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Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

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Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#41

Post by robryan »

yason wrote: post #37
kiba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I only exists for twenty one years.

I just realized I'm mere ten years ahead of you and when I entered elementary school, it seemed like a whole century before the age of internet and browsers. Some friends had C64 for gaming and the bravest daredevil users learned how to write scrollers in 6510 assembly. This makes the baby boomers come from the Middle Ages in computer/internet time.

I recently found a book from primary school where I was writing about Netscape pretty much as if it was the Internet. I have a folder of screenshots from about 10 years ago where I am using IE 5.5 I think on 800*600 and a terrible looking MSN messenger. How quickly times change in Internet terms.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#42

Post by MengYuanLong »

firefoxman1 wrote: post #7
InclinedPlane wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you were seeing was that many "nerds" don't see the term as particularly derogatory and even self-describe as such, though I suspect several of the congressmen did mean to be derogatory in their use of it.

It's derogatory because they used it in a way to imply that they didn't particularly want to be associated with the group labeled "nerds." I've always preferred the term "geek." Anyone else feel the same way?

Reading this thread is much like reading discussions about the "n word". Coincidence? Obviously, opinions probably run deeper for the original "n word" but it is no mystery why many of us are offended when congressmen use the word with an attached set of negative connotations.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#43

Post by tlrobinson »

bravura wrote: post #8

On the plus side, all the conspiracy theorists who claimed that Jon Stewart and The Daily Shows were pawns of their parent multinational media conglomerate, and thus wouldn't negatively cover SOPA, these people were wrong. On the negative side, no one in the news media or whistleblowers and WTF-watchers like Jon Stewart knew what SOPA was until two days ago. That's even scarier.

Scary, but on the plus side the blackouts seem to have succeeded in raising awareness.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#44

Post by jeffool »

AgentConundrum wrote: post #3

I was glad to see him call them out on that. I made a similar comment here on HN about a month ago[1] saying that calling on "nerds", to me, implied a lack of respect. The replies I received, however, seemed to disagree. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358472

I'd like to have seen him make a comment to the effect of "really? Name calling? Are these people not aware of the names people call politicians?"

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#45

Post by lusr »

roel_v wrote: post #31
lusr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered how to explain to non-developers the level of complexity in large software projects. I don't think the new generation will understand it any better than the old generation because, as you say, it's an invisible world. I am currently contracted on a project with 1.5 million lines of code and dependencies on hundreds of services written by a number of different teams. It takes a few weeks just to ge…

Why would they have to understand? Do you understand the intricaties of an airplane when you fly one?

I'm not suggesting one needs to understand the intricacies. I understand that aircraft are extraordinarily complex, and that's sufficient. I get the impression from non-computer people that software development is the equivalent of typing a Word document, except with mono-spaced fonts and highlighting, and lots of typos leading to bugs.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#46

Post by lusr »

cpeterso wrote: post #35
lusr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered how to explain to non-developers the level of complexity in large software projects. I don't think the new generation will understand it any better than the old generation because, as you say, it's an invisible world. I am currently contracted on a project with 1.5 million lines of code and dependencies on hundreds of services written by a number of different teams. It takes a few weeks just to ge…

An analogy for software development I've heard is to imagine building the Empire State building but with your view limited to a 15" glass portal. You must remember the off screen portions of the "building" in your head.

My current favourite is to describe it like this: You have to build a puzzle. Problem is nobody really knows what the puzzle should look like. Instead you get a few hundred pages of documentation written by a bunch of people who don't really know much more about the puzzle than you do describing how they think PARTS of the puzzle should look like in the end - based on discussions they've had with people who have no idea about the big picture either. Oh, you don't actually get any puzzle pieces - that's up to you to create.

As you start trying to build something that looks like the puzzle, you realise that instead of the 1,000 pieces originally estimated for the puzzle, you're going to need 5,000, and the puzzle is actually in 3 dimensions not just 2, and also the puzzle needs to fit with another puzzle built by a different team of people who had no idea your puzzle needs to fit with them. Then you find out your puzzle pieces, that you borrowed from someone else, don't work as expected with put together with certain other pieces... :)

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#48

Post by saulrh »

kiba wrote: post #25
pinaceae wrote: post #17

it points to a big shift in society and the economy. software is now a cornerstone of the world economy. modern life runs through the internet. even if you personally avoid the internet, you depend on it. but the baby boomer generation, represented by these politicians has not understood it. they know engineers as the guys building houses, bridges, aeroplanes, rockets. but software? it is an invisible world to them.…

For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows up with unprecedented change in their lifetime. For example, I enter elementary school, the internet started to take off and browsers were primitive. Nowadays, we can enjoy the convenience of movie streaming, fast browsers, and extraordinary rich video games(Dwarf Fortress, I am looking at you). So it doesn't make sense to me that congressmen are literal dinos…

  For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows
  up with unprecedented change in their lifetime.
I'd argue that this generation's changes aren't just unprecedented, but in an entirely different category. Not just in size, but in speed and extent. The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history; suddenly, every person on earth can communicate instantly with almost any other person, and can broadcast an image to almost the entire planet in a matter of hours. And we couldn't do that twenty years ago. We couldn't even do that five years ago.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#49

Post by jaredsohn »

georgieporgie wrote: post #11
firefoxman1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's derogatory because they used it in a way to imply that they didn't particularly want to be associated with the group labeled "nerds." I've always preferred the term "geek." Anyone else feel the same way?

I've always thought "geeks" were Mac users (that was the crowd from which I heard the term used most, back in my Amiga days), and nerds were nerds. That said, I may call myself a nerd, you you best not be calling me a nerd. ;-) Seriously, though, for a group of people who like to call each other out on standards of conduct, it's pretty appalling that they used a derogatory term to jokingly dismiss their utter lack of…

Here's how someone on urbandictionary differentiates the terms (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geek):

................ Technical ...... Social

Title ............ Skills ......... Skills

---------- ---------------- ------------

Normie ......... No ............. Yes

Geek ........... Yes ............. Yes

Nerd ............ Yes ............. No

Dork ............ No .............. No

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#50

Post by chrischen »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #5
AgentConundrum wrote: post #3

I was glad to see him call them out on that. I made a similar comment here on HN about a month ago[1] saying that calling on "nerds", to me, implied a lack of respect. The replies I received, however, seemed to disagree. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358472

I think what you were seeing was that many "nerds" don't see the term as particularly derogatory and even self-describe as such, though I suspect several of the congressmen did mean to be derogatory in their use of it.

They were derogatory in their use because they trivialized the fact that these "nerds" are really just experts.
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