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I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

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Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#291

Post by leoc »

pekk wrote: post #112
stdbrouw wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does look pretty good, until you realize he doesn't list any real previous job experience anywhere.

Which is the worst, unforgivable sin (even worse than being old). It doesn't matter what you have done, if there is no corporation to witness to your ability and you do not have a fresh face. Hence "entry-level" positions requiring 5 years of experience, and yet you are unemployable forever if you don't have a job within 5 years of graduating. It might as well be law.

Apparently one reason that Valve did do well for themselves was that they were something like the first to seek out and hire modders rather than just new grads and gaming-industry made men. Naturally they were looking for the best, most accomplished modders but at the time they had their pick of them.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#292

Post by freshhawk »

rbanffy wrote: post #269
freshhawk wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if [the] audience thinks you are trolling, you are" Really? I thought the entire definition of trolling was based on intent. Trolling is trying to provoke a reaction from people. By your definition a significant percentage of the world is trolling the anti-vax and truther communities for example. And many mentally ill people who comment online are trolls instead of just being mistaken for them? This definition seems…

> a significant percentage of the world is trolling the anti-vax and truther communities for example You don't go to an anti-vax or truther community to remind them how crazy they are. When we consider mental conditions, it may be that some people have compulsive troll disorder or something to that effect.

My point about anti-vax or truthers is that they often think people who disagree with them are trolling them, and under this definition that means they are. That seems ridiculous to me.

As for mental conditions, that's another definition that seems inconsistent. I thought trolling was trying to provoke a reaction by being obnoxious or acting stupid or acting mentally ill. I thought the whole point of trolling was that you mostly can't tell if you are being trolled or not. Similar to Poe's law.

A definition of trolling that labels anyone who provokes a negative reaction from a community for any reason, like actually being mentally ill or actually being very ignorant seems overly broad. You just put weev in the same category as someone extremely technically illiterate who asks a stupid question on yahoo answers.

Now you just have a synonym for "annoying" or "irritating".

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#294

Post by avenger123 »

jpwgarrison wrote: post #255
Beanis wrote: post #201

I interviewed/phone screened Xah Lee about 2 years ago. I'd never heard of him, so I skimmed over his resume and checked out his site an hour or two before the call. I remember when I was looking at his site I was seeing various articles around math and programming, and then articles about things like "2 girls 1 cup". The breadth of articles completely threw me off. He seemed to have this unfocused interest in EVERYT…

>"...internal feedback..." Not so internal anymore! Don't get me wrong, I read your comment with interest, but then was struck with how we are talking about him as if he _was_ dead. Apparently he likes his life to be public but actual job interviews somehow strike me as private.

This is a total gray area at this point. I had no idea who this guy was before this post and now I know more about him than some of my close friends and all by his own admission. I'm glad Beanis added his viewpoint, it doesn't give too much away but provides a more nuanced understanding of what the issues are for this guy who is obviously technically very capable.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#295

Post by klibertp »

rbanffy wrote: post #275
iloveponies wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a degreeless, high school drop out who works for a very large corporation that's not the case. In a time where many are screaming about shortages in skilled IT people, mandating a degree is only going to narrow the already small pool of possible candidates down even further for no explicable gain. Many job advertisements I've seen will say "degree or relative experience", the latter being the key part here.

A degree is a proxy. A recruiter without specific knowledge cannot assess a developer's technical abilities in any meaningful way (even an extremely experienced developer can't reliably do so). The degree implies a school continuously assessed the individual abilities over the course of several years and found them acceptable enough to issue the degree. A degree offsets responsibility from the recruiter to the school…

> offsets responsibility from the recruiter

Also from the potential hire himself. It's not that he sucks, his college didn't prepare him for this new role. It's not his lack of passion and really any deep interest in the craft, it's just that he had wrong lecturers, also most of them even weren't there to lecture most of the time, so what can you expect?

So now we can hire him and train him for a year or more, because without it he's completely useless, but that's ok, because he's just like we expect him to be. On the other hand, this one here who was willing to take all the responsibility for himself, who's eager to prove his actual skill doing useful things, he's too dangerous, because... What? Because he could actually end up doing something, and then we'd feel bad?

I'm not saying what you say is wrong, like in untrue, but I can't help but feel it's somehow unfair.

> a school continuously assessed the individual abilities over the course of several years

Yeah. Some abilities. That differs from person to person and from college to college, but these abilities may or may not be the ones you want to optimize for.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#296

Post by calbear81 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #195
DanBC wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says that he has earnt less than $1000 per year. Later on he says his monthly rent is $1300 per month. I'm not sure how to resolve that.

That's a good point, I took it to mean that he's been slowly draining savings and his 401k.

Distributions from his 401K would count as income and he would receive a 1099 to file and report.

What doesn't make sense to me is that if he's as poor as he claims, he may actually qualify for a lot of assistance in the form of earned income tax credit, food stamps, section 8 housing eligibility, etc.

I'm not qualified to judge his past behavior or what not but by looking at his bank statement, he doesn't seem to be spending his money wisely. I live a few blocks from him so I recognize those places. Rotten Robbies is a gas station which usually means overpriced groceries and sundries.

If he has the ability to work, he could invest the rest of his money into renting a car and then driving for Uber or Lyft. Uber is guaranteeing $40+ per hour for 6 months which is a hell of a lot more than you make as a dishwasher. The only consideration is if he can keep a 4.9+ rating out of 5.0 which seems like a stretch from someone who may be having problems.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#298

Post by brudgers »

Beanis wrote: post #289
brudgers wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people take a while to warm up to a conversation. Some people are cagey. Some just don't know how to dance the phone interview minuet. The conversation didn't follow the script in the interviewer's head. Maybe that's because he wasn't interested in the topics at the start of the interview, maybe it's because the interviewee wasn't comfortable until the interviewer expressed an interest at a less impersonal level…

I used to be terrible at interviewing. I know when I see other people going through similar problems, and make every attempt I can to work around them. There is only so much you can do though, and you have to accept that you will miss out out on some good candidates. The phone screens I performed were just a quick first round check to see if a candidate would be a valuable employee for us. They weren't supposed to be…

Oh yeah, I know it's business and I'm not suggesting someone missed out on an ideal candidate. I was really just thinking it through and thinking about how people at the fringe see the world and how hard it is to cross that barrier.

Part of that is mediated by my experience when I first discovered his site. I was learning about Emacs when I found it, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, there was something I thought was pretty interesting - might or might not have been Emacs related - so I submitted it to HN. Showed up dead, immediately. Apparently his site was banned. It no longer is, of course.

But that's the way his relationship with the tech world was structured - banned by HN. Now maybe he had been spamming submissions or trolling, but it's possible his site was just blocked because it was Xah Lee: I mean there are people in this thread who are still judging him based on his behavior a decade or two ago.

A person who has spent a lifetime as an outsider is likely to have a different set of defense mechanisms - a different set of survival skills. What I was getting at is that the thing you both were interested in on a personal rather than a business level was his website. Unlike his 'professional career' it's something he can take full credit for and which is objectively worth being proud of - it's full of useful content.

My sense is that creating content is what he could be exceptionally productive. Maybe what's called for is an agent and an editor.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#299

Post by brudgers »

Bahamut wrote: post #290
brudgers wrote: post #203

Writing is thinking and one person's philosophical pondering can be another's trolling, e.g. this post. Sure trolling is sometimes just being an asshat. But it's also a way of creating diversity. An attempt to deprogram members of a cargo cult. It can be fighting group think and ideological tribalism. I've come to think about trolling as often being an expression of a desire to write - it's very essence is writing so…

You can do every one of these things without trolling. If trolling is used for such a purpose, it often has the effect of fostering groupthink - you often see it in places like 4chan. Trolling when used for these purposes is often used as a substitute for well-reasoned/articulate point, and has the irresponsible effect of causing grief when it could be pre-empted by simple actions. To not take those actions is often…

I apologize for not being more articulate. I'm not suggesting that there are not better forms of writing than trolling or that trolling is something to encourage. My point is psychological: a meaningful fraction of trolling behavior is driven by a desire to write. Writing something to which you respond at length gives me an opportunity to write a counter response. It gives me the opportunity to analyize your arguments and rebut them.

In other words, it provides an opportunity to write just as presenting a reasoned and rational argument does...only on most of the internet even more so. Trolling is the primary form of entertainment on much of the internet. Outrageous flame wars sell popcorn to the peanut gallery. Some people enjoy watching opponents practice their craft in combat.

That's not to say that that impulse to write can't be channeled to a more productive tone and more constructive ends. But the urge to write is what makes for great writing...or at least its possibility.

Writing like an asshat just happens to be a path of least resistance. Sarcasm and meanness provide easy material. They prompt a reaction and getting feedback is how a writer can improve their craft and flaming and trolling are crafts - just somewhat destructive ones. All that trolling manifests itself in the quality of much of the material on Xah Lee's site. He's been writing for more than two decades.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#300

Post by informatimago »

kylec wrote: post #188
overgard wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying, but I also tend to think: if they're so smart, why not learn some social skills? It's not like being socially awkward has to be an innate thing; they're called social skills for a reason, you can learn them. Many people were once socially awkward, and then fixed it. It's not particularly fair, but social awkwardness does tend to send a signal about what people value. And what a socially awkw…

Social skills are very hard to learn. The best way to learn something is to get a result, positive or negative, for a given input. When interacting socially, results can be difficult to observe, especially when you don't know what to look for, and often can be time delayed. It's also virtually impossible to test a specific behavior in isolation, which makes it difficult to detect what specific thing might cause you t…

There's also the problem that social interactions are emotionnally stressing, so it's hard to have a scientific (external observer) point of view when you must have them yourself. Unless you turn sociopath. Which would be my advice.
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