I don't know, I appreciated the correction and additional information. There was also an acknowledgment that it doesn't change ops point. Seemed like a useful comment to me.

It was pedantic but that doesn't make it a bad comment, I definitely appreciated the information

Since this comment got some attention, my source for this was [0] Ranney, Wayne. “How Rivers Carve Canyons.” Carving Grand Canyon - Evidence, Theories, and Mystery, 2nd ed., Grand Canyon Association, 2012.

Also appreciated by those who prefer to work in torrents, rather than consistently. ;)

We should have a Bay where we can store all these torrents! We should call all those who create these torrents Pirates! because pirates are cool.

Well, pedantry is quite popular around here.

Writing code w/o a pedantic frame ~= buggy code.

Writing code with pedantic frame makes you ship slower which makes bug discovery slower

I was listening to a podcast recently with a PHD scientist, and she was saying that she was a terrible programmer and that she would go back to her code after !6months and it didnt make sense to her, but that she was good at adding comments to the code, but they were useless because she was commenting on her emotional state while she was writing the code (her thesis was on the way stars evolve and devour solar systems and planets etc) ((dope premise btw))

but the fact that her code comments were all about how she was feeling at the time, and were completely unhelpful with discerning what the code meant/does...

But writing code while being pedantic doesn't save you from bugs. Maybe writing code ~= buggy code.

To be precise, it occurs a lot around here.

/s

What you're saying is the OP is missing the torrent through the raindrops?

And to expand on what I would like to hope your point is, comments like the GP are exactly why I and many others come here :)

And this is the great thing about threaded comments — everyone who wants to follow the pedantic branch of conversation can do so without derailing the others (though this ideal is frequently thwarted by bad UX).

Of course, it's nice when the pedants are self-aware, as is the case here, and acknowledge the pedantry of their tangent.

Normalize polite pedantry!

I don't think it's pedantic though. If what makes your argument powerful is tying it back to a natural phenomenon, then it should be right, otherwise you're using a bad example.

Also, to the degree it's wrong, you can try to take that error back and see where the argument flows.

Like, compounding is magic, except realistically, one or more of the following typically happens:

- Interest rate is so small that it doesn't add up to a meaningful difference over your lifetime. See e.g. most people and regular savings accounts.

- You aren't able to keep systematically saving / learning / etching a canyon for long enough for the compounding to matter.

- There's a natural decay process that is stronger than compounding.

Whether it's digging a canyon, learning new skills, or amassing wealth, it seems that concentrated but unfrequent actions are much more effective than a steady but weak trickle.

Yes. With unsteady and infrequent but purposeful action, move the very bowels of the earth.

I mean, accomplish a lot, politely, eh hem.

Excessive steady and consistent work has rendered me delirious, clearly. I’ll see myself out.

Ah! When it comes to arguments, yes, I do agree that their supporting examples really ought to be true-to-life.

But I don't think that's quite what was going on here.

munificent was using a metaphor in service of his plea, his encouragement, his advice that you really ought to consider making regular efforts at what you care about. To me, that feels a lot less technical and a lot more human than an argument does.

The difference between metaphors and examples might be that the important part of a metaphor is how it functions in context, how it adds to the metaphrand[1], and the important part of an example is how it functions out of context.

To give an example of metaphor: many Native American tribes besides the Lemhi Shoshone have stories that claim Sacagawea as one of their own. The stories—themselves metaphors for tribal values—are, of course, wrong, but they serve an important instructional purpose, nonetheless, transmitting values and custom in a narrative that inspires. In that case, it seems less important that the children of these tribes are hearing something factually incorrect, and more important that they are inspired by and identify with the story.

To give an example of example: if you're making an argument in court, you have to reference examples of past rulings that support your position. The strength of your argument depends completely on the validity of your examples, as they occurred outside the current context.

If you think I'm full of hot air, you're right, but anyway here is a list of famous authors explaining how fiction is truer than the truth itself: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/27/famous-authors-on-t...

Thanks for coming to my TEDxHN talk.

1) Julian Jaynes, in the beginning of "The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", does a lovely segment on how we only learn via metaphor, and in which he develops the terms metaphier (commonly, the metaphor itself) and metaphrand (the thing being described by the metaphor).

Using bad logic is building a house on sand. One might get lucky and the house might stand their lifetime but they're also likely to get swallowed by a sinkhole.

How about cities by the coast?

Also torrents of activity might be better or at least as valid as drops of water.

Huh... Suddenly I want “comment code folding” up in here. I mean generally speaking, of course.

> Suddenly I want “comment code folding” up in here

I'm probably misunderstanding but if you mean you want to collapse comment threads, click the [-] next to the timestamp of a comment.

I don't think it's pedantic - it's an instructional example for how oversimplifications can be misleading, and have subtle flaws.

I’d much rather see pedantic comments that are technically correct than people just nodding along and perpetuating meme-like garbage facts. Too often when I scroll through social media I read quotes and posts that make me roll my eyes at how people will avoid critical thinking and reasoning as long as the words sound good and tell a good stereotypical story in their minds. In this case, the idea that vast canyons are formed by little drops of rain over time.

What I get from it is that occasional cram sessions is the way to move boulders.

For some people this is what's most effective. Many ways to approach life.

Science thinks that a bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly. The parable is used anyways because woo teachers don't care what humans think is illogical.

> This is the quintessential example of a pedantic Hacker News comment.

Everyday mistakes that people make every day.

It isn't pedantic if torrents turn out to be an equally effective means of creating change.

Did the torrent create it or the boundary layer of droplets?

The irony considering your comment itself is an example of. A useless comment while OP made a valuable correction while respecting the original point made

Isn’t it great? Lol.

Let me help, you are suppose to say the torrents of water are made up out of many single drops on their journey around the world.