skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>I don't think Scottish, English or Welsh people use "government" it that way though

Well, you'd be wrong. That's exactly how we use it when we're talking about people. I won't pretend you don't hear the same word used to refer to 'the State' (which is the term we use for the overall apparatus of the State) colloquially, but you can always distinguish from context.
Their website sucks.. I can't even register
Or read the book by the same author that covers that exact question, _How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In_
It is obviously true that people should be compensated for company, team, and individual success.

It does not follow that the way to do that is a rigid, formal cycle of performance reviews and ranking.
Yes, I'm reading that too. Next, I'll read The Forever Peace.
In the US we would. The equivalent term would be Administration.
5 tests my next business idea will have to pass - Can you add more?
I launched my most recent app - www.biznus.tv - few days back. The idea is to aggregate all the business related videos, compile the meta data and also generate more meta data and present to the users. I have been working on this idea for around 7-8 months now and in spite of providing a meaningful service, it is less likely to generate any meaningful revenue. (So you may ask why I picked this idea but I don’t want to get into that and convert this post about me and my project. So I will leave that for some other time).

Learning from mistakes, I wanted to note down tests that my next idea is going to have to pass before I pick it up for execution.

1) Good is not good enough - Everyone have ideas. I have a lot of ideas - over 100 in my list. The next idea that I pick will have to be the one that I think makes most sense from business perspective. It sounds more like a common sense but I shamelessly acknowledge that I made the mistake of picking up some ideas in past that I thought were going to be 'quick ones' rather than 'best ones'. Not anymore, pick your best bet.

2) What’s the problem? - If I cannot explain the problem, my idea is solving - I ain't doing it.

3) Show me the money - I am not building a next-generation-free_of_charge-consumer-space-social-media-web app as my next venture. In my opinion playing field is not level anymore. There a lot of big players. Players with venture money and super smart mentors. I am not saying its impossible, its just that chances of success are too slim. Like Felis Dennis says - "You may not necessarily want to be in a glamorous sector of any market, and they are often very crowded"

4) Where are the customers? - There should be a market for what you are building. What’s the best way to validate that - What (What businesses) are going to be your competitors? Seth Godin says - "Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no."

5) Validate the traffic from Google Keyword tool, compete.com and quantcast to make sure you get a feel of the market.

There are a lot of great articles from successful people, sharing experiences on how to be successful(http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionaire-in-three-years/) or how to execute an idea(http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-to-go-from-idea-to-launching-with-paying-customers-in-8-steps/). The intent of the article above is to list tests you can run on the ideas in your pool of ideas and pick THE one that has higher chances of success.

What else do you do to make sure idea is worth executing? That it is worth spending 9-12 months of your life before you see the first dollar.
It's funny how you could take "Google" out of that slide and put "Apple" in it and it would be almost word-for-word applicable. Or maybe it's not funny.

Too, I recognize that this author of this presentation spent time to make it public, and sharing this sort of information is always welcome, so moaning about the format might seem a little rich. But in the glorious tradition of the internet, I'ma gonna bitch about it anyway. I really really hate this new fad of posting these Powerpoint-style slide decks. I would always prefer to read prose, even inexpert prose, than <next> through yet another comically inept link on scribd or google docs.

Moaning off. Thanks again to the author.
Based on my experience, it's neither baseless nor unwarranted.
My understanding of the kindle lending process currently is that we will only be allowed to lend a book once[1]. Unless they say otherwise, this model would not work. I do think that eventually this will be opened up to work like actual book lending would though. Also, remember that publishers will be able to specify whether or not books are lendable, so this may all be moot anyway.

[1] - http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_...
Thanks very much for this analysis, I had no idea how this played in the AOL acquisition.
From what I've seen from numerous succesful indie titles (Minecraft, Mount & Blade etc) developing a "community" along with the software is a key. So maybe you guys should also start a forum and welcome users/early adopters to share ideas and give you instant feedback about the game.
Just a guess: because it reminds you that another year just passed ?

If you don't like your current situation, then it put you into the perspective of your whole life being wasted.
The Co-Founder Mythology - Mark Suster
All great ideas. I'm in a bit of a knowledge-base limbo where I spend just enough time setting up my server so that it survives a load test. I use nginx as my daily driver; I think I'll try to level up some admin skill and try to apply some of these principles to my setup. Who knows, maybe I'll do a write up.
Infused Commerce | http://www.infusedcommerce.com (11/1/2010)

A self-service social commerce platform that allows merchants to "Create a Facebook Store and Distribute Your Store in Ads".

HN: We're interested in partnerships related to social media marketing, e-commerce, and advertising.
> They are way ahead of the rest of us on much of this stuff, having cut their teeth on it at home and at school.

Maybe this was just me, but I can't imagine the school aspect being further from the truth.

In the schools I attended the closest I came to learning how to make a website was when, in a science class, we were given step by step instructions on how to make a graph in excel. "Click File then select <button>. Next click on <button>". You get the idea. If the graph didn't look identical to the teachers we had to do it over again. They were trying to teach us how to do very specific tasks on a very specific set of software, and were failing even at that.

And that I was constantly berated for my failure to fill out the worksheets that they called "homework", because I was busy teaching myself OpenGL, doesn't make me any happier about schools getting any sort of credit for my abilities.
Just finished Andrew Vachhs's Haiku which I think is his weakest novel so far, I liked Alina Rodriguez's The Husband Habit and I could not put down Born To Run which gave me new insight into running, a sport I'm just getting started with. Currently reading Cooper's About Face (only technical book on the list :-) and about to start Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World
how about Arch Linux or Fedora no one mentioned about it ?
Why would someone vote for a law that seemed to them likely to create harmful side effects rather than waiting for a less ambitious, better-designed law that wouldn't? That's the conundrum I think many people fell into. You can say "the perfect is the enemy of the good", but that ignores the fact that the bad is also the enemy of the good.
This was especially helpful to me. Thanks.

You made a minor point about the advantage of putting you on the same side of the table when you don't use a projector. I think that point is actually huge. I'm frequently an imposition to restaurants getting them to set the seating up at a 90 degree angle instead of across the table for the same reason. It's conspiratorial instead of competitive.
Spook Country by William Gibson. Anything by him is pretty awesome.
Someone once told me that when people use 'cutting edge technology' as technology they almost always mean 'technology after they have been born' And yes the term 'digital native' is probably as unclear/flaky as that. =)

But I'm not being ageist here or anything of that sort. The fact is that when we are young, we start from a clean slate. The youth of the current generation is probably growing up with the internet and some might say facebook as one of their primary means of connecting with their social network. And that is all they know. They have no concept of life before the internet or even facebook (or google).

Whereas for the older generation, we grew up not being able to just google for information. We grew up without having facebook to monitor our social networks. Yes we use facebook and google now, but our perceptions are also colored by the good ol' pre-google and pre-facebook days. There are some of us that understand the appeal of facebook and take to it like fish to water. And there are some of us that do not understand what the fuss is about.

For the younger generation, almost all of them take to facebook like fish to water. That is all they know. They have no concept of life before facebook or google. Can you imagine what this does to their world view? I don't think I can and I am excited to see what comes out of their perspectives.
Facebook Revamps The Mobile Log-In Process With Single Sign-On
The poster above mentioned that US sports spectators get patriotic, not crazy. I've watched people watch Baseball. You'd have to add 1000s of them together to get the calorie burn of one Dutch/English/German hooligan. Calorie intake on the other hand…
My wife arrives one hour early for domestic flights and has yet to miss one (she travels as part of her work). I even in my anal-retentiveness about flights rarely arrive more than an hour and a half early. So there is a good amount of time you are leaving on the table that you could reclaim. I hope this series of comments will help you waste less time and money driving.
Wasn't Apple's walled garden supposed to protect us form such apps?
Yes, I definitely agree that it depends on the topic.

That said, I didn't want to limit it to a specific topic (e.g. just learning a new language) and hoped that people would enumerate some of their preferred topics and corresponding methods, just as you did :)

I was also curious about how people go about choosing what topic to dive into next, if it's anything beyond the normal ongoing mental list of interesting potential topics.
tvon, if you live in Mount Vernon, you should try and check out http://www.twitter.com/CoworkCharles as well. It's a bunch of techies getting together to cowork at coffeeshops with free wifi along Charles Street, happens about once a week.

The more the merrier!
No, of course not. I did not mean to imply that.
Narcissus and Goldmund, because it was recommended before by someone on HN.
Techcrunch is full of tech people with AdBlock installed.
Oracle is the archetype of "enterprisey": a massive convoluted platform that costs a fortune and requires specialists to babysit, which businesses use because many years ago there were no viable alternatives. They're much more interested in milking their cash cow than innovating, which may very well be the correct business decision, but it makes them unappealing to most hackers. None of that makes them "evil", but it does make it easy to side against them in the Google case, especially given the dislike for patent aggressors in general.
Something that is tied to the "Where are the customers?" point - conducting mini-'interviews'. Sometimes direct competitors are tough to come up with, but asking people if they would use your product (or at least think about it) would make a pretty good case.
A smart way to make ends meet while developing your own apps
I was in the concept stage of a very similar project, when I came across this project. It's precisely what I was envisioning. I think the model of creating a very broad iOS/Mobile code framework that would allow you to sell/license to specific markets. Creating customized builds of the app for various clients.

Anyone else working on something similar? I have 2 or 3 other big markets I think this model would work using this model.
Bravo. Early in the GWOT, liberals attacked Bush for having a with us or against us attitude, or actually saying it. He wasn't nuanced at all. I see the same close-minded thinking coming from self-described liberals. Why can't we just talk about basic philosophy and not Team A vs. Team B? My original point was that conservatives should want legalization, or at least tolerate it, because they want to conserve limited government. It has nothing to do with republicans, democrats, libertarianism, etc. Conservatives were not favored in CA this election cycle. It's been the case since 1988. Liberals who want legalization can't simply blame conservatives for the banning of pot. They should call convvatives out on their supposed limited government, pro individual liberty ideals in order to convince them that legalization should be supported!
This is a great book. Definitely earned it's Pulitzer Prize.
It's sad/embarrassing they don't have a Chrome plugin for this but do offer Firefox.
1. Go to community college, to spend as little as possible on the college degree.

2. Your education is your own to manage, don't expect anything out of class, just do the work, pass and get the piece of paper.

3. Find a few friends and make stuff now, while you have no 9-5 job/wife/kids/401k/etc. to worry about.
Art Essay on Make the World Aware of Different Types and Benefits of Art
An art essay is a common writing assignment for students who are following art coursework. In order to write a clear art essay it is beneficial if the students had a basic knowledge of the various types of art and forms. This will enable them to write a good art essay.
http://essaychampions.com/writing/write-essays-essay-writing/art-essay/
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like what was lacking was customer development (term recently in vogue, but basically represents some solid, time-honored principles of makign sure people are willing to pay for whatever you'd liek to build... before you build it. :)

I'm guilty of not following this process as well. In my case, I stuck with the product anyway, and over a very long haul (about 3 years, and $500k) we've finally hit product/market fit. An expensive lesson to learn.

http://steveblank.com/category/customer-development/

Best of luck next time!
Founders at Work

It's been on my 'to-read' list for awhile, finally got around to reading it. Really enjoying seeing into the origins of a lot of the big companies these days, and how that shaped what they do today.
Pilotless military planes are designed to kill people. I would prefer not to use that as a criteria for creating pilotless passenger-carrying aircraft.
Take a year of. Travel the world. For real.
Thanks for adding Hacker Newsletter to your listing... I hadn't noticed that until now.
Pretty awesome - though I suspect that there are going to be plenty of security issues stemming from this. The current facebook login button is already used on plenty of malicious sites.
I just finished this over the weekend and thought it was great. What did you think?
Run With the Hunted by poet Charles Bukowski. This ain't your grandma's poetry :)

http://amzn.to/b24sCC
Matthew 7:3-5
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Godel, Escher & Bach (round 2!)
Programming in C by Stephen G Kochan & Getting Things Done by David Allen
Excellent, although the "we didn't need so much money" might give the impression they were taking money that other clubs could have used, although that's government for you!
My suggestion is to go get a job that sucks. After a couple years of doing a job that's utter crap, you'll realize that doing fun things that other people want done isn't really that bad after all. You'll gain a new appreciation for the work.

Alternatively, try to do contract work. You'll either find that it suits you well (you get to pick what jobs you do) or that you absolutely hate not having someone between you and the client or that you need the structured environment not-being-your-own-boss brings.
The Orange Revolution

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1439182450

Getting some interest in building teams that makes an organization be more productive, efficient and at the same time, a nice and fun place to be in. I wanted to start with our IT department and perhaps, when permitted, expand to other sectors in the company I am working for.
Hamlet as a Diagram
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1861964
Just finished reading Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden, a fascinating tale of evolution and intelligence.

Now I'm trying to tackle Infinite Jest on my iPad. I've never been much of a reader but I'm trying my damndest to break that non-habit. I have no idea what's going on in this book but I feel I'd be totally screwed with out the built-in dictionary function of iBooks. I'm certainly expanding my vocabulary if nothing else!
take a look at this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1838273
or contact him directly at: konjevic at gmail com
Looks like you've already got a $200 site to me.
nice i like it very much. thanks
Or better yet, combine the two suggestions before me: take a year off while you can travel cheap, go to college, find friends, and let your creativity bloom during that time.

That few years also buys you enough time to figure out if there's something else that would keep you occupied and happy than web development.
Scaling 500 Million Rows
I can't agree more with this! Right now you don't see a lot of options in front of you due to burnout etc. Despite this, force yourself into the unknown and discover new things, it sounds cliche but it'll change your perspective.
I had no idea Kochan had a C book. I only know him for his Objective C book. How is it?
Thank you, that is the kind of response I was looking for. I will take a look at Enthought.
DevOps Core
Keep in mind that by Billion he means 10^12, so it is actually a huge amount of money.
My Original Venn Diagram
I'm pretty sure you're being facetious but moms? Lol
Thank you. Yes, it's a regionalism with the connotation indicated.

Sharp lines were drawn. For example, the founder of the first (then unlawful under state law) dispensary -- and a kind of "father of the moment" was quite against Prop 19. He and the author of the proposition had a falling out and parted ways in a joint business activity.

Various growers were against it. They are already dealing with falling prices and the perception was that Prop 19 would greatly accelerate that. That kind of political sentiment easily "trickles down" through the various supply chains.

Within the industry the main monied supporters look like folks who expected to make a cool quick few million in retail trade.

Those are the lines of a feud. Hence, the regionalism of "Are ya fer it? Or again' it?" [traditionally stereotyped as a question that comes from someone pointing a shotgun at you while asking].

A fair number of casual users were looking forward to their 5x5 personal plots and/or safe and (state-level) legal dealing --- but others were scared away by the "no" campaign's characterization of the implications of Prop 19.
He says, "I'm not telling you don't do it... [but if you have a cofounder] make sure you have founder vesting."
Pitcher Perfect: Why can't anyone throw a baseball faster than 100 mph?
Hi, this is my first contribution to HN.

I'm currently reading Revelation Space. It's a science fiction space opera novel by Alastair Reynolds. Pretty immersive. A good read!
Simple way to get me to NOT read your article: give it a flash-based popup-ad and split the article into 8 separate pages. I just want to see the data. Fail.
- The Well-Grounded Rubyist

- Security On Rails

- Walt Disney: An American Original
1. Rediscover your passion.

2. Get away from work and analyze what it is you really want. Then pursue it.

3. Have some time with your relatives, friends, and loved ones.

4. Re-learn the value of being able to enjoy little and solitary moments for yourself.

5. Do some charity / volunteer work.
Thanks for this. Collapsible comments are one of the two biggest things I miss from reddit when on HN (the other being some form of notification that someone has replied to you).
It's the second time in my memory TC is in the middle of a soap-opera-style tech drama. I am starting to suspect the common thing between both stories is the source of the drama. Either they have a knack for choosing bad partnerships or they are the unluckiest company on Earth.
Interactive: Billionaires' Favorite Politicians
Or even jut fix a typo in a comment or error message.
The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown.
For the most part, this seemed like an interesting blog post, but toward the end, it came across as a thinly veiled advertisement for this iOS framework. My apologies if I have misconstrued this, but the title is misleading. If you're advertising, say so rather than trying to disguise it.
Thanks. I'm seriously looking for an idea. I should get started in 2-3 days when my new laptop arrives. Hopefully I'm decided with what I'm building before that.
Losing all of your stock options or having something else taken away is not a negative case for incentives, it's an example of a disincentive, which also has an effect. They aren't the same thing, and you can tell because you don't know how well you'd be working if you never had the options in the first place (and hadn't been denied them or otherwise been treated unfairly).

One of the reasons you don't see many founders take a $50k/yr salary is that very few of them are truly confident of success. I once heard an aphorism, "don't trust a founder who won't put their own money into the company." It's a little pointed and unrealistic, but you get the idea. In an industry driven by a mythology of becoming the next big thing (parallels to the equally one-in-a-million mindset in the music industry), no founder can afford, professionally and with regard to reputation, to treat themselves as anything but a foregone success, and that attitude requires "competitive compensation." This means they want to be paid as much as other unsure founders.

The "low-salary superboss" is a product of already-successful companies.
Making Mobile More Social
Jason, I've been keeping up with your Rejection Therapy challenge and it's been highly entertaining so far. Your comfort zone is certainly a lot broader than mine.

And that brings me to my point: you're more of a risk-taker than most, but it seems the game better serves people who are essentially handicapped because of a social anxiety disorder or introvertedness.

Since you're actually played it, and I haven't, you tell me. Am I right or wrong? Or is the game for anyone?
I'm reading the following:

#Recommend on HN:

--Infinite Jest - DFW

--A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - DFW

--The Web Application Hackers Handbook - Marcus Pinto

#Recommended Elsewhere:

--On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins

--Refactoring - Martin Fowler

--The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (re-reading/skimming)
I hope your outdated documentation was at least in a wiki (or similar) so that you could correct it.
Great book! I used to love story format non-fiction books, and "The Killer Angels" was one of my favorites. Also, check out "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan (D-Day) and my favorite one of his, "A Bridge Too Far" (about largest airborne operation in WWII). Just don't watch the movies!
Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson - interesting exploration of how connectivity facilitates ideation.

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky - great nuts & bolts conversation on moving ideas into execution

Comfortable With Uncertainty (re-reading for the Nth time) - 108 short meditations and stories on finding peace in the context of constant change
Drumming at the Edge of Magic, by Mickey Hart w/ Jay Stevens.

Random tales of the Grateful Dead, Shamans, percussion, and (most interesting to me) a conversation with Joe Campbell.
How do you pronounce the name?