skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think you totally missed the mark on my target market. It's not aimed at startups. It's aimed at B2B companies, usually ones with sales teams. I actually had it priced much lower, but given what it does on the back end it wasn't sustainable. Also, I had many many people in the industry (including customers) telling me it should be priced 10X higher.

Concerning allowing users to give key phrases, and it pulling relavent posts/sites/etc, it does that too.

Email templating is nice to have, and you are correct, most businesses won't have more than 3-5 templates. But you'd be surprised how many variations you can come up with when you start emailing potential customers. Anyway, the limits that are there are the result of user feedback and monitoring actual use and interaction.

CRM add-ons are not useless. Again, you're missing the mark on the target market. My target market uses CRM, and it has come up a lot (mostly customers asking when Salesforce integration will be complete). Anyway, I originally built in CRM integration because I needed it ;-)

And finally, integrating email directly through the web app would actually be a detriment. Once again, this is a target market thing. Companies love that this "integrates" directly with their Outlook clients. They don't care that it was actually easier for me to do it that way. Quote from one potential customer (who is now an actual customer): "You might think about having it integrate with the customer's default email client like Outlook, because a lot of us in the industry use the built-in contacts feature as our directory and need it to go through that... Oh, it does?! I'll sign up today."
No the logic is, let's get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan first, and let's stop killing innocents/civilians in Afghanistan, and then, maybe, we'll worry whether it's "right" or "wrong" to publish these pieces of paper.
I think Groupon works on four things:

1) Provides immediate or near-immediate cash flow to businesses in a bad economy who do not necessarily have great options for raising capital quickly. If you sell 3,000 groupons for an hour-long massage, you're about to get a check for close to $100,000 sometime within the next two weeks. Your employees have to do some work later, whatever, that is $100,000 that can pay the rent and keep the lights on today.

2) Breakage. It will depend on the particular offer, but some portion of Groupons will be sold but never redeemed. Free money for Groupon and the business, what isn't to like?

3) Customer acquisition: many of the companies use the Groupon as a loss-leader to get customers in the store for either upsells ("dinner is deeply discounted, wine is available at the standard prices") or establishing a recurring relationship. Seen in this light, it is just another marketing channel, except one which causes positive cash flow right after you sign on the dotted line as opposed to negative cash flow.

4) Some businesses which offer groupon have unit economics where a marginal customer is essentially pure profit, and anything they can do to get a marginal customer is economically justifiable as long as it doesn't cause spillover effects to the main business. A lot of the service industry is like this: as long as you operate below 100% capacity, the cost of servicing one additional customer is too low to measure. (Beauty salons which pay salaries pay whether the manicurist has someone's hands in hand or not.) As long as you don't cannibalize your existing customer base, it is worth getting a marginal manicure customer at nearly any price you can negotiate.
Where we're going, we don't need cables.
Evite Introduces Redesign, Tries Not To Suck, Fails
http://hnrecap.com - Daily, Weekly and Monthly HN Summaries (Has: Its own point system, Instapaper support, Treemap visualisation and Archives). Thinking of maybe starting a weekly podcast!

Also a project in the early stages which aims to make it easy to find great available domain names for projects/startups. A lot of hackery going on here. :)
I can say that ugly sites often monetize better if I look at it though a domain name investor lense. Those parking pages which are specifically designed to make you click a PPC ad... little industry secret is: uglier=more clicks.

I don't know why, I could hypothesize all day, but that's just what years or experience and talking with others with experience tells me.
There is usually an API to lengthen short links. You don't need to assume they are bad.
Is it just me, or is The Washington Post getting worse?
For common code see git-submodule: http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-submodul...
Google, that would be evil, if you do it I would be breaking up and go search on yahoo, or any other search provider.

Second, all of this article seems to be filled with the word secret. We live in a democracy which depends in its very foundations on transparency. Even if it is two private companies, it just makes me utterly suspicious and default to guilty until proven otherwise.

Third, who on earth are these consumers NYT? Some sort of cattle you can chop as you wish like products? We are not "consumers" denoting some sort of robot stuffing his face!
Yes, this will work. Everybody listens to anonymous internet petitions.
That is absolutely not true. My roommate was a .Net contractor for close to 6 years for a firm in San Francisco. He worked on dozens of projects for clients including small firms all the way up to international banks. His resume is replete with entries where he describes what he did but is not allowed to name the company due to the NDA's he was required to sign before working on certain projects.

I personally used to work with a fellow years ago who worked for a server hardware vendor in the north east that had large companies(financial, aerospace) and government and military clients. He told me several stories where he went to non-descript massive underground data centers to do work that to this day he is not allowed to identify. On his resume, he too could only say the type of work he did and could not identify the clients due to NDA.
Definitely. It's just interesting to think about the possibilities. Things always happen for a reason. Maybe I should have added a disclaimer that it's complete speculation. If Google had made this type of deal with Comcast or Cox Communications there wouldn't be any room for wacky conspiracy theories because they have very little direct interest in any Google services or products. Verizon does. That's what makes it fun.
You are wrong to think that every large corporation is just a machine that purely maximizes income. That is very, very far from being an accurate description of Google. Over time Google may lose its current idealism. But as long as the founders have influence, I have faith that there will be an idealistic streak to the company.

Secondly you underestimate Google's willingness to go after relative niche markets. For instance as of 2007, Google search was available in over 100 languages. (See http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/08/internationalizatio... for verification.) Google translate serves over 50 different languages. (Go to http://translate.google.com/ and count them.) Many other Google products have been translated into dozens of languages. Lots of those have very few people.

In the mid-90s 1.3 million people in the USA were legally blind. That's larger than the number of speakers of languages like Basque or Estonian. Furthermore people who speak such niche languages usually speak other languages as well. If you've put the work in to internationalize your application and go after those kinds of niches, why not go after blind people as well?
" If the site caters to people looking to pleasure themselves, this is perhaps a problem."

Why? Because some people get bent out of shape at the thought of other people jerking off?
You can have all the demo information in the world. But if you're a new network with limited inventory, you aren't going to serve fine-tuned relevance.
The worse thing you can do to your kids is give them an excuse never to work.
It is a good company because it solved a problem, related to us, and held itself to a high standard and we rightly attributed it good qualities because in its inception and even to today it has been a good force onto the world.

The moment Google starts to focus on the money at the expense of other more noble principles, such as Don't Be Evil, the company will die a slow at first and then immediate death.

Google was disruptive in its inception. It had and still has much support because it stood up to Microsoft. But now that it has paved the way and there is little difference between Google search and Yahoo or MSN, what keeps most searchers, especially in the tech community with google is its image.

The moment they start doing some evil, such image is dead, and people will be on a look out for some other search provider.
No, you shouldn't worry about it. When I first moved to San Francisco I had an interview at Kink.com. I was expecting it to be a shady hole in the wall, but I was completely blown away at how technically professional the entire operation was. While I didn't get the job, it was one of my favorite interview in my life because of how high-level the conversation was. I had a long, interesting conversation with one of the employees about the Tor network when I was being given the tour around their studios. This was before they relocated to the Armory.

Good porn sites have all the same technology problems that any other popular website does. There's not really anything you do on the tech side of a porn company that isn't directly applicable to any number of problems other companies face. If another company gives you a problem about working at a porn company, then you probably don't want to work there anyway.

And if anyone reading this ever sees me at a meetup or other event, I'll tell you a funny story about Kink's Wall of Pain. =)
I am not actually American, I am from Australia, which supposedly has a comparatively good schooling system.

We have the same complaints here.
Quiz Monster and Friend Interview have a bigger userbase both international and in the US than Slide's apps. Granted I'm only looking at FB here, but IMO that is the only social network that matters. I work solo and believe that my apps could be run with just one educated rails developer. Isnt that a better buy than a smaller app that needs 100 eningeers?

And I'm not some special case here. There are a handful of Indy fb devs with bigger apps than mine.

This deal makes zero sense to me.
Does this solve recruiting? Hiring based on recommendations from others.
Why not throw a party
Yes. With a deployment tool that provides an audit trail, an easily searchable log with description of changes, locking, change reversion (not revision), and optional change management and code review. They should get read-only access to the webserver configuration and logs, but no actual write access in production. Just enough access that they can fuck up code in production, but enough checks and balances to make un-fucking the code easy for Operations. Obvious practices such as 'never deploy code Friday afternoon' and 'financial code requires change management approval' also help. Limited restarting of services allowed with big fat e-mail warnings to Operations and dev groups, with audit trail.
Mine's a WiFi-only 16GB model that I've had since day one. It's a pleasure to use but it hasn't really become indispensable to me.

The things it does really well are:

- Cooking using recipes from the Web
- Instapaper
- Tumblr (reading, that is)
- Watching ABC TV programs
- Reading eBooks (I've only done Kindle stuff so far)
- Catching up on missed TV shows via iTunes
- Reading instruction/repair manuals from the Web while using/repairing stuff
- WeatherBug
- Reading Apple's developer documentation

The things it doesn't do:

- Flash video, audio, and games
- Objective-C/Cocoa Development
- Multitasking (but soon, probably iOS 4.2)

If I weren't occasionally developing iPad apps I would consider selling it, simply because I probably have more useful things to be doing with $500.
...better process

more processes? Sure. But better? hardly

better people

never ever seen a company I've worked for admit a problem is because they've employed a bunch of twats; problems are always due to insufficient number of processes. Solution? More processes
Smartphones May Soon Replace Credit Cards
By and large, the human beings manning the security checkpoints are as squeamish about invading the personal space of another actual human being looking them in the eyes as you are about having your space invaded.

I think this is partly because they are still new at the game. In certain countries, hand-searches have been the norm for decades. And those officers don't feel quite as squeamish as you do while its going on.
If you had an apps account, you could have requested Google Wave. We got it a while ago.
Alyssa Milano is a UNICEF Ambassador now. She used to make porn.

Simply not true. You can't believe everything you see or read on the interwebs, you know?
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
Disk Warrior is probably the best application around for this, short of a hardware solution. I used it a while ago to salvage most of the data from a fried MacBook drive - it worked like a charm.
How do you do the four things you listed if all information is contained?
Remove shoes, remove belt. Walk through metal detector. Forgot to remove change, so metal detector beeps. Security guy asks if he can scan me with hand-held scanner and I consent. He sweeps it all over, oddly it beeps in places other than my pocket. But it also beeps at my pocket. Security guy asks if he can pat those areas down. I consent. Turn around. More waving, more beeping, maybe more patting down.

Happens to me half the time I walk through a metal detector. Recently, it even beeped when I removed everything I could think of - I don't know what caused the big and small metal detectors to go off. After a simple pat-down, the security guy was satisfied.

If a scanner can even eliminate the time spent doing that, then I'm happy.
Ask HN: How to give myself a raise?
Longtime HN'er posting anonymously. I run a growing, buzz-worthy web startup. We've raised a few million from a combo of angels and VCs.

I'm paying myself well below market rates ($55k in nyc). I realize that this is standard, but I'm having trouble living reasonably (it's nyc, after all) and would very much like to give myself a $10k raise.

The thing is, I feel bad asking my board for this. I've been putting in insane hours (they know this) and we've been getting good traction, but haven't hit any grand slams yet. And I feel like when I raised money from them my salary was an implicit part of the 'offer' of the company.

So, my question: what's the protocol regarding a founder CEO asking for a raise? Do most not get one till a liquidity event? Or is a certain % per year standard? Is this something I should push the board on, or is the normal protocol for the board to suggest it to me when the deem appropriate? Any wise words would be appreciated...
I'd like to see credit card send instant notifications that you can reply to reject the transaction. Assuming they can do it quickly enough, this could make it very difficult for even a clerk to use your card for anything but your purchase.
yet they still openly espouse net neutrality on their public policy blog, doublethink?

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Net%20Ne...
It's a projection for the types of people who like to believe in mottos ("Don't be evil", "Think Different", etc) but it's a double edged sword if they're going to ride that reputation (China, open standards, open platforms, etc) and selectively duck the responsibility at other times. You can't help but be disappointed for selfish reasons. It's like Superman saving you from a burning building only to let the Earth spiral into the Sun a few days later. Thanks a lot Superman.
What if putting a hundred's lives at risk saves a hundred thousand?
As opposed to now :(

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Net%20Ne...
I can confirm this. We have been using Wave with Apps since just after Wave launched. It took off internally for a while and then petered out, but it is definitely there. To get it, go to:

http://wave.google.com/a/myappsdomain.com
1. It is for restaurant/cafe/bar owners to get/engage more customers.
2. Why screencast? so that i can show demo to remote customers as well, also i can place it on my website.
> I hoped you've satiated your pedantry for today

Not quite :)

While many attribute the mis-quote to Jefferson, there is no written record of him making such a statement. In fact, there is actually no direct record of this coming from Franklin either. The earliest references were in an anonymously published book that referenced a letter from the Pennsylvania Assembly to their Governor from 1755 (when later re-published in Philedelphia it was Franklin who printed it...) At that time Franklin was a member of the Assembly and the quote does sound like his sort of wit, but the full quote seems useful and nuanced enough that we should remember it even if it happened to come from some other member of the Assembly that no one happened to remember.
Good comment! Finally info from someone who actually refused it and it's not a horror story.

Salon http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/08/04/body_... today bummed me out. They've got the right POV on it, but he's going along with the rest of the press just saying it's a new shitty reality we're going to have to get used to. fuck that!
It's kind of strange to see these - but it is especially striking as I share the surname "Caudill" with the #1 and #17. I never thought of it as very common, so perhaps I'm related somehow.

Some very neat photos in there though, and interesting to see the world/country in a different phase.
Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk, Unless this Happens t
This article http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/08/google_and... paints a slightly different picture -- it claims GOOG was negotiating with VZ to prevent others negotiating non-neutral deals on wireline communications:

"Specifically, Google and Verizon's agreement could prevent Verizon from offering some prioritization to the biggest bidders who want better delivery of content on its DSL and fiber networks, according to the sources. But that wouldn’t apply to mobile phones, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the companies have not officially made their announcement.

And Verizon could offer some managed services -- better quality to some Web sites such as those offering health care services, the sources said. But some analysts speculate that managed services could also include discounted YouTube and other services to FiOs customers at better quality."

Whether or not this is still "not being evil" is another question.
Sounds like the Windows Mobile app Netcallerid:
http://www.netcallerid.com/

It displays the caller's full address, known associates, whether they have FTC complaints, and the newest version will even pull Facebook and Twitter feeds for the caller.
Yes, I do. I come from large corporations, where studies have shown that when a site is slower, even by 50-100 milliseconds, your traffic WILL decrease.
When your site gets a million views a day, 2 percent is large.
Thats when you start to nitpick each and every part of your site that slows things down.
I use SASS/Compass because it's an awesome tool to maintain your CSS, however it's very easy to add alot of extra CSS (mixins and whatnot).
The reason I created this, was to find out if using @extend would perform similarly to the OOCSS methods, which are proven to perform fast.
I think it accomplishes exactly that.
I was under the impression that Demand Media's content was written by freelancers, not auto-generated.
A Biopunk Manifesto
Posterous DoS and Outage
Take the example of Xavier Niel, one of the most successful and popular entrepreneur in France. Read this article from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10442729, title "Former porn boss among new owners of Le Monde".

He did just fine. Just be ready for the label to stick (it's been 20 years or more, and you tell the key word from the headline).
I just checked two of those term deposits and they both require Australian residency. Can I get one of those without living in Australia?
Or a golden opportunity for Blekko -- if they can get the invites out fast enough:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/25568/
One thing I have learned from previous start-ups I've worked on is that choosing your partners carefully is extremely important. You really need to have worked with them before and trust them completely (trust both their honesty, and their competence). A bad co-founder can ruin even the most successful venture.

Right now I'm working on my venture alone because I just moved out to the bay area and don't know anyone out here whom I have worked with before. Sure, doing it alone is tough, but I'd rather do it alone than have a co-founder I wasn't sure about.

Are you thinking about starting something alone / searching for a co-founder? Feel free to shoot me an email if you wan perspectives on doing it alone. Good luck!
Rights are not absolute out in the real world. There are always tradeoffs, especially when various rights come into conflict with one another. The second amendment clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Does that mean that it is unconstitutional for me to be prevented from bringing an Uzi onto an airplane? The various political and judicial processes that have been established are how we balance these various rights to achieve some condition that most of us are satisfied with. Rights may not come from written constitutions or governments, but those creations are what we use to negotiate amongst ourselves when various rights appear to be in conflict.
You gave up a big chunk of your company (I am assuming). One of the reasons that you did so was to ease the pain of bootstrapping. Now I am not saying that you should be paying yourself 200K a year out of the gate, but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable. In NYC 100k developer jobs are a dime a dozen. Personally, that is what I would be pushing the board for, you gave up a piece of your company to not have to rough it, you should not feel guilty about feeling that way, you sold some of your company for money. On the flip side, don't expect the board to come to you about it, they are not going to initiate conversations about giving you more money. You will have to do that.
Classic Texts in Computer Science
The reaction to WL seems to be driven more by fear and a lack of control. I question whether the blowback from leaks is greater than the unintended consequences and misguided efforts of military action as a whole.

This issue is the result of what you could consider a natural process as access to information becomes more efficient. Just an observation.
It's probably more of a PR thing, given he's asked about Apple all the time.
How A Wired Magazine Story Morphed Into “Brain Eating Vaccine” In 3 Easy Steps
The Internet age/reputation paradox
It was (eventually) supposed to replace email

While it may have been able to do this if handled correctly, nobody was going to check waves recently when invites where superexclusive and you could only communicate with random strangers you found on the ars-wave, which you also found entirely by random trying to see if it could be used for anything.

Really. It was solid technology and very neat engineering, but there was no social incentive to use it.
I believe I read somewhere that research into tHz-blocking clothing was done along with the development of these devices. However, I doubt we'll soon see a booming market for metalized underpants in the duty-free zone. I too have thought about sending a harmless message through the scanner, but came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be worth the inevitable harassment.