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Why the Fuck?

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: Why the Fuck?

#491

Post by shaunxcode »

I can only speak for myself: When I was younger I had nothing but the loftiest of goals. To implement the cybernetic fantasies that had been suggested to me either directly by my favorite authors, or by my imagination connecting the dots of how the world I longed to live in could exist.

I got older. I realized it was going to be nigh on impossible to get a large enough user base for anything of that sort to exist so I settled into a cycle of keeping a straight job whilst I focussed on tool refinement as a form of procrastination. "Once I have the perfect platform..."

I doubled down on my critical theory. Maybe once I REALLY understood what marx, beer, derrida, lacan, mcluhan, and debord were REALLY saying my next steps would be clear.

I became stuck. Entirely aware of the complexity and futility of the "all". For now I wait and attempt to inspire those around me to take a deeper look into their cybernetic heritage (past and future). Keep on refine, keep on read, keep on eval, keep on print.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#492

Post by raganwald »

chernevik wrote: post #486
raganwald wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shut up No. You can say that all you want, and I defy you. You're welcome to suggest that there is some better use of my time, but there is nothing more chilling to freedom of thought and expression than someone saying "That thought is too rude, too lame, to annoying, cuts too close," or whatever else and therefore cannot be uttered. It's like "Let he is without sin cast the first stone." That's a passive-aggressiv…

Would you prefer "stop posing"? You're complaining about social priorities that have arrived at tweetable pictures before diabetes management -- while noting you haven't the diligence to apply yourself to the problem. Well gee whiz I am just not sure I see the point of that particular statement. Except to put everyone on notice of your noble intentions. And as I noted, at length, it's my experience that this sort of…

No I would not prefer "stop posing." And all I see from your words is a deep commitment to being abrasive. If this is the way you wish to comport yourself here, I suggest you direct your words to others who will be more receptive to the style in which you choose to express yourself.

Plonk.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#493

Post by raganwald »

chernevik wrote: post #490
raganwald wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that some occasional rudeness to the vainly well-meaning isn't part of the solution. Let's grant that this may be the case in general regardless of whether it influences me personally. It's important to consider the net benefit or loss to a social environment. It could be that incivility does discourage some people from posting things you think are unhelpful or noisy. On the other hand, such incivility…

Neither of us know much of one another beyond what we've read here. I can tell you I've gone through a master class in earnest and civil argumentation, and discovered that it is not universally successful. Because many people, who say they mean well and actually believe they do, have unconsciously shaped the problems to arrive at those solutions most convenient to themselves. I have done this myself. This sort of sel…

I don't find your words annoying. But consider the difference between sending me an email that says, "Reg, that was a lame post," and saying the same thing on HN.

I hear the same message either way, but one of those also sends a signal--for better or for worse--to everyone else on HN.

As I joked on my twitter feed, I can hardly write a post titled "Why the fuck?" and get upset if people are profane in response. I tend to think of HN as a special case.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#494

Post by polshaw »

nirvana wrote: post #440
polshaw wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of how apple is on a noble quest to bring the personal computer to the poor of the world through the '$50 computer' that is an ipod shuffle is so far from reality in so many different ways that you are verging on a parody of yourself. I can't believe you seriously typed all that out and then submitted it.

It's a shame that you chose to ignore the point I was making, and instead post this snide, narrow minded response. Alas, this is typical of the anti-intellectualism that pervades hacker news these days. Of course the reason you did this is that you know what I say is true. You just are an apple hater and can't even admit that this is what they're doing. Also typical of hacker news: Burying comments that point out tha…

You are (thankfully!) not the sole decider of what is intellectual or not.

I attacked the frankly deluded points you made, addressing them directly, so i'm not sure what point you thought you were making. I made no counter argument because i thought it was too obvious to bother wasting my (and others') time when this submission wasn't even about apple anyway!, but since you insist;

Apple are a business (and a very good one, that makes great products and lots of money) not a charity or an NGO. They do not make literally unheard of profits and margins because they are 'struggling to find a way to address the low end' or 'bring computing to the other 6 billion'. Sorry, that is pure 'reality distortion field' delusion on your part. They have a valuable brand that does indeed intentionally place itself in the high end. Moreover, the ipod shuffle isn't even close to being the first DAP of it's kind, most of which (specifically this product) have a similar UX and are much cheaper. We haven't even got to the fact that this '$50 computer', that not only can't run any custom code, but actually requires another (real) computer to be able to do anything at all! Do i really have to go on any further?!? The first device that could be called a computer with any sanity at all would be the iPod touch.. which coincidentally is (from) the same 'not affordable' $300 you quoted for the actual PC. You might bring up that they sell the previous generation from $199, but care to mention acer's $199 chromebook? Or the ipad mini.. that pioneer.. ignoring the earlier, cheaper and equally capable nexus 7, or (much more relevantly for the 'next 6bn') the Chinese android tablets (and phones) that sell for much less still and achieve the same.

You are (thankfully!) not the sole decider of what is intellectual or not.

I attacked the frankly deluded points you made, addressing them directly, so i'm not sure what point you thought you were making. I made no counter argument because i thought it was too obvious to bother wasting my (and others') time when this submission wasn't even about apple anyway!, but since you insist;

Apple are a business (and a very good one, that makes great products and lots of money) not a charity or an NGO. They do not make literally unheard of profits and margins because they are 'struggling to find a way to address the low end' or 'bring computing to the other 6 billion'. Sorry, that is pure 'reality distortion field' delusion on your part. They have a valuable brand that does indeed intentionally place itself in the high end. Moreover, the ipod shuffle isn't even close to being the first DAP of it's kind, most of which (specifically this product) have a similar UX and are much cheaper. We haven't even got to the fact that this '$50 computer', that not only can't run any custom code, but actually requires another (real) computer to be able to do anything at all! Do i really have to go on any further?!? The first device that could be called a computer with any sanity at all would be the iPod touch.. which coincidentally is (from) the same 'not affordable' $300 you quoted for the actual PC. You might bring up that they sell the previous generation from $199, but care to mention acer's $199 chromebook? Or the ipad mini.. that pioneer.. ignoring the earlier, cheaper and equally capable nexus 7, or (much more relevantly for the 'next 6bn') the Chinese android tablets (and phones) that sell for much less still and achieve the same.

EDIT: I see further down you say you meant apple gained 'experience in low cost manufacturing' from the shuffle.. this isn't really true either as; there were many mass-market ipods before the shuffle (or even the macs themselves), they are not designed for lowest cost (eg. they are made of aluminium, not plastic), apple don't actually do any of the manufacturing anyway, and low cost manufacture does not infer a low cost product (nor does an expensive product exclude low cost manufacturing) and it is not really close in manufacturing terms to a full computing device. Apple have had the capacity to bring a masssss-market low cost computing device (in terms of 'low cost manufacturing experience', in whatever form factor) since at least the 2/3 gen iPod. You could argue the iPhone was relevant because it was their first post-PC device, but in no way the shuffle IMO.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#495

Post by failrate »

jthol wrote: post #365
ramanujan wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's go point by point. 1) Regarding diabetes and the FDA: I don't think removing the FDA is going to find a cure for diabetes. Well, before the FDA as such even existed, Banting and Best came up with the idea for insulin supplementation in 1921. A patient was treated by 1922. They won the Nobel Prize by 1923. Today's FDA would have made their methods completely impossible and they would have been criminally prosecu…

No one was arguing that point. The FDA does good things. The FDA does bad things. The question is whether the FDA is more helpful than harmful. I for one am happy that the FDA inspects my food and medicine and holds them to a standard of safety. On the other hand they do make some medical devices and advances overly expensive to make and create a barrier to entry into the market.

Sure, I am also happy that there is some regulatory body at all, but without consistent testing criteria and regulatory standards, it simply cannot be as effective.

I worked with a programmer who had designed a watch that had an array of sensors in it with a wireless device to relay the info to your computer automatically. It would have been great for marathoners or people with heart conditions. He wouldn't even start the process of getting it approved, because he was too intimidated by the FDA. That doesn't necessarily mean he was right, but the chilling effect is clear.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#496

Post by brudgers »

jacquesm wrote: post #450
brudgers wrote: post #378

My son doesn't trust my recommendations in books. It's justified. He'd been reading a fantasy series. I recommended Sword of Shanara . He thought it sucked. Fair. I thought it sucked when it came out. I was the same age. Yet, when I pulled Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the library last month, the title pulled him in. "Flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground" is a hit in middle-school. But that's…

You forgot about the electrician.

I remembered him.

I forgot to go to Wikipedia.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#497

Post by chernevik »

raganwald wrote: post #493
chernevik wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of us know much of one another beyond what we've read here. I can tell you I've gone through a master class in earnest and civil argumentation, and discovered that it is not universally successful. Because many people, who say they mean well and actually believe they do, have unconsciously shaped the problems to arrive at those solutions most convenient to themselves. I have done this myself. This sort of sel…

I don't find your words annoying. But consider the difference between sending me an email that says, "Reg, that was a lame post," and saying the same thing on HN. I hear the same message either way, but one of those also sends a signal--for better or for worse--to everyone else on HN. As I joked on my twitter feed, I can hardly write a post titled "Why the fuck?" and get upset if people are profane in response. I ten…

But there are also those who read the post and think ooh, me too.

Please don't mistake me, I think civility is really important. I'm just saying it isn't always the right rule. And I hope that, when I break it, I break not from anger or pique, but for effect.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#498

Post by DanBC »

raganwald wrote: post #484
chernevik wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I've been 25 years experimenting with it. If every person complaining the world should be better would take the time to visit with a mentally handicapped person, or wipe the drool off an Alzheimer patient's chin, or have coffee with the lonely dude in the corner -- the world _would_ be an enormously better place. Better than they dream. This is obvious. Also, that these things aren't sexy. Which leads to impli…

I am not sure that some occasional rudeness to the vainly well-meaning isn't part of the solution. Let's grant that this may be the case in general regardless of whether it influences me personally. It's important to consider the net benefit or loss to a social environment. It could be that incivility does discourage some people from posting things you think are unhelpful or noisy. On the other hand, such incivility…

Baffling that you mention the guidelines when your blog psot (although not submitted by you) had a tremendously link-baity title and had little of interest to say.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#499

Post by pbreit »

Maybe I misunderstood the post but my first reaction is "I hate this sentiment". I refuse to listen to anyone trivializing the good put forth by Google, Apple and Facebook. They may not be perfect (no entity is) but it is simply ridiculous to suggest these 3 companies are wasting human brilliance on things of comparatively little import.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#500

Post by pnathan »

bhickey wrote: post #21

Because research pays terribly and not everyone has the luxury of martyrdom. Want to be a grad student? 80-90% pay cut. (Unless you go to Switzerland and then it's closer to 70%). Want to be a university research programmer? 70% pay cut. Removing economic considerations, would I rather be researching auto-immune disease? Sure. But 'doing good' means compromises like buying a house at 45 instead of 35. No one asks doc…

This is a pretty fair summary. A badly-paid software engineer (BS in CS) makes a little under a PhD in CS at a university. Which is where I'm at right now, literally. :-)

Grad school pay for a CS PhD is about $20K-$30K, assuming full funding, not a good assumption.

Run the numbers when you move the wage bar down from the 70-110K down to 20-30K (almost certainly without spouse/family health insurance) for about 4-8 years; then the followon work at a University won't pay well. Think about how many people would leave 30-40K on the table to go work for a university instead of doing ads. While most people aren't aces at finance, they can do the basic math that this calculation involves. :-)

The key problem, of course, is that research structures in the US are not designed to be profit returning; if they were, they'd look different and the really off-the-wall stuff wouldn't be done.

I, of course, am stupid enough to have gone for a MS, and am planning on pursuing a PhD. Hopefully I can get a job afterwards.

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