skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So he ran from Google to Microsoft because Google did not live up to his ideals anymore. I am not actually a Microsoft hater, but I'll take that story with a grain of salt.
what kind of hardware?
猎豹弩弓
Interesting. I wonder how much power it takes to operate a machine like this.
>you would pay tax commensurate with the amount of revenue you derive for it

that's what income tax is.
Why not move to an on-demand printing model, I wonder? I can understand not devoting a large amounts of resources towards typesetting and storing new editions, but it does seem (at least from the comments here, and anecdotally elsewhere) that people enjoy older editions as objects d'art. There might very well be a market for selling, eg, "new" 1912 editions if you can avoid the warehousing overhead and ship them direct.

Licensing opportunity, perhaps?
So you quit Google and headed over to M$. Hacker News, this should be Wanker News.
矫正牙齿
Note to self: If offered an interview, do not wear a suit.
There are a lot of haters around, for example any link to http://winsupersite.com is hellbanned. I guess the anti-MS folks that abound here(mostly Apple and Google fans) have flagged the premier source of information about MS to death because they hate MS.
The parent talked about Apple, not Google. But that post is now deleted.
OpenStreetMap Aims To Become Most Popular Map On The Web
See discussion on the page about the NYTimes story about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3700635
نكت مصريه جديده 2012 مش هتبطل ضحك
I sometimes do this while writing an essay. I simply imagine I'm talking to someone about the topic and when something good comes out of my mouth I write it down.
Agree. I think this is exciting and fascinating, and I'd love to see how this works out. I say this as a person interested in the directions societies take. As someone with opinions, however, it makes me a little sad, because I think education should be as far removed as possible from business. This isn't to say that getting your hands dirty in actual markets doesn't have an educational value, but the most profound knowledge about the world is not gleaned by doing business. Still, interesting.
They're having fun with it already- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdq8odshMls
Loved it. Very entertaining, and a great twist at the end. I LOLed.
We're literally talking to our first client now. If you want, look at my profile and shoot me an email in 2-4 weeks and I'll be able to give you more feedback.

I think the ability to take on larger projects is great because the projects are likely to be more interesting, without being overwhelming.

FWIW, I'm a product manager and front-end developer at my own startup and on GroupTalent I'm working as a product manager with a development and design team in Colombia.

I found out about GroupTalent from the development team. I had worked with them before as a client and liaison between our development team and theirs, so when I reached out to them we knew it was a good fit between us.
I'm not surprised to see this reaction. The folks who react strongly against this announcement have ideas, and think these ideas make them special.

We've all worked with that girl who succeeded at everything she touched. We'd hire her in a heartbeat, for any project, because she figures out how to make it work the best it can. If she's around, we can step back a bit and trust, and the project turns out better than if we'd run it our self.

She's worth way more than the guy who farts great ideas.
>But if you're able to get behind Google+ in the first place, and you're able to call a move from Google to Microsoft an improvement, it's a pretty safe bet there isn't an entrepreneurial bone in your body. And it's not as if the guy's a hacker, either. He's some kind of suit, or polo shirt at best.

I think it's pretty safe to bet that you don't like MS at all. There is a lot of cool stuff happening there and to paint a whole company like that and blame the guy here is a sure sign of this.

Not to say that there is a shortage of people like you here. After all http://winsupersite.com is hellbanned of HN, for the crime of being the premier site of new and inside info, probably due to flagging by people who are too invested in their biases.

Atleast MS (and Apple) for the most part take your money upfront and leave you alone, whereas Google likes to give away stuff for free to users and OEMs and then try to make it back by tracking you across the web. That is an improvement to some.
I think after the horrible results with the rotational UPSes at 365 Main, non-battery UPS technology is kind of hated by most datacenter administrators.
It was a bit of a rambling point, but relates to the double-standard I see often applied. Terms like "piracy" and "stealing" aren't applicable because there's no physical good (although there's hardly any ambiguity over what's being discussed) and no one is being deprived of anything. But, hey, we need the GPL to ensure everyone shares everything and we need to go after those that violate the GPL. Although, quite arguably, the same logic could be applied: it's not stealing, I'm not taking anything you don't already have, and I don't need to share because I wasn't going to anyway, but maybe my friend will hear about it and contribute a patch to make your project better! [Please forgive the liberal use of pronouns.]
Did not check on this until now. Meant to say, "in California" considering the heavy conversation surrounding startup lawyers and the location of the author. Good catch! Anyone can take the BAR in California and yet legal prices here are some of the highest in the country.
I've tried them with very little 'practical' success. Have you found anything stable and fast (esp. on iOS)? I haven't found anything that gives anywhere near a usably fluid experience, sometimes even over WiFi.
I'm Watch - an Android-based smartwatch
Great feedback, thanks. Let me address each.

Re: Our description - I think this is a valid point and a great idea, we will consider wording like "connect with people by discussing the same things" type of benefit.

Re: categories vs. topics. - we will work to make this more clear as well. It should be very clear if you "Take the Tour" on the homepage, but we will work it into the homepage wording as well.

Re: Topics run Mon 12EST to Sun 12EST. Currently, you can view topics/discussions from previous weeks, but not go back and comment on them, lets say. These are outlined in the detailed site pages...I don't know that we can work this detail into the splash page itself, but valid thought that we will explore
I would guess because it's a pretty good comment, and everyone knows where it is supposed to be.
Not only does it allow you to take on larger jobs, but I think the average rate per hour can be higher. Dealing with larger jobs means that you are dealing with larger clients that are more likely to be able to handle a higher hourly rate.

TBH, greatly reducing the overhead of the process of acquiring clients is what sells me on the idea. As a consultant/freelancer, you bill a high hourly rate to make up for a lot of this overhead. A solid market for projects means more profit.
Here is some information on the product that did this that they launched in 2004: http://googledesktop.blogspot.com/
Possibly. But I've never actually been given a merchant agreement with any of the accounts I've ever set up. I've been given a rate sheet and little more beyond that. Shopping around is hard when you effectively have no prior business history. This has gotten a bit easier in recent years and Stripe makes the issue a bit moot. But, the point is the grass isn't necessarily greener and merchant banks can and will freeze funds if they think doing so will avert a bad outcome in a risky situation.
Idk, I imagine someone in YC without an idea would work just as hard if not harder than, say, someone who already has a product with some traction. I imagine John Doe would wake up every morning thinking "crap, I'm already behind everyone else! I better get moving" (and he'll have to get something together for demo day, which presumably is what YC will get a piece of).

I'm sure this is impossible to generalize, but I wonder if in some circumstances it might even save people a few weeks of time. If a lot of teams change their idea during YC, presumably in some cases it takes them a while to decide (or to be convinced by the partners) to do so. Whereas if they go in not attached to any particular idea, it might be easier for pg & crew to talk them out of their bad ideas so that they reach a good idea more quickly.
I wish Google had focused on being the champions of the open, pluralistic web, instead of on Google+, which ironically seems like Bing.
I'm pretty new to the game, but I do my best.
Grellas wrote an excellent comment, for some reason on the wrong thread:

It is easy to disparage the Encyclopedia Britannica from a modern perspective - out-of-step, overpriced, outmaneuvered by competitors - but there is a great sadness here at the demise of something that represented an effort by western scholars to "capture the world's knowledge." Imagine assembling a "A" team of scholars and scientists, getting them to make substantial, substantive contributions in each of their respective areas of expertise, and publishing the results under the guidance of a top editorial board. The results echoed in the western world at the highest levels for no less than two centuries, culminating in a famous 1911 edition that was widely regarded as the pinnacle in assembled human knowledge to that time - something to be marveled at. For years, collectors paid a great premium to buy the 1911 edition, just for that reason. Even in the period leading up to the 1960s, the EB was a staple in most every western home where parents valued education and academic achievement for their kids. Whole hordes of door-to-door salesmen supported their families very comfortably just by selling this particular product.

So, yes, the EB became kind of laughable with its clumsy marketing efforts and awkward efforts to adapt to modern technology in the past couple of decades, but be kind to its memory. It was one of the great attempts in all history to try to do what many dream of doing today through the internet and the advantages of the digital age: limited by the resources of that day, for sure, but an amazing achievement nonetheless. There is something special that has died here and, if only for old time's sake, we can mourn its passing.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3700881
I've used Gephi before and it's awesome. I can highly recommend it if you need to visualize or explore graphs, especially very large graphs which it handles gracefully.

That said, what's with the title for this submission -- how does the license matter much (seeing that most users are unlikely to redistribute it) and why the gratuitous Photoshop reference?
This was an amazing success especially given no equity traded hands. Game publishers shouldn't be the only ones worried.

While I don't see it being easy to do initial angel funding on Kickstarter, it clearly is possible to raise significant amounts of money if you either have a good product and/or a name.
The fancy Newport Beach attorney gets paid the same regardless if he's chasing down this one guy or doing something else.
I have an Idea, and Alpha going to Beta real state site that might work very well and a Co-founder...

BUT... I live in Brazil, so no YC for me :(
We have an idea for that actually.
Lessons I've Learned as a Patient Building a Vision Most Said Was Crazy
http://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-Bing-Director-of-Test-that-l...

Maybe the third time will stick?
美容冠
The thing I'm puzzled about here is why saving silicon makes your solar cells cheaper. I mean, silicon is really cheap, right? Metallurgical-grade silicon is 77 cents a pound: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silicon/sil... — and that works out to around a penny a watt.

I tried to dig into this a few years ago. Evergreen Solar's 10-K for 2007 http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/947397/000095013508... has some information. Evergreen's competitive advantage is supposedly that they use less silicon than other manufacturers because they don't saw their wafers — they grow them. They say they use about 5g of silicon per watt (in 2007, planning to reduce it to 2½g per watt by 2012), and it sounds like they get paid about US$3.87 per watt on average (US$58M revenue in 2007, maxed-out manufacturing capacity of 15MW/year, 276 full-time employees in manufacturing). Their "cost of revenue" (i.e. manufacturing cost) was US$53M, or US$3.53/W. But 5g of metallurgical-grade silicon at the price above is US$0.008. If each employee costs US$120k per year (including health benefits, and remembering that a bunch of them are Ph.D.s) then that would be US$2.20/W in labor costs, which already accounts for the majority of that cost of revenue.

But they're not buying metallurgical-grade silicon; they're buying "polysilicon", short for "polycrystalline silicon", which is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, since how many crystals are in each piece of silicon supplied by their suppliers is somewhat immaterial, since Evergreen melts the silicon down and crystallizes it in polycrystalline silicon ribbons in their "String Ribbon" furnaces. Maybe that costs a lot more than metallurgical-grade silicon?

It used to be hard to find that information! But it's much better now; http://pvinsights.com/ lists current PV-grade polysilicon prices at US$29 to US$35 per kilogram, and http://www.pv-tech.org/news/polysilicon_prices_declines_will... explains that this is a major drop from previous prices of US$80/kg. 5 g at US$35 per kilogram is US$0.175. But "Silicon PV Module Price Per Watt" ranges from US$0.75 to US$1.40. Dropping 17½¢ off that price still isn't going to get you to 40¢. And if Evergreen has really made it to 2½g/W, silicon cost is even less of the total cost.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/008483.html mentions that in 2008 polysilicon prices peaked at US$400/kg.

Anyway. I'm obviously no expert, but I'm skeptical that peeling silicon with a particle accelerator is going to decrease the cost of photovoltaic cells.
You cannot, in general, easily install software on your machine.
That is, I can find quite a few examples for which a particular version or some particular software won't install on your particular machine/OS combination.
Congrats!!!Both companies are very prestigious and anyone would be lucky to be at either. They couldn't be in more different spaces, but both have some very interesting problems to solve, with overlapping technologies, in some places.

I'm assuming you are some flavor of software engineer. If so...I'm sure either company would put you in a great position 3-5 years from now, technically. Palantir has more upside, in terms of market cap, which is to say they are less mature. However, Amazon trades a ridiculous premium, and if anyone deserves it, they do (40-50% rev growth at their size, for 10+ years).

However, you can do anything within Amazon and, personally, I find it more interesting to work on products / projects I'm interested in. I don't know if that's a concern for you.

Have you visited both places? If you don't mind Seattle, SLU is the city that Amazon built.

If it was me, I'd pick Amazon.
Free Google Books Downloads Work Again
Pinterest founder kept going to avoid embarassment of failure
I want to prelude my question with my own personal belief: I think Paul Graham and company are not only ethical, but good human beings.

Is there ever a risk of unintentionally assigning one of the ideas of a lesser group to one of these "All-star" groups without an idea? Like in a brain-storming session, who gets the embers going? I know there's a statement about this on the application (if you're worried about copying not to apply) but it would be interesting to know.
"If every potential class member shows up to small claims court"

They wont though. Nowhere near every potential member.

That is why class actions for small amounts exist. Most people either wont know they can sue, wont know how to sue or wont bother to sue. I applaud this gentleman for his efforts but he is the very small minority with the free time, know-how and balls to pull this off.
Sony unveiled New Smartphone "Sony Xperia Sola"
I have the prefect co-founder with a visa issue, so I'll just ask it straight. Can someone with an h1b, who has already started the green card process, be a co-founder in a YC company?
I pretty much agree with you.

One of the signs of a tech company's last gasp is "leveraging its patent portfolio", a/k/a, suing everyone in sight.

From what I understand of the Apple/Android instance, Jobs felt personally betrayed by Eric Schmidt, who was apparently privy to advance information about the iPhone when Google began its Android pursuits.

Given the iPhone release in June, 2007, and Google's acquisition of Android in August, 2005, the timing might be indicative. Then again, the first release of the iPhone was in 1993 (the Newton). I still remember encountering my first one of those and wondering why I'd ever want one.... By 2005-6, the time of the mobile+PDA had truly come, IMO. Not that Schmidt couldn't have picked up some tips from Apple. Much as Apple once did from Xerox....

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc200...
Well, it is a cheap experiment. What is the worst that could happen?
Agreed. More sites need to move away from the default styles and should use Bootstrap for what its great at being -- a structural foundation.

I run a little marketplace for Bootstrap themes called WrapBootstrap - http://wrapbootstrap.com/ - I just sold the 100th theme today so more people are taking customization seriously within the Bootstrap community than before.

You can also check out Bootswatch - http://bootswatch.com/ - He provides free color themes that you can use to skin Bootstrap with.

People should definitely be using Bootstrap for its technical merit and not for its default styles.
Tim Schafer said it in an interview (with NPR I believe) this isn't replacing traditional publishers (yet followed by evil laugh).

I think the two can coexist. This was a great way to revive a game genre with following that is still to small for a AAA publisher to go after.

I think people who want to be successful with crowdsourcing like this will need to follow that pattern and attack small undeserved niche markets.
How att even get away with this?

Case 1: judge recognizes att can control the content (tether vs non tether) then why can't i sue them if someone offends me on an email?

Case 2: they are a connection provider, so they have to allow you to use the connection in any way you can.

Analogy: could they legally have a phone plan like
20/mo unlimited calls
30/mo unlimited calls + 50 faxes
curious as to the contents of the Repose reference to the 'Zuckerberg’s letter' ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3698459
But how much does it cost to staff the people that actually do the research for it, update the encyclopedia, etc?

Printing books isn't just about printing books. Someone actually has to come up with the contents and this person has to be paid!
I think I read somewhere that the octoparts applied without any programming knowledge between them.
Both true but there are limits. Grad students are still defined by what they've done previously so while there is a lot of choice, it's still within a particular field (i.e. limited to a subset of the whole 'PhD-space').

That's probably stating the obvious (but sometimes it's worth doing that).

Edit: The analogy does works but you might want to consider subjects as 'startup areas' e.g. consumer, enterprise, infrastructure, etc
Waiting for shills to block this technology using peer review to save petro-dollar empire.
Tesla's New Car: A Luxury SUV, With Wings
Plus some private backers gave $110,000 (Tim Schafer said that on the live stream from their offices) so that plus Kickstarter would be: $3,445,250
I think what this person forgets is that some people don't want to live in a city. They like driving their cars everywhere. Apple doesn't want to build a suburb in their campus. They want it to be a great place for employees to do great work.
Micro Solar Cells Handle More Intense Sunlight
Review my game idea
do you eat raw fruits and vegetables?
Just a correction: "ideas" per se cannot be protected. Only inventions (patents) and IP (copyright)
is the video requirement for application, cf http://ycombinator.com/video.html effected by the posterous/twitter deal?
Meh..

ARM only employs ~2000 people, not all of whom are in the UK. That's hardly a mass employer like the manufacturing sector is.
They don't just have 87,000 backers. They have a tribe of 87 000!!!. This is absolutely impressive!!!

I am sure some shameless lobbyists or companies are thinking of how to put Kickstarter out of business.
Jony Ive on Apple Design Insights
That's the great thing about experiments: you can try them even if you're skeptical of the hypothesis. (Although it sounds they aren't skeptical.)
I wonder what it would be worth in 40 years?
This is a great idea because great teams can find great markets and then build great products. Investors care about 3 things in order of importance.

First, is market size. If you have a great team and a great product in a small market, you won't make much money. Conversely, you can have a bad team with an okay product in a large market, and still make a decent return. The market is assessed first because you can't change it. It is what it is.

Second is team; the quality of the team is more important than the product in the earliest stages of a company. It's the second hardest thing to change. It's really hard to replace a cofounder.

Third, and last, is product. It's really easy to change a product. The classical/somewhat cliched pivot.

With this in mind, YC can attract stellar talent, point them at a big market and say "innovate and iterate!"

As PG mentioned, this has already happened to some extent. I think this is a clear pathway for exceptional engineers to come together.
We're very careful about that. We'd never do it intentionally. There's some possibility we'd do it unintentionally, but I don't think we have so far.
None. The amount of energy extractable by wind turbines is only a tiny fraction of the total, close to the surface.
Have any groups ever tried this before now and succeeded? As in, they filled out the application, indicated that they had no idea yet, and got accepted?
Hi, I got your email and I promise I am working my way through the queue toward it!

I just wanted to note here for anyone else who feels like they are 'late to the party' that I'm trying to make this an ongoing thing.

People should feel free to get in touch!
I was hoping this would address the core issue whether it's worthwhile to build a good parking lot as opposed to a parking lot being a good thing to do with urban land until a better opportunity arises.
This isn't raw silicon, it's spun ingots. The cost is almost entirely from the process they undergo, not the raw materials. From Wikipedia:

"A typical wafer is made out of extremely pure silicon that is grown into mono-crystalline cylindrical ingots (boules) up to 300 mm (slightly less than 12 inches) in diameter using the Czochralski process. These ingots are then sliced into wafers about 0.75 mm thick and polished to obtain a very regular and flat surface."

So it's a better way to slice the ingots into wafers. Those ingots are ridiculously expensive.
I'd suggest it's much cheaper to look into how we could reduce the regulations making it so expensive

That part's pretty easy. Reduce the guarantees we require demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of new drugs.
I'm kind of hoping Microsoft releases their own mobile app for this. Something where you could stream your desktop, or at least the tablet/metro version of it.
Amoeboid Robot Navigates Without a Brain
> At this point I suspect the author is just trolling.

It's sarcasm. The author knows this isn't what the patent system is intended for, but they think it is what the patent system has become.