skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't entirely disagree with your points here, but as someone who is from Chicago and spent many years helping to build a very successful Chicago-based business (Threadless), I take offense to the notion that David's misconceptions have something to do with Chicago.

First of all, he's from Denmark – he just lives in Chicago. Secondly, ever heard of a little startup called Groupon? They're from Chicago and I'm assuming they have a few people there that excel at multiplication.

The location of 37signals has nothing to do with it, and you're clouding an otherwise clear and well articulated set of points with the asinine notion of "no one outside the valley understand business".
This is unbelievable. If the author absolutely can't resist giving patio11 a bunch of advice about how to live his life, then write an email. If the author wants to tell us how super important it is to self-promote and make a lot of money, then don't make an example out of a dude whose mind and motivations are clearly completely fucking opaque to you.
Making $200k at a soul-sucking corporate contracting gig, probably somewhere other than Japan, is probably not what Patrick is looking for.

I have a feeling it's just a matter of a few more swings before he hits a home run. Meanwhile, he's building an impressive following which equips him with an instant audience the moment he decides to launch said home run.
I have an extremely small movie collection, having been a Netflix subscriber for years, but I collect movies that I would want to share with other people.

I barely ever watch a movie twice, but I can watch it an indefinite number of times as long as there's at least one person in the group who hasn't seen it.
Oh seriously, this is bullshit. A deep analysis based on a single post, taken far out of context, and completely misguided. I'm not surprised patio11 is not responding to this. Seriously, what the hell?
The same form 5 times was fun

Other than that pretty pumped.
You call him a genius, yet he spent 6 years promoting a product (which I might add only took him a few days to create) that is only now just breaking the $1000 or $2000/month mark.

He did that while working a substantially-more-than-full-time salary man job.
Google Wins Youtube Copyright Case in Spain
I lived in Boulder Colorado for 2.5 years, and really enjoyed climbing "the flatirons", Longs Peak, and many of the other 14k peaks.

Boulder is an awesome town, sadly it has all of the same problems of the rest of the US.

Now I get a sane and sensible government, safety, compassion for the poor, excellent free education, and the breathtaking Swiss and Austrian Alps to climb!

Check out the annual Vienna Research Festival which took place this weekend!

http://www.science.co.at
http://www.zit.co.at/views/event-single-view/article/das-wie...

The MetaLab, one of the very first "hacker spaces" in the world.
http://metalab.at/wiki/English

Everything is modern and clean here, and you really see your
tax dollars providing a better community for all.

One of the largest open air rock concerts
http://www.2010.donauinselfest.at/

New Years celebrations:

http://www.stadt-wien.at/index.php?id=silvesterpfad-wien

Ice Skating at city hall:
http://www.wienereistraum.com/
The not being in debt is something I've worried about. I'm going to graduate college in a year and a half, and will have a monstrous pile of student loan debt. That would mean that I would need to be paid enough to subsistence-live and pay at least something on my loans.

That probably makes me not the best choice to invest in :(
How are those places boring? No nightlife(can't be true)?
If you like this stuff, you can also have a look at Dwarf Fortress, a game that inspired Minecraft.
Squid listens on everything, and controlls what you can connect to. It /is/ a proxy /and/ a firewall.

My rant is technically based, given my knowledge of the functioning of Squid running both forwards /and/ in reverse.
A lot of people I know (mid 20s) use facebook on their smartphones while watching TV, so the activities are hardly mutually exclusive.
Latest development releases of chromium support this (see http://blog.chromium.org/2010/09/unleashing-gpu-acceleration...)
"The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." -- Oscar Wilde

Disregarding the technical usage of the word valuation in investing, I see three ways of interpreting the terms in the argument here. The price of Facebook is 33B, simply extrapolating from the price of tiny percentages of Facebook.

The value is related to the price people are willing to pay, but is actually unknown and only exists as a prediction of future cash flows.

The worth is a more nebulous concept and related to how much Facebook improves the world.

It seems like spolsky is talking about the price, and dhh is talking about the value, and making illusions to the worth.
Trust me, I'm totally on your side. Theres a reason this tech has been around since the 80s, but things like the MakerBot has only happened recently, that's all I'm saying.
Self promotion is a tricky thing. In an ideal world, value should be recognized through the process of your work. Unfortunately, the transparency of your work is a multiplier in how people perceive your value.

That's why great coders aren't valued at 10x or 100x that studies say they should be from a productivity standpoint.

Self promotion is a further multiplier on your perceived value. Some people do it enough to counter act the transparency problem and some use it to mask their lack of intrinsic value.

TL,DR:
Perceived value = Intrinsic value * transparency of process * self promotion

So self promotion isn't bad in and of itself.
No it's not. Even for fiction, the plot depth of the books I've read multiple times is incomparable to the plot depth of the movies on the all time best selling DVD lists. That is, unless you think that Avatar and Twilight had really deep plots.
I agree with you about the tech scene. For example DevTank (the tech counterpart to DrinkTank) has been excellent so far. The London BarCamps are also great, as are the Hack Days.

I also agree that the start up (and also the mobile) events aren't terribly useful. They are more of a nice place to relax in the company of like-minded individuals rather than places to generate business.

As for boozing... that's just London in the evening. Most people are bright enough to stick to one or two drinks and you still see everyone in the office at 7.30am the next morning.

By comparison I found events in New York to be a little free of personal interaction. You turn up, spend 5 minutes talking to 5 people, listen to a speaker, then go home. Great for collecting business cards, not so good for establishing solid relationships. Perhaps someone can suggest better events for me?
Noticable lack of patio11 in there, what time is it in Japan right now, 2AM?
"WiFi on steroids" gets final rules, drops spectrum sensing
As a Flash game developer, I find that Flash games run substantially faster in Chrome because of the way that Flash is integrated. By a factor of 2x in some cases.
The 6 years of development of the product was done in his free time while he's working full time. The product has become a well-oiled money machine (however little) now that he doesn't need to pay a lot of attention. It's a nice additional income stream.
Exactly. While the technical sense of valuation might be tautological, it's also nowhere near the average person's definition of economic "value" or "worth". A good test in the every-day sense of those words might be if company X were given 3 months to sell off everything and end up with a stack of cash, how much would they have? Apple could stand a chance of getting reasonably near their valuation whereas I'd be shocked if Facebook could.
If you want to live in a community of self centered people, who never speak with their neighbors (the famous California 7 foot tall privacy fence, and gated communities).

The beaches are beautiful, however you had better be rich and live close, as most now take several hours to get to, if at all possible (forget finding a parking place after 8AM).

The cost of housing is CRIMINAL, all of the infrastructure is crumbling, the value of all of your hard earned tax dollars is squandered, with no visible trace of their impact on the quality of life and community.

California has WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE NOW, it was a far better place in the 70's
IBM has a LOT of facilities in Dutchess County -- including their own HQ in Armonk. There are several significant plants there, and I think they still have some semiconductor manufacturing there -- which might help explain the severe pollution in the Hudson River from that area on down to New York City.

IBM's presence before that massive layoff was such that almost everyone in Dutchess County with a corporate job worked at IBM, it really felt like you either worked for IBM or you worked at the mall or a gas station. (I doubt that this is quite the case, but you get the point hopefully.)

I am fairly certain that until that massive layoff, there were hardly any tech companies other than IBM in the area. I didn't find any, at least. The only job opportunities I ever found in the area were at IBM.

I think they did close down a few facilities entirely during those layoffs. My mother's job moved from Meyers Corners to Poughkeepsie around then, because they closed down the MC facility IIRC. They probably sold or leased it out or something, it was a pretty large office building from what I remember.
Or not on the subway.
Everyone thinks their sh*t don't stink. Honestly, Chicago smells too.
I know the HN community looks up to Patrick as something of a "guru", and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, the information he shares, and his contributions to the community. But...
You know, there are lots of people out there who are good at business, the details of AdWords/marketing, can write well, can recruit people, etc(I'm not one of them, but I know many who are).

The only reason you're aware of Patrick and not any other one of the thousands of entrepreneurs is because he engages with the community and promotes himself. patio11 has become a brand on this site- people say things like "oh, that's a patio11 comment" or "I wonder what patio11 would say about this".

I'm not trying to take anything away from what Patrick has accomplished- I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, he's not as worthy of your adoring blog posts as you think.
"What I think it comes down to is the awakening that happens within the gamer at the point when he/she realizes that the power to create these systems of sheer fun is within their own reach. This moment of awakening spawns a young developer that will work tirelessly to learn the very system that they have enjoy manipulating with a controller."

There's a lot to be said here. Do you remember how you felt the first time you programmed something? Whether it was a BASIC math script, hacking a TI-82 game or an HTML page, do you remember the joy you found when "it actually worked?!" Having been a programmer for 10 years, I still get that feeling when I see something I wrote working.

I've often thought there was something special about early video games in the NES era that fostered a generation of great problem solvers. NES taught us tenacity by kicking us back to the start of a level if you died halfway through--no checkpoints every 5 minutes. Games made us apply puzzle logic to proceed--making all the pieces fit, in the right order, to achieve success. Programming is the exactly that.

I got my start in programming thanks to the Gameshark for N64. It taught me the underpinnings of what went into making what went on screen, thus leading me to build a website focused on hacking Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with Gameshark where we found pieces of the game removed from the final playable version. That awakening was invaluable to my professional career.
The problem is, these kids are from college. They don't teach you stuff like "writing a secure web application" in college, or even try to.

Bingo. I went to Georgia Tech, which has a pretty damn good CS program, and I had to hunt for security classes. One was a "special topics" course that wasn't available very often and didn't have anything to do with application security (was a Net. Sec. course). The other was not a CS course but a Comp. Eng. course and was focused on penetration testing. :/ I actually earned a "Network Security" certificate with my degree which I never even knew was available (it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the course literature).

Since I've graduated they have redone the whole CS dept so I don't know if things have changed, though.

But like someone else said, a lot of this stuff is common sense, especially if you're a programmer and have systems knowledge. And I think most programmers have the habit of imagining all the different ways things could break when they are coding, too. Like a hackers curiosity that most of us share. I know when something looks obviously wrong on a website or in an application I'm using I start to poke around and see what I can uncover.
Official Samsung Galaxy Tab Demo Is Nine Minute, Must-Watch Snooze Fest
price is what you pay. value is what you get.
Death of Academic Fads
Such arguments should be left to professors of financial theory. Here's a balanced analysis:

In the real world, markets cannot be absolutely efficient or wholly
inefficient. It might be reasonable to see markets as essentially a
mixture of both, wherein daily decisions and events cannot always be
reflected immediately into a market. If all participants were to believe
that the market is efficient, no one would seek extraordinary profits,
which is the force that keeps the wheels of the market turning.

In the age of information technology (IT), however, markets all over the
world are gaining greater efficiency. IT allows for a more effective,
faster means to disseminate information, and electronic trading allows
for prices to adjust more quickly to news entering the market. However,
while the pace at which we receive information and make transactions
quickens, IT also restricts the time it takes to verify the information
used to make a trade. Thus, IT may inadvertently result in less
efficiency if the quality of the information we use no longer allows us
to make profit-generating decisions.

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/101502.asp
Patrick is doing business in theory, but what he actually seems to enjoy is education. He likes teaching people with his comments and teaching with his blog posts. He focuses a lot on that, and less on the actual business and the money.
Sure. If you have any problems the Debian mailing lists are excellent, the Ubuntu forums are good and I'm very often polite via email if you have a question that isn't very tightly focused.
The Swiss are very insular and unfriendly. The Austrians are a little better. However, in both places it seemed impossible to meet any local person. I will say though that I used to be a skateboarder and hung out in Laussanne, and the skate crowd there was great, as they usually are throughout the world. The nightlife is very strange, IMO. The clubs play a weird mix of pounding techno and horrifying "classic oldies" music. I could not find anything to do at night besides a "club." (In the USA there are coffee shops, or simple bars, or bookstores that stay open late, or even lit parks to play basketball, soccer, etc) No club in these countries were as weird as German nightclubs, though. Vienna does have a large range of classical music type stuff, which is why I was there.

I have not been to any of these places since 2002, so perhaps things have improved. Take it with a grain of salt, I was also just a tourist. In contrast, it's very difficult to describe any aspect of California as "boring" unless you are an angsty teenager stuck in the burbs...
Partly, sure. Also, knowing what happens makes it a different experience. No sense of wonder or mystery, more focus on the prose, storytelling ability, etc.
I am not sure why your comment got so many upvotes. Please do not discount BCC revenue as being only 2k/3k. He did not work on BCC full time. Not only did he work on it part time, he worked on his project while working 12+ hours at day job. Also, can you imagine a product like BCC brining in 3k a month? I think you are under estimating what he has pulled through.

There is born-genius and being genius through hard work and determination. I think Patrick is of the later kind. It took him a good amount of time to be the genius he is (I have been reading his posts from JoS/BoS days). Now that he has quit his day job, I have no doubt that he will be successful in any endeavour he takes on.

Also, the original article's estimate of 10k/month is VERY LOW. If he can make 3k selling to teachers (a very narrow niche), he will make a boat load of money selling to businesses. Let's say in first year, he has 100 customers (a very conservative estimate) on 79/month plan. That's 7900$ in revenue. Next year he adds 200 customers more, now you are talking about revenue of 24k. In 5 years, he can easily make 50k/month with minimum effort on his side. This business can give him the lifestyle we all dream about. Freedom to work your own hours, freedom to travel around the world, being your own boss etc.

I am sure Patrick will keep us updated on how his new product is doing and once Sebastian sees the results, he will realize that he underestimated Patrick's genius. :)

Good luck Patrick!
> Facebook sanctioned employees being able to sell stock up to a certain amount, in lieu of going public

Does Facebook approve the sell price? If so then it's likely biased up.
If Patrick is genuinely having fun, he may be tragic like a fox.

As soon as people are giving you money in exchange for your time and services, you're obliged to do a bunch of things you may not care about. Your time has been bought.

I don't know Patrick, but if you can go from working for the man 70 hours a week to doing your own thing entirely, that strikes me as quite an upgrade. Assuming cost of living is taken care of, that's a huge win. Your time is your own.

I admire Patrick's humble approach and I can't presume to know how his income tradeoffs affect his happiness.

Still, in my hypothetical I'd take paying the bills on my own to living large while in the service of clients that are less than fun. The case for Patrick's talent is well stated, though – I should think his skill would let him be selective with his clients if he chose.

Talking about someone I don't know but whose comments I like is so weird. Especially the income thing. Okay. I'm done now.
I'm really going to miss them. My closest Borders has looked like it's either about to remodel or close since January, with big empty spaces of damaged carpet.

I wish someone would start a chain of places to just sit and work. Sure, stick in a small selection of books, gadgets, and I guess some light food and drinks if you need to, but make the place primarily about comfortable tables and chairs plus wifi and I'd gladly pay for it.
"valuation" != overvalued || undervalued
What kind of books does she read, that she can read 150 in a 9 months And when does she read these books? Good Lord! Unless she reads like Kim Peak... a page in like 2 seconds, then I suppose 150 books is well within reason.
Mozilla is moving toward this by working on silent background updates (just for Windows users at the moment: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180272/Mozilla_plans...) and by eliminating startup dialogs of all kinds: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Eradicate_Startup_...

They know about the problem and are working to fix it.
Joe Walton wrote a book about it.
Ny-suspect-dubbed-femme-fatale-of-russian-spy-case-ap/
I'm glad you posted that. It links to the following superb email thread about slice(), tee(), and other zery-copy magic:

http://kerneltrap.org/node/6505
Point of order... It wasn't a series E, it was $120 million in purchases on the secondary market

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/28/elevation-invests-another-1...
From an investor standpoint it'd be disappointing to not get a big payoff, but 37signals sometimes frames it as a failure to not be a huge profit machine. They don't consider the positive repercussions of operating a sustainable business (jobs, quality of life, etc). As I said, I'd be more than happy to make an average salary and be responsible for creating jobs that allow others to support themselves and their families. I'd like to make killer profits too, but there's value in breaking even too.
In Firefox,

(1) View >> Toolbars >> Customize

(2) Drag your search box out of the bar

(3) Okay

(4) Go to any search engine. For example, go to google.

(5) Right-click in the search box, and choose "Add Keyword for this search"

(6) Give it a friendly name. For a google search keyword, I might suggest "g".

Now, when you want to search in Firefox's single URL bar, you can type "g cute cat pictures". Add the "cpan" search keyword for the search.cpan.org box, and in the same bar, you can type "cpan Moose". Want to define a word? Set up a keyword for the box at dictionary.com (Would "d" work for you?).

Also, Firefox has NoScript and supports the latest version of JavaScript (Chrome is years behind).
My older son had a Lion King addiction, so I know what you mean. I was thinking in terms of movies for grown-ups, though.
We should start a collection for him. Poor guy.
Agree on awesome bar, but switched anyways, primarily because of the UX around closing tabs. (Chrome makes sure that the X stays over the cursor) and the search / url bar being one text box.

I've found that the built in inspector is sufficient for me on Chrome, and I love the resource monitoring.

'/' to searching is a big one for me but have adjusted back to CTRL-F I understand that there are 'vim' bindings now for chrome in some extension but haven't bothered installing it.
This reminds me of PG's essay "Mind the Gap" - why can't we just settle with the fact that some people know how to make money and others don't? It's a real skill, beyond coding, A/B testing, and all that - & it seems that it's one patio11 definitely lacks.

http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
Vienna is one of the key research and development cities in the world.

A very strong investment environment for startups.

http://www.wien.gv.at/forschung/

SchnitzelConf is a 1-day, full-contact conference in Vienna, Austria on September 7. The focus: creating products, launching businesses, and charging real money. http://schnitzelconf.com/
The Betfair IPO about to get off (at a roughly $2bn valuation, which is pretty fair for a category killer in a huge business like sports gambling) is entirely insider sales, no new issues, and will be something like 10%-15% of the company.
How about something like this? In the event of a FB IPO within 5 years we look at the valuation of the company 30 days after the IPO and compare it to 33B in todays dollars (with say a 5% IRR).

If facebook goes out of business (unlikely, but want to cover every scenario), you win 10k.

If facebook is purchased outright by another company we take that as a fair valuation and pay the bet out in the same was as an IPO+30 days price.

If facebook is still private 5 years from now it's a push (don't want this to be open ended forever).

We take the difference any multiply it by your "stake" (10k/33B) and the bet pays off.

So, for example let's say facebook IPOs 335 days from today (so IPO+30 = 1 year). With the 5% interest that puts us at 34.7B as the comparison valuation.

So if FB is worth 0 on that day, you win 10k.
If FB is worth 20B, you win about 4.5k.
If FB is worth exactly 34.7 it's a push.
If FB is worth 40B, I win about about 1.6k.
If FB is worth 50B, I win about about 4.6k.
etc.

1) Make sense?
2) So you in?
Partick you magnificent ba$tard - you have guys willing to write and analyze your work.

You've made it bro.
Congrats!