nbashaw

What does that quote mean in this context? I am trying to decode the meaning but am failing haha

It's definitely something we considered! We actually were really focused on that for a long time, but didn't get a lot of traction with it, because creating content in our format requires illustration and animation, which is not easy to do. A lot of people said they wanted to do it, but very few followed through. We did some partnerships with media companies but we didn't solve a critical problem for them (the original inspiration was the end reader experience) so there was not very much urgency or willingness to pay. So we pivoted to a "full stack" model where we create the content and build the platform. It was working decently well (it's not easy to get 1,200 people to pay for access to content), but just not well enough.

The ferrari thing was definitely a little distracting, for sure, but literally it was the only good free photo I could find of a car driving towards the horizon in the desert.

OP here. I'm curious, what makes you think that you know anything about what our plans were?

You're absolutely right that we weren't profitable at our current scale, and that our goal was to raise funding from VCs, and since we couldn't do it we had to make really tough changes. But this was a risk that we all accepted! Would I do it exactly the same way again next time? No, of course not. I learned a lot from this experience. But do I regret going for something big that I believe in, even if it wasn't a plan that was easily bootstrapped? Absolutely not.

You are smart, and you make a lot of good points. I could learn a lot from your way of thinking! But--you're also being a bit of a condescending know-it-all. This is a perfect example of why everybody makes fun of Hacker News comments.

You can see that, right?

Hey, I co-wrote this! I'd love feedback :)

Thanks for posting, @rmason!

Author here - I'd love feedback / questions from HN.

Ha, it's amazing to see a Leo Strauss reference in a HN thread! I majored in Political Theory at Michigan State, and the department was full of Straussians. Worlds colliding.

Thanks!

Furniture? Are you talking about http://www.producthunt.co/ or some other site? Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

Good point! I'm to blame for that :) but I'll fix it!

It's just generally a cluttery, unfocused website. I attempted to make a replacement but the network effects of Goodreads make it really difficult to compete, and this was just a side project

Interesting that they're using Codemirror instead of Ace (http://ace.c9.io), which is their progeny.

It used to be called Bespin: http://blog.mozilla.org/labs/2009/02/introducing-bespin/

Here's a youtube demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tcMPCcnt8

How is this 3d? You can only go in two dimensions. It doesn't generate obstacles or even hills...

Don't get me wrong, it looks cool. I just don't understand why people are using the term 3D.

OP here. In the spirit of the post, I'd love if anyone has any critical feedback on the ideas here :)

Awesome to hear! Congrats to Brian and Fred

One of the founders says the article's financial speculation is "wildly incorrect"

https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/335124440469876737

"Just as an appalling misapplication of the Theory of Evolution provided a justification for Nazi genocide, so has the misapplication of Object Orientation, for example, led to all manner of programming ugliness in the name of purism"

Yikes

Whoops, site looks down for me. In the meantime, here's a gist with the blog post text in it: https://gist.github.com/nbashaw/5437100

It's interesting how they did it. I was assuming some javascript trick but it's really quite simple and elegant:

    #as1 {
      background-image: url('seven_asia.gif');
      height: 2110500px;
      width: 640000px;
    }

I agree, that's also an important part of their hook. But the sort of weird look is I think the main one because it's immediately visually noticeable. People make shoes that look like that now but they didn't before Toms made that look popular.

The reason the weird look works so well with Toms is because of the Greenbeard effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-beard_effect

I'm also a big fan of side projects. Problem is, i'm a product guy, and the whole point of what I do is to try and make things people want. Not learn a new technology. I still haven't been able to find the right balance. Any advice?

I think they all have clearer visual differentiation and generally are more aesthetically pleasing than Ƀ

Yikes, the unicode character just looks like a messed up B. Most other currencies look a lot better in unicode: $, £, €, ¥, etc

You just missed the whole point of the article.

No one, nowhere fully understands how technology like a computer works. That's because it's possible to design systems on top of systems without fully understanding the nuances of all the dependencies.

Am I worried? No, I think there's about a 0% chance they'd do that.

Don't you expect better service when you're buying something more expensive?

How in any way would this benefit the economy as a whole?

How'd you spread the word at launch?