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Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

In this context (a fun blog post), I disagree. I find it to be incredibly clear when someone is playing in a world they truly understand and love.

Not to say one can't be hoodwinked from time to time, naturally, but for me it's not the "facts" that ring true. It's the joy and humor and love that is hard to fake.

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A really good author could probably make this up. Some types of writing require that ability. Imagine you're writing about a fantasy world where everyone drives giant Bloops instead of cars. You might have a few chapters written from the perspective of a master Bloop mechanic. She's been fixing Bloops for as long as she can remember; she considers it her life's calling and she loves every moment of her work. The author needs to communicate that to the reader in a believable way.

But if you're not writing speculative fiction, what would be the point? It's probably harder than writing about something you know!

This sounds like most of the aside conversations between author and reader in Douglas Adams' writing.

> A really good author could probably make this up

True, but what /really/ makes the humor in this article, when one has the domain knowledge to understand the technical details, is that every single technical humor bit is true and accurate, and brings back similar memories of similar ballets with similar vehicles from years ago.

Absolutely,, but in order to discern that, the reader needs to have some technical knowledge themselves.

Ergo, I think what throwaway0a5e said above has a lot of merit, even if I wouldn't have stated it in in such absolutest terms:

> Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter.

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