catone

My buddy Allen Stern (of CenterNetworks) said something recently in a podcast that I liked and is relevant here. Paraphrasing, he said something like, "In New York City there are a thousand pizza places and new ones opening up all the time. Many of them are successful and some of the new ones will be, too."

Or, in other words, there is always room for new startups that do the same thing. Just do it better or differently -- have better crust, better toppings, faster delivery, free breadsticks, etc.

As you said, "there are always people who are looking for a better solution." You just need to make it.

On their FAQ page, it mentions future plans to offer utilities for bands to sell downloads, create and sell merchandise, and sell concert tickets. Presumably, those would be pay services. (They could also sell premium packages that allow artists to put up more tracks, get analytics, etc.).

I mean, this is all conjecture, but figuring out the business model for a site like this doesn't seem too difficult.

Whether or not indie bands will pay for that sort of thing, and how much, is a completely different issue.

Running corollary to that, I'd love to be able to set HN to give me some sort of alert on site whenever someone has responded to one of my comments/submissions.

The first part could theoretically be achieved via your "saved" list (anything you've up voted).

I.e., http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=naish

I think it's probably this one: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_buil...

"When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book."

Though the actual interview is a bit awkward at times, I found his story to be very inspiring.

A ton of SaaS apps are, I think. Like Lighthouse, the 37signals apps, Freshbooks... SlideRocket probably will in the near(ish) future, if they're not already, etc. Then there's the micro ISVs like Balsamiq.

Plenty of startups are making money.

(Quick caveat: I haven't actually read the article yet... so it might be talking about a totally different kind of startup.)

Yes! ... I actually work from home, but I went into the office for two weeks this past August to get to know the guys I work for. Their office is an open plan (one big room with a long E[ish]-shaped desk and people sitting at various points along the E).

Two main things I noticed:

1. Office distractions were MUCH harder for me to deal with than home distractions. Distractions at home are generally things I self impose and can control with will power (i.e., not playing with the cat, not turning on the TV, not getting a snack, etc.)... but in the office there was stuff going on all around me and no way to shut it out.

2. The guy sitting next to me was sick -- when I got back to my home office two weeks later, so was I. (Granted, travel could have been a factor here -- I live in the US and their offices are a 20 hour plane ride away in Australia.)

Oh, I hear the bug went around the entire office after I left, too.

Just did a search and found something on what I was talking about: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5302

Had my facts a little mixed up (it's 43 distribution centers, not in 45 states). Anyway, take it for what you will. :)

I guess it would depend on the sales tax laws in each state.

Some states require sales tax on ecommerce if there is a physical presence, some do not. Some require tax regardless.

The argument I have always heard in relation to Netflix is that if Amazon were to acquire Netflix it would mean charging sale tax to a much greater number of customers.

Netflix has many more established physical presences across the US: http://www.listology.com/netflix_tracker_reports.cfm?report=...

I think those are the states in which they have a physical presence. I know their headquarters are in Washington, for example, and that they have a big distribution center in Kentucky. New York, though, may just have laws taxing ecommerce (I'm not certain).

The argument I've always heard against Amazon acquiring Netflix is that Netflix has distribution centers in something like 45 states, whereas Amazon only has them in a handful. So that'd be 45 states in which Amazon would then have to charge sales tax.

If Netflix were a solely streaming operation, it'd make sense for Amazon, or if tax on ecommerce was already charged in most states regardless of physical presence it would make sense. Not sure it does otherwise, though.

I think it actually happened a few days ago. I noticed a jump last week.

I recently wrote a blog post about something similar that might be applicable here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/12/19/12-ways-to-keep-sa...

The article was geared toward home workers and focused on tips and tricks to avoid getting stir crazy. But a lot of it talks about how to keep work and personal lives separate, which is especially difficult when your home is your office. So much of the post may be helpful to you.

Short version of my tips of things to do during the work day to stay sane:

1. Clearly define your work space. 2. Take a walk. 3. Take a nap. 4. Have lunch with a friend. 5. Join a local user group. 6. Engage with a community online. 7. Use Twitter. 8. Subscribe to a trade magazine. 9. Keep work and personal contact info separate. 10. Get a cat (or a dog). 11. Take regular breaks. 12. Schedule time off.

This is a really minor thing, but a pet peeve of mine is when vowels from two separate words line up in a domain. It confuses me at first glance, and sometimes the name gets obscured. So I see, CloudFireit (i.e., something I would pronounce "firite") instead of CloudFireIt.

You might want to consider switching to something like getcloudfire.com or gocloudfire.com ... both are available.

I am lucky enough to work with Kelli Shaver on my startup. She's been a friend for 10 years, and is an awesome designer -- of everything, but especially of icons.

She recently took down her icon site, but still does icon work for people. Her freelance portfolio is here: http://www.kellishaver.com/

To be honest, I usually just keep the thread open in a tab for a few hours until things die down. That said, I generally only comment on a handful of threads per week, so that's a manageable system for me. For those of you who participate more, I think that wouldn't work so well.

It's amazing what drawing a paycheck can do. Once I started making a respectable living as a blogger, my family stopped pestering me about getting a real job or going back to school.

Of course, next up might be the startup thing... that'll be a whole new battle.

If anyone is interested, here are the stats for Rails Forum -- which is predictably pretty Mac heavy given how great Rails development is on a Mac.

Windows: 47.84% / Mac: 32.76% / Linux: 18.95% / FreeBSD: 0.07%

(iPhone is actually ahead of FreeBSD at 0.11% -- even though the site is not iPhone optimized at all)

As someone who recently switched from Windows to Mac, the only software I really miss on my Mac are Word and Excel -- the Mac Office 08 versions are vastly inferior to the Window Office 07 versions, imho.

I had thought I would miss a lot more, though. So when I first switched I bought Parallels and installed XP. For awhile I was running XP with FeedDemon (NetNewsWire has some annoying features I couldn't figure out how to turn off), Digsby, and a few other Windows-only apps I thought I couldn't find Mac replacements for. Eventually, though, I found replacements for everything (save Word and Excel).

Plus, I can now use TextMate, which has made my like a lot easier.

I still own XP and Vista machines and use them fairly regularly as well. But my main computer has become by MacBook.

I made out a list last month of all the things I love and hate about the Mac after a couple of months using it. It might be helpful for you: http://mockriot.com/post/58997722/my-mac

Counter-counter-argument: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/09/business/fi-moneyblo...

Google News has had issues, too (see link above in which Google News published a 6-year old story this past September). It's the nature of the beast: machines make mistakes. But people make mistakes, too. Screw ups are unavoidable.

On the rails job front, over at Rails Forum we also run a job board for rails positions @ http://www.railswork.com/

I've actually seen a fairly steady number of job postings the past couple of months (it's always been a somewhat low volume jobs board -- 3-5 new posts per week, I'd guess -- but the volume hasn't dropped off).

Confusing, I clicked through on my RSS reader, and somehow landed on the original version of that post being submitted to HN -- and accidentally left a comment on that page. Anyway, now that I'm in the right place...

I think I did alright in that post. #3 came true (for the most part, though none of the big boys are relying parties). #2 was sort of half right. Sort of. And, #5 was a little bit right -- iPhone 3G has been one of the best-selling phones of the year and mobile apps are finally a big story (big enough to get mainstream television coverage, at least).

Now, quick... someone buy Tumblr.

Hey, I think I did alright in that post. #3 came true (for the most part, though none of the big boys are relying parties). #2 was sort of half right. Sort of. And, #5 was a little bit right -- iPhone 3G has been one of the best-selling phones of the year and mobile apps are finally a big story (big enough to get mainstream television coverage, at least).

Maybe I am missing something, but this article doesn't seems to support the hypothesis the title advances.

First it explains that the habitable zone for planets is bigger than we thought, but then it also introduces a ton of new criteria (other than distance from the planet's star) that must be met for a planet to support life (size, composition, orbit, etc.).

To me that implies that there is likely LESS life out there, not more. The summary version of the article as I read it is: over the past 20 years the habitable zone got bigger, but we realized that habitable zone is only one requirement of many for a planet to be habitable.

How does that support the article's title? (Serious question, not trying to be snarky. Me = not a science guy.)

Close new link submission, maybe, but don't close the site. Everyone is on different schedules, and I don't like the idea of having to adjust mine to yours if I want to read what the community submit/is talking about at the time I usually do each day. Selfish? Maybe (but that could be applied both ways).

I would be careful using PayPal. Another bounty site - microPledge - recently shut down because using PayPal to hold money in Escrow is against their TOS.

I wrote about it here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/10/09/open-source-fundin...

I'm sure there are a lot of project owners from microPledge looking for a new home, but using PayPal might just lead your down the same path.

The real question is: will the voting actually influence the paper's editorial?

Will outside links show up on the Independent.co.uk homepage if people vote them up via the new Reddit-powered system? or will the results of users voting be confined to the Reddit page?

Blogging at SitePoint.com, switching RailsForum.com over to vBulletin (no, Beast won't cut it), and working on a utility for educators (K-12 and post secondary).

Or take some black beans, jack cheese, a tortilla and some salsa and make a quesadilla.

To the OP: I find making pizza is really cheap and versatile (i.e., it can take you awhile to get sick of it). Most supermarkets sell premade dough for $1 or so. Then just get some sauce and cheese and any other toppings you might like (I love making a pizza with butternut squash, garlic, shallots, scallions, olive oil, mozarella, salt and pepper -- no red sauce).

The whole thing is done in a half hour and for half the price -- or less -- of a take out pizza.

Salads are good to... veggies get a little pricier, especially out of season... but a hearty salad with nuts and cheese is great for you and not _that_ expensive.

Same with soups, which can made pretty easily and cheaply with pretty much anything you have lying around. :)

Silverlight is more of a Flash competitor than an AIR competitor. Chrome + Gears is kind of AIR-like, but it's a different approach to the same goal. More like Mozilla Prism.

I think offline/desktop access (whichever way you get it done) is an important step for the adoption of rich Internet apps.