skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have attended more than a dozen Colleges and Universities. I have a degree from none.

I had a ground floor corner window office at Microsoft. (those who know, know what that means)

I was told by Google if I took a job with them I would have to "finish" my studies with in 2 years of taking the job.

I was on the standards committee for h.264, VC1, HD-DVD, and Bluray. Today I build some of the most advanced Natural Language Processing systems on the planet.

What is wrong with higher education is the belief that it is necessary to do well. There are definitely fields where I want the person to have earned a Doctorate. (I would like my Brain Surgeon to have at least one if not two) But over all I find that the person with the discipline to find out what they need to know through seeking someone who can teach them, or through reading, or through taking a gig that will train them is far more impressive than attending a school. Especially for IT.
Sometimes I think I envy people who can think like you do.

But I find people who know what it means to be irrational are far more interesting.
Success isn't Design, it's Relevance
Much Ado About Bitcoin
Target Wants To Launch An Accelerator In India
Has there ever been such a low ball PR campaign by such a large company? It's seriously hard to think of any major company that's come out with such sleazy tactics as this against a direct competitor. Can you ever imagine Google or Apple running direct to consumer ads referring to Microsoft as "Microshaft" or some other slogan? Even on Reddit, things such as "M$" usually result in a torrent of down votes.

It's a fascinating strategy, and I'm kind of scared what it will mean if it works: can you imagine an all out war with every company doing this? I hope Google has the self control and patience not to return fire.
Compute Engine Load Balancing hits 1,000,000 TPS
The NSA and surveillance ... made simple
New Jersey Opens Up for Online Gambling
Unfortunately, they're working: Microsoft wouldn't still be doing these after 2 years if they weren't.

EDIT: More info on the effectiveness of the ads (tl;dr: yes, they're changing perception) http://adage.com/article/digital/microsoft-s-google-bashing-...
You can gain a rough estimate based on the delivery schedules of ASICs in the market. You can calculate the pre-orders placed for xGH/s and multiply that by how many were pre-ordered. This should give a rough estimate of how much hash-power will be added in the future.

Current market situation - it's definitely going up.
And you're making quite the assumption. You assume that working at PA would be "settling for low pay", when in reality nobody knows what the position pays. Maybe it's low for Seattle? Or just lower than PA would pay if money weren't an issue? Hard to say, since they don't get into details in the posting. Or maybe lower than a job in corporate office, where you're stuck in a cubicle all day?

Again, the point is that there is more to job compensation than money (at least for me). If it doesn't pay enough, and the perks aren't worth it, then don't apply. Or apply, and then say "no thanks". Nobody is forcing a job on you, and there are quite a few people who would enjoy working for PA at some unknown % of market value. And don't conflate non-monetary compensation with doing good in the world, they can be two different things. Hell, in the case I made before they are two different things.

Speaking of non-profits, you know they run Child's Play[1], right? Raised $17M+ over 10 years. I wonder who's doing all the tech support, web dev, etc for that? Smart money is on whoever holds the advertised position.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child's_Play_(charity)#Annual_t...
They hired a political strategist for these anti-Google campaign. No wonder they are so gross.
What if turns out to be exactly like that in real life, too? :-)

I suppose it would cause some cognitive dissonance. One question I had while thinking about the (purely hypothetical) dissonance was : "Is he being overly enthusiastic, or is my low-key behaviour a subtle result of years and years of programming and debugging in an imperative model, where I literally have to internalize the computer, the Von Neumann architecture, and did I somehow end up being an unemotional VERSION of IT, a robot-human hybrid?!". A horrific thought, eh?! :-)
Calculated risks, no matter how number of, or how precise the calculations, often still fail. The idea that all risk can be eliminated is a fallacy, as there is literally always a risk of failure unless you're already independently wealthy.
Yup! Makes me look pretty dumb, doesn't it :)

(Also: never go up against the SEO blogs! They have good SEO! :)
If you're in Austin, NYC, or SF and want to work for a decent company, I may be able to help. victor@victortrac.com.
I like apple. I still buy their products, but I do not think that I am a fanboy. I recently bought their new Ipad Air and it has been great. But to me it is "just an ipad"... meaning, if something truly awesome came out to replace it, I may consider that option as well.

It just seems like they really have not created anything recently that has really "wowed" me. Maybe they put the bar too high for the wow factor.
As a side note Rossi sold 27 thermoelectric converters with a claimed efficiency of 20% to the Department of Defense.

19 of them didn't function at all. The 8 that did work only produced 1 Watt of power instead of the 800 promised.

The guy is a scam artist.
> I've never understood the fetish C/++ programmers have for shared memory, and locks, and mutexes.

There are some problems which are more amenable to shared mutable memory, especially when performance or memory space is a concern. And for those problems where the sharing of mutable data is not needed, forking, pointer ownership, thread-local data, and const correctness are all old concepts.

No silver bullet.
Doesn't "OH:" mean "Overheard:"?
That's fine. It's good to consider the source of the argument in addition to its content. I take a neutral view because I don't really care one way or the other; if this was jrockway Inc., I might not have done the change in the same way. But perhaps that's why there is no such thing as jrockway Inc., and there is a such thing as G+ and YouTube. Who knows.
Hey Man, Husband and Father. I have a large amount of respect for you. My only suggestion is to apologize to your wife and family for not being able to provide now. The love and forgiveness that you receive from them will lift a weight off you that you may not know is there.

Also, remember, you aren't the first Man, Husband or Father to be in this situation and that you are not alone. At this point, make sure not to be prideful and accept the gifts of known and unknown people who want to help you out. None of us made it to where we are without the help of family or the kind words of strangers.

This too shall pass and you will come out even stronger. I am in the New York area and depending on what you do, I might be able to help introduce you to people. You can reach me at rwoodruf at gmail dot com.
"lately" ? They've been around for what, 30 years ? Do you know what kind of shame it is to only "lately" get better at things ? They should be prosecuted for fraud for selling an OS that just gets rooted, 10 years strong, by a few lines of malformed javascript.
He didn't say Tumblr was a bad deal. He was newbie when he started, David paid him decently, and he worked regular hours.

I required, and was given, a great salary plus stock, a nice office environment, and a healthy work-life balance.

His issue with this job is that they're looking to hire an experienced unicorn on the cheap, then they're going to work it to death.
> In addition, the practical applications of gold you've just listed are, I expect, not what gold is normally used for.

Exactly. Several countries have kept a reserve of gold for centuries, but probably not out of a fear that they will suddenly need a bunch of ductile metal.
PA isn't a software company though. "Competing" against PA means having a web comic (or other artistic content) of your own, it doesn't mean doing software somewhere else.
I'd class myself as an above average generalist. What's the difference between marketing myself as that or as a dev?
I'm glad there are people like you !
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not... Microsoft will stick to a plan for years, even when it's not working.
Lockitron is a YC company, right?

Maybe their experiences will help future YC companies avoid these pain points.
Funding from friends and family will be always tricky, don't ask people that you will dread to see on family holidays. If they can't separate business and family time, don't ask in the first place. If you can't separate the two, don't ask. Figure something else out.
$120 of Drive storage doesn't cost Google anything near $120, though.
What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft's marketing departments?

I'm to understand that Pawn Shops won't exchange the used Chromebook you bought for your mom but then decided to, what, steal back so you could put it in hock in order to scrape together enough cash to get a bus to Hollywood where you'll wait tables for six years whilst failing audition after audition before finally being shat out the butt end of the porn industry?

I bet the Chromebook doesn't even make people dance in board meetings like the Surface apparently does.
Completely agree. In addition, since he seems to have struggled for a while, I suggest not maximizing income and instead focus on a less stressful 3-4 year plan to get back on his feet.

Life is long so there will be plenty of new chances to swing for the fences if that is what he desires. And if his 3-4 year plan is executed ahead of schedule plans can always be changed.
It is not they volunteered. These people volunteered as well for the longest time and then wanted to put some bread on the table based on their efforts. Don't see how that is a "screw you".
Pawn Broker: Moral Bankruptcy

Reality TV Star: Moral Bankruptcy

Microsoft Shill: Moral Bankruptcy

In hockey, that's called a hat trick.
The original article seemed to be saying "Rails shouldn't get slower with every release" but almost everybody seems to be replying as if it said "Please help me make my Rails application go faster because I'm an idiot" ... did I just misread?
I guess Microsoft hired one of the folks who wrote Sarah Palin's talking points. 'Not a real PC' ? What is a 'real' PC?

Most of those 'negative' things could be said of an iPad.

Screw... pled?

and a majority of those things would be true for the Microsoft Surface RT device as well.

Screwcrowsoft.
Reflection is also very slow in C#
"I thought of you as" is not the same thing as "you are a".
That's completely reasonable. I don't want to use my real name under YouTube either.

My YouTube page is this: http://www.youtube.com/user/jrockway1

Can you figure out that it's related to my G+ profile, https://plus.google.com/115192122236060613729/posts?

For me, it's separated enough, but I can totally understand that not everyone would agree.
Hang in there! It's gonna be okay. If you ever need a listening ear, now or in the future, feel free to email me and we'll call. Also, eat well, sleep well, get some fresh air & walks and spend time with the family. Coping with difficult times is easier that way.
The reason why you get this kind of behavior from advanced degree programs is (you probably guessed it) rankings.

When "acceptance rate" is one of the factors in your ability to inch up those of so precious rankings, marketing yourself to applicants in this fashion suddenly makes sense. Sure, you'd like the best, most qualified applicants to matriculate. But more immediately, you have a need to inflate the number of applicants to your school, keep the number of seats constant, and make your program look "more competitive" to get into.

IMO this kind of short cutting may work in the short term, but erodes the quality of the student body in the long run.

Whenever you see "has been investing heavily in their marketing efforts" from a graduate program, I take it as a warning sign that something might be cookin' in the kitchen.
As if rhino poachers would ever use bitcoin, lol. After all, the money has to enter and exit the BTC world (e.g. at places like MtGox), where it can and will be recorded.

Far too risky for poachers and large-scale criminals.
Same here -- wife, 2 kids, house and in Seattle. More than happy to try to help a colleague.
Starting Today, Get a Free DC Digital Comic Every Day for a Week
I find it interesting that Microsoft claims in this clip that a laptop isn’t a laptop if it doesn’t run Apple iTunes.

Personally, I can’t stand iTunes on Windows, but hey, clearly Microsoft knows what consumers want.
Speaking of cocks, the technical leadership at two well-funded startups systematically harassed Zed by adding him to github repos that contained nothing but ASCII cocks. I know this because they bragged about it openly, thinking it hilarious.

Zed takes a lot of abuse for little reason.

I debated naming the companies here, but they appear to be failing anyway. Probably because they hired the sort of people who find harassment hilarious.

edit: removed oblique reference to one of the companies. I don't feel like giving those firms any publicity, even if it's bad publicity.
Best I can do is -.75. I'm not trying to beat you up I think it's a really fair deal. In recent years the market has taken a major hit and -.75 is really the best I can do.
The difference between 3.2-stable and master is +14k/-19k: https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master...3-2-stable

The difference between 3.2.13 and 4.0.0 was +121k/-103k https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/v3.2.12...v4.0.0

So yes, it has grown, but only a little, and may even be a bit smaller, depending on how you compare.
Uh, the question of exploitation isn't really about how many hours about productive but about how many hours are taken from you.
I feel you man. I know very few "successful" people who haven't gone through what you're going through right now (to varying degrees). You're not alone - http://www.techdisruptive.com/2013/10/29/common-themes-despa...
Rhinos don't poach Rhinos, Bitcoins poach Rhinos
That was my understanding too, but I haven't come across such evidence except when accompanied by yet more compelling criticism of it. I would love to learn of compelling evidence.

So far I have only come across cases where someone made up a model, started using it, and people followed, same as the And model here.

Anyone can make up any labels, attach behavior to them, and lo and behold, people will fall into one or the other category. Add a few years for people to get used to them and people forget the labels were made up. Add a few more years for the labels to make it into standard language so people grow up learning them and they feel like parts of nature.

Penn and Teller could probably go to town on the concepts on their show.

I'd love to learn something new and be shown something I missed.
I would also recommend to be careful where you take a job: do you want to use your quick mind to build APIs or SQL queries, or do you want to be doing something more innovative like machine learning, or building codecs, crytography or working with data streams. There are some great companies out there (like Matasano for example), who will train you on the job in some pretty awesome areas.
So in a reality where 99% of government spending is not spent on infrastructure, you use the infrastructure argument to waive me off as juvenile? This is an ad hominem cop-out.

> The fact remains that "free enterprise" means what it means, not what you want it to mean.

You have ignored my point that your definition is a contradiction in terms.

Moreover, our discussion is a discussion about politics and the economy, not an economics textbook or paper.

So why don't you just make your argument in plain English?

Because it relies on invalid definitions to get it to appear to make sense.

That would be an unsubstantiated allgeation if I had not shown that your term is contradictory. I did.

> I'm going to have to refrain from responding to the rest of your post, as it simply reads like a bunch of anti-intellectual nonsense.

I don't think people who peddle contradictory terms deserve the title "intellectual," so I don't think my comments were anti-intellectual.

If you actually see a contradiction between my analysis and reality, you should be able to state it simply. That you didn't point out such a contradiction, suggests to me that you don't actually see one.

As a sidenote, I have enough respect for some economists to find it hard to believe that they are all using the term in the way you say. Of course, many economists simply (and reasonably) stay away from any political topic.
What about instead having the ability to change your vote?
Either way, it works in favour of Google to the detriment of MS.
People's interpretation of an abusive work environment is different. There are some where the general environment is that you're expected to "give as good as you get" and everyone has fun -- as long as that's your idea of fun. Lots of people think that kind of thing makes for a fun office environment, whereas to other people, it's like working with the frat boys from hell.
Mind blown!
The study I cited measured actual hours in the office, not productive hours, so I stand by my point that most claims of hanging out in the office significantly more than 45 hours a week are bullshit.
Ask HN: Looking for testers. Please help.
We launched a new photo contest web app a couple months ago and could really use some more testing before we begin to market it.

http://bigbearchaseme.com

Any feedback would be awesome.
Ask HN:  Are there such things as IT Apprenticeships?
With the high cost of higher education and the amount of MOOC's available for learning, is there such a thing as an IT apprenticeship or something like a developer or SA apprenticeship?

Skills for machinists, welders, etc. all have apprenticeships. Would it not make sense to have them for IT as well. Where you could learn under a "master" for a period of time equivalent to a 4 year degree. Does this exist?
Scrapple your iPad and buy a Surface at these now Microsoft-ic prices.
Yep. You can Bing search numerous examples.
There's a sleight of hand going on here.

The boundary between "kernel" and "libraries like libc" is very stable and doesn't change often. That means that often, the kernel distributed by Arch can work reasonably well in an Ubuntu system, and vice versa.

With that in mind: The "ubuntu" image ships the "ubuntu-glibc" and "ubuntu-bash" and "ubuntu-coreutils" and so on, but they continue to work on your Arch host because the system calls don't ever change.

You can't link (say) ubuntu-glibc into arch-bash though, which is why containers are built off of a "base ubuntu image" in the first place.
Good idea, except I don't have an iPad.

:-)
It's posts like this that make me love HN :')
Apple had a whole TV campaign with Justin Long mocking Microsoft. It was pretty successful I recall.
Frankly there are many ways you can be irrational. Your thoughts, your actions, your creations. But don't do that at the expense of your family. If you want to take too much risk, don't start a family, heck you can even stop at 1 kid to manage risk.
If there isn't, there really should be. Traditional University education does a really poor job of preparing people for IT as well, further exaggerating the need for it. I think some of the trade school programs have OK curriculum, but I can't say for certain either way.

The shop I work at was actually talking about it, but we don't have the time to train someone.
Somehow we tend to think that all it takes is hard work. But there are many aspects of building a successful business. Sometimes we can risk a little too much. Not everybody makes it, not every body has the needed support, not everybody has the tolerance to risk. It is not only about making your dreams happen, you also need to know when to fold.

I wish you the best. The best advice I can give you is to hang in there with your life. Strengthen your relationships, life may suck now, but it will get better, just hang in there, one day at a time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale
The iPad and Surface RT have native apps that work offline. The iPad runs iTunes. Surface RT tablets run Office. Both run Office365. The iPad runs iWork, a good alternative to Office for many. Surface RT tablets run Windows.

I think that covers all the things that were listed in the video.
I'm apprenticing a junior sys admin right now. He's been with me for 2 years now. It's not a formal apprenticeship, but I took him out of the help desk (where he worked on Windows) and now he is a solid junior Linux sys admin. This was on an Ops team of two (and now three).

May sys admins I know have juniors they are apprenticing in a similar fashion. This is a fairly traditional way to make a sysadmin (on the job training).
Tacky, much?
Yes let's turn back the economy to the situation before 1940, when most normal people couldn't get credit. What could go wrong ?

The GFC being the a chain reaction started by ~2% less borrowing you say ? Nah, that won't happen "this time".

Like it or not, our economy is based on forgiving debt at the rate of inflation. And it's better than what came before. Can we please stop deluding everyone else ?
Blog analytics
+1 for Nanoc. I tried several before settling on this and I'm quite happy. It's simple, but fairly powerful and easy to extend.
My wife cried reading all of your comments. I guess we were looking for some sign that someone somewhere is pulling for us. During the first hour this post was up I hovered over the delete more than once. It doesn't seem right to bring an entire ecosystem of ambitious and wonderful people a story of failure. I guess I learned that hitting delete would be worse. Thank you from the 5.3 of us.
1. As profitability goes up, more people join in, increasing the difficulty factor, reducing the profitability.
2. If deflation continues, you're probably better off just investing in coins.

Here's a profitability calculator where you can play with values (it starts with some reasonable defaults). (I can't tell if it accurately captures earnings from transfer fees though...)
The ad says she got it "as a gift from my mom", but your point still stands.
You're right: it was hyperbole. What I was trying to point out is the (sometimes) silent publishing of activities to a social feed some people don't know they have.
It didn't use a silly name for their competitor, but Apple's "I'm a PC" ads are one recent example of pointed negative advertising targeting a specific competitor (and using kind of silly stereotyping of "PC users" to do so): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfv6Ah_MVJU
But can it play Battletoads?
I've been thinking a lot of the same thoughts about Django. I'm tempted -- but far too lazy -- to write a decision tree about using Django (which would probably also apply for rails). I really love your comment, Don't rely on a framework to save you.

Django is great for consultants/contractors who need to crank out work fairly quickly that may be quite similar to other jobs they've got on the docket. It's great for new programmers or programmers who aren't familiar with the OS-level interactions between a web server and a programming language. It's great for apps with very low complexity (current and projected).

Once you start getting out of these use cases though, IMO, you are asking for trouble getting too invested in the Django (or Rails) ecosystem. It's worth it to learn about how the web server interfaces with the language runtime, so that you can capitalize on microframeworks. When you buy into a framework, you're buying into a huge set of opinions about really important things that have been made based on being flexible enough for about anyone.

I love Django for what it has enabled me to do in my life, and have learned so, so much from getting into its guts to solve problems. That said it would take a lot for me as a salaried, in-house software developer to start a new project using (Django | Rails).