skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've been using Talko for a little over 6 months, and I'm related to a founder. Discretion advised

It lives up to the hype. It's innovative in terms of an app that perfectly integrates synchronous and asynchronous communication at that same time. What's much more impressive is that it's one of the few pieces of software where I can confidently say It Just Works. The level of quality in every interaction and experience is carefully thought out and executed. It is modern enough that my girlfriend and I communicate with it exclusively. It's simple enough to facilitate discussion with >6 members of my extended family at the same time on a daily basis. That includes people ages 10 through >70.

I do communicate more with my family now than ever before. The key is the group aspect and being asynchronous. It's not pushy like a phone call where you're forced to make conversation with a single person. With Talko, we're always talking about a particular subject, usually with lots of pictures. I can be super engaged if I want to, or I can sit back and just watch it happen. What's awesome is that we all are experiencing it, even the people who miss it.

Talko's UX is helpful for guiding people to make the right decision about whether to talk about something in a 'new call', or to continue talking in an existing thread. This solves the issue of split conversations in the same thread, and if you want to talk about something for a long time (like your sports team every week), it's easy to bring up old conversations and continue them. Logged conversations aren't novel but are still great for nostalgia.

I've been happy to see them improve a lot in just the time I've been beta testing. They completely revamped some critical user flows which made a huge difference in usability. I know there are more awesome things ahead.

Give it a shot, and if you don't like it feel free to refute me! I am giving my honest opinion and haven't been asked to speak my mind from the Talko team in any way.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the voice quality is ridiculously crisp both in playback and realtime. It's much more clear than a call.
I haven't used Talko, but it sounds like a converged communication app, kind of Wave-ish, combining real-time (talk, chat) asynchronous (like email) and an archive organized by conversation.

Plus convenient and easy?

Is that right?
It's actually in larger companies best interests to pay patent trolls. Like internet fast lanes it creates barriers to entry that effect smaller competitors much more.
Say hello to Talko
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refute
To refute apparently can mean both /prove/ and just /say/ something is untrue.
The way I know the word is in the sense of "proving", not just saying. I dare to say that is the way most people would use that word.
Giganews only /says/ the allegations are untrue, it doesn't /prove/ that. To me it means poster is correct in stating their is no refuting of the claims, and I guess it's the same for most readers.
Joel Spolsky's Architecture Astronaut rants do, perhaps unfairly in this case, immediately spring to my mind. Especially as Joel calls out Ray Ozzie by-name ... http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html

Communications applications have to be extremely hard to pull off successfully, and God bless Ozzie for trying again.

I'm tempted to spout off on how one would do this thing "right", but I think that would make me the astronaut pot calling the architect kettle black.
The photo in the article shows a jumper dropping out of an AN-2. That is a very interesting aircraft, as it has a very low stall speed. Here is a video where you can see it fly extremely slow without stalling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mipf4nqrR74

From the pilot handbook, this gem:

"If the engine quits in instrument conditions (blind flying when you can't see the ground) or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft (it won't stall) and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 40mph (64km/h), and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 25mph [40km/h], the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground."

http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/antonov-2-colt

I've read accounts of people jumping out of the AN-2 at low speeds, without a parachute, and without injury.
You can scale the file system too but it doesn't mean that it's well suited to the job.
I came to say this, but also wanted to add that searching a voice communication is quite problematic compared to a written conversation. For evidence of how unclear it is, just look at the amount of times journalists use brackets to clean up quotations because people tend to speak in broken fragments.
Yeah, I am targeting devs and designers, I used to publish my blog posts using jekyll and git on my own server, and it is a bit tedious to push on every typo correction :)
> Whether it's all in pid 1 or not is irrelevant.

All of the existing mechanisms are also a "system" that compromises a ton of processes... If systemd is monolithic on these grounds, then so are they.

> What matters is that it has a monolithic architecture, whereby breakage in any one part or their communication channels can bring down the whole system.

Uh-huh... I think you are speaking to branding more than technology. Keep in mind that systemd is using existing components in much the same fashion they were already being used (hence the accusations about them "absorbing" udev).

If you look at the architecture, it has got very clear points of encapsulation that is much more structured than the loosey gooesy stuff that came before it.

> This is not just a theoretical concern; it has REPEATEDLY happened.

Yeah... with existing systems. There's any number of points of failure that are the stuff of legends in Unix system administration. Obviously, it will take time to get systemd thoroughly cleaned up, but it's not hard to look at the design and see how it provides plumbing to simplify and avoid a whole host of these scenarios.
Yep, I can see it now.

"I see you're at home so I know you're not out doing something, why aren't you responding to me???" - From a parent, significant other, boss, etc. Society in general doesn't really "accept" the notion of I'm busy doing my own thing, or I simply have no interest in talking to you right now.

If I couldn't disable that, the app would be a non-starter for me.
If the value of your site can be diminished by showing 5 lines of text, your site probably isn't worth that much.
when the gene pool is a jacuzzi
Entry seems pretty fast to me. The pinyin system means that you can enter a few letters using the English alphabet and it will show you the most likely character. For common words, one or two letters per character is enough. I am not a native Chinese typist, but even by guessing at the proper spelling, the predictive entry system is good enough for me to type at a non-too-terrible speed.
They're using the same definition as everyone else. People find these allusions to violence odd because the "violence" in governments is fairly far-removed, but this is why libertarians bring it up: to remind/reinforce that this is what's going on behind the scenes.

two relevant videos:

George Ought to Help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs

You Can Always Leave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s
Perhaps you're too hard on yourself with regard to spoken words. Keep in mind that these are technologies. The phone is a form of technology that you can use to communicate. It will have pros/cons compared to email. And using it effectively is a skill that can be learned.

I often hire subcontractors and I cannot tell you how much I wish they would just call me when they fall behind, rather than emailing or texting about everything. It turns a bad situation into an even worse situation, where on at least one side of the conversation, there is an extra question mark or exclamation point behind every piece of punctuation. In contrast, some of the most effective people I know will call whenever there is any kind of a speed bump, because they recognize the potential advantages of a voice conversation. It's there for anybody to use, and it doesn't really care if we use it or not, but the phone has its advantages.
It seems like a cheap shot, but it has to be said: I'm having trouble seeing what this provides that iMessage doesn't provide already:

- Text, check.

- Pictures and videos, check.

- Group messaging, check.

- Voice messaging, check.

It sounds like they recreated the iMessage core features, other than the ability to fall back to SMS for text. I wonder about privacy protection. Maybe there are some other bells and whistles on top?
You have knowledge? Common Let's Prove it
The New Chinese Factory
My opinion of this application is as follows, and nothing on the page really convinces me that my perception of the application is wrong so I have very little impetus to install it and find out how right or wrong I am.

First impression is it's a nice, professional and polished application but it's an application that makes noise. Which means (on my iPhone):

* When I'm listening to music with my headphones on and some communication comes in from this app, it's going to be via voice and my music will fade out.

* When I open the app it's going to initialise the sound device even though it doesn't need to make sound just yet and my music will fade out just by opening the app. (Not guaranteed: a lot of apps do this, this one could too.)

* When this app starts playing instead of my music it's going to confuse my car's entertainment system and my music won't start again. (This problem is specific to my car.)

Basically this app is going to be annoying in ways that iMessage and email are not.
Have you?

> That you have chosen this as your avenue of response, I take as a concession of my points in completion and admission of intellectual bankruptcy.

> No, but they are uncomfortable, hence the down votes. Alas, this is not a site with high intellectual integrity.

> I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves?

> so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.

> But Hacker News has had a very strong left bias, and a draconian moderation policy going back at least to 2008. You risk being hellbanned for linking to scientific papers here if the papers don't agree with the ideology of the moderators (who, like all unaccountable entities, like to remain anonymous.)
I would never use this product.

Why?

Because the last thing on earth is for my mom to know i'm available for a phone call when really i just don't want to talk to her.

Even if you prefer talking through a tiny speaker to texting, i simply cannot see this product taking off except with the technophobic. There is a reason i prefer texting, i'll return your message on my own schedule, i'll think more about my responses, and i'll make damn well sure that the person on the other end doesn't know i'm ignoring them when i am.
you DO have to be libertarian to claim to oppose the TSA. blah blah Obama blah blah

No I don't, because I'm not fucking American^. You're so wound up in this story of yours that you've got blinders on, and can't see the outside world. You're so proud of this 'third way' that libertarians think they've got the lock on, when my country has multipolar politics, as do several others. In my country, Australia, there are two major political blocs (and one of those is itself made of two blocs), but the balance of power is currently held by small parties and independent politicians. So fuck you, fuck you very, very hard for trying to imply that I endorse TSA pat-downs, characterised by you as 'molestation' to make it sound like I was a sex offender by association. I should probably note that at this point in my life, I feel far more abused by libertarians than by the tax department, despite libertarians prattling on about not doing harm to others.

You're so proud that your libertarianism is the 'only' alternative (in your eyes), because if you're not Republican or Democratic, you have to be libertarian? Fuck, Australia considered itself a member of "Third Way" politics[1] decades ago, and that 'third way' is not 'libertarian'. Have you even seen Germany, which has no political parties strong enough to rule in their own right, so they have to form coalitions to get a majority?

All throughout your diatribe you're using simplistic concepts and overdramatised demonisation (like tax = street muggings), which you consider 'inescapable logic' or somesuch. The simple, plastic, PlayMobile philosophy you peddle is directly offensive (you're not a libertarian? then you condone rape!) and has no understanding of political nuance or necessity.

So, I leave you with this: If you hate government as much as you say you do, then move to Vanuatu. Good weather, happy people, no tax at all (unless you're a landlord). Less than a thousand police, and they also double as the army. Tiny government. It's exactly what libertarians say they want, and yet few seem to want to move there - they seem to much prefer the infrastructure bought by taxes. So, you don't want to pay for anything that you're not going to use yourself? Then put your money where your mouth is and move to Vanuatu, instead of implying that people who disagree with you are child molestors.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

^Edit: I don't have anything against the US, I'm just pissed off at being associated with child molestors just because I disagree with libertarians.
Online product reviews have self-selection bias, yes, but it is not true that cables are reviewed only or even mostly by people who were not satisfied. For example, on Amazon we can see a 4.5 star mini USB cable with 679 reviews [1]. Similarly, Monoprice has a 5 star USB extension cable with 160 reviews.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-Male-Mini-Cable/dp/B0...

[2] http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=...
To be clear, I love talking on the phone or in person with people. But I really hate voice messages. It feels like a chore to listen to them. I'm honestly not sure why.
But then again, this appears in the article you linked:

“Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not.”
It's never been an absolute policy, but they certainly used to prefer people with degrees; it's an easy filter when you've got a million CVs a year to parse through.

HR found it was useless as a predictor of success, though, and the policy was officially dropped last year:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-hiring-non-graduate...
For actually being in a company like that it's mostly that and bad overall management - at a time we did have a ratio of two (useless...) PM for on dev. Dev underpaid, PM overpaid (as expert freelance, of course, or with bonus), some huge expense made for stuff that make no sense (branding), negotiating badly some contract so that they cost the company more than they provide...

Of course after a while this stop since all these mismanagement corrupt the products too, and pretty fast you're left with a huge black hole for money that doesn't produce anything meaningful.
Einstein's “Time Dilation” Prediction Verified More Precisely
I find it easier to think about it from a data "usage" angle, "if you can query anything you like while running the 'database' on a single machine and get your answer within 24hrs your data is not 'big'"

I used to see 24hr OLAP cube runs and no one ever called that 'big data'. It's entirely a question of scale in my mind, because these days you can buy truly gigantic servers, and they are phenomenally powerful but if your data needs multiple servers dividing the load in order to perform queries in a timely manner then you start talking about big data, it's a question of scale.
Careful with that Buffer
Google Doodle Today Welcomes Autumn 2014 • Vlogg.com
> We're working on our Android and web apps.

iMessage doesn't have that.
That was my first thought exactly.
There are basically two styles of Chinese input: easy and slow via pinyin, or hard but fast via radicals. Both have their drawbacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_comp...
A great deal of South Korea's growth can be attributed to the 1960-1989 military dictatorship.
Let's keep some perspective here. We are literally just talking about an init system.

Systemd does more than just init, it has the features to replace everything from network manager to fstab. It is not just an init system it is an invasion of Linux userspace.

Don't take my word for it, just read the developers blog:

http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/fudcon-gnomeasia.html
Sure, but Talko isn't the second mover in messaging apps, it's more like the millionth. This is a pretty mature market by now, and I'm still not seeing any obvious hook that would get me to switch.
it's already patched in iOS 8. The question is whether iOS 7 will be patched. Together with the other security holes it should be possible to break out of the sandbox

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6441?viewlocale=en_US&locale=e...
Thanks for that insight Hank. I'm curious - prior to using Talko, what was your relationship with voice calls? I connect with the note in this article about some people finding them intrusive compared to text / email. I'm intrigued by what Talko offers - wondering if you were similarly anti-voice beforehand, and that changed, or if you were ambivalent?
Presto is a fully distributed (MPP) SQL query engine that supports Cassandra: http://prestodb.io/docs/current/connector/cassandra.html

You can even join together data from Hive, Cassandra, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Kafka, etc., all in one query. We don't have a connector for Mongo yet, but contributions are welcome!

The Cassandra connector was actually an external contribution. We don't use it at Facebook.
India's Mangalyaan enters Mars' Gravitational Sphere of Influence
No shirts for fat guys. Shame.
How Two Men Unlocked Modern Encryption
Voice is much more clear because it conveys nuance, such as sarcasm, which text cannot. I bet speaking is much faster than typing for most people, although reading is faster than listening. Voice (sound) is analog, not digital!

Converting voice to text solves a lot of these problems, but this app doesn't do that.
I read this guide ALOT when trying to understand how a VM worked, this guide was invaluable. It gave me enough knowledge to write my own VM. Recommended!
There are a few innovations in Talko itself (telling people if you're driving etc.). That may be enough, and it may not. It takes a fair amount of pixie dust for these things to work out, so no one knows. But it does have a chance.

In a world where "Yo" gets more than 1 user (and a $10M valuation), I don't discount any app until it's removed from the app store.
Is Deep Learning the Final Frontier and the End of Signal Processing?
How do you hold your phone when talking with Talko? It seems that the photo stream plays a big role in the experience, so I assume that you keep it in the front of you instead of on your ear. Do you do this also when not inside or stationary?

Is the audio quality good when on the move? I've played with a few WebRTC solutions on a mobile and all of them call quality problems on mobile.
But the article is wrong.. most of my libertarian friends don't believe in no government, they believe in a minimalist one... this is a perfect example of where contract law should prevail, which is well within libertarian ideals. It's a matter of one party wronging another, not a failure of libertarian ideology. That which is actually not far from the ideals this country was founded on.

The article itself is an opinion piece with a little bit of facts that don't at all support the opinion. I tend to be more pragmatic still... I feel that the role of a limited central government should be to ensure expected infrastructure to the greater community over time.

That doesn't mean privatizing everything, or socializing it all either. It could mean reassigning roles when things aren't working.. it could mean staying the hell out, and it can mean relaxing regulations in certain ways. It really depends on the situation. For example, health care, I would have rather seen the resources government already spends in an open, competative non-profit insurance corporation. Then establish that as a baseline anyone can buy into... that would act as competition for other hmo's and insurance companies.

FedEx and UPS compete fine with the postal service, though the USPS is fairly locked down with regulation, and could do with some ability to adapt without congressional approval.

It really just depends on a given scenario. Rarely does the government taking over a function as a whole serve anyone better than some level of competition.
Awesome info, thanks for sharing that!
Next time, take a look into their comment history. A lot of hellbanned people are totally reasonable on some topics but have pet topics about which they can be incredibly obnoxious.
Heh, man I wish I could be anonymous and post this... I've gotten offers from most of those companies you've mentioned and worked/interviewed/resume sorted for one of the ones with a higher bar. Here's some tough love, but hopefully it'll be helpful. This is what goes through my mind as a dev helping out the recruiters at one of these places:

1. I've never heard of your University. It's not from the US and isn't Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, MIT or Berkeley, so it isn't an immediate forward to a phone screen. Not an IIT or Waterloo either.

2. The GPA system I don't understand, but doesn't seem particularly high. I'm not a stickler for GPA, but it seems to be close to a 3.0. At that GPA, even if you were from a top CS school, it'd be a tough sell for a phone screen.

3. I don't see a class schedule, have you ever written an operating system from scratch before? Written your own network stack?

4. Have you done something amazing worthy of recognition? Amazing top coder results? IOI Medal? ICPC World Finals? Again not necessary for a phone screen, but given that nothing else is a signal for a phone screen, this would be it.

5. Expected 2016. Ok, at least if we hire him as an intern, there's a good chance he'll come back as a full time. Sophomores are risky since most will intern elsewhere next year and you won't be able to hire them back.

6. No evidence of work (OSS contributions, intelligent blog, etc) to judge you by.

I sometimes go through 3-4 interviews a day, and the fact is, most people with perfect resumes and 4.0's from Stanford fail my interview anyway. Nothing here signals to me that having a dev spend an hour in a phone screen with you isn't a waste of everyone's time. You're going to need some hook to make it to the next step. If there's a referral from someone internal that says to interview this guy, we're giving you the benefit of the doubt. Admittedly, these are snap judgements I'm making and are very likely completely unfair. There aren't enough hours in the day to give everyone applying a shot at a phone screen, so we need to weed out 99% of the resume's immediately--even if that means throwing away a few that would have passed.
I think we are talking about CGI faces here and thats just not doable yet and this research won't change a thing about it.
The last movie I remember having a CG face was Clu in Tron Legacy which certainly was state of the art CG, unfortunately 'state of the art'[1] in face modeling/animation is just not perfect yet.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvaGd4KqlvQ
You should consider that many app developers won't take kindly to suggestions like this - its often seen just as a way to get some work done for free, with no risk on your side. There was a discussion on reddit the other day about exactly this subject ...

http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/2h0uy1/whats_a_p...