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Agreed! I have to say I was disappointed by the question at 59:23. They seemed to expect a retrospective on Ken’s career or some grand philosophical statement

Agreed! I have to say I was disappointed by the question at 59:23. They seemed to expect a retrospective on Ken’s career or some grand philosophical statement on software or open source. To be honest, I was pretty surprised by the direction of the talk myself, but I ultimately enjoyed it. You see, Ken decided to talk about his 75 year project: his music collection. He talked about audio formats, collecting music from different groups, sourcing metadata, building hardware to play music and more. He was deeply interested in the topic and honestly probably a bit obsessive for multiple decades. This was very humanizing. And to be completely honest he reminded me a lot of my girlfriend’s father who we think is undiagnosed autistic. Ultimately, I think the reason why Ken was so prolific over such a long time is his ability to be deeply interested in problems. He was not too fussy about tools. He didn’t push Go or Linux or UNIX. He wasn’t self aggrandizing. He just wanted to tell people about his project that he’s been working on. Honestly, I thought it was a great lesson that might have gone over a lot of people’s heads. --- This comment was copied from lobste.rs. https://lobste.rs/s/htwiag/ken_thompson_reveals_his_surprising#c_6p6cva https://lobste.rs/s/htwiag/ken_thompson_reveals_his_surprisi...

kristopolous 4y ago
It's a technically oriented, open source, Linux conference and he's talking about basically his home stereo. Well ok, I guess he can do whatever he wants. There's expectations from the context though. That speech was the first time I understood how people can become too famous for their own good. I saw him the day before (and I've got the photos to prove it) and he made a bunch of factual mistakes. Nobody cared enough to push back. I only did a little when he claimed raspberry pi prices have been stable and plentiful throughout the pandemic. But even I quickly gave up and I'm usually an asshole about things being right. (2019: 1gb pi4 was $35.00 and now it's $132.95 for the record. Buying 1000 cheap computers to sit on them 4 years and then just resell would have made you about $100,000) He can basically say whatever and do whatever and people just politely murmur in approval because he's computer royalty. There's no real feedback loop or anything to keep him in check. It'd be like if Beyonce held a concert and then instead of singing, talked about composting and gardening. I mean sure, whatever. High status gives people a pass
- justin66 4y ago
  I think we can all agree that a man who is unaware of the troubles you have experienced obtaining Raspberry Pis at list price is nobody's hero.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    Do you want more? He didn't know pac's relation to he-aac, or digital FM was renamed hd radio (which uses mdct, based on he-aac, based on pac). I was volunteering for the debian booth and thought Debian and raspberry pi os had no relation. None of these things matter because you're just being an asshole.
    - filmgirlcw 4y ago
      I think being obsessive that someone didn’t know digital fm was renamed he radio or that Raspberry Pi OS was based on Debian (maybe if the name was still Raspbian it would be more obvious) makes you more of an asshole than the guy you’re responding to.
      - kristopolous 4y ago
        The point is prestige overrides all other faculties. As a addendum, if it's hnuser:kristopolous pointing this out, then since there is no clout and prestige attached to my name I get attacked. I claimed this social phenomena existed and then it happened like a scripted play in these replies.
    - lproven 4y ago
      > digital FM was renamed hd radio I had to Google this. Seems it is some US-only thing I've never heard of. The rest of the world calls digital radio "DAB" and occaisionally "DAB+". I've bought 2 DAB radios so far this year, since moving back to a country where I speak the native language.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
filmgirlcw 4y ago
I was there in person and I debated with whether or not I should shout down the guy who basically insulted him for giving what I thought was a great talk. Obviously, I didn’t (because nothing good would come from making a spectacle like that), but it bothered me that he was insulted for presenting what I thought was a really beautiful and humanizing talk. I met Ken the day before and he told me he was nervous about his talk. I hope he knows that most of us in the audience really loved what he shared.
- agent281 4y ago
  Yeah, it made me sad because he sort of apologized to the person. Ultimately, Ken doesn't owe anyone anything.
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    That part kind of broke my heart. In retrospect, I should have gone with my gut and shouted “we love you, Ken” after he did that. Because you’re right, he doesn’t owe us anything. And he certainly doesn’t owe us trying to uphold some ideal we have of him that we’ve invented on our own.

kristopolous 4y ago

It's a technically oriented, open source, Linux conference and he's talking about basically his home stereo. Well ok, I guess he can do whatever he wants. There's expectations from the context though. That speech was the first time I understood how people can become too famous for their own good. I saw him the day before (and I've got the photos to prove it) and he made a bunch of factual mistakes. Nobody cared enough to push back. I only did a little when he claimed raspberry pi prices have been stable and plentiful throughout the pandemic. But even I quickly gave up and I'm usually an asshole about things being right. (2019: 1gb pi4 was $35.00 and now it's $132.95 for the record. Buying 1000 cheap computers to sit on them 4 years and then just resell would have made you about $100,000) He can basically say whatever and do whatever and people just politely murmur in approval because he's computer royalty. There's no real feedback loop or anything to keep him in check. It'd be like if Beyonce held a concert and then instead of singing, talked about composting and gardening. I mean sure, whatever. High status gives people a pass

justin66 4y ago
I think we can all agree that a man who is unaware of the troubles you have experienced obtaining Raspberry Pis at list price is nobody's hero.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  Do you want more? He didn't know pac's relation to he-aac, or digital FM was renamed hd radio (which uses mdct, based on he-aac, based on pac). I was volunteering for the debian booth and thought Debian and raspberry pi os had no relation. None of these things matter because you're just being an asshole.
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    I think being obsessive that someone didn’t know digital fm was renamed he radio or that Raspberry Pi OS was based on Debian (maybe if the name was still Raspbian it would be more obvious) makes you more of an asshole than the guy you’re responding to.
    - kristopolous 4y ago
      The point is prestige overrides all other faculties. As a addendum, if it's hnuser:kristopolous pointing this out, then since there is no clout and prestige attached to my name I get attacked. I claimed this social phenomena existed and then it happened like a scripted play in these replies.
  - lproven 4y ago
    > digital FM was renamed hd radio I had to Google this. Seems it is some US-only thing I've never heard of. The rest of the world calls digital radio "DAB" and occaisionally "DAB+". I've bought 2 DAB radios so far this year, since moving back to a country where I speak the native language.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

filmgirlcw 4y ago

I was there in person and I debated with whether or not I should shout down the guy who basically insulted him for giving what I thought was a great talk. Obviously, I didn’t (because nothing good would come from making a spectacle like that), but it bothered me that he was insulted for presenting what I thought was a really beautiful and humanizing talk. I met Ken the day before and he told me he was nervous about his talk. I hope he knows that most of us in the audience really loved what he shared.

agent281 4y ago
Yeah, it made me sad because he sort of apologized to the person. Ultimately, Ken doesn't owe anyone anything.
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  That part kind of broke my heart. In retrospect, I should have gone with my gut and shouted “we love you, Ken” after he did that. Because you’re right, he doesn’t owe us anything. And he certainly doesn’t owe us trying to uphold some ideal we have of him that we’ve invented on our own.