skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"You want to highlight the key elements of the product, but ultimately investors are buying into the team (i.e. the founders), the passion, and the belief that you can execute on what you claim you can execute on."

I'd disagree with this. I think you need to evaluate the people you're pitching to and understand what makes them happy. Some are very team-centric... Many are not.

http://venturehacks.com/articles/vernon-on-angels

That's a good read on the subject (for angels).

You also have to play to your strengths. If you're a first time entrepreneur fresh out of college, an emphasis on your team might not be such a good idea.

Otherwise, a good post!
Andrew Chen: Getting your startup from zero to critical mass
Mozilla CEO John Lilly Reveals More Details On Stealth Data Project
Information Roundup: Asus Eee PC vs HP 2133 Mini-Note, Ubuntu Support, Which UMPC Should I Buy?
I'm on the fence over whether I should buy the Asus Eee pc 900 or the HP 2133 Mini-Note. So I did a bunch of research and decided to share.
I have Chinese friends, maybe need to recruit them for effective communication.
eMarketer lowers its revenue projections for Facebook
I never really liked those pseudo markups, but some people do so maybe the best is to use Markdown that support pseudo markup and HTML
I'm in a similar breadwinner situation, but I'm not hanging on to the job for lack of an idea. I have tons of ideas, but I don't feel like I can commit the time required to make any of them succeed. 5-15 hours a week requires a dogged persistence over a long period of time. I might be able to focus on something for 6-12 months, but I think that working on something for several years with the slow progress that my time constraints would imply would drive me crazy.

I guess I'm still looking for the idea that drives me through the limitations.
The facebook link in the corner makes it look like a phishing site to me. It looks so similar to facebook and has the tag that if I can across this site on my own I'd leave immediately as I'd feel the site was out to steal my identity.
An interesting idea, but the natural result would be for the web being segmented into multiple parts, as no one company will buy off all of the top sites. No one search engine would be clearly better, since each would give you its exclusive piece of the web. At this point, you would almost assuredly see third party sites or tools which would simply scrape and aggregate search results from all of the major engines. You used to see this back in the '90s before Google managed to out-index everyone else. These aggregation sites would. So not only would this idea be very bad for users, it probably wouldn't be sustainable.
Supporting your comment, I've heard the phrase "many people spend a lot of time to save a little money and some people spend a lot of money to save a little time."

How many lawyers/doctors/executives do you know who do handyman work? It is just so much more cost effective to pay someone to fix this or change the oil so that the person can get another billable hour or another patient or another business deal or address client/customer needs? So I won't quite call it frugality, but more efficiency. The question becomes "are you efficient with your money and time?"
Site not for me, don't just see its use. Sorry.
It gets pretty complicated when you think about idealism. We might be subtly lying to our kids by acting that the world is a great place where you can be happy. On the other hand, whether or not this is true is largely dependent on whether or not you believe it. So I think that passing such ideals to our kids might be a good thing. It's like that one quote from Second Hand Lions:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."
This machine is dangerous. Physics speaking: it will require a good balance and adherence point is one. Conclusion falling off it is highly probable with great damage to the body.
There was no single event that led to the creation of the FDA as we know it, but there was an interesting string of medical disasters during the first half of the 20th century that caused the scope of the laws and agency to creep:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fda#Early_history

An especially fascinating one was Elixir Sulfanilamide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_Sulfanilamide

For medicine, the incentives are all wrong for laissez-faire to prevent disaster. If you create a compound that you think will be useful in some way, it only takes a few tests to convince yourself and others that it's worth using. If it works safely in the general population, you're a hero and a millionaire; if you waste time on additional testing, your competition will beat you; and if your testing turns up some ambiguous data, you're stuck with the dilemma of whether to go forward with a product that has risks that the benefits may or may not outweigh. I've worked on medical devices; this last situation comes up constantly. Without detailed specifications that put the burden on the producers to prove safety and efficacy, what the producer thinks is due diligence is generally woefully inadequate.

(No comment on the state of agriculture back then, but these days the line between food and drug is getting blurry.)
That's a problem that's been solved with various degrees of legality all around the world from time immemorial. I don't think that'll get anyone to an IPO. It might result in some book and movie deals, a clothing line, or a popular blog. (Heidi Fleiss and "Confessions of a College Call Girl" come to mind.)
10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
Crystal Towers is definitely an outlier...
Google says it is 'human flesh'
switches LinkShare address to Chicago from NYC & reapplies
I really like that there are no down arrows.

As someone said above, maybe the examples are not perfect, but the point is very much valid. If you think we don't have a lot of (potentially harmful) implicit assumptions, you're making a very big one. We're not at the pinnacle of civilization right now. We're still just monkeys building things. Pretty much the same we think people 100 years ago were ... naive, to be gentle, the same we'll seem to the people 100 years into the future.
Point is, any way that can help move us up faster is worth a look. I haven't listened to "that guy"'s CDs, and I may come to the conclusion that they're full of crap, but I'm going to give them a shot.

(Full disclosure: I may be slightly subjective because I spent the last weekend reading weblocks source code. But I still agree with the main ideea).
Zoho supports sign-on With Google/Yahoo ID
plurk looks cool, but the domain name reminds me of "lurking". Maybe that's intentional.
Agreed also his numbers are flawed, We do around 1mm a year online and it would cost easily 10x valuation to buy us out - now think about amazon, best buy etc...
But is it hot? Or not?
Interesting essay. I can't say I've read anything quite like it. So I guess that's a compliment!

A couple comments on minor points in your essay:

1) George Washington Carver is, or should be, known for his work for southern farmers and for his research and promotion of legumes and sweet potatoes including several interesting inventions. He is not one of the great scientists like Einstein, Hawking, Newton, etc. He probably is more famous because he was black, but that's not to say his contribution was insignificant. It wasn't.

2) You tend to hear (or read) two opinions about grade school teachers depending on the person: either they are tireless crusaders with hearts of gold or they are mediocre "if you can't's" that live for June, July and August.

I think the truth is more complex. Not all public school teachers were mediocre students. That's the tendency, and it's likely because in many parts of the country they don't get paid a comparable wage. The better students find higher paying jobs. I am an elementary school teacher myself who graduated with honors.

Elementary teachers have to be knowledgeable in EVERYTHING, including child development, literacy, mathematics, social sciences, writing, art and design, physical education, earth science, life science, physical science, etc. What would that be like to attempt to teach students all those various facets of human knowledge? Easy? Well, they're young. How complex could it be?

You'd be surprised how difficult. And you'd likely be intimidated. I'm sometimes intimidated still after 13 years of teaching elementary. Further, one of the most difficult parts of the job is teaching students who could care less and would rather raise an uproar! You wouldn't believe how bad it is.

So, grade school teachers don't know everything? Not experts in their fields? Surprising? At those mediocre salaries (in many parts of the country)?

Just something to think about.
I never saw any sign of that in the things he said in his adult life. Einstein talked a fair amount about God, and religious people have made much of that, but when he spoke about God he always seemed to be using the word as synonymous with the mysteriously complicated order in the universe.

Fenyman said "The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man." Einstein would have phrased that as "The imagination of God." And there would be posters of Einstein looking benevolent, with that quote printed at the bottom.
Downey in the hizzle! I'll hire him as an intern at my startup... if he keeps his grades up.
Wouldn't he be more, rather than less, likely to express his true opinions in a private letter? And what kind of context would change the meaning of those sentences?
Sure it is. Unless you define heaven or other claims of paranormal phenomena so trivially ("that which cannot be perceived and has no effect") of course it can be falsified. If the soul is a thing, and heaven a place for it, then of course you can verify whether or not that thing is in that place.

We may not yet have built the instrument that can detect souls, or engineered the successor beings that can perceive heaven, or been visited by the magician whose wand can open the door to it, but those are mere practical and technological considerations, not propositional ones.

Religion can, and has, made many falsifiable claims (and they have all been falsified, when put to the test). The ones we haven't got around to yet are no different. From a scientific perspective there's no inherent difference between paranormal claims made in the context of a centuries-old religion and those made in the context of a psychic snake oil salesman.

The separation between "matters of faith" and "matters of science" is itself a lie we tell ourselves and each other so we can tolerate living in a world populated by irrational people and irrational beliefs. But it's artifice, there's no reason any actual phenomenon can't be investigated "scientifically."
I'm intruiged Mistone - what did your dad want you to do when he died? Was it procedural or philosophical? (natch, only share what you're comfortable with saying)
Some do make the case that it is harmful to children however in that they become cultured toward using strong language.

I'm not really sure what to believe at this point, but I'm just putting that point of view out there.
Heres a question for you then: Who owns the airwaves?
What isn't recommended is the implication that the site is somehow sponsored by facebook, which I think they will feel this site tries to do. Intentional or not.
There was a MacWorld article posted about a month ago.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160241
Is there any benefit (other than it's easier) to have all the different categories on the same site?

To me, it seems that "a site that lets you compare stuff" is less appealing than "a site that lets you compare girls", "a site that lets you compare cars", "a site that lets you compare pets" tied together in a loose network and with similar branding.

Also, I should be able to vote by just clicking on the image I like more :p
...or trade the rabbits you killed for miller instead ;)
Comic Book Cartoon Characters as Senior Citizens
Check 'non-logged-in Hacker News', without logging off
Letter to a young procrastinator - By Seth Stevenson
Sounds good in theory. In practice, there have been disease outbreaks in communities with 100% vaccination rates against that disease. Most vaccines don't even cover all the known strains, forget the new mutations.

IMO, vaccination is no replacement for promoting a strong natural immunity and preventative medicine. Both of which are virtually thrown out the window in modern medicine.
Ask YC: Who's Your Role Model? 
Who do you look up to as an start-up/entrepreneurial role model and/or mentor?

I was lucky enough to find both a role model and a
mentor in a friend of mine. I looked up to him because I could relate to him. He is my age, started his own company from nothing, worked hard to run his business, and most importantly, inspired me to do the same. He was a big reason why I quit my BigCo. job to try the start-up life. He mentored me as well - consistently providing advice, feedback, and constructive criticism.

I have a lot to thank him for, but unfortunately now I find like I can't look up to him anymore. I feel like he's become too busy with other things in his life and is no longer pursuing his previous "passion" of expanding his small business and doing more start-ups.

So thats how I came to this question - I'm interested to see who other people look up to, whether its Steve Jobs or Steve next door.
That's about the only word we've never slipped up and said around him. It's hard to stop 30 years of potty-mouth cold turkey.
Feedwords: Set Your Phasers to "Handy" - Build your own RSS feeds from dev blogs by keyword
I think more cases similar to this (ok, maybe not this young, but still) will, or should, happen more in the future. I'm sure there's many opportunities where a kid is actually interested in studies but can't or doesn't go on the "fast track" for various reasons.

One reason, I think, is that kids are expected to play non-productive games all the time. Another is that there's this warped, prevalent perspective that work and play are opposites.
Critiquing Gladwell, part 1
hey all - last night, i saw a post about mememixr and the comments regarding filtering. in response, i put together a django application lets you build rss feeds with keywords out of aggregated articles from some of the big development blogs/data sources.

for example, i can say "give me articles with 'python', 'django', 'php', and 'mootools' in the title or [rss] content from reddit, news.yc, and fyynd but not digg-programming, techcrunch, or mixx.

you also get a snappy url, like:
http://mattdennewitz.feedwords.net/feeds/python-feed/

there isnt really a design (kind of an anti-design, really) but everything's operational, save for a delete button or two. its probably best still called "alpha", but the critical functionality is there and its totally usable. please also feel free to suggest more feeds to aggregate.
It would be a losing trade: http://www.janusmuseum.org/panabasis/nov05.htm
Do you care to offer your services to help other startups pick cool domain names? I find this to be difficult.
It is worries like these that emphasize the need for better education in the physical sciences.
I got iATKOS just a few days ago, version 2.0 came out the other week. Its working OK on my 3-year old Dell Precision M70. osx86.com and insanelymac forums are great places to learn more, though to actually download the isos you'll need to go to less scrupulous sites...after all no matter what you do you're breaking copyright law by installing a hackintosh!
this guy is awesome. i remember watching a video of him on youtube a year or so ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-66AcTo9TU
It's good to hear positive titles like that. Up voted.
Yeah, even though you can set up redirects, the dilution on the brand you've spent so much time building is quite substantial. I went through this on a site I was managing, and it wasn't only a huge distraction, it took the brand in a direction I didn't necessarily agree with.

I'd guess that sticking with a decent name is better than changing to a marginally better one, as your experience suggests...
Quick question on Bootstrapping a web startup
Does funding play a big role in (a) why a company would want to move to the valley. (or,b)whether a web startup succeeds or not in the valley?

I've been thinking about this because I'm a hacker interested in building my startup idea but I was wondering the pros and cons of building it here in Atlanta (bootstrapping), or move to SV and build it there (bootstrapping, of course).

I'd be interested in hearing the pros and cons of doing it either way.
Well, picking a domain name is a sort of brainstorming session kind of thing. If you want, I'll help you brainstorm, but then you gotta pay my normal consulting fee :)
At this child's age, it's up to the parents to decide what is best for the child. Sometimes the parents will not make the best decision. Personally I feel that if the child can state the want to study more complex or advanced topics, the child should be allowed to study those topics.

I am a bit biased because I found most of my pre-university studies boring. I also didn't fit in with the other students while I was in middle school and high school.
Maybe pg should have been less negative about the abilities of 10 year olds in his essay.

Of course it's hard to know very much by age 10 if your parents lie to you frequently. But that isn't the child's fault.
Google Seattle Scalability Conference 2008
Over. Scheduled.

On the flip side I think we should front-load education because kids hardly learn anything from jr. high onward, thanks to the hormone fairy. There are a few exceptions, of course.
Content is the hoopla
Why is this better than air travel?
Confirmed: Comcast Bought Plaxo, Deal Closed Today
200k is low as seed valuations go, but it's impossible to say what yours should be without knowing the startup. Option pools are ordinarily around 20%.
yep but it would be bleeding without the security algorithm
Google passes Yahoo as most popular U.S. web site, comScore says
That's one of the reasons it's great to eat with others. You'll have great conversations, and if you're as talkative as me, the latency is more than kept at bay. :-)
You've got to appreciate a company that constantly produces free services that don't particularly generate revenue. I think the best way to describe this is a wiki for everything html/css/javascript ... Hope it grows and gets embraced
You seem to be missing an important step, before you find a manufacturer you probably want to create a prototype. While the idea might be great in your head, you won't know if it's any good until you've built a few prototypes and tested them on your target audience.

There's a TV series in the UK called Dragon's Den where inventors pitch their ideas to angels to get funding. You can actually learn a lot from watching it (in terms of understanding if your product will actually suceed or not and various problems you might encounter). It might be worth your time watch a couple of seasons of it.
There are completely different snacks that are decent treats while/between coding. The trick is to make things that a little bit of a chore to cook -- things like eggs, or salads, or falafel. I like pita with tahini, or olives, or fruit leather. I also like soup -- in particular, hot and sour soup, when I'm feeling a chill :-)

PS: If grapes aren't quite 'coding munchie' enough for you, try roasting with garlic, olive oil, pepper and salt. This really works. Mmm.
"The Myth of Prodigy and Why It Matters" was a presentation done by Malcolm and is a must read. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?...

Gladwell makes the distinction between gifted learners vs. gifted do'ers.

<quote> We think of precociousness as an early form of adult achievement, and, according to Gladwell, that concept is much of the problem. “What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.” </quote>
That's just a continuation of C/C++ anyhow.
My gf's company does this sort of thing regularly and manufactures LCDs, GPS units, etc.

As per mixmax's comment, I don't find this to be true. It sounds like miscommunication which could easily occur across a language barrier.

Email me if you have any specific questions.
If you're talking about a one-person startup, you need to have some level of technical understanding. In order to turn your idea into a business, you need someone to implement the idea, and that's where the hacker(s) come in. A trusted technical person is your first choice. You can also try to hire contractors to implement for you, but without technical know-how, how will you be able to judge if they're any good?
So...by NY taxing people on stuff they are supposed to pay taxes on anyways, that makes them socialists? Interesting stance on the subject.
Interesting albeit evil idea.

The top natural results are worth a ton, and as the incumbent, Google could probably bid higher for them.

But more problematic for the strategy: if the top 5-10 results disappeared, wouldn't some enterprising we-try-harder also-ran in the same categories just rush up to fill the void with equally-good results? Most top results are probably not so proprietary they can't be rebuilt by others -- just look how many top results are from Wikipedia.

Finally, if this buy-out strategy actually did start to work, it could attract legal/regulatory attention as being anticompetitive or anticonsumer. Legal grounds for indexing sites even against their wishes could be found or legislated. Plausibly legal workarounds (like having users index materials as they visit, and forward summaries to Google, a law the old Grub project) would be devised.
> A responsible child can probably carry a gun to school, but do you trust all children?

Less than 50 years ago, they carried their rifles to school on the bus every day, and kept them in their lockers. They also took gun safety courses in school. I don't find it at all surprising that kids are less responsible with guns now: when I work with kids, I find they live up (or down) to the level of your expectations.

> The author would probably kill his cattle in a humane way, but can we count on everyone to do so?

From everything I've seen, many/most farms still don't, so the USDA is more of a nuisance for those that want to do it right, than a way to force the bad ones to improve. The government is made up of people, too: you can't just sprinkle farms with the magic pixie dust of "government regulation" and have everything magically work out.
The DHTML bible still rules
great post.
Twitter is Down Again
I am planning on prototyping first even though that may not have been clear.

There is a show in the US called American inventor which sounds similar to Dragon's Den (it probably is the same thing adapted for the US, like American Idol).

I have seen American inventor and you do learn a lot. The biggest lesson is not to spend too much on something which may not sell. I have seen people go on there and state that they have put their life savings or $50,000 to $100,000 on ideas which were not so great.

I have no illusions and tend to be pretty realistic. I think there is potential for my idea, but I would first prototype it and see if there is a market before building 10k units.
Zip Zip Lego USB Drive
Please read this: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0804.frank.ht...

It is not so easy to outsource to Asia if you care about ethics, quality, or safety. You will need some broker with experience to help you sort out the good companies from the bad ones.
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