skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My first reaction was also, "hey plagiarism". But then again, on second thought, it'd be nice to have one application form to fill out, and then you just send them to different programs.

Before the days of standardized applications forms for colleges, it was a pain in the ass to fill out the same types of questions. I think it's rather lazy of them. However, since they're all going for startups, it's rather likely they'd ask a set of basic questions. It might do to have some sort of standarized basic set of questions, and then tack on one or two specific questions for that particular program.
UX: A Metaphore
Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone
This book has some ideas about a framework for looking at existing things in a new light in the hopes of generating new ideas:

http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/5/lateral-marketing-n...

It's not a bad technique if you're actively trying to generate ideas.
Currently it only provides availability of data. There's no reason that it couldn't then provided next actions for that data--it's pretty easy to toggle a form that emails your congress person, or submits to local news, or any of a variety of actions.

Indeed, I think that's a direction it's heading, and the combination of information + action could be potent. How many people avoid taking action b/c it's just a pain to get out of their desk chair?
Paul Graham says VCs Not Bold Enough. I Say None of Us Are
I wish we had this problem.

We're a new startup (called Elleo Ltd.) and we have developed a very interesting piece of technology, semantic engine, a prototype that actually works! Please let me also mention that this is no semi-functional semantic engine (as we've all seen around) but a real thing on which our team (we are 3 world champions in programming!) worked for over a year. We believe with our hearts that there's a need for our technology and that we can truly create a new mean, a meaning that will make the world a better place.

Sadly, as you probably already all figured, we're all technical guys and we have no idea how to "business-talk" and lift our startup off the ground, so that we can carry on working on this full-time.

We've been reading a lot (and I mean a lot) on startups, VCs, etc.., we've even attended The Next Web conference in Amsterdam but what we still didn't quite figure is how to approach VCs and get them hear what we have to say.

I would very appreciate if you can give me an advice on this.

Also, if you'd be interested learning more about our exciting project, please contact me on jparicka(at)gmail.com. Otherwise, wait for a demo which should come out shortly.

Thank you!

Jan
I would say AC is good from a theory point of view, but bad as an implementation guide. Kind of in the same way that a Chilton guide will tell you all sorts of things about your car, but you shouldn't try to build a car from scratch based on it.
I lived just outside of Tel Aviv for a few years; it was an amazing place.

I was there just before this newfangled internet became a big deal, but just after a lot of high tech companies started moving to the area. There is a lot of technical talent in Israel, they have an incredible technical school- Technion.
How to approach VC and get him/her hear what we have to say/offer?
Hi there,

We're a new London based startup (called Elleo Ltd.) and we have developed a very interesting piece of technology, semantic engine, a prototype that actually works!

Please let me also mention that this is no semi-functional semantic engine (as we've all seen around) but a real thing on which our team (we are 3 world champions in programming!) worked for over a year.

We believe with our hearts that there's a need for our technology and that we can truly create a new mean, a meaning that will make the world a better place.

Sadly, as you probably already all figured, we're all technical guys and we have no idea on how to "business-talk" and lift our startup off the ground, so that we can carry on working on this full-time.

We've been reading a lot (and I mean a lot) on startups, VCs, etc.., we've even attended pricy Next Web conference in Amsterdam but we still didn't quite figure out how to approach VCs and get them hear what we have to say.

I would very much appreciate if anyone can give us an advice on this.

Also, if you'd be interested learning more about our exciting project, please contact me on jparicka(at)gmail.com. Otherwise, wait for a demo which should come out shortly.

Thank you,

Jan
Sigh - I am with Virgin and have been generally happy for years now. I don't like the sounds of this one bit.

Its getting bad enough in the evenings, as if you download more than a few 100MB they throttle your connection down to 1MB from 10MB for 4 hours.

And then there is the business with Phorm. Its just downright sleezey - us tech types will be sure to opt out, but the 99% will have no idea what is happening.
Google `Gamed' Airwave Sale
Yes, but the question is whether any YC companies have the capacity to be the next google. I think it is a good question because it really is saying "if you can't find the gems why expect VCs to be able to". Its a people in glass houses throwing stones argument. There may be good counter arguments but it is a very legit question.
Look at how much you can learn about these people from this little bit of data:

1. They are creatively challenged.

2. They are professionally challenged.

3. They are ethically challenged.

Suppose you get involved with them. What do you imagine would happen as soon as a difficult situation came up?

Personally, this tells me just enough to run, not walk, the other way.
Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All
Ask YC: C++
Folks,
I am a Pythonista, and need to learn C++ in a hurry. I have almost negligible familiarity with the language. In a months time I want to be able to hack basic apps in the Symbian C++ environment.

I am looking for suggestions for good books for C, C++, STL and Symbian. Please let me know what you think is the best course of action. Also any advice from your experience is appreciated.

PS: What do you think of C++ as a language?
I think there's a lot to be said for standardization, as you say. Founders who are just getting started have little enough time as it is, without having to come up with just slightly different answers to just slightly different questions. If that's their reasoning, they probably should have mentioned it, though.
Ppl here are basically complaining about the free market.

Google is big because they have created a ton of value. If they were rubbish/didn't create value, then they wouldn't be big and wouldn't buy other companies.

At least they did it by having the best product (unlike MS).
Symbian C++ is a different beast. It is heavily design pattern oriented, so it is a good idea to ger comfortable with things like active objects,publish and subscribe, client-server, factory, singleton, etc, etc...

Obviously, get the SDK, demo apps and start experimenting with it, as you would do with any other technology.

Do you mind if I ask why you need to hack in Symbian C++?
Why Employment Growth and Productivity Growth are Negatively Correlated in Europe
My ideas tend to form like trees: I have loads of ideas (seeds) that I will plant in my head. Over time, and through research and reading (what's happening around me and on the web; what are the latest technologies; where are things heading; how can I help solve these problems; etc.), one of the seeds will start to develop into a tree. At this point I look up to the top of the tree and try to see how my idea will change the world once its has fully grown. Once I have an idea about that, I then work backwards to try and figure out what parts (branches) are needed to reach the end goal. Some of the branches will also need some development before they are fully formed branches. Sometimes the branches develop so much that they actually create there own seeds, which fall off and grow into new trees; the new trees are related to the original one, but by developing them into their own fully formed idea, allows them to have a wider/greater impact than they would if they were still attached to the original. This process reiterates itself and some of the ideas refine themselves. This is where it can start to get messy, so good organisation is required, e.g. mind-maps and the like.

Most of my ideas develop inside my head when I am not in front of the computer and when I am not really concentrating on anything, which is usually when I am in the shower. I let them ponder in my mind, perhaps sleep on them, and then, all of sudden, I will have the urge to frantically mind-map them out and research them.

With regards to brainstorming, I usually do this after I have envisaged the top of the tree. I usually go to my colleagues and/or advisor's and bounce the ideas off them. We usually then "discuss" how crazy the idea is, what would make it feasible, what attitudes and habits would need to change in order to make them work, etc., which helps me identify what the branches need to look like on the way up to the top of the tree.

So as an example, one of the things I am working on is a way to speed up research - that was the first seed, which was born out of my own frustrations with the status quo. If I speed up research, how will it impact the rest of the world and how will the world work if I pull it off? - which is the top of the tree. Imagining how the world would work if my idea reached fruition, allows me to identify all of the other things that are also required for it to work (the branches). For example, I think a new document format is required to speed up research, and so I have started to develop this as a new branch, which itself is almost at the point of forming a seed, falling off and becoming a tree in its own right.

I have no idea if any of that jibba-jabba made any sense, but it's how I work.
Consumer groups urge "do not track" registry
Psystar Mac clone story gets stranger
I blew off basically all my classes in college, and don't regret it at all. Ended up with a 3.0 GPA...I think the exact count was something like 14 As, 7 Bs, 9 Cs, and 2 Fs.

One of my prospective employers did ask my GPA. They gave me an offer anyway. I got a consistent 8 hours of sleep a night, even when it meant skipping the next morning's classes. I remember nearly all of my coursework (that I did & showed up for class for, at least). I got to meet lots of interesting people, most of whom are now in law/grad/med/business school. I got to serve as tech lead on a 100,000-user consumer website, and did a couple other web projects for the school.

But the best part was that I made a whole lot of mistakes on my parents' dime and found out a lot about myself. Most of my assumptions going into college were wrong (hence the 2 Fs): I thought I wanted to be a theoretical physicist, I thought that the effort I put in didn't correlate with the results I got, I thought that I didn't like people, etc. It's much easier to change your career path before you've graduated than it is once you get into the working world or grad school.
Taking ownership (pwnership) of content: Cross-site Scripting Google
I think Boost filed for bankruptcy. They target customers that are less likely to pay their bills. (not sure if this is Ynews worthy.. ;1 )
Ferguson and Schneier wrote a followup book, "Practical Cryptography", which addresses the shortcomings of "Applied Cryptography" --- it selects the "best" algorithms and protocols to use, and tries to document the pitfalls of actually implementing them in real software.

I recommend it with reservations. It's an extremely valuable book, especially if you're a security evaluator looking for crypto vulnerabilities. As an implementation guide, it misses glaring faults that real software constantly introduces.

There simply is no by-the-numbers guide to implementing crypto in an application, and doing it wrong is worse than not doing it at all.
Job Postings for Touch Engineers: Apple's new products?
i'm looking at tourist visas and being paid entirely in the US. i'll probably maintain an official residence with my parents if i end up doing this.
Easterlin's classica paper asserts that happiness is not related to the total amount of money you own, but rather to the amount of money you own compared to those around you. The new rebuttal of the theory that this article is about claims that new polling methods have made it easier to get correct answers - and that these do not match the classical theory. The accompanying map shows a clear correlation between a country's GDP per capita and average life satisfaction.

The study, however, is flawed.

What they fail to take into account is that the Easterlin study was made in the 70's when poor countries weren't exposed to the lifestyles of richer countries through media such as television and the Internet. Today even the poorest countries have lots of communication with the outside world. According the CIA world fact book around 20% of Albanias population was online in 2006. And almost everyone had access to television. What this means is that the population in poor countries can see what life is like in Beverly Hills, and see the western lifestyle as their "peers"

So the paradox holds - information technology has just made it obvious to the poor countries how poor they really are.

Correlation does not equal causation....
Coghead Gallery: Code Exchange for Small Developers?
This is the book I learned Symbian/C++ on: http://www.amazon.com/Developing-60-Applications-Developers-...

It's a bit out of date and it focuses on Nokia's application framework (Series 60). It should be enough to get you writing basic applications though. If you're going to stick with Symbian, don't worry about C or STL. They don't use them.

I assume you're going to be using the more recent Symbian 9. Unfortunately, I don't have any books to recommend for this version. You'll need to rely on the Nokia/Symbian docs for Symbian 9 specific features like Platform Security.

Since you're new to C++, I'd recommend following Symbian's naming conventions religiously. They were very helpful when I was a C++ noob just starting out.

I haven't worked on Symbian in about a year, but if you have any questions, drop me a line (email's in the profile). I'll see what I can do.
From the article:

I majored in English Literature and minored in Communication Theory. The main reason I chose those subjects was I thought they would teach me how to write and speak, two skills that would serve me well for the rest of my life.

Boy, was I stupid. Instead, I spent all my time reading classic literature and memorizing vague, pseudoscientific communication theories. Neither are useful at all, and I’ve forgotten at least 95% of it.

I’d guess the same is true for most college graduates. Tell me, what’s the point of spending 60-80 hours a week learning things that you immediately forget?

Sounds the problem is with what she chose to study, not her grades.
i hate c++. i think i hate it because i was raised as a computer engineer on c, and the only substantial c++ i've really done is visual with MFC/wxwidgets/activex/opengl, which are all bitches to work with, imo.

as for books, i suggest these two:
"the c++ programming language" by stroustrup; and
"effective c++" by meyers
Other British hackers/entrepreneurs attending Startup School?
My co-founder Andy Young and I are traveling over from the UK (Oxford) for Startup School on Saturday. Was wondering which other Brits are attending, how long you're out, what flights you're taking etc?

We're getting the 10:05 from LHR this Friday and after Startup School will be sticking around until Friday 25th for the WebMission trip with our startup GroupSpaces.
Old, but fabulous. Stellar writing, even by Gladwell's standards.
>> I shouldn't have to have some proprietary, third-party plugin to read text or [i]view simple images.[/i]

You don't need flash to view pictures.
Ask YC: Create an email address book from IMAP account
There are nice tools outside to import your contacts by providing GMail credentials. I'd like to create an address book out of my IMAP inbox - as I'm some kind of "inbox address book user" with lots of "Re:garding" mails .. anybody knows a solution?
danah boyd says, "In short, they document how culturally specific gendered practices (not technological features) frame the meaning and value of technology."

This rings so true for me... it's like the Clay Shirky quote: "the social characteristics of the web only become interesting once the technology is boring." (paraphrased).

That's why the usage and behavior on a site like craigslist is more interesting than any web service in the last year.
Or any other europeans, for that matter? :)
Amy Hoy - Designing for Humans
Tom Brady on Software Management
I'm coming to SS08 with dilanj. Can't wait!
Pure luck:

http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_7.html#SEC74
From what I understand they sold the domain and software which was the business.

That said eBay is specifically referring to the type of digital good that can be duplicated endlessly. A website is a single thing. You can run the software that runs it on another domain but you are not duplicating the site itself. Which is why I don't believe it would run afoul of this rule.
Speak for yourself, Hank.

Some of us may be too damn bold for our own good.

Starting a software business really isn't logical, except maybe for someone young with nothing to lose and nothing better to do.

In my case, if I took all the hours I put into my own products and multiplied that by what I could have billed someone else (or even earned as an employee), well let's just say, "I don't want to know." The opportunity cost is staggering (not to mention time away from family and friends). Many of us could easily have put 7 figure sweat equity into our startups. Money that was never earned and may still never be seen.

Forget about angels and VCs - if what we entrepreneurs are already doing isn't bold, I don't know what is.
Pics of cute palestinian girl or it didn't happen.

(Sorry, it's the internet. Someone had to say it.)
auctomatics will be there on saturday. though not sure if we count as british anymore :)
Video Game Controller Taps into Brain Waves
I'm getting the 11:00 from LHR this Friday. Sticking around until Tuesday 29th.

Not looking forward to the jet-lag :)
I've read a few of Guy's books including Hindsights and, out of them all, Hindsights is the one worth skipping for sure. This is just Guy trying to sell more copies of that book. I'm sure some people enjoyed it but I didn't.
It's a deposit to make sure people don't bail out. You get it back afterwards.
A lot of interesting projects listed there.

Do you form some sort of business entity (like an LLC) to own such projects, or do you simply put them up on the web yourself?

What if one or more of them start making money?
I'm doing this starting in September. I'm a Canadian and will be moving to Australia with my girlfriend. I'll be doing all my work through my Canadian corporation. Going to be traveling for the first 6 months or so on a tourist visa but then switching to a spousal visa once my girlfriend gets her migrant worker visa.
Possible Revenue Streams For SM/Web 2.0 Businesses
A good list from a talk I saw. Got my mind thinking...
Inelegance of Combining HTML and Code
Fascinating article. The field trip/study occurred in 2003 - since then the paper admits mobile phones have become more pervasive and common. However, the behavior of the teenage girls it examines during study points out that a mobile phone may be a totem of your social identity (especially, when you're just fiddling with it in public making use of idle time). Italic emphasis added below.

"The girls...did not possess the phone through personalization...Instead, they related to the mobile in a very functional way...seeking devices...not seen as technologically advanced or too sophisticated...Rather than display their mobile phones, then, the girls were preoccupied with hiding this object, which they were not supposed to own - and with denying the relationships it signified"

"For these teenage girls, the mobile phone connoted not mobility and movement in space, but rather intimacy and person-to-person communcation.."
and most importantly, need the One True Release Date.
This also assumes that the business has UX folks--in my experience, this isn't the case.
How Toyota outproduces Ford
A simple graphical example of the manufacturing process Toyota uses to outproduce Ford.
I've always wondered ... developers love to complain about managers at work, but (even at a startup) are loath to BECOME that manager. My last boss, a hacker at heart, was in a "management" role, and he hacked 70% of the day. He was a pleasure to work with, and our group wrote some awesome software.

So, why don't more hackers become managers instead of just complaining?
A highly successful company is making a lot of money. Going public let's you cash out and diversify but if your equity is pulling in a few hundred thousand a quarter it's not an issue.

It's possible to find or create large company's that don’t make money, but if you can't make a profit with a million users what's the point of growth or an IPO? (Other than a profitable scam.)
until I succeed I'd call me more a fool than bold
Yeah, I'm curious if you're sure you really need Symbian, or mobile or...? I haven't heard pleasant things about Symbian myself, but have no direct experience.
Life is about more than just business. And being bold isn't, at least in my context, about working harder. In fact it sounds like, for you, work is a default. I am talking about exploring things in life that you might not otherwise explore. Doing things you might otherwise dismiss. They do not need to be big things. Its not about who can have a heart attack sooner.
The hackers they'd like to attract all know about YC. Most probably knew about it long before they did. A good many probably have the YC application memorized. To make a verbatim knock-off and pretend you didn't is just so... inept. Certainly ineptitude is among the leading qualities I look for in an investor, how about you?

To anyone who knows the first thing about hackers, it's obvious how to do this: give full credit to YC, praise YC to the skies, point out that not everyone is suited to YC and argue that there's room for more than one. Differentiate yourself by being Seattle-focused or whatever.
Yahoo buys Indextools: Google Analytics Competitor
"""the c++ programming language"""

It's a great reference but I would never recommend it to someone to learn C++. It's too big with too many boring details that you will probably never run into.
JPMorgan Chase's profit drops 50 pct in 1Q on reserves boost
Useful novelty, that I would act on?

I've been immersed in my specialty for 15 years.

As it happens, this number of years is pretty much the norm for the highly creative (10 years is the lower bound). For details, see:

http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Handbook-Expertise-Expert-Pe...
Thanks for the great reply. I agree with pretty much everything.
In that case, you should actually like Flash. Several commenters here say that standard, open technologies like Javascript should be used instead, because they can do everything Flash can do. But if that happened, all the annoying stuff that is currently in Flash would simply be ported to Javascript. And it is much more inconvenient to block Javascript than it is to block Flash.

What we have now is an almost ideal situation: Much of the stupidest stuff on the web is in Flash, little of the important stuff needs Flash, and Flash is easy to block.
Open Source Census launches