I'm fairly new to/. and this was the first Katz article I've read (I think) and was a bit surprised at the vehemence of the complaints.
Your point was a very good one, since I was in fact thinking that his way of explaining things was very good at a basic level, but you're right - audience is important.
On the other hand, it does seem useful to stay aware of that level of communication since most of us have to deal with the 'general public' at some point or other. I could certainly see giving a copy of this article to someone or linking to it as a good explanation of the basic concepts involved.
You also said, "that most of the issues he has been bringing up recently [...]are issues that the average/.er has already pondered and reached conclusions about when we were very young." I find this interesting, because it seems likely that the conclusions we reached are not all the same and reexamining entrenched beliefs can be a very educational experience.
So, ignoring the assertion that this article is not written at our collective technical level, I think a discussion of open source media would be interesting.
For example, what do people see as the future revenue streams for this type of work? Can advertising and IPOs sustain them indefinitely? Will the trend be towards a lot of very specific niche media (like this one) or towards large entities with a higher degree of filtering?
I guess it depends on the geeks. If you've got to be around teenage guys, I think the geeks are certainly better than the alternatives.
Maybe what we really need is for the media to just portray geeks in a better light and feature them in afternoon specials or whatever kids are watching these days.
I dated a bunch of geeks in high school and they were all sweet, polite, intelligent, and a lot of fun. They also seemed likely to want to spend the evening talking or doing something fun and frivolous (contrasting, it seems, to many guys who were only interested in sex.)
And certainly when trying to date, a 5 to 1 ratio is not a bad thing: at least from the 1 side;-) Even if there are a few that that aren't yet ready for that level of social interaction, you've probably got your pick (and the rest are usually pretty trainable). I don't think any of my fellow female geeks ever had trouble finding dates. And we used to just laugh at the various complaints of the others about insensitive guys who never called.
Ah, well, perceptions can be so important. Maybe we need to start a date-a-geek campaign.
Maybe if we lure the young ones into math clubs and computer teams with thoughts of dating they'll fnd that the subject matter is pretty interesting too. I can just see the posters in the halls:
Join the math team - 5 guys to every girl
Need a prom date? Come to the next chess club meeting.
Or maybe I'm just getting a little silly now.:-)
Chaosnymph - (who recommends geeks to all her friends)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm fairly new to /. and this was the first Katz article I've read (I think) and was a bit surprised at the vehemence of the complaints.
Your point was a very good one, since I was in fact thinking that his way of explaining things was very good at a basic level, but you're right - audience is important.
On the other hand, it does seem useful to stay aware of that level of communication since most of us have to deal with the 'general public' at some point or other. I could certainly see giving a copy of this article to someone or linking to it as a good explanation of the basic concepts involved.
You also said, "that most of the issues he has been bringing up recently [...]are issues that the average /.er has already pondered and reached conclusions about when we were very young." I find this interesting, because it seems likely that the conclusions we reached are not all the same and reexamining entrenched beliefs can be a very educational experience.
So, ignoring the assertion that this article is not written at our collective technical level, I think a discussion of open source media would be interesting.
For example, what do people see as the future revenue streams for this type of work? Can advertising and IPOs sustain them indefinitely? Will the trend be towards a lot of very specific niche media (like this one) or towards large entities with a higher degree of filtering?
There's always something to explore. Any takers?
Chaosnymph of the many questions
I guess it depends on the geeks. If you've got to be around teenage guys, I think the geeks are certainly better than the alternatives.
Maybe what we really need is for the media to just portray geeks in a better light and feature them in afternoon specials or whatever kids are watching these days.
I dated a bunch of geeks in high school and they were all sweet, polite, intelligent, and a lot of fun. They also seemed likely to want to spend the evening talking or doing something fun and frivolous (contrasting, it seems, to many guys who were only interested in sex.)
And certainly when trying to date, a 5 to 1 ratio is not a bad thing: at least from the 1 side ;-) Even if there are a few that that aren't yet ready for that level of social interaction, you've probably got your pick (and the rest are usually pretty trainable). I don't think any of my fellow female geeks ever had trouble finding dates. And we used to just laugh at the various complaints of the others about insensitive guys who never called.
Ah, well, perceptions can be so important. Maybe we need to start a date-a-geek campaign.
Maybe if we lure the young ones into math clubs and computer teams with thoughts of dating they'll fnd that the subject matter is pretty interesting too. I can just see the posters in the halls:
Or maybe I'm just getting a little silly now. :-)
Chaosnymph - (who recommends geeks to all her friends)