interviewee - and that is something that should be equally important if you are trying to attract talent.
is there any well known data/studies on selection methods for programmers?

I can understand the reasons why not to use algo problems as a filter, but I would have thought simpler forms of intelligence testing would still be quite useful.
> Of course, you could always take smart people and train them - but seriously, who does that anymore?

The companies who get tired of whining that there is no tech talent to hire.
If you want to learn to code outside of work you could look at www.bloc.io - it's a bit pricey, but they reckon they can get you to be a pretty decent programmer in 12 weeks. I'm definitely looking to join one of their intakes later this year.
sorry, but how the heck is skunkworks being associated? maybe it's a lie.
But this popping up elsewhere:
http://americansecurityproject.org/blog/2013/lockheed-martin...
I've seen the video, and know that overall its good advice.

I think though, depending on various factors, that playing 'nice' can definitely get you further than stonewalling the cop. It all depends what you (potentially) did, who you are (being a white, upper middle class male doesn't hurt), and what you think the worse-case scenario will be.
Employer told me "We do hardcore stuff!"
come on really hardcore?! I would really love to post their apps here but I'm not that kind of person.
Hiring smart people and training them is definitely more of an Ops route than it is a development route. That's how I got my job as a Linux admin, I worked in tech support and learned a bunch then got promoted. I was already ahead of the curve anyway, but I was definitely not qualified to be an admin before my stint in tech support.
The symbols aren't the same, one is a mirror of the other
And where is Microsoft in this picture?

It turns out that Microsoft has been utterly crushed, worldwide, by the free software Linux kernel That underlays android.
Exactly. I never ask those questions. I ask practical problems that we solve every day here. Some are simplified of course.

Also I don't try to be confrontational, I take the "let's solve this together". That often puts them at ease and makes for a better experience and a more productive interview.

Now it is still an interview and the selection process could be brutal but this way I get the most _relevant_ knowledge and information about the applicant in the shortest amount of time.
Add to that a government assisted monopoly on "medicine"
Do you think you can elaborate a little more on the exercise that you find interesting?
I remember actually working on some of the puzzles that were posted by ITA in the Boston MBTA subway. I didn't submit them (since I wasn't interested in working at ITA) but they introduced me to interesting problems. For example, there was a problem related to generating rebusses* whose solution contributed to the solution to another problem I was working on.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus
If I was given a logic puzzle I would ask them "so how many times in the last year this company had to solve this particular puzzle here?".
All great and well spending 20-40 hours trying someone out to see if they are a good fit, but this is only practical once you are down to a very short list of final candidates.

Nothing is said about how you actually get to this final list and that of course is where the real challenge lies.
Intel wasn't "fixing" power consumption, but rather it simply wasn't a critical requirement: The CPU was often a small part of the overall platform power consumption, and people favoured performance over efficiency.

Obviously tablets and mobile devices change that equation, so Intel adapted. Intel is in a difficult situation with their products however in that one of their biggest concerns is competing with themselves too much.

Regarding the GPUs, Apple doesn't have the fastest mobile GPU - PowerVR from Imagination Technologies does. Intel can use a PowerVR SGX554MP4 if they wanted to integrate it. Is it better than an HD 4000? I honestly have no idea as I've never seen them actually compared (and note that the best mobile GPUs have miserable performance compared to discrete desktop GPUs, so don't assume that because the HD 4000 doesn't compete with a $400 gaming card that it can't compete with an Adreno or PowerVR).

EDIT: Just blew my mind to learn that the HD 4000 on the Intel SoC is a PowerVR GPU.
I agree. The only advantage the theater has now is the release date. Torrents have mostly taken care of that advantage for those who know where to look.
I suppose the lesson learned is always pay for your own attorney, even if it is just to review what the other guy's lawyer did.

This also caught a lot of people in the housing boom, when mortgage companies didn't properly explain terms to people and then had them use an attorney the mortgage company paid for. More than one person had the question "what's a balloon payment?" 5 years after the mortgage was signed.

My only advice going forward would be to see your own attorney over this, preferably one that has experience in company formation and dissolution. Take all of the paperwork with you, as well as contact info for the other guy's attorney.
Probably Fortran.
And a doctor doesn't necessarily have to be fit and healthy.
I think it's the opposite. If the first thing you confront me with in your interview process is a puzzle and I don't know anything about your IT department, I'm going to assume that all your managers are pointy-haired bosses.
The "lets solve this together" approach is always great - I've had people simply give up and not ask any further questions - those are generally "pass" situations. I rather see someone be genuinely interested in how to solve the question - the more questions they ask, the more I will be willing to help them, and the better they will actually do in the interview.
Entirely an informational note, but the manhole-covers question actually originated at Microsoft if I recall correctly. There are several references to it around the web, and at least one primary source confirmation by an interviewer that he used the question on multiple occasions [1].

That said, the fact that it was first introduced by a highly successful company doesn't lend it any merit in my book.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bgroth/archive/2004/09/27/235071.asp...
Film studios don't make films: directors and producers do.

The general public has, in general, no clue about how the movie industry actually works. That extends to random HN commenters.

In this case, though, you're right.
They maintain a fresh, honest, pragmatic view of software development and engineering. Those are qualities people can aspire to and identify with.
I've never actually seen that happen. This is what happens:

1) Large companies will import H1Bs and/or open development offices in India and similar.

2) Startups will have the founders learn to code (this often ends well), or they will outsource the development work (this often ends badly).

3) Companies will hang outside universities at graduation/trade shows and try to grab promising students (this is mainly restricted to top tier universities)

You may have good examples of it happening though?
Lisp and prolog are old languages that have had their day and largely been marginalized by more practical ones. Prolog was intended for AI and NLP but overtime the rigid grammar approaches have been obsoleted by statistical ones with far greater success. These days AI and NLP are more commonly found in java or python. Watson, for example, is written in java. Lisp is great for things like genetic algorithms because there's no distinction between code and data, it's a homoiconic language.
hey, cool :)
Minicons: A Beautiful Icon Pack That Suits Bootstrap's Style
Pascal maybe, or Algol
Eh, being able to understand stacks and queues, big-O, etc and problem solving are important things, but otherwise agree that software construction skills are important as well as understanding tradeoffs bottlenecks, networking etc.
Two of the most painful experiences in my life (ok- slight exaggeration) came in engineering school. One was watching the first time we were asked to make powerpoint presentations (they were transparencies, actually, but same diff). The other was reading the first papers we wrote in our "writing for engineers" class.

In both cases, sitting there and watching was excruciating in that "holy crap this is awful, just make it stop for the sake of the poor guy" kind of way.

But you know what? Some of us got better at it - the ones who made an effort. This made me realize that we do not force enough liberal arts on engineers in school. In fact, I was prohibited from taking many art classes - I got no credit towards my degree for them because they were perceived as "soft". That is crazy.
A rehash of an old joke, not done particularly well.

Basically, his theory is that any Distributed Social Network can/should be dismissed. Also, screw you for trying.

The (original?) SPAM version had more interesting reasons, and also, SPAM largely HAS be solved, at least compared to when it was originally penned.

So, I appreciate the effort put into writing this, but I think it detracts from conversation more than assists.
Glad to see it online, but a 444 year old book on Alexander the Great is still ~ 2,000 behind when he lived.
I was at my daughter's end of term assembly last week, and a younger sibling from another family was getting tetchy.

I had your Matroska (sp?) game on my phone and she loved it, and I got to hear the assembly :-)
This is especially funny considering that before generics where introduced into the language, the granularity of Java's type system when it comes to containers was essentially, "Well, everything is an Object...". Thus not only was it not the first statically typed language, but for some very basic stuff the type system had to be effectively circumvented, whereby one lost all the advantages of static typing.

(Of course, C has its void pointers for the same purpose...)
This article is kind of disappointing.

> Between 2007 and 2011, pre-tax profits of the five studios controlled by large media conglomerates (Disney, Universal, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros) fell by around 40%, says Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley.

Mass-market luxury industry takes hit during largest recession since Great Depression. News at 11.

>In 2011 American cinemas sold 1.28 billion tickets, the smallest number since 1995. Last year, ticket sales rose back to 1.36 billion and box-office revenues to a record $10.8 billion

So the year over year volatility is in the single digits and following the economic recovery they're back to making record profits.

It seems like the only point the article makes is that that TV is doing better than film right now. But that isn't "movies are doomed," just "TV is doing really well."

>A move from analogue to digital film enabled perfectionist directors to shoot more takes and touch them up afterward, using up expensive production and editing time. Studios have also started to make more “tent pole” films: big releases that can support the bottom line like a pole holds up a tent. These typically rely on expensive special effects, rather than compelling scripts, to attract a global audience.

Jevon's effect in action. The thing is, that's not actually a problem: If you're making more profit from doing that than it costs to do it, it's sustainable. If you're not, why are you doing it? Stop it and go back to creating a larger number of less expensive films based on compelling scripts rather than special effects. It seems to be what people are asking for anyway. You can't simultaneously expect to be taken seriously in complaining that what you're doing isn't working and refuse to change what you're doing.

They keep talking about John Carter as a failure. I saw it. It wasn't great. And the reason wasn't bad acting or bad special effects, it was that it had a mediocre script. So yeah, try hiring some better writers next time. They apparently cost less than special effects anyway. 

>Between 2006 and 2012, the six big studios also cut the number of films they made by 14-54%, according to Nomura.

And then they wonder why they're not doing as well as they want to.

>And they started to pay actors and directors far less.

It's about time. Hard to find sympathy for "we're not making enough money" when you're still paying eight figure compensation to individuals.
Matching Marketing Tactics to The Sales Funnel
Seeing as the Internet Archive operates out of the US and their employees may likely be US-based, I don't think the humor is unwarranted.
Firewall.
Why do people use color schemes when programming, is it cause it looks cool, do they think it makes them more productive, is it cause some people insist on it makes it easier to read code? None of these statements have been proved as far I know, so why?
According to the page, it's neither a framework, nor a library - isn't that a bit counterintuitive? That makes it sounds as if it is beyond any of the existing styles of code reuse in software development, which is not the case.

I'm sure many would identify it as a library in the classical sense, since it is a bundle of code you include in your application and make calls to.
How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers
On one hand I would love to - and on the other hand I don't want to give this companies interview question away out in the open. If you want, you can email me (email is in my profile) and I would be more than happy to share it directly!
Great Teachers Watch Film
Spidey-sense suit tingles when someone gets too close
Even though there are plenty of online whiteboarding tools, I'm pretty sure 37signals can afford to fly someone in for an interview. To say the lack of asking whiteboarding questions because they work remotely is absurd.
After interviewing at Google, I've ever been asked whom I already know there.
Is hexagonal.js basically a very simple state machine framework? :) E.g., https://github.com/pluginaweek/state_machine
Yes, the variable definitions page leaves me scratching my head. Not sure what it's doing under performance. Surely that's a matter of your personal coding style and I'm not sure a jQuery tutorial site should be so dogmatic about how you choose to define your variables when there's negligible performance impact either way. Although JSLint loves to complain about the "old & busted" style, grouping variable definitions together with commas goes against the principle that inserting a new line of code anywhere should be "safe". If you paste in a new variable definition statement with a semicolon in the midst of a group of comma-separated lines, you're going to break things.

The bit on "clever conditionals" is rubbish as well. Not only are the "better" ways much slower, they're much harder to read. I opened an issue for this one: https://github.com/jquery/learn.jquery.com/issues/258
It's kind of an interesting viewpoint; how do you handle being 'crowded out' of a project? For example, if you started as the sole worker on something internal, but then it became customer-facing, and the team necessarily had to expand to get the work done. I can appreciate saying that you only get 10% of the work done if you're on a team, but you don't honestly think you can achieve as much as a ten man team? What about when more than 10 people are required?

I guess my question is, as a self-identified 'solitary worker', would you take it upon yourself to leave a project if it reached a point where team expansion was necessary? Is there any good way to manage someone like you to get you to contribute to a larger project, or if it a lost cause?
My user friendly GNU/Linux desktop
Intel never had any lead what so ever in this sector. Compar ing ARM chips in the mobile sector against previous generation Atoms is like comparing a laptop to a oct-core Xeon. They are different chips for different markets.

Unless you're talking about Z-class atoms (and almost no one actually does), the older Atoms (ie: D525 or N575) were netbookclass 10-Watt processors.

Intel hasn't even made an Atom on their most advanced process node yet. Intel's advanced factories are too busy selling Destkop and Laptop i5s or i7s to the masses. Clovertrail a 32nm design, while an Ivy Bridge (which came out months ago) is a 22nm design.

While yes, you're right. The Atom barely compares to the ARM chips... it also isn't Intel's best shot at the issue quite yet. Perhaps Intel doesn't have the smarts to execute a full scale attack at the mobile market, or maybe they're satisfied with their desktop / laptop sales... But whatever the reason, creating Atoms on older processes puts them at a self-inflicted disadvantage in the marketplace.

When Intel actually brings their A-game to the mobile market, I'll be watching.
> and a lot of the more academic questions

It is on purpose. A <bigcompany> recruiter confessed. He said they are specifically targeting recent grads. So plenty of questions are of that type.

I guess they want to indoctrinate and take advantage of them while they are "fresh".

> did like the question I was asked about how I'd design an elevator system and then asked how my solution would scale. That's not too far off from what I'd be doing, albeit in an abstract form.

That would piss me off though too. "So does Amazon write algorithms for its elevators?". Why not just simplify a problem they solve. "So you have key value storage and you want to make it distributed". Why even talk about elevators?
It's too easy to prepare for the common ones. I have a list of them which I share with my students before they graduate. Sometimes we work through them for fun.
Way back when everyone played Quake, there was no central server list, and GameSpy was how you found new servers. I installed it and kept it upgraded a number of years, until I no longer needed it.
> without the slightest idea of the purpose of said software

In the OPs specific example, the purpose of the network is to carry packets, and your job is to make sure packets are delivered. Whether they carry orders to launch nukes, or donations to charity isn't the purpose.
If I were HP, I think I'd put it right by the fuser.

(Although I would also do a lot of other things differently, so that may not be a strong point.)
I generally agree, most logic questions are useless, but Big-O notation I use every day. Programmers who don't understand the performance difference between Array#include? and Set#include? in ruby are dangerous!
Funny, it used to always be 20 years away. Before that it was always 30. It's strange how the number keeps decreasing with the passage of time.
Anecdotal, yes, but I have actually been asked the manhole cover question in an interview. Even if it started out as an urban legend, it does appear to be in use in the wild now.
Don't call something .js if it's all in .coffee.
Is it really acceptable to include other peoples work that have a different license into the main file without any mention the original mention (only a link)?

As if it was licensed with GPL v3 to the author of Fly.js...
Wonder how they managed to measure such weak signals from the flowers. Also not sure if signal is the right term to use, because from the article it seems that no information (in conventional sense)is being transferred. Charged particle q (bumblebee) feels some force (F=q*E1 since we can neglect magnetic field) that is the consequence of static field E1 from flower :) Although it could also be the other way round, i.e. the bumblebee could produce field E2 etc.
The question I always like to ask and reserve a good chunk of time for is along the lines of "What non-technical hobby or interest do you have?" and then "If you had all the technical resources you could dream of, how would you now bring something new to your hobby?" and once we've gone through that the real question is:

"Given that when you're duck hunting the key is to shoot ahead of where the duck is, and that a lot of the suggestions have been the next iteration applied to the hobby/pastime... what's the third or fourth iteration?".

Basically I want to see the excitement and passion about technology, their pastime, and how they think, how they identify problems, solve them in numerous ways, go beyond just today's solution. And I get wrapped up in it too, I also get excited by some of the stuff that comes up.

With a great candidate... the interview ends with us both inspired and a thousand new thoughts floating around the room.

The vast majority of candidates cannot leap beyond the first iteration, and some struggle to even see how anything within their hobby could ever change.