skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I loved this article (i thought the personal bits were a good foundation to the entire story). Thanks for sharing it.
He took bribes and he should be driven out of the industry like the parasite he is.

He's a rat, through and through.

It's actually a different kind of person that's an unfortunate presence in online tech debates.
Those pension funds and states should not have invested in dangerous securities. Let's face it: the money seemed easy and these guys took very dangerous investments, with money that was not safe to play with.
I don't have any info about what Google is doing, but they could be doing "cold potato" routing by sending traffic over the GoogleBone all the way to local ISPs, bypassing the other backbones.
You can also use Bluetooth keyboards.
Send me an email to ilya [at] unviral.com about this, I would be very interested in talking about applying this for tracking ad campaigns and correlating with some of the data I have been collecting.

There's definitely a lucrative market for this if your crawling and data can be targeted enough.
That doesn't justify what he did. The right thing to do would have been to let people know of what was happening. Just because the financial system rewards greed/selfishness does not mean people shouldn't act ethically when the consequences of their actions could mean the loss of hard earned money by honest hard working people with families, medical expenses, college loans, etc. Then again the guy has Asperger's syndrome so most of the ethics and empathy is probably lost on him.
Actually, it's the "shorts" who tend to keep the market honest.

The fact that it was so hard to short subprime mortgage bonds probably kept the bubble going even longer.
This is similar to Meraki's remote management for wireless APs. http://meraki.com/products_services/cloud_controllers/enterp...
I wouldn't be surprised to see him with a start-up in the next few years.
I can only hope you're kidding. Those pension funds and state budgets are in shambles because they were underfunded and relied on the market to tell them the value of their holdings rather than the kind of fundamental analysis performed by Burry, because the market gave their investments ridiculous rates of return.

"Mark to market" is dangerous because it equates your option of selling an asset at the market price with the actual exercise of that option. It would be better to model the asset using the actual stopping times the firm uses to decide when to sell (on the portfolio as a whole).
I think Sam is trying to clear his name and at the same time adding as little fuel to the fire as possible.
Cryptome has published a variety of such documents. Facebook, Paypal, Microsoft, Myspace, Skype, Comcast, AOL, Cox, Cisco, Yahoo, Google and more

http://cryptomeorg.siteprotect.net/
And how much would you like to pay per month???
Why would I be joking. How is expecting the common decency from a fellow human being to tell you that you're standing on a live train track funny? The money managers/investors screwed over an entire economy because they were greedy and were willing to exploit esoteric financial laws/practices and consumer ignorance to sacrifice money that wasn't their own. There is no joke here.
Actually, they relied on rating agencies that said these were not very dangerous securities. They should have done their own homework, but there are regulations on valuing a pension fund's holdings. The government fell down by not ensuring the soundness of those regulations in practice.
Erwin Schrodinger: What is life?
First, Great to see new content on pmarca again.

Second, saying "it takes a lot less money to build a company nowadays" has become a cliche. Unfortunately few people really explain why this is. I thought this was an excellent explanation.

> I emphasize product to distinguish it from building the company. Building modern companies is not low risk or low cost: Facebook, for example, faced plenty of competitive and market risks and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build their business

Important point. People use the term "startup" nowadays to refer to products more often than companies. Building a company is a totally different endeavor. It's surprisingly easy to build a profitable, popular product on the Internet. But turning that into a global, thriving company is a totally different ball game that few people have managed to do. I think it starts by picking an important problem to solve. Most of the startups I've seen (some of mine included), have gone after small, niche problems that won't lead to large companies.

> When we invest in angel rounds, we behave like an angel. As angel investors, we can invest as little as $50,000, we do not take board seats, and we do not require control.

That's an awesome pledge. Anyone know other VC's that also do this?
The best angel investing in my world (Silicon Valley early-stage startups) is based primarily on relationships, not on formalities. This does not mean that formalities are dispensed with. On the contrary, everything is done by the book. But it is done on friendly terms, with the wealthy individuals who open their pocketbooks knowing and believing in the founders and coming beside them to offer not only money but also strategic advice and long-term guidance. These are basically former founders themselves, and successful entrepreneurs, who consciously seek to guide the new ventures toward the path to success without using VC resources in the early stages.

And this is the wave of the future. VC investing is basically still largely frozen today, but the early-stage efforts of such angels are active and thriving. They might raise $500K or $1M or $1.5M, depending on the need, but the terms of the investment will always be preferred stock on balanced terms. Often, the round will be styled as a Series AA to distinguish it from the typical VC-type round.

This piece has one of the best conceptual discussions of the differences between angel and VC funding that I have ever read. Nonetheless, the model documents still derive from a VC mindset (a good tip-off is the term sheet provision that the startup will pay $10K of the investors' legal fees for making the investment). Thus, while I believe the Andreessen Horowitz fund is trying to distinguish itself by taking a simpler approach than is traditional, I believe it remains VC-style. One will not get the equivalent here of the benefits of what one would get from an angel investment made by a few wealthy individuals with whom one has existing relationships. The latter, and not the former, is the optimal angel investment.

The approach being pioneered here is a very good step in the right direction, but it represents more a VC firm trying to expand its range than it does an optimal form of angel investing.
Any con game relies on the greed of the mark.
It's great that you're spreading around the blame like butter but the fundamental fact still remains that in the end it is individuals that make these choices and no matter how you look at it these individuals acted amorally and unethically.
Skinput turns your arm into a touchscreen (w/ Video)
Web Laureate Insight, "Spokeo: Creepy Oh"
Haha, i love how everyone is like "uhm, yeah, it will change our future, appple is so genius, but i don't know why and how, but somehow it must be true because i say so".

Translates to: Nobody knows, there is no evidence, people are wishing for the ipad to become the computing device of the future, but dont know how that new computing future could be different from tomorrow.

But, since apple did a great marketing job, as always, you are not alone. There are hell of a lot of people who will buy the ipad, but don't exactly know why. I know a lot of people that want an ipad, but when i ask them what would be so great about it, what would they do with it, they don't really know, they just think it's awesome. Which in my oppinion, is a result of good marketing (and neat design). It looks neat, the whole world is talking about it, apple is cool, so i need one too!

This discussion is somehow the same, but discussed by geeks: It's cool, it's easy to use, those dumb other 99% of computer users will need this, but i don't know why. :)
It's stand-alone now, but I'd bet that it's part of the plan to link it to google at some point. That's the way these things go.
By the way...just to update this thread. So I have both a Wachovia and Bank of America account.

Apparently Bank of America allows you to order wire transfers online - through their 'transfer' feature. These orders can also be standing orders. I think this will suffice for what I need in the near-term.

BOA's website has this to say about SafePass and transfers:

With SafePass, your daily limit will increase from $1,000 to $10,000.Your weekly limit will increase from $2,500 to $20,000. Note: U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management or Premier clients may have higher transfer limits. Please contact your Relationship or Client Manager for more information on your limits.

Thanks for all the feedback and tips.
Unfortunately HSBC isn't available in Jamaica :(
The people you should be mad at are the ones that actually created the problem in the first place. These problems wouldn't have existed without the Federal Reserve's low interest rates and politicians like Barney Frank who enabled the GSEs. You should be outraged at the arrogance of those people who think that they can make decisions for the entire country that should be made by millions of informed individuals.
This looks interesting, but I don't see any option about payment processing - i.e. accepting credit cards, etc. from my customers and transferring to my Jamaican bank accounts.

I have emailed them though, in the event that I missed something.
The politicians were warned over and over again. They denied that any problem even existed. Here's what Barney Frank had to say:

For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury."

(http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/dec/judicial-watch-an...)
It took him 2 months but we don't know how many hours per day. Also this was the first book he wrote, maybe with the next one he'll make 6000 in one week. You can't expect to win big the first time.
Polar ice on the moon.
Good blocking technique
Here is a link to some FAQ's for BOA.

https://www.bankofamerica.com/www/en_US/eas-docs/cfc-help/he...

Although I can't find the part about the limit of $10K. Maybe it is just for my type of account - free student checking. Will have to upgrade the account some time soon, I imagine.
The fundamental personality trait is lower level; ie risk aversion. Daniel is probably not very risk averse and hence this looked like a great opportunity.

Giving people who do this a thorough and public flogging is a great thing, however, as it'll help keep future Daniels in line.
Indeed I thought it was a joke until I read the testimonial.
Games People Play
Puncho’s Playland was developed by a team of some of the most respected casino players in the industry.
Just a warning, BofA wire transfer probably won't work. I tried to set this up with a landlord years ago and what happens is that the transfer amount will be locked up for a week or two, the transfer won't go through and then you'll both get charged fees for it not working. Maybe it's better now, but I doubt it.
Sanyo Xacti VPC WH1YL camcorder
Take underwater high definition video and still photos to a whole new level! The compact Sanyo dual camera Xacti WH1 has earned the highest possible IEC 60529 waterproof rating - IPX8 - allowing footage to be captured without worrying about the effects of water or snow. The WH1 is capable of underwater depths down to an astounding 10 feet for an entire hour and delivers high definition video, 2 megapixels digital photos, with a 30x optical zoom.
http://www.1938media.com/crunchgate/

A little heavier of a threat than just twitter but this Loren guy came out as the biggest scumbag out of all of them for me.
OpenWRT is more configurable than DD-WRT.

you might also look at http://www.fon.com/. The Fonera 2.0 is close to the service you describe. The Fonera routers are built with OpenWRT, coincidentally.
I attended a talk by Michael Lewis a little over a year ago. One of the questions I asked him was whether or not he believed financial journalists dropped the ball with reporting on the bubble that led up to the crisis.

Lewis made the point that many journalists had in fact written stories about the real estate excess but those stories were simply ignored.

In addition, if you read The Greatest Trade, you will see that while Burry was pretty early, he was by no means the first to call the trade.

One company I own shares in, chose to publicly detail a very similar CDS trade in their 2006 letter to shareholders. This was before CDS prices skyrocketed and left any investor with ample opportunity to protect themselves from the fall out. At the time, it only cost $1 to $1.5M to buy $100M of protection on banks such as Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns defaulting.

Most people just choose to ignore the possibility of a bubble bursting. They think the music will keep playing. I remember when I was buying shares in the above mentioned company back in the summer of 2007, when we started seeing subprime's true problems via the troubles at New Century Financial and others. Most commentators and analysts stupidly believed that the problems would not spread beyond subprime mortgage borrowers. But if you had looked at the data, you would have seen that as a result of the leverage employed, by multiple parties, things were much more intertwined.
The financial system is so convoluted and complicated that it does not matter how many informed individuals are making choices, there are bound to be loopholes. It's taking advantage of these loopholes that screws millions of people in the process that I find unjustifiable.
"The No. 2 search giant.."

Uhhhhhh...

I hate to say it but it is hard to be number two when your search engine is contracted out to the real number two.
He had no prestige, no mouthpiece, and no people skills. What was he supposed to do, stand on the sidewalk with a sign saying, "The sky is falling?" He made a crapload of money seeing through the hype while everyone else thought the only way to make money was to ride the bubble even if they didn't believe in it. He set an excellent example. Next time, if there are more people like him, the bubble won't grow so far out of proportion with reality.
The point I am trying to make is that the Federal Reserve can never determine the "right" interest rate. It is a decision that has to be made by the individuals on the market, precisely because the financial system is so complicated. Similarly, Barney Frank and George W. Bush shouldn't be able to decide that Americans all need to own their own home. These two factors combined to give us the housing bubble. Too much money combined with a distortion of supply and demand in the housing market.

For more information see this talk on The Morality of Investing and Financial Markets: http://vimeo.com/9182745
Yep.

> [the] internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year.

From here: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/03/playstation-network-s...
Calacanis is going to love this - that man thrives on controversy, good and bad, and we keep letting him back into the spotlight.
Neither would I, and that's cool by me. He's not stupid, just naïve and young. I don't wish him to be unsuccessful, but I do hope his reputation keeps him out of journalism and PR.
Knuth on Sudoku
You are right, it only opens the window.
One of the best parts of this story is how crude a model can be and yet yield tremendous value. A dozen metrics on the underlying loans of the security and "most ARMs reset in two years" giving 3 years as the window for the market to fully recognize how bad the loans were.
Spot on comparison.
Wrong. He was simply betting that subprime loans were a huge risk that was going to go bust. If you need to blame someone, go for the people who made these loans in the first place, or the ratings companies for failing to spot the disaster.
It takes a Picnik
You brought up people not wearing seatbelts despite laws, apparently implying that building codes would not be followed as well.

This point is invalidated by my observation because with seat-belt laws, the entity passing the law cannot realistically inspect compliance in every case while with building codes, it can.

Additionally, while seat-belt laws have not achieved 100% compliance, they have raised rates of seat-belt use from from 11% in 1981 to 68% in 1997
Agreed that if no disaster occurs then the building code is just moving money around from one industry to another, with no net benefit.

If disaster does occur than the code has prevented the destruction of capital, and therefore has benefited the economy -- maybe not "stimulated", but benefited by preventing a greater loss.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Yahoo.

The Yahoo/Bing search deal has only just been approved by the EU. Yahoo's search engine is still their own and will be for the next couple of years.

The Bing deal is actually a very odd beast, and I'm not sure if I like it, but I will say this: Carol Bartz asked for and got a 88% revenue share. This is unheard of, like getting the Devil to cosign your mortgage.

Whatever you think of the deal, it's not a) a surrender and b) actually implemented yet. I realize that it is hard to make an informed comment when a snide remark will do. But give them a break, eh?
A few other adjectives come to mind, but... yeah. Not sure having glanced at this story really adds anything to my life. It just looks like a big "Internet Drama" piece:-/ I'm sure it's important to those involved, but it really doesn't affect my life.
A plea re: false starts, discouragement, etc.
This post is basically excuse-making and whining. I understand that, but I hope that some of you can help give me some encouragement. I also believe that there are probably some others here with a similar conflict, so hopefully your contributions will help them too.

I want to start a successful startup, but I am very discouraged. I have tried things before, and it seems that no matter their utility or content, they always fly under the radar and experience minimal usage. Each individual thing I try has made less than $100, though they all had much more potential, in my opinion. I can just never get noticed.

I've written working or mostly-working versions of several of these projects, they aren't just pie-in-the-sky I-need-a-developer ideas.

There is a network of people that I thought would be willing to help me if I made something relevant, but it turns out I was mistaken -- most of these people have summarily ignored all the messages I've sent. They are not willing to help me, and none of them seem to remember the difficulty involved in bootstrapping.

I don't bother pitching things to those who could help anymore because I don't believe that realistically anyone will help. Even if there are well-intentioned investors and helpers out there, I just assume that there's no point in preparing a custom big long proposal for them because they are flooded with so many other candidates that I will be ignored. Sometimes I send short feelers to people involved in things like this to see if I can actually get through, but these messages are (so far) always ignored.

Since this is Hacker News, I'll mention YC specifically. I don't apply to YC because I can't fit into its model. I have a family to look after here (a wife and a new son). YC seems to be about shipping out unmarried young men to live in apartments with their co-founders on a shoestring. I can't do that.

I have a lot of plans, and a lot of things I want to do, but I can't ever seem to get the withal to do them. When I suck it up and launch something, the project dwindles because I don't have any money to get the kind of exposure or infrastructure or whatever component is missing. I'm not a great marketer or salesman, but I can't get great marketers or salesmen as one of the masses posting vague promises about equity, especially not in "bad" job markets.

I've listened to a couple episodes of the recent set of podcasts on traction. To me, the gist of each one has been "get lucky" (i.e. noticed by Google or Mozilla) or "get money" (i.e. get a big or famous investor).

Meanwhile, it's frustrating to read of successes others achieve. Not because I'm not happy for them, just because it seems like many, many others, even those with what I feel are far worse ideas or skills, are able to grasp whatever I'm missing here, and get money and be not poor.

So what should I do? I know there are a lot of investors and founders here. I feel like there are probably others like me. Can anyone offer advice besides general platitudes? I know that the line is "just keep trying", but I've kept trying for a long time and it doesn't seem to work out.
And if the penal code made people not kill and rob and steal, prisons would be empty?

Compliance to laws is not an all-or-nothing thing, and the statistics clearly show a massive increase in compliance after the enactment of seat-belt laws.
It is pretty cool until you realize how much easier it is to spy on a combination than stealing a key from a somewhat careful person.

Note that I am not trying to imply that stealing a key is hard or anything. It is in fact quite easy. But at least for me, I need my keys every few hours, so even if you managed to steal my keys from me without me noticing the theft, I would still know that my keys are gone at most a few hours later and 1 or 2 hours later, I'd be convinced that they are stolen. Thus, your window of opportunity is just around a few hours.

If you just spy on the combination, you know the combination and the window of opportunity to break into the house is as large as the frequency of combination-changes. which, considering password-changing-frequencies in real life, might be month to years.

Thus, I don't really think the coolness offsets the security issues.
How much does a PhD degree matter in today's startup world/tech industry?
I'm about to graduate from college and I'm considering pursuing a PhD degree. I've been wondering how would a PhD degree help me if my goal is to ultimately run a startup? What about working in the industry?

Anyone has ideas on how many successful tech companies are started by PhDs vs MSs vs BSs?
We've applied to YC with a music composition application as opposed to a music reader. We think the iPad is ideal for this domain since the much larger screen will allow users to take advantage of interfaces like a virtual keyboard or guitar that you can't really fit in an iPhone's screen.

Best of luck on Etude - it looks great.
JooJoo Tablet Misses Promised Delivery Date, Company Delivers A “No Comment”
Christian Dior Haute Couture Shoes
FWIW, review of this eBook in HN earlier

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813133

Edit: In the comments, you can actually see the author asking advice to improve the copy of the landing page :)
I think you guys are way to easy on Daniel using the cover of youth and naivety, at 17 you are more than capable of knowing this kind of behavior is unacceptable. The only reason he would do extort someone like this is because he is fully aware of the power of his position. If what Sam is saying is true.. then there should be no excuse.
Nice, but I'm not sure this resume would get him an interview at Google today.