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For some reason this comment bothers me, mostly because it's something that I do. I will often interrupt a beautiful moment with some irrelevant fact or correct

For some reason this comment bothers me, mostly because it's something that I do. I will often interrupt a beautiful moment with some irrelevant fact or correction. I notice that I always apologize for it, either politely like you did, or just in my head. Man to man, let's be honest, is it worth it?

deconigo 17y ago
Sure it is. It is real. Just like death is real.
ellyagg 17y ago
And, in turn, this comment bothers me, but I do know why. Your parent's comment wasn't irrelevant. Truth matters. Whenever I read a comment like yours, I think of the last part of Richard Lovelace's To Lucasta, Going to Wars: I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.
Estragon 17y ago
I value the information.
dsteinweg 17y ago
This comment made me think of the recent submission on geek behaviors in conversation: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1078529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1078529. I liked that submission because I could easily identify with most of the behaviors in that list. I too often have the urge to correct someone over something arguably unimportant. It's so strange.
Confusion 17y ago
There is quite a difference between doing that in a real life situation and doing that in an online forum. A beautiful moment in a forum cannot possibly be interrupted in any way by another comment, because you only start reading other comments when such a moment has already passed.
hernan7 17y ago
I guess it depends how much of a Borges fan you are. For fans like myself, seeing "Instantes" attributed to Borges is like seeing "Twilight" attributed to Shakespeare. Actually, "Instantes" started life as a Reader's Digest (prose) article in 1953. Over time, it was transcribed by several anonymous scribes, rendered in free verse, and attributed to different authors. I remember seeing it published in an Argentinian newspaper as a Borges poem (Clarin? if I remember correctly) sometime in the '80s, shortly after Borges' death. I think that was the first time it was attributed to Borges. For more information: http://reelyredd.com/blog/2009/04/ http://reelyredd.com/blog/2009/04/ http://www.borges.pitt.edu/bsol/iainst.php http://www.borges.pitt.edu/bsol/iainst.php Last link is a hyper-pedantic article in Spanish by a Borges scholar, with quote by Borges himself on the subject: "[If I was to live this life again] I would do the same things. Because one is like one is, no?"
- anatoly 17y ago
  Thanks, this clears things up considerably.
bia 17y ago
True, being nit-picky in moments of beauty is annoying, but here the facts are not irrelevant. It's really interesting to look at all the permutations of the poem (like Nadine Stair's version http://www.omidia.com/thought/p_nadine.html http://www.omidia.com/thought/p_nadine.html) and the act of seeing the differences and particularities in each of the writing styles is beautiful in itself.
jongraehl 17y ago
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" ... there sure are many who would rather believe some pretty fiction true, than appreciate that most of the best things we imagine aren't real. The process by which I imagine attractive urban legends and inauthentic quotes being engineered is one of deliberate dishonesty (though of course some are honest errors), and it disgusts me. e.g. "you cannot fool all the people all the time, ..." - not Abraham Lincoln, "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" - not Thomas Jefferson. There's some step involved where a quoter thinks "this is beautiful/true; I want to share it" and then decides it would make more of a splash if it were branded with a Respected Name, and that repulses me.

deconigo 17y ago

Sure it is. It is real. Just like death is real.

ellyagg 17y ago

And, in turn, this comment bothers me, but I do know why. Your parent's comment wasn't irrelevant. Truth matters. Whenever I read a comment like yours, I think of the last part of Richard Lovelace's To Lucasta, Going to Wars: I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.

Estragon 17y ago

I value the information.

dsteinweg 17y ago

This comment made me think of the recent submission on geek behaviors in conversation: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1078529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1078529. I liked that submission because I could easily identify with most of the behaviors in that list. I too often have the urge to correct someone over something arguably unimportant. It's so strange.

Confusion 17y ago

There is quite a difference between doing that in a real life situation and doing that in an online forum. A beautiful moment in a forum cannot possibly be interrupted in any way by another comment, because you only start reading other comments when such a moment has already passed.

hernan7 17y ago

I guess it depends how much of a Borges fan you are. For fans like myself, seeing "Instantes" attributed to Borges is like seeing "Twilight" attributed to Shakespeare. Actually, "Instantes" started life as a Reader's Digest (prose) article in 1953. Over time, it was transcribed by several anonymous scribes, rendered in free verse, and attributed to different authors. I remember seeing it published in an Argentinian newspaper as a Borges poem (Clarin? if I remember correctly) sometime in the '80s, shortly after Borges' death. I think that was the first time it was attributed to Borges. For more information: http://reelyredd.com/blog/2009/04/ http://reelyredd.com/blog/2009/04/ http://www.borges.pitt.edu/bsol/iainst.php http://www.borges.pitt.edu/bsol/iainst.php Last link is a hyper-pedantic article in Spanish by a Borges scholar, with quote by Borges himself on the subject: "[If I was to live this life again] I would do the same things. Because one is like one is, no?"

anatoly 17y ago
Thanks, this clears things up considerably.

bia 17y ago

True, being nit-picky in moments of beauty is annoying, but here the facts are not irrelevant. It's really interesting to look at all the permutations of the poem (like Nadine Stair's version http://www.omidia.com/thought/p_nadine.html http://www.omidia.com/thought/p_nadine.html) and the act of seeing the differences and particularities in each of the writing styles is beautiful in itself.

jongraehl 17y ago

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" ... there sure are many who would rather believe some pretty fiction true, than appreciate that most of the best things we imagine aren't real. The process by which I imagine attractive urban legends and inauthentic quotes being engineered is one of deliberate dishonesty (though of course some are honest errors), and it disgusts me. e.g. "you cannot fool all the people all the time, ..." - not Abraham Lincoln, "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" - not Thomas Jefferson. There's some step involved where a quoter thinks "this is beautiful/true; I want to share it" and then decides it would make more of a splash if it were branded with a Respected Name, and that repulses me.