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my secret hobby: applying for jobs

"these companies don't notice that in this way, the good people a driven away, and only the desperate will apply."this. one of the reasons i chose my last employer (sap, or more specifically, sap research) was their no bullshit, yet very thorough, recruitment process.compare that with my 0a very, very, well known software corp2 experience, where the phone call interview with hr went like that:hr drone: "so, what's your degree?"me: "mathematics." [didn't you read my resume?]hr: "oh... well... most of the people working here have cs degrees."me: "ah, well, my last job title was 'computer science researcher' and before that i had several years of experience as a programmer, so i think i'll fit" [apparently not!]hr: "yes, but do you know algorithms?"me: bangs head on wallsorry, no matter how reputable your company is, if that's the recruitment process then i can do better.

these companies don't notice that in this way, the good people a driven away, and only the desperate will apply.it's a catch-22. without this process, every man 8 his dog will apply for the job causing the company to have to filter through literally hundreds of applications in order to find appropriate candidates. those that actually take the time to tolerate the process obviously consider themselves suitable and do really want the job.as a tech recruiter, i'm generally the front line for job applications and i'll give you stats from my most recent role:python dev- london - circa £45kapplications: 48* 36 highly irrelevant and inappropriate candidates that were blatantly just clicking 'apply' on every job they found.* 6 applications with no cv attached.* 6 potentially relevant candidates.* out of the 6 potentials that i spoke to over the phone and face to face, only 2 were worth submitting directly to the client.these stats are pretty much the norm for most of the roles i advertise.

my secret hobby: applying for jobs

these companies don't notice that in this way, the good people a driven away, and only the desperate will apply.it's a catch-22. without this process, every man 8 his dog will apply for the job causing the company to have to filter through literally hundreds of applications in order to find appropriate candidates. those that actually take the time to tolerate the process obviously consider themselves suitable and do really want the job.as a tech recruiter, i'm generally the front line for job applications and i'll give you stats from my most recent role:python dev- london - circa £45kapplications: 48* 36 highly irrelevant and inappropriate candidates that were blatantly just clicking 'apply' on every job they found.* 6 applications with no cv attached.* 6 potentially relevant candidates.* out of the 6 potentials that i spoke to over the phone and face to face, only 2 were worth submitting directly to the client.these stats are pretty much the norm for most of the roles i advertise.

for some reason this story reminds me of one of the arabian nights stories, which, in the translation i read, began:"know, my friends, when i was no more than eight years old, i had already cultivated the remarkable habit of telling one really big lie per year".i wonder if these hobbies could be combined? indulging in these kind of pranks seems almost justifiable given the "can they really be serious" shenanigans perpetrated upon those of our trade by the interviewers and recruiters.i am polishing my resume, with special emphasis on my glory days at the austrian naval academy.

my secret hobby: applying for jobs

for some reason this story reminds me of one of the arabian nights stories, which, in the translation i read, began:"know, my friends, when i was no more than eight years old, i had already cultivated the remarkable habit of telling one really big lie per year".i wonder if these hobbies could be combined? indulging in these kind of pranks seems almost justifiable given the "can they really be serious" shenanigans perpetrated upon those of our trade by the interviewers and recruiters.i am polishing my resume, with special emphasis on my glory days at the austrian naval academy.

i'm really happy where i'm contracting at the moment, but like to apply for challenging-looking roles. two big benefits here:a) if somewhere offers you a lot money, you can take that back to your current employer. i've had a 30% payrise from that before on my day rate.b) slightly bigger companies with big pockets are often hiring 'unofficially'. that means if they know you and like you, they're often willing to employ you. if you've applied for a job, but turned it down while being very very positive about the company, you've got a set of contacts there to email when you current contract doesn't get renewed...

my secret hobby: applying for jobs

i'm really happy where i'm contracting at the moment, but like to apply for challenging-looking roles. two big benefits here:a) if somewhere offers you a lot money, you can take that back to your current employer. i've had a 30% payrise from that before on my day rate.b) slightly bigger companies with big pockets are often hiring 'unofficially'. that means if they know you and like you, they're often willing to employ you. if you've applied for a job, but turned it down while being very very positive about the company, you've got a set of contacts there to email when you current contract doesn't get renewed...

interesting observations. as someone who has been in hiring positions over several years, the signal to noise ratio in recruiting consistently goes down. on-line recruiting used to be the domain of the talented. now that everyone is on-line, the professional job-searchers have more time on their hands.let's say the unqualified outnumber the qualified by 5 to 1. they're also job-searching on company time, so they send out 5 times as many resumes as the qualified. their resumes then outnumber the qualified by 25 to 1. this gives you the ratios that peroni sees.what's hard - very hard - is that good engineers aren't great at writing job descriptions that are useful to hr recruiters. conversely, many good hr recruiters still don't understand technical job descriptions.in the end, this is why the best recruiting method still seems to be, "ask your best person who their most capable friend is."

how we created the world's best low-latency video streaming system

fortunately, there was a startup–which has requested not to be named–that saw the potential here. with a few features, x264 could be turned into the most powerful low-latency streaming platform in the world....videoconferencing? pah! i’m playing call of duty 4 over a live video stream!october 2009 seems a little late for it, but could the startup be onlive? <link>

you should get wowza to adopt this technology, the keyframe-less solution is a big step forward.what are the implications for automatic bandwidth adaptation?to do all this without touching the decoder, so staying within the standard is really impressive, it's funny how such constraints bring out the creativity.

how we created the world's best low-latency video streaming system

you should get wowza to adopt this technology, the keyframe-less solution is a big step forward.what are the implications for automatic bandwidth adaptation?to do all this without touching the decoder, so staying within the standard is really impressive, it's funny how such constraints bring out the creativity.

what would it take to write a windows driver that pretended to be a monitor but actually multiplexed to an actual monitor and a x264 stream? what kind of bounty would be required to get such a thing written?

how we created the world's best low-latency video streaming system

what would it take to write a windows driver that pretended to be a monitor but actually multiplexed to an actual monitor and a x264 stream? what kind of bounty would be required to get such a thing written?

will it play in flash, like <link> ? that would be awesome...

how we created the world's best low-latency video streaming system

will it play in flash, like <link> ? that would be awesome...

hmm.. boxee could use something like this.

don't break the chain some good advice that can apply to any aspiration

i found it works for running. after you have a two month streak going, you really don't want to miss a day. you find you make the rest of your life fit around it.

this principle is why many lisp hackers fail to make good web sites or applications. lisp programming can lead to days and weeks of fun programming, so that you break the chain of doing less-fun but important programming. sometimes the improvement users want most involves non-fun programming. you really have to push yourself to implement it instead of procrastinating by coding something more fun but less desired.

don't break the chain some good advice that can apply to any aspiration

this principle is why many lisp hackers fail to make good web sites or applications. lisp programming can lead to days and weeks of fun programming, so that you break the chain of doing less-fun but important programming. sometimes the improvement users want most involves non-fun programming. you really have to push yourself to implement it instead of procrastinating by coding something more fun but less desired.

i can imagine using multiple colors for various tasks on a single board. i might try this. i use something close to gtd, with a flat text file. i really need a pda though.

don't break the chain some good advice that can apply to any aspiration

i can imagine using multiple colors for various tasks on a single board. i might try this. i use something close to gtd, with a flat text file. i really need a pda though.

seinfeld kept telling the same jokes for years.

don't break the chain some good advice that can apply to any aspiration

seinfeld kept telling the same jokes for years.

it works. i used to do something similar for going to the gym

fluid: a ui prototyping tool

the tutorial is well done and fluid is very fun to use. i love how simple it is to setup simple transitions and "play" the app.dragging a page into the trashcan is inconsistent with deleting an element by hitting the trashcan button; it took me a bit of frustration to figure out. there's no way to figure out what the buttons do short of clicking on them to figure it out. most features are intuitive but as evidenced by the "actually it looks to me like it's only for iphone design." comment the ui could use a little more explanation (there's no rule against using an icon /and/ text for menu options).i really don't understand why there are so many negative comments, this is very nicely done and i can see it being useful. i'll definitely give using it a shot on my next mobile project.

2 browser not currently supportedfirefox that is.

fluid: a ui prototyping tool

2 browser not currently supportedfirefox that is.

nice. needs more snapping. i hate pixel-perfect aligning stuff by hand.

fluid: a ui prototyping tool

nice. needs more snapping. i hate pixel-perfect aligning stuff by hand.

i'm getting overwhelmed by all these nifty browser based prototyping tools coming out. very cool stuff, but it seems like the market is starting to get a little saturated

fluid: a ui prototyping tool

i'm getting overwhelmed by all these nifty browser based prototyping tools coming out. very cool stuff, but it seems like the market is starting to get a little saturated

2 fluid: a clever ui prototyping tool** for mobile designs

ask hn: news website without the 'silly news'? i'm looking for a "normal" website (i.e. not the drudge report) with normal news, minus all the sensationalist headlines.<p>i'm sick of the "common man's" approach on cnn and bbc, which are my primary two sources. i'm tired of polls asking "do you agree with the racist decision by xxx?" and 8-month old news recycled as a news video taking up the headline spot.<p>anyone know of a good, real, hard-core news site? it needs to be "mass marketable" because this'll be going to some non-geeks.

try the english version of al jazeera - <link> i'm sure it won't be your primary source but it's usually worth a look.

on paper, it was always the economist.

ask hn: news website without the 'silly news'? i'm looking for a "normal" website (i.e. not the drudge report) with normal news, minus all the sensationalist headlines.<p>i'm sick of the "common man's" approach on cnn and bbc, which are my primary two sources. i'm tired of polls asking "do you agree with the racist decision by xxx?" and 8-month old news recycled as a news video taking up the headline spot.<p>anyone know of a good, real, hard-core news site? it needs to be "mass marketable" because this'll be going to some non-geeks.

on paper, it was always the economist.

what has been your experience with customizing google news? google will never have the fastest coverage of a breaking story like the balloon boy, because it is aggregating other people's content with a time lag, but i have tweaked my preferences a lot on google news to where i can rely on it for a lot of international news and very little news that shows up on local tv. (i do have a google news customization that shows me local news from my town, but not most of the silly stuff.)i agree with the endorsements of the economist (especially), bbc, and the new yorker already posted, but what i like about google news is the even broader reach of sources and stories.

ask hn: news website without the 'silly news'? i'm looking for a "normal" website (i.e. not the drudge report) with normal news, minus all the sensationalist headlines.<p>i'm sick of the "common man's" approach on cnn and bbc, which are my primary two sources. i'm tired of polls asking "do you agree with the racist decision by xxx?" and 8-month old news recycled as a news video taking up the headline spot.<p>anyone know of a good, real, hard-core news site? it needs to be "mass marketable" because this'll be going to some non-geeks.

what has been your experience with customizing google news? google will never have the fastest coverage of a breaking story like the balloon boy, because it is aggregating other people's content with a time lag, but i have tweaked my preferences a lot on google news to where i can rely on it for a lot of international news and very little news that shows up on local tv. (i do have a google news customization that shows me local news from my town, but not most of the silly stuff.)i agree with the endorsements of the economist (especially), bbc, and the new yorker already posted, but what i like about google news is the even broader reach of sources and stories.

i was thinking about starting a site like this (perhaps based on this source code). the only issue i thought of was that people would just have to accept that i was going to be the dictator in what goes in and what doesn't. with topics like politics that can cause a problem and also if i don't know enough about a given topic (say local us politics) to know if it's a recycled story or not.i still might do this though so if anybody wants to help out or has any ideas please chime in.

ask hn: news website without the 'silly news'? i'm looking for a "normal" website (i.e. not the drudge report) with normal news, minus all the sensationalist headlines.<p>i'm sick of the "common man's" approach on cnn and bbc, which are my primary two sources. i'm tired of polls asking "do you agree with the racist decision by xxx?" and 8-month old news recycled as a news video taking up the headline spot.<p>anyone know of a good, real, hard-core news site? it needs to be "mass marketable" because this'll be going to some non-geeks.

i was thinking about starting a site like this (perhaps based on this source code). the only issue i thought of was that people would just have to accept that i was going to be the dictator in what goes in and what doesn't. with topics like politics that can cause a problem and also if i don't know enough about a given topic (say local us politics) to know if it's a recycled story or not.i still might do this though so if anybody wants to help out or has any ideas please chime in.

btw, my fallback is global.nytimes.com - it doesn't have as much "news" as cnn/bbc but it does update fairly quickly and with less bull.

game show problem (1990)

i really only understood the monty hall problem intuitively when i sat down to write a simulation of it to convince someone else that the math (which had already convinced me) was actually correct. here's julia code for it: function monty_hall(switch::bool; n=3) winner, guess = rand(1:n), rand(1:n) reveal = setdiff(1:n,[winner,guess])[rand(1:end)] if switch guess = setdiff(1:n,[guess,reveal])[rand(1:end)] end return guess == winner end this allows you to simulate the switch and don't switch strategies: julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(false) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.33166 julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(true) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.6676 but more importantly, you can see that in the don't-switch case, the reveal choice is dead code – it has no effect on wether the original guess was right or not. that's the key insight: since the original guess had 1/3 chance of being right before the reveal, it still has a 1/3 change of being right after the reveal. before the reveal the other two choices also each had a 1/3 chance of being winners, but after the reveal their combined 2/3 chance is concentrated entirely on the door that wasn't revealed, making that the best option.the code also lets us see what happens with a generalized monty hall problem for more doors: julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(false, n=4) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.24862 julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(true, n=4) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.37462 julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(false, n=5) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.19763 julia&gt; mean([ monty_hall(true, n=5) for _=1:100000 ]) 0.2666 even for higher numbers of doors, it's better to switch.

what a shame that the title doesn't reveal what this is -- it's the original appearance of the monty hall problem, when marilyn vos savant answered the problem correctly, only to be criticized (wrongly) by any number of well-educate academics, like this one:&quot;since you seem to enjoy coming straight to the point, i’ll do the same. you blew it! let me explain. if one door is shown to be a loser, that information changes the probability of either remaining choice, neither of which has any reason to be more likely, to 1/2. as a professional mathematician, i’m very concerned with the general public’s lack of mathematical skills. please help by confessing your error and in the future being more careful. -- robert sachs, ph.d.&quot;doctor sachs was entirely wrong, as were about ten thousand other academics who ganged up on vos savant in the months following the appearance of this column.the real outcome is that, if the contestant doesn't change doors, his probability of winning is 1/3, but if he does change doors, his chance goes up to 2/3. details:<link>

game show problem (1990)

what a shame that the title doesn't reveal what this is -- it's the original appearance of the monty hall problem, when marilyn vos savant answered the problem correctly, only to be criticized (wrongly) by any number of well-educate academics, like this one:&quot;since you seem to enjoy coming straight to the point, i’ll do the same. you blew it! let me explain. if one door is shown to be a loser, that information changes the probability of either remaining choice, neither of which has any reason to be more likely, to 1/2. as a professional mathematician, i’m very concerned with the general public’s lack of mathematical skills. please help by confessing your error and in the future being more careful. -- robert sachs, ph.d.&quot;doctor sachs was entirely wrong, as were about ten thousand other academics who ganged up on vos savant in the months following the appearance of this column.the real outcome is that, if the contestant doesn't change doors, his probability of winning is 1/3, but if he does change doors, his chance goes up to 2/3. details:<link>

i finally got it! it's because whether the host has opened a door or not doesn't matter.you know from the start that one out of three doors has a car behind it, and his opening one of the remaining doors doesn't change it. he just shows you what you already know.when you select your door, you know there is a 1/3 chance that your door has a car behind it, and a 2/3 chance that it doesn't. the host opens another door, and there is still a 2/3 chance your door has no car. it has only been proven that the door the host opened has no car behind it.edit: to clarify, i'll rephrase. when you select your door, you know it has a 1 in 3 chance of hiding the car, and importantly, you know that there is a 2 in 3 chance that the car is not behind your door.when the host opens his door, you still know there is a 2 in 3 chance that your door doesn't have a car behind it, but are now guaranteed that, if you chose the wrong door in the first place, you will now choose the right door.it's not that the host's door is eliminated from the possibilities, it's that you can either open your door or effectively open all the rest of the doors to find the car. which would you choose?

game show problem (1990)

i finally got it! it's because whether the host has opened a door or not doesn't matter.you know from the start that one out of three doors has a car behind it, and his opening one of the remaining doors doesn't change it. he just shows you what you already know.when you select your door, you know there is a 1/3 chance that your door has a car behind it, and a 2/3 chance that it doesn't. the host opens another door, and there is still a 2/3 chance your door has no car. it has only been proven that the door the host opened has no car behind it.edit: to clarify, i'll rephrase. when you select your door, you know it has a 1 in 3 chance of hiding the car, and importantly, you know that there is a 2 in 3 chance that the car is not behind your door.when the host opens his door, you still know there is a 2 in 3 chance that your door doesn't have a car behind it, but are now guaranteed that, if you chose the wrong door in the first place, you will now choose the right door.it's not that the host's door is eliminated from the possibilities, it's that you can either open your door or effectively open all the rest of the doors to find the car. which would you choose?

understanding this problem means you can differentiate between the two scenarios below:(1) if the host reveals an empty door at random, your odds are 1/3 and you should switch.(2) if the host reveals a door at random that happens to be empty, your odds are 1/2 and it doesn't matter.the reason that so many people get confused is that they read the words and their minds automatically jump to scenario 2.

game show problem (1990)

understanding this problem means you can differentiate between the two scenarios below:(1) if the host reveals an empty door at random, your odds are 1/3 and you should switch.(2) if the host reveals a door at random that happens to be empty, your odds are 1/2 and it doesn't matter.the reason that so many people get confused is that they read the words and their minds automatically jump to scenario 2.

i find it easist to understand if you increase the number of doors. imagine you have to pick one of ten then the host removes eight wrong answers.

why json will continue to push xml out of the picture

i think this article has done a great job enumerating trends that show json is beating xml for data serialization applications. i think these points are evidence of a shift in thinking, but not the reason for shift itself.why json over xml? because people need data serialization format and xml is a markup language. json is gaining widespread adoption for data serialization applications since it's the correct tool. xml isn't.in a markup language there is an underlying text that you're annotating with machine readable tags. most data interchange doesn't have an underlying text -- you can't strip away the tags and expect it to be understandable. if you're writing a web page, that has to be read by humans and interpreted by machines... you need a markup language.by contrast, data interchange is about moving arbitrary data structures between processes and/or languages. json's information model fits this model perfectly: its nested map/list/scalar is simple 8 powerful. as for typing, it found a sweet spot with text/numeric/boolean.json is the right tool for the data serialization problem.

for me the single greatest selling point of json is that it's just so danged easy to go from json string to a usable map/list/dictionary in every language. most of the time you can get from a to b in one or two lines of code.xml always seemed like such a struggle by comparison. figuring out which parser(s) you've got installed, figuring out their respective apis -- it felt like total overkill. the only way i could be productive with xml was using python's elementtree api because it was so simple.some day i'll need my data to be checked against a complicated schema. but until that day arrives, i'm sticking with json.

why json will continue to push xml out of the picture

for me the single greatest selling point of json is that it's just so danged easy to go from json string to a usable map/list/dictionary in every language. most of the time you can get from a to b in one or two lines of code.xml always seemed like such a struggle by comparison. figuring out which parser(s) you've got installed, figuring out their respective apis -- it felt like total overkill. the only way i could be productive with xml was using python's elementtree api because it was so simple.some day i'll need my data to be checked against a complicated schema. but until that day arrives, i'm sticking with json.

could someone who knows a lot about these things tell me why json took such a long time to arrive?json, at its core, is essentially a hierarchy of maps and lists -- which seems a very intuitive and useful way to store data.xml on the other hand has always baffled me with its attributes and the redundant and verbose tags (why do i need 0tag attr="data"2data0/tag2?). i'm sure there was a good reason at the time for this, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

why json will continue to push xml out of the picture

could someone who knows a lot about these things tell me why json took such a long time to arrive?json, at its core, is essentially a hierarchy of maps and lists -- which seems a very intuitive and useful way to store data.xml on the other hand has always baffled me with its attributes and the redundant and verbose tags (why do i need 0tag attr="data"2data0/tag2?). i'm sure there was a good reason at the time for this, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

well-written xml that was designed for humans instead of machines is much, much more easier to read than json. the primary reason is that unlike s-expressions or xml, there is no block-name. in json you loose valuable time figuring out the block context in a hierarchy since this isn't labelled.the only kind of json that is readable is flat json that is nested to a maximum of 1 level.

why json will continue to push xml out of the picture

well-written xml that was designed for humans instead of machines is much, much more easier to read than json. the primary reason is that unlike s-expressions or xml, there is no block-name. in json you loose valuable time figuring out the block context in a hierarchy since this isn't labelled.the only kind of json that is readable is flat json that is nested to a maximum of 1 level.

i don't foresee json ever replacing xml as a "full-blown successor" in the contexts where xml actually is useful: for marking up documents.as a general data storage format, xml is certainly going away.

learn vim progressively

damn, i've been using vim for almost a decade and didn't realize that /0term2 worked as a movement so you can do things like y2/foo and yank to the second occurrence of “foo” (to use the example from the tutorial).that's why i scan every beginner vim tutorial that comes across hn. i always learn something

here's a vim trick i only figured out fairly recently. everybody knows that % jumps between a bracket, brace or parenthesis and its matched pair, but what happens if you hit % while the cursor isn't on such a character? turns out, it searches forward until it finds such a character, then jumps to its matched pair.so for example, let's say you had a nested function invocation that was getting long and unwieldy and you wanted to break it out onto its own line: foo = makefoo( globalconfig.getparam( "foosize", int, default="37", ) ) if you put the cursor on the 'g' at the beginning of 'globalconfig' and press "d%", it will cut the function name and all the parameters in one action.

learn vim progressively

here's a vim trick i only figured out fairly recently. everybody knows that % jumps between a bracket, brace or parenthesis and its matched pair, but what happens if you hit % while the cursor isn't on such a character? turns out, it searches forward until it finds such a character, then jumps to its matched pair.so for example, let's say you had a nested function invocation that was getting long and unwieldy and you wanted to break it out onto its own line: foo = makefoo( globalconfig.getparam( "foosize", int, default="37", ) ) if you put the cursor on the 'g' at the beginning of 'globalconfig' and press "d%", it will cut the function name and all the parameters in one action.

nice tutorial—better than many.however, these kind of tutorials always fail to mention the number one way to learn vim: vimtutor and :h usr_02.txt those two (and successive pages in the user manual) will teach you practically everything about vim—and they're included right in vim.

learn vim progressively

nice tutorial—better than many.however, these kind of tutorials always fail to mention the number one way to learn vim: vimtutor and :h usr_02.txt those two (and successive pages in the user manual) will teach you practically everything about vim—and they're included right in vim.

don't do what this guy says! or at least don't stay in phase 1 for longer than a day. i've had used vim for a few years as a pico replacement, whenever i was on a remote computer on ssh. i picked up some really bad habit, like staying in insert mode all the time and using the arrow, home and end keys. i actually had to deactivate the arrow keys in my vimrc.i would recommend going thought the tutorial, that comes with vim (vimtutor command) and after that reading those articles:<link>

learn vim progressively

don't do what this guy says! or at least don't stay in phase 1 for longer than a day. i've had used vim for a few years as a pico replacement, whenever i was on a remote computer on ssh. i picked up some really bad habit, like staying in insert mode all the time and using the arrow, home and end keys. i actually had to deactivate the arrow keys in my vimrc.i would recommend going thought the tutorial, that comes with vim (vimtutor command) and after that reading those articles:<link>

actually "cw" doesn't change the current word.. it changes where the cursor is to the end of the word. something i tend to use a lot is: (| is the cursor) ciw (really change the current word. "fo|o bar" -2 "| bar" ci" (change in between ": "test 12|34" -2 "|" da" (delete in between " and the "": a"test 12|34"b -2 ab also, plugins are extremely important. for instance, one of my favorite makes the "w" smarter for day to day programming word. (i mapped it to ,w) for example: "pac|kagemanager" ci,w "|manager" "pac|kage_manager" ci,w "|_manager"

show hn: hipaa compliant file storage we (truevault), released our hipaa compliant file storage today. our blob store is not a cloud file backup service like box or dropbox but instead, it's meant to be integrated with healthcare mobile apps, web apps and wearable devices. during our beta period in december, early adopters are using the blob store to store x-rays, ct scans, mris, pdfs, scanned medical records, images, and videos.<p>you can upload, update, delete, and download any binary file via our rest api.<p>we are also beta testing a browser-to-truevault direct file upload and download web form. if you would like to join the beta, please email us at beta@truevault.com<p>api: <link><p>blob post about its release: <link><p>love to get your feedback.

aws is also hippa compliant.<link>

first things first, and this is more for the edification of those commenting, not the group posting, the correct spelling is:h i p a athe acronym is the &quot;health information portability and accountability act.&quot;again,h i p a ai can't stand how many people mis-spell it - it exemplifies the fact that really and truly, people don't care about the regulatory standard enough to really learn about it ...not to hijack the thread, but i'd love to hear people's opinion on this question:which type of data is more important, health data or financial data, and why?i'll start, financial data is more important than health data. why? because we all use money at least 100+ times a day to get things done - outside of a doctor's visit health data is virtually worthless.outside of obtaining your soc number in a medical record, would you be more afraid if a person got your bank's routing number, or your insurance id?your credit card number, or the fact that you have erectile disfunction?

show hn: hipaa compliant file storage we (truevault), released our hipaa compliant file storage today. our blob store is not a cloud file backup service like box or dropbox but instead, it's meant to be integrated with healthcare mobile apps, web apps and wearable devices. during our beta period in december, early adopters are using the blob store to store x-rays, ct scans, mris, pdfs, scanned medical records, images, and videos.<p>you can upload, update, delete, and download any binary file via our rest api.<p>we are also beta testing a browser-to-truevault direct file upload and download web form. if you would like to join the beta, please email us at beta@truevault.com<p>api: <link><p>blob post about its release: <link><p>love to get your feedback.

first things first, and this is more for the edification of those commenting, not the group posting, the correct spelling is:h i p a athe acronym is the &quot;health information portability and accountability act.&quot;again,h i p a ai can't stand how many people mis-spell it - it exemplifies the fact that really and truly, people don't care about the regulatory standard enough to really learn about it ...not to hijack the thread, but i'd love to hear people's opinion on this question:which type of data is more important, health data or financial data, and why?i'll start, financial data is more important than health data. why? because we all use money at least 100+ times a day to get things done - outside of a doctor's visit health data is virtually worthless.outside of obtaining your soc number in a medical record, would you be more afraid if a person got your bank's routing number, or your insurance id?your credit card number, or the fact that you have erectile disfunction?

awesome work! i have a nascent project in the healthcare space and i will definitely consider using this for all hippa related issues.one tidbit - will you have some kind of &quot;hippa compliant&quot; image that can be placed on partner sites using your api? sort of like the &quot;secured by verisign&quot; graphic that shows up on ecommerce sites to give the end user more trust that their data is secure, etc.

show hn: hipaa compliant file storage we (truevault), released our hipaa compliant file storage today. our blob store is not a cloud file backup service like box or dropbox but instead, it's meant to be integrated with healthcare mobile apps, web apps and wearable devices. during our beta period in december, early adopters are using the blob store to store x-rays, ct scans, mris, pdfs, scanned medical records, images, and videos.<p>you can upload, update, delete, and download any binary file via our rest api.<p>we are also beta testing a browser-to-truevault direct file upload and download web form. if you would like to join the beta, please email us at beta@truevault.com<p>api: <link><p>blob post about its release: <link><p>love to get your feedback.

awesome work! i have a nascent project in the healthcare space and i will definitely consider using this for all hippa related issues.one tidbit - will you have some kind of &quot;hippa compliant&quot; image that can be placed on partner sites using your api? sort of like the &quot;secured by verisign&quot; graphic that shows up on ecommerce sites to give the end user more trust that their data is secure, etc.

per their site: &quot;example monthly cost:if webmd answers was a truevault customer, their monthly charge would only be $1,604. here's the breakdown: webmd answers has 5,036,000 questions, so that's 5,036,000 json documents stored . according to alexa, they have 1,042,705 page views a month, so that's 1,042,705 requests. and presto, $504 + $1,100 = $1,604/mo.&quot;to save money webmd should store their json documents as compressed binary objects and get way more than 10k documents per $1.

show hn: hipaa compliant file storage we (truevault), released our hipaa compliant file storage today. our blob store is not a cloud file backup service like box or dropbox but instead, it's meant to be integrated with healthcare mobile apps, web apps and wearable devices. during our beta period in december, early adopters are using the blob store to store x-rays, ct scans, mris, pdfs, scanned medical records, images, and videos.<p>you can upload, update, delete, and download any binary file via our rest api.<p>we are also beta testing a browser-to-truevault direct file upload and download web form. if you would like to join the beta, please email us at beta@truevault.com<p>api: <link><p>blob post about its release: <link><p>love to get your feedback.

per their site: &quot;example monthly cost:if webmd answers was a truevault customer, their monthly charge would only be $1,604. here's the breakdown: webmd answers has 5,036,000 questions, so that's 5,036,000 json documents stored . according to alexa, they have 1,042,705 page views a month, so that's 1,042,705 requests. and presto, $504 + $1,100 = $1,604/mo.&quot;to save money webmd should store their json documents as compressed binary objects and get way more than 10k documents per $1.

how is truevault better than aws?

google's new culture: perks are out. being grateful you have a job is in

some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were taken away was the day that google started to be just like every other company...

article's rather disingenuous. google's perks list is still extensive - trimming services out of fiscal concern isn't the same thing as switching to a minimalistic "be glad we give you anything at all" approach.and how much of it's just pr from schmidt to avoid looking like they're out of touch with the current economic situation?

google's new culture: perks are out. being grateful you have a job is in

article's rather disingenuous. google's perks list is still extensive - trimming services out of fiscal concern isn't the same thing as switching to a minimalistic "be glad we give you anything at all" approach.and how much of it's just pr from schmidt to avoid looking like they're out of touch with the current economic situation?

"we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had been available. [laughter]"sounds more like a joke to me. are google perks like the gourmet food really being cut? (i heard about the child care changes. it sounded like a reasonable change to me but not being a googler i wouldn't know and the details are hazy).the head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks at the top have made a actual decision to move more towards a "grey corporation".i had also assumed(wrongly?) that the layoffs got rid of some dubious people who were hired. i personally know some not so great people who somehow got hired.do any quotes or facts bear this out? the linked article seemed hyperbolic and twisting some quotes out of proportion. i sthere any difference "on the ground"? people don't get free food now? sounds insane!

google's new culture: perks are out. being grateful you have a job is in

"we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had been available. [laughter]"sounds more like a joke to me. are google perks like the gourmet food really being cut? (i heard about the child care changes. it sounded like a reasonable change to me but not being a googler i wouldn't know and the details are hazy).the head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks at the top have made a actual decision to move more towards a "grey corporation".i had also assumed(wrongly?) that the layoffs got rid of some dubious people who were hired. i personally know some not so great people who somehow got hired.do any quotes or facts bear this out? the linked article seemed hyperbolic and twisting some quotes out of proportion. i sthere any difference "on the ground"? people don't get free food now? sounds insane!

after this, re-read:<link> at the text "(cue happy rat)".

google's new culture: perks are out. being grateful you have a job is in

after this, re-read:<link> at the text "(cue happy rat)".

interestingly, google's offered pay rates for system administrators when they've tried to recruit me have been industry standard--for austin, tx. but the jobs were in silicon valley. maybe other roles have higher pay scales, but i turned them down because i didn't think they were paying well, and i am only used to salaries from state jobs, which have tended to be very nearly median for the industry.last time they tried to recruit me was 3-4 years ago. perhaps they've changed. but it held true for at least 4 years before that as well.

much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless (2010)

most criticisms of banking as a whole are largely about the moral hazard issues. seeking out and creating lopsided risk that can be partially offloaded onto the public while the rewards to those risks can be captured by the bank.there is a fantastic web series called the &quot;gervais principle: the office according to the office.(1)&quot; the central thesis is that organizations have three types of employees: sociopaths at the top. clueless in the middle. losers on the bottom. the defining characteristic of the sociopaths elite is 'the basic heads-i-win-tails-you-lose pattern behind all sociopath machinations.'strangely, this fun piece changed how i look at moral hazard. before, i thought of it mostly as an inevitable consequence of badly designed systems. similar to employee reward schemes that employees learn to manipulate in a way that is detrimental to the business or cobra bounties intended to reduce the number of snakes in a city leading to backyard cobra farms. i thought it was less of a problem in emergent, evolved human systems. after reading this piece, i think of it differently. it's a human psychology thing. human systems have assumptions about fair play built into them. psychologically perverse human (sociopaths) can take advantage of these assumptions.i knew a guy from uni. he was doing a research masters, badly. he failed. resubmitted. appealed. rewrote. appealed, and eventually got a pass. he wasn't really smart enough and he never understood the subject. but, universities (especially graduate programs) don't really fail students. students drop out, especially the ones who struggle. persistence can substitute for smarts and he walked away with masters from a top uni. i later learned that he got into the uni in the fist place with some hack. he applied to a second tier uni, and used some clever clauses to transfer to the better one without having to go through the front door admissions process.we then proceeded to hound every big name in the field for references. none of them wanted to read this pile of crap but again persistence can substitute for quality and he eventually got some nice references and quotes. he used these along with a professionally written resume and application letters ($450) to land a sought after graduate job. big government body that takes at least 12 months to fire someone. excellent entry into the world of public policy research. before that happened, he had found a recruiter who specializes in these guys. he moves jobs every 6-12 months which means a recurring bounty for the recruiter and a raise for the sociopath. on getting a job they immediately started planning for the next one, like a heist. he was so confident. it took a remarkably long time for bosses &amp; coworkers to figure out exactly how completely useless he was. these people are rare. the systems assume they don't exist and sociopaths take advantage of that weakness.around the same time i was hearing the story of a largish company (~$0.5b) bought by a hedge fund and placed in the hands of an 'a-player' team of senior executives. i knew a manager and long term (20yrs) employee there who narrated the story for me over a couple of years. outsiders to the company and industry, making salaries an order of magnitude higher than the previous executive team. they proceeded to ruin the company. but, they managed to conceal a lot of that. milking or liquidating assets. suing something like a leveraged buyout to raise massive funds to acquire companies. the owners eventually figured it out. the abysmal ceo and his team of executives were paid to leave and every one landed a ceo/coo job at an even bigger company. if they had happened on a win, i'm sure they would have done even better.after reading 'the gervais principle' i saw a bunch of examples of these 'sociopathic machinations' that are much more available to the average person. just about any mid level manager at any company can take big risks. draw up massive plans for expensive expansions. pitch advertising campaigns. offer to take on impossible product development. propose to open a new office in another country. promise huge benefits and demand huge resources. say you are 100% sure it will work. you might get what you ask for. if you get it, it starts. if you don't, whats the worst that can happen? maybe your proposals get shot down by a sane senior. that might hurt your status marginally. no big deal. you're more likely to walk away with a small win for initiative. if you get the resources and proceed to balls up your project, you can always quit. if you are in a position to find a similar job, thats not a big loss. if you hit the eject button at the appropriate time and still walk away with a win. you can time it so you are negotiating to be poached while running this doomed program. if it all works out, you are the author of a coup.a normal company is not resilient to this type of attack because its pretty rare and it's not usually identified if it does happen. companies are based on an assumption that people aren't like that. the normal deal is that the company takes on the relatively small risk of employees being unproductive. in exchange they take all the upside. a sociopath flips it, taking on massive risk the company is on the hook for and capture some of the rewards. they're own risk is capped at a pretty low level so the more reward the better, regardless of risk. in an extreme case they might lose their job and take a reputation hit, but most likely they'll just leave and get a higher salary elsewhere. it's like taking money out of a company account to the casino. if you double it, you keep the profit. the moral hazard is always there. most people just aren't corrupted by it.moral hazard is the right word for this. morality is what prevents it in normal circumstances. sociopath is a bad word for it, because it implies some sort of born pathology. that probably exists, but more often it is a learned behavior. human morality is absorbed from the environment. if you get a bunch of these sociopaths together, they will rub off on other people. that's how sociopaths breed. it's like a cancerous meme.i don't have suggestions for dealing with it.(1) <link>

i find the whole banking world to be fascinating, much in the same way that i find the topic of cancer to be fascinating. both are extremely complex and yet fundamentally simple. don't get me wrong, i'd much rather have a bank than have cancer, i'm just saying that i love learning about how these complex systems work, how they work with (and against) other systems, and so forth.in the case of international finance, i think it's really cool how an institution can help another institution raise capital, move debt, and mitigate losses. like any system that involves independent actors, banking can (and usually is) diseased by those who are able (both intellectually and financially) to game it for their own gain and to the detriment of the system as a whole.banking, it seems, is almost aware of how self-destructive it is. these entities take on complex risks that the smartest people in the world can barely understand and they hope that everything will &quot;just work&quot; or, when things don't work, they rely on their overall value to the system - we can't let banks fail.still, i don't think all bankers are socially worthless. they help to create confidence in the banking system and in finance in general. it's only the &quot;bad&quot; bankers that are worthless, and even then they are only worthless to those who stand to lose if they fail.

much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless (2010)

i find the whole banking world to be fascinating, much in the same way that i find the topic of cancer to be fascinating. both are extremely complex and yet fundamentally simple. don't get me wrong, i'd much rather have a bank than have cancer, i'm just saying that i love learning about how these complex systems work, how they work with (and against) other systems, and so forth.in the case of international finance, i think it's really cool how an institution can help another institution raise capital, move debt, and mitigate losses. like any system that involves independent actors, banking can (and usually is) diseased by those who are able (both intellectually and financially) to game it for their own gain and to the detriment of the system as a whole.banking, it seems, is almost aware of how self-destructive it is. these entities take on complex risks that the smartest people in the world can barely understand and they hope that everything will &quot;just work&quot; or, when things don't work, they rely on their overall value to the system - we can't let banks fail.still, i don't think all bankers are socially worthless. they help to create confidence in the banking system and in finance in general. it's only the &quot;bad&quot; bankers that are worthless, and even then they are only worthless to those who stand to lose if they fail.

this article seems to be making quite a few implicit assumptions that should be made more explicit:meanwhile, big banks also utilize many kinds of trading that aren’t in the service of their traditional clients. one is proprietary trading...there’s no social defense for this practice...implicit assumption: speculation is socially worthless.“you mean to tell me your work as a [fill in the blank here] is worth more to society than a firefighter? an elementary school teacher?...”implicit assumption: pay is or should be proportional to gross utility rather than marginal utility.apart from this it's typical economist claptrap - thousands of words, no real point. why is it here?

much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless (2010)

this article seems to be making quite a few implicit assumptions that should be made more explicit:meanwhile, big banks also utilize many kinds of trading that aren’t in the service of their traditional clients. one is proprietary trading...there’s no social defense for this practice...implicit assumption: speculation is socially worthless.“you mean to tell me your work as a [fill in the blank here] is worth more to society than a firefighter? an elementary school teacher?...”implicit assumption: pay is or should be proportional to gross utility rather than marginal utility.apart from this it's typical economist claptrap - thousands of words, no real point. why is it here?

i'm afraid if we will start measuring people by their &quot;social worthiness&quot; we'd very quickly arrive to conclusions which most readers of the new yorker would be very reluctant to support. at least i hope they would.

much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless (2010)

i'm afraid if we will start measuring people by their &quot;social worthiness&quot; we'd very quickly arrive to conclusions which most readers of the new yorker would be very reluctant to support. at least i hope they would.

money follows profits in the same way that water follows gravity - it flows into every nook and cranny it can find. the rules and regulations governing financial services are like the tanks and pipes through which water flows. if there's a (loop)hole, it will find it and drip through. if the rules that govern money are too weak, they will be eroded, in the same way that flowing water erodes a riverbank.loopholes will always be exploited. if a financial institution decides not to exploit a potentially profitable opportunity, someone else will (and reap the rewards). after a while, your shareholders are going to be asking pointed questions about why your competitors are more profitable. eventually, you're likely to be fired and replaced, or your company will be acquired by one of your more profitable competitors. thus, in a darwinistic fashion, those who exploit the loopholes prosper, while those to stand on their principles are eclipsed and, ultimately, perish.risk and reward are inextricably linked. you can't have one without the other. so, wherever you have the potential for profit (i.e. reward), you have the risk of failure. the fact that some banks were allowed to become too big to fail is a regulatory failure, and the regulators get their marching orders from congress, which is elected by the people.it's also worth bearing in mind that the us government looks set to make a handsome profit on its &quot;bail-outs&quot; (many of which were actually investments into, or loans to companies, which have yielded dividend or interest returns): <link>

xxxterm, a minimalist web browser

if you like xxxterm but feel like it isn't quite your cup of tea, try one of these other similar alternate web browsers:- luakit: <link> my favourite in this list. just webkit + lightweight lua shell. infinitely customizable.- surf: <link> from the same people who created wmii and dwm- uzbl: <link> haven't had much luck with this one, but it's quite interesting. a while back, there was some work into getting this to play nice with emacs (google: ezbl)

is there a configuration for this browser, or another micro-browser, which has anti-tracking, anti-social, adblock and flashblock built in?would be cool to store the history outside of the browser, in a kind of standard format. im not sure if it is easy enough to extract firefox history from its sqlite3 db. it would also be cool to switch where to store history/activitiy very fast, for example "send to home computer" or save for later synching with your other browsing profile...

xxxterm, a minimalist web browser

is there a configuration for this browser, or another micro-browser, which has anti-tracking, anti-social, adblock and flashblock built in?would be cool to store the history outside of the browser, in a kind of standard format. im not sure if it is easy enough to extract firefox history from its sqlite3 db. it would also be cool to switch where to store history/activitiy very fast, for example "send to home computer" or save for later synching with your other browsing profile...

despite the name, xxxterm is not a cli web browser. if you clicked looking to browse the internet in your terminal, try w3m. it also has vi shortcuts.

xxxterm, a minimalist web browser

despite the name, xxxterm is not a cli web browser. if you clicked looking to browse the internet in your terminal, try w3m. it also has vi shortcuts.

for a browser that seems to be built with security and privacy as top priorities, it seems to be missing some obvious features. how do you allow first-party scripts and cookies while still blocking third-party scripts and cookies? does it support surrogate scripts like noscript does, to deal with sites that actively try not to work when you block ads and tracking scripts? where's the adblock-style blacklist?

xxxterm, a minimalist web browser

for a browser that seems to be built with security and privacy as top priorities, it seems to be missing some obvious features. how do you allow first-party scripts and cookies while still blocking third-party scripts and cookies? does it support surrogate scripts like noscript does, to deal with sites that actively try not to work when you block ads and tracking scripts? where's the adblock-style blacklist?

lynx. <link> this is the most minimal browser i've ever used. it doesn't even have javascript. a lot of the web isn't supported on it due to the lack of javascript support.

former gm exec, bob lutz: fire the mbas and let the engineers run the show

at the risk of sounding overly snarky, i don't think that gm's leadership is in any position to make recommendations on how to run a car company.and to get to his point, it's fluff. which engineers, exactly, will run the show? the ones with the marketing skills, the social influence, and business knowledge to get the job done. i wonder if he knows that about 1/3 of mba's are engineers.

logically, they should fire the engineers and let lobbyists run the show. gm is in the business of government rent collecting, not cars.

former gm exec, bob lutz: fire the mbas and let the engineers run the show

logically, they should fire the engineers and let lobbyists run the show. gm is in the business of government rent collecting, not cars.

the only time apple ever lost the plot was when it put the m.b.a.s in charge.tim cook runs apple's operations, is widely credited as a supply chain genius, and has been acting ceo of the company since jobs started his latest medical leave. he received an mba from duke.

former gm exec, bob lutz: fire the mbas and let the engineers run the show

the only time apple ever lost the plot was when it put the m.b.a.s in charge.tim cook runs apple's operations, is widely credited as a supply chain genius, and has been acting ceo of the company since jobs started his latest medical leave. he received an mba from duke.

our company has been in business for 20+ years and our main policy is to never hire any mbas. has worked out great so far.

former gm exec, bob lutz: fire the mbas and let the engineers run the show

our company has been in business for 20+ years and our main policy is to never hire any mbas. has worked out great so far.

a counter argument to this was carlos ghosn's experience with nissan. he said that one of nissan's problems was engineers making cars for engineers, but that people did not want to buy.in reality creating, marketing and being successful with a product requires diverse perspectives.i think engineers beating up on mba's is no different from mba's beating up on "propellerheads." it's counter productive.and just because you have an mba, should you then be typecast by engineers? why does having an mba reduce someone's potential to be a passionate product person, or to have productive relationships with the makers?

turn your ipad into a 3d controller currently windows only with support for google sketchup and rhino. mac support coming in the next week.<p>here's some promo codes for the app store:<p>96k9347xttfk 9tfjm7y6ewk3 atyrlfrlxrfw m7wfmkyr6743 xjwakak6yja3

as someone who uses the unity game engine extensively, using my ipad for even the most basic zooming, panning, and orbiting would be useful. i look forward to support for additional 3d environments. i have yet to use an input system where movement in 3d space doesn't feel clunky; any alternative to the current mouse/keyboard combo is welcome.

awesome! what other software are you guys planning to support

turn your ipad into a 3d controller currently windows only with support for google sketchup and rhino. mac support coming in the next week.<p>here's some promo codes for the app store:<p>96k9347xttfk 9tfjm7y6ewk3 atyrlfrlxrfw m7wfmkyr6743 xjwakak6yja3

awesome! what other software are you guys planning to support

that looks goddamn awesome, great to see so much good stuff coming out of the velocity program in waterloo!

turn your ipad into a 3d controller currently windows only with support for google sketchup and rhino. mac support coming in the next week.<p>here's some promo codes for the app store:<p>96k9347xttfk 9tfjm7y6ewk3 atyrlfrlxrfw m7wfmkyr6743 xjwakak6yja3

that looks goddamn awesome, great to see so much good stuff coming out of the velocity program in waterloo!

very clever.wonder if an ipad on the other side of a keyboard to the mouse could be useful in photoshop too (somehow) - colour palette, brush selector, etc. while i'm at a computer, my ipad is sitting there doing nothing.

turn your ipad into a 3d controller currently windows only with support for google sketchup and rhino. mac support coming in the next week.<p>here's some promo codes for the app store:<p>96k9347xttfk 9tfjm7y6ewk3 atyrlfrlxrfw m7wfmkyr6743 xjwakak6yja3

very clever.wonder if an ipad on the other side of a keyboard to the mouse could be useful in photoshop too (somehow) - colour palette, brush selector, etc. while i'm at a computer, my ipad is sitting there doing nothing.

i don't do 3d work but i almost want to start because of the video on your site. seriously, that was a great presentation of what appears to be a great product.

leaftlet - a lightweight javascript library for interactive maps

i used a similar mapping library, <link> , around 4 years ago. it thought it was nice at the time. the documentation wasn't great, but there were decent examples and the support for gis standards like wms and wfs was solid. it looks like people have increasingly become dissatisfied with it and started working on alternatives like leaftlet.<link>

looks great. has anyone compared this and the google maps api? i'm working on a gis project and we're going to do some stuff in js for the web so i'm very curious.

leaftlet - a lightweight javascript library for interactive maps

looks great. has anyone compared this and the google maps api? i'm working on a gis project and we're going to do some stuff in js for the web so i'm very curious.

i love that this uses openstreetmap instead of google maps, as i like being able to control all my own data and not be reliant upon megacorp (tm) for my site to function. at the same time, i've never seen an osm api that seemed both as useful and as simple as the google maps api, but this looks pretty nice.i may have to wipe the dust off ratemystudentrental.com and retrofit leaflet at some point.

leaftlet - a lightweight javascript library for interactive maps

i love that this uses openstreetmap instead of google maps, as i like being able to control all my own data and not be reliant upon megacorp (tm) for my site to function. at the same time, i've never seen an osm api that seemed both as useful and as simple as the google maps api, but this looks pretty nice.i may have to wipe the dust off ratemystudentrental.com and retrofit leaflet at some point.

for some reason the map travels behind my cursor as i drag it around. this would drive me away if i was looking for an alternative mapping library to google maps.

leaftlet - a lightweight javascript library for interactive maps

for some reason the map travels behind my cursor as i drag it around. this would drive me away if i was looking for an alternative mapping library to google maps.

tried the demo really quickly (mac os x 10.6/safari 5) but i got rendering errors without breaking a sweat:<link> on it breaking so easily i wouldn't consider this an an alternative to google maps quite yet.

khan academy now supports tau

tau is clearer in some domains and pi is better in others. the mental overhead from switching between the two is too much, so just pick one already. and let the rest of us know, so we can go back to having a clear standard and not requiring the mental overhead of switching while studying different authors.oh yeah, we went through that 2000 years ago and the winner was pi. i haven't seen any compelling reason to switch yet. (says the guy who uses "j" for the imaginary constant. :p)

the proponents of tau that cite the ubiquity of the 2pi factor in maths seem to forget that it's an exceedingly huge swath of knowledge and thus any notion of ubiquity might as well be moot, or totally dependent on the region of maths this person frequents. i wouldn't be surprised if there are some domains of maths where even natural numbers are used rarely or almost never (formal logic springs to mind). that's why it's possible to cherry-pick favourable examples which support either side of pi-tau debate.but you might say, of course, that those fields of mathematics which tau makes "easier" are the ones important in early math education (especially below the university level). hence adopting tau would make them substantially friendlier and more intuitive to many people. while the idea of "fixing" math concept to make them more bearable to laymen should not be dismissed automatically, i would like to point out that the question of tau vs. 2pi is by no means the only issue of this kind. indeed, there are a couple of more "warts" in everyday maths that could also warrant "fixing". consider:* the direction in which positive and negative angles on two-dimensional, cartesian plane are measured [1]. counter-intuitively, the measure increases when going counterclockwise, while going clockwise decreases it.* the main diagonal [2] of a matrix goes from upper-left to lower-right corner, which coincides with the shape of backslash character.* the established order of indices for matrix' elements is row-column, so that a_xy refers to element in x-th row and y-th column of matrix a. this goes against the habit of specifying the horizontal coordinate before the vertical coordinate when talking about xy planes [3].* definition of convex [4] and concave [5] functions (for r-2r ones) do not agree with the intuitive associations based on plots of those functions. clearly, the convex one looks like a valley, and the concave one resembles a hill or mountain.i'm sure there are many more examples of such unreasonable, counter-intuitive conventions, so we really have a lot of work ahead of us. so, anyone fancies writing the slash diagonal manifesto?...[1] <link> [2] <link> [3] <link> [4] <link> [5] <link>

khan academy now supports tau

the proponents of tau that cite the ubiquity of the 2pi factor in maths seem to forget that it's an exceedingly huge swath of knowledge and thus any notion of ubiquity might as well be moot, or totally dependent on the region of maths this person frequents. i wouldn't be surprised if there are some domains of maths where even natural numbers are used rarely or almost never (formal logic springs to mind). that's why it's possible to cherry-pick favourable examples which support either side of pi-tau debate.but you might say, of course, that those fields of mathematics which tau makes "easier" are the ones important in early math education (especially below the university level). hence adopting tau would make them substantially friendlier and more intuitive to many people. while the idea of "fixing" math concept to make them more bearable to laymen should not be dismissed automatically, i would like to point out that the question of tau vs. 2pi is by no means the only issue of this kind. indeed, there are a couple of more "warts" in everyday maths that could also warrant "fixing". consider:* the direction in which positive and negative angles on two-dimensional, cartesian plane are measured [1]. counter-intuitively, the measure increases when going counterclockwise, while going clockwise decreases it.* the main diagonal [2] of a matrix goes from upper-left to lower-right corner, which coincides with the shape of backslash character.* the established order of indices for matrix' elements is row-column, so that a_xy refers to element in x-th row and y-th column of matrix a. this goes against the habit of specifying the horizontal coordinate before the vertical coordinate when talking about xy planes [3].* definition of convex [4] and concave [5] functions (for r-2r ones) do not agree with the intuitive associations based on plots of those functions. clearly, the convex one looks like a valley, and the concave one resembles a hill or mountain.i'm sure there are many more examples of such unreasonable, counter-intuitive conventions, so we really have a lot of work ahead of us. so, anyone fancies writing the slash diagonal manifesto?...[1] <link> [2] <link> [3] <link> [4] <link> [5] <link>

this brought me back to khan where i previous did every math exercise, and i was a bit disappointed to see that not too much has changed with the instruction they offer. i keep wanting math exercises beyond elementary calc, but they just gave the same stuff a face lift.i'm guessing they're heads down getting the khan platform that we've heard about, but does anyone have any updates?

khan academy now supports tau

this brought me back to khan where i previous did every math exercise, and i was a bit disappointed to see that not too much has changed with the instruction they offer. i keep wanting math exercises beyond elementary calc, but they just gave the same stuff a face lift.i'm guessing they're heads down getting the khan platform that we've heard about, but does anyone have any updates?

i still find it hard to see any practical, hard benefits of switching to tau. perhaps you could argue that many things become "more natural" but at this point, pi is ingrained in mathematics, and it works perfectly well. i just can't imagine that switching to tau would allow us to reap any benefits that were previously inaccessible. i don't think there's any reason to fix what ain't broke.

khan academy now supports tau

i still find it hard to see any practical, hard benefits of switching to tau. perhaps you could argue that many things become "more natural" but at this point, pi is ingrained in mathematics, and it works perfectly well. i just can't imagine that switching to tau would allow us to reap any benefits that were previously inaccessible. i don't think there's any reason to fix what ain't broke.

just for answers? lame. it would be noteworthy if they had an option to replace instances of pi with tau in all the practice problems.

do workplace wellness programs work? usually not

just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind, a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. that's all i need for &quot;wellness.&quot;

&gt; medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . .the question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

do workplace wellness programs work? usually not

&gt; medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . .the question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

i wonder if the pepsico healthy living program directed people to consume fewer pepsico products. it seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

do workplace wellness programs work? usually not

i wonder if the pepsico healthy living program directed people to consume fewer pepsico products. it seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

i've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to &quot;honor roll&quot; discounts with car insurance. as long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate.i get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. however, in my limited opinion, there's no way &quot;honor roll&quot; has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that i wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. this article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.

do workplace wellness programs work? usually not

i've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to &quot;honor roll&quot; discounts with car insurance. as long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate.i get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. however, in my limited opinion, there's no way &quot;honor roll&quot; has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that i wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. this article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.

this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting &quot;wellness&quot; are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.

ask hn: do you want to learn about game design?

ask hn: is this really an ask hn, or an attempt to disguise a garden-variety blog post as an ask hn just because ask hns tend to get upvoted a lot?one could easily rename any submission "x" as "ask hn: do you want to learn about x?" but it'd be a pretty cheap trick.

my experience as a veteran game programmer/designer is that few classes teach much of use.the reality is that game design is an art, not a science, and in general, like all arts, natural ability separates the good from the best.that being said, i wouldn't mind following along if i have time, to try and throw wrenches in and be a devil's advocate.

ask hn: do you want to learn about game design?

my experience as a veteran game programmer/designer is that few classes teach much of use.the reality is that game design is an art, not a science, and in general, like all arts, natural ability separates the good from the best.that being said, i wouldn't mind following along if i have time, to try and throw wrenches in and be a devil's advocate.

looks cool. i read a theory of fun and it was really insightful. i probably won't follow along with this class due to lack of time right now, though.i see you're organizing the class mostly through your blog. if you find that to be cumbersome, i've created a collaborative learning website that is designed for this kind of group learning. it can add some structure around the class, help people track their progress, and send out emails to students when new stuff happens. it's called curious reef <link> and it's free to create and take classes.

ask hn: do you want to learn about game design?

looks cool. i read a theory of fun and it was really insightful. i probably won't follow along with this class due to lack of time right now, though.i see you're organizing the class mostly through your blog. if you find that to be cumbersome, i've created a collaborative learning website that is designed for this kind of group learning. it can add some structure around the class, help people track their progress, and send out emails to students when new stuff happens. it's called curious reef <link> and it's free to create and take classes.

yes!it's been a long time since i've learned something not involving mathematics. game balance, game optimization, game physics etc. all involves mathematics. whereas game design probably has some mathematics laying around, i would suspect it would be much easier to grab than other mathematics in the area.

ask hn: do you want to learn about game design?

yes!it's been a long time since i've learned something not involving mathematics. game balance, game optimization, game physics etc. all involves mathematics. whereas game design probably has some mathematics laying around, i would suspect it would be much easier to grab than other mathematics in the area.

i know that lots of people here are interested in using game mechanics to increase their sites' stickiness for users. i thought that some of you might be interested in working together through a game design course to help understand why games work.

show hn: my guild wars 2 data viz weekend experiment using d3 and svg filters

as a design project it's cool. i think you did a good job and i don't mean to rain on your parade. but of course now i will. i think as a data visualization exercise, it's mostly what tufte would call "chart junk". the graphics don't aid into understanding, and actually sort of distract you from the point. it would be a lot easier to read if the axis labels said things like "warrior" instead of an obscure graphic, that even as a gw2 player myself, i have to think about. also, the pie chart...pie charts are problematic for understanding data because we don't do a good job at interpreting area. a bar chart is considered more effective. again, as a purely visual exercise, i think it looks cool.

this looks nice! and i like the link between the rings and the bars.i'm a bit thick. it took me a few minutes to realise that the rings of the circle are independent. for example, there can be female humans, all the humans are not male.on the bar charts you start at 0% (which is good), but you don't finish at 100%, nor on a similar number. one chart finishes at about 15% and another at about 30%. so at a glance the hight of the bars looks similar. i guess the width of the bars compensates? (and the race bar chart numbers add to 99%. is that a rounding thing?)

show hn: my guild wars 2 data viz weekend experiment using d3 and svg filters

this looks nice! and i like the link between the rings and the bars.i'm a bit thick. it took me a few minutes to realise that the rings of the circle are independent. for example, there can be female humans, all the humans are not male.on the bar charts you start at 0% (which is good), but you don't finish at 100%, nor on a similar number. one chart finishes at about 15% and another at about 30%. so at a glance the hight of the bars looks similar. i guess the width of the bars compensates? (and the race bar chart numbers add to 99%. is that a rounding thing?)

very cool!gw2 is currently my favorite game and am really surprised to see it on hn frontpage.i'm astounded at the amount of data anet is making available. and, how cleanly and robustly they've done it - all in json.another bit you might want to play with is their tp (trading post) json data. these guys (<link>, source is on github) do a really good job, but i'm sure there are tons more things, and ideas, that can come from all that data!good luck!

show hn: my guild wars 2 data viz weekend experiment using d3 and svg filters

very cool!gw2 is currently my favorite game and am really surprised to see it on hn frontpage.i'm astounded at the amount of data anet is making available. and, how cleanly and robustly they've done it - all in json.another bit you might want to play with is their tp (trading post) json data. these guys (<link>, source is on github) do a really good job, but i'm sure there are tons more things, and ideas, that can come from all that data!good luck!

this is pretty rad. it reminds me of our designer (joe golike)'s master's project, visualizing the economy of wow, also built in d3:<link> <link>

show hn: my guild wars 2 data viz weekend experiment using d3 and svg filters

this is pretty rad. it reminds me of our designer (joe golike)'s master's project, visualizing the economy of wow, also built in d3:<link> <link>

it looks great, but i noticed that the black outline animation lags heavily behind the rest, which makes the site feel incredibly sluggish, even though it's probably only just the one animation that ruins the perception.great job all in all.

show hn: slaverystories.org – memoirs from american slaves

when i saw &quot;slavery stories&quot; - i did a double take - i thought someone was putting up a website to talk about modern day slavery stories.cnn has a good site up on this subject - estimated 20-30 million people work in forced labor around the world today.<link> fact that slavery persists to this day, despite the known history and aftereffects, is an important subject that needs more awareness.

i was recently reading this book: <link> (title: when i was a slave: memoirs from the slave narrative collection)it contains interviews with slaves that were part of a public-works program geared towards writers/musicians and other white-collar workers during the great depression. it was a particularly fascinating text since lots of the interviewees were in their 90s and thus had experienced both the pre- and post-emancipation eras. the most consistent message i saw was that a group of oppressed people who had not been allowed to acquire any of the skills one needs to survive had been set free and asked to fend for themselves in a very hostile environment (jim crow laws and so on) and thus for most of that generation, it was like trading one problem for another.also, there are several statistics compiled where the african-american community features as an outlier. for instance, breast-feeding rates in that community are far lower than the rest of the us [1]. i didn't know that this was a result of what women in the slavery-era went through but learned that from the book.it is important to read literature from this era. tells us a lot about how just over a century ago, people employed rhetoric to convince themselves that slavery was really ok (see the talking points of the &quot;overseers&quot; and &quot;speculators&quot;).[1] <link>

show hn: slaverystories.org – memoirs from american slaves

i was recently reading this book: <link> (title: when i was a slave: memoirs from the slave narrative collection)it contains interviews with slaves that were part of a public-works program geared towards writers/musicians and other white-collar workers during the great depression. it was a particularly fascinating text since lots of the interviewees were in their 90s and thus had experienced both the pre- and post-emancipation eras. the most consistent message i saw was that a group of oppressed people who had not been allowed to acquire any of the skills one needs to survive had been set free and asked to fend for themselves in a very hostile environment (jim crow laws and so on) and thus for most of that generation, it was like trading one problem for another.also, there are several statistics compiled where the african-american community features as an outlier. for instance, breast-feeding rates in that community are far lower than the rest of the us [1]. i didn't know that this was a result of what women in the slavery-era went through but learned that from the book.it is important to read literature from this era. tells us a lot about how just over a century ago, people employed rhetoric to convince themselves that slavery was really ok (see the talking points of the &quot;overseers&quot; and &quot;speculators&quot;).[1] <link>

the site is well done and i look forward to checking it out.it does irritate me a bit when all of these slave stories always come out during black history month as if black peoples entire history consists of slavery and then the civil rights struggle. there are black poets, artists, inventors, scientists and intellectuals that nobody really knows about. it would be cool to put some focus on that aspect or at least let it match the amount of effort put into sharing the chilling truths of slavery in america...

show hn: slaverystories.org – memoirs from american slaves

the site is well done and i look forward to checking it out.it does irritate me a bit when all of these slave stories always come out during black history month as if black peoples entire history consists of slavery and then the civil rights struggle. there are black poets, artists, inventors, scientists and intellectuals that nobody really knows about. it would be cool to put some focus on that aspect or at least let it match the amount of effort put into sharing the chilling truths of slavery in america...

really like the site.i've been reading the narratives of enslaved people lately, starting with 12 years a slave, then incidents in the life of a slave girl, and started reading frederick douglass' narratives. harrowing reads.for anyone reading these narratives: it's easy to get caught up in the dynamic of blacks and whites, racism, and the like, but the core issue of american slavery is the depravity of humanity. focusing on the guilt/non-guilt/whatever of various ethnic groups quite misses the point.evils of this type exist across humanity; these enslavement narratives show us the particular context of how this depravity played out in america. they also provides us with some insight into contemporary issues in our society. the tentacles of a 400+ year institution like slavery, and their corroding influence, continue to wrap themselves around hearts and minds open to their venom.the narratives are very worthwhile reading.sidenote: i think the site title might be better termed as memoirs from american enslaved people. for so long these people were not acknowledged as human beings, and it seems appropriate to acknowledge the dignity of their humanity.

show hn: slaverystories.org – memoirs from american slaves

really like the site.i've been reading the narratives of enslaved people lately, starting with 12 years a slave, then incidents in the life of a slave girl, and started reading frederick douglass' narratives. harrowing reads.for anyone reading these narratives: it's easy to get caught up in the dynamic of blacks and whites, racism, and the like, but the core issue of american slavery is the depravity of humanity. focusing on the guilt/non-guilt/whatever of various ethnic groups quite misses the point.evils of this type exist across humanity; these enslavement narratives show us the particular context of how this depravity played out in america. they also provides us with some insight into contemporary issues in our society. the tentacles of a 400+ year institution like slavery, and their corroding influence, continue to wrap themselves around hearts and minds open to their venom.the narratives are very worthwhile reading.sidenote: i think the site title might be better termed as memoirs from american enslaved people. for so long these people were not acknowledged as human beings, and it seems appropriate to acknowledge the dignity of their humanity.

this is the best thing i've seen on hn in ages. and love that they're actively seeking submissions and additions through github. and lovely design, too. kudos all around!

webdis: http + json api for redis

memcache, for example, is explicitly not meant to be run with "public access", as it is not secured against attacks. i am pretty sure the same applies to redis.if my assumption is correct, i wonder why one should use a (potentially slower) http client or protocol in favor of the "native" protocol.

what is the primary practical benefit of this?it seems to simplify doing some really cool things, but i'm not sure what those things are...

webdis: http + json api for redis

what is the primary practical benefit of this?it seems to simplify doing some really cool things, but i'm not sure what those things are...

why the wacky set/get? why not being restful and using http verbs?

webdis: http + json api for redis

why the wacky set/get? why not being restful and using http verbs?

there's also bone which implements set, get, and keys over http(s). it also uses something similar to the amazon s3 request signatures for authentication.<link>

webdis: http + json api for redis

there's also bone which implements set, get, and keys over http(s). it also uses something similar to the amazon s3 request signatures for authentication.<link>

this is also called "couchdb."

why i love recruiters

i couldn't disagree with this more.recruiters are almost exclusively focussed on one thing alone: making commission. they're not necessarily bad people, but they are not interested in how polite you are, how long your response email is, or anything else than the information they require.sending long-winded emails thanking them for their time and interest is _wasting their time_.if i want to reply, the first line gives them the info they need. "not looking for a job", and the rest gives other information if the opp looked good.if you want to try and build up a relationship to get out of where you are, then fine. but they are interested in placing you, nothing more. anything else they're generally faking.it's how the game works. we geeks have a hard time getting this, because we're essentially honest.

i was in semi-searching mode. i had a very long commute i was unhappy with, and had every intention of putting some time and effort into finding the perfect situation. something close to home. something matching exactly the type of problems i wanted to solve. using exactly the tools and technologies i wanted to work with. however, there was always another project i wanted to finish first, or another topic to bring myself current on before finding the right match and interviewing.meanwhile, i was getting emails from recruiters. i was pretty good about replying because you never know where an opportunity might come from and because it feels better (for me) to just reply before archiving that message out of my inbox.one of those out-of-the blue recruiters ended up working out. what was an hour long drive is now a 5 minute bike ride. i hadn't valued this nearly so highly when i took that far-away job as i do now. see for example:<link> anyway, for me this was a clear case of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. an opportunity for an immediate improvement landed in my lap that i otherwise might not have found out about, or might have put off. i can't be too upset about that.

why i love recruiters

i was in semi-searching mode. i had a very long commute i was unhappy with, and had every intention of putting some time and effort into finding the perfect situation. something close to home. something matching exactly the type of problems i wanted to solve. using exactly the tools and technologies i wanted to work with. however, there was always another project i wanted to finish first, or another topic to bring myself current on before finding the right match and interviewing.meanwhile, i was getting emails from recruiters. i was pretty good about replying because you never know where an opportunity might come from and because it feels better (for me) to just reply before archiving that message out of my inbox.one of those out-of-the blue recruiters ended up working out. what was an hour long drive is now a 5 minute bike ride. i hadn't valued this nearly so highly when i took that far-away job as i do now. see for example:<link> anyway, for me this was a clear case of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. an opportunity for an immediate improvement landed in my lap that i otherwise might not have found out about, or might have put off. i can't be too upset about that.

i don't understand why more tech recruiters don't ruthlessly specialize and laser-focus on building a deep understanding of a particular niche when matching candidates and employers.i'm cto of a web and mobile development shop with about 20 employees. finding good frontend developers is really hard - to be a great frontend guy these days, working on modern web apps, you need to have strong engineering chops, with knowledge of the html5 apis, css3 and serious js experience, including an understanding of memory and performance management in large frontend-heavy apps; ideally have worked on a couple of medium size apps with 5-7 person teams; probably have at least some exposure to the current js framework scene; ideally (for our stack) have experience with preprocessors like sass or stylus and coffeescript; have good design sense and the ability to work in a collaborative feedback loop with a designer, etc etc. it's a really cross-functional role. there's a lot more people who "know html and css" but have never worked on serious apps, or have solid js chops but can't produce design with reasonable fidelity to save their lives.a relationship with a recruiter who understood this "candidate profile" and could bring me people who would be a good fit, not just resumes with "html", "css", "javascript" and "5 years of experience" on them, would be worth its weight in gold.

why i love recruiters

i don't understand why more tech recruiters don't ruthlessly specialize and laser-focus on building a deep understanding of a particular niche when matching candidates and employers.i'm cto of a web and mobile development shop with about 20 employees. finding good frontend developers is really hard - to be a great frontend guy these days, working on modern web apps, you need to have strong engineering chops, with knowledge of the html5 apis, css3 and serious js experience, including an understanding of memory and performance management in large frontend-heavy apps; ideally have worked on a couple of medium size apps with 5-7 person teams; probably have at least some exposure to the current js framework scene; ideally (for our stack) have experience with preprocessors like sass or stylus and coffeescript; have good design sense and the ability to work in a collaborative feedback loop with a designer, etc etc. it's a really cross-functional role. there's a lot more people who "know html and css" but have never worked on serious apps, or have solid js chops but can't produce design with reasonable fidelity to save their lives.a relationship with a recruiter who understood this "candidate profile" and could bring me people who would be a good fit, not just resumes with "html", "css", "javascript" and "5 years of experience" on them, would be worth its weight in gold.

ha ha! i love the responses! friendly, but at the same time politely telling them to do better research. they really can't complain :-)

why i love recruiters

ha ha! i love the responses! friendly, but at the same time politely telling them to do better research. they really can't complain :-)

talk about unrequitted empathy.

ask hn: india == bad devs? do you subconsciously assume that developers from places like india and china are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;?<p>anecdotal evidence: i got far more replies to whoishiring posts when i didn't list my location compared to when i did. sad, really.

short answer: depends where you're looking at. long answer: in india, you'll find engineers dime a dozen. it service companies like infosys, accenture, etc. recruit the bulk of the students from the universities. they don't care which background you're from. a cs/it engineer is at the same footing as an electronics/mechanical engineer as far as these companies are concerned. they train these undergrads for 2-6 months on a particular skil set (usually something outdated like jsf or struts in java or say some proprietary software) and these devs are responsible for delivering the projects for the off-shore companies. most of these engineers have no clue what they're doing. they're not interested in the field. the only reason they continue to work there is because the work experience can be leveraged to do an mba. to work on the projects, they pick up snippets from the knowledge base these companies maintain, manipulate the snippets enough to make them work with their project and then move to some other similar project. this probably covers 75% of the &quot;devs&quot; out here.the rest can be categorized from moderate to literally the best in the world. many of these devs end up going to us for an ms/phd and so the pool shrinks further. nonetheless, i've seen some really good devs out here as well. companies like google, amazon, flipkart, apigee make sure they get the top brass from these lot.i'm not surprised why many people may stereotype most of the engineers in india as &quot;bad devs&quot;. unfortunately a majority lies in that lot. filter them out and the rest are as good as any out there.

many indian developers choose their field based on parental and social pressure. i've been working with students in engineering colleges in india and a significant fraction say that they joined engineering just because their parents told them to and/or because they want high paying jobs. it's considered undignified in some sense to not have a professional degree. this causes an increase in demand and consequently, private players and others step in to meet it. these institutions churn out a huge number of engineering graduates every year who don't particularly care about their field or their job. that's the first stage. you have a huge pool of (at best) average developers. they're entire &quot;programming education&quot; is four years of working on outdated technologies and a shaky theoretical foundation taught to them by (mostly) uninterested teachers.the next stage is the service companies. if you're an a player, and these are as common in the indian tech. community as in others though they're harder to find because the large number of people you have to wade through to get to them, you'll already have some open source contributions and contacts with other good programmers and they'll get there. the others, who are the bulk, don't have all of these privileges and don't know what to do. to their aid come service companies. these are the organisations i blame for most of the, often justified, stereotypes of indian programmers. they hire people in bulk, give them some focussed training (since their formal education is often worthless) and then expose them to the world of cheap outsourced software development.this is where many foreign devs and indian devs meet and this is the &quot;most average&quot; of the indian tech. crowd you'll find. they're uninterested, driven by things low on maslow's pyramid and generally worry about things like saving face, getting promotions, pleasing managers and rising up the social and professional ladder rather than good tech.naturally, these people are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;. they were selected from the larger pool for mostly those reasons.if you've come into contact with indian devs from good tech. conferences, mailing lists, free software projects, irc or other such fora, your experience is bound to be difference since you're meeting the ones that have gone through another filter.the sad thing is that the education systems can crush people and make them unmotivated and uninterested. that's what i'm trying to remedy, atleast to some extent, with my latest endeavour. i've taught students at colleges and there's often some spark in them that can be nurtured. i've done corporate trainings for fresher batches at service companies and they often couldn't care less. it's too late by then for many people.

ask hn: india == bad devs? do you subconsciously assume that developers from places like india and china are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;?<p>anecdotal evidence: i got far more replies to whoishiring posts when i didn't list my location compared to when i did. sad, really.

many indian developers choose their field based on parental and social pressure. i've been working with students in engineering colleges in india and a significant fraction say that they joined engineering just because their parents told them to and/or because they want high paying jobs. it's considered undignified in some sense to not have a professional degree. this causes an increase in demand and consequently, private players and others step in to meet it. these institutions churn out a huge number of engineering graduates every year who don't particularly care about their field or their job. that's the first stage. you have a huge pool of (at best) average developers. they're entire &quot;programming education&quot; is four years of working on outdated technologies and a shaky theoretical foundation taught to them by (mostly) uninterested teachers.the next stage is the service companies. if you're an a player, and these are as common in the indian tech. community as in others though they're harder to find because the large number of people you have to wade through to get to them, you'll already have some open source contributions and contacts with other good programmers and they'll get there. the others, who are the bulk, don't have all of these privileges and don't know what to do. to their aid come service companies. these are the organisations i blame for most of the, often justified, stereotypes of indian programmers. they hire people in bulk, give them some focussed training (since their formal education is often worthless) and then expose them to the world of cheap outsourced software development.this is where many foreign devs and indian devs meet and this is the &quot;most average&quot; of the indian tech. crowd you'll find. they're uninterested, driven by things low on maslow's pyramid and generally worry about things like saving face, getting promotions, pleasing managers and rising up the social and professional ladder rather than good tech.naturally, these people are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;. they were selected from the larger pool for mostly those reasons.if you've come into contact with indian devs from good tech. conferences, mailing lists, free software projects, irc or other such fora, your experience is bound to be difference since you're meeting the ones that have gone through another filter.the sad thing is that the education systems can crush people and make them unmotivated and uninterested. that's what i'm trying to remedy, atleast to some extent, with my latest endeavour. i've taught students at colleges and there's often some spark in them that can be nurtured. i've done corporate trainings for fresher batches at service companies and they often couldn't care less. it's too late by then for many people.

this has the potential to blow up into a huge flamefest.short answer: no. absolutely not.a longer answer would probably explain that in my experience over 10 years in the industry, much of that working with naturalized indians as well as h1bs, i would say they are on par with anyone else in the industry, you have good and bad.i've met brilliant indians, and worthless ones. just like every other nationality. it's simply not a good metric to use when choosing them, that's why it's illegal to do so.

ask hn: india == bad devs? do you subconsciously assume that developers from places like india and china are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;?<p>anecdotal evidence: i got far more replies to whoishiring posts when i didn't list my location compared to when i did. sad, really.

this has the potential to blow up into a huge flamefest.short answer: no. absolutely not.a longer answer would probably explain that in my experience over 10 years in the industry, much of that working with naturalized indians as well as h1bs, i would say they are on par with anyone else in the industry, you have good and bad.i've met brilliant indians, and worthless ones. just like every other nationality. it's simply not a good metric to use when choosing them, that's why it's illegal to do so.

in the long run, such misguided stereotypes will intrinsically hurt and marginalize those who hold them.one of the joys of having worked and gone to school with diverse and often distributed sets of people is that i've been honored to know extraordinarily bright and productive individuals who are dissimilar along many irrelevant dimensions. i'm thankful for the perspective and wish it were so universal that no one would wonder such questions.i agree that it is sad that we're not there yet.

ask hn: india == bad devs? do you subconsciously assume that developers from places like india and china are &quot;cheap&quot; and &quot;unskilled&quot;?<p>anecdotal evidence: i got far more replies to whoishiring posts when i didn't list my location compared to when i did. sad, really.

in the long run, such misguided stereotypes will intrinsically hurt and marginalize those who hold them.one of the joys of having worked and gone to school with diverse and often distributed sets of people is that i've been honored to know extraordinarily bright and productive individuals who are dissimilar along many irrelevant dimensions. i'm thankful for the perspective and wish it were so universal that no one would wonder such questions.i agree that it is sad that we're not there yet.

this isn't from hn, but i've noticed an implicit bias against devs from south and southeast asia (can't speak for china). on my resume, i go by the shortened form of my first name, not &quot;eksith&quot; and that was a conscious decision after putting my full name resulted in very few calls and emails.i'm not sure if that has to do with a perception of talent or simply a presumption of a language barrier, since i've also seen a fair number of devs from india post content (both on blogs and on places like stack overflow) that make me question their communication skills.it may simply be a case of many people = higher number of proportional incompetence.edit: to add, it may be a higher number of proportional sub-par content coming from india due to greater degrees of internet access.full disclosure: i'm originally from sri lanka, now living in new york.

how to be the boss your team deserves: stop coding

i'll preface this by saying that different companies have different management/team structures and expectations. so this draws from my own experience, and is likely a bit different than the op's situation.in my particular case, i'm a team lead, but not a manager. my manager is also the direct manager of everyone on my team. he's the &quot;people&quot; manager, and spends no time coding. he's expected to be technical, but not actually build things.i would be very sad if i didn't get to write (production) code. it's just one of the things i want to do. but i also want to play a role in deciding what we build, as well as tackling architecture and design problems, which i can't do particularly effectively (if at all) as a non-lead.having said that, i likely do code more than i should. i could be spending more time doing code reviews and helping the people on my team be more successful at what they're doing. i've been thinking about all this for a while, but i haven't really done much about it. reading this article has given me a bit of a kick to revisit all this.

the two tasks aren't mutually exclusive. if you can only do one, then that's fine, there isn't anything wrong with that. but leadership has nothing to do with a title, so if you weren't leading before you took a leadership role, then of course you're going to struggle.

how to be the boss your team deserves: stop coding

the two tasks aren't mutually exclusive. if you can only do one, then that's fine, there isn't anything wrong with that. but leadership has nothing to do with a title, so if you weren't leading before you took a leadership role, then of course you're going to struggle.

this has been one of the hardest moves to make. i love how you captured how difficult and scary it can be to make a move like this.great article.

how to be the boss your team deserves: stop coding

this has been one of the hardest moves to make. i love how you captured how difficult and scary it can be to make a move like this.great article.

summary: if you're leading a development team, stop coding and focus on being a great boss!

how to be the boss your team deserves: stop coding

summary: if you're leading a development team, stop coding and focus on being a great boss!

&gt; and over the next 4 years i would _loose_ the “junior” prefix

google uncloaks once-secret server

while searching for the actual battery patent, i ran across the modular data center patent: <link>8printsec=a... and also this power supply research paper abstract: <link> was also surprised at some of the patents awarded. while the claims were very specific, the ideas were very generic, such as mobile payments via cell phone. take a look for yourself: <link>8q=inassignee%3agoog...if anyone finds the battery/server patent, i would be extremely interested.

this server appears to be from 2005; it looks like google is still keeping some secrets.

google uncloaks once-secret server

this server appears to be from 2005; it looks like google is still keeping some secrets.

i don't see how they can patent battery per motherboard design. isn't that how laptops work?otoh, this design makes a lot of sense. one of the biggest failure mode for rack-wise failure i've seen is human error from maintenance crews: trip over or unplug the wrong a power cord (i've seen this happen twice already from different companies.) this design completely shields this type of errors.but, it should not be patentable!

google uncloaks once-secret server

i don't see how they can patent battery per motherboard design. isn't that how laptops work?otoh, this design makes a lot of sense. one of the biggest failure mode for rack-wise failure i've seen is human error from maintenance crews: trip over or unplug the wrong a power cord (i've seen this happen twice already from different companies.) this design completely shields this type of errors.but, it should not be patentable!

i don't understand: how can one battery per server be more efficient than a big, shared battery for all of them?

google uncloaks once-secret server

i don't understand: how can one battery per server be more efficient than a big, shared battery for all of them?

see how the hard drives are mounted back-to-back? i'm guessing that is designed to cancel the mechanical noise by putting the drives 180deg out of phase from each other, extending the life of the drives.i believe that is patented (by avid?) and that might be why google was cagey about releasing specs.