14 ms·
Programming Language Creator or Serial Killer?
- xd1936 6y ago3/10. Ouch.
- wolco5 6y ago1/10
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoI look around and see all these 8/10+'s around here and I have to wonder if a lot of it comes down to having seen pictures of these people before. My own score is DNF, because I'd managed to get one right most of the way through and stopped. That I would have had a better score choosing by coin flip is interesting.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- injb 6y ago5/10. It's surprisingly hard...I even hesitated over Guido!
- wejick 6y agoLol
- giantDinosaur 6y agoPresumably if it was easy to tell killers by their looks, they'd find it considerably harder to get away with the 'serial' part.
- tomxor 6y agoI got 9/10 But I think I know why... I started going partly by the style of the photograph, and partly by facial expression, but not their actual face. [Edit] shame it's not random or a pool larger than 10, I can't do multiple trials to figure out if I just got lucky.
- perpetualpatzer 6y agoEven just applying filters or some more recent, casual killer photos would be helpful. For some, the "photo scanned from newspaper" look was identifiable.
- mft_ 6y agoSame here. It didn't help that his T-shirt was similar in colour to the stereotypical orange prison jump-suit :)
- IncRnd 6y ago8 out of 10. Not bad, it seems you can sense logical brains versus clogged drains They all looked like killers.
- erichahn 6y agoNot funny.
- lemoncurd 6y agoshut up
- tooltower 6y agoWhy do people still think they can judge a person's character by a single photograph? This is an age-old dogma rooted in genetic superiority crap that really needs to die. Even a simple Google search shows a staggering number of these pop-psychology articles being actively peddled to the masses. Oh, if a person's nose is a bit crooked in the wrong direction, watch out!
- electrograv 6y agoI would assume that’s precisely the point of this silly game — to demonstrate directly that you can’t accurately judge someone by their appearance. But maybe I misinterpret?
- mc32 6y agoYou're quite right. It's absolutely mocking that idea --however lightly in an entertaining way --which is better than the 'we know better lecture' alternative.
- tooltower 6y agoSure, I can see that. It just triggered me a little bit that I was being encouraged to judge people so readily. Plus, the comments here didn't seem to make that connection. They mostly saw it as a particularly "hard" challenge, rather than an exposition of our own biases.
- taneq 6y agoI'd assume many people here interpreted it as a test of general knowledge rather than a test of ability to divine someone's homicidal tendencies from their mugshot.
- II2II 6y agoPerhaps the game was intended to demonstrate you can't judge a person so easily?
- IncRnd 6y ago> Why do people still think they can judge a person's character by a single photograph? They don't. That's the point. This was a test of recognizing people, not photo-personalities. You don't need to take things so pedantically.
- JasonFruit 6y ago8 out of 10. To be fair, both avocations are attractive to unbalanced personalities.
- WalterBright 6y ago> both avocations are attractive to unbalanced personalities <cough><cough>
- throwanem 6y agoI thought to make a comment about an excess of meticulousness, but then I remembered Larry Wall and thought about Perl, so I suppose that doesn't really fly.
- JasonFruit 6y agoHe's the analogue of the guy who just blew away whole families point-blank.
- taneq 6y agoThis reminds me of Cringley's theory that there are two main types of programmer, hippies and nerds. Hippies do big picture stuff and are good at UI/UX etc. but their low level code is sometimes untidy, nerds are great at fine detail and micro-optimization but can lose sight of the overall goal.
- jacquesm 6y agoYou can still set the record for being both though. To balance it out...
- II2II 6y agoI was a bit disappointed by the missed opportunity for a joke: Steve Jobs for the demise of serial ports.
- ktpsns 6y agoIronically, Steve Jobs supported USB, the Universal Serial Bus ;-). Maybe we could agree that Jobs wanted to kill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature ? :-)
- CamperBob2 6y agoI thought Apple was pushing FireWire at the time?
- grzm 6y agoDifferent purposes. Roughly FireWire replaced SCSI, and USB replaced ADB/serial.
- shagie 6y agoFireWire was replacing SCSI. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3 > The iMac was a huge success for Apple, revitalizing the company and influencing competitors' product designs. It played a role in abandoning legacy technologies like the floppy disk, serial ports, and Apple Desktop Bus in favor of Universal Serial Bus. The product line was updated throughout 1998 until 2001 with new technology and colors, eventually being replaced by the iMac G4 and eMac. > ... > A later hardware update created a sleeker design. This second-generation iMac featured a slot-loading optical drive, FireWire, "fanless" operation (through free convection cooling), a slightly updated shape, and the option of AirPort wireless networking. Apple continued to sell this line of iMacs until March 2003, mainly to customers who wanted the ability to run the older Mac OS 9 operating system. USB and FireWire support, and support for dial-up, Ethernet, and wireless networking (via 802.11b and Bluetooth) soon became standard across Apple's entire product line. The addition of high-speed FireWire corrected the deficiencies of the earlier iMacs. USB promptly kicked out the ADB peripherals.
- shric 6y agoI was thinking there would be at least one that's both programming language creator and serial killer.
- wyldfire 6y agoWould you settle for a filesystem creator? EDIT: BTW they did include Randy Kraft [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Kraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Kraft
- function_seven 6y agoNot serial (AFAIK!) But I guess he’ll have to do.
- wyldfire 6y ago...yet
- cortesoft 6y agoWoh, there have been two file system creators that are murderers?
- chrisaycock 6y agoA similar game is Quant Fund or Metal Band: http://www.quantfundormetalband.com/ http://www.quantfundormetalband.com/ My score there was only slightly better than on Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mr_toad 6y agoMy guesses were worse than a coin toss. Why is there not a metal band called Wolverine?
- kemonocode 6y agoThere is: http://www.wolverine-overdose.com/ http://www.wolverine-overdose.com/
- lytedev 6y agoDoubly so: https://youtu.be/t1nuz1bvg8Y https://youtu.be/t1nuz1bvg8Y
- smabie 6y agohaha yeah embarrassed thought I was gonna get 95%+
- abnry 6y agoSomeday I want to make a version called Startup or Indie Band.
- joejerryronnie 6y agoDang, quant funds are pretty metal!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- santosh898 6y agoC5gdh dd.
- scrps 6y ago10/10, I am mildy disturbed with myself that I know by sight with seemingly equal weight both language creators and serial killers.
- adamnemecek 6y agoIt should be “programmer or killer” and as a trick question it should include Hans Reiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser
- eyelidlessness 6y agoWell this got too dark after four tries before I backed out (I got three right). Gonna go take a shower and do some skin and hair grooming now.
- andyxor 6y agoIt rubs the lotion on its skin
- eyelidlessness 6y agoI’m glad this comment got undead so I could upvote
- adwn 6y agoWhen you click on a comment's timestamp, you can "vouch" for it, thereby raising it from the dead.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoI had no idea! This site has too many weird hidden features
- mhh__ 6y agoOr else it gets the code again (Is probably how my compiler feels when I try to be clever)
- andredz 6y ago8/10 I had the advantage of recognizing Sussman, Sammet and Guido. I don't think they look like killers. But I also didn't think that about Dorothea Puente and John Christie who I mistook for planguage designers :-)
- louis8799 6y agoSerial killers feel offended.
- Triv888 6y agowe need one like this but for democrat or republican... I never thought HN could get this low... lol
- stereoabuse 6y agoI enjoyed the NYTimes take on these clickbait quizzes without having to guess just a face: "Can You Tell a ‘Trump’ Fridge From a ‘Biden’ Fridge?"[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/27/upshot/biden-trump-poll-quiz.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/27/upshot/biden-...
- djohnston 6y ago8/10. I tried to focus on eyes as a heuristic, for whatever that's worth. I also recognized Guido.
- carlmr 6y agoFunny, same heuristic, same score and also knew Guido.
- paulirwin 6y agoIt's a bit tactless to post this while Brad Cox's obituary is the top post on HN.
- Perenti 6y agoAre you implying that Dr Cox was a serial killer?
- paulirwin 6y agoNo. I'm not trying to make a disgusting joke. A site that has you judge whether a person is a serial killer or a programming language creator is in poor taste when one of the top programming language creators' obituaries (with his photo) is on the front page. Too soon.
- lovecg 6y ago9/10 better than I thought.
- avl999 6y agoIn extremely bad taste.
- mhh__ 6y agoPretty funny though
- tangoalpha 6y agoScored 10/10. Marking mugshot-looking pics for serial killers and professional-looking portraits for programming language creators.
- joejerryronnie 6y agoKara Swisher was reminiscing about a similar game on the early web called Lesbian or German Woman which always seemed to trip her up.
- richard_todd 6y agoThe internet needs more stuff like this. I got 7/10 but I couldn't resist calling Guido a killer after the way he murdered Perl slowly for like a decade.
- ryl00 6y agoI don't care, I still love quirky perl.
- sundarurfriend 6y agoI hope Perl 7 helps Perl make a comeback. Given Larry Wall's Christian background, it would be appropriate for his language to be crucified and then be resurrected later.
- hannofcart 6y agoIt would be great if we could have some stats on the responses. Preferably cross referenced by referrer URL. I'd like to know what percent of the HN crowd thinks Guido looks like a serial killer.
- 11235813213455 6y agoIn terms of UX and a11y, please add a <form> for the Next button, so that we can do next without having to click (pressing enter, or even allow right key). Same for the Language creator / Serial killer buttons, use a <form>
- nickkell 6y agoNext time I'm on a zoom call with my colleagues I'll be studying their faces for signs of evil intent
- wigster 6y agowas the inventor of USB a serial killer? ;-)
- JohnStrangeII 6y agoSome could be both...
- torginus 6y agoMy takeaway is both programmers and serial killers look like regular people (and have some unflattering photos). The bias that you can tell killers apart by what they look like is created by the media, who probably choose sinister-looking photos when reporting on murderers.
- layer8 6y agoI think the bias is fundamentally human, it’s been a thing since ancient times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy
- Blikkentrekker 6y agoIt goes far deeper than that. I remember a conversation with an i.r.c. user who claimed he “imagined” users to have a certain hair color based on little more information than their i.r.c. nickname. Until I pointed out to them that surely that cannot be accurate at all, especially given that he imagined two different hair colors of the same user under a different nickname on different networks, he also did not even quæstion the accuracy of this and simply silently assumed it to be accurate. It was really quite weird. He proffered an entire description of what he thought I would look like based on very little information which, needless to say, was mostly objectively quite false. The user with different nicknames went even further and at one point seemed to expect me to be able to correctly assume what so-called “race” he categorized himself as, without having seen so much as a picture. Given that this same user had prior expressed surprise about my so-called “race” when seeing a picture, thus having assumed it wrongly prior, this was especially odd.
- Geminidog 6y agoI got 8/10 which says otherwise. I voted serial killer for both women just because of how unlikely it is for a female to invent a programming language. If it wasn't for that I would be basically 90% correct. This means statistically that there likely is a difference. I can't put my finger on what it was though, I just knew. Basically anybody who looked insane must be an inventor of a programming language and anyone who looked normal must've not invented a language and therefore must be a killer.
- msie 6y agoThat and this discussion was a brief moment of escape. Brings me back to my care-free days. Thank you!
- pmapcat 6y agoI've got 10/10. I've chosen to select people that I was instinctively afraid of as serial killers. It would be interesting to try this experiment on a larger dataset.
- tartoran 6y ago7/10. I mistook Sussman for a serial killer
- alan 6y agoBased on the title I thought this was about people who created and killed programming languages. I was sorely disappointed.
- rossdavidh 6y agoI feel like the guy who was both a programmer and a serial killer was kind of an unfair question. :) I wonder if the ones where they are smiling (e.g. Guido van Rossum) were replaced with stone-faced pictures, if the scores would be different.
- nikbackm 6y agoEh, won't most participants here recognize most programming language creators?
- amelius 6y agoSee also: the INTJ death glare. https://intj-explained.tumblr.com/post/10233359295/the-death-glare https://intj-explained.tumblr.com/post/10233359295/the-death...