skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You seem to labor under a few misconceptions.

Sure, you CAN make money while bringing happiness to the people. As long as it doesn't touch you bottom line, that is. There is a landmark legal case from 1916 (Dodge vs Ford), that's now codified in most countries, that's illustrative of corporations priorities.

Ford (the man) wanted to use some of his company's huge profits to do good and make the customers happy. He paid his workers more than the going rate and reduced the price on the company's cars. He figured his company wouldn't have been where it was if it hadn't been for his customers. So this was a way for him to say "thank you" and be a responsible community citizen.

He got sued by some of Ford's (the company) stock holders, who argued that Ford (the man) had no business giving away their money, however good his intentions, and however happy the customers (in this case) would be. The stock holders won handily, and Ford (the man) was severely rebuked by the judge. So the law nowadays expressly forbids companies to do anything that may jeopardize the bottom line and the stock owners dividends.

Of course, companies can make people happy _as long as that's the best way to make more money_. But given the choice of making a lot of money while making customers happy and making more money by screwing them the corporations have no (legal) choice but to screw the customers.

As to your definition of altruism, that will have to stand for you. It's not a definition shared by very many. If you continue to use words with a definition you invent yourself, it's going to be difficult to communicate meaningfully with your peers. Not that I believe true altruism actually exist. But self interest can frequently masquerade as altruism quite effectively, and be virtually indistinguishable from it.

Your implied idea that capitalism has some monopoly on "free" trade is also so patently ridiculous that I can't even be bothered to comment on it.

And as to "free choice" in the capitalist countries of today, what choice do I have, for example, if I want to watch my movies, or TV shows, or sports events, or news without commercials? None. Other than that Alaskan cave you mention. And even if I take the draconian step of not watching TV at all, because I dislike the commercials so much, I STILL have to pay for those commercials every time I go shopping. Some choice, huh? I can give you more examples like this if you're interested.

And returning to trade. You're not , even in the US, allowed to trade in everything you like. You're for example forbidden to trade in heroin, where you actually face that gun you were speaking about if you don't comply (or his brother, the chair). But maybe that's socialism, what do I know?

As a concluding remark, I find it interesting that everytime any of the serious organizations (american mostly) compile reports on the happiest countries in the world, the US are beaten by this or that "socialist" country. But I guess these organizations must be socialist themselves. An no, I'm not paranoid. I swear! They're REALLY out to get me!!!
Lisp and Javascript
The Utility Belt: How MySpace's pride is destroying it
C'me.... with the age of EC2 and S3, there are no reason you cannot bootstrap the whole thing yourself?

And there are tons of other ways to make money, if you are smart enough to build a startup.

Surely is nice to have somebody written you a $10,000 check to start of with... but believe me, you will never forget the moment you received the first payment from the credit card gateway company.

It is better if you can grow your business with your own money, if you have a choice.
Small team. I'm pretty sure its an official bot. My account got the same thing. It's no secret that they're "aggressive" in their marketing. I think they've crossed over into doing evil though.
Justin.tv Gets $50,000 From YCombinator in a Special One-off Deal
Damn. What was this? :-)
Now I know what to call it. Thanks!
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul (Firefox Only)
^ This is funny if you've read the post ...
great! let me know when you do.
Great points. I agree with what the author says. In short they must be given freedom/independence
Would be very nice if a users's profile page said when their account was created.
If my startup makes it to a series A stage, am I rich personally?
"would you rather I kept chapters off the web..."

Don't even joke -- not even for pretend. Ahhh.

I've read virtually everything on your site and also bought Hackers and Painters. A physical book is super convenient and it's an easy way for me to get new people to start reading your stuff, since many people don't like reading on the web.

The more new essays the better of course, but I would truly appreciate getting them when they're fresh baked and not waiting for the book (which I will order the second it's available). I say screw the people who don't appreciate and see the value in both versions.

My ultimate format preference would be a spoken "book on tape" version of all your essays. That'd be amazingly great fuel for my iPod and I'd happily pay iTunes-type prices.
Let's take Loopt as an example. Y combinator gives the founders $10,000. They code and live like animals for three months. Their hard work pays off... another VC gives them $5M.

At this point, do the founders still have to share a crappy 2 bedroom rental and eat ramen? Or, can they pay themselves $300K a year and use their salaries to put a down payment on a decent condo?
In theory this seems great, but how does it really work? I mean what is preventing people from just making up businesses, taking the money and vanishing into the jungle forever?
"the office" TV series and "office space" are good ones if you want to know what the rest of your life will be like if you don't start a successful startup.
I believe there have been a couple of others. This is probably the reason the application no longer requires an idea: YC figures if you're talented/persistent enough, you'll eventually hit on something good.
Interesting, this is also one of the many reasons why Vonage will be unable to survive on its own, being as they are at the mercy of the last-mile carriers like Rogers, Comcast, ATT, etc.
And how much are you taking from them for this contribution?
Laurent, you shouldn't be scared talking about your project, many people have the same ideas and they like to go with their ideas, not yours.

What can make your site different is how relevant it is to users.

I think you should go with a national version first and only concentrate on that because fewer people have good knowledge of the belgian market and it is something you can handle better.

If your model is right, export it abroad afterwhile.

If you two guys get married, let me be your witness... ;)

I'll setup a forum where we can chat together, that would be fun to have a belgian community...

Email me at samuel.adam at the big G's mail.

You can also go and read nice articles in french at http://cultureinternet.com/
Will it be cheaper running my app on a virtual private server? The app I'm currently working on now is a project management app written in Rails....So since it contains project data from customers how could I pitch to them that their data would be safe?
Also, by no means should anyone listen to me, but if your PhD environment (e.g. Stanford or in a top tech program), personally I would at least attend a semester -- at the very least make some connections.

And if you're like me and being paid to go to graduate school it's more tempting to stick around (especially if other people's research depends on you or you have a general feeling that you're letting down people, e.g. profs that you got you where you are now). There were times I wavered because of this but at some point I told/convinced myself that 10 years from now these people will understand.

People not in the situation tend to be very gung-ho and tell you things like ... do what your heart feels! seize the day! blah blah blah. I've heard it all.

Yea, if only they were in your shoes.
I was a bit shocked to hear about Justin (yet another media outlet) on NPR - this is truly becoming a global phenomenon. The value of the PR they've received to date is unbelievable - I'm interested to see how they convert all this fame into a business model, which I'm sure they'll be able to do. Nice job believing in their radical idea PG.
I can offer this: I want an internship in the U.S for 6 months from August. I would prefer to work on my software instead of doing this internship. Dilemma.

You give me an internship and I'll work half the day on your startup, the other half on my project. For free, of course.

Of course, I can't do internships in 1 or 2 men companies, it has to be a bigger company than that, which leads me back to the original problem.
When an individual gets a loan, the village itself is sort of "co-signing" it. If the person defaults or runs away, the entire village's "credit score" is affected.

This is not theory: Millions of loans were granted worldwide, and in fact the default rate is actually lower than traditional banks in developed countries.

Note: My comments above are about microcredit in general, and not specifically about Kiva (which I don't know much about it)
Turns out microcredit banks need hackers! There is a huge cost involved in keeping track of all those tiny loans manually, and thus they need inexpensive and effective technology to manage their operations.

Mifos is an open-source microcredit banking system, and they need volunteers:
http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what_we_do/technology_programs/mifos_initiative/
Given their history of angering 100's of thousands with a change last year and then fixing it to make even more happy with them, I'm sure they'll simply tweak their new features to gain that many more converts. In a way, you could argue that this is great for them in that they get so much PR for angering users (for free) even though they were so careful checking with users before the change, and that bad PR gets them more users who are curious to see what all the fuss is about, etc.
One moral of the story: be very careful about creating technology that relies on a technology out of your control. Or from the architecture world: Even the most amazing building can collapse if built on an unreliable foundation,
'... It's not as if it's a new idea. Remember the 1999 movie EDtv ...'

Lets go way back to wearcomp [0] with steve mann [1] and cyberman [2] before we get all misty eyed. I'd really like to see something more than just a camera. Mann has gone a step beyond mere transmission with augmentation. Better still go look what students & mann are looking at now. [3] The tech details are here. [4]

Q. Does jtv have the ability for users to communicate? Or is it unicast?

Reference

[0] Wearcomp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Mann_as_Cyborg

[1] Steve Mann 'quick bio'

http://wearcam.org/bio.htm

[2] Steve Mann, Cyberman, film, 'Steve Mann is the world's first real cyborg, 2001, 87min'

http://wearcam.org/cyberman.htm

[3] eyetap.org, Seeing Eye People, 'Research on remote guidance for visually impaired'

http://eyetap.org/tpw/index.php

[4] eyetap.org, 'hardware list for eyetap users ~ /proc/wearcomp_hardware'

http://eyetap.org/tpw/wearcomp6.htm
Really?

http://nodaddy.com/
Rich is a subjective thing, but in a short answer: no.

You are not rich. The money comes with strings and it will almost certainly say what you can and cannot do with it. It is not your money, it is the companies money. The company which you no longer have full control over. As well, when and if a liquidity event occurs, conditions on the series A financing may have the VC's taking several times their listed percentage. On the chance that this doesn't happen and you go out of business, which you probably will if you give everyone a quarter million dollar salary and a cushy office downtown, the VC's will take several times their initial investment and this time... this time you get nothing.

VC funding is not an end. It is only a step. And it is a step that can, and in my mind should if possible, be skipped. Five million VC bucks in the bank isn't cash in your pocket, it's debt. Holding debt doesn't make you rich.
That's evil. Why don't the founders use their profiles with a bot. At least that way new users know there is a busy, real person behind the canned message.
Podcast: Behind MySpace's cybershutdown
Ubuntu's new Linux sports debugging tool
I'm in as well. -- Calvin
(cyu at mynextdive.com)
Have to add in this page which shows hundreds of users http://glogger.eyetap.org/viewall.php

Justin clearly proves you don't need an original idea to get buzz, sponsors, and funding. Execution and timing can take you far.
Totally hilarious and very insightful (in a round about way) ;)
A "Web Dashboard" I am working on....
hi

an idea I've had for a while now - a web dashboard/web portal. This is very much work in progress, but the idea is that you add windows to the dashboard from the toolbox. You set the URL and size/position of the window. Each window points to a different site, and then you save the layout.

This then acts as your homepage or portal to the web where you can view your favourite/common sites at a glance. For example if you are an amateur investor with a small portfolio you can have windows to yahoo finance and get share prices/graphs of you stock. If you're a YouTube-aholic your fave videos are all laid out on one dashboard. Once saved anyone could then access it with a fixed url.

I'm moonlighting on this, lots of techy issues to resolve still but what do you reckon?

PS. to mess around with it click to top icon in the tool box to create a window enter url, drag and resize windows to create your dashboard (text boxes buttons at the top are not in use!).

Thanks

wr1472
yes this is true.
the desktop has gone.
but you make your analysis trough a little hole in the wall (window?)
from this little hole it seems that web2.0 euphoria is indeed due to microsoft monopol lost. High bandwith - everything on the net - microsoft application cloned online.unleashed creativity applied to no rule game, again..
ok.
now walk back and see how much microsoft is more than desktop software and has already took submarine advanced positions in the future concurrential world.(PWC, NFC).
Desktop - all net - ?
dont underestimate people with glasses.

Inside the bubble - insider joy.
outside the bubble - outsider again.
The idea is one step better than tabs if you can manage to get enough of the pages into each window so users can see the content. Then they should be able to click and blow up each into a full size window. What about performance? I may want to have a dozen sites on my homepage.

I know little about mobile websites, but isn't their content stripped down? Just looked at m.yahoo.com for the first time.

Good luck taking on the tabs.
Interview with Matt Ogle and Anil Bawa Cavia of Last.fm at FOWA
Looking for one and only one co-founder here!

I want to take information trading (e.g. CFD and betting exchanges, think tradesports/ cityindex/ betfair/ etc.) to the next level beyond its current primitive incarnations. Not sure yet whether the product should be targeted at professionals, consumers, institutions, or a combination of them.

Have done the startup thing before in the founder and CTO role (several rounds of funding then sold to a competitor). Therefore I have already made many of the usual first-time mistakes (e.g. taking co-founders' top education as a guarantee for startup skills, not firing people quickly enough, etc.) and can avoid them this time around =) My academic background is in economics (PhD thesis "almost" completed) and law, with strong CS and math skills.

What I can do: technology, legal, negotiation, strategy, foreign markets, know how to get funding

Quirks to be aware of: do not believe in decision by consensus, follow libertarian ideals, unable to work effectively with mediocre people (with the realization this would often be useful)

Your qualities:

- integrity, perseverance, gets stuff done, can sleep well while taking risks

- some of the following skills: finance, PR, hiring, business development, design, technology; industry experience in gambling/betting or financial trading would also be beneficial

I believe I can handle technology and organization management pretty well, therefore I am mostly looking for someone who likes handling external relations and is also a people person (i.e. can focus on keeping everyone happy inside the company). This is not written in stone however.

Technologies:

- backend: FP (ML variants, Erlang) with some C++, message-passing concurrency, PostgreSQL, cluster protocols, looking into stream processing; all on Unix like systems

- frontend:

(1) web: html+comet/ajax, flash

(2) client: C#+WinForms prototype, maybe ML+SDL/OpenGL later if that makes correctness easier to achieve

(3?) mobile: J2ME?

Location: UK or Gibraltar ideal for a number of reasons but open to locating the business somewhere else if for good reasons

Funding: self-funded for now, the plan is to do a single round in the GBP 500k-1m range with private investors at (hopefully) a ~5m valuation; revenue should sustain growth from there; ideally I would like to make a trade sale within a 3-5 yrs time span.

Contact me at ffmmuu(at)gmail.com to discuss!
My ultimate vision is to be able to take information from one window and combine it with info from another to create unique information sets (see how I avoid the term mashup?!).

What you may have missed is the small tab in the top right - clicking on this gives you a set of scrollers with which you scroll the page to a desired area and save that position, so like I said before you could navigate to the yahoo finance page scroll to where they show a graph of a share price and save that coordinate.

Save the layout and everytime you log on and view your regular pages for your info fix it becomes a lot easier/faster.
People would just link to their LinkedIn profile here if they wanted to disclose their bio.
Looks really good so far. We're doing something similar with our product, but for a different audience.

Do you see yourself competing with Netvibes et al?
Frontline (PBS) did a feature on Kiva which was rebroadcast here a few days ago; you can read about it here: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2006/12/a_little_goes_a.html and see the video here: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/video_index.html
thanks.

Yes kind of, I first had the idea over a year ago, when I realised everytime I log on I visit the same few sites to do web-housekeeping stuff first (news, email, share-prices, etc) before I would do what I initially logged on to do. I thought it would be great to have all this at my fingertips in one place.

But it had to be easily accessible, from any machine, therefore browser-based not a desktop app, applet or anything else. I've tried to keep it really simple and focus on the technical issues to see if the idea is feasible. Therefore I'm resisting the urge to over-engineer it as much as possible (technology lust I think you call it!).

Yes netvibes, yahoo pipes, and others would be competitors I guess. But the problem with netvibes I find is that it is time intensive to set up, and you can only access "adapted content",

I want something that is easy to use and therefore accessible. more importantly be able to incorporate any kind of information published on the web (text,audio,video,graphics) regardless of whether it is an rss/atom feed or available in xml format.

I've only shown/talked about my idea to a handful of people thought I would get some wider feedback even at the risk of divulging my 'big idea'!

What are you working on if you don't mind me asking?
Sitemap Submission: A Thing of the Past
50K is a small investment to make for a company that you believe will hit the big time. I guess YC will get more equity.
How to use the perceived weakness in your product or service to close more sales
5 Question Interview with Twitter Developer Alex Payne
No picture? It didn't happen.
As the Ars Technica article is, uh, rather light on details, here is what appears to be the homepage of the IBM project:

http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/

Looks like it's an IBM Research project, which is nice because it means they give you actual technical information rather than burying you in incomprehensible marketing speak.
Why do you ask such a question? Getting VC money is validation that what your working on has the potential to solve a really big problem. Depending upon th liquidation preferences the angel investors can cash out or retain a new class of share. Its still ramen and hard work until you a) build a super sustainable company (recurring revenue, cash, employees, scalability) or exit (being bought by another company, trade sale, IPO etc) Then you've made it as an entrepreneur...
tags and categories are two sides of the same ontology coin

with tags, the ontology is built from the bottom-up without a hierarchy or direction

with categories, the ontology is built from the top-down and usually a hierarchy

at the end of the day, they are both simply a subset of the english language associated with content
good question, most vc's will be ok with the CEO and a co-founders paying themselves $150k salary. They do not want you to starve and salaries are a component of every companies operating costs. $300k is a bit excessive. VC's love frugality.

So while you won't be rich, you will be able to upgrade from a 7-11 diet to Whole Foods.
Google employees leaving now they can cash their options
The least they could have done was to code a better Bot.
Seth's Blog: The mechanics of word of mouth
HELLO MY NAME IS SUE FROM NIGERIA. My FATHER left ME a LOAN with KIVA. HE ALSO GAVE ME THIS GODAWFUL NAME. PLEASE HELP.
Viacom and Yahoo! Prod Google
No, you're not rich personally. The money belongs to the company and any sane founder will put more money back into the company rather than taking substantial salaries.

You can upgrade from ramen to TV dinners though.
Saying $300k is a bit excessive is like saying gas prices are only a bit excessive -- huge understatement. I don't know how plausible a $150k salary is after a Series A, but I can't imagine any good founder paying himself close to that amount.
Anyone less than an excellent co-founder, is worse than no co-founder at all. I have been there and done that many many times. Pressure is intense, 100 hr work weeks, then the "other guy" is a little cynical or has to dumb everything down. It's worse than no partner at all. I'm not sure about the advice to go and get a co-founder no matter what. I'm sitting on the next big thing and I have $ to pay people, and do everytbing else myself. Now, I'm supposed to get a co-founder? Why? And if there isn't anyone I guess I'll just shut it down. No wait! Why not spend 6 mos of precious time searching.
Just use the about field.
Technorati Acquires Personal Bee
Violating what TOS? Who would ban ssh? BTW, all of the static files are still hosted on my original web host and I was using sshfs to transfer them. So the bandwidth was really minimal.
Great article - I am one of those guys who dropped from college because I simply couldn't see myself sitting in class learning about Nostradamus and interpretive theater while I was thinking of the application I was building at home.

I have since started college again (online courses) but dropping out for that time was the best decision I ever made. Unfortunately, to many employers require that piece of paper that says, "I know my stuff."
Suggestion: Add Y Combinator Comments Link to Feeds
I do most of my YCombinator News 'browsing' via Google Reader. After reading an article I often want to come back and read the comments (or add my own), but it's such a pain to have to physically type in the URL, find the article in question, and visit the comments section.

Why not include a "YCombinator Comments" link within the body of the article in the feeds?