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http://exploits.astalavista.com they have a new section that accepts submissions

John von Neumann

Gottfried Leibniz

Helen Keller

Kyle Maynard

Brooke Ellison

It's the difference between describing how something works and describing what something's like to the person doing whatever it is you're describing. Science can (arguably) get at how something works, or at least make some predictions and models concerning these things, but that's not the same as getting at what something's like, from a "subjective" standpoint.

Scientists can ask me about what the experience of "red" is like, and I can tell them that it's not quite like blue or green, and can point to it, but the experience itself (like all experience) remains a completely private matter for me.

Just think about it. Look at any red object and compare it with any "scientific" description regarding wavelengths and retinas, neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, visual cortexes, atoms, molecules, or what have you. Clearly none of these thing are in any way related to what it's actually like for you to see that red object.

Now, you may well believe that what's going on when you look at a red object is "really" some interaction between what those scientific terms describe in some model of what's going on with your brain, sensory organs, etc. But this requires a sort of suspension of disbelief, as you have to set aside your actual "subjective" experience of the red object itself (an experience which lacks the mediation of all these scientific terms, models, or even what they refer to, as you don't experience the neurons, or retinas, or neurotransmitters, as such, you just see the red object).

The subjective experience is really where science is quite helpless. It's been this way for hundreds if not thousands of years, and there's no sign it's getting any closer now.

There's a difference between describing the brain receiving data and describing me seeing red. I don't experience myself as a brain, and I certainly don't experience "receiving data", so your description of these things would not be of things I experience when I see red.

Physics does not reduce to atomic physics, nor science to physics, nor life to science.

            -- Erwin Schrödinger

The question is, how much are the original Startup News users doing to keep the site pure? Clearly not enough, or this particular thread would have never been started.

The article space is flat right now, but that hasn't been enough to keep the site pure either.

I think the battle for purity has already been lost. Now it's just a question of whether the site is going to be rendered useless because the number of submissions is going to be too great to slog through with a flat article space, or if it's going to be made manageable with tags.

What of it?

This may be true, when "synethetic" and "psychedelic" are used as specialist jargon for describing films or various effects in film. But it's not true in the general, colloquial sense of these terms, which refer to either a type of sensation or to a type of drug.

Psychedelic literally means "mind-manifesting", while the etymology for synethesia comes from "sense" and "together".

The word "psychedelic" was specifically coined as a way to describe the drugs that were previously called "hallucinogens" and "psychotomimetics", and it was an attempt to remove the inaccurate and negative connotations that those other words had.

Synethesia, on the other hand, refers to a specific type of sensation, and not to a drug.

Also, psychedelic drugs have many, many other effects apart from synethesia (which isn't present in every trip or for everyone taking psychedelic drugs, anyway).

So in the usual sense of these terms (not in the sense a film critic might use them), these two words have quite different meanings.

I thought the points was just a rating for the comment or submission. I didn't realize those points were transferred to the user that made the comment/submission.

As for your down voting me, whatever. Enjoy. I don't even know what use karma can be on this website. Though at least now I know there is some.

I never even noticed there was a number in parenthesis next to my username. Thanks for pointing it out, though.

Synethesia is a very common (temporary) effect of psychedelic drugs. This means that most everyone has the ability to sense synethetically. It's just a matter of somehow triggering this experience in one's brain.

It's a pity that research on psychedelic drugs is so difficult to do legally in the US (where the overwhelming majority of research money is spent). Otherwise, it might have already been possible to develop drugs that target just the synesthetic experience without bringing on a full psychedelic trip (not to mention the many other benefits that scientific research in to psychedelics would very likely have had).

No. I had no idea it was. Even now I'm not sure I believe you.

So you propose we "be strict now". Could you elaborate on just what you mean by that?

If I could be so bold as to take a guess at what you mean, it seems you're suggesting that the HN community submit only topical links.

I think that suggestion will generally simply be ignored by those people who want to (for whatever reason) submit non-topical links because only a small fraction of HN submitters will even read your suggestion, and most of those that read it aren't going to care (or they wouldn't have submitted off-topic links in the first place).

In order to reach all submitters, we could have some sort of global notice reminding everyone to only submit topical links. Maybe a stern and clearly worded warning on the submission page itself.

But say we do that and people continue to submit and upvote off-topic links. In my opinion, this is precisely what's going to happen. So then what?

I think there is no solution to keeping HN pure short of having the site be moderated by people dedicated to keeping it pure. But clearly that's not the model HN wants to pursue.

As long as HN is self-moderating it will not stay pure, and the more popular it gets, the further away from purity it will drift (witness what happened to Slashdot and Kuro5hin).

So, given that HN is not and probably will not stay pure, how can we improve the situation? I think the solution is clear: tags. Tags will let each reader more easily focus on what they find interesting, no matter how "impure" the site gets. It's an easy solution and one that should scale pretty well.

Oh. I guess I never used that feature. I just either bookmark the link in my browser, keep a tab open with that article, or just keep the original link to the story in my RSS reader.

This article is spam

I hate uncommented code. When reading code I want to know what the programmer is trying to achieve (which is not infrequently different from what his code actually does).

I also often find myself wanting to just get a quick overview of what's going on instead of needing to dive in to the nitty-gritty of the implementation of a given block of code. Well-written comments help me get a bird's eye view of the code.

Certainly, uncommented code which is well written is better than uncommented code which is poorly written (and arguably better even than commented code which is poorly written), but good comments only improve code.

Still, despite my disagreement with the article, I'm upvoting it, because I think it's important to discuss issues such as this.

I didn't even know we had karma here. I just submit articles I find interesting in hopes that they'll be interesting to the community.

Also, I'm not quite clear on what you're having problems with. Why can't you "go the the new page and up-vote more interesting stories"?

Wow. That's so unique to indie music. I couldn't even imagine any other genre of music who's quality varies.

It's not tags which would turn HN in to Reddit. It's the community. If HN's community was identical to that of Reddit, HN would turn in to Reddit (minus the tags). But HN's community is not the same as Reddit, which is why the articles which are submitted and upvoted on HN generally differ from Reddit (with some overlap, of course).

I don't see how not having tags helps anything or anyone. It just keeps the article space flat instead of organized by topic.

Of course, the articles still have different topics. They're just not easily distinguishable from one another by automated means.

What solution do you propose? I don't think merely saying "let's keep things topical" is going to work. People are going to keep submitting articles they find interesting, and upvoting articles they find interesting, regardless of the topic.

In the interests of full disclosure, I was the one who submitted the "How to Sleep Comfortably on a Hot Night" article. Yes, it's not topical. However, I'm not ashamed! I thought it was interesting, and clearly so did the 44 other people who upvoted it.

I'm quite pleased with the community that's developed here, who are discriminating enough to pick out many articles I find interesting.

However, HN could definitely be improved, so that people who are only interested in certain topics (such as only computer/hacking related articles) or not interested in other topics (such as off-topic, or political, or venture capitalist articles) could more easily filter through what's becoming a firehydrant of links.

I think the best way to do this is by implementing tags.

I think there's definitely a lot of noise. Having categories (or tags) would be a good aid to sorting through it all.