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Who Was Ramanujan?

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Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#21

Post by johnloeber »

neipfjin239 wrote: post #17

The (sadly all too predictable) comments about Wolfram's self-promotion and product placement give me an idea. Someone should create a blog called "Wolfram minus Wolfram" (in the vein of the excellent "Garfield minus Garfield") which exists solely to republish Wolfram's (often very interesting) writings, minus the references to his own products and his own past achievements. I think it would be popular.

Republishing? I suspect you would immediately find yourself in boiling water with Wolfram's lawyers. See this nice story: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#22

Post by carlob »

neipfjin239 wrote: post #17

The (sadly all too predictable) comments about Wolfram's self-promotion and product placement give me an idea. Someone should create a blog called "Wolfram minus Wolfram" (in the vein of the excellent "Garfield minus Garfield") which exists solely to republish Wolfram's (often very interesting) writings, minus the references to his own products and his own past achievements. I think it would be popular.

Well given that writing a blog post is a form of advertising, this could just be an add-on for existing adblockers. We could just use NLP to eliminate plugs from all corporate and personal blogs.

I can already see a future where forbes issues a big message: "we've noticed you're using plugblockerplus, please disable it if you love our writing!"

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#23

Post by saiya-jin »

johnloeber wrote: post #15
blt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely tolerate anything he writes. It is hard to understand how a person could reach his position without learning how to express himself tastefully. Funny to read this after reading the Claude Shannon profile posted a few hours ago [1]. An actual giant of 20th century mathematics, and so humble. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/claude-shannon-t...

It is hard to understand, indeed. Wolfram is clearly extremely accomplished by all standards. We all know this . Why in the world does he pump all his written work with insufferable self-promotion? Anyone in a position to make good use of Mathematica has heard of it. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha, and I've taught mathematics to high-schoolers. Moreover, it should be obvious to Wolfram that…

many possible sources - "daddy isues" are on one way or another responsible for more messed up people I've ever met than anything else. it grows on men too, just in different way than ladies - unhealthy competitiveness, never-good-enough syndrome inwards and outwards, never happy with what you have/achieve even if you have billions and fame and recognition. abandoning stable relationships etc...

and then there are true extroverts, who just need the feeling of being hot topic, controversial, whatever. to be polite i don't like these so much.

of course i don't know him personally, could be different reason but probably somewhere along those lines.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#24

Post by Cyph0n »

willvarfar wrote: post #18

A very nice article. Personally I'm not bothered by the "self-promotion" others perceive in Wolfram's posts. The criticism in the comments here are all very repetitive and tiresome. I presume many read anything written by Wolfram with the hope of finding something they can point out as self-promotion ;)

Yeah, it wasn't too distracting in this article, and it was so well written that it's actually hard to notice.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#25

Post by Jd »

johnloeber wrote: post #15
blt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely tolerate anything he writes. It is hard to understand how a person could reach his position without learning how to express himself tastefully. Funny to read this after reading the Claude Shannon profile posted a few hours ago [1]. An actual giant of 20th century mathematics, and so humble. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/claude-shannon-t...

It is hard to understand, indeed. Wolfram is clearly extremely accomplished by all standards. We all know this . Why in the world does he pump all his written work with insufferable self-promotion? Anyone in a position to make good use of Mathematica has heard of it. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha, and I've taught mathematics to high-schoolers. Moreover, it should be obvious to Wolfram that…

Could be simply that his need to promote his products (i.e. marketing) create a need to self-promote.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#26

Post by de_Selby »

willvarfar wrote: post #18

A very nice article. Personally I'm not bothered by the "self-promotion" others perceive in Wolfram's posts. The criticism in the comments here are all very repetitive and tiresome. I presume many read anything written by Wolfram with the hope of finding something they can point out as self-promotion ;)

I completely agree. It seems like it's fashionable to immediately jump on any new Wolfram article and slate it. His tone and personality might not be to everyone's taste but he's brilliant and has achieved a huge amount.

This is the most comprehensive article I've read about the Ramanujan (and I've read a few before, I've always been interested in his story). I especially liked the parts about Hardy, who always seems to be overlooked. The comments about Mathematica aren't really as shoe-horned in as people are making out anyway, Ramanujan's method was very experimental so it fits well.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#27

Post by BasDirks »

willvarfar wrote: post #20
Dawny33 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Maybe, skimming through the article without bothering about the hyperlinks would be so much better. He went to the extent of hyperlinking the words `Madras` and `Sanskrit` to their WolframAlfa search links :/

So you mean google employees should put bing links in their blog posts rather than google links?

They should not put any links to a damn search engine in such texts. If people want to Google "Sanskrit", I'm sure they will manage.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#28

Post by mvardin »

johnloeber wrote: post #6

Mixed feelings about this article: 1. A fine easy read about Ramanujan and Hardy. It was well-summarized and nicely written, with excellent pictures that I had not seen before. 2. A disgusting vein of self-promotion runs throughout the article. Much has been said about Stephan Wolfram's occasionally self-centered behavior, and many of his writings have a self-aggrandizing tone to them. Thus, I was pleasantly surprise…

Your comment appears to be about the article but you seem unable to do so without focusing on yourself. It was all going fine until you wrote "I had not seen before". How is it relevant whether you had seen it before or not? In all, you make four references to yourself and your feelings in this comment. What egregious self-promotion! /sarcasm

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#29

Post by andyjohnson0 »

johnloeber wrote: post #6

Mixed feelings about this article: 1. A fine easy read about Ramanujan and Hardy. It was well-summarized and nicely written, with excellent pictures that I had not seen before. 2. A disgusting vein of self-promotion runs throughout the article. Much has been said about Stephan Wolfram's occasionally self-centered behavior, and many of his writings have a self-aggrandizing tone to them. Thus, I was pleasantly surprise…

"...Eton and Oxford, which happens to be where I went"

I prefer to be charitable and assume that he wrote this for the purposes of disclosure and to qualify his knowledge of those institutions. I don't think he was drawing a comparison between himself and Ramanujan.

Yes - Wolfram has a tendency for self-promotion, and this can be a bit tiresome. But, like others who have commented here, I find the seemingly obligatory condemnation of him to be tiresome too. The difference between Wolfram and his detractors on HN is that Wolfram (as well as clearly being very smart) invariably has something interesting to say.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#30

Post by pluteoid »

johnloeber wrote: post #6

Mixed feelings about this article: 1. A fine easy read about Ramanujan and Hardy. It was well-summarized and nicely written, with excellent pictures that I had not seen before. 2. A disgusting vein of self-promotion runs throughout the article. Much has been said about Stephan Wolfram's occasionally self-centered behavior, and many of his writings have a self-aggrandizing tone to them. Thus, I was pleasantly surprise…

My reaction to the article (even the end of it) was "wow, this is far less bombastic and egotistic than Stephen's normal writing, how refreshing." There are lots of books and articles purely about Ramanujan, why not offer something that's more of a personal reflection and interesting/relevant to Mathematica users? Maybe it only seemed good by contrast, but the level here of self-referencing his own background, work, products, interests didn't seem to me to be "disgusting", "extraordinarily annoying" or "deeply disappointing", it all seemed quite nicely tied in.
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