Ask PG: The difference between instinct and emotion? - <AUTHOR> Like most people who will read this, I'm in my 20s and working on a startup I founded. Almost all the advice I've read and listened to regarding decision-making is consistent:
- follow your instincts
- don't get too emotionally attached to your startup
But in order to hone your instincts, surely you want them to be as in touch with your startup as possible? If this is true, and instincts and emotions were the same thing, then this would lead to a contradiction in the advice.
Therefore, I'm beginning to think that there must be a difference between instinct and emotion. However, I'm struggling to distinguish between the two inside myself.
So - is there a difference between instinct and emotion? If there is, what is it? <comment><USER2> Don't worry about the words. I think what these apparently conflicting quotes are about is optimism management. You want to be hopeful that you can one day produce something great, but assume what you have so far is crap. Or if you want a cheerier version, will seem like crap later compared to the marvelous stuff you'll make.

Incidentally, this applies to many types of work, not just startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you on this when thinking about your startup/product as a whole, however this isn't the problem I'm so interested in.

My question is more about how to identify the appropriate drivers for making specific decisions when there are too many unknown variables in play to come up with a conclusion through logical analysis.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I don't know how to identify the appropriate drivers for making specific decisions when there are too many unknown variables in play to come up with a conclusion through logical analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This semantic inquiry is pretty trivial. They mean different things and carry different degrees of importance to different people. Who cares if they're the same or not? When reading advice, you shouldn't take the words literally, but rather come up with your own interpretation. My interpretation of this type of advice boils down to: 'When faced with a decision, think about it [your emotions and instincts come into play here] and do what you feel is right.'

P.S. As an aside: My personal interpretation paints them as fairly distinct, though related, things: Instinct tells you what you should do, Emotion tells you how you feel. They sometimes feed one another (i.e. You see a pretty girl and emotionally fall head over heels which makes your instinct tells you to do something before this angel walks out of your life forever) and sometimes are in conflict with one another (i.e. Your instinct tells you to sell your company because you've subconsciously crunched the numbers and outcomes and decided it's for the best, but you can't emotionally bear the thought of living another day without the baby you've worked so hard on).

</comment><comment><USER4> Instinct is a gut level "this is wrong" or "this is the right way to go". It's getting as much information you can about the decision in front of you, synthesizing it all and going with your gut.

Emotion is the "Oh Crap!" the "This rocks! I'm going to be a guhzillionaire." or "I'm doomed" feelings. Emotion is the "But I've worked so hard on this, I cant let it go" feelings.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a difference of attitude more than subject. In a way, your emotions are your instincts, but that's a bit like saying that your brain _is_ your mind. While that may be true, there's a big difference between talking about brains and talking about minds.

When someone says, "Follow your instincts," they're saying "Be very aware of the information that your emotions are providing to you, because it'll often be the most useful information you have."

When they say "don't get too emotionally involved," they mean "If your emotions start screaming at you, don't freak out and start acting stupid."

Take Jack Bauer from 24. He acts quickly, and is very aware of the information his emotions tell him, but he also is rational and careful, which is why he sees the way out of every situation. The similarity is pretty striking, actually. In a startup, you're in a situation with high stakes where decisive action is crucial, the stakes are high, the odds are stacked against you, cracking under the pressure is a sure-fire way to fail, and you never sleep.

Be like Jack Bauer. (He's also got some good lessons on dealing with troublesome investors ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good answer. I like your interpretations of the advice. I also like the brain/mind analogy.

Unfortunately I'm not a 24 watcher so can't relate to Jack Bauer (yet); maybe I'll watch an episode or two now :)

<comment><USER5> Thanks.

off-topic: I don't know how people can watch the show weekly. Get the DVDs, and start at season 1. You won't regret it. Careful, though, it's a terrible time sink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good question, and I'm interested in hearing PG's answer. But so far, nobody's given a /principled/ way you can discriminate between the two. For instance, why can't I have an instinct that "I'm doomed"? Are emotions just 'bad' and instincts just good? Of course not.

I think the point of the advice you've mentioned is this: you're probably going to fail. 99% of just about anything is crap. But failing shouldn't depress you. Nor should you get overly tied to emotional success, less hubris be your downfall.

So get emotionally tied to your instincts: let that fervor help you push through where other people give up. But realize: there's a reason other people give up: you're likely going to fail. But, because you're you, you see things differently than others have, and you can see /why/ they've failed and /how/ you'll succeed.

Is there a bit of a contradiction there? ...meh, who cares? If you /have/ to create, that you're going to fail (most likely) won't stop you, and as a result, you're less likely to fail. But if you do, don't be emotionally tied up in the failure (or the success).

Capiche?

</comment><comment><USER7> There's definitely a difference between gut feel instinct and emotional processing. There's also a third element, which is analysing data.

The difference lies in how you like to receive, process, and communicate information - for example, speaking personally, I take a lot of time to process a decision because I do so through a range of emotions, while many intuitive people I know make the same decision much faster.

Also be mindful that the power of these influences differ for different people, and there's no right or wrong. Which is right for you?

For more information, check out a company I work with (UK Based) is focussed on these differences - <http://www.thinkfeelknow.com/what.html>

If that doesn't answer your question, I apologise.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Instinct" in this sense refers to "intuition." A less ambiguous statement would be "follow your intuition." Intuition refers to suspecting that something is true that you've not yet proven to be true.

An emotion is a subjective form of an intuition. You have emotions about questions that may be answered many ways, and must be answered in a personal way. In general you could not prove an emotion to be true.

I think the point is to go with the non-emotional instincts over the emotional ones when there is a conflict.

Personally, when my emotions and intuitions about something are out of sync I know I have a problem and perhaps some more rigor/attention is warranted. I don't like operating if the emotional and non-emotional instincts are out of sync.

<comment><USER9> In the context of decision making, emotions are those impulses within you that you perceive to "move". Though there are lots of emotions -- anger, hatred, jealousy, joy, lust, etc. -- those emotions come from two basic sources: fear (repulsion) and pleasure (attraction).

By movement, I specifically mean the direction of attention. We tend to avoid paying attention to what we fear, and strive to pay attention to what gives us pleasure. When making a conscious decision, fear (uncertainty, and doubt) is what makes a person hesitate. Pleasure (lust, greed) is what makes a person jump in without regard to risk. You perceive emotions by movement. You have to stand still (mentally speaking), then watch for the movement in the emotions. Because our attention naturally shy away from what we fear, those things tends to get ignored. Because our attention naturally seeks out what we like, we tend to cling to and attach ourselves to those things. When we cling to things we like, we also tend to fear losing them.

Instinct generally refers to survival instincts, and as such are closely tied with emotions.

Intuition, what I think those quotes refer to, don't refer to the absence of emotions so much as being in a state of mind where you are mentally still so you an observe all the movements of emotions. When you observe a particular emotional impulse long enough, it will identify itself to you (that is, you can rationally verbalize that emotional impulse). Once the emotion is identified and heard, they generally pass on and trouble you no more. At some point, you're left with just mental stillness. That's where intuition kicks in.

Just so you know, while some of this sounds like Freudian psychology, where I practice these ideas actually comes from my practice of martial arts. There is not enough time to stand there analyzing the angles and force vectors of an incoming blow, much less formulate a response. That is way too slow. Yet, someone who merely acts just on reflex isn't always able to prevail. There are people with enough trained awareness to manipulate someone's purely reflexive movements. To do well, you have to be able to not only have clear intuition, you have to be able to physically act on it to take advantage of the tiny moments of opportunity. Otherwise, you are unable to seize the initiative and execute on your strategy.

The story passed in martial arts lore is looking into a pool of water: when there are ripples, it is hard to see the reflection. You have to wait for the ripples to smooth over. When the reflection is clear, your image is clear, it looks almost like the real thing. But if it looks too real, and you reach out to touch the image to prove its realness, then ripples form, breaking its clarity. That's the nature of intuition.

I can't say I have successfully applied this to a startup, but maybe you will be able to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Emotions are for something real and you have to learn to handle them.

Instinct is about something you don't know and may not exist, therefore the only way to know is only by trying.

To follow your insticts and dont get too emotionally attached to something, contains action. therefore actions involve something else, called ability to execute.

That is why execution is above everything.

But excluding an action e.g. not get too emotionally attached, which is translated not to be dedicated, is something that may prevent you from fulfilling your instincts.

In short, you get to decide what you wanna do. Either live the emotions of not following your instincts or live the emotions of trying to make those instincts a reality.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand that execution can be an implementation of your instincts, however execution can also involve acting on your emotions.

"something real" could also be "something you don't know and may not exist" so I don't quite see how that answers the question. Could you give an example to articulate what you mean?

<comment><USER10> emotions are generated from a mental situation when you face a fact.

of course, an instinct may be a result of deep concentration and experience of extreme downside and upside emotions, which may be concluded as a new fact that may cause you a varierty of new emotions, maybe that of happiness and anticipation to make you to complete your dreams or avoid a sad situation.

maybe, instinct is an emotion of intution after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From wikipedia: "Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular behavior. Instincts are generally inherited patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli."

I don't think you want to follow this in running your startup. I would rather recommend Intuition, or following a higher, above-rational understanding, rather than your animal reflexes. Intuition is most effective when not clouded by emotions, hence by becoming emotionally detached you can better use Intuition.

</comment><comment><USER12> Trust yourself while you're building and growing.

If you fail: don't spend the rest of your life kicking yourself, walking in circles, and murmuring "they just didn't see the vision" under your breath. Learn and move on.

If you succeed: let the product evolve with your customers or the needs of company X that bought you out. Learn and move on.

</comment><comment><USER13> Probably a clearer word than "instinct" in this context would be "intuition".

</comment><comment><USER14> They're really quite different. Instinct is your mind's way of clueing you in on something that you didn't know you knew.

Emotion is just a reaction.

</comment><comment><USER15> Instinct is a type of emotion. Instinct is the opposite of intuition. Instinct is from the past. Intuition is from the future.

</comment><comment><USER16> Other questions for PG:

\- Why does God allow evil?

\- Does P = NP?

\- How does it feel to be so gosh darn awesome?</comment>


Ask HN: If you could reinvent the web browser, what would you do differently? - <AUTHOR> Given that the web is becoming more of an application delivery platform, rather than a collection of documents, as it was probably first envisaged, what would you do differently if you were to reinvent the browser, given the key use cases of today?<p>I'm very interested to hear your thoughts :) <comment><USER2> Basically we should both maximize the potential for creative developers to create revolutionary tools, and also protect users who know next to nothing about problems with the web.

More vim-split like capabilities - native multiple tabs within a tab would be great imo

More programming languages (not just confined to Javascript)

More hackable (like emacs level hackable maybe)

The current plugins system is good, but maybe there are more creative ways to push the envelope.

Better native ABI support, maybe.. suppose I wanted to collaborate my Ableton jam session into someone else's Firefox tab, or I wanted to pair program in Sublime Text with somebody else via a Firefox plugin, etc

So kind of like how Netflix Party improves Netflix, but instead with any app

Maybe some good built in (opt in) tools that allow people who have a problem with surfing the net for too long every day. E.g. browsing screen time, etc. Of course private data, not to be shared.

Maybe a browser fingerprint-intercepting layer that just returns useless data to browser fingerprinting tools, unless the user would like to be fingerprinted. I really like Firefox's Facebook container plugin, which helps protect me from Facebook across the web.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm actively exploring/implementing this, which has shaped my thoughts on the topic.

1\. I'd have the browser recommend apps to install to open otherwise unsupported MIMEtypes & URI schemes. I think most desktops support this now (certainly FreeDesktop.Org-compatible Linux & BSD ones do via "AppStream"), it'll free webdevs from compatibility worries, & allow low-cohesian features like videoconferencing & (like brimstedt & osrec discussed) apps to be entirely independant codepaths.

2\. For the sake of markettability & accessability (unlikely bedfellows) I like to target unusual human interface devices, e.g. voice, "smart" TVs. It should be a goal to work well absolutely anywhere!

3\. I was kind of surprised to find that the next biggest simplification after dropping JavaScript is to move forms out-of-line from the webpage into their own codepaths. This allows me to better reuse OS code whilst simplifying hypertext event handling, avoid webdevs complaining that native widgets clash with their designs, & design a better UX for more devices.

4\. There seems to be plenty of precedence suggesting it'd be a good idea to allow links to partially update a webpage, or open modal dialogs/popovers. hey.com is a prominant example.

5\. The DOM needs to be replaced, it's an overengineered OO monster straight out of the 90's that can be largely replaced with about 10 lines of code in any language. It's expensive for the browser to construct, for JavaScript to optimize away, and for webdevs to deal with directly.

6\. I've got almost no complaint against CSS (I found it easy enough to implement), but sometimes author styles actively make websites worse. So support for user & alternate styles should be emphasized to the user, and websites should still look good if they don't provide CSS.

7\. Drop support for CSS `position:`, there's better alternatives now & it does more visual harm than good.

8\. I prefer XHTML over HTML as it's easier to parse, but there's a better compromise to be reached between the two camps than the one WHATWG prescribes: handle self-closing tags and close any intermediate tags between the current one & the explicitly closed ones. This routine seems to work well enough on the modern Web, even if it'd break some CSS selectors.

That covers the main points, I'm curious to hear other thoughts?

<comment><USER4> >7\. Drop support for CSS `position:`, there's better alternatives now & it does more visual harm than good

Tell me an alternative to flexbox scrolling with "position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0".

I do agree "position: sticky" and "position: fixed" are harmful though.

<comment><USER3> I'm not clear what you're describing with "flexbox scrolling"?

My reasoning is that I want to prevent elements from overlapping and obscuring important information. CSS is generally designed to avoid that, which is what the "CSS is awesome" memes like to illustrate.

<comment><USER4> >I'm not clear what you're describing with "flexbox scrolling"?

"position: absolute" can be used to disrupt the two-way size propogation. Without it you either get shrinked content on y, flexbox wrapping problem on x, scroll appearing on a wrong element in some cases (or cropping for "overflow: hidden"), or you have to set width and height of the block with scroll using css "calc()" — all these solutions are ugly.

>My reasoning is that I want to prevent elements from overlapping and obscuring important information

The most simple example of overlapping elements is a background/border. You can look around this page and find a lot of overlapping graphical elements — it's not the problem, but overlapping text (and other content) is.

"CSS is awesome" example formally has no overlapping DOM elements, no "position" attributes. It's just a block with "border" style and "width" set to some fixed amount. Often this problem happens without border on the block and remains invisible, unless two such blocks are really close together and the text begins to overlap. Still no "position" involved though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remove the JS runtime, replace it with a WASM runtime (assuming a future version of WASM with native, non JS DOM support) and relegate Javascript to a language module that just happens to ship with the browser for legacy reasons, along with other popular languages like Rust and Lua.

I would also re-introduce the type attribute to the HTML script tag and extend the tag to allow downloading WASM language runtimes as necessary. If the browser already has it cached, it would use the cached version like any other asset.

The end goal is for all software to be universally accessible and executable from a URL or some similar identifier. It's possible there may need to be another protocol for streaming applications rather than HTTP, I don't know.

This is a vaguely sketched out pie in the sky idea i've had for a while. I have no idea if it's even feasible, but I'd like to see it happen.

</comment><comment><USER6> While Tim Berners-Lee was indeed mostly concerned with (scientific) documents, with form support HTML 2 already introduced application-like features. HyperCard, one of HTML's spiritual precursors also was very much about applications.

That said, I'd like one feature of the original web browser to be much more prominent (or in fact to be available at all): In-place editing and instant publication of changes, alongside with version control.

That'd of course require infrastructure for those publications to run on. So, it'd not just be a different browser UX but an entirely different way of publishing on the web.

<comment><USER7> Interesting concept. I imagine web pages which behave like a shared Google doc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> XHTML, WebAssembly, and CSS.

If you want to use an interpreted language you can compile the interpreter to WebAssembly ([https://github.com/iodide- project/pyodide](https://github.com/iodide-project/pyodide) and [https://github.com/RustPython/RustPython](https://github.com/RustPython/RustPython) are examples).

</comment><comment><USER9> Every page is written in markdown (without html), extended to support forms and embed videos and images. You can just look at content, click links, send form data. Websites can only provide content, the style is specified by the user. Clicking a button won't run untrusted code on your machine.

</comment><comment><USER10> Graph centric. Everything is a graph, I'd prefer to start off with semantic web endpoints and pluggable modules. Sorta like nestable pinboard, prioritizing the simplest mime types and deprioritizing anything which too much code unless it's providing specific functionality.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd have web widgets. No reason every website needs to take up the full window

<comment><AUTHOR> So the ability to tile windows into a single screen, without them sharing the same context? Perhaps, like a bunch of iframes containing their own "web page", but with the control over how the frames are arranged given to the user?

<comment> d--b This is what the new portals api is about

<comment><USER11> Is that this [https://wicg.github.io/portals/](https://wicg.github.io/portals/)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Get rid of HTML and CSS. Have everything done more programatically like React.

</comment><comment><USER13> Disallow foreign code execution in the browser, allow spawn of non-native code only in a separate process. No JavaScript, no Java, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, so you would allow foreign code execution, but only in a separate process?

If not JavaScript, then what would you prefer to write the foreign code in? Should it be some sort of interpreted script or do you feel all foreign code should be compiled?

Would you allow access to the file system, if permitted by the user? What about other native APIs, like networking, Bluetooth etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think one of the problems of the web imo is that we are trying to solve two quite different problems with one tool.

I.e. publishing documents for reading and making applications for interactions.

I think the browser is a pretty good tool for browsing information (think wikis, blogs, news, etc) but we are shoehorning applications (think project management tools, calendars, mail..) into them.

I would like to have them separated so one tool can be optimised for documents and one for making applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with this sentiment, but I'd take it a step further.

I personally think, the fact that we're shoehorning so much app-like stuff into the web highlights the need for a good web-based app delivery mechanism. If we provide a solid app delivery mechanism, then people can create their own document publishing apps/mechanisms using that.

I know this might lead to fragmentation of document formats, but hopefully there'll be one clear winner in terms of popularity and ubiquity (similar to WhatsApp or PDFs).

<comment><USER14> Well, PDFs are yet another issue. It's preformatted documents made specifically for a certain size paper.

This is not optimal for documents to be read on screen/mobile devices since they handle zooming, changing text sizes etc poorly.

In a way I can agree with you that application delivery would allow document distribution as well, but I think the benefits of a unified standard for this that focuses on content rather than presentation is a key feature of the web that we should not loose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A better programming language than Javascript, and a better CSS. CSS is not intuitive IMO.

</comment><comment><USER16> \- robotic process automation

\- built-in collaboration

\- offline storage, data cache

\- internet-archive's client, permanent web

</comment><comment><USER17> Support for micropayments.

<comment><USER18> That could be as amazing an improvement as experiencing television shows without commercials was for the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure today's web is going at least two different directions that can't be easily merged together. On one side we have textual and basic graphical data that is supposed to be controlled by user, like resizing, scaling, copying, bookmarking, drag and drop, and so on. On the other side we have interactive applications supposed to work strictly as-designed with complex handling of internal state, like Adobe Flash or HyperCard did. When you merge those completely together you get a frankenstein, when you kinda have the content controllability until you don't, when the content is displayed as designed if you are lucky enough.

I would like to remind you the whole reason for creation of Angular/React/Vue/Polymer/etc — that is because you have this overbloated DOM which is slow despite being implemented in fast low-level compiled languages. The main reason is complexity of calculation of inline elements (text and images with wrapping) and two-way propagation of size (parent to child and child to parent). At the same time the whole idea of CSS as a customizable style description (similar to LaTex/MS Office/OpenOffice styles) is completely forgotten while becoming inseparable from the rest of the content e.g. visibility styles, inability to show the content in different sizes, etc. And now we need workarounds like Webpack and HTTP/2 for putting together separate files that are not so separate by their functions. Because, in fact, a simple textual HTML is separate, its CSS is separate, but dynamic application within this page is a single entity composed of html+styles+js+images — similar to adobe flash swf blob.

I've been writing native GUI apps for like seven years, but now I write web SPA, and the more I write them, the more I feel like today's HTML is not a good platform for true GUI application, because within DOM simple GUI things have to be implemented as complex entities. Yes, we got a flexbox which makes positioning much simplier than float blocks or scripted positioning. However, we also got "display: grid" and "column-width" which also implement flexbox- like behavior, but slightly different. In the end it doesn't matter how many layout mechanism we are going to have — it will never be enough.

Recently we got HTML5 canvas, including WebGL, but we got no good language to write the program for this canvas. Actually, WebGL is the closest to the double-world model of web browser I'm trying to suggest, because WebGL uses a separate high-performance shader language to describe the WebGL-canvas logic which is uncoupled from the main web page's logic. We can also render from a webworker into WebGL canvas, and chromium supports OffscreenCanvas capable of webworker rendering. However, both 2D canvas and WebGL lack one important thing — two-way composability i.e. include html page into canvas. Just like native GUI apps struggle with including native elements into internal browser, canvas struggles with including web browser into 2D or WebGL context.

Actually, Microsoft once solved this problem by implementing support of custom elements in the IE browser, thus bringing a two-way composability. However, due to windows-only nature of the solution it had not achieved wide acceptance. Some cross-platform execution environment is required for success, like JVM or CLR — WebAssembly being the most relevant today, but the composability problem has to be solved. Until then, the developers would still prefer to keep the composability by avoiding HTML5 <canvas> and clinging on the old DOM as long as they can.

And by the way, speaking about cross-platform runtime. JVM, CLR, optimized JS, WebAssembly, and non-native-architecture VM have similar performance, so it's really not the fundamental execution speed that killed Java applets, but a failed GUI model "every pixel is drawn by JVM bytecode". WPF, UWP, JavaFX tried to fix the issue, until "everything is web" came.

Now about a second small idea I have and I've been struggling with for many years of web surfing. Bookmarks, history, and tabs are not separate things. The gap between them is closing but closing very slowly. We are getting web services that live between pages, we are getting frequently visited pages as a kind of bookmarks, we are getting cheap tabs that are loaded only when user switches to them, but nobody is brave enough to erase the separation and create a single visited-tab-bookmark entity. Today's computational resources clearly allow us to save some amount of data about every visit without forcing the user to be a bookmark keeper, especially when the user has no convenient tools for managing current tabs he's working with, and as for me I work with 50-300 tabs daily, so it's really a pain to manage them with this "ten tabs on the screen"-oriented tool modern browsers have. I know tree-like tabs exist, but usually they have their own issues. I'd prefer to open the tabs in a full- screen view, preferably with preview. Some people in the older days would save onto HDD every page they visit — they had a struggle sorting all the crap they've got.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this incredibly detailed answer. I too am an SPA guy, specifically because I like the clean separation between data and presentation they allow, which HTML simply doesn't.

This was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for when I asked my question, so thanks again!

<comment><USER4> >I too am an SPA guy, specifically because I like the clean separation between data and presentation they allow, which HTML simply doesn't

HTML was never intended to separate data and presentation. That's what PHP and other server-side languages (ColdFusion, Perl, etc) were used for, because HTML specifically is a presentation. Moreover, DOM, as HTML representation, is also a presentation. Considering high availability of network bandwidth, I'd say there's no more need to squeeze data into client-server channel, that's where server-side rendering comes into play with thin client just doing presentation thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. I think HTML was originally a structured document format. And CSS was another layer on top of HTML, specifically for presentation.

Today, we see a mish-mash of HTML + CSS (+JS) being used for presentation, since neither HTML, nor CSS can successfully solve every problem on their own. They often also need to rely on JS.

Regarding bandwidth and SSR, I disagree also. I think we should do things more efficiently where possible, not less. In my current SaaS product, if we were doing SSR instead of client side rendering, our hosting costs would be through the roof right now. As it stands, we have one large-ish download at the start, followed by very small JSON payloads thereafter. Plus, using service workers, it can work offline, which is not really possible with SSR.

<comment><USER4> First of all, I just want to empasize there exist kinda three layers: data -> presentation -> decoration. HTML still acting as a presentation, but in SPA it also acts as a decoration together with CSS. Secondly, we need to find what the data is. Because often the data is on the server database, while everything else is transmitting and caching the original data.

>In my current SaaS product, if we were doing SSR instead of client side rendering, our hosting costs would be through the roof right now

It's good you mentioned your product instead of generalizing implicitly. Because SSR in some cases allows you to prerender pages and host them statically, thus significantly reducing server CPU and RAM load, and also making page loading time very fast.

>Plus, using service workers, it can work offline, which is not really possible with SSR

Similar scenario is possible with SSR, allowing for completely offline operation. SSR implementations usually require scripts to be run on the client side, and also allow for defining explicitly server-side-only and client-side- only scripts, including full transition into kind of SPA for specific pages, as well as a full SSR prerendering with dead-static content on both server and client. And gzip can help to reduce the bandwidth required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> javascript

</comment><comment><USER20> Use standards, that's enough. And avoid that a random Corp create the next unaccessible thing and force it down to everybody and avoid support for not standardized / proprietary technologies

<comment><AUTHOR> So, you feel the web should be more simplified? Or is it more that you want to keep the complexity, but also want good standards to be followed across all browser vendors (e.g. banish CSS prefixes and Chrome-only JS APIs etc)?

What about the wide range of web apps the new APIs enable? Do you think they should be catered for somehow?

<comment><USER20> Having standards does not imply no more new APIs. But creating them only for one browser doesn't bring progress on the web but rather lead to monopoly and at the end inaccessibility.

Consider that with chrome (and chromium based browser) we're close to the situation we had back in the days with IE.

So I'd say open standard definition for web API should come first, later each browser will have their own release process to include them inside but at least behavior and aspect are defined upfront and this will avoid lots of issue

As of today for example and I'm using both Firefox and Chrome daily. You'd be surprised on how many website have been tested only in Chrome and some stuff do not work in Firefox at all

<comment><USER4> >Consider that with chrome (and chromium based browser) we're close to the situation we had back in the days with IE. >So I'd say open standard definition for web API should come first, later each browser will have their own release process to include them inside but at least behavior and aspect are defined upfront and this will avoid lots of issue

Just a sheer complexity of the layers being deposited during the current and the previous century makes it impossible for a single person to understand all the possible interactions. So today's situation with chromium-based browsers differ from IE in that the latter deliberately went against existing standards while creating many non-standard features.

In the last years google set a course for putting more and more features into browser so no other browser can catch up quickly enough. And despite the fact google actually tries to be standard-complaint and to create standards for their new feature, but only a large corporation is able to implement those features e.g. Mozilla.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


8 Possible Alternatives to the Turing Test - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/8-possible-alternatives-to-the-turing-test-1697983985

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_intelligent_signal_tes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_intelligent_signal_test) was designed to fix the problems with the Loebner Prize.</comment>


Woman who can smell Parkinson's disease helps scientists develop first test - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/12/18/woman-can-smell-parkinsons-disease-helps-scientists-develop/ <comment><USER2> I really hope we get a readily accessible test. My father-in-law has it and it would really help my wife and I plan for the future if we knew she was going to develop it later.</comment>


America's Unwanted Ivy Leaguers Are Flocking to India - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americas-unwanted-ivy-leaguers-flocking-210634992.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, any system that brings in the brightest from around the world to be educated at Harvard or Stanford but then can't find a way to keep them here for work is very broken.

<comment><USER3> The reality is that this is a positive thing. India's economy could be the next modern miracle if enough people start companies and create another Silicon Valley in Mumbia or New Delhi.</comment></comment>


Show HN: We just taught our first class in VR [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD8St9xsXic <comment><AUTHOR> Hey gang,

I'm one of the founders of Kosmos School and I'm super excited that we finished teaching our first class in VR. It's called Intro to Rockets and the students learned all about rockets in a very hands-on manner. We founded this company because we think that VR will change education fundamentally, and after building and teaching for the first time now we're even more convinced that VR is 10x better than doing this through Skype call or mobile/desktop app.

We're running our second and third classes in January. They're designed for teenagers (12-16 old) - if you're interested, you can enroll on our website: [https://kosmosschool.com/](https://kosmosschool.com/)

Let me know if you have any questions.</comment>


Software to setup similar to  Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> I want to set up for local news feeds similar to ycombinator. does anyone knows if we can get the source code available or any similar clones? Please advise. <comment><USER2> I think it doesn't matter what you use. Could literally be anything.

From simple server using something like Python/Ruby/Go/... To using JS front- end with simple API.

You probably need a database.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I mean i wanted a open source software to host similar site and don't want to develop anything

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you aiming for community discussions and link sharing, first things that come to mind is [https://www.discourse.org/](https://www.discourse.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> No. I want to setup my own like the same one as YC

<comment><USER4> You can use an older version of the same codebase here: [http://arclanguage.org](http://arclanguage.org).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://vuejs.org/v2/examples/hackernews.html](https://vuejs.org/v2/examples/hackernews.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> The closest clone I can think of is Lobsters[1,2]

[1] [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

[2] [https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters](https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/) looks great + open-source. I particularly like their invite-only system.

</comment><comment><USER8> you can view the frontend source with your browser</comment>


A great collection of Machine Learning and related area blogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~bernhard/good-machine-learning-blogs.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure why this is not getting any comments, but it would be nice if the list had a little more curation(General topics, quality, etc).</comment>


How do you put a Database in the Cloud? - <AUTHOR> http://www.rackspacecloud.com/blog/2009/10/28/how-do-you-put-a-database-in-the-cloud/

<comment><USER2> People underestimate the pain of database administration. If I can get a ready-to-go database in seconds my life is so much better. My only grudge against RDS is that it doesn't scale up from 0. It adds at least $80/month to your regular server cost.

</comment><comment><USER3> I browsed around and didn't see their hosted database solution. Is it listed, or just something you have to ask for after signing up for a server?

<comment><USER4> It's part of cloud sites.

If you want to check its track record: <http://status.mosso.com/></comment></comment>


Rendering "indeterminate" progress bars in the terminal using Python - <AUTHOR> https://www.willmcgugan.com/blog/tech/post/rich-gets-richer/ <comment><USER2> I have just hit on the "indeterminate" progress bar issue in a new open source app (which is also an example program for a new chapter I am writing for my Common Lisp book): when automating fetching and analyzing information, it is hard to predict how many steps will be taken to normalize the 0 to 100% nature of a progress bar.

I thought of flipping the color and restarting at 0%, but ended up scaling down the amount of progress so any operation usually finishes way before the progress bar goes to 100%.</comment>


From South Korea to Malaysia, 'smart cities' turn to ghost towns - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3019142/south-korea-malaysia-smart-cities-hailed-answer <comment><USER2> South Korean here. (I live in Seoul, Kangnam.) This article contains so much mis-information about Songdo, that I would like to point out.

> where lamp posts are always watching you

CCTVs are very, very common in South Korea. This isn't something special to Songdo, and CCTVs are the number-one reason that South Korea has the 5th highest rate of people that think walking around in the dark is safe. Nobody thinks that CCTVs are surveillance; people believe the government in general.

> small touch screen display on his kitchen wall that allows him to keep track > of his and his wife's consumption of electricity, water and gas and, most > important, compare it against the average statistics for the building.

This is super-common in Seoul, it's not something special in Songdo or such.

> It claims to have the highest concentration of green Leed-certified > buildings in the world, yet it is still entirely car-based, with not even a > train line to the nearby airport.

One thing to keep in mind is that South Korea generally (especially Seoul) is a very public-transport friendly, with a pretty-high 40% percentage of all transport (user's own car takes 39% of all transport).

The time when Songdo was planned, the high public-transport percentage was considered a 'bad-thing'. People tried to model the 'America Way', and that's why Songdo was constructed with an emphasis on car-based transport. This plan was reverted years ago, and Songdo is currently constructing four subway routes.

> From South Korea to Malaysia, 'smart cities' turn to ghost towns

Songdo is not a ghost town, that is just plain wrong. It was one of the most successful cities in South Korea. It's population is rapidly increasing every year, with a competitive rate of 4855:1 to move in Songdo. Also, unlike the article's explanation, a big fraction of Songdo population comes from provinces other than Seoul (which is something similar to rural areas in the US).

Overall, this article is overly emphasizing things that are nothing to Koreans but can be seen negatively to Americans; the explanation about Songdo are plain-wrong; and I just can't see what this article is trying to say.

<comment><USER3> When you look at songdo, it looks like a small section of greater seoul in general.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Songdo-dong,+Yeonsu- gu,+In...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Songdo-dong,+Yeonsu- gu,+Incheon,+firstname.lastname@example.com,126.6343272,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x357b7624aaf774f7:0x1c27c0012f442511!8m2!3d37.3839118!4d126.6438546)

Also why do people trust the government when it only became a democracy about 30 years ago, and things like this happened? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Struggle#Torture_and_deat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Struggle#Torture_and_death_of_Park_Jong- chol)

<comment><USER2> > Also why do people trust the government when it only became a democracy > about 30 years ago, and things like this happened?

Considering that the country's entire history span about 70 years (excluding the provisional government; the provisional government is exactly 100 yrs old in 2019), 30 years is a long time.

Presidents are elected with direct election; a direct consequence from the Park Jong-chol incident you have mentioned, and 1987 is the year of South Korea's 'real' democracy.

People have the power to impeach presidents with peaceful protests[0][1] and people are proud of it.

South Korea's democracy is highly trusted in the country, IMHO.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Park_Geun- hye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Park_Geun-hye) [1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39227342](https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-39227342)

<comment><USER4> Really the impeachment alone makes it very trustworthy regardless of its past. If petty abuse of power gets one removed from the highest office then accountability is maintained.

Not without flaws of course (election of dynastics in a democracy is generally a warning sign of power being used to self-perpetuate).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone who had read Jane Jacob's Death and Life of Great American Cities would predict what happens when you build isolated high rises, no matter how smart, with no actual connection to the urban life.

The article also speaks of these cities as not intended for the rural poor migrating to the city. Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City examines (among other things) why the rural poor flock to cities: no matter how dismal the slum, it's still better than the farm, and it's at least possible for some entrepreneurs to get started. Smart cities that exclude the poor and working class can't thrive.

Glaeser shows that cities are engines of economic growth, but this requires clean water and sanitary living for _everyone_ , and only state intervention can provide that. Instead of building high tech playgrounds, cities should literally clean up their act. Getting clean water is not glamourous, and probably not lucrative to individual actors, but in the end it pays off.

<comment><USER6> I found _Seeing Like A State_ even better at really elucidating the problems with planned cities. Some portions of it were heavily influenced by Jacob's work and was completely eye-opening to me in many ways, not least of which is how most such large scale planned initiatives are doomed to failure at the outset by plans that don't account for the real world.

<comment><USER7> If these large scale planned cities are doomed to failure, will they simply be completely abandoned in 20..40 years.. or will they be repurposed, perhaps surrounded by tent cities or shantytowns, and find a way forward?

<comment> barry-cotter They're no more doomed to failure than other planned cities like Milton Keynes[1] in the U.K., Pudong District[2] in Shanghai or Almere[3] in the Netherlands. Sometimes urban planning is done really well, as in Singapore or in the original planning of Manhattan. Sometimes it's just a disaster, as in Dubai where there's no municipal sewerage network and there aren't really street names and addresses as normally understood are useless or non-existent. Sometimes governments let people who hate people design cities because they're famous, like Le Corbusier and Brasilia. All of these cities work to different extents. They may have glaring problems but people live in them and there's enough economic activity that they're growing.

Large scale planner cities are not doomed to failure. Some of them will be done well and thrive and some will be utter disasters, losing all the investors' money and plentiful public funds. But given the pace of urbanisation in the developing world massive planned city building or expansion of the existing cities is inevitable.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudong)

[3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almere)

<comment><USER4> I have noticed that the main failing of planned cities seems to be the megalomania and misguided sense of organization trying to decide how it will be used specifically - often out of some misguided ideal of efficiency instead of leaving it to the people to decide. It brings to mind having a single restuarant outside every cul de sac and expecting residents to go only for the nearest restaurant.

Sanity calls for embracing the non-deteminism. Wall Street wasn't intended as a world financial center but that is what it wound up as.

I suspect a "modular garden" approach works best as a balance of setting up infastructure and zoning for purposes to be filled on demand. Japan at least has apparently had luck with building train/subway line loops, selling land to developers and renting out retail spaces in and near stations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is trying really hard to push this dystopian narrative, using rhetoric like "big brother". But I've spent the last 3 months living in "planned cities" near Seoul (Ilsan and Gwanggyo) and have nothing but positive things to say.

I'm 30 minutes to Seoul by public transport, literally don't need a car because everything is walkable, and there are many things to do (way more than the Washington DC suburb I grew up in). I didn't even know Ilsan was a planned city until I was told so.

And isn't every city "planned" in some sense via zoning laws and such? Is Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan not a "planned" community?

I've never seen an apartment with a daily loudspeaker announcement that can't be turned off, that's ridiculous and in no way a norm in South Korea.

I much prefer the planned cities I've lived in here in Korea to the drab lifeless suburbs in America where you can't do anything without a car and the commercial areas are just giant chain stores/restaurants.

<comment><USER9> I live in Songdo (the city featured in the article), and I think I have to concur with their dystopian tone. This place felt "fake" or "manufactured" to me in some sense that I couldn't put my finger on even before I knew that it's a planned city. Like too much infrastructure built and the people never came to inhabit it. Not quite a ghost town, but in that direction.

I have to say that getting around without a car is rather nice in daily life, but the public transportation around town was disappointing. And it's odd that it takes 45 minutes longer to get to the Incheon airport from my Songdo apartment than from downtown Seoul, despite being much closer.

<comment><USER10> It sounds like you're describing The Matrix. Are you sure you're not living in a giant simulation?

<comment><USER9> No. Are you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in South Korea and write drone ground control software as a hobby. Songdo is the city I go to on the weekends to test my latest changes because it's outside the Seoul no-fly zone and has a largely deserted central park I can fly in. I wouldn't say it otherwise feels anything like a ghost town, though - just less dense and more spacious than Seoul. With kids, it'd be attractive.

Edit: Here's some old alpha screenshots of my app flying over Songdo and me: [https://m.imgur.com/a/dK21yca](https://m.imgur.com/a/dK21yca)

</comment><comment> em-bee none of the problems that i can see have anything to do with the cities being smart, but rather with bad planning, maybe overplanning, and other issues.

so the question is, how to build a smart city the right way?

for starters, i don't think starting from scratch is a good idea, as that leads to overplanning and making predictions that don't pan out. better to pick an existing quarter and modernize that.

we have been modernizing cities for centuries, and we'll obviously continue to do so, so any future smart cities (if they are created) will all be based on existing cities, because it's not like we can just leave all our current cities behind and build new ones right next to them.

building a smart city from scratch is like a city-planners dream: _let 's build the ultimate city, and make it smart too_.

what we really should be doing is to ask: how can we use _smart city technology_ to enrich our peoples lives where they are now?

<comment><USER12> Stories like this focus on technology, but I think the more accurate narrative is that top-down, pre-planned design urban design is just a bad idea that comes around roughly once a generation. It never works, but it appeals to people so much that they ignore the mistakes of the past. Le Corbusier died in 1965, so it's about time for another iteration.

For architects, green field development is a chance to realize their dreams without constraint. For analysts and intellectuals, it's a chance to properly test theories and get clean, measurable data. For politicians, it's a way to receive full credit for a project and avoid the backlash from disrupting existing cities. For urban reformers who are burned out on the slow, uneven process of updating ancient cities, starting from scratch is a chance to improve things cheaply and escape dependency issues. For contractors and technologists, it's a chance to sell profitable end-to-end services.

But for everyone who _lives there_ , it sucks. The same way Joel Spolsky reminds us that the warts on old software often serve real purposes, old cities are full of concessions to climate, travel patterns, consumer needs, and general sanity. Lucio Costa might want symmetry, lack of sprawl, and clear traffic lanes, but the people stuck living in the piloto of Brasilia want memorable layouts, walkable streets, and gradual expansion.

The silliest thing about most sci-fi cities is that they're _all_ gleaming spires and high-tech grandeur. As you say, the cities of the future will grow from the cities and towns of the present. Any vision worth attempting needs to leave room for the people and the history already there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What made Songdo and Forest City fail, but Shenzhen succeed? I think it's because Shenzhen put business first, and grew iteratively as people arrived. People want to move where the jobs are, not just to a fancy new IoT city.

<comment><USER14> SZ wasn't really planned as a smart city, and it rose on its connection to HK at first in the 80s. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be Ordos New Town (Kangbashi)?

<comment><USER13> I guess that's my point: Shenzhen isn't a "smart city", it's an Special Economic Zone that happened to specialise in tech, for now. People will put up with whatever living conditions they can survive if it means they have a job. If the tech industry collapses, Shenzhen will probably just pivot to some other industry.

<comment><USER14> SEZ didn't start out in tech (more about making cheap things for HK exporters), and it still has a lot outside of tech, it would be like the tech industry collapsing in SF, bad, but not fatal.

China also has many artificial obscure tech industry city efforts, all as successful as you would image (ie, not st all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Video of Songdo mentioned in the article. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TNGowdxUOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TNGowdxUOQ)

penthouse pictures of one of these high rises [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrfHJmFaTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrfHJmFaTc)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is an identical article taken from The Guardian.

The Guardian piece was also submitted a few days ago around here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20409450](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20409450)

</comment><comment><USER17> > Every morning, at 8.30am, an announcement is piped though a speaker in the > ceiling of Kim Jong-won's flat, barking the daily bulletin in a high-pitched > voice. The disembodied broadcaster details new parking measures, issues with > the pneumatic waste disposal chute and various building maintenance jobs to > be carried out that day. "There's no way of turning it off," sighs Kim's > wife.

Jesus, this is straight from 1984. Why would someone agree to live in place like that

<comment><USER18> ok, we're tech people here, how can there be no way to turn it off? I mean, its in your home and can at least be covered, disconnected from a power source etc. In 1984 the issue was that if you did that, they would sooner or later find out and come for you, but I honestly don't believe its so bad in modern SK

<comment><USER12> Tech nothing - if I couldn't get to the power I'd tape an acoustic tile to the thing and drape the whole mess with a blanket. There's a reason most fire alarms in the US go off when disturbed, and are loud enough to cause hearing damage in an empty room; that's what it takes to fight the inevitable unplugging and silencing attempts aimed at a major safety device.

But the next line is _" I hate technology but my husband is an early adopter. He has to have everything first."_, so I'm pretty sure the problem with taking a hammer to the speaker is marital rather than political. This isn't _1984_ , it's a lesson in how bad design aggravates social friction and personal disagreements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "But many are prohibitively expensive and catalysts for land dispossession and social inequality" : Is it really a problem ? It is simply like that.

</comment><comment><USER20> I didn't see much evidence in the article about 'ghost towns'. it may be true but the article didn't back it up.

</comment><comment><USER21> You cant even read text on this website without js enabled, wth is wrong with people

</comment><comment><USER22> This article reads almost like a hatchet job.</comment>


Satellaview - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview <comment><USER2> There's an interesting history of one-way content delivery by satellite. Although info on the service is now sparse, since at least 1995 PageSat was delivering a constant feed of Usenet updates via satellite broadcast as a means for smaller ISPs and BBS operators to avoid the (at the time) substantial bandwidth required to receive NNTP - I once worked in a rural university IT operation that no longer used the service but still had the hardware lying around. This sparked an interest in the broader ways that content has been delivered by satellite, predating the practicality of two-way VSATs. A prime example is the use of IP-over-MPEG to deliver the downlink side of a consumer internet connection via satellite television broadcast, while the uplink uses dial-up or ADSL. This arrangement is unusual in the US today but still in use occasionally.

On the other hand, there are still organizations trying to use the same "broadcast internet" model. Cidera nèe SkyCache flopped on using satellite broadcast to deliver content to edge CDN nodes in the early 2000s, and Outernet is currently flopping (minor opinion inserted there) on delivering educational content using a similar model.

This is viable in certain niches. The broadcast industry, for example, makes use of similar systems with the Public Radio Satellite System (affiliated with NPR) using one-way UDP broadcast to deliver live events and recorded syndicated programs to member stations. This has the upside of lower and latency and much lower jitter compared to the internet but the margin of superiority over conventional internet delivery is getting narrower by the day.

On a slightly related tangent, the general nature of the design of satellite data relay (with spot antennas covering relatively broad areas of the planet) means that the downlink channel of any satellite internet customer can generally be received over a wide area, even if they are using a modern two- way VSAT. With reasonable encryption this doesn't pose much of a problem, but some satellite ISPs, particularly in the developing world, continue to make use of unencrypted IP-over-MPEG for their downlink. This allows a malicious eavesdropper anywhere in the region to receive the traffic one direction, which has the extremely important implication that it allows them to hijack TCP sessions by intercepting sequence numbers - this enables IP spoofing over TCP, something that is generally regarded as impossible. This is sufficiently reliable that it has been used as part of the C2 infrastructure in botnets. I have a research paper on this somewhere.

<comment><USER3> satellite is still the only way to get internet in many regions of Australia. This is a major consideration when it comes to how websites are designed if you intend for that audience to be able to access your service. Tiny uplink bandwidth, large amount of latency. Therefore, for instance, large images aren't as big a problem as many many small images, or transitive dependencies.

<comment><USER4> > Tiny uplink bandwidth, large amount of latency. Therefore, for instance, > large images aren't as big a problem as many many small images, or > transitive dependencies.

Is this a typo, or is it just that many small/transitive dependencies are _much_ worse?

<comment><USER3> many small transitive dependencies are much worse when request turnaround is up to 1 second. so for an external image loaded from an external CSS file, that's 2 seconds. It's a bandwidth scenario where reducing the number of seperate http requests makes a _huge_ difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An unreleased SNES game, Cooly Skunk, was recently discovered and likely never would have come to light if it wasn't for Satellaview broadcasting a demo of the game while the service was active, and a user preserving it on a Satellaview download cartridge. Fascinating stuff.

See: [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-cooly...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-cooly- skunk-the-cross-gen-console-game-recovered-from-oblivion)

<comment><USER6> Wow, neat. The demo is new, but knowledge of the game isn't. Newly-found roms are cool.

I didn't know that, I just looked it up on unseen64.net and found some old magazine scans:

[https://www.unseen64.net/2010/02/08/cooly-skunk-snes- unrelea...](https://www.unseen64.net/2010/02/08/cooly-skunk-snes-unreleased/)

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, not only is [https://unseen64.net/](https://unseen64.net/) neat (about unreleased and cancelled games), but so is [https://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor](https://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor)

the latter being scrapped content/levels/characters/etc from games that were released with unused models/maps still included from a previous version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slack on an SNES powered by emu Satellaview: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXY2raEzPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXY2raEzPk)

<comment><USER8> The little town interface is adorable.

<comment><USER9> It reminds me so much of Onett in Earthbound

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really love that Nintendo did something like Satellaview, and it's always been something that has struck me as a niche product that was far ahead of its time. It's too bad that we will never be able to experience what using the Satellaview was like (admittedly, probably pretty slow and crappy), but at the time I can only imagine it would have felt quite novel.

</comment><comment><USER11> Living the 80s-90s in Japan was like living 10 years in the future, it's crazy how much technology was already making its way into the consumer market.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was expecting a Satya Nadella or at least a Microsoft joke there

<comment><USER13> Same! Satyanadellaview.</comment></comment>


Different Folks: Selling Google Cloud to the CIO - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/google-alphabet/different-folks-selling-google-cio <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR:

"Google has been spending tens of billions of dollars annually in recent years to expand its global cloud data center footprint. It's also been adding enterprise-specific capabilities to the cloud platform – things like the recently launched managed Postgres (Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL), a service that takes the burden of managing infrastructure underneath the popular enterprise database management system off customers' hands...

To close the support gap between itself and the market leaders, Google has introduced things like its Customer Reliability Engineer program – a high-tier service for customers running critical customer-facing applications in production and at scale on Google's cloud. Customers that use this service get assigned Google engineers, referred to as CREs, who help them recover when things go wrong. 'If they go down, we're going to get paged,' Ward says about the program. 'Google engineers will get on the horn.'"</comment>


Bitcoin high frequency trading with genetic algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ijp4s/high_frequency_trading_with_genetic_algorithms/

<comment><USER2> Well that ticks all the Hacker News boxes</comment>


Query html tables with SQL (using R)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.r-chart.com/2010/07/analyze-online-r-user-conference-data.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Only if your HTML tables don't have primary keys :P

</comment><comment><USER2> Terrifying.</comment>


Ask HN: Why have schools done such a bad job in teaching Mathematics? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Because there's a bias towards so-called "practical" math - arithmetic and accounting and figuring out things like price per unit. I think this started because curriculum was highly biased towards "real American" farmers feeling like they only needed enough arithmetic to keep from being ripped off by city- slickers, and then got perpetuated by high schools needing to churn out standardized factory workers, which meant that knowing how to measure things and do fractions and decimals got imposed.

There's also a huge "tradition" component to US public schools. Parents for generations have had cows when something changed. Look at the reaction to doing some small bits of set theory in the "New Math" of the 60s/early 70s, or the freakouts about not teaching phonics in the 80s, and the Core Curriculum conspiracy theories of 10-15 years ago.

Making computers and software like Mathematica, MACSYMA, etc, and pocket calculators and later smart phones turned the whole thing upside down. Memorizing how to do arithmetic is actually detrimental to understanding, it turns out, and knowledge of symbolic logic and algorithms is more important than being able to add decimals and multiply fractions.

To summarize: US math education was entirely practical, the curriculum dictated by either farming or industrial interests. Pocket calculators, computers and smart phones have made that "practical emphasis" look especially medieval because what used to be higher math, is now what is basic. This is abetted by US citizens preferring tradition in curriculum over all else.

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually think Math, as it is taught now in US public schools, is taught better than any of the other topics. Why? Because there is a standard progression from one year to the next and the supporting tools/software are more refined than the related tools/software for Science, History, and English.

<comment><USER4> (Australia here.) Maths was my favourite subject in high school mainly because everything else was taught so badly - history (regurgitate names and dates, for some reason mostly Greece, Rome, WWI), science (learnt how to be good at faking experiments! I couldn't believe it), english (memorize and regurgitate teacher's pet theories on set texts). Not to mention art and music which were just atrocious. I absolutely loathed poetry classes until discovering a few years later that I loved it. Maths is just harder to teach badly, I think - less opinion-based.

Actually I did learn something of statistics in physics class - our teacher said "Right!" and "Right-o!" incredibly often, and I & some friends made tables and drew graphs of just how often, and various units and ways to measure when a new record had been achieved.

But most people have a dislike for maths, maybe because it's been mostly answering other peoples' exercise questions. Seems dry and uninteresting, pointless. I'd been programming since I was about 11, so had uses for it all, could test out the new ideas in graphics programs, and had questions of my own to answer. It was something I was always playing around with. (So were music, art, history, science, but that didn't make me like the way they were taught!)

<comment><AUTHOR> > so had uses for it all, could test out the new ideas in graphics programs, > and had questions of my own to answer

That's a very interesting point you made!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Low prestige, low wages, hard subject. Is this not obvious? Situation in Europe and Asia gradually converging to US's as wage gap between private and public sectors widen.

<comment> non-entity To be quite honest, I probably wouldn't have graduated in time if it wasn't for math teacher who didn't care, and passed almost everyone. Looking back, it probably was my weakest subject, and probably would have been my lowest grades if I hadn't hated ELA classes too much to do the work.

Unfortunately now, I find my math ability to be extremely weak, which becomes a problem as I take interest in things that require much higher level math than I'm used to.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm also in the same boat. However, I've started reading from elementary mathematics and I enjoy it much more than what I used to.</comment></comment></comment>


Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/09/13/job-titles-that-can-sink-your-startup/

<comment><USER2> Interesting points, but it reads like a parable, rather than something that actually happened.

This is something that irritates me about business writing. Parable != evidence, since I construct a parable after the fact, to make a specific point.

Also, like witty aphorisms, it's just as easy to support either side of an argument. E.g. "the early bird gets the worm" v.s "the second mouse gets the cheese".

<comment><USER3> I've been in that exact position - we kept hiring high powered sales guys and expected them to sell a product that was _close_ , but not close enough, to what customers actually wanted.

It's the classic mistake of confusing sales (selling an existing product) and marketing (finding out what people really want).

<comment><USER4> That's a great point. There is a third branch in the trifecta, which is advertising/PR to tell people about what you have.

Be wary of someone great at advertising/PR but not at market fit. Those are two distinct questions. Often the founder needs to "own" market fit, probably with the help of others, and advertising/PR can be somewhat delegated. However since market fit drives every decision, it can be hard for that person to be anyone else but the founder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excellent article. This was something we learned at our last company, especially early on. Sales people that had previously excelled at large tech companies with a full suite of presentation, training, marketing, and support materials, with a mature and relatively stable product, did not do well in a fast moving environment that required more thought and digging into detail. In the end, our consulting organization (which was much more familiar with our product and customer requirements) ended up being our best pool of sales talent. I'd suggest considering technical consulting types who are working on actual implementations for sales roles.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's less "job titles that", and more "job titles can". The hiring model for employees in the tech industry has shifted from "I'm hiring a (insert position here)" to "I'm hiring someone who can (skills x, y, and z)". Old industry HR practice is to look for a title, but new industry needs to focus on skillsets. Especially in the fluid world of startups, flexibility is core.

<comment><USER7> I think you're correct. In this case though, the VP said he could, but proved he couldn't.

<comment><USER8> Actually he says that the specific conditions did _not_ come up in the interview. They used the terms customer validation and pivot, but did not specifically say "we don't have a well-understood group of customers" or "we don't have a scalable and repeatable business model."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Steve Blank is a writer and knows that wrapping his point in a story makes it more enticing to read. And I agree that this post has less to do with job titles, than hiring people who have the right kind of experience.

Having worked in big companies, (Gap, Wells Fargo, Guess) I know that they all have their time tested processes and you walk in and there are step by step instructions on how to do your job (any job, all the way up). Even at IDEO there's a tried and true methodology, design thinking. You dont know what you will come up with, but you know each step to take.

Startups change day to day, which makes them exciting. But hiring a seasoned big company employee is suicidal if they come in trying to execute a time tested routine.

It's not about titles per se, but about hiring someone with the right mentality.

</comment><comment><USER10> I might be coming off as naive here, but the minute I saw this: "searching for a business model", I got my skepticism on.

Why is this startup searching for a business model? Shouldn't you start with that and build your company around it?

Again, apologies if this is a naive POV.

<comment><USER11> Steve Blanks' "Building A Business Model" is the idea that you iteratively develop your startup based on what you discover about your customer's needs. Ie. your first attempt at a project is almost never what your potential customers will actually end up paying for.

He espouses that you should build a minimal product based on your idea. Then iterate over the following points seeking traction and revenue

1) "Get out of the building" and go talk to a lot of your potential customers

2) Based on what you learn from those people: Reevaluate your idea and decide if you should iterate more, or start a new direction

3) Develop #2

4) goto #1

Think of it as the scientific hypothesis/experiment cycle for startups

[edited to add the below]

As usual, Steve says it more succinctly and powerfully than I. I guess that's one reason why he gets to teach at Stanford :)

Here's how he puts it [1]

      Your startup is essentially an organization built to
      search for a repeatable and scalable business model.  As
      a founder you start out with:

      1) a vision of a product with a set of features,

      2) a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the
         business model: Who are the customers/users? What's
         the distribution channel. How do we price and position
         the product? How do we create end user demand? Who are
         our partners? Where/how do we build the product? How
         do we finance the company, etc.

      Your job as a founder is to quickly validate whether the
      model is correct by seeing if customers behave as your
      model predicts. Most of the time the darn customers
      don't  behave as you predicted.

      ...

      How do you know your business model is the right one?
      When revenue, users, traffic, etc., start increasing in a
      repeatable way

[1] [http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first- princ...](http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-principles/)

<comment><USER12> " _He espouses that you should build a minimal product based on your idea. Then iterate over the following points seeking traction and revenue._ "

No, he doesn't. He really _really_ doesn't. In fact, that's the _exact opposite_ of what he advocates and what his customer development methodology attacks - the old school product development approach of building the product first and then collecting feedback to refine it, figuring out how to market it, finding out who the target customer is, etc.

Developing your customer base (rather than developing your product) means that you talk to customers and learn their existing pain points _before_ you design or build a single thing. His Four Steps To The Epiphany MBA textbook calls it Customer Discovery, or step one. Everything in the #1-4 loop you described is step two - Customer Validation - where you then try to validate your hypothesis about the customer pain points with your product ideas and/or prototypes.

I'm ripping off this giant rant because for some reason, I see this on HN a lot. _A lot_. It's really common for people to conflate MVP with customer development and to also reverse the order that you do it. I think you see this on HN in particular because it's filled with coders that prototype in code the way designers prototype on paper, so they think "hmm, how hard could it be for me to throw something together in a week or two and see if anyone will buy it?" instead of "how hard could it be for me to go talk to people and see if there's a potential customer base for this idea I have?" It's not just that the second path is easier, it means that the product you build afterwards is _way_ better informed. On the other hand, MVP seems to appeal to HNers because it's like the Nike message of startups - Just Do It. Just go ahead and build something already because all you need to do afterwards is refinement. A little bit of a/b testing magic on landing pages here, a bit of keyword research on Adwords there and then bam, your app is paying the rent while you drink margaritas on the beach.

Off the top of my head, one of the more recent examples I can think of was just this last month when Zach Burt (zackattack) unveiled Awesomeness Reminders and someone asked him about all the stuff he's built this year, so he wrote about his personal process for throwing tons of little MVP apps against the wall and then why he'd ditch each one before moving on to the next:

[http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/08/an-open-discussion-of- my-...](http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/08/an-open-discussion-of-my-personal- business-strategy/)

Not to pick on the guy, but this was a particularly egregious example. Explaining why he abandoned one of his apps (CustomerFind), he wrote:

" _I did do some Customer Development meetings related to CustomerFind, and pivots suggested room for a potential enterprise-y Social Media dashboard product._ "

No, you didn't! You didn't do Customer Development - you did Customer Validation, where you did a little bit of research _after you built the product_ to see if the product you _already built_ solved the problems _that you just plain guessed_ your customers had. In other words, you tried to skip a step and validate your product against customer base that you didn't create in advance and then surprise! There wasn't a fit and the app wasn't monetizable. An interest list based on email signups is not the same as purchase orders. Rinse and repeat for 4 or 5 apps and there went his 2010 so far.

So when do you do MVP and when do you do Customer Development?

Easy - it depends on whether you're building something where you're also the target audience, scratching your own itch, eating your own dogfood, Tim O'Reilly's "fishing with strawberries", etc, or if you're building something for other people.

Both approaches are still just different versions of PG's "make stuff people want" but you need some kind of internal compass to guide the way. If you know the phone in your pocket sucks and you can build a better experience, then Apple can go make something that's clearly better without having to do a lot of market research. So they do. And if you think you'd like to get a call every once in a while and hear a real human being tell you that you're awesome, then there you go. But if you're building something for other people to use that have problems that you don't experience on a daily basis, like say, an app for bloggers that get a good amount of traffic and are looking to get into direct sales rather than relying solely on Adsense's anemic payouts, then you better do your homework and get on the phone.

<comment><USER13> awesome contribution to the discussion, thank you! and i think you're right about the problem with folks getting MVP confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A great addition to this post is the "Sales Learning Curve" paper written by Mark Leslie. What's great about the SLC is Mark gives some actual data and a framework for how to think about who/when to hire sales people. <http://altgate.com/blog/2007/07/sales-learning-curve.html> I recommend it to every entrepreneur.

</comment><comment><USER15> All the great salespeople I have known were nervous control freaks hiding inside a breezy exterior. The great ones are like painters who would never let you touch their canvas. Of course they will freak if you keep changing the product. Stability is a primal urge (for customers, not HN readers) and sales people know that.

The solution: Hire crappy salesmen who will call anyone you want? Not exactly.

Find the smartest customers you can and practically pay them to work with you. After all in the scenario outlined, you don't even have a product they want. The salesperson needs to "get" that they are selling the team not the product.

</comment><comment><USER16> Good post thanks. Besides optimists and pragmatists, boards also need skeptics to remind everyone of where the company really is before it gets ahead of itself.

The main underlying cause of the problem here is always (in my opinion) the fact that boards and founders tend to build companies only by looking forward at what they hope the company will be in X quarters. In this example: I suspect they are really excited at having the big shot VP of Sales because usually, where there is one, there is revenue. But they don't seem to face the truth of where they really are at this stage: a company still struggling to find its model.

</comment><comment><USER17> The thing about titles, is that sometimes even though they don't reflect what you really do on a day to day basis, they do help with career management - i.e. finding the next job if the current one goes bust. So sometimes its ok to give someone a high-falutin' title as long as they understand up front that they have to earn it.

<comment><USER18> And the thing about salesmen is that in the interview they're selling themselves. Of course he said what Rajiv wanted to hear! That's what he does for a living!

<comment><USER19> This is why you can't tell an interviewee what you want in an employee. You need to hold your cards close to your chest and get THEM to tell you what they deliver.

If it doesn't fit then you need to consider finding someone else.

The worst thing you can do is bring in someone for an interview, tell them what you want to hear, and then allow them to echo back to you what you want to hear. Which is what most humans will do.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> "This is why you can't tell an interviewee what you want in an employee"_

I disagree. If a company cannot clearly state what is expected of an employee then how can it expect to attract/retain great people? The interviewee should also be assessing their potential employer so being reluctant to share relevant information probably wouldn't come across well (at least not to me).

Interviewing is a skill and a good interviewer needs to be able to inform applicants about the job requirements while also probing to ensure that the candidate actually does possess the necessary skills. It is not easy.

Aside: There's an Ask HN thread on job descriptions which you might find interesting. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685258>

<comment><USER18> Easy. In the interview you present the candidate with scenarios and let them run with them. In an interview you are rarely looking for specific facts; rather you want to discern the candidates thought process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'll give anyone working with me any title they want, including CEO, just as long as they do everything within their power -- and stretch out of their zone -- to accomplish work and move the company forward.

</comment><comment><USER21> I know Steve is a respected VC, but 4 mentions of "pivot" in a single entry? Come on!

</comment><comment><USER22> I think any titles period will hurt your startup. Who has the biggest dick? Who fucking cares? I can't stand titles... whoop-dee-doo you're an art director.</comment>


Startup founders, what books did you find most helpful? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> About 14 months ago, I had little knowledge of how to execute a startup. In particular, I wasn't familiar with any online marketing tactics. The following books helped me a lot in that respective, and more:

1\. Positioning, 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing/Branding, Focus, Marketing Warfare

2\. Purple Cow, All Marketers are Liars, Permission Marketing (I didn't like "The Big Moo", "Free prize inside" or "Small is the new Big").

3\. Founters At Work

4\. Wikinomics, Wisdom of Crowds, The Tipping Point (Blink! was alright). I am looking forward to reading "The Long Tail" and "The starfish and the spider"...has anyone read them yet?

6\. Why We Buy

7\. Hackers and Painters

8\. The E-Myth revisited

9\. The Art of the Start

10\. On War, The Art of War by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu (not exactly for startups, but definitely useful)

11\. Crossing the Chasm

<comment><USER3> Very good list. I've been compiling a list for a while now using google notebook. Its a big mess and many of the books I have yet to read but it links to a few good lists such as the ones on joelonsoftware and onstartups.

<http://www.google.com/notebook/public/14636089903511277449/BDQiPSgoQ98yW0vQh>

Also python: long tail is a good read, drags out a bit though. Possibly more my attention span at fault there.

<comment><USER4> great list. I'll take some time to go through this. To this I'd add the

_\- JOS software reading list [0]

_ \- JOS management reading list [1]

There are gaps in these lists but pretty much cover the _best_ for both _programmers_ & _business - types_. But the lists needs updating as I note pg's _'Painters & Hackers'_ is not listed nor is Cal Hendersons _'Building Scalable Websites'_ [3].

Reference

[0] Joel On Software 'Book Review, reading list'

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html>

[1] Joel On Software, 'Management reading list'

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html>

[3] Cal Henderson, 'Building Scalable Web Sites, 978-0596102357':

<http://www.amazon.com/Building-Scalable-Web-Sites-Applications/dp/0596102356>

<comment><USER3> Hackers and Painters is on my list three times :)

I'm going to have to check out Cal Hendersons book sometime but first I have to make a good site then I can worry about scaling it.

<comment><USER5> Cal addresses that by arranging his book in roughly the order that you should think about things. He recommends that you think about:

1\. Version control

2\. Issue tracking

3\. One-click deploy

4\. Internationalization

5\. Security

before you start building your application, then you build and release it, then (and only then) start thinking about:

6\. Email

7\. Web services

8\. Scalability

9\. Statistics & monitoring

10\. APIs

This mostly squares with my experiences (both with my own startup - <USER2> on step 3, with 4, 5 and a launch-ready app already done - and working for others). The only changes I'd make are:

1\. Move statistics and monitoring up the priority list, before launch. You want that data available to drive feature implementation.

2\. I'm of two minds on internationalization. I think that most apps can wait until they're popular before they need to internationalize. However, i18n is really difficult to do later, after you've already built an app. I watched LiveJournal go through the process, and it wasn't pretty. So even though you don't need it, you may want to do it upfront because it'll be much harder later.

<comment><USER3> Now I think I need this book. Your right about stats, I would move them to number 6 or perhaps even to prelaunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Hackers and Painters" had an immense impact on me a couple of years ago. Like pg, I multiplex art and hackery (I suck at painting though--sculpture, printmaking, and theatrical design are my areas), so to read a book that validated and supported that duality was to find a good bit of clarity regarding my course in life. I still go back to H&P; every few months, when I get worried about such things.

Just yesterday I started reading "Founders at Work", and from what I've gotten through, it's going to be great. More on that later, if this thread last.

<comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone read "ANSI Common Lisp" by pg, yet? The painting on the front cover is actually by Paul :)

<http://images.pearsoned-ema.com/jpeg/large/9780133708752.jpg>

<comment><USER7> Sure -- it's what got me into Lisp hackery after I had plateaued on other languages. This led to Emacs and then RSI, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Business side:

Most business books are fun to read, but it's really hard to say that any have been truly helpful. Most lean more to the motivational/inspirational side, instead of focusing on case studies. My suspicion is that business is probably not best learned from a book. But I'll list a few I like anyways.

Alan Sugar: The Amstrad Story \- Great story about how Sir Alan grew an empire selling stereos out of the back of a car. Instructive because his key insights revolved around understanding what the average user wanted, as opposed to the technical elite.

Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison \- He started his first company at 33 after working for other high tech firms. This book is neat because Ellison adds his own comments in the footer when he disagrees with the biographer.

Founders @ Work \- Pre-ordered it. I was tempted to read it all at once, but decided to spread it out over 2 weeks. I'm glad that I did - there's a lot to digest....

Product side:

_Designing Interactions \- If you want to design great user experiences, it helps to see the thought processes great designers go through to create successful products.

_ Bulletproof Web Design \- Well written, concise. Cederholm knows CSS.

 _Hardening Linux \- I've seen many guides at the bookstore. This one appealed to me because it has both breadth and depth. The chapter on configuring firewalls was alone worth the price of the book.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really liked "The Tipping Point". Anything by Malcolm Gladwell I would have to recommend.

<comment><USER10> I agree 100%! Awesome insights and helpful concepts/information

<comment><USER9> Definitely. It was great to read this when I had the beginning stages of a company idea in my head. Made me think of it in a completely different way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tufte's _Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ and Carnegie's _How to Win Friends and Influence People_.

<comment><USER6> I had long pined to read Tufte's The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, but couldn't convince myself to spend the money; when I arrived at university, I immediately found a copy, and greatly appreciated it (not to say I agreed with every point). I thence read Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and found it fascinating--for anyone who's ever taken an interest in typography, visualization, or the theory of communication, it's an excellent read. Even if none of that interests you, you'd still benefit from the book: it shows you how to think analytically about human factors, which is a relatively rare discipline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've had to make up for a college education so these may be old hat.

Alan Kay's UI lectures: <http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978270>

Ed Tufte, especially Envisioning Information

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) <http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/>

Ed Yourdon: Death March... this is a great guide to dealing with enterprizey development. This shows you what to avoid in your own org.

</comment><comment><USER5> My list, categorized:

 _Business & Management_

1\. Innovator's Dilemma and Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen

2\. Built to Last and Good to Great by Jim Collins. Built to Last is more applicable for startups.

3\. Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks. Anyone who has to manage a team of programmers and hasn't read this will _fail_ utterly, unless they've already failed before (or been on a failing team). There's a lot that's counterintuitive about software project management.

4\. Peter Drucker's work. Kinda long and repetitive, but some good insights.

 _Marketing_

1\. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin. I like this better than Purple Cow, Guerilla Marketer's Handbook, and The Big Red Fez. Most of those have fairly obvious stuff.

2\. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

3\. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

 _Technical_

1\. Building Scalable Websites by Cal Henderson

2\. High Performance MySQL by Jeremy Zawodny

3\. Pragmatic Programmer by...well, it's mentioned elsewhere here.

There are lots of other technical books I like, but most of them aren't directly relevant to the startup I'm building

</comment><comment><USER12> If you want a company, not just a startup: anything from Nolo press

</comment><comment><USER10> \- Tipping point (creates a urgency feeling)

\- Built to last (tips and best practices)

\- Blink (helps not to waste ideas, shows how your first impressions/thoughts could be useful)

\- Phylosophy Books (Republic and Politics) - you can understand and have good insights about this social networking and community fever moment.

Anything you could read regarding usability, interfaces and scalability would help a lot when dealing with low money web2 related startups.

To know about extreme programming would be very good.

</comment><comment><USER13> 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

<comment><AUTHOR> That is indeed an excellent book for personal development. Anyone who hasn't yet read it should certainly look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Founders at Work Hackers and Painters

(Disclaimer - I am moonlighting on my startup idea, but have these books to be a huge source of inspiration. Also, Joel's list is highly recommended. Another book, and it may seem off-topic is Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. It helps to study the lives of those who have managed to pull off very successful businesses)

</comment><comment><USER15> There's plenty of interesting books out there and many are fairly specific for the task you're trying to solve. The book that has helped me out the most is Getting Things Done by David Allen:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done>

It's better than any other personal development book.

<comment><USER3> GTD didnt work for me.

The bits that I did find useful were

1) make lots of lists

2) read your lists often

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> some that haven't been mentioned:

\- the innovator's dilemma by clayton christensen

\- blue ocean strategy (kim and mauborgne) -- these two books give you a little bit more of a framework to evaluate where your idea adds value and give you examples of how/why some successful companies have been successful

\- high tech startup by nesheim -- a little dated, but lots of info

\- negotiation/people books: getting to yes (fisher, ury) and getting past no (ury), influence by cialdini (useful for more than just startups)

\- maybe some management books: peopleware (demarco and lister), the art of project management (berkun), first, break all the rules (buckingham)

\- founders at work (livingston) to get inspired

+1 to crossing the chasm, and the godin & gladwell books, art of the start

blogs: onstartups.com, fred wilson, brad feld, seth godin, etc., guy kawasaki

-drew

</comment><comment><USER17> Some of these have been mentioned, but these stand out for me

 _Programming:_

Getting Real

The Pragmatic Programmer

Hackers and Painters

 _Business:_

Good to Great

Start Your Own Business (I knew basically nothing about small business before I started, and it's a good intro)

Crossing the Chasm (good so far, haven't finished)

 _Technology/Culture:_

The Long Tail

The World is Flat

 _Productivity/People:_

Getting Things Done

Getting to Yes

How to Win Friends and Influence People

</comment><comment><USER18> The Magic Lamp 'Goal setting for people who hate setting goals' \- Keith Ellis

its not self help for slackers :-) its just a really good book about organizing your goals and seeing them through.

</comment><comment><USER19> Be Quick - But Don't Hurry by Andrew Hill with John Wooden. This book reveals the secrets of running a successful organization.

</comment><comment><USER20> startup by jerry Kaplan. This book really gives you the insight and adrenaline involved in building an idea which was too early for its time. Emotional stuff :)

iCon: the unofficial biography of steve jobs. Tremendous into steve's character

</comment><comment><USER21> Agile Web Development with Rails was very helpful

</comment><comment><USER22> Founders at Work :)

and Felix Dennis' "How To Get Rich"

</comment><comment><USER23> "real life" by Me

</comment><comment><USER24> Dilbert :)</comment>