skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I build and sell an enterprise software product. First 12 months--sales were low. Eventually, I saw sales in the $10-50K/mo range. I'm now seeing $50K-100K/mo. I work alone, I have no investors, and my overhead is minimal.

My main luxury is eating out. I don't sweat ordering what I want. I get that appetizer when I want it. I don't wince when a waiter reminds me that refills cost.

I live in a modest city apartment.

Last year, I took a few short vacations. Nothing extravagant. They were the same types of vacations I might take if I were employed as a developer.

I travel a lot to promote my business. When I travel on business, I make sure I'm in a nice hotel, eat nice meals, and I travel comfortably.

When I'm home, I wake up around 10am. I go through email and whatever other distractions I come up with . I go eat lunch and then I head to my office. I usually work until dinner time. Some days I work after dinner until I go to bed. Other days I don’t. I slow down, here and there, to avoid burn out.

My personal financial goal is to build a retirement account capable of supporting a modest life style. I don't know what the rest of this ride looks like, so I'm trying to capitalize on it and build some personal security.

I don’t have much of a social life right now. When I’m in a mental state to produce, I get quite stressed when I have to attend a party or otherwise disrupt my productive work to “hang out”. I have friends though and I get to spend some time with them. Usually it’s when we cross paths on our work travel or volunteer activities.

I'm pretty happy with my situation and have a lot of satisfaction from my work. Some of the things that I like the most:

1. I don't have to ask anyone for permission for anything. If I want to do something, I go and do it.

2. I don't have constant reminders about my low place in the organization's hierarchy. My customers and I enter into a business transaction as peers. This mutual respect is very important to me.

3. I have absolute control over my work. I like the freedom to pursue my product's vision without having to stop and justify it to others.

4. I like succeeding at business development. I’ve met a lot of “pure business” people who would like me to believe there’s something special to what they do. There isn’t. As a programmer, I find this very empowering.

5. I also like succeeding without investors. I started my entrepreneurial journey on HN and for a time believed I needed someone else's blessing to succeed. While I have friends who have done well with investors, I like knowing that my two hands made something from nothing and got me here.
The software they work is probably a lot more complex and customized to Edison. The article notes that some systems are involved in emergency response, which would make the system a lot harder to maintain due to the more stringent requirements.

To put it differently, think of a system that routes phone calls. Twilio and Plivo are great examples of such systems and are very reasonably priced. BUT you cannot route 911 calls through them[1] because they do not offer E911 support out of the box. Doing so would expose them to liability should their systems fail. Your home landline is required to have this and you pay quite a bit more. (Though if you ask me, WAY too much for what it really is.)

Bottom line, critical/emergency systems cost more to run and maintain, with people bearing the responsibility costing more.

[1]https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/voice/what-kind-of-phone-cal...
No, I found it helpful. It's good to know what other people get from the post. I was super nervous because it was my first OP and I hit this site daily for a few hours at least. My post was poorly written and I appreciate any criticism as well as any advice or even just busting my chops! Thanks for your input!
people as talented as you say you are, do not end up needing to write this post. Just my opinion
Companies like TCS and Infosys bring cheap labor mostly on L1 and not on H1. Most of the H1's I know are US graduates and majority are MS/PhD in CS. It is the L1 visa that allows a company to bring in cheap labor because the limitation on minimum salary by the DoL is not as stringent as H1. For H1 visa, a company has to file for labor certification with DoL and they decide what the minimum prevailing wage for a particular zip code, the skillset and the experience is. [1]

Having said above I agree that the H1 visa IS being abused but the main issue is L1, not H1. there was about 20% abuse a few years ago and there was a huge crackdown by the USCIS and DoL on those doing that.

[1] http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-comparison.... See the "Prevailing wage", "DoL approval", "Education requirement"
I agree that the extreme application is the bigger problem. I consider being politically correct a problem as well though because it creates a sense of entitlement. Now on its own that's not necessarily a terrible thing, it only really becomes a big problem when combined with the extreme application. But it does create an environment where the go-to response of "oh no, someone I've never met, across the country, did something I personally find offensive" is "I better start a crusade and get an apology for that!".
Senator: Your futuristic car is putting your privacy and security at risk
Right, but a Go program can just shell out to a compiler.

The bigger question is whether you can dlopen(LoadLibrary) a go-compiled .so(.dll) or .a(.lib) from a go program and execute functions with it.
I'm actually working on (and have been for about a year now) #3. But you're absolutely right. It's by far the toughest route.
This largely depends on if your spouse prefers security and predictability over risk and adventure, as well as your ability to persuade them towards the latter.
It's Peter Norvig. He definitely paints murals when he's writing code. If his code doesn't qualify as art then there's hardly anyone on the planet who's can.
This is about more than the rate, of course, but I was surprised to see that kind of cost for just crossing the Canadian border.

For comparison -- my home carrier in France is SFR. In the UK or in the Netherlands (I haven't been elsewhere in Europe recently, but this is probably similar for other European countries as well) data roaming is 24 euro cents/MB.

I do see data roaming rates more like AT&T's when I'm in Malaysia - 10 euros/MB (yeah, I get a local SIM). But that's far afield - not just driving into a neighboring country.
Top-secret military warning on Ebola biological weapon terror threat
Come up with your own comments
I used VRVS a fair bit ca 1998-2000-ish. It was always way better than any of the other videoconferencing er things that were available... when you could get it to work... and when everyone else could also get it to work.
That is a wonderful idea that hadn't occurred to me. Although I don't respect anyone in the Security field because I don't know anyone in the field. Will work for free though. Respect or not.
Objective-C uses autorelease pools so deallocation doesn't happen immediately when the refcount goes to zero. Its reference counting implementation is smarter than a simple naïve one.

Apple's GC implementation wasn't a Boehm GC [1].

It's true that it's hard to use a tracing GC with Objective-C, because of the C. But, if you want interoperability with C, you're kind of stuck.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2wo18p/mac_apps...
While the article isn't the best written piece I have ready, it as enough facts for me to be outraged as the customer. The rates Edison charges aren't exactly super high to begin with, so me as a consumer saving a few cents here and there isn't going to move the needle.

I would much rather see a company that enjoys monopolistic protection from the government be barred from pulling such stunts. Edison can be viewed as a quasi government entity and absolutely benefits from their monopolistic position. In return, their duty should be to watch out for the greater good of the community that funds it, including employment for individuals from those communities.

If they were subjected to true open market competition, my opinion of this would be vastly different... but they are not.
Why I Love Green (Cheap) Electricity. And Why You Should, Too
I have seen this situation before. It seems to be a particular fail mode for the typical tech company hiring filter. A lot of people, some of my co-workers included, screen for a very particular sort of cookie. When they don't get exactly the cookie they want, they reject.

To be fair to them, the number of flaming idiots that manage to get past HR phone screens these days is seemingly monotonically increasing, but along those lines, here's my question: if you're not even getting past HR phone screens (and these people frequently are keyword-driven dim bulbs IMO having suffered through some astoundingly inept phone screens that were a waste of an hour), what are you telling them? Or if it's not even getting that far, have you had someone look at your resume?
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you shouldn't have confidence in your abilities. And if that truly is the case, then I think it's a great quality to have. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're a good person and not a loudmouth jackass.

However, as the quote goes, "That's the problem with first impressions. You only get to make one." People tend to be on their guard when interacting with someone for the first time - even if that interaction is just reading a cover letter. Things that your friends wouldn't blink an eye at can easily become reasons the hiring manager tosses out your resume, and unfortunately you rarely get a chance to explain yourself or even feedback that you did something wrong.

The best part is that fixing this doesn't involve a certification program, or spending more money, or anything like that. Maybe just have a couple people read over your cover letters or do mock interviews with you (not sure where you're getting stopped in the process, so can't give specifics there). Maybe try it with someone not super close to you (maybe a former co-worker?) who'll bring up something you're saying or doing that might seem innocuous but is raising alarms somewhere.
Great points! thanks for the reply! Containers are our next big 'target feature', the ability to simply boot from an ipfs hash will be extremely useful.

You should stop by our irc channel (#ipfs on freenode) and chat!
> Problem is, my financial situation doesn't always allow for me to get access to structured learning.

There's so much information on the web, or via books/video courses/MOOCs that there's no need to do the structured learning thing. Particularly with Python. Plus, Python is used in security to create scripts/tools.

EDIT: Example of some books, vis-a-vis Python and security (learn the basics first).

* Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers

* Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python

* Python Penetration Testing Essentials

* Gray Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Reverse Engineers
I didn't RTFA, but I have a question.

> the finance sector lures away high-skilled workers

I only just recently learned that doing finance is something people want to get into. And I still don't understand why, so that's my question.

See, I've always thought of it as this thing that people only do because they thought they were supposed to. I'm in a maths degree right now, so I really know this feeling of not being qualified for anything real.

Other than being a teacher, which is the thing I want, being an office boy in an insurance company is like the only other option I've ever been given.

So I always thought finance people were only in it for that same reason. Not having a choice.

What's the appeal? I'm still learning.
Except this doesn't come close to any dedicated graphics tablet, let alone one of the most high-end tablets you can get like a Cintiq so the comparison is really bad.

All real graphics tablets, even ones in the <$100 range, have pressure sensitivity unlike the Astropad and the accuracy is far higher with real tablets.
People who have no credentials, but lots of talent, sometimes start their own business. This is something I used to comment on a lot on homeschooling lists. The two examples I typically gave back then were: Bill Gates is a college dropout and Madonna is a college dropout.

An example that might mean a bit more to you: In this forum, IIRC, jacquesm is a high school dropout. He is currently #3 on the leaderboard. If you haven't read his blog, you might find it of interest:

http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm
I developed it on OS X so that's a good choice. The README on github lists the linux distributions that it's been compiled on.
Noted and thank you for posting it. It just is a bit more complicated than that. I have been working on a Security focused startup to provide free training to the public as well as Risk Assessment, Pen Testing, etc. to the local small business community because no one else is doing it. Also, about the talent thing: The talent is being able to adapt quickly. It doesn't really help when you're broke and there just isn't much of anything other than becoming a nurse to adapt to in your area.
I've found the Craftsman series by Uncle Bob[1] to be very helpful in showing how to do not only TDD, but also pair programming. Before that I would complete tutorials and exercises, but was never able to effectively use it in actual projects. The Craftsman series shows the steps of using TDD in both easy and tricky situations, such as socket code, and enabled me to become much more comfortable with the process.

[1] http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/publishedArticles.html
I was messing around with this the other day and I had a video playing on my computer. It showed up on the iPad pixelated like when tv censors nudity, pointer tracking seemed pretty fluid even with that playing.

What would be nice is a direct connection between the iPad and computer instead of wifi. My work network is a hassle to log into so I don't event do it most of the time. If I need to look up something on the iPad, i pull out my cell phone hotspot.
We've bounced the first idea around for a while but I am loth to disrupt the look of the front page. Your second suggestion, though, sounds like it might solve the problem. Thanks!

I'd like to emphasize that our long-term intention is to have the community manage all of this.
meh, I'm aware at how this will perform. Surface pro 1, 2 or 3 is way better.
Words and their definitions are pretty much what society is built on and it's useful to have words mean different things since it is what allows us to express so many different ideas -1984 famously destroyed the vocabulary of society expressly so that only the correct ideas could be considered.

Without a difference in meaning, why have different words? It seems preposterous to extend the English language just to play scrabble.
I haven't had a chance to do the simulation yet, but the symmetry of the odds here finally dawned on me.

Specifically, if you have a 50% chance of winning on swap, you have a 50% chance of losing by not swapping. So, yeah, by the time you get to the swap, no matter what, you are at a 50% chance of winning. Swap or not.
There are styluses for the iPad with 2048 levels of pressure, the Cintiq still does have better accuracy but the iPad tech is getting better all the time.

Alot of pro artists are using Astropad now, in fact we even had a Pixar animator use and loved it!

PS: We are especially excited for the rumored iPad Pro and stylus
Single people have to feed and house themselves--married people can often lean on their spouse. My former boss started the company in his late 30's, after working in industry and having three kids. His wife paid the bills, allowing him to bootstrap without having to seek outside investment.
Here's the link to the livestream:
http://live.femalefoundersconference.org/
This is crazy. International roaming is one reason I switched to T-Mobile. I recently traveled through Southeast Asia and had usable internet throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (looks like no more free internet in Vietnam). The internet was about 256-512 Kbps and was available even in rural locations. I also had access to my US number when I was on wifi - calls in and out. T-mobile coverage isn't perfect in the States, but overall pretty happy with the switch.
Female Founders Conference – Live Stream [video]
> “There must also be some value in the content itself,” said Coscia during a Skype interview.

I notice I'm confused. Why is this (presented as) a somewhat new or unexplored avenue? I mean, isn't it obvious that the important - probably most important - factor will be the meme content itself? It's not like jokes are fungible.
Show HN: Exa, a replacement for ls written in Rust
Ask HN: How do people get started in open source?
A recent comment to me suggested women should get more into opensource: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086552

I actually don't know much code. It's been a long standing goal of mine to learn to code. I know a little HTML and a little CSS and I have been gathering together a list of resources to learn Python, but I have been getting nowhere.

I will suggest two possible framings for this question:

1) You can answer it as a generic request for tips for anyone.

2) You can answer it as a specific request for little ol' me and my rather pathetic level of coding skill.

Thanks.
The EU is taking steps to abolish exorbitant roaming fees like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...
I enjoy it all. It isn't a situation like some I have read about here before where people who want to become programmers can't decide on a language. Since I have always pursued my "passion" for just about anything to do with Security, it has always been in my spare time. So, what I was looking for in that part of the OP was just a little guidance. Like, if I thought Fortran was dope, it still wouldn't do me much good to master it right now when I need work.. (trying a joke) Thanks!
Thank you for your comment. I did reply earlier, then thought better of it and deleted it and wrote an Ask. Please consider commenting there:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9087109
I find it interesting that you found it harder to maintain a long-distance while an undergrad, especially because from personal experience, it would be easier that way (IMO of course).

I'm also an undergrad and what I largely find is that it would be easier to be in an LDR with regards to your workload because you don't have as many daily "commitments" if you want to call them that, i.e. you're not trying to balance your projects with going out to eat a few times a week. The expectation is that you're not going to be seeing each other all the time, so theoretically you would have more time to spend on your work. I'd be interested to hear why you've found the opposite to be true (aside from CS, I think my true passion is relationships ;-) ). Now, give me a non-LDR relationship any day and I'll find a way to make time.
Fairness and simplicity are in tension with each other.
It is unfortunate whenever I see that anger being directed at the indian worker who is just trying to make a living by working his ass off at a fraction of the pay on contract. The Congress isn't closing loop holes, the companies exploiting this are companies where most of the top management are americans and finally the indian outsourcing companies giving kickbacks to get the big contracts and paying only a tiny fraction of that.
I'm in England. I get "unlimited" 3g through GiffGaff for £15 per month (that is the transitional price from an earlier £12 per month to the new £18 or £20 per month).

You're specifically not allowed to tether using this plan and it's smart phones only - tablets, dongles, etc are not covered. I use over 10 GB of 3g data each month and they haven't complained.

So, 120 MB for $30 (£20) per month sounds pretty steep to me.
> how do I distinguish between someone who was asked to re-post, and someone who is making multiple submissions for, say, self-promotional reason?

For the time being, you have to tell that by looking at the articles and the account's submission history. It's usually pretty easy to spot self-promotion. Keep in mind, though, that self-promotion per se isn't against the spirit of the site; uninteresting content is.

Also, we modified the FAQ to make it clear that when a story hasn't had much attention yet, a small number of reposts is ok. The point of all of this is try to mitigate the weaknesses of /newest as a mechanism for recognizing good stories.
I still to this day don't understand why blowing on the cartridges would make them work. It boggles my mind every time I think back to my childhood.
About 15 years ago I met a 65 year old (a founder of Adobe) who was considering "taking another run at the fence."

The term "taking another run at the fence" refers to flocks of turkeys, who are often crushed against short fences when the flock panics. They are stupid birds and don't know that they are able to fly above the fence.

For me, the considerations are:

- Time away from family

- Likelihood that the compensation will ultimately be crap

I can compensate for the long hours by taking care of myself, and by working smart.
There was a period after my son was born where I definitively wouldn't have tried another startup, but that too changes quickly (he's 6 now)

And while, yes, I can't gamble my income as I could before, I've never gone more than 1 month without income despite having been through more than half a dozen startups, and I've never had to trade a decent salary to get equity other than at my first startup (at 19; we were all clueless of business and hopelessly underfunded - we started an ISP with about $50k and lived on our student loans for the first year).

Maybe I've just been lucky, but fear of losing my salary just does not factor in to me. Nor does the idea of having to sacrifice salary. When joining my last startup, I took 7.5% in options coupled with a salary offer 20% above my previous job, with the only sacrifice being that I put in evenings and some weekend work for "free" for a few months before our A round closed.

Incidentally the founders of the last startup I mentioned above were both older, one of them had three young children, and a wife who worked part time on another startup.

Many at my age have reached the level of financial stability where setting aside enough savings to be secure for a year or two of uncertain income is easy enough to even make bootstrapping less stressful if I were to opt for that.

The biggest change for me is that my priorities have changed. I'm not so interested in chasing after the billion dollar exit, as I've come to realise how little money matters to my happiness, and that will change how/when/what I do next time I start a company or join another startup.
Maybe have a video showing someone drawing a fast zig-zag scribble; it would answer the latency question implicitly. Ditto for palm rejection.