skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Really interesting deep-dive into Zynga's data strategy - thanks.

There seems to be conflicting advice in the analytics world about (a) capturing all data from the start and (b) being very deliberate and thoughtful on using data in the early stages. I've seen that capturing too much can get very overwhelming and obviously if you don't capture enough then it can be problematic later when you need it.

Do you have any thoughts / guidance on how a new startup should begin its data / analytics function?
This implies the US has about the 15th fastest consumer broadband average.

I'd prefer to have a median speed to go by, but can anyone speak to whether the US coming in around #15 is an improvement or decline?
I feel like that is a fairly unusual usecase; plus you could just set the max distance parameter to the diameter of the Earth.
As he already said, science doesn't do proofs; proof is something for Math, science does evidence, nothing is ever proven. Asking a scientist for proof merely shows you don't know what science is and thus aren't capable of using it to make decisions.
I would say it depends of the context. Negotiating a ceasefire in Ukraine and making sure the other party is not only trying to buy time sounds OK in my book. On the other trying to get the upper hand in a trade treaty is not so great. And the European case it is probably more of the later.
When I'm in the Bay Area I love working at the public libraries. If I remember correctly the San Francisco Public Library's main branch offers a free wifi connection at about 45mbps down and up; and they don't block port 22, so you can ssh all you want. There are also plenty of people working there, and you'll probably notice some other people coding.

The only downside of libraries are the hours (which are often very limited) and the lack of food. Also it's not a great place to take phone calls or work in groups.
The baffling part about it is how someone can ignorantly argue correlations of basic chemistry when they don't know basic chemistry.
The typical thing I've seen is 1/4 of your options will vest after 1 year, upon which 1/48 of your options vest every month thereafter. Other companies may do it differently.

Also if you leave the company early, you will usually have to pay some trivial amount (possibly thousands though) to keep the options.

This has at least been the case at all startups I've seen.

With the 1-year cliff in place, I'd rather options just be given to departing employees, as it seems like payment for their work.
> If the famine didn't happen Ireland could easily have a population of over 30 Million. However it did happen and alternate realities are hard to predict.

In a way it has, there are that many with Irish ancestry in America, not strange as emigration there cost Ireland much more people than the famine.
But even if you're fully vested, if you can't sell your shares, they're essentially worthless (technically the term is probably "illiquid asset"). Until there's an "event" (IPO, acquisition, probably more), they can't be turned into real money.
I think what he really meant is "until they are exercisable"
What a horribly uncreative rip off. That may sound harsh but I'm a bit floored that this is getting so much attention...but YC right?

Reproducing functionality and growing an idea is fine. It's the blatant disregard to UX and UI where this company has literally pixel for pixel ripped off slack.
Almost never. My last package took 4.5 years
The last time I received options they vested over 4 years. I was lucky the company was acquired within 1 and I got paid out on all.
> "The reason why libertarians get made fun of is because they just keep shouting the same thing over and over, even after an answer in the affirmative has been given ("Am I being detained?" "Yes" "Am I being detained?"). They sound like a toddler who thinks they have a get out of jail/trouble free card if they just keep shouting the same phase over and over."

From what I've seen, that is more a sovereign citizen thing.

People make fun of libertarians for things that sovereigns and anarchists say, because hey, why not? Politics is dirty; if the shit sticks, throw it.
I wonder what the odds are that Mr. CEO was drawing an even crappier salary than what he offered you, since he no doubt had even more equity.
I was pointing out how the parent sounded like a creep with his groupthink shaming routine. What a bore.

You can spin what I said with some "republicans are evil" noise, but my original point stands.

As for you, don't be so religious. Your "out of step" crack makes you sound like a creep too.
1. New twist on old recruiter workflow -- 100% correct. Making money sort of demands you fit into old models at least a little bit. Once we gain more traction, we can try out more daring things. Up until now, though, the main question was "do people want coaching?". We've found that answer. :)

2. If you're not good enough for those companies, we'll figure out why and still help you out. Granted, we won't help you for months and months -- but we're not going to leave you hanging there. We think helping everyone is going to build a strong brand and service.
This is actually a really interesting idea. I'd love to know how possible it would be for someone to scrape recent google searches, somehow. I'd think it would be relatively safe, but I'm still hesitant.
This sounds like a fantastic exercise to assign to physics majors in some sort of capstone class. What a neat idea. I may have to try this.
I think the information theoretic approach to modeling concerns actually implies such "simpler is better" approaches as Occam's Razor. At least that's my take on [http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9601030], which derives a quantitative form of it.
Damn, you're right about GIS databases. In my apps I always used lattitude first, as was taught in geography lessons, but you've convinced me to move from lattitude endian to longitude endian. Two choices - too many choices...
History of Chat Services and their protocols, way back in 1983 to present day [pdf]
Add lesser-known lodash gems to your toolbox – Objects
I believe gmail is caching these images on their own servers.

One source:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail-...

EDIT: I get what you're saying. I guess the count would depend on how long Google caches that image- or do they load it on a per email basis?
Interesting note from the l0phet article the other day regarding how fire codes and regulation in cities didn't come about even after great disaster swept the city.

Wysopal offered this grim precedent: Cities were once
vulnerable to disastrous fires, which raged through dense
clusters of mostly wooden buildings. It took a giant fire
in Chicago to spur government officials into serious
reforms, including limits on new wooden structures, a
more robust water supply for suppressing blazes and an
overhaul to the city’s fire department.

“The market didn’t solve the problem of cities burning
down,” Wysopal said, predicting that Internet security
may require a historic disaster to force change. “It
seems to me that the market isn’t really going to solve
this one on its own.”

But here’s a frightening fact: The push to create tough
new fire-safety standards did not start after the Great
Chicago Fire in 1871, which killed hundreds of people and
left 100,000 homeless. It took a second fire, nearly
three years later in 1874, to get officials in Chicago to
finally make real changes.
> I tend to think of options as worthless, until they vest

This is a good idea, but I'm not sure it takes things far enough.

For the majority of developers, options are often not especially valuable even when they vest. The most common value outcome of a success/sale seems to be "modest bonus" (4 figures to low five figures) rather than a jump up to a different economic class. I suspect many devs could do as well by going out and getting new job offers every year or two, assuming reasonable negotiation skills.
This is one step closer towards an effective full Office Suite on Linux, which I would be very happy about.
Sorry to hear your perspective on that.

1) Addthis is what we use for sharing. It's helped us a lot.
2) Google analytics puts in doubleclick.
3) Facebook sharing... yup.
4) We're currently running an A/B test with Optimizely.
5) Segment.io is a great analytics tool.

I'd recommend all the above services. That's my opinion on the above!
One of the interesting notes in the article is that they apparently use a lot of oyster shells. I would assume the shells are typically a waste product in other (likely food) industry processes. That's pretty darn green. Besides, we have a lot of limestone, veritable rock-oceans of it.

That's part of why it's incredibly difficult to talk about waste on industrial scales. One plant's garbage is frequently another's input. Waste is expensive, so plants will always try to reduce it to the bare minimums, and if possible make money off it, in the case of certainl classes of recyclables.
Setting up a long term lunar habitat would be a very reasonable first step. Having no atmosphere means solar power is more efficient. In some spots, the soil contains water which can be split for air and fuel. Sending a few automated miners to begin producing stores and building buried habitats is something we can accomplish today, before sending anyone to live.
Though I wouldn't accept #5 and #6 exactly as phrased, it does seem like positive effects ought to be balanced against the negative, and the uncertainty of future technological developments ought to inform our current decision of how much to spend addressing climate change.

Does that make me a climate change denier?
> Science once labeled gay as a mental disease.

No it didn't.

> Science once said that neutrinos have no mass.

No it didn't.

> Science once thought that the universe was the Milky Way only.

No it didn't.

All of those are made up facts that bear no resemblance to reality. Science doesn't say or think things, it merely shows the current state of evidence for theories and when new evidence comes along, wrong theories are disproven. That's what science does, it disproves ideas.

A scientist likely once theorized that gay was a mental disease, the process of science disproved that theory; ditto for everything else you said. You're confusing some scientists bad theories for science itself, they are entirely different things.
To employees options are a free lottery ticket.

You could work your ass off and make your company a huge success, but due to vesting and liquidity preference wind up with nothing. Unless you have enough skin in the game (read, you are an investor or founder), your options mostly useless.
> What more do they want?

They won't tell you, because then they wouldn't be able to move the goalposts, by "just asking questions".
I start all jobs and approach compensation as simply: fuck you, pay me. Pay me a large salary. If you want to add discretionary bonuses on top? Nice. Additional equity? Great. Option? Ok. But first, big fat salary you mf. Once I have that, the rest if any are cherries on a cake. A big fat cake.
Even if options vest, they could still be viewed as worthless. E.g., Pre-ipo company, 4 years pass, all your shares vest, however Company might tank in the next 5 years, goes bankrupt, never gets bought out nor goes IPO, your vested shares are worthless.
> Which is too far in the future to count on.

Actually you should count on them always being worth $0. Not only for compensation purposes but for your personal psychology. It's better to tie yourself to reality.
Rosetta mission extended
I agree. Pay me what I'm worth every month. Keep your options.
Obviously, an explanation for the break in the causation link that was observed between '96 until '10. CO2 production rose faster than modeled while warming took a break.
In economics, you often deal with situations where an asset has devalued below another asset's value. The first asset still has value, but relatively less than the second.

This is different from an asset which has zero value. Some economists enjoy the wordplay of "worth less" (first meaning) vs "worthless" (second meaning)

In this instance, it looks like the article is describing how increasing controls further devalues the options.

Edit: For instance, if the company decides on each attempt if you're allowed to exercise the option, you might value it at 25% of the stock price, or lower. Even moreso, you can't be certain that the company will still exist when your options can be traded for cash, which should devalue the options even more in your perspective.

It should be the net same as if you're working for someone, and they paid you with an IOU for 1% of the money they might win from a lottery ticket. So the value might be infinitesimally small, but not zero.
I recall reading an article, but can't seem to find it, that studied changes in the atmosphere after the post-9/11 grounding of US flights. Granted, it was only free of condensation trails for a short period, but it was an unprecedented opportunity to test hypotheses related to their effect on the atmosphere.

The three or so days without US air traffic showed warmer days (because of lowered albedo, and thus less reflected sunlight) and cooler nights (because less of the earth's radiative heat energy was trapped). The thought, because of the efficiency differences of the albedo-vs-"heat blanket" effect that clouds bring, was that it was a net-warming effect that contrails cause. Scientists continued studied that, IIRC, and found that its contribution is indeed measurable, but accounts for an increase of something like 0.02° Fahrenheit.

The primary concern with commercial air traffic is their conversion of matter millions of years in the making to energy and waste products that have a more measurable effect on climate. The physical contribution of their condensation trails, via their reflective and absorptive properties, is a minor player. A player, certainly. I suspect air traffic won't decrease until we see other modes of transportation compete economically, which isn't happening any time soon.
I'm curious, what motivated you to put so much effort into criticizing a clearly marked toy designed as an demonstration of basic techniques?
"They note that the average time to IPO is now 11 years vs. 4 in 99, and that the overall number of tech IPOs is plummeting as privately funded companies raise huge late stage private rounds instead."

What part do the increased regulatory requirements for public companies play in this? Might this be one of the unintended consequences of Sarbanes-Oxley?
You aren't capable of interpreting it, as is no one individual which is rather the point you're missing.
Agreeing on the provenance of the warming seems to be a red herring when we urgently need to figure out how climate change affects us. Which areas will be flooded, which areas will become inhabitable, will we be able to grow more food or less, how many more people can we expect to starve, how many jobs will be created and lost, how will it affect life expectancy? I realize such research is going on -- I'd like it to be promoted better. The world is already an inhospitable place for many people and we already don't respond well enough. Currently I don't see why we would respond any better if things get worse.
The many-headed monster of international trade agreements
Why should the growth of economy be a miracle if the population is shrinking?

Mostly that's why the population is shrinking, people who live in the better economies, mostly have less kids, mostly due to the fact that they don't have the time and mostly working harder than others.

Also our economy grown mostly cause of the fact that our strong export got a huge increase since we had a european currency ("Deutsche Mark" or "DM" was just too good for the export market), while the Euro is / was way better since other countries brought it to a lower level.
There is no "guide" for self starting entrepreneurs. Marcus has vast knowledge and a large network. By tapping both, he will offer wide perspective and support for the next great business idea (and the people behind it).
So Siri won't confirm before dialing? That seems a little odd.
OR even succeeds, get bought out for 40 million dollars, which all goes to pay investors' convertible debt. Net result: stock worthless.
Building Apps and Provisioning Profiles for iOS
The report is available for download without sign-up on Akamai's community site: https://community.akamai.com/docs/DOC-2245
Please try to be specific in your criticism. What misunderstanding does the above poster have about the science or the data?
Very cool visualization and great way to display it.

As someone who refuses to trust authority and wants to understand things for myself before making a decision, global warming is very frustrating because nobody will answer my questions without personal attacks or appeals to authority. I don't have an agenda either way, I just have a very inquisitive mind. Have any of you felt the same?

Some of the questions I have that never seem to get an adequate answer:

1) How are the models validated? Is it like backtesting a trading strategy? Come up with a hypothesis that seems to fit historical data, then let it run with actual data, and see how accurate it is? If so, how have the models held up?

2) How do they account for confounding factors and how do they separate causal correlations from mere correlations?

For example, at 95% of fires firemen were present. Firemen and fires are strongly correlated. But nobody would say firemen are the cause of fires.

Cholesterol was thought to be a causal factor for heart problems because it is strongly correlated but they later found it is not a causal factor. Something else causes the heart disease and cholesterol raises when heart disease is present. They can use it as a predictor of heart disease but it is now understood that cholesterol doesn't actually cause the problem.

3) It seems to me that for a model to be trusted it must have predictive capability, and it must fit a physical model of our current understanding. How do the various models hold up with these criteria? It seems like climate is still a very complex field that we don't fully understand.
> (I'd work my ass off without options, but the options really make it easy to say "I will do everything in my power to make this succeed" instead of "I'd rather go spend time with my friends tonight").

that implies that it is somehow better to work 24/7, when in fact often you get your best ideas when you are away from work, with friends, working out and so on, all things that are just as important to remain fresh and not burn out.

Considering that until you exit you can't know how much your options are worth (due to valuation, dilution, quarter results during the lockdown period after going public, etc. etc. etc.) to me options are worth $0 and do not come into play at all when evaluating a job at a company.

From my perspective it's all about what I'd be working on and with: is it something I believe in? is it something that has a chance of success? is it something I would see myself happy to work on every day? are the people I would work with people I can mesh well with? All of those are a lot more important than a lottery ticket.

Another thing you might want to consider on the hiring side is that paying way below market salaries and offering options instead you are likely to attract employees that find that agreeable, which might or might not be who would help you be successful: sometimes it might be better hiring a single experienced developer at market than 2 less experienced ones that are willing to work for cheap, especially towards the beginning when it comes to making architectural decisions that might stick around for a long time and come back to bite you later.
Yep, we're on the same page. The wording they use is "In some cases, senders may be able to know whether an individual has opened a message with unique image links." but I'd expect the tracking URLs themselves to be unique (most are, they are tied to an email so they know who opened the email and who didn't) so they would most likely bypass this cache. I expect the "some cases" refers to the ones where it simply gives you a count of people who opened your email, and does it by simply having a generic tracking URL.
> Maybe I'm just smarter than most climate scientists?

You're really not, and your comments bear that out.
Battery behaving beta
Hey guys!

Cool idea.

Sounds like a great fit for my partner.

Do you work with remote workers, non-US citizens?
Gotcha, it's the first corporate chat app I've used outside of Skype, so I guess I don't know how bad it was, ha. I've personally had trouble with how unintuitive Slack's UI can be sometimes, when it seems like they're just trying to find places for all their features. But it's gotten ridiculously better in their last redesign.
Some can ELI5 redis for me? And also this extension?
Understanding homoiconicity through Clojure macros
State of Technology: Class of 2015 – Niche
This is, of course, a C problem. We've really got to get rid of C for anything security-critical.

On the other hand, it must be noted that there's a ton of subtle timing-related attacks in crypto where low-level control of memory layout strongly benefits their mitigation [1]. I don't know how mechanisms provided by languages like Rust fare into this, though C has definitely been tried and tested well.

Then the idea of moving away GNU, the Linux kernel, Freedesktop projects and all the other myriad software from C is a pipe dream, anyway. It might have been attainable if something like Cyclone won out which extended C only to a minimum for security purposes, but otherwise the task is immense.

[1] https://cryptocoding.net/index.php/Coding_rules
You should just stop with this line of thinking. You have to understand the scientific context and the limits of the data to learn anything. (Source: I know several contributors to the IPCC AR5 report, and I try to have the proper respect for their expertise.)
Just a heads up, the 90 day out clauses are usually put in there by the company lawyers. The only rule the IRS has is that ISO options flip to NSO after 90 days[0].

Take a look at the Pinterest options plan[1], where Pinterest actually gives you 7 years from when you leave to exercise. Your ISO options just flip to NSO after 90 days.

[0] http://www.mystockoptions.com/faq/index.cfm/catID/36274DB1-D...
[1] http://fortune.com/2015/03/23/pinterest-employee-taxes/
Interesting article but it fails to mention a significant source of liquidity for startup shares (both currently and historically):

Acquisition by a publicly traded company.

IPO isn't the only way to obtain liquidity, but what's interesting is just like companies are shunning IPO they are also shunning acquisition.

We don't normally get to know about failed acquisition offers but Snapchat's $3bn offer by Facebook is a great case in point. A few years ago practically no one would have turned down that kind of offer, which would have also created a liquidity event for everyone currently employed at Snapchat. Various factors today mean someone like Evan Siegel was prepared to turn that down.

I'd love to see more discussion about that as much as the IPO market itself.
I've no idea why you've been downvoted. While it's not amazingly pertinent, it's worthy to note that security from source assumes your compiler is being honest.
I remember chatting with you a while back as I was also working on a pastebin scraping project. http://github.com/shayanjm/pasteye

Glad to see dumpmon is still going strong :)
> Great Filters

Quick link for those who haven't read Fermi paradox et al.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

Inline summary for the lazy:
If we don't see intelligent life, and the universe is as old as it is, then it must be unlikely for life to persist to a stage where we could detect it. This unlikeliness can come in two forms: either it's unlikely to ever be created (hurray, we won!) or there's some future stage that's it's unlikely to pass (uh oh us).