raffi

27 ms·

211.
by raffi 17y ago
I once heard one of the participants from the first season of the Apprentice speak. One of the assignments her team was given was to take a business taxiing people about via bicycle and make it as profitable as possible. Most the teams deci
212.
by raffi 17y ago
You can talk anonymously to the authorities. They may not be able to do much but at least they can keep an eye on the guy. There is an organization called the Office of Special Investigations. They handle this kind of stuff. Letting them kn
213.
by raffi 17y ago
Wow. Just wow. I don't know what agency/department you're dealing with and I'm making an assumption that you're in the US. Try searching for "fraud, waste, and abuse" and your agency's name in Google. If you're dealing with the DoD, try the
214.
by raffi 17y ago
Sure, since it's a software service thing the phone would need to talk to the service. I don't know if full-blown AtD would be necessary for this kind of feature but with the existing language model it'd be pretty trivial to add a call to
215.
by raffi 17y ago
Thanks. This answer is correct and I don't think I need to add much more to it.
216.
After the Deadline now Open Source(blog.afterthedeadline.com)
66 points by raffi 17y ago|8 comments
217.
by raffi 17y ago
I'd say yes, they are. Learning a language is tough and there are many wacky rules and exceptions to learn. Many things (irregular verbs and their different forms) can only be learned through memorization. The current methods for detectin
218.
by raffi 17y ago
Make a list before starting. Break it down into small tasks. Or at the very least break the overwhelming task down into smaller milestones, set deadlines for those, plan the living daylights out of the first milestone, get started, and re
219.
by raffi 17y ago
I think the right person who sees this ad will jump on it. I like the fact this company is doing something systems oriented and not just another web app. Pretty cool to see Scott's startup and this out there. Good job YC. It looks like
220.
by raffi 17y ago
+1 to being angry all the time. I wasn't angry per se but I was certainly edgy. I loved my product but when I was on my first startup I really hated myself for giving up the potential to advance in my career and I desperately feared going
221.
by raffi 17y ago
I can always tell the smartest guy in the room types, my solution? I talk about my visual basic projects and what a great language it is. It's a great game to play.
222.
by raffi 17y ago
You're good to go. The neat thing about this community is strikes a good balance between give and take. My startup journey is well documented on this site. At different times I did my announcements and requests for feedback (take) but I
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by raffi 17y ago
Thanks, to better inform my judgment, any topics in particular you'd like to know about? I'm always looking for blog topics and I'll probably approach some local groups in DC to see if anyone is looking for a speaker.
224.
by raffi 17y ago
Me too. I'm so busy with my head down in the code that I forget about these things. I wrote Sleep several years ago and am not as active on it because it's stable for my needs.
225.
by raffi 17y ago
I started to read the article and it sounded like a very short version of the book. I read the book (on a recommendation from HN) and took a lot from it. In particular I found the dynamic between the programmer who made the technology and
226.
by raffi 17y ago
I read some of the comments and others have probably said what I'm going to say. I wanted to startup too but due to other obligations ( cough military service cough ), I couldn't do it until I was... get this... 27. So I know how you fee
227.
by raffi 17y ago
Yes, the front-end stuff is already available under an open source license. Something about AtD that amazes me is there isn't a lot of code. The data and the rules do most of the work. (although there is a lot of stuff to manage the trai
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by raffi 17y ago
It's a software as a service so it isn't tied to a particular editor/web site. I chose to support TinyMCE as the first editor because of its excellent plugin API and use in popular applications. I chose WordPress as a first application bec
229.
by raffi 17y ago
Hi Yan, Yes, we're planning to open source the backend. I will also try to post snippets of AtD functionality into blog posts as this will be easier to digest. As a researcher I think the ideas probably have more value than the code.
230.
by raffi 17y ago
One of the things we're doing is downloading heaps of blog data, processing them, and looking for the misspelled words that occur the most, and adding them to the dictionary. Trying to keep up on some of these Web 2.0 names/terms. A tool l
231.
by raffi 17y ago
That would be me. Thank you very much :) My last day in the (active duty) Air Force was spent at NECCDC 08 and it was great to work with you guys for the 09 competition. Hopefully Daryl invites me back for 10.
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by raffi 17y ago
I expect consciousness to emerge from my AI-based spellchecker startup. Do I get a free pass?
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by raffi 17y ago
I address this on the FBA FAQ, question 10: http://www.feedbackarmy.com/questions.slp In short, here is the value add of Feedback Army: - it's easier to get started with and use - results are available as an RSS feed - FBA worker form no
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by raffi 17y ago
Feedback Army was actually inspired by an HN post a long time ago. I wrote (and submitted) some history on it, here: http://killall.dashnine.org/2009/06/how-to-find-new-startup-... That said, I'm an HN user too. If anyone has any questi
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by raffi 17y ago
Here are some ideas: 1) Make phone calls to the competition, pretend to be a customer, listen to their sales pitch, and see if there is anything your company can gain from the experience. 2) Have the geeks setup a CMS and designate yourself
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by raffi 17y ago
Check out: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=hacker+wargames http://www.nationalccdc.org/ http://isis.poly.edu/csaw/ Or my own work on the subject: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA481288&Locati...
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by raffi 17y ago
I can relate to what the author is saying here. Often I described my writing software as something that lived inside of me that was demanding to get out. I had little idea whether I could successfully commercialize it or not. The challeng
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by raffi 17y ago
There are so many great threads here that I don't know where to dump this comment. The original article inspired me to phone up the organizer of my reunion and promptly drive to meet her to deliver the check.
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by raffi 17y ago
As an advertiser I'll vouch that the service works smoothly. There were a few quirks uploading my banner ad. Overall the CTR of the ad is pretty dismal but I'll probably try and run it against other types of sites and see what happens. If
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by raffi 17y ago
His Masters thesis from MIT is quite interesting as well. He was working on analog computers at the time and came up with ways to use electromechanical arrays to solve Boolean algebra problems--inventing the digital circuit as we know it.

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