d4ft

I would argue that often VC's can't smell a good or bad idea "a mile away". If they could, they would be seeing much better returns. That, I think, is why expanding the VC search once you have a few interested parties makes sense. Sometimes they want a piece of the pie, because everyone else says it tastes good.

Regarding the terms, it's just like anything else. If you can get better terms (terms that won't hinder you if you need to raise a series A) or get a deal with a firm that is more involved in your niche, through competition, you shouldn't settle for "agree"-ing, you should do the best for yourself that you can.

In light of the disaster in Japan, a nice reminder to keep it all in perspective on this spring (on the eastcoast US) weekend.

Text Version: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html

About.me for dating + reward = profit. In all seriousness, I could see this becoming a model that, if done right, could be quite profitable for people looking for something to start.

Here's a problem I foresee: These groupon style sites do their business because these vendors make money due to the volume. Whether its return customers, or small margins adding together, or whatever, the whole reason vendors get involved is volume. So one question: will indy craftsfolk be able to handle the volume? If they get 1000 orders for their handmade leather wallet, seems like people will start to get pissed after month 2 of waiting.

I am not an economist, but to me arguments 1,2 and therefore 5 seem specious. 3 and 4 hold water, but they are pretty self explanatory.

China's economy, to me, seems like a leverage play on the US. If the US economy seriously stagnates, China's economy will follow suit, and likely in a much more dramatic fashion. The opposite is also true, when the US consumers get to spending China (at least for now) stands to benefit tremendously.

For me, the best option if you are looking at foreign currencies, is to go buy a brazilian government bond and get 10% on your money in 3-5 years.

Surprised noone has mentioned Heroku. Simple, accessible, and generally easy to navigate. http://docs.heroku.com/

"When I was starting out I couldn’t afford to attend any conferences, but everyone can afford $400 for two days."

Oh really?

I'm still a little confused about what the value prop is. Is this like quora for your business? Or more of UserVoice type service?

This phenomena was described to a t in Dan Ariely's The Upside of Irrationality. In it, he first describes a situation in which one would be paid a high salary (I think a million dollars) for creating power points that were immediately deleted. He asserts that most people would not be able to handle the job. To test, he does some interesting experiments wherein students are paid for assembling simple lego figures. If the figures were then disassembled in view of the student immediately after their completion, students on average, constructed far fewer figures. Worth a read.

Regardless of whether one believes HN should be a job board or not, if you do post a job, I would (personally) ask that you please post some idea about compensation/remote-working options.

Getty images bought a company like this in the mid 2000's. They did current-event photography from phones. Might be something worth looking into.

One gripe: When you click an article it should open in a "_blank" window/tab. I hate having to click back.

This reminds me of portfolio theory in finance: as long as your goals are diverse enough, generally you will track the market (i.e. how life is going generally). That being said, I think the most successful business people are those that really closely tie their happiness with the success of the company (Steve Jobs, I think, is a good example).

Good content, but my favorite part of the article is the anecdote about how Paul started at Google. Putting yourself in a place where you have the opportunity to be lucky makes up some percentage of the total likelihood of being extremely successful (yes, I consider Paul extremely successful along many axes), but I think a much larger portion of this equation is actually being lucky. I guess if you iterate over and over again, by say joining startups repeatedly, eventually most people get lucky in some way. The magnitude of that success however, is certainly highly variant.

The article mentions a few fairly vague examples of what this type of algorithm is used for. To all of you non-neophytes, what are some specific implementations of this algorithm and where are they used?

Doesn't that 5,057 include "other professional degrees"? Further, are these only from accredited schools? Both could greatly reduce the effect of this particular statistic. That said, it is always disheartening to be reminded of the poor folks who likely shelled out tons of money only to find there were no jobs on the other end.

I think he may just be suggesting forming as an LLC or some other entity that both shields you from liability, and doesn't dissolve when one partner calls it quits.

I may have just discovered my latent epilepsy

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I guess I meant more of a handholding for the process as a whole, not a better way to do search specifically.

I'm not much of journaler, but I think the execution is excellent. Only suggestion: include OpenID or OAuth option for sign up and sign in, so you can have single click access if you want your own account. Should help keep that streamlined feel.

Sidebar for gmail that recommends quora responses based on email content

Christopher Hitchens is on my list. This essay was, in my opinion, one of the best I've ever read: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-...

Also, although the topics are fairly silly, Cary Tennis is another author with an interesting style and a deep insight into human nature: http://www.salon.com/life/since_you_asked/index.html

Thats exactly what I meant. Sorry if it wasn't clear. I was trying to say that we are leaning toward government protection over personal freedoms. So, yes I agree.

backscatter nudity

Quick nitpick: The Court that issued the judgment on the GPS case was the 9th circuit (not district). Otherwise, I do agree. The right to privacy is something that is not explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. It only exists because it was read in by Justice Douglas as a side product of "penumbras and emanations" of the Bill of Rights. The balance between freedom and government protection has always been tenuous. After 9/11 we have certainly seen a tipping toward the latter. Only time will tell if this trend continues, but in a world in which technology can reveal even our naked bodies, I certainly hope not.

Just an aside, this article was written in 2007-2008. Not taking sides either way, but much has changed in the programming world since then.

This is the same stuff Kurzweil has been spouting for a number of a years. If he's still around in 2030, we will likely see a new "more accurate" prediction then.

As far as I know, courts in the past have ruled that being gay is not an "immutable or highly visible trait." There were however some recent decisions that questioned that rationale.

Figured since I started the thread I should participate:

CS Degree (honors) from Duke, and Law(JD) and Business(cert) degree from UPenn. Don't want to be a lawyer, it really is soul sucking :) (no offense to you lawyers out there!). Have worked in both a startup environment and that of a large corporation. Comfortable in Java, Scala, Ruby, Javascript. Have built apps in Struts, Rails, Spring, Webwork, and Lift. Minimum competency in C++, Objective-C.

Would like to get in on the ground floor with an exciting startup that is doing challenging work.

Living in Philly. Willing to move anywhere (well, mostly). Email is in the profile.

I like these lending sites, but as a newly minted lawyer, I keep hearing "What If" sirens in the back of my head. I understand you only lend to trusted people, but what if trusted person returns the good in not-so-good-but-not-terrible shape. The lender keeps the security deposit, the borrower thinks he shouldn't have, do we then go to litigation? Do we trust the good will of people or some kind of community-based reputation? I think this could certainly get a little dicey if it ended up being popular, especially in edge cases like the one above.