skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think the fact that you lack insight into yesterday's healthcare industry works for you -- it's an industry that's desperately in need of fresh perspective. These "insights" can blind you from new opportunities that may shape tomorrow's healthcare industry.

Both industries are ripe for change, but if healthcare's grass looks like it can be greener, go for it. You have 4 months to explore its problems.

"When you're green you grow; when you're ripe you rot"
I like the TED video where they invited the guy from the completely dirt-poor African village to talk about building a windmill out of scrap bicycle parts... What must he have been thinking while talking to all of those super-rich who could buy his whole village like it was a candy bar from a vending machine as he recounted scrounging enough rusty bicycle parts to pump water and keep villagers from dying of cholera?

I'm sure they were thinking this made them all "global" and "in touch" or something. I think they were treating the poor guy like a curious little pet.

Here it is:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/153
I prefer simple Ask YC's, it keeps people responding expressing something.

Look at BB websites, a large number of polls is usually followed by a "Comment As To Why" afterwards. I mean what's the point of having a poll if you want comments. You don't get quantifiable data online, so why have a poll that is inherently useless because simply seeing a number influences peoples choices.

It's pack mentality. I'm sure "We'd have the same number of polls, but they wouldn't look as ugly" is getting a lot more votes now it's broken into the lead than when they were at 0 points.
We're at 38,649 lines of python code according to that script excluding test code, html, css and images since January 1st, 2008.

However, this includes white space and comments. So probably 1/2 or 2/3 of that.
Self-hosted, but currently down due to Rails problems with the server. So I'm now considering converting to wordpress -on- a self-hosted server. I'm not worried about my server going down, there's been more software troubles and I'm counting about 6 including this one, although technically this is a server problem.

I'm thinking of slicehost with wordpress. It's an extremely stable blog, but it's too taxing to keep it up to date on my own rather than using someone elses free service.
Code LOC: 1013 Test LOC: 268 Code to Test Ratio: 1:0.3

3 weeks in. But if I count all the prototypes it's probably closer to 5k lines of code. We probably need to write more code.
Art Galleries Using the Web. PG was just ahead of his time
You don't have to guesstimate.

http://www.dwheeler.com/sloccount/

http://cloc.sourceforge.net/
They call them "server rooms". Anything less is an intermediate step.
IPv6 has nothing to do with firewalls and NAT issues. Firewalls in particular will remain in place and render this setup unfeasible.
Ugh, looks like a Google Docs bug (wont invert the graph when you publish). Should be fixed now.
Great leaders are great followers.
They say we need to be leaders not followers, but we have to be great followers before we become great leaders.We have to follow before we're being followed. We have to obey before we're being obeyed. Tha't what we call set a good example. Do it first before we ask someone else to do it. Action speaks louder than words. A leader is a follower; he/she follows to lead.
It's also an ability to manipulate. If I downvote every 2 point story around my 2 point story, people are more likely to see mine over a possibly better story.

I left Reddit because that's what happened with every story. You submit something and it gets burried within 10 seconds. If it was 10 minutes, sure some people red it but 10 seconds is barely time to read a title.
the cpan module uses internic, np. thx.
I don't typically spend money unless something hurts, in which case I'll often spend far more than I should.

If you can find a product that makes a "pain" go away -- you've probably got something marketable.
Nice finds. Would have saved me writing that script and seems like it does a more complete job.
I've got a self-hosted personal blog running a stock-standard WordPress with an off-the-shelf theme, and a blog for our Open Source projects running a relatively heavily customized Wordpress and theme to make it feel more like a magazine with an article focus rather than a blog with a journal or diary feel.

Ours is for "eat your own dogfood" purposes...our software installs and manages Wordpress, among dozens of other applications, and so we like to use that feature as heavily as possible. So our corporate website runs Joomla and FlySpray and our Open Source documentation site runs TWiki, all installed and managed by Virtualmin. Several of our friends and family also have blogs or other stuff running on the same system running various tools.

If it weren't being managed mostly automatically by tools, we'd probably use a hosted service for some of that stuff.
If you use Subversion, I suggest svnstat: http://sourceforge.net/projects/svnstat

We've gone from about 20k to 45k LOC in 2 months.
"I'm at the gallows."

Why?

I've come up with at least 200 names for my startup. Alas, 180 of them were taken. But that still leaves me with 20 candidates. I claimed the best 5, and when I launch, I'll just keep the one (and any derivatives).

The trick is, until you launch, you're never done naming your company. I still write down one or two names per week and review them later. Surprising how bad a great name is a week later.

Naming your startup is like everything else in your startup. Perservere. Perservere.
A vote for the StairMaster elliptical that can involve your arms as well as legs. Seems to help a lot with my posture and gets rid of tension in my back.
You got a picture in there :)
"give me direction without deviation from my idea"

Then use the name you like but is already taken as your "working name" to keep you focused. Rename it later at launch.

(My working name is "Back Pocket", always reminding me that with this software in my back pocket, nothing can stop me. Of course, that will NOT be the name of my company.)
Also there were at one point three Caliphates. The idea of a single Caliphate wasn't reality? If I recall correctly, there were always strongmen laying claim to the title.
I think there are two points you haven't considered.

First, for startups which take VC, a "modest exit" can mean that the founders get nothing. The range of outcomes where founders become fabulously wealthy but early employees do not is fairly narrow.

Second, most founders start off by not taking a salary. Deciding to be an employee instead of founding your own startup means implicitly deciding to take more salary up-front and less of a chance of holding valuable stock at the end -- put another way, reducing your risk.

That all said, whether "a fraction of a percent" equity is reasonable is an open question -- it depends on how large the company already is, how large your salary is, et cetera. You can always negotiate.
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My uncle read the murder rate in Chicago has been dropping for years and congratulated my cousin, who is a cop on one of the worst beats in the city. He said, "You boys are doing a really good job."

"No," my cousin said. "These kids are shooting at each other more than ever. But, ER doctors keep getting better and better at putting them back on the streets.

"Sometimes we wish they would stop doing that."
I think it will significantly increase return rates, if the game is good. See: kongregate.com
You're getting to be almost as persistent about Numbrosia as rms was with his herbal remedy =)
2 threads in 400 days, and a comment in every thread about drugs. I thought it was reasonable. And it's technically not an herbal remedy, because kratom is not classified as anything by the FDA.

;)
passé.

Come to think of it, can you use unicode? That would be really hip.
Ask YC: Hacker moms & dads, what do you read?
Ive just had a baby girl, what do you, hacker moms and dads read about children? is there a place online to read interesting stuff? any deadtree books you recommend?
Hey, no problem. You're not alone. Happens to everyone from time to time. Things are weird these days and that leads to extra frustration on top of the frustration of trying to start something new. I appreciate that you were big enough to say that. I'm sorry if my comments caused any offense also.

If you care to discuss, may I ask what in particular got you disillusioned?
My answer: Not necessarily.

Leadership, especially for start-ups, is about creating, communicating and empowering in relation to a vision. You can learn by following, but most likely you will become an outstanding leader by doing instead of following, ie. by doing what leaders do.

All your statements statements "lead" towards the follow then lead direction. In my opinion its more interesting to know your followers, as there are good and bad. Especially for start-ups it is useful to have the _right_ type of followers, namely in activists and diehards. There's a pretty good HBR article about this from this past December titled "What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers." A must read for aspiring leaders!

-oscar
Microsoft and an 'Over the Top' Data Center Buildout?
Now consider the very same company building, running and maintaining 24 of the world's largest data centers. (And that's just Phase 1.)
"think consumer web apps and most web 2.0 "start ups/businesses" can go to hell"

Fine.

I'm not going to challenge your opinion (you may be right).

I AM going to challenge your attitude.

You come to hacker news and insult (with profanity) that which is very important to many of us here. And then ask for advice.

So here's my advice:

Maybe you just came across wrong to me in writing; it's easy to do - I've done it myself. I should give you the benefit of the doubt, but I won't because most others won't either. Before you consider any career move, I'd suggest you seriously consider evaluating your people and communication skills. I don't care what you pick, if you turn people off like you just did to me, you will have problems succeeding. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I suspect not.

Show me that I'm wrong about this, earn some trust, and keep asking for help. Interesting to see how this turns out.
That's what led to the dot-com boom/bust.

P2P. B2B. Platform. I got it! There's P2P platforms, there's B2B platforms, but WE will be the first P2P B2B platform!
Try the web 2.0 company name generator. It's at:

http://www.lightsphere.com/dev/web20.html
http://instantdomainsearch.com/
We have a 10 month old, a six, and eight y-o. Here are some books that have helped us:

The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer (Paperback)
by Harvey Karp

Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion by Dale McGowan
It's stuff like this that keeps me coming here.
"predicts that libraries will disappear in 2019"

You mean just like the movies replaced live performances, TV replaced radio, and email replaced the post office?
Okay, let's leave Google out of this for a moment. My emphasis was that the transition from "startup" to "business" seems to happen when you connect with paying customers.

I even posted a post to this effect where I basically summed up the most interesting part (for me) of a marketing book:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127157

In order to have a clear value proposition to get people to give you their money, you need to answer (according to the book) these questions in succession of difficulty:

Who you are / what you do / for who / because they need what thing that they can't do without you / unlike your competitors / your different in what way / which is a very important distinction (how?) and makes people care (why?).

I'd say most startups start with "who they are" and stop. Some make it to "what they do" although not expressed clearly. The part about "for who" and "why they care" never seems to be spelled out, just implied or something.

The first response is by some guy who took this as both a personal attack and an attack on the whole Y Combinator community!

Then PG comes on and says, "well such and such venture capitalist says he funds business that solve a problem the founders had."

I try to point out that that only holds true as long as that problem is one a huge market of people are also having and are willing to pay for the resolution of.

Then, in a rather futile and pointless exercise, he goes on to systematically knock about 30 points off my all-time high of 80, perhaps under the delusion that I secretly covet a high point tally so I can impress him or something.

It's like, the very mere suggestion that people need to tie their technical ability to practical solution solving for paying customers, especially in this economic climate, seems to meet with rage and fury from programmers who seem to take basic economic reality like a personal insult or something.

> "Make something people will want", since people don't
> always know what they want.

That would need perspective and ability to anticipate possible patterns of future development, ability to assign probabilities to multiple scenarios, etc.

All "right brain stuff". Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.
Why did you assume web development? Sure, many people here build web sites, but don't forget that such startups still represent a relatively small fraction of total amount of software written.

I am involved in two startups and both use C++.

1. Video codecs (encoding/transocing) and IP video streaming. This is for my "day job" startup where we do IP video security.

2. Pikluk Browser (downloadable from pikluk.com) is written in C++ because that project requires a fairly low-level Win32 hacking.

And even our Rails web application uses external C-libraries for image manipulation.
I think it was changed for the upcoming conference, but I may be misinterpreting it. It seems like there was a one week period when they let anyone become a member in January 2008, for the 2009 conference. After that, registration was closed and presumably celebs can still get in. But if you had $6000 during that one week period, you could get in. This is in contrast to the previous conferences where you needed an invite to get a floor pass.
>Y Combinator - the name comes from calculus

Well, a calculus, not the calculus.
I've worked in health care for the last 15 years, and I really don't think that it's a viable field for startups.

Any device that you'd develop that touches a patient has to get approved by the FDA, and that takes millions of dollars and years of studies. I was involved with a company that subcontracted studies for drug approval. Each study was a couple of million dollars, and you had to do multiple studies to get through each phase, before a drug could be released. It's a nightmare.
"Who the eff is using C++ for web development?"

Google.
"Please only vote if you are actually using a particular tech for web development"
I liked "Super Parents Super Children" (http://www.amazon.com/Super-Parents-Children-Frances-Kendall...)

From their book description:
Provides the libertarian answer to solving all your child-raising problems, based on self-discipline and freedom of choice.
The Glass-Steagall Act, which kept commercial banks and investment banks separate and set up the FDIC among other things, was revoked in 1999.

This removed important barriers between the various players in the mortgage market which had acted to keep them at least somewhat honest. IMHO, YMMV etc.
My 23andMe DNA Results
Wow. Pretty cynical take on American politics. :) Not saying that you're entirely wrong, but every industry has regulatory burdens to deal with. Real estate has their own challenges, including predatory lending laws, etc.
The Nature of Lisp
After looking at that page, I have no idea what that's supposed to do. Will someone enlighten me?
If I had an empty schedule then I'd do two hours per day of yoga. Unfortunately, it is much more sporadic because I get really absorbed in coding. The trick is to exercise before the last meal of the day.
We need to know the answers to a few questions:

Do you know how the equity is currently divided? Is it 40-40 for the two founders (assuming only 2) and 20% left over? Have they taken any equity funding yet? Is it just starting out, or would you be employee number 13?

Knowing what they have available to offer, where they are along the start-exit line, and their current equity position will give you a good idea of how to negotiate.

Another angle, will you be taking a salary? If you're making a modest salary then it is perfectly acceptable to be offered only a small fraction of equity. You may very well be making more than the founders are.

If you want more equity in the company, offer to forgo a salary or take only what the founders are taking.

working at a startup is riskier for employees than for founders.

I disagree. The founders take the most risk, and get the most reward because of this. Founders typically make millions or $0. Employees don't typically make millions, but it's against the law for them to make 0. They earn a regular salary, which is less than the millions the founders might make, but they earn it consistently. There's a trade off.
Name and shame. Heh.
What a tricky metric.

Here's a hypothetical example of what often happens to me:

1. Have a problem, need a module, copy a template: 100 LOC.

2. Add meat to the bones: 500 LOC.

3. Start testing & find gaps: 700 LOC.

4. Keep testing until it works (almost) perfectly: 1000 LOC.

5. Refactor, rename variables, tighten comments, pull common objects, strip out what was never really needed: 300 LOC.

A lot of work to get to 300 LOC, but I couldn't have done it without writing 1000 LOC in the first place. How do I measure that?
I disagree -- good links are easy to find; good discussion is not.
This is an old thread, but I ran across the following statement by Philip Greenspun on p. 325 of Founders At Work:

The people who were really good software engineers were usually great writers; they had tremendous ability to organize their thoughts and communicate. The people who were sort of average-quality programmers and had trouble thinking about the larger picture were the ones who couldn't write.

I wish I had remembered this earlier. That the point was articulated by a sharp observer like Greenspun illustrates that it deserves attention beyond the rather glib formulation in the post we were discussing.
http://domify.com -- good for brainstorming....
You can. But it doesn't look good in Firefox.
http://www.i-dns.net/
A one liner for recursive line counts (explicitly allowing certain extensions):

find . -regex ".*\.\(js\|py\|rb\|php\|html\)" | xargs wc -l
What would you do if you had $100m in the bank? I love hacking, so if money were no object, I'd still be hacking. If I were in prison or on a desert island, I'd want a laptop with a compiler.
Well, one of the most interesting things about puzzlers is that a significant (but perhaps still small) proportion of them like making puzzles as well as solving them.

If this were a problem I was working on, I'd try to support that behavior. Make it easy for people to transition from solvers to makers of puzzles. Then feed and nurture the community of fans by allowing solvers to rate and discuss and find similar puzzles.
Did I miss the reason he like Python, or is it really just because he likes the Python documentation better?
If your idea is worth spreading, then presentation matters
Xobni man: Getting deals done
Steve Jobs doesn't seem to be a great follower
Synthetic happiness at work.
That IBM tutorial was great...
I built an apartment rental listing site in rails for a now-defunct startup. Maybe it could fit what you're thinking about. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas (although I'm in the middle of a different project now). I'm ebeland on gmail if you're interested in talking about it further.
Please introduce me to a PR company that will buy karma-drunken accounts. So far, the only thing I've thought of is eBay and I haven't quite had the resolve.
Well if you're getting paid a salary, it's not the case that it's riskier for you. You get to enjoy some of the benefits of a startup (culture, equity, etc) without having to go through the period where you're living on credit card debt and ramen.
If you are hunting the big exit, go forth and co-found a company. (And enjoy the pork-and-beans while the engineers are getting cut nice fat checks.)

Equity is rarely going to pay off for you unless you are fortunate enough to hit the Microsoft or Google jackpot. You might be able to buy a nice car, but don't expect a place in the Bahamas.

Work there if you really love the people or the idea. Enjoy your monthly paycheck. But if you are in the game for the big payoff, you'll have to strike out on your own.
you'll probably lose your job to a teeny-bopper who will work for a pittance and longer hours than you might - would you like that?
the industry is ruthless - either you keep your skills top-level or you become unemployable - especially in the web-2.0 world. would you like to start from the bottom at 33, with high chances of being laid off at any moment in your career? Probably not!
Dave is off-base here. The Twitter API is designed well for what Twitter does. His beef is against core Twitter features, not their API.
1 less competitor is always better. And what is web 2.0 anyway? I an going for web 5! Any followers?:)
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain

Writing, when done well, takes time. Some journalists write to a certain length and then shorten to improve quality. A similar process occurs when programming. A scaffolding is required and the final program is smaller. Unfortunately, this process of honing is greatly undervalued and often skipped. It takes significant time and creates less impressive statistics when you've finished. Regardless, the reduced volume of code will be create a long-term saving.
(this is slightly off topic)
I'm not crazy about how equity gets distribution in start-ups. Long story short, founders are compensated for work without salary. The problem is that stock should go to whoever contributes most to the company. Just because the founders work for free, doesn't mean they contribute the most critical work.

Here is an extreme example to prove a point: I write a business plan and successfully raise money from investors. Then I hire people to do all the work, pay them salary, and give them much less stock than I take. I have the largest employee stake, but haven't done any of the 'real' work (unless you consider fund raising to be the real work).

This example is absurd, but it's useful to my argument: the founders get their stock by working for free, not necessarily for creating the critical foundation of the business. For some reason, this has been bothering me lately. It seems more reasonable to have a system where ownership is determined by contribution... otherwise there will always be the risk of the opposite: contribution being determined by ownership.
it is a shame that
find . -name "*{js,py,rb,php,html}" | xargs wc -l

I guess {} globbing is bash specific?
Man, just go with your gut. I've got two kids, 6 and 1.5 (both boys) and they're night and day different. The best advice is to listen to you instincts. You know your kids better than any one else. If it doesn't feel right, it ain't right.

One caveat: ignore any advice that says you shouldn't get your kids vaccinated. The science doesn't hold up and, even if it did, it ignores the concept of relative risk (i.e. you're statistically more likely to be maimed by an uncontrolled case of measles than to get Autism from the MMR vaccine).