The Ultimate Lock Picker (2009) | Hacker News Reader

The Ultimate Lock Picker (2009)

wired.com

36 pointsBootvis12 comments

> Tobias is laughing.

This kind of writing puts me off to the point where I stop reading, because I know it will be ages before the article gets to the point. I guess it's more meant for entertainment rather than information, but is this a common sentiment, or am I wrong?

It's a common sentiment on Hackers News. It presupposes that the purpose of writing and reading is to extract the maximum amount of information in the shortest amount of time. Presumably, if we all lived in this manner we would also:

* Blend all our food so that we could extract the maximum nutrients with the minimum amount of chewing

* Only watch movie trailers to get the main plot points without wasting 90 minutes

* Request friends to get to the punch-line of a joke without all the boring wandering around of the story

There are many reasons to read, as there are many reasons to travel. Sometimes it's only about getting to the destination as quickly as possible, and sometimes the journey is part of the experience. The question is whether you as the reader and the writer are on the same journey together, or you're looking for business travel while they are on a slow train enjoying the countryside.

Actually all those things do sound like the kind of life min-maxing many seem to ascribe to here.

Argh you're probably right and entirely not my goal - since I was trying to think of a few different endeavours where someone might enjoy the activity rather than solely focusing on the result. And, trigger the comparison to writing/reading ...

it's so grating too to consistently see that same comment/sentiment upvoted. if it's not for you then don't comment! it's like people go out of their way around here to criticize and have their hypercritical nature validated.

His attitude and that it might not be unwarranted is the main point of the article.

I think the author found a nice way of saying "those who don't know (almost everybody), are insanely naive about the effectiveness of security measures".

Well, it's wired, which excels at infotainment. You could have read the link domain and not bothered to even click! I'm not sure if that would have saved you the frustration though?

> but is this a common sentiment

It is. One more statistical point: I started reading, saw that phrase, closed the tab and came here for the comments.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=634001

Since this is from 2009, an update is in order:

https://medecoproblems.com

From 2009, and the article looks like it was badly munged when Wired updated their website last time.

Added. Thanks!

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