Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dull Men’s Club

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 142 posts

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#61

Post by brudgers »

kalleboo wrote: post #42
skeeter2020 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the part of the internet that everyone would be better off avoiding: not bad but no long-term value. When the internet was novel and your engagement limited these were rarer, cool things to share (often face to face!). Now this content is internet sugar that will be the health crisis of a generation.

Isn't that most of Hacker News as well? "Oh that's an interesting technical solution - which is completely irrelevant to the work I'm doing"

The standard on Hacker News is intellectually interesting.

“I saw geese,” ordinarily wouldn’t meet it (though in imagined contexts it would, of course).

Or as described in The New Yorker, HN is often about performative erudition, as perhaps is the case with this GEB’ish sentence.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#62

Post by stiglitz »

xelxebar wrote: post #60
ecshafer wrote: post #8

The Dull Men's Club group of facebook is actually oddly interesting. I would classify it more as a group who point out the very small oddities of every day life that are not very interesting. There is a post where someone saw two geese with 42 bay geese, another where the rental company fixed a door with a piece of pool noodle. Its more like a "huh that's kind of weird I guess" group.

One of my favorite books is The Mezzanine[0], which takes place entirely as a man ascends a single elevator but spins off onto all kinds of tangents that comment on and express exuberance about the most mundane things. There's an entire thread on the evolution of stapler design, elaborations on the invention of perforations, and abundant self-reflection. It's almost like a hybrid of Leonard Read's "I, Pencil" and Heg…

Speaking of paying close attention to the mundane, it’s an escalator.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#63

Post by somenameforme »

hug wrote: post #49
_fat_santa wrote: post #31

This is a cool concept but I have an issue with one being "dull" on a conceptual level. Personally I think that every single person on earth is both the dullest person you have ever met and the most interesting person on earth, it just depends on your perspective. I have friends that play DnD which I personally find very dull but hearing them talk about it, it's clear they do not see it the same way. Conversely I lov…

I don't know why this perspective bothers me so much, but it does. This idea that people are alternatively dull or interesting feels wrong to me, on a kind of visceral level. So far so that I'm having trouble marshaling my thoughts enough that I can tell you why . It's like there's an intuition gap so large I'm getting vertigo. Nothing here is intended to say that the way you feel about it is invalid, but I need to w…

Ah, but perhaps you're proving the point? Is it not possible, if not probable, that the fellow you're referencing simply considers you dull? For instance I would, in general, tend to have little interest engaging with a good conversationalist, because I often find that that that, especially in an American context, boils down to inoffensive superficiality at length, owing to the nature of banter without purpose, which is what most conversation for the sake of conversation is.

For one who enjoys engaging in such, I'd certainly appear dull, because I'm not going to partake in it, especially if one starts overtly using my name repeatedly, because I find it dull and artificial. By contrast, express a novel or distinct perspective on something I find relevant, mastery of some interesting skill or whatever, and we'd certainly be having some fun.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#64

Post by Dylan16807 »

jameshart wrote: post #41
leereeves wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is the explanation of why each number is interesting becomes: the smallest member of the original set of uninteresting numbers the second smallest member of the original set of uninteresting numbers the third ... ... That version of "interesting" quickly becomes "not interesting". The concept simply defies mathematical logic.

This isn't how math works. When you get to the point in a proof of the irrationality of root two where you've demonstrated that if it is expressible as a fraction p/q, then both p and q have to be even, you don't then need to proceed to prove that if they're both even, then they both have to be divisible by four, and then if they're both divisible by four, that means they're both divisible by eight... I mean, you can…

3) Numbers can be uninteresting, but the property is not binary.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#65

Post by rzzzt »

jameshart wrote: post #41
leereeves wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is the explanation of why each number is interesting becomes: the smallest member of the original set of uninteresting numbers the second smallest member of the original set of uninteresting numbers the third ... ... That version of "interesting" quickly becomes "not interesting". The concept simply defies mathematical logic.

This isn't how math works. When you get to the point in a proof of the irrationality of root two where you've demonstrated that if it is expressible as a fraction p/q, then both p and q have to be even, you don't then need to proceed to prove that if they're both even, then they both have to be divisible by four, and then if they're both divisible by four, that means they're both divisible by eight... I mean, you can…

If someone tasks me to create a set of even/prime/blue/rectangular/crunchy/uninteresting numbers I have two options:

1) I list each and every number that is part of the set. It is OK if the set is countably infinite, we can wait.

2a) I grab my special black box that receives a number and lights up a red or a green LED depending on whether the input is a member of my conjured up set or not;

2b) I grab the other special black box, this one has a single LED (to indicate it is switched on) and a push button which prints out the next member of the set on infinite 7-segment displays. The box is a bit wider than the 2a) unit.

These are mostly traversable, e.g. my 2b) generator could be built from a counter and a 2a) tester, or my 2a) tester could use a table lookup backed by a 1) list for all I know.

What they can/should not do is retroactively change their mind on the membership of a particular number:

- It is either in the 1) list or not, no erasers, no backsies;

- 2a) should always respond with the same LED for a given number, no moon phase lookups, no RNG, no checking of previous LED responses;

- 2b) can not even be rewound so it is impossible to tell if it would produce or skip the number, should we coerce it somehow to start again (we can't).

So using any of the two and a half mechanisms lead us to a set where the minimal element should have the same property as any other element: it is exactly as even/prime/blue/rectangular/crunchy or uninteresting as the rest of the set.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#66

Post by freetime2 »

ecshafer wrote: post #8

The Dull Men's Club group of facebook is actually oddly interesting. I would classify it more as a group who point out the very small oddities of every day life that are not very interesting. There is a post where someone saw two geese with 42 bay geese, another where the rental company fixed a door with a piece of pool noodle. Its more like a "huh that's kind of weird I guess" group.

Recently some spinoff/copycat groups have also sprouted up. There’s a “Dull Men’s Forum”, and a “Dull Men’s Fun Club”, for example, which post similar memes. And a “Dull Women’s Club” as well (even though I also often see women posting in the Dull Men’s Club, I suppose women on average have different sensibilities about where to draw the line between dull and interesting).

I view this as a sign that the group has become too popular and lots its “edge” (which in this case was its authentic dullness), and now is just a place for farming likes and impressions from the broader FB community. A lot of it is quite derivative of other popular posts - “what is the purpose of this thing I found in my hotel/new house/grandma’s house” posts seems to be a really common theme, for example.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#67

Post by nottorp »

kalleboo wrote: post #42
skeeter2020 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the part of the internet that everyone would be better off avoiding: not bad but no long-term value. When the internet was novel and your engagement limited these were rarer, cool things to share (often face to face!). Now this content is internet sugar that will be the health crisis of a generation.

Isn't that most of Hacker News as well? "Oh that's an interesting technical solution - which is completely irrelevant to the work I'm doing"

Nothing is completely irrelevant. It's just very hard to point out when and where some post on HN about properly frobnicating a wickie [1] server in a data center in South Baluchistan will subtly help your development decisions at your current or future job.

[1] What is a wickie server? Damned if i know. But I'm sure there is someone on HN who has done one.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#68

Post by mafro »

One of the few Facebook groups I stayed in over time. It has a very British sense of self-deprecating humour. We're all amused by our mutual dullness.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#69

Post by strken »

kalleboo wrote: post #42
skeeter2020 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the part of the internet that everyone would be better off avoiding: not bad but no long-term value. When the internet was novel and your engagement limited these were rarer, cool things to share (often face to face!). Now this content is internet sugar that will be the health crisis of a generation.

Isn't that most of Hacker News as well? "Oh that's an interesting technical solution - which is completely irrelevant to the work I'm doing"

The neat thing about HN is that I can nearly always find at least one thing on the front page that's useful to me, especially if I read the discussion.

Just looking through now, Canine is interesting because it's similar to Dokku, which I already use. I might consider using Canine in a similar role in the future if I want k8s with buildpacks.

The Dull Men's Club groups aren't like that. The needle to hay ratio is far worse. It's all "huh, cool" coincidences and mysterious objects, but nobody really intends to show the world anything useful.

Re: Dull Men’s Club

#70

Post by fiftyacorn »

guicen wrote: post #57

There’s something oddly comforting about this. In a world where everyone’s trying to stand out, some people find peace in just noticing ordinary things. Maybe being "boring" is underrated. You don’t always need a big story to feel connected. Sometimes it's enough to care about small details nobody else pays attention to.

I think its an age thing - you spend your youth thinking its important to fit in - but then reach a point where you realise you are who you are and just accept it
Post reply on HN