instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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When to turn on advertisements? | prakash: Turn on ads immediately, that will give you time to play around with the various knobs associated with online ads. Also, you get some idea on how much money you can make from the ads, since that's going to your primary source of revenue for this venture.Don't worry about ads and early adopters. Most of them have adblock or some variant turned on, the rest probably don't click on the ads anyway. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | cstejerean: I like to use Google Reader to keep track of interesting blogs and news sources. Usually when an article is linked from HN I take a look at the site and see if it's interesting, then check if it has an RSS feed. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | browndog: Word of mouth (or email) works for me. I send things that I find interesting to some friends, and they return the favor. Saving those links to read during "free" hours, you can build up quite a reading list. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | ucdaz: A lot of time it happens haphazardly. Whenever I read my subscribed feeds, a lot of the posting will have links to other blog postings.
I also find great reads through my own community of forums, blogs, meetups, social networks, etc... |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | yan: I actually try to actively fight the urge to seek out "interesting" things to read. The content on HN is of fairly high quality, and seeking out more stuff to consume outside of it leads to diminishing returns on time wasted.I find if something is important enough, it will get to me one way or another. Or I'll see it passing by on HN. |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | pauljonas: For me, the question isn't so much what Ruby has that Python lacks, but the extra Python bits I find annoying and/or tedious:* having to declare "self" in every method argument — reading code, it just clutters up the screen/page* the big use of of double underscores for special methods (i.e., __init__, __str__, __getattr__, etc...) — IMV, it's gooberish...* no switch/case statementIn defense of Python over Ruby:* I prefer the whitespace over the Pascal-ish begin/end, especially for real life code solutions* the Ruby shorthand syntax IMV at times obfuscates code clarity - is it a method or variable I am looking at?That said, I'd much rather code in either Ruby or Python than in Java or C... |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | ajdecon: If I run across a particularly interesting post--linked from a favorite blog, or HN or reddit--I'll often subscribe to the site's rss feed for a week or two on the strength of that experience.If the site's quality is consistently good, it stays in my feed reader. Otherwise it's booted fast. As a bonus, that high-quality site will probably link to other things I've never heard of, which might be worth reading long-term.There's no universal recipe, and very few good aggregators online. But you can usually depend on the principle that good stories will link to other good stories. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | voidfiles: I try and get friends who read blogs to use google reader and then constantly cajole them into sharing stuff. Some of my favorite stuff comes from things my friends have shared. Especially things that wouldn't show up on my radar normally. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | arthurk: I get my news from: HN + Proggit + RSS Feeds from a few smaller, but important blogs (mostly personal blogs and other very specialized stuff) in Google Reader.That's enough interesting news for me. |
When to turn on advertisements? | teuobk: Turn them on as soon as possible. I made the mistake once of waiting a long time (as in years) before turning on ads, and the users were NOT happy campers. They seemed to think that it was their right to have an ad-free site. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | thorax: Socialbrowse has been a cool way to find stuff "word-of-mouth" lately for me. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | peakok: Art & Letters Daily : http://www.aldaily.com/ |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | abdelazer: After leaving Ruby (non-Rails) for Python this year, I've mostly noticed the difference in the obsession about testing. The Ruby crew is very into TDD (and now BDD)–that isn't to say that Python folks don't test (or do TDD/BDD), but simply that the tools available in Python aren't quite as polished. Ruby's RSpec, RCov, Flog, Autotest, & Heckle are all quite wonderful. I do like Nose, but get annoyed by lack of friendly code coverage tools in Python. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | davidw: A subscription to The Economist is great for having some printed material to read in the head. |
When to turn on advertisements? | stcredzero: Turn ads on when they turn you on. |
When to turn on advertisements? | matthall28: Start with ads immediately. Just make sure you do them well. Ads can be made unobtrusive or obnoxious. |
What would you put on the wall behind your desk? | stevedekorte: If you want to show your appriecation for design, then nothing would show it better than a bare wall and a debris free workspace. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | gleb: A subscription to paper version of WSJ is the best $100/year you'll spend. The content is authoritative, exceptionally well researched and complete. The opinion side of things is pleasantly conservative. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | omfut: I usually checkout techmeme for hot news for the day. Othe than that, techcrunch,gigaom and some voip blogs. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | vaksel: I read a couple of forums(a few for my hobbies, a few general ones, a few for politics). Then I have HH and Techcrunch for tech etc. And finally I visit reddit/digg to see if there is anything interesting on the front page.This way I tend to find all of the interesting stuff as soon as it happens. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | rokhayakebe: Try FriendFeed. It is definitely a work in progress but it can really help if you subscribe to a limited number of people. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | UandIblog: I go to a major chain bookstore, the bigger the better. I look around for something really good, when I find something I like I then take the laptop out of my bag and I look up the book at Amazon. Quite often one of Amazons recommendations ends up being more interesting to me, so at that point I'll use my mobile to call a smaller, independent bookstore and special order the book. In the several days it takes to arrive I usually just read the same blogs you guys already mentioned. |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | DougBTX: _why |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | thingsilearned: I'm incredibly biased but I recommend Socialbrowse! Send me an email if you would like an invitedave at socialbrowse |
When to turn on advertisements? | jeremytliles: Funny, I asked a similar question on another forum recently, and the consensus was something like "don't turn on adsense, it looks spammy." I'm not sure if they were objecting to adsense or ads in general.I have to say, I was a bit taken aback by this advice. Given the penetration of adsense in this day and age, I hardly think it looks "spammy" unless you throw giant ad units up on all sides of the page.Anyway, I think you put it in right from the start if you're sure that's your revenue model. Most people are used to seeing ads, especially on content sites that clearly aren't going to charge money. As someone else mentioned, just don't make it obnoxious. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | gasull: http://del.icio.us/populardel.icio.us/popular and HN are my absolutely required readings every day.Try AideRSS for other blogs if you you want a better signal/noise ratio:http://www.aiderss.com/Besides this, websites I visit sometimes:* iTulip (http://www.itulip.com) - alternative economic news* Boing Boing (http://www.boingboing.net) - my favorite blog.* Your Rights Online Slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org) - about the coming orwellian state* Pitchfork Media Best New Music (http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/best_new_music) |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | ashleyw: A Google reader full of smaller blogs and the mindset that I DONT have to read everything. 3083 unread, as of right now, in fact.Smaller blogs are generally one-man shows, but that's what makes them special to me, they aren't out to make money, and their opinions (about generally geeky tech things, in my case) are priceless. I don't care if they are the wrong opinions, or daft opinions, just that they are alternative opinions. It helps me see different angles of new technologies, languages and startups.I love sites like Hacker News, they filter out the good stuff, but at the end of the day its a group opinion, and sometimes even upvoted due to the title or subject, rather than the content of the linked to article. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | kajecounterhack: Stumbleuponthough, I only actively seek things when I have time to kill which isn't often at all. Usually its just YC News. |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | mroman: I would love to read pg's thoughts on this question.Actually, I would love to read more of pg's thoughts on Ruby, what I have read of his thoughts on it has been brief yet highly positive. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | mroman: Well, you did specify "online" but what got me out of a very similar rut is . . . reading good books. I read on my machine 99% of the time, and I even use the browser to read said books quite often :) |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | rms: http://www.boingboing.net
http://www.kottke.org |
When to turn on advertisements? | ideamonk: Turn on ads when many people have become loyal to your product. And besides that... the most important part is that put up ads in a way that people don't get bugged by it. Do is slowly and subtly. I used to hate hi5 because they had too many ads and that made the website slow too(on my P3 800 Mhz 196mb ram). It seemed as if hi5 is made of beggars [:P] |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | atestu: http://givemesomethingtoread.com features some of the most saved articles on Instapaper. They're usually pretty good. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | waitwhatwhoa: http://www.metafilter.com |
When to turn on advertisements? | 3KWA: Not sure I am in a position to give an ADVICE on the matter but the CHOICE I made for my free service is to roll in advertising and affiliation when I have something that add value to the user experience of the service. E.g. I love receiving Amazon's reading recommendations! |
How do you organize your code? | hs: OpenBSD + dwm + vnc herealt+1: my main coding using vim (no mouse, no arrow key)
alt+2: vncviewer to my mac mini for safari, ff3 (mouse)
alt+3 ... alt+9: almost never usedi 1-1-map ~/www/pages/webapp{1,...,n) to my OpenBSD colo
hg push/pull/updatei'm reconsidering attach/detach screen session between servers, but i can't stand emacs/GNU key-binding (even after xmodmap my caps to ctrl) ... anyone knows screen-like program that uses vi-keybinding? |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | madmotive: Twitter has replaced Google Reader for me. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | ichverstehe: And the web can't fail? It sure can. Just as much as the other cases. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | ordinaryman: Even Google does not seem to use/promote it extensively. Refer to a recent blog post in GAE, except for the one session, all others have their slides as PDF (no embedded or "View as slideshow" option) !!
http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2008/06/google-io-sessio...Also try searching for filetype:ppt in Google. Though there is a "View as HTML" link, there is no "View as slideshow". They do have it available in Gmail, though.Not sure whether Google uses it inside for its own meetings or in its developer conferences. HN users who have attended such conferences may add details.When normal users are trained to use such online services, it will be adopted in a better way. That will probably happen when a player like Google removes its "View as HTML" from its services (or hides it below) and promotes "View as Slideshow" alone. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | teuobk: Part of the problem is that, for better or for worse, Microsoft Office is the standard in corporations. Everybody in the company knows how to create, open, and display PowerPoint presentations. Replacing PowerPoint would require a massive retraining effort and expense. I'm not sure that the benefits of a browser-based solution can compensate.To make matters worse, it's not just a training problem. I've worked places where document management systems were designed to work with MS Office documents and PDFs -- and that's it. Everything else had to be converted to one of the supported formats before it could be stored in the system and routed for approval. A broken system? Perhaps. My point is that IS system limitations can also be reasons for the workforce at a company to stick with MS Office. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | vaksel: because almost everyone has powerpoint installed from when they installed office. + Most people have been using it from when they were in high school |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | richcollins: Also see http://slideshare.net/ |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | iamnirav: PowerPoint and Keynote also offer much higher fidelity and quality than Google Docs. Also, in many corporations it's against policy to upload confidential information to external servers, which rules out most web services.
I've heard that Google actually uses PowerPoint and Keynote internally. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | streety: I've seen slideshare used for making presentations but certainly not routinely.Dave McClure used slideshare to give his presentation at BarcampScotland2008. If I remember correctly there was just one incident when he moved backwards in the slide stack rather than forwards due to some issue with the interface. Overall though it went as smoothly as any presentation from powerpoint.Personally I wouldn't rely on a web service. I usually have a couple of backups of my presentation with me for anything important though and I would consider a web service as one of those additional backups.The presentation is at http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-sco... |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | terminator3000: nothing. rails is crap. python rules. |
Why does no one use google docs for presentations? | bitrhymes: you need to have google account to view slides. which world are they living in. google is so 2006. |
How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN? | ivrokv: It is forbidden to speak of the time before HN existed. |
What does Ruby have that Python doesn't? | petercooper: Consistency in class definitions (that is, not two "types" of class). Python's packaging is less consistent. Oh, and far better community sites. |
Systems programming laanguage of the future? | wmf: Legacy, of course. Beyond that I would look to the language semantics, not performance. |
Systems programming laanguage of the future? | warwick: Off the top of my head, I'd say that C is used for systems programming due to direct addressing of memory via pointers and it being as low level as you can get without getting into machine specific assembly. Speed is more of a byproduct of being extremely low level since you've got very low overhead.I'd be curious what you see as the inherent flaws in C, and what would you want to see out of a better systems language? |
What would you put on the wall behind your desk? | aupajo: The Web is Agreement: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/1805709102/ |
Systems programming laanguage of the future? | silentbicycle: I've heard several times (citation needed, I know. Anybody?) that processors have gradually been tuned to perform better with machine language that has artifacts from C compilation in it, or something like that. I would love details. (Related: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?CeeAsAnIntermediateLanguage)Python won't be used as a systems programming language because it's relatively slow compared to most compiled languages (though many parts of its library are compiled C) due to two major strikes against it: It's interpreted (albeit with some bytecode caching), and it doesn't (yet) have a clear way to declare/infer types for optimization, so a lot of cycles get burned double-checking data types. In practice, it's usually fast enough for most purposes -- its design focused on speed of development over than execution, which is a good tradeoff overall, but works against it for systems programming (except prototyping). |
Systems programming laanguage of the future? | brianobush: There is the D programming language, but it hasn't caught on.
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/index.html |
Systems programming laanguage of the future? | rincewind: There are operating systems in other, higher-level languages: Singularity, JNODE, Genera, SqueakNOS, Movitz, but:C is not garbage collected. If you write an OS in a dynamic language you need either a GC in a low-level language or one that does not produce garbage itself. If you want a realtime-OS, garbage collection will make things much more complicated.Other dynamic featues like multiple dispatch at runtime may also slow down the system and create an unnecessary bottleneck at such a low level.> Why hasn't anyone created a better systemprogramming langauge?Java is a very good systems programming language for Processors that have Java bytecode as machine code.Oberon is a better language to write the Oberon system in than C. There is also a lot of low-level programming going on with Ada. Oberon and Ada are both derived from Pascal and seem very un-dynamic to me. Depending on your definition of better, they may be better sytem programming languages. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | noodle: 4 hour work week.its not exactly a book on being an entrepreneur, but its a book about setting goals, increasing efficiency and doing what you want to do. more of a motivational book than an informational book.it was more of a driving force for me to do entrepreneurial work than any book actually on the topic of entrepreneurship. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | blogimus: I'd suggest either Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_NationsOr Karl Marx's "The Communist Manifesto".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_ManifestoBoth books have ideas which helped to bootstrap economic revolutions whose effects are felt to this day.But in seriousness, I don't think there is one best book. But reading a bunch of books by/about very successful people, such as (but not limiting to) Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett will help you gain insights and different perspectives.What I see is that the most successful people are well rounded. They have the ability to approach problems from many different angles.Entrepreneurship is so much about personal interactions. One book which really helped me in learning to get along with people is Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | qhoxie: Founders at Work is great. It will be especially helpful in arena of rights and wrongs from the experience of others. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | ScottWhigham: Art of the Start if you want to start your own business. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | prakash: 1. PG's essays/ Hackers and Painters2. Founders at Work3. High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet WarsThe other way to look at it is, if you are not making mistakes, you are not pushing the boundary enough! |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | pg: Founders at Work, actually. None of the how-to books are good, so the best source of information is stories, and FaW has the best stories. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | MaysonL: Peter Drucker's Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His memoir Adventures of a Bystander also has a lot of wisdom about business, besides lots of great stories (don't miss "The Man who Invented Kissinger", if you're a fan of history). |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | tstegart: Not a book, but I recommend getting a subscription to Inc. Magazine. At the very least, check out Norm Brodsky's column every week at the bookstore. |
CSS Framework? | noodle: i've made use of blueprint and grid.the concept is useful but don't use them as a crutch for learning CSS |
CSS Framework? | ejs: I am using blueprint css in my latest website ( http://overtrainer.com ) mainly just because I am too lazy to learn css correctly ;) |
CSS Framework? | oldgregg: I use boilerplate, a stripped down blueprint css:http://code.google.com/p/css-boilerplate/I'm not a semantics-nazi by any means, but I've used grids at different times and... meh, I'd usually rather just throw a few float:left's together and keep it clean. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | known: World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemieshttp://isbn.nu/9780375503665 |
European founders in YC? | wheels: The two that come to mind of the top of my head are Songkick and Clickpass, both from the UK.Here was a previous discussion on the topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158969searchyc.com is your friend. |
European founders in YC? | spif: Just to clarify you are asking about founders from outside the US moving to the US and getting work permits. Not the otherway round, right?If it's the other way (in Holland at least) it will be easiest if one of the founders/employees can be recognized as an knowledge migrant. |
European founders in YC? | hooande: YC has a lot of founders from outside of the US. There were four teams from outside of the US in our YC class, two from Canada, one from the UK and one team from Austria. I can think of at least four other teams from abroad from previous classes.In fact there is a kind of UK YC inside YC. The UK guys really stick together and help each other out. If you can get a hold of any of them I'm sure they'll point you in the right direction.Papers and immigration are always a difficult issue. In most cases you can get a work visa or whatever visa lets you attend conferences in the US and it will be enough for the 3 month YC session. |
European founders in YC? | babul: I am sure there are a few UK YC startups. Below is what I can recall off the top of my head.The blogs in particular may hold useful info for you regarding getting visas and working in the U.S. plus the journey in startup as a whole - I particularly like http://www.kulveer.co.uk and http://blog.harjtaggar.com who are the http://www.auctomatic.com guys as they give a good level of detail throughout their journey.However, http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/02/coming-to-america-getti... (or http://is.gd/1Vrf in short) by Peter from ClickPass could be what you were referring to and probably holds most of the answers you want in the most succinct form.Anyway, I'm sure if you contact them they may be answer specific visa questions from their experience. Hope this helps.--- http://www.auctomatic.com
http://auctomatic.com/about
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kul
http://www.kulveer.co.uk
http://twitter.com/kul
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=harj
http://blog.harjtaggar.com
http://twitter.com/harjeet
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pc
http://www.collison.ie/
http://twitter.com/patrickc
[John Collison]
http://twitter.com/collision
http://snaptalent.com
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sharpshoot
http://sharpshoot.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/sharpshoot
http://www.songkick.com/
http://www.songkick.com/team
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ian
http://twitter.com/soundboy
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=petesmithy
http://twitter.com/petesmithy
http://www.clickpass.com/
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=immad
http://www.immadsnewworld.com/
http://twitter.com/immad
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=petenixey
http://www.webkitchen.co.uk/
http://twitter.com/petenixey
http://webmynd.com/
http://webmynd.wordpress.com
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=amirnathoo
http://twitter.com/amirnathoo
http://www.scoopler.com
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ajmalasver
http://blog.projectbluespark.com/
http://twitter.com/_aj
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dilanj
http://meonearth.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/_dilan |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | Anon84: Although not exactly my field... This seems to be a good review of some of the algorithms currently used.http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.3382By following the references therein you can probably track down the canonical papers for the area. The OCW course should also give you a broad overview of the subject, but before you can make any significant contributions in terms of algorithms and results, you need to thoroughly understand the biology behind it. |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | schtog: After doing some more research I have found:
Perl and Python are very popular languages in bioinformatics. I love Python so good for me and I don't know Perl so easy choice then, Python it is.The big wellknown library is BioPython:
http://biopython.org/wiki/Main_PageCourse, Bioinformatics and Python:
http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/unites/sis/formation/python/The foldit game:
http://fold.it/portal/adobe_main |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | tjr: http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Made-Simple-Third/dp......seems to be a good introduction to molecular biology in general, depending on how much background you have. |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | biohacker42: I suggest you start out with some basic chemistry. There you can find the data on how the amino acid chains line up and fold and twist. There was that game somebody released where you "fold" with the mouse. I think it was an experiment to find out if humans can do the folding faster then computers. That should give you an idea of the problem.The core problem in protein folding is that all the parts heavily interact with each other. And that means that it is not easily split across nodes. Forget about networked nodes, the latency is way too big.Some academic groups have proposed a funnel shape to the folding probabilities. That is to say that initially things could go in any direction and the possibility space is HUGE. But as the protein grows the number of possible moves collapse quickly and you are left with very few moves at the end.I think the Features in Biotech podcast had at least one show on protein folding, fun to listen to.Hope this helps, enjoy yourself. |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | acesamped: I'm actually a bioinformatics major, bioinformatician by profession. We do work with computer scientists a lot, but one thing we find very frustrating is that 99% of them don't know biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or organic chemistry to the necessary degree. They also don't know how to read lab tests we run or how to interpret them.Personally, I think that computer programming is something that anybody can do. The advantage computer scientists have is a deep understanding of the inner workings of computers and computer language structure-- which is how computer scientists are able to optimize so well.Since I'm currently working in the field of bioinformatics, I'll tell you this...KNOW YOUR SCIENCE!! You don't know how many times a computer scientist will optimize the hell out of an algorithm and make it look great and run like butter, but only to have it be junked in the end because is doesn't make any scientific sense.As for the computer languages we use, we use perl a lot... too much even. perl has become our staple language because it takes less than a minute to write good script if you know what you're doing. python is popular too, but I'd say the majority of people use perl.Another important language most bioinformaticians use is C/C++. Why? Wouldn't you want to use a faster language (C) to crunch 100 gigabits of genetic data instead of a slower one (perl).And note, bioinformatics and computational biology are two different fields. This is a very common misconception. Do a little bit of research and you will discover this.protein folding is one of the more prominent areas of biology being researched right now. Good luck with the learning and feel free to contact me. |
Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read? | rodrigo: I found Undercover Economist a great resource to get to know some economic basics, like scarcity and pricing, wich can help you model your product or revenue source scheme.
Also, second Founders at Work, good ol'storytelling, very information-dense.http://tinyurl.com/5buhql |
Who here is using IronRuby? | cschneid: I looked at it a while back, and it wasn't feature complete enough for me to really play with. It's probably worth another look.For a more complete impl, look at JRuby. You get the nice benefits of a larger virtual machine (the libraries!), but it's been tested heavily. |
HN like forum software? | noodle: http://code.reddit.com/ |
HN like forum software? | nostrademons: HN is open-source: http://arclanguage.org/item?id=3426There's also Pligg (open-source PHP) and Slinkset (hosted). |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | tstegart: They're called corporate lawyers, but many small firms and individual lawyers do corporate law along with other areas of practice.There are tax issues on what you get to deduct before and after starting a company, but really I think your main concern should be the reason why you want to start a company. If you have considerable individual assets and your venture might be risky in terms of owing people money if it fails, then you would want the strong legal protection a company can provide. If you're doing something very benign, like starting a blog thats unlikely to get you into trouble, well, you can wait.It also matters how much capital you have. If you spend it all on a lawyer you might end up with a nice document and not enough capital to carry on a real business. On the other hand, you can have a great business and get caught without legal protection.This question was much more easily answered before the internet when people started businesses with real profit estimates and business plans. Its a little harder now with the "build first, worry about profitability later" attitudes because you might build a web 2.0 business and it never takes off, so you'll come away thinking your thousand dollar investment in a lawyer was wasted. It probably wasn't, but you'll think it was because the venture wasn't successful.When actual money starts to change hands, the legal protections become more easily visible and the value they provide is clear.If you're not sure you'll make money, i.e. you're building a website and hoping it will take off, my down to earth advice is to get a Nolo book, pay the $200 to incorporate an LLC somewhere, and live with that crappy legal situation until you start to make money. Its at least some protection at a cheap price. |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | weebob: Well, if you want to get a clue about how molecular biologists think you could do a lot worse then read "The eighth day of creation." It's a general history of molecular biology. If you find any of it confusing then a good introductory text book may help; Molecular Biology of the Cell or Stryer would get you started (and will be available in any decent college library).As for the protein folding or the protein function question google around computational chemistry, but be warned -- this is tough stuff! But if you are shit hot, please come as we need the help... |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | vaksel: Just fyi the copyright symbol has nothing to do with being a company or not. The copyright law in this country basically says that if you made it, its yours.As far as timeline, I would go with registering an LLC. Its cheap and will give you a form of legitimacy. |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | michael_dorfman: Is this webapp a hobby, or a business? Are you serious about it being a start-up? If so, I'd definitely talk to a lawyer before you launch, and get yourself organized.Do you have a business plan? A budget? |
Best resources to learn about protein folding and algorithms for it? | etal: For an overview, read the DoE's primer:http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/publicat/...The U.S. Department of Energy does a surprising amount of research on genetics and bioinformatics. The reason: while the Manhattan project was running, DoE scientists were aware that radioactive weapons would cause amazing and lasting damage, but really didn't know much about how radioactivity would affect living things specifically. So a parallel project was set up to study the effects of radiation on cells -- e.g. selectively damaging DNA and proteins and watching what happens to the organism. Research continued after the Manhattan project ended, and eventually led to the Human Genome Project.Another resource you should definitely be familiar with is NBCI:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Yes, algorithms are an important area of research. Caveat: it's entirely driven by biology. For example, aligning two partially matching protein sequences requires a clever algorithm. Sounds like diff, right? The catch is, related sequences don't match particularly well until you take into account which transformations are more likely to occur in nature, which takes significant biochemistry to determine and use properly. So really, your best bet is to associate yourself with a university of some sort, since that's where most of the molecular biologists tend to hang out. Learn biology first, and you'll pick up algorithms in the process. |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | jon_dahl: 1. You can probably file LLC papers with your state (or another state) for ~$200. I did that for my first company and didn't hire a lawyer until 3 years later. I highly recommend doing this before you launch your startup. You really should talk to a lawyer before launch, but this is better than nothing.2. Nothing stops someone from stealing your idea, except: (a) patents, (b) copyright, (c) trade secrets.You only have to file paperwork for (a), not (b) or (c).3. You can build on someone else's idea, unless it violates (a) or (b). (c) only protects you as long as it remains secret.4. Talk to a lawyer. :) |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | tptacek: I'm not a lawyer, but I have helped launch a couple companies:* Form an LLC now, so that your business operates under limited liability, as its own entity that can invoice and be invoiced, instead of out of your bank account. Cost: $200-300. You don't need a lawyer to do this in a one-person shop; just fill out the web form and give them your credit card number.* You want a business lawyer once you have multiple employees (whereupon you'll restructure the company, often to a C corp so you can issue equity) or before you sign your first complicated contract.* If you charge money, you probably have terms and conditions, and you probably want those reviewed before you publish them.* You don't need to do anything special to claim copyright in the US, or anywhere else the Berne Convention applies.* Nothing stops anyone from copying your idea and launching their own site except for a contract that they actually sign that prohibits them from doing so. When you launch, the clock starts ticking.* Regarding your next question: welcome to the Internets. |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | MicahWedemeyer: Forming an LLC is cheap and easy, but be sure to keep up with paperwork. I showed our "books" to an accountant and he told me that if we ever went to court with that, our LLC status would be stripped away immediately and we'd be personally liable on everything. |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | tonystubblebine: I'd be interested to know more about what people actually did versus what they should have done. And how did it work out?There's more legal work than just incorporation. Do you need business insurance? Do you need to register somewhere for DMCA protection? |
is the number of interesting (mathematical) concepts infinite? | gukjoon: Which infinity? |
Legal timeline for a successful web startup? | mattmaroon: Mistake number 1 is asking hackers for legal advice. This is far worse than asking lawyers for programming advice, because at least lawyers will tell you they don't know. You're going to get 100 opinions here ranging from uninformed to semi-informed, and all answers will be based on their own experiences and not your specific legal needs.Talk to a business lawyer immediately. They won't charge you anything for the initial consultation and will answer these questions. |
Any payment processing advice? | noodle: 1) a safe policy would be to accept checks by mail, but hold shipping until the check clears the bank and you have funds in your account.2) http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...3) depends. some of the things in the link above touch on that. for the most part, though, keep as much of the "safe" (non-CC, check, routing, etc. numbers) information that you feel like you need. |
The Economics of Twitter? | byrneseyeview: Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, says that the way to get rich is to own an expensive good that's complimentary to a free good (if you have a monopoly on right shoes, and left shoes cost nothing you're going to do pretty well). My guess is that Twitter is engineering the supply by making tiny messages to all of your friends ubiquitous. I don't know what expensive analogue they'll create -- perhaps analytics, perhaps ads or product placement -- but it's pretty hard to end up with nothing when you have a huge customer base and you keep expenses low. In financial terms, that's a low-cost option on whatever business model might eventually show up to take advantage of the situation. |
The Economics of Twitter? | nostrademons: They're betting that with 10 million users, Twitter will find some way to monetize them. Historically, this is a pretty good bet: it worked for Netscape, Google, HotOrNot, MySpace, and FaceBook.In interviews, Ev's said that the plan is basically to charge for commercial usage of Twitter, probably based off of number of followers. Several companies are now Twittering product announcements and status information to customers; this is fairly readily monetizable, since they have deep pockets and gain a commercial benefit from it. |
The Economics of Twitter? | alaskamiller: 1. They have some amount of advertising revenue with Twitter Japan2. Then don't. There's plenty of Twitter-clones out there, in itself it not necessarily a complex software to make -- the engineering challenges would be scaling it.3. Why VCs investing into it? Because of the team (Evan Williams primarily) and because of the network effect already growing. Unless you are Evan Williams or have a chart showing more and more users each day, your ability to garner VC money is hindered greatly.4. What's the exit strategy? Ubiquity can lead to some very interesting things. As an utility, it's appealing to a service provider (Verizon, ATT, Tmobile). As a social network, it's appealing to a web company (Goog, Yhoo, Msft). As an advertising platform, it's appealing directly to advertisers (AdSense, SEM, PltA). |
Any VCs in Toronto, Canada? | prakash: http://www.punctuative.com/vcdb/ |
Any VCs in Toronto, Canada? | prakash: I remember reading about VC's/angels near U of Waterloo, might want to check that out. |
Any VCs in Toronto, Canada? | bkbleikamp: i would suggest contacting the guys at b5media.com and talk to them - they are based in toronto and have received funding. |
Are there any YC founders married w/kids? | comatose_kid: I'm not a YC founder, but I do have a wife and children.As to your original question: don't worry about it. Just focus on your application, and try to get some sort of basic demo of your idea together. |
Are there any YC founders married w/kids? | staunch: Wayne Crosby of Zenter"JR: What was the downside of your experience YC?Y Combinator requires you to move to either Cambridge, MA (Summer session) or Mountain View, CA (Winter session). The night we submitted our application to Y Combinator, we found out my wife was pregnant with our first child. The hardest decision my wife and I made was me going off to do a startup while she remained in AZ. We bought video phones and used Skype video conferencing every night to stay in touch. The video phones helped a ton, especially since I only made 1 trip back home in the 3 months. Looking back it was absolutely the right decision for me, the family, and our future - but it sucked not being around her for 3 months."http://pioneerit.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-innoview-with-wayne... |
Are there any YC founders married w/kids? | hooande: I just completed a YC session and my co-founder was married, but no children. I must say, an entire summer seems like it might put a bit of stress on your relationship.Let me be very clear! You can definitely do a startup if you have a family. YCombinator and startups are a great opportunity for anyone, regardless of age or family situation.With that being said, a YC summer can be very intensive. Three full months apart and under stress might be more than you were bargaining for in terms of your relationship with your spouses and family. It seems like if all three of you are in this situation the odds are good that at least one of you will run into a problem.There were a lot of guys in our class who had serious girlfriends and they all seemed to come out fine. My co-founder is married and our startup is doing just fine. Just think about what could happen, I would hate for that to be a big distraction for you guys. |
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