skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Put a big bright signup button in the main content area. I assumed "Suitable For All Consumer Facing Businesses!" was going to be one.

LoyaltySpace is a complete, simple, and affordable solution that helps small businesses to increase sales by running their own customer loyalty program.

LoyaltySpace supports both plastic card loyalty programs and an innovative mobile phone based loyalty product.

That is a lot about you and a little about them. Successful sales is frequently a lot about them and a little about you. Relatedly, features do not sell software; benefits sell software. Don't tell them that you can "build a customer database" ("I sell freaking pasta, what do I want a database for!? 'Subsequent marketing activity'?!"), tell them the improvement they are going to experience in their lives from using your product. ("You'll get eager customers who want to hear from you giving you their contact details so that you can sell them more stuff.")

Similarly, "Create tailored offers" => "Increase sales by directing the right offers to the right customers."
Those were the days when the sun never set on the British Empire.
Interestingly in Russia it's nothing like that. Round-ticket costs only slightly less than twice the price of a one way ticket (seems logical). Not sure, if this is good or bad, because I really don't understand the underlying logic behind this pricing policy of making one-way ticket twice as expensive as a one-way ticket.
> If it's useful enough to pay money for, pay money for it.

Money doesn't have anything to do with it. His point is about freedom, not cost.
We are interested in real cases of developers to not make the same mistakes all in our framework.
I'm kind of not so surprised there are 19 olds in PyPy team. This is a project that requires idealism and enthousiasm: "let's build python in python, compile to everything possible, and make it faster than cpython". Contrast this to the more pragmatic approach of unladen swallow. I envy this guy even now!
You really, really got a bad deal on your beer. I've had imports at Shanghai restaurants for a fraction of that. Shanghai can be expensive, but it's nothing like NYC. In Shanghai, you can live within a short walk of the subway line, eat out every day and have a maid to cook your other 2 meals for under 1000USD/month. Loads of college grads in the city earn less than half that.

If you have absolutely no ability to adapt to local food and need to have everything as you had it at home, then it will definitely cost you. Immigrants to the west can't always find their favorite food or products, either.
" I'd just like to say that in writing the blog post, I had no such motives (consulting, that is) ".

I never said you did (just in case it wasn't clear :-)). It is obvious you honestly believe that there is a lot of valuable insight behind the "marketing bullshit" enveloping the "lean startup" buzz.

I don't agree (or at least I don't agree about the ratio of hype to substance, but that is all right, differences of opinion are good).

I do think (as I indicated above) that Steve Blank's books and blog posts are worth reading as are some of Eric Ries's early blog posts (before he got onto this "evangelism"/paid conferences kick). I am not claiming they are stupendously new insights but definitely worth reading and thinking about.

I think 700$ "lean startup conferences" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1179623) are very like 700$ "I will teach you to be rich" scams. People who are really rich don't go around holding seminars on How to Be Rich and charging people money for those.

I believe you could get much more value from reading patio11 's posts here and on his blog, Paul Graham's essays and mixergy interview transcripts of startup founders than attending these vague conferences (unless you are into heavy duty echo chamber networking), thus avoiding paying good money to be initiated into "A New Era of Enterpreneurship that is dawning" [ from the marketing spiel at http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/03/new-conference-... ]

Is there something to the "lean startups" idea? Definitely. Is there a lot of borderline scammy hype right now (in other words a lot of "marketing bullshit") around those ideas? Definitely.
Well, on the flip side, he also writes about managers as if they are all stamped out from the same cookie cutter mold. As a former hacker/engineer now manager, I generally thought this way off on both sides of the fence. And I laugh at the notion that I "closely resemble about 40% of the population." I can maybe relate to that much of the population, but resemble them... nope.

As far as the author's understanding of "hackers" and all their social shortcomings, those are clearly extreme to the point of being generally false. Initially I was rather shocked this could still be someone's understanding of hierarchy in software organizations. Then, I read his "bibliography" at the end. His main source for comparing managers and hackers has a copyright of 1984. WTF!?! Sure there are a small handful of technology related books that withstood such a test of time (e.g. The Mythical Man-Month), but obviously "Please Understand Me" is not one that should still be quoted for relevance... at least not the way he's using it.

The other thing to note is the author's bio. He is beyond doubt an extremely intelligent person with a litany of academic credentials, but scant mention of "real world" experience to back-up the claims being made in the book/article. I'd even go so far to say he did put a lot of effort and thought behind the writing. It's just a bit off the mark from my experiences... which should be similar to about 40% of the population. :)
Ask HN: Are single use handheld devices dead?
I currently write software for old school handhelds (think Palms and HPs) used for data collection. Our application puts the device in kiosk mode, and the user cannot exit our software. Unfortunately, the available options for new devices is dwindling (Palms went EOL a few years ago, and the HPs will likely follow suit shortly). The current generation of smartphones is intriguing, but it seems that no one is accommodating single-use devices these days. Are we missing a player in this market? Android seems promising, since it is open source--does anyone have experience writing kiosk apps to run on Android devices?
That's a cool site, thanks. As an aside I didn't know Overeem was fighting this weekend - he /toyed/ with Rogers, I'm thinking he's going to give Fedor a run for his money. Still rooting for Fedor :)
Surely there must be more hackers that think like _why, even if they are not as high-profile. Maybe someone should start a (loosely knit) network of such people. Or maybe it already exists. I for one would definitely be interested in joining. :-)
During college I worked in a plastic fabrication facility - it was like a wood shop with saws and routers, no giant moldingg achines. Learned an interesting trade that I could easily fall b
ack on if developing gets old. Plus going to work was like going to the gym except they paid me.

My suggestion would to find a part time job that has you active physically and mentally. Tradesmen / craftsmen are always looking for some reliable help even if you need to be trained. Go learn cheese making or how to run a printing press.
If you have a good typing speed then try out audio transcription. http://callgraph.biz/freelance-transcription
I guess we are the only ones hiring in Italy.
We are a consulting web agency, looking to evolve into a startup soon :)

Looking for: mainly looking for designers and front-end programmers (better on wordpress)
Also a back end programmer that's also a sysadmin can do.
Clickable links:

Original: http://gridth.s3.amazonaws.com/test-firefox.png

Quantized: http://gridth.s3.amazonaws.com/test-firefox-nq8.png
Skype now supporting group video chat
Ya I've heard of most of them. I've been waiting for Barcamp for a year. There was recent talk on the mailing list abt organising the next one. But nothing yet.

I've heard about Headstart network. They have something called Startup Saturdays right? How are the headstart events?

P.S: Your email?
How to convert avi/wmv/mpeg/mov/mod/mts/flv to iPad?
I tried to generate a "massive" amount of data, but I hit the script CPU usage warning pretty quickly :). Have you tried using Web Workers or perhaps timer-chunking your data generation loop?
But why throw a barrier in the way? That site won't you let review the job board without prior registration.
Design is nice, but the logo looks cheap. And pixel-y.
CitrixOnline has a few positions open in Dresden, Dublin, and the UK: http://www.citrixonline.com/careers.tmpl
Just to clarify, there is no polling in redis blocking list ops. I believe the pub/sub doesn't require polling either.
Given that, I can think of a lot cases where Redis will work fine as a messaging server. If you need a very sophisticated routing mechanism, you will need to look at a more dedicated solution. But if you can express the message routing in either the rpush/blpop style or in redis pub/sub, why not?
Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks
This is a cool idea. I often see the same people on the subway (New York) and after a few times conversations start (many people probably for dating possibilities). Good luck!
Remarkably prescient, though I guess the signs were there for anyone smart enough to see them at the time.
HowTo: Install Memcached With repcached On Debian Lenny
I think Stallman is a fundamentalist, but an important one. I think he prompts debate and exemplifies practice in a way that is only possible because he simply will not touch proprietary software.

This is a key point I think. His approach (i.e. not touching proprietary) is clearly silly as a general attitude (both from the point of view of the software ecosystem and as a user). But by staying true to an ideal he believes in helps counterpoint the closed-tight ecosystem of some companies.

Somewhere in the middle there is a happy medium (possibly where we sit right now).
very true but with the scale of users and the rate of growth the opportunities are also very large.
AS for dealing with studios and such, usually that's not the startup's problem, that's something the operators will work through if your company is bringing real value. You are right that's not a fun process but it's quickly changing since the operators are losing money to the Internet (if you may) and realize things need to change.

I'm involved in some very interesting projects where this view of operators as being slow and difficult is changing.
Sorry if this doesn't sound very useful, but my suggestion is to take the time to think deeply about why it depresses you. Have you been unsuccessful in your career? Or significantly less successful than you would like to be?

It resonated with me when you said "I guess ultimately I enjoy thinking about concepts more than the actual programming" because I think I'm that way too. But that's lead me to think a lot about programming concepts and into language design.
C++ SCALPEL: Source Code Analysis, Libre and Portable Library
What makes an iPad tick? Take a look inside...
I doubt it! But, unlike Stallman, I support progress in all its forms, encumbered or not, and enjoy the advantages offered by free /and/ proprietary software.
Working at a ski resort in Utah for two years was one of the best decisions of my life. Great town, great people, fun outdoor activities year round, nightlife, and plenty of time to code. Just be ready to barely scrape by - makes it easier that half the town is in the same boat and perfectly fine with it.
If you start to read Latin and Ancient Greek, you'll get a sense that human beings have had most of the same mundane concerns for the past thousands of years. Some of the love poetry of Catullus, for example, sounds like it could have been written by a precocious tween.
Hey Massimo, I'm an entrepreneur in residence with Atlas. So my email there still works but for other things, max@niecap.com will do.

I'm particularly looking for a great frontend/UI/UX designer/developer.
Thank you :) yeah we want to connect you with the familiar stranger you see daily !
I work in NYC and get calls from recruiters about Rails positions constantly. Rails is "hot" now. The rates mentioned elsewhere are in the ballpark; I'd say $75/hour if you're halfway decent.

If you want to get plugged into the community and meet a few recruiters, then introduce yourself on the NYC Ruby (http://nycruby.org/wiki/) mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ruby-nyc/). A few recruiters lurk there; all of them have behaved well and seem very ethical.
Do you guys know a java library that would do the same thing ?
Funny how no one used to complain when it was the rich countries who dictated the rules of the game (via the IMF).
As a consumer, the last thing I want is more plastic in my wallet. Something like Cardstar (http://www.mycardstar.com/) would be a start, but maybe that's a typical early adopter HN attitude more than a typical consumer response.

Your landing page needs simpler, bigger, attention-grabbing text.

Also, I'll second the comment below about the big bright signup button. The CardStar link above has a nice example that you might draw inspiration from.

EDIT: Just watched a video from a link on HN:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/draw-your-ideas.html

And the website behind Jack Dorsey's new idea:

https://squareup.com/

He makes the point in the video that 90% of America uses plastic to pay for stuff, but only 2% of America can accept payments from plastic sources.

If you can come up with a killer common-sense line like that (and a killer landing page like Square's), that will become the raison d'etre for your concept.
You confused Futaba Channel with 2ch which is orders of magnitude more popular and not an imageboard. 2ch is very popular in Japan, but it is only in the top 10-20 now behind mixi and ameblo (social networking) and youtube and nicovideo (video sites).
> To be completely honest, I'm somewhat astonished that speed is one of the reasons to write the core in itself: Usually you would think it would be a reason to write it in a low level language.

Can anyone elaborate on this?
We are hiring .NET/WPF developers - no web apps - just desktop app skills. Flexible working time/location.
(janusz@broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk)
A true gold-mine of illusions.

The "Kochi-jo castle and Kinkaku" illusison ( http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/tagi3e.html ) is quite fascinating. Close-by observers see one castle and far-away observers see an other castle.

I wonder if you could use this technique in marketing. Where you would have a sign that showed different things, depending on how far away you are standing.
Human Tetris
And, ironically, that's exactly what the American people did with the patriot act and 8 years of Bush.
e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7qUKv7XVx4, http://www.bobstaake.com/staakenyer.html

("It's the artist, not the tools.")
Photoshop - Gimp can't handle tablet input on any system I've got (lags horribly behind input), and is generally slower and has a horrendous UI which frequently puts windows half off-screen and sometimes cuts off text.

Maya / 3DS Max / Whatever - Are you really going to claim Blender is any good? Functional, sure, but that's about it.

Windows - Linux graphics drivers are often an absolute joke, so Windows really is just about the only real PC gaming option. And don't claim it's because graphics cards are closed hardware - then why hasn't an open-hardware group made anything competitive? Their only major success has been the Arduino (a BIG success, but rather lonely).

OSX - Linux OSes, even Ubuntu, have all had clunky UI and seriously lacking normal-user help documentation. Last time I used Ubuntu, I had to resort to the CLI inside of 30 minutes to correct a permissions error the UI could only inform me of. Try telling most people how to do that.

Outlook / Mail.app - Thunderbird's the biggest contender, and has many things right... but while the new UI is much nicer, I ran into many display bugs in less than an hour of use, one of which resulted in my deleting an email I did not have selected (when I didn't hit delete).

MS Office suite / iWork suite - OpenOffice has a UI lagging behind even MS Office, and in many of my uses has failed to have a working updater and lags behind my typing frequently. And then there's the preferences window... most people simply cannot understand 90% of that, and will be turned off the entire application by its mere existence.

Half Life / Quake / Unreal Tournament / PC games of any kind - ?

Console games of any kind - ?

McAfee / Norton / AVG - ? ClamAV? Brought my system to a crawl last time I used it. Not that McAfee / Norton are much better there, but...

And in the other corner, we have:

Firefox / Chrome, Pidgin / Adium (though Pidgin has a bad install process and a nasty UI for most people), Eclipse (though it's slow)... I know there are more, but I'm having trouble coming up with them right now. Just woke up.

I had generally thought the major ones were self-explanatory, and this is rather long, hence its initial omission.
Looking at the pricing, my first thought is "Wow, that's cheap!" I don't know how that converts to US dollars, but it seems way low. I think you'll want to raise your monthly fee considerably, on the order of 2-3x that amount. Or, consider offering multi-tiered pricing (more on that below).

I run a startup (http://doleaf.com) that also deals with small businesses, and they require A LOT of handholding. Plus, they'll always want to talk with you and tell you how to do things (which is both good and bad). All that time should count in your head as work time (believe me, it's way tougher than writing code) and you need to price things as such.

I suggest you definitely consider multi-tiered pricing based on the number of members in the loyalty program. Ironically, I think your bigger clients will probably need less handholding, but they can help subsidize the time you spend working with the smaller ones.

Overall, I think this is an excellent idea. Are you considering accepting customers in the USA? This might be a good fit for some of the nurseries I work with, and I'd be happy to pass it along to them.
If you enjoy sports and have a confident personality, I'd recommend getting into officiating your sport of choice.

I've been reffing hockey since the 9th grade and its a great way to get exercise, enjoy the game, build communication skills and make a decent amount of money (at least $20/hour, plus mileage).
What trucking statistics can tell us about the economy
I doubt this is anything like a startup at all. But, then again, the OP didn't specify whether it has to be a startup or not.
Agreed. Also, get rid of the cheesy stock photos. It really cheapens the look of the site.
Hi, fledging.

I'm one of the creators and lead developers of Django. So I suppose you probably hate me, too. That's a shame: most people who hate me have at least met me once or twice; wish I'd had at least had a chance. Ah well.

Anyway, I've been saying for years that something like this was inevitable, so I'm not too surprised it came along. It could even become something useful: there are some very good reasons people might not want to use Django, and you could save them some time. Constructive criticism is useful, too, so done right I could really learn from a site like this.

So, if I may, I'd like to ask you to take the time and focus on this and make sure it contains useful information. Because right now, well, it doesn't: most of the comments are pointless and contain no real information.

There's even some anti-Semitic hate speech -- which is incredibly offensive, and renders any serious content untrustworthy.

Please. If you must spent your time hating, at least do it honestly.

Thanks.
I don't think Jobs was talking about engineering there, he was talking about business decisions. Look at these quotes from the last set of exchanges:

You have the chance to set the tone for a new platform. For the new phone and tablet platform. The platform of the future! I am disappointed to see it’s the same old revenge power bullshit.

By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?

(Emphasis added) Jobs mentions several times it's a business decision for the platform made to create a good customer experience. Incidentally, I wouldn't be bothered by a scientist who had that attitude, if he was given vague criticism by someone without a physics background.
In English, that would be the wrong way to express one's sorrow over the death. but it's a translation, so our cultural details are irrelevant.
This is very interesting to me. I'm an aspiring Haskeller considering moving from London. Can you be more specific than Scotland? There seems to be Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow on that link you provided. Are they all equally good?
In that there are considerable shares and a do or die commitment, no it's not.

It is a R&D lab after all, failing is perfectly acceptable so long as we can learn from that and apply that to what else we do. Failing isn't going to be terminal, so of course a research entity isn't the same as a startup.
appear on This Week in Startups and ask Jason a question
$25/hour would be about $50k/year. 50 without benefits, so yes that is low.
What's nice about Catalyst is that it's not opinionated, so if you hate it, it's your own fault for setting it up wrong. Hence, there is no need for "I hate Django" or "I hate Rails"-like sites.
Anyone else experiencing problems with the video? I can stream it more than 3minuts. I downloaded it and the problems persists.
What would be the right way to say it in English?
Great video, but no, I will not draw my ideas.

I make flow-charts. I think in "connections" therefor I create huge sheets with hundreds of arrows connecting my thoughts. It is really ugly, but this is how I think, this is how I understand my world.

Also I take audio notes.

I do this because I am not a visual person. Pictures have little meaning to me.
"How many people will be frustrated to see their devices not automatically syncing because the wouldn't know about all this technical nuances or they forgot that they still had an app running."

Not as many as you think. I imagine most people aren't doing something on their iPod when they plug it in. Either way, Apple likely has stats on this. I understand your point, but then, how many people sync via iTunes? I mean, the actual Sync button in iTunes. How often does syncing actually need to take place?

And, the same question could be asked of the interruption. How man people plug their iPod in while using it and suddenly find that it takes over whatever they were doing. It takes over, without even asking.

"Another option would be to continue the audio process after syncing the device."

That defeats the purpose. And it's bad design. Why interrupt what the user is doing? Mac users love to comment on having to restart Windows for updates. No.

"Canceling the sync on the device, which would still stop the audio process or disabling auto sync to not be bothered by it while listening to audiobooks, but be bothered to hit sync while updating podcasts."

I have the perfect solution, I would [SYNC]
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