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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

Astonishingly clickbait title. Teller is the name of a magician, telling about the secrets of his profession. There is no (bank) teller with secrets to tell, as would be the normal interpretation of such a headline.

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I will never understand people who express their indignation about a title that is ambiguous. Would you really have preferred "Teller (magician) reveals his secrets"?

Or maybe "Teller (magician (of duo Penn & Teller (known from Fool Me (a British TV show)))) reveals his secrets"

Just because you would have preferred a story of a bank teller… and had it been this way, another one like you would have complained that it's not about the famous magician.

Language is ambiguous. "Teller" is his name, there is no conceit in the headline.

And as long as there is no conceit, your accusation is out of place.

  > Would you really have preferred "Teller (magician) reveals his secrets"?

Yes. Or even just "Magician reveals his secrets".

  > Language is ambiguous. "Teller" is his name, there is no conceit in the headline.

The ambiguity seems (to me) to have been exploited for clicks. But I see here that other people here seem to be more familiar with the magician than with the (possibly outdated) profession.

I'm an old fart.

Keep in mind, that HN is intentionally structured around curiosity, and we're not tagging our submissions with ultra-controlled vocabulary, or annotate them with RDF triples.

Because stumbling across something that surprises us as isn't what we first expected is good.

If semantic precision was the goal, using the original titles wouldn't be mandated, but prohibited.

Interesting perspective, thank you.

Did you read it? Teller is awesome, always worth reading, a very thoughtful guy as well as a master of his art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller_(magician)

TIL: Penn & Teller met as painters at art school!

If you are genuinely "old", you'd be more likely to know who Teller is. Penn & Teller were pretty ubiquitous back in the 80s and 90s. Teller is 73. Fun fact - he taught Latin at the high school I went to (before my time) before making it as a magician.

I'm 44. Too old for autotune-music, apparently too young for Teller the magician. Or just spent too much time immersed in books instead of a glowing screen.

I'm still of the opinion that the title is misleading, but I accept that most people think differently than myself. That's been a common thread my entire life )) I think that a popular technology company even made a slogan out of it.

Maybe take some time to think about why you find the need to try and insult people by saying stuff like "[I] spent too much time immersed in books instead of a glowing screen" instead of just acknowledging your gap in pop culture knowledge and moving on with your day?

"Ah, I see Teller is a well known pop culture figure. My mistake." would be a more appropriate way to respond. Searching "Teller" on Google outputs the magician as the first four results. It's not like it's some super small name.

"Ah, I see Teller is a well known pop culture figure. My mistake." would be a more appropriate way to respond.

Be nice, I'm sure it took some genuine effort on OP's part not to tell you that they don't even own a TV.

Actually, I don't own a TV ))

I accept that it makes me a weirdo. I just don't like the passiveness of the TV, but I really did not mean any insult to yupper32. He can enjoy whatever medium he likes.

Well you're in luck, young bibliophile. Teller has authored or co-authored five books, all published between your 12th and 28th birthdays.

I may be more familiar with his work than the average person because of his connection to my high school. But saying the title was "clickbait" (as if there is some large contingent of people that were hoping to hear the secrets of bank tellers) is a little much.

Terrific, thank you. You've piqued my interest, I will take a look at his books. Always nice to explore a new genre. Well, almost always.

"Magician Teller reveals his secrets" would be a good stand-alone title. Not needed in the print/online article since a picture (captioned According to magician Teller...) is at the front of the article, removing at a glance any ambiguity.

Now, if dotancohen had been complaining that it wasn't Edward Teller revealing his secrets, i would have had a lot more sympathy. Although i'd be worrying about what he was planning to do over the holidays.

So interesting. I never thought this was ANYTHING but a piece about the magician Teller. "Bank teller" never registered until your comment.

What's much more interesting about your comment is that is evidence of some of the points Teller makes in his piece. You were totally misdirected. You were sure of one pattern when another one was being used. You walked away, indignant and in disbelief.

  > What's much more interesting about your comment is that is evidence of some of
  > the points Teller makes in his piece. You were totally misdirected.

That is interesting. It does sound like something that I should read. Thank you.

Erm, I immediately understood it as the very famous magician Teller, of Penn & Teller. The bank teller interpretation didn't occur to me and I wouldn't have clicked if I thought it was that. The article was exactly as expected and I read to the end with interest.

Man, congratulations to making the cut to be included in the 2021 edition of "The Great Annals of Over-reacting Comments About Absolutely Irrelevant Stuff in the Internet from the Ancient Great Society of Bike Shedding and other Occult Arts."

We, from The Society, greatly appreciate your comment. Please keep up the good work and take this in jest.

Haha, yes, we all contribute sometimes even when we don't mean to. Nice to get in before the close of the year!

I wondered why and how Edward Teller (inventor of hydrogen bomb) was revealing his secrets. I attended a lecture by him at UC Berkeley. A clearer title would have been "Teller (of Penn and Teller) reveals His Secrets"

I was hoping for Ed Teller too. Also the inventor of geoengineering. His nukes made world peace possible (at the risk of global destruction). Maybe his geoengineering will make climate balance possible (with the same risk).

Less war, maybe, but world peace? The USA was involved in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and zillions of smaller conflicts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...). Quite a few of them involved other countries with nuclear capability.

Yep. Had the same moment wondering if was about Edward Teller or the magician. In both cases I think it would be worth reading the article not clickbaity at all.

it is not like the title was "learn this clever trick from Einstein" and then you figure out the Einstein in the article is a dog.

Agreed. The article is very interesting.

Probably just speaks to who their target audience is

It’s a recent addition to the HN guidelines, but it’s there now, and I think it’s a good one: don’t complain about name collisions.

My first association was with Teller from Penn & Teller. But to be fair, English is not my first language, and bank tellers are a thing of the long past to me - everything a normal teller would do is self-service and has been for many years, where I live, and my last interaction with a regular teller was maybe just before the turn of the century.

As someone else here, I had the vague hope it also could be about Edward Teller.

Imagine something like:

"newly revealed documents show Edward Teller was a Soviet asset"

I guess it could have also meant Edward Teller. I’m glad it turned out to be the magician.

Or maybe his grandson Astro! That'd have been a fun interview.

1. I assume you’re trolling.

2. If not, what incredible secrets were you hoping to learn from a bank teller?

This comment is the natural result when a magician and software engineer collide

R u in need of assistance

It's magic!

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