skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Modern Chess Openings is the standard opening game resource.

For endgames I recommend Silman's Complete Endgame Course.

For the middle game, practice a lot, and do a lot of chess problems (there are apps that contain thousands of tactical chess problems).

After a while you will start to see how the opening leads into the midgame leads into the endgame.

As far as videos, ChessNetwork on YouTube is a great channel and the guy who runs it offers great insight and plays a LOT.
>Just because they're incredibly successful, doesn't make them not an independent label. Changing the definition of "indie" to exclude XL makes the claim that 'indies aren't successful' a simple tautology.

Perhaps, but has the benefit that it keeps the definition of "indie" as "not a big marketing and sales behemoth" intact.

And that's more to the essense of being "independent" than "doesn't belong to a major record label".

If we're to accept incredibly succesful, large selling artists, big marketing as "independent", then what does distinguish major and indie record labels? Simply that it's not a conglomerate?
Legacy Systems – Constraints, Conflicts, and Customers
Does Assad really have a weapon that can "blind in an instant"?
My company was looking for a Scala dev in the UK desperately. Yes, perhaps there are not too many Scala jobs out there as there are Java, .NET and PHP, but good Scala developers are not easy to find either. So adding a bit to your list of which language to add to your resume, I would go and spend more time on Scala than on PHP personally.

Why Scala? well, if you came from Ruby, I bet 9/10 you'll like it more than Java, and I bet 10/10 you'll like it more than PHP.

More and more enterprise software companies adopt it (citation needed, but I know my company does).
at least it has more chance in being adopted in the enterprise than Ruby

Also it is not completely uncool for startups, you can find your handful of Scala based startups, and I think there is a trend of more and more using it (as it's not as bad as Java in terms of fun, and much better than Ruby / Python in terms of performance)

Sorry I can't offer you a job at the moment, but as a middle ground between cool startup technologies and boring corporate Java EE / Spring etc... I think Scala might be a niche that will get you that job you want (perhaps not the one you need to get immediately)
Well, I'll have to inform you that this was incorrect! I grew up in Vermont, and let me assure you, it is Quebec that is the cradle of civilization!
Also interestingly, somebody tried to submit that article yesterday. I know because I tried to submit it myself, and found that I'd been scooped. It got no responses and almost no upvotes, until allthingsd added the "MITM" keyword that people here recognize. It might be inaccurate - the attack seems to enable MITM rather than being MITM itself - but it got some much needed publicity for the story.
> it's a crime by french law committed in france

Did you miss the part where it was an American blogger? It wasn't committed in france.
I guess iCab is the last one still trying (as shareware): http://icab.de/
Sorry about that, should have only popped up if you left the page :( Gonna have to talk to bounceexchnage.com about this...

Thanks for the heads up.
Here's a better view of the Winter Wonderlab in NYC:

http://winterwonderlab.withgoogle.com/finder

Strangely, it was near the bottom of the second page of (Google) results for "Google Winter Wonderlab".
Reaper is a fantastic piece of software!
I think it's language-independent, there's just two implementations available, one in Perl and one in Ruby.
This is awesome. We the developers love to put those little comments in code for issues/to-dos and syncing it with Github is solid. looks like someone needs to fork it for Python ?

One question though. When an issue is resolved, would that actually go back to the source file and delete that inline comment OR would it add the text "resolved" etc. In both cases though, would we not need a new commit to that source file ? Or does it leave the inline comment in its original state ?
Sorry about that, should have only popped up if you were about to leave the page...

Fixing now. Thx.
Agree with the general preface of not interrupting your flow with issue tracking. I've been using ghi (command line GitHub Issues)[1] and couldn't be happier.

[1] https://github.com/stephencelis/ghi
Good catch :) Fixed...
Since you seem to be based in England, I can recommend Red Gate, a small-ish (200+ people) software shop based in Cambridge. I interned with them this summer and they're simply an amazing place to work for.

http://www.red-gate.com/
Unfortunately, by the time there are enough regulations regarding the use of antibiotics (for livestock and agriculture) worldwide, it might just be too late.
This is a cool idea, but one thing kills it dead.

Requiring the user to pay to report spam will not work. It is just one more point of friction. How many report spam right now in Gmail when it is free?
a layout language with a preview window

aka digital typesetting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typesetting#Digital_era

If not quite the Correct Answer, it might be the Best Available Answer.

My mother used to be a Linotype ninja, blazing thru the sunday paper's ad inserts. The user input language was a page description language, little different from PostScript or HP's PCL (or HPGL/2). While modern systems are more accessible, I've not seen a system since that matched that concision and productivity.

I loved the precise control of WordPerfect (reveal codes) and FrameMaker (parametric styles). I can't comment on modern InDesign (stopped around version 2), but early on it was not considered a feature complete replacement for FrameMaker.

People speak highly of LaTex. I've not used it for real work.

I've done my share of UI, scenegraph, layout engines, plotter/print drivers, prepress / imposition, etc.

I gave up trying to integrate general purpose constraints systems into layouts. Too many edge cases, hard to debug. I now believe layouts heuristics should be implemented imperatively.

So I created DesignGridLayout, which captures grid based rules for UIs in a "fluent" API (aka method chaining). https://designgridlayout.java.net/examples.html (The awesome Jean-Francois Poilpret has maintained, extended the project for years.)

Though the box model sucks, I haven't yet given up on some mythical, simple scenegraphs + typography + content hybrid. I still don't know what that'll look like.
Great idea! I've wanted something like this for a while, but never quite realised it.

What languages does it support? From the look of the front pages, C-based languages (C/C++/Obj-C) are ok.

Have you thought about offering this as a service? You could probably hook into Github and sync issues on commit using the same API that Jenkins uses.
I'm not surprised by such a comment, but finding it on HN saddens me.

xenophoby? Oh USA, building a wall to keep your neighbours out of your lawn, please tell me more!

Our economy? Of course American governement-sponsored 'liberalism' is a beacon for the free world, and dissidents are morons. Please have a look at this recent article by Paul Krugman: The Plot Against France[0].

Your high-skilled French friends? I have the luck to be put in that population. What I see around me is that we travel and work world-wide, until we start a family most of the time.

0: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/opinion/krugman-the-plot-a...
FWIW I opened it in a background tab.

Still completely unacceptable.

(EDIT: as in, your site is giving a value proposition and I don't accept it if it includes a massive popup)
This is a technique useful in many different places. Using enums/defines that don't start at 0 in C/C++, for instance, helps debugging when you're dealing with possible memory corruption. Likewise, making sure related enums don't overlap in values helps disambiguate logic errors and other potential bugs when those enums are used in data structures.
According to CCRL [1], Komodo 6 and Stockfish 4 are 20-25 Elo weaker than Houdini 3 (in the last few years Rybka wasn't able to compete with Houdini, in TCEC it wasn't even able to qualify into Stage 4). However TCEC uses development versions of Komodo and Stockfish that are much stronger than their latest stable releases.

[1] http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
One would think that after 3 years you'd learn how to draw a good logo =)
I find this so refreshing compared to all the "super todo app raises $30m" news.

And I love these blog posts. So much information and facts about how they try to grow. Please keep going.
np. So are you thinking about re-wording the "No thanks I don't want to grow my business" thing OR you believe strongly in it :)
I don't go to Apple stores nearly as much as I used to, partly because of the salespeople (I usually see more of them than customers), but mostly because they don't carry anything I need anymore.

I buy a computer once every three to five years, which I usually do online, except in the rare case that the store carries an upgraded model. What I really want from an Apple store is stuff for my Mac: software and compatible accessories. They used to have racks full of software, Wacom tablets, MIDI interfaces, etc.

On a long shot, I went in one day to ask whether they carried audio interfaces (to connect a decent microphone or guitar). The salesperson didn't understand what that was or why you'd want it. This from the company that makes Logic Pro.
The conference badge team is great and I can appreciate the transparency in this post. Keep up the good work and best of luck finding a US partner.
Yes. Alcohol in America is shockingly cheap.

I was just in Alaska for the weekend, and we bought two 24 packs for the price of one back in Canada (and Canada is a little cheaper than Oz). Hard liquor is less than 1/2 price.

In a bar, beers were $2 that we pay $5-$7 for in Canada.
Another recommendation for programming collective intelligence here. It really demystified the algorithms behind sites like amazon for me.
Question, and I realize that you said you want a "job for a developer"... Have you considered interviewing for a job a level above that? I imagine with a few years' of experience at startups, you've learned a lot at a "design" level rather than simply an implementation level (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Consider interviewing for a developer management position. Instead of focusing on specific languages & technologies, maybe take a step back and figure out how to apply other things you've learned: how to direct a project, how to take higher-level ideas and turn them into realities. Those types of jobs tend to be more marketable than "I use X, Y, Z technologies".

If not management, I'd still say try to get a little more "meta" than just "I know Rails, Node..." Market yourself at a business-level, if that makes sense. In my opinion, the tools you use to solve a problem aren't as interesting as how you approach a problem and solve it.

Just some thoughts, good luck!
I'm not sure if what we are looking for is creative enough to get art students interested. It's boring printing, cutting, stuffing and shipping stuff.
Student versions of Mathematica are also pretty cheap; that's rather just a vendor lock-in attempt (;
> And then he has the sheer cheek to talk about insane French law. Hello USA? The go to place for mad law?

The US doesn't have insane libel law. Obviously France and the UK do. You can get sued for make factual statements and expect to lose in those countries. It doesn't get any crazier than that.
hmm, die-shot.
That said, it sounds like it might be a hassle to get that to work on a Mac.

I got the personal license of Mathematica for Mac a while ago and thought the price was reasonable for such a powerful system.

The only thing that was driving me nuts is that Mathematica does not work properly on a Retina display, which of course is a shame as text and graphics would look gorgeous. Support for that is only planned for the next major version, according to Wolfram (http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/30104/10565).

I recently found a hacky fix: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/21158/10565

With that, Mathematica now looks fantastic on my MacBook Pro's built-in screen.
3D Sensors Revive Interactive Mobile Projection
Why would anyone, upon receiving a letter from a foreign country in a language they do not understand, spend any time at all trying to get it translated? I'd just toss it in the trash, since someone obviously screwed up and sent me a message intended for someone else.
It currently leaves the inline comment in its original state. It didn't seem like a good idea to have an automated tool touch the code itself, watson leaves it up to the developer to remove the comment.
The "resolved" tag only appears in the report when the issue is resolved on GitHub or Bitbucket to notify a user that they can either remove it or ignore working on that issue.
to think about :)
Basically it started as a personal need/itch to scratch. Also, I'm old enough to remember when my data were my data, applications were my applications and no other entities were interested in what I do/write/see. ;) The NSA things helped my decision to do this, but I was thinking about the program from before.

I decided to open source the code after a review on the App Store (probably the US one) that basically said: "Who are you and why should I trust you". This comment hit a button inside me (and was fundamentally true).
I live in rural New York and I see quite a few anti-fracking bumper stickers on cars. I feel like that essentially says, "oil is okay, as long as the consequences affect other people".

I think that is a disingenuous characterization, not unlike saying that the Occupy protesters are hypocrites for using iphones. In both cases the people protesting live in a society where their access to other forms of technology are restricted by the inertia of the market. That very restriction is a major part of what they are protesting.
Europe has an ocean to keep most of its poorer would-be neighbors away. You can't wave away geography. The US is comparable to Europe, not one country in Europe.
They did have write protection in the past... if I remember correctly, some of these memory cards really had an old-school Eprom you had to erase by UV light and externally erase using a high-voltage parallel programmer:

http://www.classicautomation.com/Siemens_EPROMs.aspx
i have long suspected that BGP routes can be altered on-demand to push domestic traffic outside national borders and justify its recording and use by intelligence services.

it is entertaining to see this done in the wild.
If you really need a job NOW, then I may be able to give you a contract. I would like to hire someone to create Rails tutorials for my OpenDomain site - contact me at hacker at RubyRails.com
Out of curiosity: Why didn't you try to get hired by a bigco in London? Wouldn't it compensate for months of shitty pay at startups?
Vanson Bourne study shows apps are outpacing BYOD as top IT mobility priority
Nice work guys. Clean site. I have never held an event but I can imagine this would be useful.
Nice concept! Love it. The two examples are perl and ruby. Does that mean it wouldn't work in, say, javascript?
Implementing A User Registration Flow In Express
Yeah the United States never does anything outside its jurisdiction that anyone else finds annoying.

That said, the level of institutionalized corruption in France is pretty outrageous. If I recall correctly, the president of France receives a truck load of cash every year which can be used with zero accountability (and that's legal). Of course the French (and pretty much any democratic country) can look at our electoral system and laugh.
My stupid marketing brain couldn't help but notice there is no mention of the word "chess". Must stop keyword optimizing as I read...
How very... American of them.
Also see FlatIcon [1] which has 1000s of icons. I've been especially impressed by their download flow. Only negative is the pagination, which is a bit pants.

[1] http://www.flaticon.com
Mozilla acknowledges this as such in their annual financial reports (and has for a while now):

"Concentrations of Risk: Mozilla entered into a contract with a search engine provider for royalties which expires November 2014. The previous contract term expired in November 2011. Approximately 90% and 85% of royalty revenue for 2012 and 2011, respectively, was derived from this contract. The receivable from this search engine provider represented 69% and 77% of the December 31, 2012 and 2011 outstanding receivables, respectively."

I wouldn't worry too much about it. The fact that Google was forced to up its bid during the last round of contract negotiations means that Mozilla's value to Google has only increased, despite Chrome's presence on the browser scene.
So what step is before this one? I'd love to contribute to an open source project, but I still don't think I have enough programming skill in Python. I've been following several MOOCs and been through codeacademy and LPTHW, and I still can't program any projects(small or big), or even contribute to any.
Also if you're gonna go w/ PHP give Laravel a shot it's syntactically VERY close to rails, and just makes PHP beautiful.
As mentioned below, it currently has support for parsing C / C++, Java, C#, Bash, Ruby, Perl, and Python files

It is pretty trivial to add support for any other language or comment type however, take a look at #get_comment_type in lib/watson/parser.rb

Never, thought about offering this as a service, having this as a commit hook is a very interesting idea though, thanks!
So you copied his content and were mad that he included text which noted you copied his content?
I suggest you add "growth hacking my angular startup into YC" into your HN bio. That's beautiful.
This is sort of true. I ran a publication there for a few years and there are a lot of lines you cannot cross, lines that don't exist in the UK or the US.

One I particularly remember (though I can't quote it exactly) is that you can (could?) be hauled into court for criticising heads of state, domestic or foreign.
Apparently, IBM has a project named "Watson". So he is referring to the name conflict [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6734100
If it was satire, someone better tell Moxie about it: http://thoughtcrime.org/blog/the-worst/
I started the article: He's a mad man.
I ended the article: Hmm.. I never looked at it that way.

Refreshing read.
I know this is cliche, but I think the single most effective way to improve is to play a lot, then review your games with a player that is stronger than you and have them point out better moves you could have made, explain your thought process, etc. If you don't have a stronger player available to look at your games (I can look at a few :) ), then just replay them yourself, look for moves where the game turned towards one player and things you could have done better. Or, plug them into a computer program and see what moves the computer suggests, and then ask yourself why the computer is suggesting them.

For books, I started out by reading a few books by Yasser Seirawan. Two titles I particularly found helpful are "Winning Chess Strategies" and "Winning Chess Tactics". Seirawan is a good writer and both titles do a really good job explaining their concepts to players new to the game. Jeremy Silman wrote a book called "The Amateur's Mind" which I thought was pretty good, that compares thought processes between amateurs, intermediate, and expert level players across similar positions.

One other idea is to simply get a book that is a collection of annotated master/grandmaster games, set up a board, make some coffee, and replay through them. Review the authors notes. Replay them again. Get a sense for the openings being used and the different strategies. Two good collections are "The Mammoth Book of Greatest Chess Games" by Burgess and "The Most Instructive Chess Games Played" (can't remember author).

Chess.com is a great free place to play. They have free tournaments and games online, you can get a rating, track your progress, etc. If you do a paid membership, you get access to videos, tutorials etc. I just use the free membership, so I can't comment as to how good these videos are, but at least to me they look solid.

Good luck. Happy to help more offline (maybe trade for poker tips :) )
thx! really glad you enjoyed it :)
The library code is Lua 5.1 compatible (except bitwise functions in "operator" submodule, but it can be easily replaced with "bit32" or even removed).

Some high-order functions heavily use recursion just to support multireturn iterators (yes, you can use multireturn with map, reduce, filter and so on). I plan to benchmark these parts and add optimized versions for non-JIT Lua if necessary.

I will try to make a patch in the next couple of days.
Thanks for your interest!
IBM's super computer that challenged the ultimate Jeopardy participant, Ken Jennings, is named Watson.
The payment is to be aligned within the next python update at the following address: 1gxud5uquSr1aE9uknj2W6K2WLDwPHEQu
The hypocrisy of the comments here is hilarious.

This is exactly the same as the MPAA shutting down websites and fining people all over the world. All the people here crying "they have no jurisdiction!" are really just getting a taste what their own government has been doing to people all around the world for decades.

Never mind 'Murica going around the world enforcing their laws and ideals with their armed forces.
Distortion vs. Randomness
One of the less useful links on HN.
Why open-office layouts are bad for employees, bosses, and productivity
Have you checked out https://weworkremotely.com/ ? Might find it helpful. Also, there's always things like elance. I know you won't make much $, but it might help in the short term. There are occasionally node projects there.
Keep in mind that most of the jobs you will see on job boards are posted by recruiting agents on behalf of typical large companies, hence Java and .NET.

If you don't want to join a MegaCorp then you need to look elsewhere - the 'who's hiring' thread for Nov is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653437

You could apply speculatively to companies close to you (where are you based?) but this is a hard road to travel alone.

I'm kind of in the recruitment business so hit me up if you want a second opinion at any point. My contact details are in my profile.
Looks like a bad choice of re-title. But I don't think it was intended to highlight the fact the blogger was American.

> Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french justice department for criticizing a bank

You missed the point where they were fining a non-French blogger that was giving straight facts and practicing his free speech.
When is this ever not the case? It's harder to own land now than it was when the government was giving it away for free. That in no way makes it impossible to own land, and no one says stupid things like "Why people can't win the land grab in America".

Build a good product, it will sell. Build an innovative product that scratches the itch of millions and you get onto the top 5 list.

What I see far too often is developers passing off a derivative or poorly executed idea, and complaining that the marketplace is the problem. It's not.
Choice is not the Problem
they're a windows-only shop, bear in mind - or at least they were when I last checked. not necessarily a problem, but may be an issue for some.
On a purely market basis, 400k buys talent comparable to a senior manager / director of the Chrome or Safari team of ~100 people, not a VP or CEO of a company with $100m annual revenue.

$400k is what one-trick ponies like doctors and lawyers and traditional industry local small business owners earn.
Akamai’s German Business May Be Hit by NSA Spying Scandal