skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Complete poppycock.

Running Hackers and Founders SV, I think I have a pretty decent picture of what Silicon Valley is like on the ground floor, and as far as I'm concerned it's pretty frigging amazing.

There's tons of small teams doing amazing things with Big Data and real time analytics like Factual (making Open Data easier to manage and use), MixPanel (Real Time analytics for applications). There's a number of companies doing really interesting things with cool languages like Clojure and Erlang, even if they are "silly companies".

There's companies like Justin.TV which is the largest real time video streaming company in the world. Real time video streaming is very, very hard to do at scale.

AirBnB is revolutionizing the hospitality industry, and last I read are the largest provider of rooms in New York.

There are amazingly cool companies working on SSD database appliances, and on databases optimized specifically for SSD's. SSD add on cards for your PCIE graphics slot that give you 6x the throughput of a SATA port. Those companies don't exactly make for exiting reading in Newsweek, so they don't get a lot of press, though.

Yeah, there's a lot of people making Facebook apps. Sure, you can mock twitter because on it's surface it seems silly and trivial, but they have invented an entirely new communication protocol which companies like StockTwits are leveraging to allow individuals to broadcast their recent stock trades. And, not only that, but the article says that Twitter hasn't figured out how to make money yet. In fact, Business Week reports that they were profitable in 2009: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2009/tc200...

Sure Zynga makes somewhat whimsical addictive games, but if you stop and crunch the numbers, Farmville's digital economy is probably mlarger than the real world economies of many developing nations.

So, if you'd like to believe that Silicon Valley has lost it's way go right ahead. But, from where I sit, things are just beginning to get interesting. Silicon Valley is just starting to fire on all cylinders since the tech bubble popped in 2000. If you want to know how I'm seeing Silicon Valley: I'm strapping in and getting ready for a great big ride.
The main point, really, is causation. Mark Zuckerberg (and Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, etc, etc) dropped out of school AFTER starting a successful business. Even Paul Graham quit his day job AFTER starting a successful business.

On the other hand, dropping out of school, or even quitting your day job, do not guarantee success.
This article is about SV or Nathan Myhrvold who runs an "invention lab" or can we say that a patent troll company?
there's no reason why you have to tell your current employer that your offer was retracted. tell them you've given the new job a second thought and that you feel that belong where you are.

you can't sue in this situation because i'm sure somewhere inside the offer letter it says the new job/company has the ability to terminate employment at will.
Apple Policy Changes End EU Antitrust Probe
It's cheaper than anything else.
Not really a DB, but for Microsoft I have used http://www.eventid.net/ quite a bit. I wouldn't say it is great, but I have found it helpful as a starting point.
Realtime Traffic chart for KhanAcademy
like I said further down the thread, I don't hate "SQL" the language itself, I hate the time I have to spend writing queries, I see it as some kind of "extra layer of butter" between the website/app and me.

I would like to automate it more that's all. I get that SQL is required for a lot of reasons a lot of times, but for what I do currently webapps/sites/etc probably 80% could be done with some sort of tool if it existed, it's not very complex queries, but yet someone have to create them and that's time and thats boring (to me).

I don't find it interesting at all, I do like to develop stuff, websites, apps but more oriented at the visual stuff, the data to me is just.. should just be accessible there ready to play with. I guess I see writing query code as going to the toilet and taking a dump, it's not really "funny" and yet you have to do it, only that maybe the query part could be improved upon with some tooling to reduce time etc.
When I get my hand on one of those 3D printer, I plan to make a self replicating lego train network en-masses, completed with construction legobots and the like.

The lego clone bricks will be the foundation for an entire robotic enterprise to build a train network around my neighborhood, and then the next and so on.

That mean, lego assembly lines for building trains and various kind of construction bots, and various scouting legobots that fly, crawl, and move on the ground. Then it's time for the human to source electronics and plastic supplies, as well find a business model for the train network I am going to build.

It's an interesting project that seem to be multifacet, at least to me. Alas, I am still on hacking my RC cars to become robot stage. Tommorow is desoldering day and finally controlling the motor of my RC car.
Is low-Earth orbit inside the FCC's jurisdiction? (Just wondering why they need licenses in space. They're in space!)
Don't we have to first establish that Silly Valley has lost its stride before talking about how it happened?
Most students probably don't think that they are the next Mark Zuckerberg but some are probably thinking about the merits of taking a chance and learning something versus taking a bunch of meaningless courses or writing a paper that will never see the light of day.
I thought some of you guys might this interesting. KA is going through a lot of changes recently (and even before the big donation from Google.

Here is peek at how the new design might look like: info.khanacademy.org
I hesitate to dig something like this up, because a lot of people taking this road take it very wrong. I am not a student, but what fragments I've critically accepted have proven very interesting and widely applicable. In general it has been unfortunately framed, and there are competing and incompatible strains of thought and attitudes within it. Tease out the right stuff: it was made for you.

http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/ctoxh/new_to_sedd...

Read critically and act. Stay yourself and don't take it too far.
Budget Woes Hit City Of Beverly Hills
I can’t believe the expert quoted in the article is none other than Myrhvold. Now, I don’t know the guy, but I understand that his current line of work is something to the effect of: Abuse the current software patent mess by suing people who, you know, are actually creating things.
Themes from "Where Good Ideas Come From"
This just seems to be another case of Ruby Racism
http://forgivingworm.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/ruby-racism/
I like the first video better, it gets to the point and explains the value to the writer. With the second one, you're almost putting words in my mouth. I might not agree that I'm scared of that question.

What I would change is to show the value prop you offer to the agents and publishers better. I'm sure they get enough good authors and manuscripts sent to them, why would they take their time to browse your site? I'm not sure if they would consider top-rated content on a website as pre-screened enough for them.
In a word, "meh".
Rick Norsigian And The Lost Negatives
Old school! Back in the 90's I worked with someone who still used NEWS as his desktop window manager (it was written in postscript...)
In my opinion it isn't arcane, at least, no more arcane than other "soft" design fields. But the simple rules are complicated to follow.

Your first three principles are about efficiency. That's a big part of usability. When you reduce clutter, you make it easier to use by clarifying the next action the user should take.

But "No surprises" is rather complex. It means that you not only have to explain what you are doing, but also work with the user's mental model, which might be totally wrong.

Here's an example from my current project. We are designing a web form to upload images and video to Wikipedia. In 2010, the users' model of media uploads comes from Facebook, ImageBucket, and maybe Flickr. Even after you make them click on a box that says they give up their own rights before proceeding, they don't understand what they did. Apparently people's mental model just continues on blithely until it smacks against a major contradiction.

So we've tried various metaphors. "License your work" was replaced by "Release rights", and the next iteration is going to be "Donate your work". That wording was the suggestion of a usability testing and analysis firm we hired, by the way. So it does take a certain amount of inspiration to come up with alternatives, but recognizing where the problem areas are is just a matter of measurement.

Inspiration is aided by just having a bigger bag of tricks, too -- knowing common problems and solutions. For instance, if there is so much to do on one page that users are finding it overwhelming, it is helpful to break it into multiple steps (a "wizard"). That's another approach we have taken.

Anyway, I'm not sure if my expertise with usability is so deep that I could pronounce just a few principles. Maybe "reduce cognitive load to the minimum" is one, which has been more memorably distilled by Steve Krug as "Don't Make Me Think". Since we want to avoid onerous information transfer and cognition, there are some models of communication that might be helpful here; a classic text on human communication is The Responsive Chord, by Tony Schwartz. He argued that most communication is about activating stuff you already know (at the right moment), which you can see at play in the example I gave.

But ultimately it's about motivating human behavior, so it's only about as complex as the human heart. ;)
> A full second is nonsense. Also, the person placing the order can turn it off.

If I'm not mistaken (and I might be, it's been awhile since I looked), Interactive Brokers were flashing their clients orders up until recently as well; they didn't call it flashing, they called it "smart routing" -- but if you opted out, you paid routing fees whereas if you opted in, those fees would often be waived.

> Direct Edge is the venue allowing flash orders. ARCA gets two commissions, but DE gets nothing.

DE is the last flashing exchange. They get their fees if they fill the 2nd order by the flashee, or routing fees if they direct to ARCA. The only way they get nothing is if nothing ever gets traded in the entire transaction except the first, which usually is NOT the case.

> If it happened to any significant degree, how come the SEC didn't find it?

Are you asking that seriously? The SEC is in bed with the industry. They don't look for anything, and they don't find anything.

(google "Harry Markopolos" and "Madoff" if you want an insight into how the SEC works. Read ZeroHedge and Denninger to see DAILY examples of undeniable fraud and insider trading that the SEC never looks at. Seriously, if you trust the SEC to do anything, you shouldn't be in finance)
I thought Bill Gates left school to start a company. He hadn't even started a company before dropping out.
The tricks behind nature documentaries
You might get more bite with a title about ISO27000 compliance.
ffr. 752 / 8 might look hard, but it's actually just 800 / 8 - 48/8 = 94
Nice game :-) I've been playing for half an hour and registered my username.

I pretty much suck at this, but it's fun :P
Google Project 10^100 winners
ORM is definitely a step in the right direction, but I was thinking about something even more awesome. One can dream atleast..
Probably easier to do when you're on top. If he seemed anything but confident it would raise a fair few flags (media would be all over it too).
Your forgetting that some fighter pilots are actually trained in engineering either before they are commissioned, or as part of their training, including test pilot school which as much about engineering as actual flying.

I know a pilot who didn't go to the fleet, went to Ft Meade instead. Flying jets is quite technical, and understanding avionics is not that much different than understanding a network.
I'm a designer myself, but I'm confused at what the question is asking.

A designer can be many things. You can hire an interaction designer. You can hire an interface designer. You can hire a website designer.

I am going to assume you are speaking about an interface/web designer. Yes is the answer. When it comes down to it, your end users are probably going to avoid your service if they don't think it looks good. The amount of traffic you'd gain with a good design easily justifies the price of hiring a good designer.

Now, the other thing is the word 'professional'. Professionals are very expensive. You're talking at least 10 thousand dollars for a decent project. If you go with someone who's a student or the like (cough), you'll get a better rate, but you won't get the timeline that a startup might need. There's the other issue. If it's not going to repay itself in traffic easily, then it's not worth it. In most cases, will it? Of course.

The other option is DIY. If you take some time and learn your shit, you can usually do something that doesn't look half-assed.

Now, moving on to the HTML bit. I do both. Many designers do both. Plain and simple: if you don't know markup, you shouldn't make mockups.
Video guides to Akihabara (Tokyo area with tons of computer/electronic shops)
Your lawyer.

It's not a DIY project.

Even when it is just small business.
I was nodding along with the premise until I came to this part.

"His company, Intellectual Ventures, intentionally runs counter to the prevailing trend in Silicon Valley."

By, uh, patent trolling?

O_o
Thanks.

Speaking for myself, I'm not really all that concerned if Amazon or Kayak is better at their specific vertical than Google. That's why they exist, they can focus much more tightly on a good user experience for that particular task than a generalist search engine can, and that's basically the economy working correctly.

I do care when I can't do a particular task because Google's search results suck. That seems to happen more and more with programming-related queries, and I dunno if it's because I'm searching for harder, more narrow topics or if it's because Google's results are worse. I recently was looking for info on Haskell's FFI, so I searched for [CUInt]. The top result was "an Irish slang term for female genitalia". Not what I had in mind, Google.

Again, the most useful info we can have is the exact queries that went wrong. It's like any debugging problem: if you can't reproduce the bug, it's maddeningly difficult to fix it.
Capacity for the Dinkelspiel auditorium is about 715, which is much higher than the capacity for the YC/Anybots office. It seems that most people that take the Startup School application seriously get in. Also, I'm pretty sure Hacker News karma helps, so I would be very surprised if you got rejected.
I think the first statement is the most valid one. DRM protects no content from pirates. Period. I can download any movie I want in high def with no hindrance. However legitimate users have a hard time transforming content and thus pay for it many ways. There are many problems, too many to post in a response, but the end result is the same.
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Awesome!

People really love the game for a while, the word "addicting" comes up a lot. But, the long-term retention is pretty low, and understandably so, there are no variations or other features except the main game.

I'm working on making more features/game types/etc to make the game players have better retention, and make it overall more enjoyable for long-time players.
Specifically, I'm working on the top voted requests here: http://wikipediagame.uservoice.com
Technically, it seems both are correct.

(From http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography)
While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.

In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
Fix your course to a star, not a degree. Neg me, I don't care. Just think about how short life is and how capable any of us are when we really apply ourselves. Why do you need anyone's approval to change the world?
Web server written in bash: http://github.com/tlrobinson/wwwoosh
I think the OP mentioned that the snapshot is taken at the end of the exercise, basically to capture the statistics.

Even the image recognition part is not that difficult, assuming simple LCD display. The problem is whether they are able to handle the universe of exercise machines (or at least say 95% of exercise machines). One possibility is to ask users to submit image and if their machines are not found, ask for their help to take a few snapshots, etc. Given them a badge so they can brag about it (and even help spread the word).

In addition, I'm worried that the type of data provided is highly inconsistent amount machines. Can the OP easily combine incomplete information from different types of exercise machines?

If somehow the OP can manage this, I think it would be a great app, and yes, people are willing to pay money for this app.
You can however investigate based on such evidence. There are at least 10 people involved. Each of them can be interviewed and they will have extensive cell phone records, email, personal correspondence and financial transactions that can be subpoenaed.
There's no reason to wait 10 weeks before you start trying to write solutions to small problems.

The feedback from struggling to write something simple is invaluable.

The issue with Head First Java is that it skips the IDE.

The purist approach is likely to leave you completely lost when you load NetBeans or Eclipse...which will be pretty much mandatory for writing meaningful apps.

Head First C# is better organized as an introduction to programming in my opinion because it covers the IDE and using a debugger...not that I'm advocating C# as a language...just that the book is better written.
What counts as "canonical"?

For some queries it's easy, like if I search for [amazon harry potter], I probably want either the Harry Potter Store or the Harry Potter books on Amazon.com, which happen to be the top two results. If I search for [llvm doxygen], I probably want the index page for LLVM's API docs, and that's what I get (even if it does have no snippet). If I search for [height of empire state building], I even get a little OneBox with the answer right on the results page, along with the sources it comes from.

But what if I'm searching for an obscure error message, and the answer is in a forum posting that was mirrored across a dozen mailing lists? Which is canonical? The biggest? The one on the site for the project I'm searching for? The one with the fewest ads?

Or what if I search for [can't read my poker face]? The #1 result is for metrolyrics.com, which sucks - it's a spammy lyrics aggregator with a popover ad. But at least it has the lyrics. Lady Gaga's official site doesn't.

It's those latter cases that interest me, but it's not exactly clear what the desired behavior is.
It really depends on where you work but waiters make pretty decent money (for a 20 something) - and its all cash. You get payed minimum wage in CA but that just about covers the amount you need to pay in taxes. I'd work about 25 hours a week and get about $20 in a paycheck every 2 weeks. You really end up not paying much in taxes (I'd guess closer to 15% then the 30-40% you'd end up paying salaried) so the money you make goes further. I worked at Bucks in Woodside CA, which is actually a bit notorious with the Sand Hill VC crowd. If you needed to you could make rent in a weekend by picking up extra shifts. Then the rest is cash. I mainly worked nights and could pick up some other work during the day if I needed to. When I wanted to travel I'd slam out about 2 months of serious work and do fine for a few weeks of travel. You also get to know people in the industry so I could take time off and pretty easily find a job when I got back.

I definitely made more money waiting tables 25 hours a week then my first two 40hr positions salaried.

But hey consulting would be a good way to go too.
Exactly right. To think otherwise is to have cargo-cult thinking.
I agee with you in many respects:
a) I don't want employees because managing employees is hard and is hard to motivate them.... so what do I do? I want partners in my company that share my motivation that work with me to make good money and good quality of life the (5 person company, mentioned earlier).

b) I've become basically unemployable... I had a company before and the independence and mental freedom it gives is such that working for someone else is very hard. so place with a punch card is out of the question, a place with yearly 360 reviews almost... What is left, small software studios or marketing companies... some of them are very cool. Remember not every company is out of a dilbert cartoon, or an episode from the office. I'd go so far as to say that most small companies aren't like that at all...

3. I'm in the same optimization train as you do... here the first thing to do is to to forget about local optimization (ie small stuff) and focus in the optimization of the whole organization. Read about Theory of Constraints and The Goal (Goldratt) to see why being an optimizer is a great advantage.

4. You claim to be "a very moral person". Ok so here is the thing your work is how you make a positive mark in your fellow human beings. If you refuse to put your talent to work in the service of others you are just being selfish.

5. So go out and do something of service to others. and see if it provides you of the self respect you need, puts food in the table, provides you with the level of independence you desire.
The New JavaOne; The New Java Community
How do I set up unlimited subdomains on slicehost?
Hey guys. I originally posted this as a question on HN.

I am hosting my website with slicehost, and I'd like to basically give everyone a personal profile at username.domain.com ... how is this possible to do with slicehost?

UPDATE: I have found the answers. I'm posting this here so that other startup founders who might want to do a similar thing know how to do it.

For the DNS:

With slicehost, you can add a CNAME record with a wildcard in it.

For Apache Server:

http://blog.orite.com.au/web_development/2009-01-22/setting-up-wildcard-virtual-hosts-for-web-development-environment/
s/FAA/FCC/

Also, FCC jurisdiction or not, it's probably within ITU jurisdiction.
Counter sue for the legal fees and time lost.
I've never read "Outliers", but apparently neither has Arrington.
Quality Isnt Always Competitive
I always felt that Soros was better than Buffet but could never adequately explain why. I like Nassim's explanation that since Soros made more decisions, his outcome is less likely due to luck.

In other words, the more your ability is tested, the more likely your results are closer to the expected value as randomness negates itself out.
lol. That's definitely the company I want hosting my blog!
Getting started with html5
Seriously? It works for about 1/20 tunes I try with it... I don't want to sound like a hipster ("Ooh my music is so obscure") or anything but it's annoyingly useless for me.
Both video are undoubtedly nice, but I would still prefer the first one as it gets to the point without beating around the bush. But the slides still seem to run a little too fast. You would want to slow it down a notch. The live demo parts like creating an account did not make much sense to show. You can just list the 3 easy steps on 3 screens. Nice music. Would like to know the source