2007-12-13 front | Hacker News

Stories from December 13, 2007

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1.		Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?
		44 points by rontr on Dec 13, 2007 \| 58 comments
2.		12 things I learned from pitching VCs this past week (scrollinondubs.com)
		39 points by scrollinondubs on Dec 13, 2007 \| 14 comments
3.		[SF] Disqus wants you to join the team (disqus.net)
		on Dec 13, 2007
4.		Google's wireless chief, Sacca, leaves to become angel investor (venturebeat.com)
		30 points by raghus on Dec 13, 2007 \| 7 comments
5.		Opera files complaint - an open letter to the Web community (wants to force MS to support standards) (opera.com)
		24 points by nickb on Dec 13, 2007 \| 16 comments
6.		Icon Search Engine (iconfinder.net)
		23 points by ed on Dec 13, 2007 \| 7 comments
7.		Facebook apps, the Facebook trap (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com)
		22 points by hhm on Dec 13, 2007 \| 8 comments
		downer on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: How much does it cost to found a Microsoft-based s... > I envy the LAMP guys, not because of the technology which I think is slightly behind Microsft's [sic] (VS + C# + .NET) Ruby and Python and Lisp and all their frameworks and PostGres just aren't the same as those cutting-edge Microsoft products.
9.		Clinton E. Curtis, programmer, testifies to Congress about fradulent voting machine source code (videosift.com)
		20 points by kf on Dec 13, 2007 \| 22 comments
10.		The other tech CEOs "For every Chad Hurley or Mark Zuckerberg there are many Sathvik Krishnamurthys" (wsj.com)
		19 points by nickb on Dec 13, 2007 \| 5 comments
11.		Could a morbidly obese goalie shut out an NHL team? (wsj.com)
		17 points by Poleris on Dec 13, 2007 \| 9 comments
12.		Instant JavaScript Apps (John Resig) (ejohn.org)
		16 points by drm237 on Dec 13, 2007
13.		Ask YC: Good time & ways to launch
		16 points by robmnl on Dec 13, 2007 \| 14 comments
		as on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more ... Whenever I think this way I remember the story of Newton's students complaining that he'd already discovered everything.
		pg on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more ... People's wants seem unlimited, at least in the near term. If you accept that, the only limitation on the number of web startups is how many needs can be satisfied by software. (The web is just the current default software platform.) And since everything is turning into software nowadays, it seems likely that the infinite demand for new stuff translates into an infinite demand for new software.
16.		Programming in Scala - (Beta Book from Artima) (artima.com)
		13 points by raju on Dec 13, 2007 \| 5 comments
17.		Undo Made Easy With Ajax (humanized.com)
		13 points by Bluem00 on Dec 13, 2007 \| 5 comments
18.		How much does it cost to found a Microsoft-based startup? (sampasite.com)
		12 points by drm237 on Dec 13, 2007 \| 24 comments
19.		Facebook Responds to OpenSocial: Opening up Facebook Platform Architecture To Other Sites (facebook.com)
		11 points by staunch on Dec 13, 2007 \| 2 comments
20.		Word of Mouth vs Key Influencers (guykawasaki.com)
		11 points by terpua on Dec 13, 2007 \| 3 comments
		pg on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Google's wireless chief, Sacca, leaves to become a... We know a bunch who are, and they make good investors. Their model for a startup is Google.
		fauigerzigerk on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: No Deal: First experience from the investing side ... I was very disappointed as well when my @!$^^qrx didn't properly &@X!!mfs. And by the way: ^&$%^$#! Unbelieavable, isn't it?
23.		Splashup reviewd by a User Interface blog. - It's pretty rough (humanized.com)
		9 points by Readmore on Dec 13, 2007 \| 20 comments
		dhouston on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: 12 things I learned from pitching VCs this past we... good stuff. sam altman told us the most important thing for him was to remember #8 -- they need you as much as you need them. they _want_ to believe that you're the next google; think of how much it would make their lives easier if you were, and think of how hard it would be to spend your life saying no 90+% of the time and telling people their babies are ugly. they want to say yes. i'd also say spend a lot of time coming up with a story and framing your opportunity in the biggest possible way. this was something i really underestimated -- initially we'd just show a list of features and expect everyone to arrive at the vision we had in our heads, but really it's the other way around -- the features drive a more important story and vision. a story is also a lot easier for an investor to retell and get other people excited about than a laundry list of "um, it does this, and this, and this..." remember, VCs have to then turn around and sell their own general partnership on the idea, so give them the ammo they need to do this effectively. also -- practice your pitch until it becomes mechanical. not so much by standing in front of a mirror (though that helps too) but rather by debugging it with individual angels or mentors, so that by the time you pitch the investors you really want you've already seen most of the universe of possible objections and surprises and can handle them effectively.
25.		Coding Horror: Are You a Doer or a Talker? (codinghorror.com)
		9 points by nickb on Dec 13, 2007 \| 6 comments
		bootload on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Disqus: Scoble, Winer and Fred Wilson Like it, Why... "... Jason showed Disqus to me a few weeks back, and I seriously considered using it -- until I figured out that you don't own your comments anymore. ..." A quick check of the faq, blog and api disproves this. You do own your comments and better still you can extract them via xml. - http://disqus.com/faq/#faq-7 - http://disqus.com/developers/#api-methods - http://blog.disqus.net/2007/11/05/export-comments-to-xml-com... So you own your comments, can get access to the data. The only real data disqus can claim ownership is the right to infer from your data. It's this distinction that makes me think using the disqus service is valuable because they give you the ability to take your data away.
27.		Best explanation of the banking crisis I've read (moneyweek.com)
		8 points by JohnN on Dec 13, 2007 \| 3 comments
		cperciva on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more ... Every idea I think of, someone else has done. Maybe your ideas aren't specific enough. Take my own not-yet-launched project (http://www.tarsnap.com), for example: Online backups. Lots of people have done those, right? Mozy, Carbonite, iDrive... google can easily find dozens of them. But that's just the "30 thousand feet" view of what I'm doing. I'm not just doing online backups -- I'm doing secure online backups. Secure in the sense that I can't steal your data. Secure in the sense that the NSA can't steal your data. Have other companies done online backup? Absolutely. Can anyone else reasonably describe what they're doing as "backups for the truly paranoid"? No -- that's something which nobody else has done.
		lsemel on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Ask YC: Good time & ways to launch Don't get too many people to seed sites like Digg for you -- we got buried yesterday when we launched http://www.commandshift3.com because we got a lot of our friends Digg us and they blocked it. It got on the front page of Reddit and del.icio.us completely organically, without any action on our part..
		downer on Dec 13, 2007 \| parent \| context \| on: Clinton E. Curtis, programmer, testifies to Congre... "Somewhat" likely? Here's how normal paper ballots work: After the polls officially close, they count them up, in full view of whatever members of the public care to observe. In hotly-contested areas, this will usually include members of both/all the major political parties. This mutual distrust keeps everyone honest. Fraud is obviously not impossible, but is more difficult to get away with. Here's how electronic voting works: A private, for-profit corporation TELLS you what the numbers are, with no paper trail and using unauditable practices protected by "trade secret" (court ruling). What else do you need to know? People will scam other people for a buck, let alone control of the entire country. The burden of proof should be on the voting process to show that it's correct, not on those who challenge it; because the very lack of auditability is a virtual guarantor of fraud. It is not an accident when ATM companies produce voting machines with no receipts. In the 2004 election, exit polls tracked closely with the official counts in the paper ballot areas, but were way off the "official" totals in the electronic voting areas. E.g. http://www.nogw.com/images/exit_poll.jpg Hackers make ZERO difference. Hack all the votes you want going in; the voting machine company is a black box, and it will produce whatever totals it wants as output. It's ESPECIALLY not going to announce if it were breached and is now completely untrustworthy; it's going to produce numbers that look plausible to save its own ass, leaving aside any nefarious reasons. Even if all their voting data was corrupted, they could just get the exit poll or pre-election survey numbers and tweak by a few percent in the desired direction in a few key areas and voila. How many people need to be in on this? One guy with root access.
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