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Comment by peregrine | Hacker News Reader

This post put a big stupid grin on my face, just imagining him walking around, and nobody knowing who he is. Him being far more influential and more important than most people in the room, and yet having trouble explaining what he does.

It sounds like a family reunion trying to remember people names and telling everyone you make web sites for a living.

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Though it's getting easier to explain what he does--Android phones are everywhere these days.

But Android is only a small part of why he is influential and important, it is the most visible I suppose.

"Well, I've created the operating system that runs about every 5th smartphone". "Well, and some other things".

In the US Android is up to about 1/3 of smartphones these days.

Have you ever tried to explain to someone who is not an engineer what the relationship between 'a phone' and 'Android' is? Coincidentally I've tried twice over the last 3 weeks - both times concluded, after 15 minutes, with them concluding 'oh, so it doesn't matter much, right, all phones have it, it's just different between different phones'.

Eh... yes, I suppose...

Him being far more influential and more important than most people in the room, and yet having trouble explaining what he does.

That's not true. There were many people in that room who were critical parts of multibillion dollar franchises. So critical that if that person fell ill the franchise would have to stop. If Linus fell ill Linux would continue relatively unchanged.

  > If Linus fell ill Linux would continue relatively unchanged.

Linux development on the other hand... Linus is still the Steve Jobs of the Linux kernel world, so far as I understand it.

The Steve Jobs, minus the tantrums, random firings, and black mock turtlenecks.

I hear he can be pretty critical though, especially if you ask him to port his work to a more "modern" language.

Minus the random firings and black mock turtlenecks. Not so much minus the tantrums.

Linus wouldn't be Linus without the tantrums and smiting.

Related - my wife and I cracked up last night that the special effects engineers were relegated to a 30 second montage with Marisa Tomei so as not to ruin the rest of the show for the beautiful people :)

Although to be fair, the beautiful people are the only reason those engineers get even 30 seconds of primetime TV. See: thousands of engineers doing equally awesome things not related to showbiz.

Not really. Visual effects are a bigger 'star' than any individual actor nowadays.

Also, 'equally awesome' needs to be qualified. Most of the engineers working in film could get paid far more working in other industries but do it because it can be fantastically rewarding. Disclaimer: I am one of these.

You don't see "A movie by Douglas Trumbull" much... Not even "A movie by Industrial Light and Magic" (which would be most of them).

Would you argue it was Michael Bay's name that convinced people to buy tickets for Transformers? Or Sigourney Weavers name on Avatar? I suggest examining the all time box office records:

http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

Neither Michael Bay nor Sigourney Weaver have much involvement with special effects.

And, actually, what convinced me to see Avatar were the special effects. And there wouldn't be enough special effects in the world to convince me to go to a movie theater to watch Transformers.

Sorry, there seems to be some confusion. I'm trying to suggest that the majority of blockbusters aren't star lead anymore, they're visual effects lead. Perhaps people aren't interested in seeing effects engineers receiving awards, but they're certainly interested in seeing our work.

I think that, these days, we can take special effects for granted - every movie will have them and they will be mostly great - and undetectable. It takes an expert to be impressed by Avatar and how sunlight filters through foliage and skin. As special effects approach reality, it takes a trained eye will be able to differentiate the great from the groundbreaking.

Maybe compelling story is the key factor here. I don't believe kids went to see Transformers for the effects - all they wanted was to be entertained.

Right, but the reason most people watch award shows has nothing to do with the movies themselves.

marisa tomei IS beautiful :)

       imagining him walking around, and nobody knowing who he is

Consider this was the Oscar; imagine the same thing happening to an actor walking around at a Linux conference.

      Him being far more influential and more important than 
      most people in the room

Out of all people, I would think that geeks / hackers can recognize the importance of art for society. If anything I wish more Natalie Portmans were around; as soon enough we'll end up like in Idiocracy with people watching 90 mins of a big ass farting.

So stop with the condescending attitude, please.

I am, perhaps because I am programmer, more inclined to think that a person who created and now runs the most important piece of open source software is more important, to the world, then the person who plays a character in a movie. Which is all my opinion of course, and no more valid or invalid then yours.

I apologize if I came off condescending, the arts are super important to me.

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