skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Personally I don't think that P2P video from a browser is probably the best utilization of this technology. Someone mentioned that even the top videos on Youtube only have 4-5 concurrent users. That alone generates a lot of difficulty for that approach. I supppose that the distribution of traffic on Youtube will have a rather fat long tail. Also from a user's point of view for this approach to work it would require storing not only one video but many. I don't see the point of using my diskspace and my bandwidth for Youtube. That's different for Joost. They get users to download, install, and share the bandwidth as they have more valuable less fat tail content to offer. What's more if you are watching fullscreen you probably won't mind that Joost is making use of your upstream. However if you interpret P2P in the browser as a potential Web cache, and don't restrict yourself to the video approach there are lots of interesting things one could do. You just have to look out for Power-Law shaped traffic around big chunks of data. Maybe internet radio with high quality streams where you could time-shift streams to make optimal usage of the P2P approach. Or the distribution of software. Once you have several millon users using your applet or whatever, you could become the next akamai. To get there one probably would have to go to those guys where bandwidth really hurts. Thinking of sites like the underdogs.com, shareware distributing sites, web radio, etc ... . If you can make them happy by potentially saving bandwidth, and the users are happier by potentially increasing download speed, you might get those guys to ask user's on their web sites to download your little thingy. I think there is room for a P2P based web cache, probably not in distributing Youtube like videos. Perfecting the P2P part, and being able to aquire a sufficient install base, a lot of opportunities might arise. Go speed up the net ;-).
Read my post very carefully I never said "average coders gt 80 k" you are reacting to a strawman. "Average coders" probably shouldn't be attempting a world changing startup (strictly imo)

Please react to what I actually said. I explicitly mentioned I am an outlier.

anyway , using your figures, 1300$ for 12 months = (approx) 15 k.

Are you saying a good technical person with about 3 years in the Industry can't get together with a couple of friends to fund their hosting ? (A good dev with 3 years exp can get 15k annual pay easily in Bangalore)

Yes it is a little bit more difficult for people just out of college but hey all of us have to tailor our plans to our resources. If you can manage a decent user base in 3 months
(3 months is how long YC funds their teams iirc ... hosting will cost bout 5000 $ - Even two kids just out of college should be able to manage that) you should do well with the vc folks.

Now, if you are saying that you need lots of moolah in the bank before you attempt a software startup, I can only say my perceptions differ.

Maybe you are right and I am wrong. Time will tell.

I am too tired to continue. Been coding the last 15 hours or so.
Ciao
seeking 20-second feedback on ourdoings.com front page
I previously got feedback on my photo-sharing site overall. Feedback was (among other things) use less text but explain it better. Today I'd like a 20-second evaluation of my front page, with one simple question: After skimming it for about 20 seconds, do you know why someone would use it instead of another photo-sharing site? A simple 0 or 1 answer will do.
come on ivan can you tell us what it's about without having to email you. Where's the faq?
You said: "Enlighten Me" - then you edited it (I think)
Anyway here is something about Indian Contributors to linux, The links below will prove my point.

http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Contributors

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/article_1226891.php

http://linuxinindia.pitas.com/

Also:
CDAC is doing some interesting work - http://www.cdac.in/
Oh ... these curious people. There is no need to provide your e-mail. It's about "you can", not about "you must" :) it isn't the next elance or guru. It's simple site with gigs.
You will have to use a custom built Java or Python wrapper to access filesystem /camera.

Here is an example for a python implementation:
http://code.google.com/p/flyer

Once installed Flashlite acts almost like a flash engine from which you can run swf created for flashlite.
Friend, I say are you 'suggesting' not 'saying'. I said this because I don't know why else you stated your salary. Maybe I was mistaken. A good dev with 3 years of experience will have to spend money on absolutely nothin else if he spends $15000 in hosting annually. Surely you are not suggesting that ALL income can be put into hosting.
I agree. I think Marc is using "product" in a strange way. Maybe he means quality of implementation or something. What he's basically saying is that the only thing that matters is to make something people want. This wanting he calls the "market." Which is also a bit confusing, because most VCs use that word to describe the total number of users your product could serve. "Market" in the usual sense is not so much a determiner of whether you succeed as an upper bound on the size of the success if you do.
I did "edit the post" . As I said I am too woozy and making some mistakes. So when I see a typo , or just feel I am being too sarcastic, I use the edit button. I must be doing something wrong because my posts were cut off a few times.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Ok now to your list of people.

This is good work ! Thanks!

But ... Do you know what these people actually do or are you just pulling names off a google search?

I believe I explicitly asked for names and specific contributions . All those pages are light on the specifics . I gave some examples of specific cntribs earlier.

I asked explicitly for significant contributions with details.

On the linux India list, if you remove all the "internationalization" type of contributors there are a bare handful left. But Do you know if any of those people (good people no doubt) are major contributors to their projects?

As for CDAC, do you know people who work there? I do. They are severely hit be people leaving to -- guess where -- the United States. Many of their projects (not all) don't have much more than web pages. (Like wise for the DRDO - Defence Research and Development Organization for the non Indians reading this).

Again (just to stop arguing _ I will be glad to continue offlist ;-) ) I will concede the point.

The Linux Kernel, GCC and other open source efforts would be hamstrung if all the Indians suddenly disappeared ;-)

You are right. India is a powerhouse of open source contribution. ;-)

This thread has deteriorated too much. Apologies to all for my part in said deterioration.

This is my final post.

Take Care,
Facebok apps are getting bought
Well, I understand the differentiation, but I don't see the value-add for me.

But that's just my personal opinion.
First I was impressed by Frind's work but then I realized I'm from (in mr. frind's opinion) from third-world country cos I can't register there so I asked my friend working in the UK to create an account for me and .... it's something to puke inside especially those huge loads of adsense. Btw, it's not an interview its "questions without replies"
Something that might make a difference for me is that I actually get to keep a bit of the money the site makes with advertisements. There's no way I'm going to pay someone to host my photos when I can do it myself and make some money at it.
Seth's Godin: How to make a million dollars
You must not have read some of the profiles which are hyperlinked in that page.
Anyway, this discussion seems to have become to trivial. Cheers
That's might be a good distinction. He did say "red-hot markets", but he mostly described a "great market" by its size, growth rate, and sales costs. That's what I had in mind but you could also interpret hot as meaning hype.

I'm not sure I'd agree that you've missed a market just because it's heavily hyped though. The blogging world still has sizable disruptions and is largely unexplored. Facebook is a late entry to social networking and it's doing okay.
Mod +1 for something like this up in SF.
He initially defines market as market size, but as the essay continues it seems like he's using a different definition:

product = peg = something

market = hole = want (noun)
I expect few if any news.yc people are in the target market, but I want to wait and get more answers before I elaborate. I want answers based solely on what's seen on the page, not informed by comments here.
I'm David Weekly, one of the co-founders of SuperHappyDevHouse. Finding a very big, nice house willing to rent to a large group of twentysomethings is indeed hard. I had to spend nine months looking at over fifty houses to line up the current place. There were a number of just heartbreaking letdowns - amazing places where the landlord changed his mind at the last minute. I'm not at all surprised that elq was turned down at five places. Expect to look at at least ten places before you find one that you like and that is willing to rent to a non-family.

It is incredible that there really are people out there who hold out for an "executive family" willing to rent a place for $12,000/month on a one-year lease. What kind of retarded executive is going to blow some $150,000/year just on rent to live somewhere? And how many such people are out there?

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=&minAsk=6000

I guess some folks just got screwed over by their mortgages and feel like they have to hold out for someone who can pay that much. In reality, having six professionals on a lease gives the landlord a much more stable source of income (if one person loses their job, it's not a big deal) and less actual damage (have you seen what a three year old can do to a place in a month?). That said, most landlords are kind of patently insane.

So just grit your teeth, prepare for a lot of rejection and a long haul and get to it! (Hey, that's pretty good general advice!)

As an FYI, if you're willing to live in or near Half Moon Bay, you can find some unbelievably awesome homes with lovely views for decent prices.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/357603523.html
There're lots more examples from the histories of many of the fortune 500:

Apple Computer made something that few people wanted (the Apple I - hobbyists) to something that a few more people wanted (the Apple II - schools) to something that a nascent industry needed (Macintosh - desktop publishing) to finally something that every teen and 20-something has to have (IPod).

Microsoft made something that very few people wanted and that you generally can't sell today (programming languages) to something that one crucial customer wanted but didn't pay much money for (PC-DOS) to something many OEMS wanted (MS-DOS) to something many consumers wanted (Windows) to something every business in America needs to have (Office).

3M made something nobody wanted (anthracite) to something a few people wanted (sandpaper and other abrasives) to something a few more people wanted (waterproof sandpaper) to something many consumers wanted (scotch tape) to something almost every office uses (PostIt notes).

Hewlett Packard made something a niche market wanted (oscilloscopes) to something a somewhat broader niche market wanted (electronics testers) to something a rather more lucrative market wanted (workstations) to something a broad consumer market wanted (PC clones) to something that most every family and office has (inkjet printers).

I really wish we could see more about slower, incrementally-growing companies. Smash hits like Netscape and Google are rare - most of the companies that we hear of today got their foot in the door, then used that to expand upwards into bigger markets. I wonder if Microsoft would've gotten YC funding if YC had been around in 1975: I can see them getting back a little note with "Interesting idea, but most of your users can write their own BASIC interpreter. Also, you'll probably end up going back to Harvard at the end of the summer."
I guess what you need to figure out is how strong the network effects are for other photo sites. People seem to like the community aspect of flickr, for instance, and they lose that if they go to your site.

That said, yeah, there's probably a lot of people who don't put their photos on line yet who might go for something less 'cool'.
Well, from what you are talking about it sounds a lot like this good short story on just such a situation, check it out:

http://www.newbanner.com/SecHumSCM/WhereAmI.html
I don't mean to be harsh but the design of the site is sorely lacking. It looks like your design was trying for zen-like simplicity but instead just looks amateurish. There is much wrong with the design, and instead of posting a short novel on the subject I would recommend googling "basic design principles" or going into your local Barnes & Noble and finding the same.

Beyond that, I would also criticize your choice of domain name. It is good that you are using real words in your domain name, but the words "ourdoing" has nothing to do with photos, time or email, which I take it is the essence what you are offering. A domain like "bestphotoemail.com" would serve you better even if its not your brand name.

I do like your logo, conceptually at least. It needs work and should be more prominent.
That's very interesting, I can swallow the whole subaltern/hegemonic thing even if I think it's a bit pretentious, but I still don't know what "a goth" really is. The last time I looked it up on Urban Dictionary there were roughly 40 million conflicting definitions. I think using terms like that in this essay is unwise and confuses her points.
when did you last meet a working class art fag?

I've never met an "art fag" in my life.
Well there's nothing wrong with a simple design. As long as it helps get the user what they want. It's got that craigslist feel to it. I just think (s)he needs to improve the usability. As a user I wanna be uploading/sharing/viewing pics in as few steps as possible. I found the demo lacking and I had to log out of the demo, then go back "hosting plan" to sign up, then wait 20 mins for my email before I could start using the service. That being said, keep up the good work. As for your business model, I don't think I'm qualified to comment on that.
Why Europe lags behind Silicon Valley?
Friendster round 2 - Page views up 40% over last month
I guess it's needless to say: The team is the most important part of a company, by a factor of...well, by an incalculable factor. A good team can change product-focus, change market-focus, create products, occasionally even create markets.

A bad team is hopeless and will stay that way into perpetuity.
Duh. Link would help:

http://ourdoings.com/
Can iPhone change the way we live? ("Your life in your pocket")
Sun eyes supercomputing glory ("The density of ports, and the large number of them, creates a cascading effect in performance and pricing")
U.S. Net access not all that speedy ("Pathetic")
Your last paragraph is a true gem.
Hi, Answer: No, you are not there yet. Let me give you some advice. Forget ALL the features you have added. Don't pimp them on the front page. There is really only one unique thing about your site, and it is what you should concentrate on:

Timeline based albums.

Everybody things they are good at everything. There are two things you are not good at - copywriting and design. So long you do not learn that, you will continue to fail with that site. That's why people specialise, so they get good at something. For example:

"Your photos are _automatically_ organized by date."

What were you thinking? You think that "automatically" is important to most people looking at your site? No, it's not! That's a technical feature, it's not a dream of people. You are not conveying the correct impression.

Your title is "Amazingly simple photo sharing". Okay, first of all, "Amazing" has been overused and means nothing. "Simple", well everything is simple once you know how to use it. "Photo sharing". So the focus of your site is sharing? Like, you make the process of "sharing" very simple?

I did not read a single one of your features, because there are just too many, and you do not highlight the most important.

Back to the point - what I'm trying to say is just stick with pimping and developing a timeline based approach to storing albums. Make this your prime feature and design your site around it.

And by the way - you are NOT a designer. Go work in mcdonalds for 2 weeks, you'll make enough money to hire a romanian designer for $200 that will make you a great site.

Your site looks like it time travelled from 1998.
Bandsintown.com Feedback
Hist arguments for the reason consciousness isn't possible in software reminds me of the pessimists decrying the impossibility of human flight since we are not be birds.
What kind of features would you guys like to see in place next? (Adding friend? Commenting ability? Past Events, where you can upload photos, and media? anything else you have in mind?.......)

let us know, we are working hard but would like your input as to how to make our site as useful as it can be. thanks!
I remember reading a post by Matz about how he hated to leave Japan because his connection there was so much faster than what he ended up with elsewhere.

This kind of reminds me of the the gas consumption issues though, maybe instead of complaining about slow download speeds, we should also focus on making websites that are not bloated to all hell. I was on a "web 2.0" website a few days ago and each page load was coming with 250-500k of data. Each page! We seriously need to figure out a way to integrate the javascript libraries (prototype, etc) into browsers, or to just stop making everything sparkle just because we can.
One solution is to host JS libraries in centralized, very highly available places.

http://foobar.com/scriptaculous/1.12/foo.js

So that once a user gets it from any site, it's good for lots of sites.

The trick is to find a place to do that hosting...
Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome
clutu is a crossword game you can play online with your friends.

I've been working on it every evening and a couple of weekends for six weeks now, after being inspired by counttonine.com

If you want to play clutu fast, you can instantly see what your friends are doing thanks to ajax. If you prefer to play slower you can bookmark your game and/or subscribe to an rss feed for it.

clutu runs in sbcl, using hunchentoot as its web server, on an ubuntu vps. Crosswords are generated continuously and the best ones are kept in a pool so that a request for a new game is quick if the pool isn't empty.

Most fun thing so far: finding a very fast way to generate anagrams.

Least fun thing so far: trying to get invite emails past spam filters - I spent more than a week on this and it's still not reliable.

Thanks for any feedback!
Not bad, I like the concept. The crossword grid doesnt quite look right in IE6.

This is the sort of concept that you infinitely play around with. Some ideas for your to-do list:

1. Widgetize it

2. I know its collaborative, but throw in a few features that cater to the solo user

3. Add in some kind of top-score list or top-user list and put on home page

4. Screen shot of game on home page

5. Allow users to pick games based on predefined categories and difficulty levels

6. Allow users to race against a clock to complete the puzzle if they want.
I just saw a demo of this a couple days ago and it actually produced better results than Google for an important subset of searches.
Building Purpose into Your Business
Organizing Monthly Hackathon in Boston, who might be interested?
here's a link to some of Robert Hecht-Nielsen's work.
http://r.ucsd.edu/Publications.htm
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/2006/agenda.shtml
Robert Hecht-Nielsen, UCSD: The Mechanism of Thought
He verifies some of Edelman's work in this presentation.
Spock - Vertical Search Done Right
Have you seen this?

http://neugierig.org/software/lmnopuz/demo/
I think we would have actually funded them. I realize that's a lot to claim; certainly most investors wouldn't have; but YC was created explicitly to fix that problem.

It would have worried us that Bill might go back to school. (In fact, he did go back to school that first fall, then changed his mind.) But we do fund undergrads if they have a take-over-the-world vibe, like Sam Altman and the Weeblies, and I think Bill would have had that.
I went to a devHouse event last weekend, and it was fun. It was so fun that I wanted to look up when the next one was. To my dismay, I found that there are no regularly scheduled events similar to SuperHappyDevHouse in SF.

The idea is like a 10am-9pm hackathon, where you meet up, do a 1 day project, present finished projects. I think this is a good way to meet like minded people, and improve your hacking skills.

I'm trying to get a sense of how much interest there might be from news.YC'ers for something like this. Any suggestions, comments, ideas on how to set up would be greatly appreciated. If you might be interested in coming, or helping to organize such an event, let me know.
Yes, but I think he's asking about lower-bounds on money needed to survive while starting a startup. When you're starting a startup, you can't afford an opulent lifestyle. In the US, a programmer would make a lot more than $6000 per 3 months, but YC only gives you about $6k to $7.5k per person, and this money is expected to sustain you past the 3 month YC program until you get external funding. A programmer in the US probably earns between $70k and $90k per year. (Although it can be considerably higher in places like Silicon Valley)
Top Web Apps in Canada
Richard Feynman on Quality "Assurance" at NASA
"Entrepreneurial culture" missing in India? I beg to differ. Indians have an entrepreneurial culture that has been cultivated for years due to their unique set of circumstances. Must Indians are self-employed and have a very self reliant attitude. I think what you meant was "Tech-startup culture".
Looks good!

Random thoughts:

-I know I've been docked for saying this before, but a facebook app that ties in with your site might be a good way to virally grow the user base.

-My first reaction to the site's name was a play on Cthulhu: you might want to capitalize on that and make a (dyslexic?) cthulhu be the site's mascot.

-An idea for crossword generation is to take the top stories on reddit and make crosswords be based on key words (and their clues) from the stories.
The US might be the most favorable environment for tech startups but it is not the only breeding ground for great tech startups. South Africa (Ubuntu Linux), India (Hotmail), Brazil (Orkut), Sweden/Denmark (Skype), China (Maxtheon browser) and the list goes on.
It's official, there is a bubble around "web 2.0".

I'm sorry, but there is next to zero value in an app that's sole purpose is to be a minor distraction while using another app that is itself a minor distraction.

I've had this bad feeling for a while now that facebook will be the app that we look back upon as the harbinger of the 2.0 bust.

It's a fad,(FB that is) and like all fads, from hula hoops to acid wash, it fades as fast as it grows. I honestly hope I'm wrong, but I'm starting to see more and more startups and such that provide little value for mega valuations. This isn't a good thing.

end of rant.
(Sorry, it's before my coffee)
What's really awesome is that I can turn all 2000 hours of work off by adjusting my preferences. I have the power!! :-)
Ad-based startups take note.
Web App Autopsy
The advantage of the US seems to be a large pool of candidates can move freely between states. The other place I can think of like that is the EU where a resident is allowed to work in another country without requiring a visa, etc. The differing cultures of the EU's countries is an extra benefit.
Firstly, very nice. Your color scheme reminds me of slashdot. I like the fact that the site is fairly usable without login. The only thing I can recommend is getting a widget out.