skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Literal domain names
We are in the process of naming our new company, and it's been frustrating. All of the usual tropes apply: names aren't cool until they are associated with success vs. the only people who say names aren't important are people who weren't able to secure a good name.

Of course, .com availability is a huge part of the equation. Luckily, we're not limiting ourselves to available domains; we're frugal but in my mind ten or twenty grand on a domain that helps with brand establishment and potential leverage with investors seems like a defensible expense in the grand scheme of things.

As it happens, we have the opportunity to buy the literal domain for our product category for $15k. For hopefully obvious reasons, I'm dodging mentioning the specific domain here.

My question to all of you is whether having a literal domain name is great, neutral, or negative?

Obviously there's a history of start-ups like pets.com being huge flameouts, but there are also newer companies like diapers.com and soap.com that are doing really well.

Some people love it and other people think it's boring, like we lack creativity. Let's say you're selling eggs, and you have the ability to register eggs.com or omeletto.com - which is the basis of a stronger brand?

I know naming shouldn't consume this many CPU cycles, but it's kind of driving us mental.
You can just say 'call bob' and it will make the call.
Browsing Craigslist Made Easy - pic browsing
we just launched launched this new feature that allows to browse craigslist by looking at the product images. Here is the link below:

http://spotli.com/index.cfm?activity=0&dept_id=1&store_id=6

please feel free to leave a comment for any changes that you think should be some to make it even easier to use.
Huh? It's an iOS device, and as such, supports 250,000 apps. It's hardly "just a music player".
Fuel economy standards could add $15K to price of heavy-duty pickups?
Yeah, I can't wait for the international offering to be enhanced.
I'm in the UK and have done some development using Twilio, but find that the end results are just a little bit too inconsistent - especially with SMS it seems.
I interviewed a finance major for a job parsing a COMSTOCK feed from a satellite. Asked him "Can you program in C++?" "Yes" he lied.

We decided to hire him. After he accepted the offer, he asked if he could come in over the weekend to get started. Wow! What enthusiasm!

He spent the weekend learning to program in C++. He was great, his knowledge of finance was invaluable, a stellar performer all around. Eventually wrote a webpage test kit on his own and sold it to Adobe.

So was it a lie? He WAS able to program in C++ on Monday.
This is such a good and obviously needed idea that it makes me want to run out and implement it tonight. (No guarantees that I'll do it, but I'm 100% sure someone will.)
Eh, no.

I'll echo statistics 101: the mean of a distribution is pretty meaningless when it's a very skewed distribution you're talking about. Those average figures don't apply to me.

And I joined GS at precisely the wrong time. Right at the peak, going into the trough.
I'm waiting for the recursive add-on: Someone creates an add-on, hosts it on Heroku and then enables the add-on in the add-on app.
Thanks to both of you. Munged caller ID is definitely not a deal-breaker for me.
Top Forces to Impact Outsourcing and IT Services Industry
For any Twilio staff reading.... any plans to get UK SMS working at a reasonable price point? I signed up a good while back but it wasn't working at the time.
This argument is somewhat disingenuous. It completely glosses over a huge portion of the issue, that has nothing to do with legal definitions. Namely, stealing deprives the victim of something they otherwise would have, or even more coloquially "did he take away your stuff?". Now the crux of the debate rests on this very simple concept.

If I take your car, without permission, it is stealing it. Very obviously you have been deprived of your car.

If I stay in your hotel, and then decide not to pay my bill, I have deprived you of the 1. the overhead associated with a person's visit and 2. revenue that room otherwise could have generated.

Now here is the question: when I copy your song, am I depriving you of anything? All the electronic devices are using resources paid for by third parties. You can still sell your song just fine, my act of copying has in no way prevented you from selling the song to other people. I may or may not have bought the song, so it is questionable if I am even depriving you of money you otherwise would have made (assuming no-fee copying, e.g. torrenting).

So, all that explaining to get to a "maybe" answer to "did he take away your stuff?" when applied to copyrighted data (a song). Now, there is some more nuance than even that: if I sell your song, I am obviously depriving you of money people are willing to pay for it. If I give away your song tho, there is no money I am depriving you of -- the people who gave me $0 are not guaranteed to give you the asking price without my giveaway. Further, how much of my giveaway is made up for in increased popularity? Could I charge back with a "stolen services" suit, declaring that my giveaway of your song helped push it to number 1, therefore you owe me marketing fees?

Basically, yes, some people get caught up in the legal definition aspect, but that is because the legal definition argument closely mirrors my question of "did he take your stuff". I do agree though, that maybe we nerds should come up with a good way of discussing it w/out invoking lawyers anyway.
Really? Can it play Angry Birds too?
I liked the idea of mirror neurons.
"The sensation of "mirror neurons" helped further dissolve the distinction. About 10 years ago, a team of Italian researchers showed that certain neurons that fire during actions by macaque monkeys—when they pick up a peanut, for example—also fire when they watch someone else pick up the peanut."
I'd go with "Dumbass" and add "whiner" to the list. Why is it poor customer care when all Heroku did was saying no to an unjust request? You can move your site to another hosting service, or host it yourself.

"I am stuck with $1300 bill on a site that I'm not making any money on." So that means if you make money on the site, then you'd pay? What's the difference here? You're saying that because you're poor now, you don't have enough integrity to say "oops I did something wrong" and take the responsibility?

I'm myself a boostrapper burning thru my savings and to tell you the truth, I do everything myself to cut on expenses. I'd love to use Heroku, but they are too expensive for me to run. So if you don't want to make another mistake, then start to accept responsibility and learn to take care of problems yourself.
This post seems to counter the Agile methodology. Agile says we're dealing with senior developers here who know how to solve the problem. And they're good, otherwise their product would not have been a success. Seems like the blog is complaining about the corporate culture, and just assumes that developers can't deal with it. There are lots of ways of dealing with that. If they don't like working in a corporate environment, perhaps they need to telecommute or work off-site somewhere.
Again, the interviewer doesn't distinguish between "systems programmer" and "applications programmer". His questions are ALL for systems programmers.

Its like testing bias. No surprise that white upper-middle-class males clog our colleges, if the test is written by one.
Nintendo DS? PSP? No they're not a feature to feature equivalent but they're there. PSP Go was meant to be a competitor anyways.
"Microsoft couldn't seem to get that right" - I think the depends on your definition of "right" is :)

The hardware and UI of the software on the Zune are (IMO) better than the iPod Touch. I enjoy the visuals of the Zune playback. I love scrolling through my artists, albums, etc. on the Zune compared to the iPod. I believe they did get that right.

I also love the Zune Marketplace. For example, I love the song "No Heaven" by Champion. Which lead me to a group called Bane. The first few listens of Bane were good. But I soon grew tired of them. They didn't have the replay value that Champion does (to me. I mean no offense to any fans). In the iTunes model, I would have to buy the music and be stuck with music I don't like. So I think that Microsoft got it right there. I know there are others that do streaming as well Last.fm, GrooveShark, etc. but I think (or least I thought) that Microsoft had the leverage and money to get a comprehensive streaming library the size of iTunes and/or Amazon MP3. And this gets into the areas where I think they failed...

Their marketing didn't exist. The only commercial I remember is some kid that traded a song with a convenience store clerk. And the only reason I remember it is because of the groan that came out of the audience that saw the commercial. I don't recall what Zune called the music sharing, but it was a stupid word. And the commercial forced its use.

And the other big fail - it feels like a hobby to Microsoft. It feels like a product that they don't care if it succeeds or not. If it does, great. If not, whatever. It's hard to get excited about a product that a company isn't even excited about.
> "Frankly i consider not being able to change the default OS keyboard (say use swype instead) or default music player, or be forced to use Itunes a regression."

But you have none of those limitations on an Android phone. So how has the market regressed? Many, many more people are enjoying device freedom well beyond what your windows CE phone enjoyed and you're calling that regression just because one vendor doesn't?

Has the market regressed if Windows Phone 7 ships without replaceable keyboards? Was it regression when the Pre shipped without that?

Is it a regression of Android if a single Android handset ships with unremoveable crapware?

Or is the state of the market still improving, because even gimped android devices are head-and-shoulders better than consumer phones three years ago, non-gimped Android device choices abound and a new MS Phone and Pre are around the corner?

I guess you could argue that it wasn't the iPhone that forced Verizon (and AT&T) to offer these newer, better handsets without locking them down as they often would with even Windows CE and Blackberry phones (consider the state of data plans in the pre-iphone world).

But to that I would simply direct you to the lag between the G1 and the Droid, the lack of a Nexus One on Verizon, the rate of handset innovation in the last three years compared to the previous 7 and to the timing of the 'open network' pledge vs the iPhone announcement.

Without the iPhone upending the Apple cart, would you get a Pre? Would Microsoft be pushing Windows Phone to consumers? Would the Blackberry have a decent browser? Would Verizon be advertising consumer phones that aren't locked to their app market, ringtone market, etc? I just don't see it.
Hm, I think we're talking past each other although I'd like to hear more exposition on your comment because it doesn't really make sense to me.

I was talking more from the perspective of someone who's generating cash. Burger King pays suppliers for meat and whatever (or raises cows in their own operation) and you pay them for a burger. You get a burger, they get cash, pay people, value creation all around.

In Wall St, on the other hand, theoretically we should see value creation through efficient routing of capital to the right places and the people who make that happen are rewarded for their effort. In practice, I feel, it's often a video game where they manage to nibble a billion little pieces away from the value-based investors who are actually performing an economic function. So in some scenarios, they're a net drain, rather than part of a robust economy. That's where my zero-sum analogy came in. YMMV.
That sentence is not entirely clear to me.

Did it imply that the experiments were never repeated or that the experiments were repeated and the results were negative?
Use Step, man
Ah yeah, I could imagine that. Foreign passport + visa puts you in the "foreigner" line, even if it's a long-term visa, which is usually slower and typically has more suspicious / less helpful staff. Green card holders get to go through the "U.S. Citizens & Permanent Residents" line, which is a bit friendlier and faster.

(Not that I disagree that the whole setup is ridiculous and probably doesn't meaningfully add to security.)
It might offer insight into the advantages of having a cofounder.
What's even more interesting is that zero calorie sweeteners are just as bad, stevia or other-such. They still produce weight gain. Simply tasting sweet produces insulin spikes.
My goal is always to work with highly intelligent people. People always talk about the big fish in a little pond but I think there is more value in being a little fish in a big pond because their is more room for growth.

I've noticed that if I'm not learning I'm not happy and its much easier to learn with smart people.

Its generally known that Google hires smart people.
Oh, God yes.

Thanks for reading the sailing blog.

And that's about the cheapest, smallest boat one could non-suicidally ponder a circumnavigation in, by the way. And even then owning it and sailing it is like taking a cold shower and tearing up $100 bills (to quote the old joke).
hmm, can't I now look up a listing to get the "somewhere near here" circle and then cross compare on this map to figure out exactly where it is? The dot for my listing is pretty much exactly at my house.

Also Airbnb is a great service, and since starting my wife and I have had at least one guest a week, making several hundred dollars a month in extra income while getting to meet interesting people.
He uses his friends problem exemplary, but by saying 'they', he generalizes it.
I think this kind of statement has become increasingly common from them over the years:

"I don't understand why our industry seems to be afraid of profits, which really just means you make more money than you spend."

http://smallbusiness.aol.com/2010/05/26/37-signals-jason-fri...

The accusation is that people in the tech industry are "afraid" of making profits. Of course, we all know that people in the tech industry are experimenting with models where it might be possible to make large profits by giving something away for free. Twitter is free but potentially it is worth a great deal. But the nuances get lost in the writing that the 37 Signals crew engages in.
Data scrubbing. For example:

California:
High Quality: $359.19 / oz. (n=72)
Medium Quality: $300 / oz. (n=17)
Low Quality: $648 / oz. (n=2) <-- ???

The low quality stuff is worth more than twice as much as the medium? The crazy numbers for low quality are on account of one wonky data point ($976/oz). There were also some obviously bunk ones like $1/oz, which someone probably did pay from a friend, but that doesn't reflect street value.

It's hard to do this in an automated fashion, though, at least until you have a good amount of data. A good place to start would be automatically flagging figures more than 2 standard deviations from the (local) mean, and hand-curating those. Keep track of "bad" data points, and as you find patterns you can add filters.
Windows is a bad analogy. There's no data involved. Facebook's data is open. It isn't federated like XMPP, which seems to be what you're requesting. Federation would be a handicap for a product that changes as much and as quickly as Facebook has over the years. Instant messaging is simple in comparison.
Everyone that I know essentially takes this stance:

If you want a dedicated music device, an old-fashioned large storage (and nowadays cheap) iPod is more than perfect.

If you want a full-featured device with a large touch-screen and some internet capabilities, no one wants to carry an extra device along with their phone, so they just look for a phone with those features.

I personally just prefer the all-in-one phone, multimedia, and internet touch screen device. I don't want 2-3 decently sized gadgets in my pockets all the time.
Anyone who can manufacture an iPod Touch competitor can also manufacture an iPhone competitor. So, in order to choose to compete with the iPod Touch, the manufacturer would have to believe their profits would be higher than if they built a phone.

This is unlikely, because:

(1) Phones are more expensive. ($400-$800 vs $200-$400)
(2) Carriers help market the phone.
(3) Carriers handle telephone support.

For the manufacturer, making a phone offers both higher revenues and lower costs.

It would seem that the only company with an incentive to manufacture a viable iPod Touch competitor is Google. But they don't have any manufacturing capabilities.

Of the three points, I suspect (1) is most important, which is why you're seeing iPad competitors but no iPod Touch competitors.
There are so many things you need to look at with this question. The first question I would consider is what is your goal? More signups? More conversion to paid? Less work? Once you have set the goal you can then test it.

With out data but thinking what I have seen in the past I would say here is what the possible things are.

- Collect CC at signup - will reduce pure signups but will have a higher conversion after the 30 days
- Don't collect CC at signup - more signups, but lower conversion as more tire kickers and missed emails about putting the CC in
- Collect CC after signup at first login - maybe a blend of the two above
I used the following FlashBlock for Chrome, and using resource tracker I could see that no SWFs were downloaded on a YouTube page until after I temporarily enabled Flash on that page.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoi...

Is that good enough proof that the SWF is not put into memory?

Also, the FlashBlockBlock page here does not load when I have the extension enabled: https://woofle.net/flashblockblock/
Can you email me directly jsheehan@twilio.com and I'll find your request and follow up with it ASAP?
Ask HN: Review our new startup
clickable i hope http://failreminder.com

In first place, please excuse us for the double posting, we won't be posting again if this does not gather attention.

Our concept is different from awesomenessreminders.com, even if it might look and sound similar, our service addresses the biggest flaw of the aforementioned site. The fact that their message is going to become boring after a while. We do tailor your teaching/message to your story if you wish so, you can even email us and tell your story in detail if the text area is not enough. If you do not wish so we still provide a teaching/message that will never be the same. Just our thoughts. We'd love to hear what the HN community thinks.
Eh, for me, I am /very careful/ to treat the customers who are easy to deal with (e.g. those who try to solve problems themselves, and those who don't complain) better or at least as well as customers who complain.

My policy is that if I give one person a refund/credit (without them leaving... anyone can get the last month back for any reason if they want to leave, I mean at least once.) I give all customers who experienced the same problem the same refund or credit. A few months back when I was hit with a DoS and was down 8-10 hours? I gave everyone a free month, not just the complainers. Fourteen grand that DoS cost me.

The thing is, your complainers are expensive customers. On a low margin service, it does not take very many "fix my apache config" complaints before a customer becomes unprofitable. I mean, you want some complainers; they act as the canary in the coal mine. But keep in mind that the real money is in the silent masses who silently leave when they feel wronged.

I mean, focusing on higher maintenance customers is also a valid business model... but you need to charge more, because high maintenance customers are more expensive to deal with. I want to be clear that I am only talking about (and I only know about) lower-margin services where the actual cost of providing the service is the determining factor in price. There are markets where those rules don't apply, and in those markets, nothing I'm saying makes any sense at all (and your advice is probably pretty good... not that I'd know.)
That may very well be true for you, but over 35,000,000 iPod Touch customers disagree with you.
First: If I were Heroku I won't give you any discount, not after this.

Secondly: Heroku is high class hosting, they charge you for being able to host yours "spikes of traffic".

Third: I'm pretty sure you enjoyed their free hosting plan for a long time, you should be thankful.
I've evaluated as a tool that doesn't give me any benefits I can see over stuff I already have a lot of experience in. I haven't heard any compelling arguments for starting any new project in php.
In another comment, the poster (rsbrown) makes the excellent clarification:

"What I am suggesting is a low-cost, high-quality device (like the Flip camcorder)."

Here is my guess as to why Amazon does not rush into that:

a) Kindle, as you'll recall, was very early to the market for book readers. As a consequence, Amazon was able to negotiate sweet deals for content. With MP3s, that opportunity to take an early lead in available content is gone.

b) Consumer mobile is very tricky and there are lots of very large guerrillas crowding that room. Why don't Flip camcorders come with MP3 players? Why doesn't Cisco make a cheap, high-quality MP3 stand-alone player? etc. Amazon doesn't appear to be "tooled up" for that - it doesn't have the in-house expertise (yet?!?) to justify too many risks in that space.

c) Ok, Amazon comes out with a player, let's say. It has to be pretty darn low per unit margins or else it can't compete. That means R&D and start-up costs will take a very long time to recoup (if they ever can be). All of that is OK if somehow this increases Amazon's sell of digital audio files.... so, how do you see that happening? (I don't.)

d) Why don't you make that sweet-spot MP3 player and offer Amazon exclusive right to sell it based on a wholesale price that gives you a comfy profit (or at your costs but with some kick-back on music sales). If you can't do that (given financing) - then neither can they.
Though not nearly as intense as the experience related in this anecdote, it is that same compulsion to maintain focus that makes pair programming so valuable for me ... and so difficult and uncomfortable. No doubt in my mind, though: I write much better code when I'm pairing with another developer.
Yeah, Archos is the main company I can think of, at least in Europe. They pretty much pioneered the portable MP3 player market years before Apple. Archos' main problem is they like to control everything and aren't that good at finishing/refining their software, which is why the whole Rockbox scene started and produced amazing firmware for the early players.
> But I assume they're only publicising the vulnerability because of the people already exploiting it.

That and someone notified them it exists.

Were it only a vulnerability they could deny knowing, they would keep silent about it.
Whats the quote?

Other languages borrow foreign words - English lures them into dark alleys and goes through their pockets for any grammer they might have.
The guy getting hit in the face with the soccer ball sure looks painful, but if it's in the context of a wall then that's actually success as far as the team is concerned.
By coincidence, I happen to be using a 55" touch screen right now (an LG HDTV 1920x1080 with a PQ Labs touch overlay). It's actually pretty usable but I do feel neck strain a the end of the day.