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>First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

It would appear that App.net is now at stage two.




And they will never get past that. I wouldn't mind it being stuck in stage one though. All the App.net spam has seriously degraded the HN quality overnight.


At least I know what app.net is. There are so many new things mentioned on HN every week that it's hard to keep up. Oh, CloudPython is up to version 2.1 you say? And now it supports 50% more bogons? Wow!


Oh come on, it's not that bad. There's never more than a few articles at once, and it's a legitimate hacker topic since anyone would have to be a fool to build on Twitter these days, and yet it is a very ripe API that people want to build on.


I think you are right. People want to build on App.net. The problem is ~10,000 people have signed up and there are already ~100 apps for app.net[1]. To me that sounds like a developer circle-jerk. Developers and other technophiles typically have disposable income, love to bash incumbents and jump on the next bandwagon. App.net satisfies all of those desires. It will be interested to see if anyone else really cares.

I just don't think trading one man's walled garden for another is what we need. We need an email-like solution to this problem. Something open and federated.

[1]https://github.com/appdotnet/api-spec/wiki/Directory-of-thir...


It's not just articles. App.net pops up in almost every comment thread about anything even remotely related to social networks.


It's a phase. Like the bitcoin stuff. It'll taper off.


It's a phase. Like the bitcoin stuff. It'll taper off.

Until app.net becomes a bitcoin exchange...


And then it'll crash and burn due to bad infrastructure decisions.


You got odds on that?


The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

-- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain"


Survivor bias.


Hahahaha!!!


When one of those things occur in isolation, that doesn't automatically mean you're fighting for truth.

For example, app.net was never in the being ignored phase, it's got plenty of hype and it doesn't even exist yet.

Also, there's plenty of things that get mocked and nothing more. Sometimes laughter results from fear, sometimes it just results from genuinely finding something hilarious.

But thanks for comparing app.net with Gandhi, that just made it funnier :P


I'm sorry, can't refrain from correcting you. It's Gandhi not Ghandi. And I see this mistake very prevalent.


> And I see this mistake very prevalent.

Oh the irony.



Murphy was misquoted.


From the linked article on wikipedia:

“Not to be confused with Murphy's law.”

Muphry's Law is something different (yet related).


The mistake is prevalent.

or

You see this mistake frequently.

I don't normally do these corrections, but I can't help myself in this case.


  > do these corrections
Oh the irony.

ad infinitum


There's nothing wrong with that sentence. I don't do those corrections, as in, I don't do that thing where you pedantically correct every little tiny "error" I can find. Got it smart guy?


No need to apologize, thanks actually. I wish people would correct grammar more often, certainly mine, and doubly so when it comes to names.. why get used to writing stuff wrong, when I can get used to writing them right :)


why get used to writing stuff wrong, when I can get used to writing them right

In that case....

"wrong" and "right" are adjectives, while "writing" is a verb which you are using the words "wrong" and "right" to modify. However, adjectives should only be used to modify nouns and pronouns, not verbs. In this case you should use an adverb:

why get used to writing stuff incorrectly, when I can get used to writing them correctly

If you prefer, you can use "writing" as a noun and continue to use "right" and "wrong":

why get used to the wrong way of writing when I can get used to the right way

I hate people who correct grammar on the internet, but you did make the mistake of asking. Sorry.


Those are flat adverbs, actually. :p


Why, I thank you! But I will also have you know that "Sorry." is a sentence fragment. When correcting others, you should always try to correct them rightly, not wrongly, even if it may sound odd sometimes.

(tee-hee :)


In case you intended to take that advice to heart, you can use 'right' and 'wrong' as adverbs in all but the most formal contexts, and possibly even then too. They're called 'flat adverbs,' and there's a great video post from MW that you can find if you Google the term.


I wish people would correct grammar more often

Please, no. I avoid taking part in grammar threads, but a plea for more has drawn me out. There are few things that derail conversations more than pedantic quibbling about "do" or "make". Take a look at this subthread: a bunch of people who feel better about how they've shown themselves able to one-up others but zero interesting discussion.

</rant>

My biggest feature request for HN: private comments. Let me reply to a poster privately. Then if I see somebody who looks like a non-English speaker who has made a mistake or somebody who has misspelled a name, I can correct them without causing this kind of useless thread. Not to mention private conversations (where you could say more than you are willing to say publicly) started around interesting comments could turn epic.


Please pursue your private comment idea further than this comment. I think it's a fantastic idea. Would you be able to (or know someone who could) make that change? http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar


Way to quote me out of context.. I specifically said I wish they'd correct me more often. I never mind, and wish people could flag themselves as language learners or forgetful ^^

That said, I still agree with your complaint. Marking a reply as off-topic (voluntarily, though of course admins should be able to override this), with each comment potentially having a sub-thread with off-topic replies, is something I'd like to see here, and have planned for my own CMS. Best of both worlds, and with unlimited nesting of that, you could even go off-off-topic, or off-off-off-topic.


And sometimes they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they forget all about you.


Indeed, that line of argument is a form of the Galileo gambit[1], which is just a way to rationalize ridicule or criticism by claiming an unfounded correlation between opposition and eventual victory. Yes, many people who eventually succeed are criticized or laughed at initially - but people who eventually fail are often criticized or laughed at initially as well.

[1]: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit


The original reasoning can also be interpreted as an instance of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias




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