Slashdot Mirror
How's Your Whuffie? Interview with Cory Doctorow
Richard Koman writes "My interview with EFF's Cory Doctorow just went up on O'Reilly. The interview is largely about his book, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," but naturally veers towards discussing his view of Disney, programmers, and peer to peer. Then there's this: Doctorow: I think that Disney's art and technology kicks ass. But one thing you discover in the technology world, especially in free software, is that being a good programmer and being a good person are not necessarily correlated, or at least being a good programmer and being a person with whom other people want to spend a lot of time, who has good hygiene and good social skills, are not correlated."
...or at least being a good programmer and being a person with whom other people want to spend a lot of time, who has good hygiene and good social skills, are not correlated
I take offense to that... I have poor hygiene and poor social skills, and it hasn't made me a good programmer!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
At least everyone I work with smells the same as me. That way I don't stick out.
He does mention in the article, though, that it's first-time authors that lack reputation: maybe this is an indication that he's doing this for his first book to build reputation and then he will be getting a 'traditional' book contract for future books? Either way I support him. More work in the commons is always a good thing.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
being a good programmer and being a person with whom other people want to spend a lot of time, who has good hygiene and good social skills, are not correlated
Are people really still saying this about programmers? It's not 1989 any more. We may not be movie stars, but all the coders I know have sex at least semi-regularly, with people they don't have to pay. That indicates some level of grooming and social skills.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Of course, anyone that spends enough time in front of a computer (i.e. not showering, not shaving, eating things that create a large amount of flagulence (sp)) to be a "good" programmer is not usually a socialite. But then, since the majority of society suffer from "Pretty People" syndrome, it is not surprising.
Scott, Keeper of the Crystal Flame
Hey, I'm a good programmer, and I have ... hmmm... well at least I'm a good programmer!
Is he the guy that was on that tlc show about hackers, standing on the golden gate bridge, reciting the hackers manifesto, and generally acting like a complete jackass? Singlehandedly made me stop donating to the eff.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
I heard that RMS smells, never changes his clothes and throws used condoms behind the couch? Can anyone confirm?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
no, click on it and you see the past stories from the subject. this only has one story: Cory doctorow
I got your content right here. Well, the same amount of content, anyway.
The ocean parts and the meteors come down
Laid out in amber, baby.
"I code AND I bathe." It's a slogan for the new millenium!
It amazes me just how many coders or software professionals do not understand the power regular showers and GOOD DEODERANT. I mean if you want people to talk to you, you shouldn't reek like a bridge troll - no matter how well you code.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
How long will it take for people to realize that just putting stuff on the net for the world to download will not bring riches? Hell just doing that will incur serious bandwidth charges that....gasp.... you won't be able to pay!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Your programing is sub-par, and it took you way to long to complete the program! However, I find you breath minty fresh and unoffensive.
These matter to a programmer not! When in coding arts skilled you are, is all that matters.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Programmers and other artisans frequently get absorbed in their craft. This is good for their output and all those who receive it. They naturally attach lesser importance to impressing people with their conversational or sartorial skills. I resent gregarious people expecting everyone to share their high value on impressing others.
Hygiene only becomes a problem when it causes skin or GI infections. Odor is a matter of taste. I've found female smokers to be the most easily offended. The Pot is calling the Kettle black ...
Don't forget his weblog, BoingBoing which should be in everyone's rss readers by now (bonus: he puts the full article in his rss feed, unlike some sites).
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Now that I think about it, "Whuffie" more accurately describes what's called "Karma" here on Slashdot. Perhaps a change is in order?
I'd like to take this opportunity to state that I am an excellent programmer with excellent hygene and social skills. Resume at link below.
Schnapple
From the article:
Having just finished the book, I can tell you what to make of it: A poor ripoff of John Varley's The Phantom of Kansas with karma added. Oh, and whereas Varley managed to pack his ideas into a well-paced short story, this one dragged out for 208 pages as it subjected us to Disney technical minutiae on the way to a disappointing resolution.
At least I found out how the ghost hall works in the Haunted Mansion.
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
Bah, you don't belong here, quit wasting our time with your ramblings, you aren't a part of our elite group, you know. ;-)
Yeah, I hate to say this, but just because many programmers have sex, doesn't mean that you have to go far to find some that are stinky and/or socially unpleasant.
Bear in mind that "not correllated" means that there is no link between one and the other. If he said that being a programmer and having good hygeine were negatively correllated, then that could be a myth, since it indicates a link.
Mind you, compared to other professions where you sit at a desk, there probably is a weak negative correllation between programming and bathing habits. Unless I've just been really lucky in my jobs. Who knows, maybe it's just the games industry.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
In the world of the 'Bitchun' Society,' what's scarce is esteem, called Whuffie. For content, we should already be living in the world of the Bitchun Society--any digital file can be copied endlessly without degradation. Only it can't, because we have accepted the notion of intellectual property and adopted laws that punish people for the wholesale copying of stuff. Doctorow's Net move is an opening to the Bitchun' world, and it poses plenty of questions. Why will anyone buy the book if they can get it online for free?
Considering that Whuffie is essentially used as cash in his universe, we'd have to set up an automatic micropayment system the deducts from our bank account whenever we like something. f course, this will never work because if we disliked something, the transaction would go the other way. Furthermore, he never discusses why no one ever tried to hack their Whuffie higher.
This is weird.... They talk of Disney as being cutting-edge.
While I know that disney is renowned for it's use of technology at their theme parks, I can't say that I've heard of any of it being cutting-edge. From what I've heard (and seen), Disney is still using 8-track tapes for the audio tracks of many of their (older) rides, as well as the for the control of animatronics, using the age old argument: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Pneumatic tubes are still used for transporting paperwork (and garbage, but that's another story).
Of course, on the newer stuff they build, they're using, they've turned to using CDs, DAT, and of course, computers. But I certainly think their views on outdated technology (from what I have heard in the bast) make a lot of sense.
Do animatronic robots really need to be controlled by 2ghz computers over a secure fiber-optic TCP/IP link? No. Disney still uses their old system which has worked for several decades, and uses the old technology on some of the new stuff they build.
Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.
I suppose this is where a lot of the conflict in the company originates from. They used to be a really great company, but as of late, I've taken to strongly disliking their marketing strategies and overall business model - WE DICTATE YOUR CULTURE, BUY OUR PRODUCTS.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I code, therefore I stink.
Well, thank you captain Obvious!
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
I also seriously doubt that sex truly comes first for you. If it did, you would probably know nothing about programming, and instead be a doctor or bartender. Or is that your craft?
We may not be movie stars, but all the coders I know have sex at least semi-regularly, with people they don't have to pay.
Free sex? Remember, you get what you pay for.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Hey man, where did you get that great GWB quote? Do you have a link to the article it was in?
Thanks!
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
remember you can't smell yourself.
you can't expect people to treat with you on a civilized level just because you're an Ubercoder if you *also* are a maloderous trogolodyte.
Correcting the argument while leaving out the conclusion is just as deceptive as missinterpreting the argument.
KFG
You ALWAYS pay for sex. It just may not be with money...
Download my free songs!
Since when did programmers start becoming good at social interractions ? Why do you need to interract in the first place ? There is email, IM, IRC and other ways to communicate. All you need to be a good programmer is bitter coffee and hard rock music. As far as good person thing goes, programmers are always good people, you just have to get accustomed to their way of goodness :-) And no, being a good person is not same as being good at interracting socially...
Maybe I'm just guessing here, but your choice of terms is misleading.
If you say that personal hygene and being a high quality programmer are have no correlation, it doesn't mean that most programmers don't bathe.
In fact, it's a statistic term that means there is no relationship between the two variables. Or, that it's just as likely to find a well dressed clean good programmer as a slob good programmer.
Maybe you were trying to imply there is an inverse correlation between the two?
I bought the book, and read it last week. It's a good story, but the ending is a letdown if a little bit suprising.
Most of the effort is in dreaming up the world of the near-future and the implants and wuffie.
I was more disappointed with the book before someone asked me what it was about. It turns out that you have to nearly recite the entire plot just to give a summary because of all the new ideas and setting.
Without explaining dead-heading, whuffie, the bitchun society, and the adhocs in disney, the rest of the story doesn't make any sense at all.
so, maybe the actual plot isn't as important as the environment that the story takes place in.
anyway -- it's a good quick read that will probably become a fixture in the scifi book world similar to Neuromancer or Burning Chrome.
some people really don't think Gibson is a good writer either
>> being a good programmer and being a good person are not necessarily correlated
Most of my favorite artists, musicians, and writers were/are pretty $#itty human beings. It's discouraging to the point where I've stopped reading biographies about anyone who's work I admire. There are no heroes in the modern age.
and make them hang out with you and your programmer friends for a while. Maybe they will start picking up your good habits and get laid occassionally.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
And there is of course the assumption that if you aren't a freak then you obviously have no credibility. It's amazing to watch people cultivate their excentricity in a futile attempt to translate it into coolness. Posers are part of every culture, even the mass media mono-culture, and they are uniformly boring.
I wish people could just be OK with who they actually are.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"