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Thanks.

Tom, I admire your strength on here during this terrible time. My condolences to you and to Dan's friends and family. A great loss.

Can you substantiate that comment? Are you referring to salary/bonus growth being slower in leaner years? Is there a significant difference over a 40 year work life?

Isn't their "way" simply: "brilliant" product plus price = profit? Seems sensible to me.

You have to approach it objectively, not personally. You have to have the determination and perseverance to take some flak and keep going. And you need to be open to changing your idea if you realise the criticism is justified.

I was hoping for an insight into some cool algorithm they use, instead I get a piece of puffery.

It’s not a matter of which you believe – that’s not good science. Both theories need to be tested and peer reviewed until the evidence of one outweighs the other. The overarching principle is that no theory is infallible – they can always be overthrown by new evidence.

I’m part of a team of 3 guys with an idea, at prototype stage. With a wife, 3 kids and a mortgage, the first concern if/when we all commit full-time, is continuing to keep up with all of these responsibilities. My wife’s supportive of what we want to achieve, but we’ll see what happens if/when reality bites. It’s an extra hurdle to leap, but it’s manageable.

The days of carriers locking users into 2 year contracts are numbered. It's encouraging that both Google and Apple are considering breaking this uncompetitive market up.

Putting aside the future predictions, the first hurdle for Android is to match the iPhone mobile web browsing experience. I hope they succeed, because opening up the handset market, and moving smartphones from early adopters to mature users will be critical in helping make some of Rubin’s predictions come true.

Agreed - on both points. I guess I took the removal of Prakash's submission from the front page to mean: point taken, let's move on.

The creation of a non-hacker news site seems a bit knee-jerk. Would it not have been better to have waited a few days to see how the recent debate has affected the quality of submissions?

This is more a story of one nation’s sensibilities and attitudes to free speech. Nice understated response from the Dawkins site – the introduction of a simple “Banned in Turkey” banner.

I thought I'd need a cofounder with Django/Python experience - I found some developers to contact either on the djangoproject website or djangogigs - they were listed by geographic region - and made contact from there

Stronger substitutes would appear to be a significant factor. For example, the erosion of IE’s dominance following the introduction of Firefox and others (although the barrier of IE being pre-loaded onto the majority of personal computers means this dominance will continue for some time). In this case not necessarily new tech, but better tech.

But not in the way they wanted, I'm sure. The ads are supposed to inspire consumers to reconnect with the brand, rather than be a couple of slightly amusing odd couple skits.

Whilst excessive risk taking is probably the root cause of the recent financial collapses, I think it’s also worth noting the role hedge funds have played in stirring up investor panic by short selling highly geared or mortgage exposed companies around the world. Britain’s largest mortgage lender, HBOS, had 30% wiped off its value yesterday, attributed to short selling - http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6277.html

I agree that personal incentives are part of the problem. I’d also suggest that going public is another significant part of the problem. The public company becomes beholden to its shareholders and is pressured/incentivised to continually deliver growth in the value of the company or dividends, often in mature markets, which in turn can lead to the implementation of riskier strategies for delivering growth.

I found the apology in the last paragraph to be an important shift in approach

The thing that interests me is whether he’s committed himself to becoming a hacker too. That’s the connection (for me) that’s missing from the interview – how did he end up leading a software company? Did he have a hacker epiphany? And can you lead a team of hackers if you aren’t one yourself?

"...but YC moved our time line up by at least six months to a year..." - can you explain further - in broad terms of course - was that because of the focus of the YC process; the connections being a YC funded company brought, or something else?

Interesting that this is not a question on younoodle, a Thiel portfolio company (although previous salary is considered).

I think it's important to consider Fred's clarification in the comments section: "when i say "feeds" I don't really mean RSS/google reader/blogines/netvibes they are part of what i am talking about, but just a part of it the facebook news feed is the biggest thing out there today in terms of aggregating info you'll likely care about and that's a very mainstream service. twitter and the smart aggregators like techmeme and hacker news are also a big part of what i am talking about and they are also easier to consume than RSS for the mainstream user. i am sorry i wasn't more clear about that in my post."

So I think Fred's point is simply that there is a trend towards using feeds for finding relevant stuff on the web over search. And that there might be monetization opportunities latching onto that trend.

Spending $300m on an ad campaign to inspire consumers to reconnect with Microsoft not only feels desperate, but seems such a waste when it could have been channeled into making better products or hiring better hackers.

Whilst I agree with Matt's advice, I disagree that the law is not logical. It is fundamentally logical and shares many of the ideas found in logic: evidence, probability, relevance, reasonableness, precedent, presumption, proof, explanation, plausability, etc. That legal outcomes are not always considered reasonable may be due more to the fallibility of a judge, jury, expert or process. Further, drafting a legal document and programming are not that disimilar.

Quote: "It [EU Information Commission] said anyone using Phorm must ask for the consent of users before going ahead with any further trials." Slightly worrying that such a comment needs to even be made.

Good common sense by Apple...finally. Apparently this app has now been pulled.

“We designed Karatr to be the place to easily find the finest jewelry and watches.”

I typed in “Rolex” and was confronted with a list of Rolex-style watches. That’s not the finest choice that I was expecting.

“Karatr is a search engine where you don’t just look for a wedding ring; you look for a ring that fit your character as a person by providing details matching your needs. Karatr don’t just help you find a good brand watch, you’re actually given options to narrow your search to the perfect watch for both your price and style.”

Price yes, but I saw nothing about “style” or “character” on my Rolex search.

Have you asked yourselves: for what liability/tax/funding reason is incorporation necessary? Check out this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=244009 (there may be others). Maybe then speak with an accountant or attorney to explore options.

My advice is before this goes any further down the track of who sues who, Jim and Bob need to have an urgent face-to-face meeting (or telephone call) to try and resolve this amicably rather than wasting their time and money involving lawyers.

Don’t worry about what the contract says or doesn’t say – legal precedent picks up on what is left unwritten in contracts. Jim needs to work out a reasonable negotiating position (such as getting paid for the hours actually expended in exchange for handing over the work done to date) and not worry about things like consequential income losses, which are very difficult to recover at law.

If after both parties have used their best efforts to resolve the disputes and there is still no agreement; then consult the lawyers.