skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Which is frankly fine with me. I mean, I use Rhapsody via a web browser on my mac to listen to music because I can just pay a fixed fee per month and listen to a lot of good music. Some tracks are not streamable, yes. In addition, Rhapsody for a while has promoted a service called "Rhapsody To Go" which lets you download music to a compatible MP3 player (no iPods) and listen to it on that as long as you maintain a subscription.

My point being this model is well hashed out. It is really only a matter of time until Apple jumps on this. In terms of the hardware pricing, they'll probably set up some kind of a subscription service pricing model (as that is the existing model) and then derive pricing on hardware based on that, if they go that route. But subscription based is the simplest to market and understand.
Honestly, I'm not sure what was the point. How powerful this statement by a smoker is "Please, quite smoking" or something like
"Don't try climbing mountains. It's dangerous." by Sir Everest.
Bad example, may be. But then may be I'm not the target audience.
The article points at a 7% reduction in clicks across the Google ad network between December and January, but if I do recall, Google recently edited the ads to where users had to click the links directly rather than the square that housed the ad in efforts to reduce unintentional clicks.
Flash vs. hard drive battle heats up
I don't get it.

My time in college was the easiest time in my life. I carried a full course load, did extra activites (math club, sports, fraternity), and worked part time (full time during breaks). We were independent for the first time, partied, made friends for life, ran a small business, oh, and even went to class. I graduated, got a job, and paid my bills.

Stressed in college? Wait until you have to be at work on time every day, put up with who knows what at work, pay your bills, pay your mortgage, get along with your spouse, spend time with your kids, take care of your health, and smile the whole time. Did I mention going to work and paying your bills? Oh yea.

I'd like to have empathy for those with hardships, but this just doesn't compute for me. Why not just do what you're supposed to do in college: grow up and get on with it.
Chain Reaction: From Einstein to the Atomic Bomb
I think all he's saying is that for him, he's not particularity comfortable around women and would prefer to be around men to ensure that comfort.

At least he's aware of his discomfort, I guess.
mine's #dddddd... it's awesome
"Watkins might want to keep his lawyers on speed dial."

I love this phrase!

Could it be the new "You're toast"?
Yeah. It's rails.
IPhone Users Are Having More Fun
Would You Pay An Extra $100 For An All-You-Can-Listen-To iPod
CA's housing discrimination police think that gender discrimination laws apply to shared housing.
Gnome's GConf works with BerkeleyDB. Some KDE apps also use BDB. You could be a winner.
iPhone Users Do More With The Mobile Web Than Any Other Smartphone Owners
It works great if you pick the set of people whose threads you would like to see. That way encourages discoverability since you see your 'followee's posts but also other people on those threads that you may find you're interested in.

This is the approach I took with my hystry interface for HN. I have whitelists and blacklists, and show threads involving people on the whitelist but not comments by people on the blacklist.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71827
We're still nailing that down, but I think we've got some decent ideas...
I don't read a lot of fiction, but I've read this entire series through 4 or 5 times. It taught me a lot about politics, economics, and religion. Definitely changed me.
Sounds like "Extremistan" and "Mediocristan" from the Black Swan - as do most fields where there are a few people who win really, really big, and lots of failures.
You should pre-fetch the rollover images in the "Featured Slinkset Sites" on the front page. Currently when the page first loads, there is a split second when you mouse-over the screenshots where the image completely disappears as it's loading the hover image. Otherwise the design looks very nice.
So $99 buys you five iBrickings, but is there any kind of mapping from developers to iBricks? Can an app compiled by one developer run on another developer's phone?
Are VCs done with Web 2.0 Startups--Or the Other Way Around?
The Recession Will Hit the Web
Those happen, and your odds of that are probably far better than winning the lottery, but it’s still highly unlikely [...] and just like the lottery, everyone thinks their chances are better than they really are.

I hate this comparison - building a successful startup may have some element of luck, but like with everything in life, the amount of luck your success is based on is inversely proportional to the amount of understanding you have of your environment.

If you don't know the currents, getting to the other side does seems to take a lot of luck.

The 37signals folks could write a scathing counter-example to your post. Sure, they might be a rare exceptions, but I never understood why people feel there is fate in statistics... it's possible! It doesn't matter what "the most common startup life" is like, because again, the way your life works out isn't decided by pigeonholing you into fated roles, but by your own choosing.
> The community is littered with sad, failed novelists.

Why the pessimism? What about the happy, failed novelists? Just because most failed <X>'s are sad doesn't mean you are destined to be...
I miss Aaron's posts :(
I've posted an update in response to comments on reddit and the post itself.
Did you actually talk to the profs? Just ask them and be like: I wanna learn CS. I know how to code already, but I wanna learn all the fun stuff. They'll probably be very sympathetic and let you in anyway.
GConf uses XML by default. I don't know of any KDE apps that use BDB. RPM's database however uses BDB and MySQL used to use BDB as a storage backend.
Thanks for the tip. We've been meaning to go the css sprite route on those, but haven't gotten to it yet.
We actually have comments. Clearly that's not obvious if you are not logged in (and no one has yet commented on a link on the page). Something we should look at.
Jim Rogers, legendary trader and investor, explains the current financial crisis (vid)
If I set my site to "private", the "Users" link gives me a 500 error ("We have a piper down"). If I change it to Public it works fine. I would still expect to be able to invite users to a private site.
Architecture in Enterprise Engineering
I wrote this simple tool for myself:

Smacklet : http://www.smacklet.com

Feel free to use it if you like and I can add features that you request.

I just type in a line about what I am doing and what I plan to do. This makes me concious, waking me up from the last tangent that I shot off on. It has proven to be very valuable for me as the changes "come from within".

Later in the day, I just glance thru and review my thoughts and actions.
Collapsing geography: y? y not!
Social networking will become ubiquitous, but that doesn't mean it's a business.
I still check out his blog occasionally.
No. Because I'd have to use Itunes... and an Ipod for that matter.
Yeah that was a bug; I just deployed a fix. We weren't ready for people putting periods in their usernames. My guess is that you changed it to public right after the fix. Thanks.
Isn't this the same thing as Tourb.us --- a tiny, 2-person Rails outfit --- and a sideline feature of Facebook? How can there be multiple VC-funded entrants for this offering?
How Does the Gcc Organization Work?
Part of the reason this is true is because a big company can afford to make bigger mistakes without going under, so they are a really great place to observe systemic errors that you can identify and learn to avoid.

Some examples - indecisive culture, personal perception coloring risk assessment, acceptance of poor performance. These are fundamental problems that you get when you gather humans into groups and knowing how to beat them is critical. In a big company you can see them all while a small company hides them better out of necessity.

One other thing to consider is that because big companies are able to take bigger risks they are a good place to get a jump in responsibility early. We have interns handling projects that would break a startup if they went off track.
I interned at Yahoo's research lab for 11 months last year, and it gave me some idea of a BIG high-tech company. Yes, I did experience quite a bit of the bureaucracy and sluggish speed of large corporations, but this was minimal compared to the fun I had, especially with the group of people I met and worked with.

I'm specifically thinking in terms of future opportunities. Would you, as a hiring manager, be more interested in a candidate with obvious experience at well known names in the industry, or at startups that, possibly, no longer exist when the person comes around to interview with you?
I like the Netflix competition model where there is an objective measure that is being optimized.

This allows there to be a leaderboard where there is publicity benefit for people who do well, even if they don't win.
For what it's worth, I agree that mailing resumes is a dumb way to try to get a job. But then, you can read that same advice in "What Color Is Your Parachute?", which outdates Seth Godin by about eight hundred years.
A rare article on the business of the Internet from the best news magazine on the planet...
See-saw to power African schools
A few years ago, when I was a Cal undergrad, I turned down an internship at the larger company you're referring to. More specifically, I already accepted another offer by the time they called me back. I work a few blocks away from there now, and when I walk by the campus, I sometimes still wonder whether I'd be in an entirely different branch of the industry if timing on that phone call had worked out just a little bit differently.

As others have mentioned, the company's size is far less important than the quality of the people you will be working with directly. This site has a decidedly strong bias towards do-it-yourself, but to me, the point of an internship is to acquaint yourself with people who are a few years further down their career path than you. They've been in your shoes and can help guide you. Try to figure out which boss or coworker will be a better mentor. You'll have plenty of opportunities to strike out on your own after you graduate.
The problem is of course, that after taxes (you forgot those), and inflation, 5% interest is really more like -0.5% return.
Wikipedia, of course, has a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_DB#Programs_that_use_B...
I've heard Cisco uses it in their routers, too.

Apparently 4 programs on my desktop are using it -- I had no idea.

I used it at Boeing (along with a non-SQL proprietary database you've never heard of). When you've got a huge mass of (key,value) pairs you need to process, it's hard to beat Python + bdb.
Postfix, Subversion, and other applications use it. It's embedded and doesn't draw attention to itself unlike a server application. There are about 200 million installs of it.

Also note that probably SQLite is a more popular relational database than MySQL (it ships with every copy of OS X and every iPhone, for instance), although I don't have any data on that.
Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey".

I kind of wonder about the people who are claiming books like "1984" are inspirational.
Google Visualisation API
Here's hoping that this will give a good incentive to research and consider alternate revenue models more thoroughly.

From both my developer and user perspectives, ads are boring. I hope I never have to inflict them on my users (said the deluded idealist).
Thank you, Hacker News, for helping me cure my addiction to Hacker News.
Python Spreadsheets: Like Resolver, Only in Excel and Free
Proof That Web 2.0 Doesn’t Have To Be So Serious
a decent article that sparked great comments makes this an excellent article. startups for me = an opportunity to pursue
things you are passionate about - an opportunity to make a name for oneself - and most importantly an overcome great odds and obstacles, which unlike the lottery you actually have some control over. that is why startups are great.
Informal Chicago Meetup
A couple people interested in starting, running, or growing companies are gonna get together Thursday (and hopefully many Thursdays after this) for a bit of discussion from 5-7pm or so at Noble Tree Coffee Company (2444 N. Clark http://www.yelp.com/biz/noble-tree-coffee-chicago ) here in Chicago.

No pressure, no pitches, nothing as formal as TechCocktail or ChicagoBeta. We're just interested in meeting people working on cool stuff and partaking in some of noble tree's delicious offerings.

The idea being more to meet people and make friends in the community than to get business deals done and what not. Should be a good way to relax after work. Anyone is welcome to stop by and come and go as you please, we'll be up on the top floor.
ever been to LA? a few big stars and producers up in the hills, every other person in the "biz" scattered across miles and miles of flatlands.
Neat! I was just thinking that we need something like this for our family, instead of emailing each other news articles all the time.

Since this is RoR-based, I assume it's RESTful?
Chrysler 'like a $60 billion startup'
Yea, London is a total joke, as is Dublin - I have a few friends who rent in Dublin, and they live in a shoe box for a lot of rent (don't really know anyone in London)!

I am in Belfast, where the property prices only ballooned about 2 years ago, so I got lucky. Only a year or so after I got my house, friends were buying similar sized places that are less central for twice what I paid, not good!
That sounds like funding a passion, not managing an investment. Your passions shouldn't be nearly as evenly diversified as your portfolio.
I agree with this article. I find that it's hard to manage college courses, a part-time (~10hrs/wk) job, stay active (weight lifting), a social life, and staying up to date with tech and hacking on my own side projects. It's ridiculously hard to stay in a good mental state of mind while trying to balance it all let alone judge whether you have too much on your plate.

And to be completely honest it is tempting and helpful to sometimes turn to drugs. I find myself taking sleeping pills because I can't sleep at night. Adderoll to stay focused and be productive and maryjane to relax on my freetime. I know this all can be fixed with proper lifestyle... but it's nearly impossible to dig out of said hole...
Also, the $900K can only come from the first year's revenues. How many sites/products will make that much in the first year? Sounds like a real ripoff.
Mahalo Launches Reviews and Ratings; CEO Shares Company Stats
Is an offline version of gmail coming?
But then what on anyone's blog hasn't ever been said by anyone before?
s/multiplier effect on social status/multiplier effect on your anxiety over your social status/
None taken, you just didn't understand it. I'm not saying it is superior, just that a lot of people would find it to be, and those people may not belong in startups.
Little tip: On the sign-up page, there's a big line between the "Set Up Your Account" and "Set Up Your Site" form. It looks as if it are two separate forms and you should choose one. Maybe you can tinker with it a little bit to make it look more as one whole.
[SongKick] allows you to input up to three bands you enjoy

Is that correct? I logged in to my SongKick account, and I seem to have more than 3 bands I'm tracking.
Yahoo + Microsoft = Web Mail Dominance
Of course nothing is riskless, but it's pretty close if done properly. Plowing all of your retirement savings into the stock of your employer is something that anyone who spends ten minutes Googling "how to manage my money" knows is retarded.

I'm sure it's possible to instead put your 401k and IRA money into a diversified collection of ETFs and bonds and such and still end up broke, but it hasn't happened yet, and if it does, our entire country is in a very bad place.
Different kind of stress than real life. College was a lot more work than my real life has been, but it was just a lot of work. In real life, there are real consequences and the stakes are a lot higher for everything. It's a lot harder to do the equivalent of taking a B or dropping a class in real life.
Top 13 ways to use social networking to build your business
13 variations on social networking, with tips on how to use each.
The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test
Bidding on wireless spectrum ends
... and the other 4 were too busy to answer.
Ok, so I created an account; it was a great experience. There are several requests I have:

1. Let users add custom CSS to it, so they can customize it the way they want.
2. Let users add a custom subdomain.
35 Facts About Grad School You Need to Know
yup, it really put a large dent in my clicks but I wasn't able to find any viable competition that paid out as well

some adsense users have gone so far as to suggest to potential advertisers to use image ads over text to increase the click through rate again
In poker world there's a famous aphorism that says tournaments are a lottery, but the good players get more tickets. (If you want to be technical, the average player gets 1 ticket, the best players get 5-10, the worst get some tiny fraction approaching 0).

Startups work much the same way. Those who win at anything (startups, lottery, poker) always underestimate the amount of luck involved, so if you ask them, they will of course denigrate its role.
Hopefully I manage to avoid any comparisons to Paris Hilton.
I meant I would fund my own research.

Also, diversification is a decent passive strategy, but not one that you'd take if you were intent on making substantial gains.

As Warren Buffet says, "no one ever got rich on their seventh best bet."
Aaron Swartz presenting at a Canadian conference
Am I the only person who likes ownership? I buy all my CDs and rip them to my computer. I installed Gentoo on my computers and I use programs that I have installed. I'm using GMail right now, but that's only because I haven't taken the time yet to research and set up my own (similar) local solution. Basically, I don't like to trust my goods and information to other people, and I find it strange that so many people willingly forfeit true ownership.
Who Needs Flash on the iPhone More: Adobe or Apple?
Social Networks Will Be Tomorrow's iTunes
Viddyou Offers High Definition Uploads For Personal Videos; For a Price
Hey guys - this is my tiny little startup, and we released some exciting new stuff that's getting a little coverage. I'd love to hear your feedback if you have any. :]
Canadian TV to Adopt DRM-Free BitTorrents
Unfortunately, the recession will affect all revenue streams, not just advertisement revenue. Companies are also going to finder it harder to sell products and licenses.
Cool. Simple design. Very easy to get started. http://ghost.slinkset.com
The Semantic Signatures® demo they have on there is pretty crummy, judging by the few test passages I pasted in.

I have yet to see NLP that isn't more trouble than it's worth.
This article can also be used to support Y Combinator's policy of preferring startups that aren't one person operations.

The problem of being lonely at the top is pretty much eliminated if you found your startup with some buddies who are also smart, creative, and motivated. If your startup is successful, you'll have some good friends who are in the same position as you and who have just gone through the entire startup experience with you.
People like choices they don't have to think about.
in - how will I recognize you guys
Agreed, I want to get rich to fund my own research as well.
Questions about Block D linger in aftermath of auction
You don't so much fail at grad school as fail at finding lucrative work afterwards.
Easily apple. Flash would add a layer of functionality alone that they cant duplicate with other mobile aspects. Very small games for instance. Flash isnt gaining a new audience with the iphone. All of those folks have a computer with a web browser ---> thus flash installed.
Add a username/password captions to the login form on your homepage.
Owning stuff is fine (I enjoy it too). This is just another option that people haven't had before (at least not legally).
Google Visualization API
There are plenty of middle class folks in the "biz". These are the makeup artists, sound designers, animators, model makers and so on. They all make a good living pursuing their dream.
Ah, I do see your point. Basically, you were saying people should make sure they really know what they want out of life before blowing their best years, yeah?
While it's good to mentally prepare one's self with the knowledge that startups are (usually) a long hard road, and success is far from guaranteed, this article seemed a bit too negative for negativity's own sake. For my tastes anyway.

It's important to try to do great things, and it's noble to encourage others to do the same. ("Yay YC," you know?)

Seth Godin has an old post on this that I think serves as a good reminder, and still rings very true to me. A key quote:

"The thing is, we still live in a world that's filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity -- we have an obligation. An obligation to spend our time doing great things. To find ideas that matter and to share them."

--http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/12/only-two-yea...
Good writing and good code are similar:

Elements of Style: Omit Needless Words

Pragmatic Programmer's Guide: Don't Repeat Yourself
I vote them for best free dating site (and time killer).
I kind of see it in the opposite way for the same reason. Adobe wants to expand their base in the mobile space but Apple doesn't want it to undermine their stranglehold on rich iPhone applications. Why buy Tetris (*or equivalent) from Apple when you can get the same thing for free with Flash?
There's a delete button for those.
>How can people publish a fallacy like that and be so happy?

Beer.
The point he's making is that not that many actors make their living through acting. Also, not many people go to Hollywood with a dream of being a gaffer. When you get a union job, you usually live month-to-month since living in Cali can be expensive.

Like with many other "scalable jobs", you have few winners and many, many losers. Acting, singing, startups, CEOs, traders... they all fall into this category.
What's the best way to get started?
I've never been in a startup before, but I'm interested in starting or joining one. I literally don't know who to talk to. How do you make contacts with other developers, angels, VCs, etc?
By doing just what you're doing. Ask questions, learn, introduce yourself. Read blogs that talk about the things you're interested in, leave comments, become acquainted with the people in your industry.

That's how I got to where I am now, finding local companies who do marketing and design, leave comments on their blogs and always know how to stay in touch.