skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We run a big online restaurant guide in The Netherlands.

At the beginning of 2009, our income from AdSense (our main source of income) halved overnight and later dropped to about 25%. We had a little bit of money in the bank, but not enough to survive for more than a few months.

We immediately focussed on finding and developing alternative sources of income and those sources have now become our main sources of income and have enabled us to grow a lot.

Without that crisis, we probably wouldn't have grown as much as we have.
Agreed. Kind of boss.
Diploma mills and for-profit schools take advantage of the fact that many prospective students assume that accreditation conveys legitimacy and quality, as determined by an official and/or independent authority.

Besides the apparently bogus agencies cited in the article about Lorenz, established for-profits control their own national accreditation body, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Another tactic is to latch on to national agencies that have traditionally served vocational schools and community colleges, such as the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP). This is how the University of Phoenix has accredited its MBA and DBA programs.

Regional agencies are regarded as the gold standard in the United States, but the for-profits figured out a way to game that system, too: Buy out small, struggling non-profit colleges that have regional accreditation, and then replace the old curriculum and mission with scalable, high-profit online programs. The regional accreditation transfers, although there's no guarantee it will be renewed the next time it is reviewed.

One well-known example involved an obscure Catholic school in Iowa with 312 students known as Franciscan University of the Prairies. It was bought in 2005 by Bridgepoint Education, renamed "Ashford University", and turned into an online university with 42,000 students. It was nevertheless able to keep its regional accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, although it is apparently trying to transfer accreditation to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges -- the same body that has accredited Stanford, the UC and California State systems, etc.

For more information about the for-profit higher education phenomenon in the U.S., I recommend the following Frontline special, "College Inc.":

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/
I'll be showing this article to my high school computer science students to try to raise the excitement level among some of them.

Programming is hard enough that kids have to be pretty motivated to choose to do it. At our school, Computer Science is an elective at the High School level, and it is more difficult than many of the other courses they could take. Although most of our students think computers are cool, they also think they know all they need to know about computers without having to wrestle with the tediousness of getting the syntax right and figuring out why their programs are locking up.

I learned to program as a kid because in the late 70s, that was about the only thing you could do with a computer. I was lazy enough as a teenager that if I had an Xbox 360, iPhone, and other electronic distractions, I might not have bothered.

Now I find that I have rather deep knowledge about a technology that permeates our lives today. I would like my students to get excited enough about gaining that kind of knowledge that they will do the hard work it takes to reach such a goal. I think it could help if I put into their imaginations the idea of getting a superpower.
I agree, but I find rails to be very pragmatic. Of course it's no silver bullet, but for many of the projects I've worked on in the past it was a good fit. I feel like it is pretty low friction and has a moderate learning curve as compared with more 'enterprise' frameworks.
Looks great! Do you think you'll be including support for CoffeeScript?
What's wrong with cym.uk?
It takes weeks to retrain one's mind to think in a new paradigm. It took me 8 weeks (years ago) to 'get' OOP, coding every day. Maybe I'm slow, but something on that order is expected.

To change means painful, unproductive days. I went home sweating every day(!)

So some of the emotion regarding choise of paradigm is of course personal - we all want to stay where we are comfortable. Then we rationalize why that is best.

I believe the CMU profs have taken a different tack - how to teach folks relatively new (< 20 years?) to computers. They may choose any paradigm that works, and they seem to be perfectly trained to make that decision well.

As for job opportunities for their graduates, CMU has traditionally had zero problem there. So we shouldn't cry any alligator tears for them. They will learn 'practical' OOP etc as needed at their first job.
Clickable: http://www.stumpedia.com

You say it's already making money, so kudos to you. You say you've tried finding a technical co-founder but without success.

If it's making money, can you not see a way to have it make more money? Is there some value in becoming a better developer than you currently are, and then improving the site to generate more money?

I guess the answer to your question depends more on what you want to do.
I actually think this related announcement is cooler: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint-integrate...

"So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your computer through Gmail."

Sprint has, in the past, had its own services that would compete with this. That they're opening their network to an outside solution is great for customers. It is probably a sign of Sprint's weakness in the market that they're willing to do it, but I hope they will be rewarded with some customer share for doing this.
Open Source Mobile Telecommunications
Amazon CLI: 0-Click Shopping
Returns are always a pain in the butt. No matter how easy you make it sound, people are going to be anxious about it. But even assuming returns are effortless, they're a HUGE money sinkhole for online retailers (Zappos returns average 35%).
I thought his question was perfectly legitimate and interesting. I look for people like me who've succeeded for inspiration and ideas.

The black experience in the United States is likely quite different than the white one. Ever watched a Tyler Perry movie? His films have grossed over $400 Million and go largely unseen by whites. It's because the black experience in the USA is so different. The people who live it, identify with it.

I'm sure it really was a fair question based on interest. Not any sort of accusation.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback. Sorry for the letdown. My post about dress.me was for the AppSumo Lean Startup Challenge. I'm working on the landing page as fast as I can! Hope you'll stay tuned.
The Difference Between Business Development and Direct Selling
Don't focus on the size of the company.

Smaller companies will be more ready to discuss and consider nontraditional job experience. Smaller companies will be easier to analyze for exactly what kinds of projects you'll be working on. Smaller companies will be more transparent in terms of giving you an idea how your work environment will feel. Smaller companies will allow you to make changes to your own circumstances more easily. Smaller companies will be more likely to recognize, and reward, real talent rather than ass-kissing and toeing the company line. While larger companies tend to be more resilient to the vagaries of the market, thus ensuring their continued existence, they achieve that in part by being willing to lay off hundreds or thousands of good workers at a time when the going gets tough, thus eliminating any imagined job security benefit (though there are exceptions, like Toyota).

About the only advantage a big company really has is the ability to make a lateral career move with greater ease, in organizations that encourage hiring from within, because they're more willing to hire someone without relevant experience as long as they have plenty of experience within that organization.

Remember, there's a difference between "startup" and "smaller company". Many smaller companies are stable, friendly work environments where people have a fair bit of autonomy (relative to the vast majority of the bigger companies), without suffering the problems that afflict dysfunctional startups. You don't need to take the diametrical opposite career track to get a couple of benefits that are lacking in your current circumstances; you just need to make a change by enough degrees that it addresses the specific problems you currently face. In fact, you're more likely to be happy that way, because you don't have to give up as much of what you like about your current circumstances (even if you do not realize there are things you like about it).

edit: Okay, maybe you should focus on the size of the company somewhat -- but not the way you think.
I would advise waiting until you have a girlfriend with good taste...

How would you know she has good taste?
Stephen Colbert on the history of AT&T
In complete seriousness, if the author is on this site... were you by any chance sitting in the table next to me at Cambridge Brewing Company a few days ago :) I was literally just talking about working on something like this with my girlfriend after a long terrible day of trying to buy a shirt ;)

I always find it fascinating how sometimes ideas can go a long time untouched, but when someone finally decides to work on it, it seems like 20 other people had the same idea at once.
Never heard of Trunk Club, but I love the execution. The interesting thing I'm taking away as a point of comparison is how superior an identity like "Trunk Club" is versus a simple "I found a clever domain that was available" type identity like dress.me.

"Dress Me" is kind of immasculating/infantilizing, whereas Trunk Club is kind of exclusive and sort of has an old world sophistication to it, both in use of throwback terminology "trunk" and the fact that clubs are such "guy things."

Not really comparing the feasibility of one business or the other, just pointing out my reaction to the identities...
This idea is genius! I really need this!
If only some programmable general purpose robot was available, programming could do that too :) Currently you'll need electronics and mechanical superpowers as well.
I believe only a few US states elect judges; they're usually appointed.
> even those who are not particularly racist themselves, have something of a blind-spot for noticing the depth of racism within German society.

In this context it's worth pointing out that my grandpa was a Nazi, and even worse, as is one of my cousins to this day - in an otherwise lefty-liberal family. So if I want to see racism, I don't have to look very hard. But even the Nazi cousin behaved normally toward my girl friend at the time, I guess his hatred is geared more toward anonymous concepts and not actual people. When I asked him flat-out, he spouted some nonsense about how my girl friend is somehow not part of "The Turkish Problem" at all.

> surely you'd agree that in many, many families it would be an issue?

I'm not even remotely qualified to answer this in a meaningful way, especially after the feedback I got here today. All I can say is that, being from Germany, I know a lot of people who elevated being mean and destructive into an artform. Some of them are fascists, some of them are bad in other ways. What I can attest to is the general social climate here, it's just as bad as the actual climate.
Please write this web app: Stand-up performance aggregator
On that same note, can we also stop with the false-modesty meme? A lot of what we do is actually pretty cool and it does take a certain amount of smarts, hard word, and yes even talent to be at the top of your game. There's nothing wrong with saying so or being proud of it.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't break any laws. You have the right to pay someone to give you a useless piece of paper.

As a side note, I thought it was amusing that you mentioned that a "university" would target the uneducated. (Yes, I'm using the term "university" very loosely).
A new model for long-form journalism?
http://oonwoye.com/2010/04/05/black-founders/
It's too bad they still don't offer a keyboard model. Does Google seriously think that virtual keyboards are acceptable for writing long messages?
And the screen resolution is a disappointment. Isn't it about time to move beyond WVGA?
Because they need to make money somewhere, I assume. Totally fair.
The actual Stack Exchange for Progamming Puzzles / Interview Questions / etc is at http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/
Ask HN: For companies with 2+ founders, how did you split equity?
And ideally, what is each person's role in the company. Have most co-founders simply split equity 50%/50%?
Differing opinions and priorities are the primary reason that the world doesn't act in unison. It is the basis for differing political parties, ideals and religions.

While most people agree that rights are important, it is each individual's experiences that determines which items are prioritized in their mind. Education is important. Health care is important. Civil liberties are important. Freedom of expression is important. Ask any number of different people which is the most important, and you're likely to get any number of different answers.
It doesn't do this at all. It just shifts the crowded .com space into the root space, causes more confusion for everyone, and eliminates the possibility of any future expansion. Once a name is allocated, it's gone forever - you can't just demand it back or change the rules.
Yeah and it is already full of terrible replies to questions with no way to downvote or even comment on why they are wrong.
It hit me one day last year that all I ever did at my job was create virtual paperwork.
How would you know that it isn't being used that way? Even if the evidence isn't being used directly at trial, it could sure be used to help 'guess' when a good time to stake out someone's house might be.
Almost got it right: good programming skills and the ability to get your head into different problem areas of business and/or science is the super power.
Great idea. Thanks for posting this!

Reminds me of an advice my friend gave me once. I was writing a small game with a ball flying between planets in 2D space. Sometimes the ball would travel outside of the screen boundaries. I used to draw a marker on the proper side of the screen to point to where the ball is. The friend suggested much better idea - a circle centered on the ball should be drawn, with radius big enough to make it visible on the game screen. The continuous change of the curvature and length of the visible part of the circle provides feedback on the ball-to-screen distance in the same way that, in your example, hand gestures can provide information on the distance between the car and the wall.

Screenshot: http://temporal.pr0.pl/devblog/download/projects/ClozeCall/s...

Note the part of the circle visible near the bottom of that picture.
It all boils down to the context that switch is used. And with the growing popularity of loosely typed languages, it's probably not a good idea to make such sweeping statements.
What are the "this or that" questions? As Jkkramer pointed out, fit is the most important thing. I want to input my body measurements, and have you spit out the companies whose clothes closest match my body measurements. For example, APC makes great jeans, but they're too tight for me in the thighs, despite being appropriately sized in the waist, knee and cuff.
Love the links and too funny there is one in France with a similar name. What is interesting is only focused on women.
If you are comfortable with FP at a low level then jump in and give it a try. At a high level the two approaches tend to not look that different. Why, because the end goal is the same: clean interfaces to logically organized components. It shouldn't be too surprising that a logical, and consistent interface to a Balanced binary tree or bank account looks very similar once you get past the implementation details.
You will have a "car accident."

Well, actually you won't, but only because you will "listen to reason" when some well-dressed uninvited guests come over for an evening chat.

Call me mad, but do you ever wonder why there is no consumer hardware PGP telephone?
This makes it impossible to trust certain namespaces. If I go to a .gov or .gov.uk, for example, I know it's the official site. Where the hierarchical system is used (eg. .ac.uk and presumably .edu) it is still very useful.

Getting rid of the suffixes eliminates this and brings us down to the free-for-all level of the .com for all sites.
I think I am going to start a degree-granting "University." I will give credit for life accomplishments, but my standards will be especially narrow and contrived. I will give credit for:

- Commits to open source projects

- Answers on Stack Overflow

- Karma on Hacker News

I will also require students to write essays, however I will permit the student to submit blog posts as essays. I will use PageRank or upvotes by Hacker News to determine the letter grade awarded for the "essay."
Interestingly, the same viewpoint exists in Belgium but towards Moroccans and not so much the Turks. The problem is that in the 60's Belgium had a guest worker program which brought the majority of the Turks and Moroccans to Belgium. This helped build up a lot of portions of Belgium however when the worker program was ended in the mid 70's people failed to realize that at this point people had established themselves in a new country and they weren't simply going to go back to their home countries. With family reunification laws these guest workers were able to bring in their families and settle themselves completely.

There is a lot of racism back in Belgium towards Moroccans, and they are certainly treated as the minority group (at least when I lived there 10+ years ago). This leads me back to a previous post in this thread, where the bottom line is that minority's aren't offered the same opportunities as other citizens and therefor behave differently back towards society - causing further racism. Sadly this has caused it to go as far as having a far-right political party (Vlaams Blok) gain more and more traction because the views of the populous are slowly matching their viewpoints on nationalism.

It would not surprise if the same mentality exist in various other countries that are experiencing the same type of historical issues with regards to racism.
Wow, this looks really great.

One small suggestion: can you s/git// on the git shell? because I'm really used to type "git <cmd>" in a shell and it's hard to change the habit.
* A little bit faster. It's just fine for typing, but the menus and toolbar are a little bit slow.

* Why only GIT? Support Mercurial with bitbucket if possible.

* Add a context menu when user right clicks the mouse. It's important to have a copy/paste feature for files for example.

... and I'll move my JavaScript coding to it.
Career Cup has been doing this for quite a while -- http://www.careercup.com/
Post-launch marketing / public relations
Just something I threw together last week, but in case anybody needs it, I've put together some resources for post-launch at http://loudstartup.com/

The inspiration was based on something HN user 'str' put together last month, but that seems to have disappeared now, which I noticed when I needed it.

It's not a startup, or even a side-project really, just a page with some links, ordered by popularity. If anybody would like anything added, please let me know.
Thanks for the comment.

I may have done Mono some injustice - it's actually not that hard. The toughest part is installing the latest Mono stable, and that's more of an issue with Ubuntu than with Mono. If you choose another distribution (SuSE and Arch come to mind), you could probably make your life a lot easier as they have more recent versions in their repos.

If you can stay away from the bleeding edge and don't have to install the latest version yesterday, the Badgerports repo solves the first part of the article for you, and you're left with configuring nginx and XSP's FastCGI server which is more-or-less equivalent to any other FastCGI setup with nginx.

I do think it could be easier than it is, but it seems to have more to do with the Ubuntu/Mono relationship than anything else.
Clickable - http://loudstartup.com
Yes, I remember speed being an issue, and I wasn't trying to subtract from the usefulness of this creation.
http://www.javascript-spreadsheet-programming.com/
So something that could be done by anyone with a paper, pen, and the technical know-how to operate a ruler, is now replaced by someone with a specialized domain knowledge that is creating something that will need to be maintained and likely obsolete in a few years. And they call this progress.
Yeah. I saw a 280North presentation at FOWA Miami a few years back. Those guys are great.
YPG Ad Alert: Why I'm Miffed, eh
As per some of the other comments,I would prefer that we don't take the "super hero" meme too far, especially since the barriers to entry are decreasing every day as new, even easier to use tools, are rolled out. (For example, back in the 90's, anyone with solid power point skills was a "Super Hero" to those who needed presentations put together quickly and cheaply.) Being a really good miner/gold panner in the 1840's would have also given a person "super hero" like powers to the extent they could participate in the gold rush.

However, one thing that still stands out to me about programming is something the Paul G. said in one of his essays. I don't remember which one and don't have time to look for the exact wording, but it was something along the lines that programming/IT was one of the last areas where someone, through their own hard work, ingenuity and innovation, working in a "garage" could create phenomenal wealth. Although very few will ever achieve Gates/Zuckerberg type wealth (or even any kind of wealth at all), the very fact that it is possible is appealing to many. Plus, it's fun along the way...
Yeah I found that one interesting too. May be a sign of more Google/Sprint integration to come.

I just recently had to cancel my Sprint service as I was no longer going to need it and it was a pleasant experience - the ETF came to only 63$ after Sprint paid $107 for returning the Epic 4G! (I wasn't aware you could return the phone - the rep went out of her way to inform me of that.) I wish them well.
You could work on the Freedom Box.

http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721744279/push-the-freed...
I think the premise that men hate to shop is quite false. Men perceivably hate to shop because many men don't appreciate the art of looking beautiful and it's usually because our society doesn't instill that in men - we are instilled with this sense that women are fashionable and men don't have any fashion sense (which is bs). I actually really like to shop for clothes that make me look good but it has taken me a while to realize it and to realize that my style wasn't "unfashionable" it just needed some "guidance".

And that, IMHO, is what you should be targeting - not the fact that men hate to shop but that most don't have the confidence to refine their own personal style...

Geeks/men aren't slobs and we don't always hate to shop.
I'm guessing the author has never watched an aircraft being guided into it's parking spot at an airport. The ground crew does the same thing with the handheld cones/flashlights.