skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
the employee that sold his 25% to ebay was not the only early employee of craiglists that had shares. And the only thing that has ever been publicly stated is that 25% belongs to ebay, not how much of the company Craig himself owns.
Is Microsoft Driving Innovation Or Playing Catch-Up With Rivals?
Google seeks "holy grail" of web advertising
I found it kind of weird that he showed anger at the end at OS/X copying his font, when he had just admitted that much of his inspiration came from comic books. Is this not the pot calling the kettle black?

That aside, it was an interesting story.
Welcome to the real world?
interesting! but one detail: the advice talks about a chain created by X. So, it should look like XXXXX but in the app it's red boxes not connected...
Wikipedia Edits Cause Australian Political Scandal
Isn't 6.001 (SICP) a required class whereas 6.171 (SEIA) optional? I did not attend MIT, so I could be wrong.
Note -- there are many things I would rather do less than work as an industrial engineer, like a McJob. It still represents one very specific kind of failure to me.
Ten-Minute Cancer Test
Out-of-body-like experiences induced using virtual reality goggles
"The inspiration came at the shock of seeing Times New Roman used in an inappropriate way."

I love the irony that Comic Sans was born because the designer was shocked at seeing another font used inappropriately.
No, no domain name yet. Why do you ask?
"so I shouldn't have been able to click the days after today?"

No, I did not get to that. I just fixed it so that if all the days you've clicked are after today (PST) then it does not try to calculate the streak of days between today and the beginning of time.

And yeah, I was just lazy to not include timezones. I should fix that.
I think you are dealing with analysis paralysis. I think you should develop an internal weighting system on extra information. remember nothing beats the information gleaned from your own experience. I cant remember where but I read somewhere that the plan is unimportant but the planning is invaluable. Dont keep a plan just keep on planning and implementing. Each new Oh Crap moment is just another input to the ever changing and improving planning implementing process. IMHO.
I have no idea if this is possible, but what about trying to read the timezone settings in the host computer with Javascript, rather than asking the user to set that?
This is probably the most controversial topic possible here. There's nothing that could offend people more than the idea that deep down they might not really have the determination they think they have.

It's so easy to fool yourself into thinking you can have your cake and eat it too. How many people get into the upper-middle class lifestyle of a programmer and then are willing to go back to living like a poor college student? Very few. So moonlighting becomes a way of trying without taking the plunge.

Someone might say about quitting to do a startup: "Yeah..maybe you can't diet without getting your stomach stapled, but I can."

Eating a healthy diet and exercising might be similar. It's something that tons of people want, but so few are able to actually sustain over the long-term. I think a lot more people would successfully exercise and eat healthy if they didn't have day jobs. If they had plenty of extra time to go to the gym and cook meals. I think the same thing is true for doing successful startups, but to a much greater extent since they require so much more effort and time.
I like the red boxes better. Big chunks of those are easier to recognize as a block.
Actually, that's not a bad idea. I don't use iGoogle as a homepage anyway, I found that too distracting so I switched to something less boring (it backfired, now I am in the habit of opening iGoogle as soon as I open the new browser window anyway), but making this a homepage would remind me without distracting me.
I like your site man - very useful (I have family in FL)
First!

That was the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.
I usually lurk but I just can't with this one. Great article. What apt timing... This has made me rethink taking a recent position with a large company.

Multitasking is a myth. Editing code on demand is possible but to design a program is a process that requires all cylinders of the analytic and creative mind. To be in the zone is almost like a trance where I could start speaking tongues at any moment.
My Times Launches - Calacanis Gets a Semi-Default Feed
A simple shared spreadsheet in Google Docs for small projects. Trac for some others.
I agree with the last 3 things you said but I think there is value to publicly announcing your intentions. It shows commitment to the idea and the willingness to sacrifice your reputation for the idea (there is a cost to people knowing about your possible failure, and the cost of people you care about and respect of dismissing your idea).
It's so weird how this is at the top of the list.
This is so common that many of the syntax files for Vim even have TODO FIXME XXX NOTE and others included, so they're highlighted and easy to spot.
Yes, if you writing in forth. I'm less sure that the bottom up approach that forth and lisp allow translates as readily into generalized research.

This is one of the ways in which programming is different from other research. In programming, when I define a term(/function/word), it bloody well means that. In linguistics, if I define a notion, well, whether or not it means anything at all is exactly the point of the research.
I was an in-class advisor for this ccourse seven years ago. From personal experience, I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It is the sort of thing you learn on the job, anyway... and you get paid for it. The higher paying entry-level jobs require knowledge of hairier stuff these days. VMWare, for instance, pays a much higher starting salary than either Microsoft or Google. However, I'm not sure what other courses one could take to prepare for this sort of work. It seemed like most of the CS students at MIT wanted to become lawyers or investment bankers (but, this was back in the dot-com bust).
India now Nokia's second market (Overtaken US)
This thought is only half-formed, but perhaps holding entire programs in one's head is the defining characteristic of a hacker (as opposed to a programmer, developer, software engineer or anything else people call someone who writes code).
Is anyone making something women want?
Not being sexist, but they seem to -want- more than us, and walking into any shopping area seems to confirm that vendors know this. My problem is that from a tech standpoint, it's hard to gauge what a viable need for them is.
The most bizarre episode in the history of the papacy
How to Make Users Happy
I don't have any specific expectations. Usually I just say "please let me know if got anything wrong, or missed anything important." If I'm writing about something I don't understand well enough, I ask domain experts. I always ask Hutch Fishman about startup funding, for example.

I take responses pretty seriously. I've killed whole essays friends thought were bad. Usually I just have to rewrite a sentence or two.
Infogami (Aaron Swartz) merged with reddit and became reddit.

You can try emailing Aaron Swartz but I'm not sure if he is interested in maintaining infogami. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/interruptdriven
Send him our way, I'd love to interact with a legend. Maybe he could set the record straight, I can't imagine that the WSJ got everything right.
In grad school I consulted for a company making CAD software for clothing designers. They said that 60% of the clothing business is women's clothing, and the other 40% shared between men and children.
That was as far as I got on the facebook signup.
"Ah! My business idea!"

(thousands of frat boys mourn the only way they know how: natti light)
That other 40%, if shared equally between men and children, means that approximately 80% of the purchasing decisions are made by women. I am basing this on the chauvinist assumption that women pick out and buy the majority of clothes for the kids. If this article is correct, that 80% holds for a lot more than clothes: http://www.clickz.com/3363331
Profoundly awesome.
I think a lot of the marketing has to do with the prodct and the interface. I think this is something that you build first and then take it to sources - ie - Paramount Movie Studio. Whenever a movie or TV DVD is released they let your website know.

The marketing: On their 24 page "Want us to remind you as soon as 24 season 3 is on DVD? Get a free reminder with ____.com. As you grow build it out so that any organization can customize for any product or event and then put it on their site.
I like it. I added it as a link in my Firefox bookmarks bar. Definitely needs to support multiple chains though. Instead of multiple tabs, I think it would be best just to have a column of color blocks with the name of the chain on the right hand side of the page. Then when you clicked on a color that chain would be displayed.
some different links at the original discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45073
I second catnaps. I've written before on news.yc about the nap-success I've had. Certainly any company I run will have a quiet place where people can crash for 15 or 20 minutes in the afternoon. Of course, so far the only such company's world headquarters was located in my apartment, and that kind of feels like cheating...
If I'm just working alone:
ToDoList by AbstractSpoon Software
http://www.abstractspoon.com/

For small projects it's enough to manage all my tasks, including bugs.
Astronomers find gaping hole in the Universe
What should a striving non-programmer do?
I have all of these ideas for a startup burning inside me, but with no real programming skills and no partner (yet) I feel trapped. Is it worth my time to teach myself programming? Any advice would be great.
IIRC a lot of it actually comes from the ITConversations interviews and wasn't actually in writing.
When I do have enough time to do some work, but I know it will get cut short by a scheduled event, it causes an almost non-stop sense of anxiety in the back of my mind. It's seriously distracting and feels horrible.
I think you're on to something. nickb's comment about iCal had me thinking along the same lines.
Mp3 players didnt have a lot of features when the iPod was launched, and I don't think a portable harddrive solution was particularly simple (engineering wise) at the time. The iPod won because it was portable and had a large capacity, mp3 players for many years were either one or the other even after the iPod shot to fame.
whats the cost ? I know tata consultancy (basically an engineer importer) is exploiting this L1 (sshh, don't let the general populace know that people smarter than them are taking their jobs) loophole to great success!
The iPod had a 1.8" hard drive when all the competitive MP3 players had a 2.5" hard drive, making them twice as large. People seem to forget how much smaller the iPod was compared to all the other hard drive MP3 players, I think this is the real reason it won.
Web based UI tool (layout dissector) for web designers
"XRAY is a free cross browser tool that lets you see the box model in action for any element, letting you see beneath the skin of any web page."
b/c if you don't grab it now (unless you were thinking to launching with a different name) someone else will grab it (especially if there's a jerk reading your post on yc news - hopefully not)

Being open with ideas is fine, b/c execution of an idea is hard (even with "easy" ideas). Grabbing a domain name or even trademarking a name is a lot easier.
Our design sucked.
We submitted to eHub first. Then Techcrunch picked us up from there.
Yep thats what I'm saying. It wasn't interface or brand, at least not until later. For a very long time I don't think there was a single other player with the capacity of the iPod at a comparable size.
Yeah, it's a really bad idea to post an unregistered domain name in a public forum. Grab it right now, you can get the .net and .org later.

www.namecheap.com is my registrar of choice, $8.88 a year with free WhoisGuard (anonymizes your whois information in a way that won't allow someone to steal your domain).
does it matter anymore???
Interesting little tool. Joe Hewitt's firebug is better but requires a plug in install to use.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
PG's Rarely Asked Questions (never seen this one before)
It has been decided that no thinking will be permitted at home in the shower. Management is concerned that this practice may result in the possibility of an intellectual property dispute.
That's sad. They don't even realize they're hitching their cart to a lame horse. Sun has some smart people working there...how does this come to pass?
firebug is an awesome tool but i think it's more for ajax/javascript debugging, though someone could prove me wrong

i should have put layout dissector in the title instead of the generic "ui tool"
How did Google, Youtube, digg, twitter build scalable web sites: List of articles, videos
It's really quite flexible. I find it helpful for debugging ASP even despite the travestied HTML that it outputs.
New algorithm for image resizing (Siggraph demo video)
Pax romana redux
Steve Jobs and the Xerox Star demo
This is a really good idea for disrupting the RIAA. Think it'll work?
What a load of crap. One of the guys I know has TWO jobs that he needs to barely make ends meet and he works hard. Articles like this just make me mad since they were written by people who never produce anything in their life.
How to write tech blog linkbait:

1. Get a rumor with even the slightest shred of evidence that would be outrageous if true.

2. After the links start pouring in, "update" with a "correction" that your unsubstantiated bullshit rumor is false, surprise surprise.

3. Profit? Fuck yeah, profit.
you're like the wall street people he talks with. they don't get him, either. did you ever consider that maybe the reason craigslist was so successful was that it didn't have annoying banner ads or a login screen everywhere the way standard Valley dogma bullshit demands?

he DOES want to do more with craigslist. he talked about this in an interview with Charlie Rose. he said that craigslist is focused on very basic needs -- finding a job, finding a place to live, etc. he wants to extend that to bigger and better things. doing that is hard and it takes time.
The point should not be to work harder, but smarter with higher productivity.
http://www.fatwallet.com is probably the best example of a community with a whole lot of negotiated affiliate revenue share agreements.
grep FIXME *.l | sed s/^;;// | sort -n
Statistically, they also use the internet more than males. If you can find something that they want, It could be a good idea for a startup.
This reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode.
after you've read the lifehacker post for this, the app is completely self-explanatory just by looking at the interface and clicking a few days.

i'm impressed, and i'm a jaded snob who is totally cynical about web 2.0 crap.
Why not just learn to hack? If you start out small and work with bite-sized pieces and good tools, you'll see its not as difficult as you might think. I'm a firm believer any smart person can be good at coding if they are determined.

My advice is to pick up an intro book on Python and start with basic examples. With a little work, you'll be building cool stuff in no time.
At a second glance, looking at somebody like Immelt trying to squeeze more out of his wage slaves makes me sick too...
Great essay. I've been working like this on my own for about 7 years and i think the end results speak for themselves. Its a shame that management types can't accept this method of working and just want code monkeys.

Kujoy
The things that matter most
Doing things right is always good, but what matters most is doing the right things right.
Why would Steve Jobs be freaking in 1981 when he already saw it back in 1979?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star

Also Folklore.Org says the same thing:
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

"This is obviously the biggest single jump in the entire set of photographs, and the place where I most wish that Bill had dated them. It's tempting to say that the change was caused by the famous Xerox PARC visit, which took place in mid-December 1979, but Bill thinks that the windows predated that, although he can't say for sure."
Intelligent resizing of images
Check out this new algorithm for resizing images.
I agree that you should at least learn a bit of coding. That said, there are many code monkeys out there (like me) who need business partners who can are arty and/or can run a business. Coding isn't the only thing required to run a start-up (I think :P).
The other players didn't have a lot of features, but they had more, and they sure weren't simple. They had crappy playlist systems, lots of buttons, confusing interfaces, etc. When I said the iPod was simple I meant for the users, not the creators. It was surely a lot of hard work to create the iPod, but end result was a very simple product.

I look at the portability and large capacity as just two requirements for making the iPod simple. A product that "just works". Not holding enough music or fitting in your pocket is a usability problem that detracts from its simplicity.
Maybe because he knew how far away his Mac launch was and it made him nervous to have the Star out there already.
Unfuddle!
I wasn't quite certain, then I looked at the "leaders". Theres already quite a few artists who have raised over $25,000, and are over half way there! The top 10 artists alone have raised over $200,000 so far.

Its a great concept. It sucks for me though, because I had planned on doing something similar, and now I find out my idea isn't that original :-(
You should learn as much programming as you need to but if you find that it's not your strong suit then there are other options. Besides being the "business guy" in a startup, you can probably work on finding people who are passionate and fill in their holes. Chances are that someone is working on something similar enough to be useful to you. What you can do now is approach these people with one of your ideas, show them how you can reach mutual benefit and coordinate efforts so that you can get together all the people you need to make something great.
Ok. I have been wanting to post this question myself. I can solve problems in C and am good with logic. I can also do some HTML. But when it comes to interfacing with the web and real world applications I just don't know where to get started. Things like databases, libraries and API puzzle me.
Code is the most valuable component in a tech startup during the early stages. If you can't produce it, you're value to an early stage startup is low. It's that simple.

Ideas have little to no value. Execution is what separates the winners from the crap, and the Facebooks and MySpaces from the thousands of other social networks built by no name coders on eLance (at any given time there are dozens of listings for wannabe development).

That said, MySpace was made by non-hackers. So was Digg. Bloglines was partly created via eLance contracts (though Mark Fletcher is nerdy enough to pull things together in ways that a non-nerd might not be able to...the same is probably true of Kevin Rose and Digg). Maybe you need to hire your development work.

Or, you could learn to code enough to make yourself valuable. Great web designers are every bit as important to the equation (and a weakness in most developers...so if you bring good design, you may be able to find partners far more readily).
If you had a burning desire to create a new building of some kind but weren't an architect/engineer what would you do?
"... I have no idea if this is possible, ..."

Either do I but it would be just as easy to add a login, select timezone & store that, but then if you take a plane from foo to bar and your zones change you have to change it again.

This is a good idea btw. And I have looked at calendar apps in the past. The big PIA is time-syncing in with where you are at the moment.
it's always true that if we keep the thing in our mind, we can do anything efficiently...all it is needed is our full concentration and understanding ability...
This won't have any impact on the RIAA.

Sellaband looks like another site trying to make a buck on the hard work and naivety of struggling musicians. Their "expert" producers are c-list producers at best, their A&R people aren't any of the industry's big names and are a completely unnecessary part of the transaction. The company takes a publishing % into perpetuity, owns masters, and it looks like they're over inflating costs - that's probably where they're making their profit. This is a really bad idea for any band, and a waste of money from the fan perspective.

Amie St. is a company that I think has some really good disruptive potential in the music indsutry. I love the idea and am glad to see they're getting some weight thrown behind them.

Zaydana: I think there's potential for someone to come in and do this properly, Sellaband has exploitive industry slime all over it.
There are plenty of usability improvements to the Craigslist UI that have nothing to do with adding "annoying banner ads" or a login screen. For example, suppose you're looking for apartments on Craigslist. Suppose I want to find all the apartments near a certain location. Craigslist lets me search/filter by city and by neighborhood, but that's about as granular as it goes: there's no way to say "show me apartments near address X", as far as I know.

The reflexive response to comments about Craigslist is always "you don't get the Craiglist ethos", but IMHO they aren't exactly the epitomy of good UI design, either.
Ask News.YC: Anyone working on a systems software startup?
It seems like these days there are tons of consumer/enterprise Web application startups. Out of curiosity, is anyone working on a systems software startup (OS stuff, networking infrastructure, etc.)?
Not quite; per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist : "[Craigslist] is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three Board members). Ebay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake."
It should have been called "Comic Sans is based on The Dark Knight Returns".
I for one agree with the author's point. I live in SV, working on a seed-funded start-up, and yes, it is a lot of personal sacrifice and risk. And, yes, a lot of founders risked their own money, careers and family relationships building their companies. Read "Founders At Work" for some examples.

I definitely would not risk my family or my retirement account, but I do know people who did and succeeded (and people who failed too, obviously).
Is ClutterMe a townhouse or a landmark?
It took a while to get there, but here's the relevance, I guess:

"Paul Graham's design for Hacker News tries to avoid the degringolade by actually using an oligarchy of human editors, including Paul himself, who will tweak hidden reputation scores. While this will certainly be an improvement on Reddit, I find it excessively algorithmic and antisocial. It has gotten past democracy, but it's not yet unapologetically medieval.

What I'd like to read at Hacker News is simply the set of links that Paul himself finds cool, or would if he had 80 hours a day to surf the net for links. Paul does not, in fact, have 80 hours a day to surf the net for links. But perhaps he has fifteen minutes to rate would-be toadies and henchmen, of whom he has I'm sure a large supply, who could then rate submitted contributions, and so on, producing a kind of ersatz impression of a massively overclocked Paul."

It's an interesting premise. What are my opinions if I had all the time in the world to figure out my opinion?
Dunno. Too hard to emphasize with the weird estrogen-laced ones with axe wounds between their legs.

Women like The Sims and MySpace, I know that.
Gaping hole found in universe
This really creeps me out.
Mantis. But I tend to think the pages are too long.