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What would you love to pay for if it was available? | terragb: A dead simple, cheap 8.5x11 e-ink device with no wifi or touchscreen or anything like that. Just the ability to page through my already owned pdfs. Some of them are scanned images, not text so no text conversion. Even if the only way to get the docs on it was via some kind of virtual printer driver I'd be happ... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | diego: - A laptop battery that lasted for as long as I can stay awake (say, 24 hours).- A cellphone that people could call anywhere in the world without paying for an international call, and that allowed me to call anyone or use my data plan at the same price regardless of where I'm located. International roaming charg... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | RWilson: It's not a programming book but... "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal"It's an awesome book about the history of computing, human-computer interaction, and all sorts of things you're familiar with but may never have known where they came from or how they evolved... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | ZehraNasif: Teleportation --will pay double for the service. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mohamedsa: Very durable writable DVDs that could keep the data even after multiple scratches, the passage of decades...etc |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | sgk284: Still working on it! Just went to the entrepreneur expo in Philly and did a lot of great networking. Talked to some great people and made great connections. Will probably pursue funding sometime this year because bootstrapping has been slowing us down a lot. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | jyu: It was about 1 year ago. Now I do affiliate marketing, which seems to be a faster and more reliable way to "F U" money. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | Fuca: I will pay for someone to market my skills on commission. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | pclark: Luck. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | electromagnetic: Bachelor Chow (See: Futurama). It doesn't have to be particularly tasty, but a simple meal that has 1/3 of your daily nutrition (with 1/3 RDA of all your vitamins and minerals) would be great. Preferably without ridiculous quantities of preservatives and artificial flavours. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | jraines: Camtasia Studio for Linux. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | JoelPM: The ability to start up an Extra-Large EC2 instance running OSX and connect to it using NoMachine.Combine it with a simple client that runs locally and rsyncs pictures/music/etc from a local HD with an EBS mounted to the EC2 instance.(I want a MacPro so I can do photo processing and programming in the evenings,... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | dmolnar: 0) Stylish sunglasses that act like the spexware in Bruce Sterling's stories, or like the smart glasses in Charlie Stross's _Accelerando_. I'd love heads up displays showing me peoples' names, maps, appointments, and all the stuff for which I currently rely on my phone.The hardware is there if you're willing t... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mingyeow: A service that matches you up with intellectual AND decent looking folks. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | vaksel: Early users, build something where a person can come to your site, pay $1,000 and get 1,000 active users to stimulate the site activity. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | thorax: No chance we were going to abandon ship after not getting accepted-- thankfully, we've got a good bit of traction for our sites to build on.We were invited down for an YC interview last November, and it was wicked fun talking with them. But our 10 minutes was quickly consumed with their excitement with our exis... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | btwelch: A device that sits on your car dash and takes high-def pictures of the road ahead (infrared for night-time), then runs some image matching software that will fire off warnings if deer or other objects are in your path, or are moving towards your path. An early-warning HUD, to prevent deer strikes. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | yaj: A hoverboard as seen on Back to the Future. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | damienkatz: I was rejected with CouchDB a couple of years ago. I was bad at presenting it, and it was probably the wrong time anyway. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | pavelludiq: starcraft 2. I hope its not ridiculously expensive when it comes out(im sort of used to not paying for stuff). |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mike463: A computer I could hang on the wall in the bathroom or kitchen that just displays tasks/reminders for the day.You know, a simple dashboard to start the day. |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | tomsaffell: Got rejected 6 months ago, went ahead and built it anyway. I spent 4 of those months in India (because an opportunity to live there came up, and what better place to write code..)I now having a working product in private alpha. Everyone who has seen the demo says it rocks. It's a tool for commenting online ... |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | raffi: I applied for YC W'09 w/ a software service to add grammar, style, and spell checking to web apps. It wasn't selected. No big deal. I went ahead with full scale development anyways. I have an early beta now and am still working to achieve my development vision. I've had inquiries from potential paying custo... |
Carnegie Mellon or Stanford | alecco: A friend was studying in Pittsburgh but he hated living there and left because the city was culturally closer to "middle America" and the "bible belt" (no offense intended.) He is foreign from a large cosmopolitan city, though. It probably matters where you'd feel more comfortable. |
Invite-only beta test management platform? | thorax: We asked the same thing, didn't see one, and rolled our own invite code stuff for Django. I think it's modular enough that we may release it. I'll ask that site's dev lead about that. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | kjhughes: P=NP: An Illustrated Guide |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mixmax: A proper webbased project management tool. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | gamache: Programming Collective Stupidity: Harnessing the Ignorance of Crowds |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | gamache: On Clojure |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | pietro: A pan-European plan for the iPhone so that I could actually use the phone while travelling. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | reduxredacted: A small business server appliance for non-IT based small businesses.
I'm thinking: Network attached storage with a built in Samba NT compatible domain controller/windows file/print sharing capabilities. RAID-1 plus an automated backup mechanism ... maybe, attach an external USB drive and it automaticall... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | Evgeny: "Become a R0ck$tar programmer in 21 hours". |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | matthall28: More Firefly |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | Rob15283: A proven cure for tinnitus. I'd clean out my bank account and cash in all my 401Ks, if need be, to pay for the treatment. For those who don't know what tinnitus is, just imagine having a high-pitched ringing sound in your head that never, ever, ever stops. Ever. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | reduxredacted: A REAL sequel to Star Control 2 (a.k.a. Ur-Quan Masters) |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | rishi: We finished our product: www.FlyingCart.com - cash flow positive, 6,000 stores.That said. Would still love some mentors to figure out how to scale my company faster. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | lliles: A secure, online back-up solution for all my computers that is dead-simple to use on all OSes.And I mean dead-simple as in install a client that by default intelligently finds the stuff that I might want to back-up (iTunes library, folders with lots of pictures, My Documents, /etc & /home directories, etc.), wi... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | chris11: Something like a Netflix for books and articles. I'd pay just to rent textbooks for general education classes. It would need to have a gigantic library though, big enough to guarantee that I would be able to find any book through there if it wasn't in a library.PDF versions of the books would be nice to, so I... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | bokonist: the pre-1992 version of usenet |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | bayareaguy: FreeBSD AMI's |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | aristus: We interviewed last November. Paul seemed to fixate on a phrase from our written application, and it went downhill from there. We regrouped with bourbons at a bar in the middle of the day, and moved on. Stressful, yeah, but they have to run through 60 startups in 3 days. I don't envy them.We are funded and lau... |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | lincolnq: Presented an idea 12 months ago for a new programming language that understood modern scalability, concurrency, and software design concerns. Got shot down. We worked on it anyway for 4 months.Then we had an idea for a new webapp we wanted to build, so we switched to that. Got funding in December through fbFu... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | comatose_kid: Coders At Work (http://www.codersatwork.com) |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | AndrewO: "The Java Environment for Java Haters": covering the JVM, the better web and GUI environments, essential legacy libraries, tools, and whatever else is worth carrying over as Clojure and Scala gain traction. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | durana: A book on learning x86 assembly on recent processors. |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | metallic_cloud: I would love a book on advanced XNA. Everything around at the moment is for beginner to intermediate. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | antidaily: streaming NFL games. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | jasonlbaptiste: A battery so good that I don't have to worry about battery life again. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | sho: Ghost in the Shell Section 9-spec full robot body. Medical immortality. Nanotechnological bone strengthening, brain-damping mesh, damage repair, bloodstream oxygen cache system. Brain augmentation. Cancer-free cigarettes. Perfect, invisible contraception and STD prevention. Cyborg love doll, again see GitS. I coul... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | joe_adk: A bluetooth track-wheel mouse. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mattmaroon: I would have told you an iPhone that is on a good network, has a keyboard, and doesn't suck to actually use as a phone, but it sounds like Palm is going to come through on that one for me.So instead I'll go with a tech-focused social news site where I don't have to hear 3 times a day how everyone not in the... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | Tiktaalik: I'd certainly pay for an iTuneslike service for impulse buying old magazines in a digital format. I love magazines but they're rarely justifiably keepable as they accumulate and create a terrible clutter. Unfortunately for the majority of us that throw out magazines after a short time, eventually old magazin... |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | kaiserama: Applied for an got rejected for YC08 - W. I ended up quitting my day job (not because of the rejection) to pursue some of my other business ideas. Currently the one I am working on just launched a successful pilot last Friday and hope to expand organically.I think the YC application really made me think of... |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | froo: I'm basically going to copy and paste from the other thread - I'll edit out a few unimportant bits thoughI applied to YC with a friend last year, we were rejected.It was a very difficult idea to pitch.We thought our idea was the best thing since sliced bread and all of our friends told us so (this should have bee... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | dave_au: This is motivated by the fact that I'm in Australia and our broadband sucks.Netflix send a whole heap of DVDs through the mail, so they're trust you not to rip them and distribute copies. If there was a massive content distribution network with kiosks in shopping centres where I could put in a DVD-RW or usb s... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | callmeed: I want cable TV service and this is how I want it:- A la carte pricing: $1 per channel per month (I'd go $1.50 for HD channels and more for premium channels of course)- I want an IP-based/wifi-enabled DVR that records shows in a non-proprietary video format. I can browse the files from any computer in my home... |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | megamark16: A coworker and I were implementing a DropBox style file storage/sharing site. We worked towards a pilot but in the end our momentum fell out, with him in grad school, me with a family, and both of us working full time, it was too much to keep going. He's finishing up his degree now and I'm working on a ne... |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | plinkplonk: "The only rule should be that you would actually take out your credit card right now and pay for it if someone offered it."ok here goes,1. New replicas of old computers like the ZX Spectrum, Comodore 64, Amiga, the lisp machine, the Newton2. The above, but in a handheld form factor3. A kindle that reads pro... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | christofd: - a book on learning to trust your intuition, with good and bad programming and architecture examples- a functional language cookbook... like erlang or haskell cookbook- a book comparing cultural differences between countries in the work and education worlds |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | AndrewDucker: A silent XBMC box in a small form factor.Think "Apple TV", but without having to worry about hacks, and with built in keyboard/mouse support. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | mazuhl: I'd pay $10 a month for a service that finds podcasts and videos about specific subjects.I don't have the time to scour TV listings or subscribe to busy podcasts/RSS feeds in the hope of finding something to listen to at work/when I'm out and about. What I'm doing now is going to the BBC iPlayer website every w... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | camperman: Calling Useful Java Libraries from Clojure for People who have Traditionally Despised Java And Know Nothing About It. |
Rate my Vim Script: snipMate.vim | kurczak: Can't get it to work. Using gvim on winxp. Directories are okay, nocompatibile is enabled, using expandtab + softtabstop=4 - but the only thing I get after pressing <tab> after one of the snippet keywords is a single space. |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | LWCARAB: Hi there, I can't offer you an internship but would be interested in talking about yours projects, I am based in France and in the UK. Email: lwcarab at gmail dot com
Richard |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | davbo: I've been in contact with a YC startup since Jan 18th trying to sort out an internship for this summer, however their incompetence has forced me to just give up with them. Hopefully you'll have better luck than me. I'm still looking for a UK internship but have decided local companies are easier to deal with tha... |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | mrduncan: Here are a couple of companies which are currently on the front page. Since you're looking in Germany or the UK I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but it may be helpful to others who find their way into this thread.Justin.tv: http://www.justin.tv/jobs
JamLegend: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=551247 |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | DebatewiseDave: Hi,We'd love your help. Debatewise.com is a non-profit debating site built in Ruby on Rails. Our goal is to create a Wikipedia of debate, a resource full of user-generated pro and con debates on a wide variety of different issues that people can turn to when they want to make up their mind.I can be co... |
Need some advice | bgnm2000: Neat site,I'll give my answers based on my own experience.1. How do you folks attract new members ? - The best way to attract new members is for it to be an integral part of your service.So friends can show friends, without that even being the goal. User's trust the whole WOM (word of mouth) over anything els... |
Need some advice | systemtrigger: Vivapixel appears functional and very fast but it doesn't arrest me as a visitor with a compelling argument on why I should sign up. If I were you I would work on storytelling then I would add pro subscriptions.I would paint a better "you're stupid if you don't sign up" story, starting with the home page... |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | diN0bot: We already have a handful of interns coming on board this summer. We're looking for a few more.These are volunteer positions unless you are student eligible for work-study via your school. (bilumi has been approved by MIT and Tufts for work-study, and we'd be happy to go through that process with your school, ... |
Invite-only beta test management platform? | tmarkiewicz: I think most roll their own (we did just did) since it's easier to integrate with your existing authentication system.Take a look at: http://railscasts.com/episodes/124-beta-invitations for some decent starting points. |
Need some advice | khangtoh: Hey I run a photo sharing site as well - http://Simplebucket.com and so here's my response from my experience.1. How do you folks attract new members ?Mostly from google search. When I started Simplebucket, I had the concept of making the simplest photo hosting, no registration, no login. And so I targeted th... |
Open discussion on the type of VC you really need | pclark: you have an excuse to move to SF for summer founding a startup.Why would you even consider giving up after being rejected from YC? Isn't that telling the world you're not sold on your idea? |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | noodle: installing something is boring and kind of dumbifying, sure. but if you're a system administrator who solves problems, optimizes and tweaks, i could imagine it being engaging enough to be interesting. |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | hapless: One might argue that heeding road signage, signaling, and lane discipline impairs the driving experience.It is, nevertheless, necessary. |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | hs: <sarcasm>i agree, let's forget the computer altogether, it's much smarter to write code with pencil and paper</sarcasm> |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | Xichekolas: You can make it fun by writing scripts to automate whatever the task is while you do it. Then, at least, you only have to do any given sysadmin task once.I usually find it interesting to set up things I haven't used before. Tweaking conf files can be as gratifying as tweaking code... it only becomes boring ... |
Need some advice | wheels: The site doesn't answer, "Why should I use this instead of Flickr?"I hate to pull an MBA-term on you, but, "What is your unique selling point?"Figure that out and then hammer it home. |
What would you love to pay for if it was available? | asciilifeform: A decent computing environment.(Technically available now: http://www.lispmachine.net/symbolics.txt but I would like one that meets modern specs.) |
Custom labeled flash drives/cds/dvds | brk: Google for it.There are thousands of these companies out there. I've always just gone with the cheapest company at the time for the product/qty I wanted. |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | greatfog: From alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v1.799999999999999998...
[http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sysadmin-recovery/] Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarized the life of a sysadmin the best, when she described us as:
"disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of,
foul tempered, hard-drinking, h... |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | pasbesoin: Are you designing (1), or supporting? Whether you are programming, administering, PM-ing, or doing something else, I find the question pertinent.If you designing, actively creating, you are likely to be engaged. If you are merely supporting others, you are more likely to be neglected and relegated to repet... |
Does system administration dumb down the brain? | cmkrnl: I'm an admin, and certainly can relate to what Abby says. However, I can also code in half a dozen languages, and often fix things with a few lines of expect and shell, where our enterprise java cowboys would demand a new server with a java app server and still can't do a complete job of it.
Being a sysadmin wa... |
Custom labeled flash drives/cds/dvds | nkurz: I was recently researching DVD replication. I haven't ordered anything yet, but from a price perspective these two looked good. Both offer custom printing on the disk.http://www.newcyberian.com
http://www.nationwidedisc.com/ |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | revolvingcur: My team was a YC reject in April '08. My partner and I split and we've each spun out a few ideas independently. I now work as a web programmer at a Windows shop and moonlight in a variety of areas.The reason for choosing this route was the pressure to be cash-flow positive as an individual through whateve... |
Please review our RSS feed filtering app | akirk: Honestly, it feels a little boring to me. I mean, ok, it's nice to be able to custom rank feed items, but it sounds like a lot of work to do beforehand.Especially as the most interesting items are most often the ones that I did not anticipate. |
Need some advice | darwinw: Hi there, just checked out your site, a few questions for you:1. When did you launch the site?
2. and you mentioned the traffic is growing, can you share more about the rate on how it's growing,
3. and where does the growth come from (referal, direct or google search)?
4. Do you use google analytics and ana... |
What is your favorite charity? | darwinw: I personally donated to worldvision.com |
What is your favorite charity? | tokenadult: The American Lung Association, because my wife once had a severe lung infection. |
Any startup looking for a summer intern ? | eru: Judging by the comments, quite a few people in Europe seem to be interested in a summer internship. But we face a shortage of suitable startups in the area.What do you think of creating our own workplace? Imagine five to ten hackers coming together for a few months. We'd rent a flat, hack together, perhaps do s... |
What is your favorite charity? | yan: I donate mostly to EFF, but should donate to more.http://www.charitynavigator.org/ |
What software do you use for managing communications with media/blogs? | DEinspanjer: I recently spoke with the founder of a company that has an extremely interesting tool for visualizing traffic trends and how they are impacted by referrers and search keywords. Seeing this tool made me feel that it and other tools or suites like it are something that I think could be very useful for a lot... |
What is your favorite charity? | vijayr: http://kiva.org |
What is your favorite charity? | villageidiot: Doctors Without Bordershttp://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/index-alt.cfmBut only because a friend of mine is a volunteer. To be honest, he pestered me about it for years but I didn't actually donate until he came back from Israel and told me about how he and some other Western doctors had almost been acc... |
How is Loopt making money? | thorax: Some old discussion here:http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/15/loopt-may-be-friending-...> Loopt has remained tight lipped about who they’re talking to, but the pitch is pretty clear. Competition is driving down mobile voice revenues which Loopt says they can help offset by driving new profits in data plans peop... |
What Programming Book would you buy right now (if it existed) | xenoterracide: a book on postgresql 8.3 (or the to be released 8.4) with some good strong chapters on various PL languages. I'm thinking one on PL/Perl a few on PL/pgSQL, one on PL/SQL, one on SQL/PSM (maybe). several on the rest of Postgres. |
Have you created alternate accounts to post questionable responses? | jaxn: Short answer: noWhy would you go through the trouble? Why not refrain from posting it when you think it is questionable? |
Got rejected by YC 6-12 months ago? Where are you now? | mingyeow: I would like to summarize this thread by saying "it is not the end of the world, some cool shit have been built!" |
Have you created alternate accounts to post questionable responses? | systemtrigger: I have one other account here. I started this account one day when I wanted to express a controversial idea I felt I couldn't articulate well enough to warrant associating my real name with it for the rest of my life. Sometimes my positions aren't P.C. enough to associate with my family name and sometime... |
Have you created alternate accounts to post questionable responses? | tokenadult: No, never. On most online communities I use my real name. On one very useful online community, the community rule is that no one uses a real name, so I came up with my current screen name. As I join other communities where the use of a screen name is the norm, I use the SAME screen name, so that people can ... |
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