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37,747 | 37,720 |
dhouston
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
ec2 and mysql (or memcached for that matter) don't yet play well together. we were going to deploy a big database across several EC2 instances but the lack of static IPs and internal routing quirks makes configuration and automated failover extremely complex. sadly, the ability to deploy lots of instances != the ability to scale effectively, at least for mysql/memcached.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 3 | 17 |
2007-07-30 20:03:03 UTC
|
37,750 | 37,720 |
dood
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
In case you missed it, check the comments in this link [http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/CommentView.aspx?guid=f8e6...], discussed here [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33093].The suggestion is to constantly write db logs from EC2 to S3 instead of nightly backup, so that in the event of a crash you're only likely to lose minutes worth of data. Also note that you can restart instances with no loss of data. Its only in failures that you would lose data.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 2 | 17 |
2007-07-30 20:13:22 UTC
|
37,753 | 37,733 |
rzwitserloot
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
My previous (failed) startup had the following plan: Identify (university-level) lectures given all across the world, for many different areas of study, that doesn't change much over the years. Example: statistics.Now build a live computer-based lecture with a software architecture to live-test what you know with questions, including skipping ahead once you 'grok' something, and working your way through more examples if you are struggling. Get this right with a sizable budget. Don't just get academic experience on board, but also didactic experience.The amount of value created is staggering; lectures are very boring and relatively ineffective, professors generally want to do research instead of lecturing anyway, and they cost a bundle. Every year, how many professors around the world are lecturing statistics? Thousands, easily.The reason it failed: Video stuff is very expensive, and universities move at glacial speeds. We just couldn't get the universities to commit actual money to the project in time - and we all despised bureaucracy.I'd like to return to this idea when there I have more money and more experience some day.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 3 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:17:30 UTC
|
37,758 | 37,733 |
nostrademons
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
In this post, I'm defining success as "The number of people who find it useful is roughly equal or greater than the number of people who I thought would use it." I'm explicitly not defining it as financial success - most of the projects I've worked on have been hobby or volunteer efforts, and the commercial ones tend to flame out for implementation difficulties.By this definition, I count 5 and a half successes (auto-uploader and new DB system for FictionAlley, Scrutiny and roomdraw ticker at Amherst, "Write yourself a Scheme in 48 hours", and a Netbeans plugin for my current employer is the half), 3 and a half failures (inAsphere, RejectedByYC/Bootstrapacitor and the current incarnation of Diffle), and 7 projects that failed because I or my employer failed to finish implementing them (a MUD, a Gnutella API, SchoolBrain, SecureTunnel, a Scheme-like programming language, collaborative editing, a Ruby plugin for Netbeans, and a Haskell-like programming language). The interesting part is the failures that were implemented fully, so I'm going to skip the successes and the bad implementations.inAsphere.com was a teen-content dot-com run exclusively by teenagers, founded in 2000. Had the normal forums, link directories, articles, and polls. We launched it after a month and a half, folded in cross-x.com and its userbase (an earlier site founded by one of the founders), then found that rather than gaining new members, we were losing the existing cross-x.com userbase. The investors pulled out after 3 months and the project was canceled. IMHO, it failed because: A.) we were pompous, elitist, and corporate - the market statement was "A teen content site for intelligent teens", thus implying that anyone who didn't like use was stupid. B.) we really weren't all that smart. C.) we had very little to differentiate us from every other dot-com in 2000 D.) we talked down to users - while they had felt like they were part of a community in cross-x, it just felt like they were part of a corporate machine with inAsphere.RejectedByYC/Bootstrapacitor was a side-project my startup did after YC rejections came out. You can see the initial announcement threads at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233, though the site itself is down now. Aside from some of the obvious comments in the threads, I'd put its failure down to: A.) unclear positioning - because of the name and manner of announcement, many people thought it was intended to compete with YC, while it was really intended to serve as an additional resource for those of us who couldn't get into YC/TechCrunch/other programs. B.) Chicken-and-egg problem - the site gains much of its value by having a community of dedicated & driven entrepreneurs, but no dedicated & driven entrepreneur will sign up unless others already have. C.) Poor understanding of requirements - honestly, I don't think it actually "fit" its intended purpose all that well. As an entrepreneur now, I wouldn't use it myself, which is a pretty damning indictment. Ironically, my sister just told me today that she thought that idea has more potential than what I'm currently working on, so perhaps there really is something there, and we just weren't willing to spend enough time on it.I'm reluctant to include Diffle ( http://www.diffle.com/ ) as one of the failures, because it was never meant to succeed! The site as it exists now is basically a bunch of functionality that we need for our real idea to avoid losing out for lack of silly stuff (much like how Google Video lost out to YouTube for a bunch of stupid and easily-correctable reasons). I could knock off that functionality fairly easily while still employed at my day job, so I figured I might as well put it up on the off chance that people like it. After all, having something up is better than having nothing up, and we have a completely different name and domain name ready in case we tarnish our brand. It also gives us a bit of a psychological boost, knowing we have a site that we can just plug our real engine into.In retrospect, I don't think I would do it this way if I had to do it all over again. If your real idea is any good, you'll have plenty of users begging for you to add the features that you omitted. And you can find out much quicker if your real idea is any good, and switch to a different one if necessary. Plus, feedback on something that's not your real product is basically useless, because you draw a completely different audience. Friends and family that you show it to assume you're doing something different than you actually are, and they make all sorts of erroneous assumptions based on that.Finally, I'm including the Netbeans plugin I wrote for work. This actually does get used - my boss loves it, and gave me a nice bonus for it. However, it's not being sold, which is what I thought would happen with it. The reason is kinda instructive:When I started at my employer, I thought the company did something different than what it actually does. Like many bootstrapped startups, there's a split between the founder's vision of what the company should be, and the products/services that actually bring in the money to execute on the founder's vision. I had built a product based on the founder's vision, but I thought that the founder's vision was bringing the profits in, and so was a little disappointed when nobody except my boss uses my software.Also, I think I should mention an observation about the 5 successes: in every single case, I was a member of the community that would eventually be using the software, and I basically just built something I would use myself. I was an author at FictionAlley before I was a programmer for FictionAlley. I was a student at Amherst before I wrote its course-evaluation system. I was interested in learning Haskell before writing a tutorial for it, and in fact basically wrote the tutorial as a way of teaching myself Haskell.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 0 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:27:31 UTC
|
37,759 | 37,733 |
amichail
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
How would you know why a startup failed? The main reason may simply be that you are not living in a good place for startups.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 8 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:27:57 UTC
|
37,760 | 37,733 |
pg
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
Before Viaweb we had a startup to put art galleries online. But galleries didn't (and mostly still don't) want to have their inventories online. Galleries want you to come in in person so they can impress you with their fancy space and make a big production out of bringing stuff out of their mysterious back room.Since we were too poor then to have bought any art from galleries, we didn't realize this was how they worked. Lesson: don't build things for users so unlike you that you don't understand what they want.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 1 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:29:58 UTC
|
37,762 | 37,720 |
nickb
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
Just buy a real VPS server somewhere and avoid all the issues with data persistence and EC2. Use EC2 for heavy processing and use S3 for backup/storage/static file server.Going down the path you described will be full of pain.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 4 | 17 |
2007-07-30 20:32:43 UTC
|
37,763 | 37,733 |
davidw
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
I had better hopes for Apache Rivet. But it has had lots of upsides just the same, and I've learned a tremendous amount from watching Tcl itself gurgle down the drain, even if it still pisses me off.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 5 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:33:15 UTC
|
37,766 | 37,733 |
rokhayakebe
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
1 The first was a mobile game distribution network. Developers upload their games and tag them. Publishers get a widget they embed on their site and displays games relevant to their website content. If their audience like a game, then they simply input their phone number in the widget and hit SEND to my phone. It didn't work because I kept changing my direction and I wanted to wait until everything was perfect to launch. Big mistake. Several months of development out the window.2 An location based SMS coupons. User registers for offers they are interested in and add zip code. Advertisers choose a radius to distribute their ad and send it to all users within the perimeter. Too easy to copy and SMS business is costly. Still got some interest from some VIP in the mobile field. The real reason was I got bored with it.3. A RSS to SMS/IM content distribution. It failed because i just kept changing direction. On top of that the idea was not unique at all. PS> Now i am working on something truly unique. Well at least it hasn't worked so far although a few carriers and handset manufacturers have tried it.If I do not get a call from PG after launching this one, then I will be xtremly surprised.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 7 | 20 |
2007-07-30 20:38:27 UTC
|
37,773 | 37,609 |
lkozma
|
Idea for a new web app
|
lkozma
|
As someone pointed out in comments, geotracing.com does a similar thing. And of course companies have done that for fleet tracking for a long time too.
| null | 1 | 6 |
2007-07-30 21:01:02 UTC
|
37,778 | 37,733 |
simpleenigma
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
I've been trying different things on the Internet since about 1995. Back then I was trying to create online storage, which turned out to host more adult files then anything else. Finally gave that one up due to bandwidth costs.After that I tried my hand at web-based email which extended into a calendar, time and billing and eventually forums that I hosted and other people could use their own domain name with. Turned into a semi-successful business, but the management of the system ended up eating up too much of my time and it wasn't making enough to let me quit my day job.I wrote an anti-spam service that was efficient and quite good at filtering spam, but the resource required to take it to the next level were not around and I couldn't generate interest in the product. This came down to a not enough hardware to get the full working prototype finished problem.Some of the largest problem I had were the 800 pound gorillas that seemed to appear just before my product was ready and I wasn't agile enough at the time to compete.I don't regret implementing any of the project I did, even the map server that I've tried to create about 6 times. For me half the fun is the creation and until recently I haven't been dedicated to creating a large business out of it.Plus the experience and the amazing tools that have come out of the whole journey are worth more then the the time I spent on all of this.Another big lesson I've learned it that I can't do the whole thing alone. Just like you need the right tool for the right job, the right person for each job is important as well.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 2 | 20 |
2007-07-30 21:17:58 UTC
|
37,781 | 37,728 |
nickb
|
Incredible Startups: Mizpee helps you easily detect public toilets
|
szczupak
|
Incredible?! lol
|
Here is very nice service available for No.1 requirement for a everyone. You can imagine that you are outside for some shopping or for some important work and area is not known to you and then you got emergency call for Bathroom.
| 0 | 1 |
2007-07-30 21:33:10 UTC
|
37,782 | 37,539 |
ivankirigin
|
PG, if you could haved joined 3 Y Combinator start-ups from any session, which would they have been?
|
blored
|
How about another question. Which companies were furthest from your expectations, e.g. failed when you expected them to succeed. I suppose you just don't fund companies you don't expect to succeed, so every failure disappoints.
|
I know it's a lot like choosing between children, but I'd still like to know.
| 2 | 5 |
2007-07-30 21:33:50 UTC
|
37,784 | 37,464 |
geebee
|
Characteristics That Make a Startup a Startup
|
drm237
|
how would you categorize something like craigslist, or 37signals?Craigslist clearly didn't intend to be huge at first (it wasn't even sure it wanted to be a web app), and Craig has made it pretty clear that he doesn't intend to IPO or sell (though a big chunk was purchased, by EBay, I think). Aside from that, it does have the profile of many startups - small, technically oriented, programmer-driven, massive growth.37signals fits to some extent as well - bootstrapped by consulting, but product oriented, technically oriented, programmer driven, substantial growth. Neither companies seem to want a sale or IPO - they're happy to settle into a role as profitable businesses. At that point, I suppose they are no longer startups.While these companies are the exception, the approach they advocate does seem to be growing. So maybe you call them startups and say that there are many paths - and the IPO/sale exit is more typical.
|
What characteristics do startups have that small businesses lack?
| 1 | 9 |
2007-07-30 21:57:54 UTC
|
37,790 | 37,593 |
dood
|
What will come after web apps and social sites?
|
daniel-cussen
|
Super-fast, ubiquitous (beyond mobile) network computing: the internet thoroughly integrated into the world. Access to all your data, all the time. Query-like access to the worlds data. Distributed, fragmented, interconnected web apps, APIs and aggregations. Simpler, higher-level development tools. Deeper, subtler collaboration tools. Distributed reputation, trust and identification tools. Micropayments. A network economy: entrepreneurial individuals, shifts in business organisation. Commonplace persistent virtual reality (no, really). Mind-computer interfacing. Is that the sort of thing you meant?
|
A lot of startups seem to be doing these two things. While there are plenty of opportunities in these areas, what do you think the next big thing will be?
| 6 | 13 |
2007-07-30 22:19:38 UTC
|
37,793 | 37,720 |
benhoyt
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
I can't speak about EC2, because we haven't used that. (But from what I've heard, it's not quite right for a web hosting service. We rate hosting your app yourself.)But ... we've found S3 to be very good for hosting big stuff, and static files. Very simple. And use the S3Fox Firefox plugin for testing and getting statics on there in the debugging phase.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 5 | 17 |
2007-07-30 22:31:38 UTC
|
37,798 | 37,720 |
alex_c
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
As someone who's not very familiar with EC2 and S3... what's the advantage of going this route over the traditional app server(s)/web server(s)/database(s) model?
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 6 | 17 |
2007-07-30 23:08:27 UTC
|
37,801 | 37,794 |
run4yourlives
|
7 Tips for viral marketing
|
rchambers
|
Come on now, link to the original: http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tri...
|
Thomas Baekdal lists 7 tipps for successful viral marketing.
| 0 | 6 |
2007-07-30 23:24:44 UTC
|
37,804 | 37,733 |
juwo
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
From one perspective, juwo my product, has failed. No investors, No cofounders, No Users (apart from me). Yet - I plan to reimplement and hopefully, turn things around.juwo is not a failure until I give up.I won't give up while my convictions about it remain.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 6 | 20 |
2007-07-30 23:33:22 UTC
|
37,811 | 37,810 |
pg
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
I don't agree with this article's conclusions, incidentally. I doubt there's much the telcos can do to Google, no matter how vengeful they feel. But the article helped me understand what this controversy is about.
| null | 1 | 26 |
2007-07-31 00:26:19 UTC
|
37,812 | 37,720 |
jey
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
We're planning on renting a dedicated server for our web and database servers, and using EC2 for red5 instances. The red5 machines don't need to store any persistent data, and the number needed will vary according to demand, making it a good fit for EC2.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 7 | 17 |
2007-07-31 01:08:04 UTC
|
37,816 | 37,384 |
treehugger
|
Are you a Canadian YC News reader?
|
robin_bb
|
West Kootenays, BC
|
Are there any Canadians reading YC News? Please respond and/or vote up, if yes.
| 20 | 24 |
2007-07-31 02:29:30 UTC
|
37,819 | 37,720 |
staunch
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
Everyone rent a dedicated server on ServerBeach and use my referral code so I get more free service (and you get $100 credit): 7XYHDMBU8Ahttp://www.serverbeach.com/catalog/cust_ref_landing_new.php?...
Seriously though, just because EC2/S3 are useful things doesn't mean you should use them for everything. Dedicated servers are unbelievably cheap and powerful now. They're also way more straight forward to work with. Scale up for a while, then scale out if you're hugely successful.
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 1 | 17 |
2007-07-31 02:51:52 UTC
|
37,822 | 37,593 |
tomek
|
What will come after web apps and social sites?
|
daniel-cussen
|
More integration between desktop and web environments. Eventually becoming a one inseparable instance.
|
A lot of startups seem to be doing these two things. While there are plenty of opportunities in these areas, what do you think the next big thing will be?
| 10 | 13 |
2007-07-31 03:13:33 UTC
|
37,826 | 37,799 |
ivankirigin
|
Hackers find serious problems in California voting machines
|
andres
|
Pencil and paper are a clear solution. But that doesn't involve wasting a great deal of money and promising control. Lots of folks are pretty paranoid about fixed elections. I try not to attribute something to malice which could easily be incompetence.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon
| null | 0 | 4 |
2007-07-31 03:34:54 UTC
|
37,827 | 37,818 |
yubrew
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
iinnovate.blogspot.com is pretty decent. I really like the one w/ Eric Schmidt.
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 6 | 10 |
2007-07-31 03:58:32 UTC
|
37,828 | 37,810 |
catfish
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
Sure hope Google gets what it is asking for here. We need this kind of network. I would love to give away a phone which carries my applications on its "desktop" straight out of the box. Imagine the possibilities. Free cellular for anyone willing to purchase $200 bucks a month worth of widgets from my sponsor. Talk to Verizon about an idea now and your sure to see your idea pooped on or stolen. An open system would let everyone have a hack, and talk about investors opening wallets for companies with ideas. Deja Vu, the internet reborn yet again....
| null | 6 | 26 |
2007-07-31 04:05:10 UTC
|
37,831 | 37,818 |
staunch
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
Jason Calacanis' "CalacanisCast Beta" is generally decent and the most recent one with Ron Conway is amazing. Charlie Rose's "Technology" interviews are good. iInnovate, VentureVoice, IT Conversations, TalkCrunch, Scoble, TWiT, Diggnation.VentureVoice is by far my favorite, but it's slowed to a trickle. There is just not much good content for people who like this stuff. I've listened to everything -- twice. I've had to resort to (gasp) reading on my commute most days, for lack of audio content.Lots of great stuff in here: http://wiki.ycombinator.com/presentations/ if you haven't listened to it yet.
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 0 | 10 |
2007-07-31 04:12:56 UTC
|
37,832 | 37,810 |
avehn
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
I think Cringely makes some valid points about the risks Google is taking but I think he is being overly paranoid. Even if he is not and the world is run by the telcos, I still say good on Google. Even if only some of the rules Google is proposing are adopted for this new frequency band we would be looking at a new way to network. A better way. An open way.
| null | 2 | 26 |
2007-07-31 04:13:58 UTC
|
37,833 | 37,810 |
jey
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
Summary: Google should bow down to the big telcos and not spend 2.86% to 6.22% of their market cap to open up a gigantic market because there's a danger that Google will hurt the telcos' feelings and cause the big telcos to no longer do special deals with Google.Google is entrenched enough that they aren't going to wither and die just because they don't get preferential placement on the default landing page for the cell phone's browser. If Cringely is saying that the telcos would actually block Google, that would be an indicator of much bigger problems with the telco cartel.Sounds like it's Cringely who needs to put down the crack pipe.
| null | 0 | 26 |
2007-07-31 04:14:20 UTC
|
37,836 | 37,818 |
lojic
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
{ 'Buzz Out Loud', 'Cranky Geeks', 'NPR: Technology', 'Ruby on Rails', 'Science Friday', 'TWiT' }
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 4 | 10 |
2007-07-31 04:20:40 UTC
|
37,840 | 37,690 |
staunch
|
How Top Bloggers Earn Money
|
garbowza
|
I'm surprised Mashable is pulling in so much. I've been a big fan Pete Cashmore because he really does what Arrington did in the beginning and without the strange attitude. Through no particular connection or authority he's done a really great job at keeping track of startup development. Arrington has become very slow and complacent in comparison. Glad to see it's paying off for Cashmore. The underdog wins again.
| null | 0 | 11 |
2007-07-31 04:45:10 UTC
|
37,843 | 37,810 |
StStartup
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
..the author is on crack.The whole article is nothing better than a soap opera: "Google, the "little search giant" feels like bidding. Doesnt have enough cash to win the bid. Rolls out evil plan in sheep's disguise demanding 'openness' ,so that the winning bidder will have to Open up everything.Auction day.As expected Google doesn't win the bid.The winner and gangs in retaliation blocks Google.com from the service. Google dies ."Honestly, WFT?
| null | 7 | 26 |
2007-07-31 05:18:52 UTC
|
37,851 | 37,818 |
aswanson
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
Newscientist.com has some eclectic stuff.
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 5 | 10 |
2007-07-31 06:54:52 UTC
|
37,852 | 37,850 |
s_baar
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
Does anyone know of a good college with a healthy balance between the two?
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 10 | 10 |
2007-07-31 07:04:35 UTC
|
37,857 | 37,850 |
tuukkah
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
My university began offering a minor in "technology-based growth venturing" last year, and it was certainly worth taking. The school of business and economics organizes it for the sciences departments, which allows it to be properly framed. Only afterwards could I appreciate how the classes focus on marketing and VC.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 6 | 10 |
2007-07-31 07:21:15 UTC
|
37,858 | 37,850 |
cperciva
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
Big problems are made up of small problems. Who is going to be able to solve the small problems if not the engineers?
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 9 | 10 |
2007-07-31 07:22:53 UTC
|
37,861 | 37,733 |
henning
|
What ideas have you implemented that have failed, and why?
|
nostrademons
|
I have started and abandoned RSS aggregator projects 4 times in the last 4 years. The first was in C++ and MFC, then Python, another Python, then Scala.Certain things about feed aggregation that you might think would be cool wind up not really working out well in my opinion. It's not until you try to aggregate together thousands of blogs that you realize that the best blogs are very much cults of personality, and can't be easy clustered together like mainstream media as in Google News.You'd also be amazed at how poorly implemented simple markup specifications like RSS 2.0 can be. I forget what law it is that says the easier it is to implement something, the worse the prevailing implementations are because of barriers to entry, but I think it's very much true.Thirdly, I'm very throughly convinced that the browser is the best environment for consuming hypertext, not special desktop applications. Therefore apps like NetNewsWire get it wrong in my view.These aren't instances of business failure, just reasons I abandoned things and opinions I came to have by writing code and seeing what happened.
|
In the "What ideas do you regret not implementing?" thread, Maurycy suggested turning it around and asking "What ideas have you implemented that have failed anyways?" After all, most of us are more worried about the risk that we'll work our asses off building something cool and then find nobody likes it rather than the risk that we'll never get started at all.I agree with maurycy that this is a far more interesting question, so I took the liberty of submitting this as a discussion topic. Please be more specific than "Because there was no market for it" - that's obvious, why wasn't there a market for it (or turning it around, why'd you implement it if there was no market), and how does it differ from projects you've done that have succeeded.
| 4 | 20 |
2007-07-31 07:36:07 UTC
|
37,863 | 37,850 |
zach
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
I don't know much about the University of Waterloo (I'm a Mudd ITR), but they do have one guy there who is very big on startups, Larry Smith. Of course, he's in the economics department:http://www.zachbaker.com/articles/2006/11/30/larry-smith-the...
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 3 | 10 |
2007-07-31 07:40:24 UTC
|
37,864 | 37,850 |
uuilly
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
If you had to design an engineering school from the ground up where the input was an 18 y/o w/ HS math + science and the output was a good engineer, it would look nothing like universities do today. Engineering is diced into its core components and those components are diced into their core components until you end up w/ a prof drawing lines and dots on a blackboard that have no connection to the lines and dots being drawn on all the other blackboards you saw that afternoon. All the while your goal is to predict what lines and dots will appear on the test in a month. I don't deny the need for a thorough and disciplined understanding of math and physics. But... I didn't understand the need for calculus until I needed a way to go from pos/time to velocity/time. I didn't understand linear algebra until I needed to transform vertices in 3d graphics. Personally I don't understand a hammer unless I see the nail. Engineering school is all about showing you everything there is to know about a tool except what to use it for. I think E-schools should be like obstacle courses where you have projects that REQUIRE understanding of a concept in order to complete them. Classes about said concepts are given as the NEED arises. Most E-schools suck. Just take as many project based classes as possible (CS is decent for this) and get a degree. Universities also have lots of grants that nobody knows about where you can get money to build cool things. Maybe this is just me, but I don't think I'm alone. And it probably explains why I failed to hang my pictures with a chainsaw.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 0 | 10 |
2007-07-31 08:27:33 UTC
|
37,868 | 37,850 |
nailer
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
This is possible using the S3 storage engine for MySQL, which is currently in beta. Your database lives on S3, your hosts live in EC2 Xen VMs. As I understand it, if your VM is powered off, you lose cached data your database will then start re-pulling from the storage engine.You can fetch the storage module from here:
http://fallenpegasus.com/code/mysql-awss3/A relevant Computerworld article:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewA...Have I done it? No. It's something I'm investigating for a startup which may have a need for elastic scalability. What's the speed like between S3 and EC2?
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 11 | 10 |
2007-07-31 09:07:11 UTC
|
37,869 | 37,720 |
nailer
|
Deploying on EC2 + S3
|
palish
|
This is possible using the S3 storage engine for MySQL, which is currently in beta. Your database lives on S3, your hosts live in EC2 Xen VMs.As I understand it, if your VM is powered off, you lose cached data your database will then start re-pulling from the storage engine.You can fetch the storage module from here: http://fallenpegasus.com/code/mysql-awss3/Relevant presentation:
http://fallenpegasus.com/code/mysql-awss3/presentations/Computerworld article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewA....Have I done it? No. It's something I'm investigating for a startup which may have a need for elastic scalability. My main concern: you'd need a list of consistent speed between S3 and EC2. Any current users know what this is like?
|
Hello all,I have a little side project I'm getting ready to launch. It's a Rails app using MySQL (though database choice doesn't matter, since it's Rails). I'm considering launching the app purely on S3 + EC2. The idea is, the code will live in S3 by using the S3 filesystem component. I can develop locally and deploy via Capistrano when I push out a new release. The code is then deployed to S3 and the EC2 instance restarts.I'm wondering if this is even viable. Has anyone else that you know of done it? For the database, I have two options. I could either leave the database on the EC2 instance and back it up nightly and never restart the instance (since data only disappears if you restart the instance or due to a hardware failure). The advantage there is database queries are most likely much faster, since it doesn't have to hit the network for each new database query. The disadvantage is, the data may disappear at the drop of a hat, and then it's backup-restore time. The other option is keeping the database in S3, which seems totally secure but might be slow for queries. I'll, of course, be using memcached and other caching mechanisms, but database load seems like it could still play a part.What d'you think, would you launch on EC2 + S3?
| 0 | 17 |
2007-07-31 09:10:25 UTC
|
37,873 | 37,810 |
rms
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
Google will inevitably stand up to the telephone companies. Fighting for the old TV frequencies is as good a place to start as any.In 25 years, do you think that Google or the telephone companies will be more relevant?
| null | 5 | 26 |
2007-07-31 09:24:07 UTC
|
37,879 | 37,593 |
blader
|
What will come after web apps and social sites?
|
daniel-cussen
|
Warp drive.
|
A lot of startups seem to be doing these two things. While there are plenty of opportunities in these areas, what do you think the next big thing will be?
| 14 | 13 |
2007-07-31 10:20:33 UTC
|
37,882 | 37,871 |
tuukkah
|
Feature Req: Some UI indication for news.yc internal posts (like this one)?
|
pramodbiligiri
|
Sure. And to propose a design: Simply don't link the title, as there's the "discuss" link anyway. To indicate submissions that contain editorial text, "discuss" might be replaced with "read and discuss".
|
I would like to know if a given link points to an external article or is only a news.yc thread. Currently I use the status bar to check. Anyone else feel the same?
| 1 | 2 |
2007-07-31 10:51:51 UTC
|
37,883 | 37,871 |
epi0Bauqu
|
Feature Req: Some UI indication for news.yc internal posts (like this one)?
|
pramodbiligiri
|
There is a UI indication--there is no domain next to the title.
|
I would like to know if a given link points to an external article or is only a news.yc thread. Currently I use the status bar to check. Anyone else feel the same?
| 0 | 2 |
2007-07-31 10:55:32 UTC
|
37,884 | 37,818 |
epi0Bauqu
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
FutureTense: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/. It is only a few minutes long, daily, and always interesting.
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 2 | 10 |
2007-07-31 10:56:38 UTC
|
37,889 | 37,850 |
StStartup
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
Every revolution in history has been driven by tech, and the revolutionaries where NOT taught about startups in engineering colleges. So ..you get the point. For revolutionaries, its not required.
[and why did you plugin that "wtf" at the end of your rant ? Trying to get that Diggitude? ]
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 2 | 10 |
2007-07-31 11:13:47 UTC
|
37,890 | 37,881 |
boris
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
If we believe this to be a general rule, then a single founder will have about as many ideas as two brainstorming co-founders.
| null | 5 | 21 |
2007-07-31 11:13:52 UTC
|
37,903 | 37,881 |
staunch
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
What pmarca is ignoring is that most people won't even try to come up with ideas by themselves. It's pretty tough to spend hours by yourself brainstorming on one topic. When you have someone (even a manikin) as resistance it can really draw out your best ideas. Nothing makes me come up with a clever idea quicker than someone suggesting that there's no solution to a problem. The real world difference between brainstorming as a group and as an individual might be the difference between some and zero.
What these groups of co-founders do together is more complicated than just sitting down and trying to think of ideas. I suspect the most productive setup is a kind of together-alone-together sandwich. Together you talk about some hard problem, probably getting nowhere. Then, the next morning, one of you has an idea in the shower about how to solve it. He runs eagerly to to tell the others, and together they work out the kinks. -- Ideas for Startups
| null | 1 | 21 |
2007-07-31 12:29:44 UTC
|
37,912 | 37,810 |
patrickg-zill
|
Cringely: Is Google on Crack?
|
pg
|
Only people who have had experience in dealing with telcos know how evil they are. And any company, no matter how much of an outsider they are at first, eventually becomes corrupted and also evil (see: Sprint as one example). Google would have to specifically and repeatedly and publicly repudiate the status quo of telco behavior in order to have even a chance of avoiding the same fate, should they get into telco-like services.
| null | 4 | 26 |
2007-07-31 12:51:52 UTC
|
37,914 | 37,818 |
altano
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
I'm subscribed to ~25 podcasts but wouldn't recommend most of them... which I guess means it's time for me to clean up my list. Here are some that I would recommend:Non-tech (in order of awesomeness):
30 Seconds with Phone Guy; WNYC's Radio Lab; This American Life; On Point with Tom Ashbrook; CBC Radio 3 Podcast; A Prairie Home Companion's News from Lake Wobegon;Tech (NOT in any order):
MacBreak Weekly; This Week in Tech (TWiT); Freelancing on Rails; Ruby on Rails Podcast; Hivelogic Radio
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 1 | 10 |
2007-07-31 13:20:45 UTC
|
37,915 | 37,384 |
Ultrapreneur
|
Are you a Canadian YC News reader?
|
robin_bb
|
Does anyone know if any Canadians have been selected for any of the startup camps? atleast our servers are always cool inside our igloos :)
|
Are there any Canadians reading YC News? Please respond and/or vote up, if yes.
| 1 | 24 |
2007-07-31 13:29:14 UTC
|
37,922 | 37,867 |
joshwa
|
The Story So Far (Y Combinator Startup Auctomatic)
|
JohnN
|
Still not launched? and not even an ETA? So much for launching at eBay Live...Lesson: don't announce a launch until you're darn ready to release the thing...
| null | 1 | 21 |
2007-07-31 13:46:06 UTC
|
37,927 | 37,850 |
menloparkbum
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
If you think school is the answer, every university with an engineering department also has business courses. However, ourses teaching entrepreneurship and "innovation" are usually a joke.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 4 | 10 |
2007-07-31 14:01:37 UTC
|
37,929 | 37,818 |
chaostheory
|
What podcasts can people recommend?
|
adsyoung
|
http://railscasts.com/ - Good quick ruby on rails screencastshttp://venturevoice.com/ - entrepreneur related interviewshttp://talkcrunch.com/ - entrepreneur related interviews
|
Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to?
| 3 | 10 |
2007-07-31 14:15:07 UTC
|
37,930 | 37,928 |
epi0Bauqu
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
I like your confidence, but I don't quite get it yet. Are you talking about the same type of ideas that would be submitted to YC now, but just by people who don't have the skills (at least currently) to implement them?
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 7 | 7 |
2007-07-31 14:30:44 UTC
|
37,933 | 37,881 |
edw519
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
Wow! What a great post! Starting right now, I will STOP FEELING GUILTY about being a single founder. I have read and re-read all of the negative single-founder propaganda here and other places. I was a little concerned, but somehow, deep inside, I knew better. Over the years, I have come up with thousands of fantastic ideas, sometimes with others, but almost always by myself. And implemented them with accolades.For me, this article confirms what I already suspected. I don't need a co-founder to be creative and productive. It would be nice, but not necessary. You don't have to give up equity just to have a little give and take. A customer, a friend, even a stranger will do. My mind is my "ruby slippers". I've had everything I really need all along.And, staunch, it is not my experience that "most people won't even try to come up with ideas by themselves". Then again, maybe I'm not "most people". There are so many wrongs and so many opportunities in our field, it doesn't take much to get the juices flowing. Just a little customer interaction or 5 minutes on a bad app, and I have 10 ideas to run with. Which reminds me...back to work.
| null | 8 | 21 |
2007-07-31 14:33:21 UTC
|
37,936 | 37,928 |
menloparkbum
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
> I will fund marketing and sales geniuses > We will provide them with the technical helpThis is quite common already. Remember all those companies everyone made fun of in the 1990s, like Pets.com? That is how they came about.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 0 | 7 |
2007-07-31 14:38:20 UTC
|
37,942 | 37,928 |
Goladus
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
How would you provide the technical help?
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 13 | 7 |
2007-07-31 14:53:47 UTC
|
37,944 | 37,932 |
transburgh
|
I hope pmarca doesn't continue posting quotes in place of thoughtful original content.
|
8en
|
It is hard to come up with original content on a continuous basis. Maybe Marc believes that the quotes are repostings are relevant for his audience to read. Regardless of the reasoning, keep up the good work Marc.
|
I started reading Pmarca because he is one of my personal heroes, and because he was one of the few guys that seemed committed to writing smart original content. Recently, I noticed a tendency to post re-post content with a 1 line descriptor. I know Marc is busy....what with selling his company for billions, funding twitter, and running Ning... but I'd rather see 1/3 as many posts that are all original, than see his blog become an amalgamation of repostings like so many other silicon valley rags. Marc doesn't have a comment form to save time, so I hope this gets to him. Quality is important; I think that's why PG's rare essays are immensely more valuable than the flow of half-baked banter coming out of blogs like GigaOm these days.
| 2 | 8 |
2007-07-31 15:03:30 UTC
|
37,946 | 37,850 |
transburgh
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
At Ohio State University they have started an entrepreneurship minor and there were a good number of engineering students in my classes. Maybe the engineers that you have witnessed need to take the action to join a business course.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 7 | 10 |
2007-07-31 15:11:25 UTC
|
37,949 | 37,928 |
kyro
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
This would be something I would be incredibly interested in.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 12 | 7 |
2007-07-31 15:20:38 UTC
|
37,953 | 37,881 |
ivankirigin
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
I'd be more confident in the results if there were some measure of the individuals and their skill sets. Smarter people can probably always have more ideas than a group of less intelligent people.
| null | 7 | 21 |
2007-07-31 15:34:35 UTC
|
37,954 | 37,941 |
jkush
|
The Greatest Secret to Raising Venture & Angel Capital
|
MrHaney
|
Interesting anecdote, but completely mistitled. After reading the article, I didn't feel like I learned any secret to raising venture and angel capital, I just learned a trick for managing it once it's been obtained.
|
Raising venture capital secrets.
| 1 | 3 |
2007-07-31 15:35:56 UTC
|
37,955 | 37,945 |
menloparkbum
|
Food and Open Source come together thanks to a nice startup
|
szczupak
|
"As per my opinion it is a very good and nice work, excellent design as per menus, important is very my clear outlook and visible buttons labels are also very much user friendly, there are some problem with web application which hides text links"I think the bot is malfunctioning...
| null | 0 | 3 |
2007-07-31 15:36:04 UTC
|
37,957 | 37,928 |
bz
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
If you think engineers can get carried away on tangents, I don't think you will find much better out of marketing and sales geniuses (whatever this means). Maybe it's better to save your money and invest in people that are more grounded instead of those who sling the most buzzwords around.It's hard to build a nanotechnology social networking viral space play without engineers.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 2 | 7 |
2007-07-31 15:39:43 UTC
|
37,959 | 37,881 |
garbowza
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
Edward de Bono, the so-called grandfather of creativity, describes this approach in his groundbreaking book "Serious Creativity." Basically you always want to generate ideas separately, then expand on them in a group. The reason is that a group approach from the start will squash somewhat crazy concepts before sufficient time has been put into making them practical. As a result, the most creative ideas are shot down before they are given a chance to be refined.Instead, if you generate ideas on your own you can spend more time on a half-baked concept in order to round out its flaws. Then once its ready, other people can help provide different perspectives on the idea without shooting it down outright. Therefore I don't see this article as simply advocating a single founder approach. However, co-founders should harden their new ideas on their own before proposing them to each other for critique.
| null | 0 | 21 |
2007-07-31 15:45:50 UTC
|
37,964 | 37,928 |
Caligula
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
Fallacy:
If they are sales geniuses/marketing geniuses, they won't need you to get the 15k. They don't need a YC. They have the loot and the connections already.The good thing about technical entrepreneurs is that they know if their projects in mind are realistic. They can also actually go out and build it exactly how they envision it rather than relying on someone who works according to their own schedule with their vision on how it should be. This basically leads to things being developed slower where speed is the #1 thing a startup has going for it.p.s: what exactly is a sales/marketing genius?
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 6 | 7 |
2007-07-31 15:56:31 UTC
|
37,965 | 37,928 |
blader
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
This is a great idea, because sales and marketing geniuses are really really useful when you have don't have a product and don't know how to build one.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 5 | 7 |
2007-07-31 16:03:43 UTC
|
37,972 | 37,881 |
donna
|
Pmarca: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
|
abstractbill
|
Read this and thought it would add to the discussion:
Who's Minding the Mind?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/psychology/31subl.h...
| null | 6 | 21 |
2007-07-31 16:27:20 UTC
|
37,973 | 37,928 |
noelchurchill
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
This is the situation that I'm in. I work in the mortgage industry and I've identified a problem and solution that I never would have seen otherwise. I have a solid tech understanding but my skills are not currently good enough to produce the quality of web app I want. I don't want to wait too long and I don't know how long my window of opportunity will be open so I've hired a coder to begin development. However, if I could have been paired with a coder and a little funding I'm sure things could have been easier and I might have been able to be to market right about now.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 4 | 7 |
2007-07-31 16:29:29 UTC
|
37,974 | 37,928 |
ryantmulligan
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
So your company will be generating 94% of the value instead of 6%?
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 11 | 7 |
2007-07-31 16:31:43 UTC
|
37,975 | 37,850 |
ryantmulligan
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
Can you actually teach entrepreneurship? It seems more like a state of mind that you have to learn over a long time of self discovery.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 8 | 10 |
2007-07-31 16:33:31 UTC
|
37,976 | 37,932 |
brlewis
|
I hope pmarca doesn't continue posting quotes in place of thoughtful original content.
|
8en
|
Is your issue with the brainstorming quote that Marc didn't write it, or that it isn't of the quality you've come to expect from the pmarca blog? Choosing high-quality content is a valuable service. Quality and originality are orthogonal.The brainstorming quote may not have the wow factor of some of the pmarca essays, but it's certainly relevant to people interested in startups, who spend a lot of time talking about ideas.PG has some thought-provoking non-original content on his site too, by the way, e.g. http://www.paulgraham.com/perils.html
|
I started reading Pmarca because he is one of my personal heroes, and because he was one of the few guys that seemed committed to writing smart original content. Recently, I noticed a tendency to post re-post content with a 1 line descriptor. I know Marc is busy....what with selling his company for billions, funding twitter, and running Ning... but I'd rather see 1/3 as many posts that are all original, than see his blog become an amalgamation of repostings like so many other silicon valley rags. Marc doesn't have a comment form to save time, so I hope this gets to him. Quality is important; I think that's why PG's rare essays are immensely more valuable than the flow of half-baked banter coming out of blogs like GigaOm these days.
| 1 | 8 |
2007-07-31 16:36:50 UTC
|
37,979 | 37,977 |
brlewis
|
Stanley Milgram: The Perils of Obedience
|
brlewis
|
Besides being thought-provoking, this excerpt from a 1974 book describes a behavior pattern that becomes relevant to startups when they begin hiring.
|
A thought-provoking study of authority vs. responsibility. It becomes relevant to startups when they start hiring.
| 0 | 3 |
2007-07-31 16:41:22 UTC
|
37,984 | 37,941 |
nostrademons
|
The Greatest Secret to Raising Venture & Angel Capital
|
MrHaney
|
Interesting to compare this with Paul Kedrosky's take on the Twitter funding:http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/07/26/the_twitter_les... Another observation: if you apply this advice to a typical Web 2.0 startup, you get an employee. The "customer" of a free consumer web startup is its eventual acquirer: after all, that's who's going to pony up the cash that becomes the entrepreneur's profit. The "suppliers" are the users who donate their time, and sometimes the investors who donate the money needed to build something that makes it worth it for the users to donate their time.You have three options for how you're going to manage time, cash, and users. You can go to your customer (the big corporation), and say "Pay me now and I will build something that hopefully users want. If they don't, you're out the cash." This is an employee. You can say "I will build something that users want, then when I have shown that users want it, you can pay me. If it flops, it's my problem." This is a bootstrapped startup. Or you can go to someone else, say "Give me cash and I will find users. Then the customer (big company) will want to buy us, and we will shared in the profits. If this doesn't happen, you're out your money and I'm out my time." This is a funded startup.It also occurs to me that many of the misunderstandings behind Web 2.0 and doubts about the sustainability of free web startups come from this reversal of the roles of customer and supplier. Most people think of business as big companies producing a product that is consumed by ordinary people. The Web 2.0 entrepreneur essentially "productizes" consumers and sells them to a big company. This only works because brand loyalty and customer satisfaction have become tradeable commodities: 10 million loyal users and a product they use daily is considered an asset, even if none of them are paying you for it.
|
Raising venture capital secrets.
| 0 | 3 |
2007-07-31 16:52:26 UTC
|
37,986 | 37,928 |
rokhayakebe
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
I am just glad the reddit guys didn't think it was impossible to change the way we get/submit news or any web relevant content. By saying it can't be done what you are really saying is I am not up to the challenge . Now I am not saying this is easy task.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 15 | 7 |
2007-07-31 16:54:41 UTC
|
37,989 | 37,988 |
iamyoohoo
|
Los Angeles, CA - Startup in 3 days
|
iamyoohoo
|
Join a group of startup fanatics in Los Angeles to launch a startup from concept to prototype in 3 days. See http://startup.eventbrite.com for more details.
|
Join a group to launch a startup from concept to prototype launch in 3 days in Los Angeles. See http://startup.eventbrite.com for more details.
| 1 | 3 |
2007-07-31 17:06:27 UTC
|
37,992 | 37,593 |
bsaunder
|
What will come after web apps and social sites?
|
daniel-cussen
|
I think robotics and automation will tranform our world in the coming decade. We are almost at the point where (if we put our minds to it), there's nothing that we can't automate (IMHO).
|
A lot of startups seem to be doing these two things. While there are plenty of opportunities in these areas, what do you think the next big thing will be?
| 7 | 13 |
2007-07-31 17:13:11 UTC
|
37,994 | 37,920 |
Tichy
|
So, what are databases good for?
|
aresnick
|
I feel that they give you an easy way to organize your data and map it to objects in the programming language. If you just use the file system, you have to reinvent the wheel. Since there are several free databases available, the costs shouldn't be a factor in the decision for using them.
|
When do you prefer, say, text files and a filesystem to a database?
| 0 | 1 |
2007-07-31 17:19:12 UTC
|
37,999 | 37,923 |
blored
|
Women in startups...Where are they?
|
Ultrapreneur
|
I bet women are asking the same question about guys on their Mika message boards.
|
I've noticed that all of the "Leader" postings are, or seem to be(by screen name) male, and was wondering where all the women are? if you're female hacker let me/us know your thoughts...
| 1 | 3 |
2007-07-31 17:34:40 UTC
|
38,000 | 37,987 |
ivankirigin
|
How do you make a great video demo?
|
bcater
|
Can anyone recommend screen-capture tools? Ideally, I'd like to zoom in on certain areas easily -- and post processing would be the most convenient.Camtasia seems pretty good.
|
What should you do? What should you not do?
| 1 | 3 |
2007-07-31 17:36:16 UTC
|
38,001 | 37,928 |
palish
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
This reminds me of "I'm going to make an MMORPG, anyone wanna help?"
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 8 | 7 |
2007-07-31 17:37:21 UTC
|
38,003 | 37,987 |
xg
|
How do you make a great video demo?
|
bcater
|
Are you talking about a screencast of your product or are you talking about video footage cut with other things?For screencasting: keep it under 5 minutes, use a script, read the FreshView Post: http://www.freshview.com/thoughts/2007/05/how_we_create_walk...
In terms of presentations, you can imagine combining live-action with infographics and a product demo. This is an involved process and requires production and editing knowledge. Fuel for thought--imagine taking Jonathan Harris' presentation of 20 minutes and editing it down to less than 10 with a focus on facial close-ups, infographics, and product demonstrations.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/144
|
What should you do? What should you not do?
| 0 | 3 |
2007-07-31 17:40:27 UTC
|
38,005 | 37,384 |
statikpulse
|
Are you a Canadian YC News reader?
|
robin_bb
|
Ottawa here.
|
Are there any Canadians reading YC News? Please respond and/or vote up, if yes.
| 25 | 24 |
2007-07-31 17:43:35 UTC
|
38,007 | 37,928 |
eusman
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
then you will fail
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 16 | 7 |
2007-07-31 17:47:43 UTC
|
38,008 | 37,923 |
donna
|
Women in startups...Where are they?
|
Ultrapreneur
|
http://augustsfnewtech.eventbrite.com/
|
I've noticed that all of the "Leader" postings are, or seem to be(by screen name) male, and was wondering where all the women are? if you're female hacker let me/us know your thoughts...
| 3 | 3 |
2007-07-31 17:47:46 UTC
|
38,010 | 37,928 |
paul
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
You haven't launched your startup yet, but in 20 months you will be financially set from its sale?
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 10 | 7 |
2007-07-31 17:50:27 UTC
|
38,013 | 37,928 |
pg
|
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?
|
rokhayakebe
|
The problem is, sales and marketing people generally don't have good ideas for startups. Because they're not masters of the medium, they don't know what's possible.
|
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.
| 1 | 7 |
2007-07-31 18:01:52 UTC
|
38,017 | 37,932 |
edw519
|
I hope pmarca doesn't continue posting quotes in place of thoughtful original content.
|
8en
|
I don't care who said it, just what was said. The brainstorming post was just the tonic I needed today.
|
I started reading Pmarca because he is one of my personal heroes, and because he was one of the few guys that seemed committed to writing smart original content. Recently, I noticed a tendency to post re-post content with a 1 line descriptor. I know Marc is busy....what with selling his company for billions, funding twitter, and running Ning... but I'd rather see 1/3 as many posts that are all original, than see his blog become an amalgamation of repostings like so many other silicon valley rags. Marc doesn't have a comment form to save time, so I hope this gets to him. Quality is important; I think that's why PG's rare essays are immensely more valuable than the flow of half-baked banter coming out of blogs like GigaOm these days.
| 4 | 8 |
2007-07-31 18:05:22 UTC
|
38,018 | 37,850 |
pg
|
How can engineering schools not teach startups?
|
aswanson
|
If it makes you feel any better, no university actually teaches how to start startups, including business schools.
|
I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech. So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems. WTF?
| 5 | 10 |
2007-07-31 18:07:40 UTC
|
38,020 | 37,988 |
pg
|
Los Angeles, CA - Startup in 3 days
|
iamyoohoo
|
Is this startupweekend or another thing?
|
Join a group to launch a startup from concept to prototype launch in 3 days in Los Angeles. See http://startup.eventbrite.com for more details.
| 3 | 3 |
2007-07-31 18:12:54 UTC
|
38,026 | 38,021 |
crxnamja
|
Facebook down...
|
far33d
|
when was the last time google was down? i know they are shitting bricks as we speak. it's interesting to realize how important something is when you don't have it.
| null | 2 | 12 |
2007-07-31 18:16:30 UTC
|
38,027 | 38,021 |
transburgh
|
Facebook down...
|
far33d
|
give them a break, they are working on it ;)
| null | 4 | 12 |
2007-07-31 18:17:31 UTC
|
38,030 | 38,016 |
ivankirigin
|
Startup Required Reading: Top 100 VC Bloggers
|
drm237
|
Uhhh. I'm trying to build something. Reading alone on the internet is OK, but there are too many voices to call them all required reading.Aggregation is key. Which is why I like news.yc
|
Securing venture capital is often an integral part of the success or failure of any startup business, even for those who initially began as bootstrappers. While it's no substitute for professional advice, the Internet can be a great place to research venture capital. These are 100 of the best resources.
| 0 | 7 |
2007-07-31 18:27:10 UTC
|
38,031 | 38,028 |
davidw
|
Stuff - Paul Graham
|
samb
|
Good one! Some comments:Moving across the atlantic, or to some other suitably distant locale is a great way of convincing yourself that you don't really need that much crap. The problem gets to be when you move back and forth too much and end up getting paranoid about buying anything at all that you know you're going to throw out. We're contemplating going back to the states again at this point...sigh.Books... all I can say is "right on!". I'm glad my wife understood when I paid a bunch of money to have mine shipped over here.In terms of food, after my latest trip back to the US, I think people there are just starting to wake up to the fact that more/bigger is not necessarily better, and it will take them a while to really catch on, and start really aiming for quality. I actually think my best business idea concerns food, but it will have to wait till we go to the states to try and implement it.
|
Too much stuff is a bad thing. Everything I owned in 2000 would fit in the back of my station wagon. If it wouldn't fit in the wagon, it was out. Now I'm married, and covered up with stuff. When you get married, it's custom for people to give you more stuff. Most of it you don't need. Or want. But you can't just throw it away, after all, it's free stuff. (Sorry if this has already been posted, I didn't see it in the list and can't search....)
| 24 | 105 |
2007-07-31 18:28:57 UTC
|
38,032 | 38,028 |
donna
|
Stuff - Paul Graham
|
samb
|
So true, so true.. ... I even stopped buying most books. With the public library database, I can order a book for 75c from anywhere in the Peninsula -http://catalog.plsinfo.org/
thanks Paul.
|
Too much stuff is a bad thing. Everything I owned in 2000 would fit in the back of my station wagon. If it wouldn't fit in the wagon, it was out. Now I'm married, and covered up with stuff. When you get married, it's custom for people to give you more stuff. Most of it you don't need. Or want. But you can't just throw it away, after all, it's free stuff. (Sorry if this has already been posted, I didn't see it in the list and can't search....)
| 16 | 105 |
2007-07-31 18:29:15 UTC
|
38,035 | 38,028 |
gibsonf1
|
Stuff - Paul Graham
|
samb
|
Excellent article - and the point about mental overload from stuff is a good one. This is the same point made for stuff in the form of information in GTD.A great technique for de-stuffing and making $: craigslist.Best productivity boost I've made: Selling TV on craigslist - it sold in 2 hours. (The extra time has been great for working on the startup)
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Too much stuff is a bad thing. Everything I owned in 2000 would fit in the back of my station wagon. If it wouldn't fit in the wagon, it was out. Now I'm married, and covered up with stuff. When you get married, it's custom for people to give you more stuff. Most of it you don't need. Or want. But you can't just throw it away, after all, it's free stuff. (Sorry if this has already been posted, I didn't see it in the list and can't search....)
| 15 | 105 |
2007-07-31 18:33:54 UTC
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38,036 | 38,021 |
budu3
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Facebook down...
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far33d
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Common people. Are we gonna get a YCNews post everytime facebook is down?
| null | 0 | 12 |
2007-07-31 18:37:30 UTC
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