skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> I’m not sure what made them rethink their [remote employee] policy, but Balanced again asked me to come work for them, this time as their first remote developer.

I can answer that. We changed the policy to allowing remote team members as long as they are primarily contributing to open source projects.

The problem with being remote is how much you lose in communication when working on a project. You don't have that problem with open source projects. The design mocks, discussions, etc. on Github are the same as anything someone in the office would see.

Also ... it just got to the point where it was stupid not to hire remear (Ben).
The difference is that Mythbusters is doing their own (informal,just for fun) scientific investigations, while Gladwell is selectively misrepresenting other people's (serious, rigorous) scientific investigations so people take his essays more seriously.
Saltarelle is great; just worth making the clear distinction: Saltarelle is a C# compiler, JSIL is a .NET translator.

The distinction matters for cases where you want to use huge piles of existing .NET code, sometimes written in other languages. VB.net and F# already have partial functionality in JSIL without any dedicated support, and there's a partially functional MonoGame port that only took a small amount of fiddling. You could of course manually port all that stuff over to Saltarelle-compatible C# (and get great results!) but it's a different approach.

EDIT: One other distinction is that the .NET translation approach results in broader feature support. JSIL supports features Saltarelle may never support, like pointers and structs.
While I can't take away your belief in a human right to something, I can take that something (given sufficient capacity for force). Belief in n/h rights can exist independently of whether or not the rights exist, in the same way that belief in Odin can exist independently of Odin himself.

Though, through morally-guided action you can possibly cause the n/h rights which you believe in (but which don't exist) to be reified as legal rights. Now, given sufficient capacity for force, I may still subvert those rights, but through their codification they have nonetheless gained existence.

The second part of your second paragraph actually closely matches my stance. And, it's precisely the prevalence of (implicit) absolutists who continually frame arguments founded on the assumption that some n/h right or another exists that leads to my irritation when these terms are used (relatively) carelessly. Such arguments are fundamentally flawed and, yet, continue to dominate most discussions concerning politics and economics.
I agree. Burning Man has evolved from a very unsafe event towards more safety. I doubt if we'll see any more blowing up oil derrick type events. Someone is still going to try to take down a drone though, especially if it appears to photographing naked people.
Show HN: NSString + Ruby
This is awesome. Nice work Valerie!
The reason PG is the YC founder we hear about is his essays, not the other way around. Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Jessica Livingston were all just as much founders as he was.
Balanced is hiring #7
Balanced (https://balancedpayments.com) is hiring software engineers
who have a strong experience building distributed systems and service
oriented architectures to join our small team of 6 engineers.

We are very interested in how you model a problem, how you think about
data, and how you can design for failure -- all while working in an
open company. We go into detail about Balanced and our Open Company
approach deeper in a recent interview on thechangelog.com:
http://5by5.tv/changelog/107

Your friends should classify you as a great problem solver. We expect
you to be very proficient in object oriented programming.

We think these are skills that span any programming languages, even
though we're primarily a Python shop.

If you think you have what it takes, shoot us some code you've written
or any open source work you've done that demonstrates what we're
looking for. Ideally, some library with a great API.

Some examples of great pythonic APIs:

- https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests

- https://github.com/mitsuhiko/werkzeug

We provide all the awesome benefits, however, we're only interested in
individuals looking to relocate to the Bay Area - we will pay for
moving.

Shoot us an email here: am9icytweXRob24taG5AYmFsYW5jZWRwYXltZW50cy5jb20=

Bonus:

- You know SQL.

- You understand the power of hypermedia in API design.
>> At many universities (certainly my undergrad) the mean and median students in the Education department are weaker than students in other departments. Taking the weakest to bring out the best in our students seems very odd. There is some research that suggests teacher certification can actually be counterproductive. [1] If we were in the situation of Finland (teachers are in the top 10% of their class) then we would not need this type of intervention.

To the degree to which this is accurate,this flips the cause and effect. Finland, as a society, invests in its teachers and in teaching as a profession. In the US teaching isn't a terrifically paid job and isn't respected as a profession. If we invested more in teachers and teaching then we'd see those ratios start to change, maybe generationally. As it stands, though, teachers tend to get the brunt of the blame for "failing" schools - by both the right and the left politically now.
HN Meetup 10/10 at Twilio in San Francisco
The SFHN community is happy to present another HN meet-up for everyone tonight 10/10 at Twilio!

https://sfhntwilio.eventbrite.com/
Politicians do this all the time. Fox News and the mainstream media make their careers out of it. I think we as a society have forgotten how to deconstruct an argument and fact check the specifics.
How Netflix will blow up the traditional TV industry
> survive in the current climate

It helps when the president is your fellow KGB pal :) Proper affiliation and loyalty is all you need. It's common folk that really have to survive.
Coolio performs Gangsta's Paradise and cooks for students
Much of the produce you mentioned is picked by farm workers who also endure poor labor conditions.
I've got a weird question regarding this idea of "flexing the will muscle":

Do you write at all about stoic philosophy, and where it fits into your whole... outlook, or whatever the sum of your book and blog posts represents? Because the idea of subjecting oneself to unpleasant experiences (mostly in the form of denial) is a significant part of stoicism.
Shooting down a drone is a criminal offense, property damage and all that. The UAV owner would be in the right to sue and win. Also, if it crashes on top of something as a result, the shooter would be responsible for that damage as well.
TLDR : Bill gates is a Hoss.
Of course not, the problem is that he presents himself and his books as authoritative and accurate, and a lot of people believe him.
This reminds me of the time Instagram held a contest[1] promising a T-Shirt, reneging and offering stickers, and finally not delivering anything.

[1] http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/post/12651721845/ins...
And contributed a bunch to the ruby one.
Good read. So the title is pretty catchy but it can be expanded into:

- Built a relationship with Balanced over time by engaging on IRC

- Did some free work for them developing iOS and Android libraries.

- Open sourced the work. Balanced team knew what I could do.

- Really got to know the team and they liked me a lot.

- Asked for T-shirt.

- Got a job.

On a side note, "They used Github issues to not only track problems, but also to openly design features and prioritize them for implementation."

I do this all the time.
> deeply and truly believe Amazon is on my side, where I believe Paypal is actively out to screw me.

Why do you feel so strongly about either of them?
Like gecko said, you can use C#'s 'dynamic' feature to grab references to JS objects from the DOM and do late-bound manipulation of them.

Functions can also have their body entirely replaced by a JavaScript expression, and it's done using an attribute so that it doesn't affect how your code runs in native .NET. This is used in parts of the runtime library and in some of the examples, like so:

[JSReplacement("document.getElementById('speed').innerHTML = $text")]
static void WriteSpeedText (string text) {
Debug.WriteLine(text);
}

You can also directly embed raw JavaScript into function bodies, like this:

var a = 2;
var b = 5;
Verbatim.Expression("print($0 + $1)", a, b);

That allows you to embed particular JavaScript constructs that the compiler won't normally generate, call out to things like jQuery directly, etc. The downside to this is that you've now written something that won't run in any other .NET environment, but you can always wrap it in a JavaScript-only conditional.
Yes, that's what I expected to find when I clicked on "Getting Started." However, that just shows you the location of their code repository.
As per the article, they're very (very very) slowly migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7.
I suspect Puppet and Chef are not even on their radar at this point.
All it needs to do now is shoot lasers, this will ensure it can do damage the entire 5 years.
Wow, this looks really useful. Thanks for building this!
As long as the operator of the photographing UAV follows the same photography rules and guidelines as the people running around with cameras on the ground, I don't see a problem. Also, shooting down a UAV is a) illegal (property damage) and b) even more dangerous that the actual UAV operation, since a shot-down UAV will surely come down uncontrollably - the responsibility for that damage will then rest on the shooter.
But the myth gets the moral exactly backwards -- the pens solved a real problem, and because both NASA and Fisher knew most of the value of the deal was getting the "the same pen they use in SPACE!" endorsement, the government got the pens for almost free.
Backbone.js 1.1 release imminent
They are fantastic pens, too. I've had one since high school (so...about 8 years now) and I've refilled the ink cartridge all of three times. A very VERY solid investment for writers.
The time lost to commuting is also time where you don't meet other people, and don't exercise. Things like that also factor into the result, and you might not even be aware that you are missing out.

Although to be fair, most people I know don't meet a lot of people most of the time anyway. Modern work life seems to be work - TV all week long.
>enough information to replicate the image from scratch... Smalltalk's images didn't really have this feature<

Code changes in ST-80 (the Smalltalk made public in 1980) were automatically logged outside the image. There were (at least) 3 files:

- the original source code provided with the implementation (.sou)

- the replayable log of changes since the sources file was made (.cha)

- the compiled bytecode and objects that make up the current state of the program (.im)

The most basic approach to re-building was to take the vanilla sources file and vanilla image file provided by the vendor, and "fileIn" the changes you'd made from the change log.

And then there were change sets.

And later, a fine-grain method-level VCS database.

iirc JPMorgan had 4 people employed just as code-librarians to work on code-reuse across their Smalltalk projects.
I laughed way too hard at that :D
If it stays below 500ft, and is controlled by someone with line of sight (who is also the owner of the property, or has consent from the owner) then it is allowed under FAA reg.
It's not hard to start a conversation. Doing so by using selective data and unsupported conclusions is not a good thing.
You are right, take our fellow man out of the equation, and it all feels very different, regardless off the reasons/excuses given.

This is also helps explain why drone attacks (missiles too) to kill terrorists, and so on, are so hated and seen as cowardly. If such people are killed like Bin Laden was, then that feels more acceptable than a drone strike, because in that sort of scenario, there is a man on man thing. There is a sort of honor to it.

I personally very much dislike US incursion in to foreign countries to kill people. However, when OBL was killed, I did think, well at least men on the ground got their hand dirty and took personal risk to do it. Much more honor to that than some drone jockey sitting safely in a bunker thousands of miles away risking nothing what so ever, like a kid playing some console game.

Something else. Many find it more irritating to be caught speeding by a speed camera than a police man in a police car. Similar sort of thing.

Bottom line: electronics, robots and automated system are superior to us, which is why they are used. Very simply, it is not fair. There is no sporting chance for us second rate humans.
Multiplats never looked better on the PS3 because the cell platform was a PITA to develop for. PS4 is moving to x86, as is the Xbone, so whoever champions the better hardware is likely going to win the battle this iteration.

Also, discounting exclusives is pretty huge. You also need to discount indie games, since Microsoft has proven they don't give a shit.

Disc technology is far from dead. Tell me this again when you have people biting at the bit to download 50GB worth of data (blu-ray DL size disk). Microsoft wasn't leading the next generation of anything... both physical media and online media should be able to exist without a persistent internet connection.

If you want to buy a console from the guys who, when asked about an offline offering of the One said "we have that, it's called a 360," then go for it. Super consumer friendly, no doubt.
This week is just full of thinking about pens. I recently read a hilariously well-researched article [1] about the best pen that _wasn't_ a space pen or it's $32 ilk. Baader-Meinhof, or something, I suppose.

[1] http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-pen/
recommended reading:

Shocking Behavior : Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bleakley/Bleakley_Ferrie_Intergen....

The Ticket to Easy Street? The Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00114
Watching them so young is such a trip! Thanks for the link!
There were people who worked with others, and people who didn't :-)
If you've read my work, you know that I rarely write about things I can't back up. This is not a book about "success" broadly defined. Who even knows what that means? Clearly different for everyone.

In my book I talk about:

- what it is like to dislocate your knee, undergo multiple surgeries, and come back to win a national championship in gymnastics. The good and the bad. Not so you can be a gymnast. But so you can have a framework for approaching a difficult situation in your life.

- the latest research on how to build willpower and develop better habits. So that you can be healthier, more productive, and direct your energies more towards things that matter to you in life.

- what I've learned in 16 years of training on how to learn new skills. Gymnastics is one of the most intellectually demanding sports. Ever. And thus I've learned a lot about how to master skills, and share that. Same with performing under pressure and overcoming fear. Specific, actionable tactics.

- how to get people to buy into your ideas at work. This is a problem for smart people everywhere. I have a very specific case study that I break down, then explain more tactics that I've personally found effective.

This is not about "The Secret" or passive income or vision boards. This is about specific things I've personally learned that works, and that perhaps could work for you too.
Largest known Riesel Problem prime found
Except that the blog post says "for a long time the available facts were equally explained by geostationary or geomobile models". This is a correct statement. If you reread the whole Wikipedia section you cited, you'll see that the hybrid Tychonic model, in its geostationary form, also could produce phases of Venus, and that some scientists of the time moved to it based on that evidence.

You inadvertently prove the point of the entire essay, which is that we all oversimplify and distort our stories of the past to serve our modern purposes. If you oppose religion because you think science and facts, however inconvenient, should be our guides, don't you have even more obligation than religious folks to avoid this kind of mistake?
Absolutely, flying them over the people masses at Burning Man is definitely not a good idea. I operate UAVs commercially in Germany, and both my insurance and flight permit explicitly forbid overflight of people or animals.

However, even when not directly overflying people, responsible UAV operators take a number of safety precautions to ensure maximum operational safety of the devices. For example, using an octocopter instead of a quad would allow a motor and/or a propeller (and sometimes even two) to fail in flight without losing control. Another example are GPS-assisted autopilots, that can monitor and enforce safe flight envelope (distance, altitude) and return the aircraft to its starting location in case of radio signal loss or low battery charge.
I'm guessing most of that money went to pay salaries, just like raising a $1M seed round in the Valley. Since Fisher invested their own money, it's hard to determine if the $1M was only used for the space pen. I would assume they didn't hire that many new engineers and simply allocated existing engineers to the space pen project. On the books it looks like $1M invested, but that amount might be significantly less.
That and all the other IT worlds (rightful) hate towards IE, makes me think, how does that feel if you're the one of those IE developers... poor guys/girls. Still its staggering how much wrong IE can be in every corner there is some mistake.
Amazon.com is selling Uranium Ore
Deconstructing arguments is difficult, and fact-checking is incredibly time consuming with often little immediately benefit (besides the smug sensation of knowing more that it often provides).

This is why popularizers and journalists have an incredible responsibility to provide this deconstruction and fact checking on behalf of the public, and it's why there is so much outrage, particularly from the scientific community, when they fail.
Just as Burning Man is a test bed for civilian use of drones, it will also be a test bed for civilian anti-drone measures. These don't actually have to involve shooting it down, but people are already thinking about it

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/local-an...
Odds are Gates didn't write the complete code, probably more of the blueprint. Also worth noting- the original implementation of FAT was pretty basic/fundamental. Could one even call it an application?
I keep a space pen in my pocket at all times. A Field Notebook in my back pocket, and I'm always ready to write things down.
Hiding Data in a Heartbeat
> I made the decision to switch all of our development to Groovy (and Grails) a couple of years ago

Look at Groovy's history before 2 yrs ago and you'll see what's not to like. Groovy recently (29 Aug) turned 10 yrs old but no one was celebrating.
Wow, brilliant marketing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6529951
How's this:

Guy predicts the higgs boson particle.

World renowned physicist Foo Bar, accurantly models existance of boson particle.

---

See the difference? The title is BS. I expected a guy from Pakistan or somewhere third world finding the bug.
FAT8 was written in 1977. Nobody is using any filesystem written in 1977 these days.
There is something ugly about Gladwell's response. Gladwell insinuates that Chabris has a rabid vendetta against Gladwell and is trying to make a name for himself as an iconoclast. It might be true, but I would have liked the response to have taken a high road.

1) He emphasizes that Chabris has written <bold>three</bold> critiques of him as of date and will probably write a fourth

2) He calls the request for debate silly, making Chabris look agressive.

3) Notes that "I clearly drive Chabris crazy"

Everybody loses when the conversation turns personal.
Especially in social science world where it's difficult to have rigor in experiment design. Saying: "Gladwell didn't quote one study which according to one social scientist (but not other ones) made initial findings less likely" would be more accurate.
Again, the man told interesting story backed by some studies and opinions of somewhat respected scientists in the field. He also gave references so readers could investigate. By doing this he is ahead of vast majority of pop-science/business books out there already.
I think it also has to do with a lot people who are registering domains don't know any better.
Where lack of accountability comes is the idea that contractors can be fired if they don't do a good job, whereas it is much more difficult to fire a full-time employee. So rather than solving that problem, most of the government's software development is farmed out to contractors. The other reasoning for contractors is that contractors don't get retirement benefits that FTE's do, so in theory that saves the govt money but in practice it probably doesn't, given that contractor bill rates are usually 200-300% or in excess of what FTE salaries are.

Not to say that FTE's are great or anything, contractors do tend to me more up-to-date on technology but I think that is a result of the government employee hiring practices and compensation scale.

Yeah I've seen a lot of "business line owner" issues like the ones you've mentioned. Another common one is that software is often built to mirror dysfunctional and wasteful business processes. So you either get software that is needlessly complex, or you build the software then have to re-do it because people realize how bad the underlying business process was.
touche, you get an upvote from me :)
That book is fantastic.
I never heard of ENVY, thanks for the info.

We used VisualWorks around 1995 in the university for a few projects.

When I looked again to Smalltalk, Squeak was already around and Monticello was being used.
It's interesting that the affordability is calculated relative to median income. If SF is the most expensive, relative to household income, doesn't that imply that either San Franciscans are living above their means, or there are more renters in SF than any other city in the country? Is there another possible explanation?
My favorite part about Ben, is before he was an employee, he would take over the morning support shift on IRC.

He would help with technical integration, redirect to support, etc. I was very appreciative - it also allowed me to see how much he cared about fostering the community :)
Schwartz looks very nice and polished!

We make the exact "reverse" app - PaintCode, which is a drawing app that instantly generates Quartz 2D code (http://www.paintcodeapp.com/).
The Big Takeaways From the Government Shutdown
Startup Metrics, a love story. All slides of an 6h Lean Analytics workshop
There's more to it than that. The Russians simply had a completely different philosophy to how the interior of spacecraft was supposed to be, as such their panels were not susceptible to the problems of graphite dust etc. This also had the side effect of making Russian capsules of the same era much more comfortable than their American equivalents, although the landing procedures could more than nullify whatever comfort benefits they had.
When he says "He wrote FAT on an airplane" he means with pencil and paper since FAT is so old that there were no laptops to do that on. Which maybe he figured out all of the specs, but he didn't put code down and debug it. Of course in those days writing it on paper was quite common before people typed it into the computer. And that is quite impressive in and of itself. Most of the time people treated that activity as if they were coding so they were very precise. Now a days we're fast, but we aren't as precise.
How about if we joined the same week?
Maybe there is somewhere else I could direct this question?