skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Genetic programming-evolved technical trading rules can outperform buy-and-hold (PDF)
Email in the 18th century
Ask YC: Expectations and Reality (Startups)
Long time listener, first time caller. Sorry that I didn't put the Ask YC (didn't know if it added it automatically or not).

I finally found a few potential cofounders, quit my job, and started working obsessively on my ideas. I'll have a demo in a few weeks and I need to make a decision about whether or not I actually want to go through with this.

My main concern is with the funding/stock/control issue. Ignorant or not, I (and the other founder hackers) need to have complete control over things from top to bottom. I am certainly open to suggestions & advice from a board, but the decisions ultimately have to rest with me.

In your experience, has this been an issue? Is this an unrealistic expectation?
It's not an unrealistic expectation at all, as long as you never raise a serious Series A. Once someone gives you a bunch of money, you have to listen to what they say, even if you still own 70% of the company.
But you've always got humans consuming it. When they evolve into an entirely new medium, that's a different problem, but there's a canonical 1-3 hour format in a medium-large room. DVDs now have bloopers and commentary, but they aren't anywhere nearly as valuable as the movie itself, so those are more error-resilient.

Incidentally, video understanding has been called the Inverse Hollywood problem, translating to scripts, and if you can just store the scripts that will generate the movie, you can do massively better video modeling and compression.
Do you need funding? If so, you're going to lose some control.

In all seriousness, the odds of finding an investor who will hand over money with no strings attached are miniscule -- most investors (quite reasonably) want to avoid the "I think I should get a big bonus this year... oh look, the company has run out of money, too bad guys" scenario. (And this scenario isn't necessarily quite so blatant -- sports teams, for example, are notorious for "losing" money while they funnel inflated contracts to other companies with the same owners.)

That said, not all companies need funding. Do you have enough money saved to let you survive while you write code? Can you avoid capital costs and long-term leases by working out of your home(s) and renting servers instead of buying computer hardware?

If you can bootstrap, do it. If not, accept that you're going to have to give up some control; and try to find the funding which will let you retain as much control as possible.
> "... we were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp."

I've never understood that mindset. Java is about the opposite direction from Lisp.

At least C++ has generic metaprogramming.
That's with historical proprietary formats.
Except you're storing data produced by yesteryear's computers with today's storage when you copy. Once a film is in the can it's static.

Today wins.
From what I've seen, most Angels will be fine in and "advisory" role, and don't expect to be given the right to make decisions for the company.

But with money raised by serious venture capital firms, they definitely expect more control. It isn't so much direct as it is indirect. The VC firms will have control over a significant portion (if not a majority) on the Board of Directors. As such, they'll likely have power to hire and fire top-level managers. Including yourself. Therefore, while you're not obligated to obey them, you'll be more inclined to follow their advice since your job is, essentially, in their hands.

That, in its essence, is why you should 1) avoid VC cash unless completely necessary, and 2) pick your VC firm carefully (don't always go with the highest valuation or biggest name).
This is a very silly article. Storage gets progressively cheaper. If it costs 2^18 dollars to store it today, it'll cost $2^17 to recopy it next year, $2^16 the year after that, and so forth.

Basically, if it costs N dollars today, it will cost roughly 2N dollars over its lifetime.
WebKit gets Native getElementsByClassName
Unless you have bona-fide, proven successes (plural), you'll probably end up losing ultimate control at some point, and it will probably be the best thing for everyone involved.

Why do you need to maintain control? Greed? Paranoia? The idea is too complex for others to understand? (note: none of these are good reasons ;) )

As a leader, you should always strive to ensure that you can be replaced, and that the company can and would continue without you. This is often a big hurdle for many entrepreneurs to wrap their head around, but it is almost always critical to the success of the company.

In the beginning, the founders maintain full control simply because they are the only ones that fully understand the idea and market. Over time, you need to do less innovation, and more operation of the business. Founders rarely make good full-time CEOs, and "professional CEOs" rarely make good founders, but they both play their part in the on-going success of the company.
SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark
(late, I know)

There are several Flexcar locations in my city, but the nearest is about a 1.5 mile walk. Not really convenient =(
Microsoft vs. Standards
Sounds like this guy just doesn't want to waste time.

You have to be reasonable if you expect good relations with someone. The developer should provide a higher estimate that provides a buffer for the uncertainty involved. Get a written spec before signing the contract.
How about a

- modern functional language with

- development and debugging tools as good as state of the art for imperative languages and

- a large and well maintained set of libraries that

- run on all major platforms and

- have a liberal distribution license (BSD/GNU/Apache/etc)
> Why do you need to maintain control? Greed? Paranoia? The idea is too complex for others to understand? (note: none of these are good reasons ;) )

Note that maintaining control is different from hoarding all the money. The people who understand it best should be in control, regardless of how much equity they give to investors. This is not just in the early stages -- look at Steve Jobs calling the shots at Apple.

> As a leader, you should always strive to ensure that you can be replaced, and that the company can and would continue without you.

That's just not how startups work, at ALL. Losing a founder basically dooms a startup.

It only applies much later on, when the company has a huge bankroll and a life of its own.
Most "truffle oil" is fake; most cooks don't realize it
In the sense that every human is one of the 7 billion best...
Javascript plugin that allows webpages to self-optimize
I created Genetify as a way to apply the power of natural selection to websites. I'd love to know what the news.yc community thinks of it.
I use OpenAds to run CPC ads on my sites (although I almost always run CPM - for small sites you rely too much on the advertiser producing ads with a decent CTR when you use CPC. If you use CPM, then it puts this pressure back on the buyer).

No problems at all with OpenAds (and phpAdsNew before it). Does everything I've ever needed over the past 3 years.
Drupal. Don't.
I didn't take it personally, I took it as a sign that I am not writing clearly.

Thanks.
Depends what you want to build...
1. Do you want to build a pretty state of the art community focused more on the content than on unique features - than it could be a good choice
2. Do you want to build a unique feature driven site? - maybe a traditional framework would be better
3. Do you want to take an agile development approach to building your community - it is a good choice

I would recommend putting your site concept out to the drupal community and getting advice from them (drupal.org)
I'd advise against it.

What do you really want to do? Wordpress can be surprisingly flexible. You might want to try that (w/ some plugins).
Evaluate the space before settling on Drupal -- if your friend has experience, it should make the evaluation that much easier. There are a number of high quality CMS systems available, and just being familiar with one isn't a sufficient reason to use it.

You may even find that a CMS doesn't provide much for you beyond what you can get with a nice framework in your language of choice, evaluate these before settling on the defaults at hand.

I've written some code in Drupal, and while it has many strengths, its level of abstraction away from just writing simple PHP code in my mind doesn't really differentiate it from a framework... and in the framework space, there are some nicer options available to you.
3 ways to maintain 100% control and 100% equity:

- borrow (credit cards, 2nd mortgage, family & friends)

- consulting gigs

- paying customers

In spite of all the talk about finance rounds, you CAN bootstrap and succeed. A little slower, a little surer.

It's a tradeoff. How fast you want to grow vs. how much you want to control. Your call.
Why did Albert Einstein hate freedom?
Top 5 FAILs of 2007
> Sounds like this guy just doesn't want to waste time.

:)

> You have to be reasonable if you expect good relations with someone. The developer should provide a higher estimate that provides a buffer for the uncertainty involved. Get a written spec before signing the contract.

Exactly. (Although if the client agrees to a certain project scope, I don't mind writing the spec for them to sign off on). The other side of it is, good clients should get more wiggle room, but you've got to have a strategy for avoiding horror stories.
> just being familiar with one isn't a sufficient reason to use it.

I'm not sure that's true. If you don't need a lot of power or obscure features then there's no lost functionality, and if you're already familiar, you have no learning curve.

I think that already knowing how to use it is a pretty good reason to use it.
Common Lisp: Who says libraries are a problem
> until some enterprising executive decided that the time was ripe for... a 25th-anniversary 3-D rerelease of "Barton Fink," with a hitherto unseen, behind-the-scenes peek at the Coen brothers trying to explain a Hollywood in-joke to John Turturro.

Man, I'd buy that in a second.
If you need the money, start integrating tasteful ads. Especially if ads are part of the intended eventual revenue model, getting them started early is more honest with your users, and starts your ad-optimization learning cycle. (In some cases, ads will even make a site look more professional/stable.)

If your userbase is such that it may react negatively, and you still need the money, consider a donation or subscription option. Or sell part of the venture, if the eventual upside can justify the trouble for you and risk for investors.
Webcam + cardboard = Joystick (vid)
If can consult with the same folks you want as customers there is a lot of synergy in your product development and you normally end up with better early cash flow and a better product. You don't provide much detail about the nature of your startup, but "small is beautiful" if you want to maintain control. Find a niche market that has a problem you bring unique value to.

Once it's more than just you in the startup--whether it's partners, employees, or customers--you will need to sell your ideas and to compromise to achieve your larger mission. If it's a work of art or a hobby then you can be in complete control and not worry whether it's salable or appreciated. But if it's a business it will involve negotiation and compromise.

The Japanese have a phrase "if he works for you, you work for him" that is a good precept when it comes to attracting and retaining employees. Many early stage startups are effectively volunteer organizations, so you need to think through how you are going to attract and retain the talent you need until you get to positive cash flow.

Borrowing money is a recipe for getting started but you have to have a realistic plan for how you will pay it back. This is why investors are so demanding as well, most don't really want to run your company, they just want a return on their investment.

In the end it's positive cash flow that allows you to maintain control, and whether it's from consulting or from product sales it's from paying customers. And they exercise a fair amount of control in their own way.

So if you want to be in control I would stop developing and start selling, making sure that someone wants to pay for what you are planning to build.
Pushdo - Analysis of a Modern Malware Distribution System
Yes. My "main" desktop machine died several months ago. I popped out the hard disk, put it in an external FireWire enclosure, and I plug it into my MacBook Pro when I'm at home. So now I'm 100% reliant on the laptop, and perfectly happy. I'll buy peripheral machines (iPhone, tablet, etc.), but I don't plan to buy another desktop.
Drive-By Debugging
Wikia Search private alpha live now; public launch jan 7
I don't understand everyones problem with PHP. If you don't like it, don't use it.

Plenty of interesting and useful apps have been built on PHP.
Yes, it's unrealistic.

Here are things that founders could do that might upset an investor:

1. Selling your company to someone else for a tiny sum.
2. Issuing stock in peculiar ways.
3. Issuing stock to yourselves without any vesting plan.
4. Jacking up your own compensation at the expense of runway.

Much of the "control" they want is to keep you from doing something unethical. Some of the control they want is to keep you from compromising their investment.

There are plenty of great stories where entrepreneurs had such a great idea/startup that they were able to push for pretty great terms (Google).

The best way to insure control is to insure that you don't NEED the investment.
Approach Drupal like it's the head cheerleader at your High School with a raging case of gonoherpesyphilaids.
Is there an opposite to absolute zero?
> I would recommend putting your site concept out to the drupal community and getting advice from them (drupal.org)

the advice from the drupal community WILL be to use drupal. there's no need to even ask.
When non-technologists write about technology: about The Economist's "Technology in 2008"
Django -- Django Reinhardt

Drupal -- RuPaul?
I don't understand your problem with constructive criticism. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Plenty of interesting and useful points have been raised, points from which the entire PHP community could benefit in the long run.
This made me think of that scene from "The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers" where Merry sets fire to one of the signal towers in Minas Tirith. (Or was it Pippin?)
Ads are acceptable though it may slow down site growth. If the ads don't get in the way of your users, they won't mind as much. Also, a donation button might be worthwhile as well; but don't expect it to make much money for you. Consider for example the sob story at the top of the page: http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/. Two donations out of 1,000 book downloads a month.

If you can add some extra/useful features to the site, why not setup a premium subscription? Set the price low to start and that will likely get more revenue this way.

Good luck!
I don't quite understand. Heat is a measure of the vibrational kinetic energy any individual molecule possesses as it travels along, right? So, shouldn't the maximum temperature just be whatever the unit conversion is for one C-per-oscillation? That is, at no time should a particle be able to be pushed by its vibration into a velocity greater than light, correct?
Interesting, it is reasonable to suspect that many brokerage houses (with billions invested in R&D and very intelligent individuals) are using the same approaches to the problems with the added benefit of a human driver behind the wheel. It seems to me that purely using automated approaches to investing (in this case, GP market timing) will always be inferior to the insights of intelligent investors coupled with intelligent computing, but that alone would be a major shift from most investors current practices.
I've used drupal quite a bit, and other frameworks and languages. My impressions:

THE GOOD: Drupal is great for rapid prototyping. It is the best CRM to use when you need flexibility in the core system. Have multiple types of "content objects" that you need to display and act differently within the confines of a single CRM? Want javascript markup in the titles of SOME kinds of content and not others? Selective preprocessing?

THE BAD: Drupal can be hell-on-earth when it comes to getting multiple modules working consistently. Expect "audio" attachments to work the same way as "video" attachments using the two modules? Forget it. If a project requires A LOT of modules you haven't coded to work happily together avoid drupal because you WILL have trouble and won't know how to fix it. And smooth upgrading is not really going to happen if you have to customize your site (which would be the reason to use Drupal in the first place).

The good outweigh the bad for sites that you want to get up-and-running, or evolve iteratively from a quick start. If you need something that is tremendously polished with easy javascript integration go with Ruby.
I originally posed this question with an additional condition -- you get $100M to invest in 10 startups that use this new language.

The point was to see if there was anything startups might have in common, in their language needs. Maybe the answer to that is "nothing", but I wonder.
Save some energy over the holidays
It's also a sure-fire way to fail. One thing nobody ever mentions about raising money: You're aligning your interests with some pretty powerful people. The fact is, nobody really wants you to succeed -- everybody is trying to make it themselves, too. But once you get investors, you get growth capital, advice, and a powerful ally, who knows people. The power of having other people who really want your business to succeed to can't be understated. It's:

- Good advice (with the right investor).

- Someone with connections who is constantly talking about you and trying to do good things for you.

- Another person you are accountable to (failure isn't just your own, that's too easy).

It all boils down to the type of business you are trying to make. If you'd be happy pulling in 200k of revenues after building a company for 2 years and being barely profitable with 2 full-time employees and other misc costs, then you might be able to bootstrap, maybe. If you're trying to grow a business fast, or grow a huge business, it's just not going to work.
Ask YC: What's out there?
What really cool stuff is out there that you think people should know about?

It could be a programming language, a web app, a new communications idea, anything that you think is really special.
GIYF. "Dimethylaminoethanol is related to choline and is a biochemical precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine" (ACh).

"In the central nervous system, ACh has a variety of effects as a neuromodulator, e.g. for plasticity and excitability. Other effects are arousal and reward."

Do you remember Andro (androstenedione, used to be available in stores, used by Mark McGwire)? It's a testosterone precursor. Your liver converts it to testosterone (and also some amount converts to estrogens). So a neurotransmitter precursor would seem to be a bit like steroids for the brain.

Not sure how external supplementation affects endogenous neurotransmitter production, but with hormone precursors the biofeedback loop tells your endocrine system to stop its own production. E.g. if you take testosterone, your body shuts down its own production (when your testosterone level hits a certain point, your body thinks "oh, that's enough for now" and hits the off-switch on your testicles. This turns off ALL their functions, so it's actually also a form of birth control. And since they aren't doing anything, they atrophy).

Fun note: Your body tries to keep your testosterone:estrogen ratio at about 50:1 (for young men). So if you take androgenic steroids, your body increases its own estrogen production. Once you hit a certain absolute amount of estrogen, you're growing breast tissue.

Then you are a man. With titties.

(Bodybuilders combat this by using certain steroids that don't aromatize into estrogen as much, and also using anti-estrogens that either bind to the aromatase enzyme to stop conversion into estrogen, or bind to the actual estrogen receptor sites like Clomid. One interesting effect of Clomid -- that makes it attractive to male porn stars -- is it causes big pop shots.)
Queen Elizabeth II launches her own Royal Channel on YouTube
How to send 400,000 member-requested e-mails a week
Great info. Here is how one guy implemented many of these ideas and more about a year ago.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=92359
Merry Christmas, everyone
Try not to bring your laptop to the dinner table.
Quote: "While I used to be disgusted at AOL's and Yahoo's plan to start charging email senders to deliver their messages, considering the money we have to spend to stay in their good graces, we would now prefer to simply pay in advance for our emails to be delivered and know that they will."
> Since I have a really terrible memory, I would jump on a memory drug in an instant.

I also have a terrible.... umm... what's it called...

Oh, look, a pony!
As a college undergrad (yes, I profess my status as a CS underling) doing a senior thesis in GA, I have read some papers on this GA's applied to trading. The dirty secret that these papers do not tell you is that: genetic algorithms are quite stochastic, meaning that they can evolve quite varying quality of technical trading rules, depending on the mood of the CS God during any particular evolution trials.

And these papers' results, in the interest of the authors who wrote them, will only tell you the best trial run that they have gotten - but the trouble is: out in the real world, judging your trading agent's performance is not by running hundreds of GA trials on historical stock data and publishing the best results; but you have gotta put your money where your GA technical rules tell you, whether the rules evolved are sub-optimal or not.
Do you see the message show up in the maillog/mail.log when you send that way? And, is it coming from a user that has a working mailbox (for bounces)? If both of those are true, then you're on the right track. Get DNS right, and your mail will probably work fine.
Not without first class functions, it aint. And don't give me no guff about create_function().
Why?

Part of being in the limelight is dealing with the nutjobs that come out of the woodwork. If Kathy Sierra isn't comfortable/can't handle/plain spooked by the effects of the spotlight, why would I want to pressure her back into it?

She had a great blog, but let her lead her life the way she feels is right, and not be selfish.
i suggest that you checkout Zend Framework and #zftalk on freenode while you are at it...
I'm out here. I think I'm pretty cool.
As a friend of mine has pointed out to me repeatedly, the quality of the Economist's reporting has decreased substantially since they vamped up their online offerings, often pushing stories before they are ready and without the reflection that was the signature of the Economist. This piece is especially disappointing.
They have blogging horses now? :-O

(I feel so 2007 all of a sudden....)
> In the experimental condition, the researchers prompted thoughts of God using a well-established "priming" technique: participants, who again included both theists and atheists, first had to unscramble sentences containing words such as God, divine and sacred.

> [...]

> In a second study, the researchers had participants unscramble sentences containing words like civic, contract and police -- meant to evoke secular moral institutions.

Conclusion: sentence-unscrambling induces generosity.
The problem here is that evolution optimizes for the conditions in which the organism evolved.
Hey, that's how the Funding Awards work, too! ;-)