skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I certainly don't want to defend SAP, but when enterprise software sucks, how much is the fault of the software and how much is simply the enterprise? If you started out with good software, could it survive an enterprise deployment -- and all the byzantine requirements and oversight -- intact?
Google's Annual Letter
this was one of the coolest stories I've read in a long time, very fun and nicely done.
What Does Hadoop Mean to You?
I guarantee you that SAP is guilty as charged, they all are. When I did enterprise software, salespeople kept getting everybody in trouble by selling products that had never existed, in this business such practices are the norm, in fact in many enterprise software companies engineers are advised against speaking to "sales team"
I wish they raised the fees more. Domain squatting wouldn't be so rampant if it costs $40 to register a domain like it used to.
Just sent myself a future-mail telling myself to go to the driving range this weekend. I hope it works, because I'm totally gonna forget otherwise.
He means they fund every qualified startup that applies; they have plenty of money. If 100 promising startup teams applied, they'd fund all 100 of them.
We'd always offer money. I suppose a startup could
refuse to take it. But that would probably mean
we'd picked wrong.
That wouldn't matter since we are talking about python, not assembly or C.
your humor detection may be broken.
Doesn't that completely validate the way in which I used Chomsky? I wasn't being negative.
I see the same false claim in a lot of comments - "That guy said the internet would suck, therefore he sucks".

That's not what Stoll said and wrote.

His articles and books (there are several books, all good reading) were written in response to the brainless hype that was so prevalent then. This was right in the middle of the dot-com bubble.

He said that pure technology won't solve human problems, and that we shouldn't assume more benefits than we can prove. He wrote that the internet doesn't do magic.

And Stoll didn't say "Hey, the internet sucks because I say so and I am me". He did some research and discovered that people have said the exact same stupid stuff about television, and about radio.

TV and radio did cause societal changes, but they never came close to living up to the grandiose claims made when they were new.

Stoll said "hey, maybe the hype about the internet isn't all entirely true either".

And he didn't try to tear down the whole internet as worthless. He tried to find some examples of things it couldn't do. Not just any things, but major things - things that if you screw them up, you really regret it.

Specifically, he claimed:

1) The internet can't teach kids to read and write.

2) Some types of human interaction don't work over the internet. And these happen to be some of the really important kinds of interaction.

That's about it.

If there's one thing I think Stoll may not be considering, it's the ability for human society and culture to evolve and accommodate.

I guess we'll see about that.

Right now, it's pretty hard to disprove the fairly narrow claims he makes.
I've worked on professional Blackjack teams. It looks much more glamorous in the movies than it is in real life. Still, potentially making 35k in one night has its appeal.
XKCD: 1,000 Miles North
Burger King...Taco Bell...KFC...Jerzees...Car Max...Cars.com...Office Depot...Home Depot...IBM(International Business Machines)...Circuit City...

There are a lot.
Oh please, what nonsense. Your statement doesn't even match up with what pg writes.
Paul Graham's stock pick, March 2005
I was looking at an old essay, "Return of Mac" where pg discussed the reemergence of Apple.

"So Dad, there's this company called Apple. They make a new kind of computer that's as well designed as a Bang & Olufsen stereo system, and underneath is the best Unix machine you can buy. Yes, the price to earnings ratio is kind of high, but I think a lot of people are going to want these."

Have a look at the stock prices of Apple, Google, and Microsoft between then and now: http://preview.tinyurl.com/23a4vd , that's a pretty solid call
Peter Nixey, Immad Akhund - Clickpass
All valid points on the SEO stuff. One thing to keep in mind is that the age of the url is important too.

One thing I would point out is that everything else being equal a good domain name will generally get more clicks. The higher CTR will eventually lead to higher results in both the natural and paid results. A good domain name is also important for branding and other forms of advertising.

I am not going to remember an IP address unless my dork quota hasn't been met that week.
Maybe your item of trivia wasn't trivial to Chomsky... that's actually a pretty cool find and I'm sure he found it very interesting.
That's a rhetoric technique. He can slow down and focus whenever he feels like it. The stage antics are great for keeping attention. When he slows down to make a point, it really grabs the viewer's focus.

It's the public speaking equivalent of using headlines and layout and typography to create a good reading experience.

Teachers (and comedians) do stuff like this all the time. His presenting style is pretty well developed, especially for being so loose :)
SpaceShipTwo Construction Photos
He wrote most of that well before the bubble. I think the interesting thing about his criticism is just how big the websites that solved (or worked on) his criticisms are - google, amazon, facebook, ebay, digg, wikipedia. I think its fair to say he had some fairly good insight into significant challenges to the web before most people saw them, he was just wrong to say they couldn't be solved (or lessened).
Ultimate physical limits to computation
It might have been a joke, but you should still get one. A slightly used (02-03) 911 will cost you about as much as a nice new car. And if you guys are moving to Vancouver, you'll have a place to use that wonderful car too.

Disirregardless, congratulations. :)
Partially.

There are attacks that specifically target me and there are attacks that are going after anyone with login credentials. The issue with ClickPass is that it wants to be choke full of latter guys. This makes it a fat and juicy target for someone looking to grab any credentials. The question of my trust in my email provider here is secondary. It is only relevant if I am personally the ultimate target. See the difference ?

The bottom line is that they want to manage my confidential information. This is very ballsy of them and it comes with a LOT of responsibility whether they realize it or not. Or, perhaps, they want to deal with passwords that are OK to be compromised. In former case they (currently) lack credibility, in latter case they misrepresent what their service is about. Hence my original comment.
Ask YC: Startup school?
Has YC sent out confirmations for startup school yet? I haven't received mine yet!
This must have been REPRINTED in 2007, right?

Nobody has used GCL in years, as far as I know.
Emmett's right.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=120949
interesting. OTOH we all know how much reddit sucks and any further comments on the topic are just adding to the noise here.
Nothing yet :-(
Will everyone please relax? It's still the 27th here in California. Trevor's finishing reading the applications. We'll send out responses tonight.
Google's Stock Falls as Its Click-Through Rate Flatlines
thx pg, sorry for jumping the gun
Auctomatic has been acquired by Live Current Media (Smalltalk/Seaside ftw)
It will be the first ever that I plan to attend. So, I hope I get an invite soon.
Using IMDb data for Netflix Prize
He puts on a nice act. No doubt he's had plenty of practice. And of course the TED audience eats it right up.
Yups... thanks pg...
Low Information Diet Makes You a Better Listener
Gone in 2 minutes: MacBook Air gets hacked first in contest
The Music Industry’s New Extortion Scheme
He'd be a hell of an 8th grade science teacher...
What are the factors that act as tighter limits than money?
Launching clickpass: the inside story
Indeed, but in certain circumstances where there is no scarcity of cash on either side its relative value declines, hence my question.
To add to your great post, here are some questions listed at a website for one of his books:

Does the internet really bring us together ... or does it isolate us from each other?

Suppose the network replaces newspapers, books, libraries, and teachers. Is that a good thing?

Who is hurt by computing & networks? (it's not who you think!)

Do computers and networks really belong in the classroom?

Why does the network promise so much, yet deliver so little?

Source: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/silicon_snake_oil.html
Funny, I was just talking to my dad about this today. He works in finances for Waste Management and told me how much of a complete disaster rolling out the SAP system was. Screens would take minutes to go between, entering new customers into the system took 15 minutes as opposed to the promised minute, and customer orders were getting lost and duplicated constantly. The software basically could not handle any load at all. And this was just in one of WM's smallest markets.

My father mentioned SAP told WM the software was '90%' done and so they might as roll it out and patch up the last '10%'. Instead, he said the software was '10%' complete with '90%' completely broken. They had to rollback to the old software as they were losing customers in markets using the new software.

WM is now at least 5 years behind on upgrading their billing systems as they have to basically start the entire process from scratch. SAP tried to deliver a customized version of off the shelf software and failed miserably. I hope they get held accountable and destroyed in court. It disgusts me when companies can take ridiculously large contracts for solved problems and not deliver and then still get away with the money.
Some interesting things in the letter:
- 17,000 employees in 20 countries

- 1/3 of employees work on search

- 1/3 on ads

- search & ads are hard problems, i.e. there are many opportunities in this space

- 70-20-10: 70% resources on search & ads, 20% on apps (gmail), 10% on areas that are farther afield but have huge potential, such as Android.

- YouTube is a largely independent operating structure, with YouTube remaining in a separate office in San Bruno, about 25 miles from the main Googleplex

- Every week, I(Larry Page) approve a Google spreadsheet with a summary of every single hire we are making worldwide

- Instant messaging within Gmail- which works right inside your browser with no installation-has been a big hit

- Our goal is to generate a gigawatt (roughly enough to power San Francisco) of clean, cheap energy in years, not decades. If we are successful, we will not only help the world, but also make substantial profits
--------------------------
Good read, clearly Larry & Sergey are continuing Warren Buffet's Annual letter tradition.
Beating Traffic by Joining the Network
Is China Really No. 1 in Internet Users?
Time, obviously. There's just four people in YC. pg has written about this on numerous occasions. Space is also a concern...the Anybots office holds about 20 companies, and then begins to get cramped and stuffy. Regardless, if they feel good about your prospects they will accept you, regardless of how many others have been accepted (though there is an upper bound, I suspect the pressure is applied during the written application phase rather than the interview phase...and there is an upper bound to the number of interviews they can reasonably handle in one weekend).
pg's homecooking
If they can pull off renewable<coal, they're going to be the biggest company of all time...

Anyone want to put odds on them doing it in 5 years?
Many YC companies didn't need the money. We (Virtualmin) didn't (though it helped to offset the cost of my move from Austin where I had property to deal with and a car to sell--and the significant disparity in cost of living between there and here...I certainly didn't have any desire to turn down the money, but we signed on for the experience not the cash). pg has said about a third of companies don't need the money. The limiting factor is time for pg, tlb, and Jessica, not whether you need a measly 15 grand to survive long enough to launch.

But, frankly, nobody applies because of the money. There are cheaper sources of money.
Headline here is a bit misleading. Growth in click-through is slowing to a halt... but people are still clicking. It's not like everyone on the internet stopped clicking on ads.
And here http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N14/sturgess.html for an interview with Jim Sturgess.
Pointing the finger at buffer overflows, and other C quotes
Protect Your Privacy When Downloading
Microsoft prepares 'Albany' to compete with Google Docs
I’m not against Windows; Unix just works better
Of Card-Counting, Startups, and the Real Story of the MIT Blackjack Team
Research's always going to throw up some cautionary tales that the author will add as a caveat to not come across as a complete fool. Here are some of the claims he has made:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554

There's a specific claim here too: baloney to people buying books on the internet

I am not saying he's an Andrew Keen or a James Glassman, but he is a pretty middling futurist, which is to say he is no better than a coin flipper.

As for the idea that similar grand claims were made about television and radio and they did not pan out, well they weren't democratic media that allowed equal participation. This of course doesn't mean that the internet is the second coming of a virtual Jesus, but basing predictions on few archaic data in a dynamic environment doesn't make you a futurist, it makes you a bad historian.
Software Startup Lessons (Part 1): The Basics
YouTube is the only company in recent memory that got huge in the lifespan of the oldest YC companies. Many companies can grow beyond what you initially see, so I would call your estimate of 3 potential huge companies a lowball.
Craigslist, Coming Soon In A Language Near You
I felt a similar need to show appreciation that I have never felt before when finishing a video on YouTube.
You could also buy a klein bottle!

http://www.kleinbottle.com/
While I agree with your list, I would like to add that working side by side with professionals in the industry for which you are trying to get funding for could be the most valuable resource available. This allows you to gain an insight as to how a particular industry works as well as being able to network with the right people to help move you forward. Having the right team and the right people working along side you, can be a greater asset to any company wanting to achieve success. Without great people, there's no great success.
Most other Angel, VC, and incubator programs run a "rolling admissions" process. That would seem to take some of the time pressure out of the equation, but "time" as a limiting factor sounds more like the residue of inadequate productivity or know-how, or a function of the processes and structures the YC founders have put in place.

In other businesses, for example, if the number of startups that could take part in the program and offer a possibility of profit/upside or what have you for the investment of time and $ the business would find a way to address at least a majority of the demand (or unmet need). If YC had been funded by YC I would suspect they would be encouraging themselves to expand in a way that continued to create a compelling experience and a reasonable expectation of profit. Perhaps they are, since they talk about taking on more startups each time. I was struck by this article by George Gedron on the critical need for entrepreneurial education in the real world in Inc. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20071001/guest-speaker-the-real-...

It seems that YC is one solution (and if they make a nickel while doing so, more power to them). But Gedron isn't limited by time (any more than any of us are) because he is building a scalable repeatable model targeted at undergraduate education. I am not trying to play devil's advocate, I see a need for a factor of 100 to 1,000 scale up in what YC is doing (defined more broadly as entrepreneurial education, not just aimed at web applications).
The reply messages take too long to get back...
Just got the ok!
Same here! Woot!
Just got the response (11:46pm PST). I'm in, woo hoo!
>One very small stakes investor in the early days, says Chang, was open source software pioneer Richard Stallman, who had worked at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab before resigning in 1984 to develop a free Unix-like operating system known as GNU.

Sweet.
Bid starts at $500.
I agree that it's certainly no cause for them to panic (at least not yet), but on a sales chart, growth slowing to a halt is in fact a flat line, so I wouldn't say the headline is misleading at all.
Batching "admissions" is net more efficient. Plus the whole structure of YC requires it.

We do keep expanding. Every batch has had more startups than the one before. And we're always looking for ways to scale. Just this fall I wrote a bunch of software to keep track of and communicate with all the startups. We'd be lost otherwise, now that the total is up to 80.
Pft, that's nothing. ;) MIT's Edward O. Thorp wrote the book on blackjack card-counting, then he and MIT's Claude Shannon created the first wearable computer to help them beat Vegas at roulette back in 1961.

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/courses/mobwear/resourc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting#History_of_blackj...
What are people's thoughts about using LispWorks, how does it compare to Emacs/Slime?
So far the limiting constraint has been the number of good applicants. But time is a close second, and may become the first constraint unless we can think of clever ways to make ourselves more efficient.
The best chili I've ever had.
Haha, true. But usually when someone uses 'flatline' as a verb, it means fall to zero and die.
The first wearable computer: Claude Shannon hacks roulette
SEO : rappels de 10 évidences SEO : rappels de 10 évidences
Un billet de Denis Szalkowski sur quelques évidences en matière de référencement !
For those who are attending, please consider adding to the wiki (http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=).

Additionally, I've created two pages that I strongly encourage you to fill out for your own benefit: http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=list_of_startups_p... and http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=list_of_people_att...

Speaking from experience @ Startup School '07, we all know the speakers and their projects, but we don't know much about fellow attendees. Let's help change that.
I'm not going to vote you down, but honestly, what was this for?
I saw mention on an SEO blog that one reason the clickthrough rate has fallen is that previously, the entire ad copy was a link and now only the title is a link. So there is less space to click and less accidental clicks. In the long run this should make each click more valuable.
but it's not slowing growth, it's slowing acceleration
Startup School Wiki
The clickthrough falloff is not for lack of trying. I spent $500 on AdWords a couple months ago as an experiment. I didn't get the results I expected so I let it die after the money ran out. Since then, I've gotten eight phone calls from Google trying to get me to re-fund the account. It's beyond annoying.
Wait a sec... Telecommute makes possible the 9AM start...
Not true. According to the article, they were seeing year-to-year growth of their click-through rate in earlier months of 25-40%, and in the last 2 months it's been 0% and 3%. That's slowing growth.

(Unless you mean relative to the aggregate number of clickthroughs and not relative to the clickthrough rate. But advertisers care about conversion rates more than total inventory of impressions, and we don't know how it affects aggregate clickthroughs anyway until we know how the base inventory has changed.)
just got it too! I'm old, but very excited. :)
Is the news.yc meetup still on for that weekend? I've heard there was something planned for the friday night before Startup School.
I look at how IMDb treats their data and laugh. It's basically an excuse for an API of 1990. This makes their system look like a big wooden network of pulleys and ropes. And I thought it was an Amazon company...
Suggestion: Make a simple web app to support the "attendee directory" -- This way you can do sorting, etc. later when/if the list gets huge. There appear to be some sort of 15-minute or longer lock times for modifications on the doku wiki page for attendees. Message me if you'd like help building it.
The title sounded intriguing but the colors and size of your text turned me off immediately. Hopefully it's just my old eyes.
Good job, rms.
That's a good point but it's only one aspect. Another striking feature of the late 20th century is our ability to use advanced technology to extract resources optimally. So instead of getting a slow decline in supply and a corresponding higher prices slowing demand (the ubiquitous bell curve), you get a diagonal line followed by a vertical -- in other words, a cliff.

That sounds alarmist but it's just because you don't notice until you're on the wrong side of the graph. Cod was one of the most plentiful fish around and because it was good and cheap it became the base of the "fish and chips" British staple. Cod is now an endagered species. 90% of all large fish have disappeared from the world's oceans in the past half century. And that's just fish. We have new technology to extract oil efficiently sometimes called "super straws". So instead of sputtering to a stop, we'll get there at full speed. It's easy to say, "Oh we'll just slow down or find alternatives." That's like going 150mph and saying if the curve is too tight, we'll just slow down. Sure we will. James Dean style.
Ask YC: Which internship, Cisco or small C++ startup?
I've seen a few of the "Which offer should I go for? BigCo or startup?" But, I'm going to be flat out and give you the names of the companies that I have received offers for; partly because I would like to know if anyone has worked for BigCo... and would like to provide more specific information to help you give relevant feedback.

BigCo: Cisco Systems... at the Boulder office working on a web-based deployment Q/A system thing, a front end for a hard drive failure detection daemon, and possibly some virtualization stuff.

Startup: Rogue Wave Software... check out their URL for what they do... mainly enterprise C++ SOA stuff...

http://www.roguewave.com/

Would be working on developing a new Q/A web-based system thing I imagine similar to Cisco, somewhat on open source Apache Tomcat, and to cross-platformize their product (help run on various flavors of unix, AIX, etc...)...

I haven't discussed wages yet... so that could be the ultimate factor. Also trying to get more detailed information on the projects I'll be working on, but most of the info is already there.

I'm about to finish my sophomore year as a Comp Sci major / Comp Eng minor... really interested in operating systems, networking, and programming languages...

I'm thinking BigCo just because the work is similar and it's good to get at least one BigCo under your belt... Also might look really well to have a BigCo under your belt as early as my Sophomore year... :p

Any thoughts?
Cool. I happen to know that the guy working on that is a News.YC reader:-)
I definitely don't see what about Burger Kind, Taco Bell, KFC, Car Max, IBM or Cars.com reminds of you the point the article made. Burger King is not Burger Land. King adds something to the brand. Notice that Seth was only talking about words like Land, World, Village, Central, House, etc.

I think you might have a point with Office Depot, Home Depot and Circuit City. Interestingly enough I often find myself at Office Max, Menard's and Best Buy instead but that could be a coincidence.
Anyone from Seattle going?
I'm trying to put something together. I'll post details on the wiki.
what's the latency like? there's no way these things can feel like local filesystems.