"But they already created that". To which I respond "how many pizzeria are out there, how many gas stations, how many shoe manufacturers, how many zoos, should we all settle for The One?"
Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
41–50 of 94 posts
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#42Heh-- people have called RescueTime evil, especially in a work setting. Never hurt our feelings much-- we try to not go tooo far down the evil path, but we've always felt like a manager/biz owner has the right to say, "How are you spending your time?" and get an honest (and CORRECT) answer. A lot of people say, "Well, if I get my work done in 2 hours every day, I have a RIGHT to screw off for the other 6"... While we…
> we try to not go tooo far down the evil path
So what have you done on the evil path so far?
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#43If you want to see mean, try writing essays.
I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.
I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming some kind of authority.
The right approach, obviously, is to judge an essay by what it says instead of who wrote it. I think things will tend to move in that direction. But not too far, because it's more work.
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#44I've put significant work over the past 6 years into an open source programming language called Sleep. I have a small community and I love programming in it and that is enough of a reward to me.
That said, I've attracted my critics too:
Subject: better name would be STOP
From: NothingPersonal (62.132.1.121)
Date: September 27, 2004 at 10:08:34
Please. Just STOP. stop stop stop. don't inflict yet another half-baked, il-concieved abortion of a scripting language onto unsuspecting developers. Yes, you had fun writing it, but the only niche it fills is the one in your head that renders you incapable of mastering any of the other numerous scripting options already available to you.
I know I'm supposed to be nice to you because hey who are you really bothering, and selection of the fittest will surely see sleep sleep it's way to a quiet and peaceful death. But while on it's way to it's inevitable demise, sleep is bound to take with it some hapless developers, who will in turn inflict it on numerous doomed projects, and all that spells misery for all concerned.
While I'm at it, I also have to point out that the very last thing I want to read when browsing a language reference is pathetic, self-important humour.
I'm urging you to do the honourable thing. stop sleeping, and wake the f* up. Take down your cargo-cult website (it even has a wiki! it's _bound_ to be a success!) and spend (alot) more time researching your foundations before embarking on such follies again.
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#45"it's ashley, this website ROCKS ! haha jk !" That "jk" was just devastating.
Don't take it so hard; the writer just meant "she" wasn't really "ashley".
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.
I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming…
Yes, you mentioned that in http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html
That explains the dismissive comments. The angry and really mean ones can be explained perhaps as people feeling threatened for whatever reason?
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#47I've put significant work over the past 6 years into an open source programming language called Sleep. I have a small community and I love programming in it and that is enough of a reward to me. That said, I've attracted my critics too: Subject: better name would be STOP From: NothingPersonal (62.132.1.121) Date: September 27, 2004 at 10:08:34 Please. Just STOP. stop stop stop. don't inflict yet another half-baked, i…
Why do intensely personal attacks start with "Nothing Personal?"
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#48I Like this tweet a while back: "MIBBIT SUCKS BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It's actually pretty cool to get criticism IMHO, It shows people care. Also cool when your app is broken, and people scream at you... You have to look past the anger, and see that they are lost without your app, and love it dearly.
"It's actually pretty cool to get criticism IMHO, It shows people care."
As Oscar Wilde said it: "There's only one thing worse than being talked about, and that's not being talked about."
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#49I've put significant work over the past 6 years into an open source programming language called Sleep. I have a small community and I love programming in it and that is enough of a reward to me. That said, I've attracted my critics too: Subject: better name would be STOP From: NothingPersonal (62.132.1.121) Date: September 27, 2004 at 10:08:34 Please. Just STOP. stop stop stop. don't inflict yet another half-baked, i…
Why do intensely personal attacks start with "Nothing Personal?"
Because they don't really mean it personally, since they know nothing about the person behind things. They are not thinking at all about the founder/writer/developer. They are just thinking about how annoyed they were for the past 2 seconds.
Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?
#50Not my startup, but I always think back to the initial Slashdot editor reaction to the iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257...