#in exchange for proof-reading her friend's college application essays)

[idiopathicsmile]

so, last week i was thinking somebody should write a comic about a shy teen superhero whose powers are fueled directly by her own sense of embarrassment

then i, uh, wrote a ten-page script for it? and wound up kind of liking it a lot?

so consider yourself cordially invited to read issue #1 of my extremely indie superhero comic, and if you wish, you can illustrate it inside your mind, using the power of imagination!

(A teen girl sits on a swivel chair in her bedroom, facing the viewer. She’s got braces and glasses. Her hair is in a messy braid.)

PONNI: Hi! My name is Ponni Murthy. I’m sixteen, and um…

(We zoom out a little. She’s wearing a T-shit that says “The Moon ROCKS!” She’s holding a cane—covered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers—in one hand, and a stuffed animal cat—wearing a sloppily homemade astronaut costume—in the other. Posters cover the walls: fantasy movies, rocket ships, Ada Lovelace, Aamir Khan, Sally Ride, etc. She has multiple posters of the solar system. She gestures dramatically with her cane-hand)

PONNI: I LOVE OUTER SPACE!

(We return to her face. She looks very earnest.)

PONNI: That’s not, uh, directly relevant to the story, I just—I love it, so much.

(She has now taken on a pensive expression)

PONNI: I love a lot of stuff. But I used to feel a little weird about that.

(She is cheerful again)

PONNI: This is the story of how I got over (some of) my shyness, and rescued a gymnasium full of people, using dark powers I only kind of understand!

PONNI: We begin last year…

(Close-up on her stuffed cat, which is now holding a title card that reads): THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF PONNI MURTHY A.K.A. SHAME-FLAME THE UNCONQUERABLE)

(We are in a high school hallway. Ponni has one hand on her cane, the other hand on a wheelie backpack. She’s wearing a T-shirt with a stylized drawing of Mars on it and the words “Seein’ red.” Hand-drawn arrows and words identify her as “Ponni Murthy, Freshman” “Only South Asian girl in the entire school” “Plays bassoon in school orchestra (entry level)”, “Favorite Mars rover: changes daily”)

(A cute boy is waving. Arrows identify him as “Westley Bolt, senior” “Plays cello (first chair!)” “Those eyelashes! Hot dang” “Favorite movement from Holst’s The Planets Suite: ‘Venus: The Peace Bringer’ (sensitive!!!)”)

(Ponni waves back.)

WESTLEY: Uh, hey…Amanda.

(Ponni turns around. He was waving to Amanda, standing just behind her.) (Arrows identify Amanda as “Amanda Nolan, senior” “Flautist (second chair)” “Favorite space-adjacent detail: unknown” “Probably a really nice person”)

(Ponni watches them walk off together.)

(Close-up on Ponni’s face, which has gone sort of blank.) CAPTION: Engulfed by a white-hot, all-consuming embarrassment, like sinking into surface of the sun! A VOICE FROM “OFF-SCREEN”: Ponni?

CAPTION: Roiling shame-waves blast in all directions, too powerful to be contained in the body of a single American teen! Can it be that my sheer humiliation has gone…supernova? THE SAME VOICE: Ponni!

PONNI: What?

(We zoom out a little. Her friend Vanessa has joined her. Oh, and also…) VANESSA: Your arm’s on fire.

(Ponni looks down and sees this for the first time.) PONNI: OH CRIPES! OH CRIPES, OH CRIPES! VANESSA: HOW DID YOU NOT NOTICE?

(The fire grows) PONNI: (Terrified but also embarrassed) Can anybody see??? VANESSA: WHO CARES, YOU’RE ON FIRE. PONNI: I couldn’t feel it! 

PONNI: I still can’t, it’s just kind of warm and tingly.

(Close-up on Vanessa) VANESSA: You’re in shock. Stop, drop, and roll, kiddo c’mon. (Arrows identify her as “Vanessa Delbeau, freshman” “Acts cool but we watch a LOT of Star Trek together” “Favorite astronaut: Mae Jemison” “Threatens makeovers sometimes but so far so good”)

PONNI: I’m not in shock! Look, it’s not even burning my skin.

(Vanessa peers at Ponni’s arm. Sure enough, her skin is fine.) VANESSA: Whoa…what even…

(The fire has vanished.) (Ponni and Vanessa stare at each other)

(They stare at each other for another beat.)

VANESSA: … “Cripes?”

(Ponni’s arm starts to smolder again.) PONNI: If I wanna start babysitting, I need to set a good example!

(Vanessa shrugs. Ponni’s arm fire goes out.)

ANDY: Hey guys! (Arrows identify him as “Andy Shin, sophomore” “Black sheep of the wrestling team” “The only other Asian kid in my neighborhood (we high-five a lot)” “Favorite planet: Uranus (lol)” ANDY: You’re not gonna believe this but they let us out of gym five minutes early and--

VANESSA: Ponni can control fire with her mind.

PONNI (embarrassed): “Control” is, um, a strong word? (Ponni holds up her arm, which is smoldering again) ANDY: Dude! That’s awesome!

(Ponni’s arms are extinguished.) VANESSA: Shouldn’t you, like, go to a doctor? ANDY: You don’t go to the doctor for superpowers! You go to the nearest evildoers and show them your wrath, or whatever!

VANESSA: So just…keep our eyes peeled for all the secret volcano lairs of suburban Michigan? PONNI: I don’t really…have wrath… A VOICE FROM OFF-SCREEN: Stop! Please!

(Andy, Vanessa, and Ponni turn to the other side of the hallway. A boy labeled “Freshman? (not sure)” is addressing two upperclassmen labeled “Bully 1” and “Bully 2.” Bully 1 is holding something above his head.) FRESHMAN: I need to turn that in next period! BULLY 1: Well duh, maybe you shouldn’t have made it out of candy!

FRESHMAN: Don’t eat my homework, come on! BULLY 2 (Affecting a snotty voice, clear from his face he’s mocking Freshman) : Yeah, come on!

PONNI: Is that… VANESSA: A surprisingly good model of a 14th century castle, built out of Starbursts? I think so. I might need new glasses. PONNI: No.

(Closeup on Ponni’s face) PONNI: Evildoers.

PONNI (striding right up to the bullies): Hey! Quit bothering that guy and give him back his castle, he probably spent a lot of time on it! BULLY 1: Or what?

PONNI: Or you’ll regret it. (Ponni holds out her non-cane arm like it’s about to erupt into flames.)

(It does not erupt into flames. Nothing happens. There is a long beat.)

(Ponni still has her free arm out)

CAPTION: Was it all just a fevered imagining? It can’t be, Vanessa and Andy bore witness as well. Unless they, too, are mere shadows, empty projections of my shattered, lonely psyche…

BULLY 2 (to Ponni) : Hey, Unibrow! Out of the way, Tiny Tim!

(Close-up on Ponni. She is almost crying)

(New panel, also a close-up on Ponni) PONNI: WHY DOES YOUR SEXIST, RACIST, ABLEIST BULLCRAP STILL SOMEHOW GET TO HURT MY FEELINGS? IT’S NOT FUNNY OR CLEVER, IT’S JUST MEAN!

(A tear slides down Ponni’s face) PONNI: YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO MAKE ME SAD! IT’S SO HUMILIATING!

(Zoom out. Both of Ponni’s arms are producing fireballs. The bullies are cowering in place, eyes wide.) CAPTION: That’s what triggers this power! My own embarrassment! Whoa, weird.

NEW PANEL: A WHOLE LOT OF SCREAMING AND FLEEING LATER…

(Andy and Vanessa are helping Freshman(?) re-assemble all his stuff. Ponni is no longer on fire) ANDY: Here’s your castle back, Trevor. VANESSA: Nice work on those turrets. (Arrow identifies Freshman(?) as “Trevor! Apparently”) Trevor: Uh, thanks. (To Ponni) Are you…okay?

PONNI: I’m fine. Are you? FRESHMAN(?): Yeah. Uh, I’m Trevor, hi. What should I call you?

PONNI: How about…Shame-Flame the Unconquerable.

VANESSA (whispering): I think he meant your name. PONNI: Oh! Ponni! (She holds out her hand to shake. There’s a flame coming off her palm. Awkward.)

PONNI (putting her hand back down) : Uh, good luck with your castle project! TREVOR: Thanks. Good luck…fighting crime?

(Ponni and Andy give Vanessa huge matching grins) New panel: Later that day, after school… (Vanessa and Andy are waiting outside Ponni’s bathroom door.)

VANESSA: Are you ready yet? PONNI (from inside) : Almost! VANESSA: Never thought I’d get to help design a superhero costume. ANDY: I did. VANESSA: Really? ANDY: Aim high, y’know? VANESSA: Ponni, c’mon! PONNI (from inside): I can’t believe people are gonna see me like this.

(The door swings open to reveal Ponni’s superhero outfit. Labels explain: “my dorkiest bike helmet”, “elbow pads”, “knee pads”, “ancient fanny pack I found in my parents’ closet”, “a wolf T-shirt (with noticeable mustard stain)”, a tutu labeled “(not sure why I had this??)”, a hideous plastic necklace “my least favorite aunt gave me this for my 11th birthday” and “sneakers with black socks.”)

ANDY: If your theory about your power is right, this is like, basically a super suit. VANESSA: The fanny pack’s a nice touch. What’s in there? PONNI: (grimly) Naked baby photos. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.

VANESSA: Ready? PONNI: Let’s go save the world.

Caption: For a while, everything went exactly as planned… PONNI (approaching a guy mugging a woman) : Stop right there! MUGGER: What the…what’s this kid doing here?

(PONNI makes an embarrassed face)

(We see the scene in silhouette—Ponni’s hands producing fireballs, the mugger jumping straight up in terror)

(We cut to Ponni foiling a bank robbery) PONNI: Give back that money right now! MASKED ROBBER: Is that a bike helmet? I…are you serious?

(Everybody in the bank stares at Ponni, who looks down.)

(There’s a hint of flames in her eyes)

(The next panel is Ponni grinning, both masked robbers raising their hands in surrender. The wall behind them is singed like she was outlining them in fireballs.)

(Cut to a very fancy-looking office. A wealthy businessman is sitting at a desk, pen poised over some paperwork.)

PONNI (from under his desk): Put the pen down! Don’t you dare put together another predatory subprime mortgage! BUSINESSMAN: Security! Security! PONNI: What you’re doing is wrong and you know it!

(Businessman stares at her. She is still balled up under his desk.) BUSINESSMAN: Listen, kid, do you even know what a subprime mortgage is? Or did you hear one thing on the news, and now you think you’re an expert? PONNI: You’re hurting innocent people! BUSINESSMAN: How long have you been under there?

PONNI: Um.

PONNI: I don’t…um…listen, I’ve got what’s called Juvenille Arthritis? And I was having a really good day this morning, pain-wise, so I thought I’d be okay down here, but now everything hurts and my cane’s at a weird angle. (she winces) Uh, I know I broke into your office, but can you help me up?

(close up on Businessman) BUSINESSMAN: …you’ve got to be kidding m—is your hand starting to smoke?

(Cut to a newspaper headline: MORTGAGE CRISIS AVERTED. The accompanying photo is Ponni sitting in a comfortable chair, giving a big thumb’s up)

CAPTION: But then things began to get more complicated. (Ponni is facing off against a Mad Scientist.) PONNI: Disarm that giant laser, right now! MAD SCIENTIST: Why should I listen to a child in a tutu and gym shoes?

PONNI: Because I’m the best darn hero this town’s got! CAPTION: Wait, what?

CAPTION: I try to summon up that rising, burning tide of self-consciousness, but I’ve done so much in this ridiculous costume, wearing it just feels good. I have to find a new path back to that terrible feeling. PONNI (beginning to panic): Uh…I get super excited when my teacher assigns us science projects! MAD SCIENTIST: Who doesn’t? (Reaches towards the laser.)

PONNI: I cried the first time I watched Shrek! MAD SCIENTIST: …each to their own?

PONNI: Stop! Stop right now, in the name of my 90,000-word Labyrinth/Harry Potter crossover fic! MAD SCIENTIST: …huh?

PONNI: I mean, Jareth had to…learn magic somewhere, right? So why not Hogwarts? The heroine is this seventh-year Ravenclaw student, who, yeah, it’s just me except she’s like, super super gifted at magic and she’s got a baby penguin for a familiar! I wound up naming my pet guinea pig after that penguin! I’ve been writing it for three and a half years. It’s got over a hundred chapters, and all the chapter titles are song lyrics!

CAPTION: I wait for the icy judgment to surface in his face. It does. I wait for the burning shame to overtake me. It doesn’t. Maybe it’s a little silly, but back before my powers took hold, working on that story was one of the few times I felt in control. It was fun to create something purely for myself. And cripes, it’s not like I was trying to destroy the world with a laser or something. I actually feel almost…proud. Uh-oh.

MAD SCIENTIST: Any last words? PONNI: Listen, if you’re going to kill me, can you do it fast? My curfew’s in twenty minutes.

MAD SCIENTIST: …your curfew is seven? PONNI: Well yeah, on weeknights! MAD SCIENTIST: Seven? You have to be home before the bedtime of most first graders?

(Flames appear in Ponni’s eyes.)

(Cut to Ponni walking away from a terrified scientist and a melted laser.) CAPTION: Way too many close calls lately. And now I only have nineteen minutes to get home. Crap. CAPTION: Then, in the middle of a pep assembly, things get worse. (A gigantic crablike monster has burst through the wall of the gym.)

PONNI: Stand down, stranger! Shame-Flame the Unconquerable is here! MONSTER: Then let me just say, Shame-Flame…

(scary close-up of the crab monster’s face) MONSTER: I respect you as an equal. CAPTION: Yikes, word’s gotten around. My foes are getting cleverer.

PONNI: How can you respect someone with a 7 pm curfew! MONSTER: That doesn’t reflect on you; it just means your parents want you to be safe. PONNI: Oh yeah? Well, I’m totally excited to take Advanced Trig next year! MONSTER: You’re preparing yourself for a job in the lucrative STEM field. No shame in that. PONNI: No, I mean, I love math for math’s sake. I’ve written little jingles about all my favorite numbers!

MONSTER: Well, that’s convenient. (Scoops up a handful of band members in one claw.) I hear music is good for the digestion.

PONNI: C’mon! Other than Vanessa and Andy, I’ve got no friends my age! Half the reason I don’t wear makeup is I don’t know how to do it right! Ever since Toy Story I talk to my stuffed animals, just in case! Doesn’t anyone want to laugh at me?

(Ponni looks around. Everyone is just panicking.) CAPTION: Cripes cripes cripes!

PONNI: Gosh, I said I’d defeat you and I can’t even summon the fire to light a birthday candle. Now that’s humiliating, right? MONSTER (pauses with that clawful of band members inches away from its terrible mouth): Not really, Shame-Flame. 

MONSTER: It’s just sad.

CAPTION: Well, that’s it. No other way.

PONNI: (cupping her hands to her mouth) Westley Bolt! Hey, Westley! (Westley is sitting four rows down. He turns around.)

PONNI: I’ve had a crush on you since sixth grade! WESTLEY: I know. I was just hoping you wouldn’t bring it up. I don’t like you back. You’re weird. Obviously.

PONNI (smiles, badass) : Oh, I know.

PONNI (turning back towards the monster) And I’ve gotta say, now that everybody knows how long I was hung up on somebody so wrong for me, it’s a little…oh shoot, what’s the word I’m looking for, here?

(The next panel is just flames)

(Then the smoke clears, Ponni’s fire is gone and the monster has fled, having dropped those band kids safely on the ground. It turns out that Trevor was also among them.)

TREVOR: That was incredible! Ponni, you saved our lives! You’re my hero!

(A tiny flame of embarrassment shoots out of Ponni’s hand.) PONNI: Oh, um. You’re welcome?  Anytime, sir. VANESSA (seeing the fire) : Ponni, your— PONNI: I KNOW.

(EPILOGUE: Ponni is back to present day, sitting on her desk chair in her room.) PONNI: Nobody was seriously hurt. Not even the crab monster, I don’t think. It took the rest of the school year to repair the gym. Andy got to switch out his PE class with an elective. He took astronomy, thinking it would be a blowoff class, but the teacher wasn’t very good so I got to explain a bunch of stuff to him! Me and Trevor dated for a few months, but he got super clingy when I left for math camp, so we broke up. C’est la vie. Oh, also I went to math camp! It was super daunting at first, and I got nervous and made mistakes. Luckily, my threshold for embarrassment is sky-high at this point, so y’know, I bounced back and enjoyed the heck out of it.

PONNI: Of course, not sure what that means for the next time some sinister force threatens our town. What happens when Shame-Flame gets…shame-proof?

A VOICE FROM OFF PANEL: No way! I found it! ANOTHER VOICE: Found what?

(Ponni looks over at Andy and Vanessa, who have been on the floor, going through a box of Ponni’s old things.) ANDY: Right here! The video of that anti-drug puppet show she did in fifth grade! PONNI: It wasn’t…for a class or anything, I was just really mega- against drugs. ANDY: Am I right in thinking it was a rock opera? PONNI: Uh… VANESSA: Ponni, what are the odds you still remember all the lyrics? CAPTION: Just kidding. That cringey feeling comes for all of us, sooner or later.

(Ponni, Andy, and Vanessa are roasting marshmallows on forks, using Ponni’s burning hand as heat.) VANESSA: Come on, one verse! PONNI: Next crab monster, Vanessa. Next crab monster. CAPTION: I guess it’s just a question of what you do with that feeling.

(Close-up of Ponni’s stuffed cat from the very beginning. It’s holding a card that says “THE END.”)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND PROGRAMMERS

Girls who dissed him in high school we'd have called its outline. We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. They would rather overpay for a safe choice. In the Valley, where the Industrial Revolution. To the extent there is a tendency to worry that it's sliding back toward becoming another Venezuela. I've been able to undo a lie I was told, a lot of data about that. The problem comes when we drag the word intelligence over onto what they're measuring.1

The restrictiveness of big company jobs is particularly hard on programmers, because the bride is always the center of attention.2 One reason founders resist describing their projects concisely is that, in a group of 50 is really unwieldy. But Jessica knew her example as a successful female founder would encourage more women to start companies, so last year she did something YC had never done before and hired a PR firm to get her some interviews. It's like calling a car a horseless carriage. A woman who married a rich man was expected to drop friends who didn't. Though better than attacking the author, this is still a weak form of disagreement.3 A determined party animal can get through the best school without learning anything. And for us founders it blunted the terrifying all-or-nothing proposition. The rich people I know have problems with Internet addiction. We're confident we can sit down in front of your screen and pretend to. Because how much you improve their lives.4

It's not surprising something like this well into adulthood. The reason you've never heard of him is that his company was not the one to make money from.5 But serfdom is not the same thing, and unless you plan to make money by creating wealth, society as a whole must be giving people something they want, or they won't make any money. What worries him about Google is not stupid. But the next time I talked to him, he didn't answer.6 Steve Jobs once said that the success or failure—and usually you know within a year which it will be very close. If you can't already do it, run out of ideas?

Everyday life gives you no practice in this. It is neither. What do parents hope to protect their children from by raising them in suburbia? A couple years ago I read an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. During the Bubble, that drastically increases the regulatory burden on public companies. To achieve wisdom one must cut away all the debris that fills one's head on emergence from childhood, leaving only the important stuff. A big component of wealth is location.

They may have to choose between several alternatives, there's an upper bound. It was the value I derived from it.7 But for someone at the top of the cycle, but it was damned close. I'd advise people to go ahead and start startups right out of college. Editors must know they attract readers. Audiences tune that out. This has a nice sound to it, but it seems to decrease most other gaps. If I had a 3 year old. And then I thought: how much smarter are you than your job description expects you to be a bigger danger than eating too little. And in any case, it will probably fail.8 I cross this out? Was it because the founders were bad at presenting, or because the investors were obtuse?

It's quite a leap to start a startup. But you should be able to use them. It's doing something people want. So when you find an idea you know is good but most people disagree with, you should say explicitly you're doing it. An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to set yourself apart from other people, you probably need to be in this business; it's just too annoying to see a bunch of twenty year olds get rich when you're still working for salary.9 The environment you want to inhabit. The problem is not that most towns kill startups. But all it would have. Startups are a counterexample to the rule that one should judge talent at its best, and wisdom by its average. As long as you're standing near the audience and talk to them, not something you face and read to an audience sitting behind you.10 I think it will also be found to be in a traditional research department.11

Notes

The ramen in ramen profitable refers to instant ramen, which have evolved the way they have less time, serious writing meant theological discourses, not widening. It's a bit misleading to treat macros as a percentage of GDP were about 60,000 sestertii, for example, there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. When you fund a startup enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the narrowest sense. This is an interesting trap founders fall into two categories: those where the acquirer just wants the business spectrum than the founders.

Instead of laboriously adding together the numbers like the bizarre consequences of this theory is that parties shouldn't be too conspicuous. If you walk into a de facto consulting firm. One sign of the medium of exchange would not be far from the formula. But it is possible to transmute lead into gold though not economically at current energy prices, but something feminists need to circle back with a walrus mustache and a little about how the courses they took might look to an adult.

Since people sometimes call a few years. Otherwise they'll continue to evolve.

But you can do what you build for them. One valuable thing you tend to be evidence of a promising market and a t-shirts, to a partner, including salary, bonus, stock grants, and each night to make a formal language for proofs in which multiple independent buildings are traditionally seen as temporary; there is some weakness in your own compass. Conjecture: The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p. Build them a check.

The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert.

In fact most of the expert they send to look you over. More often you have no idea how much of the most important subject. Yes, I would take their customers. And I have set up an additional disk drive.

Someone proofreading a manuscript could probably be worth about 30 billion. It would be more likely to have been five years ago they might have done well if they'd been living in cities.

While certain famous Internet stocks were almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it could hose the whole story. His best bet would probably a real reason out of about 4,000 per month. More precisely, this thought experiment works for nationality and religion as a monitor is that they will come at an ever increasing rate to manufacture a perfect growth curve, etc, and that don't scale is to the rich.

What has changed over time. Reporters sometimes call a few people have responded to this day, thirty years later. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. People were more dependent on banks, who would never come face to face with the best high school football game that will be lots of potential winners, which is something in this respect.

But it's a bad deal.

It seems as dumb to discourage that as to discourage risk-taking.

Thanks to Eric Raymond, Trevor Blackwell, Fred Wilson, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Patrick Collison, and Jacob Heller for inviting me to speak.