skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm hoping I could just make some javascript the user could put in their code, and it would mix and match the adsense placements (maybe color, etc too)

It would need a way to track the effectiveness of the ads. Tracking ad clicks would be simple enough with JS, tracking how much you make would be harder. I don't know if adsense has an API for that or not.
9 hours. It seems to correlate with the intellectual demands of whatever I'm working on at the time. If I'm learning a new technology or working on a thorny design issue, it can be as much as 11 hours a night. If I'm cranking out code for something I know how to do in my sleep (no pun intended), as little as 8.

I also noticed a big correlation when I was doing math competitions in high school. 9 hours or more of sleep and I could usually get a perfect score without too much trouble. 6 hours or less tended to cut my score in half.

For that reason, I try to avoid shortchanging sleep. I figure something important's going on upstairs, and I don't know exactly what it is but if it's missing, it costs more in productivity than it gains in time.

I've read that the amount of sleep people require varies a lot from person-to-person...I know some people can get by 3-4 hours a night, but I always feel like shit if I try that. Can't concentrate, wake up with an upset stomach, can't sit down to work. If I have 4 hours of sleep the next day is essentially wasted for me, I might as well have just pulled an all-nighter and gone to bed early the next day.
Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?
I'm a student working in my spare time on a web application. One of the big things keeping me from taking it off my personal server (on a subdomain) is the lack of a good name, and hence a domain name.

Do you have an advice on how to come up with a good name?
you can do this on www.colr.org too
6-7 hours.

i find the trick is to sleep, whenever you are tired, take naps, and don't try to fight it. don't use alarm clocks, and don't lie in bed. you should either be asleep or awake, but don't lie in bed trying to decide. i also found that having a bedroom face east, does wonders for your biological clock and keeping it really regular.
I think it also varies by events. An exciting project that's nearing crunch time can get me running on just a few hours, the eyes snap open at 6:15 and life is fun (or...) til 2am. But don't try to keep running at that pace more than a few weeks if that long.
no, not my site. A great idea though.
a shout from wisconsin on that. i like to shovel snow, but its even more fun to drive in it and to go sledding.
There are degrees of screwedness, though. If you have an option plan in writing, you at least have some guarantees about "If you're with the company over this vesting schedule, and if we don't get acquired or go out of business before then, and if we aren't diluted by multiple rounds of funding, and if we have a liquidity event, and if you exercise your options, you'll get this much of the company." That's a lot of ifs, but it's still a helluva lot more than having nothing. Plus, the inability of the founders to make this hard decisions makes me wonder what other hard decisions they won't be able to make.
i don't think he meant long term procrastination, but rather daily procrastination. if you stay in bed, then you may need more sleep in your week.

once i wake up, any additional sleep is usually meaningless, i find a nap after lunch to be of much better use to me.
I used to brag about how little sleep I've gotten, but lately I've seen that as much more of a short-coming. I've been able to measure my productivity on weeks where I've had good nights' sleep and weeks where I haven't, and even though I maybe work more with less sleep, I accomplish much less.
central
America/Chicago

even though i live in milwaukee
Being First IS The Business Plan
@nirmal eh, whatever. hey you wanna go ride bikes??
I found the book on amazon.ca but it's not in stock and it costs over 240$ !! How can it be so expensive??
Can you write something like this using a shoutcast server on your desktop and a flash shoutcast client? Both are basically freely available (seems like writing a shoutcast server is the new hello world application).
Shhh! If this gets out, the fitness industry is in BIG trouble. No machine, no matter how expensive, provides better exercise for the human body.

Oh, and you don't even need snow...

http://www.shovelglove.com/
About 8-9 hours. I strive to sleep enough, and have noticed that trying to cut on sleeping does not work for me. I can sleep even longer, especially if I don't have any interesting/urgent tasks to accomplish.
6hrs - 7A

Something that got engrained in me, is that you tell yourself what time you are going to wake up, and then you make it standard, 7 days a week. Your body will adjust quickly and you will be tired when you need to be tired. Also sleep in 90 minute cycles, so I go to bed around 1A every night. if you still feel really tired during the day, take a nap < 20mins.
Well, it seems to me to be simpler to just have the user upload music to the website. Why force users to download an executable? I should be paying attention to my computer architecture class, instead I'm frantically working on the uploader for my site :-D

EDIT: I see your point. That seems to be a desired feature, but it isn't the priority. I think the priority now is to make it easiest for the most users. I think uploading is the best way to do that.
Excellent point. A while ago I was determined that sleeping less would make me more productive. Then I started actively paying attention to how much time I was wasting one way or another during the day (it wasn't anything obvious like playing WoW or watching too much TV).

One of the key things I discovered is the need to have a chunk of undisturbed time so I can really be productive. So I started going to work later in the morning (flexible schedule) and working more at night (guaranteed to have less distractions, even if you wanted to watch TV you can't find anything on).
I typically get 6-7 a night. If I'm going to be tired it's usually during the day; inevitably, even without much sleep (or coffee), I really wake up around 11pm
GMT-6
Welcome to my life of sucking at optimizing adsense...

44,000 = $34 for me
I'm working on the exact same idea. Good to see competition, but bad because I have been slacking off.

Time to kick it in the ass.
7-8 hrs
7-8 hours. Never used an alarm clock in my life. Wake up with the sun.

Here's a dirty little secret than runs counter to most of the advice in this thread.

(% of diet that's fresh fruit & vegetable) is inversely related to (hours of sleep needed)

There's some logic to this, too. Fresh fruit requires much less energy to digest --> less sleep needed. Try it for yourself. Eat no processed or cooked food for 3 weeks and see if your sleep requirements change. It usually works for me, until I drive by "Five Guys" and then I can't resist - back to 8 hours.
i get about 8. try taking power naps, those will boost your energy.
eBay Seller Revolt Gaining Traction
At one level, yes.

But again, that's feel like an empty platitude.

The exercise I think you should consider is examining what you're NOT going to do. Don't reduce this to a BS exercise interview question of "What are my weaknesses" and answering "working too hard."

Give it a real go: figure out what requests you're going to answer NO to.

Look, I don't mean to be harsh, but is really, really easy to say YES. It's our default setting. Especially if you're in sales.

But if you don't figure out how to say NO, then delivering is extraordinarily difficult.

Start small: say no to clients that are too big (or too small). Set a threshold. Limit the number of backends you have to interface to. Limit it to non-realtime.

But try to bound the product to something you CAN deliver.
What do they mean TipJoy doesn't pay you real money? Isn't the money real as soon as the folks that decided to tip actually "pay their bill" to TipJoy?
I see no point to the upload method, at least for myself. I would not want to upload gigs of music, I would rather just stream it like this service.
I used to do this with FTP but this looks like a more elegant solution to running an FTP server.
It is expensive because it is no longer in print. However, walmart in-store has it for 110$ http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=182980...
I did it too. 3 or 4 days (can't remember). I couldn't fall asleep fast enough so I didn't sleep at all. Wasn't tired at all the last day but I stopped because I couldn't sleep. The result was some memory loss.
Usually a startup incorporates for the purpose of issuing stock.

The situation at your would-be-company looks questionable, at best.
I'm in EST also. I notice there's a lot of stuff later on, but I always assumed that was because there were a plethora of night-owl hackers. :)
About 8.5 is my ideal amount.

On the average day I sleep about 7.5. I can sleep unlimited amounts without any of the negative effects people mention, but if I sleep less than 7 it is really noticeable. I also can stay up several days pretty easily, but then I require a bunch of sleep to catch up, so it is pointless.

The sleeping unlimited amounts is really quite great for long flights or bus rides - I can just sleep for 20 straight hours.
6 hours on average. Lately, I've been staying up to 2-3 am and waking up between 8-9 am. I'd like to shift that an hour earlier, but it's been hard to break the habit. I never napped before, and generally don't like to, but I'm finding now that it helps if I take a short 30 minute nap at some point of the day.

And I work from home, which makes this schedule possible. I tend to take about an hour after waking up to get started working and then stop work from around 6:00 pm to 10:30 pm to be with my wife and daughter. Then back to work when everyone goes to sleep. So that's 8-9 hours during the day and another 4 hours or so at night.

Before I got married I would sometimes go on really long working binges of like 16 - 20 hours or longer and then take a day or so off. Honestly, I prefer working in spurts like that.
That's one of the hardest things about a startup, if you ask me. I find that brainstorming a little each day helps, and then eventually names will come to you when you're not trying to think of them.
woah, impressive. I wish I could sleep that long in the plane. So if you don't use an alarm clock you sleep for about 20 hours?!?! Even if you aren't specially tired?
Nice hack. Thank you.
> Don't even think of negotiating with someone unless you are prepared to walk away if no satisfactory outcome is reached.

Words to live by!

> But all the effort put in before splitting up equity makes it virtually impossible to walk away. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

If you're going into any sort of business transaction, always do it with a watchful eye on sunk costs and opportunity costs.
Feedback needed: App lets you redirect yourname.isfound.at to your blog's URL
My co-founder and I have thrown up a fun little web app to test the waters for bigger projects. It would be great to get some feedback on what you do and don't like about it. Both on the concept and the implementation.

The idea is pretty simple: let people register for a really easy to remember URL ($FOO.isfound.at, get it?) that our service redirects to the actual website or blog. Sites are easer to visit if you can remember where they are, after all. It is by no means a technological breakthrough, but it is useful service nonetheless. What do you all think?
Why is this approach better than starting with Apache Open For Biz project or some other OSS ERP system (if they exist)?

http://ofbiz.apache.org/
I'm thinking the latter. Hopefully that IP routes to Yahoo HR.

golf clap
You do realize that loose tea is very inexpensive, yes?
> Thanks. It's not so much my own share that I'm worried about, as much as potential disputes between the rest of the team members.

Wrong mindset. Go into consulting for a while to hone your more reptilian instincts.
PHP is a complete disgrace for serious Web application development.
why is openid required?
Averaging 5.5 hours right now (with the help of 3 cups of Earl Grey and 2 hard-core commute bike rides each day up beyond category climbs). But this little sleep is not recommended except during a definite deadline after which one can recover. My average without pressure is 6.5 to 7 hours, Studies seem to show that 7 hours is a good healthy amount of sleep.
Steve Pavlina: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/ did polyphasic sleep for a while, and does a good job relating his experiences.

His conclusion: It sucks because life isn't set up for that sleep pattern.
It would have hurt less in Arc.
Tongue-in-cheek... I guess thats a British thing.
>Young children don't need as much.

Um, yes they do, in fact they need more. Toddlers can sleep up to 14 hours a day, children up to 5 usually need 10-12.
Related PG quote: http://scrapbook.akkartik.name/post/7867532

Also cited at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=97829
A buddy of mine did it for about a month.

He was continually out of it for the last two weeks. It if isn't for the faint of heart.
We worked with words that essentialized what we were trying to achieve - never more than 2 together.
girlfriend came up with it based on certain requirements (had to begin with "m" and be short)
As the father of three young children who finally are all usually sleeping through the night, I am all too familiar with the difference between four, six, and seven hours of sleep.

I haven't tried anything fancy like polyphasic sleep, but I can say that simply "reducing sleeping hours" is not going to make you "able to do more everyday". It's going to make you spend more time staring at your monitor going "uuuhhhh".
I seem to be an outlier. I need about 10 hours but can easily enjoy 12.
I usually sleep about 7.5 hours. I don't know any hacks for sleeping less.

The best hack I know for getting more done in the same amount of time is to exercise intensely for 45 minutes to an hour every other day. It's best for me when my muscles reach exhaustion during the workout. I need about 30 minutes to an hour to recover, but my mind feels sharper and my enthusiasm is much greater for the rest of the day and the following day. I try to go first thing in the morning.

There's obvious health benefits, but I think the biggest benefit for me is psychological/emotional.

Thanks for the question! I think it may have inspired me to increase my waning dedication to exercise.
Bradley Horowitz Leaves Yahoo For Google
No, that's American slang as well. It just means "speaking purely in jest" or as I think of it "trying not to laugh."

At least, that's my understanding of the meaning.
There is no general rule here:

I know persons who need at least 8 hours of sleep, and I know others who are more fortunate and only need about 4-5 hours.

It depends mostly on how sane you are in general (last not least: how your infancy has been: very, very important!).
It sounds like most of what you've asked can answered rather simply: Have a decent sales crew.

1) Getting your first 10 customers to believe in your product is the difficult one. But, if you can poach a VP of sales from an ERP company and have him bring his Rolodex, you should be okay. How do you poach a great VP of sales? With the right incentives. And for sales people, that incentive is lots of $$$. If you offer a sales person a generous base salary plus 10 percent of a million dollar software package. They'll be knocking your door down.

2) This is an objection that a sales person lives to answer.

3) From a sales perspective, It's the software, and our solution dramatically reduces the cost and that pain.

4) From a sales perspective, your new ERP can be built by a group of semi-literate apes and a 486.

5) Developer sales. Google for Balmer Monkey Boy Video, you'll see what I mean. It's all sales.

6) Again, sales. You don't compete on price, however. BigCo CIO's want to spend a couple million dollars on a new software package that runs the entire company. And, if you spend a couple million, dropping the odd million to fine tune the software is icing on the cake. "Last quarter we delivered a great software package to run WidgetCo. This quarter we're going to customize it special for us." quoth the CIO.

It's all sales, my comatose_kid friend. All sales.
It's not polyphasic sleep if you've only tried it for a few days, it's deprivation. It takes weeks for your body to acclimate to this sort of thing.

Read Steve Pavlina's polyphasic sleep log if you're interested in doing it right.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
A wider choice of mates reduces people's reproductive output.
"Vanilla is the best flavor."

One of the smartest healthcare IT managers I have dealt with said that regarding enterprise hospital software. The major hospital products have the same issues as ERP products: they are very expensive and implementation projects tend to involve a lot of painful customization. After getting burned a few times that manager swore off customization altogether. Now if they decide to buy a commercial product they implement it as-is, even if that means changing the business workflow to accomodate the software. Over the long run this has delivered much better results.

I don't have much direct experience with ERP but I question whether all those businesses are unique and special snowflakes that really need custom software. Are organizational differences in common areas like inventory control and accounting actually adding any value? In most cases I think they could be standardized without any long-term loss. So then the only reason to customize is to avoid the short-term pain of reengineering current processes.

I don't think your idea is stupid. There are already plenty of other custom development shops doing similar work. So if you hustle and deliver results I'm sure you can win a decent share. But unless you focus more on building a real product I think you may get stuck at just having a small "lifestyle" business rather than something that would be attractive to VCs.
GMT+5.5
India
Can you explain on how you think your infancy will influence your sleeping hours? You mean if you are used to sleep much or not in your infancy?
Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't referring to infants and very young children, but those around 5-10. Children in the years you point out are growing significantly and of course need a good deal of sleep.
They pay you in either Amazon gift cards or by donating to a charity. According to their FAQ, "if we allow our users to withdraw money from their account, then we are technically a money transfer service, which requires registration with all 50 states and with the Federal government (in compliance with the Patriot Act). All of that registration requires a very, very large amount of money which we don't yet have."
someone needs more sleep:-). The question you are asking is how do you get more done, how do you be more productive?

Take care of the usual suspects -- diet, exercise, sleep. Everyone needs different hours of sleep, so don't use that as a metric. The hours you are awake, make sure you are highly focused.

The other things that helps me is eating a light dinner (sometimes mostly soup) taken 3-5 hours before I hit the bed.

In addition, here are some excellent articles that should get you started.

1. Be an early riser: Steve Pavlina -- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-ea...

2. Take care of your health (diet & exercise), here's Gerry Weinberg's* notes on health: --
http://www.developerdotstar.com/printable/mag/articles/weinb...

3. The Programmers’ Stone talks about meditation, diet and sleep -- http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/what-to-do-per-indivi...

* -- as a side note I highly recommend Gerry's book on technical leadership & secrets of consulting

good luck!
The last thing Emacs needs now is a web server embedded in it.
I'm timeless. (Really!)
Marcus, do you do an AI research just for fun, or do you have a decent idea how to monetize your startup or research results ? I'm surprised to hear that there are still AI entrepreneurs. :-)
I probably should have researched before posting that. I was just stating what I had heard from others. At least I qualified it with "supposedly." :)
I couldn't find your email in your profile?
Good point. Your body needs what it needs. You can self-medicate with caffeine or other stimulants to try and hack the system, but they end up cutting in to your next nights sleep.

As an ER nurse, I've worked nights for 14 years. And, for the last 5, I've gone completely caffeine free. I've felt better than I have in years. It's amazing how easy it is to get into a (sleep deprivation -> stimulant -> sleep deprivation) cycle. Why? Because caffeine stays in your system for 24-26 hours. So, that cup of coffee that you had yesterday is still in your system when you go to bed the next night. And, the caffeine is stimulating you while you sleep preventing you from getting the normal cycles/amounts of the stages of sleep that you'd be in normally.

It takes a few weeks to come down off the caffeine addiction, but after you do, you feel so much better.
Any startups with "splash pages" announcing a future launch date?
I wanted to know if anybody is willing to share strategies for their "coming soon..." pages for their startups. I have read Tony Wright's awesome blog entry regarding this subject here

http://blog.rescuetime.com/2007/07/05/web-biz-how-to-have-4000-users-waiting-when-you-launch/

I wanted to know if anybody else here has other strategies that they are willing to share.

Btw, I will also add that this place is awesome. Thank you all in advance!
Well, outlier or not, you're not alone! I'm exactly like you on this aspect.
Avoid having links expire all the time, or redirect to a relevant page. I see these 3-4 times a day.
Let your body regulate your sleep, it's his job, just trust him and let it go and you'll be surprised at how much good he is at it. No expert can beat your body in this field.

Thinking about how much time and how you should sleep just brings an unnecessary cloud to your consciousness, wich is a limited and precious ressource. Keep the sky clear, focus on your objectives, be passionate about them and your body will just follow and gives you what you need. In return just listen to him and sleep when you feel tired. The quality of your sleep will be astounding.
IBM releases DB2 Adapter for SQLAlchemy
But boy, take off those brakes and those countries can go fast! They get to use 150 years of Western industrial experiences and lessons learned without having to figure it out by trial and error.
Headhunters wander around Yahoo campus looking for execs
Rupert Murdoch's New Startup Incubator
I found a good URL that didn't have a squatter and then developed a product to fit that URL.
Hopefully I'm doing it for money, but I'd do it even if I knew I'll never see a dime out it.

I have plans on monetizing it, right now doing a test run with a medical CAD software provider (Computer Assisted Diagnosis) to improve their results, it's one of the fields where AI actually has clear direct economic value.

Also thinking about building a web startup around the algorithms, AI as a web service, might apply to YC.

And yes there aren't many AI entrepreneurs, funding is a problem so unless you can afford to bootstrap for a long time (I sold a previous startup and can afford to not make a dime for a few years) you might be in a jam. Most companies in the field are university spin-offs, with the research done while the team is still in the academia.
Yahoo acquires Maven video $160M