Hacker News Reader

PG-13on The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

You know what's wrong with what you wrote, which is why you edited without admitting to it like a coward.

You wrote some nonsense like "I have a gift for spotting subliminal messages", when it was totally obvious to everyone.

PG-13on Ask HN: "Startup Weekend" experiences?

It's a great way to kick off a wantrepreneurial career.

The last thing the world needs is more pundits. Pundits only add ephemeral commentary to the world instead of anything concrete and real. They don't materially participate in the construction of any lasting artifacts; instead, they passively observe other people's work and offer a neverending babbling brook of opinions, criticism, and witty turns of phrase. It's pathetic.

Take heed of this, Hacker News. Nothing annoys a real entrepreneur more than a wantrepreneur pundit.

PG-13on Scientists studying a 17-year-old girl with the body and behaviour of a baby

Is every story on here just something someone saw on Reddit?

PG-13on Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

Because this assumption is false.

PG-13on Posterous: The next "big" thing?

What's with the title? Nowhere is anybody suggesting Posterous is gonna be 'the next "big" thing'.

Also, I'm really impressed with the quality of Reuters video product.

PG-13on Ask HN: Anybody else quitting Facebook over privacy concerns?

I'd like to know the ages of the people "quitting" Facebook and how much you actually used it in the first place. Most of Hacker News is too old to actually use Facebook the way young people use it. You're just there so you can feel as though you're in tune with tech trends or whatever. You have never really used Facebook, which is why almost all the comments on here about Facebook are so bad. You sound like old people screaming at kids to get off the yard. If you were a real Facebook user (hundreds of photos documenting years of your life), you wouldn't be able to just quit like that over something like this. I seriously don't understand why anybody over 30 even bothers to write things about Facebook, something that isn't meant for them, and something they clearly don't understand.

Old wantrepreneurs on here are so bitter about Facebook's success. I remember someone giving career advice actually recommending Google over Facebook. You have to be completely out of touch to even think such a thing. Google is yesterday's news. They are a bloated company filled with talentless individuals, people who would kill for the chance to have the skills necessary to work for Facebook, but their brains just aren't good enough

If you're over 30, please stop posting your "opinion" on Facebook. Your opinion on Facebook is about as insightful as an 80-yr-old's opinion about the internet. Instead, you guys should be begging the real users of Facebook, i.e. people who actually understand social media, to explain these things to you so that one day, with significant effort and training, you might be able to understand it.

PG-13on South Park creators warned over Muhammad depiction

They already had an actual depiction of Mohammed several seasons ago. His full body and face were shown. He was a superhero. Nobody cared. If they depicted Mohammed now, nobody would come after them. The networks won't allow it now.

People seem to forget that a big part of the controversy surrounding the cartoons in Denmark wasn't just that Mohammed was portrayed, but that he was portrayed as a terrorist and performing lewd acts.

PG-13on Retroactive Continuity and ‘South Park’: It was Santa Claus not Muhammad

Way to spoil it. Whatever, Muhammed was already in an earlier episode with superpowers and everything.

PG-13on Donald Knuth making an Earthshaking Announcement June 30 in San Francisco

Yeah.... but like he said, RSA being in P does not imply that P=NP because RSA has not be shown (and isn't believed) to be NP-complete. If P=NP, then RSA would of course be in P.

PG-13on The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

LOL. There's a huge difference between a hedge fund manager and a management consultant. Perhaps the billionaire will never think he has enough, but the consultant will actually, in legitimate and reasonable terms, not have enough. They really don't make much money for the hours they put in. Factoring travel, they work as much as an investment banker and essentially earn what a banker would earn without his bonus.

PG-13on [dead]

Shout all you want. Nobody can hear you. You're banned!

PG-13on [dead]

Well the ones I checked posted really dumb things.

It's their fault if they can't figure why nobody ever replies to anything they write.

PG-13on Eric Leebow (freezecrowd): I am free enterprise

False.

He paid people to make the Coming Soon page. It is "Powered By Launching Soon (v1.3)".

PG-13on If Silicon Valley Moved to New York

This reads like yet another post demonstrating the NYC tech crowd's massive inferiority complex.

PG-13on JooJoo Tablet Is a Real Piece of DooDoo

Title should be: CrunchPad Table is a real piece of DooDoo :)

PG-13on 8 Steps Two CS majors Took to Becoming Powerful Speakers

Uh no. The BASES site is just down. It has nothing to do with HN.

PG-13on HP’s Slate Device

You're really showing them.

PG-13on Patrick McKenzie (patio11) interviewed for an hour on SEO & AdWords

That's not really true. You would be encouraged if you made 8K off a crappy product with no advertising. You would think that making money is easy and that you could do much better with a less crappy product. True or not, that's how I'd read that statement and feel about that situation (which is actually pretty similar to my actual situation).

PG-13on Thomas Friedman: Start-Ups, Not Bailouts

There was a painfully high occurrence of "high-I.Q. risk-takers" in this article.

PG-13on The best Present and Future alternatives to the iPad

No, that's my whole point. People who didn't get the iPhone don't understand technology, even though they may claim to. You have to look at their records to judge whether they actually get it or not. If it wasn't obvious to you that the iPhone would be great, then your opinion on the iPad or other technology really has no value.

PG-13on The best Present and Future alternatives to the iPad

The iPhone was huge because it was such a huge leap and unexpected departure from previous phones. It created awe and generated desire from the moment it was unveiled. It was obvious to those who get tech that the iPhone would be huge.

People who underestimated the iPhone are now overcompensating by being bullish on the iPad because they fail to understand that these are not the same thing. The unveiling of the iPad did not engender any of the feelings of awe that iPhone's did. Apple unveiled the worst tablet device they possibly could have. It was completely predictable. Every usage we've seen of the iPad has involved someone contorting his body to accommodate the device.

The iPhone offered a users things they didn't think were possible with a phone, and these were things they clearly wanted. The iPad offers users nothing they can't do using a laptop. It is an attempt at forcing a style of usage onto users that is clearly undesirable.

People will try to hype this thing and pretend they like it for as long as possible, but one can only sustain a lie for so long. This will be the end of the aura that Apple has been building for the past decade. It is clear as night and day.

PG-13on The best Present and Future alternatives to the iPad

It's said by people who did not immediately understand that the iPhone would be such a huge success even though it was obvious to people who understood technology. These people now think that the iPad is the same thing even though people who actually get technology realize that it absolutely isn't. People commenting need to reflect carefully on their own ability to judge new tech.

PG-13on My book (about school, Harvard and Facebook) is now free to read on-line.

First those brothers start working on their Facebook in 2002, get nothing done for 2 years. Go up to Zuckerberg, and say, "hey, you wanna code this thing for us that's like a Myspace but for like colleges and stuff?" He agrees, but then is like "wait, why am I working for these clowns? I'm gonna make my own Facbeook". The brothers then claim the code was really meant for them and later win millions just for knowing Zuckerberg.

Now, you claim that because Mark talked about Facebook with you and (gasp) went to your website to look at it, that you somehow deserve credit for Facebook even though, as you admit, your own website didn't have any traction. So if you ever discuss ideas with someone, and they go on to turn that idea into a success, you will then claim credit for their execution.

PG-13on Why the laptop will become endangered tomorrow

The iPad is the absolute worst tablet device Apple could possibly have released. There is literally no way they could have produced anything inferior to it. I can forgive the Apple fanboys to an extent. When you're a fanboy, it's hard to see the world for what it really is. I'm a diehard fan of certain sports teams, and I'm not able to judge them objectively. Now the non-fanboys who are predicting the triumph of the iPad are just people who fail to understand technology. They resort to imagining use cases where "their mom" loves the iPad. Your mom isn't the one preordering the iPad. You are the one preordering the iPad. And at the same time, you say it isn't suited to "tech-savvy people like you".

PG-13on RethinkDB is switching over to Lisp

This day always makes me respect The Onion a whole lot more. It takes a lot of talent to what they do as well as they do it.

PG-13on Ask HN: Mechanical Turk - equivalent outside USA?

Mechanical Turk is pretty crappy, so I don't think you're really missing out.

PG-13on Ask HN: Rate my startup - Backpedalify

For this to be funny, your actual product has to be well-known.

PG-13on Why Many Smart Folks End up going Nowhere

But I've never claimed to be smart.

Well then this doesn't really apply to you. This is talking about smart people who don't achieve much, not about dumb people who don't achieve much.

PG-13on Why VCs Won't Fund Game Companies

That's why you need to be doing social games.

The social elements of the game should lend themselves well to the existing social structure of Facebook.

The technical and artistic requirements are much lower.

The game would probably not be fun as a standalone. The fun comes from competition and cooperation with your friends on social platforms. The game should be structured to reward persistence over skill. Doing easy and menial tasks over and over is much more fun when you're competing with your buddies.