skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"... which I want for personal use: a subset/bastardization of the editor part of Jef Raskin's Humane Environment (AKA Archy) ..."

added an article you are probably familiar with just the other day ~ http://rchi.raskincenter.org/index.php?title=Core_Principles

Archys core principles are ...

- data is sacred, never lose your work
- train of thought is sacred
- content & commands primal
- never do more work than necessary

"... I did a couple prototypes in the past and I know I like it. I don't like Archy itself because of its compromise of using alt keys for leaping; I got myself a thinkpad-like keyboard with buttons under the space bar for this purpose ..."

How about adding mouse support?

Think it was in a Woz podcast I heard woz saying Raskin had a thing against mice and liked keyboards better (but everywhere I search I see the contrary - suggested 3 button mouse for mac etc ~ http://tinyurl.com/2lespx )
4 of the five points are false. I can't comment on the personal network.

Cambridge's real advantages over the Bay Area are that the weather is bad and there isn't anything interesting to do (how many times can you go to 1369 or People's Republik?)

Given these constraints, you might as well work 18 hours a day.

San Francisco has the opposite problem. If I was yc I'd include a provision that the company has to be in San Mateo or some other boring peninsula/south bay hellhole, and not The City. There are simply too many distractions. I've never heard of a startup based in SF doing anywhere as well as the ones based in Silicon Valley proper.
Good luck!!!
I cannot read the name of this program without imagining it spoken by Inspector Gadget.
10th annual ICFP post-mortem
Winter 2008 or summer 2009 is too far out. Work expands to fill time after all. If you aim for Summer 2008 you might be able to do this better.
MIT's: $100 Laptop Production Begins
sounds like a good plan, good luck
How many registered domains to settle down
How many domains do one register before making final choice? By registering I mean actually paying for it. Now I've already registered several domains for my new venture and still new names keep coming so am forced to fight them or ... register, just in case :)
Ever checked out movies.yahoo.com, no its not to check the top movies
Its not for the movie names or the top movie list, but have you noticed its the big movie companies that make it to the top and the other wind down.
Is it true for the start-ups?
Sounds like an excellent justification for flaky procrastination. You can follow this plan and hope the things you learn on the way can be applied to your startup. Or you can take your best idea, work hard to build it and learn as you go.
"... Jef did not want to incorporate what became the two most definitive aspects of Macintosh technology - the Motorola 68000 microprocessor and the mouse pointing device. Jef preferred the 6809, a cheaper but weaker processor which only had 16 bits of address space and would have been obsolete in just a year or two, since it couldn't address more than 64Kbytes. He was dead set against the mouse as well, preferring dedicated meta-keys to do the pointing ..."

ahaa ... here's that pesky Raskin article ~ http://tinyurl.com/5e22z So he was against the mouse & loved those keystrokes. As for the source? It's first hand from Mr Mac himself, Andy Hertzfeld on http://folklore.org
A massively multiplayer online game platform. It's about 5 years in the making, so it's racked up a lot of code. www.heroengine.net and www.play.net/hj have more information if you're interested :)
Why not apply for winter 2007?
From what I've read, it looks great. I almost want to purchase one just to play around with.
Domain names: 21st century real estate 
Inside a midtown hotel, Larry Fischer is on his cell phone with a financial backer as his partner Ari Goldberger does quick research on a laptop computer. They are bidding furiously at this auction of Internet domain names, with hopes of snagging megayachts.com. The duo won't be deterred. They want this name.
"... impressive and convincing presentation for letting graphic form follow function ..."

It's not a bad article but barely scratches the surface ...

Typography:

The immediate example used (CNN) is pretty poor. Why? The number of different type faces (above 3), the very poor contrast (red on white has less contrast than say black on yellow or white on black) and the mixing of case (count the number of upper case, lower case and mixed case words).

Also the type sizes are all way to small for 'tired eyes' straining to read 8-10pt with inconstant type cases. This is exacerbated by the media. Though we do see chunking of data to allow scanning via headlines.

Colour:

See any use of green? Oops there goes your 10% of your male readers. Do you see lots of colour contrast & grading to indicate things - another No, No - Colour blindness makes it difficult to see gradations ( http://tinyurl.com/2vwxj6 ) There are tools ( http://tinyurl.com/62lz5 ) to improve colour design for colour blind readers (eg: alternative style sheets with colour-blindness limitations ). Do we see any in the examples of these constraints in mind?

Layout & noise:

This bit the article gets right. I've been looking at print layouts pretty carefully lately and the article does a good job characterising easier to read layouts. It is something you can view every day looking at a broadsheet newspaper & their weekend magazines though.

Media:

And finally media. Your average monitor has nowhere near the resolution of a printed page. Yet we still try to design for on-line reading cramming as much information on the screen as possible at the same time failing to acknowledge the limitations of the media, namely the monitor.

Aesthetics at the expense of fundamentals & new media?

My chief bug with 'graphic design expert' articles like this one, is the attention to the aesthetics at the expense of some the fundamentals - the technical stuff they don't teach in your typical & atypical visual arts based design courses (but more likely game design schools). Problems, that are historically solvable in print, but not electronic media. Like a square peg into a round hole, old print hacks are highlighted as new media solutions.

Now an article I would like to see is how the author tackles 'craigslist'.
Six Apart merges (code) with Facebook
The 12 Kinds of Ads
When I've spent time just learning I've always made it a point to consciously learn at least one new thing everyday. Maybe that rule would help you. Good luck..err..you said criticism not moral support..uh...then...you suck.
Why use the tinyurl's? It means I can't tell where the link goes without clicking on it.
I ran into the author of this a few months ago at a SuperHappyDevHouse party. He's a pre-IPO Googler and is now working on developing this Lisp dialect.

I'd like to propose the "Graham-Tiedemann Law": All Lisp hackers who get rich will go on to create their own Lisp dialect.

/dislodges tongue from cheek
Good luck! If you have the luxury of not having to work, great otherwise you might want to add consulting in there in order to gain some real world experience while plugging those holes on your resume. If you can't find consulting work then transition some of that "brainstorming for project" into volunteer or internship work in a larger shop to gain experience. My philosophy is to use other company's time and money to gain experience and work on your own projects on the side.

If you do have an idea, don't wait for the straight face. Developing a prototype is fast and you can get something ready to show people your idea quickly. Get out there fast and often but the trick is to focus on obtaining funding if that is your ultimate goal, developing your idea can come after the initial money is in the bank but again that all depends on your financial needs.
"... Why use the tinyurl's? ..."

reduces readability using 'n' length urls ... but point taken, here they are:

- colour blindness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#Red-green_color...

- tools: http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
You'd have to break their CAPTCHA system first.
This hack worked great until the recent change that stopped the evaluation of sequences of &#42; and &amp;. Again there's no way to get a literal asterisk that I know of.
Jaxtr Doubles Users in 27 Days
Userplane Offers Exportable, Interactive Chat
Maybe he means winter 2009. Winter 2007 is long gone. Winter 2008 is up next.
Analyst Says AT&T Gives Apple $11 per Month per User
I am a slightly uncomfortable about all my data automatically being backed up over the internet, and also being accessible to me anywhere I go via the internet. This seems like a real potential security hole.

Its great that they are focusing on creating an environmentally sound computer, but its unfortunate that part of their strategy is buying carbon offsets.
SecondSpace launches with cash flow, A-list team
Second Space, the Bellevue startup, has been operating its first two Web sites for a year, generating more than $1 million, before it disclosed its game plan today.
Here's a Game You Won't Find On Your iPhone
One of the benefits of playing when you're an adult is you can do things on a much bigger scale. You also don't have anyone to tell you your little play project might not be such a good idea (remind me to post the video of the tower of blocks we knocked over with the ceiling fan!).
SFBeta - Worth Attending?
For you guys in the bay area, is this a worthwhile event to attend? I live in NJ, but am in the bay area for work, is this a good use of my time? I plan to transition from 'office worker' to a startup in about 6 months, and am hoping I can get something out of the event that will help me in my future role.
AOL buys behavior-targeting ad co. for $2-300MM
My point is that advertisers will like this, content creators might like this if they get more money, but the USERS of the site will not like it. I'm not saying this is worse than other image ads, though it is presumptuous to try to waste my time in the process of trying to sell me something.

"Ads are here to stay"

This isn't true. Ads needn't dominate the way people make money on the web.

They certainly suck more than text ads.
Reading to go 'completely online' (Gates)
HA!
I didn't mean to imply other areas don't have brains. You just can't deny the number of brains in the Boston area.
But what about the marketing manager's manager. If the marketing guy says "We could use this new ad service -- but we'll only get clicks if users like our ads, and that's not going to work out well for us," he'd deserve to lose his job.

Nobody who says "the more accurately you judge my efforts, the worse off I'll be" is worth keeping around.
I honestly can't imagine quitting a job without an idea of what product I was building. Watch out for this warning sign: A thought enters your head, "Hey, I'll build an online app that let's people organize their data!!!" That'll sell like madhouse.
...

The journalist was just observing the libraries of a tiny sample of executives. I don't think anyone is claiming that reading leads to success (besides you), because (as you noted, and as the article didn't have to), plenty of people like to read, and not all of them are rich.

Now, if you wanted more reliable data, you could look at this survey:

http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/20/ent-manage_biz_06rich400_se...

Which seems to show that among billionaires, the most common attributes are 1) a tendency to exercise a lot, and 2) a few hours a day of reading.

Well, that and the billions of dollars in net worth.
how will you pay your bills?
I usually just put them at the end of a paragraph or sentence. So I could write about X, Y, Z, and put:

X: url

Y: url

Z: url

with extra line breaks here because of odd news.yc formatting.
There is no useful information gained if people never touch the system. Clearly non-downvoting means something for people who periodically downvote. But the way I plan to use the service is ... not at all.
Young keep it simple in high-tech world: survey
Hallo Ivan! The issue for us is that the automated process in place Does Not Work. For you, if you don't interact with the system at all, we just treat the site you're at as an aggregate "user" and guess what you'll like that way. We think that's better than just guessing based on the site content. -Luke
+1 for learn as you go! The best way to get all the requisite skills is to start building your best idea and letting the project itself tell you what you need to know.
Can you afford it? How will you pay for rent and food? Do you have a co-founder?

I left my job last April, and barely made it 2 months without income. If you're not ready to start your company right now, then I recommend figuring out what you can do otherwise to improve your situation. In my case, I got a job at a much better company that's close to Boston. I'm learning a lot, I'm meeting tons of smart people, and I'm close to dozens of good schools.

Anyway, good luck, and stay upwind.
Twango sounds a lot like Nokias own inhouse "MOSH" application
I would delay quitting. You should be able to gain skills in four hours per day programming outside of work.
Back when I would quit jobs to take care of stuff, I would have two productive weeks, but this would dwindle to days of reading after that. Only do it if you have enough of a goal and drive, or if this can force you into programming.
One high-quality computer per school might make more sense. The potential Bill Gateses among them would still find it. I have a bad feeling about the potential expansion of the spam and pron markets these laptops might create. I guess it's to be seen...
So...its not enough to be good at something to make it in business, you have to be good at the thing that you're not good at to be able to continue doing the thing that you're actually good at.
Thanks for your comments. I was aware that the initial delay in starting up can be seen as procrastination. I myself am not sure that's not the case, and that's the main reason why I bounce my ideas here. Maybe my comfy self is fooling me, but can it fool the YCnews swarm? ;) Let me add some more context, which I left out of the already long first post.

One crucial reason for quitting my job is indeed to focus on learning tasks I had set for myself. It's lack of focus, not time, what has been dragging me so far.

The first task is to finish absorbing SICP. I have read the book and watched the lectures before, but only as a quick first contact, skimming most of the latter parts and not doing the exercises. I've found that even this light exposure has made me a much better programmer. This time I'm going more exhaustively, writing down short summaries of the chapters and doing all the exercises as I find them.

As for math, I'm more interested in building some math muscle and intuition, rather than any specific knowledge. I have started reading Concrete Mathematics, by Knuth et al., and I find it very demanding but practicable. With my weak math background, this would take forever, and be too easy to put on hold, if I did it on the side of more urgent obligations. I tried.

I have other books and learning tasks in the backburner, but yes, those I can learn on the side. The above are the ones I want to finish before letting other focus consuming projects into my head.

I've found that the Archy-like editor project is a good playground for the ideas in SICP. The design is sound and well specified, so I can focus more on the programming part. I plan to use this as my hacking environment in the future.

I hope to be done earlier than four months with the tasks above. I'll try and hit two months, but I must admit my estimates are often short by a factor or pi, so a 2x padding seems right for a strict timebox.

There are other topics to reply; I'll do so in replies to the appropriate comments.
My burn rate is very low. I live in a cheap locale, compared to where I earned my savings, and I own a bit of stock in the company I just left. I had already set up a quite suitable home office before quitting, and I don't foresee many big expenses barring EC2 fees.
I've watched this cycle happen so many times with indy consultants that's it's ridiculous.

Of course there are situations where you may be so good that work just keeps getting fed under the door, but it's the rare exception.
it's a good idea to meet Christian, the founder of the event. he's a very open, personable guy and his networking like a madman out there. if you're in the area, it's worth stopping by.
Dood, thank you for the kind words.

It's been working (big time) for us ever since we switched all landing pages to a "thin" design.

And no, we don't promote a cheaply-designed diet-pill website. SEO-driven, yes. Money-making, yes.
I wouldn't worry too much about people whose "about" page consists of:

"Just zis guy, you know"
Find a customer who needs something. Do it for them. This will accomplish 3 things: 1. They will finance your endeavors. 2. You will automatically be working on something needed in the marketplace. 3. You will be focusing on what's needed like a laserbeam. DO NOT TAKE THIS ADVICE LIGHTLY! It's what my first mentor told me. I didn't follow this advice. Boy, am I sorry. It is spot on. I wasted years whistling my own tune.

When the project is finished, reevaluate. You may be surprised at what you think then.
how to do financial plan for advertising model web startup
Hello
I am releasing a travel web site based on advertising revenue, adwords and affiliate links.
My problem is how to estimate the revenue for raising finance? no idea how many users will go there and how many will click affiliates etc.

bye
Anthony
That's an interesting point about SF vs. the peninsula. I can't think of any startups that made it big out of san francisco - though I'm sure there must be some (anyone willing to suggest a few?) There's craigslist, or course - which should has been very successful even though they haven't cashed in.

I'm not sure that the distractions are the problem, though. Personally, I think the distractions of SF help me a bit. The vibe gets me more charged up to work.

I think it has more to do with the heavy concentration of non-tech related law and finance companies. One key to a tech center is that programmers, designers, and people with a start-up mentality are more likely to bump into each other. I live in the city, and walking around, you're much more likely to bump into a lawyer or finance person. And these aren't the lawyers who do startups (who you probably do bump into in the valley), they're the ones who do condo conversions.
I can afford to sustain my current frugal lifestyle past the timeframe I set in the original post. I'm selling part of the shares I own in my ex employer (I was an early employee back in the time. I left when they released the game, then came back a couple years later as a contractor).

I do have time pressure, for different reasons. I'm 32 and while I can see myself doing some less life draining types of startups at an older age, the time is running out to do the wild thing.

I don't have a cofounder and I'm not in a good location to find one. My immediate plan is to become and establish myself as great cofounder material by cranking out a few failures on the cheap, while I try and find likeminded people online. I'm willing to move to a hotter startup hub to find a cofounder, but due to living costs I'm hesitant to do it before I have something to show my abilities. [PS: I guess there are also visa issues; I haven't studied this yet.]

Thanks for the feedback, and good luck to you too!
I hate ads. I ignore most of them, but distracting animated ads get adblocked. If adpinion gives ad-haters an easier way to make an ad disappear, adblock will get used less and they'll get more information.

(Even though I hate ads I think they have their place.)
Good point.

The things I want to learn are fundamental enough that they'll apply to any programming task. I have tried learning as I go, and I agree it's best for most skills, but I've found there are learning tasks that demand more dedication.

Then again, this may just be my procrastinating self at work. :)
Think you work hard? Think again.
Thanks for the pointers. I plan to use this as a text editor/hacking environment, and I don't use, nor want to use, the mouse for that.
Microsoft, Yahoo Tweak Privacy Policies
Google acquires ImageAmerica to boost mapping which can capture details as small as 6 to 12 inches
Kudos and good luck to you!

I have one piece of advice for you. Make sure that some of your early failures include other people. Many issues that bring down startups at their core are about people, not technology.
I don't discard applying earlier if I feel ready. Those were conservative estimates. Anyway, I just intend to go as fast as I can. "Plans are useless, planning is indispensable" and all that.
Surprise: Facebook apps may help grow home sites
Sorry if I came across as overly critical - I wasn't suggesting that your conclusion is invalid, but that the experiment would only apply to a fairly narrow class of website (e.g. "mortgage-leads... business-leads... diet-pills... and ringtones"), and that you may not have varied the design significantly (screenshots would have been great!). The 'cheaply-designed' thing was uncalled for, and for which I apologise; I think I was trying to suggest that a different 1024 design style may make a big difference, but it came out snarky, probably because I'm working on something frustrating.
Good luck!

Where are you located?
I intend to work very hard at study and the pet project. I'm not sure if I'm procrastinating, but I'm certain it's not to avoid hard work. It's doing something half heartedly that kills me. These particular learning topics, and this particular project, are things I've been feeling strongly for doing for a long time, and I want to get them behind me so I can be full hearted at whatever I do next.

As for the time, as I said in other reply I feel I'm more limited by age than cash.

Thanks for the feedback!
Galicia, northwest of Spain.
You don't have to register every name that you think of. There are some that are available for obvious reasons, but grab the ones that have any potential. They're cheap.
It's Time to Replace eBay
Buy a watch with a stopwatch. Turn it on when you're actually doing your work - coding, writing, whatever, and turn it off when you're not. My experience is that most people are utterly shocked to find how little they do in a day.

To get improvement, record the results (and a 7-day average) in a spreadsheet, graph the results, and pay attention!
The dominating reason is no cofounder.
Or buy 5 stopwatches - one for each of the 5 apps you use most often. Then flip between them to track each app individually.

...and you should probably get a sixth to track how much time you spend flipping between stopwatches and work.
The Web's Top Takeover Targets
If lifecasting is too much for you, why not try "Lifehinting"?