skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
the point is that if you open up the bay area to enough transportation options, the prices should go down / stop rising
> tired of the ... poor cultural offerings

Can you expand on this? Where are you located now that is richer culturally?
Has anyone gotten nintendo controllers to work in Cemu? I have a Wii U and most games I'd want already, but the idea of 4K intrigues me.
>The reality is more like dystopia and control/distraction of the average user, packaged as good deals/market solutions to help you get ahead.

That's the status quo, sure. But nothing says that will remain stable.
When was the US unemployment rate definition changed? I know there are debates around whether the rate we normally talk about is the most important indicator, but the definition has remained the same for decades, AFAIK.
this makes sense to me considering most people only leave bother to use the extreme star amounts anyway. anyway, you're kind of a sap if you take netflix ratings seriously and don't use something like rotten tomatoes
How do you feel about non-profit startups developing pure Open Source software and services in exchange for donations, in the interests of bettering the ecosystem itself? Could a nascent Mozilla be a YC nonprofit?
Do you think the startup ecosystem is too focused on the Bay Area? Is YCombinator funding startups that don't have a Bay Area presence?
Check out "See How It Flies": https://www.av8n.com/
t. Anti-Oxford-Comma lobbyist
Everybody is already carrying a much-more-multipurpose device with them everywhere they go (smartphone). Carrying around the sort-of-portable bit of the switch doesn't seem that much more convenient than having a laptop. Doesn't fit in your pocket.
You should really expand this to Seattle folks as well. I've decided to stay for now, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wistfully start looking at the housing prices in Miami after this awful winter...
Same, although I'm not so much mad because I realized what they were doing and dropped the show before I'd invested much time. The BSG pilot miniseries is excellent, and I can recommend it in isolation, but don't bother with anything else about the show.
The article's premise is that war is vicious yet moral, so something less vicious like wall street has no right to complain that morality is a second level concern.

A king not killing another king is moral between kings, but those that followed the loser can suffer greatly. The closer you get to becoming god, the more callous the hands gambled.

The definition of being god here is how effective you are at controlling perceptions, how your followers perceive reality, your personal religion in a way.

So from the peasants view, the kings and gods are corrupt, removed from reality. That is because the god of peasants has always been the god of livelihood, while the elites worship the god of power. The greater god ignores the lesser god.
Was Timeful rolled into Google Inbox, at least in spirit? Tasks/TODOs (single or repeating) can optionally show up in Google Calendar, though no AI-based suggestions, as far as I know.
Reminded me of this: http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/beggar-preten...
When has there been an ethical war?

Not if the art of war can have ethics in conduct, but where the war itself was a just one.

The only just wars are revolutionary ones, if any. Except revolution today, like the Arab Spring, isn't done in a formal war. Hell, no real revolution is done like that - even the American Revolution was predominantly guerilla tactics. The wars that obey codified ethics are always the formal wars that were started for purely unethical reasons.
> implicit signals such as - 'did the user watch the show / film to the end?'

I hope their version of that signal is better than what they're presenting in the UI. I have a few movies Netflix shows me as not finished, becaue I closed them just as the ending credits started.
Hi Michael,

Thanks for doing this!

My question is: How can we make a better environment for discovering cures/vaccines? Can we create a almost like a "YC" for research of biological sciences.

Although, I don't know much about this area, I feel there needs to be a better way to allow the most intelligent people have the resources they need to discover cures/vaccines etc, with no external barriers. Thank you.
Making Mathematical Art
FYI, this is one person's interpretation of looking at data. He didn't produce the data.

Also, he works at an organization that is famous for producing data that neo-conservatives use to attack global warming.
>Typological similarities certainly exist between Basque and Georgian.

Typological similarities are not considered to be all too important for establishing a genetic relationship between languages. What's much more relevant are word cognates among the most basic words (because there's less of a tendency for languages to borrow those). And those have to be made with phonological changes in mind, meaning you can't just compare today's words but rather their forms at an earlier point in time.
The name for this is wage theft.

It's just as bad as taking money out of an employee's paycheck, and way more corrosive to society than petty theft.
The fact that it's Zelda and not some mediocre third party title is all the more concerning. First party means all the hardware nuances are pretty well known to the developers.
At YC we don't have strongly held opinions on exactly how technology will develop over the next 10 years. We simply want to fund the strongest teams and help them accomplish their goals.
For AI companies, they might have to do things manually in the beginning to collect data and train their algorithms. Many people criticize them as wannabe AI companies. What are your thoughts on such early stage companies applying to YC?
The occasional large rock, for short distances.
>I know that NY is a great city for a developer,

I don't want to be pedantic, especially considering you admitted you aren't American but...

NY is a state, not a city. :) Easy to get it confused. NY state is huuuuge while NYC is just on the lower east portion of it. NY is 47,126 sq mi, NYC is 304 sq mi.
Previous discussion of this story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13887428
I'm cynical that this will bring meaningful improvement. Government has given money to telecoms before, and it's only brought us mediocre service, and brought executives huge paydays.

Where's the fiber, Verizon? We (NJ and PA[0]) gave you huge tax cuts 20 years ago for universal fiber service. You and NYC agreed to provide everyone with fiber.[1] Meanwhile, AT&T keeps merging with promises that are meaningless or eventually reneged on.[2]

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/verizon-pennsyl...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/nyc-sues-verizon...

[2] https://muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-merger-pro...
While there is merit to this counter-point, I should also contextualize that this is a fairly conservative think tank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
IIRC, basque has a lot of grammatical parallels with both Hungarian and Finnish, both of which also have no nearby related languages, and both of which are nearly impossible to learn proficiently as a second language. I'd love to read more about these languages' histories. Are there any introductory reads on the subject?
Hey Michael, with getting rid of the Fellowship, and moving to the MOOC, does that mean YC will look at some of the early stage companies the Fellowship would have looked at thus expanding their scope, or is that the purpose of the MOOC?
I've flagged this post for a few reasons:

* The title is inflammatory

* I'm not sure whether this is legal

* The title misrepresents why UCB had to delete the lectures (this wasn't a unilateral decision but one made about cost of compliance to subtitle all historic videos)
You mean like white phosphorus and depleted uranium? Those kind of ethics? Not sure I want Wall Street having those kind of ethics.
How are companies in the program paired up with mentors? Do mentors specialize in specific business spaces? Do companies work with different mentors for different parts of the program, eg marketing/technical advice/fundraising?
Hi Michael, is it a good idea to apply to YC to find quality co-founders? or in other words what is the right way for a single founder to apply? thanks.
Vulnerable if https://bitpay.com/api/rates gets hacked.
I actually thought Randy Farmer touched on this in his Google talk on "Building Web Reputation Systems" - but maybe I saw it somewhere else, years ago. Like this:

http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2006/08/using_5star_rat.html

At any rate I thought it was common knowledge that 5-point ratings have issues - especially as a "social rating system"?
Battery Virus is infecting Apple devices as well
Should an application explain the founders' vision of how the startup is expected to scale or should it focus on the now?
Actually, Netflix is poised in a better position to filter between people who just rated the item vs people rating it AFTER viewing it (for a minimum duration). The latter class of people will have have more weight attached to their voting.
I'm sure that the definition of overtime varies by state, but I'm still pretty suspicious of any arrangements that cause time worked in excess of 40 hrs/wk not to receive time-and-a-half pay.

[EDIT:] That isn't even the worst thing here. Why should any hourly worker not get time-and-a-half, just because they're doing work that makes food less perishable? Is this some ancient tradition of screwing over the hourly workers who are least likely to have any other options?
I have a great idea on how to eliminate poverty!
I interpreted that to mean "Disney didn't pay us for this, and since there are no actionable items (such as purchasing tickets) we make nothing out of putting this information out there.

Google's follow up statement after that markety statement:

> This wasn’t intended to be an ad. What’s circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content. We’re continuing to experiment with new ways to surface unique content for users and we could have done better in this case.

So I'm unfamiliar with how exactly this is evil corporatist greed?
Unfortunately, A Better Queue is dead, but you can use NEnhancer (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nenhancer/ijanohec...) in Chrome to add Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ratings to Netflix.
Hello Michael.

How would you characterize the effectiveness of the scaling that YC has done over the last few years? Meaning, the increase in partners coupled with broadening of the scope of markets, not to mention YC Research.

Too much too soon, going well as planned, could still do more...
I've always subscribed to Carl Sagan's "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". That is, the burden of proof lies with those who assert a surprising claim. If you wish to assert that dramatically reducing "Homelessness by 91 Percent" isn't an extraordinary claim, then on that basis one could consider having to support this freely admitted hearsay, but if otherwise then the burden of proof ought to be on them.
If founders have a product already deployed but have many future plans for it, do you recommend they focus on explaining what the product is currently, or what the plans are for the future state of the product? (for the question "What are you going to make?")
Or perhaps they could pre-mine a coin they would be paid in: https://startupboy.com/2014/04/01/the-fifth-protocol/
Lasers are EM energy, not kinetic energy.
Trump’s biggest budget cuts to NASA: ranked
For early stage companies who don't have real metrics on their user acquisition channel, what is expected as an answer to the "How do you get users.." question?
The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea.

But he, like Lloyd Pendleton in this article, apparently figured out that it saves a lot of money, ideology be damned.

Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes.
The concept that machines will become the problem and not people is absurd. Completely absurd. People make the machines and people prevent machines from increasing the quality of life for most people. The only change needed in the progression of technological advance is people allowing labor saving devices to actually save everybody from laboring, not just a few. The problem remains the use of slavery by people to increase wealth.This notion of "we must fear computers because they are going to rule us" is frankly moronic, just a distraction from the inability of capitalists to share the rewards of advancement.
Human biology _VASTLY_ outperforms our robots in the key areas of wound-healing and energy efficiency which are incredibly important considerations in hostile environments.

Humans and robots working together will be far more capable in non-terraformed environments than either one alone.
Certainly the data you get will be of better quality that way, I just don't know that you'll get a huge quantity of it. Seems like for better or worse, Netflix is going for a higher quantity of ratings. (As well as the possible ulterior motive mentioned elsewhere in this thread, of making lame movies look not-so-bad - like helping out the dullards in class by grading it pass/fail.)

An exquisitely detailed system like Airbnb's costs the user more time & hassle. Which means, assuming you make it voluntary, that a lot of them skip it. Meanwhile a simple/easy system like this, turns a scalpel into a sledgehammer somewhat, but you get a lot of them. So there's a balance to be struck for your site's particular userbase.
From Programming Languages to Data Integration, the Top Tools for Data
They're reimplementing the actor model using Docker containers. Let it crash.
The problem is that is your opinion of a 5-star system. Everybody approaches them differently. Some people give everything they like 5 stars, everything they kind of like 4 stars and just don't vote on everything else. Some people just do 5 for like and 1 for dislike. The 10-point system on IMDB is even worse.
Over 35% of the current batch is international (moved from outside of the US to participate in YC). Almost all of my startup friends from when I did YC came from outside of the Bay Area. One of the great things about YC (and why I'm a partner here) is that we run an open application process with no pre-requisites. You don't have to know anyone, come from some particular background, go to some specific school, or be from the Bay Area.
Homes for the homeless. What an obvious solution! May I suggest medical care for the sick next?

I'm glad some cities are starting to recognize the level of dignity and hope a private residence with private facilities can give to impoverished families. Sadly it appears these types of programs seem to only be funded when wrapped in some questionable marketing or political gain.
It would only work for a certain type of game. Something story heavy couldn't work for example.
Hey Michael, thanks for this - should be a real eye opener!

Q: What are some of the top weighing attributes you're looking at for companies applying today, and how heavy (1-10 scale) would you say they count towards an acceptance decision. I'm envisioning a "credit score" for application.
>With Germany there is at least one example that I am aware of where the US spied on a close ally and as far as I can tell did so without permission.

And that caused a big scandal. I wonder if the USA is still doing it.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the USA is more powerful than UK or Germany, so it's possible they feel they can get away with it if nobody finds out.
> By every measure Millenials are doing better.

You cite no actual quantitative measures to support this claim, so rather than rebutting with such I'll just say this: by many economic measures, Millenials are worse off than boomers (by a few, they're​ also worse of than Gen X, though by more Gen X is in the worst position of the three, though it usually gets left out of comparisons.)

> All of these gripes are really sad 'Oh the Boomers fed everything up' and 'life sucks'. Bullshit.

It's true that the f-ing up (specifically, of the features in the politico-economic system that resulted in aggregate gains being widely distributed) mostly happened wat the end of the time when the "Greatest" Generation was running the show, the Boomers just were the last generation to have a substantial fraction of their working life before things were f-ed up.
Unfortunately, as other comments on this HN submission demonstrate, the 5-star system is sacrosanct and any change, even those made a decade later, is bad.
From what I've read about these high intensity lasers in rain and fog they just 'burns a hole' though to the target. That absorbs energy but only for the initial start up. In a monsoon situation I would expect it to be useless though.

I wondered if they might make for a sort of 'fog plow' which would burn away the fog but the volume of air you would need to heat to keep a road cleared is rather huge.

Dust, and in particular volcanic ash (which is basically glass shards) are more of an issue. It raises the question of whether a missile could eject a powder to mitigate laser power landing on the missile.
Is the battery life really worse than an iPad? iOS devices will last a long time if it's mostly idle, but when playing high-end games they generally only last an hour or two.
What kind of furniture are you using? Standing desk, special ergonomic chair?
But the only reason the revolution succeeded is the French army was made up of people, some of whom decided to throw their lot in with the people against the aristocrats.

The new aristocracy will have robotic soldiers with no empathy for people.
Far as i know, no. I was settling for having 2-3 editor windows open at once. 2015 was such a pig I avoided it. 2017 can handle it so far. I wouldn't bet on big solutions 100k+ lines of code though.
Very true. There could be socio-cultural reason as well. If a movie hurt the sentiment of a particular section of the society, you can expect 1-star ratings even from people who weren't going to watch the movie anyway.
It would be even scarier if the ad had something to do with a private conversation, but still, amazing that you got an ad...
tl;dr

"The overarching message is that there is no single cause of the tuition boom. The reason for rising costs differs based on the type of institution and the state it’s in, and even varies over time."
Follow up: What would be the fastest, most efficient way for someone highly technically proficient to learn just enough business operations/basic 101 stuff to be functional?
Elm: A Beginners' Guide to Elm and Data
Looks like I lost all my backup configs (from windows via iSCSI and from my Macs via time machine) :/
Yes, see the Geneva Conventions for a good example of an ethical code for war that signatory nations can formally agree to. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions
Enough military budget will eventually make SF real. Can't wait for the battle mechas.
You've made a lot of posts over the years saying negative things about India and Indians. That breaks the site guidelines and we need you to stop it.

Sometimes people do this when they belong to a group and are being critical of it from within. I don't know if that's your case or not, but if it is, that's admittedly more complex than the average racial slur, but it's still not ok here.
a, b, c, or d

a, b, {c or d}

a, b, c or {d}

a, {b or c}, d
Doesn't this make it easier for you to retain people by restricting their options in the future? For example if someone moves back to central Missouri, they're probably not going to find a lot of similar jobs, especially at the level of pay I'm imaging Zapier provides.
Wiretapping End-To-End Encrypted VoIP Calls: Real-World Attacks on ZRTP
What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for external validation (such as YC or other investment) before going full-time on it? Do you take it as a sign of low commitment?
The trend with newer APIs (DX12/Metal/Vulcan) the last few years has been direct access to avoid API overhead

Hmm, is that really true? I haven't used those latest APIs yet! I thought good practice was still to keep the data on the GPU as much as possible, and avoid fine-grained sharing with the CPU. There's plenty you can do with static data.

I agree that JS/WebGL is not quite there yet for big-name games, but it's surely pretty close. And asm.js and eventually WebAssembly can help claw back CPU performance.

Rather than technical concerns, as a game developer I'm more concerned by the fact that nobody is willing to pay for anything on the web. If and when WebGL goes mainstream for games, it'll be even more of an ad-encrusted "freemium" race to the bottom than the various mobile app stores already are.
FBI arrests man accused of trolling journalist with seizure-inducing tweet
Yes absolutely, I'm only curious because his essays inspire me to think differently about work and attracted me to this community. Thanks for your answer
Could an auto logic checker be the solution to the fake news problem?
Sorry, I'm not american. What does calc 2 normally refer to in the US?
It can be a realistic position, but not all legislators agree.

> The Authority will protect businesses from misleading advertising by other companies and establishes the conditions under which comparative advertising is diffused by any means.

> Advertising is misleading when it is able to mislead the undertaking to which it is addressed, jeopardizing the economic behavior, or when it is likely to injure a competitor. The deceptiveness may relate to the characteristics of the goods or services, such as their availability or date of manufacture, the price and conditions of supply.

> Comparative advertising is instead that mode of advertising in which a company promotes its own goods or services comparing them with those of competitors. This type of advertising is permitted only when it is not misleading, compares homogeneous goods objectively, it does not create confusion among businesses, or cause discredit to the competitor.

[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pubblicità_ingannevole]
[http://www.agcm.it/consumatore/consumatore-competenza/4525-d...]

Seems like a nice ground for a lawsuit or a class action.. (at least in EU)
If I have a great product that people love but without a clear business model. Do I stand a chance at YC?
The advantage of laser weapons isn't that they're the best response to expensive, high-end threats (say, a big supersonic missile) - the advantage is that they're cheap and suitable for low-end threats, since you pay pennies per "shot".

A few days ago there was an article about a US ally shooting down a ~$200 drone with a ~$3M Patriot missile, which is a great trade for the attacker in that scenario (like a pawn for a rook). Even assuming that there's some kind of coating that makes a missile laser resistant by dramatically reducing absorptivity in the spectra of concern, it's bound to have tradeoffs- likely in the form of expense, weight, or increased vulnerability to sensors.
Hi michael

What are the top three things that you'd look for in a healthcare startup from India applying for YC summer batch 2017?
> In other words, low light scenes have less color information.

The amount of color — the relative fractions of light of different wavelengths — is the same. Low light scenes look less colorful to us humans because our more sensitive photo receptors, rods, do not detect color. Only cones do, and those don't work as well in low light.

If you ever do any low light photography, you'll be surprised to discover how richly saturated the night is. Our eyes just can't detect it.
I'm hoping it's eink displays in everything.