Did You Hear We Got Osama? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#91

Post by danielsoneg » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 12:42 AM UTC

SonicSoul wrote: post #74

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #51

What helps me get off the news pipeline: No one is remembered for being well read. - some blog post I've lost, but the quote is still written on my chalkboard, luckily. when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create. _why EDIT: I know it's ironic that these came from online sources. I guess the point is about balance and focused…

lots of people are remembered for being well read. Take someone like Noam Chomsky. He has written many books based on facts he has read, remembered, and used to support his point of view. his opinion is included, but it is always supported by countless examples and recitation of facts. I have friends that read everything and know a lot on most subjects that intrest me. I admire that a lot, and it is always refreshing…

I was just thinking the same thing - but Noam Chomsky writes, and talks, and lectures, and by that, he creates, just as we do when we write software.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#92

Post by vibrunazo » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 12:47 AM UTC

derleth wrote: post #63

kiba wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To believe we can do anything else is the road back to Dachau. I am arguing that democracies can't work due to the impossibility of having informed voters by the way our democracies are organized. The first step to the road of better governance is acknowledging human limitation and nature.

> I am arguing that democracies can't work due to the impossibility of having informed voters by the way our democracies are organized. And I am arguing that undemocratic forms of government have been tried repeatedly and found wanting repeatedly.

That's argument from ignorance. Just because we doesn't know a better solution doesn't mean there aren't any. Hackers build solutions. And as the above poster said, the first step to start building better practical solutions is to acknowledge the limitations of the resources and tools at our disposal.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#93

Post by pygorex » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 12:50 AM UTC

SonicSoul wrote: post #74

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #51

What helps me get off the news pipeline: No one is remembered for being well read. - some blog post I've lost, but the quote is still written on my chalkboard, luckily. when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create. _why EDIT: I know it's ironic that these came from online sources. I guess the point is about balance and focused…

lots of people are remembered for being well read. Take someone like Noam Chomsky. He has written many books based on facts he has read, remembered, and used to support his point of view. his opinion is included, but it is always supported by countless examples and recitation of facts. I have friends that read everything and know a lot on most subjects that intrest me. I admire that a lot, and it is always refreshing…

Chomsky is well-read because he wants to say insightful things. No one is remembered for being well read Chomsky is well-know because of his contributions to human knowledge - being well-read is a step towards building interesting things.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#94

Post by peterwwillis » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 12:58 AM UTC

ThaddeusQuay2 wrote: post #48

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

It is really, really, really, really, really hard for me to find a good temporary distraction nowadays. The noise is so monotonous, so repetitive, so completely devoid of intellectual stimulation that I go between four websites in a loop looking for something interesting to read. HN has maybe one article every two hours that pops up to the top that I find worth reading, and maybe half the time worth upvoting. And tha…

"It is really, really, really, really, really hard for me to find a good temporary distraction nowadays." You sound like a typical bored teenager, with too much time on their hands, wearing their boredom as a nihilistic badge of honor, expecting everyone to entertain them, while simultaneously acting as if they know everything, thereby supposedly being superior to the entertainers. If you can't find anything good to…

Yes. I am 16. I stay home from school because learning civics and history and math and science are super boring, so in between sessions of wallhacking on legacy counter-strike servers I refresh a startup tech news site looking for intellectually stimulating articles.

You're right. I do know everything. Everything except how best to use my time when I occasionally want to waste it broadening my horizon with unusual and interesting information. I typically walk around the house in underroos bragging about how bored I am. Then I zone out to American Idol.

I'm not sure what kind of parallel universe I'd have to exist in where writing about things I don't know anything about is possible, but once I find that reality, by golly I'll take your suggestion to heart.

Hackers really are the Thomas Edisons of our time. Extremely productive in everything they do and never piddling away on something just out of intellectual curiosity. Hackers only seem to create practical solutions to the big problems facing the world today. I'm so glad every college graduate who's just landed his first job writing JavaScript for a start-up can refer to themselves with such a prestigious title. And with so much credibility!

What I don't understand about your comment is that you seem to believe that nobody ever gets bored at work or needs a break from a grind of meetings, coding, red tape, conference calls, etc. I envy your steadfast dedication. I, however, do actually need a break once in a while and enjoy reading about things that are interesting and new to me, or just enlightening in some fashion. Forgive me for crying about it into a thread about distraction.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#95

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:01 AM UTC

SonicSoul wrote: post #74

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #51

What helps me get off the news pipeline: No one is remembered for being well read. - some blog post I've lost, but the quote is still written on my chalkboard, luckily. when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create. _why EDIT: I know it's ironic that these came from online sources. I guess the point is about balance and focused…

lots of people are remembered for being well read. Take someone like Noam Chomsky. He has written many books based on facts he has read, remembered, and used to support his point of view. his opinion is included, but it is always supported by countless examples and recitation of facts. I have friends that read everything and know a lot on most subjects that intrest me. I admire that a lot, and it is always refreshing…

[deleted]

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#96

Post by mathattack » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:07 AM UTC

Tossrock wrote: post #57

Reminds me of the classic Sherlock Holmes quote: "His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composit…

I was thinking the exact same thing. Great quote!

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#97

Post by wheels » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:10 AM UTC

This is a topic that I've thought some on in that my company is in the recommendations space, and some thoughts on what make news recommendations difficult:

The function of news is to facilitate smalltalk.

I am reasonably convinced of this. News, as such, is mostly just something that you're supposed to have read so that you can get by in usual social interactions. What we read (and are supposed to have read) is very tied to our place in the social hierarchy. Most folks don't actually want news to be too personalized because then it loses its social function.

I stopped reading the news at one point -- for a couple years -- because of its persistent lack of depth. I realized that reading 100 BBC articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would leave me knowing virtually nothing about it, other than some factoids, whereas the same time spent reading books would be worthwhile.

There's an interesting problem to be solved here -- one that's been on my mental back-burner for a while. I'm not sure if Pandora's box can be resealed and we can work our way back to mediums with more depth and less distraction, but I both hope we can, and have much interest in the mechanism for such.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#98

Post by peterwwillis » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:15 AM UTC

mediaman wrote: post #27

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

It is really, really, really, really, really hard for me to find a good temporary distraction nowadays. The noise is so monotonous, so repetitive, so completely devoid of intellectual stimulation that I go between four websites in a loop looking for something interesting to read. HN has maybe one article every two hours that pops up to the top that I find worth reading, and maybe half the time worth upvoting. And tha…

Frequency and quality are negatively correlated when it comes to news. I would recommend Instapaper's curated list of articles, which tend to be long-form and more interesting than most, as well as The Browser ("Writing Worth Reading") for curated quality content. http://www.thebrowser.com But you're not going to find quality content many times a day, no matter where you look.

I'm sure you're right. There's just not enough people writing to explain random complex subjects to people that don't study that field. And i'm correlating the concept of "news" with interesting information, when news reporting is basically repeating that which happens every single day. Thank you for the link, that may be just what I was looking for.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#99

Post by pkghost » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:17 AM UTC

wheels wrote: post #97

This is a topic that I've thought some on in that my company is in the recommendations space, and some thoughts on what make news recommendations difficult: The function of news is to facilitate smalltalk. I am reasonably convinced of this. News, as such, is mostly just something that you're supposed to have read so that you can get by in usual social interactions. What we read (and are supposed to have read) is very…

"The function of news is to facilitate smalltalk."

I've heard there are studies that confirm this (sorry, no citation handy), and I've also heard it said that Yahoo! Mail's success was due in part to their recognition of this fact. Put news next to email and you reduce the friction of social interaction.

Edit: The Habermas Thesis. http://hpronline.org/specialty-blogs/hprgument-blog/why-both...

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#100

Post by Danieru » Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 1:24 AM UTC

kylemaxwell wrote: post #80

I fundamentally disagree with the author, and yet agree with him at the same time. I don't have MPD, but he makes two different points. On the one hand: no, my life would be considerably less richer if I did not pay attention to the world around me. This includes knowing who the President is and understanding why that matters, particularly in the case of the US's first black President. I grew up in Texas, and it matt…

I think the situation is similar to how it is easier for a cheap product to add features than it is for a luxury product to become cheaper.

Or put another way: It is wiser and easier to start from zero and add the valuable things than it is to start with everything and remove everything that is not valuable.

Thinking back on my first year of university is painful. I wasted simply too much time 'browsing' the Internet. Every free hour I had I tried to plug myself in and enter zombie mode. I told myself that there wasn't enough time to be productive and that the day was too short. All while spending hours a day looking at cat pictures for one or two laughs an hour. With that in mind I would encourage anyone reading to self evaluate.

Going cold turkey is hard. Once you remove random Internet browsing you'll find that the day is actually quite long. I would suggest having a project to throw your new found free time into.