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35,468 | 35,458 | motoko | What if Facebook loses my data? | drusenko | Ever see the movie "Eraser?" | null | 5 | 19 | 2007-07-20 02:28:16 UTC |
35,469 | 35,458 | Alex3917 | What if Facebook loses my data? | drusenko | There used to be an option to export to CSV. Looks like they got rid of it. The fact that they are actually removing functionality says something. A couple years ago I exported all my Facebook contacts into a mind map using FreeMind. I then sorted all of my friends according to where I met them. So for example, a possible node location would be College -> Classes -> CS100 -> John. Then if a person had introduced me to more people, those new people would fall under that person. Not only was it useful as a visual rolodex, but it was also useful for visualizing which people and organizations were the most socially productive for me. | null | 0 | 19 | 2007-07-20 02:29:32 UTC |
35,470 | 35,458 | rnesh | What if Facebook loses my data? | drusenko | That would be a great feature for Facebook to implement. I wonder if it's possible to get around the TOS if the application were to check with each user before sending their contact information to the person who requested it. | null | 4 | 19 | 2007-07-20 02:38:39 UTC |
35,482 | 35,311 | mhartl | The rise of lighttpd (excellent web server) | nickb | If you're running Rails using Mongrel, beware that Zed Shaw (Mongrel's principal author) has stopped recommending lighttpd: http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/docs/lighttpd.html
| null | 3 | 5 | 2007-07-20 04:13:21 UTC |
35,486 | 35,483 | crazyirish | How to fix Copyright, RMS' views | holdenk | While I don't agree with all of RMS' view points, it is still a very interesting talk. Also they managed to get the Q&A boosted so you can actually here the questions! :) | Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it. | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-20 04:45:46 UTC |
35,487 | 35,003 | chaostheory | Looking for a Co-Founder (Boston area) | pbnaidu | try cofoundr.com | Hi,I am developing a travel related Web2.0 web site and looking for a co-founder with programming skills in Java[Spring MVC, Hibernate, AJAX(*), etc] and/or Ruby On Rails. I am also interested in advisers with experience in travel industry.Any pointers to networking in Boston area especially for tech startups would be greatly appreciated.If you're interested please send me an email to pbnaidu@gmail.com.Thanks. | 4 | 4 | 2007-07-20 04:46:32 UTC |
35,496 | 35,311 | tx | The rise of lighttpd (excellent web server) | nickb | The "rise" of lighttpd? I think it's dying now. Apache 2.2 and Nginx are the kings of the hill. | null | 2 | 5 | 2007-07-20 05:18:04 UTC |
35,497 | 35,409 | blakeross | Facebook acquires Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt's Parakey | pg | Thanks for the well wishes, guys! Today was our first day at Facebook and we're excited about all the possibilities (which I'll blog about soon :)I regret that YCombinator isn't getting more exposure out of the acquisition, since they were a key backer of Parakey. | null | 0 | 30 | 2007-07-20 05:24:12 UTC |
35,502 | 34,973 | asdflkj | Hungry entrepreneurs eat up Y Combinator's help | jcwentz | The only interesting part was that PG, a quintessential rational man, is apparently a vegetarian. My brain exploded. | null | 1 | 33 | 2007-07-20 05:42:48 UTC |
35,503 | 35,458 | BrandonM | What if Facebook loses my data? | drusenko | Of course, anyone could write a Python script (or even lash together some shell script involving wget) that would spider your friends' Profile pages and any of your own relevant information (all messages and wall-to-wall threads). Then you would have your own local copy of everything, and would no longer be at their mercy if they suddenly closed up shop.Hell, you could set it up as a cron job that's done every night. It would look to Facebook almost like the kind of activity I've seen from several users, clicking through all their friends to look at pictures, wall posts, and other crap.I'm not saying that the current setup is optimal; I'm just saying that backups are certainly not impossible. | null | 1 | 19 | 2007-07-20 05:45:49 UTC |
35,505 | 35,311 | staunch | The rise of lighttpd (excellent web server) | nickb | The big win of lighttpd/nginx is that they're single-process [1] multiplexing servers. Apache spawns dozens (or hundreds) of processes/threads and relies on the OS to distribute resources. This critical difference is why they're so much more efficient and generally faster. The epoll mechanism in Linux has widened the gap even further.Brad Fitzpatrick created a software load balancer in Perl that handles all the requests for LiveJournal based on this principle.[2]
1. A small number of processes may be used to take advantage of multi-processor machines.2. http://danga.com/perlbal/ | null | 1 | 5 | 2007-07-20 06:14:02 UTC |
35,506 | 35,322 | staunch | How to make the perfect cup of coffee | mmaunder | For most people the big improvement is from just two things are 1. Use a French press. 2. Grind your own fresh beans. That puts you ahead of 99%+ of the coffee most people drink everyday.
| null | 1 | 6 | 2007-07-20 06:21:36 UTC |
35,510 | 35,270 | christefano | Why using a Mac over a Windows computer makes sense for entrepreneurs (it's a form of self-control) | amichail | I'm surprised this discussion is even happening. This is 2007, and Macs can run Boot Camp, VMWare, Parallels, CrossOver, VirtualBox, CrossOver and Cider. | There are few games for the Mac. So using a Mac makes it less likely that you will be distracted by the latest games as would happen with a Windows computer.Even without considering games, there's generally less software available for the Mac in most areas, which again saves you time from trying out all sorts of competing products. | 5 | 6 | 2007-07-20 07:03:56 UTC |
35,511 | 35,311 | plusbryan | The rise of lighttpd (excellent web server) | nickb | we moved from lighttpd to mongrel a few months and couldn't be happier. | null | 5 | 5 | 2007-07-20 07:10:59 UTC |
35,516 | 35,477 | SwellJoe | How to operate before incorporation? | bmaier | DBA or LLC. Costs $20 or $200, respectively, and each takes about an afternoon to fill out the forms and file. Or just do business as an individual. If you don't need a business bank account, you can do that too. PayPal and Google checkout will accept money on your behalf without much trouble. | What is the best way to run your startup before incorporation? For example if I were getting a startup ready for Y combinator and you recommend not incorporating beforehand, how do you recommend handling any business transactions that would occur in the meantime? | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-20 07:34:46 UTC |
35,519 | 35,196 | motoko | Meet Ashton Kutcher, the next tech entrepreneur? | mdolon | http://valleywag.com/tech/separated-at-birth/oomas-arrested-... | null | 4 | 11 | 2007-07-20 08:07:50 UTC |
35,524 | 35,270 | thomasswift | Why using a Mac over a Windows computer makes sense for entrepreneurs (it's a form of self-control) | amichail | It makes sense until Gears of War comes out. | There are few games for the Mac. So using a Mac makes it less likely that you will be distracted by the latest games as would happen with a Windows computer.Even without considering games, there's generally less software available for the Mac in most areas, which again saves you time from trying out all sorts of competing products. | 6 | 6 | 2007-07-20 08:30:16 UTC |
35,530 | 35,458 | Tichy | What if Facebook loses my data? | drusenko | "Having gone to college in the Facebook age, would I even know who my college friends were, and how to get in touch with them? (Honestly, probably not)"Maybe it doesn't matter much then...Still, it's stupid that one can't export data from Facebook. I still wish somebody could explain the Facebook craze to me. Any introductory articles available? | null | 3 | 19 | 2007-07-20 09:03:05 UTC |
35,543 | 35,542 | ivan | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Sound captchas | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 14 | 9 | 2007-07-20 10:20:04 UTC |
35,544 | 35,542 | StStartup | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Ofcourse some sort of captcha is necessary. If you are bothered about the looks, then the real question is what kind of captcha should you implement. You can go for the audio only captcha , or perhaps even a flash based visual one.Repetitive captcha tests can be avoided if your application limits the frequenzy of submissions made . But this in turn is a larger annoyance for commenting systems. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 9 | 9 | 2007-07-20 10:20:05 UTC |
35,546 | 34,789 | cdgan | The iPhone is a piece of shit, and so is your face. | samueladam | iPhone is a marketing hype, whereas Nokia is a pure cellphone company. iPod made its payoff but not necessary iPhone | null | 9 | 34 | 2007-07-20 10:49:07 UTC |
35,548 | 35,420 | cdgan | Google profits fall short of expectations, shares drop | nickb | A peak is produced by both up and down line.. I'm wondering when will be the peak for Google? It seems like its stock is growing or maybe just slow down on growing since it went for IPO. Something out of topic:- Biggest empires in China, Egypt, Rome, or even Adolf Hitler had their falls. When is Google stock's falling? What will be the factors? When the public gets bored of their acquistion without returns? | null | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-20 10:55:41 UTC |
35,555 | 35,542 | dpapathanasiou | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | SeekSift uses a reverse captch/honeypot (explained here: http://www.nedbatchelder.com/text/stopbots.html) and it works really well, w/o the annoying user interface problem you've described. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-20 12:15:51 UTC |
35,556 | 35,542 | willarson | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Although often not considered, the greatest flaw of captchas is they make some functionality unavailable for disabled web users (audio captcha for the deaf, standard distortion captchas for those with poor eyesight, flash captchas will also be impervious to screen readers).
I have played with captchas a bit and I think its important to make captchas which rely on thinking and comprehending, not on some facet where human senses are still more acute than electronic sensors (this is a deadend, as computer cycles get cheaper and algorithms improve I don't really believe that human senses will be superior to dedicated electronic ones in well... anything).
My favorite captcha (perhaps my own idea, not quite sure though) is to have something like this "Please enter the missing item: 532 533 534 535 536". This satisfies my requires for a 'fair' captcha: 1. it is delivery neutral (a screen reader, a blind individual, or a fully healthy individual can all understand this captcha), and 2. It is relatively resistant to brute force because the question doesn't contain the answer.
As is stands, the vast majority of captcha implementations are discriminatory (you need to, at minimum, have a choice between an audio and a visual captcha, or use a captcha that is delivery neutral).
The best way to avoid needing a captcha is to build a non-consistent UI (which is to say, to differentiate yourself, hopefully by making it better) that the existing spam algorithms won't recognize. Much like diverse genetics give species resistance to disease, diverse design and UIs give the internet resistance to spam. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 1 | 9 | 2007-07-20 12:16:16 UTC |
35,557 | 35,527 | pg | Video Podcast CalacanisCast #30 With Angel Investor Ron Conway | staunch | This is worth watching. Ron is probably the largest scale and best known angel investor in the world. | null | 0 | 7 | 2007-07-20 12:19:05 UTC |
35,558 | 35,322 | joshwa | How to make the perfect cup of coffee | mmaunder | http://www.lacolombe.com | null | 3 | 6 | 2007-07-20 12:20:07 UTC |
35,562 | 35,542 | tomh | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Could be worse things than typing words. Brad Fitzpatrick call this the best CAPTCHA ever:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2331278.html | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 3 | 9 | 2007-07-20 12:38:49 UTC |
35,569 | 35,564 | pg | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | This and Quaero will serve as valuable lessons for the governments that sponsored them. You can compete with Boeing this way, but not with startups.I admit I'm kind of surprised they still need this lesson. You'd think they'd have already learned this from the British government's attempt to set up ICL as a competitor to the Google of its era, IBM, in 1968. Never heard of ICL? Exactly. | null | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-20 12:56:19 UTC |
35,570 | 35,545 | myoung8 | Stanford: Top 10 Enduring Elements of High-Technology Entrepreneurship | mmpcse | It's "Stanford" buddy. Why do so many people put a D in there? | null | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-20 12:56:30 UTC |
35,576 | 35,015 | sethlevine | The Equity Equation | rams | Paul - This is Seth Levine (quoted in the USA Today article referenced and appropriately called out in your post). Let me set the record straight. While I've seen plenty of articles come to press that has somewhat inaccurate quotes, this was the first time I've been completely misrepresented in an article. I've written a full post on my views here - http://sethlevine.typepad.com/vc_adventure/2007/07/setting-t.... It's particularly frustrating in this case, as I've spent literally hundreds of hours working with TechStars and TechStars companies in Boulder this summer (and am the lead mentor to one very promising project). I actually believe strongly in the model.I hope you'll consider posting this response up to your main site with a reference to my post clarifying my views.seth levine
| null | 1 | 72 | 2007-07-20 13:20:57 UTC |
35,579 | 35,542 | whacked_new | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | IMHO captchas still have their place. Any type of turing test would require intervention by the user. I dunno how low the threshold of annoyance is for most users, but I tend to think that "reproduce this text" produces a lower cognitive load than, for example, "what is 4 + 3." If your text is extremely jarbled that's a different matter... note to self.Picture matching is a viable alternative and can reduce cog load, but it also increases the time between captcha and the intended action. I use a 3-character captcha. We'll see how that holds. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 2 | 9 | 2007-07-20 13:41:13 UTC |
35,581 | 35,564 | gibsonf1 | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | Wow, this could be as successful as Airbus's biggest plane :) | null | 3 | 9 | 2007-07-20 13:47:56 UTC |
35,586 | 35,564 | ivankirigin | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | This is perhaps the exact opposite of barebones seed funding. | null | 2 | 9 | 2007-07-20 13:57:17 UTC |
35,590 | 35,585 | pg | Setting the record straight (Seth Levine's response) | yubrew | Since he says he was misrepresented in the USA Today article, I took out the paragraph that linked to it. That has the side effect of making this post mysterious, so in case anyone is confused, the deleted paragraph read:"Usually people who say we're a bad deal, like Seth Levine in this
article, simply don't understand what we do. If all we did
was write checks, YC would be a bad deal. But in fact the money
is the least of what we do. No VC who has seen Demo Day first hand
has ever said YC took too much equity." | In response to the statement in USA Today, "...6% is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money..."
Seth Levine says that he was misquoted in the USA Today article, and will never do a phone interview again.
For the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-... | 0 | 25 | 2007-07-20 14:08:47 UTC |
35,620 | 35,542 | mynameishere | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Which of the following would you prefer:1. A flower from your sweetheart?2. A warm puppy?3. A properly formatted data file?ANSWER! | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 11 | 9 | 2007-07-20 15:10:04 UTC |
35,623 | 35,564 | staunch | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | Sad really that so much money will go to waste. There are some amazing hacker entrepreneurs in Germany -- many of them move to the US. Giving 165 teams $1m would have resulted in at least one billion dollar company (and probably more like 20) even with incompetent decision-making.
| null | 1 | 9 | 2007-07-20 15:14:03 UTC |
35,629 | 35,564 | adnam | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | A $165 million kiss of death
| null | 6 | 9 | 2007-07-20 15:22:43 UTC |
35,633 | 35,606 | staunch | Has Google Hired Too Many People? The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long | dpapathanasiou | The vast majority of the developers at Google don't produce anything great. Lots more of them could, but not inside a huge bureaucratic company.Holding 90% of the best engineers in the world "hostage" with six figure salaries and great perks is a good way to slow them down. I think they're scared of being blindsided, since that's what they did to Yahoo & co.Google should be more brave and set them free. They can easily stay the best at snapping up early-stage startups. They already do this, but it should be their only strategy. Google should almost completely stop hiring direct.I guess this is really just "Hiring is Obsolete" from a slightly different perspective. That it might be evil of Google to jealously "horde" hackers out of fear.
| null | 0 | 8 | 2007-07-20 15:31:38 UTC |
35,637 | 35,542 | coffeeaddicted | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | I had good results with doing an own small modification to our forum software. I had never done anything with PHP before, but knowing enough c programming that was still done below an hour (finding the right place to modify was the only hard part).I think the point is not which modification I made - nothing that was much different from some other usual spam-prevention mods which are in use. The trick is that no spammer cares about a single site enough to work around a custom solution. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 4 | 9 | 2007-07-20 15:41:57 UTC |
35,645 | 35,585 | garbowza | Setting the record straight (Seth Levine's response) | yubrew | Being a huge sports fan, I am used to people apologizing after the fact and blaming the media for "misrepresentation" and taking their comments "out of context." However, I do applaud Seth Levine for at least addressing the issue. While the context of the comment in the USAToday article was addressed at YC, it did seem strange that Seth would blast the same model for which he contributes via TechStars. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, since to me it does seem reasonable that his comments were taken out of context. | In response to the statement in USA Today, "...6% is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money..."
Seth Levine says that he was misquoted in the USA Today article, and will never do a phone interview again.
For the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-... | 2 | 25 | 2007-07-20 16:13:59 UTC |
35,646 | 35,606 | daniel-cussen | Has Google Hired Too Many People? The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long | dpapathanasiou | Why hire so many people? How much value could a 10,000th hire add to a company? Google won't tank, but it may have to lay off a lot of people. It stands to reason that may contradict their "don't be evil" philosophy. | null | 4 | 8 | 2007-07-20 16:28:04 UTC |
35,647 | 35,585 | sethjohn | Setting the record straight (Seth Levine's response) | yubrew | Especially upon re-reading the article, it looks to me as though the reporter (no doubt trying to present 'both sides of the story') began a paragraph with "But the limits of Y Combinator's model remain unclear" and then shoehorned in Seth Levine's comments without much regard to what he was really saying. | In response to the statement in USA Today, "...6% is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money..."
Seth Levine says that he was misquoted in the USA Today article, and will never do a phone interview again.
For the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-... | 1 | 25 | 2007-07-20 16:28:51 UTC |
35,650 | 35,585 | far33d | Setting the record straight (Seth Levine's response) | yubrew | Email interviews are boring, and worthless. Sorry folks, but if you don't want to be misrepresented, do a better job interviewing. What you THINK you said, and what you said are very different.
| In response to the statement in USA Today, "...6% is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money..."
Seth Levine says that he was misquoted in the USA Today article, and will never do a phone interview again.
For the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-... | 3 | 25 | 2007-07-20 16:34:18 UTC |
35,652 | 35,542 | daniel-cussen | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | I've noticed these things get harder and harder all the time. In the end it will be like a test to block humans out.Of course, the only thing you really care about when someone/thing does a captcha is that the, uh, thing won't spam and that it will give you money. This problem might go away if someone succeeds in designing a system for making micropayments with a much smaller granularity than Paypal. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 5 | 9 | 2007-07-20 16:36:42 UTC |
35,654 | 35,542 | daniel-cussen | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | I'm OK with captchas being difficult and even annoying. However, I leave the site if I have to try more than twice. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 6 | 9 | 2007-07-20 16:40:08 UTC |
35,669 | 35,606 | menloparkbum | Has Google Hired Too Many People? The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long | dpapathanasiou | If you live in SF or Silicon Valley, it is obvious that Google's hiring was out of control last year. I'm sure everyone living here, and working with a startup here can give an example of at least 1 person Google has hired recently whom they would never call in for an interview at their startup. Since I do a lot of the hiring work at my startup, I've seen 20+ such people get hired by Google last year. | null | 1 | 8 | 2007-07-20 17:06:46 UTC |
35,672 | 35,671 | aston | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | "It's like a Web 2.0 startup kit!" Yeah, that plus YC funding.It's awesome that they're giving the proceeds to charity. | null | 1 | 22 | 2007-07-20 17:17:03 UTC |
35,675 | 35,653 | migpwr | What the non-Lisper sees | nickb | this is accurate! coming from a non-lisper... | null | 2 | 8 | 2007-07-20 17:21:19 UTC |
35,676 | 35,671 | mattculbreth | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | And a dig at Lisp. :) | null | 4 | 22 | 2007-07-20 17:21:24 UTC |
35,680 | 35,564 | Tichy | German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor | jcwentz | News like that make me hate paying taxes so much :-( | null | 4 | 9 | 2007-07-20 17:55:15 UTC |
35,686 | 35,684 | smg | The True story of Ooma | smg | well I am not sure if this story is really true but a sensationalist title makes a better read ;-) | null | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-20 18:07:02 UTC |
35,691 | 35,657 | brlewis | PG's Arc Lessons | nickb | Finding the right balance between brevity and hygiene isn't easy. Sounds like the implicit variables / macros issue is resolving on the hygiene side. I look forward to hearing how that works out. | null | 1 | 10 | 2007-07-20 18:14:22 UTC |
35,692 | 35,542 | ivankirigin | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | Transparent human detection could be achieved with face-detection in a webcam with controls to ensure the stream is live.Face detection is a solved problem, and accessing webcams from a browser is solved.
http://www.merl.com/projects/FaceRecognition/
http://youtube.com/my_videos_uploadIf I weren't busy with another idea, I would suggest someone work on this. It could also be used for a secure login if done with face recognition, which is fast maturing. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 7 | 9 | 2007-07-20 18:17:51 UTC |
35,694 | 35,653 | brlewis | What the non-Lisper sees | nickb | Oh, I think I just understood this phenomenon. In C/Java/etc. if you see more than two levels of nested parens you know at a glance that it's code that's hard to follow. No wonder people's alarm bells go off when they see Lisp. If they could just relax and learn it, they would find it isn't so hard. | null | 0 | 8 | 2007-07-20 18:19:22 UTC |
35,696 | 35,542 | aquafina | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | captcha's can be necessary and definitely reduce spam, but some of them are so cryptic i can't even read them.
| Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 13 | 9 | 2007-07-20 18:20:40 UTC |
35,697 | 35,671 | zach | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | I was all getting ready to bid until he mentioned it came with a Creed CD. No sale. | null | 0 | 22 | 2007-07-20 18:24:12 UTC |
35,699 | 35,671 | crxnamja | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | i do need a new laptop. | null | 7 | 22 | 2007-07-20 18:33:21 UTC |
35,700 | 35,689 | schoudha | Blake Ross on the Facebook acquisition | aston | Ycombinator invested in Parakey? Was that public knowledge?
| null | 1 | 18 | 2007-07-20 18:37:09 UTC |
35,708 | 35,657 | Jd | PG's Arc Lessons | nickb | Aren't these the same Arc lessons that have been available for awhile now? Just because something is posted over at reddit that doesn't mean it has to come here... ;) | null | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-20 18:44:55 UTC |
35,710 | 35,689 | adamdoupe | Blake Ross on the Facebook acquisition | aston | I wonder how much that iPhone is worth... | null | 2 | 18 | 2007-07-20 19:03:40 UTC |
35,711 | 35,689 | budu3 | Blake Ross on the Facebook acquisition | aston | It looks like Paul Buchheit is becomming quite an Angel Investor of note. | null | 0 | 18 | 2007-07-20 19:30:00 UTC |
35,715 | 35,606 | amichail | Has Google Hired Too Many People? The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long | dpapathanasiou | Maybe the idea is to keep excellent people away from their competitors, even if they don't really need all those people in the near future. | null | 2 | 8 | 2007-07-20 20:14:57 UTC |
35,718 | 35,003 | nabeel | Looking for a Co-Founder (Boston area) | pbnaidu | You can also drop by the Boston OpenCoffee's - a lot of young entrepreneurs and YC types. It's in cambridge every thursday. www.opencoffeeclub.org
| Hi,I am developing a travel related Web2.0 web site and looking for a co-founder with programming skills in Java[Spring MVC, Hibernate, AJAX(*), etc] and/or Ruby On Rails. I am also interested in advisers with experience in travel industry.Any pointers to networking in Boston area especially for tech startups would be greatly appreciated.If you're interested please send me an email to pbnaidu@gmail.com.Thanks. | 2 | 4 | 2007-07-20 20:34:24 UTC |
35,721 | 35,542 | randallsquared | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | One way to be transparent to normal users, as long as your site uses javascript anyway, is to do a javascript (or flash, I suppose) hashcash implementation. If javascript on a typical browser takes 45 seconds to work out a solution, then that's enough to prevent spambots from just implementing it without driving the amount of spam they can send out way down. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 10 | 9 | 2007-07-20 20:52:14 UTC |
35,726 | 35,706 | adamdoupe | The True cost of an iPhone and others... | crxnamja | I think the part about the iPhone is a bit convoluted. The author wraps up the phone and the service, which are not the same thing. A more accurate comparison would be the difference in the price of the iPhone service vs. previous service. This all assumes that you already have a cell phone, which I believe is a fair assumption. | Being smart with your money is about fully understanding the financial choices you make and seeing the entire picture - the true cost and total cost of ownership when you commit to a device, transportation, pet, or even a child.
| 0 | 9 | 2007-07-20 21:06:16 UTC |
35,728 | 35,653 | acgourley | What the non-Lisper sees | nickb | I'm tempted to make a similar graphic with some junit/jmock code in java. | null | 1 | 8 | 2007-07-20 21:19:59 UTC |
35,737 | 35,671 | mynameishere | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | A 12" laptop? I'm guessing the "business" guy had that one. | null | 5 | 22 | 2007-07-20 22:16:47 UTC |
35,739 | 35,527 | dbosson | Video Podcast CalacanisCast #30 With Angel Investor Ron Conway | staunch | Does anyone know how Ron got his start?
| null | 1 | 7 | 2007-07-20 22:39:13 UTC |
35,749 | 35,741 | zach | Google wants to do for TV what it did for the Web | dawie | See also: "Google wants to do for radio what it did for the web" and "Google wants to do for newspapers what it did for the web." | null | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-21 00:44:33 UTC |
35,755 | 35,754 | pg | Why don't most web 2.0 startups use sophisticated algorithms? | amichail | Why do you think they don't? | Lack of knowledge/ability? To avoid infringing patents (even accidentally)? Most users won't care? Not important in the problem domain? | 2 | 1 | 2007-07-21 01:33:41 UTC |
35,758 | 35,706 | Jd | The True cost of an iPhone and others... | crxnamja | Parans are in the wrong place.
Should be:
($60 required cellular plan + $5 taxes & fees) x 24 months = $1560 | Being smart with your money is about fully understanding the financial choices you make and seeing the entire picture - the true cost and total cost of ownership when you commit to a device, transportation, pet, or even a child.
| 2 | 9 | 2007-07-21 01:45:41 UTC |
35,769 | 35,754 | budu3 | Why don't most web 2.0 startups use sophisticated algorithms? | amichail | I don't get the question? I know a lot of startups using all kinds of algorithms. Xobni(email analysis algorithms/bayesian analysis, statistical analysis), Topix (classification algorithm), Reddit (recommendation algorithm), automattic (spam detection/classification algorithm), krugle(ranking algorithm),joost(distributed system alogrithms) and the list goes on. | Lack of knowledge/ability? To avoid infringing patents (even accidentally)? Most users won't care? Not important in the problem domain? | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-21 02:41:37 UTC |
35,775 | 35,732 | umjames | Three things every entrepreneur must know... | blored | But the results of that hard work can get you girls!
| 1) Lists like these are just link bait.2) Working won't get you girls.3) It's hard. | 2 | 10 | 2007-07-21 03:19:08 UTC |
35,776 | 35,542 | jamongkad | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | I've been looking at honeypots and I'm learning how to implement them on my app. Basically I'm building (well for the mean time until a better idea comes up.) is a "classified ad" site that doesn't suck and is a beauty to look at. And the problem I see with apps like these(or rather a subset of the main problem) is the amount of spam that gets fed into them everyday. Alot of interesting ideas flowing from this discussion. | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 8 | 9 | 2007-07-21 03:20:06 UTC |
35,778 | 35,754 | gibsonf1 | Why don't most web 2.0 startups use sophisticated algorithms? | amichail | We use some pretty sophisticated algorithms in our startup. | Lack of knowledge/ability? To avoid infringing patents (even accidentally)? Most users won't care? Not important in the problem domain? | 3 | 1 | 2007-07-21 03:28:23 UTC |
35,781 | 35,732 | jamongkad | Three things every entrepreneur must know... | blored | I'd like to highlight number 3, it's harder than you initially thought. But you'll go with it anyway cuz you don't know any better :-) | 1) Lists like these are just link bait.2) Working won't get you girls.3) It's hard. | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-21 03:37:34 UTC |
35,782 | 35,725 | Jd | Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft? | rchambers | I made a comment on the (Facebook) -> (Social Networking Microsoft) possiblity a few days ago on a similar thread that was up here. I believe at this point only pmarca and Ning have a decent shot at saving us from this nightmare. On the other hand if someone could throw together an open-platform API for social info sharing, this could prevent Facebook from locking up the market.If no one is able to do this in the next six months, it is going to be a long hard messy few years for social networking, esp. since Facebook places your data behind lock and key. That will be a lot of unrecoverable data after three or four more years.Any one want to form a startup to challenge Facebook? I'd love to take on Zuckerburgler. | Amongst all the noise today over Facebook's acquisition of Parakey, little has been said on what the acquisition means for Facebook in the broader sense. | 0 | 5 | 2007-07-21 03:41:02 UTC |
35,785 | 35,784 | willarson | A better software development process | swhnorton | I agree that seems kind of stiff, especially for a smaller company that is developing for the web. Getting Real is a quick (and free to read online) book by 37signals that helps focus on a very light development process http://getreal.37signals.com/ . Reading it might give you some material for suggesting ways to improve your company's workflow (and coming from a fairly credible source).
Many web startups have come to resemble the open source development pattern: release early, release often, don't plan too far into the future (your assumptions will probably change by then). I think these are all good ideas: you get feedback sooner from real users, which allows you to focus on providing functionality that your users actually want (or at least think they want).
In general I think the extreme programming propaganda has a lot of good advice, but I don't know if any large companies have successfully applied them to teams of more than 10-20 people. | I recently joined a growing company that, among other things, builds web applications. The development process boils down to:1) Determining Requirements2)Building exact specifications complete with descriptions of functionality and mockups3) Developing the software to match the specifications4) Creating a QA test plan to break the SW and ensure that it matches the specification exactly5)making necessary changes to both the specification and software6)Rolling out the product to usersBeing a loather of redundancy and having a personal project/startup background, this process strikes me as antiquated and arcane. Surely there must be a better way to develop software. What are some of the workflows that work for you to create great features when you've got more than just a couple people hacking? What can startups teach scaling companies in this light?
| 0 | 2 | 2007-07-21 04:00:55 UTC |
35,788 | 35,787 | earthboundkid | Post-Mortem of a Tokyo-based Web Start-up | earthboundkid | Pull quote:"The reason we built these apps was, in retrospect, incredibly shallow, and I thank my ex-boss for helping me realise this. We built them because we thought they were going to be popular, following the typical web 2.0 path to riches: 1. Make popular app.
2. ???
3. Profit!!1
"Looking back, I think to myself, is trying to make a popular app enough anymore? If you just attempt to make a popular app, how are you any different from the next web startup. The only thing that separates you is ability, and ability can be hired or learned - so the question becomes who has deeper pockets or more free time. Thusly any idiot with time or money can build a web app these days and these were crowded markets we were attempting to break into - productivity and mobile blogging. What then, separates the wheat from the chaff in this case? For me, I think the big one is emotional investment." | null | 0 | 16 | 2007-07-21 04:21:59 UTC |
35,791 | 35,657 | neilk | PG's Arc Lessons | nickb | Short operators, explicitly local variables, more operators are favored rather than overloading, and a built-in hashtable type? This sounds alarmingly like Perl. ;) | null | 2 | 10 | 2007-07-21 04:31:20 UTC |
35,792 | 35,732 | noelchurchill | Three things every entrepreneur must know... | blored | But if you know how to get girls then you probably have what it takes to get VC
| 1) Lists like these are just link bait.2) Working won't get you girls.3) It's hard. | 3 | 10 | 2007-07-21 04:35:42 UTC |
35,793 | 35,725 | earthboundkid | Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft? | rchambers | No.Next question?... | Amongst all the noise today over Facebook's acquisition of Parakey, little has been said on what the acquisition means for Facebook in the broader sense. | 1 | 5 | 2007-07-21 04:35:56 UTC |
35,798 | 35,796 | pg | Does Arc support i18n? | earthboundkid | Internally strings are represented as 32 bit unicode. That seemed like the right plan, and conveniently it's what Mzscheme does.In news.yc, however, I currently (out of laziness) aggressively convert all input to ascii. Life is too short. | I've notice that news.ycombinator doesn't have an encoding declared in its HTML head information, and it made me wonder, does Arc use Unicode internally? (If so, true Unicode or just 16-bits worth of UTF-16 like early Java?) Or does it only allow ASCII? Are there any facilities in Arc to make internationalization easier? Looking at the example of previous web frameworks, it seems like leaving out true Unicode support early ends up biting you later when you have to rewrite stuff to support Unicode after all. | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-21 05:04:48 UTC |
35,802 | 35,671 | earthboundkid | Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") | pg | "The American Brain Tumor Association will be receiving 100% of the proceeds from this sale."What!? They're going to give their money to a group that's for brain tumors!!"I cannot stress enough how much we hate brain tumors."Oh wait, it's a society for people against brain tumors. Never mind. | null | 8 | 22 | 2007-07-21 05:45:45 UTC |
35,809 | 35,677 | acgourley | ICFP Programming Contest 2007 (just started, ends monday) | acgourley | This one looks pretty fun. Basically you have a gob of DNA to start (long string of symbols) which you can add any prefix of DNA to. The DNA executes according to a sequence of rules which re-writes itself and produces a string of symbols (RNA) in the process. This RNA is then interpreted to draw a bitmap (as in, it defines actions like color selection, cursor movement, line draws, area fills, etc). The goal is to take a gob of DNA which draws a certain bitmap, and then find a prefix for it such that the concatenated DNA results in (given) target bitmap. The shortest prefix with the closest solution wins. There are some memory and computational constraints too(size of DNA and number of operations on it).Basically they make a very complicated constraint satisfaction problem which probably can probably only be approached with a machine learning approach. I would have liked my ML class a lot more if this was an assignment. | The contest looks interesting. The task is to convert one picture into another and you must do so by using a string of DNA-like tokens as input commands. There is a complex set of rules dictating this process. I have only skimmed it so far, but it looks like a constraint satisfaction problem, and it looks like a lot of hardware would be a bonus. Lisp might actually be a good tool for this although I'll stick to something more comfortable if I decide I want to take it on. | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-21 06:21:27 UTC |
35,810 | 35,677 | acgourley | ICFP Programming Contest 2007 (just started, ends monday) | acgourley | I'm going to start working on it, you can contact me at the email in my profile if you want to help me with it. I live in palo alto if you are nearby. Hopefully at least one of my friends will join me saturday morning. Still not sure what language(s) i will use. It's worth noting there are 3 distinct parts of the program which can be written in different langauges (dna -> rna, rna->bitmap, machine learning wrapper)
| The contest looks interesting. The task is to convert one picture into another and you must do so by using a string of DNA-like tokens as input commands. There is a complex set of rules dictating this process. I have only skimmed it so far, but it looks like a constraint satisfaction problem, and it looks like a lot of hardware would be a bonus. Lisp might actually be a good tool for this although I'll stick to something more comfortable if I decide I want to take it on. | 1 | 10 | 2007-07-21 06:26:27 UTC |
35,815 | 35,606 | abhijit | Has Google Hired Too Many People? The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long | dpapathanasiou | check out this one at swivel.http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/8977818very interesting. :-) | null | 3 | 8 | 2007-07-21 07:08:53 UTC |
35,816 | 35,706 | mynameishere | The True cost of an iPhone and others... | crxnamja | [Toyota] Maintenance: $4,310LOL. My first three cars combined didn't cost that much. And I wrecked two of them! | Being smart with your money is about fully understanding the financial choices you make and seeing the entire picture - the true cost and total cost of ownership when you commit to a device, transportation, pet, or even a child.
| 1 | 9 | 2007-07-21 07:11:05 UTC |
35,817 | 35,542 | abhijit | Man I hate captchas! | jamongkad | simple arithmetic ones' loaded through ajax. Using it for one of the projects that I am working with. Don't think its great, but works for me. http://oltsm.blogspot.com/2007/06/ra-captcha-idea-for-ajax-b... | Do you guys think captchas are necessary? I think they just ruin the whole look of the website + they annoy users to high hell. Is there any way around the implementing of captchas? | 12 | 9 | 2007-07-21 07:13:50 UTC |
35,821 | 35,811 | cperciva | The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security | jwecker | Two more dumb ideas which ought to be on this list:1. "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". The fact is that most eyeballs are useless because they're not capable of seeing the problems. Some bugs simply can't be found unless the person looking for them has particular technical expertise. (Side channel attacks against cryptography is my personal area of interest, and history indicates that at least 99.99% of eyeballs aren't useful when it comes to finding these.)2. "There's a theoretical vulnerability, but nobody will be able to exploit it in practice." History is full of "purely theoretical" vulnerabilities which have turned out to be entirely real. This is why mathematicians (or people with mathematical training, at least) tend to do well in the area of computer security: If you can't prove that your code is secure, it probably isn't secure. | null | 0 | 7 | 2007-07-21 08:13:51 UTC |
35,822 | 35,787 | kul | Post-Mortem of a Tokyo-based Web Start-up | earthboundkid | i liked this, thanks for being so honest | null | 10 | 16 | 2007-07-21 09:11:11 UTC |
35,825 | 35,732 | thingsilearned | Three things every entrepreneur must know... | blored | What? No girls? I quit. :) | 1) Lists like these are just link bait.2) Working won't get you girls.3) It's hard. | 4 | 10 | 2007-07-21 09:47:24 UTC |
35,826 | 35,824 | thingsilearned | San Francisco news.yc Meetup - Friday, July 27th | jamiequint | Awesome! Good time and date, but where? | We have somewhat limited space so RSVP soon. Looking forward to meeting some fellow news.yc-ers | 2 | 19 | 2007-07-21 09:50:12 UTC |
35,828 | 35,824 | waleedka | San Francisco news.yc Meetup - Friday, July 27th | jamiequint | Nice thought, Jamie. It should be fun. How about preparing a little program? Maybe set an hour for 3-minute fast demos for those who like to show their work and get feedback? | We have somewhat limited space so RSVP soon. Looking forward to meeting some fellow news.yc-ers | 0 | 19 | 2007-07-21 10:05:54 UTC |
35,833 | 35,732 | dustintownsend | Three things every entrepreneur must know... | blored | 1) This is the truth, but whatever.2) If you are worried about "getting girls"...maybe you should get a job at the mall, because your not going to make it as an entrepreneur.3) It's hard...but that is what makes it so great. If becoming a successful entrepreneur was easy, then everyone would do be starting companies, but it would be pointless. The great things in life take lots of hard work (blood, sweet, tears, etc) - but when you get them you know that you earned them and that is why they are great!Entrepreneurs have to be a step above the rest (in terms of work ethics and dedication)...meaning that we have to live by our compan(y)ies and die by our compan(y)ies - not worry about stupid stuff like getting girls...
| 1) Lists like these are just link bait.2) Working won't get you girls.3) It's hard. | 1 | 10 | 2007-07-21 11:31:27 UTC |
35,838 | 35,837 | dood | Connections: an alternative view of change [documentary] | dood | An interdisciplinary history of science, innovation, invention and economics.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)# | null | 1 | 6 | 2007-07-21 13:16:30 UTC |
35,841 | 35,837 | pg | Connections: an alternative view of change [documentary] | dood | When I was a kid, this was my favorite documentary of all time. | null | 0 | 6 | 2007-07-21 14:06:08 UTC |
35,855 | 35,852 | pg | Craigslist Google Maps Mashup | tiki12revolt | The rent per room heatmap is amazing. | As it says on the website, perl, google maps, and craigslist | 0 | 7 | 2007-07-21 16:12:23 UTC |
35,856 | 35,805 | dpapathanasiou | A Quickstart to Common Lisp - wanna finally learn Lisp? | nickb | So it starts well: There's no difference between code and databut then none of his examples actually show that in action.Instead, he does a bunch of simple iterations and print statements; most people would look at that and say, "I can do that with [language x]".
| null | 0 | 3 | 2007-07-21 16:34:30 UTC |
35,858 | 34,090 | ralph | The Dangers of a Startup | thingsilearned | Pathetic drivel. | null | 0 | 20 | 2007-07-21 17:11:21 UTC |