Congrats on the launch! LOVE the idea of beating a successful company/idea to a different platform, by the way. Please do that post when you have a minute - I for one would be very eager to read it.
I'm French Canadian (well, half) and I've often heard other French Canadians use the same expression in French - "excuse mon français". I consider myself relatively plugged in to French politics here and I've never heard of it being an issue.
Probably not. But I imagine that when it comes to the details some angels might be a better fit than others for certain companies due to their networks, etc. Also, if I had a company that needed about $200k and I had one offer for $150k from Yuri and one for $200k from another similar investor I might only take the $200k instead of both - it would represent a (hopefully small) difference in available shares once it was time for Series A. This is all speculation though - while it seems like fun, I haven't yet been on either side of the investor equation.
That makes sense. After re-thinking my previous comment, I suppose another potential downside might have to do with somehow missing out on the numerous copycat offers that I imagine will arise. At any rate, although I'm surprised that everyone has signed on so quickly it does seem like a really good deal for all involved.
I'm on Quora and I like it there, although I visit with decreasing frequency. I think they are trying to emulate more of a Twitter/Facebook thing with their user base - a more "social" experience than stackoverflow, I guess - and I assume their monetization strategy is as undefined as it was for either of those two when they started.
There's an entire website outside of devoted to discussing Quora? Weird. Beyond the title, what does this article have to do with Robert Scoble? After reading it, I did a quick Cmd-F... his name doesn't seem to appear in the article at all.
I don't understand. They aren't diluting shares, they aren't liable if the company fails to reach Series A, and by all accounts there do not seem to be any strings attached with regard to oversight (ie. the founders don't need to "answer to" the investor in any way). All they are doing is giving a portion of their future shares to that investor now, at the same value as they would later. It's a no-brainer - what is the downside in your opinion?
If I remember correctly, they used to have one (until about 2 years ago?) but it was discontinued, presumably because there was no way to serve ads through it.
Edit: The Google Web Search API (http://code.google.com/apis/websearch/) was only deprecated in November of last year and should still be usable for a while, although the documentation appears to be gone.
It is a travesty that I have just now realized and understood the meaning behind the use of the term "periodic" in the title of Mendeleev's table. I feel dumb. Thank you for this article and for pulling out that excerpt :)
Cool! Even though I use many tools to keep track of my various projects/ideas/assignments (Workflowy, paper notebook, etc) I am constantly e-mailing myself reminders for things that are not part of a project timeline and don't fit on a schedule. This is a way better option :) Thanks!
Edit: My first remaildr was "remember to use remaildr"
How would legitimate use be falsely flagged as spam in large numbers? Other than a malicious conspiracy of some sort, I don't understand why a disproportionate number of e-mail recipients would target legitimate mail as spam. Am I missing something?
Fair enough. I agree with you that "the main reason to stay in college" should not be to meet women, but I do think it's a valuable benefit of the college experience. Especially in such a male-dominated industry, having females in my social circle is an important consideration.
I agree that one of the cool things about HN is the level of discourse, but the idea that geeks must be social luddites should die. There is nothing crass about wanting to meet women in college, nor is it anti-intellectual.
Hahahaha this is brilliant! I remember there used to be a popular central site for finding DHTML widgets back when that was a thing - anyone remember what it was called? (Sorry, I know that is vague, it's all I can remember. I think it was quite popular at the time, though.) I'd be curious to find out if it's still around and still as kitchy as it once was.
I don't do software security professionally, or have any other way of validating Dancho's legitimacy. It's not that I don't trust ZDNet - I was simply ceding the possibility that the parent was right on that point since I had no "proof" to the contrary. I apologize if it came across as me lending credence to the idea that Dancho may be a hack, I meant it in the sense that I was unable to positively confirm his reputation in the field (since I am not in it) but I should have been more clear :)
As others have said, it's certainly not a bug in any obvious sense. There is some discussion in the dupe thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2105439) about the possibility of the image having some hidden meaning.
It's quite possibly a script kiddie successfully trolling the world, or a serious professional suffering some sort of psychotic break, or there may actually be something sinister going on. Better safe than sorry, I guess - I'm not entirely sure what to do with this information though besides continuing to raise awareness.
The rest of what you said makes sense, and it is possible that this is a script kid trying to make a name for himself - I would be very weary about making that assumption though without more serious evidence.
The suggestion is that Danchev purposely sent a picture of what is obviously a large transformer hoping or knowing that it would mean something to someone - that the image itself is a message of some sort. I don't think anybody is suggesting that someone "covertly" installed a large transformer in Danchev's quarters to disguise a smaller device nearby.
You're right, it is of course possible that something is getting overanalyzed as we geeks are prone to do, but in the face of what is possibly a bad situation it's worth considering the worst case scenario.
Great post. I sometimes (especially recently) get the impression that startups have been playing up overblown valuations as some sort of marketing tactic.
Is there any data behind the stated trend towards narcissism in recent generations or is it just a guess from some cranky old people? Any study performed on today's university students tells me nothing about the university students of 20 or 30 years ago - is it possible that university students have always been deprived of self-esteem? Is it further possible that humans naturally exhibit insecurity?
Exactly. I tried for a while to stop using Google services, concerned by how much of my information they control, and I found that it was extremely impractical. Google is no longer my default search engine (unless I'm using Chrome on my netbook) but I often need to use it anyways - it just gets better results than the competition for a lot of things. Gmail is simply the best e-mail solution for me - maybe it's just because I'm used to it but I was unable to get behind any of the competitors or open source options. I typically use Analytics on all my sites, although that might be changing soon. Same with AdSense.
tl;dr I don't not trust them enough to stop using their services completely, which I simply found too extremely impractical to do.
Because it's funny, in a roast-y sort of way. And more importantly, it makes it easier for people who completely disagree with the middle part of my post to at least read what I have to say. Ironically, this is similar to a technique which Tim talks about in 4HWW (he calls it the "compliment sandwich" - cheesy goodness) and it's a perfect example of how Tim recycles and condenses old ideas because this basic social tactic has been around forever (How to Win Friends and Influence People, the biblical book of Proverbs, etc).
I know what you mean, but I think maybe understanding the risk is better than avoiding it entirely. Sure, Facebook and Twitter can change their APIs, Google could shut down Gmail, and the world could end tomorrow, but in the meantime I think there are cool things to be done.
EDIT: Oops, I didn't see your follow-up until after I made my reply. You said what I am saying, but better.
I agree. I don't really want Quora to become as big as Twitter, because then it would become filled with garbage just like Twitter. (Weird, that sounds crankier than I want it to.) I'd gladly pay to keep Quora a bit more "exclusive" for lack of a better term.