4 ms·

I'm a bit at a loss as to why general entertainment pop culture news is interesting to hackers.

by guelo 10y ago

jchendy 10y ago
>I'm a bit at a loss as to why general entertainment pop culture news is interesting to hackers. Because hackers are people, and by definition a significant proportion of people are interested in pop culture. But that does bring up a good point that "anything that good hackers would find interesting" is perhaps not the best guidance for what's "on-topic" on HN.
meddlepal 10y ago
Because not all of us are robots that only care about making our computers beep, boop and flash?
- guelo 10y ago
  Geez people really hated my comment. But still, there's entertainment news everyday but normally it's not at the top of HN. Why this one?
icodestuff 10y ago
For me it's interesting because getting to the truth in a complicated case is like debugging to find and fix a single specific bug in a large codebase. But I'm also weird in that debugging is one of my favorite parts of the development process.
mayneack 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321564
bbayles 10y ago
I have to fight the hipster in me too, but Serial is an example of something that is deservedly popular. It was very entertaining, yes, but very informative. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about criminal justice. There's even a tech angle: As a former engineer for a wireless phone company, I thought the explanation of how technical data is used and abused for securing legal convictions to be mind blowing.
phamilton 10y ago
It's a case of a new(ish) publishing medium having effects beyond just entertainment.
dfischer 10y ago
Calling it general entertainment pop culture misses the entire point of why it's interesting and honestly, it's quite self limiting to have such a perspective. Try to open your walls up a bit man and soak up the complexities of culture and the laws we live in.

I'm a bit at a loss as to why general entertainment pop culture news is interesting to hackers.

by guelo 10y ago

I'm a bit at a loss as to why general entertainment pop culture news is interesting to hackers.

>I'm a bit at a loss as to why general entertainment pop culture news is interesting to hackers. Because hackers are people, and by definition a significant proportion of people are interested in pop culture. But that does bring up a good point that "anything that good hackers would find interesting" is perhaps not the best guidance for what's "on-topic" on HN.

meddlepal 10y ago

Because not all of us are robots that only care about making our computers beep, boop and flash?

guelo 10y ago
Geez people really hated my comment. But still, there's entertainment news everyday but normally it's not at the top of HN. Why this one?

icodestuff 10y ago

For me it's interesting because getting to the truth in a complicated case is like debugging to find and fix a single specific bug in a large codebase. But I'm also weird in that debugging is one of my favorite parts of the development process.

mayneack 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321564

bbayles 10y ago

I have to fight the hipster in me too, but Serial is an example of something that is deservedly popular. It was very entertaining, yes, but very informative. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about criminal justice. There's even a tech angle: As a former engineer for a wireless phone company, I thought the explanation of how technical data is used and abused for securing legal convictions to be mind blowing.

phamilton 10y ago

It's a case of a new(ish) publishing medium having effects beyond just entertainment.

dfischer 10y ago

Calling it general entertainment pop culture misses the entire point of why it's interesting and honestly, it's quite self limiting to have such a perspective. Try to open your walls up a bit man and soak up the complexities of culture and the laws we live in.