skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
From the gospel, according to Paul...
(September, 2007)

"Between the volume of people we judge and the rapid, unequivocal test that's applied to our choices, Y Combinator has been an unprecedented opportunity for learning how to pick winners. One of the most surprising things we've learned is how little it matters where people went to college.

I thought I'd already been cured of caring about that. There's nothing like going to grad school at Harvard to cure you of any illusions you might have about the average Harvard undergrad. And yet Y Combinator showed us we were still overestimating people who'd been to elite colleges. We'd interview people from MIT or Harvard or Stanford and sometimes find ourselves thinking: they must be smarter than they seem. It took us a few iterations to learn to trust our senses.

Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it.

But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers--basically, HR people--based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?"

college = 0
I agree. A company should be able to hire and fire for whatever reason. Mandating anything else just doesn't work. But it's helpful to know that if you are old, female, jewish, black, gay, or whatever you might not be welcome at particular companies. Thanks for letting us know. We'll go elsewhere. Maybe somewhere with a more relaxed idea of "cultural fit"
I would tell them about particular dangers like 50 year old strangers posing as 13 year olds... I remember very well what I felt about boobs when I was a kid and that's exactly why I have no worries whatsoever. There's an age where you're not interested and when you become interested, you'll be able to cope, and cope very very well :-)
Top 6 Hates with Windows Vista
Watching the 'Microsoft killers' come and go
SitePoint will charge you money too. This is a good thing; it means that you aren't competing with contest holders that are not as serious.

I've never held a contest myself, but I have worked on a project with a design from a SitePoint project and the quality was quite good for the cost. Pro designers hate the idea of spec work, but the truth is that because competition is tough, the top logos generally look quite nice.
Ubuntu pride--on the basketball court
Joel have written some really insightful and influential pieces about software development and business strategy.
When he started blogging, almost every post were a classic.

Of course this were insights he had accumulated through many years, its hard to keep churning out great insights on a regular basis, so I think people just get disappointed.

Also, his insights are mostly related to business and high-level decisions. When he writes about coding, his opinions seem slightly curious: exceptions suck, Hungarian notation rules and so on.
[argh] Thank you.
List of Startups - startup jobs
I don't see many startup job openings on YC JOBS. Is there any site with list of all US startups? Or any special site for startup jobs?
I wonder what the age of the scientist is who published finding. I'm sure he's 20 and makes very very fast decisions ;-)

Edit: Prof Wesnes graduated in 1973, so presumably he's around 60. He's a researcher and CEO of a high-tech company. Should such an old person really be doing research? Should Paul Graham not be thinking about passing his duties on to Paris Hilton?
40 + phd (thank god for electric)
EDIT: I'll say one thing for him: I'm glad he compiled all the "Tom the dancing bug" 'toons:

http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/tddbArchive
I always thought about hacking as breaking into other peoples computers.

It had to be one of these two:

the AOL Homepage maker(the wysiwyg) or

the homestead pages(ex:whateveryouwant.homestead.com).

I made a homestead page about the origin of mankind for my History class in the 7th grade. This made me think that almost anything could be done on the web, and it has become a reality since then.
It seems to be the big question of the internet at the moment doesn't it... is facebook worth that much, or really anything?

Firstly I think anytime there is a whole bunch of people communicating you should never ask yourself what the point is. Communication is a fundamental, it is the reason.

Second there's the big draw cards of social networks - an easy lightweight way to connect and reconnect. Its a great big people directory - and connections are very low social risk - much easier than emailing that person you haven't seen in years. And how are you going to get their email address anyway, any public directory would be spam central.

Of course myspace or any site has that much going for it. So that leaves the final facebook draw card - facebook apps. I totally understand the skepticism, but apps offer lots of different shared activities. Lots of little quizzes and games, very much like the kind of structured getting-to-know-you party game type activities. Its actually very difficult for these kinds of applications to exist without incorporating the friend networks that facebook offers.

Its a platform that allows a kind of lightweight, asynchronous and with easy opt-outs and opt-ins, shared online experience. I think it actually threatens to become the internet for a lot of people.
No. A better analogy would be that English literature is to blog posts as Computer Science is to Web 2.0: Blog posts and Web 2.0 are very marginally influenced by -- and are studied on the margins of -- English literature and Computer Science respectively, but they're both primarily sociological phenomena.

EDIT: Looking back at the topic, I'm not sure if the submitter is aware of Dijkstra's comment about the nature of Computer Science: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes". Comparing Computer Science to "Pen Science" (which is presumably the study of pens) simply demonstrates a lack of understanding of what Computer Science is.
another web os
What do you think ?
You don't lose points for college in my system. Remember, Paul says he accepts everybody who is good enough, not the top 20 teams. Whichever way you reach 13-15 on my scale, you're likely to get an interview. We'll have to see.

"And yet Y Combinator showed us we were still overestimating people who'd been to elite colleges."

Paul "still overestimates" such students, so they're more likely to get an interview. And since he used the word "still", it means he feels he's still biased at this present time. How do you think these test cases came about, anyway?

"college = 0"

I doubt that this can ever be true. Paul still asks for the students' colleges. In other words, he's still figuring this out. What he means is, nobody needs to have a degree or a good college to create a successful startup. That is true. But I do think there are good signs about a person that uniquely pre-qualify them if the student is from a good college:

1) The fact that the school accepted them, matters least (like Paul says in the quote above.)

2) However, I do think Paul considers it a sign of dedication if a student from MIT wants to leave or delay entry in favor of YC, or if they've recently graduated from Harvard or Stanford and instead of proceeding to graduate school or possibly a six-figure job, to spend a couple of years living on ramen noodles.

3) Regardless of what Paul thinks, VC's probably love that stuff, if the startup doesn't have lots of traction yet.

The big VC investments seems to go to those from elite schools:
MIT (no product when selected by YC, 4m VC before product was finalized), Cambridge (no product when selected by YC, 400k VC), Yale (no product when selected by YC, unknown VC money), Stanford (likely no product when selected by YC, Sequoia Capital VC).

4) I suggested good colleges would get +2, not just elite colleges.
It's really just because, there is no real purpose.
Wow, do I feel old.

Using the DOS command line with my Dad's Compaq luggable with dual 5-1/4" floppies, baby!

The first true coding that I did was making a graphics program in basic. I thought it looked like Star Wars hyperspace scene. No one else agreed with me, though.
I wonder what the results would be for people who don't stop learning as soon as they possibly can.
I read a lot of science-fiction as a kid. For me and my brother computers were just as fascinating (and unattainable) as space travel and aliens. When it actually became possible for ordinary people to buy a computer (the ZX81!), of course we saved up for it. When we got the computer, of course we had to learn how to program it, since it didn't have any software.
Cool Weebly Site
I'm not sure about that. Picture some widely-used public school management package written to be used over the Facebook API. Suddenly, every new student [high school students, remember, not college] has to get Facebook, as part of the enrollment process. Then, since all the friends they make at school already "use" the service, they start really using it.
"You're usually talking to someone you know and they introduce you to someone else. The conversation naturally veers toward common ground where a relationship can be built. I haven't seen a company reproduce this."

It happens a lot on LiveJournal. I'm still in touch with some of the folks I met 5 years ago on there. I've met them in real life. Some of them have introduced me to all their friends, who I'm also still in touch with (in some cases, moreso than the original friend). A couple of my now-RL friends met on LiveJournal; they're now married. The wedding pictures tagged guests with their LiveJournal usernames instead of their real names.

FaceBook and MySpace spread largely through existing social networks, which is why their growth was so fast. LiveJournal, blogs, webcomics, and the myriad niche forums have been forming new social networks, which is much slower and doesn't get as much press attention. It's there, though, if you're looking in the right places.
I'm no fan of Dijkstra, at least when it comes to his views of what CS should be all about. He wanted to turn a rather boring field into something that is much worse.

The point of the analogy is that implementation -- essentially what CS is all about -- is not interesting just as the way you construct a pen or use it to write grammatical sentences is not interesting.
Whereas the original "pen science is to writing as CS is to web 2.0" analogy might be awfully skewed, you do have to ask yourself how frequently it is necessary to apply the kind of algorithms and techniques [that CS is in part comprised of] in a typical Web 2.0 application.
Well maybe some advanced algorithms are important (e.g., encryption), but they are part of libraries. You do not need to worry about how they work just as you do not need to worry about the physics behind pens or the way a word processor is constructed when writing a novel.
I also ask myself how frequently it is necessary to apply the plot and characterization -- or for that matter, grammar and spelling, apparently -- to blog posts. Gulliver's Travels is better writing than most blog posts, just like the FreeBSD kernel is better code than Reddit. If most Web 2.0 applications don't apply many concepts from Computer Science, it says more to me about the quality of Web 2.0 applications than it does about the importance of Computer Science.
As they should. It's one thing to give puzzles to an inexperienced kid who has yet to prove herself. It's quite another to throw them at a senior candidate whom you're probably recruiting based upon their known experience and skill.

Horses for courses.
Initially? Learning Basic from a really motivated teacher who said in 20 years that everyone would need to know at least basic programming since everyone would be working on a computer for their job. He wasn't that far off.

What crushed my inner hacker? University computer science where everything was very strict and restraining, or perhaps it was my focus.

What re-sparked it? Lisp briefly for inspiring me to code in a better way. Then Python :)
"The point of the analogy is that the implementation -- essentially what CS is all about..."

Computer Science is not about how to build a computer.

Computer Science is about what you can do with a computer. Google's pagerank is computer science. Recommendation systems, like Amazon and Netflix use, are computer science. Computer science is about discovering new ways to design bridges -- not about building them.
I always liked taking things apart, putting things together, and putting things together to make them do things they weren't originally intended to do. I liked to draw, paint, make stuff.

When I discovered programming, I saw it as the much the same thing, only better; being digital, you have fewer arbitrary constraints than the Real World. Imagination was the only real limit.

Software is opinionated reality, the ultimate playground and toy chest. I'm still surprised that more people don't find it intrinsically fascinating. Go figure. :)
Computer Science is not about how to build a computer.

Implementation here refers to software as well.

Computer Science is about what you can do with a computer.

Not really. The vast majority of CS research papers are not about new uses of a computer.
No, he's smart.
Writing calculator games on a ti83 during freshman math courses. I still remember that my programs all used single letter variable names -- I think there was a technical reason, but maybe I was just incompetent -- and I had a piece of paper for each program that tracked which meant what :)
I would submit that even an organism of entirely new proteins isn't artificial. If it uses DNA, RNA and amino acids, it is just a variation on the same 4 billion year old theme.

These proteins would not be "created" their structure would almost certainly be evolved computationally. That would be enormously useful. And it would be damned cool.

But, I think true artificial life simply must be made out of something else.
Wow!

I'm flattered that someone took the time to go through my comment history. My web presence is currently limited to my forum user's accounts at news.YC, TechCrunch, and the like. The idea of a blog occurred to me briefly when we decided to start looking at consumer startups. However, we determined there to be many blogs already in existence doing an excellent job of providing coverage of the space. It was doubtful that we would create a large enough audience from which to select clients.

All that said, the idea of a personal blog has been pitched to me. Recently the requests have been coming more and more often. So perhaps at some point in the future. Right now I am so busy that I am staying in touch with the office on the weekends. I would like to actually put thought into blog posts for a personal blog, and not have it be these more off-the-cuff brainstorms that I post to the forums.

Thanks again for the interest.
Web 2.0 apps should of course make use of many concepts from Computer Science -- just as professional writers should make use of the latest word processing software.

But you can still have the case that the web 2.0 apps are much more interesting than the CS concepts on which they are based.
It's my impression that memory usage is very obscured in functional languages. Others' thoughts?
Are you implying a cause/effect relationship here?

And I believe the correct phrase is "when in doubt, pull it out." Man has that phrase saved me a few times:)
ASK Everyone: How to describe major purchases in 3 words or less?
Hey everyone, I am working on the YC application. I am trying to describe complex/major purchases in 3 words or less.

Some examples of major purchases would be:
-A CAR
-A Mortgage
-A Boat
-A Web Designer
-A Consultants Services

Anyone know of a way to put it in a nutshell?

I've got "services/major purchases/commitment based decisions" so far, can anyone condense that? It seems way to long.
I believe I am terribly bad at #3.

Thanks for the suggestion.
No, what he is saying is excellent advice. You have to meet and socialize with other people to a certain degree no matter which path to success you take.

Very rarely does someone become wildly successful 100% on his own.
"Say yes to everything."

Best advice I've ever read here (except for some of pg's essays).

Always saying yes separates you from the other 99%. Later, people will remember and good things will come your way seemingly from out of nowhere. People will think you're "lucky", but you'll know the secret...always saying yes planted seeds for your future.
techcrunch.com
simplyhired.com
Ask YC: Does your choice of language/platform play a role during an acquisition?
I was wondering if a startup's choice of technology can affect an acquisition. For example, Google seems to use Python & Java a lot, so if your application is built in Lisp or .NET, how big of a role will that play during negotiations?

I'm interested in hearing how this scenario is usually handled and if that has ever affected an acquisition?
"I couldn't stand office life."

Neither can I. Never could. Only difference between cubicle hell and jail is that we still have to pay for our own food.

Why don't companies understand this? Take the same work out of the office and get twice as much done. While loving it.

We suffer because they don't know how to manage any other way.
I was playing with my dads IBM 5150 PC back in 1988 when I was 6 yrs old, I remember that. I was too young to do much though, mainly just play a spelling game.

My introduction to hacking was in 1992 when my dad purchased a 486DX2 PC. I was writing batch file menus in DOS to load files, etc. It didn't take very long before I started trying to overclock it and stuff.

Looking back on it, I'm very surprised my dad trusted me to mess around with his computers like that, given how much they cost back then... Honestly, I dont think he had a clue as to what I was doing. But I'm grateful at the same time as I learned a lot. I think kids need that freedom to experiment when it comes to hacking.
I use courier right now. But I've migrated from courier to dovecot for pop3/imap, and I'm planning to migrate from courier to postfix for smtp. Courier is just too limited.
not only is puzzle/quiz/aptitude testing the future of job applications... I'd throw in _conditioning_ (like the Suk doctors in Dune or the current military). Talent will be rewarded much more when money isn't wasted on less efficient, competent, dedicated and honorable people.
Indeed, the ramifications of this breakthrough are much larger than fighting climate change. An editor from the Guardian told me: "these new life forms can also fight terrorism, drunk driving and The Others."

When I asked if this development had any relevance in areas other than cliche current event subjects, he said "Absolutely. Since we know have an answer to where life comes from--the lab--humans won't have to waste all that time with existential talk and can spend more time reading the Global Warming and terrorism stories in our great news media."
Where are you doing that? At the UPC? I'm just finishing off a masters in Software Engineering there.
"you can still have the case that the web 2.0 apps are much more interesting than the CS concepts on which they are based"

Which is more interesting, opera or football? Personally, I'm interested in opera -- and Computer Science -- but I'm willing to accept that most people find football (and web 2.0 applications) to be far more interesting.

But you thinking that Computer Science is boring doesn't imply that Computer Science is analogous to studying pens any more than me thinking that football is boring implies that football is analogous to the mating behaviour of male elk. In both cases there is similarity at first glance -- Computer Science courses tend to focus on very simple and well-understood algorithms (quicksort, binary search, minimal spanning tree, etc.), while to someone without understanding of tactics, football appears to be nothing more than a bunch of large males running at and into each other -- but if you take the time to understand either of these you'll see that the analogies fail quite quickly.
Hey, Good stuff!! sounds a lot like "release early, release often"

RE: approaching us folks...
Your list of "whats important" didn't include equity. In this market, I think you need to be looking for a "techie" partner, more than an employee that likes your "dress code".

And on a personal note, I think of a "techie" as the guy who sets up the printers and unboxes the new LCD monitors... we are "geeks" or "coders" - IMHO
"Over ten kilobucks". :-)
It's a pretty terrible analogy, to be honest with you.
IBM did exactly that when I interviewed with them in 1998. They give you a battery of tests including:

A timed test of where you have to do a lot of boring math problems like long-multiplication and division of large sums. I hate boring math, but figured I didn't want to be an accountant, so I didn't stress out over it.

Another timed test where you're given character sequences, and you have to guess what comes next. That was the one all us hackers in the group of interviewees were bragging about after the test. "Oh yeah? I got through all but the last two!", that sort of thing.

We were told our results were not a condition of employment (though this was during the interview process) and they would be kept in our employee profiles, but we couldn't ever find out how we did.
Have no first-hand experience, but someone asked this question of Chris Sacca (Google) at the first startup school, and he said:

"Don't worry about it. Use whatever you're most comfortable developing in. If we buy you, we'll likely have to rewrite all your code anyway to use Google's infrastructure and scale to millions of users."
Depends what you mean by slant. Fox News slant is bad, Slate slant is good. The measure isn't whether the slant is in a particular political direction--it's intellectual honesty and quality of reasoning. For that reason, pulling off a slant usually means that you come down hard on everyone, so the only acceptable bias at a good news operation is an anti-BS bias.
College football programs in the American South can "hire and fire", so to speak, whomever they please. They were, for many years, the most racist institutions you're likely to find, with many teams composed entirely of white players. And yet, those who refused to allow black students to play got their asses kicked, and now virtually all college football teams have many black players.

How could a society where companies can hire and fire at will possibly be just? One word: competition. Racist companies that reject talented black youths such as the one you describe will, like the racist football teams of yore, get their asses kicked by companies that hire them.
Ok, so maybe it's an ad or maybe it's a little interesting post and an update on his FogBugz tour which he has been posting about for months. At least he is consistent. And what is so antiquated about FogBugz? Have you ever used the software? It actually works quite well.

-Joel Fanboy
Math Whizzes Turbo-Charge An Online Retailer's Sales
Being given a Sharp PC-1500 pocket computer at age 6, and messing with it enough to learn BASIC via "brute force". A few months later being given a manual that filled in some of the blanks.
22, B.S. in "Computer Information Systems".
Just a data point: writely, which is now google docs, was originally based on .NET (on the server side):

http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/09/congrats-to-writely-for-usi...
Three separate Postfix instances running on the same server, albeit bound to separate IP addresses and tweaked for their particular use.
Testing Tools I'd like to see
Linguistics is to writing as CS is to computing. Web 2.0 is a subset of computing.