

Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa  - majani
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/africa-developing-its-first-supercomputer-outside-south-africa/

======
swombat
This is a pretty poor headline. Africa is an enormous landmass.

Equivalent headline:

 _World developing its first supercomputer outside of countries which already
have one_.

How about instead:

 _Kenya developing its first supercomputer, the first one in Africa outside of
South Africa_

I think this places the focus rightly on Kenya, rather than implying that
somehow this is an effort by all of Africa.

Or even better:

 _iHub developing the first supercomputer in Kenya_

That's probably the best one, since it places the focus correctly on iHub
(which deserves it) and Kenya indirectly (which also deserves it). The fact
that it's the first country outside ZA to do so can then be mentioned as a
lead-in hook in the article, instead of delivering this silly title...

Africa is an enormous continent that is sadly very, very, very far from being
able to function as a unit.

~~~
tokenadult
On the other hand, the submission headline here is simply the original article
headline, "Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa,"
with its subtitle (too long to be added to a headline on HN by the eighty-
character rule) "The first 24-node HPC cluster should launch at iHub in
Nairobi this summer." That is consistent with the Hacker News guidelines,

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

which say, "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous
editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." I generally find it is
helpful for submitters on HN to submit original article titles. Then if we
disagree with the original article title, as you evidently do here, we can
agree to hold the person who kindly submitted the article harmless, and blame
the editors of Ars Technica this time for a less than ideal title.

(For what it's worth, I have observed one case where an HN submitter submitted
an original article title, which was then changed by the curators when
commenters howled about it. The title changed from

[http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-
its...](http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its-own-
business-model/)

to

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270>

I still think it was correct for the article to be submitted here on HN with
the original title that time and this time, even if the title is subject to
legitimate disagreement.)

I agree with your basic geographic point, hence an upvote from me for your
comment.

------
majani
Idd Salim, one of the guys building the cluster has a pretty interesting blog:
<http://www.iddsalim.com/blog>

------
gaius
Terrible headline. This is like saying "America developing its first
supercomputer outside of the US", referring to Mexico or somewhere.

~~~
Muzza
No, since America can be used to refer to both the USA[1] and a continent/two
continents, but there is no country commonly called just "Africa".

[1] Please don't argue with this. This is common usage in modern day English,
even if you might not like it. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Also
note that the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States) are commonly
referred to as just Mexico, so why should there be a problem with calling the
"United States of America" just "America" for short?

~~~
gaius
Err, yes. My point is saying "Africa" is so broad as to be meaningless. It's a
vast and diverse continent, of which Kenya is just one country. I wouldn't
expect an American to know this.

~~~
Muzza
Alright, I misunderstood (But I disagree. "Up until now, no African country
except SA has developed a supercomputer" gives me quite a lot of information
(55 states in Africa don't have supercomputers); it's not at all meaningless.)

Also, you seriously don't expect Americans to know that Africa is made up of
many countries, nor understand the difference between Morocco and Kongo (for
instance)? As a non-American, that's rather shocking.

~~~
gaius
Only about 5% of Americans even have passports. They just aren't interested in
the rest of the world.

~~~
vecinu
Sorry where did you get this number from? This seems [0] to be a very popular
myth and therefore, incorrect.

[0]
[http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunki...](http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunking-
passport-myth/)

------
maybird
tl;dr: It's in Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is the capital of, and the largest city
of, this central-east African nation.

yay for them! :)

~~~
thebluesky
tl;dr It's in Washington D.C., the United States of America. Washington D.C.
is the capital of, but not the largest city of, this North American nation.

