FlailFast

I think he tends to follow them pretty well, but the trouble with Dan Brown isn't his technical writing; he breaks this unwritten rule: "don't make your story arc the same in every single book you publish."

I loved the first Dan Brown novel I read. I moderately enjoyed the second. Within 50 pages of the third, I knew exactly how the rest of the story would pan out and who was the hidden antagonist. Once you know the formula, the magic is gone.

Still, seems like a case of "necessary but not sufficient." (Although given some truly awful writing that becomes "bestseller" material, perhaps not)

And I like the focus on the "product" side of writing---we read so many articles on promotion/marketing here (though generally on the startup side of things) that we often lose sight of the power of good copy.

Not to say I disagree, I just found the post refreshing, even if only in a "hello world/writing" way.

These are great heuristics, but having spent an awful lot of time writing, I find that---on occasion---there's reason to violate them. But I suppose every great rule is defined by its exceptions.

As an aside, glad to see this focus on the technical aspects of language and not some growth-hackery marketing spiel.

Agreed. I've always gotten a distinctly "I'm just a simple caveman lawyer" vibe from him, and this response only exacerbates it.*

* Great SNL character, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfrozen_Caveman_Lawyer

Well, it's been a while since my Internet video days, but hell, I love 3d parallax effects. When are we shooting?

Now I want a subscription to the Keplerian Journal of Science.

Agreed -- seems like an amalgam. Another possible debate: who is Uhlrich based on? Proto-Sean Parker?

I think so -- in some of the show's scenes, you actually feel like you're watching reality...which makes it a good deal funnier to me. Then again, I am a bit of an SV cynic myself, so YMMV.

Something tells me this won't be very "3008."

Agreed. His entire argument boils down to "Money has never worked like bitcoin, so it can't possibly work." It's an absurd line of logic to use as a critique. It's like the RIM guys claiming no one would like iPhones because they don't have physical keyboards, and smartphones "have always had physical keyboards."

You monster.

Try it on NYTimes or Wapo. Makes the news a lot more interesting/potentially NSFW.

Andy was the man at Stanford...and I'm guessing this is his attempt to prove that he doesn't need the "Stanford brand" to work his career advising magic. Will be interesting to see if other schools follow Wake's lead here and adopt a more b-schooly approach to career services (for better or for worse).

Was anyone else really happy to see the images seem to be predominantly SVGs? Open-standards-based vector graphics make me super happy.

Another couple of potential resources: http://www.weusecoins.com/ and http://trybtc.com/ . Khan Academy also did a series of videos if you want more of a deep dive -- approachable to anyone with a tech background and really answered a lot of questions about the protocol for me: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-fi...

This makes me want to start a JavaScript framework called "Groupthink." It'll basically be Golang syntax that somehow magically compiles to JS. (Full disclosure: I actually kinda like Go)

I think we can all agree this is a problem in the startup world. But in doing so, we'd all be suffering from Groupthink.

Oh hells yes. I've been waiting for something like this to make http://www.bitbanter.com/ more interesting. Not sure how I'll handle non-Coinbase microtransactions...but still, this is really, really cool. Thanks Coinbasers!

Love it! You guys keep getting awesome-er. If I may make one humble request...would love to see a lower transaction limit (<0.01BTC) in the API. My personal project (and I) would be forever grateful.

OP and Chief Bitbanterer here. For more background on the site, click on 'pi' in the header (I hope it's a mildly entertaining read). Some other details below:

1) Built with Meteor (using Coinbase API for bitcoin transfers). Loved it, especially as a noobish web developer, but not without its challenges. Some examples: no server-side URL routing/static page model in the official packages, had some trouble with HTTP calls/callbacks, and I sincerely hope no one ever sees the horrible mess that is my home-spun single-application Twitter OAuth implementation. Most of these issues will probably resolve themselves as Meteor/I grow.

2) The lofty goal behind Bitbanter: reduce barriers between (potentially anonymous) satirists and consumers while forgoing the traditional data collection/ad model. Besides the data a user voluntarily submits, zero data collection goes on (even bitcoin amounts come straight from the blockchain). I'm not 100% opposed to Big Data, but to me there's a strong philosophical argument for unbundling content from advertising and trying something "pure."

3) The less lofty goal behind Bitbanter: I love making people laugh, and wanted a place to showcase and scale my satire. But blogs are boring, so I made this instead.

4) Yes, I'm aware that at scale there are some huge problems with the way articles are promoted (e.g. spam, someone with big pockets could push an article to the top and my whole anti-bundling-ads argument goes to shit). Still thinking through those issues, but figured they wouldn't matter as long as the site was tiny.

5) I know bitcoin elicits mixed feelings, but man, it's cool. Without bitcoin, it would have been much, much more difficult (I think impossible, but I have a small mind) to build a platform where people can post things anonymously and get value from others seamlessly (another example: reddit's bitcoin tipper bot). Even if this f(l)ails, I'm pretty excited about bitcoin's future. If nothing else, I hope my experiment gets the HN gears turning. There are more nascent bitcoin ideas on Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy...and I'd love to see them.

Ideally, I'd pull a "Shawshank Redemption" and get Morgan Freeman.

Please ghostwrite my next novel. That summary is way superior to anything I've ever done.

If it helps, I would definitely patronize your bar sir.

Really happy to hear it! I would, although so much of it is fiction that I doubt either would accept it. Perhaps some other publication would be better suited, although through this posting I managed to get my work out to the group that most appreciates it -- as I always say, "S3 buckets > buckets of unsold magazines." Why I say things in terms of inequalities -- and why I believe magazines are stored in buckets -- are probably subjects for another post.

Thanks! That was one of my favorites to write too. As you probably gathered if you got that far -- and I'm happy to hear that you did! -- I have a predilection for hyperbole.

I'll admit: at times I go off the deep end, if only for literary flourish. But I hope those moments are at least entertaining, if not thoughtful (though my aim potentially f(l)ailed in that regard).