Introductory Paragraph (Please critique) Forum

[Anonymous User]

We have ten minutes left in which to feel invincible before our brittle egos will be shattered again; I spend them within a fortress of grandiosity, silently invoking "The Charge of the Light Brigade" as I puff on a cigar that is not just a cigar. My friends and colleagues, computer scientists habituated through work to the tranquil innocence of formal logic, take my cue and spend their anxious minutes engaged in apotropaic self-delusion: they compose e-mails, read the news, play a game of Angry Birds, and hold court with monologues on politics and film. A shiver runs through all of it. To release or not to release; either road leads to a sea of troubles. On most days, we are software engineers but today, we are gamblers. By the time that the meeting starts, a malaise has fallen over the room and we are lurching with trepidation toward our chairs. After my manager's ice-breakers fail to crush the glaciers of collective sangfroid, I open up my presentation and summate the state of our product: these are the vectors that I have found and that have been fixed, these the defects that still exist, and this the likelihood that the active defects will be encountered by our customers or be exploited by our hacker adversaries. The panorama of imperfections that I have composed strikes a few of my colleagues as a satire of their work and, thus, my risk assessment incites immediate rebellion. Aspersions are cast against my probability model, I am told that I am too radical in my estimates, then that I am too conservative, and finally I receive the backhanded compliment that I am more creative than most hackers are likely to be. In the midst of the fray, someone reasonable opines stentorian that we ought to compromise: to release the product on schedule but also to make a full disclosure of all active defects to our customers and then to fix them in the very near future. The acrimony stops and catharsis ensues; the proposal establishes an agreeable balance between the pride that we take in our work and the profit motive that drives the company. In the marketplace of ideas, Thomas Hobbes is philosopher-king and life is often nasty, brutish and short. The creation and release of a product is a game of brinkmanship with million-dollar stakes; if others might also be able to provide our functionality, then we need to win by speed. Filled with a renewed confidence that will either be justified in the coming weeks by sterling reviews or be falsified by furrowed brows, my colleagues and I return to our laboratories and resume the experiments that will lead us to the next big thing.

[mindarmed]

We have ten minutes left in which to feel invincible before our brittle egos will be shattered again; I spend them within a fortress of grandiosity, silently invoking "The Charge of the Light Brigade" as I puff on a cigar that is not just a cigar. My friends and colleagues, computer scientists habituated through work to the tranquil innocence of formal logic, take my cue and spend their anxious minutes engaged in apotropaic self-delusion: they compose e-mails, read the news, play a game of Angry Birds, and hold court with monologues on politics and film. A shiver runs through all of it. To release or not to release; either road leads to a sea of troubles. On most days, we are software engineers but today, we are gamblers. By the time that the meeting starts, a malaise has fallen over the room and we are lurching with trepidation toward our chairs. After my manager's ice-breakers fail to crush the glaciers of collective sangfroid, I open up my presentation and summate the state of our product: these are the vectors that I have found and that have been fixed, these the defects that still exist, and this the likelihood that the active defects will be encountered by our customers or be exploited by our hacker adversaries. The panorama of imperfections that I have composed strikes a few of my colleagues as a satire of their work and, thus, my risk assessment incites immediate rebellion. Aspersions are cast against my probability model, I am told that I am too radical in my estimates, then that I am too conservative, and finally I receive the backhanded compliment that I am more creative than most hackers are likely to be. In the midst of the fray, someone reasonable opines stentorian that we ought to compromise: to release the product on schedule but also to make a full disclosure of all active defects to our customers and then to fix them in the very near future. The acrimony stops and catharsis ensues; the proposal establishes an agreeable balance between the pride that we take in our work and the profit motive that drives the company. In the marketplace of ideas, Thomas Hobbes is philosopher-king and life is often nasty, brutish and short. The creation and release of a product is a game of brinkmanship with million-dollar stakes; if others might also be able to provide our functionality, then we need to win by speed. Filled with a renewed confidence that will either be justified in the coming weeks by sterling reviews or be falsified by furrowed brows, my colleagues and I return to our laboratories and resume the experiments that will lead us to the next big thing.

Too long for a personal statement.

[DocHawkeye]

This may be, and I want you to keep in mind that I've spent all day reading 19th Supreme Court opinions, the most pretentious piece of bullshit I've ever seen. Allusions to Shakespeare? Please... "Sangfroid?" I have a Ph.D. in the arts and didn't even know that this is a word. Also, this doesn't contain anything that resembles thesis statement. Let me put that clearly: I have no idea what this is about. Back to the drawing board, my friend. And stop trying to hard. No one is amused.

[rinkrat19]

This may be, and I want you to keep in mind that I've spent all day reading 19th Supreme Court opinions, the most pretentious piece of bullshit I've ever seen. Allusions to Shakespeare? Please... "Sangfroid?" I have a Ph.D. in the arts and didn't even know that this is a word. Also, this doesn't contain anything that resembles thesis statement. Let me put that clearly: I have no idea what this is about. Back to the drawing board, my friend. And stop trying to hard. No one is amused.

I know what sangfroid means (the opposite of what OP apparently thinks it means--it means composure and confidence), but the rest of this is spot on. Dear god, man.

[dingbat]

I didn't make it to the end of the first sentence before figuring out you're an insufferable douche. Tell me this tripe is in jest.
It's either a brilliant farce or the worst PS ever

[thelawschoolproject]

I don't even know how to give you constructive feedback on this.

Please start over.

And, this time write something genuine.

[jgconte]

as I puff on a cigar that is not just a cigar.

Is it a blunt that you smoked while writing this?

I would rewrite, and unless you speak like this I would change up the style too

[gianna]

Nailed it.

[Anonymous User]

You guys mean that a ps can't, in fact, be written from the perspective of a megalomaniacal tyrant from another planet?

[CanadianWolf]

Your next paragraph should be:

"In other words, we're releasing a defective product because we need to raise funds."

P.S. A long time ago, lawyers charged by the word; you're just a few hundred years too late.

[Bfalcon]

Please read this:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

~ George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

[Teoeo]

Pretty decent trolling.