skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I really think Atlanta could be primed to become the next hot spot ala the bay area. The east coast needs a central magnet for stuff like this, and I think the ATL should be it :)

There's actually a pretty large population of angels and VC's in atlanta already, but they've traditionally invested in normal startups ... just need to get enough steam going to grab their attention.
Go with a merchant account if you're going to be doing any regular commerce/membership, but don't neglect paypal/google checkout as some people may prefer them.
I think it's an interesting position for the author to take. I didn't expect this article to be about the amount of memory that meebo takes up. Although I have noticed that it can get pretty sluggish.
Update. On top of our team, we got Brian (and friends), Matt(and friends), Azromej, Nandan, and Jonesmc ( si on peut te joindre, sinon je ferrais une update avec la date et le lieu )
The Maturity of Web 2.0 and The HDTV is the PC
"The 'ocr' in Ocropus stands for optimal character recognition."

Woops, it looks like they forgot to do a google search before they wrote the article.
We are coming from Austin, TX. Rates are cheapest through Continental for us, around $380 per person.
It's possible, and reasonably common to use templates with Lisp web apps. HTML-TEMPLATE and Tal (from Zope) are widely used.

HTML-TEMPLATE: http://weitz.de/html-template/

Tal support in yaclml, part of Uncommonweb: http://common-lisp.net/project/bese/yaclml.html

CLSQL provides object/relational mapping; it's quite good: http://clsql.b9.com/
absolutely brian. :) "Atlanta could be primed to become the next hot spot..." - lets make that a self fulfilling prophecy ;) i have been lamenting over how there is not enough traction in atlanta on startups for a while now. i even found myself eagerly trying to find atlanta in most of the "top-ten cities for startups" lists, only to be continually disappointed. lets make all that change! :)
No just write more, that's the promise of a new book. More more more:-)
And I'd like to read your thoughts on other topics, the startup topic is getting a bit exhausted.
Uhmm... that was an April Fool's joke. Not sure if you intended for there to be sarcasm in your post.
A little too dry I guess today. It was a good April Fool's joke though.
I regret having waited until I m 26 before I took concrete/tangible steps towards my own start-up. A large part of the blame goes towards thinking that there will be a "right-time" for all this and a "right-idea". :)

But, now that I have taken the steps, I feel __liberated__. And I m not worried so much about failing. And that owes a great deal to the people behind this site, and the content posted here, and the interactions that happen here.
Paypal has a service called Website Payments Pro. I used it on a past venture and it was great. It was cheap to setup and maintain.

It is a transparent solution too, so you don't redirect users to the Paypal site unless they are paying by Paypal. Credit card payments are done from your site via a webservice.
Another reason to become a libertarian! :P
Paul - I think you missed one point.

You really have to find the right technologies that motivate and enable you. For you, it was lisp. For me, it seems to be python right now. For years I worked with java, and it simply didn't seem to fit well with me. For some reason, python seems to be the perfect fit, and I have a new sense of desire to code.
Short sighted. Although Linux is making significant rounds for servers in the corporate world Microsoft is still the office PC leader. web 2.0 will never break into this coporate niche just due to the flow of information out of the secure office. However this is not to say the application can not come IN house. This is how they must be sold to corporations. That and the price of training new hires on the linux based platform with web apps.

If enough companies train enough people then the "we use microsoft because everyone knows it" excuse will be out the window.
PayPal accepts credit cards from a very limited number of countries. It is West-centric, in other words.
I use Adobe InDesign - it allows you to put together a library of symbols and shapes that you can re-use to build your mockup very quickly. Once you've put in a little bit of work getting these elements together you're good to go. It also allows you to add additional pages, auto page number, import images... you name it. Probably not what Adobe had in mind, nor is it a cheap option but it's certainly versatile.
Step 0, actually write them.. i dunno how many people i know that don't even think about writing personal thank you's. Plus make them inventive. If yer gonna make an impression of thanks, have fun with it.
Google checkout currently has a deal where all credit card processing is FREE for the rest of the year!

https://checkout.google.com/sell
Chapel Hill, NC. Fares shot up 100 bucks in last two days. Sucks. Where are you guys planning to stay in CA?
I am totally in. I'm in the buckhead area, but meeting location doesn't matter. nate@wamily.com
PaySimple is another good one for Startups. They have a great API, can handle recurring billing, stores the CC info and are good about letting you take the data with you if you wanted to go to another service. Wufoo is probably going to move over to them from Authorize.net (which is also a decent service that just implemented recurring billing).
What about "31. Read too many blogs and essays by smart, inspiring people"
If Paul ever tried new Yahoo mail, he would found Gmail pretty lame. As far as Ajax utilization goes at least.
I'm not sure where I'm going to be staying but coming from Boston really sucks. It's $600+/person.
Sometimes I really regret the computer science major. The things I learned were right, but the credential was wrong -- it basically certified me as sufficiently trained to work in IT cubicle hell. (It was really a math degree at its core, and it made me a problem-solving generalist, which is not what Industry wants.) I considered dropping it, but it was so easy to do what I needed for the additional credential -- it was a matter of two classes I wouldn't otherwise have taken.

I regret not recognizing the intensely political nature of my masters' degree program before it was too late to do anything about it. I've thought about going back to a different school, getting the PhD, and trying to scale the ivory tower, but I don't think the payoff I can realistically expect is worth the investment. It's not like a PhD in Renaissance music theory makes you any more employable in the "real world," and academic positions are few and far between, and there is so much of a surplus of good professors that some of the best are eking out a living teaching as adjuncts at community college.
I'm using authorize.net at the recommendation of board member/successful business owner.

PayPal can be great as well because it is so easy.
Well yes maybe :) I'm still thinking.
But I'm a little bit confused, what audience will you target? Seems like you're going to make a Belgian news site? I plan to make it international (with national versions as well though..). Anyway, I'm off, so I won't respond until tomorrow. Nice meeting you, both :)
I worked (by this I mean marketing the product) on the textbook site for over a year before changing course about six months ago to our new direction. We have not started to market our current site. Send me some more info about yourself or contact me via IM if you would like to continue this.
hey - try portland, maine to san jose - tickets were in the 300 range. You can alternatively try Manchester, NH. Both airports aren't that far away. Let me know if that helps.
Five Ways to Mark Up the Web
Well, it turned out their mails got caught in the spam filter and we managed to overlook them :-( What a shame...
I've researched both paypal and authorize.net pretty thoroughly. For starters, I ended up with authorize.net. To first compare features though: Paypal offers what I believe they call the "paylink" feature. This is where the user is redirected to a paypal site (off of your own website) to make their purchase. The good thing about this for retail driven commerce is that it will interface well with a shopping cart system. I believe it either has no monthly charge or a very minimal one (also you won't need your own SSL). Above this, both companies have an API (or an application programming interface). To use Paypal's API you need to subscribe to their "payflow pro" program. This is about $40-50 mo. Authorize.net has API integration for about $30 I think. But then you need a merchant bank account which you can get through them for another $10. For those who aren't familiar, through an API you can set up a payment system that is built into your own site, which relays the data to the payment gateway. This is obviously the best option for serious merchants of any kind.

When accepting credit cards you'll also need a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or in other words a secure connection (https://). I think they will actually allow you to use their api without that but it's definitely a horrible idea. There are a few major providers of this service, and they range in price significantly. www.InstantSSL.com or "Comodo" as they call themselves, has a pretty decent mid range SSL encryption package for about $100 a year. Godaddy.com has one that's like 19.99 or something ridiculous. The issue with SSL providers is simple. You can bet that they are all perfectly secure. The issue is really in browser recognition. The worst thing ever for an online merchant is to loose credibility, and what's the fastest way to appear disreputable - ""this site may not be secure, internet explorer recommends that you leave it immediately" or what ever that error says. This happens when a browser doesn't recognize the security certificate. To be safe, go with a provider that you can guarantee is trusted by all the major browsers (even old versions).

Also - one last piece of advice. When subscribing for a SSL certificate make SURE to turn your domain anonymity off temporairly while you subscribe. Otherwise they'll put you through an endless "verification" process that involves multiple faxes and endless bureaucracy!!!
does this group invest in US businesses?
PayPal or Google Checkout are both good ways to start out with. But depending on the volume of transactions and the amount of control you want you may want to go with your own merchant account. They are not hard at all to set up. Talk to your current bank to see if they have an arm that deals with merchant accounts. Most banks that offer business accounts either have their own or partner with a third party to provide the services to customers. Note that you will need an SSL certificate if you go with a merchant account. Id recommend VeriSign ( they will also most likely end up being your Payment Gateway if you do decide to set up your own merchant account). Their SSL certificates are a bit pricy, but the most trusted name in the business. You want to make sure you get a low processing fee (percent of the transaction that the bank ends up taking  shoot for under 2% and a low per transaction fee (shoot for 20 cents or lower  hard to find). After a lot of shopping around, we ended up going with Bank of America. Best of luck!
For my summer startup, I'm going with Google Checkout. My alternative was PayPal Payments Pro, but the documentation is horrible which makes integrating difficult.
what do people recommend for handling subscriptions/automatic recurring billing that can change over time?
Of course, my thing is already started, the YC thing was just a last minute deal, I only found out about it a couple of weeks before the deadline. People are interested in what I'm doing, interest is building, and I have a lot of ideas to continue improving it.

I'll still be looking for some cash, though, because development would go a lot faster if I didn't have to work to pay the bills, and it would help me compete against anybody who might be out there to compete against me.
Hi everybody. I am sneaking this comment while on my boss time. Man I hope he truly the last one I ll have.
We are getting a good response. Now meeting up is only a matter of making sure everyone make s it. So far most of you want to meet sometimes next week (frankly I am so exited that I would do it tonight, but it would not work for the rest of us). Most of us are suggesting midtown. That is fine. As soon as we know the best time and date for all we will email and put another post on yc news.
PS. Everybody seems to have dbe some work with RoR. Well I hate to say it but I am not a coder(please don't be mad), although I like to learn about coding languages. Well maybe this group will throw in some help. LOL. Can't wait to meet you guys.
Are there any limitations with Google Checkout? Such as accepting credit cards only in US? Heard a rumor about that...
Right - that means that instead of having a camera in whatever room Sean Patrick is in, and long stretches of dead time when he's somewhere that can't be wired for filming, you see Justin's environment all the time no matter where he is. Bandwidth also means that it can be streaming video rather than a web cam that updates every 20 seconds or so.

I'm not sure why this is supposed to be compelling. The presentation has changed, but the content hasn't. Or is it that the time is right, and there are enough voyeuristic people and enough revenue to be made from Google ads to make it worth doing?
Update. Nate from Wamily is IN. That's what's up.
Reining in the recruiters - DHH on getting bogus recruitment emails
woah! he's hung like an asian!
At some point, I'll be definitely interested in this...
Wow! The last comment really resonated with me. I actually went the route of getting the PhD when I ended up in cubicle hxll. Only then, and with a good bit of consulting and time working for someone else, did it dawn on me to start my own gig.

To back up, I'm now almost 40; I finished my PhD when I was 30 after working on-and-off for several years. (I didn't get married until a few weeks ago, actually -- so I didn't have family issues holding me back.) When I did get into the ivory tower and started teaching, I became disgusted with the academic mentality and was fortunate enough to find my way out into my own startup with a "good" problem, and contacts to customers.

The CS/CmpE degrees taught me irreplaceable critical thinking skills. I regret not having even thought about the possibility of starting my own gig. I also regret not having developed or appreciated developing a network of contacts until I was in my 30s; I have found access to investors, entrepreneurs, etc. as not only wonderful from a pragmatic perspective, but also (and more importantly) for vetting out ideas.
Just wanted to say that I really like the domain name and the idea. Perhaps you should not exclude the non-fat population, though? Also, I think you could edit the demo video and cut out the loading times.
NOT A CODER?! Ok, we're gonna fix that immediately.
Not learning to code the moment I thought about starting an internet company.
And move to a city that favors capitalism, rather than socialism.

Oh, reason 13 not to live in San Francisco: Only the bad guys carry guns.
Please Help.
I'm not leaving one but I'm turning down an acceptance. I never really cared about the PhD credential; grad school is mostly an excuse to spend a few years working on cool stuff on someone else's dime. But if I work for or start a comparably interesting startup, then I still get that, plus I have a chance to come away rich rather than in debt.
Sorry for the lame seeming website....trust me we know who our audience is and we are going to change the way startup funding works.
Traits of the Best Entrepreneurs
Tag Cloud Vs Category tree for social content
What is a better model for using tags on social content websites?

Tag Cloud? - Since this caters to the long tail of users looking for 'interesting' content? eg: flickr

Category tree? - Since this gives more targeted/specific information to users 'looking' for specific information. The categories again could be designed through user generated tags. eg: subreddits, digg

Combination? - Is the 'best of both' a good model?

Or, will a tag-search based model suffice?

Or, does it depend on how domain specific the social content platform is?
I decided to use RightCart. Its not a perfect solution, but its cheap and easy and I am going with it for now. I have disccussed it here before http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=8060
Would it be good experience to learn Mz. Scheme as a primer before ARC is released?
I think there are a few reasons why this is compelling from a content standpoint: first, reality television has accustomed people to watching non-actors as entertainment. However, reality television has lost its appeal, as the contrived game-show aspects have worn on people.

Also, internet video has gone mainstream. YouTube + blogging + other user-generated content has just grown the appetite for watching everyday people do and say outrageous things. Add into this the presentation aspects (live, all day, wireless) and it becomes something different, unique, and compelling that, apparently, has a huge audience.
Thanks for the suggestions Tichy. Yeah, a couple of people have said that I sound high in the demo video but it was more of an issue that I was recording it at 4am. I need to find someone to redo it with a professional sounding voice.

Tichy, are you interested in joining funky-fresh-bleeding-edge project that is trying to simplify the getting-fit process? Write me an email. :-)
Things you Should Stop Doing
Essential Freelancing Resources
I think Facebook feels just as much like a database as it did before. I'm not sure any of my friends were ever looking at what I was looking at...
Google Checkout and/or PayPal until you handle enough volume to justify the hassle of something else. Authorize.net makes you go through a reseller, and the resellers are less competent than a poorly trained chimp. It took me two months to get through the process:

"The merchant account provider needs to see your website."

"OK, here it is."

"No, they need to see the shopping cart."

"What!? We don't have merchant services yet. We're not going to put up a shopping cart that people can't order from!"

"They won't set it up until they see the shopping cart."

"OK, fine. Here's the link."

"They said they went to your site and didn't see a shopping cart."

"I sent you a link to the shopping cart. It isn't visible on the index page yet, because we can't take orders."

"Oh. It has to be the real website."

"Huh? It is the real website. I just haven't linked it from the front page...we already have users, I'm not going to confuse them with a shopping cart that doesn't work."

"It has to be a real website."

"You're kidding, right? Just send them to this link. I'm certain they'll be able to figure things out."

"OK. They said there is no terms of service or refund policy clearly linked from your front page."

"We don't sell anything yet. Why would we have those things on our front page? They're linked off of the store link I sent you." (This is the second time I've setup merchant services, and I knew they would need to see those things. It's not like they give a shit what they contain...they just insist they exist.)

"They have to be on the front page."

And so on. I won't bother to type in the exchange we had over the resellers first attempt to actually setup the username and password, or the fact that all payment information had to be faxed in. (Yes, you read that right. The reseller for Authorize.net that we went through would not accept payment online. And the form that was online was just a ruse...they made us fill out the exact same form again and fax it in.)

Next time I build a shopping cart, I'll spend that time writing a payment backend for a payment processor that isn't operated by the functionally retarded. Or maybe I'll just use Google Checkout instead, and let them worry about the banking industry monkeys.
How important is domain expertise?
I think the tag cloud is self explanatory in the sense, the font of the individual tags depends on the amount of content under a particular tag. It's a visual representation of the category system where the amount of content in each is represented by a number in brackets in front of each category.
Both these techniques have their own pros and cons as one is more visual while the other asks the user to find out where he wants to go.
I think a combination of both might be the optimum solution, where the content is provided under tags which are pretty broad and category and sub category takes the user deeper and is more useful for users who are looking for specific information.
Thanks Nandan. That is a very nice way to start helping. (lol)
I think it depends a lot on the phase the start up founders found themselves in. If the concept is concrete enough and the road map is more or less finalized, it might be a good idea to talk to your trusted friends and family members.
It's true that the initial road map the founders decide, keeps on changing as the idea evolves into an application and the further development is done based on the feedback stream obtained.
In my opinion the founders should keep themselves open to the idea of incorporating a few more people who love working in start up situations.
These people can also be a part of the initial team once the start up gets funding, only if one is looking for.
I recently posted on dealing with rejection in your startup venture. You may find some encouragement in my short story towards the end. The post is at:
http://www.ideatagging.com/good-entrepreneurs-always-accept-no-for-an-answer/
I Witnessed a Murder Today
Well, the photos of the place looks good, I can see potential for this to be really useful for many people. But I wonder if a Burlingame location is a symptom of trying to appeal to too many people. In the process I'm concerned that it won't appeal to anyone.

To me, convenience is still the most important aspect of this office space, since office space is optional for the startups and individuals you're targeting. My hunch is that Burlingame is too far from both San Francisco and Silicon Valley -- not convenient to people in either location. (Is it near the BART/Caltrain stop? That could help.)

I'd suggest you check with others near SF to gauge their "location elasticity." You might get a much better response with a location in the city, even at a higher price.

Hope this helps -- good luck!
madmotive, could you drop me an email? I've got a question for you about this. My email address is on my user page. Thanks.
I still think Perimeter or maybe Buckhead is the most central to where the majority of people in the Atlanta tech industry live and work but I'm up for any location at least once. If I have to sit in hours of traffic to get there though you guys better be really f'in interesting and visionary.
That's the biggest change in tone in a blog post I've ever seen. Stressful situation, hope you're doing alright.
Costco has very cheap rates, not sure how good they are as far as integrating with web services. ~$50 a year for the Costco membership, then 1.99% + $0.27 per transaction plus a $20 minimum monthly charge.

http://www.novainfo.com/costco/index.asp
"likebetter helps single mother plan her success...Today, a single mother was given a second chance. A second chance to rise up the corporate ladder. All thanks to likebetter. Betty, 32, was 23 when she had her child, 'I thought it was a blessing, but it was a curse. I couldn't get hired anywhere!' So Betty went to work as a coffee barista to make ends meet. She did this till last year when she discovered likebetter.com, 'it was so simple yet so addictive.'"

Etc. :D
Hackers and Painters has made many hours worth of public transport enjoyable. And each essay makes me question why the heck I'm spending two hours every day traveling to college.