skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I just issued a pull request that would add test cases to the Code of Conduct. It's at https://github.com/kstrauser/pycon-code-of-conduct/commit/14... .

The idea is that:

1. It's good to define exactly what we want to happen in various test cases. Either we can get consensus ("yeah, that's how it should turn out!") or decide that there's no clear answer. Both results add valuable information to the process.
2. We have examples to compare the actual Code of Conduct against to decide whether it achieves the results we want.

I'm not directly related to PyCon in any way other than as a happy attendee. As of this moment, I have no support (official or otherwise) for this project. I just think it could be a useful tool and an interesting exercise. Please jump in if you agree!

PS: The syntax is awful. I'm keenly aware of that, but I'm not aware of other testing frameworks for English documents and I'm making it up as I go along.
Yes, this is exactly also my experience. But in both cases, Agile or Waterfall doesn't really makes any (form scientific perspective significant) difference.

I've also experienced clients that just can't judge an iteration without seeing the whole application working. Or that a client changes his mind after seeing each iteration which can be more painful then changing just the spec.

As I suggested in my blog post, the book "Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It", the chapter "Architecting: how much and when?" by Barry Boehm treats this specific subject really well.
1600 Penn (great show, btw) had an episode where people picketed the White House for the environmental policies. Through a series of hijinks, these people got an audience with the President to express their concerns. Once in there, it becomes a cacophony as some argue for public transit, others argue to corporate responsibility, etc. They had some "thing" in common, but each had much different ideas about what really brought them there.

So, I find true your statement that even within subgroups, there is disagreement over an offense's legitimacy. Yet, we as flawed humans still seek objective punishment for others's offenses, even when we don't personally ascribe to claiming those offenses for ourselves. This to me is the most interesting part of all of this, that everybody has a ready-made opinion about what thing should happen to these people involved even though the original offense was 100% subjective. This brings up some interesting questions:

1) Can one really be offended by hearing a story about a subjective offense from someone else, and thus pass legitimate judgment? If so, what is the real offense - the original act, or merely what the act represents.
2) If the true offense is about what the act represents, then does passing judgment on the offensive party appropriately handle the situation?
3) If an offense is a subjective thing, then does it need to be personal, and directed toward the offendee in order to be legitimate?
SendGrid fires Adria Richards, the Pycon tweeter
I both agree and disagree. The threads are utter shitshows (and yes, the hetero guy in a gay bar comment was the lowest point in a very low thread) but at the same time I think that flagging the content off the site means that a lot of people are never aware of the (excuse me if this sounds dramatic) true nature of many in Hacker News.
I suppose I think of it as painting over the cracks in the community here. I'd prefer everyone sees the shitshow for what it is, and then maybe has a think about what HN is, or should be.
I kind of think you're wrong, they've carried on tweeting status updates about the outage after the termination tweet
Do you mind sharing more details about your decision making process, the services/tools you are using as IRC hosts/clients, etc?
I could have used this about two months ago. Instead I built a simple npm module – https://github.com/switz/melt

This is far better, though.
I accidentally double-posted. Deleted one, but evidently the wrong one. Re-posted now, hopefully it shows up.
I don't know for certain, but I get the sense that "intellectual property" concerns play into naming pretty heavily these days. That is, folks don't want to hassle with trademark dust-ups, so they use semi-random nonsense names to avoid even appearing to infringe.
Does anyone have IRC as a service? I used to run an IRC server for my company, but as mentioned, there is the maintenance part. There is already more work that needs to be done than hours to do it.

I would like to see more start ups utilize existing protocols such as RSS and IRC.
How do plugins work with this type of installation method? For example, https://github.com/mosaicxm/vagrant-hostmaster depends on a certain version of a vagrant gem.
Re: Logo Positioning.

Depends on the product. If your logo is a trusted brand, then displaying it front and center drives up sales. If it is unknown, then display it under the fold.
I'm assuming you haven't read many other articles on that website, but it's definitely not sexist.

The site could just as well be called "Hey guys! Here's how not to be an asshole and perpetuate the typical male stereotype." But that's a really long URL to type.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/about-2/
Understanding Natural Selection: Essential Concepts [pdf]
Oops, I Accidentally Wasted My Entire 20s (And I Feel Fine)
I replace it with "marketing people."
Does anyone have any good book recommendations on the intersection of personal finance/behavioral economics that's not a self-help/manage-your-money-type-book?
The ideas behind libel and slander laws apply here. The larger your public profile, the less protection you have from libel and slander.

Mr. Romney was saying politically relevant things at a politically relevant dinner while running for a political office. The recording was perfectly legal and I'd consider moral. The people have the right to know the truth about the politicians they're voting on.
Maybe I'm being stereotypical here, but not only is this a well-executed hack, it has well-written copy. Which is not standard for malicious hackers looking to make a point.
Wonder if that's part of the reason she was fired. That's where her position becomes company policy and if that was not properly communicated...
They most likely share the same password so that multiple sendgrid employees can post to each of the pages.
When it comes to retail, I have a self-rule about never buying from any retailer whose name makes it obvious what they sell.

"amazon", "ebay", "Tesco" don't make it obvious.

"PC world", "Phones4u", "Lawyers4u", "buycheapstuffonline" make it obvious.

I think a unique name helps build a brand over a descriptive name which to me often sounds cheap.
It's also a landing page vs. a website. I can see why it would make a difference in this case, but it's not really general purpose advice.

Having a logo in the top left that links to the homepage is common enough that people expect it. A good example of something that's counterintuitive is the blog post itself; it's really not obvious without hunting for it that the text "fellow." on the top right goes home.
It would be nice if OSX's security model was extended to require the root password for any application or plugin installer that isn't handled directly within a process.
It is ridiculous. This is endemic to the entertainment industry. And you're right, they (companies that the MPAA represents) have had a long time and plenty of great examples to create a service and charge for it. Pirates aren't costing them money -- they are costing themselves money.

I'm reminded of this: "HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy" [1]. This is in reference to Game of Thrones being the most pirated show two seasons in a row.

So in 2012, a major entertainment company's president thought a move to an internet delivery model is a recession induced fad...

1. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whol... (the original forbes article seems to have changed)
This is awesome! Although, I think you should add that selling digital content in your app via this will cause your app to violate ToC's for Android and iOS as they already have in payment schemes for digital content. However, for physical purchases, this is a huge value add and makes life much easier for people! As a side thought, I wonder if this opens up competition for Square (maybe make an app that accepts payments only by taking a picture of a credit card?). I don't know if it does or not, but its worth some thought.
People don't just rewrite things because they're old.
Every time I see someone talking about using JavaScript as working "on the raw metal" I die a little bit inside.

I'm joining OP's web haters club, if he starts one.
Why the Spanish aren’t entrepreneurs
Oracle's Sales Drop, Hurt By Cloud-Based Business
Not really. You just have to get access to one of those services the publishes to all your accounts.
Thanks. The point is to place the logo low on the visual heirarchy. 'Below the fold' is just a snappier (and also somewhat less accurate) way of stating that point.
If the goal of "micro JS" truly is file size then yes, that's focusing on the wrong problem. To me the idea behind it is to have a bunch of little tools that do one thing really well. When those tools are combined you have something very powerful, flexible, testable, and reasonably decoupled. Not perfect. Nothing ever is. But better than having to use a massive framework and do everything the framework way in which case you're just working for the framework rather than it working for you. In my experience that is ALWAYS the case with a framework.

Put another way, Unix has been so popular for so long in part because it prefers the "a set of tools that do only one thing but do it really well" philosophy over a framework.
Exactly, that's what I was thinking, too. Trolling on a hacked account is almost always clearly distinguishable from the legitimate content there.
This site would be better if we could get over the idea that all issues related to technology demand comprehensive litigation in comment threads. Sometimes issues that are relevant to us can't be resolved in comment threads. And then all those comment threads do is degrade the community.
this actually sounds like exactly what I want...
This is great, but I bet apple's suppliers and manufacturers aren't anywhere close to this level of renewable energy.
The Hollywood Blacklist was completely justified then, because employing (suspected) commies subjected your company to negative publicity. Alternately, firings can represent the witch hunt of the age (except when it is actual witch hunts and they are actually setting them on fire.)
There was a company, but I think they shut down. I can't remember the name now, but it was, basically, hosted IRC.
In this day and age, thats probably because no reporter ever called to ask and verify.
Is there any way to see who actually uploaded the logo to Wikipedia?

I can't figure out a way to proper history on this page. It has an edit saying the actual logo was uploaded in Feb 2012, but the page dates to 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Reader_logo.png
They're GREAT for refactoring. Select something. CTRL-D a few times to keep selecting other instances of the same thing. It's not global find and replace.

Or, when you have a nice set of lined up/indented declarations, it's trivial to just right-click+SHIFT and drag a cursor before every line and start typing.
I know, but in practice this almost never happens in a typical drive-by trolling.
I replace it with "Computers I don't control that the NSA makes copies of."
Adria Richards fired by SendGrid for outing developers on Twitter
My experience with "Facebook Graph Search" dating, so far
On Facebook Graph Search I searched for "single women in <city> who like running". Thousands of women were listed who had liked "Running". Too easy? I quickly messaged five of the women who caught my eye. Days passed, no replies. I wonder if these women saw the message or if it was lost in their "Other" folder. I was not about to pay $1 to have it sent to their inbox. On the 5th day a girl replied. In the next hour since I got her response: We talked on fb, I gave her my number, we texted, talked on the phone, and then she asked to meet me the next night. When she asked how I found her I said the creepy new fb graph search. She said that it was really creepy that I messaged her like that and that normally she'd never reply to a message from a stranger.<p>I met this girl the following night at Starbucks followed by a bite to eat. We talked about what to do next. She started to list off options and said the magic "watch a movie" line so I jumped on that. Shortly after we were on my couch at my place. I don't think I've ever given out my address to the internet dating girls I've meet, I'm normally far too cautious for that. Fast forward, 30 minutes into the movie, and a little bit of cuddling, I asked her if she wanted to get into my hot tub. I figured why not ask and see how she responds. With some hesitation she said yes and so we did, unclothed except for bottoms. While we were in the hot tub I reflected back on what had just taken place. It's pretty crazy to think I had never spoken to this girl 22 hours prior, and now this 24 year old college girl with a runners body is topless and making out with me in my hot tub.<p>I've been hanging out with this girl just about every other night since we met a week and a half ago. It's been a wild experience for sure.<p>Facebook could really be onto something if they can remove the creepiness factor away from meeting new people online.
This isn't a Fermi problem. It's analysis. Math.

How many keys do you have? Not something you should guess.

How many bytes per key are you saving? Not something you should guess.
https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt

I automatically see it replaced with "my butt".
> With another minute of manual curation I had a list of 10 young women who went to my high school, their birthdays, profile photos, class schedules, the television shows they watch, the people they've dated, the parties they went to, where they eat on which days, and even a handful of mobile and home phone numbers.

It's creepy that it's so easy to grab that much information about someone.
Nice! That's where we started, then got carried away... very, very carried away ;) Hope you find it useful; we'd love to hear from you!
The comments here are curious. The bulk of them are arguing the finer points of rampant speculation. Why did the guy get fired? What were her motives? Was their conversation intended to be private?

This is all beside the point. Engaging in such conversations is feeding a witch-hunt (on either side).

The facts as I've seen them are simple. He made a penis joke which could be overheard. She took offense. He admitted it was an offensive penis joke. He got fired.

The telling point for me is her other behavior. She made a penis joke on Twitter. Unless she admits that that joke was offensive, she's a hypocrite.

I find that more offensive than the original joke. Being offended at behavior you do yourself is at best naive. At worst deliberately hypocritical and amoral.
I understand how Cappuccino works (I am one of the GWT authors, and I often have to tell people the same about GWT, is it not a "widget framework"), but what I'm saying is, from what I observe, people often spend more time debugging CSS and HTML than they do code.

There are lots of reasons why JS needs fixing, I'm onboard with that. But honestly, you could fix it 100%, and it would still be easier to develop native apps on iOS/Android. 280 North's Slides for example as a great example of what you could do, but let's not kid ourselves, it was also pretty slow.

If you look at the herculean efforts the Google Docs team went through to get that running fast, and it's still not fast enough, I'd say there's there a lot more work do be done on the Web-as-app-UI-renderer model side.

If it weren't for all of the other things you'd have to reinvent, and what you'd lose from indexability and transparency, I'd almost say built a framework on using WebGL rendering.
NoSQL showdown: MongoDB vs. Couchbase
It is quite possible that both companies acted in a respectable way.

PlayHaven chose to fire one of the two, and publicly states that the other is a valued employee. None of us know what went into that decision, and there may well be a back story. My guess is that the PyCon incident was more likely a final straw than the full cause. But none of us know.

SendGrid had little choice about firing her. Clearly she is unable to effectively do her job at this point, and is drawing huge negative attention. No matter how well she's done her job until now, or how much the company might believe her side of the story, she's a huge liability.

All of that said, I would bet money that he'll get hired by someone before she does.
I think Palm & WebOS were on the right track by making their native apps still based on web technnologies. As far as I know there weren't any mobile inputs that those apps couldn't handle. Blaming limitations on tech seems silly. The decision was a business one.

Besides that, why take away the ability to create webbased apps? Could we not have the option if I know I don't care about any of the fancy stuff. There are so many apps out there these days which are just shells of an app with a WebView inside. It feels a bit ridiculous to have to buy Apple hardware to make a shell and then use our preferred dev environment to develop the site/internals of the app.
As a weapon of last resort. Even then, only when retreat / choosing your battles doesn't make sense.

For example, if something progressed to getting the police or lawyers involved, at least some amount of it is going to be public record. Even though it might not (initially) be broadcast widely, it would eventually hit the tech press if it stemmed from events at a tech conference.
Ask HN: Best SMS Payment Service?
We want to add SMS donation functionality to our site, digitaltipjar.com. We want a way for users to tip via SMS with the message being which performer to tip and how much. Is there a SMS payment service that closely maps to this use case?
Dart is supposed to be "boring". Their intention was to create a language which is familiar to anyone who used Java, C#, AS3, JavaScript, or any other C-like language in the past.

From my own experience, I'd say that this strategy worked exactly as intended. I was able to write code after skimming through some of the examples. To be honest, I only bothered with Dart because it used C-like syntax.

Also, it compiles to surprisingly fast JavaScript [1]. Support by all browser vendors isn't necessary. You can use it either way. The lack of support really doesn't change anything. You'd use a build/deploy script either way, wouldn't you?

[1] https://plus.google.com/u/0/114943499066504644906/posts/WXNL...
What you really think about working in the game industry
This feels like a classic case of great product but poor marketing. The learning curve is a critical piece to adoption rates. When developers shun the framework, it's probably because it does not provide sufficient visible benefit for them to warrant going through the troubles of learning the framework. Once everyone gets onboard with jQuery, it's going to be hard to get people to switch over no matter how great Cappuccino simply because those people do not see the benefits outweighing the costs of switching.

It's also a chicken and egg problem. I'm going to go on a hunch and say there are way more developers who know jQuery than ones who know Cappuccino. Naturally, people would prefer using jQuery because it's easier to get someone else on board for projects.

I really loved the look and feel of Cappuccino and kudos to you for a tremendous effort! Unfortunately, I did not choose to use the framework precisely because I had to learn something called Objective J and for that, I'm sorry that I am part of the group of people who felt that the learning curve was abit steep.
Note that SendGrid didn't once themselves state that they support her, which could actually support the firing hypothesis more.
We tried using Skype with our remote team. Of the top of my head, the following problems made us switch:
(a) Reliability (We were losing a lot of messages between people. Especially offline messages)
(b) Duplicate messages (As all of us have multiple machines, we were getting a lot of duplicate messages, depending on which machines were on and logged-in, and when)
(c) Poor search (Searching months old messages is a major hassle in Skype)
Websense is telling me not to go there.. Bad stuff on that site. hmmm
Hmm, given that one of those is compromised, I'd say it's more likely that the rest are as well--Bayesian reasoning and all that. (Yeah, I don't actually know much about probability :P.)

People share passwords all the time. Also, if somebody's computer or email account was compromised, chances are that would also give up the credentials for all of the sites.
No, you don't not need consent to publish a photo of someone. You need consent to make money off of that photo because you're making money off their likeness. But even in that case, it's a civil, not criminal offense.

This applies to photography in public. A conference can have their own policy about what is and isn't okay. Although if the convention center is a public building that may complicate things. Even if the conference had an issue with it, it's not illegal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAI-ARIA
I'd lie if I said that I'm in a position to evaluate it's merits but it's there.
Hopefully with more incidents like this, employers branded as "overreacting, bending over backwards PC twats" will start receiving similar unfavorable treatment as the aforementioned labelings.
My point has nothing to do with the crime of rape, it has to do with the (reverse) crime of falsely accusing of rape, and in this case, I don't think there really is much of a moral difference:

- the guy was accused of sexual harassment, which is something very much taken seriously here, where society tends to protect the women (rightly so) without much listening to the other party... & therefore a false accusation of rape is something very serious since guys often can't do much to counter it

- in this case the guys are publicly shamed without even having had the opportunity to explain themselves, & one even got fired

so I stand by my comment: I do not liken the attack (from the men) to a rape, I liken the attack (from the woman) to a false rape accusation, in that she falsely accused men of doing something that is vile & for which she has almost every chance to win if the other side is not listened to

false rape allegations have people sent to jail & publicly fired, false sexual harrassment allegations should also be seen very seriously since they are often non-verifiable & lead to some guy losing his work (which is serious)
Silicon Valley engineers have something to say about work from home
What the hell? This isn't grammar school. I was commenting in a hurry on a news site. Calm yourself.
The Facebook statement isn't that good. For example, this wording...

While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature.

...is extremely unlike the words usually used by a company dealing with a controversial employment matter. It's more like the puffery used in 419 scams.
I'm planning to link to this at a later date. :-)
We can advise them to use whatever we want, the trick is getting them to listen. Our corporate email disallows POP, but we aren't in the business of blocking their personal email on our non-secure network.
Here's one from 4 months earlier:

http://bonte-pierre.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-reader-for-m...

Do a Google Image Search for "google reader" and use the Search Tools button to restrict the date to before June 2008.