

The most thorough task execution I've ever seen (dude polishes car) - daniel-cussen
http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=79859
Credits should go to whatusername, who suggested someone post this, but was worried it was not hacker newsworthy.  I disagree because it is of interest to hackers.
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daniel-cussen
A very thorough cleaning of a car. This dude does something mundane so
thoroughly he turns it into fine art.

Kudos to whatusername for the link.

For the record, I think it _is_ Hacker News. I'm a hacker, I find it
interesting, I think other hackers will find it interesting. Hacker News.

~~~
biohacker42
I am also a hacker, I like fast cars, I'm an avid fan of TopGear, and yet I
_don't_ want to see this _here_.

~~~
josefresco
While I disagree with you, after spending 20 minutes reading his forum post, I
clicked back expecting to see the homepage of AutoBlog.com and quickly
realized "oh yeah, this was on Hacker News"

~~~
biohacker42
That's my point. While in fact I do like the content, I'd like to keep this
forum more narrowly focused simply because with more generic content comes a
more generic crowd and with that LOL cats.

I can see that my mundane comment of polite disagreement above is taking quite
the karma hit. I guess the crowd prefers a wider topic scope.

~~~
cstejerean
"I guess the crowd prefers a wider topic scope."

That, and pretty much everyone is tired of "this does not belong on HN"
comments.

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donniefitz2
Not only did the guy do a thorough job on the car, his forum post and all of
the pictures where as thorough as could be also. I never thought I would be so
engaged in a post about detailing a car.

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dmix
This is somewhat unrelated, but if you own a white Macbook, pick up some
Turtle Wax White Polishing Compound. It will remove any scratches on the outer
case and make it look perfectly clean and white again.

Also, I hear arm&hammer tooth paste can fix the fading that happens near the
keyboard.

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jrockway
Very nice, but it does bring to mind the phrase "law of diminishing returns".
The car was pretty nice looking to start, and it was stunning after the quick
wash. That's where I would have stopped and moved on to something else :)

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sdfx
This almost makes me want to clean my car

~~~
hugh
This almost makes me want to hire this guy to clean my car.

~~~
jodrellblank
This almost makes me want to start a successful startup so I can afford a
Lamborghini.

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davi
"This pad and polish combo removed between 1-2 microns." Very, very nice.

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nihilocrat
First reaction:

Uh... someone is posting on Hacker News about... some anal retentive dude
cleaning a car? Is this some sort of circlejerk for neat freaks or QA
engineers?

Now, after reading some comments:

Okay, I can see how it's a little interesting to see just how ridiculous you
can get about cleaning stuff and how ridiculously detailed the techniques can
get. Still, I have a natural aversion to cleaning and think it's useless and
overdone half the time (thus, strong bias). The effort is appreciated, but
really, big whoop.

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deepster
There's an excellent lesson to be learned here. The level of passion and
technical competency the detailer displays in his quest to clean the car is
what's also needed for a startup to succeed.

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ScottWhigham
_It was now 5:30pm by this point so I stopped at there for day 1._

Wow.

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mynameishere
The number of upmods is utterly mysterious to me. Man washes car. Yep. That's
what he did.

That car costs about 200,000 dollars. It's ugly, like a drugged-up Toyota
prius. It costs more than a used twin-engine Cessna. It costs more than a
Peterbilt. It costs about as much as a flying fortress [1]. It costs more than
99.99 percent of useful products. It's made of plastic and will not survive
its first pothole. It just _screams_ "douchebag".

"Look at me world!!! I'm a douchebag and I spent 200K to inform you of this
fact!"

Is it all right if I upload some pictures of a successful
appendectomy...cause, you know, "detailing" is not really the apex of "task
execution". I think what we're really seeing here is the most thorough
diminishing returns ever executed. Ten minutes with a cloth and dish detergent
would have done the job.

[1] Well, in pre-inflated dollars.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress>

~~~
BrandonM
While I may agree with you on the impression I get from such a car, what your
post told me was, "Look at me world!!! I'm a douchebag and I didn't have 200K
to spend so I wrote this post to inform you of this fact!"

Sorry, I don't mean to imply that you _are_ a douchebag, but perhaps the car's
owner isn't, either. He obviously drove the car and got some use out of it (as
the poster indicated), so perhaps he just enjoyed it. Life is short, what's
wrong with doing what makes you happy?

As for the submission, I (longtime HN member) upmodded it. The post was very
thorough, and it was worthwhile to get such deep insight into the workings of
a field that I previously had no knowledge of.

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bdotdub
He apparently is also very thorough documenting his car wash.

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sown
This person might make a good engineer.

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pavelludiq
I once did sort of the same thing with my keyboard. Do you guys know how much
dirt my right windows key had? like half a millimeter at least. And it had
some tomato sauce and i have no idea how all the hair got inside, but i found
a lot of it. Took me hours to clean the thing, its sparkling now.

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vaksel
Is this the same guy who charges $20K for the wax job and makes his own wax?

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miratom
...and now you know why the arab sheiks ship their Lamborghini's to Britain
for an oil change

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weegee
amazing, quite the artist

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martyhu
This guy's interested in drinking, cars, and football.

His job status is professional detailer. Nuff said.

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Herring
It's thorough, but -as a hacker- the superficiality of it all turns me off.
Give me a millenium falcon-type car any day.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTB1uUpu-2w>

~~~
shard
As a hacker with a sense of aesthetics, I find that the hacker community often
underrates superficiality to its own detriment.

