skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
...but in SV, 15K will only last a month, whereas here we could stop spending so much and actually live for a year on that. Our home cost us 51K for 1550sq ft on a homesite with 12000 sq ft.

Is this the best place to start a startup? No. However, having attempted to pull up and move to an expensive place where we knew no one (NH, in 2003), I'm not eager to go through that experience again just now, so we'll just keep plugging away until we succeed.
YouTube advertises on MySpace. Where's the ban?
Akamai to open up for rich media
"It took me another fifteen years to realize that the principle of Fire and Motion is how you get things done in life. You have to move forward a little bit, every day. It doesn't matter if your code is lame and buggy and nobody wants it. If you are moving forward, writing code and fixing bugs constantly, time is on your side."

Ok, back to firing and moving.
Meet the metaverse, your new digital home
Or they have no idea => http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=12878
"comScore knows more about the people that use the Internet than any other company in the world"

Um, no - I doubt that any other company knows more about "us" than Google.
For someone with an actual degree, it ranges from ~20K starting on up to 60K or so in this area. There aren't many of those 60K jobs, though. People who have ambitions beyond ~40K typically either move or start their own business(es). More than half the people I know run a one-person business either on the side or instead of having a "job".

There are a coupla barriers to moving; we have a house to pay for, hardly know anyone (personally) who doesn't live around here, and have issues "getting a decent salary" due to history. I've been freelancing for seven years, with no degree, and it turns out that people aren't interested in hiring someone like that remotely.

In 2003, we gave moving to the Boston area a shot (Nashua), but the only position I managed to get was Comcast tech support (and all our clients were down here, of course), which didn't pay enough to save up enough money for a deposit. It was a totally different world up there. Here, if you have a thousand dollars, you can pay a deposit and the first two months rent, and have plenty left over to look for a job for a month. Your first full paycheck at even a convenience store would pay the rent. In Nashua, I was making (for the 6 months we were there) about the same amount I would here for the same job, except that landlords wanted outrageous sums for housing that even slumlords would be ashamed of in the South. "Let me get this straight: you want nearly a thousand a month for a room that doesn't even have a private bath?! Did you accidentally include an extra zero?"

Anyway, enough ranting. :) If you've lived in such a place long enough to think it's normal to pay thousands a month, rather than hundreds, just to have food, gas, and a small house, I imagine it's hard to understand the shock. Six months into that attempted move, after being too exhausted from dealing with people all day (I'm not a people person) to do anything but collapse into bed, it finally became clear that there was essentially no way we would ever be able to save up enough money (we had to stay in weekly places, due to never having the 2K or so it would have required to get a crappy apartment). We'd been spoiled by doing exactly this same thing in 1998 moving to Florida, and having that turn out well.

So, basically, the biggest barrier is that it would take years of saving, here, to come up with enough money to not instantly be homeless in the Boston area or SV. Alternatively, we can just continue with doing startups in extremelycheapland, while living a middle class lifestyle on 15 hours of freelancing a week.
"I was told at uni that sleep is cyclical and that as long as you wake up during the lighter part of the sleep cycle you will feel fresh and alert. Wake up during the heavy sleep part and you will be a like a bear with a sore head all day."
-- John D, Glasgow, UK (from the comments of the article)

I have found this to be the case. If I wake up alert, I find it much easier to dive into a problem, which then keeps me awake.
No, YC didn't fund Fotoroll.
Definitely.
Unlike what pg thinks, it seems to me that there are a lot of stupid ideas out there that get funded, and that most of them are merely features rather than full blown products, that simply wait for someone to buy them.
10 Most Successful Web 2.0 Startups To Date
The title is not an accurate depiction of Numenta's "Heirarchical Temporal Memories". "HTMs" are not recurrent neural networks either.

I don't like how this guy (Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm and Handspring) claims to have figured out the fundamental algorithm being used in the cortex without any research or data. His book "On Intelligence" is next in my reading queue and maybe I'll be convinced after I read it... not counting on it though.
Google Acquires Internet (May 2017)
No skype on that list?
From the comScore site: "This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. "

So its data is just as bogus as Alexa's.
I wonder how long it will be before venturebeat figures out YC is not an incubator.
All "stealth mode" means is that a company exists but hasn't launched yet, and doesn't want to talk about what they're doing. It doesn't mean they don't know; in fact, odds are they're comically overspecific about what they plan to do.

Though the phrase is a bit silly, most startups spend some time in this state. Maybe the reason the phrase has a bad odor is that the longer you spend in this state, the less likely you are to succeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_corporation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Corporation
Yes, skype seemed very big when I was in europe. Not so much here in the US, but still huge. Then again, it's not quite web2.0
[Google] had more than $11 billion in cash at the end of the fourth quarter

Thats a big pile of cash. Makes you wonder why they dont spend a bit of it on seed funding just like they do Summer of Code.
They don't tell publishers what share of the click revenue they receive. I barely have any traffic on my blog, but the clicks payout anywhere from pennies to a buck and change. I'd like to know which links are clicked on and what % of the advertisers money I'm getting.
Reading this article is like watching the "dark" future depicted in a Batman movie. It was entertaining until the "Google buys Microsoft" report. Why would Google ever want to do that?
In my first company (founded 9 years ago) we were three founders and I was CEO. The decision was easy - the other two were better technologists, and I had better people skills.
In my new start-up the first thing I did was bring in a friend I trust, with business experience relevant to the venture (but no technology experience) as partner and CEO.
So, what gives?
It was fun holding the title back then, and I didn't do a bad job, but eventually I realized that the technology is more interesting for me, and as CEO you simply don't get to deal with that. Now that I'm a much better techie than I was back then, it was just obvious to me that I shouldn't be CEO.
Not sure if they're strictly '2.0' but nobody can define that well anyway.

They did get aquired for $2.5 billion upfront + $1.4 billion performance based. If that doesnt count as being in the top 10 most successful then I dont know what is!
why is ubuntu not friendlier?
Hi there,
This is Sid Yadav, the guy who made the list. I did consider Skype but ruled it out since it's more of an desktop app than a web app unlike the rest (doesn't have much of a web-based side to it). If I were to put Skype in there, then I guess I'd have to consider every single desktop app created since 2003!

Thanks
I'm gonna be a Rockstar
Joost: It's The Metadata, Stupid!
I like the idea of a more passive way of finding out the hottest pages, which is why I created http://twithot.com

Having to install an image bug on your blog is a bit heavy handed. It'll be interesting to see how well it does compared to the client side plugin approach of stumble upon/new delicious sidebar.
How Web 2.0 friendly is the Wii's Opera browser?
Data and growth is impressive but the monetization and financial perfromance of Facebook is one of the worst:

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/12/14/new-monetization-hype/

and look at numbers here:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:thoUwXzOOQsJ:valleywag.com/tech/advertising/facebook-consistently-the-worst-performing-site-242234.php&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&
Perfectly understandable reasoning, writing top n lists is always tricky thanks to borderline cases. No last.fm either? :p
Indeed very unfortunate. From numenta's website descriptions of nupic (the C++ HTM implementation), one can immediately shout Greenspun's Tenth Rule.

What motivated my wild comparison of HTMs and Lisp is:

- HTMs do not distinguish program and data.

- HTMs are fractal like a Lisp parse tree: sameness of structure at any level.

- HTMs program themselves from input, analogous to Lisp programs' ability to change themselves at run time.

Whether the brain actually uses HTMs or not: as far as I know (as a researcher in neuroscience), the HTM structure fits a simplified description of cortex microarchitecture. As Hawkins says, the field of neuromorphic engineering and computation is in its infancy.
Why I'm so excited about Spock - Finally a phone book for the web
A key point to consider is that regardless of where you incorporate, you still have to work within the legal framework of where you're doing business. For example, if I incorporate in Nevada or Delaware and I'm located in California, I have to file paperwork with California to get permission to do business in the state, and I have to pay California taxes.
Check with a local attorney about Japan's legal requirements for foreign companies to work locally. And, if it satisfies your needs, then Delaware and Nevada are good options. I used corporate.com and I'm happy with their service. Of course, they'll only do the basic filing for you; after that you still need to do more paperwork, especially around taxes.
We're moving to Boston! Can you recommend any startuppy apartments (or neighborhood) to live?
When speed matters, what you need is a good hacker to make a smart-ass elegant program that goes around the bottle-necks.
But I'll attempt not to avoid your question altogether: from my own personal testing, SBCL is fastest. My bias is my own benchmarks. Find your own set.
A VC: The Banner Is Back
Copywriting for the Online Eye
Interesting because Schwartz Communications was Viaweb's PR firm.

An old Viaweb press release: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1997_August_11/ai_19658522

"CONTACT: Schwartz Communications Viaweb, Inc."
Well, I think it makes sense to start out with the titles CEO and CTO, at least. Feel free to substitute "the Jobs" and "the Woz" if those sound too stuffy.
WriteWith Makes Group Blogging Easier
Is isn't it more Web 2.0's job to be Wii-friendly?
PG: I already know what the reaction to this essay will be. Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news.

You may know a lot about computers, but your math sucks. Try factoring in the third half of your readers [those of us who read your words and think, "forget the Lone Ranger. When I grow up I'm marrying THIS guy"]!
There are some sites who have special wii versions available such as: http://www.finetune.com/wii/
And consider that they their products thus far are outlook-based. MS does a lot of the work for you if you use their tools and language.
Some European countries like Norway are designed for rich companies like the Rolling Stones. If one has the money and the A+ caliber lawyers, it is a piece of cake.
Comcast customers warned to use less bandwidth
In a way that list is depressing, or maybe it's just boring to a degree that is indistinguishable from depression.
Microsoft is dead ? Haa
Think XBOX
Think SQL SERVER
Think Longhorn server
Think IPTV
Now which one of this is not there and wait til play talbe comes into market..
The generic nature of the content of this solicitation should have been obvious regardless of whether they included the recipient's name.
Paul Buchheit: "Perfect" is the enemy of "good enough" (also, the future of entertainment)
"if you have a date function at 10pm, your date will be angry with you if at 10:45 you're not dressed and are talking to your buddies about image sharpening algorithms"
How to price a project. Hmmmm. As a project strategist-manager, recommend the books Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (2006) and Software Project Survival Guide (1998). Used the SPSG templates as the basis of my pricing process. SPSG book is one of the few books that still sits in my bookshelf
Global Capital Spending is Strong -- Michael Mandel
If it is for free, what do people expect? Lets use the example of tap water. It is plain and simple. Do people expect it to come with different flavors?

[
Rule one of economics 101: There is no free lunch.
If you want something to be conform to your standards, customizes it yourself or pay someone to do it for you.
]
You mean 'tabula rasa', or is that some sort of pun?
From http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001679:

Now you want to go about finding an apartment. You want to get a place on the red line [the local subway] because then you can go see people and people can go see you. The best place to go is Davis Square, because its cheap, fun, and on the red line. Harvard is fun and on the red line but not cheap, Porter is cheap and on the red line but not fun, so I recommend Davis, Inman, and Central, in that order. Underneath the table I sneak my notebook and pencil out of my pocket and begin secretly taking notes.

Now the thing you want to get is one of these triple-decker houses converted into apartments, where the top floor is slightly smaller than the other two. And then youll be in exactly the same place as VisiCalc when they started it  in the top floor of a triple-decker in Davis Square. (Actually, Paul later told me VisiCalc was started in the neighboring town of Arlington.) Yeah, but you dont want to code like VisiCalc, Trevor says, that stuff was rotten. Well, it made money, didnt it? Paul replies.
Enjoyed the post, Paul. I recently sat in on a discussion with Jen-Hsun Huang (NVIDIA Founder/CEO) where he placed very substantial emphasis on the threats of "good enough." Coming from the chip business, he's got a point.

From brain surgery to semiconductors, it sounds like the importance of "good enough" is relatively context-sensitive.
This has been around for a while. I remember referring to it something like three years ago. Cool, though!
He's right. In July, I promised someone I would do a video on YouTube before the end of August 2006. And, it was easy and fun. There was no pressure to be perfect.
Any company that bets on banner ads seems at-risk to me. If somebody can go get a browser plugin (AdBlock) and kill all banners with very little effort, what's to stop most users from doing that? At this point it's mostly techies who've figured out they can block ads, but it seems only a matter of time before the techies do it for their parents, friends, and coworkers. Banner ads are invasive and annoying so there's strong motivation to kill them.
Study Stickies Flash Demo (I would appreciate feedback on ways to improve it)
add good content to my site, hire some hot model, or overweight wwf wrestler to get a tatoo that says http://www.JobSearchMaps.com
www.JobSearchMaps.com
Raganwald: From Abstraction to Zipf
so do people think that if i get some famous actor, model, wwf wrestler to tattoo http://www.JobSearchMaps.com on their shoulder or thight that it will generate traffic or what??
Interesting point. I agree that the biggest procrastination inducing disincentive to starting creative work is the preconception in the creator's mind that "this will be a great thing - I will make it perfect", etc. I learned while designing in architectural school that the key to good design was to strip away all preconceptions about a problem before starting - which is dramatically harder than it sounds. The preconception of a quest for perfection before starting is the most important one.

However, once you have "programmed" your conscious mind with the problem, allowed your subconscious to crunch on it and give you the first draft of a solution to the problem, the quest for making it as good as possible is key to actually having it be good. With that first solution, you can then refine it, with the idea of making it increasingly better. The question then is when do you stop (or go live) - a very important point. The beauty of web development is that you can think of the project as an evolution toward being very good from somewhat humble beginnings. This makes it that much easier to come to the good-enough point faster than in the past stand-alone application days, but then continue improving as long as the project continues to be exciting. The "lets make it better" drive is a really important motivator, at least it is for me.
If you're asserting that people should shrug off or become indifferent about quality because something is free, I'm going to have to disagree. Undermining free software efforts, open source projects, and many web applications would be quite terrible.

To the op, what specific gripes do you have with Ubuntu's usability?
Up to this point most college-aged kids have followed a clearly defined path: do well in school, go to college, etc.. Paul has structured YC so it's an easy and well structured method of doing a startup, but it's definitely not the only way to go.
I "borrowed" a bound copy from my advisor. He seems to have forgotten this fact. I'm hoping to keep it that way.
Paul Buchheit: Google buys DoubleClick, for a double-dose of advertising
Thumbs way up on this, Joel really captured the Windows API strategy with this. Couple this with "How Microsoft Lost the API War" and you have Joel's most pertinent thoughts.
New Web 2.0 Links For 14/04/2007
Do not use Joyent (textdrive), their support is as slow and unreliable as their network for the low-end plans. Pro is they have a very nice nix server setup with anything you want pre-installed.
Anybody founding an OLPC business? Here's a LiveCD of the Sugar UI
Did I undermine free software efforts? Did I say that? Read again. As I mentioned before, "There is no free lunch. If you want something to be CONFORM to your standards, CUSTOMIZES it yourself or PAY someone to do it for you. ... " Not all free software is good. Not all paid software is good too.
The Computer for the 21st Century - "match-book size removable hard disk will store about 60 megabytes each"
Nice hack.

"And not using perl or any of that fancy stuff"

I think netcat counts as fancy stuff.

Here's the example scripts netcat is packaged with:
http://darwinsource.opendarwin.org/10.3/netcat-4/netcat/scripts/

Powerful little tool.
James Hong: Enough with the Facebook/Friendster analogies...
I'll take that bet...
Davis sq!
Good evidence, as if any was needed, for an inverse correlation between four-year-college admission and clickthrough rates.
Revenge of the Weird Search Engines!
What Does Google Think You Look Like?
Web 2 Future All Depends On IT Future
Thanks. Nc is a little bit fancy, but nothing compared to perl. It's also installed by default on both linux (my linux, anyway) and osx. However, the nc installed on OSX doesn't have the "-e" "gaping security hole" option compiled in, meaning that those example scripts (or at least the one I looked at) won't work.

I do wish that there was some way to do this without nc though. Maybe the linux proc filesystem enables net access? Oh well, another day...
Which bet?
Found+READ: A new blog for startups
Fun startup: analyzes live sports scores to suggest can't-miss games on now
You might have better luck putting it on http://demomyapp.com/

There seem to be a lot of "try my new app posts." Maybe a subreddit style category for demos?
Was thinking the same the other day.

Someone needs to slap those PR writers back in line.
You have to admit that banners on popular sites are much less obtrusive than they were years ago. Plus, there's always the freemium plan where users can pay for extra features and ad free browsing.

Can plugins like AdBlock stop domain hosted ads or do they just work on third party ones?
allston (close to boston university)

cheap food, rowdy college neighborhood, T accessible, close to bars (sounds like you'll need it)
I had a quick demo and as a substitute word processor I was underwhelmed. There are little things that bugged me like the clunky spell check, the lame privacy details that don't let you remove your documents (even if you leave) the monitoring of your documents. If you upload a file (in my case a OpenOffice doc) it misses grabbing the title from the document itself. They also missed the print functionality. I don't want to download a doc to have to print it. [0]

If you've created a document and want to edit with others it looks ok. I did like the way the worked with the screen (lots of whitespace), revised documents, the input parser for various documents, the atom feed. The fact you could export the data in various formats and support for UTF-8. I missed the point of it being a collaborative blog tool. That certainly is a useful feature but not a killer.

Then I took into account the fact it's a new product. Bare minimum to get launched. It's not going to be used for corporates for security & privacy reasons. But if you have to create something with someone else in a different location it will get usage.

That's from a user perspective. From an application perspective it's slick & I wonder how they got such a service up and running so fast. [1] It does not take the radical steps of say Rael's stickit, [2] making little affordances as the user enters data, remembering it and getting the application to help you. [3] I also miss an API. But it's early days.

I wonder how they intend to make money off it? Expanded functionality, number of documents you can create, edit. Guess there is plenty of scope for this.

Reference

[0] This little step is something found in Word if you don't supply a title, word uses the document title.

[1] Now I remember reading the writenow story, 'Writewith: who, what, why, when, where and how?'

http://blog.writewith.com/2007/04/11/writewith-who-what-why-when-where-and-how/

[2] Rael DornfestÂs stikkit, "values of n, stikkit which is exploring new ways of 'organization and collaboration.'"

http://www.valuesofn.com/blog

[3] values of n, "A presciently-timed vote of confidence"

http://www.valuesofn.com/blog/2007/03/presciently-timed-vote-of-confidence.html
So...if Microsoft is like the Israili army...who are the Palestinians?
I'm in dire need of assistance.
My problem: I haven't been able to find ANY programmers. I've posted fliers, posted on craigslist, talked to professors, etc. looking for skilled programmers to help me get this startup in development, but I haven't received a single response.

I grow exponentially frustrated day after day and feel like I have exercised all my options. If any of you have any suggestions on how you or your team found a coder, it'd be greatly appreciated.

For anyone who happens to have coincidentally come across this and is a coder, I am based in Orange County / San Diego , CA. Further information about product details, etc. can be discussed upon further contact.

If interested, email me at: kbeshay@gmail.com
YouTube Obeys Fake Takedown Request From 15 Year Old
"In 5 years, i predict that the facebook will be a public entity, and easily a multi-billion dollar company... and that valuation will be justifiable based on actual business fundamentals, not on hype."