skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As an engineer with no design skills, that's the hardest part in getting together a team...I can't find a good designer. I may be able to pump out an amazing site, but if it looks like crap no one is going to use it.

It sucks not being a jack of all trades (then again, I'd hate to be a master of none...)
Parallel Python Review: In a Nutshell: Wow!
Fast CGI that isn't FastCGI
CSS Preprocessor - Take 2 (using Gm4 to preprocess CSS!)
"Mainstream" anti-virus is finally dead
You overestimate the skill required to create most of these sites. They're usually following some very simple rules. Most are inspired by the style of 37 Signals. Nice fonts, gradients, and pastel colors.

Most of what makes these sites seem so nice is that they're familiar and "modern web 2.0". Scribd is very Diggish for example.

Inkscape is like magic for creating nice logos, if you keep it simple. Truly anyone can do it. Use a color scheme tool like http://kuler.adobe.com/. Don't invent a totally unique design, imitate someone at first.

Anyone who can code well can easily reproduce nice simple site designs. Overcoming the "I can't design" mental block is the hardest part. Becoming a real design master takes a lot more effort obviously.
When Not to Normalize your SQL Database
The Rich Are Willing to Take Risks
So your point is that all the patents and IP rights should not be allowed?
Our main priority at this stage is not to make the most money possible, but to show hackers that starting startups works. The best way to do that is by example.

We're hoping that 5 or 10 years from now, it will be a normal thing for the most ambitious hackers to start startups instead of going to work for big companies. We think that will make hackerdom as a whole dramatically more productive.

If that comes to pass and we were among the leading agents of the change, it seems reasonable that we might make a lot of money from it. But we don't have any idea how much.

In the short term we have to make at least enough to cover our expenses, because otherwise we'd run out of money and have to stop doing this.
Mash Up Roundup
An essential skill for the tech entrepreneur is to be able to quickly produce prototypes. While in many cases scripting languages and frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Symfony will get the job done, the following 19 tools allow an even more rapid turnaround, especially for more complex prototypes with many data sources.
Desktop Applications are not dead
This has come up previously. Speakers are not recorded to allow them to talk off the record, to make offhand remarks that could be taken out of context, to use hyperbole, etc.
"... C++ with MCF or WCL ... Microsoft .NET 2.0. C# 3.0 and LINQ ... Visual Studio and Delphi ...native Objective C and Cocoa ...'fat clients' ..."

I've been watching this thread ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39259 ) notice the reply (by Antonio) is all tech (the original article by Eugueny user focused) but no mention of users wants or needs.
That list is pretty close to who I'd pick, actually. Except that Shimomura would not make mine - I'd place several others, notably Jamie Zawinski and Guy Steele, above him.
The point I read was that infringement is not theft.

He didn't rule out that there might be some situation where a government-enforced exclusive right might be appropriate.
Don't you feel owning the rights to a piece of music is different than owning rights to salt, though? No one has a monopoly on music, because anyone can compose their own. The same goes with software. It's not artificial like restricting goods; it really is your hard work.

When I said "Copying software is stealing", I was incorrect. What I meant to express was "Copying software is wrong if you can afford to buy it". There's something morally wrong about taking someone's hard work against their wishes and giving it away for free. I don't know what to call it, but don't you at least agree it is wrong?
The Top 10 Reasons Startups Fail
The rich can afford to take risks.
>Anyone who can code well can easily reproduce nice simple site designs.

These are actually a win. Look at reddit, ebay, Google. I bet the coders/engineers/computer-scientists there thought they couldn't design either.
Can a Startup Outside the Valley Get Valley Funding? [Video Interview with Guy Kawasaki]
Create a syntax for referencing "items" within the site.

[item://363|Feature Requests] or similar.
The key feature of property is the determination of its use, rather than mere possession. If you own something by law [1] then an infringement of that right is stealing. As for India, well, it just goes to show you're better off controlling the opium market than the salt market.

[1] There are two kinds of ownership: By law, and by adverse possession. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession
Intelligence Inversely Correlated with Intercourse
What we nerds suspected throughout high school has been shown experimentally.

While this may be a little unrelated to startups, I think it might interest some of you. Especially if you believe that startups are like girlfriends (like the guy of nerdlife.net).
I'm behind you 100% on this one It's nice to see someone taking a stand on this, it's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time.

On a whim, I did a search for posts that I've made on this subject and came up with a bunch in just a few minutes, beginning in 2003 and the most recent being here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823

I put the rest on a page here: http://www.goladus.com/copyright.html (Basically random greppings from various forum threads in the past 4 years, They aren't proofread very well)
Find Your Triple Plays
I've recently been finding a number of win-win-win situations - triple plays, I call them - in my every day life. These are situations where I can make a lifestyle choice that pays me back in multiple ways. Usually these pay-backs are in the areas of health, wealth and ecology, but there are other benefits.
Great post. I remember someone writing a short story based on that Gandhi anecdote for Kuro5hin a few years ago. Sadly I can't link to it because it never made it through the queue.
Hey, I like risks too even though I have a negative net worth.

Give me a 51% coin flip for $100 and I'll flip till I go broke.
NO joke. When I am ready I am giving Bryan a call. Mr Kennedy expect my email in 6 months.
Making an illegal copy isn't stealing the copyright, though.

If I copy paulgraham.com and post all his essays, claim they are my own, and then try to sue him for infringement, I'm trying to steal his intellectual property.

If I copy some of his essays without his permission, I've infringed.on some of the exclusive rights granted by law. I'm not stealing.
Is YouTube Down?
This isn't a server application or development tool, it's a desktop interface (or will be). Not sure why you think only hard core developers would use it.
"... Mitnick then embarked on a two and a half year coast to coast hacking spree ..."

Mitnick is a good choice for #1 cracker (why do people persist with the 'h' & not the 'cr' ~ http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is ). Mitnick is probably the best known ( http://www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html ) but his special area of exploitation is "primarily human" and focus of his book "Art of Deception". This makes him an exceptionally effective cracker, exploiting both man and machine.

While some are good with machines, Mitnick is good with machines & humans cracks ~ http://www.kevinmitnick.com
These are just computer vandals, none have created anything interesting.

The article title is like a 'list of the best arsonists'. Not classy.
If you define "stealing" as "transfering property from one pocket to another," then you are right, since copying essays or whatever doesn't deprive the owner of possession.

If you define "stealing" as "preventing another from determining the use of his property", then you aren't right.
The rich can't afford NOT to take risks.
10 Questions to ask a VC
With an answers edited version by an actual VC

http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/2005/01/10_questions_to....
I think a social news site can be super-popular and still avoid the associated problems if it transparently split its user base in a clever way.

For example, you could weight the votes by how close the voter's registration date is to yours.
I agree totally.

Often, half the battle is just knowing good design when you see it (i.e. picking what to emulate).
I voted you up not because you aren't retarded, but because that was truly hilarious.
How to Massively Increase Your Productivity and Happiness in 2 Hours Per Day
Go to sleep 2 hours earlier than you normally do!

It's easy to fall into the sleep deprivation trap and think you're getting more out of yourself, even when you're really not. I've always found the need to sleep at all very frustrating, so this lesson is hard-learned for me.

I'm still in love with my 36 hour hackathons, but now most days I'm trying to get enough sleep to feel energetic all day without in assistance from drugs like caffeine and nicotine.
I did not get re-routed and I wasn't being condescending. I just wanted to show how extreme some families are with regards to money.
As the saying goes, sleep over your problems and you'll have a solution in the morning.
MSDN Video Interview With Markus Frind (PlentyOfFish.com): How One Man Beat The Big Guys
I always worry about what ideas I may be missing out on, though.
Exactly. IP can be good, but that's no reason mix up the language.

I've added an update clarifying this.
You know your ideas are worthless without the right execution right?

Plus if it's not meant to be for you to have a great idea, it won't come anyway.
The dictionary doesn't seem to include your second definition, but regardless, you would NOT be preventing him from determining the use of his property, because his property is the copyright, and he can still use it any way he likes.
Infringing on people's legal rights is often wrong, but not everything that's wrong (or illegal) should be called "theft".
Couldn't agree more. I've done all-nighters, but when I'm refreshed I get more done in a couple of hours than I do in a whole day when I'm tired.

Unfortunately I sometimes get bouts of insomnia... anyone have good tips on how to cure that?
Okay. Is your argument about semantics?

I'm fine with renaming the act, but I have no idea what to call it. Do you have a suggestion? Just "illegal copying" perhaps?

Also, do you feel the law should punish the act as if someone had shoplifted an item of equivalent value, or some other punishment? I'm worried that if the punishment is a fine, people might risk it anyway because the chance of getting caught seems so small in peer to peer networks.
Working out the right laws and punishments is a difficult problem. Before we can solve the problem, we must understand it. Using misleading terms just causes confusion and leads us in the wrong direction.
The dictionary is the wrong place to look for discussion on property. It's a complicated subject, and I'm trying to squeeze it into as few words as possible. If you want a citation:

In a private property system, property rules are organized around the idea that various contested resources are assigned to the decisional authority of particular individuals (or families or firms) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/

...In short, it is a matter of "use" (decision) rather than possession. A copyright indisputably is owned by all creators unless surrendered. But the copyright itself codifies control over a work, and thus is not that which is lost but that which proves loss in matters of IP violations.
Try some melatonin. You can buy it at any drug store with the vitamins. It comes in 1mg or 3mg size, most doctors only recommend the 1mg size but there's nothing wrong with the 3mg size if you don't make a habit of it.

Even if you do make a habit of it, some anecdotal evidence shows it is good for you.

It also has a side effect of giving you extremely vivid or even lucid dreams.
Best cure for insomnia, is to go to bed.
How to be a Great Startup CEO A
I once read that it helps if you go to sleep only when you're exhausted (can't keep your eyes open), but set like 10 alarms to make sure you get up at the same time every single day (7 or 8 AM, whenever you need to). It'll suck forcing yourself to get up in the morning, but over time you'll settle into the schedule.
Over time you start to need it to sleep. Not hard to break the dependency but worth keeping in mind.
Startup Exchange - Resources for Startups
Hmm..so I have $4m and I take a huge risk by walking away from $200k ?
Takes a man of true courage.
Robert Morris helped create this site, and I consider it interesting.
I fully agree, I've found that everything pretty much comes back to sleep, whether it's managing stress, work, or just plain getting sick. If there's any other athletes here, one of the key things you know is that you don't get stronger during the workout, you get stronger when you're recovering.

Can't say I've ever pulled an all-nighter hackathon, though. My productivity drops off the cliff after 16+ hours of working.
I think I agree. My point is NOT that there is no loss when rights are infringed, clearly there is (The British, for example, lost control of India). However, 'theft' is the wrong word to describe this loss, and it leads to fundamental misunderstandings.
Copyright infringement is never treated the same as property theft. In any jurisdiction.

In any case, copyright was not established to help companies like Warner or Scholastic---in fact, it was originally designed to protect authors from having large corporations distribute their stuff without paying authors anything, as opposed to today's model, in which companies pay authors relatively little.
I think this argument can be generalized. There are no real laws. Only consequences. You can do whatever you want. Some actions will cause the cops to throw you in jail, some wont. Timing is everything - what is illegal today might be legal tomorrow. Any law can be changed, if you can convince enough people.
They don't recommend the 3mg size because it offers no benefit over the 1mg, and it could possibly be bad for you. There's no point. If you get the 3mg size, get a pill cutter and cut them in half.

Making a habit out of it sounds like a bad idea, because there hasn't been much research done into its long term safety.
Checklist: Issuing Stock
it was for a while... http/1.0 error.

YT died...and the world followed.
Find the Right Web Developer for Your Business Web Site
11. spending too much time reading "top N X's" lists.
What are the top N things from web2.0 that you don't want to see in web3.0? ;-)
Something that always worked for me: start watching a movie that you've already seen. After a lot of work if I try to go to bed I'll find myself thinking about work even more. I found out that watching a movie can easily distract me but it has to be a movie that I've already watch otherwise I'd end up watching the whole movie.
I do. It hurts to see the meter keep increasing, especially at stop lights or a few feet from the destination.

The best way to make a metered scheme hurt less is to hide the current charge, like an electric meter does, and only expose the value once per month. (the best way to decrease power consumption would probably be to expose the current charge in very visible and realtime way)
i think there's plenty of room in the ynews/reddit model to go. don't think of it as the website, but in terms of the users. i think a big step forward will be the blogger of news aggregators. allow people to make a submission+vote page and bookmarklet as easy as it is to make a blog. add on a few preferences and bingo, an aggregator focusing on round the world blue-water cruising in ketch style 42fts internet access issues. for instance. i'd rather be plugged into 10 niche communities than a couple of generics.
ClickTale Launches Link Analytics: How Hot is Your Site?
On Monday ClickTale, which provides movies of your visitors' activity on your website, will open to everyone and launch the "ClickTale Heatmap with Link Analytics". This new tool gives you extremely detailed insights into exactly what visitors are doing on your site.
This was so much more fun when it could still possibly be the man himself....
It definitely works that way with some people. OTOH, I can sometimes (not always) be very productive well into a 30+ hour session. I've found it's most useful to turn off the alarm clock, though, and sleep as long as you need to.
Paul,

I just heard a great NPR story about a power company that is doing just this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1247674...
If the 1mg doesn't cure your insomnia, then the larger dose might work. It's also more likely to induce dreams. Wikipedia mentions a study of individuals given 50mg of Melatonin that experienced measurably enhanced REM sleep time.
22nd hour in progress...6 pots coffee, two packs of cigarettes, some java monster --> productivity peaked 5 hours back but shitty part is that I have to go for a 8 hour workday in 5 hours! and it has nothing to do with the hackathon..

Miles to go.......
Acknowledged. But the article doesn't mention Morris as the creator of a social news site for startups, merely a person who caused vast amounts of damage for his own selfish interests. As does Robert's wikipedia entry.

Robert, if you're reading this, do you still (post-sentencing) regret creating the worm?
Position in startup - emp. #5. Equity negotiable after 3mnths - normal? What percentage reasonable?
Not sure I would express it like you, but perhaps we agree. I think to argue about right and wrong as Paul did in the article is a slippery slope - people might never agree. Wars go on forever because of reasoning like that, each party believes to be in the right.

The "real" reality is that what is right is exactly what the people in power say is right. If you believe something is right, but the people in power believe differently, all you can do is gather the power to make it right. That is what Ghandhi did, even though he did it without using weapons. But being able to convince enough people to support your cause is a form of power, too.

There is no god given right to own intellectual property, or any other property for that matter, people can own it only because society as a whole allows them to. If there is no society/police to enforce your rights, all you can do is sit tight in your house with the shotgun ready. You might still be able to defend your property. But that is because you have a shotgun, not because the property belongs to you.

People chose to organize in societies and accept property rights because they think it benefits everybody. As soon as it does not benefit somebody, there is no reason for that person to go on supporting property rights (but the "benefits me" equation should factor in things like jail).
I've been offered a development position in a startup. The technology is pretty cool and I think has potential. I think there is a high barrier to entry in addressing the same problem. The company has just secured round a funding and estimates there should be enough money to keep going for 12 - 18 months with the growth anticipated. I don't now these guys personally and only ever spoke to them during the interview. Would I be crazy to accept or should I be a bit more diligent?
Six blogging tips to help you become a star blogger
I thought you were going to say: "Put news.ycombinator.com in your firewall's blacklist" ;)

But I agree with your going-to-bed-early idea.

And I'll add: spend the first 30 to 45 minutes after you get up doing some kind of cardio exercise (running, treadmill, cycling).

You'll be much more relaxed and have a ton of energy all morning.
I agree with you. I read in National Geography Magazine that sleep is like managing an account. Sleep will catch up to you and you end up wasting more time by sleeping at odd hours to make up for the sleep debt created by not sleeping enough.

Recently, I read this article that says humans just need 2hrs of sleep, sounds interesting, here's the link to it http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774680,00.h...
Biggest "start-up" mistake
My biggest startup mistake is one as well:

I trusted unproven people (in a startup role). And they didn't prove.
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Amazon funds digital music site startup
AmieStreet, which prices songs according to popularity, gets first round of financing from online merchant.
Negotiate your percentage now (single digit percentage would be appropriate for non-founder with low employee number), and have it vest over 12-24 months. "negotiable in 3 months" smells fishy to me.
ICQ Founders Start KnockaTV
Not trusting "unproven" people in a startup can be a far bigger mistake, however. If you don't trust your employees, they'll quickly fall back into the "Okay, it's a bureacracy, I'll do the minimum amount of work and collect a paycheck" mode. Or they'll leave. Because there's little else they can do if you don't trust them.

Instead, you should trust them, but always have contingency plans (which you don't tell them!) for what to do if they don't perform. You probably need those contingency plans even if you're doing the work yourself or have hired the best developers on earth. After all, nearly every software project takes 3 times as long as you expect (even when you account for Hofstadter's Law ;-)), and some things just plain aren't feasible.
Why do you call it Imaginary instead of Intellectual?
I have, and I actually am considering buying a Macbook Pro. That doesn't change my argument.
You noticed that too? :) It was only meant as a rant, but it ended up getting several thousand views. Not sure why. I still think the core argument is valid, if you can ignore my ramblings about rubber chickens and Larry Ellison. ;)
I wish I could upmod more than once sometimes :-P
This is even worse, mixing up two or three different meanings of the word.
I see late night hacking as a tale of diminishing returns. For an extra hour of wake, how much less productive will I be tomorrow? How much earlier could I get up if I go to sleep earlier, and how does that time's productivity compare to now?

This translates to: if I'm tired I go to sleep.
Unless I have a deadline for the next day.
Luckily I seem good on <7 hours of sleep. Exercise helps.
Guess I should come and defend myself just in case I ever want to come to the west coast. :)

First off, the title is obviously not meant to indicate that Paul Graham is, in fact, braindead. In reality, I respect Paul immensely, and it was for this fact that I felt strongly enough that I had to comment. As for the title, I was simply matching one sensationalist title with another. (Note that the title of neither article was actually representative of its real argument.)

Secondly, although many wish it (sometimes myself included), Microsoft is not dead nor dying. My core argument is that if Paul wanted to say that entrepreneurs shouldn't fear Microsoft, then so be it; his point would have been much stronger and well-stated. I also would have agreed with him... no one should be afraid of Microsoft, they're just a company.

Instead, he said things like "no one uses Windows" and "everyone can see the desktop is over" and completely undermined his own credibility.

Anyhow, as I said in another comment, it was just meant as a rant, and I'm surprised the post has gotten as much interest as it has. I still stand by what I said, but I probably could have toned down the sensationalism a bit. :)

Thanks for visiting and commenting; it's very good to get the opposing view. I wish you could have read the 30-odd comments that were left, most in agreement, before I switched back to Wordpress and nuked them... :/
Exercise during the day and your body will be less restless at night.
Twitter -- what is it good for? Absolutely Something!
Introducing, Boston Start-Ups with Hispanito
Selfish interests? He didn't even release it intentionally.
Sorry dfranke I guess it's time to get back on those medications. :)