
Ask HN: What's your favorite HN post? - rkhraishi
Been asked several times but interested to see references to more recent posts.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=2158116
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=3996652
======
yla92
Here are a few that I quite like, digging up from my bookmarks.

    
    
      - #define CTO - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8516777
      - Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma -  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9049208
      - Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395046
      - Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12143266
      - How to stop feeling lonely - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7044690
      - We only hire the trendiest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326940
      - The days are long but the decades are short (my personal favourite post and comments all the time) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9454440

~~~
goshx
Thanks for your list! I tried the first link but it is giving a 404. I looked
it up in his blog and found this: [https://blog.gregbrockman.com/figuring-out-
the-cto-role-at-s...](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/figuring-out-the-cto-role-
at-stripe)

Could you please confirm if this is the same one?

~~~
cypherpunks01
YC post was 688 days ago. date.today() - timedelta(days=688) is 2014-10-27.
Blog post you linked was published October 27, 2014. I'm gonna go ahead and
say it's the same one!

------
protomyth
This comment still makes me chuckle and its pretty much true:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287767)

 _So, you 're gonna code the whole thing, do the servers and work for sweat
equity...

anamax 8 years ago comments

If they don't have the money to pay you, you're not an employee, you're a
founder and you get the same deal that they get.

If they balk, suggest that they find another code monkey while you find
another biz monkey and let the market decide who ends up with the bananas._

~~~
cheez
A good biz monkey is worth at least as much as a decent code monkey but a bad
biz monkey and a decent code monkey won't do any good. Two sides of the same
coin. I recently met a true hustler who I would totally do a completely
secure, air tight partnership with as long as it had a shotgun clause.

Yes, you can't trust the good biz monkeys.

~~~
mablap

        Yes, you can't trust the good biz monkeys.
    

My experience as well. Sadly, the only really good biz person I know does not
share the same values as me. Very intelligent and good at what they do, but
they'd fuck you over in a second if that meant them "winning". Don't care for
a second what business they're running, as long as it's a money-making
business. Whereas I have to feel like I'm working on "important" problems,
that person couldn't care less.

Pretty sure that person is sociopathic - at least borderline.

~~~
sigkill
_> Don't care for a second what business they're running, as long as it's a
money-making business_

Thank you, I think I needed to hear this. The person I'm talking to seems
exactly like this. While I want to be working on important problems (hell if
not important, atleast 'cool' ones), they just want a money making 'thing'.

I've been mulling for a while on how to go ahead with it, but this has made me
more than certain our wavelengths do not match even though he's great at
connections and selling hard.

~~~
mablap
My personal strategy is to acknowledge this type of person exists, and act
accordingly. This means, unfortunately, not putting too much trust into that
person in areas they don't deserve it. You need to evaluate carefully both of
your interests. Any divergence is a weak point that could be used against you.

I know I can put my faith into that particular person for some specifics such
as writing business research and collecting market data, for example. But I
could not, for example, leave my computer unlocked with that person. Nor would
I use their internet connection to do bank stuff. Nor would I discuss certain
things in certain rooms of their house. Some things I'm paranoid for, others
not. The point is, some people need to be kept in check ;)

------
danso
When the favorites feature was introduced this year, there was mention of
maybe aggregating it to see which were the most favorited types of posts. I
wonder if enough people have used it since? I use it and find it to be a great
filter on top of what I normally upvote.

"RapGenius Growth Hack Exposed" basically solidified the effectiveness of
using HN as a complaints forum:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6956658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6956658)

Ask HN: Just got an innocent man out of prison. What now?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760)

Aaron Swartz's initial appeal for help:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484)

And the difficult discussion when someone pointed out that thread after his
death:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5056279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5056279)

I enjoyed this discussion on Margaret Hamilton, particularly because it for me
epitomizes how anonymous the comments usually are. I remember reading Peter
Norvig's comment about working with her and thinking, "Wow, this HN user must
be pretty senior" before I looked at the username
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8735912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8735912)

edit: In terms of recent, this discussion about "Strange bug workarounds" was
just a day ago but had a lot of great laughs in it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12476855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12476855)

~~~
hornbaker
Google's long-game response to RapGenius:
[http://imgur.com/a/TLOuX](http://imgur.com/a/TLOuX)

~~~
cabbeer
RapGenius (not genius) is more about the annotations than the actual lyrics.

------
rb2k_
That time when John Nagle ("Animats") responded to a comment about Nagle's
algorithm in TCP

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947)

( \- "If I'd still been working on networking at the time, that never would
have happened. But I was off doing stuff for a startup called Autodesk."

\- "Are you John Nagle, or was that a quote?" )

~~~
mixmastamyk
Remembering, he's also the "little tin god" guy whenever a Python post comes
up.

------
jswrenn
My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

~~~
SteveNuts
"you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an
FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on
the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be
accessed through built-in software."

Yeah... that would have been a lot easier than Dropbox!

~~~
danso
That's funny...I always remember the response to the Dropbox post as "Why
don't you just use rsync?". Which is something I actually do for things I
don't want to put on Dropbox. Not sure how that FTP solution is manageable,
though.

~~~
gravypod
It's navigable on the web. Most browsers can navigate through an FTP server.

~~~
danso
Ah, I guess I see Dropbox purely as a sync between my multiple computers. I
almost never use the web interface. IIRC, Dropbox was announced mostly as a
synced file server. It didn't have all of the features that I take for granted
now, such as third-party interoperability and public-file sharing.

------
bmaupin

      About five years ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566)

~~~
Stratoscope
Oh my, that is a great one! The pullout quote doesn't do it justice.
Definitely recommend reading the whole thing. It's almost like a Carlos
Castaneda story:

> ...a small cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the
> stuff settled over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from
> inhaling the cloud, I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air
> tasted, and it was delicious.

> ...about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time.
> Probably nowhere near the LD50.

What a relief! It is _probably_ unlikely to kill half your family.

------
chops
My favorite is PG's request to limit the fluff and get back to technical
discussions like posts about the "Innards of Erlang":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145)

Which lead to the famous "Erlang Day", making the HN homepage look like this:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/stilist/3348380060/in/photostr...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/stilist/3348380060/in/photostream/lightbox/)

Interestingly, this day is what personally introduced me to Erlang, and it's
been my primary programming language since.

~~~
veddox
Brilliant! First good laugh I've had today - thanks for sharing :D

Is pg still active on HN? I can't remember seeing any comments by him in the
past year or so...

~~~
chops
PG doesn't appear to be active any longer
([https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg)).
Looks like 2 comments in the last 2 years (and last post is almost a year
ago).

------
sandinmyjoints
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5397797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5397797)

~~~
eitland
First comment is wonderfully deadpan as well:

> Don't feel bad, you just fell into one of the common traps for first-timers
> in strong AI/ML. I know some lawyers in Silicon Valley with experience in
> this sort of thing, and they say that usually by now the code has rewritten
> itself so many times that the original creator can't even claim partial
> ownership;...

~~~
sandinmyjoints
True -- very similar tone to the parent. conrad24 appears to have been a
throwaway account, maybe bo1024 is the author of both?

~~~
eitland
In that case I'd vote to pardon the sockpuppeteer anyways. :-)

------
bshimmin
This is the only HN comment I have bookmarked:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7932261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7932261)

~~~
mewm
Am I stupid if I don't understand that post?

~~~
maxerickson
It's riffing on
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY&t=1m24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY&t=1m24s)

(I "got" what the post was about but took a minute to dig up the actual scene,
I didn't know what the item was in the movie)

~~~
DarkTree
Wow, that video also has one of the best comments I've seen:

> Slime green, Comic Sans, all caps. Oh my god, it even has clip-art.﻿

------
teraflop
I really enjoyed the comments in this thread from one of FedEx's first
employees:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9281466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9281466)

~~~
tptacek
Thanks! I remember this now! That is one of the all-time great threads.

------
3pt14159
Not a post, but a comment.

I can't find it right now, but it lead me to purchase the book "Permutation
City" which is now one of my favourite novels because of the way it comings
CS, philosophy, and writing that isn't stilted like a lot of the stuff you
find in this realm.

The reason I can't find the comment is that there are pages and pages of them
that mention Permutation City on Google. See for yourself, Google:

permutation city site:ycombinator.com

~~~
JadeNB
> I can't find it right now, but it lead me to purchase the book "Permutation
> City" which is now one of my favourite novels because of the way it comings
> CS, philosophy, and writing that isn't stilted like a lot of the stuff you
> find in this realm.

If you haven't already, then don't wait to buy the rest of Greg Egan's œuvre.
It was "Quarantine", a lovely plot but arguably one of his weakest stories,
that got me into his work, and since then I've found no-one except possibly
Ted Chiang (whose work is very different) who comes anywhere near him in the
world of hard sci-fi. Almost everything of his is rewarding, and I believe a
lot of it was relatively recently (within the last 5 years or so) released as
e-books after a long period of unavailability. He also has generous excerpts
from selected books and stories at his web-site, and—my favourite—proves his
non-fiction science _bona fides_ as a regular contributor on the n-category
Café ([https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/mt-
search.cgi?Inc...](https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/mt-
search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=3&Template=category&search=Greg+Egan)).

~~~
MichaelGG
Greg Egan and Iain M Banks don't seem to have equals. Greg's stuff is
incredibly hard (in both ways: he says to use a pencil and paper while
reading). Iain's stuff is ... uplifting, but still coherent. It's not hard,
but it still feels coherent somehow (unlike some books that just start making
up weird shit just to put the "fi" in scifi).

~~~
JadeNB
My first exposure to Banks was The Wasp Factory, which remains one of the only
books that has ever literally nauseated me. It was excellent, but it's been
hard for me to pick up another book of his since.

Oh, actually I did read The Business, which introduced me to the delightful
question "how do you count to 1000 on your fingers?" (without using
'intermediate storage' like keeping track of 10's in your head). I still use
that when teaching elementary number theory.

~~~
arethuza
That means you are in the lucky situation of not having read _Use of Weapons_
yet - I'm jealous. It really is very very good!

~~~
JadeNB
Is that your recommended entrée into the Culture universe?

~~~
arethuza
No - definitely not. I would recommend publication order.

------
bm98
Maybe not favorite but "most memorable": "CVE-2014-6271: Remote code execution
through bash" [1]

The top comment when I first saw it was, "If you are responsible for the
security of any system, this is your immediate, drop-everything priority." [2]

Shellshock just kept going, and going, and for days you didn't know what was
coming next. I suppose it's unfair to real PTSD victims to say this, but
sometimes I feel like I have a little PTSD from that incident. I can only
imagine what people at the center of it were going through.

My favorite blow-by-blow account was David Wheeler's essay [3] [4].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361574)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361871)
[3]
[http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/shellshock.html](http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/shellshock.html)
[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8428644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8428644)

~~~
rudedogg
I enjoyed it because it was one of those times you realize none of us really
know WTF we're doing. Everyone is just pretending they have a good
understanding of how things work. Software is just too large to really
understand how things are interconnected.

------
throwaway45609
Using a throwaway for an obvious reason, but this post on how to fight debt
collectors has literally saved me close to a $100K:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135833)

------
thesmallestcat
This is my favorite comment of all time, in reply to an, erm, prolific
engineer. A great take-down of the cult of vain productivity:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8816010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8816010)

------
blakesterz
I can't think of a favorite post... My fav comment was from a few years ago I
think? And I can't remember everything, but one commentor said something like
"You can't brag unless you won The Award" (the award being some bit deal
contest or award. Was it math or programming?) and then the response was
something like "Oh yeah, won that when I was 14" (sorry, wish I could remember
the details, but the thread was funny)

~~~
TeMPOraL
The legendary "Did you win the Putnam" comeback.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

------
minimaxir
"My Livecoding.tv account deletion saga", likely for different reasons than
other examples in this thread (enable showdead before reading):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476)

------
trcollinson
This isn't recent, but it is my favorite:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615)

------
rubidium
Alan Kay AMA:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851)

~~~
DonHopkins
That's what I was going to say too, and that makes me the fourth person to say
that was their favorite!

------
indypb
Bret Victor: Inventing on Principle (vimeo.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591298)

Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851)

------
6502nerdface
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9561314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9561314)

> The feeling of having a genuinely clean butt gives you the confidence you
> need to go crush it in the boardroom.

I still laugh about this sometimes.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Have you read some of his other stuff? Like the legendary Alameda-Weekawken
Burrito Tunnel?

------
oli5679
This is my current favourite:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558)

~~~
junke
Even more recursive !

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496902)

~~~
olalonde
Oh, that reminds me of my highest up voted post ever:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742902)
\- but I didn't get any karma for it :(

~~~
junke
I remember that, it was fun.

------
GauntletWizard
I refer to this one as DarkShikari's law: "Any community that gets its laughs
by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who
mistakenly believe that they're in good company."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082)

It explains the death of so many communities, and also sorta works for 4chan,
despite the perpetual state of undeath that 4chan is in.

------
mcphilip
1\. Ask HN: Urgent connection to Twitter support

\--[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8006869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8006869)

The admin of an automated twitter feed alerting followers of rockets launched
between Gaza and Israel appeals to HN for help getting in contact with someone
at twitter who can relax rate limits on the account to prevent it from being
suspended during a sharp escalation of conflict.

2\. Einstein and the Great Fed Robbery

\--[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6417511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6417511)

Research from nanex using the speed of light to prove that results from a
Federal Reserve meeting were leaked early. Ultimately led to policy changes at
the Fed.

------
philbo
* There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970945)

* The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3578807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3578807)

------
tptacek
There's an HN feature for this! In the timestamp line under the title of your
favorite story --- and, after clicking the timestamp, in the same place for
comments --- click "favorite". HN will bookmark these stories for you, and let
other people see them.

------
ioddly
I don't have the posts handy, but I very much appreciate patio11 and tpacek's
posts on how to bill for consulting. They helped me reduce a lot of stressful
administrivia and increase income. One of the handful of times reading
internet comments has measurably improved my quality of life.

~~~
biot
After using HN search, I suspect you're referring to the comments in this
thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679956)

------
inputcoffee
Postmodern comment:

My favorite HN post is now this one because it lets me amalgamate all the best
posts that I missed.

------
rexreed
This one - because it's now a meta aggregator of favorite links. Thanks!

------
PascLeRasc
Getting into a PhD program with a low GPA -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1072923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1072923)

------
Red_Tarsius
Wisdom from Bane:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7283133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7283133)

------
porker
Hacker News Highlights, the Alan Kay edition:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11836832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11836832)

------
kanzure
Here are my (tagged) bookmarks, have fun:

[http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/hacker-news/hacker-news-
bookmark...](http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/hacker-news/hacker-news-
bookmarks.2016-09-14.txt)

Keep in mind that the timestamps are when the bookmark was created, not the
timestamp of the page itself.

I use
[https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch](https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch)

~~~
reitanqild
In pinboard.in[0] you can search for via:hn

(Happy user, otherwise unaffiliated.)

[0]:by our (more or less : ) own idlewords

------
profquail
Right around the time I started reading HN, someone found a timing attack
against news.arc and posted a really interesting write up about it:

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639976](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639976)

------
qwertyuiop924
Bain's Law is a classic. Unfortunately, I don't have the link. The entire
thread for SleepSort is great (just google it).

As for more recent stuff, I enjoyed the thread on QuakeWorld
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11934608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11934608))
(full disclosure, I posted the article, and participated heavily in the
thread). And just today, I saw QuineDB
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492812)).

Sorry I couldn't give you something better.

------
mtmail
First employee of startup? You are probably getting screwed
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2949323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2949323)

------
hackerhackerhac
G is for Google -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10037157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10037157)

------
daturkel
Some great anecdotes in the comments for Paul Ford's article The Sixth Stage
of Grief is Retrocomputing

discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8565459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8565459)

article: [https://medium.com/message/networks-without-
networks-7644933...](https://medium.com/message/networks-without-
networks-7644933a3100#.urhh2shsi)

------
Jach
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626)

>. . . And yet: the money guys are offering money. Just swallow your pride,
play "Stairway to Heaven"[1] at the wedding, and pretend you've never had
crazy eyes when talking about homoiconicity, and the rent will be paid.

> [1]Nothing against the song.

------
jim_lawless
"Running a Software Business on 5 Hours a Week"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1206649](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1206649)

Patrick talks about techniques he learned to streamline his business when
selling Bingo Card Creator.

------
DanBC
I don't know if this is the Raymond Panko, but if it is this is my favourite
comment.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=panko](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=panko)

------
koolba
Favorite of all time I'm not sure but my favorite today is this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498230)

Simply beautiful!

------
koenigdavidmj
A day in the life of a startup founder:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183)

------
max_
What's your favorite HN post?
-[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558)

:D

------
knoxa2511
Fishing for Hackers:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7705443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7705443)

------
DavidWanjiru
I'm browsing from a dumb phone, so searching is too much work, but there was a
guy who got into an argument with Colin Percival (spelling might be wrong),
and the guy aske Colin a supposedly dismissite question along the lines of
"Have you won (major math prize)?" As it happens, Colin had actually won the
thing. That was amusing. In my mother tongue, we call such an event "being
thrown back to the bottom of the gourd."

------
alexmorenodev
This one, of course. Bookmarked.

------
wallflower
This may well get buried and I had to hunt for about 10 min to find it. This
post from 3,127 days by fiaz is my all-time favorite HN comment. And I've read
hundreds of thousands of comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413)

> fiaz 3127 days ago | parent | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate
> yourself?

APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find
value in the words below.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to
illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in the
Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown Chicago at
6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of sleeping at 9:00
pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple routine was indirectly
helpful when things seemed darkest.

For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other
traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys
CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me
going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making
wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I
knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself
after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was -
and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were
right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in
some sort of insult).

After racking up some rather hefty losses, I was determined to quit at one
point during month four, but because I had a habit of waking up at 4:30 am I
simply "forgot" that the night before I told myself I would quit and spare
myself further humiliation...by then I was warned that I was now on the red
list of traders ready to be cut. Also, my personal savings were starting to
approach zero (the base "draw" for house traders was enough to pay for food;
you usually make your money on a percentage of your profits, and I was deep in
the red at the time).

To say the least, there were many excellent reasons to be "reasonable", forget
about my dreams, and quit. After 4 consecutive "failures to quit", I realized
that I didn't quit because somewhere deep down I was hanging on to a dream,
however remote at that point: that I could somehow be as successful as the
other traders that I knew. At the same time I realized that I had hit rock
bottom in that I couldn't even succeed in failing! Very tough times indeed...

An interesting point to note here is that although my losses were starting to
get very large, the people who were funding me as a trader kept me because I
had one redeeming quality: EFFORT, and this helped build tenacity. Other
traders who barely traded but had a fraction of my losses were cut much faster
because they didn't put forth much effort. They were not willing to take
losses and be bold/brave and fight it out; I was willing to take risks, and
this saved me from getting cut faster than others.

Slowly I began to reinterpret the constant humiliation I was suffering:
perhaps the other traders were right about their "jokes" and there might be
something in what they are saying that will help me get out of the red. I also
realized that since I had failed at quitting (which was now the ULTIMATE
failure), there was no further failure for me and that if I took baby steps
they were surely to succeed (this translated into taking smaller
trades/profits).

Only after improving upon my abilities as a trader and channeling my energies
appropriately did I succeed and earn everybody's respect as a trader (and you
have no idea how this made me feel!). I quickly made enough in commissions to
be trading my own account, and be successful as an independent trader onward.
When I look back at those final months of 1999 (yeah that's right, I was
losing huge cash at the end of 1999 when the entire market was going crazy
UP!), there was more good than bad even when I was getting my ass handed to
me. It's just that I was intentionally creating my own feedback (I'm right
everybody else is wrong) instead of seeing the results I was getting
(losses/insults) as feedback and information that would help me be successful.

I kind of snicker every time I see somebody ask for feedback on their startup
on YC.News only to end up justifying themselves by telling everybody why they
did what they did when they get negative feedback, which is the feedback of
greatest value. If somebody tells you how crappy your idea is, thank them that
they even spent a few brain cycles considering your idea.

The lessons I learned from this that are perhaps relevant to your questions:

\- Determine if you believe in yourself to succeed as an individual (I know
this sounds odd, but for a moment just examine your thought patterns and your
actions and see what message you are sending to yourself; do you listen to the
voice that says you can't or are you paying attention to the feedback from
your efforts and the results you are getting?)

\- Search deep down inside and see if the project you are working on is
something you believe in or not. If you can't sell yourself, then you
shouldn't bother trying any further...

\- ANY attention you get for your efforts is good attention. If you get LOTS
of negative feedback, then be grateful - you've jumped the first hurdle of
getting people to give a damn about what you are doing! :)

\- There is responsibility and accountability that goes with both success and
failure. You need to be ready for both because they can be equally painful in
equal ways. The amount of accountability that comes with success can be more
unbearable than the accountability that accompanies failure. I personally know
of some very talented people who enjoyed phenomenal initial success only to
find just as fast that they were in over their heads.

\- The more you resist the possibility of failure then you are less likely to
recognize possibilities that will help you succeed. If you are afraid to fail,
then most certainly you are afraid to succeed. This sounds counterintuitive
but it's based upon the fact that fear makes your mind less supple and less
responsive to the changes that will push you out of the game - or conversely
it will lessen the impulse to jump on the opportunities you need to succeed.

\- The results you get has everything to do with your users/market and less to
do with you as an individual; it's sometimes hard to separate these two. See
the other side of the equation and what side you are on before trying to solve
it. Don't ever think you are above the feedback of your users...EVER!

\- Don't have expectations (this is just setting yourself up for failure).
Because you are starting out you may not know what is best to help you succeed
- ESPECIALLY if you're lacking motivation. Keep in mind that whatever results
you get from your efforts will lead to more possibilities (in the form of
additional information).

\- Have some behavioral "context" within which to exercise discipline and
structure. Seek to grow your efforts within this context. My context was my
sleep schedule. It was a routine that was so ingrained that my drive had a
laser focus. This might not work for some, but it worked for me.

Finally, I will add that in my opinion failing hard and fast is MUCH better
than failing slowly. The faster you know for certain something isn't going to
work out, the sooner you can cut your losses and move on to your next idea.
When you eventually succeed, you will look back at all the times you were
quick to cut your losses and get to where you are...

\---------------------------------------------------------

Please do NOT contact me asking for advice in trading/investing. This is a
VERY personal thing, and it has everything to do with who you are, NOT with
how much information you have, or which tools you use, or who you know.

------
brudgers
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34423)

Dear Lumber yard 1 point by daniel-cussen 3348 days ago | hide | past | web |
1 comment | favorite | yes | maybe | no

Dear Sirs,

I write to solicit; we sell termites. We provide termite adoption services for
lumberyards.

While termite adoption may sound terrible at first blush, we believe it to be
adviseable. The termites can dispose of wracked beams without requiring
burning. The termites can also eliminate small pieces of discarded wood, and
partly take care of cleaning the sawing site in your stead. They can also
easily consume stockpiles that are no longer useful. This may be especially
valuable in sight of the housing downturn in your area and subsequent
inventory surpluses you may be dealing with. Any surplus inventory you give to
the termites will largely be metabolized by the termites, and therefore
decrease in volume. From a practical point of view, a termite nest can perform
in your lumber yard the task it performs in nature; that of a recycler. At
this point you can exploint the large amount of fertilizer left over and sell
it.

You are in a position at which you can begin to sell natural fertilizer
easily. Consumers relate your core business to fixing homes. You provide beams
for home improvement purposes, and while that segment of the housing market is
falling, the gardening market is holding up because desperate sellers will try
to improve the curb appeal of their house in order to finally sell their
house. This means home sellers are improving their gardens, which involves the
use of fertilizer. As the housing downturn has affected your core business for
the worse, why not hedge these losses by entering the fertilizer market?

Not only will termites reduce costs and expand your business, they will also
provide excellent public relations. Ecology is in these days; Whole Foods can
charge about twice the usual price for its products solely because they are
organic. This despite any evidence the food the sell is actually better in any
way. Many consumers may want to reduce their carbon footprint. By buying your
fertilizer, they effectively stop about half of the carbon in a plank from
reaching the atmosphere. This will provide cheap and novel marketing for both
your core business and your fertilizer business.

We'll be the first to acknowledge that termites pose a serious risk to wood.
They can devastate a home if left unattended for a few years. A simple "moat"
around the termite's designated space will be able to effectively stop the
termites from harming the good wood. In doing so, you will showcase your
expertise in handling lumber and the confidence you have in your abilities.
You may be able to sell termite control sprays in the process.

At Intermite, we believe adopting a nest will be an excellent way to help your
core lumber business. For an up-front set-up fee of $449.00, we offer the
delivery and installation and setup of a termite nest in your lumberyard.

A nest costs $450.00 plus tax. This fee includes includes delivery and
installation. We offer related products such as custom fertilizer bags,

Regards, Intermite

------
LachlanTran
This post is my favourite HN post.

------
pknerd
This one.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
I don't have a link but: "I'll often drop down to node.js if I really need to
be close to the metal" is one of my favorites.

~~~
bbcbasic
This bad boy?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2710383](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2710383)

------
monksy
Couldn't tell you. Can't search.

------
gadders
This one. //infinite loop

