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The Barometer of Hacker News Knowledge Half-life

34 points by _giu 17y ago

jbronn 17y ago
> ack didn’t pick it up because that’s a text file. DAMN! `ack -a` is your friend, Zed. No snark intended, that's all I have to say.
axod 17y ago
"But, that’s the price you pay for being a public persona with fans." Srsly? Public Persona? with fans...? Who? Maybe that bit was meant tongue in cheek. I really hope so.
- jcl 17y ago
  From the numbers, we can conclude that Zed is at least somewhat awesome: http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_average_points http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_average_points
  - axod 17y ago
    Within the niche of HN which is in itself a niche of 'tech'. OK, point conceded. These people are truly 'famous' :/
    - olefoo 17y ago
      In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. -- A. Warhol Clay Shirky updated that with "In the future everyone will be famous to 15 people." It is obviously more complex than that, but Zed Shaw probably has a nationwide Q rating higher than your local newsreader for your local broadcast television channel. So, for some values of 'famous', yes.
jeffreyg 17y ago
this is about fret war, the randomly generated music thing, we've seen it before
- pchristensen 17y ago
  Somehow I knew that would be the one comment
bugs 17y ago
This article comes off as rather offensive to me, it must be the language and constant ego bashing of nerds, but one thing that doesn't make sense is when Zed Shaw said he put his ego aside as he obviously didn't and was angry that his about page had fed these random music comments and is obviously upset that people took his about page seriously.
- lonestar 17y ago
  He said he put his ego aside in regards to redesigning his webapp to appeal to a wider audience, rather than what he wanted. It doesn't seem terribly egotistical to want to correct people who are spreading an inaccurate representation of his product.
  - bugs 17y ago
    It does when he is angry at people for stating information in the about page and he expects those people to know his about page is wrong. He may actually be sincere in his thank you but the whole article made his tone snobbish in my mind so I didn't take it as real.
    - dandelany 17y ago
      At least to me, he doesn't come off as angry at anyone other than himself for forgetting to fix his About page. In fact, he says several positive things about HN readers: "the value of a natural feedback system is greater than any promotional value I would get out of submitting things myself." "...an excellent positive result of the HN barometer" "I think of HN as a barometer of what people think." "Thank you Hacker News" On the whole, the post is about how Hacker News enabled him to get a read on community sentiment about Fret Wars. This is absolutely a positive thing. He's not blaming HN for continuing to think the site is about randomly generated music, he's blaming himself, and praising HN for helping him discover his mistake. Now if I was a guitar player, I might be offended... :)
- logicalmind 17y ago
  The way I interpret the article is that he is riffing on the fact that Hacker News members are generally interested in startups and likely believe in the constant release and iterate cycles that are used to determine a viable concept or product. He might be pointing out the fact that those kind of people are stuck on the "random music" idea he used initially and not giving him valuable feedback on his evolving idea. But I'm just guessing.
llimllib 17y ago
My favorite bash aliases: alias aack="ack --all" alias rack="ack --ruby --follow" alias fack="ack --actionscript --follow" alias jack="ack --js" alias pack="ack --python" (mentioned because aack would have prevented his searching problem)
tptacek 17y ago
The barometer of Hacker News knowledge half-life is how well it tracks the state of a Zed Shaw side project.
shalmanese 17y ago
Wow, it seems like Zed just discovered branding. A brand is established by owning a word/concept in the consumer's minds. In Fret Wars' case, it was randomly generated music. It doesn't matter if this is now no longer the case in reality, it's still the established brand.
rapind 17y ago
The whole snap judgement based on passed impressions brings to mind something I've been suspecting for a while now. I'm tired of beta. I can't get up the energy investment required to check and re-check web applications other than a few I've already internally flagged as important. Am I alone? When I miss-label Fret War it's unintentional. I'm just being rationally lazy to save some juice for other things.
mynameishere 17y ago
Zed playing/singing: http://fretwar.com/static/data/player/1/round/40/submission/ http://fretwar.com/static/data/player/1/round/40/submission/
chrischen 17y ago
If you're a public persona, and stuff like your personal posts about moving to San Francisco get re-posted, then the reposting of your work is probably not a very accurate barometer of your work's individual merits. Instead it's simply a measure of your overal notability.

34 points by _giu 17y ago

> ack didn’t pick it up because that’s a text file. DAMN! `ack -a` is your friend, Zed. No snark intended, that's all I have to say.

axod 17y ago

"But, that’s the price you pay for being a public persona with fans." Srsly? Public Persona? with fans...? Who? Maybe that bit was meant tongue in cheek. I really hope so.

jcl 17y ago
From the numbers, we can conclude that Zed is at least somewhat awesome: http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_average_points http://top.searchyc.com/domains_by_average_points
- axod 17y ago
  Within the niche of HN which is in itself a niche of 'tech'. OK, point conceded. These people are truly 'famous' :/
  - olefoo 17y ago
    In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. -- A. Warhol Clay Shirky updated that with "In the future everyone will be famous to 15 people." It is obviously more complex than that, but Zed Shaw probably has a nationwide Q rating higher than your local newsreader for your local broadcast television channel. So, for some values of 'famous', yes.

jeffreyg 17y ago

this is about fret war, the randomly generated music thing, we've seen it before

pchristensen 17y ago
Somehow I knew that would be the one comment

bugs 17y ago

This article comes off as rather offensive to me, it must be the language and constant ego bashing of nerds, but one thing that doesn't make sense is when Zed Shaw said he put his ego aside as he obviously didn't and was angry that his about page had fed these random music comments and is obviously upset that people took his about page seriously.

lonestar 17y ago
He said he put his ego aside in regards to redesigning his webapp to appeal to a wider audience, rather than what he wanted. It doesn't seem terribly egotistical to want to correct people who are spreading an inaccurate representation of his product.
- bugs 17y ago
  It does when he is angry at people for stating information in the about page and he expects those people to know his about page is wrong. He may actually be sincere in his thank you but the whole article made his tone snobbish in my mind so I didn't take it as real.
  - dandelany 17y ago
    At least to me, he doesn't come off as angry at anyone other than himself for forgetting to fix his About page. In fact, he says several positive things about HN readers: "the value of a natural feedback system is greater than any promotional value I would get out of submitting things myself." "...an excellent positive result of the HN barometer" "I think of HN as a barometer of what people think." "Thank you Hacker News" On the whole, the post is about how Hacker News enabled him to get a read on community sentiment about Fret Wars. This is absolutely a positive thing. He's not blaming HN for continuing to think the site is about randomly generated music, he's blaming himself, and praising HN for helping him discover his mistake. Now if I was a guitar player, I might be offended... :)
logicalmind 17y ago
The way I interpret the article is that he is riffing on the fact that Hacker News members are generally interested in startups and likely believe in the constant release and iterate cycles that are used to determine a viable concept or product. He might be pointing out the fact that those kind of people are stuck on the "random music" idea he used initially and not giving him valuable feedback on his evolving idea. But I'm just guessing.

llimllib 17y ago

My favorite bash aliases: alias aack="ack --all" alias rack="ack --ruby --follow" alias fack="ack --actionscript --follow" alias jack="ack --js" alias pack="ack --python" (mentioned because aack would have prevented his searching problem)

tptacek 17y ago

The barometer of Hacker News knowledge half-life is how well it tracks the state of a Zed Shaw side project.

shalmanese 17y ago

Wow, it seems like Zed just discovered branding. A brand is established by owning a word/concept in the consumer's minds. In Fret Wars' case, it was randomly generated music. It doesn't matter if this is now no longer the case in reality, it's still the established brand.

rapind 17y ago

The whole snap judgement based on passed impressions brings to mind something I've been suspecting for a while now. I'm tired of beta. I can't get up the energy investment required to check and re-check web applications other than a few I've already internally flagged as important. Am I alone? When I miss-label Fret War it's unintentional. I'm just being rationally lazy to save some juice for other things.

mynameishere 17y ago

Zed playing/singing: http://fretwar.com/static/data/player/1/round/40/submission/ http://fretwar.com/static/data/player/1/round/40/submission/

chrischen 17y ago

If you're a public persona, and stuff like your personal posts about moving to San Francisco get re-posted, then the reposting of your work is probably not a very accurate barometer of your work's individual merits. Instead it's simply a measure of your overal notability.