jon_dahl

35 ms·

301.
by jon_dahl 16y ago
Absolutely. What's wrong with a business having a revenue model? Better this than advertising or a crippled free version.
302.
by jon_dahl 16y ago
These people liked IE, the worst browser ever?!? They reject standardization? Apparently you weren't doing web development back in the Netscape 4.7 days. :) IE 5.5 and 6 were actually big steps forward for web standards back in 2000-2001.
303.
by jon_dahl 16y ago
Not the OP, but: probably not. Ruby is big, but Python is pretty big too. In the latest class there is even PHP, .NET, and backend Javascript.
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by jon_dahl 16y ago
I don't think he was saying that one (religious or atheist) is more moral than the other. Just that when we geeks take a stand on a fundamental question, whether it's moral or philosophical/theological, we often do it with conviction.
305.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
This article rightly points out that we don't know much about VP8 first-hand. But we can infer a lot. First, VP6 is a pretty decent codec, widely available for comparison. Not as good as H.264, but better than Theora and (IMO) MPEG-4 ASP. E
306.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
Apple's aesthetics are important, no doubt. But equally important was its decision to standardize its computers on BSD and Intel. Before OS X, Apple was a niche product, and its niche didn't include most developers. After OS X, the dev co
307.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
x264 is a codec implementation, not a codec standard. The x264 source code is free, but what it produces isn't (at least in the US). Rumors are VP8 will be free on both counts. As for the patent issue, Google has no doubt done this during i
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
Apple's a big backer of H.264, and they're invested in the codec. Hopefully they'll support VP8 in Safari, but I wouldn't look for the iPhone to change to VP8.
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
No one will remove H.264 - it's a great codec with wide support. It's more likely that we'll be in a world with two good video codecs, not just one. VP8 will hopefully become the HTML5 video standard, and H.264 will remain in Flash (which w
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
I honestly don't know why people rave about the Aeron. I went to a store and sat in a few and wasn't impressed I hear that from people from time to time. I'm sure it's body-specific - the Aeron probably works really well for some people a
311.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
I've always wondered if Y Combinator is modeled after the English university system. As I understand it, at a school like Oxford, you: 1. Work independently on your research 2. Meet once a week or so with your tutor to discuss your progress
312.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
You're downvoted not because you're right or wrong, but because this is not a political discussion forum. (This whole post is borderline, but at least most people have stuck to talking about the Apple/Fox News issue, not which side is destr
313.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
re Zencoder: thanks for the mostly kind words. We've run a lot of numbers of a few hundred thousand files on representative websites, and we chose that pricing model because it was (1) pretty competitive relative to other options, and (2) i
314.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
Nope, it's a conference for individuals and companies to pitch their stuff to top bloggers. So bloggers get free stuff - books, physical products, etc. - and in exchange, they get the opportunity to present to the kinds of folks in a positi
315.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
Looks like less - $26M according to Crunchbase.[1] Far less than the capital it raised. Maybe you mean FriendFeed? [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/friendster
316.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
I like Ben's point that being lean isn't a goal in itself for a startup. Dominating a market and not running out of cash are the goals. Running lean often helps with these goals, especially early on, but if fattening up a bit helps you
317.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
One reason: parents need sleep too. Some parents will be better able to care for a child if they sleep through the night, and after about a year, many kids are ready to sleep through the night themselves. At around 1.25, we decided to see h
318.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
It is extremely helpful. I'd say hour-for-hour, my team is twice as productive working full-time on a startup than doing it on the side. We're more focused, more resourceful, and when we aren't working, our subconscious is spinning on this
319.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
How business savvy are you? As a single founder, you might be better off with a hybrid co-founder who can code and do business stuff too. Like sales - the ability to sell is probably the most important non-technical skill for a startup foun
320.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
Edit: this guy shouldn't be downvoted. He asked an honest question (what's the difference between Heroku and AWS) - unless I'm missing something, he isn't trolling. No need to vote him down.
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
They're very different things. EC2 is bare Linux; you install apache/passenger/REE/memcached/postgres/etc/etc/etc. If you want to scale past one server, you're on your own there. You take care of backups, security, system monitoring, etc. H
322.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
You see unprofessionalism. I see creativity. Fortunately, you moved from PHP to another good language - most of us in the Ruby world have a lot of appreciation for Python. You never hear good Ruby people badmouthing Python. Programming lang
323.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
I hate the macho startup cliche as much as you. 100 hour weeks don't help a startup - they hurt - and it's never a good idea to dig a hole deeper than you can get out of. But if you count your own time, which is worth AT LEAST $20/hour (if
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
If you're only willing to spend $1000 on a startup, and you count your own time (which you should), then you're going to have a rough time as an entrepreneur. Startups require risk and sacrifice. Maybe not bankrupt-your-family sacrifice, bu
325.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
I resonate with this article. More often than not, I find ads annoying and obnoxious, and give me a negative impression of the advertising company. Maybe my awareness of a brand is increased, but I end up going out of my way to avoid brands
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
This is a big deal. I'm not going to share my Gmail password with anyone (except my wife, maybe) - which was too bad, because Etacts is a really useful service. Now I'm able to sign up without giving them my password. Hopefully other mail p
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
The bigger problem, I think, is not being able to control costs. I'd rather pay $12/month for Github than $0.02 per commit, for fear that I'd have a really productive month and end up with a bill for $200.
328.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
LF: No emails from Jason were in any way involved in the making of this story. Nothing was spoken about, reprinted, or transmitted by me in any way. JC: Bad on me for sending this to Loren. I honestly didn't even read the whole thing...
329.
by jon_dahl 17y ago
And if down-voting should have a purpose ... then it should definitely be for filtering out people not in HN's demographic. That might be true for people who want to use HN to talk about politics or religion, but Jason is definitely in ou
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by jon_dahl 17y ago
I look at HN voting in the same way. If you upvote what you agree with and downvote what you don't, you end up with Reddit, where "lolz your mom" gets +12 and reasoned disagreement ends up -30. I actually end up upvoting a lot of <1 poi

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