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Comment by KingFelix | Hacker News Reader

How does this make 2nd place after 9 minutes? Is Hacker news pay to play ?

I mean this sounds great, and the contrarian version of me says, no way its all marketing.

Discuss

I submitted this because I bought one of these today. Obviously I have no way of independently verifying whether or not they work as advertised. What I will say though is that if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months, which means that if you're a tech consultant or run a startup then you're basically out of a job. So in comparison paying $150 for something that lasts 3 years seems conceptually like a very good bet.

My general outlook, which is why I like this, is that it's relatively rare in life to find things where you can improve your health or increase your life expectancy just by swiping your credit card without needing to do any additional work or anything else unpleasant afterwards, so one should take advantage of these opportunities when possible. (Another good example is HEPA filters, where you just swipe your credit card and plug it in and that's it, and although there are limited studies on HEPA filters themselves there is a very clear link between air pollution and mortality risk.)

> if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months

I had a concussion recently and my doctor said nothing of that nature. I would love to have had a helmet which was better able to handle the impact though! Definitely the least fun altered state of consciousness that I have experienced.

Depends in the severity. Some people literally can't handle it after a concussion, even if they try. It's pretty miserable for them.

And severity of impact does not correlate strongly with severity of symptoms.

It's mostly the "3+ months" for a "minor" concussion that I was objecting to.

I’ve had concussions and never been told to abstain from screens. So, I did some quick googling... by the looks of it, screens (and other bright light sources) can exacerbate post-concussion headaches, but I didn’t see anything that indicated screen use slows recovery or causes further damage.

The understanding I've gotten from reading about the topic and talking to a GP was that anything that makes symptoms worse will lengthen recovery time.

Removing screen time is new science and has not been widely propagated. In fact, I am not even sure if it’s been published. I have been working with one of the Australian leaders in concussion (Perth based emergency doctor) who strongly advocates this, at most its 12 to 18 months old

Ditto this from the University of Pittsburgh Medical cEnter Sports Medicine concussion clinic. (They're one of the leading groups in the US on this topic, very likely because they treat the Pittsburgh Steelers. :-). Reducing screen time and other highly-stimulating visual inputs was key.

>if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months

Anecdotal, but I got 2 concussions while playing lacrosse in highschool (not minor), and none of the nurses or doctors I spoke to said anything about looking at electronics

I don't know why I was downvoted so much, I am totally in agreement with you. I have owned MIPS helmets since they have come out.

I also read the article first and reached out to my bike shop about it. I think the tech is great, I do find percentages that big to be a bit questioning, so I will do more research on them. Meaning, how much is hype vs actual, it looks awesome though, and we need something like this.

I didn't make my comment until I noticed that it only took 9 minutes to get that article in the top of the top on here and was just curious how that happens. ie, actual people reading, how many people need to vote on it to get it to the top, vs pay to play top ranking. Was asking a serious question too, I have no idea I am pretty new to HN and I know that Reddit is pay to play,

Thanks for the post though, I am interested and if it makes sense will probably invest in one of these

Given the frequency of articles from citylab and similar i tend to assume HN has a lot of cyclists. And given that it's HN, a lot of people who pin a large part of their lives, earning potential, and identity on their smarts, and thus who fear traumatic head injury.

I'll agree with you though -- I too tend to assume that everything on the internet is an advertisement.

A snapshot of what /newest looks like at the moment: https://imgur.com/hZkYX9h

That's the kind of organic upvote rate you'd expect from something like "Alien spaceship lands in Times Square (nytimes.com)"

For this post I'd expect not more than 3 points in 10 minutes. Probably bots?

I can't speak for others, but I'm not a bot. I saw it at the very top of the 'new' page just after it was submitted, scanned the article, and thought it was worthy of discussion. I haven't kept up with bicycle helmet tech, but thought others here might have opinions on whether this is advertising junk or an actual breakthrough. While it's possible there was simultaneously a spectacularly effective promotion campaign, I'm guessing most of the other early votes were similarly real.

That's what a bot would say :) I'm not sure how HN's ranking algorithm works, but it seems similar to Reddit where there is a velocity factor. So all you need to do to boost your submission on to the front page is a decent submission and a few upvotes in the first few minutes. Then it's on the front page and organic votes will keep it there. Of course they have systems in place to prevent it, but it's an arms race.

EDIT: can you remember how many upvotes it had when you voted?

It showed a score of 1 (no upvotes) when I clicked to read the article. Then after approximately 2-3 minutes of reading, I clicked back and upvoted without refreshing, so I don't know how many votes it had when I actually voted.

Per the article, the conclusion that the new product performs so well is based solely on a study performed by "Legacy Research Institute":

WaveCel inventors, Dr. Steve Madey and Dr. Michael Bottlang, are authors of the study, as well as founders and co-directors of the Legacy Research Institute.

The article certainly reads like an ad.

>How does this make 2nd place after 9 minutes?

12 points in ~10 minutes with only two comments yields a high position.

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