skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The work samples are key, whether they consist of previous work or of "the examples they did in class". If candidate A has a degree and a portfolio, they'll have an edge over candidate B who just has the portfolio. If A's class examples are crappy, and B's work examples are great, B will have the edge.

(You have a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem for candidate B, though, since if they've spent time building up a strong portfolio of work then by definition they are not "straight out of high school.")

What kind of degree matters too, though; a real CS degree from a real school is worth a lot more than certain for-profit institution's halfway-accredited "you too can be a real live web developer!" programs.
Show HN: From Idea to Launch – Build a web application based on your own idea
What's a good tool to automate the router configuration to point to the new deployment?
I work at Dwolla. Just want to say that I personally agree with you that clarity around pricing is important for any open platform. Especially when you're comparing a product or service against competing options, concrete pricing is key.

As a developer hacking on a small project, there isn't any cost to use our network. If you're a merchant accepting payments on our network, we'd like to see you enter a package once your business starts to make several hundred transactions a month, but we don't require it. Most businesses end up wanting more advanced features once their volume goes up. The cost of those premium features will depend on your volume and needs. As we learn more about what works best for our partners, I think we'll be able to provide more pricing information up front.

We appreciate your feedback. Our product team will continue to work on providing clear pricing options.
no dice here. :(
I believe that you're not going to commit suicide yet, since you're at crossroads, according to you.

If you believe you will find some way out, you will find some way out. So, believe in yourself.

Good luck!
Altucher, eh?
Out-of-character for the pretentious HN crowd.
Doesn't using C++ RAII eliminate some of that? Or you use raw pointers often?
It's also that a Swiss watch isn't really designed to be replaced, rather endlessley maintained.

A lot of the higher end Swiss watches have lifetime guarantees, meaning you could even pass it down to your kid and have it fixed for free. The mechanical movements also mean they don't need batteries replaced.

This is a barefaced opposite to the 'Smartwatches'. Next year there'll be an iWatch 2 or something. Next to the smaller issue of charging many people adore these Swiss watches for their ability to 'just work' for decades and decades.

Another thing I guess, is they're likely to retain their value.
This good article should be paired with pg's great essay http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html that has similar ideas.

"One of the most dangerous illusions you get from school is the idea that doing great things requires a lot of discipline. Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can flog yourself through them. So I was surprised when, early in college, I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had no self-discipline and had never been able to deny himself anything, not even a cup of coffee."
Advertising works but needs major fixing
Queueing theory applied to Kanban boards
I'm voting with my wallet - don't really see much point of anything beyond that. Campaigns only work for advertising companies.
外人 has a derogatory nuance, because it's curt (therefore not polite) way to say something which has more polite forms, such as 外国の方 (gaikoku no kata) which is a respectful way to refer to a non-Japanese person or people. Depending on context, of course. In some contexts and situations, there is no respectful way to point out someone's nationality, such as when it is completely unnecessary and irrelevant.
This.

Have mechanical watches, have a smart watch. The smart watch gets worn during the day because I have a separate personal phone that stays in my bag, and it's nice to be able to get alerts on my wrist.

The mechanical watches get worn in the evenings when the work phone goes away because in 2015 they're a fashion accessory. That's not changing, and the markets that swiss watch makers serve aren't going to suddenly toss their $40k watch - unless it's for a $40k digital version from the same swiss company.
I've seen this all too often with co-founders I've had in the past (which didn't work out). They first love the idea and work on it with lots of passion.

As soon as they need to do the boring work (IE: 90% of the hard work involved in any business), interest is lost and they want to quit.

I call these people employees because they aren't willing to do what it takes to build and maintain a business.
Why do people keep making this point. Design is the supposed solution to everything. It is false, plain and simple. Great APIs, great apps, great games ... do not start with a design. Here is how to write a great app :

1) have an idea. Execute that idea without any IT involved. Become a user of your non-existent app, so that you find the pain points.

2) write a bad app (this may require a "gather your thoughts" informal piece of text, 1st iteration maybe a paragraph, and from the 3rd iteration onwards maybe even a set of conventions and standards. Make sure everyone in the team adds something. Be encouraged to copy large amounts of code from previous iterations)

3) confront your bad app with the world, become a power user in your app, fixing bugs as you go

4) have your app confront a few others (ideally with them invested in it, ideally sell it)

5) think. collect your thoughts. Have a beer. Give it some time.

6) goto 1 (do NOT skip step 1, not even on the 10th iteration)

Repeat. On the 2nd iteration your app is a "reasonable" app. On the 5th iteration your app will be good. It is necessary to redo the task without any IT aid on occasion because that's how you find revolutionary ideas.

And the main antipattern is what I'd call "app management". You become a software engineer who thinks writing a database server is pretty much the same "process" as writing a html5 game. Like lots of managers think managing a software project is pretty much the same as managing a call center. You focus on requirements. You focus on design. "Best practices", preferably dozens of conflicting ones ("agile, yet controlled"). You focus on architecture. The truth is, if you have to gather requirements you have already lost, and you will not write a great app. If you want to write a great app, first you do the apps function yourself, personally, then you automate yourself back out again.
Since the list of self-performed autopsies is short, it might be nice if you could invert the premise — allow a community to choose from preset tags why a startup failed (even if inexact, would make it handy to look for examples of the kind of failure you want to study), and add discussion. That might provide a hook to invite the founders to write their story, then.
This is powerful, thank you very much for sharing it.
C++ ternary operator considered (very) harmful
How to install the Android M Developer Preview without wiping your data
I had the same feeling when I submitted it; was hoping for an interesting discussion.
The odd bold emphasis on phrases, especially those deserving citation, makes this feel and read like a spam site.
First, you're not wrong about Apple. You have an accurate assessment of who they are and what they're about.

However, I think they've done good for the *nix community. At it's simplest, the switch for a dev to go from mac to linux isn't as drastic as from windows to mac; much of that command line experience transfers over.

I think people will move away. I've already moved most of my dependencies to linux, and I've been a lifelong apple guy.

Why, just today i was trying to open up one of their keyboards and had to hunt around for a screwdriver that'll work, because they use security screws. Pretty much everything they do is anti-tinker and that's measurably holding back members of society from advancing our species; they seek to prevent the very same kind of conditions that permitted them to start apple in the first place; a pretty baffling behavior, least of all anti-social.
Mapquest and Mapbox: A Win-Win with a Huge Unanswered Question
Thiel Foundation Announces 2015 Thiel Fellows, Expands Fellowship Program
> ...which has practically nothing to do with the reason a watch is bought, that being to tell time.

It seems to me that most watches already fall into the "artisan use" category that you mention. Phones already tell time. There are accurate clocks everywhere. Wearing a watch seems to be much more about style, design, and status signaling than anything else.
What are you thankful for? Take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. What is going right in your life? Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on the positives. Breathe in. Breathe out. You're alive. You're loved. Smile. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Its not that hard to predict though, and if you can't... either the idea might not be developed enough or you may need to grow slow until you get real feedback/sales

IMHO comparing some of these ideas to the iPhone is a copout. As a kid I watched Inspector Gadget and saw Penny's "computer book" and wanted one instantly. When I was older I watched Star Trek and they all had PADD (sp?) devices that were a large screen with no keyboard. iPhone wasn't a revolutionary new idea for which there was no demand... its just that Apple knew that the time was right and that they could technically pull it off. They certainly didn't just engineer the iPhone on a wing and a prayer hoping that they might figure out a business plan one day.
There are two purposes to a timepiece:

1. To tell the time.

2. To make a fashion statement.

Digital watches (and now smart watches) add to that various functions, but, for most people, the fashion statement aspect of a watch trumps the functionality.

Analog watches will survive because they are, first and foremost, jewelry.
Btw, I always wondered..
Why didn't you test compression level 6, it is the default level, and used by for example stock apache/nginx settings.

Also #zlib-ng on freenode if you or anyone else want to discuss.
Well, "better shot" means not having to work as hard to succeed, so what you are saying supports the idea that one should prefer to get an education.

The more relevant question is this: is it easier to succeed without an education than it is to get an education?
Show HN: Study.com – Your One Stop Education Shop
study.com
Get in touch with somebody that can help you:

https://www.imalive.org/
And yet I consistently find that checksum tools, compression libraries, and things like video decoders (such as H264 decoders) written in assembly consistently outperform all other implementations I've had to deal with. "Sufficiently smart compiler" is a tired meme at this point. There are few programs that benefit from being entirely written in assembly, but quite a lot who do having parts of them hand optimized. Some, like game emulators, particularly one man job like No$GBA, are still fully written in assembly and its performance is a sight to behold. No$GBA would lose a lot if it were rewritten into a high level language.
Let's be more clear on two points:

(1) The Idea.

So, sure, mail subscription candy to Japan
is an idea, a business idea, that is,
a short description like might be given
to a prospective customer, supplier, banker,
investor, prospective employee, etc. Such
a business idea can be really important.

(2) Secret Sauce. In addition to a business idea,
sometimes there is secret sauce that
enables the execution of the business idea
and, maybe, is intellectual property,
e.g., to be protected as a trade secret,
and that maybe can provide a barrier to
entry. Such secret sauce might be
technical -- from biology, physics,
math, engineering, technology,
etc.

Generally once a business has customers,
the business idea (1), at least in
broad terms, becomes quite well known.

Then it can be good to have some barriers
to entry. Some of those might be
the secret sauce (2). Some more might be
VC Fred Wilson's "large network of
engaged users", a "network effect", a
brand name, etc.

To many people what is crucial about
(2) secret sauce are ideas --
since they may be important to a business,
business ideas. But commonly
very much we want to protect the
secret sauce ideas and not let
them be stolen.

So, some business ideas we very much do
not want to let others steal them.
It really depends on the labor market. If they can easily replace one $15/hour employee with another, there's no incentive to raise wages. If unemployment is low or they need specific skills that aren't available in their area, they may have to raise wages. Most companies won't do that unless there is some external market force (like labor scarcity) to compel them to do so.
Yeah, I'm surprised more people don't create a "Presenter" account, I've taken that approach for a number of years.

It also eliminates other potential computer distractions (other applications running, wallpapers etc) and you can optimise the configuration setup for the presentation process.
The Calligraphy Stars of Instagram
DON'T PLEASE.
You have at least 3 million people to meet and help you. Contact me if you want to stay home someday https://www.couchsurfing.org/people/imton/
That's mostly because of Microsoft's horribly outdated C-compiler
Do you support a society where dissenting opinions are branded as smear campaigns? Or do you prefer for all journalists to agree with you? Is there evidence this is more than an individual's (and maybe an editor's) opinion?

I'm not saying I thought the author's premises were relevant to his assertions; on the contrary, I think his argument was poorly-formed. I'm sure we can find embarassing quotes from the youth of almost every influential historical figure; everyone is entitled to change his or her own opinions.
I do most of my computing on cheap 7" Android tablets. I also ssh in to my Linode for programming but I could use Debian under Linux Deploy too, its just slow compared to the Linode.

The onscreen keyboard works great for typing both in portrait or landscape. You just have to get used to it. Keyboards are mostly a hastle to drag around/setup and they break.

If I was on my laptop I would ssh in on a slightly larger screen.

You can definitely do word processing, spreadsheets, the web, programming, everything on a $100 (or even $50 in some cases) Android tablet. I haven't used my laptop at all in like 4 months.

So I would get slightly used Android tablets and give them out to kids.

I actually don't want to buy another laptop or desktop because I know it will waste electricity and it seems primitive.

The next major shift for me will be to full-time VR for work, which will use Google Cardboard or their new 6dof thing (I might wait until the Android for VR OS comes out next year). But that is still going to be on a phone..
It's good to do things where you can witness and verify what's going on, but soup kitchens are many orders of magnitude less effective than distributing insecticide-treated bednets to combat malaria, or Givewell's other recommended charities.
Playing the same notes more right. :-)
If you are in the Portland OR metro area and need a computer or have old computers to donate, please check out http://www.freegeek.org/

They have programs for volunteer work in refurbishing (where you learn about computers) get your own system in return.

http://www.freegeek.org/#volunteer
I think you misunderstand why mechanical watches are bought. It's not to tell time. Phones tell time. That clock on the wall 10 feet from you tells time. The computer you sit/stand at can tell you when to leave work. For the most part watches are style + status symbol; personally I don't think smart watches are a threat on either front.

FWIW, I have a mid-range Omega that is partially style, partially status and partially a beautiful piece of engineering. I _like_ it and I don't like the Apple watch.
There are basically 2 areas where JSON is really wasteful. Compression can help with both of those.

1. Dictionary keys are repeated when you have an array of similar objects.
2. Non-text data. JSON can't natively represent binary data, forcing people to use things like base64 for binary and base10 for numbers.
When I hire, I don't care too much about a degree unless it is from a strong school - even then I still vet for technical skills.

But I only view degrees as upside, not part of the core decision making process for me when evaluating a candidate.
How does it compare to ML for the Working Programmer?
This is nice, but the core keyboard shortcuts are (or so I find) painful and needlessly complex to use. :/

A comparison:

Workflowy -> CrushPaper

Enter -> Alt+s

Enter -> Alt+u/b

Enter + Tab -> Alt+c

This feels like it was designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts inexpertly bolted on. :)

After that fix, this is a joy to use. :)
This article [1] by Christina H I read on Cracked some time ago saved my life when I was about to off myself due to severe depression--I hope it can somewhat be of help to you and anyone here who's also currently at the crossroad. (EDIT: the comments are also great read)

Live on, buddy. You can make it. You're worth it.

[1] http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-tiny-things-that-stopped-suici...
This is terrible advice. Self education, entrepreneurship, etc, does not come easily to everyone. For most people, getting an education and starting a career is a safe, stable path.
I think you could've chosen a better example. Wittgenstein was smart, but he never did anything focused precisely because of his lack of discipline. He just poured all his thoughts on paper for others to figure out.

Every book on and by famous/rich/successful people I've ever read touches on the subject on discipline and it can all be summed up with this: motivation, curiosity and drive fade away - in the end, only discipline is left to get you through the hardest mile.
Polymer: Vulcanize all the things
Duolingo sucks though. So does Memrise. And you can build an anki deck, sure — but not all decks are created equal. If you don't make a frequency list from a large corpus, your Anki deck sucks too.

Duolingo and Memrise seem to have the philosophy, "There are many words in the language you're learning. Here are some of them." This is really bad.

Because word frequencies follow a Zipfian distribution, if you learn the top 1,000 words in a language you're a long way forward. If you learn an arbitrary 1,000 sample of words in a 40,000 word vocabulary, you're much further back.

These guys seem to have this as their specific value proposation. I was going to do exactly this myself. I'm a computational linguist who's recently moved to Germany. I got about 2/3 of the way through the Duolingo course, but it's basically a waste of time. They taught me the words for "duck" and "ceiling" and "handyman" as part of the first 1,000 words in the course.
right and the coolest part is that react (or reagent/om?) will handle that in the diff
Apple Is the New Pimco
Streaming Music Is Fundamentally Changing the Way We Listen
It might be better idea to use other ISM bands to power the device, and keep 2.4GHz as communications only and be a good WiFi / BT / Zigbee neighbor.
IoT risks and challenges
Watches are male equivalent of jewellery; so long as vanity exists, and there isn't an alternative, easy-to-discern display of wealth/style, they will stay.

Also the Rolexes are almost artificially made scarce; adding to the allure of wealth.
I find this demography is hardest to deal with. Even when they are on a platform they are familiar with, they are usually first to complain about having something different (e.g. some UI elements moved around) yet don't know how to fix it or even not bothering with a simple search to find out the problem.
I think the issue is that's just the accepted path. Get good grades in high school, so you can get into a good college. Get good grades in college to get a good job. At 18 most people don't have a clue what they are supposed to be doing.

College is an easy choice—especially the stigma around those that don't go to college. There's also that ridiculous fact about how much college-educated people earn over their lifetime. What that doesn't take into account is the entire world changed after 2007.

EDIT: Wrote a bit more about why people think they need to go to college a couple years ago.
http://solomon.io/experience-deficiency/
This wiki page is the reflection of the general opinions of the scientific community. You can redefine any word to have any definition that fits your universe, but when communicating with other people, we must go with general consensus.
Except that I don't think Swiss (or other artisan) watches are bought for purely utilitarian purposes. They're bought for aesthetics, as status symbols and for the old time/luxurious brand they convey.

Smart watches are another category entirely: they're wearable computers. The timekeeping aspect is backtracked, and they might well dominate on basis of their utility. But Swiss and other artisanal watches will persevere as at least a niche for their elaborate mechanical aspects that give them value beyond the prime use of timekeeping.

As for paper, I thought the dominant argument in favor of ebooks is that it's easier on the eyes.

Storage and recording mechanisms are a whole other ballpark. They're fetishized for nostalgic reasons, but such things are replaceable by their definition.
If your Japanese is near-perfect you can tell them to let you enter the "no foreigners" nightclubs and bars claiming you were born and raised in Japan. Just pick a place as your hometown.

If it were for racist reasons, they wouldn't let you enter simply because you don't "look Japanese".

Not to say the issue doesn't exist at all. Just that it isn't prevalent. If it didn't exist, there wouldn't be this comedy sketch about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80

Although the scenario I experienced was that the waitress asked my Japanese friend what I wanted to order rather than asking me. Assuming I didn't speak Japanese.

At most places I ordered food at - they would ask me what I wanted directly. So I wouldn't say it's a common experience either. Just that it does happen and it's because few foreigners speak Japanese! It's a habitual thing, not a racist thing. It happened more in the touristy parts of Tokyo than anywhere else (even in the touristy parts of Kyoto!)
I took a liking to SML when working on a subversion-resistant development process and software configuration management system. The security requirements for tools was that verification of safe/secure usage is easy for humans and the executable matches the source. SML, with restricted coding style, is quite easy for humans to verify (vs C++) because of its syntax and high-level style. For source-to-binary verification, I found that the FLINT [1] team had a certifying compiler for SML along with verification of all sorts of stuff. The probability of it being backdoored was extremely slim and source was available. So, there you have it: SML & FLINT as solution to bootstrapping a subversion-resistant toolchain for use by mutually suspicious parties.

[1] http://flint.cs.yale.edu/flint/software.html

EDIT: Btw, thanks for the book!
Keurig 2.0 Hacked to Make ‘Unauthorized’ Coffee
Something to think about: If you're really sure that your life is not worth living, then I suggest trying a different life, rather than no life at all. Another location, another career, another group of people to surround yourself with. Being a bartender on a beach in Thailand doesn't sound so high pressure, and should give you lots of time to think.

I don't know much about your situation, and maybe Thailand isn't exactly the answer, but if you're to the point where you're looking for escape by death, why not instead try finding escape by physically escaping to somewhere new?