skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wow, you've got a ton of great and positive advice here.
I agree with almost all of it, but would add this...

There are no shortage of ideas, and no shortage of businesses to build if you have the ideas. If the company/market you are looking at has a good implementation with market penetration and barriers to entry, and if you can't SIGNIFICANTLY make a difference, then maybe keep looking.
Take a read of Rick Segal's current post (and my comment there).
http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2008/11/features-of-the-wor...

So, your final sentence says it all... go develop, you'll learn a ton going through that process and maybe find more ways to differentiate and improve on the market.

Don't forget to let us know when you launch.
Which is why the CEO's of Toyota, Honda, etc make around 1 million USD per year, and are actually able to manage a company successfully? People aren't bitching about 1 million a year. Unfortunately, excessive bullshit like the Home Depot situation is more common than you'd apparently like to believe.
Having another company doing successful business with your idea means that there is a market, which is a very good sign. There is no shame in not being #1 in a niche. Success does not have to mean overtaking the world.
Man, we all know there are no such things as friggin sharks with lasers on their heads. (There are black swans, but let's ignore that for the sake of the rhetoric)

We all know intelligent ETs probably exist and we might meet them soon. Why, this may even impact business when it happens.

Having read your comment I would flag it as 'irrelevant'.
This is the most complete list of open source hardware I've seen in one place.
The interaction between Tai Chi and thinking about energy and moving right tells us a lot about cognitive processing. It's an interesting thing. If Tai Chi relates to cognitive processing, they are just describing as energy a real phenomena we describe in cognitive processing terms. Kind of like when we make a model of something described as a wave, and another model of that thing described as a particle. And both contradict each other but are confirmable experimentally. Tai Chi is an excellent example of this kind of thing.

I would press on you one step farther here, though. You say "still have the clarity to look at your beliefs and recognize that some of them are not, in fact, accurate models of the universe." I would press one step farther and say it's not even possible to have an accurate model of the universe, and that anything you could possibly believe would not be an accurate model about the universe. All you can say is what happens when your nervous system bumps into reality.

The lesson from quantum physics is that there is no way to discharge your instruments (whether science tools or your brain) from what you are saying about your universe. Therefore, nothing you say is an accurate model of any part of the universe.
thanks - i know about this, but can you store information in it pre-installation?
Yes, Visual Basic was maybe the most popular language at the time they killed the product. Imagine picking the platform (VB6) that is supported on any computer that mattered (at the time, Windows), compiles to native code, and is also the most popular language. On top of that, your users don't need to download a 30MB .NET Framework that's in beta over a slow dial-up connection. And then, Microsoft kills it! If I'm going to invest time to create software in a popular language, it's not going to be a closed one again.

Microsoft also recently killed scripting and macro support in the latest version of Mac Office, so I imagine if you're a developer on either the Windows or Mac platform and want to script an Access Database, Excel spreadsheet, or Word Macro, you're screwed. It means you can't functionally use previously-created files any more, or use files from Windows users that use scripting. It's almost like Microsoft is helping users and developers migrate to other tools and platforms.
And yes, the USB spec actually measures "power" in "milliamps".

That's OK, since it's always the same constant factor (5) away from the real power.
You should write about how those end up working out for you. Despite their poor click through percentage, I've heard good things about them from a value standpoint.
What ever happened to Wireless USB and Wireless HDMI? That's what I was really looking forward to -- I hate having so many wires behind my desk.
Component Pascal: available in both .NET and JVM versions, as well as a native Windows app. Reasonably well-chosen splashes of OO, functional, and meta programming in a spare, Wirthianly simple language.
Euler vs. Diderot: Untangling the Search for Social Status from the Search for Truth
Easier Django and More on Google App Engine with App Engine Patch
What if einstein was just a dumb dumb compared to most of what humanity could evolve into? What if people like Einstein are like the first monkeys who spend most time on two legs and were missing fur, and our concept of intelligence in too narrow and limited to recognize that what we call genius is the lower end of the bell curve our species will evolve to occupy?
10 Hot Bookmarklets That Put Plugins to Rest
I have a site with more users! Admittedly 98% of these are spam signups or people who don't use the site anymore, but it's the raw numbers that count, right?

right?

No, of course not. So they've hit user #2,500,000. How many of those users are active? Last day? Seven days? How many actually broadcast?
Personally I always use CTRL-click for that...
Don't feed the trolls.

Flagged.
Krschultz, Thanks for the kind words, I hope you find them useful. Please let me know if there are any other topics you would like to see covered or if there are other aspects of open source hardware you would like more info on.
I think this story is 1 ? away from my search for Hacker News :)
SaaS stocks down 50% in 2008, but promising long-term prospects
Omnifocus for iPhone was 19.99 and worth every penny. I could of paid 199.99 and it would of been good value. This app lets me offload the kinds of thinking my brain is bad at into something I always carry. You can't put a price on having that in your pocket.

I'd hesitate to say I had any desktop apps more useful then omnifocus iPhone, which effects me more like a neural upgrade from a sci fi novel then a cell phone app. iPhone apps could be like primitive cyborg upgrades with a primitive MMI solution grafted onto the part where the human interacts with the machine part.

I hope people support apps with high prices and really cool stuff gets developed. the problem isn't price or value or anything like that, it's that no one has any interesting vision of what the future of this phone could hold.
Does anyone know how to write a meaningful sofware specification document?
I don't see why you equate rationality to a brute-force search of the possibility space.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=366160
I'm not sure where the chaos part comes in. Aren't the functions of the logic gates determined by control signals?

Very cool though. Any processor that can reconfigure itself on the fly is probably going to be very useful.
Yeah, it seems in the most common case ALL parties won't be satisfied.
LOL!

What I meant was: 'Ask YC: Should we flag Trolls?'

Nice interpolation there, jrockway.
You're exactly right, those are .NET problems not specific to a language, and not really problems for a hacker. There are multiple open source ORMs that take full advantage of the language features (like LINQ) and aren't subject to MS's whims.

I think that "constantly balooning specification" is an overstatement. Look at the release timeline:

- 2002: Version 1 (with VS.net 2002)
- October 2005: Version 2 (with VS2005)
- November 2007: Version 3 (with VS2008)
- Oct/Nov 2009 (I'm guessing): Version 4 (with VS2010)

Four versions over that span is hardly "constantly balooning". The .NET framework revs slightly more often with SPs, but major versions are on about the same pace.
For other readers of this thread, there's also this, apparently.

"Improving fluid intelligence with training
on working memory"

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/04/25/0801268105.full...
I don't understand the reason for the viciousness in mocking Cuil. Sure, their search engine is bad but creating a search engine from scratch is hard. If your startup failed would you want the entire Net to be constantly mocking you?
The problem with online ads is that TV ads are so much easier to brainwash people with. When using internets, human primates use their thinkers (a tiny tiny bit, see youtube comments), when using TV, they don't.

So if you want to manipulate the human primates to pull the levers that get you the most bananas, and you are using online ads, you won't be able to use the decades of brainwashing techniques evolved to malevolently manipulate people's behaviors in favor of the advertiser. So the ads won't work nearly as good over large populations.

When I use the interwebs, I choose where my attention goes. That tiny amount of cognitive freedom is completely incompatible with most advertising philosophy. That's why Fox News hates bloggers, that's why ads will crash fastest online, and that's why the internet is good for humanity.

All this crap about growth rates of online ad sales is really just gloss on the relationship between the efficacy of different kinds of advertising and brainwashing. Web advertising is less brainwashing friendly, so the people who need to do brainwashing (concentrated powers) will use it less when times are tight. Google will suffer less, because it's web advertising involve stuff it's customers are looking to pay attention too.
"it can run cross-platform without the danger of Microsoft suing you out of existence"

Please explain further. MS isn't suing Mono (and supports them in many ways) and is increasing their cross-platform capabilities with Silverlight. These are not cure-alls, but they are progress.
My startup's user population is currently hovering somewhere between that of Pitcairn Islands and Vatican City. But with hard work, luck, and a dash of moxie, I hope to someday achieve Tokelau levels of citizenship.
SAMSUNG I550 BLACK UNLOCKED
Samsung has launched a complete blend of latest trend and usabilities in its new presentation of Samsung I550 that has been launched in two enduring colors of Black and Silver.
ajkirwin - that's a great question!

You are correct user numbers are exciting but not everything.

One number that we use to gauge overall usage of the site is the total amount of video watched per month. It can be argued that for an online video site - the volume of video watched is the primary metric by which to define the success of the product.

In October 2008 there were over 2000 years of video watched on Justin.tv.

2000 years equals:

24,000 months
720,000 days
17,280,000 hours
1,036,800,000 minutes

Everyday over 570,000 hours of video are watched on the Justin.tv live video network.

That is quite a feat for an 11 person company don't you think?
Thank you for adding relevant biographical details.
I'm that guy too. I hate TV.

Except heroes and house. Ohhh. The daily show. Colbert Report. Gotta catch south park and sarah silverman. Six feet under was pretty good, too...

Other then that TV sucks. I watch TV shows, but have no TV. The trick is to download your tv from the internet so you can dodge the ads concentrated power scientifically calibrate to manipulate you, and still get a dose of culture and electronic sedation.
SAP and Microsoft, watch your back
Green iron
See, now THAT is impressive ;)

And I don't really have that many users. 1,840~ activated users at last count. Which puts me between Niue and the Falkland Islands :D
Actually we're growing so fast right now that your way of measuring things (active users in the last N days) doesn't help much - most of our total signups occurred very recently - that's just the nature of exponential growth.

As Michael says, a better way to measure the success of a video site is probably how much video people are watching. I posted this mostly just for the fun of comparing us to different countries, not because I think it's the best way to measure our site.
The fall in the shares in these companies has nothing to do with their business.

The overall market is down more than 30%, and technology companies are a lot more sensitive to the market direction than others. This is how Salesforce looks adjusted for market trends: http://whomovedmystock.com/CRM (disclaimer: this is my startup)
In a somewhat unrelated note, has anyone seen Salesforce.com's (NYSE:CRM) P/E ratio? http://finance.google.com/finance?q=CRM

P/E 98.02 and Forward P/E 319.20.
WTF man? Why didn't you say so? :)
It also uses the same propaganda techniques as communist china or procter and gamble to sell people it's worldview. Not just in ads, the programs themselves are propaganda for a certain way of being and acting in the world. True, the bbc is using it's hold on your people's monkey brain to program people with a slightly elitist, more educated (to the extent an 11th grade reading level is better then the 5th grade one in the US), hiply cynical reality.

People don't understand how much or deeply their reality is created by the reality created for them that they watch for hours at a time. I don't care if your reality is programmed by whorish ads in the US or high quality satire in the UK. The point is that entering a vulnerable semihypnotic neurological state and giving control of your brain to some other people is what does the damage. It's not just the content of the electronic magic that causes you to enter that vulnerable state. It's a feature of the medium. Britan is less malevolent then the US to it's TV viewers, because what it does to it's hypnotized masses is healthier for them. People are still being brainwashed in the same way, which is a feature of the medium.
Ok, first of all, you just listed 2 Japanese companies. Not really germane to the article or my comment. Second, neither Honda or Toyota appear to publish their executive salaries (at least I couldn't find them on financial sites). If you have a source for the $1M salary claim, I'd love to see it.

Third, according to the links below, median CEO pay is $8.2M for Fortune 1000 companies and $2M for a larger sampling.

http://tinyurl.com/5rmlwx
http://tinyurl.com/556enm

I'm all for companies being responsible in regards to CEO pay–I just think that portion of the original article is misleading and unqualified.
We're an agile workplace, so every day we have several meetings

Is that what agile is about, multiple meetings every day? That would drive me nuts. How can you concentrate on problems in that type of environment? I don't mind social interaction but that seems over the top.
IIRC, Microsoft has been rather slow to adopt new interfaces like USB and Bluetooth. Can you cite examples of this kind of evil behavior?
I would go with C#. There are lot's of people who say that you are subject to Microsoft's directing of the language, but if you go with Java, you are subject to Sun/OS direction just the same. C# is a great language and ASP.Net is great for the Web. It's not popular to advocate a Microsoft product here but I'm very happy with C# and ASP.Net. Your goals will be the ultimate factor in your decision though.
Does that mean the price of the stock does not represent the true value of the company?
How's .NET vs Java library-wise?
Just Say No to Detroit
I don't think the time-line has as much to do with it as the scope of the changes do. Again, this is personal opinion; and I'm speaking from the angle of someone who has spent many years doing consulting work on the Microsoft stack, and having to deal with figuring out which ways the 9-to-5'ers are going to break things next.

Version 1.0 of the C# specification clocks in at 405 pages. There was an addendum in 1.2 that I'll leave out, because it was a respecification of 1.0.

2.0 came along and added 117 pages of specification - including generics, partial classes, iterators, and a handful of other things. On pure specification, that's a growth of 25% to the core language. (I know this isn't really scientific, but I think you get my drift).

Then in 3.0, just 2 years later, the spec is back to over 500 pages (just for the language!). This version added a bunch of functional paradigm stuff to the language, lambdas, linq and the like.

And now in 4.0, they're talking about making C# essentially a dynamic language.

Now, all this being said, I really do like C#; but I think that it behooves everyone who likes C# to admit that it's a large and evolving language; the paradigms that Microsoft keeps adding to the language don't really seem to fit from one version to the next.
The best keyboard I've ever used is a beige (Compaq Partno 269513-006, google shows that it might still be available). It's heavy, must weigh like 2 or 3 lbs., and I didn't use it for a long time because it was awful dirty. Dishwasher fixed that. PS/2 connector of course, I have a PS/2-female-to-USB that I'm holding on to for when I get a machine without a PS/2 port.

I've had mixed luck with USB-serial ports. Some of them work well and some of them are only recognized well on some machines.
Sorry, I'm having trouble reconciling those numbers. Assuming 2.5 Million users:

2000 Years of video watching a month comes out to about 7 hours/month/user.

5.7 Million hours a day comes out to over 2 hours/day/user, or about 60 hours/month/user.

I think one of those numbers is off by an order of magnitude ... Or is my my math wrong?
P/E doesn't mean much for a company that is still growing fast.
How many of those users are active? Last day? Seven days? How many actually broadcast?

I would bet that the average Justin.tv user is more actively involved in JTV than the average Latvian is involved in Latvia. I mean, sure, they report 2.3 million registered residents, but how many of them voted in the last day? Last seven days? How many of them actually run for office?
Your math isn't wrong, but the assumption that you have to register as a Justin.TV user in order to watch video is wrong.
What if you want to sell software components/libraries? Which platform would you choose?
Redesigning global finance
There are a few others out there that I know of.

http://www.littlebits.cc/

OpenMoko is conspicuously absent

Open Motor Controller - perhaps the most valuable FOSS hardware to date: http://www.dmillard.com/osmc/

Monome http://monome.org/

It strikes me as odd there are so few FOSS robotics HARDWARE platforms out there, or am I just missing something?
They put themselves out there. Use goes hand in hand with evaluation, and if people use your web app and think it sucks they will let you know.

I think it may also be that the Cuil founders have stated that they think their search engine is better than Google's. When you ask to be measured next to a titan and come up far short your are begging to be mocked.
I love IntelliJ IDEA, it kicks some serious ass: http://www.jetbrains.com/

The last time I used VS was with VC++ 6.0, so no clue how IntelliJ compares.
I think lolcats just represent infantilism.

http://xkcd.com/231/ (<-- you've already seen it)

Take a glance at the comments at Icanhascheezburger if you don't believe.
Older adults that learn to use PCs + net etc. are more likely to have increased brain function?
Yea except 63% true X 40% of .NET that Mono actually implements is a lot less than the 100% of Java that can be accessed from Eclipse.
Target market comes into play in this case. Businesses make decisions this way, individuals don't.
> The problem is that the air installation package contains all the source and I don't want to give away my shared secret. Is there any way to do this?

You've got to give the secret out in some fashion or another - otherwise the application won't be able to decrypt the picture or whatever is it.. Even if you obfuscate it, it'll still be somewhere (in memory or whatever).

Maybe this requires a rethink of your security model? What are you trying to secure?
Not a moment too soon.
Having written an improvement to finding text areas in bitmap images for OCR software, and not selling a single copy, or even licensing it to whatever OCR monopoly there is, this rings somewhat true.

Actually, the same goes for recorded music. You can copy the Aphex Twin's sound, but he's already done it. Even if he depends on a brand of synth to sound like that, that means you can't use the same synth without sounding the same. It's a no-win situation.

I think the term is first-time advantage.
Doctors are technologists who fix the body - they don't power the body.

And yes, the technology that fixes the body does change from year to year, perhaps more so than yearly advances in programming techniques and languages. A friend of mine wanted to join Doctors without Borders (a non-profit that goes places where people most urgently need help), but was strongly discouraged to do so by her colleagues. The reason? All of them suggested she would fall behind far too much in the 3 years or so that she wanted to be gone for.

Yes, anecdotes!=data, and surely web programming has also moved on enormously in the last three years, but I would not underestimate (misunderestimate? ;)) the continued education a good doctor has to complete.
As a ten year veteran of Java, currently learning C# (the world is full of irony), I can say that Java is a simpler language. There are a bunch of bones thrown to c++ and assembler focused guys in C# making it a more complex language to master. And I dispute that VisualStudio is a better IDE than IntelliJ. So, my honest opinion is start with Java.

Spend time writing code, and just as importantly, reading it. Read through Spring, Hibernate, et al. Understand the architectures, the trade offs, and the code tricks.
Time is money, and Visual Studio is a very productive environment.
wow, so wrong interpretation of data.
No you wouldn't.

And even if you would, the other guy would not - so you would think, hmm, I split 200 or the other guy just walks off with a necklace and the guy on the phone looses.

So altruistically you try to help the guy on the phone and agree to the deal knowing that otherwise he'll never get his necklace back.
It means the value of the stock doesn't represent the value of the company assuming that the company's recent earning history is indicative of their earning potential. In a growing company, or one where for some reason or another past earnings are not a good indicator, it doesn't mean much.

Theoretically you can deduce the market's idea of how much the company will earn from the PE of such a company.
From my experience - Java will get you a much larger audience, but .Net audience is more happy to pay for tools/libs. In .Net pay-for is the norm, in Java open source is the norm. Opportunities on both sides.

The main other issue on the .Net side is if you get in the way of MS - the will just run over you and make you irrelevant.
... every second
And so is the law of averages - its a popular platform ;)
"Also, don't trust someone who trusts you without good reason."

That's not good advice. Yes it will help with scams, but will hurt you with every other part of life.

Did you read the last line/paragraph in the article?
And this 20% number came from where exactly?
Kindle Economics
Nice site, pretty graphics and useful looking.
That's not unrelated at all.
Learn both. Seriously. Pick a good book about algorithms or data structures, open Visual Studio and Eclipse, load the Java and .NET docs in your browser, maybe pick some introductory books on both and start coding the examples. It might take a little longer to start, but it will pay out tremendously in the end.

I've been doing this with Scheme and Erlang using SICP (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/) and it has definitely helped me understand better both the languages and the material.

In your case you have two very similar platforms, object-oriented, garbage collected, with a very similar syntax. The big strengths for both are their libraries and their VMs, learning them in parallel makes lots of sense.