skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ok... I've seen a lot of publications go with "she" (as in ships, inanimate objects, etc.), but I couldn't possibly care enough to argue.

The Chicago Manual of Style does say "he" (though they prefer "he or she").
By that definition, a user drawing a picture is programming too! Especially if the picture is exported to PostScript.
For years I have played table tennis, and seen various young, talented and ambitious players rise through the ranks, sometimes to a point where they played in the men's leagues at 14 or 15 years, because there wasn't much competition in the youth leagues.

And while I didn't count them, I'd say that about two thirds of them stopped progressing (and then playing) somewhere between age 16 and 18. Mostly they developed other interests, or lost motivation for reasons unknown to me.

So I'd be very careful with putting high stakes on very narrow interests; it can easily become a dead end.

(FWIW I don't consider that time "lost" or anything; they surely learned a lot about self confidence, team play, reliability and other traits; it's just that it sounds that you as a parent might be rather disappointed when your hypothetical child loses interest in his narrow focus).
They might not be perfect at hiring, but they are pretty good at cranking out spam detection algorithms.
Update on the New York Attorney General’s Investigation
Biz-dev wankery. This is only of interest to VMWare's customers, so that they can name-drop Docker.
Inside the Magical Room Where the Best Headphones in the World Are Made
This is my favorite part of software engineering. The fact that there are so few instructions you can actually give the machine and that you have to map your abstract ideas onto those instructions
Do you use it outisde retina environments?
I know someone who made it through 8 interviews before being told no. I also know 2 others that were hired but have no idea how long it took them. I still wonder what it is that makes us want to give up so much of our own time for their interview process. Do they really treat employees that much better than other companies? I bet there are a lot of startups that would make me just as happy. Is it just for name recognition? Maybe they make the processes arbitrary difficult so that only those who really want to work for Google actually follow through?
Hemingwayapp Editor, Desktop edition
Thanks for posting this, was not aware.

Spent much of Sunday reading the language docs and I must say, as a "die-hard Pythonista", this is really cool stuff.

Will definitely keep an eye on this one.
So, this is a VPN client? I find it odd that it only supports Linux and Android, considering that these two platforms already have built in and fully functional VPN clients.
I'd buy up two chunks of radio spectrum (from the FCC), one medium range and one long range ("to the horizon"). I'd then set out some ground rules (e.g. digital only, packet header uIDs are registered/allocated centrally, your app must be able to ignore other user's incoming traffic, some broad rate limit, etc).

Then I'd licence the two channels to "anyone" who wanted access at fairly inexpensive rates (e.g. free for development, few cents for production, small fines if you exceed the rate limit). Then I'd let people use this spectrum for more or less whatever they want.

Want me make an inter-car communications system? Want to make a "smart-home" system? Want to control your Christmas tree lights from a wireless switch? Licence my spectrum.

The current lack of freely usable spectrum is a huge bottleneck to lots of innovation. You often see WiFi get abused since it is the closest thing we have to a "use for anything" spectrum, BlueTooth and NFC both have too many inherent limitations.
Ok, how is it done in India that could possibly take longer than 30 seconds...
It made me Google "microsoft syndrome" and I'm still not really sure how that applies to this article.
Nobody mentions if they use Retina when recommending those "newer" fonts. I imagine most fonts that "only look good in 48pt" in my screen can be used for coding in Retina screens (never seen one of those).

BUT when using low-dpi monitors, very few get the hinting right, and bitmap (6x13 [1]) is king.

[1] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/fonts/
One of my CS friends actually got on there, and he was a capable programmer at the school level. So maybe by sprinkling in a few competent people here and there they get things done. Was very funny, at some point they found out he knew something about C, so they called him in on a project that had been languishing for 6 months with some guy unable to complete it, my friend did whatever in a couple of hours and was the local company hero after that. It's quite possible the jobs they do just need a handful of people and everyone else is just padding the consulting rate.
Shameless plug, but my company Desk.com (https://desk.com) provides a Knowledge Base as part of our Support platform.
Is that an example of confirmation bias? "I finally moved it around and tweaked it enough and that is what caused the success" instead of "the TSA changed the rules?"
Elected officials can certainly be two-faced.

However, I think criticizing their decisions while everyone is still in the information gathering stages is taking vigilance way too far. Politicians are people too and you have to give them a fair shake at doing their job before you can lament the result.
Yes it seems Oracle gave itself the highest score, and then redefined what the highest score meant. Then gave themselves a middle score for something else, and redefined what the middle score meant too. That's hilarious actually.
Found a page I shouldn't be able to see. I emailed sama, but there is probably someone more appropriate. Any ideas?
Not difficult at all -- in fact, it almost happens by itself. The problem is not with installation, the problems are security and server loading.

Any reasonably skilled server administrator can install Sage. But setting up user accounts and preventing server abuse are more important:

sage: N(pi,1e3)
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127

sage: N(pi,1e12)

(smoke starts pouring out of the server ...)

Wolfram Alpha solves this problem by timing out any transaction after a few seconds. I don't know how difficult that would be to set up in the Sage server.
There would be many applications this year i would believe with the new look.
Paul's version shooed away people who weren't serious about themselves applying for YC, That was a good tactic anyways.
yeah, recently the most popular seismic alert app in Mexico City had a false alarm, many buildings were evacuated, but no quake arrived.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=h...
why didn't you make sure you had enough cash before getting in the cab.
Feynman is known to enjoy looking at titties while working, just warning the prudes.
First off, I have a Jawbone UP24 and love it. You know how they got that sleep data? I pushed the "start sleep" and "stop sleep" buttons, then they gave me an awesome visualization of how I slept last night. You know what you'd do if you didn't want them to have that data? Don't push those buttons.
How do I know this isn't a trojan? :P
I see it as a sign hubris when a company makes you invest a ton of time into their interview process and then don't even show you the courtesy of an explanation if no offer is extended.
> Sidenote: So despite media reports to the contrary, Blizzard and Riot appear unaffected.

Battle.net was hit all weekend; the effects were obvious for anyone trying to authenticate. It was not a hardcore DDoS; it just took a long line to get auth'd, at which point other Blizzard services seemed mostly OK -- some games were still affected, regardless of the auth services.

It seemed to get better by Sunday, where I can only recall one or two times having timeouts.
Nice graphs. On the site, why did you choose to promote the monitoring features over the outbound firewall features?

Can it import existing whitelists or blacklists?

If there are competing products (paid or free), a comparison would be helpful.
Really nice looking page. I'd love to get an OSX version...
It's probably not an insurmountable obstacle, but getting over it is by no means trivial. Exhibit A: None of the alternative Python implementations are 100% compatible with CPython. I get the impression that, in practice, the "Python spec" is something that can only be approached asymptotically.
Existential Risks: Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards (2002)
The message was a text sent to his phone, if I read it correctly?
Even then, there's plenty of "Show HN" posts that are basically trying to sell us something and we're perfectly fine with that.
Comcast Data Breach Leaks Thousands of Unlisted Phone Numbers
There is no such thing as completely anonymized data. And in this case there releasing information without the consent of their users. Sure, you might think that it's reasonable in this case but the important thing is users are not making that decision.

So, as long as companies feel they can do anything they feel like with the data your only option is to completely opt out. Which means companies have no reason not to release your data as everyone assumes they will anyway.
I just wanted to say "I know this is probably not the main thing the article is tackling". I'm sure you'll find a discussion closer to what you're implying elsewhere in this thread, but you'll not have it with me I'm afraid.
It's just another in a long, long line of examples of how the Android permissions model is flawed. iOS has plenty of problems as well, but is much better about this. Rather than a laundry list of permissions when you install, it prompts as the app uses each one, and most importantly, gives you the ability to deny them in a granular fashion.

I've heard Google is working on something similar for Android and I really hope it happens sooner rather than later.
Health startup Meedoc raises a $1.5M seed round
If when the type of a function F is "Foo or Null", you can express it as something like

F(...): Foo?

and if you're later forced to deal with such a value, Null cannot catch you by surprise, then haven't you just rediscovered Option types?

If, on the other hand, "?" is just an operator you use on values that can be null, to guard against an exception, this seems less useful. Are you going to wrap every return value of every function call with it? What happens if you forget? How can you know, at a glance, if a function may return a null value?
Yep. I take it you don't enjoy this definition?

One alternative I've seen is what happens with artificial intelligence: if we can do it, it's not AI, just "algorithms" or whatever. In reality the definition of "artificial intelligence" is broad enough to cover the things we consider mundane today, like movie recommendations and search engine results.

If MS Paint was souped up with things like repetition and conditionals, would you be so opposed to calling that "programming"?
I commute by cab everyday, and finding proper change is a HUGE pain. While I do waste 2-4mins per ride on average, I have wasted 10 mins couple of times since no change was available at all. Most of the time, the delay is fine. But when you are in a hurry, it is very painful.

There is a simple solution that addresses the UX, the pain and the RBI regulation - pre payment. I make pre-payments once in a while, and the cost of my rides gets deducted from it.
"from my phone to a VoIP number 760-537-0537"
Looks very nice, though as with any security software it would be lots better if it was open source.
Looks beautiful, What's it written in?
>There's really not much that Iran can do to an American citizen continents away.

This is a very naive illusion.

Their intelligence agencies have a long history of doing things to their own citizens around the world too.
Sent from his phone to a Google phone number. Presumably he noticed it in his SMS app after it was sent. Or maybe noticed it on his phone bill.
The numbers here are highly questionable:

1. 3-wheeler "autos" are ubiquitous. Wait times are essentially zero, they are cheaper than taxis, and payment takes maybe a minute at most because the driver is willing to negotiate.

2. Most people still book cars by phone because the vast majority of Indians don't have access to smartphones or internet all the time.

3. Credit Card penetration is tiny (I believe ~5-10%, but might be wrong). Cash is, and will be, the dominant form of payment processing for a long time.

I'm not commenting on whether or not Uber should be in India. Just their departure isn't as detrimental to the GDP as this post claims.
> Are any of the following true? You are the only founder.

If I'm the only founder, is it considered negative?
It doesn't. It takes about 30 seconds. A minute max if both sides are fumbling for change etc.
Ditto over a dozen interviews, but at Facebook. It's not just Google.
Shoot it my way. kat at ycombinator.
You can email Dan (who moderates/maintains HN) at hn@ycombinator.com. I'm not sure if he also handles the application page, but he seems more likely to do that than sama.
I'm not disproving those studies, just their interpretations. Those famous baby reading studies were made on language deprived children, because it actually makes sense. Those babies are in need of help. Knowing whether twenty or whatever minutes of reading makes difference or not can change peoples lives. It turns out, that it does.

However, concluding from the above that normally developing baby in family that communicates with him a lot will get the same benefit is incorrect. May or may not be.

The other thing is, babies, toddlers, preschoolers and elementary school children are very different in a lot of ways. The effects of reading on those groups are going to be different. The effects of reading on interested and uninterested child are going to be different too. And it just so happens that many very small kids are not interested in being read to.

Note that I'm not saying that reading to preschooler stories that the preschooler likes will not help to build love for reading. I'm kinda sure it will. However, the whole "reading every day is necessary for children of all ages" drum beats are overstating what is actually known about it.
Hey there Whipersnapper (31 is a bit young to be "GRANDPA"). Your SSD in your Mac Book Air may be the "new hotness", but every datacenter in the world that needs a lot of hot storage is using spinning disk (disclaimer: does not apply to low latency applications like AWS EBS, providers like Cloudflare, etc).
I think we're on the same page. Each founder already has to answer "Will you live in the Bay Area January through March 2015, if we fund you?" and "Will you commit to working exclusively on this project for the next year?" in a drop down in the new founder bio page.

if numWontLiveInBayArea >= total / 2 then flag

and

if numNonExclusive > 0 then flag

Could be totally automated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem#Relationship_wi...
This should be fixed now. Thanks a lot for the report!
News Feed FYI: Click-baiting
I had a similar experience with Microsoft - 8 interviews over a period of 6 months. Two things that were different from the Google experience is that I was kept informed of progress and how it all works, and I did land the job (a better job, so not the one I initially applied for).

All that said, I think it important to have a Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon on your résumé. It's definitely not critical, but 5 years at one of these (or similar) gives you credibility out of the gate that you might otherwise need to demonstrate through other means. It greases wheels.
I did say "at least." :P
Why didn't he just drive you to the nearest ATM so you could get out cash? Surely there would be one within a 1 or 2 mins driving distance.

Really? Up in the hills in a place with no cellphone connection?

I don't know California, but here you could be driving for hours without finding an ATM if you're far enough in the mountains.
"Maybe they make the processes arbitrary difficult so that only those who really want to work for Google actually follow through?"

I think it comes down to the attitude that they'd rather have a bunch of false negatives than one false positives. Since there is extremely high supply of qualified applicants they probably don't feel like their bizarre hiring process hurts them at all. Some people will get turned off by their hiring processes, but for everyone one of those 10 times as many will jump through those hoops.

Over time I think Google's hiring processes absolutely do hurt them. The best of the best in the Computer Science world have many, many opportunities and they simply don't have to put up with nonsense. If Google is one of 10 suitors for an exceptional candidate and they take 6-8 months to make a decision, that candidate may already be long gone, just like the OP.

For now I think Google can get away with it but I feel like in a few years we're going to be seeing articles about Google's 'brain drain'.
Our firewall uses the Windows firewall system so it doesn't add instability to your computer. I was afraid it would sound kind of lame to talk about the awesome firewall when it's more of a firewall manager.
I think the monitoring feature is the most useful thing because you can go back in time and see your network activity for up to 30 days, or of course clear your history if you want.
For Mac there is Little Snitch but for Windows I haven't seen anything that has a "network time machine" like we have and also gives notifications like we do. The way GlassWire organizes the data is kind of unique.
I made this application for myself due to my own paranoia.
"The RBI rule requiring a one time pin for all online transactions is unwise, a huge barrier to good UX, and should be removed" - That rule is only in place because India does not have enough consumer protection laws. In case of credit card fraud, the consumer is screwed. Neither the bank nor Uber will own the responsibility for the fraud. Yes,the chances of such a fraud are low but the risk of losing a ton of money is very high. Also the interest rate on credit careds in India is massive - 36% p.a. So a potential loss to a consumer because of a fraudulent transaction is immensely high.

So yes, this two factor authentication is a royal pain in the ass but it's very much required in a country in which the consumer is not the king.
Ha, that's awesome.

I was going to suggest something similar... just put the bowling ball at one end and if you can see the whole thing at floor level at the other end, it's straight, else it's curved.
So, to make this more constructive than a rant-article, does anyone know who does this right? For a large company?

Can it be done with a separate HR staff, or do you need an engineer on the inside managing this?
You have ruined HTML
> "They all pretty much say the same thing."

This is not a safe approach when you're dealing with legal contracts, which is what T&Cs purport to be. Minor difference in wording can have very different intents/outcomes.

Having said this, they pretty much give carte blanche to the service provider to do whatever they want -- so in that sense, they're all the same.. That doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it can't/won't be contested at some point.
Interesting to me how the very clear bitmap fonts are so close to Terminus/linux fonts. Its almost like there is only one way to put the pixels.
I think that it said that a message was sent FROM his phone. You can view all messages (to and from) through voice.google.com.
Yes. See http://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#q16.
The sage cell server (used for embedding sage computations in webpages) has good features in this direction. Each cell gets run in its own sandbox, with a server configured timeout.
Feel free to check it out in a virtual machine if you're worried, or upload to VirusTotal.com.
Although interesting, I'm surprised blog post with so little content is on the front page.
More and more of these stories seem to be popping up now. It doesn't seem to be to googles overall detriment though as people are still just as interested (I think?) to work there. Guess they can get away with it.
It's now fixed. I guess sama saw it. Thanks.
Up until about a year ago (or maybe 2 now?), Larry Page still personally reviewed every single Engineering resume.

This gives you some idea about what could happen at the "11th hour" at Google.
PTVS supports it, as well. Basically, this is the way to go if you want cross-IDE type hints right now.
If it's a pay league, I'd demand a refund. It might be unfair to make everyone that was unaffected redraft, but it is decidedly unfair to have a draft in which members of the league weren't able to draft through no fault of their own.

If it's not a pay league, then it might not be the end of the world. You'll never be able to get the same sense of pride if you do well though. :-\

Maybe you could propose a vote from the other members, as a first step, and hope that they aren't as short-sighted as the commissioner?
How does docker actually make money?
Chennaiite here - finding autos is very tough. They ask for exorbitant fares, and don't ply to any route that you want. I have literally spent 20 mins on road trying to find an auto to travel to my destination 3kms away

Uber is not targeted at "most" people.
I would think it's almost like a sunk cost situation. If you keep getting called back for interviews that is normally a good sign that you're on track to get the job. It's positive. The more you are called back the more positive it is. You keep doing it because you're so close. Of course, you don't know that in reality you're just being sloshed through some bureaucratic machine that isn't operating by the same logic.
The rise of data and the death of politics
> This is a very naive illusion.

It's naive to think Iran is more dangerous than the US government.
We're working on a Mac version. Also I agree Little Snitch is cool.
We concentrate more on visualizing network activity and we have a "network time machine" feature our UI allows you to go back and forth in time. Also I don't like how Little Snitch always pops up those alerts. I wanted the user to see the alerts but not have to always "OK" every little network activity. I felt like users tend to just press "OK" all the time anyway...
When I interviewed at Google I was able to bypass the screening and hear back three days after the onsite. Everything from initial phone call to final decision took three weeks.

These were the steps I took.

1) Apply through internal referral. Ask multiple people to refer you.
2) Ask your friends to check up on the application process. Make sure they tell the recruiters you are further along with with Facebook, Twitter, or some other competitor.
3) When the recruiter contacts you. Thank them, tell them how much you want to work at Google, and then mention your tight deadline due to offers from other companies.

And I had a wonderful experience at Google because of two interviewers in particular.

1) I failed both questions from an interviewer. They were easy questions and I managed to crash and burn spectacularly. I don't understand how my interviewer managed to remain friendly and treated me with respect the whole time.

2) On the last round, I did well enough to score a 3/4. Yet during our chat, we talked about my other options and concluded that I should go join Redfin because developers can make a bigger impact at a smaller company. I appreciated his honesty.
The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google
It sucks that hitbox doesn't work on mobile.
How does VirusTotal.com know this isn't a trojan?
What type of marketplace are you?
India having bad writers is even more unwise IMO