koenigdavidmj 10 years ago

"Did you win the Putnam? If not, then don't be bolder than this guy." "Yes, I did." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

A parody of being a startup founder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183

  • CPLX 10 years ago

    The Putnam reply is one of the great moments in Internet commenting history IMHO.

    • Mandatum 10 years ago

      The followup is the icing on the cake, "Only once?"

      > Yes, only once. But I actually consider my first score on the Putnam (53, ranked 53.5th in North America) to be my most impressive performance on the Putnam, considering that I was only 14 years old at the time.

    • lemming 10 years ago

      It's one of my favourite comments ever.

    • cperciva 10 years ago

      Oh, so this is why it suddenly popped up again in my twitter feed...

      I'll say here what I posted there a moment ago: Seven years after making a fool of myself on Hacker News, I wonder if my epitaph will be "Yes, I won the Putnam".

  • chubot 10 years ago

    How does the Putnam winner Ravi Vakil fit into that thread? From reading the context it is about cpervica saying he's more competent than 90% of startup founders, and other people are saying that's arrogant. Where did Ravi come in -- was he a startup founder?

  • AndrewKemendo 10 years ago

    Even better, further down the thread drew houston comes on to say that he is working on a similar idea and that he could email him to chat.

  • philippnagel 10 years ago

    "Double stealth mode" gave me a solid chuckle.

    • mcintyre1994 10 years ago

      "when C, D & S (or cease and desist as I call them) come back home" was a great setup too.

  • PopeOfNope 10 years ago

    One of my favorites from that thread:

      Remember that success comes from improving OTHER people's lives. All your achievements, while probably very gratifying to your mother, have not improved my life at all. - dbosson

  Do you use OS X or Mozilla? Have you ever used their software update mechanisms? If yes, I've improved your life -- they use my delta compression work (bsdiff, originally written as part of FreeBSD Update) to reduce the size of updates which have to be downloaded. As of about a year ago, my work had saved users around the world well over a hundred years of waiting for updates to download. -cpervica
jh3 10 years ago

bdunn on justifying your costs as a freelancer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705179

patio11 and the Fair Credit Reporting Act: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135833

spolsky on detecting toxic customers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1987223

tptacek on naming your company: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4684845

The journey of Flappy Bird: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7207943

Programming is terrible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469360

On being a consultant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6443135

Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6263458

Are designers crazy? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5002262

Why learning to code is so hard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4933178

"I don't understand": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4930262

death and regrets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4540459

  • wglb 10 years ago

    A fabulous set of quotes. Do you collect them as you read them?

    • jh3 10 years ago

      Yup :)

      • kzisme 10 years ago

        Very nice list thanks for posting

shortoncash 10 years ago

I almost wish they'd just add a patio11 and tptacek tab across the top bar. :)

Sometimes it's not just the comment, but the context in which the comment is made.

  • caseysoftware 10 years ago

    +1 to patio11. When I'm skimming comments, I make sure to actually read his fully.

    As much as we all say we're governed by reason, there's still some timidity and doubt and he has this great ability to call people on it in a constructive way.

  • enraged_camel 10 years ago

    I also like tokenadult's posts for anything biology-related.

  • stevewepay 10 years ago

    ChuckMcM can always be counted on to have a thoughtful and interesting comment. He is my #1 favorite HN commenter.

    • bane 10 years ago

      I'm totally a ChuckMcM fan. Thoughtful, experienced, witty. I always look for his comments in threads I'm interested in and have yet to be disappointed.

  • swah 10 years ago

    Workaround: I add those names and many others to the list of words to be highlighted on HN (Pearls extension)...

mindcrime 10 years ago

I like a lot of tptacek's[1] comments, as long as he's talking technology / security and not politics. On politics we're pretty far apart, but there's no question the guy knows security damn well, and always has something insightful to say.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek