5,021 karma · joined October 2, 2009
I suppose they're doing it largely for the style but surely Jonathan Ive and co can make a beautiful iMac that's a couple of centimetres thicker.
If one of the mods could change the URL to point to the original I'd be grateful.
However, HN is fairly engineer heavy and sales carries a pejorative connotation, so when I read your posts they seemed (to me) negative, as in "Aha! You can't fool me! I'm wise to your game to sell stuff on HN!". I was responding to that.
I suspect we're basically in agreement, if you look somewhere on the page I'm effusive about Patrick's sales letter and I agree that by turning up, answering questions honestly and not trying to sell to people he hits the HN demographic dead on. My point was he may not even be trying to make sales here, just trying to interact with a community he's part of and the two look indistinguishable.
If he comes on here and says I built this and you all need to buy it right now, well then he's obviously just a salesman.
If he comes on here and says I built this, don't buy it if you don't meet these criteria, I'm not even going to try to sell it because I don't want to turn HN into a sales venue, well then, he's a obviously just a particularly crafty salesman.
So while I see what you're saying I'm not sure how you expect patio11 to discuss this on HN without appearing like a salesman to at least a few people.
I particularly like the Do not buy this course section which qualifies potential customers.
[1] To be fair depending upon the target demographic the sleaziness can be increased without causing problems. If you were building a product for hard core sales guys Your Customers Can Still Afford Branded Groceries: Learn How To Capture This Wasted Revenue Today! might do brilliantly.
Also their "20 layers of security" chart[1] is an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece. Note the arrow they've drawn circumventing every layer of security apart from passengers. So really, we can't say they didn't warn us.
I hate to be That Guy, but speaking as someone who's actually had sex I can attest that there are actually other reasons.[1]
Enough so that in the middle east women who reject a man's marriage proposal might find themselves doused with acid or gasoline and set on fire.
Equating harassment on the internet with middle eastern acid attacks is baffling and offensive.
Finally, and I know this'll be unpopular, but there's some great stuff on Reddit. The comments are never as good as HN, but some of the AMAs are phenomenal. It's a bit tiring seeing it get bashed without respite over here.
[1] Like (and I can't believe I'm typing this) it's fun and makes you feel closer to the person you're doing it with.
Also those Farmville character cutouts in the photo are possibly the creepiest thing in the universe.
The money is immaterial, it's the feeling that I'm being taken advantage of.
(I also agree with your earlier post that if you're selling web hosting for $3/month you'll have to deal with quite a few difficult customers. Often the people who pay the least are the hardest to deal with.)
Having to disable comments on your conciliatory blog post is a sign that you should go back and make it more conciliatory.
[1] Yes, and even this latest pseudo-apology is poorly handled. He should have just stuck to a simple "didn't think that through, sorry to those I've offended, I've cancelled the auction and will return the money to any starbucks card Jonathan nominates" message but sometimes it can be hard to admit you've screwed up, particularly when you're getting a kicking for it.
Part of the entertainment is that it's presented as though it is factual TV. Sure if you look at a lot of their antics you can tell they're staged but a large portion of the viewing public doesn't realize this and their impressions of the car will be tainted by what is essentially a misrepresentation of the facts.
Being known as a sleazy but effective PR firm will get you plenty of customers. Being known as sleazy and incompetent will not.
ie "Fail fast" vs "be persistent"
"Be persistent" applies to your overall goal - business success - whereas "fail fast" applies to methods you use to achieve that goal.
I'd be willing to give actual money to an organization that a) actually understood what they were reporting and b) reported facts rather than PR, hyperbole and human interest angles but I haven't been able to find one.
a) Half the comments in my news feed are dull trivia. ("I just ate a ham sandwich").
b) The other half are thinly veiled bragging ("I just ate a ham sandwich in Paris")
c) Weirdly, even friends who are funny in real life tend to be afflicted by the same condition.
Now, it could just be my selection of friends but I think it's actually people self censoring.
Finally, the idea of my posting on an internet site following me around until the end of time is revolting. I don't say anything particularly out there on HN, but if they switched to Facebook comments, I'd leave.
Edit: Looks like you've responded to my previous iteration of this post. Sorry to reword it all on you :)
[1] Of course, being able to say only two people know how to mix the 7X flavoring ingredient is part of that brand.
It made my heart bleed.
A month passed. Facebook hadn't responded. I stopped sleeping. I couldn't follow conversations. Words swam.
Reading the profile was like plunging into an icy pond from such a high distance it felt as if I'd slammed into a wall. And then the sensation of drowning.
I can't help but think there are people out there dealing with real, serious problems who bear them with much more dignity.
The big lesson is that you should continually refresh your skills and develop new things on your own time.
[1] Even sadder is that they cite Wakefield being exposed as a fraud as evidence of tampering by "Big Pharma".
Maybe someone can correct me but this also looks like "we MRIed a small number of students and then compared so many brain structures that we'd be bound to find some sort of correlation with their dubious self reported political leanings."