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Ten, fifteen years ago I told a coworker I’d been an ACM member for a while and that I enjoyed reading the SIGPLAN proceedings in particular.

He stopped, stared, and asked, “you can read those?” I was taken aback but realized I knew exactly what he meant. I told him, “about half” and this somehow relieved him a bit.

We need a lot more abstract thought in plain English in this world.

The problem with smart people is that they have the faculties to create elaborate protections against easily bruised egos. If only we could figure out those faculties can also be used to get over yourself and try to be helpful to the world instead of a trumped-up windbag.




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