I'm definitely catching a lot of flack for the spurn comment, and justifiably so considering this window into your work day. I would say that the essay in general was an attempt at levity, as I hoped smart-alecky comments like "birds sang", "voices of children", "Christopher Hitchens", etc... would convey. Although a word like spurn may imply the opposite, having enjoyed your essays, interviews (when I can find them), and especially Arc itself, I am the last person in that world that would tell you how you go about your creative process.
The second footnote, in which you qualify that comment, should be inlined instead. That clarification, or the lack of it, has too much of an impact on the tone of the rest of the article.
The point of footnotes is that their content is not worth interrupting the flow of the main text. It should be safe for the reader to leave them for later, or skip them altogether.
The only reason that line has become the focal point of the essay's tone is because we're discussing this on "Mr. Graham's" site.
I didn't say it was the focal point, but it is indeed quite central to the thesis defended.
There are comments to this effect in the blog's site too, and the author felt the need for the footnote. Thus, it's not just HN bias.
Don't worry about it, just get back to work :-)
Screenshot?
Imagine how ridiculous this was to read while taking a break from working on HN, surrounded by windows full of Arc source I was in the middle of editing.
A lot of people seem to feel that a language isn't real unless the designer is talking to them every day. But that's not the only way languages happen. Nor possibly the best way. I feel like you get better ideas if you think in units of occasional essays rather than a stream of tweets. It seems likely the same will be true with language design.