
The Geek Talk with Derek Sivers - nreece
http://thegeektalk.com/interviews/derek-sivers/
======
cookiecaper
I'm not impressed. It's nothing personal against Derek, I just find that site
and format blasé, I guess.

Also nothing personal against Derek, because I enjoy his blog more than
others, but I am sick of seeing the same people over and over again on
everything that comes up on this site. I think that there's a lot of hero
worship and a lot of sycophanting that goes on on HN. I think that a lot of
their writings are overrated; it's not that any of them are bad, or even not
good; it's just that people seem to gush over them unjustifiably.

I think I am going to start a website where I interview normal people.
Hopefully mostly people with cool things to say. And then that web site will
get very little notice here because it won't be full of the angel-investor
all-star cast.

~~~
patio11
Try actually executing on that rhetorical flourish at the end. You might be
surprised how much traction you get with it, even outside of the "angel-
investor all-star caste."

------
warfangle
I do want to point out that Ruby isn't the only language that allows a
function to redefine itself. Try this in your firebug console:

    
    
      var foo = function() {
        console.log('foo');
        foo = function() {
            console.log('bar');
        };
      };
      foo();
      foo();

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pclark
Couldn't they at least change the questions that were in no way relevant to
Derek?

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cool-RR
I think that the word "retired" is losing its meaning. If you're your own boss
and you spend most of your time working on interesting things, you can't call
yourself "retired", even if you don't make money or have an official job.

What I'm saying is that "retired" should mean "stopped doing interesting
things" and not "stopped receiving a salary". By that definition, Derek is not
retired.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I think it means Derek no longer has to worry about earning money - he can
afford to do what he wants with this time. Sounds like retirement to me!

~~~
cool-RR
I agree that Derek is in this position where he doesn't have to worry about
money. This is the common definition of "retired". What I'm saying is that I
find this definition bad.

Derek himself said _"I used to think “retired” just meant “only plays golf”,
but now I see it means doing anything interesting and/or useful to others, but
not having to worry whether it makes money or not."_

There's a reason he used to think that "retired" meant "only plays golf". The
true, deeper meaning of "retired" is "someone who doesn't matter anymore". The
fact that we say "retired" on someone who doesn't get a paycheck anymore is
because in recent history, people made important things only in their official
job. Since this fact is changing now, and people make important things outside
their jobs, the meaning of "retired" should stay closer to its original, deep
meaning: Someone who doesn't do important things anymore.

And, as I said, according to this definition Derek is not retired.

~~~
Psyonic
I don't think that "no longer has to worry about money" is the common
definition at all. If it was, every CEO of a mid-level or higher company would
probably qualify.

Perhaps something more along the lines of, "doesn't need money, and wants to
settle down and move to Florida" ;)

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naner
Never heard of this site before but it reminds me of _The Setup_ [1].

1: <http://usesthis.com/>

