Are there any private forum/communities for SaaS owners? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Are you asking if there is an existing community for SaaS owners? There is a subreddit

[https://www.reddit.com/r/saas](https://www.reddit.com/r/saas)

But I guess it's not private. GrowthHackers is a more of a general forum for ... well.. growth hackers.. :)

Then there is HelloBox

[http://hellobox.co](http://hellobox.co)

where you can create a private community - they don't have a directory of all the existing communities, so not sure if SaaS community exists.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://angel.co/saas](https://angel.co/saas)

</comment><comment><USER3> btw, how is your [http://chatpage.io](http://chatpage.io) product doing?</comment>


Show HN: DotYouTube – A tiny Chrome extension to block YouTube pre-roll ads - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/KyleBenzle/DotYouTube <comment><USER2> I don't necessarily mind ads. Gotta pay for content somehow, micro- transactions haven't worked, and I'm approaching some weird psychological threshold where I just don't want to see another subscription on my credit card.

But ughhhhhh YouTube advertisements are so bad for me. I constantly get weird "sexy witch girl" mobile game promos, I assume because I watch competitive Pokémon videos. _(Spoiler, algorithm, gay male, don't care about scantily glad witch girls.)_ Just grating dumb ads for stuff I definitely won't buy.

And it doesn't have to be that way, seemingly. Instagram has me targeted perfectly. I actually _find interesting stuff to buy_ off Instagram ads. That algorithm has me down pat. I don't find those ads disgusting it all. (Or I get a kick out of the insane Wish ads.)

<comment><USER3> Google, despite being the biggest player in the ad industry and a leader in machine learning, actually seems remarkably poor at selecting good ads to show.

I think part of that is their data compartmentalizing for privacy reasons (they won't use your Gmail emails to your mum complaining that your drain is blocked to recommend 'magic drain unblocking washing liquid'). It's probably a good thing, but the other platforms don't have any qualms using such data if they have it...

I also think they listen to the advertiser too much... For example, they give advertiser's a lot of control over who sees the ads, which creatives are used, what times of day to show them, etc.

It turns out a machine learning algorithm can do much better than a human at selecting when to show my ad...

<comment><USER4> The question is, does showing the precise target matched ads profit the Google more? If not, Google has no incentive to improve in that regard. By showing you ads, Google has already been profiting. All Google need to do is showing you the ads from the highest bidder while it's also not annoying enough for you to leave the web site. The highest bidder's ads tend to be rather nasty. But if you don't stop using the web site because of the ads, Google win.

<comment><USER3> The highest bidder will only bid high if those ads work for their business.

Therefore, Google has a direct incentive to make their ads work better for advertisers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at the code, this seems to not block ads but redirect the browser to youtube.com. which in the past did not show ads.

As far as I know, this trick does not work anymore.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it appends a dot after ".com". Is it no longer effective for you?

<comment><USER5> No. Does it work for you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _A Tiny Extension to Block (Some) YouTube Pre-Roll Video Ads_

Or just use uBlock Origin to block (All) the ads, on youtube and virtually all other sites.

<comment> tokamak-teapot Is there a good solution for mobile? I was thinking of always going via wireguard to home then back out via pihole. I can't find an 'out of the box' way to configure both together though. I have plenty of unused Linux boxes sitting around that could do this, I think.

<comment><USER7> If you're on Android, use Firefox for Android and install uBlock origin. You can also install Video Background Play fix add-on to force Youtube to keep playing in the background.

<comment><USER8> You can also use YouTube Vanced if you're on Android

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> doesn't ublock origin practically make it redundant

<comment><USER10> Seems YouTube has some checks to see if the ad is running. I'm currently unable to watch videos because I just get a black rectangle, and if I click it it shows an error.

I've found an easy way to bypass this issue though: Click Share > Embed, the preview window is playable. Start playing video from there, put it on full screen, profit!!!

<comment><USER11> I don't get this issue on either Firefox or Chrome on linux running with uBlock and Privacy Badger. Maybe you're part of the A/B test, and it has yet to be rolled out fully?

<comment><USER12> I'd agree with the parent comment.

Couple weeks ago using ublock origin when browsing youtube would make youtube almost unusable. For me - if I'd have a direct link to video - the video would load and show, but the website itself wouldn't. Basically from user's point of view it was completely blank page with only video showing, no related videos, no comments, no like/dislike or anything. :)

So I needed to turn off ublock origin for youtube and everything came back to normal. I am using pihole though, but it was basically useless for youtube ads.

Though couple days ago, I've turned on ublock origin and youtube was working as usual and it was ad-less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My advice is to forget this nonsense and sign up for YouTube Premium. It's good for the soul, and the ladies appreciate guys who can pay their way in this world.

</comment><comment><USER14> The weird thing is that one period I almost get no ads, the it starts again.

Anyway the algorithm of yt sucks, I only get the same content. Is there a better index?

<comment><USER15> In terms of exploring music, yes, YouTube's algorithm is terrible. There's no real exploration, one keeps on falling into the same tracks over and over again. No matter how obscure a band or musician is eventually I will end up with the same playlists of promoted stuff. Are used to be a bit more random and it was better. I almost always am not interesated into the promoted results anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Context: You can bypass youtube ads by adding a dot after the domain

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435)

YouTube fixed this a week later

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581118](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581118)

<comment><USER15> Tried it and it did not work for me. Maybe they closed the loophole?

<comment><USER17> > Tried it and it did not work for me. Maybe they closed the loophole?

That's exactly what your parent said:

> > YouTube fixed this a week later

> > > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581118](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581118)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://invidio.us/](https://invidio.us/) works great too.

<comment><USER19> What is that, exactly? There isn't any explanation on the site.

<comment><USER16> Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube

[https://github.com/omarroth/invidious](https://github.com/omarroth/invidious)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can use uBlock Origin to block all ads, and use SponsorBlock to skip ads inside the video itself, such as sponsor promotions, and even intro/end sequences. It really cuts out all of the bullshit in YouTube videos.

</comment><comment><USER21> µblock does it, don't install 5 things when you can install one.

<comment><USER22> uBlock Origin != uBlock!

<comment><USER21> yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Tiny enough to paste the whole thing here. Clever trick to insert a "." after the .com that seems to trick some of the ad targeting. Wonder how many other sites this works on?

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function (tabId, changeInfo, tab) {

        if (changeInfo.status === "loading" && /youtube.com/.test(changeInfo.url)) {

            let url = new URL(tab.url);
            if (!url.hostname.endsWith(".")) {

                url.hostname = url.hostname + ".";
                chrome.tabs.update(tabId, { url: url.href });
            }}})</comment>


Want to Become a Sketching Machine? Start a 30-Day Sketching Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://rizwanjavaid.com/blog/2016/8/7/want-to-become-a-sketching-machine-start-a-30-day-sketching-challenge <comment><USER2> Love it! Going to try it out!</comment>


Obama Calls For Regulation Of Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/06/17/the-daily-start-up-obama-calls-for-vc-to-be-regulated/ <comment><USER4> It seems to me that any wholesale reform of financial regulation has to prevent regulatory arbitrage. Right now, IIUC, banks and mutual funds and hedge funds and insurance companies and VC firms and non-bank mortgage companies are governed by different rules and supervised by different regulatory agencies, which allowed people with sketchy business plans to pick the corporate structure that gave them the most favorable regulations. (Thus, for example, non-bank mortgage companies were more lightly regulated than banks, and more deeply involved with subprime loans.)

We need to move towards a system with one common regulatory framework for everything (or at least, everything above a certain level of assets under management), so the people responsible for investing other people's money have an incentive to focus on choosing good investments rather than gaming the system.

Even if VC firms had nothing to do with _the current_ financial meltdown, if they end up as the least regulated class of fund, then they will surely get drawn into _the next_ meltdown.

<comment><USER5> Hmmm ... definitely a thought-provoking comment. Let me try to play devil's advocate.

> Right now, IIUC, banks and mutual funds and hedge funds and insurance > companies and VC firms and non-bank mortgage companies are governed by > different rules and supervised by different regulatory agencies, ...

Yes, but there is a good reason for this: these different types of organizations _do different things_.

> ... which allowed people with sketchy business plans to pick the corporate > structure that gave them the most favorable regulations.

Is that a problem? For example, if I want to sell insurance, then regulations that nudge me toward forming an insurance company, can hardly be seen as a bad thing.

> Even if VC firms had nothing to do with the _current_ financial meltdown, if > they end up as the least regulated class of fund, then they will surely get > drawn into the _next_ meltdown.

I can't disagree with that, even in devil's-advocate mode. :-)

In any case, thanks for making me think.

<comment><USER4> _Yes, but there is a good reason for this: these different types of organizations do different things._

Well... not always. For example, both banks and mortgage companies issue mortgages, but the banks are subject to more stringent regulations on how they do it. Some of the esoteric financial instruments that are involved in the meltdown looked and walked and quacked like insurance policies, but regulators didn't account them as insurance policies.

I'm not a finance guy so I can't imagine what the details would look like, but I'd like to see rules along the lines of "if you borrow short and lend long, you are a bank and you are subject to these banking regulations, whether or not you have the word 'bank' in your company name".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My guess is that Obama just got finished with a terrible fight with the speculators involved with GM. He probably isn't thinking of the relatively small money tech VC system, he means them. This is borne out by the first quote:

"the plan requires hedge funds - "and other private pools of capital, including private equity funds and venture capital funds" - to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (page 38)."

Requiring these speculators to come under regulation is more a response to their recent involvement with the worldwide financial meltdown and continued opportunistic obstructionism at attempts to solve it. Still, though, it'd be good to be careful with real VC funds involved in real investment, and not accidentally suck them up unintentionally. (See SOX and the IPO situation for a good example of how unintended consequences of this kind of regulation aimed at the big guys can accidentally sweep up the unfortunate.)

<comment><USER7> Opportunistic obstructionism?

Let me get this straight. Certain players in private equity attempted to rely on the rule of law; in particular, existing bankruptcy/debt seniority rules. Now the government is going to impose new regulations on that entire industry (and related industries) in retaliation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "[V]enture investors have been trying to solve the mystery of how they could possibly threaten the financial system."

Couldn't a case be made that venture capital helped fuel the dot-com bust?

<comment><USER9> The dot.com bust didn't create systemic risk for the whole financial system. Some foolish investors lost a lot of money, but that was about all.

<comment><USER10> The dotcom bubble created a bear market for equities that dragged down mutual fund performance and cost general investors --- the "smart" ones, who weren't picking stocks, or even verticals --- hundreds of billions of dollars.

<comment><USER11> Hundreds of billions is tiny compared to what's at risk this time. I witnessed massive fraud in the dot-com bubble. Very little went punished. I have no idea what the new regulations need to look like. But they need to have real teeth and need a reasonable sized army of experts overseeing the regulations. The SEC of the last 10 years was woefully understaffed to deal with our financial industry's activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> READ: "Obama hammers final nail in economic coffin."

<comment><USER13> As a former analyst at a venture capital firm, with all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Regulation doesn't make VC any less attractive for LPs, who provide the funds. As long as there are people who want to commit to the asset class, there will be VC funds willing and available to take their cash.

Furthermore, registration with the SEC increases paperwork, but not in a way that does anything other than provide additional transparency. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, and maybe it means the CFO has more work to do, but to say this is dumb or will kill innovation is misguided. It's the same damn paperwork that every mutual fund has to file. It won't make or break any decent-sized fund.

Everything the NVCA says in their position paper is right ([http://www.magnetmail.net/images/clients/NVCA/attach/VCandSy...](http://www.magnetmail.net/images/clients/NVCA/attach/VCandSystemicRiskFinal.pdf) [PDF]), but excluding VC funds from regulations when you want to look at PE and hedge funds - which can and do pose systemic risks, as we saw with LTCM - is impossible given that all three share the same basic legal structure: LPs and a GP, where the GP is the manager of the fund.

The societal cost of overextending mere registration requirements to VC funds is far outweighed by the cost of not having greater transparency into their PE and hedge fund siblings.

<comment><USER14> Have family and friends in the SEC and OCC, and know some corporate cats who deal with Sarbanes-Oxley. The SEC doesn't want to be dealing with investments for accredited investors, since they already have too much on their plate. On the business side, nobody wants to fill out paperwork, which consumes time and money. IPO on one of the American exchanges used to be a total no-brainer for most companies except a couple industries and geographies. Now London is getting greater play, more companies are staying private, and there's less IPO's on American exchanges - I'm not sure about Japan, Dubai, Hong Kong, or China, but I'm going to guess they're picking up some of the slack too.

Marginally more USA regulation on venture capital = marginally less VC in the States. Marginally more regulation on VC = marginally less SEC time spent on investments for unsophisticated investors, who probably need more protection. You could make a case for it, but I think it's probably an overall slightly to mediumly bad thing.

<comment><USER13> In a vacuum, I'm not in favor of registration requirements for VC firms - <USER2> we're not in a vacuum. We're about mitigating systemic risk to the system. Given that the legal structures are the same, how do you propose to regulate the people who use leverage (PE and hedgies) and leave out the VCs?

Furthermore, if you don't think the SEC is getting a _massive_ influx of capital, I'll be happy to sell you a bridge. Over the East River, Chicago River, Mississippi River: take your pick.

<comment><USER14> Good comment/questions. I don't have a hardcore finance background, as my background is more business/project management/hint of technology. But two things that really jump out to me -

> We're about mitigating systemic risk to the system. Given that the legal > structures are the same, how do you propose to regulate the people who use > leverage (PE and hedgies) and leave out the VCs?

Leverage is inherently risky and if you let people leverage to the hilt, they'll find a way to break something. I'm not so much in favor of putting a leash on the leveragers as increasing the cost of money quite a bit. We've been handing out money basically for free for the last ten years. Raise interest rates, take the hit that comes with that, print less, and do a mix of cutting government spending and increasing taxes at least until the budget is balanced. Then do something about the crazy trade deficit. I don't think you can effectively regulate tons and tons of free money. Free money finds a way to cause problems.

> Furthermore, if you don't think the SEC is getting a massive influx of > capital, I'll be happy to sell you a bridge. Over the East River, Chicago > River, Mississippi River: take your pick.

At its core, the SEC works like a law enforcement agency. No matter how big it is, it'll won't nail every criminal. Any task assigned to the SEC means less time on other tasks. You could triple the SEC's budget and staff, and they'd still be nowhere near fully covering everything. Probably sensible to limit the scope of the agency to the most important parts of the finance sector - <USER3> is accredited investor only, who are people who tend to be financially literate and can afford risk. As for systemic risk, stop handing out free money. Raise interest rates, reserve requirements, balance the budget. I guess that's kind of radical-crazy-go-nuts thinking these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised. Obama doesn't usually do things that are outright stupid.

<comment><USER16> I'm surprised. You managed to press send before adding any justification or references to why you think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The way Obama is currently conducting his presidency has a lot of parallels to what happened when Rosie O'Donnell took over McCalls magazine. The magazine was a strong brand and publication for 117 years. Drastic changes were then applied, including re-branding as "Rosie Magazine", and was destroyed in 17 months.

<comment><USER17> Who would ever think there would be so many followers on here instead of leaders.</comment></comment>


Pirate Party of Switzerland lands its first mayorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/enterprise/3400129/pirate-party-lands-its-first-mayorship/

<comment><USER2> "While the Pirate Party is often associated with copyright and Internet issues"

I wonder why this is. Maybe because they're called the "pirate party"?

I find it odd that so many people are behind a party that blatantly takes away the rights of other hard-working people in the name of "freedom".</comment>


You should write down your goals... but you won't. - <AUTHOR> http://www.kentfenwick.ca/blog/2011/10/13/the-reason-we-dont-start/

<comment><USER2> Link's broken: "Don't" needs an apostrophe in it.</comment>


You're Not Lazy, Bored, or Unmotivated - <AUTHOR> https://forge.medium.com/youre-not-lazy-bored-or-unmotivated-35891b1f3376 <comment><USER2> Poorly written, factually incorrect, written to give the reader a small short- term motivational boost, soon to be diminished by the reality.

It goes as far as to suggest that laziness, boredom and the particulars of the sort do not exist.

Such big claims are supported by anecdotal stories, and occasional quotes from psychology professors, all convoluted in order to do say one thing: just do it.

<comment><USER3> > And my specific advice is only going to work for a tiny fraction of people > who happen to be in the right place at the right time and for whom it will > click immediately.

It clicked for me. Gave me a new take on the very things I struggle with right now. Why did you write your comment? What did you want to give me, the reader?

<comment><USER4> He isn't giving you a anything except for his own experience with the article. And I agree. Witticisms don't do anything to help these very real neurochemical issues...

<comment><USER5> > to help these very real neurochemical issues...

Smart people are always quick to blame neurochemistry and easily dismiss problems at a higher level, even though there is so much evidence that chemistry is only part of the equation. Perhaps the increase in mental issues we see over the last decades is due to people thinking "it must be because of molecules", resulting in patients not making fundamental changes to their lives, and doctors continuing to "hack" the brain with drugs.

<comment><USER6> Our scientifically-centered world has its disadvantages. That is one of them.

Relevant song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpoEPcmOK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpoEPcmOK4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why be so crudely reductionist as to take problems of laziness, boredom and lack of motivation and try to simplify it down to Fear?

Is the idea that we have a whole arsenal of tools already for successfully dealing with Fear, and if we can just bend all our other problems into the shape of Fear we can apply some existing techniques?

In my experience this doesn't work for me, and the mental model just doesn't fit.

If everything comes down to a mental cost-benefit analysis, I think fear situations are ones where the cost can seem massively over-inflated and getting over that initial hurdle with "Just Do It" can help re-tune the estimation so that the cost doesn't seem as bad.

The problem for Lazy, Bored and Unmotivated is on the benefit side of the analysis, where even if the cost isn't that high, I will feel that the long- term payoff is not worth it. That isn't helped by "Just Do It", because there isn't an inaccurate cost to be corrected, and I won't get the rush of motivation of "oh this isn't so bad" that comes from the cost correcting itself in an anxiety-type situation.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://outline.com/3jMWxb](https://outline.com/3jMWxb) Just in case you are asked to upgrade to read.

</comment><comment><USER9> Of course I can be bored.

I want to work at the company I work for -- it has a great culture based on a lot of trust and openness, the people are fun, we make tech choices that I agree with, we work on things I think are important, it's important that I am here because I know all our systems and can immediately spot code problems on more junior programmers' screens when they ask for help, the company is financially sound and it pays well.

It's just that my actual work is often too easy because I have done similar things too many times, and thus I get bored.

That's nothing to do with fear and I still want to have this job.

</comment><comment><USER10> Haven't read the article, but my initial reaction to the tile was: "and if you are that's fine".

To elaborate a bit more not just for anyone reading it, but also for me:

You don't HAVE to be not lazy, not bored or motivated. No one is all of these all the time and setting the expectation to be is both unrealistic and not helpful.

It's fine to be lazy (many tools came from people automating their work because they were lazy)

It's fine to be bored (I don't know about you, but for me when I had the luxury to be bored back in school or univeristy, my imagination was running wild and I was in my most creative mode)

It's fine to be unmotivated (Not everything needs motivation to happen. I never have motivation to do laundry or to go shopping. For things that do need motivation to happen like going every day to work, you can just wait. Either you'll get motivation or you won't, in which case you look for something else)

</comment><comment><USER11> Poor. I know for a fact why I'm not doing more. I know why I haven't jet- setted off to Silicon Valley and started a dozen start-ups. And it's not because I'm scared. It's because I'm contented.

Sure, my current position pays a whopping $18k/year. Sure, I'm spinning the wheels until something more interesting blocks my path. But I don't care about this because I am happy anyway.

I could do so much more, but I don't need to, so I won't. The suggestion that this is done out of fear seems like a juvenile attempt to classify life as some kind of game where one is expected to aim for a high score.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some people might be afraid.

Some people might feel intimidated and defeated by these brutal "motivational" posts that tell you how unfulfilled your life is if you're not at least X% "productive".

Some people might have better things to do.

Some people might understand that your psyche is not a machine, and goes through cycles conducive to "productivity" or not.

Some might understand that this whole "productivity" thing is a cargo cult that keeps you toiling away your best years on the hope for a distant future where the universe will somehow realize the favor it owes you.

Life owes you nothing. Your only hedge against it is friends and family, people and relationships. That's how we survived millions of years, and that's how all of the rich folks of today got to where they are: people and relationships.

Don't be the horse.

</comment><comment><USER13> _You're not bored. You're terrified of being alone with yourself in your own head._

How common is this?

Because I do get "lazy"(whatever that means), bored and unmotivated but at the same time I love being alone with my own thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lazy writing, boring article.

</comment><comment><USER15> _\- Just do it.

\- I can't. Otherwise I would have done it already. This is impossible for me at this point.

\- Just do it. _

Great stuff here...

</comment><comment><USER16> "Yes, you are lonley..." is too much to infer from that I have internet connection ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> The "just do it" strategy doesn't seem to bond well with ADD/ADHD.

</comment><comment><USER18> > You're not unmotivated. You're not lazy. You're not bored. You are afraid.

Well put. Being afraid of failure is the root cause.

</comment><comment><USER19> TL;DR: You're afraid. A great read!

</comment><comment><USER20> Sigh</comment>


Ask HN: I don't know how to launch; I'm scared to. How do I follow through? - <AUTHOR> Long-time reader, adequate poster, but obviously shy.
I'm very young (early 20s) and I haven't hit any homeruns, gone to school, or even finished a course online - ever. My back story is quite interesting, and is the reason for why I am where I am. Do I regret it? No. Would I like to change some things? Yeah, in a way. Regardless, and perhaps thankfully, I've always been curious enough to learn how things work, and how to make them work in my favor.
I have two products (web) that I have completely finished, tested, and have developed the site, its content, done the FAQ/KB, setup a helpdesk, payment gateway is ready to go, ToS/PP are written, all that stuff. One of them will take off like a rocket and I'm convinced of it -- I've never been more convinced of anything in my lifetime actually. The other one is a longer-play and will take some time to develop it as a business.
I just can't find it in me to "launch".
It's a mental block.
What can I do to get over this hump? Does anyone else have this? It's an irrational fear and it sucks. Is this normal? I feel like a virgin all over again.
Please help, advise, anything, my band of brothers and sisters. Shit, even tell me I'm wrong and stupid and confused; I don't care. Just be honest. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's like running up the never-ending staircase in Mario 64.
Sincerely,
Alone in Minnesota <comment><USER2> You have no successes, but you're 100% sure this product will take off like a rocket? That's not the way it works. Most people believe in their product, that's why they develop it and invest the long hours in the first place. However, you're only one person, and until that product sees the light of day and you get real feedback, you're living in a bubble.

I did the same thing once, and then never again. I developed a product for a year in my free time. Everything was finished, polished, all the features were fully developed, and it was ready to go. What happened? I 'launched', a handful of users registered, there were a dozen posts, and that was it. Only in that moment, did I realize it wasn't that great of an idea in the first place, and how absurd it was to invest a year of my time before getting feedback from my target audience.

What I do now is try to launch asap. I get a rough concept up and running, and launch in a weekend, a week, or a month. I developed one site over the course of 48 hours (from idea to working beta), launched, and it had 2,000 registered users in less than a day. It still failed a year later. I launched another site after a month of development, and that one had 3,000 users the first day, and now it has a million and continues to grow.

By not launching, you're wasting time. There's a 95%+ chance the product is going to fail, you'll get a tiny spike of traffic day one from your marketing, and that'll be the most traffic you ever see. That's why you should launch asap. If you invest a few weeks, and it fails, that's great, you proved the idea doesn't work, and you move onto the next. You can launch a dozen products and services in a year this way, identify the failures, and when one appears to gain traction, then you can flesh it out more. I don't think my site had a FAQ until it had 25k+ users, a support section until it had 50k+ users. It didn't get a ToS until it had 500k+ users. Launching is a good way to validate the core idea, before you invest all the time in the extras.

</comment><comment><USER3> First off, you are not alone in Minnesota. There is a thriving startup community in MN but it's not as easy to find as in the Bay Area. Poke around and I am sure you'll find people to connect with.

Second, as Gustamaximus said, you are obviously scared to be proven wrong or fail. That is natural. None of us want to experience the disappointment of believing in something so badly we spend months working on it and then discover no one wants what we built.

Other scary thoughts in your head right now probably...

What if the launch results in a big NOTHING??!! No users, no interest, just nothing. Paid google click traffic that just moves on after spending a split second on your front page.

Even worse...what if there is a bug in your code and you accidentally charge your first user a million dollars on their credit card instead of your modest 10 dollars a year subscription fee and they Tweet their 100,000 followers how much your service sucks?! You will never get user #2 and your service will be dead within 5 minutes!

Yeah...these things could happen...but, most likely not.

All the difficult work is all ahead of you. Marketing, sales, retention, customer service, bug fixing, re-positioning, competitors etc etc.

The launch is a non-event compared to all that's still ahead of you.

</comment><comment><USER4> You're right. It is a mental block. It's usually one you get when you believe that what you've made is going to take off like a rocket. Whether or not it does, now that pressure is on you.

Pick one of them. Launch it. See it through a few iterations, because (spoiler alert!) it won't be perfect at the beginning. What you launch will probably not get traction. If you've never launched anything before, you won't believe me. But this is both a liberating and terrifying thing, so it's important to accept that you will fail to live up to your hopes.

The more you're convinced that you won't fail, the less you'll risk actually failing at something. The more you'll fall back on your conviction of being smart enough to delay launch. The more you'll build features instead of launching shit to make things that people will use.

Today, say to yourself that you will adapt. That the biggest adventure is yet to come, and that you don't know what will happen, but even then, you will face every challenge down.

Then tomorrow, JUST FUCKING LAUNCH IT.

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably not the most constructive long-term strategy, but try getting really drunk and launch it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Every time a new user discovers your service, that is your launch date. So you'll have a series of them. The more you build "launching" into something big the more expectations you will have around it.

The really hard thing is marketing -- getting people to know and then care about your service. Get the tech stuff out of the way and move onto this. It is hard. The first people who use your service will give you invaluable feedback.

Stick a BETA on it somewhere and go live ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like the fear might be related to attachment to the outcome. But with a lot of things in life, you can't really be too attached to the outcome, at least not initially. As things gain traction and develop (rapidly or otherwise) then you can invest more of yourself in the desired outcome.

My favourite quote in recent memory is Markus Frind, of Plenty of Fish fame. I'm paraphrasing here, but he says launch something that just sort of works and then take it from there.

But it seems like you're well beyond the point of something that just works at a minimum, so I'd say don't worry about anything beyond getting these products out. A lot of people don't even get to the point of having something to launch for a variety of reasons, both internal and external.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you scared these will fail? Perhaps tell yourself the success is the launch. Anything good after that is gravy.

Alternately, pretend a competitor is coming out with a similar service and it's a race to go live...

I know this is a gross oversimplification but it seems your overthinking it and need to do.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you have all the code ( product ) why don't you launch ? what is your biggest fear. you already did a lot of the work don't be afraid to fail. if you fail you will fail fast and that is good. Don't be afraid of failure embrace it.

</comment><comment> thomas-b Launch a launching site with a countdown or a date at least, definitely easier to do mentally, and it will force you when the time is up.

As other said, don't launch both at the same time, don't focus too much on "will it work", for "completely finished" product it's no longer the right time.

I'd try to review your expectation: \-- One of them will take off like a rocket and I'm convinced of it That's giving you too much pressure, just wait, see and iterate accordingly.

Doing a closed launch before the actual release date is another thing that can help feel "everything is really ready to go".

</comment><comment><USER10> > _...I 've never been more convinced of anything in my lifetime actually._

Any time you feel like this, assume it's self-delusion because it probably is.

Stop worrying so much about failing and just expect to fail a lot, then it won't seem so scary. Launch this thing. Try to make it work. Then work on something new that genuinely interests you more. Follow your interests and work hard.

You are going to fail, but if you don't give up, you are also going to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER11> Who are you target audience for this product that will take off like a rocket? Where do they hangout online, that you can share your launch with them? In forums? Social Media? If you have an email list of subscribers, send them the link... Flip the switch, share the link on here.

Not launching = failure = not a bad thing, but just learn from it and launch!

p.s There are a lot of people alone in this world.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you launch than it might go good or might not. Unless you try you will never know. It's being good if you fail as it will let you know what are your mistakes and what should I do not do. Improved your product by feedback. Second edit your post and show the work. Really want to know what you have done. Here we can give feed back and you can start to launch from this post.

</comment><comment><USER13> The product is built. Stop dilly-dallying and over thinking things, have conviction. Why build it if you're going to let it sit there and not do anything with it? If you're afraid of failure, not launching is the same as failing, except without any of the lessons learned.

Stop reading these comments, get off HN, and LAUNCH THE DAMN THING, fuck breakfast.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why don't you just put it only and invite your friends first (and tell no one else about it) to see how that goes? Then start inviting your other acquaintances. If that works out well, start marketing it to the public.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's because dreaming about a business is easy, planning a business is fun and running a business is a lot of hard work and BS. just post the site and get feedback.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think you should be scared only if you feel you are not ready and users won't like your service, or may be you need a co-founder to get things going.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hope you launch after reading all these encouraging notes. Will you please let us know how it goes?

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, you already consumed your time to develop these products, right?

So what do you have to loose? I mean, could you write what you think you will loose?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a classic problem and you're not alone. The solution is usually quite simple.

I work with people like you all the time in my coaching business.

Allow me to show you the light at the end of the tunnel.

A comment box isn't going to do this justice, so email me at Joe at thesuperhumanproject.com and I'll help you through this.

For the good of the community, we can do a write up of what we discussed or we can keep it private. It's up to you.</comment>


PHP's Smarty releases version 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/smarty-announce/browse_thread/thread/5c28b9e9cdca0b04/bbaf3e2445180bd1?

<comment><USER2> I. HATE. PHP. TEMPLATING. ENGINES.

Back when php was relatively new (2002 - 2003), our company hired a few php developers to build several ecommerce solutions. They swore up and down at the time that smarty and pear would get the job done faster and better.

Long story short, after implementing the solution rather quickly we spent more money deleting giant gobs of lame templating code and re-writing the rest of code in very lean php than we did on the original project.

Never again will I use any templating engine on top of a scripting language. It's actually a written core requirement for any new project I contract ("no lame templating engines").

Templating junk can also make it more difficult to get lean standards- compliant html that you need for reliable javascript behavior.

Don't use templating to junk up your code. You've been warned.

<comment><USER3> I've found that the quality of a PHP project tends to be fairly independant of whether it uses a templating library.

One benefit of Smarty is that it forces at least _some_ seperation of business and display logic. People will still try and shove business logic into the templates, but at least you know you're not going to find SQL statements halfway though the rendering of a table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've used smarty (version 3 RC) for a recent project and I have to say I'm very pleased with it. Short tags are bad. They are going to be deprecated in PHP6, and they senselessly take away a little of your application's compatibility across all servers.

I don't understand all the hate against Smarty. How would the "PHP is already a templating language" argument explain the rise of all these PHP frameworks we have no, almost all of which contain some means of templating.

Smarty allows me to not have to worry about boring presentation layer crap (ie htmlentities) without having to commit to a large framework. Plus its syntax is pretty nice.

<comment><USER5> Short tags are not going to be deprecated in PHP6, it's been settled long time ago.

[http://www.php.net/~derick/meeting-notes.html#remove- support...](http://www.php.net/~derick/meeting-notes.html#remove-support-for- and-script-language-php-and-add-php-var)

Unless you have a more recent source.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Granted Smarty certainly isn't anyone's poster-child of internet-awesomeness (looking at you, XHP), and given the uprising in 2008 & 2009 against it the project's taken a few hits, but 3.0 really shows that some of PHP's core is learning lessons and that projects of the past don't always have to go the way of the dinosaur.

<comment><USER6> _given the uprising in 2008 & 2009 against it_

Could you elaborate? What happened to Smarty during those years?

<comment><USER7> Among PHP developers, the idea that "PHP is _already_ a templating language" became pretty much memetic. I use an older version of this engine in my work and never really bought into actively hating Smarty, although I stopped using it for my own projects.

One of the core arguments against it, I think, was PHP developers suddenly remembering short tags and alternative syntaxes for control structures (if, foreach) that made working with templates in straight PHP just as easy, much more flexible, and shaving a few milliseconds off load times -- it's a sizeable library to load.

<comment><USER8> I've always thought that the problem with that viewpoint is that PHP is actually a pretty bad templating language.

        <?php echo htmlentities($name); ?>

In Django templates:

        {{ name }}

Things get a bit better if you write your own "h" function:

        function h($var) { echo htmlentities($var); }

<comment><USER9> I am not here to defend php (Okay, I guess I am...) but the form

<?= htmlentities($name) ?> is a lot better...

We have to have an i18n layer anyway for all output so it ends up being a lot of <?= Msg('message-name') ?> calls. Use some code gen macros and it's tolerable.

Also, XHP seems pretty rad. It gives me ideas. :)

<comment><USER10> `htmlentities()` defaults to ISO-8859-1 encoding, so the short form is useless in practice, and you need:

        <?= htmlentities($name, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Call me insane, but I actually like using the Heredoc syntax in my own PHP templates. The client loads a page, it passes through index.php to determine a class to create, a function is determined to be called, function may display a template (or may be a simple json-getter/poster) in which case I load up some options (like what template, vars to pass, etc.), send them to a function which displays the template and I'm done. Inside the .tpl file, I might have something like:

        <?php
        foreach ($users as $user) {
          $userinput = htmlentities($user['userinput']);
          echo <<<EOD

          ID: {$user['id']}

          Name: {$user['user_name']}

          Input: $userinput

        EOD;
        }
        ?>

I've used Smarty in the past though, and I didn't mind it.

<comment><USER12> I prefer something a little more like:

      <? foreach ($users as $user): ?>

          ID: <?=$user['id']?>

          Name: <?=$user['user_name']?>

          Input: <?=htmlentities($user['userinput'])?>

      <? endforeach; ?>

That said, I know I'm INSTANTLY going to piss off the "NEVER USE SHORT TAGS EVER" camp, but if it's on a server _I_ control (which is 99% of the time), or I can modify PHP init settings via .htaccess or ini_set (which is the other 1% of the time), it literally doesn't matter.

The main takeaway is the alternate control structure (foreach: endforeach; instead of foreach {}). I find that way cleaner than heredocs.

<comment><USER11> Well, you could use USERS_FOREACH as your delimiter instead of EOD... I don't mind the short tags (and agree you should be able to enable/disable them in almost all cases) but just don't find them worth it, what I do dislike is the abundance of angle brackets and question marks and calling a function at the moment of output. (It just looks odd, and when people use their own h() function it just muddies the water. I liked Smarty for removing this.)

I think PHP and Perl got it right when they allowed embedding of normal vars in strings without any special syntax thanks to the $ sigil, we should take advantage of it where possible. When you have a bunch of non-PHP I think it makes sense to drop out into normal HTML, but otherwise, PHP strings are fine and your editor should support syntaxifying them as HTML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's good that it finally has option to escape all variables. IMHO this should be enabled by default.

Most PHP programmers say that it's not a big deal, as one can simply insert `h()` in every echo… but when I review PHP code, I find XSS everywhere. You can't just rely on self-discipline. It doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER13> I must say, I've gone back and forth with templating engines for PHP. I've never really bought it, but I do like the experience I had with haml in Ruby.

Recently, I really like the look of Moustache Logic-less templates - <http://mustache.github.com/> \- yet to try it though.</comment>


Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html <comment><USER5> I enjoyed the article, as I enjoy most of Paul's articles.

But, I'm coming to the tech world after having worked in the health care industry for 15 years. And, I studied art for 6-7 years, thinking that I could make a career out of it. So, I guess that I have a different perspective on the geek/hacker culture. And, something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this--the nastiness.

Paul referenced it in his article, referring to the trolls. I just don't understand why people troll like they do. I didn't understand why people were so up in arms about Paul's trying to write a new language and offer it up for public consumption. I don't understand why people have been so quick to criticize Y Combinator. I don't understand the hating that goes on in language flame wars, or OS flame wars.

I understand that people are passionate about technology, and passionate about their language of choice, or OS of choice, but... really. Do people really need to get nasty about it? Why aren't people able to have a discussion about the merits of a language, or strengths and weaknesses without getting personal or mean about it. I just don't understand.

A great doctor that I worked with, was explaining to me why he got out of teaching at a medical school. What he said struck a chord with me: _The reason that there's so much back-biting and politicking in academic medicine is very simple--it's because the stakes are so low._

Which leads me to ask the question--Are the stakes really so low in the technology world, that people are so nasty? I have a hunch that for many trolls, that's really true.

I know that shortly after reddit got purchased the trolls made camp and set up a small troll swamp. There are a few cool sub-reddits, though. Why did that happen? Because the stakes became so low.

<comment><USER6> Interesting angle, but I really don't believe nastiness has much to do with it.

We hackers are just dying to let others know how smart we are. It's what makes us tick.

So we come here (and other forums and blogs) because most of us have trouble finding peers who even understand what we're talking about. Add in a lack of writing style and the anonymity of the internet, and our puffing and strutting APPEARS to be nastiness.

Put us in a room together to discuss the same subjects and I'm sure it would be much more civil.

Honestly ask yourself. Whenever you heard someone else getting a compliment for being smart, (Alan made the Dean's list!), (Joe is a great chess player!), (Fred wrote the best program I ever saw!), don't you get JUST A LITTLE BIT JEALOUS. You almost want to scream out, "Hey! What about me? I'm smarter than that!" We hold back in person because we're polite. But we don't hold back here, because most of us understand. Sometimes I think that if you DON'T think like that, maybe you shouldn't be a hacker.

Reminds me of an old story that Rabbi Harold Kushner told about a young man trying to temper his competitiveness, so he joined an ashram in Japan. He wrote to his father, "Dad, this environment has helped me evolve to the point of enlightenment where I no longer have to compete with others to achieve my bliss. The meditation has done it. I'm one of the top 5 meditators here, and hopefully, by next year, I'll be Number One."

[UPDATE: I just read the comments about this pg essay on Reddit, and realize that it's different over there. They ARE nasty. What's happened to Reddit? Whatever it is, I sure hope it never happens here.]

<comment><USER5> I hear what you're saying in terms of people not being able to write well, and that people are trying to beat their geeky chests in a sort of hacker bravado.

I also don't get a really nasty vibe from Hacker news, like I do on Reddit. I was referring to the Hacker culture at large when I was referring to "nastiness". I believe that there is a lot of bravado and competition in Geek culture. But there's also a lot of nastiness, too. In fact, we are developing the English language by devising new language for people being assholes online: griefing, trolling, powning, flames, flamewars, Greater Fuckwad Theory, Godwin's law, STFU, RTFM, STFW, etc... It's only a matter of time before these terms hit the mainstream to describe asshole behavior offline.

Even though he doesn't say it, I believe that Paul has been rather hurt about this often enough several of his last essays have referred to these people as "trolls". Steve Yegge has had enough problems with this, that he's turned comments off on most of his blogs. Pmarca also thinks that this is enough of a problem, that he (to my knowledge) never turned on comments on his blog.

For instance, I went to a boarding school for a year, and was in a dorm with 45 high school boys. There's friendly competition, and then there's getting 64 wedgies like I did that year. (I was the youngest kid in the school, and quite a nerd). A lot of time, putting your work into the intarweeb slipstream of geek/hacker culture is like walking around with your fruit-o-the-looms sticking 2 inches outside of your pants at a boarding school. It's only a matter of time before some asshole gives you a wedgy. And, then you have brown streaks.

My question is this: why do we (not Hacker News, but Geek culture in general) tolerate that behaviour? There is no need for it. If you want to prove how smart you are, make something cool. Or, explain String theory in a way that mere mortals can understand. But, walking around saying that Arc sux because of this and that, or Yegge is a wind bag, or what was J Gosling thinking when he designed the turd that Java is... This isn't productive.

If people make these comments maybe it's because their stakes are so low.

<comment><USER7> Hackers don't tolerate bad behavior. They avoid communities that accept mean people (unless they are also mean).

Paul probably only visits Reddit to read comments about something he's done. I left the chatroom #lisp because of the assholicism. (Leaving was an excellent decision. Everything about Lisp can be learned from CLHS, SICP, On Lisp, gigamonkeys.com/book, other books, and Google. It takes patience, but you'll learn far more than by asking someone.)

Communities are a source of power - if you've built a strong one, you can usually get rich. But they require huge amounts of time. Unless you're working toward a specific goal, it seems best to be a lone wolf (or part of a small team) and to operate without considering what everyone else has to say, or to offer you.

I learned to program almost exclusively by asking people and experimenting. It was a mistake to ask people how to do things. You can learn orders of magnitude faster by reading manuals and books than by trying to get someone to help you. Hacker culture isn't necessary, except to feel good about yourself, which isn't necessary. John Carmack knows so much because he spent most of his time in quiet isolation, meditating on problems, not hanging around communities.

<comment><USER8> I think a middle approach is optimal: Have one or two friends to study with, preferably people you know in real life. You get interesting conversations and gentle pressure to keep up without trolls or groupthink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree on general principle, but there's a big difference between Viaweb & YCombinator vs. Arc:

Market.

Viaweb and YC were each aimed at the overlooked low end of a market. Small businesses may not be sexy, but they had a pressing need for a web presence, and the can't write it themselves.. College students and young professionals may not be experienced, but they have a real need for money and advice, and they (usually) can't fund it themselves.

Arc, however, is explicitly aimed at the _high_ end. It's meant to be a "LFSP". And smart people can write Arc themselves (and have ;-)). They don't need a new programming language; if they wanted one, they could invent it themselves.

Hence the contemptuous reaction, and why I think Arc is in more trouble than either Viaweb or YC. It's not really a problem when your _peers_ are contemptuous, because that just means they're less likely to compete with you. It's a big problem when your _users_ are contemptuous, because that means they don't need your project.

If I were in charge of Arc marketing, I'd position it as the "PHP for the ones that PHP forgot". PHP initially got its start as a way to throw a quick & dirty webapp prototype up on the web, and then incrementally refine it. But around version 5, it started getting complex and adding all these features from Java. That's left a vacuum at the bottom of the web language market. Rails and Django tried to fill it, but the average Django user is quite a bit more sophisticated than the average PHP user circa 1999. And Arc's design is already pretty well-suited to throwing a design up on the screen quickly.

Right now, the majority of Arc users seem to be disenchanted Lispers. Disenchanted Lispers tend to be smart people, and they also tend to be interested in language design. So instead of doing things _with_ the language, they do things _to_ the language. On arclanguage.com, I've seen _one_ person write an app with the language, and several dozen people write enhancements of the language itself, either in the form of macros or as hacks to the interpreter itself.

<comment><USER10> _They don't need a new programming language; if they wanted one, they could invent it themselves._

Where is it, then? Where is the final, perfect Lisp that's so easy to write?

What you seem to be saying is that being smart automatically makes people good at language design. And you are just dead wrong. Being smart may make you a good language implementor, but there's little correlation between that and the kind of skills you need to be a good language designer. Some of the worst languages in the world were designed by smart people.

 _It's a big problem when your users are contemptuous, because that means they don't need your project._

The Arc users on arclanguage.org don't seem that contemptuous.

 _So instead of doing things with the language, they do things to the language._

That seems a good sign to me. Munging the language is what you do with Lisp, like numerical calculations are what you do with Fortran. So what this means to me is that the users are real Lisp hackers, using the language as Lisp is meant to be used.

Plus I explicitly said that at this stage I'm mostly interested in the core language, and that I want to hear new ideas in that department.

<comment><USER9> "Where is it, then? Where is the final, perfect Lisp that's so easy to write?"

Maybe there isn't a final, perfect Lisp. Maybe there are lots of individual Lisps that are each perfect for some class of problems. That's one of the great strengths of Lisp: if an existing implementation is almost-but-not-quite what you need, you can throw a few macros on it and adapt it into a new language that _is_ what you need.

It's one of the greatest weaknesses too: you don't see the same willingness to say "This is good enough; let's move on to more interesting problems" that you get with, say, Python/PIL or Ruby on Rails.

If you're going to create a new Lisp (and expect people to use it; creation for the sake of creation is another thing, and doesn't need justification), you've gotta answer why it's superior to throwing a few macros on top of an existing Scheme or CL implementation. After all, wouldn't an individual programmer know his specific problem better than you do? They don't _have_ to worry about harmonizing a variety of concerns, because they don't have to worry about other people's concerns. They could just build the language that's best for their specific problem and keep it in their own private toolbox.

<comment><USER11> What you're doing is arguing semantics. Whoever feels like replying to a reply of a reply long enough that all meaning has been lost and the other person stops posting, is the "winner." Whover is smarter and can come up with great examples can easily make another person defensive and tired of arguing. This person can then "win" arguments simply because the person who just wrote about actually developing something is busy developing.

This is actually what causes that disparity between what people think of new technology when it first comes out and two years later, as long as it still exists: one party was busy developing, the other party was busy coming up with reasons it can't be done, getting pats on the back for being so smart, then riding that dopamine rush to nowhere fast for two years until they meet the product again and just say "oh, I was wrong." Then this cycle continues. That's what PG's essay is about.

But being unable or unwilling to argue semantics does not make the original poster's ideas wrong. The only way to prove a determined person wrong is to engage in direct competition, and from the rear, of course, as the other party is already ahead of you. For obvious reasons, it's easier and "smarter" to come up with "logical" reasons than to "do the full experiment" to show it's wrong. We're not talking about math equations here, so a productive person's potential is more than his writing but also his skills, experience, credibility, and dedication, which can't all be ignored.

<comment><USER12> Actually you're wrong because you're assuming that writing (trolls or anything) isn't a skill. It is, and if you got trolled it's your own fault and I'm your feelings were hurt. In addition, you obviously don't understand the first thing about "semantics."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's one paragraph in there that I think sums the entire essay. When I read it I was so stuck by it that I put that paragraph on my desktop image (<http://www.cocunderground.com/desktop.jpg>).

 _Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly._

<comment><USER14> I'd add the closing paragraph to this as well:

 _So when you look at something like Reddit and think "I wish I could think of an idea like that," remember: ideas like that are all around you. But you ignore them because they look wrong._

<comment><USER15> Reading PG's essays makes me very happy. Quoting again:

Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.

Perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "When I first laid out these principles explicitly, I noticed something striking: this is practically a recipe for generating a contemptuous initial reaction."

Jeffrey Rosen has some good stuff to say about this in his book The Unwanted Gaze. One of his defenses of the right to privacy is that new ideas often seem wrong at first, especially when they're still only half baked. And because of this, progress is seriously impeded when the government has the ability to go through our journals and sketchbooks at any time. This is especially true in our made-for-TV society where most people won't put more than thirty seconds into trying to understand something, esp. considering the factors PG mentions. He suggests that for these reasons innovation may not be possible in a fully transparent society.

<comment><USER17> The govt or anybody being able to read your scrapbook is not the same as them telling you to stop based on it.

I've put the book on my list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remember reading Paul's essays, pre YC. When he wrote the essay announcing it, I remember thinking, "This guy is crazy, all he's gonna get is a bunch of school projects." Sure enough, he did, and wrote about it. I felt vindicated by that, saying to myself, "I knew THAT was going nowhere." People like to be correct in predicting failure for others, for whatever reason.

After reddit, loopt, zenter, anywhere.fm, etc., however, I don't think I was completely accurate in my prediction....

<comment><USER19> _People like to be correct in predicting failure for others, for whatever reason._

I know there are a lot of people like this, but there is also a perhaps equally-large number of people who feel the opposite way. Personally, I love to be proven wrong when I predict failure, unless I have some other reason for wanting someone to fail (they use unethical practices, they're my direct competition, etc.).

<comment><USER20> I think people like to be correct in predicting the failure of crazy-sounding ideas because they don't want to feel like they are missing out on something big. I know I predicted that Google was all hype when it was selling at $200/share and unloaded the few shares I had. I kick myself for it now obviously, and even though it made no financial difference to me whether it sunk to $25 or went up to $600 (since I no longer owned shares), I still couldn't help hoping it would tank so I would feel like I made the correct decision.

I think this is really why you don't have to worry about competitors. If your idea is good enough, everyone will think you are crazy/naive. If your idea is simply decent, you'll never pick it anyway (because it's not exciting enough to you) and it will end up getting done by some existing company. Either way whatever you actually _choose_ to work on will be unique until it's proven, by which point no competitor is catching you anyway.

<comment><USER21> > so I would feel like I made the correct decision

It's not just about feeling. If Google had tanked, you would be more justified (in a statistical sense) to think that you're smart _and_ to engage into more financial transaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The saying I have for this negative reaction is "people see only what is in front of them." A good concept with poor presentation will be dismissed, and in the case of a language like Arc, presentation could also be defined to include "number of features, immediate utility, etc."

I know my reaction was similar to the crowd, but even so I recognize that it's the wrong thing to look for. If Arc's initial release state could be summed up as "Lisp with some cleaned-up and rearranged features," then it's really not that different from say, Digital Mars D, which is best described as "C++ with some cleaned-up and rearranged features." The difference is, D has a massive compiler backing it, and its scope is unlikely to change. Arc's minimal implementation substance only makes it easier to change tack midway.

I've only gradually learned to restrain my sense of ego and take a similarly minimal approach with my own projects(indie games) - my newest process is to always start the final implementation with a text console interface. Besides encouraging better architecture in preparing for a later graphical interface, it's easier to debug the key elements this way than to have "stuff moving on the screen" at 30 or 60FPS and get frustrated figuring out which of those frames is the one where you're getting an error, let alone what routine is causing the problem.

</comment><comment><USER6> If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

\- Albert Einstein

</comment><comment><USER23> Your point about having a version 1 and iterating quickly based on real world input reminds me of my experience as a mechanical design engineer. The most costly mistakes made in that field resulted from too much design and not enough prototype phases. The typical design process back in the 80's was to meticulously draw every aspect of a component, send it to a machine shop for tooling, get manufactured parts and put them on the test stand. Only then would you discover that the gage was too light, the material was the wrong spec or the welds had to be moved.

I introduced the concept of prototype early and often. Actually re-introduced, as this is how most products were engineered in the olden days. Someone would suggest a new gage, weld placement, cross section, and I would don my overalls, head to the shop, cobble up something and demonstrate its feasibility before the draftsmen could decide what size paper to draw it on. When I worked at Chevrolet I took this to the max and prototyped entire vehicles years before the official prototype build phase.

When I transitioned to the world of networks and software I was shocked at how little prototyping there is. Website developers would deliver project plans that had two weeks of "QA" built in before the launch date. It was crazy, any major problem uncovered in that two weeks would delay the launch. It is still challenging to get a programmer to demonstrate a prototype early. So, I think you are on to something. Good luck with ARC!

</comment><comment><USER24> If Viaweb didn't process credit card transactions for the first year I'm curious what initially attracted merchants to using it.

<comment><USER10> They wanted to be able to generate a good-looking site with large numbers of products and a way for people to order them. Till about 1997 online order volumes were so small that it was no problem for merchants to manually punch in credit card nos on their POS terminal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like a lot of what this essay says, but I still don't think it applies to Arc. Because the criticisms of Arc would have happened no matter what the design had been.

For the most part, Lisp people will never like _any_ modification to the language that changes their pure abstract computation engine into something that more people would want to use.

Behold, a Usenet post from 2000 on the notion of a "lispscript" that could compete with perl or awk:

[http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/samples/brief/why-lisp- wi...](http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/samples/brief/why-lisp-will-never- win)

That said, I personally have no idea if Arc is all that good or not. I get it, but it doesn't inspire me the way Haskell or Erlang do right now. But Arc seems to be successful by the designer's own standards.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like Arc, but there's just no way that it follows the six principles laid out here.

(a) simple solution - <USER3>

(b) to overlooked problem - no. It's just a personal spin on Lisp/Scheme. It covers exactly the same territory.

(c) that actually needs to be solved - no. Programmers have many good languages to choose from. Arc is a nice little wrapper on top of Lisp to make it pretty, but any undergrad could do the same thing.

(d) deliver them as informally as possible - no. You don't write long essays about a language 5+ years before you show a prototype if "informality" is your goal.

(e) starting with a very crude version - <USER3>

(f) iterating rapidly - no. You could get a master's degree in computer science in the time it took for the minimal prototype of Arc to show up.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's a succinct summary of a method for developing new ideas/products. The closest I have seen for brevity is Bob Bemer (the inventor of ASCII) with

"Do Something Small But Useful Now"

which he also wrote as ((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!)

so that it became this sequence:

Do Something

Do Something Small

Do Something Small But Useful

Do Something Small But Useful Now

see <http://www.trailing-edge.com/~bobbemer/> for more info

</comment><comment><USER28> The Law of New Inventions by Mike Rozak (game designer) : <http://www.mxac.com.au/drt/LawOfNewInventions.htm>

It fits perfectly with your essay. Good write btw.

</comment><comment><USER29> I like to add a 7th - the ability to ignore problems that are irrelevant to the problem at hand. PG actually mentioned it all over the essay, but seems to have left it out.

btw, thanks PG, this essay has a very profound effect for me; makes me rethink some of the "ideas" I have and how I will approach them.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it just me or Twitter fits perfectly in that definition?

<comment><USER10> Yes, when Evan came to speak at YC recently I was struck by the similarities. Here was an idea that was literally right under everyone's noses for about 10 years, and everyone ignored it.

Evan is a great product designer. That's his secret weapon.

<comment><USER30> Yesterday I was watching Smith&Jones, Britcom also has much of this, constructing ideas around the stupidly obvious and ignored on the perspective of the comic writer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is an interesting take on (b) overlooked problems:

A few years ago, Gary Hamel and colleagues analyzed more than a hundred cases of business innovation to learn why some individuals, at certain points in time, are able to see opportunities that are invisible to everyone else. They learned that you need to pay close attention to four things that usually go unnoticed:

1\. Unchallenged orthodoxies—the widely held industry beliefs that blind incumbents to new opportunities.

2\. Underleveraged competencies—the "invisible" assets and competencies, locked up in moribund businesses, that can be repurposed as new growth platforms.

3\. Underappreciated trends—the nascent discontinuities that can be harnessed to reinvigorate old business models and create new ones.

4\. Unarticulated needs—the frustrations and inconveniences that customers take for granted, and industry stalwarts have thus far failed to address.

original @ [http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hamel/2008/01/innovation_ha...](http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hamel/2008/01/innovation_hacker.html))

<comment><USER27> This is a great list and nicely expands "(b) overlooked problems." In his book "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" Peter Drucker offered the following observation on the frame of mind need to spot opportunities for innovation.

"Innovation requires us to systematically identify changes that have already occurred but whose full effects have not yet been felt, and then to look at them as opportunities. It also requires existing companies to abandon rather than defend yesterday."

He goes on to suggest seven places to search systematically for opportunities

      The Unexpected
      The Incongruous
      Weak Link In Existing Process
      Industry Or Market Structure Change
      Demographics: Size, Age Structure
      New Zeitgeist: Perception, Mood, Meaning
      New Knowledge

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> _I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly._

I'm still trying to get a handle on which of these apply to Arc. Perhaps I'm looking at it the wrong way, but Arc feels a little light in areas (a-c).

<comment><USER10> Arc is a simple solution to the overlooked problem of core language design.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/core.html>

<comment><USER33> In general, at this stage, the amount of flak that Arc has received is so disproportionate to the normal amount of flak that new ideas receive because _it hasn't solved any problems that real hackers have encountered_ , well enough that they'd want to switch to writing programs in it. You haven't really _solved_ the overlooked problem of core language design until people start using your cleaner core language, and to do that you'll have to give people compelling reasons to start using it. If you don't agree, the BeOS people have solved the overlooked problem of operating system design and are on their way to meet you, together with the people who invented Esperanto.

<comment><USER10> It solves the problem hackers face in every program they write, and which high level languages exist to solve: making programs smaller.

Try translating some Arc programs into Common Lisp or Scheme and you'll see what I mean.

And incidentally, I don't have to give hardened users of existing languages reason enough to _switch._ There are new people learning to program all the time, and to them, all languages are on a level playing field. If they look at Arc and CL and see that programs are 50% longer in CL, why would they choose CL?

<comment><USER32> Ok, I think I get it now if I look at the "Arc approach to language design" instead of "Arc in its present form". The problem isn't to come up with a better language, it's to set a good example of the better language production process and in doing so perhaps get a better language as a byproduct. Here are the morphisms I see:

a) Programs in "high level" languages can fail to be shorter than their lower- level equivalents. The simple solution: be merciless in keeping the important things short!

b) The overlooked problem in language design is high-level language brevity.

c) The "language design" problem that needs to be solved is... not sure about this one. I'm guessing it's the fact that the rate of change in the field is putting more programmers into the role of language designers at an increasing rate and anything that helps them avoid bad decisions based on ignorance is significant.

d) deliver informally as possible: when designing a new language, write enough to make the goals clear, address issues in a discussion group and put the code somewhere without sweating organizational details like setting up code repositories, bug tracking systems, regression frameworks, etc.

e) crude version 1: implement the minimal stuff using an existing system and don't worry about the fact that to the unaware it may seem just like a trivial program in that system.

f) iterate rapidly: don't get bogged down by things like release processes and backward compatibility. Just focus on getting feedback, experimenting, measuring and looking for improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think the six-principles approach is great, and it really shows why the initial reaction will always be contemptuous and therefore doesn't mean anything.

Of course, not everyone can easily copy the approach, you need to be an original thinker in order to not overlook overlooked problems.

I don't understand the last part of the essay about reddit as a classic example. "Tell people what was new", was that an overlooked problem? News agencies have been around for a long time. "Stay out of the way" was only possible because of the user-submission-and-voting system, which seems to me a clever and non-obvious idea. What I like most about this idea is the voting part, it tells me what's _interesting_ , I don't care about whether it's new.

</comment><comment><USER35> I still wonder why RTM doesn't say anything at all. Does he read HN? I would like to know his point of view, too.

<comment><USER10> _I still wonder why RTM doesn't say anything at all._

People have been wondering about that since he was a small child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> _If you work on overlooked problems, you're more likely to discover new things, because you have less competition._

I'd like some help interpreting this sentence.

Why does the lack of competition make it more likely you'll discover new things? (And what is _things_ referring to?)

I assume it means you can attack a problem at a more leisurely pace, so you see solutions you would have missed if you were in a feature-copying war with competitors. But I doubt PG would advocate running your startup leisurely.

<comment><USER10> _Why does the lack of competition make it more likely you'll discover new things? (And what is things referring to?)_

Because if few are looking where you're looking, there's more chance that things you discover will be new.

By things I mean pretty much anything that could be the object of "discover", from mathematical concepts to narrative techniques.

<comment><USER36> Oh, right – _overlooked_ problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> >> 'Startup funding meant series A rounds: millions of dollars given to a small number of startups founded by people with established credentials after months of serious, businesslike meetings, on terms described in a document a foot thick.'

This is a bit of a stretch in my opinion - there has always been companies taking smaller investments; whether seed from a VC, seed from an individual Angel, or borrowing money from family.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hi Paul:

       My father-in-law was an inventor.  His one claim to fame was a cheap plastic pulley-like thing you could stick on the bottom of a telephone, and wrap the cord around it.  It was called a "Cord Caddy."  He made a small...no a medium fortune on this in the early 1970s.
       I went to a few home trade shows in L.A. with him.  The creative energy at these places was palpable.  (I even got to meet Ron Popeil there once).  You'd go around the booths, see all these incredibly simple....no STUPIDLY simple things all these guys were making fortunes at.  I'd mutter at myself, "Heck, anybody can come up with this crap."  And then a voice from above thundered down, and slapped me upside the head.  My ears are ringing thirty years later.  The Voice from above said,  "Yes...but you DIDN'T, did you!"

That's the secret. ANYONE can come up with stuff...but almost nobody does. The real inventors in this country are a minuscule percentage of the population who actually DO something with their dumb ideas. I have unmitigated respect for Ron Popeil and his ilk, regardless of the obnoxious late night commercials.

eric

</comment><comment><USER39> Reddit started out as a blatant copy of digg, which was 6 months old when reddit launched. I think that sort of invalidates large parts of this essay.

Some digg copy from Dec. 2004: " _What's Digg?_ Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do."

Reddit copy from August 2005: "A source for what's new and popular on the web --customized for you. We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it. All of the content on reddit is from users who are rewarded for good submissions (and punished for bad ones) by their peers. You decide what appears on your front page and simultaneously, which submissions rise to fame or fall into obscurity."

And, yes, I realize there was nothing completely original about digg, the idea was originally done by kuro5hin, yadda, yadda, and I actually have plenty of respect for PG and the reddit guys. I'm just saying....

</comment><comment><USER40> IMHO the reason behind the response to Arc is "underwhelming" - because the anticipation has been built for 5 years, but it turns out the implementation is a "just" set of macros. And it certainly don't fit the "iterate rapidly" concept.

Now - this is not a criticism of PG's work - on the contrary, I believe his design matches up with his philosophy in On Lisp very well. Looking past how the process, people now actually start to play with the language and make use of it.

What I'm mostly interested though - are the learning lessons if PG is willing to share them. Why did it take as long as it had? Is it because this is not his day job, or are there additional design changes or problems that he has to solve along the way, etc. Getting a sense of that will shed light for other aspiring developers.

I for one tend to try to shoot for just the right things and have scratched quite a few prototypes so I can go for the perfect one, so would sure love to hear from PG on his experiences.

</comment><comment><USER41> As with everything else that I can remember reading by you, I guess it's the fact that you write the way I'd advise people how to talk to me: don't be pedantic [don't treat me like I'm an idiot or just a "child"], and don't speak as though trying to impress me [don't waste time using big words when small ones will do; don't use many words when a few will do].

I like the way you share ideas and concepts with me, the reader and message receiver.

Obviously, Paul, the whole is greater or less than the sum of the parts. You some how manage to make points that others couldn't with many more words. It's how you use the English language.

It's how you reason and think.

I think.

I think you annoy the hell out of insecure little twits whose "authority" they cling to like little kids afraid as hell that somebody (a "bully," perhaps?) is going to pry their "binky" (or toy or some other thingy [sic]) out of their sweaty little hands.

Or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER42> You know PG, you can't discuss Arc beyond a point - the whole discussion gets trivial - not the content but just the fact that there have been so many discussions on the subject that one tends to skip or hurry through it.

I think the best response will be your continued work at Arc as opposed to a well written essay.

</comment><comment><USER43> Simple, Informal, Crude and Fast: Lessons for many things, not just Web 2.0.

Small teams of hackers definitely present the fewest problems with this kind of approach, but if people in large, established organizations in fields from mechanical engineering to life science (with the possible exception of virology...which can take longer than a Y Combinator season just to incubate the test vector) don't start applying this approach, they will be overtaken by fast newcomers when instead they could have fostered and benefited from them.

[http://thethreepercent.com/2009/05/04/paul-graham-simple- inf...](http://thethreepercent.com/2009/05/04/paul-graham-simple-informal- crude-and-fast/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Yes yes yes! Once again the astute Mr Graham slices through conventional thinking.

I've received a standard reaction to new ideas all my life. In the early seventies I went looking for a sound system with dual cassettes ... "why would anybody want that?". A few years later I wanted to use VHS cassettes as the basis of a multi-track audio recorder ... "why would anybody want that?" In the early nineties I started writing radio automation software that ran on a standard PC ... "why would anybody want that?"

All these things (and many others) eventually had their season. And now when I hear that phrase, my ears prick up because I =know= I'm on to something.

::Leigh

</comment><comment><USER45> How does this mesh with "don't try to create trends, find and ride them"? That's advice I've heard a lot.

The final note about Reddit seems to say the opposite: "The Reddits pushed so hard against the current that they reversed it". That is probably incorrect. They found a local maxima in the trend for social news before others spotted it.

This doesn't really repudiate anything you say in the essay. But people shouldn't get the idea that just because there is resistance, they are doing something good. There needs to be a reason why the critics fail to see the light for you to claim you're working on an overlooked problem.

The trick here is that while you're working on it, you don't know if it something that needs to be solved.

<comment><USER10> _How does this mesh with "don't try to create trends, find and ride them"?_

You mean Joe Kraus's advice? That's advice for making money at something before your funding runs out. If burn rate is a factor, you may not be able to survive a contemptuous initial reaction, even if you're right.

<comment><USER45> Yes, I meant Joe Kraus's advice. It's interesting how I took it to mean something different than you did: a bad idea generally, not just if you don't have enough money for it.

I suppose you're right and I only found it general advice because it completely applies to my current state in life. Lots of people make that mistake: "this totally applies to me, it must be good advice generally"

After the first $10B, once I start working on a space elevator and robotic asteroid mining, I expect the luxury of a contemptuous initial reaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> For more details, read the Innovator's Dilemma and Innovator's Solution.

<comment><USER47> Or if you have some time to kill, listen to the author's highly-rated talk on IT Conversations:

<http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail135.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Great essay Paul, I especially liked this part: "Don't worry about trying to look corporate, the product is what wins in the long run."

This is so true! I consider this one of the top reasons many startups fail but at the same time, this is a result of the paradox of offline vs. online culture as it still holds true that many offline businesses would fail without looking corporate. Its a transition so we'll be fine in a couple years. Do you agree?

Basar Kizildere Istanbul, Turkey

</comment><comment><USER49> "... your solution can benefit from the imagination of nature, which, as Feynman pointed out, is more powerful than your own."

Which Feynman quotation is this referring to?

<comment><USER50> <http://www.google.com/search?q=feynman+imagination+of+nature>

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> The bulk of the programming community substitutes "can we?" for "should we?" Your design philosophy is a result of asking the 'should' question. The work of the 'can' question people piles up opportunities for proper application of the 'should' question. This is one way of determining the trolliness of a person or point of view. The troll is incapable of asking the 'should' question.

Love your stuff, Paul.

</comment><comment><USER52> "Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Your essays are not bad, but there are still parts you can take away.

Creating a good design is very time consuming. One spends most of the time searching for the onions.

PB

</comment><comment><USER53> I particularly agree with (a) creating simple solutions but even more so with (c) solving problems that actually need to be solved.

It's amazing how often a complex solution can create more problems than it solves and / or completely miss the underlying problem.

</comment><comment><USER54> the crux of the essay is the process Paul refers to(steps a-e). This model gives me great confidence that we are on the right track, and while we were not able to launch as fast as we would have liked we still see the basic unsolved, overlooked, problem that inspired us to begin.

At the same taime its what annoyed me about being passed up last funding round, if this is how they judged ideas, how could they have glossed over us. Oh well, until we are a success they where correct.

@pg: thanks for the inspiration and clarity as always

</comment><comment><USER55> Thanks, Paul! I always enjoy reading your insigts. Some of the best free advice around. You might find that my companies design philosphy (for some reason...) is similiar to yours!

www.ensigntech.com

</comment><comment><USER56> The Design principles are solid. Thank you for expressing them lucidly. Personally, I am encountering the same forces, and this essay provides useful arguments.

</comment><comment><USER57> Excellent article. I've been reading your essays for well over a year now and am always impressed by your insights.

</comment><comment><USER58> but Hamming (www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html ) in "Your and your research" says exactly opposite thing:

"If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?"

Why both appoaches work?

</comment><comment><USER59> great words as ever, best place to find feedback is indeed on hits and seeing who reads, not the comments of those that are too lazy to read. As fro slashdot, it used to be my staring portal to the web, but has been replaced by reddit :-)

</comment><comment><USER60> In the 90's people were saying the same things about perl that are now saying about arc.

</comment><comment><USER60> In the 90's people were saying the same things about perl that are now saying about arc.

</comment><comment><USER61> Awesome essay.

</comment><comment><USER62> Graham,

When will you stop ranting about Viaweb? I understand it was your single achievement, but it was essentially a fluke. There were hundreds of startups trying, one of them got lucky. And where's Viaweb now? It was a long time ago, and you should considering moving on with your life.

Now, as a self-proclaimed nerd, you know of Gary Gygax? Well, if Viaweb was your D&D, YC is your Lejendary Adventures: a heartbreaking attempt of a spent man to recreate his former success.

And just as Gygax died, Arc is your death.

You're dead, Paul. You're as dead as that Lisp of yours which you keep rambling about. Even people who leech your money can't keep up with your delusions of Lisp; Reddit, for example, was redone in Python as soon as the mad old grandpa loosened the sack.

And that's why Arc is depressing and smells of rot.

Rest in peace.

<comment><USER43> Wow! Tough words. For a lot of us, Y Combinator is showing us a way forward during troubled times. Paul is definitely not dead. His name and thinking come up nearly every day among my colleagues across many companies. Funny - <USER4> though Paul says he is a hacker, it is his impact on business model innovation that will last.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Thank you for yet another great essay Mr. Graham . . .

I think that - in a sense - your essays are programs for human minds.</comment>


Easy to use css spinners collection with vue.js integration - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/epicmaxco/epic-spinners <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone!

We've been working hard to deliver this, I hope you like it :)

Also would be happy to hear some feedback, have a great day!</comment>


Are Your Programmers Working Hard, or Are They Lazy? - <AUTHOR> http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2013/12/are-your-programmers-working-hard-or.html

<comment><USER2> Note: This article is from 2013.

Interesting discussion from when it was first published: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6895502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6895502)</comment>


2010 Nobel Prize in Literature Awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa - <AUTHOR> http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/

<comment><USER2> I like science fiction but it's felt for a while that I've read everything good. Recently, I've found myself reading a lot of historical fiction (anti- science fiction?). The two genres are quite similar in that they both examine how humans behave in weird or unfamiliar settings. For example, Russia in Tolstoy's time feels more different to me than an awful lot of science fiction.

Vargas Llosa's "The War of the End of the World" is set in the wilds of 19th century Brazil, and it's brilliant. It's one of my favourite novels. I found "The Time of the Hero" fascinating but I can't remember if I enjoyed it. It's about hazing rituals in Peruvian military school. I tried to read "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," which is set in more modern times, but I didn't get very far.

<comment><USER3> try "Pantaleon and the visitadoras", it is very light and funny

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Nobel Prize in Literature is odd. Looking through the list of every prize they've ever given out,

[http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/10/07/List-of- Nobel...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/10/07/List-of-Nobel-Prize- in-Literature-winners/UPI-87261286450156/)

I see a lot of names whom time has failed to vindicate.

<comment><USER5> I always thought that the Nobel prize winners are always very abstract. There are better awards to look at for examples of books you actually want to read...

<comment><USER6> The will explicitly says:

"one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency"

Think of it as the more technical academy awards. A movie that gets the Oscar for best sound editing might not be a great movie or a box-office hit, but still deserve the award.

<comment><USER4> But even if the Oscar for Best Sound Editing goes to a terrible and unpopular movie which happens to have good sound editing (e.g. Pearl Harbor, 2001) then there's still a lot that can be learned about sound editing from that movie. You can, for instance, hire the sound editor from Pearl Harbor to do the sound editing on a good film.

I'm not sure what the authors of mainstream fiction can learn from Harold Pinter, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He truly deserves it. I don't like his personality but it always seemed unfair that Garcia-Marquez had it while Vargas Llosa didn't.

</comment><comment><USER8> I voted for Pablo Coelho.

<comment><USER9> Is it Pablo or Paulo Coelho? Or does Pablo == Paulo assert True in Portuguese? Amazing writer, I was blown away by The Alchemist. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(novel)>

<comment><USER7> Pablo => Spanish. Paulo => Portuguese.

Spanish speakers tend to spanify Portuguese words, for convenience and for the fun of watching Portuguese speakers get annoyed :P

Sao Paulo => San Pablo

<comment><USER10> I never heard a Spaniard referring to São Paulo as San Pablo.

<comment><USER7> Spaniards are less than 10% of the Spanish speaking population.

<comment><USER4> Maybe so, but they're the ones who speak _proper_ Spanish, just like only the English (specifically the Queen) speak _proper_ English.

<comment><USER11> I don't know if you are being serious, but the spanish language is defined by the R.A.E, and it is influenced by other national academies, so it is more or less supposed to be country-neutral. If, say, peruvians speak closer to R.A.E's spanish than spaniards, then they are the ones speaking proper spanish. It is also worth noting that for many spaniards the language we call "spanish" is not their first language.

<comment><USER4> I actually didn't know that, so thanks.

It's interesting the way English gets along just fine without an official body making pronouncements about what is and isn't correct.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't. English does not get along just fine.

Say 'cucumber'. The sound of the first syllable is very different from the second, even though both are written the same.

Say 'stake' and 'steak'. Different graphs for the same phonemes.

Say 'E as in elephant'. Two different sounds for 'e'.

etc.

Present day English is so bad that written language is divorced from spoken language, but it is not bad enough to unite all speakers behind a spelling reform.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>