skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is a hard question.

First of all, ideas are not patentable. And given the sorry state of patents today, some rather obvious things might be.

Second, although I have published research papers, I do not have any patents. I don't know what the typical patent is like nor how it would compare to the technical contributions of a research paper.

Third, my service is currently an early prototype and it is hard to see what sort of patents might be applicable at this early stage.

Any advice? What did you write for this question?
The article was written in reference to this: http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2007/03/eyeballing_the_.html

It's a flawed assessment to begin with, especially the use of Alexa. Calling it Bust 2.0 is pretty ridiculous. Those "tips" would apply to any situation period. Web or tech startups and the risks associated are nothing new and they'll continue to exist post two-point-oh era.

Our current growth can be attributed to a lot of excitement from everybody, and we can expect the momentum to ease up a little bit. Saying that it's a bust, bubble burst, or crash is just a plea for attention. The go-IPO-with-no-business craze does not exist this time around. A lot of the big sites are actually profitable and the smaller sites have acquisition as exit strategies. And the unsuccessful VC-backed companies just fade from existence. Nothing new there.
We're not referring to those platforms, actually. Neither has much to do with the core problems we're tackling, such as that people currently have to shuffle data between desktop and Web apps. Apollo sounds very similar, but it mostly solves the developer problem of "I have Web skills but want to create a desktop app." The additional UI affordances aside, it's still unclear to me how Apollo apps are worlds better than regular web apps from a user's perspective.

We were actually referring to some smaller companies that have announced or launched recently, such as Slingshot.

To be clear, I don't think the issue is having more apps, but having great apps. In our experience, luring users who can then lure developers is the best way to break the chicken-and-egg problem that any new platform faces. We also believe that building the apps and the platform concurrently yields a better platform.
Homeland Security wants the Master Key to the Internet
Launchpad--Collaborate across software projects (sort of like a more modern Sourceforge)
Sorry, it's http://www.launchpad.net

I tried editing it but you can't change the URL once it's submitted.
Hey why not lean on the optimistic side and answer yes and describe them. It is not like this will make or break your application or your patent chances. On the other hand it could lead to something good even if not a patent.
Y Combinator News: Better than Digg and Reddit? (video also included)
Looks like it's written in lisp. The Server header comes back "Hunchentoot 0.5.1" - http://weitz.de/hunchentoot/
Hey, cool for us. Thanks PG--we're building a nice spot here.
This is a very positive review of what's going on here. The video is pretty interesting too.
Evolving from lists to objects: a story of ZenZui, TAT and Apple
news.yc takes the bulk of my web browsing (hard to believe, right?) and reddit is still great for non-startup buzz. I'll peek at digg every so often but the quality of top submissions seem to keep dropping.

The reviewer at CenterNetworks is right on with his observation on the quality of referral traffic. The users of news.yc are less prone to be the visit-quickscroll-exit types that inhabit a lot of social news sites.
Equity is stock in the company. If he's a cofounder, it shouldn't really be thought of as "giving" him 15% -- that sort of implies that you're the sole founder/decision maker and he's an employee, doesn't it?
Good question - the twist on Vator.tv, as I understand it, is that each quarter the top voted video has the opportunity for VC funding.
Their videos are not very good (I apologize ahead of time if it's your web site.) But, they are the best (and only) I've seen. I think it's a good trend.
Those guys scare me alot more than the terrorists do...
don't worry about it. It's not my website. This is the only video I've seen by them. I think it's cool that they're adding video reviews though.
Hi - Allen here from CN (I made the video) - can you help me understand what you don't like about it? I know the part at the beginning where I say my name is a bit off but I try to do pretty good screencasts. As soon as I can sign some more advertisers, I am going to try to buy better video equipment. But please let me know so I can try to improve as much as possible! --- Allen
News.YC isn't trying to compete with Digg and Reddit. Really; the last thing I need is to have to manage servers with that kind of traffic. The goal here is just to be the watercooler of the startup world. That is a quite small world, tens of thousands at most. I'd much rather this site had really good comments than huge volumes of traffic.
Seattle 2.0: Resources to/from Seattle's startups
To Build or to buy? To Patent or not to?
I guarantee you, anything the NSA wants that Verisign has, they can get.
Indirectly it is. My methodology works with any type of collaborative and conferencing technology. Distance between each team member and the project culture of team is irrelevant..
Sorry, PG, but I think you are wrong in the article description. I think everybody is missing the point of the article:

Summary: "Offline web app access is getting too much publicity. I can't control myself. For example: if I had online access on a plane, I'd have no choice but to use it to work on my site. Cherish the plane, because people don't need even more internet access, we're already connected too much."

The article was more about his inability to control his behavior, thinking that a plane is special because he doesn't have to be online while he's on it.

While David did mention that offline web apps are getting an undue amounts of attention in the first sentence, the rest of the article was a rant about his inability to control his behavior. He didn't say they are overrated. He's just saying he's glad planes don't have internet access so he can read a book or enjoy a coffee, because otherwise, he would be online working on his company site.

I think he just needs to control his own behavior better, such as by taking less electronic devices with him so that Internet access doesn't suck up his life.

In fact, I would say offline web apps would actually be a plus in his situation, because he could focus on just the tasks he's trying to accomplish, without feeling overwhelmed by connectivity. If his goal is to savor time away from internet connectivity, he should leave his devices at home, or take a laptop to an area without internet access and work with software and web-apps offline.
A video about which social news sites are the best to post spam on. Nice.
Regardless of the profession, good professional behavior is a must. Treating ppl with civility is a must
Hmm, maybe so; I changed the title.
Thanks for fixing the link.
Hm. They complain that they couldn't contact Google about this, yet it only took me a minute or so to find: "To request reinclusion, log in to Google webmaster tools, click Tools, then choose the Request reinclusion link and follow the steps outlined there."

Perhaps they did that and just didn't mention it.
I believe they refer to the ideas involving what comprehends your solution to a problem (idea). It's obvious that the problem(idea) you are solving it self cannot be patented, although I think you could just refer to just the problem(idea) you are solving...

A patent (software patent) should never be presented as algorithm in the patent application, but rather as a mechansism that automates a process and has results that solve the problem. This is essential difference between papers. And if you study software patents, you will see a ton of claims reffering to the previous claims, in order to describe your mechanism, in order someone could re-create your solution, thats why some companies decide to go the trade-secret way...
Twitter Timeline for Social networking is a killer idea Every startup should have this
Leo's Web Picks Archive: Joost 0.9 Released for Beta Testers
With that said... anyone have any invite tokens they'd like to share?
To be honest, our answer was pretty vague. We do believe that somewhere down the road we may come up with some new tool or way of doing things that is patentable (heck, if Amazon can do it with "1-click"...) and will pursue that as it comes up.

In the larger picture, though, I don't think that this is going to make or break anybody. I went to a workshop a few weeks ago that was hosted by the Stern School of Business - they had a panel of VCs and one Angel Investor, a startup business pitching to them, and an audience full of people able to ask questions. What was interesting was that one of the first questions the VCs asked after the pitch was "do you have any patents?" The answer was a pretty straight-forward "no." BUT, when asked about it later by someone in the audience, all of the VCs agreed that they didn't really care that the team didn't have anything patented - that they'd rather see a startup spending their time and energy on implementation than on developing a patent portfolio. Really, they just asked the question because they HAVE to ask the question.

I think the larger question here is "why can't someone else do what you're doing?" and the "do you have any patents?" question is the first logical step in answering that. But it's not the end-all be-all. I'm pretty sure Amazon's success really has very little to do with "1-click" and that this wan't even patented until a couple of years ago. (I should check some sources on that...)
Wow, what fast tech support. Happy to post something found useful. Thank you for this web site, for accepting me to startup school, and advice to move to SF. And the articles.

Although David added the first sentence about offline apps to get reader attention, his whole post was about his embarrassment about not being able to control himself. I think offline web apps would actually help him, not hinder him, to work on the things he needs to accomplish in a remote area without AIM, trillian, skype, cell phones, etc to bother thim.
Yep, I knew I should've looked that up before shooting my mouth off: http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projects-99-00/software-patents/amazon.html

Regardless, I still stand by my point. I also believe that most software patents are ludicrous, so maybe I'm not the person to listen to here.
patents is mostly something that big companies make use of between each other, so that they exchange between them rights of use of different pantents.
Microsoft has a patent on showing a message to user X when "john doe is typing..." for communication systems!

Microsoft would never use that patent if it couldn't actually make money from you, and if it could you'd probably pay or just give them rights to some other patent you may have...
Yeah, but I think Joel's main point was not to outsource customer service people. There's definitely something to be said for working for someone who gives you the trust and freedom to make independent decisions, even when that means losing a customer (as someone who used to bartend, I was happy to get rid of a few) but if you're not close to the company than there's just no way that can work.
JavaScript Vulnerabilities and How GWT Developers Can Fight Back
If you want to do anything with mobile you will find yourself constantly running into obstacles created by the operators. Sometimes it would be a lot easier if you ran your own mobile phone network.

How about a 'web2.0' mobile operator? Lovely unlocked handsets, open apis, unrestricted pipes, etc
Hah! I knew Google would be first to respond!
Haha, this was one of my ideas in my yc app.
Y Combinator News: Filter Features Wanted
dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=363
My brother's friend is an exterminator and gave me an amazing mouse trap. You don't need something patentable to make a successful business. Sure, smart and creative people may be great inventors, but many times it's the copycats who execute better or have a strategic advantage. I'd rather have half of Toyota and a smaller market share than all of Ford and GM with their legacy problems.
Am I the only one who would like some new filtering features for this site?

Either:

A) A better filtering scheme. Many of the links submitted have nothing to do with startups. This isn't a general service like Digg or Netscape

And/Or

B ) The ability to subscribe to the 'best' list via RSS. This one would be better than just getting all the noise of the 'new' list. Not great, but it's a start.
No doubt. What's interesting though is that the level of discourse has been really high, and apparently we're good folks to have visiting other sites (according to this article).

Have you updated your traffic graphic recently? It'll be interesting to see if we can maintain good participation after Startup School and this batch of YC applications.
Startup Meme News.YCombinator Is Surely a Better Digg For Startup News
I'm a big fan of the "11:59PM" deadlines, cause then there's no ambiguity.
Do smartphones need to be anything more than a browser and a phone?
It's really weird to see a link on the new page about another link still on the front page. A little too meta for my taste.
The Internet and Social Life
We identified our core features & strengths. Quick patent searches on these let us know whether there is something out there identical or similar to what we are doing at a macro scale. Keep in mind, patents are worded in lawyer-speak so we can't say there is nothing out there until spending a lot more time & resources (lawyer money).

It is fairly common to find that little things you do are patentable so focusing on the big things will keep your task manageable.
There was an article in the NY Times a while ago about how Google was shifting from their "ask crazy CS questions and post puzzles on billboards" interview process to a more standardizable "algorithmic" one. I'm guessing stories like this about being asked a standard set of questions of questionable relevance are the fallout from that transition.
Entrepreneurs are Artists: Two Keys to Creative Success
Entrepreneurial Lessons From the Movie "Rounders"
Equity is ownership of the company. It is everything that that the company is after all debts have been settled. Stock is the way this is represented. So the percent of equity you have is the percent of stock you have.

The only time it translates into money for you is when it is sold or dividends are declared. Generally, the percent of the equity you have is the percent of the cash you get.

I would recommend talking with your cofounders about how you want to split it up. Remember that YC will take a small chunk of it as well. I'm sure if you're accepted there will be help with understanding it all.

If you want a generic recommendation, take a chunk and set it aside then divide the reset evenly amongst the cofounders.
Startup Meme Sonopia Lets You Build a Mobile Social Network
Once they start giving the artist's a bigger cut of the prices then I'll start to care. Right now 35% is going towards Apple, and I'm sure EMI is seeing about 70% of each sale. I couldn't care less if EMI and Apple make more money off of their artists and consumers. The whole DRM thing was bound to fail anyways.
Could you monetize these ideas? How much would they make you?

Also, how do you see these shares? As a commitement? How much of your time would you spend on each? They had the idea so they deserve a premium but if you will spend just as much time as them on it, that premium is all that separates you from them.

Commitement matters. As important as ideas are, without commitement and execution, they are nothing.
Introduction to Monads in Ruby
I somehow agree and I wondered why all this excitement for offline access of applications. Of course syncing and having offline backup of your information is good but, nowadays, they only way to escape being online is by choosing it. I am aware of flights over atlantic that have wifi...

Really, how many times in your life did you find yourself offline and needing to use a web application? And if you did find yourself offline most probably you are without your pc or your mobile which means you end up using another device.

Oops! That means no access to that trendy offline application you installed the other day!

Everyone is moving inside the web, not outside it.

Go Grid!

P.S
And I think now I am getting it! Thaaat was the sarcasm from Google with GMail Paper!
"good artists copy, great artists steal" - pablo picasso
Patents are intellectual property, when you are acquired they the buying company looks for and pays for to justify the acquisition. Having strong IP is an asset like any other, even if it doesn't prevent a competitor from entering your space, it just make it harder.
Which came first, the business or the idea?
The author writes that there is way too much connectivity, and hard to escape it (except for a plane ride, which he thinks is awesome.) I think that's an argument FOR offline web apps, and FOR self-control.
Actually, when you disclose the ideas does have an effect on patentability. IANAL, consult with a professional, etc.
Someone already could deploy the user interface of their application using HTML/CSS, using either the awesome IWebBrowser2 COM interface from Microsoft, or the Mozzila Browser.
Norton Antivirus is using IWebBrowser, Skype i think is uzing Mozzila's...
Applications like Skype could never be developed using anything else than the perfomance of native compiled C/C++. And if not compiled, they could never use tricks to stop you from debugging Skype...
Facebook | Programming Puzzles
I think any site with quality content is going to see a higher "quality" visitor from sites like news.YC.

Steve Yegge, for example, probably gets a lot of "quality visitors" from programming.reddit.com. The interests match, and he has lots of good content.
but being unable to escape connectivity makes useless for most users offline web apps...and i think having to use offline web app (a term that really sounds wrong) would just add frustration
Using it on http://onetimeline.com - EC2 for indexing nodes and web front end, s3 for data storage and awsp for webcrawler.
Couldn't have got up this fast without it - 1.5 years in the making (well fast to develop a search engine anyways!)
5 Tips to 600,000 hits in 3 weeks
Great site, a definite must read...I've been aware of some of these VC games by seeing them first hand, but this takes it to the next level of detail.
Startup Meme Subvert and Profit Wants to be a Heaven for Digg Gamers
Twitter:  Is brevity the next big thing?
Web apps are so successful because you don't have to instal anything: no setups, no runtimes, no permission requirements on corporate sites, no need to run updates etc.

This new wave of "we need to be offline" is undermining all of that with a non-existing problem. I have no need to have offline GMail, for example. I might have a need to have offline Google Docs (if their site is down) but that's so low on my list of requirements since Google.com is up 99.99% of the time.

I believe that every one of these "web app on your desktop" movements will ultimately fail for being unnecessary.
Slingshot Apologia: We Didn't Design Slingshot for Planes (Joyent replies to DHH)
Will VCs and angels hang around here to get to know founders or will they set up their own competing sites?
It doesn't surprise me that attempting to program functionally in a statement-oriented language feels like putting on the wrong size pants. The two things are like oil and water: naturally opposed.
They already hang around here. Not to get to know people so much as to see what's going on in the startup world.
prime_bits reminds me a lot of a puzzle I got as an interview question for the DirectX group at MSFT so many years ago.

I love the question "What happens when you type ls?" that Sun asks. It can be answered at any level of depth or breadth, and is a great way to see how someone's mind works.
I think I'll pass on any investment that is based on an unrelated popularity contest. Popularity of my product ought to play a role here...but popularity of a video about it?

Anyway, I don't get it and won't visit again, though I think there's still plenty of room in the online video market for niche entries.
Part of the problem is the word "professional" to begin with.

The reason that 37Signals post might really be considered unprofessional is not because there is swear in the title, but because it being there makes the comment rude. To some people, that title conveys anger rather than the humor that was intended. Anger is generally not professional, in that it interferes with productivity.

But saying it was "unprofessional" carries a whole lot of semantic baggage that probably isn't appropriate. It calls to mind an impractical ideal of workplace behavior that encourages complete suppression of all natural human emotion. Certain aspects of professionalism are good, but unfortunately "unprofessional" often turns into a blanket (often hypocritical) label for "anything I don't like."

I recommend any time you find yourself wanting to use the word "unprofessional," see if there isn't something less abstract that would work instead. (In this case "rude" might be more appropriate.)
BritePic (add ads to photos)
good professional behavior is a must

The problem is "what is professional"?

here's one view: http://tinyplanet.ca/projects/professionalism.html

Treating ppl with civility is a must

That ought to go without saying, but sadly... it is rare, especially on the Internet.
Their video player, to me, is slightly more interesting. How difficult would it be to create a system by which you could "annotate" video?: you could add tags to objects in the video that could allow viewers to link to the product page:

- for instance, when an actor lifts a can of coke, you could click on it, go to the coke page.
- an actor's face could go to the wiki or imdb entry.
- might be an interesting way to take brand awareness advertising (product placement) and make some conversions to actual purchases.

Add some options to hide/show these annotations, and maybe you could (unobtrusively) actually make some money off of video. Anyway, enough rambling about an unrefined idea.. just looking for feedback or thoughts or links to existing stuff like this.
Its commitment and Cash. We are going to fund ourself. Its a brilliant idea. Its simple and it applies to a long tail economy. I believe its a multi million dollar idea that needs to be executed well. Also I think that my idea can be a platform for theirs... Everyone will win from working together. I just think that giving up 40% of a nearly finished product is big.
Picoformats - Standard Formats for SMS
From what you describe, it would be better if you guys do a merger instead of run two different companies.

Do a merger and figure out the split based on what each of your cofounder brings to the table. This makes more sense if your business and theirs compliment each other and are both in the startup phase.

Right now I sense that you are confused about what exactly you want out of this. If you are looking for a cofounder, a merger makes much more sense than equity swap which doesn't get you a cofounder.
Rather they might poach on valuable people
Create an irresistible free trial for your app
I see valid points on both sides of this issue. However, I think it's definitely worth looking into tech like Slingshot to see what could happen next. Rails has allowed the development of many applications that we would have never seen otherwise, hopefully Slingshot will allow the same thing with desktop apps.
Better product, higher price?
Apparently you don't live in Oklahoma ;)
Traffic's been rising consistently. Today (GMT) we got 21,117 page views, the second highest day so far.
So for years people have begged for DRMless music, because they want it more than DRM'd music. If thats true then they'll pay more, competition with other DRMless sources will hopefully eventually drive down the price.