skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Initially we'll side-step that issue.

First we'll build the equivalent of an online mountable disk so it'll be a natural fit for online storage/backup and sharing.

Building applications on top of this storage layer such as photo sharing and syncing will be next.

As for how to compete, the magic sauce is openness on two fronts. Bandwidth and storage are commodities, and we want this storage tier to be a commodity marketplace as well. The storage providers will compete for end users while cooperating to store and serve up data. A user can switch providers and retain the same data in the system (cloud).

Along with an "open" system, most (if not all) of the software will be open source. We envision a small hub of centralized services (identity and such), a storage provider ring, and the end users.

So basically we'll beat the big guys by creating an open system with open software. Our company, then, will be taking a small slice of a big pie, rather than on these players head-on.
Nope. Day 60 was our public launch day.

We actually had revenue before we were launched from our blog (no actual site was even up). It was a pile of shit.

Two Stone Temple Pilots tickets I believe.
As I understand it, the government was basically offering the banks money, albeit on perhaps not the best terms. Banks could pay it back if they could raise the money elsewhere on better terms. Every bank had to accept the offer because not taking it risked disadvantaging them with respect to the other banks.

The situation is similar to the stimulus package where the government gave each taxpayer a check. I'll bet that many fiscal conservatives took the money, even though they were against it in principle, because not to take it would make them poorer with respect to those who did take the money.

When government inflates the money supply, it's really transferring some wealth from those with the old money to those with the new money. This "forces" people to compete to receive the new money.
Tesla Motors CEO Replaced by Elon Musk, Layoffs Expected
Apple bashing is popular. Bashing Apple for not delivering on rumors is popular. How dare they not deliver what people thought they might...
The 100 Oldest Companies in the World
Motorola Q 11 Unlocked
Motorola has finally released the much-anticipated Q11, its latest smart phone with a full QWERTY thumb board. The Q11 allows fast messaging, easy access to email, location services and multimedia applications.
Ask HN: free-personal/paid-commercial licensing model
I'm considering adopting a licensing model that permits free personal use and requires purchasing a license for commercial use. Quick Google search brought up few examples:

* http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy/buy.jsp - Java IDE

* http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition - AVG Antivirus

* https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/licensing.asp - VPN service

Berkeley DB is (sort of) of this variety and so is the Aladdin Ghostscript license. Are there any obviously notable examples out there ?

Does anyone has any experience with this model ? From either side - as a licensor or a licensee.

Thanks

(edit) I though I'd elaborate on this a bit. First of all, the context is a standalone application. Its target audience is not dumb users, but the app is not very specialized either. It is equally useful to both the home users and IT professionals.

Secondly, my take on the above model is this. It is viable because it appeals to the users who are

* capable of paying (from the company budget)

* generally feel obligated to pay (due to internal IT practices)

* and who are easier to part with the money (as it's not their own)

In case of home users neither of these three points holds. The only way to facilitate the payment is to appeal to their conscience (by nagging, by enforcing the restrictions via some sort of DRM mechanism, etc) - very .. err .. uncertain and effort-intensive endeavor compared to focusing on commercial users only.

Also, giving away fully-functional version under some sort of a free license effectively counters the need for hacked "full version" and eliminates the need for the licensing enforcement provisions in the application. Former helps to maintain greater control over the installation base and latter makes for a cleaner and simpler application.
Adobe's Flash Media Server (expensive licenses, good support), Wowza's Media Server (less expensive licenses, mediocre support), and Red5 (open sourced Java, poor support) are pretty much your main options. FMS has a free version that supports up to 10 simultaneous connections.

IIRC Justin.tv built their own custom RTMP server for their site.
My thoughts on this : http://www.web2media.net/laktek/?p=90
It's hard to say whether the Nintendo guys are that inept or whether they're deliberately leaving these gaping holes for the modders.
The 'Third Age' of the Internet: A Revolution of All Things
Twitter defines a new era. (Comic)
> Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.

I'm pretty sure I could accomplish the same thing by plugging my old foreman grill into a $3 light timer.

Of course, it might also prove hazardous to my feet.
Why do you consider a 50-50 gender balance "correct"? Few extend this idea of "correctness" to apply to homeless rates or prison populations.
Prices got more expensive like-for-like in the UK (presumably to hedge against recent exchange rate movements).
I just bought one, but I've been waiting for the Acer Aspirwe 6 cell to come out. Plus, Dell just released the new laptop which people have been waiting for for what, 6 months? It got tons of techie press coverage.

I think that while it is an interesting trend, the causation implied by the title is misleading. The crisis has nothing to do with why I bought my laptop, nor why three of my friends bought theirs. It's just the timing of it - Dell and Acer both came out with laptops people were waiting for just as the economy was slowing.
I'd pay you and you're not charging me...

Simple doesn't have to be free, I'd gladly pay 5 bucks a month to have this, so why not start charging?
I never watch any of these videos, honestly.

It's easy to read, understand and rebut text. Video is still very much a one way medium.
The vertical scales don't match, was the thrust of the comment.
Curious, once you get bigger you're going to butt up against all of the anti-scalping laws that are up there, as well as the ticketmasters of the world that are going to contend that you shouldn't have the right to complete with their monopoly. Have you thought about what strategies you'd use at that time, and if so, would you care to share them with us?

This is purely for my own curiosity, I don't have interest in this space or anywhere remotely close to it.
As a professional software engineer with a CS degree working in bio-informatics, I've had to deal with far too many brilliant scientists (but not computer scientists) who like to program.

They are without question brilliant people, but the code they produce is like the code I remember from the worst cs students from my days as a CS tutor.

A great mind with no formal programming training can code - but oh the horror, the horror...
Unless the American carriers have managed to screw up one more technology (which is entirely possible) SMS is asynchronous. When you turn the device on it receives all the messages queued in the network.

If your device is off when your network gets an incoming SMS, the store-and-forward system just holds it until it can be delivered. This is exactly the same behaviour as Twitter or indeed e-mail.

My carrier can send SMS to multiple devices, or I can pick them up via a web portal, or via e-mail.
Zembly, the first development environment in the cloud
When I worked for a startup 200+ DLOC days were the average. And it was all good elegant code, nut just lots of it.

Now that I'm working for a paycheck in corporate cubicle, I'm not producing bad or worse code, I'm just producing ~ 20-30DLOC a day and that's apparently great in cubiclevile.
Browser Wars underdog Flock turns 2.0, remains cool
18GB download lol. it says "27 hours for DSL connection"
The same happened to me with VMWare Fusion. I posted some problem I had and within some minutes I had a response from the VMWare guys offering me help on the problem.
It's an issue because the GPL is viral, and AJAX libraries are like any other DLL in practice. You can't link with DLLs that are GPL without requiring your own program to be GPL too -- that's why the LGPL was invented.

The GPL license would effectively require your own app's javascript to be placed under GPL too.
Is it ever okay to suggest that a demographic balance is just fine?

There is a lack of european-descent long-distance runners in the top tiers. Not too many woman play football. Very few men do much knitting. Do we need outreach and mentoring to change make sure that all groups are a mirror of the world's demographic makeup?

Women and men are different, and perhaps the reason that software startups are male-dominated speaks to that difference rather than a social issue. In other words, perhaps our society is that way because of how we are rather than how we are being driven by our society.

All that being said, I met Christine at Demo Day was was very impressed-- if she's offering to mentor you, you should take her up on it. If you couldn't/wouldn't have the guts to dive in and kick ass without this mentorship/support group, I'd suggest that you probably aren't temperamentally suited to be an entrepreneur.
I like the idea and interface a lot. It'd be nice if there was browser extensions to turn this on by default rather than to have to click a bookmarklet to have it enabled.
craigslist is a popular place to find users to test for cheap from what I've heard/read (once you find the tools)

Not tried them: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/services/website-evaluation.sht...
Google demanding Intel's hottest chips?
I said no such thing.

I recognize there may be a biological reason why the gender split in our field is the way it is, but I feel it is probably mostly cultural. I'm using lots of qualifying words because I just don't know. It may be a combination of biological and cultural. But since I think there is a cultural component to the disparity, I'm sympathetic to people who make attempts to address it.
Hands on: Mint.com vs. Quicken Online
Firefox 3.1 raises the browser bar … again
Short answer: No we won't because it's not our problem.

Long answer: We don't carry any inventory or process any transactions - we just show the results of others. Our ticket providers could run in to problems (they have in the past already), but enough deals exist that we'd still have ticket providers.

Stubhub, Viagogo, Ticketsnow, Seatexchange, Ticketmaster et al are already working on agreements with the teams/leagues. For example, MLB has already signed a deal with Stubhub.

Ticketmaster/Ticketsnow is one of our providers. They are not a direct competitor because they are a primary ticket market - we are a secondary ticket market aggregator. Our main competitors are TickEx, Ticketwood & Fansnap along with some unlaunched ones I'm not supposed to know about it.

Most places ignore the anti scalping laws because they're retarded. When demand exceeds supply, prices go up. No one ever complains about all the below face value tickets found at most NBA and MLB games.
As far as I'm aware this is the first economic crisis during which mini-notebooks have been available. I don't see how you can tease out the effect of the crisis from the other factors involved in their growing sales.
Now lets look at the men's situation.
Widget Arms Race: Gigya Takes the Worldwide Lead
Quality scores and ad auctions
I think his description of computer programming is very accurate.

I suspect that many people are attracted to computer programming because at first, when you are learning it, it gives a constant series of little instant gratifications -- you can change something, reload or recompile, see the effects of your work.

This might explain many of the "computer people" stereotypes; impatient, unhappy with maintainence type tasks that show no immediate benefit, and generally "immature" from the point of view of others.

When you first start programming, you can write "hello, world" and get instant gratification in 5 minutes. The time required for that gratification increases as you go on. One of the reasons why people switch programming languages, is that they are trying to re-create the quick gratifications of learning the simple things all over again.
as a licensee, i would suggest that you not bother. too many people are dishonest about it, and too many things blur the lines between personal and commercial usage.

looking back at it, i've installed something intended for personal use, but later on used it for commercial use, totally forgetting about the license agreement. one product in particular, i can think of, i would've paid for if i would've remembered. but they went under. probably from the license that few paid for.

instead, i would suggest you offer two version, a "lite" version for free and a fully-featured version for $$$.
Great answer, thanks. You certainly know your marketplace! :)
How nice does your board have to be if their response to, "I'm waiting for my competitors to come up with a monetization model" is "OK, Twitter. Here's a bunch more cash for you to burn through."
Hmmm ... those numbers are kind of depressing. But I had kind of come around to the same conclusion. Unless you are a founder, it's just not worth it most of the time.
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Surviving Business Boot Camp
i'm with you on genres -- they're an anachronism invented by the record and retail companies back when music something you put on a shelf, but most ppl still seem to adhere vehemently to genre preferences.
Well, flash in its current form is better at certain tasks than either hard disks or RAM. Hard disks are big, cheap, and slow. RAM is expensive, power hungry, and fast. If I remember correctly, flash is faster than a hard disk, more energy efficient than either, and way cheaper than RAM. I'm not sure of the implementation details, but you could apparently make a system better on all three axes of performance, cost, and energy usage by mixing in flash.
I don't remember exact instances, but I'm pretty sure I get to say that at least once a year.
Yes just use this:

require "no_recession"

Ruby is magic and makes a great flavoring for kool-aid. Make sure to have some every day.
Computers have been much kinder to alternate keyboard layouts than typewriters. (Another Dvorak user here.)
I think it has more to do with price and availability. Before this generation of 'netbooks', it cost a small fortune to get a tiny notebook. Now with light, portable (both being highly desirable features to a lot of people) 'netbooks' being the cheapest on the market, it makes sense that they're taking off.

I'm going to get one myself eventually, but haven't dove in yet. I want to get one with a good keyboard, and the Asus really isn't good enough. Haven't touched the Dell, MSI, or Aspire yet but I hope they're better.
Blip.fm, The “Twitter for Music”, Gets Its Own API
Not at all, but I'm just one data point. The University of Dayton is primarily composed of wealthy white kids who had private school backgrounds (as a middle class white kid who went to public schools, I was only able to attend due to some scholarships).
Thats one o the selling points for Apple: the hardware and the OS going together and just working.
If I thought you meant to equate women's point of view with your cat's in any way I would be highly amused--at what you reveal about your own perspectives.
This is simply an ad for Engine Yard.
Facebook announces the latest apps to win fbFund support
don't see why Tesla gets affected this. Do people really buy a $100K car on credit?
FatTail lands $3.5M to streamline online advertising
In Finance, "playing hurt" means working through a hangover. It's an important ability to have.
VC confidence hits a new low — again
“Financings are blowing up”
30 or 60 day free trial, and after that an infinite-use key available for $X. That's what convinced me to buy TextMate and many other software products that I use.
I mostly agree with most of the comments, especially since Seth oversimplifies, but he has a point. I know a couple of people who loved painting and graphic design, but lost all love for it when it became a career, so they switched to another career and started enjoying design again. It wasn't that they couldn't make money from design, but making it a career took the joy and creativity out of it.

HN might just skewed towards those lucky few who are able to make money from things they love. Personally, if I am not doing something I love, it's not worth it.
You fingered the pitfall. Late comers get the same valuation, so you give up the ability to pressure people into investing now for fear that they'll lose the chance.

On the other hand, we did a rolling close on a round and it worked fine for us.
True, but there are people who pay the bills while being happy and motivated at the same time doing things they like.

So don't settle for being miserable just to pay the bills. Life's too short for that.
In Seattle, there's a group for startups that meets every month or two in a coffee shop to trade usability feedback. It's been described as "like speed dating" -- somebody tries with your website for 5-10 minutes, and then you rotate. In an hour or two, and for the price of a cup of coffee, you get in-person feedback from half a dozen people or more.

I tend to use such high-tech tools as a pencil and a pad of paper to take notes. (If I had $50 to spare I might try Silverback, but I really like my pencil.) I verbally encourage people to talk through what they're thinking and what they're trying to do. Eye-tracking sounds cool but hearing 4 people in a row say "the search box should be here!" is pretty darned effective.
I pay $10 a month to use a cell phone, and you'd happily pay $5 for a keyboard shortcut?
Eliza was more convincing. (And it comes free with my editor.)
Thank you for figuring that out.
software developer by day, photoshop for my photography interests.
Details of evolutionary transition from fish to land animals revealed
Michael Scott: I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don't have a butler, I have to do it myself. So, most nights before I go to bed, I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it's good for me, it's the perfect way to start the day.
To save you from scrolling, here's the Richard Dawkins portion:

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, author

Computer programming

I have now kicked the habit, but every so often the craving returns and I must thrust it down and away. But whence the guilt? Isn't programming useful? In the right hands, yes. But my projects (inventing a word processor, machine translation from one programming language to another, inventing a programming language of my own) could all be done better (and were) by professionals. It was a classic addiction: prolonged frustration, occasionally rewarded by a briefly glowing fix of achievement. It was that pernicious "just one more push to see what's over the next mountain and then I'll call it a day" syndrome. It was a lonely vice, interfering with sleeping, eating, useful work and healthy human intercourse. I'm glad it's over and I won't start up again. Except ... perhaps one day, just a little ...
> but later on used it for commercial use

This is remedied by periodic re-verification of the usage purpose when in personal license mode.

I am wary of lite/pro model, because it complicates the offering. Looking through the feature comparison matrix may be quite confusing, especially if pro version is packed with not so frequently used features.

Also, if too many features are withheld from the lite version, it will drive users to use 'patched' pro versions. On other hand, if the lite version is liberal, the pro version will suffer as its usefulness will decline. Finding a balance depends on knowing your userbase and the userbase won't stabilize until the lite/pro matrix is stable. So it's a catch 22.
Maybe matt should look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell-Boltzmann_distribution.
Ah, good point. I meant to say there is a N days trial period if you are uncertain which license you are going to use. This is effectively needed to enable trialing the app in commercial setups.
EDIT: for the record, I found the 25K a month figure by googling iraq sysadmin salary. (link: http://www.alliraqjobs.com/job-9377.html)

It sounded a little crazy to me, too. But I know very little about this stuff and was taking a wild stab.
http://www.alliraqjobs.com/job-9377.html
Almaer re: Next big language
I was trying to figure out when a hobby I love turns into something I hate, and you just nailed it for me. Needed to pay bills = work.

It also becomes work once you believe you have to turn your hobby into something that makes money (because everyone - especially this site - tells you to find your passion and then make money from it).

Some pursuits are better left intrinsicly rewarding.
i agree nice service, but not chargeable ....
Cool idea, only I don't like bacon that early in the morning.
nice 'hack' on cooking bacon and waking up (mashup?)... guessing a lot of people will have more free time to hack around - after some job cuts :(
Facebook Announces 25 Winning Applications for Initial fbFund Grants
occasionally rewarded by a briefly glowing fix of achievement

I guess that's what happens when you do it just for yourself. (Why else would you write a word processor, lanugange, or translator that's already been done so well?)

OTOH, find someone who actually needs something and write it for them.

In this way, programming can be a lot like sex. The "glowing fix of achievement" seems to last much longer when you do it with/for someone else.
Excellent execution. It's earned a place on my toolbar. +1 User
I love the meme. "How we'll survive the downturn by doing exactly what we were doing." It's just become another reason to evangelize the same technologies people were evangelizing before the downturn.
Elastic Tab Stops: A Better Way to Indent and Align Code
Agreed - it's good to have posts like this one there to keep rumor mongers honest and confirmation bias at bay.
Their new $250mil manufacturing facility probably utilizes some credit.
Import antigravity - xkcd style
I agree. It's not monetizable in its current state, but I'm curious what features you think would get it closer, such as:

* more rich replacement (including functions/regex)
* dynamic content like stock prices
* ability to chain expansions quasi-recursively
* SSL / privacy

As a reference point, TextExpander (http://www.smileonmymac.com/TextExpander/) is an OS X app that offers similar functionality, and it's $30.
> This is remedied by periodic re-verification of the usage purpose when in personal license mode.

this "might" be remedied by periodic re-verification. again, you're fully relying on the individuals being honest and reporting their own usage.

i'm just pointing out that your revenue stream is going to be inconsistent.

with respect to lite/pro model, look at the 37signals products. they've definitely made headway with the pro/lite model. they don't strip away many features, but they also limit the product in other ways.
It was my understanding that the cert was for the domain of the server and not of the e-mail address.

If I have this completely wrong, let me know.
Yahoo Users Befuddled by OpenID
Bacon: The best thing ever made. Ever.