skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It doesn't need to be. But it helps. Imagine if you wanted to create a bunch of smart properties which had very little intrinsic dollar values(lets say, collectible sports cards) - you would be forced to spend a bunch of money to do so.
Once I made a Ruby program noticably slow by using "array += items" instead of "array.push *items" in a loop, making it O(n^2) instead of O(n). Once we noted that doubling the input size quadrupled the runtime, I found the bug. (I was a Ruby newbie and didn't know that Ruby's "array += items" is just syntactic sugar for "array = array + items".)

I've used slow web pages that show a lot of items or data. One way to make them slow is O(n^2) DOM manipulation (e.g., inside a loop over items in a page, O(n)-searching the page for something).

Knowing complexity theory isn't the only way to find performance problems, and sometimes isn't even relevant, but it sure is helpful.
An Introduction to using WordPress and Version Control
woohoo i love elementary

hoping i'll find their stuff usable on arch soon :D
Ah, thanks for adding the other viewpoint! My rebuttal:

1. It may be money you're leaving on the table but you can't really say it's money you're earning. It's like a laziness tax on your users. (And, uh, not in a good way.)

2. Your point about cognitive overhead I think is quite backwards. The beauty of auto-canceling is that it's less cognitive overhead, other than the fact that it's unusual. (I hate it when "it's industry standard" is the excuse for not doing the right thing.)

There was another Hacker News thread about pay-as-you-go vs tiered pricing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5664512 . I think the cognitive overhead of perennially re-evaluating whether you're getting your money's worth is a big reason developers like pay-as-you-go. And the biggest reason you wouldn't be getting your money's worth is that you're not using the service at all anymore.

So I think auto-canceling subscriptions are the best of both worlds: simple and predictable, you can budget for it and think about it in terms of the value you're getting (an ongoing service) without the risk of paying for something you're not using. How's that not clear additional value?
Yes, before I rebase.
Thanks! I didn't know that about NeXT. It's especially interesting compared to Apple, as you mention! Also, your comment about Peter Thiel led me to discover these great lecture notes from a class of his:

http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup

I want to find a way to combine the transparency and emphasis on personal autonomy of open source projects with the unparalleled productivity of traditional, closed corporations. It's a delicate balance.
It's a nice outsider article. Funny-because-it-hurts:

"All these youngish people are on the Google Bus because they want to live in San Francisco, city of promenading and mingling, but they seem as likely to rub these things out as to participate in them."

Earlier HN discussion, studiously failing to appreciate the piece:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189580
Dont take anything here personally.
I left it off the post, but my reply in email was, "Thanks! :-)"
Hmm, interesting. I'm not a C++ jockey myself so I will cheerfully admit the significance of the "creative coding" term flew right over my head.
A Push for a Bitcoin Buttonwood
Holy smokes. That is some serious smack down. One hopes it causes the entire judiciary to awaken to this dark scourge of extortion through the courts.
This definitely needed to exist, so thanks for building it. I remember wanting this type of thing a few years ago but iirc my only choice was the Jython terminal. :(
That link is pretty funny. After living in North Carolina for 30+ years I somehow have a Mid-Western accent.
Yes: https://github.com/bartman/git-wip
Ask HN: Finding a place in San Francisco for 1 month during the summer?
Any tips? I've only moved to America recently, and would love to rent a place in the city for a month over the summer. Not really sure where to look - currently checking airbnb and padmapper.
The thing is, these "open calls" are hidden in plain site. How many people are actually watching an hour and a half of me gabbing with somebody? I understand that journalism has traditionally been about "the scoop." In a world of information overload, just because something is technically open doesn't mean it's made its way into the public consciousness.
We don't deal with that case adequately right now. It's up to chance which one you get charged. For customers (ie. one-time sales), we unfortunately lump this into "get it close enough and the taxation bodies won't really care". For merchants located in these two-rate zips, we can usually work around it, targeting the correct rate with some ugly hacks.

This is something I'd like us to do better on. I have an idea for how to improve without adding an intolerable amount of complexity or expense, but I haven't had a chance to implement it yet.
The Effect of a Down Round on Your Team
The category of attackers who are willing and able to commit a (possibly violent) physical crime to obtain one or more of my login passwords is much smaller than those who will successfully exploit weak and re-used passwords over the internet.
http://sfbayarea.craigslist.org/sub/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law

> Prenda Law, also known as Steele | Hansmeier PLLP and Anti-Piracy Law Group,[1] is a Chicago, Illinois-based law firm that claims it battles copyright piracy, but is also strongly identified with copyright trolling
I have not read many court orders/rulings/etc. in my life (IANAL), but of those that I have read, this is by far the angriest and most vicious.
Are there good free/open source replacements for Fireworks?
Yes, 9-to-5 is obsolete, because for the majority of office workers in 2013 it's 8-to-5 (if not longer).
Why a connect timeout? And why such a short one?
14 PRACTICAL METHODS TO COMBAT STRESS
what should happen? does it need to go in a specific "section" of the .gitconfig?
Their tagline does say "create" rather than "share".
We got a bunch of the Multitable bases [1] and screwed on the large size GALANT table top from Ikea (we recycled our GALANT tables into adjustable standing tables) It was pretty cost effective and they work really well. No need to bug Ikea.

[1] http://heightadjustableworktable.com/pickabase
Best is if you know someone in San Francisco. Where are you located currently? It can be hard to find short term rentals in San Francisco unless they are horrid corporate housing apartments (stay away from any Trinity managed properties).
Q: Is Verizon FiOS blocking traffic from Windows?
A: No.

Ask yourself which is more likely: that a major ISP is blocking traffic from the dominant operating system, or that you've configured something incorrectly?
God says...

22:6 And he returned to be healed in Jezreel because of the wounds
which were given him at Ramah, when he fought with Hazael king of
Syria. And Azariah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see
Jehoram the son of Ahab at Jezreel, because he was sick.

22:7 And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram: for
when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of
Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.

22:8 And it came to pass, that, when Jehu was executing judgment upon
the house of Ahab, and found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the
brethren of Ahaziah, that ministered to Ahaziah, he slew them.

22:9 And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in
Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they
buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who
sought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no
power to keep still the kingdom.

----

God says...
handle devil hi flung countermanding sailors recommended
that's_no_fun fetched I_forgot understanding 64-6221541
lofty suppose

(C64 1541)
The real value of someone being able to respond on the time-complexity of a given arbitrary function is that it shows they can build a good mental model of what goes one when the function is run. Building a good mental model of a program is the most important thing when designing it, building int, extending it, or fixing it. So it's not about performance - it's about understanding and abstraction skills. All good things to test for in an interview.
Righteous indignation, distilled and aged to a fine vintage... and then served up in Ten Forward by a United States district judge.

So this is the other side of the looking glass... when do I meet the disappearing cat?
Buck sounds a lot like Redo there.

https://github.com/apenwarr/redo
#OpUSA hacking spree takes off early
As someone born and raised in Michigan, I've adopted y'all in my own speech. I think its a fun and useful phrase if for no other reason than to confuse others around here, lol.

I'm also glad to see Michigan properly represented. Us trolls that live under the bridge are quite different from the Yoopers who have more in common with Canada and cheese-heads. All in good fun though :)
I set this in my .profile file a while ago:

alias gca='git add -A; git commit -a -m "`curl -s http://whatthecommit.com/index.txt`"'
Yeah, that's always the rub isn't it. I have had very similar experiences with various projects that get a quick round of visitors early on then they dwindle to literally 0! Maybe you could stick some google ads on it to try to make up that $3/month :)
I've enjoyed following the ongoing saga of this case. Many thanks for the detailed followups of each court session. It would be safe to say that the judge has gone with the "nuke them from orbit" option, as it's the only way to be sure these predators won't continue their dirty actions.
Another dimension to sharing data-sets along with papers is that papers with data-sets attached get more citations http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal....

Readers prefer papers with data-sets attached to them, because you can check the data and see how the conclusions of the paper stand up. That preference may be part of what drives the higher citation rates.
I look for relevant experience, personality, and problem solving skills. I start off with questions that'll get me an insight into the person then I give them a written problem that'll take them 10+ minutes to answer. I want to see them work through it, see what they get stuck on, see when they ask questions and what questions they ask. I ignore syntax errors, and similar minutiae. If you don't have good problem solving skills I don't see how you can be a useful member of my team.
Understanding Randomness
It's the end of the road for this brand of copyright shakedown. This is an amazing good-guys-win outcome for sure, but much more than that, it signals the end of of the random copyright troll lawsuit.
I also feel like I'm not very good at in-person interviews because I'm not very good on-the-spot. I mitigated this by using a variation of "The Briefcase Technique" which I learned from Ramit Sethi.

The company I interviewed with is in the SAAS email space, so to get their attention I created a mini web app combining SMTP and web technologies. This took me about 3-4 hours tops. I was trying to demonstrate a few things:

1. I can code
2. I can work with technologies relevant to their company

That landed me the phone interview, which got me the on-site interview. For the on-site interview, I prepared a 1-page mini white-paper outlining some ideas I thought would be useful to their company. The idea was to show that I could bring value to the company.

I ended up getting the offer, as well as another offer using a similar technique.

Think about what the company's problems might be, how you can solve them, and how to communicate that to them. Work around your weaknesses instead of trying to brute-force it.
Why is spacebar broken on some of the websites?
Yes, I still use spacebar to scroll, and feel frustrated when on some websites it is broken. Why is that?

* Is it responsive website design in CSS?

(i use FF20)
It doesn't even apply to most people in the programming/IT/design fields.

I'd be willing to bet it doesn't even apply to most people working at Google/Microsoft/Facebook/Whatever.
Yes, i forgot, it has to go into the [alias] section of .gitconfig.

It create a commit with a random message from whatthecommit.com; nothing you would push to your public repository; i use it in a script to backup some stuff in a git repo.
I agree with a lot of the commenters here. If your website doesn't explain the conference clearly then there's no predicting the crowd that will be in attendance. People are basically gambling on the fact that this will be worth their time.
The service they use to do this is Jumio (http://www.jumio.com/) Looks like it might be useful to other web apps.

I was wondering the other day whether there's a viable SaaS business going the next step and verifying a person's real identity and address by actually visiting them in person. Like CAPTCHA to an extreme.
Not to my eyes. After the early April surge, you could easily make a case that it's shrinking. At the very least, the peaks camouflage much slower than 15x growth.
Steve Yegge calls it "The Awful Place Where People Make Money With Software"

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rich-programmer-food...
All good points, to be sure.

I disagree about a standard "you need to cancel it" model of canceling being a laziness tax, but I can certainly see reasonable people disagreeing on that point.

I should have explained my thinking on cognitive overhead a little more clearly - I think the overhead of explaining it at the beginning of the subscription is what could turn people away. No disagreement from me that once a user is signed up, they don't need to think about it as much.

I certainly wish you the very best with this billing experiment, and will be excited to read the results if or when you choose to publish them!
Because I don't need a fricking web search to know if 3 comes before or after 4.

Now, this phone runs android Diabetes, and you want a feature introduced in android Cavity. Should I buy this one? I don't f#&$%#& know!
Who did Facebook spam?
>>I could coach him on that.

Will be nice if you write something on that. Will be beneficial to many people.
Which appears to be no longer maintained.
Why AdSense Went To Shit In 2012
Off the top of my head, two reasons construction projects are notorious for going over budget would be because of labour (union) costs, not to mention corruption (cf. Quebec's Charbonneau Commission).

Why single out weather? Lots of human activities are impacted by weather. What's the analogy to software?
I would pay the money if it was worth it… Good tools are worth money. I've been using Monotouch and Monodroid since day 1, and it was pretty rocky at the start. There's still a lot of annoying bugs in the bindings on iOS.
Playing with fire on JSTOR, again.
I never use Photoshop, but sometimes I work with graphic designers who like preparing everything as one huge PSD with lots of layer groups, and it feels like an absurd waste of energy to keep subscribing to Photoshop just to export all layers as PNG, since that is all I ever use it for. Photoshop itself can barely do this, HOURS on moderately complex documents.

Maybe this would be a good time to ask, does anyone know of a 100% compatible way to do PSD -> any open layered format, without Photoshop? Maybe this is a business opportunity, to run a web service whose sole purpose is to open PSD files in photoshop with a custom export script, and then export the layers.
Footnote number 5 is so acidic I feel burned just by reading it. (Context: read paragraph #1 in the introduction first, summarizing the conspiracy's business model.) http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/PendaSanct...
What can I read to learn more about the difference?
startx is a shell script. The vast majority of distributions don't use it at all - they use a display manager that then does most, but not necessarily all, of what the xinit system does (plus some extras, depending on the DM).

startx from a VT should give you an X server. You can get from there to a standard session (minus the DM) by setting the appropriate environment variables and making sure the right session manager is executed.

I don't call that 'no configuration' though. And if you want to startx into Fluxbox you also have to make sure that all of the aforementioned services are run (unless you're totally abandoning your Desktop environment, in which case this whole conversation is pointless).
The combination of this being a financial institution, there being more robust competition, and the absence of lock-in might make this an exeption. I hate to be critical like this, but there have been months of user complaints and nothing but upbeat rhetoric in response.

Granted if Coinbase builds a solid product, this will all be dust on the road. The competition is not "good enough" yet.
Why Amazon is supporting the Internet Sales Tax
That's interesting!

Sadly, it does remind me of how much math/engineering I've forgotten since I graduated.

Are you still a student?
Firefox's Inspector Tool as 3D Modeler
Almost as funny as https://twitter.com/gitlost [NSFW: language] which uses GitHub's timeline feed to find git commit messages with profanity in them. I wrote it in the same spirit as Commit Logs From Last Night although CLFLN seems to use a data source with quite a bit of delay.
Just to add my two cents here, two things... I'm using a Thinkpad X230 with Fedora 17. Everything was working pretty good, but one of the updates caused sound from VLC to have a lot of static for the first 30 seconds or so after waking from suspend. But only VLC -- no other apps were affected. I reverted to an earlier kernel, problem went away. Seems this was fixed after a couple months on another kernel update (or combination of kernel and VLC update).

Secondly -- I picked up a generic USB 5.1 sound card. All works well, except the center and subwoofer channels are switched. I've seen a few posts here and there on editing some PulseAudio configs, but they don't seem to apply to the version that Fedora 17 ships with. But the proper fix is to register this sound module in the "glitches" section of the appropriate Kernel driver, and have it swap the channel mappings there. Still working on finding which data structures the output channel maps are stored in -- if anyone here has worked with programming these kernel modules, let me know and I'll dig up where I left off.
Tesla shares are the only reason this is on the front page here.
Give Your Best Mom the Best this Mother’s Day – Giveaway
Ask HN: How long did it take you to become a proficient programmer?
Days? Weeks? Years?
Property owners and landlords will charge the highest rent they can convince someone to pay, so treating them as active agents in this scenario doesn't seem useful to me. Supply and demand determine what people are willing to pay for housing, and tech workers are willing to pay a lot.
It does, but before the subscription program, I wouldn't be surprised if 98% of users had pirated copies.

The subscription fees are much more reasonable, but I'd be astonished if the rate of piracy has changed more than a few percentage points.

I wonder if lowering the price to something around $9.99 or $14.99 and dropping the annual contract would grow the user base enough to increase overall revenue.
No sympathy for Prenda but damn if this line didn't remind me of Aaron Swartz:

"Federal grand jury investigations are very slow, but represent experienced practitioners bringing almost unlimited resources to bear against their targets."
My uncle is a senior marketing executive and I can confirm that whenever he conducts a job search it is an epic undertaking. So this tends to be true in many industries, not just software engineering.
Ask HN: Essentials for Web Development?
What do you think are the essential concepts, languages, and resources necessary for creating a great website.
Or perhaps you're already committed to Erlang and want to benefit from a Redis-like system?
I find it comforting that a coworker isn't going to unknowingly hide lots of superlinear algorithms in the codebase that will blow up without warning when data sets get significantly larger than the test data.

Sometimes you have to make a decision to just go with the inefficient solution, but I'd like it to be an informed decision if the codebase is one I have to work with and maintain in production.
Parsing Markdown in Under 100 Lines of Javascript
I ... thought the internet already did that.
Their hack wasn't really specific the HVAC systems though. It's just grabbing a poorly secured password file from a web server more than anything HVAC specific.
This looks really interesting. Definitely going to play around with it later tonight. One quick thing, the name java-repl just isn't sticking with me. Maybe something like jrepl would be better?
My pocket must have written this. Sorry!
Where to find friends that are programmers
I have not found one person who shares my passion to program.

Where do you think one should go to find others that take programming as a passion, and seriously?
That's interesting. I actually grew up in Chicago, but have most recently lived in Iowa. I don't have much of a "chicago" accent with the notable exception of saying "rough" and "roof" exactly the same way.
"When the iPhone came out, nobody used touch devices... especially since most iPhone buyers were buying their first iPhone." Is iPhone already a synonym for smartphone?
This is interesting. I'm from Michigan and it took me a couple re-reads to understand you were talking about Upper vs Lower peninsula. I'm from near Detroit, curious if you're more north of that? We generally compare more to Ohioans than "Yoopers" as you say.

I've been living in NYC for a couple years and I've adopted some words and also had "pop" beaten out of me for soda.
Personally I am very proud of the community support shown here on HN to the OP’s post. I saw it earlier today and didn’t have time to respond so I up voted it just before it slid off the new posts fold hoping it would make it the FP.

Recognize that you are bad at interviewing (as I am) and strive at improving the process through choosing better suited jobs aligned with your skillset and practicing the process (which means more interviewing).

Write down immediately after interviewing your gut feelings on what you think worked and didn't work during the process and prepare for the next interview.
If you don't live in a "startup hub," it might be difficult but not impossible. Here in San Francisco, there are tons of tech meetups on meetup.com. If you can't find any tech meetups in your city, start one! A simple one to start is simply, "Shut up and code!" or something similar, where you literally just sit in a coffee shop, cowork, and talk to each other if you want to.

That reminds me, coworking spaces will usually give you a day pass or a few days. Check those out.

Good luck!
If you want to run a company with quality people (and not just employees) you have to spend more time hiring each person than 30 minutes.

I would say 3 to 6 interviews of gradually increasing communication is a must. Otherwise you will end up misfiring a good portion of the time. If you can't do this, you should probably hire everyone on a temporary basis for a few months until you're sure they are going to fit.
You should actually try the device in question.

No pressure needed, and fingers do the job nicely, but much less precisely. The UI on the DS is designed around fingers or stylus, and most games stick to that convention(plenty of exceptions, of course).
I failed an interview, and the interviewer failed me
The problem is that life is full of what looks like trivial tricky problems.

Your reaction, and what you consider beneath you, is far more valuable in hiring than your performance.
Wait- If they use drank to mean drink, what to they use for the actual "drank" (that is a drinking in the past)?