5 ms·

Who Was Kafka?

49 points by samclemens 11y ago

l33tbro 11y ago
Apologies in advance for an off-topic meta comment, but I'm curious. I read this 8 hours ago when you posted it and saw it had a couple of upvotes. So how come 8 hours later and with only 6 upvotes this is towards the top of HN? Also strange, it says the article was posted an hour ago, which prompted me to check through your user submissions where it says that it was indeed posted 9 hours ago. As mentioned, just curious how the upvoting works here. Would be great if someone could help explain.
- gexos 11y ago
  I think it has to do with the user's karma, a post from a user with heavy karma ranks higher, if you noticed there is another post ranked 8th from a user with 20000+ karma and only 5 votes.
  - l33tbro 11y ago
    Thanks. Yeah that checks out.
  - dang 11y ago
    Karma doesn't affect story ranking.
    - gexos 11y ago
      My apologies, I thought post ranking has to do with karma.
- dang 11y ago
  We put it in the second-chance pool, described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926 and the other links there. It's an experiment in giving good stories that fell through the cracks another chance at getting attention on the front page.
mirimir 11y ago
This is very cool! Kafka is my favorite Existentialist. The second excerpt strikes me as a classic block-breaking exercise.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Kafka is my favorite Existentialist Like one would say "Pistachio is my favorite ice-cream"?
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Yes. I could have added "author", I suppose.
    - superplussed 11y ago
      There was nothing wrong with your original phrasing.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar. Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.
        mirimir 11y ago
        Well, that's just how life is. Empty and meaningless. Except for whatever meaning we create. So I find Kafka both reassuring and amusing. No matter how bad things are, I can at least console myself that I haven't become a cockroach ;)
        gkya 11y ago
        "existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive" You're mistaken to think so about existantialism. I suggest you read "Existentialism is a Humanism [1]", which is a document I've studied very recently and one that I'll study again, and one has been influential to me. Existantialism is an idea based on the hypothesis that man exists without a purpose, without a creator and without predefined values, i.e. he comes to exist before his essence, that which he is responsible of and confined to defining and creating by himself; and that he "in fashioning himself, fashions man", i.e. with his decisions, he demonstrates what he thinks is apt for all the humanity. The linked text explains it all better than my humble summary. [1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...
andmarios 11y ago
This site has one of the most annoying paywalls I've seen. As you scroll down, the page loads the next article. The paywall script detects this as you trying to read another article and throws a pop-up about how you read 3 of the 6 free articles you have. Much to my annoyance, it doesn't let me return to the kafka article but redirects me to the article it auto-loaded. Even if I go back, the same thing happens.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Yes, autoload and paywall strike if you scroll too far. But one can close the window and start fresh. It's not really keeping track.
- inatreecrown 11y ago
  It couldn't be much more kafkaesque, could it?
jkldotio 11y ago
Flagged. I click the link, article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I come back to HN and click the "web" link and it takes me to Google, I click the article there and the article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I try again in an incognito window, the same thing happens. I am sorry dang, but the web link simply doesn't work sometimes. There is no way for a non-subscriber to read this. While I appreciate you believe there are still things worth sharing that are paywalled it should be made clear in the submission with [subscription only] or similar because otherwise you have me doing 4 or so pageloads for nothing. I.e. this isn't acceptable no matter what your personal opinion is of paywalls. I.e. the paywall argument we've had in the past does not apply here. If there is no way around then it needs an extra piece of information to tell us that. Ironically this whole palaver is similar to Kafka's "Before the Law". I would add that if you've lived for a substantial time in a country that has inherited the patterns of Habsburg bureaucracy, as I have, then some of Kafka's work isn't actually as far removed from reality as you might think.
weinzierl 11y ago
This are two very short works from Kafka which have been published in 2012 in the second volume of the three volume biography by Reiner Stach. The third and last volume of the biography was released last year in Germany and an English translation is about to appear early this year. The first volume is from 2006 and the New York Times had a review back then: > Indeed, this book, the first of a projected three > volumes, seems to be written not by a scholar and > editor named Reiner Stach but by a Kafka character > called, to borrow the words of the book's promotional > materials, "the definitive biographer." [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?p... EDIT for those with paywall issues: If you are interested in the Kafka biography by Reiner Stach which the original post seems to promote you are better off reading the NYT article I linked above. If you are interested in the Kafka pieces from the original they are also published in the kakfkaest blog [2]. I'm unsure if they are published with permission though, given they even misspelled "Reiner". [2] http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-stach/ http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-stach/
visarga 11y ago
> YOU'VE READ 3 OF 6 FREE ARTICLES . Just because a page was loaded and scrolled doesn't mean it has been read. They could at least measure if the user spent more than 30 seconds on the page before counting an article as read. Also, you have to have an account to continue reading. That sucks. shouldn't happen on a news site/mag.
- manigandham 11y ago
  The measurement should be better (and not autoload articles) but if they feel their content deserves direct payment, that's their right. This will only start to become more anyway as adblocking continues and publishers need to protect access - which means there will need to be accounts/logins.
  - gkya 11y ago
    Startup idea: Readbettr, a login and payments provider for online mags and newspapers. I'd happily pay if I was charged 25-50 cents per article. But I wouln't want to have to subscribe to the entire magazine for only one article. I do not think the would be many who only follow a few preferred mags online, people usually end up on articles via links, and read the article and do not see the website until they bump into some other link to it. But if the abovementioned service existed, where I had deposited some amount, and the mag had a link, "Connect with Readbettr to read the rest of the article", after a compelling abstract, and when I clicked, it automatically charged me ¢50 and let me read the article, with a single login, and it sent me a PDF copy automatically, I'd be a happy paying user of many online news and content sources. This thing does not exist, and I leave the idea here for the taking. Someone please make this.
    - Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
      https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ It's only targeting the Netherlands and Germany right now, but a few big name papers from the US are already available. And it's an app instead of a website. Apparently you can even get refunds for articles after reading them.
wwwdonohue 11y ago
Reiner Stach is probably the best to ever write about Kafka, and if you have any interest in him then the biography set is worth reading ASAP. Unbelievable scholarship and perspective.

49 points by samclemens 11y ago

Apologies in advance for an off-topic meta comment, but I'm curious. I read this 8 hours ago when you posted it and saw it had a couple of upvotes. So how come 8 hours later and with only 6 upvotes this is towards the top of HN? Also strange, it says the article was posted an hour ago, which prompted me to check through your user submissions where it says that it was indeed posted 9 hours ago. As mentioned, just curious how the upvoting works here. Would be great if someone could help explain.

gexos 11y ago
I think it has to do with the user's karma, a post from a user with heavy karma ranks higher, if you noticed there is another post ranked 8th from a user with 20000+ karma and only 5 votes.
- l33tbro 11y ago
  Thanks. Yeah that checks out.
- dang 11y ago
  Karma doesn't affect story ranking.
  - gexos 11y ago
    My apologies, I thought post ranking has to do with karma.
dang 11y ago
We put it in the second-chance pool, described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926 and the other links there. It's an experiment in giving good stories that fell through the cracks another chance at getting attention on the front page.

mirimir 11y ago

This is very cool! Kafka is my favorite Existentialist. The second excerpt strikes me as a classic block-breaking exercise.

coldtea 11y ago
>Kafka is my favorite Existentialist Like one would say "Pistachio is my favorite ice-cream"?
- mirimir 11y ago
  Yes. I could have added "author", I suppose.
  - superplussed 11y ago
    There was nothing wrong with your original phrasing.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar. Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.
      - mirimir 11y ago
        Well, that's just how life is. Empty and meaningless. Except for whatever meaning we create. So I find Kafka both reassuring and amusing. No matter how bad things are, I can at least console myself that I haven't become a cockroach ;)
      - gkya 11y ago
        "existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive" You're mistaken to think so about existantialism. I suggest you read "Existentialism is a Humanism [1]", which is a document I've studied very recently and one that I'll study again, and one has been influential to me. Existantialism is an idea based on the hypothesis that man exists without a purpose, without a creator and without predefined values, i.e. he comes to exist before his essence, that which he is responsible of and confined to defining and creating by himself; and that he "in fashioning himself, fashions man", i.e. with his decisions, he demonstrates what he thinks is apt for all the humanity. The linked text explains it all better than my humble summary. [1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...

andmarios 11y ago

This site has one of the most annoying paywalls I've seen. As you scroll down, the page loads the next article. The paywall script detects this as you trying to read another article and throws a pop-up about how you read 3 of the 6 free articles you have. Much to my annoyance, it doesn't let me return to the kafka article but redirects me to the article it auto-loaded. Even if I go back, the same thing happens.

mirimir 11y ago
Yes, autoload and paywall strike if you scroll too far. But one can close the window and start fresh. It's not really keeping track.
inatreecrown 11y ago
It couldn't be much more kafkaesque, could it?

jkldotio 11y ago

Flagged. I click the link, article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I come back to HN and click the "web" link and it takes me to Google, I click the article there and the article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I try again in an incognito window, the same thing happens. I am sorry dang, but the web link simply doesn't work sometimes. There is no way for a non-subscriber to read this. While I appreciate you believe there are still things worth sharing that are paywalled it should be made clear in the submission with [subscription only] or similar because otherwise you have me doing 4 or so pageloads for nothing. I.e. this isn't acceptable no matter what your personal opinion is of paywalls. I.e. the paywall argument we've had in the past does not apply here. If there is no way around then it needs an extra piece of information to tell us that. Ironically this whole palaver is similar to Kafka's "Before the Law". I would add that if you've lived for a substantial time in a country that has inherited the patterns of Habsburg bureaucracy, as I have, then some of Kafka's work isn't actually as far removed from reality as you might think.

weinzierl 11y ago

This are two very short works from Kafka which have been published in 2012 in the second volume of the three volume biography by Reiner Stach. The third and last volume of the biography was released last year in Germany and an English translation is about to appear early this year. The first volume is from 2006 and the New York Times had a review back then: > Indeed, this book, the first of a projected three > volumes, seems to be written not by a scholar and > editor named Reiner Stach but by a Kafka character > called, to borrow the words of the book's promotional > materials, "the definitive biographer." [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?p... EDIT for those with paywall issues: If you are interested in the Kafka biography by Reiner Stach which the original post seems to promote you are better off reading the NYT article I linked above. If you are interested in the Kafka pieces from the original they are also published in the kakfkaest blog [2]. I'm unsure if they are published with permission though, given they even misspelled "Reiner". [2] http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-stach/ http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-stach/

visarga 11y ago

> YOU'VE READ 3 OF 6 FREE ARTICLES . Just because a page was loaded and scrolled doesn't mean it has been read. They could at least measure if the user spent more than 30 seconds on the page before counting an article as read. Also, you have to have an account to continue reading. That sucks. shouldn't happen on a news site/mag.

manigandham 11y ago
The measurement should be better (and not autoload articles) but if they feel their content deserves direct payment, that's their right. This will only start to become more anyway as adblocking continues and publishers need to protect access - which means there will need to be accounts/logins.
- gkya 11y ago
  Startup idea: Readbettr, a login and payments provider for online mags and newspapers. I'd happily pay if I was charged 25-50 cents per article. But I wouln't want to have to subscribe to the entire magazine for only one article. I do not think the would be many who only follow a few preferred mags online, people usually end up on articles via links, and read the article and do not see the website until they bump into some other link to it. But if the abovementioned service existed, where I had deposited some amount, and the mag had a link, "Connect with Readbettr to read the rest of the article", after a compelling abstract, and when I clicked, it automatically charged me ¢50 and let me read the article, with a single login, and it sent me a PDF copy automatically, I'd be a happy paying user of many online news and content sources. This thing does not exist, and I leave the idea here for the taking. Someone please make this.
  - Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
    https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ It's only targeting the Netherlands and Germany right now, but a few big name papers from the US are already available. And it's an app instead of a website. Apparently you can even get refunds for articles after reading them.

wwwdonohue 11y ago

Reiner Stach is probably the best to ever write about Kafka, and if you have any interest in him then the biography set is worth reading ASAP. Unbelievable scholarship and perspective.