skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We need to research VC's before we talk to them. Try researching your VC's by talking to the people who have been funded by them.

.

There is no NDA at this point.

You are thinking of asking a VC to sign an NDA?

.

http://robertplattbell.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-nda-or-not-to...

Simply put, when you sign an NDA, you are signing a CONTRACT, and any contract may obligate you to perform certain acts. More importantly, for each contract you sign, you are exposing yourself to potential litigation liability for breach of contract.

Thus, as a large company, if you sign hundreds or thousands of NDA contracts, you are incrementally exposing yourself to more and more liability. In a country where you can get sued for serving hot coffee, the odds of getting sued for signing all those NDA’s is pretty high.

So there is no point in a large corporation agreeing to sign an NDA with a solo inventor, unless the NDA is one of those bogus “disclosure agreements” referred to above.

If you think about it, it makes sense. And if you were to advise a company, you’d advise them NOT to sign an NDA. For example, suppose you represent a carmaker. Most of the ideas submitted will relate to cars. If your client signs all these NDA’s with potential inventors, chances are, one of them will submit an idea similar or identical to an idea already under development in your client’s lab. You’ll end up getting sued, as the inventor will claim you “stole” the idea. Better off to advise your client NOT to sign any NDA’s.

Venture Capitalists (VC’s) historically have refused to sign an NDA, and in fact, to ask them to do so is considered an insult and a sure way to put an end to your “elevator pitch”. Again, since VC’s listen to hundreds, if not thousands of invention pitches over the years, the chance that they will hear the same idea more than once (or a similar idea) is pretty great. If they sign NDA after NDA, they slowly paint themselves into a corner, to the point where they cannot back any new idea without the chance of some previous inventor claiming a breach of an NDA.

Frankly, the proposition of an NDA is a bit absurd. Someone comes to you and says they want to tell you a secret. BUT, before they will, they want you to sign a contract agreeing to draconian consequences if you tell the secret to anyone else. Suppose the secret is not all that great? Suppose everyone already knows about it, or more to the point, someone in your company does? It really is a risk not worth taking.

So, there are various good reasons why people will refuse to sign an NDA. If you think about it, chances are, you’d refuse to sign one, too!
Google Talks Chrome 2.0 and the Delay for Mac/Linux Compatibility
Got time to comment about it though! :-)
I assume the accounts go dead mostly because the content providers kill them, not because individual users kill them. There isn't much you can do to stop a content provider from figuring out which accounts are bugmenot accounts and killing them... It's an arms race to see who will give up first.
This blog post made my day. Now if only he can be retroactively removed from the NYT bestseller list. As bad as The Secret...
We used Skype on one of my teams. It worked well. The ability to retain the history of the chat was the selling point, and the ease of calling someone up was the another. Problem on my (linux skype client at least) was exporting the chat history to a file.
static balancing doesn't mean that it is preprogrammed

Really? That's what I was referring to when I said the gait was preprogrammed. I assumed that static balancing meant that the robot was only willing to traverse certain paths through the n-dimensional space of possible limb configurations, and that since these could be calculated in advance, they would be. But since I know you know about robotics, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
LG KC910 RENOIR FULL TOUCH SCREEN (8 MP)
LG Renoir KC910 is a beautiful compact phone with excellent performance and design. Renoir is a follow on to the Viewty, matching the usability but updating applications and features. If you are tired of changing of handsets and want a new one suitable to your personality.
This is similar to an idea I proposed for a non-literate UI for a developing world mobile app. If there is no doctor in the village they can get quick first-aid tips, organize transport, and a remote doctor can try to assess the problem with pictures.

Google e-IMCI to see some actual research in this area, maybe you'll be inspired, though that is focused on more formal procedures for nurses (like detecting what's wrong with a sick child).
a reverse of friendfeed.com that pushes updates to all of your services.

if someone changes their avatar picture, email address, name (marriage), location, etc., they should be able to do it on one site and have it pushed to all of the other sites that user is a member of.

authentication would be a big problem, but you're smart, figure it out.
The Twilight of Venture Capital
read the comment number 5 for quick explanation.
So, you obviously know how to use the computer but you would choose hard labor for $15/hour when you can easily at the very worst temp for $20/hour sitting in a comfortable chair?

Why?
Intriguing, and remarkably small. So far this year I have received:

Date #Ham #Spam Ratio
2009/01/01 17 1128 66:1
2009/01/02 16 1215 76:1
2009/01/03 11 955 87:1
2009/01/04 16 1268 79:1
2009/01/05 32 1220 38:1
2009/01/06 33 1258 38:1
2009/01/07 11 1232 112:1
2009/01/08 40 1323 33:1

My Baysian filter (written by me using Paul Graham's essay as a guide) cleans 98.7% - around 15 per day, which means I get to see about half the number of spam as ham, despite getting nearly one spam a minute.
So? Does Mac OS X need to surpass Windows to be successful?

Seeing as Apple has more cash on hand than Google or Microsoft, (or both, combined) I'm guessing no.

(Just another question: How many years will it take the Zune to the surpass the iPod at current growth rates?)
The whole concept of learning to be a savant by reading some interview is ridiculous. You would have better results with Tim Ferriss' Brain Quicken product.

Some interesting bits though. I hate how knowledge gets degraded into self help pseudo-science to sell books.
Exactly. But let's take it a step further. Once the call seller covers himself (by buying stock in proportion to the delta of the option), he is essentially causing someone else to be short it as well. The unlimited downside is now passed to him. You can see how this just continues to propagate.

The point is that in any situation where shorting occurs, and therefore an excess amount of stock is floating, there is a non hedgeable unlimited downside risk that SOMEONE has to bear. Whether you pass it off in option or stock form is not relevant. Not everyone can hedge unlimited downside. Proper rules try to make sure these artificial squeezes do not happen, so as not to discourage short sellers (who are extremely, extremely important).

Now, that isn't to say that VW should be forced to reveal their position. It is not a trivial question what is the optimal way to stop this kind of thing. But it's important to discourage this activity where people deliberately accumulate shares to squeeze shorts. No economic value is created in this type of activity, just a transfer of wealth, whereas shorting serves a very important economic function.
Your congress in action
Or make it so we sweat sunscreen when we eat the mayonnaise (on fries?).
The only thing worse than a blatant self-promoter is somebody that publicly rants about it as if they'd really want to do it too, but can't.
Skype for Android uses your T-Mobile minutes for calling
Funny—I linked to a bunch of articles making similar points in my post on students, laptops, and distraction at http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-di... . I suspect the people who accomplish the most are often the ones who can concentrate the longest.
No, Graphviz is truly free--it's open source, under the Common Public License Version 1.0.

And, since no one has described it here yet: aside from making pretty-pictures, the really neat thing about Graphviz is that it is declarative--you describe the nodes in your graph (which can include text, shape, color, etc.), specify the connections and voila--Graphviz does the rest.

Oh, and you can use it programatically too--there are libraries for many languages, so you could, e.g., have a user submit genealogy data and then spit back a pretty family-tree diagram.

Google around and you'll find various interesting things, e.g. this recent (12/08) article on using Graphviz + PHP to generate Oracle schema diagrams:
http://oracle.phpmagazine.net/2008/12/drawing_er_diagrams_fo...
I've started to see a lot of iPhones around campus where I'm at and asked a lot of people why they got theirs. It's word of mouth about the easy upgrade from an iPod. At least 50% had their iPod die for some reason or another and decided to spend the $200 on an iPhone instead of a similarly priced Nano. Especially people who always carry both an iPod and their cell phone around all the time. It's not the direct marketing but more of a coattailish the "I have to go to the Apple Store to buy a new Nan... oooohhh! shiny iPhone" factor. It's just my conversations, your mileage may vary. (Also 'daddy' pays the $30/mo, so it's a non-issue.)

All the extra features like games from the App Store, Google Maps, GPS, and other junk this list goes through just sweeten the deal.
Couldn't agree with you more. Not what the discussion was about though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Yep, that's what i need - just need that on OS X now...
I dunno. Consider
- The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War

--> no, that wasn't actually the coldest winter on record

- Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

--> unless they are very old or made of glass, books aren't usually classified as "fragile"

- Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

-->likely the Devil never shakes anybody's hand

- Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

--> the US action in Somalia was not a war

- On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

--> OK, I'll concede this one

- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

--> New York didn't "fall"-- I was just there and it was still standing

- The Yiddish Policeman's Union

--> I'll concede this one, too.

They're all using metaphors help market themselves.
I'm not a statistician, but assuming growth continues, once it hits a certain threshold (a tipping point) the rate of growth will accelerate substantially.

This means that if OS X is ever to surpass Windows, it will probably happen in a lot fewer than 15 years.
http://www.cpbgroup.com/
Grad school. My point exactly.
This idea, in itself, seems erroneous. For a system where everyone is employed and no missed opportunities vs. the counterpart (per swombat), you assume that the liquidity of human capital is the same, by virtue of people constantly looking. It seems incredulous that it will.

I'm actually less interested in whether your statement is correct or not, but more in the reasons why you believe this (and why there are people who agree with this idea).
I second the research point. They're researching you, right? Why not do the same?

Early on my company was talking to a VC. We weren't sure we wanted money, but we did want to explore the option.

We called up a few companies in the VC's portfolio to ask about their experience and the information we received was incredibly useful. It ultimately helped us make our decision.
Back in college. My point exactly.
His stuff has been on HN many times.
Tim Ferris is a perfect example of why every message should be judged on its own merits, regardless of speaker.

For what I've seen of him (and that's very little), I don't imagine we'd be best friends, but his book is straightforward and preaches a message that many people are looking to hear. HN preaches the same message, yet offers different methods.

Nothing really wrong with that.
Assuming current growth rates will not change over 15 years for any technology makes you into an ass.
You should really read the book.
Custom video games (for non geeks). I doctored up a basic shooter game for my girlfriends birthday, replacing the backgrounds + all the characters with relevant images from her life. It makes a basic shooter game much more interesting when someone you know is attacking!
Service compare engine
Service check - a cost comparison engine for various services with a mobile front end - average cost in your area. So when the mechanic says - it'll be $2000 for the break job - you know how many hours it should take and how much it should be
What did you think about On Killing? I got it for Christmas this year, and - as a former soldier myself - was really intrigued by the first few pages.
how is babby warmed?
Ask HN: Once you open source, can you take it back?
My question is whether or not it is legal to un-open-source a project
after others have contributed to it. Can the 'owner' of an
open-source project (the individual who holds copyright, and set the
license) take the code after years of open source development and
start a company with it? The company does not follow the previous
license (GPL) of the code that it is clearly building upon and only
sells the project with expensive licenses.

At first I thought that it's his project, if he wants to
un-open-source it, I guess he can. But then I considered the
contributions that others have made to the project. Can he
un-open-source those? Don't the contributors have some level of
expectation that the code they contribute will remain under the
license they contribute it with? I don't want someone else profiting
off my contributions 3 years from now.

Thoughts?

--asked during a recent open source software class
Economics and Groupthink
"Web 2.0 is not like Web 1.0. It's in a special (ed) class of its own."

The author clearly does not get it. Profitability is not a "pipe dream" for companies like Digg and Facebook. If profitability was the only objective, I'm sure they could achieve it. The pipe dream is attaining the massive scale necessary to build a publicly traded company.
http://www.translink.bc.ca/About_TransLink/News_Releases/new...
I am not a lawyer.

But my understanding is that the copyright holders have the right to change the license.

Once people contribute to the project, they, too, are copyright holders. If a contributor does not approve of the change to the license, he or she should have the ability to remove his contributions from the product (or otherwise relinquish copyright) before it is forked.

In addition, anyone is free to fork from the last "free" version, which could cause its own problems for you. The free software community could decide that they much prefer the free version, significantly enhance that fork, and leave your commercial product looking dull and not worth the money.
Don't reveal that you wouldn't mind the investment. Act like you have no want/need for it.
Shouldn't the parent pay more attention to the baby than to facebook?

:-) Just Saying.
Twitter sees a furious debate over Gaza
Milky Way Transit Authority
Palm did it: better experience than Apple
If you own the copyright to the whole project (because all the other contributors assigned copyright in their contributions to you) you can presumably distribute it under any licence you want. But you can't prevent other people continuing to distribute it under the GPL.

If (as seems more likely) the other contributors still hold the copyright to their own contributions, your only rights to their code are those granted under the GPL, so you couldn't distribute it under any other terms.

At any rate, those are my thoughts, but IANAL.
you would have to fork it, or build something on top of it the OS version.

there are a lot of companies that have an OS version of something, and then a premium version, which consists basically of proprietary scripts and upgrades that hook into the OS version and improve it. they're not touching the actual OS package itself, but selling something on top of it.
But my understanding is that the copyright holders have the right to change the license.

To clarify, the copyright holders have the right to relicense their work under a new license. This does not mean that old versions cease to be licensed under the old license -- works can be simultaneously available under several licenses, in which case people can decide which license to take advantage of.
The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy
enough to get investment
From the article:
"Of course, it is highly questionable to project 15 years from a single year of data"
>Seeing as Apple has more cash on hand than Google or Microsoft

Really? Got a source to back that up?
At first I thought that it's his project, if he wants to un-open-source it, I guess he can. But then I considered the contributions that others have made to the project. Can he un-open-source those?

No, but many companies (and the FSF) demand that contributors assign copyright to any open source contributions they make. Sometimes they make excuses about how owning copyright in all the code makes it easier for them to go after license infringers, but that's just an excuse; what they really want is the ability to relicense contributors' work in the future.
Here's a trick I discovered for working with bad code that used to help me a lot: treat it as an archaeological dig. Complicated bad programs usually evolve out of simpler bad programs, often in a semi-consistent way - inconsistent enough to be a maintenance nightmare, but consistent enough for a human reader to grok the patterns. If you can read the code backwards in this way and find the remains of the original simpler system, you then have a model for understanding the whole system: it's the crappy simple original one plus the crappy ways it was extended.

For example, complex bad systems are often extended by means of duplication (C-c-C-v-driven development). It's often possible, when you have a number of duplicated sections, to figure out which was the master and which the copies - e.g. if there were any comments in the original code, people will just leave them in the duplicated code. (The sort of programmer who reads and updates comments probably doesn't program by C-c-C-v in the first place.)

This brings up another point about bad code. Naive bad code is a lot easier to understand than sophisticated bad code. It's bloated and buggy, but there's always a sort of internal order to it. Bad programmers are able to maintain it by remembering the 10 places that X is done and the 19 places that Y is done. Sophisticated bad code, on the other hand - the kind full of impenetrable pseudo-abstraction - is a different can of worms. I don't think the above techniques apply to it. However, naive bad code is more common.
How they can justify this? Skype should use my unlimited data plan that I pay for to route the call completely independent of the carrier.
You seem to be approaching this article, and the comments about it, as some sort of effete referendum on whether American Apparel is a good company.

Nobody here cares about American Apparel. In the context of news.yc, this article is only interesting in what lessons it might hold for other entrepreneurs. As has been said before, there are undoubtedly positive lessons and cautionary lessons.
The scarcer employees get, the more will employers be willing to pay to get them.
So yes, I think the liquidity of employees will remain roughly the same.
Unemployment is often portrayed as the cost that european countries pay for supporting developed welfare states. According to this line of thought, it is ok for the US to have much less advantages for unemployed people since it is much easier for someone who lost his job to find a new one.

If the US unemployment gets close to their european counterparts, this argument becomes harder to believe.
Um, are you sure you're quoting the article properly?

FTA:
>Charney says all three women did substandard work and gave no indication before they left that they had felt harassed. Charney says he never engaged in any of the acts of which he is accused.

So 8 paragraphs in, the first time mentioning his "sexual crimes" in workplace culture, where it ALSO mentions his response, is a flat out denial. Where does he say he did this?
Actually I think you don't get it. What you're missing is that the whole purpose of this article is to refute the thinking that you obviously subscribe to (given your comment).

So it isn't that he doesn't see your point of view it's that he thinks you are wrong (he obviously sees your point of view because he wrote a whole article that's clearly intended to refute it)

It seems to me that, by thinking he must be too stupid to see your point, it's you who are missing the point. I mean, he might not be right but at least he's got enough perspective to see that there's another side to the argument.
Exactly. Caesar might not have been the best emperor, but we're forever thankful for his delicious salads.
Be very careful. It sounds to me like the VC is considering investing in one of your competitors and they want to use you as 'due diligence' to verify whether there's enough of a market for them to invest in.

If I were you, I'd go into the conversation with the working assumption that everything you say is going to be passed on to your competitors.
Carphone Warehouse co-founder's secret loans get all-clear
Or perhaps just 45 seconds of a baby crying or nails on a chalk board?
The bell curve distribution for IQ scores tells us that two thirds of the world’s population have an IQ somewhere between 85 and 115. This means that some four and a half billion people around the globe share just 31 numerical values (“He’s a 94,” “You’re a 110,” ”I’m a 103”), equivalent to 150 million people worldwide sharing the same IQ score. This sounds a lot to me like astrology, which lumps everyone into one of twelve signs of the zodiac.

Does he also object to numerical values for height?
nothing drives traffic harder than an "x > Apple at y!" post!
I'm 100% certain that I'd find a way to make one of these explode when I sat down, covering my wallet, money and ID in a sticky mess.

Which would make it pretty tough to get into bars.
Methamphetamines, man.
This is actually something I've considered working on. And no, it's not impossible!

It could be implemented as a flash llvm front-end with an objective C emitter. You'd also need to write a Flash VM in objective C, which I haven't looked seriously at but wouldn't be trivial.

Most importantly, a system like this would allow you write any application UI in Flash. A C developer, say, could then leverage Adobe's interface builders and the flex library without the need for disgusting hacks.
Flash is likely to appear on Android as well. Apparently pretty soon...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghIGj9r3_vc
If people are likely to go with IRC in the future, they're not going to know that they're on IRC. It's going to be some webbed up interface. I've met countless people who think "nerd" or "geek" when hearing the word IRC because it's all text and no pictures, so the only way to actually get them on it is with a pretty interface.

Personally, I see Jabber having real growth within the next 2 years due to GTalk, Facebook Chat and MyspaceIM. And as with IRC having a pretty interface, a multitude of people using these means of communication have no idea they're actually on a Jabber server.

Go figure.
Those numbers are absolutely meaningless, since they count a $70K/yr job, in the same category as a $7/hr burger flipper.

You can take that 7.2%, and pretty much double it for all the people who got fired, and had to take a job paying half of what they used to make.