2007-05-17 front | Hacker News

Stories from May 17, 2007

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1.		I forgot my laptop at home and had the most productive day ever (cambrianhouse.com)
		15 points by transburgh on May 17, 2007 \| 9 comments
2.		How many page views does a website need to produce a month before it can get advertisers?
		14 points by dottertrotter on May 17, 2007 \| 19 comments
3.		How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days (gusmueller.com)
		12 points by budu3 on May 17, 2007
		danielha on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... Most of us just submit and post under the shared Sam_Odio account.
5.		Andrew Chen: Forget advertising - will virtual goods be the killer revenue model for Web 2.0? (andrewchen.typepad.com)
		11 points by andrew_null on May 17, 2007 \| 8 comments
6.		$3 a month Loopt competitor for Sprint "Ulocate" raises M$11 VC (business2.com)
		9 points by vlad on May 17, 2007 \| 1 comment
7.		Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype? ;)
		10 points by dpapathanasiou on May 17, 2007 \| 13 comments
8.		Are Paul Graham and professional golfer Phil Mickelson long lost twins? (something fun for today) (web.mit.edu)
		10 points by mattzitzmann on May 17, 2007 \| 2 comments
9.		Veotag gets 750k investment (techcrunch.com)
		9 points by kf on May 17, 2007 \| 47 comments
		Xichekolas on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Summer Vacation Sorry to shamelessly link to my own blog, but I wrote this to motivate myself a bit, and thought maybe someone else would find it motivational. I'm about to quit my job for a few months of living off savings, and it's a bit scary for me.
11.		Startup pricing woes: Challenges of the freemium model (onstartups.com)
		8 points by Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007
		Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio is a Scam Artist - Trying to Sell Dinars? News.YC really isn't the place for you to make false & libelous attacks against my business practices and my company. I wish you would've brought your concerns directly to my attention first, and I would've been glad to address them. If you believe the company is operating illegally, then you should've brought my business practices to the attention of the government agency with which the company is registered. Specifically, you can contact Sarah Weeks. She's the IRS Bank Secrecy Act Revenue Agent in our area. I work with her extensively, to make sure our company is in compliance with all applicable regulations. Her contact information is: Sarah Weeks, Internal Revenue Service, 400 North Street, Room 948(MD#65), Richmond VA 23219 Office Ph. 804.916.8056 Again, this isn't the place to have this discussion, but you've made public, false accusations. I'm forced to respond: =================================== Sam claims they have a very rigorous "authentication process". Right. He sits in his dorm counting... Actually, if you took some time to research me, you'd realize I don't live in a dorm room. Here are some pictures of where I work: http://bluwiki.com/go/Image:9_office.jpg http://bluwiki.com/go/Image:10_office.jpg If you took the time to look through our website, you would've also found our counterfeit detection process, described here: www.dinarprofits.com/authentic-security-features.php . As shown on that page, we've invested in several thousand dollars worth of equipment in order to verify the authenticity of the currency we sell. how many suckers he can find. Please don't call my customers "suckers." If you're suggesting I rip them off - ask them, you can check my company's record at the BBB. My customers tell me it's stellar. Hmm 5 Million dinars are a lot cheaper at http://www.gidassociates.com Yes, prices do vary in this market (as in every market). However many customers are happy doing business with us, and feel we're more reliable. We've been in business selling dinars longer than just about every one of our competitors (including GIDAssociates, according to the date on their treasury registration). You're right though, we are more expensive. I'll try to find some ways to cut costs without sacrificing service (which is our differentiating feature). Hopefully, I can bring my prices down so that they're more competitive with GIDAssociates. Furthermore, Sam actually ships the Dinar's too you. That's really shady. The dinar is such a new currency, it is not traded on the Foreign Currency Exchange market. This is why you can't get it at traditional currency exchange locations, or trade it electronically. Our whole business model (just like those of our competitors) is filling this gap - and providing early investors access to this currency when they can't get it elsewhere. "Bookmark this page, otherwise you will not be able to return to these prices at a later time." Because the Iraqi dinar exchange rate changes, our prices are forced to change as well. We've had customers complain that they visit the site one day, and when they come back the next - the price is different. To solve this problem, each time you visit the store on the website, you're given a unique URL and a static price. If you return to the same URL, you'll be able to purchase at the previously quoted prices. ===================================
		mynameishere on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Veotag gets 750k investment http://juwo.com/main.html Yeah, and then he needs to test his site in Firefox. And then he needs to get rid of the "Donate $5" link. And then he needs to drop his dependency on ActiveX _AND_ Java. And then...
14.		"Microsoft is dead" - style essay from 1997, by John Walker, AutoDesk founder (fourmilab.ch)
		7 points by lkozma on May 17, 2007
		brett on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Veotag gets 750k investment Is that what Juwo is trying to do? I could never figure it out.
		Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... all your base are belong to us.
17.		The Largest Rails Application Loses Ground To PHP Competitor Due to Frequent Outages (techcrunch.com)
		6 points by staunch on May 17, 2007 \| 16 comments
18.		State of the Computer Book Market - Programming Languages (feedburner.com)
		6 points by reitzensteinm on May 17, 2007 \| 2 comments
19.		What are the top programming languages? The fastest growing? (oreilly.com)
		6 points by Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007 \| 5 comments
		vlad on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... Sam is the best submitter of front page TechCrunch articles I have ever seen.
		staunch on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... You know you've been on news.yc too long when...someone submits a question asking if you're an automaton -- and other curious users mod it up.
22.		Usability - when should you make the users' choices for them? (nimbleit.squarespace.com)
		5 points by Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007
23.		Interview with Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype, after selling Skype for $2.6Bn to eBay (timesonline.co.uk)
		5 points by sharpshoot on May 17, 2007
		martin on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Veotag gets 750k investment And perhaps remove the religious info from the "Company" page (http://juwo.com/company.html) -- it strikes me as unprofessional and out of place. You're entitled to your beliefs, but I can't see what you have to gain by advertising them on your corporate home page. Religion is a sensitive topic, and getting people to use your software is hard enough without offending them first.
		leisuresuit on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Summer Vacation I think the corporate world is designed to eliminate any desire of employees to work on their own ideas. Work takes up a lot more of your time and energy than you imagine. Even if you only work 40 hours a week. In reality you get up, spend 30 minutes getting ready, another hour eating and commuting, more like 9-10 hours a work, another 30min or an hour getting home. After this whole ordeal you don't have any desire to even THINK about anything except relaxing. On the weekends you're trying hard to find something to do that gives your life some kind of meaning besides the job you have.. something that doesn't include sitting in front of a computer. The only way you can really work on something of your own is to quit your job and live off your savings. And still it's up for debate how much one person, without any investment can achieve working by themselves. You might be able to make a simple website.. But you won't be able to pay to promote it.
		kf on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Veotag gets 750k investment Yes, I believe that what Juwo does is allow you to tag times in an audio or video file... he always said he was somehow different from the competitors but I was even more unclear on that. Edit: it also did something with bulleted lists.
27.		New Google Uber Search -- I like it (slashdot.org)
		5 points by vlad on May 17, 2007 \| 1 comment
		kf on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Veotag gets 750k investment My headline got magically changed... it was originally "Juwo competitor gets 750k investment." It made a lot more sense to the community than the current headline.
		Sam_Odio on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... Bah. Fooling google into my existence is AI 101. It only took a week for trevor to program lifelike profile creation capabilities into me. Programming my witty sense of humor, however, is taking longer. He's been working on it for the last 6 years; and my jokes still fall flat.
		wammin on May 17, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Sam Odio: Real Person or Anybots (robot) prototype... Haha, I have actually met Sam several times, slept on the floor of his apartment once or twice, almost crashed his Segway, took his money playing poker, and got drunk with him, so I can vouch for his existence. At one point he actually wrote one or two lines of code for Wamily, but was always on YC news all the time we had to let him go. (kidding about that last part)
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