skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's been a while since I've used a .doc on my personal computer, but when I do, I use Open Office. It's never understood .docs perfectly and has always been a pain to send back and forth to people. Now, I think I remember reading something about Microsoft "opening" it's formats, so maybe this is a non-issue these days?

Even still, in the more general case, the idea that a file format is locked up and has to be reverse engineered for some people to view/edit it always presents at least some problems for someone. Supporting open formats, while perhaps not as widely used right now, at least is a step in the right direction. Maybe Joe Hacker, whose been using MS Office all his life, gets curious when he sees a .odt. Maybe he looks it up and sees that he'd rather be apart of a movement to free the world of non-open/proprietary office file formats and makes a vow to only create documents in a free format like OpenDocument (and convert .docs to .odt). Maybe he tells all his friends and the demand for OpenDocument is increased.

Oh, and I hear Microsoft is supporting OpenDocument these days (at least via a plugin).
I would first create a list of firms that have strategic interests in your product area (DB and BI Vendors, DM service companies, Lisp consulting firms/vendors, etc.) You might find a company that is willing to buy the technology and/or offer another profitable arrangement. A joint venture, perhaps.

Option 2 might be your only real option, but even then I would think you might be able to use your work as a springboard into something more lucrative...?
While Google Docs is free (as in beer), it is not free as in freedom. Some people will not use software because of that.

I'm not so much a zealot and would consider using Google Docs, if I could be sure my "sensitive" documents were only readable by myself. These documents, in particular, I would think, lend themselves to being a bit more private than your average college paper.

Also, Google Docs supports OpenDocument, at least according to WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDocument_soft...)
First, kudos to Umeå university for being forward-thinking enough to (gasp) allow you to own your own work.

To answer your question: If I were in your position, I'd try to work an option 1.5 -- see if you can take an unpaid leave of absence for 4 months and spend that time working on your startup. Most universities are happy to let their faculty do this sort of thing, since they usually come back far more excited about their research than when they left.

Spend those 4 months working on your startup full-time, and plan on deciding at the start of the 4th month whether you're going to take your option 1 or your option 2. I don't think you can really make a rational decision without working on this full-time for at least a few months.

Re your startup: Have you considered putting it together with freebase? I don't know how structured your input databases need to be; but since freebase is basically wikipedia (EDIT: and apparently other data sources now, too) parsed and converted into a database, being able to run natural language queries against it could be very interesting...
How To Install Django On Mandriva 2008.1 (Apache2/mod_python)
I believe these documents are useful for getting funding from venture capitalists, not necessarily to incorporate. To make it official you'll need to actually find funding. These documents are helpful in assisting the startup in "securing" this funding from the legal side of things.
maybe that story is too embarrassing to tell

Doesn't have to be one single thing. It's easy to fall into an expensive lifestyle without really even noticing how much you're spending. You start eating out more at nicer places, You start flying business or first class. You get cabs more. You buy tickets to events that you might want to go to but then don't (e.g. you are buying the option to go if you feel like it on the day). You upgrade/replace your phone, your computer, your TV more often. It all adds up then you look back and think wow. :-/
Priming for Burning Man, Flames in Hand
Step 1: Do #1 as you mention

Step 2: Quit and start your startup

Step 3: If things don't work out, then go to your step #2, and move onto other jobs
It was more of an exaggeration than anything. Right now I own books, a desk, a couple computers and clothes. Everything else (couch, futon, etc) was either bought for the temporary, inherited or purchased on the cheap. Up and moving for YC wasn't hard at all (I didn't even need a moving truck).

I'm sure I'll eventually have more stuff when I have kids, but "owning nothing" now has just made things a lot easier.
Open Development and the Flow of Spice
In Javaland most of the interesting and important developments happens outside the core, but the process breaks when they become de facto standards and start threatening the core. The core is not the community, but a company, and the prize for being widely useful and popular is elimination.
Yes - definitely check Songkick.com out. TS is never going to be a music recommendation site or community. And Songkick's database of information and uncanny accuracy of its Itunes plugin download are unsurpassed. We have no interest in being everything to everyone (it's why Oyaka.com and fatlens.com failed) and Songkick does a lot of stuff we'll never try to do.

Originally, the plan was to stick to Sports tickets for at least a year and then maybe add concerts (if at all). However, right after we launched, despite having "sports" and sports leagues plastered all over our site, more than half our search logs were concert related. Additionally, numerous publications said they would cover us if we had concerts and we received email after email demanding concert and theater listings from our users.
Actually it's a law in Sweden called the "teacher exception" ('lärarundantagen') and it is not without controversy. But it was the business development folks at Umeå who let me in on the secret and gave me a lot of encouragement.

Yes I am considered taking a leave next Spring. It would be difficult to Swing this Fall. And if I did take a leave, I would definitely move to a start-up hub. I really agree with Paul on the need for that.

As for freebase, yes I had considered that earlier and indeed I should check back. Alas a nice thing about having my system as an open-source system, would be that I could get a masters student to do the integration with freebase as part of a project...
The system calls several GPL based components (SPASS, aspell, ...) but does not extend any thing under GPL.

I was thinking that if I open-source it I would put it under a very open license (e.g. BSD) and assume/hope that anyone that extended it would make contact with me for help/advice.
If I do option #2, that is open-source the system under BSD, then I suppose that would give me the option to fork the whole system later under a commercial license if the system started to gain traction. Of course the risk is that others would build up from the earlier version and essentially lock me out. However I would be pleased to have made such an impact...
Points.com?

I guess maybe I'm just not following.
Definitely check these guys out and download their itunes plugin (Songkicker) - it rocks: http://www.songkick.com/download
Fence your yard. Get liability insurance as part of your homeowner's insurance. It's relatively cheap and you should have it anyway.
"Moving backwards in house size is nearly impossible. And it's largely because of stuff."

That was George Carlin's take on it as well: "That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it."

I have a fairly large house, and it's a lot like computer memory, the amount of stuff expands to the capacity available.
Financing for develeping country tech SMEs.
What Makes for a Successful Protocol?
The Y Combinator, or How to Succeed at Recursion Without Really Recursing
As long as you get copyright assignments from anyone sending you patches, you retain the rights to change the license whenever you want, so even if you use the GPL, you could release new versions under a proprietary license.

That said, if you really just 'give up' any commercial hopes, a BSD style license is friendlier to companies who may want to do something with your code, and, if they're smart, maybe even contribute something back.
The Darker Side Of iPhone App Development
The bookmarklet does not adapt gracefully when my browser shows only an image. For a quick example, try using the bookmarklet at this address: http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll39/inlovewithmoney1/a16... .
The Coming Battle Over Web Fonts
Linux Desktops Dressed Up As Macs
Living the freelance life while keeping your sanity
Moving backwards in house size is nearly impossible.

Retired people do it all the time.
Wow, that's a very nice site. Too bad no Canadian support. Always curious why that is for sites like this
We (StreamFocus - lisp based) are on our final UI upgrade push before launching open beta in the next few weeks. We are missing search right now, and would be very interested to license your system to work with us. Right now we use traditional Mysql tables as well as a mysql triples table, but most of the real work happens in lisp.

Are you interested?
Anyvite (YC Summer 08) in the Boston Thrillist
Some schools have banned tag. Broward County, Fla., banned running at recess. Little Leagues forbid sliding into base. Some towns ban sledding. High diving boards are history, and it's only a matter of time before all diving boards disappear.

Is this sarcasm or is it real?

That's the scariest part, what surely would have once been a joke is now all too real.

It looks like the inmates have won. They are now running the asylum.
Get Started With Firebug, Firefox's 'Killer App' for Web Developers
"When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren't charged ten times—that's because we've been footing the bill."

Awesome business model there...

Thankfuly the UK doesn't charge to receive SMS, which is presumably why the issue has arisen. The bill is firmly with Twitter for sending so many messages, not with the people receiving them.

while(twitter.wontScale() && twitter.features.length>0) twitter.features.pop();
Yahoo knows where you are
FitNRG.com Online Calorie Counter & Fitness Diet Tracker
FitNRG.com Online Calorie Counter & Fitness Diet Tracker
I'm really not trying to pick a fight, but isn't this just the common use of rhetoric and re-definition that one would find in commentary?

I think your example is a great one. The conservative would then proceed to argue that his definition of "progressive taxation" is adequate for the discussion at hand.

I'm probably just making a big deal out of nothing. I'm just flummoxed at why his own technical field's definition has anything to do with communication directed at a non-technical audience.

Perhaps he used it like that to get the response you gave? That would make sense.
I got on a UK degree course just before they started charging.

My only loan was a student one, paying for booze and rent.
The Peter Principle at work, my friend.
FitNRG Community
FitNRG Community
The Intangibles
Thriller stories
Sorry about that truebosko. We're working on extending our coverage to Canada & Australia over the next months. We focused initially on getting as comprehensive as possible in the UK and US (focusing on doing a good job in a specific niche) before adding other countries. Live music has a really long tail and we want to build a product that really hard core live music fans like ourselves will trust. Canada is coming soon though. We've got a big integration with Songbird launching next week and their community is asking for that pretty loudly as well!
How to think faster, better on your feet
Hi.

Thanks for all the positive discussion. :-) Point 2 and other posts I've made talk about what happened. More importantly, I lost the momentum, which should have carried me to much greater wealth.

With the lessons learned, being poor is only a temporary state that will be in the past soon enough. This makes me feel just fine about writing all the details of what I did right and wrong for those who are interested. It will just take time.

Shafqat, I'm all over the web! I'm surprised you couldn't find me. Not to mention the links on my blog. :-)

Thanks again everyone, more to follow soon.

John.
How to choose Dog Beds?
It is never been an easy task to shop for our pets; we love our pets so much and want the best for them. It is rather easy to shop for ourselves because we know exactly what we want but when it comes to our pets we will have to rely so much on our hunches to select their products. Choosing a dog bed is the most difficult among selecting all the other dog products.
Keep It Simple: PhrazIt Offers 30 Character Long Reviews
They are fat because Grand Theft Auto is more fun than little league

especially when the coaches are so obsessed with winning that the best kids always play the most fun and interesting positions, and the not-so-great kids sit on the bench an unfair amount of time
Hilarious, esp the orange! But why stop at a pitcher? How about some audience participation? Set up a few of those 20 gallon Gatorade buckets at the back of the room!
Money in the bank is stored choice.
Google App Engine blocked in China.
How The World Spends Its Money
Wuala: Online Storage and Social Network | TechJaws
oooh, I love the new site updates too... very nice. I wonder if this includes any updates to YUI Grids? I've recently fallen in love it... not sure what else they could possibly offer tho.

I love jQuery but YUI has a reputation for cross-browser consistency that's hard to beat. A lot of the additional functionality you find with jQuery through plugins can be unreliable.
University of Toronto, IBM to launch supercomputer
Fun police......one time I was at an amusement park and the laser tag employees would kick you out if you ran.....imagine teenagers walking after each other with laser guns. It was pretty much the most ridiculous thing ever.
The Google black hole: What happens to startups when they're bought by Google?
3G iPhone has engineering defect
Facebook has overtaken MySpace
IMHO option 1 is the way to go if you don't have a family
Incidentally, there's not a lot of evidence that the "hormones make teenagers crazy" theory is anything but nonsense. What we do know is that modern teenagers appear to "go crazy" -- for reasons that you seem to understand perfectly well -- and that the polite way to talk about that is to claim that it's "hormones", because the alternative explanation ("many young adults would rather risk death than be isolated and imprisoned in a handful of 'safe' suburban buildings") is way, way too candid.
Scientists unveil fastest RAM
Wikipedia founder aims to break Google stranglehold
Say what you like about COBOL but don't knock COBOL programmers. How much of your code will still be running in 40 years? COBOL programmers are the perfect example of what good people can do with "bad" tools.
The Google black hole
How close are you to getting sabbatical? (Does your university even offer it?) Several professors in my department (including my adviser) have used their sabbatical on startups.
So Yelp puts businesses up for public criticism and simultaneously try to sell advertising to those same businesses.. that puts them in a tricky spot of trying to stay fair and still make money.

The local advertising market is hot, but maybe they should be exploring other revenue ideas if they want to keep from descending to Citysearch's depths of mistrust - licensing the data they collect (like InfoUSA), data mining (like Macrosense), maybe even selling a product?
I helped develop a Yelp-style site for the UK market, and you'd be surprised how often businesses review themselves and review their rivals negatively, it's a pretty common practice.

We tried to curb this by letting businesses reply to reviews and control their listing details, but they still come along and blatently review themselves!
You have to. It's beyond hilarious.
I had a post prepared saying basically the same thing (Chazelle's algorithm work is awesome), but then I realized that bdr is, strictly speaking, correct: the number of combinations of notes you can play is a factorial of the number of notes, and factorials grow faster than exponential functions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial#Rate_of_growth

Of course, when you're writing an essay on the relationship of music and very simple math, I think it's forgivable to use "exponential" to mean "growing at or faster than an exponential rate". Using a more specific term like "factorial", "combinatorial", or "super-exponential" sounds pedantic and out-of-place.
Adding "cloud" or "grid" is really bs... when you think about it, companies like IBM and EDS have done this for years with their data centers. I don't think there is a health insurer in the U.S. who's purchased their own hardware in 20 years or more. It's all gussied up with a new, trendy name, and it's repackaged for the little guys, but it's about as new as pegging your jeans.
The Urban Ninja - A synergetic low wind kite project
In case you're wondering who you're upvoting, this guy is an "affiliate marketer." Here is one of his sites: http://www.gotrythis.com/
Physicists spooked by faster-than-light information transfer
How certain are you about your presumed choices?

You ask us to choose either 1 or 2, yet we have no idea what situation and/or persons brought you to this apparent fork in the road. I suspect there may be a 3rd, 4th, &etc paths that prove better. Nor do I see 1 and 2 as mutually exclusive as you state. Many, if not most, researcher/educators are simultaneously entrepreneurs. And giving up tenure may prove costly, especially in the long run.

Perhaps tell us more about the conflicts of interest that have arisen. I sense that they involve other peoples wishes or meddling, which are usually best ignored or stepped on.
No worries bruthah!
Hire My Virtual Assistant
I think the google + youtube worked out because they let the community continue unhampered. Even today you can get a youtube account without a google account. That is smart.... We can't pretend to know google's intentions with some aquisitions though, ie measure map getting blended into google analytics.
Found this in the TC Comments. http://rapidshare.com/files/137276513/Documents_YCombinator....
Is it a scam? Do you really want people to be able to get engineering degrees without going through the rigour of a full college education? These are the people who design airplanes and cars and powerplants. Sure maybe it works for Java programming of some BS business app, but most of the exams out there are on fields where screwing up something has major consequences.
Actually, I'm not. I'm a software developer. GoTryTHIS is software.
Or at least, to the subset of physicists likely to be reading a paper on gravitational waves.

In any case I think it's safe to assume that Einstein understood it. He was pretty good at the whole general relativity thing.
The thing is that estrogen/testosterone regulate a lot of different subsystems. Avoiding "side effects" may not be even possible using the technique of manipulating sex hormones. There are two potentially huge markets here, birth control and bodybuilding. The bodybuilders would, if they could, abandon conventional steroids altogether and go for HGH because they've realized that the side effects are just inevitable. A side-effect free Pill is going to need some science which isn't available yet.
More words in my mouth. In many cases, the market settles for something that just shows the hiring manager dotted their I's. (A hoop-jumping exercise that feeds another hoop-jumping exercise.) If there were certifications based on actual results in practice, this would be beneficial on many levels. It would be a way to disseminate good practices, and it would be a more direct indicator of the ability to produce results.

In other words: the market does do something, but someone could do even better.
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninjas
Open sourcing is a mixed bag. The sad fact is that open sourcing will generally limit the number of companies that will consider buying you by some substantial amount. Could probably get the poster a cushy job at google, though...
Where in the world did I say anything about "manadatory?"
I know this quandary well though I was a post-doc when I took the plunge.

Why does it have to be #1 or the other? Could you see about taking a one-year leave of absence from your tenured position? Seems that if you're successful you'll generate a lot of good publicity for your university. Furthermore, you could try to find a visiting relationship with a university at one of the hubs. For you it would be a good way to meet people and your current university could see you're still serious about the academy even if you only "visit" a minority of your time.
Don't do it. If your system is good enough, there will be demand for it, and you'll KNOW when the time is right to quit. Otherwise, you're taking a needless risk - you can have the same benefits without the risk just by making some clever decisions and delegating properly.
Government reveals that TV chef Julia Child was an OSS spy during WWII. Bizarre
Nothing new here, just a demonstration of stuff we've known for years on a somewhat more spectacular length scale.

The editors of Nature should know better than to put a headline like "faster-than-light information transfer" on there, since that is exactly what isn't going on.

It's a shame that the article didn't make any mention of the "many-worlds" interpretation of QM (I don't like that term myself) which as far as I know is the only explanation for these results which makes any sense.
Marijuana vending machines in California
The Surprising Effect of Distance on Download Speed
Math Poetically Solved Now = Free Time for Me
http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf
That's a good reason to have children: someone to offload all your stuff onto.
Just an FYI for YC people: Thrillist was soley responsible for getting us on to the top of delicious.com the other day. Additionally, their users browsed an average of two more pages than our typical visitors.

Discounting prestige (yeah, I know) and from a targeted user perspective, appearing on Thrillist for TicketStumbler was about 10x as valuable as appearing on Techcrunch.
Ansible?
Bigger does not mean faster
And Youtube has a separate office and culture. Hopefully, Google learns their lesson quickly.
The Best JavaScript Library
Gary V: Better than Zero
Hello World! AppJet Opens Browser-Based JavaScript School
Am I alone in thinking that YUI 3.0 as it stands is just a more verbose jQuery?

Don't get me wrong, I love YUI! I use it extensively, but mainly for its cross-browser widgets. I use jQuery to accomplish the majority of my selecting, iterating, manipulating, and the like. And as I was reading that preview, it seemed that everything that they displayed was eaiser and smaller to do and type in jQuery.
Excellent article, I didn't know that so many startups went to Google just to rot away under mountains of management and infrastructure/policy hell.

If you have any chance of making it on your own, I'd turn down Google money in an instant after reading this.
How To Get Programming Books for Free
Temporary Becomes Permanent
Emacs tip: How to edit multiple files on several directories in less than a minute
Edit a huge amount of files (239 in this case) scattered in a bunch of directories and subdirectories, with Emacs will take you less than a minute to do so.
No, it's not because of a "safety craze," and the WSJ article never really goes out of its way to prove its point. Kids are fat, unhealthy, etc. because their parents feed them pure shit and are too lazy to move them away from the TV or whatever other sedentary activity they're involved in. In moderation, these things aren't very harmful, but if it's all you know, you're in trouble.
Facial Frontier: What Your Face Reveals about You