Hacker News Reader

Comment by droneStrikes | Hacker News Reader

Then I absolutely want to know more about such things. Please do share some or anything you can, regarding, oh... I dunno... whatever sort of insights might escape the ordinary common man, equipped with a high-schooler's grasp of basic integer math.

I've heard these sort of claims before, coming from financially oriented colleagues. I hate it when they make these kinds of dismissive pronouncements. The worst thing you could ever do is plainly state that a thing is simply too complicated to be worth explaining.

If these arcane statements should be regarded as esoteric hieroglyphics by the uninitiated, at least tell us which one is the sun god?

Seriously, we're all pretty curious types around here, and even when the material is bone dry and stale as Soviet bread, we all enjoy learning. At least I know I do.

View on HN

The worst thing you could ever do is plainly state that a thing is simply too complicated to be worth explaining.

After working in finance-related IT for 16 years, I signed up for the Level 1 CFA exam to take it in December of 2009. I've been in IT for 20 years but I thought, "How hard could this be?" I found out. I ended up studying for over 350 hours and was thankfully one of the 33% of people that passed the test when I took it. 67% of people that took the test failed it.

So I ask you - how much of those 350 hours of studying do you think I can squeeze in a Hacker News comment? Do you think you could teach a financial analyst how to analyze Java code in a Hacker News comment? Would you take the time to even try?

That still doesn't change the fact you have contributed absolutely nothing to this conversation. Your comments should would be marked as flame-bait, or not informative on old slashdot.

You can't teach a financial analyst how to analyze code in a single comment, but you can certainly give them some rough pointers:

(using Python as an example) def function(): This is a "unit" of code which performs an action. raise Exception(): This means something bad happened. ...etc.

droneStrikes is asking for something along these lines. We're not expecting to become experts at financial analysis after reading a paragraph, but we'd at least like to leave more informed than when we arrived.

For all that studying you did, you still seem to be able to squeeze a lot of BS into your HN comments.

As an analogy, becoming a commercial pilot requires 1500 hours of flying time and hundreds of additional hours of studying outside of this for exams and checkrides. This is 5 times the amount of preparation you needed for your Level 1 CFA exam. Just about every time there is a crash of a commercial flight, you will hear remarkable insights from these guys that will usually help explain the situation. Here is a great example with a commercial pilot's take on the Asiana crash that killed 2 people at SFO: http://wgnradio.com/2013/07/08/analysis-of-asiana-airlines-f...

I can only hope that the countless hours you've devoted to finance would be able to provide you some insights into something as fundamental as a quarterly earnings report.

Perhaps you could better contribute by pointing to specific examples where us unwashed, uninformed, unworthy hordes have demonstrated our ignorance of your obvious expertise. (And no, "I don't follow that stock" is a cop out when you're already telling everyone they're wrong)

Wow. I mean HN does have its douchebags but is it really getting this bad?

Thanks for pointing out that 100 minus 33 equals 67.

For fuck sakes man, if you have any insight, share it instead of just pointing out that others are wrong in some obscure and nonspecific way. I bet you are full of shit and have no clue what you are talking about because you are yet to say anything intelligent. All you did is claimed all kinds of credentials without adding anything, at all, to the conversation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com