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Comment by dmethvin | Hacker News Reader

What a great writer, and the article seems well researched. I note that he's got a Kickstarter to go to Antarctica, just chipped in for that.

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While I understand his humorous writing style, this:

"always attributed this to Midwesterners being a more seismically sensitive people, perhaps due to their vast bulk, but the difference is a matter of objective fact."

Made me stop reading. There is a difference between mocking a place for comedy, and mocking a people for comedy. One is observational, one is just mean.

As a stereotypically bulky midwesterner, I appreciated the attention to detail.

He was definitely making a point of being mean to Illinois, with all the flair of someone who's never spent more than a day or so in Indiana. But (a) he grew up here, so he's entitled and (b) it's not like people are any nicer to the horrid overstuffed tech prospecting camp he lives in now.

As a central Illinois native, I know not to spend more than a day or so in Indiana if I can possibly avoid it. I'm right there with the writer on the need to escape as soon as you can, although I never made it farther than Minnesota.

(Incidentally, I love Minneapolis with my whole heart - it's all the good of the midwest with very little of the bad)

Yeah, but he grew up in the Ferris Bueller suburbs of Chicago, not corn country. So while I sympathize with your urgent need to escape, in his case I think it's a symptom of (perhaps mild) dysfunction.

What sort of dysfunction?

The "being a big old jerk face" dysfunction.

I feel the need to step up and defend my home state a little here. Indiana only looks bad if you've never been to Mississippi...

He grew up in the Midwest. http://www.idlewords.com/2002/10/high_school_reunion.htm

And I'm fat!

Oh I read it as very meta satire. That is, it sounds exactly like what a stereotypical midwesterner who moved to SV and is trying to distance himself from that place would write about his trip back to ingratiate himself with his new cohort.

His wit runs to just this sort of joke so I assumed that it was intentional. Even if it wasn't, still funny.

As a very fat guy, I felt very much the opposite. Context matters. The author was mocking himself and is a precise enough writer that we know the comment was in jest.

And did I mention that I'm morbidly obese? At 300lbs I'm probably worth two Midwesterners, at least in gross tonnage and displacement.

Maybe, but his snark is off-putting. For example, "I always attributed this to Midwesterners being a more seismically sensitive people, perhaps due to their vast bulk, but the difference is a matter of objective fact.". I enjoy reading authors who don't throw random insults into their writing.

I think you probably meant "I don't enjoy reading authors who throw random insults into their writing". Or do you really mean that containing no random insults is enough for you to enjoy a piece of writing?

He had more personality than most in his writing. Insults aren't necessary for that but they didn't bother me. He can find out how sensitive people are when he says it to our face and experiences the reaction firsthand. He instead said it safely behind his computer once at a great distance away from the people he's describing. Says more about him. ;)

[edit: way too late] don't enjoy

thx: omaranto

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