skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Absolutely: choosing the right customers is important. Both in terms of finding customers who are good from a revenue-per-effort ratio, and also customers who will help you develop your product in interesting ways (e.g. in ways that might be applicable to a broader market). Often, finding a great customer is an essential first step toward building a great product, because they can work with you to help you understand the sort of product they need (and by extension, the sort of product a broader class of attractive customers requires).
Traditional Capitalist Values
Very interesting. A couple of questions for you, in no particular order.

1. Have you used libev? I read that it's comparable, and in some ways superior to libevent, but I'm not sure why. I haven't found much documentation, though. Do you know if it also has some kind of HTTP server built in?

2. If I understand libevent correctly, it just uses a highly efficient mechanism to watch the file descriptor corresponding to a server socket (epoll, kqueue), and when data comes in on the socket, it runs a handler. If the handler is small and efficient, then in theory it will run faster than code which has several listener threads because thread context switches take time, and because it becomes more difficult to take advantage of the CPU's cache. Is this really still true in e.g., recent Linux kernels with NPTL? Also, would you run two libevent app instances on a two-core CPU?
I used OpenID to sign up here. It was quick, painless and easy. I don't understand why anyone would have trouble with it.
If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were financial time bombs of one kind, then surely China's state-owned enterprises are time bombs of another. Can anyone determine with even approximate confidence the extent of their liabilities?

I've been thinking that since this started. China doesn't like bad news, they can hide them. Chinese economic problems could be more far reaching the the US (at least here in Oz).
Australian Government actually has quite a bit of surplus saved up by the previous government during the resource boom. They've now announce they're gonna spend it.
A list of 5 Ajax tutorials would be much more useful. When it comes to S vs. N, I prefer S.
Neither Stallman nor Torvalds are scrambling to pay rent.

So it depends if you want to be "well off" (Stallman), "obscenely rich" (Torvalds), "shockingly rich" (Jobs), or "embarassingly rich" (Gates).

And I think that most would, given the choice, rather be the BDFL of a project they obviously enjoy (Torvalds), than spend all day in meetings, or managing management, or whatever Gates has done for the last decade. Unless you're a masochist, or a megalomaniac.

And besides that, lightning has to strike the same place 200 times before you make it to the 99.9th percentile.

"I'm trying to make a living; if you're trying to make a killing then you're stuck in the system."
Good use of the word "turd" to describe Seesmic
This is wonderfully well-written.
Pretty big industry though. Congrats - sounds like you've found a good niche.
Here everyone is trying to say that it is better to get something in writing, I've seen even best friends turning their back and putting their interests first when it comes to money.

So put things down on paper as others say. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain and do not feel that you partner will not like that.

Good Luck.
Currently, the 2 most popular languages for web programming are PHP and Ruby

Do you have any hard numbers supporting this? IMHO the most popular languages on the web are PHP, Perl, C#/VB.NET and Java; and Python is more popular than Ruby (at least according to the TIOBE index). But Ruby definitely has the most hype :)

While GAE has a lot of problems, Google did the right thing releasing it in the language they are most familiar with. Python is extremely easy to pick up and feature-wise it's comparable to other dynamic languages like Ruby. I'd rather Google spend time working on the features GAE is still missing (background tasks, SSL, datastore stability, etc), it just gives more value to the platform than supporting additional languages.
i'd highly recommend having "the talk" sooner rather than later. everybody agrees on sharing when the stakes are small, but when things become successful, you'd be surprised how fast people can change their perspectives.

if you are the main technical person who has built the product, you should have at least 20% of the equity, if not split 50/50 with your co-founder (that would be fair). if one of you put more money or time into it, the numbers can be adjusted appropriately.

the best construct for dealing with equity also happens to be vesting. you don't need to "grow" your share as time goes on, it just naturally "grows" the longer you stay, but you've agreed upon the total amount from the beginning and it's committed to you.

i've gone into business with friends several times. it's not that you can't pull it off (i have) or that you don't get into disagreements about compensation/equity (we have) -- it's just not worth the potential strain on the relationship to leave it an open question, as opposed to agreeing early on.
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If I would develop something that could help people with their education, it should probably be recession-proof. Also, while US may suffer recession, some other countries probably still enjoy economic growth.
A lot of the predictions of the US demise as a superpower are not about US losing more during this crisis then others. They they're about triggering an inevitable shift.

Depending on your assumptions , the US, China, India & Europe get close to par with each-other (in terms of GDP) . sometime before current Grad Students retire. Could be 5 yrs, could be 40. Equally importantly, a lot of mid sized economies close the gap between them & the whales.

The assumption that economy size translates into military & political power makes sense. By that measure, the US already feels bigger then it should. The EU is a terrible mechanism for validating that assumption. China for all it's faults is not very assertive on the world stage. Neither is India. (Russia is similar to the US in this sense. Their assertiveness means they feel bigger then their GDP should allow)

The current non-US big fish (India, China & Europe) are just not converting GDP to militar/politcal power very well. But the raw ingredient is already there. China & India as manufacturers may even be able convert money to power at a better rate then the US

Public opinion in the US & elsewhere is currently that the US backed financial theories are to blame for the situation. The US's military/political methods are even more unpopular. Fair or not, Georgia/Russia isn't getting much worse press the Iraq/US - even in the countries officially aligned with Georgia/US. & Russia's Putin doesn't have a good name.

This sound familiar: you can have us or the russians/chinese. The euros are wimps. You'll take us because the alternatives are worse! You hear it & elsewhere. 30 years ago those held sway. These days less.
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Speaking of the EU, we've seen them in action. It's not clear that they're the best of that sorry bunch. We all know that if the US announced "hey, you're right, we're just here for the oil, so we're going to redeploy to cover what we need and let you take care of the rest", they'd be running troops into Iraq as fast as they could get transport from the Russians. (They really ought to have some ability to project force.) Then we'll see how Euros run an occupation. Most folks think that Germany is the most brutal, but I've got my money on France.

You're right, except I think the EU would look at the half dozen or so barrels of oil that would be left over once the US had covered what it "needs" and think it wasn't worth it.

Sorry, couldn't resist.
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One option can be to switch from a full-time job to independent consulting, so that you can still earn by doing short-term consulting projects, and still be able to devote more time to your startup.
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Jason Fried of 37signals speaking at Business of Software 2008
The author is clueless about the response time of E-Ink. Also, no one is noting that E-Ink achieves a lot of its power thriftiness by being a reflective screen, not a luminescent screen.
JavaScript and Lisp
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5 Ways to Find Entrepreneurs and Increase Your Network (and Your Success Odds)
Now, the question is, what should I do to improve my chance of success despite the situations (sole founder and inexperience)?

Move to the San Francisco Bay Area. (I'd bet the Aussies in the audience who've made the same move would agree.)
Paul Graham, Just Shut Your Face Already
One reason the British Empire went down cause it became too difficult to sustain, both globally and internally
Compassion versus Compatriot
Many games use lua to handle its logic too. I think I may spend some time to learn lua. However, do you guys think that lua will be an universal scripting language like python or not?
It works fine for scripting general things, it's just meant to easily interface with languages like C.
Ballmer: It's OK to wait for Windows 7
We've had "the talk" multiple times and have had paperwork for a while, just nothing signed (so I consider it worth nothing).

I renegotiated more equity with the last round of work.

I talked to him tonight and we're going to get the paperwork updated and get everything squared away now that things are picking up. He also got sold a key man policy, so there's some paperwork there that we have to do.
One year of Clojure
Do angels really risk money that they can't afford to lose? I'd think that most of them would sock away enough to remain financially independent in safe investments, and then do their investing with "play money".
Listen, I can understand your frustration...I am a philosophy major also. The problem lies in two things the answer does not lie in you, self-reflection leads to the emptiness of yourself (not from the eastern perspective) and toy must have a concern for others, and the openness to accept God as Being, not Possibility. If God under our definition falls under Possibility, He is then ruled by existence, and limited. Is God Possible denies God...Does God Exist? This question is also limited, as God does not come into Existence? So you work with the idea God is Existence, how, why, and do I have any respect for people who have died for Him?
Philosophy is difficult because we have to read all the history of some senseless ideas to reach to the point we have today. The reason for this is retracing steps if a mistake is made and so that you do not think you did this all by yourself, and like Socrates said to reach the points of other men easily. A pursuit for Goodness, and a surrender to it, instead of Goodness surrendering to you might be another approach, for you are not the God of Goodness.
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I have seen it both ways unfortunately, so that's one of the reasons that I am somewhat cautious (I guess that's what happens with 13+ years of experience in the field).

One that sticks in my mind is one of the first "real" jobs I had. The company was a solid, well established company that was about 20 years old. Best place I ever worked. They had a piece of supporting software that was written in VB on Access. The software was basic, but it worked as a great support to the methodology and theory of the company.

One big (REALLY BIG) client came in and needed the software to be housed on central servers, with the ability to roll the data up for reporting purposes.

So the company went off in the weeds, building a huge (2.5meg!) java applet, basically tailored to this one client's specifications. The company had no java experience. Had to hire java guys. No Solaris experience (as required by the client). Had to buy hardware and hire people. They had no oracle experience. Again, more $$ and more people.

Within 3 years the company went through two acquisitions, one of which was a reverse buy out of a crappy company that had IPOed. A year later the company folded.

A 20 year company was destroyed by this choice to build a bespoke system for a huge client.

Another memory is making said 2.5meg craplet run under the IBM JVM for OS/2 Warp 3. On token ring. Banks got sold some horrible systems!
Hehe, this comment made me chuckle. :)
http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

A commercial company’s ability to innovate is inversely proportional to its proclivity to publicly release conceptual products.
That would make us all a bunch of productivity pervs! :D
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit: The Smell of Space
there was an article posted yesterday that said diversity is more important than ability. So ethnically unified might be disadvantage compared to diverse population of US.
The trapexit guys are planning to release "Practical Erlang Programing".
In the long run, does anyone doubt that China will eventually surpass the US as a financial power? By that time, I sure hope we aren't trying to project military power worldwide. The last thing I want is for The Project for the New American Century to get the last laugh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Ce...
Not to offend, but that logo is simply terrible. It looks... cheap.
When we started http://www.shadowcat.co.uk/ I was working on contract before the company got incorporated, then free for a while, then slightly paid, then my partner came in free for a while, then he got paid.

There was paperwork and stuff involved saying we owned half each but I left the whole thing to him - the entire point of having a business side co-founder was so I could do tech and not care about it. He put stuff in front of me, I signed it.

To quote a more well known example, Oracle's first accountant was apparently the pizza delivery guy who was a student of such - and told "pay yourself what you need, we couldn't tell anyway".

Sometimes not trusting people just gives you worry and a false sense of being protected. My partner couldn't've told the difference if I'd cloned our work, claimed a backup accident and sold it independently. If we thought there was any chance the other would screw us we'd never have founded together in the first place. Maybe we got lucky by being right, but most company formations require a fair chunk of luck somewhere to survive so I'm not worrying much about it.
A Good Time to Start a Company
Ya I agree that is one of the problems. But since it's so decentralized and just finding your existing OpenID account can be difficult - it is still a problem. Part of the problem was having multiple emails and multiple types of OpenIDs (Work, Coding and Personal). Add to that - switching web email accounts midway through - and I ended up with multiple accounts.

If I could cut back to just one or two accounts I would. But I've found the management tools lacking both on the client website and OpenID side of things.
"... Far from our being chronically sleep-deprived, things have never been better. Compare today's sleeping conditions with those of a typical worker of 150 years ago, who toiled for 14 hours a day, six days a week, then went home to an impoverished, cold, damp, noisy house and shared a bed not only with the rest of the family but with bedbugs and fleas. ..."

Rest can be a weapon for Startups.
Bob Ippolito (who wrote mochiweb, a webserver written in Erlang) did an introductory talk last year: http://bob.pythonmac.org/archives/2008/03/08/exploring-erlan...
While I agree with you on your premise I'm sitting next to a guy on the cubicle to my left writing a mediumish CMS for a client in the usual PHP sort of way. Although his code is nicely indented and formatted for reading. He's having a hella of a time navigating his code base(which is like what? 3000 LOC) when the client requests for simple changes.
> I'd say he'd be hard pressed to find someone to put up with his shit and to work on his system for what I'm asking for. Especially in our market.

You think that this is a rational process?

He knows that he had this great idea and worked until he found a huge market for it. Sure, you did lots of work, but kids learn programming at the local JC and there are lots of them who do that web stuff. Besides, he'll soon find out that django practically writes web applications by itself. Sure, he wants to be fair, but you just sat around playing on a computer.

You're doomed.
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I thought about that too actually. But, outside friends and family factors, i got to be honestly said, moving country kinda bring the whole scary feeling to the next level. I just moved to Sydney 5 years ago for study..and now..the idea of moving again after just been settle down is a bit too......jeez can't even describe how it feels...
By itself Lua is very fast and lightweight. I simple love how you can use it's tables or hash-tables if you will to construct complex data structures. I loved it even to a point of trying to use it to write a simple web application.

Unfortunately Kepler(a Lua webframework) is not only hard to get running but it's docs need a lot of work.
Guido van Rossum will give a talk on Google App Engine on Nov 5 at Stanford. The talk can be viewed over the web.

http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
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"It's very well documented that rewards diminish both intrinsic motivation and creativity"

Citation?
When OpenID people say they're "solving a problem" what they really mean is "we're solving a problem inasmuch as it advances our agenda."

Things like Google and Facebook are so ubiquitous as to be effectively universal, but OpenID people object to using them as an authentication mechanism on ideological grounds.

They'd rather have a pure solution tomorrow than a good solution today.
What about having savings instead of "investor funding" ? If you have developed a great product why in the world would you like to share your company with VCs anyway ? Why you need somebody to invest in your company ? I mean come on people, you can save $10k in vacation as a college student waiting tables and have 100% pie for yourself. I don't understand the logic here. Never did.
> I'm pretty sure they said somewhere that this series is open to the public.

i seem to have missed that.

brilliant , thank you.
>What's changed? For one thing, there's simply much more mathematics to learn than there was 100 years ago.

Also, our early education is excruciatingly slow. It would be interesting to follow the children who are allowed to skip through the system at their own pace and see if their period of mathematical creativity still begins later than before.
I Have a New Love, I Hope My Wife Isn't a Jealous Woman
> Sorry, couldn't resist.

Since only a small fraction of the US supply comes from the Middle East (the US gets the vast majority of its oil from North and South America), perhaps you should have.

Maybe the EU can subcontract the occupation to China....

BTW - One of the advantages of having being a superpower is that you have options like "hmm, if the Middle East goes to hell, we'll keep oil from North and South America from being exported outside of North and South America".
I think that it implies "If you have money, it is a good time to start a company". If you have a good idea, it is always a good time to start a company. In bad time, the downturn does exist. People do not want to work in startup because there are higher risk than before and you can hardly raise money with less share exchange.
OK Firstly I'm from Australia not the EU.

> Yes, in some ways we do look down on you.

That was my point. Most Americans know so little about the world but they are so convinced they are the best. In my experience most first world countries are better to live in than the states.

> It's because you're Monday morning quarterbacks. You want respect - get on the field.

So we have to start a war or something to get respect? Is that what the invasion of Iraq was all about?

> We don't argue that it's right, but let's look at the alternatives. China? Russia? The EU? No one? Yeah right.

Why does any one nation have to be nominate itself as the sheriff? I haven't seen much clamour for the US to exercise military power recently, more the opposite.

In truth I don't think the US has anywhere near as much power as it thinks. Most times it has tried to exert that power it has backfired. When you have about 20-25% of world GPD and you try to continually exercise more than 50% of the control something has to give.
I hear you. I only moved a few hundred miles (from southern California), and it has still been hard.
And why he broke out from Britain dependence is probably because he believed that:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Since when do yanks not have a sense of humour? I thought you people were all chuckles. I mean, post a roundly ridiculous, off the cuff, nationalistic comment and expect something similar in return, no?

If you want to get serious, I'm kind of sick of this "But the US doesn't need the oil in Iraq anyway" argument. I'm sure you know as well as anyone else around these parts that it's not about required resources, it's about control of resources, which in turn provides desired leverage.
Univers FTW!
> This sound familiar: you can have us or the russians/chinese. The euros are wimps. You'll take us because the alternatives are worse! You hear it & elsewhere. 30 years ago those held sway. These days less.

Hey - feel free. Don't let us stop you. Don't forget to write. Wear a sweater.

Since you're planning to reap the benefits from that shift, I trust that you're willing to accept the costs. After all, it's going to work out great, so that's no big deal.
Ah yes, joke. Ha ha.

It's nationalistic and ridiculous to suggest that the EU should show the US how things should be done instead of criticising? Wowsers.

It's not so much control of the Middle East oil resources as stability of the resources so those who actually depend on them (that is, not the US) don't go belly up.

Like I said, we have options. It would hurt us if the EU went belly up, but not as much as it would hurt the EU.
Uggg. The people able to train wolves are top tier animal trainers; random pet dogs and shelter dogs in comparison have not had training at such an expert level. This says a lot more about the training than about the innate intelligence. While the first experiment was flawed, the followup was too.