skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm seeing going from $0 to around $1 per day (can be as low as $0.25), all of it for CPU hours. This can be seen in billing history.

That's obviously not something to be happy about but then again an argument can be made that the introductory free quota that Google gave was very generous.

This might give Go a push - as I understand it Go is the most efficient of the supported languages which should translate into less CPU hours => less money. On the other hand, other than template parsing/substitution, my code doesn't do any CPU intensive tasks. On the other hand, the CPU hrs might count the overall overhead of the platform, which for statically linked Go will be the smallest (both Python and Java have sizable runtimes that need to be initialized at startup - according to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQtLRqqB-Kk, Java runtime is especially bad in that regard (this is towards the end of the talk in the q&a part).
There is a problem with patent thickets in pharmaceuticals and biotech interfering with innovation, see Carlson's book Biology Is Technology for a good discussion of the problems there. A better alternative for pharmaceuticals may be for whoever puts it through trials to get a patent or license since that is by far the most expensive part for drugs. To an extent that is what has been happening with biotech startups inventing possible pharmaceuticals then their being purchased by large companies that develop them further and run the trials. If you are interested in drug development, http://pipeline.corante.com/ is an interesting blog to follow.
I guess if you enjoy getting off a plane and having no way to contact anyone, find a map to your hotel, and so on, this is a good tradeoff. For me, it's a terrible tradeoff.
That's unsurprisingly a large topic, but suffice it for now to say that again three months is much easier than a longer stay.
Super Secret Article Marketing Strategy Exposed
I don't get this one. I would assume that you'd have to be extremely wealthy to be Steve Jobs's neighbor. As a result you'd think bumping into other extremely wealthy, successful people would be routine.
Like the Middle Men reference, awful movie, but great ideas. Need to hook some Arduino up at the office for that.
I have heard of JRebel for a while but have not had the case to need this until now. Is it free for development?

PS: I saw someone from JRebel did a presentation about ClassLoader before, you guys really know what you are doing. Respect man! :)
My six-year-old just informed me that the fruit loops ads are full of it. She said that "they said they taste good, and they DO NOT. They are lying."

My work is done here.
Interesting, it looks like Blackboard has their own interpretation of a "patent pledge," but it only covers open-source and non-commercial software.

http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Patents/Patent-Pledge.asp...
It is possible to write plattform independent software for App Engine in Java. But yeah ... it's kind of a lock in until the Hadoop people can copy the exact API of App Engine ;-)

P.S.: They'll better include SSL on the domain instead of blabla.appspot.com. It's now the norm and they still don't offer this basic feature as far as i can see :(
great stuff, Phil! what's the next endeavor!?
I have an online store that I custom developed in Python hosted in App Engine.

I'm paying around $15 a month. With the new prices I would have to pay $450 a month.

Time to migrate :(

Any recommendations for a python hosting?
The main question to answer is how long ago did this happen.
Why not just give the globals single letter names instead of removing letters? The code is shorter and produces shorter names with no conflicts:

a=65;
for(k in g = z.getContext('experimental-webgl'))
t[String.fromCharCode(a)] = t[k] = g[k].bind && a++ && g[k].bind(g);

(this starts with uppercase "A", char code 65)
Cool. I like ceph and I'm happy to hear about ceph.com. Good luck to them.
More specifically, it's intended to help you find the date of manufacture of one of their globes.

The dates and country names reflect when Replogle Globes changed their products, not politics on the ground. The map is not the territory!
Yes these technologies have been around for several years. Unfortunately none of them are stable/reliable/easy to reason about.

WebSQL (SQLite) has been ignored by Mozilla, on the stated basis that an independent implementation of WebSQL would be too difficult to build. They advocated that a database designed by committee would be better for the web than the most widely deployed database in the world. They deprecated WebSQL before IndexedDB was given a chance to prove itself. Unfortunately they also said that anyone could build SQLite on top of IDB if they chose to. Firefox have implemented IDB on top of SQLite. IDB is at least an order of magnitude slower than SQLite.

LocalStorage is capped at approximately 10mb and there are no quota apis to adjust this. It is not likely that this will change and there has been discussion on the Public Web Apps over whether LocalStorage should also be deprecated in favor of IDB.

ApplicationCache works well but it's designed for caching code and html and it's not an alternative to IDB.

IndexedDB is high-level and "to-do list" friendly. It is not primarily focused on providing library authors with performant low-level storage primitives (BTree, KV) with which to work. The specification is exceedingly complex and so is the API. Chrome has implemented IDB on top of LevelDB which is a terrific storage engine. Exposing something like LevelDB directly would be more useful and make for a powerful, flexible API to boot. IDB has problems with inadvertently capturing application state bubbles. Indexes must be predefined and then migrated at the database layer, the application has no say over indexing. I'm not sure if IDB supports indexing object array values yet. IDB claims to support MVC yet most implementations cause writers to block readers and even readers to block other readers.

Edit:

Mozilla don't plan to support the FileSystem API.

It's not clear that all browsers will provide persistent storage guarantees. At least Mozilla have said that they may treat client-side storage as evict-able at the discretion of the user agent (as opposed to user), rather than as persistent storage. I'm not sure if the specifications have been updated to enforce some kind of guarantee on the part of user agents.
I agree there is a balance between sane and insane efforts at caching, but I disagree that no caching is a viable choice. Apache and Wordpress with no caching on a smallish VPS will fall over really quickly. This is unacceptable when you can get huge benefits very easily by installing a widely available plugin like WP-Super Cache or WP-Total Cache. It's almost no work to get that set up, and will help you survive a mini-slashdotting. That's going to let you serve an order of magnitude more traffic than usual.

An easy solution like those plugins is such a big win for so little work, I just can't agree with "it's good enough for normal use". The last thing you want is for your blog to fail when you are getting a traffic spike.
I definitely agree with what you're saying. However, I'd really like to know the origins of the "Apple doesn't do User Testing"

Has that ever been substantiated? I've heard it once or twice in various incarnations, such as "Apple doesn't do Market Research" or something of the like. I really don't think it's reasonable to say that. Apple may not do end user testing,but I'm sure they do usability testing. It may be a trivial distinction to some, but I think it's sort of important.
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> Fact is, an idea is an abstract concept, not a physical good or a services. One cannot own an abstract concept - the very notion of that is completely nonsensical. If somebody has a an idea, and tells (gives) that idea to somebody else, both people will have that idea now. You cannot say the same of a physical good or a service.

You're missing the point. Filing patents isn't (in theory) about hoarding ideas. It's a way to ensure that when you expend (often large amounts of) money and/or effort in order to develop a new technology, you are able to reap the rewards. Often, a new technology is most valuable to the first person to commercialize it.
Facebook Aims to Partner With, Not Squash, Music Streaming Services
Ask HN: 4 YC Founder Team?
My cofounders and I have been considering applying to YC. We've been working on the project for 2 years, paying the bills by performing industry specific services, and plan to have a sellable prototype by December (we're a hardware startup, which is why we've taken so long).

But, we have 4 founders in our current state. I understand that YC prefers 2 or 3 founders, but we've been bootstrapping for 2 years with 4, so does that balance out the higher risk of the 4 founder? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Also, just to clarify, our team consists of a hardcore embedded linux/os dev, a back end dev, a front end dev/designer, and a sales/marketing guy (who's learned enough coding to write simple CRUD apps). Disclaimer: I'm the marketing guy.
premature eulogizing

I mentioned this to a friend the other day. If I only read all of the stories coming out about SJ I would have assumed he died and not just left his CEO position.
For "fix advertising," Munch on Me and Groupon were listed. I'm trying to figure out how these two companies have fixed advertising and I just can't. I don't even know why they are mentioned with regards to advertising.

There's still so much room for innovation in the advertising space. Advertiser's think that click through rate is the key metric for them, this is far from true. Click through rate just means the advertisement itself is compelling enough to garner a click. What about after the user clicks? Why are advertisers paying on a CPM basis when they are looking at CTR as the key metric? CTR means advertisers want people to visit a subsequent page and perform additional actions. Companies have tried to assign cost to these additional actions but have mostly been unsuccessful because it is extremely difficult to track. Google Adwords is better for this but people are moving away from standard search (in the long term at least) and it is still far from perfect. Also, there's enormous display inventory out there that needs to be disrupted.

I could go on for a while about advertising and I have some initial ideas for improvements of the online advertising model. I'm excited to talk to like-minded people at the YC ad innovation conference.
That was my first thought, actually, but due to differences between Firefox and Chrome, you end up with different variable names, even sometimes between versions. I tried a few hacks, but couldn't work around it.
When you came up with tiny letter did you do it to serve a personal need and did you ever have any intent to sell it so quickly?
Good point to bring up. Regarding "Have your designers and executives use the products realistically for long periods of time before release to identify problem areas", that's a form of user testing as well when the products are things that people in the company actually use.
What about reading only expired patents?
Excellent, I found the setting:

http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=290...
Here's another proposal that doesn't rest on social pressure, the effectiveness of which I fear Paul overestimates.

Start a non-profit coalition with the following rules:

(1) All patent disputes between members will be resolved by binding arbitration. The arbiters are a panel of domain experts (not lawyers!). There is no presumption that an issued patent is valid.

(2) If a member of the coalition is sued by a non-member, the other members of the coalition make their entire portfolios available for a defensive countersuit. When a member's patent is used to defend another member, the former is compensated by the latter on terms set by arbitration.

(3) There is no restriction on using one's own patents to sue non-members.

It would also be stated policy, at least in the areas of software and business model patents, that the arbiters would be directed to apply a very high standard of obviousness, so that most issued patents would be of little use in an arbitrated dispute.

Could such a thing work? No voluntary system can address the patent troll problem, as trolls have nothing to gain by joining it. But for practicing entities, it seems to me that membership in such a coalition could be beneficial, by reducing the likely number and expense of patent disputes.
Having just listened to the "When Patents Attack!" podcast today (http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-pat...), I question how this addresses what I saw as the fundamental challenge with patent trolls -- shell corporations. These companies are spawned as needed to sue the alleged patent infringers. Since the shell companies are just a bunch of lawyers and the ownership of a patent, there's little in the way of assets to counter sue for (i.e. there's not much for the suing entity to lose). I don't think these guys will be swayed by a moral or ethical argument either. And since these shell companies don't employ coders, well, I don't expect it will impact who coders decide to work for.
Old palo alto represent!
I tried to use it for a while but gave up when I couldn't find a simple way of finding my twitter follows that also have a Subjot account. Did anyone tried/succeeded doing this?
I'm working on something music related, at http://fandalism.com
My understanding is "they don't do usability testing" is in the context of "usability testing" being defined as hiring some usability consultants who have never designed usable software to come in and video tape random people off the street trying to accomplish canned tasks using the software. They then write the results in a report with some generic or impractical suggestions which would not actually improve usability because they are neither designers nor target users. Apple doesn't do that sort of "usability testing". However, Apple does test their products for usability.
The official announcement on kernel.org: https://www.kernel.org/#news

And the HN story referencing that announcement: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2947578

I have to wonder why someone felt the need to anonymously pastebin the original announcement to a private mailing list.
Have you tried the "show files" panel? Ctrl/cmd-T. Works like TextMate's. Works like ctrl/cmd-P except it only accepts files, and will show a default file list when it opens.
You're absolutely correct. I had to generalize to make the point, but you have identified one of the flaws in my generalization.

The other flaw is that the amount doesn't really matter. What matters is the pain that it causes the client. Many large corporations can and do write large checks for consulting that they never intend to follow -- for various reasons. Just because the amount seems big to you doesn't mean it's even noticeable by the client.

But still, rates are a signaling mechanism. Even with higher rates, there's still a lot of careful screening you should do before accepting a client. Assuming you're in that position, of course.

There's a whole school of thought that says that even when clients are playing political games with consultants, it's still possible to have positive influence. But that's completely off the track from the simple point about people accepting advice. People are more likely to accept advice if it is done as part of some reciprocal arrangement or trade. Free advice is mostly worthless.
Dont get me wrong I love having the capability you describe, but outside of the HN community I have to believe that the greater majority of users do not travel enough to justify national plans.
The problem with that worldview, is that Patents play a number of very important defensive and value creating roles in a small company, that is not related, whatsoever, to their use in an offensive (in both senses of the word) manner.

See: http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html

In particular:

"We do advise the companies we fund to apply for patents, but not so they can sue competitors. Successful startups either get bought or grow into big companies. If a startup wants to grow into a big company, they should apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to maintain an armed truce with other big companies. If they want to get bought, they should apply for patents because patents are part of the mating dance with acquirers."
You'll still have to do a lot of re-writing but https://www.dotcloud.com/ might be your best bet.
Why should small companies deserve special protection? If the current patent system is just, let them sue anyone big or small. If the system is broken, they shouldn't be suing big companies either. How about a pledge not use ridiculous patents to sue anyone? That may be way too vague, but that would make more sense.
I hated the setup process on the Revue, but after that, I really like it. Being able to play flash video in 1080p, hw accelerated, on my tv is nice. Looking forward to 3.0 and maybe more apps for it.
I think this is a good idea in theory, but the patent trolls are ruthless as ever. Their primary motivator is making money, and I doubt they'll stop their actions.

On the flipside, if this can garner public pressure against the trolls-- and perhaps some real action in changing the laws, I think the world would be a better place.

Keep it up Y Combinator!
I hope not. The concessions from the SBC-ATT merger five years ago dried up pretty quickly, but the lack of choice in local DSL providers is as fresh as the day the papers were signed.
In response to the anonymous downvoters, it's quite clear that in a competitive market, settling for giving the people what they want is inadequate. You have to make them want what you're selling. As someone pointed out above, many consumer goods are essentially identical and are distinguished chiefly by their marketing efforts. And even with Apple's own products, one might wonder whether the exact same product introduced by say, Dell or HP, would've been as successful.

Contrary to popular belief, the market isn't a simple system of people with inherent needs meeting those with products, but a complex web of collective psychology driven by a combination of the social network and mass media.
Is it just their servers, or was the kernel distribution itself compromised? I can't tell from this.
DARPA's rule is that if more than 10% of their projects succeed, they're not taking enough risks. Blue sky projects are presumably much, much lower probability than that.
I still think the iPad is an oversized iPod that's just ridding the iPhone's wave.

Back in the real world, grandmas don't buy gadgets or PCs, and when they do they've got nephews to help them.

Sorry, but the iPhone/iPad are game changers because they fit in your pocket. The Kindle is too, since it's the first rela replacement for books. The iPad on the other hand, besides being cool, just gives me a headache.

The iPad on the other hand just gives me a headache whenever I tried using it for more then one hour.
Well, I can't help but be curious, what was the acquisition price?
When I've flown first, I can say that I would rather spend those 10 minutes being pampered ("would you like a drink?") than waiting in the general lounge.

Now, if I could be in the club lounge, that's a different thing. Being bumped to first class doesn't get you that level of access.
To clarify: the declared value puts a _maximum_ on awarded damages, but does not make it in any way automatic (even if the product is found infringing).

My proposal is that it is set retroactively one year back: when you file your 2011 taxes (on April 2012 at the latest), you would assign a value for it for 2011, and pay it at that point.

If you sue (or even threat to sue) someone in 2011 before paying the tax, that is an admission of tax liability - if you declare less at the end of the year, that's grounds for the IRS to audit you and assume your highest estimate during the year (as shown in the threat to sue) sets your tax, and anything else is automatic assumption of tax evasion.

A future-looking only assessment is also possible; but in that case, you have to be able to set the value (and pay the tax) on a monthly basis -- otherwise, it calls for anyone who is willfully infringing to wait until 1-jan, ask for the IP value, and if it is less than they expected to pay, have a year of "free" use.

My proposal is an attempt to sort-of balance the existing state of affairs -- if at the end of the year, you didn't manage to license it to anyone, you shouldn't be taxed for what you thought it is worth.
Congrats, you getting a miniature pet giraffe out of the deal?
That's probably the most terrifying thing I've ever read.
What the...

The cost of my app is going from $9 per month to $200 per month. This is ridiculous...
The bitsquatted domain sends two records, one for the squatted domain and one for the original name, pointing to the squatter's server. The parent article isn't as detailed as the paper/talk was, but this is a point that the DEFCON presentation included (and I reckon the BH one as well)
Google App Engine Blog: $50 Credit for new billing signups and budget changes
Also, FileMaker / Bento
who updates the updater?
That's great for the founder! I love TinyLetter. Hopefully the quality won't deteriorate with the acquisition!
Is it wise to pursue a whitelist approach?
I'm personally not a YC founder, but I have gone through another high-profile accelerator.

In the vast majority of cases, the "rules" are just a starting guideline. There are always exceptions.

Just like there have been (rare) cases of single founders, the opposite of four founders is likely an option.

The one thing that matters is the same thing that has always mattered. Are you rockstars? YC - like others - invest in people.

If you're an amazing set of people and work great together on an idea that you've been working on for two years, but all means apply. You literally have nothing to lose.
Way too wordy, not nearly as insightful as he thinks it is.

This guy is clearly so full of it on so many levels. All hat, no cattle.
GitHub seem to have solved both the lack of builds issue and the challenge of deploying multiple branches (their bot can deploy a branch to staging with a single command) - which just leaves refactoring. I imagine they deal with refactoring by broadcasting a message to the team saying "I'm working on refactoring area X, try not to touch that code until I'm done if you don't want to deal with a painful merge".
What is a good example of something that would have turned out worse if there hadn't been software patents? (I know you've argued before that software patents aren't fundamentally different than patents on anything else, but to a lot of people software patents have more obviously negative consequences).
Not sure if this is relevant, but I just spent the summer with a YC startup that had 4 founders. In fact when the final papers for the US version of the company were made it had like 7 due to investor type people.
The investment that didn’t happen
p.s. Pud, you're an inspiration, in a sense that making small things pays off.
I think this article was pretty good. Sometimes I sit back and wonder-- why the heck am I struggling so hard for stuff? Why not just give in and go with the flow, kick back and let others take the rein. I just can't though, it's something in me, and probably in you, too.

The world needs more entrepreneurs.
Wow - According to their projections based on current usage, I'm seeing a 100x increase in my daily cost. I guess I will be migrating off of App Engine. I'm feeling pretty burned at this point.