Hacker News Books

If you’re new to Paul Rand, there is a very good book on his work:

Paul Rand https://www.amazon.com/dp/0714839949/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4GO2...

Christopher Tolkien, unlike Brian Herbert, was a distinguished literary scholar of his own right. I tried to get through Paul of Dune, but it's drivel. And I'm a pretty forgiving reader, having devoured plenty of dreck and enjoyed it (like the Hunger Games trilogy for example).

I googled something like "Paul Software Engineer" to see if I myself would come up and found Paul Graham's articles which lead to hacker news. I had no idea what a startup even was but found the content to be of such a higher quality than anywhere else that I visited often.

One of the best things I've read in a long time. Paul Graham is God!

My father depended on the TTY for decades. My father is deaf and being the tech savvy person in the family, I would type on behalf of my father when communicating with his friends. Before video calling TTY was the only way he could communicate with his friends, other than driving to their houses.
Reading Paul Taylors biography is really inspirational, and grateful for the impact his work brought.

Go read Paul Krugman on why the stimulus was way too small, and stop trolling.

The simple style of writing works when the reading is functional in nature: people read Paul Graham essays because they think it’s an instructional manual for getting rich, so the appropriate style is the same as an instruction manual for assembling a coffee table.

For other readers’ goals, other styles are more appropriate.

Until I read Paul Graham I had never heard of another entrepreneurial programmer who liked Evelyn Waugh and Wodehouse and placed such an enormous value on doing hard things. I came to news looking for other people like that.

My experience here has been quite positive; I have learns a great deal from recommended books and programming languages. I also discovered Richard Hamming's famous speech which changed the way I work in several ways.

Unfortunately, I absorb more than I contribute and sadly realize I am of the generation that dilutes the vision and modeled behavior of this community's best members, reducing the ability of those following me to even notice what I saw and did not emulate. I hope to do my part to increase the quality of posts by adding to the site rather than shouting down low quality.

I used to dislike it, but now I don't care. That's the "dying" part.

But you can just read Paul Graham - he's the thinker.

I read in another article today that a lot of Googlers are interested in switching to Facebook, reason being the possibility of considerable financial gain post Facebook's IPO.

I think Paul has written about his thoughts about [money](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-to-do-with-you... "Paul Buchheit: What to do with your millions") before, just curious to know if money was at all in his calculations this time around

Go to art school, like I did. Hahahah. No, I'm kidding, don't. But do become educated about the past. Buy some books. I recommend starting with Paul Rand http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-Heller/dp/0714839949 I love that book. I'll never let go of my copy.

The most important thing is not to focus too much on current trends. They're mostly bullshit that will be forgotten fast. The reason I say study the past is because everything old that has been documented is actually worth studying. It's "stood the test of time," if you will.

I think a lot of designers today focus too much on what's happening NOW, reading today's blogs and knowing the trends and whatever. So they go make things with an extremely narrow perspective and think they're designing when really they're retracing the only thing they know.

People don't know nearly enough on say, 50's modernism. Or the Bauhaus aesthetic. Watch the Eameses' films. Know the greats. Respect them. Broaden your awareness. Graphic design was huge before computers.

Then apply the broad ideas you absorb from that to the medium you're working in. That's my advice. There's no Stack Overflow for design. It doesn't work the same way as programming. You're not going to become a good designer by visiting websites.