I don't post much, but after reading this post I felt like I needed to say something. I apologise for the harshness, but this post just reeks of Hacker News Whoring. First, the author very subtly tells the rest of us how smart he is. As a child, he says, he was intellectually way above his peers. (Oh, BTW, as an adult too!):
"My teacher clarified that I was not in trouble because none of my classmates understood what I was talking about or indeed had seemed to pay me any attention at all (this was a recurring theme of my childhood and also my adulthood)"
Then he proceeds to associate himself with some people whom I can only assume are considered heavyweights in their fields. Love me some of that name droppin':
"Just to name a few of the media researchers affiliated with CMS/W, we have:
T.L. Taylor (...)
Nancy Baym (...)
[more ad-nauseam]"
All this context and "anectotes", just to mention that MIT is doing research on Reddit, because, you know, they're awesome:
"And the real cultural story is that a place like MIT, and a department like CMS/W, is willing to experiment educationally: to basically say, you know what, this seems really interesting, and it matters, so let's get a bunch of people from different backgrounds together in a room and figure out what the heck is happening."
That to me describes _any_ research-oriented University. They're doing research on Reddit. Woohoo, I'm sure that's original! I don't think anyone questions MIT's academic rep, so, the way I see it, this post is nothing but self-inflating idle talk.
"My teacher clarified that I was not in trouble because none of my classmates understood what I was talking about or indeed had seemed to pay me any attention at all (this was a recurring theme of my childhood and also my adulthood)"
Then he proceeds to associate himself with some people whom I can only assume are considered heavyweights in their fields. Love me some of that name droppin':
"Just to name a few of the media researchers affiliated with CMS/W, we have:
T.L. Taylor (...) Nancy Baym (...) [more ad-nauseam]"
All this context and "anectotes", just to mention that MIT is doing research on Reddit, because, you know, they're awesome:
"And the real cultural story is that a place like MIT, and a department like CMS/W, is willing to experiment educationally: to basically say, you know what, this seems really interesting, and it matters, so let's get a bunch of people from different backgrounds together in a room and figure out what the heck is happening."
That to me describes _any_ research-oriented University. They're doing research on Reddit. Woohoo, I'm sure that's original! I don't think anyone questions MIT's academic rep, so, the way I see it, this post is nothing but self-inflating idle talk.