skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: I am unable to start my startup because of its scale
Hi all,

I just created this temp account so I will not be exposed to the public before I wish to.

Let me put it as simple as possible. I currently have, what I convinced, and so told by some people I appreciate their opinion, a great idea for a startup. It is so great that I ma sure there are at least few others working on the same thing on their garages somewhere else.

It is not just a service, neither application, nor innovative hardware device, it is all three and more. When accompanied by and development platform and strong contracts with major market players this can easily reach the scale of an iPad market and buzz. Seriously!

It is certainly too big on me even for the prototype development. I am just a software developer in my everyday life, I can only plan and design part of the software, and perhaps even build a nice prototype myself quite fast.

However, there is much more to it. There is the platform which the application would run on, the SDK for 3rd party developers, the hardware, and so many other things. I simply have no idea where to start.

Thinking about it over and over there are three ways to go ahead and I have to pick one since time matters. It solves so many problems, and creates so many new opportunities that I have to bring it out before others would.

One way is to use standard non expensive (and perhaps far less shiny and integrated) hardware plugged some peripherals and write a quick demo for it.

The other option is creating an animation movie which demonstrate the final product as I see it right now. This has some advantages since in the movie I can show the human interaction and some mock-ups of applications.

The last, and least preferable way is to start talking to other professionals, software and hardware engineers, finding the right co-founders and building a complete demo.

Do investors care anymore about the implementation, or the idea itself can convinced, should I waste my time on building a demo even if I have no intention building it myself but hiring better and smarter for the task.

I will appreciate your comments and advices, and want to thank you in advance for the time you are spending reading and answering me.
The last time I went to the dentist he pointed out that I was drinking enough soft drinks that it was causing noticeable damage to my enamel. I found it surprisingly hard to stop drinking them. In fact, I haven't stopped, but I have reduced it substantially.
I comented about it here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250519 , that they "rediscovered" the role of the Dungeon Master from paper RPGs (and I think Neverwinter Nights and other computer RPGs might have something similar, though I don't know if it does).

Why doesn't he like the comparison? It's perfectly appropriate here.

Edit: I found this article http://www.destructoid.com/preview-sleep-is-death-player-mod... where he highlights the differences:
"The first and most obvious difference, the time constraint, essentially turns Sleep is Death into performance art. ". Ok, that's a point in its favor.

The second point is not valid "The computer screens that separated us gave the experience both a sense of tangible believability" as there are computer RPGs, though this might be a better / more freeform implementation (and that might be a killer feature)
I've never quite understood the URL shortener business model.

Why would Twitter buy bit.ly when they could have an intern write their own URL shortening service in an afternoon?

URL shorteners are the "Hello World" of webapp programming.
Right.

For instance, models have shown that IV drug users are an extremely important group because they connect the heterosexual and gay pools of susceptible.
Linkbait? On ReadWriteWeb? You astonish me.
The Curious Case Of Vancouver Incubator Bootup Labs
Oh believe me, after doing engineering school (mechanical or civil) you would be able to do that easily in half an hour and the end result would be quite pretty.

Either that or you would never get a degree as technical drawing teachers developed the art of nitpicking to incredible levels (or at least that was the case at my university).
Cool re: kqueue, I'll have to check that out. You don't know if there's an equivalent for Solaris 8 by chance?

DBus is in RHEL and Ubuntu, that covers most Linux OSs.

DBus is a publish subscribe mechanism used as a kind of IPC, inotify is a way of registering interest in an inode to avoid having to do filly things like polling a file continually.
I believe that statement refers to the commandments. At least in Spanish, the commandment about adultery is translated to mean "no sex outside of marriage." That is interpreted by many South Americans at least to mean no pre-marital sex.
Put me on the list. I need a backup of my backups. :) Plus, those things just look cool.

P.S. - If I win, I won't let you pay shipping.
Alicia Keys is looking for her Head Blogger
But this dilemma stems from the original irrational statement that sex outside marriage is immoral.
Somewhere Jodie Foster just threw off her headphones, jumped off the hood of her car, and frantically went to investigate. She won't find much. (hint: 3-D, not 2-D).
This is good for me and you but I suspect alot of people termed geeks are introverts. Hence being around other people tires them out.
And apps like Pages already have an import.
Here are the data for 2007:
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#hivaids...

Estimated # of HIV/AIDS Cases, in 2007

Category | Adult & Adolescent Male | Adult & Adolescent Female | Total
----------------------------+-------------------------+---------------------------+-------
Male-to-male sexual contact | 22,472 | - | 22,472
Injection drug use | 3,133 | 1,806 | 4,939
Male-to-male sexual contact | | |
and injection drug use | 1,260 | - | 1,260
High-risk heterosexual | | |
contact* | 4,551 | 9,076 | 13,627
Other** | 102 | 96 | 198

* Heterosexual contact with a person known to have, or to be at high risk for, HIV infection.
**Includes hemophilia, blood transfusion, perinatal exposure, and risk not reported or not
identified.
Comming soon - Liveteacher.org
I think this is nonsense. I doubt that the Southern Part of Africa is more promiscuous than West Africa or Brazil or Sweden.

Yet the difference in infection rates are massive. And why does a warzone like Liberia have 1.7% infection rates?

See my post on this: http://blog.cubeofm.com/suprising-facts-about-aids-in-2010

To quote from the UN report:

"There has been a pervasive stereotype that in countries where men have multiple concurrent partners, there is a higher rate of AIDS. Well, according to the UN paper, "there is no significant correlation between prevalence of sexual concurrency and HIV prevalence at the country or community level."

That article is just wrong.
Greetings from Des Moines
> We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.

I really don't think that's the way it worked. I think that a sufficient amount of hard work and suffering in unendurably harsh conditions built up productive capital much faster than humane treatment and safe working conditions could have. Then, this massive advantage we'd built allowed us to expend more resources making work more tolerable, and export the less pleasant parts of building modern civilization abroad.
There's a personal "deserves" and a systemic "deserves".

I think the purpose of the article was indeed to provoke and to get the point across that HIV in these areas aren't just about getting condoms and information in the hands of people, it's systemic. Combine that with white guilt (white Christian Europeans don't really get to tell Africans how to lead their lives), that's a recipe for, if not disaster, then really inefficient programs.
IANAL, but wouldn't a win in a court create a precedent that could be used in similar cases? I am really happy about this turnuot, but the early retreat by the Chiropractic seems in part like an unfortunate turn of events, overall...
Before using it, I too was skeptical about the task switcher, but it works really well. It is fast and works about as well (and as quickly in practice) as alt-tab on a Mac or PC.

The author makes a good point about the difference in icon placements between the folder icon and the folder itself.

For file management, iPhone OS 3.2+ is already half way there. It syncs specific files from one's computer to specific apps. What we need is to extend this and have a system-wide documents database that is akin to the contacts, calendars, and music database APIs. Version control support in this API would be cool as well.
Web firms aren’t liable to stay
What an idiotic premise. Nobody deserves to die from having sex.
Alternative Models of Ignorance
New video of Stanford's robot car
Check out:

It might make more sense to buy your own Mac, after all.
I initially assumed this service rented Mac Minis.

"We are a mac mini colocation service. In other words, we place your Mac mini in a high-end data center where you can use it as a server. We provide you with a menu of services including redundant very high speed internet connections, remote control electrical power, a highly secure location to house your Mac mini, and remote human hands."

http://www.macminicolo.net/
Links to http://blog.cr0.org/2010/04/javacalypse.html, which is much more informative.
Why Top Colleges Squeeze You Dry
Isn't that the point of this article?
UK's Digital Economy Act is built on sand
Out of shear curiosity... would you mind elaborating on the choice of West Africa, Brazil, and Sweden? I know South Africa has a rumor. I know Brazil has a rumor. But West Africa and Sweden makes no sense to me.
Absolutes... words like only...Successfully Entrepreneurs.
Be reasonable and say for some workable revolutionary idea.
You'll are creating a dogma about entrepreneurship.

It only takes one counter example to brake your false notion of entrepreneurship.

Facebook - when it came out was a hit.

Google Search - they were good from the start, the interface rarely changed

eBay - Unexcepted hit.
[The majority of their iteration was done after they were successful]
-There is something called luck.
For people that arent superstars maybe you are right.
All am asking is to be reasonable and say some, not all.
I'm rather fond of closed systems, invitation-only, where even basic usage is not free (example https://loom.cc). These are private goods, quietly laboring in happy obscurity.
Java 7 : More concurrency
I don't know if the Gates/Basic example is really organic.

I happened to be hacking late at night on the same Harv-10 machine in the old CRCT machine room (now gone, replaced by the Gates/Ballmer cheese wedge building), during the period where Gates was building his 8080 assembler/linker/simulator and developing Basic using those tools. (I do remember teasing him about toy computers at the time.)

My impression was that he wasn't trying to actually use the Basic himself, but saw that for these hobbyist computers to make any headway, they were going to need a higher-level language. He was already a very proficient 4004/8008/8080 assembler hacker and a PDP-10 assembler whiz.

I.e., his Basic development was not organic but fairly coldly calculated as an obvious business effort.

(He was "yay close" to being expunged from Harvard (worse than being expelled) for using their research machines for profit, and he had to give back the $10K that MITS had advanced him. 'Twas a bit unfair, as I saw several different commercial efforts running off that same machine (all of them late-night denizens of the computer room like me), and no one ever squawked about them.)
Kiss the rain???????
Food Safety Modernization Act - Hurting Local Farmers?
Yep. I also think it's a function of the location of the two apps. For whatever reason I find myself switching between apps on pages (say) 1 and 4. A surprisingly large hassle after a few switches. Yes, I could move one for a while to get around the issue, but this obviates the need for remodeling, as that other app will be right there.
Underlying principle: Focus on problems you understand
Edit: Ignore me, I was wrong.
Keynetx
Learn to use Microsoft office, increase productivity and efficiency
What could be a reason to choose religion over religion? The only thing I can think of is an elitist stance, that the unwashed masses are incapable to think for themselves and hence need reasonable people to make up the rules for them.

Naturally, if you happen to be among the elite/leadership, maybe encouraging religion seems like the better idea.
One lesson to be learned here is that founders need to do their own due diligence on the firms from which they accept investment.
Honda's Unicycle of the Future
"How do I pick a deadbolt lock, disable an alarm system, and arrange transportation for a big TV? I'm just wondering! This is theoretical! Stop lawyering!"

In other words - you might be doing something legitimate, but it sounds fishy. You can't expect people to help you without further explanation.
"And a change to British libel law would be nice, too."

There were some moves in this direction: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8259814.stm
Don't ask what people want. Ask them what they do every day that they find really annoying or boring.
Irrational or not, it's a position that a great number of people share.
I don't think my psych major qualifies me to say that any more than anyone else.
Down-vote those answers and carry on. Maybe add a bit about not wanting legal advice.
More data and charts in Top Search Queries
Exactly! The MIT hackers in particular were famous also for their exploration of the physical plant; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_and_tunnel_hacking
Shocking. This is what used to be called "the unacceptable face of capitalism". It is this sort of unregulated industrial production which in western countries led to the labour movements and improvements in working conditions and health and safety standards throughout the 20th century.

The internet provides an excellent means by which to expose malpractice. Hopefully Microsoft will put pressure on their suppliers to ensure that workers aren't being mistreated. Make no mistake about it, if working practices like these were to exist today in a western country like the UK the company would be facing very significant fines and compensation claims.
Android has an almost-identical "task switcher" (press and hold the Home button to show a popup of recent apps). I don't think anyone I know uses it regularly - and I just spent 18 months working in a 30-person Android software company.
Anti-piracy firm defends net hunt
Battle of the Moonwalkers: Buzz Aldrin vs Neil Armstrong on NASA
Does OS 4.0 running on an iPhone allow access to syncing specific files via iTunes like OS 3.2 on iPad does?
The Neo4j REST Server - Part1: Get it going
Agree, I find it rather odd to not use RSS feed and hit front page all the time.
As long as new digital products are produced, it still needs the basic software for its basic functionality. Unless if every device is using the same technology and the same set of software.
Yeah, those answers weren't incredibly helpful in technical terms. The problem for you is that what you want is actually very, very difficult to achieve, if indeed it is possible, and this is exactly because, for the most part, the only reason to do this kind of thing is for sinister reasons (e.g. phishing). For this reason, and also because website owners just don't tend to like it when you surround their stuff with your stuff (for a number of reasons), whatever solution you come up with will probably be worked around.

As I understand things, you've got two ways to do this. Either client-side or server-side. Client side would be an iframe, for example. I use this on my website, http://minutes.at, which just sticks a timer bar on top of any website, by sticking the website in an iframe. It's simple and it usually works, but as you say there are the occasional navigational problems.

Now, for server-side stuff, that's where you've got problems. It might work better - you could just take the entire website code and stick it in your own - but that's where you really do enter legal-problem territory.

You shouldn't mind people giving you advice - they are actually trying to help you avoid getting sued. The reason you found no technical help, though, is probably because what you want is going to be more or less impossible to achieve. You got no answers, perhaps, because there are no answers.

Perhaps if you offered a bit more information about what you hoped to achieve, someone might be able to suggest a way of doing it.
According to the advisory at http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2010/Apr/119:

"All versions since Java SE 6 update 10 for Microsoft Windows are believed to be affected by this vulnerability. Disabling the java plugin is not sufficient to prevent exploitation, as the toolkit is installed independently."

Harmless demonstration at http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/bb5eafbc6c6e67e11c4afc88b4e1dd22/t...
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Most of the startups I've participated in have been more on the scale of what you're describing here (FWIW, I like these kinds of challenges more than something that is "just" software in the cloud, but to each his own).

I'm more of the business-guy than the hacker guy, but I've been known to make a double-sided PCB layout, toss on and program some PIC chips and create a server-backend when need-be.

Anyway, if you want to discuss your idea offline/non-public I'd be happy to offer some free advice (it's worth what you pay for it) and maybe point you in the right direction or give you some idea as to how to proceed to bring it all together.
They support what I'm saying. Only 1.8% of people that contracted Aids did so through normal heterosexual contact.
Possible repsonses to "Q4 2009 was crappy globally":

Standard: It was the economy's fault.

Better: Times are tough so we'll have to work that much harder.

Best: A down economy is our greatest opportunity to put some distance between us and our struggling competitors.
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Now that content is a pure public good, there are only a few options to support its creation.

1. Draconian legislative enforcement.

2. Public funding

3. Charitable fundraising (100k true fans model)

4. Production by hobbyists

5. Charging for extreme convenience (this makes DRM seem pretty dumb.)

6. Giving it away and making it back in ancillary ways (i.e. endorsements, paid speaking engagements, live shows etc)

Make no mistake, the Amanda Palmer model is workable only for those who are great at charitable fundraising. Because that's what she's doing. I'm glad it works for her, but most artists aren't brilliant marketers.

Frankly, none of the available options look all that great. Hopefully an "all of the above" cocktail will work out okay in the near term.
Good thing that premise wasn't in the article.
If culture doesn't change, the population will be pushed into extinction. Or will evolve to become immune to HIV.

It has less to do with promiscuity than with unprotected sex. If the promiscuous population engages only in safe sex, then it's very unlikely HIV and other STDs will spread.

No individuals deserve blame for collective actions, but the collectivity may deserve what comes from collective behaviour.
The author's use of the word 'deserve' is perhaps unfortunate, if taken to mean the people rather than the leaders. In her book, she is certainly scathing about the leadership of southern African countries, and particularly South Africa itself.

"You don't need to dream up complex economic formulae to explain why HIV prevention in Africa is failing. Look at the leadership. HIV would fall if fewer people had several sex partners at once, and if there were less intergenerational sex. But in Swaziland, which tops the world charts in terms of HIV prevalence, the thirty-eight-year-old king marries his thirteenth bride in 2007, after she became pregnant. His new wife is younger than his eldest daughter. Look at the leadership on condoms. Men certainly won't use them to prevent AIDS if they think they don't work, or believe condoms cause AIDS. South Africa's leader* conceded that condoms stop HIV, but since he hasn't conceded that HIV causes AIDS, condoms are worthless against AIDS. Kenya's religious leaders have burned condoms in public. In Mozambique and Zimbabwe, opinion leaders have spoken on the radio about how white people were pushing condoms laced with AIDS to wipe out Africans. When bishops, presidents and the media poke holes in condoms, they become ineffective".

In contrast, she heaps praise on the leadership of countries like Uganda and Senegal, who acknowledged their cultural traits and encouraged open discussion and practical advice on risk reduction, successfully tackling the health problem.

*(Thabo Mbeki)
I feel like it's worth noting that the title was, "countries get the HIV epidemics they deserve," not "people get the HIV infections they deserve." I think the author's point was that the country's culture results in HIV problems, not that any individual person has done something that means they "had it coming."

Though I agree that using the word "deserve" makes the argument very emotionally, politically and morally loaded, and not necessarily for the better.
[Ask HN] Best way to generate thumbnail of websites?
I'm creating a 'showcase of websites' website for a framework I use, and I'd like to automate the process of generating thumbnails of user-submitted websites. What is the best way to go about doing this?

If it helps, I'm using PHP and the website will live on a Linux-based VPS that I own.
Because Sweden is just as promiscous as west africa, which is as promiscuous as any other country in southern Africa. There is no study that shows a significant difference in this.
That is the most inspirational thing I've heard all week, perhaps so far this month!

Thanks for that!
Maybe you're looking somewhere I'm not, but the 0.8% figure under the 'Other' Category would seem to support what I'm saying, since it excludes people knowing sleeping with people that are known to have AIDS, Needle Drug users, and gay males.
I've always felt that a factor holding back more widespread adoption of Ogg Theora (or Vorbis for that matter) were the product names. I'm very glad that someone out there was providing a royalty-free codec, but it's frustrating to see them get held back by a decision that made their battle harder than it needed to be.

To some extent - especially in the last decade - a codec is/was a consumer-facing technology, and I feel short, simple names like "FLAC", "MPEG", "VP8", etc make it easier to brand things than a long foreign names that leave most users puzzled.
Why can't we trust what we see?
The ones that hit home ?
I only ever activate that screen accidentally, myself, and I've been using Android since the G1 launched.
I can't speak for every investor in this incubator but Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures has money in my own startup and I've always found him to be an upstanding, helpful guy - First Round Capital introduced him to me and I've always been grateful for that. I wouldn't particularly call Boris a VC, though - more of a large angel, investing the money he made from the startup he founded himself.

It's a bad idea to slight individuals you don't know anything about just because you think they belong to a generic 'VC' category.
... and only for reproduction.

Unfortunately, the message could be "if you are really going to sin, at least sin in a way that doesn't endanger yours and your partner's life" not "do not sin and damn the condoms"
The movie was released in 1988. It's hard to spoil something that has already been consumed, processed, excreted, and reused to make a garden.
There's an idea for a startup: outsourced manufacturing for startups with small orders.