4 ms·

There are many badly designed web pages on the Internet. Why is this newsworthy to HN?

andrewfelix 15y ago
Agreed and flagged.
drostie 15y ago
Well I'd say the same thing about Notch's 0x10c -- that there are many games on the Internet, why is this one newsworthy? -- but I think in both cases it comes down to the reputation of the person providing it. In the one case it is a promising idea from someone who has the resources to make great ideas happen; in the other it is a pile of utter crap from someone who had the resources to do much, much better.
- andrewfelix 15y ago
  Notch's 0x10c is newsworthy because he's creating an MMO with an emulated programmable 16bit CPU. How many games do you know that do that? Now think about how many crappy websites there are. Terrible comparison.
  - drostie 15y ago
    No, see, the question is precisely "why the hell is an emulated programmable 16bit CPU newsworthy?" Hey, I know an MMO with an emulated programmable 32bit CPU; it's called Browser Quest, and was recently released by Mozilla; you can access its console by pressing Shift-Ctrl-J; it even comes with a high-level scripting language. With the JS implementation of Notch's 16-bit CPU you can even quickly paste Notch's CPU into BrowserQuest, so that you can write with his opcodes! To the extent that it's not a feature but a game mechanic I would say it's interesting enough for one HN post in the top 10. That's what it was recently, and all was good. Today implementations of the opcodes take up four of these posts, for apparently no other reason than "Notch is a pretty cool guy with the ability to make this happen." And that's my point. It's the ability to make it happen, not the thing in itself, which makes it newsworthy.
- sthatipamala 15y ago
  What kind of productive discussion can be made about it? The existence of something exciting, like 0x10c, generates discussion about possibilities. The existence of something infuriating, like the Path scandal, generates discussion towards solutions. This site is bad but mundanely bad. It is apparent from comment thread that the only comment people can muster up is "oh look, I can't believe NBC would suck this much". This is largely of interest to no one.
  - drostie 15y ago
    I guess that's fair enough. I'm mostly here to see interesting discussions in the comment threads and you're right, we can't have much of an interesting discussion on this one.
    - badcoder 15y ago
      So right..HN is not for 'bashing' anyone..It was created to be a venue for interesting and thought-provoking discussions. But I must say..this was interesting! I didn't know corporate companies could sink so 'low'...

Agreed and flagged.

Well I'd say the same thing about Notch's 0x10c -- that there are many games on the Internet, why is this one newsworthy? -- but I think in both cases it comes down to the reputation of the person providing it. In the one case it is a promising idea from someone who has the resources to make great ideas happen; in the other it is a pile of utter crap from someone who had the resources to do much, much better.

andrewfelix 15y ago
Notch's 0x10c is newsworthy because he's creating an MMO with an emulated programmable 16bit CPU. How many games do you know that do that? Now think about how many crappy websites there are. Terrible comparison.
- drostie 15y ago
  No, see, the question is precisely "why the hell is an emulated programmable 16bit CPU newsworthy?" Hey, I know an MMO with an emulated programmable 32bit CPU; it's called Browser Quest, and was recently released by Mozilla; you can access its console by pressing Shift-Ctrl-J; it even comes with a high-level scripting language. With the JS implementation of Notch's 16-bit CPU you can even quickly paste Notch's CPU into BrowserQuest, so that you can write with his opcodes! To the extent that it's not a feature but a game mechanic I would say it's interesting enough for one HN post in the top 10. That's what it was recently, and all was good. Today implementations of the opcodes take up four of these posts, for apparently no other reason than "Notch is a pretty cool guy with the ability to make this happen." And that's my point. It's the ability to make it happen, not the thing in itself, which makes it newsworthy.
sthatipamala 15y ago
What kind of productive discussion can be made about it? The existence of something exciting, like 0x10c, generates discussion about possibilities. The existence of something infuriating, like the Path scandal, generates discussion towards solutions. This site is bad but mundanely bad. It is apparent from comment thread that the only comment people can muster up is "oh look, I can't believe NBC would suck this much". This is largely of interest to no one.
- drostie 15y ago
  I guess that's fair enough. I'm mostly here to see interesting discussions in the comment threads and you're right, we can't have much of an interesting discussion on this one.
  - badcoder 15y ago
    So right..HN is not for 'bashing' anyone..It was created to be a venue for interesting and thought-provoking discussions. But I must say..this was interesting! I didn't know corporate companies could sink so 'low'...