skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Employers turning a blind-eye to intra-company dealing / distribution is not at all a new thing but I don't think that was the poster's question. I think the poster was talking about open-ness and public face. Again, for VCs and such -- and although that crowd will sometimes deny this -- founders are supposed to be cookie cutter stereotypes.

An openly pot-head founder risks offending or scaring customers or buyers or later investors. It also indicates some who doesn't get the "performative" aspect of being a commodity founder: the expected degree of conformative role playing.
Development and startups are evolving so fast, and it often feels like you are never adequate. You always need to be learning and using X new language or technology.

I think this is a myth. Yes, there's a romanticism of the culture of being cutting edge. Truthfully, those that ship well, and actually turn profits for founders, are most often running on 15+ year old languages.
Let's be real here. Modafanil is the dirty little not-so-secret that is still mostly-out-of-reach to people who are law-abiding or mere mortals.
Yep, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
It would be nice if HN had follow feature similar to twitter where you can see what your favorite author\commentator just posted. With notification feature, HN would lets us know when someone replies to one of our comments then HN would be so user friendly.
I can't wait for people to come out of the closet on this issue. It's just like gay people. Ask anyone from CO or WA how many people have come out as private pot smokers.

Can't wait for uninformed and inexperienced judgement that will be raining down in this thread. A bunch of people saying a bunch of ridiculous things that they'd never say if they knew how many people smoked around them and don't tell them. Same exact scenario as homosexuality. And I say this as someone who faces far more stigma as a smoker than I do as a gay guy. Which is ironic, because it's same conversation "Oh you're gay? You smoke pot? Would have never known!" ... Duh.

/me gets popcorn. Hey this registering one-off troll accounts for new threads is kinda fun! Glad it still is encouraged.
If only they knew then what a behemoth of a company they were building, including Jobs.

I'd like to say something about how exciting it would have been to work with Jobs in such close quarters, but I imagine it must have been more stressful than anything.
Better silicon. For example the main difference between the 290 and 290x is silicon. Better silicon will have more units enabled and could handle higher clock speeds. (Others are likely to be dead or dodgy). Although at 450 Watts I doubt there will be much in the way of high clock speed.

When it comes to workstation graphics Nvidia drivers behave differently when using a Quadro. (Eg: duel monitor support in Linux)
Obviously not PG, but I do have an opinion so here we go.. ;)

It entirely depends on the image you're looking to present for yourself. If you are comfortable with being a smoker and people judging you and your company by that, then by all means continue.

There are some that will judge you poorly in any circle but a majority likely will not care.

My only advice is don't look to others/the culture to justify a behavior. In the end it has to be your decision and you have to own it. I think most people would be surprised by the number of their peers who have made this choice.
> Additionally, homebrew is a lot easier/more robust than apt-get; no repositories to deal with.

Until I can do stuff like `brew install safari` in OSX, e.g. keeping your whole system up to date with one tool, I find it inferior to the Linux package managers. Although I find pacman and emerge better than apt, them being much easier to configure and use.
Probably not very as it really isn't all that small. It will basically be two rooms; the bathroom with shower, sink and toilet and then the living area with a bed that can be closed off to the rest of the room with a curtain or moveable wall. The rest of the room will be a small kitchen and living area. No laundry is planned so that makes it a bit easier and I don't have to store everything I own in the space. I will implement some storage solutions, but I'm not going to get crazy about it. Just simple things.

Will probably end up something like the wee house layout wise, though not as modern in design: http://www.weehouse.com/wee/

The building is pretty cool as it was originally an ice cream parlor in the 1950's. It was going to be demolished, but a group saved it and moved it to the current location and now I'm taking it over.

I actually got the building for free since I bought the commercial building in front of it (well, negotiated it into the deal so I call it free). The commercial building was built in the 1860's and also saved by the same group. It is pretty unbelievable - has an arched doorway in the back where the horse/wagon pulled in with supplies for the general store and tavern that were in the ground floor. I'm going to finish out an apartment upstairs and have two commercial spaces downstairs - one for my business and one to lease out.
If you think it helps you, do it. As a startup founder, you should have enough critical thinking ability and confidence in yourself to know what works for you and what does not. However, I see no reason to be open about it, especially to investors. No investor is going to say "he smokes weed, therefore his company has a higher chance of being successful."

So smoke if you want to, but keep your mouth shut when talking to people with money.

This is a pretty good life rule.
Using a 2008 MBP. No issues. Of course, I have now given it to a mom who is happily using it.

And this was the macbook pro with a GPU that had a high rate of failure (8600M GT)
This seems like a silly question to be aimed at PG. Why would he have any special insight on this?

> Development and startups are evolving so fast, and it often feels like you are never adequate. You always need to be learning and using X new language or technology. My startup is the hardest thing I've done so far in my life.

Always X is always wrong. There are always exceptions. Often, your always is the exception rather than the norm. As I look the tools people are using today, I feel like we have barely moved. Developers are using the same tools, they have just got a little heavier.

The founders would rightfully be stressed, but isn't it their jobs to protect developers from all that so they can focus on their jobs? Again, I would think that high stress would be the exception rather than the norm for anyone not actually running the company. Why should you be stressed if you don't own the company? The unemployment rate for developers is low enough that you can just get another job if the company fails. Right? That's not to say you shouldn't be packing a mighty can of whoop-ass in the name of your company, but you don't need to kill yourself either.

> However, there are noticeable side-effects. Some short term memory loss, sometimes I find it difficult to stay focused, on-task, and motivated. On the flip side, I do some of my best hacking high. I'm able to focus on a single problem; become tunnel vision. Problems just become simpler.

A lack of focus is a side effect of some of the worst blockers of productivity. That includes lack of sleep, drinking alcohol (and the hangover after,) being sick and burned out. This would overrule any perceived gains for me. Does it matter that you are able to do better hacking after smoking weed? What are you working on? Slow and steady is generally a winning strategy as long as you are shipping. Sometimes you have to put in relatively heavy hours to accelerate this, but you get there eventually. It doesn't have to be a work of art, it doesn't have to be brilliant, just ship the dang thing and move on.
Intel, apparently
I have a Viking VRFS21100GBCNS which supposedly features
Super Capacitor power failure protection. Manufacturer PDF - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9JXvW974L4JUkxJMGJIUjNtRDg/...
Interesting detective work here on the target credit card compromise:

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/12/whos-selling-credit-cards...
This seems like a silly question to be aimed at PG. Why would he have any special insight on this?

PG doesn't shy away from identifying characteristics of founders/YC alums.
Does someone have a recommendation for a book that get deeper into mathematics by teaching actual mathematics rather than teaching about it? Many of the books I have come across leave me with more questions than answers [1].

I am interested in pure mathematics mainly including logic, set theory, category theory, etc.

[1] An excellent example not mentioned by others here is also The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose. The sections on mathematics are very good, but ultimately leave the topic open-ended too soon.
i cannot get anything done after smoking except for couching, lazy remote operation, eating and sleeping. if i have anything to get done (which is 99% of the time), i don't smoke. my buddy, however, smokes whenever he's awake and is the most productive/brilliant engineer i've ever met, i don't get it.
I'm a vim guy and I did both (Capslock is Esc when pressed and let go, ctrl when held down). Best of both worlds.
Montavon’s code — the DBM class
Nor do I care about the ways people like to think up to ban other people from doing stuff. If you don't want your work copied, don't publish it. The whole copyright/patent system is a ridiculous absurdity based on the false premise that creative people require monetary incentive to do anything. When technology renders enforcement of laws impractical, then the laws are simply bad. Copying is not theft, creators are not entitled to anything, they deserve no protection for their published works at all.

Art doesn't have to be a business and art will be created regardless of whether artists can profit in perpetuity from their work. The notion that ideas and words are property and can be owned is perverse doublespeak meant to trick people into transferring their gut instincts about physical property onto things that quite simply are not property.

Performers should make money from performing, not being paid forever because the government created artificial monopolies on words and ideas.
Right. The negative stereotypes associated with a smoker's lifestyle aren't exactly unwarranted. Once OP associates with something so polarizing, it's much harder to control the public's perception of you and your company.
Polya's How to Solve It was recommended below. I also like How to Prove it by Daniel Velleman (http://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-It-Structured-Approach/dp/05...).
I could expound more but it might be seen as drivel. I'd say your example is right on chc.
try submitting the org...
May I suggest t * sin( k * ln(t) ), for some constant k? That makes the path self similar about the (0, 0) point. Maybe you'd like that.
> The one downside is that, on the occasions that I do use X, the fonts aren't very good. I wouldn't even begin to know how to approach making typography more Mac-like, but I'm okay with that. I spend 99% of my time in the console.

I guess this has something to do with patent issues, but I'm not sure. Although being a bit of a hack, you can get the Ubuntu font rendering with patched libraries from AUR (1). For me the Ubuntu font patches provide in every way very pleasant rendering. If you want to spend time fine tuning and even better rendering, you might want to try Infinality patches and configuration (2).

Use yaourt (3) instead of pacman for keeping the system up to date, and it takes care of the AUR packages also. Installing yaourt is the most annoying part here, but after that it's pretty straightforward.

1. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_Configuration#Ubun...

2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_Configuration#Infi...

3. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/yaourt
With the exception of using the browser plugins, 1password works great in wine—I pointed it to my Dropbox folder and was able to read and write passwords.
I tried Arch this year for the first time and I really liked it, but also encountered really crappy fonts. Not sure what gives there. On my Debian machine the fonts seem on par with my Mac (to my non-font-snob eyes, which were at least able to notice Arch's badness).

I'd say you don't have to abandon X to get decent fonts. I think the Arch defaults are just bad.
Great job given the space limitations, but something in the 400 sq feet would be more sustainable over the years. 200sq feet is just to small for me
Which one does the Linux kernel use?
Which one does the FreeBSD kernel use?
Which one does the Mac OS X kernel use?
If you haven't seen the documentary "tiny house movement" watch it...

Personally, I think these efforts lack an understanding of basic annoyances:

Assume you want to sleep when others don't? Oh - the answer is this is for happy single people.

Assume you overcook your steak and the whole place smokes up and your bedding now stinks.

Assume you have more than (1) friend over.

Have kids?

I LOVE small/minimal spaces - but they are really not for the majority of people. They are too small cramped and inefficient for average living.

Christ, my closet is bigger than that unit.
Since there are a number of links to Guardian articles posted here daily, I'd argue that the 'elite HN hacking corps' and Guardian readers are the same thing.
"smoking weed actually is quite therapeutic. It is an outlet for stress and the never-ending wall of burden. Development and startups are evolving so fast, and it often feels like you are never adequate."

My advice? I will fall back on the saying "if you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen".

There are many reasons why someone might have to medicate themselves if they have a situation that is not under their control (family problems, health as only two). And I"m not saying that someone should medicate themselves in those situations but just that it's more understandable when you have to deal with some external things that you have little or no control over. But with respect to "getting ahead" if you can't take the pressure, and you need to medicate, you should seriously consider setting your goals a bit lower. To me if you are thinking of this as a "never-ending wall of burden" then you have not chosen the correct career path.

Of course others may disagree and feel differently but I've seen to many people reach for the brass ring and as a result of pressure which they can't handle fall into some dependency or behavioral problem as a result of that dependency.
Have you actually tried and compared the physical buttons to the new ones?

I have a slightly older Thinkpad with the physical buttons. I am trying to decide if I should buy one of the T530 from last year's models or just get the newer version.
Clarify what. I could send you a bitcoin, look, non-phisical trade. If you want to critique something, it's up to you to make a clear critique, not me to figure out what you mean when the words you wrote are trivially and obviously false. When you infer I mean things I didn't say, it's not snarky to point out I didn't say that or mean that. I said what I meant, deciphering meaning was not an exercise left for the reader, it's right there in the words I wrote.
Not defending the guy but it would appear from the article that he isn't a criminal, because there is no charge for breaking the spirit of the law, only the actual law. The recurring charges are legal because the terms are on the checkout page.

It's out and out scamming but it appears to be difficult to prosecute.
that period of high productivity sounds like borderline hypomania (which is often triggered by stress and/or sleep deprivation). did you tend to experience fatigue after those periods of high productivity?
OP, I don't mean this to be negative or mean but I'll say it because I'd want someone to say it to me.

You need to look inside yourself and decide what is right for you and your circumstance. Certainly you cannot expect PG to issue an edict down from the clouds. You are pandering to your role model/idol/God figure to approve a behavior whose merits you haven't decided for yourself.

Furthermore, it is a fact that PG is infinitely wise when it comes to succeeding in startups but as a community of people that look up to him for his advice and indirect mentorship I'd rather we not request his 'judgement' on matters like this because of the disproportionate weight his words carry.
What are you looking for that isn't simply a math textbook? Honestly, that's how mathematicians learn "actual" mathematical subjects, too.

If you're comfortable with calculus as a subject, for example, and want a "pure mathematics" approach, I recommend Michael Spivak's Calculus. If you've never worked through a pure math textbook from start to finish, that's a good start.

There's not that much interesting in the three subjects you listed — logic, set theory, and category theory — that doesn't depend on other subjects or a prior level of mathematical maturity. Category theory was originally invented to solve and categorize problems in algebraic topology, for example.

For example, I rather like mathematical logic and model theory, but you're going to have a rough time if you don't have a visceral, intuitive understanding of countability arguments and at least a handful of subjects you'd be reasoning "about." Unless you know the standard model of arithmetic, for example, how can you think about non-standard models? Without that, important results like the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem will likely seem contextless.
Rather than posting this as an 'Ask PG', why don't you actually go read some books on the topic? This reminds me of Randy Cohen talking about all the people who email him asking for permission to do blatantly unethical stuff.
Arch doesn't do anything by default. That's the Arch way. You install what you need. There isn't anything precluding Arch in particular from having good fonts, you just have to know what fonts to install. I've just never found ones I liked. I recall in years past using Debian doing a lot of extra work after installing a package to get halfway-decent fonts, but they were still just halfway-decent fonts.
I really want to like Linux. I've spent hours, here and there, hacking away with various distributions of Linux and on different hardware (I was part of the group that finally got CompizFusion working on the HP Mininote 2133). But when it comes down to it I don't want to have to be elbow deep in source code just to fix a sound card problem or similar.

I love Linux as an idea, and that it's free has done wonders for the world as far as opening access to the internet and its knowledge. But I just don't see it as a viable day-to-day OS for me.

At the same time, I have and will continue to tinker around with Linux (I learned about Lua because of Conky!) because I don't think that there's any harm in learning new things. And I've found that I learn best by breaking things and then trying to fix what I broke - and that's a nearly weekly experience for me when I try to use anything but Unbuntu.
Ditto on reliance on food.
Thank you for this detailed and informative post. I'm unable to edit my comment now, but I hope I'll be reminded of your caution in the future.
Pretty sure the problem is what he is describing is purely the hardware, but doesn't equate that with a heart of gold. What he's saying is that she's beautiful, but he doesn't like her personality.

Basically, he's ditching her because he's not superficial.
So effectively for the the same price you get an inferior hardware/design which breaks more often but gets replaced for free.

I don't understand how this is better?
Did you talk to any Korean citizens while you were there? All the ones I walked to wanted us gone.
Intel "Harris Beach" developer's ultra book is not the best Linux laptop because of various components that are not supported in Linux :(
Bump up the CPU and RAM on a Mini and you can easily get past $1,000.
Poor sleep quality affects short-term memory.
Well, so in fact the court did strike down the Conan Doyle estate's interpretation of things, so we can continue talking about Conan Doyle creating, not discovering, the character of Watson. And you are right: siding with the Conan Doyle estate would raise questions.

If you'll excuse me to snark for a moment, though: isn't that exactly what's happening with Mickey Mouse? The character keeps evolving and the copyright remains open-ended forever?
Interestingly enough that won't work. IRC nicknames are not allowed to start with a number. My alternative nickname from X-Istence is 0x58, and on IRC I go by x58...
It's possible that Apple could whitelist the CPU in the BIOS so that the system does not boot if you replace the CPU with one that isn't "approved."
Not an HP Envy. Worst laptop I've ever owned.

It works OK with Linux (sound is problematic, and it's not good under Windows, either, despite...or maybe because of, wearing a "beats by Dre" logo). But, the quality is simply awful. It has a high end laptop price tag, and all the right features, but it's falling apart after barely a year of light use and has had problems from almost day one.
Ask HN: How would a new OS be different?
It seems like all of the new operating systems coming out are really just different flavors built on the unix kernel. If a new operating system were to be built from the ground up today, would it be significantly different? I know the linux core is improved all the time as an open source and constantly evolving project, but I just wonder if given the chance to build something with no legacy to maintain, would an operating system have any greatly different architectures or components?
At the risk of enabling some questionable behavior (i.e. asking people on the internet for advice regarding something so controversial), I would say don't do it. It will probably save you trouble, and thereby save me trouble as well. Note that I have not addressed whether anyone has a reason to listen to me in particular on this topic.
Um. Albums and playlists are fundamentally different. Albums are compositions by the artist. Playlists are collections by the user.

You can't sort playlists except manually, and clicking on your library gives you only a list of individual tracks and albums, completely ignoring playlists.

They have screwed this up in virtually every way possible.
I think most hifi people would say if you're basing your speaker decision on how they look you're doing it wrong.
Funny about them mentioning Google and their supposed responsibility in this. Google is known to A/B test colors to get the most ad clicks. While they say "Ads" somewhere, in some sort of text color and size, most users do not get the impression that they clicked on ads. I guess Google is too big for FTC to tackle
Smoke weed if you like but don't kid yourself it's making you better at your work, ezpecially if you do it regularly. If you need stress relief, get good rest and exercise.

I've seen several promising friends fizzle and burn out because they started needing to have a smoke for breakfast. Just keep it to the occasional party and try to phase it out completely as you continue the process of growing up.
What would be interesting is if one of those link bait psuedo tech publications decided to use the, um, Betteridge-esq headline and actually do that research which you suggest.

Seems as if that would collect a bit of attention. And if the publication then issued a press release (if they actually did their own research and/or surveys) the mainstream press would pick up on it.
To be clear, I am not being facetious. If you want to throw around cut-throat, myopic terms like "crutch", then let me first note that caffeine is a performance-enhancing nootropic; and I've worked with a developer who never once ate lunch in my 6 months working along side him. I personally eat lunch maybe once a week.

And honestly, I smirk at people who do eat lunch. And it goes without saying what I think of leisure-lunchers.
Thanks for putting that down because I had that one in mind. Will avoid now.
"eight or nine"!! You don't know how many siblings you have bro?