Anyone can enlighten me why I keep seeing Zed Shaw being mentioned on HN compare to other star programmers? He appears to be the superstar among all star programmers. But I checked his wiki, and I thought not many are using mongrels nowadays.
I'm not quite sure myself. I'm finding that I seem to be in some sweet spot where my opinion and views are odd enough to be interesting, but also close enough to what everyone else is already thinking but can't articulate. It probably won't last forever, but it's been that way for about 4 of 5 years now so I just keep doing my thing and having fun.
I mostly don't have an agenda other than I don't take this internet stuff nearly as seriously as everyone else, and just want to use it as a medium of expression before it becomes too hard to do it. Whether that's writing, music, code, or just making funny sites poking fun at obnoxious blowhards, I'm enjoying it while I can.
He did a good job of promoting himself through controversy. There are a lot of women out there who are smarter and more attractive than Paris Hilton, but she knows how to play the game and stay in the spotlight.
No, I promoted myself by writing insightful pieces and voicing my opinion in an interesting way which got lots of people talking while also creating either interesting or useful projects at a faster rate than most people.
People like you however seem to like to only focus on my humrous rants as if that's all I've done, but whatever, I'm having fun and making awesome shit while getting to play guitar so if it pisses of a whiner like you then rock on.
This is getting weird, so I'll lay my cards on the table.
People like you however seem to like to only focus on my humrous rants as if that's all I've done, but whatever, I'm having fun and making awesome shit while getting to play guitar so if it pisses of a whiner like you then rock on.
That's a bilious response to "He did a good job of promoting himself through controversy." People like me? I made a neutral statement (even if it's incorrect), not anything malicious like "Zed's a loser because of X." This reminds me of the last time you thought I was attacking your character after a similarly neutral comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1292335
Several months ago, you had a similar response on Twitter that involved a "quit talking smack or let's meet up and 'sort it out' in person" response after I made a casual quip in response to your then-latest rant. I e-mailed you an apology as a gesture of good will, to which I got no response.
You appear to interpret neutral comments as attacks or passive aggression. They aren't - at least from me. Or perhaps you're having the same back and forth with 1001 other people, I don't know :-)
Are these reactions because a page on my site ranks #4 for your name on Google and is packed with negative third-party comments about you? http://www.rubyinside.com/zed-shaw-goes-nuclear-on-our-commu... .. You've mentioned online comments affecting your job prospects before, so it's just a wild guess. If it is, I'll delete the negative comments and change the headline or something, because these responses are worrying and sure, I'd rather focus on the cool things you're up to than have this old "stuff" bubble up every few months.
It's easy to misinterpret being compared to Paris Hilton as an insult. It's also easy to see how it wasn't intended as an insult, but it could've gone either way.
Zed is not only controversial, but prolific. There are lots of opportunities to talk about him.
Not only that, but lots of his projects are relevant to HN... mongrel2 seemingly started out as a fun little "how can I put these things together" project, MulletDB is similar, etc.
This is interesting " If you got something interesting that doesn't involve me being a system administrator"
I guess he found thre DropBox job too "sys-adminy". I think this is a big problem, companies hire all programmers when they should really be hiring more sys-admins (and testers). Hackers don't want to be sys-admins or testers. Hire people who do want to do these jobs.
As a "public figure" who has thrust himself into a number of controversies, yes, he is. Ultimately, though, it comes down to the ethics and good taste of those doing the gossiping (or not.) Questioning a change in Dropbox's "Our Team" page isn't very high on the insensitivity meter.
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
I am indifferent on Shaw, the man, but from what I have seen of him, he only discusses controversial ideas.
He was never the face of Dropbox, not a founding member, doesn't sit on the board, and absolutely has zero visibility wrt Dropbox. Inquiring about his fate with them and his employment status (and digging for gossip) is nothing but prying on the man's privacy, and making his career a public spectacle for his gleeful adversaries.
Sure, he brought this upon himself for being opinionated, but let's cut down on the tall-poppy syndrome here. The man is entitled both to his opinions, and his privacy.
I'm inclined to agree with you (and I certainly don't care about Zed's current job), but Zed made a huge (and very public) fuss about his job hunt. Curiosity about the consequences of that job search seems only natural.
Your comment is a good warning against making generalizations about people's behavior considering you spent the next three paragraphs doing just that ;-)
Seriously? Zed Shaw loves to rant about people. Ranting about people brought him into this tiny, niche internet spotlight in the first place. And have you even looked at http://oppugn.us/? Apparently not.
Are you really claiming that anyone that talks about people is a 'small mind?' When my daughter gets older (old enough to talk) and I ask her how her day was, does that somehow lower my intelligence and make my expertise suspect?
> average minds discuss events
If your building is on fire, does it lower your intelligence to talk about it because it's not abstract enough?
You're being obtuse. The quote is about discussion qua discussion, not caring about your kids or self-preservation. "Words of wisdom" are not usually to be taken absolutely literally.
There's no familial or social need, or any self-preservation need, to gossip about Zed Shaw.
It's a quote usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. But my invocation of it stands, at least as a guard against petty he-said she-said discussions here on HN.
Or maybe I am wrong, maybe gossip and backstabbing are perfectly on-topic here. Dunno.
> When my daughter gets older (old enough to talk) and I ask her how her day was, does that somehow lower my intelligence and make my expertise suspect?
Of course not, when your daughter is young it is entirely appropriate to talk about things she and her friends of done, or what her favorite actress or pop star has done. I think the "small minds discuss people" was referring to older people with a potential for more important discussions, and what they do in fact discuss.
Then again, posting on this particular HN post doesn't say a lot about my large-mindedness either, so I'll just shut up now. :)
Nope, people can talk about me quite a lot since I'm a public persona.
For example, peetercooper's obsession with me probably means he has a little drawer where he keeps a picture of me under his socks so he can look at me late at night. He's a weird little dude.
See? You can take any public persona, and since nearly everyone is these days with the internet, and say anything that's obviously not true, or mostly true, or a parody.
But, it cuts both ways. In order to say something about me, you have to then become a public persona, which means you're also fair game, and, well, I'm just better at this than most people. :-)
