Hacker News Reader

current_callon South Koreans use emoji to express playful sentiments they wouldn’t utter aloud

curl is your friend

current_callon Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

That doesn't mean I can't want predictable performance or deterministic destruction.

You're assuming your compiler or operating system won't cause memory to be freed at different times.

I also think it's a shame that we waste so much electricity and rare earth minerals on keeping ourselves from screwing up.

Wasting man hours on manufactured problems is far worse than wasting coal.

current_callon There isn’t anything magical about it: Why more millennials are avoiding sex

Tinder is for hookups in the same way that Reddit is for politics. Tinder provides the thrill of a relationship and Reddit provides a sense of patriotism, but neither require actually doing something. By the way, Hacker News is for hacking.

current_callon The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

This is so badly written I'm having trouble finding a way to explain it without resorting to nitpicking. The essay starts with respect, decorum, and civility, but only discusses civility. Almost every special term is stuck between scare quotes instead of being explained. It's so bad.

Nitpicking Time

Respect, decorum and civility are not only disappearing from the political discourse.

Why mention respect and decorum if the essay is only about civility?

It is also about the public and private interactions among workers of the so-called “knowledge economies”, which include scientists and entrepreneurs (or their wannabes).

Interactions are between people, not among them. Saying interactions are among people makes them sound like the aliens from They Live. It isn't important to specify private and public. Nobody would have assumed this was only for public interactions or only for private interactions. The phrase "knowledge economies" shouldn't be quoted; it should be explained.

Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule defines the...

There are more scare quotes instead of explanations for terms and there's another unnecessary distinction in parentheses. Nobody would have assumed only non-verbal or only verbal.

This type of behavior is not only inappropriate and unfortunate. It can have negative consequences on individuals, organizations and societies.

Saying it can have negative consequences is not the same as saying it does have negative consequences. The gap between the two is so big I could ship oil between it.

This “way of life” can be witnessed in physical and more virtual settings, including emails, discussion forums and social media.

More pointless scare quotes. The phrase "more virtual settings" is terrible. Just say online. Even better, don't say talk about physical and online settings. Here's an example, "These attitudes can be seen in person as well as in emails, discussion forums, and social media." That's much clearer.

I have encountered a good number of “polite” and smiling fools, who have mastered an astounding capacity for incivility.

There's another scare quote. This one is used correctly, but scare quotes are awful anyway. This is another clunky sentence that's hard to follow. This is my attempt, "I have met many polite people that are still very uncivil."

Civility means bringing discussion of problems to a ground where people emphasize arguments and the evidence to support or refute the arguments...

Civility also requires (and benefits from) conversations that are based on facts or reproducible observations...

These next two paragraphs start with a different version of the same sentence. This sentence defines civility and could replace both paragraphs, because neither paragraph helps clarify the sentence. The rest of these paragraphs is confusing. The other sentences give civility several different meanings instead of one specific meaning.

This is actually too important to let a few noxious people to hijack public or more circumscribed interactions for their selfish gains.

I didn't realize I had something to gain from being rude.

Hopefully, everyone here didn't need any of this pointed out.

current_callon GPLv4 – Starting the Conversation (2014)

All users of an open source program would benefit, if more companies would contribute to that open source program.

Trickle down freedom.

current_callon GPLv4 – Starting the Conversation (2014)

Companies are people

No, they're not. Even if they were, the GPL is not for protecting companies. The GPL is not for protecting developers. The GPL is for the users.

current_callon Anti Mediocracy Manifesto for Software Development

Accepting being better than some people is accepting being worse than some other people. One thing is for certain; we all aren't just as good. Who is really ignoring reality? Is it the person who thinks he has room to improve or is it the person who thinks he can't improve and has no reason to improve?

current_callon Anti Mediocracy Manifesto for Software Development

Being mediocre is a choice. It's the choice of the lazy and unemployed.

current_callon Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release of Democratic Emails to Harm Hillary Clinton

I like to imagine they just have a competent system administrator with great work life balance. When he's not looking through logs, he works on his memoirs, goes on lunch dates with his wife, and proudly looks through the Perl programs his daughter sends him. Perl5 of course. Stan isn't having any of that new age crap.

current_callon On Chomsky's Review of Skinner's “Verbal Behavior” (1970) [pdf]

I could only finish two pages. What's so interesting about a response to a review of a linguistics book written by a psychologist? Normally I always read the entire article before commenting, but I feel like I'm missing something. Am I really the only one here who doesn't have the background for this? Am I expected to have read the book and review first? Am I expected to read the book and review now?

current_callon Ask HN: Do you guys still write test cases for your MVPs or hobby projects?

If I've spent the time to learn the testing framework, I'll use it for hobby projects.

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

Good luck with any future interviews.

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

>if you need to try that hard

Do people who program in their spare time usually work 18 hour days?

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

I'm blunt because I feel strongly about it. They could be so much greater, but they willingly choose not to be. Then they lie to themselves about being just as good as anyone else despite being denied jobs.

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

Sarah has a job as a web developer. She doesn't like programming very much, and avoids it at home. Her real passion is acting, so she joined a local theater troupe that performs plays at the community center. Every year they do a little Rocky Horror Picture Show event at the local theater.

Frank is a programmer at a big bank. He does most of his work in COBOL. The work is tedious and the hours are long, but Frank doesn't mind. Work is supposed to be hard. Besides, he makes plenty of money, enough money to help his only son meet his tuition. Frank never really knew what he wanted to do with his life. He just sort of ended up where he is, but his wife and son are happy, and that makes Frank happy.

Both of these people are mediocre developers and mediocre humans. They waste forty hours of every weekday developing skills that they won't use at home and only want so they can continue working at jobs they don't like. Turns out most people are mediocre. Those two aren't upset with what I posted, because they don't care, because they don't visit Hacker News, because they have lives.

Lets talk about Jeff. Jeff is a sixteen year old atheist who loves science. He gets high grades in all his math and science classes. He can even handle English pretty well. He just does the readings in class! He loves talking about how great science is. When he's not talking about science or playing league of legends he's browsing the internet looking at things like the "I Fucking Love Science" Facebook page or r/atheism. Jeff is a happy intelligent scientific young man. He also doesn't do any science. Turns out looking at inspiring quotes on a space background isn't science.[0] Jeff's a pretty useless kid, but he's sixteen, so we'll give him a break.

Mark is a student finishing his undergraduate degree in Computer Science, or maybe he's a man who's worked five years doing front-end development; doesn't matter. Mark is a programmer. He visits Hacker News to get the latest news, spends at least a couple hours a week on Reddit, keeps a small blog on Medium, hangs out with plenty of friends on the weekend, and enjoys a good beer. He doesn't use any of the stuff he's learned at school or work for his personal life. He doesn't host his resume on a personal website. He doesn't use regular expressions at home. He doesn't build a program to split games up into binary chunks so his kids can move games between computers without having to waste one of his expensive CDs.[1] He doesn't write any kind of automated backup scripts. He doesn't use anything like LaTex or org-mode for writing professional documents. He doesn't do anything like programming or related to programming in his spare time because it's boring and hard. Mark doesn't like it, but Mark doesn't care. He's making good money and there wasn't anything else he really wanted to do, but unlike old man Frank, Mark doesn't have an identity. Frank's family is what guides him. Frank thinks of himself as a family man and a provider. Mark thinks of himself as a programmer. Mark spends all his time on Hacker News, Reddit, and Medium reading and writing about software, but never ever coding for fun.

When I talk about mediocre humans, I'm talking about the Marks of the world. If you're wasting your time reading my spiteful comments and naive Medium blog posts, then you identify as a software guy, and if you're a software guy you should be honing your craft instead of whining about unfair expectations from employers. Don't think for a second you're just as good as everyone else. You're not.

[0] http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

[1] This is an example program from the book Programming Python

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

This idea that programmers have to work 18-hour days just to avoid becoming substandard is idiotic.

Is it stupid because it isn't true or is it stupid because you don't want it to be true?

current_callon What “full stack” really means to the job market

The ability to automate is powerful. Anyone who doesn't find a use for it in their private life isn't just a mediocre developer; they're a mediocre human.

current_callon Tech job listings are down 40% on several job boards

Why the surprise?

http://www.defmacro.org/2013/12/09/learn-to-code.html

current_callon Ask HN: How do I stop myself being toxic?

At my last performance review I was told that I engage in toxic discussion too much and I should halt.

What did they say when you asked them to clarify?

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

I think you misunderstood my question. Is it good that Gawker failed because you're a competitor and the article was written to suggest your own journalism is held to a higher standard? The article is a way of pushing an agenda. (Isn't all communication?)

I enjoyed your blog post. It's a great example of making decisions based on evidence. I just wished you hadn't had to spend so much time figuring that out. The two years of head to wall sound unpleasant.

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

My point is that "something many thought would happen eventually" doesn't contain any information.

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

He still puts up new stuff, doesn't he? I thought he was just very slow.

current_callon Stack Overflow and Discouraging Beginners

You mean like what happened to Wikipedia?

current_callon Stack Overflow and Discouraging Beginners

But hey, if you don’t want a friendly community or you don’t want more people to ~learn how to code~, then you’re doing it right.

I have all the community I want, thanks. If you think I'm being self centered, you have it backwards. I don't care what you do, but you think a community you aren't part of should cater to you.

current_callon Hollywood's Millennial Problem

Hollywood has been making crap movies for a long time. Why is the last six months special?

current_callon Hollywood's Millennial Problem

Gwern covered ETEWA about a year earlier than Oswalt, but with a different stance. Why should we need or want new media when we already have enough classics to keep us occupied for the rest of our lives?

http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics

EDIT:

Also, as of now, you're the only one with anything profound to say in here. Good job.

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

Yes, but if you're reading it, it's for you.

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

What does Jason Calacanis or the site this article was written for[0] gain from this?

[0] https://www.inside.com/

current_callon The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker

Nick Denton’s incendiary publishing empire, Gawker Media, collapsed under the weight of his excessively cruel and cutting philosophy today, an outcome many predicted, but that Denton miraculously dodged for a decade, as subjects chose to thicken their skin rather than get into protracted and destructive litigation, until Peter Thiel anonymously bankrolled them.

an outcome many predicted

If it wasn't an outcome that many stakeholders expected, it wasn't expected. Were there any people trying to cash out while the trial was happening?

current_callon Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

Is resource redistribution the only way to solve income inequality?

You're asking the wrong question. Why is income inequality a problem?