Hacker News Reader

Comment by mehrdadn | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the ghost thing, I assume it wasn't the case here, but it could be a life-or-death situation... see this video (I don't want to spoil it so I won't say more): https://www.ted.com/talks/carrie_poppy_a_scientific_approach...

View on HN

Just in case anyone is interested (spoilers!): the talk is about a woman who thought her house was haunted, but it turned out she was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, due to a leak. Carbon monoxide can cause auditory hallucinations and feelings of dread and pressure on your chest.

Edit: added spoiler warning

You just spoiled the whole thing...

Yes, because I think it is more useful to just write about the details of the potential "life-or-death situation" instead of linking to a long video about it. Your original comment was very clickbait-like, "What you don't know about hauntings could kill you!" If the whole thing can be spoiled with a short summary of the first couple of minutes, it's probably not worth watching anyway.

Edit: I have now added a spoiler warning to my original comment (I hadn't thought about this possibility, sorry)

For n=1, at least, I appreciated the summary (even though I understand what you meant about spoiling it).

I habitually avoid videos on the internet, and with the summary, I was able to at least get the gist of the video, whereas otherwise, I would have never watched it.

> I habitually avoid videos on the internet

Even TED talks? :(

Yes, even TED talks. They're not magically better. If I can't read a summary to judge the quality of information, it's likely I can just skip the whole thing and save myself from having my time wasted.

i like transcripts some discussion boards that post videos also post transcripts summaries are cool too though depending. works best with videos that are just talking..

There's a transcript on the same page as the video, even with translations.

TED talks are mostly circle jerks now.

When people are paying that much money to hear the talks, you've got to make sure you are telling them what they want to hear.

It's okay to spoil something when the information might keep people from dying.

This is also the topic of a famous reddit thread, where an OP thought he was being harassed by his landlord, but was actually delirious from CO poisoning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_post...

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34m92h/update_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/4adbfb/r...

There's something endlessly entertaining about the juxtaposition of a life or death situation and still not telling him outright just to maintain the suspense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com