Hacker News Reader

moogon Ask YC: Give Us Your Best Elevator Pitch

Good luck with it. That would be a Google killer.

moogon Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says.

Humans! Fascinating!

moogon Startup School videos on Omnisio, synchronized with slides and questions

Your site is one of a few that I've added to my bookmarks on the first visit.

moogon Lessons of Y Combinator: Things I’d do differently after 2 startups

Yes, it's a critical ingredient for life in general.

moogon Ask YC: What are you working on right now?

Cooking dinner.

moogon 40 percent of college students say their next computer purchase will be a Mac

Well, make sure all your code, docs and media are portable. So, remind me, what exactly is the problem?

moogon 40 percent of college students say their next computer purchase will be a Mac

This figure doesn't surprise me. Every day I see signs to suggest Apple will soon be leaving Microsoft in the dust. Yesterday, a professional acquaintance suddenly announced he was buying an iMac. If you knew this guy, who has praised PCs and MS for years, you would know how big a deal this is. I was almost speechless. Time to go long on Apple, Inc.

moogon Mandelbrot set discovered in 13th century by Benedictine monk

Yes. What are the odds that this guy also wrote the theme from the Old Spice surfing ad?

moogon Would this community prefer to be under the radar?

I don't think a site like this can remain occult forever. When you consider the name is 'Hacker News' it's surprising it hasn't been swamped already with spam and adolescent comments. Perhaps a high quality community forum like this has a limited life span. It's a depressing thought, but I know if anyone can fix it, then pg can!

moogon Ask: What interfaces inspire you?

Zippo lighter

moogon Why Exxon Mobil won't produce more [oil]

They'd rather sell for $200/barrel. Their plan to hold volume production flat is a good a reason as any to break up the company for the benefit of consumers. I wouldn't let them near 'green' energy development either as their interests aren't served by viable alternatives to oil.

moogon Some startup inspiration: Homes of the world’s billionaires

No mention of this guy? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6712605.stm

moogon An Ingenious Video Game That Looks Like It Was Designed by a Third-Grader

There's also a version for the jail broken iPhone. There's a nice level where the objects on the screen will slip and slide around as you twist and turn the iPhone.

moogon Black Swans - unexpected movements in financial markets.

Listen to this talk he gave at the Long Now: http://s3.amazonaws.com/salt-recordings/salt-020080208-taleb...

moogon JPMorgan buys Bear Stearns for $2/sh, ~$236mm total

But this problem is bigger than Bear, isn't it? So former Bear clients may now be happier trading with JPM, but what about all the other banks that are about to go to the wall?

moogon JPMorgan buys Bear Stearns for $2/sh, ~$236mm total

Looks like all those pundits predicting a 'slow-down' or 'mild recession' for the next couple of years were being wildly optimistic.

moogon Apple to iPhone devs: Keep on developing for Jailbroken iPhones guys!

Apple are overwhelmed by the positive response to the SDK. Wasn't it 100k downloads in the first 24 hours? All this talk saying third-party devs will be locked out is nonsense. Steve Jobs wants to sell all the apps you can code through the iTunes App Store. He takes 30%, remember.

moogon Best Books For a Startup?

google: books site:http://news.ycombinator.com

moogon Ask YC: what is your favorite startup related quote?

'Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!' - Andrew Carnegie

moogon Ask YC: Have you, or anyone you know, won the lotto?

Yes, the odds of winning are known for a sample set that is all lotto players in the population. This http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=137729 got me wondering if readers of HN would know more or less winners than one would expect.

moogon Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas

Added to my reading list. I'll try to track down the 1989 BBC radio version.

moogon Ideas are not worthless

Ok, here's my crazy idea:

If you have a great idea, you post it to, let's say, 'mycrazyideahaslegs.com' and you pay the site a dollar amount reflecting your belief in the idea. If you really believe in it, you pay $1000. So, what's the point in that? Well, you then get to read all the other $1000 ideas, and those users can read yours. True, your great idea is now shared, but only amongst a small group of people. You all get the chance to execute on it.

moogon Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas

I think I'd like to be a neo-farmer in 2008. With a little land, a few solar panels and access to clean water I'm sure most of us here could make a go of it. Multi-purpose robots are coming soon - they'll be able to help out when the harvest arrives.

moogon Google Sky launches

When you pull the zoom all the way back you can see the Milky Way as a sine curve.

moogon EU taxpayers to fund $306m Google rival. No wonder the Yanks think we’re dumb.

Innovation rarely comes from large companies - especially European ones. Big companies know this and don't care anyway... they can depend on ill-informed politicians and a general public who think Bill Gates is a really cool guy ('he invented the moderen world, don't ya know') to throw money at them.

moogon [dead]

I might email Mike Arrington to see if he wants to contribute some time to flagging the spam.

moogon Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?

The Feynman Lectures on Physics

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

A Latin/English dictionary for new company names

moogon Ask YC: What have you learned that rocked your world?

Differential equations. That the world could be described by calculus was a revelation to me.