Ask gwern: Who are you? | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com · 2,625 words · saved by 1 readers

I have replied to the Paypal donators (but not the Bitcoiners, since they're unreachable) thanking them but I would also like to thank them publicly here: I get very little feedback on my writing aside from little numbers ticking upwards in Google Analytics, and am often plagued by doubts - are my writings any good? Are they usually confined in a ghetto? Are people going away laughing at my ignorance and amateurism? Will they contribute meaningfully to anything at all or just represent an indulgent waste of time and intellectual masturbation? So to see a few comments raise almost overnight ~$500 moves me. > What's your day job? Various things; as I say on http://www.gwern.net/Links#personal I sometimes write for people. > Does your site make a significant amount of money? No. I sometimes get donations, but not very much; they are all recorded in http://www.gwern.net/About#popularity if you're curious about specifics. I recently added Google AdSense and Amazon affiliate linking because

I was originally not going to answer this, but kiba posted his request https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654008 and to my astonishment, it worked: through Paypal I have currently received $293.01 in 7 donations, through Bitcoin, 1.62btc ($189) in 4 donations. I have replied to the Paypal donators (but not the Bitcoiners, since they're unreachable) thanking them but I would also like to thank them publicly here: I get very little feedback on my writing aside from little numbers ticking upwards in Google Analytics, and am often plagued by doubts - are my writings any good? Are they…

Ask gwern: Who are you? | Hacker News

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