skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
MIT students being badass on the big screen -- the '21' movie trailer (Bringing Down The House)
This is a good sales process overview. Startups typically face two additional challenge with their early sales: they can't be sure if they have the right product (or an adequate feature set) and they can't be sure if they have the right message. They may also lack sales skills but early adopters are more tolerant of that if they can figure out what you have. Two good books on technology sales process that are worth reading for additional background are

Spin Selling by Neil Rackham

Solution Selling by Mike Bosworth
I would be surprised if they don't turn it into a document reader. Didn't they mention the ability to send documents to it? What format is needed?

I'm sure there is a way to get even DRMed PDFs into the right format, though most people won't know how or won't bother.
You have to email the files to a pre-specified address and they convert it into the native format and push it to your device. There is a 10 cent charge per file to do this. It seems PDF conversion isn't supported (at least from reading the manual I found on Amazon) but that may change.
Paying $10 to put the 100 ebooks you've purchased into this reader is reasonable after paying hundreds for the device.
The last episode was absolutely brilliant. The last 6 minutes was heartbreaking and so well done.
Think of it this way. If apple suggested that you can transfer AAC files to the ipod for free but you have to pay 10 cents per MP3 you want to transfer, would you like it?

Turns out there is a free alternative but it sucks (takes 15 minutes per file)..and that's now without the system being overloaded.

Worse news...no PDF support, not even via email

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just-le...

Also, what makes you think that I purchase all my documents? What about papers I have downloaded off the web for free? Technical documents? Reports? God. The device has USB. It has an SD card. It has EVDO. But I can't transfer my DOC and PDF files directly without waiting for 15 minutes and/or paying 10 cents per file?
How do *you* sell? A tale of two Mikies
Just wrote this article - would love any discussion on your experience of being an engineer turned sales/business developer and how you improved!
I don't people have as many ebooks as they have mp3s. A better comparison might be $0.10 per artist.

But you're right. No PDF support is idiotic.

[edit: a tool to print an ebook to a textfile makes this easy]
Nick Bostrom on how humans treat unlikely catastrophic events.
rVibe makes your music library streamy, viral
Samantha:

In one of my earliest post, I wrote about what makes startup fail (or succeed).

http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2007/09/why-startups-fa.html

What I have learned in the last five years turns to be very different from what I have learned in the five years before that. When there was a viable market for startups (i.e., robust IPO and M&A opportunities), the limitation often had to do with money. But when there is no market (i.e., no liquidity) for startups (as it is now), success has to do with a viable market for the product.

So it seems to me that it doesn't really matter if you are a lawyer or a "hacker", as long as you are the "surrogate" customer and knows intimately what your targeted customers want and what their pain points. Then having a "hacker" as a partner is important only so far as he/she will be the one to implement the product idea and is in fact, quite "interchangeable".

Good luck.

--Denny--

Denny K Miu
1.Build bot  2.Molest bot  3.????  4.Profit
Ask YC: RFP for carbon calculator ecommerce site?
I work for a renewable energy company that wants to start selling carbon offsets on the internet. The site would basically consist of a calculator to figure out the carbon emissions from a flight, etc., and would then allow you to "retire" an equivalent amount by purchasing offsets from us. I have programming experience but frankly this whole ecommerce world seems very complicated. What would it take to put a site like this together, what resources do you guys use (e.g., not spam baiting), and is anyone out there looking for work?
BTW, whoever downmodded this, it wasn't sarcasm;

Sometimes I don't understand what gets somebody downmodded around here.
How about you actually help the environment, rather than sell indulgences?
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/02...

Perhaps you could setup a social network where engineers doing research into making alternative energy viable post profiles. Users hoping to reduce their footprint could help support the research -- something like kiva.org for the first world.

Funding a few post-docs to make an efficient solar cell will matter more in the long run than all carbon offsets combined.
Bottleneck to what? The bottleneck to success is the idea. Without a good idea, you have nothing.
I would conduct phone interviews asking people to brainstorm in real-time. I would then invite the most promising candidates to an interview where they would be asked to do more brainstorming in real-time.
Thanks for the feedback. While I agree that carbon offsets can seem like a guilt-eraser, I believe they're just another "wedge" in trying to reduce our impact. As I mentioned above my company is a renewable energy consultancy - we help clients get more efficient with their energy use, and then cut their use of fossil fuels through solar and wind technologies. We even make biodiesel from waste cooking oil.
Until we can fly jets without burning petroleum products, I think offsetting is a great way to supplement all the other efforts.
I read books (PDFs) on my iPhone these days. It's excellent and the resolution is amazing. Like you said, no PDF support is a dealbreaker.
Make it available to customers, even users that don't read source code will get a "warm and fuzzy" knowing that other users can and may have.
Flow Chart of Procrastination
PS As someone who supports Kiva, I think this is a great idea (and I've thought previously that this should exist) - Who wants to start it?
Rumor: Skype4Sale? Google A Buyer?
The marginal dollar spent to help the environment is best spent on research to make alternatives cheaper than carbon producing fuels.

This means that a reasonable consultancy would always advocate simply spending money on such research.

Things like compact florescent light bulbs are becoming popular. Why? Because there is a cost savings in power over regular light bulbs, NOT because they are good for the environment. Reuse and reduction of unnecessary energy is a good thing. Money spent on alternatives that don't scale into a global solution is money wasted.

But I didn't actually answer your question: what is involved in building such a site?

Briefly, software engineers build up a back end in a language like Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby. They are supported by databases like mysql or sqllite. They run on servers rented in a hosted configuration or purchased and installed at a co-location facility like an ISP. The front end involves HTML, javascript, and maybe some Flash. It also involves work to ensure the interaction design makes sense so people know how to use your site.

I answer so generally because your site isn't doing anything too difficult. Lots people could make it.

You'll want to hire people to get this done. Job boards like dice.com might be the way to go, but hiring good people is generally a hard problem.
I'd be interested in hearing more about what you're doing. Send me an email or post back here.
Try Scriptlance or RentACoder.

If you're looking for examples of implementations, greenmountainenergy.com has a good one, the EPA has calculator (and data tables for download), sterlingplanet.com has one, nativeenergy.com has one, carbonfund.org has one, terrapass.com is another. Some of the data they're using comes from the transportation energy data book (or digital versions thereof), WRI GHG calculations or ISO 14000 series environmental management methods.

The rest of the problem is the credibility of the verification of the demonstration of additionality of the offsets. Try to adhere to The Gold Standard.

Hopefully you knew most of that already.
Hi,

I have looked into writing something like this before. In my case the technology was not difficult to do. The problem we had was regulation, auditing and the fact that no-one could agree which formulas to use. Different studies take different approaches and in our case it was a constant fight between scientists and the government. Banking these credits was also an issue.

If you have above 3 problems sorted out, writing something like this won't impossible.
Hear VC Feedback
The best indication of a VC's interest is direct feedback. While some VCs will offer this feedback without being prompted, you may have to ask others (and it is OK to ask). If a VC gives you feedback, listen to it. Don't hear what you want to hear, hear what they say no matter how unpleasant it might be...
Ask YC:  What new technologies are you exploring?
What are you tinkering with? What are you exploring? What are the technologies that really interest you?
Hamsters and snakes can be friends[0]. Anything is possible.

Hackers and lawyers are often at odds because the hackers want to do something interesting that could be a threat to someone else's profits. That person hires lawyers to stop the hackers. Within the same organization, hackers and lawyers are often on opposite sides because the lawyer's job is to avoid risks while the hacker's job is to seek opportunity.

If you can avoid or limit the latter problem, you should be ok as far as fundamental sources of conflict go. YC is a good place to look, but you'll probably have to open up about your idea a bit more than most people want to in order to attract quality hackers.

[0] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10903211/
Many thanks, thats helpful
Thankyou too.
"The Nobel Peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report yesterday summarizing over 5 years of scientific research on the impacts and future predictions of climate change. It is not an uplifting read but important that everyone understand the scientific consensus.

"What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."
- Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC

The paragraph from the report that I found most revealing was the following:

"Climate change is likely to lead to some irreversible impacts. There is medium confidence that approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature increase exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees C (relative to 1980-1999). As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5 degrees C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe."

The IPCC's economic analyses say that trend can be reversed at reasonable cost. Indeed, it says, there is "much evidence that mitigation actions can result in near-term co-benefits (e.g. improved health due to reduced air pollution)" that may offset costs."

While I agree that research is necessary, it takes a long time. There are already a lot of grants and VC money going into greentech, but more money doesn't always correlate to faster progress (as all of you know).
The book read so much like an action movie that I thought they wouldn't have to change it much to make a movie out of it. I was wrong.
A Creative Proposal for Solving the Israel/Palestine Problem
I do not disagree with Zak.

However, stereotype has its limits in startups. My own experience is that most formal training is counter-productive when it comes to running a startup and all of us need to "unlearn" whether we are a lawyer or a hacker.

I summarized my observation as the following ...

"Anyone can be an entrepreneur but they must not have the mindset of a lawyer, an engineer ("hacker") or a doctor.

First of all, there are always more than two sides to an issue and often the right place is to be is in the middle - an option that a lawyer does not have. Also, there is not always an answer to every question; or if there is an answer, it might not be unique. So waiting for perfect data to arrive at a perfect solution is a luxury that I don't have as an entrepreneur. If that bothers me, then I should go back to being an engineer. Finally, as an entrepreneur, I often have to shoot my patient (and I have)."

http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2007/10/vc-worst-enemy.html

Hope this helps.

--Denny--

Denny K Miu
another problem i see with both is price.

segway - approx $3000 when portable scooters, roller blades, skateboards, and bikes were a lot cheaper and more convenient

kindel - iphones and even laptops are cheaper, look better, and give you more features. hell even the sony book reader is cheaper

at $400 the kindle is competing with ooma for most expensive new useless product
Injured wife and sick baby. Try reasoning your way out of that one!
I'm confused too. If that point was worth downmodding, it should be worth discussing.
Maybe I'm confused about this, but how would making the two US states solve the problem that the Palestinans (Hamas) want to eliminate the Jewish state entirely? I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this either.
I'm not sure if this was meant to be humorous or not, but it's certainly provocative. So I voted it up. I have no idea whether we can discuss mideast peace on the board in terms of hacking, but it is interesting to see it tried.

I've talked about this subject a lot on the boards. It's one of those emotionally-charged issues where it can degenerate quickly. But it's also a fascinating look into how people act to one another, and what values are important to a society. Definitely not hacking/startup related -- but interesting.
You, I, or anyone else who attempts this, would make a sincere effort to assess their brainstorming abilities. What we would end up with, though, is an assessment of how similar their ideas are to ours. Ideas like ours will sound best.
Most of this was actually shot on BU's campus. The scene where they're learning how to play was shot in the basement of Mugar (BU's main library).

Apparently MIT doesn't look enough like MIT...
has anyone started hacking away at OpenSocial?
What the heck does this have to with hacker news?
For Good Will Hunting they shot at a local high school. The Infinite Corridor suddenly had lockers!
Great idea...in 1938.
Not me, but one of the bloggers I follow has been hacking away at it

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FractalsOfChange/~3/179825426...
yea i thought the book was a good enough. i saw a discovery channel special about it, and they just made stuff up and left important details out.
When I first came across this I did a total double take. I can't come up with an obvious reason that this proposal is a bad idea, but it just viscerally seems like the wrong thing to do. Maybe that's just the culturally standard biases clouding my judgment though.

As for whether this is appropriate here:

"The focus of Hacker News is going to be anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes a lot more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

I don't mean to turn this into Hacker Politics, and maybe this is really pushing the limits of what is appropriate here, but I think this proposal is a weird and stimulating idea. I'll leave this up to the management to decide.
Wouldn't this result in terrorists -- now US citizens -- seeking independence from the US? It would allow them to more easily carry out bombings anywhere in the US.
"I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that's like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense."
I plan on using the OLPC XO as an ebook reader. It's got a dual mode screen for full color indoors and grayscale in sunlight outdoors.

Since it runs Linux I'm sure it could handle pretty much any format you throw at it, given the right software.

$400 (including donation of a laptop to a child), so same price, but can do a hell of a lot more. Plus it looks cool. Plus you're donating a laptop to a child.

One week left... http://laptopgiving.org/
In other words. Don't save the fun for your old age. Just do it(tm). Now.
After having explored "new technologies" since my graduation in 99, I paused myself and has started moving back in time, discovering things like Lisp, Smalltalk, vim and bash. I picked up Python and rediscovered a beauty of a simple text file without XML garbage. All of that feels very "fresh" to me after years with COM-ActiveX/Win32/XML/XSLT/XPath/.NET and other "ex-new" tech.

Besides, what is "new"? MVC has been something of revelation to most web "engineers".

In fact (or maybe it comes with age) I started to dislike new stuff, like Flash/Flex/Air. I see a great danger of "web runtime" being controlled by a company. If they won't stop, Adobe will soon become "Microsoft of the Web" because they'll be controlling "Web OS". This is why I want AIR to fail and I hope that more web applications stick to HTML/CSS/JavaScript as opposed to moving to Adobe world.

For same reasons I always stayed away from Java. Same applies to Silverlight.

I do like D though (the language). But the author made two crucial mistakes that will inevitably hurt this beautiful systems programming language: he picked a name that does not work with search engines at all, and he decided to control too much - won't even let other people to distribute binaries of his compilers.
I'm reminded of the Dilbert cartoon where Bob the Dinosaur, representing stupid people, has a solution to every problem:
"If people are starving in Africa they should move to France!"
This device is dead on arrival.

It uses the same small 6.4", 800x600 screen as the Sony Reader and has a resolution of 167 dpi. Low quality print is at 600 dpi or more.

Even if it supports PDF format, you wouldn't want to try reading pdf documents on it because you'd either have to shrink a page down to 35% or so of the full size (so it fits fully on the screen) or only render 1/3 of a page at a time.

Finally, for $400, this thing is ridiculous. It's interesting that Motorola in their low-cost cell phones (the Motorola F3) uses the e-Ink display, but these book readers are sold/marketed as premium products. Ugh.

Go into a Borders or a Sony shop to take a look at the Sony reader to get an idea of the screen size. The text rendering is impressive but not worth $300 or $400. e-Ink display technology is neat, but this first generation of products is lousy.
Jesus... yet another email bashing BS. Email has always been for "old people" because it's (mostly) a working tool. Kids don't like to do work, they like to play.

It's like saying that "doing dishes is dead. leaving them dirty all over the place is the future".
Why The Community CEO Doesn't Work
I disagree. Stick (and perfect) what you do best naturally. Yes, you don't need to have a CS degree to be good at programming, but you DO need to have a passion for it. Actually, having passion for what you do is what makes you an attractive partner to start a new business together. I personally could care less if it's a law or technology, as long as you're in love with what you're doing and it fits the objectives of the venture.

Don't force yourself to be someone you're not.
Miracle Machines: The 21st-Century Snake Oil
It's probably worth noting that "Hamas" isn't the same as "Palestinians." There have been many radical, separatist, and probably even nihilistic groups in the United States that have won elections in various states. Yet the opinions of those governments are not necessarily the same as those of the entire electorate.
"I do like D though (the language). But the author made two crucial mistakes that will inevitably hurt this beautiful systems programming language: he picked a name that does not work with search engines at all, and he decided to control too much - won't even let other people to distribute binaries of his compilers."

As a recovering C++ zealot, I totally agree that D is a cool language. "D language" or "Digital Mars D" does turn up the right hits on google. :)

There are free implementations of the D language, e.g. there's a front-end for GCC. And the source code to the Digital Mars front-end for D is available under a GPL and Artistic License dual-licensing scheme.
I agree. We need to make sure the difference is noted.

Having said that, there hasn't been a lot of states that allowed members to kidnap across the border or to shoot rockets into their neighboring states. There have been some unusual political coalitions that got elected to state governments, but I don't think any were as extreme as Hamas getting elected in Gaza. Of course, I'm probably forgetting something.
One pretty glaring problem I see with this proposal is that many would rationally consider annexation to simply be a stronger form of occupation. Foreign, secular occupation of Palestine and other ethnically Islamic territories has been "kind of a big deal" to many in the Arab and (more broadly) Islamic world.
I know, but his draconian attitude towards binaries is hurting D. For example (AFAIK) there isn't a single msi-installer for Windows novices.

You may suggest that D isn't for them because "real programmers" use Linux, but I'd argue that "hotness" of a language largely depends on its popularity among youngest and most curious and enthusiastic users.

If a kid who's got a Dell/Vista laptop for Christmas decides to "become a programmer", he won't be doing it in D after visiting digital mars site - I guarantee you that. He's got two weird zip files up there and it took even me a while to figure out what goes where.
Erlang and D.
Not really new at all, but the approach is: I started using just javascript to develop web apps - no server - the apps just interface with a server to get and post data.

That's fun, especially with jQuery, which I highly recommend.
I'm going to be looking into the Android platform. Would be neat to combine the two.
great article! forgive me for submitting it :)
OpenSocial - Developer's View
I read the book (along with "Ugly Americans") back in high school and enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing a live-action version.
getting up to speed on web technologies. jquery, css, javascript. facebook apps.

learning about business process modeling languages.
i call bs.

email is a great tool. i think the key is uniting sms & im. they really are the same thing. i have a feeling that sms/im and email are going to have the same relationship that email and snailmail did initially.

short quick and frequent messages (im/sms) and longer, better written message (email). hopefully soon mobile devices will really unite this all together. crossing my fingers for android :)

but really, email isn't going anywhere.
E-gads! Karma slut! :)
android + voip (skype)

mmmmm sweet sweet free phone calls
i've been called worse
That's cool. I am curious how much of a page fits on the screen at once? 100%, 75%, 50% ? In other words how many times do you have to scroll to make it through a page.
It's a little harsh to compare Adobe to Microsoft. They were friendly to the open source community by open sourcing Flex. And as far as controlling the runtime goes, that does have some risks going forward as you say, but it also has the benefit of allowing cross-platform web development largely free of browser-compatibility issues. Which is nice.
Flex/AS3
AS3 is interesting because it's client-side and quite fast compared to Javascript.
First off, MIT's ugly... Second, and probably more important, MIT doesn't actually allow anyone to film for movies on campus.
My rails ecommerce startup launched: RevZilla.com