skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hey the new 2012 Oldsmobiles are in!
And not only are they new and improved in ways you can't actually detect - but they are guaranteed compatible with your current gas.
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"if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems.", Thomas Bush.

What utter crap. Everyone comes to the attention of law enforcement or some other govt. data collection agency. I was once booked into jail for driving without a license. I had one, just another state. My son was put in a mental hospital and booked into jail for assaulting an officer, because he had a violent reaction to a general anesthetic and the dentist called the police. Ever had a driver's license or a passport? Maybe they'll even collect student ids; protect the children and all that.
The Electric DeLorean by 2012
Need advice: A company just offered to buy my project for $6M
Its not a straight-up acquisition. It is "seller financed".

They are an enterprise software vendor, and it just so happens that something I've built over the past few months (with the help of my 3 partners in the project, its a 4-way split) perfectly solves a difficult problem for them.
Apparently they were on the verge of acquiring another company to do the same thing, but they prefer my solution (this is why they were able to move so quickly). This, however, means that there is time pressure as they will need to cut the other company loose.

This is so out-of-the-blue that we haven't even formed a company yet around the software we've written, but we have agreed an even 4-way split.

The prospective acquirer has said that they are willing to do the deal with us as individuals, although I'm concerned about the lack of Limited Liability in that scenario.

Basically, they don't pay immediately, but the faster they pay the lower the acquisition number (ie. they get a discount for paying quickly). Its something like $6M if it takes them 3 years to pay, but down to $2M if they can pay within a year (something they said was very unlikely given their current projections, which I've asked to see).

They want me to sign an LoI within a week that will give us 45 days to finalize the deal.

How typical is this deal structure? Any gotchyas I should watch out for? Should I try to negotiate on the numbers? (ie. try to go for more than $6M)

Not to be rude, but please don't respond unless you know what you are talking about, I'm perfectly capable of uninformed speculation all by myself ;-)
Siri meet Hubot - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3156221
"Next time it could be you" is not the only or even best motivation for practicing compassion and tolerance. I have been cold called by inept recruiters and hired by companies with barely competent ones. Nurturing contempt for them does nothing good, in particular it does nothing good for you. It's also a missed opportunity: when a niche in the economy attracts ineptitude, that tells you there's a broken system possibly worth analyzing.
It's a bit different since I'm not physically in the US.
Ugh, another interesting link made unviewable by OnSwipe
ScriptCover makes Javascript coverage analysis easy
there is huge difference between upgrading to new OS and [upgrading to new OS plus simultaneous replacement of the VPN solution company wide]
Show HN: Angry Birds + Your Tweets * Infographic = TweetSheet
All of his blog posts start with a line from a rap song. It makes a lot more sense in the context of his blog (http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/, for example) than it does on Techcrunch, but I assume he just did the same thing out of habit.
Because I find education to be as important as it is fun. Furthermore it tends to help financially to have a student status.

That's the gist of it, got into a bit more detail in a blogpost once: http://swizec.com/blog/doing-a-startup-taught-me-the-value-o...
Steam used to be a great way to get games at the same time as the USA for the same price. Now it allows access at the same time but with significantly higher prices in Australia.

In this case it is about price. I don't like being ripped off, even if the amount I'm being ripped off is slightly less than if I went into a physical store to buy the game.

So far this behavior is limited to AAA titles from publishers other than Valve, so I'm happy playing indie games and waiting for Half Life 2: Episode 3.
Show HN: Watchdog - PHP tool to monitor and compile Stylus, SASS, and LESS
It is however, posted on CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/crunchfund

"CrunchFund invested in Zaarly.	(10/24/11)
Posted 10/24/11 at 10:43pm via businessinsider.com"
Which presentation tool do you use, Keynote?
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Don't wait on me, someone's already hacked it in before I could even get home and have dinner.

https://github.com/markstory/hubot/tree/xmpp
You can only imitate a master, but by doing so, one will never become one.

Steve Jobs was an adept at connecting with human emotions (consumers and employees alike) and not only built products which did the same, but also marketed them in a deeply human way.

I believe it is this connection that attracts so many people.
Telecom, Developers and Innovation
I built this command line tool because I needed an easy way to work with our frontend devs who run either Ruby or nodejs envs.

Watchdog is a PHP class implementing inotify which watches for changes to files in any given number of directories specified in the input. It will not recursively check directories, so you must implicitly specify each directory you want watched.

Although it was developed for the purpose of monitoring dynamic css files for changes and auto-regenerating their output, it can easily be transformed into a watchdog for just about anything.
I don't have much to say but congrats on the offer, I hope everything works out for you!
Out of curiosity, what purpose does this kind of a session serve?
Thank you too! How long did it take you to get your report fixed?

I haven't paid the collectors.. I've been so disgusted with the situation and their behavior.

Again, thank you so much for your time.
Slide to Unlock? Patented
Thanks! Still a lot that can go wrong :-)
Hey folks, I'm a writer at TC. This wasn't about CrunchFund, it was an embargo issue.
I guess the best available survey for hardware used by gamers is from steam (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc). Around 20% are using XP there - still a hard decision if you want to ignore a fifth of your potential customers.
Have you read the book "Venture Deals"? It addresses this topic and points out a number of things to watch out for.

The "can't pay $2M in a year" but "can pay $6M in 3 years" seems a bit dodgy. Is it wholly dependent on the success of your product?

Do you have to work for the company as part of the deal? If you have to "earn" your earnout, the salary numbers have to make sense too.
A.I.Type Keyboard Sends All Your Keystrokes To Their Servers In Plain-Text
So much on stake, so much depends on the minute details of the agreement (under what circumstances can they pull out etc). All in all, get a lawyer.
Michael Heilemann remembered the famous quote in this regard: "And boy did we patent it!"
The "correct" government policy to encourage high-tech startups isn't as obvious as you seem to think.

Steve Blank recently recommended that the Finnish government "might want to consider putting themselves out of the public funding business by using public capital to kick-start private venture capital firms, incubators and accelerators" [1]

That's quite a similar model to what the Australian government does already.

I've been involved in a few companies that had some funding from the old COMET program[2] as well as the new Commercialisation Australia[3] programs, and they aren't as useless as you seem to think.

As you note many of the current set of Australian startups have been funded by overseas (ie, Silicon Valley) venture funds. Given that Australian venture funds don't see the opportunity it isn't at all clear why the government would think differently.

In my experience there is a lot more awareness and support at lower levels of government (state and local level), where startups are seen as supporting local employment. For example, NSW recently announced $3M in funding for "creative digital content" and there are a range of different programs in other states.

The Silicon Beach group is very involved in thinking about this. They operate mostly out of Sydney, but have an online presence too[5].

[1] http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/

[2] http://www.ausindustry.gov.au/InnovationandRandD/Commerciali...

[3] http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/WhatWeOffer/Pag...

[4] http://www.startupsmart.com.au/finance/new-$3m-fund-for-nsw-...

[5] http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/
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Analysts work quarter to quarter - anything long term exceeds their horizon.
Steam's a bit weird, as it has a lot of games that run on lower-spec systems. Your point's a valid one, but I think Steam might be a bit of an oddity.
I don't think training has anything to do with it.

Rule number 1 for corporate IT: Keep operations going (i.e.: make sure everything works).

At some point you see that Microsoft is releasing a new version of their operating system:

1.) You build some test images to see what the upgrade process would be like
2.) You discover that your VPN client doesn't work with the new version, so you see if the vendor has an updated version that works.
3.) It turns out that they don't, so you hold off with the upgrade until such time as they do.
4.) Enough time goes by where to where you decide that it doesn't make sense at this point to bother with this version of the operating system, so you decide to just skip it (and when you ask around, it turns out a really large amount of other enterprises are doing the same thing).

The idea of replacing your existing (working) VPN solution enterprise-wide just to enable you to use a newer version of the operating system isn't something you seriously consider (as it goes against IT rule number 1).
no direct experience but i'm betting this is where a good lawyer is worth the expense. preferably one well versed in reading term sheets.
It's on its way, will probably finish it up this week
I wrote something very similar, thought not as advanced, srvr https://github.com/MatthewCallis/srvr but this looks much more complex with the awesome plugin system.
I had assumed that it was on purpose so that you might have one more pre-screen type opportunity, or one more point of data, apparently not.
Not exactly. While you are correct that their profits would not necessarily be impacted, it's because the purchased goods or raw materials are booked as inventory (asset), and not part of COGS (liability).

The cost of constructing the new Kindles is still booked, just under a different part of the book. Once the devices are sold, the amount changes from an asset to a liability.
Empty Charsets in IE 9 Causing JSON Parsing Errors
Windows: 311 * (CC) = v126
No, it's basically they get a discount the faster they pay. 12 months it only costs them $2M (they've said this is very unlikely).

It gives them an incentive to pay me as quickly as possible.

There is no "earn"out, but we do need to provide them with some support - but we get to charge whatever we want for this (they pass the cost on to their customers). We certainly don't have to work full-time for them, and they know we can do this (we all have other gigs).
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Women Who Ask Do Get Ahead, But Men Don't Have To
But how could you back the games up or move them to another computer?
No question that we will have the LoI reviewed by a lawyer before we sign.
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As someone who quit college at 20 for a high paying job I understand your feeling. I'll say this though, the only reason I quit college was because of my financial situation. Here it is 6 years later and I am ahead of my peers in terms of salary but know I had to work just a bit harder then everyone around me to prove myself because I've worked for companies where I was the only person in the whole building without a degree. Now as I progress through my career at such an accelerated rate I recognized this is not the norm by any starch and I am vastly approaching that glass ceiling (granted I can hack the system to break right through that too). With all that said it is a much smoother route if you get your degree first and since your only 19 instead of joining some company start your own thing in your spare time in school. You will be far better served working for yourself while gaining more knowledge in college. If i could go back and do it all again that's exactly what I would have done as I am on the path to trying to get my start up off the ground. NoBadGift.com
The DEC Alpha legacy actually wound up at AMD, in the form of the early generation Athlon processors. HP abandoned the Alpha but AMD snapped up the core ideas and a lot of the talent.
Quick chime in, I'm the CEO of Zaarly, exactly what jkincaid said... this had nothing to do with CrunchFund and was just about an embargo.
That should have been the landing page...
I dont care I'm going to give you my uninformed opinion myself :-)

What is the financial condition of the acquiring company? Not being able to come up with a couple of million should be a red flag. What is the reputation of the company and its principals. Unfortunately, there are plenty of players willing to string you along to get your product cheap, lock you out, whatever. Dont do anything without the advice of a lawyer.

I hope I'm just being a crank but I learned these lessons from Jack Tramiel the SOB that ran Atari. Fortunately, I walked away before I got burned too badly.

I wish you the best of luck.
PE's context is fighting back against oppression, which was what the Thomas N. Todd sample is talking about. Specifically playing along with the system at the time in which many blacks were second class citizens rather than standing up for ones rights.

In the article he mentions his employees wanting to avoid a direct fight, that is not the same as switching sides!

If you listen to the quote in context it's obvious Todd's main point is not not fighting but joining the other side (He stretches out "swwwwwiiiiiitch").

The author's not a journalist by trade so I'll cut him some slack, he's ignorant rather than lazy.
Speed changes would most likely be due to many other factors (like latency of your connection, the page you are loading, etc.) and these can vary much more widely and consistently that anything you are noticing.
Wall Street share prices are not particularly high either.
Interesting. Focus on the fundamentals and fight in your markets, rather than chasing magic. I hear it a lot. "We should do an ASP", "We need to be a services company" and "We should buy company X."

I wonder if the last point is why buyers tend to do worse than sellers in M&A. Of course buyers chasing silver bullets probably helps HN readers on the margin. :-)
Since when does TechCrunch honour embargoes?
Good work,

I came to the same conclusion after 4 years of trying to get traction with my startup in Australia. The Australian government has futile support for tech innovation, which is a major failing considering our talent and adoption of technology is world-leading in some cases.

We need to be innovating as heavily as we can if we plan to have an economy post-mining boom. Currently our talent disappears overseas where they are respected and appreciated, whereas they could be doing miraculous things in Oz instead. You look at the buzz of energy and productivity in Silicon Valley and realise that just a couple of skilled people can create jobs for hundreds and boost the economy.

My own experience - I wrote to the then Tourism Minister, Fran Bailey, explaining that Australia needed to innovate its tourism marketing or perish, and that I had an innovative solution ready to go. The response was "Sorry, we can't help you." And today, after one failed marketing campaign after another, Tourism Australia has come around to the idea I put forward - get tourists to spread the word themselves (see http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.com.au)

Therein lies the value of innovation - several failed multi-million dollar marketing campaigns VS a lean startup reaching the same conclusion and offering the same solution.

I injected all of my time and money into the venture, but didn't have the necessary support to make it a genuine business operation.

I have lost patience with this government, but I haven't given up with startup ventures, I just won't depend on our govt to achieve success.
To restate the obvious, this is a case of reinvesting in the company's future growth. Net profits (distributable to shareholders) are diminished when a company reinvests, so yes, "profits" are down. However, a more meaningful metric is net sales - cost of goods sold. Amazon had to make a choice of what to do with their meaningful profits (what's sold - what it cost to create, sell, and support it). They could give it to shareholders, reinvest it in future growth, hand out bonuses, or burn it. All of those activities (except dividends) will lower their net profit on the income statement. The market is a fickle beast. Amazon will do fine, but given the company's history, I pity those who bet against it.
They should do more for less, like magically store all 8 billion items they have in stock in the back of my car or something. Warehouses housing wares. How extravagant. Where's the innovation.

(And to answer my sarcastic comment, the innovation is "order from your suppliers and have them ship directly to the customer, then you don't need warehouses". But the reason people pay Amazon's prices is because the item shows up at their house the same day they buy it, which means that 1990s mail-order model doesn't work anymore. Investors shouldn't be allowed to invest until they've purchased at least one product from Amazon.)
Ruby 2.0: add Sets to first class syntax
> What is the financial condition of the acquiring company? Not being able to come up with a couple of million should be a red flag.

They have been completely open about that. They are about to close a $2.5M round, and have $10M in revenues booked for next year.

> What is the reputation of the company and its principals.

Good so far as I can tell, they seem like smart, honest guys.

> Unfortunately, there are plenty of players willing to string you along to get your product cheap, lock you out, whatever.

With this deal structure stringing us along hurts them as they have to pay more.

> Dont do anything without the advice of a lawyer.

Roger that.
Exactly. For any device with that much bandwidth of video data and CPU processing power all within the width of a few millimeters I'd say that's amazing.
TBH i think the email method mentioned up-thread is more awesome, but wtf do i know. you could do that more quickly, it would seem to me.
They also just leave key .exe/.dll files out of the downloadable content until release day. With Dead Island, Steam accidentally distributed debug builds on release, leading to some hilarious misuse of cheats.
Newton and Godel are first world heroes. Pythagoras lived long ago, so the concept of first/third worlds is moot here.
Impatient Nexus S Owners Can Play With Ice Cream Sandwich Now
For years I though Bezos was crazy and that Amazon could never, ever repay all the billions it had raised/spent. I was so, so wrong... I wouldn't bet against Bezos.
You're right, you can use it just like `srvr` and quickly get any directory up at localhost from the command line.

I figure most people will want to use it more like Apache though: set & forget & loads at startup.

Don't know if I'd call draughtsman advanced: it's too small for that. Or maybe its diminutive size is a testament to node.js its power for anything related to servers and proxies; I probably wouldn't have bothered if I had had to write a server like this in any other language.
Yeah, but then again, it takes the human brain about 15-20 years before you can have a somewhat reasonable conversation with its owner, and that's dedicated hardware custom-built for that purpose.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald said the test of a great intellect is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in one's mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

I think that quote should be kept in mind, because Steve Jobs was a deeply complex and dynamic man. His wife told Isaacson not to pull any punches. From what I've read, and from the things people closest to him have recounted, they did not. A lot of people are having a hard time reconciling the insanely great with the insane. Humans are complicated.
I truly hope that someone, somewhere inside Hewlett-Packard is seeing this and thinking deeply to him or herself.
i would but to answer your question, i might wonder if there's a catch. do the items cost any more than if i go direct to amazon.com? (i know the answer is no) but you may want to make that clear. great idea, and a little transparency can go a long way in earning people's trust
I've done it both ways. Either way, it's best practice to open a few recommended ports, so overall I don't see a ton of difference. NAT seemes to work just fine, so long as tor can establish a few outside connections. (A box sitting behind a NAT router has relayed about 10 GB of data since I reset it a few days ago, so obviously something is working).
hmmm, "almost" 2.5m round and $10m in revenue "booked for next year" is not that credible of a company. you are taking a lot of risk that the money does not come through.

if you sign a deal w/ everything "on the come" they can jack you around pretty hard.

venture backed companies _consume_ cash, they usually don't throw it off (6m extra in a few years) until later.
Definitely let us know how it ended up!
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Review
No, I bought one years ago - it doesn't go bad with time ;)
What I learned from Steve Jobs
Word. Convey may be easier to get running for some people, as it's Ruby instead of node.js. Thanks for sharing.

Three things draughtsman adds on top of Convey:

* No need for projects: works in any directory.

* The ability to use JSON / YAML to populate templates; especially useful if you already have some JSON sample data you can use.

* Offline resources: makes jQuery and underscore.js available at the root, regardless of whether they're actually in that directory.

The one thing it misses that Convey has:

* The ability to save the compiled files to a directory.
These two CEOs practically have nothing in common other than their gender. Rometty is an engineer turned saleswoman who has been with IBM for 30 years. Whitman has a career in retail and is a former consultant. She swooped down on the CEO seat after a failed bid in the 2010 California gubernatorial race. Her "career" with HP is less than 1 year.

Perhaps it will be a case study in which type of CEO can lead a major tech company better. My money's on Rometty, and so is my heart, hoping that the tech industry will be more favorable to home-grown talent for the top spot.
Social Interaction Tells Us We Exist
Google Modifies SSL Behavior and the Results Are Troubling