9 ms·

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

117 points by tagawa 11y ago

cjbprime 11y ago
I love the tar cheatsheet in the background of the photo.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
tar(1) flags as a blackboard prop, that's nice. I wouldn't consider them that complicated to warrant being a background image of such a nature, though.
- ago 11y ago
  The flags kind of look wrong, there is 'f' without an argument and piping a file inside? Maybe my tar memory is just fuzzy, it feels like https://xkcd.com/1168/ https://xkcd.com/1168/
- Karunamon 11y ago
  That XKCD comic about tar(1) is more accurate than I'd like it to be.. I know off the top of my memory 'xvf' and 'cvzf' but that's about it.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Convenience: https://xkcd.com/1168/ https://xkcd.com/1168/
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Complicated? Just easy to forget. Esoteric unimportant details. I can sympathize. I have 4-5 languages I write once a month or so. Each has a different "if" syntax, and a different "for" syntax. Pretty soon I'm going to cave and write myself a little reference note like that. (Yeah, yeah, I'm sure any real ninjapirate worth his salt can perfectly recall every syntax rule of every language he's ever written)
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    The closer two languages are the harder it is not to mess up with details like that.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    I don't think I can program in any language any more. I seem to just instinctively copy the syntax of the code around where I'm typing. I never notice myself doing it because when I'm adding or modifying code, it never enters my mind. When I have to write new code I'm always in a dither - "Do I need parentheses here?", etc. It's very strange. I blame writing a lot of ruby and javascript code (jumping back and forth to coffeescript), whose syntax is often seemingly random :-P. Slightly off topic, when I'm pair programming in ruby, I often say to the other person: "No you can't break the line there!" The other person rightly shows me that it works fine. Then they say, "Why did you think you can't do that?" My answer is always, "OMG... what kind of insane parser have they written to allow that to work".
jay_kyburz 11y ago
Best line of the article. "I think part of the reason [Steve Jobs] smelled bad was 'cause he wouldn't necessarily go home every day."
jen729w 11y ago
>"How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve. Jesus christ, really? That sounds like a hideous childhood to me. Is this what we're becoming, a race of people obsessed with capital and business and work? Go play in the dirt and ride your bike, kid. Work when you're old.
- prawn 11y ago
  Goes hand-in-hand with his other quote: "I have made so many massive mistakes of ego, I can't tell you."
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - fezz 11y ago
    I stopped reading it because it was very clear that his ego is still giant. And it's not surprising that the Steam circus has some of the same ego issues.
    - hnmodturds 11y ago
      and yet they were interviewing him, and not you. his ego accomplished shit, and yours?
- gexla 11y ago
  I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids. Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme. If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme. Creating in-game value by trading, selling and acquiring items in an MMORPG is a business if you could cash out that value through trading sites. Some kids sell weed and other illegal items.
  - 11y ago
ux-app 11y ago
> "I've always valued passionate employees over anything else, and, it turns out that there's a huge percentage of the population that are actually dead - they don't know it, but, in terms of their processes, they're just waiting to be buried" I'm sure he did value passionate employees, especially in light of the positive way in which describes Jobs sleeping under his desk (and the poor bastards described in the article who were working on a Saturday). I wonder how many of those under the desk employees got a cut of his $30 million Atari payday. Not one I bet. Wisdom is understanding that others don't have the same drives and ambitions that you do and not judging them for it. Sounds like this guy still hasn't learned this at 70+
- gpcz 11y ago
  The documentary "Once Upon Atari" explains the story of the consumer division (Atari 2600). Some of their best game developers left to form Activision after they tried to renegotiate their compensation with the new CEO and failed (this was post-Bushnell when Atari started making real serious money). After third-party games became legitimized, dozens of game companies sprouted up and tried to poach people from Atari. This put enough pressure on the Atari management to give release bonuses and $0.10/cartridge royalties that made a bunch of the developers millionaires.
- gexla 11y ago
  This was just one step in an incredible journey for Steve Jobs. He probably put in the long hours because he saw value in those hours. He probably learned a lot from the experience.
  - scholia 11y ago
    Yep. Like getting Woz (who had a day job) to come in out of hours and do a lot of the work, then take the credit for it, and then not give Woz a fair share of the bonus... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari-bonus-267711 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...
- icanhackit 11y ago
  I wonder how many of those under the desk employees got a cut of his $30 million Atari payday. Not one I bet. You could also infer that a lot of people have to suffer, e.g. hard work for little reward, for a small number of people to win big. Making big bucks requires, more often than not, less than ideal treatment of others unless you have a magical algorithm in your pocket that solves a big problem. You sell a physical product? This goes doubly so. It's just abstracted so it's harder to see. On the personal life side of things, which is kind of below the belt but I'm not making a moral judgement, do you think CEO X can be super-dad/mum when they're working until midnight? Sure, they show up when a kid has a birthday but they have to outsource a lot of parenting because they've made the decision that a career is more important than playing a bigger part in their child's life. Not everyone can make that kind of decision, and those who do tend to be the kind of person who yearns to "make big things". Quote from TFA: there's a huge percentage of the population that are actually dead - they don't know it, but, in terms of their processes, they're just waiting to be buried" The people who think this don't realize or appreciate that they make their fortunes from the "dead". Most of the time, not always but most of the time, it's the guy with the boring 8-5 job who comes home to play his video game console, eat his microwave healthy-choice dinner, bathe using the new showergel that will surely get him pussy like the ad said he would, and go to sleep using his special pillow with proper neck support that he ordered from an infomercial. You feed off these people, and then say fuck it, they might as well be dead because they can't work on "big things". Let's see how Uber would do if they could only pick up founders in the Valley or SF. Not well.
DigitalSea 11y ago
Sheesh, this guy has been in the industry longer than most at age 72 and it shocked me when I read, "a handful of young men are eagerly banging away on keyboards late on a Saturday afternoon" - then to top it all off further into the article he says, "How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve (after explaining pretty much everything he did post-Atari was a mistake). Crunch does not make for efficiency. Look at EA if you want to see what crunch does (besides make your employees and families miserable). Sounds like Bushnell has made a lot of mistakes in his time and his latest startup and the way it is being run is another example of a man who clearly has lost touch with the industry he help kickstart back in the 70's.
- michaelkeenan 11y ago
  > it shocked me when I read, "a handful of young men are eagerly banging away on keyboards late on a Saturday afternoon" It's not so unreasonable to work on a Saturday afternoon. As PG says, "If you’re ever unsure if you should be doing what you’re doing during YC, ask yourself this question: ‘Am I building our product? Am I talking to users? Am I exercising?’. if you’re not doing one of these things, you’re doing the wrong thing." > Crunch does not make for efficiency. Look at EA if you want to see what crunch does I don't know much about EA but their stock value seems okay: https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1438113600000&chddm=2568780&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:EA&ntsp=0&ei=FhO_VbDaMLH2iQLPy6D4Aw https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&... (Though if the recent rise is due to changed policies around crunchtime, that would be really interesting and I'd love to learn about that.)
  - superuser2 11y ago
    These young men were employees, not owners.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Stock value seems okay Stock value being, of course, the only moral determinant here. Even if you're using employees as a consumable, ea_spouse passim.
burritofanatic 11y ago
I was expecting his argument about how life is a really simulation, still a good read nonetheless.
olorundaglory 11y ago
AUCTION..... AUCTION........ AUCTION.......The Nigeria Custom Auctions Is Up Again and Granting Nigerians the Privilege to Own Vehicles at Affordable Rates. Approved By The Federal Government Of Nigeria, All Individuals Should Note That These Vehicles Are Impounded Due To Smuggling And Improper Importation Which Has Resulted In The Forfeiture Of The Said Property As Penalty For The Illegal Act. Consequently, These Impounded Vehicles Are Now Being Auctioned To Eligible Nigerians In The Ongoing 2014/2015 ( N.C.S. Batch B-) Vehicle Auctions And This Action Is In Line With The Directives Of The Government Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria. These Vehicles are neat, in a perfect condition and Has Never Been Used In Nigeria. The Vehicles Are Currently In The Custom Warehouse At Ogun State, Idiroko Border Ports Awaiting Removal By Clearance.. Contact Address: Operation 2-Enforcement Office, Idiroko BordeCommand. Contact MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08068017569Name:zonal commander Public Relation Officer, Federal operations Unit, investigation and inspectorate. Contact MRS olorunda glory 08067834923Office Mailing Address: Nigeriacustom916@gmail.com THIS CARS AND SUVS ARE VEHICLES RANGING FROM 2001 MODEL TO 2013 Prices of some Toyota cars: Land Cruiser-N700,000 • Toyota Prado N900,000 • Toyota Corolla –N500,000 •Toyota 4Runner-N850,000• Toyota Tundra-N700,000• Toyota Tacoma-N750,000• Toyota Camry Tiny-Light –N350,000• Toyota Camry Spider-N800,000 • Toyota Camry Muscle-N700,000• Toyota Avensis – N200,000-N500,000 • Toyota Yaris – N300,000 • Toyota Matrix – N400,000 • Toyota Camry Big Dady-N 450,000• Toyota RAV4 SUV –N600,000 • Toyota Hilus -N750,000 • Toyota Dyna Truck – N350,000 • Toyota Hiace Bus – N600,000 • Toyota Coaster Bus 32 seaters – N600,000 . Toyota highlander- N800,000• Toyota Sequoria-N500,000 • Toyoya sienna -- N550,000 • Toyota Avalon -- N500,000 • Toyota Venza --N750,000 Prices of some Peugeot Cars Peugeot c230 N300,000 C300 N450,000 Peugeot-406 N500,000 prices of some Honda cars Honda Civic cars – N350,000. Honda CRV 400,000-750,000. Honda EOD 600,000. Honda DC 700,000. Honda Evil Spirit 800,000. NOTE=The nigeria custom service Recruitment and Replacement of new take is on for BATCH 1 hurry up For more enquiry call MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08067834923 Thank for your patronage.
olorundaglory 11y ago
AUCTION..... AUCTION........ AUCTION.......The Nigeria Custom Auctions Is Up Again and Granting Nigerians the Privilege to Own Vehicles at Affordable Rates. Approved By The Federal Government Of Nigeria, All Individuals Should Note That These Vehicles Are Impounded Due To Smuggling And Improper Importation Which Has Resulted In The Forfeiture Of The Said Property As Penalty For The Illegal Act. Consequently, These Impounded Vehicles Are Now Being Auctioned To Eligible Nigerians In The Ongoing 2014/2015 ( N.C.S. Batch B-) Vehicle Auctions And This Action Is In Line With The Directives Of The Government Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria. These Vehicles are neat, in a perfect condition and Has Never Been Used In Nigeria. The Vehicles Are Currently In The Custom Warehouse At Ogun State, Idiroko Border Ports Awaiting Removal By Clearance.. Contact Address: Operation 2-Enforcement Office, Idiroko BordeCommand. Contact MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08068017569Name:zonal commander Public Relation Officer, Federal operations Unit, investigation and inspectorate. Contact MRS olorunda glory 08067834923Office Mailing Address: Nigeriacustom916@gmail.com THIS CARS AND SUVS ARE VEHICLES RANGING FROM 2001 MODEL TO 2013 Prices of some Toyota cars: Land Cruiser-N700,000 • Toyota Prado N900,000 • Toyota Corolla –N500,000 •Toyota 4Runner-N850,000• Toyota Tundra-N700,000• Toyota Tacoma-N750,000• Toyota Camry Tiny-Light –N350,000• Toyota Camry Spider-N800,000 • Toyota Camry Muscle-N700,000• Toyota Avensis – N200,000-N500,000 • Toyota Yaris – N300,000 • Toyota Matrix – N400,000 • Toyota Camry Big Dady-N 450,000• Toyota RAV4 SUV –N600,000 • Toyota Hilus -N750,000 • Toyota Dyna Truck – N350,000 • Toyota Hiace Bus – N600,000 • Toyota Coaster Bus 32 seaters – N600,000 . Toyota highlander- N800,000• Toyota Sequoria-N500,000 • Toyoya sienna -- N550,000 • Toyota Avalon -- N500,000 • Toyota Venza --N750,000 Prices of some Peugeot Cars Peugeot c230 N300,000 C300 N450,000 Peugeot-406 N500,000 prices of some Honda cars Honda Civic cars – N350,000. Honda CRV 400,000-750,000. Honda EOD 600,000. Honda DC 700,000. Honda Evil Spirit 800,000. NOTE=The nigeria custom service Recruitment and Replacement of new take is on for BATCH 1 hurry up For more enquiry call MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08067834923 Thank for your patronage.
dbpokorny 11y ago
I'm surprised that HN hasn't applied some version of the standard critique of Capitalism already. It's practically de rigueur in fashionable intellectual circles. And in this case it's so easy, an amateur like me can make a decent stab at it. First of all, we enter the text with a remark about "mistakes of ego". One ego mistake is to conflate "life" with some activity that is taken to be "life-defining" or "the meaning of life". This is a Western preoccupation that stems from Christian spiritual angst with respect to the relationship between "good works" and salvation (this is very complex, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S... for details and note the differences between the Catholic and Protestant teachings. The psychological implications of the doctrinal differences are far beyond my ability to untangle). So here this is applied as follows: conflating life with the process of gaining salvation through good works which in a Capitalist society translates into "game playing" a.k.a. using capital to innovate and earn a return on investment. Of course none of this helps when it comes time to contemplate mortality. It doesn't matter how much you play nor how many times you win, you'll still be stuck with this over-developed existential angst which was the thing that prodded you to work so hard in the first place. > When you lose a game of chess, you don't go and jump off a bridge, you reset the pieces and do it again. > It's a game The game playing, the "reset the pieces", the conflation of life with the game, and the talk of suicide seem to suggest an element unacknowledged in the text, the idea of the cycle of death and rebirth. It may be a coincidence, but I think the attitude of the Buddhists with respect to this cycle may be connected with their attitude toward games vs. the process by which wisdom arises, but who knows? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddha_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddha_games OK, that's my critique. How did I score?
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Bushnell sees dead people. Perhaps he's right, but maybe not in the way he expects.
  - goldenkey 11y ago
    It's hard for anyone in a capitalist society, stuck in the socio-sick-environment to erase the conflation of monetary success with freedom. So we falsely assume a grind, a saturday crunch, for the "small" underdog-company-spin-of-the-wheel means that you have a company of all loyal, blood-brotherly employees. It's a nice thought if 1) the company ends up being successful, and 2) the employees actually have a bit of equity. But most of the time, these spiritual kind of ideas and feelings are just abused to justify treating employees like shit to exact a capitalistic work efficiency from them. It's definitely an airy kind of issue. And I'm not sold on the whole 'crunch' thing. Though as a programmer, when I work on my own projects, I know that crunching means I'm passionate. So it's very hard to separate that and have some solidarity for a normal work situation where I have balance and yet feel as if I'm not just "sucking" on the situation for a slow rolling accomodating situation, and well, that whole 'slow burial.' Maybe I am just slowly rotting away with my current passion for work. Just maybe..
sorval 11y ago
Nolan Bushnell made terrible pizza. soapbox denied.
anonbanker 11y ago
ITT: Twentysomethings guffaw about a man who has more success in his failures than they have experienced in their lives.
touristtam 11y ago
I am surprise to find any article of the beebs on HN.
lordfoom 11y ago
>"I want Jobs and [Bill] Gates and [Mark] Zuckerberg and all of these guys to thank me for blazing some of [those trails], because it was much easier once there were several notable successes from [people] in their twenties," he says. >But with that success came hubris. No kidding.
lemming 11y ago
How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you. After his breakout success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Bushnell made several missteps that eventually led to some entrepreneurial failures and financial ruin. That's fine, I wouldn't invest in you, either.
- RabidSquirrel 11y ago
  Losing 30 million sounds like a much better (negative) indicator on whether to invest in someone than how many companies they started by 18.

117 points by tagawa 11y ago

I love the tar cheatsheet in the background of the photo.

tar(1) flags as a blackboard prop, that's nice. I wouldn't consider them that complicated to warrant being a background image of such a nature, though.

ago 11y ago
The flags kind of look wrong, there is 'f' without an argument and piping a file inside? Maybe my tar memory is just fuzzy, it feels like https://xkcd.com/1168/ https://xkcd.com/1168/
Karunamon 11y ago
That XKCD comic about tar(1) is more accurate than I'd like it to be.. I know off the top of my memory 'xvf' and 'cvzf' but that's about it.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  Convenience: https://xkcd.com/1168/ https://xkcd.com/1168/
sliverstorm 11y ago
Complicated? Just easy to forget. Esoteric unimportant details. I can sympathize. I have 4-5 languages I write once a month or so. Each has a different "if" syntax, and a different "for" syntax. Pretty soon I'm going to cave and write myself a little reference note like that. (Yeah, yeah, I'm sure any real ninjapirate worth his salt can perfectly recall every syntax rule of every language he's ever written)
- jacquesm 11y ago
  The closer two languages are the harder it is not to mess up with details like that.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I don't think I can program in any language any more. I seem to just instinctively copy the syntax of the code around where I'm typing. I never notice myself doing it because when I'm adding or modifying code, it never enters my mind. When I have to write new code I'm always in a dither - "Do I need parentheses here?", etc. It's very strange. I blame writing a lot of ruby and javascript code (jumping back and forth to coffeescript), whose syntax is often seemingly random :-P. Slightly off topic, when I'm pair programming in ruby, I often say to the other person: "No you can't break the line there!" The other person rightly shows me that it works fine. Then they say, "Why did you think you can't do that?" My answer is always, "OMG... what kind of insane parser have they written to allow that to work".

jay_kyburz 11y ago

Best line of the article. "I think part of the reason [Steve Jobs] smelled bad was 'cause he wouldn't necessarily go home every day."

jen729w 11y ago

>"How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve. Jesus christ, really? That sounds like a hideous childhood to me. Is this what we're becoming, a race of people obsessed with capital and business and work? Go play in the dirt and ride your bike, kid. Work when you're old.

prawn 11y ago
Goes hand-in-hand with his other quote: "I have made so many massive mistakes of ego, I can't tell you."
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- fezz 11y ago
  I stopped reading it because it was very clear that his ego is still giant. And it's not surprising that the Steam circus has some of the same ego issues.
  - hnmodturds 11y ago
    and yet they were interviewing him, and not you. his ego accomplished shit, and yours?
gexla 11y ago
I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids. Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme. If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme. Creating in-game value by trading, selling and acquiring items in an MMORPG is a business if you could cash out that value through trading sites. Some kids sell weed and other illegal items.
- 11y ago

ux-app 11y ago

> "I've always valued passionate employees over anything else, and, it turns out that there's a huge percentage of the population that are actually dead - they don't know it, but, in terms of their processes, they're just waiting to be buried" I'm sure he did value passionate employees, especially in light of the positive way in which describes Jobs sleeping under his desk (and the poor bastards described in the article who were working on a Saturday). I wonder how many of those under the desk employees got a cut of his $30 million Atari payday. Not one I bet. Wisdom is understanding that others don't have the same drives and ambitions that you do and not judging them for it. Sounds like this guy still hasn't learned this at 70+

gpcz 11y ago
The documentary "Once Upon Atari" explains the story of the consumer division (Atari 2600). Some of their best game developers left to form Activision after they tried to renegotiate their compensation with the new CEO and failed (this was post-Bushnell when Atari started making real serious money). After third-party games became legitimized, dozens of game companies sprouted up and tried to poach people from Atari. This put enough pressure on the Atari management to give release bonuses and $0.10/cartridge royalties that made a bunch of the developers millionaires.
gexla 11y ago
This was just one step in an incredible journey for Steve Jobs. He probably put in the long hours because he saw value in those hours. He probably learned a lot from the experience.
- scholia 11y ago
  Yep. Like getting Woz (who had a day job) to come in out of hours and do a lot of the work, then take the credit for it, and then not give Woz a fair share of the bonus... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari-bonus-267711 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...
icanhackit 11y ago
I wonder how many of those under the desk employees got a cut of his $30 million Atari payday. Not one I bet. You could also infer that a lot of people have to suffer, e.g. hard work for little reward, for a small number of people to win big. Making big bucks requires, more often than not, less than ideal treatment of others unless you have a magical algorithm in your pocket that solves a big problem. You sell a physical product? This goes doubly so. It's just abstracted so it's harder to see. On the personal life side of things, which is kind of below the belt but I'm not making a moral judgement, do you think CEO X can be super-dad/mum when they're working until midnight? Sure, they show up when a kid has a birthday but they have to outsource a lot of parenting because they've made the decision that a career is more important than playing a bigger part in their child's life. Not everyone can make that kind of decision, and those who do tend to be the kind of person who yearns to "make big things". Quote from TFA: there's a huge percentage of the population that are actually dead - they don't know it, but, in terms of their processes, they're just waiting to be buried" The people who think this don't realize or appreciate that they make their fortunes from the "dead". Most of the time, not always but most of the time, it's the guy with the boring 8-5 job who comes home to play his video game console, eat his microwave healthy-choice dinner, bathe using the new showergel that will surely get him pussy like the ad said he would, and go to sleep using his special pillow with proper neck support that he ordered from an infomercial. You feed off these people, and then say fuck it, they might as well be dead because they can't work on "big things". Let's see how Uber would do if they could only pick up founders in the Valley or SF. Not well.

DigitalSea 11y ago

Sheesh, this guy has been in the industry longer than most at age 72 and it shocked me when I read, "a handful of young men are eagerly banging away on keyboards late on a Saturday afternoon" - then to top it all off further into the article he says, "How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve (after explaining pretty much everything he did post-Atari was a mistake). Crunch does not make for efficiency. Look at EA if you want to see what crunch does (besides make your employees and families miserable). Sounds like Bushnell has made a lot of mistakes in his time and his latest startup and the way it is being run is another example of a man who clearly has lost touch with the industry he help kickstart back in the 70's.

michaelkeenan 11y ago
> it shocked me when I read, "a handful of young men are eagerly banging away on keyboards late on a Saturday afternoon" It's not so unreasonable to work on a Saturday afternoon. As PG says, "If you’re ever unsure if you should be doing what you’re doing during YC, ask yourself this question: ‘Am I building our product? Am I talking to users? Am I exercising?’. if you’re not doing one of these things, you’re doing the wrong thing." > Crunch does not make for efficiency. Look at EA if you want to see what crunch does I don't know much about EA but their stock value seems okay: https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1438113600000&chddm=2568780&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:EA&ntsp=0&ei=FhO_VbDaMLH2iQLPy6D4Aw https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&... (Though if the recent rise is due to changed policies around crunchtime, that would be really interesting and I'd love to learn about that.)
- superuser2 11y ago
  These young men were employees, not owners.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Stock value seems okay Stock value being, of course, the only moral determinant here. Even if you're using employees as a consumable, ea_spouse passim.

burritofanatic 11y ago

I was expecting his argument about how life is a really simulation, still a good read nonetheless.

olorundaglory 11y ago

AUCTION..... AUCTION........ AUCTION.......The Nigeria Custom Auctions Is Up Again and Granting Nigerians the Privilege to Own Vehicles at Affordable Rates. Approved By The Federal Government Of Nigeria, All Individuals Should Note That These Vehicles Are Impounded Due To Smuggling And Improper Importation Which Has Resulted In The Forfeiture Of The Said Property As Penalty For The Illegal Act. Consequently, These Impounded Vehicles Are Now Being Auctioned To Eligible Nigerians In The Ongoing 2014/2015 ( N.C.S. Batch B-) Vehicle Auctions And This Action Is In Line With The Directives Of The Government Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria. These Vehicles are neat, in a perfect condition and Has Never Been Used In Nigeria. The Vehicles Are Currently In The Custom Warehouse At Ogun State, Idiroko Border Ports Awaiting Removal By Clearance.. Contact Address: Operation 2-Enforcement Office, Idiroko BordeCommand. Contact MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08068017569Name:zonal commander Public Relation Officer, Federal operations Unit, investigation and inspectorate. Contact MRS olorunda glory 08067834923Office Mailing Address: Nigeriacustom916@gmail.com THIS CARS AND SUVS ARE VEHICLES RANGING FROM 2001 MODEL TO 2013 Prices of some Toyota cars: Land Cruiser-N700,000 • Toyota Prado N900,000 • Toyota Corolla –N500,000 •Toyota 4Runner-N850,000• Toyota Tundra-N700,000• Toyota Tacoma-N750,000• Toyota Camry Tiny-Light –N350,000• Toyota Camry Spider-N800,000 • Toyota Camry Muscle-N700,000• Toyota Avensis – N200,000-N500,000 • Toyota Yaris – N300,000 • Toyota Matrix – N400,000 • Toyota Camry Big Dady-N 450,000• Toyota RAV4 SUV –N600,000 • Toyota Hilus -N750,000 • Toyota Dyna Truck – N350,000 • Toyota Hiace Bus – N600,000 • Toyota Coaster Bus 32 seaters – N600,000 . Toyota highlander- N800,000• Toyota Sequoria-N500,000 • Toyoya sienna -- N550,000 • Toyota Avalon -- N500,000 • Toyota Venza --N750,000 Prices of some Peugeot Cars Peugeot c230 N300,000 C300 N450,000 Peugeot-406 N500,000 prices of some Honda cars Honda Civic cars – N350,000. Honda CRV 400,000-750,000. Honda EOD 600,000. Honda DC 700,000. Honda Evil Spirit 800,000. NOTE=The nigeria custom service Recruitment and Replacement of new take is on for BATCH 1 hurry up For more enquiry call MRS OLORUNDA GLORY ON 08067834923 Thank for your patronage.

olorundaglory 11y ago

dbpokorny 11y ago

I'm surprised that HN hasn't applied some version of the standard critique of Capitalism already. It's practically de rigueur in fashionable intellectual circles. And in this case it's so easy, an amateur like me can make a decent stab at it. First of all, we enter the text with a remark about "mistakes of ego". One ego mistake is to conflate "life" with some activity that is taken to be "life-defining" or "the meaning of life". This is a Western preoccupation that stems from Christian spiritual angst with respect to the relationship between "good works" and salvation (this is very complex, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S... for details and note the differences between the Catholic and Protestant teachings. The psychological implications of the doctrinal differences are far beyond my ability to untangle). So here this is applied as follows: conflating life with the process of gaining salvation through good works which in a Capitalist society translates into "game playing" a.k.a. using capital to innovate and earn a return on investment. Of course none of this helps when it comes time to contemplate mortality. It doesn't matter how much you play nor how many times you win, you'll still be stuck with this over-developed existential angst which was the thing that prodded you to work so hard in the first place. > When you lose a game of chess, you don't go and jump off a bridge, you reset the pieces and do it again. > It's a game The game playing, the "reset the pieces", the conflation of life with the game, and the talk of suicide seem to suggest an element unacknowledged in the text, the idea of the cycle of death and rebirth. It may be a coincidence, but I think the attitude of the Buddhists with respect to this cycle may be connected with their attitude toward games vs. the process by which wisdom arises, but who knows? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddha_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddha_games OK, that's my critique. How did I score?

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Bushnell sees dead people. Perhaps he's right, but maybe not in the way he expects.
- goldenkey 11y ago
  It's hard for anyone in a capitalist society, stuck in the socio-sick-environment to erase the conflation of monetary success with freedom. So we falsely assume a grind, a saturday crunch, for the "small" underdog-company-spin-of-the-wheel means that you have a company of all loyal, blood-brotherly employees. It's a nice thought if 1) the company ends up being successful, and 2) the employees actually have a bit of equity. But most of the time, these spiritual kind of ideas and feelings are just abused to justify treating employees like shit to exact a capitalistic work efficiency from them. It's definitely an airy kind of issue. And I'm not sold on the whole 'crunch' thing. Though as a programmer, when I work on my own projects, I know that crunching means I'm passionate. So it's very hard to separate that and have some solidarity for a normal work situation where I have balance and yet feel as if I'm not just "sucking" on the situation for a slow rolling accomodating situation, and well, that whole 'slow burial.' Maybe I am just slowly rotting away with my current passion for work. Just maybe..

sorval 11y ago

Nolan Bushnell made terrible pizza. soapbox denied.

anonbanker 11y ago

ITT: Twentysomethings guffaw about a man who has more success in his failures than they have experienced in their lives.

touristtam 11y ago

I am surprise to find any article of the beebs on HN.

lordfoom 11y ago

>"I want Jobs and [Bill] Gates and [Mark] Zuckerberg and all of these guys to thank me for blazing some of [those trails], because it was much easier once there were several notable successes from [people] in their twenties," he says. >But with that success came hubris. No kidding.

lemming 11y ago

How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you. After his breakout success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Bushnell made several missteps that eventually led to some entrepreneurial failures and financial ruin. That's fine, I wouldn't invest in you, either.

RabidSquirrel 11y ago
Losing 30 million sounds like a much better (negative) indicator on whether to invest in someone than how many companies they started by 18.