Top all-time · #1879
The Big Apple
Personal blog · barrypopik.comwritinghistory
The Big Apple is a personal blog at barrypopik.com about writing and history. Since 2009, 42 different Hacker News readers have linked it 42 times. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
An etymological dictionary of American words, names, quotations and phrases, including regional dictionaries of New York City, Florida, Oregon and Texas.
Most-linked posts?
- /blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-23
- /index.php/new_york_city/entry/pull_yourself_up_by_your_bootstraps/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-06-23
- /index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-20
- /index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_kind_of_woman_do_you_take_me_for_madam_weve_already_established_that_c/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-06-06
- /index.php/new_york_city/entry/never_talk_about_religion_or_politics_etiquette_rule2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-18
What Hacker News says?
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/rece...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/recessions_catch_what_auditors_miss
on “My Day Interviewing for the Service Economy Startup from Hell”Submitted "In God we trust. All others must bring data" (2015) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe excitement around the crypto space is a lot like all the excitement around the Psychic Hotline space of the 1990's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO50TC6WG8A But psychics didn't burn anywhere near as much coal and cause as much cancer and lung disease as crypto does. >Once you get past the scam/hype bullshit anyway. "Well, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?" https://www.barrypopik.c…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/other_than_that_mrs_lincoln_how_did_you_like_the_play
on “American spy hacked Booking.com, company stayed silent”Check out: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/tell... it has a bunch of translations and transliterations of this quote.
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/tell_me_and_i_forget_teach_me_and_i_may_remember_involve_me_and_i_will_lear/
on “Big-O Algorithm Complexity Cheat Sheet”Your observations basically boil down to "my co-worker, who is Chinese, does not like raw fish, therefore..." There are plenty of sushi restaurants in Chinatown: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=sushi&start=0&l=p:NY:N... There are also traditional - and popular - Chinese dishes that involve raw fish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng You have to understand that Chinese people are huge gluttons (I say this w…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/they_eat_anything_with_legs_except_a_table_and_anything_with_wings_except_a
on “Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)”For anyone unfamiliar, this is a clever riff on a classic economics joke about the Efficient Market Hypothesis [1]. "Two economists are walking down the street and one of them notices what appears to be a $20 bill (or a $100 bill—the monetary amounts vary) on the sidewalk. “It’s not a real $20 bill,” the other economist declares. “If it were a real $20 bill, someone would have picked it up off the sidewalk already.”…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_it_were_a_real_20_bill/
on “I bought netflix.soy”> Following an old proverb, reportedly from or nobilitated by Cervantes, you are invited "not to mention the rope in the house of the hanged". Cites: * https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019953... * https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/don...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/dont_talk_about_rope_in_a_hanged_mans_house
on “Thunderbird 91.0”It appears as early as 1923 but is not cited. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/he_w...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/he_who_works_with_his_hands_and_his_head_is_a_craftsman
on “The Benjamin Franklin Method: How to Be a Better Writer”Earliest citation I could find is a management book from 1962: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/you_...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/you_can_expect_what_you_inspect_management_adage
on “Maybe today’s Navy is just not very good at driving ships”That had a literal meaning at one point, but then it got diluted. Newspapers were published several times a day when I was a child, so the late edition would have things that happened in the afternoon. If something very big happened, they would put out an “extra” edition and trucks would race to get the extras out to the newsstands, newspaper boxes, and corner stores. A news agent shouting “Extra! Extra!” was origin…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/extra_extra_read_all_about_it_newsboy_shout
on “Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism”The kernel of "born on third base" is 50 years older. "The Yale Book of Quotations" lists several variations from the 1930's the oldest is from 12 May 1934, Hammond (IN) Times, pg. 4, col. 2: "A genius is one who seems a wonder because he was born on third base." h/t http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/born...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/born_on_third_base_and_thinks_he_hit_a_triple_a_privileged_person/
on “Your Credentials Are Worthless Here”"We lose money on every sale, but make it up on volume" > https://barrypopik.com/blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_...
Comment linking /blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume
on “I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again”“We lose money on every sale, but make it up on volume” A bit of history of that joke: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_... > 6 February 1833, New York (NY) Evening Post, pg. 2, col. 2: > Among the business anomalies which meet the eye of a stranger visiting New-York, are the placards exhibited in the windows of the retail shops, informing passers by that the stock in trade within is selli…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume
on “Today’s correction isn’t much like the dot-com bubble”I hate how what is effectively a stupid meme phrase became an actual term in a few days. > "Vibe Coding" might get you 80% the way to a functioning concept. But to produce something reliable, secure, and worth spending money on, you’ll need experienced humans to do the hard work not possible with today’s models. The problem is that 80% of the job is a proof of concept at best. 80% is effectively a QA walking into a…
Comment linking /blog/a_software_tester_walks
on ““Vibe Coding” vs. Reality”> I think it depends on whether they did anything illegal. Less than you might think. Have you seen Three Felonies a Day [1] ? Or heard of "indict a ham sandwich"[2]? The law being what it is today, and prosecutorial discretion being what it is, it is almost entirely up to whether someone wants to prosecute. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... [2] http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/n…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/indict_a_ham_sandwich/
on “F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal”Every time one of those "Ask HN: How do I get a job" comes around, I comment on the importance of networking over throwing resumes into an abyss. Inevitably, someone talks about how they got a great job with a cold application. It's not that it is impossible, it is that it is less probable. It's great to see articles that can support and explain this fact. As engineers, we tend to want to see raw brain power and exp…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/its_not_what_you_know_but_who_you_know/
on “I Built a Bot to Apply to Thousands of Jobs at Once”http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_l...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume
on “This Tech Bubble Is Bursting”Here is a collection of supposed attributions for that quotation: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what... It seems rather hard to pin down the original source!
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_kind_of_woman_do_you_take_me_for_madam_weve_already_established_that_c/
on “What kind of girl do you think I am?”https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_raised_nail_gets_hammered_down_management_proverb
on “When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion”If you're actually interested in the topic, google for a bit and you'll learn that is an old advice. Here's a post about it: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/nev...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/never_talk_about_religion_or_politics_etiquette_rule
on “Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan”“A banker lends you an umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back when it rains” https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_b...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_banker_lends_you_an_umbrella_when_the_sun_is_shining_and_wants_it_back_wh/
on “Coding error at Santander Bank put millions into random accounts on Christmas”Did you know it's impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps? https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/pul...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/pull_yourself_up_by_your_bootstraps/
on “The myth of the myth of the lone genius”Not a limerick, though it has a similar feel. The way I originally heard it was: Once there was a chemist There isn't any more What he thought was H2O Was H2SO4. I've heard a few variants, such as "Bobby was a chemist" or "There isn't one no more". At least one blog[1] claims the original poem from 1894 is: Our Willie passed away today, His face we’ll see no more; What Willie thought was H2O Proved H2SO4. [1] https:…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/johnny_thought_that_h2o_was_h2so4
on “Chemists discover water microdroplets spontaneously produce hydrogen peroxide”I wasn't aware of this nice saying, so I googled and found this nice page: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_... Not very surprisingly, that page says that this was originally applied to being married and to holding political office.
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_two_happiest_days_of_a_mans_lifethe_day_he_bought_the_boat_and_the_day
on “An age-old question”That’s a real possibility, as that Russian (or Polish, depending on who you ask) joke had been making the rounds for almost 30 years when Smirnoff moved to the US in 1977. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/unde...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/under_capitalism_man_exploits_man_under_communism_it_is_the_other_way_aroun/
on “Yandex Mail”Title is misleading. Please add "per capita" !!! Stockholm is so over-hyped. Yes, there is a lot of engineering culture, but there is so little risk capital available at the bottom is it truly laughable. Furthermore, I don't see many of these unicorns putting a lot back into the ecosystem in terms of investment, social capital, or outreach. Sweden's needs her of "Paypal mafia [1], Facebook Mafia [2], Trilogy Mafia,…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/dellionaire_dell_computer_millionaire
on “After Silicon Valley, Stockholm produces highest number of “unicorns” per capita”Hopefully the investigation has something more robust. That's quite unlikely, because of exactly what you pointed out. The reality is that this case could not and was not meant to be able to stand up to the rigors of a federal prosecution with good defense attorneys in a US court. People that could not be arrested or extradited were indicted for a reason - Mueller knew this case would never actually be litigated. Th…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/indict_a_ham_sandwich/
on “A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment”Because of the polarization of American politics, the focus has moved away from progressing the country forward and more about scraping back any and all losses from one's political opponents. It's very much like sports, and using self-serving interpretations of laws is not unlike a professional athlete taking a questionable-but-not-officially-outlawed performance-enhancing drug[1]. They're playing the game with the…
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_youre_not_cheating_youre_not_trying/
on “EFF Sues for Court Orders Requiring Tech Cos to Decrypt Users’ Communications”1833: first known case of "lose money on every sale but make it up on volume." Amazing. Birth of postmodern capitalism right there. https://barrypopik.com/blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_...
Comment linking /blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume
on “The AI lifestyle subsidy is going to end”While commonly attributed to Woody Allen (and he does say it in Annie Hall), the joke can be attributed to Harry Hershfield[1]. In Allen’s defence, he opens the joke by saying it’s an old one. [1]: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the...
Comment linking /index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_food_is_terrible_and_such_small_portions
on “Today’s Disneyland is a price gouge, not a magical experience”
