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I spent last Sunday's lunch explaining to my girlfriend the revolution that being able to compute your longitude was (I could not help myself). There were prize

I spent last Sunday's lunch explaining to my girlfriend the revolution that being able to compute your longitude was (I could not help myself). There were prizes offered by the trading companies and governments to whomever would devise a reliable way to determine one's longitude. Conceptually, it's interesting that longitude is mostly useful only if you know your latitude (that's because 1degre of change in longitude does not translate to the same distance traveled whether you're at the equator or at the pole.)

rimliu 9y ago
Just get her a copy of this: https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-Problem/dp/080271529X https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-... :)
- zazen 9y ago
  How's GP going to make himself look smart by regurgitating one of the most successful pop history books of the 90s, if he hooks her up with the book directly? I hope my cynicism is misplaced and GP has a genuine passion for 18th century maritime history. But most people I meet who "can't help" spewing out random facts are more r/iamverysmart than actual enthusiasts.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    It's storytelling. You can't possibly be expected to have genuine passion for the art and science behind every interesting story in the world... Otherwise the only stories that get told will be PhD dissertations.
    - zazen 9y ago
      Your friends must be better story tellers than mine! Second-hand stories tend to be pretty stale in my experience. Bad enough when people try to tell about something they heard happened to Joe, worse when they try to tell about something technical that happened centuries ago. Stories like the Longitude story can be told outside academic dissertations - by people like Dava Sobel, though, not really by Fred who's just read her book.
      - pavlov 9y ago
        Not everyone is a great storyteller... But when someone starts off with: "Here's something really interesting I read the other day, let me try share it with you" -- isn't it kind to listen and engage?
        zazen 9y ago
        I guess I was seeing a big distinction between telling your friends _about_ this great book you've read, and telling the story yourself, as if you were the expert, as if you, rather than the author, had done the research and formed the narrative. I got the impression that LiamMcCalloway had done the latter, because he said he "explained" to his gf about longitude (and doesn't mention the book at all). If you start to "explain" to people on the basis of having read one book, that's being a know-it-all. Yes, this is an uncharitable reading of LiamMcCalloway's post, but I don't think I quite pulled it out of thin air. LiamMcCalloway, if I've got you wrong and you are in fact an intellectually honest person, I apologize without reservation! If I don't make any more replies, it's because some people who don't like the tone of my original post are taking the opportunity to downvote everything I say.
      - RingwormOne 9y ago
        So you're saying that no lay person can share interesting facts during casual conversation? You must be an expert on something to casually talk about it at lunch? Nonsense. This is one of the sillier things I've ever read on HN.
        zazen 9y ago
        It's one thing to share some interesting facts and point people to the book. No-one's going to object to that! But I think it's a bit different if someone spends an entire lunch "explaining" the contents of a book they've just read.
        RingwormOne 9y ago
        Sometimes interesting stories or explanations one reads about then wishes to convey to someone else may require more than a few minutes to convey. It seems that was the case here. It's not a matter of arrogance, pseudo-intellectualism or anything else. It's a matter of wanting to share interesting things one knows.

rimliu 9y ago

Just get her a copy of this: https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-Problem/dp/080271529X https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-... :)

zazen 9y ago
How's GP going to make himself look smart by regurgitating one of the most successful pop history books of the 90s, if he hooks her up with the book directly? I hope my cynicism is misplaced and GP has a genuine passion for 18th century maritime history. But most people I meet who "can't help" spewing out random facts are more r/iamverysmart than actual enthusiasts.
- pavlov 9y ago
  It's storytelling. You can't possibly be expected to have genuine passion for the art and science behind every interesting story in the world... Otherwise the only stories that get told will be PhD dissertations.
  - zazen 9y ago
    Your friends must be better story tellers than mine! Second-hand stories tend to be pretty stale in my experience. Bad enough when people try to tell about something they heard happened to Joe, worse when they try to tell about something technical that happened centuries ago. Stories like the Longitude story can be told outside academic dissertations - by people like Dava Sobel, though, not really by Fred who's just read her book.
    - pavlov 9y ago
      Not everyone is a great storyteller... But when someone starts off with: "Here's something really interesting I read the other day, let me try share it with you" -- isn't it kind to listen and engage?
      - zazen 9y ago
        I guess I was seeing a big distinction between telling your friends _about_ this great book you've read, and telling the story yourself, as if you were the expert, as if you, rather than the author, had done the research and formed the narrative. I got the impression that LiamMcCalloway had done the latter, because he said he "explained" to his gf about longitude (and doesn't mention the book at all). If you start to "explain" to people on the basis of having read one book, that's being a know-it-all. Yes, this is an uncharitable reading of LiamMcCalloway's post, but I don't think I quite pulled it out of thin air. LiamMcCalloway, if I've got you wrong and you are in fact an intellectually honest person, I apologize without reservation! If I don't make any more replies, it's because some people who don't like the tone of my original post are taking the opportunity to downvote everything I say.
    - RingwormOne 9y ago
      So you're saying that no lay person can share interesting facts during casual conversation? You must be an expert on something to casually talk about it at lunch? Nonsense. This is one of the sillier things I've ever read on HN.
      - zazen 9y ago
        It's one thing to share some interesting facts and point people to the book. No-one's going to object to that! But I think it's a bit different if someone spends an entire lunch "explaining" the contents of a book they've just read.
        RingwormOne 9y ago
        Sometimes interesting stories or explanations one reads about then wishes to convey to someone else may require more than a few minutes to convey. It seems that was the case here. It's not a matter of arrogance, pseudo-intellectualism or anything else. It's a matter of wanting to share interesting things one knows.