sethjohn

8 ms·

31.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Very good point, but it seems more likely that poorly performing companies have a rather short (several years) lifetime.
32.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Crikey, 400:1 leverage!? I've never heard of such a thing before. Is there anywhere else where a regular guy can get this kind of leverage? (As to the term 'gambling', I think people are using the broad definition by which day-trading and o
33.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I believe this article is referencing the the metaphor and the hyperbole of "Exponential Growth!!!"...not a mathematical treatment of growth rates. That growth eventually slows is a very very simple point, but it's important to never forget
34.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I was interested in the suggest feature mostly because I didn't know how to spell "quotidian"! Otherwise, the differences are more about presentation than an actual difference in the technology. I guess I was really just impressed by the us
35.
by sethjohn 19y ago
It's not much of a distinction mathematically, but it's an important distinction in emphasis. Saying something is growing exponentially does imply that it will just keep on growing, at least for a long while. Saying growth is sigmoidal emph
36.
by sethjohn 19y ago
It updates the word list underneath the search bar with every letter typed...at full speed typing. Since typing speed pretty much defines the maximum data input speed, I think that qualifies as 'incredibly fast'.
37.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I just typed in 'quotidian' to both apps. (It came up this weekend.) Definr is very fast. It looks up words faster than I type so that the list of words at the bottom updates with each new letter. With IWS, I had to pause mid-word for a hal
38.
Yes, Google Is Trying To Take Over the World (with the Google Phone)(slate.com)
14 points by sethjohn 19y ago|0 comments
39.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I've been thinking a lot about the 10x rule recently. There was a post on YCnews a few weeks ago suggesting that the real success rate was much closr to 50%. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=74562 At a panel of Boston-area VCs I attend
40.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Peer-reviewed studies come to concrete conclusions such as "Ice volume in antarctica has decreased an estimated X% in the last X years." or "CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased X ppm in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa observatory." rath
41.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Both the National Academy of Sciences and the IPCC are essentially political organizations (in the sense that their purpose is to inform policy, I don't mean to suggest that they are partisan) and what they say should not be conflated with
42.
by sethjohn 19y ago
There are really a couple of separate issues here. First, it is important to distinguish between the general scientific agreement about past climate changes and the greater confusion about the probability of future climate changes. One of t
43.
by sethjohn 19y ago
It is not true that there is overwhelming scientific consensus about the probability of climate change. While I would agree that most scientists think that it is most likely that "global warming is real", there is a great deal of uncertaint
44.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I heard the founder of Active.com give a talk a few months ago. It turns out that their main source of revenue isn't the registration fees, it's the T-shirts that they sell to race participants! Unfortunately, that suggests Active.com could
45.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I wonder what a 50% failure rate says about the level of success among the remaining companies. Traditional conventional wisdom was that only 10% of startups suceeded, but they succeeded spectacularly (more than 10x return on investment). D
46.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I wouldn't count on it! ;) My sense is that apple is much more concerned with keeping the iPhones 100% trouble-free for the 99% of people who don't want to do anything more than make calls and check e-mail than with providing development fr
47.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Sure, but you wind up with the monetary policy that the president wants, not the monetary policy that you would get by democratic vote. (Though perhaps the analogy with the Fed is a little akward because monetary policy is something most po
48.
by sethjohn 19y ago
...and there are many places where they can get and discuss information about science. I'm sure many hackers are also interested in xbox360 and Ron Paul, but that doesn't mean they are good fodder for discussion as 'hacker news'. I understa
49.
by sethjohn 19y ago
It does seem like a "weighted" voting system defeats the purpose of having a voting system at all. What's the point of asking everyone to give their opinions if the only opinions that will matter are those that conform to the opinions of th
50.
by sethjohn 19y ago
This is unhelpful on a message board devoted to internet startups (not to mention mysoginistic and probably fake).
51.
Why Is Apple Being So Lame About iPhone Hacking?(slate.com)
7 points by sethjohn 19y ago|1 comments
52.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I've noticed the same thing about top-tier chemists. Grad schools tend to have a good mix of Ivy kids and others, but the most brilliant scientists always seem to come from some mid-level state university or a little liberal arts college. S
53.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Great article. The limit doesn't seem to be in the algorithm (as this article makes clear), it's the ability of a 1 through 5 star system to accurately reflect a person's feelings about a movie. While algorithms for predicting your upcoming
54.
by sethjohn 19y ago
I appreciate your sarcastic humor. Paul's essays on entrepeneurialism are incredible, but this one seemed really sophomoric to me. (e.g. about as intellectually complex as the other stoned conversations I could have had after watching Figh
55.
by sethjohn 19y ago
My problem was that I knew I wanted to search, and I knew that workarounds had been posted...but I couldn't figure out how to search through YCnews to find the searchers!
56.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Especially upon re-reading the article, it looks to me as though the reporter (no doubt trying to present 'both sides of the story') began a paragraph with "But the limits of Y Combinator's model remain unclear" and then shoehorned in Seth
57.
by sethjohn 19y ago
My sense is that the people in charge of Facebook are happy to take big risks with their company, and I don't see why they shouldn't. Whether the company sells now for $6 billion or tanks and sells for $600 million in a few years, they'll h
58.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Hmm, did the auction start before the TC article, or after?. Seems like an incredible steal right now at $7500 with such a positive TechCrunch writeup and all the associated buzz that is sure to follow. I wonder where the bidding will end.
59.
by sethjohn 19y ago
UG Ad broker. Advertisers list parameters, users make ads, track each viewing via YouTube, etc. to pay the creators. If advertisers really like the content, let them buy it whole.
60.
by sethjohn 19y ago
Just because they spent the whole time asking you about your idea doesn't neccessarily mean they were mostly interested in your idea...getting someone to talk about their prototype is probably a much better way to guage who they are and ho

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