skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Erm.. Wha? The Long Tail is just a concept.. It's not restricted to user-generated content. I'd say that Google Maps is the perfect example of The Long Tail, because even though most people spend their time looking at San Francisco or wherever, Google Maps has photos of most of the earth!

Maybe the article would be better retitled "Applications Built on Google Maps Can't Fit the Long Tail". But even that's debatable.
The world map of social networks
A lot of this has to do with the quality of your palette. Some people are simply amazingly sensitive (I think Gladwell has a chapter in Blink about such people), and others are... not. I tend to group myself into the second category. Then again, I think the different between the sodas is pretty substantial, but I live in North Carolina, and apparently we lead the nation in soda consumption (55 gallons per year per capita... I quit drinking the stuff for new years :p ).
Kottke: Facebook is AOL 2.0 (another proprietary platform)
Becoming a Better Developer Part 11: Get a Massage (and Get Your Boss to Pay For it)
Computer Science Enrollment is Going Down, and Taking Software Jobs With It
Before you know it, they'll be going door to door;-)

Sounds like a reasonable guess, and it might work, although it must be said that PG took something like 10 years to go from viaweb to YC, which is probably healthy in terms of gaining experience.

Oh well... should be interesting to watch in any case!
It would be interesting to give people who make claims like that a taste test. We sometimes see odd results from professional testers in blind tests: You know, Two-buck chuck and MCD's premium coffee winning huge competitions. Put some boone's farm in a decanter, and I'll bet your snootiest guest will like it, even if its "a little sweet".

I think I can tell the difference between caffeine and non-caffeine coke, but it might just be the label. Maybe I'll test myself sometime...
Well, don't count the chickens before they're hatched. Sure, there's a ton of buzz (more buzz than for any product I've ever seen) but buzz better translate to the sales!

But hey, I'm buying one too... I'll try to get one on Sat. :) Just count it as work phone and you can deduct some of its costs ;)
Getting Things Done (Excerpt: David Allen's book on the art of stress-free productivity)
Getting Things Done II (Excerpt: David Allen's book - Processing: Getting "In" to Empty)
Couldn't agree more!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30269
That's very true, but if the YC teams are made up of winners, it's likely that they'd be able to create winners. They'd guide applicants to do what they did.

Plus, they'd have a financial stake in the applicants. One reason the YC teams would be composed of successful startup founders is because successful founders have money to invest, and $15k is pocket change. With that kind of self-sustaining cycle, there is no upper limit! Before you know it, they'll be creating a thousand companies a year. Ten thousand! Imagine that for a moment. Sure, most of them may fail, but if just one in ten succeed with returns of more than ten times their investment then it's a net win. My god.. This might turn into a viable alternate life path for the average Joe. It's hard not to be excited.

But I shouldn't count chickens before they hatch.
How's it detect? browser string? ip?
If it detects via the browser string, maybe we can spoof it and have a look.
Cool article. I'm perplexed as to why it's going down, reasons given or not. It's such a cool, exciting space.

Actually my school gets a mention: " "There is some early evidence that an emphasis on interesting end-goals may help increase the enrollment of women in computer science courses: researchers at Georgia Tech have created an introductory programming course for non-CS majors that emphasizes the use of programming to manipulate digital media; the class is 2/3 female."

I can assure you that NO class at Georgia Tech is 2/3 female.
Markus Frind is skeptical about HotOrNot's transformation
Um... You mean most reputable designers who have never been co-founders?

The guy is offering equity... Presumably a considerable amount (given that the project is in such an early stage). That is not remotely the same thing as spec-work.

That being said, people here are right-- there is virtually NO value on the table here, so the OP should be willing to give up some serious equity.

Better yet, the OP should add a designer-partner. Design is serious business and it's what separates the iPods from the Zunes... It's an ongoing process and should be baked into the way you make software... It certainly shouldn't be "slap a coat of paint on it and we'll make millions".

On the disclosure stuff, I agree. Stealth mode is 99% of the time ridiculous. That being said, there's no harm in being discreet. If I were in the poster's shoes, I'd post a vague description and give plenty of detail to any designer who wanted to learn more.
TheDailyTube.com and Chime.TV
In the news... These two "human-curated" sites, now in beta, will make you feel way smarter about the generally stupid pastime of scrounging around for amusing viral videos.
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/27/rss-reader-for-iphone/

Spoofing the user-agent just gives a blank page. It's not live yet.
Oh, man. I thought women wanted high culture.

Have you ever really observed women (and sometimes men) talk about celebrities. Women talk about Paris Hilton or whatever oddly-crrepy-looking person is "of the moment" as if they were family members or close friends.

"Oh, can you believe that she would..."
"And then she said..."
"We saw here do that are were like, whatever..."

Etc. Funny how rarely people can recognize how they are being manipulated. Even if typing crap into this blog (sorry, news aggregator) is a faux social activity, at least there's a chance someone will read and respond to me.
When you look at the "network computer" idea, it always made sense, but so many of its proponents just saw it the wrong way.

They figured that the server network would be much bigger, smarter and more distributed than individuals' computers. Sure. Makes sense.

So they went to work dumbing down PCs. Oops. They should have bet on the advancement of server network systems, not the regression of desktop technology.
Zentation: sync powerpoint presentation with google video
You're right--that probably would be a better title. And yes, like many things worth saying, it is debatable.
I use Jquery but wasn't there a thread already about this?
Give .NET a Break
Are your interests in social bookmarking (a la delicious/clipmarks..) or social annotation (diigo/fleck/stickis/trailfire ...) ?

The scene is pretty crowded and traction will be very difficult unless you have significant differentiator.

Based on my prior experience getting friends/family to use a social bookmarking service , most folks don't use any because organizing bookmarks never gets elevated to problem from a mere inconvenience.
They have to shown thats it's really really easy before they become converts. Your trick is going to be how to reach this audience.
I suspect that most software development jobs are indeed unrewarding.

Pursuing your own startup is something else altogether. If you want to increase CS enrollment, focus more on startups.
Oh and to add .. perhaps this is the wrong crowd for market research.

I usually go down to the local starbucks (I've even sat outside a large grocery store) to ask my market research questions. It's funny the perspective you gather from non tech folks.
Except for that Google wouldn't actually them without a 3.7 and a degree.

/Those who don't understand the Google hiring "algorithm" are doomed to re-implement it.
I think the difference comes down to "publish the idea on a web page where anyone can read it - including many people with a proven interest in startups, who are more able to implement it than the original poster" VS "disclose the idea on the phone to those who demonstrate some interest". Sure, leeches could certainly pose as the second type of person, but at least you've made a cursory attempt at weeding them out.
But in the world of information goods (I'm not going to link to the book, you know where you can get it:-), the externalities created by giving something away for free might be worth more in the long run than the foregone revenue from said product. Or, in the immortal words of Steve Ballmer, "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!".
Maybe the iPhone sends a custom HTTP header that the server logic checks for to determine which content to show.

When you get an iPhone, create a page that dumps the user's HTTP request (either on the page or in the server logs) and then access that page using the iPhone. That will tell you for sure.
Maybe they tried to launder money through PayPal? PayPal apparently had to do a lot of anti-fraud work.
Personally I find trying to get kids to drop out of a college a little bit unethical. Well yes "last time those kids could buy houses in cash", but Slide or Slider is not Paypal. Levchin sure is confident about it but no one knows where it will end. If a college student drops out on his own account - fair enough. To lure kids to drop out, and then if the whole thing sinks - have to kick them out? Personally for no amount of money, success or fame would I want to place myself in that situation. I don't know about the U.S but in Europe, applying as a dropout does not really improve your chances to get a job.
The [how] of the concept is simple so I won't go into that until I have protected the IP or have developed trust in the individual. But I believe I have a way to inform people of [all] the upcoming events that they {the individual} is interested in but did not even know where happening.

Think of the application as your most popular friend in high school - the guy/girl that just knew everything that was going on. The guy/girl you would call to ask "what are you up to tonight?" "what else is going on?" And they could tell you all the fun things that were happening and what your other friends were planning on doing.

I believe I have a way to provide a more complete version of your most popular friend to the world.

I could not go into the other value proposition or sources of revenue without giving away the concept.

I greatly appreciate everyones advice. The YC community is an amazing place.
If David is Jewish programmer and not Roman Catholic programmer ... he should visit Mr. Zuckerberg and work for him one year for free then buy facebook for those 50kilos and hang his illustration up on the wall in his new "The Architect" room.
I don't think that you can generalize it the way he did. Sure Yahoo, Google, MS and Amazon are building huge data-centers. That's what makes it into the news. And yes there is a lot more processing to be done since we started to see wide spread use of applications (social networking, search, storage, video, etc...) in the Web opposed to the former mere HTML plus some e-commerce routines here and there. But on the other hand, a lot of software is not physically shipped anymore, and I think this trend will continue. More important, you have things going on like Akamai, and Amazon's S3. I would therefore argue for the exact opposite: Unless your Google or MS, it will probably not make any sense running your own data-centers. My guess is that we will see the creation of more S3 and Akamai-like products. Software companies will develop software but it will not be physically shipped, nor in most cases be self hosted. Specialized companies will due to the economies of scale be much more efficient at that. Software companies will be more lightweight. They create the software and nothing more. Just my personal analysis.
If you did not have any friends in High school because you were programming the nights away then that is why we need each other ; )
Would You Bet a Business on Google Gadgets?
There is another language learning program that uses a similar method: RosettaStone http://www.rosettastone.com/

[disclaimer: I work for RosettaStone but do not represent them]
I allready made an offer for facebook but I think Yahoo out bid me.
a) Completing a CS degree does not a programmer make.

b) Geek/boring stereotypes have never seemed overtly powerful in my experience, the worse perception is that CS is hard, and many college students don't like that word.

c) This problem is happening in all the sciences, and I think its mostly a numbers game. China and India (and Pakistan, and etc etc) just have a hell of a lot more people than the US does. As such they ought to have more people with a high apptitude for programming.

d) He uses .NET, ehh, I guess I don't really have a fourth point.
Don't other languages used in web development have something like BRL's define-input?

(define-input

a

(validation-function b))

You see at a glance that you're validating b and not a.
hmm... the lack of color in China is surely a opportunity.. PengYu'Ster anyone ??
Why Google is getting on my nerves
Much better map: http://xkcd.com/c256.html
Each Second Life character should have an OpenID that allows them to interact with businesses in game. This would let the user do things like logging into the American Apparel website to find all the clothes that they tried on in game.

It would do much to spread adoption of the standard, and it would also be quite useful.

/Not a Second Life player, so possibly a terrible idea
That's exactly my problem, and that's why I'm searching for new ideas. The market seems large and waiting for something new to unlock it. After all, almost everyone keeps bookmarks one way or the other, and most people use more than one computer, so they would need to sync them somehow. And, of course, we'll need a viral hook to help with the marketing.
New social networking site devoted to global music. Comments? Suggestions?
We've been developing this site for some time now and are in limited beta at the moment. We're looking for some feedback regarding the concept, functionality and overall design. Vizions.com gives its users many easy to use features and tools.

Also check out our new music search engine, www.MyMusicTracker.com, which includes some awesome intelligent searching, voting, and tracking features.
It seems you got a heartbreak.
Risky for the employees, but the founders are already wealthy enough that taking the risk probably doesn't bother them much.
The title is somewhat misleading but, I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that this is not an iPhone review. Consider the fact that when you purchase an iPhone you instantly become married to AT&T (in Guy's personal opinion.... AT&T's not so great customer service as well) for 2 years. Not to mention having to pay the monthly service fees to AT&T to keep the iPhone up and running.
I agree totally with your second point.

However I think (based on my CS experience) that most professors don't gear their curriculum towards startups b/c they themselves either dont understand or are not interested in startups. Many have not been outside the academic space enough to know what its about.. If they were into startups, they would probably be in the industry rather than teaching.

Unless of course they generated wealth and then came back to teach, I've seen that before..
Hey! Help me out? - New Facebook application - give it a try if you have a spare few minutes and feedback very welcome.
at least tell us what it is
Sorry,good point Let me explain

It's a little tool to help you leverage the knowledge of your friendship network on Facebook. Post questions and people in your facebook group can "help you out" by offering answers. Likewise you can return the favour to your friends by answering their questions.
Just e-mail him. He actually reads and responds :)
a) Completing a CS degree does not a programmer make.

Indeed the author seems to think that CS degree == vocational programming training. I think that's the problem with current CS degree programs.
A monologue between me and G.

Yes I agree you do some cool stuff, and I applaude you for what you have achieved, but you really start to get on my nerves. The reason I am posting this here is: I had such high hopes for you to be a different kind of corporation. - to be able to make the transition from cool startup to cool company. - not to be evil ;-). That's not how I see you now.

First of all, how and why does a company that was started by two guys without a PhD so strongly favorise PhDs when it comes to the recruitement for all research and other "cool" positions. I am halfway through on my own PhD in CS, and honestly I just don't see your point. I mean a PhD is not a magical transformation into a creativity boasting super- hack-thing. Au contraire, I wonder how you are able to keep your engine running with so many PhDs around. There is some truth to the stereotype of the slightly mad and sometimes overly complicated CS academic person. I experience that daily. And then statements like: "We want to hire people who are smarter than those already working for us". Just hire people that have amazing skills, are cool, and enthusiastic. That's what you were built on. Please don't just look at GPA and titles.

Second and that applies not only to you but to all search engine companies, please stop giving us the impression that you know what's going on with your algorithm. Come on there are billions of documents on the Web - and you have an algorithm that ranks those according to millions of different queries. So please tell me - how do you figure out if your algorithm is doing it's job? How? It's all educated guessing. Nothing more.

Third, please G get over it with the "Do not be evil thing". AOL might have had an employee unfortunately release a dataset, but at least they allow you to delete all your personal data. While you do not, and boast about anonymizing our data after several years. And yes you censor in China, and I also remember the story about your employee who you fired for blogging that you are actually not as cool as he imagined you. Yahoo and MS do stuff like this too, but at least they don't pretend to be saints.

And fourth. Please your marketing hype about being different, being still like a startup - you overplay it. You going green, and the sudden popularity of that - a mere coincidence? And yes - sue microsoft for being monopolistic - but at the same time acquire doubleclick and argue it's ok?

Ah, dear G. it might just be that I worked too much and yes I only slept 6 hours in the last three days. Dear G. above all - just stop pretending to be something else.
"Ask a Question" is already a facebook app
Joe's Comprehensive, Complete, Concise, and Altogether Excellent Guide to Server Security (in about 1 minute)
How to raise an angel funding round (video interview with TrustedPlaces.com founders)
to put it another way, dont start off on the wrong foot.
You could be right about the palette. Mine's pretty poor in terms of being a bon viveur but I was one of those annoyingly fussy eaters as a kid. However, perhaps more relevant is that I've lived in a household for some years where one member is sensitive to various airborne chemicals. Consequently, the house is kept relatively free of them, e.g. few new items, or new items are off-gassed for a while before moving into the main living areas.

Sounds crackpot, I know, but the end result has been to make me detect these now unusual items, e.g. if a newspaper is somewhere in this area of the house. I guess my tolerence levels have come down as my exposure has dropped. There's an awful lot of crap floating around these days. Perhaps that's why country folk visiting the city can take a dislike; "All the noise and commotion gave me a headache". Or what they breathed in?

Good idea to give up drinking the stuff. I'd like to but find it hard to drop the caffeine first thing in the morning. Coffee's too much of a kick and more of a slippery slope.
Yes it is and that's a fair observation, however I do think there is room in facebook for more than 1 of that type of application, and you see this in every category of software.

I was kinda hoping I would get some constructive feedback rather than just statements of what apps already exist!
Oz Clarke, wine expert, was put to the test by Top Gear presenter James May, and did appalingly on their recent French trip IIRC.

I moved to caffeine-free Diet Coke when it was launched here from Diet Coke. I was happy to put up with the taste difference thinking I'd get used to it. However, by the end of the week I realised my consumption had more than doubled and concluded it was because I was in search of the caffeine so reverted. (I do tend to open a can and sip it over a couple of hours normally.)
For a young startup it might make sense to bet on Google Gadgets. These guys are already doing it http://www.appirio.com/ and I think they are doing quite well.
Sorry the negative feedback. I will have a look and let you know.
Office Apps on the iPhone: iPhone vs Blackberry
Thanks - appreciate you taking the time.
I've worked with famous people who wanted to "do it again". The reality is that most of them refuse to admit that luck played some role in their last (successful) venture. This made them very annoying to work with in practice.

Do not forget, however, that "luck is when opportunity meets preparation", but I find it amusing that most tech celebs cincerely do not believe that they got a bit lucky in the first place and seem to think very highly of themselves. And asking kids to drop out of college because "they might buy a house for cash" proves (IMO) that Max is probably falls into this category.

This is why it is very rare to see them "do it again". Seriously, how many can you name? Besides Jobs.

My point is that statistically most super-successful companies (PayPal, Google, Microsoft, EBay, YouTube, +hundreds more) were started by smart and lucky amateurs, this makes it less likely (statistically) for potential college dropouts to buy house for cash if they go with Max.
There are plenty of social networking sites for China and Japan. I think their native languages make the research difficult.
I think it is more likely that Wall Street is waiting to see if the iPhone is a hit or a miss.
Web 2.0: New Way To Read Your News
Why limit your audience only to Facebook users?

If you like that approach (believer that "Facebook Platform" is the internet of the future) you could have gone wild and re-implemented proven web businesses for Facebook platform only: clones of ebay, paypal, or do a search on NASDAQ, pick a company and do the same.
Why bother with all that hard math if you can make $80k+ your first year after you get an associate degree in (for example) nuclear medicine.

Point I'm making is that US economy is turning into "services economy", while science/engineering/manufacturing is slowly drifting overseas.
Define "apps". Arent' majority "apps" online are nothing more than HTMLsed SQL queries? (i.e. "content")
Well it is a fair point. 2 main drivers for me doing it this way are:

1. Learn to build on the facebook platform because I'm a geek and want to see how things work and are engineered.

2. Create an application that has a use for me.

I have no expectations of this applicaiton apart from learning how the facebook application eco system works and hopefully offering an application that will be of use to my friends and a few other facebook users.

I'm sure others with more time and resources will do what you describe and it will be interesting to see if they bring about a viable business with them.
First in Line for an iPhone
"Instead, we're tapping into programs that are delivered through our web browsers. ... World of Warcraft ..."

Hooray for uninformed journalism.
iPhone Video Review on NY Times (funny but real)
How to pick an accountant for your online business
Are academics upset with this decline in CS enrollment? After all, those who have tenure presumably would not care and might indeed prefer teaching smaller classes.

Students might also prefer it as their peers would be genuinely interested in the subject, their classes would be smaller, and their employment opportunities would be better.

Companies like MS and Google will not outsource all of their development. So there will always be great jobs available.