skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not missing the issue of network effects. Or rather I'm not now as I can see clearly after the fact ;). But if you asked me in 1987 about email, I would have answered different. I think this is the whole point of the article. It is difficult to explain the future. Even the original inventors can't do it. Anyway, I think it was a nice article and worthy of some thought. Sometimes it is nice to know that maybe the right approach is just "do" and let the future do the explaining.
Wufoo is absolutely killing it. They are way beyond early signs of traction (if that's who you were referring to). Disregard this comment if you were referring to the list as a whole.

Aucto was a talent acquisition, which is obviously fine. The founders got relatively rich and can be considered successful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there were 4 founders so afters taxes, fees & TPS they probably walked away with between 500k-900k depending how good their accountant is. This rocks for the amount of man hours put in, but it isn't enough to never ever have to work again.

I think it's hard to call the vast majority of talent acquisitions a success (for investors, not founders), because it's too difficult to tell either way what would have happened. Look what happened with Skype then look what happened with Weblogs.
needless pedantry. hologram has entered the lexicon as meaning any 3d projection of an image. people involved in actual hologram research will no doubt be very frustrated in the next couple decades as many different methods of 3d projection are tried in consumer products and everyone calls them holograms.
John Doerr on the iPhone as a Gaming Platform
Climate models are testable. It just takes a long time to test them, since they describe long term behavior. Fluid dynamics is nonlinear, and complicated, but certain effects, such as lift, or drag, are both simple and broadly applicable. So it is with radiative models of global heat balance. Heat powers the climate! Altering CO2 will alter the flux of infrared radiation which will alter the flux of heat. This basic mechanism is uncontested. I could be that the total heat flux doesn't change much because it's balanced by other effects. But we know of no other effects sufficiently strong to render the temperature change small. If we have a physically plausible model that fits measured datapoints, and we keep check its predictions against measurements, and we keep asking 'in which ways might this be different?' and looking for possible problems, or effects that we've missed, then this is science at work. If instead we say "it's complicated, and there are some areas in which there are gaps in understanding, therefore we should draw no conclusions and make no decisions," we achieve little.
Outsourced Game Development 
Play and Work. Fun at Work and Deliver the Best. These are applicable to every human being and there is a lot of Growing Demand for online community gamers. HSA Game Studio is the apt and right launch of AJ Square Incorporation which will engross its visitor of online games of diverse class both in design and delivery. Developed already more than 80 flash games include Action/Adventure, Fun/Arcade games and Puzzles using Flash Technology.
I thought this was concise and well written, and informative.
Ref here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521

5:40
Electronic Cigarette a Better Smoking Alternative
There is hardly anyone who does not know the negative effects of smoking. Every smoker chooses to ignore the warnings and only when it is too late, they regret not taking care of their health. It is not only the smoker who gets affected, but also others who passively inhale the cigarette smoke. When some smokers finally want to quit smoking, they are unable to do so because
Any list like this is obviously subjective. Not sure if I agree with all of the selections, but at the same time I want to stress that every company on here is kicking ass in a big way. Any YC startup that's launched and still running is probably worthy of being mentioned.
The Top Ten Reasons iTunes Sucks
How does CBS benefit from people not thinking that Exxon should be more regulated?
Passed away? What a relief! I heard a rumor he died. Whatever happened to him instead sure sounds ambiguously pleasanter!
If you don't like it, don't buy it. Seriously, this guy just sounds jealous that git is actually making money on something he sees as superfluous.

If you're going to rant, contribute something meaningful, don't just hate.
Are computers radically changing the way we think?
Carpet Cleaning Devon
We recently used carpet cleaners Devon for our carpet cleaning, they were polite, hardworking, and a super job.
I was really surprised by some of the picks too. I'd never even heard of AddHer.com. Snipd just launched; it's kinda cool, but the jury's still out on it. Many other ones, I've seen lots of press coverage for but never actually met anyone who uses them (Loopt? Xobni?).

Where is RescueTime? SnapTalent? JamGlue? TheSixtyOne? All these are arguably more popular than the companies on the list.

It also doesn't include some of the early acquisitions like Zenter, Parakey, and Auctomactic, yet Omnisio is #1 for their $15M exit.
Tweetworks Adds Group Functionality to Twitter
Using Social Media to Get Out of Your House
Why is a "business day" distinct from any other?
Consider the following analogy. We all have bodies, but few become athletes. We all have minds, but few become thinkers. I think this is a matter of choice influenced by ones predisposition and experiences. Inevitably we choose to specialize in something and that specialization strengthens us in some ways at the cost of weakening us in other ways. -cheers
I tend to think "economies of scale" or simply economics is a very difficult thing to understand. Governmental economic policy, whatever it may be, is the implicit practice of saying "We, the chosen few, understand one of the most complex things in the world and we will control it for you." I'm pessimistic of anyone claiming omniscience in something so complex whether they are an individual or a mouthpiece for a group of people.

Order in economy tends to come about more quickly and more judiciously when government is not involved. Corporations though they may finance or have interests in a warfare state are only allowed to exercise power through the fictitious legitimacy of the state. If Joe's Diner went to war with Bob's Diner we quickly see the cost of war. They are both out of business because war is expensive. Not to mention ordinary folks would not say to themselves, "Well Joe over here is fighting for my rights! Support The Troops (of Joe's Diner)!" This, of course, is ridiculous.

So this is why we need taxes? Warfare or welfare. I would rather be peaceful and sleep at night. I would rather trade with my neighbors than impoverish them through blockades, embargoes, or whatever else the government can only do through force of arms.

I notice you are very strident about what taxes must be used for, but my whole point on taxes is that if we MUST have these things then let us do them voluntarily through cooperative efforts. If you and I both want an organization to achieve goal X let us get together and achieve that goal. If someone doesn't want to help us out then let's try to convince them we're right not through force of arms(taxation), but through discussion and friendship. Be peaceful.

I think you might do well to study Winston Churchill's policies during and leading up to World War II. He and FDR both colluded to embolden western government to become more interventionist and war-like. I have heard that quote before, but I would challenge you, seriously, to consider a world without government. Start small with a family, then a city, then a region, then a continent. At what point does government intervention by force of arms against peaceful non-compliers become okay? I only ask that you answer that question for yourself.
wouldn't be toooo sure about that ;)

one thing I remember doing back in HS (and occasionally now in college) where there was no wifi at all was running an ircd on someone's laptop and creating a small ad-hoc wireless network so we could all chat on IRC at the same time. Since some classrooms were physically close, we had some people from other classes join in too.

And lack of network access won't stop anyone from playing offline games on their computer.
Eliezer Yudkowsky offering his services as a speaker for financial firms
Perhaps someone could share the idea. Video files don't work for a lot of (text-oriented) surfers, and it would be useful not to have to read the book to know if it is any good..
Recession: A good time to trade money for power?
I think there are two questions about the cloud: Do we trust the company? Do they care?

In this case I don't think anyone's terribly worried about Google not having backups or dropping off the radar tomorrow, but they pretty obviously don't care about individual customers.

That can be solved by dealing with a small to medium sized business that has real interest in keeping you as a customer. We pay all of $10 a month for the place where our email is hosted, and the customer support has always been a charm usually responding within an hour and at the longest thusfar, three hours.
You are wrong. Small businesses want to use MS office because that is what they know. I've signed two companies up for Office Live Small Business, which isn't great, but it is somewhat workable. They will move to SharePoint Online + Exchange Online in a few months. It is only going to cost them $15/month/user. They are saving thousands of dollars and they get to use the same software they've always used. Importantly, that they are saving tons of $100/hr IT admin fees and they are saving thousands of dollars in hardware costs.

$15/month/user for Exchange+SharePoint is not significantly more than the $0/month/user for Google Docs for most businesses. The cost of Windows and Office is insignificant for them--compared to normal business expenses and the cost of the computers to run the software, the software itself is basically free.

Foldershare is a really, really nice utility. Windows 7's transparent WebDAV/SMB caching feature is going to be a killer. Right now, the biggest problem with cloud storage is performance, reliability, and disconnected operation. These tools make those problems go away, mostly, for the average user.

I learned all of this doing due diligence for a SaaS business that never got off the ground--there was no way I could be better than Sharepoint+Exchange, and there's no way that I could be cheaper in a profitable manner. The best I could hope for would be to build something similar to what MS is doing and then hope that one of their competitors bought it to catch up--not exactly the most exciting idea to me.
How Do You Prototype Your Apps?
Let's say you have $200 a month to spend on email and collaboration. You have no IT staff, no programmers, and you have no IT experience of your own. What is better than (hosted) Sharepoint + Exchange?
The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task in full humility and avoids clever tricks like the plague.

I think people vary in how much they can model in their head - but everyone has a limit. For me, the interesting question is how to work around that limitation.
Jerry Yang Speaks At Web 2.0
Speaking of Ramen, don't get the grocery-store stuff, that's for suckers. Get the good stuff off Amazon or VeryAsia.com. I'm pretty sure we lived exclusively off of Mi Goreng Pedas for about 2 weeks straight when we just didn't feel a trip to the grocery store was a good use of time.

Also, try to find a non-technical co-founder. Dan didn't have a ton to do before we launched, so I got free (as in cooked) meals! Woo!

Now nobody cooks :(
In the "huge book filled with brilliant stuff but not for everybody" genre, I recommend ADA by Vladimir Nabokov. Great stuff.
Because its about marketing, its hard to capture the ideas without sounding trite and simplistic. Basically keep your burn rate low while "developing" your market. And that "developing" your market is an iterative process of basically trying things, getting customer feedback, trying more things informed by that feedback, repeat until you find a viable market. In other words, just as you would iterate your product development (always with the possibility of going back to the start) you should do the same with your market development. Don't be afraid to fail.

Some of the nicer points from the video (in my opinion):

* 90% of startups fail not because of technological barriers but because they fail to find and develop their market.

* Too many startups try to imitate the corporate structure of larger companies - acting like the company they want to grow up to be - rather than having a corporate structure that suits their stage of growth.

* He recommends having a "market development" group rather than the typical VP/Sales, VP/Marketing structure.
Well, that was a bit all over the place, and I would have appreciated a spoilers warning, but thanks for sharing.

Where in Canada are you going to?
Well, would there be some not-sticky way of separating them after the fact? like, say, based on amount of non-trivial input they've given? There are sometimes beta "testers" who never really give any input.

For my startup, we're providing a service we'll be charging for monthly. All the beta testers will get some kind of discount we've yet to figure out yet (a few months free, most likely, or some steep discount) and all beta testers actually telling us about issues something probably double that if not more.

I guess I just don't like the idea of rewarding someone giving me absolutely nothing in return equally as someone giving me invaluable amounts of help.
Lance Armstrong on Twitter
Their list of users is impressive:

http://cgkit.sourceforge.net/users.html
The word "Familiarity" is a joke; what does that mean anyway?

I once interviewed a guy who had HTTP on his resume. Just for kicks I asked him to name 3 HTTP verbs. He could only name GET and POST. I know that's petty, but if a candidate is going to list something on their resume, they better know what the hell they're talking about.

The most atrocious phone interview I conducted, I could hear the guy Googling the answers to some of the questions I asked. Towards the end I asked what his experience was with DOA web-services. He of course responded that he knew all about them and was very "familiar" with them. I quickly ended the interview and said, "thanks, but no thanks."
Ask YC:a better way to save American Auto
I am wondering if there is a better way to save the American auto industry, what if their bailout was based on them meeting some fuel efficiency measurement, say 50mpg, or maybe even 100mpg? The bailout might be amortized over a period of time based on performance expectations. Maybe there is even a bonus for companies that have the highest fuel efficiency in their class?

Just a bunch of Wednesday night thoughts.
the most efficient thing to do is allow the free market to determine which companies live and die. auto companies make money by giving people what they want. those that don't give people what they want should not be propped up with taxpayer money.
People were born stupid. Education (and in small part experience) is necessary to the development of the rational faculties.
no. the ways that we think are mostly hardwired. it is only surface details that are programmed by the environment.
well, it can be for awhile. then the successful people start leaving and all the morons wonder why.
look at the skilled labor problems they are having in socialist european countries.
real social progress will be when the presidents color is of no concern.
what's all this talk of 'partners' is the reffering to their adwords customers?
No WuFoo, no RescueTime, no Slinkset ... no good
Consumer Electronics - Hot Products
Hottest Products like Personal Electronics, Audio Video Favorites, Home Electronics, Computers, Video Games, Cell Phone Accessories & Others are what turn us on. Everything you want at great Prices.
"thesixtyone" -- we're actually not YC, although we do fit the descrip of 2 guys in an apartment. thanks for the shout out.

also, xobni's fairly popular amongst the outlook crowd. i went back to my university for an alum interview and was surprised to discover that a lot of the office computers had been setup with xobni. killer app? search.
Take this spam somewhere else, please.
there are lots of inaccuracies in there...
NO MORE POLITRIX. Please.

Edit: Submit when he's actually done it instead of _talked_ about doing it. Politics drive me (and most of HN) insane.
What you're actually paying for is the final version in PDF which will be released in March 2009, and in the meantime, until it becomes available, you're getting all the betas.
Once, after a few months of learning to program, my bike started falling out of gear going up hills. I knew nothing about bikes and so I looked at it for a while and then got frustrated. Then I looked at the pedals and thought, what happens when I push these? And if this chain is here, how does the wheel move? And what else can affect the wheel? And how does this change if the chain is on this gear wheel? Then I realized, hey, I'm debugging my bike.

I was just helping someone learn to program yesterday, and I noticed her doing something that I remember doing as well. She was writing code that she didn't understand, without even understanding that she didn't understand it. Then, when it blew up, she was irritated in two ways: once because she had no idea it was coming, and again because she had no idea how to fix it. I rarely write code I don't understand now, but when I do, I'm damn well certain that I don't understand it, and it makes me nervous as hell. One day she's going to be me, because she hates what she sees every time she javac's now.
Exactly what I was thinking. I am skeptical that all 9 companies listed are profitable–or are even on track to be. In my book, not being profitable doesn't beat odds in any economy.
Agreed. The best job descriptions I've seen are two-parters. One being details on the kind of technical skills they expect for the job (and not just a laundry list of everything but the kitchen sink), and the second part being the soft skills desired.

Seems to work quite well, the way I see it. I would really rather have people from the team that's hiring write the job description - it is beneficial for both parties. They get to specify precisely the position they want to fill (as opposed to casting a generic net), and I get to know a lot more about the job that I'm applying for.
Are you kidding? Xobni got covered by Walt Mossberg and I've already met a handful of non-techies who love it. Not all press is created equal.

I certainly agree that most of these companies don't really deserve mentioning yet, but you can't discount the ones on track to success.
I read the article, so I was just giving my opinion on it, as a 'Comment' section implies. Go take your spam somewhere!
Another argument we don't hear often is that the EC2 model encourages (and almost insists) that you build in failover from the start of a project.

S3, SQS, and SDB provide the same low barrier to entry as EC2 for bootstrapped startups but what doesn't get mentioned often is that as your application matures you can replace each of these components using EC2 with custom, vendor, or open source products. You can do this one by one and eventually what you have is a platform that could be run independently of AWS altogether when/if the need arises.
K700i Lcd Backlight Problem
backlight, k700, k700 backlight problem, k700 lcd lights, k700 lcd problem, lcd, lcd backlight, light, sony ericsson
And not every course /should/ be based on a textbook, either. Esp. not in the humanities. It's disgraceful when college Arts and Sciences faculty assign a textbook for PHIL 101 or Introduction to Plato. Why read a commentary on Plato when you can just pull The Republic off the shelf and read Plato's very words?
I would be happy to pay a monthly / yearly fee to Google in exchange for support and access guarantees on my account.
No kidding. Flagged. A story about Michael Crichton dying is not open season on climate change conspiracy.
Zenter? Auctomatic? How can you miss two companies with exits and put one that just launched ahead of them?

Even though a lot of these would be in my list too, the orders are all wrong.
Indeed, I tuned into CNN's live feed around when Ohio was getting called, and I was welcomed by first a few minutes of nonstop ads (for CNN no less), then a room full of people having "deep thoughts" about nothing in particular. This is the station I watched, riveted, during the first iraq war?! Sad.
Standards for the bailout are a nice idea, but hitting those measurements doesn't mean people will buy the vehicles.

Perhaps it would be better to give tax credits to consumers who buy American-made vehicles.

I maybe way off because I haven't done enough research, but I've always thought that the unions have indirectly caused much of Detroit's woes by not adapting with the expanding global marketplace. The Asian companies make their cars faster and cheaper than the US–even in their US-based factories. To me, that's clearly an efficiency/productivity issue.

I read that in '06 GM lost $1,400 per vehicle and Ford lost $5,000 per vehicle. Also, benefits being paid to retired US auto workers add $1,500 to the cost of every vechicle. I'm all for retirement benefits, but c'mon ... these US companies are basically paying for the salaries of all their workers–plus the salaries of all their former workers.

When you're selling cars and your profit margin is -10%, a bailout is not the right fix, IMO.

Full disclosure: I drive a '97 Bronco :)
That's actually the only place you'd have to point this out.
Obama for Entrepreneurs?
You don't have to delete from the server. Gmail supports IMAP, and if you set Thunderbird to cache the whole account, even if Google locks you out your entire offline cache is safe (and can be copied into another account if necessary).
List-based articles/blog posts are fine, but I personally have a limit for the number of items I can handle ... 50 is several exits past that limit.
The fundamental difference is that Adobe has no competitors who are better. Many people use Linux and various other languages/frameworks not just because they're free, but because they think they are better for what they're doing. That's not true of most Adobe products (except maybe Premier and InDesign).

Adobe doesn't have to deal with this. Some people might use GIMP, but just to save a couple bucks. I don't know if there are even substantial competitors to Illustrator. There are weak ones to Acrobat and Flash.

Adobe really just doesn't have open source competitors with any shot of eating their lunch. Microsoft does.
ehh, he's missing the point entirely. It's too bad he's disabled comments on his post.

Github is about social coding, whether that's private or public. It's about having a very, very nice UI on top of features normally hidden away behind the command line. It's about encouraging you to share your code.

Anyway, if you read through the rest of his blog it's clear he's a pythonista. And that's fine. But - jealous much? :-)
At least we have the old school deli.

You should provide links to the GosuGod Noodles and Jebus Sauce. Jebus makes GosuGod, but Jebus is somewhat worthless without GosuGod - sort of like the holy trinity. The spirit can be the boiling water. Or maybe I should just call the aggregate: Flying Ramen Monster.

Anyways...

Once we have salaries instead of stipends I'll start cooking again :).