Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why the Fuck?

raganwald.posterous.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 528 posts

Re: Why the Fuck?

#151

Post by jlgreco »

Falling3 wrote: post #118
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

Very well said. And the hypocrisy cry is just an ad hominem fallacy.

The hypocrisy cry is only an ad hominen fallacy if we are saying that he is wrong because he is a hypocrite. If the accusation is not part of a presumably logical argument, then the accusation does not constitute a logical fallacy.

If I am sitting down for a nice steak dinner with someone and they start telling me that I shouldn't eat meat because of cruelty in modern cattle farming, I'm not going to accuse them of being wrong... but I am going to tell them to shut the hell up. Nobody likes hypocritical whining.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#152

Post by Mz »

Hey, dude, I will probably make money from a webcomic at some point. People like it when I am cute and funny. No one wants my "cure"* for cystic fibrosis. So I will likely pay the bills by making people laugh, then sereptitiously slip the health thingy under the door while folks aren't looking.

Chill. Life is more convoluted than you seem to think. For example, fiction is how humankind dreams up the future. We collectively write about things like traveling to the moon long before we do them. There are no small problems. Go watch the movie "It's a wonderful life", examine your bellybutton more privately for a bit, get laid or drunk or loose. Come back fresh.

Happy New Year.

* Not a cure, a means to be healthy in spite of the defect. Quibbling detail which everyone misses.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#153

Post by ciupicri »

raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

Regarding smoking, I doubt there's any smoker who doesn't know about all the warnings and possible issues. By the way, some of them smoke for the sheer pleasure of doing it (aroma, gesture etc.), not necessarily because they're addicted.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#154

Post by sskates »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #121
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

Your point about hypocrisy is something I have thought myself- Being a hypocrite doesn't make your argument wrong by default, and it's strange that we instantly act like it does. There must be some reason we act this way, does anyone have a good explanation?

If someone claims that "you should always do X" and then proceeds to do Y, isn't the fact that they did Y evidence that "always do X" isn't a good rule?

Re: Why the Fuck?

#155

Post by snitko »

The incentives are in the wrong place. It's not that entrepreneurs don't want to work on important things, but rather that important things are regulated by the government. Good luck waiting 2+ years and spending millions waiting for your blood sugar measuring device approved by the FDA. It pays to work on Facebook-like things because government has not yet spoiled the internet with endless expensive regulations.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#156

Post by amix »

untog wrote: post #69

"Reginald Braithwaite is a software developer at Leanpub, where he and his colleagues take the friction out of writing and selling books" Why the fuck are the greatest minds of our generation toiling away on a book publishing platform? Oh, right, because you think it's important. Guess what- we all have different opinions. Is book publishing more important than dating? Before you laugh, think about it- finding someon…

There's an old saying that applies to this: Don't throw with stones when you live in a glasshouse. I can't really give much respect to people that don't follow their own advice and that rant with profanity at people that make a difference in the world to at least 1 billion people (Google and FB combined).

Re: Why the Fuck?

#157

Post by rtkwe »

nirvana wrote: post #130

I can't speak to the other companies, though I know google want's "all the worlds info at your fingertips" which is a reasonably high ideal... I can speak to what Apple is doing as someone whose followed the company closely for a couple decades. Apple doesn't care whether you buy the 3.5", 4.0", 7.85", or 9.8" screen. Apple is bringing the personal computer to the 6 billion other people who weren't able to get in on…

> Instead, Apple put a $50 computer in peoples hands- the iPod shuffle. Sure, it might not be as full featured as a laptop, but you have to walk before you can run.

Lets draw a line between a device like the Shuffle and a general purpose computer. Apple is creating devices for consuming media not for creating which I think is the more important goal. For actually creating and learning there are much better devices than what Apple is putting out, and much cheaper. See the Pi or any number of similar devices.

Also dismissing (windows) netbooks as unusable is short sighted, also they've improved greatly since they were first introduced. For all the problems with these devices they're still fully functional computers which don't rely on Apple to decide what you should be able to run.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#158

Post by [deleted] »

hackingla wrote: post #143
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

"I'm not smart enough" - this is not an excuse. I have no education, no college etc... and I created software that generates meal plans according to my Crohn's symptoms (made it from my hospital bed at SF General) and now I am off all my meds. Made an app for a friend that helped her identify that she had a Gluten allergy (later verified by doctor) And right now I am working on a way to help match patients and doctor…

[deleted]

Re: Why the Fuck?

#159

Post by chm »

TheSilentMan wrote: post #76
benihana wrote: post #58

Oh goodie, another arrogant whine by raganwald where he can't understand why the greatest minds (implying people writing code are somehow the greatest minds) aren't doing what he thinks is important. This post makes two incorrect assumptions. First, that the things he derides (Google automating targeted content, Facebook introducing new search features that are tangential to their current features, Apple changing for…

Not to mention the assumption that developers working for Google or Facebook would make good bio-medical engineers.

This.

I am a chemistry grad student. There are tons of absolutely brilliant people doing hardcore science all over the globe. You just don't hear about them. Even top researchers in a field are only known by some hundred other researchers who do related work.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#160

Post by jacquesm »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #128
glesica wrote: post #37

To launch a Facebook clone you sign up for Heroku or AWS, push some Rails code, and start promoting yourself. To launch a medical device you spend years cutting through regulation and red tape, negotiating with and marketing to an industry that is probably threatened by your existence and will do its best to stop you. Screw up at Facebook, you get yelled at on Twitter and your share price dips for a few days. Screw u…

. To launch a medical device you spend years cutting through regulation and red tape, negotiating with and marketing to an industry that is probably threatened by your existence and will do its best to stop you. I know someone, kind of financially successful, who swears by everything that his team developed a cure for AIDS, but they found out after years of politics that they will never get approval from legal entiti…

If true that's so outrageous you can count on me to work really hard for free on their behalf to get the word out.

Can you put me in contact with them?

Post reply on HN