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Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

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Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#251

Post by Clubber »

Fnoord wrote: post #144
DoreenMichele wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not. Discussions about something he has said or written seem…

> From what I gather, some of this cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. I've heard this blunt(/direct/honest) argument quite often (and the same about my country, The Netherlands), but I've also seen Americans in IT who can be very blunt. I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum.

I'm not autistic but I'm blunt. I do it for a few reasons: 1. It's important, 2. It saves time, 3. It gets to the point, 4. I'm usually aggravated about something, 5. Some people like to dance around conversations, 6. I'm older now, so I don't suffer fools lightly, 7. It usually snaps people to attention instead of some half thought out reply.

I used to try to be tactful with everything I would say, but that ended up in a 4 hour discussion / argument with someone who was digging in their heels about something they were wrong about. Huge waste of time and energy. It would blow a whole day.

When someone is being blunt with me, I take the time to make sure my response is clear and concise. It certainly has it's advantages. I try to keep the swears to a minimum. I'm not a drill sergeant, but I definitely make my point clearly and forcefully.

FWIW, I save the bluntness for important stuff.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#252

Post by icelancer »

matt4077 wrote: post #128

I get that Linus is adored for "rejecting political correctness" or "speaking truth to power", but this email just shows how little such rants can achieve: he makes almost no argument, relying on his authority instead. i'm actually not quite sure what he's trying to achieve... There's no chance that a patch will make it into the kernel against his objections, so he doesn't really need to convince anybody. If he's try…

>> But there's a reason this style isn't used more often in politics/law/philosophy or any other profession trying to change peoples' minds: it really doesn't work.

The United States has a president who literally just did that for an entire year.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#253

Post by AHTERIX5000 »

askvictor wrote: post #103
dang wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that. We've observed over the years that celebrity names in titles tend to make for poorer discussion. HN is better when the focus is on content rather than personalities. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Edit: ok, you guys have convinced me that this is a special case and we've put Linus back in the title above.

But it would certainly be good to have some context on the quote (i.e. that it has to do with Linux, Intel and Meltdown)

Yeah, now the title is more clickbaity

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#254

Post by hammock »

sametmax wrote: post #201
bassman9000 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should treasure it while it lasts, before PC culture silences him. And before downvoting, recall how many threads regarding Linus abusive behavior (sic) we've had.

Well, if the Linux Kernel would have been a democracy, it would not have the aspect it has today. It's a sad thing to say about the state of the human specie.

Who said anything about democracy? The whole approach of private enterprise is to build up barriers (competitive advantage) AGAINST the prevailing tide. That's how positive change (differentiated goods, wealth) is created.

The same can be said of free speech.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#257

Post by piyush_soni »

icelancer wrote: post #242
piyush_soni wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a Linus who doesn't yell at people will be any day better than having one who abuses others at will. He needs to take anger management classes. We could seriously do with a little less high-headedness in the world.

>> Having a Linus who doesn't yell at people And having my cake and eating it too in every scenario would be great. That's not how things work all the time. It's up to you to deal with it, not Linus to change. He's the scarce resource. He has the leverage. You're just someone on the Internet mad.

Again, your understanding is that intelligent people have the right to abuse. That's just akin to supporting oppression of weaker by stronger. That might be how things are for a lot of people, but not how they should be. Also, mad internet people have historically changed a lot of things, so I'm justified in showing my disapproval even if it won't change Linus. Changing at least one upcoming Linus in life would be a good enough goal.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#258

Post by _ikke_ »

lucb1e wrote: post #89
ryanlol wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any people who care about what the “technology media” says?

I do. I don't know Bloomberg or The Economist that well, but translating the media brands to Dutch ones, I'd definitely care more what Tweakers.net says about something than NOS - tech news versus general news. I know there are a few people at Tweakers who truly understand technology (like, they can probably write code) whereas at NOS you'd be happy if they explain the word "ransomware" correctly.

Fun fact: one of the tech journalists at the NOS (Joost Schellevis) worked for tweakers.net

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#259

Post by Gravityloss »

slii wrote: post #211
DoreenMichele wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not. Discussions about something he has said or written seem…

As a fellow Finn, I agree that our country is probably much more blunt and direct than the impression I get how the US works. That's also the way I like it, and I think you have gone way too far in the US in this politeness thing. However, Finland is culturally quite homogeneous, so I think the reason behind the bluntness is not what you suggest it may be. For a Finn, I think Linus is on the blunt side, but he's not…

There could be a family flavor too. His father doesn't exactly make things sound pretty either.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#260

Post by jhoechtl »

mrmondo wrote: post #8

I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…

I full agree with your sentiment.

I also see Intel lawyers working overtime, closely interacting with marketing, to somehow ward of lawsuits coming from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, which must be seeking ways out of Intel contracts to turn towards AMD processors for their currently more attractive TCO characteristics.

Could be the end of Intel as we know it.

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