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Comment by EDEdDNEdDYFaN | Hacker News Reader

extremely misleading headline implies that it just happened.

Reading is an act of guessing. I guessed that if the moon had recently been impacted that hard we would be hearing about it from more than CNN, and likely would have known about it in advance. I don't feel as though I have been mislead.

Funnily enough I went to the article because I guessed that it would have literally formed overnight by some surface movement originating from within the moon not some external cause. And I believe my guess is as good as yours except in hindsight of course.

Neal Stephenson fans are already heading to the salt mines.

Seveneves in case anyone wants to read it. I thought it was okay, certainly captivating enough for me to finish it.

I thought it was quite good, although maybe it should have been a series rather than a single book. That might have given Stephenson time to flesh out the end, which felt a bit rushed.

A rushed ending seems to be a key Stephenson trait in my experience haha

To call that ending a bit rushed might be a little generous.

It is impossible for a headline to give you all of the details of an article.

If you feel “tricked” into reading an astrogeology article, I would suggest you might be one of the people who should be reading it.

> astrogeology

English needs a better term for this field. I understand that Astrology is already taken, but astro- (stars) geo- (earth) logy (study) is just wrong.

Maybe Exolithology? Or Lunology, if these processes are unique to smaller bodies. Actually, our moon does have a differentiated core (I think the only one in the solar system) so per that argument we're a double planet (also the fact that the moon never has retrograde motion relative to the sun, another unique feature of our moon in the solar system) and thus just Geology is a proper enough name.

No one said they were "tricked" by the article, only that the found the headline to be misleading which is entirely fair because it is a clear example of clickbait.

It is missing a verb: “were” formed

Misleading? Or just misintepretable? Misleading implies the author tries to lead you to a wrong conclusion. The article is very clear about what it really means.

I immediately read the headline as "it happened in a time span of 10 minutes probably a gazillion years ago". So in any case, it's not misleading to everyone, and therefore certainly not "extremely misleading".

> Misleading implies the author tries to lead you to a wrong conclusion.

Why on earth would anyone assume that this clickbait title wasn't intended to be clickbait? What history of non-clickbait headlines would make anyone assume good faith on the part of CNN here?

Yeah I could say:

"Wall Street Loses 14% Within 10 Minutes of Opening Bell" (1929 Crash)

"Radio Broadcast Causes Mass Panic Within 10 Minutes" (1938 War of the Worlds)

You're somewhat exaggerating the effect, the headline uses past tense and your comparisons don't.

It didn't imply that. You inferred that. Big difference.

Just because someone makes a wrong assumption about a headline doesn't mean they have to come here and tell everyone else about it.

No it doesn’t. English is as algorithmic as math.

If there is a formula x = x^1 + y you wouldn’t say ; no good it implies z is also the same. You would not because it says nothing about z.

If you have a specification for a program saying "input: variables x and y, output: z holds x+y", you would probably be annoyed if someone coded "x=0; y=0; z=0", though.

Just playing devil's advocate, I think the headline is not bad (could be less ambiguous, but sacrificing brevity)

Figured someone would have to get specific. Lol.

Have you read The Overstory? I recommend it, it’s a great modern novel.

“What they do?”

> English is as algorithmic as math

Ain't no way!

This "illogical" double negative shows how English is not at all like algebra. English is not a set of formal rules - there is no formal authority on the language. The rules that exist are derived from how English is commonly used - descriptive rather than prescriptive. This is why dictionaries are constantly adding new (sometimes annoying) words, and the Chicago Manual of Style is on its 18th version. For example, I was taught that "they" could never describe a singular person, and one should assume "he", "she" or "the suspect". Not so anymore [1]. The language, its constructs, and implicit rules are always changing, regardless (and irregardless[2]) of how you criticize those that speak it.

[1] https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/what-s-new.h... [2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/irreg...

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