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Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

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Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#171

Post by Dylan16807 »

dang wrote: post #118
bobwaycott wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not complaining about the summary, of course.

HN threads are supposed to be conversations, and summary comments don't fit with that. Reciting a summary into the public record is a boring addition to conversation in its own right—imagine someone doing this in person—and makes the discussion more shallow, since it's no longer grounded in people having read the story. HN readers can, should, and do read articles, find out what's interesting about them for themselve…

> imagine someone doing this in person

This is the only part I take serious issue with. In casual conversation with people, they sum up stories in a couple of sentences all the time, and I thank them for it.

And not every conversation thread requires a complete understanding of the article. Most of the comments on this story are about a deficit of basic journalistic fact-checking in many news outlets. That doesn't require knowing anything about recycling programs.

I don't think that discussion is shallow or bad just because it's somewhat tangential. Some of the most detailed comments where I learn something new are somewhat tangential to the story they're posted on.

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#172

Post by dang »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #171
dang wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN threads are supposed to be conversations, and summary comments don't fit with that. Reciting a summary into the public record is a boring addition to conversation in its own right—imagine someone doing this in person—and makes the discussion more shallow, since it's no longer grounded in people having read the story. HN readers can, should, and do read articles, find out what's interesting about them for themselve…

> imagine someone doing this in person This is the only part I take serious issue with. In casual conversation with people, they sum up stories in a couple of sentences all the time, and I thank them for it. And not every conversation thread requires a complete understanding of the article. Most of the comments on this story are about a deficit of basic journalistic fact-checking in many news outlets. That doesn't re…

What people do in conversation bears little resemblance to the mechanical summarizing we're talking about here. You'd lose somebody's attention a few seconds after you started.

As for tangents, there are good ones and bad ones, but (suitably enough) I don't see what that has to do with the point.

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#174

Post by ericd »

andrewflnr wrote: post #170
ericd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that he's being scrutinized, the point is that that line of argument in the article is totally disingenuous, to the point of being almost a smear.

What argument are you thinking of? GP didn't mention one in particular.

That Single Payer would increase healthcare spending by 18T, rather than just moving it around, and increase taxes, while ignoring the part where there's a corresponding decrease in private healthcare spending. The central hook of that WSJ article.

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#175

Post by [deleted] »

c3534l wrote: post #21

What does it say about the world we live in where blogs do more basic journalism than CNN? All that one would have had to do is read the report actually provided. I don't think I'm being too extreme when I say that, apart from maybe PBS, there is no reputable source of news in America. If you don't believe me, pick a random story, watch it as it gets rewritten a million times through Reuters, then check back on the f…

[deleted]

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#176

Post by Dylan16807 »

dang wrote: post #172
Dylan16807 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine someone doing this in person This is the only part I take serious issue with. In casual conversation with people, they sum up stories in a couple of sentences all the time, and I thank them for it. And not every conversation thread requires a complete understanding of the article. Most of the comments on this story are about a deficit of basic journalistic fact-checking in many news outlets. That doesn't re…

What people do in conversation bears little resemblance to the mechanical summarizing we're talking about here. You'd lose somebody's attention a few seconds after you started. As for tangents, there are good ones and bad ones, but (suitably enough) I don't see what that has to do with the point.

That summary was short enough to work fine verbally, and to keep my attention.

The point about tangents is that it is often not necessary to have more than a summary of the article. Reading the article is useful for some conversations but not others.

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#177

Post by coldtea »

addicted wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #159

While the article is fine, this does not really follow: > So while Apple is nominally responsible for recycling a 90 million pounds of e-waste, very little of that is actually iPhones, and very little of that is actually being done by Apple. In Washington State, for example, Apple products made up just 1.78 percent of the total weight of e-waste recycled in 2014. In Oregon, Apple products made up 1.65 percent. The au…

1.65 % is not much when Apple makes up such a significant percentage of the phone market. But even out of that 1.65%, iPhones themselves probably make a small percentage because macs are so much heavier. The point of this article is that the media has implied that Apple is getting x pounds of gold by recycling iPhones and macs. In reality Apple is eating about 1.5% of x pounds of gold by recycling iPhones and macs. T…

>1.65 % is not much when Apple makes up such a significant percentage of the phone market.

The excerpt is not about phones though -- it's the 1.65 of total consumer electronics waste in the state. And as far as consumer electronics go, phones are hardly the biggest...

>And only a very minuscule percent of the recycling is done by Apple. He vast majority of it was Apple paying 3rd party recyclers to get credit for the recycling.

How is that different than how every company that is not a recycling company does it?

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#178

Post by fabulist »

studentrob wrote: post #165
fabulist wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this as cheating, but we're talking about the company who convinced people "Rose Gold" was cool. If they told their customers it would be super for them to bring old iDevices back to the Apple store for recycling, I'm confident they would succeed.

> If they told their customers it would be super for them to bring old iDevices back to the Apple store for recycling They do - http://www.apple.com/recycling/

I meant more, "if they ran a marketing campaign."

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#179

Post by abhi3 »

dang wrote: post #118
bobwaycott wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not complaining about the summary, of course.

HN threads are supposed to be conversations, and summary comments don't fit with that. Reciting a summary into the public record is a boring addition to conversation in its own right—imagine someone doing this in person—and makes the discussion more shallow, since it's no longer grounded in people having read the story. HN readers can, should, and do read articles, find out what's interesting about them for themselve…

The idea of providing a summary was that many people are busy and knowing what an article is about will enable them to better allocate the small amount of time they can spend in a day on casual reading - on stuff that they are really intrigued by and feel the need to get deeper into and then they can "read articles, find out what's interesting about them for themselves, and bring the insights they've harvested to others."

I was no way suggesting that summaries are a substitue to actually reading a detailed quality piece. The point of this service is not to replace actual self-reading; but rather - Give people some idea of what the article is actually about so they can decide if they can/should invest time to read it.

Most people don't have time to do all the reading they want to do and having more info than just a clickbait headline will help them allocate their time in a more productive way.

Example this is how Vox.com is showing new articles on its "new" page:

"Big Marijuana is coming — and even legalization supporters are worried" (An activist explains why he left the movement."

The headline and snippet gives you no information what the article is about. You have to actually read 2500 words over 50 paragraphs to know what it is about, in the end you might like it, or be dissapointed, its a gamble.

But by reading a well written analysis you can have a fair idea of what you are getting into before you invest 15-20 minutes of your time into it.

Do this for 10 articles a day and 300 a month, the time you save adds up quickly.

But I get and completely respect your point about why it doesn't belong in a HN discussion. I will do this no more.

I appreciate all the users to supported this and apologize for any inconvenience caused. :)

Re: Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold from iPhones’ Story Is True

#180

Post by ryanlol »

ericd wrote: post #174
andrewflnr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What argument are you thinking of? GP didn't mention one in particular.

That Single Payer would increase healthcare spending by 18T, rather than just moving it around, and increase taxes, while ignoring the part where there's a corresponding decrease in private healthcare spending. The central hook of that WSJ article.

Assuming the 18T figure is correct, how could you just "move it around"?
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