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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Mahmud, please do an autobiography! Cigarette black marketeer, lisper, salesman of luxury motor cycles, business advisor and to top it off, a window cleaner.

No doubt many other things beside, if you can spare the time, do it, I'll pre-order at any fair price.

There has to be a very interesting story at the root of all that. Alternatively, if you bring the stories I'll supply the campfire.

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Ouch, I feel sorry for the bunch of people who just followed me on twitter, thinking I am Mr Fun Stories. Hint: I only tweet to bitch about compilers or APIs. Like everything in #lisp, it's smug despair and violent indifference.

I've been following you for a while on Twitter, and I think it's a shame that you don't tweet/blog about your thoughts more often. I think there's a group of very intelligent, experienced hackers on HN who should share their thoughts/ideas more often as it would benefit the whole community. I would much prefer to read something by them than some the submissions that make it to the front page which is obviously link-bait with meaningless content.

I had the pleasure of downing a few pints with Mahmud at a HN meet last year, and will second that request in an instant.

Live first, write biographies later.

Hack first, write manuals later.

Drinian, are you the bg guy? :-)

The unlived life is not worth examining... ;)

I wish I made that comment.

The first time I thought it, a few decades ago[HS or college], I thought it was original. I just Googled it, and the earliest attribution I found was to John Keats. (Interestingly enough, this thread has made it to the second page of the results). The quote seems to have its own Facebook page.

The quote having it's own Facebook page is probably because of the changes they made fairly recently with people's profiles/interests.

I think the quote, an unlived life is not worth examining, is nice and deep. I take it to mean that, not just a boring life, biographies of young people are premature.

As an example, the 24 year old who chases a small bag of air around a grassy field, has a 5-book biography planned.[1]

The man who created the Red Army, lost the struggle against Stalin, inspired revolutionaries around the world and was brutally murdered aged 60... He managed a measly 3 part biography.[2][3]

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/478... [2] http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=inauthor:%22Isaac+Deutscher... [3] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n23/neal-ascherson/victory-in-defea...

That's how Facebook feels about API docs, too.

I think I might be that bg guy. :) Will be delighted to catch up; email me if interested (I'm around).

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> Its sad, you can't believe that a reality(or life) other than one similar to yours exists.

How on earth did you distill that from what I wrote?

Had it occurred to you that I'm genuinely interested and that I think that Mahmud's story really must be something that I would enjoy to hear / read?

As for not being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, I think I could qualify for that category easily.

I must have been on one of my out of earth experiences, when I read your comment.

I misinterpreted and read sarcasm in what you wrote. Apologies for that.

No problem. I have a lot of out-of-band contacts with HN'ers, Mahmud is one of them and I meant every word I wrote there. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to, email in my profile, I'd like to understand how I triggered your sarcasm-o-meter so I can avoid doing so in the future.

I can see now that you meant it really and in a good way.

".....I can avoid doing so in the future......"

It is me who should work on not coming to a conclusion too quickly, without knowing the background. But, Thanks. It was also a good lesson for me by observation in how to react, in an indignant but respectable manner, when somebody accuses you of something that you are not.

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