Hacker News Reader

Comment by joelrunyon | Hacker News Reader

I thought it was a compelling headline. Just because it's a good headline - doesn't mean it's "baity" - I think the article was well represented by the headline. If you want to do a TLDR - that's great, but you completely omit the full story the author put into the work.

View on HN

There seems to be a low threshold for declaring something "link bait" over here.

Not long ago, I wrote something called "Never sanitize your inputs" and the content of the article was why you should never sanitize your inputs. And yet it was still called "link bait".

Maybe I should have just called it "Don't bother reading this, I'm not Jeff Atwood or anyone."

This is a fair distinction that doesn't get spoken about here on HN that much. There are a lot of people, seeing the remarkably high quality content and PR, and assuming that being good at communication is somehow duplicitous or manipulative.

The last thing we should do is accept only a community incapable of communication or effective self-promotion. That kind of handicap could reasonably stop a great deal of viable hackers from doing what excites them, and isn't promoting that the entire point?

I agree with you. I think the actual article lived up to the HN link title. I'm impressed by Frederick Hutson - he was sharp to the opportunities that he saw even in prison. Lesser mortals like myself would have been too devastated to even think straight, much less identify such an opportunity.

He went to prison for routing marijuana through his business. I think if you're willing to risk doing something like that, you're probably not going to be "too devastated" if you end up in prison - or, at least, surely you're not going to be too surprised.

True. I don't think I'd be caught routing marjuana anywhere, so I'm going to be more devastated were I to land up in prison. Still, credit where credit is due!

Your theory is one would not be devastated going to prison? I think most people don't plan on being caught. Going to prison is a total upheaval in one's life and the fact they may deserve it or should not be surprised is irrelevant.

Now, if this was like his third trip to prison then you would have a point...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com