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Comment by paul | Hacker News Reader

Clearly someone who "once handrolled his own html code and then uploaded it using UNIX commands" is simply too Awesome for Facebook.

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Yes, that line came off as egotistical posturing. We got it.

But I don't like that your snarky quip--which distorts the fact that the author continues to use facebook out of a sense of social obligation, and which I don't think adds much to the discussion--is the most upvoted comment here.

Sure, you can be cynical and mock the guy, but I'd rather see you address his arguments. I'm not so much annoyed that you took the obvious potshot, just disappointed that the rest of HN is currently voting this the most important takeaway from the essay.

The reason this is the most important takeaway is that Scalzi is calling the people at Facebook "stupid", despite the fact that they are much smarter than him.

  "there’s very little Facebook does, either as   
  a technological platform or as a company, that doesn’t 
  remind me that “banal mediocrity” is apparently the 
  highest accolade  one can aspire to at that particular organization."

Scalzi has never heard of Hiphop, Thrift, or Haystack. He hasn't heard about them because he is not really capable of understanding the technical problems involved with doing something as hard as Facebook.

It is really hard to make something look this easy.

First, he wasn't calling the people who work at Facebook stupid. Second, I have no idea how smart John Scalzi is... and you probably don't either.

He was criticizing the idea of Facebook. Facebook is a very well implemented system. But that doesn't mean that you can't question the validity of the system. Just because it's hard to build doesn't mean that it is worthwhile to use.

Also the fact that Facebook have made accessing vast amounts of information, organising events, and communicating far more simple and intuitive than any system previously available. Much as there are things to improve - there is no place on the internet better suited as a portal to your life.

its because what he has there isn't as much a coherent argument as it is a rant ... an arrogant and snarky one at that.

He doesn't even bother to substantiate many of his claims ... (Facebook's UI sucks ... word?). As such the highly upvoted in-kind response, shouldn't be a surprise.

See, parent and those who agree with him don't think this article adds much to any discussion either. If you don't enjoy finding out what your friends are up to, fine, introverts aren't exactly the world's latest discovery. Author probably carries his phone out of a sense of social obligation too. Can we get over this elitist Facebashing and move on, please?

Wait, don't people do this anymore? Oh no, am I the last person to handroll html code and upload it using UNIX commands? I just typed "scp" the other day. I should have charged myself admission to an internet museum where I was on display.

Well he was apparently doing that in 1993... What did you build on the web in 1993? NCSA Mosaic had literally just come out.

I was 7. I probably built something with Lego that was way cooler than a website.

You can continue that legacy with the open source 3D printing movement that's growing, and potentially continue building things that are way cooler than most web sites.

Nitpick - NCSA Mosaic wasn't the first generally available web browser, Viola was around at least six months before Mosaic.

I'm thinking the person you replied to knows a thing or two about "Awesome" on the web. I'm not sure he was old enough to have done much on or off the web in 1993.

I think Paul was just about to enter college then, so he was old enough. My point is that it was actually quite forward-thinking to try out anything on the web in 1993.

I send all my mail through raw, unadulterated, hand-typed SMTP. I compute mime attachments on my TI-85 and type them in on my clicky keyboard. I've taught my parrot to simulate the first 8 seconds of a fax machine handshake, and yet, without facebook, nobody would know!

Parent comment deserves more votes.

A true badass send his emails using a telnet connection to the smtp server.

Bonus points for using a HP-48GX instead of a TI-85.

Only if he uploaded it via his own hand-crimped ethernet cables.

I did that in 2007.

If it helps, he's the author of a rather nice series of science-fiction books.

In the face of the way he worded that, not really.

He's basically saying he has hipster tastes in technology, and while those tastes may not be strictly superior to any others---they're his, and they make him an unhappy consumer on Facebook.

Don't dislike him because he likes vanilla whereas everyone else likes raspberry.

Or the threshold for "Facebook is not for me" is rather low.

I found his stance to be quite smug but he got his opinions across. I agree with him that it helps the 'normal' people interact with each other without jumping through loops but I think that is more a benefit than a critique.

The reason he doesn't like facebook...

FNU

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