skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I found all build systems for all platforms to be a total PITA and eventually i just resort to using a shell or python script to invoke the commands i want. With this method you can very easily add user promting (do you want to build debug or release?), database reporting of build and test results, source control integration etc. Whatever i learn here can be applied and reused for new things in the future instead of knowing all the 150 flags of whatever build chain of the day.

This does not mean invoking compile manually on every file but you you invoke the smallest possible build file for your intended platform just for building and absolutely nothing else. Compiling c projects without make would otherwise take hours instead of minutes.

Really, Gradle requires you to read the first 12 chapters of the manual before you can even begin doing something more advanced than running compile. Msbuild likewise, it's like a completely new programming language just that it's written in xml. Bamboo is just like imperative programming except you have to drag and drop boxes that invokes commands or plugins (yep, another plugin hell). CMake works kindof painlessly but it also requires a lot of black magic when you want to add dependencies outside of the c buildchain.

The only one that actually doesn't make you cry is 'make' because it's so simple, it's just doing one thing instead of trying to tie itself into the entire ecosystem badly. Make also has it's problems but when you start hitting those it's more of a sign that you are trying to add too much weird logic that should not be in the build script to begin with.
Chicago Public Schools all have metal detectors. When you go through, if you don't have a gun, they give you one...
rimshot.
I've always been curious: in an enclosed stadium on the moon, would humans run the 100 yard dash faster or slower?

I think the first reaction people have is "faster, since you weigh less". But I think the answer is slower, because you would actually be near-floating and contact the ground less.

I got into a fight with people on ask.metafilter when I asked this same question, so I had to let it go. But still I hope someday the Olympics are held on the moon so I can get my answer.
I've been using Luna for a month, it's much faster at startup, they did a great job with Luna. Each version of Eclipse in the past 6 years has been improving.
The author's npm scripts approach is great for a small scale project needing to run just jshint but if you start getting into something serious, running more than one task multiple times is a serious dent in your workflow.
I may not know how to make a pencil, but I know precisely how a pencil works. I can be reasonably confident that it is not going to start writing in ink one day, because an upstream maintainer thought it would be a cool feature.
It doesn't have simple project management?
Lol. Yes the answer is no. I realized too late that salaries in the computer industry follow the "reverse hockey stick". Even badly trained programmers do pretty well and if you spend those early years before you get married with kids collecting a good salary you'll be in a better position then the guy that spent 7 years racking up student loan debt to get a phd.
Now if you love research - go for it. Otherwise get a job early and make money. Frankly there are a lot of fun things to do in CS without the need fora phd. Honestly spending time fishing for money to do research is probably a lot less fun then spending your time at a start up or just working.
It was an experienced salesperson who saw an open market, paired with a repeat startup CTO.

They did their research and validated the market by finding prospective customers before raising. Which is a good model to remove risk from any venture – especially one that would take many years to build.
> isn't that more akin to measuring the ground force from jumping than it is to running?

The point is that the limiting factor is not how much force the limb can exert, and that's what was demonstrated by the one-leg hopping.
Who cares about sprinting, I can't wait for the lunar pole vault.
Just to one-up - there was a major security breach in the IDF (as close as Israel has to a Snowden) because a general also wanted to read is reports on paper. So he allowed his assistant to put classified documents on CDs and take them over to an unsecured printing machine, where she proceeded to stash every single one and carried them off the base when her service was over.
OK that's cool it's based o IntelliJ IDEA. Now only if Google comes up with a faster emulator it will help many of us to take Android seriously. Seriously I can't wait light years to test my Hello World script.
Trello for team overall tracking. Github for development, and slack for chat. But since slack announced its monetization, im looking for a new communication tool.
Ideas are cheap. Implementation is key.
What would be the UK equivalent of a US PhD? A postdoc position? And in that situation would the stress be comparable? Or is the system just totally different?
tl;dr: The author meant to say "Use Browserify instead of Grunt/Gulp" but then got all confused and wrote some unrelated stuff about how npm has a case..esac statement built in.

While we're at the subject, might I suggest using webpack instead of browserify? It's roughly the same, but less buggy.
I've found Grunt useful as I ended up using it for a large variety of tasks mostly related to building. However I also decided to stop using it but for a different reason than the article.

Grunt and Gulp kinda create a siloed set of tasks that are annoying to run in-line with the rest of the node application (different contexts). I never think I'm going to run into it until I somehow run into a situation where I want to run or re-run a specific task on an application that is already deployed. To do so now I have to install grunt in a production system and restart the application...or I simply code up my tasks into reusable bits of JavaScript that the normal application can use plus I can use npm to run them under normal conditions.

Honestly Grunt does help get things going really quickly but there are a lot of immature things about it and Gulp.
Ask HN: What do you need that you'd pay a lot for?
PG mentioned this question in his most recent essay, so I am redirecting it to everyone on HN. What does your company (or you individually) need that you would play a lot of money for?
Amen. Having gone through -the process- intact, relatively speaking, I've had the pleasure of the misfortune to experience everything mentioned first or second hand.

Two close friends that weren't so lucky, now six years later still circling the drains on the psyche ward.

Another close one that gave up literally two weeks before dissertation time never to return, now years later still oscillating between relief and regret daily.

I had it easy with a return tick trip from the normal institution to the mental one, mixed with two periodic strong bouts of insomnia and a thankfully short period where a bottle of crimson red before lunch got the engine going.

Tons of things to add but indeed, it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff.

Several years later I'm still in the state of "glad to have gone through it, yet had I known in advance what it would entail there's not a single chance in hell I'd accept.".
AstraZeneca?
Hospital worker who was asked for a threesome at work Christmas party
No. Trade a lifetime for a few weeks of looking at some rocks that I already have pictures of? I think most would change their mind just after the point of no return. It's better to just go camping in Arizona for a few days.
Big Data Is Actually About the Very Small
Keen to check this out! I've been using App Annie and Sensor Tower to look at competitors and keywords.

Btw I met you at Runway co-working space in SF earlier this year when I visited. You might have been working from there.
I like http://sivers.org/
Isn't light years a unit of distance?
Ask HN: UI Engineer to Product Manager Transition
I have been a UI Engineer for 5 years at a couple of startups in San Francisco.

Both startups didn't go anywhere but while I was at them, I learnt a lot about building a product that matters, mostly by getting burnt.

Frustrated, I started another non-tech venture with a couple of friends that I am proud of and can call my only success so far. Its totally bootstrapped, 2.5 years in running and ramen profitable. It remains my night gig for the foreseeable future.

I am contemplating taking a break from engineering for a bit and trying out Product Management as my day job.

I am looking for some advice on how to transition out. What are my chances?

Are there any companies in San Francisco that would be interested to chat?

Any Product Managers that might be looking to expand their team?
Postdocs are fun if you like your research. Finding a job that allows you to continue what you like working on is essential and could take awhile.
I would love to make this argument. The federal government has already made it so that there is no expectation of privacy anywhere. RF, wired, optical networks are monitored and recorded, CCTVs and IPTVs by private, public, and government organizations/individuals are ubiquitous and many many people carry around devices that can record audio/video from multiple sources within a second of activation. Some of those devices are already passively recording and listening to everything (eg. Google Now enabled devices).
Right when I needed to study for my Physics E&M Final...
Ask HN: How do you choose your best business idea from many good ones?
I have many ideas like others. But I am not able to select one idea for execution. I am afraid of opportunity cost. I lost many years as result of this thinking. I built/implemented successful products and services for my clients but I couldn’t build one for myself because I couldn’t choose the best idea from many good ones.
I decided to code my own build library (https://github.com/jeswin/fora-build) instead of Grunt. Documentation needs to be better, so don't use this yet.

a) I wanted to use simple shell commands, like cp and mv. b) Instead of trying to learn how to use a plugin, it's often easier to just write a few lines of code. c) Wanted to use async goodness with generators. d)The important task the build library does is "watching".

Couple of example build scripts:

1) https://github.com/jeswin/fora/blob/master/server/build-conf...

2) https://github.com/jeswin/fora/blob/master/www-client/build-...
First time founder. My company is in a "fatal pinch."

Similar to a previous comment by @LukeFitzpatrick, we built something for our alma mater that we thought we could sell to colleges for 50k/year. We got investment, we built it, we sold it to a few more schools but the software is not feature-packed and mature enough to attract sales fast enough. Higher ed also moves super slow even when you're doing well.

We're starting to see some traction with parties that want the software custom-tailored for their need (the consulting PG speaks of). But we're stuck in spot where we haven't gotten a check from any of these parties yet and are reluctant to pull the trigger and focus on only on the consultative sale.

The team, product roadmap, and marketing strategy is all geared towards higher ed. But it's clear now we can't become profitable in 6 months in that industry. How do we operationally perform the "pivot" into consulting? Do you agree it's time to do so?
I can't really speak for the level of stress in the UK system since I have never been part of it, but the candidates coming out of the UK system are in general weaker than those out of the USA (of course there is huge variation). I would put then 2 years behind the US graduates as far as research experience.
More like Walter Lewinsky...
Most of CS is that

Not necessarily a CS PhD
With all the medications young people are given to chemically induce well-behavedness I'm not surprised.
Yes distance from my Laptop to Kitchen. More it takes time to load Emulator more I stay in kitchen to eat stuff.
If everyone followed the reversed-domain-name naming scheme, then namespaces taken up by abandonwares will get flushed out of the system after a few years.

That's a pretty huge "if" though.
I cut the cord 4 years ago and I've been looking for new stuff to fill the gap where I used to watch cable sometimes. Thanks to the PS4 and Xbox One I fire up Twitch during dinner and watch people play and talk about my favorite games. There's something voyeuristic about it. It's live and unscripted so you never know if it's going to be good or crap but you can always change feeds or games.

I think eSports' popularity is going to sneak up on the real sports at some point. Who knows, maybe we'll see The International at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX alongside the Final Four.
Connected is on my audible that I'm planning to listen to. I'm also interested in networks, 6 degrees..etc.

May I ask how you apply what you learned from the book to your startup? I'm quite curious.
A very good advice. One thing was left out, I think. Implementing the program one self the implementor may:

* Gain an insight into the problem he was trying to solve he would not have otherwise had

* When faced with unexpected complexity, the implementer may choose to solve a less complex version of the problem that may still provide added value, or choose to go some other route entirely.

I think this last bit cannot be overstated enough. The easy problems in programming are usually so easy that even novices can solve them in a sensible time, while the hard problems can be hard to get right no matter how many years you have under your belt. Often by changing ones approach the problem can be reformulated into an easier one.

If the work is hired, then the consultant may lack the initiative, intuition, courage or experience to go for the possible alternative approach to solve the given problem.

Of course, all this depends on the quality of a problem.
I appreciate what you're saying but you could have re-phrased without the negative sarcasm.
Yeah, I know I would want the rules explained to me. Personally, I think that it is a positive that an interviewer doesn't assume any extraneous knowledge on the candidate's part, since it prevents the candidate being in a position where they may feel anxious or embarrassed about asking for help or clarification, and lets them focus on demonstrating the coding abilities. It also presents a way to clear up any ambiguities right at the start.

Replace soccer with something like curling, or analyzing corn yields, or whatever obscure topic an interviewer wants to use to frame a question, and the interviewer's question comes across as perfectly valid thing to ask.
LSD absolutely requires increasing doses if you take it more than once every 1-2 weeks. When you take it daily, your tolerance sky rockets. There is also cross tolerance between LSD and other tryptamines/phenylethylamines.

There is a withdrawal in a different sense I think. I had HPPD for around 3 months after heavy psychedelic use with LSD as the centerpiece of that. I was doing up to 10 tabs at once and using mushrooms and certain research chemicals every two or three days for a few months.

Not to excuse my risky behavior, but other people go much harder than I do. MDMA​ is a favorite choice, especially in Europe where it is cheaper. There are endless stories on Erowid and Bluelight of young people buying 10 grams of a research chemical and plowing through it in a summer. Often it's stuff like MDPV or 25i NBOME, with a short history of human use and carrying cardiac risks.

A wide range of psychedelic drugs have addictive potential IMO. I'm not sure how meaningful the distinction really is between psychological and physiological in the context of addiction.
This is important for the American economy and for the inner city culture that Obama is always trying to reshape. Coders will rule the future global economy. Therefore code literacy IS important and as a role model to a culture that has been unjustly shackled, what he did is important. As for pandering, no, it was symbolic and the presidency is all about the power of symbolism.
Top Big Data startups in analytics and crawling
Why would they need to publish photos? A statement saying such might be enough.

The only issue here is lack of (public) evidence.
Are they rare or just rarely enforced? I can't say that my experience is up to date, but back in the day when I was actively looking for VC funding they were in all the agreements pushed my way.

If they are rare in agreements then more founders should "pivot" to a lifestyle business after raising a whole lot of cash. With a couple of million dollars in the bank you can certainly build a very nice low risk business that will provide a great income :)
Great, thanks for the pointers! I've tried momentum trick before and it has helped. I'll try rmsprop.
>> Even a regular user with limited privileges can launch it, allowing it to intercept traffic and run commands on infected machines.
>Huh, how do they do that?

They must have some pretty powerful zero-day vulnerability they're exploiting. Expect patches.
Thank you colah. Your blog posts are inspiring! It's a lot of hard work and effort; keep it up!
Yea that was my read too. Of course you have more force on one leg - all your weight is on it and there's less forward momentum.

If you could get all that force into running stance...that's like saying michael jordan has a great vertical. If a runner could apply that same vertical while running top speed, he could leap really far.
It's not amazing. Technology has never been a prerequisite to business success and it certainly isn't one today. Does technical literacy help? Absolutely. But it's by no means necessary, and I'd say the majority of industries today don't require any of it. All you really need is an ability to build relationships and have something valuable to offer. If you've got those two down, you can very easily put yourself in a place where you can hire someone else to take care of the tech stuff.

I know doctors, real estate agents, lawyers, consultants, and a few successful CEOs who are very averse to using anything tech, and they're all raking it in just fine.
An API for ordering beer
You can also use Hash#include?.
In a project I worked recently we started using it because it was just "cool".
It only had a jshint task. but gradually as the project evolved we added lot of tasks including minifying assets, configuring build for different API endpoints ( prod.api/dev.api ) , creating a zip file and deploying the code .
You paid to get your PhD? I thought that was pretty uncommon?
> This is important for the American economy and for the inner city culture that Obama is always trying to reshape.

I 100% agree with this. This was a great way to set an example.

> Coders will rule the future global economy.

I completely disagree with this and haven't seen any evidence. You could say the same about engineers or doctors or any other skilled profession that deals things that affect people in a similarly pervasive fashion. None of them "rule the future global economy."

> As for pandering, no, it was symbolic and the presidency is all about the power of symbolism.

I'm not sure where this came from since I never talked about pandering.
TypeScript for JavaScripters
I'm not a VC so I don't have an eye on the current trend, but a few years ago they were in less that 20% of deals in a particular quarter:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/04/demystifying-the-vc-term-s...

So, perhaps not exactly "rare", but uncommon. And rarely used, even if included. Back in 2008ish when I was more into fundraising, I didn't see them.
Invalidate the ideas, not the person (account, etc)... if they had a two year old hacker news account, how exactly would that change the content of their post?

What they wrote would be exactly as valid or invalid as it is now. Account age (education, job title, etc) does not magically validate (or invalidate) ideas, they have to stand on their own.
prefer hash.fetch(:key) over hash[:key]. fetch raises NoKeyError if key not in hash.
So how is this really different from getting a job? On the job you would also have a manager who has exactly same position and powers you attribute to adviser. You are probably moving across US to get some job X, just to find a manager who is jerk and being a new person you probably have less credibility and mobility. Sure, changing jobs are easy but nevertheless you can't do that endlessly. I guess only big advantage I see is that you probably get paid more, although I doubt fair because you would be considered fresh out of college anyway. In return, you probably have much more higher stress and tight definitive schedules.

So if your choices comes down to getting a job in industry vs doing PHD - there are few advantages for sure but everything you have described seems to apply to both options more or less.
Definitely! Ruby, JavaScript, and Java are 3 of my main languages.
Losing Two-Factor Recovery Key Could Permanently Lock Apple ID
Traditional Fintech Looks Like Slugfest Between Behemoths in America and India
Peace of mind.

Take care of all my trivial stuff for me. Bills, taxes, money management, politics, corruption and other stupid distractions that stop me from focusing on people that matter.

How much do you want?
Very impressive being able to switch between regular and conductive filament so seamlessly. Following the links, I think maybe even the bigger story is the Functionalize F-Electric Filament. It has only 30 hours to go on Kickstarter [1], but has raised only a portion of its goal, is it as revolutionary as advertised?

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/391466300/worlds-most-c...
Actually, for people in europe CrowdFlower seems to be the only option since Mechanical Turk is not available in Europe.
i've used gulp for building frontend dependencies, as well as running automated tests whenever a file changes. It's been working well, with the exception that sometimes it just dies, and sometimes there's a failure and some streams dont work properly.
Ask HN: Anyone willing to give an upcoming Cal grad a shot at a PM or BD role?
Contact: hncalgrad2015@gmail.com
Location: SF
Grad Date: May 2015
Availability: Open to Internship and Part-time work ASAP, and full-time work after graduation.
Compensation is unimportant. Just want to learn.

Its been really tough finding anyone to give me a chance. Looking to prove myself.
Personally, I'd pay lots for a set of hardware-integrated network infrastructure monitor tools of a more advanced sort.
This is news.ycombinator.com, a forum for an incubator that's main raison d'être is seed funding .. What else would you expect?
Does growth really count in VC land if you have to buy it at a loss? I would expect a smart VC to simply discount such an inherently unsustainable version of growth. Is the idea that growth at a loss is still better than nothing?

If you have a good enough product to hold its own, shouldn't you be capable of getting at least a decent ROI on ads? If you can't do that, why try to grow? Spend the money on improving your product and branding instead.
Needs some sound, especially a cockroach squash sound when you get one.
The problem is people talk about "regulations" when what people should talk about is "enforcement". Inconsistent enforcement is a huge problem in a lot of taxi / black car markets -- yet people point to the regulations that no one follows as if they are silver bullets.