skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know a ton of (mech, civil, aerospace) engineers who use Linux, including quite a few engineering graduate graduate students who use emacs form the command line as their primary development environment.
Regarding iPhone and Android apps? How do you monetize that? No offense, but these markets are highly saturated.

Even if you truly had the merits - how could you possibly be seen across the noise?
One of the more funny ideas that came out of Startup Weekend Christchurch. Hate away :)
Most scientists use computers as a tool to prove that something works. Since few scientists are required to make commercial tools based on these ideas, so there is no reason to use latest software engineering fads/techniques. I know a guy who writes his software in VBA+Excel, and for him it is all that he needs to get data for his scientific papers.
Simple, just lie about your age. In any case once you get a few jobs under your belt it will all be word of mouth anyway.
"While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission."

Tell that to the people of iraq.
> There were probably hundreds of startups that built cool music tech but they all failed because they couldn't get the licenses. As far as I know the true story of why the MPAA gave Spotify the green light after saying no to so many before them.

It helps that Spotify is (partly) owned by the record labels: http://www.swedishwire.com/jobs/680-record-labels-part-owner...

It's what makes shutting down Grooveshark and going after other music services so ridiculous - it's not a matter of wanting to combat "piracy" as much as it is about wanting to make sure that their favored candidate wins, instead of an independent one.

Again, remember that the RIAA currently has authority not just over artists signed to major labels, but over artists signed to independent labels as well[0], so they really do truly have cartel-like power, and they are clearly not interested in giving that up.

[0] A subsidiary of the RIAA has the sole legal authority to collect royalties on behalf of all artists, and then artists can request remittance of payments from this subsidiary. Perhaps unsurprisingly, independent artists report mixed results with actually getting the RIAA's subsidiary[1] to pay them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange#Authority

[1] Technically SoundExchange is now a 501(c)3 and no longer owned by the RIAA, to make them appear more "independent", but this is a change in name only.
Talking Watches: With Tony Fadell
How and why did OpenID die?
Ask HN: Job searching, bach degree in Biology with Python experience. Any ideas?
See the title. I'm a recent graduate with a Biology degree. I intend on grad school sometime in the next 5 years, but I am looking to add to my work experience/further explore the field before I commit. My specialization and thesis work is in molecular biology, genomics and bioinformatics. I've got 2 and a half years worth of lab experience via class labs and independent study, I'm familiar with cell cultures, plasmid transformations, qPCR, microArrays, etc., plus a year's experience with Python and some familiarity with R for bioinformatics.

I'm looking for a position as a Research Assistant or a lab tech, either in an academic setting or in the private sector. I'd prefer to avoid the more production-line stuff, doing nothing but prepping gels all day for the big brains to use, but I'm not a postdoc yet, and beggars can't be choosers. Heck, I'll manage the cell cultures in a brewery if I can find that sort of job.

I'm new to HN, but engineer friend told me that it is a good resource. Any ideas, opinions, scoldings-for-not-majoring-in-CS? Thank you.
>> It's not like Uber or Snapchat will become the next friendster and myspace.

They may very well become that. At least in Snapchat's case, things can change very quickly.
Can I choose all of the above? I'm finishing my second year of grad school, so I should be transitioning roughly from rigorous to post rigorous. Okay, that's probably true, but only in the areas of math I know best and use frequently. In other areas, I've never moved past the rigor stage; in yet others I'm not even that far along.

I'm pretty comfortable with probability and optimization, which is my day-to-day. I will probably never be better at topology than I was when finishing my undergrad degree. And in my one brush with differential geometry, I struggled to reach the rigor.

And even then it's more complicated, because human intuition is notoriously bad in probability.
The scientific community will use whatever makes it easier to achieve its own goals. The idea that you need to use something because it is cooler, more open, fancier, etc., works only in the programming community, where software itself is the end goal.
It's anecdotal, but Arch has had Python 3 as default for over a year. I think Fedora is coming close to this too.
I'd say pick the max over all subfields. I myself am about to get a PhD in mathematics yet I have an irrational fear of differential equations.
This is good advice. I got my first programming job at 16 working for a local web agency as a summer internship. I actually responded to an ad - I was lucky in that they were looking for someone like me. If they aren't, I think there is a lot of value they could get from you, and your task is to convince them of that fact :)

I also think that having a strong track record of contributing to open-source software says a lot more than the kind of job I had; I wish I had discovered and gotten really involved with a project like Python or Debian back when I was that age. Instead, I released game mods, which isn't too bad a use of your time if you find that sort of thing fun.
Someone once gave me a great piece of advice - read a book that you might not "normally" read, especially an autobiography. Doing so can give you a glimpse into a wholly different way of thinking about the world than you might be used to. I follow this advice whenever I'm in an airport and the results are always interesting.
>But this is all wrong – we should be teaching new users to use Python 3! New users won't thank you if you teach them Python 2 and they have to migrate all their scripts to Python 3 in a few years...

Believe me, they won't have to. Python 2 will stay with us for a loooong time, and most NEW web stuff AND scientific work is done with it.

>However, the Python developers have now stated that there will be no Python 2.8 release. Essentially, no new features are going to be added to Python 2. In fact, after 2020 (which is not so far in the future), Python 2 will no longer be supported.

Yeah, let's see how this works out. After all it's the same guys who said that Python 3 transition would end with 3 being the default choice by 2014.
Exactly.

If I created a service that allowed unlimited streaming of the latest movie releases for $10 a month / ad supported , pretty sure it would be pretty popular.
Also regarding Bountysource (laughably low bounties) and Upwork, for that matter Elance, odesk - all of those are races to the bottom.

Go to local tech meetups, give a presentation on something and say HEY by the way.. I'm looking for work! Someone is bound to take you under their wing.
Go bankrupt/totally broke, start using website blockers.

I got some serious depression when I got to the point of non-expanding (if you can name it like that).

I sold out all my business, throw a glow on everything else. Went full blown bankrupt. Do not drag your family in to this, it is lone journey. I went to very close of zero - barely possible to afford food. Rewritten myself and started from the beginning. It is amazing how you can rewrite yourself when back to basics.

6 months it took me to rewrite all the "downs" and once I started business it took me 2 weeks to earn as much as in last 6 months. Now everything is so much easier.
Jython and IronPython both remove the GIL, and PyPy is often roughly 5x faster than CPython. Strangely enough, these projects don't seem to be as widely used as I'd expect.

By the way, optional static typing is available in any version of Python by using MyPy.
>I believe this is very common in academic settings

It's even more common in enterprise settings, where the cost of switching also includes real money, not just some postgraduates porting code over...
While I agree with the sentiment.. I do think the resulting device is a better design than most home smokers I've seen... Though given the materials, and likely the weight... The cost will probably be relatively expensive for home use. Not to mention, too small for commercial use.

If they could build one that is about 6x the total size, but could handle 15x the amount of meat... that's something quite a few chains might be interested in. Not that I disapprove of what they've done at all... gives me a lot of ideas, but more like something I would make, and not necessarily buy.
Pick a random interesting page from a reference below, then use a search engine to find and connect with people who care about the topic:

Harper's dictionary of classical literature and antiquities, https://archive.org/details/harpersdictiona00peckgoog

David Rumsey Map Collection (includes old "maps" of human knowledge, today could be called infographics), http://www.davidrumsey.com

The Ancient Engineers, by L. Sprague de Camp, http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancient-Engineers-Sprague-Camp/dp/...

Oxford English Dictionary, 1888 Edition, 15000 searchable pages as a Windows app, https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407
No prob. Thanks!
MySpace and Orkut both had over 100M users and failed, but it was because of neglect by their corporate owners, not a failure to monetize. AOL made it to about 30M at their peak; they're down to about 2M now.

I agree with the general point of this thread (that once you get to 100M+ users, there will be a way to monetize), but if you're trying to make the stronger point that once a company gets to 100M+ users they're invulnerable, there are ample counterexamples.

[1] http://mashable.com/2009/04/16/one-million-ning-networks/
As far as I know 53-bit integers are a bit haphazard in JavaScript - it's best to stick to 32-bit unless you really know what you're doing.
When I was your age I was doing freelance web development. Keep working on OSS and start doing some contract work and you'll be golden.

Flash forward a bit... And the summer before my senior year in high school I interned at a startup in Honolulu. Just keep learning and working hard and good things will come of it.
I built simple websites for local businesses, and then moved into building an overly complicated CMS and hosting service for them. I put in like 18 hour days for almost a year (skipped a lot of classes in high school), and ended up with a pretty cool product. Unfortunately, I lost pretty much all of the code, so I don't have a lot to show for it. :(
Ask HN: What are your daily websites?
Besides HN of course, which sites do you find yourself frequenting daily?

Tech

http://highscalability.com/

Security

https://www.schneier.com/

Astronomy

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/

Art

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/

http://www.demilked.com/

DJ Stuff

http://www.djtechtools.com/

Ranting Lawyers

http://popehat.com/

Comics

https://xkcd.com/

http://www.businesscat.happyjar.com/

http://questionablecontent.net/
Split into functions with clear tasks that have clear names and are relatively standalone.

If you have to jump around between functions a lot to understand something, the code probably could use some reorganizing.
Single copy is most common. I haven't seen reliable data on the split between a copy in the cloud vs a copy on an external drive, but those would be 2nd and 3rd most common, with cloud growing to cut out both external drive and single copy.

I have family members who have had and continue to have user induced data loss due to single copy, but even single copy + cloud because they insist on passwords being b.s. so they don't write them down, don't remember them (due to arcane rules requiring them to pick a password they can't remember without writing down), and then the device has some problem that requires a reset, and then they can't get into their online account because they failed to properly set (and apparently weren't required) the recovery account or phrases.
Also, I contributed to Drupal for a while starting in high school. That itself doesn't bring in cash, but it established a reputation in that community, and now I work at NBC doing Drupal development. Open source contribution is a means to an end sometimes.
One company I worked for relied heavily on code reviews after every feature. At least two co-workers (one of whom had to be a supervisor) read, ran, and gave feedback on every piece of code. Reading others' code and providing feedback allowed me to improve my sight-linting ability, and it felt like each day my group's code as a whole was improving.

Having some accountability for writing sloppy code is very sobering.
My only advice is: Enjoy it. Even if it's not your ultimate goal in life, I suggest treating it almost like a game. I don't know if programming is really like writing proofs, but there must be some similarities in terms of the emotional satisfaction that you get, for instance, when you find the missing piece that suddenly makes the whole thing work, or discover a weird twist that expresses your own personality.
For those in the Seattle area, Jacks in Sodo is where you can get your BBQ fix. Best brisket outside of Texas.
The road is much wider, and pose greater disruption to transport during installation - If the experiment fails because it can't even take bicycle loads, and bicycle wear and tear, there would be bigger waste. If 70m works (physically, politically, economically), do 100m. If 100m works, go for 500m. If that works, do a 50m prototype on a road. Something like that.
I really really hope the JavaScript redefinition of this word dies out. Please just make a new word instead of butchering a perfectly well-defined one.
Agreed. Eat there frequently.

And you spent time in Terre Haute. My congratulations on your escape.
It would likely have the following traits:

1. Decentralization
2. Realtime
3. Spam protection
4. Contextual

1. Decentralization typically generates wide adoption, once it's able to overcome the barrier of entry to wide adoption. An excellent example of this would be JavaScript. It thrives largely because nobody owns it, and contributing to its success it's often used as a means to stave off the advantages of competing platforms.

2. Realtime meaning push, just because it's a modern technological expectation. Email frequently is realtime, except IMAP/POP.

3. GMail et.al have gotten pretty good here. Future solutions would need to be as good, ideally with some built-in mechanism for unsubscribe as well.

4. Contextual messaging would be the defining feature. It's a broad term that simply means some manner of object graph between messages that would natively support arbitrary organization of messages (flat, nesting, topic stream, overlapping (for edits), etc...).
This is not a bad list, and can be useful as a checklist.

But note that it basically tries to define good programming practice in general. That's a very big topic with a lot of room for debate and disagreement.
Apart from contributing to well known open source projects or starting your own, you could also try to write a plugin for some product that has a large community (e.g. Jenkins) and/or marketplace (Atlassian's one, though not sure if you have to be 18.)
No, it's a highly problematic statement by the rules of human conversation, the same way shady media or advertisers play tricks with statistics to misrepresent an issue or product.

In fact, whether intensional or not, it's a trick with statistics itself. In that sentense he's presenting the huge majority and a much smaller minority selection as equals in what "most" people use.
> In recent years were born hundreds of services that have tried to make email less painful.

I actually haven't seen many services that try to make email less painful. Most services I've seen have tried to kill email, and almost always by replacing it with a walled-garden, closed protocol.

So far, email has resisted this, and I really hope it survives. Email is a truly federated, truly open protocol, and distributed open protocols are by far the best way to encourage an open exchange of ideas.
I've thought about this on and off for a few years and have one thought: e-mail will find a way out of the inbox. It is now an almost ubiquitous way to deliver something to a contact, especially on mobile.

I know this is fuzzy, but I imagine Facebook notifications being sent via e-mail and if Facebook is "installed" either on the device or via opening the browser, opening the e-mail would deliver you to Facebook, or just display as a regular e-mail otherwise. Taking this one step further: if I deliver you a to-do list item, it would open in my default to-do list app making e-mail more of a platform or launcher than anything else.

If you ever figure out how that would work, let me know. I've tried and haven't been able to connect all of the dots connecting those sending the e-mail and those receiving the e-mail as a platform, how it interoperates and where to start. I'd use the hell out of this though.
Will Google.com Become Irrelevant?
Agree with RogerL here. It really depends on what you want to do and what you are tying to do. But OpenGL isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And at least from what is released so far, it appears, OpenGL and Vulkan will co-exist.

There are a ton of things to learn when you start down this path, as RogerL already pointed out, and there are other frameworks and tools you can learn depending on your needs. DirectX, OpenCL, OpenCV, OpenGL all offer good frameworks/API's and do similar things but have specific specialties. Then there are also Game engines that build upon one or more of these that you can start with.

If you want to share your goal I am sure you'll get a few opinions and options.
Those are arguably antiquated models. Even if you don't agree with that, those models are predicated on companies that don't actually know what they're doing when it comes to storage, which is why they defer to others and pay the markup that comes with it. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, many others (and growing), this is their business now, to know how to reliably store things, do it in-house in a way that works for their use case.

I don't use Facebook at all, but I appreciate the many investments they've made in open hardware and open source software. They don't give away everything. But they definitely contribute in significant ways.
5. Encryption as part of the core protocol, always on.
Show HN: WebGL in ECommerce, Interactive Fridge
I wrote a comment there. Panels on roads, if they can suffer being driven on well, can be economical when rooftop spaces run out. Rooftops are only sufficient for 25% of Netherland's electricity demand. I notice now there is a couple of inaccuracies but they are only minor ones financially. The benefit from saved real estate is too big.

Local council governments may have access to its road real estate, but have no legal right to install panels on roofs. Netherland land value, per square meter, is €4,907. There is a local property tax is 0.05% - 0.3%. (http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index.php/property/more/prope...), and a wealth tax of 1.3% per year. Assuming 1.4% total taxes per square meter, the revenue received by the government is €68 per square meter. Since building the solar panel on the road means they don't have to build solar panels on real estate that can generate tax revenue, the benefit is €10 of generated electricity, plus the €68 of tax revenue that is preserved (assuming all municipal building rooftops are exhausted, already). That makes a payback of €78 per year. In 15 years, this would equate to €1170, compared to building a solar array on free land. The savings would be even greater compared to the local government renting rooftops to place solar panels.
Smart watches are dumb
200ms latency

Anyone know how spotify may have achieved this?

There is no magic in this. 200ms is an eternity and would actually be considered rather poor performance.

Realistic latency is closer to 100ms for a cache miss (~40ms for your client to reach spotify plus another 40-60ms for their internal fetch).

You have to realize that music files are tiny and consume very little bandwidth by today's standards. All commercial music combined (roughly 30 million songs) fits into half a rack of storage.
Check his use of "most" and "or", given that 2.7 is already "most", and 3.4 is 5 times less used.
Is it possible (in principle) to have an email-like-service with end-to-end encryption so that no one other than the sender and receiver can decipher messages?
The headline is wrong. This is not a new state of matter, but a new type of chemical.

Known states of matter are: solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Einstein-Bose condensate and neutron-degenerate matter.

Einstein-Bose condensate is the coolest one, literally. When atoms approach absolute zero, their momentum is so small that their position (via indeterminacy principle) is so large that they start to superimpose on each other (plus other cool quantum effects).

Check out video here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensat...
Nice list. This is more or less what I look for. It's nice to see your rules of thumb.

Anyone have any suggestions for time-estimating code review? That's the biggest issue we've faced trying to implement code review into our workflow.
You forced me to look it up (thank you for that).

It seems like either the cap xor the discount applies (investors' option), so anything over $6.25MM valuation, the cap would apply and anything under that the discount would apply.

It's too late for me to edit the GP post, so I'll try to correct it here:

At a $5MM priced round, the discount would apply and the investor's note would convert $1MM at a $4MM valuation (25%). I believe that conversion is done pre-money, which means the angel is diluted (like all shareholders) from their initial 25% by the addition of the new money. (None of my angel investments have [yet] raised a priced round, so I haven't gone through this process, though I obviously hope to... :) )

If someone else invests $1MM at $5MM pre-money valuation, all prior investors are diluted by 16.6667%. (Someone who held 10% of $5MM pre-money company will hold 8.333% of a $6MM company post-money. Either way, their position is worth $500K.)

So, to know the angel's ownership in the scenario, you need to know how much dilution happened due to the new money, meaning you need to know not just the pre-money valuation, but also the amount of new investment money. In any scenario where the discount applies, the angel's position will be worth $1MM. In any scenario where the cap is better than the discount, the angel's position will be worth more than $1MM.
> In recent years were born hundreds of services that have tried to make email less painful.

Most if not all of those services were proprietary and tied to the success of one company. Only the Darkmail alliance to the best of my knowledge is actually putting out a new open protocol not tied to their bottom line. Not sure if they have actually put out an RFC yet.

It's like people saying Slack will one day will replace IRC or XMPP. It will never happen. It may if slack started as it's own protocol with a simple RFC and the company was an implementation of said open protocol. Offering a paid option with the option to also do it by yourself for free.

The future of email will start with a new open standard and RFC everybody has access to. It will offer benefits not facilitated by current technologies and will be easily adopted when such happens. Until this happens though there is no reason to replace email. Companies are not going dive into one company and create some massive monopoly who will then hold them hostage.