skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"The American Brain Tumor Association will be receiving 100% of the proceeds from this sale."

What!? They're going to give their money to a group that's for brain tumors!!

"I cannot stress enough how much we hate brain tumors."

Oh wait, it's a society for people against brain tumors. Never mind.
Newspapers rapidly losing real estate ads to web
Blocking IE users is not a solution - here's how to easily fix most common IE rendering errors
A Quickstart to Common Lisp - wanna finally learn Lisp?
Where? Do you have some links?
RustyBudget: Multi-Author Blog Management
Google uses Lemon to find holes in apps
This one looks pretty fun. Basically you have a gob of DNA to start (long string of symbols) which you can add any prefix of DNA to. The DNA executes according to a sequence of rules which re-writes itself and produces a string of symbols (RNA) in the process. This RNA is then interpreted to draw a bitmap (as in, it defines actions like color selection, cursor movement, line draws, area fills, etc).

The goal is to take a gob of DNA which draws a certain bitmap, and then find a prefix for it such that the concatenated DNA results in (given) target bitmap. The shortest prefix with the closest solution wins. There are some memory and computational constraints too(size of DNA and number of operations on it).

Basically they make a very complicated constraint satisfaction problem which probably can probably only be approached with a machine learning approach. I would have liked my ML class a lot more if this was an assignment.
I'm going to start working on it, you can contact me at the email in my profile if you want to help me with it. I live in palo alto if you are nearby. Hopefully at least one of my friends will join me saturday morning. Still not sure what language(s) i will use. It's worth noting there are 3 distinct parts of the program which can be written in different langauges (dna -> rna, rna->bitmap, machine learning wrapper)
Right... you could say that the United States is 33% socialist, based on the tax rates. Is it inherently better for a government to tax corporations instead of owning them? I look at China, which owns 30% of Lenovo and has shares in many Chinese companies and wonder if a combination of taxing and partial state ownership is the way to go.
I know hackers that use those, they usually have multiple workspaces with monitors setup.
to quote vallywag: "Shhh, you're harshing our buzz."
check out this one at swivel.

http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/8977818

very interesting. :-)
[Toyota] Maintenance: $4,310

LOL. My first three cars combined didn't cost that much. And I wrecked two of them!
simple arithmetic ones' loaded through ajax. Using it for one of the projects that I am working with. Don't think its great, but works for me.

http://oltsm.blogspot.com/2007/06/ra-captcha-idea-for-ajax-b...
Wanted to clarify my earlier discussion of syntax with the following example.

Suppose we have three users:
(AS) Andy Smith
(BS) Andy Smith's brother Bobby Smith who can telepathically communicate with his computer
(CS) An alien computer scientist

Because the process of programming involves the translation from natural language to machine language (logic), there will necessarily be various syntactical preferences depending on the natural language of the programmer and the input method.

For this example we will assume AS and BS have the same basic cognitive structure and natural language. The only difference is that BS is telepathically linked to his computer, whereas AS must use a keyboard. Presumably there now is no barrier for BS to use a purer translation of natural language to machine language. Because there is no time cost for typing, BS can represent lambda as 'lambda' instead of 'l' or simply parens. However, AS will likely choose abbreviations, since to them they represent an ease of use in the translation process from natural language to machine language. However, probably he will use only English language derived abbreviations of no less than three characters, as anything else would be outside his cognitive context.

Because our alien programmer (CS) thinks in a completely different language, the preferred syntax will also be different. Perhaps CS will want to represent concepts (such as lambda) as a hexadecimal number. This can hardly be said to be better or worse as machine logic does not change, only the representation/syntax changes.

So I think if I had to rewrite my earlier statement I would get rid of the word 'preferences,' which implies subjectivity. Rather, I would suggest there are different optimal syntaxes depending on the point of origin (or point of translation from natural language to machine language) but likely only one optimal representation as machine logic (per problem).
51. Because Courier 12 point went out with IBM's mojo.
The Dells are alright as long as you stick with the business line, build quality is much better than the consumer line.
Two more dumb ideas which ought to be on this list:

1. "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". The fact is that most eyeballs are useless because they're not capable of seeing the problems. Some bugs simply can't be found unless the person looking for them has particular technical expertise. (Side channel attacks against cryptography is my personal area of interest, and history indicates that at least 99.99% of eyeballs aren't useful when it comes to finding these.)

2. "There's a theoretical vulnerability, but nobody will be able to exploit it in practice." History is full of "purely theoretical" vulnerabilities which have turned out to be entirely real. This is why mathematicians (or people with mathematical training, at least) tend to do well in the area of computer security: If you can't prove that your code is secure, it probably isn't secure.
i liked this, thanks for being so honest
"One can still ask the question though: of the startups acquired by major companies, how many of them use sophisticated algorithms?"

Yes, one could. Though it isn't the question you originally asked, and so you shouldn't be surprised when you don't get an answer to that question. The question you asked was "why aren't startups using sophisticated algorithms?" ;-)
San Francisco news.yc Meetup - Friday, July 27th
We have somewhat limited space so RSVP soon. Looking forward to meeting some fellow news.yc-ers
What? No girls? I quit. :)
Awesome! Good time and date, but where?
North Beach area - Final location TBA later
Nice thought, Jamie. It should be fun. How about preparing a little program? Maybe set an hour for 3-minute fast demos for those who like to show their work and get feedback?
That's 'cause execs get pay raises by staying (regardless of their impact on the company), whereas nerds get pay raises by leaving (regardless of their impact on the company).
The Future of Facebook
FaceBook Founder Interview on Future of FaceBook by Time.com
Obviously, blored just wants all the girls for himself.
1) This is the truth, but whatever.

2) If you are worried about "getting girls"...maybe you should get a job at the mall, because your not going to make it as an entrepreneur.

3) It's hard...but that is what makes it so great. If becoming a successful entrepreneur was easy, then everyone would do be starting companies, but it would be pointless. The great things in life take lots of hard work (blood, sweet, tears, etc) - but when you get them you know that you earned them and that is why they are great!

Entrepreneurs have to be a step above the rest (in terms of work ethics and dedication)...meaning that we have to live by our compan(y)ies and die by our compan(y)ies - not worry about stupid stuff like getting girls...
From my work with web web bots, I've seen that it's really so easy to make a spider that they can't positively identify as such.

If you guys really wanted this then I guess I could show you how...
well that's rather "evil".
52. You are not a YC company :-)
Connections: an alternative view of change [documentary]
An interdisciplinary history of science, innovation, invention and economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)#
Those bastards actually have parentheses in their urls? Argh. Will fix.
I think you've mis-interpreted "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

When you have more eyeballs on a project, there is a higher chance that some of those eyeballs have the technical expertise necessary to find/fix a bug. For a proprietary/commercial project, the pool of talent available is only what you can afford but for a free/open-source project, the pool of talent available is free abd very very large provided that you can attract it.
When I was a kid, this was my favorite documentary of all time.
I had been wanting to see this for years until it recently popped up on youtube. Now I finally have seen it, it pretty much is my favorite documentary of all time.
Google Acquires ImageAmerica
Reddit on Information Architects 2007 Web Trend Map
I hack on a 12" iBook G4.

With a 17" external monitor attached when possible ;)
The Dilbert Blog: Career Advice
Trust me. Many of these algorithms are publishable in first-tier journals. There's a wealth of knowledge locked up in these proprietary Intellectual Property.
Tufte: A New Style for Mint
Bebo To Follow Facebook and Launch Developer Platform
Here's radio:

http://www.jeffhester.net/archives/2006/01/google_reaches.ph...

The Irvine (Southern California) office has worked on this full-time for a year and a half now. When I went to an open house there, they gave that quote nearly word for word.

And here's newspapers:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070719-001436
Craigslist Google Maps Mashup
As it says on the website, perl, google maps, and craigslist
well why not...
Also I guess the one way to stay safe is to somehow make it operate slow so for example it wouldn't aggregate 2000 pages in 5 seconds.
Utility may count more (I would tend to agree with that), but at least some people will wonder why one product works 'so much better' than all the rest when it just came out of the woodworks.
The rent per room heatmap is amazing.
So it starts well:

There's no difference between code and data

but then none of his examples actually show that in action.

Instead, he does a bunch of simple iterations and print statements; most people would look at that and say, "I can do that with [language x]".
C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success - New York Times
Pathetic drivel.
Awesome. I'll look forward to a Boston one. I was even thinking of suggesting it. Miracle of Science bar, anyone?
Make sure it has Wi-fi :)
Who else thinks VCs are dinosaurs?
John Cook, one of my favorite Seattleites, has a post on his blog about yet another home office no money startup that got bought out for a few million. There is a growing realization that getting funding if you're a developer building a consumer web application is a very bad idea.
Emotional investment is overrated.

The reason this endeavor didn't work is:

1. foreigners living in Tokyo (I lived in tokyo for a year; hugely distracting, hardly an epicenter of web software innovation)

2. trying to build 3 apps while doing consulting work (no focus)

3. the author was a dick to his only employee (wtf? why?)
This will give a new meaning to the expression "design by committee".
"Knew when to stop, too--didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?"
Outstanding. I'm in.
Should Newspapers Become Local Blog Networks?
Chicago Tribune just relaunched its website with, of course, more blogs -- A LOT more blogs -- news, entertainment, sports, living, business travel, with multiple blogs in each category.
Thanks for the comment Paul. There is some more discussion over at Venture Hacks: http://www.venturehacks.com/articles/equity-equation#comment...
I don't. So far the percentage of companies that go public without at some point taking VC money is still zero.
Similar to what we're doing:

http://www.uuorld.com/
It's the VC that pushes to go public. And if going public is your goal then it's logical to get into bed with VC's because they have the institutional connections.

When chatting about liquidity events, most founders I know talk about getting bought these days before IPO. I've sold a company myself and it's incredibly easy. No roadshow, no creating investor hype, no complex SEC filings.

Having said all that, I think it's bad karma and bad strategy to start a company with the goal of selling out. I should also mention that doing neither (ipo or buyout) is also an option - simply build a very profitable business.
...furthermore, have you noticed the trend in private equity to delist companies? Being a publicly trading company was fun in the 90's but there are many advantages to being private.
"I think it's bad karma and bad strategy to start a company with the goal of selling out."

Why? The set of people who are good at building a business is almost disjoint from the set of people who are good at running an established business. Techs vs. Suits, so to speak.

I don't think there's anything wrong with starting a business saying "I'm going to sell this at the inevitable point where someone else can run it better than I can."
Inline Messaging: Broken Interaction Means More Money?
I think it's a bad idea because your target market becomes your acquirer instead of your customer. Your business starts morphing into whatever the hot-new-thing is of the day rather than trying to solve a problem for your customer.

If your business is successful, the opportunities will come - opportunities to get funded, get bought, IPO, etc. So your only focus should be to build a successful business and keep your customer happy.

Hey, I'm not saying that late at night sitting around a fire you shouldn't dream of riches. Just don't build it into your strategy because you'll end up being a me-too business.
btw, who runs your company and whether or not to sell your company are mutually exclusive issues. There are many examples of founders who have employed professional CEO's and taken a seat on the board as chairman. Pierre Omidyar is one of them. There are also examples of companies that were sold and kept the same management team.
Fair enough -- I think we agree here, we're just stating things slightly differently.

The goal should not be to sell out, but there's nothing wrong with aiming to build a successful business and knowing that being bought is likely to end up happening in the end.
I was referring to the experience as a reader - emailed interviews and the stories that result from them are usually boring and formulaic, and don't differ much from a stock press release.
The biggest technology startups inevitably go public, if only because they've given stock to so many people that they have to. So what I'm saying is: no startups seem to get really big without taking VC money.
Very nice!

Speaking of heatmaps, anyone know some references/code samples on how to generate them?
It seems like the most natural model would be pro-am collaboration. For example, investigative journalists publish research and then let amateurs incorporate this into their own publications. This is basically what is happening already, so with only a few tweaks it would be possible to both greatly increase the quality and also monetize the whole process.

This complicated three-tiered model seems about as workable as the Ptolemaic universe. Much better I think just to give readers the tools to go in the direction they are already taking on their own.
It seems like the biggest problem is that entered the financing company without a clear relationship defined, and that lack of definition seems like it created an abysmal working environment. I have to admit I am confused how the two developers are maintaining control over the web applications they developed for the company. Something seems a bit off there (they got paid for developing stuff, and then left taking the stuff with them?).

Bonus: The name of their company is "Paper-Rock-Scissors" in Japanese.
that was what I was wondering myself. I found that site especially interesting because of them.
I am in too.
First mover effect is vital for startups. Do you want to know why?
That's not the only thing to rely on, but it's still very useful to know about.
The killer-app of newspapers is good journalism and reporting from the scene of something interesting. Newspapers fail to do either well today, and wonder why they suffer so much.

Bloggers can help -- but not for foreign reporting (aside from foreign bloggers). That is where the money behind news rooms actually would have a huge effect.
Thanks nabeel... I'll check it out and will attend next Thursday...

Thanks
Babu
Great interview with Craig Newmark (Charlie Rose - PBS)
Sounds good to me. If you do it between now and August 1st you can probably get some people from this summer's YC batch to show up. Most of us will probably be too busy or not in Boston during most of August. The last week or two of August would probably work too.
Could Facebook Become The Next General Electric?
4. not much effort spent figuring out what market they were going after or what problem they were solving
Maybe, but they were doing something right: one site had 7,000 users after 2 months.

It seems their real problem was impatient investors.
Facebook Acquires Web OS Company Parakey
I predict that the laptops will sell for > $10k. (4 days, 18 hours until the end of the auction)
Lisp: Closures + Lambda
Three Minutes with Steve Wozniak
The last Boston meet up was a big success. There was a postmortem discussing the event but I can't seem to find it at the moment. The original thread is here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17969

I wanted to organize one more event before the end of summer so, if no one else wants to take the ball on this one, I'd be more than happy to get something organized in the next few days.
I think that'd be a pretty safe bet.

Edit: I'm leaving my original comment for posterity but I misread the parent post. (Whoops: ">" != "<")
The Wealthiest Americans Ever
merge sort ftw.
startup advice: take a shower!
so many geeks smell so bad, yet they wonder why people don't like them.

learn to get people to like you. it's the first step towards learning how to build products that people will like.
Ask.com gives users what they want: won't keep data from searches
This is the first smart thing I can remember Ask doing.
The Interface of a Cheeseburger
Realitycheck: What Works on the Web
Core Principles behind Raskins 'Archy
Lessons from a Haskell startup
Prompted by this article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35550

One of the things that stuck in my mind was the comment about having to earn the right to talk to a customer, before you even ask them what they want or if you can help. (Also, "keep the blue line above the red line"!)

The company is http://www.galoisconnections.com/.
What causes your karma to be negative?
I suddenly noticed today that my karma was negative. Not sure what causes that?
god damn, that guy has a lot of pictures of himself in that article
One of your comments was moderated down: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35836
I was thinking something a little more informal, just a mixer? Maybe we could do this early on though.
Continuing Facebook Applications with Ruby On Rails
Will JavaScript be the next big language?
A bunch of quotes in this article stuck out at me, but this one in particular:

"How can you possibly have the emotional investment necessary to see things through to profitability, through highs, lows and everything in between, if you haven't fought tooth and nail to get there?"

Is this really true, when you take into account startups that fight tooth and nail and still don't succeed? Is it better to start with the confidence, money, and connections of other people and then ride the wave of their support, or is it better to start with nothing other than your own belief in yourself and then fight tooth and nail until you get the confidence, money, and connections of others?

My boss is trying to convince me that I should at least have an offer of cash in hand from an angel investor before leaving my day job, even if I choose not to take it. While this is quite self-serving (he doesn't want me to leave), it also sounds pretty rational. I mean, right now I have fairly little validation other than my cofounder's confidence, my desire to use our own product, and my belief that I have the technical chops to get to the point where we can.

The article suggests that it's probably better not to have that external validation, and definitely better not to take the money. Is that character-building, or foolhardy?
I never noticed Charlie Rose's southern accent until now for some reason
O well that was a joke! :-(
Snake Oil Cryptography (Bruce Schneier)
Foreign reporting, incidentally, is where traditional media sucks the most. Judging by your name, you can probably appreciate this yourself, by reading a few articles about Russia in English or American papers (as long as we don't count exile.ru to as an American paper).
Jamendo: Mangrove strikes again
Jamendo is a creative commons music publishing and discovery platform.
No Excuses, Just Do It
NYT: Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans
It's not quite right that UI is the best brand. Iconic design is. What happened with the iPod is the same as happened with the (original) Porsche 911.

A web site, of course, is all graphic design. So if a web site wants to follow suit, it has to do it with graphic design. But it's stretching the definition of UI to call all graphic design UI design.
They don't even need to ensure the rights of businesses. That's included in the rights of people (the shareholders).
Approaching YC demo day - by Peter Nixey of summer YC startup Remember Me Inc
It wasn't even a startup at all. They were lying to themselves that it was. In effect they were employees of an investment firm in some sort of ill-defined incubation weirdness. Everyone involved was pretty clueless about what was going on and what to expect. The investment firm was rolling the dice and these guys were enjoying the learning experience and break from consulting.
I think you know what you want to do. You've mentioned your boss in a few posts and it sounds like he's a selfish prick, who doesn't genuinely care about what's good for you. Maybe you should stop talking to him...

If you're successful you will say "Wow. I almost listened to him" like you dodged a bullet. if you fail, you'll have a much better chance of success next attempt.
Could Google kill the cell phone industry?
Cool, good idea. Please post here with any private betas!
Arrington: The FCC Needs To Listen To Google
Not if Apple kills them first.
Funny, that page reads like Haskell code - that is, I have no idea what the heck is going on there.
Note to Founders: Have Vesting
Thank you Jessica - a very powerful argument for biting the financial bullet and using real lawyers when setting up a startup with stock vesting. I hadn't actually thought about vesting as an issue before for the founders (as my partner and I are decade long friends)
Please do make a plan for it! The last meet-up's time/place looked great. Maybe post a thread about it, to see who is interested.
It's amazing that everyone I've talked to that knows about this is very excited about the possibilities. And yet, the effort to make things more open might fail. Astounding.
All criticism of his startup strategy aside, his web apps are beautifully executed. I didn't realize that Jason Fried was the American Yong Fook.