rodh

I noticed London there's a sign at the exit of the suburban "Abbey Road" station in London, directing tourists (who were presumably looking for an iconic pedestrian crossing photo opportunity) back towards London. I wonder how many of these suburban neighbourhoods exist, with unexpected tourism due to transit stations sharing a name with a local landmark.

Yep. There's What A Terrible Failure exception in the Android codebase (i.e. "throw wtf"). http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html...

My code made the Android OS throw this once. Not a terribly useful error to resolve.

Edit: My mistake. I misremembered. It's a logging function. I should have actually read the link I provided.

Actually there are buttons with a line through them, and ones without. They maddeningly mean different things. See http://petesguide.com/symbols/elevator-button-symbols/

What a fantastic suggestion. I've used Coursera on technical topics in the past, but it hadn't even occurred to me to look there in this instance. Thanks.

This is very true and valuable advice. I've witnessed first hand the tremendous growth my boss (the CEO and co-founder) has undergone in the past year thanks to his mentor. I am actually in the progress of getting a mentor too, with the founders' help. I'm very grateful for that.

Have you tried searching for it on amazon's site with the TLD for your country, or the one of a neighboring country? It is available on Amazon instant on amazon.co.uk. I haven't tried playing it yet, though. And I don't know if it would work outside of the UK.

fakenamegenerator.com does have "Hobbit" as a name set. Also the Norwegian name set does generate some interesting nordic names like Rosenvinge, Valgard, etc.

Hmm. Interesting. I remember when I recently registered with a new doctor, I was asked directly if I wanted to opt out from my medical information collected by my GP being digitally accessible by hospitals, etc. I'll have to admit: I chose not to opt out. Thinking "it's about time they join us in the digital age!" Plus, from the perspective of my health, this seemed like a positive move overall.

Of course now that I read a bit more into it, I am less sure. But I do find the above link a little fear-mongery.

Incidentally, this document has some interesting insight into the position of the hscic. http://www.hscic.gov.uk/media/12931/Privacy-Impact-Assessmen.... I am a little tickled by this statement about preventing the data falling into the wrong hands: "The Government itself could be considered a pair of 'wrong hands' with questions raised over whether it would have access and therefore would be able to misuse or exploit the data".

Not sure how they're mitigating against that risk...

There's also a strong branding presence of Swiss products in UAE and China (including some brands you'd never hear of in Switzerland itself), there seems to be a very strong association of "Swiss Made" with luxury product. I've even seen opticians advertising "Swiss Glass"(?) in Hong Kong. Thinking back to a talk by the founder of Virtu, I wouldn't be surprised if the middle and far east are key markets for this type of product.

I'd imagine TCP, as a protocol starts to fall over with moon-to-earth latencies.

Or would it? Perhaps simply increasing the retransmission timer would give us interplanetary internet. I wonder.

This article hits a nerve for me.

There's in particular a sentence right at the start. "If you're young and think you're hot shit, and there's some reason to believe you are, you can go far, very quickly."

When I think back at my time prior to going to University, I really did think this way. And I had reason to. Even during my time at University, that feeling never escaped me.

Once I entered full-time employment (almost by accident. I had started my own limited company at this point), my attitude changed completely. I was surrounded by so many people so unbelievably more clever than me, I was humbled. It wasn't just their abilities, but their "maturity".

Now I cringe to think of my attitude as little as 5 years ago. And I think I have reason to. Where I used to take pride in "fixing your 6-month problem in 4 days", I now realise I failed on a lot of aspects. I am now much more focused on doing things right. I focus on listening and understanding, on being tolerant and empathetic. I measure my work in quality, maintainability, measurable evidence. Every day I try my hardest to learn and to be a pioneer.

I do think this is a positive improvement. But when I come across an article like this one, and recall my youthful naivety and enthusiasm, I do worry if I haven't perhaps lost something more important.

What a coincidence. I did the exact same thing yesterday, following the instructions here: http://trouch.com/2012/08/03/airpi-airplay-audio-with-raspbe.... You really need a USB soundcard for this to be usable though, unfortunately.

Wow. I hadn't come accross this blog before. It has a fantastic wealth of content, all relevant to my interests. Very impressed.

I've been considering that move. To be completely honest, that's actually what I was doing whilst at Univesrity. I had set up a limited company, working on my own content recommendation startup. I was also freelancing as a Php and ASP.net dev at the time. I was actually making more at the time than I am now, 3 years on from graduation. Such is the nature of contract work, I suppose.

The thing is, after University I fell out of love with web development, and in love with AI.

I'd like to continue in that field. But I can't imagine it's as easy to find contract work there. You can't simply point people to your portfolio.

I suppose I could have a go pointing to the papers I've published and the articles in magazines on my work. Perhaps something to look into more seriously.

Thanks for the advice, at any rate.

Thank you! I have been working very hard to build my reputation in the computer vision industry, over the years I've worked where I am. I think I'm making headway, but I do realise I still have a long way to go. It's refreshing hearing some words of encouragement! Thank you for giving me more motivation to keep pushing on this cold morning commute to work.

I have noticed this. There seems to be a massive gap between the finance sector and everyone else. I'm not too sure what to make of that. For the sake of comparison, the average salary for a Software Engineer at Google in London, according to Glassdoor (before bonuses) is £45k.

What always surprises me with these posts is the amount that developers make in San Francisco. Or possibly in the US as a whole.

I work in London for £31k ($50k), doing computer vision computer graphics (GLSL) and the occasional ML development. Mostly in C++ or Python. My rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is £1000/month ($1.6k/month) (the cost of which I thankfully share with my girlfriend).

Honestly, it's a constant struggle just getting by. Looking at the salaries offered on the job market, I don't think I'm the only one. Yet the demand appears to be high. I've seen job posts up for months on end on Linkedin. Every Hacker News meetup I've been to, almost everyone presenting is desperate for new hires.

How have we ended up with such a huge difference with respect to SF? I'm sure other jobs would be much more closely matched across the pond.

Would second order differentials imply linear acceleration?

Would we then always get better approximations the higher the order?

EDIT: I ask this because linear acceleration doesn't seem like something which might readily occur in nature.

I might be wrong but I believe facebook does this on any news article linked by someone in your feed. It does so to load up the relevant publication's app upon clicking a link, even though that link "appears" to be a deep link to the article, when you hover over.

That's the key, when you said "many" consumers would consider past products incomplete: it's quite subjective whether to call a product complete or incomplete. They would never admit to wrongdoing because there'd always be some way for them to argue otherwise.

As I mention in my other follow-up comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4586212, the difference in this case is that the product is objectively incomplete: the data itself is measurably bad.

As witnessed by the other comment below yours, I have heard people refer to iTunes as a good piece of software in the past. (I am, incidentally, not one of those. I hate iTunes with a passion). The point being, this is a subjective measure.

Does a bad UI make software like iTunes "incomplete"? Again, it depends on your perspective. Missing, or bad data, as is the case in this instance, seems to be a bit less contentious, as can be seen in the quasi-unanimous anger towards the new maps.

Apple has built a reputation of only releasing products that were absolutely completed and quality controlled. From my understanding, the company ethos has been that any defect, no matter how small, would result in the product being delayed.

Speaking from my own perspective, admission or not, I think it's the break in that expectation that has me disappointed.

Although I wonder if being explicitly told to take your time for such a trivial task would make you more conscious of being observed.

Perhaps adding a short delay (under a second) after the last keystroke before refreshing the image would make this much more secure.

I'd say it's sometimes a little risky thinking this way. 1. wage-days are not a good way of measuring things. You don't take into account recurring expenses, taxes and costs of doing business. 2. Spending your own time on something is rarely a loss.

Do your own plumbing while you have a 2-day work drought: you've learned some plumbing.

Interesting idea. Having said that, "Next Step" makes it sounds like a longer process. It doesn't seem like I won't be quite done after this.

I think rewarding the user for singing up would be an interesting incentive. "Click the link to receive your first email".

Having said that, unlike registration confirmations, where I would like to get back out of my inbox to your site. For mailing lists, I don't need to go back to your site, really. I'd much rather stay in my inbox if that's ok. I'd quite like to see an A/B test between the usual method and a request for people reply to the email, rather than click a link. "Reply to this email to start receiving updates": simple order, direct resulting action. It also makes it sound like a similar action will be required to stop receiving updates.

As a brit who has had a gap year, and worked for it. I don't deny the existence of gap years, or people working on the road, by all means. But taking my past travels, for example, I now realise that I was fortunate to be at a particular point in my life (still living at home) and had parents which were not rich, but well enough off to be a viable backup should a problem arise. I also worked hard for it.

Gap years aside, I'm referring to sustainability when trying to do the work you want to, travelling and living frugally. Perhaps the author of the blog post was waiting tables for 8 years, in which case I apologise. But I'm assuming that, like me, they're a person who might have a bit of savings, and has a skill set in an industry that is location-independent. As such, doing work we are qualified in, on the road, is an option that is available to us. However, I acknowledge that doing so is a luxury. I do not believe I would be able to do so if I was penniless and didn't have a fair amount of work experience.

I didn't mean to be a killjoy. Doing what the author of the blog post did is something that I aspire to do. And as someone working hard towards that goal (work fulfillment + location and financial independence + guaranteed retirement income), I feel that presenting the bigger picture is important.

I do see your point, and agree to a certain extent. Having spent some time in south-east asia, I have experienced first hand how cheap life can be compared to what I'm used to (a factor of 10, for a comparable lifestyle). In fact at one point I would consider that I pretty much ran out of money but still managed to get by.

However, I still see this type of travelling as a luxury. I would not fly off to another country for 6 months or longer, without a significant amount of savings.

Not everyone can necessarily do a bit of freelance work when they are abroad. As a former freelancer who who's spent several years now working full-time in an office, I have lost a lot of my freelance network of clients and contacts. Furthermore, if we're looking outside of the Hacker News community, not everyone has a skill that can be as easily marketable from a distance.

Trying to establish a freelance network back in your native country, once you're abroad could be an option for me, although not one I would rely on for my survival. I would also not rely on acquiring work visas, either. Especially if I couldn't prove to the relevant authorities that I had enough existing savings to not be a burden.

So unless you're a person in a particular situation in life, with a specific skill set, you will still be spending a reasonable amount of money during your months or years abroad. Add to that flights, insurance (maybe you're not too keen on cheap surgery in a third world country), vaccinations, the loss of maybe a few years contributions to your retirement savings, the cost of reintegrating yourself into your country when you return. Things get expensive. Although I previously did not think so, I would now definitely consider long-term travelling (with the intent of returning) a luxury.

Edit: That's not to say it's not a good idea. Or that it's impossible. As far as luxuries go, it's a very good one to go for.

Firefox is my add-on browser. Chrome is my lightweight browser. If I'm quickly checking my email I won't fire up firefox, I'll stick with my low-footprint chrome. If I want to do some web development, or know I'll be spending a while browsing, I'll use firefox. In other words, the lack of extensions on my chrome setup is the reason I use it (when I use it)

I recently started growing potatoes, tomatoes, chilli peppers and basil on the back patio of my house in the city.

When I'm at work I find myself looking forward to getting home so I can spend my 20 minutes doting over my plants. It's also really rewarding seeing how much everything has grown by since yesterday (sometimes it's by surprising amounts).

At the sort of scale I'm doing it... it doesn't feel like work at all. But I can imagine that changing if I was depending on it for survival. If I scale it up, I very much intend to rely on supermarkets as a backup (especially as I'm still learning). Eliminating the stress (and work aspect).