I think it's unfortunate that a moderator decided to unkill this. It's not just inappropriate for HN due to content, but also because it's a mean-spirited hate piece with bits of misogyny and homophobia thrown in. It's fine if someone wants to rebut the article (which seemed like a pretty straightforward interview to me), but the rebuttal that gets promoted to HN should have been more civil.

What I find striking is that someone working at a gas station, and with apparently no formal CS education, could get hired and eventually become a lead developer, at Microsoft. Google would never hire someone like Zeke (they might have in the past, but not current Google); without a degree from a "top-tier school", you don't even get past the first steps of the interview process.

Say what you will about IE (Zeke is apparently lead on the project), Microsoft actually does have a lot of good software developers working there. I can't imagine someone would rise to a lead role on a major product like IE without being pretty damned good. And, there probably is something to hiring really passionate people over someone with a lot of qualification who could take it or leave it...companies like Google that weed out first based on school and grades, might just be missing out on a huge class of talent.

I can think of a few well-known examples of this (jwz, most of the 8-bit game developers, John Carmack, etc.). Not to say the guy responsible for IE is necessarily in that class...but, nonetheless, there's an awful lot of great developers who never went to a good school for CS.

Remember, just because people who advocate keeping marijuana illegal are horrible human beings, doesn't change the fact that marijuana is a psychoactive drug and we don't really understand the human brain all that well.

My own brain is idiosyncratic and doesn't always react as expected (e.g. to caffeine) and I've heard friends say that they think that taking marijuana during college might have permanently dulled the edge of their intelligence - which isn't exactly a controlled study or anything - but is enough to scare me away from ever trying the stuff.

And yes, I also never drink alcohol, and try to steer away from large doses of caffeine. Drugs scare me, legal or not.

Consider the risks and rewards very carefully before whacking on your brain with any sort of neuropharmeceutical - everything we have nowadays will be regarded by future times as the equivalent of a sledgehammer. The people trying to decriminalize and legalize drugs are, without ambiguity, the good guys. Don't confuse that with the proposition that drugs themselves are good.

Elizer, I'm going to respond to you not because I disagree with what you said, but because you stated concisely the view that's opposite the one I hold, and I figure it might be neat to provide the foil view.

I don't hold my mind's current state sacrosanct. That is to say, I respect my mind incredibly, but I don't have any belief that says my mind was built the way it was for a reason, or that there's something wrong with experimenting with it. That doesn't mean I abuse it incredibly, but I'm fine with drugs and find the infrequent experiences I have with them to be worth the negligible cost they have on my mind.

I won't say "drugs are good" because I think it's stupid to assign a moral value to drugs either way. Hence, the idea that the brain should be preserved and altering chemicals avoided isn't one that I find offensive in the least. But it's worth pointing out the beneficial effects they can have on you. For one thing, realizing the limits of your perception can be fascinating. Weed doesn't have that effect on me so much, but alcohol and salvia both certainly made me realize things I wouldn't have realized otherwise. Alcohol's emotional effects certainly taught me that our moods are tenuous and that we shouldn't equate our emotional states to any sort of logical truth about the world.

Regarding weed and dulled intelligence - yes, I feel like that sometimes. I feel like that without using weed. Right now I'm in an emotive state where I feel like I'm going to grow fat and die without ever moving. Weed has nothing to do with those downer feelings. Since I first took weed, though, last February, I wrote a novel, designed a handful of web sites that I'm proud of, finished a few projects, etc., and I did it in between infrequent weed hits. It's worth pointing out that many great artists were users - Miles Davis and heroin most famously - and that using drugs doesn't instantly make you less creative. It might make you creative in a different way, but creativity is not something which can be gained and lost. It is a potential that we all have regardless of intelligence. Think of it more as a muscle than as a trait.

We're affected by chemicals no matter how we live. You live your life according to a mixture of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and nutrients. In my mind, worrying too much about weed is like worrying about eating fats - it's certainly possible that if you take too much, there'll be adverse effects, but assuming that a single contact with a substance will change you forever is silly.

Regarding the initial question, though, hacking on weed probably won't work too well. Weed affects the sort of focus you'd need. (For certain other activities, however, like playing music, weed can help. It's not a black-and-white all-or-nothing deal.)

My advice would be to try it, since you can't really be hurt trying, but if you decide not to then all power to you.

I find this objection lame. Satire isn't supposed to be civil. It isn't supposed to be non-misogynist or non-homophobic either. It's supposed to be fucking ruthless. It's supposed to speak the unspoken truth about something, irrespective of decorum.

Obviously not every shot is going to hit the mark, and the ones that miss often seem rude, crude, or both. But when satire hits the bullseye it transcends all of those categories because of the power of truth-telling. It has been a valuable part of civil discourse, in the larger sense, for as long as civil discourse has existed.

As for this particular attempt at satire, I think it hit the target in a few places (in terms of nailing what's going on behind the original propaganda), and the rest of it reads like pretty much every other Zed Shaw blog post. So, not completely successful, but not too bad for an instant knockoff. And the original piece was so asking for it (did you read her t-shirt?) It would be interesting if other parodies pop up.

If something erases data from my computer without my consent, yes, it is my enemy!

I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the point, but that's among the worst info-graphics I've ever seen.

- unreadably small

- no scale

- completely gratuitous circular presentation

Seriously. It's awful.

It wasn't a straightforward interview. It was a subtle form of astroturfing.

PR is all about context. They try to dissociate the site from Microsoft (visually) to imply these are disinterested opinions. And in particular, that there's this cute young emo woman who wanders the halls of Microsoft entranced with the dreamy, rebellious hackers. The subtext, if you're a heterosexual male programmer, is that working for MS gets you the kinds of attention you've always wanted. And that real rebels ought to be working for Microsoft.

All absurd, which is why they had to be subtle about it. If the sexual innuendo is said out loud -- as in a parody -- you then realize what's happened. It's debatable whether the tone is HN-appropriate, but I thought it made legitimate points, despite or perhaps because of the crudeness.

This has turned out to be overblown, as usual. More info here:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showAr...

Somebody (third-party) decided to sell 1984 and Animal Farm on the Kindle Store without owning the copyright to it. Amazon is of course forced to take down said illegal posting. The only questionable part here is whether or not they should be allowed to delete purchased copies (with refund).

What's wrong, still thinking about that marijuana thread? Don't worry, we all believe you have really severe back pain... ;-)

I think you make a big mistake with your comment.

There's nothing wrong with self-taught. Many great scientists and inventors have been self-taught (eg Michael Faraday).

Also, I'm the opposite of his guy. I went to Oxford. Studied mathematics and computer science and stayed and got a doctorate. I would suck at leading IE development.

As a hiring manager I look at what people can do, and then I look at their education. I do this becausesome of the best engineers I've worked with majored in non-CS/EE.

BTW I am hiring Java developers in London.

I like making things.

Bitching will not save you. Go to the new page and vote up stuff you like.

"P.S. I don’t think she’s a whore because she’s a woman, I think she’s a whore because she’s in marketing. It’s important to understand the distinction." http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-07-18.html

I find it amusing that the best viral marketeer I have seen says "she’s a whore because she’s in marketing".

I don't care if the kindle store is excellent.

I don't care if amazon is good 99% of the time.

I don't care if BigPrint is the devil and amazon was coerced.

Nobody should EVER under any circumstance delete ANYTHING from my computer, even if I bought it or not, if it is pirated or not, if it is stolen or not.

If it was your mistake to allow that to happen you should ask politely and we should be able to decide what to do.

I hope Apple takes notices, I know they have a remote shut-down switch in every iphone. They better never use it.