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People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

blog.figuringshitout.com

11–20 of 31 posts

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#12
post #5

quantity != quality, being smarter isn't about how many smart things you say, but about how smart each of them are.

Then there's the problem of the person who only says 1 thing, but it is brilliant. How about quality*quantity?

quality*quantity would support my claim. Personally, I think something like the h-index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_number) would be most appropriate. A person is n smart if he's said at least n things of n units of smartness :).

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#13
post #8

After figuring Shit out, let's hope the author figures out how to scale this website.

I'm at a loss at this point. The server's been hit with higher loads than this and survived fine. It's running Wordpress on Apache on a 512MB slice, there's no reason it should be this slow. Just rebooted it and it's still slow. If you want to help me debug it, my AIM username is the same as my HN one.

Could you post the text of the article here, seeing as the server is down? I, and I'm sure others, haven't had the chance to read it yet...

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#14
post #8

After figuring Shit out, let's hope the author figures out how to scale this website.

I'm at a loss at this point. The server's been hit with higher loads than this and survived fine. It's running Wordpress on Apache on a 512MB slice, there's no reason it should be this slow. Just rebooted it and it's still slow. If you want to help me debug it, my AIM username is the same as my HN one.

Make sure it's not swapping. Protect yourself against CGI-related memory leaks by making MaxRequestsPerChild small but non-zero. Revert any changes you made to various Apache limits (esp. thread or socket related) before the problem began. Turn off any other services.

If all else fails, add a redirect to all clients except the CoralCDN itself to the CoralCDN. (See instructions at http://wiki.coralcdn.org/wiki.php?n=Main.Servers >.)

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at a loss at this point. The server's been hit with higher loads than this and survived fine. It's running Wordpress on Apache on a 512MB slice, there's no reason it should be this slow. Just rebooted it and it's still slow. If you want to help me debug it, my AIM username is the same as my HN one.

Could you post the text of the article here, seeing as the server is down? I, and I'm sure others, haven't had the chance to read it yet...

[deleted]

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#16
Text of the article until I can get my blog back online:

I used to think that the point of editing was to eliminate all of the poor writing from an article so only strong arguments remained. It wasn’t until I started writing this blog that I began to appreciate how much good content routinely gets cut from the final product. Ideas will get cut if they detract from the focus of the piece, if there’s no logical place to put them anymore, some are even cut because they’re too interesting and merit their own separate post. I even cut a good line from the end of this paragraph because it wasn’t the appropriate sentence to close a paragraph with.

Of every post I write, I estimate that I cut two good lines for every one good line that makes it into the final piece.What this means is that if you’re reading a piece of writing that you think is pitched at your level, the writer had to be three times smarter than you to have written it. Similarly, I noticed that when I was speaking, I would only say about half of the clever stuff I wanted to say which meant anyone talking to me was probably twice as smart as I think they are.

This is, perhaps, why the internet is so full of assholes who think they’re the smartest person in the room. If you have a look at the comment section of almost any piece of content, at least half the comments tend to be some snide implication that the commenter is smarter than the author. Next time you read something, mentally assume that the author is three times as smart as they appear and think of how you would respond then. All I can say is ever since I started doing that, I’ve not only been far calmer, I’ve learned much more too.

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#17
post #11

hah. really? when I met my now-girlfriend for the first time, she said "wow, you are a lot less articulate in person"

Did you meet online? If so, that would make sense according to this article, since she would observe you being a third less smart.

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#18
post #17
post #11

hah. really? when I met my now-girlfriend for the first time, she said "wow, you are a lot less articulate in person"

Did you meet online? If so, that would make sense according to this article, since she would observe you being a third less smart.

I become much less articulate when I'm talking than when I'm chatting. I chat quickly, much more quickly than than most of the people I chat with, but there's still that extra second, second and a half to gather the thought and frame it properly. Even my jokes get funnier.

Re: People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write

#20
post #17
post #11

hah. really? when I met my now-girlfriend for the first time, she said "wow, you are a lot less articulate in person"

Did you meet online? If so, that would make sense according to this article, since she would observe you being a third less smart.

yeah, on a mailing list. but if I'm twice as smart as I talk and three times as smart as I write, then assuming my IQ is constant, I would seem dumber if you read what I wrote (as it is 1/3rd my actual capacity) than if you listen to me talk, (as that is 1/2 my capacity.)

But that's just a dumb joke. As for the article, I think it misses the point... writing and talking are quite different. (and writing in different mediums is different) - But when you write, you have a chance to strike out all the really stupid shit you said, before hitting send.

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