"It is hard to foster good friendships without face contact. Don't matter what the resolution of your Skype video, it is just not the same."
It's common here to read people claiming that you don't need to go to college when you can learn as much, or more, form the Web. This is true perhaps for book learning but it misses the social aspect. School is not just about filling your head with stuff. It's about meeting new people, having face-to-face discussions, learning to work in teams, learning to be someplace on time and prepared, and so on.
"Another sensitive issue is that a higher proportion of HN-ers are probably introverts. Nothing wrong with that. I am one too. That means it is easier by default to be lonely. But in the long run it also hurts"
Somewhat tangential, but I beseech all of you who help organize, or ven just attend, tech gatherings to help break down the barriers of this introversion.
I'm amazed and disappointed to see so many people go to conferences, spend all their time hanging with co-workers who've also come along, then go home without really meeting any new people.
I appreciate how hard it can be to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to socialize. Especially since the reaction from many other geeks is often abysmal. (Note to women: Sometimes when guys at a tech conference treat you with disdain or incoherent puzzlement it's because they're sexist jerks. But sometimes, maybe more often, it's because they're simply clueless unsocial oafs.)
Tech gatherings need more ways to break up the default cliques people tend to and promote more intermingling of people who've never met before.
It's common here to read people claiming that you don't need to go to college when you can learn as much, or more, form the Web. This is true perhaps for book learning but it misses the social aspect. School is not just about filling your head with stuff. It's about meeting new people, having face-to-face discussions, learning to work in teams, learning to be someplace on time and prepared, and so on.
"Another sensitive issue is that a higher proportion of HN-ers are probably introverts. Nothing wrong with that. I am one too. That means it is easier by default to be lonely. But in the long run it also hurts"
Somewhat tangential, but I beseech all of you who help organize, or ven just attend, tech gatherings to help break down the barriers of this introversion.
I'm amazed and disappointed to see so many people go to conferences, spend all their time hanging with co-workers who've also come along, then go home without really meeting any new people.
I appreciate how hard it can be to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to socialize. Especially since the reaction from many other geeks is often abysmal. (Note to women: Sometimes when guys at a tech conference treat you with disdain or incoherent puzzlement it's because they're sexist jerks. But sometimes, maybe more often, it's because they're simply clueless unsocial oafs.)
Tech gatherings need more ways to break up the default cliques people tend to and promote more intermingling of people who've never met before.