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Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#51

Post by lazyjones »

BucketSort wrote: post #20
jhall1468 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus Torvalds is quirky and has an ego. Steven Wolfram is one of the most arrogant people I've ever read. It comes through in virtually every aspect of his writing. It's understood that people who are exceptional smart aren't always socially pleasant, but Wolfram is trying to raise that bar by quite a bit.

Could he be autistic or something? Usually people would know how they would be perceived if they were well socialized. In any case, it doesn't bother me. He thinks his work is of the utmost importance and wants to be in the annals of mathematics alongside Newton, Einstein, etc. He won't be, but let him have his fun. He's at least doing interesting things, unlike these unbearable celebrities that are incredibly dull,…

Relevant: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-ord...

;-)

By the way, he is in the annals of particle physics...

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#52

Post by dsr_ »

BucketSort wrote: post #20
jhall1468 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus Torvalds is quirky and has an ego. Steven Wolfram is one of the most arrogant people I've ever read. It comes through in virtually every aspect of his writing. It's understood that people who are exceptional smart aren't always socially pleasant, but Wolfram is trying to raise that bar by quite a bit.

Could he be autistic or something? Usually people would know how they would be perceived if they were well socialized. In any case, it doesn't bother me. He thinks his work is of the utmost importance and wants to be in the annals of mathematics alongside Newton, Einstein, etc. He won't be, but let him have his fun. He's at least doing interesting things, unlike these unbearable celebrities that are incredibly dull,…

He might be, but none of the spectrum people I know have an ego like Wolfram's.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#55

Post by foxhop »

oh_sigh wrote: post #25
ericsoderstrom wrote: post #21

Any idea what the "roll-around mouse" thing is that he mentions? The only Google results for that phrase are cat toys

Old-school non-optical mouse

Did you know even the old-school computer mouse uses light to work?

The new school just don't have a mechanical component of a ball and two rollers which spin two separate "gears" which blocks light and then math to figure out the horizontal change + vertical change.

I found that pretty neat when I learned. (I'm old enough to remember the pains of using a gunked up ball mouse.)

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#56

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

nategri wrote: post #34
lettergram wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty much do this daily for everything. If I don’t interact with it in a year, it’s fine to throw away next house cleaning. So if I walk by, it goes out. Often “going out” means sold on Craigs list or eBay, but still. I kind of force myself to do it, because deep down I think we are all pack rats. It’s in our nature to want to keep things “just in case”, but we live in a world where we can get anything with a few…

> It’s in our nature to want to keep things “just in case”, but we live in a world where we can get anything with a few clicks. So why? Um, money?

Environment?

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#58

Post by yesenadam »

mlevental wrote: post #43
booleandilemma wrote: post #26

What’s HN’s opinion of Stephen Wolfram? Is he legit? Is the tome A New Kind of Science worth reading?

on NKOS: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

Thank you! That's a great review - long, well-informed, savage yet trying to be fair; totally accurate as far as I could tell, although the criticisms seemed far weaker in places. Lots of good links too. ... 168 other long reviews by Cosma Shalizi on that site, and a lot of other stuff. I hadn't heard the name before, thanks again.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#59

Post by hjk05 »

jhall1468 wrote: post #17
BucketSort wrote: post #13

Say what you want about Wolfram, he's a brilliant guy. Brilliant people often have strange quirks and egos, but that's just a part of being them. Also, this account has only posted links about Wolfram. Is it him or an assistant?

Linus Torvalds is quirky and has an ego. Steven Wolfram is one of the most arrogant people I've ever read. It comes through in virtually every aspect of his writing. It's understood that people who are exceptional smart aren't always socially pleasant, but Wolfram is trying to raise that bar by quite a bit.

Who cares if he’s arrogant? Linux is a mean bastard and Stallman is a weirdo who eats stuff of his feet during interviews. None of these people are well balanced great guys you’d take to the pub to watch football, but that’s not why their impressive in what they do and accomplish.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#60

Post by ballooney »

adwhit wrote: post #48
ballooney wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do and ignore dang. It’s important to remind people.

Interesting how when it was top-voted comment it read more as the light-hearted poking of fun which I intended (I really have no problem with Wolfram, I think he's funny). But now it has been demoted to the bottom of the thread it has started getting lots of downvotes and somehow reads (even to me) as being mean and bitter. Curious example of how the thread position/reaction of others really primes how we receive a c…

un-self-aware self belief is a commodity to exploit for the people who pay dang, just like our continued engagement with this forum. There is commercial value in engineering the tone of the discussion, artificially or otherwise. Your perception is the desired outcome.
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