skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A scary thought is really all this is.

Yes, we have our problems, but India and China do too. We have Iraq, they have Pakistan and Tibet. We have a falling dollar and a mortgage crisis. They have overcrowding issues, a transportation crisis, and environmental problems (to say the least)... I don't know about you, but the emerging middle class in Asia and the Middle East just screams instability to me.

The US on the other hand, will continue to provide a low risk and relatively stable environment for investing, especially if we can figure out a way to strengthen the dollar. (Though we've heard interesting theories on how it could rise naturally as exports become less expensive to foreigners and imports become more expensive to us. Domestic savings would rise, economic growth, etc.)

On a sidenote, I don't understand how Philip can truly believe universities in the US are inferior. I thought everyone was in general agreement that we had the best universities? I even personally hang out with a Saudi student who comes from Middle Eastern oil money. He could afford any school in the world, and he chose little SMU in Dallas... Would Philip consider MIT or Harvard inferior? I wish I could go to MIT or Harvard...

Overall, the article brought an interesting idea to the table. I just have trouble seeing growing economies in India and China as a bad thing for the US. I don't like how some Economist's love to bring India and China into the mix only to instill fear.
Wildly Oversimplified Diagram of the Internet Backbone
Don't be so sure either of those are that important.

You can get a laptop with comparable power to some of the more expensive desktops now for about the same price. Look at the Gateway p-6831.

Also more and more power will continue to be fit into laptops, and I think it is only a matter of time before a desktop tower is a waste of space for even most gamers.
they and how many other people have gotten rich off the phenomenon of t-shirts gaining social acceptance in more and more settings? i mean, how many of us wear tshirts to work at least once a week? or going out to the bar/club? and how many of us would have been able to do that in either setting even 20 years ago?
tshirts: no longer the other underwear.
this link gets posted like every day... and yet each time I use it I think its a great site

but I think it would be more useful to post with the address to check (for lazy people like me).

ie. http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/techcrunch.com
Loomia: See What Your Facebook Friends Are Reading
Geoengineering for global warming
http://snaptalent.com/ads.html
Thanks, I'll check these out too.
Interesting idea, how does it work? by aggregating news on the internet? is there some complicated algorithm?

I am still a little confused so to what I would do with it however...?
Performance Shootout: Vista 32-bit versus Vista 64-bit
#10 is only a useless question when your only criterium for a job is money. Assuming you're looking for something more in a job, it's not very strange for an interviewer to ask about that.
I like the idea of 'trendcasting' with a social element enought to have invested in the area repeatedly, so I was intrigued by your post. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in your implementation as it is now. I'm sure my criticisms are biased by my experiences (and what I'm actively looking to invest in), but I think you're not delivering on your promise or potential in this area. If you're happy with what you have, please ignore the ramblings of this grumpy old man. I think if you place social suggestions at the heart of the service it just becomes another social news site. You essentially end up with a different face on a Digg-style site, in a way, which opens itself up to gaming of the system and takes the focus away from actual trend identification and forecasting data.

Instead of a social news remake, you could become something that actually gleans insight from social data without overt promotion/edoption by individuals. People are looking for insights about trends, but they don't just want a data dump or a shill-fest. The "Soap Box" should be small or nonexistent in such a service. When you're talking about trend identification and forecasting, most customers want some degree of editorial analysis (Springwise, Teentracking focus groups, etc.) and/or some type of meta-analysis based on aggregate data, such as search data (Yahoo Buzz, Google Trends) and/or to have the tools to do an analysis for themselves (more advanced tools with NLP/ML features), possibly within a specific medium (forums, email, blogs, search, SMS, etc.) or verticals (retail investing, public relations, etc.) There is a huge market opportunity in finding sweet spots in these 'trendcasting' areas...and there is enough room for many profitable companies. I'm disappointed that there are relatively few companies that seem to be attacking the gaps, yet there are so many different takes on "me too" companies that draw from the trend and forecasting toolset (social news, reputation management, etc. as standalone services.) Why not go after the value-added services and niches and really make some money? How do you plan to make money? [Advertising?!?]

Your design looks professional, but it is very busy and makes it difficult to really get a feel for what it does and how it all works. I think if you want your site to work well in its current 'edopter' implementation, you should focus more on simplifying the interface.
It works for Zuckerberg!

http://www.killnine.com/comics/25.php
In case I was a little too indirect for you, that was not an ad-hominem attack, it was a criticism of the article disguised as an ad-hominem attack.

And as I said in a comment on Philip's blog, all of the stuff he is talking about is priced into the exchange rate. And since the dollar's value has dropped drastically in the last few years, the US has been a terrible investment for the last few years. Going forward, it might not be so bad, because all the bad news has been priced into the exchange rate (perhaps).

I had lunch with Mr. Greenspun once upon a time. I remarked after, that it was amazing how he managed to insult all seven nationalities at the table in an hour long lunch. But his writings before the Ars-Digita blowup and subsequent settlement were much more enjoyable because they had a "call to action" of sorts. Things were crappy, but you as an individual could make a difference.

Now his writing is basically "the world is screwed, and Americans are morons for not realizing it."
Picasa web albums on Windows Mobile 6
Can you carry your 24'' LCD with you? And that ergonomic keyboard?
For me its not the CPU thats the problem, its the ergonomic keyboard and the LCD. I dont care whether its a "desktop" or a laptop connected to an external display acting as a CPU.

edit : the laptop form factor is horrifyingly unergonomic. i refuse to work on laptops for extended periods of time.
"Good products solve a single, focused problem."

We could go semantic and debate product vs. service and all, but I am going to assume that the author means both when he says "product".

What single, focused problem does Second Life solve?

I think the define-and-solve approach is limiting. You stay focused on the status quo. Innovation is a distraction.
I think the best universities in the US are better than the best universities here (Netherlands), but the worst in your country are worse than the worst here. All universities in the Netherlands are good, but we don't have any exceptional universities. This may be my limited judgement, but I've not even considered stuying computer science because of the curricula here.

People are buying more in the US because of the low dollar. I buy more cheap books on amazon. You are probaly importing less because it's expensive.
Once An Algorithms Guy, Always An Algorithms Guy
Dude, I was just joking. :-)
I know it's fairly unlikely, but remind me to NEVER use your laptop if we should ever meet.
Announcing The TechCrunch50 Conference: September 8-10, San Francisco
Startups don't need "A crazy idea that most people think is stupid". In most cases, an idea that most people think is stupid is exactly that.

Startups need to offer something of perceived value, that's pretty much it. In some cases, it's doing a typical task in a non-typical way, or doing something non-typical altogether (your crazy idea), or marginally improving your typical task in a very typical way.

In the end, it's all about value.
Yes! Can't wait to try this on my MacMini at home. Best alternative to Safari ever.
Who Writes Linux and Who Supports It
Preaching to the choir, I agree with you.

What I am saying is that gathering evidence of actual work produced takes a long time and is hard to do. It might take a couple months to figure out if someone who is only at his desk for 4 hours a day is doing good work on a problem, or merely lazy.
I found a good website www.BCSAlliance.com. According to this site, jacking up the rate using a bait-and-switch tactic is common in the credit card industry. The only way to refuse the new rate is via a written letter mailed using certified mail. If you were to call and notify the bank that you refused the new rate, the bank will conveniently forget about the oral refusal. This is also said to be a common/usual practice for all kinds of disputes with a credit card company. The following is a sample letter to dispute a change in interest rate from this website:

"Dear Sir or Madam:
I recently received notification from you that you are [state change: e.g., changing the way in which you calculate the interest rate on my credit card.] This letter serves as my written notice of my non-acceptance to this change in terms to my credit card agreement. I understand that I have the right to continue to use my credit card under the existing terms until the expiration date on my credit card at which time my account will be closed. I also understand that I may pay off any remaining balance under my current terms."
I'm no sure why this was a 'secret' to Alley insider or to anyone that bother to look at the sites that Connected Ventures/IAC (Collegehumor, Busted Tees and Vimeo parent company) has. Obviously Busted Tees is the one who makes them more money besides the advertising of CollegeHumor and other minimal sources of revenue.

---
"Last week, Josh Abramson told us that he and Ricky "might start a few new sites [and/or] we might be making a few small acquisitons," but wouldn't elaborate."

They already have a new one -- http://todaysbigthing.com -- and it's actually good, one of those single purpose sites.
Looks similar to a show called "Meet The Natives" which broadcast last year. A group of tribesmen were brought to the UK to meet the three tribes of the UK - Working class, middle class and upper class.

It's pretty interesting viewing, if a bit gimmickey.

My favourite insights were (1) why spend much time on house cleaning if it's boring and (2) Why do Londoners always seem in a rush if they look so unhappy about where they're going.
don't worry, it's not personal.

i've seen similiar dynamics in conference program committees:

if you receive a lot of high quality submissions you just have to throw (often truly excellent) stuff away till you're down to a manageable size.

and that's not even a judgment of the individual submissions - often it's just a matter of making a balanced program.
PimpMyNews- Turn Your Favorite Text News and Blogs in to mp3 Files
My workplace:

- MacBook

- Apple USB Keyboard

- Logitech Mouse

- Apple Cinema Display HD 23"

Plus, I can carry all my work environment anywhere I go. If I want to be with my family and I don't need a lot of concentration I can take the MacBook to any room.
Contains some great tips on where to locate your servers.
Has anyone been to last years? If so, what was it like?
Top 10 Internet April Fools Jokers of 2008
Yikes. I just signed up for an Advanta business credit card last week, and received my notice that I was approved. I'm not planning to take out any cash advances using the card. Has anyone else had good/bad experience with this company?
Thus speaketh the kernel source:

The "anticipatory" I/O scheduler is the default disk scheduler. It is
generally a good choice for most environments, but is quite large and complex when compared to the deadline I/O scheduler, it can also be slower in some cases especially some database loads.

The deadline I/O scheduler is simple and compact, and is often as
good as the anticipatory I/O scheduler, and in some database
workloads, better. ...

The CFQ I/O scheduler tries to distribute bandwidth equally
among all processes in the system. It should provide a fair
working environment, suitable for desktop systems.
The borrower is slave to the lender. I hate credit cards.
Supervisor - Monitor and Control Your Processes
Well, not quite. The median VC partner makes a lot of money from the management fees even if the fund loses money.
Desktops and laptops in current form-factors have been around for more than 10 years. Both of them have been gaining speed and features, but the basics haven't changed much: laptops have always had 80% of speed at 120% of the cost.

I don't see anything new, that hasn't been around 10-15 years ago, that will push desktops out.

I use both, for various reasons.

It hurts to watch laptops users trying to get something done without a real mouse with applications not designed with keyboard navigation in mind. It's like watching stop-n-go traffic. Unless, of course, that laptop happened to be a ThinkPad with it's gorgeous "UltraNav".

This is why I love vim: I am equally productive with it regardless of the machine I happened to run it on.

So WHY do you think desktops will disappear? What is it, that current crop of laptops offer that I couldn't get in 1998?
The Internet I’ve got — what I really need are more pockets
Using Basecamp to automatically keep track of product releases
Wow, great feedback. Thanks! Let me try and address some of your points.

"I think if you place social suggestions at the heart of the service it just becomes another social news site."

I agree. We focused on this first because having user input is important to us. We strongly want to avoid becoming a digg or reddit clone, but at the same time we want to avoid being based only on science and mining the data from other sources.

“When you're talking about trend identification and forecasting, most customers want some degree of editorial analysis (Springwise, Teentracking focus groups, etc.) and/or some type of meta-analysis based on aggregate data, such as search data (Yahoo Buzz, Google Trends)”

I totally agree. Our system balances our users opinions with data from outside sources (we call this the X-factor.) By combining the two data streams we are able to get (imho) the best of both worlds. As I said, the front end for the users took up a lot of time; however, we are working hard on refining our algorithm and adding more sources.
We want to combine the data driven resources of a Nielsen with the forward thinking early adopters of a “look-look’ (http://www.look-look.com/)

“How do you plan to make money?”

We want to connect our users with businesses. Users can trade points for products and opportunities from the right sponsors. Someone who is into sports could have an opportunity to try out the newest snowboard. We are working on this part of the site, but expect it to be up with in a month. Sneak peak: http://edopter.com/showcase/

Thanks for the feedback. These are some great ideas, and will work on making things more clear on the site.
From the article: I'd rather own 94% of a watermelon than 100% of a grape.

That's a very good metaphor and a very good explanation of why you'd want funding.
Is it art? Is it cool? Putting a Giant Banana in Geostationary Orbit over Texas
Is a few pixels of margin on the body too much too ask?
Let me try and explain:

Users launch a trend that they think is going to be big or is something they are into (saving the environment, american apparel, ect.) We then track how many users on our site like it (and where they are from, age, and sex) plus aggregated information from the internet.

We are hoping to see how the trends connect with each other, and how users find new trends. We call this tracking influence.

We are constantly working on our algorithm adding more sources. We think this is a balance between users finding the newest thing, and existing data channels (does that make sense?)

Once you sign up, the goal is to earn points by getting in/starting a new big trend. This might help: http://edopter.com/howitworks
Conferences to show off new startups are a good thing, but it seems like a bad plan to make the startups launch at the conference. Unless the date happens to be exactly when the startup would have launched anyway, this constraint is going to force them to launch either too early, or too late.

Launching late is very dangerous. Someone else is probably doing what you're doing, and if you launch even a couple weeks later your company could for the rest of its life be described as an X-like site, where X is your competitor's name.

Launching too early is even more dangerous. The right time to launch is as soon as you have something (a) useful and (b) not totally broken. Which means that launching early = launching something useless or broken.
Extrapolating trends is of course dangerous, but isn't it reasonable to say that people want as much screen real estate for screens?

http://www.pibmug.com/files/wideview.jpg

That people will want ever more realistic graphics, with ever more realistic physics engines?
Their real (not so secret) secret to success is flagrant copyright violation on almost everything they post (which is why they eventually went to a more "user posted" model--to be protected by the safe-harbor clauses of the DMCA). The same can be said of YouTube: there is tons of copyrighted stuff, a few short "America's Funniest Home Videos" style stuff, and then there is some excellent user-produced made-to-entertain content. But in regards to the latter, 90% of the time it is backed up by copyrighted music.
If this project is "in the works," or still mostly just an idea, I recommend that he seeks a co-founder, rather than an employee. What he is looking for is likely more than just exceptional skill and high dedication. The Denver-based Java expert he's looking for should also have a sense of ownership, which is most easily accomplished by actually giving him ownership (equity). Owners don't walk away from projects as readily as employees, and they usually work a lot harder (at least in the early stages).
Agreed. They are struggling with distribution and monetization.
>if you receive a lot of high quality submissions you just have to throw (often truly excellent) stuff away till you're >down to a manageable size.

According to a post by pg on HN accepts all applicants that they feel can make it through the program (ie the idea and team are ok). Therefore they are not going to exclude good applications because they have reached an arbitrary limit.
From what you've described, this ordeal cost you about $248.64 [1]. In terms of the problems that people funding young companies with credit cards often get themselves into, you escaped relatively unscathed.

Rather than looking for avenues of complaint, you may be best served to spend that energy on your startup. As far as business lessons at the school of hard knocks go, $250 is getting off cheap.

[1] (* 27000 (1- (exp (/ (- 1899/10000 799/10000) 12))))
Interesting site. What's the revenue model like? Seems like a shiny wikipedia combined with a simple stock market, but still don't totally get it. I just signed up so I'll give you my full thoughts once I get a chance.
charging a lot less i.e. $500 per a ticket would still keep those you don't want out. Also if your charging $2k/ticket any idea why you can only give $50k to the winner?
Despite their (and threadless') success, selling witty t-shirts is actually a really rough business to be in. It's number two on the list of stupid frat-boy business ideas here: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/8-stupid-frat-boy-...

The main issue being that it costs you a ton of money to produce inventory you probably won't be able to move. The economics only make sense only when the entire nation is buying your t-shirts. It's all loss-leading to get to that point, though.
ya, photos.com is pretty expensive, and don't even think about getty images, it cost thousands just to use one image, no thanks, I'll take flickr for both quality and price (free) anyday.
His posting here has potentially saved many other people much more than that, though...
Also, I read somewhere that launching at a conference means that you're one of dozens of launches over a short period of time, and you have to compete even harder for coverage from press/bloggers. Whereas, if you launch on a non-descript day, you may be the only interesting thing happening all day, and get a copious amount of coveage.
I rather like the feel of the site. However, I think you should order trends by the percent of users that like them, not total number of users. Otherwise, every trend's popularity would be going up as your user count increases.

Plus trendcasting is rather trendy in itself, so your data would be somewhat skewed. It will be interesting to analyze the developments of trade compared to total market share data (easy to get for public companies) as a time series problem. Then you get into the business forecasting area and your data would be worth some serious cheddar.

Just my 2 cents.
The alternative view is that having a hard launch date acts as a forcing factor to get your code up to shape. From personal experience, I found that having committed to giving a demo has made me work that much harder to finish it. Otherwise, you can keep on pushing back your launch date.
yikes $2000 to attend - better be a vc or at least have some vc cash to burn, but they are offering $195 tickets to student, time to go sign up for a few community college classes.
Love it. Thanks. :)
Venture Weekend: 40 Entrepreneurs. 1 Weekend. 1 New Startup.
Watch Your Wallets!: The Google Scoop Works Like a Charm
Google To Sell Off Performics
Muxtape is getting a lot more coverage than YC's own Mixwit, despite the latter looking a lot cooler and more polished. Unintuitive...
I've seen similar "Cash Back Rewards" tactics on a card I have and pay balance in full each month. Also. Cashing said checks sign up up for a yearly program (that does something? I never read what) that tacks on a new fee to your account.

Needless to say, I don't use this card unless I get the "we don't take Discover".
I was in the Demo Pit -- was good since I'm from Canada, and got to tour the bay area. I wouldn't recommend the Demo Pit -- people spend most of the day in the conference and either head home or make a quick pass through the pit. You will mostly be speaking with service providers. For the price, I wouldn't recommend the conference either (for entrepreneurs, there are much better ways to use the $). If you do end up in the Demo Pit, I would strongly recommend getting a slot on the first day.

Last year, we were the only Demo Pit company to use the student rate ;) This year, the student rate is $149 to attend the conference.
>What would be really interesting, though, is to read about the company that saw through this kind of prejudice -- that hired the equally-qualified minority workers at wages depressed by such prejudice, and then made a killing.

It isn't that simple. I'm from South Carolina, and racism is all around. A company could do as you say and hire some killer black salesmen at a huge discount and it won't matter: they will sell less only because they are black. A computer repair shop could hire an all black staff of technicians, and leave white people as the people-facing storefront (not that this would be remotely legal or moral), and it wouldn't matter: there would literally be conversations all over the place about how you shouldn't take your computer to such and such's; they use "nigger" repairmen.