this is the author here ... since this post seems to have spawned the largest thread, hopefully i can address it at its root. i now realized that this was a ho

this is the author here ... since this post seems to have spawned the largest thread, hopefully i can address it at its root. i now realized that this was a horrible way to start the article, for several reasons: 1.) it makes people debate grades vs. intelligence vs. likelihood of eventual success, etc. 2.) it reminds hacker types of how schools only rewarded the teachers' pet kids who bothered doing inane homework and studying a lot for tests and didn't have proper incentives for people who liked hacking in their spare time rather than spending all their efforts trying to earn A+'s 3.) it makes people think that the point of my article is about intelligence, getting good grades, and being admitted into an elitist school I think all of these detract from the main point of my article, which is to make a very simple claim, which i've observed to be true in my personal experiences: "Given two people with comparable levels of intelligence and technical skills, the one with less-reputable external marks of status will be more likely to display outward signs of elitism, arrogance, and snobbery." i guess the moral of the story is that i should be more concise in my writing ... smaller attack surface ;)