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comment
andreyf
2007-04-20T09:00:29
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Froogle/PS is nice to find things that you can buy quickly using Google Checkout. If I don't care about price, but do care about keeping my CC safe/buying something quick, I usually use Amazon or Froogle.
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BitGeek
2007-04-20T09:01:05
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Ah, I see venture hacks isn't really on the side of the entrepreneur after all.<p>Any VC that asks you to vest your shares is a VC who is trying to steal from you.<p>The business pre-money valuation is value you created. Your ownership of that is property you have EARNED. <p>When you take VC money, they get a percentage of the company, and your ownership is diluted, but at the same time the value of the company goes up, as it now has more cash assets in the bank. The end result is immediately post money the value of your shares should be about the same as pre-money, only the ownership percentage of the company is less. <p>This is fair, and this is the consideration you give up in exchange for their investment.<p>However, if they ask you to also re-vest your shares, are asking you to give up you property (and your voting power) in the hope that you will "Earn them back"... which first assumes you hav eto earn them (eg: it is a losss of property if you don't own it anymore) and secondly assumes that they won't have pushed you out. While your shares are vesting you can't vote them, which gives the VC even more power.<p>Finally, they are not giving you consideration for these shares you're putting in jeapardy and so they are simply asking you to give them something for nothing. The investment they are making is already paid for by you in the dilution you are experiencing.<p>There is absolutely no reason for a founders shares to re-vest. <p>If your ownership in the company is not enough to ensure your interests are aligned with the VCs (Who really can't do much to make the company do well, but you can.) then the VCs wouldn't be investing-- period. So the alignment of ownership excuse is patently absurd. <p>No reputable VC will ask you to vest your shares. Only a thief would do that-- you own the shares, and asking you to give them up for nothing is trying to take advantage.<p>If a VC wants to put you on a vesting schedule to keep you incentivized.... let him offer you shares out of his pool to vest into.<p>Anything else is exceedingly greedy on the part of the VC.
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bootload
2007-04-20T09:13:56
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<i>'... So, what are the basic implications of an unconference that uses the Open Space methodology? ...'</i><p>you might have to code in java, no make that 'java light' ~ <a href="http://wiki.startupcamp.org/wiki/StartupCamp2DiscussionIdeas">http://wiki.startupcamp.org/wiki/StartupCamp2DiscussionIdeas</a>
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T09:25:09
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Hear, hear. Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner of Cisco talked about this in Nerds 2.0.1 here: <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2534997893350167670&q=nerds+2.0.1#53m17s">http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2534997893350167670&q=nerds+2.0.1#53m17s</a><p>They financed the company with credit card debt and were already doing $250,000-$500,000 a month in business when they finally got venture capital (after 70+ unsuccessful tries). However, they agreed to a forfeiture contract and a 4-year vesting period, and strongly advise everyone else not to do it that way.<p>They were so disgusted with the way they were treated that they sold off all their shares long ago. If they still held them, they'd each be worth about $24 billion today (they had 30% of the company, like the Google founders).
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ralph
2007-04-20T09:32:59
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I'm in favour of a low barrier to dabble; we all sometimes think "I can't be bothered" and go after the next thing that wants our attention. But not requiring registration seems to translate more easily to some sites than others.<p>Say a registering user has the ability to claim a two-word sub-domain of foo.com, e.g. top.dog.foo.com, and to start setting up their data there, including who can view the data and sending email invites out to others. What should non-registering users be able to do?<p>The alternatives I can think of are: Have a set of &#42;.try.foo.com sites that they can play around with and reset them to sane defaults occasionally. Or, let them nab the site name of their choice but warn them it gets deleted unless they register within 24 hours. Either way, I'd like to avoid site names getting used up for no good reason. Any better ideas?<p>Cheers, Ralph.
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ralph
2007-04-20T09:37:20
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You're fortunate your data fits in RAM. And it seems you don't have to worry about machine failure causing unwritten data to be lost despite having accepted it from the user?<p>Cheers, Ralph.
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T09:40:16
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That list of sponsors makes it look more like a job fair than anything to do with start-ups.
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ido
2007-04-20T09:45:33
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i accidentally down modded you instead of up modding, and now i can't reverse that action since the little arrows are gone- that comment's score is actually 2 points less then it should be.
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ralph
2007-04-20T09:47:46
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MogileFS looks interesting.<p>If a class of files requests N&gt;1 copies, at what point after the HTTP PUT can the application be happy that N copies exist? It seems fine to think I've three copies of that file but what if machine failure occurs before MogileFS has created the other two?<p>Also, it's intended to operate on whole files at a time, although HTTP GET might be usable to fetch a run of bytes. If two web servers both try and write the same filename, doesn't the latest one win?<p>I can see it's great for certain things, e.g. storing the user's images, but not for the stuff traditionally in the database. Or have I missed something?<p>Cheers, Ralph.
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T09:55:55
Nerds 2.0.1: Len and Sandy talk about founding Cisco, VCs, being indentured, and getting pushed out
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2534997893350167670&q=nerds+2.0.1#49m27s
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:00:57
iWoz: Woz talks stories from his autobiography (intro by Andy Hertzfeld!)
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=383231378223541436
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:04:38
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Andy Hertzfeld (billed as "The first Macintosh programmer...ever" by NerdTV) runs Folklore.org, a collection of early Macintosh stories from the trenches.<p><a href="http://folklore.org/">http://folklore.org/</a><p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/shows/">http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/shows/</a>
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:09:49
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A number of lessons here. One, VCs are sharks -- don't let them make you vest what you already own. Two, they are also <i>your</i> sharks, so don't sell off all your shares just because you can't stand them.<p>Len and Sandy owned 30% of Cisco and sold when the company was worth around <i>one</i> billion. Today, Google reports CSCO Mkt Cap: 161.15B.<p>As my brother said, you've got to have a really sucky outlook to have $100 million and be bitter about it!
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:14:22
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Like Web 1.0 wasn't, and like all business the world over isn't?
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ralph
2007-04-20T10:18:55
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Thanks, I've read that and will continue through the others.<p>One of the cases given could fit all the data in core, the other used BerkeleyDB for its smallish "database" data, cutting out SQL, and a GFS-like system for the large amount of BLOB archiving it had to do. It's the doesn't fit in core, and is changing data not archiving, case where it seems harder to use flat files since the DB server is a convenient place for concurrancy controls.<p>Cheers, Ralph.
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rms
2007-04-20T10:19:16
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Never mind, it's free to members. Which costs $300.
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:20:55
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This sounds like a band meeting. Unanimous voting is the only way to fly when you're tiny, but I have a hard time believing companies like Google <i>only</i> hire A talent now that they're much larger; and I know from people that have worked there that it's not true at Microsoft.<p>Here's a quote from someone (who became a millionaire from his other ventures) about his time at Microsoft: "I went there because that's where the money was, right? Biggest bunch of idiots I've ever seen in my life!"
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:24:48
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&gt; Hmm... if A players hire A players, B players hire C players, and C players hire losers, how could B players ever get hired?<p>For the win!<p>You've just uncovered the investor version of "you can't handle the truth!" <p>"Colonel, I have just one more question before I call Airman O'Malley and Airman Perez: If you gave an order that Santiago wasn't to be touched, and your orders are always followed, then why would he be in danger, why would it be necessary to transfer him off the base?"<p>...<p> "No sir. You made it clear just a moment ago that your men never take matters into their own hands. Your men follow orders or people die. So Santiago shouldn't have been in any danger at all, should he have, Colonel?"
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pashle
2007-04-20T10:25:33
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The billionaire is Henry Ford. The version I was told was that he was on the stand, and that was his reply to one of the prosecutor's questions. Jobs also liked to call himself the "Henry Ford of Personal Computing".
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gyro_robo
2007-04-20T10:28:15
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&gt; I wouldn't want to start up a company with someone I couldn't completely trust. <p>You can never completely trust VCs ;)
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nrohan
2007-04-20T10:57:51
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This is really a good site to read. I hope it does not get spammed.<p>
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jonmc12
2007-04-20T11:01:34
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I think its a dangerous generalization. I feel its more about knowing the market rate for your employees and making sure they are compensated for what they contribute. Equity is only one piece.<p>In your example, it sounds like a pretty weak deal. However, thats not to say that the lesson to learn is to attract employees through equity.<p>Owning equity is about risk. Employment is about security. If your really a savvy investor and think that equity in a given company is the best return on your investment, you should offer to put as much cash and man-hours into the company as you can for the greatest return. Then you are on par with the founders.<p>For interesting reading, look at Warren Buffett's philosophy on employee and management stock options. In earlier days he attracted key management with a fair salary, a good work environment, and an absolute lock out of equity.. he figured he was the only one taking the risk.
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mattculbreth
2007-04-20T11:02:23
What's so difficult about online document collaboration? (good article on online Office apps)
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http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/04/19/whats-so-difficult-about-online-document-collaboration/
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jward
2007-04-20T11:17:02
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When I was working at the University of Alberta last year, Ken Thompson came and gave an informal talk for anyone who was interested and he talked about this.<p>The gist if you don't want to read the article is you put code into your c compiler that checks to see if it's making the login command and then compiles in a backdoor. Nasty in its own right, but then you also put in code so if you recompile the compiler, it adds the code to do this (add the backdoor and add itself to the c compiler) back in. Then you take the code out of the source file and recompile.<p>Apparently it almost made it out into production Unix, accidentally. The only thing that stopped it was they had an error in their code that added an extra space each compile cycle and one of the QA guys caught it.
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tamberg
2007-04-20T11:49:58
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"Add to del.icio.us" link would do it for me.
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jgamman
2007-04-20T12:00:08
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security wasn't mentioned as a first thing, usability was. shouldn't we be pushing for security and usability to be first equal?
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T12:11:15
Google Acquires Marratech; Gets Into WebEx Territory
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/20/google-acquires-marratech-gets-into-webex-territory/
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T12:12:33
Digg Releases Public API
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http://apidoc.digg.com/
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ralph
2007-04-20T12:14:46
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Have a personal Bookmarklet to do that so every page isn't cluttered with such links. Digg this, Reddit that, etc. Bah, humbug.
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sergiutruta
2007-04-20T12:20:55
What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
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jkush
2007-04-20T12:25:45
Looking for startup idea feedback
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jkush
2007-04-20T12:26:57
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I trust most people here (usernames I am familiar with anyway) but I'd rather not post my idea for everyone in the world to see. <p>If you're interested in giving me your gut reaction to an idea I have, please send an email to john at todotoh dot com, or alternatively drop your email address in reply. You'll have my sincere thanks!
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jkush
2007-04-20T12:28:18
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Doesn't pg have some sort of bayesian filter he can apply in that event? :)
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ralph
2007-04-20T12:57:18
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Dates from 2002. More questions than answers.
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zeph
2007-04-20T13:01:17
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"if I had a cofounder who INSISTED on raising VC, he would have to be DAMN GOOD seller for me to buy into it"<p>The question that has to be asked is "why does he want to raise the VC money?" Unless you need big money up front to build this thing (and you don't seem to think that's the case), I get the feeling that he desperately wants to be seen as an entrepreneur.<p>Entrepreneurs market the hell out of their product, but "Wantrepreneurs" just market the hell out of themselves.<p>Or to put it another way, is he in love with the product, or in love with the idea that he's an entrepreneur?
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gibsonf1
2007-04-20T13:04:12
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This is exactly the kind of application my firm is looking for for project meetings with remote participants. We tried using festoon through skype, which worked reasonably well except that only one person could share an application and the others just watch. So you would share your application, sketch on it, then unshare it. The next person would have to share, sketch, etc. It was awkward. This, however, looks great.
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Goladus
2007-04-20T13:09:46
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One can go on and on about how myspace can be improved, before you even consider what members do to their own pages. It's true that the huge draw of myspace now is all the people already using it. People are willing to put up with a lot of garbage because of that. It could be faster and more streamlined.<p>But Myspace got a lot right. The default profile layout is excellent. Picture + basic information is immediately visible, as is the control panel (add/msg/favorite/block/etc). The friend space is prominent (even if it is not immediately visible) and the mini pictures of your friends are large enough to attract attention. Page comments include profile pictures, and links to the commenter's profile. The bulletin feature is extremely useful and popular. Finally, however kludgy the interface might be, users have enormous freedom to modify and personalize their own page.<p>
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zeph
2007-04-20T13:10:37
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nausea and a vague sense of dread...
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sergiutruta
2007-04-20T13:13:24
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yeap, I agree...I cannot find a single case where these would be necessary. probably others use it though
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sergiutruta
2007-04-20T13:17:43
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why don't you post the idea here? I think the man behind the idea is the best to implement the idea, so posting it here doesn't look like a real threat, at least in my opinion...unless the idea is really brilliant :)
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mojuba
2007-04-20T13:25:13
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You can fight this by adding a code into the compiler source you have that detects a backdoor pattern in the resulting binary and wipes it off or just refuses to compile.<p>In response, Ken Thompson designs a compiler that detects the backdoor detection pattern in the compiler source and excludes that part from the resulting binary.<p>Until some clever guy writes a separate program that checks some critical binaries in the system for backdoors.<p>Ken Thompson's response is obvious: prevent such a program from properly detecting backdoors. The compiler becomes aware of such patterns too.<p>A clever guy writes a login program in the UNIX shell language [substitute with Lisp, Perl, Python or God forbid, Java]<p>Ken Thompson's compiler then becomes aware when it compiles the shell interpreter (or whatever compiler/VM).<p>Shortly before the end of the days Ken Thompson's compiler becomes aware of itself and whatever it compiles and screams "Mommy, I exist!"<p>(Actually, to prevent Ken Thompson's compiler to become self-aware, you may write a manual for system administrators in human language on how to manually detect malicious code in a compiler binary and how to modify it with some binary editor.)
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akkartik
2007-04-20T13:26:06
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Or let me search through your stories. Why <i>is</i> YC displaying only the tip of the iceberg?
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mojuba
2007-04-20T13:26:50
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Binary editor? Written in C? Oops... :)
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omouse
2007-04-20T13:27:04
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Paul Graham fact #123981723: spam is so scared of Paul Graham that it bayesian filters itself out.
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akkartik
2007-04-20T13:27:21
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<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=15041">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=15041</a>
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jkush
2007-04-20T13:27:58
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Ok. Here's a list of what my startup would help you accomplish:<p> Create an online memorial<p>Make it public; for the world to see<p>Make it private; just for friends and family<p>Collaborate with friends and family; create the memorial together<p>Collect and organize your memories, stories, videos and pictures<p>Save it forever.<p>Some notes: <p>This might sound a little morbid but people do this stuff when a relative or friend passes away. Why not make it easier?<p>My wife calls it MyDeadSpace. Funny gal.<p><p>
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zeph
2007-04-20T13:29:10
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If you look at it in <i>really</i> objective terms, what is a fair RoI for the paycut you take? Pick a number, if say you want a 5x return and expect to be there for 2 years, that's $200k you should bank after acquisition. if they go out at $10mil... then you want to have at least 2% equity.<p>Obviously, the longer you hang around, the lower the actual return you get for sacrificing the extra $20k/pa you could get elsewhere. If you wanted to take an even gloomier view, you could calculate the yield on investing $20k/pa, take into account consumer price indexes and any rising market rates. Oh and don't forget the potential for dilution.<p>Unless your employer is going out in many multiples of $10mil, it's probably better to take market rates elsewhere, and use the extra $20k to invest/bootstrap your own startup on the side :)
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:32:09
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One major component of your execution strategy is going to be convincing the blogosphere that your company is the next big thing and will change their lives. You can't do this when you're in stealth<p><a href="http://edward.oconnor.cx/tags/paul-graham">http://edward.oconnor.cx/tags/paul-graham</a>
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zeph
2007-04-20T13:33:25
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not in most startups... I don't see anyone here getting into defence contracting any time soon.<p>Granted, there are some common sense aspects that are slam dunks (c'mon, version control, why wouldn't you use it) but a lot of it still favours <i>serious software</i> where all the engineers wear dark suits and ties and do <i>big design up front</i>. <p>Most startups would run out of time and money just getting to level 2 CMMi compliance before they even started to really cut any code.
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eposts
2007-04-20T13:33:47
test - delete
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jkush
2007-04-20T13:34:11
null
Ok. Here's a list of features my startup would provide. <p> It would make it easy for you to:<p>-- Create an online memorial<p>-- Make it public; for the world to see<p>-- Make it private; just for friends and family<p>-- Collaborate with friends and family; create the memorial together<p>-- Collect and organize your memories, stories, videos and pictures<p>-- Save it forever.<p>Some notes: <p>This might sound a little morbid but people do this stuff when a relative or friend passes away. Why not make it easier?<p>My wife calls it MyDeadSpace. Funny gal. I don't plan on using that name.<p>[EDIT]<p>Sincere thanks for everyone's feedback. If anyone does have any other thoughts - feel free to email me (john at todotoh dot com) or continue commenting.<p><p><p>
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:35:41
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I think this is a vary interesting aquisition for Google. I wonder if its going to be part of Goog Office. If you think about it suite of products office products integrated with remote meeting software can be what Office 2.0 is all about
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mojuba
2007-04-20T13:36:40
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That's unfortunately not the only problem. Socially selected content sucks because it is being selected by an Average Joe, while actually what I, as an Average Joe need is a better content, provided (and selected/voted) by people better than me.
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omouse
2007-04-20T13:37:24
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Ugh, I just lost my comment when I upvoted a comment.<p>...I'm driven by the joy of creating something that I can use on a daily basis. Also a bit of a fear that I'll look like an idiot when I've already told 15-25 people about what I'm working on. And now I've gone and told all of news.YC. Crap...I guess I should get back to work then :P
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:38:06
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I am seriously considering getting one. Its also interesting how seem to have parallel systems. An OpenId system running alongside a login systems as we know it.
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Alex3917
2007-04-20T13:41:31
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non-actionable.
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:41:37
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I want to Search too. I think its important. Even its just google coop.
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:46:46
Most frequently visited websites - not what you'd expect
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http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/most-frequently-visited-websites-not-what-youd-expect/
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T13:48:00
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When I ask myself that question, the only thing that comes to mind is freedom. So I guess a bit of both - joy of secured freedom (a profitable company) and fear of losing my freedom (having to get an office job again).<p>After experiencing the freedom of working exactly the way I want to (through the night, sleep during day, days off if I need them), it feels me with huge dread to think of going back to answering to a 'boss'. Ugh.<p>So I guess I'm more heavily weighted in the fear of losing my current freedom.
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T13:50:13
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If you use an aggregator that preserves the history of the feed, then you have access to all the past articles. A bit of a hack though and it will be nice when it's actually part of the site.
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dawie
2007-04-20T13:50:44
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The reson I would start a company is to get away from this stuff. It makes me sick.
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chwolfe
2007-04-20T13:51:07
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I deal with CMM on a daily basis (gov. contracting). It is a huge waste of time, money, and resources. If people spent less time writing documents and more time writing software, the world would be a better place.
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T13:52:06
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It's been great for me to meet other like-minded developers. Some of the guys I've met here I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise. That's been a huge value for me along with the shared knowledge on how to solve particular problems.
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aston
2007-04-20T14:06:09
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Not theoretical. Check out the (awesome) paper: "Reflections on Trusting Trust" <p><a href="http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf">http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf</a><p>edit: It's linked in the Scienceblogs article, but it ought to be the main feature.
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whacked_new
2007-04-20T14:07:23
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i don't like the smell of this...
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azsromej
2007-04-20T14:11:50
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There was an interesting article on NASA's use of CMMI at FastCompany: <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html">http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html</a><p>As for me, I don't like it. I abide by it at work and it's generally a huge bottleneck for all projects. Many of the ideas the SEI proposes are good practice, and I have a feeling a lot of developers already follow them without knowing that they're part of any "process". <p>A bad implementation of CMMI at an organization only makes things worse. For example, the latest version of CMMI encourages us to engage in rapid feedback cycles with customers, which is great. But the system we're supposed to <i>track</i> when and how we did that is clunky and consumes time, to the point that you don't <i>want</i> to go talk to customers for fear of having to do more writing and documenation.
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dawie
2007-04-20T14:15:13
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Not what I expected at all.
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sergiutruta
2007-04-20T14:16:54
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I've also seen a bad implementation of CMM. indeed, if not implemented wisely, it adds a lot of unneeded redundancy.
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e1ven
2007-04-20T14:28:21
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This is a useful feature, but as I understand YC already supports it. <p>Assuming you only upvote the stories that you actually are interested in, you should have an easy record of all of them by going to your user page.<p>
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veritas
2007-04-20T14:36:49
Awesome color schemes for web designers.
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http://kuler.adobe.com/
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eposts
2007-04-20T14:43:59
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I was trying to register and thought this was part of the registration screen. Is there no way to delete posts?
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timg
2007-04-20T14:44:29
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"your data fits in RAM"<p>Not so. It's not too hard to check if you have some data and then retrieve it from the db as necessary.
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veritas
2007-04-20T14:49:41
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Nope... not for us atleast. I think one of the moderators will eventually delete it though.
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cwilbur
2007-04-20T14:53:10
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The goals they have are good ones. If you're stuck with more than 10 programmers of varying levels of ability, and you're taking marching orders from a client who has no idea what the tradeoffs are, they're arguably the best way to get things done.<p>When you're a group of fewer than 5 programmers and you're all smarter than the average bear, they're useless.<p>In essence, they're a ritualization of the communication and testing process that has to happen to make software good and reliable. Without some communication and testing, the software will suck; at a certain organizational size, or with programmers of lower ability levels, you can't rely on the programmers to do it themselves.
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falsestprophet
2007-04-20T14:54:33
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That sounds like a very generous valuation.
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cwilbur
2007-04-20T14:56:37
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Neither. Hope that I can build a career that doesn't suck.<p>I'm not in this to cash in the company. I'm in this to build a company I want to work for. Maybe that counts as "joy of victory."<p>I'm not afraid of failure; the last time I tried this, I failed. I'm being smarter about it this time.
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slabuda
2007-04-20T14:58:56
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I did not realize Yc was a democracy.
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ralph
2007-04-20T14:59:01
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I think Django is meant to have cut out a lot of the magic a little while ago now.
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zeph
2007-04-20T14:59:51
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Sometimes people can become overly fixated on what's <i>hidden</i> from them. You say you prefer PHP, but when was the last time you looked at the source code for any of the myriad extensions? Can you explain how mod_php works within apache?<p>Whilst I do think that it's good to have a broad view of how things fit together, knowing what every line of code is doing says to me that you are either working on incredibly trivial code, and/or you're not using existing, well-tested libraries as much as you could be.
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zeph
2007-04-20T15:03:20
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Agreed... The hardest thing is to cast of the PHPisms and Java patterns that you may be used to, a lot of Rails is idiomatic Ruby code, so <i>really</i> knowing Ruby makes it a lot easier to understand.<p>
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walesmd
2007-04-20T15:05:17
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<a href="http://www.colorschemer.com/">http://www.colorschemer.com/</a> is another great resource
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cwilbur
2007-04-20T15:05:37
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Well, <i>someone</i> needs to fund the idea. Programmers gotta eat. Is it going to be the venture capitalists, or is it going to be the users, or is it going to be the advertisers once you've attracted users to the site?<p>If you accept the first one, it raises the bar for how much of the other two you need to acquire.
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tocomment
2007-04-20T15:06:10
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How do you meet people on here? Seriously I don't know.
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walesmd
2007-04-20T15:06:42
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Online petitions never work - we really just need all the big names to go up in arms about it. Mike Arrington, Pete Cashmore (who already has), Scoble, etc.
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veritas
2007-04-20T15:07:36
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Awesome, thanks!
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jkush
2007-04-20T15:18:22
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Judging by the lack of comments, does this idea fall in the realm of mediocrity?
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edgeztv
2007-04-20T15:19:41
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It sucks all the fun out of writing software. An awful methodology. I left the company that used it after only 3 months (would have been sooner if I found another job sooner).
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T15:24:38
Widgetsphere: New Playground For Marketers
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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/widgetsphere_expo07.php
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jslogan
2007-04-20T15:25:53
A terrible one page sales letter and five questions to make your copy more effective
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http://www.jslogan.com/content/view/77
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AF
2007-04-20T15:29:48
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Sorry...double post.
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AF
2007-04-20T15:30:18
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What is wrong with just voting up stories you like? Isn't that the entire point of voting?
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npk
2007-04-20T15:32:04
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The result presented in this article is fascinating.<p>If you're going to support your business through pure advertising, you need 1B hits/month to make $5M/month. Clearly there's a linear relationship.<p>This is an interesting fact.
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T15:37:42
Pandora Founder Appeals For Help To "Save Internet Radio"
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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pandora_save_internet_radio.php
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madanella
2007-04-20T15:39:12
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I'm curious, what do you think of stock options for common employees?
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johnm
2007-04-20T15:41:59
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I'll be there -- curious to see whether it's worth it or not. :-)
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mattjaynes
2007-04-20T15:43:26
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Usually if a discussion gets interesting in the comments section, I or the other person will make direct contact so we can talk offline. Sometimes it's really more efficient to talk on the phone or in person when exchanging ideas - it's also just fun to make a personal connection with like-minded developers and talk shop. <p>I also happen to live in the bay area which makes it easy to meet people from news.yc in person at tech events. <p>Hope that helps ;)
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madanella
2007-04-20T15:44:48
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Some people have vision and others don't. Especially in small companies it's easy to find those who would rather own the proverbial 100% of nothing. Or 51% of something small instead of 10% of something great. In capital-intensive startups, like JetBlue and some oil operations, founders are known to raise lots of cash and end up with less than 10% by the time the private rounds are done. <p>Look at most major public companies, rarely do the founders own more than about 15% by that point. A lot of that is from dilution, from sharing the equity. I would propose that almost none of them would ever have gotten that far if they were afraid to share equity in order to get their project done, the right way, by the right people.
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dpapathanasiou
2007-04-20T15:47:27
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No, I didn't try again after the first attempt.<p>Could you produce a demo in flash instead of java?<p>Flash is a must-have browser plugin, whereas java has fallen off the map in that regard.
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dpapathanasiou
2007-04-20T15:49:05
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Yes, I understand how that would work if juwo were installed and I'm browsing other sites, but copying the entire BBC page is unnecessary, esp. when the only relevant thing from the demo's perspective is that single clip.
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akkartik
2007-04-20T15:49:47
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Arguably search is an orthogonal constraint too, but crawlers inevitably are a few days behind the curve.<p>Yesterday, for example, I spent an hour tracking down this comment. Eventually I had to triangulate based on the users I remembered in the thread. <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13037">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13037</a><p>The search engine at bigheadlabs seems to have stopped crawling as well.. <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=4780">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=4780</a><p>Just another use case to think about. You can't sustain good conversation without giving people the tools to read smart.
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