c0mpute

Anyone knows how this series compares to the also-recently-announced Clojure in Action - http://www.manning.com/rathore2/

I mean compare the two clojure books wrt v1.

I think this is where oreilly shines: Some of their early releases (and even the published ones) permit the authors to provide the content for free on the web.

I haven't seen other publishers or authors from the other publishers do this.

Manning is certainly producing some very good books (most of their in Action series is good), but I just hate the look and feel and usability of their website.

>> From the images we've seen all side by side this seems to be a rip of someone else's work.

I really doubt that is the sentiment here on HN (at least).

Check: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5342360 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331766

IMO, what Layervault did was wrong in issuing a DMCA for what "they" perceive as 3 images that look similar.

Indian here, and I have worked on a H1-B with one of the out-sourcers (Infosys/Wipro likes). I think the article has some truth and a lot of crud. It is important to understand the context first.

What you can say about technology right now in USA, there are two large disjoint islands. There is the silicon valley kinds of "cool"/startup technology and then there is run of the mill "IT" for Bank/Insurance/Big-Non-IT technology. Outsourcers go after the latter kind and in fact can only go after the latter kind. Their premise is to hire really below average "Engineers" in India, and expect them to just learn the tricks of the trade to replace/take over another run-of-the mill IT job.

The point is, if your day job is just about maintaining/coding something mind numbing, with no real value add or just being a cog in the wheel in some Big-Co that has nothing to do with technology, you can expect someone to do your job much cheaper. Probably the quality will dip, but then the Big-Co hardly cares about its software right?

Whereas, if you look at the stuff being done in the "valley like" companies, you won't find those outsourced developers. You will still find smart Indians on H1, but then the non-linearity of their talent is at play. Although, I have seen valley companies outsource their QA (manual testing).

I think it is important that one keeps working hard on moving from the second island to the first, no matter who it is (American or otherwise). There is nothing new about this... we have seen this happen to manufacturing. It has happened to web design - Go to elance and you will find at least 20:1 ratio of some Indian firm to US firm. All of them compete at the low-end of the scale.

It is very hard to secure a comfortable life in that lower-end of the technology pipeline living here in USA.

Ah nice!, easier to drive down the costs that way. Thanks.

Can you tell me a bit about the CDN situation, especially what specific issue did you run into?

What inference can one make from a reject?

(A) Got 4/5 video views from YC/partners and even as late as November 11th.

(B) If there were no video hits at all.

Looking for some postmortem but shouldn't stop me from continuing my work.

It will help us know which axes to improve up on for the next time.

So for example, if we have had video hits and got rejected, does it mean the idea sounded good but they were not convinced with the team? Helps one learn...

Hey, thanks for the response.

I am not very sure there is another visa that might work well, unless the founders are from Canada/Australia (maybe even Europe not sure). Rest of the founders might still have to be on H1 if my research is right.

A very valid question.How about those on H4?

As some might know the H1 for this year has been used up (unlike in the past 4-5 years), will YC still be ok accepting ideas/startups that cannot be on h1?

Some clarity on this front will be very helpful for immigrants :)

Venky/Plivo Congratulations!

Venky, Hope you don't mind me asking this question (unrelated to Plivo), but it will help some of us Indians who plan to apply to YC -

How did you plan/manage to create a startup using your visa? Did you already have a Green card? Or were you on H1? Does YC encourage founders already on H1? Also how about someone on H4 visa, do you know if YC is ok with that Visa and would help found the company (if selected)?

Sorry to ask you these questions, as I haven't found any convincing answers to these nagging questions.

Wishing your team all the best!

I actually wrote that knowing very well they are a YC company. What I feel is that there are some awesome ideas/challenges being worked on by YC companies and then there are not so inspiring ones. Maybe a dilution due to more available pool of money.

Somehow I felt YC should only work on really challenging problems, but its a perception that doesn't lead to profits always :).

Call me an old fart, but I think startups like these are good to have. No offense to any of the YC founders, but I think the variety of YC companies that are operating sometimes makes me feel that the "idea bar" is quite low.

Though, I think this EDC/clinical trails data collection is a great place to innovate in. Having worked as a software engineer in a CRO before, I know how slow the development lifecycles are and sometimes even the end users are very slow to adopt. A startup can shake things up by pushing for better data collection and analysis techniques, more automation as well as better end to end phase management.

True, I think logic suggests most people find it convenient to just click the result link on Kayak, which has made it so easy compared to Oribts, which has its own booking engine. So I am guessing they just make a very small percentage of the sale just for referring.

If as you say the hotel search is the real deal, it makes sense. Which leads me to the next thought, wonder why hotels haven't caught up with the airline industry in having a fairly realistic price listing on their own site? In fact, most of the times I am ok just booking using priceline bidding for hotels.

Can someone explain how do these free flight search engines make money?

In my case I search using Kayak, but never really book the ticket from Kayak (don't follow their link to the airline). I go directly to the airline site and book it there. Many people I know do the same. I despise using Orbitz/Priceline other than just a cursory glance to see if there are cheaper tickets. I know that sometimes an itinerary involves multiple airlines and that is when there might be an advantage booking through, say Orbitz, but even in those cases I just book separate tickets.

Why is this free search/booking industry still unsaturated and is there really a demand for such capital infusion?

Update: My question is specific to flight search, because I think hotel search can be profitable model as sometimes these sites provide better rates than the hotel's site.

And just like that, from being disrespected and the world wanting them to lose, they will now be immensely popular with the world cheering for them!

On a serious note, I think if Oracle wins this, maybe there can be a system that can be setup that is cost effective to invalidate most patents.

What you are saying is correct, in that what happened in this case was kinda gamed to mislead. One reason where I think the calling company stepped the line was, someone else calling him back when he did not return their call.

I would hope that companies do more due diligence when a customer is not calling back. Maybe the customer changed their minds. The problem with telemarketers is that they don't care about what customers are thinking and so someone else went ahead and called him.

What I would prefer is (and this is where I think I don't want to give any inch of room for the sales person) is that they constantly have to be aware of what the customer's latest situation is. I would prefer all telemarketers get trained this way and not intrude. Don't you think this is better?

I think you are willing to give a lot of latitude to the sales person here. I think it is true that it is human psychology to trust a relationship that is established, but we would prefer a world where rules still have to apply, no matter what. Right?

It is so much better if this incident sets a standard for their company and the telemarketers are forced to validate each time irrespective of their past association with the callers.

I too felt that he gamed it to his advantage and if we want to filter it through an ethical lens, it might not pass.

But then, I started to think about what is the whole point of his exercise? If it was to make money out of this, then it comes off as sleazy. I would like to believe his idea was to actually "give it to them" rather than make money out of them (at least to begin with).

Anyway, I think what matters to me is, if this is THE ONLY WAY to ensure I can both get out of their pesky calls as well as rub it to them by taking some money out of them, I might do it too. End of the day, I feel there has to be an end to the kind of crap telemarketers do and if this is one way to weed them out, so be it.

Very interesting and looks slick (in the videos).

So could this be a Flutter.io competitor? Flutter.io is purely software driven. I feel flutter will release a SDK/API as well at some point.

So I think intuition suggests that whoever can execute these best, will likely succeed:

- Rich feature set to capture gestures.

- Simple API. Should be easy to integrate with 3rd party apps.

- Performance.

Leap already has an edge in that they are releasing a SDK, Flutter should follow this quickly (hopefully). Flutter makes it easy to get it to people as it is just pure software, but can they achieve capturing rich gestures?

Exciting times.

This is so wrong!

On the other hand, I think this is a wild goose chase in a different way. It is a talented team that is solving a genuine problem. Today for me to share large files I need to use dropbox. The problem with dropbox is that it needs a sync based solution, that counts towards your quota. Agreed, you can share and then delete once received. But something lightweight like kicksend is a breath of fresh air to use.

Anyway, the wild goose chase here might be that there might never be a business model here, but if the team can solve certain problems then they align themselves to be bought over by a 'big one'. Some of the problems that the team could be genuinely solving:

- Ease the sharing process

- Optimal data compression and bandwidht reduction on the server side

- Privacy

etc...

I would not for once think that the team is doing this 'cos someone else wants them to.

Thanks for the leads (also to hello_asdf on hosting provider).

As I see it, they just patched up the situation. My beef with them is not that they screwed up on the policy front. It is about the underlying ethics.

It was ok if they said they did not want to pay him as he is no longer and employee and later correct themselves saying that it was a mistake on their part as he was an employee after 6 months. What is not ok is that they used an emotional line of defense. Saying he doesn't deserve it 'cos of a screw up, tells me that both Somrat and Tim are kinda characters that would bail out when push comes to shove. Its the question of integrity and you just have to stand by the right in a startup. To me, this is the exact warning sign I need before thinking of a startup.

I hope employees of Miso read into this and take home something. Many might not care, but its their opinion.

True! But where are these other reliable ones? AT least which country? I still have a feel we should find a model to distribute our risks.

I am beginning to wonder if this is a sign of things where a startup/product dev has to start thinking of the following:

- Go to a p2p model where the app/service is distributed without a need to depend on a domain?

- Really start looking at countries/places to partner with someone to register to get away from a cancer that FBI is becoming?

Seriously, this kind of thing is what puts a muddy cloud on USA as a viable option. I know asian countries aren't a walk in the park (I am an India btw, so know the bureaucracy in India), but maybe a country in Europe can become a shinning beacon for internet liberties?? I almost feel the intelligentsia of USA want a place established with modern principles :)

Well put. It is unfortunate that there is no way to have these folks accountable for their actions. I agree the public sentiments will be with them in this case though, but its one step closer to the Orwellian society.

Note: I am not a USA citizen or reside in USA - just so that my perspectives are understood as an outsider.

@rdtsc weird i dont see a reply link to your comment of mine, so replying here -

Yes I agree with you, its almost a "collective failure" that you can expect from a system where each part doesn't have the complete picture (FBI not telling TSA all the protocols, TSA hiding things from police, etc...).

Yes, its a nice veil they can hide behind.

But what boggles my mind the most is, why did FBI have to deport them? Are they really so irrational that they could not discern genuine threats vs someone who jokingly meant it (and in this case its a brit slang!). This is where I think administration is falling apart. You read those stories about TSA horror stories and all of them indicate a lack of common sense on the administrative side.

It is fine as long as other companies/startups are granted such access. The problem here is if FBI can wield a bigger power in getting this access, we have a problem. Not so much with the data itself, but the spirit of how someone with power can get their way.

Correct, there is no indication of that. I would be really happy to see if Facebook/twitter reject FBI's request. I was just hypothesizing that in the event that FBI is granted scrapping access, they should give similar access to other bots (or even Google to download contacts?). The ideal situation would be that FBI is not granted access.

The difference as far as I can see is that as a startup would I be granted access to all the data? AFAIK facebook terms say I cannot scrape the information and in the past they had forced a hacker to delete the database that was collected by scraping this info.

This sets a dangerous precedent. By letting a government authority to oversee the activity, even if considered public, is still personal. Its a step closer to the cliche - "In Soviet Russia TV watches you"