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Did You Hear We Got Osama?

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Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#121

Post by Turing_Machine »

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 grew up in Texas, and it matters to me to know that he and my father (or his predecessor) would not have even been allowed to attend school together."

Brown v. Board was in 1954. Obama didn't start school until 1967.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#122

Post by chimeracoder »

ryandvm wrote: post #109
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…

Great allegory except Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not a neuroscientist, so there isn't actually any evidence to back up that theory.

I don't really think his qualifications have much of a bearing on that - you could easily think of knowledge as a function of time and effort, which are certainly limited and finite resources for everyone, so the analogy still holds.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#123

Post by peterwwillis »

[deleted] wrote: post #117
peterwwillis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

...... you know the commenter i was replying to linked to that exact website, right?

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#124

Post by kylemaxwell »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #121
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 grew up in Texas, and it matters to me to know that he and my father (or his predecessor) would not have even been allowed to attend school together." Brown v. Board was in 1954. Obama didn't start school until 1967.

You may want to look into the school segregation lawsuits of the 70s, not to mention much of the civil rights movement of the 60s with a particular focus on education. The Supreme Court decision didn't automatically mean integrated schools, which is why my daughter (in an inner-ring suburb of Dallas) attends a magnet school created as part of our desegregation court order. Come to think of it, so did I (though it's, erm, been a while).

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#125

Post by rsanchez1 »

"What followed were three of the most productive years of my life."

Well, normally college years are the most productive years of anyone's life up to that point. If they're not you're doing it wrong.

Plus, if all you used RSS for is to keep up with "Bush's latest folly", then of course you'll be more productive giving it up.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#126

Post by rsanchez1 »

firefoxman1 wrote: post #45
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…

"I don't care about politics. I don't care about the tech scene, or gadgets, or games, or celebrities, or sports, or this quarter's fiscal projections for a multinational corporation." Then I think you may be on the wrong news site. I'm not saying that to be a jerk, I'm just saying that HN is a community-curated news site where the stories that the majority of users find interesting gets to the top. If you don't fit…

I think you may be confusing HN with Reddit. Then again, so is everyone else.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#127

Post by billforsternz »

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.

Many thanks for thebrowser.com. Something similar; http://www.aldaily.com

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#128

Post by Sukotto »

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…

I suspect you're trolling. But just in case you're not, and the problem really is that you cannot find interesting, educational and/or enlightening material... have you tried:

Random Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Ask.Metafilter (with accepted answer): http://ask.metafilter.com/home/answered

Hack a Day: http://hackaday.com/

LifeHacker Top posts: http://lifehacker.com/top/ or http://lifehacker.com/tag/top/index.xml

Wood Gears: http://woodgears.ca/

Cool Tools: http://kk.org/cooltools

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#129

Post by rsanchez1 »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #10

I changed my habits a few months ago after reading http://www.marco.org/2011/09/04/sane-rss-usage . I'm really happy I did that. "RSS is best for following a large number of infrequently updated sites" I have 6-7 feeds in my Reeder.app and check them weekly. (Edit) related HN submission and comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2959928

I agree with this. I still keep some news/tech news sites in my Google Reader, but the vast majority of feeds are ones that update infrequently, from once a day and fewer, most of them being developer/designer blogs.

Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?

#130

Post by rsanchez1 »

celoyd wrote: post #34
Karunamon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unless you live in Ohio or Florida, your vote is foregone. One could make a good argument that this kind of faulty thinking is the reason third party candidates can never get any footing, and also the reason that we get such downright evil people elected. Your vote is not "foregone" unless you choose not to vote. Period.

Oh? What’s the fault in the thinking? I think it’s not a problem in the utility equation for an individual voter, it’s a problem in the system. By definition, a vote in a non-swing state is insignificant. Empirically, a good showing for a third-party candidate has no significant effect on the political discourse, and your individual share of giving that candidate a strong showing is negligible. Voting in the US is ba…

It's only badly broken because voters don't participate in the process. The US political system only works when you have an engaged, educated citizenry actively shaping government. Cynicism about one's vote being foregone is one thing that leads to a broken system.

This article has relevance to this problem as well. The vast majority of people won't realize that news is just noise, noise meant to misdirect voters. If you really want to know about the candidates, you can look up their record and do some research. Unfortunately, this isn't taught in civics classes, and most voters are content with what their favorite news channel tells them about how good one candidate is and how evil another candidate is. Then they regurgitate the same talking points with their friends and neighbors and reinforce the media message, entrenching an opinion in non-swing states. The system will work if people would be more willing to participate and educate themselves, like Roshan decided he would do.

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