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Hacker News is not only about hacking. Hacker News is about delivering content that is entertaining and useful to people that are programmers or people that ar

Hacker News is not only about hacking. Hacker News is about delivering content that is entertaining and useful to people that are programmers or people that are planning or currently running a start-up. This is actually completely relevant because anything involving this story could involve a small business that finds itself in a similar situation. Gizmodo could have been a small startup idea that only had a few viewers, for example. It could happen to any of us that are starting a new business. However, not everything must be relevant. Sometimes stories are simply entertaining and break the monotony.

raganwald 16y ago
> anything involving this story Sorry, I don't believe that anything involving the story is relevant to HN, nor do I believe that anything entertaining is HN. The acid test is "Anything that would gratify our intellectual curiosity." Some issues connected to this story do, some do not. Remember that almost everyone here reads multiple sources of information: We read reddit, we read stackoverflow, we are on twitter. Therefore, there is no need for HN to contain every story that might be entertaining or even interesting. For example, anecdotes about using dating sites are of great prurient interest to hackers, but not Hacker News. Stories about what makes some profiles on dating sites attract more responses than others: Hacker News. So besides entertainment value, what specifically about this post should gratify my intellectual curiosity? What can I learn from this post to write software? What does it teach me about running a start-up?
- brlewis 16y ago
  When I did jury duty a couple of years ago, the division of power among police, judge and jury interesting. The legal system is more than laws. I found this post by a lawyer interesting because it addresses an important question related to that division of power. I don't know that it directly informs security of distributed systems or a startup's interaction with the legal system, but I think someone interested in either of those areas might find this story interesting.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Intellectual property rights are a perennial issue for hackers, I would say. There are iPhone-related stories on the front page almost every day because that is the commercial platform of choice for many HN members. What does it teach me about running a start-up? I'd say quite a lot; core IP can be very hard to keep secure, you should be suspicious of people offering to sell you IP without clear proof of ownership, you can unwittingly incur legal responsibilities at the same time as material benefits, and economic considerations often trump ethical ones.

raganwald 16y ago

> anything involving this story Sorry, I don't believe that anything involving the story is relevant to HN, nor do I believe that anything entertaining is HN. The acid test is "Anything that would gratify our intellectual curiosity." Some issues connected to this story do, some do not. Remember that almost everyone here reads multiple sources of information: We read reddit, we read stackoverflow, we are on twitter. Therefore, there is no need for HN to contain every story that might be entertaining or even interesting. For example, anecdotes about using dating sites are of great prurient interest to hackers, but not Hacker News. Stories about what makes some profiles on dating sites attract more responses than others: Hacker News. So besides entertainment value, what specifically about this post should gratify my intellectual curiosity? What can I learn from this post to write software? What does it teach me about running a start-up?

brlewis 16y ago
When I did jury duty a couple of years ago, the division of power among police, judge and jury interesting. The legal system is more than laws. I found this post by a lawyer interesting because it addresses an important question related to that division of power. I don't know that it directly informs security of distributed systems or a startup's interaction with the legal system, but I think someone interested in either of those areas might find this story interesting.
anigbrowl 16y ago
Intellectual property rights are a perennial issue for hackers, I would say. There are iPhone-related stories on the front page almost every day because that is the commercial platform of choice for many HN members. What does it teach me about running a start-up? I'd say quite a lot; core IP can be very hard to keep secure, you should be suspicious of people offering to sell you IP without clear proof of ownership, you can unwittingly incur legal responsibilities at the same time as material benefits, and economic considerations often trump ethical ones.