Hacker News Reader

ccarpentergon Kayak Files for $50 million IPO

What investors of Kayak and Hipmunk must be thinking about Google buying ITA Software? I mean Google is going to become the provider of flights data and at the same time a competitor.

ccarpentergon Creating Startup Success – Customer Development + Business Model Design

Don't build your company, until you've verified your Business Model

Amusing presentation but it smells like some corporate point of view. I'd remove the word "startup".

Anyway how do you figure out your business model if you haven't even created a product?

ccarpentergon Ask HN: Best way to sell a small web app?

Try to sell it on Flippa: http://flippa.com

ccarpentergon Ask HN: My startup failed. $9k in debt and need to pay most of it in 12 days.

I don't understand. You're in USA? It is supposed that you can fail in USA. That's capitalism!. Why do you want to pay those debts? Your company is bankrupt and it has to be declared bankrupt then go into liquidation in order creditors recover their money. Those are the rules of this game.

ccarpentergon What is the Speed of Gravity?

I've always thought what we call 'speed of light' is the indirect observation of a structural property of (this) the universe. A property that has something to do with movement in general and not only the movement of light (the movement of space itself?).

Another interisting property is the 0º Kelvin (absolute zero) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero

ccarpentergon "shi1 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi3" - a Chinese tongue twister

Three sad tigers ate wheat in a wheat field.

ccarpentergon "shi1 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi3" - a Chinese tongue twister

A Spanish tongue twister: Tres tristes tigres trigaban trigo en un trigal.

ccarpentergon UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

I thought about building something like this.

Pay from the app: No cash required

That's a powerful feature and it could become a very sticky app for me if I lived in San Francisco.

ccarpentergon Why Americans cannot enjoy holidays

This sounds more like a "Latin American nightmare".

ccarpentergon Why Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard

This is a nonsense discussion. Finding a cofounder is hard because everybody is looking for a cofounder. Nobody wants to be a cofounder in a social news site like Hacker News.

Is there anybody who wants to be a cofounder?

I think a good approach to find a cofounder is to look for someone who is solving a similar problem on your startup's industry or just a similar problem in the academic field, for example.

ccarpentergon Start-Up Chile

iPhone and Blackberry have some market penetration. I can't say whether it's too low or enough to run a mobile business like to sell applications.

General Data: http://www.subtel.cl/prontus_subtel/site/artic/20100608/asoc...

ccarpentergon Start-Up Chile: $40k to Live There and Start a Company

Kunstmann (Torobayo) and Austral (Yagan).

ccarpentergon Start-Up Chile: $40k to Live There and Start a Company

Average costs:

- Apartment: $320 - $420

- Transportation cost: $100 - $180 (30 days)

- Grocery: $20 - $45

- Very good beer: $3,60

- Jeans: $50 - $75

- Taxi: $10

- Dinner: $20

- Internet access: $80 (Cable, Telephone, Internet)

ccarpentergon Start-Up Chile: $40k to Live There and Start a Company

The real perk are those $40k. I'm living with $350 a month (cost living + food + rent). I'm including the living costs, rent, food, servers, travels, services, etc. in those $2k.

But you can make it with $350 anyway. I agree with Ben that isolation is the biggest downside of Chile and the lack of this kind of entrepreneurship (I mean Hacker News and Y Combinator style), but if you just need to focus on your first prototype I think it's a good deal.

EDIT: But if you are in the stage of looking for investment (Angel, VC, Y Combinator) and getting some press coverage it would be like a suicide.

ccarpentergon Start-Up Chile: $40k to Live There and Start a Company

I'm a chilean entrepreneur and I'm looking for a cofounder. I'm solving graph and scheduling problems for some transport industry. BFS, DFS, Dijkstra, timetables, etc.

We could take advantage of this initiative and get those $40k.

I just updated my profile. ($2k a month is enough to not starve).

ccarpentergon Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility

To be fair the site doesn't comply with guideline number 9:

Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently).

But it's ok anyway.

ccarpentergon Ask HN: Should I stand tall in the face of negative feedback?

Don't lose this oportunity. Fail as soon as possible!

ccarpentergon Wannabe entrepreneur symptoms and cures

I've had all these symptoms excluding calling myself a CEO and writing a business plan. Luckily all symptoms are cured except the 10-25k investment. Now I'm looking for a job to save 30k for the first investment (living costs, services, travel, servers, etc.)

However I think most of these 'cures' are 'easily' achievable, but having enough time to cure these symptoms and looking for a co-founder are the hardest parts of becoming an entrepreneur. In my case I took advantage of having been laid off in 2009. So I've decided not to look for a job until I've got some stuff done.

ccarpentergon The 3 essentials to start up

Truism is the right word for this? English is not my first language so I'm not sure.

The word in spanish is 'perogrullada'.

ccarpentergon Bill Gates Invests $23 Million in Opposing-Piston Engine

There was a thread about Bill Gates applying for a patent on an Electronic Engine: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561057

ccarpentergon Lessons from 150 startup pitches

Often you assume your customer is the same as you - sees the problem the same way, wants to solve it your way, and wants to pay for it. But you're explicitly not like your customers; for one thing, you have enough initiative and insight to quit your job to start a company. It's easy to let your idiosyncratic preconceptions prevent you from observing what the larger market will accept.

I think that's a corporate perspective to review a startup pitch. In a startup you're iterating and evolving your idea but you have some start point and perhaps it's your 'idiosyncratic preconceptions'.

ccarpentergon An analysis of results from 23andme

I run a DNA test in 2005. I'm chilean and have british ancestors and I wanted to find out what was my origin (English, Scottish, Irish). A Carpenter 'cousin' from USA told me about DNA for Genealogy and bought me a DNA kit from Family Tree DNA http://www.familytreedna.com

I didn't match any Carpenter from USA but a lot of people from UK and USA. Genealogy is a fascinating hobby.

ccarpentergon Throw This Stock Away: TSLA

A long bet is not speculation. Nobody knows whether Tesla is going to fail or not. But since it's an IPO you can 'bet' that is the best price to buy in the long term.

And for me speculation is buying BP's stock.

ccarpentergon Throw This Stock Away: TSLA

Yes, Tesla is cool, but it's also likely several years away from profitability

I think an investment advice without a timeframe is not good advice. So for someone who is expecting a capital gain in 10 years from now this is not the best advice.

I'm all for buying into Tesla when it's at least closer to proving itself

This contradicts two rules of stock markets: (1) Buy the rumor, sell the news and (2) Buy cheap, sell expensive.

ccarpentergon Clj, a Clojure REPL and package management system by David Edgar Liebke

I've just started to learn Clojure and I'm still a little confused. What's Clj? Is it a yum-like tool for Clojure?

ccarpentergon Please Review StockChatBoard.com: Digg + HN for stocks

It would be useful if you find a way to link a stock with a news' submission. You know "buy the rumor, sell the news".

So for me the useful information is the news or the rumor and not any user's bet.

ccarpentergon Ask HN: How do I get started with version control?

Git is neat. This is the first time I use a VCS.

Git community book: http://book.git-scm.com

ccarpentergon Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Money is overrated. Time is undervalued. However, not everyone wants to make a contribution. And high incentives can improve the perfomance of people who wants a collateral reward of money like social status.

ccarpentergon Testing the Limits of Credit Card Signatures (Part 1)

Signature is only required when a compliance process has begun. So, for example, when you check your transactions and see one that you can't recognize then you call your bank and object that trx. In that moment the bank ask for the physical documents and may check your signature, but it depends on the rules of your card operator (Visa, MasterCard, Amex).

ccarpentergon Buffett Defends Goldman Sachs

He's defending those $5 billion invested in GS.