Kartik Agaram

"Bixo is an open source web mining toolkit that runs as a series of Cascading pipes on top of Hadoop." - Kartik Agaram

"You simply can’t dispute his ability to synthesize totally random cultural datapoints. However -- he’s reading the same wikipedia and Google Scholar articles we are, but has simply found a more effective persona for making “reading things” seem like peer-reviewed scholarship." - Kartik Agaram

"Every independent study I’ve seen suggests that pro sports and stadiums are a bad deal. Rather than seeing this as a direct economic investment like a factory, however, we should look at it as a marketing and branding expense. When cities pay hundreds of millions of dollars to team owners to put a franchise in their town, what they are really buying is naming rights to the team." - Kartik Agaram

"Faced with their own demise, fearful of losing even more advertising, newspapers have become ever more timid, more cautious, more in bed with the companies they cover. They should go back to doing what they started out doing -- muckraking, calling bullshit." - Kartik Agaram

"After just 5 tests I already felt close to that 95% certainty that required 1,500 coin flips." - Kartik Agaram

At school, 30 is a typical number for usability study b/c of the statistical assumption. In reality, human behaviors are more predictable than random. - Lu Liu

"I spend a lot of time looking at sales/pre-sell pages everyday because I’m interested in how people sell. What words/images they use and how they arrange everything to make a coherent pitch. I’ll bookmark whatever I find appealing and make a note of what I like about it." - Kartik Agaram

An interesting read. However, it is easier said than done to break "unconscious habit" or "don't stay within your niche." - Lu Liu

"it may be vitally important for an investor to insist on co-founders, but it's less important from the founder's point-of-view to immediately acquire co-founders." - Kartik Agaram

Great comments. - Kartik Agaram

gdb reverse debugging tutorial: http://www.sourceware.org/gdb... - msnyder

"Anything can be justified in terms of making things better for children if you frame it right. Lately I’ve begun to think that the word “simple” is the programmer’s version of “for the children”. We use it to justify all manner of decisions." - Kartik Agaram

"Who has 10 years without an income – or even 2! – to learn to make money?" - Kartik Agaram

"Thanks, looking at all the answers here I think I need to steer clear of managed companies. That explains all the discrepancies in my experience. Unfortunately it's hard to find a cheap studio from a private landlord. So that leaves only finding roommates. Except I live with my girlfriend. After convincing her it was important to downsize I hate to put her through another level of inconvenience." - Kartik Agaram

"The investment means YC will now advise more companies in every batch, so it will have to spread itself thinner when it comes to advice and introductions." - Kartik Agaram

"Emacs's modeline is more powerful than Vim's. But who cares if you can't even read it to edit it?" - Kartik Agaram

We have a winner for Schneier's second threat contest: http://www.schneier.com/blog... - Kartik Agaram

"It's more nuanced than just release early vs late. I've noticed a lot of startups that release early because "well, that's what you're supposed to do," but then when feedback comes in they're ill-equipped to deal with it. Release early when you can release often, but not earlier. Often this requires some meta-thinking about the space your app is in, the alternatives you may need to switch to, and how easily you can turn on a dime. Good design, in other words. Another thing you can benefit from is good infrastructure and processes for listening to users. As an extreme but perhaps strawman example, in some consumer-web spaces there's little point in releasing an app without being able to A/B test. Build that capability in before you launch. "Release early, release often" is more a psychological dictum, I think. Don't build up the launch. Don't set a deadline, round up the press, create an embargo, and work unsustainably late hours to meet the deadline. That way you'll just have a..." - Kartik Agaram

"Look at meaning #7 in the hacker dictionary Hacker: One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.(http://www.ccil.org/jargon...) I think a creative way to kill two very different birds -- the status of women, and the state of hygiene -- qualifies." - Kartik Agaram