skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Internet users don't want to watch TV shows online" != the truth.

Back in the dawn of Youtube I used to watch all The Daily Show I could fit into my over-sized head. I still love watching old episodes of Hockey Night in Canada and I have bookmarked a non youtube site that let's me watch South Park. I can't count HOW many times in University people would download, myself possibly included, episodes of Lost, Family Guy, America's Next Top model.

I'd say TV shows online are BETTER than on regular TV because you can watch them when you want. Hence the amazing popularity of TIVO I would assume since I don't have that service.
Fans of the 'Arab pullout causes dollar collapse, worldwide financial panic' genre may want to NetFlix 'Rollover' (Kris Kristofferson, Jane Fonda, 1981). And also stop posting such stories to YC HN, unless they've got a hacker/startup angle, like "How to profit from the coming financial collapse with AJAX Facebook Apps!"
News.YC link exchange sounds like a good idea to me. There might be some competition here, but probably not a ton of overlap. I'd definitely participate with my newest project (soon).

AdBrite's http://www.spottt.com/ might be a good option (soon).
2 founders, combined age 54.
The added value is that users don't have to subscribe to a new service. It's easily accessible, there is no real way for your friends to know about your writely, With our service they can see all the files on you profile page and be able to edit them if they have the permissions.This application is still most useful than 80% of the apps on facebook.
Oh, how I wish someone would make real Bachelor Chow.
And they always cut out the commercials. At least they do where I watch TV online.
Wish-It-Was Two-Factor Authentication
"Death watch" for Palm?
....or their friends live further than 4 houses away.... or they get a job
Harvard college bookstore claims ISBNs and prices are their intellectual property
Go easy on the tuna; it's high on mercury.
Rtm and I lived on this during Viaweb:

Rice and Beans

olive oil or butter
n yellow onions
3n cloves garlic
n 12-oz cans Goya white beans
n cubes Knorr beef bouillon
n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3n teaspoons cumin
n cups rice, preferably sushi rice

Put rice in rice cooker. Add water as specified on rice package. (Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice.) Turn on rice cooker and forget about it.

Chop onions and fry in oil, over fairly low heat, till glassy. Put in chopped garlic, pepper, cumin, and a little more fat, and stir. Keep heat low. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then add beans (don't drain the beans), and stir. Throw in the bouillon cube(s), cover, and cook on lowish heat for at least 10 minutes more. Stir vigilantly to avoid sticking.

If I were making it now I'd probably add a little curry powder, include some more vegetables (e.g. chopped peppers), and use brown rice. But that was the original recipe.

The rice cooker is not optional. If you're going to eat a lot of rice and beans, you need a rice cooker.
It's free. It does most of what most people need from an office suite. It does not require being online. It runs on all the common platforms. I think that pretty much sums it up.
All of my friends already have Gmail accounts. If we're gonna make up percentages, I bet 80% of Facebook users do, too.
Actually, you have it backwards. I am aware of several enterprise ERP packages that were originally written by one or two hackers in a garage. Brilliant people. The original AMAPS, now Fourth Shift was written by one guy. MMC, Compufact, Dataworks by 2 guys. The now defunct ASK MANMAN package was written by a married couple. So was QAD. (These kinda remind me of the couple who started Cisco.) They all sold thousands of installations, for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each. They were so successful that, inevitably, the hats came along. The brilliant people have moved on, and what was left is what you see now.
Feedback:

I don't want to see your friends when I click everyone.
Do they make high calorie nutritious paste yet?
I'm glad to see things like this on Hacker News. Sure it has relatively little to do with the regular topics, but it's the kind of interesting thing that I'd like to find from people who populate here.

Digital Signal Processing/Intro to Signal Processing has been one of the most interesting classes I've taken so far.
Nile spice soup cups: http://www.nilespice.com/

These things cost $1 each, taste good and require no preparation - just add hot water.
"How to Cook Everything" is the best resource for not only recipies but literally how to cook. It starts off with how to make popcorn and each section always includes information on how to buy and cook the ingredients in the recipies. Think of it as learning a programming language you will use for the next 100 years.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/06/03/a-guide-to-eating-...

Since we are sharring recpies here is a simple staple I enjoy:

-pasta

-olive oil

-onion

-garlic

-canned diced tomatores

-whatever spices you like

Fry the onion with garlic and some spices, then add the tomatoes and simmer until you want to eat. Meanwhile cook the pasta. Simple, yummy and countless variations with whatever you happen to have around.
Solve whether P=NP, but keep it a secret. Slowly mathematicians and computer scientists will go nuts wanting to know, so one day you hold a conference with an astronomical entry fee. Profit. Easy as pie.
if we were applying, it would be 2 and 39.
One just launched at TC40: Spottt

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/18/techcrunch40-session-6-...

http://www.spottt.com/
I've been searching for something like this. I wonder what happened to LinkExchange after MS bought it!! It was a good application.
To do it full time, yes. I already have started, but large blocks of time uninterrupted by commutes, work,etc can only help...
Kurzweil Shakes. Not kidding. They taste like crap, and they're awesome.
They do: http://www.amazon.com/TOMLYN-PRODUCTS-Nutri-4-25oz-tube/dp/B...

It's intended for dogs and cats. I don't think you'd enjoy the taste.
Ask YC News: What to search for?
While general Internet search seems to be locked up by Google et al. there are still opportunities for specialized search engines. Octopart is a good example that many here are familiar with. In what other areas are there things that people want to find that are not as easy as they should be?

I am asking because I am currently in a college senior design class. We were initially thinking along the lines of a product search engine but found that pricegrabber appears to have covered a wide swarth of territory. For the class that doesn't matter what our search engine is for but making the project something new that could matter would make everything so more interesting and enjoyable.

Of course if someone else sees a good idea and runs with it, best of luck to you!
"... "Internet users don't want to watch TV shows online" != the truth. ..."

Interesting point. It reminds me of the "no serious business person will buy those toy computers that Apple company is maklng" arguments. It is not so surprising considering the author moves in circles where broadcast quality and advertising dollars mean these type of activities (students downloading shows) are not on the "big guys" radar.

I can see clearly that opportunities are missed here simply because online shows are seen as poor quality... "Why would anyone watch these shows when they could simply hire them or purchase some cable time?"
What class in college did you get the most out of?
If you would recommend one or two classes to anyone,
what would they be?
Yeah... did I miss something big? He said basically: Google is free/online/good for collaboration/lacks full features. iWorks is for macs. Office is the obvious heavyweight. OpenOffice is close to Office, but not.

Was just pointing out that OpenOffice is free, which for me anyway, is the attraction.
I had a lot of hamburger vegetable soup for a while.

Start with hamburger, onions, potatoes, and two or three bay leaves in a crock pot the night before. In the morning, add canned tomatoes, corn, green beans, carrots, and peas. Eat at lunch. If you like, keep refilling with vegetables each night (and hamburger every other night) and you can keep it going for a week or so. (My father apparently would keep it going for months, but I don't know if I'd trust that. :)

Crock Pots are a quick meal's best friend!
Think "Forth", "RPN", that sort of thing. It got me for a while too.
The Red Interactive Agency one on this list is way cool - just wait for a moment for the page to load and click and drag the statuette. If you make her run fast enough, she flies too.
Any happy living being will not find satisfaction in death. You just have to take the existential outlook that you may die or be immortal, in either case you have to define and strive for happiness. I remember as a child thinking "death will never happen to me." I also used to find refuge in belief, until I realized it was just a delusion.

I found that liberating, though. If life is here for a moment or forever, it is best not to let death define it. Just live.

Richard Carrier has a few essays on secular valuation of life; you might want to check those out. Keep striving...
lol! best recipe ever
Visit your local farmer's market. Buy more fruits and vegetables than you think you could ever eat. During the day, when hungry, ingest fruit and / or vegetable as needed to extinguish hunger.

For dinner, reward yourself with whatever other garbage you would have had instead.
It's amazing how a sense of security can be so destabilizing and so dangerous. Thanks for the post & link! Very informative.
"Reference ODF implementation" seems like a fair niche to occupy going forward too, especially when considered in the light of the traits you mention.
I've had three full years in college now and I was thinking how sad it was that I couldn't think of a single class that I would actually recommend to anyone. But then I remembered that I got 3 credits for going to China for two weeks and writing 25 pages about Lenovo with 3 other people. I would recommend that class.
o Man. I love this place. I really do. This is a one stop shop to Learn, Teach, Laugh, Cry and more important a place to Fight. Now I am learning how to cook on the budget. Did I say I love you guys? All of you.
Email is not going anywhere for a while. It might move around in the hierarchy of formality, but that's all.
I would not recommend any class, but surely I would recommend a few teachers, the kind of teacher that let you think by yourself, that inspires you to create something new.
The kind of teacher that teaches you something but encourages you to find a better way.

I think that's the point.
Classes are as great as teachers make them!
So find a great teacher and you'll have your best class ever.
It's great to see the widget market getting so hot! I was in early with my blogging toolkit, now everybody's in the game. I wonder if some of these are true "widgets" (plug in anywhere with simple script a novice can use, interactive, live updating, multi-user, etc) or are just glorified links back to Amazon. Looks like it's a little of both -- you can have as much fun as you want, as long as it has to do with some kind of Amazon product! LOL. Not sure the name fits, perhaps Adget might be better.
Email is horrible.
Not sure what you mean. As more people use the app, the "everyone" ranking will include many people, not just my friends.
I think most service plans in Japan charge for emails as well as SMS. I'm pretty sure email is way more popular, but SMS is far from dying.
Why would my income stay flat in the mid term? Yes, prices would increase, which would be bad. I'm not sure if I'd end up on top on balance.
Unless you have some sort of preexisting condition, are a newborn, or sickly, there's no reason to concern yourself over the amount of mercury in fish.
Terrible advice.

You're not going to get enough fats or protein with a diet like that, and you'll have way too much sugar from all of the fruit.
Interestingly enough, we actually live off something very similar for our startup. However, what we do requires less work than pg's setup for the lazy ones among you.

Buy a rice cooker and large quantities of white rice. Then buy 6-packs of various pre-made packages at TastyBite (http://www.tastybite.com). This sounds like an ad for TastyBite, but their product seriously is amazing for startup founders.

Once your rice is done, just open up your TastyBite and put it over the rice. The packages last a year unrefrigerated, taste good (and are reasonably good for you), and only cost two dollars a package. There's a pretty wide variety of things you can buy from TastyBite (all of them go well with rice), so you won't be eating the same thing again and again.

I consider it one of the smartest things we've ever done at our startup.
For those who are unfamiliar with cooking, you have to use oil when cooking in a wok. Peanut or vegetable oil are best -- they have high smoke points and won't burn in the temperatures required to properly cook in a wok. Start off with a tablespoon or so, and add more as necessary to prevent food from sticking.

Edit: And don't buy a nonstick wok, get one made from carbon steel. It's a bad idea to cook at high temperatures with a nonstick coating, and it won't give you the savory flavor that woks are known for.
I was amused by your post considering I am currently in medical research and am using my current job to hopefully fund a modest startup, since I feel that I am at heart an entrepreneur.

While there are some very rewarding aspects of medical research, please understand that it is not all unicorns, roses, and saved lives. I have had the opportunity to work with wonderful professionals and amazing patients, but I have also experienced mind-numbing ineptitude and questionable research practices. Like any industry, there is good and bad.

I don't want to discourage you from getting involved in research if that is what you truly feel is your passion, however, I believe that regardless of industry, it begins with you. If your talent is in entrepreneurship and investing, you might be most effective in your area of expertise. (Of course, if it's lost its luster and you want something more personally fulfilling, that is a different issue).

One area that I am interested in is micro-lending, and I think it would be a good way of putting your talents to use. You could do something in the developing world or something in the US, depending on your interests. If you have not already, I would recommend that you read "Banker to the Poor" by Muhammad Yunus. Best of luck to you.
The right friends do this too.
Linearity: You need a friendly helpful teacher for this one. The class comes in use when you need to solve multiple iterations of a particular calculation. For instance, triangulation is a cinch now that I've taken Linearity.

English literature: It's fun to read the classics and compare them to how politicians and blogs cherry pick and bastardize quotes.
Australian AF cracked codes on fighters sold to them by US
You could always buy some Compleat or other tube feeding formula. I can't imagine it would taste good, but it is what you asked for.

http://www.novartisnutrition.com/us/productDetail?id=91&...
Raytheon develops ray gun that causes unbearable pain at half a mile
Muslim Obligations in the International Space Station
I was always in the library, because I had no interest in what I was being taught, and (I didn't realise it then, but) I couldn't bear being in a roomful of people for lectures. I wish I'd done something like an Open University (is there a US equivalent to this organisation?) course instead.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/353732/man_surfing_high_speed_...
...now I am become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds...
Operating Systems.

And if you have a chance to TA, do it. You learn a lot more by teaching than you do by being taught.
Nope. Purely an interested bystander on this one. While I hate saying leave it to Google they are working quite hard on this one and they have quite a lot of data.
Yes, but he didn't get far enough with it to be feasible for everyday life.
Not bad, but I've learned that when they don't list the price you usually can't afford it.
This class involved bantering about nothing and and absolutely everything at the same time. It was a small class (usually 3 unique friends that I had just met). And the format was twice a week/discussion. I think it was called: Late-night/post party/stupid drunk/socio-political seminar 101. Take it. Seriously.
Are you in a startup? I'm working on something in this area... that's why I ask. You were the first one who mentioned this (that I saw) on n.yc.
I'm curious how many credits your OS course was. I have friends at CMU and OS is a 12 credit class. You build a Unix-like kernel from scratch with a partner. An "A" in OS guarantees a six figure programming job at graduation.
I'd also recommend the other two of the "big three" computer science electives - Compiler Design, and Computer Graphics. You can skip most of the rest of the CS major, but no matter how good a programmer you think you are, you'll get something out of those 3 courses.

And I'll second the bit about TAing, though my experience was in physics rather than CS. Being a physics lab TA is cool...you get to play with all sorts of stuff. (Heck, taking physics labs is cool, though the lab reports are not so cool.)
It's great to set your goals high, to think about making the world a better place, but I wonder if in reaching for those lofty ideals we sometimes forget simple, local things you can do, like being kinder to the people around you.

It took me a while to get my MD and Ph.D. and I've done research and helped build cancer treatment systems. At the end of the day, I feel that I'm an ant moving a leaf compared to Bill Gates moving mountains. Very few MDs and PhDs contribute the small bits of knowledge that may lead to a cure for cancer or AIDS. Very few people build successful companies and donate millions or billions. But we all can do small acts of kindness and approach the world like Randy Pausch. For me, that starts with loving your family and being nice to others around you. The rest is all gravy.
My school, the University of Pittsburgh, somehow tricked the accreditation board into thinking that our physics computer labs (where we solved problems that were typed into Excel) were equivalent to an actual physics lab.
Most useful:
Linear algebra,
Numerical methods,
Stats and probability

Most interesting:
Control systems,
Abstract algebra,
Real analysis,
Complex analysis

Of course my definition of "useful" is not necessarily yours. I'm much more on the research side of things, and having a solid mathematical foundation is absolutely essential there.
My advice for taking courses in college: take courses that you know will be useful, but you will not have the time to teach to yourself. If you're a true nerd you will learn all the really useful stuff on your own anyway, and you don't need university for that.
Google Now Selling Upgrades to Gmail Storage
Looks like the plans are:

6 GB ($20.00 USD per year)
25 GB ($75.00 USD per year)
100 GB ($250.00 USD per year)
50 GB ($500.00 USD per year)
It was 1.5. The lab was .5 credit (a class a credit where I went). It was, as far as I know, the only class in the whole university where the lab was a separately credited part.

Organic Chem - 1 credit.

OS - 1.5
Smart mom!!! :)
I was a graphics geek in college... you could skip it, but you'd be skipping some really fun code.

But OS... if you don't know that stuff you're basically worthless.
But, I would say, you have to take it with the right teacher...someone who pushes you to find your own understanding of the literature. This usually doesn't happen until the 300 and 400 level courses.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Cambridge
I had a bunch of courses that I really liked in college:

Tonal Harmony and Counterpoint, aka "Harmonize this melody in 4-part harmony" - where you find that there are intricate rules to music, and what you hear on the radio is the result of centuries of evolution in what's considered "acceptable" music. (Or, if you listen to punk rock, the result of breaking nearly every rule for kicks.)

Intro Geology, aka "Rocks for Jocks" (it's funny though; the English-major jocks always struggled in this class, while us one or two physics majors were like "pish, this is easy") - where you play with lots of rocks and go on lots of field trips. I found it surprisingly interesting.

Sustainable Agriculture, aka "This hippy bio professor got a grant for teaching enviro-friendly stuff" - where you learn that there is shit in the meat, and we're all gonna starve when the oil runs out.

Also really liked my philosophy courses, General Relativity, Game Theory, and perhaps Mathematical Logic (though I found that one really hard).
> While CPUs are getting faster and RAM is growing like crazy, bandwidth is not growing

This isn't really true. In 1997 most users were lucky to be on 56k dial-up. Now for the same price (at least here in Australia) I can get a 28Mb ADSL 2+ connection. That's an increase of 500x in 10 years. Granted bandwidth increases in fits and spurts, but it's increasing alright.
Magnets for money: Why people in finance cluster together
The US dollar has last between 30% and 45% of its value in the last 5 years depending on which currency you compare it against. This is unfortunate, but not too surprising.
Obviously, hence the "whatever crap" comment. Most of the things we eat in a hurry have plenty of fat, protein and calories, but not nearly enough of the things we ought to be getting from fruits and vegetables.

I'm not suggesting that somebody try to survive _only_ by eating fruits and vegetables. I was suggesting eating them during the day when people would otherwise be eating potato chips and soda.

Speaking of ... as far as sugar overload is concerned, you'd have to eat three or four apples to match the sugar in a single can of cola, which has basically no nutritional value whatsoever.

In the spirit of this thread, they have zero preparation time, are easily accessible (keep them in a desk drawer, or on the desk), and have a lot of nutrients our bodies need. If you get high quality produce, it's also quite delicious.
According to the online calculator, I was in the "acceptable" zone even when I ate a can of tuna virtually every weekday. There are higher levels of mercury in albacore tuna, but generally speaking most people are going to be just fine.
> "One very common thing is that often very brilliant children stop working because they're praised so often that it's what they want to live as--brilliant--not as someone who ever makes mistakes," she said.

Exactly my experience. I've been trying to figure out how to motivate myself to actually do anything for my whole adult life (and a good bit before), because in my formative years I basically got As for showing up - not only did I never have to figure out how to work at something, when I did find something difficult I instantly decided I was a failure at it and stopped trying.

Any suggestions on how I can break out of that cycle would be very gratefully received... but I'm scared that at 33, it's too late for me to learn how to learn - or how to fail.
Is Statistical Mechanics worth learning?
Uh oh, reddit is leaking.
This is good. The phrase "OpenID ... was successful" isn't the best thing to lead with, but their heart's in the right place.
> Nor can you detect a collision between the opaque regions of two png images (this is needed for most simple 2-d games)

Crazy idea. At the start of the game use the server to determine the image's boundary, then send the info up to the client and get Javascript to use that pre-calculated boundary to detect a collision rather than getting Javascript to try and look inside the png.