skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You seem to have been terribly misled. Only very rarely do products sell themselves. 99% of the time, the product is largely incidental to the sales process. Your idea doesn't matter one jot, what matters is how well you can connect to customers and really sell to them.

Let me tell you about a fine English gentleman by the name of Joe Ades, now sadly no longer with us. Joe wore Savile Row suits and lived in a three-bedroomed apartment on Park Avenue. He spent most nights at the Café Pierre with his wife, sharing a bottle of his usual - Veuve Clicquot champagne. You might assume that Joe was a banker or an executive, but in fact Joe sold potato peelers on the street for $5 each, four for $20.

I urge you, I implore you, I beg you, stop what you're doing and watch Joe in action - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUct4NlxE0

That is what business looks like. Sometimes, once in a million, you luck upon a product so amazing the world beats a path to your door. For most of us, the best we can hope for is to be some chump with a thousand boxes of vegetable peelers. Anybody can sit out on the street with a box of peelers, but Joe sold them. Joe made his peelers sing, he made them seem like magic. He took a humble piece of stamped metal and created theatre. He did something so simple and strange and wonderful that people would buy a fistful of his peelers, just so they could tell their friends about this little Englishman they saw in Union Square.

Look at the Fortune 500, tell me what you see. I see grocery stores, drugstores, oil companies, banks, a funny little concern that sells sugar water. I see a whole lot of hard work and very few great ideas.

Forget about striking it big with a great idea, it's just as childish and naïve as imagining that the tape you're recording in your garage is going to make you a rockstar. Get out there and talk to customers. Find out what they need, what annoys them, what excites them. Build the roughest, ugliest piece of crap that you can possibly call a product. If you're not ashamed of it, you've spent too long on it. Try and sell it. Some people will say "I'm not buying that piece of crap, it doesn't even do X". If X isn't stupid, implement X. Some people, bizarrely, will say "yes, I will buy your piece of crap". It is then and only then that you are actually developing a product. Until you've got a customer, it's just an expensive hobby. Paying customer number one is what makes it a product.
Apple has already licensed Imagination Technologies PowerVR graphics cores (both this and next generation) and hold a large portion of their stock (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLQ64592720090626).

Moving Macs to ARM means they can use these as the graphics cores, customise them, modify them and not deal with Nvidia if they don't want to.
Can we please all learn what a megabit is?
Your statement compares PHP to Rails and Django. It's not about 'political correctness', it's about comparing a language to a framework. Of course a framework gets things done faster than no framework.
Exactly, but think twice? More like not think at all, skipping right past them and find someone else.
Why are you paying so much attention to your "launch day"? It's an entrepreneurial myth that there is a mighty "launch" that sets the tone of your business. When was Twitter "launched"? When was Carbonmade "launched"? When was Balsamiq "launched"? Or SquareSpace, MailChimp, or Fog Creek? Sure, they "launched", but who cared?

You are building a business. It does not spring from your forehead like Athena, or get pooped out of your pet Nibbler like Dark Matter on Futurama. Listen to what everyone else here has to say. Sure, pick something with favorable long-tail SEO dynamics. Sure, pick something with a viral loop. Sure, build yourself a tribe.

But then, for god's sake, pick something you can stick with, nurture, protect, and grow over the long run. That thing you don't have, that you keep calling "a fucking great idea"? Most of us call it "a winning lottery ticket". Stop thinking about playing the lottery. Get back to work.
Right, and the move to an App Store model seemed logical and imminent. But, people here and on Reddit were telling me I was wrong when I said that 4 months ago.
The 100 Percent Solution: For Innovation in News
I'm super interested in the product now. No idea what it is. If for no other reason than to get an idea of what this guy's challenges are.
This may not work for you, but it may work for others: There's a joker in the pack that exists for those of us who don't have the capital (social or economic) to build a company simply off of an idea.

Open source your software, generalize it, and push it so that anyone can set it up. Make it easy to install, and make it do what it says it can do really well.

Sure, it's not the best way to get rich. I've been working on the open source social networking software, Appleseed, for about 6 years now, and it's been a massive effort with very little financial gain. But your measure of success can change, you can subvert the typical questions of press and fame and fortune that have come to define success, and see success in other ways.

And it's not perfect. I had been working on Appleseed for half a decade when Diaspora managed to raise $200k on the same idea by having the connections and press I couldn't get. But in the world of open source, there is still a level of meritocracy that you don't see in the start-up world: Either your software works, or it doesn't, and they may have had $200k, but I had 13 years of professional experience, and a 6 year head start, and when you're measured in code, hype can only get you so far.

You may even see your open source software put the fear of God into that mediocre LA competitor with all the press and venture capital, which just personally would make me feel better.

The one thing my father always said that I had to relearn with life experience is "it's not about what you know, it's about who you know". It's a very frustrating truism, but there are ways to sidestep it. It just requires some creativity and willingness to play outside of the rules.

And of course, you never know, if your open source software gains traction, you might find it easier to start a company from there, since you'll have gained respect, notoriety, and social connections from that work.
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This might sound senile, but I'll be more impressed with a browser implementing javascript/css in a way that doesn't make me have to remember how to write code for it's specific way of calling things. I don't want to have to write more code just to make average features work in your browser.

I'll trade milliseconds of load time for that any day
I'm the author of Delayed Job. The popularity of it really surprises me to no end, and always brings a smile to my face. DJ took about 15 minutes to code up originally and is a product of one of those software rage moments ("why don't people queue like this??!").

I put it on GitHub because Jeremy Kemper really wanted to have a look at it. I thought the idea behind it was so naive that it would have occurred to everyone who ever needed a queue and had discarded the approach for some reason.

Little did I know that it was a fairly novel approach and that it would become one of my most popular libraries, right after ActiveMerchant and Liquid.

Thank you for the PHP port!
I wish I had that 2 years ago in university :) It seems well coded, the documentation is clear and concise and it's in python! Overall, a cute library that I will certainly add to my bag.

I have two small concerns thought:

1- "Only forward"

2- Possibility to expend it.. For instance, what if I want to evolve my neural network with a genetic algorithm, is this possible? And if so, how easy it is?
How Entrepreneurship Can Save our Generation
Handling label music is without a doubt a dead end. Startups who rely on doing so are certainly increasing their chances of failure; there is too much evidence available to dispute this. However, you can build applications that make use of label music without actually dealing with the labels.

I'll preach the benefits of using the Echo Nest's platform[1] (which MOG uses for their playlists) until I'm blue in the face. They established a partnership a while ago with other music startups to provide label music access to startups. Through Echo Nest, startups can use label music in their applications by taking advantages of deals with companies such as 7digital (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-echo-nest-and-7d...).

There's countless obstacles to reaching a repeatable and sustainable business model in the music industry, but these obstacles can be overcame. All industries put up such obstacles to new entrants. Is this not what startups are all about?
So, Apple pretty much is out to eliminate anything that isn't Apple.
> Now a someone who's purely back-end can actually take software he's written, and just throw it on some EC2 instances and sell it directly to consumer internet companies. There's no need to take a job with these companies now and...there's no need to release your software. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1788558

That was in cloud vs. opensource... but I hereby humbly propose 8ren's amazingly wonderful Open Service concept:

The cloud is the future, not only for the backend, but also components
within it - including middleware. Theoretically, arbitrary functionality can be a service - literally, any "function" (in the math sense - or stateful). That is, anything that was previously open source.

It might even get to the point where the economics make sense to use
an "open service" instead of hosting it yourself, analogous to
conventional open source. This would require hosting that is: (1)
practically free; (2) very high performance; (3) very high
availability; (4) security/privacy mechanisms. We may be closer than
you'd think - eg. if EC2 hosted "Open Services" for free, which
would naturally be faster for EC2 paid services, making those paid services more attractive. Then the competition needs to match it... Google might do it too (already does, within its app engine).

To qualify for this amazing free hosted Open Service? Be open source.
Forget what that "other" person said.

If you have a degree, you have a degree. I get the same letters pleading for alumni donations that Eliot Spitzer gets.

It's unfortunate that there are some that cling to a model of social hierarchy that is predicated on beauty contests rather than actual objectively measurable achievement.

I'm argue that someone who earned a degree from Harvard or Yale or Columbia that did the work and earned the grades deserves no less respect than someone who did all that AND passed an admissions process. That process is the only thing that TRULY separates the non-traditional from the tradition student.
I don't really see how signally is bullshit from the examples you've given. Harvard College does make a a decision to cultivate a class composed of the best students, that's sort of the entire point. Acceptance to Harvard College ends up being a signal for those things it selects for, not necessarily those things one actually learns. The gateway is admissions, not what Harvard actually imparts.

Since the admissions standards of Harvard Extension school are lower, it doesn't matter that the students can do the same work. It matters that the students weren't selected in the same way. Selection itself matters to the signal that the education is sending.

As for Harvard (etc) not selecting for Jews and Asians, very explicitly throughout the first 60 years or so (Anyone particularly interested in the topic should read Karabel's The Chosen), that's also, exactly as you point out, a signal sent if you went to Harvard in those years. That doesn't make the policy right or wrong, it just means that if you graduate from Harvard in 1930 you're likely a WASP, and, indeed, that item on you resume is signally to all sort of employers that a good Harvard WASP interviewed you and deemed that your character is fit, that saves a step when they want to hire you at their White-Shoe law firm circa 1935.
Tell me about it. I actually had a girl stop mid-conversation, spin on her heels, and beat a hasty retreat when I mentioned Harvard.

Maybe I should have said I went to Bunker Hill Community College.
What is it? If you don't tell anyone, nobody is going to know.
I had an idea for an online business a few years back that I never really pursued, but I did work out a scheme to assign key objects random ids so that when those ids appeared in a URL, you couldn't tell how many of those had been created. I keep meaning to do a write up, but, until now, I've never heard anyone else notice the potential to leak information, so I just assumed that no one else cared.
You just sound like me. I had the best job. I am not in the valley. My first year in the woods saw me splitting with my co-founder, going into debt and not to mention that my first idea never took off. My current idea has seen 3 YC rejects, 2 TC50 reject, 2 year of me working on it alone and a very recent blasting on the YC. I wonder if my idea will give up on me first.

I disagree that me and you should give up. We have learned more from our failures that most entrepreneurs would have learned for their short-lasting success. It's time to introspect, write down a list of todos that will make your product better, talk to a bunch of users and see why they are hating your product and get back to coding.

You are just in mid-30s and you are going to live for atleast 50 more years. Hang in there for a decade.
>> I can't really find anyone that actually uses Google News and such to any great degree

I use Google News all the time. I assume other do, but that it's hard to get people to switch news aggregators.
Thanks for the feedback! Very good point, we should allow you to send multiple replies per SMS alert to ack and then resolve (currently, there's a limit of one reply per alert).

We'll look at fixing this soon.
Rapleaf doesn't scare me -- their data is only what's publicly available on the web. If you don't want RapLeaf to have it, don't post it on the web.

I actually know their Chicago account manager and have meet one of the co-founders. They are a stand-up group and take privacy and data integrity quite seriously. My company uses their data to pull additional information on "influencers" we identify doing online research.
His reputation is certainly being more damaged by his tone in that reddit thread than by any offhand mention on a broken site.
So why bother with the education part at all then? Why not just run the admissions process and announce the winners of the beauty contest?

BTW, which "first" 60 years are you talking about? Harvard's admission process wasn't /really/ competitive until the 50's.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...
I've posted a couple of decent quality reviews and most have been accepted with 5 star ratings. However, very few reviews are coming back the other way, leaving me feeling like I've somewhat wasted my time.

Perhaps this will change later, but in the meantime, perhaps sites could be circulated around instead of just being assigned to one person (which is what I presume is happening.)
We have a simple integration API and we can also integrate with any system that can send email. Regarding the integration, just shoot us an email: support@pagerduty.com.
Remember your philosophy of science? Homework: is it possible to prove that something doesn't exist?
Wow, thank you, it was worth every second of watching Joe in action.
Are you sure about that? I don't see the 5 sided Torx-Plus bits.

But then I'm also not certain that the new MBA uses a Torx-Plus, the recess' lobes look a little too circular.
Would love more details on the formula.
What about the odds of one computer virus in the wild partially overwriting another one in memory and creating a novel strain? That one has happened.
"Plenty of companies have tried Internet distribution for a long time. Some have success, and some don’t. But none have the type of central repository that Apple is offering here. This is going to be huge."

What about pretty much every linux package manager ever? Heck, the Ubuntu Software Center even looks nice.
The regular torx was never intended as a security screw head. It was just designed for powered assembly in an environment where screw driver bits are consumables.

Matching the 3 screwdrivers in the kitchen's "everything drawer" was not part of the design specification.
AMD Debuts Radeon HD 6870, 6850 Graphics Improves Perf-Per-Watt Significantly
You wanted an audience, now you have one.
Make something of it.
I'm also in Toronto, getting ready to vote, and as another Torontonian friend of mine remarked, just like every other time, we're going to end up with either an insufferable bureaucrat, or a rodeo clown. I look at Calgary with envy.
Well, the real answer is that you learn roughly the same quality of things no matter what college you go to, not that you don't learn anything anywhere, just that Harvard College's distinguishing factor is not its education vs. UMass-Amhert, it is the admission process itself.

Neither of our statements re:admission is exactly correct, but what I meant is that admissions wasn't anywhere near being fair until at least the early 1960s (and that's being generous to Harvard), so the 60 years I was referring to was from 1900-1960. Buuuut, that's not quite right because when Eliot was President things were a little more competitive, but whatever.
Knowing how many tanks the other guy has, and how quickly they can build more new ones is generally of some interest if you are having a war with them
The django-extensions project provides several simple ways to avoid this - just make URL's reference UUIDs or slugs. I imagine RoR has something similar.

http://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions/blob/m...
Alpha is most definitely not a bi-endian architecture; it's little-endian only. PowerPC chips can be either, but the vast, vast majority are big endian.
I'm told in Canada it's not allowed to have 'Engineer' in your title if you lack a P.Eng.; I think I prefer this situation to the common practice here in the States.
He felt the computer was going to change the world, and it was going to become what he called "the bicycle for the mind."

I'd heard Alan Kay repeat this many times. I don't know of much hard evidence (I'd really appreciate some, if you do), but I have a feeling that Alan Kay and the Smalltalk community was a great inspiration to Steve Jobs and Apple's way of thinking.
Though you maybe right in the aspect that "Marketing is about getting the right message to the right people", but this way Amazon is showing that it takes its existing customers for granted.
It's easy to say you're doing it wrong, it's much harder to say how you'd do it right. The ideas are there, they need some integration.

Google News? I abuse the heck out of it, just as feeds to feed Reader however.

The problem I still see with those sites as well as your own, that there's just way too much clicking and tab management involved. Everyone does it, you'll follow a really engaging story, try your damnedest to find the "print" button so you can get it all one one page then decide to instapaper for later or readability for now. Open endless tabs to look up references or if something is late breaking head off to twitter search.

I'd imagine a news portal could be interesting, but not without dramatically lowering the time it takes to navigate around the content and act on it. Finding a way to unobtrusively simplify the use case of someone following tasks to read and understand an article hasn't been done AFAIK, or at least done well. It would seem to me that unscatter is just adding an extra layer on to an already complicated navigation process.
Totally agree, I made a presentation called "Web 3.D" which basically talked about how lucrative opportunities existed in areas where web service overlapped with physical goods. If you start at slide 35 in this presentation, I made a visual comparison of industry size vs. number of market entrants. Music, a shrinking $9B industry has hundreds of startups. Jewelry, a $60B industry has 2. There are some good reasons for this, but the industries are imbalanced.

http://www.slideshare.net/josephflaherty/web-3d-presentation...
Cold calls to vendors in the same or similar space. Ads in trade publications. Take out a banner ad in the top 5 blogs for your vertical. Buy lists and send away.

Making yourself known to marketers is far easier than making yourself known to end users.
Maybe. Maybe for a job like that they may have charged X for the work.

But since it would give them visibility they agreed to charge X/10

i don't know, you don't know.
Build things that people really want to use. Build things that people really want to use.

This is the only rule. Follow it.
In the article it states people are holding onto their PCs longer because they are satisfied with the capabilities of their older machine. I wonder if this is really proven or a misread caused by the XP -> Vista transition problems.
They aren't mutually exclusive. Adobe can target both to hedge their bets. The toolset they have now is well suited to creating all sorts of kickass web content, and that is what they will continue to focus on.
I tried it on my mbp with facetime beta, connected with couple of people in spain, US, it was fun initially. we gave small intros, asked where they were from etc

but the later group was not interested even to talk, they wanted chatroulette style, you would see empty walls, close up eyes and nose, they all disconnected under 5 seconds probably they wanted a girl on their screen
SO...why on earth do you think that it's lying to say you have a degree from Columbia U if it's "only" from the General Studies program.

Did you know that Columbia will hand you a masters degree in Electrical Engineering or Chemical Engineering even if you've never set foot in New York?

http://www.cvn.columbia.edu/

Are those guys (those who earned their degree over the Internet) fakers too?
I think he would have disclosed that if he were unhappy about that, given the already very public nature of the post
Getting on TC and into YC involve people doing things for you. You're blaming your lack of motivation on them.

If you want to advertise, learn to advertise. If you cannot and will not learn to advertise, hire an expert to do it for you. Don't make hurdles into an excuse to fail.
Ask HN: Best way to raise money for a small charity trip?
My little sister is in high school, and recently spent a week in Haiti on a medical mission with a group of doctors/residents (including my mom, who's a pediatric radiologist).

She's trying to brainstorm ways to raise money for the group's next trip. I believe the trips are semi-annual, and they need money for all sorts of things: medical supplies, food (both for the doctors and the patients, many of whom have to walk a full day to get to the clinic), transportation, lodging, etc.

I guess she could do a bake sale or something, but I was wondering if you guys knew of any interesting ways she could cast a wider net than just her high school community.

She has some pretty amazing photographs from the trip, so I was thinking that something as simple as a posterous page with a pledgie link would work; but I'm not very familiar with online charity strategies.

I'd be incredibly grateful for any cool ideas!
Wouldn't that bite into the money they make off of their Flash authoring tools?