skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ebooks Software Review | Ebook Pro 6.0 Publishing System ROCKS
I just finished trying out Derek Gehl’s new eBook Pro 6.0 secure ebooks software publishing system, and I wanted to share my experience with you so you could decide if this system is right for your present or future ebook publishing business.
Not one figure passed the smell test. If you can actually say "1 dollar here or there provides x or y ROI" life would be pretty simple. It isn't simple.

For my part, I would put every penny on genetic engineering R&D. The ROI would either be zero or infinite.
Steve Jobs called, he said to tell you he's ready for his next BJ.
That's sort of like what Slashdot does for karma.
"Karma: Excellent"
>> High rates of heart disease in indian vegetarians...

Have you ever been to an Indian restaurant and ordered a vegetarian meal? While incredibly flavorful, I wouldn't classify it as even moderately healthy--
Walt Mossberg (WSJ) loves Xobni
Okay, now for a self reply - I have to call you out, ctingom. I went down to check out Gangplank tonight, and the guy I talked to (who worked for one of the companies down there) said he wasn't sure if you'd ever been to a Gangplank event! (He did know who you were though; I'd asked for you so I'd have the news.YC connection to get an explanation about what was going on down there).

Anyways, it seemed pretty cool over there, but it's definitely just a step up from going to the coffee shop to code - I guess I should have brought my laptop and a project to work on.

I think I'll check out Refresh next; that sounds like a pretty good stop.
Very interesting, but the problems have less to do with raising life expectancy than they do with a drop in birth rates.

The former is easily enough fixed: raise retirement age. The problems of the old "blocking the way", are not a problem if there is growth.

But a drop in birth rates is a big problem that has little to do with life expectancy, most countries are built on growth. Few know how to manage things with a shrinking, or static population.

And to make it worse the higher the class of the person/country, the less kids, which is very bad. Reminds me of the idiocracy movie.

Plus those that can most afford it have the least kids, again, that's not right.

So everyone: if you consider yourself better then average, take a pledge to have lots of kids. You owe it to the future.
I didn't say anything about who YC funds. Trolling is a stretch--this is number one on pg's list of "startup mistakes"
and sarcasm != trolling.

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
Great. I can see positive responses that a person may have to a demonstration of Vista by a trained salesperson.

We have no idea how many thousands of people Microsoft had to go through in order to elicit these few positive responses.

I work in IT and Vista is just a major headache. It's fine once you get used to it and turn off all the flashy features, but at that point it's hard to see the difference between it and XP. There are a lot of changes for the sake of change, and many of them hurt usability a lot. For example, the old Network Connections control panel has been changed and hidden multiple mouse-clicks deep for no real reason. What if I want to enable a network adapter? There's no easy way to do it!

Maybe the next version of Windows will bring real changes that make sense, rather than slapping a pretty face on an old OS and changing things around just enough so people don't notice it's the same thing.
I am having the same issue on FF3/Ubuntu(Hardy)... Hmmm...

Edit: Oddly enough, open in Opera (Linux) and you get one continuous page - no slides...
LOL, I don't think the github guys are worried about pissing off the lighthouse guys. Hell, you can do issue tracking in git itself with Scott Chacon's awesome Ticgit (http://github.com/schacon/ticgit/tree/master). I would think it would take them a day to slap a web interface on that.

Instead, I think they don't WANT to do ticket tracking. That's not what github is about. It's a social network built around code. I don't think it's a business oriented project management site.
Did you actually read the article? Rather than "It really isn't hard" what you wrote does not work.
Well perhaps the food levels eaten during childhood determine the set point. By the time you're an adult it's too late.
These slides are totally offbase about static files with nginx and memcached. I've benched large nginx clusters storing static file page caches in memcached against just serving them from a GFS filesystem and giving linux lots of ram for buffer cache. Got about 8kreq/sec via nginx+memcached but got 23kreq/sec from nginx+filesystem with lots of buffer cache.
"There are only 3 ways to find the root cause of a problem:

1. Right Way

2. Wrong way

3. 37 Signals way."

- comment on SvN (Mike)
Lower infant mortality is a direct result of medical technology.

Birth rates before the so called baby boom in this century were significantly, consistently higher, but this has never happened before because not enough of those boom babies survived.

The article mentions that the maximum life expectancy has basically never increased.
Give me a break.

Ya, the site could be designed better. Is it a Basecamp copy simply because he intelligently uses "above the fold" and then answers a few question in a two-column format below the fold? How many other sites do that? Many! Certainly those that want a modicum of success, and are aware of the home page "design patterns" that are in use today, do.

I plan on using the exact same design pattern for my projects.

I can't even say that 37Signals pioneered the pattern but they might be responsible for popularizing it. It works.

If anything Peldi deserves a little credit for utilizing a well known pattern to get his site up and saving his time for developing his app.
Thank you! That video was marvelous.
Morphisms for the Masses
If you're having hardware compatability issues, try using regular x86 Linux. It tends to have better driver support, and in my experience Flash and Wine also work better.
Five Open Questions in Email
Some Web Apps Work Better Together
pixish.com is another - decent choice if budget is an issue.
I love it as well but I had to ditch it. I'm anxiously awaiting the words "dramatically improved Outlook start up time" on their blog.
really? It's not noticeably slower for me.
nib files can contain behavior.
The number of fat cells becomes fixed by the end of adolescence. As a child, fatty cells proliferate, but remain rather small. Your daily food as a kid influences how many cells you'll end up having as an adult.

Kids nowadays have a horrible diet of sugary drinks and fatty pseudo-chocolate treats.

Fat cells are very much involved in total body weight control, both through enzymes and by hosting lipid-soluble hormones in their oil droplets. So an adult having a lot of fat cells is at a disadvantage in a McBurger world.
Here's Knuth's way to keep a running variance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithms_for_calculating_vari...
Didn't the 'blind taste testers' realize the OS was running slow as molasses?
I'm pretty happy with Balsamiq's successs. He found a design that works for him and his customers. If anything this post is a troll cleverly disguised as a compliment.
I would think EngineYard would buy them out way before Google would, seeing as they just got some big funding. Logical Awesome might be pretty happy having a kick-ass business that they control but then again money talks and...
Sounds like a good candidate for Ycombinator Africa edition.
Exactly. A proper test would have a control group - perhaps Windows XP with a different theme.

Also the applications wouldn't be selected for a particular outcome, eg, running on Vista.
MYOB Indonesia - MYOB for Linux? - MYOB Forum - Mixx
MYOB Indonesia - MYOB Compares to other systems - MYOB Forum
yeah, the only thing bad about quick sales is short term capital gains :)
Inside Cuil: strawberries and muffins
CNN on Hype Machine: Gatekeeper of the MP3 blogosphere
How do you recommend approaching Rails from a Django background?

edit: also your signup process doesn't work
Dropping the cost to create solar energy has a larger long term impact than building more solar cells with existing tech. If we want to change to 100% green tech in 20 years it may be a good idea to postpone most investments in green infrastructure 5 years and focus on research. Think in terms of a render farm if you buy 100k in PC's now and calculate for 5 years you generate a result. But by waiting one year to start and then buing 100k in PC's you will finish sooner and have a more valuable render farm.
Stacked results are what work best.
But Cuil had to make themselves look visually inovative, just to be considered 'diferent' from Google. If not journalists would say that they were equal to Google/Yahoo - no matter how better, or worse, the technology and search results.

Even, as it is the case, the UI doesn't help the user.
I think that misses the point of this MARKETING CAMPAIGN ;) They don't want a real study, they just want something SHINY to show people...
The older beta was fine for me as well. Over time it slowly got slower and eventually got to the point where I had to wait two minutes for Outlook to open. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I have five accounts in Outlook? PC is decent enough at 3ghz with 2gb of ram. I miss xobni but it had to go.
Congrats to Xobni on the great publicity. Was this in the print version as well?
That paragraph in the article really got on my nerves, because the whole idea of a "set point" for weight is wrong. There is no set point for weight. The only reason people think there is one is because it's a nice, neat hypothesis. Unfortunately, it is directly contradicted by evidence.

Your body does not try to return to a some weight, but rather resists changes in weight. Given constant diet and exercise, weight will asymptotically settle at some value and stay there. Make a significant change to diet and/or exercise, and the asymptote changes accordingly.
Perhaps the problem is that the study only considered exercise is moderate.

<antecdote> I've found high intensity exercise for short periods of time (20-40 minutes, 3-4 times a week) has far more effect for me personally than moderate exercise (45-60 minutes, 5-6 times a week) I've seen more personal improvement doing CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) than I ever did previously going to the local gym. </antecdote>
Is the hardware support worse on the 64s than the 32s?
"vote for the answers that they like best"

oops... they missed the point :)
I guess, to me, maybe that's a part of the issue. I define a third route for a startup. Make money. So I have trouble with that lesser definition. I'd have called 37 Signals a startup (still might, when does being a startup end--I don't know how to draw the line).

I worked at a software company which has 5 buildings it owns outright, employs thousands of people, and has 300 million+ in annual revenue. In the 70's it was started by one person. I'd have called it a "startup" at the time. It is still private.

The difference perhaps revolves around "startup appropriate for Y Combinator" vs "startup."
Ask YC: Many small investors or few bigger investors
I am in the process of trying to put together my first round of funding. In order to launch I would like to raise $400k. What I am hearing is that $400k is a tough amount to raise: smaller than most VCs, but on the top end of Angels.

The good news is that I am getting some interest in the $20k - $50k range.

So, YC, what do you think? Is it crazy to try and piece together enough money from small investors or should I hold out for 1-3 larger funders?
The key is portion size. French cuisine may be more dense, but they eat less of it.
Caterina Fake (Flickr founder) joins Hunch
Besides Caterina's description of Hunch as "a consumer internet application, it will have a lot of user participation, and it is more than a little fun", does anyone have any insight on what Hunch might be ?
How's bandwidth a non-renewable resource?
Interesting app.

Congrats! I think it's looking good!
"The number of fat cells becomes fixed by the end of adolescence."

Uh, reference? I think you're wrong there. From what I remember, new fat cells grow when weight is gained, and are "deflated", but mostly survive, when weight is lost.
Ars Technica reviews Firefox 3.1 alpha 1
There's no unused pixel.

Really? What about the rounded corners on the top of the menu bar?

No, you don't care, because you like looking down your lengthy xmonad nose at us common serfs, but a lot of us LIKE doing a lot of different things with our computer, and Apple doesn't compromise: we get an efficient system AND one that, you know, does stuff.

I never said I looked down at anyone. I use Xmonad because I think that managing window geometry is a job for the computer, not me. The more the computer does for me, the better. I only want to work on programming, or writing, or reading hacker news; not arranging windows, selecting The Perfect Desktop Background, managing the position of files on a desktop, etc. Those things waste my time.
People like you, make me cry
In case anyone's wondering, the site is registered to Microsoft. But anyway the presentation is so shiny it's obvious it's an ad. (From the stating the obvious dept.)
I'm surprised Hasbro even made an offer

I'm not. Buying them would have saved Hasbro the effort of hiring developers that knew the Facebook API, getting popular on Facebook, etc. They would have instantly had a popular product and qualified developers to work on the project.
Buildbot: Automate the compile/test cycle
Why do you close outlook...?
Infant morality is now effectively zero, and isn't what the article is talking about, with respect to future events.

Rather, look at how the pyramids stop being pyramids through time:

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us/Age_distribution

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/in/Age_distribution
CueCat wasn't all bad. I received several free barcode scanners which had better uses than scanning magazine ads once they were hacked...
I mentioned them and HelloTxt.
bike shed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_of_the_bikeshed
Knuth's routine to separate the the "man-compilers" from the "boy-compilers"
I believe its not really much about what he found, and it has nothing to do with "cracking networks", the security on the computers he had access was non existent. The funny thing is that they have no "proof" of the damage he caused, but apparently US idiotic laws don't require that. I feel sorry for the UK justice power and their inability to do something about one of their people fighting against unreasonable laws of another country.
Australian Government Proposes Checking MP3 Players at Airports
Project to rebuild Internet gets $12M, bandwidth
It comes out in print tomorrow in the WSJ
I think scientists need a social network more than anyone...not so much a completely social network but definitely a professionally focused social network like this one.
Peridot Jewelry and Peridot Rings
Spring green Peridot jewelry and Peridot rings. Peridot jewelry is for August birthstone.
If you find yourself doing photo-centric blogging, try OurDoings. Friendfeed will pick up the images from OurDoings as well as the post title.
We're certainly beating a dead horse here, but I just can't get over how bad it is. I keep trying different searches and I keep getting astonished at how off the results are. Did they run any test queries at all? I'm calling conspiracy on this one. Something is up.
Python insights
Theres a funny story of a mac laptop owner that set the built in camera to record frames, so that when it was stolen he actually got some pictures taken of the crook flipping it open. Similarly maybe this system should be wifi based, as a small embedded computer, so that whenever it is in range you can interact with it.

For SMS messaging it he uses a go-phone that might be reasonable because I don't like the idea of devoting a SIM card and a regular mobile subscription for this.
Ask YC: Critique/comment on our webapp
At the start of July myself and 3 friends committed our spare time to building a functional webapp within a month. We would love any feedback you guys can offer.

Spicy Elephant
http://spicyelephant.com

Niche: Learning and memorization (flashcards)
Monetization: subscription model (premium account)
Core Advantage: web-based advanced (supermemo) scheduling algorithm (only study when you need to)

cheers
Nice design. Don't know if I'd pay for the market, but I am not the target market.

Also, typo on the first sample flashcard: "It is proven that if you review material to[ extra o] soon and you waste your time, too late and you have to relearn. Intelligent scheduling is about training at the point of forgetting."
Forgive me if this question has been asked countless times already, but is Xobni going to be available for anything besides Outlook?
You can also create inflation by any number of different means. One very good way is to encourage consumer spending (not investment!) when most of what consumers are buying is manufactured in other countries then imported.
Congrats! Great news!
{Sh,C}ouldn't the RSS feed be fixed instead?
He's probably thinking of human muscle cells.
Read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The scientific evidence supports the theory that carbos, especially refined carbs and sugars, are the cause of obesity and a raft of modern ailments. The most striking comment was that input (eating) and output (exercise) are dependent variables... something that these eatless/exercisemore approaches ignore.
Startups consist of much more than just "number of lines of code written." It's not that black and white.

When you make an acquisition, you inherit not just code, but you inherit the massive amounts of iterations the product went through. That's part of the problem these days: everyone looks at a product and they forget the painstaking amount of time and dedication that went into getting it that far. It took a lot of sleepless nights and coffee.

Not to mention, you're inheriting the users (which also have an acquisition cost, even to Omnisio, it may have been going around and talking to people individually about feature requests and bugs, etc).

In addition, you're acquiring the talent behind the startup. These are people who not just understand how to code, but they develop products with the user in mind. They have the determination and persistence to get updates done and out the door. If you sit these guys in front of a board, or in front of investors, they have already proven that they will not flake out or give up. This is something that sounds trivial, but a lot of people lack the self-motivation to direct a project like this into completion and market adoption.

I'm missing a lot of other things, but that gives you an idea that the startup you look at is far more than just pages that show stuff.

Also, major props to the really strong UI work at Omnisio. UI is becoming one of the most overlooked aspects of technology. People focus a lot on the engineering or code or architecture or scaling, but forget that the usability is really what makes it enjoyable to use the product in the first place.
> My main criticism is that there should be an explicit "save" button or link for notes.

Done. :)
are you saying the phrase "too soon" should be "to soon"?

thats not right.
No, I added the 'extra o'. It says 'to' originally.
Gotta give it to MS, this one is brilliant from an advertising perspective. As so many pointed out here, it isn't valid science, but it isn't meant to be. It points out that people expect Vista to suck from what they read, but when they try it they actually like it.

Could this be the start of Microsoft finally not sucking at advertising?
Blogger "hacks" Sony BMG using credit card, Google AdWords
Affordable Wedding Dresses, Discount Bridal Gowns
Save up to 80% on affordable wedding dresses, beautiful discount bridal gowns, coordinating bridesmaid dresses, flowergirl dresses and wedding accessories.
That's pretty straight forward. It goes without saying that the more ownership of the company you can retain via self funding the larger the potential return is going to be. I would suggest looking at VC money as diluting risk rather than relinquishing unrealized wealth.
Improving Search in Dr. Scheme
1. Why not have people enter their answers onto the web form instead of using the honor system? The answers all seem to be textual, you could check them yourself and score them instantly.

2. Even if you don't auto-score them, it'd help to show the answer. It's sometimes hard to remember what you just said when you have to evaluate how well you said it.

3. The "Study" link needs to be more prominent when viewing a deck.

4. How's this better than paper flashcards?
The syntax of Smalltalk is simple as is the syntax of Lisp. You can create more powerful constructs and define whatever arbitrary syntax you like with both languages.

Perl and other C/ALGOL-based-languages don't offer this luxury as they force you to use for loops and while loops and other control structures. Lisp gives you a general do loop and recursion and you define your own control structures based on that. Smalltalk is the same way...a loop is merely a message with a block sent to a receiver object.

Perl, C, Python, etc. have rigid syntax and control structures and keywords defined. Common Lisp has only the control structures defined and you can add your own syntax using macros or the syntax read-table. With Smalltalk, the collection objects may have a "while" loop defined, but I can over-ride it if I like.
Congratulations on pulling the app together so quickly. Out of curiosity, is there research to suggest that using flashcards is a superior way of learning? For example, for languages, isn't it better to practice with a native speaker to understand the subtleties of the language, expressions, etc.? Personally, I am now more likely to rely on the Internet as a store of facts, like capitals of the world, rather than commit such facts to memory.
My experience with dating sites is from a few years ago and not very extensive, but I disagree that men have no way of standing out. I'd say that a well-formed, a few paragraphs long, somewhat targeted (i.e., making references to the things in the woman's profile) and not openly desperate message gives you a very good chance of getting a reply. It's true women get a lot of attention but it's mostly trash. I think it's best to focus on profiles without photos.
How long have you been using the OS? After about a week using it I'd had no problems with contrast OR with the buttons up top.

The finder windows, depending on customization, usually show exactly what you need. You don't need to go to the menu bar up top. There are icons in the bar that sort it automatically. As for undo arrange: considering arrange is realigning a view, the idea is that it's not an action per se. So, again, hate to be disrespectful, but I've never come across that stuff myself.