skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Most difficult programming language?
Curiosity here.
Lists descending in difficulty would be nice too.
We're just getting started. There are over 700 startups in the city, and there's more popping up every day!
There are regulations (European working time directive). The problem is that employers will ask you to waive the rights afforded to you by that directive...
The bank referenced in the article is Bank Of America Merrill Lynch.
Sadly, the largest American media sources are still ignoring the story almost a day later. I searched CNN, NBC News, and Fox News - nothing.

At least most of the tech news sites picked up the story.
The Traits That Define Great Entrepreneurs
You waive that when you work for an investment bank.
The confirmed speakers right now: (from the sales page)

Matt Thompson, Mobile Lead at Heroku & Creator of AFNetworking
Sinan Yaşar, Co-Founder / UI General of Koding.com
Blake Mizerany, Creator of Sinatra Web Framework
Andrew Gerrand, Engineer at Google / Go Team
Cihan Okyay, Developer at Koding.com
Mark Bates, Chief Architect at Metacasts.tv
Taylan Pince, Tech Lead at Hipo
Relatedly, the Fairphone is shipping now: http://www.fairphone.com/

"Fair" in the sense of "ethically sourced tantalum, etc"; but they've also thought about e-waste and deliberately included a replaceable battery.
That's not a bad salary for an intern position, especially if there are bonuses involved. In a lot of industries, internships are unpaid or very poorly paid. Software development pays rather well, but I certainly didn't make that kind of money on summer jobs.
What Wintel alliance? No.

In addition, jfruhlinger appears to be an itworld spam bot.
DotA2 runs great on Linux ;)
Dating on a diet
Hi Tony,

After reading http://octodex.github.com/faq.html, we thought it was okay to put this image given that we advertise and reference GitHub a lot, we heavily integrate with it and we love Octocat!

Do you think we should remove it?

Thanks!
http://dcurt.is/what-a-stupid-idea
This is amazingly timely for me, I've been building my own version of jarvis using speakeasy-nlp (a node NLP library) and Chrome's builtin support for HTML5 webkitSpeechRecognition:

https://github.com/dpaola2/jarvis (work in progress)

I absolutely would love a better NLP api. Please let me in!
SD cards are available with up to 256GB of storage. They just cost $400 or so[0], so I don't think enough people see the value of paying for that much storage in a phone.

[0]http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-Professional-256GB-Memory-LSD256...
Mine: replacing business cards
When I started as an intern developing, I could quite easily spend 70-hours a week in the office, plus my whole weekend on my computer at home. Not because I had to, but because I was keen to figure out how everything fit together, why something didn't work and what I was doing wrong mainly.

The banking industry is well known for being able to make a lot of money in, but having to put in long hours. Unfortunately I can't feel sorry for people working in that industry, you have to keep an eye on the long term goals of earning 6-figure salary with bonuses that double that (I know plenty of people doing that who have "put in the time")
There are many ways, ads is one.
In other words, much of the U.S. is going to start looking more like a 3rd world country like the Philippines, though probably a richer version (less grinding poverty.)

You don't travel much.Your possessions are likely your smart phone, maybe a family computer and clothes. Because there isn't as much money to go around, families tend to stick together more rather than every generation scattering at age 18. This trend expands into the community. So, perhaps you are closer to your neighbors and certainly to your family.

I wonder how much longer the car culture is going to last. It seems that you have to be rich to justify buying a car these days. Maybe we will be driving scooters like people in Asia instead of cars?
Dutch... But I guess the odds are low for that, because the smaller user base.
There are some companies focusing on care robotics emerging in the Netherlands though, which could use a service like this.
Antarctic Researchers Find New Life Forms In Mud Beneath Lake Hodgson
I think Zarkonnen was trying to say that as the inequality increases then it becomes more and more difficult to rise above a certain threshold. As the inequality increases then that threshold becomes more difficult due to standard economic situations and due to interference from the elite that likely would eventually want to control access.

Today it may be easy to raise your economic standing, but that doesn't mean that will continue into tomorrow.
* Three hours of sleep - if that - is far, far too little for any normal human being to function normally. Also yes, working until 6 AM is an all-nighter, it's dawn then.

> Second, how many times did you pull a few all-nighters in a row during college? I can't even count. I certainly didn't die.

Never. I don't get why people do it either, it's not like it makes you a better student. If anything, having to pull all-nighters for college can, in my limited and breezing-through-school opinion, mean only a few things:

* You only started to work on an assignment / study for an exam at the very last moment.
* The US school system is terribly broken and puts a disproportionately and unhealthily high workload on its students, turning it into a Chinese sweatshop instead of a nurturing educational facility.

In software methodology, there's an expression called 'Sustainable Pace' [0]. When building software, it's pointless to go and do 'crunch time', since, one by one, your people will start underperforming or even outright crashing, leaving the remainder under duress to compensate. Doesn't work.

I don't know what these 'deals' are, but I can't see how they'd require anyone to work 21-hour workdays for any duration of time.

Personally, I work a 9-5 job as a software developer / consultant, and I close the door behind me at 5. I resist my colleague's excitement over DOING ALL THE THINGS!11one, simply because I know I can't deal with it. I've seen enough colleagues (and my superiors, lol) work too much and unable to let go of their job and becoming unfit for work. So yeah, I like to dramatise this a bit, and not allow myself to fall into the same traps. It's not like I'd gain anything from it, anyway.

Work to live, not the other way around. etc.

[0] http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/overtime.html
As someone who grew up in the low income bracket of America I totally agree with your first point, it is amazing how easy it is to simply work hard and get somewhere like I have, yet people throw that chance away all the time. Your second point, however, I think is not so much about students thinking they can be whatever they want and more about not succeeding in their first choices. Most of the people I went to college with tried to be engineers or physics majors or something similar but didn't put enough effort in and instead of simply dropping out decided to change their majors to something easier because "you have to get a degree" is such a strong idea by our parents generation that most kids will accept the debt knowing they will never find a good job simply to not look like a failure. I'm not saying this is any better, but this in my experience seems to be the more common reason for so many people getting those degrees.
Unfortunately the working time directive for doctors in the UK is also averaged over a longer time period. So my wife has just come off an 80+ hour week of night shifts
> And what an IQ test, tests, is your ability to recognize and exploit novel patterns, generalized across different domains (word problems, pictures, music), under time pressure

It's worth pointing out that most criticisms of IQ tests are that the amount of novelty in the problems is pretty heavily dependent on your cultural background.
When Google was a young company, she worked 130 hours per week and often slept at her desk.

"For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work."

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223723
1.x on iPad no longer works. I'd have happily stuck with it if it did.
I think that while it's certainly not for everyone I think there's a powerful reason to overly emphasize and encourage it.

Not to promote needless suffering, but rather simply because, at the end of the day, they are one of the principle sparks that makes the other jobs possible. My relatively stable corporate existence, even if plagued by all the hallmarks of big dumb corporatism(s), is a blessing (and I do consider it a blessing, especially for where I'm at in my life) that was made possible by a key core of individuals who were the ignition points for the seeming stability I have access to now.

I believe that the very reason to push, even to some excess, even to the point of some idealizing, of start-up life is among a few vital needs that must be fulfilled in a society if that society has hopes to insure longer term availability of stable options among all possible economic paths.

Like industrialized agriculture, for all of it's ills, evils and problems, the shear population, as it exists and continues, demands some version, some manifestation, of a system that shares at least some of the key attributes.

Start-up culture is both the seeding and blood letting that makes stable private and public professions possible. In many ways it's the agriculture of our day. Subject to whims of forces akin to climate and nature, but who's volatility makes all the growth and upward movement possible.
Please, describe a particular 'job', and the keystrokes to do it in Vim.
If you go back in time to 1913, and told someone about all the machines we have in 2013, he would say "surely there are no jobs for even 5% of your society". Even not counting that in 2013 bigger percentage of women work than in 1913.

But then, how could he predict that there will be these billion-dollar industries that do things not even invented in 1913. Huge majority of what people do in 2013 just didn't needed to be done in 1913.

I don't doubt people will invent something to waste our time on ever greater scale.
good speakers.
Not to mention the 1989–1995 FSF boycott of Apple.
8 Tips To Help You Dodge Common Startup Mistakes
I worked as an analyst in Investment Banking for a while. To me it seemed that the analysts who worked the really long hours worked on projects in teams, where each team member was responsible for a part of a project. No one can start or continue until that part is done, so they just sit and wait.

There were many times when people just wouldn't respect other people's time. At 5PM I would get an email: "Hey, I need this done for tomorrow morning"..."So why didn't you just tell me earlier? I know you knew about it in advance."
It's a word. Just mispelled: precariat.
"One thing that is not spoken about in the early-stage tech world is how many startup founders come from money or stability. I’m by no means saying this applies to all founders or early-stage startup employees. But if you dig a little, you will see the “risk” that some of these people are taking is not as risky as they may seem."

This is really true. The business risk may be very real, but the personal risk for many is relatively limited. For some people, going without a steady income is to truly be without a safety net and risk having to sleep in a shelter. For me, when I started my company, I went in knowing that if we ran out of money, I could get a nice dev job within a few weeks and not only bounce back, but bounce forward (or at least sideways). If things went really sour, I might even have to move back to my hometown for a couple months. Gasp!

In this world, agency is a privilege that's hard to measure. I feel like sometimes people underrate their own and mythologize their self-madeness, but overrate that of others and pathologize them as lazy or cowardly.
New in RubyMotion: Faster Builds, 64-bit iOS, iOS 7 GM - RubyMotion Blog
great conference! i'll be there!
Intel isn't stupid. While their current success is largely due to Microsoft, they know the "Windows tax" won't be viable forever. They're rabidly competitive and will do whatever it takes to come up on top.
In the most restrained and calm way possible, I'm wondering why this is on Hacker News at the moment...

A Wikipedia article, concerning a technology that is effectively ancient and indisputably outdated, seemingly with no relevance to any recent events in the tech world, or the greater world in 2013 for that matter.

Occasionally it seems as if one could do "Random" Wikipedia click [0], find something marginally interesting, and post it here. It's strange that this would be the case, but I suppose the points voted on suggest that the community is interested in the subject. Don't get me wrong, I read the article and found it interesting, just to learn a little something new about history, but I then wondered how it could possibly relate to HN, and I went back to re-read before commenting as I was certain I must've been missing something regarding how this article relates to some current event / technology.

Edit 10:42EST, to restate the purpose as it seems people neglect to realize I too found it interesting and are saying "but it's interesting, I personally enjoyed it", please see the below sentence (Copied from above paragraph for clarity). This comment wasn't about personal interest, it's a question of relevance.

---

Don't get me wrong, I read the article and found it interesting, just to learn a little something new about history, but I then wondered how it could possibly relate to HN, and I went back to re-read before commenting as I was certain I must've been missing something regarding how this article relates to some current event / technology.

---

Ninja Edit: Note! The following will direct you to a random wikipedia page, may be NSFW. Follow at your own risk.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
By OSX 86 community do you mean Hackintosh users?

If so, Hackintoshes are, from Apple's point of view, piracy anyway. Apple makes no money on the OS (which they sell for a few dollars) and all their money from the hardware the Hackintosh user is avoiding buying. So whatever ethics are involved are already in a dubious state.

If you mean general Mac users, then, as I and others have said, there isn't a prevalent attitude of condoning piracy (everyone I know who uses Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign has paid for it).
How to optimize code using dirty bits
Right. So a startup has to be about working 80 hours a week or it's not a startup?
I would hope that would finally trigger the acceptance of working from home, or even satellite offices, instead of large groups of people converging in the same set of buildings on a daily basis in a specific area of the city for little benefit.

It would probably even save the city itself large amounts of moneys not having to maintain such an inefficient infrastructure.
I think screen scrapping is not allowed by HN. Few tries with these APIs might get your IP banned!
Back here (Netherlands), GP's (local doctors, they get all the booboos for a certain area) as well as pharmacists would get called out of bed in the middle of the night in case of emergencies. (I was carried off to the doctor at night when I developed pneumonia once, got diagnosed, penicillin from the pharmacy, etc in a matter of an hour or so). I'm guessing that happened frequently, so I'm sure doctors would miss quite some sleep from time to time, especially during flu epidemics and the like.

Nowadays, they have a new system, "Doctor's Watch", where the GP's from a certain area operate at night in rotation. It's a bit more official and less personal, but it does allow those not on rotation to get a proper night's sleep. Pretty sure they'd compensate that by working less hours during the day / week.
'Having the internet' is different to the ubiquitous internet access that kids growing up today are subject to. Twenty years ago you couldn't take out a smart phone and watch porn. You couldn't even readily download porn videos, images perhaps if you were lucky. Even so you were unlikely to have unrestricted access to your own computer with internet access, so watching porn was a special event when the parents were asleep or out.
A kid today could pull up porn on their phone right now without a second thought. And it's that 'without a second thought' that is the (slightly) disturbing bit, because it happens before kids develop a proper sense of right and wrong.

If I'm honest and I think back to the playground when I was younger, I am sure my understanding of what's right and wrong would be different (worse in my opinion) than they are today.

On the other-hand I'm in favour of free-speech, but then I also think banning kids from disruptive influences (alcohol, smoking) is also an effective means of keeping kids safe until they can take full responsibility for their actions.
NSA Apparently Undermining Standards, Security, Confidence
The Future of eCommerce: Mobile, Social, Vertical and Content Based
There are many paths other than "work as a corporate drone" or "go all in on a risky startup". There are a good number of resources out there which can help you figure out how to set up a small SaaS business online or become a consultant. For example, check out Patrick (patio11) McKenzie's blog, or the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast.

The thing is, if you read Hacker News, Tech Crunch, and the like, they give the impression that you need venture capital to be a success. This is due to editorial bias on the part of the site owners. Start looking farther afield and trying things on your own and you'll notice that the promotion of venture capital is quite self serving.
No, you're wrong and he is right and now it is clear that you're just laughing
Ask HN: I'm traveling Asia, can I meet you?
My fiance and I run a small consulting business; I'm a generalist programmer currently specializing in Django and AngularJS development and she is a copywriter and social media specialist. We are traveling Asia for a number of months, working, making connections, and vacationing. We're currently halfway through Japan and the rest of our few months is flexible.

We have traveled a lot in the past couple of years. I speak decent Mandarin and we'll definitely hit Shanghai, but I'd love opportunities to meet other hackers for anything from additional consulting/freelancing work, to an opportunity to buy you a beer and discover a good meal.

Email is in profile.
"Design" according to Steve Jobs
_Doctors can't get jobs because so many people are vying for the same jobs it's difficult to even get a specialty. Nobody will hire you without a specialty._

Source? There is a huge demand for primary care doctors right now ( source: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-06/national/41812... ), and anecdotally, I work for a company that runs primary care practices and we recently hired a recruiter because we are having trouble finding the handful of doctors a year we need to keep growing.
So far I like Newsify against the Feedly API.
88 hours for neurosurgical residents. And, speaking as someone who is married to one, that hypothetical "20 hour week" never happens.

Also, you are expected to be active researching and publishing and studying for certification; figure another few hours a day outside of the hospital when you're not on call.
Don’t force a situation - instead let it develop
This would be great for open source projects, but I feel like I would trip over a very large pile of patents if I tried to build a product around it. I don't have any relevant experience myself though, so it's just a feeling.
To, sigh, go even more off topic.

I like my metal a bit less melodic. :-)

Meshuggah, Nile, Dillinger Escape Plan, etc. Not the extreme stuff (when Darkthrone's "Blaze in the northern sky" gave me a headache; then I knew I was at my limit :-) ).

Disclaimer: I do like lots of whining singer-songwriters and folk music (including Irish like Altan etc) too. Even Mary Gauthier!
I'm not disputing anything else you've said, but how did you decide that you'd got your $5 after 6 months? I wouldn't have the first clue how to go about deciding at which point in time I got my money's worth.
Normally that's a valid complaint but it's pretty obvious in this case that by fine he means "not so addicted to his 'phone or porn that it has a negative effect on his life".
Rum & Coke: simple, gets the job done, and packed with regret.
After waiting longer than I wanted for a Reeder update for iPad I went out and bought Mr. Reader. Works just fine and I can't think of a single thing I am missing from Reeder.
Casio AT-550 - A watch with a touch screen from 1984
Oh dear, you really don't know much about Craigslist do you?
A Robot That Understands Emotion From Your Voice
Well, we could remove their existing optout from the Working Time Directive. As to the "but they'll just leave for the Third World!" claim below:

1) it's a networking-based industry. Everyone would have to move at once, or at least a very large chunk.

2) They would have to move to somewhere in the same time zone (finance has outposts in NY, London and Singapore/HK that cover the day in 3 8-hour trading days). I suppose that's less relevant if you're working 20 hours a day.

3) They'd have to move to somewhere similarly cosmopolitan to London. No point in making all that money if you can't walk out the door and find somewhere to spend it in your few precious hours off. That rules out much of the African continent, although there are expat clusters in Angola and UAE.
Big data startup Factual sells and processes location data
Thanks for posting that; I hadn't seen it before, and it does a pretty good job of covering the problem that analogy brings with it.
I tried building a REST API once for a challenge if anyone is interested: https://github.com/mapleoin/newhackers
Jarvis-like systems are a great use case.

You should be able to sign up now.
I agree with this sentiment completely. Too often people assume that buying a product is equivalent to making a charitable donation to the developer. I don't buy software to "support" the developer, I buy it because it will provide value to me. I don't care if the developer makes $10 or $10 million. The only things that pass my mind when buying software are the utility of the app to me and the cost relative to other apps. In the case of Reeder, the additional charge from paying for an upgrade is not worth it when the Feedly App is free.

Commerce is not charity. That does not change just because the developer is self-employed.
Perspective really does depend on location.

But I have a few friends who study medicine and they've all told me it's near impossible to get a job as a doctor because it's near impossible to get a specialty and nobody needs you without a specialty. All the while, the media has been blasting me with news of a humongous shortage of medical professionals - doctors in particular.

Partly the difficult in getting a specialty is caused by the shortage of doctors because there aren't enough to train everyone who wants to become a doctor.

It's a mess.
While it may not be news, and it may not be immediately useful or directly applicable, I found this a fascinating process, and a good illustration how something very simple can be a very effective solution.