But the more news articles read that write about "nerds" the more I can't help but feel increasingly offended. There's often times an undertone of ridicule in the writing that I cannot overhear any more. Please tell me I'm overreacting and should just relax a little more, because I sometimes feel that mainstream newspaper articles are borderline bullying. To a point where I've actually started thinking about forming a lobbying group to fight for more respect in the portrayal of technically inclined people like us.
Just a thought experiment: next time you come across an article that talks about "nerds" try replacing every instance of that word with "gays". Not that the result would make much sense but I think the gay community, despite their ongoing struggle, has at least managed to make it almost impossible to receive a similar kind of media report that consists of nothing but stereotypes.
If you do the above experiment, I'm sure you'll the offensive subtext in some articles, the self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it.
Maybe it's because technical people seem harmless that they think they can get away with their bullying. But I think it's about time to stand up against it and make our voices heard.
P.S.: I'm not saying that this particular article is worse than the rest. As a matter of fact, it's quite okay, compared to some others I've read. So maybe this comment is misplaced in this thread in which case I apologize.
I think this article is using the term "nerd" in high regard. "smart" as opposed to "glasses and giant backpack". The article paints these people as colorful characters and rock stars. If anything, I thought it was a little too fawning.
The Social Network. Nate Silver. TED. Nerds are actually doing pretty well in the popular culture right now. I don't mind seeing the word "nerd" in the title of an article. It's usually not a bad thing, and at least I know they're talking about me.
> I think the gay community, despite their ongoing struggle, has at least managed to make it almost impossible to receive a similar kind of media report that consists of nothing but stereotypes.
Are you kidding?
Yeah, I get where you're coming from on the offensive tone in some articles, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous to compare the portrayal of nerds in the media to the struggle for gay rights and equality.
And on that offensive tone - I don't think it's really present, here. I felt flattered as this article hammered home the importance of being up to date on tech, and employing the kinds of people that'll get great work done.
I've noticed a tendency, not just amongst others but also something I catch myself doing, for people like you and me to be a little over-sensitive. I spent a big period of my life being ridiculed over what I liked, and what I did, and what I looked like. I got used to confusing insults being thrown at me veiled under sarcasm, and felt like the whole world was laughing at me and I didn't even hear the joke.
So I got mean. I stopped trusting people, and I always assumed the worst. If someone (particularly someone matching the profile of former tormentors - bigger than me, cooler than me, better hair than me, plays sports better than me) said something that was maybe sincere, but possibly a sarcastic insult, I took it as the latter. These people were out to get me and if I gave them the benefit of the doubt, they would set me up for a fall!
Of course, the real world isn't high school, and more than that, the world has changed and attitudes have moved on. But any geek who is still carrying around a defensive attitude has turned the tables: now they are the ones judging others, being exclusionist (see: people crying about "fake" nerd girls), judging people on their appearances (many of us are anti-suit) or what they do (and many of us are anti-sports).
> self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it
On the one hand this sounds arrogant; I think as a developer I'd be remiss in not including many other people in the credits (product managers, finance, legal, designers, ux experts - many of these people are not nerds). On the other, whenever I speak to people about what I do ("What's a software engineer?" "I uh.. make websites") the reception is generally positive and enthusiastic - most people acknowledge that they enjoy the fruits of technological development, appreciate the people that bring it to them, and often aspire to learn more of the inner workings.
Of course, there are some bad articles - but they aren't representative of people's opinions in the wider world, in my experience, and the number I read that are flattering versus insulting is improving all the time.
I think the word nerd is like that other n-word. It's fine when it's used inside the nerd-dom, but it is offensive when used by someone who is not a nerd themselves. At least it is for me. Maybe it's just because I grew up in the 80's when being a nerd was not nearly as cool as it is today. Being obsessed about computers and science was a very negative thing socially for me.
So am I the only person seeing a Democrats (Big Goverment services) way of doing things vs a Republicans (multiple layers of crony capitalists contractors) in the comparison of the efficacy of Narwhal Vs Orca?
Didn't the latest Ars article suggest Orca wasn't a contractor concoction after all? [1]
I think all we really see, is that the Obama campaign had experience and no primary campaign distractions.
The Obama campaign had a v1 in 2008 and were merely updating it for 2012. Yes, they had to figure in mobile and the enhanced scale of the problem, but they were starting from a significantly better place than the GOP, who were caught completely flat-footed on technology in 2008.
The Obama campaign also had a (comparatively) leisurely opportunity to implement and refine their system while the Republican primary battles raged on and any one potential GOP candidate was denied the money/focus to start the development of a national campaign tool.
You could twist that the other way, though. The Democratic organization was highly decentralized, leaner and more effective than the Romney campaign bloc, centralized and huge in Boston HQ.
This makes a case for a small government. A small team, in house, tightly managed worked very well. Real big government is the multiple layers of crony contractors you're talking about.
The team had elite and, for tech, senior talent from
Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, and some
of Chicago's own software companies such as Orbitz and
Threadless
> Jim Messina signed off on hiring Reed, he told him, "Welcome to the team. Don't fuck it up."
Jim Messina is a complete boss and I highly recommend that fellow hners read into him to get a good understanding about how things operate in DC. My favourite Jim line is the one he uses when he meets new political people. As he shakes their hands, the first thing out of his mouth is:
And losing, they felt more and more deeply as the campaign
went on, would mean horrible things for the country. They
started to worry about the next Supreme Court Justices
while they coded.
Is it too naive to think that Reed and his team are able to influence the Administration's policies? Their ability to raise Billions of dollars and increase voter participation must trump 'regular' moneyed interests.
Hopefully this team can use their brownie points with the Obama administration to encourage some more tech-friendly policies (immigration, patents, etc).
Also, we should be clear, that Orca was not going to change the outcome or make even a dent.
This time around one of Romney's companies had ties to the company that owns the Hart Intercivic voting machines used in Ohio and Colorado, and there were reports of potential fraud from installing uncertified software patches on the machines (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machi...).
Eric Schmidt is on the Obama technology team, and Google Ideas creates software for monitoring election fraud (http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-peop...). I'd be curious to know how the campaign monitored election fraud and what type of countermeasures were put in place.
"He'd told me earlier in the day that he'd never experienced stress until the Obama campaign, and I believe him."
So many people get stressed out about the dumbest things that don't matter. Especially in IT, people like to tell war stories about their stressful job and all the hours they put in and how they don't sleep because there is too many fires to put out. Yuk. Harper Reed has it right. Do what you enjoy, have fun. Go nerds!
That is not the point of the article. The article is an in-depth exposition of the Obama campaign's tech team, along with how they faced difficulties, how they transformed their own culture to mesh with the traditional political world (and vice versa), as well as the products they ended up building.
[+] [-] kleiba|13 years ago|reply
But the more news articles read that write about "nerds" the more I can't help but feel increasingly offended. There's often times an undertone of ridicule in the writing that I cannot overhear any more. Please tell me I'm overreacting and should just relax a little more, because I sometimes feel that mainstream newspaper articles are borderline bullying. To a point where I've actually started thinking about forming a lobbying group to fight for more respect in the portrayal of technically inclined people like us.
Just a thought experiment: next time you come across an article that talks about "nerds" try replacing every instance of that word with "gays". Not that the result would make much sense but I think the gay community, despite their ongoing struggle, has at least managed to make it almost impossible to receive a similar kind of media report that consists of nothing but stereotypes.
If you do the above experiment, I'm sure you'll the offensive subtext in some articles, the self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it.
Maybe it's because technical people seem harmless that they think they can get away with their bullying. But I think it's about time to stand up against it and make our voices heard.
P.S.: I'm not saying that this particular article is worse than the rest. As a matter of fact, it's quite okay, compared to some others I've read. So maybe this comment is misplaced in this thread in which case I apologize.
[+] [-] hooande|13 years ago|reply
The Social Network. Nate Silver. TED. Nerds are actually doing pretty well in the popular culture right now. I don't mind seeing the word "nerd" in the title of an article. It's usually not a bad thing, and at least I know they're talking about me.
[+] [-] ZoFreX|13 years ago|reply
Are you kidding?
Yeah, I get where you're coming from on the offensive tone in some articles, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous to compare the portrayal of nerds in the media to the struggle for gay rights and equality.
And on that offensive tone - I don't think it's really present, here. I felt flattered as this article hammered home the importance of being up to date on tech, and employing the kinds of people that'll get great work done.
I've noticed a tendency, not just amongst others but also something I catch myself doing, for people like you and me to be a little over-sensitive. I spent a big period of my life being ridiculed over what I liked, and what I did, and what I looked like. I got used to confusing insults being thrown at me veiled under sarcasm, and felt like the whole world was laughing at me and I didn't even hear the joke.
So I got mean. I stopped trusting people, and I always assumed the worst. If someone (particularly someone matching the profile of former tormentors - bigger than me, cooler than me, better hair than me, plays sports better than me) said something that was maybe sincere, but possibly a sarcastic insult, I took it as the latter. These people were out to get me and if I gave them the benefit of the doubt, they would set me up for a fall!
Of course, the real world isn't high school, and more than that, the world has changed and attitudes have moved on. But any geek who is still carrying around a defensive attitude has turned the tables: now they are the ones judging others, being exclusionist (see: people crying about "fake" nerd girls), judging people on their appearances (many of us are anti-suit) or what they do (and many of us are anti-sports).
> self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it
On the one hand this sounds arrogant; I think as a developer I'd be remiss in not including many other people in the credits (product managers, finance, legal, designers, ux experts - many of these people are not nerds). On the other, whenever I speak to people about what I do ("What's a software engineer?" "I uh.. make websites") the reception is generally positive and enthusiastic - most people acknowledge that they enjoy the fruits of technological development, appreciate the people that bring it to them, and often aspire to learn more of the inner workings.
Of course, there are some bad articles - but they aren't representative of people's opinions in the wider world, in my experience, and the number I read that are flattering versus insulting is improving all the time.
[+] [-] 127|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hohohmm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vampirechicken|13 years ago|reply
I can't be the only one?
[+] [-] roc|13 years ago|reply
I think all we really see, is that the Obama campaign had experience and no primary campaign distractions.
The Obama campaign had a v1 in 2008 and were merely updating it for 2012. Yes, they had to figure in mobile and the enhanced scale of the problem, but they were starting from a significantly better place than the GOP, who were caught completely flat-footed on technology in 2008.
The Obama campaign also had a (comparatively) leisurely opportunity to implement and refine their system while the Republican primary battles raged on and any one potential GOP candidate was denied the money/focus to start the development of a national campaign tool.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...
[+] [-] josephmosby|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikebike|13 years ago|reply
See: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...
[+] [-] KaoruAoiShiho|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeguard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brown9-2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vampirechicken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] activepeanut|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olgeni|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
"21st century SWAT team" is a title I pray some secret division in the NSA is currently earning.
[+] [-] confluence|13 years ago|reply
Jim Messina is a complete boss and I highly recommend that fellow hners read into him to get a good understanding about how things operate in DC. My favourite Jim line is the one he uses when he meets new political people. As he shakes their hands, the first thing out of his mouth is:
> How are you fucking me?
Silicon valley entrepreneurs should take note.
[+] [-] mattdeboard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbecker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokipin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fmitchell0|13 years ago|reply
It was like someone had written a Murphy's Law algorithm and deployed it at scale.
and
...with technical people, it's one thing to look at their resumes and another to see how they are viewed among their peers
Test.Test.Test.Test.
Don't be a dick, no matter how smart you are or how much you know. Playing nice is more important.
[+] [-] charleshaanel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0003|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] herge|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harryh|13 years ago|reply
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance
[+] [-] bo1024|13 years ago|reply
Also, we should be clear, that Orca was not going to change the outcome or make even a dent.
[+] [-] espeed|13 years ago|reply
In 2004, Bush had ties to Diebold's CEO Walden W. O'Dell, and there was evidence of voting fraud in Ohio -- the exit polls weren't matching the results (http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio...). Later it was confirmed that Diebold voting machines could be hacked remotely (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3045086). A programmer even admitted to being directed to create a software "prototype" that could rig the machines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs).
This time around one of Romney's companies had ties to the company that owns the Hart Intercivic voting machines used in Ohio and Colorado, and there were reports of potential fraud from installing uncertified software patches on the machines (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machi...).
Eric Schmidt is on the Obama technology team, and Google Ideas creates software for monitoring election fraud (http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-peop...). I'd be curious to know how the campaign monitored election fraud and what type of countermeasures were put in place.
Karl Rove's election-night meltdown shows he was clearly shocked Romney didn't win Ohio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSiVhJq4tos).
[+] [-] aantix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harper|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scott_meade|13 years ago|reply
So many people get stressed out about the dumbest things that don't matter. Especially in IT, people like to tell war stories about their stressful job and all the hours they put in and how they don't sleep because there is too many fires to put out. Yuk. Harper Reed has it right. Do what you enjoy, have fun. Go nerds!
[+] [-] zby|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unavoidable|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeguard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niels_olson|13 years ago|reply
BSD
I got it...