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SoftwareMaven

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I'm a product manager. I'm a software engineer. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a blogger. Yes, I can really do it all. ;)

My blog covers products related to product management and entrepreneurship. If you are interested, you can check it out at http://softwaremaven.innerbrane.com/ or follow me at http://twitter.com/SoftwareMaven/ .

I'm currently working on building tools to make building a startup easier.

My topcolor is #fff200, what's yours?

Blog: http://softwaremaven.innerbrane.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/SoftwareMaven/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/travisjensen

GitHub: http://github.com/SoftwareMaven

Posts71
Comments3,126
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www.engadget.com 11y ago

Apple reportedly has 'hundreds' working on an electric car

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
www.wired.com 11y ago

Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

SoftwareMaven
237pts173
www.zoeharcombe.com 11y ago

Academic studies questioning current dietary advice

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
news.ycombinator.com 11y ago

Ask HN: Ideas and the ability, but burned out working alone

SoftwareMaven
18pts16
www.wired.com 12y ago

Waiting for Dark: Inside Two Anarchists' Quest for Untraceable Money

SoftwareMaven
9pts1
www.rollingstone.com 13y ago

Grand Jury Rejects Indictment of Teen Arrested for Rap Lyrics

SoftwareMaven
9pts0
www.telegraph.co.uk 13y ago

Samoa Air defends policy to charge passengers by weight

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
garytaubes.com 13y ago

Thoughts (and thought experiments) on the calorie issue

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
www.schneier.com 13y ago

Nationalism on the Internet

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
threatpost.com 13y ago

Software Security Programs May Not Be Worth the Investment for Many Companies

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
www.wired.com 13y ago

Google’s Larry Page on Why Moon Shots Matter

SoftwareMaven
3pts0
www.sciencedaily.com 13y ago

Could High Insulin Make You Fat? Mouse Study Says Yes

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
www.sciencefriday.com 13y ago

The Fallacies of Fat

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com 13y ago

Lawsuit Filed Against NYPD Street Body Scanners

SoftwareMaven
121pts57
bostonherald.com 13y ago

Case a career-ender for Carmen Ortiz

SoftwareMaven
24pts11
nation.time.com 13y ago

The F-35 just became 25% vulnerable

SoftwareMaven
3pts1
science.time.com 13y ago

Coming in 2013: The Comet of the Century?

SoftwareMaven
33pts5
en.wikipedia.org 13y ago

Saturn's Hexagon

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
www.cringely.com 13y ago

What Americans don’t know about H-1B visas could hurt us all

SoftwareMaven
2pts0
news.ycombinator.com 13y ago

Ask HN: Caching pages with login form/"Hi, Bob" components

SoftwareMaven
1pts2
blogs.hbr.org 13y ago

Don't build a database of ruin

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
www.propublica.org 13y ago

Does Cybercrime Really Cost $1 Trillion?

SoftwareMaven
3pts0
www.dsny.com 13y ago

Clipstream G2: JavaScript video player

SoftwareMaven
7pts4
news.ycombinator.com 13y ago

Ask HN: Getting very early customer feedback

SoftwareMaven
1pts1
news.ycombinator.com 13y ago

Ask HN: Software for managing a "Lean Startup"

SoftwareMaven
1pts1
news.cnet.com 13y ago

Yahoo user sues over password leak

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
news.ycombinator.com 13y ago

Ask HN: Have you pair programmed?

SoftwareMaven
2pts1
www.wired.com 14y ago

X Prize Founder Peter Diamandis Has His Eyes on the Future

SoftwareMaven
1pts0
news.ycombinator.com 14y ago

Ask HN: Why the grammar and spelling pedants? Is it good for HN?

SoftwareMaven
2pts6
www.jdjournal.com 14y ago

Twitter Subpoena Raises a Storm of Legal Questions

SoftwareMaven
1pts0

Over-abstraction is as much of a problem as under-abstraction. If the abstraction isn’t improving your ability to produce good code, it’s a bad abstraction. I’ve worked with a lot of abstraction patterns in a lot of languages over the 30 years of my career. Any of them can be good or bad. Unthinkingly applying them is always a problem.

Unsurprisingly, that goes for just about any idea in software development. I worked in one code base that heard small functions are best, so every function was less than three lines long. You don’t gain anything by replacing `lst.get(0)` with `get_first_item_in_list(lst)` (in fact, understanding becomes much more difficult), but breaking down functions into the smallest units that make sense independently within the business domain can be very helpful, both for understanding and testing.

While I agree with you almost universally, I think in this case, the pricing is meant to be part of the loss aversion technique the creator is employing.

My problem is there is no such thing as a lifetime subscription anymore. More like "until the company gets acquired and the new parent company gets bored or until I get bored, whichever comes first".

There is an ecological cost to miles and miles of solar panels. Desert ecosystems are extremely fragile, and these kinds of projects can be very damaging. It’s not just wasteland. (Said as a desert Southwest denizen and lover who gets the impression that many people think, “oh, there’s no trees? It’s unimportant land.”)

I want the Utes to have success in this, but I don’t want the general attitude to be “trash the desert because there is sun there”.

The first series of courses in my CS program introduced us to building a pascal interpreter using scheme. It all depends on the pedagogical needs, I suppose.

I doubt it. A human should be able to tell whether they are breaking the law or doing something that is dangerous and, thus, stop. If a human moved forward with something they should have known was dangerous or illegal, it would be grounds for negligence or worse.

Oracle Ksplice | https://ksplice.oracle.com/ | Full-time | Remote

Ksplice is the leading technology that allows administrators to patch the kernel on the fly with zero downtime and zero disruption. We're a distributed team of engineers forming part of the Linux and Virtualization group at Oracle with a passion for working on exciting technology, software engineering and all things Linux. Ksplice powers some of Oracle's biggest systems from massive databases to clouds. Join us on our quest to minimize downtime and secure systems. We're looking for a systems engineer to join us, helping Ksplice patch even more of the system, support new releases and improving our workflow.

Required skills include:

    * Deep understanding of developing the Linux/UNIX kernel
    * Skilled with software development best practices including TDD
    * Expert level C/C programming
    * Understanding of security issues and defences in compiled languages
    * Strong experience with Python
    * Excellent problem solving and debugging skills
    * Test automation
Send resumes (or questions) to travis.jensen (at) oracle.com.
USS Pueblo 7 years ago

Ships lost at sea are also still commissioned and patrolling. I suspect it is part of naval culture.

Let's be clear here, though: it's the airlines who refuse to buy an aircraft with additional training requirements. Pilots can only fly one aircraft type, and retraining to a different type is an expensive proposition. If Boeing could make an aircraft that fit under the 737 type, they really had no choice but to do it.

They also probably could have succeeded, too, if not for other systemic problems within the company.

Design a damned airframe that's airworthy without needing stabilization hacks.

The 737 Max is stable, as all commercial aircraft have to be. MCAS is not a system to take an unstable 737 and make it stable. It's a system that was meant to take a changed 737 and make it fly nearly identical to a previous 737, so pilots didn't have to get a new type rating (a very big deal for airlines).

Juan Brown, a commercial pilot and certified flight mechanic, on YouTube has a (great series of videos)[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6SYmp3qb3uPp1DS7fDy7...] talking through the mess that is Boeing made of MCAS, including what the actual problem is.

One of the most important things I've learned over the years I've managed people is that processes and policies of any sort are two-edged swords. It's easy to add a policy, and to convince oneself of the advantage the policy will confer. What is very often ignored is the cost of a policy.

Every policy comes with an associated cost, and those costs can add up quickly. People always ask "what will this policy make better", but, just as important, is to ask, "what will this policy make worse".

Ksplice @ Oracle | Full Time | Remote | https://ksplice.oracle.com/

The Ksplice group at Oracle develops technology to patch the Linux kernel and applications while they are running, eliminating unplanned downtime for systems running Oracle Linux and keeping up-to-date with known security fixes. We're looking for a full stack software engineer and a systems engineer to join our team.

The full stack software engineer will help us expand the web services we provide to our customers and the tools needed to provide those services. You must be comfortable with the entire stack, from the Linux shell at the bottom to Python and Django (or similar) at the top (bonus points for experience with Terraform or Ansible). You must also be willing to assist with operational tasks. Expert knowledge of Python and web development as well as experience deploying to Linux is a must. Contact travis.jensen@oracle.com.

The systems engineer will help us Ksplice patch even more of the system, support new releases and improve our workflow. You'll like working at all levels of a Linux system, developing tooling in Python+bash, analyzing security vulnerabilities in Linux kernel patches, enhancing the Ksplice tools and improving the workflow. Expert level C/C++ programming, experience developing the Linux kernel and an understanding of security issues and defences in compiled languages are required. Contact jamie.iles@oracle.com.

More information about Ksplice is available at http://ksplice.oracle.com/. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

Ksplice @ Oracle | Full Time | Remote | https://ksplice.oracle.com/

The Ksplice group at Oracle develops exciting technology to patch the Linux kernel and applications while they are running, eliminating unplanned downtime for systems running Oracle Linux and keeping up-to-date with known security fixes. We are a distributed team engineers working to provide rebootless updates for supported kernels and "restartless" updates for supported applications. The applications and operations team is responsible for all the services our users interact with as well as keeping the lights on behind the scenes.

We're looking for a software engineer to help us expand the web services we provide to our customers. As a small team with a broad remit, you must be comfortable with the entire stack, from the Linux shell at the bottom to Python and Django (or similar) at the top (bonus points for experience with Terraform or Ansible). You must also be willing to assist with operations tasks. While our goal is to automate everything we can with code, there are times where ssh and the bash command prompt are the best tools for the job.

More information about Ksplice is available at http://ksplice.oracle.com/, and you can contact me by email at travis.jensen@oracle.com if you have any questions. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

Ksplice @ Oracle | Full Time | Remote | https://ksplice.oracle.com/

The Ksplice group at Oracle develops exciting technology to patch the Linux kernel and applications while they are running, eliminating unplanned downtime for systems running Oracle Linux and keeping up-to-date with known security fixes. We are a distributed team engineers working to provide rebootless updates for supported kernels and "restartless" updates for supported applications. The applications and operations team is responsible for all the services our users interact with as well as keeping the lights on behind the scenes.

We're looking for a software engineer to help us expand the web services we provide to our customers. As a small team with a broad remit, you must be comfortable with the entire stack, from the Linux shell at the bottom to Python and Django (or similar) at the top (bonus points for experience with Terraform or Ansible). You must also be willing to assist with operations tasks. While our goal is to automate everything we can with code, there are times where ssh and the bash command prompt are the best tools for the job.

More information about Ksplice is available at http://ksplice.oracle.com/, and you can contact me by email at travis.jensen@oracle.com if you have any questions. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

Oracle | Remote

Ksplice is the leading technology that allows administrators to patch the critical components of a Linux system on the fly with zero downtime and zero disruption. We're looking for an experienced DevOps engineer to join our team. As a DevOps engineer, you would be responsible for automating the deployment, monitoring, and day-to-day management of Ksplice's infrastructure for building and serving critical security "hot fix" updates for various flavors of the Linux kernel and for user space applications. At any given point, this may involve ssh'ing into a machine, updating a configuration manifest, troubleshooting a running system, spinning up a docker registry, or providing guidance on the best deployment options for a new service.

The Oracle Ksplice team is a remote team, so you must be comfortable interacting remotely and working autonomously. We are a small team that expects its members to be comfortable with self-directed work.

More information about Ksplice is available at http://ksplice.oracle.com/, and you can contact me by email at travis.jensen@oracle.com for more detailed specs. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

Tech stack includes MySQL, Linux, Python, Django, Puppet, Ansible.

Oracle | Remote

Ksplice is the leading technology that allows administrators to patch the critical components of a Linux system on the fly with zero downtime and zero disruption. We're looking for an experienced DevOps engineer to join our team. As a DevOps engineer, you would be responsible for automating the deployment, monitoring, and day-to-day management of Ksplice's infrastructure for building and serving critical security "hot fix" updates for various flavors of the Linux kernel and for user space applications.

The Oracle Ksplice team is a remote team, so you must be comfortable interacting remotely and working autonomously. We are a small team that expects its members to be comfortable with self-directed work. We won't micro-manage you, but, in return, we expect you to learn your job well enough that you know what is important to work on.

More information about Ksplice is available at http://ksplice.oracle.com/, and you can contact me by email at travis.jensen@oracle.com for more detailed specs. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

Skills and experience required:

  * Automation using configuration management using software such as puppet, ansible, chef, etc.
  * Administration of Linux systems.
  * Knowledge of Linux virtualization best practices.
  * Command of using programming for systems automation.
  * Python is strongly preferred, but similar languages are acceptable.
  * Ability to work autonomously to achieve provided goals.

Ksplice @ Oracle | Devops | Remote | https://ksplice.oracle.com

Ksplice is the leading technology that allows administrators to patch the critical components of a Linux system on the fly with zero downtime and zero disruption, and we are looking for experienced DevOps and Systems professionals to join our team.

As a DevOps engineer, you will be responsible for automating the deployment, monitoring, and day-to-day management of Ksplice's infrastructure for building and serving critical security "hot fix" updates for various flavors of the Linux kernel and for user space applications. Our customers depend on us to keep their systems up-to-date and secure, so we would depend on you to make sure our systems stay running and secure.

Ksplice has a rich infrastructure that utilizes virtualization heavily, and we are looking for somebody who can help us take that infrastructure and modernize it. While some day-to-day system administration will be required, this is primarily a development role. As such, strong programming skills and an understanding of how to automate system tasks are required. Ksplice primarily uses Python, so experience with that is preferred, but experience with any similar language to perform system administration automation is acceptable.

The Oracle Ksplice team is a remote team, so you must be comfortable interacting remotely and working autonomously. We are a small team that expects its members to be comfortable with self-directed work. We won't micro-manage you, but, in return, we expect you to learn your job well enough that you know what is important to work on.

More information about Ksplice is available at https://ksplice.oracle.com/. You can find more information about the position at https://oracle.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?job=1.... Feel free to contact me directly by email at travis.jensen@oracle.com if you have any further questions. Oracle is an equal opportunity employer.

I had to take narcotics into Dubai for a health issue I was facing at the time. You can bet I had the clearly marked prescription bottle with the minimum amount I needed for my trip along with a note from my doctor explaining the medication. The medication was always accompanied by those, too.

As screwed up as drug laws are in the US, they are child's play compared to what some countries have. And once they think that you might be trafficking, you are in for a bad day.

Pardon Snowden 10 years ago

If people are emboldened to blow the whistle on outrageous, secret, unconstitutional, anti-democratic activities of the US or state governments, then this is the best possible outcome.

But that's a function of API, not the language itself. Django (and most ORMs, I believe) support that kind of behavior:

    MyTable.objects.
        filter(some_row__gt=5).
        exlude(other_row='q').
        order_by('other_row')
The Python iterable APIs have decided to use nesting rather than chaining, but you can still have an underscore-like API: https://github.com/serkanyersen/underscore.py

The bigger problem remains: lambda functions are hideous in Python. map() will forever be ugly if you try to use it in the same way it is used in most functional languages.

That part doesn't matter. Ownership of work done by SUN employees would have been transferred to SUN, then transferred to Oracle. Ownership of work done by Oracle employees would have been transferred to Oracle. It's only the non-SUN/Oracle bits that matter.

That's because his argument is orthogonal to the performance and security arguments. His argument is basically even if unikernels are faster and even if they are just as secure, they are still operationally broken because you cannot debug them.

He doesn't need to present a great argument against security or performance. There doesn't even need to be such an argument. If you've ever spent six months trying to find out why a content management system blows up under the strangest of conditions, even when you have a full debug stack, you understand why that argument may be able to stand alone.

The place where his argument falls down, IMO, is, like others have said, in assuming that everything is binary: everything is unikernel or it is not. And that's just silly.

Beginners tend to think alike, while experts develop an original line of thinking, that is identifiable.

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. Beginners tend to look to others' code more frequently (often including copying and pasting), which means their "style" is really an amalgamation of multiple styles.

On the other hand, even when more experienced programmers look to others' code, they will still fold it into their own style, even when including large amounts of somebody else's code. Their own style shows through the entire project.

However, both of us are just hypothesizing. A great follow-up to this work would be to look at why beginners are harder to identify. I'm sure the other obvious follow up, "how to anonymize yourself", is in the works somewhere.

The other thing I'd be interested in is how well this holds up for multi-person projects. Would it be possible to identify if I submitted code to the Tor project? How much do I have to contribute before identification becomes likely.