One of my co-workers is being sucked into my project more than planned, because he's far more familiar with the temperamental nature of a key piece of the software infrastructure. And he's had a slog of it, not made any easier by the fact that he has to wait anywhere from several minutes to an hour to discover that the latest round of typed incantations has not appeased the software in question.
He showed me the results of a significant breakthrough he'd made today. "You're awesome," I said in appreciation of his doggedness. Alas, he's not the kind of guy who takes praise well, and immediately started to verbally sidle away from it. "Oh, just shut up and be awesome!" I said, half-laughing with exasperation at this quirk of his.
Come to think of it, it's not a bad antidote to the SXSWi hype this week, with all the launch parties of near-identical apps (fueled by booth babes and free booze). Maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to feel that fin de siecle malaise born of the sense of too many hipster software companies mistaking the zeitgeist (read, narcissism with GPS) for The Next Big Thing. Which, if my gut is correct, means that deep down the hipsters know it too, and much of the noise is them talking themselves out of that.
Or maybe I'm just older and crankier than usual today. That being said, I'd still appreciate some shut-up-and-be-awesome from the zeitgeist. kthxbi.
