7 ms·

Rather Break Than Bend

15 points by prismatic 4y ago

MarcoZavala 4y ago
chrisweekly 4y ago
Link is apparently to a book review pertaining to Elizabethan England; curious why this is on the front page.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pvg 4y ago
  It's in the guidelines On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    The question is valid: it is not clear what would make this article or specific topic "extraordinary", hence what made some promote it. The potential points of interest are rather vague.
    - pvg 4y ago
      There's nothing in there about "extraordinary" and plenty about (along with years of moderator comments) about not why-is-this-on-the-front-page-ing. It is a decidedly answered HN question.
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        > It is a decidedly answered HN question No, very certainly not: it is not an answered question why *this* specific article has an intellectual interest above a large degree of randomness.
        pvg 4y ago
        The answer is 'this is a really boring, repetitive question we know the answer to so we're not going to have it in every submission because the point of this forum is interestingness'. That's it.
        mdp2021 4y ago
        And in fact, «we're not going to have it in every submission», but it will have to come out when submissions are puzzling in their interesting sides. Which will beg the legitimate question, like in this specific case, of what was the "interesting" side that some of us have been unable to detect. In fact, no, we do not know the answer to that question - the instances, not the general idea -, otherwise it would not be asked, and the statement starting with «because the point» makes no apparent sense.
        pvg 4y ago
        Not every post is going to make sense to you or be interesting to you. Since that's true for someone on almost every post, it's not practical to discuss it every time and still have an interesting forum.
        mdp2021 4y ago
        In theory. In practice, you can see that it does not happen frequently, and probably not out of restraint. It does not happen frequently because to get the points of interest is an implicit, trivial exercise, at most one step in leisure, in the overwhelmingest majority of cases. And I suppose the statistical tail which you may theorize and would be a frequent nuisance, must be used to conceal their doubts having learnt what is preferable. When it instead does happen, the discussion of "what makes it interesting" is still full part of the game. I remember having myself to explain queriers how some third member's submissions were "intellectual curiosity" consistent: it produced "Aaaaaaah!"s and good debate. Because on our typical matters there is standard practice, while it is on the subtler that we gain the unusual opening from notes, "well there you missed to see that at the time, wood was not invented". And from a revolutionary idea, you are finally more than you were. Note that if a member /felt/ that something is interesting, that would not really suffice to match the context of debate: we put things in words, and through the intellect we shall pass, as is in the binding of our contract. Otherwise, we would have an interesting "museum", not an «interesting forum». Now: (given that all the theoretics you laid out were already clear beforehand, but again, they are in a vacuum) have you actually read TFA, and have you discerned what would be the subtle glimpse of "aha" novelty beyond the mediocre best guess of this writer, that "the missed Queen would have been a personality inconsistent with being installed on the Throne by dissidents"? If anything better comes out than this modest, insufficient proposal, then maybe our time was well invested; if nothing better emerges, that we can move on and forget about the whole matter.

15 points by prismatic 4y ago

MarcoZavala 4y ago

chrisweekly 4y ago

Link is apparently to a book review pertaining to Elizabethan England; curious why this is on the front page.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pvg 4y ago
It's in the guidelines On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  The question is valid: it is not clear what would make this article or specific topic "extraordinary", hence what made some promote it. The potential points of interest are rather vague.
  - pvg 4y ago
    There's nothing in there about "extraordinary" and plenty about (along with years of moderator comments) about not why-is-this-on-the-front-page-ing. It is a decidedly answered HN question.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > It is a decidedly answered HN question No, very certainly not: it is not an answered question why *this* specific article has an intellectual interest above a large degree of randomness.
      - pvg 4y ago
        The answer is 'this is a really boring, repetitive question we know the answer to so we're not going to have it in every submission because the point of this forum is interestingness'. That's it.
        mdp2021 4y ago
        And in fact, «we're not going to have it in every submission», but it will have to come out when submissions are puzzling in their interesting sides. Which will beg the legitimate question, like in this specific case, of what was the "interesting" side that some of us have been unable to detect. In fact, no, we do not know the answer to that question - the instances, not the general idea -, otherwise it would not be asked, and the statement starting with «because the point» makes no apparent sense.
        pvg 4y ago
        Not every post is going to make sense to you or be interesting to you. Since that's true for someone on almost every post, it's not practical to discuss it every time and still have an interesting forum.
        mdp2021 4y ago
        In theory. In practice, you can see that it does not happen frequently, and probably not out of restraint. It does not happen frequently because to get the points of interest is an implicit, trivial exercise, at most one step in leisure, in the overwhelmingest majority of cases. And I suppose the statistical tail which you may theorize and would be a frequent nuisance, must be used to conceal their doubts having learnt what is preferable. When it instead does happen, the discussion of "what makes it interesting" is still full part of the game. I remember having myself to explain queriers how some third member's submissions were "intellectual curiosity" consistent: it produced "Aaaaaaah!"s and good debate. Because on our typical matters there is standard practice, while it is on the subtler that we gain the unusual opening from notes, "well there you missed to see that at the time, wood was not invented". And from a revolutionary idea, you are finally more than you were. Note that if a member /felt/ that something is interesting, that would not really suffice to match the context of debate: we put things in words, and through the intellect we shall pass, as is in the binding of our contract. Otherwise, we would have an interesting "museum", not an «interesting forum». Now: (given that all the theoretics you laid out were already clear beforehand, but again, they are in a vacuum) have you actually read TFA, and have you discerned what would be the subtle glimpse of "aha" novelty beyond the mediocre best guess of this writer, that "the missed Queen would have been a personality inconsistent with being installed on the Throne by dissidents"? If anything better comes out than this modest, insufficient proposal, then maybe our time was well invested; if nothing better emerges, that we can move on and forget about the whole matter.