Updating Your Utility Belt • Hacker News Board

Re: Updating Your Utility Belt

#41

Post by zbruhnke » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 6:13 AM UTC

skyebook wrote: post #40

zbruhnke wrote: post #36

I am the only one who read this article and immediately thought "Did he really have to worry that someone would try to make copies of his keys from a photo"?? Makes you kind of sad that people have to fear other people's cruel intentions so much

Would you leave a password or IP address unscrambled in a blog post? It doesn't seem unreasonable to obfuscate that which can be used against you, whether or not anyone actually will . I did wonder why not just take the keys out of the photo, but my guess is that it serves to show how bulky/not-bulky the stuff is.

it was not meant to be a knock on jeff at all, in fact I was impressed he thought of that, it was more of an observation, upon first seeing it I actually took a second look and had a thought about whether or not that's actually what he was doing

Re: Updating Your Utility Belt

#42

Post by uchi » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 6:19 AM UTC

I used to have an old Linux professor that taught class on the weekends. He was a network engineer at his day job and there was never a day where I didn't see him with his fisherman's vest. Every pocket was occupied with some weird gadget, and his zipper had a keychain bottle opener. He had a single pocket entirely dedicated to candy bars and always made sure it was properly stocked. The man practically never left his house without his emergency candy rations, and as far as I could tell he didn't have diabetes or anything.

I guess you never know when a candy bar might come in handy.

Re: Updating Your Utility Belt

#43

Post by btilly » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 6:42 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #9

btilly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure. I draw a joke distinction between a geek and a nerd like this. A geek is someone who loves technology and toys. A nerd is someone who gets utterly obsessed by a particular topic. I usually bring this up when explaining to a fellow programmer that I'm a nerd but not a geek. Which fact I then demonstrate by pulling out my flip phone. If they proceed to doubt that I am a nerd, I'll then offer to explai…

Seems like irrelevant categorizing that doesn’t make much sense and isn’t very useful. Who cares what you are in terms of dumb categories like that?

The categorizing is indeed irrelevant. However I find it useful as a way to explain to self-proclaimed geeks why I don't care about the things that they think geeks should care about.

If the programmers around me self-declared as nerds I would reverse the distinction. Because I don't care about the label at all. What I care about is concisely explaining why it is that you can find someone who is competent at programming who does not share a lot of the interests that they assume I should share.

Re: Updating Your Utility Belt

#44

Post by btilly » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 6:50 AM UTC

mkmkmmmmm wrote: post #18

btilly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure. I draw a joke distinction between a geek and a nerd like this. A geek is someone who loves technology and toys. A nerd is someone who gets utterly obsessed by a particular topic. I usually bring this up when explaining to a fellow programmer that I'm a nerd but not a geek. Which fact I then demonstrate by pulling out my flip phone. If they proceed to doubt that I am a nerd, I'll then offer to explai…

Do fellow programmers tend to back away slowly? :) Both words seem to be used to describe people that like specific categories of things but are unpopular or awkward. I refuse to be labeled with either regardless of any fine distinction in meaning. To me, what you are describing is like, "no I'm a douche , not an asshole." (I think you are neither, just an analogy.)

Do fellow programmers tend to back away slowly? :)

I have definitely left some in utter disbelief.

Among unpopular and awkward technical types, I stand out as being both awkward, and exceptionally extroverted. It is an interesting combination, though best observed from a distance. Kind of like a train wreck.

But you have to work with what you've got. And somehow it does seem to work out for me in real life.