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"Did you win the Putnam? If not, then don't be bolder than this guy." "Yes, I did." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item

"Did you win the Putnam? If not, then don't be bolder than this guy." "Yes, I did." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 A parody of being a startup founder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183

CPLX 11y ago
The Putnam reply is one of the great moments in Internet commenting history IMHO.
- Mandatum 11y ago
  The followup is the icing on the cake, "Only once?" > Yes, only once. But I actually consider my first score on the Putnam (53, ranked 53.5th in North America) to be my most impressive performance on the Putnam, considering that I was only 14 years old at the time.
- lemming 11y ago
  It's one of my favourite comments ever.
- cperciva 11y ago
  Oh, so this is why it suddenly popped up again in my twitter feed... I'll say here what I posted there a moment ago: Seven years after making a fool of myself on Hacker News, I wonder if my epitaph will be "Yes, I won the Putnam".
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
chubot 11y ago
How does the Putnam winner Ravi Vakil fit into that thread? From reading the context it is about cpervica saying he's more competent than 90% of startup founders, and other people are saying that's arrogant. Where did Ravi come in -- was he a startup founder?
- Mandatum 11y ago
  cpervica == Ravi
  - jaredsohn 11y ago
    cpervica == Colin Percival (via http://www.tarsnap.com/about.html http://www.tarsnap.com/about.html) I think Ravi Vakil was just given as an example of somebody with a lot of academic accomplishment.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 11y ago
Even better, further down the thread drew houston comes on to say that he is working on a similar idea and that he could email him to chat.
philippnagel 11y ago
"Double stealth mode" gave me a solid chuckle.
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
  "when C, D & S (or cease and desist as I call them) come back home" was a great setup too.
PopeOfNope 11y ago
One of my favorites from that thread: Remember that success comes from improving OTHER people's lives. All your achievements, while probably very gratifying to your mother, have not improved my life at all. - dbosson Do you use OS X or Mozilla? Have you ever used their software update mechanisms? If yes, I've improved your life -- they use my delta compression work (bsdiff, originally written as part of FreeBSD Update) to reduce the size of updates which have to be downloaded. As of about a year ago, my work had saved users around the world well over a hundred years of waiting for updates to download. -cpervica

CPLX 11y ago

The Putnam reply is one of the great moments in Internet commenting history IMHO.

Mandatum 11y ago
The followup is the icing on the cake, "Only once?" > Yes, only once. But I actually consider my first score on the Putnam (53, ranked 53.5th in North America) to be my most impressive performance on the Putnam, considering that I was only 14 years old at the time.
lemming 11y ago
It's one of my favourite comments ever.
cperciva 11y ago
Oh, so this is why it suddenly popped up again in my twitter feed... I'll say here what I posted there a moment ago: Seven years after making a fool of myself on Hacker News, I wonder if my epitaph will be "Yes, I won the Putnam".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

chubot 11y ago

How does the Putnam winner Ravi Vakil fit into that thread? From reading the context it is about cpervica saying he's more competent than 90% of startup founders, and other people are saying that's arrogant. Where did Ravi come in -- was he a startup founder?

Mandatum 11y ago
cpervica == Ravi
- jaredsohn 11y ago
  cpervica == Colin Percival (via http://www.tarsnap.com/about.html http://www.tarsnap.com/about.html) I think Ravi Vakil was just given as an example of somebody with a lot of academic accomplishment.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

Even better, further down the thread drew houston comes on to say that he is working on a similar idea and that he could email him to chat.

philippnagel 11y ago

"Double stealth mode" gave me a solid chuckle.

mcintyre1994 11y ago
"when C, D & S (or cease and desist as I call them) come back home" was a great setup too.

PopeOfNope 11y ago

One of my favorites from that thread: Remember that success comes from improving OTHER people's lives. All your achievements, while probably very gratifying to your mother, have not improved my life at all. - dbosson Do you use OS X or Mozilla? Have you ever used their software update mechanisms? If yes, I've improved your life -- they use my delta compression work (bsdiff, originally written as part of FreeBSD Update) to reduce the size of updates which have to be downloaded. As of about a year ago, my work had saved users around the world well over a hundred years of waiting for updates to download. -cpervica