[lolo_]

So it's not ok to point out blatant product placement in an otherwise great article on a historic figure?

If somebody wrote a piece on Abraham Lincoln, then interjected the piece several times with discussion about their political research website product, you'd remain silent and think to yourself 'oh God HN, focusing on the wrong thing again' if anybody dared comment on it?

And how is it disingenuous? Have you read the piece? It's pretty blatant!

I consider that it took a lot of effort, and find the piece really excellent other than this stuff, but it can't just go uncommented on because some overly sensitive souls can't tolerate dissenting comments.

Personally I find these hipster-ish 'I hate the hate man' type comments disingenuous...

[aws_ls]

Yes, I read the piece fully. Found it to be quite insightful, compared to other ones, I read earlier. And of course I too noticed the product placement, must add, that I found it to be quite relevant e.g. the link for the no. 1729 . Which adds few more key facts regarding the number.

Also his article point out a lot of interesting things. For example some new photos of Ramanujan, (I didn't know for e.g. he was stout and short, having just seen his passport photo in earlier articles), and some very relevant observations onto his Math and style (experimental & the analogy with Mathematica quite apt I thought).

So overall for such an elaborate article covering so many details in different domains - personal, historical & mathematical. Just to see somebody harp on product placement does seem like a deliberate nit-pick if not disingenuous.

Moreover the guy wrote the original piece on his blog first. And he is fully entitled to his thoughts. And the parallels he draws actually make sense. Just put aside your prior image of him for a minute. To me, honestly, the critique looked to of pattern matching to Wolfram's known stereotype. He is actually making that case. I would rather like to read a critique of why Wolfram is wrong, in making that comparison, than a shallow product placement criticism.

> Personally I find these hipster-ish 'I hate the hate man' type comments disingenuous

Wow. You must love recursion. I like to discuss, but please make specific points. Like I did above.

[lolo_]

>Wow. You must love recursion. I like to discuss, but please make specific points. Like I did above.

I made points, a number of them, not sure what you're saying here? And how is it recursive? I am responding to you, that's how discussions work.

You were the one to talk about these kind of comments being disingenuous, I was both parodying that and wondering whether you are in fact being so yourself - it seems fashionable to 'go against the grain', I was openly wondering if that's what you were doing.

If you read the article he repeatedly interrupts the story to make comments about his products and how wonderful they are, in fact he talks as if they are the only means of doing mathematics in software available.

I cannot be bothered to pull down all the quotes and make this line-by-line because it's a waste of everybody's time, if you didn't find it jarring/interrupting then I envy you, and fine we can agree to disagree on subjective grounds. I do not at all find them subtle and in line with the article's text, so I disagree entirely with you on that.

I hate the 'he is entitled to' arguments - and? Yes he is entitled, he is entitled to write anything, what does it matter? I and others who read a really interesting piece about a historical figure interjected with what _we_ find to be jarring product placement are entitled to comment on it, and I am also entitled to disagree with you about how incredibly tiresome and 'disingenuous' these comments are.

I don't disagree the article wasn't good, in fact I've said about 3 times now I find it excellent apart from this aspect, so that whole bit about how wonderful it is is totally irrelevant...

To finish (because this discussion is becoming... tiresome), let me correct your straw-manning of me - I actually didn't come in to it with a known image of him as a self-aggrandising bullshitter. I read this with an open mind because I find Ramunjan fascinating, having heard about him 15 years ago when I was hoping I could pursue mathematics as a career (before events out of my control screwed that up.)

I put aside my 'prior image' of him for more than a minute, as I didn't maintain one to start with... be careful of these kind of assumptions, it's probably part of why you find these kind of comments so frustrating!

I didn't care it was Wolfram, but as I read the whole article, I found these things jarring and just sad, since the piece is otherwise excellent and well written. Ah well.

[aws_ls]

Okay. Some points taken :-) ... I too realize, there is nothing much to argue here, just differ on that article.

[lolo_]

Great :) I am glad there was something at least somewhat constructive in there, I did intend to debate the points rather than you or anybody else personally if that wasn't clear.

The irony is that I am not _hugely_ that interested in Wolfram and his tendencies anyway :)

[tfm]

I saw the link to 1729 and the rest of the links to the Mathematica wormhole and noted (but resisted) the opportunity to go exploring. As it was it they were largely inline. That's some pretty subtle calls-to-action, marketing folks can't be happy with that. Whither the shaded buttons? Whither the popovers?

Wolfram's efforts to relate how Ramanujan's maths differ from the mainstream were certainly worth the price of admission. He spent a lot more time fleshing out several of the other historical figures than his own background; possibly he could have mentioned more people who are currently working in this exploratory mathematics, perhaps that's another post. Maybe we can take this for what it is, and precisely what one has come to expect from Wolfram – nerdy native advertising, in the form of a well-researched long-form essay by a dude with subject-matter expertise. If he starts skipping the inline links we'll know that he's secretly divested shares.

[willvarfar]

If a well-known politician wrote a piece on Abraham Lincoln, then interjected the piece several times with discussion about their political opinions, I'd say that was fair for an article by the politician about another politician.

[lolo_]

And? This bears no relevance to the point I made.

What I said was:

'...then interjected the piece several times with discussion about their political research website product'

If you're making the comparison in that Wolfram is a mathematician giving his opinion on Ramanujan, a historical mathematician, well you're missing my point entirely - in fact if you read my comments here you'll see that I find the article really excellent in those parts where he refrains from his advertising.

My issue is with comments like:

"Today with Mathematica and the Wolfram Language we have immensely more powerful tools with which to do experiments and make discoveries in mathematics (not to mention the computational universe in general)."

Well, today with 'modern software' would do don't you think? If it was once or twice it'd be forgiveable, but there are several paragraphs like this throughout the article.

Yes, I realise it was first posted on the wolfram blog, but I think it would have been a little more respectful had Wolfram restrained himself at least a bit in this regard, it's incredibly jarring when you're talking on a historical subject.