Top all-time · #13583
Peter Cooper
Personal blog · peterc.orgprogrammingwriting
Peter Cooper's personal blog at peterc.org covers programming and writing. Since 2008, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Three years ago, I sold my startup because I was an idiot”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Most-linked posts?
- Three years ago, I sold my startup because I was an idiot2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-07-30
- How To Be Content With Your Life in Tech 2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-04-08
- 1120 Subscribers in 2 Days: My Foray into E-mail Newsletters2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-26
What Hacker News says?
I ran the same experiment on the full size model. It used a custom 80s style font (from Google Fonts) and gave 'eyes' and more differences to the enemies but otherwise had a similar vibe to Simon's. An interesting visual demonstration of what quantization does though! Screenshot: https://peterc.org/img/aliens.png
Comment linking /img/aliens.png
on “My 2.5 year old laptop can write Space Invaders in JavaScript now (GLM-4.5 Air)”Submitted Three years ago, I sold my startup because I was an idiot as a story · 204 points
HN discussionSince you appear to be into publishing stories, here's mine from back in the day: http://peterc.org/beginningruby/#post-21 I made about $19K on about 9000 sales of the first edition of my book published with Apress at the point I wrote that (many years ago). Since then, I've written 2nd and 3rd editions with diminishing returns each time, but even now over 10 years later it's perhaps $1000 a year in residuals.
Comment linking /beginningruby/
on “The Economics of Writing a Technical Book”Submitted Moniker Deactivated My Domain 26 Days Before The Expiration Date as a story · 101 points
HN discussionI am mostly on your side. I wrote a rant a while back too: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/235-webkit-font-smoothing-antial... However, since then I acknowledge there is an instance where it does make sense.. any text on black. In OS X, at least, the default rendering of type on a black background bleeds horribly, so I've swallowed my pride and started to use it in situations where it makes sense. It's particularly noti…
Comment linking /blog/2010/235-webkit-font-smoothing-antialiased-is-shit.html
on “Webdesigners: please make text readable”Submitted Notetaking as a way to stay smart as a story · 79 points
HN discussionNot RSS exactly but this OPML has feeds for several hundred such blogs if you can filter down from there: https://peterc.org/misc/engblogs.opml
Comment linking /misc/engblogs.opml
on “Ask HN: What are the best engineering blogs with real-world depth?”Submitted Michael Arrington’s Dreams of a Blog for True Startups as a story · 47 points
HN discussionBut staying with TC, notably. As he said after the sale: So we begin another journey. I fully intend to stay with AOL for a very, very long time. And the entire team has big incentives to stay on board for at least three years. However, I rather hope Michael's "dream" comes true instead: http://peterc.org/blog/2011/381-michael-arringtons-dreams-of... ;-)
Comment linking /blog/2011/381-michael-arringtons-dreams-of-a-blog-for-true-startups.html
on “Michael Arrington Resigns From Techcrunch”Submitted 1120 Subscribers in 2 Days: My Foray into E-mail Newsletters as a story · 34 points
HN discussionI wrote some notes with choice quotes, etc, on this book several years ago: http://peterc.org/pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/ - it might whet the appetite of anyone without the time to read the full thing right now.
Comment linking /pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/
on “Seneca: On the Shortness of Life”Submitted Liberation Mono - Ultimate Coding / Source Code Font as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI wrote up some notes and summaries of this book several years ago when I read it for anyone without the time: http://peterc.org/pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/ (though I do recommend reading the book, it is not very long!)
Comment linking /pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/
on ““Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying”Submitted How To Be Content With Your Life in Tech as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSeneca's On The Shortness of Life . It's extremely short and to the point on how best to spend one's life and how we have enough time to do whatever we please - I summarized/heavily quoted it at http://peterc.org/pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/
Comment linking /pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why”Submitted Silicon Valley Is For The Sheep, Michael as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYeah, http://hackerslide.com/ is mine. This new one has a more precise interface with the keyboard shortcuts though mine continues to run OK two years on with no changes. Here's the thread from when it launched which also topped HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1794614 and I wrote a post about the reason for putting it together and how it works: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/334-hacker-slide-anatomy-of-a-4-...…
Comment linking /blog/2010/334-hacker-slide-anatomy-of-a-4-hour-miniapp.html
on “Show HN: RewindHN - Go back in Hacker News history”Several years back, I did this - it was called HackerSlide. A sliding bar with a few days worth of hours, slide it and the front page automatically updated - see http://peterc.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hackerslid... And.. no-one was really that interested. I used it every now and then to catch up but when HN moved to the new API I didn't bother updating it (although it would be trivial to do so if anyone w…
Comment linking /blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hackerslide.png
on “Silicon Valley startups rein in spending and prepare for layoffs”Check out http://pongsocket.com/tweetnest/ .. it's open source, free, PHP (easy to install), yada yada. It's a simple PHP Twitter backup system that also presents your tweets in a reasonably attractive archive on your own site. Example: http://peterc.org/twitter/ (Yes, there's also http://thinkupapp.com/ - but it's more complex and has more features/supported services. I found TweetNest crazy easy to get started wit…
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on “Hey Twitter: Give us our Tweets”I had a similar experience to you 2004-2007 with an RSS-to-everything service called Feed Digest. It started as a way to get my Delicious links onto my blog and eventually turned into my full time job with 25k users. I sold it in 2007 after a number of mistakes on my part: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-st... Anyway, the only reason I'm piping up is because I think NewsBlur is cool and I h…
Comment linking /blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-startup.html
on “From project to profession: going indie on NewsBlur”I'm in the UK and went through a similar situation 3 years ago (minus the being hired part). I wrote about it here: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-st... While I think "get a lawyer" is good advice, I managed fine without (I'm no lawyer but I've studied law and have a good eye for legal jargon and contract wordplay). I think having financial advice is, perhaps, a better first step. Dependin…
Comment linking /blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-startup.html
on “Ask HN: My startup got an an acquisition offer. Please share your advice!”I did a short (free) screencast about tmux if you want a more visual run-through: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/216-tmux.html
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on “All about GNU Screen”Just don't use Moniker in this case as their dates mismatch and can cause trouble: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/345-moniker-deactivation.html
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on “Show HN: three.io = available 3 letter .io domains”I recently bought, read, and took detailed notes on what, on Amazon at least, appears to be the most respected book about getting a PhD and the reality of how hard it is: http://peterc.org/pedia/getting-what-you-came-for/ .. My notes will only inspire, it's a book well worth buying.
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on “Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?”Can't speak for browser demos, but I just got the ternary model working on my M5 generating images. The 1 bit didn't work, as it has a known bug with XCode 24.5 and I wasn't in the mood for installing 24.4 alongside. Here's a generation in your honor: https://peterc.org/img/johndoe.png
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on “1-Bit Bonsai Image 4B Image Generation for Local Devices”Initially it was because I run/ran the most popular Ruby blog so the first couple of thousand subscribers came almost exclusively that way - http://peterc.org/blog/2010/306-1120-subscribers-in-2-days-m... - but since then it has been primarily a case of word of mouth and "domino" growth. For example, many Ruby developers are into Rails. And many of those are into JavaScript. So I branched out into a JavaScript newsl…
Comment linking /blog/2010/306-1120-subscribers-in-2-days-my-foray-into-e-mail-newsletters.html
on “Online News is Broken”Right on. I'm glad someone with more gravitas than me came and said it. I already did in a slightly cruder way: http://peterc.org/blog/2010/235-webkit-font-smoothing-antial...
Comment linking /blog/2010/235-webkit-font-smoothing-antialiased-is-shit.html
on “CSS3 Font Smoothing”As a few people have asked for screenshots, I spun it up. Here's a video of the basic gameplay: https://peterc.org/misc/fpscob.mp4 .. it's clunky, but it does play.
Comment linking /misc/fpscob.mp4
on “FPS.cob: A first person shooter in COBOL”Anyone seriously interested in this line of enquiry might find my summary of "Getting What You Came For," one of the most popular "getting a PhD" guides, interesting: http://peterc.org/pedia/getting-what-you-came-for/
Comment linking /pedia/getting-what-you-came-for/
on “Getting started as a PhD student”I had a strong hunch back in February and I'm glad I blogged it for once because it might well be coming true(!): http://peterc.org/blog/2011/381-michael-arringtons-dreams-of...
Comment linking /blog/2011/381-michael-arringtons-dreams-of-a-blog-for-true-startups.html
on “UNCRUNCHED: Arrington's new blog.”
