skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I will make a shameless, shameless plug.. (disgusting)

I have been working on a simpler spaced repetition system (the Leitner System relies on a simple yes/no response) implemented as a wepapp: http://flashcarddb.com

The article mentions the popularity of spaced repititon software in Poland. And sure enough a large number of my incoming users are from Poland and a few other European countries that are familiar with the concepts.

Another open source Supermemo alternative is Mnemosyne.

I have thought of adding the option of a more complicated rating system for grading answers but most new users tend to be relatively new to the idea of spaced repetition. So, for now, I am keeping it relatively simple.
In case you were curious of the source of that comment, it's from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

"There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it."

Douglas Adams was awesome.
Ask YC: Launch now or launch later?
I've been developing a web app for the last 6 months or so. It's been tough as I have no money of my own, no funding and no help, the entire thing is all me.

One problem I've found is, I've been coming up with some great ideas as I'm developing things, sometimes these ideas require me to go back and re-write big sections of code.

With all the best intentions and plans aside, what do you think is better?

Launch your app with the features planned from the start now, or launch your app with the extra cool features in 6 months time?
Ah, but the way to not forget it is to simply refresh it right before it's about to be forgotten. The idea behind SuperMemo, the software described in the article, is an attempt to do just that. Learn when it is your likely to forget and bring it up again around that time. It's a cleverly ingenious idea.
Your argument is good, but it also serves to advance the argument that using SimpleDB for a new web app is premature optimization.

Yeah, when your app has millions of users and massive amounts of data you might need to adopt sharding or clustering, perhaps giving up the advantages of a huge single-machine database relative to SimpleDB. And, once you have this problem, it might be a good time to contemplate rearchitecting your entire system around something like SimpleDB. But few web apps start off with millions of users and massive amounts of data, and to deliberately avoid using SQL tools just because they won't scale to Facebook-esque levels of traffic is the very definition of "premature optimization".
It's a good idea, but the url, the logo with the man in the boat, and the whole 'fuse' part threw me off a bit. They won't stick and remind a user of the site's function.
This is a great opportunity for you. Now you have another team with more funding to use as a guinea pig. Their manpower and money can be used by you if you know what to look for. See what they do differently and note is it better or worse than what you have. See what they're doing identically and see if you can improve what you have.

Like was already said, when they send out press releases or spend marketing dollars, make sure you get to catch some of that. You rarely see MySpace in the news without a mention of Facebook. I'm not saying aim for the #2 spot, but use the fact that you're similar to benefit from what they do.
What's the worst that can happen? Genocide? It sounds worth the risk. Possible genocide is better than certain genocide. Note that neither the RPF (in Rwanda) or the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) did much retaliation after they ended their respective genocides (to take two recent examples).

Plus, there is deterrence when two parties are evenly armed.

"Lets go kill the darkies, loot their village and rape their women."

Sounds awesome. I hate those darkies, and who doesn't like loot and booty?

"Lets get into an evenly matched gunfight with the darkies and, if we survive, loot their village and rape their women."

You know, I agree the darkies are a pox on this world. But I'm not liking the sound of 'if we survive.'
Well really it depends what you are trying to do... I would err to the side of launching now and letting users dictate the most important features.

You may spend months adding features that users don't really care about.
Is there a Mac version?
Ignore them. Focus on your customers, not your competition.

You will always have competition (if you don't, you probably don't have a market) and if you're the best one to satisfy your customers you will succeed in your niche.

Joel Spolsky's "Fire and Motion" essays touch on this. The original is here:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html

With an updated take on it here:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080401/how-hard-could-it-be-fi...

Every moment you spend worrying about your competition is one you're not spending focused on your product. Stick to your plan and deliver it.
looks like mahalo but with fewer features

to make a site like mahalo work you need

1. PR

2. SEO
Tinypy Metaprogramming
Thanks for sharing, very interesting article.
Adobe Air on Linux - A Security Nightmare
Launch now.

The features you'll spend extra time developing could ultimately be a huge waste of time as you're not sure whether users will like it. Rather, launch now, and implement features the users want. You'll save time, finally have the satisfaction of launching your product, and will use your saved time to better alter your service with confidence in knowing this is what your users want, instead of shooting in the dark for 6 months on features you think will work.
"Genius" is an excellent Mac flashcard program with spaced repetition.

http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-mac-download/memoriz...

http://web.mac.com/jrc/Genius/

A lot of Mac people sing its praises.
Launch, iterate, and be better.
Not the hacker news I had in mind.
Sometimes I think this is the IDEAL situation. You and your competitors, in a way, are validating each other. Also, nobody has the first mover advantage so (hopefully) none of the companies will bail. If all of you launch at the same time, the impact on the press will be greater for all of you because competitors usually get mentions as well. Finally, your industry might start be considered 'hot' because of all the activity.
This is over analysis to the point of paranoia. I've written about the counterview here: http://blog.snaptalent.com/?p=9
Overall venture funding goes down - industry pundits panic. Let them
so facebook has nowhere to go but down. if they do find a magical solution they get to keep their 15 billion valuation (since the valuation is based on them finding said solution), but if they fail their value will drop rapidly to several hundred million at best. not the kind of bet I would want to make as an investor.
The proliferation of guidebooks coincided with the rise of the Internet (because they all cheat).
Spaced repetition is killer. It seems to take the work out of remembering things, leaving nothing but determination. I've been using http://kanji.koohii.com for awhile, which is an excellent implementation of the technique for remembering the meaning of Japanese characters using a particular method book. A niche site, to be sure, but an excellent implementation overall.

I also recommend http://ichi2.net/anki/, which has a Japanese focus but is by no means exclusive to it.
I really like the concept. Would be good to have a better way to browse the sections though.
Thanks, I've been told that a lot lately. I kinda like keeping it as a hobby though. Not sure it would be as fun full time. I already took one hobby and made a living from it and it ruined that.

I don't set out to play devil's advocate. I just don't find it interesting to write about the things that I agree with everyone else on. I won't bother with an article on how the music industry should give up DRM, for example, because it wouldn't be anything thought provoking to anybody anymore. Hell, even the record companies seem to have figured that out by now.

And I don't have much perspective on programming. I couldn't write anything of use on the merits of RDBMSes vs. SimpleDB (though I appreciate some of the articles from people who can). But I feel like I have a pretty good perspective on people and how they use the internet.
Credit-rating agencies licensed the abuses that created the housing bubble
i don't know... the algorithm killed jeeves
You can't be number 7 - I saw you eating pizza.

I think you just came up with number 10 - the 1337 1n51d3r.

I'm really kinda surprised by the whining that came out of SUS; there wasn't much, but if it's > 0, something's wrong.

It's like getting a gift and then complaining about it. Come to think of it, that's exactly what it is.
Walter Bender Resigned from One Laptop Per Child
Bookmark-based Registration
Waiting until you figure out exactly what potential competitors are doing and then reacting might hurt more than it helps. Even if the impact a competitor has on your company is small, slight shifts in product positioning can always occur, and your end of the market could be encroached upon.

In the end, it's up to the users to decide. So launch quickly, listen to them, and help them choose your product as the best.
But does this beat Netflix's recommendation service that uses data from all Netflix customers? I'd love to see someone explore that. I've read a lot on the Netflix prize and it leads me to guess it wouldn't, but I would love to find out if I'm incorrect.
I'm sorry, but I can't take criticism about design seriously when the author's site design is just some random WordPress theme.
That was my point. Both are very fashionable because they're the only two extreme opinions on a very talked about topic.

I'm sure there are plenty of people with opinions in the middle, but moderates never speak out much.
Web 2.0 is set for spending boom
Launch first, be differentiated, listen to your users.

It's important to know that even in absence of competing companies, you ALWAYS have competition. TONS of it. The first guy to try to sell a car heard, "What? My horse works just fine."
Very much so. I've been working sporadically on an article on that topic for 6 months. Still isn't good enough to click publish yet.
I think I judge languages by slightly different criteria from the rest of the people here. Tcl got me 2 jobs. So I can't help but praise it.
Music-Recognition Breakthrough: Digital Sound Separator
I missed the group of Ohioans. Bummer.
Those 7 pages cannot be necessary. Could someone sum it up in a paragraph with wikipedia references?
Hulu! Where are you?
Well I didn't say wait until you figure out exactly what potential competitors are doing, but just until you think what they are doing is going to actually impact your company.
More funding does not mean they can execute. I learned that lesson at Oracle, where a team 5x larger and in competition with mine claimed they could do everything and the kitchen sink. But because they could not focus, their developers got new directives every week their code was very buggy. My team's code was focused but it worked and we had better credibility with the salespeople and customers. If you make noise, you will need to respond to it, and may get distracted. So, I'd stick to your original plan -- to launch in a week - in the grand scheme of things I don't know if being a week later makes a huge difference in winning the war (not the battle). If I remember correctly, google was not the first search engine created. BTW, congrats on being so close to public beta. :)
Launch it now, speed up development, start listening to users.
Get the word out.
Ugh. I wish somebody would come up with some sensible criticism because I don't like being in the position of dismissing it all.

Edit: removed grumpy pre-coffee stuff.
If you're too lazy to either read it or use google, then why shouldn't we be?
In my area the most recent terribly-interesting paper was by the deCode people re: genetics of gene expression and inferring network 'modules' from patterns of activity. There are more theoretically-interesting methods to deduce such graph-based causal networks (eg. Bayesian networks sampled via Metropolis-Hastings MCMC, or the paradoxically 'dumber' but more viable-in-the-cloud methods using MLEM, of which I am a proponent) but the deCode guys have the advantage of actually producing useful results right now.

Overall (i.e. not restricted to my field of expertise) I would suggest that the biggest trove of ready-to-be-applied material on the Web is Andrew Moore's site at CMU: http://www.autonlab.org/tutorials/index.html

Possibly the worst-kept secret on the Web :-)
Wozniak is an interesting and respectable guy; I have the feeling that he tries to remember everything, or something close to it. This strategy works well for declarative memories, but does not generalize with the same efficiency for other memories.

SuperMemo is an ingenious program with a rotten UI. I have been looking for better ways to do this and would be interested in speaking with anybody else with similar interests.
That's cool. Reminds me of 1984 and how they had computers synthesis books, etc. The differences between live music, and highly processed digital recordings is insane. I guess art is ultimately constrained to it's medium, and if you're planning on cutting your music onto CD, computers are going to be doing a lot of work for you.

(Ever read the insert on the Elephant Album?)
>What makes you smug is that you stated that Mac users were different in that they appreciate quality, and thus that people who are not Mac users do not appreciate quality.

That's not always a good thing, and shouldn't be construed as such. For example, there are many great free products out there that won't appeal to some mac users at all because they equate price with quality. It's the same type of mentality that buys a BMW when a chevy will suffice. Sometimes the "buy quality" mantra is accurate, sometimes not. It is an aspect of that particular set of users though.

>And, you stated that 80% of Windows systems are running entirely pirated software, which is, frankly, a ridiculous claim.

No, I said 80% of windows users have never bought software that isn't a game. Given my experience of close to 15 years in various IT roles, I think that's not that ridiculous.

I think you're assuming you are talking to a particular type of individual and responding in kind, but rest assured, I'm not that person.
I don't think spelling out the email address makes the site look unprofessional. And I'd much rather have an email address than a form for contacting someone (unless somehow your form provides me a nicer interface for editing a message than my email client).

The alternative is to render the email address to an image, but that makes it hard to copy and paste.
Yes, I've seen tableau, I think they're awesome. However, their client application is desktop based (though they have recently started doing stuff online, see Tableau does Web 0.2: http://www.intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2007/11/t...).
I'm primarily targeting this at Excel pivot table/analytic users, who usually end up emailing 40MB files around to distribute the views they've built.

The idea is with Eureka, you can do it online, and easily distribute what you've built via a simple URL.

Thanks for the feedback.
Pimsleur language CDs use this technique; I believe they call it "graduated recall" or some such. It's been very effective for me. Of course, it's not fine-tuned for the individual, but it's still pretty good.
How to prepare for public beta?  Readiness checklist
I did enterprise software in my past life, and am curious about what you need to do to get ready for public beta of a consumer website. OK - there's the obvious - have some alpha testers - make sure the code is working. But, I'm curious about what kind of support resources are needed, hints/tips from past experience...
ExtJS 2.1 released, license changed from LGPL to GPL, users not happy
Launch Now.

Any idea you think is cool now will be a waste of time if users reject the core concept. In addition, users will come up with ideas and directions much cooler than your ideas, and that is the path you should be choosing.
Schneier: Security companies can't explain their products
(edit) Sorry. I misread your post. Here's the rest of my original comment:

I've been using SuperMemo off and on for the last ten years. It is by no means an elegant or user friendly app. However, there is a lot of science behind it and it's worth checking out by anyone interested in memory. Readers of yc should have no problem with it.

Another point worth mentioning is that Wozniak has shared his knowledge with the world. He publishes each algorithm and explains it in detail. He also writes extensively about memory and learning and it's all available on his website. He also provides free downloads of older versions of the app.
haha I thought this was the filesystem at first.
Solve this problem automatically, and you have a viable startup!
Open sourced police force
I agree. Those 800 pages of Anna Karenina couldn't have been necessary either. Fortunately, I was able to aquire the Cliffs Notes.
It scales fairly well, but my target market is all the Excel analytic users who end up emailing around their views (and end up with version issues, data issues, etc.) I have a good deal experience with large enterprise DWs (SAP BW, Cognos, etc.) It's amazing how often people end up extracting the subset of information they need, and then do their work in excel. (Usually because of performance, and IT bottlenecks).

Thanks for the feedback.
RSA isn't an end-user conference right now; for the majority of the vendor dollars spent, the prospects are:

* Fortune 500 director/security people

* OEM partners

* The trade press

If you have a different target, it has always been dumb to shell out for RSA. So, I disagree with the premise of Schneier's post, and with the conclusion. Nobody is trying to sell anti-lock brakes to grandma (at least, nobody serious). They're trying to:

* Sell them to Ford

* Sell them to Enterprise Rent-A-Car

* Sell them to Progressive Insurance

* Sell them to Car & Driver
Poll: How little would you sell your startup for right now?
I'm curious to know how much you are really valuing your startup in terms of the minimum $ it would take for you to give it up right now.

I realize all transactions are different, so I'm going to try to simplify it for you as much as possible. Suppose you net $X from the transaction, in your bank account, today. No other $ down the line.

Also, suppose you like the acquiring company, i.e. you think they won't mess it up. Suppose you get to do whatever you want after the acquisition (work on it, not work on it, consult, etc.). Suppose there is a non-compete structured in such as way as you can’t work on exactly the same thing for a while. And disregard any other liability--consider it worked into X.
<=100K
<=250K
<=500K
<=1M
<=2.5M
<=5M
<=10M
<=20M
>20M
Investment is a slightly misleading term. It's more of a gift, since Google is presumably not taking any stake in Drupal as a result.

Yes, Google isn't purely benevolent, and recruiting engineers is probably a goal of this program. But still, Google is not investing in Drupal; it's part of their recruitment budget, essentially.
I think r7000 (a significant improvement over the earlier r6000 model) was referring to the shamefulness of plugging his/her _own_ software. ;)

So no Mac version? The site mentions an in-progress Linux version but it sounds like it's not happening.
Dude, I meant my reference was a shameless plug. I was doing the plugging. Sorry if that was unclear!

I couldn't agree more with your points about Wozniak and Supermemo. Wozniak, Leitner and others were my inspirations. I used their systems while studying myself.

(Edited the original to make it more unambiguous!)
The article actually discussed this very issue.
-Launch when your app is at a stage where it is usable with a minimal set of features then iterate on that 1st version based on your ideas and feedback from users

-On one hand: if you launch something too crude, no one will come back after their initial visit

-On the other hand: the more you wait until launching, the more you risk loosing on your investment.

-Imagine pouring money in a stock without ever seeing its performance/chart. That's what not having feedback would be like.
Or the alternative is get a decent spam filter. I have email addresses on public sites as actual links and with decent spam protection, its not an issue. Making users decipher your email address or work to send you an email is a barrier you don't want between yourself and getting feedback.
Overview of lightbox clones
These types of posts tend to neglect that you have to be successful at the client work before you have the financial ability to assume the risk of making products.
You need MUCH more...I kid, I kid
Memcached internals, tips & best practices
Just to counter all the "launch now" posts - rushing the launch can actually kill your project.

If you come out with a half-baked product, you will have an honour of making an initial splash. However the majority of your potential user base will not bite, they will make a note to themselves to come back when there's a better version. So all your competition will need to do is produce that version - better looking, more stable, with more features, etc - and you can kiss you chances of grabbing a decent market share goodbye.

In short - never launch things that are not ready. Not to the general public. This greatly diminishes your chances riding a "viral propagation" wave made by a launch announcement. It also tags you as a developer that's OK with releasing (essentially) crap rather than a polished product. If you want to gather a feedback, do closed beta.
Author of 4-Hour Workweek shows how to write a bestseller
Tim responds to an open letter from one of his fans with a case study of how he hit the NY Times Bestseller list. He also tells how to get major authors and celebrities to comment on your book.
If Netflix doesn't keep social graph data, then they won't know the probability of you ending up in a conversation about a particular movie. That alone might make a lot of people choose the social recommendation.

But keep in mind, to be valuable the social recommendation doesn't have to be more accurate than the anti-social recommendation. It doesn't even need to be chosen by more people. All you need is for some people to prefer it and it's valuable.
This looks very, very slick. Visualization is a difficult problem and there's a huge number of Excel / pivot table users who would be better served by your product. I work extensively with people who take reports and data subsets from our database software and then manipulate it in excel for visualization rather than calculation. I think you've got a hit.
I hate to be a ditto-head, but I couldn't agree more. If they have bigger teams and more money, that almost always means you have the advantage. The only way you can lose is if you panic and make bad decisions. Plan your climb and climb your plan.
If what you're doing is truly novel, those groups are not your competition. Your competition is the way things are done now.

Focus on the core of what makes you valuable. Get users ASAP so you can understand your value better.
Dilbert Receives A Mashup Makeover