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33,206 | 33,037 | zach | StartupWeekend: 70 Founders Create One Company in a Weekend | kkim | You know, if they started with 70 and eliminated all but three or four of them reality-show style, I would be totally sold on it. Now that's something one of these YC clones should try. | null | 2 | 10 | 2007-07-09 08:07:21 UTC |
33,207 | 33,105 | zach | Meet Joe Hewitt, iPhone Web App Interface Guru | pg | That's great. He should work up a hack on the gravity sensors so you can scroll web pages with inertia -- you give your iPhone a single quick shake and Safari goes down a page or so. Perfect for reading web pages while holding a subway strap, umbrella, dog leash, etc. | null | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-09 08:11:53 UTC |
33,209 | 33,183 | dfens | Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation (five lessons for making an unforgettable pitch) | nickb | The advice of having one point per slide and using an image instead of lots of text should be in a message that pops up everytime someone starts Powerpoint. | null | 3 | 13 | 2007-07-09 08:32:33 UTC |
33,217 | 33,093 | wensing | Amazon EC2 + S3 Doesn't Cut it for Real Applications | nickb | The strongest accusation I can find in this article is that: "it still isn't fool proof".To what degree do 'real applications' have to be fool proof? @joshwa: Thanks for point out the comments--I'm glad I read them, particularly this portion:And even if the server software were to blow a gasket and call it quits w/o any warning and w/o rebooting itself, and from a more realistic viewpoint, even if the hardware were to fail, that still leaves the remaining slave servers who are at least within a handful of bytes of being accurate at the point the master server (if, in fact, it was the master server that gave up the ghost) called it quits. In this regard I fail to see a "this isn't capable of handling real-world applications" and instead "it's possible that something bad could happen, so prepare for the worst yet hope for the best and know that, within reason, it's far more likely that the best scenario (i.e. your data layer remains persistent as it should) will be what actually takes place 99.9999999999% of the time.Yeah, so as someone using EC2 + S3 for our web enterprise, I am not really worried. | null | 1 | 6 | 2007-07-09 10:50:18 UTC |
33,221 | 33,136 | mattculbreth | Four Pownce Invites | mattculbreth | Ok these are out the door. I have a few more here if anybody would like them. | First come first served, etc. etc.(honestly not really sure if this thing is worth playing with, but I've got 'em if you want 'em) | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-09 11:22:19 UTC |
33,228 | 33,227 | amichail | Justin.tv vs God | amichail | Check out the discussion linked to in the blog post comment as well. | null | 2 | 2 | 2007-07-09 13:11:30 UTC |
33,230 | 33,183 | brlewis | Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation (five lessons for making an unforgettable pitch) | nickb | Point 3 about vocal variety is not as easy to do as you might think. You need practice. Toastmasters is a great organization for learning to speak well in front of groups, prepared or extemporaneous.My club meets in Boston near Downtown Crossing on second and fourth Wednesdays at noon. Or look on the Toastmasters International web site (http://www.toastmasters.org/) for a club near you.http://ourdoings.com/oratory-authority/
| null | 2 | 13 | 2007-07-09 13:21:03 UTC |
33,234 | 33,183 | Goladus | Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation (five lessons for making an unforgettable pitch) | nickb | The takeaway? Build up to something unexpected in your presentations.That's the only takeaway?Jobs appeals to nostalgia and positions Apple as the heroic company making the world a better place for people to live in. It's emotional and genuine if perhaps a little exaggerated. That it builds up with dramatic tension is just the basic foundation of the speech. It's the details and romanticism that put it over the top. | null | 1 | 13 | 2007-07-09 13:38:58 UTC |
33,238 | 33,227 | Jd | Justin.tv vs God | amichail | You might want to google "Panopticon" | null | 3 | 2 | 2007-07-09 13:49:22 UTC |
33,242 | 33,227 | staunch | Justin.tv vs God | amichail | It could just as easily encourage the opposite behavior. People frequently do stupid things when they're trying to impress others. | null | 1 | 2 | 2007-07-09 14:17:01 UTC |
33,247 | 33,227 | migpwr | Justin.tv vs God | amichail | I actually think I'd enjoy watching the lifecast of an anonymous criminal... not sure how they'd get around someone finding them but if they did I'd be there. It might be possible when they get the camera size down but not right now.some people really dont care and i would want to watch that guy hah! | null | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-09 14:34:56 UTC |
33,250 | 33,246 | brlewis | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | I think Joe Average and Joe Boss's perceptions of the advantages of LFMs are completely bogus. The same solution implemented in an LFM and an LFSP will be more readable in the LFSP. | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 7 | 28 | 2007-07-09 14:46:10 UTC |
33,251 | 33,246 | tuukkah | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | To get wider use of LFSPs, it would be important for more people to learn that you can and it's completely reasonable to interface several programming languages. You need to be comfortable with both languages to work on the interface, but I find it surprising we didn't practice this at school at all.To explicate what the article touches: Perhaps you really have to use Java because of platform or workforce requirements, but it doesn't mean you have to use 100% Java. More experienced developers can build some of the low-level classes using C++ via JNI. They can also set up BeanShell or Jython for user interface and test scripters.
| A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 2 | 28 | 2007-07-09 15:03:46 UTC |
33,258 | 33,249 | donna | What's the deal with BizDev? | raganwald | The bizdev strategy he points to has always confused me in it's logic. Maybe I'm too conservative, maybe going for the big vender is sales diversification. What would the math look like re costs vs. returns over 2 years w/a team of 4, and with the IBM like vender buy out? | No disrespect intended, but BizDev people are really just sales people with a very small prospect base, and usually high quota numbers. They are chasing the big deals. There are few constraints put on them, because the relationships are strategic, and so this pattern of cozying up to large vendors, bending over backwards to impress them, only to usually have the rug pulled out later happens again and again. | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-09 15:56:31 UTC |
33,262 | 33,037 | Tichy | StartupWeekend: 70 Founders Create One Company in a Weekend | kkim | Any chances for recreating this in a telecommuting way? I would have loved to attend, but crossing the Atlantic seemed too far (although now I almost regret that I didn't go anyway). Maybe a 48 hour startup competition would do, too? Not working on a startup together, but everybody on their own startup? I participated in the 48h game programming competition once, and it was a lot of fun. People would just exchange advice and ideas in irc while the event was on, and it was a great sense of community. | null | 1 | 10 | 2007-07-09 16:08:51 UTC |
33,263 | 33,255 | donna | Passive-Aggressive Behavior Is Useless In A Startup | far33d | Thanks for sharing, been there done that. ;-D | null | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-09 16:09:21 UTC |
33,265 | 33,246 | pg | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | I'd forgotten how well written that was. It's better than 99% of the essays on the web. And yet it was just an ordinary email, not intended for publication. | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 0 | 28 | 2007-07-09 16:19:59 UTC |
33,268 | 33,144 | far33d | Web 2.0 entrepreneurs are living a chiched life | jalexa2 | You sure did mix metaphors. If the "entrepreneurs" are living 10 to an apartment and eating ramen, why would they be driving a Prius? Some people just get off on being contrarian.
| Interesting article that I found from TechCrunch comments. There are a lot of people who are becoming "Entrepreneurs" because it's hip, not because they are actually cut out for it or because they have any real business ideas. | 0 | 7 | 2007-07-09 16:24:17 UTC |
33,283 | 33,246 | mynameishere | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | for (i = 0; i < N; i++)Odd example to use. It's always annoying to re-type the same thing over and over. But I recently went through a mountain of my Java code and replaced:for (Object obj : list)withint size=list.size();
for (int index=0;index<size;index++)I'm definitely very long suffering! It took a few hours but what you get with abstractions is a loss of control over implementation. When you use the tighter loop, the compiler turns everything (roughly) into this:Iterator it=list.iterator(); //Which calls new ListItr();
for (it.hasNext())
{
Object next=it.next();The abstraction has to do that because it doesn't know whether the list (really, the java.util.Collection) is a LinkedList or an ArrayList or a Set. If your loop itself is in a tight loop, it isn't hard to call it millions and millions of times during program execution--which makes millions and millions of unnecessary allocations and method calls. There is a loss of performance which, at the end of the day, is more important than how much you enjoy your job. Of course, other languages would allow you to specify an implementation for a given abstraction. | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 4 | 28 | 2007-07-09 17:26:54 UTC |
33,290 | 33,177 | weel | Current web style | mcxx | The points made are mostly quite sensible, which is why it's funny that the site itself looks a little jumpy... | null | 2 | 12 | 2007-07-09 17:55:53 UTC |
33,296 | 33,292 | gibsonf1 | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | I am a big believer in 2 screens as well. I have a flat panel plugged into my laptop, and keep my project management http://www.streamfocus.com constantly on it while I work so I can easily move between working on the laptop and knowing what to work on on the lcd. :) | null | 2 | 9 | 2007-07-09 18:09:59 UTC |
33,300 | 33,274 | gibsonf1 | If programming languages were cars... | vuknje | I can't help but love this one:
"Lisp looks like a car, but with enough tweaking you can turn it into a pretty effective airplane or submarine." :) | null | 0 | 14 | 2007-07-09 18:27:21 UTC |
33,301 | 33,282 | uuilly | When To Dump That Great Idea | transburgh | I had this great idea to create a website where the content is covered with hairsprayed MBA's telling my users things they don't care about. But I think I'm going to "dump it." Thanks Forbes! | null | 0 | 3 | 2007-07-09 18:32:31 UTC |
33,303 | 33,292 | far33d | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | Bah. A 30" is vastly superior to two screens. Think about it: with two screens, the valuable screen real-estate right in front of you, where you want the most important things, is instead occupied by 3 inches of BLACK PLASTIC. | null | 3 | 9 | 2007-07-09 18:36:35 UTC |
33,304 | 33,282 | naivehs | When To Dump That Great Idea | transburgh | This article is great for filtering applications for Y Combinator. | null | 1 | 3 | 2007-07-09 18:38:16 UTC |
33,310 | 33,246 | marketer | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | I'd be careful with pure research languages like ocaml. It has some advanced features (polymorphic variants, functors, camlp4, etc. ) that even smart people have a hard time understanding, because they are probably the subject of someone's phd thesis. Also, LFSP's can be quirky: in Ocaml, for instance, native integers are only 31 bits (using 32 bits requires the Int32 module, which requires its own set of operations to use. Don't you love static type checking?)Bugs in LFSP compilers probably appear much more often compared to LFM compilers. | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 6 | 28 | 2007-07-09 19:10:04 UTC |
33,315 | 33,246 | bsaunder | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | For most of the article, I kept thinking, why hasn't he tried SWIG (http://www.swig.org). Keep the needs-to-be-fast stuff in C/C++ (hopefully with a well designed API), and code the fun, flexible, interactive stuff in the LFSP of your choice (sorry apparently not all LFSP supported). | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 5 | 28 | 2007-07-09 19:43:08 UTC |
33,320 | 33,312 | Alex3917 | NYT: News spreads so fast online that it blurs together with prediction | pg | This may be apocryphal, but I've heard that the reason Galileo invented the telescope wasn't to look at the stars, but rather to look into the future. Supposedly he'd stand in the St. Mark's Sq. Bell Tower watching for foreign ships, and then use this information to arbitrage commodities. | null | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-09 20:08:28 UTC |
33,321 | 33,292 | tx | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | Why is it posted here? | null | 4 | 9 | 2007-07-09 20:10:47 UTC |
33,325 | 33,305 | 8en | Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned | waleedka | Is anyone else confused by the premise of startup weekend? It sounds like a fun idea, but the whole concept seems a little silly to me. | null | 2 | 17 | 2007-07-09 20:21:56 UTC |
33,331 | 33,307 | tuukkah | Linux cellphone: OpenMoko Neo 1973 and Advanced dev kit finally for sale | dawie | Earlier comments on OpenMoko sales here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33163Longer article here: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7355980470.htmlAnd a view to the community here:
http://www.openmoko.org/ | null | 0 | 6 | 2007-07-09 20:36:27 UTC |
33,334 | 33,305 | tuukkah | Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned | waleedka | They learned a lesson indeed: "Development is hard. This is all that will matter." | null | 1 | 17 | 2007-07-09 20:48:16 UTC |
33,339 | 33,274 | henning | If programming languages were cars... | vuknje | This is the most accurate language comparison I've seen on the Internet. | null | 2 | 14 | 2007-07-09 21:37:17 UTC |
33,342 | 33,305 | gyro_robo | Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned | waleedka | > The Java platform was selected/Nuff
| null | 3 | 17 | 2007-07-09 21:44:16 UTC |
33,349 | 33,292 | abstractbill | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | I guess I'm one of the few people who has tried two screens and not found a benefit... maybe it's because I run so few applications - just Emacs and Firefox most of the time. I did try a two screen setup for a couple of weeks, with Emacs on one, and Firefox on the other. It just didn't do anything for me. I'm either working in Emacs, or I'm looking at the results in Firefox. I don't find I need to do both at the same time.Perhaps I'm doing it wrong? | null | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-09 21:58:52 UTC |
33,351 | 33,316 | bayareaguy | PostgreSQL publishes first real benchmark (as fast or faster than MySQL, almost as fast as Oracle) | nickb | The article would be better if it included links to the MySQL and Oracle benchmark results.
| null | 1 | 11 | 2007-07-09 22:18:49 UTC |
33,353 | 33,246 | bayareaguy | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
| A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 1 | 28 | 2007-07-09 22:24:18 UTC |
33,356 | 33,350 | palish | Facebook: "going IPO!" | dawie | Interesting.. I wonder how it will turn out. | null | 1 | 12 | 2007-07-09 23:05:43 UTC |
33,357 | 33,316 | patrickg-zill | PostgreSQL publishes first real benchmark (as fast or faster than MySQL, almost as fast as Oracle) | nickb | About time Postgres gets some more attention. I actively discourage my clients from using MySQL in favor of Postgres. | null | 0 | 11 | 2007-07-09 23:09:33 UTC |
33,359 | 33,285 | Tichy | Reinventing HOTorNOT, Part II | brett | sigh - expressing one's individuality by splattering brand logos all over one's profile? Perhaps some teenagers will actually fall for it.Fun application: calculate a profile's "individuality" (ie how many people in the world have tattoed themselves with the same brands as you). | null | 2 | 11 | 2007-07-09 23:14:53 UTC |
33,363 | 33,350 | far33d | Facebook: "going IPO!" | dawie | I'm buying, unless they drastically under-price the offering. | null | 0 | 12 | 2007-07-09 23:31:25 UTC |
33,364 | 33,229 | mattculbreth | Google to buy Postini for $625 million (100,000 businesses using Google Apps to date) | gibsonf1 | Another boring, unsexy app going for nice money. Actually I had a lot of clients (lawfirms mostly) using these guys when I was doing Microsoft-based consulting. It's a good thing to put in front of Exchange. | null | 0 | 11 | 2007-07-09 23:34:53 UTC |
33,368 | 33,361 | drusenko | How to Gracefully Take a Site Down For Maintenance? | edgeztv | Have a backup directory ready to go, and modify the DocumentRoot on your virtual host. If your home page doesn't involve dynamic content (and even if it does, but you aren't touching those parts of it), keep your home page up. If you aren't taking down your DB, keep the user sign-up up. When someone tries to log-in, then display the message. Keep your roll-out window to under 30 mins if at all possible (rolling out features in smaller batches makes this easier). | YouTube and others are putting up a nice looking message page while they are doing a release or maintenance. I'm wondering what's the best way of redirecting all requests to this "Sorry we're temporarily down" page.Would you modify the VirtualHost entry in Apache's httpd.conf?Would you change the DNS entry?Any other ideas?The technique should ideally be easy to turn on and off. | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-10 00:00:37 UTC |
33,371 | 33,361 | tocomment | How to Gracefully Take a Site Down For Maintenance? | edgeztv | For smaller sites, I would just redirect everyone but my own IP address over to a maint.html page.I wrote up how I did it with .htaccess here:
http://www.answermysearches.com/htaccess-block-everyone-exce... | YouTube and others are putting up a nice looking message page while they are doing a release or maintenance. I'm wondering what's the best way of redirecting all requests to this "Sorry we're temporarily down" page.Would you modify the VirtualHost entry in Apache's httpd.conf?Would you change the DNS entry?Any other ideas?The technique should ideally be easy to turn on and off. | 2 | 2 | 2007-07-10 00:10:54 UTC |
33,372 | 33,361 | staunch | How to Gracefully Take a Site Down For Maintenance? | edgeztv | Whatever you do, don't try redirecting using DNS. Many DNS servers don't properly respect TTLs and this will cause you endless pain. | YouTube and others are putting up a nice looking message page while they are doing a release or maintenance. I'm wondering what's the best way of redirecting all requests to this "Sorry we're temporarily down" page.Would you modify the VirtualHost entry in Apache's httpd.conf?Would you change the DNS entry?Any other ideas?The technique should ideally be easy to turn on and off. | 1 | 2 | 2007-07-10 00:20:34 UTC |
33,379 | 33,361 | patrickg-zill | How to Gracefully Take a Site Down For Maintenance? | edgeztv | Why do you need to take the site down to do maintenance? Even if moving physically from one server to another you should be able to migrate with almost zero downtime. | YouTube and others are putting up a nice looking message page while they are doing a release or maintenance. I'm wondering what's the best way of redirecting all requests to this "Sorry we're temporarily down" page.Would you modify the VirtualHost entry in Apache's httpd.conf?Would you change the DNS entry?Any other ideas?The technique should ideally be easy to turn on and off. | 3 | 2 | 2007-07-10 01:28:12 UTC |
33,380 | 33,287 | morselsrule | Boston Startup Housing | edgeztv | I'd be interested. I'm living in Cambridge now, and am working for a startup. Shoot me an email: patfitz06 aaat gmail | I think the co-working office space loft in Central Sq is a great idea (http://coworking.pbwiki.com/CoworkingBoston), but many of us cannot afford to pay for both housing and office space.I wanted to see if any startup founders would be interested in renting a house or large apartment together, for both living and working out of that space. I'm posting this here because I'd like to have other entrepreneurial techies as roommates.The ideal place would be located in the vicinity of Cambridge/Somerville or Allston/Brighton and cost not much over $500 per room monthly, with lease starting Sept 1 (or even better if no lease).We are two guys, ages 25 & 28, working on a web startup. Anyone have space to offer or want to join us in this search? | 0 | 3 | 2007-07-10 01:34:58 UTC |
33,385 | 33,305 | mynameishere | Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned | waleedka | 70 days and 2 people would work much better than 2 days and 70 people. | null | 0 | 17 | 2007-07-10 02:22:04 UTC |
33,403 | 33,285 | staunch | Reinventing HOTorNOT, Part II | brett | They're targeting the most vapid of users with a concept designed for marketers first and users second. It may be profitable but it just seems so unbelievably boring. | null | 1 | 11 | 2007-07-10 04:35:37 UTC |
33,404 | 33,274 | geebee | If programming languages were cars... | vuknje | Ruby guesses where you want to go and drives you there. It's right about 85% of the time, and when it's wrong, the drive is still quite pleasant. | null | 1 | 14 | 2007-07-10 04:42:53 UTC |
33,414 | 33,410 | jsjenkins168 | Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders | toffer | I'll add one more... Don't get stressed in the interview if they criticize your idea! They may seem a bit negative towards you but its their job to take a critical angle.In other words, be cool and dont take stabs at your idea personal. Chances are, the comments they're making turn out true anyway so heed the advice. | null | 1 | 54 | 2007-07-10 05:31:02 UTC |
33,421 | 33,410 | drusenko | Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders | toffer | congrats on the wedding! | null | 5 | 54 | 2007-07-10 06:03:04 UTC |
33,424 | 33,246 | cheponis | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | I think this is why all TRUE wizards write in Assembly Language.
| A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 8 | 28 | 2007-07-10 06:17:25 UTC |
33,425 | 33,388 | far33d | Ethics and investing: Is exercising your stock options unethical? | rrenaud | I guess, then, making money at all is unethical too. This is a ridiculous argument.
| Should people defer exercising options while the government is doing very disagreeable things? | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-10 06:19:56 UTC |
33,428 | 33,427 | shawndrost | AppFactory: fast-tracked seed funding for facebook apps | shawndrost | I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this. They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much. Any info?Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that. My email is in my profile. Thanks. | I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this. They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much. Any info?Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that. My email is in my profile. Thanks. | 0 | 11 | 2007-07-10 06:27:11 UTC |
33,433 | 33,427 | harvard_bum | AppFactory: fast-tracked seed funding for facebook apps | shawndrost | this is the first sign of desperation from the VC world. the historical trends of the capital requirements of developing an "application" are becoming so low that venture capitalists will soon become obsolete. the launch of the facebook platform was the nail in the coffin for VCs. power to the hackers. | I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this. They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much. Any info?Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that. My email is in my profile. Thanks. | 1 | 11 | 2007-07-10 06:53:55 UTC |
33,434 | 33,292 | BrandonM | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | I didn't look at the date, but when I saw the price listings, I was like, "What!?" I just bought a 22" widescreen for $200. I certainly appreciate all the extra real estate, and yet I can't deny that I could find a use for more. I'm considering plugging my old CRT into my integrated video card, but it produces so much heat compared to a flat panel. | null | 1 | 9 | 2007-07-10 07:13:13 UTC |
33,435 | 33,246 | uuilly | LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) | aston | I totally understand people's complaints about C++. However I am never sure if they are aware of some libraries that may concerns:boost::function allows you to easily interchange function pointers, memeber function pointers and function objects.boost::lamda allows you to define transient functions at the call site. This makes the old STL way more useful. To be sure the syntax can be a bit funky...boost::bind pulls all the fun of boost::lamda and boost::function together.With only the tiniest bit of discipline boost::shared_ptr's mean you never have to worry about memory management again. boost::any and QVariants (from the Qt Libraries) help you manage dynamic typing. So an array of boost::any's can hold int's, char's, string's and AnyTypeYouWant's all at the same time. Everything I've mentioned is either in the standard or will be soon. Really undergrad C++ is only the beginning. The STL and boost are almost a language unto themseleves. I never use raw arrays or naked pointers anymore and it's made development WAY faster while maintaining performance.PG asked, why use a language where adaptors have to be built to get the functionality of lisp rather than lisp itself (or something like that.) I see his point but if the effort of getting lisp to work with C/C++ based code is greater than the pain of using an LFM, why not make the best of an LFM?Has anyone had the same experience? Or am I putting the "ass" in masses? | A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. | 3 | 28 | 2007-07-10 07:15:21 UTC |
33,440 | 33,427 | rms | AppFactory: fast-tracked seed funding for facebook apps | shawndrost | I don't think there's been a Facebook app exit of more than $100,000, yet they're willing to provide up to $250,000 worth of funding. So why are they doing this?
| I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this. They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much. Any info?Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that. My email is in my profile. Thanks. | 2 | 11 | 2007-07-10 07:32:29 UTC |
33,451 | 33,410 | aquateen | Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders | toffer | Regarding the number of founders, YouOS springs to mind as a 4-person team. I thought I read PG say he funded a few individual founders this last round? | null | 3 | 54 | 2007-07-10 09:18:52 UTC |
33,452 | 33,393 | Tichy | iPhone Nano | dawie | Also known as the iPhone shuffle: this will revolutionize social networking and singlehandedly eliminate some of the worlds biggest problems: loneliness won't exist anymore - the innovative random call mechanism of the iPhone will make sure everybody gets a call regularly. The pain of complex organizer applications also goes away, as there simply will be no need to organize your contacts anymore. | null | 0 | 2 | 2007-07-10 09:24:02 UTC |
33,453 | 33,215 | kingnothing | A List Apart: Design Choices Can Cripple a Website | jamongkad | I could be alone, but I think that version B looks terrible compared to the others. What's the reason that it sells better than A? | null | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-10 10:01:11 UTC |
33,458 | 33,410 | martin | Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders | toffer | "For instance Zenter, which is obviously much more suited for integration with an online office suite like Google's than as a standalone business"If there's no potential for a business based around presentations, somebody'd better get on the horn with WebEx and let them know. (Then again, they're probably still too busy counting the $3.2bn from their Cisco acquisition to notice.) PowerPoint is huge in medium/large companies, and the tools available for delivering PPT presentations remotely still suck. And aside from providing awesome presentation design functionality, Zenter would've absolutely given WebEx a run for its money on the presentation delivery side. | null | 2 | 54 | 2007-07-10 11:42:14 UTC |
33,459 | 33,438 | pg | Text Compressor 1% Away From AI Threshold | rms | The best spam filters (like CRM114) have better than human performance, but I'd hardly call what they're doing AI. | null | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-10 11:45:23 UTC |
33,462 | 33,461 | pg | MySpace API preview | terpua | This is probably as much as they have done so far... | null | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-10 12:17:01 UTC |
33,471 | 33,466 | pg | There are only two things a rational entrepreneur does in a hot market: sell or raise money | staunch | He's wrong. The danger of a high valuation is not just that it will make you spend more. The danger is that it precludes small exits, and thus most exits.I'm with Liew and Kopelman on this one. And YC can't be accused of taking the VCs' side, because in series A rounds we're in the same position as founders. I would rather get diluted by a low valuation than have a company take money at such a high one that there's no room for error. | Be sure to read comment #5 from Marc Andreesen.
| 0 | 1 | 2007-07-10 13:29:52 UTC |
33,477 | 33,466 | staunch | There are only two things a rational entrepreneur does in a hot market: sell or raise money | staunch | Be sure to catch Marc Andreesen's comment (#5) (tried to add that to text field post-submission)I love this topic because smart and experienced people seem disagree. My feeling is that the situation is simply different for Marc and Jason. Both of them are already rich, so they're comfortable aiming for IPOs/billion-dollar exits or bust -- just like VCs.
| Be sure to read comment #5 from Marc Andreesen.
| 1 | 1 | 2007-07-10 14:04:30 UTC |
33,483 | 33,292 | plusbryan | The Virtues of a Second Screen | kkim | 2 screens seems a little passe, doncha think? 3 screens is ala mode. | null | 5 | 9 | 2007-07-10 14:24:02 UTC |
33,484 | 33,450 | brlewis | How did you pick your LFSP of choice? | Tichy | http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_7.html#SEC74 | I've noticed that many news.yc contributors use exotic languages, at least as a hobby. I wonder how you arrived at using the particular language. Not wanting to start a language war, it's just the LFM vs LFSP post made me think.Perhaps we all should create our own programming languages? I've seen a lot of articles on how to create a domain specific language in Ruby - perhaps it would be a good criterion to consider how easy it is to create a DSL with a given language? | 0 | 5 | 2007-07-10 14:32:34 UTC |
33,485 | 33,465 | Tichy | Hackers and Fighters | dpapathanasiou | I must admit I don't consider learning a programming language something a university is supposed to teach you. They should teach you about concepts, and perhaps offer some optional seminars or workshops interested students could use for learning a programming language of choice. Frankly, a "programming language" degree from a university would devaluate the value of the degree in my opinion (ie if a student would get points for knowing a programming language). Might as well just go for Microsoft Certification.I also don't see why they have to agree on a standard programming language for the whole CS department. Why not let each teacher do their own thing, and let the students decide (teacher insists on Pascal -> students won't attend the lecture). | null | 0 | 16 | 2007-07-10 14:45:47 UTC |
33,498 | 33,497 | jsjenkins168 | Apple debuts iPhone Developer Connection site | jsjenkins168 | Still no SDK, but at least there is good info here for developing rich web-based apps. | Still no SDK, but this is at least a useful resource for developing web-based iPhone content. | 1 | 6 | 2007-07-10 15:36:01 UTC |
33,506 | 33,497 | palish | Apple debuts iPhone Developer Connection site | jsjenkins168 | Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't find a list of all Javascript objects to use to interact with the iPhone. For example, you might be able to do something like: document.onDoubleTap = function(event) { alert("double tapped at [" + event.x + ", " + event.y + "]"); }
But I haven't found documentation anywhere. Does anyone know where it's at, or if it exists yet? | Still no SDK, but this is at least a useful resource for developing web-based iPhone content. | 0 | 6 | 2007-07-10 17:13:13 UTC |
33,507 | 33,505 | dpapathanasiou | Advice on web-app credit card processing and invoicing? | tacoma_wa_dev | Here are some news.yc discussions about this topic:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5303http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33322Perhaps we need the ability to tag discussions? | I am developing a niche business web-application targeted at machine shops with fewer than 10 employees.
I am charging a flat-rate of $5/day for the web application with an unlimited number of users.
Customers pay up front for however many days they want. They can purchase additional days whenever they want. There is no automatic recurring billing -- the web app is simply 'paused' when it runs out of days.What is the best way to go about handling credit/debit card processing and invoicing for this?I'm playing around with using Paypal Website Payments Standard with encrypted 'buy it now' buttons and Instant Payment Notification (IPN).
However, the user-experience for credit-card payments with PayPal is lacking. Specifically, Paypal does not auto-redirect users back to my website if they use a credit card (auto-redirect works only with PayPal payments).
What other payment processing solutions should I be looking at? Unforunately, Google Checkout seems to be behind PayPal in terms of multiple-currency support.Thanks in advance! | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-10 17:16:05 UTC |
33,511 | 33,400 | palish | Lisp closures as much as OOP as you'll need (?) | mcxx | Okay, but closures aren't Lisp-specific. Javascript and Lua have them, C# is about to get them, and the C++ standards board is considering them, plus probably dozens of other languages which I don't have experience with.Closures can be used for OOP.. not that you'd want to, though. | ehm... | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-10 17:23:18 UTC |
33,513 | 33,502 | epi0Bauqu | Recommendations for a Colo Datacenter in Boston area | ivrokv | http://www.ilandinternet.com/ is the way to go. They are a reseller of Level3 for smaller businesses. You go right in the Level3 data center, and it's still relatively cheap. Note that iland colos in many Level3 data centers across the US and Europe. | Please share your reviews, experiences about how you chose your datacenter colo. | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-10 17:34:10 UTC |
33,523 | 33,493 | ivankirigin | Tyranny of the Page View Nearly Over? | zx76 | I'm periodically amazed how well MSN ranks, and then I remember it's the default homepage for IE. How sad.Any ranking system that gets closer to measuring the number and intensity of users who love the site is good.
| null | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-10 18:29:04 UTC |
33,525 | 33,305 | ivankirigin | Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned | waleedka | This is the first I'd heard of startupweekend. They seem to be off on some basic ideas, as other comments here concur. Throwing more developers at a problem doesn't usually solve it. A weekend is barely enough time to think about an idea thoroughly.But it does sound like fun though. A barcamp should take the idea to the illogical extreme and hold a startup-hour session. :) | null | 4 | 17 | 2007-07-10 18:34:55 UTC |
33,533 | 33,514 | kmt | Behind the Fiendish Complexities of Airfare Pricing | mattculbreth | Those guys have built a business around an NP-hard problem. Is anyone here working on solving hard computational problems and thinking of building a business around it? | null | 0 | 10 | 2007-07-10 19:07:02 UTC |
33,537 | 33,224 | sanj | Why you won't run out of money | drusenko | I like this analysis. It articulates something I've believed for some time.However, it makes a dangerous assumption, which is that the world makes choices easy.The startups I've worked with usually don't sink away into obscurity, or explode into an IPO. There's in that big squishy middle where you have to decide, at every step, whether or not to push on.It is at those moments where it becomes an issue of whether you invest more money (yours or someone else's). | null | 0 | 31 | 2007-07-10 19:52:47 UTC |
33,559 | 33,514 | Tichy | Behind the Fiendish Complexities of Airfare Pricing | mattculbreth | Is there a way to access the airfares data as an individual?
| null | 1 | 10 | 2007-07-10 22:56:39 UTC |
33,568 | 33,410 | tipjoy | Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders | toffer | You mention the necessity to have 2-3 cofounders, as does Paul in his "why to not not start a startup." In a 2-person startup, do you think both people need to be software developers? I'm an interaction designer, and so although I do the HTML and CSS, my real contribution to the team is my focus on the personas, the design, and the user experience, while my partner focuses on the implementation. So far, things have been moving along at a nice clip, but I'd like to hear your take on this issue. (Note I didn't use the term 'hackers' because although I don't code, I would consider myself someone who works to "design beautiful software.")
| null | 0 | 54 | 2007-07-11 00:22:38 UTC |
33,579 | 33,558 | jey | Are employees of YC companies allowed at YC events? | palish | Yes, at least for most values of "event", and at least for early employees.What sorts of events are you asking about? | null | 1 | 7 | 2007-07-11 01:58:56 UTC |
33,580 | 33,542 | RyanGreen | How to design for the Facebook Platform (what works, what doesn't) | toffer | Eeh, I don't really agree on the whole "graphical vs. textual" part, one of the apps that I find is used a lot is the "anonymous message" app, and that's purely text-based. | null | 0 | 4 | 2007-07-11 02:03:12 UTC |
33,581 | 33,578 | nmeyer | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | I was an 08' at MIT and I'm a current summer founder. I dropped out, and it's going well. There are a few other undergrads in this session -- but no one who plans on going back to school. Really, everyone fares really well, and whether you were an undergrad/grad/35 years old never comes unto play -- unless it's while joking around over dinner.It's a great time and you should definitely apply!
| I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 1 | 14 | 2007-07-11 02:03:44 UTC |
33,586 | 33,543 | mynameishere | Kijiji and the Curse of Craigslist | far33d | People like Craig always seem (seem, since I don't have a wormhole into his brain) to have this moralistic I-am-not-for-profit attitude. Does it ever occur to his, seriously, that every single entity posting on his site is ravenously trying to make the greatest/easiest/cheapest possible buck? ...and that he is facilitating that immoral attitude? | null | 0 | 9 | 2007-07-11 02:21:34 UTC |
33,587 | 33,578 | rms | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | It helps to be able to honestly say "We are putting our educational on hold for the company, whether or not we are accepted into YC." | I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 2 | 14 | 2007-07-11 02:40:06 UTC |
33,592 | 33,562 | staunch | Recruiting a Co-Founder For Your Startup | jmtame | Very nice post, keep 'em coming.I think your list is basically a description of the things people who are good at sales do. I'm not sure it can actually help the Wozniaks of the world be more like Jobs.One of my brothers was raised in a different part of the country by my father's first wife. My other brother was raised by my father. My brothers and father have something very obvious in common to anyone who meets them. They can effortlessly and genuinely connect with strangers and make them feel at total ease. They've all worked in sales at some point and were remarkably good at it. I'm fairly certain the main trait they share is their deep empathetic dispositions.This had lead me to believe there's a huge genetic component in being great at sales. I'm pretty skeptical it can be taught effectively, anymore than you can teach someone to be a funny person.BTW, I think Freakonomics is a great book about incentives and a definite must-read for any startup founder.
| null | 0 | 14 | 2007-07-11 02:57:47 UTC |
33,593 | 33,578 | gyro_robo | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | If you feel strongly about something, you have to strike while the iron is hot. You'll do better with enthusiasm but no experience than with experience but no enthusiasm. Most of the big success stories have junky back-ends anyway (Flickr is PHP; YouTube's player can't skip forward; MySpace is a pile o' tinker toys and duct tape). A tin can that does something beats a perfect blueprint that just sits there.Oh, and the point of college, actually, is tagging co-eds. Comp. Sci majors tend not to realize this at the time.And human biological feedback loops ensure that stays interesting. Hacking doesn't, so do it while you still find it novel and exciting!
| I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 0 | 14 | 2007-07-11 03:02:16 UTC |
33,594 | 33,578 | drusenko | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | we applied as seniors with 1 semester left each, and got accepted in w2007. i've since graduated, and chris and dan will be graduating very soon. | I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 6 | 14 | 2007-07-11 03:04:51 UTC |
33,596 | 33,558 | pg | Are employees of YC companies allowed at YC events? | palish | There's no rule one way or the other. So far there hasn't had to be, because none of them have that many employees. I doubt it will ever be enough of an issue that we have to think about it. | null | 0 | 7 | 2007-07-11 03:05:31 UTC |
33,605 | 33,562 | jamiequint | Recruiting a Co-Founder For Your Startup | jmtame | I think the selling idea is good, but first you have to meet the right people. I'd argue that that is the hardest part.
Step one, network, then don't be afraid to be too picky about who you approach to join you. | null | 3 | 14 | 2007-07-11 03:56:09 UTC |
33,608 | 33,562 | Jd | Recruiting a Co-Founder For Your Startup | jmtame | Should it be a surprise that a salesperson writes a post extolling salespeople? | null | 2 | 14 | 2007-07-11 04:12:03 UTC |
33,609 | 33,514 | Jd | Behind the Fiendish Complexities of Airfare Pricing | mattculbreth | Anyone else see the toilet advert? Very disturbing... | null | 2 | 10 | 2007-07-11 04:13:12 UTC |
33,610 | 33,505 | jamiequint | Advice on web-app credit card processing and invoicing? | tacoma_wa_dev | Authorize.net? | I am developing a niche business web-application targeted at machine shops with fewer than 10 employees.
I am charging a flat-rate of $5/day for the web application with an unlimited number of users.
Customers pay up front for however many days they want. They can purchase additional days whenever they want. There is no automatic recurring billing -- the web app is simply 'paused' when it runs out of days.What is the best way to go about handling credit/debit card processing and invoicing for this?I'm playing around with using Paypal Website Payments Standard with encrypted 'buy it now' buttons and Instant Payment Notification (IPN).
However, the user-experience for credit-card payments with PayPal is lacking. Specifically, Paypal does not auto-redirect users back to my website if they use a credit card (auto-redirect works only with PayPal payments).
What other payment processing solutions should I be looking at? Unforunately, Google Checkout seems to be behind PayPal in terms of multiple-currency support.Thanks in advance! | 3 | 10 | 2007-07-11 04:13:58 UTC |
33,613 | 33,578 | sama | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | Do it. It is awesome.Sam from Loopt | I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 3 | 14 | 2007-07-11 05:25:43 UTC |
33,614 | 33,465 | acgourley | Hackers and Fighters | dpapathanasiou | I think academia would generally respond that CS is about the concepts not the syntax. Universities need to do a better job raising street fighters, but I don't think it needs to be through course load. There needs to be more programming competitions, more open ended assignments, more CS related clubs and projects, etc. Sure not everyone will participate, but if they don't, they are never going to be good programmers anyway. And lets face it, if universities had more ways to allow students to implement fun things like games or robots (or startups), they would certainly be more willing to spend their extra cycles out of class learning implementation.
| null | 1 | 16 | 2007-07-11 05:28:42 UTC |
33,623 | 33,578 | ronrja | Applying to Y Combinator as an undergrad | myoung8 | I have and awsome idea for a web site that I really think can be successful. The thing is though, will the fact that I am only a Freshman, Comp Sci student prevent me from being accepted right of the bat?I really how it won't because I really feel like I have a hit. | I'm seriously considering applying for Winter '08 as a rising junior.
Has anyone else applied as an undergrad (other than the guys at Loopt)?
How did they (you) fare? Thanks in advance. | 4 | 14 | 2007-07-11 06:22:46 UTC |
33,624 | 33,612 | toffer | Question: link to Amazon's study of HTTP latency vs cart abandonment? | gleb | Greg Linden writes: "In A/B tests (at Amazon), we tried delaying the page in increments of 100 milliseconds and found that even very small delays would result in substantial and costly drops in revenue."Google experienced a similar drop off in revenue when page load time increased.More details on Greg's blog: http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20..... | They did an interesting study showing that response time above 200ms led to people spending less money. Basically, they A-B testing and artificially added server latency in small increments and measured how much money people spent. 200ms (or some similar number) was optimal, going lower didn't show benefit, going above lost them money.Anyway, I can't find a link to this anymore. I think it was on some blogs, probably after a talk Amazon gave. Anybody have it? I don't seem to have enough Google-fu to find it :( | 0 | 1 | 2007-07-11 06:24:14 UTC |
33,639 | 33,562 | tark | Recruiting a Co-Founder For Your Startup | jmtame | This guy seems a bit confused about his own interpersonal skills. An earlier quote:"If you're the type of person who is insecure with hiring someone you don't know or based only on their portfolio, I'm not the right person for you."Now:"Meet 3x in person [...] to present your case" | null | 1 | 14 | 2007-07-11 08:30:09 UTC |
33,642 | 33,495 | dcurtis | Del.icio.us: usability lab | zx76 | All I think about when I look at those Flickr pictures is: that looks like so much fun. | null | 0 | 5 | 2007-07-11 09:19:50 UTC |