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sajid
2007-05-01T14:50:03
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It's not a scaling issue, I just prefer to be in control of the server.
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Sam_Odio
2007-05-01T14:50:59
IBM struggles to stay relevant w/ press, fails miserably
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/second_life_campaign/
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mojuba
2007-05-01T14:51:15
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Isn't it just 30 lines of <i>elegant</i> Lisp code? Write it yourself unless, of course you want the Holy Lispirit come onto you when looking at PG's code :)
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sajid
2007-05-01T14:52:34
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Unfortunately not, I'm using PHP ...
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mojuba
2007-05-01T14:54:34
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My guess is that the lame login screen filters out those gamer kids (digg) and geeky democrats (reddit). YCnews is for the rest of us, you see.
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ryantmulligan
2007-05-01T14:55:25
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While the bandwidth has gone up, they now charge a price per request to their servers. They said this is a decrease in cost for 70% of their customers.
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sajid
2007-05-01T14:56:11
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Thanks, that's great :-)<p>Theye're very good value for maoney and the bandwidth limits are reasonable too.
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sajid
2007-05-01T14:57:23
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Do TextDrive do Lamp ?
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tocomment
2007-05-01T15:07:22
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Sounds interesting. How much did you pay?
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spoonyg
2007-05-01T15:13:06
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I concur. I went from never using inkscape to having a not horribly embarrassing logo in about 2 hours. Learn how to use the gradient tool, it is key. You can see what I did here: <a href="http://carhuntr.com/index.html">http://carhuntr.com/index.html</a>
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tocomment
2007-05-01T15:19:30
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I'd be interested to see what you put together. Can I email you?<p>Yeah, maybe the robot part is out then :-)<p>Maybe just a traditional windmill like one of these below, but then having the building part of the windmill be made of shiny metal. Perhapss the blades could be shiny metal too. ? Can you make that "shiny" effect?<p><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/sc/soriluc/images/amstertraditional.jpg">http://www.angelfire.com/sc/soriluc/images/amstertraditional.jpg</a> <a href="http://www.enweirdenment.org/pics/Europe2001/111-1147_IMG.JPG">http://www.enweirdenment.org/pics/Europe2001/111-1147_IMG.JPG</a>
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dawie
2007-05-01T15:22:34
How to Create Passionate Customers
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http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/how-to-create-passionate-customers5329.html
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mattjaynes
2007-05-01T15:24:29
Google Fails To Blink
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/01/google-fails-to-blink/
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[ 18428, 18442, 18443, 18439, 18526 ]
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petercooper
2007-05-01T15:27:23
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I use SoftLayer <a href="http://www.softlayer.com/">http://www.softlayer.com/</a> .. I used to use EV1 but since they merged with The Planet they've not been as good. SoftLayer is made up of many of the "old" The Planet guys and offer some amazing stuff like free private LAN between your servers.<p>Of course you're going to start at no less than $150 per month, and I spend almost $1000 a month, but.. this is business and you have to pay to get the goods. People who run their businesses on naff shared hosting are crazy unless they think the odd hour of downtime here or there is acceptable.<p>Of course, shared hosting or a VPS (my personal recommendation if your budget is small) is a good way to start, but once you make revenue, it's time to upgrade :)
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pg
2007-05-01T15:39:23
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Karma reflects what the other users of a system think of you. So it can be meaningful to the extent other users are good judges.
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moses120042
2007-05-01T15:39:34
Jabber founder Jeremie Miller joins Wikia for search product
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http://www.centernetworks.com/jabber-founder-joines-wikia-for-wikia-search
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jey
2007-05-01T15:43:05
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The value servers from aplus.net are pretty good. They're last-gen hardware for cheap. I have a 2.5 GHz P4 with 512 MB RAM and a 120GB HDD for $50/mo.
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nostrademons
2007-05-01T15:43:08
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It's from bootstrap + capacitor, as you figured out. We were looking for something that connotes "keeping your energy levels up". I threw out a bunch of physics-related terms, but if you saw particleinabox.com or blackbodyradiation.com you'd think physics and not startups. A lot of our potential names had that problem: there was nothing in them that really suggested "startup".<p>Then there were names that had the opposite problem: they didn't suggest anything <i>but</i> startups, and the added suffix was just completely random. Startupduck.com fits in this category. So would bootstrappd, bootstrapping, bwootstrap, etc, IMHO. My cofounder also suggested startup-orphans.com, which I nixed as too negative, since negativity was what everyone jumped on RejectedByYC.com for.<p>My cofounder also proposed dotcamaraderie.com, which I liked, but we didn't think anyone would be able to spell "camaraderie". We also considered shortening it to "dotcomrade.com", but it sounded too communist for me.
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T15:43:46
Yahoo Signs Online Advertisement Deal With Comcast, Google Dumped Yet Again
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/05/01/yahoo-signs-online-advertisement-deal-with-comcast/
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npk
2007-05-01T15:55:02
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The parent link to this article was discussed:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=16687">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=16687</a><p>The presmise of this article annoys me. You don't need to be a "Bayesian statistician" to solve the mammogram question. The solution is an application of Bayes' law.
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nostrademons
2007-05-01T16:00:28
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That's probably indicative of a bigger problem then: the story isn't simple enough for people to grasp immediately.<p>I know GMail, Livejournal, and most YCombinator startups have a little explanatory text on the front page, but I've been a GMail user for nearly 3 years and a LJ user for 5 and have yet to read the introduction. I signed up for GMail because all my friends were saying "Have you seen Google's new webmail program? They give you a gig of space. Want an invite code?" I signed up for LJ because all my friends were saying "Do you have a LiveJournal? It's like an online diary thing." You could probably sum up GMail with 4 words ("Google. Webmail. One gig.") and LJ with two ("Online diary."). And all the <i>really</i> successful consumer web startups have one or two word summaries: Google ("Search"), Amazon ("Every book"), Ebay ("Auction junk"), Craigslist ("Find apartment"), Flickr ("Share photos"), Meebo ("Web IM"), Reddit ("Share links"), Wikipedia ("Community encyclopedia"), and YouTube ("Share videos"). The only exception I can think of is Yahoo, which may be why Yahoo's recent earnings were in the toilet.<p>I can't really think of any way to sum up Bootstrapacitor in 2-4 words, which is a real problem. The initial version of the logo had "Hold your charge" on it, but that sounded kinda hokey and doesn't really explain what the site's about. I suspect that putting a 2-paragraph description of the site on the front page won't help, because people won't read it anyway, and even if they did it's not convenient for them to share it. So perhaps the idea itself is flawed until it can be boiled down into a simpler concept.
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ge
2007-05-01T16:02:59
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Here is one, that works on every website:<p>en.gibney.org/savescroll_info/<p>Its intended use is to include it in the website, but you can also use the javascript in Greasemonkey. Here is the link to the code:<p>javascript.gibney.org/savescroll.js
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jkush
2007-05-01T16:05:10
Document Arc Diagrams: Illustrates connected segments of a document that share a similar vocabulary
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http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/DocumentArcDiagrams/index.html
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sajid
2007-05-01T16:05:12
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Interesting ... they're very cheap and the standard servers are not bad either.
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sajid
2007-05-01T16:06:31
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Ouch ! They're expensive ... but as you say, maybe when it's time to upgrade.
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BrandonM
2007-05-01T16:08:51
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"The outstanding question is whether Microsoft plans to offer Silverlight support for Linux."<p>Yay... another potential headache for Linux users. Flash, WMV videos, and Java applets are bad enough, but there are at least solutions out there for those. I can't imagine Microsoft trying too hard to get this working in Linux, and it appears that websites like MLB.com already plan on using it.<p>I also didn't see any mention of supporting Firefox, so the problem may be bigger than just Linux users.
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BrandonM
2007-05-01T16:10:14
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I disagree. Since I spend a total of less than a second on the login screen whenever I log in, I could care less what I see.
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T16:13:24
Microsoft Joins The Party, Buying Internet Advertisement Firm 24/7 Real Media for $1 billion
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/05/01/microsoft-joins-the-party-buying-internet-advertisement-firm-247-real-media-for-1-billion/
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BrandonM
2007-05-01T16:17:09
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Everyone was saying that the YouTube deal was a bad idea because of the copyright issues. Of course, Google knew about these issues as well. I can't help but think now that they had this in mind all along, to buy them and then duke it out with a major media giant over copyright laws. Surely, if they win this case, that would set some major precedence which might help other areas they are in as well.
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T16:26:02
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The point that you are making was explained in detail by some fellow in a post titled "Maybe Google Wanted to be Sued: YouTube and Plan B" <a href="http://www.michiknows.com/2007/03/14/maybe-google-wanted-to-be-sued-youtube-and-plan-b/">http://www.michiknows.com/2007/03/14/maybe-google-wanted-to-be-sued-youtube-and-plan-b/</a><p>The post is really thought provoking and got Digged, slashdotted and reddited.<p>Do give it a look
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kogir
2007-05-01T16:27:00
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Why not just co-locate a box of your own? <p>What I did:<p>Assemble random crap box from parts (Athlon 2100+, 512 MB RAM, 80GB HDD) This was free for me, and should be cheap or free for you. It was also two years ago, so you can probably find better hardware now.<p>Leave box at parents' house using cable modem for 2 months (free, but slow)<p>Co-locate box at Sprocket Data in Dallas for 6 months ($60/mo for 100 GB traffic, 100 mbps burst)<p>Then things changed a lot, but my startup has always owned all the equipment.<p>I like being able to fix problems myself when needed.
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wastedbrains
2007-05-01T16:30:54
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We had good luck getting interesting designs from this site, we are actually in the final stages right now. We were waiting to complete the full purchase before posting about it. So far I would highly recommend it as an interesting way to get a large variety of interesting ideas. The costs range from $150 to about $300 or so for most logo contests that I have seen.<p>If your interested I highly recommend browsing other peoples public logo forums to check out the kind/quality of work being produced.
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mhartl
2007-05-01T16:37:13
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I love "Economics in One Lesson"---I've even bought extra copies just to give to friends and relatives---but I'm not sure it helps you all that much as an entrepreneur; understanding the Broken Window fallacy doesn't help you make things people want. Judging from their public statements, many successful entrepreneurs are simply rotten economists. (But then, so are many economists!)
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MobileDigit
2007-05-01T16:41:11
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You can also use the mouse's middle button.
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pg
2007-05-01T16:43:58
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Wrong; the article only claims they are one of two potential buyers. And that's only if you trust an exclusive from the NY Post. Any Internet news that only the Post knows is probably wrong.
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transburgh
2007-05-01T16:46:15
Go BIG Interviews Guy Kawasaki: Avoiding Common Pitch Mistakes
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http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/5/1/go-big-interviews-guy-kawasaki-avoiding-common-pitch-mistakes/10143/view.aspx
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figgy
2007-05-01T16:46:58
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"They then iterate till they get it right, and don't get paid till you choose one."<p>That sucks. I'd hate the be the graphic designer. How can you get good quality from someone who doesn't care about getting paid?
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whacked_new
2007-05-01T16:47:43
Here is a Basic Private Messaging Tool for news.yc Users
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http://news.ycombinator.withmsg.com/
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[ 18438, 18462 ]
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whacked_new
2007-05-01T16:48:05
null
Here's a sort of proof of concept for an interesting URL usage; augment by snap-on, versus plugin.<p>This is a simple little utility that sends browser requests using PHP/cURL, and puts/fetches stuff from a mysql database, meant to provide a substitutional private messaging function for news.yc users who want PM functions.<p>"Login" with your news.yc account information. It will relay this information to news.yc and check the headers for pass/fail. Your password is discarded after the relay; if the test passes, it saves your username and uses that to post to mysql. The target user with the matching username will be able to check for "messages." You can reply, or delete messages. Messages older than a week are automatically deleted. The login source code is publicly viewable... for now, just in case you want to see when the password variable is discarded (lines 29 and 30). If there are huge problems, do tell.<p>Also, if you care to use this, the auto-refresh is done using a META refresh every 5 minutes. Type fast and short, I guess.<p>Again, this is just a rudimentary tool which I hope some people will find useful (and msg me if you want) until pg decides to add PM functions (or demands a takedown) :-)
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ecuzzillo
2007-05-01T16:56:08
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Any links to good analyses of whether Google will win?
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gibsonf1
2007-05-01T16:58:00
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Very interesting - are they able to understand context, or is it simply text string matching. I think it is the latter, but the former can be used to start working on the latter.
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jcwentz
2007-05-01T16:59:44
Condemned To Google Hell
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http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/2007/04/29/sanar-google-skyfacet-tech-cx_ag_0430googhell.html
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[ 18516, 18508, 18478, 18454 ]
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dfranke
2007-05-01T17:02:58
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I'm starting to think that e1ven was right:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=3930">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=3930</a>
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mynameishere
2007-05-01T17:11:13
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Of course, everyone is rooting for google because they love their free content, but when you seat people on a jury, then tend to take things seriously.<p>The law says "don't do X".<p>Google does "X".<p>...15 minutes of deliberations later...<p>Google is found liable for doing "X".<p> It's really straightforward, and arguments about information wanting to be free don't really work in a courtroom setting.
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sabat
2007-05-01T17:13:38
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"Why not just co-locate a box of your own?" "Co-locate box at Sprocket Data in Dallas for 6 months ($60/mo for 100 GB traffic, 100 mbps burst)"<p>Because it's too expensive when you're just starting out. I could afford $60/mo, for instance (because I'm older and have lots of kizzash) but I'm hosted for $8/mo with 1.5TB of throughput.<p>If your site gets much traffic, you'll be over 60GB before you know it. :-o
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jkush
2007-05-01T17:13:40
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I think you're right about it being the latter. What's cool about this is that the arcs illustrate the 3 acts that (usually) make a speech or story well structured.
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sabat
2007-05-01T17:15:03
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Virtual hosting is always an option, then -- cheaper than having to pay for a physical server (or its rental).<p>And eventually we'll have Amazon E2 ... eventually ... and with that, you can control the (virtual) server <i>and</i> deal with scaling issues.
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jkush
2007-05-01T17:17:52
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nice job!
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whacked_new
2007-05-01T17:20:37
null
Whoa... you sure about the robot? If it fits into some grand vision I'm sure there are creative people who can integrate it somehow.<p>I have attempted a chrome effect before and I feel without further training I won't match the pros. My designs are plain, and I like to merge text into the picture. I don't have good samples with me but here are two.<p><a href="http://www.withmsg.com/1.gif">http://www.withmsg.com/1.gif</a> <a href="http://www.withmsg.com/2.jpg">http://www.withmsg.com/2.jpg</a><p>rather obscure, but the text reads to "pktw." if you like this style, yes I have one or two sketches in mind. If you'd like to blend some text in, the first letter maybe, I need to know that. Finally, if you want a vector file I probably won't be working fast -- because sadly I don't have AI. And I'm very unfamiliar with inkscape. What I'll end up doing is roughly tracing a paper sketch. You'd need to get somebody to smooth out the edges after that.
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T17:26:36
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Didn't knew New York Post has such a great reputation, but alot of people are jumping on it <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/070501/p26#a070501p26">http://www.techmeme.com/070501/p26#a070501p26</a>
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T17:36:42
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really nice
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BrandonM
2007-05-01T17:38:33
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Thanks for the link. That's basically the idea that I was considering, but obviously more in depth.<p>It was a very good post.
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nostrademons
2007-05-01T17:41:55
Homebrew and How the Apple Came to Be
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http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php
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codeLove
2007-05-01T17:45:04
The Pita Principle for startups| Nirvana through bootstrapping [Aug 2001]
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http://www.inc.com/magazine/20010801/23220.html
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yaacovtp
2007-05-01T17:53:38
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First there were DoS attacks and now we have the potential for spam farms to link to one site sending it to google hell.<p>Yikes!
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gibsonf1
2007-05-01T17:54:52
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Exactly - the dark side of Entrepreneurship. Risk is real and can lead to financial disaster. I would recommend that the more you have to risk, the better a business chance your startup needs to be.
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tocomment
2007-05-01T17:56:46
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Nah, the robot's not neccessary. I don't need any words or letters in the logo, just a picture. I'd probably want a vector a file though. Well, don't worry about it if it's too much work. I'll probably end up using one of the pay services suggested in this page.
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falsestprophet
2007-05-01T18:05:14
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Mr. Graham take note, so when I reapply to YC for my bondage-centric start-up we can become much richer. <p>There is a thin line between pain and profit.
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T18:20:11
Ad Exchange Gold Rush Continues, ContextWeb Also Launches an Ad Exchange called "ADSDAQ"
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/05/01/contextweb-also-launches-an-ad-exchange-adsdaq/
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danielha
2007-05-01T18:21:46
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And they cite the Post. That's how bad information spreads...
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far33d
2007-05-01T18:22:59
Murdoch going after the WSJ
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117803255991188252.html?mod=blogs
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T18:27:35
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It should be "Thats how the rumor mill works" :)
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BrandonM
2007-05-01T18:27:56
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This seems like an interesting way to tack on community functions to any web site on the Internet. The hard part is to get users to trust you with their username and password, but perhaps the spread of OpenIDs could help that situation for you.<p>Have you given any thought to turning this idea into something more? The withmsg.com domain name should work great for any site.
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arete
2007-05-01T18:41:37
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Try a Xen VPS, you get full control of your own OS image with no hardware to worry about. Amazon EC2 is Xen-based but you can find much better prices. I recommend serveraxis.com where you can get a VPS with 1GB of RAM and unlimited bandwidth @ 10mbit/s for $130/m (or $45 for 200GB/m).
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danielha
2007-05-01T18:45:08
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Floats can drive me nuts. Good reads; thanks.
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edgeztv
2007-05-01T18:53:06
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I had the same idea a while back :)
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falsestprophet
2007-05-01T18:56:13
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I am somewhat suspicious that Xobni has no value to offer. Their evasive website recalls Mr. Graham's (or some other entrepreneurial evangelist's) insistence that if a company cannot tell you what they do in a sentence, they should go home. I agree that business targeted towards the masses (note that Xobni seems to only support Microsoft products at present) must have an easily understood purpose. What purpose does Xobin they serve?<p>In the entire length of their website, they do not explain what they do. They certainly don't in a single sentence. Perhaps, the magnitude and source of their investment suggests they are on to something. But, what explanation they have reeks of charlatanism in platitudinous corporate doublespeak: "in-depth analysis" that "takes email productivity to a new level." Please. This of course raises the questions what do they analyze? And how do they improve productivity? Either they have something to hide or nothing to offer.<p>Recall that Mr. Graham insists that there are no ideas worth protecting with secrecy; either Xobin disagrees (actually I do as well) or they have no good ideas at all.
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danielha
2007-05-01T18:58:24
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What a funny article. Who wouldn't want analyst storage briefings through Second Life?
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Tichy
2007-05-01T18:58:44
Are there good solutions for age verification?
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[ 18469, 18486, 18551, 18471, 18553 ]
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Tichy
2007-05-01T19:02:16
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One of the projects I am currently involved with features erotic content. For the time being we have eliminated all pictures that could be illegal (at least in our country), but it would be so much nicer to have a reliable age verification system.<p>Are there any good solutions for that, preferably covering as many countries as possible? For example, I am pretty sure that for Germany the standard "credit card check" is insufficient, as the law will just argue that "the child might borrow the credit card". Would it be sufficient for the USA, and is there a way to check the country of origin that our users are coming from?
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coolnewtoy
2007-05-01T19:02:29
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for the do-it-yourselfers, here's a link to quickly evaluate what you've done. Peachpit press is very well known in the print graphic design crowd.<p><a href="http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=676596&rl=1">http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=676596&rl=1</a>
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npk
2007-05-01T19:04:54
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[totally edited]<p> Sorry, this is more of a legal, rather than technical question. Did you do a google search? <a href="http://www.idology.com">http://www.idology.com</a> claims to have something.
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willarson
2007-05-01T19:06:18
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My understanding of the DMCA is that as long as sites promptly remove copyrighted materials they are not in violation of the law. Rather than arguments about "information wanting to be free", I think we'll see a lot of obtuse arguments about what engenders "prompt removal", etc.<p>On the topic of copyrights and the web, what I'd like to know is how Pandora was so successful in getting licenses for all the music they use.
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willarson
2007-05-01T19:16:25
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If they are intent on supporting OS X, it seems quite likely that support for Linux will be technically feasible. Originally I was really bewildered by the MS decision to mimic Flash, but they really have done a pretty decent job with the .NET framework. Maybe the competition between Flash and Silverlight (which, btw, is a great name) will force one of them to opensource...
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Tichy
2007-05-01T19:17:31
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I have googled, but it is difficult to judge the services that come up. (Edit: just found that Idology seems to verify based on street address - good enough for a mail order company, I guess, but probably not for access restrictions to a web page?).<p>It is of course a legal question, but also a technical one. For example it is a technical question if I can determine the country my user is coming from. I suspect not, though (user could use proxy in other country) - or at most, one could determine a probability and then it would again become a legal question.
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sethjohn
2007-05-01T19:27:23
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I was sort of surprised the first time I learned that anyone would give you financing for debt. Even at a 20% discount rate, it seems like a successful startup should be increasing their valuation by a lot more than 20% between rounds.<p>Conversely, debt seems like a really bad deal for investors. They only get a 20% discount when the company goes into Series A financing, in return for the risk that the company will go belly up before then and they lose it all.<p>How does this square with the (admittedly problematic) conventional wisdom that investors look for a ~10x return on their money and expect ~1/10th of companies to fail?
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pg
2007-05-01T19:31:24
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Funding startups with debt is extremely risky, unless it's convertible debt, which is just a hacked form of equity.<p>The reason is that a typical loan will be secured by the company's stock. If you fail to repay it when it's due, your company will be forfeited to the lender. It's bad to make deals like this in a situation where things can change so fast. Viaweb was almost destroyed when we couldn't repay a bridge loan that we'd taken in order to see us through an acquisition that then didn't happen.
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jaggederest
2007-05-01T19:38:10
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Kinda sad we need this...
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Tichy
2007-05-01T19:38:29
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Does Google also send you to hell if you have paid Google for advertising your site? At least if you pay for an ad, hopefully the spider would use it as some sort of indicator?
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sethjohn
2007-05-01T19:44:22
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I believe this article discussed only convertible debt, and only regarding seed-round funding.<p>No matter what the situation, though, aren't the investors going to own your company if you really run out of money? And if your company is doing just fine, shouldn't it be easy enough to get another loan/investment to keep the creditors at bay?
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benhoyt
2007-05-01T19:47:31
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I'd love to see this tiny bit of Ajax on news.yc itself -- but in the meantime, good job!
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nivi
2007-05-01T19:49:02
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Lord I would love a script that marks all the articles on news.yc as "read". I would also love a place to put these suggestions without spamming everybody!
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willarson
2007-05-01T19:52:38
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I am fairly certain that it is possible to determine country by IP. I have seen this done before in several cases: some products with encryption are illegal to "export", and thus restrict the IPs that can access them. Also, I have seen the same for content providers who only have a license for a certain market (specifically I have seen a Japanese company restrict their content to "Japanese IPs").<p>You make a good point about proxying through different countries, but I don't think in you would be liable for that. Often these things work on some sort of a "reasonable effort" type clause, because its impossible to verify with complete certainty someones age programmatically.<p>Perhaps asking them trivia about music that was in style two decades ago...
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benhoyt
2007-05-01T19:56:46
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Do you know if this is now documented anywhere? Even on a third party site?<p>Testing: <i>italic</i> <i></i>bold<i></i> [link](<a href="http://benhoyt.com/)">http://benhoyt.com/)</a> -- hmmm, <i>can</i> you do named links?
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zach
2007-05-01T19:57:38
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But it's an increase for guys who were basically using S3 to serve as a way to get their web pages to come up snappier by having S3 serve their many requests for small incidental images. Reddit, for example. They were nickel and diming S3 (well, really $0.00001 and $0.000005-ing), of course totally within the terms of the service, to Amazon's chagrin. Even with the new charges though, it's a great deal for that kind of hosting.
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3d
2007-05-01T20:03:05
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It's just a joke, bud. Have a laugh. I'm not implying that we should uproot PG's essays because of a fortune cookie. I just got it and thought of the essay.
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ttol
2007-05-01T20:05:46
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I noticed on a few commercial sites (I believe it was an Anheuser-Busch site) that asked for your name and city, state (and possibly email for unique identifier?). Then, it magically age verified you. It was pretty nifty.<p>I believe they must have used a product like ChoicePoint's Age Verification (<a href="http://www.choicepoint.com/business/financial/ageverif_fs.html).">http://www.choicepoint.com/business/financial/ageverif_fs.html).</a> Basically a database of public records.<p>Hope that helps, Wayne Chang
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nivi
2007-05-01T20:12:15
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The article discusses convertible debt.<p>Even convertible debt can be dangerous if you don't raise a Series A before the debt comes due. The solution is to negotiate the right to convert the debt to equity at the company's option if the Series A doesn't occur before the debt comes due. We'll discuss this in an upcoming hack.
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sajid
2007-05-01T20:14:59
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Another interesting option and cheap too, thanks.
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Tichy
2007-05-01T20:22:55
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I suspect just verifying by name and address would be too easy to hack by the kids? Just enter their neighbour's address and name...<p>Personally I would consider credit card ownership as sufficient, as I think they are only handed out to adults? If a kid steals the credit card it is probably so spoiled already that some erotica won't do much further harm... But the law doesn't agree everywhere.
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jslogan
2007-05-01T20:27:46
Do you really value your customers or do you just want their money?
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http://www.jslogan.com/content/view/165/
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Alex3917
2007-05-01T20:36:48
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I'll refrain from making any MySpace jokes. It's depressing enough as is.
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bootload
2007-05-01T20:43:46
Living online, with web apps
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http://fortuito.us/2007/04/living_online_with_web_apps
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unfoldedorigami
2007-05-01T20:52:50
Amazon S3: New pricing model
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http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/05/01/amazon-s3-new-pricing-model/
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spiralhead
2007-05-01T20:59:45
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problem with the $8/mo-type services is that you're limited as to what sort of tech you can use
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gustaf
2007-05-01T21:26:16
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Primarily Serverbeach. Have one server with Layered Tech and one with Linode for internal
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pg
2007-05-01T21:33:45
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Ug. That band at the bottom of the page is intolerable...
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T21:41:13
Sonopia Raises $12.7 Million in Series B Funding for Mobile "Social" Network
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/05/01/sonopia-raises-127-million-in-series-b-funding/
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sabat
2007-05-01T21:43:06
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True, although some providers are more liberal than others. Dreamhost lets you run your own stuff, like ruby, php, rails, etc. But yeah, it's a limited environment, and you're sharing. When you're first starting out, you may not care about that. But eventually ...
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usablecontent
2007-05-01T21:52:12
The Reason Why Digg Removed That Story
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http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/the-reason-why-digg-removed-that-story21094.html
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