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Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap. Tech content is no exception. As the article points out, the corollary is that you have to think for yours

by Veen 6y ago

Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap. Tech content is no exception. As the article points out, the corollary is that you have to think for yourself, assessing every piece of content you come across.

andersco 6y ago
Ha, I just posted something similar almost at the same time, but you said it better.
- hinkley 6y ago
  There are dozens of us who would have stepped up if you two didn't.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Since we're arguing by aphorism, Brandolini's law a/k/a bullshit asymmetry principle: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23417790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23417790 The value of a healthy established pedagogy, curriculum, and canon is that these distribute the bullshit-sifting role and guard and promote the jems.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  2 orders of it’s your boss! But seriously I hate working with non self critical developers because it’s exhausting trying to refute what they say. Although “asking questions” can help.
_alex_ 6y ago
I think Sturgeon was being generous
ternaryoperator 6y ago
Well, part of the problem is that there are few detailed book reviews anymore. The Jolt Awards for books were at one time a good guide. Nonetheless, one place that has fairly in-depth Java book reviews of all places is Oracle's Java Magazine. [0] [0] https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/book-review-archive https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/book-review-archive
- jason0597 6y ago
  It's a shame that it's now cool to hate on Java nowadays. It's still a great language to design web applications in, especially now with the newer releases and all the amazing features they put in. I will never understand why things like JavaScript are being used in the back end...
m463 6y ago
I think a surprising refined "meta" solution has come up in the last decade or so. You can read an article, and figure out if it is crap for yourself. But then you can check your work by reading the discussion around it (like HN comments). Look at the top (and bottom) comments. Match your thoughts against the opinions and comments of other critical thinkers. A lot of critical thinking has already been done for you. This doesn't always work, but a good comment/upvote/moderation system can be a surprising bullshit filter. My comment does NOT apply to automated systems, or systems were money/seo/gaming have a payoff for someone. So please ignore this for facebook, for anything with sponsored results, for product reviews, or for wikipedia pages of wealthy or prominent individuals.

by Veen 6y ago

andersco 6y ago

Ha, I just posted something similar almost at the same time, but you said it better.

hinkley 6y ago
There are dozens of us who would have stepped up if you two didn't.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Since we're arguing by aphorism, Brandolini's law a/k/a bullshit asymmetry principle: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23417790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23417790 The value of a healthy established pedagogy, curriculum, and canon is that these distribute the bullshit-sifting role and guard and promote the jems.

quickthrower2 6y ago
2 orders of it’s your boss! But seriously I hate working with non self critical developers because it’s exhausting trying to refute what they say. Although “asking questions” can help.

_alex_ 6y ago

I think Sturgeon was being generous

ternaryoperator 6y ago

Well, part of the problem is that there are few detailed book reviews anymore. The Jolt Awards for books were at one time a good guide. Nonetheless, one place that has fairly in-depth Java book reviews of all places is Oracle's Java Magazine. [0] [0] https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/book-review-archive https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/book-review-archive

jason0597 6y ago
It's a shame that it's now cool to hate on Java nowadays. It's still a great language to design web applications in, especially now with the newer releases and all the amazing features they put in. I will never understand why things like JavaScript are being used in the back end...

m463 6y ago

I think a surprising refined "meta" solution has come up in the last decade or so. You can read an article, and figure out if it is crap for yourself. But then you can check your work by reading the discussion around it (like HN comments). Look at the top (and bottom) comments. Match your thoughts against the opinions and comments of other critical thinkers. A lot of critical thinking has already been done for you. This doesn't always work, but a good comment/upvote/moderation system can be a surprising bullshit filter. My comment does NOT apply to automated systems, or systems were money/seo/gaming have a payoff for someone. So please ignore this for facebook, for anything with sponsored results, for product reviews, or for wikipedia pages of wealthy or prominent individuals.