Yeah this guy is a really engaging writer. Just because this is HN, I have to call out his post on Paul Graham:

http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

It's from 2005 so a lot of the links are dead now, but I was able to dredge up the link to PG's painting:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050409001349/http://store1.yim...