skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is a powerful and important essay with great scope. It will take a bit of time to think about this before discussing. (I have to let the subconscious crunch on this one.)

"The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it."

I was just thinking yesterday that YC seemed almost like the Medici of Florence who were essential in appreciating and financing the Renaissance. The money provided was helpful, but the environment of bringing all the great minds together from many fields created an unstoppable momentum of achievement.
Seth's Blog: Meeting needs
The Devil & Online Advertising -- Young Go Getter
In general, Digg, Facebook, Youtube, and also the TechCrunch forums for startup related discussion ( http://forums.techcrunch.com ).

I also visit a lot of Web2.0/startup blogs (Valleywag, Read/WriteWeb, FoundRead, Mashable, Guy Kawasaki, Webware), but I guess those are not real "communities".
Well, ProjectWedding.com was designed by women and it is steadily growing (it currently receives 10,000 page views a day from northern california bride-to-bes).

It's assumptions like yours about theknot.com's monopoly which make this "project" (pun intended) particularly enticing :)
You launched early and your users' feedback is all useless or wrong. How to get useful feedback?
5 Secrets to Information Marketing
fix your bugs and apologize to your users.
Vidoop - Say goodbye to passwords
use juwo!!!
use juwo - it can do this
why was my comment deleted? (how did you answer final question on YC application)
replying to user 'rms',

"all things" == Universe

I see that the entire thread has been deleted. why??????
VideoEgg, Receives Money From WPP
Reunion.com Raises Massive $25 Million Series A Round
Evaluate what you yourself define as useless and useful feedback.
I visited your site - but there is no information about how your software works. There's just some text that refers to a video. But there's no link anywhere to such a video.

If you want to convince me that your product can do what it says - take the video talked about in this thread, run it through your software and give us a link so we can see what you mean.
At worst a bug. Can you at least give me the parent url?
How could all your user feedback be wrong?
Looks like your standard fare OpenID provider. I'm not sure why they need a team of two dozen for that. Plus I wonder if they felt the name vidoop embodied all that is online identity security. The name makes it sound like a YouTube clone.
I buy black tea with chai spices in it already, and mix it with vanilla, honey, and milk myself. The preparation is as important to the experience as the beverage itself.
Oh, I have no objection to stimulants in general; I like my tea and my coffee. It's just that if I need the stimulation to stay awake and working, I'm already in false-economy territory.
Amazon's Web Scale Computing Platform S3 Now Stores 5 Billion Objects
I went to this talk back in Dec. and also found it a little painful. PG mentioned some interesting things about actually using Arc to build the YCombinator site (include this Reddit-like site). A lot of the rest of it approached the "what is beauty?" stratosphere where oxygen gets thin...
Right now, it can only handle stuff that plays in Windows Media Player. This file is a mov file that plays in Quick Time. (I ran into problems controlling QT from Javascript. If you are good in Javascript, maybe you can chip in to help?).

I shall be releasing about 12 demos of juwo on my website shortly - hopefully this week. (I work on it in my free time so have been extremely slow this year).
Great. Make sure you post a link to them.
I do not see the thread any more in my comments list.
The entire thread has been deleted. Perhaps the programmer has also decided to become a censor?

"jawad?" had said that galaxies make him sad, then there was a conversation between randallsquared, rms and myself.

I last replied yesterday. I see it is deleted today.
Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.
Top 10 VC lies
Creativity in the Workplace
Yes I agree with you on that. Only I am 18 and I am a game developer/photoshop artist. Also I have tried alot of these online sites that have programs like phtoshop or office. They are not anywhere near as good as the ones you install on your pc or mac or whatever you use.

Also I have tried out a mac and I didn't like it as much as I like my windows pc. Manily for the price and the fact that you can't upgrade it yourself.
Heatmap Analytics Done Right
Beware of XHTML
Can you tell me something that will help me find some parent of this? Just give me the url of the nearest thing up the tree that isn't "deleted."

No one can delete a comment thread except me, and I never have. Possibly this is a bug, but probably not.
Scrap the idea. If they can't relate to it who will?
Facebook: more than drunk faces
If the community you want to attract can do things more the way they want with your technology, you've solved an important part of the problem. For example, reddit's "Recommended" section is an attempt at that.
Microsoft Responds to Google Voice Search,Tellme Launches Free 411 Business Search
The Fabric of Creativity
To help out, this is the comment in question:

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13191

on this thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=8123

However, everything looks fine. All the comments are right there from my view. I'm guessing EBKAC ;)
Freakonomics Blog:Another Reason Why YouTube Worked
Just to discuss a question that was skipped:

Romantic music (19th century) isn't always more complex than baroque music (early 18th century). Indeed, in many ways the transitions saw a decrease in certain kinds of complexity. Harmonic rhythm, that is the speed at which the underlying chord pattern changes, slowed down during the late 18th century. Tuning shifted from meantone to equal temperament. (More complex to implement, but results in a cleaner+simpler UI for musicians ;)

Also, there were advances in instrument design. In particular, the piano of the 19th century was much like a modern piano. Compared to the 18th century piano, it had a much more expressive power. Bach for example really could not write crescendos into his keyboard music. The keyboards of the time didn't do dynamics very well. He had organs and harpsichords and clavicords and such. In contrast, Brahms had the modern Piano.
No. I didn't say that they don't like it and there have been no noticeable bugs.

It was very well received by all of those who I heard from. The problem is that the whole "release as early as possible and get user feedback quickly" strategy has not been effective for me at all. My question is how I can get better feedback from users, not how I can suck less.
Xing-The European LinkedIn Reaches 2 Million Users WorldWide
This is very interesting, I think they are on the right track. I have many friends who are in indie bands, and it's true that a vast amount of their income is from concerts and merch sales. I think this even extends to big bands, but I don't know that first hand. CD sales are only good for the manufacturers and the labels.

The only problem that I see with what they said in the article, is that it is very difficult for a band with little/no outside exposure to generate enough traffic to their website to monetize ads. Most of my friends have severely neglected their own band websites in favor of their Myspace page, just because they don't get near as many hits there.

There has to be a better way. What do you guys think?
I define useless feedback as people telling me that they want some obscure feature which I then implement and then, predictably, no one, not even the requester ever uses at all.
Engagement rings are closely related to weddings. If you polled women about the logo, I doubt you'd get any who would consider it "wrong".
when we first thought about ijigg's platform and language, Zaid was amazed by what people were saying about ruby on rails, even being a perl lover and experienced guy I asked myself: "Why not RoR?"

Three days after I started learning the magic and wonderful RoR I though: "WoW that's all that Java struts+expresso would like to be, this is fantastic! But there are small things that pisses me off."

I've like 7 years of experience with real development. From perl procedural coding without any framework to Objective C (to show the more bizarre language I've worked). I developed (not alone) a simple and small perl framework that is being used on iJigg and due to my experience what I can say is:

You have to choose the language and framework that will suit your application needs.

If your application will change everyday don't go for java or C, use these easy to change/handle languages like perl, python, php.

If your application deals a lot with IO and disk usage go for C, C++, Objective C.

If you have many programmers you need something like Java, that IMHO is good because people will code only what you let them code. A good programmer will make the same code as a beginner one. I always thought that Java was made for mass production.

About frameworks, you don't need them if you have something as simple as www.thankyou2006.com.

Frameworks are great, I couldn't live without them when building complex applications but there are many traps when using them. The learning curve and the freedom to hack it.

This comment is already too big, I've to write something more elaborated.
when you click on my user id and look at my comments you will not find that thread. Surprisingly, mattjaynes is able to view it.
I think the problem there is that you aren't understanding what they're asking for. I'm sure they are being perfectly clear in telling you what they want but something weird happens when users describe features and wish lists. They often don't know what they want. Finding that out is YOUR job.

IMHO, what you need to do is ask them what would make it better and then dig in to find out what they really mean. Why do they need that feature? There's no script or formula to do this, but that's one question I've found to be useful.

For example, User A says: put a link on my profile, which when clicked shows my age, sex and location.

You should ask, "why do you need that?"

The User will often respond in some way which will give you a clue as to what they're really looking for.

So, the response to that question might be, "oh, well, people always email me to ask me what my a/s/l is and I'm tired of telling them."

So, using this (very lame!) example, they're not looking for a link - they're looking for a way to show their a/s/l on their profile. You can give them what they really want, not what they're asking for.

I hope this makes sense.
How about those that get sold? Is it fair to expect that, on average, it happens within a year as well?
Ok, yes, mode.

Python is probably second most common. There are also some using Java, because they have to for phones.
Idiot.

People, we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they have a lot to contribute to startups. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. Any thoughts?
Zaid, it's not about whether people will notice it -- they WILL notice it because it's catchy and memorable. Calling the logo out is irrelevant because the logo works in regards to weddings.
Youtube Soon To Launch Claim Your Content
AJAX login wouldn't be bad, but I'd prefer AJAX voting. A page reload forces you to hunt down the comment thread you were just reading.
There are at least two good Scheme implementations on the Java platform: the Kawa compiler and the SISC interpreter. I have substantial experience with the former and hear only good things about the latter.
I totally agree with you that it's idiotic to say that all the tools have been created. I think that all the obvious tools have been created and the challenge is now to find the new ones that we've always wanted but weren't previously able to build.

I-and I suspect everyone else reading YC News-can probably think of dozens of tools that I'd love to see (and if you're a reader you've probably thought about this too and are thinking of starting a company to build this tool).
Maybe a lot of startups also need to realize that an enthusiastic person with years of experience and an incomplete degree is better than most college graduates with no real-world experience.

Seriously. The amount of degree snobbery in these startups founded by Stanford (and other top-level school) graduates is ridiculous. They are turning down tons of great developers everyday, most likely.
I totally agree with this. Think about how much it cost to start a business even seven years ago: you had to buy servers and dev tools, etc.

Now you can test an idea for a few thousand dollars and a couple of weeks time by a few people; the market will tell you if it works or not and you're off.

If it doesn't work, who cares-at least you tried and didn't waste too long at it.
These guys are doomed.

To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call them?
Let me rephrase my question....would you rather have your own web server for your app? Or would you rather have it hosted remotely? which is cheaper? which is better in the in long run?
It'll be interesting to see if OpenMoko can make a start of it. I used to work in the wireless business and nobody is going to put their operating systems on their phone.

What will be interesting is whether they can be the operating system that a bunch of the Taiwanese ODMs use to become serious players in branded handsets (rather than just making them for other people).
I love my Blackberry interace-and it does multi app support no problem (I frequently flip between GMail, my browser, Google Maps and my email inbox).

Anyone else here love their Blackberry interace or hate it? Anyone here have an interface they like (and why)?
How? there isn't any link on juwo.com to the actual product.
As someone who's looking for talent, let me ask you what you'd be looking for. Here's what I think high quality developers are looking for; I'd love your thoughts on whether I'm out to lunch or not:
1) Chance to be part of a great engineering team
2) Chance to solve complex problems facing users
3) Opportunity to push the limits of what's possible with technology
4) Ability to influence company's strategy and design

Let me know your thoughts.
What about "Free Lunchers"? They think that it's a hot market so they can easily create a company and then flip it for some cash?
Post your Beta to Ycombinator news.
No shortage of strong opinions here.
I agree too. :-)

When I said: "Today, all the good tools already been taken."

I meant for obvious to be included as part of good. Of course there are literally more tools to be made, but there are probably easier ways to create value than finding the one perfect tool that no one's thought of yet.
A strong tea, like Irish breakfast or lapsang souchong.
By reading some of the comments there...it created quite the stir. Lot's of varied opinions.
Google launching an Online Presentation App at Web 2.0
Vidoop - Passwords in a Picture
A fascinating company. Their use of teams created based on interest and need is a great idea, especially for retaining top talent and keeping them engaged. The one issue is how they decide on what to pursue - the article makes it sound like they invent things and then try to sell them rather than having their inventions driven by the values people are looking for. Actually, I guess their model is to make a better version of existing products: Gore-tex, a better version in fabrics, Glide, a better version of dental floss, Elixir, a better version of guitar strings.
I think your list cuts across the spectrum too broadly. Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats. Older, more experienced devs will want more influence on design (although maybe not strategy).

I think the solving complex problems part is not a real factor. Every business has its problems, and most of them are non-trivial (otherwise, everyone would be in the business), so while it's maybe your job to convince someone that your problems are worth solving, it's not necessary to prove that your problems are hard.

I also think most hackers get less joy out of pushing technology to the limits and more joy out of doing something well. Sometimes those may coincide (scaling Rails, for example) but often times pushing technology to the limits means you're not solving the problem elegantly/economically. Take Google for example; they've got the most powerful distributed computation system in the world, but it's done on some really crappy PC's.
What does this do for zenter.com?
This is a big blow to all the online presentation apps just like Google Calendar was to all the Web 2.0 Calendars. It won't be an 'Office Killer' however, until all of their apps can work together well. When you can make a chart in Google Spreadsheets and then copy it into Google Docs or Google Pres(??) easily. Then we'll have an interesting fight on our hands.
Ugh. I really hope Zenter doesn't get Kikoed. Hopefully they've got some additional features over the Google offering.
I've been resisting the idea, but I have to say that this is starting to feel like another Bubble.
Scribd managed to get 9 front-page links on Digg, and a couple on Reddit, in the last month. That is why their traffic is up so fast. Personally, I assumed that the Scribd guys were posting these high-traffic pages themselves in order to get noticed by diggers and redditers.

Every scribd page that I looked at (from Reddit and Digg) could have been done just as well (and in some cases, substantially better) as HTML, using any blogging software (e.g. WordPress, blogger.com) instead of Scribd. The value-added features it offers (basically, a worse-is-better reimplementation of Adobe Acrobat, and collaborative editing) only caused me discomfort.
Mozilla's been extending the functionality of Firefox in a unique direction. First you have The Coop (user avatars, stepping on the toes of the Flock browser) and now eBay tools.
"...YC seemed almost like the Medici of Florence... bringing all the great minds together from many fields created an unstoppable momentum of achievement."

Wow. That's really a great comparison. Given Paul's experience with Florence and knowledge of history, that might have crossed his mind too.
How is it different? Click - Enter Auth info - Press Submit.

If you let the browser save your password then you only have to click once.

What we do need is a remember me feature.
Initial reaction: Zenter is dead in the water even if it has more features. Google's brand name alone will be enough to propel it to the top and Google obviously has the technical muscle to make up ground pretty damn fast.
I disagree. Calendars have a large social component; creating presentations does not. If Zenter has features that appeal to people who create presentations, then it will do well.

Using the same calendar system others use helps. Using the same presentation system mostly doesn't.
completely irrelevant. :-)
Great point. I hope it's true for Zenter.
Here's what a real marketing and sales campagin looks like
I agree but I don't think we'll see the same kind of fallout as last time. The fact that we (app devs), can maintain sites with much less cost means that even if people go bust with stupid ideas it should be much easier for good ones to weather the storm.
That may be true of how people currently use presentation software, but inside of organizations people share decks and slides very frequently and it's a pain. Presentation software probably should be highly collaborative even if existing options are not.
Your Opinion on Groovy on Grails?
Anybody using it and has some tips & pointers?
I hope the same and believe they've still got a shot. They could not have entered the space without knowing this is something Google's probably working on.
How Google could get thousands of open-source developers working for free
The reason to use XHTML is simple: high-quality open source tools for processing XML documents exist and work well. You can find good XML processing tools for whatever language/platform you want. High quality SGML processing tools are much less common. I'm willing to take the overhead associated with doing an XHTML to HTML 4.01 conversion as the last step of the process in order to be able to use clean, high-quality, reliable tools for the harder parts.
The idea is to use a social news site whereby developers would submit their open-source projects and only Google employees would be able to vote although the results would be made public.

If you are working on something that Google cares about, then you will be encouraged to pursue it harder to increase your chances of landing a job at Google.
Poll results: 50.4% of respondents maximise browser windows
28 million users? Has anyone even heard of them before?

The premium account seems to add features that are anti-community fostering. If you're working on a social network I would think it's a bad thing if a writeup about you includes the phrase "snooping features".
Not yet, because the exit isn't as obvious.

In the last bubble, you had some control over the process (there was a brief window when anything "Internet" could be sold to institutional buyers via an IPO).

Right now it's all acquisitions: dumb deals will get made, but in general, the buyers tend to be much savvier (and warier).

Also funding does not equal payoff.

If anything, they've just created a huge burden for themselves because the payoff has to be orders of magnitude higher to satisfy their investors.
That is very fishy. Where can that 28m number come from? From some popular widget they bought or something?
Have you heard of Summer of Code?
Imagine if someone had jumped in 5-7 years ago...
Whereas you are in the market for the hard work, I suppose?
Startup Company Form: LLC or S-Corp? Which is easier and which is better?
An LLC has less overhead, from what I understand, but maybe there are buyout/VC implications? What do most startups do these days?
Search! Search!
You shouldn't blindly implement features just because your users are telling you to do so. While it is important to listen and react to your user's concerns, it's also your responsibility to maintain the integrity/consistency of the application. Also, if you don't believe that the feature you're building is going to have any effect, then it's already heading towards failure because you're not going to be committed to its success.

I agree with jkush -- if you don't agree with the user, you should engage the user and see if you can get the feature to a common ground that you can agree with.

Also, if your feedback loop is just an email, maybe you should add a forum to make the loop more interactive.
Amazon EC2:doing for VMs what S3 did for storage
Interesting how google announces these days and not just release like before..
Good point, but as long as Google provides the essentials for creating online presentations, it will win easily. Just ask someone out on the street who they'd trust more to do a good job with their presentations: Google or Zenter? My money is that the majority (by a large amount) will say Google simply because of the name. In reality, everyone on YCNews and TechCrunch are startup obsessed, tech obsessed early adopters. We have no problem choosing Zenter over Google if Zenter is a good product. Normal people, however, will, more often than not, gravitate towards Google.
Yes, but that would not be getting people to work for free.