Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went through a phase like that, and I still have to be careful not to let it slip into my judging process. Larry is one of the people who helped me get over it. I've met him a few times now, and he's strikingly intelligent and thoughtful. I've met very few people of that intellectual caliber, in fact, and I've met quite a few famously smart people. The difference between a brilliant theist and a stupid one is that…
One of those things that attracts me to the hacker 'ethos', so-to-speak, is seeing people reaching into disparate and esoteric depths to stitch together seemingly outlandish but uniquely powerful solutions. I've been just as guilty of being intellectually self-righteous as anyone, but these days I see elitism of any status-quo as completely counter-productive when it comes to inspiring creativity and diversity. That…
YAPC is in North Carolina in June. You'll fit right in. I won't be wearing a skirt, but I'm weird enough on other counts (I live in a truck, for instance, and travel full-time).