skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
They were never targeting it at the "dirt poor" - that has always been clear and explicit. That is a straw man argument which is used over and over, not worth repeating.
(I think its a complete failure in lots of ways myself, but still, enough with the straw men).
Some people never learn what the true meaning of a sharecropper is. If you're developing an app for Twitter, make it a part of your marketing budget and don't build your whole business around it.
Hey jbenx,
Thanks for the critiques. I will definitely take it into consideration.

RE: ASIN and ISBN - I was torn on whether to include those, since I agree with you that it can be confusing. I also have the option of dropping the entire url in there and it will pick the ASIN out automatically. I figured that would be easiest for users.

RE: email - I didn't want to do the email thing because then I'd have to deal w/ unsubscribe and spam issues. I like making services that don't require a signup.
Ask for 20% or even more. Ownership is not everything it is the ONLY thing! If you are the sole developer, a indispensable part of the startup, you should be able to get you fair share. Stop all work until you do.

Starting work before the official incorporation can be a good thing if you can show that you are a damn good developer.
Having a mba degree and being knowledgeable in "entrepreneurship" and "technology" doesn't mean shit in this arena.
That's a good point. I'll look into it. Thank you.
Seconded. I don't understand why the extra 4% has to come from your hide.

Why not have everyone with a current stake give up 1% to the new guy? This demonstrates everybody is committed to doing whatever it takes to get him on board, because it's best for everyone. When your biz guys start thinking we should do X, if and only if X is free... you're screwed.
There is an extra slash on the end of the link.
If you're not getting paid, and the business is pre-revenue, you're a founder. You can build a track record with people who aren't going to dick you over. They're reneging now; they'll renege later.
what? wouldn't that mean that anyone could try to log in to barackobama n times, get his login name changed, and then get barackobama's name?

You wouldn't get his followers, but you'd get a premium name easy.
I don't understand why this matters. Can't the newspaper companies just publish their stories online? Does it really matter whether I read the content in the paper or online? Honestly this seems like a good thing; we're saving resources and moving to a new media. Am I missing something?
You can't swap batteries in an iPhone either, but you can still carry a "spare"; it just acts as a charger.
Honestly the reason I wrote the post wasn't to advertise the sites or brag about the money (which isn't all that much to brag about anyway).

I originally started the blog with the goal of focusing on these type of side projects, whether they are mine or not. Check out the original mission statement: http://web.archive.org/web/20070224000551/www.pseudocoder.co...

I'd since gotten away from that, but it's something that still interests me. I posted this because I wanted to be transparent with my sites and hoped it would inspire others to do the same.

As for people copying the sites...go nuts. Enjoy the long nights and dashed dreams...I know I did.
How likely is it there is really any new technology here? If there were new armor technology, wouldn't Bush already be rolling around in the latest?

I think they're jawboning to deter the amateurs. Anybody really determined is going to find a way to get their hands on offensive technologies advanced enough to defeat the armor.
In addition, where's Michael's sacrifice? If he's all for "what makes everyone more motivated" he should be willing to give up 2% himself, along with you giving up 2%. Fairness is important.

In fact I'd suggest it as a way to keep negotiations going forward. You sacrifice,if and only if Michael sacrifices similarly.
Thanks for the criticism...copywriting isn't my strong suit. In my defense I think the site makes sense if you're a teacher. At least that's what my wife (the teacher) tells me :)
I don't want to bother with spare batteries anyway. By the time the original battery is dead, the laptop is outdated enough to warrant replacement anyway.

I am a bit worried about exploding batteries, though, therefore them being removable is a plus.
I don't think so, not so much. I suspect we're all experts to some degree at the myriad of reasons one has for giving up on a project. There's no reason to suspect the YC founders have any special reasons for giving up.

You'd probably benefit a lot more analyzing the reasons why you personally give up on projects than why someone else has.
Thanks fuzzmeister. Let me know if you hit any issues. I coded and launched it in a weekend, so it may have some bugs. So far it's worked well for me though.
True, attracting users and traffic may not be easy and seems to be the fail point for many ideas, but why not consider scaling issues as well? With products like EC2, ruby on rails etc. its easier to plan for the "techcrunch" scenario than ever, so why build your site in fortran on a computer you bought at goodwill? In other words, once you get past the prototype stage, I think it might be worth it to take the extra 5 minutes to do a little research.
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/whatisit.htm

The primary [photosynthetic] reactions have close to 100% quantum efficiency (i.e., one quantum of light leads to one electron transfer); and under most ideal conditions, the overall energy efficiency can reach 35%. Due to losses at all steps in biochemistry, one has been able to get only about 1 to 2% energy efficiency in most crop plants. Sugarcane is an exception as it can have almost 8% efficiency.
And if you have serious problems focusing (like I do) I recommend http://learnyouahaskell.com/ It was very easy to read.
I agree with your sentiment as long as scaling is not a blind obesession.

But don't say Fortran as if it's slow, Fortran is still one of the predominant HPC languages :-)
6starts.com: simplify your life. Critique?
I suspect the economics of on-line advertising don't support the large editorial staffs that major newspapers have. Are dept. stores going to pay the equivalent of full page print ads for banner ads? If it were true, the NY Times would be rolling in money. People look at the newspaper display ads, but ignore online ads. Classifieds used to be a money maker, but are now essentially dead.
A dating site that caters to atheists and agnostics.
The proper link:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html

I remember this article well.

This hypothesis would explain why variable pricing has arrived on iTunes now: It was a quid pro quo to convince the music industry to let Apple sell the 100% DRM-free music that it needs to sell in order to compete with up-and-comers like Amazon.
This is a simple personal homepage I've been working on for a few weekends. It's a similar concept to Google Chrome's homepage, but I'd like to make it really lightweight and work in every browser.

What do you think -- how can it be improved? I really do appreciate your feedback, please don't hesitate to email me at omar.bohsali@gmail.com, or even call me with your thoughts (703 470 7012). Thanks!
Note: This is more of a long-term-understanding answer than a quick-tutorial answer.

If he wants to understand Unix, The Unix Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike is good (as parenthesis also noted). Also, say what you will about ESR, his The Art of Unix Programming (http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/) explains the rationale behind most of the design ideas common in Unix, as well as various historical accidents that have influenced it. (It more about Unix's design/culture than programming, IMHO.) Plus, free online.

In particular, Unix will probably seem really awkward and limited until he really deeply gets the idea of doing things by composing relatively simple programs. There are a few other idioms fundamental to Unix, but that's probably the big one. (That would probably be easier if he had experience with Haskell, incidentally; Unix pipe IO can be very similar to monads.)

A general (perhaps very general) understanding of C will also go a long way, particularly with understanding the mindset behind the man pages.
Big fan of Basecamp. Been using it for 3 years across multiple projects.
Details about Google’s layoffs — actually, no, none
I think I would be expected to keep my karma -- this account would have its username changed to my real name, and rms would get a fresh account. Gotta respect the integrity of the karma.
Some of us will miss it. I used to read it cover to cover while I was in college.
The best option for me is that both you and michael give up 1.5% to Austin(total 3%). And, tell him that both of you already lose 1.5% and he only losts 1% since he initially demands 4%(4-3=1). I think he will be satisfied with this option.

Anyway, I am more interested in knowing how this startup goes on with two business guys and one developer. Could you please update us more with this dummy account again? Thank you.
Newspapers that survive may get a second wind once the infrastructure, technology and critical mass is there to sell subscriptions for e-book readers.
Yes, you're missing something. :)

Even if they publish all of their stories online, you have to realize that newspapers typically have huge CapEx and/or fixed costs. If they want to keep a single print copy out there, there is a huge fixed cost to print the first paper copy. I know that there are ways to reduce the fixed cost, but that increases the marginal cost. Newspapers have optimized their businesses on the assumptions that they'll print lots of copies. The "crisis" in the industry is that they all realize that assumption won't be valid sometime between now and "real soon now".

The internet is quite simply a MORE EFFICIENT way to sells news. It costs less to produce, distribute, and sell. So much less, in fact, that for existing businesses (newspaper co's) it's very difficult to make the transition without the entire thing collapsing.

The smaller newspapers are having more success at this than the big ones because their investments are lower than the big guys. They also are in a different news business; they do LOCAL news. Thus, they have unique content with less competition. All of the big newspapers are essentially the same national news, and that is very competitive due to the internet.

It's also not just a matter of "moving content online". Newspapers get ~75% of revenue from ads (display ads + classifieds, about half & half), ~18% from subscriptions, and a few other sources. The classifieds business kinda got stolen out from under their noses (see craigslist) and that killed about 25% of their revenue. Online ads are more trackable, and work better, so that reduced the VALUE of the same print ads. And subscriptions are down. Take nearly any business and tell them their revenues will drop by at least half and stay that way and see how well they do...
With this type of thing heavily female is not a problem -- if you get the women, the men will come. It's why OKCupid's design is pink.

The ratio of active, real men:women for online dating is 10:1 or sometimes 100:1. So targeting heavily female niches is fine. The men will find it.
The End of Ajax
Yes that provability is big - but I guess is his point is that with SOX and other legal requirements - that provability and applicability of ACLs is now completely out of the window, so its time to stop hammering the square peg into the round hole.
Hey that sounds like a neat camera product idea: how common is it that you want to record 2 visuals at once? Pretty common - so a little camera with 2 separate point-able lenses would be nice - or something like that.
As my equipment (phones and PC) ages I like to combine parts to maintain them and replace key components that age (drives and batteries). I am not afraid to disassemble my stuff but I take care of it over time and don't want to take a hit on fit and finish. I've seen macs that had been improperly disassembled and reassembled, and they just don't look right -- edges roughed up, rubber/plastic parts misfitting, seams not aligning properly. I would hesitate for this reason.

In short, yes, I would buy a laptop that had no user serviceable battery. I would not refuse to purchase a laptop because of something like this, but for my purposes it's a misfeature. It would compare unfavorably to another machine that had a removable battery, insofar as this specific feature is concerned, but perhaps not overall.
One designer/developer, 20% equity down to 16%, doesn't want to make a fuss and still likes and is impressed with them and believes they are all for what makes everyone more motivated.

they're very knowledgeable in business/entrepreneurship.

They sure are.

However, I think that I'm entitled to a bit more than 16%

Entitled how? It's an agreement - whatever you can all agree with.
Adult virgins and those keen to date them.

Many people are shy/embarrassed about their (our) chaste status and being able to jump that hurdle before you even meet could be a big plus.

It could be seen as trawling the shallow end of the genepool, but many people believe this of dating sites in general.
Pittsburgh thrives after casting steel aside. A lesson for other industrial cities?
I don't really know, but I read one seemingly well researched and footnoted paper on the HIV/Aids connection and I am now quite skeptical. The general assertion was that though HIV and Aids commonly occur together, but that HIV does not cause Aids. Two interesting points I recall were statistics on drug use and Aids, and malnutrition and Aids, and the stats are available on the CDC website for verification. Of course there will be higher HIV infection in the drug user community, but the numbers are so high that it becomes a little suspicious. And there is also another very high correlation between malnutrition and Aids, and the paper asserted that a great deal of the statistics of "Aids" deaths in Africa are in fact malnutrition, as the patients weren't even tested for HIV. Is this true or false? I don't know, but if not, and the HIV/Aids proponents steer away from questions or discussions on this topic, it seem to me a bit suspicious. After all, there is, in fact, a massive economy built around HIV Aids (research grants, drugs, NGO's, etc)...they have every financial reason to maintain the status quo, even if it is false.

Now that I'm thinking about it, there were several other good points in the paper....I tried googling it but couldn't find it.
For the analytics part we send it whenever the application closes if there is an internet connection, if not it is saved for later. For the review part, the information is sent when the user submits the review. We are open for suggestions and working on other features. If you have any questions you may contact me by email lpgauthier at bloomdigital.com.
I like your description of starting a business. The length you went in describing it suggests that many people reading it might not quite grasp the extent of its difficulty, and perhaps that's the more essential problem.

It's not unlike someone who gives up on dating after three rejections. Just keep going. There's still something to be said, though, for asking quickly and getting the response, rather than spending two weeks practicing your phone voice.
We are working on a better geography interface but there isn't many solutions out there and making a custom one is not an option for now.
To the extent that any "more open than twitter!" competitor begins to gain adoption, twitter can simply open up a little bit to kill it.

Knowing this, why would anyone put a big financial and infrastructure commitment into a more-open twitter clone?
8 startups that won federal grants
Thanks for preserving the original newspaper article headline as the submission headline. That's really the issue: how many people have to die before they acknowledge reality?
Some pretty epically horrible blog comments for that article. Wow!
A Pacific fish uses mirrors as well as lenses to help it see in the murky ocean depths
Isn't it better when you can upgrade yourself as better components come out? It would be far better for Apple to come out with a 8 hour battery upgrade for current owners. You don't need a whole new platform to upgrade a battery, or a disk, or a video processor.

I agree on the service centers though, they are a huge apple advantage. I don't think I would ever want to go to one and waste my time. One hour at the store plus commute costs me almost the price of a battery.I prefer to click it on line and spend 30 seconds popping a new battery in.
I really wish Google Checkout was available in Canada.
After all these years of development, Firefox on a Mac still doesn't feel like a true Mac app. Text fields, for example, still don't work like Cocoa text fields.

So all this portability comes with a steep price of never really having a superb UI on your target platform.

Take a look at Songbird... it's been in development for many years and a lot of that is due to XUL. I'm pretty sure that had they chosen native widgets on each platform (GTK/Cocoa/MVC), they would have finished it faster and had a much better product overall.

But the lure of "write once, run everywhere" is an everlasting dream that almost never comes to a realization. Take Java for example... it still has platform specific quirks.
I'm having such a hard time getting over the title to this post. I think the appropriate word here is "couldn't" rather than "wouldn't".
Batteries are probably safer enclosed in a unibody design than attached externally.
Oh no, I killed Dr. Dobbs.

I am the actual person on the cover of the magazine. Well at least they went out in style ;)
I agree about changing the headline. It took a minute to figure out what the site was for, and that's bad. For music.rsstalker.com, I was really confused.
Google cuts temporary workers but murky on details
The rule I try to follow is to keep things as simple as you can. So, the levels of complexity for writing an app might look like this:

Level 1: command line program. Usable for yourself and others who know their way around the shell. Great for simple tools.

Level 2: Desktop GUI. More complicated, but necessary when you have non-technical users.

Level 3: Webapp with simple browser interface. When you need a GUI and need to allow access to many users all at once (possibly access to the same instance of the app). Drawbacks are that it's slow (much slower than a regular desktop GUI app) and relatively clunky. Also, you need a webserver to run it on, and the setup time that goes along with that. Also keyboard commands probably won't work and so there will be a lot of mousing around for the user.

Level 4: Webapp with some kind of Ajaxy or Javascripty client side. So, you need this even higher level of complexity when you have non-technical users who demand a prettier interface but the app also needs to be usable by lots of people on the net at once. Drawbacks are the same as with a regular webapp but also include a much more complex design, more maintenance, and more testing with different browsers.

The rule is, you don't go up the complexity ladder if you don't have to.
The NYTimes really likes Pittsburgh.
Does he actually want to know more about the command line? If he's not, I wouldn't waste your effort. Some people aren't learners, they just want to accomplish a task.

If he is, definitely hook him up with a tutorial. I like the idea of letting him peek over your shoulder as you work.

Ultimately, there are very few commands you need to know to get started. This might work:

- Move around the file system, echo the current path
- List the files (in the various ways you can do this)
- Create and edit a file (nano?)
- Move and delete the file
- Very brief overview of permissions
- A primer on user directories and how to get back there easily

I think that would get the average Joe enough tools to get going.
There's no bottleneck. The real problems are:

1. They are giving away machines at about ~100 dollars less than a basic Dell machine (and Dell can probably go even lower when dealing with governments). These machines are vastly inferior to a Dell machine, and Windows, like it or not, is a more suitable OS for business and educational purposes.

2. They are missing out on a key fact: Computers are just not that useful for education. Yes, you can get a world of information from them, but if you actually see young people interact with them, it's mostly games and social sites and porno. This was true when I was a kid (except for the porno), and still is from my observations. A small number of students will actually use the computers to real effect.

3. AND that small number of kids can be serviced by a few computers per school. Think Gates and Allen at their school's single mainframe hookup.
His post reads like an advertisement for the E-Myth book ...

(http://www.e-myth.com/pub/htdocs/emr_ch1)
Which Google Products Make Money?
I personally believe that HIV causes AIDS but I also have to admit that denialists such as Peter Duesberg and Kary Mullis are more qualified to have an opinion on this subject than I will ever be.
Miyamoto Musashi's Final Work
I was a subscriber for a long time, it really was a good magazine. There used to be so many good publications just for computing hobbyists. My favorites were Creative Computing, Nibble, inCider, DDJ and, of course, BYTE.

Not to be too nostalgic though... I'm certainly much happier to be able to read books like Real World Haskell online then I ever was picking up all the subscriber cards that used to fall out of each issue.
also, unfuddle gives unlimited free git repos (or svn), which is nice. i don't use it for project management, but if i want to create a private remote repository and share it with folks, it's free, unlike many other choices.
I have never travelled with a spare battery, however on every single laptop I have owned, I have purchased replacement batteries due to battery life reduction. My last Macbook and Dell both went from 1.5-2 hours per charge to 20-30 minutes per charge in a matter of weeks (after owning them for 18 months first of course).
The spacing hurt readability and I didn't know where to look when I first clicked on the link. Links to old articles seemed to run on together and were the first thing that grabbed my attention, and I had no initial sense of what they were. As I said...confusing.
except that these are 30-day active users; 1 in 4 is not a spammer, and the fact that the distribution is skewed only makes facebook's stat more amazing.

and someone who runs a "short blogging service" in today's world shouldn't be complaining about making things of "lasting value".
"When I became a junior and was allowed"

This bit isn't E-prime.
I'm not interested in the abstract reasons why people give up ("ran out of funding", "founders broke up", "burnout", etc.). We know all those, definitely. What I'm interested in are the specifics. What specific decisions (and in what contexts) led to a lack of funds, what specific disputes or personal issues led to founders breaking up, what shifts in the market made their startup not viable, and so on. That's the real world data that we don't necessarily have from experience.
Nine Inch Nails: The First Open-Source Band?
This makes me sad. I'll certainly miss it. There is still the online presence of course, as well as the (relatively) recently launched dobbscodetalk.com
Should I use a Rules Engine?
The second still shot [1] has the Lightbox2 [2] overlay baked in. Looks like Wired took a screenshot of another site.

[1]: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/images/2009/01/06/car.jpg

[2]: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/