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How would I get started?

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Re: How would I get started?

#51

Post by chad_oliver »

irahul wrote: post #43
nhebb wrote: post #13

I didn't take part in the previous thread, but I kind of took umbrage with the question. It's really hard to take a question like that seriously when it appears that the OP has put zero effort into researching the subject. How can you not be pessimistic about that? If you're not the kind of person that can do even the most basic research of how cable companies operate, then I don't have one iota of confidence that yo…

> If you're not the kind of person that can do even the most basic research of how cable companies operate "Ask HN" doesn't qualify as most basic research?

No, it doesn't, because it's asking other people to do your research for you. Asking questions without first trying to learn as much as your can yourself is a minor faux pas on the internet (witness all the 'let me google that for you' replies to elementary questions). Of course, this doesn't mean that asking questions is bad (not at all), but it means that there is generally a social contract at work. It's something along the lines of "I'll answer your question because I assume my effort won't be wasted."

Re: How would I get started?

#53

Post by smoyer »

I missed that question and would be happy to help with the technical aspects of starting a cable company (though I'd like to see content delivery decoupled from the infrastructure). I have 25 years of experience in the industry if he gets that far.

The hard part of the process (and I believe the limiting factor in a new company's success), is arranging the contracts with the content syndicators. Find my e-mail in my profile if you're serious.

Re: How would I get started?

#54

Post by jcfrei »

nhebb wrote: post #13

I didn't take part in the previous thread, but I kind of took umbrage with the question. It's really hard to take a question like that seriously when it appears that the OP has put zero effort into researching the subject. How can you not be pessimistic about that? If you're not the kind of person that can do even the most basic research of how cable companies operate, then I don't have one iota of confidence that yo…

thanks you've put that rather nicely. there is no bonafide way to start a cable company. nobody could tell you how to do that, not even their executives. the cable providers operate in a market that heavily favours monopolies (because the entry barriers are so ridiculously high). OP failed to realize this and that's just a very bad precedent for any further discussions.

Re: How would I get started?

#55

Post by apl »

daniel-levin wrote: post #42
waterlesscloud wrote: post #39

And of course this thread fills up with more of the same negativism trying to justify itself. PG nailed it with the term "middlebrow dismissal". Which is a politer term than what I think when I come across it. I never think to myself "Wow, what a realistic, practical, well-informed comment that generic negative feedback was. My respect for that commenter has certainly increased!" Particularly when it's the 500th exam…

Speaking of ambitious ideas and 'middlebrow dismissal', I'd like to see the algorithmic dismissal detector that PG wrote about. I'm sure the denizens of HN know a thing or two about computational linguistics. Is this sort of thing (algorithmic detection of middlebrow dismissals) possible?

  > Is this sort of thing (algorithmic detection of
  > middlebrow dismissals) possible?
I'll give you a middlebrow dismissal: No. Definitely not at the current state of the art. In fact, not many people agree on whether a given comment qualifies as a "middlebrow" dismissal; personally, I consider many of the examples that pg has labeled as such pertinent points.

If in doubt, I prefer a good middlebrow dismissal to the shallow cheering of the overly excitable.

Re: How would I get started?

#56

Post by JshWright »

jere wrote: post #7
spindritf wrote: post #6

> And yet Hacker News folk must be drawn at least somewhat by Paul Graham, who applauds frighteningly ambitious startup ideas. It wasn't a frighteningly ambitious start-up. It was the same old idea, done hundreds of times across multiple countries, with a minor adjustment in its pricing structure.

I believe the author is referring to Y Combinator and the startups it funds, rather than Viaweb. Though I'm sure you could argue many of those are rather unambitious ideas also.

I believe the OP was referring to the cable company idea that started this whole discussion.

Re: How would I get started?

#57

Post by SoftwarePatent »

jasonkolb wrote: post #32

I upvoted this so hard. I agree there is a very large snarky dick contingent on HN who pollute potentially productive conversations with "What a stupid idea" type of comments. (Unfortunately I think this is a symptom of the human race, not just HN.) However, there are some exceptionally bright people who hang out here who I would love to just brainstorm with--throw ideas out and see what happens. This site has an abo…

> I would love to see or find a group of people who are just interested in getting together and banging heads together and see what comes out.

Great idea! Something similar has actually happened, not with the HN community, but just a handpicked group of highly intelligent people put into a room together with the mission of coming up with innovative new ideas. It is described in this article.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_...

Re: How would I get started?

#58

Post by daniel-levin »

apl wrote: post #55
daniel-levin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of ambitious ideas and 'middlebrow dismissal', I'd like to see the algorithmic dismissal detector that PG wrote about. I'm sure the denizens of HN know a thing or two about computational linguistics. Is this sort of thing (algorithmic detection of middlebrow dismissals) possible?

> Is this sort of thing (algorithmic detection of > middlebrow dismissals) possible? I'll give you a middlebrow dismissal: No. Definitely not at the current state of the art. In fact, not many people agree on whether a given comment qualifies as a "middlebrow" dismissal; personally, I consider many of the examples that pg has labeled as such pertinent points. If in doubt, I prefer a good middlebrow dismissal to the s…

What is 'the current state of the art'? Note that I am a total dilettante in the area of machine learning/NLP.

And why couldn't the top k HN users (patio11 et al) be given the option to classify comments {dismissive; troll; shallow-cheering; ...;} and this human classification could be the training set of a supervised learning system that could use NLP algorithms to derive useful metrics. Simplistic example: dismissive word ('sucks'; 'never work', 'impossible') density correlating to something that has been flagged as dismissive. Or is this an impossibility? Again, I do not have the hands on knowledge to be able to call this one.

Re: How would I get started?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #39

And of course this thread fills up with more of the same negativism trying to justify itself. PG nailed it with the term "middlebrow dismissal". Which is a politer term than what I think when I come across it. I never think to myself "Wow, what a realistic, practical, well-informed comment that generic negative feedback was. My respect for that commenter has certainly increased!" Particularly when it's the 500th exam…

[deleted]

Re: How would I get started?

#60

Post by benevpayor »

bartonfink wrote: post #50
irahul wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're not the kind of person that can do even the most basic research of how cable companies operate "Ask HN" doesn't qualify as most basic research?

In my opinion, no. In this day and age, there are far better ways of obtaining preliminary knowledge on a subject besides asking another person to fill you in. There's obviously Google and Wikipedia as starting points, and there are any number of paths those might lead to which would help you form a specific ? - e.g. "what would you have to do to make true a la carte channel options from a cable provider profitable?"…

I don't see this as a shortcut for preliminary research. I saw it as an attempt to generate discussion about disrupting a sector with high barriers to entry.
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