bfe

28 ms·

241.
by bfe 15y ago
A few like Wakemate and Octopart come to mind where they seem to serve small markets now, but it's easy to see how they could branch out into huge adjacent market space - not necessarily as obliquely as Microsoft starting from Altair Basic,
242.
by bfe 15y ago
I saw Elon give a talk about colonizing Mars at a Mars Society conference at Stanford 10 years ago, before he founded SpaceX. He's thinking long-term.
243.
by bfe 15y ago
This is certainly part of it. The powered landing will give them precision control to touch down right on the launchpad instead of having to pick up the assets at sea, saving lots of time and money. But it also allows for a module to land
244.
by bfe 15y ago
The "Uprising" lyrics are an inspired poke at the traditional space industry: "endless red tape to keep the truth confined... it's time the fat cats had a heart attack, you know that their time's coming to an end..."
245.
by bfe 15y ago
That's a good observation. Facebook is becoming like TV in that lots of people spend a ton of time with it even though almost all of its content is trivial, while really productive people tend to spend relatively little if any time with it.
246.
by bfe 15y ago
I know a few people who know more than me about astro engineering who approve of these jumbo SRBs... but I still just don't buy that they're a good idea for human-rated launch systems. U.S. astronauts who are used to flying on the Space Shu
247.
by bfe 15y ago
Imagine trying to run a company that has 535 people on the board of directors, none of whom has equity in the company, but many of whom have de facto equity in your suppliers. Maybe NASA should be spun off.
248.
by bfe 15y ago
It's still much cheaper and easier in the long run to build one launcher big enough to do a straight shot from Earth to Mars or other target. You have all the assembly done on Earth and put all the lift capability into a single hyperbolic t
249.
by bfe 15y ago
These discoveries are so tantalizing, yet so frustratingly data-poor. We know now that the galaxy around us is teeming with planets, with untold new configurations and environments we can't imagine waiting to be discovered. We need bigger t
250.
by bfe 15y ago
Just to add, there are a million different possible situations, and "almost always" is a big exaggeration here, and I don't know anything about the particular case in the post. But the point remains; there is often virtue in simplicity.
251.
by bfe 15y ago
One of my intellectual property law professors, with fifty years experience in just about every kind of I.P. licensing scenario possible, all over the world, recommended it's almost always best in an I.P. license to ask for a flat fee first
252.
by bfe 15y ago
This seems like a realization of pg's old Artix project, which is good to see.
253.
by bfe 15y ago
Voltron, Defender of the Universe, is not a Transformers character.
254.
by bfe 15y ago
In many cases it's more like a willingness to pick up and leave your discomfort zone. And there are other ways of doing that besides emigrating between nations, like leaving home for college in a different time zone at 16 years old and desp
255.
by bfe 15y ago
I was an astronomer first.
256.
by bfe 15y ago
Not particularly exciting in the sense of being compared with Hollywood special effects. But I'm excited to look at it through my telescope and know that thing I'm looking at is a star exploding in a distant galaxy . And photons from tha
257.
by bfe 15y ago
Keep in mind, he was an attorney first. Attorneys founding or investing in startups aren't that bad a sign.[1] 1. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel
258.
by bfe 15y ago
This might usefully and reasonably be expanded to cover an individual or a non-profit of any size including universities, as well as a small company, in parallel with the Patent Office's definition of a "small entity" for reduced fees.[1]
259.
by bfe 15y ago
Given the mention of Webvan and the sheer number of startups in their study, it would seem their sample group does include a significant cohort from the Bubble. Trying to derive generalized rules governing startup outcomes is tough when tho
260.
by bfe 15y ago
Somehow I doubt startup founders have been desperately waiting for a new government bureaucracy that will finally give them a way of finding out good locations to start a new company.
261.
by bfe 15y ago
This dovetails to some degree with recent studies showing female asset managers both are less risk-tolerant and provide better overall returns than male asset managers, on average.
262.
by bfe 15y ago
That was a "~" too far for HN. It's a 19.8 mile round trip, and gas was $3.71 yesterday in Vancouver, Washington, so making the trip in your 25 mpg vehicle would cost $2.94 in gas.
263.
by bfe 15y ago
With regard to licensing, this graphic is incomplete. It would be interesting to see a thorough version.
264.
by bfe 15y ago
I think it is kind of silly to move somewhere just for tax reasons. I've spent nearly my whole career so far in relatively higher tax jurisdictions, but it's typically way more than worth it for what you get with the location. And for exa
265.
by bfe 15y ago
Portland is one of my favorite American cities. But if you're freely choosing somewhere to relocate to, I would think Seattle would be a tough competitor. It's nearby, has a bigger tech community, and has Washington's zero state income ta
266.
by bfe 15y ago
Excellent. Any true hacker must understand every level of the development process, and that includes one's own mind, standing back and questioning the inner thought processes that one normally thinks of as the self.
267.
by bfe 15y ago
It is wrong. All patents are publicly available for anyone to research and use as potential prior art for an invalidity defense in patent litigation. The author confuses this with the separate matter of answering an infringement suit by u
268.
by bfe 15y ago
Or it's software that keeps writing more software, thereby modifying itself and sometimes its hardware.
269.
Appeals court upholds invalidity of Cybersource software patent(cafc.uscourts.gov)
2 points by bfe 15y ago|0 comments
270.
by bfe 15y ago
A name with a hint of the controversial or scandalous can be more memorable and therefore be helpful. Any emotional reaction in a potential customer, whether mirth or indignation, is a lot more valuable to a startup than obscurity.

More ›