5 ms·

Who's Your Arch-Enemy?

22 points by bdfh42 18y ago

patio11 18y ago
I for one was ecstatic the first time someone declared me their archnemesis. If I had a moustache, I would have twirled it.
berntb 18y ago
Personally, my Arch Enemy is the first CD... "Black Earth" is really a favorite. I didn't find the later stuff that exiting, even if Angela growls like two men. :-) Edit: It's ok if you mod the stupid joke down. The article did deserve better. (I couldn't resist, AE is a favorite. When tired with a deadline I don't listen to my jazz/singer-songwriter CDs.)
jreposa 18y ago
We're like BankRate.com but with actual bank rates. http://www.mybanktracker.com/ http://www.mybanktracker.com/
biohacker42 18y ago
Atwood just ensured this article will show up high in any Google search for expert's exchange. As much as I'm not sure if his writing is really helpful to good software engineers, I applaud him and Joel for taking on expert's exchange.
deleted 18y ago
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unalone 18y ago
Arch-enemies give you focus. They show you what you're not trying to do (if you're trying to be your archenemy find something new to do where you can contribute); they give you a public face you can battle against; they give you a reason to want to improve yourself. If you are the enemy people want to fight, spare no prisoners. The Evil Overlord list (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html) will help you immensely.
jackchristopher 18y ago
It's a valid approach but there's a danger in becoming attached to the "antiness". Your defining yourself in the negative when you could just focus on being better. It's implicit in building an alternative that you think the current tools aren't good. Defining yourself relative to a competitor suggests you're worrying about them; a sign of weakness. I try not to think in those terms, and that shifts the goal from, "let's beat x" to "do better". It's better to think of your "competitor" as you. Thinking outside of terms the mentality of "competition" is definitely hard. But I try to keep in mind that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have; I look for the win-win. When Garry Kasparov plays a new player, he doesn't think about winning, he just tries to play a great game of chess.
sachinag 18y ago
Yeah, we tried to ignore GameStop for such a long time, but then decided to say "screw it" and have just gone full bore against them: http://blog.dawdle.com/2009/03/why-penny-arcade-is-wrong-about-gamestop.html http://blog.dawdle.com/2009/03/why-penny-arcade-is-wrong-abo... And we're doing a little guerrilla marketing at GDC on Thursday. Should be fun. twirls mustache (take that, patio11)
deleted 18y ago
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dinkumthinkum 18y ago
More drivel posted by Atwood. News at 11. Seriously, Atwood is so passe at this point. He doesn't post any original ideas, only posts about other posts he has written or has seen somewhere else. It's hard to call much of his entries "writing" as they are more just "quoting with bolding." I'd reckon if you took all the text from his post, the ratio of non-quoted to quoted text would be about 20% and probably about 50% of that is just paraphrasing what was quoted.

22 points by bdfh42 18y ago

I for one was ecstatic the first time someone declared me their archnemesis. If I had a moustache, I would have twirled it.

berntb 18y ago

Personally, my Arch Enemy is the first CD... "Black Earth" is really a favorite. I didn't find the later stuff that exiting, even if Angela growls like two men. :-) Edit: It's ok if you mod the stupid joke down. The article did deserve better. (I couldn't resist, AE is a favorite. When tired with a deadline I don't listen to my jazz/singer-songwriter CDs.)

jreposa 18y ago

We're like BankRate.com but with actual bank rates. http://www.mybanktracker.com/ http://www.mybanktracker.com/

biohacker42 18y ago

Atwood just ensured this article will show up high in any Google search for expert's exchange. As much as I'm not sure if his writing is really helpful to good software engineers, I applaud him and Joel for taking on expert's exchange.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

unalone 18y ago

Arch-enemies give you focus. They show you what you're not trying to do (if you're trying to be your archenemy find something new to do where you can contribute); they give you a public face you can battle against; they give you a reason to want to improve yourself. If you are the enemy people want to fight, spare no prisoners. The Evil Overlord list (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html) will help you immensely.

jackchristopher 18y ago

It's a valid approach but there's a danger in becoming attached to the "antiness". Your defining yourself in the negative when you could just focus on being better. It's implicit in building an alternative that you think the current tools aren't good. Defining yourself relative to a competitor suggests you're worrying about them; a sign of weakness. I try not to think in those terms, and that shifts the goal from, "let's beat x" to "do better". It's better to think of your "competitor" as you. Thinking outside of terms the mentality of "competition" is definitely hard. But I try to keep in mind that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have; I look for the win-win. When Garry Kasparov plays a new player, he doesn't think about winning, he just tries to play a great game of chess.

sachinag 18y ago

Yeah, we tried to ignore GameStop for such a long time, but then decided to say "screw it" and have just gone full bore against them: http://blog.dawdle.com/2009/03/why-penny-arcade-is-wrong-about-gamestop.html http://blog.dawdle.com/2009/03/why-penny-arcade-is-wrong-abo... And we're doing a little guerrilla marketing at GDC on Thursday. Should be fun. twirls mustache (take that, patio11)

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

dinkumthinkum 18y ago

More drivel posted by Atwood. News at 11. Seriously, Atwood is so passe at this point. He doesn't post any original ideas, only posts about other posts he has written or has seen somewhere else. It's hard to call much of his entries "writing" as they are more just "quoting with bolding." I'd reckon if you took all the text from his post, the ratio of non-quoted to quoted text would be about 20% and probably about 50% of that is just paraphrasing what was quoted.