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alrs

That this story can thrive on HN every few months is a strong indicator that a nontrivial chunk of the userbase is 16.

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Why, do only 16-year-olds read interesting stories from famous physicists?

It's a great speech.

Having never seen this before is perfectly reasonable if you're new.

And it's unreasonable to have never seen this if you're older?? I don't know about you, but I still discover new things despite being twice the quoted age.

http://xkcd.com/1053/

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=cargo+...

I don't understand your point. Or you don't understand mine.

My point is that age is irrelevant. "Newness" may be, but that doesn't imply age.

His point is something along the lines of, the older you are the more likely that you've heard of it, especially if you have a history of reading HN much.

"More likely" is a far cry from "there's a lot of 16-year-olds around here" (paraphrased). There's no reason to think that's the cause rather than the alternate theory that there are new people joining HN all the time (as you suggest), or simply that even people who have seen this thing before still upvote it.

And you are correct. I do not disagree with you.

Despite having a curious mind I still find things I didn't know about. Being 42 I experience this while feeling a combination of frustration and delight. I am working on the silly frustration bit :) BTW I read the book last summer for the first time. Its brilliant and the underlying message even more.

"BTW I read the book last summer for the first time."

In the proud tradition of founders generally solving problems that mostly affect themselves rather than the rest of the population, I propose the startup idea of a hackers bookshelf startup. Not the first time its been tried, its a hard problem which means its a good startup topic.

I've been here for a couple of years and this is the first time I noticed it.

I've been reading HN regularly for the last few years and never seen this. I wouldn't be surprised if I've read popular things you haven't too, unless you're on here every second of every day.

I've never seen it here, and based on a limited search [1] it appears that the story hasn't made it to the front page (i.e. gotten a non-zero amount of comments) in three years.

[1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=cargo+...

Well, I would disagree. I do enjoy seeing some old, but very good stories crop up again after some time has passed.

Feynman is great, but not as well-known as you would like to think. Even people who recognize specific widely-related events (O-ring in ice water, or Trinity through the windshield) usually won't be able to tell you who he is. Even in tech, I only occasionally encounter people outside certain Internet Echo Chambers who have read anything at all by him.

I'm not so sure about the user base being 16, but this story does seem to make the rounds quite a bit. Perhaps so much so that I cringe when I hear Cargo Cult misused in the popular jargon. It's a shame because Feynman does have so much to say.

I'm familiar with Richard Feynman, have read this before and voted it up anyway. Why? Because it's a really fantastic read and being reminded of the content every year or two is definitely a good thing.

The scientific integrity of your statement is questionable ;)

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