Mumbling Is a Clever Data-Compression Trick

nautil.us

21 points·dnetesn··6 comments

Have you noticed how Nautilus regularly reaches the front page, more often than any other domain, but has disproportionately fewer comments than the articles around it?

Clearly they just always write everything that needs to be said on a topic!

It should be obvious: These articles are put here artificially. They are low quality content with low engagement, and a significant outlier in terms of normal HN content. Even the articles themselves get no comments on their native Disqus plugin.

I love nautilus articles for about the first 40-50%..then I get bored cause they provide too much info, lol. I end up moving on, plus they're more 'info' related than controversial so there's really less to discuss about them usually than say something about global warming.

I think the length and fullness of articles might make it so people are less prone to leave comments. I only checked on this one because I was curious what others thought of humans using natural compression techniques on language.

This article currently has 15 upvotes after 3 hours. Most Nautilus articles don't get that far: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nautil.us The number of comments is also roughly in line with the number of votes.

I don't think there's anything special going on besides dnetesn reading everything Nautilus puts out and then submitting it to HN.

Linguists continue to refute the grammarhounds. Oh there's a good reason for double negatives, split infinitives, ain't, and mumbling. I'm okay with most of that, though I feel a bit ill at ease with total licentiousness. Anyway, what if one day we find a neurological or sociological justification for being a grammarhound?

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