skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You know what's harder than getting motivated, and networking with successful entrepreneurs? Everything else about running a company.

With the caveat that you shouldn't really give a shit about what I think, my objection to this process is that it turns starting a company into yet another "thing you apply to", like college and grad school and a job at Google. Starting up is simultaneously much easier than YC can make it sounds like, and much harder.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134808

Mine is http://twitter.com/manvsmachine
Funny you mention that, because that list came straight off of Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_PARC#Accomplishments. The mouse was invented by Engelbart, but Xerox PARC was the first research group to really adopt it and see what it could do.
I've worked a bit with Symfony and I've worked a lot with heavily loaded LAMP deployments. Symfony/Propel (and I hear Drupal/Propel) tends to generate a whole lot of select statements when you're allowing it to generate scaffolding code.. So this leaves you with a couple options:

i) re-factor auto-gen code when it becomes a problem. A good code profiler will really help you find these bottlenecks but you can also watch 'show processlist' from a mysql CLI to see slow queries or table locking issues if you're using MyISAM.

ii) Memcache - memcache caches query results and keeps the most heavily requested results cached, lets less heavily requested data fade (it will go back to the database to get it rather than keep a copy of the result around.) obviously if you're dealing with a 'real time' application caching may not be of huge benefit.

Jeremy Zawodny has a pretty good article here:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000173.html

About setting your wait timeouts and connection limits, etc. It's good stuff and it's something I see overlooked very often. The default mysql config isn't necessarily a your friend when it comes to scaling.

Other points above relating to 'spindle speed' when it comes to hard drive performance etc, also apply. One other good rule of thumb is that MySQL loves RAM. Add RAM and you generally add performance.

Hope that helps. :)
Well, I guess I can tell you how I did it. Took me about 4 years I guess.

First, like I said, take responsibility. I don't see how you can go further before you do that. After, you have to realize that you deserve respect. If you really think you don't, then start acting in a way that will make it easier in the future for you to think you deserve respect.

Recognize that if you change enough then you can psychologically detach yourself from your past mistakes: "I just didn't know any better". It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem: You think you are a loser because you act like one, and you act like one because you think you are, and thinking that actually makes you a loser... The important thing is to reverse that downward spiral into an upward one. I think the most important thing is in what direction and at what speed you're going, not where you are on the scale.

That will have a positive impact on your attitude. You'll look less and less at the ground when you walk and more towards the horizon. You'll see better what's ahead and like a good driver, you'll see things coming and be prepared. But you won't need the preparation as much because you have your better attitude. There's a quote somewhere that goes something like: "Plans are worthless, but planning is gold." You'll see that people notice you less and less and random bullies don't seem to recognize you anymore. Since you'll be a much harder target, the ones that know you well will eventually seek an easier one.

Also, don't fall in the trap of just trying to say clever things when people call names. Those who talk shit all day are pretty damn good at it and it's not so much what you say as how you say it. And even then... don't go the reply route, it's useless and will probably just end you in bigger trouble. Oh and also, don't think you can just try the ignore game. Now, if you can't ignore or reply, what can you do (for the transitory phase where you're still not far enough along that people still try their bait)? In that case, just not saying anything and remaining calm much worked well for me. When they talk shit, they're usually saying quite stupid things, and if you don't react their own stupidity will bounce right at their face. They'll look more agitated than you, which will make them look bad. And don't forget that those that call names are not exactly the most winner of all so you can bet on it that they'll choke if you don't. Not sure how much all of this applies in case of physical assaults, but I'm guessing Billy gets more words than fists in his face.
I don't know. I stumbled on it today, and thought maybe someone would be able to contextualize it for me?
Ted Codd is usually credited as the inventor of the relational database. He was employed by IBM at the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.F._Codd
Mercurial 1.0 released
NotoriousBRK - just signed up.
Web 2.0: The skills behind the buzzword
6% of 0 is 0, so you've picked an attractive time to make that argument. Your readers should just know that 6 months after starting their company, 6% of their company is 1-6 rock star team members. It could also be $1-6MM in a reasonable happy outcome.

I'm not trying to debate whether YC is a good deal; I'm objecting to the idea of spending more time and effort applying to YC than building an offering.
6 Phases of the Web Design & Development Process
It's interesting to think about the global nature of some companies (let's take Google as an example) and how this recession and the US dollar's depreciation is impacting them. First off:

"Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.32 billion, representing 48% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to 44% in the fourth quarter of 2006 and 48% in the third quarter of 2007. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2007 through the fourth quarter of 2007, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007 would have been $94 million lower. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2006 through the fourth quarter of 2007, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007 would have been $195 million lower."
http://investor.google.com/releases/2007Q4.html

So Google basically brings in a little less than half of their revenues from outside of the US.

Now those were their Q4 results - since then the dollar has depreciated ~4% lower against a basket of currencies (http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_dx)

So basically, we can see that Google is basically an exporter of ads, and it's becoming cheaper for foreigners to buy those ads due to the depreciating dollar.

Now, looking at the global picture, things are looking pretty bad in general. Looking at the OECD's Composite Leading Indicator report from March 7th (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/47/40240353.pdf) you can see that there is pretty much a global slow down effect going down in some of the world's major economies (with Brazil and Russia as the exceptions).

So it seems like any company that has international exposure to ads might actually have a slow down hedged by the depreciation of the dollar.

For those here who are bringing in money through ads, how much international exposure do you have? Do you see it being worth it to try to get into the international markets in an attempt to take advantage of the weaker dollar?

Also, has the "Google acquisition engine" slowed down at all? They don't seem to have bought anything since October - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions
Cue imitations that don't get it.
Don't worry about that. We've given enough demos ourselves to know they always break.
Why are you modding up this article
I'm NotoriousBRK ...
Good question. But I don't have an answer.
@cammacrae

http://twitter.com/cammacrae
Can you elaborate a bit? What was the 50%, at least for you, that caused the bullying?
Does it seem the google folks are getting a bit myopic in their interview process? I mean, yes, they have a very focused mission depending on a very distinct kind of software but it just seems like an awful lot of the interview process is finding out if the candidate will yell "merge sort - n(log(n))" at just the right time.

Google's strength was that meandering "lets just work on what seems coolest" ethos. I'm wondering if they're not selecting out some really great talent by making the interview a test of how well a candidate can scribble some common design patterns on a white board.

I'm not saying that they should hire programmers that can't tell a merge sort from a bubble sort, but perhaps just knowing the difference and when to use them might be enough; Rather than finding out if they can write it out syntax-perfect on the spot in the interviewers favorite language.
JPMorgan quintuples BearStears offer to $10/share
"What is the longest debate the team has had in the last 30 days?"

Whether or not to answer your next 6 questions.
1.) means nothing without also knowing what percentage of companies seeking funding are from YC. Hypothetically, if there are 2000 companies seeking VC funding, 20 companies that get into YC, 100 companies funded, and 10 of those funded companies are from YC, then only 10% of VC A-rounds went to YC companies. Yet your chances of getting funding given that you got into YC are 50%, yet your chances of getting funding otherwise are 5%. Most entrepreneurs would give up 6% of their company for a 10-fold increase in the chance of getting funded.
I'm at the "I don't get what twitter is all about nor do I care" phase. What was it about twitter that got you hooked?
Yes he's revealed that we are past the point of flogging a dead horse, indeed people are now interfereing with horse's corpse in unfortunate ways.
YC Startup: Mixwit’s Mixtapes and Broader Social Media Ambitions
Nice outline - would be nice to see a little more meat on the bones, especially the "information gathering" phase. Maybe a future post, I suppose.
What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008? (Nov, 1968)
How to 'Completely' Test Your Website
From the bottom of http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php

Facebook Mirror - A public mirror for projects such as Apache, Linux, Mozilla, GNU, MySQL, and much more...
My guess:

They rely on open source, and they figured they'd be a good citizen and mirror some of the software projects that they rely on.
I'm sure they get a lot of false negatives, which is arguably better than false positives as long as you can fill all positions.
it's a less formal more personal rss feed. Real Simple People Syndication.
I love the mixtape designer - well done guys! My favorite is the "gloss" slider. If only every web2.0 website had one of these so you could turn it down (and save the batteries)! :P
So do I, but there are always going to be posts that don't "belong". I'm just saying that at least the way things are, at least the outliers are Web 2.0 news. But we should under no circumstances change the mission of the site to better match what's being posted. If we expanded the intended focus to include those, HN will end up looking like valleywag.
You are just jealous you don't have one.
For the young, TV's passivity is passé next to the Internet
http://twitter.com/chrisbroadfoot
http://twitter.com/nilobject
You know you are in trouble if you can no longer remember who you have been calling?

Seriously, not a problem for me, but I'll admit that there might be people out there who really talk on the phone a lot, with a different outlook.
Google outlines proposal for 'Wi-Fi on steroids'
http://twitter.com/jasonlbaptiste
Article, Comments. What do you read first?
I sometimes find myself pondering if I should read a submission's article or comments first. The tradeoffs, as I see them, are:

Read article first, pro: when comments refer to the article I know what they're talking about.
Read article first, con: If the comments point out it's a worthless/biased/shitty article, I may just have wasted my time reading it.
Read comments first, pro: I might save reading a shitty article.
Read comments first, con: The comments might skew my view of the article, I might have less independence.

What's your opinion on the matter?
I did a lot of reading about hunter-gatherers last year while researching another topic, and I was surprised how universal monogamous marriage is. It's so prevalent I suspect it's in our DNA. It seems to be bad when it's indeterminate who is the father of a child.
It is much easier to figure out what percentage of VC A-rounds go to YC companies than it is to apply to YC: VCs publish their portfolios, often before companies even launch. We did pretty much that when we started:

http://www.matasano.com/f38a0ad3a3d5c1a4a666.png

(n.b.: large). Instead of YC A-rounds, we were looking for security A-rounds. It took a few hours. This is very OCD, but hey, you can spend a few hours doing nothing on IRC.

My point is, I think your numbers are wrong, and no way do 10% of all A-rounds go to YC companies. Do YC companies have a 50% chance of getting an A-round within 12 months? I guess Graham can tell us.

Most entrepreneurs would not give up 6% for a 10-fold chance in simply getting funded. You will find this hard to believe, but I'll report it to you firsthand: some companies turn down the opportunity to get funded. We haven't even gotten into the terms discussion. Say 50% of YC'ers get funded. What percentage of them get good deals, and what percentage get tranched, 3x prefs, tiny valuation, and loss of the board? 0% of bootstrapped companies have those problems.

Late edit: there are more than 100 VCs on that radial chart. So much for 10/100=10%.
"The fat found in fish helps make the cell membranes round the brain more elastic and more able to absorb nutrients easily"

The world of dieting scams apparently is really unbelievably fucked up.
I started to object to this with a reductionist argument about what wikis actually are, but thought the better of it and concede the point. Ward's wiki is a good example of an indie CS advance.
Basically, we got the things that depend on electronics (web, cell phones) and not the ones that depend on other technology (flying cars, domed cities, artificial organs).

I notice there's another way to partition that set: we got the things that don't require too much government involvement.

We got the cheap meat-like food, but from an innovation less benevolent than algae farms: factory-farmed meat.

Come to think of it, there turned out to be a similar workaround for the domed city problem: everyone just moved where the weather was good.

What's weirdest about this for me is that 1968 was the year we came to America. I remember 1968. It's kind of crazy to think there were a lot of people walking around then thinking we'd be travelling around in flying cars.
More than 10 years ago, I made a website called UCACA [Under Construction And Collecting Awards]. It collected about 17 awards. It was eligible for one award because it had already had two other awards. One fellow noted that the site met all of his criteria for an award (originality, fast access, good design). However, he didn't give me the award on the basis that it would make a mockery of his award. Others were far less discriminating.
Any early risers are welcome to join us at the Bootstrapper Breakfast Fri April 4 in Palo Alto or Tue April 15 in Sunnyvale. 7:30-9am everyone buys their own breakfast and we meet in a back room. Details at http://www.boostrapperbreakfast.com
Picamatic - Upload images in one click
(I wrote the original article) Ok, I'm convinced that he's not a VC for the reasons you mention and because he says in this thread that he's not a VC. On top of that the incubation support and the genuine care he gives to the founders is very non-VC.

However, none of that makes me want to change my argument which is based on the exit pressures and structure by which YC recoups it's investment. That pressure is very VC.
http://twitter.com/waltz

Woop. Let's go Twitter-verse.
Blue Bottle has very good coffee, but it's a relatively small place, and there isn't that much seating room (plus it's often busy). If more than 5 people come, it might be a tight squeeze...
I agree strongly with the battery life argument. Its an important note to make that the battery is run down because of frequent wifi/edge use. I've seen accounts of pre-sdk iphone hackers making programs that ran the battery down in hours just polling for tweets every minute or something similar. That same hacker said that ideally there would be some sort of registration for wifi/edge time that would bring up a connection every T minutes and tell all the programs registered to that listener that they now have 1 minute of access to the internet to poll whatever service they needed.
I was really skeptical as well; in fact I've only had an account for 2 or 3 days now. Part of the appeal is similar to that of HN. For the most part, it's still mainly used by the early adopter, tech-savvy crowd. And, from what I've observed, the brevity of the messages actually seems to encourage dialogue: people are a lot more willing to to say something to you or read something you send them if they know it only involves a couple of sentences.
Ask YC: Which YC companies are currently active?
YC Faq states
--
The ones that are currently launched are: Reddit, Loopt, ClickFacts, TextPayMe, Snipshot, Inkling, Flagr, Wufoo, YouOS, LikeBetter, Thinkature, JamGlue, Shoutfit, Scribd, Weebly, Virtualmin, Buxfer, Octopart, Heysan, Justin.TV, I'm In Like With You, SocialMoth, Xobni, Versionate, Adpinion, Anywhere.FM, Fuzzwich, Bountii, Auctomatic, Disqus, Draftmix, Webmynd, RescueTime, Reble, Heroku, Tipjoy, AddHer, and 8AWeek.

--
Some of these don't seem active (e.g YouOS blog was updated sometime in 2006). Is there a list of the active ones? Wikipedia seems dated too ...
This is all besides the point --- I think it's interesting to think critically about YC, but really, who cares?

I'm saying, to the person who said "I wish it was that easy", it is exactly that easy. Most of the companies YC "funds" don't need VC to start up, which is good, because YC doesn't give you that kind of money anyways.

There are lots of paths to success. Look at virtually any Mac software startup; none of them get VC, and they accomplish ridiculous things. Which is harder to build, Reddit or Quicksilver? Reddit was Graham's "hello world" for Arc.
Out of Print: The death and life of the American newspaper.
http://twitter.com/purrp
Part of being a good programmer is learning not to trust yourself
Most predictions of the future tend to be exaggerated, because that's what people like to read and dream about. That does mean, however, that most of today's predictions about the future can also be taken with a pinch of salt, which is a little depressing.
k, first I'll admit that 78% of statistics are made on the spot ;P

But really, how can you explain that I had mostly the same attitude for 12 years and had the same problems and then I changed pretty fast and the problems went away just as quickly? Coincidence?

If I only had 10% responsibility, seems to me I would have been mostly powerless to change things. I don't think my neighborhood has gotten any more or any less safer than it was. If it wasn't my environment that changed and it wasn't me that did either, yet all the situation changed, how do you explain that?

When I say it's his fault, it's not to put him down, it's to empower him.
I've always found that team bonuses work best where there is no cash component: e.g. a night for 2 in a hotel, a new foosball table, whatever. These types of bonuses reinforce the team.

Individuals should be rewarded for an exceptional contribution in whatever way seems appropriate and this is usually best not disclosed to other team members. Note: there is nothing exceptional in putting one's own goals ahead of the team.
http://twitter.com/bfioca
"TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered code of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero in on the department and the merchandise in which you are interested."

--> I find it fascinating that they just couldn't conceive of a massive network of computers to do things like this... some things are so out to lunch still, but things like direct deposit of funds into your bank account, I can't believe that was so far fetched?
5 Most Common Web Standards Misconceptions
'From the article: "She wonders why Billy is the only one getting beaten up"

Apparently not in his case.'

That's still circumstantial.

I'm not saying the kid could use some more personal responsibility and take initiative. We don't even know if the kid really is the only one getting beaten up. From that same article, "A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe." And more telling, the mother is the one who is saying Billy is the only one getting beaten up. I don't find parental perception of what is going on at school generally all that reliable. They are about as reliable as school authorities.

What I'm saying is that until I get down to talk to Billy face-to-face, I'm not going to conclude that Billy is giving off the "beat me up" signals. But if that is what is happening, what you are suggesting works. Most people can use a good dose of personal responsibility.
As far as I can tell it means an investor whose space the startups work in. We deliberately avoided that, because we feel it hurts the startups. It puts the founders in the position of employees.

Plus offices are actually crappy places to start startups. Apartments are better.
Colonisation of the ocean was considered enevitable in that era. It is also covered in the 1970 book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. However, so far, it has been easier to improve utilisation of land.
Electric smart cars in 2 to 3 years?
Were you empowered by someone else, or did you seize on this yourself?

In my (purely anecdotal) experience, telling someone they have a "choice", or they can change things, ... it does not work very well. That experience of knowing you can reach out and make a choice was something like becoming enlightened. You get it or you don't.
You totally got the intent even if I was wrong on the literal definition.

I'm definitely not calling PG a hypocrite. YC is amazing, is a good opportunity for founders, and is definitely saving some good people from some bad years in the corporate world. I just think that after you've made one big intellectual leap (starting an amazing new genre of investing) it's easy to focus on polishing that discovery rather than realizing that there's yet another leap to make.
I read the article first. I takes less than 30 seconds to determine if it's worth continuing.
The more you know about facial anatomy, muscles and nerves, the more you realize how absolutely amazing this is.
"Don't confuse a net loss of wealth with wealth not being created. If everybody got an equal portion of total wealth, then monopolies and spammers would be bad, but since somebody wins (even though there are more losers), wealth is technically created."

I must have read wrong. You're saying spammers are not quite bad?...

"A better scenario is the "creative destruction" when one industry is displaced but society overall benefits, i.e. cars over horses, Wikipedia over Encarta over Britannica, etc."

The new industry replaces the old one because it creates more value than the old one, no? I think car factories create more value than stables...

Also, in the monopoly case it's a company that hampers global progress to protect its own interests. I like to seek win-win scenarios so that doesn't resonate well with me.
Makes me think that the things that are most likely to change are those where entrepreneurs can most easily create products without needing to get around government rules and regulations.
Hey, we still have 8 months to go. Maybe it'll all be true by then.