skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think the Zune launch tarnished the name so permanently that it never recovered. In too many peoples' eyes, it was always the poop-brown also-ran.

Which is too bad, because in many ways, the later Zunes were superior devices, although far too prone to sync problems. My old Zune became unrecognizable to the Zune software far too many times.
I think this is a bit short-sighted. Attempting the problem within constraints imposed by not having deep pockets could be very useful.
Just a tip - the superscript makes googling for or talking about your language a hassle.
I smell a David to LinkedIn's Goliath.
And if they have your credit card, they probably have your driver license or other something else with your birthday. Either they stole your purse/wallet, or they're a merchant and could ask to see your ID when you used the card.
Something tells me you don't have kids, or they are mostly taken care of by your significant other, or you've simply never explored the possibilities. Keeping kids away from electronics can rob them of wonderful developmental opportunities. My 18-months old can't speak or dress himself but he is getting very good at several challenging iPhone apps that involve assembling shapes, matching tiles from memory, mixing music, etc. Likewise, constant monitoring of your little ones is neither realistic nor desirable, especially when there is a simple solution at the technology level. We don't get all worked up about door locks - why the negative attitude towards e-locks for children?
At what margin? There's more revenue in gaming than engine licensing, but once you have the engine, I can't imagine it costing much to license it.
Have you tried creating a new profile? In my experience, firefox needs a fresh profile every now and then or it becomes horribly slow.
What sort of union is this?
Ask HN: Any experience with / opinions on the Titanium Mobile Platform?
Specifically, for principally iOS development?
I used to think Monster cables were a complete joke too until a musician friend pointed out that they have a lifetime warranty and very generous terms of exchange. One can essentially walk into any music store in the country and swap out the splinched cables for new ones, no questions asked.

It's an interesting pricing model, and the $20-$60 cables more than paid for themselves after a single tour. Probably not appropriate for casual use though.
It does in a system where the law determines right and wrong.
PhoneGap seems interesting, but I don't fully understand it yet. Which of its capabilities should be added to the browser? Should they be standardized in HTML5 or should they be part of a devices OS?
Draw each screen of your system, describing the function of every element on the screen. Deascribe what data you want to store and how it relates to any other data. Then go shopping for a developer (odesk or a local web business) to make a prototype of what you've just specified. If you've really got the money you'll want quality people, so pick some websites that are quality, find out who made them, and get in touch.

If it's a tech co-founder you're after, look out for start-up gatherings or similar in your town.
Although these are drastic service cuts, at least one proposal might mean faster commutes to SV:

-- Suspension of weekday service at up to seven of the following stations: Bayshore, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Burlingame, Hayward Park, Belmont, San Antonio, Lawrence, Santa Clara and College Park
First of all, it's not "some additional named entities that were required by XHTML" since there is only one: &apos;. Secondly, the fact that IE doesn't even support XHTML is a better explanation for it not supporting &apos;. Third, can you not use decimal and hex entities in IE?
I have pretty strong negative reaction to this push for more and more sites to demand a real name for signup and I'm not sure if it's a product of my internet usage history or if I actually have a valid gripe.

I think it's fundamentally important that as a general principle the internet allows a person to play many parts and to play those parts under discreet, consistent personae if required. The most basic example being that my 'work' persona needs to be distinctly separate so that people can't mistake my personal opinions for official statements from the national broadcasting corporation I happen to work for.

Sites like quora and facebook are a distubing and distressing trend to me, but I haven't really seen a great deal of 'push back' against the practice. Especially from younger web users, and I wonder if it's just a 'generational' thing?
Microsoft pays teachers to promote Bing to their students
Ask HN: Selling a Website & IP
Holy cow.

I've received an offer for a developed website + a few related domains.

Are there any open source or public domain boiler plate contracts out there for a sale of this type?

The dollar value of this deal makes me want to cross all of my t's.
Doesn't anyone else see a huge opportunity here? If we set aside regulation for a moment, there is a _huge_ demand for a liquid market for privately held stock. Both investors and companies would have huge benefits from being able to trade stock on a market that's not connected to the traditional exchanges. I'm standing on the investor side of things, annoyed out of my head that it is impossible to invest in the companies I'd want to unless I had a hundred million dollars.

There are probably _huge_ regulatory hurdles to a problem like this, but it would be interesting to see where the excact problem lies. Practically, you'd need to attract enough investors to make the market reasonably liquid, as well as gain enough confidence from the market at large that people would want to participate.

Does anyone know what regulation prevents someone from doing this?
Not only is 1Gps $26 a month, it gets connected the same or next day.
Damn, I'll miss the self-mockingly absurdist tagline "Join the Social".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the push back might only be visible, if you will, in lower adoption rates than we'd see otherwise; that is, so very visible at all.
What absolute bollocks.

While I take the argument that being an infrastructure player rather than a traditional 'make something people want' business is a good idea in the long term, I disagree with the advice that it's a good idea for a new startup to try to be doing this from day one. That's suicide.

It's worth noting that none of the companies that are 'infrastructure' players today started out that way.

Amazon sold books, and needed to buy lots of servers to do it. The cash from book sales justified buying servers, which some time later allowed them to spin off EC2.

Apple sold personal computers and music players. Eventually they owned such a dominant position in music players that they could build a compelling online music store. Later they sold lots of phones, and used THAT position to justify the app store.

Facebook were, if anything, anti-platform. The original Facebook was for a single university. Later a few. Only some time later did they even allow anyone to sign up, and later still (by the time they were well on the road to being the dominant social network worldwide) did they roll out a 'platform'.

This is why the Internet platforms of today aren't like railroads of old. As a founder you absolutely should NOT be trying to raise lots of money to build infrastructure from day one. You should raise it to build a product that kicks ass that people will buy. That's hard enough for most if us.

If you get your startup to that stage then the platform opportunities that you can use to consolidate your position should be pretty obvious.

Don't get me wrong, dreams of platforms are what get entrepreneurs out of bed in the morning. They're important for that reason, but you're crazy to put it in your buisness plan. Keep it simple - build something people WANT.

Sent from my iPhone
This is actually what it's designed to apply to.

Inside your grocery app is a button that says "Subscribe to sync!" Apple handles the credit card processing and takes 30%.

You go to the website, and there's a button that says, "Subscribe to sync!" You pay for the credit card processing & recurring billing expenses, and 100% of what's left.

Apple is assuming/hoping that the amount of people who buy your service through the app will offset the reduction in revenue.
OK, so I have a question about this, how was it legitimate for Brad to answer at this point? Brad would have seen Alex initially credit Watson with the right answer and then reverse the judgement, rendering the answer incorrect. Brad would have been able to infer the correct answer at this point.
Alexa ranks oDesk higher in terms of traffic compared with vWorker. Interestingly, the xconomy article mentions Guru.com and Elance.com but didn't mention Freelancer.com, which is neck and neck with ODesk.com.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/odesk.com+vworker.com+freelanc...
I hope they don't get rid of the player. That desktop player is by far the best one I have ever used except for maybe Winamp before AOL. Its too feature rich to get rid of. Yes, even better than iTunes.
This article is unpersuasive. Each of the supposedly anti-IPO changes had a very good reason behind it. These should be seriously considered before reverting to the old way of doing things:

#1: This is really a consequence of the other factors he cites.

#2: Decimalization made stock trading massively cheaper. When prices were quoted in eighths, the price at which you could sell was 12.5 cents lower than the price at which you could buy. This difference went straight into the pockets of brokers, not investors. It was basically free money.

#3: Internet brokerages. What, you'd rather get on the phone and call someone to make a trade? I love the convenience of E*TRADE and similar platforms.

#4: The growth of prop trading, in and of itself, didn't push out IPOs. It merely filled the void in profits left when IPOs stopped making as much money for the banks.

#5: Keep in mind how research used to be done: banks would effectively promise to write good research on stocks they brought to market. I think it's absurd and insulting to new companies to suggest that no one would buy their stocks unless accompanied by heavily biased "research."

#6: Guess what, shareholders are the owners of the companies. They should have a say in how companies are run. There's a balance between their interests and management's interests, but the author merely asserts that things went to far without providing evidence.

#7: While there's plenty of wealth outside the US, international investors are still able to invest in the US. I don't see why this is a negative for IPOs.

#8: Larger funds: I'll admit that I'm unsure about this criticism. I don't know enough about this area of the market.

#9: Keep in mind that Sarbox was passed to prevent Enron and Worldcom. Its requirements may be onerous, but they're designed to help prevent specific types of fraud that were extremely damaging to the economy. While Sarbox may have reduced IPOs, it also may have reduced the risk of fraud. It's difficult to say.
An opportunity to make a techcrunch url unshortener!
Hire a developer or two and build a MVP to test the idea in the wild.

That way you can see if what you think is a great idea really is.

If not rinse and repeat.

If so add to your team to make it better and keep adding to the product.
Yea, so what's wrong with Apple edging out Amazon?

Why doesn't Amazon allow iBooks to be purchased on the Kindle? They're in direct competition.

I use and love Amazon services, but I have a hard time feeling bad for them in this matter.
At TC Disrupt 2010, a very organized and well resourced event, I personally printed dozens of badges that didn't get printed from event pre-registration.
Hacker Manifesto - Akensai.com
It should be able to handle poorly written HTML. The Web is a wild west, and a cesspit. Deal with it.
And IBM did state that they could run the Watson software on 1 system. (It just took 7 hours to get the confidence level - not 3 seconds)
Source Server with DreamHost VPS - Akensai.com
Why should they not be allowed to generate revenue from someone who is using all of their technology and network distribution work to make their own money?
Cambridge University Student Launches Facebook Fitness Site
#Feb14: In Bahrain, Day of Rage Enters Second Day
Interesting premise ...

Many years ago, back when I was working my way thru high school, my father was a shop manager at a manufacturing plant. One of the perks he had, was deciding what went in the drink cooler. He swore (all day and half the night) that the small bottles of Coke (8 oz or 6 oz) had a better flavor than the larger bottles of Coke did (which were either 12 oz or 16 oz). So, he made sure that there were always 2 rows stocked with the small bottles.

This is from the days when all the bottles were returnable.
try flippa.com
Is it me or is this proposing, for the sake of symmetry, that you expose server-side implementation details on the client? Unless you have client-only and server-only versions of the models, I would think that's what you have to do. It seems like that's exactly what's happening when you have, in client-side code, a boolean called "server" that indicates whether it's running on the server or not.

Now, off the top of my head I can't think of a particular way that this could screw you. But I can't say that it looks like the Right Thing to do either.

I don't know how far the Asana team got with Luna, but I think their approach for a unified client-server model is much closer to how I'd want things to work: http://asana.com/luna/
I think if you're planning on building anything complex, the question is answered by whatever front-end framework you are most familiar with.

Anything complex will require back end services with may be written in whatever language/framework is best suited for the task. Tie it all together via REST and message queues and find the best solution to each problem.
I hate to add noise to the conversation, but I would like to thank you for changing my opinion on this matter. I was wrong and now I understand why.
> If they're extracting some ingredients from cow dung then I think it could hurt them.

Possibly, but people seem pretty resistent to these types of things. Red die being crushed up bugs. Everything in cigarettes. 90% of the ingredients in non-fresh foods. Pesticides on fresh foods. McDonalds....

Coke isn't exactly good for you and I think most people know that. And I think the "eww" factor would have to be pretty horrifying to make people stop drinking it.
His statement definitely feels true the other way though; the most ani-Apple people are geeks.
Internet Explorer is, and always has been the browser that comes with your computer. It works fine, and most regular people will never bother to change it.

Mozilla Firefox has been in this situtation before, and things changed.
No, but I let my little nephews play with my iPod Touch all the time. They love it. I still think it should be monitored, because I don't like children getting addicted to video games, plus I find I need to guide them.

As mentioned, you can block App deletion, and even if an App is deleted, you can easily restore (sure you lose data, but it's not a huge loss). I find little kids stay away from things they don't understand, like Mail, the browser, settings etc. They usually push the home button when they see the "grown-up" stuff, and want the games.

The one big issue is deleting photos. Apple should let you undo that, or maybe lock it.
"Just work harder, then you can get a car!" - the peninsula
If Apple are a monopoly, so are Amazon.

Apple have a monopolistic control over how you sell software for their mobile devices, and Amazon have a similar monopolistic control over how you sell products on their website.

Both can only be an actual real monopoly if they had no realistic competitors. This is not the case for either Apple or Amazon.
Ask HN: I just thought of a startup, got funding and now I am stuck...
Back story about two weeks ago I came up with an idea for an application and it has just snowballed since then.

The app ties telephony in with a smart phone application and does some super cool practical lookups. I have spoken to four people that I have known in my previous companies (not related, but trusted) and from the feedback that I am getting this could be a billion dollar concept.

I have build a Keynote pitch deck, and a demo of the app using keynotopia as well as a functional
design spec for the site, 15 pages of a business plan and proforma expenses, ultra concervative revenue projections and the 3rd party integrations.

I have also built out the entire site as a balsamic screen by screen representation with each part of the process mapped out.

My HUGE issue - of the 4 people that I have spoken to 3 of them have sent written letters of financial commitment to support
the app and the 4th wants to signon as employee number one.

I have "raised" just over $250,000 if I pull the trigger I have the money - but there is a lingering issue.....

My problem is that I am an idea guy, I love technology but I would have no idea of how to actually take it from concept to
beta and from beta to production.

I am stuck, what are my next steps?

Questions in my head:

IP attorney?
Where do I find programming talent?
What order do I do things?
How do I validate the concept?

I need super guidance or even just the next 3 steps.

Thank you,
How Sane Parents Got Paranoid About Vaccines
And if you are looking for a co-founder zipdog's advice above is a great starting point.
> So no more iPod Touch competitor?

Was it ever?
Pirates command a 20% premium over rockstarninjas. Conquistadors may be a more cost effective option (plus, you may be able to offshore them).
How to break out of the 9-to-5 rut?
Hillary Clinton Pledges $25 Million for Internet Freedom Fighters
Well, it was no surprise to most people that Microsoft could release a well-designed MP3 player well after the problem of the MP3 player had been solved. (Although, the Zune Desktop software was way too underpowered for my needs.)

It was also no surprise that it had little impact on the market. They have been 3 steps behind their competition for the entire time. Few differentiating features beyond music subscriptions; a useful feature for some, but clearly most music fans would rather collect music than rent it. And with no connection to their mobile smartphone strategy, the Zune HD was always a dead-end platform.

So the Zune brand is now toxic and worthless. They only way it's mentioned in popular culture is as a punchline to a joke. Microsoft has no choice but to trash it.

But Microsoft will regroup, rename and redesign their desktop music software (again) and release an iPod Touch-like device based on their WP7 platform. I wonder what they'll call it?
I can't stand iTunes as a media player. I'm still using an old version of Winamp.
My 5th grade daughter just brought home a flyer from her teacher explaining how to set the browser's search provider to Bing.

Each kid who does this earns $3 for the class, and the teacher is pushing hard for 100% participation.

There's something noble about building a superior product and competing on the merits.

What's it called when you scrape your competitor's results and then have teachers pimp your product to their 5th graders?
Golf Ball Hits Boner Guy
One crime solved per 1000 cameras
A while back, before the game, I wrote to Ken about one of the videos IBM made about Watson. In it, someone said that Watson "learns" the category. The best strategy for humans, then, is to start at the highest value questions.

When Ken jumped into a category, notice that he started at the highest values.
I would disagree. Apple fundamentally doesn't understand the Internet. MobileMe/.Mac has been a decent disaster for a long time, not even able to meet the quality levels of services that Google gives away for free. That's not because Apple chooses to not like bits about the net, that's because Apple doesn't seem to have any idea what its doing in that space.

I'd say that Apple doesn't just not understand the Internet, but at a higher level, it doesn't understand communication. Look at the iOS notification system: it is, and always has been, fundamentally broken. It assumes you'll only get a single notification, and that that notification is so important that it should interrupt your current app to get it.

Apple have been selling computers in phone formats. Android, Microsoft, and especially Palm, are selling you communicators, that pulls in data from all over your communication space and centralizes it. Apple doesn't seem to know how to do this (or assumes most people don't have an online persona in various locations, which I think most people really do).
The perils of being Pandora
Totally unfeasible. They would have to delete thousands of apps from the store. No consumer would stand for it.
We're not that tight fisted, and besides, what's the point of actively working to make it harder for us to give Apple money?
And unless you were especially lucky, the existence proof would be non-constructive.
Incorrect. Watch the IBM video where they explicitly state that Watson learns the category, as well.
In the post it said they were only making $50-300 a conference. That sort of business is tough to scale. It's like those guys who take your photo at Disneyland. It doesn't sound like they were leaving that much money on the table.
How Do You Encourage Your Employees to Work Together?
From a security perspective, this is also a bad idea. One of the golden rules of security is to validate all input. Anything which the programmers didn't expect and check for can potentially be used as part of an exploit.
I can't keep count of the number of people who I talk to on a daily basis online or in person, at networking events, etc... that acts as if their idea is so revolutionary that they must keep it to themselves. This is utter bullshit.

In all the time I've been an entrepreneur (over a decade), I've built many successful businesses, sold my companies, etc.. I've never had the problem of anyone stealing my idea except on one incident. And that guy didn't even understand the nature of the business fully or where the vision ended up and gave up after a few months.

Let's be clear about a few things. Your company WILL pivot whether in a small way or big way. Your overall mission and vision WILL change. Anyone that thinks they got everything figured out from day one deserves to be called a retard. Not telling people about your idea has more negative consequences than sharing it with the world.

I can't keep track of the number of times I've received valuable insights, advice, help, connections, etc etc... telling people (including strangers) about what I'm doing. The feedback and help I received in return help me make valuable pivots as needed. Thinking you should hide your idea means you should really look closely in the mirror and reevaluate yourself.

While I believe there are some things you should keep secret, the general idea itself is not one of them.

Side note: Those who use Facebook as an example, please be realistic. Had the Winklevoss Twin and their friend continue, do you realistically believe Facebook (by any other name) would be where it is today? Most of the later innovation that kept Facebook the leader it is today is base on the current Facebook team, not some concept that the idea originated from.
Statically typed "pure" functional languages have somewhat different tradeoffs when it comes to looking up functions; the style of code completion common in OO languages doesn't work, but because the type of a function encodes so much more meaning about what the function does, you are often able to find the function you are looking for just by giving its type to a tool like Haskell's Hoogle. This is less automatic, but it enables you to search a large array of libraries simultaneously, which is very helpful when you don't know what library contains the function in question!