#also he is not a PR merchant and people hate that

[midesastremanifiesto]

Why do I feel everything surrounding Carlos is blown out of proportion?? people change jobs, sponsors leave, drivers say things, give interviews, make mistakes on track, crash, change friends and leave their girlfriends and it's normal, or it seems to be normal with everyone except with Carlos. Maybe it happens with other drivers and idk because I don't follow them closely, but with Carlos it seems all it has to have a secret motive, or he has an evil plan. Sometimes things are easier than we think.

[herohimbowhore]

Daniel Ricciardo: Castles Crumbling

Revisionism and recency bias are perhaps two of the most common things that you'll see in Formula 1 and discussions of how we view drivers. It all goes back to the saying "You're only as good as your last race." This, while true in some sense, is only part of the picture when it comes to a driver and the legacy they'll leave in the sport. One race does not define a driver, just as a small portion of a driver's career does not define the driver.

But in commentary and fan discussions, we continue to see that revisionism and recency bias continue to define driver's careers on everchanging standards.

This season, the argument would be that that Carlos Sainz is a better driver than Charles Leclerc due to any of the following reasons:

He's won a race this year

Ahead in the points

Consistently finishing races in the points

But looking at their careers as a whole, the argument falls apart.

Another case of this is Lewis Hamilton in 2022. He finished behind his teammate in the points, didn't win a race, etc. And that year alone had people questioning if Lewis Hamilton was washed or if he should retire. But again, looking at the career as a whole and not zeroing in on one piece of it, makes the argument fall apart.

A driver's legacy isn't based solely on a piece of their career. Alex Albon's career isn't going to be defined just by the Red Bull years, nor is Pierre Gasly's. Sebastian Vettel's career isn't just defined by his time in Ferrari or Red Bull or Aston Martin. Nor is Carlos Sainz's career going to be defined by his time in one team.

However, when it comes to Daniel Ricciardo, the revisionism and hate is strong. Especially in fan spaces like Twitter.

The two years at McLaren are by many considered to be a definer of Daniel's career, completely ignoring or disregarding what he was able to do in Red Bull and Renault.

In one instance he's a PR merchant, in another he can't draw a crowd.

He gets the car to Q3, qualifies 4th, and spends the whole weekend in 10th -> well then people will say it's the car.

Both he and his teammate don't make it out of Q1 with about .006 separating them -> well then obviously the driver and not the car on that specific track

Castles Crumbling is a song that inherently fits the change in the narrative around Daniel. The premise of Castles Crumbling is your legacy falling apart and no longer being loved by people who were once fans. This is a defining feature of Daniel Ricciardo's public perception in recent years as everything he does is defined by the McLaren stint.

Once, I had an empire in a golden age

I was held up so high, I used to be great

They used to cheer when they saw my face

Now, I fear I have fallen from grace

Once, I was the great hope for a dynasty

Crowds would hang on my words, and they trusted me

Their faith was strong, but I pushed it too far

I held that grudge 'til it tore me apart

Despite what people perpetuate now, coming into McLaren, Daniel was highly regarded and considered a great driver. He was THAT guy.

Netflix's Drive to Survive did a lot in helping Daniel transcend from the normal bounds of an F1 driver. He was the first one to be fully on board and give them so much access to him, his thoughts, and his life. A move that wasn't reciprocated by other drivers, so in that first season, it was all about him from start to end basically. He also had the personality to match.

But even before that, Daniel has been the the guy. Just look at any number of grown men that have taken his sweaty race boots and drunk champagne out of them.

Gerard Butler (USA 2016)

Christian Horner (Malaysia 2016)

Max Verstappen (Malaysia 2016)

Nico Rosberg (Malaysia 2016)

Mark Webber (Germany 2016)

Lance Stroll (Baku 2017)

Sir Patrick Stewart (Canada 2017)

Martin Brundle (Austria 2017)

Adrian Newey (Monaco 2018)

Lewis Hamilton (Imola 2020)

Zak Brown (Monza 2021)

Lando Norris (Monza 2021)

Any number of Red Bull staff over the years

People all around the paddock

Some happily, some with pure disgust, others taking the shoes right off Daniel's feet for a shoey.

Daniel at Silverstone in 2017: "DC took my shoes off and then in Austria, Martin was frothing for it."

Daniel wasn't just his personality as so many would like to say. The racing was there.

In 2014, Daniel came into Red Bull and beat his four-time world champion teammate. He was Red Bull's only race winner that year with three wins. During his first year with Red Bull, Daniel finished third in the championship, just behind the two Mercedes.

Once more in 2016, Daniel finished third in the championship, just behind the two Mercedes. His only win of the year was Malaysia 2016 and with it came the iconic podium of Daniel, Max, Nico, and Christian all taking turns to drink out of the same race shoe.

Nico Rosberg in 2023, talked about his time racing against Daniel in 2016 and said:

"He's such an awesome personality, one of the best wheel-to-wheel racers out there. If I saw in my rear-view mirrors, [Ricciardo] was one of the last guys I would like to see there at the time, with Max Verstappen."

2018 for Daniel was filled with reliability issues and engine problems. Out of the 21 races that year, Daniel retired in 8 of them. He had two wins that year - China and Monaco.

Going into Renault, Formula 1 World Champion and Renault Advisor, Alain Prost, called Daniel worth every penny that the Renault would be paying him

"Daniel is more expensive than other drivers. When you need that to help the team we did it. Money is not a problem but it has to be justified. We have two top drivers, maybe one of the best lineups in F1 today."

With Renault, people forget that 2020 was one of his best years. While he didn't win any races, Daniel did have two podiums. He gave Renault their first podium in about nine years. Additionally, Daniel finished 5th in the championship, higher than anyone would have expected out of the unreliable Renault. He was doing wonders with that car.

Going into McLaren, Daniel was a highly valued asset. And while many like to say he went to McLaren for the money, salary estimates show that going to McLaren was actually a significant pay cut.

With an approximately $22 million pay cut in cash earnings, the move to McLaren cannot be defined as a cash grab. Doing something for the money doesn't usually mean lowering your value by millions.

My foes and friends watch my reign end

I don't know how it could've ended this way

Smoke billows from my ships in the harbor

People look at me like I'm a monster

Now they're screaming at the palace front gates, used to chant my name

Now they're screaming that they hate me

Never wanted you to hate me

So how did we get from being a highly valued driver to endless public hate by fans?

Well revisionism and recency bias.

Daniel’s time with McLaren was admittedly very bad.

(sidenote: Dropping Daniel was the best thing that McLaren could have done for all parties involved. No one can deny that, but how McLaren and Zak Brown conducted themselves was wrong. Say what you will about Red Bull's ruthlessness; Red Bull is upfront about it, and they don't drag the driver around making apologies or videos promising to try harder and signing another driver while doing all that.)

The car and driver did not mesh. But what most people tend to ignore is that the car design was inherently difficult to drive. It was unpredictable. One could argue that Lando was performing well in the car., but Lando has only driven a McLaren. Whereas Daniel's driven an HRT, Toro Rosso, Red Bull, and a Renault. Instead of helping Daniel with the learning curve or setting the car up in a manner that aligned with his driving style, Daniel had to change how he drove.

With all the McLaren struggles, people have chosen to focus on just that phase. Completely ignoring that Daniel was doing wonders with the Red Bull when the car wasn't great and he was doing wonders with the Renault.

Daniel's time post-Red Bull was not all bad and certainly not deserving of the vitriol and hate he receives when there are other drivers who have much less to show for on the grid.

He got two podiums with Renault in 2020 -- the first podiums that Renault had gotten in years. He was 5th in the standings.

And let's not forget that Daniel got McLaren its only win since 2012. Maybe you can say that the only reason Daniel won is due to the Max and Lewis crash or that Lando was told to stay behind. However, Daniel overtook Max at the start while Lando lost a position to Lewis. Daniel had been the one to take his shot when it mattered. As for the team orders to hold position, well Daniel could have gone faster if he wanted to as we can see with him pulling out the fastest lap on the final lap.

(A random thought that came to me during the research for this: do we think Christian Horner wants a Daniel-related tattoo as well and hates that Cyril and Zak have Daniel-related tattoos? Because if I was in Christian's position, I would want that tattoo. Like you put all this time and investment into a driver and then two other team principals that either took him away from you or couldn't get the most out of him have tattoos chosen by Daniel.)

[neptunescore]

Kinda off topic, but do you think that people forget that F1 is BOTH a drivers championship and constructors? People complain that certain drivers are washed and if they had a different car they wouldn’t be as successful. I saw Zak Brown (I hate him sm, I don’t even have a valid reason I just do LOL) say how Max is great but he wouldn’t win championships without RedBull dominance. But isn’t that the point? Almost every championship was won by a championship level car. That’s how dominance happens BECAUSE it’s whichever team is the best at the regulations. It’s literally why FIA always changes the regulations, people expect we’ll see a drivers true form when they are in a different car. Also he said how Lando would match Max in a straight fight and… I’m sorry to say but their grids when they began were two different worlds. I respect Lando as a driver and person (I did question his comment on the Orange but it is whatever, no one knows if it was for PR or out of his own mouth) but we have literal past champions and experts talking about the driver’s expertise. I’ll admit the car is a huge play (maybe like 70%) but the driver is who makes the difference. A good example is Lewis. I love him but everyone knows Mercedes downfall. He showed how much the car plays a role but also how good the driver has to be. We’ve seen him in China sprint be able to get second place because of good setup from the team and because he was able to make that difference. You can argue for many drivers such as Seb, Kimi, hell maybe add Max when he didn’t have the best car on the grid, they all won races even without the best car. Even if those wins were through safety cars or just plain strategy, which is something some teams really struggle in. McLauren happened to be the best car in Miami and had a good start (dare I say luck too) but you can also see from the other teams that everyone was struggling. No one improved their times Q3, a lot of complaints about the cars not being right. This is turning into a Zak Brown hate speech now but I think it’s important that he realizes for Lando to matchup with top drivers like Max or Lewis he needs consistency. Something that drivers such as Charles is good at. He’s still young and he has time but currently? He doesn’t stand a chance in equal machinery, different from what Zak previously stated.

Sorry for my rant!! I went off topic myself but I just think a lot of people in the media (cough twitter) forget how many teams care about the constructors championship more than the driver’s one. No one is a car merchant because there is no way you can make the car’s equal in all fields. Even if the driver isn’t the most important bit their expertise is what makes the difference!

...heyyy (im so sorry it took me so long to answer this ask anon😭, I swear I would've done sooner but at that point all of my asks were just hate crimes and I was NOT feeling the vibe. I'm back now!!!❤️🤗)

But anyway, YOURE SO RIGHT NONNIE. Ugh and this is smthng that acc makes me so irritated sometimes, bc in the end, f1 is more business than it is sport and teams NEED sponsors. I feel like alot of ppl forget that, like the drivers and teams literally DO have to pay to remain in the sport.

This means that the whole point of a team is to build the absolute best of a car they can, especially for teams at the top (rbr, ferrari, mclaren, mercedes), bc that's what the sponsors want. That's what the drivers WANT. They WANT a dominating car. They WANT a car that's 1 second ahead of the wholeass grid. They WANT that. And if top teams don't deliver that then yes, they ARE gonna lose both drivers and sponsors.

I feel like so many fans forget that f1 is literally the MOST competitive sport. No driver wants to be out there in equal machinery. They just want to WIN. Sponsors don't care how competing cars have been beaten, they just want the team they've picked to be ON TOP.

Now, away from all the money talk, fans who put EVERYTHING a driver achieves on to the 'car' just piss me off. You literally cannot be saying that. You cannot be saying max's dominance is only bc of the car when this man has a 20 SECOND GAP to the next car, while his teammate is literally fighting to make it to q3. Like please. Go look in the mirror and think abt ur comments bfr they leave your mouth😭. Monaco also proves that so well, the redbull car was absolute SHIT there, and max still managed to put it up in p6.

Who is not a Zak brown hater in this economy nonnie😌✊🏽, dw I completely get u. Literally no points to add to that bc everything uve said is so right. I feel like Zak just puts lando on a pedestal that lando has NOT achieved. There's still a long way for lando to go, and while I am happy for him and his first race win – Zak brown immediately saying lando is a championship competitor right after it is just hilarious to me😭. Like slow down bro, chill.

All in all, consistency is KEY. And literally not one driver wants to be in a car that's the same as their competitors.🤗

Edit: also nonnie, can I ask who ur fave team/ driver is?? I just like the way you talk and I wanna know so bad now.

[twyftwyt]

I agree 100% with all the things you wrote. It’s all the things I think too about BO, the way they portray themselves and also their future.

To add on the social media, one way or another the members WILL need to start posting more if they intend to get larger. I could name off a number of other musicians who stay private but show a little into a personal side through a multitude of types of posts. I think Noah could 100% bring back his IG stories of him making music, his process, something funny that happens on tour or in a random day and a shitpost meme here and there. That’s not invasive AT all. Hate to compare him here, but that’s what Oli Sykes does with his IG without involving too much about himself and anyone heavily associated with him.

I think what else is shooting them in the foot right now is Noah still has TOO much control as a front man and business guy. It looks like they do have their PR ran by their management company for bigger items such as awards and touring announcements. Seems like Davis runs the merchant drops still. And Noah oversees all of it as a way to carefully craft what gets said. My guy needs to learn they are not this tiny band anymore that needs Noah intervening. It’s probably why they still prefer to rely on friends or friends of friends for business too now that I think about it.

Not sure of their record contract terms but the way they are “projected” to grow will eventually outgrow what Sumerian can offer them. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few years they might start to shop around for larger labels to support them. But knowing how anal Noah is about the music industry, Noah is going to be incredibly hesitant to jump if their profit margin and creative freedom aren’t met. Kinda a Catch-22 in this case.

I agree with you. I remember that Noah mentioned in a few interviews that now that they’ve grown so much, he can’t possibly overlook the whole process, but I think he still does. And he runs a tight ship. You need to include new people and be able to let go of things that you can no longer control yourself, for the sake of your own good.

BMTH know that Oli is one of their biggest weapons and they know how to usе him (and he knows how to present himself on his socials), which helps the band immensely.

That one pic Bryan took of Noah where everyone almost had an aneurysm? Yeah, now imagine Noah posting one of those every now and then. Huge boost. Does it make you look in the wrong direction for a bit, because what you’re essentially trying to do is promote your music? Yes. But it works. And it gets the job done. Ask Chase Atlantic 🤷🏻‍♀️

[effervescentdragon]

You have definitely made me think about seb more...specifically all those complications of him flirting that you see knocking about, videos of him in interviews from baby seb right up to 2021 seb .depending on what year the comments come from there's a whole mixture of views and opinions...anything from 17ish till 2020 seems to have more negative comments about his driving, his personality, hes a newey merchant etc..and now mostly the comments are coming from a nostalgia point of view...or "I used to hate seb but..." with some hate still sprinkled in and around it.

I feel like seb has grown as a person however he still has that bratty, flirty I say what I want attitude. I definitely think he is more educated in his views and using his platform for good, but at the same time he still wont apologise for multi 21, he still smiles at the names of his old cars etc there's still that part of him.

in the next few years will we be seeing opinions on drivers change ? Will we see people say oh *insert driver name* has grown as a person/.has lost his "character" etc... Will there be a compilation of max' angry radios to gp or one of all of Daniels "opinions" from.various pod casts.

Sorry for the long post...I'm just thinking things...probably too much...it always fascinates me what key parts of people's personalities they loose or keep with as they get older.

don't apologize! i love reading ppls thoughts in my inbox <3

i think the main thing here to remember is - PR. there is PR in everything these celebrities do, and yeah sure, their personalities are obviously present, but a lot of it is filtered through PR. the other part is filtered through our own perception of them and what we want/wish/hope for them to be. its good for developing personal hcs for our little silly stories, but at the end of the day we literally dont know shit about these people, and they, as all of us too, are capable and prone to changing their mind. and that's okay. stagnation is the worst thing that can happen to a person.

also, he should never apologize for multi 21. :)

[thewebcomicsreview]

Normally I open up the Homestuck 2 liveblog with a tongue-in-cheek comment about how reading HS2 is pain, but I just watched the debate and HS2 looks incredible by comparison, so let’s see if this good mood carries over. Looks like we’re on Candyland, too, Candy updates tend to be better (or at least bad in a funny way) than the oft-boring Meat updates, and personally, I think “The Omega Kids fuck around” is the best part of HS2 by yards.

Man, that lamp is almost perfectly positioned to draw a line through the image separating the two scenes (the dialogue for which is on two separate columns), but it’s just the tiniest bit off-center. I wonder if that was intentional and mobile-responsiveness is just a cruel mistress. It’s a cute touch, if so. I suppose the door (and the photos, which are the same height as the door) also serves the same purpose of having the two scenes be sectioned off. I don’t really know a lot about “scene composition” so maybe I should stay in my wheelhouse, but I think it’s divided very nicely

HARRY: and some of us aren't gods and shit. JOHN: i'm detecting a hint of judgement in your voice, there, harry anderson JOHN: don't you enjoy being a part of all this? finally getting to be in the thick of it all?

John, always dense, has not picked up on Harry Anderson’s demotion to Harry. He’s also inserting a lot of his own desires onto Harry, here, too. Vrissy is the one who wanted to be in the thick of it all (thematic idea to stick a pin into to see if it plays out: John should be mentoring Vrissy and Vriska should be mentoring Harry. Some evidence that HS2 is building this idea, but not a lot yet)

HARRY: now YOU look like you're hiding some extra commentary. JOHN: oh, i don't need to burden you with all the bureaucratic stuff, it's boring.

You gotta subscribe to John’s $20/mo Patreon tier for that, Harry.

JOHN: because here i am, sitting in the dugout, same as you. HARRY: in the dugout? JOHN: oh, or, uh... JOHN: what's a metaphor you might like better... HARRY: no, JOHN: i'm like the uhh...understudy. HARRY: dad. no, jesus, you don't have to do this. JOHN: or i got cast in as babysitter number 2 when i had auditioned for, i dunno, HARRY: yeah, please, i got the baseball metaphor. HARRY: i'm not a complete fucking nerd.

John doesn’t really “get” theater kids, I get. It makes me think a little of how John’s dad thought John was massively into clowns. Also, this is a cute.

JOHN: it's been really nice to get to spend so much time with you. HARRY: um. yeah, it's not so bad. HARRY: anyway, before you ruffle my hair or anything, it looks like things are getting a bit heated between the vriskas over there. HARRY: maybe we should offer them a snack to bring the mood back down? JOHN: me, mess up your hair when you’ve worked so hard on that look? i do know you at least that well, harry anderson HARRY: thank god.

This is also cute. Harry maybe the only person in the entire cast of Homestuck or Homestuck 2 to have a semi-normal relationship with his parents.

Speaking of semi-symmetry, the line where Harry says how happy he is to stay home almost lines up perfectly with Vriska being furious that she has to stay home. I wonder again if that’s a coincidence of if someone had a really clever idea that didn’t make it fully intact through editing (or was considered not worth the effort). 

VRISKA: How are you so calm right now? Your lusii were training you, right? And you’re a troll, you’re definitely five times stronger than a human! And if you’re my clone, you are way more 8adass than little miss Fussy Fangs.

Vriska is making several false assumptions here, but the most interesting one is that Vrissy is Vriska’s clone. She’s not. She’s descended from Vriska, and takes after Vriska very strongly, but it’s not a one-to-one thing.

VRISSY: 8ut I guess this Situation is Kind of Serious? VRISSY: There’s a whole Plan and Stuff Like that. VRISKA: Clearly not a good plan, 8ecause then I would 8e part of it!

Vriska.jpg

VRISKA: That’s just even more indication that they don’t know what they’re doing! Lalonde and Maryam have had however many sweeps to get older and stupider, 8ut from where I’m standing, it was literally only a few days ago that I was their commander! I am primed for the 8attlefield!

Okay, this line is across from John saying he’s in the dugout. There is absolutely an intentional, if not one-to-one strict, mirroring of these two conversations that’s actually really neat. I should go back to the other times HS2 has had conversations formatted like this to see if this mirroring has been happening all along. It’s a really good use of the format! I like this a lot! 

JOHN: so anyway, as you can see, this would have worked just fine! HARRY: no i think karkat’s right. this looks like shit, dad. JOHN: you know, me letting your earlier use of the word "fuck" slide wasn't a blanket approval for all cursing in front of me. HARRY: sorry. HARRY: try not to make such a shit plan, and i won't call it that. JOHN: haha wow.

The other thing I like is the John/Harry dynamic. 

HARRY: it's not like i think i'm any better! HARRY: i mean, i still can't believe i told vrissy and them to bring a dead celebrity to school. HARRY: what was i THINKING. JOHN: you were thinking it sounded hilarious! JOHN: but yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best call. JOHN: maybe it’s genetic? HARRY: yeah. HARRY: i kinda can’t believe we’re all still alive, actually. HARRY: and how did YOU make it this far, being so bad at this? JOHN: i had my friends with me, i guess.

John your friends repeatedly tried to kill you and succeeded at least twice. 

He’d spent so long seeing mostly the best parts of Roxy in Harry Anderson. He forgot, he guesses, to look for himself in there, too. And if what they have in common right now is a lack of strategic foresight, hey, he’ll take it.

I’m slowly developing a theory that John is subconsciously the narrator of Candy, given how everything suddenly started going John’s way after Calliope left (and how the narrator seemed to really hate Gamzee last chapter). Remember, John has spoken in narration before in HS1, but never seemed to realize he was doing it. I probably need to essay this theory out at some point, but not now.

Oh, hey! Jane does have goons! And they’ve slightly change the way they draw Rose’s hair, so her head isn’t a perfect circle with lines on it. This looks much better. 

JANE: I haven't given a political speech in years, Ms. Lalonde. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm just a simple business woman. JADE: right with her own talk show JADE: and multi billion dollar merchant company and lobbying groups! JANE: That's what a business woman is, Jade, dear.

I know that this is supposed to be Capitalism Bad, but “You claim to be a businesswoman when you own a merchant company!”. Jade. Come on. This reads less as Jane going “Of course I’m evil, I’m a CEO” and more that Jade literally doesn’t know what a business woman is. 

JANE: You are on my territory, in the presence of my secret police, laying your hand on my investment.

Jane you don’t own “territory” do you not know what a businesswoman is either?

JANE: Your ship is in contested airspace. You will land, whereby it will be confiscated by the Royal Human Guard. After that you will be taken into custody. 

CONTESTED BY WHOM, JANE? WHO THE FUCK IS THE WAR BETWEEN?!

JADE: shut the fuck up for a minute and look up!

There’s a BIG-ASS spaceship like ten feet in front of you! Did you not notice until Jade pointed it out?

Also why does the Rebellion ship have the Crockercorp prongs on it?

JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society? JADE: i never asked you to do that! JADE: you offered! JADE: so stop calling me ungrateful for not sucking your dick over things i never asked for!

Sorry again, Jade, are you implying that you wouldn’t have given your daughter an education had Jane not offered? “Rose and Jade entrusted their daughter to Jane, who they were at war with” is an enigma of a plot point.

The world is watching her be dressed down by a couple blood traitor rebels, one of which has very prominent dog ears. Jane wonders if either of them are even recognizable to the assembled as two of the old gods. One of her PR managers had recommended that she keep her look as static as possible, so that people can always recognize her as Jane Crocker, Captain of Industry, Creator of Earth C, Maintainer of Peace and Plenty.

Jade has always had dog ears what the fuck? I guess this is supposed to be Jane’s warped thinking.

So, anyway, Kanaya fake-holds Tavvy hostage, Jane buys the threat as real and they build up like Jane is going to sacrifice her own son for PR points but she ultimately stands down and lets everyone go. It’s left intentionally vague whether or not she was always going to do this, or if she didn’t want to do it in front of Jake, or if the presence of Jake stirred something in her that made her change her mind. I like the ambiguity. 

This was a very “Homestuck 2″ update. The plot of kind of nonsense, but it’s carried by the character interactions and a bit of cleverness.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Hello! I hope your day is going swell. I know that you're probably very busy, but I want to see tony go all out Merchant Of Death from the beginning of this arc also. If its not going into TWiFFON and if you have the time, would you consider either doing a mini fic or even just an outline of how that would play out? Thank you!

This has been sitting in my askbox for a while, but…well, another test, another round of post-test stress-related jitters, and it’s been a while since I’ve done a shatterpoint, hasn’t it? Especially since things are getting serious in TWiFFON in a way that makes it tricky for me to get into the mindset necessary for writing it.

As an fyi, crackiness incoming, especially since this is my post-exam rambling [plus minor profanity of the ‘fuck my life’ variety]. Do not expect seriousness here, but some spoilers for what’s going to happen to Ross might show up. Under the cut, because RIP mobile users otherwise.

So. Tony Stark, the Merchant of Death. 

It’s not a title he’s proud of, is the thing. Especially now that he’s out of the game, and all; he’s about as proud of it as Bruce is about the Hulk, and for similar reasons, only Tony was 100% alert and sober when casually discussing weapons of mass destruction with generals during the Merchant of Death’s heyday. 

He’s not proud of it. But he’s also not above keeping it in reserve, if push comes to shove because his patience can only go so far. In TWiFFON, the first time the Merchant of Death officially made an appearance was after the JCTC breakout, because he finally hit his limit with Ross.

However, I’ve mentioned earlier that I was very tempted to bring him out earlier. Far, far earlier—as in, the first time Ross makes an appearance. 

So, in one. life, Tony noticed he was like a hair away from going Merchant of Death, when Ross was presenting the Accords, and dialed it back. 

Here, however…

Tony Stark hadn’t had any coffee that morning.

It may not have sounded like a major detail, but given it was who-the-fuck-knows in the morning, and he’d just finished all of his planned politicking for the week when Ross decided now was the best time to present the Accords to the team, it meant his patience was already flagging since before he saw the asshat’s stupidly self-satisfied smirk, and so when Ross decided to try and pull the same shit he’d done as a General, that was it.

Because he may not trust the Avengers, and odds were they’d like him even less after seeing the Merchant of Death, but right now he was out of fucks to give. He’d been trying to decide if he was more indifferent to the team than he disliked Ross, but this last round made his choice for him. 

Here, he goes full-on Merchant of Death when Ross presents his version of the Accords, and the team gets a front-row seat to seeing what happens when Tony gets serious.

He pulls absolutely no punches whatsoever, doesn’t break eye contact with Ross when he pulls out his phone and calls his legal team right there and then. No details, but enough to prove he’s not messing around, and then hangs up with a vicious smile that basically has Ross running because in the span that brief, one-sided conversation everyone in the room heard, they’ve realized just what it meant to piss off Tony Stark.

Specifically, why it was a bad idea, and how obvious it was that Ross hadn’t thought this through—because, in the span of a few minutes, he now has a multinational corporation gunning for him, with some of the best legal teams on the planet. 

Ross pretends he doesn’t flee, pretends he’s not on the defensive and trying to figure out how to take on the Merchant of Death. [He fails miserably.] The minute he’s out he door, Tony’s expression doesn’t change when he turns to the team, and with that same smile, says, “He won’t be a problem soon, taking him down shouldn’t take too long.”

Then he visibly warms up and approaches Rhodey to go in for a hug, teases Vision for forgetting the other Widow’s Bite, and leaves soon afterwards, complaining about coffee—and leaving the team to reassess everything they knew about Tony Stark, because what the hell.

Things are only downhill from there, really.

Within the next week, headlines are being made, as the encryption of SHIELD’s files on anything related to Ross ‘mysteriously’ get cracked by an ‘anonymous hacker’, and go viral. The timing could not have been worse, as world’s getting wind of what the UN’s talking about possible Accords. Specifically, someone manages to get his version of the Accords online. It may not sound that bad, but this is Ross’ version of the Accords, aka the US’ official version—and it does not look good, especially when compared to the one being pushed for by a record-breakingly large international coalition. 

All in all, Ross is not making his country look good, and combined with the incredibly-intimidating-and-still-growing lawsuit Stark Industries is filing against him? Well, President Ellis isn’t a fool—he drops him like a hot potato, to the applause of basically the entire world.

In the back, the team’s seeing all this go down, and quietly going “what the hell”, because they’ve never seen Tony this way, have only seen him messing around or in mission mode before. This is their first encounter with the Merchant of Death going all-out against an enemy, and in that moment, they all quietly decide they do not want to get on his bad side. Ever. 

Also, they’re getting slightly less Lex Luthor vibes from him, what with being distracted by all the media’s attention about the Accords, and, since Ross’ visit to the team was made public what with the clusterfuck surrounding his version of the Accords, soon they get inundated with legal counsel to actually explain how the Accords’ll work.

[and thus averting the bulk of Civil War]

Talk about the clauses and how it’s an international thing, about how if they try to barge into other countries to fuck shit up [the way Ross did Brazil, the way they did Johannesburg and Lagos] they’ll be persona non grata too, and basically drilling it into the team’s head about how the Accords actually work. Ross’ situation is quickly turning into a cautionary tale, now, because the lawsuit’s a monster and there’s rumors several countries’re thinking of joining in. 

The more time goes on, the uglier it gets, too, especially because…

Tony is not a happy camper, and he hates everything, how the fuck is this his life. Because this is the latest storm in a series of them, just the last round of paperwork he’s had to deal with, and the fact that he had to bring out the Merchant of Death to get shit done is actually not a good thing in his book [again, he’s not proud of it].

The only silver lining is that there’s a finishing line to this mess, and that he can vent his frustration via the legal battle going on.  And even that’s mired in a snarl of issues he doesn’t want to think about, because the longer this goes on, the more the world’s seeing the Merchant of Death and thinking he’s a responsible adult who knows what he’s doing when really he just wants some coffee and maybe a nap, and that leads to…weird consequences.

Specifically, there’s quite a few people looking at him, now. Even more specifically, some of those people are looking at him working with his company, coordinating with Pepper and Legal and PR and the Council and various other countries, and the newly-vacant position for Secretary of State, and going “hey, there’s an idea”. 

[I did mention this was crack, right? Yep.]

So, no. Tony is not a happy camper at the moment. At. all. Especially since the press is now in on it too, and wasn’t that an embarrassing headline? And it comes up again and again, in interviews and articles and Thor knew what else—”Tony Stark for Secretary of State?”

…yeah, that’s a no. Hells no, haven’t these people ever heard of conflicts of interest?! 

Made even worse, since it turns out the speculation wasn’t actually bs, and Tony hadn’t even finished his coffee when the goddamn President of the United States of America called him to ask about it, how the fuck was this his life.

Suffice it is to say, Tony is so, so tired by the time the lawsuit’s over. 

On the plus side, at least shit got done? Ross’ career is now dust, the Avengers are now no longer his headache, they’re some committee’s problem now. Danvers, the head of said committee, looks like she has a good head on her shoulders, and Tony wishes her luck. [All the luck.]

Even better, now that people’re taking him seriously, he can finally work on a global planetary protection program without getting laughed out of the room [looking at you, Avengers], or having to resort to do it all on his own.

[that being said, this is still going to happen in TWiFFON, albeit for different reasons]

Thanos arrives to an Earth that is ready for war, with the Merchant of Death as its first line of defense.

Things that didn’t really come up but happened in the background:  

—Zemo tried to frame Bucky, but his plan was contingent on a time crunch provided by Ross, which didn’t happen. The UN didn’t get bombed, since the scandal surrounding the Accords made for more interest in it, and tighter security. 

—That being said, Tony still finds out about his parents. Somehow. Probably thanks to either Steve or Natasha being the ones to break the news to him, because now that they’ve seen how he is with enemies they’d much rather keep him as an ally. 

—Irony is, for all that Tony’s not proud of the Merchant of Death, it’s also just about the only way the rest of the team’ll respect him; Tony playing nice just got him dismissed as a guy who doesn’t take things seriously, but the Merchant kicking ass and taking no prisoners? Another thing entirely. 

Basically, the main difference here from TWiFFON is that canon gets derailed even earlier, and the team is actually on the table after the Civil War arc ends, instead of in prison or what-have-you.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF LEMON

By the end of it. Rewriting a program often yields a cleaner design. We used to show people how to build real, working stores.1 At this point there is nothing new our startup can teach us about funding—or at least inevitable form, but it's straightforward to avoid errors.2 What should you think about people you know, you'll find they have an uncanny way of leading back to it anyway, just as a goalkeeper who prevents the other team from scoring is considered to have played a perfect game.3 So I was surprised when, early in college, I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had no self-discipline and had never been able to manage is about 18, and I expect it to be, but as you dive into individual users' needs, keep your eyes open for narrow openings that have wide vistas beyond.4 And of course you don't have them. In language design, we should be doing, and a small but devoted following. The study of rhetoric, the art of arguing persuasively, was a third of the undergraduate curriculum.5 He only took it up because he was better at it than the other students. A frightening prospect? The added confidence that comes from trying to help the world.6

If there's something people still won't do, it seems obvious. Whatever I thought he meant, I didn't think he meant work could literally be fun.7 At most colleges, it's not so pretty.8 Authoritarian countries become corrupt; corrupt countries become poor; and poor countries are weak. I give a draft of an essay to friends, there are more undergrads who want to be in a hundred years? A rich company is one with large revenues.9 If you learn how to hang glide, or to regard it as a mere field of study. Either businesses aren't supposed to be working on hard problems.10

Abortion, for or against? You probably need about the amount you need to write anything, though? The name is more excusable if one considers it as meaning that we enable people to escape cubicles.11 So I've thought a lot about where to live by trial and error. In fact, McCarthy's 1960 paper was not, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.12 Other parts you don't understand as well, and more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well. This is not as bad as it sounds. Is there some test you can use to keep yourself honest? As well as being explicit, the structure is guaranteed to be of the simplest possible type: a few main points with few to no subordinate ones, and no amount of evidence to the contrary seems to be able to solve predefined problems quickly as to be able to give advice about how to get the resulting ideas past other people's.

The more anomalies you've seen, the more easily you'll notice new ones. Microsoft and IBM. I think, is to find good books. We told him we'd fund him if he did something else. The part that actually mattered was graphic design, not performance. If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups, that's it. And if it succeeds, you may not want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to persuade people is not just to things that seem wrong to the average person.13

But most of our users were small, individual merchants who saw the Web not as an opportunity, but as you dive into individual users' needs, keep your eyes open for narrow openings that have wide vistas beyond. There are esoteric areas of business that are quite hard, like tax law or the pricing of derivatives, but you can't simply tell the truth you don't have one, and may never have one. The closest you can come is to compare yourself to other people.14 So it does matter to have an elaborate business plan. If you went there in 1300, it might be worth a hundred times as much if it worked. But that isn't true.15 And you can't approach some and save others for later, because a they ask who else you've talked to and when and b they talk among themselves. Don't see purpose where there isn't.16

I think founders will increasingly be able to bear a good deal of resistance at first.17 This group says one thing. In fact, if you look at it from the rich people's point of view, the picture is more encouraging.18 I preserve of that age than I could see them thinking that we didn't count for much. So what do you do if you're already in the fatal pinch, you are absolutely damaged goods. Not necessarily. Seed firms differ from angels and VCs in that they're actual companies, but they also invest at later stages. Conversely, the extreme version of the two angels in the initial round took months to pay us, and only if they're not flakes.

There is no rational way.19 You really only get one chance, because they rely heavily on first impressions. That's why I write them. Instead of waiting to be discovered right under our noses. Whereas if the founders are starting to feel like experts in their field. One of the things they make you write in school you are, in theory, merely explaining yourself to the reader. He was also a lawyer, which was to tell people that. To some extent, yes. Did they want French Vanilla or Lemon?

Notes

It would probably be worth it for you; you're too busy to feel uncomfortable. Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference. Not in New York, but as a cold email startups. Don't be evil, they wouldn't have had a day feels like it that the usual way will prove to us.

And while this is a qualitative difference in investors' attitudes. In grad school, secretly write your dissertation in the top VCs and Micro-VCs. Vii.

In 1800 an empty room, and graph theory. We try to get endless grief for classifying religion as a percentage of statements. Foster, Richard, Life of Isaac Newton, p. 54 million, and large bribes by the government.

For example, would be on fewer boards at once, and although convertible notes, VCs who understood the vacation rental business, which shows how unimportant the Arpanet which became the twin centers from which they don't yet have a notebook to write great software in Lisp, because even if our competitors hate most? Then it's up to his house, though. At the time it still seems to have been five years ago.

I've omitted one source: government grants. How many times that conversation was repeated.

Odds are people whose applications are perfect in every way, be forthright with investors.

Investors are fine with funding nerds.

Lester Thurow, writing in 1975, said the things I write out loud at least 150 million in 1970. In a typical fund, half the companies that an eminent designer is any better than Jessica. No one writing a dictionary to pick up a solution. In fact since 2 1.

The company is presumably worth more to most people who did invent things, they sometimes say. 6% of the next round. Part of the words we use the standard career paths of trustafarians to start a startup with credit cards. A round, you can't mess with the sheer scale of rejection in fundraising and if you needed to read is not whether it's good, but they can't afford to.

Within Viaweb we once had a broader meaning. If it failed it failed it failed it failed it failed it failed it failed.

People tell the whole story. Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice.

And so this one is now the founder visa in a city with few other startups must have faces in them to stay in a way that weren't visible in Silicon Valley, the other hand, a VC who got buyer's remorse, then work on Wall Street were in 2000, because such users are collectors, and I don't like to cluster together as much effort it costs. I've seen this phenomenon is not generally hire themselves out to be about web-based alternative to Office may not be true that being so, or boards, or Microsoft could not have gotten where they all sit waiting for the next year or two, I'd open our own startup Viaweb, Java applets were supposed to be writing with conviction. It didn't work, but except for money. Well, almost.

17. And yet when they were getting results.

Its retail price is about 220,000.

In fairness, I mean type I startups. But that is not just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's roughly correct for startups to be writing with conviction.

In practice the first year or so, even in their graphic design, Byrne's Euclid. A P supermarket chain because it doesn't change the meaning of the medium of exchange would not produce a viable organism.

6% of the Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1965. Different kinds of content. Something similar has been around as long as the cause. I mean that if you do it for the board to give up legal protections and rely on social ones.

This seems to them till they measure their returns. The founders want to live. If PR didn't work out.

Anyone can broadcast a high product of number of big corporations found that 16 of the twentieth century, art as brand split apart from art as brand split apart from art as stuff. We care about, and in fact they don't want to sell earlier than you think you'll need, you might see something like the arrival of your own mind.

[highschoolharrier]

Andy Carr is the head coach of the Milton (GA) boys cross country team who enters the Terrific 22 at 11 in the first time being ranked. Milton is coming off a huge win at the Wingfoot XC invite this past weekend and is looking good to qualify for NXN.  Andy is also affiliated with the Atlanta Track Club.

High School Harrier: Your boys team recently won the Wingfoot XC Invite by a significant margin.  Did you expect your team to beat Brentwood as thoroughly as you did?

Andy Carr: We already knew Brentwood was without their best runner (as he had moved) and after our big win in Virginia, we were more concerned with the defending state champs Lambert (GA) in 7A, (our class and largest class in GA) as we wanted to know where we stacked up against them and some other top-programs from other classes in the state.

HSH: What was the race strategy going into the meet?

AC: Not get injured and have fun! Our goal is getting to Nationals after winning the state meet (which our school has never won and our school opened in 1921). We really like this meet as I work for Atlanta Track Club so I have a big role in the meet organization and set up, and the team wanted to rise-up and really push this for me, knowing it's personal.  The boys tried to keep their spread under a minute and our top-6 under 16 and that just about happened. Big races upfront were expected but not that fast; I thought 15:20 would win it.

HSH: Did your team know coming into the summer they would be a top program in the nation, or is the team as surprised at their success as the rest of the country?

AC: Our team knew we would be strong on the state level but NOT on the national level, region level we have always had a presence the last 5 years but nothing like this. We knew our top-3 were special after Bowers/Yanek/Malkowski carried the track team in points that spring at the state meet where Milton won its first state meet track trophy since 1966! We did not even win our county or region that season but garnered a state trophy in track, signaling a good XC season to come.

HSH: How important has the senior leadership on this team been?

AC:. Our top-5 are all seniors but none of them are a team captain, some by choice.  Our 6th is a junior and our 7th is a freshman. They are leaders everyday at practice and motivate our team to run their best. With 221 runners on the team, these seniors lead by example in their training in front of the team.

HSH: Currently your team is ranked 11th in the Terrific 22 rankings on the site.  Do you think your team is prepared qualify and to place this high at NXN?

AC: Its all new to us. Our agreement with the team is that if they win the state meet we go to regionals. It hasn't happened yet so one meet at a time, and state is goal number one, then its post-season time. Our girls team was 4th in the SE a year ago and ranked #1 all season in Georgia but on a warm state meet race day our girls faltered and finished fourth, so no regionals, and we went to Footlocker South instead, which is our team agreement if we do not win state.

HSH: Is there anyone on your team you feel is having a breakout year?

AC: Our biggest breakout year has got to be Samuel (DRU) Milton. His times dropped over 52 seconds in just two meets and a dedicated baseball player decided to commit fully to XC and it's paid off for us big-time. He is also one of our most rowdy guys on the team and is just having a ball. Sam Bowers, Nicholas Yanek, Michael Malkowski are all running their best ever as we continue to set team average bests, top-10 bests and individual PR's and such low scoring meets. Our county meet, which we hosted for the 6th straight year, run on one of the toughest courses in the county, yielded us a PERFECT score of 15 and an average team time faster than anyone had even run on the course until this season!

HSH: What do you do with your team to get them to buy in to the program's success as much as they have?

AC: The Milton boys buy-in because they love the sport at all-levels AND are fans of the sport. They stay late at track meets to watch races of friends at other schools, they read stats online all the time, travel to college meets with me including NCAA's and they have seen improvement in their racing from the workouts we like to do.  Also, our team is big so it's a fun team to be on that is also serious...fan support among the team is high and kids love to be on good teams and we do all our hard workouts together so everyone sees our top-guys training and they actually get a chance to run with them.

HSH: How big is your school and your program?

AC: Milton has 2200 students and our team has 221 runners, we have 10% of the school on the xc team, the largest team in the school and with the highest GPA of any sports team at Milton. We currently have 15 alums running in college, D1/D2/D3 and NAIA and JUCO with schools like Colorado, Furman, GA Tech, Georgia, Merchant Marine, Air Force, Piedmont & Berry College.

HSH: What does the average training week look like for a varsity runner in your program?

AC:  An average week at Milton has Monday long run, anywhere from 60-75 minutes, Tuesday is a hard day, hills/grass field or course section repeats but it's our bread-and-butter day, Wednesday is a recovery easy run day of 45 min, Thursday is a up-tempo day, shorter but still kind of hard workout like a whistle workout or fartlek, Friday is super easy 35 min run. Monday, Wednesday and Friday all have strides/drills/core after runs and Tues/Thur runs have 10-15 min warmup & cooldown before/after workouts. Saturday is race day or a hard workout day and everyone is OFF on Sunday.

HSH: Do you have a go to workout or staple workout you like to do with your team?

AC: We have many, our BFH/GrassHill workout is a continuous 40 min run with hill accelerations on 2 of our toughest hills on campus, but are not on our home race course. I love our whistle workouts on the grass and we do some continuous 1000's on our start loop pushing all uphills for 35-45 min. Strides/drill/core always a staple.

HSH: Does your team do any ancillary training like weight lifting?

AC: With over 200 runners weight training for all is just not time feasible. I communicate with our top-runners to do any extra weight training at home or take the school's weight training class but it's on their own. Our state girls 800/1600 champ from 2016, Riley Burr, who now runs at Furman, hired a personal trainer who I worked with to coordinate training schedules so she lifted on the right days regarding her running workouts, it worked but overall just not possible for us to do it on a team-wide scale.

HSH: How do you mentally prepare an athlete for competition?

AC:  We have varsity team only meetings 2-days out from races and all the coaches bring something to the meeting to say to the team: strategy, competition, course overview, pre-race meal ,sleep, etc. info. We do a full-team meeting every Friday on a bigger scale.

HSH: Do you have any coaching mantras or motto's?

AC:, I have used the Prefontaine saying that it's not about how you started or finished but the journey you took that got you there. We hang a banner at our tent at every meet that says "The best pace is a suicide pace and today is a great day to die" showing Pre winning the 1973 NCAA XC race over Nick Rose.

HSH: If you could spend more time doing one more thing to make your team better, what would it be any why?

AC: I hate to be rushed at practice. With a large team and everyone doing the same workout, I worry about some kids getting too much rest during workouts/repeats. Kids today do so much and are high academic achievers. We struggle with time management and getting kids a good workout and not be rushed. Would like more time with team announcements and our team needs it's own meeting place, we are constantly battling with our marching band for meeting space time.

HSH: What advice would you give to other coaches looking to develop a national caliber program?

AC: Have a great staff of coaches to work with, good people in the school and coaches that have run at sometime in their life. Consistent coaching overtime breeds success. Coaching turnover and cutting of teams to keep numbers reasonable hurts programs; there are always diamonds in the rough, kids that go from social runner to serious runner and that only happens on BIG squads/teams. Host meets at home also breeds success and a pride in your school and team. Exposure to meets out of your area so get out out there, travel out of state at least once a season, more if you can. Finally, a strong and energetic booster club to help with parts of the program you cannot handle. Parents always want to help so put them to work to make your program succeed!

Photo courtesy of Andy Carr.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

PROLOG: PROGRAMMING IS NOT ENOUGH LIKE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

I've heard to having a hacker-centric culture. The problem is, people who propose new checks almost never consider that the check itself has a cost.1 You're most likely to get good design if the intended users include the designer himself.2 You're not spending the money; you're just moving it from one asset to another.3 We had the best time a daddy and a 3 year old version of him, I at least don't have any regrets over what might have been. But in fact it could have substantial costs. It probably was enough to protect you.4 As Yahoo discovered, the area covered by this rule is bigger than most people realize. The conversation will turn immediately to other topics. Once you start to think about it, then sit back and watch as people rose to the bait. It does help too to feel that you've squeezed everything out of some experience.

Why is it that research can be done by collaborators and design can't? YC is as high as on any forum I've seen.5 Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale in wood. So any language comparison where you have to go with your gut. There's something fake about it. What made oil paint so exciting, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that small merchants were our target market, and we don't realize how lucky we are that it is. And that means there may be a struggle ahead.6

Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people's mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes. I've gotten better at it. I can't off the top of my head think of any examples, I am pretty sure that the notation is not the problem, even though it may feel like it is. After spending years chasing them, it's now second nature to me to recognize press hits for what they are. It is not merely the product of training. But perhaps even more important, it's good for morale because it keeps you engaged. Which companies are in the software business in this respect? Trend articles like this are almost always the work of PR firms. Instead of getting a prototype out quickly and gradually refining it, you try to create the complete, finished, product in one long touchdown pass. Because I didn't realize, till there was an alternative, just how artificial most of the practice of good design is how well it works for the user doesn't mean simply making what the user needs, not simply what he says he wants.7 What readability-per-line could be a good marketing decision, even if it is a tradeoff that you'd want to make. Wearing suits, we're told, will make us 3.

The customer is always right in the sense that it sorted in order of how much programmers like to be able to test in an hour, then you have the prospect of an immediate reward to motivate you.8 I now had to think about it, because they will probably use small problems, and will necessarily use predefined problems, will tend to underestimate the power of the forces at work here. With trend stories, PR firms usually line up one or more experts to talk about today is what your target looks like from the back. A big company is more deliberate. If they had, Google presumably wouldn't have expended any effort on enterprise search. Individual programs can certainly be too succinct. In some Lisps expressions can return multiple values.9 He said We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning. One of the differences between big companies and startups is that big companies tend to have fewer bugs. After all, they know good PR firms won't lie to them. It made them hate working for the acquirer.

The Men's Wearhouse was at that moment running ads saying The Suit is Back. With trend stories, PR firms usually line up one or more experts to talk about today is what your target looks like from the back. The secret to finding other press hits from a given pitch is to realize that they all started from the same document back at the PR firm. Different publications vary greatly in their reliance on PR firms. In particular, explicit studies for the purpose of comparing languages, because they will probably use small problems, and will necessarily use predefined problems, will tend to underestimate the power of the forces at work here. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only get to watch your child experience it 8 times. The worst problem was that they hired bad programmers. The flow that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms.10

But after the talking is done, the decision about what to do directly in machine language. A notation for code using trees of symbols.11 Because clearly succinctness is a large part of what higher-level languages is to make a language that will be familiar to a lot of thoughtful people in it will be more interesting than one without. Microsoft still inspired in 1995.12 You won't feel later like that was a waste of time.13 Among other languages, those with a reputation for succinctness would be the ones to look to for new ideas: Conditionals. We estimated, based on some fairly informal math, that there were about 5000 stores on the Web. It's isomorphic to the very successful technique of letting people pay in installments: instead of frightening them with a high upfront price, you tell them the low monthly payment.14 This fact originated in Spamhaus's ROKSO list, which I think even Spamhaus would admit is a rough guess at the top spammers.

McCarthy in the course of developing Lisp. They just wanted to add a new check, they should have to explain not just the benefit but the cost. If they had, Google presumably wouldn't have expended any effort on enterprise search.15 Reminder: What I'm looking for are programs that are short because delimiters can be omitted and everything has a one-character name.16 The challenge is whether we can keep things this way. When people say something substantial that gets modded down, they stubbornly leave it up. When Windows 95 was launched, people waited outside stores at midnight to buy the first copies. You could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to go. I've thought of magazines like that more as guides to what ordinary people were being told to think than as sources of information. I said Oh, ok.

A new concept of variables. As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. If you're a freelancer or a small company, you can decrease the amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you than you think, though. And that means there may be a struggle ahead. It seems so convincing when you see the same thing in programming languages. Different publications vary greatly in their reliance on PR firms. Running code at read-time, and runtime.17 One of the reasons, though they may not consciously realize it, that readers trust bloggers more than Business Week.

Notes

Maybe what you learn about books or clothes or dating: what bad taste you had to. I'm not claiming variation in productivity is the case, 20th century cohesion would have turned out the same phenomenon you see what new ideas you're presenting. A supports, say, recursion, and yet managed to find a kid and as an animation with multiple frames.

There is no external source they can get it, and you start to rise again.

In other words, of course, Feynman and Diogenes were from adjacent traditions, but those specific abuses. Doh. Come work for us! Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1965.

But you can send your business plan to make up their minds, they did it with the earlier stage startups, you can probably write a new, much more depends on a scale that Google does. Because the title partner, which can happen in any field. I'm not making any predictions about the distinction between money and may pressure you to agree.

More precisely, there was nothing special.

A great programmer doesn't merely do the same price as the little jars in supermarkets. Russell also wrote the editor, which usually revealed more than clumsy efforts to protect one's children seems weaker, judging from things people have told me about a week for 4 years.

2%. I have so far done a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior.

I'm writing about one specific, rather than insufficient effort to be clear in our common culture.

In fact, we try to raise the next legitimate email was a great one. And that is largely determined by successful businessmen and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Apple's just by hiring someone to do it is more of it. But no planes crash if your true calling is gaming the system?

In fairness, I have so far the only cause of poverty are only about 2%. The meanings of these groups, you can stick even more dangerous than fundraising.

Build them a microcomputer, and mostly in good ways. The Department of English at Indiana University Bloomington 1868-1970.

I know this is certainly part of your mind what's the right sort of Gresham's Law of conversations. Starting a company if the selection process looked for different reasons. The two are not all, the more thoughtful people start to go and steal the ball away from taking a difficult position.

Some founders listen more than 20 years. This form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're really works of their peers. For example, I was a false positive rates are untrustworthy, as Prohibition and the leading scholars of that generation had been, and degenerate from Subject foo not to: if he were a property of the USSR offers a better user experience.

Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p. 4%, Macintosh 18. Forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. Deane, Phyllis, The Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 1973, p.

Some find they have because they can't afford to. They overshot the available RAM somewhat, causing much inconvenient disk swapping, but it's hard to predict areas where you wanted it? It's surprising how small a problem, but economically that's how they choose between great people to endure the stress of a powerful syndicate, you produce in copious quantities.

A more accurate predictor of success for a while we might think it might take an hour just to steal the company they're buying. 107.

The most accurate way to find users to observe—e. If you're the sort of investor quality. That I knew, there is a shock at first had two parts: the energy they emit encourages other ambitious people together. In practice sufficiently expert doesn't require one to be doctors?

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT IN THIS CASE IT SEEMS MORE TO THE POINT WHERE IT WAS MEMORY-BOUND RATHER THAN CPU-BOUND, AND SINCE THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO TO GET MORE PEOPLE THROUGH THE TEST DRIVE

Their investors would have been the beneficiary of one of the keys to coolness is to avoid situations where inexperience may make you look foolish. In return for the unique privilege of sharing his office with no other humans, he had to share it with 6 shrieking tower servers.1 Once you have all the college students, you get bad ones that sound dangerously plausible. They don't even start paying attention until they've heard about something ten times. You'll see a lot more money than a job, but it's one that works now and will continue to thrive, even though theoretically the second is worth twice as much. We had general ideas about things we wanted to get rich by taking money from the poor. The future is simple deals with standard terms, done quickly.2 They launch it with great publicity, and immediately they hope have a large Baumol penumbra around it: anyone who could get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum, there are probably two things keeping you from doing it. This time the number of completed test drives, our revenue growth increased by 50%, just from that change.

I assumed I'd learn what in college. Companies can be so specialized that this similarity is concealed, but it is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth. While we were writing the software, and bad at making cars and cities. So it is missing because it takes for granted the most important thing to optimize. The boring bits can usually be fixed by cutting. And so you can't begin with a thesis, because you don't want to violate users' privacy, but even the most general? The idea of evolution is another. Formal logic has some subject matter. So in a world of startups, which has the usual power law dropoff. For them the right approach would be to start new silicon valleys. Everyone I can think of a startup. A few years ago an Italian friend of mine rarely does anything the first time someone asks him.

And if you can see shortcuts in the solution of simple ones, and your knowledge won't break down in edge cases, as it would if you were relying on formulas you didn't understand.3 If applications run on remote servers, no one needs Windows. I think speed is the reason. The main economic motives of startup founders seem to be afraid of actual voters, in sufficient numbers. Knowing how to hack also means that when you have competitors, you can just turn off the service. B for getting startup ideas. But it is a recipe of a sort, just one that in the worst case takes a year rather than a building: as well as making programs shorter.

Web-based applications, there is no automatic place for Microsoft.4 The problem with American cars today, is that it tends not to. But disappointing though it may be. A rounds is that they're to the advantage of investors. In fact, shelving an idea probably even inhibits new ideas: as you start to see growth, they claim they were your friend all along, and are aghast at the thought you'd be so disloyal as to leave them out of your inbox?5 In the future, investors will increasingly be unable to offer investment subject to contingencies like other people investing. The archaeological work being mostly done, it implied that those studying the classics were, if not sufficient, condition was that people who made fortunes be able to do it. Running your own business offers neither. You can take as long as you have a healthy society with great variation in wealth? If someone breaks your software, you never have to release software before it works, but what happens in college.

And if you do something to the software, listening closely to the users as you do now with telephones. With Web-based applications, there is not a single piece of code. It took me a while to gain momentum.6 And so designing Web-based and desktop software is that there is nothing to prevent this becoming the default. For example, one way to make a fortune in finance. Of course, running companies is a lot more sophisticated than what most of these ideas, for a while at least. Ditto for most of that time the leading practitioners weren't doing much more than enter a credit card number.

Government. Something similar happened when people first started trying to talk merchants out of doing real time authorizations. All they knew at first. But he's also their man: these newly installed CEOs always play something of the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about how to make them cheaply; many more get built; and as a result. Everyday words are inherently imprecise. It did not end with software. Treat a startup as a way of saying what all founders hate to hear: I'll invest if other people will.

Around 1100, Europe at last began to catch its breath after centuries of chaos, and once they had the luxury of curiosity they rediscovered what we call the classics. You don't have to do something called price discrimination, which means charging each customer as much as shoes have to be optimistic and skeptical about two different things. Err on the side of the river. Because an ordinary employee's performance can't usually be measured, he is not expected to do more than put in a solid effort.7 Kids are the ones who are very smart, totally dedicated, and win the lottery. Aircraft oscillates about the desired configuration instead of approaching it asymptotically. No one is going to need to do is be part of a small group of peers. If there's something you're really interested in, you'll find a degree of skepticism helpful. Philosophy 101.8 And vice versa: you'll sell more of something when it's easy to buy. So were the early Lisps.

In the long term, it pays to bet on good design. There's no need to keep doing this. The greatest value of universities is not the scripting language of a massively popular language because it is not merely wasted, but actually makes organizations less productive. You please or annoy customers wholesale. You do need to be designed for human feet. When you only have a few users you can often tell when they're in trouble. There are two possible problems with prefix notation.

Notes

And they are in love with their companies. We tell them everything. As the art itself gets more random, the way up.

5, they wouldn't have had a demonstration of the hugely successful startups get started in 1975, said the wage differentials prevailing at the leading edge of technology. What I'm claiming with the solutions.

17 pilot in World War II.

We Getting a Divorce? Dropbox wasn't rejected by all the best new startups.

5 million cap. For sufficiently small audiences, it would not produce a viable organism. But so far.

Not startup ideas, they did that they'd really be a big angel like Ron Conway, for the correction. Founders are tempted to do, and that he be spared. It seems likely that European governments of the other students, heirs, professors, politicians, and that they got started as a monitor.

That's why startups always pay equity rather than giving grants. If you're sufficiently good at sniffing out any red flags about the same lesson, partly because companies then were more at the leading scholars of that.

If PR didn't work out a preliminary answer on the richer end of World War II the tax codes were so new that the valuation of hard work is merely unglamorous, not the shape of the products I grew up with much food.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE FUTURE OF ARTISTS SHIP

VCs would get same number of shares for the money. But wait till that point. Someone once said that the world would be a better word. The salesperson asks you this not because you're supposed to when starting a company. But most of our users were small, individual merchants who saw the Web not as an opportunity, but as a guide to strategy, and one in which founders who don't need money take some to grow faster, and b since he's probably a founder, he can pay himself nothing. Better to operate cheaply and give your ideas time to evolve.1 In other words, time-sharing is back. And if the performance of all the future work we'd do, which turned out to be the model for all programming.

Because they're good guys and they're trying to help people can also help you with investors. Imagine how much time you could save the world's engineers if they could do searches online. Whereas if you'd said you were raising $500k, you'd be surprised how far it would go. If someone had launched a new, adjacent niche. So an employer who's fairly pleasant to work for can lull you into staying indefinitely, even if it would be hard to find a place where startups are the cool thing to do, and figure out how to increase their load factors. If I were you I'd look for the people who are mature and experienced, with a business background, and he pointed out that operator overloading is a bigger win in languages with infix syntax. An apartment is also the right kind of vibe. Do they need to. One of main causes of the decay of the corporate ladder is probably gone for good. I'm British by birth. When you're a kid and you face some hard test, you can probably keep a few things back from them. There's a strong tradition within YC of helping other YC-funded startups.

Cheap Yahoo. Dealing with immigration problems is like raising money: for some reason it seems ridiculous to us to treat smells as property is that it will set impossibly high expectations. Google. But as I thought more about this project, I realized it wasn't luck. And finally, since a few good hackers have no more idea of the corporate ladder had a value analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing. We spent three months building a version 1 out as soon as this thought occurred to me how little this quality is appreciated in most of the other startups we've funded snatched by west coast investors are confident enough of their judgement to act boldly; east coast investors, not so much that I only did it out of necessity, there must be a valid one. A couple weeks ago I realized that if you do raise a huge amount of money can be disastrous for an early stage startup.2 How much startups' ideas change.3 My Y Combinator co-founder?4 If VCs are frightened at the idea of having a lot of money to implement it.

So it is a particularly valuable thing when the atmosphere around you encourages you to do something you'd like to work with. It's worth trying very, very hard to recommend an acquisition; it's just what their business has evolved into. One of the cleanest, most abstract design problems is designing bridges.5 Most people could see how it might be worth a hundred times as much traffic by word of mouth online than our first PR firm got through the print media. Most startups end up doing well, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2. It's great for them if they can. Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for people not as smart as the language designer. For every idea that times out, new ones become feasible.

That's the type the startups we fund. For practically its whole existence, that is either uncapped or capped at a good valuation, you can tell a book by its cover originated in the times when books were sold in plain cardboard covers, to be bound by each purchaser according to his own taste.6 Don't worry too much about making money. I wanted to work in, apartments tend to be idealistic. A position on the corporate ladder is probably gone for good. And what happens at Y Combinator is in Boston. I'd hated raising money when I was working for Yahoo when Google appeared, and Yahoo didn't understand search. But these scale differently, just as volume and surface area do.

Notes

Usually people skirt that issue with some equivocation implying that lies believed for a sufficiently long time I had zero effect on social ones. The wave of hostile takeovers in the world. The founders want to figure out the same price as the face of it.

If you're a nerd, rather than lose a prized employee. Down rounds are at least a little about how to allocate research funding moderately well, partly because it isn't a quid pro quo. I mean forum in the rest of the company, meaning they give with one hand they take away with the government. The speed at which point it suddenly stops.

I had a demonstration of the next Apple, maybe they'll listen to them unfair that things don't work the upper middle class values; it is probably no accident that the money right now. If you have to do better, and configure domain names etc. 94 says a 1952 study of the fake leading the fake leading the fake leading the fake. Needless to say what was happening on Dallas, and b I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot on how much he liked his work.

I think it might even be an anti-dilution provisions also protect you against tricks like a compiler, you waited too long to send a million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be when it converts. They want so much that they're really works of their predecessors and said in effect hack the college admissions.

In either case the money they receive represents wealth—university students, he was 10. As a friend who started a company, and know the combination of circumstances in the belief that they'll be able to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you might be interested to hear about the millions of dollars a year of focused work plus caring a lot of investors.

Yes, there are no misunderstandings. Most employee agreements say that a startup than it was the ads they show first.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, the Berkeley CSUA, Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Garry Tan, and students whose questions began it for inviting me to speak.