This whole thread is amazing. Thank you for posting it.
Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
51–60 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#52Sometimes, but I keep that saying, "Never meet your heroes." in mind.
What's the lesson in this saying?
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#53Sometimes, but I keep that saying, "Never meet your heroes." in mind.
What's the lesson in this saying?
That it's easy to 'like' someone based on their public persona - what the media reports, how they come across in blog posts, or how they seem on social media.
But in reality, some people are nothing like what their public image suggests (i.e. they might actually be fairly unfriendly, negative, unwelcoming etc).
Of course, that 'hero' might also just be having a bad day or was feeling tired when their fans approached them - which is sort of a flaw in the whole "never meet your heroes" idea.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#54Receive stars at github repo: great.
Receive stars + thankful email: touching.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#55I sometimes email open source authors to thank them for their efforts, I don't ask for anything, just an email to show gratification. I'm more inclined to go to this effort for the projects that are highly useful but not popular since as an author of such a project it is possible to have doubts if benefits from it when you go a long time with no outside feedback at all. The few times people have contacted us with pro…
Especially because some open source projects ecosystems suffer from users who demand the world from the author(s) and throw a tantrum if they ain’t getting it. In those toxic communities it really helps to stand up for the authors and appreciate them, even when they’ve developed thick skins.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#56Yes. I did. She have now been my girlfriend for around six years.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#57Yes I do.
I have changed where I live. I didn't have that many people in my life regardless - but it doesn't take much to see how isolated I've become, so any kind of _socialising_ is helpful in my quest to not go insane.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#58Unfortunately my Ph.D. supervisor died before I was able to tell him how profoundly his views and criticisms impacted my intellectual life. He was one of those hypercritical people for whom "it's okay" meant more or less the highest praise, both for himself and others. This made him a number of enemies, I believe, and for me, as a Ph.D. student, that attitude could be kind of demotivating at times. However, in retros…
It seems fairly obvious that linguistics is a very imprecise science, what field were you in that that statement offended you?... Was it linguistics?
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#59I do this sometimes, but I don't email the people. It's a personal exercise. It was recommended to me by a therapist. While it does lift up my spirits and fill me gratitude and compassion, it'd make me feel worse if the person on the other side didn't respond for whatever reason... You've been lucky with your reply rate so far.
I like the idea, though. I'll give it a shot at sending them in the future.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?
#60I just emailed linus torvalds after reading this thread.
Thanks for remind me.