skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"More than oddball...Gentoo is just plain retarded."

I think that's a little harsh. I still use it on a server or 2, it's got some very nice organisation not seen in ubuntu or others. Also having it compile everything should give performance gains.

I still like the whole use flags, rc system etc.
There are also other uses. For example, I was planning to buy a new mini-laptop (MSI Wind just for illustration) and following the tweets with this keyword (via Summize search) was very valuable - you see links to new reviews almost instantly, and you can also get good impression about the product from the tweets like "MSI Wind arrived yesterday and my wife loves it", or "I like the keyboard on my new MSI Wind", etc...

In my understanding, the revolutionary thing Twitter did was, that they enticed users to input information, which they didn't enter into digital form before. Lot of those are just unimportant noise, but with proper filtering or searching one can extract valuable information from it.
I don't think it's as "sly" as you make it out to be. I simply understood "real" work to be physical work, nothing more, nothing less.

Growing up, our family bought a completely gutted house -- no drywall, plumbing, wiring, nothing. One crazy summer, we did enough work to make the place livable, and in the following years, we re-sided it, fenced the property, did finishing work inside, and more. In addition to this, I had jobs (since I was about 12) mowing lawns, "mucking" horse stalls, siding, roofing, stocking shelves, and more that I can't recall off the top of my head.

To me (and I assume to anyone else who has spent years doing laborious work), this is the definition of real work. A task that works your body. Not "real" as in meaningful, but "real" as in true. Work that does not leave you stressed at the end of the idea, both because heavy exercise releases endorphins and because most of the time, your work is (temporarily) done at the end of the day.

Now if the original author had said "real job" instead of "real work", then I would have agreed with you. My dad did not attend college and has had a labor job my whole life. He always told me to work hard in school and to be smart, because I didn't want a job where I had to do real work like he did. That to me is real work.
A Secondary Market For Private Company Stock
[Ask YC] Is jobs page for YCombinator startups only?
would like to post the fact we're looking at hiring a Software Engineer here in Seattle: http://www.emptyspaceads.com/about/jobs... but couldn't see a way of posting that on the jobs page.

i really love the HN community and would love to let people know about this opportunity.

thanks!
This approach does not work with non-Moz browsers, I would recommend anti-aliased nifty corners JS lib

http://acko.net/blog/anti-aliased-nifty-corners
Yes, that jobs page is for YC startups only.
What early Google employees are doing now.
I would agree, the "time poor" issue is obvious. However, I've been testing this out a little and figure to try it on myself first (me managing me).

My first impression--besides idiotwork--is that they really make things simple. They seems to be going for the twitter, microblogging style for management. They really reduce a lot of the fat out of managing tasks and reporting.

I like how it just asks, "What did you do?" Instead of, "what's the progress?" "what are your road blocks?" "are you sure you're not critical path?" I'm not sure if this tool will answer those questions, but I'm not sure if they're aiming to do that either.

But then again, I'm not as "time poor" as some may be.
Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer
Or maybe buy was a euphemism for crush.
The Power Of Serendipity
How mega IT corps are "The Axis of Evil" for Startups
Because of their own inefficiencies they have created a beast which is now unmanageable. Think about it - the Indian IT employee has got an average salary hike of about 20% year on year which means in the last decade salaries have gone up 5x and attrition is on a all time high. Which means after all the salary hike, free lunch, fancy office buildings and over-pampering of employees, keeping them on “bench” for years?
I think getting cool artists on the page is one of the key factors of success. Therefore I'd suggest you'd outline the process for artists a bit better - simply give the "artist signup" page a little more love (e.g. mentioning how payment works etc), everyone who's about to sign up knows exactly what happened.

Awesome idea anyways, already passed it on!
On Startups and Law Firms
I did use something like that at the last company I worked for. Something we're looking into (probably more long term) is building out an API that can play well with others.
The reason is that Apple guarantee that OS X, will work with their hardware. If it doesn't, they better fix it quick, or risk the wrath of everyone.

With Linux, you might have some unsupported hardware, and that's that. Your choice is either to write drivers yourself, wait until someone else does, or buy different hardware.
I think the 'jobs' thing is kind of irritating in that you can't use the comments to ask questions or comment about the opportunity. Much better would be to let the job poster moderate comments so as to be able to exclude anything untoward... if that's the purpose of not having comments.
I think they are obsessed with whale pictures.
Whenever I do try twitter (rarely), that's all I ever see.
Ambiguity is not necessarily a bad thing e.g. if all interpretations give positive phrases. Would be cool if it could be done with 'ot' and 'd'.
How Much Will Your Startup Be Worth In Three Years?
Might be the next big hit
hmm, no comments yet? I'm assuming its one of those articles that speaks for itself. I know I read it last year, but watching it/reading it all over again was just as fascinating. The fact that similar proteins were used in the fungi, which coordinated with the actual organism was pretty amazing. It's almost as if evolution hacked itself to brainwash an organism. Kind of nuts...
My bad, forgot I was talking to the hacker news crowd. The point I was trying to make is that we understand that it's a trust issue, and we're taking the steps we need to get that trust.
This description applies to Columbus, OH, as well.
Google Earth Used To Predict Electrical Grid Problems
Potentially something to think about -- while I can't ever really see myself using Twitter for such, that's the second entrepreneur that I've known to have that idea recently.

It should just be a matter of synching things to an RSS feed, no? I can imagine that having other applications.
It might work better with karma (and games) instead of money.

All those accounting figures seem out of place with cool new music... but I don't know the profiles of indie music lovers - maybe they like numbers :)

EDIT I think startup founders (myself included) are comfortable reasoning in financial terms - but many people don't, and don't want to. They can even be offended and upset by it. I think this startup might need to find a niche market that is comfortable with it.

It might be better to disguise/hide the money somehow (but that defeats the pitch)... or, possibly extend the underlying microtransaction technology to other subject matter that is already financial oriented (or, has a financially-oriented audience).

These are just my opinions. What works, works.
Creating Simple Virtual Hosts With mod_mysql_vhost On Lighttpd (Debian Etch)
I like their almost-but-not-quite JSON format.

I am also looking forward to the next version of OS X. No more free software, just DRM's apps from the app store. Computing bliss!!111!
If you work hard, you should be rewarded (in a way that is meaningful to you). It is that simple.

However, practices like this are rife throughout industry.
Twitter drives me crazy, I still don't understand the obsession.

People listen to music I don't like. "I still don't understand the obsession."

Not every person likes every thing. That's OK, though, because you can just not use Twitter.

I picture a new Internet meme. Instead of "Oh, I don't watch television", "Oh, I don't use Twitter" will be the new super-elite condescending remark. rolls eyes.
that's a much better link, thanks. +1
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I more of a C# developer than a Ruby developer, but I must admit I find the feat of building dynamic languages on top of the CLR (which really requires quite strict type-safety) pretty impressive.

I'll take his word for it though that the Ruby community at large probably is mostly Mac and Linux-dominated and hence goes a little bit "meh" at this effort.

Knowing the general Linux-community (or anti-MS community if we want to be extreme) I'm a little bit sceptical about how or if this will change.

I do however see his point about client-side Ruby for rails application and such being a selling point. If that applies to the current Ruby-community? We'll see how it turns out.
History of india
Another case of RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
It's always the same. Apple introduces new Mac, it's priced competitively. Apple waits a year until it releases a new version and doesn't cut price while other manufacturers release new versions, so the Mac becomes comparatively more expensive as time goes by. Then, Apple releases a new Mac, and the cycle starts anew. Repeat annually. There's really no need to write these "Apple is cheaper" "Apple is more expensive" articles twice each year.
I'm thinking we might use it on our small, decentralised (across two continents) agile team, since we always have a bit of a headache keeping each other up to date on what we've done.

Don't focus too much on the manager-review aspect, imho. This could be very useful as a simple communication tool, without any management reviews.
If you're doing it for free, you're a co-founder. As such, you should have a lot of founder equity. 30% sounds about right - don't forget it might get diluted later. And in that case, don't work on it unless it's a business you do want to start, obviously - and of course you can't start several of them at the same time.

If they want you to do it for free without giving you a large chunk of equity, fuck'em.

If they want to pay you, payment is within 30 days after the invoice is sent, not "when we have cash". That's a joke, not a contract.
Cysticercosis (pork tapeworm) can cause marked personality changes in humans when cysts form in the brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysticercosis
Urban T Shirts
I still use it on a server or 2, it's got some very nice organisation not seen in ubuntu or others.

Sure, it's nifty to play with. But, it's the basic philosophy of Gentoo that is broken (for anything other than a tinkerers OS). Nothing can be predicted in a Gentoo system, and no Gentoo system is the same as any other. Lots of fun, and infinitely customizable. But, in a server, you need to know where you stand--and being able to experiment has far less value.

I'll happily concede that portage has done wonders with a rather complex problem...allowing custom on-the-spot builds of everything, and being able to upgrade and install most of the time without resulting in a flaming pile of wreckage. As long as the philosophy is "anything you want, even stuff that has practically zero testing, and all built from scratch while you wait", Gentoo will remain unpredictable and unreliable, and occasionally insane.

Every package and option that Gentoo provides is a new variable...something new that can go wrong. You cannot test that many variables, no matter how smart you are. And, of course, I don't think the Gentoo developers are particularly smarter than the folks behind Debian or RHEL or Ubuntu, though they may be as smart...but to be as successful with their chosen philosophy they have to be significantly smarter and significantly more numerous, because they have to solve far harder problems and on a scale never before seen. A very basic grasp of combinatorial mathematics tells me that Gentoo will have several orders of magnitude more possible failure paths than RHEL or Debian.

Anyway, if you opt to stick with an entirely stock install of Gentoo (by some definition of "stock") you will get a system that has as few variables as RHEL or CentOS or Debian or Ubuntu, which is a win. But, you lose the things that make Gentoo unique (and exciting for some folks)...and you get a system that is tested by a tiny fraction as many people as have tested RHEL, CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu. Not only is the userbase dramatically smaller, it's also fractured into thousands of unique distros, because so few people are running a "default" Gentoo.

What always amazes me is that the Gentoo developers don't realize what a mess they've signed up for with the choices they've made. They do have some awesome documentation, though. That may be a side effect of a system that is so vaguely defined...anyone that wants to accomplish anything with it has to read a lot and know a lot, so a lot of docs get written. I dunno.
Thanks for the link. Reading it, I couldn't believe that I and the others commenting here swallowed this book's thesis so easily and uncritically.
The era of the mom-and-pop grocer, the shoemaker, and the candy store has ended for good.

I disagree with this idea. As we have seen on the Internet, the more people that one can reach at low cost, the more niche the needs a business can successfully fill. The best candidates to fill such niche needs are small startups, not corporations.

If people with money are moving into the city, then by definition, more people can be reached at a lower cost. If these people have money, then they will be willing to spend it on something that improves their lives.

The argument is really easy when you just look at shops today. Even without a rich population, the denser downtown areas are full of small businesses. In the suburbs, where people are more spread out, chains rule.

In Europe, where the author claims this gentrification has already occurred in several places, are there not small town book stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and even shoemakers?

I'm really curious what made the author even add this comment to begin with. It was like he was too afraid of saying that city life in the future is going to be wonderful, so he had to throw something negative in there.
Gross. This stuff's used in Chinese medicine. My parents have a friend who drinks a tea made from this fungus.
Is Telework the New Face of the Agile Workforce?
Putting your best foot forward - By Rod Drury
Minor details, but

- I don't want to watch video at work, so I can not see the demo video. There is no other information on the website on how it works.

- I can not sign up instantly either, because I can not access my home email address from work. I don't want to sign up with my work email address.

Bottom line: my instant curiosity can not be satisfied. If it wasn't an YC company, I would have forgotten all about it by the time I got home. Since it is YC, there is a faint chance I might remember it and actually check it out in the evening.
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Ask YC: Has any startup here used PRWEB?
I posted a general question on press releases yesterday (not too many responses), but was no focusing on using PRWeb? Has anyone had good/bad experiences with them?

We're thinking about using the 'Media Visibility' option, which distributes via the Associate Press as well. Hopefully that will mean more journalists get exposure to the release.
YouNoodle Startup Predictor now live to try it for yourself.
Alternate Reality Game: The Hunted
This just kind of popped into my head - after discussing with a friend he doesn't think people would register for it. I am curious as to what you guys think.

The game would have to start on a small regional scale, at least, possibly offering national and global levels of play.

A person registers with the site, uploads a photo of themself, and they are now "The Hunted." Anyone else who comes across the site can register, upload a photo of themselves, and join the hunt.

When a Hunter believes they have spotted the Hunted they ask that person one question, "Are you the hunted?" In which, the Hunted must answer truthfully. If so, the Hunter passes on a unique ID (number, email address, username, etc) which the Hunted enters into the website.

The Hunter, now becomes the Hunted, and gameplay resumes.

Some incentives might need to be in order (cash/prize rewards for finding the Hunted) but how do you monetize the gameplay to support those prizes? Sponsorship opportunities on the website, sponsored clues/events?

Of course, there is the possibility of ending up in an infinite loop in which a group of friends maintain control of the Hunted position. Some safeguards would have to be put into place to guard against that.

Thoughts?
So I sign up with my ex girlfriends details and you sic a bunch of stalkers on her. Brilliant idea, can't see any problems.
Because it is a prejudice and unfairness.
I can see both sides of the argument on this one.

You can always just email them if you have questions or comments.
Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter
I built the majority of the survey, so if you see any bugs or have feedback reply to this. Thanks!
"The main contender, ReiserFS, dropped out of the race because its creator decided to pursue other interests, but other than that everything is the same."

Nice...
Ask YC: What kind of Intro Page for your App?
So I've developed a neat little app that manages Agile projects. Version 1.0 is simple as can possibly be to get the job done. Basic ASP.NET stuff, with ugly postbacks and all.

I've got users, and they're pretty much happy. We're reaching the point where the site is functional from the beginning to end of an Agile project. (BTW, not to toot my horn, but 4 weeks to alpha, 7 weeks to full beta, single developer coding after work)

Question is -- now that I'm thinking about moving from a private beta into a more public beta, how to go about it? Step 1 is replacing the main page with an introduction page. Anybody got hints/clues about that?

Step 2 starts getting into PR, and I can wait on that. I was just interested in examples of good home pages for something like this. Should I do a video tour of the app? Screenshots? Free accounts for anybody who happens by? Or maybe one of those serial-number invite deals? Big colorful flashing boxes with all-cap text (I'm thinking probably not)

Ideas? Suggestions?
Apparently my startup (tarsnap, online backups for the truly paranoid) will be worth $3.71M in September 2009. Given that I'm a sole founder and tarsnap is pre-revenue, I can only guess that YouNoodle is giving me very high marks for (a) having a doctorate from Oxford, and (b) having started university when I was 13 years old.

Of course, I'd be happy if YouNoodle was correct in their assessment... but if someone offered to buy tarsnap for $3.71M right now -- or offered to buy any fraction of tarsnap for a corresponding fraction of that amount -- I'd have no hesitation in accepting the offer.

EDIT: Yes, I do realize that the assessed value is effective a year from now -- but I still think $3.71M would be a generous amount to pay for tarsnap. Of course, tarsnap might take off faster than I expect...
Balsamiq Mockups Makes Big Impression on Hacker Community
Considering that about 70% of startups fail, shouldn't this actually give you a negative valuation most of the time?
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scaling = fail
My unlaunched startup which I work on part-time will apparently be worth $10 million in 2011. maybe I should start working on it full time :-)
I'm reliant on being able to test in as many browsers as possible, and unfortunately, this is where I run into the not quite dead monopoly, because I still have to test stuff in IE. And yes, I can run it on my mac, but I still have to buy a copy of, sadly, Vista. I dislike intensely having to pay that monopoly rent.
10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities
I can barely code. I know a tiny bit of python and some basic html & css and suck at them. That's it - mostly because I've never put in the time like I should have.

I plan on writing on this very topic (how to market without TC - parent thread) as soon as I have some free time.

Edit: For those who don't know I'm in YC (ticketstumbler.com). So yes they accept business types. My cofounder, Tom, is a superb hacker though.
Is architect a verb?
Server Virtualization versus Server Virtualization
Why was this down modded? Upvote.
One of the things that makes these comparisons annoying is the multiple versions of Vista (is Home Premium really comparable to OSX? I don't actually know) I think they do that just so they can have a positive showing on these checklist comparisons, but it ends up hurting the consumer, who has to make uninformed choices and ends up being dependent on slimy salespeople. In addition, developers also have to deal with multiple versions, which must be a support nightmare.

It's a classic example of marketing directives (market segmentation and looking good in these price/feature comparisons) hurting the overall product.
YN wants the data -- not sure they really care about making an (accurate) prediction. Foolhardy exercise to fill in the information.
I hate SEO so much, but it's such an integral part of the ticket business as keywords/ads are ridiculously expensive.

Although we've done a ton of SEO work for TicketStumbler, we refuse to employ some of the slime tactics other ticket sites use.

To quote Dustin Curtis (dcurtis): "user experience > SEO".
We should call it what it is. When a company forces you to work more than the hours indicated in your job description when you signed on without additional compensation this is called stealing.

From now on, in place of "long hours" or "overtime" we should simply state... "Yeah my company had a big project due so they stole about 20 hours each from us last month", or "Our employer steals from us all the time, they call it 'being a team player' or something...". In fact, mention theft at every opportunity when discussing required extra hours. It works for the RIAA and music, it should work for the cube dweller too.
I would be very cautious about giving a lot of this requested information (funding details, % ownership, etc) out to some random website...
My startup, InsideDesi (http://www.insidedesi.com), will apparently be worth 8 mill by 2011.
Appears to be a problem with our search index, we're on it ;)
Some feedback:

* The connections-drawing tool is somewhat broken: First it wouldn't show for me at all ("Loading..."), and then when I wanted to correct something, the eraser didn't remove the lines (although I think it did invalidate them, because I could draw new lines on top of the old ones)

* Entering team details is very tedious when every single question is on its own page. I got tired of clicking next, and would very nearly have quit the process there.
I'd just like to mention Blaine Cook, because the press won't. I rather dislike the business press who shape the story to fit their preconceived ideas.

"Yet here I am again, in July 2008, listening to yet another boyish entrepreneur discuss a quirky, compelling - and nearly revenue-less - startup. I ask Dorsey, a 31-year-old NYU dropout whose slender build and mop of hair evoke the pre-psychedelic Beatles."

These "boyish entrepreneurs" definitely seem to be aging, and the metaphors becoming more strained.