skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sony manufactures TVs and other electronics. Apple could bring this in house rather than having the likes of Samsung and Foxconn manufacture their hardware. There is also Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, and Sony Computer Entertainment.

I rather doubt the rumours though. There would be many business units that would have to be spun out or shut down. (Sony Ericsson, Sony eReaders, BluRay, etc)

I like Sony. I like Apple. I'd like to see Sony find its way again and start competing hard and innovating.
Windows 8 will coming in 2012
You didn't read my post: "SOCKS alone doesn't gain you any security advantage, it's SSH that does."
Its always a pleasure to read stuff that emerges from MBAs minds. Its so easy to understand and relaxing compared to the real things.
More to the point, you need either a cofounder that you would entrust your life to or you need to have part of the requisite skillset so you can choose one that is competent and does not need to be too far out of your league. Because an incompetent cofounder will mess up exactly those things you can't handle, and one that's out of your league will either only have contempt for you or steal your idea and Zuck you.
Why would you even want a non-tech founder. All the value-add an MBA can bring to a small tech startup, namely: (1) contacts (2) presentation skills (3) networking (the human kind) skills - can be acquired by more tech guys if they really put their head to it and put in a sustained effort. A tech-startup would be much more flab-free if a tech guy takes up this role, imho.
Without form, meter or plot, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, a 'play for voices,' is my favorite work of epic poetry.

Richard Burton leads the first, and best, recorded performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy0srtmv3og&feature=&... - but at two hours, you may want to wait rather than interrupt it once begun.
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Am I missing the irony here? (this happens to me occasionally, I being a non-native English speaker). But if this MBA shit is easy as he says (and none of his 4 steps looks that hard), then seriously why does he deserve more than 15% equity...

I am reminded of some line from Paul Graham. He was talking about literature and physics professors, but it fits just as well here. Imagine this thought experiment: technical and non-technical founders were asked to switch roles and do what the other person did. The business guy will write the code, and the technical guy will figure out how to make people pay for it. The one who fails will be shot. Whom would you rather be?
Graham cares about having a better programming language, but he doesn't really care enough to do what it takes to make it happen. (He has no obligation to do so, of course.)

Practical programming languages these days aren't just ways of expressing "algorithms," but toolkits for marshalling the vast information processing resources around the world (people, libraries, net protocols, platforms from microcontroller to supercluster, communications systems, etc.) The number of issues is enormous and growing. Useful programming languages have to have a whole army of specialists who provide feedback and code dealing with security, internationalization, performance, accessibility, net protocols, commercial-grade GUI wrapper/frameworks, installers, compilers/runtimes for countless platforms, scientific computing, embedded/realtime computing, frameworks of all sorts, dev tools.... Many of these things will be done poorly, if at all, if not accounted for in the design of the foundations of the language. That's the reason for the serious warts on all popular languages and the desire of many for something better designed.

Yet Graham's approach is, as always, to work privately, get feedback from the same half-dozen friends, then make announcements on a "when we have something to announce, I'll announce it, so don't bother asking" schedule. If none of his friends knows enough about international coding issues, for example, to even realize how little they know about text (something more important to Lisp than to most languages), then he'll make a silly architectural decision regarding Unicode, which he'll announce to, not discuss with, the rest of the world. Hey, if my friends don't seem concerned by it, it can't be very important, right?

This is too bad. Few languages have the potential Lisp has for creating flexible, evolvable code that can rapidly adapt to the changing world. Yes, I do think that the language matters, but it's the whole platform, not just the syntax.

But I don't think you can create a successful, practical, general purpose language these days without an army of specialist volunteers behind you. Graham's message to specialist volunteers is "go away, you're not the people whose opinions I care about," so I think the language WILL last 100 years--in approximately its current form.
is it only me, I thought that was all tongue in cheek.
Way too much competition between the two. Apple is not going to sell Android phones. They won't sell Windows PCs. They don't care about gaming. Honestly, they'd get great consumer electronics, and that's it. I just can't see this working.
The problem with this suggestion is that it seems to suggest having an MBA is a large part of being a business guy(or gal).

Yes it does take a long time to become a good business guy, but that's because it relies on spending so much time networking and building the kind of relationships that let you do interesting things.

MBAs are often a poor choice of business guy for a startup because the degree means they could be earning lots more in a "normal" job, but brings relatively few startup benefits.

I think a lot of these smaller startups would be better off with a hustler who's young and lacking an MBA.
For a more fully featured and active fork of GitX check out http://github.com/brotherbard/gitx
Mice are something they just never quite figured out. It's like they have some subconscious aversion to right-clicking. Even the trackpad on my MBP refuses to do it half the time.
Very nice to see that machine again. I used one of these to write my first application.
I feel bad for some of you technical cofounders. You guys just don't 'get it'.

It looks to me that a lot of thechnical people get this really well. We have constantly some examples here on HN.

I know it's not easy stuff, but I think it's not that hard either and I see that in a lot of startups the founders just figure it out as they go. I share pg's belief that MBA founders are overvalued.
Is infrabrow excision a good alternative to asian blepharoplasty?
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This is, of course, missing the biggest reason you want a "non-technical" founder. It's not their MBA skills, it's their knowledge of the market you're addressing and specific non-coding skills within that market.

Much of "business" probably is largely mechanical. But what your non-technical founder brings is the knowledge of what to build.
My own research suggests there are very few sites using it currently. OpenDNS supports it, but only because they prefer it to DNSSEC as it allows them to continue to modify returned results whereas DNSSEC wouldn't.
Actually, I wonder if the rumor isn't more sparked from the Sculley interview than the earnings call. At any rate, it got Apple + Sony in people's minds.
You do mean Apple instead of Sony here, right?
The number one reason most startups I have tried to help fail is simply because they don't sell. Technical founders are very often scared of picking up the phone, taking someone for drinks, and just busting their ass on the street. It's safer doing stuff they are good at - coding. I can't count the number of startups I have seen go down the drink because the founders wouldn't get off the computer and go and sell something.

I can tell you from personal experience how awesome it is when you get a business guy who works his ass off selling and handling contracts etc (I'm in b2b). Not only does it bring in many more sales, but it makes you more productive so you can concentrate on the task at hand - no context switching involved.

Now all someone has to do is solve the problem: how do you find competent business guys or programmers. Both are hard to come by, and are mysterious to the other group.
"My degree has master of business administration on it; that means I can call myself 'business ninja' without being ironic."

Epic
In theory it is great, but I'm waiting to see if they deliver.
If Symbian 4 / MeeGo suck for end-users, it doesn't matter how good the SDK is.

On the other hand Nokia is dominating the low-end phone market by an order of magnitude. And personally I haven't bought an Android phone already because they are so damn expensive and I don't want 2-year contracts. And in Europe a lot of people are holding off from expensive phones just as I'm doing, preferring to go cheap with 1-year contracts or with PrePay options.

So it's not like they don't have what it takes to be winners.
And the Secret to being a successful entrepreneur is...
This isn't very surprising. See [1]. Also of interest, HN vs Clojure vs Common Lisp [2].

1. http://www.google.com/trends?q=hacker+news&ctab=0&ge...

2. http://www.google.com/trends?q=common+lisp%2C+hacker+news%2C...
If you were a non-technical founder like Steve Jobs, well, perhaps. I am reading the book "iCon Steve Jobs". And here's a recount of the very early days of Apple according to the book:

Woz was working on the Apple II. Jobs saw a clever Intel ad. He called Intel marketing and found that Regis McKenna created the ad. After relentlessly calling the agency for weeks, Jobs finally wore down the secretary, and got a meeting with Mr. McKenna, and against all odds, persuaded him to take on Apple as a client. At the time, Apple had no outside investors yet. McKenna introduced Jobs to Don Valentine, who sat on the board of the marketing agency. Valentine said he'd invest if Apple brought on board a more experienced marketing guy. Jobs then relentlessly called Valentine for recommendations (there is a pattern here), who finally relented, and suggested Mike Markkula, who joined Apple and became one of the early investors.

That I'd consider a worthy non-tech founder. but then again, the traits that Jobs exhibited had nothing to do with MBA. I am not even sure there is anything distinctively 'business' about it. It's more just what PG called determinedness.
It's slightly disappointing when this kind of snarky garbage makes it to the front page.

There are legitimate arguments why a good business cofounder can be invaluable. This article completely fails to make any of them.
If my life were on the line, I would absolutely go for the business->coding transition. The odds of success are so much better.

Learning programming is ultimately a matter of studying hard. It can be mastered through books, Google and relentless solitary experimentation.

Making people pay for something is a fickle social art. Who wants to get shot for failing at something so intangible?
Here in Germany there's a rumor that when Mercedes launches a new car-model, the next day it's in the parking lot of BMW where the engineers are taking it apart completely to see what is new at Mercedes.

In fact, when they make a new car, they send one to BMW, Audi, Volkswagen etc. and expect them to do the same in return. As if saying: "You're going to do it anyway, so here, have one."

I assume something similar might be going on at big tech companies such as Sony or Microsoft. But I do not think they know what their competitors are planning for next year other than observing what trends are currently hot and what new technologies are becoming available.
Who could have thought just a few years ago that Apple would ever be in position to even consider buying Sony. I'm simply awed...

Here is a line for Apple:
"Never underestimate the power of people's vanity."
My thoughts exactly. It doesn't make sense to me that Digg would use such a public and labour-intensive method of promoting their partners' content. I'd like to see data on what percentage of their partners were affected by this. It could be that someone created the accounts then offered Digg's partners increased visibility in exchange for cash, suspecting that Digg wouldn't look too closely at gaming that favoured its customers. Even then, LtGenPanda does state in his update that the activity stopped entirely after his email to Digg, but before he made the information public. Further, they didn't simply ban the accounts, as banned accounts can still digg submissions and those accounts ceased all digging shortly after his email was sent.

It could be that Digg disabled the accounts, but if so, why not delete them? Unless they have a shadowban feature that they're not telling anyone about, the timing and manner by which the accounts ceased their operations is highly suspicious.
critics is easy. seriously. give me any topic and i will explain you why its shitty. seriously i can do that, and not just me.

constructive critics is very hard. By cc i mean comments that will not make feel poster like complete idiot, but rather gently stimulate him to rethink something about his idea, and went away with feeling of appreciation of your insightful efforts to help him.

one of my teachers told me: its easy to punch your opponent in the face. its much harder to kindly explain him why is he wrong in his intents, so that after that conversation he would ask you to become his sensei.
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Selling is hard, and I certainly don't want to be the dude selling code written by the business guy :)
In case you missed the reference:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820495
I think you're onto something.
See, that is tribalism talking: they're evil, fish are good, of course they won't like fish.
Apple might acquire BoA.
Apple might acquire Chrysler.
Apple might acquire Coca-Cola.

and so on.
That is assuming you have an infinite amount of time to master programming. What would you choose if you had, say, a year?
In "The Hacker Ethic", there is an allegory used describing how hackers work that uses Sundays and Fridays as the example:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ecd9b8 (Google Books)

http://slashdot.org/books/01/03/06/1751250.shtml (Slashdot review)
"...why does he deserve more than 15% equity..."

Because it is a (bad) habit to hugely overpay these guys.
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You're thinking about this from the perspective of someone who's already technically strong. If you aren't technically strong, trying to prise dollars from fingers is often less terrifying than trying to deal with an impenetrable technical jungle.
I've worked with Sony engineers myself and have experienced what it's like dealing with a (successful) Japanese company.

Such a merger will never happen and if it does it will be a dangerous move for both. People never think about cultural match when discussing mergers.
Compressed Sensing is exciting - using a sequence of low res images to obtain a higher resolution sample. It was discussed in Wired (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_algorithm/all/1) together with a compelling example (minimizing the time of a young patient in an MRI machine)
When I was in high school my parents once gave me the ignition key to their van, but didn't tell me there was a separate door key. Fortunately I'd left the windows open a crack, and used the cable from my headphones to make a lasso to pull the lock open.
I can only agree with the title of the post, not with the rest of the article.

I'm a technical guy with +10 year background but I also have interest in the rest of areas of a company. Unfortunately I lack any business skills and I'm afraid of failing in basic things if I'm starting my own business.

I don't like at all MBA's with non-technical skills like the one who wrote the post. They tend to be very arrogant and do not seem to care much about the technical aspects, which are indeed crucial for many of the companies discussed here in HN. It's for this reason that I'm pursuing an MBA myself, I think tech+business makes a good tandem. I'll let you know when I finish in two years.
The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen ... TL;DR
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Moscow is as full of signs as it was 10 years ago, but nowadays people drive better because the fines have skyrocketed and the overall culture kind of increased.
Pi: The context of the latest (continued fraction) record
[pdf] Ego Depletion−−Is It All in Your Head?
I think so too. MacRuby is perfect for Apple, as they control its implementation, and the syntax is far more approachable than Objective-C is. Also, no performance penalty when compiled, unless I'm mistaking.

Thinking on it, I'd only be slightly surprised (and extremely delighted) if native/official (as opposed to experimental) MacRuby support for Xcode and the new Mac App Store was announced at the next WWDC.
The help for net send is very dangerous to a young and curious user. It shows the *, but doesn't say what it does.
I've read Gruber for years, and it used to be a mix of "interesting stuff in the Apple world", "Kubrick/Baseball/BBedit/Applescript/typography nits" and "criticisms of Apple" (usually centred around lack of attention to detail, interface annoyances or not being faithful to the pre-OS X way of doing things).

As an Apple owner and fan, I enjoyed reading those intelligent criticisms. Clearly this has changed, but lets not go rewriting history.

The last line of his first blog post:

"But if it’s the latter — that is, if pro users are giving the finger to Mac OS X — things could get ugly."

I wonder why he felt more able to criticize them when they were "beleaguered" than now, when they're on top of the world. Possibly it's no more than being a crotchety OS 9 user thrust into the strange and uncomfortable world of early OS X. Some evidence of that here:

http://daringfireball.net/2002/09/welcome_indeed

On the other hand maybe he's checked his stats and found that trolling pays better.

And just for fun here's some claim chowder from one of his early posts:

"a vaporware Apple-branded mobile “iPhone” is getting a lot traction. Go ahead and read it, but remember that it’s all bullshit speculation at this point."
Now it makes sense. I thought that post seemed a little flippant.
Why the heck are they hosting it at http://gpl.ea.com when they've released the code under the 3-clause BSD license?
Yes, I import a component for a device I sell. It's still stealth mode so I cannot even lever a plug for it here, BUT I'll share my importing experience

1. Sourcing: Alibaba.com is best, Global Sources is a near shadow copy but also good

2. Money transfer: For small amounts I'd recommend Western Union.

3. Chosing a supplier.

======================

Ooh this step is tough.

I liked this article because Adam has pounded the pavement in Shenzhen. This is more than I've done, as the flight would blow out the costs before the market was proven (it is now).

One thing you'll notice is that almost all devices on Alibaba are duplicated by about 5 manufaturers. Some of these are re-stockers, not the actual manufacturers. I haven't worked out a foolproof method of checking who the leaf-node manufacturer really is, but do try.

.

4. Interacting

Be professional. Normally there are contact details on the Alibaba page. Use this to initially get in contact. Whoever is listed will probably not be the person who responds, so scan your spam folder carefully for the next few weeks.

Remember that you may be small fry to them until you place a large order

.

5. Shipping

Most things are FOB (Free on Board) which basically means you pay the shipping. Your Shenzhen company contact should be able to provide you with a quote for Fed-Exing a sample. They will arrange the shipment, you just have to pay.

Initial orders can often just be declared as a sample for customs purposes.

.

6. Costs

Volume counts. It reduces the shipping and unit cost, often in big steps. Shipping too has discontinuities on volume with shipping becoming much cheaper if its worth placing on a ship.

For projecting future costs as the supplier how their price list varies with volume, and how the shipping varies too. They'll quote you.

Plug these all in a spreadsheet and work out the unit cost.

.

7. Legal

Do not forget Import Duty and Sales Tax. These vary per country (I'm in UK, but I've also done this in Oz).

But you need to find out how your goods are classified on an Import Duty scale. This tends to be that goods manufactured in your own country have an import duty on similar goods. In my case I'm importing discreet LED displays, which the UK does not make, so I don't pay Import Duty. If I was importing Plasma TVs, it would have a duty.

Check your country's Import Duty website for your classification. Often there is a fine line between entries, where it could be one or could also be another. This is a judgement call which number you choose. The immigration department may disagree with you and you may have to wrangle with them.

This happened to me in Australia, but after some in-person dignified pleading (yes there is such a thing), the Import official accepted my classification. This miraculously had lower Duty than what he'd initially decreed.

.

=================

.

I hope this helps, good luck!
Apple’s New North Carolina Data Center Ready to Roll
My only worry, in the light of Oracle's spat with Google over Dalvik and its lack of teeth over the OpenJDK, is what kind of patent protection the BSD-like license of LLVM offers against Apple in case it decides every Linux kernel on every non-iPhone smartphone (something that will probably happen in a couple years) infringes some patent they have that touches LLVM in some way.

Any lawyer wants to chime in?
Not a web developer, but a scientist who plays around with it a little bit. Here is what I tried:

1) Viewed source. Didn't see any obvious comments.

2) Looked at .css files. Nothing obvious there, though there are styles for form/etc classes and elements that aren't used in the page.

3) Tried creating some forms with input and label elements in the markup in Firebug to see if CSS labeling on buttons showed anything. Just showed "Submit Query".

4) Looked at session headers in Firebug/Safari and saw something along the lines of

< HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
< Server: nginx
< Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:10:58 GMT
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
< Connection: keep-alive
< Status: 403 Forbidden
< X-Runtime: 0.001014
< Content-Length: 1552
< Set-Cookie: sg.session=%7B%22csrf.token%22%3A%228KSf5VQhEB6DRoS0Z9PWW6ugXnH4e132LzBH8E76dE4%3D%22%7D; path=/

5) Noticed 'csrf.token' and googled to figure out it was a cross site request forgery prevention token, which seems sort of related.

Tried to mess around with this in Python and sort of got somewhere with this

>>>urllib.unquote("%7B%22csrf.token%22%3A%22R5wuQON8nVfha%2F7WRCXTvVMo7rZzu41dFPOVZ2V0MMw%3D%22%7D")
'{"csrf.token":"R5wuQON8nVfha/7WRCXTvVMo7rZzu41dFPOVZ2V0MMw="}'

Then tried re-encoding:

>>> urllib.quote(eval(urllib.unquote("%7B%22csrf.token%22%3A%22R5wuQON8nVfha%2F7WRCXTvVMo7rZzu41dFPOVZ2V0MMw%3D%22%7D")).values()[0])
'R5wuQON8nVfha/7WRCXTvVMo7rZzu41dFPOVZ2V0MMw%3D'

and then doing an HTTP POST with curl

curl -v -d "csrf.token=R5wuQON8nVfha/7WRCXTvVMo7rZzu41dFPOVZ2V0MMw%3D" apply.seatgeek.com

But no dice. Is this totally the wrong direction? Is this puzzle really that obvious to any real web developer worthy of the name, and if so where did you earn your spurs/what books/sites did you read?