skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm doing multiple things - I didn't want to have all my eggs in one basket, revenue-wise. I'm getting to the point where I may want to refocus on just one avenue again, but the issue of having all income dependent on just one source, then getting shafted, was painful. Diversification was a reaction to that.

I know what you mean about $9k feeling like a lottery win. As I said, I ended up suing, but it's likely going to be years before you get a trial, and assuming you get a judgement, you still have to collect.

One bit of advice might be to file in small claims court for whatever California's limit in small claims. In the state I filed in, it was $5k, but I wanted to go after the full $9k (technically, $8800 IIRC). It will probably get handled faster than a traditional court/arbitration process.

Get your documentation (emails, whatever) bundled together, file your claim, then move on in life (if you choose a legal route). If they're still operating (on a shoestring I guess?) there's still a chance you'll get a judgement, but it'll likely be years before you actually see a dime. So, don't think you'll be getting $9k any time soon.

I've planned my life around never collecting, but have put a process in place which might let me collect. But I have to operate financially like it's gone. Once you get to that point, and you're living without it, it might become easier to make the decision to not sue. In my case the company had a habit of operating this way, and I'm suing on the principal of it. In your case, if you were friendly with the guys, and you believe them to still be decent people, adding a lawsuit to their misery might not be the karmic thing to do.

Good luck either way.
10 years ago I would have put a lot of money on the farmers having difficulty selling to city dwellers because low literacy left them with no way to sell things except phonetically.

If the elites are hitting the literacy level of the lowest and least educated, it could be setting up a new par that more people can match. Why give a job to an elite when you can give it to some farm boy desperate for cash if they're both dependent solely on phonetic language.
It's also a pedigree, the web/Internet/startup industry equivalent of a Harvard degree. Even if your startup fails, the fact that you got accepted by a program known for screening quality of talent more than quality of the initial idea is valuable.
ASK HN: Do I have to be in America to make success?
Well..
Around 5 yrs ago, I had an idea for making a statrup.. I worked on it.. and developed it.. and I got thousands of users.. who were using my website..

I am from Egypt, and I had an American friend who supported the website.. by paying for it's hosting and all other related fees...

Around a year ago, I totally stopped working on it, and even it's shut down now..
My main problem was getting into America..

Whatever, I want to re-start this startup again.. but of course it's kind of impossible for a young Arab Muslim to travel to America (This is the truth regardless what you hear in your American media).. so I wonder.. is it possible to make a successful American startup, even if you are not in America? And is it possible to get acquired later by an American enterprise?

What gave me some hope again.. that recently an Arabian social network was acquired by Yahoo!.. which is maktoob.com website.. and that refreshed my dreams for making something successful..

What do you think?
It's very frustrating to be stopped.. just based on your religion!
Why not work with him to build an automated deployment system? Get the group to think a bit bigger - consider deployment (and possible rollback) a function that is an integral part of the overall system. Get the sysadmin working on system stuff and automated provisioning tools so environments can be replicated and performance tools, monitoring, etc - and have the developers understand that they are building something that has to be deployed by this tool. The decision as to who gets to push the "go" button is one the group can make - maybe it needs signoff by the sysadmin, maybe it can be overridden with a warning if necessary - etc.

These days it's cheap, especially in linux land, to manage and deploy proper development, testing, and production servers with automated tools -and time is better invested generally in working on those tools than manually provisioning things. It's a bit more work at first, but pays off hugely farly quickly.
Screw them over? Look at it another way. They shafted you, and others. They're in the habit of it now. They're going to keep on shafting until one day they shaft someone who really can't afford it. They could cause someone some real life tragedy, all in the cause of keeping a non-viable business going.

If you did start them on the chain of bankruptcy, you're doing a favour to all the people they'll screw down the line.

And if they're lying about money woes, you get something.

Better to kill the company before they cause some serious damage to a real person. I understand your reluctance, you probably put some of your heart and soul into it, but in the end it's just a company. You tried, they tried, but it just didn't work out.

Then again, having said all that, if I could detach my emotions from it I'd be a bit more selfish and take the advice elsewhere in the thread to negotiate a partial payment. It's probably your best chance of getting some money. But then again I wouldn't be able to detach my emotions, I'd go after the whole amount on principle and I certainly wouldn't have waited this long.

And the little twist, them buying you iPhones and sending you everywhere? That's people pretending to run a business. That's people being the big men, who think that's what a business should be when it's not. They pissed your paycheck away on frivolities. That was their choice.
Nikon D700 Guerrilla Style Billboard
Most Python modules follow Pythons lead on the documentation front, look at Django for example if you want to compare apples and apples, http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/

The documentation for Ruby itself doesn't appear to be much different then Rails, http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/ difficult to read and follow.

I've never needed a "cookbook" for Python, because the ingredients are clearly labeled and arranged and I'm already an experienced chef.
How about a web chat program, with long polling? Fairly simple, and fun.
I was in a touring band for a few years between roughly 2001-2004, during which time I was freelancing - literally coding in the van with my laptop and a GPRS card.

My band was relatively email savvy, but I regularly met bands that didn't contain a single individual that was tech savvy. If they had band email or a Myspace page, it was usually run by a "manager". I found this phenomena sad and scary, but it really was a culture thing.

I suspect it'd apply less to the electronic music folks, due to the inherent geek savvy required. However, tl:dr; I have a hard time picturing most of the musicians I've played with understanding the basic concepts of version control. Heck, I bet most wouldn't get it after the third explanation.

Musicians aren't dumb, but they are usually hung-over. Conflict merging is not punk.
When did reading books become a purely utilitarian thing? Interested in reading it? Read it. It's a good book. You don't have to do the exercises.
"And remember, they are the assholes..."

When you start to see the people as the problem, instead of the people in the problem, it can hinder your social problem solving. And this is as much a social problem as it is a financial one.

There is a chance that this can be resolved with (1) you getting your money back and (2) you still being on friendly terms, but probably not if you label them "assholes" in your head. :)
A language, like mine ;) pmlang.heroku.com
Is there any way I can get rid of the caption that tells me where I am? I think it would be more fun as a guessing game. Look at the local vegetation, architecture, and kinds of cars you see around, and see if you can figure out where in the world you are. (The street name is also a pretty big hint.)

I tried playing it a couple of times just by covering up the appropriate part of the screen. It's often surprisingly easy to narrow it down, but sometimes ridiculously hard.
I have enormous respect for Bell Labs, at least until they decided to kill non telecommunications projects.
Japan also has low crime rates compared to Europe and the US, so their lower incarceration rate doesn't necessarily mean much.
MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you
I'd suggest using Express.js node.js framework: it gets you up and running quickly. Trying to so something with websockets is fun as well and indicative of the (realtime) future of web apps.
Unfortunately, they weren't acquired for enough money to sufficiently offset VC liquidation preferences. To mitigate this problem, the company and its acquirer created an incentive pool to create a fairly decent "earnout-style" return for existing employees. Former employees holding common stock? Zilch.

This happened to me at the first startup I worked at. I lost $18K, which was about half the money I had at the time.

I don't know what to tell you. My other companies had reverse vesting... but those ended up being worthless as well.

My new rule of thumb is to not spend more than 5% of my cash reserves on an options exercise. (I have a lot more cash now, so this could still be a significant exercise)
Well,
I failed for more than 4 yrs.. and only since the last year, I started to see a results of what I was doing..

Of course I am responsible on this failure, but when you live in a poor country like Egypt, lack opportunity and education, and everyone is trying to stop you and call you a loser and never believe you.. then it makes me feel better that I am not fully responsible on this failure..

But when you make success, you just become so proud of yourself, and you look at those people who stopped you before and tell them: I was right about what I was doing, and here are the results!
Sorry, have to call this. Older people start businesses way more than young people (example figure, avg age of a founder is 39 - http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/...).

It's just they don't need the relatively small amount that YC invests because they have saved it themselves or have the kind of connections at that point in life where friends/family can invest it instead.

Still, all the stuff YC does for a new business apart from the money is pretty awesome. I'd apply just for that if I didn't mind moving to the US.
All fair points, and you could make many, many more. So could the other side. In fact, that would make for a great article, because people like you and me care deeply about whether innocent people are being killed arbitrarily. A fair, factual debate about how often that likely occurs would make for a great read.

Wait a second, isn't that what we just read? No, no it's not. If it were, the text I quoted could've been the title because, whether or not you're right, 99% is NINETY-NINE PERCENT and it deserves a goddamn explanation. That much we can agree on.

No, we didn't just read an article about the death penalty. We just read an article about the best way to abolish it. That article takes as a given that the death penalty is immoral and that it should be abolished regardless of the opinions of the nation's citizens. Whether you personally agree or disagree with those presumptions is irrelevant. It's irrelevant because, as you're well aware, plenty of people don't and you don't just write them off as stupid or unimportant. They're citizens just like you are.

To write the article we just read is to believe that their opinions should be ignored. The New York Times is telling you and me, "Anyone who thinks the death penalty is in any way acceptable is a hick or a redneck or a retard-- you know, the same people who DON'T read The New York Times. Not YOU though. YOUR opinion matters. We can tell because YOU read The New York Times. YOU think it's immoral, which is why YOU want to read an article about how to get it the hell out of here, opposition be damned. Isn't that right?"

Even Fox Fucking News doesn't report on, say, the gay marriage debate in this manner. They may be heavily biased to one side, but at least they concede there's a debate to be had.
With the new Kindle being 139, and the weight, I would pick that up over the Nook. The bookstore size is the killer for me, I would always go where Amazon goes.
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That would work just as well, I think.

There's a bit of serendipity in a big page like that, where you can learn more than you expected. But it comes at the cost of distracting you from whatever it was you came to find.
Thanks for your comment trizk. I think you capture what I mostly feel in my gut. I really do feel like the CEO really believes in the company to a fault. His gift and curse seems to be that of a hyper-visionary; what he sees in the company doesn't jive with my reality of the company. He has expressed remorse for the situation, but at this point he's lost my trust; I now read his remorse as mere bluffing. Not that I believe he was out to maliciously defraud, I just see this as the outcome of poor judgment and incompetence.

You are right, I did assume risk in joining the startup. That was not apparent to me at the time because it was not really communicated, but now I know. Looking back, I see a lot of "I should have known" moments. The lesson is that one should not look to the leaders of the company to look out for their interest.
Oops, I downvoted you when I meant to upvote. There is probably another incarnation or three before the one you linked, too.

I'd recommend Appel's "Modern Compiler Implementation in ML" over the dragon book.
Were we arguing? I thought we were discussing.

Patrick's built a nice business for himself but I spent the last ten years working with some of the people that wrote the foundational research papers on computer graphics, not building bingo card generators, so maybe we're looking at this from different ends of the pipe.
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg -(MZ Look-a-like)
Yes but thats a hack built into bash

The point of unix is to do everything in the file system then anything that can open a file can do everything
Other side? I didn’t write that comment because I’m on any particular side. I’m actually all for abolishing the death penalty but that doesn’t really matter. I think this is fine article about a Japanise minister’s campaign to abolish the death penalty, padded with some background info.
Thanks very much for your advice and sharing your story, it is really helping me think through this situation.
He gives 100% of what's left after his cut. In any case, unless there was a seriously marked decrease in performance I doubt most people would be able to detect the difference.
That 95% number is BS even though it gets tossed around frequently:

http://www.businessknowhow.com/startup/business-failure.htm

Apparently 44% of small businesses are still in business after 4 years.
Used car dealers, real estate agents, building contractors, even pool cleaning services, whatever: Whenever I hear something or see something questionable or confusing in a contract or agreement that's explained to me as "boiler-pate" or "industry standard", I now just assume that its institutionalized dishonesty designed to screw me and give it an extra careful look.
Sadly I'm still working on it.
Stop your frustration and forget about the world hating you because you are an "Arabic Muslim". US don't love you because you are a "poor", "third-world" citizen. Proof? Get $1 million and you'll access the states. Any country, really!

So the first thing is: It's not about who you are. It's about how much money you have.

You said your startup is a website (probably a kind of SaaS). If it's successful why not charge your users. Get paid via FastSpring (they take a fee, but deliver money to your card, bank, paypal... and manage your subscription). You don't need access to the USA. You only need to form a company in Egypt, declare your revenue, pay your taxes, pay hosting with your card (provided by Fast Spring). Hire programmers in Egypt (they are cheap) and get yourself off the ground.

Your main problem is getting into the US. But why do you want to get their? You actually don't, it actually add expenses and Visa problems. And with only thousands of users, you can live like a Prince in Egypt.
You come off a little strong in this post, even though I agree with your basic premise. I also found it ironic that your about page lists this:

Marketer extraordinaire and social media addict (this blog has been built to 2,800 subscribers and my Twitter has over 34,000 followers)

So, is building a social media following valuable or not? I'm confused...
Inspirational....
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None of that was about you, personally. I was explaining the importance of WHY the quoted section took 7 paragraphs to get to, not whether it matters. You and I aren't on different sides, no matter what your opinions. You and I are on the same side. The New York Times is on the other.
Thanks. Maybe I should change it, but, the purpose of that dot point was just to show I'm interested in these things.

And I promise that, when asked about bottom line results, my head will not explode.
This is seriously noticeable in other places as well. For example Ottawa. The place is over flooding with vast quantities of old engineers from the likes of Nortel. They come into job interviews with most of their experience dedicate to archaic languages and platforms invented for and at Nortel.

They generally believe they are worth a lot and should be entitled to everything they had when Nortel was at its peak. Unfortunately, they don't have relevant skills and are generally outmatched by new grads in programming interviews.

I find it both sad and enlightening. Having been the young guy who interviewed a lot of these, I certainly feel like I have a good clue on how to avoid it (don't become a lifer at an big'ol company).
I made a Tweet Wall in a day, with Socket.io (for websockets) and TwitterNode (for connecting to Twitter's real-time search API). It was a pretty good intro to the concepts.
I think you hit the nail there in that I'm really curious on how to solve the social problem in more of a win-win way as you described. I would probably break down and rank the problem like this:

1. Character - how do I carry myself with justice, mercy, and compassion, yet not get pushed around and maintain self-respect?
2. Social - how do I maintain relationships?
3. Financial - how do I get my money?
"(and find it far easier to do so than their younger and less experienced colleagues, since the tech industry doesn't innovate nearly as fast as the PR guys would like to pretend: older guys have seen a lot of it before, and can quickly identify genuinely new things worthy of further exploration and put them in context)"

This is when I like to point out that guys who were coding in Lisp or SmallTalk 20 years ago are looking at the "new" and "cutting edge" programming tools and languages today and wondering why it's taken everyone else so long to get here.
Web scale dev/null is going to revolutionize sharding.
There are successful people outside of the US, ergo: no.
I think that combining this short compiler tutorial with LLVM would be a very effective way for someone to get comfortable with basic compiler writing:

http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf

Afterward, learning how to do lexing and parsing would be a good addition. The tutorial covers a subset of scheme, which is trivially simple to parse, especially if you're writing the compiler in scheme as well.
Why do you have to move to America to develop a product that provides value to people everywhere, including Americans?

Do that, and I'm pretty sure those American investors will find you.
You don't need to incorporate to get an EIN. I got one for my sole proprietor LLC. I'm not sure about other states, but in Oregon it was a single page LLC application and a $55 fee. (It's now $100, I believe.) After getting the LLC registered with the state, I sent in the EIN form to the IRS, and a few weeks later an IRS guy called me to confirm a few of the line items. That was it.

I've created a PDF of my W-9 and have it available upon customer request. I strongly oppose the 1099-INT reporting requirement, but unless it changes there are a few things that will make it a little less painful.

(BTW, despite the stereotypes, the guy from the IRS was really friendly and helpful.)
IPhone App in Approval Limbo for 3 Months, Dev Decides to Open Source It
What about this particular startup required you to get to America? The world is a pretty big place and there's plenty of other places to work within that don't have the (hopefully temporary) political issues with your religion.
"The ability to convert detailed specs into code is a fungible commodity."

If you have a good programming language, the code should be the "detailed specs."

"But I would also say that 20 years experience will never make up for a lack of natural ability."

20 years of "experience" won't, but 20 years of dedicated practice will.
These suggestions, while normal on any other site, wouldn't work on reddit.

The real problem reddit has is that it's community, which can be amazing at times, has grown used to a great user experience when it comes to advertising - the lack of it that is. Just ignore the box on the right and the occasional sponsored link in the top box. Should a flash-based ad appear in the right-hand box there'll be a front-paged topic on it in an hour. reddit has treated it's users well, but they baulk at the slightest change in that - and herein lies the real problem to monetising reddit. reddit has to monetise while keeping it's community happy. Since community happiness and advertising seem to be pretty much polar opposites it seems to be impossible.

What I'd do is increase advertising aggressively for non-logged in users, reduce it greatly for registered users and keep the option to remove it completely for gold members. Hopefully those that really hate advertising would sign up for gold, however there is probably a correlation between those that make the most noise about advertising and those that wouldn't do that as they don't believe in paying for things on the internet - completely unfounded but a gut feeling.

> Sure it would piss off a lot of users...but it's not like people would abandon a site, just because there are a few more ads present.

Being a technical audience AdBlock (already is but) would be widely used rendering it useless. I know reddit was monitoring adblock usage at some point - I'd like to know the results of that.
It has always been interesting to me that, while I can certainly appreciate that more "clinical" aspects of Chopin...the technicality of the writing, the skill of great performances, the difficulty of the music, Chopin's place in musical history, etc., and I can certainly appreciate the beauty of his music, I've never been able to reach a place with his music (and generally with most of the music of the Romantics) where it "speaks" to me -- where I can make a connection with it.

I suppose it's because I've never found myself have an aesthetic chill to this type of music...but put on a decent record of Bach's Brandenburg 3 - allegro...and I feel instantly like the world and humanity was advanced forward two full steps by this one piece of music. Likewise with numerous pieces. But when analyzing the music, the clockwork precision of Bach's music "feels" cold and emotionless, sterile compared to Chopin, yet it's Bach's music that makes me feel an emotional connection and not Chopin.

But I know plenty of people who are the opposite. Who fall into ecstatic bliss the moment some Liszt or Chopin plays.

I've always wondered what this meant.

(that being said....Beethoven's 7th 2nd movement almost always leaves me breathless and in tears).