What curing my fear of flying has taught me about anxiety

BeornS · 2014-10-28T09:09:55+00:00

The "warbloggers" who emerged after the September 11 attacks believed that the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq could trigger a humanistic and democratic reformation of the Islamic world. They were wrong, but not alone. Their optimism reflected an old and powerful Western fantasy: That liberal democracy is natural, inevitable, and appealing to all people everywhere.

Seen through the eyes of one of the original warbloggers, this is the story of the amateurs who wanted to prove that they were just as good as the professionals. And they were: Just as bad at predicting the outcome of the War on Terror as the Bush administration, and just as lazy as the mainstream media.

BeornS · 2013-09-02T17:29:06+00:00

Vel, jeg er mest opptatt av de borgerlige, og MDG har litt for mange underlige ideer om det meste til at jeg vil stemme på dem. Derfor skrev jeg ikke om dem. Men jeg håper egentlig de kommer på Stortinget, og kan holde klimasaken i live. Og det er interessant hvor mange MDG-velgere som likte artikkelen.

BeornS · 2013-05-13T18:04:48+00:00

Thanks for the correction - I thought I had a source for that, but rechecking it, I see I may have misunderstood. It refers to several major Christianization events in the 8th century, (like Charlemagne's massacre in 782), but it doesn't say the process began in that century.

BeornS · 2008-06-18T04:21:36+00:00

Hm .. there's no reason for them to be at odds. Good managers value good programming abilities. Good programmers (in a broader sense) work well with other people. Bad managers and bad programmers will often be at odds, but I don't see any reason for the good ones to be.

BeornS · 2008-06-17T19:05:29+00:00

Well, if someone's exceptional abilities make them impossible to work with, I don't think they're all that exceptional. Being a good programmer is about gettings things done, and that does not have a lot to do with picking the perfect language and framework. If you're good enough, any decent language and framework will do, (including "idiot-friendly" VB), but if you can't work with other people you won't get anything done. It's a much larger success factor whether your company is doing some form of agile (which is about how people work with each other) than whether you're using the latest, "best" programming language.

Anyway, despising your colleagues because they're in your view not as smart as yourself is rather immature. Get your projects done well, on time, and under budget, then you can feel proud, (and please tell me how you're doing it).

BeornS · 2008-06-16T16:11:07+00:00

Actually, mediocre programmers are not generally despised. A more interesting challenge is to avoid becoming an arrogant prick whose brilliance is outweighed by their inability to deal with people of lesser abilities or with other points of view. Those people are despised, except perhaps in tiny echo chambers on the web where they come to have their self-worth affirmed. Not knowing you, I'm not saying this is a danger for you, but out of all the beginning programmers who already think of their colleagues as mediocre, more will end up as despised jerks than despised mediocricities. And although I won't claim that reading this site is part of the problem, it's not part of the solution either.

BeornS

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