skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"What Colour is Your Parachute" (great book btw) also says this (that most jobs aren't advertised). I've also noticed it in my work places. Sometimes there's a government mandated ad, but they already know who they'd like to hire.
How does an accelerated (e.g., psyco enabled) version of the python compare?

The Java one would probably still win, but an easy two lines may bring them closer to parity.
The language and development tools have exploded the last 4 years, both inside and outside Ericsson and especially after Armstrong's book and work on R12 started. I have a blog post brewing on all the improvements, here's an outline

===================

string, regex handlers, faster file I/O:

- "re" module replaces "regex"

- faster iteration over large binaries, R13A

- avoid io:get_line using raw access

-----------------------------

metaprogramming/"DSL"

- deep exploring parse_transform

----------------------

frameworks, database, middleware

- couchdb, nitrogen, mochiweb, erlyweb,and now the boss!

- thrift, ejabberd, rabbitMQ,

----------------------------

debug, trace, static code analysis; verify program behavior

- dialyzer, tidier (Sagonas and Avgerinos)

- mcErlang model checker

- quick check application vs. specification

-------------------------

data structures

- destructive / mutable byte arrays (HiPE BIF)

- shared immutable data structure

----------------------

tail recursion

- Ericsson expanding as fast as they can (e.g. "andalso",

-------------

SMP, run queues,

----------

build systems, distribute your app

- rake
- faxien, sinan (erlware)

==============

Yah, this could be a long post, take a while to draft too.

Dunno the state of scala, clojure and haskell /GHC docs these days, but to explore the dark corners of erlang dev, you ahve to do a lot of mailing list and google digging.

(and read Cesarini/Thompson book, which is equal to best software books ever, modulo fair number of typo's)
Turn it up to 11: Tech's contributions to Rock and Roll
The server's IP is definitely not a UofC IP.
Amazing. Did the blogger even bother to Google the phrase "Free Public Wifi" before writing this?
One source file, yes, but it's 7500 lines long... for me, at that kind of length, I'd find it easier to understand if broken into sensibly separate files.
Better than http://personalmba.com/recommended-business-books/
Looks like a really small sample size, about half of which are bootstrapped startups with zero users. I'm not sure how useful this data is.
Baidu was indeed helped by the Chinese government. For example, google.com was redirecting to baidu.com (http://www.therawfeed.com/2007/10/chinese-redirecting-google... for example), Baidu can (could?) also help looking for illegal mp3 (http://www.danwei.org/china_information/baidu_bidu_guide_bai...), etc.
To Eternity...in a Sparc
Man uses SPARCstation as an urn for his brother's remains. It isn't clear if the deceased knew this was to be, or not.

Then again, funerals are for the living, right?
I'm guessing the signal to noise ratio of posting there would be overwhelming and defeat the purpose...
<useless but informative gripe>

An actual engineer would know bandwidth isn't something measured in bits per second.

Technically, bandwidth is the width of a band of frequencies. For example, the bandwidth between 3 GHz and 4 GHz is 1 GHz. The bandwidth of an 802.11 channel is 22 MHz.

Obviously it's a lost cause trying to stop everyone from using "bandwidth" to mean throughput or a data rate. Don't get me started on people using bandwidth to mean how much work they can handle either: "I don't have the bandwidth to handle another project, you better give it to somebody else."

</useless but informative gripe>
You may want to use MsSql or something only available on windows
I wish I could down arrow you right now!!!
I doubt they need a couple months of work? It sounds more like a week or so to get them pointed in the right direction.
This is something like the 10th post about the CS lectures. Look at the right sidebar for all the others. I remember posting see.stanford.edu lectures a while ago.
My Wave username is the same as my Gmail one.
I don't understand how wave will replace email. How will it ever get so popular and overcome the chicken and egg problem? Anyone carry to enlighten me?

CampFire solves many of emails problems for particular types of communications. Google docs solves email problems for collaborative document editing. I don't see wave solving the biggest email problems: inbox overload and organization. I don't want yet another communication channel.
Looks like someone did.

Have to say this is 1) a brilliant tshirt, 2) a brilliant business model. Just placed an order. :-)
Ask HN: How much equity for first employee?
I am a web developer who was contracted by a previous employer to build a website. A year later, the website is live with traffic and revenue trickling in.

My contract is coming up for renewal, and they want me to join the company as the first and only technical employee. They want to offer me equity in the company, and I'm trying to find out how much is reasonable.

Some notes about the job:

* I have been the only one working on this website
* I accepted a fair market rate for the job
* The job turned out to require a lot more than originally asked (1.8x amount of hours)
* Everything was completed on-time
* I enjoy working with these guys

To sum up my perceptions:

* I think I'm valuable to them
* I think I have a lot to offer in terms of growing the company
* I think they know this

Considering the amount of hours I've worked, my fair market rate doesn't seem so fair anymore. I'm trying to offset this with negotiating for more equity.

I've done some research, and I've seen equity for non-founders range from 0.5% to 25%.

My question, is it out of the question for somebody in my position to ask for 10-15% equity?

This question has been asked before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=73674 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698469) but these didn't really answer my question.
An aside. There's benefit the other way, too: a sense of self-confidence also helps one concentrate despite distractions, and prevents urgent and desperate body language. If you can concentrate, and not be overwhelmed with urgent or desperate feelings, you have more cognitive power available, and will perform closer to your potential.

I agree with your points, especially about memory. Expert chess players have superior recall of chess positions - but only those that could occur in play. For other positions, their memory is comparable to ordinary people.
This is really great on several levels: it helps the app to stand out among all those other calculators and it is a subtle little criticism of Apple’s review process.
I hate pie charts.
"It's the PAX...."

but seriously, I know China is trying to preen here but what I see is that the reason why everyone else can't do the same thing is that in most other countries, the other constituencies that might have an interest in how the weather is manipulated actually have some sort of say, and in the event that the weather is manipulated, someone would have some sort of responsibility for it.

I consider these features, not bugs. YMMV.
mmh... something is wrong tough. I always thought of a unix pipe as a conduct. The word "pipe" in french is correct for the smoking item (and also to describe a sexual act) but it does not refer to a conduct.

The conduct you call a pipe in english is a "tuyau" in french.
I heard a talk from someone who was selling a linux app that completely saved program state so that you could restart from that point at any time. Last time I checked, gdb has some basic abilities in that respect.
Not dead, just resting. The server that hosts that blog only has 2mbit up at the moment. That'll change soon. Check back in a bit? :-)
The important question is if they will be paying a salary and what kind of salary will it be? (will you be taking a lower rate then you make now, etc).

If you are being paid a good salary it would be harder to justify a larger piece of the pie. If you are working for peanuts, or even free, then the sky is the limit.
Yep. Million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen - really, the idea is the EASY part.
I have been to Shanghai. It was sunny.
What you're saying is no doubt true for a general audience, but that's not what this is for. You may be forgetting that a lot of hackers haven't the slightest idea about (or interest in) "production value", so it would be very much the wrong thing to optimize for. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if making a slick video backfired.
Fossils Shed New Light on Human Origins
this could possibly be something interesting to read if it didn't cut off mid-story and tell you to come back next week.

instead of having the anticipated effect of getting people to subscribe or return later, its having the reverse effect on me. i'm not going to ever return to this website, and i'm flagging it as spam since the true value of the article seems to lie at the end of it.
Do they have an evaluation? When negotiating equity before an evaluation is set, there is always funny money going on. What do you really bring to the table? What will be your position in the long run? Will you be more of a CTO position or a programer? If you're the only one actually creating the website, creating the technology then without you, it's just a good idea. Whatever percent you choose to negotiate for, be prepared to have a well documented, planned argument.
A nice sensible response, with some well-reasoned observations.

The thing about piracy I've always found weird is how hysterical some people get about it for their medium and not others. For example, I am good friends with several software developers who get furious about people pirating their products, but have no qualms about having gigs of copied music personally.
Why would the requested project take a couple of months? It sounded like a week or two at most, which makes it a "free" vacation.
conduct

Conductor or conduit?
The First Year Of Blogging – Money
With the exception of Stockholm, where in Sweden would be a good place to find startups?
I'd be interested in a list of publications from Hacker News folks.
The initial salary I negotiated for I thought was fair. It was market rate in my area.

The problem is I ended up working way more than 40 hours/week, which diluted my hourly rate.

I see this as a continuing trend. I would have a big problem working 70 hours a week for my current salary, which is why I'm trying to figure out what % of equity would be reasonable.
Absolutely right . . . sunny in Ningbo too.

China is a huge place, some parts have rain, some sunny, occasionally some parts get hit by a typhoon.
What I find quite unfair is how everyone compares "lines-of-code" for a Java app vs PHP/Python/Ruby.

IMO there's a big difference: A Java IDE like Eclipse probably writes half of the lines of source code for me - the tedious bits that are simply structure/sugar. PHP/Python guys write every single one in vim/e-macs. Perhaps "unnecessary boiler-plate" Java code gets in the way, but yet my IDE hides most of that for me automatically. And most importantly, when I do want to edit that getter - it's right there in my source code for me already.

I believe IDEs and compilers should become more powerful, rather than the languages, because you often want to drop down a level of abstraction to improve things.

For the record I use java, c#, php, python, etc.
invokeDynamic is already part of Java7, via OpenJDK, as of M3. You can see the milestone list here: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/milestones/

I've been running M4 on a Debian box for awhile now, and it's surprisingly stable for an 'in-development' product.
Mondays Really Do Suck
I'd say it has to do more with the use of the pipe character on the command line than the typography angle of it, but I could be wrong.
That is really when you are small enough that you can't afford controls and verification to ensure real security.

The point is not about the employer exploiting financial distress but that the employer can know what your current revenues are and therefore gain an edge.
> most importantly, let us not forget that advertisements are intentionally deceptive, even malicious.

Does that mean that the Swedish Bikini Team is not coming over to drink my Coors Light?
There's this wonderful property that all human languages have, polysemy, which gives them the ability to give one word multiple related meanings. I'm sure there are examples in English...
My question, is it out of the question for somebody in my position to ask for 10-15% equity?

This is most likely WAY too high.

Are they offering you equity or stock options? These are very different things.

What is the value of the company (even if approximate)?

What value does the website and this position in general (ie: not you, just any random webmin) add to the companies value?

What do you think you bring to the table over and above a web developer/techie in general?

What other high-level adds do you see them reasonably hiring in the next 18 months?
Ahh ok, thanks for that. It's amazing what's out there for free these days.
I definitely see myself more in the CTO role than programmer, which is why I feel justified asking for so much.

be prepared to have a well documented, planned argument.

Thank you, this is good advice.
Has the word "dead" come to mean "not actively pursued by money grubbers"

In school, American kids learn that their opinions should masquerade as facts. Opinions are worthless, facts are irrefutable. So, you don't dislike something, you argue that it's objectively bad. (The reader can then infer that you dislike something, but is forced to agree with you, since "facts" are, by definition, true and irrefutable.) As a result, people are on the lookout for words that can convey their opinion, but sound objective without significant factual backing.

"dead" is one of these words. People use it when they should simply say, "I see no future for ..." or "I don't like ...". But instead they say "dead" so that you have no choice but to agree with them; this thing is dead, there is no possible way you can continue to use or like it. It's not a matter of opinion -- it's dead!

(Of course, "dead" means declining, or that the rate of increase in use is declining, or something like that. This makes it harder to argue against, as the meaning is so far away from what is actually being measured.)

"dead" is dead.
It can be, among other things. I'm just experimenting with it now by writing a literate PIC Assembly program in it. I've got circuit diagrams in DITAA, textual design stuff and the ASM source itself all in one file. So far so good...
World’s oldest human-linked skeleton found
in a similar vein, i have a print of http://www.threadless.com/product/543/This_is_not_a_Pipe hanging on my wall, over my wii & xbox. feels very appropriate
Command line tool that analyzes request logfiles
Why is he using 1460 as the packet size? He says that it's 1500 minus the packet overhead, but I've always seen MTU as 1492 (I could be recalling incorrectly here). In any case, MTU changes as you travel over various networks with various settings, using various technologies (ethernet,wireless,fiber,etc).
One approach you can use:

If you're working 1.8x fair rate, work out what 0.8x your salary is & imagine you were an investor with this sum to put to work - how much equity would you require? That's a starting base for your negotiation. Good luck.
Excellent talk by Jim Weirich: Shaving with Occam
This is just a coincidence, however. Static typing is not where Java fails; Java fails because the language lacks key abstractions and is very verbose as a result. There are plenty of statically-typed languages that are as concise as Perl/Python/Ruby; Haskell immediately comes to mind. (Scala is also good, and compatible with your existing Java.)

Java is an advantage for the corporate world because it lets them look for products and services by filtering on a single word. This advantage has made it very popular.
If you watch the video (which is pretty funny, and rather intelligent), his exasperation comes from the popular insistence that "cloud computing" is a new paradigm, and that businesses that don't use "the cloud" will die.

To somewhat paraphrase him: "All a cloud is, is computers and network (in terms of technology). In terms of business model, you could say that its rental."

Most of computing industry will remain unchanged, except maybe Dell's small business market, some of Microsoft's licensing revenue, and lots of desktop software that would be more productive as a network service.
Newscientist (HN)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=855216
Where's the option for subscription sites making < $1000 a month?
This seems to be only part of the story. (An important part.)
Dumping the current state with deepcopy is probably prohibitively expensive for real world use. Toss in some copy-on-write, and I think you've got something simple and usable...
Yep. You can be your own university nowdays.
Thanks for the reply.

From my understanding it would be equity. I'm not sure what the valuation would be. I do know between the 4 partners, they've invested a little over 100K.

The website is the company. I took the project from an idea to reality, so over the last year I've learned their industry inside and out.

In addition to all of the technical stuff, I have handled all marketing for the website which has resulted in visitors and revenue. I also do lots of strategy planning for ways to grow the business.

I don't see them hiring any high-level positions in the next 18 months. I suspect in the next year one of the partners will move to the CEO role and I'll move to a CTO role.
>>My question, is it out of the question for somebody in my position to ask for 10-15% equity?

10-15% seems too high. As you mention, the 0.5% equity is more common
However, I think that it is hard to come up with a percentage without knowing how big the pie is.

If you expect the company to be worth $200million in n years, 0.5% is a great number (as long as n is reasonable). If you think the company may be worth $100K in n years, 0.5% is peanuts.

Perhaps you should hedge your bets with a decent salary + some equity.
http://www.cofoundr.com/user/login

Cofoundr was started a few years ago by a Google engineer.

My personal experience is that I've met the people I've partnered with on start-ups/projects in three places:

1. Local Entrepreneurs' Club (MIT e-club)
2. IRC/Mailing list/Other online community (like lj/fb)
3. Through personal recommendations from mutual friends

If you're not already attending meetings of a local Entrepreneurs' Club, I strongly recommend it. It's a great place to learn the model of how a start-up works - how do you make money, how do you build a brand, how do you improve your pitch, how does funding work, etc. It's like a real time HN. The MIT e-club lets people pitch their start-up ideas at weekly meetings where the rest of the club gives feedback.

Then, I would suggest you think about what technology will drive your start-up and what community it will focus on serving. By hanging out in the relevant places on line associated with the technology and community you're targeting you'll quickly be able to identify local experts. You can approach them to partner with you or to recommend someone who might want to. Those experts will be in a good position to help you evaluate potential partners.

If you are technical enough to build a demo and a good pitch for your start-up and plan to take angel funding, you can ask the investor to hook you up with someone. Investors tend to be locally well connected and know technical people with start-up experience who have had past successes.
This is rosy if that's what you want to accomplish in your life, but you're ignoring the upside potential. Maybe you just saddled up with the wrong founders?
The trend is encouraging. But I am afraid it is reversible. In any case, I wish them good luck.
I agree. It's quite odd the way young entrepreneurs are put on a pedestal. What magically changes when you turn 30?

Besides, if we want to be reminded of how hopeless we are and all the things we should've done by our age, all we need to do is use this handy website: http://www.museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished/
jtth at jtth dot net
Yeah, I'm with you. I haven't found a way to load my car into a test sandbox where failure doesn't result in the loss of the car.
8 happy friends are far more valuable than 800 bucks (assuming you didn't need the money). :)
"ain't" is the correct contraction for "am not".
I'd be interested in some numbers. Is it "a few"? "some"? Give us some vague quantifiers here!
I was wondering about that too. Perhaps they all made more than $1000 a month ?

I couldn't find out how many startups they surveyed, so it might as well be only 3 startups.
Like Amazon pre-orders.
http://isjavadeadyet.com
This attitude scares me.

If the programmer does not need to write the code, it has no business being in the source code. Nobody wants to find all their slightly-modified boilerplate and modify it because the boilerplate generator had a bug. Sane programmers will fix the bug in one place, upgrade the library, and be done with it.

The less code to maintain, the better. The less repeated code, the better. This is what many programmers strive for, and why they eschew "my IDE will write it" in favor of more powerful abstractions.

Relying on your IDE is like using a shopping cart to carry around a portable generator, tower CPU, and CRT monitor instead of carrying a laptop. It's pretty easy to push around that shopping cart, right, so why bother with a laptop? The laptop doesn't have a 21" screen, after all, so it seems like a total waste of money compared to the shopping-cart-and-50"-TV.
The language of choice is but one of many links in the "secret weapon" chain.

Just as important are:

- the proficiency of the programmers, regardless of language
- the repository of reuseable code, whether public or private
- the startup's skill in analysis, design, testing, and deploying
- the domain knowledge in the market space
- the unassailability of the market position

I'll take a java startup good in these things over a rails shop that isn't.
I got on Wave and sent out my invites. No need to send me one.
The fact that the author was able to work in the word "quixotic" into an article about a boy who built his own windmill is inherently awesome.
So the question is how much control do you really need with machines today

Today the limiting factor is the OS, not the hardware. If your deadlines are long enough, it's surprising how well NT/XP works for low-level tasks. The problem we've had is that when we need deadlines below say 50mS, even a multi GHz Windows box can't guarantee that (XP can't guarantee anything!), so we need a mechanism to detect the missed deadline and continue without a hard failure.

Programming on a consumer-OS like Windows has so many benefits that we prefer to use that as the main platform and offload the sub-millisecond latency hard realtime stuff to smaller processors with code running on bare metal.

Sometimes it's hard coming to grips with the fact that a 4MHz PIC is outperforming a 2+ GHz Windows box, but silicon is cheap!
That's hosted as a Posterous private post. One of the founders in the video should probably claim that account now that the post isn't really private anymore.
I suggest trying both. Completely different worlds and each satisfies different financial, career and personal needs.

My only "sucks" advice other than that: when looking at startups avoid family run businesses where there is even a hint of nepotism like the plague.
I really hope I'm not becoming one of those really old dinosaurs who refuse to learn anything new.

You've recognized PHP's shortcomings, but you haven't switched to a language with solutions to those problems.
I've found I was most happiest in a startup environment. Even a couple of hundred people feels too big for me.

I think it comes down to where your interests lie. I love wearing multiple hats, and working on a million different things, and the excitement of that type of environment.