skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
They want to lock you inside their ecosystems because that's how they can make more money off you. Simple as that.

If your mission is really to improve the world, giving your users access to raw data and freedom in controlling the device is no-brainer. But that rarely happens, because improving human condition is just a marketing ploy. So instead you get cloud nonsense that isn't really designed to serve you.

Most consumer hardware companies (and that includes especially printer vendors) could do the world a big favour by having courage to admit that whatever companion software they'll write will likely be crap, and leave that to the community.
Heh, i'm in similar situation and considering such a solution. I have two quite poor and messy programmers, but they have been with the company since the beginning and probably nobody will consider letting them go. Besides, i'm not really interested in firing anybody - would prefer to concentrate on cooperation and getting the work done as a team. But with such people i can't guarantee anything will be done on time, and they tend to keep themselves busy just trying to fix the mess they created so far (and inevitably creating some more mess in the process). Sometimes i can't stop thinking the project is doomed and i can't really do anything about it.
But 332(c)(2) makes clear that the FCC can apply Title II provisions only to the services that interconnect with the PSTN: http://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1068&... (explaining the distinction between commercial mobile service in 332(c)(1) and private mobile service in 332(c)(2)); see also Cello P'ship v. FCC, 700 F.3d 534, 538 (D.C. Cir. 2012) ("In particular, section 332 specifies that providers of "commercial mobile services," such as wireless voice-telephone service, are common carriers, whereas providers of other mobile services are exempt from common carrier status. See id. § 332(d)(3), (c)(2).")

Even leaving aside the issue of whether Congress intended to create a voice/data dichotomy: at a purely a technical level, voice and data networks are segregated. LTE only supports packet-switched IP, and unless you're using VoLTE, voice runs over the circuit-switched GSM network.
I tried updating a #! (Wheezy) system to Debian Jessie a while back. Massive breakage.
We do this in Finland for bottles and cans. Giving people the financial incentive to recycle has two effects:
- For those who want to keep their money they take it back
- If they don't care enough, they leave it somewhere and there are many "recyclers" who are happy to pick up your cans and bottles and get the money for them.
ITYM depleted uranium, used in armor-piercing rounds for its very high density. While "depleted plutonium" is a thing, it's not generally used in any way that I'm aware:

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae576.cfm
I'm in an environment that has dismissed the idea of ELK for SCOM. I'll be interested to see how this SCOM world progresses. I'm currently underwhelmed by the SCOM narrative for both pushing data to it and more alarmingly how to get web based dashboards published without great expense. Anybody got or know of any success stories?

(Sulks off pining for ELK.)
I love the direct quote: "I did not take the idea that all the electrons were the same one from [Wheeler] as seriously as I took the observation that positrons could simply be represented as electrons going from the future to the past in a back section of their world lines. That, I stole!"

I can absolutely hear it in Feynman's rapid, wry, dramatic voice.
50% households do not have electricity.

http://www.bepreparedsolar.com/lithium-solar-generators-s/18...
Yes, by no means let me be interpreted as claiming that it's not an interesting reformulation. I'm just saying that for example trading 20 arbitrary parameters for 20 differently-inter-related arbitrary parameters is still just a reformulation of the question of where those 20 dimensions of information came from for our universe.

(And when I put it that way, in information theoretic terms, one notices that we must also take as parameters the description of the system that consumes those 20-some parameters in the first place. Even if one did come up with an answer for the parameters that question would remain below it. Of course in the end you eventually and inevitably are going to hit some form of "Just Because".)
I was a humble #! user for some time. But thinking about it, this little distros a getting less important, cause the big ones got a lot better.

Thinking about it, it is a good thing the #! creator focuses on someting different/new. We have to many distros anyway.
Exploiting UEFI boot script table vulnerability
Wouldn't another, simpler fix be to stop providing government aid to those employees? This would stop the government from subsidizing companies that pay low wages. Suppose the market rate for someone is $30k. The employee hired wouldn't particularly care if he gets 20k from the corporation and 10k from government benefits. If you removed the government benefits of 10k, that employee would still need to be compensated 30k to do that job. Therefore, the company would need to pick up that tab.

If you claim that the employee is desperate and would work for 20k, then why would the company even bother paying him the 20k in the first place, and instead pay him 10k instead (minimum wage issues aside)?

I think the article takes too narrow of a view of what a market wage is. It's not the bare minimum a company has to pay someone. It takes into account other factors such as retention, satisfaction and the talent you attract. As the article states, “increases in wages do, in fact, pay for themselves”. Wouldn't that make it the market rate?
And not to be overly negative but this announcement would appear to be recognition that HW startups in YC are struggling with a range of issues that required these steps to be taken thus making it even more challenging to assume success in SW will equate to success in HW.
The way this same story has been spun by the BBC worries me.

You'd think the news line has to be, as the Guardian and others are reporting, GCHQ mass Internet surveillance was 'unlawful'.

The Beeb did go with 'unlawful' in their original headline but the story has since been watered down with sheer wordiness.

'Unlawlful' now appears in the tenth paragraph, below an analysis panel, and is only then included in a quotation from a campaign group.

Nowhere in the article does the BBC succinctly say a tribunal held that GCHQ breached human rights law. It simply says the agency is now complaint (without saying that it was not for seven years).

To me at least, it seems the BBC is becoming less of a public-service broadcaster and more of a state one.

--
GCHQ censured over sharing of internet surveillance data with US
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31164451
Fire them. If you don't have the authority to fire them, tell the person who does have the authority that you can't use them. Quit wasting your time on bad employees. Bad employees don't just fail to get work done, they make more work for everyone else. They are negatively productive.
Saw this link on a previous HN thread: http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=4...

I like how it describes the negatively reinforcing cycle of closer scrunity which results in worse performance etc. I'd also suggest personal coaching: don't tell your devs what to do, get them to realise what would be the most expedient method of proceeding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GROW_model).
Most larger fuel powered welders have a triphase output. If you don't use it all the time that may be an acceptable alternative.
>Because measuring things is hard.

Harder than making things? No, absolutely not.

>And even then it can still happen that what passes inspection at the shop (especially in early runs) does not pass muster with the recipient.

That's a communication problem. Happens often enough, but DRM does nothing to fix it.

>You seen to have missed the internet revolution in machining, but yes that's exactly the model these days.

I know that may be what people want but that's still a fantasy for precision machining. I don't think anyone is near the point that you can fire the machinists and simply hire someone to sweep up the tailings, refill the oil tanks, and slap shipping labels on things, (and then I suppose cash the checks from your mountain chalet).
A week is a long time for feedback loop, especially for juniors (assuming the two lagging are juniors). Scrum's daily standup meeting is a nice way to shorten the feedback loop and eliminate blockers. A similar meeting in your schedule, even if you don't implement Scrum, might be helpful.

You may try pair programming. Might decrease productivity but increase quality. Or you can find another way of getting help from the two good guys like you on keeping an eye on them.

Whatever you do, a team of five is quite small. Just keep close to your team, move to a single room together, share a long desk with them etc. You may also want to divide work into smaller chunks so you can keep a better and timely track.
A New FCC Rule Means Fewer People Have Broadband
So you want to deny that there are people who are just inefficient? I have seen this often. As I said, these people exist in all professions and this issue is not related to good engineering practice, writing specs or anything like that. That's good practice, of course. But there is no indication that this is the problem here.

The OP made clear that the setup VMs that they do not need and ask questions "then a week later come back with the same question as though we had never talked about it". I can't see how this is related to writing specs or following proper software engineering guidelines.

Sure he might judge these people wrong, but he certainly has much more information than you. You have no information at all!

> I like being a contrarian, because I force people outside of their preset view, and to see it from other side.

Yes, that's exactly what I thought you were. But this is not a helpful attitude if you don't have the necessary contextual information.
I'm not sure about your specific situation, but it helps if you focus the conversations on them instead of you.

Be genuinely interested in other people and they will like you. Respect their opinions even if you disagree.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...
This is also a case that pits different parts of the agricultural industry against each other. DRM might be great for the equipment manufacturer, but only if it doesn't hurt farmers interest in modern equipment.

Monsanto sells something they call FieldScripts: Based on weather databases, detailed soil information and topography, a big computer cluster calculates what should be the most profitable seeds that the company sells for each small patch of ground, and what seed density to use. Sometimes an area needs less density, or a seed that works better in wetter conditions, or a bunch of other little factors.

Well, to follow a script like that is not something you can do by hand, as it's way too much work. What you need to even use them is a machine that is modern enough that it can hold multiple different kinds of seed, and can be programmed to change what it's planting, and how it's planting it, as it goes. So you can't even do this with most traditional machines.

So if farmers do not want to buy those machines because of DRM issues, then Monsanto can either bin their product, as few people would ever use it, or use their lobbying pressure towards open standards in agricultural software and hardware, all while trying to keep seed technology as protected as the mouse's big round ears. It'd be pretty funny, if you ask me.
Is Archbang desktop configuration far from #! or very similar ?
I would like a game like this, except that you play a central bank.
It's a long term investment. Of course the worst case scenario is that the developers leave afterwards.
Thats a bit brutal but not that deserving of down votes

if "and then a week later come back with the same question as though we had never talked about it" is actualy whats ocuring. That is a bit of a red flag that you have employed "cheap" people who have gone into the biz becuse its a good "professional" job for familiy or social reasons.

Fireing is a last resort but if they are not willing to learn sometimes that its the best solution.
perhaps addressing maternity leave (for all genders) would also be order?
Basically true. Glad to see that it's still something from oneself(self-discipline) instead of anything imposed by the outside world. However there's one thing that I can't really agree with:

> Trying to drum up enthusiasm for fundamentally dull and soul crushing activities is literally a form of deliberate psychological self-harm, a voluntary insanity: “I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THESE SPREADSHEETS, I CAN’T WAIT TO FILL OUT THE EQUATION FOR FUTURE VALUE OF ANNUITY, I LOVE MY JOB SOOO MUCH!”

Nonsense. "Cutting the link between feelings and actions" is to prevent the short-term irrational and counterproductive effects brought by fickle emotions. That's totally right. However, if you don't have a fundamental, long-term passion for what you're doing, then you'll definitely have serious troubles. If the author doesn't like filling spreadsheets, that's fine. I don't like it either. However he cannot plainly declare that everybody who says he/she likes it to be insane. This is quite hilarious.

Of course, "interest" and “passion” in most cases are actually brought about by consistent devotion and hard work in the first place. Then a positive feedback loop is formed. That’s true. You can’t expect most people to “love” what he/she does without he/she mastering it and deriving joy from it first. However if you just choronically feel your job is dull and “soul crushing", then you should probably seriously consider seeking something else to do. That is totally different from admitting that cake is more seducive than broccoli, but just rationally and correctly deciding to eat broccoli for the sake of health. In the latter case, the problem is that our currently technology pretty much doesn't allow you to enjoy a cake-flavored broccoli. So you've got no rational choice but to eat broccoli. However in the case of jobs, you're a free person. If you really can't like a job even after you've learned to do it systematically and with discipline, just change one which you have more passion for. There's definitely no problem to it.

I generally understand what the author is trying to emphasize here. I am probably just being a bit picky and feel he didn’t employ the appropriate words/example in this place.
Chicago startups to watch in 2015
Haha, and, "i can't figure out the keybindings!"
I found this handy: https://leanpub.com/talking-with-tech-leads
The mob also has well staffed legal teams to help their staff navigate through the complexities of the law.

It's easy to keep the appearance of following the law when you're a secret organisation on a mission, with little public oversight. And unlike organised crime, intelligence services don't have to rely on blackmail to get a direct line to the executive and legislation.

Admit to the stuff that's legal, make the stuff that's borderline a political issue, make excuses for the stuff that was illegal then retroactively legalise it, all the while relying on the bottom end of the iceberg being secret for long enough that you've got time to destroy the evidence or nobody cares anymore.

I'm sure that's how it works, it's not even malicious, it's just tribalism. It's why we institute transparency and accountability in most other places. Give your local library enough funding and remove all the oversight and in 10 years it'll have a bunch of skeletons in the closet and a "well staffed legal team to help them navigate their way through the complexities of the law."
New NCR Corp. invention could end grocery store checkout lanes
Yeah, if "good" means they manage themselves, and "bad" means he has to work at managing, that's not a great expectation.
> This is why star performers at one company, turn out to be duds in another and vice versa

in my experience this is nonsense. a good developer will be able to produce anywhere except the most fucked up of workplaces. if they can't, then they're not good.

in fact, this is a moot point, because good developers don't stick around to try to produce work in fucked up companies.

and a bad developer is going to suck no matter what. it's not a question of finding the magical company for him to magically become good at.
What works for me having managed 20 years now:

-accept that different folks work at different speeds, measure success on dollars made or saved -- real business metrics -- not are they fast vs your expectations
-share the end goal and business metrics, don't 'task' people, give the a mental stake in the real problem -- otherwise you are not getting their brains, just their hands
-if you have a strong preference for hands off and not guiding, hire for that, which is a longer chat but I can share how I do it
-if you are willing to have 'dependent' developers, personally pair with them and see the real problem in real time, not a weekly or daily vignette
Have them create a todo list. Make them write it down.

I was like them. I've been programming for over 15 years. I started when I was a kid. When I started programming as a profession, I kept the same habits I had when I was doing it for fun. Ie, find hard new stuff I've never done and learn how to do it! I was inventing new problems to solve because I enjoyed learning new things. Unfortunately this isn't a good model for generating money for a smaller company, you don't yet a lot done if you keep task jumping around. When I started to make a list of things to do I could refer to it and ask myself If the task I Wanted to work on was actually necessary.

Also, don't overload them with stuff to do. Before I if someone had a request for a change I would switch in the middle of a task and try and complete it. This goes back to the todo list, you learn to focus on one thing at a time.
Team each one up with the producing, independent ones. See what they think. If it's a matter of anything other than needing to be more challenged, replace them.
I had a feeling this was coming, based on the fact Corenominal is mostly running Jessie with Gnome in some of his recent posts, and the lack of development around the Jessie based version.

I think Corenominal is a stand-up guy in general, and great for the GNU/Linux community. I think he is also leaving the project at the right time, before he has to face the demons of init that are in Jessie, and now that vanilla debian with xfce or lxde is much closer to the user-friendly and complete desktop that #! was so great for.

All that positive stuff said, this kinda sucks. I was really looking forward to the next version. I agree with many others that it isn't pointless yet, there still isn't anything quite as polished while still being super lightweight.
Well, I won't pretend that I know how it's supposed to work, but even if the loop was closed, the electron (and the loop itself) still must have come to existence out of nowhere somehow, so it doesn't remove this ontological problem :)
sometimes manageing doe's involve fireing - its not nice and almost all people dont like do it but sometimes its required.
It is quite possible that they are simply milking the job and really don't know how to complete the tasks you are giving them, and default to "hey, let's set up a unnecessary vm because we know how to do that easily and it will show we are not slacking" or something of that sort.

Or perhaps not; idk...no one here can, but it is your job to figure it out, quick. Use the same tenacity you showed as a developer to start learning management.

The daily stand-ups are a no brainer...accountability and progress need to be applied and shown, respectively, with consequences attached, unless you are happy to let things ride along as they are currently.
It's ultimately about making them make the right decisions, and building up a non-broken mental model of how to do things. Lots of their actions are likely just from ignorance of alternatives, but it could also just be a broken decision making process.

The idea is to make them part of their own reformation:

- Don't set deadlines, make them set deadlines, document it, then hold them to it. Make the penalty for missing their own deadline big. Because you've documented it, if they make a pattern of missing their deadlines, work with them on learning to better gauge and estimate their level of effort. Review the cases where they miss the deadline, find out why, build up a pattern. It could be they just don't understand how some library works, or how the build tools work etc. It could be an external dependency they have no control over. Either data-point gives you tools to help them learn how to do this most basic of tasks.

- If you tell them something once, and they come back again, the second time make them write it down in a binder of notes, if they come back again, make them refer to their own notes. If they come back yet again, make them do a full report on the topic, put it on an internal wiki, and treat it like a High School writing assignment. It sucks for them so they'll never want to do that again, but it produces useful information for other people.

- Don't tell them what to do. But make them describe their strategy to tackle the task. When it sounds like they're doing something wrongheaded, ask them why they're doing it that way instead of the obviously better way. Maybe they have a good reason, maybe it's out of ignorance. Take it as an opportunity to make better ways available to them. But the decision for which way to go is up to them, so long as they hit their self-imposed deadline.
Well designed pricing pages
Letting them have free reign to solve a problem clearly isn't working for you.

It sounds like you need to manage them by breaking their tasks down into more bite sized chunks if you don't want them to go off task.
And the euphemism treadmill continues...
> to fly a reasonably solid drone into a jet engine on takeoff to achieve a major air disaster

Any modern turbine engine can swallow vast quantities ice without much of an issue. I think the baseline is in the region of 500 kilos of ice in 1 minute. A small commercial drone won't make much of an impact to an engine that can fly through a hailstorm without burping.

Edit: the abuse a modern engine endures for certification:

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

And if it did, any commercial aircraft certificated since the late 1940s will survive an engine failure on take-off, and continue to climb.
If you train them, the risk is that they leave. If you don't, the risk is that they stay.
You're absolutely right, management is not programming. But management is LIKE programming in that there are frameworks and libraries developed by people before you that you can use so you don't have to learn everything the hard way.

In this case, I suggest the OP read up on the situational leadership framework [1] (Wikipedia is a good start but I suggest you pick up a book since they explain it far better). It is designed for the exact problem OP is encountering: what to do when you have people with different levels of expertise at a task. In a nutshell, it's about helping your subordinates manage the experience curve by recognizing where they are and providing the right kind of encouragement at the right time.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_leadership_theory
Yeah, I've done it, and it is harsh. Easier to do a clean Jesse install and manually set things up. Basically you would want the dotfiles from /etc/skel on a crunchbang install, and then several of the custom scripts (I think from /usr/bin) like conky-wonky, cb-printers, etc. A bunch start with cb-.