skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
'I believe the single biggest differentiator between success and failure is not giving up. Removing the words "can't" and "fail" from your vocabulary is a very simple illustration of this philosophy.'

I agree totally - sorry if I seemed uptight! (it's late here in the UK!)

You don't go along with the age thing then?
I fully agree. Learning is not a linear process. Those that ultimately learn the most are those who have probably failed the most. It is only through humility that you start to accumulate knowledge. I've run thousands of times into brick walls when it comes to programming, but I've had the stamina to backtrack and figure out why I hit a dead end (i.e., a compiler error, a logic error, etc.)
Oh kyro - you've committed the sin of posting a Microsoft programming language on YC. Shame on you.
Hey, me too. I was at Carpenter Avenue in the valley. Didn't go all the way to Walter Reed but I did enjoy the HG classes. It was a real "wealth effect" of intelligence. LAUSD seems to be very proactive.
Well, companies do sometimes make further public offerings.

Stock trading also provides a somewhat objective measure of the value of the company. For instance, if MS wants to buy Yahoo, how much should they offer? Without the stock market, it's tough to tell if they are lowballing or paying a premium.
Not at all. I'm older than you and having a ball.

(By the way, it looks like you're getting lots of excellent feedback in this thread. Welcome aboard!)
Competitive sports are also zero-sum games. Traders are banking "jocks." They are traders because it is a zero sum game, and they think they have what it takes to win.
My dad did. I was the third of three and one year old when my dad started a business to manufacture a high-quality version of a (then) novel electric motor which he designed and patented. He and his partner built the company to about 50 employees and then sold the business to a large industrial conglomerate a few years later.

I'm now 36, happily married with three kids of my own. I'm bgeinning something along the 37 Signals route - 10 hours a week until I have critical mass.

Overall, I must grudgingly admit that youth has the advantage, so I think us oldsters have to leverage the advantages we do have - experience, money and connections.
Given that Google was tapping into Facebook as if they were an Open Social partner, I can see why FB was quick to react.

In other news: who is completely underwhelmed by G's Friend Connect? Since when is MySpace the innovator?
I am not.

Just trying to get people thinking.

Thanks anyway.
Icahn is not infallible when it comes to internet companies. While Time Warner is not 100% tech, it should be noted that his proxy war never came to fruition.
Would highly recommend you read Barry Moltz's: "You Need to be a Little Crazy":

http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Be-Little-Crazy/dp/079318018X...

I'm 39.5 with 3 kids and working at my 3rd startup. You make sacrifices and I'd be lying if I said my marriage hasn't been strained at times mostly due to financial worries.

It really comes down to this:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.”

You have to bring it forth!

Cheers
Thanks for the comments. I hope to be at that ball soon, perhaps in a nice new tux!
There's still no answer to that question. If I needed speed, I could explain why. But there's no answer to the question of why you don't need speed.

I need a bottle opener to get the lid off a bottle. I need it because I need to bend the lid. I don't need a scarf to get the lid off a bottle. Why not? There's no reason you don't need a scarf to get the lid off a bottle; it's just not that useful.
If you ever seriously question this, try picking up smoking and quitting. Or, it's possible that you don't have the appropriate brain chemistry to get addicted to things easily.
Thank-you and good luck.

My father also started a business (furniture manufacturer!), way back in 1977, when I was only 9.

What I have noticed is that the phrase over here (in England - maybe applies in the US), 'You only get out what you put in'.
Maybe he's on to something. This post reminds me of the old New York joke:

"Why doesn't your restaurant have a parking lot?"

"If I had a parking lot, I wouldn't need a restaurant."
Ask PG: What's your take on the Yahoo! situation?
Given the recent events, and that you sold Viaweb to Yahoo!, I'm curious to find out what you think of the whole Yahoo! situation. Carl Icahn has recently engaged in a proxy fight. Or is at least flirting with one. Should it have accepted Microsoft's offer?
HubSpot Gets $12 Million To Drive Traffic to Your Site
I was thinking that, because the market created value, it couldn't be zero or negative sum. Now I realize that it's negative sum within the scope of the market itself, even though it may create value in a grander scheme of things.
JIT Compilation in GNU CLISP
The more you learn, the more you begin to realize how little you know.

Understanding something deeply enough to explain it to others yet never having contributed something unique to the field does not make you a fraud, it makes you someone who understands something deeply.
Thanks. I posted an update.
Probably. Don't know your situation, and I'm not 40 anyway, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

One thing I've noticed, having worked for startups with older founders: when you're over 35, it's to your advantage to start a different kind of company. When you're in your early 20s, it makes sense to swing for the fences with a new consumer idea that's wildly innovative and nobody really understands. That way, your lack of experience isn't really a drawback (nobody knows what they're doing, so the fact that you don't know either isn't a significant problem) and your youthful energy lets you discover and explore the market faster than all your older competitors. Plus, much of your peer group consists of people who are open to new ideas and will be "growing into" your market. You can understand them better than older folks. And you can live on less money, which is important, because new markets usually don't involve much cash.

When you're over 35, it makes more sense to leverage your existing experience and network and go into a field close to your existing job - often, your first customer will be your last employer. Start small with something you can sell for cash, quickly, and then leverage your network to expand to other customers. You're protected from all the young tykes because you know the market and technology better than they do, and you fend off the big companies by concentrating on a niche that's unprofitable for them to devote much attention to.

This, of course, depends upon having experience and contacts to leverage. If you spent your whole career working as a janitor, it may be pretty difficult to start a company, unless you've discovered a new more efficient way to mop floors. But if you've spent your whole career as a sysadmin, it makes a lot of sense to build server administration software that does your job, only better.
The US version might be "you reap what you sow," which I like because crops produce more than what they were planted with.

Pick a venture that lets you get out more than you put in, eh?
Only two things would've caused them to spurn Microsoft—excessive self-worth or hubris—both of which are bad.
Sure you can. Here is a write up that shows that most of the startups are done by older educated people.

http://randomthougts101.blogspot.com/2008/05/education-and-t...

The young college drop outs starting extremely successful companies is an exception not a rule.
To truly understand the implications of game theory applied to the financial markets, you should look up the concept of Pareto improvements and Pareto optimums.
I wonder how the memory recall is on that Quantum/String Theory book (the elegant universe?)

Dr. Wozniak asserts that one of the primary functions of sleep is that of memory consolidation, and I've found his arguments quite persuasive.

For more reading:

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm#Physiological%20...
Your 35 cutoff seems ridiculously arbitrary and ageist.

If anything, more experience means more exposure to more ideas and thus gives you an advantage in coming up with something innovative. There is more cross-pollination.

This is a function of time and effort and so only loosely correlated with age.
It doesn't seem wrong to me. Surgery to give you 20/20 vision = OK, Surgery to give you 145 IQ = not ok?? Why? How about an expensive piece of optical machinery the rich can wear on their faces to give them good vision?

All of the arguments I can come up with for not allowing the smart surgery/drugs (like it will benefit only the rich, wouldn't be fair etc,) fail on the "Lasik test". I take this to mean that its simply a cultural taboo now and will soon be seen as a curious, archaic belief from the distant past.
Well, I've not checked out Friend Connect, so I can't comment on that, but as far as being the innovator, when you do enough stuff, it is highly unlikely you'll get is all right. Look at Google Video versus YouTube. I (and most everyone else it seems) ignored Google Video after trying it out for a little bit and just went to YouTube by default.
Common Lisp heresy: syntactic lambdas
Great advice, as usual. This seems like a good point in the conversation to throw in an idea: are any of the "oldsters" willing to pair up with the "youngsters" to try and get the benefits of each age? As an older "youngster", I'd love to talk to someone who's in the 30s or 40s about possible cofoundership (I'm in the NC triangle area).
Ask PG: What should I have for lunch?

PG seems to have become a gnomic magic 8 ball of sorts. I can only hope for his sake that he's built Eliza-like behavior into HN such that his responses to all "Ask PG" questions are fully automated.
Incredibly amusing ... and a powerful lesson that reinforces my decision not to let other people get involved in control of my company.

Yahoo's actions weren't in the best interest of its shareholders, but I think they were in the best interest of its user base. How disappointing that the shareholders care so little for Yahoo's users, or its identity as a company.
Sure - this guy did: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2006/10/introducing_out.h...
Thank-you.

Forget the silly ageist remark above - I know what you were trying to say - and you did it well.
I vote for tuna sandwich.
If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.

Wow, a quote from the Gnostic gospels. Very cool. Here is another:

His disciples questioned him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?" Jesus said, "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate."

I've often thought of that when I was in work situations where I really did not want to be.
"... I was trying to challenge the general perceptions of when you can start a start-up."

I prefer to think in terms of "personal industry" rather than "startup." Personal industry used to be the normal case, with people building their own house, planting their own fields, and so on. I think it's rather odd and sad that so many of us get caught up in corporate life. I have more feelings about this, but am having trouble articulating them

Anyway, to answer the when?: Until I'm so old and decrepit that my children are taking care of me.
I did misread my source.. it may show a decreased risk of Parkinson's. Apologies.

Dependence, as I understand it, is where the consumption of a substance is required to maintain normal functioning, and absence of that substance leads to predictable withdrawal symptoms. Caffeine withdrawal: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2004/09_29_04....

As has been said before "it is the dose that makes the poison." I also agree that we should weigh the pros and cons of each decision before it is made, and not react irrationally. While the prevalence and social expectation of caffeine usage often discourage dissent, the question of the value of sobriety and intoxication is an individual one. Near as I can tell, caffeine addiction is something our society takes for granted.

I don't believe in blanket prohibitions or any other construct that'd diminish a sovereign person's right to chose their own adventure. I just think we should make the decision to consume our vices intentionally, and with all the facts.
This book
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/staf3.htm
seems to be (briefly) covering many aspects of it.
I'm not really so sure what makes this an iPhone specific "framework". Its just a safari browser with javascript, except you can only capture click events.

All you really need in order to make a website iPhone "friendly" is keep buttons > 40x40 px and use:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=320; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;">

Beyond that, any other traditional web framework out there works just fine.
NZ company launches worlds first green online search engine
>Sure, but somebody has to make a start, or we will be stuck with Java forever.

True. It's just better to go into it with open eyes.

> Maybe you can often use libraries from other languages, too, as in the example of the Cairo

That helps, but it's still a time consuming task to understand a standard and a C (or whatever) API, design your own API in the 100 year language of your choice, and implement it (and document it if you're really being good). I spent a fair amount binding C libraries for Chicken Scheme (which has a good C FFI) and Scheme48, so I know this from experience.
I'm not sure that I agree here.

Despite the public statements to the contrary, I suspect that Yang's motivations are not about the short-term financial plan, but about the long-term survival of the company and of their culture.

Microsoft is a massive organization, and has had several problems integrating smaller players into it's corporate structure. My suspicion is that a number of higher-level Yahoo members are convinced that if the Microsoft were to go through, they'd lose the ability to continue to decide their own fates. Look at the AOL-TW merger for an example of the clashes that can arise when trying to combine two massive companies with dissimilar cultures.

Yahoo employees may additionally be concerned, given that their potential suitor has quite a history of purchasing, or nearly purchasing companies, and not fully utilizing them.

In immediate dollar terms, no, turning the deal down doesn't make sense.. But in a long-term view of "where do we want Yahoo to be in 5 years", it makes all the sense in the world.

The problem for the Board is that the stockholders are more interested in the former, than the later, so Yahoo is trying to contort to justify using a framing they don't agree with.
speculation done right consists of creating knowledge about what resources will be in what demand in the future, and then saving resources that are cheap now but will be expensive later. doing this raises the price a bit now (b/c you buy a bunch) and lowers it then (b/c supply is higher then). you make money smoothing out price fluctuations. this is a valuable service -- price fluctuations can really hurt people or companies that don't have spare money at the moment.

there is a limit on how much total money can be made doing this. the more people do it, the less price fluctuations are available to even out.

but anyway, there are good types of trading.
Correct title: "Become a Web-savy Pythonista in 6-9 months"

If you want to become a hacker, develop these traits:
1. A deep interest in technology, particularly programming and computers, and a habit of fueling this interest by learning and tinkering.
2. A sense of pride in one's work and a desire to compete with oneself.

That's it. Really. I've always understood a 'hacker' to be someone who programs (or something similar) because he enjoys it. That is, as Aristotle would say, he hacks for the sake of hacking as opposed to for the sake of something else (like making a living.) If you become like that, knowledge and skill should come naturally.

If you want a set of things to learn:
1. Some programming languages, the more the better, but use discretion: Make sure you learn them well enough to use them.
2. Unix.
3. Windows. (like you're going to be able to avoid it.)
4. Math.
5. A text editor. Preferably Emacs and Vim. (learn both of them)
6. Web protocols: TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, when and how to use them.
7. Markup Languages (including HTML but don't stop there)
8. Whatever else interests you.

You don't have to know anything about computers to be a 'hacker' in the original sense of the word, but it seems to have narrowed it's scope in general usage.

Some background:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/hacker.html
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
http://alum.mit.edu/ne/whatmatters/200304/hack.html
Facebook blocks Google's Friend Connect Service
The logo looks like the "Facets of Ruby" logo, for one:

http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnob...
Fair enough. I see your point and thank you for your patience.

If I may give this one last shot:

Why is slowness acceptable in a language tuned towards exploratory programming, and therefore an unimportant criteria when judging Arc?
Same-sex Marriage Ban Overturned By California Supreme Court
I suspect this will be of interest to hackers, though I'm not sure if it is actually right for HN.
Can a dog with 3 legs walk? Yeah, but its more difficult than if it had 4 legs.
I wonder who submitted the first "Ask YC" and "Ask PG" posts?
And what did you do?
One problem is that what people want is not always what they say they want. I'm sure lots of people would say they want news shows without fluff, healthy fast food, a funny partner who enjoys leisurely walks on the beach, etc. On the other hand you have the "guilty pleasures" that people won't admit to. As a mild example, I dislike CNN but I still go to their site once in a while.

One more thing is that what people want (even when they tell the truth) is not necessarily what they will pay for, or at least pay enough to make it profitable. I want a flying car with a high mpg at the price of a regular car. I'd buy a Segway for $500.

The truth is that there are no formulas for creating a hit. It's a matter of persistence and iteration. Create something, see how people like it, make it better/cheaper depending on what they want, keep iterating. Stay focused and execute better than your competition. Of course, easier said than done.
Why? - surely it's more efficient, and should therefore be encouraged!
This is all you need to know. There are a few projects out there that are ridiculously tight-knit and don't readily welcome newcomers to the developer team, but they are rare--if you bring the code, the team will generally welcome you. Bigger projects are more likely to have people around of varying skill levels to help you get up to speed--Apache, for example, has developers at all levels working on all sorts of projects within the whole...you will find people willing to help you get your feet wet. Smaller projects might have the labor so tightly focused on one or two part-time developers that they are unwilling to take time out to help a newbie. This is probably counter-productive in the long-term, but one must realize that a lot of times folks come into projects, asking lots of development questions, primarily for one specific niche feature...they wave their hands a lot, and make a nuisance of themselves until that one feature is finished (either by them or, more likely, by someone else) and then they're gone, never to be seen again. Bigger projects have enough people willing to take the risk that you're going to come and go and the time they spent helping you get up to speed will be lost.

However, bringing the code first (even small bugfixes) insures that everybody knows you're in it because you want to make the project better.
I thought the same thing. I love it.
Did you read the site? They decorate the DOM entities with behavior and style according to your markup.

http://code.google.com/p/safire/wiki/HowTo

It is not OO js, and named just like two different ruby variants ( http://www.rubyinside.com/sapphire-two-different-new-re-impl... )
Zero-sum depends on your perspective. Speaking strictly in theory here: a successful speculator creates value in the same way a hunter creates value when he sharpens his spear. By taking decision making power (money) away from people who make wrong decisions he "sharpens" the market and makes it a more useful tool when other people use it to create value.
You're basically saying you think the stocks are mispriced significantly. If that's true, there's a huge opportunity to buy Y! and sell MS, and you'll make a killing. Why aren't you taking it?
Better yet: find a handful of ambitious novices like yourself, as well as a dev friend. Get together regularly and frequently with the novices to learn together; invite the dev friend every once in a while when you get stuck as a group.

I think I just described a micro-university.
Sure, but that only works because you've chosen a discrete measure of how "good" a driver is. If you defined a "good" driver by some other measure (say, a function of risky behavior and fuel consumption), then 50% of drivers would be above the median and 50% would be below, by definition.
It seems to me like if something like this were to succeed - Icahn forcing the current board out and replacing it with a group whose primary qualification seems to be that they'd approve a sale - Yahoo would lose a lot of leverage to negotiate a favorable price for its shareholders. Does anyone know how that's dealt with? Would he already have agreed to terms with MS before initiating this?
http://www.hacketyhack.net/
Ask YC:"Lawyers get paid so well, because you can't get decent answers from Google" - discuss!
Earlier I tried to find out what are the implications of your employer changing your job title and description. Google came up with nothing decent, Ask came up slightly better.

Why is specialist search so rubbish? - opportunity here?
So don't use it.

My brilliance is blinding.
She hangs with my sisters Levitra and Cialis.
also known as a "study group" or a "startup"

:D
I don't really understand the meaning of this word anymore. Seems like in the past it meant someone with super-top-notch-elite skills who could crack into the world bank or pentagon or something. Nowadays it seems to be closer to "programmer".
There is people working on having an arc-2-c translation, which I guess would bring the speed you are craving for ;)

See http://arclanguage.org/item?id=6605
Not sure what your point is. But that training mission sounds many times harder than anything physical I've accomplished, so I'm impressed by that.
I can't speak for Ed, but "fail" and "can't" are still very much words in my vocabulary, and I worry almost daily that we can't build the product we'd want to use and will fail in the market. Maybe that's a problem for me. It does seem to be a negative when talking to people about my startup; they pick up cracks in the facade of perfect confidence fairly often.

But I don't want to be blindsided by potential problems; I want to catch them as quickly as possible so they can be fixed. My role in the startup has always been the engineer, and as an engineer, it's my job to be pessimistic. (I used to have a business-type cofounder who was much more gung-ho, but he left for B-school, and now I've gotta do both. Concentrating on the product first...)

One of my favorite quotes, though, is:

"Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway."

I'd much rather imagine everything that can go wrong now than be blindsided by it later.