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> The thing is, wine quality is entirely subjective.

The article says it isn't. And I agree. Go buy a two-buck chuck at Trader Joe's, and a $50 Chateauneuf de Pape from 2018. One is an acrid, acidic fruit punch, the other is a balanced soft tannin delight. I guarantee your palette can tell the difference, or your money back. :)


The chuck is the "delight"


When I want the cool refreshing taste of fruity vinegar I buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/Pok-Som-Drinking-Vinegar-5x4-Oz/dp/B0...

Fight me. :)


Agreed, they have different qualities. Still, characteristics don't automatically translate to people preferring the expensive one because it's "better", it's only "different". Individual taste preferences introduce a high degree of variance.


Of course, some people love velveeta. But if that's all you've ever had...

I thought the smiley face on my comment was a dead giveaway.


TL;DR -- "Wine is not fake. Wine experts aren’t fake either, but they believe some strange things, are far from infallible, and need challenges and blinded trials to be kept honest. How far beyond wine you want to apply this is left as an exercise for the reader."

It is a showoff sport. Insane wine prices are there for rich people who have too much money to spend, or people who are in desperate need of validation. We all know someone in a McMansion with premium beige textured walls and a few Lexus who has a "wine cellar" that they can't stop talking about. The market is mostly for them.

I say "mostly" because like TFA says, some people really can tell the difference, but I feel bad that they have to pay so much more due to the idiot tax.


Yeah, there's definitely some learned skill in IDing wines by region/variety.

My "system" for picking wines has two approaches: - Buy Trader Joe's Reserve in a variety I enjoy - Visit local wine shop, tell them my budget and what I'm eating for dinner, and buy whatever they suggest

Both approaches yield pretty good results for not much money.

I'll leave "risking" the $5 bottles from Safeway to somebody else. The $10-$30 bottles I get are consistently good enough, and often better than good enough.


IT is such a big domain. Can you be more specific? I've been coding for 35+ years across an extremely broad range of topics and can't get enough of it. I do it on my free time. I've worked for a dozen companies and at least as many managers and countless projects. I'll probably quit when I can no longer type.

I think if I had stayed at one place, it would have soured. So to risk being obvious, try a new company?

EDIT: maybe a bit of hyperbole on the # of jobs. but it's been a lot.


Its funny how the comments section of this question on stackexchange.com are people complaining to @jonk that his answer is irrational when he's just reciting material, yet they double down on their position despite his objection. Doesn't help that @jonk is kind of arrogant, but my point is... people.


"Your document is at least 40 years younger than E-series components and all the odd/even numerology was not an issue." is a pretty strong criticism! It doesn't matter if jonk is reciting material if he's citing the wrong material.


Huh. Did I not expand a comment somewhere? Because I didn't see anyone citing the correct material.


Neither do I. I'm not sure if that claim is right or wrong but it doesn't seem properly resolved.


Agreed. I don't think a 40 year old document can be trusted. (Side-eye at the US constitution. :)


TimJ lists simply enumerates a bunch of software names with almost no content to move the discussion along.

I could have said, "Well blockchain is important because I used Schmaltz, Goober, and Cookie deployed on Flanders, Homer and Kearney, the open API just works out of the box," and by your logic I'd be some wizened mage on the subject.

There is a cliff on HN, but you might want to invest in a parachute.


I have been working on small motion camera devices like this using off-the-shelf parts, and getting 1080p to stream over wifi with arducams is nontrivial. There's a lot of special MCU features you need or you're effed: enough GPIO for the camera and the SDCARD, h.264 acceleration, enough RAM to run the LWIP stack and TLS (or crypto accelerator), zero wait-state memory. Trying to get good battery life is a whole different ball of wax. Hats off the companies that finally nailed this.

EDIT: Part 3 of this is truly impressive. OP decoded the IP used, and it came from freaking EVERYWHERE.


EDIT: Why do I post sometimes...


Changed because parent changed. Don't sweat it, fren. We all have done it!


EDIT... :)


I just fixed some neural-net code to use #7. I hate passing pointers to layers that have a fixed size, and passing an array causes problems sometimes that require too many cats. Typedef array pointer to the sized array is precisely what I needed.


The switch/case anywhere looks equally useful and dangerous, and is so close to assembly that it really illustrates the low-level capabilities of C.


I've been subscribing to The Atlantic for years. It is entirely targeted at upperclass, liberal, college-educated whites. Which is exactly why I read it. Why would I read a magazine targeted at a culture I don't understand or am not a part of? I do expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups to me in a language I understand, but any periodical simply targets its own audience for profitability reasons.


This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in an information bubble. I live thousands of miles away from the nearest English-speaking country in a society pretty different to what you'd see in England or the US, yet spend most of my time in the English-speaking section of the internet precisely because of that (reading pretty much anything that comes by, targeted at as diverse groups as possible).


> This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in an information bubble.

Not from a good source. As GP put it:

> I do expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups to me in a language I understand


Because it’s valuable to try to understand groups other than your own? Maybe even learn from them? Honestly I’m baffled that you hold this opinion with some pride.

I ascended to that class from a working class family (and no college) and y’all have just as many problems as any other social group.


I don't think you understand my opinion very well.

At no point did I say I do not wish to understand other people's opinions. But I don't speak in their culture, so I need it explained to me. That's literally what liberal humanities are all about, from the Renaissance on: trying to understand the world around you.

Are you somehow assuming, for example, that to truly understand Russia I should only read Russian newspapers and talk to Russians and speak Russian? I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

> y’all have just as many problems as any other social group

I never said we didn't. Don't put your shit on me.


> Are you somehow assuming, for example, that to truly understand Russia I should only read Russian newspapers and talk to Russians and speak Russian? I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

This attitude is so toxic and the reason why many Americans feel as if the 'elites' are talking down to them. Why do you presume the Atlantic, owned by Steve Job's widow, has any incentive to accurately portray these foreign cultures or even domestic subcultures? What a wild belief.


> I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

You might think it's absurd, but that's precisely how you obtain deep knowledge of another culture - you learn the language or, at the very least, listen to first-hand accounts of people belonging to that culture who speak your language.

Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for you.

This is especially valid in the case of Russia.


> Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for you.

I wonder if you are exempt from the judgment you put on others.

While I agree that one can obtain a deeper understanding of a culture by exploring it thoroughly, your suggestion that any translation is "dumbing it down" is as absurd as your first argument, and an insult to every teacher.

This purity argument is destructive, as it reflects a powerfully deep elitism that is so exclusive, it appears to be an obvious volley against truth. I also wonder if you are capable of that kind of deep cynicism, or are just blathering.

(In anticipation, one easy argument against this purity is that people who speak English, live in America, went to college in America, got degrees in America ... STILL do not understand incredibly large parts of American culture until it is explained to them in their mode and register, and not even then in many cases. As my citations I'll simply point to our elections. So, yes, one can obtain deeper knowledge by full immersion--which is the point of deeper intellectual understanding--but ultimately that is an approximation, and even full assimilation does not bring enlightenment. Unless you are the thing, you are speaking through translation suited to your cultural comprehension.)


> your suggestion that any translation is "dumbing it down" is as absurd as your first argument, and an insult to every teacher.

I didn't suggest that, otherwise I wouldn't mention first-hand accounts of people who speak your language.

I'm eastern European and I've seen my share of people trying to explain Russia to others without an appropriate understanding of the topic.

They're often hilariously off the mark and I'm surprised anyone would prefer them over sources closer to the matter.

> In anticipation, one easy argument against this purity is that people who speak English, live in America, went to college in America, got degrees in America ... STILL do not understand incredibly large parts of American culture until it is explained to them in their mode and register, and not even then in many cases.

Do you consider yourself such a person? I mean, that's real some self-awareness, but at the same time you're condemning yourself to reliance on people who may or may not know what they're talking about.


You will miss quite a lot about Russia that way. Namely, the way their believes actually plays out abroad.

You will also miss large parts of Russian history, because it was nit sage to talk about historical stuff like purges in there for years.


That's not a concern, since I have reliable sources for that.

What I usually don't have at hand is insight regarding what's the current mindset and attitudes - the most revealing conversation I had about that was with a Russian who moved out of the countery and her reasons behind this decision (not money since she was from Moscow).

The most striking is always what a person considers normal.


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