"A couple of hours later, we had built our hack. The finished product wasn’t exactly the prettiest thing, but hacks aren’t supposed to be. They’re just supposed to work."
I can't say I agree 100%. Sometimes when you have time left over at the end of the hack, it doesn't hurt to go back and clean it up.
I'm not sure about this study, but there are cases where 'illegal' downloads have actually helped the producer of the product have better sales. When Radiohead came out Kid A the reviews considered the album "Just Awful"[1]. And I think that they never had any music videos or singles for the album, but a leak before the official release of the album gave people a chance to give the album a real shot. They liked it and they bought it. Kid A was Radioheads first release that became number one in the US and it also went platinum in the UK.
The reason it went number one is because it was a new album from Radiohead. Also people wouldn't have given it a real shot after the official release date?
Actually Kid A was the first album that made almost a genre change, which is why people considered it 'awful' in the first place: they were expecting the same old Radiohead and they got something completely different. So yes, had they released an album similar to the previous three, I would agree with you, but what they did was quiet risky and the free downloads allowed people to give it a chance.
ok, so i've had this on my mind for some time now, and i'm going to highjack this thread in hopes of getting this out there.
Hackful has sort of shot itself in the foot by trying to use HN as a medium to expose itself. for a long time now HN has started to cross the line from a place for people to share ideas and experiences with running a startup to a place for people to link to tutorials and hot topics in the tech world, or high ranked questions from SO (i'm guilty myself). I really don't see why we do this, we have r/programming, et al for that. HN is a place to talk about statups.
look at Hackful. I ran through the first 3 pages and here are the topics. i broke them down by irrelevan, relevant, and something i call the grey area, where it could go either way. the count is very off. i could only pick 20 out of 45 posts as 100% startup relevant. or course my opinion is my opinion and i'm sure there are people who will argue that my lists are debatable, and they are, but that's not the point. the point is that it is not 100% on topic, and we need to figure out a way to fix this.
one way is for the community to have the correct mindset and get involved and fixing the issue: 1) don't post irrelevant topics. 2) if we see off topic posts - since there isn't really a way for us to stop that now - just ignore them and let them disappear. we come to HN to read about startups, if we want programming info, tutorials, etc then there are other places to go (reddit, so, etc).
another option is to go sort of the reddit-route and allow for subs. that's an option, but again we would be diverging from the original purpose of this site.
just shooting out some thoughts, and trying to make us think about where we're going with HN.
irrelevant list: (count = 11)
8 reasons for switching to Git(blog.fournova.com)
Git cheat sheet(blog.fournova.com)
How we are using Big Data to solve Social Travel(tripl.tumblr.com)
The switch from apache to nginx(news.ycombinator.com)
Top 10 IT skills in 2012(ciozone.com)
Nicnack for easy multicast testing(adventuresinfabric.posterous.com)
Only 6% of Wikipedia Readers Have Ever Edited Wikipedia Content !!(thetecnica.com)
Tech in "Hollywood Edition"(aaronklein.com)
Teach yourself Git in two minutes(jperla.com)
Show Hackful: Browser Based Strategy Game (Spoils Rotten)(spoilsrotten.com)
Show Hackful: My Digital Guidebook Startup (Artworm)(artworm.hillsbede.co.uk)
relevant list: (count = 20)
Show HF: Cubecolor, a fancy HTML5 colorscheme generator(plainas.github.com)
Dutch startup is building the most simple customer support software in the world(apo.io)
Startupbootcamp to shape up Berlin(venturevillage.eu)
Ask HE: What are the missing pieces of the European ecosystem?
15 startups from Berlin - there is more than Soundcloud, Wooga and Amen(netzwertig.com)
Who is missing from this list of young entrepreneurs to watch in 2012?(yourhiddenpotential.co.uk)
Twitter developer teatime in Berlin(techberlin.com)
Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki - We Have A Problem(arcticstartup.com)
Show HE: My first RoR-app... a platform for winning a dribbble invite.(showwwdown.com)
Berlin Startup Jobs. Marketplace For Inspiring Jobs(berlinstartupjobs.com)
Marketplace for Startup jobs in Berlin(berlinstartupjobs.com)
Hackful has currently 424 users, that's not enough to redact the content meaningfully. Once there are (much) more users, and the primary dedication (startups/programming/socializing/job-platform) has been established, the topics will make sense. If it gets that far - I sure hope so, since many things must be approached differently here in Europe.
I don't think this is a fair comparison. From what I've understood by reading both posts is that each writer comes from a different background(I can't think of a better word right now) and that's what's causing this difference of opinion.
The first writer is making a living from photography as stated at the bottom of his post: "John B. Mueller is a photographer based in Ventura County, California."
The second writer seems to be doing this as a hobby. At least I'm assuming so since he's been taking photos for 27 years and claims that he has not made any money from it. So I really don't think that this is a fair comparison.
After having a long conversation with a close friend in Iran, and also reading this post guess post on Juan Cole's blog [ http://www.juancole.com/2012/01/jahanpour-as-us-and-iran-con... ] I'm starting to realize more and more that the way we have treated Iran since Carter (read: 1979 revolution) is completely wrong. Instead of finding ways to pressure the Iranian government we are hurting the Iranian people. The sanctions we place on Iran hurts the Iranian people and their small businesses much more than the Iranian government and it's abundant(for now) oil resource.
Obama really tried at first to bring in a different approach. First off he understood the structure of power in Iran and so wrote a letter to Khamenei directly. Then he tried to talk to the Iranian people in parallel by sending the message for Norooz (Iranian New Year). Next he offered to sit and talk with the Iranians without any preconditions, but what messed everything up for him was the Iranian elections. That was (read: is) a big pile of mess that no one really knew (read: knows) how to deal with.
This is exactly what came to mind for me. To see Don Knuth say that he was afraid of failing is downright shocking... I would have thought he would have spent very little time thinking about classes and would have already been in a world of his own at that point.
One interesting happening I've noticed too is that with mathematical and computing knowledge specifically it seems that as people gain knowledge it becomes easier to add new knowledge. The curve seems exponential. It's easy to pick up Python if you're already familiar with C and C++. It's easy to understand a new comparison sorting algorithm if you know it can't be faster than O(n lg n) and can place it in perspective with merge and quicksort.
This is why I still go on Stack Overflow and am floored by how few questions I can answer and how much more experienced guys know than me. But I have hope that learning will beget faster learning.
I agree with you on everything you said. As for the SO, or anything in general (as far as learning is concerned), I guess the more you learn the more you realize how little you know...
everyone has said what needs to be said, but this post is a few days old now so i'm going to say it again, in case you went back to your normal self.
just pick something, anything, and not major (as to discourage yourself), break it down to small parts and each part into a set of tasks. for that you can use [https://workflowy.com], i like it a lot. just tackle them. DO NOT stop when you're stuck. bulldoze through it, then stop at the middle of a printf or something (again so you will jump back on it because you know how to pick up where you left off).
just pick an idea that you love, and go with it. and never forget who you are.
