skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think they should just try to raise large amounts of money rather than partner with large companies for development. However, they will need to partner with utilities for pilot plants.

I can't speak to the other companies, but my hope is that UPower and Helion have prototypes in ~3-5 years.
Hi Sam,

Thanks for supporting us all with your time & insights.

Given the rise & success of things like Hack Reactor and Nano Degrees plus the YC RSF for Education.

1) Do you have any specific thoughts on innovations you would like to see in Secondary Education, specifically Jr. High and High School?

2) What about Elementary Education in the US?
@Tristanho, thanks for the answer and the link.
That's ok; we understand.
Look generics and exceptions in 1979!

I guess some language designers missed something.
Sam, are you seeing any VC interest in industrial devices, such as those that enable better predictive maintenance, monitoring, and collaboration in industrial facilities like power plants, chemicals, etc?

@mtoecker
Thanks for the response. I'm just curious about what process pg went through to choose you, if you're privy to that. Obviously, he spent many years doing a lot of experimenting to get to his "finished product". And when he decided to leave, he chose you. Do you have any insight as to what in particular he felt you had that felt you would be the best choice?
Go struct memory layout is currently undefined[0], so you're already not supposed to hand structs off to C, or to memcpy it to or from the wire. Unless you're using cgo maybe, I don't know if (or that) cgo provides any guarantee.

[0] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/10014
You are ignoring the context of the article in order to push an ideological point.

Levine is explaining how you can get a 95+% cancellation rate simply by running the most brain-dead simple possible market maker strategy: because you're required to post orders at multiple exchanges, and because every price change involves order cancellations (potentially lots of order cancellations, even on a single exchange, because of pairs trading and price ladders), and because adjusting prices on exchanges in near-real-time is the basic job of a market maker, virtually anyone running an electronic market maker is going to have a huge cancellation rate.

Levine brings this up to illustrate the silliness of proposals to regulate HFT by targeting entities with huge cancellation rates.

Comes now 'cdroconnor. You're playing a semantic game. You're defining "HFT" as "bad HFT", and everything else as simple "electronic trading". FINE. Nobody disagrees with you, except on the very boring point of what labels to attach to things.

But your argument here doesn't make any sense for the thread, because the good simple electronic trading you're condoning is also targeted by the cancellation regulation Clinton proposed. Which is the whole point of the article.
LastPass has a web interface, is also available as a browser plugin and when I tried it the only password they asked for was my account password.

So how come they don't have your raw passwords? Because of their web centric approach, I doubt that they are encrypting it locally. And regardless, LastPass is a proprietary thing, so you can consider your passwords to be compromised anyway.
I don't think there's a single right answer to choosing a framework/library for JS development, except that Angular is not the right answer.
Sam, what do you think about microexposure to artificial toxins such as pesticides and antibiotics in the modern American diet, which recent research has demonstrated to have significant effects on our health as compared to the diets of our grandparents?

We've mainly left this problem in the hands of the FDA. Is it time for a deeper quantitative investigation?

Is this an area YCResearxh might look into?
I noticed something similar as well, especially in Houston, where the eastern side is much more urban, and the western side is where the expansion has been and is less urban and contains more neighborhoods, smaller grocery stores, etc.
A similar YC Research location related query so I'll file it here.

How about the EU?

The cynic in me would love to be proved wrong by YC Research. I don't agree that academia is as broken as many here contend but I am intrigued by the re-imagining.

What I think people overlook is that academia is a blend of education and research whereas YC Research and other research-only institutes don't have to worry about educating the next generation so it's apples and oranges folks. Still... I genuinely wish the venture well, very exciting move.
Certainly hasn't happened yet. It may be that human/phone I/O is just too slow. It's not the area I'm most focused on, but would be interesting if it happened.
I was excited about the research announcement!

I've been thinking about this for a while:

- small companies rarely fund university research
- the grant application process is complex
- grad students get paid so little compared to tech workers
- hiring a PhD student before they finish means abandoning their research

Do you think universities and research can be changed to get more companies funding research? I can imagine startups can get some great work done efficiently while increasing private funding of research.
like this... the best way to stop abuse is to waste their time not yours.
what is a toxin
It took me a couple viewings to decide if this was a successful launch or if something went wrong.
Except technically struct memory layout is currently undefined in Go so you're relying on an implementation detail.
Looks like great future proofing. how do they deal with people who dont have an apple watch though?
Side question: who is in that animated gif about a quarter of the way down the page (fingers to temples, starbursts in background)? I see that around on dev blogs quite a bit.
>The degree to which people in cars notice me, recognize me and feel not only free but compelled to speak to me is downright creepy.

If you are in a public location they have every right to attempt to speak to you. Likewise, you have every right to ignore them. At that point - they're being dicks if they do this - but they have the right to continue to try and speak to you. I believe there is a legal extent where this can be deemed harassment but until that point - they have the right to speak to you. I think the legal point is you explicitly telling them to leave you alone, at which point you can contact authorities. Acting uninterested or ignoring them is an implicit message but is not enough, AFAIK. (IANAL)

>This is bizarre and noteworthy behavior in the U.S.

You answered why people feel compelled to speak to you and I'm sure you're aware of this. You follow a bizarre behavior. Want to be ignored? Don't stand out. People who stand out get noticed.

Also, legitimate question, how do you expect people to make new friends? Let's go under the following assumptions:

1) Nobody has a goddamn right to speak to you.

2) Likewise, you have no goddamn right to speak to anyone else

You can see how that would be problematic for meeting new people and doesn't really jive with most humans (and most cultures) being social?

I'm all for being anti-social and wanting people to leave you alone, especially if you're doing lawful-even-if-bizarre behavior. But to have an expectation that in a social culture in a public place that people will leave you alone seems a little out of touch.
Repeating solaris999's comment above:
The "What am I looking at?" section (http://www.chromoscope.net/1.4.1/what.html) says that they are:
"Don't worry, they aren't holes in the Universe being ripped open by creatures from another dimension! They are actually just gaps in the survey."
As of 2015, how common is it that Y Combinator is the first money for a startup?
Assuming the full meal was a burger, there's basically no fiber. "Healthy food" tends to mean something including a bunch of vegetables, which are full of fiber
1. Would / will you ever consider opening an East Coast branch? I understand all the "stuff" about why SV is great for startups, but there will always be people who can't /won't get up and travel completely to the other side of the country for an extended period of time. And while the EC might not be the startup hotbed that SV area is, it's quite clear that there is a LOT of startup activity and some great startups being formed out here. Wouldn't you want to tap into some of that?

2. In regards to YC Research, can you tell us anything more about the (general) topic area(s) you will be interested in? And maybe expand a little bit more on what kind of mechanisms might be put in place to facilitate working with outside researchers (hopefully including independent researchers and / or other startups).
Lions rarely go after the strongest, sharpest, healthiest gazelle. Why it should be any different in the human realm?

What we need is not stop denying there are populations at risk from the overwhelming disclosure of private information into the public, and start taking measures to educate the most vulnerable people, and if need be, isolate them from the (public?) online world. I know walled gardens are taboo, but they did make - and continue to make - a lot of sense once the Internet began to fill with lay (as in, not part of the technorati) people.
How far do you think new Silicon Valley companies (and YC companies in particular) have progressed in providing fairer equity grants to employees? In particular I'm interested in what the norms are for "if you leave the company you must exercise in 90 days" type terms.

I know that you've been working on this problem personally and a few high profile companies have publicly announced changes. But what's going on with new small companies? What are the current norms?

I know that YC takes care of a lot of the legal work when setting up new YC companies. What do you currently recommend for employee option grants?
How is the remote aspect of YCF going? Something to explore more?
Spoken like a true gentleman. But your points needed rebuttal, so that consent isn't further manufactured, at least.
How to Tell If a Tweeter Is Pro-Choice/Pro-Life Without Reading Their Tweets
U.S. logs second warmest September on record; West Coast 2015 is through charts
Stopped and Frisked by Facebook: ‘Real Name’ Policy Puts Speech Before Privacy
> I would guess that their stance is "If you care about that, do it yourself"

No, struct layout is currently undefined[0] so you can't do that yourself. Any manual packing you defined today may or may not hold across platforms or future go revisions.

[0] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/10014
That makes no sense. Here let me rephrase it:

"Americans love commuting. If not, they wouldn't be spending millions of hours in their cars each year to get to work!
Ok, I see.
Though I'm not sure why anyone who wants to write DL code today would go with anything other than Python on top of CUDA, or just using one of three main DL libraries (Caffe, Torch, Theano).
What is the best way to get connected to the YC network if you are not a YC alum?
Neuroscience Online, the Open-Access Neuroscience Electronic Textbook
A boat is "a hole in the water, into which you throw money", so a big boat is a big hole in which you throw lots of money.

I don't know this ship, but given that it was built around 1950, chances are that the builders used asbestos for isolation.

That means that, even if the ship were new, it would cost millions to make it suitable for almost any use.

For an example, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Rotterdam. The English page doesn't say it, but restoration of that ship to its original state cost over €100M.
Before the industrial revolution, 90%+ of people lived in "extreme poverty" (as we would describe it today). Note, "extreme poverty" does not mean "extreme misery" nor does it necessarily mean "hungry". People can be in poverty and fairly happy (or the reverse).
http://passwordmaker.org/ automates what you're doing in your head. On android the PasswordMaker X app is pretty reasonable too. On iOS the apps are not so good.
Interesting - typically I would associate "urban" with smaller grocery stores.

i.e. there are 8 grocery stores within a few minutes walk, but they are all smaller - some just sell produce, others are smaller versions of suburban grocery stores.
I am surprised the petition has yet to reach 100k signatures.

Is it optimistic to think that most of the tech community at least should recognize the significance of this? Even if you doubt its effect on real policy.
1) Simply because we can't save ourselves doesn't mean we should willing inflict it on other people.

2) There is always the hope, however small, that we'd be able to do it domestically. With an international agreement of this scale, it would truly be impossible.
SQL for NoSQL: Couchbase N1QL Tutorial
Obama Drops Syria Training Plan, Shifts to Equipping Fighters
Many constitutionalists believe that state laws do indeed trump federal laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_and_Eric_Awesome_Show,_Gre...!

It's not for everyone.
Genetics certainly contribute to obesity, but they aren't typically a primary factor, are they? Surely diet, exercise, and lifestyle are far more relevant. These are directly impacted by poverty.
The first thing I read is "What is your company going to make?" Then I scan everything else quickly for evidence of something exceptional--something the founders have done, a great insight on this idea, or something impressive about progress to date.
You can start by reading everything written about the DMCA, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and TPP over the last many years. There is nothing to be expanded upon; just do some research and you'll find all the arguments you need.
Let's imagine a lattice like, say, this:

O--x--O--x--O ...
| |
x x
| |
O--x--O--x ...
|
x

If the x's start jigging around, we get brief manifestations of this configuration (exaggerated):

x
/ \
O O

the average length of the O--x--O bond shrinks as the x's pull away from dead center.
Hi Sam (&all),

We curated all interesting YCombinator Q&As and created a wiki.
www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator

Some of these are from HN and some from the 'How to start a startup' course.

1] Help us curate more. Just submit link to pavan@askmeanything.me and we will have it posted with due credits to you and the source.

2] We will soon categorize them as 'application Q&A', 'co-founder Q&A' etc to make it more easy to read.

Def look for feedback.
@sama I am about to launch a beta version of a service I find very useful in the food industry. I have spoken to a decent number of people during my customer development phase and everyone is excited about the service. However, I have not thought a lot about monetizing it. Right now I am just bootstrapping it and will release it as a free service. What is your take on free services and monetizing them?
SemMap – largest semantic representation of German words
Hi @sama !

I submitted our application, and I wrote YC this letter on Medium (https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/dear-y-combinator-we-wro...).

What else can one do to stand out? I'm so worried our application will get lost in a pile of all the others.

Also, is it possible that we'll hear from you before the 28th?

Thanks!

Lauren =)
I hope this plan includes the Rich Purnell maneuver.
> why the compiler shouldn't reorder structs so that they take the least space possible

I think you'd get most of the benefit by writing a static analysis tool (a la "go vet") that suggests when reordering a struct's fields would reduce memory consumption.
"General Lloyd Austin, the head of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate hearing last month that only “four or five” of about 50 U.S.-trained rebels were in the fight against Islamic State at that point. Lawmakers of both parties called the program a failure.

“So we’re counting on our fingers and toes at this point,when we had envisioned 5,400 by the end of the year,” Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat said.

Congress appropriated $500 million for the training effort in this fiscal year. Of that, $300 million has been obligated so far, with $42 million under contract as of May, the most recent data available. The program is separate from a classified training effort run by the Central Intelligence Agency."

That's a fuck ton of cash to train 4 or 5 guys. I am betting most of this money went directly to the black budget.
I'm not affiliated with Dashlane in any manner but I thought I'd chime in with my experience as a user. I used to use LastPass but lost a bit of confidence in them when they asked users to reset their master password [1] when an anomaly was found present in network traffic from one of their DBs. Prior to this I was looking at open source alternatives but the syncing and add-ons for each browser (which made logging in and generating passwords easier offered by Dashlane) really caught my attention. These features aren't unique to Dashlane, I'm sure. New sign-ups reap the benefits of premium features for a month or so, then you could send an invite to a friend and accrue 6 free months of premium service when they sign up (which is what I did) for free. They also offer a public password generator [2] page. They support the major browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox). Dashlane also has a "security dashboard" which keeps track of password expiration, reuse, and weak password usage, with a base analysis score that gets presented to you when action on a site is required. If you want something for offline use and that is hardware based, I'd recommend checking out the Mooltipass [3]. I hope this helps.

[1] - https://www.duosecurity.com/blog/breaking-down-the-probable-...
[2] - https://www.dashlane.com/password-generator
[3] - http://www.themooltipass.com/
I mean that I've tried repeatedly, watched everyone else get baked on half the dose I was taking (deep, and holding in until I absolutely needed to breathe), and felt absolutely nothing except that nasty aftertaste.

Running itself is pretty damn boring, which makes it hard to do it for more than an hour. It is nice to get outside, though.
This is great & inspiring and all.

I just can't help pausing at the apparent tension between "we embark on this journey for all humanity" and "strengthening America’s leadership on Earth and in space".

There's certainly nothing wrong with the USA's space agency serving the interests of the USA, and there will (eventually) be technology & economic benefits for other nations too, I just find the language jars.
Any advice for single founder applying? Most of the people I talked to advice me to find a co-founder to increase my odds of getting in.

I don't necessarily agree with them. I have been doing this startup for over an year now. It has growth with a strong potential for more.
A drone is fully autonomous. If you are remotely controlling the craft it is unmanned. I guess referring to a multirotor as a "UAV" just doesn't grab people like "drone".
I mostly only know about YC companies other than what I've read in the press about large companies, but it seems like this has gotten much better.

We want to create a new employee option plan with all of our recommended fixes. We've been busy, but we'll hopefully get to it soon. We'll open-source it, of course.
Yes. I always had my temperature taken orally. (Although I don't use mercury thermometers these days.)
What is your take on the value proposition for an older, experienced engineer (e.g. 10+ years) joining a startup as an early employee (e.g. non-founder)? I get the sense from what I read and hear that there is romance and then there is reality. Would love to get an honest take from someone with your perspective.
Do bugs in Houston tend to come inside in October? If so, the ad may just have been targeted at location + time of year. (I'm just tossing out a hypothesis; I have no opinion either way as to whether Facebook was listening.)
A big misconception about fixing food deserts is that if we could "just add healthy options", the problem would be solved. But it's not that simple ~ it's an education and cultural issue. Where I live has a lot of red dots on this map and is not considered a food desert, I've got several grocery options. The issue is folks here are deeply steeped in modern southern food culture (fried on top of fried everything. all white bread and meat. very few vegetables, if any) combined with low income and education. They simply don't want to eat "rabbit food" (I'm quoting from actual conversations). Suggest anything different to them and they are offended. My (obese with numerous health issues) neighbors think my wife and I are "libruls" because we eat normally. It's a whole different mindset that you must empathize with and understand before talking about how to fix it.
You obviously interact with PG quite a bit. Does the influence from Peter and Elon come from working in person, or from what they've done/wrote/speak about?
How did you get the 5K resolution to work?

My setup with new Z27q does not recognize the possibility of 5K, but it sees just two displays, one with 4K and other with some lower resolutions. The display has DP1.2 activated.
August 2015 Security Incident and Response
That type of question always annoyed me, because it asks one thing (time to prey) but you have to solve a different thing (land speed / swimming speed).
“You make apps? I'm trying myself, but I'm having trouble just getting started”
Ask HN: What do you really think about docker?
Lots of push and articles about how docker is awesome, wanted to see what the larger community thought about using docker?
Twitter Chat Recap: Virtualizing Business Critical Applications
I do think that right wing voters are more reactive. They tend to see/hear something, and that something becomes the most important thing. That's why Rep. McCarthy's statement on the Benghazi hearing resulted in him losing his opportunity to become speaker. If that had happened 6 months ago, it wouldn't have been a problem because the right wingers would have moved on to something else.

Left wing voters more often are in it for the long haul. They cringe when someone says something stupid, but they don't react with pitchforks and torches.

That's why there's never been a left wing Rush. It just doesn't work.
I've recently started using enpass (http://enpass.io/). It does what I need, and is simple enough for others to use. Their security model is based on open source even though the entire app is not open.
Maybe, but I'm not sure small companies are the best funders for this.

One of the nicest surprises about the YCR announcement was how many very rich people and large organizations reached out saying they wanted to give money. It seems there is a lot of potential energy here that's been looking for something to do.
Great! Thanks.

Have you had any other successful Honduran entrepreneurs at YC?
That's not what High-Frequency Trading means. The terms for what what you describe are the more general "electronic trading" and "automated trading". They enable HFT, but are not HFT.

High-Frequency Trading, while also an umbrella term, virtually always refers to a subset of algorithmic trading involving arbitrage over extremely short timeframes. HFT is not about being faster than "slow expensive humans" it's about being microseconds faster than other HFTs.