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Comment by crmd | Hacker News Reader

My grandfather had years worth of Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1960s and 70s at his house that I used to read as a kid.

Typical cover stories were how to build a tool shed, how to design and install a septic tank, how to dig a well, how to install an in-ground swimming pool, how to change the fluids in your car, and how to administer first aid.

This ancient aliens style content is a joke. I don't understand why PM ceded their how-to brand to random YouTube creators.

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Does PM still print and mail a paper magazine, or have they gone "web-only"?

If "web-only" then the fact that "ancient aliens" would gather by far more internet clicks than "how to dig a well" would explain why they have gone in this direction. They are following the advertising dollar where it leads, and 'more clicks' means more advertising dollars, so their incentive is to put out stories that gather more clicks.

they could have a well building (pun intended) YouTube channel too tho.

They used electrical resistivity tomography to find something L shaped in the ground that is probably "a mixture of sand and gravel", that "may have been an entrance to the deeper structure".

It's ancient, but wtf does this have to do with aliens? ER tomography is super neat science!

edit: The issue appears to be the use of the word "portal" to describe an entrance. I'm not seeing the issue, but maybe because I'm an English speaker. Here's the definition:

    Portal: a doorway, gate, or other entrance, especially a large and imposing one.

In modern usage "portal" almost always appears alongside "to another dimension!!", so it's become associated with the paranormal almost by default.

Perhaps it's a good thing then that articles like this are using the term in a scientific context to describe something real instead of something make believe. Maybe this will reach at least one person who clicks this article thinking aliens and paranormal, and leaves with a new appreciation for how cool the real actual science and technology is instead.

The word portal was intentionally chosen to get the ancient alien click.

Again I say - good. If a person sees this headline and thinks aliens then they could use the dose of education that the article provides.

I'd agree if it wasn't intentionally worded to manipulate these people into clicks. Flipping it to say that the clickbait is for their own good is grimy.

Well put.

The problem is that this is a title, understood in the context of other terrible clickbait titles on the web; only in titles ancient aliens are a likely occurrence, while "portal" is an appropriate term for stone structures that wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in a paragraph of description.

The article is not referring to an "alien conspiracy time travel portal" but to an entrance.

capitalism basically.

more specifically - people are unwilling to pay for high quality media

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