jiffyjeff

Holy cow, this might be related to a design I had last week. My effort to build optical shaft encoders using simple polarization sheet. LEDs can be be used as bidirectional sensors as they work well as photodiodes. That lends itself to optical ring oscillators. Getting them synchronized across multiple encoders and/or controllers led to a control scheme that was.. interesting.

Conflict-free replicated data type, or CRDT, is often referred to as simply “CRDT” in trade jargon without any definition. Apparently.

I don't know if the author was intending to be hyperbolic -- I for one prefer Python 2's print. I would've preferred keeping print the way it was and using a new keyword for the new functionality.

Terrific post, thanks! I am somewhat familiar with this hiring process thanks to tptacek's HN contributions (which incidentally led me to recommending a friend to Matasano). I would like to have a better feel for the context of the hiring problems involved here. I am wondering if the company's particular niche makes the hiring process unusually difficult. Or perhaps the company is in a growth phase with a corresponding shortage of employees? With such low turnover rates, how many additional employees are needed? Is it possible that the company is in a position to profitably hire every qualified applicant it receives? If so, the company is essentially losing money on every hire it doesn't make. In addition to a radically improved hiring process, what about offering remote work and/or extremely high starting salaries? Well-advertised high salaries and location flexibility might allow the company to out-compete many alternatives (e.g., Google, FB, Bootstrapped startups).

Perhaps folks are terrified of speaking out about the matter?

One specific concern I have: I wonder if members of congress feel threatened by the power of intelligence insiders to end a politician's career?

According to FutureCrypt.com, time-release encryption can be used for Sealed Bids, Competitive Proposals, and Press Releases. So things like sealed bids for government RFPs could be transmitted electronically rather than "sealed" in a FedEx envelope. Full disclosure: I own FutureCrypt.

The Hacker's Diet hinges on: ((calories in) - (calories out)) / 3500 = (l lb of weight loss)

The Hacker's Diet holds as an axiom that calories from fat, carbohydrate and protein are equivalent in this formula. This assumption neglects the powerful influence of the hormone insulin, which plays a key role in regulating fat metabolism. Insulin release is very highly correlated with carbohydrate consumption, and a diet that restricts carbohydrate will often lead to weight loss.

I purchased this book and read it today. I think it's a nice collection of advice for the budding freelancer. It's a little light on the legal aspects such as business structure, taxes and contracts. I would consider it a beginner's book on freelancing.

For a little more depth on the business side of freelancing, I strongly recommend the following book: Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants, by Stephen Fishman J.D.

Wow, what a day... I had an ear-to-ear grin this morning when I learned of support for Go on App Engine. I'm releasing my 3rd GAE app this week (Python) and have big plans to dive into what would've been my 4th and 5th...

Now I've just finished reading the announcements about the road ahead for pricing and support, and I'm having hard time trying not to be upset...

y = mx + b

The big selling point of GAE for me was minimizing the cost of 'b'... I don't mind paying a little extra 'm' if it allows me to avoid 'b'.

For billing-enabled apps, it appears the smooth real-time transition between free and paid will no longer be supported. Now there will be a fixed cost associated with every app every month. Gone is my fantasy of launching great little apps and marketing them until one of them happens to hit the jackpot (possibly by pointing out another great idea -- "the next big thing").

This completely changes the dynamic of GAE for me. Now, If I'm going to support an app, it's going to cost me money whether it's used or not.

$9 per app per month doesn't sound like much for scalable hosting, but sometimes the best ideas stem from little baby ideas, and little baby ideas are prematurely eliminated from consideration if it costs $9 a month to host them.

My margins are low and I've just started gaining traffic, so I haven't made a lot of money. However, I launched the service with a profit motive, so payment integration and realistic pricing were baked in from the start.

I built the site in about 80 hours over 3 or 4 weeks. It was a nice distraction from my master's thesis... Which actually got finished about the same time as the site went live. :)

I used Google App Engine and Twilio, but I also built an audio processing module that runs as a daemon on a Dreamhost server. (The latter was a workaround to GAE's limitations on long-running processes and insertions into the app engine datastore)

I launched an almost identical service, http://savethatcall.com, in January. My prices are extremely low (50 cents + 5 cents per minute), but it's hard to compete with free! Good luck.

These locks are silly and can be opened in seconds without a magnet. They can be brute forced easily due to the few number of combinations afforded by their design. There are only 5 digits to choose from, and a code can use a given digit only once. While there is a configuration that requires the pressing of two digits at once, I've rarely seen this used. If you assume a 3 digit code, the number of combinations to try is 5 * 4 * 3, or 60 tries. A 4 digit combination requires at most 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 tries (120). We used to have these locks in my office. After code changes i would try my hand at "breaking" into them (before reading the email containing the new code). In every case I had the lock open within 2 minutes. The hardest part was actually pressing the handle down 30-60 times.

Thanks for the feedback. I've never had much luck designing compelling UIs, so I just snagged a cute template for $15 from ThemeForest. After I had finished coding the site, I applied the theme. It went from having a raw (but functional) HTML interface to what's online now in a single day... And that's including several unlinked pages that support downloads, cancellations of service, etc.

I wish I could figure out how to get the site to show up in a Google search so I could gauge others' interest in it!