skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks, I see great logos there, maybe I'll post my own design, good luck with the contest!
BTW, it's one of the most useful tricks in philosophy to always mime the ignorant (which is, absolutely speaking, always more true than the opposite...).

It's the trick to grow in wisdom every time you discuss with any other person.
Cornell has a similar collection here:

http://eclips.cornell.edu/entrepreneurs.do

The collection was started largely to highlight the ways men & women differ in their thinking about business. Because of this it probably isn't as useful as the Stanford collection if you're just looking for famous people giving business advice.

edit: The interviews with Tony Dellamano and Mark Kuperman about their food startup are actually pretty good.

http://eclips.cornell.edu/entrepreneur.do;jsessionid=41794AC...

http://eclips.cornell.edu/entrepreneur.do;jsessionid=41794AC...
YC News Unavailable...
I've been getting increasing loss of news yc availability in the last few days. Is it just me, or is the server getting overloaded? (This was espeically a bummer as I was filling out the YC application)
Not just you, I've had it too over the last day or so.

Strangely, response time is still very good, so don't think it is due to server load..
I've been having the same problems with news.ycombinator.com, but ycombinator.com loads everytime.
Yeah, here also. Hopefully it's not a load/scaling issue. It would be interesting to know more about the platform and hosting configuration.

It's interesting the server responds to pings, but the webserver seems to be shot when it's down.
I wouldn't be so quick to vote this down... pg has made comments in the past (sorry, too lazy to dig for them) about YC "scaling up". I'll respectfully disagree with him until I see it, but he seems to have some opinions on the matter.
Google's Achilles Heel
This isn't a great data point because there were no users for this app.
The Importance and Criticality of Spreadsheets
Interesting read in light of the recent Excel error stories. Spreadsheet errors are claimed to have directly led to adverse events involving "many tens of millions of pounds".
Are Company Disasters Just An Excuse To Innovate?
Random tidbit about China: It is ruled by graduates of Tsinghua University, China's best engineering university. Hu Jintao's undergraduate degree was in hydraulic engineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_clique

I imagine America would be a little different if it was ruled by engineers.
Crunchgear - The undoing of Web 2.0 is lazy people?
Ten Questions with Chris Brogan
Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved
Response time is not the only thing that could be affected by server load. Those infamous threading problems (deadlock, race..) also are a possibility.
I had some trouble getting on earlier today, but this is the first time I've noticed anything.
The assertion about the usefulness of Google ads is flat out wrong. I realize it was probably meant to be hyperbole, but it doesn't come off that way.
We're talking about a tv show here. There is a very simple solution to this: turn it off.

It's amazing how little even good shows like Heroes matter when you miss a couple episodes.
Constantly increasing your prices is a pretty fun game.

I did some basic Windows consulting a few years ago; you know, spyware removal, installing hard drives, etc. My initial rate was $50 / hour, and I was charging $90 by the end of the summer. No one so much as batted an eye at whatever number I gave them. Not a single person tried to negotiate.
PG has mentioned before that it's a custom web server written in Arc. It's not unusual for web server software to go down while the host machine keeps working - especially when it's experimental software written in an unfinished programming language.
This is missing something important: ad companies like Google have every incentive to give us the right ads. If you get what you want and Google gets a cut, we're all better off.
It's interesting that the author limits it to Google when a huge number of sites rely solely on advertising for revenue. Where would the Facebook, MySpace, etc. be without ads? I'll bet a good 70% of applicants to YC list advertising as their main revenue model.
That is the best reason to use the in-site messaging of the popular social networking sites. They all allow this.
This article is stunningly stupid.

The thesis seems to be that (a) people don't actually enjoy creating movies, taking pictures, writing blog posts, or flirting, so they will soon revert to their default set of behaviors: working and playing Minesweeper. Therefore (b) Web 2.0 is doomed.

It's not merely that point (a) is inane. It's that this person doesn't seem to realize that both work and Minesweeper are now done on... the Web. It's like he's never even heard of Desktop Tower Defense.
If anything I find ads on search results can sometimes be useful and more pertinent than natural search results. For example if I am searching for 'cheap flights to bulgaria' I can be pretty confident that the adwords buyers purchasing those keywords currently have a promotion and the ad could have been updated only minutes before. Compare that to natural search results which could be something 'optimised' several months before.
Time to rewrite the site in Blub?
"In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average."

I really hate when they don't tell you the marginal benefit, just the absolute result. I would assume that the places with the most cameras are the ones with the most crime.

(The relevant urban legend is that some time in 1917, Ukrainian communist rebels noticed that the provinces with the most sick people also had the most doctors -- so they rose up and killed the doctors)
DNS issues for sure folks.
Startup Transforms Windows Desktop Into Panoramic Display
360Desktop reorganizes the standard Windows desktop into a panoramic, revolving pane of glass thousands of pixels long.
This idea was suggested by Paul Buchheit in July. I think it's a good idea. I occasionally hit 'send' when I mean 'delete' and once I do, that's it, it's sent. PB's original idea was that just about every action should be undo-able.

The original idea.
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
In your article you mentioned he got no pay and no equity... Is that the deal that you guys got?
As a Chinese American, I find reading posts like these analogous to hackers reading corporate explanations of what's "web 2.0".

"The Chinese" are in fact pretty diverse, just like Americans. Though web usage is currently dominated by the young gamers, there are many growing niches in the Chinese population. As more people hop online, their patterns of behavior and usage will change. To attempt to understand Chinese users in three simple bullets is doing no one a favor. But to add injury to insult, these bullets were compiled after an interview with someone who didn't even go to the major mainland cities. That's like trying to summarize Americans' web behavior by asking someone who went to London, Toronto, and Miami.

If you really want to serve that population, just go to China. It's not Iraq. It's easily accessible and if you stick to the major cities, you won't even really need to know Chinese (hiring a translator isn't a big deal either).
You Can't Not Believe Everything You read (.pdf)
Biases Against the Creation of Wealth
I agree with your point that MS can harm Google with IE. It's hard to imagine that actually happening though.
Web 2.0 Startup Simulator
DNS shouldn't cause intermittent on/off issues though, since hostname mappings are cached..
Paul Graham is so good, Arc is Blub for him.

Paul Graham is so good, he does just simply walk into Mordor. And then he checks into a hotel.
15 Excellent Examples of Web Typography: A List Apart Case Study
Boomers Buy More than 1/3 of all Music
Hilarious. Rather predictable, but if you just want the spoiler:

Fcraq nyy lbhe zbarl ba CE crbcyr. Gura nggraq ohooyrpba hagvy lbh envfr rabhtu zbarl gb ohl fvk pbqref naq guerr qrfvtaref. Ohl rirelguvat va gur zvqqyr pbyhza. Gura ohl n srj zber CE crbcyr naq envfr rabhtu zbarl gb ohl FRB naq n fhcreobjy nq.
I think the author is almost right: Google's vulnerability is its dependence on advertising for its revenue stream, but I don't think widespread adoption of ad blocking software is very likely: most people don't care, and/or don't have the knowledge to install browser extensions. Text-based ads are also harder to block, and it will just lead to an arms race in which only a small portion of users will bother to take the measures necessary to block all/most ads.

But I do think Google is vulnerable to a collapse in the web advertising market. Look at all the pain that was caused the last time this happened (didn't we learn our lesson about building businesses that are totally dependent on advertising income?). If the advertising market were to collapse, what would Google do? (I'm genuinely curious to hear speculation about this...)
Why Facebook Needs Big Money
Want to see if you can be a dotcom millionaire? Try the Web 2.0 Simulation Game!
Agreed. My girlfriend thought I was crazy when I started turning down $1000/day local contracts and $3000/day "get on a plane" contracts to instead work on Virtualmin (for no money for the first several months, and until recently very little money).
Yeah, I did the same with my web app scalability contracting work...started at $95/hr, and kept that rate for years, but then when I started getting sick of the business, I started cranking it up. By the end I was charging $150/hr for local work and $3k/day minimum for "have to fly to get there" jobs, and hadn't lost any customers--I was still saying, "No, I can't get out to see you until the week after next, but I'll fix the particular problem you've mentioned remotely tonight when I get back into the office."
"Warning: mysql_query(): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/db/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) in /hsphere/local/home/slackor0/onemorelevel.com/games.php on line 22 Warning: mysql_query(): A link to the server could not be established in /hsphere/local/home/slackor0/onemorelevel.com/games.php on line 22
Temporary server problem, refreshing your browser should reload the game"

Clearly, they fail at scalability.
We should talk. I'm in need of some kind of 12-step group.

Seriously. I'd like to hear more about how you managed to quit.
Indeed, when people ask me what I'm up to I sometimes say "Fending off consulting and contract work."
I cashed out with $9 billion after being acquired by Google. Woohoo! How did I do it?

Spent my first $1 million on PR consultants. Didn't build a single product or hirer any developers. Went to Bubblecon 2008 to raise some VC with my army of consultants. With $20 million in the bank I then bought Super Bowl Ads until I got acquired. Yay!
Hmmm, 4 people in the startup and only one writing code. Sounds like a top heavy organisation to me.

Reminds me of a project a collegue was involved in at work (which is at a big established firm). This had; 1 programmer, 1 manger (who requested more technical staff cause he knew 1 programmer wasn't enough but was turned down), and 2 project managers. As the project was running furhter behind schedule (due to agressive scheduling and vague requirements and mainly because lone programmer was in status meetings ever day), various high-level management were thrown at the problem.

Eventually, the programmer spent about 1/2 his day in meetings about the project, with his manager, 2 project managers, 1 VP, 2 senior VP's. Project was never finished ...
Does Google Analytics make Google more likely to acquire you?
It sounds like a stupid question of course, but I've started trying to figure out what valuable data Google has access to through it's services. If you're using Google Analytics then Google knows who goes to your site, when they use it, where the go when they leave, etc. It's a great way to pick your next acquisition. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Zenter perhaps?
I'll admit that I didn't expect to see "Crotchsphere, Inc"
Video of Heather Harte moderating the panel 'Exit Strategies' at Techcrunch40
The addiction wasn't so much mine as my clients. I had to wean them...and with enough time for them to hire someone to take my place. In the case of my biggest customer, they hired a full-time employee for the role.

I think the impetus I needed was the right business. I'd been working on Virtualmin for fun for two years...somehow it never occurred to me to make it a business for most of that time. When it finally did, it all seemed inevitable: it really felt like, from day one, that as long as I worked hard, it could not possibly fail (and that initial gut feeling is turning out to be right a couple of years later).

Some things I did to make it clear to myself that I was done with that old business:

1. Gave up my downtown Austin office. (Corner of 6th and Congress, Bank of America building...best location in the whole city.)

2. Took down the old business website. I left up all of the support materials and such (and it still gets thousands of hits per day), but I removed all contact information.

3. Gave myself deadlines for launching the new business. "The website will be launched on X, and we'll be selling products by Y."

4. Did Y Combinator. Not everybody gets to do that, but it triggered a number of changes that made the break between the old life and the new one very dramatic and difficult to go back on: I sold my 350Z and had a huge garage sale to get rid of a lot of my stuff, moved to the Valley (the getting rid of stuff is enforced when moving to the Valley--I couldn't afford as much space out here as in Austin), and didn't keep my old phone numbers.

The last one has probably been the most effective. I was still occasionally taking jobs when friends asked when I still lived in Austin. The thought process is, "Hey, what can a couple of days hurt? It'll give the new company more runway." But it slows you down, and gives you a safety net. Once I didn't have the safety net, I started thinking a lot faster and lot harder about how to increase revenues to a livable amount (I've never had a lot of big expenses, even the Z, so I had enough savings to last quite a while, but moving to the Valley dips into that pretty quickly).

NOTE: I don't have a family to feed and house. My co-founder kept his full-time job throughout all of this, because he has a family. I'm not saying the dramatic "drop everything and get serious" is the right path for everyone.
Histomap of World History
I especially find the targeted gmail ads useful. I normally ignore ads as a habit, but the links put in the "Web Clip" section are usually quite relevant.
My experience is that your billing rate is more based on your domain experience than your education/work experience. We bill around this much and have only once had anybody complain, and I'm far from an "oldster".
Yeah, we talked a bit about this at RailsConf. Experience still helps, but far more 20-somethings (especially on this forum) have the chops to justify much higher rates. I'm hoping to encourage more of them to be like you, and screw up the courage to charge more.
I won by just paying for CPM advertising without buying any coders...
so i guess someone should be submitting the ideas for liamg.
Here's the quote:

they are never useful or informative.

He/She seems to be referring to advertisments in general, making the statement all the more ridiculous. Advertisements are one component of marketing, and without them, all the other--more dishonest--components have all the more power. Most prominently, advertising allows the smallest companies to compete for attention along with massive companies, if only in a targeted way.

identifying ads is relatively easy technically

Oh, you think so? Well, when adblockers become standard issue, I can assure you that advertisements will be very difficult to identify, because they will be incorporated into search results, as in the old days.
Despite the title of the post ("98% of innovation"), I think there are some truths in the article.

I think the best designs and ideas come about through a process which is not unlike evolution. You might start with something good in isolation, but being subjected to many differing viewpoints and perspectives will challenge your idea, and force you to flesh it out in ways you may never have done on your own.

In keeping with the evolution analogy, this type of force causes your original concept to mutate into something which is (often) superior.
Check out Gemstone/S. A distributed, persistent and transactional Smalltalk image. It's flat out cool. As far as I know, they have even ported Seaside to run on top of it, which would make it the ne plus ultra for rich object model web app development.

Just like every other odb or network db, the problems only surface when you need to query along paths you didn't design for up front (i.e. when you can no longer chase pointers). That's where rdbms' really shine. And when people not intimately familiar with your apps' object model need some of its data. Expecting some 'analyst' somewhere, to fire up a Smalltalk image, in order to create a report making his boss look good, is probably a bit much.
oops, accidentally clicked the down bar (making your comment 0 points) while scanning thru the newcomments section. sorry, can't seem to undo it :-(
apologies!!
The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce.
Bob goes to the moon.
Alibaba is quite successful. I've seen an interview with the CEO. He looks somewhat different but when he talks you can see the passion in it.
ycombinator.com has address 65.181.149.201
news.ycombinator.com has address 67.15.104.17
This is cute and fun, but if you made a startup simulator where you had a burn rate, dilution, term sheets and multiple rounds of funding... well, okay, let's face it, it would bore 99.99% of the world.

But it would be very educational and seriously useful to understand all this stuff on an intuitive level for us startup wannabes. Has that been done? It would be pretty cool, in a front-page-of-Hacker-News kind of way.
Paul Graham is so good, the parenthesis match themselves.

Paul Graham is so good, it's hard to defun him.
A Master Class by Daniel Kahneman
The World's Worst Case of Amnesia (a la *Memento*)
Every time I notice a relevant ad in my Gmail, it reminds me that I really need to find a way to protect the privacy of my email.
The ads on the right side of Google's search results are sometimes helpful. But, the search results are being clogged with made-for-AdSense sites. Google's search results would be much better if they closed down AdSense.

Every weblog with AdSense advertising looks better (design wise) with AdBlock+ turned on; there is more negative space and less visual noise.
Write yourself a post-it note that says "Don't respond to email when you are drunk" and put it on your monitor (next to your passwords) before you go out.
He makes valid, well-trod points about networks' recalcitrance on internet distribution, but there's a little nuance missing from his blurb on how networks pick which shows to greenlight.

They want to make money, and they want people to watch their shows. And so (I'm by no means the first to say this), they're giving us what we want. We watched stupid reality shows, so they made more stupid reality shows--it didn't happen in the reverse order. Their mistake is that they're letting viewers lead. A good network decides what we're going to like and then makes a show based on that worth watching. A bad network lets viewers dictate trends and gets burned when those same viewers get bored a year or two later.
Sounds like we should have a Paul Graham Facts, like Chuck Norris.

Paul Graham's so smart that inside his brain is another brain.

Paul Graham once matched /(x+x+)+y/ in logarithmic time.
I'm no lawyer, but this seems absurdly far-fetched. Facebook needs $300-500 million so that it can pay legal costs? Cuomo's investigation seems much more like the kind of stupid headline-chasing that politicians do every so often than it does a case likely to cost Facebook nine figures.

This ridiculousness of monster valuations and such is much more about Microsoft than Facebook. For Facebook, giving up a mere 5% for $300-500 million isn't, as they say, a choice--it's an IQ test. The money is great, but they don't need it for anything but general security. Explaining why they're after it is like explaining that a lottery winner is planning to pick up his check because it'll help him pay for his house. True, but not really relevant.
Pozycjonowanie?
Google Acquires Mobile Platform Operator Zingku
One danger though is that Cuomo may be incompetent and reckless. He's filling a position vacated by the enormously popular Eliot Spitzer, who won the race for Governor in a landslide. He may be trying to do the same thing without Spitzer's sensibility..
Enciphered American Civil War telegram for auction
Hmm... $61 for OpenOffice on eBay. Maybe I should get in on this.
I've worked in automated surveillance. No one is watching the feeds.

A trained professional watching a single video feed will miss 90% of important activity after 20 minutes. There are 3 million CCTV cameras in the UK.

Like I said, no one is watching.

But automated surveillance is getting very good. A single server can currently run around 5 video streams. At least that was what Intellivid could do last I spoke with them. They do retail loss prevention. They're based in Cambridge and look like a good company for any hackers.
www.intellivid.com

Very, very soon, all of these CCTVs are going to be "turned on". Computers will find anomalous behavior, identify people from their gait (how they walk -- surprisingly more reliable than face recognition), track them across multiple cameras even with large gaps in footage, etc.. Gunshot detection and localization is pretty easy, but goes beyond the camera systems.

There is a book everyone interested in the topic needs to read on the subject: The Transparent Society
http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Between...

The solution is not regressing. The systems are here.

The solution is openness. Almost all government CCTV feeds should be open to public view, for example.
Go for it. We're really impressed with several of the entries, so far. Even if we stopped it today, we'd already have a half dozen logos better than the current one to choose from...still got 9 days to go. I'm thinking we'll be doing more of these for future design tasks.
How to Manage Employees in Remote Locations
Why did you stop at $150/hr if it didn't drop any customers?
Mzscheme is core dumping. We may have discovered some new bug. Rtm is investigating.
I had heard this story from Alexis, it's true. Their first idea had absolutely nothing to do with reddit.
LinkedIn is down!
yep, count me in, very annoying indeed.
The first one introduced us to the second.
Seems like you could make at most a couple hundred dollars doing this, there really can't be that much of a market for downloads of OpenOffice and other GPL software. And any competition at all will quickly drive the price to the market price, free.

Still might make a good excuse to try Auctomatic.
On the bright side, horseplay is down 40%, youthful exuberance has been cut in half, high spirits are at an all-time low.
Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?
I won't be able to do anything full time until 2011.
Sometimes, but it's hard. There's really no reason not to try, as long as you don't mortgage your house. All you have to lose is time.
I wonder how much that image cost them.

http://www.linkedin.com/img/pic/pic_li_wizard_411x389.gif