skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The article makes the mistake of assuming that everyone who graduates with a computer science degree can actually work as a professional programmer.

Cheating and copying were extremely widespread when I did my undergraduate and even graduate level computer science work at a top-20 engineering school. Maybe 10% of students were actually people I could consider hiring.

This goes for both American and foreign students, I don't make the false claim that Americans are not as smart as foreigners or don't work as hard. Dishonesty and dishonor was the norm, and in my experience, most of the people who actually did their own work and had a knack for engineering went on to do very well.
Virgin Galactic is essentially the commercialization of the Spaceship One technology, which won the Ansari X-Prize. The two companies are focused on different by IMHO equally interesting areas. Space X is focused on heavy launch vehicles for commercial payloads while Virgin Galactic is focused on manned suborbital (and hopefully eventually orbital) travel.
Wells Fargo, establishing connection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305925
Unit Testing an ASP.NET MVC 4 Controller
> but they can't whiteboard even simple problems.

Not sure how accurate that statement is, but as quality software is not written on whiteboards under pressure you may be looking at the wrong things.

There's a guy here that frequently brings up the work-sample test, and some data exists confirming it to be a indicator.
At that scale, I don't think there'd be an appreciable difference between the two.
Anyone who's gone through a holistic CS curriculum should be able to fairly easily pass the Google/Facebook/MS/Palantir-esque interview process (for new grad positions) with flying colours. The typical algorithmic questions they give are things likely seen verbatim in second year maths and algorithm/data-structure courses, while the system design stuff is fairly pedestrian. Specific knowledge of any language was unnecessary, and they really honed in on CS fundamentals.

I do think they probably miss out on some smart people who scraped by in classes to pursue personal interests and could easily learn the material, but given the state of most new graduates it's probably a fair trade-off.

(Disclaimer: I interned at Google after my Freshman year. I'm an English Lit. major and completely self-taught; I did not think the interviews were particularly difficult)
To throw some numbers at this question about salaries. Here is the Standard Offer for a college hire Level 59 Microsoft SDE (Developer) to Seattle over the years as I've observed them.

2005-2006: 70k
2007-2008: 80k
2009-2010: 85/90k (there was a macro recession here)
2011-2012: 100k/105k
2013: 105k--110k (tbd)

In 6 years that's a 50% increase. What other industry has as much salary growth for front-line or entry-level people? I believe in a shortage. The most likely cause is this VC-infused hiring bubble going on that may burst and put a lot of people back on the market.

What's tragic is that Microsoft people who started in 2006 and had 70% careers are often making similar money as the entry-level folks. Combine that with a toxic environment and stagnant products, and it's pretty easy to understand why great people leave the company. It's also pretty easy to understand why Microsoft wants to import H1Bs that often are terrified of getting deported back and will do anything to keep their jobs.
I recently investigated using Persona for a web service and mobile app that I am building. I think I will be using it. However there is one aspect that bugs me. I'm not very knowledgeable about crypto stuff so maybe someone else here can enlighten me.

The part that bugs me is that it seems to rely on clients keeping a private key secret and I'm not sure we can trust clients that are often programs downloaded off the internet to do so. What stops a maliciously coded BrowserID client from sending the user generated private key to a web service (the RP) along with the identity assertion?

Wouldn't this allow this malicious RP to login to other services that support Persona on the user's behalf and read and write info from his other accounts at least for the duration of the certificate?

This certainly wouldn't happen in the Mozilla implementation of the browserID client and I'm not sure it's a huge concern. Since the certificates are of short duration it's certainly not as bad as people using the same password across different services. And of course all single signin systems have risks when malicious services are involved such as the impersonation of the login page to get users to reveal their passwords but still, can someone put my mind at ease about this particular case?
Define "talent." It doesn't mean "anyone with a CS degree."
Why do you assume your kids will be unemployed?
Yes, fortunately most of us understand the importance of publicity when trying to build a new business, especially one where your clients aren't going on a ride at Disney World.

I'm sure Richard Branson understands Burt Rutan's contributions. He, however, needs to sell tickets.
You're not as busy as you think.
It felt a bit "Try it, LOL JK!"

I understand why kickstarter exists, and I think it's a decent tool for some projects. That said, it's difficult for me to back something that's only screenshots and a brief "this is totally how it works" box on the main site. I want to be able to check out how the product works from the inside out. If I believe in it, I'll put money towards it. If I don't, I won't.

In this case, I can't demo it to a point where I'd say "this is a worthy product."
Ask HN: Privacy Concerns with using Ghostery
I read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5623860 yesterday, where many people suggested using Ghostery extension.

But if I add Ghostery, it says:
1. It can access your data on all websites.
2. It can access your tabs and browsing activity.

So, isn't using Ghostery even bigger threat to privacy.
XMLHttpRequest was the critical piece in enabling proper browser applications. If it had come from Firefox and the functionality it made possible was not available on IE the uptake would have been minimal.While is has been beyond fantastic for the world, the results have been terrible for Microsoft and key to the diminishing importance of Windows. I would thus count XMLHttpRequest as an own goal.
Notes on "Designing perfect bootstrapped business" - MicroConf 2013 Talk
CSS3Ps - free cloud based photoshop plugin that converts your layers to CSS3.
How Jenna Lyons Transformed J.Crew Into A Cult Brand
It returns a 404 when you run it on www.google.com.
> As a vocation choice STEM is as likely to be as unrewarding as trying to become a rock star, a pro NBA player, or a fine arts painter

Baloney. :-) If we total up the number of people who support a middle-class or better lifestyle solely with income from activities as "a rock star, a pro NBA player, or a fine arts painter" I think we'd see multiple of orders of magnitude fewer than those doing the same in STEM fields.

For example: "as of 2009, GlaxoSmithKline employs an estimated 99,913 people around the world, and 12,800 of these employees work in GSK’s research teams to discover new medicines" http://www.numberof.net/number-of-gsk-employees/

Compared to: "Each team may have 15 players on their roster, 12 of which may dress for each game. Since there are 30 teams in the league, at any one time there is a maximum of 450 players on NBA rosters" http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_total_number_of_player...
Really? How do you know it's not a conspiracy theory? You don't know that and so does OP.

Hell, it's not even a conspiracy theory. OP just shared his point of view, you don't agree to it, it's fine. But please don't pick bs from a comment where there's no bs. It's almost as pathetic as name calling.

You are looking for a conspiracy theory? Here's one: Do you for sure know that Eric Schmidt didn't invite Opera board to a dark abandoned bungalow for a meeting and convinced them to pinch in Mozilla's hind in a proxy manner, promising to acquire(for a BIG sum) and kill Opera in return?
I host with OVH and the only way to reset a password is with the email or the customer number which both send a reset link to the email address.

This isn't OVH's fault.

Also in the forum post...

"I asked OVH support to provide some additional information and restrict Manager access to my IP range."

This is already available.
This kind of question is kind of pointless.

If you think you have a compelling story to tell, write it and share it. I would be interested in reading a book about how grass grows if it were written well enough. I've read books on engineering problems (bridges falling down, etc) that would be boring in a textbook but the author somehow turned it into a compelling narrative about how engineering has changed over the years.

Just write it.
The Grad School Assumption
Ditto re: dumbass

If only I had listened to my mother... But, noooo! I was almost 30, and my advanced age meant that I (thought that I) knew it all...

Here I am, almost 50, and I still don't know nearly as much as I thought I did.
I think we agree with each other.

I did a master's in CS from a school not known for CS and I'm pretty sure I'd fail Google's interviews unless I could put in a few weeks of focused preparation. Meanwhile I'm happily employed in Memphis and Google seems to have a recruiting pipeline in place that works for them.
Introducing WSJ Startup of the Year
Raid5 is not really a good idea. See BAARF[1] (battle against raid five/four) for some reasoning.

[1]: http://www.baarf.com/
His post uses a freemium market of gamers who are predominantly either too young/poor for a credit card or too casual to attach to a game to draw his conclusions against buying realized products targeted at core audiences (and I say this because the biggest torrents are all for core-targeted games).

XBLA had an 18% conversion rate in 2007, and it's hard to say with a straight face that it'd go down. 2010 saw Ken Lobb (MGS) citing 20% to 40% rates in interviews for in-house games. These aren't perfect proxies for PC piracy but even if it's halved when you jump from console to PC, the 1% value just doesn't make any sense.
This is a big deal.
Two of China's (and the world's) largest Internet companies linking up.

(investment/ownership = 15% now, up to 30% later).
Panel seeks to fine tech companies for noncompliance with wiretap orders
Having tried that myself, I discovered your suggestion causes Google Now to go a little cuckoo. It spent a week trying to suggest that I work at our local grocery store because I went there one morning for coffee, milk, and lunch ingredients.

Then when I met up with some associates at a coworking spot, it tried recommending that I drive home to the grocery store. :-?
True. It would be interesting if they could break out salary growth for top developers vs. average developers. The common sentiment here seems to be that there's a shortage of highly talented developers. If this is true, then their salaries may in fact be rising at a higher pace.

"Starting salaries for an entry-level software developer (with a bachelor's in CS) are roughly double the starting salaries for non-programmer entry-level positions that require a bachelor's degree--and employers don't like that."

That's also true, but it's also interesting to consider from the perspective of a talented student considering CS. If he believes everything he reads, (a) he'll start with a decent salary but probably hit a glass ceiling relatively quickly (a much lower ceiling than, say, a doctor or management consultant or trader), (b) his skill set is in constant danger of becoming outdated due to the unusually high pace of skill turnover, at which point he'll be replaced by an H-1B holder or new CS grad, (c) he'll be expected to move to Silicon Valley (or NYC, apparently) where the cost of living will negate his higher salary. If any of these things actually come to pass, the relatively high starting salary he made the first few years out of school won't be much consolation.
Wikipedia is now drawing facts from the Wikidata repository
4 people in a home hate each other 24x7 for the past 3000 years (caste).

What will an Intellectual (Gorbachev) do?

Give them their share of land/Independence and tell them to go and build their own home/nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award
"We understand pair brainstorming. We understand pair bicycle repair. We understand pair driving in rally racing. But we don’t understand pair programming?"

We understand pair painting. We understand pair music composition. We understand pair writing. We understand pair knitting. But we don't understand pair programming?

There is a time to pair up, and there is a time to isolate oneself and think and meditate and explore the problem space and be creative. Beware of those who espouse a one-size-fits-all solution.
Clipper! yes that was the first language I used professionally.

I tell the younger guys that before IDE's and flat memory models were around, when you programmed, you went looking to buy three things.

1. Language/Compiler 2. Linker 3. Editor

And you will spend just as much time in the linker file (segmented memory back then) as you did coding.

The newer tools are just light years ahead of where they started back then. Its one area I will never look back at and wish it was still around.
Shoot, I'd be willing to give it go and if I'm behind I'd be willing to take a pay cut for the 3-4 weeks it would take me to get up to speed.
Location? (At least country & state.) Contract(s)? NDAs?
Non-compete clause? (Not enforceable in California).
Employment-at-will locale? (California is).

More optimistically, what does the acquiring entity want? Could
they use you and some/all of your team? For what and for how
long?

What are your/your team's assets for negotiating with the acquiring
entity or some other employer (as individuals, or as a team)?

Also, you may want to edit to taste with: s/<p>/\n\n/g
Command Line Russian Roulette
Google hugely benefits from Mozilla search deal. I am sure companies like Amazon, Yahoo and Bing shall jump to the opportunity.

Firefox, IMHO, is one real challenge to Chrome with IE to be outed the day most of the Internet is educated to better software and starts to learn making choices in a broad manner. Safari not counted of course. So, as I said that leaves Firefox and Chrome in the arena. And a Firefox wounded with a financial blow shall be meat for Chrome. Things that's keeping Firefox in race and that is innovation, freedom, privacy advocacy. Without much money in the bank or boggled with court cases it's going to be real hard.
Adobe Reader PDF-tracking vulnerability reveals when and where PDF is opened
Compelling Interview Questions
Google Now: Hands On Review
Looks and feels great! Makes me reconsider using HTML5 for a similar word game I've been working on.
Apple Lays Groundwork For its 1st Debt Sale Ever.
Cars are two-ton hunks of metal barrelling down the road at life-threatening speeds. There is an inherent risk that comes with using them; that risk is so high (comparative to other every-day activities) that we have megalo-insurance companies covering them and laws demanding we wear seat belts.

I'm uncomfortable with agreeing with this analogy, because it implies that, where seat belts address the risk of operating a car, these bulletproof backpacks address an everyday risk of being shot while attending school.

I'm not versed in statistics on either; my uneducated gut says that the risk of getting in a car crash is huge compared to the risk of being shot in a school. If I'm wrong, that's troubling, terribly so.

I get the need to address fears in every way possible, but I think calling these products "no different than seat belts" is possibly maximizing fear where it's not necessary.
It's not that everyone's serious, it's that this community's greatest fear is that HN will get overrun by frivolous comments and other weeds. As a result, one of the tradeoffs that's evolved is that people reflexively downvote jokes. (Non-funny jokes get hammered particularly hard.) It's best not to take it personally and work on one's noise/signal ratio.
You're connected right now to a Pick system? From your point of view, how does Pick compare to the current wave of NoSQL databases, practically speaking? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Because they're not rising. Or rather more accurately, because only one segment of the industry is rising while the rest stay stagnant.

The offers being thrown around by Facebook, Google, et al, aren't anything to scoff at, and as another poster pointed out already, have gone up substantially in a just a few short years (that 50% number is accurate for new grads, it's higher for those with experience).

But the bulk of programmers in the country don't work at Facebook, or Google, or Microsoft. Nor are they forging the bleeding edge future of consumer/enterprise tech. They're doing the unglamorous, not often discussed IT grunt work in the back office of some corporate headquarters.

Their salaries are stagnant, and they are stagnant regardless of H-1B numbers specifically because the supply-demand curve in that leve of the industry sucks. And because our statistics put the $45K VB6 coder in the same category as the $200K+ Google engineer, the rise in one segment of the industry is largely hidden.

There is a danger to making decisions based on averages.

It's strange to me how every time the tech immigration debate comes up Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and co. are beaten to a pulp. They're the ones actually importing people at above market rates, they're the ones handing out $110K offers to new grads and $150-200K offers to even intermediate level coders. They're not the boogeyman under your bed.

Whereas actual exploitative employers like Infosys are barely mentioned. In fact, none of the infamous programming sweatshops are even named in this article. How is that the actual bad actors are facing none of the media scrutiny while the only good (or neutral) actors get all the blame?
I have T-Mobile in the US, but in practice I get a different T-Mobile prepaid GSM SIM when I visit the UK.

I haven't actually looked at what the international costs are, just heard enough horror stories that I take the US SIM completely out of my phone before takeoff.
Although the name might imply it is only for mathematicians, they are pretty loose with that. It also has many physicists, astronomers, and chemists.
Interesting, I never really dug too deep into it, aside from making a couple of changes and standard entitlement stuff for applications. application.sb looks like a complete nightmare to maintain.
Whether it makes "no sense" to you is, to be honest, pretty much irrelevant. It is a societal construct and you are a member of society and you take the "bad" (it's not, but, whatever) with the good.

Copyright exists because we, as a society, want it to. We want people to make things for us to consume and so we enact laws to make it so they can do so and still eat. Don't like it? Feel free to try to change the law.

But that's hard, and hard things aren't fun, so let's just go pirate Game of Thrones, yeah?
Yes, it is part of their magazine: http://pragprog.com/magazines/2012-06 (also available in PDF, epub and mobi from http://pragprog.com/magazines)
How DNSSEC Will Help Secure the Internet and How SOPA Almost Made It Illegal
Are you really complaining that it can't read your mind?
Safe Social Networking: Tips for parents of socially active kids
Finland's Cyber	Security Strategy
In the 70s and 80s programmers were working on fixing the problems that programmers faced in the 70s and 80s: memory management, GOTO spaghetti, efficient assembly etc. In response we got heaps, garbage collectors, functional languages, virtual machines, compilers, debuggers, IDEs.

Now most programmers spend most of their time dealing with problems of persistence, networking, parallelism, security, and massive codebases. In response we are creating scripting languages with slightly different syntax, adding closures to Java, and arguing about vim vs emacs. We're so obsessed with solving the problems of the 80s, my way, that we've just gotten trapped there.
How would you really enjoy spending your life... if money were no object?
What is this response supposed to mean in context of the actual discussion here?

Just because they use a cheap trick to make the user feel more secure doesn't mean the system underneath it isn't, in fact, secure (it doesn't mean it is secure either, it says nothing one way or another).

I don't hear about big bank sites (even ones using psychological trickery on their users) getting cracked very often while bitcoin exchanges/wallet services/etc are falling over seemingly daily).
Judging by his Ph.D. thesis "Surface Properties of Ground-State Nuclear Matter" (accessed via PROLA).

He lists the following people in his acknowledgements:

http://phdtree.org/scholar/martin-paul-cecil/

http://phdtree.org/scholar/martin-paul-cecil-2/

http://phdtree.org/scholar/puff-robert-david/

http://phdtree.org/scholar/gottfried-kurt/

You could always try emailing them to ask if they were an advisor of Reynolds?
My experience so far is that my Forth is shorter, but my assembly has fewer bugs. Maybe this means that Forth wins for larger projects, because it's harder to read but easier to write?
For me 1, 2, and 4 each play a big role, for sure.

On an ongoing basis, #3 plays little or no role, but if you count "steam exclusive" as a feature, then it played a critical role in getting me onto Steam in the first place. I wanted to play Natural Selection (original, natch), and that meant I needed a Steam account. Back then I was too miserly to pay for HL1, so a friend gave me a spare serial (I'd argue this was borderline piracy in-spirit). Valve didn't get money from me on HL1, but they've definitely had the last laugh. These days I spend a hundred bucks a month via Steam, and I'm happy about it.
Services should reject any "identity assertion" that claims to be for the wrong service, so having a malicious client log in to my LivingBook won't allow you to compromise my Twindr account. You can read more if you like: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Persona/Protocol_Ov...

Edit: Before I talked about some stuff that you obviously already knew :)
When you have a problem in Linux, it may require some searching, but the solution usually makes sense at some level. Unless you're doing something very strange or bleeding edge, it's more likely that what you find won't be totally incomprehensible or inexplicable.

As for Windows... just restart it, you'll be fine. ;)
“Down with meritocracy”: the man who coined the word four decades ago (2001)
My comment box is always visible, but I don't start the computation until the user actually focuses one of the fields. The submit button is disabled until the hashcash computation completes, but that's about it. If you're not racing the hashcash computation, you'll likely not notice anything unusual.
It seems at least tangentially related considering in that they probably wouldn't have sued Firefox if they had just decided to switch to the Gecko browser engine. (Or if Hansen had supposedly divulged trade secrets to the Chrome team).
This made a big wave of nostalgia wash over me, I learnt to write 6510 assembler on my C64.
Excellent Article. Good for you Jason!
OK, I see what you're saying. Something to the effect of "they can't all be right", so let's figure out what we're missing?