skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Stuff - Paul Graham"

Am I the only one who thought this was going to be about someone's taxidermy startup?

In all seriousness though, I think the best reason to keep relatively unused things around is if they are objects of sociability. That is, things that bring people together such as alcohol, homemade bread, board games, etc. At one point I was even smart enough to buy a tea set because I thought it would help me meet girls. (Of course I wasn't smart enough to see that my gf would be Asian, but hey, who's complaining.) By definition objects of sociability are used less often because you need at least two people, but they seem to be worth keeping around.

It's weird because we seem to be entering this phase in history where social status is signaled more by what you don't own than by what you do. For example, clothing with logos is generally considered tacky and lower class. At this point probably only another world war or a major recession could change this.
Don't most people have blank home pages to have faster browser start times? I haven't had a home page for years.
PG missed a couple of points in this essay. First, the proliferation of PODS and self-strorage businesses (at least in my part of the country) is further evidence that people have too much stuff. In my neighborhood, folks with two car garages park on the street because the garage is filled with crap.

The other point is why people accumulate stuff (crap). Shopping addictions aside, people get more stuff to keep score. Stuff is a scoring mechanism, especially for folks with low self-esteem. It would be useful to collect data to see if there is a correlation or causation between education / achievement levels and accumulation of stuff. I would posit that high achievers and PhDs have less stuff than the norm.
Is there any way to store contacts in gmail -- like cell numbers and snail-mail-addresses? Task management could be better -- as that talk by Merlin Mann mentioned. And is zenter just gone? When will I be able to use the presentation tool they build? There are certainly some missing g.apps (pun intended).
Yeah, I've probably bought and given away more books than anything else, and the vast majority of books are not worth keeping around after you've read them once.

I look forward to the day when all or virtually all books are available for download. Webscriptions.net is a wonderful example of this for fiction, given that they have pure HTML books, and not just PDF or some proprietary reader format.
Books were hard to part with, but I did it, too. Actually, the easiest books to donate were CS and math, especially programming related books. I refuse to part with my copies of CLR and Common LISP, though. In the end, I shed a couple hundred books and it was cathartic, kind of like start over with a beginner's mind.

P.S. Local universities are great places to make instant friends when you have books to donate.
So you are telling me that if you find someone who gave away 5 % of his stock to get an alpha product out, asuming you like the idea, you still would not consider being a cofounder to his startup ?
The way startups are made today is almost the same
1.have a unique idea
2. Work hard at building the alpha and demo it
3. Get funded and grow it. Etc....

All I want is to have step
1.5 get someone who understand your vision to help you build the alpha.
Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You
Thats a good question. We use streamfocus for action management and contacts, so I haven't actually looked into it. My guess is that they are working on it right now.
Hey Kul, it was good running into you guys at eBay Live. Unlike Auctomatic, we (mystorespace.com) went the guerrilla route that day :) Our story is at mystorespace.blogspot.com.

We also got swamped with requests for accounts the week after eBay Live. Working around the clock, we managed to launch our Beta two weeks later (also after having given more optimistic predictions up front - not the best way to go :).

Just emailed you guys with some ideas.
I can't imagine any non-facebook employee really caring. If a company seriously depends on facebook in any real way, then they have their priorities all wrong. Now, if bloomberg goes down, then I can understand the problem...

By contrast, I'm sure it's apocalyptic at facebook itself. That happens at even the most trivial web companies.
Probably not. We clearly have very different definitions of what "talent" means.
I live in a place he'd probably characterize as poor (my neighbors probably all make less than 20K), and everyone has LOTS of stuff around here, often including the mentioned cars in the front yard. When you buy cheaper stuff, it breaks more often, and it's usually cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old one, but if you're poor, you spent too much of your income on the old one to be comfortable just throwing it away. So the old microwave that doesn't work goes in the closet in case it can be fixed, and you buy a new microwave for less than you paid for the old one two years ago. You keep the broken chair in your living room because eventually you'll have enough money and time to fix and recover it, and then for years tell people not to sit in it when they come in to visit, because "it's just broken right now, but we'll get it fixed".
I meant it figuratively (I usually do the blank homepage thing, too).
Google loads REALLY quickly. I don't notice the difference between a blank page and Google, and I live in the US, where broadband speeds are supposed to be woefully inadequate, per some recent article on reddit. :)
I once read an article about embedded systems programming for critical care machinery. Error codes included such things as "patient not breathing", "cardiac failure", and things of that ilk. I don't like it when my web sites go down, either, but it does put things in perspective.
It's all about integration.
Google toolbar in firefox is faster
For those interested, the FCC just ruled on this decision today:

http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-fcc-approves-open-access-w...

They voted in favor of "Open Access" for 1/3 of the spectrum, which is a win for Google, but they did not enforce the other rules such as open network access. Google said they wouldnt bid unless all the rules were enforced but some speculate they might anyway...
Duuuude. Like, the stuff we own? It owns us, dude. You know? It's all like, Fight Club redux, man.

pause

Deep, man.
Aside from "learn by doing", how would you recommend we change universities to make people more likely to start startups?

I'm personally in favor of noting the most capable students around 7th grade, let them finish highschool in 8th grade, and spend high school years learning depth and trying to make things people want. This might be a bit ridiculous.
Did Facebook get hacked today?
We're here, and we perceive heirarchies differently than you do.
And they might have been hacked: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38102
Key to Karma(k2k)

1-Agree with postings

2-Anecdote from real life humanizing yourself by mixing in family

3-??

4-Profit!!

I kid I kid. I enjoy your posts but am unsure how a anti-consumer/anti-corporate/anti-advertising posting is modded up so high on a entrepreneurial board that guess what, mostly relies on advertising to generate revenue.
I think the best way to avoid stuff accumulation is to throw away your TV. Or at least disconnect if from the outside world. Whether you think so or not TV makes you buy more stuff.

I like to buy verbs, not nouns. While I was working in the corporate world I lived very simply and saved a lot. I spent all my money on travel. Later I dumped it all into a startup. People talked about the riskiness of startups but I just thought of it as paying to do something cool.
Thinking of a unique clothing line isn't that different from thinking of a unique web app. If you doubt then I suggest you grap a grab a pair of loafers from cole haan and compare it to one from banana republic. Look at the threads inside. Look at the cut and drive with it. If you think it is the same then you are as my friend who cannot understand the differnce between hotmail and gmail.
Designing a jcrew sweater for complicated people like me is as hard as designing a web app. You are looking at major clothing lines, but maybe you should digg underground and find brands that are less known. The restaurant argument is harder to prove. So you got that one. And even if designing a sweater was easier than building a web app, I can argue that you can distributing your service is 25 times easier than distributing your sweater.
Thinking of a unique clothing line isn't that different from thinking of a unique web app. If you doubt then I suggest you grap a grab a pair of loafers from cole haan and compare it to one from banana republic. Look at the threads inside. Look at the cut and drive with it. If you think it is the same then you are as my friend who cannot understand the differnce between hotmail and gmail.
Designing a jcrew sweater for complicated people like me is as hard as designing a web app. You are looking at major clothing lines, but maybe you should digg underground and find brands that are less known. The restaurant argument is harder to prove. So you got that one. And even if designing a sweater was easier than building a web app, I can argue that distributing your app is 25 times easier than distributing your sweater.
"Every thing you own takes energy away from you."

Wonderful sentence. This is how I feel too.

However, I think its some kind of special mental handicap of nerds.

There are people, who are living perfectly energetic and well in a huge pile of crap.

Too me it looks like analytical people are scared by complexity of stuff, while intuitive people like it.
Mouseover the contact in "Quick Contacts", click on "Contact Details", click on "Edit Contact", click on "Add More Contact Info", then you can add phone numbers and addresses for both home and work. It looks like the sections and fields are themselves customizable, too.
Exactly - we plan to use the google apps api to do just that. I can't wait :)
guess not... Safari sucks!
That's what I thought the talented Mr Blader.
You're just finding this out now? ;-) I've been a loyal GMail user since it came out.

I don't understand some of the Google hate that's been going around tech circles lately. In general, their products are really solid & easy to use. My startup's made extensive use of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, I use GoogleMaps for nearly all my directions, and both my primary e-mail accounts are on GMail.
Paragraphs 8 & 9 are obviously allusions to ClutterMe.com
I guess it takes a pretty big mental leap to go from MS Server with Exchange and spam filtering of an established company's email to gmail. But I wouldn't have done it without the apps domain feature so my email is still frederick@gibson-design.com instead of gmail.com. When I see business email at gmail.com or yahoo.com etc, my first thought is that they don't even have their own domain.

My other excuse is that I'm "old" and it takes me a little longer to hobble reluctantly into extremely cool technology. Or maybe its that I'm so jaded from years of using Outlook/exchange, that the idea that something could be so fundamentally better hadn't occurred to me.

In any case, those days are over now :)
What do you do when you find out that your idea is patented by someone already?
What do you do when you find out that your idea is patented by someone or loosely covered by a patent, especially when you find out late in the project implementation?
Do you go ahead with the product or do you drop the project and change directions?

Please consider a scenario where you did do extensive research before starting the project and after 2 or 3 months in to the project you found out that someone has patent of your idea.
Yeah way to go, you win the argument.
Just a week or so ago I went through the process of getting rid of all my stuff. My main reason for doing so wasn't to free up space in my room, it was to free up space in my head. I'm down to approximately one suitcase full of things---I even tossed out the empty suitcase. You start out with a huge mental block against throwing things away, but every time you throw something out you actually feel better, and the more things you throw out the easier it becomes. Eventually I got down to the bare essentials: a toothbrush, a few changes of clothes, and a lockbox full of important personal effects like my passport and birth certificate. The things I didn't want to carry around but couldn't bear to throw away I shipped to my parents' house. In fact, I shipped one of the last boxes there this morning (old photographs, letters from friends, postcards).

If you have to ship a lot of books---are you really going to need your Sipser book anytime soon?---you can do it media mail for next to nothing.

This is something I've wanted to do for years and I can't tell you how relieving it is to finally do it. I'd like to get down the level of the monk with just a rice bowl, or a hobo with a sack tied to a stick, but really I can't give up things like nail clippers and deodorant and razorblades, and little things like that still manage to take up space. (How much? About another laptop-case sized container.) Of course, it helps to have saved up some money first so you know you could reacquire things if you turn out to need them later. Luckily the process of saving for my startup has given me enough to do that. When I was a student I could've never tossed out my hairdryer...that's another thirty bucks. What if I grow my hair out again? With a little money in your pocket you can let the drugstore keep all of these things for you. Durable goods become disposable. America is totally geared for this. Every time I moved I would go to Wal-Mart and buy a whole new collection of silverware.

One of the rules I used to use was to inspect my stuff before moving it out of an old place. If I hadn't used something in the previous year, chances are I wasn't going to use it in the next, and I'd throw it out. I found this to be a good way to reduce clutter. Of course, now I've gotten rid of a lot of things I did use in the previous year, I just found I didn't really need to use them anymore.

On the extreme side I've gotten rid of my bed, though that's perhaps the one thing I miss. Sleeping on the floor is hard. It's kind of invigorating in a way, though it's downright uncomfortable at times. I'm enjoying it now, but when I finally buy my own place I'll definitely be repurchasing a bed.

When you throw out your stuff you just feel better about your day, and when you get rid of things you really don't need, you find it simplifies your routine. When I wake up in the morning I spend less time primping and preening. I grab my laptop case and I head out to my workspace, and then I work without worrying whether I made my bed or if my dresser needs dusting. The experience is a lot like refactoring code. It's extremely liberating.
"a anti-consumer/anti-corporate/anti-advertising posting"

Saying "ignore manipulative ads" isn't anti-consumer. Nor is it anti-corporate -- it just means, roughly, "Buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable."
going around down voting isn't making a point is it? Its like the bully hitting the weak kid because he cannot respond intelligibly to his questions. Please speak your mind. If you cannot convince me without down voting, maybe you need to read a few blogs about how to get IT out of the brains. It is a very short distance, but for some it is a long way so they just go with the next best thing. In this vas that is down voting. Because you cannot hit me physically you are trying to get points away. I believe that is showing your level of maturity and if you are truly honest to yourself I am challenging you to put your startup name here and I will put mine.
We should all agree to disagree. If you do not like my comment then do not read them. Excuse my freedom of speech.
> b) Do not copy something that has been done before.

Can't wait! Do you think 9 roles is a bit top-heavy to start with?
I wish, if anyone has a girl to spare, I'd be highly interested.
"Its only in failures that you would lose data."

Failures, and also explicit shutdowns (ex: "shutdown -h now")
Ok I apologize. I feel bad now.
FCC meets Google's openness demands, but only halfway.
I like to buy verbs, not nouns.

Really? I like to buy adjectives. Example: Cool.
I think we're in a transitional moment in history, where stuff has become close to free but we're still locked into a mentality that values it. I don't think it'll be much longer before we come around to realizing it.

Funny that Paul should mention kids. When my son was born, I was given a lot of plastic toys that make noise. I've seen them on the shelves at ToysRUs, and they are remarkably cheap.

Thing is, my parents and their friends (who are crossing 60 these days) came of age at a time when a toy was a rare and expensive treat. They were generally made in the US, and required a lot of capital and first world labor. A large room full of toys was a sign of the very well to do. When they were kids, a new toy was a truly wonderful gift, and so they continue to give them.

And yet their houses were relatively cheap relative to their incomes. For 20 and 30-ish people, the great financial challenge is housing, not plastic toys. So stuff is very cheap, but a place to put that stuff is prohibitively expensive.

I have a feeling my 2 year old would really enjoy a toy workbench. The item itself is awfully cheap, and I could probably get one for $25 on craigslist, but the real estate it's sitting on is worth about $2k.(I live in one of the few remaining unfashionable blocks of San Francisco for the low low price of about $650/sq ft- on nob or russian hill this workbench would probably cover closer to $10k worth of floorspace).

So here's another way to test a purchase. Think about how much floor space the item would cover, and ask yourself if it's worth the are*$/sqft.
Starting a startup has led to big improvements for me in this area. Back when I worked for other people I was constantly buying stuff. Oh, the rationalizations I came up with for purchases of very dubious value. I felt that I had to have every piece of the puzzle, only I didn't realize that the puzzle can never be completed.

Now that I've gone out on my own I don't have the time or money to spend like this anymore. It's such a change for the better.

Here are some stuff-reduction techniques I use:

Books: I have one large Ikea bookshelf. Several of the shelves are reserved as a 'rotating collection' - when the shelf gets full, I make myself sell some books on Amazon before I get new ones. The collection can never exceed the capacity of the one decent-sized bookshelf.

Every August, I take an inventory of everything I own and how often I'm using it. This includes books, clothes, office supplies, everything. Everything gets divided into three categories based on usage: heavily used, not used at all, and marginal. I keep everything in the 'heavily used' category. I sell, give away, or throw away everything in the 'never used' category. Then, I make a list of everything in the 'marginal' category and keep it until the next year. If any given item is still 'marginal' the next year, I sell it.

You'd be surprised how effective this is. What's especially amazing is the crazy stuff you can sell over the net - someone paid 50 bucks for a t-shirt I hadn't worn in 15 years. Last year I made enough cash doing this to buy a new Mac. The reduction in clutter is even better.
Maybe he's a lisp programmer?
I completely agree - personally, I find brainstorming ideas by myself and then bouncing off of other people in a group later on seems to be the most effective.

Question for you guys: What is your ideal environment for brainstorming ideas alone? I've found that taking 15 or 30 minutes of quiet time to reflect/brainstorm before going to bed seems to generate the most high-quality ideas, imo.
The concept is very similar even though we're not affiliated (yet!).
MobMov creates a new guerrilla theater while reviving drive-in culture
The quote "ignore manipulative ads" is not in his post. His post appears to demonize advertising in general.

Also, how can you say "Buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable."

The context is totally dependant on who the individual is. Who is to stay something is valuable to other people? It is the advertisements job to show to the potential customer why the product is valuable.

Lastly, how does 'ignore manipulate ads' equate to 'buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable? That is quite the jump.
Do it anyway. It's rare for a startup to be sued for patent infringement. But more importantly, in the course of working on this idea you'll discover your real one.
First, be open about it to any potential partners and investors.

Second, are there any partnership options with the patent holder? Most people are smart enough to know a patent that is just held isn't all that valuable. Killing a startup won't help a company that isn't really in the field.

Third, an extremely cynical patent lawyer tells me the whole system is extremely fungible. This might mean that you can get out of infringement easily.

Forth, have any others tried to go against the patent and failed?
Not sure what you meant by something that has been done before - do you mean this has been done before in Los Angeles? Could you point me to who organized it and where? Thanks.

PS: I know about the startup weekend in Boulder if that's what you were referring to.
New Scrutiny for Facebook Over Predators
Startup News relies on advertising to generate revenue? We don't have either.
just to add - I've noticed that most of the parents around my neighborhood now buy and sell used toys very frequently, much more often than parents did when I was a kid. This is partly because the web is much more efficient than the newspaper, and it's cheaper to buy used. But the real benefit is that it gives us the ability to essentially rent the toy. There's little doubt that I'm going to end up with a plastic workbench, but my $50 is really more of a deposit - a promise to take good enough care of it to pass it on to the next 2 year old.
The quote is not in his post. I got the impression from "I have too much stuff," followed by "Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless." Is there some other meaning I could divine from those statements?

"The context is totally dependant on who the individual is."

That's true. There's an information component to ads -- which is why I advocated skepticism over censorship. But in general, if you have two companies that are both pursuing a value-maximizing strategy selling the same product, and one does ads, the other is going to have higher quality (have you seen ads for McDonald's? Have you seen ads for, say, Beffa's (http://www.beffas.com/home.html)?).

'Lastly, how does 'ignore manipulate ads' equate to 'buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable? That is quite the jump."

If you don't spend the money, you either a) destroy it, b) save it, or c) spend it on other stuff. If b), remember that saving is deferred spending, so b) and c) are the same with different timing.
I don't think you have to change universities to make people start startups. Once word spreads among hackers that it works, more will.

What I'd ask is: what could you teach in universities that will help people later in startups? There are some interesting answers to that. One thing engineering schools could do right now is teach more product design, instead of assuming their graduates will all go off to work in big companies as mere implementors.
But you might want to start looking for your next gig before the paychecks actually stop.
If you have a startup, you are the IT Department.
Why is that, exactly?