Hacker News Reader

Comment by pierrefar | Hacker News Reader

Very verbose and longwinded article. Summary: Rover gets stuck straddling a crater. Wheels sping uncovering sulfates. Sulfates are associated with volcanic steam vents.

View on HN

I think they intentionally did that to make science appealing and interesting to people who otherwise couldn't care less. I think they did a good job with that article.

I like that. We need more people to be interested in science and less on reality TV and celebrities.

From my experience as a science blogger, they failed miserably because they weren't telling a story. The way it read is that they are constantly delaying getting to the point.

They need to tell a story. Maybe something like "Many many years ago, Mars was covered with steam vents <insert image of a steam vent on the red plant>. How do we know? Ah, we had to get stuck to find out." That is an interesting story. Delaying is not.

They told a story, but it was about the rover, not Mars. If you're trying to appeal to non-scientists, that's probably the way to go.

The stay-tuned-to-find-out message of the last paragraph seemed kind of out of place. Made me think there could a reality show in this mission somewhere.

Less than 800 words is a "very verbose and longwinded article"?

How on Earth have you managed to actually RTFA at HN? People don't often link to tweets, here.

You can be a lot more efficient in what you can communicate in 800 words.

It's not the number of words, it's what you do with them. You can be long-winded in one sentence if you try. I found myself thinking "get to the point!" with this article.

Then you might want to ease up on the coffee.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com