Comments on: a charlatan-friendly ecosystem

By: k

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:33:58 +0000

Will definitely check him out. Sorry I missed out before he flamed out. ]]>

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:31:58 +0000

Ah! I take it you're not familiar with the work of Ted Dziuba -- most specifically his now-shuttered blog, uncov? It was all that you describe and more (the "more" largely consisting of potshots at Michael Arrington and a sensibility taken from /b/). Dziuba became somewhat chastened when his own overthought startup failed to take off, but for a while there his writing was performing an incredibly valuable last-sane-man-in-an-insane-world / you-blew-it-all-up-you-damn-dirty-apes sort of function. His writing at his blog and The Register are still worth a look.

By: k

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 08:59:31 +0000

I’ve always been surprised that no site has ever sprung up to combat the “irrational exuberance” of the Techcrunches with wit, a measured bit of cynicism and intellect. Something like the Awl, but turning a wry and wary eye on the absurdities of the tech industry. I suppose it would take balls of steel and a thick skin to write, but it would be captivating reading for sure. ]]>

By: Eric Mill

Eric Mill — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:14:21 +0000

I join you in lamenting the deplorable state of tech journalism, but I don’t care so much about ill-founded hype. People take risks and try new things all the time and hype is a part of that, and in fact it’s part of the incentive to succeed – letting people down sucks.

Even with bad journalism surrounding it, if the Diaspora team had made their code open source from day 1, the hype would have diffused in a manageable way along a spectrum of time, and security issues could have been discussed from the beginning. Same for Haystack. I just don’t understand why these teams felt like they needed to operate in stealth mode like some kind of sexy startup. When it comes to open source public interest projects, stealth mode is a sign of some kind of emotional dysfunction.

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