skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No, if you stay at a Universal owned hotel you get to skip the lines on all rides at Universal theme parks as many times as you want. Outside guests can buy this feature for around $40 a day but you are only allowed to skip the line in each ride once.

Disney's virtual queuing system, called Fastpass, does not create different classes of users. The only people that get special privileges are those that are doing something like Make a Wish or winners of a contest and these extremely limited superpasses don't impact overall wait times. The advantage given to Disney guests is that on each day a park will be open one hour early and up to three hours late. This isn't that much of a benefit during peak times because the park that was open early will have more guests than the other parks and you have to get up an hour early for optimal touring. The late hours aren't that much of an advantage because everyone wants to stay late in the park.

A naive perspective on Disney's Fastpass is that it doesn't actually impact total waiting time because the standby lines will take twice as long. This is incorrect because Fastpass lets the Disney engineers redistribute traffic however they want, which measurably reduced wait times for the most popular rides right after the implementation of Fastpass. Wait times are still higher than they've ever been though, because park attendance keeps going up. Disney is a profit machine.

For more information about waiting in line at Disneyworld, I strongly recommend Industrial Engineer Bob Sehlinger's The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, whatever the latest edition is. He also mapped out a mathematically near-optimal plan for riding every single ride at the Magic Kingdom in one day. I really want to try doing that one day.
Oops -- the "Software Technologies" above was a subconscious mental correction from "SoftLAYER Technologies".
Just having a body to fill the seat is not, I repeat not, always a win for the company.

No kidding. Hmm. Interesting.

Anyone who has been a developer or managed developers can tell you that an expert can accomplish as much as 10 average developers.

Anyone who has already heard the standard cliche could and perhaps would tell you that also. Of course, the reason Brooks originally said "10" rather than "9" or "11" is because that is how many fingers we have, and it would be odd if that number somehow corresponded to a programmer ability ratios.

In fact,

...the ratio is often incalculable, depending on the task. Average programmers simply won't be able to complete certain tasks. Easy tasks, like CRUD apps, are more a matter of typing speed than thinking speed, and so a 10:1 ratio isn't likely to happen...unless one programmer is good enough to force a paradigm shift...whether moving assembler to COBOL or Flat files to SQL to ORM or whatever. In that case, the productivity gain is 1000000:1 or more...if the innovation spreads beyond that one task.
I mean the people who used the suggestion would be upset because it seems that the person suggesting it said he would not pursue it.
An aggregator for social news sites with a recommendation engine to feed you stories you like.
Depends on how many Jessica Albas your site comes with...
NYC is getting pretty good startup vibe. Check out www.alleyinsider.com, www.nextny.org, and a bunch of startup-related Meetups.
Portability (python isn't nearly as portable as C), performance (there are some parts of my code which are very performance-critical), security (the most likely avenue of attack is via side channels; C allows me to make sure that the compiler isn't being clever in stupid ways), and familiarity (I've been using C for the past decade).
That would make the guy in question an idiot.
Some sort of Web application to actually help with coming up with startup ideas. I knocked at this for a month or two, but couldn't come up with a decent solution. The best I got was some sort of database of user-generated customer pains, which would be ranked (social news style) by users at large. The theory was that once you knew which pain you were targeting, coming up with the solution (second half of the idea) would be easier.

If anyone thinks this problem is even solvable, and wants to work to come up with a good solution, send me an email at keshavs@berkeley.edu - I would actually love to implement something like this.
Oh come on let's get off our high horse and accept the fact that there will be people who are going to use IE no matter what. I believe it is our job as web developers ergo Hackers to try very very hard to make our software easy to use as much as possible and make it work on the widest variety of browsers as much as possible. Which means staying up late at night to find a way for our apps work on all major browsers including IE. When I develop I have four browsers open at the same time (FF, IE7, Opera and Safari). Yeah I know it pisses us off to no end when IE doesn't play nice (which will always do in some point). But I can't just go to sleep when I find a bug in my software...no matter how small or big it is.
Yes, you should have. Go do your reading :-)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700
Beijing - home to Sina, Sohu, Google China, IBM Software Lab, Microsoft and two world class universities (Tsinghua and Beijing University). There are also tons of smaller startups started by both native Chinese entrepreneurs as well as foreigners. The energy level is incredible there.
Here's one, but if no one does it and it's feasable, some day I might. I'd like to implement a large continual self-report study via email for the public good. Via an email every day or so, data is slowly gathered from participants--all anonymized in a number of ways. The emails would be questions proposed by researchers or lifestyle data to look for correlations with product use, habits, physical traits and disease incidence. For example, looking back in time, thalidomide use and birth defects would be one type of correlation that you might hope to pick up, or perhaps more recently certain shampoos (with ingredient X) might correlate with infertility. Yes you would have to be thorough and careful about the anonymization, but I think the benefits could be there.

Correlation is not causation, though, and the nature of correlating a number of factors dictate you would get many false alarms. However, like a metal detector, the clues for new things to look at would be worth the false alarms. The idea of all this would be to give researchers new targets and areas of research, all free and open.

Thoughts? Impediments?
I still think Web 2.0 is missing some kind of app aggregator. Something that would both improve the findability of applications, and allow them to be plugged together similar to what yahoo pipes does with RSS. However, without some kind of standardization amongst the apps, this is way too complex to implement.

And creating a trusted distributed computing system on facebook, where clients would compete to have users give their programs highest priority. On a simple analysis, while this would not be a very dependable system, it seems cheaper than Amazon's service at $1 an hour per core. Plus, this could be made more complex by integrating a contract system - clients can promise a certain payout based on the results of their program, kind of like the lottery.
I like it. Maybe also standardizing the way of phrasing input so as to make it somewhat machine understandable?

Another idea to go along with this that I've thought cool would be to create a wikipedia like system where people logically state their info and arguments in a machine understandable format. The machine would then crunch everything and tell people what the contradictions and possible truths were in the overall system of thought, or particular sub systems.

Combining these two systems could make a very powerful research tool.
Could this be a regular feature of YC? Even with Google, it's hard to find some of the articles in the past, and this is a valuable thing to keep track of.
Don't start a company with someone you have a relationship with (companies tend to outlive them and then you're stuck with awkwardness).
After reading over my question and some of your replies, it's clear I was too vague.

I'm looking at something that will (ideally) have tens of thousands of concurrent users each using a good amount of bandwidth and server resources. I'm thinking separate login and application servers, as well as load balancing for the back end.

Is anything in particular well suited for this? The two languages I was initially planning on choosing between were C++ and Java, although obviously I wouldn't be bound to one language for the entire project. Or is there some kind of framework designed with something like that in mind?
Since you can use 120 words per response, why don't you just give more of an answer than a six to eight digit number?

It's probably in your favor that you're even considering different situations under which you would sell the company.
I've always wanted to be able to write notes on top of emails I receive. So say I receive an email about a new bug, I could just jot down more details into another layer on top that email in transparent font/colour. I've noticed other people often print out emails and do something like this with a red marker.

I use Thunderbird and I've thought about digging around in the source to see if this is possible. It's not something I've found time to do though.
I had not seen this before; thank you!
This is just a rough approach, but lets say that you want to sell your company for 100K, assuming YC owns 10% they will earn 10K (but YC invested around 15K + on your startup), What do you think they should do?
I'm pretty sure it's a severely limited resource.
That's a pretty nifty idea. I frequently use email as my todo list (though I really shouldn't...I've been trying to do the email zero thing, but I'm back up to 1000 or so messages in my box again, two weeks after starting).
PR Stats...there's a blast from the past.
So many counter examples to this, I'd be more interested in a single example demonstrating your point.
perl says, '$_="krJhruaesrltre c a cnP,ohet";$_.=$1,print$2while s/(..)(.)//;'
[New Feature] Give Your Feedback on Newly Launched Sites...
Was this a different link earlier? I read this article a while ago (and liked it a lot). But the link I read from this post earlier today was about the coolness of the Atkins diet and was not nearly as good. Whappen?
A web-based interface for building and managing shaders for 3D apps and renderers. Features would include a node-based shader builder, plugins for the various 3D packages (Maya, Max, Houdini, XSI, etc), suppport for the various shading languages (RSL, VEX, mental ray, Cg, etc), and user groups and permissions. Think sourceforge for 3D artists, small studios without the ability to roll their own management solutions would like this.

Workflow is like this: user creates shader using node editor (think Maya's Hypershade, but Ajaxified...), then sets permissions for the shader. Any user with permission to use the shader can see it from the plugin for his app of choice on his machine and use it. The user sets the renderer that he wants to use, the shader is compiled on the server and sent down the pipe to the user. That way, source code is kept in the hands of the people who created it. Scene renders.

I would love to build something like this, but it requires a lot more CS knowledge than I have. So if you think it's cool, roll with it and invite me to the private beta.
I'll spare Drew the bother of telling you he aced that section.
Paul:

Look out, oldsters with all your real world money and stuff, Reality 2.0 is on its way, and it doesn't look good for slow-moving dinosaurs. I, for one, welcome our new 20-something overlords. I cross-posted on your piece to http://blog.innovators-network.org The Innovators Network is a non-profit dedicated to bringing technology to startups, small businesses, non-profits, venture capitalists and intellectual property experts. Please visit us and help grown our community!

Best wishes for continued success,

Anthony Kuhn
Innovators Network
I bet this is the best objective measure of someone's "take-over-the-world" factor. If you have the balls to submit an app with $15 billion, you're pretty likely to have the balls to try to get there. The IRL interview'll sort out whether you're crazy smart or crazy dumb.
I'd take such an action as a declaration of war on my own free will, and act accordingly.
My answer was:

>In the millions. However, if we got an offer in the millions after three months it would make great economic sense to wait another nine months for a better offer.
You get to meet investors that are interested in Facebook apps through the class. This is Stanford.
Probably an equity question too. If you demo in March and look for funding, your answer is your valuation. Write $4mil, VC gives you 2mil, they get 50%.
Thoughts? The correct analogy is not a metal detector, but a needle in a haystack. I think you misunderestimate the amount of false leads you get doing this by several orders of magnitude. If your system generates too many false leads, it will be (to borrow an analogy from Bruce Schneier, who you should read every week, and writes about false alarms in the context of airport security) like adding more hay to a haystack with a missing needle.

Impediments? People lie about their habits. People do not accurately remember things throughout the day. How to deal with missed days? If people miss days for different reasons, how do you deal with those gaps. You have to assume that the days they miss would be different enough from days they don't miss to invalidate the data of people who miss days.
could you mention a few places to check out the startup action ?
This is something I've wanted for a while too. Interestingly enough, Guy Kawasaki posted this just the other day (he's on their advisory board): http://www.feedhub.com/

Disclaimer: I haven't given it a thorough evaluation yet
awesome, S3 is one step closer to being a true CDN.
We're Committed to One "Nine" of Reliability! (tm)
Ten Questions with PostSecret's Frank Warren
My partner and I are really struggling with this question. We first answered with the absolutely lowest amount we'd take (250k), but after thinking about it, we've decided to revise. Our answer is now along the lines that we can't possibly know how much we'd sell for. We would have to reevaluate the company if someone makes us an offer, so any number we give now is pretty much meaningless. I think the amount depends on so many variables that we just can't predict.
Ours is RackForce.
Startups Cooperative: Workable or Pie in the Sky Fantasy?
As you know, the idea behind the corporation is the pooling of assets by many individuals to provide greater operating money and to spread out the risk of failure among the group. Could such a collective approach work for startups?

The idea here is less like a corporation and more of a cooperative bent. Each individual startup is still independently run and operated. However, because infrastructure can be troublesome and expensive, some sort of sharing agreement is in play. Instead of everyone writing all the components necessary to make their own startup function, such an arrangement opens up the possibility for code reuse. Granted if the component is a vital part of what makes your startup valuable or unique, it would not be reasonable to share it. Authentication code, web GUI frameworks, database(s) and the like seem like reasonable candidates for this sort of arrangement. Labor pooling and/or sub-contracting possibilities may also be viable as well.

Obviously, two startups in competition would not be ideal candidates for such a strategic partnership. However, companies using similar platforms and languages could benefit tremendously from such an approach.

One last thing of note, cooperation may also be useful in matters of platform creation. Consider the possibilities for say a purveyor of blogging systems, a photo hosting service, and a collaborative news service to join forces and build a common social graph to compete against Facebook, Google and Myspace.

I realize people don't usually get along very well together. However, some frameworks (like constitutional government) have succeeded in the past. So what do you think, is this idea totally ridiculous?
Hi trekker, if you are interested in pursuing a subset of your idea, I might be able to provide you a canvas for testing it.

We are developing an app that solves a narrow but significant pain point for ecommerce merchants, As we deploy the app to our beta testers, they will all want to add new features. The dilemma we will face is this: which feature should we pick? The answer - and your opportunity - lies in coming up with an algorithm that picks the right feature based on analyzing three factors: (1) the pervasiveness of the pain across the user base, (2) the magnitude of the pain, and (3) our own resource limitations.

Once you apply your algorithm successfully to our app, you should be able to extend it to other apps. If you succeed, this could be boon to the beta community all over the world, and a major success for you.
Top Books for Entrepreneurs. List them.
You mean like diffle.com?
The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steven Gary Blank
Justin.tv lifecaster banned for life for having sex on camera
This has come up a couple times before. However, specifically for entrepreneurs, the books to read are:

1) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
2) Musashi's The Book of Five Rings
3) Gonzo Marketing by Christopher Locke
4) Getting Things Done by David Allen
5) What Management Is by Joan Magretta

There are other books, but less relevant in a business context.
I do just that with mutt. To add notes to an email hit 'e' and it fires up the raw email in emacs (or your favorite editor). Just add comments and save it.

Mutt doesn't have a fancy UI but it is fast. It has no problem handling the 150k+ in my inbox (mostly unread). I know some people that swear by pine and for all the same reasons. YMMV.
You've just mentioned my reservation about London: because cost of living - a startup's main costs in the beginning - is so much higher than the rest of Europe, your increased burn rate would have to be justified by increased opportunities. Or are all startup hubs expensive to live in?
Thanks prakster. Your comment got me thinking again... a subset like this may be feasible after all. Shoot me an email if you'd like to stay in touch.
A little background on why you should care: AtomPub is a REST protocol for creating and updating "things" on the web. The primary use case is content management - blog entries, wiki pages, anything with a title and content - but it's really very general.
DNA Gene Targeting Innovation Wins Medical Nobel
a site where you can use GIMP 2.0 plug-ins like fake lomos, holga effects etc. Fotoflexer does this using it's Warholize effect but it's limited to that. Maybe the site can have apps/plugins integrated into it by user ala-Facebook so that you can have a library of effects after a few months built by the users
Twitter of success
There's a few online GIMP/Photoshop type apps already. Most are done in flash and work pretty well.

One of their advantages is that plugins are (of course) run on their servers, and thus even low powered desktops could have their filters be applied instantly.
Smart Startups - David Silver

A great read for web entrepreneurs.
hi trekker - I'm part of secure online payment gateway in Asia and we're slowly introducing ecommerce all over Asia - we know about the "pains" of birthing something like this - maybe we can collaborate? email me paulpajo [at] gmail
I talked around this question. Not on purpose...I was just in a hurry and ended up misinterpreting it as something along the lines of, "what do you need your startup to be doing in three months", or something (I dunno what I was thinking...but my answer kinda makes sense in that context). We got to the interview, anyway.

So, I don't think any one question is going to kill your chances. Show that you know how to think about the value of your business idea, that you have the capacity to build your idea, and that you are willing to build it. Everything else is gravy. I suspect clear and concise sentences go very far, as well.
This is a sound business decision, right? I wonder if this is dictated by their investors or their potential clients.
Not related to the story: Is it just me or the the width of this page annoyingly big? Seems that the pre-tag on the comment by maurycy kills text wrapping for those lines and thus makes all the text really wide = not easy to read.

Screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/B65U14h4e
An obscure query string.
yeah, this is an annoying bug, it is worth making the <code> blocks wrap to get rid of it
Sounds handy, but I'm still having trouble caring all that much. What's something actually interesting that people do with it?
Oops, did you just add a zero there?

Instead of 100K you're aiming at 1MM?

I'm working on a subscription based web site, I like the challange and this will help me to motivate myself to work extra on making it fast!

Thanks! I like the idea.
Audio for the talk will be up in a few days
It's been a while since I've flogged this:

http://www.squeezedbooks.com

I bought a lot of those books because they seemed good or came with recommendations.
Internet Marketing Search Engine by Google Custom Search
By using this search engine You can find information related to: Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. It's example of using Google Custom Search.
Don't make them wrap, just use style="overflow: scroll".
30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of
I always considered absolute minimum to be about N x 4 x 10^5 dollars (where N is number of founders). This is just because $400k is enough to support my current lifestyle on interest alone, and would allow me that much-dreamt-of freedom from the tyranny of bosses if I choose.

The site I'm working on is more niche than broad, so my sale goal is N x 2 x 10^6.

However, I think that I am strange in really hoping my site actually generates cashflow once it's up and going, and I don't have to constantly look for funding or an acquirer.
No, not quite, it's missing the pluggable architecture. It would be analogous to yahoo pipes, but apply to general apps, not just rss feeds. It'd be kind of like gluing together stuff in *nix, except in a way the web savvy crowd can.
Welcome to the real world!
I agree. I was amazed that she mentioned using version control. Anyone here not using version control?

John.
maybe i'm misunderstanding you, but the question is hypothetical and your response isn't shared anywhere outside the app. (i.e. you're not binding yourself to anything by claiming a particularly high or low valuation)

on another note, your company's valuation is determined by what people are willing to pay :)
Here's one for a FireFox plugin.

The aim is to record articles where you submitted a comment and to be able to track follow-ups.

The plugin has to detect HTTP POST.
It could ask the user if he wants to save the page or have an automated process that removes logins and other unrelated actions.
Most UI problems are a lack of interoperability. All solved with emacs and flat text.
What would that style do, exactly?
That's cool. Someone really needs to close the email, chat, blog, etc gap. They're really all the same thing, just with slightly different purposes in mind. Collaboration would be so much greater if each wasn't stovepiped into it's own solution.
Combine email, chat, blogging, etc. into one real time system on facebook. Everyone's going to want to start communicating there anyways, since the trust network keeps out spamminess. (I think someone said something similar last time)
I do use email as my TODO list, but I publish the length of the queue for all to see. Makes me deal with stuff just knowing that anyone could be looking.

http://www.jgc.org/blog/2007/06/measuring-my-inbox-depth.htm...

John.
not everyone in college maybe technical enough at the point to just read the documentation...
>Most UI problems are a lack of interoperability.

Most of your UI problems are a lack of interoperability.