skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's subtle. The conversion rule states that only `true` is true, `null` is an error, and everything else is false. However, the type annotation of `bool` means that in checked mode any non-bool value will cause a type error to be thrown.

The reason it's defined this way is for efficient compilation to JavaScript. Control-flow constructs don't have to perform a type-check, just a null check (which can be left out in cases due to null propagation).
Good point. Hasn't everyone here had at least one part-time job where they made you do upselling?
Also ClojureScript, Parenscript.
Well, there is this:

> The main challenge comes when we actually do get a female candidate. We don’t discard a single one on resume. We see all of them. We discard about 80% of guys on resume. But even so, we get to see 4 guys to 1 girl or so. In the interviews, we help the girls shine, because we actually want to hire them, but then, one of the other 4 guys shows just an amazing performance, for whatever reason, truly impressive, like he has done many more things than the girl (and than the other candidates), can show more amazing code, personal projects, etc. And we think: “If the girl was a guy, she would not be on the race with this guy, just like the other male candidates are totally discarded now”. Should we let this amazing coding guy go? It’s not easy to find amazing coders either, you know?

source: https://startupsanonymous.com/story/hiring-girls-difficult-w...

And it makes sense that someone would vent such things anonymously or not at all, considering the skewering they'd get from the media if they even suggested anything of the sort publicly.

As someone who's experienced teaching programming classes for girls, I can wholeheartedly say that trying to recruit candidates who are actually interested in the area is quite difficult. The program I worked for eventually had to move away from being a 'programming' course, to more of a 'digital arts' course just so that we'd get enough applicants to justify continuing it. And this is in the bay area, the tech/liberal capital of the country. So I can totally see this happening in the workplace too.
fair enough.

but the criticism stands : it's hardly useful for me as every 2 out of 3 songs will not work. probably because I'm in europe, but still. and I can't suggest alternatives, there aren't any with copyright laws being what they are.
Beginner’s Guide to Local SEO for eCommerce Businesses
What was done to those patients seemed incredibly cruel. It's one thing to have the patients confront each others' delusions. It's quite another to cause them distress just to see what happens.
Love the idea! Would gladly pay for it if it supported physical product sales. i.e., ability to add COGS, have a gross margin, etc. Correct me if I am wrong but your current iteration is more geared towards SaaS startups.
There's nothing wrong with roundup-ready corn either (well, any more than what's wrong with regular corn), but I still take issue with Monsanto.

Microsoft still made immensely popular and good products, even while they were stomping all over the tech industry in the 90s.

I agree that a good product coming out of a company with abusive practices behind-the-scenes is unlikely to be boycotted widely, but the company is still shady.
It doesn't look good. It's very well possible, but the other parties just do not seem interested. Maybe because they are currently investing in Javascript related technologies.
I'm neither elderly nor very very busy (maybe ~.5 verys), nor wealthy, but I'd gladly pay 30% more for my groceries if I could order them via a typical online shopping interface and have them show up at home at a set time (within a one hour window).
> why doesn't it use current Linux DNS resolvers?

NIH
Never imagined I would see an article involving Ypsilanti on HN.
Also the colour of a human, the most photographed animal on the planet.
Great news because source maps were the one disadvantage of Stylus, so it was eagerly awaited: https://github.com/LearnBoost/stylus/issues/1072 :)
This is amazing! I've been wanting something like this for so long.
The Internet's Annoying Advertising Addiction
> What might happen, he wondered, if a psychologist were to deliberately pair up patients who held directly conflicting identity delusions? Perhaps such psychological leverage could be used to pry at the cracks of an irrational psyche to let in the light of reason.

> Over time, each Christ cultivated new delusions to retain his claim to godliness.

somehow not surprising seeing how people in general defend their irrational psyche - ideologies, believes, superstitions, etc... - from the light of reason. It is just a theory which will trickle down by God's will, i guess.
> Yes, it is a language introduced by a single company, but then again many languages have started that way

Including JavaScript.

Acceptance as a standard usually happens after someone implements it, makes it widely available, and proves its merit, not the other way around (and standards that happen the other way around tend to be dead on the vine.)
Chain, Blockchain API Provider Raises $9.5M led by Khosla Ventures
I found this video to much more informative about the issue of free software and hacker culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pube5Aynsls
fork() can fail
Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch Video at 500FPS
Got your point on "trivial to adopt". I didn't see discussions w.r.t. browser here.

It's a good idea to find ways for users to verify what's running on the device. Right now, the USB port on JackPair is only for user to re-charge battery. We can open it up for user to load the code themselves, but this will also make it vulnerable for USB hacks. Any suggestions here?

The encryption software of JackPair can be run on PC, except for the assembly optimization for our ARM cortex M3 based DSP core. It's ok to verify software this way; it'll be open sourced anyway. But I'm not convinced that average users can make sure their PC or smart phone secure enough to run JackPair as pure software solution.

For MitM human voice mimicking, in additional to computing power, it'll take a large database with perfect voice samples, and manual adjustment & training so far:

http://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/7833/how-to-mimic-cop...

BTW, the Pairing Code in JackPair is 10 digits long, the 3-digit code you see in the GIF animation is for illustration purpose.
Collage, rent, cars and healthcare take up an awful lot of the available income for most people, so if these are more expensive then that accounts for a lot.
“The Revolution, Measured By Its Original Goals, Has Not As Yet Succeeded”
I think there is too much information crammed into a very short talk, so it makes fairly large leaps of logic at some points and makes weird claims about "universal back doors" etc. It's not made clear exactly what proprietary software even is. It all sounds very pessimistic and doesn't offer much advice beyond telling people to throw away all their proprietary software.

It might be better to explain examples of free software that people may already be using, or things that they might want to use. Perhaps show examples of why for example free access to source code allows poor schools in africa to customise software to their needs etc.
How making the right decisions leads to baaad startups
Also wasn't WebVan running warehouses? That is so totally different than InstaCart and Google Shopping Express. Your long memory is, IMO, working against you here.

AmazonFresh is doing something along the lines of what WebVan was trying, with the capitalization to make a real go of it.
The answer to "why not standardize it" isn't to make a brand new and still-incomplete implementation part of init. At most there could have been justification for further standardizing the interface through which dnsmasq, unbound, et al. can act as the default system resolver. But it's not like they didn't all already have a way to do so.
I hate services which require a phone call or other work to unsubscribe, beyond other changes. There is some argument for higher level security validation for certain service changes, but it shouldn't be done for revenue protection reasons.

(I tend to let American Express cancel services for me if the site makes it very difficult.)
Amazon.com Coming to Shanghai's Free-Trade Zone
Omniref Editor Integration
>What was done to those patients seemed incredibly cruel.

compare to lobotomy, electric shock and other things that were "normal" back then? Not that i disagree with you, just putting in perspective.
Why Development Estimates are Bunk (and a cool puzzle)
Did you get any message at all? (trying to debug, as it seems to be working).
we started with SaaS, so we currently have the most functionality there. However, we are rapidly building out that kind of support. We already support linking expenses for each sale you make to support basic COGS and will have much more soon.
Here's some I've heard:

One user has a CAD app that must talk to its license server to work. With this, they can have a license server and their distributed team can use it. (Consulting company.)

There's a few users who just like the convenience of being able to do things like share screens, drop files to each others' machines, etc. as if they're all in the same room. There are other ways to do it, but they find this easy and straightforward and the services are already built into the OS.

A few users have security concerns that make them more comfortable with direct file transfer over their own encrypted LAN than with Dropbox, et al. These are medical and financial sector users.

But ultimately I think you are at least partly correct. Most things have moved into "the cloud," so a significant proportion of users have no pressing need for direct connectivity. This makes it likely to be a niche market.

Of course you can go further and ask "why has everything moved into the cloud?" There are multiple reasons, but one reason is certainly that direct connectivity is hard. But now you have a chicken or egg problem: nobody builds apps that require direct connectivity because it's hard, and there's little market for making direct connectivity easier because nobody builds apps for it. Those kinds of catch-22 scenarios are murderously hard to escape, either technically or marketing-wise.

One application that doesn't fit the mold though is private network backplanes for cloud servers that span data centers and cloud providers. I've got a couple users who have servers on multiple providers on multiple continents (Amazon, Digital Ocean, etc.) and this lets them have a single shared encrypted private backplane with a few minutes' setup time and no manual configuration.

I've considered following that line of thinking and building some kind of "meta-cloud" solution, also possibly integrating with Docker, OpenStack, etc. The idea would be "SDN over WAN and between providers." I've gotten a few positive comments on that concept, but I'm at the early stages of exploring it.
Send Almost Anything To Your Phone With Pushbullet
Hey Mike! I had an idea for using the Uber Request A Ride endpoint for an app/site to allow bars/clubs to use Uber for getting impaired drivers home (ordering a ride for them). Would this be grounds for whitelisting?
This reminds me of a Reddit post from yesterday: http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/2dyi9j/look...

In particular, the bit about the persistent apologies. From the Reddit link:

He's distanced himself from the situation - his nauseating apology texts are dripping with the clueless narcissism that deeply engrained chauvinism is made of: "I know you said not to contact you anymore but I have to apologize so I can get over this... This has turned out almost the exact opposite as I thought it would [sic] and has caused me inexplainable [sic] discomfort .... I just have to come out and say it, I like you."

Also, some of the stories in the comments had similar elements, like:

This exact thing happened to my current gf after she was raped. She just wanted to bury it and he kept pushing his guilt on her for about a year sporadically begging for forgiveness and for her to help him convince himself it wasn't actually rape.

The initial behavior is bad enough, but the continued demand for interaction and forgiveness is entitled and pathetic.

Incidentally, I'm curious as to why I saw this link on the front page of HN from my phone, but when I jumped on the desktop to comment, I was unable to locate it anywhere on at least the first four pages of HN. Now it seems to be back on the second page.
What city do you live in? Instacart offers one hour Costco deliveries in my city (Boston) right now.
Are you really worried about having to type 2 characters ('>0') more? I think people are too worried about syntax when it comes to programming languages. I guess it makes sense because that is what is most obvious when you look at a language for the first time.
Going to the grocery store is actually pretty time-consuming. That's true even though I live within a few blocks of one.

I just did some back-of-the-envelope math and determined that the minimum time it could take for me to go to the grocery store and come back, from door to door, is about 40 minutes, and the maximum is about 2 hours. I took into account everything from walking to my car in the parking garage and getting out of the garage to finding a parking spot, waiting in line to check out, hitting traffic lights on the way there and back, etc.

I think this is why I don't cook as much as I'd like to. I can either spend 40 minutes getting groceries and then needing to cook a meal and then eating it, or I can spend 40 minutes picking up, say, Chipotle, which includes eating the food.
From the home page, it looks like you have a placeholder href:

<a href="#" class="btn btn-large btn-warning " style="color:#fff;" target="_blank">Join&nbsp;Beta Program</a>
Interestingly enough, I was watching a PG's interview at the Airbnb office. PG mentioned that a really good way to find good startup ideas is to see what hackers are talking about. Has anyone else noticed how any post email related seems to get a fair amount of attention on HN?
A Software Design Manifesto (1990)
Linux Foundation Training – Certification
Capitalism`s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The profit motive is so strong that it often ends up creating irrational scenarios such as the economic situation we have today.

European countries seem to have struck a far better balance by harnessing the profit motive of capitalism while preventing disasters such as for-profit healthcare, for-profit education, for-profit government policies (for the rich), for-profit prisons, etc.

It is fascinating how powerful cultural and institutional momentum can be. I regularly run into very intelligent and rational Americans (particularly on HN!) who defend American institutions (e.g. healthcare) in spite of all the widespread data about them being massively inefficient.

In the end, we reap what we sow. The profit motive brings great riches, but to a tiny few. The rest, sadly, often become the servants who enable the lifestyles of these outliers. Conversely, the outliers become the American Dream, seducing the average worker ever onwards with promises of riches and comfort just a few lucky breaks away.
> our goal is to find a different type of client-

Generally speaking, larger companies or those with big ticket items, have bigger budgets. Suggest defining those business niches/categories interesting you. Then strategically network with those players in your market. It's enough to start a conversation with 'I was curious about your current online presence'. See where that goes.
Let me rephrase that: What impact on psychology did this study have? Is it solely noted today for influencing some laws protecting the subjects of psychological treatment/research, or did it end up benefiting the scientific community in some way?
Being explicit is great, but it doesn't prevent a library from defining it's own boolean coercion rules.

The Angular team, for instance, has defined toBool() (which they use in directives like ng-if) like this:

bool toBool(x) {
if (x is bool) return x;
if (x is num) return x != 0;
return false;
}

It treats true and non-zero numbers as true, and everything else (including null) as false.
MobileDay Raises $6M+ Series A led by Foundry Group
I've been using them for a couple of months. Love it.
We have been using this with our startup, it has helped us to both figure out our runway, and play around brainstorming new business models. Our investors were really impressed when we showed them as well.
Reminds me of a startup in Toronto: Usehurrier.com

This is really Uber's "On Demand ____" promotions (read: experiments) coming to life and I imagine partnerships with retailers (similar to their local partnerships for events and more recently restaurants) will be an easy next step for this service.
So the color could change in the next years with the emergence of fluorescent lamps, LEDs and cold cathode lighting.
New Publication Schedule for The Unicode Standard
We have the heightened burden of SEC regulations to thank for all these companies staying private. If the regulatory burdens were lower more companies might go to public markets to raise capital, instead of to VCs.

The regulations are meant to protect the everyman, but the perverse result is that the opportunity to participate in these fantastic returns is now restricted to the executive tier at the startups, the rich accredited investors, the VCs, and the private equity firms.

The rest of us are left out ... unless we become founders ourselves.
Grocery shopping has to be the worst inefficient process there is. Count how many times you handle a can of beans: Shelf-to-cart, cart-to-checkout, checkout-to-bag, bag-to-car, car-to-pantry, pantry-to-shelf, then later shelf-to-kitchen, kitchen-to-recycle.
if you don't consider the effects of quantum mechanics then all objects have an event horizon.
Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkuO-8hfGhM
Double- 00-Henry Short Movie Comedy Going Viral
The article addresses that and intentionally chooses non-human subjects such as walls of graffiti. These still show his `emergent orange' effect.

At first I assumed it was his averaging technique, but I'm more apt to believe it has to do with the spectrum of light which is being `sampled' by the selection of photos.
Any good jobs on Internet can work from home on internet
Any good jobs on internet can work from home on internet
It's a time consuming and often inconvenient thing that almost everyone has to do on a regular basis. Everyone is a large market and if you can find a small percentage of that market willing to employ your services, that's still significant.
I don't know. That address space is very much larger than all the storage every produced in human history.
Email

I pretty much won't do it on Facebook, especially if the permissions are looking for anything besides my basic info.

I use a throwaway email address if the service is potentially sketchy in any way.
thanks! broken button in WP theme, replaced for now w/ a link.
where to begin...

Building the device to require a smartphone is such a bad idea. The same functionality (battery, light detector, datalogging) could be added for negligible cost.

It seems like involving an iphone is simply a way to capitalize on the credulity of naive investors.

RT-PCR is notoriously difficult to do well. This is because RNA is unstable and nucleases (which destroy RNA) are a ubiquitous environmental contaminant. People that work with RNA typically set aside clean rooms and dedicated tools for working with samples. Can we expect users of this product to be careful re: cleanliness?

The reason 23andMe works is because its data is good, and the reason its data is good is because they generate it themselves (and, they're working with DNA, not with RNA).

The operating cost is mostly consumable stuff: Enzymes and DNA primers. DNA is cheap and stable, but the enzymes (reverse transcriptase, dna polymerase) are expensive and unstable. Will the device contain an integrated -20C freezer to store the enzymes? Has the company found a supplier of enzymes that are super cheap and of an acceptable quality? If so, lots of people in the research community will want to know.
thanks for the report, fixed
I assume the idea is to give their drivers something useful to do with downtime. If all drivers could be closer to 100% utilized by taking a delivery when there are no passengers, they could have more drivers and happier/wealthier drivers.

Similar to AWS, really. Originally the AWS idea was that Amazon needed those extra servers and a way to manage them anyway, might as well do something valuable with the excess capacity.
You need to click the link a second time for some reason to be taken to the form.
That and the absolute horrible response to the word Socialism which is equated directly with Communism by large parts of the electorate.

The US system is very good at produce big winners at the expense of everyone else - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM astounded me even though I already knew the distribution was inequitable.
To move everything at once drag the the body of the segment (not in between). That will move everything from that point on.
I think a lot of Silicon Valley startups cannot see beyond their Bay Area bubble where everyone earns $150k, treats their time like gold dust, and will pay a premium for menial services.

There isn't much money in grocery delivery services at scale.
The Modern Classroom: Students, Teachers and Data-Driven Education
WOW! Great for me that likes to produce spare time! Thanks guys!
Related: https://medium.com/@johnolilly/the-revolution-has-not-yet-su...
To me that's what IRC is for. You need a structure in Wave to make it useful as a realtime wiki. That's what etherpad is for and people then copy and paste the content into a wiki page later(etherpad is not good for continuous editing FYI so you should never edit the same Etherpad every day. It's a great way for realtime collaboration but ephemeral. You can also use Google Docs too).
Nope! He's right, I never have.

I can't blame the techs for responding to the incentives given, of course. I can blame the company for giving them bad incentives, though.

The fundamental contradiction here is that what succeeds at selling in the short term isn't necessarily what succeeds at selling in the long term. What's best for the company is usually satisfied customers who get the services they need and no more. What's best for the sales guy's monthly numbers may be customers who have been convinced to buy way more than they need and will probably eventually get fed up and leave.

Companies that tell their people to sell will probably produce an obnoxious environment. Companies that tell their people to satisfy the customer, including selling them stuff they want or need, will probably be nice to interact with.
Getting Started with Mobile Angular UI
From the FAQ:

> Q. Isn’t it bad to publish details of possible attacks?

> We have omitted a small number of sensitive details from our attacks in order to avoid providing recipes that would allow an attacker to reliably defeat the screening process without having access to a machine for testing.
LOADED Episode 5: Scandinavians are Liars
Are you ready to revolutionize the way you manage multiple projects?
Haha this is awesome! First a couple of HackNY fellows make Fish Plays Pokemon, now this! I can't wait for what fish related fun comes next.
I don't think I could have written a more perfect parody of Hacker News comments that ignore the point of the article but nitpick one small thing in an attempt to demonstrate the commenter's intelligence.
I may live within 5 minutes of a super market, but it's still a time-consuming (up to one hour to shop) activity that I find inconvenient and have to do very regularly. I would gladly pay a premium (and I do, via Instacart) to have it taken care of for me.

Before I started getting my groceries delivered, I would find myself regularly ordering delivery food (also online via foodler) and spending way more money because I was too tired/lazy to run to the grocery store after work.