As a subscriber to the Game of Thrones reddit, am I absolutely flaging this.
I know I am not supposed to complain about stories on HN, but I feel I have to say this. Let us not have "Oooh, look at these special effects!" type of stories on the HN front page.
I don't believe that's why this was posted, and that's not what I took from this submission. The montage shows the division points between what is real and what is CG in various shots. This is not obvious and gives a lot of insight into how shows like this are created.
You completely missed the point of the post if all you got from it was "Oooh, look at these special effects!"
Nevertheless if it got to the homepage since yesterday AND got close to 200 upvotes, it might mean that at least a subset of the community is interested in the effects used in the TV series. Special effects are "technology" and as such people like you and me might find ourselves interested in such things. As a fan of the A Song of Fire and Ice books, an entrepreneur, and a programmer and technologist, my interest in the application of special effects in the Game of Thrones TV series is significantly higher than the excess of complaint posts about the patent system (I care about the patent system, just not for all the ranting you see these days...) that you see every day on the homepage. I don't complain though, because I know that since those are getting upvoted, it means people ARE interested in that type of posts.
I don't complain though, because I know that since those are getting upvoted, it means people ARE interested in that type of posts.
Complex topics also have people who are interested in them. But for complex topics, in general, the audience is small. However, the more generic and easily understood the topic, to wider its audience.
Thus if we simply say, if it's popular it must be good, then we quickly end up with popular culture, which tends to be shallow. Greatest common denominator and all that.
This is why I don't complain about a flood of patent law articles, I know those won't lead us down the path of the reddit front page. But articles like this, especially because so many are clearly interested, do bother me. Because a lot of people, including me, are also interested in rage comics. They are funny and easy to grasp, and quick to read - super popular. But I dread the day a rage comic is on the HN front page.
But then a rage comic has nothing to do with entrepreneurship, technology, programming, et al. right? I would also dread the day a rage comic gets to the HN front page.
If something is flagged by enough people, it probably means that it's not something that deserves a spot on the HN homepage. As such you have every right to flag it if you don't think that it deserves it's rightful spot, but if you comment on why you think it doesn't deserve to be there you'll invariably get a response by someone (in this case me!) that does believe that it's useful enough to deserve a spot. That being said, I just want to know: How can you equate a rage comic post to a post leading to the application of (particularly good) special effects on TV series?
I know I am not supposed to complain about stories on HN, but I feel I have to say this. Let us not have "Oooh, look at these special effects!" type of stories on the HN front page.