skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Seems to be the start of something big, Wasteland 2 launched today on kickstarted and is about to hit $400,000. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2
Video also requires sound, but I also hope that in the future there will be less reasons to even want to do that. Why not just stream that Video to the device then? (I understand there are reasons today like lack of flash on iOS, but it just seems silly.)
So really I am depressed by the state of VNC/lack of successors. There is much room for innovation and I just doubt that anything can be solved with a VM. Better solutions in the OS would work in a VM and native.
"It's up for disruption", as they say here.
Well, this should shift the burden from evaluating the applicant's ideas and the applicants to evaluating the applicants.
Ask HN: Can we apply to YCombintor planning to work on the start-up part time?
Hi,

We are group of people working full time at different companies on H1-B visas. We want to apply for YCombinator, but our plan is to continue working part-time on the start-up idea till it gets some real traction.

Is it possible to apply for YCombinator with only part-time commitment from the founders ?

Thanks,
Sesh
Suppose your idea is to build a brilliant sculpture. Who will most likely succeed: a sculptor, or a guy who's instructing a sculptor? Would it work better to hire a sculptor and explain to them exactly what it should look like, or would it work better to be that sculptor and directly build what you have in mind? Even if you are explaining it to somebody else, it helps your ability to explain tremendously to be able to sculpt yourself. That's not to say that other roles aren't very important, like marketing for example. But unless your "business decisions" are truly brilliant, you're probably not adding a lot of value in a startup if that is your only contribution.

Despite your opinion that it they are unnecessary, is it a coincidence that all the startups you name had technical founders? Obviously your chances of success are not zero without a technical cofounder, but empirically a technical cofounder does seem to be a common factor.
The @ symbol makes sense given the precedence of @"" strings
Yes indeed I often forget to take it during the weekends. I have no compulsion to take it when my prescription runs out (I often delay going to the doctor to get a refill and go a week without, especially if focus is not absolutely necessary).

I didn't realize this was unusual.
A Big Idea: Y Combinator Now Lets Founders Apply Without… An Idea
Since we're engaging in fantasy (for now) what would happen if we DID extract that much energy (or even a significant fraction of that) from the atmosphere? What kind of climate change would that precipitate?
YC is seen as a leader because they do things like this, however i think other people are catching on to what it means to be get more success from start ups.

I did apply to YC but i changed my mind and erased everything. Not because i wasn't confident in my idea, or anything on YC's part (i think at least) but just pure numbers: too many people know about it so even for the brilliant ideas (or people) that get through, even more would be left out.

Sure i may be taking myself out of the race before its started, but i've applied to some other places around the country that seem to offer the same type of quality (more money,more impressive informatics resources), even one not to far from where i live (midwest) which is awesome (especially since its the first year for it) Always been a risk taker and i like my chances else where.

Besides we should be spreading this throughout the world and not just hoarding it in SV =)
You're reading my comment about loving Google because they aren't Apple a bit too literally.

That's just shorthand to say I love Google because of many actual reasons including but not limited to these:

I loved Google because they've had a true culture of open APIs and open code as opposed to Apple who does use and contribute to OSS projects, but on a much more limited basis and generally only when it has immediate benefit for themselves.

I loved Google because they haven't had a history of disallowing apps from their app store for goofy reasons (like they compete with their own apps, or they are written in a language Google doesn't like).

I loved Google because I didn't feel like they were overstepping their bounds in deciding how I should use my computers or devices.

I loved Google because I never got the feeling that they were trying to trap me completely inside their own walled garden.

etc.
"About 85 percent of revenues come from selling curriculum products in subjects like math, science and the English language; the remainder comes from subscriptions to the Web site, the company said."

They weren't avoiding reality. It looks like they've planned this years ago, but kept printing encyclopaedias while they were still profitable.

Let's say after the year 2015, demand for non-tablets will begin to reduce by 50% per year. Does that mean companies should stop making non-tablets in the year 2015? For some, maybe. What if several competitors has already exited the market (as had happened here), should you exit too? If your competitors left that means although while the pie has gotten smaller, you're getting a larger slice of it. Stay while it's profitable.
Facebook Pages Race To Adopt Timeline, 8M Of 37M+ Upgraded In 10 Days
More than a fad: Highlight could generate massive revenues
Facebook is winning advertising because they have 750 Million users.

Facebook wasn't created for advertising so much as advertising was the logical way to profit from having that many people use your product.

Google certainly is motivated to compete with Facebook for that advertising revenue but their real motivation is just the user base which I'm sure they already have they just haven't been able to convert them to social users.
Double-spaced Word documents... can't stand those
Survey: iPad Leads Corporate Tablet Adoption
So what happens here, exactly? Say John Doe is picked without an idea. What does John do during his YC time? What does YC get a piece of in return, exactly?

On another aspect of it, the negative reaction of some, I think there may be a subconscious message that this makes it more about what someone has done than is doing or will do. That probably threatens some folks a bit, even if it doesn't practically make any actual difference to their chances.
Gravity Announces Labs and Open Source Projects
it's not the fact that the tech crowd is upset with yahoo that surprises me, it's that they are not more upset with apple.
PG - the post only mentions groups, so are you open to solo founder types applying as well? They're probably more likely to be non-hackers that need a team, like designers.
I'm curious -- it looks like there is nowhere on the application form to describe your idea. That is, you're not just letting people apply without an idea, you're stopping them from applying with an idea. Is that intentional?
What bothers me is the way British governments, regardless of which party is in power, never ever back the British people. They almost cant wait to sling them off to who ever wants us. Our governments never back the people at all. What ever the trouble, you are one your own, they dont want to know.

In contrast, while I dislike the way the US seems to expect to pluck any world citizen it likes to gamble in its disturbing who can afford the best lawyer lottery legal process, it's government will fight tooth and nail for its citizens.
"fossil fuel" is likely a misnomer. Read to your heart's content here: http://trilogymedia.com.au/Thomas_Gold/usgs.html
Well, he is a part of tptacek's conspi^W must-read list https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek
Barrier to faster graphene devices identified and suppressed
This is a separate application form for people with no idea. You can still apply with an idea via the regular application form: http://ycombinator.com/apply.html
Or you just ckec the checkbox that says 'more secure'?
It always seemed to me that social is the evolution of search. And google knows this very well. Social signals are very important for finding what you're looking for. The idea of g+ was always to implement something like the new "google + your world" on a larger scale on all google products. If they didn't do this, they would fall behind to the competition. They felt forced to.

Erick Schmidt once said something like "we only want facebook to open their data so people can search for it, failing that, we'll find other ways to get it". It was clear from that day, that they were building a facebook competitor. Not because they were looking for new ways to spam people with ads (that's an overly simplistic generalization). But because they found it important to keep their existing business relevant. Independent of which monetization they were using. Even if google search was a paid premium, they would need social anyway. It's clearly not "about the ads".
Samsung Galaxy S2 gets Ice Cream update
It's the "won't do it again" part that really gets me.

As much as I am against it, if the acquisition of my company hinged upon my agreeing to sign off on some patents to Big Co., I'd do it.
Why does he even bother bringing Wave into this? As a Googler he should know that Wave was never meant to be a social network. It didn't even have the subscribe of 'friends', it was an attempt to create a new kind of Email.

He worked at Google but didn't realize that all that innovation, be it GMail, Android, Chrome, Search, Maps, Google Car, etc was paid for by ads?
Awesome stuff! Truly a great day for the project, Kickstarter and the internet overall. Not only traditional publishers trembling, but their establishment middlemen financiers...only place to go from here is up with any single inventor or team with a concept that can catch the eye of the funding crowd!
There are already RDP and VNC clients written in HTML5/Javascript available. If you want to get access to a physical machine, just use one of those.

This project adds support to VMware Workstation, etc, to do a similar thing, so that you don't need a custom VMware client app on your device.
"About half a million households pay a $70 annual fee that includes access to the full database of articles, videos, original documents and access to mobile applications." That's $35 million a year, which is not as good as the best year of the print version (which would have $150 million in sales if I'm figuring correctly), but is still not too shabby.
What makes software patents so special? Whether an idea is novel seems relative to who you are talking to in my experience.
The Australian reveals digital subscription take-up
"Move content (timeline) to the left-hand side and the dashboard to the right for easier reading."

Anyone care to enlighten me on how the above makes for easier reading?
Top 15 ANDroid SMARTPHONES for 2012
Other problems with building nuclear plants (or any other type of plant that requires large steam turbines) in the desert include:

* Difficulty cooling. If you build next to an ocean or river, you can just use some of that water to provide the cold end of the temperature differential that you're using to generate power. Deserts are trickier, and more expensive.

* Transportation. If you build next to navigable waterways, you can ship really big components on barges. In deserts, you can ship some things by rail.

But hey, at least it's politically convenient to stick scary power plants in deserts.
I'm so sorry, but this was just too absurd:)

... letting owners unlock a phone with their face
We still prefer that people apply with ideas. All that's new is that we've added an option for people to apply without one. All else equal, a team with a good idea has a much better chance of being accepted than one without.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Random
Yahoo’s Patent Suit Against Facebook Is A ‘Crock Of Shit’ (Plus...
Perhaps, but facebook is trolling us all right now. I mean come on, a (free)social media platform where they make money off of other peoples ads, and now about to become "the biggest IPO ever"? lulz
It's a Chrome extension for Twitter.

From the "Overview" section:

Makes Twitter a bit better

This Google Chrome extension will:

- Move content (timeline) to the left-hand side and the dashboard to the right for easier reading.

- Expand shortened URL’s wherever possible, so you know where you are actually clicking.

- Display your saved searches & @mentions.

- Widen the layout.

- (Optionally) use a nicer font (Georgia)

It's open source, too: https://github.com/clipperhouse/BetterBird

Uses the lovely Twitter icons from Design Junction.
Firefox Adds New Developer Tools and Add-on Sync
The parent comment seemed to be referring to a ban on antibiotics only in agriculture, not the human population. Which may be why you were downvoted.
Six Questions for Thomas Frank
Poor writing. The subject is introduced as a professor or landscape architecture and urban design but then referred to many times (inc. in the title) as an urban planner. That's like calling a graphic designer a software engineer.
The author states that in his time at Google he realizes it was always a company funded by ads, but that he did not have to personally feel the need for Ads in all products. That's a fair point. Where I lost him is his connection of Google+ with Ads.

I disagree that G+ is an Ads play. It's a play for staying relevant on the internet. When you think about it, Facebook is a closed system. They want CNN to post articles into the CNN FB stream. They want people to read those articles on the CNN page (yes, this currently links to outside FB... that will change). They want to do this so that you never have to leave FB, and in fact if you look at the user behavior of 13-17 year olds you will see disturbing trends that this is the case.

Facebook is a danger to a free and open internet by becoming the de-facto internet. I concede that this is a stretch, but it is within their power to do so and from my understanding is how their strategy is lined up.

TL;DR: G+ is only about Ads in the way that Google needs users to serve Ads to and there is a threat that all users of the internet only go to Facebook and nowhere else.
At one point I thought AIM was going to be re-purposed since it has some decent brand value
----- Free startup idea ------

Title: A new kind of advertising company

Synopsis: Startup pays Stanford students to wear t-shirts and sells the ad space to companies that pays the startup to hand out its t-shirts. Students must submit evidence of themselves wearing t-shirt to stay on distribution list.

There are obvious ways to grow (expand to other schools, target advertising by age or gender, etc.)

The basic value prop is to create new ad space and sell it. Students get free t-shirts. Advertisers get brand awareness. You get money.

All I ask is that you take me out to lunch once you get off the ground!

Most of my startup ideas tend to be cheeky like this.
Raise your hand if you thought they had already stopped printing it.

/me raises his hand
You underestimate us. The people we accept without an idea most likely have accomplished a lot. They simply don't have an idea that they are excited about, perhaps because they've been focused on accomplishing something else.

Also, I don't think we've ever accepted anyone who wore a suit to interviews.
Hey Ken. Thank you very much for writing such awesome posts. I have very little knowledge about EE, so your posts on power supplies (including this one) were very instructive and fascinating. I really like how you referenced everything.
This is a fantastic post on what branding is and how to position oneself.
There's probably more to it, and I am not fully versed in such a field, but I am now far more interested in the aspect and history of branding than I was before.

Thank you.
But "the people" were on Myspace, Hi5, Friendster and other social networks before Facebook - hundreds of millions of them. So clearly it's something about the product, too.
> Ten years on, ask yourself, "What value do you bring to the table?" if you don't know, that is a big problem.

Is there a reason you shouldn't be asking yourself that after every year you spent at a company?
No.

Sorry, Im off in to rant mode:

Us Brits just sit there and take this nonsense. If we protest or even riot, then its just merely criminals and that's that. Any "reasons" become mere "excuses", and thus dismissed. As a nation we are quite happy to sleep walk in to almost anything. Of course, when we do protest on mass, say, over 1,000,000 people marching against the Iraq war, we are just simply ignored.

We have our own SOPA on the way, possibly worse. It will sail through. Im sure we will soon have special chartered extradition planes making daily flights to ship people over to the US. The return flights will of course be empty.

Heh, just to keep Hollywood's out dated and obsolete business model in tact. Yup, the US government will prop up Hollywood using US tax payers money in the legal system. Nice little "socialist" hand out right there.

And we will still do nothing.

OK. Feel better now.
I'm wondering if the founders' share of equity is different compared to if the YCombinator partners were not only very impressed by the team, but by their idea as well. In other words, will having someone else give you ideas "cost you"?

I think one of the biggest challenges will be founder motivation. I have no supporting data, but my guess is that you'd be willing to work a lot harder for an idea that you created based on some issue you were facing in your life. I think a challenge for YC will be to prevent the founders from feeling like they're some new sort of contractors, and feel less involved.
Loving this... has made playing Minecraft so much easier! The site is hot too!
G+ is Facebook for Asperger's.
The team that finds their perfect-fitting idea is the team that's going to prosper. Couldn't agree more.

I think the reason that a portion of the public is acting negatively is because they're afraid that these changes will cause YC to become a playground for non-technical cofounders and nutjobs with ideas. I have confidence that the partners won't let this happen. They've already shown their willingness to revert back if it doesn't work out (limited trial run), so I really don't understand why people are pissed.
No. AC is still far more useful in many key scenarios [1]. However, for long-distance power transmission, lots of money could be saved (and jobs created in doing so) by switching from AC to HVDC.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Dis... (note: some of these are due to AC parts having economies of scale and decades of efficiencies and process that HVDC may not be able to tap into without widescale implementation)
I like to think that you're trying to make the point that just as a startup team is more important than their idea, the quality of a thoughtful Encyclopedia Brittanica post is more important than its placement.
A Hack Day for Women at LinkedIn - 6/30
I wouldn't mind if the pendulum swings a bit towards unique functionality and away from unique aesthetics. A lot of the energy spent on unique look and feel could be better spent on usability and functionality.
Google Partners With "California Get Your Business Online"
I think the existence of parking lots is a symptom of bad urban planning. I haven't owned a car for 3 years because I choose where I live carefully. I don't regret not owning a car for a second. Parking is ridiculously expensive (the last time I paid for parking I paid 26USD for 4 hours).

What would be better than better parking would be cities redesigned for pedestrian traffic and cheap, efficient public transport.
Yep, second paragraph says:

"We'll consider single founders too, but we prefer groups."
This is definitely not a great sign in terms of us being in another tech bubble, imo.
Why don't you post here and see if anyone is in that boat already?

edit: not here, here. Submit to HN. Write a blog post.
> they're print designers who dabble in the web, amateurs

They're print designers but definitely not amateurs.

In the end, what really matters is that the client receives very high quality work and it is cost effective for the company. I understand that not every company works this way, but I have worked for and know some that do exactly this.

I don't really want to discuss it anymore, I feel we're repeating the same arguments over and over.
I don't see how they would let you do this. When you are working for someone else, it's too easy to give up on your startup.

How are you guys going to even go through the program? It's not like you can just take a bunch of time off of work...
If every potential class member shows up to small claims court instead of joining the class, it'll cause much more headache for T and send a much larger message. By bringing a class action, you let them hire lawyers and keep their entire defense in a single place and the plaintiffs get a pittance while the lawyers on both sides win the lottery.
The advantage that Zuckerberg got from writing Facebook himself wasn't that he could "spend less on coders," it's that Facebook got created at all. Meanwhile, he had been contracted by the Winklevoss twins to implement their idea, which he didn't do because why would he?
After selecting "more results", the subsequent page shows "infinite results" after scrolling to the bottom. I don't understand why it doesn't do this on the first page.
Facebook can target you across any site that has a Facebook Connect or Like button, and eventually they will turn those Like Buttons and Comment plugins into display ads.
Andy was 28 years old or so when he sold out to Yahoo.

I don't think he was all that young or naive when he sold. It would not have been difficult at his age to understand the nature of Yahoo in the context of what they had just done to Google.

I appreciate that he might be a good guy, it's the excuses that he's making now for his choices then, that isn't deserving of slack.
I have an automated filter site at http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/ -- "don't click on what doesn't interest you" is way inferior to "don't see what doesn't interest you."
指甲凹凸不平
I'm looking forward to the day someone puts a full-fledged Android device with a GPS capable of running most apps on my wrist. I'm an avid runner and would love to be able to use something like Runtastic and listen to podcasts without carrying my Galaxy Nexus on my arm...
Disclaimer: I deliberately didn't read your description above to emulate the impression I'd get if I turned up without knowing anything about your site.

That said, I think you're focusing too much on what/how people post content on Wehgee, and not nearly enough on the benefits people can expect from sharing content this way. For example, Twitter's landing page says "Find out what’s happening, right now, with the people and organizations you care about", and Facebook "helps you connect and share with the people in your life." — both of these are very direct ways to introduce the product.

In contrast the way your describe yours seems purely functional: I know that with Wehgee I'm suppost to share stuff in 6 weekly topics, and that by doing so I'll be "shaping the conversation" but that has no relevance to me whatsoever and doesn't communicate a benefit to me of any kind.

Also, I think you need to be clearer about the distinction between a category and a topic. Initially I thought that the hashtags were the 6 categories, but it took me a while to work out that this wasn't the case, and that the two were separate. I think you need to first make it clear what categories of content there are, and then find a way to distinctly communicate what the current topic is for that category.

Another point: How do I know when one week's topic ends and the next begins? Is it on a Monday? Sunday? Can I revisit topics/discussions from past weeks?

I think there's some serious potential to giving people a framework of topics/categories to use for posting content, I just think you could find a clearer way of articulating the benefits of this approach.