231–240 of 365 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, his e-mail wouldn't show up inside a multimedia central in a car.
It does, in the copyright section.
As somebody who has written to companies about bugs in their products (and almost always ignored), I would really appreciate a response even if it was some form letter thing to the effect of "I just make a small component that happens to be used in your car, kind of like the people who make the screws in your car. Please contact your car manufacturer directly." I personally just like knowing somebody read my letter i…
They wrote me back! Not with the music, but an apology saying they didn't have the music score to send out. As an adult, I get it.. and I also have to say as a kid I was elated to receive a response back from the company. I didn't really expect to hear back from them at all.
I'm conflicted about this but I realize the bigger company has limitations. And a small shop has even more limitations. I get both sides.
> I am using in a new Ford Mondeo the navigation system with SD Card FM5T-19H449-FC Europe F4. I can read the card but not write on it. I want to add to the card some POI´s. Can you help me to do it? Sounds like somebody has the write-protection 'clicky-thing' in the wrong place. If I had a penny for every time this has caught me out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an Armenian living in Texas and his communication is completely acceptable to me. If anything the standard American corporate professional speak pisses me off when matters get serious. Why don't we embrace that different things work for different people and there is no communication standard to be imposed per continent or even culture?
I think you're conflating corporatespeak/not being direct with being rude. Compare these three statements: "There's a problem with the function you wrote. I need you to fix it tonight." "The function you wrote is non-optimal for our goals. Please reconsider and reevaluate when you get a chance." "You fucked up that function. Fix up your shit NOW." The first is "standard professionalspeak." It's clear, direct, gets th…
Talking about language without context is meaningless and so I try not to judge Linus off of a few publicly available emails. My Australian friends will refer to each other with language that is shocking to me as an American, but I acknowledge the context aound it and don't write them off as assholes because of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're confusing being a jerk with communication styles and cultural differences. You'd never hire anyone from the American inner city, from parts of Scotland and Ireland, parts of New York, and similar. Some very nice people talk loudly, swear, and use politically incorrect language. This is part of the reason some URMs can't get ahead in US corporate culture. Yes, Linus does swear a lot, and uses aggressive languag…
Your argument is shit. (Another Linus quote) And here's why. "I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice per…
"people who get offended should be offended"
He's saying that if you want to join the team, you should have a thick skin. It's his prerogative as project leader. Maybe in his view there's a correlation between thick skin and the abilities required for a kernel hacker.
"doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system."
The objective to make a solid kernel is above your feelings, his feeling and anybody else's feelings.
"I don't care"
Same as above: the kernel is above you.
Maybe the harsh language is a good filter. I'm sure there's less politics in the organization with a direct language vs. euphemisms for everything. Kernel programing is harsh.
I usually break E-mail addresses into the following categories: Monolithic. That one email address you put on business cards, hand out at conferences, post in public forums. Basically a catch-all that quickly becomes a firehose for spam and bacn[1] but every now and then you get an actual reachout as described in this post. They are infact gems when you get them, and always remind me how precious E-mail, as a loose s…
I use a catch-all domain, and every site/business gets its own @example.com. For business cards and friends I use something like myname@ or contact@ When one businesses address starts getting spam I blackhole it. Similar to the + suffix trick but works on any site.
Just make sure you renew the domain and maintain ownership. Even if the domain provider says they'll ensure ownership after expiration, I don't trust that they will. Assume the domain is ripe for new ownership by somebody else once it expires.
There are services like Mark Monitor which address this issue, but they are prohibitively expensive and only useful for large enterprise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's this bizarre thing going on on HN, reddit, and other tech sites. We saw it with Linus and we see it again with Trump. Suddenly, all these people are making excuses for terrible behaviors and outrageous claims. Usually following a "he didn't really mean that" playbook of justifications like "productivity" or "politics" like either excuses acting like a child. Why are we afraid to call people out on the shit th…
It's not about political correctness. It's about what these people make you feel, and how you respond to it. People want to believe that somebody whom they like on one score - Linus's technical achievements, Donald Trump's ability to empathize with the working class and the poor - are likable on all scores. It's much like the classic literary 'harsh father' figure - he may beat you, he may be strict, he may never sho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to get shit flung at you to know it's offensive.
Policing other people's interactions without the consent of any involved party is pure paternalism. What you think is shit being flung might be Tootsie Rolls to them, and it is not our place to tell these people how they have to feel.
In terms of profanity, if someone says "man, I had a really shitty day today", that's not really harmful and doesn't have significant consequences. But when someone says "you are a real piece of shit", that is harmful, and does have consequences. It doesn't even matter how the recipient felt. The giver had an intent of harm that was driven probably by anger.
It's the verbal equivalent to punching someone in the nose. The aggressor got angry and they wanted to inflict pain, in order to try to affect change to a scenario or thing they wanted to be different (that's what anger is). And regardless of whether the recipient was hurt, we as a society say that letting out your anger at someone in this way is not acceptable, that you are not allowed to try to injure someone, whether they felt it or not. Obviously our laws are a lot more lax about speech than about physicality, but it's the exact same concept just in different mediums.
A woman may receive a sexist comment and not be bothered. But we agree not to tolerate it, whether or not she was bothered by it, because the concept, and the intention, are simply not acceptable in our society. The point is not to tell her what to feel, but to enforce our moral values as a society. If you don't like that, fuck you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linus' rudeness is not culture but an abandonement thereof. For being influential he should only be held to a higher standard. His bad example should certainly not be followed. Sincerely, your friendly non-native English co-speaker.
Has Linus ever been rude to you? Have any of your friends complained about taking the brunt of his rudeness? If so, that would be really interesting. From what I've seen, there is basically nobody who has actually complained, "Linus was rude to me." It seems to be a meme that consists almost entirely of putting words in other people's mouths.
For what it's worth, coworkers have pointed out to me how much of a bully Linus has been. I'm not sure it matters that the bullying wasn't directed at them. Bullying is still bullying.
To put it another way, would you want your manager to speak to you how Linus spoke to Mauro? Even if it was deserved?
Linus also doubles down and insists it's ok: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus-...
We have civility rules on HN for a reason, for example. I don't think civility is artificial in the ways that Linus is saying. You can be courteous to someone you're in command of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get something similar. I was an early adopter of a popular email service, so I managed to get @ .com. Pretty neat, pretty simple, right? Except I have a really common name, and people seem think that if the email address has their name in it, it must be their email address. I get sign-ups for Facebook all the time. I get emails about credit scores that make me panic until I realize I didn't sign up for that service…
I'm amazed how many people get their email address wrong. I have . @gmail.com, which is fine, and hardly gets any mail meant for someone else. @gmail.com however, is basically unusable. Funny thing is, the latter was the one I created first, but I forgot the password so had to create the other. I managed to recover it later and I'm glad I have the former.