skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I honestly believe that this is the difference between Apple and the rest of the competition. You see, the secret they have to their products is that they realize that most people don't have any idea whatsoever what the hell a frikkin' mp3 file is. Neither do they know the difference between lossy and lossless conversion. They are intimidated by all those fancy buttons on the screen and are too scared to try anything just in case they break something.

Steve Jobs recognizes this and that's his genius in a way. So, instead of creating a widget that does everything they choose to make a widget that does everything the user wants. There's a subtle, but important difference over here. Only a small subset of their users want extensive options so that they can put FLAC and other stuff onto it. Those are the users who fret about the product to the nth degree and they know that they don't exist to serve them.

So, they pick a feature and implement it in a way that those other users (80%+ of the market) know how to use it, and that makes all the difference. Just look at enterprise software and how hideously broken it is. You have SaaS that try to do everything at once which directly results in their users doing nothing at once. This instead causes grumbling against the software and in the longer turn your sales go down. The hardest lesson in business, I think, is learning how to bite the bullet. No one wants to admit that their software can't do something. So, they rush and put the feature in to satisfy themselves without checking if it works or not. Big mistake. What's worse is that it is so ingrained in us that we don't even realize what damage we have done.

What I am trying to say is that it's perfectly fine to not have the insanely great feature X, but it's inexcusable that the user has to read a 300 page manual to use feature X.

This is why I suggest everyone to read the Apple Human Interface guidelines. They aren't perfect, but they've gotten quite a few things right. (see: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExp... )
That particular example, though, is a strong one. McArdle wrote: "Warren and her co-authors defined anyone with $1000 worth of medical bills as having a medical bankruptcy". In fact, the paper used multiple criteria, one of which was $1000 in uncovered medical bills. This is not a pedantic difference, so far as I can see; there's a big difference between having $1000 in bills, some of which is covered, and $1000 in bills, none of which is covered.
So these people think they are better predictors of the future than all the people who failed, even though they probably never made a serious prediction themselves? They believe something is never going to happen just because it hasn't happened yet? Sounds highly irrational to me.
You're making an awful lot of assumptions but since this is HN and not a gay webmaster forum, I'll bite.

you can get .05 a click, but it won't matter if that particular keyword converts at 1:200.

Just because it converts at 1:200 for you doesn't mean that that's the rate for someone else. 90% of marketers can't make dating work on facebook, but the rest of the 10% make a killing. If you take their average CR, it'll be something atrocious (not as bad as 1:200, but bad nonetheless), but it makes no difference for those 10% of marketers. My point is that industry averages don't mean anything. It comes down to how good a marketer you are.

I know the mechanics of the industry...nothing can actually convert at 1:10.

Then we are in different industries.

ESPECIALLY if you do ppv and media buys like you say.

80% of my traffic generation is via media buys, 18%-19% via ppc and 1%-2% via ppv.

Hell...most products don't have 1:10 conversions for the actual order form.

Again, this comes down to the marketer. If that's all you can pull in with your landing page and copy, then that's all you can pull.

So you are going to tell me your colleagues are converting at 1:5 for an ebook product? How about 1:1?

1:1? No. 1:5? Yes. But they care more about the CPC and EPC than the CR.

the only way you can actually get 1:10 conversion rates...is if you do VERY targeted CPC...which usually means you are getting low volume(which explains the 40 cents CPC).

Of course I laser target my CPC, only a newb marketer wouldn't. But while low volume = low CPC, the inverse isn't necessarily true. It comes down to the marketer - a newb will pay $5 CPCs but an experienced one can get high volume traffic at a 10th of that price.

How many actual sales do you have every month at that 1:10 conversion rate?

Here are my numbers for July (rounded from memory) -

price of ebook - $8
visitors - 71,000
CPC - $0.40
expense - $28,400
CR - 10.9%
buyers - 7700
revenue - $62,000
EPC - $0.87

My advice is still the same - try not blanket everyone in a niche with your experiences or the avg #s for that niche. There's a reason why 90% of marketers barely make any profit and see dismal CRs and EPCs. It's because the rest of the 10% take everything (ever hear of 'Truth About Six Pack Abs'? that ebook's author used to net over $500,000 a day while the majority of the marketers in the health/exercise niche were barely breaking even.)
That makes me wonder if we should use that exact metaphor to explain computers/software. Your computer is a suitcase. Everything you do packs your suitcase. If you want to get a new suitcase, you have to unpack the old one and pack the stuff into the new one.

Not really sure what software would be though.
Ask HN: Do you work in a traditional hacker field?
I work in Fashion, and think there might be an advantage to being a data driven worker in a style driven culture. Does anyone else bring hacker ideas to industries that usually don't use them?
Gambler's fallacy
Serious question: How will you make money?
This is an open community, so you have power to make positive changes. Your post is a good start. There are several simple things that could help alleviate the problem. Point out the guidelines[0] to bad offenders. Subscribe to interesting blogs and submit the best posts. Flag content on the front page that needs to be flagged. Try to write insightful comments. Firm disagreement is fine, but try not to be a dick. Don't upmod dicks. And most of all, set a good example!

[0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It seemst hat MobileMe is getting a biometric update huh?
Ask HN: Why do web-startups need tech co-founders?
There is alot of talk about the importance of technical co-founders in web startups.

And yet, during a long conversation I had with a group of "founders", I could not manage to explain the rational behind the argument.

Their view was:

1. We get some seed money (they had good connections)
2. Hire a designer and developer
3. They build the site
4. Later we keep them for support and improvements (and maybe hire more to expand)

How would you explain to someone why a web company needs a good technical lead (preferably co-founder) and can't just go "hire someone to write the site" ? .. or maybe they dont ?

EDIT:
"In other words, what can a co-founder do that an employee cant ?"
Sinclair PC200: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=...

Learned Basic and then Clipper.
You'll spend at most 15 dollars a month on drinking water in those countries, they're doing it wrong!
Mentioned in the article, you can get free room and board in some amazing places in return for your labor. Check out http://www.wwoof.org if you're interested.

My folks have spent a month Italy each of the last 7 years, at virtually no expense beyond the airplane tickets. They work on an olive farm, and stay in buildings constructed in the 1300s.
And the most scary flying in a plane.
This drives home an important point: newspapers/media just like to tell a good story. They are less interested in "business fundamentals", but in outrageous things.

It's cool that they also mentioned the other projects by the same person.
I agree it depends on how much you think you're going to modify. In any case it might make sense to wait until all the bugs that aren't caught until widespread adoption have been fixed.
Realize that a plasmid (what they are creating and injecting) is usually a loop of ~4000 base pairs while your DNA consists of ~3 billion base pairs. That's not much shell code, especially when we haven't found a shell to run.
I'm pretty sure someone's on it by now. This definitely looks like a killer idea.
Presuming you are a architect of buildings, not software and want ideas for getting into software.

Given skills you already have, you could probably do QA, documentation or support at a company that makes architecture software. Once there you could learn other skills, like UX design or find ways to add value with your understanding of aesthetic design.

Not sure what part of the country you're in -- so hard to make concrete suggestions for companies like that, but there are many if you expand what "Architecture software" means. I sometimes see this sector called AEC

http://www.aecinfo.com/
Ask YC:  Y Combinator vs Angel List.  Who wins in a cage match?
In 2-3 months, it will be time for me to do the funding dance for http://Newsley.com. We're building a better Google News for business, and financial news.

Top two options for me at present are a hand full of angels I know, or YC and Angel list. I know a bunch of YC companies via the http://HackersandFounders.com Silicon Valley meetup I started. So, I've heard those stories.

I'd love to hear people's stories and thoughts on applying to YC vs applying to Angel List. Are there pros and cons? Has anyone had awful experiences with either? (Get a disposable username).

I have yet to hear bad juju in discussions about either group, by people who have been through the program. I'd love to hear stories and perspectives.
If anyone has also used Nezumi (http://nezumiapp.com/ ) I'd love to hear a comparison.
China traffic jam enters Day 11.
Jumping from 35,000 connections per node on an EC2
Small instance to over half a million on a single
EC2 Large...

You moved the goalpost. I think the conclusion would make a lot more sense if you compared apples to apples when it comes to your server... either test everything on a small or on a large.
McArdle didn't distinguish between covered and uncovered bills in her writing, and given the context (covered bills can't push someone into bankruptcy by definition) it was pretty clear she meant uncovered bills. So yes, the author is being pedantic for insisting that something that was clear from context be spelled out.
You are awesome....where's my $10?
How Sex Hurts the Workplace, Especially Women - Sylvia Ann Hewlett
I wipe ass and save lives as an ER nurse working the night shift. I'm constantly dumbfounded at the tremendous systemic problems in health care, and I want out. Which is why i started http://Newsley.com
Integrity in conducting scientific experiments? Now there's an idea!
Don't buy things you can not afford

While true, in the way you use it, it's a gross oversimplification. e.g., I can afford my house but there is no way I could pay cash for it and I'm simply not going to save for 20 years to do so.

In short: just because you need credit to buy something doesn't mean you can't afford it. On a site purportedly aimed at entrepreneurs, it's disheartening to see how many people really don't understand the usefulness of properly managed debt.
Don't forget that http://hnofficehours.com exists as a way to let people get ahold of you and to indicate when you're specifically available to chit-chat. It also helps in finding people with specific skillsets.

Disclaimer: I worked on hnofficehours with ezl and guz.

http://hnofficehours.com/search/ if you want to search for a specific subject/skill to discuss with someone. You register for the site using your existing hackerne.ws account like hnhackers.
I went back and looked at your original post. You said Bear that in mind when considering arguments she makes.

Based on this, I think I may have been a little harsh. You didn't cite specifics in her history, nor did you make specific objection to the argument or facts of the OP. However, you also didn't explicitly say they're wrong; you advised vigilance. As there's nothing wrong with that, I now think I owe you some apology.

That said, I still believe that you came across like a partisan mudslinger. And I stand by my claim that an effort to defeat an argument by addressing its author rather than its argument or facts, is by definition an ad hominem attack.

If you go read the OP, you'll find that it's really an exercise in balance. There's not much factual in it, nor does there need to be. Nor does she really come out on one side of the argument or the other. All she's saying is that the situation isn't as simple as "the government identified a problem and fixed it for us", and I think she makes that point well.
I wonder if he gets into editor wars online. Heh.
Link to project page: http://www.haystacknetwork.com/
As much as I enjoyed the article, the title is simply too SEO for my stomach. "Money"? Check. Famous guy's name? Check. At least 10 words? Check.

I miss the long-gone days of clever, concise and original titles for stuff.
Developing a web application is a very twisty road. There are a number of assumptions that you'll be making about your market, the problem that market is facing, the solution you think can solve that problem, and the channels you'll be using to market your solution. Is it possible to pay someone to be on staff to execute your changing specs and meet your ever-changing use-cases? Sure. But it's going to cost you a lot of money. It'd be better to have someone who has a vision for solving the market's problem who has the technical chops to execute on the idea and to be flexible when your needs change.

Put another way: Launching the app is really only the very beginning of the process.
A pdf for those without a nature sub: http://www.shawndouglas.com/publications/19458720.pdf

Figure 4 is the takeaway: assembly of simple components into complex structures.
If they have some experience managing technical projects, it could work -- there are certainly people that do that. It depends on how much the technology is going to differentiate the product. If it's a straightforward implementation, it's fine.

Having a tech co-founder is cheaper in the short-term (for the same skill level). It's only more expensive if you are successful, and it might make that more likely.
Hmm... I tried the app but encountered a few problems:
- I could login with one account but it didn't show any apps
- I added a different account but got the email address wrong so I deleted it again but this crashed the app

:-(
"Linking to PG's older posts to help you make a point."
The notion that this is bad is baffling. Citation is central to all serious science it also has a place in other forms of (rigorous/serious) thinking. If a scientific article proves something you cite it. If I think you're wrong in a way described by someone else, I'll cite that. This isn't as neat. You prove very little. But you do show what you think about the matter. The aversion against doing this (wich is normal for those who spend a lot of time reading and thinking about for example policy) is strange. It's not an appeal to authority if you agree with it, if it can serve as a description of your position. The fact that pgs essays in particular get cited alot may just be that 1) a lot of people here have read them 2) they're densely argued (you don't expect a lefty to read hayek cause you say he should, a paragraph of a pg essay is more reasonable and 3) they are carefully argued, wich makes it more likely you'll agree with it than more bombastic works or works built on the assumptions and arguments of other people (wich isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does create additional points of failure)
The Compound Case of the Outlook Hangs (Mark Russinovich)
Excellent! I thought name looked suspect.
> more than anything, this seems like a feeble attempt at a rich person to do something they consider "crazy" so they can have a cool story to tell their friends over caviar. "oh wow, look how dirty i was! ha ha!" this guy needs to get over himself.

Actually if you read the other entries of this guy's blog, you'll see that he is genuinely curious guy
Bad advice. The body doesn't adapt to hepatitis, salmonella, spoiled meat and the like.

Don't think the locals are not getting sick and dying either. They are. Diarrhea is one of the leading causes of death in the developing world.
The time-boxing ensure this stays at the hobby level, and regularly project B becomes difficult too to kick you back into project A.

I too do exactly the same. Most of the time it's some quick rails app[1] or some server side scripts that do something I never did before (like parsing mails, pg stored procedures or some jquery[2]).

Do you have some links to your side projects/no-burnout-work?

[1]http://diffuse.it/ (a blog that is actually used by me, my girlfriend and 2 friends :))

[2]http://31337.it/
I think it might have been Richie who said about vi that it was designed for an age and technology that simply don't exist anymore.

It's a sentiment that can be applied to ed as well. ed is designed for a time when bandwidth was minuscule and every one wrote their programs out on paper for the first dozen iterations. Of course you didn't need to see the state of the file, you had it on paper in front of you. All you needed was the state of whatever line number the compiler was choking on.

Today everyone (for most values of everyone) composes in the editor so we need an editor that is good at composing as well as editing.

and composing strongly benefits from context.
These "founders" are the modern equivalent of land owners looking for naive/desperate share croppers. Disgusting. It really comes down to labor politics to me. For the majority of web start-ups the "means of production" are entirely in the brains of the people slinging the code. So what sort of jedi mind tricks are they pulling where they convince people that they should somehow keep the majority (or all) of the equity? Learn to code, learn to value those who do, or go open a multi-level-used-car-dealership-scheme.
Malaria, dengue fever, amoebic dysentery and similar diseases have done in an awful lot of Europeans who followed that advice in the tropics.
Fascinating, it's amazing what people can do under severe constraints.

I just finished my second JS10K entry (also a game, but much simpler) in about the same total time (though spread over more days).

I found the hardest part was to balance playability of the game. I played it so many times while developing it that what was easy for me turned out to be very difficult for others.
See my other comment: it's not actually 'innovation', but who ships quicker and cheaper with newer, fancier gear.
Did I say law? No, I want my children to have the same gift I was given - an education. I would hope most parents would want that for their children.
You're awesome, too. There, I saved you $10, go buy lunch with it.
When people by my app, they're automatically upgraded on the server and they get an email that says "Just restart the app to complete your account upgrade". I frequently get support emails saying "I never got an activation code!".
If they have the money to hire a full-time employee, how will it be different than having a tech-co-founder do the job ?
(Its cheaper equity wise)

In other words, what can a co-founder do that an employee cant ?
Help My wife is doing man things
There is a MASSIVE difference between "you're wrong" and "I'm right". Calling the singularity bullshit in a casual conversation is an example of the prior.
I'm referring here to the significance estimates of section 3.

It's immediately suspicious that the authors introduce a new type of "test" for whatever spectra are being measured. When that happens, the authors need to rigorously demonstrate its validity. That is not present in this preprint.

The thing that needs to be demonstrated is that their method generates a reasonable space of outcomes. It's not clear to me that's true for their method.
Make executive decisions with full autonomy.
Somebody said that the reason there is no progress in AI is that once a problem domain is understood well enough that there are working applications in it, nobody calls it AI any longer.
<placeholder for incorrect assertion about radioactive decay and atomic clocks>

This is what I get for hitting HN before caffeine...
"Three and a half years and 70 countries later, I've gotten the equivalent of a Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth."

A contradiction in terms.
The main takeaway for me is don't get into long coding sessions. Test often.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1898
I just loaded the tab with this article into a tab group in Panorama.

It felt GREAT.

Seriously, it's off to a really nice start. I very frequently mentally "put away" a set of tabs to use later (things to show my wife, or items to compare when shopping, or news stories I want to read) but then I have to remember which tabs in the 20 or 30 I have open they are so I can revisit them, and it takes up way too much mental space.

Being able to physically lay them out like paper piles on a desk and name them is a great way to approach solving the problem, and I'm already enjoying using it. There are some technical details I'm curious about (does it keep non-active tab groups in memory? That seems like it could become unmanageable, but I might want certain ones to still be "live", if they had updating info I cared about), but I'm impressed with what I see so far.
PG said it best:

It's almost impossible for a non-technical person to hire a good technical person. You wouldn't even know where to begin.

So yes, MANY web companies are started by non-technical founders, and it progresses like this:

1. Get seed money
2. Hire a designer and developer
3. Build the site
4. Re-build the site because it didn't work
5. Fire developer and hire new developer to build site
6. Struggle to get developer to see your vision
7. Argument with developer on why he is doing all the work
8. Developer quits, look for new developer...

etc.
I often wonder why web-startups need business co-founders. If you have an idea and can code it up yourself, what's stopping you? You certainly shouldn't wait around until someone else can go find money for you.

Ultimately I think the answer is, you don't have to have a co-founder. If you've got the gumption to go it solo, do it.

Startups are similar to musicians, there are solo acts as well as bands.
More specifically you should avoid the following:

- Street meat. Unrefrigerated meat spoils very rapidly. Bacteria build up toxins in the meat that don't go away even if you cook it. This can make you very sick and even kill.

- Cut fruit. You don't know if clean water was used to wash the knife or that the knife was not used to cut raw chicken or the like.

- Raw vegetables. Many places use human feces to fertilize the fields. You don't know if it was washed properly.

I lived recently in China for several years and got sick a lot and learned to become very particular about food. There seems to be a common perception among travellers that we're weak soft westerners and just need to toughen up and be like the locals who don't get sick. This isn't true, the locals get sick and die with alarming rates. Hepatitis, diarrea and various food born illnesses kill huge numbers of people globally due to poor sanitation.
Why is learning a language so darn hard
No real data points here, but, why not apply to YC, see if you get in, and then apply to AngelList?

Raising money seems to be one of those things where giving yourself as many options as possible is the best route to a solution. Why would you want to limit yourself in an either/or?
So, the way I figure it: let's say each phone call lasts only two minutes. You literally just look up the number, call the person, say "You're awesome!" and then hang up. That still works out to just $10/hr or so, not counting phone costs. I can't imagine they're really making much money on this.