5 ms·
This post put a big stupid grin on my face, just imagining him walking around, and nobody knowing who he is. Him being far more influential and more important t
by peregrine 16y ago
This post put a big stupid grin on my face, just imagining him walking around, and nobody knowing who he is. Him being far more influential and more important than most people in the room, and yet having trouble explaining what he does.
It sounds like a family reunion trying to remember people names and telling everyone you make web sites for a living.
- jonknee 16y agoThough it's getting easier to explain what he does--Android phones are everywhere these days.
- peregrine 16y agoBut Android is only a small part of why he is influential and important, it is the most visible I suppose.
- moe 16y ago"Well, I've created the operating system that runs about every 5th smartphone". "Well, and some other things".
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jonknee 16y agoIn the US Android is up to about 1/3 of smartphones these days.
- 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y agoAnd that thing that most websites run on. And tons of other infrastructure of the modern world. Yaknow, like that version control system. 2004 Time Magazine's one of the most influential people in the world. Pioneer of FOSS and innovation. But whatever. Computers a boxes full of magic, if you open them it all escapes. My uncle fixes computers and makes html pages too, it's no biggie. :(
- roel_v 16y agoHave you ever tried to explain to someone who is not an engineer what the relationship between 'a phone' and 'Android' is? Coincidentally I've tried twice over the last 3 weeks - both times concluded, after 15 minutes, with them concluding 'oh, so it doesn't matter much, right, all phones have it, it's just different between different phones'. Eh... yes, I suppose...
- rubyrescue 16y agoRelated - my wife and I cracked up last night that the special effects engineers were relegated to a 30 second montage with Marisa Tomei so as not to ruin the rest of the show for the beautiful people :)
- jhamburger 16y agoAlthough to be fair, the beautiful people are the only reason those engineers get even 30 seconds of primetime TV. See: thousands of engineers doing equally awesome things not related to showbiz.
- MrScruff 16y agoNot really. Visual effects are a bigger 'star' than any individual actor nowadays. Also, 'equally awesome' needs to be qualified. Most of the engineers working in film could get paid far more working in other industries but do it because it can be fantastically rewarding. Disclaimer: I am one of these.
- rbanffy 16y agoYou don't see "A movie by Douglas Trumbull" much... Not even "A movie by Industrial Light and Magic" (which would be most of them).
- MrScruff 16y agoWould you argue it was Michael Bay's name that convinced people to buy tickets for Transformers? Or Sigourney Weavers name on Avatar? I suggest examining the all time box office records: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/ http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/
- rbanffy 16y agoNeither Michael Bay nor Sigourney Weaver have much involvement with special effects. And, actually, what convinced me to see Avatar were the special effects. And there wouldn't be enough special effects in the world to convince me to go to a movie theater to watch Transformers.
- kierank 16y agoHim being far more influential and more important than most people in the room, and yet having trouble explaining what he does. That's not true. There were many people in that room who were critical parts of multibillion dollar franchises. So critical that if that person fell ill the franchise would have to stop. If Linus fell ill Linux would continue relatively unchanged.
- pyre 16y ago> If Linus fell ill Linux would continue relatively unchanged. Linux development on the other hand... Linus is still the Steve Jobs of the Linux kernel world, so far as I understand it.
- wisty 16y agoThe Steve Jobs, minus the tantrums, random firings, and black mock turtlenecks. I hear he can be pretty critical though, especially if you ask him to port his work to a more "modern" language.
- 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y agoLinus understands the merger between technology and the mindset of a factory's manager. He doesn't care about your made-up business statistics, he cares about total system throughput, he cares about making things work correctly, he cares about not treating any one paradigm like a religion but rather something to be validated in context. He isn't interested in making linux easier for anyone to contribute to, he's interested in making linux the best, and he has great reasons for using a "less modern" language, when you examine them in terms of reaching his goals. Once you understand this, you'll understand all his criticisms, including his controversial stance on the GOTO.
- grammaton 16y agoMinus the random firings and black mock turtlenecks. Not so much minus the tantrums.
- blocke 16y ago
- bad_user 16y agoimagining him walking around, and nobody knowing who he is Consider this was the Oscar; imagine the same thing happening to an actor walking around at a Linux conference. Him being far more influential and more important than most people in the room Out of all people, I would think that geeks / hackers can recognize the importance of art for society. If anything I wish more Natalie Portmans were around; as soon enough we'll end up like in Idiocracy with people watching 90 mins of a big ass farting. So stop with the condescending attitude, please.
- peregrine 16y agoI am, perhaps because I am programmer, more inclined to think that a person who created and now runs the most important piece of open source software is more important, to the world, then the person who plays a character in a movie. Which is all my opinion of course, and no more valid or invalid then yours. I apologize if I came off condescending, the arts are super important to me.