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My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

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Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#131

Post by wil2k »

sliverstorm wrote: post #101
MrJagil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback = insecurity"? And I mean that sincerely. I have been thinking about this for a long time now, and I just cannot come up with any supporting evidence to explain the corelation. It might sound like a stupid request, but I think it is a hard argument to make totally water proof.

There's two ways to be better than other people; to rise above them, or to drag them down. Bullies want to feel important just like everyone else, but they are not confident in their own abilities, so they are afraid to try growing themselves, because they fear they will prove to themselves they are as stupid as they fear they are. (the ol', too afraid of failure to succeed) They are naturally left with either accept…

I'm not sure what the exact quote was.. but it was something like:

"If you try to drag people like [them] down, they'll win on experience"

You should always aim for the rise above IMHO, but sometimes you can do some verbal Aikido and deal with them in style. ;)

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#132

Post by leif »

edw519 wrote: post #36

Condescending feedback says more about the speaker than the listener. It is almost invariably about their own insecurity. This is true is almost all fields of endeavor, not just programming. Just a few examples of my own: Insecure bridge player: The queen of spades was a stupid play. What's wrong with you? Excellent bridge player: The queen of spades would have been a great play against a 4/2 split. But since you had…

There's a thin line between constructive criticism and a backhanded compliment, though.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#133

Post by andywood »

sophacles wrote: post #74

I'm reminded of something a wise man once told me (HNified a bit): In every pairwise conversation there are 6 people: 1. Alice 2. Bob 3. Who Alice thinks she is. 4. Who Bob thinks he is. 5. Who Bob thinks Alice is 6. Who Alice things Bob is. Perception plays an absurdly large part in communication, as do nonverbal cues. Frequently we adjust our message based on feedback we get from the listener. Those lacking "social…

The enumeration at the top of your comment is the best thing I've read yet today. Douglas Hofstadter expands on similar ideas in I Am a Strange Loop.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#134

Post by chrisrhoden »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #95
ignifero wrote: post #4

still, i think hipsters are wannabes, and clothes don't make the man

To further my attempt at inserting George Orwell's Politics and the English Language into every conversation, I think this quote applies. :-) The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted…

The anti-hipster culture is hilarious.

It is impossible for me to read this without pointing out that after a very well-reasoned and largely accurate argument against the completely irrational spite, you close with a (admittedly small) taste of the very disgust you just denounced. "I luckily rarely come across 'hipsters'."

It's pervasive, even in the group itself. Hipster doesn't actually mean anything specific to anyone, it simply means, "a member of the counterculture which I find offensive at the moment." And, shocker, the people who you would consider, "hipsters," are just as guilty of this.

The problem with this, from my perspective, is that it's also a catch-all for people who are difficult to categorize. Even before the word was co-opted to be a generally negative term, it was nebulous at best, referring generally to young people who are interested in culture or art or food or music or, really, anything.

As a result of this, people get lumped into this group based on these very general terms, and then assumptions are made about their character by regurgitating every complaint anyone has slapped the word "hipster" after, as though it's representative of everyone who wears sweaters. No, not everyone who has a moustache is an elitist. Not everyone who smoked pot in college loves Bob Marley, do they?

I encourage people to stop using this word at all. It's just stupid, meaningless, and devoid of positive connotations for most of the world.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#135

Post by dexen »

zasz wrote: post #119
dexen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is reinventing the wheel and reinventing the wheel. It's cute when a person, learning as she goes, comes up with something that's been already invented. Only goes to show she understands the field. [1] It's unbelievably irritating when something that was widely implemented 10 or 20 or 30 years ago (and then even improved significantly) is now asserted as the next big thing. C'mon, be serious -_-' [2] [1] a nice…

For [2]--NoSQL.

Well yes and no.

On one hand, NoSQL as ``let's ditch relational'' is [2] squared; especially as ditching relational because of SQL is ditching the only thing good about SQL.

On the other hand, if NoSQL would mean ``let's have relational language better than SQL'', they hey, that's good!

It's been tried [a] even before the SQL and tried [b] since then. It's not easy for something new to get traction with all the SQL code out there. But we will arrive there some day.

--

[a] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBL

[b] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_manifesto

NB., if you attack a hot & popular topic, you better provide some argumentation, or you will be downvoted to the ground :-(

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#136

Post by blhack »

tptacek wrote: post #122

The author's point is well taken. But: * Stop using comic sans * What are you, illiterate? * Tables? What is this, the 1990s? Ha ha ha!. * This design looks like myspace * You're using the default hashing algorithm in mysql instead of bcrypt? * God I hate the arduino. It's not real hacking. Which of these things is not like-the ooooother ?

One of them offers a solution (use bcrypt).

It's the delivery that matters.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#137

Post by agentultra »

count wrote: post #62
generalk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Sometimes. A hacker writing a quickie web server for the experience of doing so is laudable. This applies to lots of types of projects: toy OSes, social networking protocols, web frameworks, what have you. Exploration is fun, and key to the hacker spirit. The difficulty comes from knowing the limitations of your skills. I got my web programming chops by reading a bunch of PHP tutorials back in 1998 and…

Here, here! Learning someething, and selling (for money, or otherwise) the not-acceptable-for-use side effect of your learning something as a 'finished' product can be dangerous to the end customer. Not being able to skateboard well means you're going to fall and bust your knees or elbows or face. It's dangerous to you, and potentially comedic to your compatriots. Publishing a website full of XSS/SQLI problems and st…

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about though.

I believe a lot of this bad advice stems from thie belief that "other people write bad software." When you run into bugs day in and out, it's easy to reinforce this belief. Afterall, how can someone who claims to have all this experience and knowledge make such an obvious mistake? They're paid a salary and millions of people trust their software! I could do it better. The reality I believe is that these sorts of people are really compensating for the flaws they themselves are prone to making. When they catch these sorts of errors, they're just reinforcing patterns they themselves recognize as bad; likely because they themselves have made such a mistake in the past that someone else had pointed out to them. So when they call someone an "idiot," they're really calling themselves an "idiot," and bringing the other person down with them to bolster their sense of self worth.

The truth is that we all are guilty of making mistakes. Operating systems that run the Internet, control nuclear reactors, and send really expensive robots into space all have bugs. They have security flaws. And they were written by individuals who've spent a significant amount of time paying their dues in the ivory tower and working their way up the career ladder. That a novice can also make the same mistake is not coincidence. It's human nature.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#138

Post by erikpukinskis »

Alex3917 wrote: post #66
knowtheory wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vociferous opposition is not the same as condescension, though. There are some people who care deeply about a subject and just lack social tact. They'll jump on you for a variety of subjects, but they don't have ill intent. Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with. It's the point at which one starts displaying schadenfreude and denigrating others that the line has been c…

"Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with." The problem is that when people start mouthing off about factual issues they don't know anything about they can cause a lot of damage, so crushing them is often a necessity. When you're in a situation where there is a lot of potential for damage and the other person isn't willing to have an intellectually honest debate about th…

The problem is you can only do that if the categories "What you think you know/What you think you don't know" overlap exactly with the categories "What you actually know/What you actually don't know". And they often don't.

So, doubtless you're laying down the hammer of knowledge in some cases where you think you know something, but you don't. Which means it's not the hammer of knowledge you're dealing, it's just a hammer.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#139

Post by smokeyj »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #91
cubtastic71 wrote: post #3

It's nice to see someone stand up and say whoa. I mean my first youtube post of an arduino project I did - someone had to explain my miss-pronucenation of a word and paid no attention to the project itself. User comment boxes are not always as helpful as it might seem.

As someone who occasionally finds myself nitpicking things (mispronunciation, you're/your, etc), I don't do it out of malice. In fact, I often like and agree with what the person was saying, I was just bothered by that minor issue. Just pointing out a nitpick by itself sounds harsh, though. Instead of just posting "It's 'you're' for the contraction of 'you are'. It's easier to remember if you think of it as just repl…

Most critiques by grammar Nazis add zero value to the conversation and distract from the topic at hand. Have a cookie, you payed attention in English class, now gtfo

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#140

Post by pg »

ignifero wrote: post #8
cubtastic71 wrote: post #3

It's nice to see someone stand up and say whoa. I mean my first youtube post of an arduino project I did - someone had to explain my miss-pronucenation of a word and paid no attention to the project itself. User comment boxes are not always as helpful as it might seem.

Bullies, anonymous smartasses. The internet brings out the teenager out of people of all ages, that's what makes it addictive and fun isn't it? It's not the real world, you are not forced to be a grey, conventional and kind person. There's this trend to kill anonymity on the internet, blogs switching to facebook comments etc. There's a value to anonymity, it facilitates criticism and that's what scientific journals h…

I think what makes the Internet fun is that it makes it easier to learn new things.
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