skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm guessing most people reading this are familiar with most of these resources already, but perhaps someone will find something new. One of the reasons I made this was so I'd have something to send to my friends so they'd stop asking me questions.
Just out of curiosity - how did you get into making robots, and do you have any resources I can look at?
yes, I was actually thinking of that very same idea about the time you may have posted it! (the same interests part).
Why don't you go further and count unique ip's?
cut -f2 | sort -u | wc -l
(Assuming ip is the second field after timestamp in your logs)
I think it's called "capitalism".
I get that it's saying in order to be successful in the field of programming, there's a lot more to get good at other than programming.

But can a person really not get better at programming with more practice? Or is it diminishing returns? It makes it sound like how good you'll ever be is limited by innate talent, and can't be overcome with hard work. Others' take on this?
Attract hackers, evangelise YC, and change the world? Vote for "NEW" YC T-Shirts!
I want YC T-Shirts because I LOVE news.yc and:

1) I want to evangelise the good news of YC, and of startups by students, around campus.

2) I want to fly a flag so that other hackers/YC faithful know that I'm one of them too, and we can come together.

3) I want the world to know it!

So Jessica, Paul, Robert and Trevor: Make YC T-Shirts, PLEASE!

Sizes: XS (for the ladies;) to XXL, Colours: White/Orange/Black, Slogan: "Make Something People Want"

What do you guys reckon?
Thankfully I don't make them. I'm involved in the RoboCup project: www.robocup.org. But I'm in a 'league' where software is king and hardware is standard: the 4 Legged League. Here's the link: http://www.tzi.de/4legged/

But if you're into making robots, pretty much every other league in RoboCup (save simulation) does hardware: humanoids, coffee-can robots, rescue robots, etc.

So yeah, I program robotic dogs to play soccer. Pretty ridiculous concept, but it's darn cute.
The search engine just for kids
We have YC T-Shirts, and they say "Make something people want" on them. All the people we fund get them.
This is definitely coming soon.
Hey Paul! Thanks for clearing that up. When will you make them available to the general YC faithful for my aforementioned reasons? I believe it will benefit YC when it eventuates.
This site is so much better than Reddit these days. I don't even check R anymore (too much noise/politics/pics/videos).

Thanks PG!
No. Apple has no motivation to support existing video distribution models. Why would they build a DVR? You can get TV and movies from iTS at good quality and reasonable cost sans ads. Apple doesn't just want to own the decoder unit, they want to own the much more profitable distribution service.
What about the more ballsy shirts seen here?

http://www.shoutfit.com/outfits/135
Which one will you learn the most from? Choose that one.
Only if they are really dumb. If you are worried about pagerank spammers, just use the nofollow attribute.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html
"It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves." - Bill Watterson
The first link I submitted to reddit. It garnered 27 points, at that time a huge number. Watterson is a fascinating character. He's last storied to be painting landscapes near his hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, burning them once they're completed.
Career Advice: Don't Spend Half Your Work Day On Facebook And Then Brag About It
Thanks for the comment, zach! Even though the pic from your link said, "Strap on some plums.", I did manage to find THE YC T-Shirt pic from it so it's all good:

http://www.shoutfit.com/items/51371/in/closet/ickmonst/in/trend/38

Also, there's a link above it that takes you to YC's Shoutfit category, "Y Combinator Gear". Perhaps a new design is in order?
What to do next after launching your software start-up? Start-up your engines!
highly recommended to everyone who can to attend this event. jessica has learnt ALOT from interviewing all these founders and she can relay the experiences fantastically well.
i'd just like to say it's great to read actual thoughtful comments about YC companies for once. i'm fed up of reading pathetic comments on Techcrunch from people who were rejected by YC and still like to claim they are into the startup scene without having anything to show for it.

i hope to meet some more of you guys at startup school this month.
Jeff Bezos'(Amazon CEO) Video Lecture on User Experience
I don't see many people being discouraged to make social apps. A lot of the internet is based on social interaction (forums, comments, reviews, chats..) and wherever there is spam there are anti spam-measure in place that work reasonably well since these apps are all pretty usable. Maybe I just don't get what you mean
Got schwag? Submit your start-up's own merchandise on this blog
i don't know about you but when my local new zealand newspaper has a "reddit-this" button it heralded a large decline in quality. i think a smaller, focused community is more use.
She's a superb interviewer. This isn't your 60 Minutes style of interviewer where she's the star and the subject is simply the vehicle to make her look smart, etc. Also, Paul Graham's forward is one of the best essays I've read in a long time. And, perhaps, the best opening paragraph. Damn, the man should be hired just to do that. The sprinter metaphor: genius.
Three reasons business owners avoid marketing
Not me... I got my rejection email yesterday. I thought I'd be more disappointed at getting turned down, but I'm not. It's actually motivated me to step out on my own.

One of the big reasons that YC exists is to mentor young entrepreneurs. I would love to have a mentor, but I think that I"m going to branch out on my own to find them, instead of drowning in the crowd at Start-up school to exchange three words with Jessica or Paul. Instead, I've been considering volunteering at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to hang out with some elder geeks. The Computer History Museum has a bunch of volunteer hardware/software hackers who restore vintage main-frames. These are all really smart hackers who have spent decades in the tech business, and they are spending time in retirement doing geek stuff, because they love it. These are the kind of people that I want to spend time with.

My team and I just moved to Silicon Valley this past year, and we're setting up out entire lives around the idea of having a series of start-ups. We've driven a combined total of 12 thousand miles to get here. We're set up financially so we can afford to iterate through start-up ideas without breaking the bank. We have a great space to work in, and we're meeting a lot of cool people. I actually talked with a man a few weeks ago who knew William Shockley of Shockley Semiconductor fame.

Yeah, It's been a hard road just to get to Silicon Valley. I'm sad that I didn't get in to the startup school. But, I'm sure that I'm going to get a lot more rejections throughout my career as an entrepreneur. If I wanted something easy, I'd choose a different career. I'm doing this because I enjoy the challenge. I'm doing this because I love technology. I'm doing this because I love the game, and I'm in it for the long haul.
Yes, they're VCs. I think they'd be more willing to do small (e.g. 500k) deals than many other VCs though
I suppose there are correlations between his life and founders. He failed as a political cartoonist right out of college, and failed for a couple of years drawing C&H...not a lot of newspapers wanted to take his work.

The most amazing thing to me, though is that he chose a stopping point. He stopped C&H at what one might call the pinnacle of his popularity because he felt he had completely explored what he wanted to explore with the medium, unlike those long running one-liner and uninspired strips like Garfield.

Software might be amendable to the same time of attitude--they only should go up to a certain point, instead of add feature after feature, ad nauseum, creating an uninspired pile of features.

It might be like how the Ilwrath just got a little bit too good and wrapped around to evil.
Even if there isn't a cut-off for adding features to software, there's probably a cut-off for where adding features is the best occupation for the founder. Either the software fails, and its moot, or it takes off, and if it takes off, there is probably a point at which it makes more sense for the founder to leave and work on a new project--one where the hard problems still have to be solved.
User Interface Is As Important As Code
also coming in from dc.
Long term, certainly. There are a lot more features coming.
concur, this would match my usage pattern much better (read interesting articles from RSS, then bring up another window to read the comments)
There are actually three kinds of shirts: gray ones that say MSPW, plum-colored ones that say "Strap on some plums" (the other half of succeeding in a startup), and black ones, of which there are only 7 in existence, that say "I made something people want."
To get one, just fill out this simple form:

http://news.ycombinator.com/apply
"Suits petrified" about open-source
Why startups succeed where big corporations fail
I'd actually go one step further, and say that user interface is /more/ important than code. In almost all case with a start-up, you users don't really care about your code, they care about the functionality, and its usability. That means that HCI trumps code, to some extent.

Of course, interface matters only in so far as it exposes functionality; that's why craigslist, which is a monster of design, but highly usable, can do so well. The interface facilitates the user's interaction with the functionality.
Unfortunately marketing gets a bad name because of the correlation with slimy sales guys. Really, I look at marketing on more of the strategic side, answering the question, "What do people want?" If you focus on that then the actual marketing tasks tend to be more palatable.
A well planned project shouldn't have this problem since the UI should come before the code. The decisions for UI should be resolved before the code since it will dictate how the different functions will interact. Sometimes a good interface design will reveal that a there's no room for certain seemingly good features, thus eliminating a lot of potentially trivial work. Also, while designing the UI before the code won't necessarily affect the quality of the code, doing the code before the UI could substantially jeopardize the quality of the UI.
Create And Share Mindmaps
Working for the man.
Open up a newspaper, and look at some of the strips. Rubbish. Absolute utter rubbish. And yet they all got published! Somebody looked at them and said, "Yep, that's a winner."

And here, unsurprisingly, is Watterson talking about how hard it was to get into print. Maybe--since this website is intended for businesspeople as much as creators--maybe it would be fitting if everyone remembered just how completely powerful people can fail--and not even realize it, nor be punished for it.
TiddlyWiki - A Reusable Non-Linear Personal Web Notebook
I love this thing! I can store all of my notes, ideas for articles, and business ideas in one HTML page. I can back it up or transfer it by copying a single file. Nice.
Agreed. What users see is way more important than what they do not see (except maybe in the sense that the code is producing what they see, but, anyways).

As for craigslist, the author of that post seems to be using "design" interchangeably for "interface design" and "visual design". Yes craigslist is ugly, but they get away with it because the interface is designed quite well. I can go to craigslist with a task and figure out what I need to do and get it done relatively quickly. So while a appreciate your intent with "monster of design", I think it's better put "monster of visual design".
Depends upon the platform. Designing a cool user interface in Swing seems to be like dressing a dog up in a tuxedo. (my frustrations!)
A way to 'share' stories like I can on Google Reader.
It's only surprising if you've missed out on the last thirty years of research into motivation.

Rule of thumb: As books read decreases, the insightfulness of other people's blog posts increases.

Kvetching aside, the speech as a whole is a great read.
Based on the stats of other web apps I would predict that there are around 140 active users who comment and submit articles. This is however just a guess.
What is the 1% rule?
Find a co-founder (inspired by news.yc threads)
A few weeks ago there was a thread about starting a free-form way for entrepreneurs to find each other in different cities:

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=445

...so I decided to try setting one up. Please let me know what you think. There's no ads on it or anything, this is strictly a project to make connections and learn more about web development.
all,

I decided to give this a try. Please let me know what you think:

http://www.founderfinder.com/
Well, though I share the same sentiments in general (there are a few good strips), someone out there is reading all that rubbish. Either we're not like most people, and most people like rubbish, or good content is not how strips are being evaluated to make it to print. Perhaps they're catering to something else other than good content.
Will you be joining our after school yc.news meetup, or do you YC alums have your own exclusive event?

If anyone's willing to participate, I would love to set up something where current YC founders and potential YC applicants can gather, chat, and pick each others' brains.
How about Chicago? Anyone interested in meeting up in the Chicagoland area? Talk tech, talk startup, over joes or en grosse bier.
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." (Howard Aiken) Is this true?
Offending Experts and Pleasing Everybody
The best ideas are innovative and edgy. Any competitors will be behind the curve once they realize what you already know.

If your idea is good in a duh-obvious sense, then you can be damned sure someone else is already doing it or has done it. The way to succeed in this aspect is by doing it better where others have been lazy.
Amazing! I can tell you will be very successful as you have actually done something about the problem - the rest of us (especially myself) sat on our butts bemoaning our fate.
see here
Nice looking page, but surely the peak of users is not at intermediate. In my experience most users are beginners.
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=2615
Great name for the site. A couple of suggestions: technical strengths and weaknesses are important, but not necessarily more important than general strengths and weaknesses- at least not for a founder. If it was an employee search that would be one thing but I would possibly relabel those "technical & business strengths" etc.

"My dream is to start a company that" should probably be more along the lines of "I have plans and/or interests in the following areas-" I guess I would just step the seriousness up a little bit so you get people who are generally serious partners.

Finally, I'm normally against this, but this is one place where you may want to consider having the site invitation-only, either that or password-protect the site and let the password spread among founder-networked people. A lot of garbage profiles would ruin the usefulness of the site.

[upd]
oh, and one more thing- maybe one more field where the potential co-founder can write about themselves- "about me" or "unique things about me" or something along those lines. Finding a cofounder is a lot about chemistry and an alignment of personalities, not just matching up needed technical skills. It's not a school project, it's more like a.... marriage, to be honest (nothing weird of course).
I think it's the former: we're not like other people.
would you like to collaborate on an idea i have had for displaying the founders?
Any sufficiently large corporation cannot continuously hire smart people since there is a tendency to push for the average. Google has avoided this by applying something known as the "Lake Wobegon strategy" (http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/03/hiring-lake-wobegon-strategy.html). It states that a company should only hire candidates who are above the mean of the current flock of employees.

Though, as I stated earlier, even Google cannot continue to endlessly hire smart individuals. A sample of the average IQ of University students would most likely be the same as the rest of the population. There are always a few exceptional individuals in any group, but the group itself is most often average.
I had no idea Jobs was adopted.
Thanks! This might sound like I'm blowing smoke, but I'm not: I've been really inspired by all of the great articles here and at other sites, and by the 37signals book Getting Real. I grew up very much cultured to think I would have to join a large organization to be successful, and now I'm starting to realize it's better to strike out on my own.
I like your suggestions about the strengths and weaknesses and dream section. I'm going to go change that right now. My original thought was, I want to really focus on the kinds of motivated technical people reading YCombinator, but you're right, it sounds too much like an employee search.

It also makes sence because people might be looking for skills that are not always technical (or maybe for people who do not self-identify as having technical skills).

As for the name, that is a big relief to hear you say that. My girlfriend thought it wasn't very 'cool-sounding' (i.e. not a web 2.0 name).

I never thought about the potential for garbage profiles. I'm not sure if I could be successful with it by using invitations -- I don't know anyone else in this world (yet).
sure thing! e-mail me at mike@founderfinder.com
I think I've read it in one of PG's essays, who sais always choose the harder solution because you thought the easy one because you are being lazy?
I agree. In addition, some interesting notes about HCI. First- if you haven't studied HCI or know what the acronym stands for, you may make it as a programmer for some company, but you're not going to reach your full potential creating new things.

Anyway, I was reading an HCI paper in one of the publications a few years ago and came across these interesting statistics:

75% of software does _not_ in fact increase the productivity of the end-user. (over a paper-based alternative)

Doing a single user-testing session results on average of fixes that take less than 2 days and that increase the usefulness of the product by 80% (that is it increases the end-user's productivity that much).

Here's a poor-man's usability test. Get a bunch of people who have never seen your product and don't know much about it, but that are in your target demographic (shouldn't be difficult- a brother, roommate, family of the employees, someone off the street). Sit them down in front of your product and tell them you're not going to be allowed to answer any of their questions because you're measuring the usability of the system. Then stand over their shoulder and let them do their thing. Don't make a sound- no guiding, no "oh- that actually works by doing this"- just observe and take notes. A few sessions like this will mean a world of difference in your UI.
well, the users would be able to invite. it wouldn't eliminate the garbage, just slow it down. news.yc people would spread the word pretty effectively, I think, or some well placed invitations on facebook, etc.
When displaying list of stories, it would make readability much easier if alternate rows were white. Current listing of stories requires too much mental engagement for me personally.

Alternate row coloring would increase page scability for story listings.

-Zaid
But that'd be like creating an iPod/iTunes that doesn't let you rip your own CDs. People want a DVR just like they wanted a really nice player for their existing music collection. Ya gotta soft sell the distribution service.

Apple wants you to buy things from the iTunes store, but nobody would agree to that level of lock-in (i hope!)
From everything I've read, it's not quite that simple. You don't just pick someone out of a web site to go through thick and thin with, it's a process that takes time. I guess it can't hurt though.
True; I'm just hoping to help make that first introduction. I chose to mimic the craiglist home page by listing cities on the right. I'm hoping that people like me will see their city name their and get inspired to make a connection.
Blog written by Markus of PlentyOfFish.com - (one-man company is the largest(?) AdSense publisher)
The problem: While there are potentially many great co-founders out there, you have no one to work with. This problem has two parts:

A) Not knowing enough people interested in startups.

B) Not knowing if people would make good or bad co-founders.

So this is certainly a step toward solving part A. The problem is it really does nothing toward solving part B, which is by far the hardest part of the puzzle.

I'm sitting here reading news.YC and there are comments from dozens of smart people, some of whom would make great co-founders and some wouldn't. The issue isn't for the most part isn't the fact that I don't know they exist; I know they all exist. The issue is a lack of identity.

If you want to solve the co-founder problem, the solution isn't to get a large amount of people interested in starting companies in the same room. The solution comes from getting them to know each other. This comes from two things:

A) Identity.

B) Interaction.

Identity is 10% what we say about ourselves, and 90% what others say about us based on previous actions. To solve the identity problem you need a way to either aggregate what others say about us or else shine light on previous actions. (Previous actions being anything from college degrees to old blog posts.)

Interaction comes from objects of sociability. Playing games. Breaking a loaf of fresh bread. Sharing a bottle of wine over dinner. A pot of tea. Solving hard problems together. Solving difficult problems together. etc.

Anyway, my point is that the website doesn't solve a problem. At best it is the first 10% of the solution that enables a few people with really good judgement to solve the problem themselves. More likely it encourages people to enter really dangerous territory and potentially get into a lot of trouble with people they barely know.
This points out an unexamined assumption on my part, which was 'getting a large amount of people interested in starting companies in the same room is bound to lead to interesting interactions'. I also assumed people would vet each other, but you're right, it would be more valuable to have other kinds of assessment available.

It sounds like you are saying that the interaction problem is best handled off-line, so is there any website that can really do that?

I recently joined a Meetup group in Baltimore and have already had some great interactions that way. There are far more technical people in my area than I had realized.