7 ms·
How is this even remotely hacker news?
by icey 17y ago
How is this even remotely hacker news?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- dabeeeenster 17y agoSurely if it's modded up it is?
- staunch 17y agoNo way. If we went by that rule the site would be full of [pic] submissions.
- swombat 17y agoComplaining about submissions is against the guidelines, I've been told.
- icey 17y agoIt's not a complaint, it's a genuine question. How is this even remotely hacker news?
- swombat 17y agoSome people obviously feel that Michael Jackson was a musical hacker.
- jraines 17y ago. . . and Jon and Kate are fertility hackers, and Paris Hilton is a PR hacker, and the Jonas Brothers are teen girl psychology hackers . . .
- axod 17y agoMaybe you should read his biography.
- jraines 17y agoMaybe I'll go with Berry Gordy's first.
- empone 17y agoIt doesn't matter who's wrong or right...
- monological 17y agothis is a really long reply chain
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- michaelawill 17y agoAnd if they died, they'd prolly get a post on the front page here for an hour or so.
- delano 17y agoSeriously? You've put Michael Jackson in the same category as the Jonas Brothers.
- Tichy 17y agoI don't know who Jon and Kate are, but Paris Hilton definitely is a PR hacker. Or if she is not, she is something even weirder, a self-feeding PR loop.
- icey 17y agoIt's an interesting point, I'll bite. What did Michael Jackson do that was in the hacker spirit, as opposed to just being an immensely talented musician?
- gojomo 17y agoAn article which explores Jackson's legacy from a 'hacker' perspective would be topical. A news flash as might appear in a thousand other general-interest forums -- and from bottom-feeders TMZ no less -- I'd rather not see here.
- SwellJoe 17y agoThe business aspects of Jackson's career are, perhaps, interesting and useful to this audience. For example, he acquired the publishing rights to much of the Beatles catalog at a bargain price in the 80's. http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp This was, obviously in hindsight (and probably at the time, as well), a very astute move, and the value of that catalog of music has only increased over time. Most of us would be very happy to have made business deals that put tens of million in our pocket, while still holding a share worth more than originally paid. That's not to say a TMZ link is the best choice.
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- indraneel24 17y agoUnfortunately, he had to sell them later in his life, as he was going bankrupt.
- madh 17y agoSold half. It's also rumored that his will gives his remaining half to Lennon/McCartney.
- fiaz 17y agoI was hacking my Apple IIe with "Thriller" playing in the background. I would like to think that counts for something. Perhaps that doesn't warrant the top link on HN at all - after all his death has no impact on the computer world. At the same time, his cultural contribution to my generation is just as much important to me as was the contribution of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak.
- evgen 17y agoAdd the Farrah poster that was probably on your wall at the time and today is an "interesting" day for those of us who are of a certain age...
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- CamperBob 17y agoFunny you should mention that; I remember playing with single-bit audio on the Apple II's speaker, and the title track from Thriller was about the only thing you could digitize and still recognize. Of course, only about 20-30 seconds would fit into memory...
- iamwil 17y agoIt's not. If you can, flag it.
- abstractbill 17y agoFlagging is the right thing to do - it's more effective, and doesn't add even more noise.
- icey 17y agoEh, it doesn't make much difference in this case... this particular posting has been brought back from the land of the [dead]. I'd assume to stop the torrent of posts that were showing up about it on the new page.
- axod 17y agoIt'd be hard to ignore it. He was a giant in the music world, and influenced a ton of stuff. He was so far ahead of his competition it was silly. I remember the music video to 'smooth criminal' as a kid and was simply blown away by it.
- icey 17y agoSure, but it's also on the top of every single news site in the English speaking world right now. One of the things that's always been nice about HN is that we've historically let news organizations be news organizations and we could stay on topic here. Clearly, I'm in the minority here, and I'll have to either accept the redditization of HN or find somewhere else to go.
- jmtame 17y agoi see this thread as less news-driven, and more commemorative (that's why i did not submit it with the title "Michael Jackson Dies"). you have to admit, as strange as he could seem sometimes, he did make some major contributions to the music industry. he's fairly entrepreneurial as well.
- icey 17y agoLook, I was a HUGE Michael Jackson fan when I was a kid; I bought all of his tapes as soon as they came out and wore more than a few of them completely out. But when you look at these things in comparison: HeyZap (YC S09) Launches Microtransaction Platform Why CouchDB doesn't scale Starting Out With Comet (Orbited) Part 2 Why A Low Calorie Diet Extends Lifespans: Critical Enzyme Pair Identified and RIP Michael Jackson It just seems out of place. Clearly it's important to everyone here, given the sheer number of submissions it's gotten. I guess things have just changed here, that's all.
- axod 17y agoMJ died today. The rest of the usual HN fodder will still be around tomorrow. The chances of him dying 2 days in a row are slim.
- lyime 17y agoMichael Jackson was probably the great hacker of all time (in DANCE).. sidewalking.. moonwalking.. he was good :)
- johnnybgoode 17y agoAlso, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674647 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674647 for a mechanical hack of Jackson's.
- WilliamLP 17y agoAlso you can't deny the man was a body-hacker.
- Tichy 17y agoIf I get anything out of the news of his premature death, it is that excessive body hacking does not pay off. Not that I thought so before, but still.
- moe 17y agoHe paid the price for being an early adopter. His first surgeries were in the early 80s IIRC. Technology has advanced a lot since then. Just watch any sort of celebrity reporting on TV and try to make out who's modded and who isn't. As a matter of fact pretty much all A- and B-celebs are. But on many you can't tell or just barely. With a nod to HN one might say that MJ was in perpetual beta in that regard...
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- IsaacSchlueter 17y agoIf you don't think it is, then flag it.
- rglovejoy 17y agoIf you don't like it, flag it. I did.
- Keyframe 17y agoFlag does nothing - I've flagged it too. HN turned to reddit, I'll stick to reddit then, since it is a better choice for this kind of topics. RIP MJ
- quoderat 17y agoIf you can't see the difference between HN and Reddi, then perhaps Reddit truly is for you.
- Keyframe 17y agoI came here for topic specific issue - namely, technology and small scale business. All I see, on the other hand, are "this is why this tool suck/rule", "10 things/laws...", "Somebody Someone says..." - and now this, general news. That is what I get on reddit, HN degraded, unfortunately. I'm signing off.
- xcombinator 17y agoFunny because I think Reddit degraded into: +Atheist fundamentalist site. Look!!, people believing in fairly tales and rejecting the truth we the superior-smart-logical-thinker know. + "Reddit if you think my underwear stinks" kind of site. + Superficial articles for 15 years old.
- TomOfTTB 17y agoObviously only pg can decide for sure and to be honest I personally wouldn’t have submitted this. That said... There are events in this world that permeate the public consciousness. They are so big that they make all other topics seem irrelevant. Michael Jackson, whose prime was before my birth by the way, is the Icon of icons. His exit from the world is a once in a life time event that affects everyone. I choose to make Hacker news my community of choice because it’s a community that holds rationality above all else. It is not rational to stick to strict rules no matter what. The corner stone of a community is shared experience and an event that has a profound effect on almost everyone should surely justify a rare exception to the "Tech only" rule. So, if we assume it is rational to occasionally put the rules aside, the question becomes "is this event big enough to justify such an exception?" As has been pointed out several times here this story is the lead on every news based web site in existence. It’s being covered on every news station and even radio stations built around aloofness (JackFM) have dedicated commercial free hours to play only Michael Jackson music. To me that signals an event that justifies a rational exception to the rules.
- lucumo 17y ago> the question becomes "is this event big enough to justify such an exception?" If that's the question, what's the added value of putting it here as well. If it's already big enough to justify an exception, it's big enough to be mentioned everywhere. Surely the question should be: "Will the discussion on HN be interesting?" Since the discussion is mostly meta-commentary, I'm inclined to say it isn't.
- FooBarWidget 17y agoI think the comments on HackerNews are still a whole lot more interesting than the average YouTube/Facebook/Myspace-style "OMG lolololol!!1111"-type comments that one would find on most other websites.
- icey 17y agoThat's about as good an explanation as I think anyone could give. Thank you for shedding some light on it. Seriously.
- sbt 17y agoHacker news is not about hacking, not about news, and not about news about hacking. It's about posting links that apparently have become interesting to the community evolved here recently. This includes, not limited to: - iPhone news (if you live outside the US, disregard this as nobody gives a shit). - Web frameworks (bonus if it uses an esoteric language) - Anything distributed (CouchDB or MapReduce) - Functional programming musings bordering on the philosophical by people who are contemplating writing a functional program. If you are lost for news, but want to build credibility (points), you can consider doing any of the following. - Go to TED, BBC, NYT or any of the other major feeds and add the newest item to HN. - Post some course notes from MIT OCW (usually anything with a MIT or Stanford label on it translates into instant cred). Finally, if you really need points and have exhausted other options, you can post the link to the SICP videos or pdf. This happens quite often but people seem to vote it up out of fear of neglecting their religious duties.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago> This happens quite often but people seem to vote it up out of fear of neglecting their religious duties. This made me laugh out loud. The truth can be hilarious sometimes.
- eznet 17y agoNo relevance whatsoever - I am confused at how the #1 and #2 front page stories (of HN) are about MJ. I understand exceptions, but aside from relevant science posts, I can't think of too many that would be merited.
- sielskr 17y agoQuick question for those who maintain that this story should not be on Hacker News: where else can a person get timely notification of extremely notable events without being barraged with lots of noise? Don't say BBC Dot Co Dot UK or Wikinews or Wikipedia Current Events. I tried those -- way too much noise.
- lucumo 17y agoExtremely notable events will pop-up everywhere. Before I saw it here, I had heard it on two IRC channels, saw it on a few news sites and I did a Google News search for it (which didn't add anything at all, because all those news things said nothing other than "MJ rushed to hospital" and after that "MJ died"). If HN is your only source of world news, I suggest you find at least one more. There are many things that don't pop up hear, that probably are relevant to you.
- sielskr 17y agoIf HN is your only source of world news, I suggest you find at least one more Google News and the news sites I have tried have way too much information. I want the top 10 or so current-events general-interest stories of the year: more than that would be just noise. If you know of a news source like that besides Hacker News, I would be most grateful if you told me.
- minalecs 17y agofor younger people on this board its hard to understand how michael jackson's music has truly been a soundtrack to our lives.. for those of us growing up in the late 70's , 80's. Hearing certain songs, can bring back memories, that I could only associate with his songs. So if anything.. he's hacked the sounds and memories of my life, and his life should be celebrated.
- baddox 17y agoBecause the submitter and most visitors to this site are hackers?
- anigbrowl 17y agoIt isn't. But there's more to life than hacking, and I spent just as much time trying to perfect my moonwalk one teenage summer as I did trying to get my programs to run.
- schnalle 17y agoi agree. tmz and hn rarely have common interests, and it should stay that way.
- jsz0 17y agoI'm quite disappointed to see it here. Completely out of place. Comments are 90% people bickering about the meta non-sense of the story existing here. Here's something to think about... Cat Fancy magazine won't cover this story. They will cover fancy cats as usual. Do we want to have less integrity than Cat Fancy magazine? Really?
- menloparkbum 17y agoKudos for the first ever Cat Fancy reference on Hacker News.
- petercooper 17y agoWell the guidelines say "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
- eznet 17y agoThis is a pretty broad guideline - One that, if applied at face value, would dramatically decrease the quality of this board. Although I see a fair share of Reddit bashing from time to time on HN when discussing this degrade of quality in discussion, I have to admit that I like Reddit. This said, there is already a Reddit and I think most of the HN community would agree that HN is not supposed to be 'that type of board'. I feel pretty safe in saying that one's intellectual curiosity can often times serve to be another person's bird cage lining. Further, is there anyone here claiming that posts pertaining to MJ's death are actually intellectually stimulating? Sure, the posts of the Internet slowing MAY be relevant - but only because of their relation to networking and Internet trends and traffic patterns... not because a pop singer died...
- mattmaroon 17y agoWell, we get a reminder for every holiday. So if we're going to make the site a calendar, we might as well make it an obituary too. Next up: classifieds.