SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php <comment><USER2> I would urge extreme caution about reading too much into this article.

I (I'm a political junkie) saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) on TV yesterday. The message I got from his body language, nuance, and phrasing was something like "Obviously people who are elected from heavy technology areas are feeling a lot of heat. There's still a lot of support, though. Let's see if we can tweak this in such a way as to pass some kind of compromise."

Maybe that's just Reid trying to keep the RIAA cash cow alive, not sure. But I was fairly certain that what I was hearing was a tactical retreat, not a strategic surrender. Not by any means. My money says next time they'll have some language in there that could be interpreted a bunch of different ways (to prevent informed debate), and they'll wait until the last minute and sneak it into some other bill that is a "must-pass."

<comment><USER3> What scares me most is the fact that everyone knows this tactic. Write an absurd policy, debate it, offer an alternative and jam it down citizens throats.

We know this, yet there is not much that can be done about it. Aside from the obvious, running for Senate and using your vote, what can be done to stop it? Someone with the right amount of money and enough motivation can pass just about anything, given enough time.

I think, instead of protesting SOPA (or the next bill), people need to devise a method or position themselves so that they're in the right places to protect the average Citizen from such policies. These bills will just keep coming. Screaming from the side line is no longer effective.

<comment><USER2> If the president were to have the line-item veto, where he could approve of certain parts of a bill and veto others, we could hold him personally responsible whenever bills get loaded up like this. As it is, they can pass what they want and nobody is responsible. That's clearly not the way the system was designed to work. The entire purpose of representative democracies is that while representatives can freely vote against their constituents, the constituents also can throw them out of office based on the representative's decisions.

I've seen this same problem play out in a variety of contexts, and it looks to me like the line-item veto is the only thing that will prevent this corruption of the system we're seeing. While this idea has been a pet cause of conservatives for some time, it looks like supporters of liberty have just as much or more skin in the game as fiscal hawks.

Play out the following scenario in your head: it's late in the year, no budget has been passed by Congress (again), and suddenly some third-rail social program is running out of money. Congress passes a law to help the orphans and grandmothers, everybody climbs on-board with huge majority votes, and way in the back section is another version of SOPA.

If you're the president, what do you do? Note this is a much different political scenario than just threatening a veto -- this is asking if you're willing to risk pissing off huge special interests groups just to make a much smaller number of nerds happy. It's political math, and it works quite simply. You sign the bill, make a public speech about how bad the new SOPA is, and life goes on. If you're smart you send out mailers asking people to donate so you can get rid of the thing you just signed! One party will pick the "side" of SOPA, the other party will pick the other "side". In fact it doesn't matter whether you really support or oppose the bill, whoever paid for it got it passed, huge numbers of politicians got to oppose it, and the public can't point the finger at anybody. There's nobody to throw out of office. There's no feedback loop. The system is broken.

In my mind the only thing that is going to fix that is the line-item veto. A lot of state governors have it. I think it's about time POTUS got it also.

<comment><USER4> In effect, doesn't the President already have line item veto? If there are items he doesn't agree with, he should signal that he will veto until they are removed.

<comment><USER5> That requires a lot from the President and oftentimes they'll be on the losing end of that political battle. On the recently-passed NDAA for example (which explicitly made it legal to detain people without trial, and hopefully will be struck down by the courts), it was passed as part of funding the military, sending out soldier paychecks, etc. Fox News is already (wrongly) accusing Obama of wanting to undermine our troops all the time, and people are already sick of pointless squabbling over routine funding matters in DC. Obama would have been the political loser from vetoing the bill, the Republicans would have known it, and they probably would have just kept passing the bill and forcing him to veto it until he caved.

<comment><USER6> Obama originally objected to the NDAA because it limited his powers too much, not because of the indefinite detention clause.

The Administration strongly objects to the military custody provision of section 1032, which would appear to mandate military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects. This unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President's authority to defend the Nation from terrorist threats would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals. Moreover, applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets. We have spent ten years since September 11, 2001, breaking down the walls between intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals; Congress should not now rebuild those walls and unnecessarily make the job of preventing terrorist attacks more difficult. Specifically, the provision would limit the flexibility of our national security professionals to choose, based on the evidence and the facts and circumstances of each case, which tool for incapacitating dangerous terrorists best serves our national security interests. The waiver provision fails to address these concerns, particularly in time-sensitive operations in which law enforcement personnel have traditionally played the leading role. These problems are all the more acute because the section defines the category of individuals who would be subject to mandatory military custody by substituting new and untested legislative criteria for the criteria the Executive and Judicial branches are currently using for detention under the AUMF in both habeas litigation and military operations. Such confusion threatens our ability to act swiftly and decisively to capture, detain, and interrogate terrorism suspects, and could disrupt the collection of vital intelligence about threats to the American people.

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislativ...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdf)

<comment><USER5> What? Break it down for me here, in what way is he arguing for more quote "powers"? The power to not indefinitely detain people? That's a really brutal one, favorite of dictators everywhere. I shudder at the thought of someday being not-detained.

I mean, I really don't want to carry Obama's water on this one given that he did sign the bill, but you're just engaged in some sort of silly deliberate misinterpretation of the paragraph you quoted.

<comment><USER6> My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that the military detention provision would stop the rendition program because "terrorists" would be in military custody instead of allowing the flexibility that they currently have:

"Specifically, the provision would limit the flexibility of our national security professionals to choose, based on the evidence and the facts and circumstances of each case, which tool for incapacitating dangerous terrorists best serves our national security interests. "

I think this entire law is bad, but I'd prefer a well defined bad law than one that allows lots of discretion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this the point where 'the people' should not sit on their laurels, and launch a proposal to make a law that does exactly the opposite: protecting the digital rights of citizens?

I am asking because (also in the EU) we are usually happy when some draconian law does not make it, but there's rarely an attempt to push for legislation that secures the rights of internet users.

<comment><USER8> What would your proposed law say? Congress can't make a law that says that it can't make a SOPA-like law in the future (or, at least, it would be meaningless, since future legislation could repeal it).

<comment> muuh-gnu There should be a way for the people to veto a law in a referendum, like in Switzerland. That way politicians would be more cautious passing laws which they know that the public probably won't like and probably will veto.

The current US system only provides "checks and balances" between political parties, so when one party cracks up (meaning, gets bought by special interests and turns against the people) we only can pray that the other party will come to the rescue. But when both parties agree and team up against the people, i.e. when there is a political market failure like in the case of SOPA (or ACTA), theres no way for the voters to defend themselves.

It is not another law that is needed, but a general possibility to override unpopular laws.

<comment><USER9> > a general possibility to override unpopular laws.

We have to be very careful with this. Sometimes a very popular law is exactly what you don't want. There are vast areas where a law mandating the teaching of creationist superstition in science classes would be immensely popular while a law forbidding it would be very unpopular.

<comment><USER10> Such is democracy, the least bad system we have. Overall it would probably lead to laws that are more in your interest, as opposed to in the interest of people who lobby for laws.

<comment><USER11> Democracy is not simply "the rule of majority".

<comment><USER12> Democracy is exactly that. Which is why our Founders gave us a democratic republic instead.

<comment><USER11> Nope. It is not exactly "the rule of the majority". It is the rule of the majority with respect to the interests of minority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They're certainly trying to get in front of this story before the 18th. I hope none of the sites planning to protest drop those plans.

Politicians and lobbyists know well that the public has a short attention span -- a few weeks of quiet and most of the discussion will have died down. When's the last time you read about protesting the full body scanners and patdowns of children at airports?

Even if these bills are shelved now, they'll be back later this year.

<comment><USER14> There's so much crappy IP legislation right now, we could easily switch to, say the Research Works Act <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Works_Act> which would put some taxpayer-funded research results behind paywalls. [edit] It's effectively double-dipping, getting paid once to do the research and then again if you want to actually read the results.

<comment><USER15> Wrong, we researchers are not double-dipping, just because the publishers are charging exorbitant sums doesn't mean we see a dime of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While watching the MSNBC video yesterday, Cotton's repeated assertions that this only applied to 'foreign sites' bugged me. From the SOPA text:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>--

        (a) Definition- For purposes of this section, a foreign Internet site or portion thereof is a `foreign infringing site' if--

            (1) the Internet site or portion thereof is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users in the United States;

            (2) the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of title 18, United States Code; and

            (3) the Internet site would, by reason of acts described in paragraph (1), be subject to seizure in the United States in an action brought by the Attorney General if such site were a domestic Internet site.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>--

So, a foreign site can be 'u.s.-directed' and used by users in the US. Doesn't sound very 'foreign' to me at all. Sounds an awful lot like 'domestic'.

Yes, I'm sure there's legal interpretations of these words that I'm not aware of, but it sure as hell reads to me like when they say "foreign sites" they're not meaning 'foreign' in the sense that anyone in the US would reasonably understand.

<comment><USER17> The Manager's Amendment clarifies that language. [[http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/HR%203261%20Managers...](http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/HR%203261%20Managers%20Amendment.pdf\]\[PDF\])

Since it _is_ still all legalese, I'll paraphrase (IANAL): a site who's domain name is registered by a registrar outside of US jurisdiction, OR if there is no associated domain name: an IP address of a server outside of US jurisdiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Excerpts from Rupert Murdoch's reaction <https://twitter.com/Rupertmurdoch>

"So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery."

"Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying."

"Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things."

"Seems like universal anger with [POTUS] from all sorts of normal supporters. Maybe backing pirates a rare miscalculation by friend Axelrod."

<comment><USER19> "Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things."

That statement really pisses me off. It also really pissed me off when some politician was like "Google has the technology". Presumably both were referring to SafeSearch and related technologies.

These people have no idea what they are talking about. Blocking porn is an entirely different problem than blocking copyright infringement. Identifying an image as nudity is a task that software can do effectively and that can be crowd sourced in a straight forward manner. Anyone could, without consulting any external source, classify pornography.

However, the same is not true for infringement. The same companies who want their content off of YouTube are publishing free content on YouTube. Google has bent over backwards to block as much infringement as they can and to provide copyright holders the tools they need to manage their intellectual property rights. But the fact remains: you must consult an external source to classify infringing video. Furthermore, fair use is has complex and subtle requirements which are impractical to police using software, crowd sourcing, or enforcement staff.

<comment><USER20> As I would say if I got 5 min to testify before a congressional committee:

"Gentlemen, it has been suggested that, since Google and others have built technology to detect and block pornographically explicit pictures and videos, that they could build technology to block copyrighted pictures. This is simply not true. Please bear with me and I can demonstrate this. [show two pictures] Can you tell which of these is pornography? It's like Justice Stewart said: 'I know it when I see it'. [show two identical pictures] Can you tell which of these is a copyright violation. [pause] You don't have to peer TOO closely, they are absolutely identical. But the author signed contract allowing me to duplicate and display copies of the one on the left, and did NOT allow me to duplicate and display copies of the one on the right. Determining whether something is a violation of copyright requires one to know details how a court would evaluate fair use exceptions, as well as knowing the details of contracts between two third-parties you may not even know. This is not difficult, it is impossible."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ok fellas, we still have some serious work to do.

If it's not already painfully apparent, our current batch of representatives are completely ineligible to pass modern legislation. They're not idiots, they're not morons, they just don't have the relevant backgrounds to represent us anymore. The times have changed around them, and their skills and background are no longer effective or relevant enough.

We need to work hard to get new representatives on the hill that understand and respect technology. The only way non oppressive legislation even stands a chance is if we have representatives that understand the workings of the internet and don't say things like "let google just hire some 16 year old wiz- kid to fix it".

Seriously. It's no longer ok to be a representative and not understand the internet. It is a fundamental part of commerce, free speech, assembly, religion, education, etc. and it's outright dangerous to have people in office who don't understand it attempting to control it.

It's up to us to get relevant, modern representatives in office. We just need to work together and do it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Caution is warranted: "shelved" bills all too often are left there untouched until circumstances warrant slipping them, or a palatable functional equivalent, through unnoticed. It's not dead, it's resting.

<comment><USER23> As they say ... "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" - Wendell Phillips

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Heh, first post here. Hi.

Although I'm from the UK, I have been following this with keen interest,particularly as US authorities are able to pluck our citizens from our country on mere suspicion.

Just to say, and Im sure you all know it already, you have not won, keep pushing and pushing until there _is_ a law, but a fair just one. I don't want such laws, but there are inevitable. Just be sure they are laws that work fairly and properly.

I think the thing to do now is for the community to create and propose its own law(s) and push that on the politicians. Present a credible alternative. Get the legislation we want, not what they want. Perhaps some one needs to set up a site where the on line community can collaborate in putting together a workable solution.

Any way, congratulations for winning the battle, just remember that we still have the war to win.

<comment><USER25> Welcome to HN!

The problem is that US legislation can be changed in lot of weird ways between the time its introduced and when it's passed. For example, there could be popular support for a "Protecting Net Freedoms" act and something good could be introduced. But the special interest lobbyists would likely get a large amount of edits in, and the "provisions" added for "protecting (children|national security|the environment)" and "creating jobs".

So at the end of the day, passing a "Protecting Net Freedoms" act would likely be worse than the status quo (which in the US is still quite good IMHO).

<comment><USER24> Sure. I just mostly think that net folk should lead the debate and and offer something positive. Something that the general public can understand and support. That has to be the way forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good. This is an important victory but the people behind SOPA won't go away so easily. I've always viewed SOPA as more of a litmus test to gauge where Americans stood on copyright enforcement. The next bill the industry tries to get passed(and there will be another) will likely be much more subtle than SOPA was. So let's celebrate, but we must remain diligent. This was only the first round.

<comment><USER27> You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. \- Margaret Thatcher

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I applaud the US political system for being better than the UK counterpart in this instance.

The copyright mafia tried the exact same trick in the UK two years ago: a bill was pushed through Parliament on election year, when MPs had to make their funding rounds and so were more amenable to being bribed... and it passed.

Nice to see US representatives still have a bit more decency (either that, or Google's chequebook is now much lighter than it was three month ago).

</comment><comment><USER29> Awesome, so politians now have two large constituencies to milk: big media and internet-savvy technology companies/the general tech-savvy public.

See, the only one profiting from this ordeal irrelevant of how it plays out are politicians. They get to enlarge their power and money base whenever anyone thinks an issue best be regulated by law.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is just a leadership commitment in the Republican House, the U.S. Senate (controlled by Democrats, and where overall support for SOPA/PIPA seems stronger) could still take up the bill. There are ways to pass legislation that circumvent a direct House vote.

It is good news, but I'd wait to see what Senators say this week.

</comment><comment><USER31> I like the idea that there should be an active push to reduce the term of copyright. There's certainly a case to be made that it's unreasonably long, and that the length does not benefit the public.

Take the fight to their turf or always be fighting a defensive war.

</comment><comment><USER32> Did they really have any choice? After the statement from the White House, they had to put it on hold because they do not want it to be vetoed. They will still come back, but they will either wait until they can make the President happy (which might be hard if he is in his second year and does not have to run again) or wait to see if Mitt Romney wins.

I just hope that PIPA is put on hold as well and hopefully after the election things will be better (depending on what types are voted in) and not worse.

</comment><comment><USER33> Now we need a way to get rid of Lamar Smith (R-TX). That SOB is just an idiot waiting to happen. Again.

<comment><USER34> I can't believe this guy is representing part of Austin, where many web-based companies are located. I have to wonder why he authored the bill.

<comment><USER33> Lamar Smith is a grade-A Republican shitheel who just worries about who or what has contributed to his campaign slush fund. It would appear that freedom of speech, to him, is something that should be paid for by the highest bidder. The level of ignorance this man has shown by authoring this bill and the amount of selling out he's done to corporate interests, rather than the people he ostensibly represents, is staggering.

Unfortunately, the Texas Legislature has gerrymandered the state so badly that he's dug in like tick and will be difficult to remove.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Though the administration's chief technology officials officials > acknowledged the problem of online privacy

Funny that this Freudian slip has shown up in more than one SOPA article.

</comment><comment><USER36> Congress will simply throw SOPA in as an amendment to some completely unrelated bill that people will have a hard time saying no to such as such as funding for puppies. Then if somebody opposes they can say "what about the puppies!"

Certainly my example is silly yet unrelated amendments are made to bills all the time to push one agenda or another.

</comment><comment><USER37> So they're battling online privacy?

Say no to privacy! (or maybe yes to proof reading)

</comment><comment><USER38> It just means the congressmen involved are going to go back and get another hit of money from the copyright industry and then run this through attached to some other bill.

</comment><comment><USER39> Convenient this happens right before a bunch of sites go dark in protest.

</comment><comment><USER40> We need right to connectivity to internet right up there with the right to vibrate your vocal chords in public and use your ears to detect vibrations in air. To take away a human's access to these basic things because they are criminals is unacceptable.

</comment><comment><USER41> Now they will find a way to tack it on to any budget bill they can to hide it..as this how Congress really passes laws be very wary</comment>


YCPages - List of Y Combinator companies, founders and jobs with statistics - <AUTHOR> http://ycpages.info/

<comment><USER2> I would like to be able to edit my profile, as a YC founder.

Also I would like to be able to edit my company's info.

<comment><USER3> Company founders can edit their profile now if they are signed in with Linked- in.

Editing company details coming soon.

<comment><USER4> I just tried editing our investment details for Crocodoc, and I get a "We are working on this feature and will be available soon" message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Many thanks for the feedback guys. Much appreciated.

I have lots planned for YCPages. The first step was get it out there and get the feedback. I am working on adding the funding details at the moment.

I have also posted a question on Quora. any help on that would be great.

[http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-technologies-used-by- YComb...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-technologies-used-by-YCombinator- funded-companies)

</comment><comment><USER5> Aesthetic on my site isn't as good, but I have extra useful links: <http://ycuniverse.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Great page though I noticed a number of errors after glancing through. How do you expect to ensure the accuracy of the data?

<comment><USER7> If you spell out the errors you saw, perhaps...

<comment><USER8> Errors I noticed from the batch we did (W2007):

SocialMoth is no longer active. Paul is involved with Square (which is doing very well).

View 3 was shuttered soon after the batch and everybody went back to school, I believe.

White Noise is defunct. I'm not sure what Sean is up to these days.

Snipshot was a non-batch YC company, I believe (like Justin.TV). Funded by YC based on an existing relationship from a previous batch, but they weren't part of a batch. Not sure that makes it inaccurate...I guess that's the best place to list them, since they were funded around the same time and demoed on the same demo day.

WriteWith is defunct. Eric wrote for VentureBeat for a while. Phillip joined Auctomatic before their acquisition. Martin did something else, but I don't remember what.

I believe everything else in W2007 is correct.

<comment><USER9> Snipshot was W06.

<comment><USER8> I thought Beau demoed something on demo day with our batch...but I may be misremembering.

<comment><USER9> You're right, he did. We let him present again at your batch's dday. We do that occasionally with startups that have special circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm listed as a founder, and there's a link to my LinkedIn profile, but when I login with that LinkedIn auth, I can't edit details about my company. I should be able to :)

<comment><USER11> I have the same problem.

<comment><USER3> When you sign-in with Linked-in and go to your profile page you should see a "Edit" link to update your details. Please let me know if this is not working.

<comment><USER11> I see an "Edit profile" button, but it just redirect to /. I also don't see where to edit company details. (P.S. This site is a great idea.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would be interested in sorting by company's location. A list of YC companies outside of San Francisco would also be acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a real problem with the sex distribution numbers. Not saying it's a YC problem, but it is a problem. There're too many talented women out there to lose them to other industries. When we can pull them over here, watch out!

<comment><USER8> Jessica and pg have both spoken/written at length on the subject. They _want_ to fund female-founded companies, but nearly none apply.

I've personally experienced this. I've tried to talk lots of people into applying for YC, or just starting their own company, over the years since we took part in 2007. About 50% of the people I've tried to convince were women. Only men applied or went on to start businesses. Not a single woman among my friends (among them one who works at Google, and another who started a non- profit foundation when she was 19 that still exists ten years later; these are not random people who don't get shit done; they're YC kinda people) takes my advice to start a company seriously.

The problem is, I'm pretty sure, both genetic and systemic. There's only so much we can do to fix it. At some point, women have to decide they are willing to take economic risks, and bet on themselves.

<comment><USER14> I know of one incredibly talented potential female founder who applied with a killer idea and was rejected. I think it is very likely that YC has a strong bias towards men, which this data certainly supports.

I'm also not blaming YC for having a bias towards men. I think silicon valley in general has a bias towards men, and since YC is a for profit business they are making economically sound decisions. However, I think the situation sucks in general, and saying any fault lies with women is really unfair.

<comment><USER15> > I know of one incredibly talented potential female founder who applied with > a killer idea and was rejected.

I know of dozens of incredibly talented potential male founders who applied with killer ideas and were rejected. Seriously.

> I think it is very likely that YC has a strong bias towards men, which this > data certainly supports.

Why do you think it's very likely? What data supports that. As one of the other commentators already pointed out, the percentage of YC founders that are women is about equal to the percentage that apply. Saying that the "data support" the argument that YC is biased when there is such an obvious alternative explanation (namely, that there are less female founders) is disingenuous.

> since YC is a for profit business they are making economically sound > decisions.

Wait, what? Are you saying that since Silicon Valley (I'm guessing you mean investors in this context?) favors men, YC intentionally (and consciously) chooses to fund men in order to increase the chances that YC founders raise subsequent rounds of financing? That's crazy talk...

> saying any fault lies with women is really unfair.

I don't think anybody is "faulting" women. They are just stating the facts - there are less female engineers, and less female YC applicants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Strange that 5 founders are so much more common than 4 founders. Guess they want that tie-breaking vote?

<comment><USER17> I think that's the "unknown" piece you're looking at.

4 founders are much more common than 5.

<comment><USER16> Ah, yes. Probably not the best color choice there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Beautiful and intuitive design. :) Do you plan to let people edit the content at all?

<comment><USER19> yeah making this a wiki would be kickass

<comment><USER19> just noticed, it IS a wiki of sorts. you can add founders and investments. nice work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Other data points that might be interesting if you could track them down:

1\. How long it took companies to exit.

2\. Financing raised (also against age of the company, so average individual rounds raised and average time between rounds).

3\. Running expenses (perhaps broken down: legal, hardware, people, marketing/ads, etc.)

4\. Revenue.

5\. Userbase growth.

Asking a lot, but would be great information to have. :)

<comment><USER21> With all the contact information available if you really want to know something like this then why not fire off a mail. My perception is that the guys that get funded are usually just decent guys in the most part, sure they wouldn't mind if the information isn't too obtrusive.

<comment><USER20> Good call, I'll try this near the end of the month and post the results if I can get a big enough data set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why just track YC? Why not open it up to all the tech incubators or the entire startup scene and have something really useful and a competitor to crunchbase.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great Work. Like the design and the intuitive design a lot.

One small grammatical error: On the companies page, you have "Founder this company". Perhaps, you could change it to "Founder"/"Founder of this company".

Example link: <http://ycpages.info/companies/143-answerly>

</comment><comment><USER24> Great resource! Is there a way that YC founders / employees can contact you with updates or corrections?

<comment><USER25> I agree! This is great - should we email you with any updates?

<comment><USER3> Yes please. Anything to help this site useful or anything I can do to make it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's a lot of little icons already, but how about a link to each founder's HN handle?

</comment><comment><USER27> Wait, I thought there were like 40 companies in the w11 batch?

</comment><comment><USER28> Awesome - any chance of removing the pagination or increasing the size of paged when looking at, say, the class lists or people?

</comment><comment><USER29> great site. all of the companies have $0.00 listed for their funding, which is incorrect of course. could probably pull some data from crunchbase api. would also be interesting to see which angels/vc's funded them and if there were certain investors that heavied up on YC companies

</comment><comment><USER30> Been looking for something like this. Any way to browse by niche/tag/business model?

</comment><comment><USER31> This is fantastic. Thanks for spending the time and effort to produce it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe it would be good to have some filters for active, acquired, etc...

<comment><USER3> This is added now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> the design is great. i checked out your credits page and you listed blueprint. you must have used something else as well to help design the website. please explain.

</comment><comment><USER34> I would like to have a rss feed for your jobs page

</comment><comment><USER35> What is this implemented in?

<comment><USER3> See <http://ycpages.info/credits>

Let me know if you require further information.</comment></comment>


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Sign up with invite code "hnrox" here:
http://letsrecap.com/users/sign_up?invite_code=hnrox
Let me know what you think =) <comment><USER2> You have a typo in the submission: letsrcap.com -> letsrEcap.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed :)</comment></comment>


Pocket porn: The 20 most popular "adult" sites for your phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/smartphone_mobile_porn_sites Who visits porn sites on their iphone? A lot of you, apparently. <comment><USER2> I am so disappointed to see this on the first page of HN.

<comment><USER3> I looked at the title of the article. I said "I'm certainly not clicking that. Linkbait city."

Then I said to myself: "You know, I bet the top-rated comment on this link is something like 'I am shocked, shocked to find this on the front page of news.yc'." So I had to click through, just to find out.

And now I feel kind of dirty. If first-order porn is, well, porn... and second-order porn is trolling (posting links to porn and watching eagerly as people self-righteously denounce them) what the hell did I just do? _Third- order metaporn_. _Eeeeewwwww_.

<comment><USER4> You tested a theory you had. You wanted some evidence about whether it was true, or not. I'd called that 'satisfying curiosity' or some other positive term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can understand the entrepeneurial angle that makes this interesting to some, but porn aside, it's just as uninteresting (to me) as a lot of the startup- related news that gets posted here. I think there is a sizable wing of HN readers who don't care as much about business and startups as they care about interesting or powerful and novel technological ideas-- and are interested in startups only subordinate to those interests, to the extent that these businesses advance and put into practice new and useful ideas.

That said, the pornography aspect is not inherently wrong in my view. I certainly understand and respect (to varying degrees) the various moralist arguments from different corners of the political spectrum. Interestingly it is divided in at least 4 ways. Libertarian pro-porn, conservative religious anti-porn, liberal feminist (protection of women) anti-porn, and anarchist libertine third-wave feminist pro-porn. While I would morally agree most strongly with the fourth stance that is both pro-woman and sympathetic of (some but certainly not most) porn, inasmuch as it is compatible with the some of the very real concerns of category 3 (to the extent that they are applied legitimately and not as a masked version of category 2), pragmatically I consider pornography, let's say ethical/tasteful artistic or even non- commercial crowd sourced/community-contributed pornography (just for the sake of argument), to be more of a distraction than anything else, despite being morally good.

</comment><comment><USER6> Links to porn on hacker news, that's not good

<comment><USER7> 1\. It's a legitimate business 2\. It makes a lot of money and touches a lot of people 3\. It solves a problem society either has or thinks it has 4\. At some point someone sat down and made a business or is trying to make a business from it so lessons can be learned.

If you don't like it, ignore it, it's your loss.

<comment><USER8> From scanning the article, it didn't look like there was much news to it. Everyone knows that there is porn on the Internet and that people use their phones to look at it is not surprising.

If the article mentioned actual business metrics or trends out of which I could make a business, it would be perfectly relevant and I wouldn't have much of an issue. There is a lot of business opportunity surrounding pornography. As it is, it's just a top 10 list of porn sites, Which is one step from being a link site. This makes it off-topic at best and offensive at worst.

Some people want to avoid pornography for 'moral' reasons, others aesthetic, and some are just married. I think that it is in the best interests of HN if we avoid alienating these people.

<comment><USER9> Censoring people makes you right.

<comment><USER8> This is not an issue of free speech. It's a matter of considering others. You are perfectly in your rights to discuss what you will, but some don't want to hear it and it would behoove one to respect their wishes. There are places to discuss this kind of material, IMHO HN isn't really one of them.

Anyway, there used to be three topics that one never spoke of in polite conversation, religion politics and sex, because they always held the risk of offending someone. We avoid two here pretty well and we might as well avoid the third.

<comment><USER9> No I was talking about the moderators here [dead]ing my posts. Turn on showdead here. If they don't want the topic discussed then shut down the whole thread but not just one side of the debate.

I apologize for double posting but I have requested some recourse for this censoring before and it is totally ignored.

<comment><USER8> 'Your' post was made twice, by two people with accounts under an hour old. If you're not willing to stand by your words, why should we listen to you?

BTW, the second one wasn't moderated, I don't think; it was karmaed to death I believe.

<comment><USER9> They dead some accounts permanently. How am I supposed to stand by my words if I can no longer reply and no one can reply to me?

Both are dead'ed. Just look at it.

<comment><USER8> And both accounts are less than an hour old. If one of them truly is your main account, then you seem to have had dubious reasons for signing up. If not, it's clear that they are both sock-puppets. If you hadn't of used sock- puppets, I suspect that you wouldn't have been deaded. Your remark certainly wasn't offensive enough in that regard. But, sock-puppets are almost as bad as porn spam and go right against the principles of this site.

EDIT: I've noticed more posts of yours that were deaded. You seem to be a troll with contempt for HN and those who use it. We don't have to respect your opinion if your just going to insult us.

<comment><USER10> Don't be a jerk. Quote exactly where this guy went wrong if you want to help.

<comment><USER8> I already disclosed what I don't like. This fellow is a sock-puppet and a coward. That's where he went wrong.

For your curiosity however: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222803>

"It's no wonder that almost all of your silly startups will fail."

No doubt a porn site would be a successful startup. But, most of us are here for more than just money (big ideas or at least something you can discuss with your family) and blanketly accusing this community of wasting its time because it doesn't want to make money this way, is offensive and quite hostile. Especially coming from someone who is hiding behind a sock-puppet.

<comment><USER10> You're hiding behind an anonymous account too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know what's worse: people upvoting the story, or defending it.

</comment><comment><USER12> The more links like this I see on the front page, the less likely I will return to HN. It is inappropriate in my opinion, and worse than simply being off-topic.

</comment><comment><USER13> I sincerely hope this site doesn't turn into yet another online ghetto full of porn and cliches. Porn links are not news. "20 top anything" is stupid. Let's not feed into the lowest common denominator... not by voting, and _especially_ not by discussing how surgically maimed women and men whose workday starts with viagra are a moral good resulting from anarchist libertine third-wave feminism.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to all offended. We published because we thought it was interesting, and I promoted here for same reason.</comment>


Guitar Hero Game... Using Real Guitars - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/352800/guitar-rising-for-real-guitar-heroes

<comment><USER2> That sounds cool indeed.

I don't have the time to play in a band and I always look for ways to keep my jam session at home as interesting as possible.

There is also a lack for easily available music without the guitar track in decent quality. If they are going to fill this gap they 'll be my best friends soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good idea. I would like to note that if you can play the drums on Rock Band, you can play the real drums. It's just a 5 piece electronic drum kit, and I believe there's even a hack to let you use it to compose music on a computer now.

<comment><USER4> As much as I love drumming in Rock Band, it's not quite the same. You don't learn good technique, or how to read music, or the lingo and vocabulary that go together with real proficiency at percussion instruments.

That being said, most drummers don't know how to read music either. The old joke: "How do you get your drummer to slow down if he's playing too fast? Put sheet music in front of him."</comment></comment>


Bloomberg: Sony attack gives Amazon a black eye - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-15/sony-attack-shows-amazon-s-cloud-service-lures-hackers-at-pennies-an-hour.html

<comment><USER2> Yeah, let's blame Amazon for renting servers to people who might use them illegally, until they came along there wasn't a choice and everyone hacking into servers illegally had to do it from their own IP addresses at home.

<comment><USER3> The entire article is kind of silly. In the text their quoted expert says...

"Realistically, Amazon can't do anything to prevent it," Malcolm said. "There is no way of telling who's a good guy and who's a bad guy."

That kind of invalidates the article. If there's nothing Amazon can do there's not much point talking about it (and if Amazon decided to shut their entire program down tomorrow hackers would just use Rackspace or Azure so even then it wouldn't mean anything)

The whole article seems designed to stir up trouble. Like the heading "FBI Probe" which sounds serious until you read the first few sentences of it...

"FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth, a spokesman for the agency's San Diego office, said he couldn't comment on whether the bureau served Amazon with a search warrant or subpoena and that investigators are following up "each and every lead."

So to the best of the author's knowledge there is no FBI Probe. My favorite though was this paragraph near the end...

"The episode will cause individuals and companies to rethink what data to put on the cloud and force companies to potentially double what they spend on application security, said Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University who specializes in computer systems security. In the long run, it will be cheaper than being hacked, he said."

How does someone using Amazon to hack Sony's network make other people reconsider using Amazon? Amazon's security wasn't compromised (and in Sony's case the only info "in their cloud" was account info which has to be stored on Sony's servers by definition).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The reporter's really bending over backwards trying to play the "but what does it mean for cloud computing?!" card even though PSN got breached _despite_ being hosted by Sony on their own servers. Amazon got a black eye because people can create fraudulent EC2 accounts with fake information? And you can't do this with any traditional hosting provider because? And then there is this beautiful gem:

 _The episode will cause individuals and companies to rethink what data to put on the cloud and force companies to potentially double what they spend on application security, said Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University who specializes in computer systems security._

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a terrible article. It almost looks like Sony's PR people are trying to come up with strange stories to make it look like lots of people are culpable for Sony's inability to store date safely.

</comment><comment><USER6> If the attack gives Amazon a black eye, imagine what it does to Turing and his universal computing machine.</comment>


Yahoo mail not supporting + added to email address, locked out of hn account - <AUTHOR> I added an email address to my hn account, using email@example.com.   I am unable to remember my password, and Yahoo is not recognizing the +hn email address as valid so I can't receive the password reset email.  I verified by sending myself an email to the same account, which bounced back.
HN does not verify the email address on the profile, and I assumed incorrectly that Yahoo supported this format.
Is there any way I can have the +hn removed from my hn account? <comment><USER2> For questions like this, you should contact the moderators at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think yahoo mail does not support it on the fly. You need to create the aliases prior to using them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Moderators fixed it for me, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> Email firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Two ideas for I/O in DCPU-16 - <AUTHOR>

There was a comment about possibly adding a fake "putchar" opcode until Notch adds I/O.  This is OK, but it instantly creates machine code incompatibility with the "real" machine and breaks the spec.  Here are two possible alternatives:
- Due to the programmability of the PC register, there are plenty of NOP instructions.  Have your VM treat one or two of these forms differently.  For example, you might have one that is interpreted as doing a putchar of the contents in register A.
- Reserve some bytes in memory and use memory-mapped I/O.
Sure, both of these would still have to be changed later, but they would both ensure that your code still RAN on the actual DCPU-16 code in the game.
Any other ideas? <comment><USER2> That's a good idea.

You should post it over at <http://www.reddit.com/r/dcpu16></comment>


Bing now offers 3d street view (needs silverlight) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/

<comment><USER2> For those who aren't interested in installing silverlight, it's just a street view clone, but much slower, with a fraction of the coverage, more obvious shearing when you move around and a blue circle with a person icon instead of a simple white circle for navigation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that's really fair. I'm not finding it significantly slower here, and it handles some things worse, but others better - eg try downtown San Francisco and spin around to look up at the tops of skyscrapers...the Bing thing is handling perspective deformation much better, whereas Google Streetview introduces a lot of messy artifacts as the 3d parameters change.

It is limited and it's still beta-feeling, but I'm all in favor of the competition...having two large companies duke it out to provide the best virtual rendition of the world can only be a good thing.

(On a side note, I wonder how long before this gets used for ad placement...when I'm looking at a city street and see a store with a big Pepsi sign outside, why don't I get an ad for Pepsi if I click on it? The technology exists; if I screencap a region of interest and drop the result into Tineye, it's pretty good at finding matches for corporate logos and giving me a link to their website...)

<comment><USER2> _"I'm not finding it significantly slower here"_

I'm on a relatively late model macbook pro using safari with a fresh silverlight install and it's dramatically slower than street view, enough that it's difficult to navigate around.

 _"the Bing thing is handling perspective deformation much better, whereas Google Streetview introduces a lot of messy artifacts as the 3d parameters change."_

I don't see what you are referring to. What I do see is poorer quality from the top camera on google ( [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+francisco&sll=41.88295,-87.630901&sspn=0.017956,0.034676&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=San+Francisco,+California&ll=37.792524,-122.399797&spn=0.008546,0.051026&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=37.793093,-122.399935&panoid=H7XLvZ0VvCQ4UWveoS4SDQ&cbp=12,27.09,,0,-30.22) ), but I also see artifacts and whole blurred sections (like frosted glass) of images on bing, though it's apparently not possible to link to individual views.

And other than what I mentioned, it really, actually is just a straight up street view clone. It's not a value judgement, it's just a fact. One huge company cloned something created by another huge company. I'm not sure why any of these statements would be controversial to anyone unless they had a stake in the success of one over the other.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I have no shares or commercial ties to Microsoft or Google :) and I did describe it as 'street view' to begin with...I certainly don't mean to imply it's anything other than a clone. Both have artifacts, I just like some minor technical aspects about the Bing offering but I'm not trying to sell it. I only posted it because Google hasn't had any competition for that functionality up to now.

I'm using Chrome in Win7 btw...I feel that with both Chrome (dev channel) and Silverlight the fact that you're on a Mac _might_ explain the performance lag, seeing as neither company optimizes for that platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> coverage is limited right now, but includes most of downtown SF. I have to say the 3d implementation is rather impressive.

</comment><comment><USER3> can someone grab a screencast?

</comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't work in Chrome on OSX (can't type in search box, either).

<comment><USER5> Microsoft seems to have put very little effort into browser support for Chrome, it took forever to be able to send an email through a hotmail account. I have no understanding how or why a simple text field wasn't accessible, but MS somehow found a way.

<comment><USER6> It works perfectly for me in Chrome 3 / Windows. Chrome for Mac is not even in beta yet so I can imagine that they haven't tested it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Didn't work for me, it seems like their streetview tilecache is broken. Then again, it could be a corporate firewall problem too.

</comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't appear to work with Firefox 3.5.5

<comment><USER9> Works fine on my Firefox 3.5.5

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Silverlight? No intrested.

I'm not trolling. I just really have no interest in adding another piece of software restricted to Windows to my existing repertoir of plugins.

<comment><USER11> Silverlight runs on the mac, and there's Moonlight for Linux. Not trolling indeed.

<comment><USER10> Moonlight will never reach feature parity and is unable to run most of the common Silverlight apps. The chance of Silverlight working on OS X in a few years is about the same as IE working on OS X, or Office for Mac having full support for macros (if it's not clear, MS dropped support for both).

What about mobile devices? Stuff running on ARM?

More of our computing time is being moved away from PCs. If this doesn't work with a browser of with an open set of technologies, it is bound to stagnate and lead to lock-in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> i like it -- pretty impressed as I'm learning Silverlight atm and is inspirational to keep on doing some more coding in it.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any value in constraints as DHH etc profess? - <AUTHOR>

I come from the developing part of the world. I have been reading/ contributing(in whatever way I can) on HN for a couple of months now.
I read a lot on HN about low investment companies. Living in the third world - I know financial constraints lead to innovation of a certain kind. For instance, how to make a car in 2500$ ?
But I find it counter intuitive to believe that more money won't help. Are we facing an ambition problem here? I mean if living on noodle soup fosters innovation, shouldn't India be very high on the innovation front? It's not!
What say? <comment><USER2> It's not about money or ambition it is about focus.

When you have little you have to focus on the most important thing you are trying to do, because that's all you can afford.

When you have loads you lose that focus because you can add this, and add that, and wouldn't that be cool... etc. You lose your focus and your most important thing gets lost in all the noise.</comment>


The world is becoming a happier place - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/aug/27/happiness.money <comment><USER2> _Despite deepening economic gloom and impending climatic destruction..._

Sheesh. Even back in the dark ages, people didn't start off unrelated discussions with "Despite the impending 2nd coming of Christ and our eternally burning souls..."

</comment><comment><USER3> The study analyzes happiness data since 1981. Of course the world's a happier place -- think of everyone who lived in the USSR before.</comment>


Destructure Your Arguments with Perl 6 Signatures - <AUTHOR> https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/day-5-destructure-your-arguments-with-perl-6-signatures/ <comment><USER2> Destructuring is definitely a feature I overlooked so far in implementing Perl6 signatures for perl5 in cperl. Would be needed for macros also.</comment>


Alexander Grothendieck's Mathematical Archives at University of Montpellier - <AUTHOR> https://grothendieck.umontpellier.fr/archives-grothendieck/ <comment><AUTHOR> 18000 pages of mostly manuscript notes were released today by the University of Montpellier, following an agreement with Grothendieck's heirs.

These notes where initially given by Grothendieck to Malgoire, , as narrated in [http://www.neverendingbooks.org/grothendiecks- gribouillis](http://www.neverendingbooks.org/grothendiecks-gribouillis)

> In 1991, just before he moved to the Pyrenees he burned almost all of his > personal notes in the garden. He phoned Jean Malgoire:

> "Si tu ne viens pas chercher mon bordel mathématique, il va brûler avec le > reste."

> Malgoire sped to Mormoiron and rescued 5 boxes containing about 20.000 > pages. The next 20 years he kept them in his office, not exactly knowing > what to do with them.</comment>


Pipe for functions - <AUTHOR> http://arcanesentiment.blogspot.com/2010/09/pipe-for-functions.html

<comment><USER2> This is called -> in Clojure.</comment>


How I got hired by Amazon.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.brunozzi.com/en/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-amazoncom/ <comment><USER2> Hi guys, this is Simone Brunozzi, the "new hire" at Amazon.com. Second Life is not the new holy grail, I just said that it was a key factor for me. Second Life is still in its infancy, and it's useful only in specific situations. I consider evangelists very important for an organization such as Amazon. They don't have an explicit position on Second Life, though. Best,

<comment><USER3> Hi, one thing that I might take issue with is this:

> poorly developed nation from a technological point of view.

There are tons of bright hackers in Italy, in my experience, and in various fields, there is good tech that comes out of Italy. The problems are political and economical in nature, in my opinion - the technology is there, it's just not utilized well because of all the crap that happens politically. As one small example, it between "capital requirements", and all the fees, it probably costs something like 10000 Euro to create an SrL (limited liability company), whereas in my home state of Oregon, I managed to create one for a little over 100 dollars. I'm sure you know all this, but many people don't realize how many smart, entrepreneurial people there are in Italy, and only see the results of years of bad policy decisions.

Complimenti, in ogni caso:-) Leaving Perugia wouldn't be an easy decision for anyone - I think that area is one of the most beautiful that I've ever seen, anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me, or does anyone else find 14 interviews (11 on site, 3 phone; one more if you count the fair) a bit ridiculous? I mean I know people are the most important thing and you have to make smart choices but damn!

<comment><USER5> Yes.

One the one hand, companies like Amazon whine (to whichever politician is listening) that there's a desperate shortage of skilled technical people. On the other hand, they subject new hires to 14 interviews.

Tell me: is this the sort of thing you do when you're in desperate need of employees?

<comment><USER6> Are you proposing that they lower the standards?

<comment><USER5> What standards? This is just geek chest-thumping, and has little mathematical justification.

Let's assume that your interviewers are uniformly _exceptionally_ good, and have a false-negative rate of only 10% (i.e. 90% of all good applicants are accepted).

An interview with a good candidate is therefore a Bernoulli trial, and the outcome of an interview loop can be modeled exactly as a binomial process. If you conduct 5 interviews, the probability of at least one interviewer saying no to a good candidate is 0.41. If you conduct _fourteen_ interviews, the probability of at least one false negative is 0.77, and the probability of at least _two_ false negatives is 0.42. In other words...you've made it twice as likely that you're going to have someone falsely reject a good candidate.

Meanwhile, let's assume that these unrealistically brilliant interviewers are even better at rejecting bad applicants: they each have a false-positive rate of 5% (and therefore, a true negative rate of 95%). If we assume a five- interviewer loop, the chance of a single false positive is 0.23. But bumping the number of interviewers to fourteen _raises_ the chance of a false-positive to 0.51! With fourteen interviewers, the chance that one will say "Hire" to a bad applicant is over 50%!

In other words, with every interviewer you add to a loop, you raise the chances of a false-positive or (even more likely) a false negative decision. If you have normal interviewers (i.e. people who don't have super-human discriminatory ability), the problem is even more pronounced.

<comment><USER7> Problem - 1 false negative or 1 false positive isn't usually a problem. Generally, if you have this many interviews you have some sort of voting system. Let's say it's consensus - then 1 false negative will disqualify some good people, but you'd need 14 false positives, you have a (0.1)^14 chance of hiring a bad person. Expected number of interviews in which you would see this happen once? 10^14

But, you may ask, what about the case where they should be rejected, 8-6 (assuming majority voting not consensus, but you could apply this to any voting threshold), and you have two false positives and 0 false negatives, is it really that horrible that you might experience the borderline case where you hire someone who might be mediocre, assuming everyone else is pretty good?

Yeah, there is a good chance you'll makes some individual mistakes. But having lots of interviews decreases the probability of making those mistakes frequently enough to actually influence the outcome.

Hate to say it, but your "mathematical justification" is really just another example of geek chest-thumping.

<comment><USER5> Well, obviously, you can keep your false-positive rate low by requiring absolute consensus. If you require _fourteen different people_ to agree on every hire, then you're not likely to hire any bad people....you're also not likely to hire anyone at all.

Your second argument is more reasonable: if you stick to strict majority-rule voting, it's true that you're less likely to get a false-negative result with a larger number of voters. (You'll also increase the number of false-positive results). Problem is, nobody actually _does_ it that way. Most hiring managers are trying to keep the false-positive rate low, and tending toward consensus. Thus, random false-negatives have quite a bit of impact -- one or two "no- hire" votes are enough to torpedo a candidate at places like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Clearly, when you do enough interviews, you start to expect "no-hire" votes, just due to chance. You can claim that this is good for the company, but like I said before...these companies do a lot of complaining that they can't find "qualified" applicants. Perhaps if they re-thought screening processes that involved dozens of interviews, they might find that the qualified applicants were there all along.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To be completely honest... that lost a ton of integrity as soon as I read "I showed up at the Amazon.com's booth, with my well-dressed and custom-skinned avatar which, as a bonus, has my same name, Simone Brunozzi (don't ask me how I got it because it's a secret)."

Cmon now... what is this virtual ^&*#$@! coming to? Really Amazon.com? Really??

Edit: Not only that... but look at the view from his office... I'm practically speachless at how BS not only that job position and article, but Amazon.com's participation and movement in that direction is...

<comment><AUTHOR> Does it really matter if they find the right candidate through Monster.com, on SL or while they're shopping at Costco?

<comment><USER8> Nope, not at all. The reason why I am slightly offended is that people are treating "virtual interviews" with the same seriousness as traditional, face- to-face interviews. There will be no substitute for real human, spoken, face- to-face interviews; more to take out of a person like body language and emotion. Human collaboration within a close environment is crucial to most aspects of business and production. It is nothing more than silly for an individual to feel accomplishment from a job interview via SecondLife; feeling successful, bypassing face-to-face interaction. Though, I feel this position might seem too harsh.

<comment><USER9> Where does it treat them with the same seriousness?

To me the initial SL component was just a screening / outreach process - finding them someone they wouldn't have otherwise found.

He then had 11 face-to-face interviews (in two different countries) totalling 9.5 hours of face-to-face time..

How was this "bypassing face-to-face interaction"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bravo. Well done with the interviews and the tips to new grads and interviewees. Perseverence and studied methods to distinguish oneself from the crowds is the way to land any job. I'm glad he found a job of his liking in a great location.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm guessing that's not going to be the best job ever. Maybe it's Second Life stigma, but I don't think so.

<comment><USER12> Actually, it _will_ be the best job ever. Technical Evangelism is impactful, fun, and all-consuming and I would be happy to tell you more off-line.

As Simone's new manager I am happy that we were able to find such a talented person using Second Life as our first point of contact.I am also happy to know that he has experience and interest in leading-edge technologies.

Hiring great people is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. You have to find them, screen the resumes, conduct phone screens, and ultimately meet them in person. If there's a way to use an advanced technology to optimize and reduce the time and expense involved, then what's the problem?

<comment><USER13> "I would be happy to tell you more off-line"

I would be happy to hear more off-line. My email address in is my profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sometimes it takes someone's ESL to get the best bulletin board material:

"if you work hard for something, in the moment you stand in front of your challenges you'll feel stronger than ever"

Bravo!

I'd wish you luck, Simone, but no need. Looks like you already know how to make your own.</comment>


A newly discovered moon tunnel - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/10/21/a-newly-discovered-moon-tunnel-could-be-the-perfect-place-for-a-colony-scientists-say/ <comment><USER2> For a more technical description, the paper is here: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074998/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074998/full).

"Detection of intact lava tubes at Marius Hills on the Moon by SELENE (Kaguya) Lunar Radar Sounder"

 _Intact lunar lava tubes offer a pristine environment to conduct scientific examination of the Moon 's composition and potentially serve as secure shelters for humans and instruments. We investigated the SELENE Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS) data at locations close to the Marius Hills Hole (MHH), a skylight potentially leading to an intact lava tube, and found a distinctive echo pattern exhibiting a precipitous decrease in echo power, subsequently followed by a large second echo peak that may be evidence for the existence of a lava tube. The search area was further expanded to 13.00–15.005°N, 301.85–304.01°E around the MHH and similar LRS echo patterns were observed at several locations. Most of the locations are in regions of underground mass deficit suggested by GRAIL gravity data analysis. Some of the observed echo patterns are along rille A, where the MHH was discovered, or on the southwest underground extension of the rille._

<comment><USER3> If the moon had ancient volcanic activity and thus, why is it, after observable impact from various bodies - shown in the craters all over the surface, and the sumizing of the fact that water was deposited to earth from extra-orbital impacts... does the moon have zero water or atmosphere?

Where did water originate?

(I didn't know how to format that question any better, so please forgive the fumbly format)

<comment><USER4> The moon's core isn't made of the swirling molten iron dynamo like Earth's is. No swirling molten iron, no magnetic field. No magnetic field, nothing deflects the solar wind that then, literally, blows away any fledgling atmosphere.

It's believed that Mars' atmosphere was considerably more dense than it is today, but along the way, its core cooled, and it lost its protective magnetic shield, allowing the solar wind to strip away much of its atmosphere.

<comment><USER5> Then we have no hope of ever engineering Mars to have enough air for us to breath?

<comment><USER6> A Martian atmosphere (not sure about a lunar atmosphere) would be lost on a timescale of tens of millions of years. That's very quick in cosmological timescales, but slow enough that any human effort to create or replenish it could be very successful.

<comment><USER7> That said, the earth's atmosphere has a mass of about five billion billion tons. For reference, as a species, we produce about ten billion tons of concrete each year. This is just to give a sense to the scale of effort involved in replacing a planetary atmosphere.

<comment><USER8> Depending on the volume of surface ice (especially at the poles), might it be possible to produce atmosphere on a massive scale via orbital lenses or mirrors? With recent advances in solar sail technology, I can't imagine the implementation would be too far removed from current capabilities.

<comment><USER7> Think about how large of a lens you're talking about. Even if it were one hundred meters across and was able to collect 100% of the sun's energy passing through it, the amount of energy produced would be utterly insignificant compared to the problem we're discussing. And how would you get a one hundred meter lens to mars orbit? Even after that, you have to consider that we want an oxygen atmosphere, not one made of water vapors.

I don't know what you mean by "too far removed from current capabilities", but I doubt we'll even start working on the problem for two or three centuries.

No, it seems more likely to me that we'd use our growing knowledge of genetics and psychology to hack out the part of ourselves that needs to be outside, and opt for a purely enclosed existence on Mars.

<comment><USER9> That's about ~250x the JWST. Given that we're talking about a society that has developed far enough to be sending people to Mars and terraforming the landscape, I don't think that 8 doublings would be an unreasonable multiplier of current capability. Still a flagship, many-decade mission though.

<comment><USER6> The James Webb mirror is a rigid, astonishingly precise focusing element. A solar energy mirror could instead be merely approximately parabolic, made of a foil instead of cryogenic, made of metalized kapton instead of gold-plated beryllium, would forego focusing elements, and so on.

However, the thought of a telescope-quality mirror 250x the size of the JWST is pretty amazing :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pictures of lunar cave entrances:

[https://phys.org/news/2015-08-technology-illuminate- mystery-...](https://phys.org/news/2015-08-technology-illuminate-mystery-moon- caves.html)

Three photos are from the Marius Hills location the article mentioned, though I'm not sure if it's the precise tunnel they investigated.

</comment><comment><USER11> > _It might even contain ice or water_

As a boy in the early seventies, reading _Tintin: Destination Moon_ , I was always put off by the episode with the underground cave full of slippery ice. That was clearly an outdated view of lunar conditions, which somewhat dented my suspense of disbelief.

Maybe I needn't have worried.

<comment><USER12> the rocket looked silly too, but it turns out that's how we'll do it.

elon musk may we bald with a goatee too by then.

<comment><USER13> Would he be Elon Dupont or Elon Dupond?

<comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Calculus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Calculus)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like we need to send a probe or ten to the Moon. Who knows what's down there? (Although the answer is going to be "some rocks" as far as most non- astronomers are concerned.)

<comment><USER15> Probably ice. Ice that falls into the entrance and then sublimates has a good chance of moving to perpetual darkness regions and to stay there. Factor a couple billion years and you probably will have a decent amount.

Now imagine there is some simple biology happening from the time the Moon had some atmosphere, in caves sealed billions of years ago.

<comment><USER16> somebody already did image that..

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lotus_Caves

<comment><USER15> I wasn't thinking about complex lifeforms, as there isn't enough energy in those dark caves to power anything complicated, but some rock-eaters could have thrived there.

It's remarkable the Moon has so many interesting stories waiting to be uncovered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how stable such tubes would be? No water erosion, no earthquakes, even though they must have formed at a time that was more geologically active. They could be on the edge of collapse if say, a large vehicle drove in them. Am I wrong?

Just a first thought. Other than that, they could probably serve as a goal for human spaceflight, an intermediate step between walking on the moon and colonizing mars.

<comment><USER18> > no earthquakes No but how about moon-quakes? Ok, not geologically active you > say. But moon's been bombarded by asteroids it's surface is full of craters. > Creating a crater wouldn't that be an equivalent of a moon-quake?

<comment><USER19> This is the correct answer. These lava tubes are, at their youngest, a couple billion years old. Since then, the moon has been thwacked very hard and -- on those timescales -- often. If the tubes haven't collapsed yet, then there's a high likelihood that they're exceptionally stable.

<comment><USER20> That could be survivor bias. Maybe there used to be a lot more of them.

<comment><USER8> Does that count as natural selection?

<comment><USER21> I don't think lava tubes breed.

<comment><USER22> Survival of the fittest, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > And many scientists have long dreamed of building bases inside natural moon > caves, where lunar explorers might sleep safely in inflatable homes, > protected from the storms above.

What "storms" are the authors talking about here?

<comment><USER24> Maybe solar storms? The Sun sends out quite a lot of radiation from time to time. Earth is protected by its magnetic field and atmosphere, the Moon and Mars not so much.

<comment><USER25> Am I incorrect without an active lava core, the magnetic field is basically non-existient? Then Moon tunnel is probably not good enough for humans to remain healthy.

<comment><USER26> Rock is pretty good at shielding from electromagnetic radiation. It obviously depends on how deep you are, but any shielding beats no shielding.

<comment><USER27> Also water serves as very good shielding. Anybody living in caves in the moon would naturally need an ample water supply (a "closet" full of water containers), which could double as an emergency radiation shelter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Let's dig a tunnel to the centre of the moon!" "You can't dig a tunnel to the centre of the moon, Blode!" "Yes I can! It will be a special tunnel, and it will go to the centre of the moon!"

Anyone else remember that?

<comment><USER29> I don't recall that quip, but I _do_ recall an episode of "Space 1999" decades ago titled "The Catacombs of the Moon" where they discover a vast underground cave system, (which turns out to be the hibernation place for a civilisation of aliens, IIRC)... The episode always had me intrigued as to whether the moon _actually_ could have a large cave system that could be hermetically sealed and inhabited by humans to save on shipping tons of building materials out there.

<comment><USER9> Yes, and it's one of the oldest and seriously touted plans for lunar settlement. Apollo 15 landed next to and studied a collapsed lava tube, so we even have ground truth here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When such discoveries are made who "owns" that real estate?

<comment><USER31> "Who Owns the Moon? | Space Law & Outer Space Treaties" \- [https://www.space.com/33440-space- law.html](https://www.space.com/33440-space-law.html)

<comment><USER32> We'll see how much those words on papers mean when real value is to be had up there.

<comment><USER33> About the same as human rights in similar cicumstances I would imagine

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> now if only someone had boring technology and rocket technology to go with it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Hope they don't find a labyrinth in there.

</comment><comment><USER35> The page doesn't scroll for me?

</comment><comment><USER36> Why do you always post from a source which requires you to pay upfront to read the article?

<comment><USER37> Clear your cookies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> TLDR:

Space nerds theorized moon caves since the 80s. Moon caves created by young moon lava flows billions of years ago found in early 2000s. Japanese space agency finished mapping a tunnel last week and found it's 50km long and 500m wide with a flat bottom perfect for building space buildings in.

This is news that's breaking to a revitalized moon rocket industry with all agencies and players building their own big moon rocket. New Glenn for blue origins, bfr for spacex, sls for NASA, ACES for ULA (boeing aerospace + lockmart ) Chinese have also expressed interest in a moon base.

<comment><USER39> So, uh, who owns the moon, and that tunnel in particular? Is it first come first serve?

<comment><USER40> Whoever gets there first, and can realistically form a threat credible enough to defend it.

You'll probably need the backing of a nuclear power, although off-world representation of earthly countries might not turn out to be particularly credible threats (enough to intimidate new emerging space-based powers), or remain truly politically cohesive with their root terrestrial counterparts, depending...

<comment><USER41> Or maybe the people who get there can just agree to cooperate instead and share the land, unlike how we do things down here.

One can dream.

<comment><USER42> This is actually the way the Outer Space Treaty is written - a state party to it retains jurisdiction over any object it launches, but is required to keep it open to "representatives" of other state parties.

For a more complete look at the legal issues involved, see[http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3286/1](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3286/1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Speaking of "moon tunnels" why not send TBMs up thete and mine whateveratetials are in the crust while building fused wall smooth habitats and transportation and hydroponic garming areas, etc. Id build it at the poles so that sumligjt is fairly readily available all "lunar day" otherwise you need some nuclear power up there or solar power station at the poles beaming mw power.</comment>


Look for opportunities rather than ideas - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2012/2/16/opportunities-not-ideas <comment><USER2> Great article swombat.

Here's another exercise for differentiating opportunities from ideas: turn the tv on to a random channel, preferably a channel that covers some area you normally aren't interested in.

Pay close attention to the commercials. These are probably for products (ideas) that you find no value in at all. Yet somebody just like yourself is making these commercials and making a boatload of money doing it. Why? What opportunities did they see in ideas that you would find worthless? Can you see how the idea may be completely useless in your eyes, yet the opportunity very valuable?

The title was such that I was able to upvote this article before I even read it! (Yes, I did actually RTA) I knew exactly where you were going. An opportunity is an idea + value. It's the addition of the value that makes it so different than just run of the mill ideas. An idea might be to write a text indexing system built on references like research papers are ranked. An opportunity is making a simple-to-use web search engine so folks can more easily find what they are looking for. Big difference.

The more I think about it, the more I feel we should eliminate the word "idea" completely from discussions about startups. All the talk should only be about opportunities.

<comment><USER3> I wholeheartadly agree with everything you said, and I'd love to understand it even more.

What is the difference between an idea and business value? How do you spot both of them at the same time, as neither can exist without the other? How do you increase business value when you're out of fresh ideas?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Better still, look for big enough and relatively accessible markets that are in need for better solutions and then simply develop those solutions. Let the markets give you an idea, rather than you come up with an idea and then try to find a market for you. I'm a big believer in market-based approach for (most) startups.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I believe you made that point in a post which I linked to. Ah, here it is: [http://swombat.com/2011/1/10/make-money-from-your-web- applic...](http://swombat.com/2011/1/10/make-money-from-your-web-application- start-with-the-market)

I don't think the points are in contradiction. Opportunities are mostly found via markets. Without a market, there is no opportunity, just an infertile idea...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Completely agree. The "idea" preoccupation with entrepreneurs is like the business equivalent of trendy weight loss diets.

It's easy, so people want to believe all you need is the right idea and you're golden. The truth is much simpler, but it's also much harder to implement because it takes discipline and persistence. Probably why failure rates are so high in business as with diets...

If you think your idea is more than 5% of what matters, youve already lost.

</comment><comment><USER7> Totally agree. A great way to find opportunities is to consult and learn a business from the inside out, you'll stumble over so many opportunities that you can build a solution for and even sell locally at first to have those magical lean customer conversations before hand that you'll be left in awe.

Learning to sell is one of the biggest gifts to have. Selling your ideas, thoughts in a job, to others, is a skill that's critical, let alone doing it in business.

By speaking with customers and saying "Hey, I'm looking for something to build and I want to learn about your problems, mind giving me a few minutes?" is all the selling you'll ever need to do. There is no shortage of small business owners that won't mind.d

Remember, it's not always the problem you solve that has to be sexy. Having your time free and paid for is sexy. Learning the ropes of business on a smaller project that grows regularly is sexy.

Let go of your inhibitions and become a productivity pirate, use the technology that gives you the quickest result and most productivity.

Avoid configuration integration/masturbation like the plague or you'll lose momentum. This means, use what you know.

</comment><comment><USER8> _Make it a constant habit to pick out some of those things and figure out how they make money_

This is the one that really got me and why I'm often confused by HN "startups" and ideas. I simply can't figure out how they will ever make enough money for the venture to be worthwhile.

It's mindblowing how many niches there are and the huge amount of businesses that exist (take a short drive through any industrial park, write down the business names and then google them, for example). So why do programmers insist on coming up with something that never existed and trying to force-feed it to people? That will work in maybe 0.00001% of all cases when the alternative is so much more likely to be profitable.

</comment><comment><USER9> What the startup industry needs is for the business world to feel that they can pay a reasonable price and get a great bespoke software product built. In just the same way they pay for insurance, legal fees, IT, staff, they also pay for somebody to build them bespoke software for their company.

If the business world thought like this, then we (developers) would not have to 'guess' what would be a good or valuable idea, the business world would give it to us.

</comment><comment><USER10> I started sharing some "meta ideas" I've collected over time, to spur some ideas on how to find opportunities: <http://times.jayliew.com/tag/meta-idea/>

</comment><comment><USER11> > Learn to sell.

How?

<comment><USER5> I'll get to that in a later post. There are many ways to do so. Some quick ideas:

\- Buy things and sell them back. E.g. buy an item on eBay and sell it. Keep doing that over and over again until you figure out how to make a profit in the process.

\- Sell your time (directly, not via a regular job). Almost everyone has something they're good at. Do that again and again until you're good at it, then see if you can sell someone else's time.

<comment><USER12> You can sell on ebay before you bought anything!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ideas are free. Implementation is hard.

(Well, good implementation is hard.)</comment>


Ask HN: List of all YC startups? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know where I might find a list of all 172 YC companies? <comment><USER2> Crunchbase seems like a good start, but I'm not sure how up-to-date the list is <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/y-combinator>

</comment><comment><USER3> This was discussed a few months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=958899></comment>


What a total solar eclipse looks like from a plane [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=04a_1217608584

<comment><USER2> I wish it was only how it looks, but it's also how it sounds.</comment>


Ask HN: Know of any place to buy UI templates for SaaS websites? - <AUTHOR> I can do the backend/databases etc, but I can't make a website look nice for the life of me.
I've been looking through the usual places like themeforest etc. Something or the other is missing - for example, most have landing pages only.
Know of any HTML templates (bootstrap, plain html/CSS, foundation...whatever) that I can buy and customize? Landing page, features page, testimonials page, pricing page, forms, about page and maybe an admin page? Nothing fancy, no flashy graphics - just well written HTML/CSS, nice typography, clear navigation that can be easily customized (if it is just black and white, even better!) <comment><USER2> themeforest actually has themes that have all those elements you say are missing, I think you might just not be searching or filtering properly.

</comment><comment><USER3> wrapbootstrap.com - look at the "Admin Templates" for a good starting point.</comment>


US raises legal age to buy cigarettes to 21 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/20/health/tobacco-age-21-trump-spending-bill-bn/index.html <comment><USER2> Federal government's gotten too big, and operates outside of the boundaries the Constitution outlines (Commerce Clause? More like "we do what we want clause").

This should very clearly be a state issue, at most. Federal government has no business making these decisions.

Lemme guess - they didn't implement a gradual introduction of this policy, meaning that suddenly tons of people who could legally smoke won't be able to do so. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, yet the article doesn't really say.

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally, we should also work to curb alcohol culture / consumption as well.

<comment><USER4> Raise the drinking age to 21?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Get. Your laws. Out. Of. My. Body.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hurray! We are slowly delaying adulthood! What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Morc: Mock Arc Programming Language as Scheme Extension - <AUTHOR> http://planet.plt-scheme.org/package-source/neil/morc.plt/1/0/doc.txt

<comment><USER2> I don't see how you could make a "mock" programming language implementation. Either it's a complete implementation, in which case it's just as real as any other implementation, or it isn't, in which case it's an implementation of another language.

Incidentally, the reason we didn't make our implementation too Mzscheme- specific is that we wanted to make it portable across Scheme versions. In fact, it started out written on another version of Scheme, Scheme48.

<comment><USER3> The language he implemented is "Mock Arc" - an imitation of Arc. From the project home page:

 _I decided to call my implementation Morc, as in "mock Arc," as in an imitation Arc._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The project's home page: <http://www.neilvandyke.org/morc/></comment>