News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

rjanoch

Indie.vc has a list of large bootstrapped companies at the bottom of their FAQ. Some like ESRI are unicorns and have a near monopoly but have been around for 40 years http://www.indie.vc/faq
I believe there is an opportunity for innovative private companies in the "conservative" environmental, construction, etc sectors to have a similar approach where 1 large enterprise works with tech company to solve X and then other enterprises pay back the first co. Almost like corporate investment but product specific and tech co gets 1st big co reference customer, revenue and future customers. Coca Cola thru CC Founders is one similar model without the future customers paying them back.

Apple's Project Magnolia

What is Apple's project Magnolia? http://www.mapistry.com/hubfs/apple_project_magnolia_record.pdf Looks like it some sort of facility for thin-film fabrication. Thin-film batteries? Maybe due to their acquisition of Infinity Power Solutions - http://www.luxresearchinc.com/news-and-events/press-releases/read/apples-printed-battery-acquisition-likely-disappoint

( Read More... | 1 comment | on HN )
Re:Plastic pollution from fabrics and other consumer products on Monday November 30, 2015 @05:39PM (#10652428)
Another area of concern with plastics and water is with microbeads and pre-production plastics. http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/mar/27/microbead...

As part of health care products or just raw (pre-production) they get introduced into our wastewater and stormwater systems.

Re:You Don't Have What It Takes to Be a Founder on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @02:52PM (#10260764)
As PG wrote - persistence is key (http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html). Resources (runway, personal savings) can let you outlast the competition or exist long enough to let the industry you are changing/creating catch up to your innovation.
Re:Is This the End for South Asia Shipbreakers? on Sunday August 02, 2015 @05:05PM (#9992480)
A company in the SF Bay Area tried to start a ship breaking on Mare Island, but couldn't make it work. Many ships are taken to Brownsville Texas for ship breaking, including the ghost ships (old navy ones) in Suisun bay.
Re:Nobel Prize for the brain's GPS discovery on Monday October 06, 2014 @11:29AM (#8416373)
Re:Ask HN: Hackers who cook on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @07:06PM (#8358873)
1. I love to cook for fun. 2. I like the creative side of cooking, so no planning ahead. We get a vegetable CSA box which makes things interesting and a challenge each week to cook with new veggies. 3. I slow cook meats a lot and use a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, and onions in dishes. 4. No diets. Unprocessed food as much as possible 5. Many have mentioned it, but be organized, get a good knife, and find a good pot/pan. Have a few basic tools and just create - I have cooked on stones on backpacking trips and made my own spoon once out of a tree branch, but a good sharp knife is tough to find.
I had a very similar experience. I love the cleaning lady I found through a more traditional route: word of mouth. But when I heard about Homejoy I had to give it a try, it is a little cheaper. But the cleaner they sent did a significantly worse job than my regular cleaner. Cleaning isn't something that everyone knows how to do, in fact most people don't really know how to clean. Without training, I don't see how Homejoy can offer any guarantee of quality, which is why I won't be using them in the future. Booking online is nice, but if the quality isn't there, it isn't worth it. I do pay my cleaner significantly more than $10/hour, but I feel fine about it. Since I have met her and see her pretty regularly, I would feel guilty if I felt like I wasn't paying her enough to live off of, and $10/hour in the Bay Area isn't enough to live off of. It might not be as convenient as online booking, but all the money goes directly to her, and I feel good about that.
Re:New Requests for Startups on Friday September 12, 2014 @02:31PM (#8309582)
Yes at the surface. However, I think there are opportunities in enterprises at the lower levels or through guerrilla style tactics (e.g. Yammer). Through a combination of free and price points that allow individual or middle management authorization there are opportunities.
Re:Geospatial Search Engine for Library of Congress on Thursday September 04, 2014 @02:57PM (#8270009)
They have done work in the past for National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/04/google-earth-bu...

Geospatial Search Engine for Library of Congress

Library of Congress has a solicitation request out for a geospatial search engine that will crawl books, images, etc and extract geographic info even if it is not apparent. This appears to be setup for Google and is the link between their search engine, Google Books, and Google Maps. ESRI (ArcGIS) would love to have the contract, but it looks like Google is better positioned. Original...

( Read More... | 2 comments | 6 points | on HN )
Re:Applications for YC W15 are open on Monday August 25, 2014 @03:49PM (#8223779)
Very true. However, having a woman in a lead technical role to provide mentorship and inspiration to female developers is very important for encouraging more women to become developers and stay in the industry.
Re:Applications for YC W15 are open on Monday August 25, 2014 @03:30PM (#8223639)
Many female founders appear to be in non-technical roles. Need more women in STEM fields moving into entrepreneurship roles as the technical lead.
Re:Applications for YC W15 are open on Monday August 25, 2014 @03:28PM (#8223627)
I agree it would be difficult. They could make assumptions based on founders' degree, but difficult to tell as some technical people don't have a degree in EE or CS. Also, people with a EE/CS degree are not necessarily filling a technical role.
Re:Applications for YC W15 are open on Monday August 25, 2014 @02:17PM (#8223129)
New app asks for founder's gender. Should have much better data with this class on the number of female founders and percentage of total. Also should have better data on number of technical female founders.