
Some Heroes - mqt
http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html
======
edw519
My favorite Jack Lambert story:

1977 Pro Bowl. AFC defense - 8 Pittsburgh Steelers and 3 players from other
teams on the field at the same time. Jack Lambert, the middle linebacker and
captain, was calling out defensive signals using the Steelers' proprietary
lingo. One of the other players asked, "What should we do?" Lambert replied,
"Stay out of our way."

Second favorite Jack Lambert story:

When accused by a referee of biting another player in the finger, Lambert
said, "I didn't bite his finger and I can prove it." "How?" the referee asked.
"He's still got it, doesn't he?"

One of the best teams ever with one of the best players ever. And no one
"danced" after making a great play. They just did a great job and acted as if
they had done that job before and intended to do it again. Man, how I miss
that. Thanks for the memories, pg.

~~~
marrone
yeah, I thought it was a cool to find a football player on that list, and a
Steeler as well

------
zach
Fun to read.

I recently found this quote from a contemporary author:

    
    
      “Jane Austen writes about people with desperately restricted
       lives codified by iron rules.  The first thing she does is to
       choose a genre, the romantic novel, which is exactly the kind
       of book those women would read if they were reading books.”
    

That illustrates to me a unique approach, where even _the genre of the work
itself_ serves the overall message and theme of the work.

And let me put in a word for Walt Disney, who I totally dismissed until I read
about him. The parallels between his personality and that of Steve Jobs are
fascinating.

------
Alex3917
"I used to read a lot of novels when I was younger. I can't read most anymore,
because they don't have enough information in them."

This is a good one to add to the list of things not to say on a first date.
And if it does somehow come up, at least have enough sense not to follow it
with "I also don't read biographies/memoirs because I consider them fiction."

/Don't ask

~~~
mynameishere
Here's a tip: Read one novel by Tom Robbins, and then if a female asks, always
say that you just read it last week.

------
wanorris
> To do really great things, you have to seek out questions people didn't even
> realize were questions. ... You only get one life. Why not do something
> huge?

This one really got me thinking. While tackling big questions is certainly
admirable, it implies that greatness ought to be a goal one has in life. As I
get older (I'm now married with 2 kids), I've become more and more convinced
that it's more important in life to strive to be a _good_ person than to
strive to be a _great_ person.

That's why my list would include people like Lao Tze, who would probably be
happy that people found his writings useful, but would likely find the fact
that he's still revered thousands of years after his death of far less
importance than how he spent some particular day of his life.

~~~
Alex3917
From what I hear, most modern asian religions scholars believe the Tao was a
satire.

~~~
dood
Where do you hear that? Got a link?

~~~
Alex3917
My asian religions prof. spent a bunch of years of her life studying the text
and she was telling us this. Apparently some people still think it's an
esoteric text, but they are in the minority.

Unfortunately I don't have any references to back it up, and none of the
translations I have sitting in front of me mention it in the forward. And of
course it's impossible to find anything via Google only because there are so
many parodies of the Tao Te Ching itself.

There must be academic journals on the study of taoism, but I am having
trouble finding any just searching online. I can try emailing her and asking
for a cite if you'd like though.

~~~
dood
If it isn't too much trouble, I'd be very interested to hear more about that.
I'm no scholar, but I find Taoism and the Tao Te Ching fascinating. I would
understand it being partly satirical of prevailing thought, whilst being
esoteric, but it being a simple satire would be quite amazing to me. Perhaps
the esoterism is an artifact of translation/interpolation ;)

~~~
rms
[http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:Hgq_0fuBJMkJ:https://sch...](http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:Hgq_0fuBJMkJ:https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/3777/1/taoist_vision.pdf+tao+satire+site:.edu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a)
mentions that "others claim" that it was a political satire

~~~
dood
Thanks for that, but my understanding of the passage you refer to is that it
is discussing T'ao Yuan-ming's poem "Peach Blossom Spring", not the Tao Te
Ching.

I've recently been reading Ellen Chen's new translation and commentaries
[[http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation-
Commentary/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation-
Commentary/dp/1557782385/)]. It includes an interesting discussion of academic
attitudes to the history and origins of the Tao Te Ching, and as I recall the
notion of it being satire is not mentioned.

------
icky
> _Reading The Nude is like a ride in a Ferrari. Just as you're getting
> settled, you're slammed back in your seat by the acceleration. Before you
> can adjust, you're thrown sideways as the car screeches into the first turn.
> His brain throws off ideas almost too fast to grasp them._

Apparently it reads just like _Snow Crash._ ;-)

~~~
DaniFong
That's just what I was thinking.

------
finnern
One of the greatest that often get overlooked is Doug Engelbart. Everyone
connects him with inventing the mouse.

What he did in the 60 aka punchcard times in one demo revolutionizing the
computer: <http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html>

For the first time real time connection to a computer using a monitor.
Introducing the concept of files, documents, ... Primitive graphical UI. Video
conferencing between Menlo Park and Fort Mason in San Francisco. That was done
wirelessly by parking transmitter trucks on skyline ...

When he was young he set the principle for his life:

    
    
        Let me design a professional goal which will maximize the contribution my career can have to mankind!
    

Weeks later his lifetime goal emerged:

    
    
        As much as possible, to boost mankind's collective capability for coping with complex, urgent problems.  
    

He is in his 90s and still at it:
<http://www.futuresalon.org/2004/11/future_salon_do.html>

Truly amazing, Mark.

------
nonrecursive
One of my heroes: O Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba. He definitely cared excessively
about his "work", and was absolutely honest. He invented aikido, the "art of
peace", whose broad purpose is to "make human beings one family."

Here's a decent video of him:
[http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XTlWDOQBno&feature=related](http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XTlWDOQBno&feature=related)

~~~
bloch
Watch the attack at 3:53. It is pretty easy being a martial legend if your
students attack like that.

~~~
nonrecursive
What was the point of this comment? I was saying that he's one of my heroes
and pointed out that, incidentally, he fit some of pg's criteria as well. I
also pointed out one of his major accomplishments. I didn't mention anything
about him being a "martial legend." If you could explain how your comment
relates to anything I mentioned or to the subject of "personal heroes" I'd
greatly appreciate it.

To address the actual content of your comment, though - no, it takes more than
"the attack at 3:53" to be a martial legend. As it happens, he spent virtually
his entire life practicing martial arts, and a number of other prominent
Japanese martial artists attested to his ability during his lifetime. I
encourage you to learn more about him and about aikido. You might still come
away thinking "Yeah whatever, the only reason anyone thought anything of him
was because he had cowering tools for students", but at least you'll have more
evidence for it then a short portion of some youtube video.

------
gms
I never comment on Paul Graham essays, but I'll make an exception and say that
I really liked this one. It felt like it came from the heart.

~~~
maximilian
I also usually don't comment because the other comments are often so biting. I
really enjoy reading about what influences people and their histories.
Opinions about subjects without clear answers can be interesting to read, but
always leave one feeling slightly at odds with the writer. Its almost that if
written correctly, opinion pieces should have at least something that you
don't agree with. In good situations, this initiates a discourse around that
point, but often online this just leads to trolling by commenters - which
never leads to good things.

------
D_T
Hey PG, You talk about Isaac Newton, here's something that might interest you:

Newton was a “glandeur”; In Dijksterhuis 2004:

George Spencer Brown has famously said about Sir Isaac Newton that “to arrive
at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of
contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior
of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking.
Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know.”

Written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "Glander best describes the notion of
lifting all inhibitions to “tinker intellectually in an undirected stochastic
process aiming at capturing some idea that will enrich your corpus”.
“Researching” or “thinking” smack of a top-down activity."

More on Glander by Taleb: "It is an irony that the academy does not have a
word for the process by which discovery works best –but slang does. I was
trying to describe in a letter what I am currently doing: French would not let
me. But argot lends itself very well... I am involved in an activity called
“Glander”, more precisely “glandouiller”. It means “to idle”, though not “to
be in a state of idleness” (it is an active verb). Gandouiller denotes
enjoyment. The formal French word is “ne rien faire” (to do nothing), which
misses on the active part –so do words that have a languishing connotation.
Glander is what children without soccer moms do when they are out of school.
It resembles flâner which has this perambulation part; though Glander does not
have any strings attached. The Italians have farniente but it is really doing
nothing. Even the Arabs do not have a verb for Glander: the construction
takaslana from the Semitic root ksl denotes laziness (other words imply some
inertia)."

[Taken from <http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm>]

------
jwp
Kevin Garnett plays exactly the same way that you describe Jack Lambert. He
goes only one speed: full blast. Whenever I need motiviation, I find myself
asking myself, wwkgd?

------
mattmaroon
"Robert Morris has a very unusual quality: he's never wrong."

I was only ever wrong once. I thought that I had been mistaken about something
5 years earlier, but it turned out I hadn't. I was wrong about having been
wrong.

~~~
yters
I'm never wrong too, but that's just because I either make trivial, all
encompassing, or unfalsifiable claims. It sounds good though:)

------
mrtron
Really a personal list like this is impacted by a number of factors
especically your childhood experiences.

So from my perspective, Jane Austen brings me nothing but disgust. Her novels
were piss poor from my perspective. However, this was me at 15 working at a
library and skimming books as I put them away. Austen books were a slap in the
face to me at that age dealing with my parents divorcing during the same time.

I really enjoy this article though, but my list would be substantially
different. I should write it up.

------
henning
Another list: Gary Gordon, Randy Shughart, the Finnish anti-armor teams in the
mostly-forgotten Winter War against the Soviets (> 80% casualties), and the
300 Spartans who held off the Persians at Thermopylae.

------
sage_joch
I was hoping to see Feynman on this list (especially after reading the two
qualities that these people had in common). Good read, though.

~~~
pg
I almost included him. But I don't understand his work in physics, and it
seemed lame to like him for peripheral stuff like his autobiography.

~~~
yan
Why lame? Physics aside, he seemed to be an extraordinary individual based on
accounts of him by other people, not just his auto-biographies.

------
CharlieInCO
Uh, Paul, I assume that you mean Robert Morris the younger? Or his dad?

If the younger, I'd think you're well equipped with at least one example where
he was less that perfectly right about something.

~~~
pg
I mean the younger. And of course his sw has bugs, like anyone's might (though
fewer, actually). I'm talking about statements, not choices.

------
lux
From my limited understanding of art interpretation, in earlier times art was
seen somewhat as an attempt to understand or mimic the world around them in
order to understand it better. Now we tend to value creativity as a more
important quality, but in doing so we sacrifice a degree of sincerity or even
nobility that curiosity and mimicry have. All of these heroes share a creative
quality, but in a more classical sense. They are true to themselves and their
art, but they probably intuited that their art is as much or more about
discovery than anything else. Maybe that's the key to making the leap from
artistic commoner to greatness...

I've totally been looking for a good intro to art history recently (my
friend's textbook just doesn't look that appealing...), so thanks for the
recommendation! Anyone recommend a good starting point for diving into
Wodehouse too? :)

~~~
jsackmann
I've read about a dozen Wodehouse novels, and have yet to be disappointed by
any of them. Some characters and some jokes are better than others, but I
think you can pick one off the shelf at random and you'll be happy you did.

The one that comes to mind is "Leave it to Psmith," but not because it was
necessarily such a standout book, but because of one line (concerning the name
Psmith) that I still laugh about every time I think of it, years later.

~~~
lux
Sweet, thanks! I ended up with "The Most of PG Wodehouse" just 'cause it
seemed a good place to start. Sounds like I'll be happy with it either way!

From the sound of it, this'll be quite the welcome contrast to the last book I
read: Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. Great book, but not a happy
read at all...

------
uuilly
Also worth noting that a Calder sculpture is on the cover of a common
Algorithms book: [http://ecx.images-
amazon.com/images/I/41WDWECWVCL._SS500_.jp...](http://ecx.images-
amazon.com/images/I/41WDWECWVCL._SS500_.jpg)

~~~
pg
Most of the mobiles are literally recursive. I spent a couple days trying to
reproduce them once, and one thing you learn when you do that is that each
subelement is a complete mobile in itself. In fact I suspect he must often
have incorporated "finished" mobiles into larger ones later.

~~~
uuilly
Yes! I remember learning infinite series in college and thinking about Calder.
His work is similar to measuring the area under an infinite curve that
approaches zero. Infinite line, finite area area. Calder has the recursive
mobile(s) and a counter weight. Literally Counter Weight == recursive
mobile(s). Something seemingly infinite equated with something finite.

His big one in the East Wing of the National Gallery is outstanding. They blow
the HVAC on it to make it move. IM Pei requested that it be the centerpiece of
his great building. IM Pei, another possible hero. Fun essay.

------
rglovejoy
I like P.G. Wodehouse's stories; I'm quite a bit less impressed with his
activities during World War 2.

Wodehouse was in France when the Germans invaded in 1940. He was interned as
an enemy alien by the Nazis for a year. The Germans were able to persuade him
to make some light-hearted radio broadcasts intended for American (but not
British) consumption, in exchange for his release from internment. Many
Britons (including A.A. Milne) never forgave him for this, though Evelyn Waugh
and George Orwell defended him.

After the War, Wodehouse found that he could not live in England and moved to
the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1955.

~~~
yters
Do you mean he made Nazi propaganda?

~~~
rglovejoy
No, that would have been Lord Haw Haw and Ezra Pound who made propaganda
broadcasts for the fascists.

It wasn't as though Wodehouse had shaken hands with Hitler. He merely talked
about what his internment was like, and he only made about five broadcasts.
Even so, I think he was incredibly naïve of him to do this, given that by
1940, the Germans hadn't simply crossed the line into uncivilized conduct,
they had gleefully flown over it with flags raised and fireworks shooting.

~~~
yters
Ah, you're saying he's a Hanoi Jane.

I did not realize that about Ezra Pound. Now I see why people like GK
Chesterton and CS Lewis disliked TS Elliot (protege of Pound) so much.

~~~
rglovejoy
No, I didn't say that at all.

~~~
yters
I thought you meant he was hated by the Brits because he misrepresented the
Nazis and how they treated their POWs, like Jane Fonda did with the American
POWs.

However, I just read pg's link and now understand what you were saying.

------
cpr
No question that PGW was the greatest prose stylist of the 20th century.

Makes sense, from his biography: every morning, 6 days a week, year after year
for decades, he would sit down and churn out some 10-20-30 pages of new or
edited prose, without fail. Much of it ineffable lightness, some of it a bit
clunky, but on the whole an incredible body of work.

Here, in a somewhat explaining-the-joke kind of criticism, is still some
pretty rummy stuff about Plum:

<http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/nec/leimberg1312.htm>

He had a rather sad life, but he was a great artist.

------
magpi3
No Alan Turing? I am surprised. I always thought the cover of ANSI Common Lisp
was a nod towards his life (and death).

For those of you who do not know much about the Alan Turing man, I suggest
that you check out one of the excellent biographies that have been written
about him. He was a really amazing and interesting guy. And the persecution
that lead to his suicide provides a valuable (and tragic) lesson on the evils
of homophobia.

------
ic
Hamming ?

"Richard Hamming’s three questions for new hires at Bell Labs: 1- What are you
working on? 2- What’s the most important open problem in your area? 3- Why
aren’t they the same? "

<http://www.chris-lott.org/misc/kaiser.html>

Igor. <http://nuit-blanche.blogspot.com>

------
osullivj
Thanks for mentioning so many English heroes: Newton, Austen, the Spitfire,
Wodehouse. I love em all too. As an Englishman, I'd like to nominate some
American heroes: Paul Feynmann, Jimi Hendrix, Willard Van Orman Quine, Jackson
Pollack & Hunter S Thompson. Where would the English speaking world be without
them ?

------
iamelgringo
Thanks, Paul. It was a heartfelt essay and fun to read.

------
uuilly
Winston Churchill would top my list. Definitely passes the PG criteria.

Post WWII: Churchill's Grandson (after running into his office without
knocking): "Grand papa, is it true that you're the greatest man in the world?"

Churchill: "Yes, now bugger off."

------
Anchor
Have you read The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander? I'd very much like
to hear your opinions and comments on the book series. And also see, whether
he would appear on your next list of heroes.

He is definitely on mine.

~~~
pg
I read (parts of) _A Pattern Language._ That seemed like it had a lot of good
ideas in it.

------
PRoth
Paul, call me weird, but I searched Larry Mihalko after you had written about
him, and I came across this:

[http://www.post-
gazette.com/regionstate/19991031newabuse1.as...](http://www.post-
gazette.com/regionstate/19991031newabuse1.asp)

Was he a teacher at Gateway? If so, then it says that he was being charged
with sexual assault or something strange like that. I wanted to let you have
the last word on it, because charges don't necessarily mean that much.
Anyways, I would rather take your word that he was a genuinely good teacher
(which your post indicates)

~~~
kstafford
You'r not weird. I did a search on Mr.Mihaldo as well. Please check out:
www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/489065/detail.html

~~~
kstafford
Apologies. Mr. Mihalko

------
pius
Where in Pittsburgh did you grow up, PG?

~~~
pg
[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=109+kelvington+dr+monroeville+pa+15146&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.035373,60.46875&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=40.401075,-79.75739&spn=0.402632,0.472412&z=11)

~~~
jfornear
Only a Steeler fan would include a Steeler player in their list of heroes. My
dad is from Upper St. Clair... Steeler fans are nuts... Go Cowboys :)

~~~
pius
Yes. Yes we are. :D

------
nrmehta
I enjoy reading your essays. I think the concept of heroes is a worthwhile one
and I might compile my own list. Einstein would be there for me but probably
as much because my mom put a poster of him in my room when I was six (which
remains there today) as anything. I'm also from the 'burgh :) and as I grew up
in the next generation of Steelers football, Hines Ward would be my Jack
Lambert. His love for his work is truly inspirational and infectious.

------
webmaven
if what you want in novels is more info, you might give Stephenson's Baroque
Cycle a try.

Regarding the Spitfire, have you ever watched the 1942 movie 'The First of
thew Few'?

------
yters
In regards to the Newton comment, I need to find a solution to the 2nd law of
thermodynamics, otherwise there is no such thing as a significant answer!

------
revorad
"I've never cried like I cried at his funeral."

My favourite sentence in the essay. Made me aware of a dimension I didn't
associate pg with.

~~~
as
The brevity does make him seem a bit stoic.

------
cadalac
"Everyone on the list had two qualities: they cared almost excessively about
their work, and they were absolutely honest."

Honesty is a quality I really admire in you myself, PG. Be careful not to work
too hard though! Thanks for another good read!

------
seanohagan
In "The Scientists" by John Gribbin, Newton is painted as a 1st-class a-hole:
taking credit for another's work; sitting on results until an opponent passed
away; and others. (It's a good read; I recommend it.)

------
mattmaroon
"There have probably been other people who did this as well as Newton, for
their time"

Einstein.

~~~
icky
Maxwell!

------
jim_collins
"For example, it returned false for Montaigne, who was arguably the inventor
of the essay." The essay was invented by the Stoic philosopher Seneca.

------
uwiuw
i don't know what to say but one thing i know i dont know most
them...honestly, you, as an essayist is one of my favorite..please don't stop
write

thank you!

------
as
This is what I was looking for.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152805>

------
jwesley
I would put Paul Graham on my list. :)

------
fematronik
I am with all those, who would put you, Paul, on the list of heroes. You do
great things.

------
colladude
Implemented "Some Heroes" as a facebook app. Consider adding your heroes..

------
rokhayakebe
"roger verbal kint" my hero number 3.

------
wauter
Great read! For the same reason as Paul (i.e. it's fun) I'll put my own list
here. Apart from the interesting fact that Paul is actually on - my - list
(since long before I read this essay, really), so are some of his heroes so I
guess that makes 'heroic devotion' transitive or heritable or whatever. In
descending order of admiration:

Isaac Newton - apart from more or less inventing modern physics (he's up there
with Maxwell and Einstein in my physics heroes top 3), he found he couldn't
solve the fundamental equations he discovered, so he kinda invented modern
maths to help with that. Sweet. As for my maths heroes top 3, that's completed
with Gauss and Laplace because they did similar things but in a less earth-
shattering way. After all it can happen only once to discover mechanics,
gravity, the most powerful series around or differential calculus (but who'd
have thought it'd be the same guy!).

Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney - they are realllly smart and creative guys,
and instead of caring too much about politics and the likes they just wrote a
big pile of Shockingly Good Songs. They had a direct influence in me getting
into music (songwriting), and not a month goes by without me fantasizing about
becoming famous enough to meet Noel somewhere backstage and chat with him over
a beer. In fact, more chance of meeting Noel - together with "playing at nicer
venues" - is a big part of why fame in music attracts me. The top 3 is
completed by Steve Jobs (really) for similar reasons. Another big reason of
why fame attracts me stems from my next hero...

Bill Gates - he did not only cofound, ran and drove the software company that
makes/made the best products in the world or that understands 'software'
orders of magnitude better than anybody else ("it's usability, stupid"), he
also now spends his days using his fortune, fame and brains to really try to
make this world a better place. I cannot express in words how much I admire
both facets of his life and if there's one answer to "if you could choose,
where would you want to be in 20 years?" for me the answer is to be like Bill
Gates, having made it big and using that to try and make the world a better
place. I admire Bono, Warren Buffet and John Lennon for the same reason and
very often find myself passionately defending all of these guys to others who
slack them for sheer fame (at least that's why I think it is).

Joel & Paul - not only did they do A Really Good Job in software business
themselves, they also are an ongoing source of inspiration for me and others
because they write so well about it. Hacking by itself is not my passion, but
somehow every other facet about software development/business is, and that's
in large part because of the writings of these guys. Again, there's really a
top 3 and it's completed by "all the others" (Stevey, Guy Kawasaki, the Rands,
etc...).

By the way: I am a music-playing phycisist/mathematician working on software
most of the time, as one might have guessed :-)

W.

------
anikshah
excellent

