[mstroeck]

1) This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.

2) I finally realize what has always fascinated me about him. He was ALWAYS working, with every single breath he took. He seems to have found a way of taking the hazy concept of "work" as it is commonly understood, and elevating it to a more in-focus ideal form through which to understand and shape his life.

[moomin]

From Neal Stephenson:

    YT: That's the problem with you hackers, you're always working.
    HT: No, that's what hackers _are_.

Apologies if I've misquoted.

[mparr4]

which book? I've never read any of his before

[nagrom]

YT was in Snow Crash and I think that HT should be HP: Hiro Protagonist. Although I don't remember that quote in the book.

[gwern]

Perhaps because it is a misquote; my .txt reads:

    "What the fuck do you want?"

    "Y.T., I'm sorry about this. But something's going on. Something big time. I'm keeping one eye on a big biker named Raven."

    "The problem with you hackers is you never stop working."

    "That's what a hacker is," Hiro says.

    "I'll keep an eye on this Raven guy, too," she says, "sometime when I am

working."

    Then she hangs up.

[dicroce]

YT was also briefly in "The Diamond Age". :)

[tristan_louis]

True. That one always blew my mind as it really created a link between the two books. I was half expecting some of the characters to reappear when Cryptonomicon came out (didn't happen but Cryptonomicon has some linkage to the Baroque chronicles)

[phuff]

Where is YT in the Diamond Age?

[sspencer]

She's never explicitly named; the only thing that gives her away is a single phrase: "chiseled spam"

I love literary Easter eggs like that.

[auxbuss]

Snowcrash, I presume. YT: Yours Truly, and HT? Hiro Protagonist.

[geuis]

Snow Crash, I believe.

[technoslut]

The 2nd point you made reminds of Beethoven and how he overcame deafness to write some of his most brilliant pieces. He was incredibly passionate about his work and it was reflected in his music. It's amazing to see read this story and to realize that maybe Jobs' most important inventions, the iPhone and iPad, came at a point of extreme illness where most others would've quit. Passion drove everything he did and defined who he was.

Sidenote: I hate broccoli too.

[javek]

As a side note, in a way it's misleading to speak of Beethoven "overcoming" deafness. All of the master composers were so well-trained at their craft that they could hear the music in their head without "trying it out" on a piano or other instrument. By the time Beethoven was deaf being able to hear was superfluous as far as composing was concerned...

[mechanical_fish]

We know that Beethoven himself was tremendously depressed by the onset of deafness and thought of it as a terrible misfortune to be heroically struggled with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligenstadt_Testament

But we also know that he gave himself excellent pep talks and then kept going for another thirty years, writing great stuff long after his deafness was far worse than it was in 1802. So, yes, it seems that Beethoven eventually came to agree with you!

And, come to think of it, as I remember Beethoven's biggest complaints about deafness centered on loneliness, and on his fear that nobody would want to hire a deaf composer. I don't actually recall him complaining that his work might suffer. So that's another point in favor of your argument.

[mechanical_fish]

Oops, too late to edit, but I forgot that when Beethoven wrote his Testament his fame up to that point had been largely as a pianist, with a healthy side order of composition. And I believe he might have expressed some worry that his piano playing might suffer... which in fact it did; history contains quite a few tragi-comic written descriptions of Beethoven's latter-day attempts to play and conduct.

But his composition just got better, so in fact his declining fame as a performer was balanced by his increasing fame as a composer.

[siglesias]

Actually in a lot of his orchestral work, for example the 8th symphony, his arrangement was off. Stuff like trumpets being drowned out by other horns, etc. It's the kind of thing that would be hard to imagine without hearing it.

[angelbob]

If I couldn't run a compiler on a computer for some reason and had to do it all in my head, I could still write fabulous programs.

And yet, it would certainly put a dent in some of my abilities.

[kachnuv_ocasek]

Smetana was deaf, too, and one of the best composers.