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Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

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Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#861

Post by vmurthy »

I doubt there was much hype about the printing press when Gutenberg introduced invented it circa 1440 but if there was any hype, the printing press certainly lived up to the hype. I can think of no mechanism which has enabled such widespread transmission of knowledge/information (without distortion) in human history. No great success or failure is usually the result of one cause but I'd wager that most of technological progress in the last 5 centuries has been greatly enabled by the printing press.

Some (light) reading on the topic :

https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#862

Post by glial »

philshem wrote: post #715
hwestiii wrote: post #587

The Illiad. As the foundation of Western literature, it may have received the greatest amount of hype that it is possible to receive. I had attempted to read it and The Odyssey when I was much younger, in middle school, maybe too young, and failed miserably. But as it is always with cultural touchstones, references to it are inescapable, and a few years ago, in my mid 50s I overcame the reluctance accumulated in the…

Emily Wilson, whose 2017 English translation of the Odyssey is extremely readable, is now working on translating the Iliad. https://www.capstan.be/british-scholar-emily-wilsons-fresh-a...

So glad to hear that! I loved her Odyssey translation. Her introduction alone is worth the price of admission.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#863

Post by Arete314159 »

bitwize wrote: post #669
breck wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I remember when I read it I was like "wait, so modern epic blockbusters are actually > 2,000 years old". It's not "almost" as good as modern stuff, it's better than most.

It's kinda like the Western equivalent of how many of the tropes that make anime anime come from kabuki and other traditional forms of Japanese theater.

Wait, really? Like what?

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#864

Post by b0rsuk »

A very old example, but Quake 1 did. It came out at the time when everyone was thrilled by DooM 2, the game that took the world by storm. Quake 1 was the second game in the row from the same developer that did so.

Diablo 2 was hotly anticipated and it did deliver.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#865

Post by jamescontrol »

Domenic_S wrote: post #735
drosan wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The latency is virtually imperceptible to me Lucky you, I can't even play on most TVs hooked as-is via HDMI because of horrendous render lag.

Turn on game mode and problem solved unless you can perceive low double-digit ms latency

Yeah, not surprisingly it’s not really that simple.. Some TVs just aren’t made for low latency, “game mode” enabled or not.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#866

Post by peteretep »

mFixman wrote: post #465
peteretep wrote: post #317

Venice lives up to the hype. It’s got everything you’ll hate about overrun tourist cities, but it’s also everything they promise.

I didn't realise how much I had internalised the sound of cars until I found out how pleasantly silent Venice is at night. All cities should be car-free. Noise, fumes, and bad use of city space are a disservice to humanity.

Much the same effect can be achieved by upping the requirements for exhaust mufflers and then actually enforcing them

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#867

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

chrisin2d wrote: post #217
DonHopkins wrote: post #37

Factorio!!! (It wasn't really hyped, but if it was, it would have lived up to it.) Actual video from the game doesn't qualify as hype! And the code is rock solid and wicked efficient. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR01YdFtWFI&ab_channel=Facto... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVvXv1Z6EY8&ab_channel=Facto... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqaAjgpsoW8&ab_channel=Facto...

I’m an avid Factorio player. It is rare to see such commitment to craftsmanship that the Factorio developers demonstrate. Every aspect of the game is continually refined and improved. The game is very performant even when there tens of thousands of entities moving around at any moment. The multiplayer gameplay also reveals a lot of fundamental truths about collaborative engineering as the player must debate architect…

Factorio was one of the rare few early access games I paid for because even at like .30 I thought "This is a full game (and stable) and they still want to do more?!" Also I like the minecraft model of never changing the price. It always feels like a good buy then because it isn't instantly devalued at the next steam sale.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#868

Post by krick »

bhauer wrote: post #299

This thread is clarifying to me. I now have more anecdotal data to back up my anecdotal feeling that I don't agree with most people on HN on matters such as this. The highest voted answers are things I feel are overhyped. Harry Potter, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Apple Watch, Ruby on Rails, Hamilton. I'm not saying these things are bad , but the hype level far exceeds the delivered value, in my opinion. I had to scroll d…

It's easy to explain. All answers that you put in the first category are people answering the wrong question, that nobody actually here asked. They are answering the question "what was the thing that lots of other people liked, that I also liked", as if their opinion is somehow special here, on a semi-anonymous forum, where visitors don't recognize most other visitors. And since it isn't, their opinion is just one of the data-points in the "people, that liked product X" dataset. And people, who upvoted their posts also upvote something they like. And since things, that are liked and endorsed by a lot of people, but that are not worth the attention (in your opinion) you call "overhyped", it is pretty much by definition that the top answers to that question (which nobody asked) would be a collection of overhyped things.

The answers from the second category are answers to the question that OP actually asked: what are the things that were hyped prior to their release (or shortly after) and didn't disappoint. Unlike the first question, this can be answered somewhat objectively, because it's not about the opinion of some semi-anonymous HN user anymore, it's about things that are hyped before the release and having impact after. You personally may not like the original iPhone, but you'll have to admit that the early hype didn't really fade — maybe it's a shitty product in your opinion, but it did conquer the market. And even if people are answering/upvoting that based on subjective feelings, in the end it's still turns out to be a somewhat fair assessment of the topic: because a product was hyped before the release a long time ago (well, not M1) and enough people still can vouch that it "lived up to the hype". That's impact.

Exceptions here are Apple Watch and Ruby on Rails, because they received some, uh, prenatal hype, but let's be honest: Apple Watch doesn't have nearly the amount of adoption iPhone had, and while Ruby on Rails was quite a significant thing at some point of time, it isn't anymore, other frameworks and languages filled the domain and now it's just "one of them" at best.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#869

Post by wyclif »

Dowwie wrote: post #714

Every national park I've visited in North America seems to not only live up to hype but surpass expectations once visited. I've been to many parks in the U.S and Canada. I don't have a favorite. My favorite usually winds up the park that I last visited. So, currently that would be the rainforest, beaches and mountains of the Olympic peninsula in Washington. Camping inside the parks makes a big difference. Backpacking…

I was going to nominate the Appalachian Trail in a top-level thread, but I'll just leave it here since it's outdoors-related. Also, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy is an org that totally lives up to the hype and one which people who are interested in preserving the outdoors and natural beauty of America should support.
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