151–160 of 191 posts
In Python, I would just say something like, ‘Get up and go through the door.’ In other languages, I might have to say something like, ‘Stand up, but not with so much force that you fall over, take three steps to the north, take one step to the east, approach the door, check that it is open, if it is not open, open it, then step through it with this amount of speed …’
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Hi thaumaturgy, Annie here. I'm completely receptive to the criticism of my treatment of the public persona / private person question -- as I wrote before, I expected it and appreciate everyone's insightful comments here. But I'd just like to push back on the idea that my reporting somehow constituted harassment, rather than straightforward reporting on a public figure – and one who had unfortunately already been out…
You outed him, there is no two ways about it. You can be appreciative of the comments, receptive to criticism blah-dee-blah but you outed him and you know why. As far as I'm concerned that defines you as a person above anything else.
The debate -- a debate about journalistic ethics I consider really interesting, by the way -- is about whether I should have publicized the outing, whether I overstepped boundaries in reporting, and whether I should have published additional details that were not common knowledge.
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For one, most Randroids won't shut up about it. For another, _why was just too whimsical, postmodern, and nonlinear to be a Rand devotee.
You're painting pretty broadly with that stereotype brush. Books influence people but are not the only influence on people. You have no idea which books _why appreciates or the extent to which they have influenced his personality, so stop guessing. I hate words like "Randroid", "Republitard", "Democrap", etc. regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their connotation. They are the adult, but no more mature, equ…
I'm not ruling out the idea that _why may have read or appreciated Rand at some point, I'm just ruling out the idea that she was a major influence. If you understand Rand and you understand _why, you can see some very deep philosophical differences.
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Sure, not a book review for NYT, but it is the top comment on HN, which has the unfortunate consequence of being the first impression a lot of people had of an article that had a lot of hard, thoughtful work put into it. It also caused some to actually not read the article, and that's what drew me out. Annie's work here deserved a better first impression from the HN community, and I think anyone who has an interest i…
Getting off-topic (although, I think we're already there)- I have been finding HN discussions harder to navigate lately. I still miss seeing the post voting scores. I don't remember if how the comment thread display has changed, but it's getting ridiculous. People respond to the top comment because anything lower will be ignored. This top "thread" is taking up 80% of page. I understand that this isn't supposed to be…
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You outed him, there is no two ways about it. You can be appreciative of the comments, receptive to criticism blah-dee-blah but you outed him and you know why. As far as I'm concerned that defines you as a person above anything else.
I didn't out him. That had already happened. The debate -- a debate about journalistic ethics I consider really interesting, by the way -- is about whether I should have publicized the outing, whether I overstepped boundaries in reporting, and whether I should have published additional details that were not common knowledge.
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One thing I do with my books is I actually meet up with beginners and watch them try to use it. It seems every time I do that I find something new I hadn't anticipated. Like recently I changed the first exercise of LPTHW to have screenshots of what they will literally see: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex1.html I met with a beginner and watched her go through the first exercise, and she didn't understand that…
How do you meet people interested in doing this?
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You're painting pretty broadly with that stereotype brush. Books influence people but are not the only influence on people. You have no idea which books _why appreciates or the extent to which they have influenced his personality, so stop guessing. I hate words like "Randroid", "Republitard", "Democrap", etc. regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their connotation. They are the adult, but no more mature, equ…
I used to be a Randroid myself--it's a surprisingly apt moniker, and when you run into enough people on forums relentlessly parroting Rand's idiosyncratic style of argumentation you'll see why. I'm not ruling out the idea that _why may have read or appreciated Rand at some point, I'm just ruling out the idea that she was a major influence. If you understand Rand and you understand _why, you can see some very deep phi…
I don't claim that _why and Rand would agree with each other in a philosophical discussion, but that is not proof that she had no influence on him. Often what influences us most is that which forces us to think very hard about why we disagree.
And everyone who uses those sorts of childish words believes them to be apt. "But Republicans really are retards". Please.
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Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chan…
Sorry, you do not get a pass on this. You can try to sweep everything under the rug of interacting with a "public person" (as if such a distinction had meaning in the modern age) but it doesn't work. _why made it abundantly clear that he wanted to retreat from public life, and you went out of your way to violate his privacy. In microcosm this is an example of just the sort of behavior with respect to "public persons"…
I bet you received many downvotes from people who felt the need to justify their morbid curiosity over respecting the innocent will of a person.
Don't let a few downvotes silence you. Pretty sure we are not the only ones who think likewise and won't even make the effort to try to sound PC and complimentary.
Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…
Article would have been fine without the "I found him nyah nyah nyah and here's where you can find him and harass him too!" stuff. How would the journalist like people to post her personal details on the internet and encourage people to contact her in her private life.