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At the risk of being called obvious, I'm going to say, "Hacker News." I've never found a site that lets me tap into the brains of so many extremely smart people
by hluska 14y ago
At the risk of being called obvious, I'm going to say, "Hacker News." I've never found a site that lets me tap into the brains of so many extremely smart people. This site has made me a much smarter person, dramatically improved my writing, and made me far better at what I do.
Thanks!
- stfu 14y agoCompletely agree with your comment. The only thing I am not quite sure of is if it really changed my writing style. Any suggestions how you approached this/how HN helped you on the way?
- jfoutz 14y agoHere, i write sentences three or four times searching for a short clear statement. I can't say my writing is good, or even correctly punctuated, but it's far better than some of my direct to email incoherent rambling. The biggest problem i'm noticing now is verb agreement. I'll rewrite parts of a sentence and fix all the things i break. If only there was a typechecker to warn me of those silly mistakes.
- personlurking 14y agoThe PG effect. More specifically, the way he writes his essays. I'll have to agree. HN, as well as r/Foodforthought, are the most stimulating I've found thus far.
- hluska 14y agoSometimes, I have a bad habit of making an argument a little too concise. I forget that not everyone is in my head and knows exactly what I'm thinking, so I gloss over important details. The joy of this site is that everyone is so intelligent that they pick up on this and call me out right away. As a consequence, I've had to work on being concise enough that people read me, yet detailed enough that people understand me. Learning to balance those two things has made a tremendous difference in my career! Quick caveat - being concise is something I've always struggled with. Therefore, I think I took inappropriate shortcuts to try and become concise.
- rubyrescue 14y agoThat totally explains something I've noticed since I started posting here but couldn't put to words.
- antidoh 14y agoI am more aware of when it's acceptable to wave my hands and when it's not. I find myself looking at my writing more critically. HN has been a conspicuous influence in that.
- mrslx 14y agothanks, man!!! same here about you.
- mcphilip 14y agoAgreed! I'm not sure that HN has dramatically improved my writing so much as it has gotten me in the habit of only posting when I have something worthwhile to add to a conversation. I appreciate how many users seem to follow this rule of thumb on HN.
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- spoiledtechie 14y agoMaybe it taught you something else too. Maybe it has taught you, and anyone else who reads this only to add to the conversation when you have something worthwhile to say in real life as well. This isn't trying to be offending, am I am glad you found that, I just thought I would point out that you can carry that to your real life as well.
- nostromo 14y agoI agree. But please don't post HN on that reddit thread! ;-)
- est 14y agoBecause HN is still an exclusive secret garden?
- skeletonjelly 14y agoThis argument is bupkis. The reason for not advertising is more around the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
- stfu 14y agoIsn't HN proving the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory wrong? And showing that a decent discussion level is achievable in a anonymous environment. New Users creating their account don't even have to provide a legit email address. And at least your and my account are relatively "anonymous".
- davidw 14y agoPart of the reason HN has stayed decent is because politics and similar discussions are stamped out.
- tripzilch 14y ago> Isn't HN proving the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory wrong? HN employs anonymous, unaccountable, unnecessary, possibly automated and most definitely counter-productive hell bans. And with that any level of decency becomes quite irrelevant. I implore you to turn on "show dead" and gaze upon our "shadow people", check their comment history and notice about half of them got hell banned for some rather petty reason, and are currently being made to waste hours of their time writing comments before realizing nobody reads them. The other half might have actually deserved some sort of disciplinary action, but a hellban is actually less effective than a regular one except in some quite rare situations[1]. If [the unseen mods of] HN believe that's what it takes, I'll gladly deal with some more Fuckwads. (though the more probable reason is that none of them seems to want, or is able to bugfix the modding code) [1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-hellban.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-h...
- thornofmight 14y agoEven just a thread like this is full of an insane amount of value.
- throwaway34539 14y agoI don't think HN deserves this reputation. Most discussions are shallow, some people don't even bother reading the story. Meta discussions are frequently the most upvoted and stories that takes more than a couple of minutes to appreciate are often left to die. Partly it's because of the format and the platform. Instead of seeking out the information yourself, you're feed bits of it before moving on to the next bit. It works great for news, commentary, as entertainment or a starting guide to startups. But less so for actually acquiring and/or exchanging information.
- ironchef 14y agoAgreed. The groupthink mentality here is almost as bad as reddit from what i've seen (say...50 to 70% of the way there); however, i think some of the show HN thing have been interesting to see (and I don't think i would've found them on metafilter, reddit, etc.)
- itmag 14y agoI think HN does host an abundance of really smart folks. The main irritant is that so many of them are nitpicky and/or snarky. Anyone else noticed this?
- baq 14y agoflamewars are the favorite pastime of the internet. it's been like that since before i was alive, or so i'm told by the grey beards.
- hollerith 14y agoWhich would be relevant if HN had flamewars. It does not. It does not even have a significant frequency of individual flames. A flame is a long impassioned harangue or rant.
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoYeah, but out demographic is one that prone to sarcasm, criticism, sarcasm, etc, myself included. :)
- benologist 14y agoThis is not a site full of smart people submitting and discussing smart things. This is a site where someone says 'stealing' and someone else patiently points out that piracy is not stealing because bla bla bla YAWN.
- eternalban 14y agoA mullah, a scholar of Arabic Grammar, once fell into a filthy ditch and couldn't climb out. He waited for a while until someone came by. The passerby extended his hand and said "Your hand. Give me!" The mullah angrily told him "Move along. You are not one of our people!" Some more hours passed while the scholar stood knee deep in foul matter, until another man passed by. He said to him "Here my hand. Take!" Again, the scholar glared "Move along! You are not one of us!" So this went on for few hours until, finally, the scholar's nephew happened to pass by and saw his uncle in that filthy ditch. He cried out "O dear uncle! Here, take my hand!". The scholar said, "Yes. You are one of us!" and reach[ed] out to his nephew. But the nephew was weak and he too fell in the hole. [As related by Mowlana Shamsud'din Tabrizi.]
- eternalban 14y ago> [As related by Mowlana Shamsud'din Tabrizi.] This needs to be corrected. The story is called the "blind grammarian" and naturally far more robust in the original by Shams (as translated into English) than my recollection above. There is also a second part to it that has been omitted.
- TheSOB88 14y agoHahaha, if only I could tell whether this is irony or genuine.
- NinetyNine 14y agoPiracy isn't stealing; it's copyright infringement and often a contract violation. Using metaphors for complicated legal issues is not a good way to approach things.
- dehue 14y agoHackers news is only intellectually stimulating if you are a developer, programmer or work in start up. It doesn't really have that much interesting discussions beyond that.
- ricardobeat 14y agoThat's what it says on the tin.
- ansgri 14y agoWhy, science in general does happen here.