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Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

vole.wtf

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Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

#53

Post by joelegner »

neilv wrote: post #34

I know it's a silly game, but I'm slightly uneasy with it. If you remember a time when programming computers was considered nerdy, in a socially discouraged and mocked kind of way (until it became big money)... a game of guessing whether a photo is of a serial killer or a computer programming nerd... might seem a little abusive.

Another interpretation is that the portraits communicate essentially zero information about the subject. No information means no way to differentiate beyond the absolute basic facts: male, age such and such, seems to be wearing western clothes, things like that. No information means no way to shade probabilities. You might as well flip a coin.

Or this way: Serial killers look like random people, just as programming language inventors look like random people.

Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

#54

Post by neilv »

joelegner wrote: post #53
neilv wrote: post #34

I know it's a silly game, but I'm slightly uneasy with it. If you remember a time when programming computers was considered nerdy, in a socially discouraged and mocked kind of way (until it became big money)... a game of guessing whether a photo is of a serial killer or a computer programming nerd... might seem a little abusive.

Another interpretation is that the portraits communicate essentially zero information about the subject. No information means no way to differentiate beyond the absolute basic facts: male, age such and such, seems to be wearing western clothes, things like that. No information means no way to shade probabilities. You might as well flip a coin. Or this way: Serial killers look like random people, just as programming l…

If that were the goal, wouldn't a diversity of obviously nigh-saintly people in the mix... be better than focusing on a historically maligned group?

Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

#56

Post by sn41 »

yowzadave wrote: post #9

I like this because I like to flatter myself that I have a good intuition about people after seeing them, and this shows that I’m completely wrong about that—barely better than random.

Probably you are still right. Seeing a photograph is different from seeing a person in real animated life. I guess there are micro expressions, the way people laugh, and the exact point at which people laugh and such that some people are really good at reading, but it is hard to articulate what exactly the process of interpretation is.

Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

#60

Post by lo_zamoyski »

neilv wrote: post #50
an_aparallel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kind of agree - its the same "humour" which devolved TV like big bang theory into canned laughter shit-shows - poking fun of "virgin nerds" (which make bank).

And worse. When, say, GvR was a kid, it was normal in many schools for nerds to be bullied. Imagine someone doing this game back then, in that context, passing it around school (before cyberbullying), and it'd be pretty nasty. We can say "but computer programming is OK, now that it's a status career that rich kids have blessed as cool, and kids don't get bullied like that in school so much, so now it's funny in a non…

It sounds like you're the one doing the punching down by tacitly assuming that who write software are or were wimpy, creepy nerds. If that's not a stereotype, than I don't know what is.

And trust me, there are plenty of bullies in tech.

Don't worry. There's no one needing to be rescued here.

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