minus1

What is your evidence for this factual assertion? (I have done a huge amount of research on IQ testing, and I have never seen a trace of a finding like this in any of the research literature.)

Have you found evidence contrary to this? Or are you taking issue with the parent's use of the term "higher IQ" rather than "higher perceived intelligence" or something similar? I'm asking out of genuine interest because the statement seems plausible to me (a layman) based on anecdotal evidence.

The value of the round-robin stage is to establish team rankings before the single-elimination stage.

You have some alternatives, but no silver bullets:

* Establish rank before the tournament (in which case you're just moving the problem)

* Eliminate rank and seed teams randomly (which makes it much less likely to see the best teams medal)

* Use random seeding and a double-elimination structure (as a fan, I dislike double-elimination, but I'm not sure what the consensus is on this)

* Try to mitigate the problem by playing matches consecutively (you'll need lots of courts), hiding the actual seeding until the single-elimination round (people will assume you're corrupt), or other creative methods (you probably won't catch all the edge cases, so throw in a rule that says "you must try your hardest")

Great article. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the Sub-Penny Rule.

Design is something almost everyone feels qualified to criticize, so a post like this lends itself to all kinds of bikeshedding.

Fortunately, we live in the age of A/B testing. Rather than listening to any of the speculation in this thread, the thoughtful businessperson can actually quantify just how good or bad a design is at achieving its goal.

Here's my mitzvah:

Don't do work for individuals or very small companies. People are much more reasonable when your fee isn't coming out of their pocket.

I believe there is a clear legal difference here.

These things are over the line (and illegal):

  Using images without permission

  Using code without permission

  Referencing images and code from another site without permission

  Designing a site from scratch to roughly copy another site's design

This sounds interesting. Can you provide more details?

Anything based on the AVR USB series can be configured to auto-detect as a keyboard/joystick/misc (see http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php), so that would simplify your comm layer. However, I'm not aware of a good off-the-shelf board that wouldn't require some microcontroller development.

I am actually working on a simplified AVR USB board for just this purpose, I'll post it to HN when I'm done.

This is not a solved problem by any means. I finished in the top ten, and most competitive teams used a combination of image processing for chad suggestion and brute force. It required hundreds of man hours to reassemble just a handful of documents under controlled conditions.

Imagining a real-life scenario of dozens or hundreds of documents mixed together in a shredder bin makes my head hurt.

So, I wouldn't worry too much about your shredded docs just yet.

One team used a crowd sourced "game" method with some success. They had thousands of people register, and were able to solve the first few problems quickly, but they began to stall on the more complex puzzles.

I was surprised to find that this method doesn't scale well when the puzzle reaches a certain size.

This can be somewhat misleading for someone who isn't familiar with Detroit. When people say 'Detroit', they often mean the sprawling metropolitan area of the city of Detroit and the surrounding suburbs. The Detroit metro area has 4.4 million residents. The city of Detroit has only 700k. This article refers only to the city. And yes, the city has very few white residents. It is overwhelmingly poor and black.

It's not unusual, in the U.S., for urban centers to have a high minority concentration, but I believe this is much higher than most major cities.

I presume you get a free name and an unpleasant nagging feeling from your conscience. It's probably not worth the effort to try to prevent this in the beginning.

There's nothing wrong with market segmentation, this is simply a poor implementation. Adding a piece of foam to cripple the sound makes the consumer feel ripped off.

I think it's important to expose kids to programming, and if they show an interest, to explore it further.

It's possible I never would have become a coder if a teacher hadn't given me a brief intro to Basic when I was 11 years old. I took it from there, and was self-taught until college.

With my own son, I introduced him to Scratch, helped him through a few lessons, and then watched as it became his favorite thing to do. I really can't say enough about Scratch as an introduction to programming. It gives kids a simple environment where they see quick results while learning the basics. Just as important, there is a social aspect in that they can easily share their programs with their friends. There does, however, seem to be a need to bridge the gap between Scratch and traditional languages.

Typically jobs@ redirects to /dev/null.

I had to look this up. It's Settings->About Phone->Battery Use

I think the problem will be that the previous salaries have anchored the company's idea of his/her worth. Regardless, I agree that it's best to ask for what you feel you are worth.

From their FAQ:

        * Google Chrome: version 4.249.4+
        * Mozilla Firefox: version: 3.5+
        * Apple Safari: version 3.1+
        * Opera: version 10.5+
        * Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+

        The Google Font API is not currently 
        supported on iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Android

And I'm assuming that your definition of mediocre is actually "not as good as my idols". This seems common on HN. I've always been a top performer among my coworkers, but it's easy to ignore this and compare yourself only to those most successful.

Can anyone recommend an html5 3d engine? Is pre3d currently the best?

I'm a little late to the party, but thought I would comment.

I will admit that at first I really disliked this idea. There is something distasteful about profiting from death. After giving it some thought, and looking over some of the memorials, I really think you have something. Of course the key will be to treat people fairly and with respect and kindness. I have seen the poor implementations currently used by funeral homes. Even those seem to be a true source of comfort for the family. Good luck, I hope you're successful.

Great design.

One thing I noticed was that it's very difficult for me to scan the headlines quickly. I think the reason is that right now the focal point is the time, with the red and black, while the headline and description blend together a bit. I think you could change this without hurting the aesthetic. (Also, as others mentioned, a brief description would be great)

Good luck!

I can understand the first comment getting buried. That's really the only way to discourage the behavior. On the other hand, we could be more welcoming to new posters who clearly have good intentions.

I was surprised to find there is no mention of this in the HN comment guidelines. Maybe it could be added?

Apologies for continuing with the meta.

I'm really just a mediocre programmer with really good domain knowledge

I know the feeling. I've struggled with this. Here's the conclusion I've come to: you don't need to be a great programmer to make great products.

I make essentially the same compromise. If there is a big quality jump for minimal effort/cost, I go for it. My natural instinct is to try to find the 'perfect' cup of coffee/glass of wine/pint of beer, and I can easily obsess over it. However, it's not something that makes me happier or more fulfilled in the long run.

I like nice things, I really do, but what I've found is that sometimes being a connoisseur kills your ability to enjoy simple things.

Sorry for the lack of specifics. I'm thinking of Daniel Pink's book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It references studies showing that the presence of a monetary reward in situations that require abstract thinking tend to result in worse performance than no reward at all.

Maybe my assumption that this is a widely held belief was wrong.

It seems to work for Google. I'm just curious what it is about their implementation or culture that makes this the case.

This TED talk summarizes the book: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Someone mentions the bonuses Google gives for successful launches. Isn't this generally considered a bad way to motivate "knowledge workers"? Anyone on the inside have any thoughts?

Why do you think it is that most of the women in the field are "ass kickers"?

Frankly, I don't think we are that far apart in our thinking, yet we are reaching very different conclusions. I should admit my bias... I have a two year old daughter. She means everything to me. I hope that if she were interested in pursuing a career in computer science there would be nothing to dissuade her. Unfortunately, given the lack of women in the field, the perception is that this is primarily a career for men.

I should stop here and mention that the counter is true with many careers. You mentioned elementary education as one example. I would add nursing to the list.

My father went to school to become a nurse. My grandfather was ashamed. When asked what his son did he would say he was a medic in Vietnam, but never mention the fact that he later became a nurse.

It cuts both ways, but neither is right. We should make the extra effort to make women comfortable. To welcome them to the field so that in the future this is not an issue.