skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Are they the only external people you need to be involved to make a deal like this happen?

Your banker should be the only third-party you need when searching for bidders. When bids start to come in, you will need lawyers, accountants, and etc., but your banker will help you find and manage these relationships.

Your job during a deal is to discuss and present the business. The banker does the rest.

However, if you have a small private business and you already have a bid that you like, the cost of engaging a banker is likely to outweigh any benefit that they can bring to a transaction.

>Do the costs change if the investment bank is involved in finding the deal?

Not in my experience. Their reward for finding a transaction for you is that they get paid. Keep in mind that your banker will always be biased in favor of making a deal happen. In my experience, we usually charged a small retainer fee to encourage the Company to do a deal as well.

>Are they useful at all in the negotiation or are they just paper pushers?

Your banker can act as a go-between, insulating you from negotiation. They will do research to try to establish what a "fair" price range would be, both for your benefit and for use in negotiation. They also are capable of bringing more bidders into the process, putting pressure on your most interested buyer.

Of course, they are far more business savvy than you are. This can work against you when they are negotiating the terms for their services. On the other hand, they usually get paid based on a percentage of the deal price, so they are incented to make it as high as possible.

>I had an investment banker contact me early in the year just to "start a relationship in case I ever needed help with fundraising or M&A." Is it worth meeting with these people?

Sure. Good bankers will try to get your business by giving you a lot of information about the market, and information never hurt.

If they know you, then they might mention your name when they are talking to firms looking to do an acquisition in your business sector.

Of course, if you're not established and you don't have a well-known name and these guys are approaching you, then they are probably not good bankers.
> 99,843% ...

is that out of %100,000?
http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif
If it was this easy, I just have to believe it would've been done already in the past 10 years.
For the record, Microsoft's T-shirts are printed on Fruit of the Loom shirts (very good quality).

Mine says "Microsoft Genius" and was a prize from the 2003 Imagine Cup.

Maybe this is a sweatshop problem? Still, it's a nice T-shirt and I like wearing it when I have an appointment with the bank manager.
What browser makes you wait? Opera certainly doesn't. I have limited exposure to IE and Safari, but their tabs seem to work just fine as well.
This problem applies to using any new or non-standard technology without abundant interfaces to a wide variety of tools. That's the downside. The advantage is that you get to use something better, and maybe it makes you more productive, and maybe it catches on and advances the state of the art.

If everyone always used whatever interfaced best with the rest of the world, new technologies would be adopted much more slowly.
Organization isn't a problem?
Microsoft's days numbered: The Computer Industry Comes With Built-In Term Limits
we do a lot of stuff with soap over queues (msmq in our case, but same difference) as well. as i've been interviewing people, i've observed that stuff like this is really rare, so not many people have actually stopped to think about what you could do with something like WS-Addressing and a queue based bus.

however, i totally agree with most of the rational critiques of the WS-* stack - it's gotten way too complicated and in my view simplicity has been sacrificed at the altar of XML Schema.
i'm not sure that I agree that REST and SOAP are really in conflict. it may not be common, but there's no reason you couldn't use SOAP as a transport for REST-based services. the real conflict is between REST systems which may or may not use SOAP and RPC systems which may or may not use SOAP.

i do, however, agree that for most people, SOAP and RPC style services are pretty much synonymous.
to whomever demoted my response above...why?
jobs@startup_you_want_to_work_for.com

In my experience, pretty much every start up is hiring provided you're qualified and passionate enough. By their very nature, start ups can't possibly list things like expected salary or equity because those heavily dependent on what you yourself bring to the table. If you'd like a place to start when looking for start ups you'd be interested in, http://www.crunchbase.com/companies might be a good place to start.

In the words of Paul Bucheit (from his talk at Startup School 08), "I've never really had any problems figuring out what to do with more really great people... because they can usually just take care of themselves."
I think it's great because it will help young, budding engineers get excited about science and technology.
What's up with the down mod? I got all the info from the site... It does look really impressive...
I wish I could have seen one of the airplanes fly..
Yeah, hence the part about Paul Graham. Some people have audiences but not credibility. Paul Graham seems to have gotten his audience because of his credibility . It wouldn't be evil to do what you're worried about. It would just be dumb.
I've found personally I don't need to block the whole internet - just the top few procrastination websites - facebook, reddit, slashdot, bbc news etc. that I'd otherwise be tempted to read.

There's a Firefox extension called LeechBlock ( http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock.html ) that will do that for you, and allow fine control over how long or when the sites are blocked as well as the option to stop you simply disabling it during these time periods.

But you can still use the web for research.

(Hope it didn't sound too much like an advert, but it's helped me).
I love learning new metaphors for the desktop, although, all I can think right now is that cognitive dissonance would set in with this a little too easily. Even more quickly than what we have today for a desktop.

I do think it would be interesting to see how this model fits different types of people. Great example of an app that should be usability tested, as in http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html.

And this quote (from a recent thread here) I think applies just as well to desktops as it does to languages: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
>On a side note, now that I've seen some numbers I'm interested in learning more about becoming an investment banker :P

This was my take on it:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=179097
My personal experience has had erlang very poor at handling and manipulating large strings. By poor, let me be clear: slow and spending far too much memory.

We have to be honest identifying our tool's weaknesses, Yariv, even if we like them. EEP-009 (http://www.erlang.org/eeps/eep-0009.html) and EEP-010 (http://www.erlang.org/eeps/eep-0010.html) are extremely important for the continued growth and adoption of Erlang.
Startups: Create Press and Status Pages
What do they really do? They pass off shoddy reporting and questionable data gathering as facts to gullible people who work in large corporations.
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4sandbox/benchmark.php?t...
Ironic, but I came to HN (today) to find the discussion on Clay Shirky's "Where do people find the time?" [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=174410]. And then I saw PG's article.

Must be a sign. I need to stop finding ways to procrastinate and get back to work.
I've found that I get sucked into severe surfing mostly when I'm unhappy. Like when I move to a new city and don't know anyone, or broke up with a girlfriend, or had a shitty job, or have some looming deadline for work that I have zero interest in.

About a month ago, we started having severe problems at the startup I work for. The finances are a total mess and the boss has been irrationally taking it out on a couple other employees who are friends of mine. What's ultimately going to happen is a bunch of people are going to leave en masse, and if I don't go with them, I'm going to be stuck cleaning up the mess they left behind. After learning this, it sort of feels futile to do anything at work, and subsequently my hacker news karma has finally passed 1000! It leaks out into the rest of my life, too. I feel pretty stupid that I quit my old startup to work at this one. I really should be looking for a new job, or working on a startup idea of my own. However, general fear and bummed-outedness has been steering me to instead do stuff like stay up until 4AM reading the entire blog archives of all my favorite female musicians.

Maybe a bit too personal and self-helpy, but I haven't ever felt like I was wasting too much time online when everything else in my life was going smoothly. On the other hand, maybe internet time-wasting is an unavoidable job hazard of a VC who funds a lot of fun projects.
Paper wheels? How do you fold up paper wheels?

Reminds of robotix (remember robotix?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPMfm16zNjE
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but here's a guess at a Mac OS X version of the commands:

sudo ipfw add 1 pipe 1 src-port 80
sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 500Byte/s
Can't you use RescueTime?
Wish granted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDprAFI1UaI
On Outliers: What they represent, and why the central limit theorem is typically off
I'm curious -- what kind of string processing tasks did you try to use it for? Did you compare its performance to other languages? Also, did you try to use binaries?

Erlang may not be optimal for applications that do heavy string processing, but the significance of that statement is overblown. Take typical webapps for example. What kind of string processing do they do? Very light stuff. They spend of their cycles slurping binary data from the database and sending it down a socket. Erlang is excellent for this usage. They occasionally take form inputs from a user, in which case they do some simple processing to ensure the input is properly escaped. Erlang handles that just fine.

Most of the "Erlang sucks for strings" arguments remind me of the "Ruby/Java is slow" arguments. They're sort-of true, but they just don't matter for most applications.
Only a tiny percent of the population has the appearance, poise, voice, and snappy copy-writing abilities required for video. Actually, even national-level broadcasters still need a team behind them. You're assured of looking like an amateur if you do video.
Damn, I actually want that thing.
Some Thoughts on Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect and MySpace Data Availability
On a sidenote, have you considered giving away some other items? I only mention this because I have about ten million tshirts and pens from conferences and trade shows that I don't really want that are taking up precious room in my closet.

What I love are bags, although they're probably more expensive and are also overdone. Lately I've seen a resurgence in reusable general purpose (not messenger/laptop type) bags. With Whole Foods not having their awesome plastic bags anymore (that I like reusing, mind you), I always use the bags to carry around random things and groceries. I only wish they'd be handed out more often.
http://hotstartupjobs.com
Agreed. ObPlug: if you're coming to RailsConf, stop by my talk on MagLev (http://ruby.gemstone.com), which could certainly be described as "a persistence-aware programming environment" for Ruby.
Isn't that blatant copyright infringement? I mean, that cannot be legal.
i don't have a suggestion for a solution, but you should read this about the effects of noise pollution:

http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;yea...
His game might actually be fun. I remember thinking guitar hero was really stupid when I saw the miniature guitar...
The real tragedy is that a lot of people feel this way. And his insubstantial opinions, spliced with invectives, will persuade many more.
I think he means the equivalent of a "digg this" button."
Examples of Fibonacci Numbers in Nature
Normally we would, but the convention in question is GenCon, the largest gaming convention in the United States.

I know that a lot of people are tired of shirts (I know that I have several from companies that ceased to be), but at Gaming convention goers in particular people are more likely to than average to wear T-shirts rather than white dress shirts.

It also means they need to pack less clothing for the trip.

Also, note the success of sites such as StartupSchwag.. People are willing to Pay for random branded T's.
Five Basics for Building a Solid Financial Future
Spammer Anti-CAPTCHA operations and Mass-Mailing Strategy
Carl Icahn will destroy Yahoo
Can't bosses pay junior executives less? Can't junior executives leave and go somewhere else? Why don't market forces come into play?
One thing I wonder, there have been a slew of these articles which probably push (at least somewhat) people to use online services to store their life. Will customs agents ask for passwords to your gmail, facebook, etc? If they aren't doing that now, how long before they do?
that "if your boss is coming..." link is hilarious
Funny, I'm just the opposite. Machine noise doesn't harm my concentration at all, even if it's deafening. But anything resembling a human voice will drive me bats.
friendfeed #1. Twirhl #2. Twitterific #3. Twitter.com #4.
Seesmic is still in closed alpha so those who are using it are very much partners.
Lucas' original idea:  "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars."
"...then a submarine (plug for a personal investment)."

What? The way I read it wasn't a plug at all. To my knowledge, I don't think Paul has ever used RescueTime other than to poke around with it. Which is fine-- it's not for everyone. The way I read it was, "yeah there's software-- but my solution was a life-hack".

I appreciate the link (mostly for SEO reasons!), but I'm pretty sure that Paul could write an entire essay about RescueTime (heartily endorsing it) and it wouldn't have huge impact on our traffic (we've already been in front of many of the eyeballs that hit his essays).

Are you having a bad day?
[ ] The Great IPv69 Experiment.

[ ] Needs an RFC on preventing Rickrolling

[ ] Can hardly wait for the first IPv6 goatse

[X] Not looking forward to setting up localhost as 127.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1
Excellent advice. I solved 80% part of the problem two days ago by simply blocking news.yc at the hosts file level on my main machine. My laptop is now my news.yc machine. It is hilarious to have PG publish the same solution two days later. :)

I tried the noprocrast setting on this site. Reading between the lines of his essay, I surmise that PG, like me, has evolved around noprocrast. My lizard brain has figured out how to click the override button before my conscious mind can notice.

Most of the rest of the stuff I read is a few dozen blogs. They update through RSS, and there are few enough of them (and I skim quickly enough) that they aren't a big time sink. It's news.yc -- which tends to embroil me in writing -- that's the sink.

Of course, there are worse ways to waste time than news.yc. Sometimes you need to tell yourself that.
I love this idea. So many technologies have started and been pushed by porn, or the promise of it. If this can encourage users to call up their ISPs and configure correctly their desktop and router settings.
Don't worry, the particular porn genres they selected are also illegal so it all cancels out.
I'm not at the point where I need to disconnect my laptop, but during exams last week and the week before that I used this user stylesheet in Firefox:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(twitter.com), url-prefix(https://www.google.com/reader/), domain(news.ycombinator.com) {
body {
display: none;
}
}

It would have been easy to turn off if I had to (I didn't), but it worked great when I'd idly click a bookmark to one of these sites to be given a blank screen.
White noise. Free generators available in the form of software, or just a .wav that you can loop. Works well in noisy environments, and the white noise blankets all noise so that you get used to it and it eventually fades out - for SOME people. For others, it's just annoying.
I have a relative who drank alone. He drank himself to death when his kids were in their teens. Apparently nobody knew he was an alcoholic until he collapsed and died of liver failure.

I'll see your "seconded" and raise you 3e8.
Why not contact me personally if you'd like more details via Twitter or AIM (this name). The short story: An attempt at a distributed web crawler showed that Erlang's default string type was not suitable for large strings.

Please don't confuse this sentiment with any anti-erlangism or any assertion that Erlang isn't fantastic. I just want to be realistic, and I'd love to have faster string processing to make faster routing code for Fuzed (http://github.com/KirinDave/fuzed/tree/master).
I was not arguing about "prohibiting" third-parties to connect to your database.
a stacking app would help me, I already make littleclusters of icons on my normal desktop to keep then organized by type.
I wish I was able to afford to come to RailsConf, I was interested to visit it to be able to chat about MagLev and Rubinius specifically
One wonders how hard it would be to hack up a tool that enforced a time limit on sites that were flagged (by you, in Rescuetime) as time-wasters. You know, after 15 minutes on slashdot.org the hosts file gets rewritten to automatically rickroll all requests to slashdot.

I'm not sure if RescueTime has a public API, but I think it already has the triggers and warnings and feeds that you would need to drive this.
From the article: "One of our clients runs a network of very large adult oriented sites, who has agreed to "donate" several of their most popular videos from one of their sites for this experiment."

Assuming you believe that statement it seems they're on the up-and-up as far as copyright goes.
3 NJ Sex Offenders To Be Charged With Using MySpace,Facebook
I don't exactly see the US attorney stepping up to defend the copyright of whatever porn they are using. I just can't see the US Attorney releasing a statement like:

"Copyright laws exist to ensure the creators of content are motivated, and are integral to our economy. So that people aren't dissuaded from making more hot XXX porn, we are aggressively pursuing anyone who violated the copyrights on Anal Squirting MILF's. We assure you that many senior personal at the department have taken an intense personal interest in this case. We must seek out all infringing porn and restore the economic incentives to create and distribute this hot hot pornography at all costs."
How to repair a 230KV, 10 mile long coaxial power cable
it going to be combination on hacker news geared towards local users. So it will be whats going on locally. The site is just alpha now until it finished. Now I am outsourcing the project to oversea guys but I dont think there are as good as USA hackers. I prefer people here but I cannot afford it. So if someone want to be part of it as volunteer. I want to run it as non profit whereby people can donate only if they wish.

Just someone to help program little things here and there and support the site.

I change the logo too. Hope this one is nicer.
+1 for etys

I use the foam tips, it's too hard for me to get the triple-flanges to seal and the foam tips block an extra 5 dB though they don't attenuate perfectly evenly like the silicone tips.
Or, if you need full access (including web) to the local subnet, but wish to restrict your internet access, just remove your default gateway. I do this regularly with good results.
Adrafinil is a similar, but unregulated drug. Legal in the US without a prescription.

So, if you're planning on experimenting, at least avoid a felony charge.
It looks like it isn't easy to hack one, either. When not logged in, the upvote link is a x?fnid=<random chars> link which times out. When logged in, the link is tied to your userid, and presumably checked against your login cookie.
the writer is 100% right, the people who want to come on-board with only purpose of selling the company is not good , whether it is short term or long term. These folks to me looks like a joker and none of them have any skills that yahoo founders at least have it.
In Peopleware Demarco and Lister cite 1960s-era research from Cornell which found that having music on in the background did not interfere with logic or arithmetical thinking, but reduced people's ability to make creative leaps. Even if you think you're not listening to the music, part of your brain is being distracted by it.

There are many who find that white noise works better than music. And there are those who require music to get anything done at all -- maybe these are the exceptions that prove the rule (hey, it's psychology -- there are exceptions to every rule), or maybe they're people who would otherwise be really creative in finding ways to waste time instead of getting work done. ;)

But the Peopleware conclusion is that there really is nothing that's as good as actual quiet. That matches my experience, and apparently yours as well. Perhaps you need to do what so many other hackers are driven to do: Find the hours of the day when the building is quiet and work then. Or line your office space in soundproofing foam. Or find a quiet library nearby. Or move as soon as you can...

I second the recommendation of Etymotic ER-4P earphones, BTW, if there's no other option but to try them.
Oh, I should mention the bookmarklet, though, which allows submission of sites: http://ycombinator.com/bookmarklet.html. I don't use it, so I'm not sure if it upvotes already submitted stores. But I guess you could use its infrastructure to make a button. Something like:

<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u='yoursite'&t='yourDesiredTitle'"><img src="http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif" /></a> (untested)
Where To Learn Advertising's Darkest Secrets
10 Most Beautiful Looking Linux Desktops
And Richard Stallman:

For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time. [1]

[1] http://lwn.net/Articles/262570/
Or should I continue knocking on people's doors and complaining?

This will only drive you to madness. You have a few practical options, mostly already covered:

1) White (actually pink) noise generation. Cheapest way is to get a box fan and let it run.

2) Active noise cancellation. You can get Bose headphones. Sony Walkmans have built-in noise cancellation that works ok.

3) Best bet: Find a better place. Lots of buildings are designed such that noise is minimal. I'm in such a place right now.
Sounds great, but the site claims in a previous (January) update that they expect to roll out in February / March, and then has a March update claiming they are "in the final stages of preparation now. Launching very soon"... and has nothing since then, and the links don't work.

That's not a good sign, IMO.
Wow, it flies much better than i thought it would
I think they meant "The Google."
I used a poor person's variant on the 'internet computer' solution. I didn't have internet at home at all. If I wanted to get on the internet, I had to wander on down to a cafe and use their wireless. This took a while. In particular, it shut down at 12. One could continue to work by plugging in outside and kneeling in the darkness. If you did this, you were certain to have better things to do than procrastinate. I did get an awful lot done.

Sadly, it was only temporary. It was cold out there, I caught the flu, and decided I might like internet at home after all.