skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If he is running a successful recruiting business it would seem that there would be some kind of revenue share model as a part of the business partnership. The story doesn't add up but it sounds like he had an evolving feature set that was driven by a vision not by a focus on generating revenue he could split with a technical co-founder.
While I think your post is very insightful the problem for me wasn't really finding someone that wanted to work on my idea, it was simply finding someone skillful that was willing to risk doing a startup. I've never had problems convincing people to work on my (or their..) ideas, but I've always come across people that either didn't know what they were doing or quit when the going got tough. It probably has a lot to do with location and culture.

By the way, the added bonus of learning to program is that you'll be in a much better position to judge the merits of a technical cofounder.
Mixergy.com
Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen
Perhaps the site is trying to set a negative example, so it might be learned from?

Also peculiar, if it hasn't been updated in eight years, why is it using silverlight? [And regarding http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1606292 -- that lack of awareness could be considered a bug of silverlight's linux plugin itself.]
second the book.

I just started it last week and have come to really appreciate ruby. My code doesn't look like python anymore :)
exactly, they want people who get tons of credit debt, and pay the minimum every month for 30 years.
I started paying back this year, at my rate, almost 10 years but I expect to ramp up the payments in a few years.
J++ was missing several key interoperability features like JNI (instead it required idiosyncratic native code that no JVM could run) and RMI (it couldn't make remote procedure calls at all, unless you roll your own). And rather than sticking to their own packages, they deliberately poisoned standard classes (I think this even included java.lang.System!) with nonstandard methods whose absence would prevent your code from even loading on a conforming JVM.
Sorry, Microsoft, Intel, And GE--It's Startups That Create Most Of The Jobs
Yup. Apple stopped supporting the Java to Cocoa bridge because developers weren't using it. It is a huge uphill battle trying to make an App written in Java look good and run with a native feel. Apple doesn't like Java on the desktop because Apps look like this: http://twitpic.com/2djc4u

Apple still uses Java on the server. For example, the iTunes e-commerce back end is written in Java.
I think he is suggesting that a nebulously defined "Islam" orchestrated the rise and fall of an entire emirate as plot to convince people that "the West" is wrong?
In classic exokernel fashion... you have a choice! Someone can write a libos to handle that stuff however they'd like, or you can just go do the work yourself.
Does anybody else get ASP errors when trying to apply?
They had very weak notions of interoperability, which, given our history, we strongly objected to.

The trouble here is the assumption that Sun's notions of interoperability were inherently better and that it makes sense to appoint Sun as a global steward of interoperability. Given the history of what, making cellphones?
Sometimes an upvote is not compliment enough. I like your style.
Having intents without having a mechanism to specify an interface for applications that handle intents is the part that seems broken to me. As I said I have not been following android so I do not know if this has subsequently been addressed.
[citation needed]

do they really disclose that? That you would be better being a sucker for credit?
If we're generous to ourselves, it looks like a jump of ~5k in the page's analytics view (in a few weeks, I'm sure YT will mention us explicitly).

I wonder where else links were coming from?
i think the deluge of comments we're seeing from the math community is because the paper claims to solve one of the toughest problems out there. this wouldn't scale to findings of a lesser importance
Apps written in Java using the Cocoa bridge did not look like that, they looked exactly like Cocoa apps. Pretty much the point of the bridge, its eventual failure notwithstanding.
I'm interested in more detail regarding your comparison of Helvetica and Verdana, if you're feeling generous.
Factoring is not known to be in P. You're thinking of primality testing, specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKS_primality_test
heh. considering that a shell by definition must rely on other programs to do something, a simpler implementation can be:

#!/bin/sh
/bin/hadoop start-all
I graduated in 1993 with roughly 45,000 USD in college loans. I sent in my last payment in the summer of 2006. Since I had a year before I had to start paying them, that's about 12 years.
Zero seconds. I received scholarships for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and graduated several thousand dollars ahead.

I don't know what the numbers are elsewhere in the world; but in Canada over 40% of university students graduate with no debt.
If you really want to understand Dubai look at:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=google+maps+dubai...

It's a tiny strip of a few really tall buildings between the dessert and water.

A real city looks like: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1...
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1...
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=beijing%20china&...
or http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=New+Delhi&um=1&#...
It's probably more accurate to say that the loan you took and paid back was insufficient to establish a high credit rating due to insufficient history, rather than "wrecking" existing good credit.
The three things listed (money, promise of money and connections) are exactly what a business founder should be able to deliver. Along with customers. Paying customers. Before you launch the product.

If he (or she) can't deliver that, then you've found the business equivalent of a scriptkiddie that promises a business person he can build the next Google from a wordpress install.

People that think they are good at business is as common as people that think they can hack because they installed wordpress on a shared host.

Just like there aren't that many great hackers there aren't that many great business people. If you find one you'll know right away because he comes with either money or customers. Great business people are worth their weight in gold. Just like great hackers. Unfortunately the two don't often meet.
just like you would assume the job a web proxy does is manage files in memory or disk if you only experience was with squid? riiiiiiigth.
Leonard Peikoff on mosque near Ground Zero
...also close your eyes and imagine a line break there.
Just hope they don't try to replace you, and claim your life too.

The pen-light idea mentioned elsewhere is a nice addition to the notepad idea.

Most of my solutions so far usually regard trivialities. When a train of thought was genuinely worth finding in the morning, I would usually leave a relevant web search open on my phone (along with all the other things to not forget, or check later. Quite devastating is the browser choked...). Also, the display would be jarringly bright... Although, if it was a compelling enough idea, it would be enough to win me away from sleep.
Those are good ideas, and I experimented with those. I also appreciate that you actually looked into it and thought deeply about how this can be improved.

You gain a handful of characters you don't have to type.

You lose a lot of flexibility, however. For example, what if you want to use 2 different libraries in a template? Now, you cannot do that since the W accumulator is bound to one of the libraries, or if you do bind multiple ones then they may conflict in odd ways.

But maybe that's overstating the problem, worrying too much. Maybe it's okay that within each function we just assert that it can only use one library. I'll think about this more. I'm still a little worried it might be hard to explain. Do you think it'll be easy enough to describe to someone that W is both an accumulator and a library in one?

The dict idea would save a few characters, but it leads to problems with, for example, attributes that conflict with other arguments in the function call, or Python keywords. Even in your own example, you put className instead of class because class is a restricted keyword. It is important for me not to have to force the user to have to learn (and remember) that convention. Moreover, in this case of the class attribute, the most common kind actually, it saves no characters.
Everybody should get an email. Maybe it got stuck in a spam filter?
I guess it depends on where you work? Or doesn't it?
Commercial etc

Well, if the opposite had been proven, P = NP, there would be titanic commercial opportunities, but it seems to be the opposite (as most people suspected).
Please help, hotel marketing?
If you owned a resort or hotel and wanted your prices and availability listed on all the travel sites(wotif.com,hotels.com,expedia.com). What tools would you use to manage your listings centrally?

Intuitive, beautiful new age products would be great! Thanks for any help!
I spent the summer following college (also Canadian, btw) doing a lot of nothing, just generally failing to find a job. I moved to Halifax (from Kingston, ON) for a job in October of that year and when the dust from the move settled I owed about $22k ($6k OSAP, $10 CIBC Line of Credit, $6k Visa). That job lasted just shy of three years, and when it ended I only owed $4,349.16 (taken directly from the NSLSC website), so I paid off about $18k in 2y10m, for an average of about $530/mo.

As for the particulars:

* I went to college, not university, so you'll likely get a better job than I did, faster than I did.

* Starting salary: $38k

* Starting rent: $840/mo

* I flew home around 3x a year, for between $6-800/trip

Advice:

* With each pay, I'd pay minimum payments for my line of credit (smaller interest), and throw everything else I had (except rent) at my credit card. This is important; if you owe > 1 creditor, pay down the highest interest debt first, and pay minimums to everything else. This way, you minimize the amount of interest you end up paying overall.

* If you're used to having roommates, you might want to consider keeping that arrangement for a while. Take advantage of "living like a student" while you're still used to it, even if only for a little while. You'll save a lot on rent, and you won't miss the luxuries you've never known. This is pretty much how Alexis and Steve started reddit, incidentally. They just kept on living like students to minimize expenses.
Just for nit-picking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature
I don't think africa is alone in being behind the 8-ball in the creating a global scale company (which I take it you mean world-wide adoption and not just huge locally). Even with the greatest talent and product, it would still be hard.

No one is looking to africa for the next big thing - this is a huge problem for any company - how can you get to critical mass if no one is paying attention to you.

I am sitting in a beijing starbucks writing this and thinking about the global brands; there aren't that many of them.
It sounds like Chile wants to build up their software industry. Sounds to me like a very good investment on their part, and a win-win for everyone concerned.
Theere's obviously a lot of parasitic business "idea guys" who don't know about technology this article is talking about.

At the same time, there's a lot of business guys who can bring real, tangible value in terms of strategy, customer acquisition methods, marketing, finances, etc.
I think there'a huge misconception that all it takes to build a company is a couple hackers who can build a product.

Building the product is NOT the hard part(except the rare case where there are real technical challenges). Building a business is the hard part.

If you really think about it, most startups don't fail because their code isn't good enough. They fail because the founders are absorbed in engineering and neglect the business parts like marketing, monetizing, and so on.

I'm kind of on both sides, as a hacker who's better at the business/marketing elements, so I have perspective into attitudes on both sides.

I may be taking a risk making this comment on Hacker News, but I think in some places, it's actually coders who are a dime a dozen. People who can actually build and grow a business are much harder to find.
Right, I also paid off my loans within two years, and it doesn't seem to have affected my (very good) credit rating negatively. I've also had a credit card in my name (with my dad as guarantor, at first) since I was about 16 -- and he has sterling credit. That helps a lot.
As a technical architect / software engineering type person, I've helped out more than a couple of startups for equity, cash, or a mix of both. Have I done the "co founder" route? No, for two reasons -- first, the risk in focusing on a single idea and hoping for success -- I haven't run across such an idea that I am willing to dive whole hog into; and second, there are two phases to getting a startup going - the initial proof of concept and the engineering behind the actual service. I enjoy both, but the work needed for one is different than the second.

At this point, I am always looking for new ideas and interesting startups to help out. However, I am erring on the side of mercenary rather than owner. That is not to say, I don't wholly to commit to endeavors, but the ideas that interest me and the ones that provide opportunity to help out don't necessarily intersect.
I did the unthinkable and worked full-time for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees. I walked away without debt. It was hard, but I recommend it over taking on debt. There are other benefits, such as finishing school with working experience and learning how to master time management.
I get approached from time to time by people who think I'd be the perfect person for implementing their Big Idea. (That should be red flag number one, since if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying programmers.)

Almost universally:

1) They want full-time effort out of me (often, in the exploitative sense of "full-time"), but they're not full-time on the project themselves.

2) There is zero evidence that they have produced a deliverable for the project. Not even a Powerpoint deck or a napkin.

3) They have no conception of what the BATNA for a talented engineer sounds like. My way to discourage them quickly without being impolite is to quote my consulting rate, which typically causes sputtering.
Fattest States 2010: Mississippi is #1 for the 5th year in a row
China also vastly larger than Dubai.
Does More Posts = More Traffic?
Thanks for the high volume of info - this is exactly the kind of data I was hoping to see.

The thread seems split between "<4 years" and "7-10 years", or close to. I am curious whether it's primarily lifestyle choices, income mismatches, or what that's causing the gap.
There's at least one big new RFS in the works. Existing ones still apply.
Germany seems to be doing fine, and never had a problem with loans (at least not with loans to domestic borrowers). Let's see how they fare.

I guess as long as the Chinese are buying capital equipment, Germany will be fine.
Did you apply under this username?
Economic Evolution:

Agrarian -> Manufacturing -> Service

Web-apps are Service sector. African countries need to start displacing Asian ones as manufacturing centers before we can even start talking about foreign venture capitalists wanting to invest in African tech-service startups. If the company targets a global audience because there is not enough local demand for web services, then why is it based in Africa?
"Business Cofounders" in the HN context implies that these people should be of real value. Perhaps the title should have been "<fake;pseudo;micky-mouse>Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen".
Laser-Scanning Backpack Creates Instant 3-D Maps of Building Interiors
I like the idea, but you've got a lot of work ahead of you.

First and foremost, your design is lacking. I'm not good enough at design to explain exactly what's wrong, but I can kinda wave my arms and say it needs more texture, some richness. You need a design partner on this with some illustration skills, I think. The grey and orangey-pink isn't working for you. I think for a site like this, you need a bit of richness. A nice picture-frame for your users, without being too overt... If you can't get somebody with enough graphic skills to chip in, maybe you need to get starker. Black and white and one bold accent color, maybe.

Most of the links are broken when I'm not logged in. You need to be super-friendly to non-logged in users. Talk me into doing some work putting together some awesome catalog of what I like to wear, so I feel like I'd lose it if I don't create an account. Maybe you have that already, and the broken links are keeping me from seeing that.

If those are actual people using the site, and not models, you've got to have some of your less attractive and model-looking friends provide you the initial seed ;)

All that said, good luck! I've been pondering how there are possibilities for some sort of fashion site like this. I was thinking more along the lines of having people assemble clothes from Amazon and then running daily contests for best outfit... Buttons to share via facebook and twitter, all that stuff. I think what you've got here has a lot of potential! Sort of a wardrobe reddit...
He even says in his bio: "In addition to recruiting, Michael is active member of San Francisco's open source software community. He organizes events aimed at teaching people about technology, is a teaching assistant for Ruby on Rails courses..."

Mind boggling that he is an active member in the SF open source community and still thinks that developers don't work for free on worthwhile ideas.
The US will always be able to pay debts in US$. At least as long as they can live with inflation.
If the idea is so great, I think he should be willing to put some money into hiring a developer to work with him -- and probably shouldn't necessarily call that person a cofounder unless he wants to give them equal say in the direction of the product.

I'm a business person first and wannabe hacker second, and I think the thing that is missing here is respect for someone who can do things that you can't. The main reason I've been learning to code isn't so I can eliminate the need for someone who can... I know I'll never be as good as someone who has spent their entire career learning to build software. I just want to speak the language, understand what is hard and when to call bullshit or just how to ask better questions.

If you're looking for someone to code up your dream website, go to oDesk or to a friend who needs some extra cash to bootstrap HIS startup.
Scheduling Tweets is Not Marketing
I live in India and from my perspective, everybody is a dime a dozen, until they think hard and work hard to distinguish themselves.
The article says students were only going to receive their SNP profiles for three genes (lactose digestion, alcohol digestion and folate absorption). I can't imagine how access to this information would radically any student's life paradigm. This sort of demonstration would've vastly increased my interest in first year introductory biology. It's unfortunate that such a great educational opportunity has been lost.
HP netbooks only designed to last 15-24 mths?
http://techcrunch.com/
www.steveblank.com
www.startuplessonslearned.com
1. Before we stopped completely, we would get two kinds of orders:

a. Orders over $1000 to Fancy Sounding Expediters Co XYZ Address Nigeria

b. Smaller orders to <Big Oil Co> <Some Compound> Nigeria

I shipped one and only one of type a. This happened in ~2001. I took this hit as a business 101 tuition fee and stopped shipping this kind of order.

I continued to ship to people on compounds working for Shell/BP/etc. During this time, I got my rough sample size. For every 3 of this kind we would get, we'd get one of type a. It was years ago and it could have been 2:1 or 5:1. It was not 10:1.

After a few months of this, the "type a fraudsters" figured out the pattern and we started seeing smaller dollar orders to "compounds" come back fraud. At this point, I just shut the whole thing down.

The way this works now is that someone in Nigeria in a big oil compound will order to their home and have someone forward it. No USA address, no shipment over.

2. Exactly so. If government won't fill the trust gap, perhaps a private enterprise can. They would face a steep challenge. There has to be enough money in Nigeria seeking to buy goods internationally but unable to because of people like me for it to work. Is there enough "domestic pull" to make it viable?
I completely agree here. I learned long ago that if I built something that I thought was cool, it didn't turn to dollars.

The best hackers absolutely need to find a great business partner. Unless they can wing it on their own. But personally, I hated the doing all the BS it takes to bring a product to market. I just want to build cool shit.
Why is California such a big place for startups? Is it "just the way it is" since Silicon Valley started?

There are other places in the United States that are much cheaper to operate (live), and in a much less aggrivating political climate, than California.
Building a business requires quick iteration on ideas. Quick iteration requires building products quickly. One of the qualities that separates good and bad hackers is speed. Not many startups fail because their code isn't good enough, but many startups fail because they run out of time to find the right product because they haven't been executing quickly enough. Lots of those startups might have been saved by better hackers.

My point is that you are right to say that building a business is the hardest part, but you are wrong to suggest that "building the business" is something separate from "building the product", or that success in the former does not crucially depend on the latter.
Ask HN: Is it safe to assume IE users don't care much about design?
I'm developing a web app and optimizing for IE has been hell as most of you must have experienced, is it okay to assume that IE users don't really care about the cool CSS3 effects?
I'm a software engineer. After spending a few years in Silicon Valley, I have also have met many "business people" who'd pitch me their great idea and try to recruit me.

Now here is the tough question (for engineers): yes, we have the superior ability to execute any idea because we can code. But are we actually going to? This might be generalizing, but most fellow engineers I met prefer working for a stable paycheck -or- prefer hacking a prototype project that never ships. And pet projects started by the above mentioned people (without that business person who pushes them) never get to see the world -- even if the prototype website, iPhone app, etc. is finished, they spend no effort on marketing and give up when no users come.

Again, this is generalizing. There are many examples of hackers who have built very successful ventures (Google, Facebook, et cetera.) But my general observation makes me sad -- many engineers just don't seem to make good founders. What can be done in the engineering community to make hackers more "business-minded" or "shipping-minded," so to say?
There are some success stories. Cisco uses it for their ASDM client:

http://imgur.com/hvGxp.png