Super Volatile

Krzysztof Szafranek's link blog

Hi, I'm Krzysztof and I make websites.
When I'm not making websites, I read these.
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Aug 20, 2011 / 9:34pm

The Secret Guild of Silicon Valley

A couple of weeks ago, I was drinking beer in San Francisco with friends where someone remarked:

“You have too many hipsters, you won’t scale like that. Hire some fat guys who know C++.”

It’s funny but it got me thinking.  Who are these “fat guys who know C++”, or as another friend put it, “the guys with neckbeards, who keep Google’s servers running”?  And why is it that when you meet one, it’s like pulling on a thread, and they all seem to know each other?

more on medriscoll.com

A romantic vision of who these “fat guys” are.

Filed under: nerds   software development  
 
Apr 28, 2011 / 12:11am

Should You Date a Mathematician?

I am an expert on NOT avoiding mathematicians: in fact, I’ve married three of them and dated x number of them.
more on blog.tanyakhovanova.com

That's a great endorsement, isn't it?

Filed under: dating   nerds  
 
Aug 13, 2010 / 12:03am

“My husband is a programmer; I have no idea what that means.”

Often I’ll get a response along these lines: “Programming? My husband does something like that I think.” To which I always inquire, “Oh really? What language does he work with?” Their response is always the same: “Language? huh. I have no idea. There’s more than one? I don’t really know what he does. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

This always blows my mind. You’re married to someone, and you aren’t interested enough in the person to know anything about what they do with nearly 40-50% of their time, aside from their job title? Is it dangerous to draw a correlation between high divorce rates and the lack of interest that people have in their partners lives?

more on renaebair.com

The advice sounds obvious and is surely healthy, though I'm afraid that using this approach for filtering potential mates will most likely end up in a life of singledom.

Filed under: nerds   relationships  
 
Jul 20, 2010 / 11:32pm

Scott Adams Blog: Conversation

A conversation, like dancing, has some rules, although I've never seen them stated anywhere. The objective of conversation is to entertain or inform the other person while not using up all of the talking time. A big part of how you entertain another person is by listening and giving your attention. Ideally, your own enjoyment from conversation comes from the other person doing his or her job of being interesting. If you are entertaining yourself at the other person's expense, you're doing it wrong.
more on dilbert.com

Adams dissects dance and conversation from the point of view of an alien and Asperger syndrome sufferer. Conclusions are dangerously close to the ones I'd expect from the latter.

Filed under: nerds  
 
Jun 24, 2010 / 11:59pm

The Programmer Dress Code

Larry Wall - This guy brought us Perl and sports a nice mustache and hair that would make Fabio jealous.
more on codethinked.com

Silly article on dressing habits of few famous programmers. When I write it's silly, I mean it.

Filed under: lifestyle   nerds  
 
Apr 30, 2010 / 8:21pm

Skepticblog » Why Are Nerds Unpopular?

To me what this means is that we can slowly move the culture in the direction of valuing smarts and even nerdiness. Bill Gates has done this, to some degree – we now celebrate the alpha nerd.
more on skepticblog.org

Rebuttal to classic Paul Graham's article. Though not as half entertaining as the original.

Filed under: nerds   sociology