4 ms·

Has "spritz" taken on a new slang meaning? From what I remember (as does the dictionary) it means carbonated water. > once you do that 2 or 3 times very well,

by wyday 19y ago

Has "spritz" taken on a new slang meaning? From what I remember (as does the dictionary) it means carbonated water. > once you do that 2 or 3 times very well, either you graduate into something tougher and better or you're just like a stupid little dog chasing a fake rabbit around a racetrack Does this apply just to the tech industry? Or would you say that artists, architects, and novelists should move on to a new profession once they produce a few good works? Maybe J.K. Rowling should have stopped after the 3rd Harry Potter book. She was already a popular and financial success by then.

asdflkj 19y ago
I think he is talking about not a "new profession", but new achievements within your profession. Good artists, architects and novelists constantly strive for that. But startups is not a profession. It's a way to get from "zero" to "financially set for life". If your "profession" is business, then after making millions, you should aim for billions, and another web startup isn't a good way to get there. If you are trying to make something people want, then you can make a much bigger difference without trying to make a profit. Wikipedia and Ubuntu (and YC, for that matter) are good examples of that. If you're trying to be on the cutting edge of tech, research is better than startups. By the way, J.K. Rowling is not a good author, so it's a bad example.
- nostrademons 19y ago
  If you've seen any interviews with Max Levchin, it's clear that startups are a profession for him. "An entrepreneur is someone who desperately wants to start companies. He or she doesn't even care what they are about, or which one," he said at a talk at UIUC. PayPal was his 5th startup, and I imagine there will be many more.
DanielBMarkham 19y ago
Take a spritz: have a break; stop for a minute; chill out. Any field of human endeavor has various facets to explore. Usually there is an entry position, where one becomes familiar with the terms and issues of the field an achieves some initial success. Then one moves on. The other poster pointed this out, and for some reason you guys down-modded him. I could get into a long list of people who did great in a field when they started and then matured and took the field with them. Beethoven: great pianist. Went on to become great composer. Started composing symphonies. Went deaf but still composed symphonies. Went from there to completely change music as we know it. I could add another dozen examples. Your example of J. K. Rowling doesn't fly since she considers all of the books one unit. This would be her initial success phase. Now she could continue in the field of book writing, pushing the genre (as Beethoven did with music) or she could move into a more generalized form of literature, say training, editing, or something else. She has an opportunity to redefine writing -- whether or not she could pull it off is up for grabs. I kind of doubt it. Or she could just cranking out that schlock that all of us read. It's up to her, and to say that she's somehow giving up her dream is BS: her dream should be about something big enough to keep pushing for. Being an artist and just making yourself and other people happy is a great dream! There are a lot of artists who find a comfortable niche and stay with that their whole life. But they aren't Beethovens. And they aren't innovators. Like I said, none of my business.
- wyday 19y ago
  > Beethoven: great pianist. Went on to become great composer. Started composing symphonies. Went deaf but still composed symphonies. Went from there to completely change music as we know it. You're rewriting history. Beethoven started by playing organ, viola, and piano while composing keyboard works. His collection of piano works alone outweighs his symphonic works. That's disregarding his enormous collection string works. Also, it was hardly a unique thing to do. Mozart, Haydn, Sibelius and various other composers followed precisely the same path: start with piano training, produce piano works and expand outward. In fact, this paragraph actually supports what I was sarcastically suggesting: stick with what you do best. In this case, composing. You just got the details wrong. > She has an opportunity to redefine writing -- whether or not she could pull it off is up for grabs. That's ambiguous as hell. Explain "redefine writing". > Or she could just cranking out that schlock that all of us read. Is its "schlock" factor based on whether or not a writer's works are read and enjoyed by the general populous? In that case, Shakespeare cranked out a fair bit of schlock in his time.
  - DanielBMarkham 19y ago
    Look. I don't mind being wrong, but I just don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Beethoven started out as a keyboardist, sure. His father made him practice like crazy. At first he was a great performer of other people's works, not a composer. He received some acclaim as a performer and went to Vienna. At Vienna he was supposed to develop his composition skills. Hayden took him under his wing, and let's just say things didn't work out. Ignoring all his other great works (if such a thing is possible!) and concentrating on his symphonies, you can see where he started in the classical form and eventually blew the doors off of it, substituting motif development for the typical lyrical development of the time. His use of rhythm and instrumentation (including a chorus in the ninth) was completely unheard of. Music critics attending his symphonies for the first time were outraged. He was taking a field and innovating. The place he took the symphony, for instance, was somewhere the day-to-day practitioners of the time would never have went. Glad to continue the historical bantering if you find it productive. You ask for me to explain redefining writing? Sure as heck it's an ambiguous statement. That's the whole point! We can't see where the field can go because we're not practitioners at the top of our game. That's the purpose of pushing forward. It's not a question that has an answer that I can provide. Interesting that you would choose Shakespeare as writing schlock. In fact, he did write a lot of stuff that was considered pulp at the time, but not only was his works popular with the masses and sometimes low-brow, he was also cutting-edge. His use of language and meter was, once again, unheard of. I could start listing all the new phrases he came up with that are common today, like "into thin air." Geesh! He coined over 2000 new words! He started a completely new way of constructing sentences in English. Shakespeare was probably more radical than any writer since him, yet he also appealed to the masses. You don't have to choose between popular and innovative. Sorry if I represented it as such. Of course, Beethoven could have stayed with Hayden and wrote Baroque material his entire life. Shakespeare could have used the common vernacular and still been a very successful writer. There's nothing wrong with just wanting to do one thing the best you can. But doing "the best you can" to me means trying to change the world, not just plodding along in it.
davidw 19y ago
In north east Italy, this is what a "spritz" is: http://padovachronicles.welton.it/articles/2004/11/08/spritz http://padovachronicles.welton.it/articles/2004/11/08/spritz
- DanielBMarkham 19y ago
  Okay. I'll admit it -- I picked up the phrase from "The Sopranos" :)
  - davidw 19y ago
    Which of course have nothing at all to do with north eastern Italy:-) Your average Sicilian or Neapolitan wouldn't have a clue what a 'spritz' was in the sense of the drink. Actually, the original term came from when the Austrians occupied the area, and imported what is still called a "spritzer" here in Austria, which is just wine and fizzy water. In the Veneto they took it and improved it by adding the bitter. Ok, wildly off topic, but it's kind of interesting, and if you're ever in Padova or Venice, I highly recommend having a spritz in the piazza.

by wyday 19y ago

asdflkj 19y ago

I think he is talking about not a "new profession", but new achievements within your profession. Good artists, architects and novelists constantly strive for that. But startups is not a profession. It's a way to get from "zero" to "financially set for life". If your "profession" is business, then after making millions, you should aim for billions, and another web startup isn't a good way to get there. If you are trying to make something people want, then you can make a much bigger difference without trying to make a profit. Wikipedia and Ubuntu (and YC, for that matter) are good examples of that. If you're trying to be on the cutting edge of tech, research is better than startups. By the way, J.K. Rowling is not a good author, so it's a bad example.

nostrademons 19y ago
If you've seen any interviews with Max Levchin, it's clear that startups are a profession for him. "An entrepreneur is someone who desperately wants to start companies. He or she doesn't even care what they are about, or which one," he said at a talk at UIUC. PayPal was his 5th startup, and I imagine there will be many more.

DanielBMarkham 19y ago

Take a spritz: have a break; stop for a minute; chill out. Any field of human endeavor has various facets to explore. Usually there is an entry position, where one becomes familiar with the terms and issues of the field an achieves some initial success. Then one moves on. The other poster pointed this out, and for some reason you guys down-modded him. I could get into a long list of people who did great in a field when they started and then matured and took the field with them. Beethoven: great pianist. Went on to become great composer. Started composing symphonies. Went deaf but still composed symphonies. Went from there to completely change music as we know it. I could add another dozen examples. Your example of J. K. Rowling doesn't fly since she considers all of the books one unit. This would be her initial success phase. Now she could continue in the field of book writing, pushing the genre (as Beethoven did with music) or she could move into a more generalized form of literature, say training, editing, or something else. She has an opportunity to redefine writing -- whether or not she could pull it off is up for grabs. I kind of doubt it. Or she could just cranking out that schlock that all of us read. It's up to her, and to say that she's somehow giving up her dream is BS: her dream should be about something big enough to keep pushing for. Being an artist and just making yourself and other people happy is a great dream! There are a lot of artists who find a comfortable niche and stay with that their whole life. But they aren't Beethovens. And they aren't innovators. Like I said, none of my business.

wyday 19y ago
> Beethoven: great pianist. Went on to become great composer. Started composing symphonies. Went deaf but still composed symphonies. Went from there to completely change music as we know it. You're rewriting history. Beethoven started by playing organ, viola, and piano while composing keyboard works. His collection of piano works alone outweighs his symphonic works. That's disregarding his enormous collection string works. Also, it was hardly a unique thing to do. Mozart, Haydn, Sibelius and various other composers followed precisely the same path: start with piano training, produce piano works and expand outward. In fact, this paragraph actually supports what I was sarcastically suggesting: stick with what you do best. In this case, composing. You just got the details wrong. > She has an opportunity to redefine writing -- whether or not she could pull it off is up for grabs. That's ambiguous as hell. Explain "redefine writing". > Or she could just cranking out that schlock that all of us read. Is its "schlock" factor based on whether or not a writer's works are read and enjoyed by the general populous? In that case, Shakespeare cranked out a fair bit of schlock in his time.
- DanielBMarkham 19y ago
  Look. I don't mind being wrong, but I just don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Beethoven started out as a keyboardist, sure. His father made him practice like crazy. At first he was a great performer of other people's works, not a composer. He received some acclaim as a performer and went to Vienna. At Vienna he was supposed to develop his composition skills. Hayden took him under his wing, and let's just say things didn't work out. Ignoring all his other great works (if such a thing is possible!) and concentrating on his symphonies, you can see where he started in the classical form and eventually blew the doors off of it, substituting motif development for the typical lyrical development of the time. His use of rhythm and instrumentation (including a chorus in the ninth) was completely unheard of. Music critics attending his symphonies for the first time were outraged. He was taking a field and innovating. The place he took the symphony, for instance, was somewhere the day-to-day practitioners of the time would never have went. Glad to continue the historical bantering if you find it productive. You ask for me to explain redefining writing? Sure as heck it's an ambiguous statement. That's the whole point! We can't see where the field can go because we're not practitioners at the top of our game. That's the purpose of pushing forward. It's not a question that has an answer that I can provide. Interesting that you would choose Shakespeare as writing schlock. In fact, he did write a lot of stuff that was considered pulp at the time, but not only was his works popular with the masses and sometimes low-brow, he was also cutting-edge. His use of language and meter was, once again, unheard of. I could start listing all the new phrases he came up with that are common today, like "into thin air." Geesh! He coined over 2000 new words! He started a completely new way of constructing sentences in English. Shakespeare was probably more radical than any writer since him, yet he also appealed to the masses. You don't have to choose between popular and innovative. Sorry if I represented it as such. Of course, Beethoven could have stayed with Hayden and wrote Baroque material his entire life. Shakespeare could have used the common vernacular and still been a very successful writer. There's nothing wrong with just wanting to do one thing the best you can. But doing "the best you can" to me means trying to change the world, not just plodding along in it.

davidw 19y ago

In north east Italy, this is what a "spritz" is: http://padovachronicles.welton.it/articles/2004/11/08/spritz http://padovachronicles.welton.it/articles/2004/11/08/spritz

DanielBMarkham 19y ago
Okay. I'll admit it -- I picked up the phrase from "The Sopranos" :)
- davidw 19y ago
  Which of course have nothing at all to do with north eastern Italy:-) Your average Sicilian or Neapolitan wouldn't have a clue what a 'spritz' was in the sense of the drink. Actually, the original term came from when the Austrians occupied the area, and imported what is still called a "spritzer" here in Austria, which is just wine and fizzy water. In the Veneto they took it and improved it by adding the bitter. Ok, wildly off topic, but it's kind of interesting, and if you're ever in Padova or Venice, I highly recommend having a spritz in the piazza.