skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Raw #s at http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures... - the meat is that total newspaper ad sales in 2005 were ~50b and now it's ~30b - while some of that is obviously recessionary, many of those advertisers are never going to come back now that they've discovered the joys of digital.

As well as it being easier than ever to publish your original content, it's also become easier than ever to book advertising. The company I work for is based in old media (TV) and working on strategy in bundling TV ad sales with radio and print for niche markets but it's not a viable long-term approach - I do learn interesting things about how the ad biz works, but some days I can't help hearing the subtext as 'this slide rule will still work when your calculator batteries have died'.
Blatter: Publish Static Sites Using Templates
I don't see why everyone is so worried. Before there was Google, there was Alta Vista. Before there was Alta Vista, there was Yahoo. This aura of infallibility surrounding Google ignores the historical fact that the reigning king of search has been dethroned at least twice before. People who cry foul at Google's dominance are tacitly stating that the quest for innovative ideas in search and related fields is over. Forever. I have a hard time believing that.
I just asked a friend to review it for you:

http://chords.fm/Chords!/forum/topic/53/future-direction-of-...
Normaly there are a lot of rule about age discrimination, but I don't think they exist in terms of investment $. I wonder if there are any such pitfalls when building an incubator?
Hahaha this is fu..ing hilarious

unused local variable warnings? i = i;
PRICELESS
According the video (which you can see part of here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10253586-1.html), it will be available for the 360.
The most mundane and simple tasks, often trivial one-liners in scripting languages, require many lines of error-prone C code even with a fairly rich set of libraries available.

What would be an example of this? I'm mostly a C and Perl person, and once a library is available I've never noticed cases where something was much simpler to write in one than the other. That library might take more time to write in C than Perl, but once it's written I find it just about (less than a factor of 2?) as easy to write the application logic in C as in Perl. My instinct is that if you're writing 'many lines of error-prone C' to do something simple, there's probably room for improvement somewhere.
It's striking when you sit back and think about the meaning of the metaphors we use. For example, "pain in the ass" is an entirely unpleasant and graphic metaphor.

"Being a douche" is also graphic, and probably offensive to many people. Those using the term probably haven't thought about it much.
This isn't a real genre of book until there's computer science fiction fanfiction.

I imagine such a thing involves a lot of extreme refactoring, hot plugging, and something with an obscene amount of command line action.
In my experience once you get over a few hundred thousand users and have tweaked your web server/proxy setup and tuned your database, you will still have major slowness and memory issues with your Rails code. I.e. it's usually not the database's fault.

Also you might want to look at the profile of the guy who said that rails scaling is a nightmare. I wouldn't use the word nightmare as I'd prefer to think my professional life story wasn't written by Kafka. But, I don't know anyone who has scaled a big Rails site and thought it was a pleasant or fun experience. Most guys who say that it's no big deal haven't really done it.
Yellow increases appetite... now it makes more sense why so many fast food chains have yellow in their logo.
I don't know. But I suspect that priority mail is the most profitable part of the service - maybe they are trying to raise its profile?
Pimp My Ride: US AirForce Style
If every startup did this, News.YC would no longer be about news. Personally I saw your site once, didn't quite like it, then was basically tricked into clicking it again because of the URL. I don't appreciate that either. If you want feedback, feedbackarmy.com is a good place, or start with your friends and family. When your product is nearing release, then ask News.YC. Or do what you did -- see if it's a viable product by asking once -- but no more.

Any more is overdoing it.
All sorted now! :)
Wasn't aware of that. Thought it was a one-party state, complete with power struggles inside that party. Not all words with the connotation "bad" in the Western mind have equivalent meanings.
ZocDoc Review Updated With Exclusive Interview
That might work for YouTube, but how many companies have the deep pockets of Google to ride it out long enough for technology advances to make their product profitable?

There is no way the vast amount of free, professionally made, high-quality content we have available online now continues without some sort of tradeoff in either cost, increased ad exposure, or reduction in quality. The transition period the internet is in right now has to end sometime, and I'm pretty sure it will come down squarely on the side of the content providers/producers.
For what??? Seriously. What would they sue Apple for? Apple don't have to let you onto their app store. They don't even have to be fair or consistent.
[this is how I interpreted it. makes perfect sense imho]

'Killer apps' make a platform. Lack of 'killer apps' break a platform. GitHub is Git community's (=hub) killer app.
Robotrout,

I don't have the specific info you are looking for...but if you really want to look into this further, you could contact one of the main researchers behind the project:

http://www.agri.gov.il/en/people/875.aspx

The $.05 cost per plant does not mean that the unit cost is $.05...that is just the cost to buy proper coverage for one plant, even if that means that there is one sensor for every 100 plants.
A really big 1-page list of plugins & examples for jQuery
Ruby thinks it can... it thinks it can... it thinks it can. Maybe if it pretends "hard enough" that it is fast some day it will be. I'm just joking ;) but there is some truth to that.
Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555691
Yes dude. The link blog is owned by me :) I wrote that blog in the first place. And I am not kidding. I have elaborated extensively on that blog why I like Hinduism
They never supply something for free unless it will provide them the data they crave.

Why should they supply you anything for free?
Id you read what he says, the phrase is "public process", which does not suggest something run by the government. He then goes on to draw parallels with Wikipedia, which is also not run by the government.

Reading the rest of it, what he has in mind is clearly something open source and distributed, as far from centralised government control as you can get.
See, the Chirstianity or Islam is based on some Dogma which you just cant refuse. There is some authority that defines that Dogma. Care to remember Church's stand of use of contraceptives? Or Khomeni's fatawah against Salman Rashdie?
Such is not the case with Hinduism. You are a hindu as soon as you start proclaiming one.
Call yourself a hindu and criticize Hinduism still the right wing Hindu organizations will accept you as hindu just as any common hindu.
How Interspire Shopping Cart Helped HoodiePeople.com Rank Top on Google
A typical set of fears of regulation. At least you clarify that you really meant what you said.

The people who think the market will self-regulate remain convinced even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, for instance the current banking and mortgage crisis.
In some cases it is supposed to be twice born Hindu. Please refer to Koenraad Elst's writing on the same on Bharatvani.com
Eye candy sells, especially for toys. iPhone is an icon because of an eye candy, visual effects and primitiveness - the stuff for masses.

This is really very good toy - just sit and watch and sometimes read, but not much (140 chars of very simple language) - that is exactly what a people wants from time waster.
> No group has stepped forward to claim the attack- half the "fun" of a terrorist organization is spreading fear through your message.

I don't have any reason to think this was a terrorist attack, but I have the impression that (credibly) claiming responsibility for attacks is less common than it used to be. The Mumbai attacks last year, for example, were just miscellaneous mystery terror.
A true classic, and getting a well-deserved revival of sorts due to the recent link in CodingHorror.

Well worth the read, if you haven't already.
rescuetime is one example right off hand, also not sure how old Matt Moroon at draftMix is but def does not strike me as fresh out of college. sure there is a few more as well.
Private companies try to maximize profits, but that doesn't necessarily mean they do what's best for their users. Fast-food stores encouraging people to eat there often are a good example. Apple refusing certain apps is another one: it's not in my advantage, nor in that of most of my peers, that they limit my choice.

Furthermore, not everything can be left to companies. Public utilities like the police and water are supplied/regulated by the government for all the usual reasons. Knowledge is also a public utility. We cannot leave the protection of free speech to companies, or other groups of citizens: they would inevitably suppress certain bits of knowledge from becoming publicly known.

Isn't the knowledge of 'where to find what' exactly that kind of knowledge? A near monopoly on search results grants a company great power. In a possible near future, wouldn't it be in Google's best interests to suppress the information of where to find competitors? Not blatantly of course, but when done is subtle ways, will anyone notice? Will anyone believe those who cry wolf? And how devastating it would be to the competition!
By what guidelines do you judge people?
There are quite a lot of founders over 30. I don't know exactly how many because we don't keep track of ages. The sharp falloff is around 35, but we've had a handful of founders over 40. None over 50 though.

I think our age distribution is probably close to the age distribution for startups generally. We've funded more founders who are 27 than 20 or 35 because more people start startups at 27 than at 20 or 35.
3DV, the company whose 3D camera technology MS bought a few months ago, has published some papers on their technology. I haven't read them, so I cannot vouch for their depth (no pun intended).

http://www.3dvsystems.com/technology/tech.html#1
I would love to use this in my development group. Unfortunately, I don't think we will be able to justify the cost.
It isn't surprising most founders are in their twenties given demographics which are probably close to this on HN:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039

It looks like those in their thirties are well-represented. I don't see why age would make a difference anyway. If you blow them away, my guess is you're in. Just spend a few hours on your application, get a few people who you think are smarter than you to review your application with you for a few hours, submit it, then go back to focusing on your startup.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Unlocked (6.1 Windows Mobile)
Sony Ericsson X Peria X1 in formats of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer, and more features. Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional 7200 528 MHz processor, and 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM which makes your handset as your PC or laptop.
Why should they supply you anything for free?

If you're implying that I'm suggesting Google should give me something for free, I'm not.

Just orienting this "service" in a way that shows that the users are, freely, giving something to Google.
I like the fact that neither person really has anything of value to say, and both end up doing it in a dick way. Also the ruby guy loses points for his blog exploding under the massive HN load, now the C guy (who's blog is still up) can use that as a point in this pointless argument.
Interview: Evam | Happiness, with meaning
False. You only have to write ONE application, you have to buy N servers. It doesn't take very large N to overcome the price of a good programmer. Hardware is expensive when you have to buy _lots_ of it.
In general, put as few obstacles as possible between people arriving at your site and placing an order. If you want to make them jump through hoops, put the hoops after the point where they give you money.
Not too many, but we were talking specifically about YouTube, not some theoretical every-company. If you'll recall, my initial point in this thread was that it was kind of dumb to point to YouTube as if it were anything like a typical internet company.
A good point to remember, but Google has done and continues to do much more than these companies. Its current financial position puts it in a much more defendable fortress than these past companies.

The amount of money Google has put into streamlining its operations are, in my opinion, is its real competitive advantage. Google can crawl and analyze the web faster than pretty much anyone (my company is trying to make this is un-true ;) ), which creates a significant barrier to entry.
Interview: Lakshya Institute - Forum for Competitions
Icky? Using strings to add legacy features in languages ("use strict" in JS)
Your target market is musicians. As said above, the iTunes model will work - indeed, so might an iPhone app.

But also, consider making it a VST plugin (VST = virtual studio technology, free SDK from Steinberg) It's the industry standard for non-pro users and works with all music recording/editing platforms on both Mac and PC. These kinds of users have no problem downloading & installing, and are more likely to pay - your pricing is quite reasonable, and moving what you do to VST shouldn't involve much overhead, the DSP will be the same. Make an option to output the chords to MIDI, which should be trivially easy. Better yet, make lite and pro versions - lite version maybe only does major chords or doesn't output MIDI.

3 websites (kvr, sonicstate and createdigitalaudio) will reach 90% of the plugin community. I'm at work so I can't test it out (and gave up using WinAmp long ago anyway) but I wonder how it copes with techno or orchestral music? I like making electronic stuff, but I just don't have a very good ear for chords and would love to have this as an analysis tool. Feel free to email.
YouTube XL Brings The World’s Most Popular Video Portal To Your TV
I try not to. If you want to donate all you have to the poor and be homeless, awesome. If you want to earn a billion dollars and throw lavish parties every single day and burn through it all, go for it. Who am I to say that either way is better? It's your money and your life; do what you want.
Wow, who peed in his oatmeal?
Hemlock: multi-user, real-time web applications
He was one of the top guys at Blackstone. They are a private equity group. Their stock has gone down 80% since they IPOed. He was lucky that he cashed out when he did. Getting rich buying companies with borrowed money, and then unloading them on somebody else was the ultimate bubble business. Now that the credit bubble has burst, existing private equity has died. They're left with companies with enormous debt burdens that no one wants - think Sam Zeller and the Chicago Tribune company. I don't think Blackstone has sold a company since 2007. I'm not sure there are any lessons to extrapolate from this.
I would NOT trust a website with my private data if they wrote their app in C. Buffer overflow -> execute your own code -> write a function that pipes an entire database out to you. It really is a trivial problem given the buffer overflow, and programmers (myself included) generally suck at not putting buffered overflows into code.

Plus there's the whole portability thing, which is entirely pissed away by C compilation (yes, arguably you can write generic C, but there are fundamental differences (file i/o, sockets, etc.) between different OS's, and restricting yourself is dumb)

Pre-compilation of scripting languages isn't necessarily a bad thing though.

And this guy is no C expert. He's just got a golden hammer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hammer
Saying 'don't put your hand on that stove or you'll get burnt' is not a threat to grab your hand and hold it to the stove.
anyone else see a weird layout glitch with the banner ad?
Haha, everyone knows assembly is the one true web framework.
Twitter isn't really the poster child for Rails scaling. A huge chunk of their traffic isn't handled by Rails, and their web interface is fairly perfunctory.

In any case, at this point I think it's fairly safe to say that I have some direct experience scaling Rails, and it's not as easy as the hand-wavers suggest. It's certainly worth a bit of work early on to avoid the nightmares that come with trying to scale something like Rails later on.

Not to be too silly, but if someone wrote a web framework in C++ that was 10% more difficult than Rails, I'd still consider it. The distribution of suck for Rails is exponential over time, so the expected value of suck is much higher than it initially seems.
They can make money just from eyeballs, so they don't need to use data. Normally Google looks for data that increase the value of advertizing space but I don't have any idea what they can do with you electric meater numbers.
I used to think "git" was the worst name in software, but now I have revised my opinion.
Google already trying to run native x86 code in browser, so, they probably will be compiled soon. =)
I can't figure out if the "Xerox" crossed out on the first page of the business is a joke or not. In any case, it's kind of funny.
I'm three months into a product management gig. Interesting so far, learning many good skills. I'd recommend it, especially if your buddy can find a way to take the 3-day training course by Pragmatic Marketing (try to have Steve Johnson as your instructor). I've never been a fan of training (I learn better out of books) but this one is good.

The way I've been describing product management to fellow HN readers is thusly:

We're all familiar with "Build something people want." Most tech folks focus 90% of their energy developing skills around the "build" part of that sentence. (How many languages do you really need to know?)

Product management is a skillset for figuring out the rest of the sentence. What is "something?" Who are the "people" and what do they "want?" (And how badly do they want it?

The thing that your buddy should realize is that product management isn't about brainstorming new ideas. That's R&D.

Product management is about identifying your market, interviewing and surveying your buyers and your users; recognizing a pattern to their problems, devising a solution that delights them, writing the requirements, rinse, repeat. When practiced well, it should all be driven by market data.

It _is_ a great way to experience a different part of the product lifecycle.

Hope that was helpful.
Estimating software: a rule of thumb
It seems like there is no release date or price info but anyway demo is very cool.
You can find the video you're talking about here: http://www.youtube.com/xboxprojectnatal
Patent-holding company sues Microsoft over dynamic Web page technology
Twitter has money to throw at machines. They don't need to do all those boring things like "Being profitable".
My appologies for tricking you into clicking it again.

I see many requests for feedback that appear to be early in a site's lifecycle. Might it not make more sense for HN to just allow you to repost a URL after a certain amount of time has elapsed? It could even add something to the title indicating it's the n-th request for feedback. Start-ups are an iterative process so to only get feedback one time is a bit short-sighted, isn't it?

Is there another site that provides something like this? If not, maybe that's something else I should create! :-)
Now we can have a fully automated garden which, once it is in full bloom, will also send a message to a machine that delivers a chemical to our brains that give us the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction that comes from working on a garden.
TheFunded Founder Institute tries to tempt investors with a new financing model
Oracle's Ellison considers netbook market foray
Isn't Microsoft trying? It's not like Google exists in a vacuum here.

How do you fix the problem? Force Google to break up into separate companies for each search field so their service gets worse? Or do we force other people to use the other services against their will?
Amen.

Anyone who talks about future deficits and doesn't talk about healthcare costs isn't serious. Social Security will be more or less fine with some combination of tax increases and/or benefit reduction (i.e. raising retirement age). But this New Yorker piece makes clear that healthcare costs are skyrocketing - not because of Medicare or private insurance, but because doctors are going out of control, without any noticeable increase in quality of care: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_...

But there's nothing in it for Wall Street if we constrain healthcare costs, so Peterson will go back to shilling for Social Security privatization.
This would be a real money spinner, if it could be made to work. The problem, assuming you are using an analysis algorithm to attempt to extract the harmonic information, is that you are attempting to solve the problem of polyphonic transcription, which is one of the holy grails of computer music research - and is definitely an unsolved problem, especially when the analysed song is complex or unpredictable (jazz chords, hendrix tunings etc.), or when there is a lot of noise, as is the case with almost all popular music.

It is quite straight-forward to use a Fourier transform to discover the energy contained at certain audio frequencies, but extracting musical structure from this data is terribly difficult, partly because of the perceptual ambiguities in the human hearing system, and partly because it is basically impossible to confidently separate the identity of the constituent instruments within the audio spectrum. What instrument emitted this or that harmonic at 1800hz? The answer is crucial to identifying the chords, and nobody really knows how to reliably and programatically determine that, on an arbitrary recording, just yet...
I would really like to see a video about what you offer, and a demo account with some demo data so I can see the layout.
This is google.org as opposed to google.com, so it might just be philanthropy.
I see the pitfals of a non-scalable business model.

And yet only recently Techcrunch did a piece on just how profitable Apple's mobile phone business actually is.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/01/the-spoils-go-to-the-sm...

They have a large chunk of the mindshare when it comes to mobile phones, they're making a bucketload in sales, not only in phone but with apps... just how is that not a scalable business model? Do you have any data to backup your claim?
I will concede that, according to my very limited Rails experience, it generates a lot of database chatter when compared to hand-coded queries. Still, this is mostly a database scaling problem.

The beauty of the ORM is that you can replace the underlying layer without disrupting the code running on top or add fancy things like local memory caching or a networked memcached store. I insist that if your application was built from the start with this kind of issue in mind, it will be easy to scale it if and when the time comes. Until then, you are solving a problem you don't know you have.

This gets harder the lower-level your language gets.
Cigarettes Without Smoke, or Regulation
Essential advice on how to cut a cake fairly at a party.
You're right that SSP is more like ASP/JSP, and not like Rails. But the same idea can be used with a more comprehensive web framework and with a language that has a really good JIT, like LuaJIT, or maybe IronPython/IronRuby.