jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What is the best format for submitting a business plan?
Is there a general preference VCs have for the format of the business plans they receive? For instance, is it better to submit a slide deck, or is a more formal document preferred?

I'm at an enterprise software startup that's in the late early-stage phase (we have multiple corporate clients, revenue, etc.), and we're about to start the process of raising a Series A round to switch gears and enter the growth phase. From what I understand, it's best to keep the business plan/proposal short and to the point. However it would be helpful to know if we should prepare a document that spells things out in addition to just a slide deck. What expectations do VCs have for this?

Also, if possible, it would really be helpful to have a few samples of well-regarded business plans we could use to measure our own efforts. Does anyone have any examples they could share? Thanks!
Find Similar Sites
http://www.similarsitesearch.com/
Use http://www.similarsitesearch.com/ to find similar websites to your favorites. It could help your research and find more fun.
The Loop
http://theloop.la
Social news like no other, items change size depending on number of views to allow users to easily distinguish good content from the rest.
Ask HN: Share your 'hair-on-fire' problems
These problems could affect you, or they could be ones you have thought about for a completely different group.

Thought of posting this after reading this article: http://blog.wepay.com/blog/2010/12/17/how-to-invalidate-your-startup-idea/
Powerful App Features to Get Things Done Naturally
http://lightarrow.com/5-powerful-app-features-to-get-things-done-naturally
We pro­pose a sys­tem that takes an organic view of pro­duc­tiv­ity to more truly reflect how we get things done in life. This sys­tem takes into account all the real-life ele­ments of get­ting things done — things beyond notes and lists of tasks. For exam­ple, with some­thing as com­plex as plan­ning an event (like a birth­day party or wed­ding), going on a fam­ily vaca­tion, or embark­ing on a large house­hold project (major land­scap­ing improve­ments), tasks and notes with sim­ple reminders only take you so far. Many more ele­ments are involved, such as ser­vices uti­lized, man­ag­ing the providers for those ser­vices, shop­ping, book­marks, shar­ing with and man­ag­ing event co-hosts, travel com­pan­ions, or project team-mates, in addi­tion to a com­pre­hen­sive cal­en­dar view of every­thing with proper reminders.
Challenges for App Developers Implementing iCloud Sync
http://lightarrow.com/5-challenges-for-app-developers-implementing-icloud-sync
iCloud became avail­able fairly recently with iOS 5.0. Kudos to Apple for bring­ing forth a great new tech­nol­ogy with so much poten­tial for users and app devel­op­ers alike. How­ever, as I men­tioned, there were also many chal­lenges for devel­op­ers. Feel free to con­tact me if you wish to learn more about how we over­came them to make sure our app remains rock solid. I can­not reveal any infor­ma­tion that is con­fi­den­tial under the iOS devel­op­ment pro­gram, but share the gen­eral approach we took. It is truly a pow­er­ful and excit­ing tech­nol­ogy that does so much of the heavy lift­ing for the developers. I’ve listed some of those chal­lenges here.
Envisioning the “viral” in viral marketing
http://laserlike.com/2008/06/29/envisioning-the-viral-in-viral-marketing/
Excel model to help you understand the "viral" in viral marketing.
Dell to Acquire Wyse Technology for $1 Billion
http://bx.businessweek.com/cloud-cmputing/view?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hostingtecnews.com%2Fdell-acquire-wyse-technology-1-billion
Dell to Acquire Wyse Technology for $1 Billion
Is this why co-working is important?
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-vole16-2008oct16,0,3174437.story
I am more productive when I'm with my co-founders in the same physical space. Hmm...
The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect
http://ddos.arbornetworks.com/2012/01/the-megaupload-shutdown-effect-2/
this is some analysis i did for work, using our global view afforded by ATLAS. you can see when megaupload was shut down and the drop in traffic to carpathia and leaseweb (where megaupload was co-locating).
Online-Test for IIT JEE, IIT Sample Papers
http://www.entrancei.com/
Entrancei offers Online Test for IIT JEE, IIT Previous Years Papers, sample papers and a large set of online Question Banks for various Entrance exams. Find question bank and study material for IIT JEE, CBSE, ICSE, NTSE, OLYMPIAD and many more. Visit online or Call (011) 4734 0170
Show HN: ASort – Python Utility For Sorting __all__ lists
https://github.com/cpendery/asort
I got tired of having to keep my __all__ lists sorted in python by hand as it helps keep them more readable so I made this to do it for me. If you aren't familiar with __all__ lists, here is a good post explaining them https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44834/what-does-all-mean...

Has support for pre-commit along with cli and python api usage. Shoutout to the isort project which was this inspiration for asort's api and name. It works with black automatically.
37 Signals/Get Satisfaction Conflict Resolved
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else#comment_41904
The comment is from Thor Muller, CTO of Get Satisfaction. GS basically implements all of the demands from 37s.
Did Dropping Acid Make Steve Jobs More Creative?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/10/steve_jobs_implied_that_taking_lsd_made_him_more_creative_does_t.html
Apple founder and tech visionary Steve Jobs died on Wednesday. Jobs was heavily influenced by 1960s counterculture, and once told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he did in his life. Can LSD really make you more creative?
Few shocking facts about ERP explained
http://infilon.com/blog/few-shocking-facts-about-erp-explained/
ERP is the best solution for multinational company to connect their multiple branches of their different countries. It is also suitable for that who is working with different branch for different module in different area. Our Microsoft NAV and Dynamics are best and chipper solution for them. We are working in compatible rate. We are authorizes Microsoft partner for their products. Infilon is proven that it is best solution Provider Company in India for ERP. If you want to contact us please contact on Infilon (dot) com.
What's the point of popular?
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/05/whats-the-point-of-popular.html
You'd think that it's the most important thing in the world. Homecoming queen, student body president, the most Facebook friends, Oscar winner, how many people are waiting in line at the book signing...

Popular is almost never a measure of impact, or genius, or art. Popular rarely correlates with guts, hard work or a willingness to lead (and be willing to be wrong along the way).

I'll grant you that being popular (at least on one day in November) is a great way to get elected President. But in general, the search for popular is wildly overrated, because it corrupts our work, eats away at our art and makes it likely we'll compromise to please the anonymous masses.

Worth considering is the value of losing school elections and other popularity contests. Losing reminds you that the opinion of unaffiliated strangers is worthless. They don't know you, they're not interested in what you have to offer and you can discover that their rejection actually means nothing. It will empower you to even bigger things in the future...

When you focus on delighting an audience you care about, you strip the masses of their power. (Seth's Blog)
Our Version Of Facebook Events
http://chillweek.com/home
Better oversight for discovering events in your city. Easy way to know which events are popular.
What is Object Oriented Programming? – Swift Edition
http://www.teknadesigns.com/object-oriented-swift/
A basic, high level explanation of Object Oriented Programming, with examples in Swift
Google "niche design sites"
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=niche+design+sites&pbx=1&oq=niche+design+sites&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=947l4257l0l4445l18l11l0l4l4l0l580l1715l2.4.1.5-1l8l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=ae1bafe2df197d5b&biw=1224&bih=706
Just as a mental note, this search led me to a page on google where the first hit was a link to a Turkish porn site (https://twitter.com/#!/kirillzubovsky/status/105751771233783810). I thought it was a little strange/funny.
Is there an easy way to cross compile rust?
When developing applications in Go, setting the target OS and target architecture is all you need to compile your application across to another platform.

I have recently started learning rust and it seems like there isn't an easy way to cross compile. Did I miss something in the documentation?

Why is that?
DSLs - Are people losing their faith?
http://blog.jonasbandi.net/2008/10/have-i-lost-my-faith.html
Is the DSL hype beginning to fade?
Arik Air
http://www.arik-airline.com/
Book your flight with Arik Air UK from London Heathrow to Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Calabar, Benin, Akure, Warri, Enugu, Sokoto, Yola, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Maiduguri, Gombe, West Africa: Accra, Cotonou, Freetown, Banjul, Dakar.
How to Set Up a Moleskine Notebook for Maximum Productivity
http://vitamincm.com/moleskine-notebook-setup-tips
See how to set up a small notebook as a portable tool for gathering information and keeping organized.
The surprising moral force of disgust
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/08/15/ewwwwwwwww/?page=full
via bagasch @ monochrom.at
OpenCloudSync: open data
https://github.com/dsebastien/OpenCloudSync
The OpenCloudSync project aims to provide a data synchronization solution supporting various data stores (e.g., Dropbox, Box.net, NAS, Network shares, FTP, etc) and different devices (e.g., Linux, Mac OS, Windows, Android, ...). The goal being to free consumers from depending on a specific storage solution.

Encryption is also envisioned to protect privacy (i.e., only store encrypted content online)

Development hasn't started yet, I'm just gathering ideas so go ahead and shoot (not me preferably). Motivated people are also welcome to hop on the bus :)
Details of Redis' virtual memory implementation
http://code.google.com/p/redis/wiki/VirtualMemorySpecification
Initially, Redis required one's dataset to reside in RAM. With its VM implementation, Redis may swap to disk values. Keys must always reside in RAM.
7 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Failure
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/overcome-fear-of-failure/
The fear of failure is perhaps the strongest force holding people below their potential. In a world full of uncertainty, a delicate economy, and countless misfortunes that could happen to anyone, it's easy to see why most people are inclined to play it safe...
About Cryptographic Key Recognition In Data Streams
http://seclist.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/some-words-about-cryptographic-key-recognition-in-data-streams/
Abstract: Search for cryptographic keys in RAM is a new and prospective technology which can be used, primarily, in the computer forensics. In order to use it, a cryptanalyst must solve, at least, two problems: to create a memory dump from target machine and to distinguish target cryptographic keys from other data. The latter leads to a new mathematical task: <<recognition of cryptographic keys in the (random) data stream>>. The complexity of this task significantly depends on target cryptoalgorithm. For some algorithms (i.e. AES or Serpent) this task is trivial but for other ones it may be very hard. In this work we present effective algorithms of expanded key recognition for Blowfish and Twofish. As far as we know this task for these algorithms has never been considered before.
Category : side-channel attacks, live-memory analysis, digital forensics, blowfish, twofish. [non commercial cryptographers]
Dolly Parton's foundation gives free books each months to children
http://imaginationlibrary.com/
"By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, Dolly Parton wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income."<p>Now, over 1600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 700,000 children each and every month, and nearly 40,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, into Canada and across the proverbial pond into the United Kingdom!<p>The program is open-source, you can replicate this program in your area. I hope you'd check it out and lend them a hand if you can.
Unlock And Hack Into A Windows PC With A Single Command
http://www.megaleecher.net/Unlock_Windows_XP
Adam Boileau released a utility to unlock a Windows PC in seconds bypassing the standard Login/Password requirement.
3D Jello Simulation in Javascript
http://dungfu.github.io/JelloSimulator/
Just a little hack I threw together in an afternoon. Was really fun to work on and learn what makes it look more or less realistic looking. Input on how to improve such a simulation would be awesome!
Ask HN: Who is hiring in Canada?
Not specifically for me, but a friend of mine in Canada is job hunting. So want to get an idea as to what is out there.
Ruby Espresso Framework 
https://github.com/espresso/espresso
Thoughts? I'm currently learning Sinatra and wonder how this compares.
Optimize Images Using Smush.it 
http://www.orangeinks.com/tips-n-tricks/smushit-optimize-images-save-bytes/
Optimize images, save bytes
Kickstarter: The class I wish existed before I ran my campaigns
http://www.skillshare.com/Kickstarter-The-class-I-wish-existed-before-I-ran-my-campaigns/1100080328/1286496733?via=profile
My co-founder Jesse Genet and I are teaching a Skillshare class about how we crowd-funded Lumi through Kickstarter and raised over $280K.

Like many of you, Jesse and I were flying by the seat of our pants when we started Lumi. We launched our first Kickstarter campaign back in 2009 when the site was brand new, and then a second last July. We had pretty good instincts about how it would work, but have distilled them into more practical advice. These are some of the tips and cautionary tales of crowd-funding I wish I had heard 3 years ago.

We’ve run the workshop in person with great success (see Skillshare endorsements). Would love to see some of you join in.
Internal Branding
http://www.thinkingserious.com/2008/07/05/internal-branding/
Internal branding is becoming a key to your overall marketing strategy. The information presented in this post came from six years of experience through over 550 focus groups.
Riptide GP - a aquatic racing Android game for Tegra 2
http://www.androidgoo.com/android-games/riptide-gp-a-aquatic-racing-android-game-for-tegra-2.html
From Vector Unit, Riptide GP: a aquatic racing Android game exclusively optimized for dual-core platform from Nvidia.
Show HN: Xordle, a Wordle variant I made
https://6zs.github.io/xordle/
i forked hello-wordl to put together this wordle variant

there's two secret words rather than one, they don't share any letters in common, and your clues will be green if they're green in either word, yellow if yellow in either word, grey otherwise

i find it pretty hard, my friends seem to be pretty good at it though
Evaluating the equity portion of my recent job offer
Looking for some advice or gut reactions on the equity portion of a recent job offer.

Here are the details:
Offerd 35k shares on a float of 30 million = 0.1%
Most recent valuation: $75MM

The company's existing business is fairly established and they recently closed a Series C.

But, while the business has been around it's not really growing. I am coming on board as a Director to drive the creation of a new product, which hopefully will move the valuation north of $200MM.

My gut feels it's low because of the direct responsibility & risk I'm assuming in achieving the new goal. But, technically, I'm not "getting in early", which is where you see larger ownership %'s or shares offered.
Popcorn Time releases version 0.2.8
https://github.com/popcorn-team/popcorn-app/releases/tag/v0.2.8-beta
This new release brings a more stable and bug-free Popcorn-Time. This release sees us standardize on a release format as well as fixes many bugs.

Full changelog:
https://github.com/popcorn-team/popcorn-app/releases/tag/v0.2.8-beta
Analysis: HP - Dial "M" for mayhem
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/21/us-hp-ceo-idUSTRE77K2IL20110821
Leo Apotheker's credibility as a CEO is falling along with Hewlett-Packard's stock price.
Why MEAN.JS Matters to Enterprise
http://bluefletch.com/blog/why-mean-js-matters-to-enterprise/
7 Reasons why MEAN.JS will make your life easier and why you should implement.
Learn to hack with a Hacker Lab (see my personal set-up)
http://mrcracker.com/2010/05/learn-to-hack-with-a-hacker-lab-see-my-personal-set-up/
You have a choice little one. To be a poo-poo pounded legit hacker. Or just a legit hacker. What separates the two? – The right hacking environment.
Ask HN: Preferred mobile web frontend framework?
I'd like to target as many devices as possible, but Android would be at the top of the list (since we'll be building a native iPhone app).

I played around with jQuery mobile last night. I found the documentation to be a little light in some areas, and I couldn't get some things working like they worked in the demos. Is it still too early to make anything serious with it because it's in alpha?

Sencha Touch looks solid, but I've read that the Android performance isn't that great (maybe it depends on OS version). Plus, since it's tied closely to WebKit, I'm concerned about its ability to support WP7. Maybe I won't have worry about that for awhile.

I've also read jQTouch's Android support isn't good either.

Is there a framework that you would recommend? Is it better not to use a mobile frontend framework until something solid and diverse (like jQuery mobile is trying to become) comes along? What's been your experience?
Formerly GitHub acquired startup Gaug.es recently re-acquired.
http://fastestforward.com/blog/archives/2013/11/01/fastest-forward-and-gauges-are-bff
It's been around two years since GitHub acquired OrderedList for their Gaug.es and SpeakerDeck products: http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/05/github-acquires-ordered-list/
Money drives growth in cloud, shrinkage in IT
http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/278050/money-not-technology-drives-cloud-growth-it-shrinkage
Almost half of CIOs report to the CFO, who makes a record number of IT purchasing decisions without involving the CIO. Failing to keep up with demand for cloud, even when its hesitation was justified, has cost IT deeply in organizational status and responsibility.
Ask HN: Is working at a startup irrational?
The opportunity cost of working at a startup makes me question the whole thing. I could make approx. $100k+bonus at a corporate job or $60k+options at a startup. After 5 years, I'll have an extra $200k+bonuses from a corporate job plus an opportunity to move up the ladder and make slightly more money. The startup requires many more hours and much uncertainty for the small chance that those options will pay off.

The missing variable is, what is the expected value for those startup options? I'd like to hear HNs guesses as to the odds of success and the amount of money you can hope to make if you're not the founder.

FYI: I've worked at a startup that flamed out. I'm looking for a job in NYC and am faced with this decision now.
50% of americans have a one month saving
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Fears-grow-more-consumers-just/story.aspx?guid={504D22FD-CC66-4FC1-BF8D-2F199C2AD042}
I wonder if this means in the near future, it's possible that only 10-20% of americans are gonna end up supporting the rest.
Team GliderzZz Hackers Strike
http://www.arcticfalls.se/
TeamGliderzZz hackers have striked again.
irc.anonywebz.com
#gliderzzz
Freshy: a page refresh tool for web developers
https://github.com/lchi/freshy-server
I made a page refresh tool in Python that watches for filesystem events and refreshes a page in a browser every time an event is registered. The project was to scratch an itch I had: I was working on a PHP web application and had to keep refreshing the page manually to see the changes. The intended targets are web developers and designers, and is similar to Live.js, except that it watches more than just UI objects, so it can be used to work with any web application. Its made to be platform independent (to be tested..), and has a Websocket server and Google Chrome extension client (https://github.com/lchi/freshy-chrome-extension) at the moment.

It's built using autobahn (http://www.tavendo.de/autobahn/install_python_package.html) and watchdog (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/watchdog).

Hope someone finds this useful, questions and comments (and forks!) greatly appreciated.
The 50 Best Websites of 2011
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2087815_2088159_2088157,00.html
Unlike near real-time blog, Time provides insight into some sites with some more staying power. Anything they missed?
A brief introduction to Mobile Application Development
http://blog.teamgrowth.net/index.php/mobile-application-development/a-brief-introduction-to-mobile-application-development
n the past couple of years we have witnessed tremendous growth in mobile users all over the world as the entry of smartphones in the market at affordable prices has triggered their usage. We have experienced a major shift in the way we access the internet today with mobiles becoming the primary access point for internet usage.
Effective and Open Source Test Automation Tool: Selenium
http://blog.teamgrowth.net/index.php/quality-assurance-testing/effective-and-open-source-test-automation-tool-selenium
elenium is a portable JavaScript framework commonly used for testing web applications. It is built by Thoughtworks as an open source browser based test framework. Commonly used for testing of web applications, Selenium strongly supports Firefox but is also compatible with IE 6/7, Opera and Safari 2.0+
ZeroMQ – communicate from PHP to Java with multithreaded request-reply
http://hashmade.fr/zeromq-communicate-from-php-to-java-with-multithreaded-request-reply/
In this article, we will see how we can use ZeroMQ to communicate between a PHP webpage and a Java application.

Moreover, we will implement a load balanced request-reply topology, and see how these parts fit together. Since ZeroMQ needs to be compiled before to be used, the corresponding installation procedure will be thoroughly explained, at least on Ubuntu 13.04.
Ask HN: Books about IT & technology trends, 10 - 15 years ahead
I remember back in the late 90s when I was reading lots of books about the digital revolution, information age and mega trends.

Some of the books I remember:

Nicola Negroponte: Total Digital
Bill Gates: The Road Ahead
John Naisbitt: High Tech, High Touch
Neil Gershenfeld: When things start to think

I am currently looking for books that are similar and research major trends and technological developments.

Especially books that look into potential development paths in the next 10-20 years with regard to

- information technology
- energy sector / green technology
- globalization trends
- biotechnology

Of course non of these books will or should predict the future - it is up to us to create it. But it would be interesting to better understand the status quo in these domains and the current problems where research is focused on.

HN, do you have any recommendations? What are books (or other sources) that you could recommend?
CNN Throws Old School Smackdown on Digg  
http://www.hunterhost.com/99/links-2007-12-19/
This company ended up on the front page of Digg and a few days later were featured on CNN.com. Check out the stats to see how CNN brings the pain!
"Satan's Guide To Blog Comments" - think you know tricks that ain't listed?
http://bloggerjet.com/satans-guide-to-blog-comments/
No really... it took me pretty much time to find all the tips and compile them into a single guide. If you know a few extra - please share!