skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I doubt the top-level people (responsible for things like the 32 G requirement) at MS are really that dumb, because if they were, we would probably hear more horror stories. Ballmer is dumb, but he's a little high-level for that kind of misfeature. No, I think the problem is an emergent property of the MS bureaucracy system; everybody in it hates it and hates the products it produces, but it has too much inertia for anybody who wants to fix it to do so.
What a great piece of techno fiction.
New Web 2.0 Links For Weekend
New partnership for Eastern European startups
I've worked on two Vista machines. Both have responsive GUIs, nothing like what this blog post describes.

This is probably just a faulty installation, especially considering he went the upgrade path, instead of a fresh install.
For projects with well defined goals and methods of acheiving those goals, it can work.

For more nebulous, complex projects where decisions frequently come down to judgment calls, it doesn't work so well. For instance, startup founders need to work together, literally elbow-to-elbow to give the best chance of success.
Stop the sockpuppet upvotes or we will ban this site.
You know I think that this means that people should probably think twice before basing a startup on a feature or technology that Google could easily implement. By implement, I mean either have their engineers hack out, or buy. To assume that they will buy it from you is foolish by the way. I'm looking at you two GUBA and Revver, but I may as well be talking about every web 2.0 startup I've had the misfortune of having to look at in the past 12 months.

Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? Money is waiting for you.

I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser. WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN OR SECURITY WARNING!!! This would be something compelling that is difficult to implement. It is also something that would take people more than 2 weeks to duplicate.

Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's? None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE? The same thing will happen very soon with social networking, it will be included with your hosting. Probably by leveraging open source. So everyone will be able to start a story telling site with photo uploading for illustration and social features. However, I think it will be more difficult for someone to make a web based Joost with television recording and social features. So if you can, your asking price just went WAY up kid.

The things I have outlined are hard, and that is the point. If I invest in something, I don't want to hear about 35 other startups doing the exact same thing.

I'm not just talking about the web 2.0 people here. You would not believe the number of 'Second Life' knockoffs that are about to hit the market. They all expect that 3 to 30 million people will download and install their plugin, or click 'Yes' on their security warning. You know, the one to give this startup you never heard of FULL access to your machine. That's OK though they tell me, because they only need to get the early adopters to spread the word. The TECH SAVVY early adopters. Yeah, you heard me right, the ones MOST likely to know NOT to give a startup they've never heard of full access to their machines!

If ANYONE can find a tech startup that doesn't infringe copyrights and actually has technology that would take a minute to develop, I think I would fall over from shock.

Sorry about this rant. Just in the office on a Sunday looking at knockoff after knockoff. But hey, I just work for consultants for investors, it's not my money. It is frustrating that no one wants to listen to the minority report though.
First of all, thanks for the constructive criticism. This is my first blog article, so I'm begining to realize the sensitivity of carefully wording things.

With regards to my constraint "(and I mean really program)", I merely wanted to exclude those people who claim to "know about" LISP, or who are not competent in LISP (and I think I have a weaker threshold for competent than you).

I guess I tend to disagree with your statement:

"Similarly, a competent programmer is likely to be versed in several languages, and likely they will fall into different paradigms."

I think "a competent programmer" is a low bar (70 percential?). I don't think it's true that competent programmers are likely to be "competent" in several languages that fall into different paradigms.

Also, I feel like LISP's paradigm is so far removed from most others (and with arguably a superset of concepts), that any programmer who is competent in LISP IS likely to be competent is several other languages that span different paradigms. Agreed if there exists one programmer out there who ONLY knows LISP, they lack the complete conceptual understanding I'm asserting.

It seems to me that programmers who tend to write spaghetti code and/or over complicate matters will abandon LISP out of fustration before they achieve "competency in LISP".

The point of the article was to assert that "competency in LISP" implies much more than "competency in LISP" and that this statement is not true of most other programming languages.

Sorry you feel this article propagated misconceptions, I'll try to do better next time.
Replicating Silicon Valley
Hi. I'm Noel from San Diego. I'm beginning a new startup and yc news has been very interesting. Maybe I'll apply for the next round?
Its definitely a prank. Anyway he is now on Tom Kytes' blog. http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-not-to-ask-question.html

Another internet legend is born.
This is a good tutorial. It's the first I found that showed how to do some basic but useful stuff, such as compile, include external files, and have code write to STDOUT. The other Haskell articles I'd seen jumped right into type theory and such; I prefer hands-on.

With Scheme in 48 Hours you get running code you can hack around with to see what does what.
very interesting post, and even more interesting "rant" bilbo0s. Its that knockoff are knocking off other knockoff its insane, lol seems inovation is on vacation right now, lets hope it gets back soon.
Extroverts are built to receive strong, low-level satisfaction from doing so. Introverts are build to receive strong, low-level stress from doing so. We're just introverted, so we don't say so as often as extroverts say that face-to-face interaction is so healthy.
The same way a boom affects the market for startups. But in the opposite direction.

Seriously though: In a direct sense, the effects might not be too great for us "Web 2.0" startups (people don't cut back on YouTube when money is tight). But there would be less money going around, so at least indirectly it's going to be a degree tougher to run any kind of business.
Relevant reading:

" Many more startups, including ours, were initially run out of apartments. If the laws against such things were actually enforced, most startups wouldn't happen.

That could be a problem in fussier countries. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities."

from "Why startups condense in America" PG.
Ycombinator News: Soon to be acquired by Google?
1996: Yahoo co-founders turn down $3 million each
I emailed Jessica from YC and was told that YC is unwilling to sponsor any event they don't organize. Given that we couldn't really make this a "YC Thing" and wouldn't be able to use their space, does anyone still think this is a good idea?

I'm afraid that without official support any attempt to organize a meet-up would yield similar results compared to past attempts. PG -- chime in!!
More is better, obviously, but you don't actually need to know that much to build a successful startup. If you just keep hacking at it and ruthlessly revise the code you've already written, you'll get there eventually.

IMHO, the best benefit of learning a lot is knowing how to not write code. A journeyman programmer can crank out lots of code in a short period of time and quickly implement new features. A master programmer can recognize that by restating the problem a little, you don't have to write any code and a simple, elegant solution falls out of tools and algorithms that are already available.

Of course, the best way to become a better programmer is to hack on your startup a lot. That's why you're best off starting even if you don't think you're ready yet.
The Pangs of Two Becoming One - New York Times
I've found that for the design phase of projects, it's VITAL to be in the same room.

There are tools to replicate so many things- You can use phone calls, and shared whiteboards.. But they are half-way measures- They don't let you work against each other, or argue back and forth easily, making changes to a design..

I've worked with friends in other states before, and at times, we'd struggle for a design problem for several weeks, before I flew down and we hashed it out in one all-night session of pizza and caffeine.

If it's pure code to spec, perhaps you'll be able to get away without out, but even then, working in the same place ensures that you stay friends, and that you can talk over a design while going out for lunch.

If at all possible, I strongly recommend working in the same place.
7 Awesome Things Built on the Digg API
VentureBlog: The Softwareless Software Company
Great Article: Connectivity Creates Coherence
VentureBlog: Sillywood, Part 1: Believing Makes It So
VentureBlog: Sillywood, Part 2: Perceived Success Breeds Success
VentureBlog: Sillywood, Part 3: All The Money is in Sequels
Has the revelation that Hornbaker is a convicted extortionist changed your view on the Alexaholic snafu?
Fatsecret: For Fat People Who Want To Be Less So
Nice question: I dont think it has changed my views, but I have seen others changing lanes after the news broke out
Ability to find out if the new article that I am posting has already been posted in the past or not. I wanted to post a few articles from venture blog but before posting I searched on Google using "title of article + news.ycombinator" as a query.
Free Does Matter
Really nice video, loved the creativity
Vudu: Another Company in the Realm of Internet TV
My favorite part:

"Netscape... will soon include several leading directories... rather than sell a single featured directory location to one company...

The strategy is a classic win-win... it promises to spur the growth of several (web directory) companies at the same time, rather than... loading up one "winner" with expenses that are so high, financial success becomes problematic."

Does anybody know if Excite was supposed to be an exact clone of Yahoo! (including the peppy name), or did they innovate in anything?
Google checkout buttons now appearing on search result pages
Excite was a search engine, while Yahoo was a directory; they were quite different.
Or better yet, join #news.yc on EFNet and say 'hello'!
GigaOM: Hey Vudu, CableCos slow, not stupid
Andrew Chen: 10 tips for meeting people at industry events
Andrew Chen: How do you find a badass co-founder?
A VC: Why 15 Million Is A Big Number
It already has. My guess is that the dollar will rise.
How do you find a web designer for your web startup?
I'm going through this over the weekend. The really trippy part, to me, is where he switches from using haskell to define the scheme parser, to using scheme to define the standard library (of course, run through the parser that was just written)
Is it my fault that I used the upgrade option or is it Microsoft's fault that the upgrade option doesn't work well? I think the latter.
MySQL 6.0 includes Falcon storage engine
7 steps to a green datacentre
Yeah, I'll get right on that. I bet a OpenGL engine will just _fly_ in JavaScript. And of course, all browsers give the JS runtime full access to the video hardware.
Google axes calendar maintenance
Jetpacked: News.YC an example of next phase of social news
'... I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser ... WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN ...'

gne or game never ending did just that (but it still required a plugin). The problem is twofold. Browsers are sandboxed, to get performance for 3D requires access to hardware and what makes money might not be what you first think of. (thats three).

Take for instance flickr. They started off with gne, then the front end team did about 5 different apps before they realised allowing people upload & share photos.

'... Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? ...'
They are about. Maybe that's a good news.yc question?
The Hacker's Guide to Investors
Microsoft grew more than the whole of Google's sales this last quarter
Some of my best work has been done with clients that I never met. As always, ymmv, but if you can find a good person online, someone who you can trust and be friends with, there's no reason it won't work.
Amazon S3 anyone? People have started doing MySQL stuff with it, I think we are to the point where we can use it for "IFS" stuff. And with things like JungleDisk WebDAV making online storage as seamless as any other drive, we are pretty much there already.
I don't think it has to be organized by YC at all - this is more about Boston/other city based networking than it is about. Jessica/Paul/YCombinator are busy enough as it is - but that's no reason why there shouldn't be a Boston meetup.

I currently live in Boston close to the Mass Ave bridge, but spend a decent amount of time roaming coffeeshops in both Boston and Cambridge.

I'd propose a meetup this Thursday (the 3rd) evening or Sunday (the 6th) evening either at Diesal Cafe in Sommerville (my favorite coffeeshop to hack in http://www.diesel-cafe.com/ accessible via the T), or the Espresso Royale on comm ave.

I'll bring my cofounder, and maybe 1 or 2 friends if anyone's around and interested.
ABCNews Gets a Web 2.0 Make Over
Book Idea: Great Teams At Work
Interviews with teams that created:
Flash,
iPhone,
Google Talk (heard that they won the Google Founders award),
Akamai

(ok maybe these are trade secrets that
companies won't release -- but it'll be
really cool...)

Their strenghts,
how they work,
what "process" they follow
etc

what do you guys think?
I use elance.com. I post my projects there and they bid.
'Most investors are "bottoms" in the sense that the startups they like most are those that are rough with them. When Google stuck Kleiner and Sequoia with a $75 million premoney valuation, their reaction was probably "Ouch! That feels so good."'

I don't think I've read a funnier paragraph about venture investing. Brilliant observation.
Micro Persuasion: ABCNews.com Relaunches with Citizen Journalism
I agree with all of you. Have been in project management and product development situations that most of you have been in. What I discovered is the 1st meeting. This initial meeting determines whether the project has a chance to succeed or fail. The way I ran my meetings is that each and every stakeholders must be there in person. This goal of this 1st meeting to have everyone determines everything in terms of goals and objectives. During this time, everyone gets the "feel" whether they believe in the project and whether they believe in their future teammates.

From my experience, most people do not know what to do during this first meeting. In most cases, it is their problem.

In my case, I believe in establishing a Tangible Plan (or Overview) that everyone can unified with. It is about getting everyone to commit to the big picture (the goal, its specific and to each other).

The question is getting everyone to work through specifics of the grand goal.

From my experience, not everyone are willing to be teamplayers. During the 1st meeting, it is about seeing who wants to play teamball and who wants to play "Lone Ranger".

Team collaboration is not about software, It is about a process of getting people to collaborate. 100% team management psychology. ... Remember losers promises while winners commit. Each of your success will be about getting people to commit. .... Thank you very much for all responses.
Is anyone using Groovy?  I've started using it to do unit test cases for a server written in Java.
The fact that PG has been a founder and an investor just helps things.
It seems that Groovy is an excellent dynamic language to use since you can mix it freely with Java code. This allows you to write unit test cases in Groovy, even if you insist on writing everything else in Java.

It's also useful for prototyping certain parts of your app and then later you can convert the code to Java if you like.
"Since valuations are made up, founders shouldn't care too much about them. That's not the part to focus on. In fact, a high valuation can be a bad thing. If you take funding at a premoney valuation of $10 million, you won't be selling the company for 20. You'll have to sell for over 50 for the VCs to get even a 5x return, which is low to them. More likely they'll want you to hold out for 100. But needing to get a high price decreases the chance of getting bought at all; many companies can buy you for $10 million, but only a handful for 100. And since a startup is like a pass/fail course for the founders, what you want to optimize is your chance of a good outcome, not the percentage of the company you keep." [Excerpt taken from the Essay]

This is exactly the reason Technorati is finding it hard to sell, whereas MyBlogLog got sold within no time and Newroo even before they could launch the product.
What's with this guy and top 10 lists? :P
Necessity is a powerful motivator. Until you need to learn something the drive isn't cranked up.
Ive used these guys. Low cost, solid quality.

http://monvia.com/
I think this sounds great. I'll start a new thread and propose the location. I think it'd be a good idea to tentatively set the date for Sunday the 6th to give people a little more time to plan.
Reddit Case Study: How personality impacts success
Boston Meet-Up for YC Founders and News Contributors (Sunday, May 6th)
If you had a marketing person in France, a QA guy in Singapore, another pair of developers located in NY city and London, England. How do you get everyone collaborating as a team? Setting up a fair meeting time for everyone can be challenging.
Im there... Where?
-------------------------------------------------

FACTS:

What: Boston Meet-up for YC founders and contributors

When: May 6th, 7:00PM

Where: Espresso Royale Cafe on Commonwealth Ave in Boston ( http://espressoroyale.com/location.php?id=9 )

-------------------------------------------------

DETAILS:

I'm hoping to organize a Boston area meet-up for News.YC'ers and YC founders on May 6th, at 7:00PM. Espresso has some great coffee, a perfect atmosphere and is T-accessible. The idea was originally suggested in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17711

Bring Friends, Co-Founders, whoever! Post with a little bit of information about yourself so we know who's coming!

-------------------------------------------------

Mod this comment up to keep it on top!
Here we go!

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17969
First, use a web designer, not a graphics/print designer. You won't regret it.

You can try sites like CreativeHotLink.com or Craigslist.org
I just joined #news.yc on freenode
It's not a bad article, but there's a particularly cringeworthy mistake in it:

"Another event that aided the growth of Reddit was a blog post about Reddit changing the Reddit site from LISP (originally created by Paul Graham) to Python."

Oh? McCarthy might have something to say about that... ;-)
Ruby howto for business majors (and 13 yr. olds)
It's telling that the "comment" link for this essay goes here and no longer to Reddit.
This article gets a few things right and a few dramatically wrong. Besides the obvious howler that I invented Lisp, the major mistakes are:

1. That the controversy over switching from Lisp to Python was a "turning point" for Reddit's traffic. Such a minor controversy wouldn't have generated sustained traffic. And indeed when you look at Reddit's lifetime traffic graph, there aren't any visible inflection points; it is overall a pretty smooth upward curve.

2. The reason Digg got more traffic was not some subtle difference in SEO strategies, but simply that (1) they started several months earlier, and (2) they promoted the site energetically to their enormous core audience of 15 year old gamers.

3. The reason it seems from talking to the Reddit founders that "success was not so difficult" is that Steve and Alexis are such understated guys. Simple design always looks like it was easy. Actually they worked quite hard.
Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil
Damn...It's my birthday and I won't be in town that day! Is there another potential meetup next month (June?)
Haven't discussed it but if this goes well I'd like to see it become a monthly thing.
That's what I meant. Corrected the title.
Their web site looks nice, but they seem expensive!!! What's "Low Cost" to you? Ballpark figure? I know some companies charge thousands of dollars, and that's beyond my budget.
That might be bad; it means that this community will grow in the same way as Reddit did. Which was fine for a while, and maybe it'll be fine here because the powers that be here are less religious about not messing with the content.
Since a social network's value increases at something approaching the square of the growth rate in users [1], it makes sense for wealthy backers to be active participants early on -- which is probably why Peter Thiel has a LinkedIn profile and Tom updates his Myspace.

[1] And a user's incentive to join correlates with the average desirability of other users, in terms of whatever the network focuses on. Link-finding ability for reddit, popularity for Facebook/Myspace, sexual attractiveness for dating sites, disposable income for business networking sites, etc.
Hopefully not to many.
MY INFO:

I'm currently working on http://www.PhotoFlock.com - a fairly standard photo upload site which offers similar functionality to imageshack.us (with a few web 2.0 extras). This summer I will be aggressively expanding the operations of the site to create a UGC destination with some innovative premium services. I didn't apply to YC and will be bootstrapping development for the next few months.

For the last year, I was involved with http://www.SciLink.com where I was a co-founder and the principal designer. SciLink is a social network for life-science professionals which integrates journal article data. I recently left the company to focus on finishing school and also to explore the viability of my current project.
I'm in.

I'm co-founder of a YCombinator startup that hasn't gone public yet. I'm also an MIT student that's living in Boston until at least the end of the summer.

Anyone who's interested in startups/hacking should come. I suggest bringing something to hack on or get feedback on (I'm probably going to be working in Espresso Royale that day).
As a business major trying to learn how to program(gasp), I found this to be a useful guide to the basics of ruby.

Unfortunately, the software only runs on windows. Here's a direct link to the download page: http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hacketyhack/wiki/GetHacketyHack
I think it'd be interesting to hear how teams of founders work. What kinds of team dynamics they have - things like:

democratic vs. dictatorship
1 technical & 1 business
...etc

Woz and Jobs
Hewlett and Packard
Allen and Gates
Sergey and Larry
...
We're determined to keep the site focused, however many users we get. We kill submissions that are egregiously off-topic.