int3rnaut

Props to the original poster--I've never thought about looking at a situation from this perspective before, and while it's not scientific, it's an interesting and unique way to look at a situation and certainly adds a new layer of dialogue.

Does anyone know of any blogs from YC founders that cover the personal struggles and conquest of these final 2 weeks before Demo Day? I think it would be a great read (even if they were bit sized entries) to find out what it's like to be under such enormous pressure but on the precipice of your big moment.

A few years ago I'd make an argument that the indie game market is slowly turning things around in this battle of attrition, but now I'd say they are not only encroaching on the lunacy but helping to fuel it.

Don't get me wrong, there will (knock on wood) always be cheaply made gems popping up every year, but it really seems like there are more and more wolves in indie game developer clothing trying to cash in on the robust and evolving indie market--look no further than what Xbox is doing with the Summer of Arcade, those are some very well polished/well oiled professional products (Should Bastion really be considered Indie?), and some even have that indie charm we all love.

OT: What faculty are you in?

I've been on both sides of the spectrum of this--I've "vandalized" (I was young, it wasn't malicious but I can see now it was disruptive--and for those wondering...it had to do with wild cats slowly taking over my city... haha) and I've legitimately tried to post useful and factual information and I will say this, the thing I universally found to be my biggest obstacle was this elitist structure of the "higher ups"--the big editors held way to much power (I can't speak to the present as I no longer even try) but I can't tell you how frustrating it was to try and be helpful and good, and then being told I am an idiot/noob and to cease from attempting to write wiki articles. It always seemed like some of them were just on power trips, and didn't care for your "help".

Here's a hilariously strange link for this discussion-- BABip explained, with Groupon ads plastered about.

http://www.fenwaywest.com/2011-articles/june/sabermetrics-ex...

This part gets off topic but since we're talking SABERMETRICS!!...

I'm not that great of a statistician and truthfully just pay attention to this stuff for fantasy baseball, but I always find that BABip isn't the greatest for hitters, and as great as the data is (for anyone interested fangraphs is a great resource) interpreting this data can be troubling--I mean at the end of the 2008 season people thought Dunn's BABip was an indicator that he'd just fell apart--but he did turn that around for 2 seasons... and I think that was merely a product of him going from the NLwest to the NLeast(do you think the NLeast has that good of collective fielders)--and then to the ALC where he'd square off against more often than not a top tiered defensive team where he's now struggling. I guess my question with BABip how do you interpret luck with decreasing skill level? I've looked at that quite closely trying to look for correlations with age etc, and I can never find anything that shows me that BABip for interpreting upcoming season potential is anything but a crapshoot.

I don't think the consoles would take a dent from something like this. If a game market evolved from this it would likely be niche and be similar to some of the smaller/toy-ish options you can buy already. I just can't see developers jumping ship from the big consoles (especially the way they now foster indie games) and making games for this lackluster (in terms of gaming) albeit cool device. If there was a way to make the device portable/cheap (some sort of small usb monitor)--that's a different story.

I don't know why but on top of feeling bad for this woman, I feel bad for the AirBnB guys because the whole concept is so idealistic and believes in the good in people--if only everyone represented humanity the way they envisioned this from the birth of their idea; that would truly be a good world.

It does seem a bit strange that this story from June breaks just days after AirBnB rakes in 112 million in funding.

I wrote a comment 2 days ago about some of the psychological barriers of this model that AirBnB would have to overcome--and I never even considered the traveler to be the one who's sketchy/troublesome.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2802898

On that note though, it'll be really interesting to see how AirBnB tries to counter this problem--there's a reason why people are so secluded and things are so private and fenced.

As a total noob in comparison to most readers of HN, I have to totally agree with this sentiment--not that it's a noob idea but I feel like there are very skilled and brilliant people here that want to show the world their amazing talents and sometimes lose sight of things. It reminds me of what I always see on that show with Chef Gordon Ramsey where he's always telling these hot shot Chefs to stop being so cocky with their creations and that simple is often better; no one wants a 58 flavour chocolate creme brulee steak muffin.

Better is Better, but again I think we have to remember, that it's all subjective.

P.S.

Don't let the down votes discourage you. :)

Can you think of any well done websites with high contrast designs that aren't just black text on a white background? I was thinking the same thing but I couldn't think of any good examples off the top of my head--and to me that's a bit of a let down because all this time I've thought the text and style you use on your website can be an identifier of your brand or website. I mean if I could clearly read a site written in dark purple or something, I'd remember that.

I actually graduated from the U of C! I think this is a great stand to take. I know a lot of Professors had been posting things online as a workaround (which obviously has been the blight of AC) and I always greatly appreciated this as it cut down on textbook fees. The really great professors were using free material to teach in their lecture halls (I don't know what that says about the education I was given but meh, free != crap).

The one thing I don't like about this stand is that by going directly to the source and cutting out the middle man the University is giving tremendous power to it's professors. I think there will be a lot more professor-authors doing the lecturing circuit. Don't get me wrong sometimes it's wonderful to have such a great resource, but from my experience most of the professors who plugged their own works were just self-serving and thought of this "workaround" as a way to make them richer rather than our level of education.

I have friends with the facebook names Hiphopopotomus, Joseph Stalin, and Professor X--and they've had these stupid names, that aren't their real names for a long long time--if there is a policy like this in place on FB they aren't really enforcing it.

Despite the good feedback system there's still a bit of a psychological barrier for a lot of people when it comes to the main premise of the company--because as you eluded to in your comment, there are some sketchy accommodations in the world and I'm very interested in seeing how with this new money the guys will attempt to combat that issue and why it wasn't a slight hitch in the investment process--as you said the additional information is helpful but for a 1 billion dollar company, I don't think it's useful enough to escape generations of non-altruistic living where we trust no one and sleep with one eye open. They deserve everything they've gotten, and they're certainly going to earn their money when tackling this specific problem.

I had that same first impression, and I'm Canadian (her majesty has us all feeling a disdain for arrogance haha)--I think it is a cultural thing and what I take from this is to know who you're writing/talking to.

Personally I'd tweak these templates in a different way, but that's the thing, their (great) templates and provide a good place to start. I always find that personal touches go a long long way in business.

I've been reading a lot of Paul Graham's works and one of the big things he points out is being cheap is good.

"8. Spend little.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is for a startup to be cheap. Most startups fail before they make something people want, and the most common form of failure is running out of money. So being cheap is (almost) interchangeable with iterating rapidly. [4] But it's more than that. A culture of cheapness keeps companies young in something like the way exercise keeps people young."

http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html

Take those few moments of lag or downtime or whatever and enjoy your day--do something else that's productive or have a drink or something; make the best out of life.

hahahahahaha I just realized I wrote "bread and better"

I never had the money to invest in one of these writers. I don't know if I ever would but I knew as a University student they were around and that there were people in the classes I took that used them.

I find it incredibly interesting that this no-name writer basically did the same thing I did to courses I never attended (essentially his main demographic); Google books and Wikipedia were my bread and better and it always lit a huge smile on my face when I'd "beat the system" as it were and put a few hours into a paper and pass a course I knew nothing about just to get my degree.

I don't know what it says about the education system, but hacking it in this particular way did a lot for me in terms of personal growth. I probably learned less about the subject at hand then I could have, but at the same time I learned a lot of useful skills that are transferable to my future compared to something like Women's lit (not that there's anything bad with that--oh how I remember the cold stares).

I'm sure you could argue for or against these methods, I just wanted to put my personal perspective out there.

It could be just a time issue though--if they had to write out a reason as to why the account was disabled it could be a very hefty operation depending on their standards. You're right though, It would be nice if they'd do it.

Good point, it's interesting to note the 2 people referenced in the article were fairly well off--I mean one was a manager at Microsoft.

The idea that you need financial success to do this though is a bit strange. I think it's easier to just quit your job when you're poor from an outside perspective because you're not giving up very much in terms of the grand scheme--you'd throw away a penny before you'd throw away a $20 bill right, but speaking from experience when you're poor, these shit jobs mean a whole helluva lot.

Size matters.

I think as similar as these two industries are, the big deciding factor in this particular war is the size of files being downloaded. Video files are mammoth in comparison to music files and the Cable and Internet companies know this--there are obvious infrastructural problems in play, but the recent move by a number of ISP's to cap the data transfer capacity of its clients is a huge factor in this war on pirating--I mean where I live in Canada 1/2 of the major players have adopted this, with the 2nd committed to it but unsure of when it will be fully in place--so when that does happen I'll be forced into a cap of 100gb a month for the price I previously afforded with stiff penalties for going over--in this day and age 100gb, especially in terms of TV and movies is hardly anything. Couple that with my desire to play online games, surf the internet, stream on youtube etc and my fun time options are severely limited. If anything I think Hollywood lucked out on the fact that ISP's have hit a roadblock in terms of bandwidth and what they can afford to provide.

It's probably the latter haha.

  It's quite interesting how if you looked at this bureaucratic system from the perspective of a program or a website, you can't help but think of ways to solve the problem in the way any new start-up would; the system is outdated for today's world--and despite that no one dares tackle any of these issues as to not rock the boat or create a system without ample time off for some sweet vacations.

Couldn't the problem be that people just have way to much time on their hands and need help with that? Haha, seriously!

Fair enough, I can see what you're saying. I don't think there's a lot of difference here but as you said there is a difference and that's all that matters. At it's core it's the same, but it was probably a bad choice of words to say exact.

Also--Don't get me wrong, I really like what you've done, and really enjoyed the story.

I honestly can't right now but that doesn't mean there isn't anything beyond stories. Someone mentioned comics--and I think that would be a good idea, but I think the comic industry is past that. Motion comics basically do the exact same thing but in a much more fluid/better way.

Here's an example of a Motion comic (from 2009 too) from Marvel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAUAC0RzMis

I think I'm in the minority here by saying this because I am not as technically savvy as most of you, but after reading some of the comments on the article page, I'm actually happy that the United States and Canada haven't rushed into this--call me old fashioned, but I think as great as it would be to have your own little tablet for school--there's a lot to be said about the typical worldly adventures young students get into by not being absorbed by the screen of a machine. Don't get me wrong, computers probably do need to be more incorporated into the school system (I know I would have liked a programming course in elementary school) but it shouldn't be all encompassing, which is what I sort of see with the steps South Korea is taking.

While this might be true in some schools, I think Digital Textbooks can be the double edged swords of beer money on a world stage at least in the early stages. I actually saved money by not having to buy textbooks because our school digitized the library--no doubt further down the line publishers and even Authors (read: professors) will try and monetize that system when they realize scholastic book sales are down but until then, drink up my friend.

What would you consider fair and reasonable? I'm one of the people who needed to read this article, because I am not as technical as I need to be to see my idea through, but I'm also not a "business" guy--and I am coming into this endevour with little to no baggage or pre-conceived notion on how things work--I honestly thought if I ever did find someone technical (I'm paying freelancers right now) it would be a 50/50 split--but in your opinion is that undervaluing a technical persons worth on a project?

As a hockey fan I find what you said really interesting basically because CO-CEO Jim Balsillie took the shotgun approach instead of the slow approach in trying to acquire and move the Phoenix Coyotes so I always assumed that's how he operated at RIM. So until I read what you wrote, I would never have thought Jim and RIM would take forever to make decisions--I always thought they didn't take enough time to think things through. What's very funny is everyone was saying, if only took his time, bought the team, and then slowly petitioned for a relocation he would have gotten it--but his decision making skills cost him his chance.