skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's an interesting position you bring up, but I'm not sure how well it would work for most types of acquisitions. For example, there are tons of sites that are far, far better than YouTube, but it grew fast due to its popularity on the outset.

If Google acquired something better, like Vimeo (even long before youtube became so popular), I doubt even their marketing muscle would have been able to push it to the market leader.

The reason most large companies acquire smaller ones is because of two things: the userbase, or the talent that developed the app. As far as your example with fantasy sports-- there must have been something else of value in the acquisition.

The app itself is easy to create. No one buys code.
The Googlenairs - What are salaries like at Google?
that's an interesting perspective, but I don't think is really valid. People will easily/hardly change their default social network but really easier than switching from Google which is a point of reference to those who are used to it. Even if you tried to switch from Google, how many are the alternatives? Like you said only two. And whenever I tried them they never make me stick to them.

And this is easier to happen because more people can build a community than a search engine.
OK, I guess if we keep going lower and lower, I can see at some point the language/infrastructure transition costs become a significant portion of the acquisition.

It'd depend on the product, I think. A half million line codebase would cost millions to translate, while 40k lines would cost a max of tens of thousands (assuming languages of similar capabilities--like Ruby-Python-Perl). But, a half million lines of code isn't going to go for $1.5M except in a fire sale.

But, I reckon this has some bearing on folks building on Google App Engine. That's a bigger form of lock-in than most, and since the apps being built there will be quite small for the foreseeable future, it makes the barrier to exit much higher for folks who might have been willing to sell for $1.5M but could only get an offer of 1M from GOOG or 800k from somebody else (because they would then have to port the application, even if they don't mind it being in Python).

So, I obviously buy your reasoning once you get down into the single digit millions (or sub-million) acquisition prices, and I also buy your reasoning that those kinds of acquisitions are becoming a lot more common.
How to do business like the Mafia (Goodhackers)
He's trying to spread a message using a medium he criticizes.
Nationwide alert system: Text messages
Now is when I wish that the real Vikings wore those cool horned helmets. Because I just had this awesome vision of Leif Ericsson, horns and all, glowering at you with the entire population of Iceland, Norse Greenland, the Faeroes, and the Shetlands arrayed behind him and Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song playing in the background. [1]

In other words: I'm guessing that the Atlantic is still five or six orders of magnitude more navigable than outer space. ;)

I haven't read National Geographic in years, actually, although I might go check it out just to read about the Polynesians.

[1] If you find yourself wondering what I'm talking about, be sure to google "Immigrant Song Kittens".
Farcebook: keep your enemies closer
There was another LinkedIn group formed 11 months ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21359

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246
I think Matt's point wasn't that facebook was worthless, just that it's nothing special.

There are definitely services besides facebook that will let you do all of the things you mentioned (looking up a birthday, pictures from the bar, contacting a friend of a friend). In fact, you can do those things on pretty much every social networking site. Facebook just happens to be the popular one right now.

When it first became popular, Google was a one of a kind. The other search engines have since caught up, but initially they didn't even compare. I think that's what makes a website really special, and that's kind of what I think facebook is lacking. There's nothing inherently special about fb other than the large number of people that use it.
150 million are slightly too old to understand it, internet illiterate, or poor. And the other 100 million are too young, or haven't graduated from MySpace yet.
One counter-example: would you dismiss Flickr, and the entire photo hosting industry, as not that special, or unimportant?

Facebook likes to brag that they host more photos in the US than Flickr and the other competitors COMBINED (I'm trying to find a linkable source for this - maybe someone has more luck?). That seems pretty special to me, especially since all those photos can be found in a strong social context, unlike on most other hosts.

I also wouldn't dismiss "a convenient way for you and a friend to decide which bar to go to tonight" as unimportant. For the majority of people it's more important than "the biggest advance in information distribution since the printing press". Sad, but true.

It feels weird defending Facebook, since I resisted signing up for it, I'm not a constant user, and yes, there IS a lot of hype. But I don't think it can be dismissed as easily as "I don't get it".
Hi Paul:

I like what you said about lions. Here's a little essay I did on cats a while ago. It should ring a bell or two.

Eric

...... I’ve discovered that the way people react to cats is a good indicator of how they will react to people with vision. A certain number of people are totally freaked out by cats. These same people are freaked out by visionaries.
This is really unfortunate. In reality, cats have at least seven admirable qualities that every person who would desire vision would do well to emulate.
First: Cats are nocturnal creatures. When everyone else is asleep, the cat is alert and aware. Likewise, visionaries do their best work when everyone else is sleeping. You snooze, you lose.
Second: Cats have astonishing eyesight. They see things nobody else sees. They are particularly sensitive to things that change; their eyes are custom-made to detect the slightest movement. On the other hand, they are totally colorblind. They are not distracted by the showy, the colorful, and the flashy. They only see what is important to see.
Third: Cats are totally oblivious to public opinion. A cat neither knows nor cares what anyone thinks about him. He simply goes about his business. He doesn’t surround himself with yes-men (or yes-cats). You will never see a committee of cats. Cats never ask permission. Prophets and visionaries, likewise, have a gift for thinking on their own.
Fourth: Cats slip into and out of tight spaces with ease. They are lean, mean, and adaptable. They are totally unencumbered by entourages and bureaucracy.
Fifth: Cats have insatiable curiosity. If something in their universe changes in the least, they want to know why. They know there’s always something out there to explore. They take nothing for granted.
Sixth: Cats are quiet (for the most part). They don’t waste a lot of energy bragging about their exploits before the fact, or trying to explain them afterwards. They know that nobody would understand them, anyway.
And finally and possibly most importantly: Cats tithe. In fact, a cat will usually leave considerably more than a tenth of his latest hunt on your doorstep. You may not feel you have any pressing need for a third of a gopher, but that’s entirely beside the point. A cat understands a tithe is not for your benefit, but for his.
One of the most useful aspects of YC are the weekly dinners. You know, face to face interaction with other entreprenuers. It's very valuable. It might be worth while to organize a weekly gathering for entreprenurs working on similar projects.
i know what it means. why do you think that's a good trait?
Oh. I'd define "inactiveness" as never visiting again, or visiting so irregularly that you don't really get any value from the app.

You're an "active" user of MySpace if you go there every couple of weeks, in my opinion.
If you asked me what the restart command for debian is, I wouldnt be able to say. That's how stable it is.
How about the fact that, a decade out of university, all of my programmer friends have moved into management or other fields?

Where's your data?
To the contrary, scientific research is very, very competitive. There is a lot of competition to be first to discovery, first to publish, first to patent, and to win grants. This is especially true for cancer research.

I don't know anything about kratom. If you can legally sell it to enhance mental performance, be my guest. We aren't discussing herbs, though. We are discussing use of medicines prescribed for ADD by people without that condition in order to increase mental focus.

Regardless of your, my, or any other opinions on the matter, the fact is that use of prescription drugs for purposes other than which they are prescribed is illegal. That is my whole point. Doctors get into trouble all the time for writing scripts for pain killers to abusers in exchange for money (or sex). Don't blame me if you don't like the law; I didn't enact it.

BTW, in the same thread, I provide links to research on the long-term effects of Ritalin, a Schedule II drug. Most of the results indicate long-term abusers suffer effects similar to cocaine abuse and depression.
"will even be 1/10th"

that will depend if they succeed to monetize their success. You can't be sure so sure any predictions for anything these days.
this often time requires skill/knowledge of a market, that frankly, many technologists don't have.

the company where I work does software for Natural Gas Companies -- no matter how great of a hacker one is, if you don't know Viscosity, dew point calculations, flow rate conversions and a number of Petroleum Engineering-related equations and problems, you couldn't do what we do.

oh, and the software goes for $5k a copy -- definitely not ad-based.

although tons of small start-ups are doing facebook apps, have they thought about solving the problems of the Universities who won't trust Facebook/ social networks further then they can throw them. CMS, Housing management software, etc. Universities pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that stuff.
Please note there is virtually no paid employment in this industry, so I cannot post in the jobs section and have chosen this as the next best section to draw the opportunity to your attention without it being regarded as miscategorized.
I am looking for a job as an associate or a business partner.
I created www.onlineanalporn.com and www.xxxwetharddripping.com and wish to leave this facet of my life for opportunities with less scrutiny. Thanks for reading and visit my website and imagine what I can do for your business.
Thanks Suna
follow this thread ~ http://groups.google.com/group/webpy/browse_thread/thread/e7...
Online anal porn
Please note there is virtually no paid employment in this industry, so I cannot post in the jobs section and have chosen this as the next best section to draw the opportunity to your attention without it being regarded as miscategorized.
I am looking for a job as an associate or a business partner.
I created www.onlineanalporn.com and www.xxxwetharddripping.com and wish to leave this facet of my life for opportunities with less scrutiny. Thanks for reading and visit my website and imagine what I can do for your business.
Thanks Suna
Poorly paid
Low paying industry
Note that I deliberately said "canoes."
I don't think there is anything wrong with splitting list comps into multiple lines to improve readability.
I've thought about the same. One of the things in the extended profile thing that I'm building is location. In some of the hotspots a monthly dinner would definitely be cool.

Hmm, ok, what the hell, there is no try, only do. If you're in Berlin, dinner at my place Saturday the 19th. We'll do it at least monthly. Contact me. Just between our apartment and my next door neighbor we've got three startup junkies, and that's already enough for a good conversation and to put the hurt on a case of beer.
Malwarez: visualization of worms, viruses, trojans and spyware code
What's wrong with managing programmers? If you really want to, I'm sure you can contribute some code as well.
It's lousy, but not for the reasons you've listed. A good weekly magazine would be "just current events". But The Economist offers opinions, which are as misguided as those in other publications (such as Newsweek), despite the impressive-sounding diction.
I thought GOOG might be overvalued at the time. You'd laugh if I told you what I was buying around then.

I did much better after 2004, but that year was my first attempt at any serious trading, and it didn't go so well.
mate try and experiment with a couple - i know it is easier said than done. I am currently using Fedora 8. for an intermediate user like myself, it was not too packed and at the same time not too stripped so I could configure it as I learnt more and more.
"too old," "internet illiterate," "poor" "haven't graduated from MySpace yet"

i don't think you much understand people nor do you understand the internet either.
a lot of users return daily to check their messages and wall posts, sorta like email
Sometimes companies acquire others because they want to be in the market and it's easier to get a higher-up to sign off on an acquisition than it is to just build it themselves. In that case, they just want to minimize the headache of integration.

I'm not saying you should base your site's design on that, as you probably shouldn't even be thinking about an acquisition from the outset. I'm just saying it happens.
"But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better." This would suggest that one could argue that all children should be given these medicines starting in kindergarten. One could argue that on the basis of US competitiveness in a global economy.

Taking these arguments to their logical conclusions gives me flash backs to Huxley.
Yahoo + AOL
"So if my peers are all using study drugs, then I would be compelled to use those drugs to remain competitive. So their use of the drugs would interfere with my freedom of choice."

Not only that, but the playing field among you and your peers returns to parity except the cost is that everyone needs to take study drugs to keep up.
"no matter how great of a hacker one is, if you don't know Viscosity, dew point calculations, flow rate conversions and a number of Petroleum Engineering-related equations and problems, you couldn't do what we do."

combining hacking skills with deep domain knowledge (petroleum engineering in this case) would seem to be the alternative path. Of course you need to spend 3-4 years learning petroluem engineering, which may be a bit of a disincentive. But I think the point remains valid . Hacking skills + investment banking/chemical engineering/medicine/choose_your_domain knowledge would be a killer combination.

"oh, and the software goes for $5k a copy"

I am not surprised. I guess you keep upgrading it all the time for even more $$?
Can you explain how they make money?
>Sometimes I think Silicon Valley believes its own hype just a bit too much.

Understatement of the 21st century right there.
ice cream glove is better, but still classic
want to understand the world? study economic history. follow the money and you find the motivations.

start in the late 1600's with proto-capitalism and follow the trail of money.
There's nothing wrong with it. See my original post.
Well said. I think the best example of this would be the trivia geek; full of useless information, but almost always a well learned individual with wonderful ideas.
Very interesting. What will be their core business if they outsource search advertising?
"Some studies have shown that as soon as girls turn 12—and maybe now it is even younger—they're so into their social image and being liked by boys that they dumb themselves down so not to be seen as a geek," Yusupova said."

I wonder if this has more to do with western high schools than our culture at large. I dropped out on my twelfth birthday. While I did encounter social pressure to move into more sanctioned roles, this was opposed by teachers encouraging me to find what I liked and do it well. I was very lucky -- this isn't something afforded to most high schoolers. It has helped me grow into these interests.
The author makes a decent argument, but I don't think he addresses the entirety of the issue.

Scaling a database has two components: reliability, and performance under heavy load. Accomplishing these goals typically requires some form of redundancy, but few RDBMSes give developers and administrators any tools to accomplish anything except dumb read-only replicas. Even Oracle RAC, a high-end commercial product, provides no data redundancy; it just lets multiple database servers talk to the same physical database. This means that, with lots of money to throw at RAC backed by a SAN, not to mention a team of admins to run the whole thing, you can scale up and not worry about data loss. Hopefully.

A team which doesn't have 1M USD a year to spend on storage software, hardware, and support, but still must store large datasets, must spend a lot of time partitioning the data and working around the problems inherent in querying it out of multiple database servers. And frankly, that stinks. That's why I personally think RDBMSes don't scale: because, as a tool, they utterly fail to save me time and effort in achieving scalability.

I'm very impressed with how fragmented Mnesia tables work: you tell Mnesia how many replicas and fragments you want, add enough nodes to fulfill your requirements, and it takes care of pushing enough copies of your data to enough nodes for things to fly. That's how a database should work these days.

I agree with the author that simplifying data access and reducing the number of ridiculous joins (I've worked on an app which normalized its data to the point that it needed an 8-way join before anything would work at all) is important. However, even once you do that, operating on anything where all the code which talks to the database has to traverse the entire cluster and aggregate results at the application level is not good. That's one reason I think GAE is quite attractive.

Let's see if MySQL 5.1 brings any improvements to the table, and if they come with strings attached.
upgrades, new releases, and support ... it could eventually go SaaS I guess, but the Oil/Natural Gas Industry are not exactly forward thinking in how they want to spend their $$
Structured Python Editor
Come on now, I'm over 10 years removed from college and most of my colleagues can't answer those questions. In fact, I bet up to 50% of the people on this board couldn't name the capital of America's largest trading partner.

It's not so much the random facts that are the issue. If you're not interested in the Middle East because you think the conflict is self-perpetuating, you might not bother to remember that Jordan sits between Israel and Iraq.

The problem is that many people just don't know how to think. That's the meat of the matter, and it's certainly not being exaggerated by the author.

Take a look at my question: The people on this board in large part will think that the obvious answer would be Beijing. They're also smart enough to deduce that I probably wouldn't have suggested that 50% wouldn't know it if the answer was that simple. So they'll examine what they know about the US's trading relations, and probably remember NAFTA. If they also know that Canada is in the G8, they'll conclude that the answer would be Ottawa. Those in the south might lead towards Mexico, but at least they're thinking.

That's what's lacking with many people today, primarily because it isn't taught by parents and more importantly, at any level of our education system.
Rands: The Business (tips on making the most of a job offer)
Google App Engine for developers
new features with launch:

- network visualization on repos and all their forks (seriously cool): http://github.com/mojombo/god/network

- comments on commits: http://github.com/defunkt/facebox/commit/554c03c2e432340293a...

- campfire and lighthouse integration

Github: I'm lovin it.
Do you understand the demographics of the American people and of MySpace?
That's one reason I explicitly said that I didn't advocate using drugs for such purposes.
Only Debian.
It's true that there is a linkedin group, and I'm part of it, but to my knowledge there is little activity. I think the point of making a new one is to get a fresh start and really put some effort behind it.
They've been doing a lot of non-hardware, non-enterprisey stuff in the past 5 years too. Primarily Solaris 10/OpenSolaris and DTrace among (many) other things.

DTrace continues to blow my mind.
I rarely used Yahoo, but I used metacrawler. It claimed to gather results from a half dozen different engines. But it was still a fundamentally different way of using the web. When I first started using the internet, which was when I was in high school, I'd log in, go to a search engine, and just think of something to type in. I'd just go exploring, basically. I'd gather a big list of websites and visit them one at a time, generally reading each one. I was young, and absorbing information like that was easy and I enjoyed it.

As I gradually shifted from browsing aimlessly towards finding something specific, I began to appreciate Google's advantages of speed and reliability. The only time I ever tried another engine after trying Google was if I didn't find what I was looking for. That wasn't very often, and usually the other engines didn't turn up anything interesting either, so I gave up after awhile and just used Google for everything.
Why Windows (and thus Microsoft) Is Broken
Things I found particularly interesting:

The quotas are just a guideline as Google may cut off access to your application if you receive a traffic spike of an unspecified duration... Google App Engine already failed the Techcrunch effect and appears the platform is currently unable to handle referral traffic loads from a popular blog or news site typically associated with a product launch. The traffic spike cutoffs make me think twice about hosting anything of value on App Engine.

In other words, Google App Engine's vaunted scalability is, for the moment, vaporware. That would be understandable at this stage, but it means that it's impossible to evaluate the key advantage of the service.

I'd like to know how quickly Google will respond when my site is knocked offline by DOS attack: Will I be able to get them on the phone? Can any Google customers comment on that?

Static files are limited to 1MB... Applications are not uniquely identifiable by IP address... no SSL support... no image processing... Google user accounts...Google will store your user data and potentially mine its data for better ad targeting.

I'm not loving any of this.
"Don't be evil ... unless you can profit from it"
But the bands on Myspace that have representation are hella active. It still plays a big part in getting deals and often after you're signed, labels expect to see continuous growth in terms of views, plays, and "friends".
Ask YC: Underrated open source software?
I'm looking for examples of great open source software that is underrated, owing to a lack of proper advocacy, strategy, or "marketing". For example, I am currently working on a project in which all the developers are solely interested in working on the software; as a result, the website hasn't been updated in 7 years, and up until recently the Windows and Mac download links were buried somewhere in a wiki page. I recently put in a few days' work to redesign the site, and I think the impact of this redesign will be pretty big.

It has been very satisfying to work on this project, and I'm looking to find others that could use some help. Can you guys think of other projects like this, especially those that have websites that scare off or confuse new users?