skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think that depends on (1) whose perspective we're looking at this from, and (2) what the future holds for the combined company.

In terms of liquidity and it being "a sure thing", an acquihire would surely be better for Exec. But Justin Kan already has a few successful endeavors under his belt and probably isn't hurting for a quick check. Increasing his odds for a homerun probably makes more sense. The same probably goes for the investors.

For the employees on the other hand, an acquihire and subsequent retention package would most likely have a better EV/Risk ratio.
Show HN: Galileo, search starred repos from your shell.
According to the law, yes.

That's begging the question. We could change the law, but first we have to ask if we should, and in what way. That's why chii asked: Do you think disney deserves this money? Only after we answer that, will we know what the law should be.
He's right in the sense that all ideas were copying something out of big companies' playbook and were a hard sell to consumers who were sensitive to mobile data pricing.

What if the idea was around instant video conferencing with on-demand doctor or a lawyer? Would interested parties still be concerned about the (additional) cost of a data plan?
Perhaps they terminated the guy because he showed he was too emotional and incapable of dealing with the way the company worked globally ...

If so, then evidently they're the kind of company that seems way, way more concerned with employees who get "emotional" about discriminatory practices... then about the discriminatory practices themselves.
Influencia de las palabras claves en tu web
La influencia que puede tener las palabras claves o keywords para los sitios web y como estas ayudan al posicionamiento en buscadores.
No, timje1 had it right. PG has repeatedly stated that downvotes are ok for disagreeing. Comments are for when you have something substantive to say.
You can't use 100% of something and claim fair-use, that's not how it works.
EU-only and a bit more expensive, but I really like Bytemark's BigV: http://www.bigv.io
Congrats Jesse and team! Great group of guys.
Public speaking terrifies me. I seem to do alright if I follow five rules:

1. Don't bail and run out of the room screaming.

2. Don't ramble. Don't leave your outline for an anecdote or further explanation - trust your outline to be good. If you have to meander because you did your outline at the last minute and you know it kinda sucks, if you then meander while meandering, you've lost the game and no one remembers what you were talking about.

3. Don't "umm," "right," or "ok." before and after anything you say.

4. Don't laugh at your own jokes (at least don't do it before you finish getting them out.)

5. Remember that you don't look as nervous as you feel.
build your own ostel or asterisk server, I think asterisk does voicemail.
Grand Theft Auto 5 for PC confirmed
I sometimes think that progress in the 21st century will be summed up as: "The realization that the normal distribution is not the only way to model data".

Taleb's favorite topic is the "black swan event" which is something that the normal distribution, and the idea of standard deviation, don't model that well. In a normal distribution very extreme events should only happen once in the lifetime of several universes. Of course assuming variation inline with a Gaussian process is at the heart of how the Black-Sholes model calculates risk/volatility/etc.

Benoit Mandelbrot argued that financial markets follow a distribution much more similar to the Cauchy distribution (specifically the Levy distribution) rather than a Gaussian. The problem of course is that the Cauchy distribution is pathological in that it doesn't have a mean or variance, you can calculate similar properties for it (location and scale), but it doesn't obey the central limit theorem so in practice it can be very strange to work with.

The normal distribution is fantastic in that it does appear frequently in nature, is very well behaved, and has been extensively studied. However a great amount of future progress is going to come from wrestling with more challenging distributions, and paying more attention to when assumptions of normality need to be questioned. Of course one of the challenges of this is that the normal distribution is baked into a very large number of our existing statistical tools.
It is simply that our CTO is mature enough to recognize that process and engineering management isn't his strong suit and that he needs to be able to double down on architecture. A great lead engineer will help stay efficient as we add more amazing people to the team. We already have really great hackers on the team and are looking to add more.
"Fake agile" is essentially lying to yourself about what your process is. I can't imagine any situation where that was actually useful.
I think on most operating systems the free space usually contains remnants of deleted files, not random data, unless you use some sort of secure deletion mechanism (srm, etc). If the free space of your volume contains truly random looking data then there would be reason to suspect a hidden volume.

Presumably that's not the case with TrueCrypt volume-within-a--volumes, but if you're using TrueCrypt there's already reason to suspect you might have hidden volumes.

It's impossible to prove the existence or nonexistence of hidden volumes, but that could be a good or bad thing depending on your adversary's willingness to jail/torture/kill you on suspicion alone.

I'm not aware of hidden volume software that integrates with "unsuspicious" file systems. Does something like that exist?
This isn't a panacea. Check out what the dm-crypt folks have to say about it (question 5.2):

https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQue...

tl;dr: even if your adversary can't "prove" you have another encrypted volume, when they can see all the random data on your disk or inside the "outer" volume, you can't prove you don't have an "inner" one. In a situation shitty enough that you're compelled to divulge incriminating secrets, you're boned whether you have another secret volume or not. Elsewhere in the FAQ they propose zeroing out unused space on your disk whenever travelling to totalitarian states that could demand decryption keys.
14 Must have designer tools for 2014
MiniTest has 'rspec syntax' with 99% less dirty fucking hacks.
So does this mean that the non-upgradeable computers with soldered RAM (i.e., MacBook Air) are more secure?
Is anyone else tired of being assigned homework when applying for jobs? In both this and the author's previous article on hiring, he mentions giving people tasks to complete by a certain deadline as part of the hiring process. For someone that's just starting out as a programmer then maybe that's reasonable, but for those of us that've been in software for years, what's the point?

You wouldn't ask a carpenter to make you a closet before you decide if you want to hire them, you look at the other houses they've created (at least, you should. There's a lot of crappy carpenters out there, and it feels like I've worked with them all). You don't ask your mechanic to change your oil for free, and then MAYBE you'll let them fix your car. So why is this just the status quo for software developers now? I have a job and family, why the hell would I want to spend my free time jumping through hoops for you when you could easily look at all the work I've already done?

I dunno, just my $0.02. I've been asked to do a lot of dumb programming challenges before job interviews, and I'm over it. I'm a professional and my time is valuable, why would I want to waste it figuring out how many ways you can turn a string of numbers into math problems?

/rant. Whew.
Just because there is no process labelled "Agile" doesn't mean it is meaningless to talk about "doing Agile". What if doing 100% XP by the book turns out to not be ideal or doing 100% Scrum by the book turns out to not be ideal, but the team finds they can achieve good results by mixing and matching their own collection of "agile practices" and even made up practices that are in some way inspired by agile values and principles (yeah I know that sounds a bit wishy washy)? I think in this case it may make sense for the team to claim "we are using a process that doesn't have a name but is inspired by the agile manifesto and consists of a bunch of agile practices that work for us" or for short: "we are doing agile".
It's a metaphor, I apologize for any confusion.
maybe in an intellectual sense, but a lot more people read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/science/ than http://arxiv.org/
Sure, I think we mostly agree and you're quite right on this point. Clearly someone convicted has to serve a sentence, which comes with various restrictions, but I don't think that should have bearing on any new trial, and I think their rights should not otherwise be curtailed in trials on other offences, otherwise you get something more like the three strikes laws in the states, where once convicted it is far more difficult to be redeemed.

I think RIPA came about more as a way to make the work of investigators of terrorism easier, and it was just badly written and too broad.
So your absolutist position about "there's never a need..." translates into a dislike for paid software as a business model.

What business models for software do you prefer, and why?
Personally, I'd probably do it more like the author did. Not that Minitest (or others) is better or worse than RSpec, but rather RSpec is what I have experience with and if I were going to take over the project for whatever reason, I'd much rather have things already in the state I'm familiar with.
Do What It Takes To Keep In Touch
Sign in with Facebook.... instead of Github?
So the problem of converting Satellite data to Maps is still not possible with algorithms ? Google is able to find all Cat photos in the youtube videos, how about finding streets ?
Why so many downvotes? Can't ask legitimate questions on HN anymore?
Invoking the deaths of 3,000 people and one of the darkest moments in United States history to make a point about being asked an undesirable question comes to mind. There's also a first blush interpretation that reads as comparing Ben's departure to said events.

I got to the original comment and rolled my eyes that I halfway knew someone would bring it up today. Rather than dismiss it, though, somehow Isaac found a way to make it worse. I should start invoking the holocaust when discussions aren't going the way I want, apparently.
> We all may be suffering from a case of Fortune 100 CEO
> syndrome. That is, we all wish our lives are so busy and
> important that we need personal assistants managing our
> lives.

How important or busy do I need to be to decide that £160 is too much to spend freeing up some of my time? How about to decide to take a minicab home if it frees up 30m of my time vs public transport?

I think the bar to "busy and important enough" is much lower than you think.
But not quite a merger of equals. 12mn in handybook funding, 3mn in exec funding, 10mn rumored merger price.

That suggests to me that exec shareholders now own less than 1/3 of handybook but probably more than 10%. Assuming the 12mn in funding has bought exactly 1/2 of the company, then handybook's most recent post money would be ~ 24mn. 10mn in new stock --> 10/34 as the share owned by exec. Probably more than 10% bc that's the amount they'd own if handybook was valuing themselves at 100mn. I doubt that they are that high yet.

This looks to me less like a merger and more like a realization by exec that their value is at a global maximum -- once handybook cracks sf on their own the value of buying exec drops substantially.

In my opinion a shrewd move by all parties.
I'm not saying it's not prudent or useful, just that the NSA is framing their own malicious, self-interested actions as an innocent defensive program.

Also, spying on viruses is very different than spying on people.
There is plenty of math that does not lie on the academic beaten path (i.e. arithmetic -> algebra -> calculus --> etc.) I would recommend trying to figure out what area of math you are most interested in first, that way you will be enthusiastic about learning it. Once you have the mathematical momentum from that you will probably be able to learn whatever math you need to. A couple of books that helped me to find a direction were Mathematical Ideas[1] and Concepts of Modern Mathematics[2], which cover many different areas with just enough depth to give you a feel for each. If you are wanting to learn math solely for CS I would also recommend something like Schaum's Outline of Discrete Mathematics[3].

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Ideas-Edition-Charles-Mil...

[2]http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Modern-Mathematics-Dover-Book...

[3]http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Discrete-Mathematics-R...
"Something interesting happens at this point in the process. An average of 50% of the candidates never continue past this step. The reason is not exactly known but I suspect it is because they simply do not know how to perform the task that is given to them"

If you're picking 10 candidates and only (initially) asking them for 1 hour's work, they're probably dropping off due to lack of interest in your project. They might not be taking you seriously.
Yes, in larger companies the development is Agile but overall its waterfall.

It misses important aspects like constantly verifying the product with customer, and adjusting if required.
+1 on the frontend dev bookmarks, I remember seeing that a while back, but had completely forgotten about it! It is an incredible resource.
Very interesting perspective. I like it. Our brains are also made to forget. People with hyperthymesia (autobiographical memory) are not better off remembering everything. So nature has fine tuned this system of engage and forget.
How are you curating these images? Which is to say, how are you ensuring that I see a really great photo of the Azure Window[0] (which happened to be posted two weeks ago) rather than whichever random one Ig turns up first?

I had a semi-similar idea (but focused on graffiti) but all the restrictions in their API terms were sort of a turn off.

[0] http://instagram.com/p/itwBoKwBnp/
Sweden is good for copyright, but they could extradite you to the US for just about anything else, especially any form of financial crime. And if you're a US citizen, the TLD of your domain name doesn't matter at all. You would have to leave the country and give up your citizenship for it to matter.

My sugguestion is to not end up in prison like the founder of ThePirateBay.
HP has no vision, otherwise, TouchPad and WebOS could have been huge now. They were way ahead of the time on Node.js/Javascript stuff.
If this is parody...then it's golden!
Making remote work work: An adventure in time and space
Really nice interface. Could be a great way to discover interesting repos!
He was trying to find a salt mixture that went through a phase change at 0 degrees:

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/z...

That wasn't so reliable, and neither was using 100 for human body temperature, so when he discovered that water boiled at 212 he began calibrating with that.
True but it is quite a load of work. People on average change jobs about that often as well nowadays. It is like a massive project or a fulltime job for x years. Even Guido the Python BDFL largely is more of a Board of Director for Life. He developed Python largely on his own for 5+ years. Only so many years in a project per programmer, not everyone is a Linus or Guido. Too many other fun things to get into after the initial purpose/goal is achieved.

Python's code_swarm: http://vimeo.com/1093745
My wife the same. She is all over this issue with me and sees it just as well in her rounds.
It hasn't been done. If I understand correctly, it would be more like 'rewrite pypy to' rather than 'add to pypy'.

Pypy does have tooling to convert a limited subset of python ( they call it RPython) into an exe.
> I don't see the point of a duodecimal system of units when a base 10 system is much more elegant. You would never end up with a 1/64th of something in the metric system. Fractions are a hack.

How is base 10 more elegant than base 12?

1/64th might result from a binary, octal or hexadecimal system; duodecimal tens to favour things like 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/9, 1/12 and so on. The elegant thing is that in duodecimal all of those are non-repeating fractions: .4, .3, .2, .14, .01 respectively. Interestingly, in duodecimal 1/5 and 1/10 are non-repeating (this is also true in binary...).

Base 12 is far more elegant than base 10, but the conversions cost make the conversion to French units look cheap--and then we'd need to convert all our units to some sort of French units mark II.
How Tesco, Argos and KitKat used Twitter in the Holiday Season
That is some ridiculous bikeshedding
Home services is an enormous market and handybook looks well positioned to be a name brand in the space. I think you're correct that this is placing bets on a homerun.
Have these people ever seen a mother before?
Credit card companies need to spend vast resources on fraud protection because their underlying protocol offers virtually none. Credit cards, after all, don't even have a basic "password." It's like the difference between an online bank account with no password but with a team of "fraud protectors," and a bank account with good two factor authentication. You can argue that both are forms of "fraud protection," but I vastly prefer the latter.
Testium: Integration test platform for Node
0 was the coldest temperature he could reliably reproduce - which is salt water just above the freezing point.
The funny thing is I've never used absolute deviation before, so I'm slightly confused by absolute deviation right now as I wrap my head around what it means relative to sigma (which I have used, lightly, for years) and why anyone would want to use it instead...

edit: apparently MAD can refer to either "mean absolute deviation" or "median absolute deviation". Yup, this sure isn't going to confuse anybody.
nope. look at what the "A" in MAD stands for.
"Die Techie Scum, Save San Francisco" T-shirt
I should clarify, I hire them for 1 hour and if they succeed in the task and I like their work I'll hire them for the project.

RE $5/hr - You'd be surprised what kind of applicants you get from around the world. I've had a very good iOS developer from India for $12/hr for awhile now. Great find. I also give my workers bonuses if they finish early, go above and beyond, etc. Key thing: Take care of people and most likely they'll take care of you.
Google releases an official WordPress plugin for publishers
App Store Optimization - The Basics and How to Boost Rankings
Connect Any Service to Zapier with the New and Improved Developer Platform
The headline bookend in a Deal for the On-Demand World sounds like the writer ran out of intelligent things to say.
Well, for context... This is for hiring a freelancer on oDesk, and he's paying them to do the homework. It seems like a pretty fair way to evaluate a candidate.

If you have a look at his examples, they seem like reasonable questions too; they're not "turning a string of numbers into math problems", they're practical demonstrations of applications of the different technology stacks. If I were hiring a freelancer for a project, I'd probably do something like this with the option of just showing me some past work instead.

I've honestly never hired a carpenter or mechanic for a business before; from what I understand though there's usually a short probation period at the start where they're paid but can be let go summarily. This is the same kind of situation, only it's a shorter period.
Except at DST switch.
I agree with some of what you wrote, but I think you should reread your reply to Taleb with as much scrutiny as you read Taleb.
Except that FreeBSD is just as freely deployable without the need for the GPL, so it is not the GPL that causes this property to come about.

The dishonest use of language is the misappropriation of the word 'freedom', and the moralizing around what is essentially a business problem. But, if you are claiming to be an ideologue, then fair enough.

In which case, I'd love to hear more about how that ideology translates into a better future economic future for software developers. To me it seems to just translate into greater dependence on powerful corporations.
I've got family who is ex elite forces, and I met a number of his comrades in arms at his wedding last year. Cocksure and self-confident? Certainly. A little dumb? I can say without qualification that they are not.
I prefer a user-securable account (like Bitcoin) over a laughably insecure account (like credit cards, where your "authentication" details are just a handful of numbers that you have to share with everyone you transact with) with a dispute resolution team.
Stoopit nigger. He's making so people don't know God. LOL This probably does not make God happy. Stoopit nigger.

God says...
you're_no_fun no_way_dude Give_me_praise Japan bizarre I_give_up
ROFLMAO atheist depressing by_the_way don't_have_a_cow
oops glam I_hate_when_that_happens I_don't_care you_don't_say
awful services sing after_a_break I_give_up climate end
fight
Right, you would look at similar things that your potential carpenter has built. You would also try to do that with programmers. But a good deal of the things programmers built are team built, or proprietary, it's difficult to know what they've created in the past. Having them work on a simple task beforehand is a way to normalize and make sure every programmer you're looking at is on a level field.
I think most teams using agile, or developing software with some agile practices are in fact working within a hybrid process, where the requirements gathering and analysis, the writing of offers and contracts, and sometimes the delivery of the software all happen in waterfall style phases, and only the development itself is conducted in iterations and with agile technical practices. I still think this is a bit better than full on waterfall. Depending on context of course. It may not be as good as full on agile either.
Eric Falkenstein's various Taleb takedowns are fun.

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-frag...

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates...

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac...
It's the other side of the coin to culling out folks who don't have "public" work that you can look at.

I have been encumbered by IP agreements for years that make showing my code to anyone seriously problematic. Even talking about certain architectures can be borderline.
I personally think that I don't need to spend $222 on something that seems to be minimally useful. I don't need to monitor how often I brush my teeth, how often I drink coffee, how often I water the plants, and how often I take medication.

For the things on the list that are somewhat useful (like sleep logs + a pedometer + temperature) I have a 1975 pedometer/calculator combo that's worked fine since the day I got it, a notepad, and an infrared thermometer that is a thousand times cooler.

I think the only people that will buy this are people that want Google Analytics for their life.
No, it's the median absolute deviation. Absolute deviation is the absolute difference between an average and a data point. So (-.3, .3, -.3, .3) -> MAD = 0.3; (-.5, .5, -.5, .5) -> MAD = 0.5.
Pfff.
Would some smart window manager additions be in order here? I could envision a titlebar context menu option to force a window (or all of an app's windows, probably) to render at 2x (composited by the WM) so that we have control over all the edge cases.