He didn't claim to have invented it, or that the building was designed in his honor. I think you have to be expecting arrogance to see it in this article.
On the other hand, he might very well be the actual discoverer, anyway.
There is a way out. I believe in you!
While the community as a whole has a collective memory, that does not mean that every participant has the sum of all that experience and knowledge, because individuals constantly join and leave the community.
This means that for some parts of the community, every new post (in this case by Wolfram) is one of "The first few times this came up" when it was "worth noting (and I confess to laughing at the same parodies that everyone else did)".
Because of the nature of Hacker News (the focus on individual stories (links)) the only way for new members of the community to be "nudged in the right direction", as it were, is to come upon one of these comment sections and either see the problem for themselves or see it called out (as here).
"[When there is a single Official Wolfram Ego Bitching subhthread in every thread discussing Wolfram], then everyone can enjoy complaining about Wolfram's ego there, without it taking over the rest of the discussion. (This would work better if HN offered a way to "collapse" subthreads.)"
And now we actually have collapsable subthreads!
* proceeds to collapse grandparent
dang's post attempts to do this. HN has poor tools for surfacing such actions and intentions (it has poor tools in a large number of ways, but the very tool paucity also creates, at times, some useful positive dynamics).
Sometimes you want low friction, sometimes you want high friction.
A wheel, particularly in the flanged steel-on-rail or rubber tyre-on-road varieties, is a device for offering exceptionally low friction and resistance in one dimension, and very high resistance in another. Among the results of such a dynamic is the property, literally, of keeping a vehicle on track.
I think HN's quirks of high- and low-affordance capabilties operate somewhat in this nature.
But for some reason, people expect his posts to be general commentaries about science, math or computing, like a Scientific American Blog post - perhaps it's due to his reputation as a 'genius', which makes people forget he is also a CEO.
The first time I tried to read "Surely You're Joking" as a kid I had to put it down -- the incessant "ME! ME! ME!" dripping from every page was a little too much.
I've since mellowed down and can read Feynman or Wolfram without any issues. I even enjoy that style now :-)
I still liked "Surely You're Joking" though. A lot, even though I've come to regard Feynman as somewhat flawed.
"I know Woflram has ego issues in his writings, therefore this perfectly neutral sentence must be in fact Wolfram congratulating himself!".
> bragging
I got that he was saying how easy it was for anyone, not just him. Not bragging.
> selling his product
To be fair it wouldn't show a lot of confidence if he never used it
> writing his own name
It's the name of the language. What do you want him to say, "a certain language who's name I will not disclose"? :)
You can speak the truth and be informative while still maintaining your dignity and respecting other people's right to objectivity. He's not doing that. He's asking you to sacrifice your objectivity because it serves him. The self-aggrandizing tone he takes is an affront to the objective simplicity of truth -- that even if he wasn't here to do the things he does, they would still be doable. He writes as though this is not true.
He doesn't just say "Rule 30 is one of those rules that has an 'organic' feel to it." He says something like "This Rule 30 that I discovered, is what I call a 'class 4' rule -- one that has an organic feel." It's like he has a compulsive inability to separate plain facts from his own brand. He has to constantly remind you that he is the god who made these things possible.