skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know I'm going to get downmodded for this but I have to agree with Captain-M.

The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need to improve" is toxic, and usually fatal for a company in the long run (... the others aren't going to be content with sitting in second place forever).

My earlier-gen MBP, iPhone, iPods etc are all rock solid (I'm delighted with them all), but I could easily see a situation where quality could go south on new products in the rush to cut costs and get to market faster.

I hope that's not the case. It would be little comfort to me as a new buyer if my machine bricked for no reason, and some smug fanboy pointed out that other people who bought Macs in the past had no problems (making me the problem?)
Needing to swap words around for a statement to make sense is not exactly a sign of a great statement.

For instance:

Lisp sucks

...but that statement is true so long as you swap "PHP" for Lisp.

PHP sucks

See what I mean?

There's a pretty wide chasm between saying that "many open-source hackers" suck and saying that "some self-described hackers who haven't developed good habits yet" suck. One is an extremely confrontational, unsubstantiated statement, whereas the other one is a platitude.

Turning platitude into controversial, confrontational statements is easy, but hardly remarkable.
Thanks for your comments everyone. Some valuable input there, as usual. :)
When daggers are pointed at innocent hearts
And muskets are ready to fire
When tyrants ride high and govern with fear
As the forces of evil conspire
Then from out of the night a hero must rise
With courage that even a mask won't disguise
They turn to . . . the man called Zoho
One who's larger than life and defender of all
Is this man who the people acclaim
He's the one who strikes back for the poor and oppressed
A hero . . . whose name is Zoho
His name is Zoho
Practical Rules for Using Color in Charts
Since Blockbuster is losing money and Netflix is making it, it's not just the suits deciding the reality of the business. Anyone can make a chart putting themselves in a good light.

The reality is the movie industry is changing and Blockbuster's model is being left out. The last movie I rented was on iTunes, it was way more enjoyable than getting in the car and going to look through the selection of a local store. I don't ever see going to a video rental store again.
What's weird is that its reported not as unavailable, but as "doesn't look like a site on the interwho."

Could be DNS related...
In the case of night vision and hearing, an individual with those traits wouldn't necessarily have a better chance of survival. He'd have to raise the alarm, and then throw in with everyone else.

I agree in general though.
As already said, this doesn't apply to startups so much as a certain type of lifestyle business, that almost certainly can't be started on a 4-hour work week. For Ferris's sort of thing, partners become an undesirable hassle, and the work involved doesn't require the level of detail-oriented talent that tech startup work does.

It would be interesting to know if his advice is practical. We tend to be the type who prefer to attack hard and risky problems, but if there's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there that we fail to see, it'd be nice to know where it is and how to find it.
My response has simply been: don't buy DRM'd content. Works 100% of the time ;)
Looking for your first CS job? Be sure to own your ideas
Go to local "ruby user groups" or whatever your language of choice is. Or, heck, go to "ruby/python/blub++ user groups" even if you use Java; you'll meet some smart people there anyway.
Of course the alternative is to install an ajax ssh client on a server, and use it from safari over https... ?
"Hm. An interesting idea is to have reviews of movies stickered on the cases."

I don't have a Netflix subscription because I've been renting movies from the local mom-and-pop store near my apartment. It's employed by film-school-dropouts and they have hilarious comments stickered on the movies. It always affects my movie-renting decisions! A corporate hog like BB couldn't scale such mom-and-pop personalization, but reviews would be an excellent alternative.
Great point. Did not consider the competitiveness aspect. There are ~50 students majoring in CS in my graduating class, ~40 class below, <30 below that...

dear god, our field is already challenging enough, though we could use some competition amongst us in corporate! :P
I can't remember them mentioning Microsoft ever.
It's better to be mentioned in a negative way, than not be mentioned at all.
The Google sponsored petition to get access to the inter-channnel frequency spectrum. Lots of videos of Google employees explaining the problem.
NBC Olympics Coverage Is Bad
First Android phone (HTC Dream) rumored to be available on Sept. 17 for T-Mobile customers
Name a smartphone that has a web browser that competes. Also one that has a keyboard that can compete with the iPhones.
Top 16 Online Services For Small Businesses. What Got Missed?
I've found this to be quite common of bloggers. They tend to generalize their own personal experiences to the entire population without really doing much research into it.
Wow!!! All from angels. Can you post the link to your company here? I would love to know more. Thanks.
The best option is to go out to all the local get togethers for hackers and entrepreneurs, barcamps, and conventions. Plus try to introduce yourself to people online, this worked out much better for me then I expected.

Have your idea fleshed out and know it inside out. Theres a lot at stake when you bring on a co-founder you only met recently. If the person is sincerely interested and is asking the right questions then you can give it a shot... just make sure it's a necessity before deciding to find someone.

I was in a similar situation earlier this year. From my experience starting a business with a close friend, that knowing and trusting a person is only half the battle. They have to have the skills necessary for the start-up. Just knowing a programming language or being a good speaker may not be good enough. Some people aren't cut out to be founders.

Recently I decided that I would rather raise capital and hire a developer with a nice stock option, mainly because I have a technical and business background. Although co-founders are still a great asset.
I'm very tempted to implement Blub++ now. Maybe do it as a pre-processor which can compile to Perl/Ruby/Python/Lua/Groovy as intermediate code. Of course, it would have to be a least common denominator of all of those languages.
"My obvious enthusiasm for Apple products is fairly evident to readers of this blog."

Clearly, Arrington hates Apple.
As someone who worked for investors (and VC wana be's), I really like this quote:
\" Though a rejection doesn't necessarily tell you anything about your startup, it does suggest your pitch could be improved. Figure out what's not working and change it. Don't just think "investors are stupid." Often they are, but figure out precisely where you lose them. \"

Regarding novice investors, sophisticated invesotors sometimes bring a lot more to the table than just money. Or at least they are not going to make life difficult later on. The caveate is they are not easy to get to.
All the best E
Well, I remember that he actually almost explicitly says this in a footnote in the part where he talks about choosing the right kind of product to sell, where selling information is best because the markup can be thousands of percentage points. Nevertheless, although Tim Ferriss absolutely makes a ton of money from his book and speaking gigs, all of the things he describes in the book were accomplished, by definition, before he earned a cent of book royalties.
Yeah, but if you get caught, everyone hates you. Not worth the risk, and I doubt that's the case here.
I did it because I saw some comment

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280676

mentioning it. My poor attempt at humour, heh. I forgot some exclamation marks too!
I think the answer is somewhat more obvious. Look at the facilities, coaches and funding available for athletes in the USA, Jamaica, and Britain compared to West Africa.
Wait, a keyboard that can compete?

How about a Blackberry, Treo, or anything else with a physical keyboard?
You don't "Switch" burning modes when you run out of glycogen stores. Your blood sugar drops because you can't process fat into sugar fast enough. You are always burning fat, and when you are running you are burning it pretty much as fast as you can. Thats why cyclists and long distance runners have to eat while they train longer than 1.5hrs to supplement their fat burning because the glycogen stores are out.
this is a classic Atkins diet, and it will work, but it's a diet you need to stay on for the rest of your life if you want to remain lean. I'm currently addicted to carbs at the moment, and would have a real difficult time giving up beer.
Javascript Harmony: Douglas Crockford keeps the terrible ES4-rog at bay
Workarounds - Leading Edge of Innovation (Don Norman's)
I played around with this a bit, and it actually does seem to work. They go to great lengths to point out that they only have a small fraction of the web's images indexed, but for the more likely images I tried, it does find matches - in other resolutions, other formats, cropped, photoshopped... and I haven't seen false positives. Pretty impressive!
This is a stupid theory, mostly because your facts are false and imaginary.

"West Africa" is huge and diverse. What part of west africa are you talking about?

Most of west africa does not have the geography you describe.

Most west african warfare was not waged with machetes. Can you give ONE example or reference for this? There are plenty of african history books which talk about west african archers, spears, shields, canoes and calvary, but I've never seen one about machete raids.

The world class sprinters are all from the USA or Caribbean. I.e. descended from people brought over as slaves. The slave trade went out of the west african coast, but the people who were sold into slavery were usually from somewhere else - often in the middle.

edit: ugh, I just read the article. I don't like deleting my own posts, so I won't. But i'm a bit embarrassed I responded to this.
I know, right? It's not like they're an innovative tech company or anything.
OpenPeak's VoIP Phone and Picture Frame
Georg Jensen
Premier jewellers, Jewellery, Rings, Bracelets, Charms - Steffan&
not his example, but I made sth like 5000€ last year from this site http://lottoliste.de/ which is basically a list of german online lottery offers, I just did a price comparison and bought some adwords. Since all these sites offer lifetime affiliate payments I make like 100€ a month for 0 hours.
Text-wrapping, or text scroll-boxes, for overflowing code.

Example of broken HN page here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=279251 because of overflowing code here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=279640
But you are not always burning fat, that's the problem. If the body needs energy like right now and it doesn't have glycogen on hand and cortisol levels are elevated, then it will cannibalize muscle. This is the point I was trying to make earlier. Powerade is strictly for amateurs; serious cyclists (et al) are drinking Perpetuum or Spiz, both of which contain BCAAs and other proteins to offset gluconeogenesis.
Sony and BMG broke up. Bertelsmann sold their 50% to Sony.
It's now dubbed Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
See, I'm the opposite. I can be quite timid in IRC (though this generally applies to anyone I don't really know), and I always wait until I'm completely stuck to ask a question. Then I feel like a complete tool when someone points me to a link I should have found on my own.

So, I don't think I need to worry about entering passive mode. :)
Fair point. But the in-store rental market appears to be almost 10x as large as the market netflix/apple/amazon are in.

So, BB needs to be more efficient with its B&M business but that doesn't mean netflix is smoking them. Especially if we're to believe BB that the market Netflix is in is 1/10th the size of the whole pie. So what if Netflix corners the entire market?

Am I missing something?
I see someone downmodded you, but I upmodded you, even though I think the post is worth reading. There are two things that may matter to hackers. First, the objective truth about the mechanics of building and distributing iPhone applications. AS you point out, once the first couple of posts are out, pretty-much all of the ground has been covered and there isn't much news in posts 3..10.

The other thing that matters is judging how much momentum the platform has. Who is developing for it? Why? Who isn't? Why not?? It's very loosey-goosey, but people do care baout whether there are two or ten posts about this if only to try to gauge whether everyone else is developing iPhone apps, which helps gauge whether the platform will be a success.

Even if the business side of developing for the platform is restrictive, if there are enough apps to make the platform the de facto standard, many developers will hold their noses and jump in.

Such posts can help with this second decision, even though each one offers little new objective data.
How To Not Fit In On A Development Team
Here's an example which I didn't have time to post earlier. My main sport is offshore/ocean racing. A race typically lasts several days and covers a few hundred miles. The weather has to be pretty bad before a race gets called off. Check out news from last year's Fastnet - of 300 boats that entered, we (Nisida) were among the 50 or so that actually finished the course. No-one died that time, but people do die on the Fastnet.

When you're out there, you're getting flung around, it's cold, it's wet, watches are 3 hours on 3 hours off unless there's work that needs to be done, in which case you just have to get on with it. The needs of the boat come first and the skipper's word is law. Heading upwind to counterbalance the sail, the crew sits out on the rail - when I say 3 hours off that can mean, clip yourself on and sit out on deck in the rain and the wind and the waves breaking over the deck and pull your hood down and try to snooze. If not you can go below but if it's rough you probably won't get much rest - I've had friends break arms, collarbones below decks. It's a brutal sport, physically and mentally.

But there isn't the option to say, stop the boat, I want to get off. You're out in the middle of the ocean, just you, the crew and the boat. You're on your own. And unless everyone has their shit together, everyone is in danger. Your friends are in danger. You have no choice in the matter, yet you chose to be there, of your own free will. Yeah, the first time out will show you who you are, and if you need to change and you can change, it'll happen there too.
"Why would anyone want to watch anything other than new releases" is pretty much the slogan of RedBox. Why pay $5 for a movie rental when you can pay $1 at McDonalds or the grocery store or the gas station for the same new release? Plus, with RedBox, I don't have to show two forms of ID or fill out an application. I pick the DVDs I want, slide my card in, and the movies pop out.

NetFlix has become the premium rental service. RedBox is the budget service. Blockbuster is getting squeezed out of the market from both sides.
Ah, my apologies then, it's rather easy to miss that kind of humor in this medium.
PG: Quite possibly the worst idea ever
Sports where you have to have your shit together beat the heck out of sports where it doesn't matter.

Something invigorating about the whole process -- makes you feel alive.
"Other", obviously.
Let's say company A sells laptops such that 1 out of 1,000 of them blow up due to a defective battery. Company B sells laptops such that 1 out of 100 blow up.

You can say that company A's product is 10x better. But, it doesn't mean that company A's product is good. It just isn't the worst.
>> But is Apple doing a far better job than any of its competitors? Yes. <<

No.
It's a mix of finally finding a product that satisfies your needs perfectly with the pseudo anti-establishment that comes with it. People complaining about apple fan boys is just as cliche as the fans boys themselves, and it just fuels the fire.

OSX + the great community of developers creating apps like 1password and Textmate, is what sold me. Looking back at my experience using windows for over a decade I have a lot of negative memories.

At the same time I don't like 90% of Hollywood (CGI-fest) movies but it does a good enough job to satisfy most people. So I don't bother convincing people otherwise in the same way I don't push Apple on other people. I just support it when the topic comes up.
> Am I missing something?

Yes, the retail rental market is plunging and has tons of fixed costs. The online retail market is surging and much higher profit potential (no retail space, much much fewer employees, etc). Additionally the fixed costs for the online rental market are dropping, namely servers and bandwidth, but also the hardware to make set top box devices.

What's so good about Blockbuster that I'm going to get off my couch and drive to a store if I can get the same product instantly with little more that moving my remote? They have a serious problem looming.
"It's better to be mentioned in a negative way, than not be mentioned at all."

If that is true then I think Microsoft is pretty happy with Techcrunch's coverage of it, which is almost universally negative:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atechcrunch.com+microso...
Ask HN: What would you do with 4 lisp hackers and a designer somewhere in central europe?
Q1: Suppose, hypothetically, that a tech company somewhere in central europe (in a country that is poor but belongs to the EU) went bankrupt and suddenly 4 seasoned common lisp programmers and 1 graphic designer who all knew each other and worked well together and spoke fluent english suddenly were looking for work. What would you have them do if you could afford to pay them to work on it for 6 months?

Q2: If you had this idea but not the cash to pay them to do it how would you fund the idea (besides YC/Seedcamp/etc, suppose hypothetically they aren't interested in relocating)?
Get a job somewhere other hackers are working.
Ah, I see. You're saying that the online market is growing and eating into the B&M market, that makes sense. Do you have any sources to back this up other than your personal observations?
The flipside is that if you're a founder, you'll have to deal with investors wanting the startup to own its IP.
I think we all agree that we make the effort to avoid using table for layout but sometimes it's the only sure way to get a consistent layout without lots of glue and duct tape.
No one said it was broken. Let's try this mind exercise again: SERVER WISE what might possibly go wrong to cause Muxtape to shut down its free/consumer aspect of the site but not the professional/paid aspect of the site?
Scuba diving, mountaineering, you can always tell who gets it. Take responsibility for your own life and your friends lives in the most direct way possible, and make friends that you trust completely with your own.

I got no respect for tourists who go bungee jumping and think they're "extreme" when someone else has made sure they're actually perfectly safe.
Are there any bluetooth keyboards that work with the iPhone? If so, that would be a killer combination.
Trust me, the worst idea ever, by a factor of ten, is sleep.fm. Compared to them you don't even rate.
I was referencing effective security (what your chances are of contracting something bad), not theoretical security (how inherently secure the system is or isn't). You're effectively safer on a mac than Windows regardless of the design and architecture. It's just a fact that you have orders of magnitude less malware on the mac.

So saying macs have "perceivably" better (effective) security than Windows is a bit like saying white is perceivably brighter than black. Technically true, but it sounds a tad dishonest to me (or maybe he was just talking about theoretical security).
That's a great point. Of course, there is a lot more upside to having the company you founded own your IP as opposed to some big company you don't control.
I'm curious then - could you explain how you approach CSS based layout for forms? Drop me an email (dave@paperstack.com) if you want to discuss it offline.
Can you have it unlearn something if you give it a wrong correction?
The youtube videos are priceless. DADDY I LOVE YOU! WAKEUP!
You don't need to work long hours. The title of the book makes it clear.

That actually wansn't the original title of the book. It was something like "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit," but it didn't fly with the publusher.

He's already said that the "4-hour" part of the book is only a portion and is more about focusing on your core work and stripping off all extraneous parts.
Could you explain somewhere (possibly on the front page of fuzzyshot) what is special about fuzzyshot? It seems to me being able to post pictures from a phone to a blog has been possible for a while, or am I mistaken? I know I can post photos to flickr from my phone.

As for the meet thing: what do you do if you know your friends are 30 minutes late. Start another round of Sudoku on your phone?
After a while, (n<10) hour workweeks aren't that much fun, for most people. You can only kickbox/travel/party for so long before life become meaningless and unsatisfying.

Personally I much prefer 37signal's "4 day workweek", where you have plenty of time for yourself but are still working and creating something of value which you care about.
Windows 7 Already Has 2,500 Developers and Counting...
Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18?
I'd picture the best thing to be a little device attached to the power connector that projected one of those laser keyboards. I don't know how miniaturizable those are at this point, though; it might help that the motion recognition can all be done in software, but then, that might not be the chunkiest part.
Sorry, I really can't deal with a physical keyboard that requires a toothpick to use.
I've tried those, and it's just slow and laborious compared with the iPhone for me.
What would you do with 4 lisp hackers and a designer somewhere in central europe?

I'd watch them try to replace a lightbulb and take notes on all the hilarious punch-lines that ensue. Alternatively, you could see what happens when they walk into a bar.
The Kramer test for 'bad ideas': imagine Kramer explaining to Jerry why he just invested a bunch of money in the company ("but Jerry - it's an alarm clock... AND it's SOCIAL!"). If it sounds like something he might say, then it's probably a bad idea.

To sleep.fm guys: not trying to offend, I genuinely think it's a bad idea.

To those who were in elementary school when Seinfeld was on: damn kids:-)
I stand corrected. I guess I must just subconsciously ignore them.
I'm not into hard physical sports -- love to get back to them, but lately I've been extremely out of shape.

My thing is flying. As an instrument pilot, it's all in my head. You go up in a dark, rainy night and it's just you and the airplane. There are no "easy" buttons. You're managing dozens of variables real-time all the while keeping the plane level. In hard IMC on a low approach, there's no goofing off -- even for a couple of seconds. You get those "what the heck am I doing here" moments, but then again, there are experiences that I've had that you could never reproduce. Either your shit is together or -- you're dead. It's a mind game where the stakes are your life.

Good stuff.
> The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need to improve" is toxic

Who exactly has this attitude?
RIAA speaks on Muxtape: Illegal content
After QuickMeet, they could use the platform to implement QuickMeat -- which lets users post their ETTBGD, or Estimated Time To Beer Goggles Drunk.

Like Redux, they would be helping their users get laid.