skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I’m a super procrastinator too. I’m also not good at estimating how long a task will take me. On top of that, I feel apprehensive contacting or responding to clients once I know I won’t make the deadline, entering radio silence instead. Needless to say, that’s not good for business and causes both parties a fair deal of distress.

Some things I’m doing to conquer my shortcomings:

I outline the entire project and try to estimate how long it will take. I then schedule the work on hours I try to keep myself to (4-5 hours a day). Once working on the project, I log my working hours and what I do with them. Once the project is done, I review my outline and time sheets to see how close I was to my estimates, and where I went wrong (usually I was distracted or needed to learn new tech to get the work done). I use OmniPlan on iPad to do all of this[1].

I usually work on several projects at once. I’ve found out that I really can't focus on more than three at a time, so I’m learning to say ‘no’ to new projects or schedule them far in the future. In truth, I still have ten projects right now, but half of them are longer term.

Starting my day by reviewing the projects in OmniPlan and seeing what needs attention most helps me get started on them. I also have a desktop picture with the Yogi Bhajan quote “When the time is on you, start and the pressure will be off.”. When I read it and fully realize it, that motivates me to get started. And lastly, I use a GTD trick when working on a project that seems too big or boring: I pick the smallest, most fun part of a project, and tell myself that I’ll take a break after that. Once I’ve finished it, I’m usually motivated enough to keep working.

[1] http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniplan-ipad/
Consult a fashion designer and design "T-hats" (like, T-shirts) and start selling them via your website, may be? ;)
...but hopefully not fecal bacteria.
If you need to build up willpower to do things, you should be doing different things. Find what you want to do. You still may have a problem with procrastination, but at least you'll be getting things done in a realm that matters to you at a deep level.

The thing about "I could be changing the world" is more complex. That is one hell of a monkey to put on your back. What are your hobbies? What do you really enjoy doing? Yeah, maybe for where you are in life (young adult?) you have that urge to change the world but channel it through a passion. Don't even think about anything that furthers a goal, just pure enjoyment.

As a kid, the architect Frank Gehry played with blocks and he went back to that play when he found his work. When physicist Richard Feynman was burned out, he stopped doing all physics until he saw a plate spinning in the air and started to compute spin just for fun with no sense of a goal. It reconnected him.

It seems like you are in a prime place to explore that base level of play given your security in work. Do it and maybe you'll end up with what you want to do. Then you can move away from the chores or put them into perspective.
If you've worked in a US Corporate IT shop, then it is very likely that this is the case. One way large corporations structure the work is deliverables based. That means the company is paying the vendor to deliver design docs, code, tests, etc. on a schedule and aren't necessarily paying per hour. The offshore companies hire a couple of Java enterprise developers with 6 months experience and don't pay them much. They assemble the basics of an application together and the work is billed out as $X,000 for development. The cost for development seems inexpensive for a large corporation where if they staffed someone themselves, that would be less than 1 month and there's certainly no way 1 person could write an entire app in a month (that should be in sarcasm font - but that is how upper mgmt thinks).

The offshore companies profit lies between what they pay people and what they charge the mega-corp. Some offshore companies cut corners in this area - so you will hear things like "they only did the minimum", "they can't think out of the box", etc. This is likely because the developers have too many projects and really aren't encouraged to go above and beyond since that will not help the profit margin.

A lot of the offshore companies have attrition problems as well which help contribute to the stereotype that developers from those countries are unskilled or cheap.

From your writing on your blog, you are a better writer than what I've seen coming from some companies in my day job. You're doing the right things by blogging and maybe you should start a github repo for your side projects so future potential employers can see your capabilities first hand. Work on your spoken English/American English as well (I have nothing to judge on but this can be a barrier), the better you become at this the faster you can break through that stereotype.

If you aspire to work for a startup, see if there is a startup scene in your area.
It can write a copy of itself into the working memory of another computer by once again exploiting a side-channel (wi-fi receiver DMA on a smartphone laying nearby, say.) Once it has Internet access, it can just yank some credit-card numbers and start ordering parts and subcontracting work to arbitrary addresses...

...but this is all assuming high-level side-channels. There are things you can do using the acoustics available in spinning hard disks that can produce any sort of resonance you like. I would imagine that, much in the same way a modern-day scientist could go go back to 300AD and still be able to construct a crystal radio just out of some spare bits of metal laying about (it's not a hard problem, just a theory you need to know to even think of approaching the problem that way), a sufficiently-advanced intelligence might be able to just do nanoscale assembly of whatever it likes using coalesced heat radiating off your RAM chips.
It's a little harsh to say he deleted the audit trail. He deleted his bash history. Something I do on a near daily basis.
USB 3 is an example of using market power to force adoption of a new protocol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#Implementation_differen...:

"The USB 3.0 specification is similar to USB 2.0 but with many improvements and an alternative implementation. Earlier USB concepts like endpoints and four transfer types (bulk, control, isochronous and interrupt) are preserved but the protocol and electrical interface are different. The specification defines a physically separate channel to carry USB 3.0 traffic."

That's what lead to those Frankenstein connectors, glueing the existing USB 2.0 connector to a new part that is used for 3.0 traffic. To see that in all its glory, look at a drawing instead of a photograph: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_3.0_Micro_B_plug....).

IIRC, two pure 3.0 devices cannot negotiate a connection's properties without the 2.0 part, but after that, they don't use it anymore. USB 3 truly is a new interface borrowing terminology from 2.0. This, on the other hand, seems just a speed bump. As the commenter on the AnandTech article states, that may mean it gets adopted sooner.
Well, then it installs an app. And yes, it's the same restrictions as apps for jailbroken devices....and they can take over your phone pretty easily (as described in the article). Sounds like you have the specifics right but may not understand the implications?
I'm actually also interested in how he made it (drawing so much frames).
At work, I prefer 2013-08-02, because humans can read and understand it, and it sorts correctly.
"German patent registrars named it one of the 8 most significant patents of the century - an honor shared with inventors like Thomas Edison."

They shared it rather then stole it from someone else. So sharing the list with Edison is a doubtable honour.
German Publishers Can’t Wean Themselves Off Google News
Dining Philosophers in core.async
> Citation needed.

Unfortunately, I've never published anything to any official standard. I can only go by my experience. That experience involves transactions north of $100M.

> Any other credit card form I've seen does nothing to convert either -- and it's not it's job

Perhaps I worded it poorly. However, a CC form's job is to convert a potential customer into a paying customer. Just because you've entered your CC details does not make you a paying customer. You'd be surprised as the number of people who do enter information, and then never actually complete the transaction. It it's a recordable amount.

In the end, a credit card form that creates friction will cost sales. The more friction, the less sales. The amount of problems with this setup will stop sales from going through, even if just the bugs are fixed.

> Most of the objections are dead simple to fix

They aren't objections as much as they are a report of what is wrong. Consider them a list of problems that need to be addressed.

> and address nothing inherently wrong with the core idea.

Correct, the idea is fine, and should be explored. Keep in mind, this isn't the first time I've seen someone use a credit card layout as a form. The CVV on the back is new, but than I'm going to say that's a bad idea the way it's implemented.

Anyways, I already replied to the author of the form, and made it clear I'm not arguing against his attempt. Hell, I applaud him. I just wanted to share my experience because that is what's needed.
Been "MEAN" stacking myself - MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node. Love the package management, 100% JavaScript, and performance.
I often get 24 hours on my iPhone 4S (with a few things turned off). And that's what Moto-X is promising. So I don't define that as "crazy good".
NSA paid $152M to GCHQ to access US citizen data it couldn't collect itself
Does there exist a watchable version of this comic where it skips through frames without text FAST, but pauses for long enough time to read it at each frame with TEXT?

Most attempts at making the comic viewable either went too fast to read the texts, or were manual click through and thus waaaay too slow.

Thanks!
Web Development with HAPI and Node.js
Need the usual disclaimer that you're a Googler :P
Show HN: FUSE filesystem for Google Drive written in OCaml
the right way to use tabs (tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment) needs some amount of discipline to get right always. It's more flexible but very easy to make a mistake and mess it up.
No, Gmail's Promotions Tab Didn't Just Kill Email Marketing
Unified Theory of Productivity
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/

You can tweak the pause time where appropriate.
Use separate browsers for gmail, fb etc.

Use Firefox, install these extensions: AdBlock Edge, Ghostery, DuckDuckGo, Cryptocat, HTTPS Everywhere and Self-destructing cookies.
The secret way to edit your code in Microsoft's SkyDrive
Hm, that's an interesting error. Judging by the undefined indices, I'd be inclined to think that it's possible you forgot to select a file, and/or something glitched with the captcha.

Either way, I like the facebook spider test idea. Though, I would think that their spider shouldn't trigger the download, because the way it's set up is each "download link" is just a page with the real download link on it, which submits a form that does all the processing to figure out if the file should be deleted.

I've also been having problems with the files actually staying until the set number of downloads, but it's something I'm working on. Thanks!
If plastics absorb PCBs and pesticides, couldn't we use big (so they can't be swallowed), porous (to increase the surface) pieces of plastic to clean the water?
Civility in the game industry: Why it’s everyone’s responsibility
Interesting attack that uses the fact that when duplicate data is present in the returned packets, it will be compressed so will make the packet size smaller. This means that it's possible to quickly converge on secret session tokens.

The mitigation suggestions are all at the application level which will make fixes less likely as SSL/TLS is usually considered a security silver bullet.
That's exactly how people think of it in the U.S.
As someone who is just hearing about this now, isn't this just an animation?
Start je dag op een gezonde manier met een lekkere paleo boterham
Friday Infographic RoundUp: Some Good Ones eh
SEEKING FREELANCER
I'm looking for a fellow freelancer to help me with a project I'm currently working on.

Skills required: objective-C

Contact details are in my profile.
The article was updated.

"The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day.

After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature."
YYYY-DDD sorts correctly too; and this was about day-of-year notation ;-). But agreed, generally everyone should use ISO 8601.
There are already such devices on the market. I just bought one three weeks ago for about $12. It even has a plug for car cigarette lighter (which is actually why I bought it).

It's called "3-in-1 charger" here in Europe and it looks like this:

http://mireltech.ru/node/614
Good point about the rate varying a lot based on the audience - I imagine that tech sites have it worst for blocking rates.

I wonder how the rates vary for tablet/mobile viewing? I'd guess fewer users manage to block ads on these devices?
I remember a similar project from the French TV news. The airplanes were ultralight drones (no pilot and only as many passenger as taxis). I can't find the source.
You might have the category wrong. It's making fun of founders for being casually ageist and racist. Or to be more specific, privileged and oblivious.
You think if they chose to use Git for version control the agent would have not thought anything of it? Subversion just sounds too menacing?
Microsoft Announces Upgraded GPU Speed For Xbox One
What's Wrong with the EPA? (1992)
Released one frame a day. That's pretty unique.
our superior operating system is only superior to computer savvy users who are able to fix what they break and configure what they buy and who have the patience to figure-out things like why a configuration made in the KDE UI disappears at reboot. Hint–it might be because that particular configuration in your particular distro must be made in the distro’s configuration panel which overwrites anything done in KDE’s panel, even though it’s a KDE configuration. How many grandmothers will figure that out

now that is how you hit a nail straight on the head. In the last 15years or so I tried many times to turn to the desktop, but it's exactly issues like this (which are, under my impression at least, way more common on the desktop than on the cli) that make me stick with the command line linux and enjoy it in all it's glory. If I want a desktop I still use Windows. Or OsX if I must.
Git Off My Lawn – Develop 2013
Imagine watching a Youtube video that is buffering so badly, you only get to see one frame per hour.
Show HN: We Are Here - The Story of Stars & Maps
Thanks for posting this, it convinced me to finally crack this book. I've done a little bit of toying around with Racket and Clojure, but I don't feel like I understand how these languages work deeply enough on a conceptual level yet.
I was on a jury for a murder trial, and so I have some insight into how juries work.

At one point, when I was splitting some hairs and discussing the meaning of some small details from the evidence, one of the other jurors got impatient and reached for the coroner's photo of the victim. "Someone died here, you realize."
I don't know, Angry Birds (and smart phones in general) ushered in a new era of bathroom-related hygienic disasters.
the AMEN stack?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/12/amen-break
you are probably talking about this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870347870457461...
Most consumers don't think about security beyond enabling a lock screen. Average people do not think twice about promiscuously plugging their devices into any ports they find. This attack vector is entirely off their radar. On the other hand, gadget purchasers care deeply about sleekness. Based on reactions I have witnessed, I suspect some people may even be sexually aroused by gadget sleekness. Therefore, at this point there is little incentive for a company to sacrifice their product's sleekness for a security enhancement. Until typical customers start caring I do not see a split-port solution happening.
That's still too abstract for me. Does anyone have a concrete example?
I like the idea of hundreds (?) of people obsessively consuming obscure media and discussing it in a Web forum, mostly because I thought it was a nice plot device in William Gibson's 2003 "Pattern Recognition" with "the Footage".
I'm not sure if this is what you meant but mine always has a prompt of some kind (varied between phones) for connecting to pc. I'm not sure if there is a way to disable that or if it was phone specific.
Yes, in the sense that 'Star Wars' is just a movie.
Whoops you're right - I meant (n - 1) / m < (n / m).
I seriously doubt it. NoFlo is not a language, it's a DSL on top of some another language. There will always be NoFlo.core and NoFlo.libs.
Know more about Burn out and the available natural remedies(by LaboSP)
It's not good. It's most likely the manufacturers were aware of the problems, and decided to do nothing about it (as using plastic beads is likely cheaper) unless they were called out on it. They could then quickly switch to the already pre-planned alternative, making themselves look good in the processes.
Any country that has a legal definition of "journalist" that gives said journalists rights not granted to ordinary citizens has neither freedom of information nor freedom of speech.

This debate isn't so much about the definition of "journalist", but the question of how to keep the majority of the population silent and uninformed.
> I dont think you are lazy; I think you are afraid to fail. Your "perfectionist complex" seems to be the problem.

Just wanted to highlight these two sentences. I think this is his problem, too, because I think it is also my problem.
Native video/audio – My favourite WordPress 3.6 feature
India's Walmart of Heart Surgery Cuts the Cost by 98%
A not so basic neural network on python
When will people, especially the tech illiterate ever learn that security via obscurity doesn't really work when you've got marginal cost of duplication. [Of course, it's a bad idea for even tangibles but in the electronic world it's a totally broken concept]
Ouya gets its first MMORPG: Gameloft’s Order & Chaos Online
I've always wondered how safe those dirt-cheap USB hubs on eBay are. Seems like a potential attack vector for unsuspecting buyers where you also likely know the name and address of the victim from shipping it to them.
From the last time this came up, I found a few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5814193
I have seen about 3 game engines exploiting the idea lately. It's good for specific domains but not useful for general purpose stuff.
And there you have a step-by-step blueprint on how to undermine the efforts of local talent pools to stand out in favor of saving tens of thousands of dollars and hire an H-1B.
Advanced MySQL Query Tuning: Webinar followup Q&A
As far as I know he draws by hand, scans the images and cleans up in Photoshop (or similar). Since Time is mostly a static background with actors I guess he uses the same technique as stop-motion animators by drawing the background and foreground on different cels (or maybe just compositing afterwards). Or lots of copies of the background to draw the foreground into.
Just fire the guy.
Disabling compression is at the server level rather than code level (and it's a real easy config change too). However I can see that being an unfavourable solution for some of the busier sites.
As an attorney and someone moderately interested in politics, it's becoming more and more clear that technical literacy is going to play a huge role in law and policy.

We desperately need more politicians, bureaucrats and law enforcement who at least have some basic technical knowledge.

Empathy is the only way to prevent stuff like this.
The American Nightmare
Life Boxes
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6110575 (88 comments)
> Or is the government twisting every word in the dictionary to mean whatever they want it to mean now?

Without commenting on this particular case I want to note that it is not just the government that engages in this practice but that business and governments have a very rich history of creative redefinition of terms to stretch their meaning well past the breaking point.

Doubleplus ungood.
Build an Offline HTML5 Web Application
I love it, but i know nothing about fashion. This would be a real learning curve. The irony of a programmer turning out a hipster fashion statement would be totally awesome.
The UI is currently written in JS with Backbone. Once it reaches a usable-enough state rewriting it in NoFlo is high on my list.
No. Parts of it may almost seem animated, but it's not watchable at something like 30 frames per second. Frames skip ahead varying amounts of time in the sequence, dialog is single-frame -- you can't watch the whole thing at even 1fps, you'll miss the dialog.

It is truly a long series of single-panel "comics".
The best clue it is regulatory capture is that despite the regulations obviously being so burdensome and slow, an incumbent business is supportively enumerating them rather than complaining about them.

Why? Because the barrier to competitors is more valuable to them than the burden of the regulations.
Meh, a lot of that is buried away in libraries and stuff and I never worry about it.

Time zones on the other hand...
Mark Shuttleworth is important to desktop Linux because he's the only one with vision, and the means to carry out that vision. He's making the tough, unpopular decisions that are advancing desktop Linux into the mainstream, and the only one with the balls to go at it alone.

Despite its issues (and it has them), Ubuntu is by far the most usable Linux variety, both on the desktop and server...
Nice work Ken!
That's what output sanitizing is for. What's filtered for output may easily be changed over time whereas data that's been filtered when input could be enormously difficult to change once the application requirements changes.
Good suggestion. This will be coming in the project updates.
It sounds like a couple of tech-savvy journalists should start the equivalent of http://getreligion.org.
Now that is more along what I could do. Nike now has a programming interface for all things nike +

http://developer.nike.com/
Google Scientists Want Google to Stop Funding Climate Change Denial
Instead of carrying a power pack or USB condom and what not, isn't it just easier to carry the charger you trust? After all, it's the untrusted charger you want to avoid, no?
What's The Biggest Mistake You Make Each Day?
Is it just me or does it look like the author of the gun.io talk copied liberally from the Boston Python talk?
Have a look at a book called "Getting results the agile way". It's a simple process which you could probably glean from reading the introduction. Essential you choose 3 things each day that are important for you to solve, 3 things each week, 3 things each month.. You can see where this is going...Or as a quick (great way) to boost to your productivity have a look at the 'pomodoro technique' There is also another great book called "Getting Things Done" but that takes much more effort and takes a somewhat anal approach to managing every conceivable thing if your life.
In case people aren't clear on this. He worked in an industry that takes this sort of thing very seriously. He shouldn't have even been trying to download open source from work. You don't email stuff home to work on it, for example.