Tom's Essay (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Tom's Essay (2008)

archive.nytimes.com

87 pointsneom12 comments

> So I learned that hard work and long hours does not guarantee success. Raw energy and great ideas spark the public interest better than attention to “quality.”

This defnly resonates for software as well.

> I learned that hard work and long hours does not guarantee success

Working smart is much more effective.

Two-hit wonder? Too bad.

"Days of Open Hand" was a top-shelf album for me — easily several more songs on there that should have been hits for Suzanne Vega.

There's very little that's "fair" in the music business.

I love Suzanne Vega. Her first, eponymous album is an all-time great, IMHO. It’s very fluky that Tom’s Diner and Luka were her two hits. She was both lucky and unlucky.

She's still playing and touring and if you get a chance to hear her, she's an absolute delight.

I don't know. It is a good album, but I don't know that any of the songs there are 'hits' in the sense that they would have wide popular appeal and be played on high rotation on radio stations. It just doesn't feel like that kind of album, with those kinds of songs.

I love Suzanne Vega's music and all her albums, but I do find Days of Open Hand a kind of very bleak record, and the 'Book of Dreams' single not particularly representative of the album. I kind of wonder if Vega was a little unhappy around tht time, but I have no idea.

And music tastes of the public change over time. The Top 40 every decade since 1970 sound very different. It's very generational, it's also very reactionary against previous generations.

I have always felt the MP3 format would have been better if they had used a really high entropy test track with a lot of distorted guitars and synth noises.

Suzanne Vega telling the history of her "Tom's Diner" song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99PhzEIWuA

Suzanne Vega - Luka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZt7J0iaUD0

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26hsZqwveA

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> There a few new remixes or interpolations every year. Some ask first, and some don’t. The last one to ask permission was the artist Pink, who I love

Is Pink's remix publicly available anywhere?

A long time ago when I was buying speakers for my home, and the shop said I could bring my own music to test them, I chose Solitude Standing and specifically Luka to do so. It's nice to read now that I was not the only one.

> I had heard some people used it to test their speakers — not just that song, but the whole album, because of the sonic quality.

This was great. Thanks for sharing it.

I have a friend that is a retired music exec. I shared it with him. It's likely he worked with her, at some point.

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