skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Nice article. I'd also recommend checking out a couple of other neighborhoods:

Glen Park is near a bart station and has a small but reasonably entertaining center with restaurants, a small (high end) grocery store, and a couple of coffee shops/bars. You're also a very short hop from the mission (fairly cheap cab ride, 5 mins in the car). The nice thing is that it is extremely easy to get downtown on Bart (10-15min), but you're also in the southern half of the city near the freeway - so if you need to get to silicon valley, you don't have to battle city traffic.

Another cheaper option along the same lines is to live near Balboa Park - there's a bart station, a few good muni corridor lines. Transportation-wise, it's similar to Glen Park - quick strike to the peninsula, quick bart ride to downtown/berkeley. On the down side, this section is on the outer edge of San Francisco's rougher neighborhoods. But rents here will be lower.
Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy
> act only as you would want others to act towards you

So if I'm a masochist I should be sadistic to other people? Any ethical rule can be misused if you leave out common sense.
Starcraft requires years of dedication.

How many must die playing Starcraft waiting for Starcraft 2 to come out?

:)
(I personally played something like 2000 games of it)
Jia Shen of Rockyou on self expression widgets and monetizing Facebook apps
Exactly - I'm no fan of that maxim either, but it is definitely better than Kant's version in the sense that at least the doer will have the same potentially done to them.
I'm mostly thinking about the type of online role playing games which people throw their lives away on, but I would consider Starcraft to be a borderline case.

I do believe in general that people are responsible for the consequences they create even if they could not have possibly predicted them. I certainly don't think that Blizzard should be punished for the death of that man. I would only hope that when they heard the news that as individuals they stopped and spent a couple of quiet minutes asking themselves if what they are doing contributes to improving human society or not.
Interesting. Fame = correctness? And yes, as far as I know, it gives the wrong answer on genocide.

Could you show how this "maxim" in conjunction with others by Kant would prevent someone using them to justify genocide?
Caltech develops electronic nose
Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger analyzes light from distant stars for evidence we're not alone
Also, this business has very little if any growth potential, because if kratom becomes "too" popular, the FDA and DEA are going to jump in with both feet. (And perhaps some big pharmaceutical company will patent a kratom-derived painkiller and crank it out on an industrial scale.)
I never heard about Godwin's law before, but was amused to find this on the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_lawhttp://en.wikipedia...
Cisco to Buy Navini for $330 Million
Venture Investing On Track To Hit Six-Year High
The third quarter saw venture capital funding increase for cleantech, as well as Internet, biotech and medtech, says a report by the National Venture Capital Association. Software companies, however, continue to receive the biggest share of VC funding.
Small-Business Myths Busted
The truth as you know it about starting a business may really be a lie. Let us help you sort the myths from the realities.
I believe the Nazis actually used "Eliminating animals which you find problematic" as they redefined person to exclude those of Jewish origin. So, again, Kant is quite useful in justifying just about anything.
Have you considered the alternative that for many people, online games like World of Warcraft are truly better than real life?
Hah. I told her that's what I wanted. :)
Interesting startup
I think the imperative could be reformulated to state "act only according to that maxim for which the conjunction of universal viewpoints does not result in a logical contradiction", where the Nazis obviously mistook disjunction for conjunction.
If WoW is better than real life for so many people maybe that's because there are some severe and imminent problems to solve in this world. The last thing we need right now is for everybody to be drugged out on video games.
I guess he uses Facebook differently from the way I do. I've met every one of my Facebook friends in person. (Although it's been a while, as my old high school classmates keep showing up.)

I thought "fake" friends was more of a Myspace or Livejournal thing.
Yes, I actually live in Miraflores! (Did I mention it somewhere?)

So, are you peruvian?
Um, you then have a problem with "universal viewpoint". What is it, who defines it, etc.
YC: Please, criticize my startup!
Here is the deal - we're building an instant answer portal. We're targeting to clients who need to get an instant multiple answers to their problem or a question (say, within 60 minutes time frame). This will cost money (client's budget), that will be split over the subscribers, who will answer the questions. One of the key points, that makes it interesting for market research groups, is that we'll be able to generate more then one answer for one question. So here comes the major question - while it's pretty transparent and kind of motivating for subscribers, how do you think this is interesting for clients? What target group of clients do you think we may be interesting for? What kind of a questions do we sound like a great niche? I have my own answers, but they're definitely not enough (one of the reasons why we're developing this portal :). Just give me any feedback, either positive or negative. Please, drop me a line if you see this either as a perspective startup or a looser. THANKS!
Loopt competitor Pelago launches Whrrl - mobile social networking
Some related articles:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/336470_pelago23.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/200...
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071023/20071023005704.html?.v=1

It's interesting that they've teamed up with American Eagle to launch their marketing campaign.
With FriendCSV, Data Sneaks Out Facebook's Back Door
Well, that is exactly the point of the Kant maxim also.
Haven't apps just like this gotten banned already?
Does anyone here actually look at the NYT Best Sellers List to pick their reading material?

I have always treated it more as a Never-Read-This List. Frankly anything that sells that well is probably some empty self-help drivel or the equivalent to a blockbuster movie, neither of which will ever change your life or say anything insightful.

Of course, I'm also the guy that is waiting until the Harry Potter fad is dead and gone before I even start reading those books. Mainly because I hate fanboys, and especially pop culture fanboys.
Fascinating, but the FT article is not much more than a linkjack. Why not just link to http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/10/the-new-york...
"So, again, Kant is quite useful in justifying just about anything."

I don't see how you could conclude that. Your argument is that if the Nazis believed that they were doing the right thing, they'd believe that Kant would think they were doing the right thing, too. So you're only correct if you take their beliefs at face value, in which case I don't understand why you're complaining.
What do you plan to do differently from the likes of Google Answers that would allow you to deliver on the 60-minute timeframe more often than they did?
>Please, drop me a line

The email address in your profile doesn't show up to the public, you've gotta reenter it in the about: field if you want other people to be able to see it.
how about a rational exploration instead
The reason I conclude that is because Kant's theory seems to ultimately rest on someone/something defining what should be done, and therefore, it is completely subjective. If I am incorrect in thinking this, please enlighten me with quotes from Kant proving otherwise.
"So if I'm a masochist I should be sadistic to other people?"

Only if you want to be set on fire by arsonists.
How do Kant's rules imply the need for common sense?
YC: Canadian experiences with TN status for startup?
Can anyone comment on experiences with obtaining TN status to work on their startups?

Did you put your own new company as the sponsoring entity? Any suggestions of lawyers to work with?
It's "white at chief dot la". Thanks! Or you can write here.
Mostly it's about delivering updates to people, who want to participate. Email notifications, IM, cell... Also it'd bring a spirit of a challenge, and so you'll have to hurry up and use your chance to answer the question and get some money. So this will motivate subscribers to check the site often (when they have spare time) or even have it a a home page or keep it sticky all the time.
Does your startup do anything that Amazon Mechanical Turk doesn't do? (may be yours does it better?)
Read the archives of Signal vs. Noise...
Mature Optimization
Very true. I've gone through their posts many times and they have some good ideas. I was hoping that people would respond to this question by describing how they have done things in the past and what has worked for them and what hasn't. I guess I probably should have worded it more towards that versus best practices.
I think it is an interesting idea. I don't know that there is a market for it, but I think it is worth building to find out.
Do you require TN status? It is relatively easy to get, however I understand you can only receive it once. Getting legal status after that year is considerably harder, so be careful when you use it!

Offtopic:
Why do you need to leave Canada to start it?

There are a few good entrepreneurial hubs in Canada, like Ottawa for telecom and Waterloo for Engineering/Software.
I think the site might end up getting sold like Reddit, for some ridiculous sum, and then someone will start ANOTHER one about Lisp startups. (that's an attempt at humour :)
That's the one which is really close. However, our main point to to provide multiple answers, but not a simple solutions. Besides, the Amazon's idea is not about instant answers, so there are not many chances to get your answer(s) within an hour after asking. And yes, I bet we can do it better. Just because we're more simple and easy and intuitive. More, speaking about Amazon's Turk, the price paid isn't relative to real world cost of living. Most of the HITs over there are less then $1 per hour gigs. We see our business in questions, which can be answered in 5 minutes or less, without need to perform long term investigation, review, discussion or anything time consuming.
Some related articles:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/336470_pelago23.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/200...

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071023/20071023005704.html?.v=1
"They Would Be Gods" (taken down from ycombinator -- now hosted by scribd)
Heh. I love how the screenshot poster is glad to show you how many Harvard and Stanford alumni he knows. It reminds me of "The E-List A-List" (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/09/13/1999_09_13_050_T... summary, but sadly not online -- available in "Fierce Pajamas, I think).
Is this your startup? I can't view the webpage with Firefox 3 unless I want to change my user agent.
http://www.tonikhealth.com/
Maybe tech support? I don't know about the multiple answers bit, but perhaps there's a market for crowdsourced tech support, that works much faster than regular channels.
Personally, I don't think this will work well. Although, it's a good idea for some niched startup, but for something more global, we'll never get much luck with crowdsourced support, comparing to hundred thousands of subscribers.
search engine to watch free online streaming : movies, animes, cartoons, series
Everytime I click on a link on the site the number of guests online keeps increasing. I don't know if the site is growing so fast or its a bug.
You say "the correct 'universal law' to use...". I think this shows very well why Kant's imperative is so useless. It simply replaces judgement on the original question with judgement on the right way to generalise it.
Self-Anchoring Bias
site:answers.google.com

After the first page, it's basically a list of old questions and answers -- so reading over the first hundred or so might give you a good idea of what the market is for this service.
Unless you're offering Jeopardy style prizes (or at least something worth paying attention to), I don't see how you'd get particularly well qualified answers in a short time period. Expertise isn't cheap, and expertise on call is downright expensive (when I was a consultant I charged an annual service fee just for the privilege of calling my cell phone number outside of business hours)...so if someone can make $100+/hour consulting with their expertise, or make $10 every few hours via your service, they're obviously going to spend more time consulting than sitting in front of their mailbox waiting for questions that match their expertise.

I'm not saying it can't be done effectively and profitably--it probably can. We used SitePoint for a logo contest recently and had a half dozen professional designers, and another couple dozen serious amateurs, who responded over the course of 10 days...the prize was $500, though, so not chump change. We were extremely happy with the resulting logo, and we all (designers included) had a lot of fun with the contest.

But you might consider focusing on a few niches to get started, and actually line up experts on retainer just to prove to people that you have a working system (we've seen Google, Yahoo, and a dozen also-rans come and go in this field...most people are not going to believe that a startup can make something work that all of the big names in internet tech have failed to deliver). I believe you're going to have to prove it, but I might be wrong...maybe you can just let it run and gather momentum slowly.

The other problem is that most of the high end questions and answers I've seen (the ones where you'll make your money) on similar services have been extremely vague and, in result, poorly answered. I got a strong feeling that the questioner probably wasn't going to be very satisfied with the answers. Quality is historically very low from these kinds of services, and it's hard for me to imagine how you'd solve that problem without a lot of (expensive) oversight.
loopt getting the mobile companies on board
How is loopt able to get the mobile companies on board with their service? I would think that loopt would significantly reduce phone minutes and text messages, which is the life blood of those mobile companies. Sprint charges 3/mo for the service, but I don't think that would make up for the loss of usage.
No, it's not my startup. However, I do know people that work there.
I wasn't very clear with my point. We're not about professional services, but with something, which doesn't need a degree or special skills. Like choice between red or black shirt, one nightclub or another, how good is some idea, the best gift for the girlfriend, etc.
Ask YC: Why do we read so many different sites for the same news?
Wouldn't it be more useful to have one site that could aggregate these articles across the popular sites and make sub-sites when something reaches a critical mass?
I think I recall a startup that tried doing this a few years ago by making the discussion happen on the site. Is anyone working on this? Do any of you do this already with some program/site?
That's not exactly what we're talking about. We're not questionary service, but instant and multiple answers. Instant, means, within very short period of time, like 60 minutes max. See my other comments. Thanks.
Wishing you all the best.

Just curious... which {language,framework,hosting}?
I predict a blockbuster movie next summer featuring armed robots that can find you by smell.
My lack of knowledge of the market makes me feel that this is an idea in search of a market.
We've got a dedicated server at ServerBeach, everything else is a typical LAMP. We've got enough skills with Java and Ruby, but PHP could be the best choice to bootstrap quickly.
I think lots of people would really dig that idea. Years from now, they'll think of your comment and wish they'd read it earlier. I hope some hacker comes up with a news source like that. It would be a delicious accomplishment we'd all savor.
Are questions that require quick answers different from Google Answers-style questions?
Note the technology base: Java, Solaris, Oracle

Relational databases and the Java platform are not poison.
"The reason I conclude that is because Kant's theory seems to ultimately rest on someone/something defining what should be done, and therefore, it is completely subjective."

Well, yes. That is the idea. Basically, he's trying to suggest that our moral systems be universal -- that we not consider something moral unless it's moral regardless of who does the considering.
This is one of those ideas that has been floating around in the group collective. I know I was in discussions about something like this a few months ago. If you can do it, go for it. It'd be great.
Well, some of the will be different, some of them will be pretty similar to Google Answers' style.
If they're "living" in a truck, how are they getting on the internet?

(ie, computer workers have the internet at their fingertips 24/7, which makes it a popular place for leisure. Truckers spend most of their time driving, which doesn't combine well with surfing the net)
I really like how easily shipping gets added. I just ordered a kill-a-watt through newegg using bountii.
Microsoft preps functional programming language
This is more or less, what Google News is doing. :-)
NICE.

VERY well done. It will be interesting to see how they flip the recommendation algorithm [since they seem to get it about real humans knowing best].

ALSO:

They should make a li'l widget for bloggers that crawls the posts and broadcasts upcoming tour dates for the artists being covered.

You're welcome (...although I'm sure they are on this already ;-)

(or, they need to bust out the API. if ever there was a service in need of an API ASAP...)
This is the crux of the problem with Kant's morality - who is the someone/something setting the standard for what is moral? And how does that someone/something not act in a subjective way when deciding?

It really is a scary idea, because it just begs for the "someone" to step forward and tell us all what to do.
Ask YC: Recommend me *the* best Javascript book/reference
What's the very best Javascript book that you know of?

I'm specifically looking for one that goes into modern Javascript techniques, similar to the prototype crowd.
Getting on-deck with the carriers is not easy. The carriers will sometimes require payment which can be in the millions. So plan on raising lots of capital if you want to do it.

You can always offer your software outside of the carriers official services, but they usually have it setup so that if a user installs unapproved 3rd party software it can void the user's contract. Plus the average person doesn't really install 3rd party software on their phones yet (I hope the iPhone changes this after the SDK release).

An easy solution is to offer your service off-deck, as a WAP site or a Flash Lite site. But obviously services like Loopt are not possible because you dont have access to specific phone hardware such as the GPS unit.
You'll need to articulate your goals better if you're going to get funding or customers. So far, I know that it is like Google Answers, but not, because it is "Instant" (as in, it takes up to an hour) and has multiple answers (like other answer services).

It sounds like you're offering an answer service with a deadline, which is great, because now all you have to do is figure out what kind of questions people will ask, how to attract the people who can answer them, how to compensate everyone, and how to outcompete much larger rivals who can duplicate your entire product over their lunch break, while taking advantage of their existing network. Sounds pretty surefire!
You mention 'market research groups' and maybe that's your differentiation niche. Some statistically sound methodology that Google and LinkedIn and Yahoo don't provide. Then you can build your audience by dealing with a professional groups of question askers. Consumer products, advertising, anything with a mass audience likes to base on market research.
I found this when I was looking through my del.icio.us 'to read' list and discovered this: http://ycombinator.com/gods.html . Which is too bad; it's a great essay.
Well, I'd love to do it but am lacking the time. Plus I actually like my job (go figure). Any thoughts?
Here's two random data points for you:
1. I, coincidentally this morning, just asked my first question on LinkedIn. I had my first answer in 25 minutes. Done.

2. S&P runs a service called Vista Research. They've built a stable of experts in various vertical markets, and they've cultivated an advisory client list. So the clients come in with crazy questions about things impacting their business or investment decisions and S&P hooks them up with the Expert to answer. The Experts bill the client, and S&P also bills the client as a subscriber with access to all the experts. (I'm an 'expert' and get a question once a month or so. It's never turned into business for our company yet though.) Theirs is a super-premium service for people making $million decisions. It's also heavily manual. Recruiting experts, selling clients, matching clients to experts, etc. Maybe there's some web2.0 optimization of that niche to be had.
I also toyed with an idea like this at some point, but it seemed to me that aggregating the big 4 or 5 aggregators is unnecessary, while aggregating much more than that (something like Techmeme but broad-based?) takes you into Google/Technorati territory, fairly large scale processing and intensive ML stuff. There are also quite a few RSS-filtering/recommending startups out there already.

I do have the feeling there is an angle I was missing though, and I'd be glad to be proved wrong!
I already showed an example for questions, which I see to be typical there: which shirt to choose, where to shop, which club to go for, what present for girlfriend to buy. Also, we could be a great match for market research during the product development cycle. I don't see problems how to compensate everyone (the client pays for getting answers), subscribers will get attracted by the challenging style of the process and ability to get paid. However, what I really concerned about is whether this idea sound interesting for potential clients or not. Speaking about competition, it's always good and it speeds up the progress. Besides, the market always has a tendency to change the business model within time.
Ah. OK, then it's a terrible idea. ;-)
Why not ask your beta testers or don't you believe in generating information by using your own service?
Can you tell me why? I'd really appreciate this kind of feedback.
"10 Things That Coding Taught Me"
Beta testers are already hooked-up, so their opinions would not be too objective. I need some thoughts from those, who never used us before, but now can get an opportunity to try.
O'Reilly's "Javascript: The Definitive Guide 5th Edition" by David Flanagan teaches Javascript really well including Ajax and DOM.

The first half of the book is a Javascript tutorial while the rest is a language reference. Good book.
My main thought is that those solutions aren't really creating a dialog. Sure they're bring users to that site, but it seems hard to connect all the different discussion points with an event. A great example would be the drama this summer over PG's comments re: age, or all the hoopla around twitter's scaling issues.