skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The night air was heavy with the scent of summer, and the lights of Venice twinkled in the distance. The party was drawing to a close, when our eyes met, and she motioned for me to join her. Drawing closer, her radiant eyes captivated me ....

eeerrrr... ooops, sorry, co-founder?
Tech leaders meeting with media execs / Copyright protection, ads are expected to be major topics
Yep, different "makes you think":
http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/9/dont-make-me-think-a-common-sense-approach-to-web-usability-2nd-edition

(I sure wish these comments were markdown enabled...)
Reinvigorate Revamps Site Analytics Offerings
Hated blogger leaves U.S., threatens lawsuits
Ah, yes, the old 'circle wanking' effect. Everyone vehemently agreeing with each other. I'll be addressing exactly that problem with delicious' inbox in part 2. I think I do have a solution of sorts, and I'd even go and build it, but kinda busy with http://tipit.to/ still :-P

I'll post part 2 later today!
Jason Calacanis: Building his Site by Paying for User Generated Content
Torvalds: Solaris could nudge Linux to GPL 3
I think he's on to something building a Google/Yahoo/Wikipedia. Paying people to create the content on his site requires a lot of capital. This is the kind of advantage a successful serial entrepreneur has that a first-timer generally doesn't.
Ad software maker OpenAds girds to take on Google
Apple will include ZFS in OS X Leopard, Sun confirms
ZFS: Ten reasons to reformat your hard drives
Wired News Benchmarks Show Safari 3 Is Slower Than IE 7, Firefox
He definately does a lot of very commercial stuff certainly but I think that's useful to know about if you're building something cool/ valuable/ fun if you want to monetise or promote it.

Also he built Auction Ads recently which is a real valuable product.
Summer's here, the Web surfing's fine (Digital Kids)
Facebook and Facebook Marketplace probably scares them to death. It's a bad sign if the executives at eBay are so clueless as to only okay this project because they saw Facebook do it.
Permalink:

http://www.webfoot.com/blog/2007/06/12/productivity-factors/
hakano means "haynie" "kashimba" and "nolan" which are the 3 founders of the company.

you can found out more about me (i'm the ceo and founder) at http://blog.jeffhaynie.us/about
Browser bugs that steal content off other pages -- is that why oftentimes the session id is not used as the secret in side-effecting requests? I've seen a lot of sites use random unique secrets and wondered why they didn't just use the session id.
markdown enabled comments.
I wondered that too. But apparently not, because we've got the proof: our spam has gone way down. Though if it goes up again I'll bot-proof that fall-back page a bit more.
GET to do POST's job -- when is it okay?
Open Source Flash Conference-For everyone interested in RIA
I have one state-modifying GET in my app - it's the password reset page, where the link goes out via e-mail and I can't trust e-mail clients to allow a form submission. It uses an unforgeable one-time-use reset code, so I don't need to worry about crawlers. Once someone has visited the page, the page becomes invalid.

If I were in your situation, I'd document.write out a link that submits the form via Javascript. Then, in the noscript tag, I'd put a normal unstyled Submit button. That way, Javascript-enabled browsers get the fully-styled link with a minimum of hacks (which tend to break on lots of edge cases). Javascript-disabled browsers degrade gracefully - they won't look as pretty, but the functionality is there.
After reading Andreessen's blog about the extra money that VCs have because of large endowments' asset allocation, it appears that VC money is less expensive than it used to be.

Ron Conway will just have to live with the fact that his services, and those of VCs, are worth less in this new world than they used to be.

It's not a "cash bonus for going with that VC...a payoff or a bribe...I think payoff is a great word for it.", it is a sound (albeit possibly locally optimized) financial decision.
Remember that the spec's concept of GET for read only requests (idempotence, in the spec language) and POST for requests that change data on the server is just a recommendation.

There are places where breaking convention makes sense, e.g. using a POST for a read only query if you allow foreign language (non-ascii character) parameters.

If your only objection to POST is stylistic, I'd try the javascript suggestion by nostrademons.

Also, if you're going to go down the slippery slope of javascript and into ajax, note that XMLHttpRequest will let you do either GET or POST just as easily, by changing the method parameter in the open statement: http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/xmlhttpreq.html
If VCs are half as good at reading and understanding people as they like to think it should be rather trivial for them to filter out these hypothetical slackerpreneurs who give up once a modicum of success is achieved.
Ron's a pretty smart investor, but I disagree with him on this one. I advocated this years ago:

http://www.paulgraham.com/vcsqueeze.html

We partially cashed out in an angel round at Viaweb, and it worked out well for everyone. The investors made a lot of extra money, and we founders were a lot more willing to take risks.
When you pitch to a VC, should you mark up or mark down the total development cost?
Raganwald: Still failing, still learning
Sure. It's damn cool that you can create your wonderful product at a cost of only $1000. But should you reveal the truth to the VC? Or should you lie to them that it cost $50,000? The reason is if you tell the truth, the VC might think since your cost is so low, the valuation of the company they'll give would be low too

I'm using the same logic as a buyer knowing the cost of a supplier. If you were told the goods cost $1, the likelihood of you bidding $100 is lower than if you were told the goods cost $80.
I think what you describe is one of the most valuable things that YC has to offer and that is the network. Also as time goes on their network grows and so does its value...
Oops! They did the wrong test.

The test they conducted only proves that Google's code work best on Firefox.
It does not surprise me that the research is in conflict.

It makes sense that as programmers age they either become better programmers (through experience) OR they stop programming (the bad programmers flux out of the field with time). These two factors combined will tend to make older programmers as a group look better than younger ones.

But there are hypothetical factors that can work against older programmers as well. For example, if the older programmer has not bothered to keep learning new things he will be locked into one domain where his expert skills are useful. This will cause trouble if he ever needs to work on different types of systems.
MySQL Query Profiler
Right. I've always wondered about Apple's reasoning for releasing Safari to begin with. If their goal was to decrease IE's market share, I'd think they would've put their browser R&D dollars into Firefox and helped to build a single, truly great alternative browser. Plus, it seems that supporting a cross-platform browser would be another way to win over Windows users to the Mac: "You can run many of your favorite applications, like Microsoft Office, and even Firefox, the world's most powerful web browser!"

Does anybody know more about why Apple took this route?
The second guy lives in my town, is about my age, prepped while on payroll as I'm doing, and entered an established market as I'm doing. I should meet him.
Apple to integrate iTunes into Bebo
Start a Company When You Are Young
How Apple helped Disney start working like a startup
Your password reset link should lead to a page where you have a button that he pushes to submit a POST to reset his password. Otherwise a user's password could be reset without his knowledge.
So, how does this affect a startup?
Everybody says that (that FF is the fastest on google sites) but on my two machines FireFox takes forever to fully load gmail's inbox page for some reason.

The page itself shows up almost instantly, but status images for "quick contacts" panel take almost 20 seconds to get fully loaded. IE7, on the other hand, does the job in under 5 seconds.
Hi Paul, The Police is probably smaller on your screen because out of the favorite artists youve added we have not picked up on a similar relationship. If you add the police as a favorite artist, or a bands similar to them, they will grow in size. The Site is built to compliment your musical taste so the tagcloud is not completely based on overall popularity.

for instance the police are very large on my tag cloud.
http://www.bandsintown.com/user/knewjax/
Quieter conditions?
Hi, Where are you located? My guess is there are no shows in you area or you have the time frame set to small. Try expanding your time frame, choose to show unsigned artists, and extend the distance.

this is an example of my homepage for Boston, MA with my preferences.
http://www.bandsintown.com/user/knewjax
As a technology startup why would I want "heath" insurance? I'm not likely to need extensive tracts of uncultivated open land covered with herbage and low shrubs.

http://www.answers.com/heath&r=67
I found a potential co-founder at a Justin.tv Sunday dinner.
A new Reddit, not any existing one. Different name, different code, same principle.
But if you're coming up with zero ideas, adding three a day is an improvement. What you call "forcing yourself," I call every writers' room and recording artist contract.

I didn't write much good material until Valleywag made me write twelve blog posts a day. Only three or four were really good -- but that's three or four more good posts a day than I was turning out before.
Here's a thought: In most Western countries health is supplied for "free" by the government (which deducts a premium from people's taxes). Such a person has no option to temporarily stop paying for health services, but an American can take that gamble. I wonder if this option amounts to another slight advantage that American startups can have over other Western countries? Namely the option to increase your wages slightly for a while in exchange for a reduced health service.
It comes from an e-mail sent to the address associated with the account, though. The only way he can get the reset code is to have it e-mailed to him, so unless he's forwarded on the e-mail to someone else (why would you do this?), the reset is coming from him.

I wouldn't put up a GET page where anyone could reset anyone else's password - that would be silly. (Though fun in a chaotic way...)

Edit: To clarify, the workflow goes like this:

1) Unauthenticated user visits forgot_password, enters in either username or e-mail address, submits a POST back to system with those parameters.

2) POST handler generates a unique reset code and embeds it into an e-mail that's send to the e-mail address associated with the account.

3) User clicks on a link in that e-mail and visits a GET page that resets the password to a random one and tells the user what it is. Also logs the user in.

4) There is a link on that page that lets the user change it instantly, so they don't have to use the randomly-generated password permanently.

A simple POST to reset the password doesn't work, because a "forgot password" link necessarily requires that the user not be authenticated (otherwise, they haven't forgotten their password ;-)). So you need the extra e-mail verification step so people can't change other people's passwords.
How about also supporting the <URL:http://google.com/> syntax that the RFCs use? It would let us submit the more tricky ones. It was invented because of the problem you're having; it's ambiguous whether the trailing dot is part of the URL or not.
Scott Adams startup idea: solves the energy crisis, reduces global warming, and virtually eliminates drunk driving
You could always update the UI on the assumption that it will succeed, and then check the return value. If you get failure, notify the user somehow. Making the UI seem a slight bit more responsive might not be really worth it, of course.
Say Joe User has an account at your site, and Arnie Asshole knows Joe's email address, and he knows that Joe uses a web accelerator. So he goes to your site and puts in Joe's email address. Joe goes to look at the resulting email he gets in his webmail, and bam, his password has been reset without his knowledge, because his web accelerator followed the link in the email.

The workflow should be like this:

1) as in your example

2) as in your example

3) User clicks on a link in that email and visits a GET page. The GET page has a form with a single button ("Really Reset My Password" or something), or maybe it has a form right there for him to enter his new password.

4) He clicks the submit button, and the form submits right back to that same url, with the reset code embedded in the url, but this time it's a POST.

5) Your site's code detects it's a POST this time, and changes the password.

I was never suggesting you bypass the email verification step. Just add an extra screen between clicking the link in the email, and the password actually being reset.
I was thinking about doing this exact same concept! Definitely fills a niche of something I was looking for and very well done. Good work.
Ad Networks: Synthetic channels
So this would be an updated version of Programmers at Work?
I am curious about that myself. I want to start a company (Coming up to my senior year in college), and haven't met anyone that would be a plausible co-founder yet.
Anyone ever make revenue sharing deals for content? If so, what was the percentage, and deal structure? I'm dealing with seeding my site now, but want to keep costs down.

Thinking:
x% as long as creator maintains content
x% up to 3x market value of content
x% up to 3x market value or x% till n time which ever is better for content creator.

Thoughts?
VCs look for Sergey & Page? It seems to me that the hype about these two was pure PR, but who actually brought all the business to the company (including the AOL deal) is Omid Kordestani - who, as little as it is known, was third in amount of stock owned, and also has half of the company report to him.
I was thinking of making a web application, it would be like match.com but for finding co-founders? Do you think that would be viable? Would it work? How would you want it to work?
Stay in touch with your former classmates. I met my cofounder in my sophomore year of college, but I didn't know he would be my cofounder until Homecoming 2 years after graduation. I don't think he knew either - the business idea grew out of some consulting work he did after graduation. And he didn't know I was into computers, since at the time I knew him, I was a physics major.
These third-rate VCs aren't just competing with Sequoia and KP for these investments, they are competing with buyout offers which would make the founders semi-rich. This is very appealing alternative to selling out early when you are a year out of grad school, have never owned a new car, and the $500 plane ticket back to the east coast is keeping you from seeing your ailing great aunt Betty (okay I went a little far with the last point)
I think it is awesome that you give credit like this, are aware of your weaknesses, and worked on addressing them. I'm sure everybody in YC likely respects each other's time anyway, but a post like this is very informative to the rest of us on News.YC.

When I was Student Body President five years ago, I always tried to give credit to whoever helped out with any projects or ideas. On the first issue of the newspaper I vowed to start myself whether or not people would want to do it, a person stepped up to be the Editor in Chief. I mentioned him in a little blurb on the first page, and was happy to see an interview he did with the President of the College, where he mentioned both of us in the first paragraph.... and I still remember that five years later.
How does this application reduce their HW & other costs anyway? Seems like they are trying to be like 'me too' with this application... unless I am missing something here.
Guidemap to the Goldrush: A Mobile Welcome to Apple iPhone, Dell, Google, Blyk and others entering
Top 10 Pitch Meeting 'No-Nos'
Buxfer named Online Banking Report "Best of the Web"
Slimebuckets, pollution and web conservation Calacanis-style
What the lack of socialized health care in the United States means is that instead of the government paying a little bit for preventative and maintenance care, the government pays a lot as elderly and poor people who have lived a life with no preventative or maintenance care need expensive prescriptions and expensive treatments.

This might be a slight advantage in the short run for those whose startups are successful.
Seconded. In the past year I've wound up visiting the hospital twice for things that were, in the words of my doctor, "total random flukes" -- not lifestyle related, could have happened to anyone. Fortunately, they were fairly easy to fix. Total cost, $75 per visit. If I had had no health insurance and went to the hospital anyway, I'd have been looking at a five figure bill, and probably bankruptcy, for either of them; if I had no health insurance and did not go to the hospital for either, I'd probably be dead now. Or the ambulance would have taken me to the hospital, and I'd be that much more in debt.

You need health insurance. Bad things happen. Flukes happen. It's not about having the balls to face the risk of no health insurance and stare it in the face; it's about careful planning - the same kind of planning that means you incorporate instead of trusting the chance that nobody will sue you.
An Assortment of Venture Capital Links
There are a bunch, although not shinny as you white guys
Web startups need to know which browsers are likely to increase or decrease in popularity.
Clean tech firms dig for venture deals at event
Being an Indian I can tell you the reason behind this. our education system unfortunately fails to promote innovation. even then there are a few startups like zoho and slideshare which are doing well.

Another thing which goes against Indian is their shyness. In west people get ideas patented left right center. On the contrary Indian people never go that far.
Some of the people never get started because of fear of becoming a laughing stock on failure. Again root of this thinking lies in our 200 years old education. Startups are all about uncertainty ; our education system always teaches us to take the safest option.
> It comes from an e-mail sent to the address associated with the account, though. The only way he can get the reset code is to have it e-mailed to him, so unless he's forwarded on the e-mail to someone else (why would you do this?), the reset is coming from him.

So what happens when your fancy new spam filter follows the link in your email to see how spammy the page is? You end up locked out of your account, logged out, with a random password you can't retrieve.

It's really not hard to come up with scenarios where GETs are automatically performed. The HTTP 1.1 specification was written with this in mind. Assuming that it's not going to happen is simply an unnecessary risk.
UI latency is actually very important, and generally under-appreciated. Sometimes, it's better to be fast than perfect.
> Anything that assumes that GET links can be arbitrarily followed will break stuff all over the web.

Arbitrarily performing GETs is something condoned by the HTTP 1.1 specification. Anything that assumes that GETs won't be arbitrarily followed is clueless.

You'd think people would have learned this the first time around. Don't write out-of-spec code and then complain when conforming code comes along and trashes your app. It's your bug, not theirs.

> GWA needs all kinds of heuristics to avoid that kind of thing.

How reliable. Wouldn't it be better to follow the spec so this kind of guesswork wasn't necessary?
Sounds like a great facebook app.
Looking to choose a language & framework--
So I'm developing a web application involving "socially" networking elements created by users. But, I'm a novice [when it comes to web programming].

I'm getting to the point where I'd like to choose a language/framework. I'm OK (in fact, I prefer) trying options out and switching flexibly before settling down on a choice, but I thought I might get some feedback from some people who know what they're talking about.

Some goals (both long- and short-term) central to my plans that I think might influence my choice include:
-Lots of user/database interface and editing via gorgeous graph/node visualization
-Easy web site template authoring (read: visual/drag & drop elements, no/minimal coding required of user)
-Integration of version control (of web pages)
-Fairly sophisticated AI performed on the backend for resource matching and knowledge representation
-Enabling for public editing of HTML and site design
-Online CAD/drawing tool (probably via )
-Acute, application-level awareness of user profile/information in what/how pages and information is displayed as users browse (read: dynamically generate and display content per user)
-Web spidering/pulling and reusing content from the web

After shopping around, I've been primarily considering Python (Pylons; Django) and WebObjects/Project Wonder.

Thoughts? Recommendations? Are these goals _actually_ constraints on what language/framework I choose? What are the more generic features of the language/framework that I should paying attention to, given my goals?
I think I came off as condescending. Sorry about that.
I'm in Auburn, AL. There's a few shows listed here, but not much.

The problem I always saw with trying to start something like this is providing all the info about local shows and small bands that are likely only listed on bar and club web pages -- did you guys find some way to get around that?
We'll we allow anyone to post shows. So we are hoping that as we grow, dedicated fans, the artists themselves, or the venues will add their schedules to keep things up to date.
Well, this explains why PG is so big on co-founders. The amount of AJAX needed is very little, and he still had two other people do it for him.
Cover Flow and the scrolling horizontal subnav at the new Apple.com
Congrats! You even auto-detect location via IP, and have maps and expanded info. Slick. This site is easily better than many YC-funded ones.
Sounds like a nobleman griping about commoners' ability to crash the party with cash. Venture financing would be a strange animal indeed if there was one true best way to structure every deal for every venture.
If there is a big demand for this, the big boys refuse to serve it, and being funded by the big boys truly increases success probability substantially, some clever Wall Street'er could find a way to buy part of, say a Sequoia funded, founders upside; or at least something somewhat aligned with it. Even if it means working around some legal headaches.
As an aside, these founder liquidity events could be just the ticket for those much maligned 'idea guys':).
guess not ...
In Calfornia at least, HealthNet is less expensive than some others. Assuming you rarely go in, get a PPO, and you won't go bankrupt if you ever have large medical bills. For little things you pay out of pocket.
A solution for company e-mail signatures
Yes, co-founder, not cat.
The sw on the server is somewhat more complex. It takes some amount of knitting closures together to e.g. allow the submission of a link via the bookmarklet to work even when it has to be interrupted by a login.
I met my co-founder in college ten years ago - he was the first roomate I had when I moved off-campus. At the time I was a web designer (remember back when people who made websites were called 'web designers'? Ha!) and he was programming in this new-fangled language named after coffee, I forget what it was called.

We almost immediately started a startup, which failed almost as immediately. So this is actually our second try, and we're probably both dumber now than we were the first time.