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Having gone to college and knowing this guy personally from then, you would have a much different opinion... Maybe he has grown up, but back then... yeeesh


I mean, he's obviously not a normal guy. I don't know what you expect. From a recent profile:

> Apart from a criminal streak, Hotz shares with Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky’s antihero, a predilection for instrumental reason and an urge to test his own mettle, to know himself by knowing his limits. As a young adult Hotz allowed himself to become addicted to prescription opiates almost as an experience in self-mastery. “I did it, I was addicted, and I quit,” he told me. “I think I had to have that experience. I don’t think I ever could have been the type who never tried it. Because in some ways I feel that if I’m not strong enough to defeat that and overcome it…” He paused for several beats before assuring me he’d never want anyone to follow his example. “In order to quit,” he continued, “it required me to rethink what I wanted out of life. After that, one of the biggest things that changed is I stopped caring about money.”

https://return.life/2022/03/07/george-hotz-comma-ride-or-die...


> not a normal guy

I assure you some people try themselves - and I do not see what is not "normal" about it. To experience, voluntary, then grow, is the norm.


I don't know. I ran the idea of purposely getting addicted to opioids to see if i can quit by my wife and she assured me i was crazy.


This direction goes off-topic, but: look, if you married her,

-- either you go along well, hence that she agrees with your opinion is a weak test;

-- or you married her to test yourself, which would prove my point.

TND; QED. /J


Maybe she married him to test herself?


What does TND mean?


("Tertium Non Datur" - that analyzed options are exhaustive)


Meaning this only neutrally, and completely respectfully: have you considered that you're a bit abnormal as well?


Yes, reflection is still part of the norm. Luckily... :)

Normal is what reflects the norm. That natural, observational norm (type, mode) and deontic, optimal norm ("as it should be") so typically ("normally") diverge, so the latter is found in the standard deviation, comes from the very point that was raised initially: growth («To experience, voluntarily, then grow, is the norm»), or the point where you are in it, proceeding towards the right extreme.

There is no escape from the norm (and its negative), you see: if good, then optimal norm, peripheral in the curve; if lacky, then observational norm in the centre. And between the two there is a sort of a continuity, thresholds aside...

That the "world" looks so abnormal, the bad way (hence you can call 'abnormal' the normal), is justified in such framework - especially when you look at it as a playground. And we just say, ok, if it were possible just to reduce the collateral damage...


The only normal people are the ones faking it


As someone who somewhat went down that path, the answer for me was "no, I can't quit on my own and man this 'experiment' has done some serious damage to my life"

I'm doing better now! The buprenorphine injection has made my life so much better.

Of course my trauma was one of the real driving forces behind that "experiment" and thought process. Really, my "lets find out what its like" was a rationalisation it seems.


I've heard that real serious addictions are never just about the drugs, but also about underlying issues. It makes sense that someone without those issues would have an easier time quitting.


I'm in a similar situation, but not with opioids. I don't think that this is a crazy idea at all. We're just testing our limits and seeing if we as smart as we say.


Agreed. To test my belief in probabilities, I occasionally challenge myself to a few rounds of Russian Roulette.


And what if you aren’t?


[flagged]


Well it seems to be for many, many people


The hubris of framing it that way is kind of wild.


I have gone to college with similar overachievers/braggers, and now that you mention it if they were in the spotlight as much as him I'd roll my eyes pretty hard. Still though, having not gone to college with this particular one somehow I can stand it.


I cannot take this criticism seriously unless you are more specific than “yeesh.” If you aren’t willing to be specific then better to not say anything at all.


Who cares if he’s a nice guy?


If he's being held up as some shining beacon of the "hacker-ish culture" as the grandparent poster is doing, it would be nice if he weren't also a jerk.


Everyone should kill their heroes. They almost never live up to the pedestals people place them on. They are all just people and have flaws. They don’t have to be some perfect person to do cool things we can respect.


I respect geohotz' achievements (generally). I would never hold him up as an example of hacker culture, or his persona as one to emulate. There is a difference between these things.


Is hacker culture not filled with "weird jerks"? Linus doesn't qualify? Who does?


Linus used to be a massive jerk until he fixed his attitude. Hackers can grow.

I've got massive respect for everybody who addresses their own problems and fixes them. Way too many people only look for the problem in other people, but it's never that simple.


Out of curiosity who would you show as an example of hacker culture?


They are mostly the people you never hear about in mainstream media. The quiet engineers and tinkerers of the world. Guys like Fabrice Bellard, jaquesm of hn fame, Stuff Made Here (YouTube). There are a lot of prolific hackers out there that have made or are making contributions.


Why the need to conflate personality traits with skill?

If I have a rare disease, I don't care if the doctor is nice. I want them to get the diagnosis correct.

Van Gogh painted brilliantly. And he cut off his ear.

Eminem is a great rapper. His themes can be violent.


The post I replied to was one about personality traits, not skill.


The poster probably meant that "«it would be nice» - yet largely irrelevant". You can abstract from those "personality traits" as long as """he is one who delivers""" - respectfully saying, as he is not obliged: he provided us with another tool, for our use, for free: he is a benefactor.


I don’t think of him as shining. I like that he’s a real person, flaws and all. Not someone to idolize. Many great hackers that I know and in general are total jerks (I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow but idk). I wouldn’t find it accurate to my experiences if we had some polished perfect optics guy as representative (not that that’s what he is)


> I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow

Disruptiveness, for lack of a better term. These are people who are well-acquainted with finding the boundaries of systems and barreling through them.


Talented but bad people breed a new generation of unnecessary untalented bad people.


Maybe you were the one who sucked.


I'm guessing only child syndrome + rich as hell parents.


Jealousy tends to make you react that way


Envy. Some changes in language are fine, but these are very different things and it's nice to have words for both of them.


Phew, I was wondering when they closed the sale. I swear I would have remembered that


Don't swear. Place bets instead. That way, it's more expensive to be wrong which is a much better lesson to learn.


They are also pressure fitted onto the axles. They are not bolted or otherwise fixed. The only thing which keeps them on the train is friction and the rail itself.

I was on a commuter train which derailed because it LOST a wheel. I don't understand why they aren't at least locked in mechanically. That wheel went rolling at 80MPH and blasted straight through trees near the tracks.


How ironic... James is VP and DE at AWS...


The "gas" is more like a fog of capsules. FM-200 is a common one. Basically it has a Fire suppression agent inside crystals which are blasted into the room by compressed air. These crystals melt when they get over a certain temperature and therefore won't kill you; however, breathing that in isn't really pleasant.

Source: I've been in an FM-200 discharge


Does everyone carry an N95 or equivalent? I guess many of us have gotten good at donning them by now...


At least with Azure the new Windows Terminal App has Azure Cloud Shell in it. So you can use it like it was just a different session target and less fuss...


the NSF confirmed the cables failed sometime over night, this wasn't the planned decommissioning. They noticed with drone flights the cable exteriors which remained on tower 4 were showing pre-failure conditions over the past few days.


As sad as this is, I'm glad the NSF didn't try to repair it now. There could have been people on the platform when it gave way.


It caught his nose between one of the ribbons of rail. That caused his car to pierce the barrier instead of having its energy dissipated.

Also there is a theory that the pole holding up the rails didnt shear off at all and thats why the car got snapped in half.


Which in this case is tomorrow. The original video was posted last week


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