skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not a business person, but couldn't Sun, for example, get almost everything it got out of buying MySQL by partnering with them, paying much less than $1b (perhaps paying nothing)?

I mean, doesn't buying MySQL practically guarantee it will lose the very value it could bring to Sun (more agile process, highly motivated small company, close contact with the OSS dev & user community)?

One of the themes in "Burn Rate" is how, once corporations became aware of the Internet, they began purchasing anything they perceived "belongs" to the Internet and was for sale, hoping to somehow own some part of it. Perhaps, at some degree, a similar thing is happening with Open Source now?

(Edit: please don't get me wrong, I truly believe Open Source is one of the most important ideas of our time. I'm just skeptic a company can buy its way into it)
Is Kiko really a miserable bomb? It sounds like it was a pretty cheap flyer on the online calendar market -- there was almost certainly a greater than 10% chance that they could have been bought for at least ten times what they burned through.
"... The iPhone 3G is not for me. I've returned mine exactly two weeks after I committed a Friday and Saturday morning to buy one. ... to browse the internet and use those cool applications, but as a phone and communications device the iPhone leaves me wanting more ..."

Interesting opinion especially after listening to Dave Winer talking about how he develops on the highest end hardware he can get his hands on because the magic time to create a useful app in his opinion is approx. 3 years. At that time the rest of the users catch up and you magically have an application/service ready built ~ http://mp3.morningcoffeenotes.com/whyIdInvestInIphoneApps.mp... [20Mb, 10:25Min] The parent article can be found here ~ http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/07/26/listeningRespect...
I worked on a web crawler once before.. you've got no idea how annoying these kinds of websites are to detect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_trap

.. although I'm sure they've got some smart people working on it at Google.
Knol getting preferential placement in search results?
Sorry for the triple post... this is the first time posting on HN.
Don't let this guy (write Lisp.

Lots of (unclosed parentheses.
I think the most disturbing thing is that your original post was immediately modded up very high in spite of the reality of the article.
I submitted http://ianab.com/trillion/0.html to
http://www.google.com/addurl/ and
http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx

Please log requests from the Google and Microsoft bots and let us know how long it takes the respective bots to figure out that every page is the same :-)
They use MD5 in other areas, but not that particular message. So now they will. Do people call hashes "checksums" in a colloquial sense? no one actually uses a "check sum" literally any more do they?
>Perhaps, at some degree, a similar thing is happening with Open Source now?

Like Microsoft becoming a platinum sponsor of Apache Software Foundation?
Sadly, this was mostly link bait. The first couple are certainly the biggest flops that everyone already knows about. Then the last 10 or so the author is reaching. Kiko for instance. Didn't they only raise a hundred grand or so and sell themselves on eBay for 250k? Maybe not a big success, but I wouldn't put it in the same grouping with these other startups.
> The other blunder that Friendster did at the time, was to allow people see who visited your profile. I bet their pageviews dropped overnight.

Would you explain this a bit more please? Why would it
be bad to let users see who's visiting them?
At least Apple still makes good computers; the regular Macbook is even price competitive.

All of Bose's systems and headphones are incredibly overpriced if you care about sound quality in a sound system. This (http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/ultra1.html) would blow away any Bose system and this one (http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/performance1.html) would compare favorably to a much more expensive Bose system. Bose has done one of the most brilliant marketing jobs in the history of marketing by convincing the public that their inferior products are in fact the best made.
no more stalking
Ask YC: how to go about setting up my own online store
Hi everyone,

I'm hoping for some feedback/advice on the following: I'm looking to set up an e-commerce solution for which I am going to invest approximately $10,000.- of my own money. However, I am not a programmer/have very little understanding of programming and, given that it's my own hard-earned cash, I'm very nervous about making a wrong decision.

Some stuff that's going through my head:

1. am I better off building a functioning prototype (ie. an alpha site) with something like Drupal or Magento (though some of the site's features would require some expertise to expand the available functionality of either of these two solutions) or
2. approaching a reputable firm to build the site from scratch or
3. finding a freelance programmer to build the site from scratch.
4. Obvious concerns with finding someone to carry out the work is whether or not they are capable of completing the work - I am not qualified to assess potential programmers' qualifications.
5. How/where can I find someone to program the site for me (I am based in Melbourne, Australia)?

There are a large number of other questions going through my head but the above are the major concerns.

Any kind of pointers would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks
MYOB Indonesia / Pligg Beta 9
It's simple user psychology. So much of traffic on social networking sites is lurking around on other people's pages, especially those that you're 'interested' in. I'd rather not let other people know that I've been looking at their page, especially when I've been looking at their page a lot. If I know that they know, it dis-incentivizes me from surfing around at all, killing page views.

In other words, social networks need to do everything they can to nurture their creepers.
Hilariously clever, and very easy to create with something like Django's regex urls.
FaceBook had a huge blunder a couple months ago when it seemed like typing a space in the search field apparently autocompleted the people who most recently looked at your profile page. It was never confirmed that that was what was happening, but people were massively creeped out and they fixed the bug within a day.
Don't just motivate him to do something, show him how to do something. Be an example. It starts with you. Sure it sounds lame, and I don't care if it sounds lame, take him out and show him the things you're doing.
Fred, I think the decreased cost of starting a web business is what's causing both the calls for the death of venture capital and the experience you're having of increased deal flow.

There's just a lot more of us founders so it's natural that you'd see more deals even if you weren't also doing an excellent job of making a name for yourself through blogging and smart investments.

On the other hand, the costs dropped so low that I think you're finding a lot more people jumping in who are driven more by the romantic ideal of building a company rather than just to prove one idea before moving on to the next.

I say it's a romantic notion because of a recent thread that PG kicked off where he said that he couldn't imagine working on the same company forever because there were so many other interesting things to do. I think the romantics develop such an attachment to the company they're building that they couldn't imagine ever leaving it.

I'm a romantic.

For a number of overblown reasons, VC feels antithetical to building a company you want to stay at. There's the pejoratives (lifestyle business, would you rather be rich or a king?) that come from the VC backed startup culture. There's the need for an exit. And more importantly, I think people who think this way would much rather ask customers for money than investors. I think that comes down to preferring to focus on value rather than hype.
I see the tuition on that course is $1725.

Between your copy of H&H, the Internet, a kit of parts (I used to go to Halted's in Sunnyvale to look for random electronics parts; Digikey and Mouser are also your friends) and a few hours of tutor time when you get stuck, you can get a lot of education in this stuff for $1725. I know for a fact that you can hire a Ph.D. in EE for $100 an hour to teach this stuff... because I'd take that job in a heartbeat, just for the fun of helping someone fiddle with soldering irons. Too bad you now live on the wrong coast. ;)

Grad students or talented undergrads should be available for much less than $100 an hour, unless times have changed a lot.

You may not need many hours of lectures. Try asking a guy to explain the things you're stuck on for an hour or two and see how that goes.

The other thing you should do is try (perhaps using the very same method you're using now) to sign up with three or four other people, then get together for a Big Op Amp Circuit Building Party. Just discussing your problems with other people is helpful and fun. Build iPod headphone amps for all your friends. Build stereo preamps. Build stuff from Make magazine.
I think that the increased dealflow might also be due to the fact that all the alternatives look really awful right now.
Finding a way to rekindle the friendly competition you once had is key. Openly discuss your successes and aspirations in a means that is not overwhelming, but rather though-provoking for him. Challenge him in this way to focus on his goals and then develop a path to get there. This doesn't have to be explicit, but highlighting what has helped you and what has hindered you will most likely assist him.

Help him to learn from the mistakes you have made and those of the people around you. Some things take learning from one's own follies, but others can be taught in this way, especially if he looks up to you.
I do talk with him about things I am building and even hint that he could be involved if he wanted to be.

He doesn't enjoy coding though. I bought a beginner's guide to Python a while ago and gave it to him being careful not to pressure him into it. It didn't interest him. Since then he's also tried a programming subject at school, but he obviously didn't enjoy it as he doesn't wish to continue with it.

I think he could have the skills for engineering if he tried, but once again it's hard to interest him in it now that he has apathy for maths.

I can't really serve as an example in other fields but perhaps I could try to spend more time with him that isn't leisure.
Google shouldn't be in content business. I'm dismayed that they're following the 'peanut butter' strategy that has been such a destructive influence on Yahoo. If Google gets even more into content side of the business, they'll be in the conflict of interest with all of the ad buyers that are actually driving their business. By trying to generate 'a little bit of revenue' (from the google's perspective) through this, they will lose a lot more from companies that will seek alternatives.
I'm not sure how Kiko compared to the first 5~10 big failures that burnt 100mil + dollars.
Kiko is a well-justified experiment on couple hundred grands.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Smalltalk Compiler
Spider trap - A site made to swamp a web spider or make it crash
It can be costly but there are placement agencies that can help determine a developer's qualifications. That is a route to consider.

If the store is not terribly specialized, there are plenty of solidly built solutions that you should consider before a custom build. Using something like Shopify (http://shopify.com) makes things very easy.
They actually did explicitly say that this measurement ignores URL's which are non-unique enough or of insignificant worth as best that they could determine. But ah well, I guess it's just for fun.
"Don't be evil" is sounding kind of quaint.
Thanks for putting this in. my first full-time dev job was APL2 on a ginormous IBM mainframe, and Turbo C on the PC. We had some APL models that were multiple 10K's of code, very tricky!

I always wondered how sommebody could come up with a construct like APL.
You forgot to add, "Where the competitions is routinely "eliminated" by skilled snipers, or radiated posion".
Wasn't last year that a profilic Forbes' editor got killed in Russia?
ditto... i'm like hang on a tic, this is old news.
I agree about the competition. A problem is he seems to be afraid to ask for help now that he is struggling, but when I offer help he declines.

I often try to let him know which things lead to my own success and which were distractions, but it's hard to know whether he internalises this advice or just agrees to quickly end the conversation.
The use of js varies so much from site to site that noscript can mean very different things to the user experience. I would say that in the majority of cases, js provides an extra layer of smoothness. With this, disabling it should not make functionality disappear.
Maybe I'm overreacting here, but if one of my coworkers set up their own bug-tracking system and used it to repeatedly nag me about bugs I hadn't fixed yet, it would probably convince me to write them off as a passive-aggressive whiner long before it would help me to "see the value of bug tracking". Why aren't they emailing me (personally) or asking me to fix it to my face instead, first?

Granted, Joel's flagship product is a bug tracker, so maybe that's part of it. It's hardly a flattering plug, though -- like the time I saw a pulp paperback in a used book store that had some sort of endorsement deal with HeftyTM trash bags.
Aaron Wall... notices that if Google notices duplicate content then it favors the content on Knol over a site that has existed for years and has decent PageRank.

I'm sure that based on these preliminary rumors (dare I call them findings?) every scrap of Creative-Commons-licensed content on the Web is about to be reposted to Knol by hardworking robots. So, in a week or two, we'll have even better data on this.
So, if the number modulo 13 is 0, a taunt, "Maybe you could try drawing something," shows up. Any other easter eggs?
the MSI wind has gotten good reviews, tho i haven't found one in person. 10", XP, $500, only in white, black or pink

http://www.msimobile.com/library/2008/0603.aspx
This was my own first thought: What is it about Yahoo that seems so successful that Google wants to emulate their business model?
http://ianab.com/trillion/1099510313975.html
This is quite basic knowledge... (Who ever used a DB in any capacity and didn't know this?)
Accel Looks To India For Venture Returns
Which other alternatives are you talking about? Unemployment, that sucks. The corporate world, as soul-suckingly painless as ever. Bootstrapping, different but equally stressful compared to having funding. Non-profit, actually seems pretty bright right now.
If he won't be open with you about it, you might try being less direct. Try to bring it up only in context and make it as implicit as possible. It could just take exposure to positive thoughts on the topic for it to have an effect.
http://ianab.com/trillion/1000000000000.html ("I think you win something... ")
http://ianab.com/trillion/00000000000000.html (sort of an easter egg)
This also an older post back from when Lisi's paper first came out: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617 Again, I don't really know too much about this stuff, but it should be interesting to anyone who'd like to get to the bottom of how credible the paper is.
Rather than responding with a request to read a book, you provide an answer based on it?

Russia nationalized Yukos. The argument that the prices were too low are silly. It was over a decade ago when resources in the former USSR were priced low. Things like this happen after governments fall.

Daniel was just saying that there was an element of risk that makes investors afraid when countries nationalize sectors of their economies.
If he hasn't yet, convince him to take survey courses and courses in arbitrary topics. One of two things generally happens there: He either finds a new or suppressed passion, or he is pushed back toward a previous interest. Each provides a path.
It uses Linux and XP Home? I'm confused.
Yeah, I'd really need an undo-upmod feature right now. When you upmod something the down arrow could stay and become very pale.
The Crucible in Oakland has a few good courses.
^trillion/(?P<number>[\d]{1,13}).html$
http://ianab.com/trillion/370743989334.html
Try to broaden your spectrum here. Coding is one of the last things that's going to be a sure fire fit for anyone. Show him about computer science in general. Coding, networking, graphic arts, communication. Find things that a kid his age would like and show him people doing it.

If he likes art, go grab someone who can use 3DSMax (I heard that iamdave guy is good with it nudge nudge wink wink) and let them show him how to make a bouncing ball animation.
I'm talking about the source of funds (the other side of the flow). Hedge funds - history. Real Estate - toast. Savings account, money market account, t-bill - all paying below inflation.
Ex-Google engineers debut 'Cuil' way to search
And now TechCrunch:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/27/google-beats-cuil-hands-down-in-size-and-relevance-but-that-isnt-the-whole-story/
Was Santa Claus invented by The Coca-Cola Company?
Techies, dog nerds and Obama, oh my
I should not have mentioned my submission. I've been around for a while. I've submitted dozens of things to reddit over the past couple of years, and only one of them got more than 5 upvotes. I know how this stuff works, and it's certainly not meant to be a whine about how people don't upmod my stuff.

My problem is also not with the article, which doesn't go into causes, merely states their findings. Until I stepped in, all the comments were about how women are probably unhappy because they stop being pretty, and men are happy because they start being rich, and can finally have sex with younger women. These are gross stereotypes, and should be offensive to everyone. Instead, they're accepted as common sense.

If you want evidence, feel free to scroll around.
While I don't think Google should follow Yahoo, I wouldn't say Yahoo has been unsuccessful.
coming from someone who was in a similar position, i feel that this is key -- you need to get your mother involved.
have a talk with your mother and try and convince her to and help her change.

that was the downfall with my cousin. no matter what awesome influences i or my immediate family could provide for him, he went back, spending most of the day, with bad friends and a bad family situation, so he's turned out bad.

good luck, sir.
He has tried a couple of electives in school, and seems to be somewhat interested psychology, which is good because it's enthusiasm for something.

There are only limited opportunities to try new things at school, though. What would be good is finding a useful interest or hobby outside of school that is not sport. For most of us here this is coding, but what do people in other fields do?
The funny thing is, that the first 10 or so I could have sworn I've seen in another list elsewhere, almost word for word ... I'll have to try and dig it up.

Definitely linkbait if ever I saw it.

EDIT - just found the article I was talking about
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6278387-1.html
Interesting list. I actually interviewed at Lycos recently -- a surprising amount of energy/enthusiasm for a company so dead and irrelevant.
This has some serious work still...

A search for my name put me in a porno context with an image of a naked girl. The name of the video was "dirty movie", and the html title tag was "dirty movie on vimeo". This was not a pornographic video. Cuil matched a thumbnail image from movieon.com with a man and a woman having sex. This is something I dont want my name associated with.

Second, I did a search, then hit search again on the same keyword and it brought back 0 results. Took about five more clicks to get it to bring up results again. Another search said it found 8,000 results, but only gave me 3 pages worth of browsing. Last but not least the about page (http://www.cuil.com/info/) is not found.
Cuil Search Engine Launches - Does Google Care?
Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style [video, presentation]
No, it isn't. It's just a place where if you're a spam kingpin and you anger the wrong people, you'll get whacked.

Congratulations to everyone disagreeing with me by downmodding. Stay classy.
Part of the reason for getting into his school was so that he could be exposed to better influences.

As I said, the problem with our mother is complicated, but I have tried to talk to her about this. Her problem is that she never sticks at anything, and that her lack of perseverance is always someone else's fault. I guess I could try harder to get her to improve or at least to get out of the way.
Ask YC: What's your Rails setup?
I am in the midst of development of the startup I am working on. I am also wearing the sys admin shoes. Its actually loads of fun. Anyways.. I was curious on what type of environment, server setup you guys are using for your live sets/dev sites. What combination of technologies etc.
Cuil Launches -- Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?
It's PG, on PG's site, being voted on by PG fans who probably also didn't read the article. Disturbing, perhaps, but not shocking.
Cuil Exits Stealth Mode With A Massive Search Engine
I'll do some thinking about who I know that can show him things in various other fields.
Yes, there's a lot of "left field" research in this direction that might yield a breakthrough that would make H2 energy production and storage viable. Buckyball materials for storing, bacteria that create it from sunlight to create it, etc.

I have yet to see a really good synopsis of the promising research in these various directions and a decent analysis of which ones have promise and which are hype.

Anyone know?
Javascript support is pretty strong today. Browsers keep optimizing JS and JS is obviously quite powerful. I don't see a reason why you would not use it other then the fact its just tedious at times.
Their stock price dictates that they have to continue to grow very fast, and they probably see the end of growth looming ahead (once they hit 100% share).
"One of the many ironies and contradictions about Apple is that while the company presents this hip, open, cool image to the world"

Really? I'll give you hip and cool, but open? There's nothing open at all about Apple. Their OS has to be hacked to work on hardware they didn't sell. They've done more to advance DRM than anyone. They've taken tremendous advantage of open source communities while giving nearly nothing back. They've sued people for blogging about upcoming products ahead of time. They hid Jobs's cancer (and nutjob idea of fighting it by eating carrots) until it was over.

Open is the last word that any literate human would ever associate with Apple.
Is EC2 The Right Choice For Hosting Our Web Application?
I am the founder of a start-up software as a service company (applying for Y Combinator winter) and really considering using Amazon Web Services, specifically Elastic Cloud to host our PHP+MySQL application via CentOS Linux boxes. I am wondering if anybody has any input using EC2 with a production application?

The positives with EC2 are flexibility, low cost, (no hardware cost, and no co-location costs), expandability, and supposed enterprise uptime.

I have heard though in the past that EC2 has encountered downtime and various problems though.

In a perfect world, I would rather have physical access to our servers and prefer buying the hardware, but it is just not financially possible at this stage. Basically, would it be acceptable to use EC2 with say up to 500 customers?

Thanks for the input and comments.

-- Justin
getting the mother more uninvolved could be better (it's all highly circumstantial) I'm in a similar place with my sister. I have no advice, as I haven't found a good solution.