Top all-time · #96
Armed and Dangerous
Personal blog · esr.ibiblio.orgprogrammingculture
Armed and Dangerous is a personal blog at esr.ibiblio.org about programming and culture. Since 2008, 381 different Hacker News readers have linked it 787 times, most often “From kafkatrap to honeytrap”. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Rarely recommended · 0 of 40 sampled comments recommend it, 3 are critical?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Eric S. Raymond's blog for his essays on open source, cultural and social-justice debates, and programming opinions, often to support a point in a thread. Many commenters also mention his posts on Linux, languages and Emacs history.
- Criticised for · 3 comments
- One commenter says the Raymond blog's essays on race and crime are offensive and that the author is wrong about open source and Stallman; another says his claim
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- From kafkatrap to honeytrap14 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2015-11-04
- The Right to Be Rude11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-02-28
- Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2015-11-14
- Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2020-09-26
- Preventing visceral racism8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2013-07-27
- Kafkatrapping8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2010-07-20
- Reposurgeon’s Excellent Journey and the Waning of Python8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2018-10-09
- Rust severely disappoints me7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2017-01-12
- Who are the famous programmers?7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2015-09-16
- /6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2009-08-10
What Hacker News says?
Perhaps http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907 has come to pass.
Comment linking /?p=6907
on “Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off”Submitted Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters as a story · 217 points
HN discussionIn his essay "Gramscian Damage", ESR explains what he sees as the source of our ideas about cultural relativity. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260
Comment linking /?p=260
on “Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off”Submitted Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark as a story · 176 points
HN discussionThe concern has already been raised by sibling comment[0], so cross-posting my response. Let the last line quoted from article be a reply to you. >This has nothing to do with 'SJWs' >I think it's much more likely you're clinging to buzzwords. The ESR's article[1] you are referencing is so much more than just headline. I encourage you to read it, and try to re-construct the events, the thoughts, and the emotions that…
Comment linking /?p=6918
on “Richard M. Stallman resigns”Submitted Nokia’s Suicide Note as a story · 131 points
HN discussion>This has nothing to do with 'SJWs' >I think it's much more likely you're clinging to buzzwords. The ESR's article[1] you are referencing is so much more than just headline. I encourage you to read it, and try to re-construct the events, the thoughts, and the emotions that led ESR to post a piece that explosive. The comment section alone spans some 760 responses over four years, with people chipping in with their ob…
Comment linking /?p=6918
on “Richard M. Stallman resigns”Submitted The myth of the fall as a story · 129 points
HN discussionJust as much as RMS was right[1], ESR was right[2]. The "cancel culture" is harming the free software movement by practicing human version of Microsoft's EEE[3]. The cancel culture enters the community, establishes interests groups, and starts knocking down prominent contributors. The demands are backed by angry crowds on social media rather than by contributions. It's time for us to defend each other, and to hold c…
Comment linking /?p=6918
on “Richard M. Stallman resigns”Submitted Last Phase of the Desktop Wars? as a story · 118 points
HN discussionIt is interesting to contrast this with esr's recent announcement "In which, alas, I must rattle a tin cup" [1]. [1] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7348#more-7348
Comment linking /?p=7348
on “Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave”Submitted The “walled garden” becomes a prison for reality as a story · 118 points
HN discussionesr has foreseen this: "This morning came the news that Google has agreed to buy Motorola Mobile for $12 billion. I was half-asleep when A&D regular Jay Maynard phoned me with a heads-up, but not surprised for a second; as I told him, I’ve been expecting this for weeks." http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3597 Apparently what counts are the patents: "make no mistake: this purchase is all about Motorola’s patent portfolio. Th…
Comment linking /?p=3597
on “Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion”Submitted ESR: Cisco provides a lesson as a story · 117 points
HN discussionOfftopic, but I found nowhere to actually ask this question. Does anybody know if ESR is still alive? His blog [1] has not been updated in months--and looking at his post dates, this seems really out of character--, he hasn't posted anything on twitter, or his usual channels. [1] http://esr.ibiblio.org/
Comment linking /
on “Dependency Confusion: How I Hacked Into Apple, Microsoft and Other Companies”Submitted Pessimism about parallelism as a story · 100 points
HN discussionThis looks fantastic. One possible wrinkle: I predict that, although top-performing Starfighters will be a diverse lot, they will lack "diversity". I hope the Starfighter founders have a plan to push back against the carping complainers a venture such as this is likely to attract. (My suggestion is to point out that CTFs are the ultimate expression of "Shut up and show us the code." [1]) [1]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/…
Comment linking /?p=6642
on “Announcing Starfighter”Submitted From kafkatrap to honeytrap as a story · 87 points
HN discussionSomething Eric Raymond agrees with him about - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=932 Eric also had another post Three Systemic Problems with Open-Source Hosting Sites a few months later (October 2009) - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1282
Comment linking /?p=1282
on “Dropbox Attempts To Kill Open Source Project”Submitted The long goodbye to C as a story · 83 points
HN discussion>The advantages C++ has for application-level programming are useless in this domain. ESR was recently making some generalized observations in this direction: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7804
Comment linking /?p=7804
on “Fuchsia is not Linux”Submitted What if the Web never happened as a story · 79 points
HN discussion> There's really very little reason to ever use C over C++ with modern toolchains. - most C code compiles magnitudes faster than most C++ code (unless you don't use templates or the C++ stdlib) - you need C headers anyway for the public API, because the C++ ABI is not standardized (and a mess), trying to do shared libraries with C++ would result in such abominations like COM - about half of features that C++ adds on…
Comment linking /?p=7724
on “Fuchsia is not Linux”Submitted ESR: Abusing Alan Turing as a story · 78 points
HN discussionErick S. Raymond: http://esr.ibiblio.org/ Author of the Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Comment linking /
on “How to be like Steve Ballmer”Submitted On Learning Haskell as a story · 74 points
HN discussion> He's always trying to show off how intelligent he is by making a totally outrageous asinine statement he knows isn't true and is totally offensive, and then trying to prove he's so clever that he CAN justify it through mental tricks, verbal gymnastics and gerrymandered taxonomies. I'm reminded of this post: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6839 . Here he declares himself the most famous programmer ever. Even by his own c…
Comment linking /?p=6839
on “Robert Scoble and Me”Submitted ESR on Facebook as a story · 73 points
HN discussionSome HN readers who seem to be knowledgeable about genetics were discussing the spread 73 days ago [1]. If you don't want to read the whole thread, I'll also link to a couple specific sub-threads [2] [3]. However, I will note that a colleague of mine saw the virology institute's location change on Google Maps around this time. Free software legend Eric S Raymond mentioned this on his blog as well [4]. I'm pretty sur…
Comment linking /?p=8587
on “Coronavirus and Credibility”Submitted NTPsec is not quite a full rewrite as a story · 72 points
HN discussion
