jaybol

I don't think your comment necessarily has to be viewed as belittling them...obviously a big part of getting into ycombinator (or any other credible incubator) for startups is the opportunity to get access and credibility (and getting into the program to begin with says something as well because it is competitive and the idea does happen to have the potential to be a homerun due to the so-called network effect, especially with some sort of groupon like approach to monetizing these activities). To those who say someone got it just because PG liked them, of course the charisma/leadership of a founder is a major factor in success, and the ability to forge strategic partnerships (friends of your business) is huge. Bootstrapping and owning the whole pie is great, but of course you have to have some knack for marketing your idea and figuring out creative PR because no one is going to find you hiding in your garage (ie to actually see your service and signup). Ycomb and techcrunch are two great 'shortcuts' so to speak but obviously aren't the only ones.

So in reference to your question about whether they could actually exist as companies rather than hobbies without Ycomb and techcrunch, I'd say 1) it's a good thing they have those avenues to take a shot at succeeding with their idea and 2) i'd love to hear from other users what they view as some of the other top blogs and incubators that can make or break a young startup at an early stage.

PS the first thing i thought when i read about this idea is that i'd love to find a local activity with my wife as we've just had our first child and need to drop some ice cream related pounds :)

Clive Thompson is easily the author who most regularly grabs my attention long enough to read an article start to finish and then actually email him to tell him how awesome the article was.

I thought this was a headline for The Onion

I'd love to know the details of this study and what percentage of men felt that way. Being there by my wife's side to comfort her and cutting the umbilical cord helped lead to forming the initial bond. I can't imagine how men could start out feeling like a more successful father by not being there for the birth.

I don't believe that geometric shapes and structures existed before Home Depot but you know how dodgy aliens are always messing with time portals to bring lumber back to the future.

Your suggestion reminds me of the example in the book Wisdom of the Crowds (or maybe it was Wikinomics or both)

"But managers did learn to type. And Goldcorp did use the internet to mine gold: in 2000, it abandoned the industry's tradition of secrecy, making thousands of pages of complex geological data available online, and offering $575,000 in prize money to those who could successfully identify where on the Red Lake property the undiscovered veins of gold might lie. Retired geologists, graduate students and military officers around the world chipped in. They recommended 110 targets, half of which Goldcorp hadn't previously identified. Four-fifths of them turned out to contain gold. Since then, the company's value has rocketed from $100m to $9bn, and disaster has been averted."(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/05/news.netric...)

TL;DR Hey BP take advantage of someone who needs some cash more than you do in order to find the solution

NYTimes graphic team, you never cease to amaze

I will take you up on the Reddit t-shirt offer

With that in mind, how do you feel about all of the people who rushed to send money to the NYU kids with the 'Facebook killer' in mind?

Thank you for this perspective. I was recently thinking about how hard we strive to become the best at what we do, and how hard it is to actually know if/when you have gotten there (let alone how long you will be there if you get there) and thus it is a horrible thing to hang our sense of significance and worth on. I don't know the specifics of how you define your sense of contentment, but it seems pretty clear that you do.

Here is a good post if you are looking to get started. There isn't really a 'best' program or a shortcut, just go with what you feel most comfortable with and start exploring datasets (census, BLS, data.gov, Guardian UK are all good sources) to get a feel for what is most intuitive.

I understand that images and visual representations are powerful, and impact more people in large part because they require less in terms of time/attention, so they have the power to mislead. But to label all infographics as a scourge and as automatically biased is quite a generalization. For that matter, how do they claim to be unbiased in the first place? Data and studies are spun towards researcher bias at times regardless of the end format. To disregard infographics or despise them versus black and white text and Excel tables doesn't make sense. It is a medium, and a powerful medium at that, but so is text, photography and videos, and they can all be used to objective ends or subjective ends, and none is ever pure and holy or automatically accurate (nor are Excel tables and the raw data used to inform the stylized infographics).

I knew Gordon Gecko had something to do with this.

Come one come all and play the crazy Hacker News Language Game!

I have had (like many people) quite a rollercoaster over the past few years, and after making more money than I needed, and then having the rug pulled out from under me, I remember telling my brother "I just can't wait to get back to an equilibrium" and once I got back to that point, I appreciated it so much more and came to understand that blowing any surplus income (or even worse, money we don't have) is the equivalent of flushing years of your life down the toilet. I love your perspective on money as a form of freedom and couldn't agree more.

I was expecting more neon green and marquee banners leading my ISP to transition to 56k dialup followed by my exploding laptop

I'm a 29 year old sucker for nostalgia.

I'm a big fan of the old school Hacker News http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=3...

Cool project i like it a lot...i always make 3 columns on a legal pad so this is perfect! Definitely would love to save the completed lists - for V2 it would be very cool to have them pulled up from a calendar format so you could see what you TODO list looked like at the end of each day

I would love to see the cumulative cost of this grand mission to California taxpayers.

Now that would be a fascinating study indeed! The correlation of misspelling and impulse shopping :)

I was hoping for some LARP photobombing :)

Wow and it is a music video for Air...double bonus! There is an incredibly cool map store in San Francisco, and as you would expect, the proprietor is very friendly. It is called Schein and Schein (http://www.scheinandschein.com/ the website doesn't do it justice) and they have some beautiful old maps and photobooks, with a large portion of the collection devoted to SF and California history.

Despite the downvotes you've received, I agree that you are the internet Ron

I just realized I have had the music on straight through for over an hour

I don't think they are all that mean. I mean, they stuck Billy Pilgrim in with Montana Wildhack, so they at least seem like they will help a brother get laid.

Froyo as in frozen yogurt right?

1) Get your discover card number as a tattoo (make sure to include your name as it appears on the card, expiration and 3 digit code from the back).

2) Submit photo to hacker news

It is back up

In the spirit of brevity: great article!