Influential Writing

I have read a few Paul Graham articles here and there but was always rushing through and never really gave them my full attention. But after a discussion with some friends over whether Yahoo is still a top level player I went back and read this essay. That essay linked to this one, a definition/celebration of hacker culture. I was really impressed by the persuasiveness of his writing (good thing I was using him to support my case on the yahoo argument). The hacker article made me launch straight into some MySQL practice I had been putting off! I think I will be setting aside some serious weekend time to dig into old essays.