Hacker News Reader

Comment by TotempaaltJ | Hacker News Reader

Right, what about Microsoft Office? I'm sure that's used by some military. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it makes up a vital part in planning real military operations, where people die.

But would you refuse to work on Office if you worked at MS?

View on HN

There's some in the military that'd beg you not to work on MS Office - specifically Powepoint:

http://theweek.com/articles/673091/general-mattis-save-milit...

[Genuine question: New here, is this style of post too Reddit for HN?]

I think it's okay. Just a small quip thrown in from the side that's still relevant to the topic of discussion. It would not be okay (IMO) if you tried to derail the discussion to focus on your link instead; in this case, a regular submission should be made.

Imho, the important thing is the degree to which a comment contributes or adds information to the discussion.

So something like linking an article about PPT overuse in the military w/ a quip is much better than just a quip at PPT's expense. (Given that some people might not be aware of the reported overuse of PowerPoint in the US military)

Including the article makes it an interesting tangent in my view.

Ha. I was going to say death by PowerPoint. Or even PowerPoint commandos. I hated working with PowerPoint when I was in the USMC.

To be fair you should just refuse to work on PowerPoint because you will save millions, potentially billions of hours of other people's time that have to endure those presentations.

Crimes against humanity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com