skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Review My Startup: GeoHello - location based chat
So, this is my most recent project.

What is it? It's a location-based, quasi-anonymous message broadcast service. What the heck is that? It's kind of like a geo-tagged message board, in real time. The barrier to entry is very low, as long as you have a GPS-enabled device, or browser. I say it's quasi-anonymous because as soon as I push my most recent code to this server you will be able to set a custom nickname for the duration of your session.

My inspiration for this initially came from me sitting in a traffic jam on the way to work, wishing I could tell what the cause of the slow up was. I was saying to myself, "if I could just ask the people in front of me what the deal is then I'd know how long I'm going to be sitting here." After coming home and coding this, I started thinking more about it and it's a lot like Citizen's Band radio. I go into a lot of that on the about page.

Ok, so what does this do? It simply lets you broadcast a message, in real time, to people around you. Your message will be broadcast to all users within 5 miles of you, all directions. Messages are archived for the location from which they were sent. This means that when you connect, you should see the 5 most recent and closest messages for your current location. If you see none, that just means there have not been any, yet. This also means that messages may be left for future users, too. So, real-time discussion is not the only option.

This does not work in IE, as far as I know. The browser does not support geolocation (?). This works great on my iPhone 4, and updates your location as you move.

Check it out! Feedback is appreciated!

http://geohello.com/about
clickable: http://geohello.com/ http://geohello.com/about
Yeah, I wasn't very clear in my first post. What I was getting at is that it is hardware that you can't reconfigure on the fly, which means you would have to choose between h.264 or WebM, you can't have both. For the next few years at least, the choice is clearly going to be for h.264, not webm
I have the full 19GB of storage from referrals and .edu doubling. I wonder if I can still get these extras..?
Not really.

It would probably be better for the health of the company to direct all dev efforts towards marketing the current software (at a sane pace).

For example:
setting up mailing lists
ad words
ads on craigslist
SEO
A/B testing
heck, even getting the devs to pick up the phone
and do some old fashion cold calling.

The closer devs are to the customer the more they will know about what customers want.

Working 11 hours is counter productive, as a coder you should focus on mental state. It's far better to be highly productive for 3-4 hours a day than unproductive for 11 hours. Being unproductive for 11 hours just leads to working 12 hours the next day as you fix the bugs you put in yesterday. All you're adding to the code base at that rate is bugs. Being tired and in a poor mental state will lead to having two eyes on the goal instead of two eyes on the path. Time in seat does not equal working (or profitable) code.

How does working longer lead to more profit?

How does working longer lead to working code?

Have customers asked for those new features?

Are the customers paying for the dev effort?

Software is a business with zero cost of reproduction, therefore its essential that a customer base is established on the minimal amount of code. One should not start writing code until there are enough customers to pay for the feature or a customer is willing to front the costs for the dev effort. It's not the dev's fault that management chose a set of features that is unprofitable. Rather than adding more unprofitable features you should focus on adding profitable features. Or focus on selling the features you have until it's profitable. If you can't sell the feature don't code it. Find out first by trying to sell it.

Spolsky says one thing about features, DHH says another, the important thing is not who says something but how relevant it is to the situation at hand. As a user of Fogbugz I can tell you that one of the things I really liked about it was it's simplicity. Fogbugz for me was way better than JIRA which has many more features.
Even then, you'd still only get Perl.
These cases are very tricky. Patents in general are. The question is: Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones OR do they only hinder innovation?

Can I paten a technique for saving people's lives that requires no tools and anyone can learn, but no human being has ever done it before (intentionally)?

The paten question is no triviality and should not be treated as such. Don't think "oh why don't they just revoke it". Perhaps what is wrong with our system is the time given, 7 years in software terms may as well be a lifetime, while 7 years in physical product terms is hardly anything. Thats the problem with our system. And copyright is a whole nothing monster. They mingle often, but are not the same.
Actually calling them Tech writers is blasphemous, they can only be termed as Apple writers. Nothing more nothing less
Yes, neutrinos are incredibly weakly interacting. However, Type II supernovae dump the vast majority (99%) of their energy into neutrino radiation. Moreover, the extremely high energies of supernova neutrinos (MeV range) increases their interaction cross-section as well as the damage they can do when they do interact. If a supernova (or hypernova) were to occur close enough to Earth it could cause a mass extinction due to neutrino radiation alone.

Consider, supernova 1987A radiated so many neutrinos that it increased the neutrino flux at Earth by 10,000x compared to the Solar flux. That event happened in a neighboring galaxy 168,000 light-years away, an event a mere 20 light-years away would result in a neutrino flux 70 million times greater than that (700 billion times normal background levels). A hypernova would release over 100 times as much energy.

Indeed, some researchers believe that some mass extinctions in Earth's past might be due to such events: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505028

Fortunately for us stars that would be both large enough to go supernova and close enough to present such a threat should be quite bright and thus very unlikely to have escaped our notice (hypernovae candidates as well, if we're lucky).
Justin Bieber URL Shortener Bieber.ly Shuts Down After Cease And Desist
Note the date on the article. It's from 2007, which was the height of the Web 2.0 / FaceBook App craze, before the market cratered. Everybody - myself, my future brother-in-law, several of my friends, a few of my current coworkers - was creating a startup back then.
it depends on your assumptions. i updated some of the numbers, but if you have suggestions definitely feel free to add a comment.
To turn an old adage into a pivot: When life hands you naked men, make naked-men-lemonade-aka-affiliate-marketing.
I have no idea, and don't think I could bare it to find out. I'd recommend spending less time on websites with sparkling pigs.

Sometimes, websites are in pre-revenue mode and are focused on user adoption before "flipping the switch" e.g. just about every social networking site ever.
http://video.stumbleupon.com/
True, but it took four years for that to happen.
Really I like your point, Kill the consumer, All Hail Corporations.
But, why not?

I've done web programming in Lua (w/ WSAPI); Lua is generally like Javascript's non-glue-huffing older brother, and coroutines/iterators remove a LOT of issues.

I was working on an event-loop-based web server+framework in Lua, but then I got into Erlang and realized how utterly lost the whole endeavor was. (But who wants to program in Erlang? I hear it's bad at strings, or something.)
Apart from the (admittedly pretty pivotal for this case) unpaid overtime request part, I feel a 10 hour average is not unreasonable as long as it's not rigidly mandated. Requiring physically being in the office for 10 hours straight five days a week is idiotic in software. Allow going home or stepping out of the office for a couple of hours for a walk in the park when the code isn't flowing or you're stuck on a dumb bug, but make it clear there's a lot of work to be done (and compensate accordingly!). If programmers like what they're doing they won't count the hours.

Of course that's not going to fly with those who don't wish to work outside standard 9 to 5 -- and there's a lot of people who don't for very valid reasons -- but they're less likely to be found in a start-up anyway.
>2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot.

Sure it can. You run it through IE6 and print to an image format of your choice.

>1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and

Yes, and thanks to the narrower scope it's not as big a deal to convert between video formats, but there's still going to be a marked loss of quality.

>So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.

Viewing a website designed specifically for IE6 is likely to cause similar loss of fidelity to viewing a video transcoded from VP8 to H.264, or vice versa.

>Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format.

The data format in question is the HTML accepted by IE6. That data format actually works fairly well with modern web browsers, much like VP8 decoders will likely be bundled with H.264 encoders once the patents run out and H.264 can properly be called an open standard.
The interface and mechanics of the site looks like an emerging pattern in data collection to understand the relations between nodes on the social graph. Seems like a throwback to the days when psychologists would show physical cards and ask us to choose one.

Reminds me of this family of card games I used to play when young - http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/377365/top-trumps-some-good-...
Software Craftsmanship, Beyond The Hype
Lets make Feb 14 "Drop IE day"
I think it is about time for web app vendors to get together and drop IE support. Incomplete and buggy support for HTML5 in IE9 is the final straw. The lost traffic might very well be offset by the lowered development costs. And if we can get a few major sites behind (FB, Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia), then it is a win-win.

Starting Feb 14th, IE users would be faced with a dialog warning of lack of support for IE and a list of links to alternative browsers. What do you think?
For the love of Knuth, stop using Quality as one of your project axes!

Quality is non-negotiable - as soon as quality slips, everything else slips, too. Better options are Cost, Scope and Schedule (or Features, Price, Speed): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle
I'd estimate that 4 hour programming days are feasible as an average.

10-11 hour days means that the guys will be just doing nothing (or worse) more than half of the time.
Any Silicon Valley startups hiring mechanical engineers?
I'm looking for something interesting in cleantech (solar/wind), robotics, automation, medical-devices or automotive.

Any leads?
Analogies!
For some marketing based technologies this is certainly true.For others , the gartner hyper cycle is more accurate :
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2396/1789656101_2229062a20.jp....
I interviewed for a senior level developer position, and was asked questions along these same lines. I also had questions around system design and network programming.
Like almost everyone else I'd say no, especially in the context of employees being asked to do so. I do think it's possible for short bursts, where someone is internally motivated. That's usually the "implementing my idea frenzy" sort of thing: you've worked out an idea in your head, and then have a big coding binge turning it into the first prototype. But it's really hard to call that up on command as an employee assigned programming tasks, or keep it up long term (at least in terms of being productive for those long-hour weeks... it's quite possible to "work" 80-hour weeks while getting 20 hours of work done in them).
I've heard from 45 minutes to an hour.
Excellent quick fix, thank you!
>You're more likely to get kicked by a deer than eaten by a shark, but sharks are still scarier animals.

That's a nice phrasing... especially accurate for people (like me) who live in / near deer'd areas and nowhere near shark-country. I'll have to remember it for later use :)
Are those figures adjusted for inflation?
Well, there was that initial surge of public interest when the cause and breadth of mad cow disease was first publicized. I doubt many people think of it much any more, though. I think bird flu did it in.
But see his latest comment about it: http://twitter.com/tqbf/status/25785161895383040

Quoted below:

CubeDuel was hilarious for a couple minutes. Then: horrifying. Deactivated account. Advise you to do same. Teamicidal.
this looks like the stuff: (taobao link) http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=5777316505
That is way more information about neutrinos than I ever expected to find in a discussion about prions. Fascinating. Thanks for the info!

And, to reply up a couple levels: some cheeseburgers, yes.
This is not a proxy for caucasians.
Consider this a gift. It's a thinly veiled advanced-warning pink slip.
Any web-based start ups looking for summer interns?
Hi all,

I'm a sophomore CS student in the midwest looking to intern with a web-based startup, particularly in SF, CHI, NY, KC (where I'm from), or STL (where I'm in school).

I've got over 5 years of experience as a Front-End web developer, and can contribute there immediately. However at the same time, I'm looking to gain more back-end experience, particularly in PHP.

Also, I'd love to join a team where it doesn't stop after the summer. I've had a job every semester at school, and it'd be great to build a relationship with a group of people that put out a great product.

If you know of any startups that are looking for someone like myself, or happen to work with one, I'd love to talk.

connor [at] connormontgomery.com

Thank you!
I think a bar code scanner/OCR kind of functionality could also be useful.

If the other person does not have your app and isn't comfortable about sharing their email address, they can just photograph your card. Later they can download your app if interested and the app can use OCR or bar code scanning to identify the original e-card.
> heavy porn

porn + tf2?
Talk about sowing the seeds of discord.

Running your coworkers, particularly if they're your friends through a series of forced choice tasks and then displaying the results publicly is probably a good way to hurt feelings and alienation.

Ask yourself whether you'd do this for your facebook friends.
I think there is a huge pent up demand for the iphone on Verizon. People have been putting off getting a smartphone until it was available on Verizon not ATT. Moreover, by the end of this year how many people are going to be at the end of their Android contract and want to jump to the iphone? How many bought the Android as a stopgap till they could get the iphone on Verizon? Quite a few I think. Also its not just the technology that is driving this -- there is a huge "cool" (i.e. social status signal) factor that is associated with the iphone and more generally with Apple that is easy to underestimated.
Hm yes, I recall an article about how there's a distinct cultural dichotomy where different countries tend to fall on one side or the other and the implications for management. How an Indian boss, for instance, knows that clues of things going awry are more subtle, and he must draw them out through questioning, whereas for an American boss that might be considered micro-management that would rub the employees the wrong way.
Golden rule of Bribery
The subtitle of my book might as well have been "How to compete with me" - I haven't seen any fresh competition, though.

I figure that my competition already hires people who are smarter and harder working than I am. The fact that I can compete at all means that either that nobody competent wants my market, or that the inefficiencies inherent to large organizations are larger than most people think. I suspect it's a little bit of both. Either way, I'm not going to waste my time keeping my ideas secret.

Expressing your ideas clearly has other benefits. The obvious is that you get some feedback before you put effort into development... but what is less obvious is that even if you fail, and /especially/ if someone steals your idea, clearly expressing an interesting idea (especially if you implement) looks good on the resume. Startups come and go, but you are going to have to sell yourself, likely, for the rest of your life.

On the other hand, as someone else in the thread said, "I'm a thousandaire!" which pretty accurately describes my current financial situation, so what right do I have to be giving advice?
Inactivity Is Harmful, Even With Trips to the Gym
Won't be able to make it. Hopefully this will lead to more meetups though.
So it just continues on. You implement something and it's going to work in all browsers but will require specific tweaks and workarounds for IE.

Business as usual.

The only thing that changed is the nature of the needed workarounds (fix broken canvas instead of fix missing canvas), so that IE9 just brings more frustrating work to the table. One more special case to handle.

In the application I'm maintaining, we have CSS and JS to make the thing work in real browsers and then one file for each version of IE to handle their specific bugs.

As it's looking now, IE9 won't improve on the situation, but just require two more files (CSS, JS) to fix the new, IE9 specific issues, thereby increasing the development time of any new feature because one more special case must be handled.

Why can't Microsoft just get their act together. This is so dammed frustrating
Love the concept, but really needs a ton of users to make it work. You should think about promoting it at a specific event.
Oops. I admit that is not an interpretation that even occurred to me.
Why is the C&F section even on the test? I thought you had to have no character to be a lawyer.
Thing is there can be a dozen great ideas out there but it won't necessarily be the best one that succeeds but rather the one that people actually hear about.

Amazing how many people believe if they build it "they will come" with nothing else planned. Oh if only the world were so easy.
According to Jeff Bezos, the 1-click purchase wasn't obvious at all, especially when you have a large supply chain system at Amazon. This is mostly due to edge cases like, what if the user cancels the order and the book is already making its way through the warehouse being packaged? What if the number of orders change while the book is being selected from the warehouse?

From what I remember, when a user clicks on the 1-click purchase to buy an item, it actually queues the purchase for a certain amount of time before being acted on by the warehouse, and there are things in place to back it out if the user decides to change the purchase.
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Best 100 software engineering books ever
Why the attitude?
What is wrong with "outsourcing" things that don't fall into your area of expertise? As far as I'm concerned, a biz savvy guy "outsourcing" his tech job for a fee is not very different from buying toothpaste from the market because I don't know how to make a good one myself ... or like consulting a dentist to figure out which toothpaste is good for me.
When companies find a way to escape their debts, it's "strategic." When individuals so much as contemplate it, it's morally reprehensible.

Not a bad dichotomy to set up if you run or own a large business.
So how would the sharing work, with people who don't have the app?

Your first page would have to convince me that it is as convenient as paper cards.
My stars, this is stupid. What if I sit around all day reading books or writing in notebooks? Sedentary activity often involves looking at a screen but is by no means the same thing.

/rant
To me it is about permission and free legal redistribution. If H.264 were to become an entrenched part of HTML5 video, then freely distributed browsers would greatly suffer. Open source browsers like Konqueror would be left by the roadside. This is why I think Google is doing a good thing. HTML5 video suffers in the short term, but it is a good thing for the future.
This is Mark Zuckerberg's New Home
Everybody - myself, my future brother-in-law, several of my friends, a few of my current coworkers - was creating a startup back then.

That's funny - I feel like I'll be saying the same thing about 2010-2011 in a few years.
Yea. For the real time part of it, which is the coolest part, it would need enough concurrent users to where when you connect from any major city you would see at least a few people broadcasting. This is somewhat why I added the message archiving, initially. So that it didn't seem like a barren, open zone of no broadcasting. But, I think that the archiving of messages is a good addition for other reasons, too, after the fact.

I do like the idea of focusing on launching at a single event, or location first. That's probably the most realistic and feasible way to go about it.
You get to use C# which really is rather a pleasant language and is a huge win over PHP. The Web.config has been shrunk a huge amount in recent versions of .Net as more sensible defaults for the new frameworks get built in.
I don't get it? PHP runs on Windows....
Just launched my first webapp, built to teach myself Python and Django. Don't get too wrapped up in books and just think of a webapp to build... and then do it. I know infinitely more now because I would think, "I need so and so" and through Googling/Stack Overflow/friends, I'd figure out how to launch it.

I did Learn Python the Hard Way to start, then the main Django tutorial as well as Kenneth Love's blog tutorial at http://gigantuan.net/ (as well as lots of random tutorials/blog posts). Otherwise, I haven't read any books.

The app launched last night: http://www.weddinginvitelove.com

tl;dr: Make sure you're learning by doing. Make a random web app, it'll help things "stick" way faster.
Encoder Is Not a State Machine
Then why did anyone that wanted to allow their customers to purchase items with a single click have to license from Amazon? If the real innovation that they were protecting was the way that the back-end system was implemented, then why is the front-end piece being (aggressively) licensed out? Something smells fishy about that explanation. It reeks of the MS justification for their patent portfolio (it's defensive only! really!), only to contradict their statements later on (suing TomTom over FAT32 patents; making (empty) public threats against infringements by Linux; etc).
Not necessarily. The mutation could have survived for any number of reasons including genetic drift. As long as it didn't kill the organism right away there wouldn't be significant negative pressure to get rid of it.
"commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing.
Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!

You completely misinterpreted that. First, the author pulled ads out of his ass -- there's no legal statement to support that theory. Second, the statement from MPEG-LA that I linked to trumps that article -- as long as you're not charging for H264 encoded content you have nothing to fear.
I meant that they don’t work against the orientation neutrality that much and can be left there.