Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4000394

by ruswick • 14 years ago

140 51 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What are the posts that have inspired you the most?

SamReidHughes• 14 years ago

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/international-backu...

dhathorn• 14 years ago

Non-technical.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html

igorgue• 14 years ago

"The Last Lecture" is probably my favorite book, I recommend it to everyone.

relaunched2• 14 years ago

This was another amazingly inspirational talk. I highly recommend it to everyone. It's funny, emotional, well thought through and with everything going on in Prof Pausch's life at the time, one could only hope to leave this type of message to their family / children and the world.

sachitgupta• 14 years ago

Mark Cuban on success and motivation: http://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motiva...

The whole post is gold, but this is the best part:

  The point of all this is that it doesn’t matter how many
  times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost  
  get it right. No one is going to know or care about your  
  failures, and either should you. All you have to do is
  learn   from them and those around you because…

  All that matters in business is that you get it right once.

elimisteve• 14 years ago

To name a few...

"The Stewart Method: How Not To Suck" -- http://www.shimweasel.com/2011/05/08/the-stewart-method-how-...

Chris Dixon's "Some lessons learned" -- http://cdixon.org/2011/09/28/some-lessons-learned

"Thrust, Drag and the 10x Effect" -- http://www.tempobook.com/2011/10/25/thrust-drag-and-the-10x-...

bluestix• 14 years ago

Building Super Scalable Systems: Blade Runner Meets Autonomic Computing in the Ambient Cloud

http://highscalability.com/blog/2009/12/16/building-super-sc...

toddh• 14 years ago

That's very kind of you, thanks.

gorbachev• 14 years ago

I'm Christian, unless you're gay.

http://www.danoah.com/2011/11/im-christian-unless-youre-gay....

The blog post by itself is absolutely amazing, but the followups are what really make it. Link to them after the blog post on the last page.

alagu• 14 years ago

http://myprasanna.posterous.com/2009/11/whatever-it-is-that-...

Men get very strong, when they sight something they can die for.

replax• 14 years ago

Derek Sivers: There is no speed limit. Actually, very true I think.

http://sivers.org/kimo

nicolasmulder• 14 years ago

Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo/

cynest5• 14 years ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2450669

webcowboy• 14 years ago

Not exactly a blog post, but truly better heard than read.

"The Crickets Have Arthritis"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VrZE8MCnIA

alatkins• 14 years ago

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research:

http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html

sayemm• 14 years ago

That's one of the most insightful and wisdom-packed posts I've ever read, can't believe I missed it - thanks so much.

DivisibleByZero• 14 years ago

About Radical Honsety

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/honesty0707?page=all

cynest5• 14 years ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562014

ryporter• 14 years ago

Steve Yegge's "Math For Programmers" was one of the (too) few posts I've read that actually resulted in action on my part. It made me realize how much I had let my math skills atrophy since college, and I invested a substantial amount of time trying to bring them back up to scratch.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-for-programmers...

cynest5• 14 years ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3791894

jseliger2• 14 years ago

I send this as part of my "last e-mail" to students every semester:

This is the post that could but probably won't change your life: "There’s no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life)" http://sivers.org/kimo . I say "could," because most of you probably won't click the link; of those of you who do, most of you won't read the whole thing; of those of you who do, most of you won't get it; of those who do, most won't implement it. On the off chance that one out of 50 of you let this change your life, however, I'm sending it. Derek Sivers, who posted "There's no speed limit," also wrote a book called Anything You Want, [1] and reading it is probably one of the best ways you can spend an hour.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-...

cynest5• 14 years ago

Previous discussions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3761013

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970945

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2766060

hef19898• 14 years ago

Yep, definitely agree!

And a lot of the things pg wrote. Not a single essay, more the overall picture he discribed.

Sukotto• 14 years ago

Why not send that at the start of the school year instead of the end? Maybe along with a challenge to learn your class material in half the semester. Or assign it as an optional reading assignment worth a small bonus % if they submit a brief plan on how they would apply the advice in that article in your own class.

Is the tone of your email what you really intend? To me it reads like "I'm probably wasting my valuable time casting pearls before you swine. But just in case even ONE of you is worthy, here is some good advice from Derek Sivers". I find it dismissive, bordering on contempt.

jseliger2• 14 years ago

I don't think my students have the context necessary to make sense of Sivers' point before they go through the whole class.

I'm just being honest in the e-mail.

rahulrg• 14 years ago

Not exactly a blog post, but still. Clay Christensen's commencement address, "How will you measure your life?": http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/pr

edw519• 14 years ago

I know OP is asking for a blog post, but there is no blog post that inspires me more that either of these 2 short videos:

Dick and Rick Hoyt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH943Az_lPQ

Derek Redmond, 1992 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXWp6vFdE

solutionyogi• 14 years ago

I can not watch Dick/Rick Hoyt's video without choking up. Whenever I am feeling down and feel that there is no way out, I watch their video for inspiration.

I personally think that this video of Team Hoyt has better details about the story behind their struggle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM&feature=relat...

shpoonj• 14 years ago

Thank you so much for a video without christian music... I could actually watch this one.

relaunched2• 14 years ago

I'd never see the Hoyt video before and that had me in tears. As a father, I'm humbled.

cynest5• 14 years ago

Can people start linking the previous discussions on these?

olalonde• 14 years ago

Paul Graham's "How To Make Wealth" was truly inspiring to me at the time. http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

SatvikBeri• 14 years ago

This part really struck a chord with me, and forced me to stretch beyond merely doing slightly better than the average:

"a smart hacker working very hard without any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to do work worth about $3 million a year."

rtisticrahul• 14 years ago

This post on Great Hackers is a good read for every programmer lhttp://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

runevault• 14 years ago

Not a blog post, but a great 3 minute video about beginnings from zeFrank. I put the mp3 on my player so when I need a bit of inspiration to kick off something I get it going.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYlCVwxoL_g

firefoxman1• 14 years ago

A lot of the links I've seen people post in this thread are the kind of stuff I used to see a lot more on HN. Sure, I enjoy the HTML5/Rails/Python/(insert buzzword) posts, but it's too bad that a lot of new HN members will miss out on awesome posts with titles like "it's not about the idea" or "just ship it" etc.

vitomd• 14 years ago

The Unsettling Truth About Life : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dtixs0UhkI&feature=relat...

sushilchoudhari• 14 years ago

How come no one mentioned Steve Jobs and his commencement speech at Stanford? It is absolutely one of my favorites. I watch it everytime i feel that i could use a dose of motivation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

jonwjones• 14 years ago

Iron and the Soul - Henry Rollins http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/03/16/iron-and-the-soul...

Technically it is a magazine article but I stumbled upon the repost of it on nerd fitness.

debacle• 14 years ago

As a side note, I used to think Henry Rollins was kind of a douche until I started reading his writings.

I still am not really interested in listening to him speak, but he is a very compelling writer.

bennesvig• 14 years ago

Don't Die On Third - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/dont_die_on_third.s...

Reject The Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself by Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/reject-the-t...

Cage of the Mind - http://www.cstthegate.com/davetrott/2011/12/the-cage-of-the-...

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

How to Start a Startup

I hope to thank Paul for this essay in person at some point in life. This is singularly most important thing I've read that helped me turn my life around.

Schwolop• 14 years ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

astrofinch• 14 years ago

http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/04/11/the-curse-of-fun...

http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/06/29/curses-dollars-a...

hughesey• 14 years ago

Not a blog post but a great book.

The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307465357/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Quite litterally changed my whole perspective on just about everything!

freshfey2• 14 years ago

Did you implement some of these techniques into your life? If so, what and how? :)

freshfey2• 14 years ago

The Lefsetz Letter on Mark Cuban: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/08/31/m...

5 Crippling Beliefs That Keep People Stuck, Unsuccessful, and Mediocre For Life: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/08/5-crippling-beliefs-tha...

Do It Now: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

icoloma• 14 years ago

Don't work. Be hated. Love someone. http://halfhalf.posterous.com/dont-work-be-hated-love-someon...

Terry pratchett speech about alzheimer http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1986843/posts

And of course, steve jobs speech at stanford. These three are speeches instead of posts, but I found them true inspiring.

imrehg• 14 years ago

James Altucher's: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

He's awesome, insightful, and weird in an interesting way. A cross between "I messed up, so you don't have to", and "there are other ways to do things better than what most people think". Not saying that I agree with everything he says, nevertheless he keeps surprising me.

ssylee• 14 years ago

What's your background? What's inspirational for me may not be the same for you.

bkumar86• 14 years ago

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

find this strangely motivating

Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

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