Obligatory reference to the famous comment left on Dropbox’s show HN.

Thanks for the context--I wasn't aware of that.

Not sure what to think of this, as in sarcastic sense...?

It's not like we're discussing trite software, I was just discussing about the "plot device" here where the decoding of an arbitrary language with complex symbology is a central feature. Doesn't it feel "forced" to you in the same way action movies show absolutely unrealistic martial arts moves for the sake of entertainment, or watching most "hackers" in computer movies?

Wouldn't you agree that starting form the absolute basics would be a much sound/quicker way to come to a unambiguous shared vocabulary instead of just showing complex blots to another species and expecting them to decode it? It's also especially odd to me that the somehow the host civilization is doing the decoding part. Considering contact from a supposedly more advanced civilization, I would almost expect the opposite to be true, where the aliens would likely take most of the burden of establishing communication (and probably already did so by watching/listening).

But I get it.. I still enjoyed the movie (like I can still enjoy action movies or computer movies)...

I get where you're coming from but the main thing in the story is that the aliens' perception of time was very different from that of humans; they could perceive their entire life at any given time. Given that, if the aliens could not imagine that humans only had this limited perception, the aliens would have thought the humans should already have known how their language worked...or something like that, miscommunication due to differences etc.

Please follow the site guidelines. I just removed the rate limit from your account on the assumption of good faith, and don't want to revert that, but if you keep posting like this we'll end up having to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hey remember a month ago when we had a huge thread with dozens or maybe even hundreds of comments about how interesting and thoughtful were the works of the unabomber? I wonder what all those commenters are up to I wonder what you might find if you follow some of them around for a few days.

I wonder if they have any overlap with the folder of screenshots I have of users here advocating eugenics, colonialism, or infanticide. I truly can't guess either way.

Pointing the finger at other people doesn't alter whether you're following the rules or not. If you don't to get rate limited or banned, please follow the rules regardless of how bad other comments are or you feel they are.

If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at [email protected].

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...