skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is not "yet another Linux distribution", this is "one LESS Linux distribution". It's essentially a merger of LiMo and Meego. It's a merger of cool but unpopular (Meego) and boring but popular (LiMo, used on most Japanese featurephones).
Because I want to make a difference in the world and I found building a startup doesn't allow you to do that in most cases.

I mean, I’ll always be grateful for my startup experience but I’m man enough to admit it was pointless. We built a product, spent our whole time trying to convince people our product was worthwhile, eventually convinced someone who bought the product and then watched the product be squandered.

So the founders got a decent amount of money. The first employees (aka Me) got a smaller but still decent amount of money. And we all went on our merry way.

But I didn’t accomplish a damn thing during that time. My work was flushed down the toilet and half my time was spent trying to get media coverage. I accomplish more in one day of my current job than I did in the whole year I was in the valley because in my current job people use the fruits of my labor instantly.

Again, I’m not complaining. I like what I do now and I couldn’t do it if not for the money I received then. I’ll always be grateful. But as someone who wants to make a difference in the world I don’t see a startup as the way to do that anymore.
My experience taught me that moonlighting is hard. If you are really convinced it's gonna work, try taking vacation or sabbatical leave for a month or so (if you can) and work full time, ship the damn thing, advertise the hell out of it, and start counting the money / since your life doesn't depend on it, you need some gratification to keep going.
I'm in grad school going for a PhD in physics.

I was a programmer. I hated it. I make less than half what I used to. It's awesome.

That said, if I can't pull this off for some reason, I'll probably move out to the Valley and roll the dice.
"In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice."

Not easy indeed! I don't like my job, yet cannot cut loose from the daily cocoon that I'm used to.
Because I work on open source instead. It lets me write cool code, without the associated market pressures of a startup.
you're probably right and I didn't know that. But all of what I said probably applies to ie7 or even 8.
This suggests to me an interesting idea. Lets say you used the CSS media tag to include style sheets for 'e-ink', then if such a style existed you could 'send this to my kindle'. A sort of instapaper meets Kindle Publishing.

Amazon could pull something like that off, it would be useful to have a wordpress template that included the e-ink stylesheet.
The Kindle DX is a niche device. As of now, Amazon probably just wants to charge as much as they can, as long as it still sells.

With that said, I'm also interested in the DX. The only problem is that I can't justify that price when I can get a TouchPad for the same price (or less).
Amazon silk is based on webkit with SPDY added
This may be a subcategory of "financial reasons," but health care is probably a big factor for a lot of people in the US.
I am full-firce right now. But I had a lull year before starting this one where I felt unmotivated. I had a failed startup and one that was "successful" but didn't make me any money. I had enough mostly-passive income from two retail stores that I am a partner in, so I wasn't particularly financially motivated.

Then inspiration struck.
It's important to feature it but you need to feature it in a way that people will instantly connect with the essence of the performance gain ala Firewire/Thunderbolt/Retina -- I'm pretty sure if this was an Apple launch they would be calling this RocketWeb or somesuch and there would be a bar chart showing the same pages in RocketWeb downloading 3 times faster (maybe they had this, I haven't watched the keynote yet).
tldr: study shows that it's easy to find you on social networks based online on pictures. Experiments were done to show that you can be found between sites (e.g. a picture on an adult dating site can be used to find you on Facebook) and by taking pictures of random students on campus.
He may be partially correct, however I suspect that Friedman doesn't really care all that much about the rights most reasonable people appreciate.

I can reasonably see it producing some limited sorts of freedom, but (as an example) how would it produce equal rights for homosexuals?
Well that was a very arrogantly-worded post. Maybe you didn't mean it to be, but that's certainly how it comes off.

I'm working at a small company doing some incredibly cool "building" stuff, and not in maintenance at all - and I get a steady paycheck and good benefits. There doesn't need to be this dichotomy. There are tons of us out there who work 9-5, enjoy life, don't kill ourselves, yet get to build incredibly cool things with small teams of cool people.

Really, the only downside of my job compared to a startup is that I don't have the potential payout of $[millions], and somehow I'm okay with that. The quality of my life is incredibly high, I set my own hours, and yet because we're not busting our ass just to survive I get to stop and smell the roses. It's pretty cool.
All of it. Right now it's only for Kindle Fire, and that device is primarily there just to sell the rest of their digital content.
If I were on the tropical island, obviously I would still make things. But I would only make things I cared about, at my own pace, and for free. If I already have enough money for food, health, and shelter for the rest of my life, I don't need any more.

Also, anythign I did build would be something that would make the world a better place. Some startups do try to change the world for the better. Most are just doing some advertising, social nonsense, crappy games, or something else completely trivial and useless as a money-grab.
As a counterpoint, I'm 32. I have a wife and own a house, and get to spend precious little time with either. I gave up my secure agency job to join a startup and I'm working on side startups of my own. Not because I'm greedy, but because I love building things. I can't imagine doing anything else.
You need to normalize the results by population density.

Pretty much anything I type, I get the same results - NY + LA + SF + London.
Ask HN: Dealing with Constant Browser Upgrades
There have been small discussions in many threads about the "brave new world" of web development caused by the rapid release cycles of Chrome and Firefox. I'm currently working on a web app to be used a highly regulated industry that typically requires buckets of QC. My group is struggling with both settling on a list of accepted browsers and dealing with testing those browsers. How are others dealing with this? I've suggested that we define a "current" list of browsers (say, FF 3 to 7, and Chrome 14), test against those, and let our user base find bugs in later versions.
"I was always afraid someone would highjack my stuff so every time I went to the washroom, I had to pack everything up and bring it with me."

If you feel like being social, this is a good excuse for striking up a conversation with someone nearby who seems interesting. Ask if the person can keep an eye on your stuff for a few minutes. Assuming he/she is friendly, after you get back and say thanks the ice will be broken and you can chat if you want to. I suppose it's still a bit riskier than taking your stuff with you, but seems minimal.
This exactly. If you are committed to your project full time, then it's a lifestyle business and not the type of startup referenced here. Lifestyle businesses are great, but I've only met a handful of people who have had their life changed from a lifestyle business. If you are passionate about something, why won't you leap?

I'm mid 30s, married and kids and bills to pay, but I am still making the jump because I'm incredibly passionate about my idea.
I'm on an H1B. Trying to figure out how to, without compromising my chances of getting a greencard.
those guys can always try again ...
Cool article, this reminds me of how the memory championships mentioned in Joshua Foer's book "Moonwalking With Einstein" (http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Rememberi...) all workout and watch their personal fitness in order to optimize their mental performance. Gary Kasparov used to also exercise a lot too prior to chess competitions.
I'm on an H1B. Trying to figure out how to, without compromising my chances of getting a greencard. Technically, I can't even build + charge for an iOS application right now.
> Bezos looked awkward and nervous

Sounds about like every time I've heard him speak. He probably let out some really loud laughs too.

Remember his welcome video to Zappos employees? It was a paper based presentation (giant sheets!) where among other things he explained mistakes he and Amazon made and then shared "everything I know". He's awkward at moments, but authentic throughout. I like his style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hxX_Q5CnaA
Quite, there is no situation where a muggle isn't about to get pwned that involves an ad-hoc network.
Weird. My iPhone 4 only works in portrait mode with polarized glasses, the glass turns opaque in landscape.
From ArsTechnica,

"Amazon has also added a few unique twists of its own that will further improve the user experience. An Amazon engineer at the New York launch event told us that the split browsing infrastructure can even compile JavaScript to ARM machine code on the server side in situations where it will provide a speed boost. He also told us that Amazon will track whether users prefer the full or mobile versions of various websites so that they can predict which one is better to send to users."
Well, from about the 1:45 mark it sounds a lot like a sales pitch. "Everything's definitely going to go to shit, but if you get my advice you could come out of it rich". This is also the gist of his website, which encourages people to employ him as an advisor or public speaker. Judging by his website, facebook, twitter and myspace accounts, he has a strong interest in self promotion. Judging by http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8792829/BBC-fin... he's not really the elite financial insider a lot of people seem to be taking him for. He's just a dude with an internet connection, some trading software, a thirst for attention and a product to sell.

Admittedly I can't literally prove he hasn't been dreaming for this market crash for 3 yrs, but his "confession" clearly serves the purpose of letting the audience know how awesome he'd be at looking after their money in the forthcoming recession.
I haven't had fingerprint issues at all on my Nook v2 (which uses the same sort of screen and touch sensor), so I doubt it'll be worth worrying about on the Kindle Touch.
Performing maintenance is the best description I've heard for a ton of the software jobs out there.
If you're an individual retail investor, your broker won't let you leverage up that high and will likely require assets/cash as collateral against the margin account.
Massacred? Certainly not. Either they take it or they fire him; he can't really lose.
I get a real paycheck each month, I use whatever languages/tools I want, and I still don't have to wear shoes to the office! Suckers! ;)
Your problems may not be their problems. Their "problem" is learning as much about their customers as possible. This solution precisely scratches that itch.
Wow, nice description. Being a bit more informative will most likely give you more votes and clickthroughs. Just saying :)
I'm still in uni and I have no idea for a business/product.
It's a long article, but worth reading. It's analytical and basically non-political. The take away is that taxpayer incomes dropped 5.7% (inflation adjusted) during the Bush years. The number of people earning over $200K, but paying no income tax, went from 2300 in 2000 to 22,300 in 2008.
This makes it seem that starting a startup is a way to make money. As Myth: Entrepreneurship Will Make You Rich[1] says:

So why become an entrepreneur instead of developing technology in an R&D lab? Three reasons: change the world, make customers’ lives better and create an organization of lasting value. If you only want to do one of these things, there are better options. But only startups combine all three.

Making money is a fuel to a goal, not a goal in itself. As Tim O'Reilly[2] put it very well:

You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car -- you need to pay attention or you'll end up on the side of the road -- but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!

[1] http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/10/myth-entreprene...

[2] http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...
I wish they would put out info on the development situation for it quicker. Clearly they've given access to large publishers early, giving first mover advantage to the incumbents.
Maybe I'm overly trusting, but I just ask someone who has line-of-sight, "excuse me, would you mind watching my stuff for a minute?". I figure that the odds of picking the one person who would steal things is very low, and people see it as a gesture of trust. It's sometimes an opening for a conversation when you return, or at least for returning the favour.
I hate working in coffeeshops or shared offices.

Not being able to leave your stuff when you go to the bathroom is a big fail, but even worse, not being able to take phone calls in a low stress environment while sitting at your desk. Being able to look things up. Also, it's not really a great environment for having confidential discussions in general, especially in Silicon Valley -- I've had meetings where the VC picked a coffeeshop to meet, and 2-3 other companies were having meetings in the same space.

A private office in a setting with coworkers is ideal, but failing that, a dedicated home office is the next best alternative.
...The policy authors acknowledged that this may make the rule toothless in practice...

Er, hello? If the policy is just a paper tiger, perhaps that fact should go in the title?

I think this is a great step, but if it's largely symbolic, that's a pretty important part of the story and doesn't deserve to be in paragraph 10

I'm left questioning how much is real and how much is spin, which is not where I want to be as a reader.
That's how I read it as well. It doesn't matter though, it's still the wrong way to look at pricing. Value, price and cost are not at all related.
Even when it can find something, it will mix in non-matching results with your matching results.
While the average price may seem low, I was under the impression that everyone involved with these bundles considered them wildly successful.
Right -- all that money goes to pay people's salaries and materials, but the opportunity cost of building something useful is what is lost. That's the answer to the broken window fallacy, Keynesian ditch-filling (at least as a long-term solution; it is possible it makes sense to smooth out demand, but real public works projects are still better even then), etc.
Amazon Just Won The Android Tablet Wars With The $199 Kindle Fire
You could do this with existing technology. Just stick rfid tags in loyalty cards and a scanner on the door.
"This populist attitude has been missing from the tablet market since the iPad's release."

Disagree completely. Everyone expected the iPad to cost $999, but they came in at a superlow price point that no one else could compete with and have sold tens of millions.

To paraphrase Bezos and Andy Warhol at the same time the iPad is the Coke of tablets, we're still waiting for a Pepsi and every working class guy on the street knows he can get the same iPad as the President and no amount of money can get you a better tablet then the iPad that guy on the bus has. That's populism in the tablet market (or as they say, ipad market) to me.
That study that CrazyBear linked to definitely shows that when you removed immigrants and retired people, income growth looks much better: median income grew by 29% instead of 9%. So the fact that we have more immigrants and and retirees live longer definitely has a negative impact on median income growth number without really impacting the average American.

The bad news however is that most of the growth in family median income is not because wages are going up: it's because there are more two income families. I don't think it's bad that more women are working now and that they're making more money but I'm not sure it's really making us richer. What's missing from this study is any attempt to quantify the "free" labor that women were doing by being home for the kids and taking care of the house. If the extra money being brought in is simply going out to pay for childcare and a maid, we're really running in place, just faster.
If you're going to throw time and money into filling your own hole anyways.
Apparently this one is a stop-gap device that they had made to get into this holiday season. The tablet they really want to have is still some months away and will miss this year.
Bandwidth and CPU don't solve latency which today contributes most of your perceived page load wait, and thanks to current web practices, has been getting steadily worse. SPDY and Silk address latency.
Another option is to just pay for coworking. You still get to work with strangers (but now strangers who are paying to be in a productive environment), can often drink coffee (perhaps included as part of the coworking fees), should have consistent wifi and plenty of power outlets, and don't have to worry about getting kicked out to make room for other customers.
> As nice and cool as they may be when you meet them, they are fundamentally in a business of greed.

+1. I like HN but I don't understand why the size of the business / method of funding matters so much, as opposed to what is being done, unless I put on my cynic hat. Once affixed, I realize it's because getting millions in VC (rather than grinding for it) and then selling out to an established player, or selling before the IPO, is incredibly sexy.

A really safe business strategy is to become a middle man who allows other organizations to operate smoothly. You then sidestep having to take a stance on any major issue and make money off other people using the service to do something truly remarkable.

By no means am I familiar with all of YC's businesses but the ones on the front page are basically infrastructure applications. While neat, it seems like the sexiest businesses are ones where you don't actually make something, but you make a tool for someone else to make something. FogCreek sells, among others, a bug tracker, a closed version of an open dvcs, and a Windows RDP clone. Dropbox syncs files and revisions across computers. Others let you create database wrappers ("forms"), create blogs, or find incredibly expensive travel accommodations. I am a user or I want to be a user of most of them, actually, but I'd be lying if I said they are revolutionary or useful on their own.

They're safe business strategies with incredibly intelligent, motivated people at the helm. Now, won't those intelligent, motivated people stop working on cat-pictures projects? I'd do something but I'm too stupid so I'm relying on smart people to change the world.

EDIT:

I know FogCreek isn't a YC venture. I made a really poor segue into talking about businesses with the startup mentality I read about, not specifically YC ones. Oy, what a day.
> The "rich people" who do startups do it because they love building things that solve big problems

Also, their wealth was probably caused by their attitude toward work and entrepreneurship, not the other way around.
I've done the startup thing a few times, and I realized that I don't like the business aspect of it all that much. I like development/architecture/brainstorming/etc... I don't like asking for money, laying people off, being constantly stressed out about this or that issue that I have little to no control over. I really don't have fond memories of cash flow crunches and bridge loans.

If I did end up being a founder again, I'd definitely be a technical one (the distinction didn't exist so much in the past). If it has to do with something that isn't code/design/architecture/etc... it's the other founders issue. I could go for that.

But setting the right expectations as an employee isn't a bad thing either. My funnest experience in the work world was actually working for a big company on a product I enjoyed. I loved the work and really focused solely on the product. I really haven't had a chance to do that since.
As I said in response to the previous submission re: SPDY, I think the protocol is great. However, relying on TLS NPN to enable it means I can't implement a SPDY server with OpenSSL versions prior to 1.1.0, or any version of Windows SChannel (even in Windows 7).

Please, please could browser developers consider supporting the Connection: Upgrade and/or Alternate-Protocol headers as an alternative?

(I know I'll probably get downvoted for sounding like a broken record, but I'd really like to spread the word about this issue)
Other: I'm getting valuable hands-on product experience at my current gig (low risk too, since it's not my company). When that ends, I'll probably get the itch to start something.
I was going to suggest that google should insert a short "your search [A +B 'C D E'] returned x results" and then follow up with "Searching for [A B C D E] returned y results" to separate the results.

Now I think about it, Google is most likely doing this intentionally, to get more data for "natural language search" ie, to infer what people might mean by combining the results, then seeing what people click on to validate the technique.

This does mean that intentional input won't work anymore, unless there is a means to turn this semi-semantic search off.

Hmmmm... maybe DuckDuckGo would be a suitable alternative?
I think we're way off topic but I'll try to end on a good note by pointing out that I can't downvote you as you responded to my post.

You'll find the community here is great, but you should try to play by it's rules:)
Identify Influencers with the New Klout API
It's Extortation
"Alternatively, customize your reply when you get the Googlebot user agent."

WARNING: BE VERY CAREFUL DOING THIS!

This is one of the main ways that the googlebot detects spam/malware sites and doing it can utterly destroy your ranking forever in some circumstances.
Fear of failure. Bills. Lack of enough real motivation to move beyond sleepless nights thinking about my ideas and onto sleepless nights working on them. Laziness. Resistance to change. Comfort. A million other excuses.

Just like these.
Simply because you cannot understand the motivations of someone who has their basic needs covered but continues to build does not mean "they are fundamentally in a business of greed".

Just because something is "advertising" or "social" does not mean that it is "completely trivial and useless". Very few big problems are solved in one fell swoop. Most of them are overcome by thousands of people chipping away at various parts of them at the same time.